Week of March 27th, 2017

FEMA still lacks a permanent chief.

Federal Reserve Gov. Jerome Powell wanted to see the economy of Trump voters firsthand.

The modern bouquet is lush and wild, and it's also influencing the market.

Wrapping up the week's business news with Catherine Rampell and Nela Richardson.

Fandom is, at its core, a form of marketing.

More than a dozen major disasters — mudslides, floods, a huge bridge collapse in Atlanta this week — have hit the U.S. since President Donald Trump took office. There are a few federal agencies in charge of cleanup and relief, but it’s not yet clear how they’ll change in this new administration. For example, FEMA doesn’t have a director yet, even as Trump has proposed hundreds of millions in cuts. Plus: A Federal Reserve governor visits West Virginia and the latest on Trump’s executive orders. And, as always, we’ll wrap up the week in business and economic news.

Molly Wood guest hosts this week. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams and The Atlantic’s Gillian White go long and short on this week’s news. T Magazine’s Deborah Needleman explains how florists on Instagram are changing the floral industry. Author Zoe Fraade-Blanar explains the economic power behind fandom, and comedian Neal Brennan takes the Marketplace Quiz.

He's got a gold tooth for sale, if you're interested.

Trump wants to target the trade deficit, which he argues imperils U.S. workers.

Leon Logothetis chronicles his experience in the Netflix series “The Kindness Diaries.”

“Firm inequality” describes the phenomenon where workers across firms earn vastly different amounts in earnings. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom joins us to discuss why he thinks tech companies epitomize the pay divide. Afterwards, we’ll play this week’s “Silicon Tally” with Daniela Galarza, a senior editor at Eater.

During his campaign, Trump criticized America’s trading relationship with the rest of the world. Now his administration is set to issue two executive orders on trade today. We’ll take a look at what the president plans to achieve with these new actions. Next, we’ll talk about Amazon’s plan to woo big food companies so they can sell their products to them and rely less on grocery chains. And finally, we’ll discuss our upcoming series “Robots Ate My Job,” which takes a look at how the real competition for our jobs often comes from automation. 

At CinemaCon, studios and theaters are debating how soon make movies available at home

Crowdfunding platform founder Rodrigo Nino says the JOBS Act opened access to one of the best assets in the world.

Presidential hires get to cut into the line, which can take years to get through.

Anquan Boldin and Malcolm Jenkins are using their muscle to help push through bipartisan bills.

The law was projected to cost the state more than $3.76 billion over dozen years.

Ivanka Trump has officially become and unpaid assistant to the president with an office in the White House and a security clearance. But what does it take to get security clearance? How much does it cost to grant security clearance? We got some answers. Also from Washington: The Congressional Budget Office released a report today projecting the United States reaching a record level of publicly held debt by 2017. We take a look at how demographic shifts have contributed to this problem. We also talk with NFL players Malcolm Jenkins and Anquan Boldin, about their campaign for criminal justice reform. 

Predictive text, Wi-Fi and selfies were all on the lesson plan at a seminar in NYC.

Meanwhile, the top percentile of wage earners are seeing the fastest wage growth.

Women are creating professional settings that cater to their needs, like child care.

The Phoenix area has become a testing ground of sorts for ride-sharing companies in a relatively untapped market.

Sales jumped more than 5 percent last month.

As the Congressional Budget Office gears up to release its annual 30-year budget outlook, we’ll examine the value in looking decades ahead. The forecast will predict what will happen if there are no changes to laws governing taxes and government spending. Afterwards, we’ll discuss the factors leading to a strengthening home market, and then look at SpaceX’s plan to launch a commercial satellite into orbit using a recycled rocket booster.  

Samsung has released its latest flagship devices, the Samsung S8 and S8 Plus, and unveiled its artificial intelligence assistant Bixby. Following Samsung’s series of scandals in the past year, we’ll look at what shape the company’s in. Afterwards, we’ll explore the AARP’s use of seminars to educate older generations on how to use smartphones.

Cutting corporate taxes affects the market for affordable housing tax credits

A week after Andrew Puzder resigned, the company rolled out a more mature ad campaign.

Uber, self-driving cars and flying passenger drones vs. a virtual reality avatar at home: The race is on.

Britain begins its long goodbye from the bloc today.

The prediction that foreshadowed advancements in computing is here to stay, EVP says.

Britain and the EU have very different ideas about how the next two years will unfold.

