"Decentralized Finance," "Yield farming"... you've probably heard these terms before, but have very little idea about how they all work. On a recent episode, we spoke with one of the creators of the largest decentralized crypto exchange, UniSwap. But what's it like to trade this stuff? On this episode, we speak with Aaron Lammer — the host of the new podcast Exit Scam — who's recently been DeFi-pilled and now yield farms and trades on Uniswap and other blockchain-based exchanges. He explains to us how he got into it, how it all works, and how he spots money-making opportunities.

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By now, everybody knows that global supply chains are a mess. Not a day goes by where there isn't news of some shortage or bottleneck. Chips, shipping containers, lumber, you name it. So how did it happen and how does it get unwound? On the latest episode of Odd Lots, we speak with Ryan Petersen, the CEO of Flexport, which makes software to help companies manage their supply chains. He breaks down the situation in a granular way to explain what's really going on.

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Jared Bernstein has been a longtime advisor to President Joe Biden. He was his advisor while Biden was Vice President, and today he serves on the Council of Economic Advisors. On the latest Odd Lots, he joins us to talk about the current state of the economy, inflation, and, more importantly, the White House's vision for taxing and spending. In particular, he explains President Biden's philosophy on taxes, and why he thinks that further spending plans should be matched with tax hikes rather than running up the deficit.

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Please check out this special announcement from Joe and Tracy, who have an update on a new Odd Lots initiative, involving a new blog, show transcripts, and more.

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What will the economy really look like when things normalize? Lots of people are, of course, anticipating a sustained rise in inflation, even beyond this burst in prices right now. Our guest this week is skeptical. We speak about the new landscape with Viktor Shvets, a Managing Director at Macquarie, on why he doesn't see the disinflationary trends changing anytime soon. He also argues that the next crisis could originate in the mania for cryptocurrencies.

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There's an irony with crypto. While so much of it is ostensibly about circumventing legacy finance, many of the most important pieces of crypto infrastructure are centralized financial entities. For example, the newly public Coinbase holds fiat currency and is subject to numerous regulations. Enter decentralized exchanges. A new breed of trading venues has been built to enable trading directly upon a blockchain, allowing assets to be exchanged without any custodial requirements, permission, or even accounts. It's a totally different model of trading and market structure. On this episode, we speak with Hayden Adams, the creator of the Uniswap Protocol, which powers the world's largest decentralized exchange, to explain how it all works.

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This year, everyone's become aware of the hollowing out of U.S. semiconductor manufacturing capacity. Whether it's the rise of TSMC, the stumbles at Intel, or the inability of car companies to acquire much-needed chips, semiconductors are becoming a major political issue. But how can you actually turn things around? What would the right policy mix look like? On this episode, we speak with Alex Williams, a research analyst at Employ America, and Hassan Khan, a tech procurement expert with a PhD in semiconductor policy, to discuss how the new administration can make American chip manufacturing roar back to life.

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There's probably nobody better at synthesizing massive events like Columbia professor Adam Tooze. His book Crashed, which came out in 2018, was probably the definitive take on the Great Financial Crisis. Later this year he has another book coming out on the Coronavirus crisis, and the political and economic lessons therein. On this Odd Lots, we speak with him about the extraordinary year, what it's meant for the U.S., China, Europe, etc., and the change in the economic landscape.

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It's not often that lumber becomes a national obsession. But this year it has. Thanks to a combination of factors, including diminished sawmill capacity, a renovation boom, and then a homebuilding boom, the price of finished wood has soared to never-before-seen heights. On this episode, we speak with Stinson Dean, a lumber trader at Deacon Trading, to explain why the market has gone so wild, and how the market is structured.

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There's a huge question mark at the moment about whether markets are at some sort of important turning point. For instance, we've seen big amounts of fiscal stimulus in the U.S., sparking concerns that inflation might finally return and overturn a decades-long bull run in bonds. So how can investors protect against that scenario and other major inflection points in markets? On this episode of Odd Lots, we speak to Chris Cole, the founder of Artemis Capital Management. He walks us through his recent research, in which he recreates 100 years of the most popular financial engineering and portfolio structures to identify what works best.

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