Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal talks to Catherine Rampell from the Washington Post and Felix Salmon of Fusion to discuss the week that was.
Here’s what else we learned at Marketplace this week:
Fun Fact: Freight railways spent $26 billion in private money to maintain Amtrak tracks last year.
The battle over rail space between Amtrak passenger trains and freight trains carrying the products we consume continues. While federal law mandates that passenger trains get priority on the rails, it’s freight railways that are contributing heavily toward keeping the tracks intact.
The fight over America’s rails
Fact: 90 percent of car crashes in the United States are due to driver error.
Good news, though! That number is expected to plummet by half as driverless cars go from science fiction to fact. As a consequence, the insurance industry will also have to reassess its business model.
If cars don’t need drivers, do drivers need insurance?
Fun Fact: Dayton, Ohio, had the most patents per capita of any American city by the early 20th century.
This week, in our series collaboration with the BBC, Six Routes to a Richer World, we visited Dayton, Ohio. A place where start-ups flourished, making brilliant engineers and scrappy entrepreneurs fabulously wealthy. Sound familiar? Check out our short list of inventions that came from this area:
Finding the beta version of Silicon Valley
Fun Fact: Writing something damning about high-frequency trading will anger the richest people on Wall Street.
Michael Lewis sat down with Kai Ryssdal this week to talk about a new afterword for his book ‘Flash Boys.’ He discloses the negative reaction he received from “all the people who were making lots of money off the problems” he uncovers and leaves us with a sobering prediction: “If the market continues to be structured as it is, you’re looking at the next financial crisis.”
America’s next financial crisis?
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