NPR.
This is The Indicator from Planet Money.
I'm Waylon Wong.
And I'm Adrian Ma.
And I'm Darian Woods.
Do you guys feel that in the air?
I... allergy season?
It is for me, that's true.
What do you smell in there, pumpkin spice?
In addition to antihistamines and pumpkin spice, it is Indicators of the Week.
Favorite time of the week.
Indicators of the Week.
Today on the show, we have frozen federal dollars.
An escalating trade war with China.
And a strange trend infiltrating the music business.
After the break...
This message comes from NPR sponsor HP.
Easily search through personal files, gain valuable insights and make smarter, more informed business decisions.
Unlock the future of work today with the HP AI PC.
With the right tools, work doesn't have to feel like work.
To learn more, go to hp.com slash AI PC.
This message comes from NPR sponsor, U.S.
Bank.
With U.S.
Bank Business Essentials, you get more than just a bank.
You get a dedicated partner that provides you a powerful combo of checking and card payment processing with quick access to the money you've earned, proving that there is nothing as powerful as the power of us.
Visit usbank.com today to learn more.
Member FDIC.
Copyright 2025 U.S.
Bank.
Indicators of the week.
Darian, you're up.
My indicator is about federal infrastructure funding during the government shutdown.
And this indicator is 37.
For every infrastructure dollar affected in Republican districts, 37 is frozen or canceled in Democratic districts.
That's according to a report by The New York Times earlier this week.
OK, that's very stark, that difference.
Yeah, this is not controversial to say that it's partisan.
This is what the President Donald Trump has said himself.
Makes sense, but we're only cutting Democrat programs.
We'll be cutting some very popular Democrat programs that aren't popular with Republicans frankly, because that's the way it works.
So this report is helpful because it puts a number, basically, to what he was saying.
27 billion of funding that was going to transportation or energy projects in democratically controlled areas, missing for now.
And only $740 million missing for Republican areas.
And as far as where the money is going, what kinds of projects are we talking about here that are getting their funding cut?
Yeah, so in this report, they show two projects. big categories, transportation and energy.
And on transportation, the biggest chunk is projects in New York City the Second Avenue subway extension.
Also the repair of the Hudson River tunnel between New Jersey and Manhattan.
You've also got a rail extension in the south side of Chicago.
And then, on the energy side, the Trump administration announced earlier this month that it was terminating 75 billion in grants for 223 projects.
This is everything from modernizing energy grids to a Californian project to create clean hydrogen, which is a type of fuel produced using renewable energy.
A press release from the Department of Energy said that, following a thorough review, the agency determined that these projects weren't economically viable and wouldn't give a positive return on investment.
I mean, that seems like a plausible explanation, if President Trump had not just kind of given up the whole rationale already.
By calling them Democrat projects?
Yes.
So yeah, it's hard to know without diving into the details of every single project's cost-benefit analysis.
But yes, President Trump is saying that it's basically a partisan thing.
As of this recording at least, all this back and forth and brinksmanship, it doesn't seem like either the Democrats or the Republicans are any closer to making a deal.
Well, speaking of brinkmanship, I think this is a good time for my indicator, which is two, as in two words that made headlines this week.
U.S.
Treasury Secretary Scott Besson told CNBC in an interview that the government is going to set price floors in certain industries to push back against China.
Price floors, those are the two words that made people sit up in their chairs.
Price controls, price ceilings, price floors.
So when government officials start throwing around these terms, that kind of gets our economic spidey senses going.
Yeah, this means the government's deciding to potentially intervene in the economy, maybe playing a role in setting prices, instead of letting the market decide where the prices should be.
Yeah.
And Scott Besson said these kinds of policies were necessary.
When quote facing a non-market economy like China.
End quote.
And the one industry he mentioned specifically was rare earths.
He says Chinese prices for rare earths are so low that foreign producers like the US can't compete.
We've covered rare earth elements on the show before.
These are elements that go into high-end magnets, the kind you might find in an electric vehicle motor.
They are really in demand right now, and China dominates the market.
