The Regulatory Blunder That Gave Us the Silicon Valley Bank Disaster
16 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Whenever a major financial institution collapses and needs a bailout, it's easy to say, "Where were ...
Dan Davies On What Brought Down Silicon Valley Bank
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Silicon Valley bank collapsed at record speed. And the world is still trying to figure out what went...
How the Federal Reserve Grew More Powerful Than Anyone Ever Imagined
13 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the short term, the Federal Reserve's job is straightforward. Raise or lower interest rates in or...
Companies Are Telling Us the Real Reason They're Still Raising Prices
09 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The persistence of inflation is a bit of a mystery to economists. Many of the shocks of the last few...
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong on the Two Big Challenges Facing Crypto
06 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Crypto is facing two distinct, yet related problems. First, a bunch of people have lost money due to...
How Empty Land in the Arizona Desert Gets Turned Into Homes
02 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Homebuilders have experienced major whiplash over the last few years. The pandemic originally caused...
Why We Don't Build More Apartments for Families
27 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The vast majority of urban apartments in the US are geared towards single occupants, couples without...
Why Interest Rates on Savings Accounts Are Still So Low
23 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve has been raising benchmark borrowing rates at the fastest pace in decades, but t...
A Former CIA Official on One Year of Russia's War in Ukraine
20 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It's been one year since Russia invaded Ukraine in an event that set off a chain reaction of both ge...
Brian Deese on the Legislative Legacy of President Biden's First Two Years
17 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
President Biden came into office with an incredibly slim legislative majority. And yet despite just ...
This Is What Happens if the US Actually Hits the Debt Ceiling
16 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The US is in the middle of another debt ceiling fight. The expectation is that it will get lifted be...
What Happens Now to All the Laid Off Tech Workers?
13 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The US labor market looks rock solid. The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in 50 years, whil...
Jan Toporowski Explains Why Capitalists Dislike Full Employment
10 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, the work of John Maynard Keynes experienced a revival, as...
Introducing: Foundering - The John McAfee Story
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The new season of Bloomberg's Foundering podcast retraces the life and gruesome death of John McAfee...
Fabio Natalucci on How to Think About Financial Risk Right Now
09 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates at the fastest pace in decades in 2022. But despite the ra...
Steve Eisman on the 'Paradigm Shift' Happening in Markets Right Now
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After a decade of dominance, 2022 saw tech stocks badly underperform the rest of the market. However...
Viktor Shvets Declares Victory for Team Transitory and the Soft Landing
01 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It was looking bad there for awhile for Team Transitory. Anyone who had previously even uttered the ...
The "Big Shift" That's Finally Causing Rents to Fall
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rent inflation went wild in 2021 and 2022, turning it into one of the most substantial drivers of ov...
Why Corporate America Still Runs on Ancient Software That Breaks
26 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Southwest Airlines had a disastrous holiday season, thanks in part to a software bug that left crews...
What The Heck Is Happening With the Price of Eggs?
23 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The price of eggs rose 60% in 2022, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. Meanwhile, wholesale eg...
The 'Widowmaker' Crypto Trade That Helped Blow Up an Industry
20 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last year, numerous things have gone wrong for the crypto industry. (Too many to list.) But...
Isabella Weber On a New Way to Think About Inflation
19 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In economics, there tends to be two dominant ways of thinking about inflation. Either you agree with...
Ex-Logger Aims to Beat Elon Musk in Electric Trucks
16 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While electric vehicle use is growing rapidly, the internal combustion engine remains completely dom...
Why Banks Are Suddenly Borrowing From the Fed's Discount Window
13 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The discount window at the Federal Reserve allows banks to borrow money at an above-market rate in e...
Neil Dutta and Conor Sen on the Chances of a US Soft Landing
12 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The most recent jobs report has revived talk that the US economy might pull off the fabled "soft lan...
What Truckers Already Know About the Future of Electronic Worker Surveillance
09 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to work from home, and other trends, workers are being electronically monitored by their boss...
Flexport CEO Says a ‘Great Recession’ Is Here for Global Shipping
05 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Back in early 2021, Ryan Petersen was one of the first people we spoke to on the Odd Lots podcast ab...
The AMA Episode: Tracy and Joe Answer All Your Questions
30 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode, Tracy and Joe reach into the mailbag and take some questions about Odd Lots...
Odd Lots Revisited: Our First Episode with Tom Keene
29 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Odd Lots is seven years old now, having started in late 2015. When it began, we really didn't know w...
Why the Price of Plastic Is Crashing After a Record Surge
26 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Plastic is in almost everything and prices of polypropylene, polyethylene and a host of other polyme...
What a Bakery Can Tell Us About the Economy Right Now
22 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We talk a lot about macroeconomic trends on the podcast. What's happening with inflation? Is the lab...
Where Things Stand Now With Inflation and the Fed
19 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Last week was a big one. On Tuesday, we got a CPI report that came in substantially cooler than expe...
Younger and Menand Explain How We Got the Modern Banking System
15 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The US financial system today is pretty much taken as a given. We have the Federal Reserve, which se...
