This Is How Finance and Banking Worked Before Computers
We're used to thinking of modern finance as practically synonymous with computers. Banks are basically just big collections of Excel spreadsheets, keeping track of who owes what to whom. And most trad...
22 Jun 202344min
Josh Younger on the Surprising Origins of Eurodollars and Petrodollars
De-dollarization is all the rage right now, with lots of talk about whether the US currency will be able to maintain its dominant status in the global financial system. But regardless of what happens ...
19 Jun 202351min
Steve Eisman on Banks, AI and His Next Big Bet
Steve Eisman is known for having bet against the housing market prior to the Great Financial Crisis in a trade immortalized by Michael Lewis in The Big Short. So what is he betting on now? In a specia...
16 Jun 202352min
The Eyeball-Scanning Plan Designed to Save Us From AI
There are all kinds of societal concerns emerging out of the rise of artificial intelligence. Will it put us all out of work? Will fraudsters be able to use deepfakes — technology that can replicate o...
15 Jun 202350min
This Is What Happens When Governments Build Software
There's a lot of frustration about the government's ability to build things in the US. Subways. Bridges. High-speed rail. Electricity transmission. But there's another crucial area where the public se...
12 Jun 20231h 1min
Brad Setser on How World Trade Changed In the Last Three Years
A lot has happened since we last spoke to Brad Setser in April 2020, towards the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. For a start, Setser was appointed to be a trade advisor in the Biden administration...
9 Jun 202357min
Isabella Weber on the Big Rethink of Inflation
Earlier this year, Odd Lots talked about the idea of companies taking advantage of bottlenecks and other disruptions to raise their prices. Since then, the notion of this type of corporate-led inflati...
8 Jun 202346min
Jim Grant Sees an Era of Higher Rates That Could Last For Years
If you think interest rates seem high right now, you might be operating with too short of a perspective. For a longer-term perspective, you'd want to talk to someone like Jim Grant. On this episode of...
5 Jun 202342min
