Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm a smahalo that I cover the White House.

And today on the show, we're going to talk about supply chains, which I know just saying

that sounds a little bit wonky.

So to help us make sense of it all, we have invited Scott Horsley and PR's Chief Economics

correspondent on to explain it all to us.

Hey there, Scott.

Hey, love talking about supply chains.

So Scott, let's start with a pretty basic question here, which is, you know, what is

a supply chain?

I think, you know, some folks hearing that phrase may kind of gloss over it.

It's a kind of a wonky term in itself.

Sure.

Well, at one end of the supply chain, you have a consumer who wants something, a box

of cereal, a stereo, a new car, whatever it might be.

And the supply chain is all the people along the way that are involved in getting that

product to the consumer, you know, whether it's the farmer that grows the wheat for the

wheaties or the auto company that builds the car and all the suppliers that go into that

and the steel workers and all the component makers and that sort of thing.

And generally speaking, it's a nice chain where when you pull on one end, all the different

pieces come right along and it works very efficiently to deliver an enormous amount of goods

to people at low prices.

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