Surprise, you've got medical bills!

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

Support comes from Wise, the smart way to manage the currencies you need around the globe. Fed up with losing out to hidden fees when you send money abroad with your everyday bank? Choose the smart way, Wise. You can count on the exchange rate you'd usually find on Google. No unwelcome surprises. Plus ditch that, where's my money feeling? Most transfers arrive in under 20 seconds. Join millions saving billions on hidden fees. Be smart, get Wise. Download the Wise app today. T's and C's apply.

Kai Ryssdal (0:32)

On the program today, we'll do our Friday thing. We'll take a look at the farm economy, and then we'll go for a sale from American Public Media.

This is Marketplace.

In Los Angeles, I'm Kai Ryssdal. It is Friday today. This one is the 9th of October. Good as it always is to have you along, everybody. So you know what? On the face of it, this was not a huge week in the life of the American economy. But as sometimes happens, when it is quiet, that is exactly when it is easiest to see what is really going on. So that's what we're going to do. Heather Long is the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. David Gurra is at Bloomberg. Hey, you two. Hey, Kai. Hi, Kai. Heather, let me begin with you and the labor market. We had a fine-ish, meh-ish jobs report last week.

We had first-time claims for unemployment the other day. They were really low, not many people losing their jobs. So the stories came up again, including on this program, of this being a low-hire, low-fire economy.

Why is it bad that it's a low-hire, low-fire economy?

Heather Long (1:50)

Well, it's great if you love your job, but if you're looking for a new opportunity, or if you're someone just entering the labor force, or maybe you took some time off and trying to get back in, there's just not a lot of hiring going on. And another way to say low-hire, low-fire is low opportunity.

And in particular, with that latest jobs report, the only hiring going on is a little bit still in health care. And then if you want to build a data center, if you're in construction for a data center, the times are great, and that's some of the strongest wage gains in the last year. But for everybody else, it's slim pickings, and that's why a lot of Americans feel stuck right now.

The silver lining is we're seeing people create their own opportunities. We're seeing that uptick in new business formation, and people saying, I'm just going to create it myself.

Kai Ryssdal (2:40)

David Gura, I said something on the program, I think it was yesterday, which honestly, I was not expecting I would ever have to say on this program. And that is that given artificial intelligence and how much the stock market is worth these days, I said, maybe the stock market actually is the economy.

Discuss.

David Gura (3:05)

Stomp me dead in my tracks, and I feel like this is a trap. I mean, we used to work together, and I've heard you say the stock market is not the economy so many times. No, I think that you're on to something in some respect. I mean, you look at the gains that we've seen in stocks. So many of them have been driven by big tech and AI, and you look at the economy, as Heather just said just a moment ago, times are good if you're in the business of constructing the vast infrastructure that's underpinning all of this AI technology for the time being. So it is reflective of that, and I think just watching the market day after day after day, you look at what's animating it, both positively and negatively. It's still energy prices to a huge extent. And that's reflected, of course, in the stock market. And then I look ahead to next week. We're going to get these big bank earnings, and that's part of this AI story as well. You've had these banks just make a boatload of money off of SpaceX going public, and the promise here in the months ahead is you're going to have these big AI companies going public as well, and that's going to only make them do better. So you're on to something. Again, I feel nervous in saying that and going against your wise counsel of so many years.

Can I add on to that?

Kai Ryssdal (4:08)

Of course you can. Please, go ahead.

Heather Long (4:10)

Just plus one to everything David said. But I think the other thing that's really different right now is the baby boomer wealth. All that accumulated savings, 85 trillion or more, half of the stocks are now owned by baby boomers. And I think that's what's really different. It's not just the AI billionaires who are driving this stock market gains, it's all of these baby boomers, these grandparents. And that's what's tricky if we do finally get a pullback in the stock market.