Why Some States Are Loosening Child Labor Laws

American voters are so disillusioned by their options in the presidential election that pollsters have come up with a term for it: “Double-hater.” These are people who don’t like President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump, who leads the race for the GOP nomination. And yet, when asked by the Big Take DC podcast if an outsider candidate could break through in 2024, Ralph Nader, who ran for president outside the two major parties four times, gave a simple, “No.” Still, there are some indications that third-party candidates could cause trouble for the frontrunners.  In this episode of Big Take DC, we examine the impact an outsider candidate could have on the general election and efforts from groups like No Labels to offer a viable alternative.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

15 Feb 202416min

The US power grid has long been under pressure. But now, aging infrastructure is facing more extreme weather, more electricity usage and more renewable energy coming online. These strains on the grid mean dangerous power surges could potentially flow directly into people's homes. In today's episode, Bloomberg's Naureen Malik takes us inside the realities of electrification.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

14 Feb 202412min

For years, the true price of health care in the US has been the result of negotiations between providers, insurance companies and government agencies. But for the patients, companies and taxpayers who pick up the tab, it's often been a mystery. That's led to hospital pricing that’s all over the map.In today’s episode of the Big Take podcast, Bloomberg reporter John Tozzi explains how patients at almost half of US hospitals can find significantly less expensive competitors within 30 miles. And we hear from Jen Villa, a special education teacher from Salinas, California, who has felt the impact of those pricing disparities firsthand.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

13 Feb 202413min

China’s economy has been in rough shape, and the government is trying to address it. But there’s another threat on the horizon: the US election.During their presidencies, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump backed policies that drove the US and China further apart. Now, they're both campaigning for re-election on continuing on that trajectory.In this episode, Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway from the Odd Lots podcast speak with Tom Orlik, chief economist at Bloomberg Economics, and Mackenzie Hawkins, US industrial policy reporter for Bloomberg News. They’ve measured what a Trump or Biden victory in 2024 could mean for China’s economy, and beyond. Subscribe to Odd Lots to get all of their episodes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

12 Feb 202441min

This Sunday in Nevada, the Kansas City Chiefs will face off against the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl LVIII. Both teams, like lots of others in the league, have been owned by the same family for decades. But with soaring valuations for NFL franchises, and owners getting older, the NFL's long standing family ownership model is facing new threats. As the football league debates potential rule changes that would allow private equity investors to buy into teams, Bloomberg sports business reporter Randall Williams joins today’s Big Take podcast to answer our pressing question: Could this be the end of the last great American dynasty?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

8 Feb 202411min

The meltdown at FTX scared a lot of retail investors away from crypto. But many big banks have doubled down, and are pushing cryptocurrency more into the mainstream.In today’s episode of the Big Take podcast, Bloomberg senior crypto reporter Olga Kharif explains how traditional financial institutions have gotten behind the technology underpinning crypto and what it means for the rest of the industry.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

7 Feb 202410min

In September 2022, a tanker called the Queen Majeda was stopped by authorities in Albanian waters, stuffed to the gills with $2 million worth of marine gas oil. The ship was coming from Libya’s port of Benghazi. And according to the Albanian authorities, the oil they were carrying was being smuggled out of the country illegally.The Queen Majeda was just the tip of the iceberg of Libya’s $5 billion fuel-smuggling problem, Bloomberg’s senior global business reporter K. Oanh Ha discovered. She learned from the head of Libya's audit bureau that as much as 40% of the fuel imported to Libya under a subsidy program in 2022 was smuggled out. And by tracking shipping data, Ha found that a lot of the fuel exiting through illicit trade originally came from Russia. The fuel then made its way from Libya into European countries that have banned Russian fuel imports.In today’s episode, Ha unravels the mystery of the Queen Majeda – and reveals how Russian fuel flows through Libya to dodge European sanctions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

6 Feb 202413min

The seemingly vast profit potential of artificial intelligence has helped buoy the stock prices of tech behemoths like Alphabet, Apple and the rest of the Magnificent Seven. But last week’s earnings showed that for many of these companies going all-in on AI, lofty investor expectations are hard to meet. As advanced as AI applications like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot may seem, it’s an open question as to whether tech companies can monetize them. In today’s episode of The Big Take podcast, Bloomberg Businessweek technology reporter Max Chafkin explains the gap between investors' AI expectations and reality, and what it would take for these technologies to live up to their promise.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

5 Feb 202416min