Slate Money
Slate Podcasts
A weekly roundup of the most important stories from the worlds of business and finance, hosted by Felix Salmon.Want more Slate Money? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Or, visit https://slate.com/moneyplus to get access wherever you listen. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Aug 4, 2026 • 43min
Money Talks: Live from the Library of Mistakes
Lee Buchheit, a veteran international sovereign-debt lawyer who has advised countries through major restructurings. Conversation hits why countries behave differently from households. Talks about inflation, refinancing and intergenerational debt. Covers the shift from bank loans to bonds and why leaders resist default. Discusses retail investors, IMF roles, and high-profile crises like Iceland and the Eurozone.
24 snips
Aug 1, 2026 • 54min
Too Situationally Aware to Fail
A young founder’s AI‑first hedge fund faces a rapid unwind and a rival firm swoops in to buy the assets. The panel digs into concentrated, leveraged bets, margin calls, and whether market players engineered the pain trade. They also unpack why gasoline prices lag crude thanks to refining bottlenecks and diesel shortages. Finally, the SEC’s controversial plan to make quarterly reports optional sparks a huge public backlash.
26 snips
Jul 25, 2026 • 47min
Explosive You-Know-What
They unpack how sensational language turned a cyclospora food-poisoning story into viral outrage. They walk through new legal maneuvers to revive controversial tariffs after a Supreme Court rebuke. They critique sleep-culture bravado after a world leader claims to sleep zero to three hours a night.
10 snips
Jul 21, 2026 • 36min
Money Talks: Plastic, Plastic Everywhere
Beth Gardiner, investigative journalist and author of Plastic Ink, digs into plastic’s petrochemical origins and industry playbook. She explains how oil and gas become everyday plastics. She traces corporate PR tactics that shifted blame to consumers. She covers recycling myths, global waste shifts after China’s ban, and policy fixes like producer responsibility.
18 snips
Jul 18, 2026 • 54min
What’s A.I. Doing to Our Energy Bills?
They dig into New York's pause on AI data centers and why surging data-center demand is straining the grid and driving up electricity bills. They explore off-grid power options and how small demand bumps can spike prices. They cover a new housing law easing manufactured-home rules and the potential of prefab and ADUs. They unpack odd price gaps between SK Hynix US and Korean shares and what that means for markets.
56 snips
Jul 11, 2026 • 56min
You’ve Got IPO
Stacy-Marie Ishmael, Bloomberg reporter with a tech and gaming background, fills in as co-host. They dig into Bending Spoons’ roll-up IPO strategy and whether it behaves like private equity. Conversation moves to booming World Cup prediction markets and who’s trading. They close by tracing Bitcoin’s recent tumble and big losses tied to corporate crypto bets.
18 snips
Jul 7, 2026 • 53min
Money Talks: The Economics of Repugnant Transactions
Alvin Roth, Nobel Prize–winning economist and Stanford professor known for market design and matching theory, discusses morally charged markets like prostitution, surrogacy, and kidney donations. He explains kidney exchanges, international tradeoffs, and debates over paying donors. The conversation examines how laws and changing norms shape which transactions we accept and which we push underground.
28 snips
Jul 4, 2026 • 55min
Synergy’s Must-Watch Final Episode
Edmund Lee, Reuters media editor who covers media M&A and industry strategy, joins to revisit Comcast/NBCUniversal’s split and why the promised synergies fell short. They explore why media companies are unbundling, how spin-offs and tax rules work, and Comcast’s potential pivot to data-center and AI infrastructure. The conversation also puts the World Cup and TV valuations in American media context.
37 snips
Jun 27, 2026 • 50min
The Greenspanaissance
They examine Alan Greenspan’s legacy, weighing monetary wins against regulatory blind spots. They debate whether past tech-era arguments map onto AI today. They unpack JPMorgan succession dynamics after Marianne Lake’s exit. They scrutinize Masayoshi Son’s ‘goose and eggs’ thesis and who might win the humanoid, AI hardware race.
Jun 23, 2026 • 36min
Money Talks: The Art of Trade War
Chad P. Bown, trade-policy expert and former State Department chief economist, and Soumaya Keynes, Financial Times columnist and trade analyst, discuss modern trade wars. They compare tariff fights with long-term strategic competition with China. They explore export controls, who pays tariffs, supply-chain dependence, and security concerns around Chinese tech and EVs.