After more than four decades of membership with the European Union , the British government has officially notified its European partners that the U.K. is leaving the bloc. Marketplace’s London Bureau Chief Stephen Beard looks at how global banks and financial institutions based in the city of London are preparing for Brexit. Also on today’s show, we take a look at how Virtual Private Network (VPN) services are looking to capitalize on the recent move in Congress to repeal rules aimed at protecting online privacy. Plus, Marketplace host Molly Wood talks to Stacy Smith, the executive vice president leading manufacturing, operations and sales at Intel, about why he thinks computing power will continue to advance despite barriers.

'Black homes matter' for one person who's seen some residents move to cheaper areas.

Dams are costly and have gone out of style. We also know more about their environmental impact.

A new resolution plans to scale back a set of privacy rules put in place by the Federal Communications Commission under President Obama. We’ll discuss how the measure could affect what you see online as a user, and how much data telecommunications companies already collect. Also on the topic of data transparency: Uber has released a diversity report about its workforce. We’ll take a look at the report’s statistics, which show that men hold 85 percent of the company’s tech jobs. And finally, we’ll talk about the roll out of Facebook Stories, a service that seems a lot like Snapchat. 

The nuclear energy firm Westinghouse Electric Company has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. We’ll look at what led to the filing and what the decision says about the overall nuclear industry. Next, we’ll look at America’s consumer confidence levels, and then discuss why there’s been a decline in the construction of mega dams. 

Farmers are steering their kids away from the crop, whose prices are falling.

It’s not all about the Benjamins.

VP Joe Hinrichs says the 'major investments have been in the works for quite some time.'

Without help from Congress, Republicans can’t change the law, but rules on how to execute the law are fair game.

With coal, deregulation can only get you so far.

Dr. Ziad Obermeyer says the seriously ill want 'objective predictions about how long they have to live.'

The way we eat the fruit and buy blue jeans has a lot to do with the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Obamacare is the law of the land, so now the GOP is moving on to the federal budget. Easy enough, right? Um, no. Then: President Donald Trump’s latest executive order rolls back several climate regulations. But can deregulation alone save coal? (No, it can’t.) Plus, the latest on Brexit and robots that may be able to predict your death. Happy Tuesday.

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order Tuesday aimed at moving forward on his campaign pledge to unravel former President Barack Obama’s plan to curb global warming. The order will suspend, rescind or flag for review more than a half-dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production […]

After last week’s terrorist attack on Parliament, we revisit the topic of government access to encrypted apps. How does accessing end-to-end encrypted messaging services like Whatsapp resemble steaming open envelopes or tapping phones? Ben Johnson discusses how U.K. agencies are navigating this territory with professor and author Thomas Rid. Then, why Facebook Marketplace isn’t taking off as Craigslist endures.

A drop in international students — who collectively add $31 billion to the U.S. economy — is met by colleges trying to assuage students whose holiday travel plans were put at risk by Trump’s travel ban. Also, we take a look at how Americans spend their SNAP benefits and follow the increasing amounts of money U.S. airlines are investing in Chinese air travel.

Prepper businesses have picked up after Trump's election. Self-reliance and fear are a few reasons why.

Foreign applications drop amid fear and uncertainty over Trump policies.

In virtual reality, you'll be able to try on 30 outfits in a few minutes, Bold Metrics says.

Communities like Talbotton, Georgia, have few options beyond public schools.

The U.S. Senate voted to kill the FCC's broadband privacy rules. The House will vote Tuesday.

What now? That’s the question after House Republicans last week failed to pass a repeal-and-replacement bill for the Affordable Care Act. We take a look at what might happen to state and federal insurance exchanges in 2018. We also re-visit the question “Can the government really act like a business?” President Trump seems to think so. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, will head a new department with an old concept: use data-driven business practices and apply them to government. Lastly, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is a major proponent of school choice, but that program could put some rural districts at risk of losing funds.

Exploring the online black market of hacking solutions for John Deere tractors.

The new permit is good through February 2018. Not everyone is happy.

Companies that exist solely to buy patents and sue tech firms, known as patent trolls, will be affected by a Supreme Court decision today that could limit where they file suits. Currently, venue is key to how patent trolls win cases — for example, one third of such cases are argued in the eastern district of Texas where rules are favorable to plaintiffs. Plus, a test run of Amazon’s outfit compare feature, which joins several apps trying to take the place of a friend who tells you what to wear while compiling your shopping data.

Iran responds to U.S. sanctions with their own, aimed at U.S. companies that do business with Israel. Marketplace’s Marielle Segarra discusses which companies are involved and what it means for them. Then we turn to Nigeria, where pollution from an oil spill is still astonishingly high almost a decade after two Shell pipelines burst. Plus, how mobile solar-powered vehicle chargers are changing the landscape of the electric car industry.

All credit card owners need to do is ask banks to negotiate rates.

It could take years to build up electric vehicle charging infrastructure. Meanwhile, options exist.