The Indicator from Planet Money - An urban planner, infinite scroll, and … what is a public good?

Episode Date: June 22, 2026

It’s time for The Indicator Quiz! We test you, dear listener, on your knowledge of topics that we’ve covered on The Indicator. For today's quiz show, we are putting an urban planner from Nevada to the test. Play along with us and see how you do!Are you interested in being a contestant on our next Indicator Quiz? Email us your name and phone number at [e-mail] and put "Indicator Quiz" in the subject line.Fact checking by Sierra Juarez.Your Next Listen — A trap-loving DJ takes on economics Connect with The Indicator — Sign up for The Indicator’s brand new newsletter— Buy the Planet Money book— Find our socials, YouTube and more!— For sponsor-free episodes, subscribe to NPR+ 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 Adrienne Ma, and this is the indicator quiz. Where will we test your knowledge of topics that we've been covering on the show, and you, dear listener, can play along too. We haven't had one of these in a while, and it's the middle of the year, so this one is going to cover a little bit of everything from the past six months.

Today, we have listener Jim Umbach, who works as an urban planner for the city of Fernley in Nevada. He's also an author. Welcome to the show, Jim. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. It's been a while since I've taken an economics quiz, but I think I'm going to do great and make my entire area proud. Okay, well, time to brush up.

Jim, you're going to be playing today for your choice of NPR merch. Yes, we've got shirts and mugs and so many options. And merch, by the way, is available to purchase on shopmpr.org. That's just a little plug before the quiz, and now I think it's time to play. That's all coming up after the break. All right, it is Indicator quiz time with our guest, Jim. Let's start with an easy question before heading into some of our other quiz segments. Adrian here is your helping hand if you need a hint.

That's right. I am, you know, your phone or friend. All right, question number one. The entrepreneur Azaraskin recently testified in court about the addictive nature of social media apps. Which interface feature is he widely credited? with creating. Is it A, the like button, B, the poke feature,

C, video autoplay, or D, infinite scroll? I'm going to have to say it is the infinite scroll. Very confident, and you are correct. Woo, yes. Azaraz can recently talk to Adrian for an episode, and he said that, you know, this is a more efficient interface

rather than hitting the next page button, many times, but he also said he regretted his part in making infinite scroll a thing. So great job, Jim. Off to an amazing start. Now, here is a segment we call Capital Concepts, where we see what concepts you've retained from an indicator episode. Are you ready? I sure am.

Here's the question. The Planet Money Book highlights public goods. This is a service or benefit that everyone can access and that more people using it doesn't take away from others using it. Which of the following is a public good? Is it A, visas for foreign STEM workers in science, technology, engineering, and math? Is it B? AI? C. Maha, Make America Healthy Again Dietary Guidelines for schools? Or is it D? GPS? What's a public good? Well, does all be classified as beneficial to the public, but what does not take away from what is using it, and I would have to say that would be...

I'm leaning toward GPS. Maybe E.J. can help me out a little bit here. Okay. The good has to be non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Non-rivalrous. Yeah, that's just a fancy way of saying that the more people use it doesn't take away from others. Are you still leaning GPS?

I would have to say that is actually. still takes away some processing power, however, minor from people. Somebody takes my answer to the health standards. Oh, well, I'm so sorry. Maybe we steered you wrong. The answer is indeed DGPS. It offers a broad collective benefit that isn't depleted by use and cannot be easily restricted.

I guess the data processing power, notwithstanding, it's still considered a public good. It's that old knowledge test the first instinct. let me say. That feels counterintuitive to me, to be honest. Take it up with the economist, Adrian. That's all me, Jim. It's all right. We have more questions to come. And the next one goes like this. We had a really eye-opening story about the connection between money and health. What financial red flag could actually be an early indicator of dementia even years before a medical diagnosis? Is it A, missed bill payments, B, investing in crypto, C, an intense hoarding of coupons, or D, constantly forgetting passwords?

It had to be missing bill payments. That is correct. Yes. Missing bill payments. Yes. These financial slipups can start happening years before someone even receives an official medical diagnosis for dementia. So it's important to keep an eye on your loved ones. Great job, Jim. We are rolling along to the next question.

We had an episode about a small business that turned to something called a merchant cash advance as a financial lifeline. What specific recent economic pressure drove this trend? Was it A, getting ahead of inflation concerns in our economy? Was it B, the need to cover the cost of import tariffs? C, rising salaries required to compete. for global stem workers, or D, the energy market shock from the U.S. and Israel war with Iran. What caused a small business to turn to this lifeline? It was the import tariffs.

X-lib memory, Jim. You are on a roll. That's correct. Yes. Our colleague on the business desk, Alina Sullyuk, reported on these mostly unregulated loans. And her reporting said that MCA merchant cash advance interest rates had gone as high as 300%, which has been very difficult, as you can imagine, for a lot of these small business owners. So amazing job, Jim. The recall is just superb. Thank you. Now, here's a segment we call numerical nuggets. We test you on numbers featured in episodes. And the hints that you'll get here if you need a hint is you can get two answers wiped off the board.

Does that sound okay? Yes. Wonderful. Here is our first numbers question. In our episode about the Pokemon card craze, we mentioned an index that tracks rare Pokemon cards. It saw a massive valuation jump in just one year. By what percentage have valuations for rare Pokemon cards increased in the last year? Is it A, 170%, is it B, 6.7%, is it C 52 cents, or is it D, 200%? I believe it's 200%.

Ooh, so close. We kind of tricked you a little bit there because 170 and 200% are kind of close, but it was 170%. I knew it was one of those two. I admire the confidence, though. You were like, no hint needed it. I'm just going straight for the basket. Go bigger, go home, they say. Right.

Honestly, rounding up 170, get to the 200. So as far as I'm concerned, you got that one right. I'll take it. All right, here's our next numerical nugget question. Only some employers cover GLP-1s for weight loss for their employees. They're hoping it will reduce long-term medical costs related to obesity. What percentage of employers cover GLP-1s? Is it A, 0%, B, 20%, C, 50%, or D, 100% because GLP-1s are legally required to be covered in some form due to the affordable

care act. Let's go in go with the 20%. You are right again. It was 20%. This is in an episode we did with Julie Wernow of the tradeoffs podcast. And yeah, very well played, Jim. I wasn't keeping track, but I feel like you got

almost all of them. I think you got all but two, which is incredible. Well, thank you. Well, Jim, you have been a superb contestant. It's been so fun to have you. Thank you. I spend a lot of fun. And yeah, we will be sending you some indicator or NPR merch in the very new future.

And we really appreciate you taking the time to be on our show. I appreciate it. I look forward to hearing you every day. Oh, thank you. Thanks, Jim. If you couldn't come to one of our book tour events back in April, now is your chance. We're doing a live virtual version for our NPR Plus supporters. It's on Thursday, June 25th at 3 p.m. Eastern, noon Pacific.

Planet Money's Jeff Guo and the book's main author, Alex. Mayassey will be there along with some special guests. If you've already joined MPR Plus, listen to our most recent bonus episode to find out how to register. If you haven't joined yet, just go to plus.mpr.org. Again, that's plus.mpr.org. This episode was produced by Andrea Carreras with engineering by Travis Hagan. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kate and Cannon is our editor and the Indicator is a production of NPR.