Category: News

Former President Donald Trump recently suggested that if elected in this year's presidential election he would want more say on decisions made by the Federal Reserve. Presidents taking a more active role in monetary policy would mark an extraordinary shift in U.S. economic institutions, and mark the end of central bank independence.

Today on the show, why the Federal Reserve insulates itself from day-to-day politics, and what it looks like when central banks are influenced by politicians.

Related Episodes:
Happy Fed Independence Day (Update)
Arthur Burns: shorthand for Fed failure?
How the Fed got so powerful

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Homelessness is a pervasive issue that cities across the country struggle to address. This led an entrepreneur to team up with researchers and local foundations for an experiment called the Denver Basic Income Project. The goal was to see how different variations of a basic income program would impact the local homeless population. What the researchers found could become a guide for how localities in the United States could address the problem of homelessness.

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It's that time of year when we want to lie on a beach and lose ourselves in a good book. Today on the show, three summer reading recs that got our hosts thinking about economics. Remember, anything read on the beach is, in fact, a "beach read."

Books recommended in this episode:
• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid (B&N, Bookshop)
• Everything Is Predictable: How Bayesian Statistics Explain Our World by Tom Chivers (B&N, Bookshop)
• Range: Why Generalist Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein (B&N, Bookshop)

Related episodes:
How Asimov's 'Foundation' has inspired economists (Apple / Spotify)
The carbon coin: A novel idea
Beach reads for econ nerds

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Indicators of the Week is a show dedicated to highlighting some of the most interesting numbers in the news. Today, we break down our favorite indicators in Google's antitrust defeat, the currency trade in Japan that jolted global markets and another way of creating an Olympic medal tally.

Related episodes:
Is Google search getting worse? (Apple / Spotify)
Why the Olympics cost so much (Apple / Spotify)

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The International Olympic Committee has developed a reputation over the years for stringently enforcing its trademarks during the summer games. It has good reason to, with brands like Coca-Cola and Visa paying top dollar for exclusive sponsorship rights. Today on the show, the lengths the IOC will go to protect its trademarks and how smaller brands try to avoid their dragnet.

Related episodes:
Why the Olympics cost so much (Apple / Spotify)
Peacock, potassium and other Paris Olympics Indicators (Apple / Spotify)

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Globalization, as we once knew it, is dead ... well, that's according to the UK's new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves.

Chancellor Reeves has run the UK Treasury since July 2024. She's facing an economic backdrop familiar to many countries: hollowed-out industrial towns; climate change; global wars and conflicts.

Today on the show: Our conversation with Chancellor Reeves on her visit this week to the US. What she thinks went wrong with globalization, and the new economic map she's coursing.

Related Episodes:
From Brexit to Regrexit

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The U.S. wants to become a net-zero emissions economy by 2050. That will mean a lot of new generation from renewable energy. It also means more transmission networks are needed to bring it onto the grid.

But there's a debate over how that new transmission should be built — between a competitive or monopoly approach. Today, we look at why competition is so divisive and why each side thinks they should build the next generation of transmission infrastructure.

Related Listening:
Texas' new power grid problem (Apple / Spotify)
Green energy gridlock (Apple / Spotify)

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It's been a turbulent couple of days for financial markets around the world. Japan's biggest stock market saw its worst day in decades. Corporate earnings disappointed investors. And last week's jobs report here in the US showed disappointing numbers. Is this a sign of a recession or just some temporary turbulence? Today, we speak with two economic analysts to make sense of what's really going on.

Related:
Matt Klein's newsletter "The Overshoot"
Why are we so bummed about the economy? (Apple / Spotify)
The Sahm Rule With The Eponymous Economist

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Jobs numbers came out today and they weren't great: Unemployment hit 4.3% and only 114,000 jobs were added to the economy in July. The U.S. economy's downshifting gears ... but there are bright spots.

Care jobs grew. Like social assistance: 9,000 new jobs in July.

Social work organizations have been calling out for more men in particular ... and with unemployment rising for men, a lot of them want jobs. So why aren't they meeting?

Today on the show: Getting more men into so-called pink-collar jobs. We learn about an experiment that showed a surprising way to encourage men into industries traditionally represented by women.

Related Episodes:
Wanted: Social workers
Ghost jobs

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The modern Olympic Games are notorious for saddling host cities with burdensome cost overruns into the billions. Organizers for the Paris 2024 Olympics were aware of this and planned to put on one of the most cost-effective Olympics in recent memory. They still went over budget.

Today on the show, why the Olympics almost always costs host cities much more than they anticipate and what we can learn from the Olympic Games' original economic sin.

Related episodes:
Peacock, potassium and other Paris Olympics Indicators (Apple / Spotify)
Why California's high speed rail was always going to blow out (Apple / Spotify)

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