Today we’re checking in on what happened after almost 200 high profile CEOs signed a statement in 2019 promising to serve stakeholders like employees and consumers along with their shareholders.
Have those companies made any progress toward fulfilling those nonbinding pledges?
That’s the question Molly Kinder, a fellow at the Metropolitan Policy program at The Brookings Institution, and her co-authors wanted to answer by analyzing the decisions some of those companies made during the first two years of the pandemic.
On the show today, Kinder explains why the Business Roundtable statement made such a splash in 2019, why workers haven’t seen substantial gains since then, and how it’s connected to the latest wave of strikes.
Then, we’ll get into what schools run by the Defense Department can teach us about improving public education across the country. And some Federal Reserve officials think it’s time to cool it with the rate hikes.
Later, we look at the part of the crypto world that’s often overshadowed by grifters and a story of self-checkout woes. Plus, Charlie Sprinkman, founder of Everywhere Is Queer, answers the Make Me Smart question.
Here’s everything we talked about today:
We want to hear your answer to the Make Me Smart question. You can reach us at makemesmart@marketplace.org or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.
Why the Fed won’t hop on the rate-cutting bandwagon just yet
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
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