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 Hawki...
Feb 12, 2024•42 min
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 report...
Feb 08, 2024•12 min
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....
Feb 07, 2024•10 min
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 lea...
Feb 06, 2024•13 min
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, Bloomber...
Feb 05, 2024•16 min
When the US borrows money, just like any borrower, it needs to pay its loans back with interest. The national debt right now is $34 trillion and rising. Soon, America will need to spend more each year paying interest on the debt than it spends on national defense. Today on Bloomberg’s Big Take DC, host Saleha Mosin talks to Bloomberg reporter Liz McCormick and Phillip Swagel, director of the Congressional Budget Office, on what it would take to rein in the US's government's debt spiral. Get this...
Feb 02, 2024•14 min
Nayib Bukele has brought violent criminal gangs to a heel in El Salvador, transforming the country into one of the safest in Latin America. That’s made him extremely popular, even as human rights groups have condemned mass arrests and what they say are other abuses of civil liberties. Marcelo Rochabrun, one of Bloomberg's bureau chiefs in Latin America, tells us how Bukele’s success in fighting crime has come at the expense of civil rights. And now, other leaders in the region are starting to fo...
Feb 02, 2024•15 min
The UK is in the midst of a green energy transformation, with more than 40% of its electricity coming from wind power as of December. But wind can be unpredictable and the grid can’t always handle the power wind turbines generate on blustery days — and so to protect the grid, operators sometimes pay wind farms to power off. After Bloomberg’s investigations team received a tip about troubling inaccuracies in the data used to calculate these payments, our reporters went looking for answers. And th...
Jan 31, 2024•16 min
Microsoft recently cut 1,900 jobs from its gaming division and among the layoffs were many at the recently acquired video game developer Activision Blizzard. Blizzard Entertainment’s President Mike Ybarra and co-founder Allen Adham are both departing. The tech giant also announced the cancellation of a Blizzard game, called “Odyssey,” that was already six years in development. Today, Microsoft reported its quarterly earnings . Revenue is up. Jason Schreier , the creator of Bloomberg’s Game On ne...
Jan 30, 2024•11 min
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has been in the news almost nonstop for successfully negotiating a new contract for union members and, most recently, endorsing President Joe Biden for re-election. But that endorsement is at odds with many rank-and-file union members who support Donald Trump. And Fain's next industry battle could be much harder. In setting his sights on electric vehicle makers like Tesla and rallying his union members (many in swing states) around Biden, Fain is trying t...
Jan 29, 2024•19 min
Bloomberg’s Big Take DC podcast looks into how the US managed to avoid a recession — and whether the Federal Reserve’s decisions were based on reliable data. Bloomberg’s Saleha Mohsin talked with Claudia Sahm, an ex-Fed economist, and with Odd Lots podcast hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway. Get this episode and Big Take DC episodes a day earlier by subscribing to Big Take DC. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Jan 26, 2024•16 min
The multi-billion dollar weight-loss drug market has ballooned in the past few years. And the two pharmaceutical companies currently duking it out for market dominance, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, have a century-long rivalry. Bloomberg News health reporter Madison Muller breaks down how Eli Lilly developed Zepbound, a new drug that can help patients cut more than 20% of their body weight — and why some investors and analysts think it will turn Eli Lilly into the first ever trillion-dollar drug c...
Jan 25, 2024•14 min
The S&P 500 closed at a record high on Jan. 19, for the first time in two years. It was the start of a winning streak. In today’s Big Take episode, Bloomberg markets editor Chris Nagi joins the show to discuss why Wall Street’s somewhat pessimistic expectations for this year’s stock market were blown out of the water. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jan 24, 2024•10 min
For two months, Houthi militants have been launching surprise attacks on civilian ships in the Red Sea. Repeated rounds of retaliatory strikes by the US and its allies haven't stopped the assaults. Now, these tensions are threatening not only trade routes, but the broader global supply chain. The Big Take spoke with Bloomberg News reporters Enda Curran in Washington, DC and Mohammed Hatem, who reports on economics and politics in Yemen, about what brought us to this point and how companies are t...
Jan 23, 2024•12 min
Over the last few decades, Israel has transformed itself from a relatively poor agrarian economy to a global startup haven. Its per capita GDP now exceeds that of France, the UK and Japan. But with Hamas’ attack on Israel – which killed 1,200 people and claimed more than 200 hostages – and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, that economic trajectory could be at risk. Some 360,000 Israeli reservists were called to serve in the military in the days that followed October 7th, destabilizing Israel...
Jan 23, 2024•17 min
Today, we’re sharing the newest episode from our collaborators over at the Big Take DC. They look at why Wall Street donors are waiting to weigh in on the GOP primary. Make sure you subscribe to the Big Take DC feed so you can get episodes like these every Thursday. Just look up Big Take DC, available wherever you listen to podcasts — And while you’re there, check out their reporting from the Iowa caucuses earlier this week. -----------------------------------------------------------------------...
Jan 19, 2024•20 min
We here at The Big Take are big fans of our colleagues and friends over at the Odd Lots podcast, hosted by Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway. Please enjoy this episode, and hop on over to subscribe to their feed if you like what you hear! ---- In the early 2010s, US shale players were producing oil like crazy, with no concerns about profitability. Then the legs were kicked out from the industry, causing a massive bust and massive oversupply. In 2021 and 2022, it looked like a very different story...
