Planet Money - Hear us out: We ban left turns and other big ideas

Episode Date: January 24, 2024

On today's episode, we have three big economic ideas for your consideration – ideas that could potentially improve the economy and make us more efficient. First, what if we ban left turns on roads? Then, what if we gave every new baby ... a trust fund? And lastly, what if we completely got rid of U.S. congressional districts? That's all on today's episode. This show was hosted by Sarah Gonzalez. It was produced by Willa Rubin and Emma Peaslee with help from Sam Yellowhorse Kesler. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is Planet Money's executive producer. Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney.Always free at these links: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, the NPR app or anywhere you get podcasts.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The news can be disorienting, and it can be really hard to remember how we got here. That's why we started the ThruLine podcast. Every week, we take you on a cinematic trip into the past to better understand the present. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This is Planet Money from NPR. This is Planet Money from NPR. So, economists have big ideas, right? Ideas that they think would improve the economy, improve efficiency, improve our lives.

And sometimes their ideas are a little out there, but they are convinced that they would improve the world if only people would hear them out. So today, we hear them out. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. We have three big ideas from economists and an engineer for your consideration. The ideas are we ban left turns on the road. No one can make left turns anymore. We give people basically social security, but not just at the end of their life, at birth, for them to use the minute they become adults.

And we no longer vote for individual candidates. What? On Bullseye, Jenny Slate reveals her favorite noises. I love, like, noises of tension. I love noises of embarrassment.

I love noises of, like, pressure, pressure, pressure. You know, I just, like, I love that. All that and more on the Bullseye podcast from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Here at Shortwave, we look beyond the usual famous scientists we learn about in school. Einstein and Newton and Schrödinger. They're all men. To the rule breakers and boundary pushers expanding our horizons. Women scientists like particle physicist Bipat Chaudhary.

Hear her story and other brilliant women on Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR. The day's top headlines, local stories from your community, your next podcast binge listen. You can have it all in one place, your pocket. Download the NPR app today. Okay, so we have three big ideas for you. The first is from a civil engineer, Vakash Gaya, who almost went into soil engineering until he found traffic engineering. But yeah, no, traffic's better. I agree. Yeah, way better. Yeah. And Vakash has had a few hot traffic takes.

His first one was actually that we should ban one-way streets. takes. His first one was actually that we should ban one-way streets. And now we're on to, you have a new big idea for what would make, I don't know, the world better, the country better. Downtown. Downtown. Okay. My big idea is at intersections, we should get rid of left turns. Ban left turns. Ban left turns. Pretty, pretty hot take there. He wants to ban making left turns in every downtown in America. And now, obviously, there's at least one big benefit to left turns. Sometimes there are things on your left that you want to get to and you get to turn left. It is the most direct path to your destination, the most efficient path.

Seems like we should allow that. But okay, we are going to hear Vakash out. Yeah, so the problem with left turns is you have to cross oncoming traffic. So if I'm at an intersection and I want to make a left turn, there are vehicles coming towards me and I need to turn in front of their path. Which is risky because you just have to wait until there's that little gap in traffic. And if a driver misjudges the gap, it can be very catastrophic. Yeah, about 40% of car crashes in the U.S. occur at intersections, and most of them involve left turns. Yeah, why do we allow these turns? I agree. Can I say I just never take the gamble. I'm like, I'm just going to wait.

You're a safe driver and kudos to you for doing that. Thank you. Thank you. I have, okay, so I, why don't we just say when you're making a left turn, no one else can drive around you. Like oncoming traffic, they get a red light and I get a safe green light. Why isn't that the solution instead of just banning left turns completely? Yeah, and we do that. So you'll see the green arrow sometimes, right? The left arrow.

The like ridiculously short green arrow. So the reason it's ridiculously short is you're stopping all other traffic from moving. So you're serving basically fewer people. And the reason that the green arrows are so short in duration is because you don't want to waste any of that time. Right? Yeah, don't let me be your urban planner. Apparently letting left turners turn safely on a just for them green arrow is very, very inefficient. Because basically none of the other drivers on the road can move when you

have a safe left turn signal. They suffer for your safe turn. It's inefficient. But if you think about it, the regular, less safe turn into oncoming traffic green light is also not very efficient because, I mean, if you're stuck behind me, you're waiting, buddy. I'm not going. And that's it. Like, that is it. Yeah. People just wait for that little gap in traffic, right? Which sometimes doesn't even come. Traffic starts piling up, it's blocking other lanes, and now no one is moving. But like, if you cannot make a left turn where you need to make a left turn because Bakash banned them, how do you get to somewhere on your left?

Yeah, I can make three rights. I can pass the intersection, make three rights, and that essentially accomplishes a left-hand turn. One, two, three rights. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You kind of make a big circle.

