One of the more striking crime statistics is that burglary is down 90% in England and Wales since the 1990s. That doesn't reflect more upright behaviour. Nope, it's just that villains are increasingly moving their operations online. We talk to author Geoff White about how Silicon Valley is helping the bad guys go digital by making it easier for them not only to con people and rob, but also to launder their digital winnings online

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Geoff White.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How did housing in Britain go from somewhere to live to being everyone's favourite financial asset? In the second of our two part series, we look at housing policy since 1970; and ask whether there has ever been a coherent approach. Also is there a natural level of home ownership and should we be encouraging everyone to buy? With Cambridge University housing expert Peter Williams.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Peter Williams.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How did housing in Britain go from somewhere to live to everyone's favourite financial asset? In the first of a two part series, we look at the mortgage market since 1970; and ask whether the high prices and low supply we endure today are a financial phenomenon. With former building societies supremo Mark Boleat.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Mark Boleat.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, it was an online bookshop. Now its tentacles are everywhere: it's a marketplace for third party goods from around the world, a huge cloud computing business and America's largest parcel delivery group. But is this a good thing or a bad one? We talk to Dana Mattioli of the Wall Street Journal about whether Amazon is the consumer''s friend or a monopolist to rank with Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Dana Mattioli.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podcast.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The economist Michael Jensen, who died this month, did as much as any single thinker to shape modern financial capitalism. To his detractors, he was the High Priest of Greed who justified stratospheric CEO pay and predatory private equity. His admirers believe he revived Anglo Saxon capitalism. We discuss his ideas and legacy with the independent researcher and private equity expert Peter Morris. 

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Peter Morris.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podcast.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A natural monopoly delivering an essential service, Thames Water was privatised in 1989 with no debt. Now it's on its knees, crushed by more than £15bn of borrowings. Neil and Jonathan talk to Feargal Sharkey about what this says about Mrs Thatcher's most controversial privatisation, whether incentive regulation works, and whether we should just scrap the whole private structure and start again.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Feargal Sharkey.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

GEC was a British manufacturing titan; a cash-rich producer of everything from washing machines to railway trains. Then in a few years, it rebranded and restructured, shedding most of the old industrial bits to focus on telecoms. The result? By 2005, shiny new Marconi was no more. In the second of our Fallen Angel series, we talk to industrial historian Nick Comfort about one of the most abrupt collapses in UK corporate history and its heavy industrial cost 

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Nicholas Comfort.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For decades ICI was Britain's largest manufacturing company - a giant fixed point around which the rest of industry orbited. Then, in little more than a decade, it split itself up, sold many of its traditional businesses, and ran up big debts buying fancy but not very profitable fragrance companies. In 2006, the end came when it sold itself to a Dutch company and disappeared. We talk to writer and industrial commentator Nick Comfort about the fall of ICI and what it says about the way the UK economy has been run.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Nicholas Comfort.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Remember Pets.com? Or Ask Jeeves? The dot com bubble of 25 years ago might have been a seismic event in markets. But was it just a collective moment of madness, or a deeper transformational moment? Or both? As AI stocks shoot towards the stratosphere, we talk to internet historian Brian McCullough, host of the Techmeme Ride Home podcast, about what we can learn from the last great tech bubble.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Brian McCullough.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of Britain's better-known economic forecasters, Roger Bootle, set up his consultancy Capital Economics 25 years ago. He made his name predicting the "death of inflation" on which he wrote an influential book in the 1990s. We discuss the importance of economic history, favourite writers, monetarism, bright spots in the world economy, and Britain's many problems with growth.

Presented by Jonathan Ford and Neil Collins.

With Philip Augar.

Produced and edited by Nick Hilton for Podot.

In association with Briefcase.News

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.