Uncertainty, thy name is tariff

Summary

Marketplace Podcast Summary: "Uncertainty, Thy Name is Tariff" (Released March 27, 2025)

In the March 27, 2025 episode of Marketplace, host Kai Ryssdal dives deep into the intricate web of tariffs and their profound impact on the U.S. economy. Titled "Uncertainty, Thy Name is Tariff," the episode navigates through economic data, trade deficits, consumer behavior, and emerging challenges such as student loan delinquencies and cargo theft. The discussion is enriched with expert insights, notable quotes, and real-world implications, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of the current economic landscape.

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I. The Current Economic Landscape

Kyle Ryssdal sets the stage by highlighting the persistent uncertainty surrounding tariffs and their dual impact on the economy:

"[...] the threats, the flip-flopping on some of them, the prospect of more. We're just sitting here waiting for the real economic fallout to start." (03:01)

Ryssdal emphasizes that the central concern isn't the implementation of tariffs per se but the magnitude of their long-term effects on economic growth.

II. Tariffs and Economic Uncertainty

Jonathan Pingle, Chief U.S. Economist for UBS, and Brett Ryan, Senior U.S. Economist at Deutsche Bank, discuss the shifting dynamics of GDP growth:

"At the beginning of this year it looked like 2025 was also going to be all about a gradual slowdown. But now the slowdown is looking a little less gradual." – Jonathan Pingle (03:15)

As tariffs transition from inflation concerns to growth risks, the uncertainty they introduce causes businesses to delay decisions and consumers to reduce spending. Gad Levanon, Chief Economist at the Burning Glass Institute, adds:

"The uncertainty alone is going to drag on growth." (03:24)

III. Trade Deficit and Foreign Investment

The episode delves into the complexities of the U.S. trade deficit. Robert Johnson, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, explains:

"That's Robert Johnson, a professor at the University of Notre Dame. He says the US simply can't export enough products to pay for all of those imports." (05:24)

Despite stagnant exports and sustained imports, the U.S. manages the trade deficit through foreign investment in financial assets like stocks and government securities. George Perks, Macro Strategist at Bespoke Investment Group, notes:

"Foreign demand for US Government debt and other financial assets allows us to import more than we export." (05:54)

This symbiotic relationship highlights the reliance on foreign capital to sustain consumption beyond export capabilities.

IV. Trust in Economic Data

In an insightful interview, Martha Gimbel, Executive Director of the Budget Lab at Yale, discusses the evolving landscape of economic data analysis:

"It's very hard to make the US Consumer stop spending. There are a lot of consumer consumption categories that are kind of very stable, especially more on the services part." – Gad Levanon (04:01)

Gimbel underscores the importance of leveraging both traditional government data and alternative private-sector data to gauge economic trends more accurately. She asserts:

"It is very important to distinguish the vibes from the facts on the ground." (12:05)

V. Student Loan Delinquencies and Economic Impact

The episode highlights the burgeoning issue of student loan delinquencies post-pandemic. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York reports nearly 10 million borrowers are past due on their loans, a situation poised to negatively affect credit scores and, consequently, the broader economy.

Konstantin Yannelis, Professor of Financial Economics at the University of Cambridge, warns:

"This could affect how much wealth they accumulate in the long term." (14:01)

Robert Johnson adds:

"This could lead to lifetime consequences, right? Because if people have damaged credit scores, it'll be harder to do things like buy a home." (14:18)

The ripple effects extend to reduced consumer spending and hindered economic growth, emphasizing the interconnectedness of personal finance and national economic health.

VI. Cargo Theft: The Rising Threat to the Economy

A surprising segment addresses the surge in train robberies, with over 65,000 incidents reported last year—a 40% increase from 2023. Malia Wallen, a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, explains:

"Modern day train thieves are a whole different thing. There's no guns. There are bolt cutters and mechanized saws and deserts." (19:47)

These sophisticated thefts involve cutting air brake hoses to stop trains and targeting specific cargo, leading to significant annual losses estimated between $15 and $35 billion. The lack of sufficient security investment by rail companies and limited law enforcement resources exacerbates the problem, ultimately driving up costs for consumers.

