The law of unintended consequences

Marketplace All-in-One

Marketplace

News, Business

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

More tariffs are on the way, this time targeting vehicle imports. President Donald Trump favors import taxes, partly because, he argues, they’ll help shrink the U.S. trade deficit. But if tariffs cut Americans’ spending on imports, foreigners are likely to cut their contribution to funding the U.S. budget deficit. Also on the show: BLS economists use not one but six different methods to measure unemployment, and organizational studies professor Elizabeth Popp Berman explains why university endowments can’t simply replace federal funding.

Transcript

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0:23.0	And thanks.
0:25.5	What do you suppose is the macroeconomic word oh the day, huh?
0:31.5	One guess.
0:32.7	That's all you get.
0:34.0	From American public media.
0:36.3	This is Marketflats.
0:45.6	In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzell.
0:47.9	It is Wednesday today.
0:49.5	This one is the 26th of March.
0:51.6	Good as always to have you along, everybody.
0:56.0	True story. When I woke up this morning,
1:00.5	I said to myself, I was going to try to get through the show today without saying the word tariffs. I know, but a guy can dream, right? And in any case, the president of the United States
1:08.5	had other plans. Word from the White House today, more tariffs
1:12.1	a common automobile imports this time, details, as they always seem to be vague and variable.
1:19.0	Import taxes are, as you know, the president's most favored economic tool, in part because he claims
1:24.5	they're going to help shrink the trade deficit and get Americans to buy more American stuff instead of foreign stuff, which, A, that's kind of not how that all works, and B, allow me to introduce you here to the law of unintended consequences. Marketplaces of Brie Benshore gets us going.
1:42.7	There was the Simpsons episode where Homer traveled back in time to the edge of the dinosaurs.
	...

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