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The Rest of the Story, 2022

The Rest of the Story, 2022

Released Saturday, 31st December 2022
 1 person rated this episode
The Rest of the Story, 2022

The Rest of the Story, 2022

The Rest of the Story, 2022

The Rest of the Story, 2022

Saturday, 31st December 2022
 1 person rated this episode
Rate Episode

Episode Transcript

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0:00

Hi. I'm Daniel Alarcon, host of NPR's

0:02

Spanish language podcast, Pallamboolante. This

0:04

season, Superman flies to Chile for some

0:06

real life heroics. A very strange

0:08

dog becomes front page news in Peru.

0:10

Mexican activists infiltrate an Austrian museum

0:13

to tell the story of a controversial artifact.

0:15

And much much more. New episodes every

0:17

Tuesday starting September twentieth available

0:19

wherever you get your podcasts.

0:23

This is Planet Money from NPR.

0:28

The other day, I got a Mizzum with Planet

0:30

Money listener named Rachel come back.

0:34

So I understand you have a story about

0:37

planet money changing lives. Yes.

0:40

I'll start at the beginning. Yeah. That in

0:43

twenty seventeen, I was

0:45

living in Berkeley, California. She was

0:48

working on her PhD and a

0:50

friend walks into her office. Said,

0:52

hey, did you hear that Jeff was on planet

0:54

money? Jeff Lacking. Her

0:56

old friend and ballroom dancing partner

0:58

from college. He was a guest on

1:00

a show we did about free range

1:03

chickens, being eaten

1:06

by Eagles. Jeff's job,

1:08

you may remember, was shooting off these

1:10

explosives to scare the Eagles

1:12

away and make them ruin less products,

1:14

so to speak. And

1:18

there they go. Did you see on

1:20

the backside actually? There goes one right

1:22

now. Okay. We can move them with the

1:24

bird bangers. And when you were listening,

1:27

you know, were you feeling butterflies? I

1:32

think I was more so feeling intrigued

1:35

because his life was so different from

1:37

mine. I was sitting

1:40

in an office, writing

1:42

code to do optimization functions.

1:45

And he's out in a field, you know,

1:48

trying to navigate this bald eagle population

1:51

problem. And then few weeks later,

1:53

Rachel says, you know what? Why not reach

1:55

out? Sounds of a text. I think the

1:57

text said nothing

1:59

more than hey, I I heard

2:02

you on planet money. Hope you're doing

2:04

well. So not a ton of content

2:06

to go off of. It would

2:08

be so weird if he was, like, do a

2:10

phone who dissed. Thankfully,

2:15

I felt confident that he still had my phone

2:17

number. For Rachel and Jeff,

2:19

that one text turned into

2:21

more text, those turned into

2:23

calls, and then She

2:25

went to visit the chicken farm in Georgia.

2:27

I had no idea what was going

2:29

to happen when I flew to Georgia. I just

2:32

more so thought it would be an adventure and a great

2:34

story. Which turns out it was,

2:37

and it led to this

2:39

amazing relationship that I

2:41

have, a a planet money baby, who

2:43

was born twelve weeks ago. Baby. And

2:45

you have a newborn

2:46

kid, congratulations. Clint. Money

2:48

baby. That's crazy. Yeah.

2:51

His name is NOx Frederick, and

2:53

he's adorable. Oh

2:55

my god. Congratulations. Thanks.

2:59

Hello, and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Nick

3:02

Fountain. Today, we're gonna

3:04

take Rachel's example. We're gonna reach

3:06

out to guests from Planet Money's past,

3:08

and see how they're doing. Because

3:10

even though we publish people's stories,

3:13

we write these nice tidy endings,

3:15

It's not like the stories end when

3:17

we stop recording. No. No. No.

3:19

They keep going. And so

3:21

we owe it to the people of the stories

3:23

and to our listeners. To

3:26

check back in, see what's happened

3:28

since. It's our annual tradition,

3:30

a show we call the rest

3:33

of the story.