VII. Los Angeles Transit and Car Culture Transformation

Looking ahead, Marketplace explores Los Angeles' ambitious plans to overhaul its transit system in preparation for major events like the FIFA World Cup 2026 and the 2028 Summer Olympics. Eric Brightwell, a car-free resident, shares his experiences and observations:

"It's not a purity test. I just made a map and I just shared it with a friend of all the places I can get to within a 10-minute walk, a 15-minute bike ride or a one-seat bus ride. And there's like 400 places on the map." (26:00)

Brightwell's narrative illustrates a growing trend towards reducing car dependency, driven by high costs associated with car ownership and the city's enhanced transit options. This shift not only aims to alleviate traffic congestion but also represents a cultural transformation towards more sustainable urban living.

VIII. Market Movements and Economic Indicators

The episode concludes with a brief overview of recent market performance:

• Dow Industrials: Down 155 points (15:32)
• NASDAQ: Dipped 94 points (15:32)
• S&P 500: Down 18 points (15:32)
• Petco: Up nearly 32%, outperforming expectations.
• Chewy: Down 1.7%
• Automotive Stocks: Declines in Stellantis (4.25%) and GM (7.4%) due to tariffs on imported vehicles and parts.
• Bond Yields: 10-year T-note rose to 4.36% (15:32)

These movements reflect the ongoing volatility and investor uncertainty influenced by tariff-related economic policies.

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Conclusion

The "Uncertainty, Thy Name is Tariff" episode of Marketplace offers a multifaceted exploration of how tariffs influence economic growth, trade balances, consumer behavior, and broader financial stability. Through expert interviews and data-driven discussions, the podcast elucidates the challenges and adaptations required in a shifting economic environment marked by protective trade measures and their far-reaching consequences.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections to focus solely on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

[Kai Ryssdal]

Hello listeners. Our goal at Marketplace is to raise the economic intelligence of the country. And that goes for teens and young adults, too. The newest season of Financially Inclined, hosted by Yaneli Espinal, tackles topics like how to align your values with your money decisions, the skill of negotiating, and what you can get out of internships. Financially Inclined is presented in partnership with Greenlight, the debit card and money app for teens. Greenlight helps teens learn to earn, save, spend wisely and invest. Tune in to Financially Inclined wherever you find your podcasts.

[Unknown]

This podcast is supported by Odoo. Some say Odoo business management software is like fertilizer for businesses because the simple, efficient software promotes growth. Others say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it scales with you and is magically affordable. And some describe Odoo's programs for manufacturing, accounting, and more as building blocks for creating a custom software suite. So Odoo is Fertilizer, magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Odoo exactly what small businesses need. Sign [e-mail] that's O D O O.com.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Data. That's it. That's how we're going to start. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace in Los Angele, Los Angeles. I'm Kyle Rysdal. It is Thursday today. This one's the 27th of March. Good as always to have you along, everybody. The big question about this economy right now isn't will he or won't he on the tariffs? The right answer could honestly be both because it almost doesn't matter. The threats, the flip flopping on some of them, the prospect of more. We're just sitting here waiting for the real economic fallout to start. Have I mentioned, oh, by the way, that the stock market is not the economy? No. The big question about this economy right now is how big the hit is going to be. That's the setup for the big picture economic data point of the day, an updated reading on how fast this economy is growing. An annualized rate of 2.4% in the last quarter of last year, we learned this morning. Which is solid. Not spectacular, but solid. But consider this. That's where the economy was heading into this year and that ain't the story anymore. As Marketplace's Sabri Benishore explains, 2024 was.

[Jonathan Pingle]

Kind of the end of the post pandemic party. Not a hangover, just, you know, the party kind of died. No more pent up demand, government stimulus, mostly done. Jonathan Pingle is chief U.S. economist for UBS.

[Gad Levanon]

And that massive wave of growth, that sort of peaked in 2023 with over 3%. GDP growth had kind of slowed to about 2 and A in 2024.

[Jonathan Pingle]

So at the beginning of this year it looked like 2025 was also going to be all about a gradual slowdown. But now the slowdown is looking a little less gradual. Pingle took his estimate of growth this year down from 2% to closer to 1 1/2 percent.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

You are reaching the point where the tariff actions are becoming less of an inflation concern and more of a longer term growth risk concern.

[Jonathan Pingle]

Brett Ryan is senior US Economist at Deutsche Bank.

[Gad Levanon]

The uncertainty alone is going to drag on growth.

[Jonathan Pingle]

Businesses hold off on decisions when they don't know what's happening. Consumers spend less when they're anxious. When economic growth slows down to about 1%, the economy reaches a tipping point, says UBS's Pingle.

