Overnight, a wartime economy

From American Public Media, this is Market Clifters. In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizdoll. It is Monday today.

This one is the second day of March.

“It is always to have you along, everybody.”

But they nodded to Donald Rumsfeld a little bit ironically, but also historically and syntactically. What we have after the event of the past 72 or so hours is a long long catalog of known and unknown unknowns. And they are making the global economy a bit riskier today than it was on Friday afternoon. Since you already know what the news is, we are going to talk first today about what the

news means for us in our particular line of work and we are going to do it with Robin Brooks. Is this in your fellow at the Brookings Institution Robin, thanks for coming on the program. Great to be with you, Kyle. As we sit here, 72-ish hours later, how do you perceive the macroeconomic state of risk

right now? You know, this is a great question and in a way, the U.S. economy is a puzzle because we've been throwing all these shocks at it and the U.S. has been doing just fine. We threw huge tariffs at it. Just fine.

We have massively changed immigration policy. The U.S. has kept trucking the disconcerting thing is that no one really understands why the U.S. economy hasn't fallen out of bed yet. No one really knows. And so now we have a big shock to oil.

Cost of living is a major issue for many U.S. households. The U.S. consumer has been holding the U.S. economy up. So risk and risk of recession have been going up and that's really worrying. I'm going to continue with my somewhat tortured metaphor here about Donald Rumsfeld.

“Is this perhaps the mother of all shocks so far in the Trump administration?”

You know, so let's talk about the oil market and how big this is. First of all, so when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, Russia has a major oil producer globally.

They produce 10 million barrels of oil a day.

The day of the invasion, oil prices rose 2%. So today, first day of trading after news of war with Iran, oil prices are up 8%. So this is a major shock. We have about 20% of oil, globally, the transit, the streets of Formos. So the potential for negative spillovers for risk to the U.S. economy is very, very real.

Something that U.S. are a global economics and politics specialist, not a watcher of the Federal Reserve. I'm going to throw you this question anyway. Imagine you are Kevin Worsh and if everything goes the way the President wants, Worsh is going to come in in May. And the President is going to be squeezing him to lower interest rates. And you are now because of the President's actions going to be on something of the horns of the Lama.

Yes? Totally, the worst word for any central banker is Stagflation, right? It's a place where the economy needs rate cuts. But you have high inflation, maybe rising inflation. And so it becomes really hard to justify those cuts. And you just don't want to be in this place.

And Kai, if you look at what markets are pricing today, if you look at Federal funds futures,

which price basically what, how much the market thinks the Fed will cut interest rates.

They've been pairing back cuts because they think the Fed will be precisely torn between these two things. It is even being bandied about that there may be a raise next time in increase rates. So, totally, yeah, yeah. Inflation has been running above target anyway. It is proving to be very sticky.

The most recent inflation prints in PCE, which is one of the most widely followed inflation garages and producer price inflation. We're on the hot side. So, it's a major issue. We have a minute left. I'm going to turn it a little bit sideways here.

And I want to ask you about this thing that, you know, we're early in the Trump administration. What was a real thing? This whole sell America trait, right? People selling the dollar. They were selling bonds.

“What is the risk premium now in dealing with the United States of America as the global unreliable actor?”

So, great question. The dollar reality today, this is like a short term, knee jerk buy protection. So, the good news is, in the very short term, the dollar is still kind of a safe even.

Why are we at war with the United States?

And it raises the question about governance and whether governance in the United States is deteriorating. That's bad for the reserve currency status of the dollar. Robin Brooks, at Brookings. Robin, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time.

Great to be with you.

“Wall Street, to start with the week, had you been expecting a big reaction from equities?”

I don't know what to tell you, honestly. Details numbers when we get there. When risk is the economic throughline as it is today, you see reactions in a couple of predictable places.

First of all, gold and in fact, it popped another 2% today above $5,350.

Another place you see risk playing out is in bonds. US government bonds specifically. And usually what happens is that investors dump their money into that safest of safe havens, which pushes bond prices higher and yields lower. Today though, yield have been rising, which is a sign that investors are actually selling US treasuries.

Marketplace just and how explains what's going on there.

“Over the last few days, investors had been piling money into treasury bonds.”

Because in uncertain times.

Other asset classes will tend to be a lot more volatile than treasury.