3:47

Of the many stories we published

3:49

this past year, maybe the ones with the most

3:51

at stake were those that

3:53

touched on the war in Ukraine. One

3:55

of those episodes was about a CEO who

3:58

horrified by the Russian aggression in Ukraine

4:00

decided to try to get her employees out

4:02

of

4:02

Russia. The reporter on that story

4:04

was Amanda Aronczyk. Hey, Amanda?

4:07

Hey there, Nick. How's it going? Pretty well.

4:09

Alright. So you talked with the CEO

4:11

again to get an update. Remind us

4:13

her name? Well, we didn't actually

4:16

say her name at the time. Because

4:18

we had to keep it a secret. When

4:20

we first spoke, we were very careful

4:22

to not use your name. We didn't use your company's

4:24

name. What what changed?

4:27

Well,

4:29

first of all, we were able to finally get

4:32

everyone out who was going to get

4:34

out. So that's the main reason. Right?

4:36

Because we didn't want to risk

4:38

naming the name of the company and potentially

4:41

putting all these people who were still

4:43

underway out at risk. But

4:46

since then, we don't do

4:48

anything in Russia anymore. And

4:50

So now we can speak freely, and

4:53

people are no longer afraid. So

4:55

I can say it now. Her name is Natalie

4:57

Kaminsky, She was born in Russia, now

4:59

she's American, and she is the CEO

5:01

of a software company called Jet Rockets.

5:04

And ultimately, she got every

5:06

one of her employees who wanted to leave

5:08

Russia out of Russia. That's more than

5:10

fifty people. And, Natalie,

5:12

she is good at keeping things in perspective.

5:15

Right? She knows there is this brutal

5:17

war in Ukraine. She actually has a sister

5:19

who is trapped there right now. At

5:21

the same time, she's had to manage

5:23

complications with her company. She's had to help people

5:25

start new

5:26

lives, find apartments, enroll their

5:28

kids in new schools, set up an office,

5:31

This is all happening mostly in the neighboring

5:33

country of Georgia. Actually, a funny

5:35

story. You know, when

5:37

we opened the office in Georgia, we

5:39

learned very quickly that Georgia

5:41

doesn't have IKEA. And IKEA, of

5:43

course, is a wonderful resource to furnish

5:45

your office space. It is if you wanna

5:47

you want to furnish an office

5:48

quickly, Ikea. You go to Ikea.

5:51

Well, there's no Ikea in Georgia. So

5:53

they decided that their best plan was to

5:55

actually go get the desk and chairs that

5:57

they left in Russia. They'd

5:59

also left behind all sorts of personal belongings

6:02

because when people left, they

6:04

were often pretending they were just going on vacation,

6:06

so they brought a suitcase or two. So

6:08

Natalie and her team booked some moving trucks

6:10

to go get all of the stuff

6:12

and drive it from Russia to

6:15

the country of Georgia.

6:16

The first time no hassle at all. The

6:19

second time there

6:21

was some interesting occurrence

6:23

at the border, but let me tell

6:25

you, there is nothing apparently that cannot

6:27

be solved. With five

6:29

hundred dollars. All

6:33

problems disappear when it landed

6:35

five hundred dollars cash. So

6:38

with some creative problem solving,

6:40

they've opened their offices in Georgia, a

6:42

bunch of people are relocated. How's business

6:44

going?

6:44

Business is going well.

6:46

Natalie's company, they built software

6:48

and apps for clients, things like they

6:50

recently made a website for selling clothes

6:52

and built a virtual conference app.

6:55

Natalie said that since the war started,

6:57

they have not lost clients and in

6:59

fact have

6:59

grown. So they've had to do this

7:01

other thing that companies sometimes have to

7:04

do when they get bigger. We reached

7:06

seventy six people. So now we

7:08

have this employee well-being manager.

