Marketplace All-in-One

The economy is growing strongly as it recovers from its pandemic-induced downturns — so strongly that the Fed has signaled it will start tapering bond purchases soon and may raise interest rates next year. That optimism for economists comes with an asterisk, however, as COVID-19, supply chain issues and inflation threaten to stand in the way of full economic recovery. Also: Afghanistan’s informal money exchange market, New York City’s new protections for food-delivery app workers and Evergrande’s shockwaves in China.

There are strong signals that the Federal Reserve could be lowering the setting on economic stimulus later in the fall. Nancy Marshall-Genzer shares details on what the Fed might have planned. The White House is holding another meeting today with representatives of major companies to try to find solutions to the semiconductor chip shortage. The Evergrande debt saga in China is providing a few harsh lessons to be learned for the rest of the world, as Diane Swonk notes in our markets discussion. Speaking of lessons, what have we learned from the Enron scandal 20 years ago? We try to find answers with Bethany McLean, who covered Enron for Fortune.

It was 20 years ago next month that energy giant Enron — then the seventh-largest company in the U.S. — collapsed, resulting in historic layoffs and ravaging retirement savings accounts. We speak with Bethany McLean, a financial reporter who covered Enron for Fortune, about whether or not punishment for white-collar crime is still a real thing after all these years. There’s more to discuss regarding the Fed, and the upcoming holiday shopping season does not seem to mean good cheer for FedEx and other companies dealing with the national labor shortage.

From the BBC World Service: American aerospace giant Boeing has announced that it will build its first factory outside the U.S. in Australia. It will produce unmanned military drones and is expected to create 3,500 jobs by 2028. India is second in the world for coal consumption, but it has set ambitious renewable energy targets. Is it ready to wean itself off of coal?

Emoji users: Your vocabulary is about to grow. The Unicode Consortium, a group that approves emoji, has added 112 new ones, including a melting smiley face, a coral reef, an X-ray and more skin tone and gender options, like a pregnant man and pregnant person. The new icons will start appearing on your phones later this year. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra speaks with Jeremy Burge, chief emoji officer at Emojipedia, an encyclopedia for emoji. Burge talked about how emoji get approved and what happens when companies lobby for an emoji of one of their products.

Progressive Democrats are pressuring President Joe Biden to replace Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. But how did a non-economist even come to head the Fed anyway? That’s one of the listener questions we answer on this Whaddya Wanna Know Wednesday. We’ll also talk about mismatching in the labor market and who the United States is borrowing money from. Plus, Molly reveals her super-secret project!

Here’s everything we talked about:

Read the transcript here.

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The United Nations General Assembly is meeting this week, and climate change is high on the docket. More than a decade ago, the U.S. and other developed countries pledged to gather $100 billion annually by 2020 to assist in climate adaptation and resilience for developing countries. Despite bearing most of the responsibility for emissions and having the most resources to adapt, pledge countries are falling short of their promised amounts. Also on today’s program, we’ll examine London’s financial services post-Brexit, how disaster aid became coupled with budget bills and why you should care about the Fed’s tapering of bond-buying.

In light of China real estate developer Evergrande’s debt issues and the markets trending upward, Susan Schmidt joins us for our economic discussion to help us break down how players in the market might be absorbing all this. The BBC reports on China’s pledge to stop building new coal-fired power plants abroad. The Department of Justice has taken issue with what it sees as an alliance between JetBlue and American Airlines. And, we take a look at the economic dynamics behind China’s shopping malls.

We take a look at the power structure of the Fed, where decisions there affect everyone in America. Those decisions include how the central bank of the U.S. plans to keep propping up the economy during the pandemic. We explore how the anti-abortion law in Texas could have an effect on recruiting in the tech industry. We also examine how some hospital systems still face overwhelming odds in the fight against COVID-19.

From the BBC World Service: China has announced at the United Nations that it will stop building coal plants overseas. Chinese property group Evergrande says it has agreed to a deal with domestic bondholders, who are due payments of around $36 million. Ahead of the U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Justin Rowlatt is traveling around the U.K. taking stock of its green potential. Today, he’s looking at how composting could be one key to a renewable economy.