Revenge spending on concerts is so last year
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145% tariffs means ships aren't shippin'.

From Marketplace, I'm Sabri Beneshour, in for David Brancaccio. There has been a sharp drop in the number of cargo ships coming from China to the U.S. loaded with furniture, toys, and other goods. Bookings for the containers that go on those ships also weigh down. That is what happens when tariffs on the products that would normally fill those containers are raised to 145%. Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzer has more.

The ship tracking system Port Optimizer says shipments from China to Southern California will drop by around 50 percent in early May. Porfirio Waters is president of the supply chain management company TradeFlex Group. He says his clients are avoiding China right now. They froze their orders. They froze bringing in anything from China right now.

So right now, the steamship companies are basically almost sending empty vessels from Asia to the United States. Waters says this kind of disruption can snarl supply chains with too many vessels and shipping containers in one port and not enough in others. This all comes at an especially sensitive time for U.S. importers. This is when they normally start ordering shipments of products for the back-to-school and holiday shopping seasons. I'm Nancy Marshall-Genzer for Marketplace.

Beyonce's Cowboy Carter tour kicks off tonight in Los Angeles, and so far at least fans are finding it cheaper and easier to get their hands on tickets than during Beyonce's sold-out Renaissance tour in 2023. That is probably less a reflection on Beyonce and more that post-pandemic revenge spending on live events like concerts is slowing down. Marketplace's Savannah Peters reports.

When pop star Gracie Abrams performed in Boston last year, Carrie Simonelli's 16-year-old needed tickets. She actually asked to stay home from school so she could get their ticket presale, but I didn't let her.

The concert sold out fast. Simonelli spent $200 apiece on two tickets from a reseller, more than she wanted to. And she had a great time. Simonelli says her daughter would like to see Abrams again this summer. And this time, there are plenty of tickets, but they're twice as expensive. So I think this year, the answer is just going to have to be no. Wait for it? No.

The YOLO energy that fueled the boom in live event spending is starting to fizzle out, according to Stephanie Tully, a marketing professor at USC. In particular, what gets hit when people feel financially constrained are experiences. And instead, Tully says, we stock up on stuff that might be useful in an uncertain future. And

In other words, people who dropped big money on the Renaissance tour two years ago are now panic buying a washing machine. I'm Savannah Peters for Marketplace.

When you think about retirement, you hope that it comes with financial freedom, economic independence. The reality is that older folks can be saddled with credit card debt after they've stopped working. And the data show it often comes just from paying for necessities or unexpected expenses. In our latest installment of our series, Buy Now, Pay Later, Marketplace's senior economics contributor, Chris Farrell, brings us the story of one couple's battle with debt in their golden years. I should go upstairs? Careful going up.

With his wife Patricia's encouragement, 81-year-old Norman Keitzer takes me to a small home office up a narrow staircase with a railing on each side for support. A framed Star Tribune column about him is on one wall. It says, Meet the Mankato Man Who Helped Change Professional Wrestling. I was a magazine editor for Wrestling Review and Ring Wrestling. Norman's career spanned more than 40 years.

He got his start in the professional wrestling business when he was a student at Mankato State University in Minnesota, about an hour and a half from the Twin Cities. A promoter asked if Norman wanted to earn money helping to set up the wrestling ring at the local armory, which led to more opportunities and a move. I started wrestling.

sending stories about the different wrestlers to the magazines in New York, and that's how I ended up working in New York later on for a while. He and his wife Patricia returned to Mankato in the 1980s. He continued to write, edit, publish, and promote wrestling until the 2000s. They also owned a local karaoke store. That was our last thing, and...

We're both in our 80s now. So when we sold the store, basically, I was 70-something. And I was in the early 70s. And we got enough money to buy this house with auto mortgage. And...

to pay off the mortgage we had on our store building. Nonprofit organizations helped make their homes safer to age in place. Norman also dealt with health issues. His knee was replaced, and he also had prostate cancer. I'm

I'm basically living off Social Security now. And, like many people in their cohort, they're under financial strain, mainly due to taking in their grandson, who said he needed a temporary place to stay. He claimed he was going in the Army, but he wanted to stay with us for a couple weeks. It ended up he was here for eight months. He quit his job and didn't work, and

He ate more than the two of us and everything. And we were doing okay up until that time, but now we're...

just got too much on our credit cards. They currently have balances on two credit cards. The snowball effect of this debt means they no longer have a car. Oh, I could still drive, but I can't afford a car. My transmission went out. Their grandson is back on his feet with a job he loves and is living on his own. He got to the point where we wanted to pay off some of these things. They

They took action. They're in a debt repayment plan through Lutheran Social Services. I'm Chris Farrell for Marketplace. Our Buy Now, Pay Later project is in partnership with Next Avenue, a nonprofit news platform for older adults produced by Twin Cities PBS. In New York, I'm Sabri Beneshour with the Marketplace Morning Report. From APM American Public Media.

If there's one thing we know about social media, it's that misinformation is everywhere, especially when it comes to personal finance. Financially Inclined from Marketplace is a podcast you can trust to help you get serious about your money so you can build a life you've always dreamed of.

I'm the host, Janelia Espinal, and each week I ask experts important money questions, like how to negotiate job offers, how to choose a college that you can afford, and how to talk about money with friends and family. Listen to Financially Inclined wherever you get your podcasts.