Betty Boop, Excel Olympics, Penny-isms: Our 2026 Valentines

0:00This is Planet Money from NPR. so jennifer you got what i sent you yes i did it's the it's the greatest mystery of the year so far this is jennifer jenkins lawyer professor you may have heard her before she's become sort of our unofficial trademark and copyright attorney here at planet money and what i sent her is inside a large yellow envelope you want me to guess you want me just to open no just go ahead and open I love surprises, Kenny. So just this is like, oh, this is loud. Every year we at Planet Money send Valentines to the things we love this year, to innovative reporting on ice, to the sport of competitive spreadsheeting, to perhaps the only beloved self-checkout system and more.

0:50And typically these are not physical Valentines. They're shout outs in a Valentine's episode, such as this, chock full of big ideas and recommendations that we want to share with you all. But for my first Valentine to Jennifer Jenkins, we had in fact made a bespoke physical Valentine. What? Do you want to describe it? I need a moment. Oh my God. Okay, fine. I'll describe it. Red and black font that's a little tattoo motorcycle style. It says official Planet Money Valentine. And then a famous cartoon character that, for reasons, we are not going to get sued for using. And that character also happens to be one of Jennifer's favorites, Betty Boop.

1:38Happy Valentine's Day. I know you love Betty Boop in particular. Oh my God, so much. Explain why you have an affinity for Betty Boop. Because she is one of the first comic book characters who was not defined by her relationship to a male character. So Minnie Mouse is Mickey Mouse's girl. Olive Oil is Popeye's girl. Betty Poop's just her own woman. She's fiercely independent. She's unapologetically sexy. She dances around. She sings, boop, boop, boop. I have to have poop, boop, boopie now. Mom, what's the hell? Mom, what's the hell? Betty Boop debuted in this cartoon in 1930, 95 years ago, which means as of January 1st, the copyright has expired.

2:24Anyone is allowed to use this version of Betty Boop for anything. This version, by the way, literally a dog-person hybrid, which is very weird and would not always be this way. But like, yes, this version from 1930 is now in the public domain. And the reason I knew this is because every year, Jennifer Jenkins helps put out a list of all the famous books and songs and cartoons entering the public domain. And that, that is my first Valentine to Jennifer's annual list of newly liberated intellectual property, the Public Domain Day list, where you will learn that the copyright has now expired on the book, The Maltese Falcon, the song, Georgia On My Mind, the Academy Award-winning film, All Quiet on the Western Front, and yes, Betty Boop, and her iconic catchphrase.

3:15Although Jennifer has noted something odd about what we've written on her Valentine. It says, boop, boop, question mark? Yes. We're going to get to that in a second. Because first, the reason I wanted to give a valentine to this list is because it feels like all of these works are now flooding into the public domain in a somewhat novel way. And that is because for 20 years leading up to 2019, basically nothing entered the public domain. Legislators, with lobbying from Disney, kept extending the length of copyright. Right. Literally, the public domain was frozen for two decades. And so all of the material that was set to go into the public domain from 1923, we had to wait 20 years for it to finally start entering the public domain in 2019.

4:02And that's why you're hearing about it so much because now the goalposts are where they are. And every single year you can expect a trove of material to enter the public domain. And you can find out about it from my Valentine, the public domain day list from Jennifer Jenkins. I can't tell you how tickled I am. I'm trying to find the right word. That's what my grandmother said. I'm like just tickled about this Valentine. Oh, my God. Are you going to you haven't explained the question mark yet? Ah, yes. The boop boop a question mark. Happy Valentine's Day and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone.

4:42today on the show. The things that we love and that we think you will love. Nick Fountain brings us investigative reporting that you can do at home as well. Erica Barris makes a case for the love of her life, the one that got away, the U.S. penny. And along the way, together, we will all design the first ever official Planet Money Valentine's Day card that you can print out and give to the nerd love of your life. We're going to finish our Betty Boop Boop question mark Valentine by coming up with a pun to make the economist in your life swoon. Although, it turns out it will be a bit of work. Boop, boop, but Dupuis, I don't actually know how to say it, but it's a French economist who was like, no, let's not do that one, right?

