These jobs may be hot in the next 10 years … or not

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary: "These jobs may be hot in the next 10 years … or not"
Release Date: December 19, 2024
Host: Kai Ryssdal

---

1. Economic Overview and Federal Reserve Insights

Kai Ryssdal opens the episode by discussing recent statements from the Federal Reserve Chair, emphasizing the delicate balance of managing inflation and interest rates. He notes, “We think the economy's in a really good place and we think policy's in a really good place” (01:11). Despite Wall Street's anxiety over fewer anticipated rate cuts—from four previously projected to just two next year—Ryssdal highlights the Federal Reserve's confidence in controlling inflation, targeting a 2.5% rate by year-end (03:00).

2. Housing Market Dynamics and the Lock-In Effect

Matt Levin delves into the housing market, explaining the "lock-in effect," where 60% of current mortgage holders have rates below 4%, discouraging them from selling and thus limiting housing inventory (04:00). Jane Urich from Rockford, Illinois, shares firsthand experiences of low inventory and high competition among buyers, driven by homeowners unwilling to relinquish their favorable mortgage rates (05:14). Economist Jonah Cost from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) attributes a 1.7 million reduction in home sales nationally to this effect, resulting in a 7% increase in prices (06:00).

3. Future Job Market Projections and Skepticism

The podcast transitions to employment projections, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) forecasting top-growing occupations over the next decade. Positions like home health aides, software developers, and registered nurses are expected to see significant growth (07:17). However, economists express caution about the reliability of these decade-long forecasts. Darrell Fairweather from Redfin points out, “That's widening the gap between the have nots and have homes” (06:30), highlighting socioeconomic disparities exacerbated by housing market trends.

Mitchell Hartman examines factors driving job growth, such as aging demographics increasing demand in healthcare, and technological advancements leading to roles in renewable energy and data science. Conversely, automation threatens administrative and clerical jobs, with economist Joe Bruceuelis warning, “The population most at risk are women 25 to 54 with less than two years of education” (10:00).

4. The Accuracy of Long-Term Job Forecasts

Matt Levin and Kai Ryssdal discuss the historical inaccuracies of long-term job forecasts, citing examples like the overestimation of driverless truck drivers. Peter Capelli from the Wharton School criticizes the overreliance on technology-driven predictions, arguing that practical implementation often lags (24:00). Greg Flores from Portland State University emphasizes focusing on adaptable skills rather than specific job titles, advising students to develop competencies that remain relevant despite changing market conditions (12:05).

5. Impact of Interest Rates on Various Business Sectors

Kai returns to the topic of interest rates, explaining how the Federal Reserve's recent rate cut affects different industries. In construction, John Kirk of Light Path Company notes that even with slightly reduced rates, high borrowing costs remain a barrier to new projects (17:56). Dominic Miartin of American Pride Bank highlights the challenges for commercial borrowers facing loan maturities amidst elevated rates, leading to scaling back of expansion plans (18:55).

In the restaurant industry, Spiro Papadopoulos of Schlau Restaurant Group discusses strategic adjustments to menus and pricing to maintain consumer value despite higher borrowing costs and inflation (19:15).

6. Shifts in Housing Market Preferences and Remote Work

Samantha Fields reports on a trend of migration to exurbs and smaller cities, driven by affordability and the rise of remote work. Skyler Olson from Zillow identifies Manchester, New Hampshire, and several Connecticut cities as top movers, while Richard Greene from USC underscores the importance of remote work flexibility in these migration patterns (20:54). Lisa Sturtevant from Bright MLS observes a shift back towards proximity to job centers, as companies increasingly require in-office presence (22:25).

7. Corporate Culture and the Decline of PowerPoint

The conversation shifts to corporate communication tools, with Matt Levin critiquing the overuse of PowerPoint in business settings. Levin argues that while PowerPoint was designed to alleviate presentation anxiety, it has become a tool for both over-prepared and under-prepared presenters, often leading to ineffective meetings (23:15). Kai Ryssdal and Levin discuss alternatives like Amazon’s 6-pager, which focuses on written memos to foster deeper understanding and more productive discussions (27:07).

