We've been covering global supply chain pressures almost since the beginning of the year on Odd Lots. And with each episode the question is "ok, so when will things normalize?" But basically, not only have things not normalized, things have gotten much worse. So why can't the system stabilize? On this episode, we speak again with Ryan Petersen, the CEO of the logistics firm Flexport, on how supply chain pressures have gotten even worse since the last time we spoke with him in the spring. See omn...
Oct 14, 2021•47 min
The implosion of Evergrande continues. And nobody knows exactly how the losses will be distributed. What will be the impact on creditors or people who have put down payments on homes that haven't been built yet? And what will the ripple effects be on other credits? In addition to the financial fallout, there's also a macro angle. Real estate is extremely important to the Chinese economy for all kinds of reasons. And what happens in China has effects on all of its trading partners. To explain wha...
Oct 11, 2021•52 min
On Breakthrough, a new series from the Prognosis podcast, we explore how the pandemic is changing our understanding of healthcare and medicine. We start with an examination of long Covid, a mysterious new illness that has stumped doctors attempting to treat symptoms that last for months and potentially years. It has changed the way hospitals work and forced healthcare officials to prepare for the next pandemic. Covid has also opened the door to revolutionary technology: messenger RNA vaccines. I...
Oct 08, 2021•3 min
The Federal Reserve has a lot on its plate at the moment. Not only are "transitory" inflation pressures proving to be more stubborn than expected, but unemployment remains relatively high even as the U.S. economy recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, there are also technical challenges that the central bank now faces as it gets closer to tapering its asset purchases. Finally, there's the possibility of an imminent U.S. debt crisis as Washington continues to wrangle over raising the lim...
Oct 07, 2021•43 min
Every few years, people are reminded of the weird law the United States has: the debt ceiling. Congress has to vote affirmatively to raise the total outstanding legal stock of debt the country can take on. If Congress fails to vote in favor of it, you could see a theoretical debt default, with devastating consequences. Sometimes the vote is routine and easy. Sometimes it's contentious, as it was in 2011. But arguably there's an easy solution that could avoid these fights altogether: A provision ...
Oct 04, 2021•58 min
For years, people have talked about China's ongoing process of opening up, or liberalizing its economy. And yet lately it's taken strong moves that seem to indicate a change in direction. It's cracked down on some of its largest tech companies while also allowing its real estate sector to cool off considerably, as we've seen with the stress on Evergrande. On this Odd Lots, we speak with UMass Amherst professor Isabella Weber, the author of the new book How China Escaped Shock Therapy: The Market...
Sep 30, 2021•49 min
The pandemic has obviously sent shockwaves throughout the supply chain. And, despite hopes of normalization, things might even be getting worse. The number of ships, for example, waiting to unload at the Port of Los Angeles has continued to grow. And it seems like every day another company talks about various shortages. So what does it mean for our commercial rail system? On this episode, we speak with Ian Jefferies, the President and CEO of the Association of American Railroads, to discuss the ...
Sep 27, 2021•51 min
Over the last several months, inflation has risen at a pace significantly faster than what economists have expected. Markets, and perhaps the Fed, take some solace in the fact that it can largely be tied to economic disruptions from the pandemic, and prove to be "transitory". But is it really transitory? And when will it fade? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Julia Coronado and Laura Rosner-Warburton, the co-founders of the firm Macropolicy Perspectives, to get a better handle on what'...
Sep 23, 2021•56 min
If you've been following the wild ride that is Chinese real estate, then you've definitely heard of Evergrande. The price of its shares and bonds has been tumbling lately amid concerns about its cash flow and its model. But what really is Evergrande? And who stands to lose in a theoretical restructuring? On this episode, we speak with Travis Lundy, an independent analyst based in Hong Kong who publishes on Smartkarma, about the company's business model and what comes next. See omnystudio.com/lis...
Sep 20, 2021•55 min
We've been talking about chips on Odd Lots for almost a year now. Thanks to a unique combination of events and constraints, capacity to make more semiconductors is incredibly tight. One industry that's lost out significantly is cars, as automakers are still cutting production due to an inability to source chips. On this episode, we speak with return guest Stacy Rasgon, a Managing Director and U.S. semiconductor analyst at Bernstein to discuss the current state of the industry, and why things are...