5:25Okay, no, don't. Welcome back to a very special Valentine's Day episode at Planet Money. Lots to do here. So, Jennifer Jenkins and I, we're kicking around ideas for how to take the newly public domain Betty Boop, tweak her catchphrase, and make the official Planet Money economics-themed Valentine. Boop, boop, but dumping. Dumping is something that... It's an international trade thing, right? Yeah, it's an international trade thing. It's when you sell a whole bunch of stuff cheaper. Yes. Right? Yeah, you know. But I do feel like dumping is maybe the wrong thing. No, nor do I. It's like not the right...

6:01Okay, okay. Meanwhile, my colleagues have their own traditional Planet Money Valentines to hand out to the things that they love and want to share with you all at home. Hey, Kenny. Hi, Jess. Jess Jang, Senior Supervising Editor at Planet Money. And if you love an episode of our show, it's probably because of the notes that Jess gave. If you hate an episode, it's probably because we ignored notes that Jess gave. And Jess has brought a valentine very near and dear to my heart. I think you and I have a special love for spreadsheets. Love spreadsheets. And it's so particular to us that I feel like sometimes I don't even want to talk about it in a meeting because I'm like everyone else is going to be bored by whatever love for spreadsheets we have.

6:45Yeah. Jess, I couldn't be more excited. Yes. Okay. So this Valentine is actually to a Washington Post article that I saw recently, and it's all about Microsoft Excel. That article was written by reporter Jesse Daugherty. The headline made me blush a little bit between the sheets at the College Excel Championships. A little too naughty for my taste, but very clever. I thought we were going to skip over that. I have some thoughts about that. People need to find it so they could search for it. That's fair. Okay. So I saw this article and it's all about Microsoft Excel. In particular, something called the Microsoft Excel Collegiate competition.

7:25And so it's an annual competition that happens around Christmas time. This year, it took place in Las Vegas. And basically, there's two parts of the competition. It has semifinals, finals, it has the whole rigmarole. And looking at the photos and pictures of it and videos of it, it looks like what I imagine esports video game competitions to be like. So like, by the time... It's what I want esports competitions to be like, quite honestly. cells, glasses, lots of, yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. So by the time you get to the semifinals and finals, there are people on a stage and their screens are projected in the background so everyone can watch.

8:08And it's basically a series of puzzles that people have to go through. And so I saw one puzzle was like planning a group trip with 500 of your closest friends. That's very good. And so I think there are all sorts of things where it's sort of like, how do you use Excel to do these things? And I think for me, what I loved about it so much was like, oh, Excel is like a language. It's a really powerful tool if you can understand the language. And this is maybe the most extreme kind of highest form of this language is watching these people use it. And I think this article got that to a large degree.

8:51I did do a little background research in anticipation of this. Now, a lot of these competitors are finance majors, it says. Makes sense. Those are like often very complex formulas you need to learn. And so it would attract that kind of person. But do you want to guess in what industry Excel is reportedly used the most? Oh, and it's not finance. Nope. Um, oh my God. Um, not account. It's not something mundane like accounting. It is manufacturing. Manufacturing. I can see that. I can see that. And, you know, it makes sense. It's a very intuitive program. It's very user friendly. So you don't have to have a master's degree to use this, which is like it's the best.

9:35One of the great things about reading this piece in particular is it treats these Excel experts with the sort of elevated regard that you and I are just all in for. It's not a joke. It's like truly in awe of these people's skills, which I am as well. And it's so good. Yeah. I looked into the reporter who went. His coverage is mostly of college sports. And so I really liked that he took the same excitement, vigor, all of the things, the rigor that you would take to college sports and applied it to this scene and took it as seriously as everything else. And so I think that really comes through in the article that he wrote.

10:15Yep. Sports coverage is useful in many, many disciplines, I think. That's true. Yes. That's true. And I guess we should say that that kind of excellent sports coverage is the kind of thing that The Washington Post has just decided to eliminate almost entirely. But yes, our first Valentine to Jesse Dougherty, his story Between the Sheets, the College Excel Championships, its extraordinary work by Jesse. Check out the article. Check out his sub stack, which we will link to in the show notes. And thank you, Jess Jane. Thank you, Kenny. Thank you, Jesse. We begin this next Valentine with a quote from Forbes magazine.

