A drought, a jam, a canal — Panama!

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 31 August 2023

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Panama Canal links the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. It sees hundreds of billions worth of stuff pass through it every year. But a historic drought is making it a little harder for big cargo ships to get through the fifty-one mile long channel. Today on the show, we look at how this backup presents yet another test for global supply chains.

Related Episode:
Two Indicators: supply chain and solutions (Apple Podcasts / Spotify)

For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.

Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	NPR.
0:12.3	This is the Indicator from Planet Money, I'm Paddy Hirsch.
0:15.2	And I'm Whalen Wong.
0:16.4	For years, Alex Rodriguez has taken groups of students to visit the Panama Canal, that
0:21.3	from the Haslam College of Business at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
0:26.0	That's where Alex is a lecturer teaching supply chain management.
0:29.4	And at the Panama Canal, Alex's students get to witness one vital link of the global
0:33.7	supply chain in action.
0:35.8	They're right there as massive ships go through the canal.
0:39.3	It looks like a sky scraper, there is floating sideways, particularly when we are that close,
0:48.3	right?
0:49.3	It gives you that perspective of big.
0:52.0	And on one trip, Alex even got some hands-on experience.
0:55.8	The Panama Canal team that hosted our program invite me to press a little button.
1:00.9	Wow, you got to press a button?
1:02.6	Yeah, first and foremost, I ask, hey, I'm not going to explode or destroy anything here.
1:09.3	Yeah, nothing exploded.
1:11.7	But there is a problem at the Panama Canal right now.
1:14.6	A historic dried up the water that's needed to get ships through the canal.
1:19.9	And that's creating delays for vessels transporting billions of dollars worth of stuff between
1:24.3	the U.S. and countries in Asia and South America.
1:27.4	If all this stuff forms the lifeblood of the world economy, then the Panama Canal is a
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.