Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisenthal. Joe, it's my
Speaker 1: favorite time of years.
Speaker 2: That could mean so many things.
Speaker 1: That's right, it's earning season again. No, it is the
Speaker 1: holiday season, the festive season. More importantly, it is our
Speaker 1: annual ask Me Anything episode.
Speaker 2: I love the end of the year because rather than
Speaker 2: you know, like coming up with new guests and like
Speaker 2: figuring out what the big stories are, round up episodes
Speaker 2: and sort of look backs and retrospective No, but for real,
Speaker 2: I genuinely enjoyed this episode.
Speaker 1: I like it. I like that it has that old
Speaker 1: timey radio call in feel. And I always like to
Speaker 1: hear what's sort of resonating with our listeners and what
Speaker 1: they're curious to hear more about.
Speaker 2: Totally, And you know, sometimes people are cure about us
Speaker 2: and our careers and stuff, and I don't we don't
Speaker 2: really like, I don't know, I'm not that into like
Speaker 2: talking about ourselves. You know, I want to be the
Speaker 2: question asker.
Speaker 1: You know, that's why we went into journalism.
Speaker 2: But it's fun to hear what people are curious about.
Speaker 2: And every once in a while, I guess having the
Speaker 2: microphones turned so to speak.
Speaker 1: Yes, So we invited all of our listeners and readers
Speaker 1: and discord subscribers to send in their questions, anything at
Speaker 1: all that they wanted to ask us, and we have
Speaker 1: a selection of those questions here. So, without further ado,
Speaker 1: why don't we hear from our first.
Speaker 3: Caller, Alfredo as of now I live in Bonn, Germany.
Speaker 3: I had a question pertaining to how you actually started
Speaker 3: the podcast where you got the idea. Now you two
Speaker 3: went from being co workers to co hosts on a
Speaker 3: podcast so niche and so interesting.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Alfredo. I'll start with that one. There was
Speaker 2: no real plan, I think. So Tracy and I started
Speaker 2: working together here at Bloomberg in twenty fifteen, and we
Speaker 2: were doing digital stuff and we've had a variety of jobs.
Speaker 2: But uh, I think it was sometime in twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: podcasts were getting big or starting to grow, and I
Speaker 2: turned to Tracy and I said, you want to do
Speaker 2: a podcast together? And she said, uh, yep, that's my
Speaker 2: memory of it.
Speaker 1: It's a good thing. I said, yes. What if I
Speaker 1: said no, I have too much other stuff to do.
Speaker 2: No's We did have a lot of stuff on our
Speaker 2: plate in those days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I think at one point Joe and
Speaker 1: I were doing three different jobs if you include the podcast.
Speaker 1: You know, we were going on TV, we were managing
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg News desk. Lots of stuff going on. But
Speaker 1: I am really glad that we started it in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 1: If you go back and listen to some of our
Speaker 1: early episodes, don't well, now they are a little bit
Speaker 1: embarrassing because you can tell that we were sort of
Speaker 1: learning as we went, But they are also some of
Speaker 1: my favorite episodes. So one of our very first ones
Speaker 1: was an episode about the Banana of the Banana, how
Speaker 1: the world ended up with a boring banana. There are
Speaker 1: some really interesting episodes with an archaeologist Arthur Demerist. Those
Speaker 1: are still they live free in my head.
Speaker 2: Do you remember the catfish bubble episodes? Yes, we did
Speaker 2: some real niche stuff back in the day, and of
Speaker 2: course that I think that still exists. But we were
Speaker 2: like the news was like, oh, what's that Like, We're
Speaker 2: way off the news back in those days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm glad we started it. It's turned into
Speaker 1: a really great place to actually dive into topics and
Speaker 1: learn more about them in a more I guess, intense
Speaker 1: way than you can necessarily through other journalistic mediums. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how it started.
Speaker 2: And I definitely didn't think this would be our main jobs.
Speaker 2: I always figuring no side hobby of it, or it
Speaker 2: was like a side job of a side job. So
Speaker 2: when I turned to Tracey, I said, should we do
Speaker 2: a podcast? It was definitely not like, this is what
Speaker 2: we are going to do with our careers. So this
Speaker 2: has been fun.
Speaker 4: This is producer Kale. Before we go into our next question,
Speaker 4: could you also say why and how you came up
Speaker 4: with the name of lots.
Speaker 1: Oh, we were looking for something that wouldn't necessarily pigeonhole
Speaker 1: us in one topic, and I think all thoughts came
Speaker 1: from It's a bond market term that I knew back then.
