Economics is an important, albeit sometimes dry, subject. But, for public radio listeners, NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money takes an accessible, often humorous approach to explaining some lofty ideas.
Wailin Wong, one of the show’s trio of hosts, spoke in Little Rock Thursday morning in an event held by Economics Arkansas. She caught up afterward with Little Rock Public Radio’s Ashton Burgess. Their conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, can be heard above, and you can find a transcript below.
BURGESS: What was one question or conversation from the audience that stuck with you?
WONG: I appreciated the question about AI just because it’s something that we think about a lot on the team. Thinking about all the different ways that AI is disrupting the economy, reshaping it, and this really kind of a meaty question of whether or not AI is a bubble. Because I presented on this very quirky bubble from the early aughts and alpacas and that was small and self-contained. The question of is AI a bubble, and if it is, when are we gonna start to see the bubble pop?
WONG: I mean, that is a huge question that could have massive implications for the global economy, so I appreciate that people are thinking about it. And then, when I met the person who asked the question later, I found out that she runs a trade school, basically. And, so then that really got me thinking about all the interesting ways in which AI could be changing manufacturing, changing the way we think about education, and which jobs are potentially AI-proof and which ones are not. So it just led to [a lot] more curiosity for me.
BURGESS: I kind of want to build off of what you just talked about with AI and the economic bubbles, but in terms of economic development. So, there are communities from across the country that have spent a lot of time trying to attract businesses and investment. So from your reporting, what separates the places that create lasting economic growth from those that simply land just a big announcement?
WONG: I think that – and this actually goes back to when I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune – often you get these big press conferences on these announcements about, “Oh, this company is moving their headquarters here, or they’re opening a plant, or they’re opening an office.” And then you get like a ribbon cutting with like the governor in the mayor or whatever. A lot of times there’s no follow up, right? And, so I think it’s important for journalists to kind of check back after like a year or two years and be like, “Well, how many net jobs were created? You collected these tax incentives – did money kind of flow back to the community as was promised? Are they being good neighbors in terms of, maybe, environmental impact in an area?”
WONG: I think these are all questions that are incumbent on journalists to ask when bringing new kinds of economic development. And right now, I think there’s lots of interesting reporting going on around AI [data] centers and the community pushback which you don’t often see. A lot of times I think these announcements get covered, and I’m not sure if kind of everyday people pay that much attention, right? There’s kind of economic development-type announcements all the time. But, is there something about data centers that really has seemed to capture something in people, right? Like something visceral. And, I think maybe because they are like these like hulking physical manifestations of this thing that’s kind of scary and unknown, which is like “How is AI affecting me?”
WONG: And what’s interesting in particular about the AI [data] centers is that I was just reading a report about one that’s being constructed. [It is a] Meta data center that’s been constructed in Louisiana. And right now, it is leading to economic growth because you have people building it so they’re spending money locally. And, there’s money flowing in. But I think one big question is how many jobs are these data centers ultimately going to create? Like when the construction crews go, then you just have big buildings where you actually don’t need a lot of people to staff them. They’re just kind of rooms full of servers, right? And so what is this kind of economic development? Is it durable? Is it creating jobs? Is it actually raising the prosperity of an area? And I think with the AI data centers, at least, we don’t really know yet.
BURGESS: Well, that’s really interesting. I think, in terms of AI data centers and other economic development projects, they have generated – whether it be a lot of excitement or a lot of controversy – a lot of emotions because they are highly visible. So whether it be new buildings or batteries or entertainment districts. So from your perspective, does visible investment necessarily mean local residents are benefiting economically?
WONG: I mean, not always, right? It’s like, you have a new business. Who owns it? Is it a local business owner or is it a big corporation that’s headquartered elsewhere? Is it a private equity firm? As journalists or business or business journalists, we’re kind of trained to follow the money, right? And obviously with the new business, if they employ local people, that is money that kind of comes back into the community, right? But there’s lots of different dimensions and ways to look at it. Let’s say a company got tax breaks to set up shop in a particular community. Then you can look at what are the details of those tax incentives and see does it actually kind of pay for the community.
BURGESS: Now I’d like to ask you a little bit more about your own work as a journalist. You’ve spent your career covering everything from startups to international economics. What has changed the most about business journalism since you started reporting?
