Reversing shrinkflation (via potato chips) and other indicators

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0:11This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Adrian Ma. Joining us this week on The Indicator is friend of the show and outdoorsman, Nate Hedgie. Hello. Hey, it's great to be here. I feel like I'm representing myself very aptly because I'm recording this in my camper van right now. Get out. Hashtag van life. Wow. I just have to point out to the listeners that the inside of Nate's van looks like a log cabin. No, it totally does. It's got some nice wood pedaling. I really like it. Well, Nate, thank you for parking your van with us today because you are in time for Indicators of the Week.

0:51We are here to bring you the most intriguing indicators from this last week of economic and business news. And today we are digging into natural disaster loans, election prediction markets, and potato chips. More potato chips. More than you could ever imagine. That's all after the break. I mean, you probably actually could imagine it. Exaggerated. Okay.

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2:23Simplify how you stock up to get ahead. Go to amazonbusiness.com for support. So my indicator of the week is zero, as in there are zero dollars left in the Small Business Administration's disaster loan program. These are low-interest loans that homeowners, renters, and business owners can get to repair or replace damaged property. Up to$500 ,000 for homes, up to$100 ,000 to replace personal property. Businesses can get up to$2 million. And these loans have been in really high demand in recent years as climate change ramps up the severity of hurricanes, fires, floods. And last year, the SBA, which by the way is a federal agency, they spent nearly$3 billion on these loans.

3:10And in the past two months alone, they've received over 49 ,000 applications from folks whose property was damaged by the back-to-back hurricanes Helene and Milton. And we're not even done with hurricane season yet. Right. But already the agency is like literally exhausted. And they don't expect to get any relief until after Election Day when Congress returns from its recess because those lawmakers ultimately control the agency's funding. Didn't President Biden warn Congress earlier this month that this might happen? Yes, he did. But Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson didn't seem too concerned.

3:44He pointed out that right before Hurricane Helene hit, Congress had passed a stopgap bill that gave FEMA an extra$20 billion to address immediate needs after the storms. And as for these disaster loans and other more long-term needs, he told CBS's Face the Nation earlier this month that they can wait a little bit. These storms are so large in their scope and magnitude, it's going to take a little bit of time to make those calculations. In the meantime, the SBA says folks should still apply for disaster relief. They'll continue processing the applications, but the actual payouts will have to wait until after Congress gets back.

4:19All right. Thank you, Nate, for that indicator. My indicator is 61 percent to 39 percent. At the time we were taping this, those are the odds that Donald Trump will defeat Kamala Harris in November, according to Polymarket, which is this online prediction market where people can bet on things like the presidential election. It's not even close. Yeah, this is not a toss up. And if some people are listening and they're thinking like, ooh, I would like to get a piece of that action, right? It's worth mentioning that for legal reasons, U.S. residents are not actually able to easily use Polymarket.

4:55There are other online prediction markets like Kalshi is one you might heard of. They recently won approval to offer election betting in the U.S. And interestingly, users on these platforms also favor Trump, although it's by a smaller margin than on Polymarket. And so I think what's interesting and worth thinking about in terms of these indicators is that they paint a very different scenario than what we see from voter polling, right? Polls suggest that the race is very, very close right now, essentially tied. You'd have to be so cynical to just like bet on the elections. I don't know. I just feel like you're like really just like you're just like, you know, thing is like repugnant to you.

5:37Yeah, exactly. I'm so over it. I'm just going to bet some money and try to at least make a little cash off of one of the most decisive elections of our lives. Well, that is that that cynicism, as you put it, Nate, is part of what proponents of prediction markets say is so good about them. Right. Because with voter polls, you're you're just asking people like, what are you going to do come election? Who are you going to vote for? With prediction markets, participants are not saying, here's what I will do. They're saying, here's what I believe will happen so much so that I'm willing to put money on it.

6:15And the proponents of prediction markets would say that this financial incentive drives participants to incorporate just like the best information that they can get so they can be right and make money. And in some cases, prediction markets have proven to be pretty accurate. For example, they predicted that Obama would win the 2012 election. At the same time, it is worth saying that prediction markets are not always correct. For instance, they didn't predict that Trump would win in 2016. Okay, that's a very mixed track record then, no? Yeah, so prediction markets, not perfect. And actually one criticism of them is that they can actually be manipulated or skewed by participants who place really, really large bets.

7:00and there's actually evidence that this is happening with Polymarket. Also, another criticism is they don't work so well if the participants in them are just sort of making bets on their gut, right? For example, we recently saw Elon Musk hyping up these prediction market numbers on his X account and you can imagine how this might draw people into the markets that are not taking this as seriously as others. And so if they're just treating it as like a meme stock, They're not doing the deep research that would theoretically drive these results to be more accurate. You're saying that people on the Internet don't take things seriously?

7:40Fake if true, Adrian. I'm sorry. It's an outrageous claim. Well, shall we all close this out by eating our feelings? My indicator is about snacks. Yes, I think so. Yeah. My indicator is 20%. That is the increase in the number of Tostitos and Ruffles that the company PepsiCo is planning to put into bags without charging more. So snackers in select markets will get 20 % more chips for the same price as before. This news comes out of PepsiCo's latest quarterly earnings report and some additional details reported by CNN. For the same price, I can increase my cholesterol even more. What a bargain, right?

8:2020 % more for the same price. But this is not what we've been seeing during the last few years of inflation, right? Yeah. I mean, like we've heard so much in the past couple of years about shrinkflation, right? Like companies offering less product or smaller sizes while keeping their prices the same or even charging more. So, Will, and I don't know, does this kind of signal a reverse from shrinkflation? Is like PepsiCo just giving in to people complaining about it? Well, you know what's interesting is back in 2022, PepsiCo's CEO was asked on another earnings call how the company would respond to reduced customer demand or slower customer demand.

9:00And he said, we think consumers are willing to pay more for our brand. And that was two years ago. Now, if you look at the latest quarter, PepsiCo's revenues went down. OK, so maybe they found the limit on how much customers would be willing to pay for salty snacks? Yeah, I mean, the company said inflation is still having an impact on budgets and spending. So hence the 20 % more chips and standard-sized bags of Tostitos and Ruffles. And then, you know, those multi-packs that have smaller bags inside? The company's adding like two to three more bags to those variety packs. Ooh. Okay, so I guess we can file this under like minor victories for the consumer?

9:40I mean, maybe. Maybe. Although there was actually this really cool Planet Money story that we can link to in the show notes. And it's about something called price pack architecture, which is this whole art and science companies have figured out on how to package stuff. So when you go grocery shopping and you see like the mini cans of soda or some new mini size of chips or something, there's actually a lot of decision making that goes into that. And it may not be as simple as just shrinkflation or like a reversal of shrinkflation. they're just figuring out like how to charge for stuff. I just want to know which markets this is happening in and how do they pick those markets too?

10:17Like is, you know, Conway, New Hampshire, one of those markets? Because if so, I'm running to the grocery store right now.

10:26This episode of The Indicator was produced by Angel Carreras and engineered by Maggie Luthar. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Cake & Cannon edits the show and The Indicator is a production of NPR. This message comes from The Economist. Introducing The Economist Insider, a new video offering with twice-weekly shows featuring in-depth analysis and expertise to make sense of an increasingly complex and dangerous world. More at economist.com slash insider. This message comes from Vanguard. Capturing value in the bond market is not easy. That's why Vanguard offers a suite of over 80 institutional quality bond funds, actively managed by a 200 person global team of sector specialists, analysts, and traders.

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