8. Federal Reserve’s Stance on Bitcoin

In the episode's closing segment, Kai Ryssdal highlights a notable exchange during Fed Chair Powell's press conference. When asked about the benefits of the U.S. government building a reserve of Bitcoin, Powell responded, “We’re not looking for a law change” and reaffirmed that the Federal Reserve is not pursuing Bitcoin reserves under the current Fed Act (28:28).

Conclusion

Kai Ryssdal wraps up the episode by reiterating Marketplace's commitment to providing up-to-date economic and business news, emphasizing the importance of informed decision-making in navigating the evolving job market and economic landscape.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Kai Ryssdal on Federal Reserve's Policy: “We think the economy's in a really good place and we think policy's in a really good place.” (01:11)

• Jonah Cost on Housing Supply: “This reduction in supply increased prices by 7%.” (05:14)

• Joe Bruceuelis on Automation Risks: “The population most at risk are women 25 to 54 with less than two years of education.” (10:00)

• Darrell Fairweather on Housing Inequality: “That's widening the gap between the have nots and have homes.” (06:30)

• Peter Capelli on Job Projections: “They're driven by people who are building the technology telling you what is possible, not what is practical.” (24:29)

• Mitchell Hartman on Skill Focus: “It's most important to focus on skills and interests that will help a student develop in their career 10 years down the road.” (12:05)

• Dominic Miartin on Loan Challenges: “Commercial borrowers are likely going to scale back their plans, maybe cancel a new project or new hiring.” (18:58)

• Joe Bruceuelis on Technological Unemployment: “There's already evidence of technological unemployment as AI is rolled out in marketing and back office operations.” (10:00)

• Matt Levin on PowerPoint: “The right question to ask is not what is the correct PowerPoint use for this presentation, but should PowerPoint be used at all?” (26:13)

• Fed Chair Powell on Bitcoin: “We are not looking for a law change.” (28:33)

---

Timestamps Reference:

• Clickable links can be created if the summary is being used in a platform supporting hyperlinks. Alternatively, readers can refer to the timestamps as noted in the transcript.

Transcript

[Kai Rysdal]

Hey everybody, it's Kai. We've got a midweek deal that you don't want to miss. Thanks to the generosity of Marketplace investors across the country, all gifts will be matched today up to $30,000. Don't delay. Give right now and double your impact. It's really that easy to become a Marketplace investor and power public service journalism. Go to marketplace.org donate and your gift will go twice as far, but only today. That's marketplace.org and thanks.

[Matt Levin]

This marketplace podcast is supported by Remarkable. Are you still taking notes on paper? Change the way you work with Remarkable Paper Pro, a premium digital notebook with the feel of paper for taking notes, reviewing documents and getting organized. Get the digital tools you need for your workday without any distractions and stay focused. With a unique color display that reflects natural light, it's portable, practical and professional. Get yours [e-mail] lest you think that.

[Kai Rysdal]