10:49quote, I can't wait to use that self-checkout machine, said no one ever. Retail stores have increasingly scaled down on hiring and paying human beings to scan our purchases and instead are forcing us to do it as customers slowly with constant machine problems that require an overworked human to come over and scan some card. Anyway, Forbes describes an exception to this, though. The clothing store Uniqlo. Uniqlo? Uniqlo. Has developed a cult following for its self-checkout. Quote, you just toss all the apparel you're buying into the self-checkout machine's container bin and miraculously, all of your items are automatically scanned.

11:30Apparently this is because each item has a little radio transponder. Anyway, that is the background you need to know. For this next Valentine, our own Alexi Horowitz-Ghazi was walking through New York with a friend, remembered how much he loved Uniqlo's self-checkout and hated other self-checkouts, and recorded this audio Valentine on his phone. It's a rainy January day at the Broadway Uniqlo store looking for that heat tech. It's cold outside. I found a turtleneck. It's a full turtleneck. There is driving techno. Where are the self-checkouts here?

12:07What's your name? Oh, Mel Ray. Wait, sorry, Mel Ray, say your full name. Oh, my full name is Melissa Ray Bailey Gale. How do you feel about these machines? How do I feel about the machines? Do you like them or are they annoying? I like them, but people are annoying about them. They ask questions all the time. They're like, where are the bags? Really? Oh, okay. And it tells you that right here. I see. But they're okay, I guess. I mean, I like that it's fast. So I work for an economics radio show, and we have to give our Valentines to things in the world. Give me a Valentines to things? So, you know, this is one that I've kind of thought about giving my Valentine to for a long time.

12:40The unique little self-checkout is what you're giving your Valentine's Day to? To technology? No way. Is there something a little sad about that? Yes, very much so. To technology, that's crazy. This one I see every day. This one that gives me problems, you want to give it to? Hey, okay. You're just trying to elevate the daily things in life. What would your Valentine go out to? It would go out to me getting a promotion. If you'll hear this, Uniquel, I'm promoting the technology. Give me a promotion. Excellent. It's true. You're going to move a lot of these products on this. Exactly. Thank you so much.

13:13Oh, self-checkout. There it is.

13:18All right. We're in line at the self-checkout. Wonderful. Oh, look at this. It's just silent. You just see rows, maybe like two dozen people in a silent row, communing with these plastic tubs that immediately extract their money from them. Okay, so we've got a sort of like monolithic plastic bin thing. It's just like a big tub. Press start. Okay. Heap tech, ultra warm. So it just kind of like intuited magically just by standing next to this machine, what we have. It's just so confident. There's just zero hesitation. Do you need any shopping bags? Sure. I hate to admit it. Something about it just screams love, you know?

14:03There's nothing more romantic than partying with your hard-earned cash. Uniqlo self-checkout. Will you be my valentine? Please select the items in the scanning area on your right-hand side and press start. I'm going to take that as a yes. Bye, Uniqlo. Happy Valentine's Day. Alexei Horowitz-Gazi there, who did ask me to clarify that he is, quote, not some sociopath who wants all humans replaced by machines. It's more like, if there has to be self-checkout, you know, here's one that doesn't create more of a mess at the checkout. That's his point. And I will add that Alexei's Valentine did prompt a whole lot of frantic research for some of us at Planet Money, wondering, why isn't every self-checkout this good?

14:51And why isn't my grocery store this good? And is Alexi paying extra for his Uniqlo turtleneck because of this? And the answer seems to be that each item at Uniqlo, you know, it has this little RFID chip, a tiny little radio transponder. And those have become cheaper and cheaper. One McKinsey report says that RFID tags have come down from 20 cents about a decade ago to four cents a tag in recent years. And yeah, I mean, if you sell clothes like Uniqlo, like what's an extra four cents to You make your fancy self-checkout work, especially if Uniqlo doesn't have to pay a cashier and customers move through it faster.

