Marketplace - Uncertainty, bumpy, resilient-ish

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

We called up some economists to get their take on one word to describe this year’s economy. Mostly, experts said things fell somewhere in the middle of excellent and disastrous, but some had cheerier outlooks than others. Also in this episode, we ring in the new year with a 2025 housing market lookahead and a breakdown of the first congestion pricing program in the U.S., coming to New York City Jan. 5.

Hey, everybody, it's Kai. Time is running out to give a tax deductible donation to Marketplace before the end of the year. Donate today to support the public service journalism that you rely on. Every donation and every dollar helps us plan for the new year ahead. Go to Marketplace.org slash donate and invest in news you value and trust. That's Marketplace.org slash donate or you can follow the link in the show notes. In New Year's Eve fashion, we'll look back at the economy of 2024, we'll look forward to the economy of tomorrow, and we'll maybe even make a resolution along the way.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. In New York, I'm Kristin Schwab in for Kyrie's Doll. It's Tuesday, December 31st. Thanks for joining us on this New Year's Eve. We're going to begin today's show by picking up a theme we started on Monday, housing. Elizabeth Troval told us yesterday about how there's recently been a little more movement in the market, but new data in today kind of sours that sentiment. The latest S&P CoreLogic Case Schiller Index shows nationally prices went up 3.6% in October from a year ago. That's a slowdown in annual growth from September. But big picture, the price of a home is expensive, like all time high expensive. Add mortgage rates to the equation with interest on a 30-year fixed above where it was this time a year ago, and it's hard to picture what's going to happen in 2025. Marketplaces

Stephanie Hughes tried to look into her crystal ball. The housing market right now is like a roller coaster, but not one of those crazy fun roller coasters. More like one for really little kids, where not a lot happens. A little bit up, a little bit down, but overall just kind of moving along at like a gentle speed. Oren Klatschen is an economist with Nationwide. He says mortgage rates are at the controls of this ride. And if they come down into the 5% range next year instead of the current sixes, that could really get things moving. But he points out the Fed has signaled it's going to cut rates at a

slower pace in 2025, which might keep that from happening. We're expecting interest rates to stay relatively high because the economy is going to stay relatively solid. We're expecting a bit slower growth next year, but honestly, it's not that much of a change from what we've seen this year. Lauren Henry One big question, says Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com, is what inflation does and how policies from the new Trump administration affect it. He says mass deportations of immigrants, for example, could affect a big chunk of the construction labor force, which would make new homes more expensive. Joel Berner You know, that would force builders to replace

a lot of labor, probably at a higher cost and after a training learning curve. So we see this as not only inflationary in the economy as a whole but inflationary to the inputs of the housing market. Burner is also watching whether new tariffs come into place. Especially on things like lumber and construction inputs and those costs will be passed along to home buyers. Still, some people who've been riding this housing roller coaster for decades are hopeful,

like Cheryl Merritt. She's a real estate broker in Raleigh, North Carolina, and says even with high interest rates, she believes some people will move this year because they decided it's time. People are turning 65 every day and sometimes they're still in the same house they had when they had the kids. They want to downsize but they just haven't. Merritt says she's going to try to help those people get in the homes they want to be in. She says the housing market has been a hard ride to be on for the past couple years and

she hopes that next year they go someplace else. I'm Stephanie Hughes for Marketplace. Wall Street today, it was a sad close to a stellar year. Will of the details when we do the numbers. Singapore has it, London has it, Stockholm has it, and soon so will New York City. Congestion pricing is set to make its debut in the U.S. Starting Sunday, New York City will begin charging people to drive into Midtown and Lower Manhattan during peak hours. The plan has been hotly contested for years now, and there's still a chance that

a lawsuit or the federal government could put a stop to it. But unless something intervenes, congestion pricing is coming here and maybe even someday to a city near you. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more. S.K. Driving in Manhattan is kind of a nightmare pretty much all the time. S.K. There's honking. There are nonstop traffic jams all day. Sarah Kaufman at the Rudin Center for Transportation at NYU says deterring at least some people from driving into the city to improve traffic flow

and air quality is one of the main goals of congestion pricing. The second is that through the toll that will be incurred by drivers, it will help fund mass transit improvements. Most people who live in New York use the subway, especially to get in and out of Midtown and Lower Manhattan. 85% of all daily commuters travel into the Manhattan Central Business District by subway bus or commuter rail. Eric