This Is What We Know About How Tether Works
12 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
2022 has seen numerous crypto disasters, most notably FTX. Also the price of most coins has tumbled ...
What Extreme Weather Events Are Doing to Global Insurance Markets
08 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, floods... in a year of commodity shortages and supply chain disrupt...
Brad DeLong on the FTX Collapse and the South Sea Bubble
05 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We're in the aftermath of an extraordinary bubble in cryptocurrencies and the collapse of FTX is a d...
The Covid Protests in China and Why They Happened Now
01 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
China has seen a surge in protests in cities all around the country, targeted at the country's Covid...
This Is What Happens to Silicon Valley in a Downturn
28 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The US economy may not be in a recession, but Silicon Valley, which had a mega-boom throughout the 2...
Jim Chanos on Crypto, Tech and the Golden Age of Fraud
23 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this year we talked to the legendary short seller Jim Chanos, during which he warned of more...
Truckers Are Working Countless Hours That They're Not Getting Paid For
21 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For years we've been hearing about a persistent shortage of truck drivers. But what if we're thinkin...
Matt Levine on the Collapse of FTX and Alameda
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It was on an episode of the Odd Lots podcast in April 2022 that Sam Bankman-Fried infamously charact...
Understanding the Collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's Crypto Empire
17 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried empire is gigantic, sprawling and fast moving. While details a...
Guyana Is the Most Exciting Story in the World Oil Market
14 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We talk a lot about the US shale boom. And we talk a lot about OPEC. But one of the most exciting st...
Isabella Weber On Germany's Plan to Cap the Price of Gas
10 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The surge in gas costs in Europe threatens to impose massive pain on households and cripple energy-i...
Josh Younger on the Origin Story of the Shadow Banking System
07 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are a bunch of historical analogies that people like to reach for in order to describe some of...
Mark Bergen on Apple's Threat to the Online Ad Industry
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
After years of basically printing money, the big online Internet behemoths are starting to stumble f...
Hyun Song Shin Explains Why This Dollar Shock Is So Unique
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It's no secret that a strong US dollar causes the rest of the world pain, but the impact of this yea...
A Midwest Drought Is Creating a Supply Chain Crisis on the Mississippi River
31 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Midwest has been gripped by drought this year and water levels on the Mississippi River have fal...
This Is The Legal Mess Now Facing the Trucking Industry
28 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When people think about the so-called 'gig economy' they probably first think about Uber. But truck ...
A Broken Market Is Causing Mortgage Rates to Surge
27 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
US mortgage rates have jumped to a two-decade high, with the average 30-year home loan now running a...
This Is What the US Just Did to China on Semiconductors
24 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Earlier this month, the Biden administration unveiled a new set of restrictions on exporting semicon...
How the Alberta NDP Competes In One of Canada's Most Conservative Provinces
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Alberta is one of Canada's most conservative provinces, with an economy and culture that might be co...
Nouriel Roubini Predicts a Crisis 'Worse' Than the 1970s
19 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Nouriel Roubini is known for his bearish prognostications. And unfortunately, he still doesn't see a...
Jigar Shah Just Became One of the Most Important Players in the Energy Transition
17 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jigar Shah is the director of the loan office at the Department of Energy. For years, this division ...
Dan Wang On the Extraordinary Moment for China's Party Congress
13 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Chinese government's biggest political gathering comes at a time of numerous challenges.Next wee...
This Is What 7% Mortgages Will Do To the Housing Market
10 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to the surge in mortgage rates, we've seen a historic collapse in mortgage affordability. New...
Toby Nangle on What We Just Learned From Gilt Market Madness
06 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
UK financial assets just experienced once-in-a-generation type moves in the wake of the government's...
What Is Really Going On With Rent and Healthcare Inflation?
03 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the biggest drivers of inflation is rent. Arguably, it's the whole ballgame right now. If ren...
Marko Papic on What Markets Got Wrong About Russia's Invasion of Ukraine
29 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a widespread expectation of a surge in prices for numerous co...
Pierre Andurand on What Europe Needs to Do This Winter
26 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Europe is facing an energy crisis and there are some dire predictions about how it will deal with th...
Former CFTC Chair on How to Regulate Stablecoins Without Passing Any New Laws
22 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Stablecoin regulation has become a hot topic, and for very good reason. For one thing, it's an extre...
The Ethereum Network Just Experienced a Monumental Development
19 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For years, it's been on the Ethereum roadmap to transition its blockchain from proof-of-work to proo...
Senator Pat Toomey on the Bad State of Crypto Regulation
15 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Cryptocurrencies often don't fit neatly into traditional asset buckets. They're not exactly currenci...
Zoltan Pozsar and Perry Mehrling Debate Bretton Woods 3.0
11 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar has found a new level of fame over the last year, arguing tha...
Ezra Klein on the Future of Supply-Side Liberalism
08 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To the surprise of many people, the Biden administration has notched some significant economic polic...
Just How Bad Is the Economy Getting in China?
05 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, China arguably led the world out of the downturn. Its gig...
Neel Kashkari on the Fed's Commitment to Defeating Inflation
31 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
At Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell gave a hawkish speech intended to leave no ambi...
