- Why we’re all paying different prices online
Sunday, November 10th 2024
With some already starting their holiday shopping, we bring you an episode from our vault on dynamic pricing. Enjoy!
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You and a friend might be given two different prices by the same website for the same item. Heck, you might be given two different prices yourself depending on where you are when you're browsing the site. It's a phenomenon that began as dynamic pricing—a computer balancing supply and demand to ensure everything was sold at a price the market was prepared to pay—but it's now gone well beyond that.
As algorithms become smarter and more advanced, and as we voluntarily offer our devices and the companies we do business with more of our information, the prices you see may take into account things like where you are, what device you're on, your shopping history and... well, everything the machine knows about you. Is this the kind of shopping experience we want? If not, what do we do about it?
GUEST: Colin Horgan, writing in The Walrus
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- How to limit spending without ruining the holidays
Saturday, November 9th 2024
This episode first aired on November 7, 2024 over at In This Economy?!, our sister show at the Frequency Podcast Network. The show helps Canadians understand the systems behind their money problems so they can make informed decisions about their personal finances. If you like what you hear, please consider giving us a follow!
This holiday season, about one third of Canadians are planning to either buy fewer gifts, or spend less on the gifts they do buy because they're struggling with their finances. Today, we're looking at ways to limit holiday spending without disappointing anyone.
GUEST: Shannon Lee Simmons, Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Investment Manager (CIM) and founder of the award winning New School of Finance.
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- Inside a bitter battle to bring down butter bandits
Friday, November 8th 2024
It's been a tough news week, let's end it on a butter note. Thieves in Guelph, Ontario—but not just in Guelph, Ontario—have been stealing hundreds of pounds of butter from grocery stores, making off with about $1,000 worth of the yellow gold with each successive heist. It's been happening for months, and the only people police managed to charge so far ... have vanished.
So why butter? Why so MUCH butter? What do you even do with a hundred pounds of butter at a time? Who's buying it and what are they using it for? And why, with so much evidence and such brazen thefts, have police not been able to stop it?
GUEST: Mark Colley, Toronto-based general assignment reporter for the Toronto Star
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- What does Donald Trump's return mean for Canada?
Thursday, November 7th 2024
In the end, it wasn't even particularly close. And now Canada and the world can only prepare for what a second term of President Donald Trump might look like. As the United States' closest neighbour, Trump's plans have the potential to impact many aspects of Canadian life—from trade to immigration to defence spending, our next federal election and much more than that.
So what should Canada do now to prepare? Is there really anything we can do? Where might Trump's biggest impact on Canada be felt? And what should Canadians expect the next four years to bring?
GUEST: David Moscrop, political writer and commentator; author of Too Dumb For Democracy
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
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- Why has Canada's productivity taken a nosedive?
Wednesday, November 6th 2024
Over the past several years, measures of economic productivity have seen Canada tumbling. First slowly, then rapidly. Once nearly at par with the United States, we've fallen far behind them—and by some measures we're one of the developed world's least productive countries right now.
How did this happen? Which industries are lagging behind and dragging us down? How much of this fall was within Canada's control, and how much was due to external factors? And when we speak of a country's or a province's "productivity", what exactly are we measuring, and how?
GUEST: Trevor Tombe, Professor at the University of Calgary’s Department of Economics; Director of Fiscal and Economic Policy at The School of Public Policy; Contributor at thehub.ca
We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us:
Through email at [email protected]
