Preeti Varathan
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Articles by Preeti Varathan
Riding with the repo man (update) : Planet Money Original
A record number of Americans with poor or just okay credit are behind on their car payments. And once last year's numbers are tallied, an estimated 3 million cars will have been repossessed in 2025. That would be on par with how bad it got during the Great Recession. What's going on? And why now? Today on the show, we focus on the micro part of the story to answer the macro question. First, we hear a favorite story of ours from 2019.
The Bees In My Brain
I’d see the soft outline of a couch or get a whiff of coffee roasting in machines, and it was like I was smelling diesel, blood mixed with dust. The bees would start to buzz frantically then, and the noise was deafening. May is mental health awareness month. The following is part of a short series we’re publishing on The Margins centering on mental health. Look out for more in the series this week. I was trying to articulate a feeling to you last night, something that’s happening in my mind.
A 21st Century Union : The Indicator from Planet Money
Union membership is on the decline, and it has been for a while. Back in the 80s, one in five workers was represented by a union. Today, it's just one in ten. And yet, there is one place where union organizing is growing, a place where many employees make over $300,000 a year: Google. If you're thinking, "why would Google workers want a union?", you're probably not alone, because some of the perks at this company are really out there. At Google, lunchtime is beyond your wildest dreams.
‘I Can Survive, I Can Survive, I Can Survive’
When Hamdan Azhar moved to New York six years ago, he didn’t really have any friends. But New York City’s Ramadan changed that. Every night offered an opportunity to go somewhere. You could go to a lecture. Break the fast with friends. Find a new mosque. And when one did find an event, Hamdan recalls, it would be packed, bodies in bright clothes filling crowded halls, laughing, gossiping, their faces full of mirth.
Ending work permits for H-4 visas may push H-1B families to self-deport
The H-1B visa program, the primary way high-skilled workers can come to the US, is the visa of choice for Indian men. In 2017, more than 70% of all H-1Bs were given to Indians, and close to 80% of those Indians were men. But they’re not the whole story. “There is this misconception that the H-1B program is really just men coming to work, and then going back to their home countries,” says Amy Bhatt, a professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Baltimore, Maryland County.
How to compete with “big weed”
Like plenty of teenagers, Mario Sherbinski started smoking weed when he was 16. Unlike a lot of pot-smoking teens, though, Sherbinski made weed his professional life—and the bet paid off. Now 42, he runs one of the splashiest brands in the new world of legal weed. (Recreational weed became legal in his home state, California, in 2018.) His company, Sherbinskis, sells premium vapes, thin, beautiful cylinders in the brand’s burnt-orange color, and flower.
Coffee shops around the world are starting to look the same
If you’re in cities like Mumbai, São Paulo, Seoul, Paris, London, Kuala Lumpur, Lagos—anywhere, really—you might notice something: coffee shops are starting to look the same. Distinctive design elements—Edison bulbs, reclaimed wood, potted plants, exposed brick—are popping up in coffee shops everywhere. It isn’t just the design of these spaces that are becoming increasingly uniform.
Made in America: what makes a car American in the era of global trade
Made in America is making a comeback.If you ask the guys who run Cars.com, a popular car analysis site, they’ll tell you that today, one in four Americans care about buying American. Talk to professor Frank Dubois, the author of one of the most cited Made-in-America auto indexes, and he’ll tell you he has never received as much media interest in his page as he is now.In 2018, Made in America has also taken on new meaning. It’s at the heart of Donald Trump’s economic policy.
The hunt for bitcoin market manipulation is gaining momentum
For all the talk about bitcoin’s extreme volatility, a risk for investors that doesn’t get as much attention is market manipulation. To the extent that upstart crypto-trading exchanges have technology in place to root out wrongdoing, it’s often homegrown and may not meet wider industry best practices. Increasingly, however, academics and government watchdogs are digging into trading data to see what’s really going on.
The maker of Jack Daniels is worried Trump's tariff war will hurt business
Brown-Forman, maker of the top-selling Tennessee whiskey brand Jack Daniel’s, is worried about the future. “The global economy has improved modestly over the last year, including improving conditions in many emerging markets,” says Paul Varga, CEO of Brown-Forman. “However, the competitive landscape in the developed world remains intense, not to mention concerns over potential retaliatory tariffs on American spirits.
