NPR.

This is the indicator from Planet Money, I'm Stacey Vannick Smith.

The supply chain crisis has been hammering businesses and the whole US economy for months,

but it's especially tricky right now.

A lot of retailers do a huge chunk of their business over the holidays, and if a product

derives a few weeks or even a few days late, that can have serious consequences, especially

if you make toys.

Basic fun makes a lot of classic toys like care bears and Tonka trucks and my little

ponies, and they have really been feeling this crunch.

CEO Jay Forman says it has been all hands on deck, getting toys from factories, mostly

in China, to store shelves in the US, has become a major struggle.

It's almost like, you know, those old World War II movies where, you know, they've got

the battlefield plan there and they're pushing the ship, so they're pushing the tanks across

the battlefield to track where every one of their divisions are.

Like the maps.

With the big maps on the table.

Absolutely.

So we're kind of doing the same thing.

Really?

You guys have a war room?

It's, we have two war rooms.

Instead of the maps, we have 65-inch TV screens in the conference rooms and people have

...