
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


This week, we look beyond the physical infrastructure supporting our lives to the owners taking over that infrastructure: asset managers. Brett Christophers, an author, professor, and economic geographer at Uppsala University in Sweden, joins me to explore the troubling transformation of infrastructure ownership in today's economy. From housing to energy to water, massive asset management firms like Blackstone and Brookfield have positioned themselves more and more between citizens and essential services, extracting wealth while taking minimal risk. Christophers explains how this shift from public to private control has reshaped our relationship with everyday infrastructure, particularly as we attempt to transform our energy supplies. He argues that the profit-driven approach of these financial giants is at odds with the public good, creating a system where even as things like renewable technology get cheaper, their deployment slows due to insufficient returns for investors.
By Dr. Chris Keefer4.9
143143 ratings
This week, we look beyond the physical infrastructure supporting our lives to the owners taking over that infrastructure: asset managers. Brett Christophers, an author, professor, and economic geographer at Uppsala University in Sweden, joins me to explore the troubling transformation of infrastructure ownership in today's economy. From housing to energy to water, massive asset management firms like Blackstone and Brookfield have positioned themselves more and more between citizens and essential services, extracting wealth while taking minimal risk. Christophers explains how this shift from public to private control has reshaped our relationship with everyday infrastructure, particularly as we attempt to transform our energy supplies. He argues that the profit-driven approach of these financial giants is at odds with the public good, creating a system where even as things like renewable technology get cheaper, their deployment slows due to insufficient returns for investors.

3,072 Listeners

1,993 Listeners

2,461 Listeners

1,252 Listeners

399 Listeners

1,448 Listeners

132 Listeners

268 Listeners

459 Listeners

1,342 Listeners

638 Listeners

446 Listeners

279 Listeners

417 Listeners

155 Listeners