Kenny Malone

Alexei Horowitz-Gazi there, who did ask me to clarify that he is, quote, not some sociopath who wants all humans replaced by machines.

It's more like, if there has to be self-checkout, you know, here's one that doesn't create more of a mess at the checkout.

That's his point.

And I will add that Alexei's Valentine did prompt a whole lot of frantic research for some of us at Planet Money, wondering...

why isn't every self-checkout this good?

And why isn't my grocery store this good?

And is Alexi paying extra for his Uniqlo turtleneck because of this?

And the answer seems to be that each item at Uniqlo, you know, it has this little RFID chip, a tiny little radio transponder.

And those have become cheaper and cheaper.

One McKinsey report says that RFID tags have come down from 20 cents about a decade ago to 4 cents a tag in recent years.

And yeah, I mean, if you sell clothes like Uniqlo, like what's an extra four cents to make your fancy self-checkout work?

Especially if Uniqlo doesn't have to pay a cashier and customers move through it faster.

But if you're a grocery store and you sell, you know, green peppers, an extra four cents on each pepper really cuts into the margin.

So I wouldn't count on seeing this Valentine's worthy technology at the grocery store anytime soon.

Meanwhile, back with my Valentine's Day co-pilot today and Betty Boop's stan, Jennifer Jenkins.

Wait, hold on, let me go back to my list.

All right, this is a tough one.

We are building the official Planet Money Valentine's Day card.

Our task at the moment, find a nerdy twist on Betty Boop's iconic catchphrase.

Something economic that isn't also, how do you say, uh...