Joelle Gamble Explains the Confusing State of the US Labor Market
29 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The unemployment rate is down to 3.5%, which is far lower than just about anyone thought it would be...
Helene Meisler On What's Going On With the Stock Market Now
25 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve is in tightening mode. And there's that old adage "don't fight the Fed" which me...
How Stablecoins Became a Powerful Force in Crypto
22 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In theory, what gets people most excited about crypto is lines going straight up. But one of the big...
This Is What Actually Determines the Price of A Gallon of Gas
19 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Gas prices are central to everything these days. Biden's approval rating seems to move inverse with ...
This Is the Case for Building a More Robust Power Grid
18 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to surging energy costs and extreme weather events, there's a greater urgency to decarbonize ...
Just How Bad Will the Energy Crisis Be in Europe This Winter?
15 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As everyone knows, electricity prices in Europe have soared, due to a combination of factors, most p...
Pimco's Dan Ivascyn on the State of Markets Right Now
11 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Markets have staged an impressive bounce since the middle of June. Stocks are way up. Credit spreads...
Jan Hatzius on the Narrow Path to Avoid a Hard Landing
08 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The multi-trillion dollar question for the US economy is “Can inflation drop to the Federal Reserv...
Anna Stansbury on How to Boost Worker Bargaining Power
04 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Labor markets are considered to be "tight" right now, but wage growth continues to lag inflation. Fo...
Benn Eifert On The Mania That Was Even Bigger Than Meme Stocks
01 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When people think about the market mania we recently experienced, the most glaring thing that comes ...
What So Many People Get Wrong About The Energy Transition
28 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
With energy prices booming, heatwaves ravaging Europe, and Russia going to war against Ukraine, ther...
A New Chilean Constitution Could Mean Big Changes to Copper and Lithium Mining
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In theory, a big shift towards renewable sources of energy (like wind and solar and electric vehicle...
What the Fed's Big Balance Sheet Unwind Means for Markets
25 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Federal Reserve recently began shrinking its massive balance sheet, unwinding trillions of dolla...
Jason Calacanis On the Expensive Lesson Coming to Silicon Valley
21 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For years, venture capital firms have been pouring money into start-ups, trying to get a piece of th...
Why the US Dollar Is Booming And Creating A Possible Doom Loop
18 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Every time a crisis hits, you get a new round of people warning about the end of US dollar dominance...
Matt Levine On What to Watch In Twitter vs. Elon Musk
15 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This week, Twitter sued Elon Musk, attempting to force him to make good on his 44 billion buyout off...
The Bitcoin VC Who Just Infuriated The Bitcoin World
14 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you've ever interacted with hardcore Bitcoin maximalists you might find some of them, at least, t...
Josh Younger Explains Why the Bond Market Has Been So Volatile
11 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The market for US Treasuries is arguably one of the most important and liquid markets in the world. ...
The Moment a Most Famous Dotcom Millionaire Knew the Party Was Over
07 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The first real explosive Internet IPO was a company called TheGlobe.com. It was kind of a proto-soci...
Admiral Stavridis on a Plan to Get Ukrainian Wheat Out of a Warzone
04 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Inflation was running hot even before Russia invaded Ukraine, but disruption in Europe's bread baske...
How to Spot a Fraud When Everyone's Against You
01 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
'Markets can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent' is a classic maxim for investors,...
Jigar Shah on the DOE's Role In Accelerating The Energy Transition
30 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The situation in energy right now seems bleak. But while everyone is focused on the high price of ga...
Jay Newman on the Coming Crisis for Emerging Markets
27 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are a lot of challenges facing emerging markets right now. For a start, the dollar has been pr...
The Behind-the-Scenes Mess Now Facing the VC Industry
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There's a fairly linear relationship between what's going on in the stock market and what's going on...
A Concrete Plan to Bring the Price of Oil Down Right Now
22 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The price of oil is the central threat to the economy right now. Surging gasoline costs crimp consum...
Why It's So Hard to Get the Oil Taps Turned Back On
20 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Oil prices are sky high. And there's plenty of oil in the ground in North America. And so far the su...
Jim Chanos on Why Some of the Worst Hit Parts of the Market Still Have More Pain Ahead
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Legendary short seller Jim Chanos says that despite the plunge in stocks, there are numerous swathes...
Daryl Fairweather On the Tax That Could Solve the Housing Crisis
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Housing in the US is a constant source of frustration. On the way up, prospective homebuyers worry t...
Foxconn Has a Plan to Upend the Electric Vehicle Industry
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Most people think of Foxconn as the company that assembles iPhones. But it's a lot more than that. I...
This Year's American Wheat Harvest Has Been Awful
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There are numerous macro factors driving elevated inflation. But in some categories, there also seem...
Silvergate CEO Alan Lane On the Business of Stablecoin
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The collapse of the Terra/Luna experiment has brought fresh attention to stablecoins, and the differ...
Why Copper May Be One of the Tightest Markets The World Has Ever Seen
30 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
These days, oil gets all the attention. Consumers feel and see the pinch directly every time they fi...
This Is What It Takes to Win in the World of Freight Brokerage
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The world of trucking is extraordinarily complex. There are an untold number of players that need to...