Running this economy is easy, it's not unlike driving on a foggy night or walking into a dark room full of furniture. Happy Fed Day, everybody. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace in Los Angeles. I'm Kai Rysdal. It is Wednesday today, the 18th of December. Good as always to have you along, everybody. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the guy most responsible for running the American economy say this? Let me start by saying that we think the economy's in a really good place and we think policy's in a really good place. If you're a regular consumer of economic news, you might think, yeah, the economy's okay, inflation's still a tad hot and prices are higher, but generally, you know, good. If you are a Wall street consumer of economic news, though, clearly this is the end of the world because Powell also said this. Two cuts next year compared to four in September. That is back in September with inflation a tad less sticky than it is now. Guesses among the members of the Federal Reserve was that they would cut interest rates four times next year. Now, with the aforementioned stickiness holding inflation higher than the Fed and the rest of us want it to be, the central bank is banking on just two cuts next year. I think that the the lower, the slower pace of cuts for next year really reflects both the higher inflation readings we've had this year and the expectation inflation will be higher. Two and a half percent is where the Fed thinks inflation is going to be come the end of next year. Cue the market sell off. It is almost a footnote to point out, I guess, that they did cut interest rates today another quarter percentage point. The third cut this year. And two things specifically to mention here. Number one, look at the labor market. It's cooler by so many measures now, modestly cooler than it was in 2019, a year when inflation was well under 2%. So it's not a source of inflationary pressures. Not to say there aren't regional and particular professions where labor is tight, but overall you're not getting inflationary impulses of any significance from the labor market. And number two, and related, the story is still just, we're unwinding from these large shocks that the economy got in 2021 and 22, which is kind of amazing because it's been like three years, you know, Wall street on this Fed day. Everything was fine until Jay Powell started talking. We'll have the details when we do the numbers. The federal funds rate, which is the rate the Federal Reserve controls, is a powerful if blunt economic tool, but it is by no means all powerful. Exhibit A, the American housing market. Last week the average rate on a 30 year fixed mortgage was about 6.6%, which is higher than than when the Fed started its rate cutting cycle back in September. So that's not great for the housing market. But the bigger problem is that according to the Federal Housing Finance agency, something like 60% of people who are paying on mortgages right now have rates below 4%. That gets us something called the lock in effect, homeowners who don't want to give up those cheap rates, which means they don't want to sell, which means housing inventory stays low and, and housing prices stay high. Marketplace's Matt Levin has more now on the housing market's new normal.

[Matt Levin]

Hopefully there'll be more than enough eggnog at today's holiday office party for the Northwest Illinois alliance of Realtors because there definitely aren't enough houses to go around. We currently have over 900 realtors in our board of Realtors and with our inventory right around 346 houses and condos available, that makes the competition pretty stiff. Jane Urich has been a real estate agent in the Rockford, Illinois area for 38 years. It's about 90 miles northwest of Chicago. Homes are priced attractively in the low to mid-200s. The problem is finding interested sellers. There are people that look at that 3% interest rate and aren't giving it up. Less life issues come up. Estate sales, divorces, job relocations. According to research from the Federal Housing Finance Administration, the lock in effect resulted in 1.7 million fewer homes sales nationally between 2022 and 2024. Jonah Cost is an economist with FHFA. This reduction in supply increased prices by 7%. That's part of the reason when the Fed was raising rates to fight inflation, housing prices stayed high. And unless rates somehow dropped dramatically, which feels unlikely, cost doesn't see the lock in effect dissipating. We don't find any evidence that simply time is going to do much to alleviate this this new normal. So many homeowners with dramatically cheaper mortgages compared to market rates is basically unprecedented, says economist Darrell Fairweather at Redfin. And that's widening the gap between the have nots and have homes. Well, there's definitely this unfortunate inequality between people who had a home or bought a home during the pandemic and people who weren't ready to buy a home quite yet. Sure, location matters a lot with real estate, but so does timing. I'm Matt Levin for Marketplace.

[Kai Rysdal]

If because of timing in your life, you miss us on the actual air, we've got a podcast, you know, just in case you can find [e-mail] or just follow us on the platform of your choice. The jobs report that we get the first Friday of every month, the Employment Situation Summary, it's called. That's the official name. It tells us where the labor market in this country was the month prior. Less remarked upon is another data set the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out. It's called the Occupational Employment Projections, and it's done annually with a window 10 years into the future. In its most recent edition, out this past summer, the Department of Labor says the top growing occupations, I.e. those with the most new jobs being created include home health aide, software developer, cook and registered nurse. The fastest growing occupations that's by percent increase in jobs include solar and wind turbine technicians, nurse practitioner and data scientist. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman explains what's driving job growth and loss and not to be forgotten how much trust we really ought to put in labor market predictions a whole decade out.

