NPR. This is the Indicator from Planet Money.
I'm Darien Woods. I'm Weyland Wong.
And here to spread holiday cheer is Planet Money's very own star at the top of their Christmas tree, one Nick Fountain.
Oh, indicators of the week.
Go, indicators of the week.
It is indicators of the week.
Now we have got some Christmas tree related indicators from you Nick.
We're also looking at grocery store wars and I'm going to be diving into some subatomic computing.
That's what I put at the top of my tree.
Computer engineers rejoice.
That's all after the break.
It's cuffing season, the cold months where we might look for a warm somebody to cuddle up to.
But dating isn't always warm and fuzzy.
And this year, there were so many big debates about how we love.
On It's Been A Minute, our cuffing season series will help you answer some big questions like what is the ick really about?
Or is it okay to date for money?
To find out, listen now to the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR.
When it came out in 1843, A Christmas Carol was a sensation and Charles Dickens became a legend.
Some people would consider him the originator of Christmas or the inventor of Christmas.
The past, present and future of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.
Listen to Through Line wherever you get your podcasts.
It's been a great year for TV, movies and music, and we are highlighting the best of the best.
We're talking about our favorite moments of the year, including some of the best pop culture you might have missed.
Listen now to the Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast from NPR.
Okay, it's the Indicators of the Week.
Waelin, let's start with you.
My indicator is $600 million.
That is the amount of money that the grocery chain Albertsons wants to collect from fellow grocery chain Kroger as a breakup fee because their proposed merger just went kaput.
This merger was in the works for so long, and as we all know, it was one of the targets of the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust crackdown under chair Lena Kahn, who's presumably going to be leaving very soon.
Now, these companies first announced their deal in October of 2022.
Can you believe it's been that long?
And this week, there were a few developments that doomed the merger.
A federal judge ruled in favor of the FTC, which had sued to block the deal, and then a state judge in Washington also blocked it.
On Wednesday, Albertsons announced it was calling off the merger, but it was not done yet.
It also said it was suing Kroger.
Get escalated quickly from wanting to be together to, I don't know, wanting to fight.
Albertsons is basically accusing Kroger of not doing enough work to get approval from regulators.
They're like, you got an F for effort.
This is a soap opera.
Oh, love it. I know.
Yes. And, you know, Albertsons wants that $600 million breakup fee.
They're not stopping there.
The company is also seeking billions of dollars in damages.
Kroger, for its part, says Albertsons claims are baseless and it is not entitled to that fee.
All right. So that's the high finance drama.
But what does this mean for everyday shoppers and workers?
Well, you know, during the trial, Albertson CEO had said on the stand that if the deal didn't go through, the company might have to consider closing stores or laying off workers.
Don't know if that was just...
Not the bonds two blocks away from my house.
I really needed that to stay open.
Yes, Nick, this could affect you if, in fact, these kind of dire pronouncements he was making on the witness stand do come true.
But you know who is out of a job is Lena Khan.
Just this week, President -elect Trump announced her replacement, a current FTC commissioner named Andrew Ferguson.
And I know just to take a step back, the failure of this merger is a little bit of a valedictory for her, you could argue.
She's in her final weeks on the job and she got to see a conclusion to this rather thrilling story before leaving office.
A little Christmas come early for Lena Khan.
All right, Darian. What do you got for me?
What's in my stocking?
You're going to need a bigger stocking because my indicator is 10 septillion years.
Whoa. I don't even know what a septillion is.
Yeah. Quadrillion, quintrillion.
Then it goes up to septulien.
It's the seventh one.
Oh. The more you learn, the more you learn.
It is one followed by 25 zeroes.
Is this the biggest indicator we've ever had on this show?
I would love that rise.
The biggest number?
Anyway, I'm saying this because this week Google announced a new quantum computing chip and Google says this chip can make incredibly fast calculations.
Like 10 septillion miles an hour?
Close but not quite.
So take the world's fastest supercomputers right now, a calculation that would take them 10 septillion years to make.
This quantum computer chip would take less than five minutes.
What? And just to give a little primer on what quantum computing is, it's using subatomic physics to build really fast computers, as in these spooky ways that things smaller than atoms behave.
Did you say spooky?
We're getting spooky in here?
We're getting spooky, but let's start here with the real concrete world we begin with.
So a traditional computer, as you know, uses ones and zeroes.
That's kind of a metaphor to represent something either switching on or off.
And the next part is pretty mind -blowing though.
You've got quantum computers using subatomic particles to communicate information.
Like, they may take, let's say, an electron.
Maybe if it's spinning clockwise, that could be analogous to a one.
And maybe if it's going anticlockwise, that could be a zero.