[Gad Levanon]

If you get down below, say, 1% GDP growth, you start to put yourself in a position of job gains turning negative, and then all of a sudden the labor market is actually contracting.

[Jonathan Pingle]

But Pingle does not think we will get there this year. Neither does Gad Levanon, chief economist at the Burning Glass Institute.

[Gad Levanon]

It's very hard to make the US Consumer stop spending. There are a lot of consumer consumption categories that are kind of very stable, especially more on the services part.

[Jonathan Pingle]

Uncertainty and tariffs may slow the economy, but he says, they don't look like there'll be enough to stop it. In New York, I'm Sabri Benishore for Marketplace.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Elsewhere in economic data today was an early look at the balance of trade. Imports in February more or less flat after a bump in January. Exports, meanwhile, were up. And all in all, the trade deficit as a result shrank just a bit month to month. But that gap overall between what we buy from overseas and what we sell abroad is just about the widest it's ever been. We point out from time to time that the trade gap is the president's favorite economic indicator. And by favorite here I mean he hates it. He thinks having a trade gap is a weakness, and to hear him tell it, tariffs are going to boost American exports and thus narrow the trade gap. Thing is, as Marketplace's Justin Ho reports, that negative trade balance has an upside too.

[Robert Johnson]

Think about the US As a big household, one that really loves going out and buying imported goods to pay for those goods. The U.S. household has a couple options.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

One option is you can export to pay for your imports. The other option is you can borrow.

[Unknown]

To pay for your imports.

[Robert Johnson]

That's Robert Johnson, a professor at the University of Notre Dame. He says the US Simply can't export enough products to pay for all of those imports. We just don't make enough stuff that the rest of the world is buying. But we do have financial assets that foreign investors want to buy. Think stocks, mortgage backed securities, treasury securities, as in government debt.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

As a result, foreigners want to pour money into the United States and safe assets in the United States. And that has made it very easy.

[Unknown]

For us to borrow from abroad.

[Robert Johnson]

It's not like the same foreign manufacturers that are selling U.S. goods are turning around and buying U.S. treasuries. But George Perks, macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group, says at the national level, foreign demand for US Government debt and other financial assets allows us to import more than we export.

[Gad Levanon]

There is no other way to make that work.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

If you're going to spend more than you earn, then you have to have.

[Gad Levanon]

To have to either be increasing debt or decreasing assets.

[Robert Johnson]

What this means is that the trade deficit and foreign investment in the US Are two sides of the same coin. Let's say the US could magically figure out how to eliminate the trade deficit by making exports catch up with imports. Emily Blanchard, a professor at Dartmouth, says the trade off would be less foreign investment.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

That means we lose a critical source of lending.

[Robert Johnson]

And Blanchard says boosting exports would require an increase in capital investment and those resources couldn't go to other parts of the economy. Building bridges, educating kids, coming up with innovation. I'm Justin Ho for Marketplace on Wall Street.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Today the major indices closed off their lows. I think that's the way the business television would put it. Right. We'll have the details when we do the numbers.

[Malia Wallen]

Foreign.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

To say there's a lot happening in and to this economy does not quite do the moment. And just as we're all having a hard time keeping up, so too is the economic data. What then is one to do economist or regular person if they want to understand what's going on. Martha Gimbel is the executive director of the budget Lab at Yale and she's got some thoughts on this. Martha, thanks for coming on the program. Good to have you.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Thank you so much for having me.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Let's do a level set here for a minute and have you tell me what you were looking at to gauge this economy, say three months ago.

[Kai Ryssdal]

So three months ago was looking at the very standard set of economic data, right? So the monthly jobs report, what we were seeing on the GDP side, throw in some inflation measurements there. But it was a lot of the standard data that you get a News alert about on your phone.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

And now I read in this paper that you did with some colleagues that's in the Harvard Business Review and also your social media feeds, you say this to be honest, it feels increasingly like early Covid, not because the economy is going to shut down, but given the pace of events, we need to look at data we don't normally rely on to understand this economy. What are you going to look at now?