Jan 18, 2024•41 min
Last year, TikTok Shop officially launched in the US. It’s the latest commercial venture from ByteDance Ltd., the parent company that owns the social media app. By creating its own marketplace — where users can find and buy products without leaving the app — TikTok hopes to compete with giants like Amazon. And TikTok is not being shy about its ambitions: according to Bloomberg’s reporting, it aims to grow the size of its US e-commerce business to $17.5 billion this year. Small vendors like Scott...
Jan 17, 2024•12 min
At over seven feet tall with an eight-foot wingspan, 20-year-old Victor Wembanyama is not your average NBA rookie. As a center on the San Antonio Spurs, Wembanyama’s fluidity and defensive prowess are already on full display. But his game isn’t the only thing that sets Wemby, as his fans call him, apart. Bloomberg’s sports business reporter Randall Williams crunched the numbers, and found that Wembanyama is on track to earn $1 billion from basketball contracts by the time he’s 33. It would make ...
Jan 16, 2024•10 min
Taiwan’s politics have long been defined by tensions with China, which claims the island as its own. Over the past several years, China has stepped up military exercises and Taiwanese leaders have responded by asserting the island’s self-rule — a tension that shows little sign of easing with the weekend’s election of current vice president Lai Ching-te to the presidency. Across Taiwan, individuals are formulating their own responses to the specter of conflict. Our previous Big Take episode showe...
Jan 15, 2024•19 min
The Panama Canal moves roughly $270 billion dollars worth of cargo annually – it’s the trade route taken by 40% of all US container traffic alone. But the crucial waterway is contending with a crippling drought, worsened by climate change and infrastructure constraints. Water levels are so low that the Panama Canal Authority is restricting the number of ships that can pass through each day. As the line gets longer, shippers are paying to jump the line, or resorting to workarounds. Bloomberg repo...
Jan 12, 2024•10 min
Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds gives an exclusive interview to Big Take DC just days before her state kicks off the 2024 presidential cycle. After months of debates and polling, the Iowa caucuses will be the nation's first state-level contest for the next Republican presidential nominee. Bloomberg’s Saleha Mohsin talks with Reynolds about why Ron DeSantis has her vote, and what she’ll do if Donald Trump becomes the party’s nominee. This interview has been condensed for clarity. See omnystudio.com/li...
Jan 11, 2024•14 min
Watching footage of Russian attacks on Ukraine, Jonathan Tseng thought: That could happen here, too. So from his home in Taiwan, Jonathan — Tseng Sheng-Guang in Chinese — resolved to take up arms against Russia. He left his wife, son and his beseeching mother in June 2022 to join the ranks of foreign fighters in Ukraine. His decision mirrored his own fears about unwelcome aggression on Taiwan, should China move beyond decades of warnings and threats, and into open conflict, against the island it...
Jan 11, 2024•34 min
Elections this year will determine the leadership of 40% of the world’s population, spanning the United States, to Taiwan, to Mexico, to Senegal. On today’s Big Take podcast: What democracy’s big test means for the economy. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jan 10, 2024•10 min
We here at Big Take are big fans of our colleagues and friends over at the Elon, Inc podcast from Businessweek, hosted by David Papadopoulos. Please enjoy this episode, and hop on over to subscribe to their feed if you like what you hear! ---- Were we talking about almost any other executive, the report by the Wall Street Journal over the weekend about Elon Musk’s alleged drug use would have qualified as a bombshell. The article contends the chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla has used a collect...
Jan 09, 2024•29 min
At the end of every year, Wall Street’s best and brightest release their predictions about where the economy is heading next. Markets reporter Sam Potter has pored through this year’s financial tea leaves – thousands of pages of them – and joined the show to share the most significant takeaways. Overall, there’s optimism about a “soft-ish” landing, disinflation, and continued consumer strength. But the consensus view has missed the mark before, and 2024 will bring new unknowns, from interest rat...
Jan 08, 2024•16 min
We're taking a break this week, here's an episode you might have missed. Taylor Swift’s monumental success is due to her talent as a performer — as well as her business acumen. Bloomberg’s Devon Pendleton and Claire Ballentine join this episode to talk about how the pop star has taken ownership of her music, built a fiercely loyal fan base–and become a billionaire in the process. Read more: Taylor Swift Vaults to Billionaire Ranks With Blockbuster Eras Tour Listen to The Big Take podcast every w...
Jan 05, 2024•28 min
We're taking a break this week, here's an episode you might have missed. Catalytic converters are a vital part of emissions reduction in gas-powered vehicles. But that’s not why they’ve been making headlines. Thieves across the US have been sawing them off cars because they contain precious metals like platinum, palladium and rhodium. Bloomberg Businessweek contributor Evan Ratliff is here to tell the tale of a $500 million catalytic converter theft ring—and how local police departments and fede...
Jan 04, 2024•33 min
We're taking a break this week, here's an episode you might have missed. Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw and Sohee Kim join this episode to talk about Bang Si-Hyuk, South Korea’s enormously successful music mogul. The billionaire has built a K-pop empire with bands like BTS and New Jeans, and he’s now looking to expand on that model with a new, global act based in the US. Read more: The K-Pop Mogul Behind BTS Is Building the Next BTS Listen to The Big Take podcast every weekday and subscribe to our daily...
Jan 03, 2024•24 min
We're taking a break this week, here's an episode you might have missed. Taiwan’s current Vice President, Lai Ching-te, leads the polls in the upcoming January presidential election. The winner will have a lot to contend with–and at the top of the list is how to keep the peace with China amid rising tensions. Bloomberg Businessweek editor Joel Weber sat down with Vice President Lai for several wide-ranging interviews in Taiwan. Joel and Taipei deputy bureau chief Cindy Wang join this episode t...
Jan 02, 2024•36 min