If Miss America isn’t a beauty pageant, what is it?
Miss America—the first modern beauty pageant—will no longer be about, ahem, beauty. The contest announced today (June 5) that the next edition in September will drop the swimsuit portion of the competition and be inclusive of women of all sizes.
George Soros' radical plan to save the EU from its next financial crisis
George Soros has a gift for knowing when social change is coming—and when the cultural and political processes we take for granted are about to collapse. It’s that sensitivity that thrust the wildly successful investor, political activist, and philanthropist into the limelight for making over a billion dollars by shorting the British pound back in 1992, having correctly predicted that the Bank of England wouldn’t be able to defend itself from an attack in currency markets.
Presidents aren't supposed to say anything about the job report before it's released
Donald Trump upended presidential precedent—again—when he tweeted today about a key, market-moving economic indicator just over an hour before it was released: The president is traditionally briefed on the monthly jobs data the night before it is published, and past presidents have scrupulously avoided passing any information about it ahead of time. The US added 223,000 jobs in May, beating analyst forecasts for a 190,000 gain.
Volcker Rule: The US Federal Reserve wants to easing regulations on banks
A little over a week ago, US lawmakers dismantled key parts of a landmark bank regulation bill known as Dodd-Frank. The spirit of Dodd-Frank was to make sure that no bank would ever be too big to fail, and to keep banks from engaging in the kind of shady behavior that precipitated the 2008 financial crisis. Now the US Federal Reserve is rolling back even more bank regulations, with a proposal to gut the Volcker Rule.
The full list of US banks that are no longer "too big to fail" after Dodd-Frank rollback — Quartz
For banks, size matters. If a lender is deemed big enough by US lawmakers, it faces costly, time-consuming regulatory tests administered by the Federal Reserve. If it fails, the consequences could be dire. The Fed could demand that it holds higher reserves or suspends dividends, among other things. In 2008, Congress passed a $700-billion bailout for big banks, because the alternative—letting them go under—would have been even costlier for the economy.
Dodd-Frank Act explained: The number of "too big to fail" banks just shrank
Republicans have been gunning to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act from the moment it came into existence. Donald Trump promised to do “a big number” (paywall) on it, calling the Wall Street reform act a “disaster.” Now, just a decade after the global financial crisis sent the US into a tailspin, both parties are getting their wish. Yesterday, Congress approved a bill to dismantle key parts of the 2010 landmark legislation designed to regulate banks in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis.
Millennials have more retirement savings than Gen Xers did in 2001-but they're still worse off
It may be commonplace to compare millennials with other generations, but it’s not exactly fair. After all, they graduated into the financial crisis, are saddled with high levels of student debt, and have faced a tough job market for most of their adult lives. Also, they’re younger.
Target earnings: Store sales grew 3 percent, but operating income fell 9 percent
Target, the beloved, US brick-and-mortar discount store, just saw its best growth in store traffic in a decade. Yet the increase in visitors isn’t translating into higher profits. The company released lower-than-expected earnings today (May 23). They were up 9% relative to the same time last year, but still fell far short of what investors were anticipating. Store sales grew 3%, missing the 3.2% pace set the previous quarter. And the company thinks store sales will stay modest in the coming months.
Fortune 500: Just three companies-Walmart, Exxon Mobil, and GM-have ever topped the list
In 1998, IBM was the biggest American tech company by revenue. Now, some 20 years later, it’s not even among the top 30 companies in the Fortune 500. Today, Fortune released its annual Fortune 500, a list of the 500 largest American companies by sales. Together, the Fortune 500 firms represent more than $1 trillion in profits, $21 trillion in market value, and employ some 28 million people around the world.
Stressed out about money? Try out an all-cash diet, advises a personal finance expert
If you’re feeling financially anxious—shocked by bills, worried about credit card balances, or just generally perplexed about where your money is going—Erin Lowry has a solution. She knows a thing or two about personal finance. She’s the bestselling author of Broke Millennial, and dispenses advice on everything from paying down debt, making money while self-employed, setting micro-goals, and negotiating a fair salary. She managed to save money on a $22,000 salary in her first year in New York.
