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This is the indicator from Planet Money. I'm

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Waylon Wong here with my esteemed colleague, Darian

0:51

Woods. What is this? My retirement party? That's

0:55

actually your roast. So things are going to take

0:57

a turn. Well, I appreciate it. And

1:00

with us as well is friend of

1:03

the show and host of New Hampshire

1:05

Public Radio's Outside In podcast, Nate Heggie.

1:08

Waylon, do I not get an esteemed as well? Come

1:10

on. They steamed

1:12

as implied in the intro. Thank

1:16

you. Yeah, you trade in achievements, but I

1:18

just trade in honorariums. And

1:22

for those new to the show, indicators of the

1:25

week is when we bring you three snapshots of

1:27

what's happened in the global economy this week. And

1:29

today we're looking at a new vibe check on the

1:32

U.S. economy, stamping out carbon

1:34

offset scams, and

1:36

the return of the pandas. I've

1:38

got one behind me. Ah! That's

1:41

after the break. Thank

1:57

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2:51

Indicators of the week, Waylon Efest.

2:53

Okay, my indicator, 102, is tied

2:57

to something we've talked about a

2:59

lot on this show, including on

3:01

the last indicators of the week.

3:03

And that is pervasive negative consumer

3:06

sentiment about the economy. You know,

3:08

this disconnect between probably positive headline

3:10

numbers and how people say

3:12

they're actually feeling. So 102 is

3:14

the latest reading of the US

3:17

Consumer Confidence Index. In May, this

3:19

index rose after three straight months

3:21

of declines. It's at 102 up

3:23

from 97.5 in April. Waylon,

3:28

what's the scale for this index? Is it

3:30

like 102 out of like a thousand or

3:32

like 102 mean? The

3:35

backstory is actually really interesting. So this

3:38

index is a benchmark and the benchmark for the index

3:40

is a hundred. That's where this indicator was in the

3:42

year 1985. And the folks that put together this index

3:44

chose 1985 because it was considered a

3:49

normal year, like right down the middle.

3:51

People were feeling neither super optimistic, nor

3:54

super pessimistic. They're like just feeling basically fine. So

3:56

I mean, I don't know, how are you guys

3:59

feeling in 1985? I was

4:01

not feeling anything. I wasn't even born in 1985. Neither was

4:03

I, so that's pretty neutral.

4:06

Oh my god. I'm a grizzled old crone, I

4:08

guess. So I was in preschool in 1985. I

4:11

think I was probably feeling very confident

4:13

about sitting still on a run during

4:16

Circle Five. Okay, so this level of 102

4:18

compared with like a benchmark of 100, that signals that

4:22

Americans are maybe like ever

4:24

so slightly feeling okay

4:26

about the economy? Yes. Although

4:28

there are some subtleties here. So

4:30

in the same release, there was

4:32

this other number, something called the

4:34

Expectations Index. This measures consumers' short-term

4:37

outlook for the economy, and this

4:39

index came in at 74.6 in

4:42

May. The folks that put

4:44

together this index say that anything below

4:47

80 has typically signaled a recession. So

4:50

more evidence for the weird vibes economy right

4:52

now. Yep, things continue to be

4:54

a little bit of a puzzle, which, you know,

4:56

all the more reason to keep listening to our

4:58

show. Exactly. Nice plug. Nice plug.

5:01

You bet, you bet. That is

5:04

the end of my story time for today,

5:06

so you guys did a great job sitting

5:08

still listening to a monologue about consumer confidence.

5:12

Alright, so Nate, what do you have?

5:14

So my indicator of the week is $1.7

5:16

billion. That's how much companies and individuals

5:20

spent globally on buying carbon

5:22

offsets last year. Okay, so

5:25

you buy these, especially if you're

5:27

doing something that's bad for the

5:29

climate, like flying in a private

5:31

plane or burning coal, then you

5:34

can offset those greenhouse gas emissions

5:36

by funding projects like reforestation or

5:38

building solar farms? Exactly. And theoretically,

5:40

buying one carbon credit means

5:43

one ton of carbon dioxide is then

5:45

removed from the atmosphere. Everyone

5:47

from Delta Airlines to ExxonMobil

5:49

to Taylor Swift have purchased

5:52

carbon offsets. More like

5:54

the tortured environmentalist apartment, am I

5:56

right? That's a good one. She

5:59

said she bought them to to offset her private jet

6:01

travel, visiting her boyfriend when he was traveling

6:03

all over the country, playing for the Kansas

6:05

City Chiefs, plus to compensate for travel on

6:08

her era's world tour. The guy says some

6:10

guilt-free travel. Well,

6:12

depending on who you ask. Yeah, exactly, because

6:14

the problem here is that this market is

6:17

kind of the wild west, and

6:19

some of these projects, they aren't cutting the

6:21

amount of emissions they promised. For example, there

6:23

was an investigation by the Guardian that

6:25

found this reforestation project in

6:28

Zimbabwe had so many exaggerated

6:30

claims the holes were

6:32

like, quote, Swiss cheese. That really

6:34

brings me down. Yeah, these shenanigans

6:36

have prompted some scientists and activists

6:38

to argue that carbon offsets just

6:40

like don't work. But

6:43

this week, the Biden administration essentially said, wait

6:45

a minute, not so fast. They

6:47

can work. There just needs to

6:49

be guardrails in place. Right,

6:51

so to make sure that they are

6:53

actually building new forests or making sure

6:56

that forests would otherwise be cut down

6:58

and not cut down. Exactly, yeah, so

7:00

these new federal guidelines, they push companies

7:02

to invest in projects that are, quote,

7:04

high integrity, meaning they are actually going to do what they

7:07

say they're going to do. Okay, and

7:09

how are they going to do that?