Goldstein at the Natural Resources Defense Council says they will benefit from congestion pricing because the money will be used to fund much-needed repairs and improvements to the subway. A modern signal system for our subways, elevators to make subway stations more accessible, new subway cars and electric buses. There's lots of opposition to congestion pricing, including from the Trucking Association of New York. Zach Miller is with the group and says truck drivers will have no option but to pay the

toll. We have to go into the zone at the time that our customers demand it. And he says it's going to be hard for truckers to absorb that added cost of going in and out of the city multiple times a day. Most trucking companies are small businesses. They operate on pretty slim margins. Unfortunately, so are their customers. But businesses concerned about the cost

of congestion pricing are only thinking about half of the equation, says Tom Wright at the Nonprofit Regional Plan Association. They're discounting completely the benefit from less traffic, the ability to make more deliveries in the same period of time. It'll likely take a while and some tweaks to see how it shakes out, he says,

and other cities around the country will be watching. I've fielded calls from counterparts and public officials in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston. All asking, how did you do this? I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. When you're a small business owner, there is always something on your to-do list. And if you're in the business of selling a product, that list likely includes dealing with copycats,

counterfeits, fakes. Whatever you want to call it, it's become a bigger problem with the rise of online shopping and third-party retailers. And it's been a huge issue for Deborah Hochlog, owner of a company called Plant Traps, which makes hanging plant pots for railways and balconies. The last time we spoke this past summer, she was in the middle of a big battle with sellers who were ripping off her product. We called Deborah back up to get an update on how things are going. Deborah, thanks for connecting again.

Deborah Cullinan Thank you for having me. Gigi Sanchez So how has the company been doing and how have the holidays been? Deborah Cullinan We're doing great. Fourth quarter was wonderful. One of the things that really helped is a couple of weeks ago, we went viral on Instagram to 38 million. I concentrate on the social media a lot and I make a lot of content. So that is always really helpful.

Why don't you give us an update on your fight against the fakes? Where are you with that? Okay. So I looked up some information and we've come a long way since the last time we spoke in the summer and we've managed to take back control of the brand. We've sued hundreds of sellers and gotten judgments and cash settlements and it shows in the numbers in April we took down over 200 counterfeit listings on the major marketplaces and in November, we only had to take down two.

Oh, wow. We were also, yeah. And we've been successful in getting national distribution in gardening supply stores for the spring. What does it feel like to gain some ground here? So I definitely feel more empowered and it's satisfying to get judgments against the sellers who just kept relisting dozens of times. Like you would knock them down.

We were playing whack-a-mole for a long time. So that feels really good But I also feel really lucky because I've talked to a lot of brands that don't survive this Wow, I Mean, how bad is the problem for you still you said you still are fighting a couple of these Now and then is it just kind of an unfortunate part of doing business It definitely is an unfortunate part of doing business? It definitely is an unfortunate part of doing business. We are now experts, so when we find listings, we get them taken down pretty quickly. But it is just a matter of keeping track of them and pulling them down now.

When we talked during the summer, we were being drowned out by hundreds of listings. And that was really difficult. And how much time are you spending sort of searching for these knockoffs, kind of seeing what they're like? I mean, how much of your business is devoted to this piece of it? So, I definitely spend a few hours every week looking at the marketplaces that I can see, but I also have to try to protect some outside of the US markets. Like, we have a new licensure in in India. So we have been going through those marketplaces and finding a few as well. And you said you might be getting into stores soon. Is that what you said?

Yes, we have licensed railscapes to Bloom Living, which is a large gardening company here in the US. And they have gotten us into hundreds of gardening centers. I think a Lowe's big box store will have railscapes in the spring and some others as well. Nicole Soule I mean, I know so much of your business is online and that's where a lot of business is these days. But I imagine it's pretty amazing to think about walking into a store and seeing your product on the shelves. It is, I'm pretty excited about it.

I can't wait. And I think that brick and mortars are so much safer because they don't want to carry stock that they're going to get cease and desist letters on. So it's a much safer place. For sure. Deborah Hochlog, owner of Plant Traps. She's in Pittsburgh. Deborah, thanks for talking. Thanks.

Coming up... The week between Christmas and New Year's always feels like the Wild West. At least we turned that page tonight, but first let's do the numbers. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 29 points, one tenth percent, to finish at 42,544. The Nasdaq subtracted 175 points, 9 tenths percent, to close at 19,310. And the S&P 500 lost 25 points, 4 tenths percent, to end at 5881. For the year, the Dow pocketed 12 and 8 tenths percent, the Nasdaq increased 30 and 8 tenths percent, and the S&P picked up 24 percent. Tech shares ended the year on a bummer. Tesla slowed down 3.25%, CrowdStrike Holdings subtracted 2%, so did Palantir Technologies. Bonds fell, the yield on the 10-year T-note rose to 4.57%. You're listening to Marketplace.