[Kai Ryssdal]

So some of it is data that comes out from the government, but it just comes out more frequently. So weekly unemployment insurance claims. That gives us a quicker sense of how things are pivoting. But this is also a time where we need to think a little bit about alternative data sets like data from private sector companies. So for instance, indeed, where I used to work, just put out data on how federal employees are responding to doge. I want to emphasize that private sector data is not a substitute for public sector data, but it does move faster. And so at a time where you're trying to figure out if the economy is at a turning point, it can be useful to look at some of these alternative data sets that just move more quickly.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

We should say here though, that there is government data that is disappearing from government websites. There are not unfounded questions about the future reliability of government data as it serves the political needs of the administration. Where are you on the trusting, maybe have some doubt scale right now.

[Kai Ryssdal]

So I'm trusting government data until I don't. There's currently no sign that the data that's been coming out about the economy from the government has been futzed with in any way. And frankly, if it were, I think we would know, both because of the way that it comes out, it would be easy for economists on the outside to tell, and also because frankly, the career staff would throw a fit and we would find out from them. That being said, years ago I spent a lot of time yelling at people whenever anyone tried to question government statistics and saying, you know, this is paranoia, this is a conspiracy theory. And now it's a real question. And just to take a step back, I don't think people in the United States realize how strong our national statistics apparatus is. Economists in France, Germany, Australia, those countries would kill for the data infrastructure that we have here that helps us better understand our country and our economy and design better policy off of that.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

So let's talk about some of the things you are watching and I assume will continue to watch as as they serve your and there's a list of them in this paper that you all wrote here's one Daily Treasury Statement Non Interest Government Spending so should I stop doing the numbers every day and instead do a We should figure out the music for whatever it would be for the daily treasury statement non interest government spending segment. Right? I mean.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Well, I mean for now, the music would just be kind of toddling along is but you know, that's one that looks at the amount of spending the government is doing. But I think that's particularly important given the conversations around Doge and the questions around is a pullback in government spending going to slow down the economy? And what you've seen right now is there really isn't any sign in the aggregate that the government is stopping spending in any kind of substantive way.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Take off your economist hat for a second and put on your regular person hat. If I'm just trying to get by in my life and I'm watching all the chaos in the news and, you know, price levels are still elevated and I'm a little worried about uncertainty, what should the layperson be looking at to have some sense of what this economy is all about?

[Kai Ryssdal]

I don't think anyone's ever accused me of being good at talking to normal people. But you know, I think this is a moment where it's really important not to confuse emotions for facts. Right. Emotions are running really, really high and it is easy to feel like the economy is going to crash because things feel so uncertain. But if you look at the data that is just not yet what it is showing. And so it is very important to distinguish the vibes from the facts on the ground.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Martha Gimble, she's the executive director at the Budget Lab at Yale. Martha, thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

[Kai Ryssdal]

Thank you for having me.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

So here's an alternative data point just to keep going in the spirit of that interview with Martha Gimbel. The Federal Reserve bank of New York said this week that it figures almost 10 million people have become past due on their student loans since the pandemic payment pause and an additional grace period ended last September. And that that's going hit those borrowers credit scores real soon. As Marketplace Stephanie Hughes reports, that is bad for those borrowers and it is bad for the economy.

[Malia Wallen]

Dustin Gibson has gotten letters from his student loan servicer over the past year, but he hasn't really looked at them too hard.

[Gad Levanon]

I'm an avoider by nature.

[Malia Wallen]

Gibson's a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins. He'd been dutifully making payments towards his $185,000 in student loan debt. Then he stopped during the pandemic era pause. And he hasn't started making payments again.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

I mean, we're 43 and we finally felt like we could breathe.

[Gad Levanon]

The car's being repaid off in three months. We can, like, finally begin to tackle.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Some of the credit card debt.

[Malia Wallen]

Gibson also says it's unclear to him what's happening at the federal level with the Public Service Loan forgiveness program he's enrolled in, and he doesn't mind if his credit gets dinged. But Konstantin Yannelis, a professor of financial economics at the University of Cambridge, is concerned about all the delinquent borrowers.

[Robert Johnson]

This could lead to lifetime consequences, right? Because if people have damaged credit scores, it'll be harder to do things like buy a home.

[Malia Wallen]

Iannelis says this could affect how much wealth they accumulate in the long term.

[Robert Johnson]

So they may have less money in retirement. And we could be seeing the echoes of this problem for decades to come.

[Malia Wallen]

Which would hurt not just them, but the overall economy. Even people who make payments on their student loans are having to sacrifice elsewhere. Like DJ Anthony Gaffield. He was helping his family after they lost their home in the Altadena wildfires. But Gaffield has institutional student loans due.

