The strategic petroleum reserve is being drawn down at an incredibly fast rate and it didn't start with the Trump administration. When stockpiles are low, the reserves can't be filled out or drawn down as efficiently. In this week’s newsletter, I dug into what's going on tinyurl.com/indicatorjul...

Southern states are adding more EV chargers to their establishments Credit: AP Photo/David Zalubowski

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Computer science majors have a HIGHER unemployment rate than philosophy majors. This week's Indicator newsletter gets into it, plus: 🚗Why your neighbor might be paying less for a car than you ⚡How data centers are avoiding paying their fair share tinyurl.com/indicatorjul...

Associate Producer, Planet Money

tinyurl.com

this week we get to sit down with economic historian, bond person, and pulitzer-prize-winning author Liaquat Ahamed. I can't recommend hanging out with him enough. learn about the crash of 1873, if you can: www.youtube.com/watch?v=uirW...

The Pettiest Financial Crash In History

YouTube video by Mary in America

youtube.com

This week’s Indicator newsletter is out. We tackle: 🎥 Does Netflix regret their video podcast investment? 🏢 Why is office space filling up in NYC? 💸 What to know about Venezuela’s unnerving debt situation Read on tinyurl.com/PMI-June-26

Netflix acquired the video rights to shows including The Bill Simmons podcast/Getty Images

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I firmly believe Google Docs put 'Page Numbers' under Format instead of Insert as a fun way to make me go slowly insane

There should really be a Spotify wrapped for people you speak with on the phone. And then you get a video of your friend saying ‘Congrats, you’re in the top 1% of my listeners.’

I always forget about this option

Nadya Voynich@nadyavoynich.com · 2mo ago

To avoid burnout, use this 30/30 rule: After 30 min of work, quit and disappear into the mountains for 30 years. Happy Friday! #buildinpublic #startuplife #hiking #mountains #nature #productivity

This week’s Indicator newsletter is out. We tackle: 💼 Why employers don’t want to pay for GLP-1s 🏥 Why hospital mergers equate to higher prices with limited gains 🗳️ Where campaign cash ends up Read on tinyurl.com/3zpnaze

GCC President Tiffany Hernandez explains what’s underfoot Credit: Screenshot from video posted by Alex Hanna (@alexhanna.bsky.social) on Bluesky

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Texas’ main grid operator ERCOT says its peak demand could more than quadruple in the next few years overwhelmingly due to data centers. This summer will certainly see a new record up at ~15%, possibly double that.

US battery production inched up to a record high in data released this morning, up 36% from this time last year. Total output has more than doubled since 2022

As incoming chair Warsh comes to Fed with big plans for the Fed's balance sheet, Governor Michael Barr warns in a speech that lowering liquidity rules to get to smaller Fed holdings simply increases financial stability risks: "Shrinking the balance sheet is the wrong objective."

Fed's Barr says wrong to lower liquidity rules to shrink Fed holdings

Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr said Thursday that ​lowering liquidity rules to get the central bank’s balance sheet smaller is a bad idea and could undermine the safety of the financial ‌system...

reuters.com

It's Friday! The Indicator is back with another newsletter ⚡ Texas is seeing unprecedented electricity demand. Can they meet it? 💸 There are so many other ways to tax the rich! Why are Americans obsessed with the income tax? 🎰 Insider trading is a problem. Why is it so tricky to stop? Read on

The new chip bags only need two ink colors

tinyurl.com

"The vote was 54-45 in the most-partisan-ever U.S. Senate confirmation of a Fed chair. A single Democrat, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voted with the Republican majority."

Michael Derby@michaelsderby.bsky.social · 3mo ago

It's official: Kevin Warsh will be the next Federal Reserve chair. He's now got millions in assets to sell to meet ethics requirements and there are big questions how indepedent he'll be from Trump. He also may have to mend fences with officials after harsh commentary pursuing chair gig.

Kevin Warsh has been confirmed as Fed chair. The 54-45 vote is the narrowest margin since Senate approvals became a requirement in 1977.

Kevin Warsh Is Confirmed as Fed Chair in 54–45 Senate Vote

The divided vote signals the challenge ahead for Warsh, who faces a Fed committee skeptical of the rate cuts President Trump has demanded.

on.wsj.com

If you want some feel good stats about local news, there is a report for you. People have the most trust in local news compared to national news, independent creators, chatbots so on. And people blame local news the LEAST for misinformation.

