Odd Lots

Whenever a major financial institution collapses and needs a bailout, it's easy to say, "Where were the regulators?" But that's only a useful question if you can pinpoint the specific regulatory choices that led to any particular situation. So what caused Silicon Valley Bank to implode? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Columbia Law School professor Lev Menand, who discusses the defanging of bank supervisors in the run-up to this fiasco...

Silicon Valley bank collapsed at record speed. And the world is still trying to figure out what went wrong? How did a bank with a strong history, a strong brand, and a fairly conservative investment portfolio go belly up so fast? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Dan Davies, a Managing Director of Frontline Associates, who previously worked as a bank analyst...

In the short term, the Federal Reserve's job is straightforward. Raise or lower interest rates in order to meet its employment and inflation targets. But over the years, it has evolved to do a lot more than just set the price of short-term bank borrowing. With each successive crisis, the Fed has taken on new powers and responsibilities to stabilize finance, markets and the broader economy...

The persistence of inflation is a bit of a mystery to economists. Many of the shocks of the last few years have faded. And the Fed has raised rates aggressively, with seemingly only a modest impact. So why are companies still raising prices? If you listen, they actually explain a lot of their reasoning on corporate conference calls...

Crypto is facing two distinct, yet related problems. First, a bunch of people have lost money due to the decline in coin prices and the collapse of major firms, such as FTX. At the same time, regulatory scrutiny is also increasing. And of course, the reason that scrutiny is increasing is in part due all the lost money...

Homebuilders have experienced major whiplash over the last few years. The pandemic originally caused them to slam the brakes on new development. Then the housing boom happened and they raced to catch up and build — but then they ran into supply-chain constraints. Then in 2022, the interest rate shock put the market into a freeze...

The vast majority of urban apartments in the US are geared towards single occupants, couples without kids or maybe young professionals with roommates. It's hard to find apartments with the kind of layout that would fit families. Anyone who's gone looking for that type of space is probably familiar with bedrooms that look and feel like closets, or if you do find an apartment that has multiple good-sized bedrooms, it probably costs a fortune...

The Federal Reserve has been raising benchmark borrowing rates at the fastest pace in decades, but the interest rate paid out to millions of people with bank accounts is still stuck at almost zero. According to data from Bankrate, the average interest rate on savings accounts is just 0.23%...

It's been one year since Russia invaded Ukraine in an event that set off a chain reaction of both geopolitical and economic consequences. So what have we learned from the past twelve months? And what is the future of this ongoing conflict? On this episode, we speak with Robert Papp, a retired senior executive at the CIA about what to watch when it comes to the weeks and months ahead...

President Biden came into office with an incredibly slim legislative majority. And yet despite just 50 Democratic seats in the Senate, the first two years of Biden's Presidency saw the passage of some extremely ambitious laws. The potential exists for the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act to reshape the economy in ways that we haven't seen in a long time...