WEBVTT - The 10 Most Interesting Things We Learned on Odd Lots in 2024 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:18.079 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:20.000 --> 0:00:23.120 Hello and welcome to another episode of the Authoughts podcast. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:24.720 I'm Tracy Alloway. 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:25.639 And I'm Joe Wisenthal. 0:00:25.840 --> 0:00:28.000 Joe, it's nearly the end of the year we made it. 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:30.120 This is like year nine, isn't it. 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:31.120 No for real? 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:33.400 No, it's true. Next year is going to be our 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:37.280 ten year anniversary, so we'll have to throw some sort 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:38.240 of ad thoughts event. 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:42.480 Yeah, nothing big right now for nine. But another year, 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:47.000 another fascinating year, another year of learning new stuff. I'm 0:00:47.040 --> 0:00:48.640 really enjoying it. I hope we keep doing it for 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:49.000 a while. 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.280 Yeah, and I think we both did learn quite a lot, 0:00:52.320 --> 0:00:54.080 and in fact, that is what we are going to 0:00:54.120 --> 0:00:57.640 talk about today. So we have compiled a list of 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.880 the ten most interesting things that we learned over the 0:01:00.920 --> 0:01:03.440 past year. So you want to dive into it, let's 0:01:03.520 --> 0:01:03.720 do it. 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:06.280 Let's revisit them, because you know, we do so many 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:08.880 episodes in the year, and I forget about some and 0:01:08.920 --> 0:01:11.760 in the compilation of this episode, they're like, oh, yeah, 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:15.200 I totally forgot about that particular episode. So let's use 0:01:15.240 --> 0:01:18.600 this time to sort of revisit the odd lots. In 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:19.400 twenty twenty four. 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:23.520 This will see at least ten factoids into your mind forever, Joe. 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:25.000 That's correct, all right. 0:01:25.080 --> 0:01:27.480 So first on the list, we wanted to do an 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:30.679 episode on price pack architecture for a long time. This 0:01:30.800 --> 0:01:34.240 idea that companies are getting more sophisticated in the prices 0:01:34.280 --> 0:01:37.520 that they're charging for, you know, different people and different things. 0:01:38.000 --> 0:01:41.160 From our episode with Lindsay Owens, executive director of the 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.720 Groundwork Collaborative and David Dian, the executive editor of The 0:01:44.720 --> 0:01:49.000 American Prospect, we learned that McDonald's knows when you get paid. 0:01:49.640 --> 0:01:52.680 So the McDonald's app is put together by a company 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.280 called Plecure, and Plecture works with Ikea, they work with 0:01:56.320 --> 0:02:00.440 seven eleven, they work with White Castle. And the reason, 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.680 as you correctly said, Tracy, that McDonald's gives discounts on 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.480 the app is because they want to get on your phone. 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:09.639 They want to get on your phone and be able 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:14.799 to figure out what you're doing on that phone, where 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:18.239 you are at particular times of day, what your food 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.760 preferences are, what you're ordering habits are, potentially, what you're 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.359 using to pay for those things, and your financial behaviors. 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:30.000 Through that, they're aggregating a bunch of data about you, 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:34.000 And we had one of the slides from this presentation 0:02:34.720 --> 0:02:38.640 that Flexure put together that shows how they are using 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:41.600 this data. And one of the things that they were 0:02:41.720 --> 0:02:45.840 using to make predictions about what people would be willing 0:02:45.880 --> 0:02:49.839 to pay was their payday. So you can imagine how 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.760 you can use this. If the app knows that you 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:56.760 get paid every other Friday, it might give you a 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.640 three dollars McMuffin on Thursday, but when you have some 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:03.200 money in your pocket, it might raise it to four dollars. 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:03.600 Right. 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:07.760 If it knows that it's cold out, it might raise 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:10.919 the price of hot coffee. If it knows it's hot out, 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:15.119 it might raise the price of a mcflurry. Often, Plecture 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:20.080 combines this data that's within the app, like what they 0:03:20.080 --> 0:03:25.040 call first party data, with additional data about you through 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:30.320 what is called an identity graph that aggregates both you know, 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:33.480 stuff you're doing on the app, with your email, with 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.040 your social media, with your browser, with your subscriptions, with 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:40.200 your other app downloads, with your travel history, with your 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:45.120 retail history, all of these other things. And the predictive 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:51.320 power of that is such that you can pinpoint what 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:54.160 you're going to buy maybe before you even know, and 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:59.000 therefore you can target prices accordingly. So I think we're 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:01.320 at the beginning of this where they're trying to discount 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.120 things and get people on the app and get people 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:05.600 used to ordering on the app. 0:04:06.160 --> 0:04:09.160 Joe, has this scared you off the McDonald's app forever? 