Starting today, many fast-food workers in California will be paid $20 an hour under a new minimum-wage law. It’s time for a Kimberly rant! We’ll get into the subsidization of low-wage work, the reals costs behind all the stuff we buy — from burgers to clothes — and who’s picking up the tab. Plus, guest host Reema Khrais reminisces about the early years of Google as the company celebrates 20 years of Gmail.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
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What summer heat waves mean for prisons
The good, the bad and the ugly of election polling
A shadow looms over the Fed
The long game of high interest rates
The growing troubles at OpenAI
A Trump-Musk bromance
How Big Food changed the way we eat
Biden doubling down on tariffs
How the Palestinian financial system is tied up in Israel
Private equity, endless shrimp and Red Lobster’s decline
Neoliberalism’s sleight of hand
Getting deep about deepfakes
The price tag on friendship
Whaddya wanna know about key inflation measures?
The great Bumble fumble
From “Million Bazillion”: What are labor unions?
The value of “third places”
What grocery aisle gossip can tell us about the economy
The lowdown on joint fundraising committees
A phantom debt menace
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