[Matt Levin]

The folks at Portland State University's Career center really want to know what the BLS's hot jobs of the future are. I am Giovanna DeFalco, Employer Relations Manager Marissa Miller. I'm the internship coordinator. Their students career ideas range from clearly defined to impressionistic at best, says Miller. For some people it is a job title. For some people it is. Well, this is a thing that I learned in class this week that I didn't know was a possibility. That's what I'm interested in today, DeFalco says. To point students down plausible career paths. Data like this, it is helpful to have an idea of where the labor market might go, where demand is going to be. Demographics are one structural factor shaping future labor market demand. Michael Wolff is in charge of employment projections at bls. He says health care will be the fastest growing occupational sector driven by the needs of aging baby boomers. Meanwhile, the older generation of carpenters, welders, machinists and the like are aging out of manufacturing and construction, those skilled trades. They may not be growing rapidly, but if a lot of the workers are retiring, it can still be creating a whole lot of opportunities for new workers. There's less opportunity in K12 education as the birth rate and school age population fall. Wolf says the other big driver of job change is new technology, renewable energy and EVs, robots and artificial intelligence causing job loss and growth. Computer mathematical are the second fastest growing occupational group. A lot of that is being driven by big data. And the flip side, the fastest declines. Office and administrative clerical type workers primarily being impacted by automation. There's already evidence of technological unemployment as AI is rolled out in marketing and back office operations, says economist Joe Bruceuelis at consulting firm rsm. You can see in places like finance sophisticated technologies being deployed, causing very talented, very expensive white collar workers to have problems finding employment. Meanwhile, he says, lower skilled office workers are looking more and more like the telephone operators of a past generation. I think the population most at risk are women 25 to 54 with less than two years of education.

[Kai Rysdal]

Those jobs are just going to be.

[Matt Levin]

Automated out of existence.

[Kai Rysdal]

I will rant for just a minute here.

[Matt Levin]

Peter Capelli directs the center for Human Resources at the Wharton School.

[Kai Rysdal]

These forecasts on technology have been spectacularly wrong.

[Matt Levin]

Remember driverless cars?

[Kai Rysdal]

By 2019, the prediction was that truck.

[Matt Levin]

Drivers would be obsolete. BLS now predicts there'll be 200,000 more of them by 2033. The reason that they're always spectacularly wrong.

[Kai Rysdal]

Is that they're driven by people who.

[Matt Levin]

Are building the technology telling you what is possible.

[Kai Rysdal]

They're not telling you what is practical.

[Matt Levin]

Capelli isn't a big fan of making job projections for a decade in the future either. Forecasts stopped working out very well about 50 years ago and we really, really want to have them. It's hard to get people to accept the fact that maybe you gotta just.

[Kai Rysdal]

Deal with a lot of uncertainty.

[Matt Levin]

At Portland State's career center, the BLS's long term job predictions are treated like general directions on a map, says director Greg Flores. He offers an example. Ten years ago, BLS listed cartographer among the fastest growing occupations. Flores hasn't sent a lot of students down that specific career path. But the skill behind that cartography is a program called ArcGIS, and there are lots of jobs that use it. But the job title isn't what the projection said it was going to be. Flores says it's most important to focus on skills and interests that will help a student develop in their career 10 years down the road. Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace. You sit down, you write what the business problem is and everyone has to read it before now.