China, where Facebook is banned, could make $5 billion for the company this year
“We can now see that international money is unambiguously flowing in to North America and Latin America, and disproportionately out of APAC,” Wieser writes in the report.
China, where Facebook is banned, could make $5 billion for the company this year
China, where Facebook is banned, could make $5 billion for the company this yearMoreChina is very much in business with Facebook. According to a new report by Pivotal Research analyst Brian Wieser, almost 10% of Facebook’s global ad revenue might come from China (paywall). Wieser estimates that Chinese advertisers will spend $5 billion in Facebook ad revenue over the course of 2018, if not more. If his projections…
The Perfect Logic Of Holding a U.S.-North Korea Summit In Singapore
The historic meeting between Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump won’t happen in Mongolia or in the austere, scary, super-armed DMZ. It’s set to take place in small, wealthy Singapore. A city-state island with a population of 5.6 million people, Singapore is the financial center of Southeast Asia.
The Perfect Logic Of Holding a U.S.-North Korea Summit In Singapore
The Perfect Logic Of Holding a U.S.-North Korea Summit In Singapore Everyone likes Singapore. Read the original post here.
Oil giants like Exxon and Chevron have gained $35 billion in value since the US quit the Iran deal — Quartz
It’s too early to tell how the US exit from the Iran deal will affect the global economy. But in the short time since the White House announced it was quitting the pact on May 8, things have been good in markets for large American energy companies. Shares in Exxon Mobil, the largest US-based energy company, are up 4% since the close on Monday (May 7), the day before Donald Trump made the Iran announcement. That added more than $13 billion to Exxon’s market capitalization.
Does it make financial sense to get married?
Should you marry when you’re young or old? Keep your marriage open or closed? Change your name, or not? Should you marry at all? (Oprah doesn’t think so.) These are questions many couples grapple with, but marriage also comes with financial consequences. It can significantly alter your taxes, student loans, and chances of getting a mortgage, among other things. So don’t wait to think about “for richer, for poorer” until it’s time to take the vows.
The US jobless rate fell to its lowest level in nearly 18 years, thanks to non-white workers
The US unemployment rate dropped down to 3.9% in April, from 4.1% in each of the previous six months. It hasn’t been this low since December 2000. The April decline was driven by non-white workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest jobs report. In April, the unemployment rate for black Americans fell to 6.6% from 6.9% in March. The unemployment rate for Asian Americans also dipped, to 2.8% from 3.1% The jobless rate for Hispanics fell to 4.1% from 4.4%.
Morgan Stanley's message to young staffers captures every big workplace trend in one memo
Better perks and gentler environments are becoming staples of the modern white-collar workplace—even in the cut-throat world of investment banking. According to a memo sent this week to staff at Morgan Stanley, junior bankers at the firm will soon get paid more and be promoted faster, with mandatory vacation and fewer hours. Sound familiar?
NYSE: Stocks that traded above $1,000 broke the New York Stock Exchange
Translation? The NYSE’s electronic platform was temporarily generating incorrect execution reports for trades involving Nasdaq-listed securities with share prices of four digits, or $1,000 or more a share. The five securities, which included Amazon and Alphabet, have traded above $1,000 a share for a while now, but the shares are new to trading on the NYSE. Most investors of the suspended stocks were unaffected, though, as the shares continued to trade normally on other US exchanges.
Women should plan to live for 100 years, financially speaking
Two out of three women in the US want to live to 100, but 60% of them worry that they’ll run out of money if they live that long. (Maybe that’s why not all of them find an exceptionally advanced age appealing.) The cost of funding the typical retirement is $738,000, but only 9% of American women have $300,000 or more saved, according to Merrill Lynch and Age Wave. The bank and consultancy polled 3,700 adults and found that women have a harder time building wealth.
Michael Sandel's video series What Money Can't Buy looks at the moral limitations of markets
In the 2013 film Wolf of Wall Street, New York brokers pay to toss people with dwarfism across the room—a scene meant to illustrate the exploitative, ostentatious world of finance. The controversial practice of “dwarf-tossing” is quite real. In places like Detroit, Michigan, and Ottawa, Ontario, you can throw another human being onto a mattress or against a padded wall—for a price. But should you be able to?
