Rob Armstrong is the writer who first coined the acronym in The TACO Trade, which stands for Trump Always Chickens Out, in a column back in April. He wasn’t trying to go viral, much less have the acronym circulate throughout Wall Street and the media, much less have President Trump be asked about it. But that’s what happened. Armstrong is the Unhedged columnist and podcaster at the Financial Times. He also had a prior career at a hedge fund, which abruptly ended in the Great Financial Crisis of ...
Aug 01, 2025•1 hr 8 min
Will artificial intelligence help you do your job, or will it just straight-up do your job and leave you unemployable? Or will the future bring something else entirely — either between those two extremes or a world that we simply cannot imagine yet? And are we already starting to see signs of that future emerging? On this episode of The New Bazaar, Cardiff is joined by economist Nathan Goldschlag, Research Director at the Economic Innovation Group. Until recently, Nathan was Principal Economist ...
May 16, 2025•57 min
It's hard to think of a better guide to the ongoing US-China trade war than Evan Medeiros. A professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and a lifelong scholar of the US-China relationship, Evan is also the co-author (with James Polk) of a new study, China's New Economic Weapons . Ever since the trade wars of the first Trump term, Chinese officials have been designing a new set of weapons to prepare them for another provocation from the US. "Whereas in the past China mainly us...
Apr 25, 2025•53 min
Chad Bown is not just among the world’s most respected trade economists. He is also perhaps the single most careful tracker of real-time trade activity — which obviously makes him the best possible guest to explain the consequences of US President Donald Trump’s decision on April 2nd to impose new tariffs on China and many other countries in addition to further escalating the trade war with China just a week later while changing course (though not entirely) against the rest of the world. Among t...
Apr 11, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Joining Cardiff for this episode is Jared Bernstein, who was most recently the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors for President Joe Biden following a long career in economic policy and public service. Jared shares with Cardiff his thoughts on the current economic moment, the achievements he was most proud of during the Biden years, and a few regrets. They also discuss: How the econ policymaking sausage gets made Trade policy, globalization with allies, and concerns about protectionism Inf...
Feb 14, 2025•1 hr 11 min
On today’s episode, Cardiff chats with his EIG colleagues Adam Ozimek, chief economist, and Connor O’Brien, research analyst, about the one policy that achieves all three of the following goals simultaneously: It massively boosts the rate of economic growth through its effects on entrepreneurship, innovation, and the creation of entire new industries. It reduces inequality. Not only does it cost the taxpayers nothing, it actually saves them huge sums of money. That policy is the expansion of hig...
Jan 31, 2025•56 min
It’s not often that someone comes up with a new, provocative, and persuasive theory about the competition between the US and China to be the world’s leading economic and technological superpower. The topic is so salient right now, the source of so much commentary, that it’s hard to say something that hasn’t already been said many, many times. But this episode’s guest, Jeffrey Ding — a scholar of international relations at the George Washington University and the author of a new book called Techn...
Dec 19, 2024•53 min
How close is the 2024 presidential election? Here is how the New York Times framed it recently : “Never in modern presidential campaigns have so many states been so tight this close to Election Day. Polling averages show that all seven battleground states are within the margin of error, meaning the difference between a half-point up and a half-point down — essentially a rounding error — could win or lose the White House.” A recent Times-Sienna poll has the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Ha...
Nov 01, 2024•48 min
What is the right foreign economic policy toward China? Did the Fed cut rates in time to avoid a recession? Have agglomeration economies been changed by work-from-home and the dematerializing economy? On September 21st, Paul Krugman joined host Cardiff Garcia live on stage for a sweeping conversation at the #EconTwitterIRL conference in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They discussed not only Paul’s view of the economy and his achievements in economics, but also his approach to communicating his ideas a...
Oct 09, 2024•1 hr 2 min
"The introverts have taken over the US economy." That's the provocative title of a recent Bloomberg column from economist Allison Schrager. As she looked into the data on how Americans have been spending their time since the pandemic, she noticed that they are spending less time socializing with their friends on weekends and more time in front of screens. Even when they do go out, it's increasingly for an early dinner. That's all in addition to the bigger share of Americans who now work remotely...
