Diesel prices fuel uncertainty for small businesses
Marketplace
Marketplace
4.6 • 8.5K Ratings
🗓️ 20 April 2026
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rising gas prices, stemming from President Trump’s war against Iran, have frustrated drivers all spring. But diesel prices are up too, and diesel is the real engine of our economy. In this episode, small business owners face higher costs and uncertainty as diesel prices climb. Plus: Consumer sentiment reaches record lows even as spending remains stable, economists and farmers explain why tomato prices rose 15% in a month, and bond traders expect the Fed to hold rates steady all year.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | What should you look at to see what the war is doing to this economy? |
| 0:06.2 | Well, when you find out, let us know, would you? |
| 0:09.4 | I'm kidding. |
| 0:10.6 | I'm kidding. |
| 0:11.8 | From American public media. |
| 0:14.2 | This is Marketplace. |
| 0:19.9 | The In Los Angeles, I'm Kyle Rizzdahl. |
| 0:27.7 | It is Monday today, 20 April. |
| 0:30.5 | Good as always, to have you along, everybody. |
| 0:32.7 | Let us begin today with what I hope is a self-evident truth. |
| 0:41.5 | Nobody knows what's going to happen. |
| 0:47.2 | The straight is open. No, it's not. Talks are happening. No, they're not. You get the picture. |
| 0:56.9 | And should you be looking to market indicators to make sense of things? Don't. Equities honestly don't know which way to turn, and you kind of can't blame them. |
| 1:02.5 | Oil and other commodities are being whipsawed as well, which is why we are going with the bond market to start week eight of this war. |
| 1:05.5 | Treasuries, as have we all, have had a lot to digest, but they can be a crystal ball of sorts. Demand for government |
| 1:13.5 | bonds can tell us how nervous investors are as they turn to treasuries in times of trouble. |
| 1:18.6 | And the yields those traders demand can tell us how much inflation they expect. So, Marketplace |
| 1:24.5 | Justin Ho starts us off with the signals that short, medium, and long-term |
| 1:29.5 | government bond yields are sending us right now. |
| 1:32.6 | Yields on short-term government debt, as in treasuries that mature in a couple of years or less, |
| 1:37.6 | are heavily influenced by what traders expect the Federal Reserve to do with interest rates. |
| 1:42.0 | Traders have concluded the Fed is very likely on hold at least through this year and perhaps |
... |
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