Tech stocks are so high now, they’re breaking the NYSE
Tech stocks are so high now, they’re breaking the NYSEMoreAmazon’s share price closed at $1,460 today (April 25). Alphabet closed at $1,023. And shares in Booking Holdings reached $2,078 a pop. Those valuations, apparently, were too much for the world’s biggest stock exchange to handle. The New York Stock Exchange suspended trading on the floor for five Nasdaq-listed securities because of a “price scale…
What North Korea's Kim Jong-un wants from Donald Trump
Until this month, Dennis Rodman—the former NBA player—was the highest-profile American to have met Kim Jong-un. But in the presidency of Donald Trump, all that has changed. For the first time, a sitting US president has agreed to meet with the leader of North Korea. And now, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s CIA Director, has met face-to-face with Kim, too. These moves are part of a larger mission: Denuclearize North Korea. But what does Kim stand to gain from Trump? A photograph. Quartz explains, with bobbleheads.
Philip Morris stock saw its worst day in a decade because of weak cigarette and iQOS sales
Philip Morris International, one of the largest tobacco companies, wants to design a smoke-free future. That’s a tall order for a company that made its name selling Marlboros. According to the company’s most recent earnings report, the plan is not going swimmingly. Shipments of heated tobacco products—devices that release flavors and nicotine without combustion—have dragged since December. And shipments of cigarettes are down 5.3% from a year ago (paywall).
JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Goldman Sachs have made a lot more profit after the financial crisis than before it
No big bank will remember 2008 fondly. That was the year that Lehman Brothers blew up, subprime mortgage-backed securities soured, and the global financial system was generally brought to its knees. Bailouts and strict new regulations followed, with policymakers pushing to rein in the profitable but risky behavior that flourished before the crash. In the future, banking would be a safer but leaner business.
The boring side of Goldman Sachs may finally be paying off
The investment bank posted its best equities trading results in three years today (April 17). The Wall Street firm’s quarterly profit rose 26% (paywall) relative to the same time last year, leaving the bank $2.8 billion richer. The looming US-China trade war and Facebook’s data scandals have roiled the markets. All the volatility was good news for Goldman, which reported a 38% rise in stock-trading revenue. But Goldman’s trading success comes at a time when it’s trying to reshape its image.
The very thing you love about Bed Bath & Beyond may be sinking it
One of America’s most beloved home retailers faced a hard day in the market today (April 12)—Bed Bath and Beyond shares tumbled to a 10-year low, trading down to $17.21. The fall came after a lukewarm earnings report showed company sales and earnings at expectations, but earnings-per-share forecasts for 2018 below what analysts had predicted (paywall). It’s yet another sign of the struggles for brick-and-mortar retail.
The US added a third of the jobs it did last month—and that's fine
The latest numbers from the US Labor Department show that the jobs picture in America is largely unchanged. Overall, that’s positive—except for that nagging problem of slow growth in wages. The good news remains the same: March was the 90th consecutive month of job gains. Unemployment stands at 4.1%. The rates for men, women, teens, white Americans and black Americans showed little change in March.
The Dow Jones industrial average is dangerously close to correcting
Fears over Donald Trump’s tariffs seem to have sent markets tumbling toward their next “correction”—the term economists and traders like to use to describe a 10% or higher decline from a stock index’s most recent peak. We haven’t been in this territory since Feb. 8. A whole six weeks ago. As of today (March 22), the Dow Jones industrial average, the index of 30 large, publicly traded American companies, is just .01% away from a correction—down 9.99% from its peak (paywall).
Fed chair Jerome Powell must define what's normal for the US economy
Today (March 21), the Federal Reserve raised rates for the sixth time since 2015, bringing the rate banks must pay to borrow funds to 1.75%. Markets stirred on the news, registering a brief rise. The ultimate response, though, was a shrug—nothing to see here. The world’s momentary indifference to the work of the Fed chair and his committee makes sense. Powell’s predecessors, Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, oversaw the response to the most catastrophic economic collapse since the Great Depression.
