Money Talks from The Economist

By The Economist

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What's Money Talks from The Economist about?

Take a seat at the table and learn about the biggest stories in financial markets, the economy and business. Each week our editors and correspondents explore how economics influences the world we live in and share their insights across a range of topics. From inflation and recession risk to all things crypto and even the commercial success of K-pop, we have you covered. Published every Thursday.
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Money Talks picks: Progress...

11.30.2023

An article from The Economist read aloud. We explain why the world must try harder on climate change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Money Talks from The Economist episodes:

11.30.2023 Money Talks picks: Progress on climate change has been too slow An article from The Economist read aloud. We explain why the world must try harder on climate change. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
11.23.2023 Money Talks: Play it again, Sam Altman In five days OpenAI’s boss was fired by its board; hired by Microsoft, the startup’s biggest investor; and returned to his post at OpenAI. Yet things cannot be as they were: the shuffle will have consequences for the darling of ...
11.09.2023 Money Talks: Touring America’s industrial revival President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act promised $370bn for green infrastructure and industry. It has spurred a surge in massive construction efforts such as battery plants and electric-vehicle factories. Our correspondent goes on a road trip, visiting small towns with ...
10.26.2023 Money Talks: The future of crypto, part two Last week, we spoke to the author Michael Lewis, who was embedded with Sam Bankman-Fried, as FTX, the crypto-trading empire he built, came crashing down amid allegations of fraud, which Mr Bankman-Fried denies. Mr Lewis credits Changpeng Zhao - the ...
10.19.2023 Money Talks: The future of crypto, part one In downtown Manhattan, what is perhaps the biggest event in the history of crypto is playing out: the trial of Sam Bankman-Fried. SBF, as he’s known, is accused of masterminding a fraud that left $8bn in customer funds missing; he ...
10.12.2023 Money Talks: Goldin rules It’s that time of year when an economist is woken by an early call from the Nobel Committee in Sweden. This year, it was the turn of Claudia Goldin, whose work has revolutionised our understanding of gender in the labour ...
10.05.2023 Money Talks: Why is customer service getting worse? Trouble is brewing in the world of customer service. After rising steadily for nearly two decades, customer contentment, as measured by the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), began plummeting around five years ago. But if it pays to keep customers ...
09.28.2023 Money Talks: Is America becoming uninsurable? Insurers make their money betting against disasters. They wager that the premiums paid by policyholders will outstrip the losses caused by fires, floods and other catastrophes. But in parts of the US that winning formula is no longer working–and climate ...
09.21.2023 Money Talks: The price of cheaper medicines One of the many aims of President Joe Biden’s signature legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, is to cut the cost of drugs prescribed by Medicare, a government health insurance programme for Americans 65 and over. But the policy could have ...
09.14.2023 Money Talks: China’s property crisis Thousands of building projects across China have been halted or dramatically slowed as a rolling crisis engulfs the country’s property sector. The government’s “three red lines” policy sought to limit the leverage of property developers, but has now forced scores ...
09.07.2023 Money Talks: Why does everyone want to manage your wealth? Wealth managers occupy a unique place in their clients’ lives. Not only do they advise on picking assets and tax-efficient investment strategies—they often find out about illicit affairs and which heirs might be a problem child. These services were once ...
08.31.2023 Money Talks: Information used to want to be free The mantra from the mid-2000s that “data is the new oil” is taking on a new sheen: tapping and refining it into personalised advertisements has become harder, thanks to increasing regulation and the self-serving policies of the tech behemoths. Meanwhile ...
08.24.2023 Money Talks: Counting the cost of education Is a college degree worth it? That question hangs over millions of would-be students, as they prepare to apply to university. It is one that many graduates might be mulling over as they have to start paying off their college ...
08.17.2023 Money Talks: Is America’s China policy working? When is economic decoupling not economic decoupling? When it drives your allies to tighter commercial links with your adversary. That’s the situation the US finds itself in today, when it comes to its policies directed against China. Since the Trump ...
08.10.2023 Money Talks: Click and collect a grocery victory Grocery shopping is a giant prize–accounting for around $800bn of spending a year in America. But it is also a notoriously tough business, with price-sensitive customers keeping a tight lid on margins. Add in online delivery and it often becomes ...