7:11

Essentially, these carbon offset projects, they can

7:13

get certified by a number of nonprofit

7:15

organizations that already exist. Oh,

7:17

so it's like when you see that your

7:19

coffee beans are certified as fair trade, it

7:21

means some organization with authority has said, your

7:23

money goes to support fair wages for local

7:26

growers. Right, kind of like that,

7:28

yeah. But it's also important to note

7:30

here that these guidelines don't have any

7:32

teeth. They're more here to

7:34

show that the Biden administration has confidence

7:36

that this carbon credit market can work

7:38

if companies can identify and invest in

7:41

the right projects. But there's another

7:43

aspect here too. A

7:45

lot of these projects are in the global south,

7:47

which means that countries in this region will invest

7:49

in these projects themselves and then countries in the

7:51

global north will too. So all

7:53

that cash could build solar power plants

7:55

in Togo or regenerate bamboo forests in

7:58

China. Did someone say bamboo? bamboo

8:00

forest in China? Yes

8:03

indeed. My indicator of the

8:05

week is two pandas. The

8:08

best indicator. Are you here to

8:10

talk panda diplomacy? I love

8:12

this. Yes. So panda diplomacy

8:15

is China sharing its pandas as

8:17

a sign of goodwill between countries.

8:20

Yeah and the latest announcement this week is

8:22

that the National Zoo in D.C. is going

8:24

to get two pandas. Yay! I

8:26

wish I were getting two pandas but

8:28

National Zoo also very deserving of a

8:31

couple of pandas. Do you really wish you

8:33

were getting two pandas? I know they look cute but

8:35

having two pandas in your house might be a little

8:37

troublesome. I would be willing to

8:39

put up with that trouble. And Waylon you

8:42

were telling us all about this last year

8:44

when the zoo's three pandas on loan had

8:46

to leave back to China. I

8:48

was and I thought that was it but I

8:50

guess they're super back. They will be

8:52

back later in the year when they arrive

8:54

from China, San Diego and San Francisco or

8:56

also getting some. And fun fact, one

8:59

of the two year old pandas is actually the

9:01

grandson of two of the pandas that were taken

9:03

back to China last year. I wonder if you

9:05

gave him any tips on how to live it

9:07

up in the U.S. now

9:09

that he's back here. Oh yeah. Like where the best

9:11

hot dogs are. Just say your pose for the

9:13

influencers. Hahaha. Like

9:17

find your best angle. Yeah. So

9:20

we have pretty tense relations between

9:22

China and the U.S. right now. I

9:24

mean that's partially why there was so

9:26

much chatter about the pandas leaving last

9:28

year. So I guess the question is

9:31

does this mean that U.S.-China relations are

9:33

getting better? I mean if you watch the

9:35

news it certainly doesn't feel like it right? Like we just

9:37

had that big tariff announcement by the Biden

9:39

administration a couple weeks ago. Yeah. So I

9:42

wouldn't say this was the result of a

9:44

high level negotiation between the two countries presidents.

9:46

You know the promise to

9:48

pandas is actually a bilateral agreement

9:50

between the Smithsonian and the

9:53

China Wildlife Conservation Association which is a

9:55

non-governmental organization in

9:57

China. The New York Times

9:59

reported that officials who were in on

10:01

the agreement said that it had no

10:03

help from diplomats or ambassadors. Okay,

10:06

so Chinese and American relations might still

10:08

be pretty tense. They are.

10:10

That said, I do think they're an

10:12

indicator that relations between the two countries

10:15

are, let's say, cordial, polite.

10:17

Government officials could have stopped the

10:19

panda deal from happening if they

10:21

wanted, and President Xi Jinping

10:23

and other Chinese officials have talked about

10:26

the US getting pandas as a sign

10:28

of friendship. I'm trying to

10:30

picture some Chinese government official tackling the

10:32

pandas and getting on the blame

10:34

being like, no, you don't.

10:37

No, you don't. You're not going

10:39

anywhere. Yeah. Not until they

10:41

remove those tariffs. Weirdest trade war

10:43

ever. This

10:46

episode was produced by Cooper Cass McKim with

10:48

engineering by Valentina Rodríguez Sanchez. It was fact

10:50

checked by Cierra Juarez, kicking in and edits

10:53

the show in the indicators production of NPR.

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