A brewing legal battle and the future of the Fed
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 22 February 2025
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Supreme Court on Friday chose not to intervene in a case involving President Donald Trump’s firing of an independent agency head. As the case is passed back to the lower courts, it tees up a legal battle that will test the president’s power to dismiss officials. We’ll get into what this could all mean for the Federal Reserve. And, U.S. national parks are being hit by the administration’s purge of the federal workforce. Plus, we’ll weigh in on Birkenstocks, prebiotic sodas and the “White Lotus effect” during a round of Half Full/Half Empty!
Here’s everything we talked about today:
- “Supreme Court Declines for Now to Let Trump Fire Agency Head” from Bloomberg
- Post on Bluesky about national park closures
- “Trump administration backtracks on eliminating thousands of national parks employees” from The L.A. Times
- “Firings Squeeze National Parks: ‘You Won’t Have the Full Experience’” from The New York Times
- “Can sandals be art? Birkenstock says yes, but a German court says no” from AP News
- “‘Gut Pop’ Is Injecting New Fizz Into the Beverage Aisle” from The Wall Street Journal
- “Politics are changing how and where consumers spend” from Marketplace
- “The ‘White Lotus effect’ on tourism” from Marketplace
- “Amazon Gains Creative Control Over the James Bond Franchise” from The New York Times
Got a question or comment for the hosts? Email makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I hope I can remember how to do all this. |
| 0:02.7 | Yeah, right? Well, come on. They love the behind-the-scenes stuff. |
| 0:07.0 | They love the behind-the-the-the-scenes stuff. The scene stuff. That's why we do this podcast. |
| 0:12.5 | Is that why we do this podcast? I don't know. Sorry, hang on. I'm pouring my beer. |
| 0:15.7 | Hey, everybody. I'm Kyle Rizzdall. Welcome back to Make Me Smart. Where we make today makes sense. Friday 21 February today. That's right. Hey everybody, I'm Amy Scott. I'm in for Kimberly Adams today. Thank you for joining us. Whether you're on the YouTube live stream or listening to the podcast, this is Economics on Tap, our weekly happy hour episode. We're so happy to have you here. We'll do a little news and then |
| 0:39.0 | play a game. But first, I guess we should talk drinks, Kai. What you got today? I'm having what |
| 0:45.3 | is becoming my go-to, which is a little troubling because it's a little high ABV. It's the modern |
| 0:50.4 | times dinosaur world, 8% ABV out of modern times really down to San Diego. |
| 0:57.9 | Quite good, quite tasty. |
| 0:59.8 | But I'll tell you what, I have like two of these, and it's lights out. |
| 1:02.6 | So I'm going to have one and then take a break and then have one later. |
| 1:05.4 | And then it's Friday night, so I get to go to sleep. |
| 1:08.1 | Yeah. |
| 1:08.4 | Nice life, guys. |
| 1:10.2 | Nice life. That does sound like a nice Friday night. Well, |
| 1:14.6 | mine's, oh God, I'm just pouring it on my laptop. Mine is 6.1 percent. So, but I, you know, |
| 1:22.7 | I probably can handle a little less than you. So mine is, it's a thirst down. |
| 1:28.1 | This is like the Ravens football team tribute beer from Union Craft Brewing here in Baltimore. |
| 1:35.1 | We had this leftover from our Super Bowl watch party, which, you know, we drank our team that should have been there. |
| 1:45.0 | All right, shall we? |
| 1:47.4 | Oh, yeah. |
| 1:48.1 | Let's do it. |
... |
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