national association of home builders economist paul crowe expected a drop due to bad weather and more multi-family building. but he also thinks the housing market still has bigger problems. >> even those factors don't account for the significant drop we saw, and i think that has more to do with the fragile housing recovery to begin with, and so any small wind blows us off track, or even backwards in this case. >> tom: meanwhile, another data point in on the economy, a big jump in inflation at the wholesale level. producer prices rose 1.6% in february, the sharpest jump in nearly two years. the culprit here? no surprise, higher energy and commodities costs. still ahead, with damage estimates in hundreds of the billions of dollars, we look at what it will take to start rebuilding japan. >> susie: as workers in japan struggle to limit the fallout from the nuclear crisis, china became the latest country to put its nuclear expansion plans on hold. but the companies that build nuclear power plants say they can operate safely. areva is one of them. this afternoon, darren gersh spoke with chi