Speaker 1: It's basically like an order of a non standard size,
Speaker 1: and I thought the idea of oddity or non standard
Speaker 1: size was kind of perfect for what we wanted to do,
Speaker 1: because we wanted to dig into things that weren't necessarily
Speaker 1: at the forefront of the news cycle, and we wanted
Speaker 1: to do it in a slightly different way where we
Speaker 1: wouldn't sacrifice nuance and detail, just for like, you know,
Speaker 1: a five minute here are the important bullet points about
Speaker 1: this particular topic. We wanted to cover it in a
Speaker 1: slightly different way, and so I think the all Thot's
Speaker 1: name turned out to be perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I like the fact that, like, you don't
Speaker 2: necessarily know what it's about.
Speaker 1: I feel it's given us a lot of flexibility over
Speaker 1: the years.
Speaker 2: And finance media can be a little bit cliche, you know,
Speaker 2: you can you just sort of pick some random words
Speaker 2: like you're doing for jerad or poetry, like marketwire or
Speaker 2: market whatever it is. And so I like that you
Speaker 2: don't really it's not too it doesn't beat you over
Speaker 2: the head with the idea that this is a markets
Speaker 2: podcast or an economics podcast.
Speaker 5: Hi, Tracy and Joe, I love the show. This is
Speaker 5: Jeffrey ting from Chicago. I'm an actuary. And my question
Speaker 5: for you too is at what point did you decide
Speaker 5: to introduce each guest as the perfect guest in every episode?
Speaker 2: I don't think we ever actually decided that. I think
Speaker 2: if you go back and listen to a lot of
Speaker 2: our old episodes, it took us a while to get
Speaker 2: into a rhythm of even introductions are old. How we
Speaker 2: do it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we used to include our full job titles
Speaker 1: and it took like five minutes just to do the
Speaker 1: introduction for ourselves.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 2: Also, remember like we used to do this thing where
Speaker 2: like we would sort of pretend that one of us
Speaker 2: didn't know what the episode was gonna go. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: we did all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it wasn't pretending though, because we were doing it
Speaker 1: on such an ad hoc casual basis that sometimes we
Speaker 1: genuinely didn't know who had been booked.
Speaker 2: But one thing I'll say is that I learned by
Speaker 2: the way. Our first ever guest was our colleague Tom Keane.
Speaker 2: And one thing, having watched Tom Keen on TV over
Speaker 2: the years, he is. One thing that he's great is
Speaker 2: he sort of like puffs up the guests. And there's
Speaker 2: a good reason for that. If the guest is here,
Speaker 2: it's because you think they're great, because if they're not
Speaker 2: the perfect guest, why are you talking to them? So
Speaker 2: I sort of always thought that that was a great
Speaker 2: thing that Tom did, which is make the guest feel special,
Speaker 2: make the audience feel like, yeah, we're really excited about
Speaker 2: talking to this person. So I think that's sort of
Speaker 2: part of how it slipped into our consciousness.
Speaker 7: To do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, none of the sort of taglines that people are
Speaker 1: familiar with now, like let's leave it there, shall we
Speaker 1: leave it there? None of that was premeditation. It just
Speaker 1: kind of came naturally, and then we kept doing it.
Speaker 1: And especially with the perfect Guest, I feel like if
Speaker 1: you say it once, it's sort of an insult to
Speaker 1: other people if you don't also call them.
Speaker 2: In the perfect guest. Yeah, you can always say it,
Speaker 2: but it's never intentional.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 8: Hi, my name is Roy. I'm from Detroit, Michigan. And
Speaker 8: my question was, how do you find the perfect guests?
Speaker 8: If you have an idea for a specific episode, like
Speaker 8: the legal cannabis market in New York or energy drinks
Speaker 8: with small modular nuclear reactors, does the episode idea come first?
Speaker 8: And if so, how do you find the right person
Speaker 8: to speak to that?
Speaker 9: Hi?
Speaker 1: Roy from Michigan. So there are a couple of ways
Speaker 1: we go about finding the proverbial perfect guests. So sometimes
Speaker 1: we have an idea for an episode. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: there's an episode that I really want to do right
Speaker 1: now about why headlights on cars are so freaking bright nowadays,
Speaker 1: And so we're sort of in the early processes of
Speaker 1: trying to find good people for that, and the way
Speaker 1: we typically go about it is we'll often look on Twitter,
Speaker 1: because frankly, if your whole life is tweeting about one
Speaker 1: particular topic, the chances are you would make a really
Speaker 1: good Add Lots guest if you sort of eat, breathe,
Speaker 1: and discuss particular topics. And also sometimes we'll just come
Speaker 1: across someone who we think is very very interesting, who
Speaker 1: we think would be fascinating to talk to, and so
Speaker 1: we'll do it that way too. There's sort of a
Speaker 1: variety of ways that we go about it. Sometimes we'll
Speaker 1: read research, We'll pick out particular academics that we think
Speaker 1: have done really interesting papers on a particular topic. We
Speaker 1: can kind of come across them anyway. But I will
Speaker 1: say in more recent years, one of the ways we
Speaker 1: have been finding more people is through suggestions from listeners.