08.03.2023 Money Talks: Lessons from the great macro experiment American economists are scratching their heads in confusion. The Fed’s aggressive rate hikes hasn’t produced the outcome many expected. Instead of recession and massive layoffs, the US economy now looks tantalisingly close to a fabled “soft landing” with the jobs ...
07.27.2023 Money Talks: Lights! Camera! Inaction… The only action taking place in Hollywood is on the picket lines. Thousands of writers and actors have taken to the streets to protest the way that technology has affected their wages. At the top of their list of demands ...
07.20.2023 Money Talks: How to build a sports business Newspaper sports pages have - in recent years - often read more like business sections with reports of mergers, acquisitions and well-funded startups trying to steal market share. But those deals tend to be structured with the interests of team ...
07.13.2023 Money Talks: The Jamie Dimon interview Jamie Dimon runs America’s biggest and most successful bank: JP Morgan Chase. That makes him the boss of 300,000 people across more than 60 countries. He’s the only CEO of a major bank to have been in his role since ...
07.06.2023 Money Talks: Will green flying take off? The aviation industry is responsible for more than 2% of annual carbon emissions. That figure is set to rise as more passengers take to the skies. But the sector has set itself an ambitious target: to hit net-zero emissions by ...
06.29.2023 Money Talks: What happens if inflation sticks? Over the past two years, inflation has been full of surprises. Central bankers are now facing up to the very real possibility that bringing sticky inflation down to their 2% targets could bring deep economic pain. Some analysts are starting ...
06.22.2023 Money Talks: Averting the city death spiral Cities across the world are in the midst of an identity crisis. With fewer workers commuting into offices and more shoppers heading online, what are they now for? It’s a question that commercial real estate investors are scrambling to find ...
06.15.2023 Money Talks: The baby bust blues In more than half of the world's countries, the number of babies being born has fallen below the replacement rate. For the next generation, that means living in a less-populous country than their parents—and that gives birth to some big ...
06.08.2023 Money Talks: The trillion-dollar question For over three decades, the people most excited about Nvidia’s chips have been gamers. They used its graphics cards to render games in super-high definition. But over the last 15 years Nvidia has slowly established itself as the go-to provider ...
06.01.2023 Money Talks: The great debt hangover Decades of cheap money has left businesses in America and Europe addicted to debt. Some companies have been borrowing cash just to dole it out to shareholders. But with interest rates now reaching levels not seen in 15 years, those ...
05.25.2023 Money Talks: Another way, another dollar? From Alipay’s QR codes to PayPal, it’s never been easier to move money around. Central banks are even considering their own digital currencies. And all that cross-border cashlessness has some wondering about the dollar’s international dominance. On this week’s podcast, ...
05.18.2023 Money Talks: Why house prices are so stubbornly high Housing in America has never been this unaffordable. The pandemic set off skyrocketing prices; then the Fed began to rapidly increase interest rates, pushing up borrowing costs. Many predicted this might result in a crash. But after dropping 10% from ...
05.11.2023 Money Talks: Is the car industry running out of gas? Buying a car used to be about two things: style and performance. But as motorists trade in their petrol or diesel cars for electric vehicles, manufacturers are increasingly focusing on experience by adding features like karaoke machines and mood lighting. ...
05.04.2023 Money Talks: A business podcast on the business of podcasts Around a third of Americans now listen to at least one podcast a week. That fact has not escaped the attention of advertisers, who spent nearly $2bn on podcast ads last year. But with more than 4m podcasts for listeners ...
04.27.2023 Money Talks: Last dance for TikTok? Time may be running short for TikTok. In the US, both Democrats and Republicans view the Chinese-owned app as a national security threat and would like to ban it. It’s practically the only policy issue that the two parties agree ...
04.20.2023 Money Talks: Why oh why EY? The professional services firm EY reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars preparing to split itself into separate audit and advisory companies. Then earlier this month it abruptly called the divorce off. EY is not unique. All of the "big ...
04.13.2023 Money Talks: Succession Asia Fans of the popular television show “Succession” have been gripped by the family battle to take control of the fictional patriarch Logan Roy’s sprawling media empire. But across Asia family businesses are worried about their own, very real, succession battles ...