7:11

And he organizes all sorts

7:13

of, like, biking trips and hikes and

7:15

other activities to to help people keep

7:17

their spirits up because still, it's

7:19

almost a year end and it's

7:21

getting hard, you know. People are

7:23

realizing that it's no longer a short

7:25

trip to a new and

7:27

exotic place, you know, they're probably gonna

7:29

stay there for a while, if not

7:31

forever, but, you know, for a long

7:33

time. You know,

7:35

it has been ten months since Russia invaded

7:38

Ukraine, and or doesn't

7:40

seem to be ending anytime soon. Amanda,

7:42

thanks for calling up Natalie and getting that

7:44

update. Yeah. Of course. Thanks, Nick.

7:50

One of the stories we covered this year, and by

7:52

We, I mean, Erica Berris, who joins

7:54

me now. Hey, Erica. Hey, Nick.

7:56

One of the stories was what you

7:58

did about this community outside of

8:00

Atlanta, Georgia, that was trying to

8:02

level

8:02

up, was trying to become a city, and they

8:05

had one Final step, they

8:07

needed to vote on whether or not

8:09

to incorporate to become a city. What

8:11

happened there? Okay. So there's this community,

8:13

Mabelton, and it's kind of part of this

8:15

movement. That's been happening around Atlanta

8:18

where communities have said, hey, we're gonna form

8:20

our own cities. This summer,

8:22

I went to Mabelton, I met with one of

8:24

the organizers Lee Roy Hudgins,

8:26

and everyone calls him trey, so we are

8:28

too. He's lived there most of his life, and

8:30

he's like, Mabelton is not getting the

8:32

investments and attention it could

8:34

get. Or it should get. I've met

8:36

with, like, friends, people

8:38

I grew up with, people I went to high school with, and we

8:40

were eating some wings and talking about it. And then

8:43

finally, we were just like, well, do you guys

8:45

think this is something we should be doing? And they were

8:47

like,

8:47

well, Shari, why don't you do it? And

8:49

so they had this big thing that they had

8:51

to do. They had get the people that would

8:53

be part of Mabelton, that's like seventy

8:55

five thousand people to actually vote

8:57

for it on the ballot in November. How to

8:59

go? Well, I checked in with

9:01

Trey. After the election? Trey, do you

9:03

have a city? We do have a city. It's the

9:05

city of Mableton. Yes.

9:08

Trey says it was a nail

9:10

biter. In any election you just

9:12

never know. And this was a big election.

9:14

Our governor's race was on this election.

9:16

Oh, I know. The whole country was That's

9:18

right.

9:18

That's right. It was the

9:21

last question on our ballots.

9:23

People voted all the way down the ballot.

9:25

Mabel Tim got cityhood with

9:27

fifty three percent of the vote.

9:29

But now they actually have to do all these

9:31

things they said they would do, like force businesses

9:33

to follow local laws and relax

9:35

the zoning laws. The real work.

9:37

Yeah. No. It's the real work, but the thing is

9:39

there's no one yet to do it because there's not yet

9:41

a mayor or a city council or

9:44

any tax revenue to work

9:45

with. You can't just flip the switch on and then revenue

9:48

starts coming in. It doesn't work that way. Uh-huh.

9:50

You know, the county would

9:52

probably need a year. To just

9:54

transition all of their processes

9:57

and all of the different things that they have in

9:59

place for a new

10:00

city. So that will probably take a year or more.

10:02

So one of the things that Mabelton

10:04

is probably gonna have to do is

10:06

the thing that a lot of these other new cities around

10:08

Atlanta have done, which is they

10:10

hire these companies that are like these

10:12

plug and play companies that like set up a

10:14

new city for you. Uh-huh. And you

10:16

kind of pay them after the fact. So you

10:18

are like, come in, do all

10:20

this stuff, and then when our tax revenue comes

10:22

in, we can pay you. There's like a whole little cottage

10:24

industry around that. And so

10:26

that's what they're gonna start doing. And

10:29

they are gonna hope that they can kind of

10:31

deliver on some of those promises that they made when

10:33

they campaigned. Is this nerve

10:34

racking? Yes.

