The humble wooden shipping pallet is probably not something that most people think about too much. But it's a huge deal. At Virginia Tech, there's a whole center that focuses on pallets and packaging. And like many other things right now, the price has surged, and now everyone is aware of them. So what caused the price to soar and when will things normalize? On this episode we speak with Marshall White, a Professor Emeritus at Virginia Tech, and the country's leading expert on the wooden pallets. We talked about the history of the industry, its market structure, and where things are heading

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There have been a lot of stories about the challenges of keeping schools open over the last two years, much to the consternation of many parents. But, for many students, going to school involves first getting on a school bus. And that industry is facing its own stress. As with many other industries, school bus operators around the country are saying we're in a drivers shortage. On this Odd Lots, we speak with Corey Muirhead, Executive Vice President of the Logan Bus Company — the largest school bus contractor in the NYC area — to explain how the business works, and the challenges it faces in this environment.

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The stock market has basically been a one-way ship for 20 months now. So of course, some people get nervous about that, and start wondering if we're in some unsustainable bubble that can only end badly. So what are the biggest risks lurking out there? On this episode, we speak with Richard Bookstaber, a veteran of numerous firms, having done risk management at Bridgewater, the University of California, and elsewhere. He's also the author of the book A Demon Of Our Own Design, which prophetically warned about financial system fragilities in the run-up to the Great Financial Crisis. He's currently the co-founder of Fabric, which provides risk management technology to the financial industry, and he spoke with us about where he sees the biggest risks right now.

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Money continues to pour into the crypto space at a rapid clip. Institutions, VCs, private investors all seem to have gotten the bug over the last year. But, of course, the big gains have come to those who have been in the space for a while. One of the leading investing institutions in crypto is Paradigm, which was founded during 2018's crypto winter. The firm just announced a new $2.5 billion fund, which is heretofore the biggest crypto fund ever raised. We speak with the firm's co-founder Matt Huang about Paradigm's unique structure, its vision for crypto, and what it plans to do with the money.

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Normally, economists expect a somewhat stable relationship between job openings and the unemployment rate. More job openings = more people are employed. Lately, however, the shape of this relationship has changed. Job openings are absolutely soaring. And yet total employment in the economy is well below pre-pandemic levels. On this episode, we speak with Thomas Lubik, a senior advisor in the Research Department at the Richmond Fed, who has been researching and writing about this unusual state of the labor market.

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Most of the big retailers have assured their customers that shelves will be stocked for the holidays this year. Nonetheless, there has been a lot of anxiety about shortages and supply chain disruptions all year. On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak with John Porcari, Port Envoy to the White House Supply Chain Disruptions Task Force. He's been coordinating the efforts to get the containers moving again. He explains what's been accomplished so far, and what more needs to be done.

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Inflation is hot. You can debate why that is, or how long it will last, or who is to blame, or whether elevated inflation is a worthwhile price to pay for a fast recovery. But, regardless, it exists. So what now? Should the Fed pivot into inflation fighting mode? On this Odd Lots, we speak with Jason Furman, an economics professor at Harvard, and the former Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Obama. He thinks inflation will come in hotter than expected next year, and that it's time for the Fed to ease off the gas pedal somewhat. We talk about the issue, its causes, and his preferred policy path going forward.

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The corporate bond market is huge and important, allowing U.S. companies to tap investors for much needed borrowing. But even as sales of bonds have been booming in recent years thanks to low interest rates, the overall structure of the credit market and the way such debt is traded has been criticized for years. While stocks trade electronically on exchanges that provide instant and competitive quotes, a majority of corporate bond trades are still done over the phone or on platforms that tend to favor certain participants over others. Despite many efforts to improve ease of trading and price transparency in this vital market, progress has been slow.

On this episode, we speak with Larry Harris of the USC Marshall School of Business and a former Chief Economist at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he helped push through major stock market reform known as Reg NMS, about why the corporate bond market has been so resistant to substantial change. Harris was also part of the SEC's most recent effort to improve corporate bond trading -- the Fixed Income Market Structure Advisory Committee (FIMSAC) created in 2018. He explains why it hasn't had much success in changing the market.

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This year has brought fresh awareness to the complexity of the semiconductor supply chain. Taiwan Semiconductor, the big manufacturer, has become a household name. But there's another giant that hardly anyone outside of the chip industry has heard of. ASML is a Dutch company that's at the cutting edge of Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography — the most advanced technology for reliably printing transistors onto a chip. If you want to produce the most advanced chips, you must buy equipment from ASML. But what do they do and how did they come to occupy this position? On this episode we speak with Chris Miller, an Assistant Professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University, and the author of a forthcoming book about the semiconductor industry, about the company, where it came from, and the unique spot it occupies on the world stage.

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Inflation is running at its fastest pace in over 30 years. And one upward contributor to it is higher food prices. There are all kinds of things going on within food, but over the last year we've seen strong price increases in wheat, corn, and soy, which feed into higher prices for meat and dairy. There is a lot going on here. There is high demand globally. There are unusual weather conditions all around the world. There's surging fertilizer costs, and much more. On this episode, we speak with Angie Setzer, a consultant at ConsusROI (which advises farmers and investors in the agriculture space), who explains the perfect storm causing this persistent surge.

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