Facebook's fall from grace cost Jeff Bezos, Jeff Ma, and other CEOs $12 billion
Since news broke that Cambridge Analytica, which consulted for Donald Trump’s election campaign, had mined the data of millions of Facebook users without their permission, Facebook has taken a massive hit. The scandal erased $40 billion in market value for the social-media company. British lawmakers are now summoning Zuckerberg to provide evidence on his company’s relationship with the political-marketing consultancy.
Larry Kudlow appointed by Donald Trump: Good economic times have clouded his vision
Larry Kudlow has a history of making poor calls when the economy looks to be hot. In late 2007, a time the National Bureau of Economic Research would later decide was the start of the recession, the cable-TV pundit argued that the “Bush Boom” was alive and well.Those who voiced concerns about an impending housing crisis?
Lloyd Blankfein looks ready to leave Goldman Sachs, and the market is fine with it
Perhaps the ultimate ego boost for a long-serving CEO is a plunging stock price when your impending retirement is revealed, while a rally would be the market’s way of slapping you in the face. News that Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein will step down by the end of the year was neither. After the Wall Street Journal broke the story (paywall), Goldman’s shares registered a brief downward blip and then went on about their business. It would have been surprising if it had played out any other way.
More Apple suppliers are breaking its rules about a 60-hour, six-day workweek
A growing number of Apple suppliers are violating the company’s labor policies. In policies laid out for its suppliers, Apple mandates that all overtime must be voluntary, and no worker can labor more than six consecutive days, or 60 hours per week. According to a report (pdf) released by the company, 94% of its suppliers are currently complying with those rules, down from 98% in 2016 and the lowest rate of compliance since 2014.
The SEC wants to regulate bitcoin, and bitcoin doesn’t like it at all
After months of rumors that US financial regulators might come for cryptocurrencies, the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued dozens of subpoenas (paywall) and information requests to companies involved in crypto markets. In a statement today (March 7), the SEC argued that digital assets, like coins and tokens offered and sold in initial coin offerings (ICOs), fall within the definition of a “security” under US security laws.
Trump's steel and aluminum tariff doesn't even appeal to aluminum producers
Donald Trump’s plan for tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum should be a boon to domestic producers, whose output will now be relatively cheaper. The markets have agreed: Share prices of large American aluminum companies rose on last week’s news. How do US aluminum producers, who stand to win big from the tariff, feel about the president’s move? Thanks, but no thanks.
Forbes billionaires list:The top ten billionaires are even richer now
Today (March 6), Forbes published its list of the world’s billionaires in 2018. The 2,208 men and women are from 72 countries and territories, and, together, they’re worth $9.1 trillion. The top 20 alone are worth $1.2 trillion, or roughly Mexico’s yearly economic output. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, tops the list as the first person with over $100 billion in assets, followed by Bill Gates ($90 billion) and Warren Buffett ($84 billion).
What Trump's tariff trade war could mean for you: Higher prices, layoffs, and economic nosedives
For the last three decades, Donald Trump has ranted that America is getting stiffed on trade. But as president, he’s done little to back up his “America First” slogan—until now. On Thursday (Mar. 1), the US president announced tariffs of 25% on imported steel and 10% on imported aluminum. The move is aimed at recouping the billions of dollars “lost” each year to other countries as the US imports more than it exports from countries like China and Mexico.
The American Dream is alive and well—in Singapore, Italy, and the Czech Republic
It’s often said that the 2008 US housing crisis marked the death of the American Dream, in which widespread homeownership stood as a marker of the prosperity and stability associated with the country’s middle class. But it turns out that the American Dream is alive and well elsewhere in the world. In Singapore, 9 out of 10 households own their home. In Bulgaria, 8 out of 10 are homeowners.
In the 1950s, the largest known prime number had 44 digits—it's now more than 23 million
To a small but dedicated group of people, one question dominates their lives—when will we discover a one-billion digit prime? A prime number is only divisible by one or itself (think 3, 5, 7, 11). Jonathan Pace had been searching for the largest prime for more than a decade until, at the end of last year, software on a computer the electrical engineer installed at his church in Tennessee unearthed a record-breaking 23,249,425-digit prime.
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