The podcast discusses the four Ds (demand, debt, demographics, and decoupling) that are holding back China's economy. It explores the decline in industrial production and retail sales, as well as the struggles faced by the property industry. The guest speaker explains the impact of Chinese political philosophy on economic growth and the government's control. It also analyzes the decline in demand for housing, China's sovereign wealth funds and foreign exchange reserves, and the need for diversification

A discussion on the new class of weight-loss drugs, GLP-1 medications, and their potential to suppress appetite and induce weight loss. The speaker evaluates the economic impact of these drugs and explores possible mega-trends like GLP-1 and AI. They also discuss the skepticism surrounding the drugs' effectiveness, the devastating impact of obesity, and potential effects on the healthcare industry and consumer-oriented companies.

Why do some countries become rich while others stagnate? And can you predict which countries become wealthy in advance of them actually increasing their collective GDP? The answer may lie in the complexity of each nation's domestic economy. On this episode we speak with Ricardo Hausmann, a professor and director of the Growth Lab at Harvard University. He helps us understand what economic complexity is, how it's measured, and the process by which countries can move from being less complex to more complex over time.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There have been a number of news stories lately that seem straight out of science fiction. We've heard claims before Congress that the government is suppressing information regarding the existence of UFOs or aliens. There are computers that seem to think. And scientists in Korea claimed to have made an extraordinary breakthrough in the hunt for room temperature superconductivity. So how should we think about these things in terms of their potential impact on the economy? In addition to being a Nobel Prize winner and a columnist for the New York Times, economist Paul Krugman is also an avid science fiction fan. In fact, he has credited science fiction for his original interest in economics, even once writing a paper on interstellar trade. He joined us to discuss all of these things, and how to view them through the economics lens.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Movie and TV productions have come to a nearly complete stop in Hollywood. Both the Screen Actors Guild and the Writers Guild of America are on strike, with the latter having halted work for the major studios over three months ago. What brought the industry to this point? What do the two opposing sides want? And how do these strikes fit into other labor actions that we're seeing this summer? On this episode, we speak with Lucas Shaw, entertainment reporter at Bloomberg and the author of the Screentime newsletter, as well as Josh Eidelson, a labor reporter for Businessweek and Bloomberg News, about what's going on with the strikes right now, what both sides are looking for, and the prospects of a resolution.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On September 14, the contract between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three carmakers (GM, Ford and Stellantis) is expiring — and the possibility of a strike is real. This comes at a delicate time for multiple reasons. The labor market is tight, which means workers have other options. Inflation is high. And the auto industry is undergoing a major shift to the electric vehicle market, which may change the composition and pay of the labor force. The stakes are high. So what does the union want and how does it fit into the goals of the broader labor market? To understand more, we speak with Dan Vicente, the director of UAW Region 9, as well as Alex Press, a labor reporter at Jacobin magazine.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the US, Tesla remains far and away the dominant maker of electric vehicles. But on a global scale, the situation is much more competitive. Over the last few years, Chinese EV makers have massively ramped up their export capacity and one in particular — BYD — sells more total vehicles (both pure EV and hybrid) than Tesla does. On this episode, we speak with Corey Cantor, an EV analyst at BloombergNEF about the competition between these two companies, China's EV strategy more broadly, the worldwide battle over batteries, the impact of the Inflation Reduction Act and the big shifts underway in the global automotive landscape.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A key plank of the Biden administration's "Bidenomics" involves stronger antitrust enforcement and we've seen the White House empower agencies like the Department of Justice to step up actions on monopolies and other behaviors that reduce competition. But what exactly counts as anti-competitive nowadays? And how does promoting competition sit alongside the administration's more proactive public investment and industrial policies? In this episode, we speak with Jonathan Kanter, assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division at the DOJ, about how he's thinking about these issues. We also talk competition in banking after a wave of consolidation in the space, as well as new challenges posed by Big Tech and artificial intelligence.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When Silicon Valley Bank imploded, there was a lot of talk about the future of regional and community banks in the United States. Can they compete with the large, too-big-to-fail institutions? What will happen to their deposits and their cost of capital? But actually the challenges facing smaller banks long precede March's banking drama. Tensions have been building for years, and will likely continue to do so, even if things have stabilized over the last few months. On this episode, we speak with Scott Hildenbrand, the chief balance sheet strategist at Piper Sandler, who works hand-in-hand with smaller banks to address these issues. We discuss the competitive landscape, the threats to their business model and why he thinks massive consolidation is on the way.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last year, as the Federal Reserve hiked rates to the highest levels in decades, there were lots of warnings about an imminent collapse in the US housing market. But home prices have only dipped slightly since then and now they're even recovering, stacking up three consecutive month-on-month gains. Not many people expected the most interest rate-sensitive portion of the economy to be this resilient. So what happened? Morgan Stanley housing strategist James Egan was one of few who was early to forecast that home prices would prove resilient, even as the cost of mortgages went up. In this episode, he walks us through how he sees the housing market now and what it would actually take for home prices to come down.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.