Sep 16, 2021•43 min
Over the last several months, Chinese authorities have undertaken a sweeping campaign of change. We've seen crackdowns on big tech and fintech companies (like Ant Financial and Didi), online education companies, and now even the playing of video games. Investors in key sectors have gotten clobbered by the new rules. So what is the goal and what is the endgame here? On this episode, we speak to Dan Wang , a China tech analyst at Gavekal Dragonomics, who breaks it all down. See omnystudio.com/list...
Sep 13, 2021•48 min
There's a lot happening in the plumbing of the financial system. The Federal Reserve's reverse repo facility has seen huge takeup from financial market participants seeking to park excess cash. Meanwhile, the central bank has also announced the start of a new standing repo facility. And, of course, we're nearing the start of tapering, when the Fed will start to wind down its asset purchases. On this episode, we bring back Credit Suisse Strategist Zoltan Pozsar to talk about everything that's goi...
Sep 09, 2021•47 min
Passive investing is kind of boring. You dump your money in an index fund and that's it. The industry hasn't really seen big innovation since ETFs were invented in the 1990s. Enter custom indexing. Custom indexing allows asset managers to create bespoke indices for their clients. Interest in the space is already booming, with Morgan Stanley, BlackRock and JPMorgan all making acquisitions in the space. But what exactly is the difference between investing in a custom index versus something like th...
Sep 06, 2021•47 min
When people think about what inflation is, they might first think about some broad index like the CPI. What does the the CPI really tell us? And how is it constructed? And how much does its rise and fall relate to the state of the macro-economy? On this episode, we speak with Omair Sharif, a longtime veteran of both the buy and sell-side, who is now the founder and president of Inflation Insights. Omair knows inflation index construction better than anyone, and he walks us through what's happeni...
Sep 02, 2021•58 min
There's obviously a lot of interest in crypto and DeFi these days. And while it's growing rapidly, it's still not cutting much into traditional finance business lines. For the most part, trading on blockchains is slow and costly. But some projects don't accept the premise that blockchains have to be slow and inefficient. Solana is an Ethereum competitor whose native token has been soaring. And unlike Ethereum, its transactions are cheap and ultrafast. So what tradeoffs does it make? And what pro...
Aug 30, 2021•58 min
Nearly 200 years ago, the colonialist French power granted independence to Haiti. But it did so under the brutal condition that it pay 150 million francs in exchange for its freedom. This was a staggering sum that imposed a staggering imposition on the Haitian economy. And there's good reason to believe that that initial debt contributed to the ongoing poverty in the country. On this episode, we speak with law professor Mitu Gulati and economist Ugo Panizza about this odious debt, the significan...
Aug 26, 2021•43 min
Over the last week and a half, the world has watched in shock at the dizzying speed of the collapse in Afghanistan. Events are still unfolding, so the future remains extremely uncertain. One former official who has been outspoken in recent days is Ajmal Ahmady, who was running Afghanistan's central bank on an interim basis right up until the government fell. On this episode, we speak with Ahmady about what operations at the bank looked like in relatively normal times, how events transpired in th...
Aug 23, 2021•48 min
David Woo has always been one of the most outspoken voices on the street. A former top strategist at Bank of America, he is now publishing independently at his new site David Woo Unbound. On this episode, he argues that the mainstream economists are getting it wrong, and that inflation will remain uncomfortably higher than what the Fed wants to see. We also discuss the economy more broadly, the virus, and the U.S. relationship with China. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Aug 19, 2021•56 min
The last two jobs reports have been strong, but the unemployment rate remains over 5%. And by some estimates, the economy is still 8 million jobs shy of where it would have been had it not been for the crisis. So when will the Fed declare "victory" in hitting its employment mandate? It's a question that's been complicated by the recent rise in inflation. On this episode, we speak with Neel Kashkari, the President of the Minneapolis Fed, a longtime proponent of pushing for a strong labor market. ...
Aug 16, 2021•47 min
The last 18 months has seen an incredible influx of people getting into trading. Thanks to a combination of Robinhood, a bull market, and perhaps more free time, trading is part of popular culture to a degree we haven't seen in over two decades. But what does it take to really win over time, across multiple cycles? And who should make an attempt at going pro? On this episode, we speak with veteran trader Brent Donnelly, the author of the new book Alpha Trader: The Mindset, Methodology and Mathem...