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:12.560 No, I still feel stupid for not having downloaded the 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.840 McDonald's app, if I'm being honest, because I do go 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:18.360 to McDonald's from time to time and my kids really 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.760 like it. You know, it's still a treat. But yes, 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:25.080 this reminds me actually that I need to download the 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.080 McDonald's app because and just thinking about this episode, I 0:04:28.120 --> 0:04:32.200 remember there are deals to be had even with sophisticated pricing. 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.000 There are deals to be had from a regular person 0:04:35.120 --> 0:04:38.120 like me that just goes in and pays my credit card. 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.080 There are definitely deals to be had on the McDonald's app. 0:04:42.120 --> 0:04:44.039 But I think this kind of taps into a lot 0:04:44.040 --> 0:04:47.480 of the frustration that people have with inflation, where it 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:51.760 feels like companies might be charging different prices for different 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:55.039 people or depending on the specific way you pay. And 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.520 let's face it, no one wants to do all this 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.080 like homework and all this like work just to get 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.160 a slightly cheaper, you know, hamburger. 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:06.680 I agree, I'm still going to download the app, and 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:09.240 in twenty twenty five, I'm going to download the app. 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:10.400 Okay, all right. 0:05:10.520 --> 0:05:15.080 Here is another clip fascinating conversation that we recently had 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.920 with Jetson leader Luis. He's an economist at Boston University. 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.160 We're talking about the existence of Medicare fraud and how 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:26.360 to detect it. I had not realized just how big 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.159 kidney dialysis specifically is as part of the federal budget. 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.719 Take a listen dialysis patients. There are about half a 0:05:33.720 --> 0:05:35.720 million of them. We actually spend I think you know this, 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:39.599 one percent of the federal budget on the dialysis program. Incredible, set, 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.120 not one percent of Medicare. One percent of the federal 0:05:42.160 --> 0:05:46.680 budget is the dialysis program. We do not, in general, 0:05:46.760 --> 0:05:49.719 pay for ambulance rides or taxi rides for these people 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:51.839 to go to and from the visits. They are responsible 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.640 for getting themselves to the clinic every day, three times 0:05:54.640 --> 0:05:57.479 a week, generally for a few hours, and that's in perpetuity. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:59.720 It's very challenging to get a kidney and therefore to 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:04.480 get off of dialysis. So we had this system, and 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:07.159 this is sort of the canonical Medicare fraud. We build 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.560 in a little thing for the few people who need it, 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.120 and that turns into a loophole through which bad actors 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:14.080 drive a truck. So we built in this provision, which is, 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:16.479 if the only safe way that you can get to 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:19.000 the dialysis clinic is in an ambulance, Medicare will pay 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:20.960 for an ambulance, and they pay for it at a 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:23.600 competitive rate for the ambulance companies, at say two hundred 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.400 and fifty dollars for a one way ride. Now that's 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:28.400 not that much money for a real ambulance, but it's 0:06:28.400 --> 0:06:29.960 a heck of a lot of money for a taxi. 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:33.640 And what happened is thousands of firms around the country 0:06:33.680 --> 0:06:37.240 opened with the express intention not of giving people serious 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:41.200 medical care, but of becoming an expensive ambulance taxi and 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.480 build the government. We have one hundred percent data from 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.680 the dialysis system. We can see all of these payments 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:50.760 more than seven billion dollars for non emergency ambulance transportation 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:52.120 over the following ten years. 0:06:52.520 --> 0:06:56.920 Tracy, that episode certainly convinced me that, setting aside everything else, 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.520 there still appears to be a lot of waste. I 0:06:59.520 --> 0:07:03.960 don't mean that dialysis specifically, because people need dialysis, et cetera. 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:05.800 But the fact that you know there's all this fraud 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:08.800 associated with it. The taxi is apparently that's been cracked 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:11.720 down on, but there's a lot of money coming out 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:14.320 of the federal government and clever people find ways to 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.000 get it for not delivering a service. 