Mar 29, 2024•38 min
When people talk about the crisis at the border between the US and Mexico, what specifically are they referring to? The Department of Homeland Security keeps track of a statistic called “border encounters” at the US border with Mexico. This includes primarily the large number of people who try to cross the border without documentation, or illegally, and aren't crossing at a formal port of entry. It also includes people who do try to cross the border at a port of entry but who are then found not ...
Mar 10, 2024•56 min
Who is the Magic Johnson of economics? Who was the Adam Smith of basketball? On this fun and oddball episode of The New Bazaar , Cardiff speaks with Tyler Cowen, economist and author of GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter? Inspired by the sportswriter Bill Simmons, Tyler wrote his book from the standpoint of a fan—having fun, taking sides, admitting biases, unapologetically trying to entertain the reader instead of presenting sober (boring) analysis. Cardiff an...
Jan 31, 2024•54 min
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has unusually written an unusual book. The data analysis included in "Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball's Biggest Questions" normally would have taken Seth, a trained economist, multiple years of writing and running code. But because of new artificial intelligence tools, he finished the book in just thirty days. And he used AI tools not just for the coding, but also for the artwork, copy editing, and even to write the appendix. He discusses with Cardi...
Jan 04, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Martha Gimbel and Gopi Shah Goda were formerly economists within the White House Council of Economic Advisors, or CEA. They look back on their time inside an important economic policymaking institution, telling Cardiff about: Their favorite projects Toughest assignments The relationship between CEA and other economic policymakers The difference between academia and policy work What they might change about it Common misconceptions about the work of economists And Martha clears up a big misunderst...
Nov 11, 2023•1 hr 4 min
Angus Deaton—Scottish immigrant, Nobelist, and one of Cardiff's favorite economists—has written a new, forthcoming book titled Economics in America: An Immigrant Economist Explore the Land of Inequality . It’s great, if also hard to categorize. Partly it’s a memoir, about his humble origins in Scotland, where he was born; his studies at Cambridge with better-heeled peers; and his subsequent decades as a Princeton University, Nobel Prize winning economist. The book is also partly a reflection on ...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 12 min
We're sharing another episode of a podcast we think you might like. It's called The Closer and it's hosted by executive producer of The New Bazaar, Aimee Keane. In each episode, Aimee speaks to dealmakers and insiders about landmark financial deals that have changed our lives in some way. In this episode, Aimee speaks to writer Abraham Josephine Riesman about Vince McMahon's influential dealmaking career. McMahon took over his father’s regional wrestling business in the 1980s, and made it into a...
Aug 10, 2023•56 min
These are confusing times for the economy and for financial markets—and for the relationship between the economy and financial markets. At the moment the economy is doing well. The labor market is still creating hundreds of thousands of jobs each month. Unemployment is low. Inflation has come down over the past year. And economic growth has been stronger than a great many economists and others had forecast heading into the year. But that’s just how the economy is doing right now. What about six ...
Jul 18, 2023•58 min
Within economics, there's a semi-famous quote from the economist Paul Krugman: “Productivity isn't everything, but in the long run, it's almost everything.” Krugman’s point is that ultimately, how much productivity climbs each year—roughly speaking, how much more efficient an economy’s workers become at producing goods and services—is also what determines how much our living standards also rise from year to year. And so in the long run, there really is almost nothing that matters more. Unfortuna...
May 18, 2023•1 hr 11 min
We're sharing a special episode of a podcast we think you might like. It's called The Closer and it's hosted by executive producer of The New Bazaar, Aimee Keane. In each episode, Aimee speaks to dealmakers and insiders about landmark financial deals that have changed our lives in some way. In this episode, Aimee speaks to an executive at the center of Whatsapp’s $19 billion sale to Facebook, Neeraj Arora. He explains how the deal finally came together, the dispiriting conflict that roiled the c...
Mar 15, 2023•53 min
The combination of a markets-based capitalist economy and a liberal democracy with almost-universal suffrage is very young, having existed for barely more than a century. But what we’ve learned in that short time is that there has never been a more successful political and societal arrangement. None of the tyrannies and the plutocracies that have been the default for nearly all of human history has ever been nearly as good at raising people’s living standards, and at giving people the individual...
