Chana Joffe-Walt

In a global economy, an airplane’s production can be threatened by events thousands of miles away. Here’s how six pieces of metal nearly cost engineer Ben Hempstead half a million dollars and held up the largest passenger plane in history.  Listen here.

There are lots of ways to measure the health of the economy: the inflation rate, GDP and unemployment numbers. There’s another economic index — measured by someone you may have never considered an expert on economic matters — your mailman.  Listen here.