So you're driving more. You're driving longer distances, which would take longer, right? You would think that is more of a waste of time. But Vikash was like, I don't know, maybe. Actually, I think it'll be more efficient. So he decided to test it out. He created a sort of hypothetical downtown, an entire traffic network simulator with a bunch of intersections to measure the impact of banning left turns, how much longer everyone's trips would be if there were no more left turns allowed. We said, OK, well, what if we ban left turns at this intersection? OK, what if we did it at this one and all combinations? There were 65,000 combinations in all. And what Vakash found was that even though some people would have to travel longer distances, not everyone would have to do that. Only the people who wanted to make left turns.

So on average, all of the people driving on the road would only drive one extra block. on the road would only drive one extra block. But, and here's the counterintuitive part, the time it takes everyone to complete their trip, so their trip completion rate, would on average still be shorter because there would be less waiting at intersections for all of the Sarahs of the road to make their left turn. So you're driving more. You're driving more, but you're still getting there faster. I'm putting more miles on my car, but I'm getting there faster. Interesting.

So, okay, so then I guess in this case, like driving in circles, it's like actually is more efficient or it can be more efficient. In this case, it is. Yeah. And Vakash is not the only one who has arrived at this no left turns idea. UPS drivers kind of famously avoid left turns when they are on their delivery routes. And the thinking is similar. Making left turns leads to more accidents and wastes time. And Vakash says his big idea wouldn't require downtowns to like build new roads or tear

down buildings to add roundabouts. It would be like paint or new traffic signs that said something like no left turns during these hours. So simple. My goal is to get a city that is interested in doing this and to try to work with them to make this happen. I want people to hear this idea and give it a shot, honestly. All right, cities, find him. Maybe this will save lives and minutes for your residents. Okay, next up, we have economist Derek Hamilton, who got into econ for one very specific reason. I majored in economics in undergrad with a desire not to be poor. There's nothing romantic about being poor. Derek thought an econ degree would be a feeder to like law school or business school where he could really make money.

Right. But then he fell in love with econ. I'm a scholar. That is my identity. And you can actually make a pretty good living being a professor of economics. I learned that as well. Go Derek. Derek is the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy at the New School. So you have a big idea for how to help close the racial wealth gap. And maybe it's not originally your big idea, but you're like, is it originally your idea? Okay, there you are. I'm so sorry. All right, hear them out. Baby bonds. Baby bonds. Great name. Okay, what is a baby bond? A baby bond is technically not a bond. A baby bond is a trust account set up at birth.

Oh, like real wealthy people. Yes. You have a trust. Yes. It recognizes that wealthy people set up a trust so that their children and offsprings will have a wealth-promoting life. So everyone does a trust fund, baby, in your world. Yes. We democratize trust funds. Everyone is a trust fund baby in your world. Yes. We democratize trust funds. Here's how baby bonds would work. A baby is born anywhere in the U.S. And at birth, that baby and every baby gets X amount of dollars.

Let's say $1,000 just for being born. All babies. Wealthy, poor, white, non-white. So everyone has a birthright to something. white, non-white. So everyone has a birthright to something. But over time, based on your family's economic circumstance, you will get more, less, or none added to the account. So if you are born into a family that is wealth poor, as Derek says, you might get an additional $2,000 added to your account every single year until you turn 18. If your family is like medium wealthy, maybe you just get five hundred dollars more every year. If you're Bill

Gates kids, you don't get anything more than the initial thousand you got for being born. You don't get to cash in until you are at least 18 years old and you can only, only use the money to help you build wealth, like assets. Meaning like you can use the money to help you build wealth, like assets. Meaning like you can use the money to buy a house. Right. What is often the difference between a renter and a homeowner? A down payment. A down payment.

There it is. But with baby bonds and compound interest, Derek says that a child born into a wealth-poor family could have like $50,000 or more by their 18th birthday and they could use that money toward, yes, a down payment on a house or to help pay for their college tuition to start a business or they could just keep the money in an interest-bearing account and like let the money pass over into their social security. Those are the four options for how this money could be spent under Derek's vision. The goal of these baby bonds would be to make sure that all poor kids, including white kids, have access to wealth. And Derek says doing this would actually shrink the disparity in wealth between white people and non-white people. It's absolutely true that the wealth of a white high school graduate is higher than that of Black families with a head graduated from college. That's absolutely true, on average.

