The World Is (Still) Drowning in Sludge
Freakonomics Radio
Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher
4.5 • 32.9K Ratings
🗓️ 24 June 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. Some news you may have missed, Congress is considering the unsubscribe |
| 0:10.1 | act, a bill that would make it easier for consumers to cancel subscriptions. But as you are |
| 0:15.4 | probably not surprised to learn, the bill is moving slowly. Why? Well, there's an episode about that. We first published it |
| 0:24.4 | a little over a year ago. I thought it might be nice to play it again now as a bonus episode. |
| 0:28.8 | We have updated facts and figures where needed. As always, thanks for listening. |
| 0:43.3 | I have a story to tell you, and I'm curious if anything like this has ever happened to you. |
| 0:49.3 | I recently got a letter from the Department of Motor Vehicles, saying it's time to renew my driver's license. |
| 0:52.9 | This is a letter that no one looks forward to receiving. |
| 0:57.0 | In many places, the DMV is famously hard to deal with. Long lines, confusing protocols, etc., etc. |
| 1:01.0 | But as I read the letter, I see there is a loophole that if you are a member of AAA, |
| 1:07.0 | the American Automobile Association, which I happen to be, then you can renew your license |
| 1:12.2 | at their office and even better. You can set up an appointment ahead of time. That was exciting. |
| 1:19.1 | So I made my appointment online, put it in my calendar, got all my documents together, |
| 1:24.6 | and I showed up on the right day, the right time, and found, to my surprise, a long |
| 1:30.0 | line of people waiting for what looked to be just two or three clerks. I asked a couple |
| 1:34.7 | people online what time their appointments were for, and they said they didn't have appointments. |
| 1:39.4 | They had just walked in. And so I, being an optimist, I thought maybe there's a separate line for appointments. |
| 1:47.2 | So I asked around and one helpful AAA employee told me that, no, the line is the line, is how he put it. |
| 1:55.7 | And how long do you think that line will take? I asked. Oh, probably just two hours, maybe three, he said. |
| 2:02.9 | I had pictured myself buzzing in with my appointment, being done in 15 minutes, maybe 30. Even an hour would have been okay, but two hours or three, that I could not swing. |
| 2:15.1 | So the next time you hear about a guy being arrested for driving with |
| 2:18.2 | an expired license, that will be me. What happened at AAA surprised me, especially because after |
... |
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