Back in early 2021, Ryan Petersen was one of the first people we spoke to on the Odd Lots podcast about supply chain snarls and high shipping costs. The founder and co-CEO of Flexport has since gone on to become a go-to name in the world of logistics, making headlines after he tweeted about what could be done to fix congestion at the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. (A Bloomberg Opinion columnist called it the " tweetstorm that saved Christmas .") But fast forward two years and it seems like...
Jan 05, 2023•40 min
In this special episode, Tracy and Joe reach into the mailbag and take some questions about Odd Lots, and the things regularly covered on the show. We also hear from our producer Carmen Rodriguez, who joins as a guest host for the episode. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Dec 30, 2022•41 min
Odd Lots is seven years old now, having started in late 2015. When it began, we really didn't know what the show was going to be or be about. To end 2022, we decided to revisit our very first episode, when we interviewed our legendary Bloomberg colleague Tom Keene. We talked about how he got into the business, his musical career, hockey, mutual funds, and how he learned to do charts. But we begin with newly recorded discussion about the origins of the podcast and how long ago this first episode ...
Dec 29, 2022•28 min
Plastic is in almost everything and prices of polypropylene, polyethylene and a host of other polymers went nuts in 2021, surging to record highs. Now they've come crashing back down to Earth and have reached a two-year low. So what happened to send the price of plastics surging, and why are they falling now? Were plastics a perhaps under-appreciated source of inflation given that they go into practically everything? And where does plastic come from anyway? On this episode of the Odd Lots podcas...
Dec 26, 2022•37 min
We talk a lot about macroeconomic trends on the podcast. What's happening with inflation? Is the labor market too hot? Will there be a recession next year? On this episode of Odd Lots, we take a closer look at how one business is dealing with these economic trends right now, and what its experience says about the economy as a whole. Ken Jarosch is the owner of Jarosch Bakery, which has been operating in the suburbs of Chicago for more than five decades. He's been dealing on the ground with all t...
Dec 22, 2022•49 min
Last week was a big one. On Tuesday, we got a CPI report that came in substantially cooler than expected. Then on Wednesday, the Fed hiked 50 basis points, which was a step down from the series of 75 basis point hikes that we had been getting at recent meetings. So where do things stand now? When will we get a proper pivot? When will the Fed feel confident that inflation has been defeated. We spoke with two macro guests: Jon Turek, founder of JST Advisors and author of the Cheap Convexity Blog, ...
Dec 19, 2022•50 min
The US financial system today is pretty much taken as a given. We have the Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates and provides various liquidity backstops. We have regulated banks, which lend and create money and have access to the Fed. And we have non-bank financial activity that falls under the nebulous umbrella of "shadow banking." But how did we actually end up with this system? And why did policymakers design it the way they did? On this episode, which was recorded live at Bloomberg's N...
Dec 15, 2022•1 hr 7 min
2022 has seen numerous crypto disasters, most notably FTX. Also the price of most coins has tumbled massively. One coin that's done fine is the stablecoin Tether, which is interesting, because its had so many naysayers for so long. There are even hedge funds who have bet on its implosion. But what is Tether? How does it work? And where does it come from? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Bennett Tomlin, co-host of the Crypto Critics' Corner podcast, who has an encyclopedic knowledge ...
Dec 12, 2022•50 min
Heatwaves, droughts, hurricanes, floods... in a year of commodity shortages and supply chain disruptions, a host of extreme weather events have added stress to the system. So how do companies address the financial risks associated with these events? Catastrophe bonds and reinsurance markets have existed for a long time, but the more extreme the disruptions, the more these industries change. On this episode of the podcast, we speak to Steve Evans, owner and editor-in-chief of Artemis.BM, about re...
Dec 08, 2022•47 min
We're in the aftermath of an extraordinary bubble in cryptocurrencies and the collapse of FTX is a defining chapter of the industry's turmoil. But what does history tells us about the cycle of bubbles and busts? Which past manias are the most similar to what we've just seen? In this episode, we speak with Brad DeLong, an economic historian at the University of California at Berkeley, who is also the author of the new book, "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century."...