Yeah, China's the leader and it's historically had loose environmental regulations around mining and processing and that's helped keep their prices low.
So what would price floor on rare earths actually look like?
Well, I have another indicator for you guys, which is zero, zero details.
It is unclear if Besant is saying the US government will do something to make sure Chinese rare earths prices stay above a certain level, or if it's a policy to somehow enforce a minimum price for American rare earths.
It's like shrug emoji.
Yeah, because on the one hand, it's like no, you should sell your products for more and make more money.
Chinese producers.
Or it's something like they have an agricultural policy.
Yeah, so with certain farmers in the US the government doesn't exactly set minimum prices, but it has all these long-running programs that give financial support to farmers if commodity prices go below certain levels.
And you sometimes hear these programs described as price support programs.
Well, it looks like the government has opened up another potential front in the trade war with China.
I mean, I guess you could say that there's no ceiling to how much this can escalate.
I see what you did there, Adrian.
Who doesn't love a pun?
I know.
This actually, my indicator of the week involves a pun too, which we'll get to.
I love some wordplay.
My indicator is actually inspired by a good friend of mine who is always recommending new music to me.
And this week he said, you got to check out this artist called the Professor Nick Harrison.
He does these really awesome cover songs.
And for example, there is this Rage Against the Machine song.
Okay, so this is the original song.
It's called Bulls on Parade, this really hard, gritty rock song.
Mm-hmm.
And here is the Professor Nick Harrison's version.
They rally round the family With a pocket full of shells Oh, this is meant to be a cover.
Yeah.
Oh, but it's like a soul version.
Yeah.
Oh, interesting.
Okay.
That's a fun genre mashup.
I gotta say, I don't want to like this.
I want to hate it, but I kind of enjoyed it.
This vibe is like right up my alley, this sort of like soul gospel thing.
And...
It turns out The Professor recently released an entire album of covers called Artificial Soul.
You can find it on Spotify and Apple Music.
And the name Artificial Soul is actually a pun on the word artificial, because it turns out all the songs are made using AI.
I get it.
Oh, my goodness.
Is this the future, Adrian?
Is this the future of music?
It's the present.
Oh, that's true.
Oh, it's here.
My friend was so bummed out to hear this.
He didn't realize that this was like a whole AI generated album.
And, you know, the thing is that AI music is actually flooding streaming services right now.
So like who could be blamed?
So a couple of interesting indicators that show the scope of this.
There's a French music streaming service called Deezer, which recently estimated that over 30000 fully AI-generated tracks are uploaded to its site every day.
And then Spotify says that the flood of AI slop is a big reason why it removed a lot of what it calls spam tracks from its platform last year about 75 million of them.
Well, a bazooka full of AI slop for your ears.
This is not just an issue for music platforms.
Of course, it's also an issue for musicians.
And while some musicians will undoubtedly find AI useful, there is an interesting study from a nonprofit that represents artists where they estimate that AI will result in musicians seeing a 24 decline in their revenue over just the next few years.
So OPA, Tom Morello, and the crew are getting some cash from this.
Still goes, yeah.
Or maybe they have lots of rage against the AI machine.
I mean, the irony of that being the name of the band that's being covered by AI.
Yeah.
I mean, truly.
Yeah.
This episode was produced by Angel Carreras and engineered by Robert Rodriguez.
It was fact-checked by Corey Bridges, taken canon as our editor and the indicator to production of NPR.
This message comes from Capital One with the Venture X card.
Earn unlimited double miles, a $300 annual Capital One travel credit and access to airport lounges.
Capital One.
What's in your wallet?
Terms apply.
Details at CapitalOne.com.
I Want It That Way was a Backstreet Boys banger, but was it also a secret economics lesson?
If you watch the music video, you can really see an illustration of the concept of comparative advantage.
All right.
In our most recent bonus episode we compete to see who can pick the most Planet Money song movie and more from 1999.
It's our first ever Planet Money pop culture draft and you can hear it and support our work by signing up for NPR Plus at plusnprorg.
