Remember the supply chain problems of 2020 and 2021? The story we were told was that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global economy's ability to make and transport goods of every type imaginable: Surgical masks. Car parts. Infant formula.

But as New York Times' global economic correspondent Peter Goodman explains in his new book, “How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain,” the story is more complicated than that.

On this episode, Goodman and Mark Blyth discuss how, over decades, consulting firms and shareholders built a system that drove up profits but imperiled our economy, ultimately making COVID-related supply shocks (and the inflation that followed) much worse than they needed to be. Furthermore, if Goodman is right, it’s only a matter of time before we risk running out of everything again.

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