But the really strange thing about quantum computing is that this particle could exist in multiple states at the same time.
And by doing that, you can make really, really fast calculations.
Multiple states at the same time?
Yeah, they call it superposition.
Whoa. Oof. So examples of quantum computers have been around for a while, but the huge problem has been that while they're really fast, they give a ton of errors.
Google claims to have basically solved the error problem.
Could they help my middle schooler with her math homework?
Because that's giving us a lot of trouble right now.
That would be useful.
I mean, or more darkly, I can imagine hackers trying every combination of my password in a nanosecond.
Oh, okay. Well, now we're back to being spooky.
But beyond math homework, there could be other opportunities.
Think of pharmaceutical drug discovery, better AI movies.
I don't know. The list is as long as your imagination.
Can't wait for this grim future.
Or exciting future.
Last but not least, Nick, I believe you are in the festive spirit today.
I am. Producer Angel, cue the sleigh bells.
Because I get very excited this time of year.
I used to play them in high school band.
I get very, I love them too.
This morning, the Santa Claus of the indicator editor, Kate Kincannon, asked me to get a feel for the Christmas tree market this year.
This has become your beat.
You're somewhat of an expat on the subject.
For those who don't know, I used to sell Christmas trees at farmer's markets.
After that, for a Planet Money show, I bought a truckload of them at auction in Pennsylvania and sold them on the streets of Brooklyn.
So yeah, I've been under the mistletoe one or two times.
Ooh -ho. Keep it safe for work, Nick.
Okay, so what's the update?
What's the economic update, please?
I thought you'd never been kissed, Nick.
No, I'm sorry to reevaluate.
Oh, gosh. Well, I just got off the phone with Ben Courtney, who is the operations manager at the Buffalo Valley produce auction.
That's where I bought those Christmas trees back in the day.
They hold the country's biggest Christmas tree auction every year.
How'd the auction go this year?
It prices, prices dropped pretty hard.
Really? Mm -hmm. That's right.
My indicator of the week.
Maybe my indicator of the holiday season comes from Ben, who says wholesale prices for Christmas trees dropped a lot.
30 to 40 percent. 30 to 40 percent.
Yeah. Bad news for the Federal Reserve, though.
I do not think that Christmas trees are in any of the inflation counting bundles that the BLS uses.
As a consumer, I'm happy.
It's pretty exciting to see prices go down.
It rarely happens. So what's the reason?
Yeah. Ben says this is kind of a return to normal, he thinks.
Prices went pretty wild in the last few years.
And part of that was just increased demand.
But part of it has to do with actually the Great Recession.
We go into this in detail in the Planting Money episode.
But basically because trees take so long to grow and farmers weren't planting them during the Great Recession, a decade later, the market got really tight.
Now, the market is less tight, especially Ben says, for smaller trees.
Those are where the deals really are this year.
If they're in, you are still in the market.
I'm in the market with some Norway spruce.
You know, I got a noble fir at Lowe's for 60 bucks.
I thought that was an amazing deal.
Seven -footer. Have you trimmed your tree yet, Nick?
Did you decorate it yet?
We had a little party last weekend.
And little kids got paint everywhere and made their own ornament.
Oh, that sounds really cute.
Wait, Nick, you're floating.
Where are you going?
Jolly old Saint Nicholas.
He's away. Coming right down Santa Claus Lane.
He's got work to do.
Often make more deliveries.
The world's most famous postman.
Before we wrap up, we want to say a quick thanks if you donate to your local NPR station or have joined NPR+.
That support lets us come to you every weekday with episodes like Indicators of the Week.
If you don't know about NPR +, it's a great way to hear this and more than 25 other NPR podcasts sponsor free.
There are other perks too, like bonus episodes and discounts at the NPR Shop.
You get all that for a small recurring donation and know you're supporting NPR's mission of creating a more informed public.
To sign up, just go to plus .npr .org.
That's plus .npr .org.
This episode was produced by Asia Corrros with engineering by Neil Rauch and was fact -checked by Cierra Juarez.
Kicking Cannon is her editor and the Indicators of production of NPR.
Gimme cookies! And milk.
Milk. Breakup stories are going super viral online.
Normalize posting while you broke up on the Internet.
I cannot believe I'm about to tell this breakup story and expose myself like this.
On It's Been A Minute, we're asking the big questions about dating.
Like what's the line between a juicy story and an invasion of privacy?
To find out, listen now to the It's Been A Minute podcast from NPR.
Every weekday, NPR's best political reporters come to you on the NPR Politics Podcast to explain the big news coming out of Washington, the campaign trail and beyond.
We don't just want to tell you what happened, we tell you why it matters.
Join the NPR Politics Podcast every single afternoon to understand the world through political eyes.
