Marketplace

States and FEMA are separately competing for ventilators, which is driving prices up to roughly $25,000 each. Today, we look at the market forces at work. Plus: What it’s like to run a barge company right now, why employers are backing off 401(k)s and how the housing market is adapting to low interest rates and no in-person showings.

We’re starting to see some devastating economic indicators around the coronavirus pandemic. But just how bad are things going to get? Today we assembled a group of historians to talk about the economic crises of the past, and why it’s unlikely this one will look like the Great Depression. Plus, Britain’s ventilator shortage, insurance hikes and the science of setting the markets to music.

If your inbox looks anything like ours, you’re seeing a bunch of ads for online sales. With nonessential businesses closed all over the country, many retailers are doing what they can to drum up business. It’s true that consumer spending is a primary engine of this economy, but is it right to splurge on fancy sweats right now? Plus: how deep this recession will get, how Americans are confronting the bills due this week and a conversation with rapper, singer and writer Dessa.

Lawmakers have finally passed a $2 trillion COVID-19 relief package. When it comes to saving small businesses, will the aid be enough? We talk with some business owners who are barely getting by. Plus: the new economies of Canadian border towns, retailers’ rush to staff up and a conversation with the president of the Dallas Fed.

Ventilators, masks, gloves and other supplies American hospitals need are produced in China, Italy, Malaysia and elsewhere. That puts the U.S. at a disadvantage in its fight against COVID-19. We’ll look through the supply chain and potential solutions. Plus: the new lifestyles of working parents and the non-traditional workers being hit especially hard by this crisis.

Tomorrow’s first-time unemployment claim numbers are expected to be exponentially higher than a typical week, and many states have cut back on unemployment insurance in recent years. What about the people losing employer-sponsored health care? Today we’ll do the numbers and check in on the status of the stimulus bill that could provide some relief. Plus: What a 90-day tariff deferral would do for the people paying (that’s us).

When you’re losing work because of COVID-19, it might not feel like there’s much difference between getting laid off and furloughed. But it’s an important distinction. We’ll talk about it, plus the unemployment claim numbers coming this week, how the repo market works and the nationwide mask shortage.

When you’re staring down a financial crisis, you want to talk to someone who’s been there before. So today we called up Ben Bernanke, who’s both a scholar of the Great Depression and ran the Federal Reserve during the Great Recession. He says fiscal policy is going to have to “get its act together.” Plus: what an economic “restart” looks like, how small businesses in China are still under pressure and encrypted social platforms’ struggle to fight COVID-19 misinformation.

We have pretty good, near-real-time data on the COVID-19 virus, the number of new cases, tests and so on (you can find daily updates on our website). But the economic impact? Not so much. Today, we’ll tell you what to keep an eye on. Plus: A few stories from a tidal wave of layoffs, and is Boeing too big to fail?

The floor of the New York Stock Exchange is usually full of people, but on Monday it will move to electronic trading only to combat coronavirus. Today, we talk about how that will work and ask Nasdaq President and CEO Adena Friedman why markets are still open at all. Plus, the state of mental health benefits, economic impacts of the 1918 Spanish flu and a conversation with “World War Z” author Max Brooks.