Holiday spending slowdown
Marketplace
Marketplace
4.6 • 8.5K Ratings
🗓️ 10 February 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
New data show retail sales were flat in December, despite high expectations for the holiday season. So did shoppers spend less? Or did they just frontload that gift spending in November? Also in this episode: AI tools propel widespread online shopping scams, a Colorado utility company shuts off power to prevent wildfires, and what’s next for crypto after last week’s freefall.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Today on the show, we'll talk about crypto, retail, AI scams, and we'll talk about a company |
| 0:07.9 | placing a bet on the idea that it will outlive us all. From American Public Media, this is Marketplace. |
| 0:25.6 | In New York, I'm Kristen Schwab in for Kyrisdal. |
| 0:28.7 | It's Tuesday, February 10th. Good to be here with you. |
| 0:32.6 | Okay, humor me here. Grab your crystal ball. |
| 0:36.1 | Can you tell me where the economy will be in one year? |
| 0:42.3 | Yes? No. Then how about in 100 years? An impossible task, I know, because there's no way of understanding what economic policy will look like, how AI will |
| 0:48.8 | shape our work, or even whether the companies we work for will still be here. |
| 1:00.2 | Well, Alphabet is promising it will be around in a century, making tech products and services, |
| 1:04.5 | and also making interest payments on corporate debt. |
| 1:10.6 | The parent company of Google is issuing tens of billions of dollars worth of bonds this week, including some in the UK with |
| 1:12.6 | a 100-year maturity date. Marketplace's Daniel Ackerman looks into why Alphabet is going so long on |
| 1:19.0 | its debt, and who would actually buy these bonds? |
| 1:22.7 | Alphabet has plans to spend big, says Dan Ives, a tech analyst with Wedbush securities, on big data |
| 1:29.8 | centers. |
| 1:30.7 | They're essentially building out new cities. |
| 1:33.7 | It's like building Vegas from the desert in the 1950s. |
| 1:38.2 | And that is going to take a lot of cash over the course of many years. |
| 1:42.3 | We're going to be building out data centers for a long time to come. |
| 1:46.1 | Giluria is an analyst with D.A. Davidson. |
| 1:48.8 | And he says alphabet's sale of century-long bonds is something of a flex on its competitors |
| 1:53.9 | in the AI race. |
... |
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