Feb 03, 2023•59 min
This is a special episode from the podcast Macro Musings, hosted by economist David Beckworth. David interviews Cardiff along with Heather Long of the Washington Post and Ryan Avent of The Economist about their reflections on the last three years. What they got wrong, what they got right, what shocked them, and what the lessons of these extraordinary, tumultuous times herald for the future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 26, 2022•55 min
Joining Cardiff for this episode is Avi Goldfarb, Rotman Chair In Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare At The Rotman School Of Management, University Of Toronto, and the co-author (with his fellow economists Ajay Agrawal and Joshua Gans) of an excellent new book, "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence". In their chat, Avi and Cardiff discuss: Why AI is best understood as a "prediction technology" Examples of AI already in use Which parts of the economy could...
Dec 20, 2022•1 hr 7 min
This is a special, between-the-seasons episode of the New Bazaar. Right now, the white-to-black wealth ratio in the United States is roughly 6 to 1. Which means that when you add up all the wealth that someone can own—their cash, the value of their house, their investments in the stock market, and so on—the average White American has six times the wealth of the average Black American. That figure alone should be disturbing enough. But making it even worse is that this wealth ratio of 6 to 1 is a...
Oct 07, 2022•1 hr 4 min
This is the 50th (!) episode of The New Bazaar, and the Season 1 Finale. Cardiff and Aimee are planning to launch Season 2 later in the fall, and even before then will be airing a few surprise bonus episodes in September and October. Cardiff shares a bit more about future plans at the end of today's episode. The final Season 1 guest is Stefanie Stantcheva. Stefanie is an economist at Harvard, where she also leads the Social Economics Lab, which uses large and carefully designed online surveys to...
Aug 05, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Benjamin Friedman is an economist and the author of The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth (2005) and Religion and the Rise of Capitalism (2021). He joins Cardiff to revisit the ideas in Moral Consequences , one of Cardiff’s favorite economics books, which argues that sustained economic growth not only leads to higher living standards but also can make a society more virtuous. They also talk about all that’s happened in the time since the book was published, the events that confirm or complic...
Jul 28, 2022•1 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 49
Dakin Campbell is the chief finance correspondent at Insider and, full disclosure, Cardiff's close friend. He joins Cardiff on the show to discuss his new book, “Going Public: How Silicon Valley Rebels Loosened Wall Street’s Grip on the IPO and Sparked a Revolution”. When a company is relatively young… let’s say it’s a startup, and it is privately owned… the owners are usually some combination of the company’s founders, and venture capitalists who bet on the company, and maybe early employees wh...
Jul 26, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Season 1Ep. 48
Here are three things to know about inflation. First , according to a survey of public opinion by Pew Research taken in May, the public views inflation is the single biggest problem facing the country. And—this is a direct quote from Pew Research—”no other concern comes close”. Second , inflation right now is really high. The prices of the goods and services that people buy are more than 9 percent higher than they were last year. And third, Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve—the fro...
Jul 15, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Season 1Ep. 47
Cardiff and Aimee answer your questions about markets, the economy, the first season of the podcast and our company, Bazaar Audio. Go to bazaaraudio.com to find the full list of recommended links from the episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 07, 2022•55 min•Season 1Ep. 46
This episode is all about remote wok. (Or as it is also sometimes known, telework, or telecommuting, or just working from home.) The trend towards remote work has accelerated a lot during the Covid pandemic, as is clear in the data. What we don’t yet know is how much of the trend will last. And if it does last, what kind of economic and societal consequences will it have? What might be its effects on things like how we design our homes, and even our neighborhoods? What will happen to the downtow...
Jun 30, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Season 1Ep. 45
As a young man in his native Benin, Leonard Wantchekon was arrested for leading a student uprising against the repressive government, tortured in prison, and 18 months later escaped from prison into Nigeria. Nearly four decades later, he is now a Princeton economist and the founder of the African School of Economics. But the experiences and observations from his astonishing early life embedded themselves into his work in economics—not just his research, but his mission to educate a new generatio...
Jun 23, 2022•1 hr 8 min•Season 1Ep. 44