10:38

Yes, it is. Yes, it

10:41

is. Because

10:43

for me, you only get one chance to get it

10:45

done. Right? So yes, it is no racking

10:47

because now it's time for you to put

10:49

up. You know, we

10:51

were just talking before and and talk

10:53

is cheap. You know, so now

10:55

it's time for you to show and tell.

10:58

Alright,

10:58

Erica. Thank you for the update. Happy

11:01

New Year. Happy New Year, Nick.

11:04

In a minute, the answers

11:06

to so many unanswered questions.

11:08

That hundred million dollar deli in New

11:10

Jersey, was it a scam?

11:12

Political pollsters. How they do during the

11:14

midterm? And the question you

11:16

have all been asking we hear you,

11:18

play many records, debut

11:20

song inflation. Is anybody

11:23

listening to it?

11:33

Support for NPR and the following

11:36

message come from Comcast through

11:38

project up Comcast is committing

11:40

one billion dollars to reach tens

11:42

of millions of people with the

11:44

skills, resources, and opportunities

11:46

they need to seed in a digital

11:48

world, from connecting people to the

11:50

internet, to opening doors for the

11:52

next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs,

11:55

and storytellers they are helping to

11:57

create a future that benefits

11:59

generations to come. Project

12:01

Up, building a future of

12:03

unlimited possibilities, more at

12:05

comcast dot com slash project

12:07

up.

12:08

A couple months

12:10

ago, my cohost, Jeff Goe and I

12:12

went to visit PAKipsey, New

12:15

York, and the folks at the Marist College

12:17

polling center. They taught us about polling. They

12:19

taught us how to become pollsters. They taught

12:21

us about the problems of

12:23

modern polling. Jeff joins me

12:25

now to give an update on that

12:27

show. How's it going, Jeff? Hey,

12:29

Nick. It's going great. Now,

12:31

I have not followed how the posters did

12:33

this

12:33

midterm. But, Jeff, you checked in with the folks at

12:36

Marrist, what did they say? Right. And just

12:38

to remind folks, the crux of this

12:40

problem that pollsters are facing right now,

12:42

it's that people, especially young people,

12:44

just aren't picking up the phone. I

12:46

remember it very well I got hung up

12:48

on as well. So many times many

12:50

times. And so and so there's this question,

12:52

right, that we and a lot of other people have been

12:54

asking, are the polls broken,

12:56

or can they accurately predict elections?

12:58

So I called up the director of the mayor's poll, Barbara

13:00

Cavallo, to see how her team did in

13:02

predicting the

13:02

midterms. By the way, Nick, she says,

13:05

hi. Hey, Barbara. It's good

13:07

to see you. How have you been? Great.

13:09

Great. I heard you guys had a

13:11

great twenty twenty two.

13:13

And so did the Meredith fall?

13:16

Full disclosure, Meredith has a working relationship

13:19

with NPR. They do a lot of polls for us.

13:21

Anyway, this was a big year

13:23

for Maersk because they were trying all of these

13:25

new things and turns out everything

13:27

worked really well. This was an

13:29

amazing election for Maersk. And

13:31

for these midterms, their poll estimated

13:34

that overall Republican congressional

13:36

candidates would get three percentage

13:38

points more votes than Democrats across

13:40

the country And when the

13:42

final election results came out,

13:44

Republicans were up two point eight

13:46

percentage points. They nailed it.

13:48

They nailed it. Oh, they totally

13:50

nailed it. It was it was, like,

13:53

right on the nose. It was amazing. So

13:55

they are obviously really happy and

13:57

they credit all the

13:59

new things they were trying. So they

14:01

were texting people to take their

14:03

poll. They were

14:05

asking people to take polls online, and

14:07

so they're just coming up with new ways to reach

14:09

people. Alright, Jeff. But you'll remember

14:11

that you came up with this idea

14:13

that we should try to fix all of

14:15

their polling problems by

14:17

suggesting some questions. And Barbara's games,

14:19

she put them in her polls. How do

14:21

her questions do? Right. So our

14:23

questions were designed to

14:25

not just ask people who they were

14:27

gonna vote for, but who they thought their

14:29

friends and family were gonna vote

14:31

for, who they thought was gonna win the election.