[Kai Rysdal]

That is a productive use of company time. First though, let's do the numbers. Yeah, the WAWAS feels like it's been a while. The Dow industrials tumbled 1123 points today 2.6% 42,326. The Nasdaq sank 716 points. That is 3.6%. 19,003 9 or 2s and P 500 off 178 points, about 3% 5872 there. Matt Levin was talking about mortgage rates. So let's look at some lenders. Rocket Company subtracted four and a half percent. Loan Depot slid 7.5%. Guild Holdings Company off one and four 10% today. General Mills down 3.1%. That's after the snack and cereal company adjusted down its 2025 profit outlook in its most recent earnings report. Birkenstock reported strong profits year over year. The sandal company saw a 21% jump in revenue. Shares walked nay they ran, hard as that may be to do in Birkenstocks up 2% today. Bonds just cuz prices down yield on the 10 year T note up 4.52%. Thank you Jay Powell. You're listening to Marketplace. You turn to Marketplace for up to the minute news for stories that show you the connections between global events and your personal economy. And you're not alone. Marketplace is the most widely consumed business and economic news program in the country. We're proud to make fact based journalism freely accessible and Marketplace investors make it all possible. Your year end donation today will make a real difference in our nonprofit newsroom and in the lives of millions of Marketplace listeners every day, single day. So please contribute what you can [e-mail] donate.

[Matt Levin]

There are over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations in the US and millions more around the world. How do you know which ones can make the biggest impact with your donation? GiveWell was founded to help donors with that exact question. They pour over independent studies and charity data to help donors direct their funds to evidence backed organizations that are saving and improving lives. GiveWell wants as many donors as possible to make informed decisions about high impact giving. You can find all their research and recommendations on their site for free. You can make tax deductible donations to their recommended funds and charities and GiveWell doesn't take a cut. If you've never used GiveWell to donate, you can have your donation match up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. To claim your match, go to givewell.org and pick podcasts and enter Marketplace at the checkout. Make sure they know that you heard about GiveWell from Marketplace to get your donation matched again. That's givewell.org to donate or find out more. When you think about businesses growing their sales beyond forecasts, sure you think about a product with demand, a focused brand and influence driven marketing. But an often overlooked secret is the businesses behind the business making, selling and for shoppers, buying Simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet. And the not so secret secret with shop pay that boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com marketplace all lowercase go to shopify.com marketplace to upgrade your selling today. Shopify.com marketplace.

[Kai Rysdal]

This is marketplace. I'm Kai Rysdal. We've been talking a whole lot about the bond market on the program this week, which is mostly a way to talk about interest rates, the cost of borrowing money. The Federal Reserve, as we said up at the top of the program, just cut that cost by a quarter of a percentage point. But it has become clear since Election Day mostly that rates might not fall much farther given the possibility of new tariffs, more tax cuts, mass deportations, and the higher inflation those policies are likely to trigger. And if interest rates don't fall, or if they go up, businesses are going to have to figure out how to deal with higher for longer interest rates. So Marketplace's Justin Ho called a couple of those businesses to see how they're getting ready.

[Matt Levin]

One sector that's really sensitive to interest rates is construction. John Kirk, the founder of the Light Path Company, an apartment construction firm in New Braunfels, Texas, says even though rates have started to come down, they're still too high for a lot of construction projects to make economic sense. So that's why you're not going to see a huge robust pipeline of supply.

[Kai Rysdal]

Hitting the market again.

[Matt Levin]

Kirk says he and other developers still have to make money. But if rates stay elevated throughout the next 12 months, he says, they are going to be pretty choosy when it.

[Kai Rysdal]

Comes to site selection and what deals.

[Matt Levin]

Do they believe in and how do you raise capital and really get it across the finish line to start construction? Even though interest rates have been slowly coming down, there are plenty of commercial borrowers that are about to get hit with much higher rates. Dominic Miartin, CEO of American Pride bank in Macon, Georgia, says that's because they're sitting on loans they took out a few years ago, back when rates were really low. And if those loans were originated with.

[Kai Rysdal]

Three to five year terms, then those.

[Matt Levin]

Loans are maturing right about now, Myartan says. That means those borrowers are likely going to scale back their plans, maybe cancel a new project or new hiring.

[Kai Rysdal]

So there's a chilling effect. Even though the rates have come down.

[Matt Levin]

Recently, they're still much higher than they.

[Kai Rysdal]

Were three or four or five years ago.

