Marketplace

President-elect Donald Trump has talked a lot about his plans to “drain the swamp," essentially vowing to rid Washington, D.C., of corrupt influencers. How is that reflected by the leaders he wants in his administration?

Trump’s cabinet members have ties to Goldman Sachs, oil companies, defense contractors and Hollywood.

APM Reports and Marketplace found that a five-year EPA study, which examined hydraulic fracturing’s impact on drinking water, was changed at the last minute to downplay the risk of pollution.

Romy Khouraki, owner of Altayebat Market, shares Eskandari's worries. His grocery store is the oldest Middle Eastern business in Anaheim, CA. It's located in a business district known as Little Arabia.

“Some of our produce guys were kinda joking around the other day saying, ‘oh well, maybe there won’t be any employees here tomorrow to work,’” he said.

In December, a bullet-riddled copy of the Quran was found outside a nearby Islamic clothing store. Khouraki said his business hasn’t been the target of any attacks, but he worries Trump’s election will increase anti-Muslim sentiment.

A little known reason why students have so much debt 

Federal student loans are an entitlement program, designed to ensure access above all. And while colleges must explain to students, once at the beginning and once at graduation, that they'll have to pay those loans back, they can’t require any counseling in between.

“Congress wants to be very careful that we're not creating impediments for students to getting the loans that they that they deserve, and that counseling doesn't turn into a kind of discouragement — or in fact even a kind of redlining,” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell.

Those good intentions have helped land students in more than $1 trillion of debt. So, the Department of Education is launching an experiment to see if more loan counseling could help students make better decisions. Yes, student loan debt is at $1.3 trillion and the government is going to experimentwith requiring more counseling.

Some North Carolina small businesses feel effects of the state's 'bathroom bill' 

One in four Americans we polled completely distrust government numbers like the unemployment rate, job gains and consumer spending. In particular, nearly half of Trump supporters distrust these statistics. Why is that?

Well, there are conspiracy theories, which Trump hasn’t shied away from.  Then there's the people who live in areas where things aren't going well. When they look around, they don't see 5 percent unemployment.

How does the government arrive at these numbers? About 1,500 data collectors survey  60,000 households each month, and this provides data for about 110,000 people each month. 

Classic rock fans are gearing up for Desert Trip, a three-day festival happening this week and next at the Empire Polo Field in Indio, California.

The lineup includes The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, The Who, Paul McCartney, Neil Young and Roger Waters. It's curated by Goldenvoice, the organizers of Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, which takes place at the same venue, and on a similar two-weekend schedule, every year. The New York Times notes the average performer age is around 72, and AARP magazine has dispatched three reporters to cover the event some have dubbed "Old-chella."

Ticket prices range from $199 for a single-day general admission pass to a three-day reserved seat at $1599. All but the most expensive tickets are sold out — that's around 70,000 tickets for the first weekend, according Billboard — Goldenvoice is making some serious bank. All told, Desert Trip is on track to make $100 million over both weekends to surpass Coachella as the highest grossing music festival ever.

Anita Sarkeesian on 'Ordinary Women'

It can be hard to find strong female role models in pop culture — often, women are portrayed as someone's girlfriend or sidekick.

One person working to change that is Anita Sarkeesian, the founder of the website Feminist Frequency. She's been critiquing female stereotypes in games and pop culture for years, and now she has a new project: a web series called “Ordinary Women: Daring to Defy History.”

"Unfortunately, so many of our history books are filled with the great stories about men, and what men have achieved," Sarkeesian said . "I really wanted to create a series that could tell the stories of amazing women who've been written out of history."

Using premium fuel for cars that only require regular-grade fuel has no added benefit — in fact, it’s a waste of money, according to a study from AAA. The study reported that Americans “wasted more than $2.1 billion dollars in the last year using premium-grade gasoline in vehicles designed to run on regular fuel.”

An estimated 16.5 million drivers used premium-grade gasoline last year for cars that did not need it. According to AAA, just 16 percent of cars on the road — mainly luxury brands — require premium-grade fuel.

While the fuel grade makes no difference for 70 percent of cars, the quality of the gasoline provider does.Another AAA study also released today found a noticeable difference between “Top Tier” fuel retailers and non-Top Tier retailers. Retailers that are licensed as Top Tier contain high levels of detergent gasoline, which keeps engine carbon deposit low. It typically refers to “name brand” gas retailers such as Chevron, Shell and Arco. The study found that non-Top Tier gasoline caused 19 times more engine carbon deposits than Top Tier gas after 4,000 miles of driving.

Trump said the Fed is keeping rates 'artificially low' to help Obama. That's a lie.

by Kai Ryssdal

Once again, I'm forced to choose my words very carefully when talking about the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

Donald Trump went on CNBC this morning — he's got a standing invitation to be on this program as well, by the way — and he talked about a lot, including the Federal Reserve. He accused Fed Chair Janet Yellen of keeping rates "artificially low" and creating a "false stock market" to make President Barack Obama look good.

"She's obviously political and doing what Obama wants her to do, and I know that's not supposed to be the way it is," Trump said via phone, adding, "It is a very serious problem ... and to a certain extent, I think she should be ashamed of herself."

There's only one person who should be ashamed of himself.

Reasonable people disagree about why Janet Yellen and the Fed haven't raised rates yet.

But the idea that American interest rates — and by extension the entire global economy, if you think about it — are being manipulated as some kind of political favor is without any basis in fact.

Amazon is coming to your mall, in an attempt to get you out of the mall

Amazon, the company that sort of defined e-commerce, is moving more and more into the physical world.

And now, Business Insider reports the company is going full mall kiosk. The e-tailer will open up to 100 pop-up stores in various malls around the country by next year. The pop-ups will feature Amazon's own hardware, like the Fire TV, Amazon Echo and Kindle e-readers. All of those, as it happens, make it easier to shop online at Amazon.

There's even a page hidden on Amazon's website devoted to its mall stores.

Yet another lesson in "whatever you do, don't put it in an email."

CNBC got its hands on the list of words and phrases that Goldman Sachs flags when it monitors employee emails.

Let me say that again, your companies read your emails.

Just so you know.

On Goldman's list of no-noes are emails containing the phrases "incompetent account management," "report the matter to the SEC" and "we will sue you."

Also, the phrases "I am not a happy camper" and "you are a piece of..." well, we better stop there.