15:29But if you're a grocery store and you sell, you know, green peppers, an extra four cents on each pepper really cuts into the margin. So I wouldn't count on seeing this Valentine's worthy technology at the grocery store anytime soon. Meanwhile, back with my Valentine's Day co-pilot today and Betty Boop Stan, Jennifer Jenkins. Wait, hold on. Let me go back to my list. All right, this is a tough one. We are building the official Planet Money Valentine's Day card. Our task at the moment, find a nerdy twist on Betty Boop's iconic catchphrase. Something economic that isn't also, how do you say, horribly unromantic.

16:09Boop, boop, ba, doom loop. Do you know what a doom loop is? No, no. Doom loop is a self-fulfilling disaster tornado cyclone. Like how Greece had its credit rating downgraded, which scared investors, which caused all kinds of new problems for Greek finances, which made Greece an even riskier investment, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, boop, boop, doom loop, I guess. That's brilliant. And it also really captures the spirit of Valentine's Day. Well, yeah, no. OK, OK. This one is a it doesn't rhyme as well. I'm going to warn you. OK. Ready? I can do it. But I think when you start to think about it, it's actually quite beautiful.

16:48Ready? OK. Okay. Boop, boop, but duopoly. Oh, that's nice. Oh, you got it. You got it. That's the one. A duopoly is where two companies control a market, a monopoly for two, if you will. And I think that's kind of like, I don't know, something lovely. Well, I mean, maybe not as a consumer, but like metaphorically. Yes. Because it's two together. It's not a monopoly. It's a duopoly. Yes. It's like, honey, will you be mine and we'll own everything? Yes. Okay, well. That's hot. After the break, we finish off our Boop Boop-a-duopoly Valentine, so you can give it to the market dominator in your life.

17:28Plus, a Valentine to serious data journalism that you can do at home right now.

17:39For our next Valentine, I was simply sent a Zoom link and told, show up here. And so, I did. uh hello oh hey kenny sorry i was just jamming out to my favorite song music's playing i forgot you were coming in happy valentine's day kenny this is just the music you were playing when i showed up this is incredible yeah great

18:07well it's uh it's very loud in my ears it's wonderful turned it down for you uh well it's Funny that you mentioned pennies from heaven, Erica, because this is a phrase I only recently learned. Oh, really? Do you want to explain what it means? It's just kind of like your good fortune is going to come raining down from the sky. And it can only come in what is quite possibly one of the greatest currencies that we've ever all had the fortune of knowing. Clearly, we are now here with Planet Money co-host Erica Barris, who is about to present her valentine. I feel like we've walked right up to it. Just go ahead and say it.

18:44Okay. My Valentine is for the one that got away. My one true love. The penny. Your one true love. Why? Why, Erica? We are living in this like increasingly digital, bubbly, cloudy world. And the penny is one of the few things we have that is a link to the past that we can hold. and it makes noise and it is just like, it's just a small, tiny little thing. It's just so nice. You get a hundred of them, you have a whole dollar. Who doesn't love a dollar? I mean. All right, you love the penny. Yeah. Last year, it was announced that the Federal Reserve will, well, it's the Treasury, right? The mint is going to stop minting pennies.

19:29So no new pennies. Okay, so it's not like they're going away permanently. They're not gathering pennies and burning them in a bonfire. No, no, no, no, no. They're good. They're good. If you have pennies, spend them. They're still tender. Yeah, yeah. There's forever. Indefinitely. But it's not just that you love the penny. My understanding is I think you love the culture around the penny perhaps more than the penny. Yeah, I mean, you know, the penny is just a coin. Like, let's be real. But I love language, right? And there's all these, like, words and, like, phrases and expressions in our language that are built around the penny.