[Gad Levanon]

Then I was like, oh, shoot, I.

[Malia Wallen]

Can'T pay my family anymore just because, you know, you gotta pay this monthly or pay this quarterly until it's absolved. And so he's also had to ask his landlord to let him delay paying rent. I'm Stephanie Hughes for Marketplace.

[Gad Levanon]

Coming up in a hundred years, hopefully there will still be like beautiful cars in museums and just not on the streets.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

And in LA no less. But first though, let's do the numbers. Dow industrials down 155 today. 4 10%. 42,299. For the blue chips, the NASDAQ dipped 94 points about a half percent. 17,804s and P 500 down 18 about a third percent. 56 93. Petco up almost 32% today. Pet food and products retailer posted better than expected adjusted earnings. Rival pet supplies firm chewy down 1.7%. Those tariffs white House announced yesterday all cars and car parts not made in the United States. Four down 3.9%. Stellantis down four and a quarter percent. GM dropped 7.4%. Bonds down as well. Yield on the ten year T note rose 4.36%. You're listening to Marketplace.

[Unknown]

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[Malia Wallen]

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[Kyle Ryssdal]

I'm Kai Ryssdal. We cover a lot of things on this program, but as we sit here in 2025, I didn't really imagine I'd be doing an interview on train heists. According to the association of American Railroads, last year there were more than 65,000 train robberies in this country. Quite a figure in and of itself. Doubly so when you consider that that number was up 40% from 2023, somewhere between 15 and $35 billion in annual losses, says the Department of Homeland Security. So what's going on with that? Malia Wallen is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine. Malia, welcome to the program.

[H]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

You think train heist and you think guys in masks and six shooters and horses and all of that. That is not this.

[H]

That is not this. Modern day train thieves are a whole different thing. There's no guns. There are bolt cutters and mechanized saws and deserts.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

How does it work?

[H]

Yeah, so there are a couple different ways it works. The sort of most extreme version is thieves actually go out into more remote parts of California and Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and they cut the air compression brake hoses that run between train cars, which forces an emergency stop. And then they cut the locks off the containers, they unload what they want, and trucks come pick it up and they drive away. But oftentimes, a conductor or an engineer doesn't even know a heist is happening. I mean, some of these occur when a train is stopped to let another train pass. And basically it's happening three miles back. They have no idea until, you know, maybe another train passes and calls the train police dispatcher and says, you know, there's theft underway.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

You know, we've all seen freight trains and they look to the layperson's eye, you know, basically indistinguishable. But you talk about this guy in this piece who, like, spent time figuring out what the symbology means and how to decode what's inside and figuring out, like, what cars he ought to hit and to maximize his take.

[H]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, people can do a lot of research online, and there's also a lot of cases where there is insider information either from warehouses or from the port or from train yards. I heard stories of very specifically targeted crews. Like there are crews who only go for tires. Apparently there's a good resale market. There are crews that only hit train cars, that carry new cars, and they go inside and they take all the catalytic converters out of new cars and then they leave.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Yeah, they're specialized labor, right? I mean, that's what they're doing.

[H]

Exactly.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Yeah. Cargo is insured, as you point out, and security is not something that these companies are interested in investing in.

[H]

Yeah, you know, it's complicated. I think shipping is very cheap, and people all along the supply chain are reticent to make it expensive. And just the sheer volume of stuff going on the rails, you know, at a certain level, people are, I think, willing to take some level of risk. But that said, there are a lot of different types of law enforcement working on this issue, including, you know, companies like Nike have their own loss prevention and asset recovery teams that go out and do detective work to try and.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Get the stuff back the, the catch, of course, is that you've got the railroads, you've got the companies who own or are shipping the cargo, you've got police bureaucracies involved. So it's a, it's a little bit tragedy, the commons. Right. It's this thing that's happening that there's no one person who's like, responsible.

[H]

Yeah, that's true. To some degree. A fair amount of this work falls to local law enforcement. It's like rural sheriff departments. So, you know, they don't necessarily have the resources to put a lot into this. And also, you know, the train companies, the rail industry has changed a lot in the last decade or so. They've cut 30% of employees and they've made longer and longer trains. So there are also fewer people looking after longer and longer trains. So.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Yeah, and then, and then, you know, not to bring it all home to the consumer, but we're the ones paying the high prices because. Or higher prices because all these, you know, Nikes, for instance, are getting stolen.