14:33

And the idea is that these questions harness

14:36

the wisdom of the crowds. So

14:38

they're more predictive. And, you know, like, Nick,

14:40

we didn't we didn't, like, invent this. Right?

14:42

Like, we we did we we talked researchers.

14:44

We, like, did our homework. We, like, research

14:46

papers and all this stuff for sure. Yeah. There's, like,

14:48

real evidence that these questions do

14:50

really well at predicting elections. Why are you

14:52

defending this so much? I have a

14:54

feeling that our

14:56

questions did terribly judging

14:58

by how much you're hurt setting this

15:01

up. I'm just

15:02

gonna let Barbara tell you. What we

15:05

found was when we added

15:07

the wisdom of crowds questions,

15:09

it moved it to be more

15:11

Republican. So it

15:13

moved it to be a plus eight.

15:15

A Republican. The swing

15:17

in a mess. Our questions did way

15:20

worse than the marathon.

15:22

That is Barbara.

15:25

I know. But Barbara convinced

15:27

me that, you know, this is what science is all

15:29

about. Right? You try new things, you

15:31

make a new hypothesis, and

15:33

then you gather data. So it's okay to

15:35

be like wrong about stuff because you're

15:37

learning things. So, you know, she was

15:39

actually really happy about how things turned out.

15:41

Of she also, you know,

15:43

nailed the election. Alright,

15:46

Jeff. Thanks so much. Thanks, Nick.

15:49

See you next year in Poughkeepsie again.

15:51

Same time, same pull. Some

15:55

of the best plan of money stories

15:57

unfold as mysteries. And

16:00

most of the time, the mystery is solved

16:02

by the end of the show. But sometimes, the

16:04

mystery is so fresh that we

16:06

published an episode with more questions

16:09

than answers, including

16:11

a show that involves submarine sandwiches,

16:13

and Mary Childs. Hello, Mary Childs.

16:16

Hello. It's a delight to be here.

16:18

Remind us what your show was about.

16:20

Yes. So in twenty twenty

16:22

one, Everyone including but not limited

16:24

to us got obsessed with this

16:26

deli in New Jersey. It's

16:29

sold sandwiches, and

16:31

it was really normal except for the fact that it

16:33

was publicly traded and valued

16:35

at one hundred million

16:37

dollars. That seemed

16:39

weird. Yeah. Because usually, delis

16:41

are not publicly traded. They're not on

16:43

the stock market. Wait. So did

16:45

you actually figure out what

16:47

was going on with the deli ever? Kind

16:51

of. It turned out there was a lot going

16:53

on. And to hear about it, I caught up with the

16:55

CNBC reporter talked to last time,

16:57

Dan Mangan, who chewed

16:59

through every aspect of this story except for I

17:01

would argue the most important one. Did

17:03

you eat a lot of the sandwiches

17:04

from there? No.

17:05

I did. Oh, come on. My boss at the time went down there

17:07

and he said it was pretty good. Even last

17:09

year, it seemed like what was happening was.

17:11

The guys effectively running the company that

17:13

owned the deli were positioning the

17:16

company to get bought. The thinking was they

17:18

wanted to make the shares look

17:20

artificially high, which for reasons that we went

17:22

into on the show last year, would

17:24

help make the company an

17:26

attractive acquisition target so that some

17:28

other company that wanted to be publicly

17:30

traded without the hassle of actually

17:32

going public would come in and buy

17:33

it. And someone did. Someone came

17:36

in and bought the company that owned the deli.

17:38

The deal worked in reality the way it was

17:40

supposed to work on paper, at least that part of

17:42

it did. And then what? So then,

17:44

yeah, it was quiet for,

17:46

you know, a long time

17:48

until a couple of months

17:50

ago. Found out that the justice department

17:52

had indicted three people who

17:54

were intimately involved and also the

17:57

SEC had filed a civil complaint

17:59

against

17:59

us. Three. Nick, I have the indictment. Right

18:01

here, it is one of my many open tabs.