Speaker 1: And so we sort of have this network now of
Speaker 1: people in the All Lots world who might hear that
Speaker 1: we are interested in doing a particular show topic, and
Speaker 1: we'll make a suggestion for someone that they think is
Speaker 1: really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, a lot of the guests that we
Speaker 2: have themselves will pitch a guest like, oh, you're interested
Speaker 2: in that point, I know someone who'd be good. It
Speaker 2: really is all different kinds of things. But you know,
Speaker 2: at the end of a lot of episodes, we're like,
Speaker 2: we should do an episode on this, we should do
Speaker 2: an episode on that, And then someone hears that and
Speaker 2: they said, hey, I know the perfect person. So it
Speaker 2: really is sort of as the network and community and
Speaker 2: audience builds, we get it makes it easier to find people.
Speaker 10: Hey Tracy, Hey Joe, this is Ethan from Annapolis, Maryland.
Speaker 10: With the cryptocurrency total market cap up over one hundred
Speaker 10: percent this year to north on one point five trillion,
Speaker 10: I was wondering what your guys general thoughts were on
Speaker 10: the industry and its outlook going forward, and specifically if
Speaker 10: you had looked into Solana or Avalanche or any of
Speaker 10: the gaming things going on.
Speaker 1: We can't escape crypto, can we.
Speaker 2: You know what I think is really funny for so
Speaker 2: he mentioned, I think the total market cap of all
Speaker 2: cryptocurrencies is like one point seven billion or something like that,
Speaker 2: which is kind of big, but like the market cap
Speaker 2: of Apple is three billion. So what I kind of
Speaker 2: find to be fascinating about the crypto industry so to speak,
Speaker 2: is that the entire thing, which has like captured so
Speaker 2: much public attention over the last decade and executives talk
Speaker 2: about all the time, and this huge culture smaller still
Speaker 2: the entire thing than one prominent companies, and there are
Speaker 2: other companies that are you know, about as big as well,
Speaker 2: So I kind of find that fascinating. For like, all
Speaker 2: of this attention and fascination still feels kind of small
Speaker 2: to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, look, Joe and I could probably
Speaker 1: do this entire show just talking about crypto. But part
Speaker 1: of me thinks, I can't believe we're doing this again,
Speaker 1: and some of the froth that we've seen in the
Speaker 1: market is already reminiscent of stuff that was happening in like,
Speaker 1: you know, twenty twenty, twenty twenty one. But the other
Speaker 1: part of me, and I've written about this, thinks that
Speaker 1: crypto kind of there's a reason people are really into it,
Speaker 1: And personally, I think it has to do with like
Speaker 1: it's so sort of post modern that you can make
Speaker 1: it anything that you want it to be. And some
Speaker 1: people have dubbed this the narrative flexibility of crypto, So
Speaker 1: the idea that when it first started, you know, it
Speaker 1: was sort of post two thousand and eight. Central banks
Speaker 1: were intervening in the market for the first time in
Speaker 1: a long time in such a dramatic way, and people
Speaker 1: thought of it as like central bank proof currency, and
Speaker 1: that was the big attraction. And then as it matured,
Speaker 1: it was you know, it was digital gold, it was
Speaker 1: inflation proof. Then earlier this year, when we had the
Speaker 1: banking crisis, it was like an anti bank bank proof currency.
Speaker 1: And it just sort of moves from thing to thing
Speaker 1: to thing, and I think that gives it a resilience
Speaker 1: or a sort of attraction that is far longer lived
Speaker 1: than a lot of people give it credit for. That
Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, it's the future of
Speaker 1: money or it's the way we're going to do transactions.
Speaker 1: And Joe and I have talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: on the podcast, that the idea that despite you know,
Speaker 1: more than a decade of cryptocurrency existing, we have yet
Speaker 1: to see a real use case. I don't think like
Speaker 1: either of us have been convinced of a real use
Speaker 1: case here, But the fact that it's so kind of
Speaker 1: detached from reality means that it is excellent for pinning
Speaker 1: a narrative too, and we've seen that time and time
Speaker 1: again at this point.
Speaker 2: And I'll just add to the questioner like on some
Speaker 2: of these alt layer ones like Evalanche and Solana, I
Speaker 2: haven't checked in lately on the state of crypto games.