And Derek says it is inaccurate to assume that Black people can study or work their way out of the racial wealth gap. The gap between Black and white wealth generally does not get smaller as Black people move up in education. Throughout American history, the income gap between Black and white people has narrowed, the education gap continues to close, but not the wealth gap. And Derek says it is not like white people built wealth or assets because they all just happened to make great personal decisions in life. A white asset-based middle class did not simply emerge. There were government policies that generated wealth on a mass scale for white people. Yeah, certain government policies basically gave white people assets, like gave farmers free land, except Black farmers initially, or gave veterans money for

college tuition, but somehow Black veterans often got left out. For Derek, baby bonds would be another one of those kind of government-funded asset-promoting programs. But the idea this time would be to not leave certain groups behind and like level the playing field. And there's a study that suggests baby bonds could actually do that. This other economist named Naomi Zody found that in 2015, white young adults were 1500% wealthier than black young adults. Now, if they all had received baby bonds, the white young adults would still be wealthier, but just 40% wealthier now. And a few places have enacted a version of baby bonds already. Washington, D.C., Connecticut. Connecticut has baby bonds for all of the lowest

income kids. If baby bonds were done on a federal level, it would cost a decent amount of money every year. Baby bonds would cost roughly $100 billion, which is about 2% of federal expenditures, by the way. Yeah, $100 billion sounds like a lot. But Derek says there are other asset-promoting tax programs that cost way more money. He's talking about like tax breaks for homeownership or college tuition. A group called Prosperity Now estimates that those kinds of tax breaks cost over $600 billion a year, and those help people with assets already, mostly wealthy white households they found. And Derek's like, you know, let's redirect some of that money

to fund baby bonds. He does get pushback to his big idea. Some economists don't like these kinds of grants. They say, you know, let's just boost up the existing social system. Others say we need to invest more in things like early childhood education or that we should do reparations. more in things like early childhood education or that we should do reparations? The answer to the question of what about something else instead of baby bonds often is yes, we need all of that. There is no silver... You're like that too. I'm not saying that instead of everything else. But in essence, wealth begets more wealth. So if you ever want to redress wealth, a necessary ingredient is always capital itself. So baby bonds provides that capital itself.

After the break, an economist with a big idea for how we should do elections that he concedes has a probably one in five chance of happening in this country. But he says it is crucial to protect democracy. Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond. They don't just tell you what happened. They tell you why it matters. Join the NPR Politics podcast every afternoon to understand the world through political eyes. NPR's editorial independence and integrity is non-negotiable. It's the reason why so many listen to 1A's Friday News Roundup. You'll get analysis and insight from the world's

best correspondents. Listen to 1A's Friday News Roundup. You'll get analysis and insight from the world's best correspondents. Listen to 1A's Friday News Roundup, only from NPR. Numbers that explain the economy. We love them at the Indicator from Planet Money. And on Fridays, we discuss indicators in the news, like job numbers, spending, the cost of food, sometimes all three. So my indicator is about why you might need to bring home more bacon to afford your eggs. I'll be here all week.

Wrap up your week and listen to the Indicator podcast from NPR. If you need a good laugh, tune into the next All Songs Considered from NPR Music as we play a mix of the funniest songs of all time with a little help from Weird Al Yankovic. I had no idea Laughter and Joy was good for you.

That's a revelation. Listen to all songs considered every Tuesday wherever you get podcasts. Hey, it's Sarah Gonzalez and Dave Blanchard and you gotta check out our recent bonus episode

where we pull back the Planet Money curtain a little bit and talk about those of us who make this show and some of our firsts like what our first jobs were yeah like you'll find out which of us hauled compost for work then what it was like to work on our very first planet money episode you can hear that if and only if you're a planet money plus supporter if that's you thank you and if it's not it's easy to sign up.

You get bonus content, sponsor-free listening, and support NPR in the process. Go to plus.npr.org. Okay, so nice to meet you. Thank you for doing this. Nice meeting you, Sarah. I appreciate it. And introduce yourself to us.

What's your name? What do you do? Yeah, my name is Daron Acemoglu. I'm an institute professor at MIT. I'm an economist. One of your specialties is like political economy? Yeah, political economy institutions. Political economy looks at, among other things, how different political regimes like democracies or dictatorships affect economic outcomes like growth, education, health care. And Dharan's research has found that democratic countries grow much faster, like their GDP per capita grows. But also… They reduce infant mortality, child mortality, improve health outcomes. So there are a bunch of things that democracies do better.