18:03

It charges three guys who owned a

18:05

lot of the shares and what was essentially a shell

18:07

company that owned a real deli that made

18:10

real sandwiches, hometown, International

18:12

Inc. And then this other company, e waste,

18:14

that owned nothing.

18:16

The three guys are charged with twelve counts, and most of the

18:18

charges have the word securities or fraud

18:20

in them. So what they did was

18:23

allegedly was they they

18:25

either structured or aware

18:28

of trading activity that

18:30

artificially pumped up the value these

18:32

stocks by in the case of hometown more

18:34

than nine hundred percent.

18:37

That's a

18:37

lot. That's

18:37

a big percent. It

18:39

is. But in the case of by nearly twenty

18:42

thousand percent. An even bigger

18:44

percent? So it was

18:46

essentially, allegedly, a a pump

18:48

and dump ski. Yeah. I mean,

18:50

halfway because the three guys

18:52

who effectively ran the company never

18:54

got to dump. They never ended

18:56

up selling their shares.

18:58

Maybe because we all were paying so

19:00

much attention to the story. A few

19:02

months ago, two of the three were arrested. They

19:05

have plead not guilty, and the

19:07

third is still at large,

19:09

allegedly maybe in Hong

19:11

Kong. I know. Real

19:13

espionage stuff. Also, the

19:15

deli closed. Dan will never get to

19:17

try those sandwiches. It's a

19:19

tragedy.

19:19

Barry, now that you have had some

19:22

time to Digest I'm

19:24

sorry. This story. Okay.

19:26

Any

19:26

big takeaways? Well, Dan made this

19:29

observation that I really liked, which is that

19:31

the market for stocks like the

19:33

ones we're talking about, which are small time

19:35

but publicly traded. They're

19:37

not traded on a normal exchange. You

19:39

can't go into the New York stock exchange and buy them.

19:41

You have to like find a guy. It's like the Craigslist

19:43

of stocks and that leaves a lot

19:46

of room for shenanigans. But

19:48

Dan says, maybe with this one example of the

19:50

deli where it was just one sandwich

19:52

shop in the middle of New Jersey with no

19:54

growth plan. Maybe it was so egregious

19:57

and we all made so much fun of it that

19:59

regulators might start to take a closer

20:01

look at this market. Mary

20:04

Childs, thank you for that

20:06

update. May you have many

20:08

delicious sandwiches, in this new

20:10

year. Oh, thank you. A hundred million dollars

20:12

sandwich to you too. Probably

20:21

the thing that gave us

20:23

Planet Buddy's staffers the

20:25

most life this year

20:28

was this project by

20:30

our producer James Snead and

20:33

Sarah Gonzalez and Erica Berris and a whole host of other

20:35

people. And that was

20:37

to take this song that

20:39

had been recorded in the seventies about

20:41

inflation and put it out into

20:43

the world and make a planet money record

20:45

company. Sarah Gonzalez is here to

20:47

give us an update about it. Hey,

20:49

Sarah. Hey, Nick. So people, I'm

20:51

sure, listen to this. If not, you have to listen. The

20:54

episodes are called planet money records,

20:56

volumes one and two,

20:58

But Sarah, if they did not listen, remind us what this

21:00

whole project was

21:01

about. Sure. Yeah. So we introduced you a

21:03

couple months ago to a guy named Ernest Jackson

21:06

in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He is seventy

21:08

four years old. Today, he's been singing

21:10

since he was five years old, and he's been

21:13

trying to make it in the music

21:14

industry. His whole life, here's earnest. I've

21:16

never been signed by a label. That's

21:19

my hope and dream.

21:22

So planet money

21:24

Became a record label, Planet Money

21:26

Records, and we signed

21:28

Ernest Jackson. We released one

21:30

of his songs inflation, here's

21:33

that time. What

21:41

you do, and listen to

21:44

what I have. And our plan

21:46

with this song was to sit

21:48

back, see how it did all the

21:50

streaming platforms, and I

21:52

have some updates for you.

21:55

And I know that I have been

21:57

listening to it a bunch and my

21:59

family has been listening to it a bunch.

