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Hello! Hope you’ve had a great week.

What’s a few billion between allies? The Trump administration has political motives for propping up Argentina’s currency, but the plan could leave American taxpayers holding the bag. We’ll talk about it in today’s newsletter, along with a bunch of other stories you need to read to make your dollar stretch further.

Later, we’ll give you a basic explainer on the stock market even kids can understand, and visit a regenerative cattle ranch that might not be as good for the environment as we think. Plus: Meet the 21st century gold prospectors.  — Tony Wagner, newsletter editor
A photo illustration of dollars and pesos.
Luis Robayo/AFP via Getty Images
Trump's plan to prop up Argentina's peso with American tax dollars, explained
If it doesn’t work, the U.S. could be stuck with a bunch of pesos that aren’t worth very much. Marketplace’s Sabri Ben-Achour explains.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed the U.S. signed a $20 billion currency swap to prop up the Argentine peso on Tuesday. The goal? To raise the peso’s value on foreign exchange markets.

The Argentine peso is in trouble because, well, people don’t want it.

“The currency is woefully over-valued,” said Mark Sobel, U.S. chair of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. “And the market has lost confidence that the value of the currency is sustainable or tenable.”

A bedraggled peso is a problem for Argentina’s government, which is about to face an election.

“If the peso falls, there’ll be an uptick in inflation in Argentina,” said Brad Setser, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The price of imports will go up. The price of all things will go up.”

Not good if you’re trying to win an election. 

The way you prop up a currency is by going and buying a bunch of it. “When you buy something, or when you bid on something, the price tends to go up,” Setser said.

That’s what the U.S. has been doing — in a very unusual move, by the way. Just buying pesos.

“The U.S. has had to spend a decent amount of money, estimates are close to a half billion, maybe more, and it hasn’t actually had that much of an impact on the currency,” Setser said.

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Stories for the weekend

Your money

  • The economy’s “check engine” light is on; auto loan delinquencies are on the rise. Blame rising prices and Americans’ expensive taste. 

  • The average interest on the 30-year fixed mortgage hit its lowest point in a year this week. Lower rates could drive more home-improvement spending next year.

  • Younger workers are leading a broad rejection of “work emergencies.” 

  • Next year’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid is now open. Here’s everything you need to know.

Government shutdown

  • We’re a couple weeks away from breaking the record for longest-ever government shutdown. Betting markets think we’ll get there. 

  • Past shutdowns have turned on staffing crunches at airports. Should you push back upcoming travel?

  • Without much else to do, and federal workers furloughed, lawmakers are giving Capitol tours themselves.

Entertainment

  • Batman meets Captain Picard? Bari Weiss meets Anderson Cooper? Paramount has reportedly made three offers to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. Here’s what a tie-up between the two media giants would look like.

  • Netflix is wringing every dime out of the end of “Stranger Things,” including putting its series finale in movie theaters.
“Above all, I appreciate Marketplace's commitment to being honest and rooting their stories in a fact-based reality.  The current moment needs more of this from media.” 
— Marketplace Investor Phoebe from Kaneohe, HI
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The exterior of a Los Angeles car wash.
David Ryder/Getty Images
Why does it feel like customer service is on the decline?
For some companies, bad service is by design. Marketplace's Janet Nguyen explains.

Peter Roof is fed up. The Marketplace listener wrote in from Arlington, Virginia, to ask:

Why are companies abandoning customer service? Some never really had it… Was the cost beyond having a service facade not worth it?

“The next agent will be available in two hours.”

Customers know the frustration of having to deal with long wait times or simply being unable to contact a company in the first place. Sometimes it’s a function of companies not wanting to expend their resources, and sometimes it’s by design. By tiring you out, it’ll make it harder for you to cancel that gym membership.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to profits.

“It’s customer disservice at this point,” said Erin Witte, director of consumer protection at the Consumer Federation of America. 

It also doesn’t help that some industries have become more consolidated over time. 

“Corporate concentration, I think, has really impacted the incentives of companies to focus much less on customer service, because they don't have to and they can make a whole lot more money if they don't,” Witte said. 

READ MORE
 
ICYMI
Your favorite stories this week

Here are the stories readers clicked on the most in our Daily Wrap newsletter this week. Sign up to get the latest news and numbers in your inbox every weekday evening.

  • Why is international travel to the U.S. falling?

  • Why you should care about the national debt hitting $38 trillion

  • Like it or not, we’re all living in the AI economy now

  • What the “birth-death model” can it tell us about the economy 

  • Increased productivity could boost this sluggish labor market

Cattle on a ranch
Andri Tambunan/AFP via Getty Images
 
No easy answers for the beef industry

President Donald Trump posted to social media this week that cattle ranchers “have to get their prices down.” The reality is more complicated, and there’s no easy fix.

Can better farming practices help? It kind of depends how you define both “better” and “help.” Our podcast “How We Survive” visited both a regenerative ranch and a factory farm this week, and we learned what’s good for cows and workers might not be great for managing climate change. 

LISTEN NOW
A cartoon shows a girl eating a sandwich at an airport. A thought bubble reads
Binglin Hu
How to talk with your kids about… the stock market
Our podcast “Million Bazillion” teaches kids — and their parents — about the economy. Hype around artificial intelligence has been driving the stock market to new all-time highs all year. That might get your kid wondering (or maybe you’re asking yourself) how to cash in. Here are some key points from this week’s episode of the podcast: 

What’s a stock? Little pieces of a company, called a share, that the company itself sells to the public. If that company grows and makes money your piece can grow in value, too. 

So how do people make money in stocks? One way is through “share appreciation,” when you sell your stock for more than what you paid. The other is from “dividends.” That’s like a little thank-you gift the company pays its investors using extra cash. 

Are stocks risky? There are lots of ways to invest in the stock market, and which one you use depends on the level of risk you’re comfortable with, because shares can lose value, too. Experts say you shouldn’t invest more than you can stand to lose.

How do the pros manage risk? One way is index funds, which are like a variety pack of stocks. An index is basically a list of publicly traded companies along a theme. For example, the Nasdaq is mostly tech stocks or the S&P 500 includes 500 of the largest and best-performing American companies. 

What about meme stocks? They got big on social media the past few years, and they’re some of the most volatile and risky stock investments of all. Their short boost in value is based on internet fervor, not a solid business plan.

How can I start? Kids shouldn’t be investing on their own. They should get guidance from a trusted adult. Even investing “safely” carries some risk that you could lose your money.
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SONG OF THE WEEK
"New Gold" by Gorillaz feat. Tame Impala and Bootie Brown
The cover art for Gorillaz's album
Listen to "New Gold" on Spotify | Apple Music | YouTube

The price of gold has been on a tear for months, and even with this week’s dip it’s still over $4,000 an ounce and up more than 50% so far this year.

Who’s buying all this gold? There are investors seeking a safe haven, sure, and at least a few Costco members. But this new gold rush is producing a new kind of prospector, armed with metal detectors and smartphones. The Wall Street Journal’s Te-Ping Chen came on “Marketplace” this week to talk about the influencers digging, panning and even mining for gold.
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