[Matt Levin]

High rates also have an indirect impact on industries that rely on consumer spending. Spiro Papadopoulos, CEO of Schlau Restaurant Group, says when car loans and credit cards and mortgages are expensive, it affects the restaurant business earlier than it would something that is less able to be cut out, like, for instance, gas or groceries. Papadopoulos says he made plenty of changes to his restaurants while interest rates and inflation were even higher. He modified his menus to keep quality high but prices reasonable. Think chicken instead of veal or featuring family style meals instead of individual entrees. Really just trying to offer more value during that period of time and amping up the experience and the hospitality. Papadopoulos says even if interest rates fall more slowly next year, his restaurants are still in a position to give consumers what they want. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace.

[Kai Rysdal]

No matter how much mortgages might be costing, when people got to move, they gotta move. And according to new data from Zillow, the most popular housing markets of the year were exurbs and small cities, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest. We're talking places with lower housing prices than the nearby big cities that are within long but still reasonable commuting distances. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has that one what.

[Matt Levin]

Does it mean for a city to be popular in this case? Skyler Olson, chief economist at Zillow, says it means places where home Prices have appreciated significantly. And where do we see the most attention and traffic on Zillow.com this year? Manchester, New Hampshire tops the list. Four cities in Connecticut also made it, as did Allentown, Pennsylvania and Columbia, Maryland. Really the exurban cities, right? So think of these as ones within 90 miles from, you know, that major city core. This tracks with general trends we've been seeing for the last few years, people moving away from big metro areas and towards smaller and medium sized cities and rural areas. Rudin Frost at the Joint center for Housing Studies says the biggest factor for most people is cost. Affordability in general has become a nationwide issue and so I could really see that driving people to move out, especially if they're trying to purchase a home. And the rise of remote work has made more people feel like they can move further out, says Richard Greene at the USC Lusk center for Real Estate. Work from home has changed where people want to live and if you don't have to go into work, you can live wherever you like. But he says the ability to work from home is key if you are moving for affordability. If you don't work from home, I don't think the exurbs are particularly affordable because the cost of commuting is expensive, especially if you have to drive a long distance. And a lot of companies are calling people back to the office, whether a few days a week or full time.

[Kai Rysdal]

And that's going to make closer in locations more popular.

[Matt Levin]

Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright mls, says she's already seeing that in Mid Atlantic markets.

[Kai Rysdal]

Recently it has been the first ring.

[Matt Levin]

Suburbs of D.C. and of Philadelphia where homebuyers have been most active. Which suggests to me that people are looking to be a little bit closer to the office, a little bit closer to transportation, even if it's a little bit or a lot less affordable. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace.

[Kai Rysdal]

I'm gonna go not too terribly far out on a limb here and say that there is not a person among us who hasn't had to sit through a meeting that most certainly should have been an email watching somebody read to you every wor of their 25 page PowerPoint. And yet here we are. PowerPoint is somehow a staple of corporate culture. Matt Alston wrote about PowerPoint's hold on us and Business Insider. Matt, thanks for coming on.

[Matt Levin]

How are you?

[Kai Rysdal]

I'm well. How did But I've been to too many PowerPoint presentations. How did it come to pass that we are now living in the tyranny of PowerPoint?

[Matt Levin]

It is a software that for I think almost 30 years has come with every personal home computer and every business computer. It's become the standard mode of person made presentation. Any single person has a software that makes it very easy for them to create 6, 8 or sometimes 40, 50 slide presentation. It was designed to get rid of presentation jitters and instead it's just sort of made bloated presenters of us all.

[Kai Rysdal]

Yeah, I get the jitters thing because it kind of does make sense. But, but look, one, one hates to give Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and Bajillionaires too much credit for anything right now, but it does seem that they're onto something in trying to get rid of PowerPoint as a, as a kind of a crutch. Right?

[Matt Levin]

They're not wrong. The difference between them and the rest of us is that when they get annoyed with something, they have more power to make it go away.