Aug 12, 2021•52 min
The economy is in uncharted territory in more ways that one right now. Coming out of the worst of the pandemic, we're seeing a rapid pace of GDP growth, along with elevated inflation readings the likes of which we haven't seen in years. Beyond that, policymakers have engaged in historically aggressive fiscal and monetary expansion. The Fed, in particular, is almost a year into a new framework (unveiled last August at Jackson Hole) that aims to avoid certain mistakes of the past. So we sat down w...
Aug 09, 2021•52 min
Sam Bankman-Fried is arguably the most important and powerful person in crypto. His crypto exchange FTX just raised $900 million and is growing like crazy. Meanwhile, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Matt Levine probably knows more about market structure than any other journalist. So, on this episode we paired them up for an in-depth conversation about how crypto really works, how it's different from traditional finance, and where it's all going. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Aug 05, 2021•1 hr 9 min
America's ports are a key source of congestion contributing to supply chain disruptions rippling through the economy. Things have gotten a little better, but very slowly. And the disruptions are expected to continue for quite some time. To understand more about what's going on, we spoke with Gene Seroka, the Executive Director of the Port of Los Angeles, to understand how bad the problems are, and how they will eventually be fixed. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Aug 02, 2021•57 min
When you think about building a new home, obviously you think of various constraints regarding land, labor, and raw materials. But, of course, you can't build a new home without other basics, like windows, sinks, and bathtubs (or showers). And, just like everything else, these are now in short supply. On this episode, we speak with Trey Northrup, leader of the Americas at LIXIL, which sells bathtubs and other plumbing basics under various brands, including American Standard, Grohe, and about the...
Jul 29, 2021•51 min
You can't talk about supply chains without talking about warehouses. Basically everything we buy at some point eventually sits in a warehouse. But warehouses themselves are changing. Whereas at one point, they were simple and straightforward — goods come in before getting trucked to retail outlets — today they're massively complex, thanks to e-commerce and needing to deal with returns. On this episode, we speak with Mark Manduca, the CIO of the logistics firm GXO, about warehouses during the pan...
Jul 26, 2021•49 min
Over the past year it's become clear that traditional economics doesn't necessarily do a great job of accounting for real world problems like transport gridlock or irrational decision makers. For instance, sawmills' first response to the Covid crisis was to cut back production because they were scarred by the memories of the 2008 housing bust. Container shipping issues have caused widespread supply chain issues, and so on and so on. Enter complexity economics, which views the economy as the outc...
Jul 22, 2021•50 min
Inflation is running hot these days. But, even when the official measures were considerably cooler, there were many people who were skeptical and insisted that inflation was running hot and rampant. It turns out, nobody really experiences inflation similarly, and one's own consumption and behavioral patterns will have a big impact on their outlook. On this episode, we speak with Berkeley professor Ulrike Malmendier, whose work has shown how one's behavior (where you shop) and history (what condi...
Jul 19, 2021•37 min
Vlad Zamfir is something of a crypto legend. The researcher was early into Bitcoin, and he was part of the Ethereum Foundation before it launched. He's still an active researcher in the space, but he believes the people operating in it get some basic premises wrong. One of the basic premises that people preach is the idea of database immutability. He argues that, in order for crypto to become more influential, it needs to take governance seriously and find ways to be in compliance with generally...
Jul 15, 2021•57 min
One of the big stories in the economy right now is the high number of unfilled job openings in the leisure and hospitality sectors. There are numerous theories for why these businesses have had a hard time hiring. And there are a lot of questions regarding how long this will last or whether this will be a new, more permanent condition. To better understand what's going on, we spoke with Kurt Alexander, the CFO of Omni Hotels & Resorts, about what they're seeing and what they're doing to brin...
Jul 12, 2021•56 min
Mainstream economics has come under attack lately. People have begun questioning its understanding of things like inflation, monetary policy, deficits, and how best to get out of a downturn. Steve Keen, an independent renegade economist, has been preaching this for a long time. And he believes the whole profession needs to be chucked. On this episode, we talk about some of the big failures he sees in economist thinking, and he is particularly energized by the subject of climate change. He also d...
Jul 08, 2021•1 hr 8 min
