The Business Strategy That Could Drive Up Your Grocery Bill, and Trump’s $12 Billion Bailout

0:02From the New York Times, it's the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. Today's Tuesday, December 9th. Here's what we're covering.

0:14One morning earlier this fall, a group of a few dozen volunteers gathered on a video call for an experiment. They all logged on to the grocery shopping app Instacart and simultaneously selected the same item for pickup from the same store. Eggs from a particular Safeway in D.C. What they found was that they were being offered significantly different prices. The eggs that cost$3.99 for some shoppers were being sold to others for$4.79, nearly 20 % more for the exact same product. Dozens more volunteers did the same thing for other products at other stores scattered around the country, like a box of Cheerios at a Target in St.

0:58Paul or Wheat Thins in Seattle. They also discovered they were being offered completely different prices. The findings, which were published this morning by Consumer Reports and the Groundwork Collective, a progressive policy group, highlight how so-called dynamic pricing is spreading across the economy as companies use sophisticated algorithms to adjust prices in real time. The strategy has been used for years for things like Uber or airline tickets, but Times chief economics correspondent Ben Castleman says, now dynamic pricing is increasingly becoming a part of the shopping experience for everything, from restaurants to retail.

1:39Economists point out that companies have always adjusted prices for different customers, right? You can clip coupons to get a discount. You can go to a happy hour or an early bird special. Most of those methods are transparent, right? Consumers know that they are getting a higher price or a lower price during certain periods, and they can plan around that. The concern that I hear from consumer advocates is that these sorts of methods that are being adopted now by companies are in many cases much less transparent. And it's more difficult for consumers to know whether they're getting the best price or even if they're getting the same price as somebody else who's sitting next to them.

2:16And it raises the concern that we're heading towards a world in which your shopping habits or your income or where you live leads you to get a different price from somebody else. There's also some evidence that this actually leads to more volatile and maybe even higher prices overall. That if companies are all just setting prices on algorithms, that eventually that can actually lead to higher prices. at a time when consumers are already worried about affordability, particularly for things like groceries. In response to questions from the Times, a Target spokesman said it's not responsible for prices on Instacart, and Safeway declined to comment.

2:59A spokeswoman for Instacart said that some of its partner stores do short-term pricing tests to, quote, learn what matters most to consumers and how to keep essential items affordable. Companies including Amazon and Home Depot have previously been called out for using dynamic pricing, only to retreat after consumer backlash.

3:23Now, two updates on the Trump administration. President Trump has given the green light to NVIDIA to sell some of its most powerful AI chips to China, reversing a longtime U.S. policy that was meant to limit Beijing's access to that kind of cutting-edge technology. Many American officials have expressed concern that allowing these kinds of sales could help China get an edge on the U.S., militarily and economically. But NVIDIA's chief executive spent months lobbying for the change, And as part of the deal, Trump said that the U.S. will get 25 percent of the revenue from the sales. Experts say that arrangement could be illegal since U.S.

4:06law prohibits charging fees for export licenses.

4:12Meanwhile, we love our farmers. And as you know, the farmers like me. President Trump is trying to blunt the fallout from his steep tariffs on China by announcing a$12 billion bailout for American farmers who got caught in the middle of his trade war. Earlier this year, in response to sky-high tariffs, China had halted its purchase of U.S. agricultural products like soybeans, leaving many farmers struggling as they faced other ongoing pressures like rising costs and high interest rates, too. But Trump's bailout now could have a limited impact. According to some estimates, it would only cover about one-third of the overall losses farmers faced this year.

4:55And analyses of bailout payments made during Trump's first term found they disproportionately went to larger and wealthier farms.

5:11In Gaza, the Times is covering how Hamas is holding on to power in the parts of the territory that Israel pulled out from. And despite being severely weakened in the war, the group is reasserting its authority. It's replacing commanders who were killed in the fighting, using the large swaths of its tunnel network that withstood Israeli attacks to hide and store its weapons and continuing to run key government functions in Gaza. According to a former Israeli intelligence official, the official estimates are that Hamas still has around 20 ,000 fighters. Its government has deployed police forces around Gaza.

5:49masked Hamas gunmen are manning checkpoints, sort of overseeing the flow of humanitarian aid in the Gaza, but also to supervise the movement of people between parts of Gaza. And some local merchants have told us that Hamas was even levying taxes on a small set of electronics and expensive goods. My colleague Adam Rasgan has been speaking with people on the ground in Gaza. And in the past few days, he traveled to Doha, where many of Hamas' top political officials are based, to ask how the group plans to move forward. We met with a senior Hamas official named Husam Badran. When we asked him about Hamas reasserting its authority, he responded by saying that Hamas wants to hand over the administration of Gaza to a Palestinian committee, but that such a committee had yet to be formed.

6:45And when we sort of asked, well, what about Hamas's weapons, which is a key source of its authority, he said that they would be open to discussion of the weapons, but only on the condition of serious talks about a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a total end to its military operations. And one last condition, which is probably difficult for this Israeli government to entertain, which is a serious discussion about the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. Meanwhile, Adams says that Israeli political and military officials he talked to are concerned that with each passing day, Hamas is able to reorganize its forces and deepen its control over the territory, meaning that the slow process of setting up a new government for Gaza is playing in Hamas's favor.

7:43And finally, the fight for control of Warner Brothers already seemed like a Hollywood drama, with Netflix making an audacious play to buy the legendary movie studio. Now there's a whole new twist, a new challenger, with Paramount gunning for a hostile takeover. And the power players have been out in force, because any merger will need the stamp of approval from federal regulators. So you had the head of Netflix making a stealthy visit to the Oval Office, the Paramount chairman stopping by the presidential box at the Kennedy Center this weekend, and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, is in the mix, since he's an investor in the Paramount deal.

8:24While presidents have typically stayed away from influencing regulators who review major corporate deals, Trump has put himself in the middle of it. I don't know. That's going to be for some economists to tell. And I'll be involved in that decision, too. On today's episode of The Daily, a team of Times business and entertainment reporters breaks down what might happen next. You can listen to that in the New York Times app or wherever you get your podcasts. Those are the headlines. I'm Tracy Mumford. We'll be back tomorrow.