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:18.440 That's true. I think Look, I think most people would 0:07:18.440 --> 0:07:21.800 agree that stamping out fraud is probably a good thing. 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:23.840 I guess the question is is that going to be 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:28.360 the entirety of it? But Elon Musk saw saw this episode, yeah, 0:07:28.360 --> 0:07:31.280 and reacted to it on Twitter slash x he. 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.000 Did, so there's that, So maybe that'll move the dial 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:34.960 all right. 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:37.600 Next up in our list of the top ten most 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:40.960 interesting things we learned from All Blots, we have the 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.720 fact that Boeing hasn't built a clean sheet design in 0:07:44.800 --> 0:07:49.960 about twenty years, and Boeing's recently departed CEO Calhoun. He 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.560 basically said the company doesn't have any plans to do 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:55.320 so for the next ten years, all of which means 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.960 it might be more than a thirty year gap between 0:07:59.080 --> 0:08:03.800 Boeing bill an entirely new aircraft, which is just kind 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.360 of mind blowing, like one full adults lifespan. And this 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:11.000 is from Richard Abulafia. He is a managing director of 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:13.440 Aerodynamic Advisory. 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:16.280 This looks like a glide slope towards oblivion. Because remember, 0:08:16.320 --> 0:08:18.440 it's not just the loss of market share, it's also 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:22.680 the demographics. You know, engineering workforces have that muscle memory 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:25.360 that needs to be maintained. And it's been since two 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.360 thousand and four that they've launched, since they've last launched 0:08:28.400 --> 0:08:31.040 a clean sheet design. They've done some good work since, 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:36.040 but again you're talking about an aging engineering workforce that's 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:38.840 not attracting new people. Well, they have the kind of 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.160 core skills needed to create a new jet in the 0:08:41.160 --> 0:08:44.400 twenty thirties. I have no idea. You need something to 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:48.280 dream for, you need something that represents the future. And 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.520 you know, Dave Calhoun, the CEO at the top of 0:08:52.559 --> 0:08:56.000 the heap, said about oh a year and four months 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:58.559 ago that don't worry, we won't be launching anything new 0:08:58.600 --> 0:09:03.560 for at least another decade. Other than sheer demoralization and 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.920 encouraging the competition. I mean, the only way to explain 0:09:07.000 --> 0:09:09.640 it is that he's the best CEO Airbus could ask for. 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:12.000 If you're an engineer, you hear that what are you 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:15.480 working for exactly? You're coming up with work packages on 0:09:15.520 --> 0:09:19.120 the basis of I don't know, minor tweaks of existing products, 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.480 stuff that's already in the pipeline. You know, it's a 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:25.640 tight market for technical labor. You're probably going to be 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.120 pretty interested in going to work for somebody else. So 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:32.240 you might also notice that the demographics are changing because 0:09:32.280 --> 0:09:35.440 the young and enthusiastic folks who have a future are 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:38.600 leaving or not joining, and that too, of course, is 0:09:38.600 --> 0:09:41.559 a significant change in the fabric of your workplace. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:45.360 So that was from our conversation with Richard Abulafia, one 0:09:45.360 --> 0:09:49.040 of the best aerospace analysts around that I know, And 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:51.640 it's just kind of yeah, it's kind of mind blowing 0:09:51.840 --> 0:09:56.600 a thirty year gap between America's premier aerospace company actually 0:09:56.640 --> 0:09:58.760 designing a clean sheet aircraft. 0:09:58.880 --> 0:10:01.559 I think it's chilling. That might have been to my mind, 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:03.880 that stuck with me all year, and maybe the most 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.360 chilling thing we've learned, because you know, we talk, for example, 0:10:06.360 --> 0:10:10.880 in other industries about knowledge and talent loss. Nuclear comes 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:13.640 up a lot, for example, building a nuclear station, what 0:10:13.840 --> 0:10:19.480 happens when America's one commercial maker of civil aviation jets 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.280 doesn't have very many people that know how to design 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.120 a jet like I actually find it to be a 0:10:25.200 --> 0:10:25.840 chilling fact. 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:26.880 No, absolutely. 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:46.800 Our next clip comes from Igor Smelansky. He's the CEO 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:50.080 of the Ukraine Postal Service and he talks to us. 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.560 You know, they used to talk about technological leapfrogging and 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:56.079 how ems went to wireless before they ever had wirelines. 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.040 Something similar going on with a post office there. 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:02.319 Take a listen when we talk about the occupied areas, 0:11:02.760 --> 0:11:06.160 Russians destroy the entire infrastructure, which means when Ukraine the 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.520 occupies these villages for about five to six weeks, you 0:11:09.559 --> 0:11:13.920 don't have mobile connection, you don't have electricity, but we 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.360 have to work because you cannot leave people in the vacuum. 