Odd Lots

For years, defaults were few and far between in China's corporate bond market. Most investors thought that the Chinese government would never let companies — whether they be state-owned enterprises (SOEs) or private businesses — actually default on their debt. But times have changed. Defaults by private companies have been rising and there's even a question mark over the implicit government guarantee in debt sold by SOEs...

How do Millennials view investing and spending? How do the rising costs of healthcare, education, and housing affect their economic outlook? How does fear of climate change affect one's long-term life choices? These questions are crucial for understanding the perspective of Millennials as they increasingly enter middle age...

According to the website The Hendon Mob, the top tournament poker player of all time is the American Bryn Kenney, who has won a staggering $55.5 million. In fact, he got there in just the last six months, having won $20.5 million at a single tournament! So how did a former Magic: The Gathering player vault to the top of this leaderboard? On this week's episode of Odd Lots, Kenney explains how it all came about.

Back in September, chaos erupted in short-term funding markets, as the cost for financial institutions to borrow reserves soared. Immediately a major debate broke out over whether this represented a systemic problem for the financial system or merely a technical problem with the "plumbing." Things have quieted down since September, but the debate hasn't stopped. And there's still no permanent fix...

Where did the notion come from that the obligation of a company's management is to maximize shareholder returns, even if it means pain for workers? On this week's Odd Lots podcast, we speak with Karen Ho, a professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, who can answer the above question. Unlike your typical anthropologist, she did her field work inside a Wall Street bank to discover how the specific culture of finance bled through to the real economy.

You probably haven't thought much about the Taiwanese life insurance industry. Why would you have? But they're among the most fascinating entities in the financial world. And for a long time they've been a source of incredible mystery. They've built up a gigantic position in foreign, US-dollar denominated assets in order to fund domestic liabilities denominated in Taiwanese Dollars. But how do they hedge this currency mismatch? Nobody has figured it out until now...

Bloomberg's Travel Genius podcast is back! After clocking another hundred-thousand miles in the sky, hosts Nikki Ekstein and Mark Ellwood have a whole new series of flight hacking, restaurant sleuthing, and hotel booking tips to inspire your own getaways—along with a who's who roster of itinerant pros ready to spill their own travel secrets. From a special episode on Disney to a master class on packing, we'll go high, low, east, west, and everywhere in between. The new season starts Nov. 6.

Can the U.S. economy have a recession without it turning into a crisis? In the old days, such garden-variety recessions were fairly common. These days, less so. But why is this? And can we go back to the old-style soft recessions? The issue, arguably, is that private sector balance sheets (both debts and assets) have grown so large relative to incomes, that the value of financial assets swamp effects from changing incomes...

It's well known that Japan has (until recently) been mired in years of mediocre economic growth. And policymakers and economists use Japan as a warning for how developed economies can enter into prolonged slumps. But has anyone learned the lessons of Japan? In our latest episode, we talk to Richard Koo of the Nomura Research Institute, about his concept of the "Balance Sheet Recession" and why developed economies with lots of debt don't behave the way they do in textbooks...

On September 19, 2019, Odd Lots hosted its first-ever live event at the WNYC Greene Space in downtown New York City. With an all-star lineup of guests, the show featured convicted white-collar criminal Sam Antar, a panel on sovereign debt with Lee Buchheit and Brad Setser, and a discussion on MMT with Stephanie Kelton. We even had a surprise guest, SPY kid Kevin McGrath, not to mention two musical acts: country-singing economist Merle Hazard and a performance by Joe himself...