Darian Woods

Even with falling interest rates in recent weeks, mortgage rates are still higher than you'd expect. Mortgage interest rates are usually a little less than two percentage points higher than what you would get on a 10-year Treasury bond. But for the last couple of years that difference has been noticeably higher: 2.6% at the moment. New borrowers have been paying potentially thousands of dollars extra each year on their mortgages. Today on the show, how mortgage interest rates work and why they're currently out of whack ... with new borrowers footing the bill. Related Episodes: Are both rents AND interest rates too dang high? How mortgage rates get made The rat under the Fed's hat AP Macro gets a makeover For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

It costs more than $20 billion a year to feed kids in schools. Some 70% of lunches were served free or reduced but there's a political divide on whether all school lunches should be free.

On this Indicators of the Week, we take you to a Manhattan bar to watch NVIDIA's latest earnings reports. Plus, how publishers are trying to keep their books in Florida school libraries and what private equity is doing in Football. Related episodes:The tower of NVIDIA (Apple / Spotify) What do private equity firms actually do? For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Copyright 2024 NPR Wailin Wong

Over the last decade, more companies have adopted endless leave policies that allow employees to take as much vacation time as they want.

The once-thriving Japanese hamlet of Nanmoku was known for its silk and timber industries. Today, it is the country's most aged village, with two-thirds of residents over age 65.

There is expected to be a lot of demand for manufacturing jobs in the coming decade, but many of those positions will be left unfilled.

In 2019, Philip Esformes went on trial for one of the biggest Medicare fraud cases in history. His longtime family rabbi said Philip Esformes was an upstanding citizen ... when he lived in Chicago. Malcolm Gladwell was fascinated by this case and the prospect of a city changing a man. He covers this in his forthcoming book Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering. Today on the show: How Miami became known as the capital of Medicare fraud. We learn what went wrong in South Florida and what it says about how places may change our behavior. Related Episodes:Book drama, NVIDIA hype, and private equity FootballHow Pitbull got his name on a college football stadiumFor sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Are the promises made by AI boosters all hype, or are we actually under-appreciating the transformative potential of AI?

Darnell Epps is a Yale trained lawyer who is bent on solving a non-legal problem: a shortage in manufacturing workers. He enrolled at vocational school to get a better idea of the job market.