04.06.2023 Money Talks: Will video games eat Hollywood? Video game makers used to look to Hollywood for their inspiration. But in recent years, the market for games has grown to nearly $200bn, five times more than people spend at the box office and more, even, than they spend ...
03.30.2023 Money Talks: The A to Z of economics Hosts Alice Fulwood, Mike Bird and Tom Lee Devlin take to the road this week with a single aim: bring economics to life. The mission takes them to some unexpected corners of the world and forces them to don some ...
03.23.2023 Money Talks: Discredit Suisse Few would have predicted that the demise of Silicon Valley Bank, a niche Californian lender, would be followed by the failure of Credit Suisse. But on March 19 the banking crisis reached Zurich, where regulators brokered a fire sale that ...
03.16.2023 Money Talks: What went wrong at SVB? Until last week, most people beyond California and the tech world probably hadn’t heard of Silicon Valley Bank, but its swift collapse made headlines across the globe. On this week’s podcast, hosts Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird examine ...
03.09.2023 Money Talks: The rise of the robots Robots are getting better and cheaper—and that means they will play a much larger role in our lives. They are already reaching beyond the car plants and warehouses, where they have become commonplace, to turn their mechanised hands to making ...
03.02.2023 Money Talks: Not made in China China was the source of $1trn-worth of electronic goods and components in 2021, roughly a third of the global total. And it’s not just consumer electronics that begin their life in China. The country is the source of everything from ...
02.23.2023 Money Talks: Could K-pop become a monopoly? The rise of Korea’s musicians from local celebrities to international superstars is credited to Lee Soo-man, the godfather of K-pop. The industry he developed gave rise to groups like BTS, which has been the biggest-selling band in the world for ...
02.16.2023 Money Talks: The king of quants Quantitative investors are known for their cool, mathematical approach to investing. They build models which search for patterns across huge data sets to discern where they should invest. The frenzied “bubble in everything” wrongfooted many quants in 2020–but the stock ...
02.09.2023 Money Talks: Adani’s short story Just weeks ago, Gautam Adani was the third richest person in the world. But he was caught short when Hindenburg Research, a small American short-seller, issued a report that spooked investors, wiping $100bn from the value of Adani firms. On ...
02.02.2023 Money Talks: Goldman Sags Goldman once dominated Wall Street. In 2009, after the financial crisis, when most financial institutions were left reeling, Goldman had its best year ever. It appeared an apex-predator, one that could outsmart its rivals in even the toughest environments. But ...
01.26.2023 Money Talks: Can Disney rekindle the magic? The Walt Disney Company turns 100 years old this week. But the silver screen success that helped it become the world’s biggest entertainment company will not be enough to keep it on top for another century. As households swap cable ...
01.19.2023 Money Talks: How globalisation gave way America has changed the way it views the rest of the world. Rather than pushing for a more globalised economy with fewer trade barriers, the US is now seeking a more protected system of international trade. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction ...
01.12.2023 Money Talks: The new power in the North Sea For decades, the North Sea’s fierce gales have created a challenge for those extracting the oil and gas buried beneath its swells. But the region’s poor weather is also the key to its future: offshore wind. And the plans are ...
01.05.2023 Money Talks: The economics of thinness Across the rich world there is a negative relationship between incomes and weight, as measured by body mass index. The richer people are, the thinner they tend to be. But separate the data by gender and a startling gap appears. ...
12.28.2022 Money Talks: TikTok’s ticking time bomb—an episode from our archive It’s the fastest growing app in the world, filled with dance trends, cats misbehaving, and questionable financial advice. Teenagers love it; Western politicians are less convinced. Could TikTok’s popularity be its downfall? In one of our favourite episodes of 2022, ...
12.21.2022 Money Talks: Is Christmas becoming more efficient? Economists are a gloomy lot, and no less so at Christmas. Whereas most people see gift-giving as a source of joy, economists fret about the potential for misallocated resources. One Scrooge-ish study found that, on average, $100 spent on gifts ...
12.14.2022 Money Talks: The changing ideology of Silicon Valley Startup founders in Silicon Valley are often motivated by an almost religious idealism: young tech workers, looking to move fast and break things, want to use technology to make the world a better place. But 2022 has brought about a ...
12.07.2022 Money Talks: China reopens China’s draconian zero-covid policies have required repeated and lengthy lockdowns, enormous make-shift quarantine facilities, and endless testing for the population. They have also done real damage to its economy. After rare outbreaks of protest against the policy in several cities, ...

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