This is Marketplace, I'm Kristin Schwab. When I look back at the year we just lived through, it's a little difficult to put the economy into words. In fact, I feel like that's been a bit of a theme since the world became weird a handful of years ago. Of course, we've come a long way since then, since the pandemic and supply chain snarls and what we can only hope and assume was peak inflation. But what have been the defining moments of today's economy? We called up five economists and asked them to each pick one word to describe what they saw in 2024. Here's what they had to say. The word I chose to describe the economy for this past year is uncertainty.

Underappreciated. Resilient-ish. Moderating. Bumpy. Some of those words are a little contradictory or a little murky. So let's get into the nitty-gritty of each choice to explain the what and the why of this year's economy. Starting things off. I'm Professor Sasha Ndarte. I'm an assistant professor of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. There's been a lot of uncertainty, mainly related to economic policy, in this past year. One big source of this has been the election. There was the anticipation of who would take office and now the anticipation

of change come inauguration day. Another big source of uncertainty has been the Fed and monetary policy. The will they or won't they cuts and pauses of interest rates. Our second word for the year is... Underappreciated. That's Menze Chin at the University of Wisconsin. By all metrics that macroeconomists typically look at, the economy's done quite well. And so it's strange to some degree, I think it's puzzling in fact, that so many people seem to think that the economy has been doing so poorly.

We've talked a lot this year about the differences between data about the economy and people's feelings about the economy, which in a lot of ways brings us to our next take. My name is Ethan Strube. I'm an assistant professor of economics at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. His word is resilient-ish. All in all, people have been predicting recessions and those recessions just haven't happened. And so that's the resilient part. GALEN HOOKSY Okay. But what about the ish part?

SETH STOCK The ish part is, I guess, I don't know what's going to happen in the near term. GALEN HOOKSY Uncertainty. To echo what we talked about earlier, tied to tariffs, immigration, and other policy changes that will come with a new administration. Here's another take. My name is Sophia Baig and I'm an economist at Morning Consult. And her word? I was kind of debating between moderating and cooling, but I felt that moderating was a little bit better because it implies we're coming from a hotter place and the economy was very hot in 2022 and 2023.

GINNY Hot means economic growth, lots of spending, which led to lots of inflation, which led to the Fed raising interest rates, which means this year. KALYN We're just moderating from where we were before. It's not necessarily cool or bad yet. GINNY Not cool, not bad, but... The word I chose for the economy for this year was bumpy. That's Julie Smith at Lafayette College.

I chose it because I really feel like that is the economic picture that we've had. There hasn't been this sort of smooth, soft landing that we might expect. And we've just sort of had a bumpy ride moving back to where the Fed wants the economy to go. As for next year, my hope is we'll hear words like A lot of people make money a part of their New Year's resolutions. Resolutions about budgeting, saving, expense tracking. Here's a different kind of money goal, though it's not an easy one. What if your resolution this year is to simply talk about money more often and more openly, especially if you're in a relationship? A 2023 study found finances are behind 40% of couples' arguments, and research shows those disagreements tend to come up over and over and over again.

Money issues are tough to resolve because they're tied to habits and beliefs. But that's not to say you can't come to some kind of compromise or at least an understanding of how your partner thinks about spending. Which brings us to this story from our podcast, This is Uncomfortable. Host Rima Kraiss talked to a couple about how they navigated an early financial disagreement. Last year, Jaye Benedict and Ben Williams matched on a dating app and clicked right away. On paper, they're pretty different. So I'm Afro-Latina. I'm white.

I'm Buddhist. From a Jewish family. I grew up in New York City and very much a city girl. I grew up in New York City and very much a city girl. I grew up in the suburbs of Ohio. And they soon discovered they have very different approaches to money. Ben tries to spend within his means, but he doesn't stress about it. Jay, on the other hand, is frugal. She tracks every penny that comes in and out of her bank account. Early on, as you can imagine, it led to some issues. I've heard about the seltzer incident. Can you all tell me about that? What happened?

Oh my, Jay, you want me to take this one? Yeah. It was Friday night and I was cooking us dinner. Bought a little wine, steaks, baked potatoes, you know, veggies, some dessert. Whenever they'd go out to eat, they'd split the bill. But since Ben was cooking at home, this was his treat. As Jay was heading over to Ben's place, she stopped at the store and asked if he needed anything. Ben said, Sure, can you grab me some seltzer? She bought me this pack of seltzer for $5. And she had Venmoed me. I don't drink seltzer. So like if I was also going to drink it, then I would have charged him for half of it. Wait, wait, wait, wait. You would have charged him for 250?

