Fun Fact Friday: Uber might be ruining our economy
Kai sat down with Linette Lopez of Business Insider and Sudeep Reddy from the Wall Street Journal for a look at the week that was. Here’s what else we learned listening to Marketplace this week:
Fun Fact: There are rules to duplicating dollar bills, even on movie sets.
In preparing for the climax of the film Rush Hour 2, a prop maker discovered the legal implications in creating a billion dollars in fake money. In fact, there’s a law that states, when duplicating dollar bills, they must be either 75 percent smaller than or 150 percent larger than the size of a real bill.
The tricky business behind fake Hollywood money
Fun Fact: Millennials and women are responsible for our shift towards fresher foods.
Gone are the days of Chef Boyardee and Ramen noodles. Sales of some of the top brands at General Mills, Kraft, and the Campbell Soup Company have been slumping. Food analysts claim the change in consumption habits is due to recession-born millennials and mothers concerned about the additives and preservatives perverting their children’s foods.
Why sales of packaged or processed foods are declining
Fun Fact: The Social Security “Death Master File” features more than six million people born before 1901 as still alive.
A recent audit by the Inspector General revealed the inefficient record keeping. This is problematic for many federal agencies that rely on this file for paying out refunds and pensions.
The cost of inefficient Social Security record keeping
Fun Fact: The U.S. economy includes some 2.8 million temp workers — a number much larger when you include people working in the “gig economy.”
The gig economy, or “Uberification” of the labor force, in which companies hire locals to complete a quick task at hand, has in fact made it frighteningly easy for companies to offload jobs that would otherwise go to full-time staff. It’s created a loophole for labor regulations that some feel is creating a speedy race to the bottom.
Is the Uber economy bad for workers?
Fun Fact: We created this quiz to find out which Apple Watch is right for you.
Apple CEO Tim Cook took the stage this week to unveil updates of existing products and show off new products, most notably the Apple Watch, which ranges in price from $349 to more than a whopping $10,000. We created a quiz so you could determine which watch is right for you.
Is it time for the Apple Watch?
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