The Evolving News Landscape: Comparing Media Habits and Trust Between Teens and Adults - AP-NORC

Older adults are more likely to show stronger confidence in traditional news outlets while teens and young adults distribute trust more evenly across traditional outlets and alternative sources of inf...

apnorc.org

Charts! Starting with the big one: Consumer prices in April were up 3.8 percent from a year earlier, the fastest inflation since May 2023. Over the past three months, prices have risen at an annual rate of 7.3%. #NumbersDay

Ben Casselman@bencasselman.bsky.social · 3mo ago

U.S. consumer prices rose 0.6 percent in April and were up 3.8 percent from a year earlier -- the fastest year-over-year price growth since May 2023. "Core" prices, excluding food and energy, were up 0.4 percent month/month and 2.8 percent year/year. Data: www.bls.gov/news.release... #NumbersDay

Wild that aligning school times with biology would help young people do better... in school. Glad someone did this study

Scott Lincicome@scottlincicome.bsky.social · 3mo ago

New @nberpubsb "Breaking the Early Bell: Lessons from the First Statewide Mandate on School Start Times" www.nber.org/papers/w3518... Fascinating results:

When grid upgrades take too long, say hello to a lot of new natural gas. The new 'structural supercycle' will create new gas-powered infrastructure. AI demand -> compute demand -> electricity demand -> grid too old -> yes please, all the fast-scaling natural gas

The AI industry is turning to an old energy favorite to bring its data centers online fast

AI companies are in a race to secure energy for their data centers. They are finding that natural gas is the easiest solution, if not the cleanest.

businessinsider.com

Today's Indicator newsletter is OUT. We cover: 🤖 How Chinese AI might actually help inequality 💼 How a unique legal strategy enables five subscribers to take on the Paramount+ merger ⚓ What alternatives exist for the Strait of Hormuz @planetmoney.bsky.social

The financial red flags that show up for dementia patients

tinyurl.com

Productivity increases 0.8% in Q1 2026; unit labor costs increase 2.3% (annual rates) www.bls.gov/news.release... #Productivity #BLSdata

My dad, Larry McKim, was an artist. He passed in 2019 and left behind hundreds of paintings that are either scattered in people’s homes or stuck in a storage unit. Art was his life. He just wanted his work to be seen. So I put together a living map of where his work has ended up!

The scale of power demand is absolutely nuts. So the all-time peak load for the ENTIRE ERCOT system (Texas’s independent electric grid) is ~85 GW. Oncor, the TX utility, has interconnection requests of 122 GW over the next five years within that system.

Affordability and reliability define the data center wave

To meet electricity demands of data centers, the US power grid will need to expand and evolve in ways that require stakeholders to rethink traditional frameworks.

renewableenergyworld.com

I reckon if you'd asked 2016-Ketan whether California's grid profile will look like this in 2026, he would've said something like "that'd be excellent, but it's pretty unlikely as batteries can't really perform load shifting at that scale" www.caiso.com/todays-outlo...

David Roberts@volts.wtf · 3mo ago

Meanwhile the California grid now boasts the equivalent of 12 nuclear power plants worth of batteries -- the total cost of which was, I suspect, less than a single nuclear plant.

If you’ve flown recently, you may have learned the Wi-Fi was actually FREE. The trend is catching on. I’ve been a member of the “pay $8 dollars for bad airplane internet” community for many a year. Satellite tech has changed the equation to make airlines un-UN-bundle www.npr.org/2026/05/04/n...

'Un-unbundling' & oil 'bathtubs': The Indicator newsletter is here! (PM+) : Planet Money

In today's bonus episode, Indicator co-host Wailin Wong and producer Cooper Katz McKim share some of the stories you can find in the Indicator's new weekly newsletter: Are we starting to see "un-unbun...

npr.org

The national average price of gasoline has just hit $4.50/gal, the highest level since July 17, 2022, according to GasBuddy data.

This is one of the more powerful stories I’ve been a part of this year. We put out a call for people who have seen family members struggle with their finances that turned out to be dementia-related. We got a surprising number of stories. tinyurl.com/3jh7c965

How your bank account might predict dementia : The Indicator from Planet Money

Some of the earliest signs of dementia can show up in your financial portfolio. Missed bill payments and erratic investments could be indicators, and they can happen years before an official diagnosis...

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umm. hi. you should sign up for the indicator's newsletter. it is so SICK! This week, I wrote about how like half of data centers in the US aren't getting built. and ONE of the reasons... there aren't enough transformers!! Why is that? Read on if you want or don't. tinyurl.com/Indicator-Ne...

Photo Credit: Screenshot of trumpcard.gov, U.S. Department of Commerce

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Love The Indicator and need more numbers from the news explained to you? My colleague @cooperkatzmckim.bsky.social has launched a brilliant companion newsletter that will arrive in your inbox weekly if you sign up here: npr.org/indicatornewsletter