So it's a place to put your money when you're being cautious. Kathy Jones is chief fixed income strategist with the Schwab Center for Financial Research. Charles Schwab is a marketplace underwriter. She says by this morning, however, investors realized that stocks and other kinds of assets weren't reacting as strongly as investors expected.

Some stocks were lower, but not maybe as much as people thought. Oil prices are up up, 6% or 7%, but maybe not the 10 or 15 or 20% that they had feared might happen. Bond investors still have plenty to worry about. Jones says for one, a prolonged conflict could be costly.

“That is a concern because we already have a large and rising fiscal deficit.”

If we add to it by more defense spending, then that is going to create expectations that we have to issue even more bonds to fund that. And if investors think the government's going to flood the market with new bonds, they're going to demand to be paid higher interest. And higher treasury yields could cause all kinds of borrowing to get more expensive. Randy Vogel is head of fixed income at Wilmington Trust. He says another reason investors are demanding higher rates is because they want to be compensated in case prices pick up.

Higher oil prices leads to more inflation and more inflation leads to higher interest rates. Rising energy prices will likely continue to push treasury yields higher. Says when he sees her, head of strategy at the research company credit sites. But Caesar says there's also a point where energy prices could start to whittle away the economy because if prices rise too high. Consumers are not going to have the ability to withstand that price increase and demand is just going to kind of fall off a cliff.

Caesar says corporations would feel the pinch too. For example, if you are an airline and all of sudden oil prices are double what you were expecting, that's probably going to have some sort of impact on your hiring plans. Your hiring plans for the year. Caesar says if that were to happen, she'd expect treasury yields to fall. I'm Justin Ho, from Marketplace.

There is a timing thing here that we have to address. It is very early in this war. And while acknowledging all the deaths and the human tragedy, we just don't know how much longer it's going to last. Which means we don't really know how long it's going to take for its effects to be felt. That's the assignment Marketplace at Kristen Schwab. Got this morning.

Let's start with one thing that is tangible today. The average price for a gallon of regular gas is just shy of three bucks according to Triple A. Tom Closa, chief analyst at Gulf Oil says it'll go up a bit. It looks like we're going to go in relatively short order to about 310 to 325. Some of this is seasonal and expected.

It very much is the rocket in feather prices go up like a rocket.

If this is all over within a few months, they'll come down like a feather. A few months of temporary pain to the wallet. But Mark Sandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics says that's enough to make consumers who are already price sensitive because of years of inflation, even more nervous.

“The only thing we're prices really have not risen.”

Significantly and really aren't bothering people's a cause of buying a gallon of regular unleaded. 70% of consumers say gas prices affect their feelings about the economy. According to the National Association of Convenient Stores.

I think I'd be worried about what kind of impact this might have on the collective psyche.

Because consumers drive the economy. The war may also weigh on corporate psyche. Adam Pozen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics says a prolonged conflict could mean higher shipping costs, delayed cargo, and elevated insurance premiums. I think the business side of it in terms of passing on.

“As in passing on the costs to consumers would probably take a little longer more like two three four months.”

Pozen says companies had already been planning to raise prices this year because of tariffs.

After holding off for most of 2025.

And this gives them further coverage to do it. Which could lead to a temporary spike in inflation. The thing is, we do not know the length or scope of this war, so we can't predict how mild or major the economic effects will be. But it does add another layer of uncertainty onto an already uncertain economy. I'm Kristen Schwab from Marketplace.

[Music] The energy story Robin Brooks and I touched on a little bit today.

“Oil of course the headline do not sleep on natural gas though.”

Cutter one of the world's biggest producers of liquified natural gas has just stopped producing. You apply that some applied demand equation and you will see that natural gas prices have soared in Europe and Asia. Both major importers of Kittarian natural gas. Marketplace is Elizabeth Trova covers global energy for us. Without that natural gas, Asia and Europe will need to get their LNG somewhere.

Says Gregory Brue with Eurasia Group. LNG buyers such as China, Japan and South Korea will be affected by a shut-off in Kittaria supply. If the shut-off lasts more than a day or two. Europe is in an especially vulnerable position. Europe has relatively low natural gas inventories right now.