Dec 05, 2022•48 min
China has seen a surge in protests in cities all around the country, targeted at the country's Covid Zero policies. But nearly three years into this pandemic, why did they happen now? How does recent economic weakness factor into the demonstrations? And why did the government allow them to go on in the first place? On this episode, we speak with Victor Shih, a professor at the School of Global Policy & Strategy at UC San Diego and author of the new book, Coalitions of the Weak: Elite Politic...
Dec 01, 2022•43 min
The US economy may not be in a recession, but Silicon Valley, which had a mega-boom throughout the 2010s, is in a downturn. Tech stocks have tanked and almost every day there are new reports about industry layoffs. So what happens next? What happens to its unique corporate culture? What happens to management and employees? On this episode, we speak with Margaret O'Mara, a professor at the University of Washington and the author of the book The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America . W...
Nov 28, 2022•42 min
Earlier this year we talked to the legendary short seller Jim Chanos, during which he warned of more pain ahead for speculative areas of tech. That call proved to be prescient by a number of measures. So where are things now? We spoke to Chanos again at the recent Berkeley Forum on Corporate Governance in San Francisco. We discussed frauds, crypto, and the pro-cyclical effects of stock-based compensation. Note: This episode was recorded on November 9th, 2022. We're publishing our usual Thursday ...
Nov 23, 2022•33 min
For years we've been hearing about a persistent shortage of truck drivers. But what if we're thinking about it wrong? What if the issue is that the shipping industry systematically mistreats or undervalues drivers, creating an ongoing and unsustainable churn? On this episode, we speak with Gord Magill, a longtime truck driver and the author of the Autonomous Truck(er)s Substack, about one persistent problem: truck drivers wasting countless hours in "detention" at loading sites, a time for which ...
Nov 21, 2022•44 min
It was on an episode of the Odd Lots podcast in April 2022 that Sam Bankman-Fried infamously characterized yield farming as a "box," in a metaphor that made the practice sound a lot like a ponzi scheme. Of course, in the wake of the collapse of his two main firms — FTX and Alameda Research — that conversation looks more and more like a huge red flag, but also provides insight into the shaky finances of his crypto empire. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine was also a guest on that episode an...
Nov 18, 2022•34 min
The collapse of the Sam Bankman-Fried empire is gigantic, sprawling and fast moving. While details are still coming out, it already ranks among the most prominent corporate disasters of all time and has left the entire crypto community reeling. To better understand the role that FTX played in the industry and how the exchange started to unravel, we speak with two guests on this episode. First, we have Evgeny Gaevoy, the founder and CEO of the crypto market-making firm Wintermute, to explain how ...
Nov 17, 2022•52 min
We talk a lot about the US shale boom. And we talk a lot about OPEC. But one of the most exciting stories in the global oil industry is the incredible rise of Guyana, which has seen a massive amount of oil discovery over the past several years. This oil boom has made the South American country one of the fastest growing economies in the world. So what does history say about the emergence of a new oil superpower? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with oil historian Gregory Brew about the G...
Nov 14, 2022•40 min
The surge in gas costs in Europe threatens to impose massive pain on households and cripple energy-intensive heavy industry. So there has been a lot of urgency on the part of governments to figure out a way to ease the pain. Of course, when the problem is a scarcity of energy itself, you can't just throw money at the problem. You can't print more gas molecules. On this episode, we speak with Isabella Weber, economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, who has been serving on a...
Nov 10, 2022•46 min
There are a bunch of historical analogies that people like to reach for in order to describe some of the economic trends we're seeing today. There's obviously the period of high inflation in the 1970s and early 1980s, or the disruptions caused by the Spanish Flu pandemic around 1918. But there's also a single year -- 1953 -- which not only contains some eerie similarities to today's economic environment, but also ended up having far-reaching consequences that reverberate all the way to 2022. On ...
Nov 07, 2022•45 min
After years of basically printing money, the big online Internet behemoths are starting to stumble for various reasons. There's the macro slowdowns. New competition. And just basic threats to the way they do business. One major change has come from Apple, which has used its device dominance to curtail how apps can collect information on users, making targeting harder than it used to be. On this episode we speak to Bloomberg reporter Mark Bergen, the author of Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside You...