[H]

Yeah, that's right. And in the case of rail, you know, shippers don't have a ton of options. It's essentially a duopoly. On the west coast, there's just BNSF and Union Pacific. So it's not as though, you know, you hear one rail company is having issues with theft. You have a bunch of options of where you can go. There's just two companies.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

And we should point out here, shipping by rail is so much cheaper than shipping by truck. Right?

[H]

It's cheaper and it's also fewer emissions.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Right.

[H]

So there are definitely reasons to want to ship by rail. But to be clear, like, this is definitely happening in the trucking industry as well. So cargo theft writ large has increased quite dramatically.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Malia Wallen, contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine. Malia, thanks a lot. Appreciate your time.

[H]

Thanks so much for having me.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Over the next couple of years, Los Angeles is set to host the FIFA World cup in 2026, Super Bowl 61 in 2027, and the Summer Olympic Games in 2028. Those competitions are going to draw not only the eyes of the world to Los Angeles, but also millions of visitors. And in the buildup, the city's embarked on a mission to revamp its underwhelming transit system, adding rail lines and more buses and improving walkability. And in the course of all that, perhaps reinventing its well earned car centric reputation. But there are Angelenos who've already put car culture in the rearview mirror. That brings us to today's Installment of our series My Economy.

[Gad Levanon]

I'm Eric Brightwell. I'm a car free Angeleno and an explorer and adventurer. I work at a grocery store store doing delivery. Yeah. Which is, it's funny cuz one of my neighbors kind of scolds me and is like, well, how are you car free if you drive for work? But I feel like, yeah, if, if you were a mail carrier and you didn't have a car, people wouldn't be like, yeah, but you deliver mail in a mail truck. Like it's not a purity test. I'm just saying I don't own a car. And that, that fact remains true. AAA says that it costs people on average $13,000 a year, which is a figure. I tried out all the time to own a car in Los Angeles because you've got gas and just routine maintenance, but also repairs parking tickets. But the thing that people really forget about is paying to park. Like parking is what really sucks. So I had, I was, I was working at Amoeba and actually about a third of the employees, the initial employees were people that came down from Berkeley and San Francisco and they were much less likely to own cars than the Angeleno employees. And then, so I remember I kind of experimented with not having a car for a bit. I went, I went like seven months without driving while I had a car. And then it got towed and then I had to get it out of impound and it cost more than the car had cost me to get it out. And I remember a friend of mine was moving to New York and was like, do you want my old car? And I had to think about it. I was like, okay, there's a free car on offer. And then I was like, I don't, you know what? I don't think I do. I do go to the mountains a lot, which is transit does not get you to the mountains. But I have a friend who has a car. So you know, again, it's. For me it's not a purity test. Like it's not a commitment to never touch a car or look at it. I just went to the Peterson Automotive Museum the other day because I was like to see the lowriders because I, you know, I feel like in 100 years, hopefully there will still be like beautiful cars in museums and just not on the streets. I actually, I made a map and I just shared it with a friend of all the places I can get to within a 10 minute walk, a 15 minute bike ride or a one seat bus ride. And there's like 400 places on the map. So I don't think I'll ever own another car because it gets less and less likely as transit gets better and better.

[Kyle Ryssdal]

Eric Brightwell there a car free adventurer here in Los Angeles for the Transit Curious. He's got a podcast too. It's called Nobody Drives In Car Free Life in the City Made for Cars. This final note on the way out today, which comes with the observation that tariffs hit different depending on where you are on the income spectrum. Regressive, by the way, is a tax policy nerd word for that. Ferrari announced today it's going to raise prices on certain models by 10% because tariffs. So for instance, should you be in the market for the Ferrari Purosangue SUV sticker price $430,000. It is now going to cost you $43,000 more. And I'm just going to say if you can afford almost half a mil for a car. Tariffs? What tariffs? John Buckley, John Gordon, Noya Card, Aintha Parker, Amanda Petra and Stephanie Sieg are the Marketplace editing staff. Amir Bibawi is the managing editor and I'm Kai Rysdal. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is apm.

[Malia Wallen]

If there's one thing we know about social media, it's that misinformation is everywhere, especially when it comes to personal finance. Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help you get serious about your money so you can build a life you've always dreamed of. I'm the host, Janelie Espinal, and each week I ask experts important money questions, like how to negotiate job offers, how to choose a college that you can afford, and how to talk about money with friends and family. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.