It's coming out of the winter months. It could be a deja vu moment for Europe which paid high energy and heating costs in 2022 after losing Russian natural gas supply. Says Ed Cox with ICIS. Huge increases after Russian invasion of Ukraine really damaged businesses in Europe and in Asia as well. Her consumers at home, and that just speaks to the dependency that Europe has now in Port del Ngin.

If sustained for weeks, Columbia University's on-so-figurbo says this could be a real problem for Europeans. You are going to have an impact on gas prices, you are going to have an impact on heating, you are going to have an impact on the electricity bills. And she says there's no quick replacement for missing natural gas since LNG facilities around the globe are running at capacity. That's including in the U.S., the number one LNG exporter says Tom Sang with Texas Christian University. We're maxed out.

You can't just boost LNG production from its current levels if you're already running at 100% in the United States. You know, we're waiting on additional projects to be constructed. More terminals that liquefy natural gas are needed in order to increase exports of LNG. But that export capacity is expected to grow significantly in the U.S., not overnight, but in the next few years. Last week President Trump and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were in Corpus Christi when an expansion of an LNG export terminal there was approved.

I'm Elizabeth Troval for Marketplace. [Music]

Oh yeah, I know that feeling. First though, let's do the numbers.

“The down industrials gave up 73 points today about 2/10%, 48,944.”

That has deck picked up 80 points, 4/10%, 22,748, the S&P 500 will call it flat up 2 points. If you really want to know 68 and 81, the war. As you might imagine, it's caused huge flight disruption across the Middle East Airlines Tumble today. United declined 2.9% delta down 2% and 2/10%. American Airlines off 4/10%, 1% on the other hand, defense stocks, hello.

Here's how the federal government's top contractors for the year 2025 did. Laterals holdings, that's a defense technology firm expanded to 1.5% lucky in Martin. Up 3% and 4/10% acts on enterprises, that's a weapons maker expanded 5.5% for data analytics firm Palantir of 5 and 8/10% on the day. Bond prices, as Justin was saying, they fell the yield on the 10-year Tino Rose 4.04% you are listening to Marketplace.

This is Marketplace, I'm Kai Rizdahl. We are going to spend the second part of the program today

on how things get from point A to point B in a global economy that has just had a large and deadly wrench thrown in the works.

“The Middle East is, among other things, a crossroads of global trade.”

Oil and gas, yes, sure we talked about that, but goods writ large. Our trendship through that region, and changes are already happening. Some of the big shipping giants have modified their roots. Merch is rerouting and ships around Africa. Hapag Lloyd is doing the same thing and applying a war risk surcharge to boot.

Marketplace of Karla Havier has more on that one. Global shipping likes to pass through the most direct roots to minimize costs and times, says Eugene Golds at Notre Dame. And the shortest routes often say between Asia and Europe might go past the Persian Gulf through the Gulf of Oman, through the Red Sea.

Shipping companies are avoiding the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, even though they don't border Iran. The Iran backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have attacked shipping vessels there before, and their spheres they may again. Ben Slupeki is an analyst at Morningstar.

As Clint was kind of emerges in the Middle East, it's for the safety of their crew, the passengers of cargo. They have to rebound around the Cape of good hope down around the bottom of Africa. He says it's not unusual for these types of companies to have to adapt to operating conditions. Whether it's weather or conflict.

Variable pricing and surcharges are in the regular course of business. And the surcharges can benefit the company. There's not something that these companies want to be doing very frequently, but at the end of the day it is an account of a tailwind for them. For one thing he says, rerouting lengthens the trip.

Adding extra ten days to the journey in essence kind of artificially reduces supply these ships, driving up the price to rates that they can charge. Fees and surcharges he says also help cover added costs, including more fuel and paying crew for a longer journey. Whether in how these additional costs get passed to you as consumers depends on how long this lasts, and whether costs are absorbed along this supply chain.

But it's likely to impact consumers closer to the conflict. The shipping companies, Mayor Skin, Hapag Lloyd, also suspended vessel crossings in the state of Hormus, which connects to the Persian Gulf. Eugen Goldz at Notre Dame again. If you live at the end of the Gulf in Kuwait or Iraq and you're hoping for some imports,

you know, they could face higher prices, but global markets not affected a lot. They made impacts as Goldz sees them will not be on cargo, but oil and gas. I'm glad we'll have you here for Marketplace. [Music] But the thing about the global economy, of course, is that it's global, so much like squeezing a balloon,

something happens in one part of it, that balloon inevitably bulges out some place else. And that, well, it gets us too, and I want you to take a deep breath now, because I know you thought you were done hearing about this after the pandemic, but the supply chain has entered the chat.

