Small businesses walk an affordability tightrope
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Small business owners know affordability is top-of-mind for their customers. But as margins grow narrower, keeping prices as-is isn’t always possible. In this episode, we hear from a few small business owners about how they’re balancing cash-strapped shoppers and rising costs. Plus: The potential Netflix-Warner Bros deal could mean less variety for viewers, Midwestern farmers hope to carve out a market for local oats, and a discussion of the week’s economic headlines.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The data's old. The analysis is right up to date. We're going to do our Friday thing today from American Public Media. This is Marketplace. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. |
| 0:25.1 | It is December the 5th today, Friday. |
| 0:27.7 | Good as it always is, everybody, to have you along. |
| 0:31.1 | You're dying to find out, I know, what happened in this economy in September. |
| 0:37.5 | Lucky for you then that we got some data on that today. |
| 0:40.7 | That's where we're going to start with David Gura. |
| 0:42.1 | He's at Bloomberg. |
| 0:43.2 | Catherine Rampel is at MS Now and the Borg. |
| 0:45.5 | Hey, you two. |
| 0:46.9 | Hey, Kai. |
| 0:47.5 | Hey, Kai. |
| 0:48.8 | Mr. Gura, we start with you and September PCE Personal Consumption Expenditures Index. The Fed's preferred measure, as I'm required by law to say, up a tad, but within expectations. However, it's three months old. How useful is this, do you think? Yes. In Wall Street Parliant, this is a moderate monthly advance we saw in that inflation read. |
| 1:11.5 | You're right, it is the one that the Fed likes to look at. |
| 1:14.3 | Look, these data are old. |
| 1:15.6 | They were supposed to come out on October the 31st. |
| 1:17.6 | We're well over a month away from that date. |
| 1:20.8 | I don't envy Fed policymakers who are kind of fumbling their way through all of this right now. |
| 1:25.7 | And yes, we're sort of seeing the |
| 1:27.7 | mechanism of economic statistics cranking back into gear after the government shut down. |
| 1:32.2 | But it is handicapping policymakers as they head into their meeting next week. The Fed's going |
| 1:36.6 | to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday. Normally, they have this amazing dashboard in front of them, |
| 1:41.6 | a panoply of data to look at. I think like other policymakers |
... |
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