WONG: You know, it’s interesting. When I was training to be a business reporter, I feel like a lot of my time was spent learning how to write up quarterly earnings stories, right? So big publicly traded company acts like McDonald’s or Motorola releases earnings, and then it’s really important that you write up what [their profit was] and what happened during the last quarter. And I think those stories have gotten really commoditized. You really don’t see them anymore, even though they used to be fixtures of recording. And I think with trading – even among everyday people – investing [is] getting much more sophisticated, right? Now people have Robinhood and you can trade it on your phone, and you can trade [with] much more complex financial instruments than the ones that, I think, were available to everyday people back when I was covering business and economics. I think that’s a really big change right there, and there’s certainly a lot more noise out there in terms of the information that people have to decide where to put their money.
BURGESS: This morning you presented on alpacas and economic bubbles and it was a really interesting presentation. And many of your episodes with The Indicator begin with – what seems like – a simple everyday question before revealing a much bigger economic story. So, how do you recognize the stories?
WONG: Well, we spend a lot of time as a team working through what makes a good The Indicator episode. So we are a daily show and we are newsy, but we don’t have to be right on the news, right? We don’t have to cover breaking news. So we have the luxury of stepping back and being like, “What is the second or third day story that we could potentially tell about this thing that’s happening in the news,” right? And so with a lot of new stories like that, our staff meetings will look at a headline and we’ll look at something happening. And we’ll say, “Is there an economic system here that we can explain in a signature The Indicator way,” or “If we have a question, is there a satisfying answer to that question that would make a 10-minute episode where you’d be able to find a really good compelling voice,” right?
WONG: And sometimes the answer to that is no. Sometimes we go off and make a few phone calls, do some research, and maybe the question does not have a very satisfying answer. So, those are the episodes you never see the – ones that kind of die on the vine. But, many times there is lots to explain, right? And even with a story like tariffs that’s just been covered ad nauseam – and there’s always more coverage of tariffs – then we still look for our own angles, like, “Is there something that we can myth-bust? Is there some misconception around tariffs? Or, is there some wonky-nerdy detail in this huge wave of information that maybe has been under-covered?” And, that’s what we can really nerd out on. That’s what we look for.
BURGESS: So, one thing The Indicator does really well is that it takes complicated economic issues and makes them feel relevant to everyday life. So I’m curious – what question are you currently asking about the economy right now that you don’t have an answer to?
WONG: Well, we already covered one of the questions, which is: “What the heck is going on with AI and is it a bubble?” I think another big question we are wrestling with is: “Is the economy going to go into recession and what’s gonna happen with inflation?” We are really focused on the labor market and we are really focused on prices and inflation, and these are kind of perennial things that we're looking at. But, I think we’re at a very interesting point right now. We have a new Federal Reserve Chair who is saying that they’re gonna get inflation back down to 2%, but inflation is running closer to 4%, right? So that’s a huge job. And, how are we gonna get there, especially with gas prices still going back up and seemingly no resolution to the war in Iran? That's a huge question.
WONG: And then [there’s] this question of how is the labor market doing? How stable is the labor market? We’ve been talking for a long time about this, kind of, stuck labor market where people aren’t getting hired and they’re also not getting fired. And, looking at those dynamics and where there are the signs of weakness in the labor market, are those being addressed and what does it look like to be in an economy where potentially you have elevated inflation but maybe not a lot of employment? [That] is another really big question.
BURGESS: And, as someone who spends every day helping people better understand the economy, what is one economic question you hope more Americans start asking?
WONG: I think that it would be great if people asked, “Why are things the way they are?” Because I think that you get this incredible sense of inertia in the economy, like “Well, here’s the system we have and here’s how it works and I’m just trying to figure out how to survive in this economy.” But, the economy was designed by people, and none of it is inevitable. So, that is how I think about my job actually at Planet Money and The Indicator.
WONG: We are trying to expose the systems and the dynamics that make things the way they are. And I think that when you empower people with that information, then it gives them agency. It allows them to act. So if you figure out that the system was designed in a certain way and you’re like, “Well, I don’t like it,” then you’re empowered to make a different choice, to change it. So I think it’d be great if everyone just started asking, “Why is this the case?” and “I’m getting curious about that stuff.” And then if you don't like the way things are, then like, “What can I do to shape an economy that works for me better?”