20:07Like, you know, penny for your thoughts. Then there's a find a penny, pick it up. All day long, you'll have good luck. Have good luck. I do like the luck part of the penny. My lucky penny, you have a penny, it's a lucky penny. I like the lucky penny. A penny saved is a penny earned. Have you ever heard the cost a pretty penny? Yeah. Yeah, that costs a pretty penny. Yeah. In for a penny, in for a pound. And then this one is, I love this one. Penny wise and pound foolish. That is my favorite one. I think that's my favorite too. It's really beautiful. Yeah. It's true. So we spent, I guess, 250 years with the penny as our smallest denomination.

20:47And so the entire vernacular about. That's actually not true. Because we used to have a half penny. We used to have a half cent. But we've had pennies for a very long time as our smallest denomination. As our smallest denomination. And therefore, whenever we reached for or created some kind of saying that needed to emphasize the smallest denomination, it's true. It's all built around the penny. And so I guess you're sad we're losing that. We're not losing that. You can still say your old sayings if you want. I guess. But who's going to appreciate them? You know, like we stopped making the penny for two main reasons.

21:22One is apparently they cost a little bit more to make than they're actually worth. the U.S. Mint is saying that this is going to be a savings of$56 million a year. So they cost like more than three cents to make one cent. So they are literally penny pinching, I guess is what's happening. And then our other reason, do you want to hear the other reason? Please. The reason we got rid of the penny is because people pay for everything with credit cards and like, you know, phone payments and whatever now. Here's my question. Yeah. Will we run out of pennies before the sun extinguishes? Probably not.

22:02And I'll tell you why. You think we'll still have pennies? Yes. It's a medal. It's not going anywhere. Okay. Yes. I mean, yes. So metaphysically, they will still. They're going to be here. But I'm just saying they'll be like lost in the proverbial couch cushions for eternity. That's what I'm saying. Like when will they fully be like sort of down sewer grates and buried in people's backyards in a way that they're unusable? I can guarantee that I will actually become an 85-year-old woman and pennies will still be in circulation. Will still be there? Yeah. It'll be fine. Yeah. Hopefully I'll make it that way.

22:31Erica, thank you so much. Oh, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

22:39All right. For our final Valentine, I had a little bit of spare time on my hands, I will say. I'd been spending a lot of that time on the list of public domain things newly available to mess around with. and I decided to make another special little valentine to tee up this final segment. Nick Fountain. Hi. Planet Money co-host. I need to give you something. Are you ready? Yes. Never been more ready. My valentine for you, Nick, is... Ta-da! Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, The Secret of Planet Money Valentine. Planet Valentine. Bah! The very first Nancy Drew novel is in the public domain this year. Oh, cool.

23:21That's very exciting. And so as you can see, Nancy, this is actually a book about some sort of clock, but I've replaced the clock with a laptop computer. She's carrying a laptop computer. There's a lot of ones and zeros in the background. There's data because I know that your Valentine has to do with our love for the kind of reporting that is about following the data, following the money. It's the kind of stuff that we really, really get into. And so with that, Nick, I'll throw it to you. Amazing segue. Valentine. Yes. Amazing segue. My Valentine goes out to the journalists at 404 Media for their coverage of immigration and customs enforcement, in particular, the technology that ICE has been using in this past year.

24:04Yeah. 404 Media is the name of the outlet. And I feel like they're probably, they should be, but they're not yet a household name, perhaps. And so it's probably useful. You want to talk a little bit more about them? Yeah. They're at this newish outlet, Pretty small. They are owned by their reporters, which I think is pretty cool. Have sort of a retro internet vibe, kind of not unlike Nancy Drew, your new spangled Nancy Drew. Super retro retro internet vibe, yes. Proto internet, yeah. Their design choices are not what I want to shout out, though. It just seems like these folks have been training for this their entire lives.

24:37And because of that, they are firing on all cylinders. They're tech reporters, largely. They're tech reporters. And so what I want to shout out are their scoops, which are many and I am very jealous of. It's been really incredible. And do you want to shout out a specific scoop? Yeah, I mean, it's probably they're reporting on Palantir, the data mining software company, and this app Palantir developed, which seems like it's sort of the Google Maps for ICE. According to their reporting, it compiles federal data and shows ICE neighborhoods that might be hotspots where lots of non-citizens are suspected to live.