“Will he she is Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School?”

Does she, it's good to have you on the program again? Well, thanks for having me. Here we have yet another shock to the global supply chain. I guess I wonder as the expert in the field, what you thought when you ran the new to the other day?

Well, when we first had some of these shocks, it's like, how do I work my way around some of these things?

but what I have to do is I have to think more about how do I design my supply chains, how do I design my world to be more resilient? Because now, you know, the surprises aren't so much as surprising anymore.

“It's like, okay, you know, here's Monday, what's in store for us today?”

Oil aside, tell me how this is going to ripple through the global supply chain. There are obviously shipping considerations, insurance considerations, hazard considerations, all of those things. Well, with oil, what we're concerned about is what happens if Iran causes the straight-up hormones, right? Because 15 million barrels a day comes through there. But we already saw what happened, you know, when the Suez was effectively closed,

that removed like 12 percent of global shipping capacity, right? I mean, that shows you what happens when you have all these choke points around the world, whether it's the straight-up hormones, or it's the Molaka Straits, or it's, you know, around into the Red Sea and to Suez. Okay, so all these choke points just make life more unpredictable, and just make it more challenging.

Do me a favor and take off your academic hat and put on the hat of the guy who, last I spoke with you, you had been in business doing operations and those sorts of things for 30 some odd years.

“How do you plan for those surprises that aren't really surprises anymore?”

They're just kind of like your everyday. Well, you might have more inventory, for example, right?

Because you just never know when you're going to get cut off for some unexpected reasons.

I mean, if there's anything we've learned in the last couple of years that's like having a single source of supply, and that's not so good, right? So we'll see what happens with the price of oil, right? But, you know, the problem with commodities like that, is it just feeds into so many other things, transportation costs, raw material costs.

And, you know, the other thing, look at what's happened to global air transportation, you know, with basically the shutdown of Dubai, shut down a cotter, shut down of Abu Dhabi. Okay, and that's not only passengers, that's the huge amount of disruption, but, you know, Emirates Sky Cargo, huge operator.

“Those types of effects, those will ripple through as well, right?”

And, you know, they carry a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, for example, out of Africa, among other things, right? So all those things, you know, see those effects play out, you know? What I hear you saying, as you list all of those things, Professor speaking as a humble American consumer,

is that costs generally speaking are likely to rise, my prices. Well, the first place we'll see it probably will be gasoline prices. But then, you know, a lot of these things take a while to work through the system, right? So, for example, for most of last year when we had imposition of a lot of tariffs,

we also had a lot of people front running and loading up an inventory to try to beat those tariffs. And then, you know, the latter part of last year was the giant destocking cycle, where people burned off that inventory. And now, it's like, well, how much do I have to restock?

Okay, but it's going to be at higher prices. So, you know, it's hard for me to think how we're not going to see price increases, just because all the input costs are going up. And if nothing else, we're going to pay more for shipping just for insurance, right? Really, she's an Harvard.

Professor, she thanks for your time, so I do appreciate it. Hey, thanks for having me.

This final note on the way out today in which there is always a housing angle.

Your member last week, I told you the average yield on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage was down under 6% for this first time, and 2.5-ish years. You know where this is going, right? 6.13% today, according to mortgage news daily, it's not like the war directly affects those rates,

but they do track the 10 year treasury pretty closely. The yield on which Justin was telling us earlier rose to date. I'm here with a bow at Caitlyn Ash. John Gordon or your car and Stephanie Seek are the marketplace editing staff. Kelly Solvera is the news director.

I'm Kyle Rizdall. We will see you tomorrow, everybody. This is APM.

These days, it feels like there's always another headline about layoffs,

and even if you're not directly affected, you can still mess with you.

We're talking about layoff anxiety, the fear of losing your job,

and some practical tips to cope.

“Literally list out all the steps that would have to happen”

to get to our feared outcome,

assign each one a percent likelihood, and multiply it out.

“We look at how to quiet the spiral and make a plan just in case.”

Listen to this is uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts.