Supercore inflation, Bumble valuation and Pooh's repatriation
00:00 NPR. Whalen, is that an animatronic bird? Oh, yes, this is Molly, my one-of-a-kind singing and dancing bird automaton. She plays an important role in our weekly roundup of the most interesting economic headlines, also known as indicators of the week. This week, we're going to tell you about inflation. Bumble's latest pivot. And another plaything that is also an important.
00:35 bit of a custody battle. Unlike Kelly Clarkson in a certain Brooklyn toy shop, we will be back after the break. It's indicators of the week. Adrian, how about you go first? Okay. My indicator is 4.6%. 4.6 is the annualized rate of so-called super core inflation over the past three months. Sounds like something Elon Musk came up with. Well, this term is actually based on data from the latest consumer price index report. and when we often talk about the CPI, we often talk about the headline inflation number. That is, how much goods and services have changed in price over the past year.
01:20 In September, by the way, that number came in at 3.7%, which is the second month in a row that it's ticked up. But this number is really just a kind of bird's eye view of inflation. And if you want to understand the underlying forces, you can zoom in even more and you could look at just goods. or you could look at just energy or you could look at what is called super core inflation, which just looks at certain kinds of services. Yeah, like lawyers,
01:48 healthcare, manicurist, what am I saying? Landscapers. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. This would make a perfect family feud question. Five things that people say belong in super core services inflation. Nice. And then you know some confused person
02:03 is going to buzz in and be like, refrigerators. And it's like, no, we're talking about service. I respect points for creativity. The thing about the price of these kinds of services is that they can change relatively quickly when you compare them to things like the cost of housing. So by focusing on the price of services, economists can see how much people's wages are driving inflation. And, you know, when you think about it, it's like employers raising employees wages, we tend to say that's a good thing, right? People are getting a raise.
02:33 Unless that leads to an inflationary spiral. We don't want that. It's a good thing. It's a good thing. Full stop. Raise the money. Everyone here gets a raise. Well, this is the rub, right?
02:44 Because employers may decide, okay, I'll give everybody a raise, but then I'll just pass that cost onto the customer in the form of higher prices. And if those wages don't increase at the same level, well, that's not good for employees, right? And this is kind of what we're seeing right now. Super core services inflation up by a rate of 4.6%. And wages over the past year have only gone up 3%. Okay, so wages not keeping up with super core inflation. Thank you, Adrienne. Now, Ricky, what do you have?
03:14 Okay, so remember a couple of months ago on indicators of the week, we talked about how bad things were at Bumble, the dating app company. Yes, I remember because they were like, new plan. It used to be that women always had to message first, and that was kind of the app's whole thing. And then they were like, never mind. Exactly. Revenue had been declining. A lot of daters were in just like app fatigue. Well, if you listened to that episode and thought, wow, this show has absolutely no idea what it's talking about, I'm going to go by Bumblestock. Then you would have doubled your money in just a couple of months. We are not a financial advice podcast. Yeah. I feel like I need to make that disclaimer.
03:55 So my indicator is 119%. That is the return on Bumblestock since we talked about how bad things were for dating app companies. Yeah, the business didn't suddenly get better. this is from a buyout bid. A group called Ithaca Holdings is going to take Bumble private. And it's an investment group run by some former big dogs at META and Instacart. Ithaca is paying more than double the stock price was to take the company off a listed exchange. That's the huge bump.
04:23 Current CEO and founder Whitney Wolf Hurd said that she was excited to have partners who believe in Bumble's women first mission. Though I should note it is two dudes who are taking the CEO spot from a woman. Did they message her first or did she message them first looking for a bio? That is the question we need to find out. One of the new co-CEOOOOCEO is betting that his AI advances more and more. The value of human relationships will grow. The new owners said this investment is a bet on the future of humanity. A bet that humans will want to pay to meet other humans?
04:59 Yeah, so Gupta was not super clear in his post about what the plan is for Bumble moving forward, writing, together, we intend to build the best company in the world for helping people find each other. But he doesn't need to be super clear. This is why businesses often go private. Management doesn't have to report to shareholders every quarter and talk about what's going on. So we might never know. Want-Wa-Wong. That's what I've got. Waylon Wong. What do you have?
05:24 All right. My indicator is 100 years. That is the anniversary being celebrated this week by the classic children's book, Winnie the Pooh. Have you guys read it? It may have been read to me, but not. not in my memory. I don't remember, like, reading it so much as just, like, knowing it. Does that make any sense? Yeah, I mean, it's in the culture, right?
05:45 It's just like there in your childhood. Exactly. Well, it might not surprise you to learn. I've read all the books by A.A. Mellon multiple times. I read the autobiography of Milne's son, the real life Christopher Robin. That was a huge bummer, by the way. Yeah, I am kind of a super fan. And I visited the original poo teddy bear at the New York Public Library.
06:05 library. This is a stuffed bear that Christopher Robin got for his first birthday in 1921. Do they have a nickname for Pooh Bear Superfans? The Pooh Troop? Pooh heads. Pooh is much cute. Poo heads. Poo heads sounds terrible. So many good options. Let's strike that from the record. Yeah, so Winnie the Pooh is on display at the New York Public Library along with the stuffed versions of the other characters like Eeyore and Tigger. And millions of visitors have come through the library where Pooh lives. He's a big tourist draw. And I chose the Pooversary as my indicator because this 100-year milestone is reviving the debate about whether Poo should go back to England. Huh. So England called and said another country has a historically important artifact and we'd like that return to us.
06:52 Yes. And in the case of Poo, they've been trying this for years. In 1998, a member of the British Parliament asked for the stuffies to be returned. And then a couple of years ago, an emissary of Queen Camilla tried to get the New York Public Library. to send poo to Buckingham Palace just for a short-term visit. And the representative of the Queen told the Washington Post that the library said no, because the toys are too old and they get so many visitors. How did the New York Public Library end up with the poo bear? Well, if you want to know the backstory, it's that the toys got into the possession of a publishing company, and then that publishing company had the toys in New York,
07:31 and then the owners of that company donated Winnie the Pooh and his friends to the library, and that happened in 1987. So they've been there a long time. Oh, okay. The British don't really have a rightful claim to this. They just kind of like want them to do a solid for them. I mean, you could argue that Winnie the Pooh is part of, you know, England's cultural patrimony.
07:58 But as Ricky reminded us before, the British do not have the best track record when it comes to keeping stuff from other countries. Like, if you go to the British Museum website, there is a whole section about contested items in the museum collection. So think like,
08:14 Europe and in bronzes, the Nigerian government has asked for those sculptures to be repatriated, or the Elgin Marbles. These are sculptures in the Parthenon that the Greeks are trying to get back. If you want to know more about this stuff,
08:26 I recommend that there's a podcast and TV show called Stuff the British Stole. That's all about the backstories of these contested artifacts. How the tables have turned. We didn't steal this one. No, no. It's like the A.
08:39 A.Mill in the state sold poo and the other stuff used to, this publishing company, and then the executives that that company donated the toys to the New York Public Library. So it's up to the library whether wants to give those stuffies back.
08:52 Okay, England, if you're listening, which we know you are, use money. We're not going to give them back. Buy it. Make them an offer. How many pots of honey? This is a little.
09:04 This episode was produced by Aja Coreras and engineer by Travis Hagen. It was fact-checked by Leila Dose. Haken Cannon is our editor and The Indicator is a production of NPR.
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