Marketplace All-in-One

Prices have gone up 7% in one year, which is the highest reading for the Consumer Price Index since 1982. That’s the backdrop for our markets discussion with Jeffrey Cleveland of Payden & Rygel. We check in on China, which has suspended dozens of flights coming from the U.S. because of COVID issues. The number might not sound high, but the impact on airlines and visitors from the U.S. is significant. With bigger banks doing away with overdraft fees, smaller community banks are analyzing if they can afford to do the same.

For the answer to that question, we turn to World Bank President David Malpass, who discusses some of the challenges facing the global economy as well as the possibility that growth will slow down in 2022. The Biden administration is set to offer millions of free COVID tests to schools around the country.

From the BBC World Service: While high inflation concerns are keeping policymakers up at night in many parts of the world, prices in China are rising, but a slower rate than expected. Plus, Quebec plans to impose a tax on people who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine. And, the English company that’s looking to use nuclear fusion to help generate cheaper, greener power.

The latest surge of COVID infections has hospitals crowded, short-staffed and, in some cases, rationing care. That means sometimes hospital clinicians have to go through a triage process to prioritize who gets care first, or at all. For example, a doctor may decide that a patient suffering respiratory failure should be admitted to the intensive-care unit over someone who seems to have minor injuries from a car accident. But that distinction, especially in a crisis, might not be so clear-cut. So medical research centers like Johns Hopkins and Stanford are studying how machine learning might help. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Dr. Ron Li, a clinical assistant professor at Stanford Medicine, where he’s medical informatics director for digital health and artificial intelligence clinical integration.

For the first deep dive of 2022, we’re going to space! OK, not really. But we’re talking about the most powerful space telescope ever. The James Webb Space Telescope cost $10 billion, a lot of tech went into developing it and we can’t stop obsessing over it. Neither can our guest.

“I cannot contain my excitement. It’s been a wild roller coaster getting to this point. And to have this telescope now launched in space, it’s just so thrilling for astronomers everywhere,” said Caitlin Casey, professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, who will be leading the biggest project on the JWST.

The telescope is expected to help researchers discover some of the most distant galaxies and study the atmosphere of planets outside our solar system to see if they’re habitable.

On the show today: what the JWST tells us about the future of public and private investment in space exploration.

Casey will also highlight the technological developments created by the JWST and its predecessor, Hubble, and how they’ve impacted industries from medical equipment to GPS technology.

In the News Fix, some companies have stopped predicting when they’ll be back in the office. Plus, an in-depth investigation into the House and Senate members who enslaved Black people. Later, we’ll discuss why some people want to tone down our use of the term “deep dive” and an answer to the Make Me Smart Question from the 2011 Nobel Prize winner in physics.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

If you’re a renter in need of a chuckle, just look at the consumer price index, which calculates rent inflation at just 3% for last year. The cost is rising much faster for many renters, and other data sources show the increase near 18%. Today, we’ll talk about this wide data disconnect and why how we measure housing inflation is so important. We’ll also hear about the business of tracking other businesses’ shipments and check in with a downtown Los Angeles cheesemonger and a certified public accountant in New York City.

We talk to senior economics contributor Chris Farrell about the world of the default option when it comes to personal finance and planning. What is it, and why is it such a popular choice? Susan Schmidt joins us for our chat about the markets. Vaccine mandates could disrupt truckers heading into Canada from the United States, which could further compound supply chain issues.

Fed Vice Chair Richard Clarida announced his resignation Monday, much earlier than expected. Clarida resigns amid questions about stock trades he made in 2020. The past year saw a massive spike in ransomware-related cyberattacks. Large amounts of sensitive data were stolen from places ranging from school districts to health care providers, and then resold online. That includes the data of children. California remains a holdout for legalized sports gambling, and many groups are jostling for position to control that potentially lucrative scene.

From the BBC World Service: The United Nations is asking for $5 billion to help alleviate a worsening humanitarian disaster in Afghanistan, with around half the population struggling to find enough to eat. Also, data show Heathrow Airport saw fewer travelers in 2021 than even during the height of the pandemic in 2020.

Sure, CES had the snazziest new wearables and fitness gear, but the show this year also debuted new advancements in what’s known as “femtech.” This is technology targeted at health issues affecting cisgender women, as well as some intersex and transgender people. It’s an area with historic underinvestment, but that may be changing. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams speaks with Monique Mrazek, a senior global health tech industry specialist for the International Finance Corp., which is part of the World Bank Group. She asked Mrazek what femtech encompasses.