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.240 Not to mention, they would operate in Russian rubles, and 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:22.160 we want to bring them back to Ukraine, so you 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:24.600 have to bring them Ukrainian currency, and we at the 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:27.240 first company they see. We're trying the best we can 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:32.040 to implement automatic sorting lines. Our goal for the c 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:34.560 I know it sounds weird during the war, but we 0:11:34.600 --> 0:11:37.440 want to be one hundred percent digital even when there's 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.280 no digital meaning we build a system where in the 0:11:40.360 --> 0:11:45.000 morning our mail carriers will download through startlingk and generators 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:48.120 the data worker during the day and then upload the 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.520 data at night, which means again we are not dependent 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.240 on the infrastructure if Russians, you know, shut down the 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.120 electricity or mobile or anything. This starlink has been really 0:11:58.160 --> 0:12:02.200 a sabor to us be able to run internet cables 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:04.360 in those areas, right, I mean, it just will be 0:12:04.400 --> 0:12:07.880 millions of dollars. Probably it will run through the field 0:12:07.880 --> 0:12:09.840 which you need to demine, and then Russians can bumm 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:12.160 it again and it can go off, et cetera. So 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:16.600 via Startling you're flexible enough. Then you well, when you 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.480 combine startling and a generator, when you combine the two, 0:12:19.800 --> 0:12:23.160 you're basically no longer dependent on the central infrastructure and 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.800 you can provide civil height services right away, not you know, 0:12:26.880 --> 0:12:31.640 not five months after the occupation, not three months after 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:34.360 Russian destroyed the buildings today, like for example it was 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:37.520 in our case, So we rebuilt it, we put up 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.480 the Startling generator, and we get back to work. So 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:43.320 you know, it's like a sory of broken windows. You 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.400 cannot have that you should have the services, and the 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:50.120 startling allows you to have that connection to the world. 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:53.600 Yeah, that was a really extraordinary fact, just thinking about 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:56.680 how quickly you can rebuild a service that would have 0:12:56.720 --> 0:12:59.920 taken weeks and weeks or months and months of infrastructure. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:03.080 We did another episode also this year, now that I 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.400 think about it, about a sort of Elon Musk's dominance 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.680 of the skies and satellites, and it really is fascinating. 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.319 I guess the consequence of that, but one very interesting 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:16.320 one is that you can have a whole infrastructure that 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.959 probably took years to develop and maintain and now in 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.600 some places replicated least some of those services almost overnight. 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:25.680 You know what the best part of this episode was, 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.960 uh what I think afterwards? You uh started ordering a 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:31.680 couple things from Ukraine, Right. 0:13:31.679 --> 0:13:32.160 That's right. 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:36.079 I started buying things on eBay and a number of 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:39.280 them did come through Ukraine, including some used books recently. 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:41.880 Yeah, I know, it's kind it's kind of crazy. Yeah, 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:44.280 you can order stuff from a war zone, but there 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.800 we are. The postal service in Ukraine is still working. 0:13:47.160 --> 0:13:49.839 We'll see whether or not they go one hundred percent digital. Yeah, 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:54.479 all right, next, Uh, this was a pretty fun episode, 0:13:54.559 --> 0:13:58.080 we spoke with Isaac rose Berman, who's a professional sports 0:13:58.120 --> 0:14:02.319 gambler and the author of How Gambling Works newsletter. He 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.200 talked about how professional sports betters basically have to trick 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:10.000 betting platforms into thinking they're stupid. Take a listen. 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:12.640 So another thing that a lot of people do, obviously 0:14:12.720 --> 0:14:14.640 is you bet on other people's accounts. You know, you 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.440 go and you get your roommate's account, your mom's account, 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.560 your friend's account, and you're just constantly cycling through different accounts. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:23.760 I'm not advocating for that, that's against the terms and 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:26.080 conditions of these sites, but that's just a reality. And 0:14:26.120 --> 0:14:29.080 that's how a lot of betters are able to get 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:31.440 down a sufficient amount of volume, especially when they're constantly 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.800 getting kicked out. And the real thing is that, you know, 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:35.760 you're just you have to disguise your bets in a 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.600 way that they don't they don't see or they don't 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.560 realize that what you're doing. And so one of the 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:45.200 common ways that sportsbooks identify and profile their customers is 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.680 based on the first few bets that you place. So 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.200 one thing that a lot of people do that's really 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.760 quite silly, in my opinion, is no you go into 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:54.360 a book and you bet a bunch of stuff that's 0:14:54.440 --> 0:14:57.400 pretty obviously a really smart bet. You know, if you 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:00.000 open up an account and you're betting the maximum amount 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:03.320 out on you know, Bulgarian table tennis, and you keep winning, 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:05.080 and then you know, I have friends who come to 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:06.560 me and they're like, Isaac, you know, why did I 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:07.800 get kicked out of this book? And I look at 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.280 their bet history and they're betting on the most obscure 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:12.840 stuff at like random times for very large amounts, and 0:15:12.880 --> 0:15:15.320 it's like, yeah, you know, these these companies aren't dumb. 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:17.840 So the main way is, you know, you when you 0:15:17.880 --> 0:15:20.000 open up an account, you place a bunch of bets 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.400 which look kind of normal. You bet on some NBA 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.120 Maybe these bets won't have a positive expression. Bet for 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.760 the home team exactly exactly. You know, you're in New York, 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:29.720 you want to bet on the Yankees. You place a 0:15:29.760 --> 0:15:31.480 bunch of bets which in the short run they might 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:33.320 lose a little bit of money, but in the long 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:35.080 run they'll make you money because they're kind of putting 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:36.040 the sportsbook off your scent. 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:38.800 Jarre, that was pretty funny, and I got to say, 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:41.560 I feel like I don't have much promise in terms 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:44.280 of actually making money from sports betting, So maybe I 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.440 should be selling my account to someone. 0:15:46.600 --> 0:15:48.960 You opened some accounts and rent that out. But seriously, 0:15:48.960 --> 0:15:51.360 that was a really disturbing episode because I already knew 0:15:51.440 --> 0:15:54.800 that there's all these problems with online gambling, addiction and 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.440 so forth, but then the fact that essentially you can't 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:00.960 really win because if you're good at it, they'll constrain 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:02.600 you so much, and that if you're bad at it 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:07.320 sort of deeply, deeply disturbing episode to me. 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.240 Yeah, well, you know, they set the odds, they set 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:10.760 the terms. 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:11.600 Yeah. 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.040 So one of the things that's come up a lot 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.120 as a theme on the podcast this year and the 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:21.240 year before and etcetera, is with the energy transition, other 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:26.880 commodities besides oil are of deep importance and deep geostrategic importance, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:29.040 et cetera. And there are various commodities that go into 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:31.320 batteries and other things like that, and so we sort 0:16:31.320 --> 0:16:33.560 of have to rethink our world map of where the 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:38.000 important spots are. And a really crucial area is Indonesia, 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:41.080 which has a dominant grip on the global nickel market 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:44.160 in partnership to some extent with China, and we had 0:16:44.160 --> 0:16:47.080 a great conversation with Michael Widmer, head of Metals Research 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:49.160 at Bank of America on what's going on. 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:52.760 When you're looking at the biggest players in the space. 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:55.120 It has actually changed a lot, and you mentioned it 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:58.920 already in the at the outset. Historically, when you're looking 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.680 at it, you had Russia as a big nickel producer, 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:05.119 Australia as a big nickel producer, the Philippines were in 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.840 the fold as well, Canada to some extent too. But 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:12.720 what's happened recently is as the energy transition started to 0:17:12.840 --> 0:17:18.560 take off, market participants were really focused on increasing nickel 0:17:18.600 --> 0:17:22.600 supply quickly. And there's one country that just jumped at 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.600 the industry. In that country is Indonesia. It has the 0:17:25.600 --> 0:17:29.000 weather type of war, but it has that in abundance, 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:31.320 so it's very easy to actually take it out of 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.400 the ground. And the Chinese went into Indonesia, were very 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:38.560 