So if you have democratic systems malfunction or collapse, that's really not good for human rights reasons, civil rights reasons, or other reasons, but it's also bad for economic reasons. And the U.S. right now has come to a point where our democracy is actually in danger. This got real bleak, real fast. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So there are a lot of aspects of U.S. democracy that don't look so healthy right now. I mean, you know, we've had a coup attempt and also we have big gridlocks in the House. Like it took forever to elect a speaker. Congress can't seem to agree on a long term budget to fund the government. And Daron says that all of this is bad for the economy. Like,

the markets do not like this kind of gridlock. And for Daron, you can attribute some of the bad things caused by gridlock to polarization, more partisanship, more extreme candidates. And he says the problem behind all of this is the way the U.S. does elections. So, you know, in the U.S., it is a winner-takes-all majoritarian system. If you're running for Congress in some district, you just need the most votes in that district to win. Republicans get 51 percent, Democrats get 49, and Republicans win the seat. When you have this kind of system, that means that those 49% of people who voted for other parties don't really get their views represented in Congress. They kind of get zero out of the deal. Daron says this is

the problem with the U.S. election system. Not everyone is represented. Then once I get 51%, I don't care about what the rest think. And like, okay, it's kind of always been this way, right? This is how the U.S. does congressional elections. But Daron says that these days candidates like really, really don't have to care what people who didn't vote for them think because congressional districts have become less and less competitive. More and more seats are super safe. It would never go to a Democrat kind of seats, which means that the Republican running in that district can be more extreme and vice versa. Daron's big idea to help solve this is to get rid of congressional districts completely. No more districts. So right now, you have multiple districts in Massachusetts and everyone runs for that district. You would not do that in this case. You would not have districts.

So you will not have separate districts within Massachusetts, each one going to the majority. Instead, you would have a Massachusetts-wide tally of the votes. It would be a statewide election. And if you have to appeal to the entire state now, he says, maybe candidates wouldn't be so extreme. Plus, in his world, you wouldn't even vote for the candidate at all anymore. No, there are no votes for Sarah or Daron. You would just vote for the party. Like, what is he even talking about?

But OK, this is Daron's moment. for the party. Like, what is he even talking about? But okay, this is Daron's moment. The way to accomplish this, he says, would be to completely get rid of the majoritarian winner takes all election system and replace it with a different election system that many democratic nations use, proportional representation. So, for example, it is election day. It's a congressional race. There would have been some kind of vetting process by party leaders or whoever to come up with a list. Each party would have a list of candidates that is basically like, here are all the people we would like to have in Congress. Like, you know, we got Sarah on our list. We got Daron on our list.

We've got Vakash and Derek. Oh, so it's like, I see the list. Daron's on there. Sarah's on there. I like these people. There's a lot of people on this list I like. So my vote is going to go to whatever, Green Party, whatever the party it is that we belong to, because I like the names I saw on the list. Or at least I don't find them very objectionable, because in many cases, the list may also have names that are objectionable that actually puts the voters off. And then you go, no, no, no, I'm going work and families party because they have a better list of names on their list. So everyone votes for whatever party they think has the best list of

candidates and whatever percentage of votes each party gets, that determines how many candidates from their lists get a seat in Congress. So let's say there are 100 House seats for a state to fill. Everyone votes and, I don't know, Green Party gets 60% of the vote. That means they get 60 seats in Congress. Republicans get 30% of the vote. That means they get 30 seats in Congress. Working families gets 10% of the vote. That means they get 30 seats in Congress.

Working families gets 10% of the vote. So they, too, get 10 seats. 10 people from their list have made it. So everyone gets a little representation. They're going to get 10 candidates. Then you go down all the way to the 10th person on that list. Oh, and then sorry if you're number 15. If you're number 11, you just missed it.

Yes, exactly. That's why the list would be very important. The people at the top of the list are more likely to get a seat. So there is an incentive to put your most extreme candidates that might put people off toward the bottom of the list and maybe the more moderate candidates toward the top. It does not sound simple. Well, you know, once we get into the groove of it, it will be simple. You're already used to what we have. That's why. Darn does not think that there's a very good chance of the U.S. changing its election system. But he says it is the most fair, most democratic version of elections. It would not be majority takes all and sorry to everyone else.

not be majority takes all and sorry to everyone else. So those are the three big ideas. We get rid of congressional districts, we give all babies a trust fund, and we ban left turns. And we wanted to see how these ideas landed, like even just among our three experts. So we asked them to each vote on one of these ideas that they thought would like improve the world the most. And every idea got one vote. So I guess they all convinced at least one person. What do you think of their ideas? Do you have a better big idea? Let us know. We're everywhere at Planet Money. Coming up on the next Planet Money. Twas a dark and stormy night. We follow Captain Skip Strong as he attempts a daring rescue at sea. Once he has to shut that engine down because of the fireballs in the engine room, he's getting dragged two and a half to three knots towards the coast of Florida. And it's like, holy, this guy's having a bad night. The events of that night raised kind of an

impossible question. How do you put a price on doing the right thing? Today's show was produced by Willa Rubin and Emma Peasley with help from Sam Yellow Horse Kessler. It was edited by Dave Blanchard and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. This is NPR. Thanks for listening.

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