Nov 03, 2022•37 min
It's no secret that a strong US dollar causes the rest of the world pain, but the impact of this year's rally is shaping up to be a bit different than previous episodes of dollar strength. Hyun Song Shin is the Economic Adviser and Head of Research for the Bank for International Settlements, which has just published a bulletin outlining why this particular dollar cycle is so unique. Shin has also done a ton of previous academic research on this exact topic — examining what happens to global trad...
Oct 31, 2022•43 min
The Midwest has been gripped by drought this year and water levels on the Mississippi River have fallen to their lowest marks in decades. That's bad news for farmers growing crops and for anyone trying to actually move those crops down the river to buyers. On this episode, we speak with grains expert and president of Ostebur & Associates, Ben Scholl, about the latest supply chain snarl in the US. We also speak with Mercury Group CEO Anton Posner and President Margo Brock about the important ...
Oct 31, 2022•49 min
When people think about the so-called 'gig economy' they probably first think about Uber. But truck drivers are arguably the original gig workers. And driving a truck is one of the biggest professions in the US. So how should laws designed to protect the rights of gig workers apply to the trucking industry? And what do truck drivers actually want? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Rachel Premack, the editorial director at Freightwaves and the author of the MODES newsletter, to unders...
Oct 28, 2022•39 min
US mortgage rates have jumped to a two-decade high, with the average 30-year home loan now running above 7%. Of course, this makes sense. The Federal Reserve is raising benchmark interest rates and that's supposed to translate into a tightening of financial conditions, which includes housing credit. But the jump in mortgage rates far exceeds the increase in benchmarks, with the difference between average mortgage rates and the yield on equivalent US Treasuries at its highest on record. So what's...
Oct 27, 2022•45 min
Earlier this month, the Biden administration unveiled a new set of restrictions on exporting semiconductors and related technology to China. The actions are seen as a significant escalation of an ongoing effort to constrain China's domestic chip ambitions. But semiconductor diplomacy and limitations on their export have existed almost since the industry was born. So what are the effects of these new actions? How severe are they? And to what degree do they actually set back China's efforts to dev...
Oct 24, 2022•47 min
Alberta is one of Canada's most conservative provinces, with an economy and culture that might be compared to Texas. However despite this lean, the Alberta NDP, a social-democratic party, has been able to find electoral success. That may be owed to where the party deviates from other left-of-center parties — namely its more friendly stance towards the oil and gas industry, which is crucial to the Alberta economy. In this episode, we speak to party leader Rachel Notley, who served as Alberta prem...
Oct 21, 2022•37 min
Nouriel Roubini is known for his bearish prognostications. And unfortunately, he still doesn't see any good news on the horizon. In fact, things are going to get much worse, says the famous economist and author of the new book "MegaThreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, And How to Survive Them." He believes that due to a rolling series of supply shocks, some of which are still unfolding, we'll have a severe downturn before we get relief from inflation. Unlike the 1970s he says, h...
Oct 19, 2022•43 min
Jigar Shah is the director of the loan office at the Department of Energy. For years, this division has had a modest amount of money, which it used to provide financing to promising projects in energy technology. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the loan office now has hundreds of billions of dollars at its disposal in order to build up US energy supply and accelerate the shift to renewables. We talked Jigar about how he plans to scale up his office and deploy that money in a pro...
Oct 17, 2022•51 min
The Chinese government's biggest political gathering comes at a time of numerous challenges.Next week will see a major gathering of China's top officials known as the National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. This event only happens twice every decade, and this particular Congress is happening at an extraordinary time for both the Chinese government and the country. Not only are officials grappling with the impact of strict pandemic-related restrictions known as Covid Zero, but they're a...
Oct 13, 2022•48 min
Thanks to the surge in mortgage rates, we've seen a historic collapse in mortgage affordability. New homebuyers are facing a massive sticker shock relative to what they could have paid just six months ago. So does this mean that house prices are due for a crash? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Morgan Stanley housing strategist Jim Egan about what comes next. Egan argues that while high mortgage rates will discourage buyers, there won't be a significant unlocking of supply, since very ...
Oct 10, 2022•48 min
