The Indicator from Planet Money - A Beautiful Bill, Mamdani's Market, and Stock Subscriptions

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

It’s time for another Indicator Quiz! For today’s quiz, we’re testing the Indicator knowledge of a brilliant mathematician. Will we stump his theoretician brain? Tune in and find out! Interested in being a contestant on our next Indicator Quiz? Email us your name and phone number to [e-mail] and put "Indicator Quiz" in the subject.Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.Your Next Listen — An urban planner, infinite scroll, and … what is a public good?Connect with The Indicator — Sign up for The Indicator’s weekly newsletter! — Buy the Planet Money book — Find our socials, YouTube and more! — For sponsor-free episodes, subscribe to NPR+ Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

NPR. This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Ricky Mulvey, and this is the indicator quiz. We test your knowledge of topics that we've been covering on the show, and you, dear listener, can play along too. Yeah, we're trying to keep your mind sharp in these dog days of summer. And today we have listener, Daniel Kane, who works as a professor and just got back from a little vacation. Welcome to the show, Daniel.

Thank you. You're relaxed. You're tan. you're ready to do this quiz. Yeah. All right. Well, today you're going to be playing for your choice of NPR merch. I actually just went on the website and there's this new line of 90s-themed merch that's really exciting.

And now we have our own indicator t-shirts and like a new line of merch that's for our show and Planet Money. Very exciting. By the way, all available to purchase on shop.mpr.org. And now I think it's time to play. Coming up after the break. It is indicator quiz time with our guest, Daniel. And Ricky here is going to be your helping hand if you need a hint. Okay.

That's right. You know, let's say Zoom a friend. Zoom a friend. You can Zoom a friend. Yeah. Or like your teaching assistants use a college metaphor. Although I guess the TA doesn't help the professor. The TA helps us.

If you need to ask your advice from your TA, something's probably gone wrong. All right. Let's start with an easy question before heading. into some of our other quiz segments. There's a proposal to put President Trump on a new $250 bill. While it's controversial, the show suggests one specific group might find these high-value notes very useful. Who is it?

A, travelers looking for more convenient sums of currency to swap on vacation. B, criminals because high-denomination bills make it much easier to transport and conceal large sums of money. for illicit purposes. C. The U.S. Treasury, because larger notes are printed sparsely compared to other bills, thus keeping inflation worries at bay. Or is it D, nature preservationist? Because larger notes means fewer $100 bills get printed and you save more trees.

I remember this. This would be B. Ding, dang. Excellent work. Now, this new segment is something we're calling test your terms. It is a series of questions on economic. terms, people, or organizations that we've covered in our episodes. Are you, Daniel, ready to test your terms? Sure. If you're a grad, you've been navigating a new world of loan repayments. And if you're a future college student, you're going to face stricter borrowing caps.

What is the specific name of the legislation introduced by the Trump administration that changed borrowing and loan repayments? Is it A, the fiscal freedom and capstone accord? B, the student debt erasure initiative, C, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, or D, the Higher Education Enablement Amendment. Well, the third one of those is the only bill that I actually recognize, and probably is the right one. Your instincts are correct. It is, in fact, the one big beautiful bill act.

seemingly every legislative change falls under that act. Yeah, well, I guess you need to get things through reconciliation and you can only pass so many bills that way. Exactly. All right. Number two, in test your terms, President Trump had recently discussed terminating a trade deal he previously called the fairest ever achieved. It's the USMCA. What does USMCA stand for? Is it A, the U.S. Mexico. Canada Agreement, B, United States Mutual Commerce Act, C, universal standards for manufacturing

and consumer affairs, or D, United Supply Management Customs Alliances. All right, this one's A. You knew that one right off the dome. It is the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. And President Trump recently chose to decline renewing this agreement, instead opting for an annual review of the agreement for 10 more years. Daniel, you dominated. Test your terms. Now we're moving on to a segment we call numerical nuggets. We test you a numbers featured in episodes. And if you need a hint, you can get two answers wiped off the board. Does that sound okay?

Sounds great. All right, we're diving in. On a recent indicators of the week episode, we discussed New York City Mayor Zoran Mondani's city-owned markets. He's offering ad discount on groceries at his proposed grocery stores. How much? is that discount? Is it A, fruits and veggies are 100% free? Is it B, a 30% discount on some basic groceries? Is it C, 50% flat discount on everything? Or is it D, a 5% discount on processed foods? Well, common sense suggests that A and D are wrong here. I think the answer is B, but if you can take out half the possibilities, I'm not certain enough I want to risk it without that. Here's your hint. Knock off choices C and D.

Okay, yeah, I'm pretty confident that the answer is B and not A. Yes, you are correct. It's a 30% discount on some basic groceries that the mayor hopes will help battle rising food prices. All right, you are just on such a winning streak, Daniel. How do you feel? Pretty good. Excellent. Okay, rolling on. President Trump's social media company, Truth Social, wants to sell investors early access to its posts. When Trump announces tariffs or news strikes on Iran, those who subscribe, get that info milliseconds before it hits the public and then the markets. So how much is Truth Social charging for this? Is it A, up to $100,000 a month? Is it B, a million dollars per post? Is it C, no money just a hand? Handshake deal with the Trump administration for a business deal down the line, or is it D,

Truth Social announced this but hasn't announced a price yet. This is A. Okay. Yeah, you remember. This is pretty recent. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you plunk down that $100K? Not yet. I'm still on the free trial. They got you with that freemium model.

The BBC says that more than 10 firms have paid for this. I'm like, is that a lot or a little? I don't know. It's not that many companies. But I wonder who they are. Okay. Now, here's a segment we call Capital Concepts, where we see what concepts you have retained from Indicator episodes.

Here we go. For decades, tech-like semiconductors got cheaper as it got faster. AI may be ending that run, but what's the name of the principles stating that the number of transistors on a chip will double roughly every year, making computers exponentially faster, smaller, and cheaper over time. I think you're a computer science professor, aren't you? Yes.

So you might don't even need multiple choice for this one. This is Moore's Law. This is Moore's Law. You didn't even get to hear our clever fake answers. All right. Here is your next question. From new sites like NPR to your favorite blog, digital publishers are watching their web traffic nose dive

because AI models are summarizing their content right on the search page. What is the official term for a search that ends without the user ever clicking on a link? Is it A, the Phantom Zone? Is it B, LLM cannibalization? Is it C, link lost dilemma? Or D, zero-click web? This is D. Yes, that is correct.

Zero-click web. I don't know if this is the way you use the internet. Now, I'm still clicking through. I believe in clicking through. Well, Daniel, you did amazing. You got every single question right, and you just blazed through this quiz like you wrote it. So very impressive. And thanks for being such a faithful listener to The Indicator.

Yeah, thanks a lot. This was fun. Daniel, you did 100%. No misses. And so that means you get merchandise. T-shirts, tote bags. What do you think you're going to pick out? I think I'm going for a T-shirt probably.

I asked my three-year-old daughter if she wanted the alligator plushie. but his father was scary. Oh, no. Oh, no. Now we've terrorized your child. We apologize. If you want to be a contestant on our next quiz show, email Indicator at NPR.org. This episode was produced by Angel Carreras with engineering by Sina LaFredo.

It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kaking Cannon is our editor, and The Indicator is a production of NPR.