Small talk: Electric eels, Corleones and Kardashians
TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: This final note today. Nothing at all to do with unemployment, deficits, taxes or toys. Instead, stories that didn’t quite make the headlines.
Courtesy of Brendan Newnam, Rico Gagliano and the rest of the Marketplace staff.
Rico Gagliano: John Haas, editor. What story are you going to be talking about this weekend?
John Haas: There’s a Japanese aquarium just outside of Tokyo that’s going to power a six-foot-tall Christmas tree with electric eels.
Gagliano: Really?
Haas: They’re going to have eels swim around and there’ll be aluminum plates that send the charge up through wires and light up the lights.
Gagliano: So there’s all our environmental problems solved. We’ll just power the grid with eels.
Haas: The Obama Administration’s already looking to find a nuclear powered whale.
Brendan Newnam: Stacey Vanek Smith, senior reporter for Marketplace. What story are you going to be talking about this weekend?
Stacey Vanek Smith: Well Brendan, the mansion from “The Godfather” movies where the Corleones lived, is an actual mansion in Staten Island. And it’s up for sale.
Newnam: Really?
Vanek Smith: For $2.9 million. It’s an eight-bedroom house.
Newnam: So insert ‘offer you can’t refuse’ joke here, right?
Vanek Smith: You think this is funny?
Newnam: No, Stacey.
Vanek Smith: Do I amuse you? Am I a joke to you?
Gagliano: Jennifer Collins, reporter. What story are you going to be talking about this weekend?
Jennifer Collins: So maybe you’ve heard of the Kardashians — they’re this reality show family. And they attached their name to this pre-paid debit card earlier this year. It was aimed at young adults and their fans. The problem is, earlier this week, they took their names off this card.
Gagliano: Why?
Collins: They are these really high fees associated with the card, so it was consider predatory. Like $100 a year if you keep it.
Gagliano: This is for a pre-paid card?
Collins: Yeah. The Connecticut attorney general is looking into this.
Gagliano: This is just another blow to America’s faith in its financial system. It’s like, forget Bear Stearns — if we cannot trust the Kardashian name–
Collins: Who can we trust?
Ryssdal: That’s just a tiny taste of what’s on the menu on Rico and Brendan’s podcast; it’s called Dinner Party Download.
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