radio:npr's marketplace

I listen to NPR a lot. It's the only thing on the radio that I can stand when driving into work. Most pop music drives me up the wall (overproduced and sugar coated); I can't stand radio dj's; I hate commercials, particualrly radio commercials; and I really don't want to listen to shock jocks. So, NPR or the ipod is about it. Heck, even NPR during pledge drives are more entertaining than most of what consists of modern radio. (True story: I was having a tense December, and I actually found a NPR pledge drive listener challenge to be the most soothing thing on the planet. Did I mention that I was having a tense December.) Because my teaching scheduled was a little later than it usually is last fall, I began catching the Marketplace report on my drive in and the full half hour show on my drive home. It's the most informative and scariest half hour of radio on the planet. I know more about business than I ever have and, well, it makes me a more informed consumer but a much more paranoid one in today's market. I start thinking about things like how the current high price of energy costs means that food costs go up, and this chain reaction means that healthier choices, which can cost more, are even further out of the range of low income families. This fact, coupled with the new Farm Bill, which subisidizes foods like corn disporportionately to foods like apples, means that unhealthy choices like white bread or corn syrup laced foods are cheaper. Meaning that our current obsesity problem is only going to get worse. Ack. And this freaky thinking is what listening to marketplace report does. Not being an economist, I'm sure I've oversimplified here, and I may be assuming causal relationships where there are none.