Yes. No. Reema, Reema. I don't think I real. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Ben was pretty annoyed when he got that Venmo request. It didn't land right because I had just spent like a good amount of money on this nice meal and not charged her a cent and then she had asked me if I wanted anything and then it was followed up with a request.

This kind of thing happened a few times where Ben felt nickel and dimed. In the past, it would have been enough for Ben to run, but he really loves Jay. So instead of avoiding, they talked about it and his views softened the more he learned about Jay's upbringing. There were like nights where like we didn't quite know what we were going to eat. And there were some holidays where like, if I didn't buy presents, like no one was getting presents. She told Ben about her Sweet 16, the first time she got a large sum of money. I was like, okay, so what am I going to do with this?

And then eventually like I got, I opened up a Chase account. And so being very careful with like how I spend my money is very built into my like DNA. They both started opening up about their financial backgrounds. My dad has been able to build a law practice that has given me a safety net. And that's something that like I'm really grateful for. But I think part of the privilege of money is

also not having to think about it too much. I'm coming from a place of like coming up to this middle place. And then it seems like you're coming to the middle from a more upper place, if that makes sense. And so even though like at this point, like we make generally the same amount of money, like we generally live a similar lifestyle. I think that like our starting places are showing up in where we are right now. Even so, about six months into the relationship, Ben started to wonder if Jay would ever be willing to treat him to something without it being a gift or a special occasion. Then

one night, he was coming back from a trip. I hadn't had a chance to go grocery shopping, and I didn't have any food at my house, and I asked her to pick me up a sandwich, and she got me a potbelly sandwich and did not send a Venmo request. Aw. Was that difficult to resist? I'm just...

No, it was totally fine. Jay says there was a moment when she thought about Venmo-ing him, but then she looked at the bigger picture. She loves Ben, and she wanted to make sure he has something to eat. What's something you learned from the other person about money and how to spend it? I think from Jay, I ask myself the question more like, do I need this and like not do I want this or can I afford this?

These days, Ben spends a little less on Uber Eats, does a little more meal prep at home, and he's saving more for retirement. I think something that I've learned from Ben is to not just think about like me and my own little financial bubble and like how like I like to handle money, but also thinking about other people's bubbles and just being more mindful and considerate of like how they handle money. Having those honest conversations have helped them meet in the middle and they're about to have a lot more of them.

They just got engaged and are getting married next year. I'm Rima Grace for Marketplace. If you want to hear more stories about life and how money messes with it, check out our Marketplace podcast, This Is Uncomfortable. You can find it online at marketplace.org or on your favorite podcast platform. We're nearing the end of the holiday shopping season, and it was a banner year. According

to data out from Mastercard, between November 1st and December 24th, retail sales rose nearly 4% overall and more than 6.5% online. That's the macro picture, but the micro picture sometimes tells a different story. Here's a dispatch from Annie Lang Hartman, one of our retail regulars and owner of the stationery and gift store Wild Letty in Leelanau County, Michigan. Through the holidays, Wild Letty did pretty well. Unfortunately, around the Black Friday and the couple weeks following, we had some significant snowfall that made driving a little hard in our area. So we actually had a dip in in-store sales, but we definitely had an

uptick of online sales and a lot of that was actually for in-store pickup when the roads cleared up, which was really nice. So we ended up shaking out to being on par with what we did last year. You know, the week between Christmas and New Year's always we ended up shaking out to being on par with what we did last year. You know, the week between Christmas and New Year's always feels like the Wild West. My main focus for myself is to focus on online sales because for our physical location, our foot traffic goes down drastically. This slower time in store is definitely my time

to get all of the creative work done for 2025. So that's what I'm focusing on in the next couple months. That's Annie Lang Hartman, owner of Wild Bloody in Leelanaw County, Michigan. This final note on the way out today, I promise this is the last time we're going to mention inflation, at least in 2024, because it will still very much be a part of the discussion in 2025. But I'm

at least here to end the year with some positive news. Saw this on CNN, there are some things that actually got cheaper this year. Gas is down more than 7.5% because of weaker global demand and because the US is producing more of it. Consumer technology is down 6.7% because that's how things go in that industry. And used cars are down 4.7% because that's how things go in that industry. And used cars are down 4.6% because chip shortages for new cars that drove people to old ones have been sorted out. Remember, inflation in 2024 was driven less by goods and more by services. Our digital and on-demand team includes Carrie Barber, Jordan Mangy, Dylan Myatinen, Janet

Nguyen, Olga Oxman, Ellen Rolfus, Virginia K. Smith, and Tony Wagner. Francesca Levy is the executive director of Digital and On Demand. I'm Kristin Schwab. We'll see you tomorrow. This is APM.