22:01

Really? Great. Have

22:03

the rest of the people who are not

22:05

paid by NPR. Have they been listening?

22:07

Alright. I'm gonna give you a couple stats. So, like,

22:09

on YouTube music, we have

22:12

about twenty seven thousand streams.

22:14

Alright. Little good,

22:16

not that great. That translates

22:18

to thirty one ish dollars

22:20

for Ernest Jackson.

22:23

So, like, really not that great. Right? But a

22:25

little bit better news. On Spotify,

22:27

our song has more than half

22:29

a million ish streams. Which

22:31

is pretty big. I feel like that is respectable.

22:34

That is a hit. Oh, it's I

22:36

mean, it's not a hit. But apparently,

22:39

these are actually impressive

22:41

numbers. Okay. That's a lot of streams,

22:43

but it all comes down to money. I know.

22:45

How much is Ernest gonna make off of

22:47

this? Alright. For half a million

22:50

ish streams on

22:52

Spotify. Earnest gets,

22:54

like, a thousand four

22:56

hundred ish dollars.

23:00

Yeah. Not great. It's like a little

23:02

bit depressing. These are just

23:04

estimates. They're pretty reliable

23:06

estimates on, like, these royalty calculators,

23:08

but they are you know, still just estimates. So it

23:10

could be a little bit more, but actually more

23:12

likely it'll be a little bit less.

23:14

We won't actually know exactly

23:16

how much money the song made and how much earnest gets

23:18

to keep of that until we get our

23:20

first check-in the mail, which should

23:23

come at the end of this month or

23:25

in early January. We're, like,

23:27

very anxiously awaiting our first

23:29

check on the song. The minute we

23:31

get paid, we're gonna tell you all

23:33

about it. But I do wanna

23:35

remind our listeners that our goal for this

23:37

project was actually to reach a million

23:39

streams. So come on. You

23:41

guys are gonna put it on that New Year's Eve

23:43

playlist. Exactly. We're halfway

23:45

there. It's like so so close, but

23:47

also so so far away. It took us two months to

23:49

get to have a million streams. So, you

23:51

know, for earnest, stream

23:53

the song again, tell your people

23:55

to do it. You actually have to listen to

23:57

at least thirty seconds of the

23:59

song for a two count as a real

24:01

stream that we make money on. The song is

24:04

called inflation. It is by

24:06

Ernest Jackson. You can

24:08

find it anywhere you can find it on Apple Music,

24:10

Spotify, Amazon Music,

24:12

title, YouTube

24:14

Music, Sarah, Thank

24:16

you so much for this update. I can't wait for there's

24:18

gonna be a lot more updates. I would get the feeling. We

24:20

got we got some stuff in in store for

24:22

everyone. Also, thank you to our listeners who

24:24

have been listening to this song for Ernest.

24:26

It's pretty pretty cool. Alright.

24:28

See you. Thanks. It's

24:34

that time of year again. We would

24:36

really appreciate it if you

24:38

supported this show and

24:40

helped us keep doing this work that we

24:42

love so much. The best

24:44

way to do that is to donate to

24:46

your local NPR member

24:48

station. And an easy way to

24:50

find that is to go to donate dot NPR

24:52

dot org slash planet money.

24:54

Please use that URL because then

24:56

the station will know we

24:58

sent you their way. Again, donate dot NPR

25:01

dot org slash planet money.

25:04

Today's show was produced by James Snead,

25:06

mastered by Robert Rhode riguez

25:08

and edited by Jesjay. It was fact checked by

25:10

Sierra Juarez. I'm Nick

25:13

Fountain. This is NPR. Thank you

25:15

for listening and have

25:18

a happy New

25:21

Year. This

25:23

message comes from NPR sponsor,

25:25

Comcast, Through Project Upp, Comcast

25:27

is committing one billion dollars

25:29

to reach people with the skills, resources,

25:32

and opportunities they need to

25:35

seed in a digital world, project up,

25:37

building a future of unlimited

25:40

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