innovative also in the production technologies and managed to take 0:17:38.720 --> 0:17:41.240 the nickel out that they then needed to drive the 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.280 ev battery industry. And one of the things that the 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.840 Chinese government realized very early on is if you have 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:52.080 a strong demand growth for evs. You also need the romatiers, 0:17:52.400 --> 0:17:56.240 and particularly the battery roma tiers. Without batteries, TVs don't 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.000 go very fon. So the Chinese government looked at where 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.879 where some of those battery romatials are. They did it 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:07.040 in lithium, another battery romatial, they did in cobalt, and 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:10.280 they did also in nickel. And in twenty thirteen the 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:14.600 two presidents of China and Indonesia effectively set together and 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:16.760 the discussion pretty much went like that. The Chinese said, 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.040 look beneath the nico. The Dnetian said, well, we have 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.199 the nickel. The Chinese said, well, can be invested, and 0:18:21.200 --> 0:18:24.520 then he said, yeah, do. Let's developed that industry together. 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.240 And so the Indonesian government then, together with the Chinese, 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:30.520 set up industrial parks, and through that industrial park, supported 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.280 by Chinese money, the nickel industry and then developed very 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:36.040 very quickly. 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:40.080 Tracy, you know, when I listen to these conversations about 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:44.360 the sort of global supply chains, global hold and key commodities, 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:46.639 let's just put this way, we have some catching up 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:49.280 to There's a lot of talk in this country about 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.800 things right now, and maybe there are ways to sort 0:18:51.800 --> 0:18:55.520 of buffer some of the economic or national security concerns 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.040 about some of this stuff, but other places have been 0:18:58.040 --> 0:18:59.320 thinking about this stuff for a long time. 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:03.160 No, it's true, and China here has been incredibly strategic 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:07.159 about basically, you know, helping to set up Indonesia's nickel 0:19:07.240 --> 0:19:10.040 industry and making sure that they're sort of first in 0:19:10.200 --> 0:19:13.640 line to get that metal. So yeah, quite a long 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:16.200 ways to go, all right. Next up, we have Harvard 0:19:16.240 --> 0:19:19.840 Law School professor Jared Elias and Duke University School of 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:24.400 Law professor Elizabeth Defont. Today they're talking about how private 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.680 credit has swallowed the economy, and I think the takeaway 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:32.320 from this is that private credit is basically already changing 0:19:32.600 --> 0:19:35.320 the world of debt and the way finance works. 0:19:36.160 --> 0:19:40.959 So you can have concerns both for the investors themselves 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:44.520 and for sort of the broader economy or the broader market. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:47.680 And that's the issue with private credit. We have heard 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.280 a lot from people about concerns about the marks that 0:19:51.320 --> 0:19:53.960 people are carrying these private credit loans at, and that 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:57.480 they might be entirely stale, they might be largely overstated. 0:19:57.920 --> 0:20:01.879 There's really no way to know until exit that investment. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.679 And that's exactly how it is on the private equity 0:20:04.720 --> 0:20:06.560 side that you know, if a private equity fund buys 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:09.639 a portfolio company, who on earth knows what that company 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.880 is worth until they actually finally exit that and there 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.119 is some misvaluation and so on. That's the question is 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:18.760 can we have that both on the equity side and 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:20.840 on the debt side? What does that mean for our 0:20:20.880 --> 0:20:25.440 economy if we are suddenly just very liquid for almost 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:26.440 all of the companies. 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.000 Yeah, and so something to think about is the broadly 0:20:30.040 --> 0:20:32.760 syndicated debt world and the high yield world of debt 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:36.720 in created this benefit for all of us. And that 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:39.840 benefit was we could follow the trading crisis of debt 0:20:39.880 --> 0:20:42.639 and real time and get a sense of where are 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.639 their problems in our economy, what sectors are in trouble? 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.400 Like I think about COVID nineteen, So COVID nineteen hits. 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:51.040 We're all watching, like, what are the debt prices of 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.240 the big hotel companies telling us about the likelihood those 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:55.320 hotel companies. 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:55.840 Go into bankruptcy. 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:59.560 Congress and regulators can look at those signals and say, Okay, 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:02.480 we've got to do something really special for the airlines. 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:04.760