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Chapter 1: Why are gas prices declining despite inflation?
Curbing inflation doesn't make things cheaper, but a few things are cheaper. Inflation is moderating. Last week we saw the consumer price index going up 2.4% in a year versus 2.7% as calculated a month earlier. So prices are still going up and we often figure nothing ever actually goes down in price. An exception is gasoline, down 7.5% in a year. Not by a lot.
Chapter 2: What economic principles explain the drop in gasoline prices?
Twenty cents a gallon on average, but enough to buy yourself a king-sized bag of peanut M&Ms on a typical fill-up. Marketplace's Mitchell Hartman has more.
Prices are still rising on most consumer goods more than the Fed wants. By contrast, says nationwide economist Kathy Bustanczyk.
Gasoline prices have been deflating. Regular now is below $3 a gallon.
The reason is basic economics, says Gernot Wagner at Columbia Business School. Supply up, demand down, prices go down. OPEC is boosting oil production, while the U.S. plans to flood the world market with Venezuelan crude. Meanwhile, as electric vehicle adoption spreads globally, it throttles gasoline demand. all of which translates to lower gas prices for U.S. consumers.
Here's Stephen Cates at Bankrate.
I think the impact is very much mental for most people. Talking to my father, he said, wow, gas prices are so low now. This is great.
But that positive sentiment might not boost overall consumer confidence or spending much, says Johnny Sawyer at polling firm Ipsos.
Even though gas prices are down year over year, their prices are up, you know, housing, groceries.
Also, electricity up 6% and natural gas up nearly 10% since last year. So while it's cheaper to drive to and from work these days, it's more expensive to heat and light your house once you get there. I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
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Chapter 3: How does increased oil supply affect gasoline prices?
It's just that something does go wrong, they could get pretty badly hurt.
We have a new approach now to the affordable housing crisis. It is a way to build more homes quicker, given the thousands of different sets of rules governing how you build, rules which vary by county and town. This is one of the companies we discovered reporting a one-hour special called Building Tomorrow. It's from Marketplace and this old house, Radio Hour.
At Reframe Systems in Andover, Massachusetts, they can dial in local building codes when making houses in factories. Reframe's co-founder is Felipe Polito.
In the United States, there are over 30,000 zoning jurisdictions. Every single project has to be built custom to meet the demands for that site. You cannot build a single product repeatedly in a factory because you need to get this variation outcome.
Reframe is trying to scale housing by spreading a network of small factories across the country, keeping labor local while standardizing everything else.
What it lets us do is have the local labor work on the houses in our communities. So our electrician, our plumber who are working in the factory, they're the same ones that are wrapping up the work on site. which means that we as Reframe are going all the way to the finish and delivering that home from end to end.
So you imagine a world where you can type in an address and get a house that is compliant to that local with the right price and time frame for it to be built.
The philosophy goes beyond automation. It's about structuring work by turning construction into a clear step-by-step process, almost paint-by-numbers.
Behind you over here is a smart saw. This machine feeds lumber and cuts it automatically while printing onto the material. And what we got here then is that this is a kit that then will be assembled into a wall.
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Chapter 4: What impact does electric vehicle adoption have on gasoline demand?
But as somebody assembling it, all you need to know is that 18 goes to 18, 16 goes to 16, 14 goes to 14. And very much like an Ikea kit, you're just assembling it the way it's supposed to be.
By shifting the work into a controlled factory and guiding each step with software, ReFrame streamlines requirements so more people can do precision work without sacrificing quality.
What is interesting is that today actually we have a much quieter pool of operators than you would get on the field. We can have folks that otherwise would not be doing construction actually doing these tasks.
Felipe Polito of Reframe Systems. We have lots of new ways to build houses in faster, more resilient, energy-efficient ways. In our special called Building Tomorrow, the Future of American Housing, which I co-host with Jen Largess from This Old House Radio Hour, it's at the top of This Old House's feed, wherever you get your podcasts. In Los Angeles, I'm David Brancaccio.
This is the Marketplace Morning Report. From APM American Public Media.
If there was a big red button that would just demolish the internet, I would smash that button with my forehead. From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.
This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work, your politics, your everyday life, and all the bizarre ways people are using the internet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
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