[Kai Rysdal]

That's right.

[Matt Levin]

You and I have both sat in those presentations and been like, I just wish my boss would say, shouldn't this be an email? Or shouldn't this be, you know, some. Something else? Well, you know, in 2004, Jeff Bezos had that response and turned to people he worked with and said, is there some way to make this go away? And they said, yes, there is.

[Kai Rysdal]

I don't even know what to say. But, but, but here's the actual next question. So why. Obviously it's useful, I get that. But it has now been abused. Why do you suppose it is that we're all just still stuck? Is it just middle managers not having the courage to say, cut it out, don't do that anymore.

[Matt Levin]

I think that because it's easy to use and because it turns conversation into presentation, because it's low density, you don't have to put all of the information.

[Kai Rysdal]

Oh, but people always do, Matt. You know that. Come on, man.

[Matt Levin]

Well, yeah, you know, let me rephrase it to you. Well, I think that PowerPoints and presentation tools often appeal to two specific types of vices. Either the very, very, very over prepared or the badly under prepared. But being in the room for either type of presentation stinks. If you're, if you're a bad presenter, it can help you. If you're a good presenter, it's not a, it's not a crutch you need.

[Kai Rysdal]

And right there, right there is why we're having this conversation. Right? And that's why we've all been in those, those PowerPoint presentations. I get that. Is there a, is there a substitute? Is there I mean, PowerPoint's not going away anytime soon, I guess, is the question, right?

[Matt Levin]

PowerPoint isn't going away. There bezos at Amazon and many of his is, you know, his sort of NFL coaching tree of VPs and now CEOs who've worked under him swear by the Amazon 6 pager. It's a memoir and there's no specific format. You sit down, you write what the business problem is and everyone has to read it before. You know, some companies even have silent reading time at the beginning of meetings where you digest, right? You digest everything and then you address the question or the single order of business. Lots of CEOs like that, right?

[Kai Rysdal]

Where are you on the spectrum? Are you one of those users who kind of slaps a sentence on seven different things and wings it? Or do you overstuff?

[Matt Levin]

I like pictures. I like the TED Talk. A writer who likes pictures now I like the TED Talk. I like the. The right question to ask is not what is the correct PowerPoint use for this presentation, but should PowerPoint be used at all? And if I'm being forced to use it, I'm going to embrace the low density quality. You know, each slide can only contain one thing. Well, then it might contain a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip or, or just a one liner or a quote. Because like you said, when the person is reading what's on the page that you're looking at, you know you're headed for the edge of the waterfall.

[Kai Rysdal]

Amen. Matt Alston at Business Insider writing about PowerPoint. Matt, thanks a bun. Appreciate your time.

[Matt Levin]

Yes, sir, this was a pleasure.

[Kai Rysdal]

This final note on the way out today, one last item from Chair Powell's press conference in which the lines are best read between Neil Irwin from Axios asking the question, do you see any.

[Matt Levin]

Value or benefits in the US Government building a reserve of bitcoin?

[Kai Rysdal]

So, you know, we, we're not allowed to own bitcoin. The Federal Reserve act says what we can own. And we're, we're not looking for a law change. That's the kind of thing for Congress to consider, but we are not looking for a law change at the Fed. And there you have it. Our media production team includes Brian Allison, Jake Cherry, Justin Dooler, Drew JoustadGary O'Keefe, Charlton Thorpe, Juan Carlos Dorado and Becca Weinman. Jeff Peters is the manager of media production and I'm Kai Rysdal. We will see. See you tomorrow, everybody. This is apm. You turn to Marketplace for up to the minute news for stories that show you the connections between global events and your personal economy. And you're not alone. Marketplace is the most widely consumed business and economic news program in the the country. We're proud to make fact based journalism freely accessible, and Marketplace investors make it all possible. Your year end donation today will make a real difference in our nonprofit newsroom and in the lives of millions of Marketplace listeners every single day. So please contribute what you can [e-mail] donate.