Speaker 2: I sort of get it in theory, but I still
Speaker 2: have yet to hear of one that's like genuinely fun
Speaker 2: and not just a thing, you know. You know, we
Speaker 2: started talked about this in our recent Magic episode where
Speaker 2: Magic the gathering cards. You could make a lot of
Speaker 2: money at some point if you held the right ones,
Speaker 2: but the game was also just really fun to play.
Speaker 2: If there's really a fun game in crypto that people
Speaker 2: are excited about playing for the gameplay itself and it's
Speaker 2: not really about making money on and if tas or something,
Speaker 2: I would love to see one. So if someone wants
Speaker 2: to shoot one to me and show it to me,
Speaker 2: I'd love to check out.
Speaker 6: My name is Scott from the University of Paso where
Speaker 6: I teach business English. Tracy. I'm just sort of interested
Speaker 6: because I think you once said in one episode that
Speaker 6: you have an Austrian connection. Just sort of curious what
Speaker 6: that connection is.
Speaker 1: Hi, Scott, Yeah, sure that is an easy one. My
Speaker 1: mother is Austrian. She's from a relatively small town called
Speaker 1: Clogginfoot near the southern border with Italy, and I used
Speaker 1: to go there all the time when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: I tried my best to learn German, but as a
Speaker 1: person who hates grammar, I will say it's a struggle.
Speaker 1: I can understand pretty much anything, but my grammar is
Speaker 1: still pretty bad. But yeah, I'm half Austrian. That's it.
Speaker 8: My name is Gabrielle from Columbus, Ohio, and I'm a
Speaker 8: huge fan of the podcast.
Speaker 5: My question is, if you were forced to.
Speaker 7: Make the case, how would you steal man Austrian economics.
Speaker 1: That's a good one, Joe, you go first.
Speaker 2: I could definitely do it. I mean I'm very ideologically millieable.
Speaker 2: I don't have strong views on anything. So if someone said,
Speaker 2: you know what, go steal man ex Austrian economics or
Speaker 2: anything else, I'm sure I could do it. Look, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think there's something real to this idea that monetary
Speaker 2: constraints are important and that obviously you know that there
Speaker 2: can be such thing obviously as too much money, too
Speaker 2: much money printing, and that could cause inflation. It could
Speaker 2: cause difficulty in uh business planning, et cetera. And so
Speaker 2: the idea of like taking that to some extreme that
Speaker 2: like you come up with some sort of optimal productive
Speaker 2: outcome by virtue of some sort of very serious commitment
Speaker 2: to monetary scarcity. I think there are weaknesses in this idea,
Speaker 2: and I think there's almost a sort of utopian fantasy
Speaker 2: that if we have an entire monetary system around to
Speaker 2: enforcing that scarcity, then all kinds of problems get solved.
Speaker 2: I think there's issues with Austrian theories of interest rates,
Speaker 2: but I don't think that it core. You know, I
Speaker 2: think you could tell an argument or tell a story
Speaker 2: about Austrian economics that people would find compelling, like built
Speaker 2: around this idea, I would I think I could do
Speaker 2: it if given some practice.
Speaker 1: Someone's going to force you to do this. Now, can
Speaker 1: I just say, I'm very happy that this has turned
Speaker 1: into an Austrian Austrian So okay, if I was forced
Speaker 1: to steal man Austrian economics, I would simply call up
Speaker 1: my dad and ask him to do it, probably while
Speaker 1: stacking his horde of silver coins. That's what I would do.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's a good show idea.
Speaker 2: I Tracy, let's do it.
Speaker 11: Hey, Tracy and Joe Ryan from Seattle, longtime listener. I
Speaker 11: want to know what the two of you talked about
Speaker 11: when the tapes stopped rolling after the infamous SBF episode.
Speaker 1: That's a good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I think we were mostly still in shock,
Speaker 1: and if you listen to the episode, you can sort
Speaker 1: of hear it at the end when we do the outro.
Speaker 1: I mean, we are in shock and we literally say
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the one thing I'll say is that
Speaker 2: that was a rare moment in life where I knew
Speaker 2: something major had happened right then that people would talk
Speaker 2: about for a long time, and that in this sort
Speaker 2: of like history of crypto or whatever, this would be
Speaker 2: a mile marker. And I mean, you know, the week
Speaker 2: after that episode recorded or air, sorry, the week after
Speaker 2: that aired, SBF was in the Bahamas on stage with
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton and the former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair
Speaker 2: at their big conference, and I just remember thinking to
Speaker 2: my and he was in shorts and sneakers and they
Speaker 2: were in suits, and I just remember thinking to myself, okay,
Speaker 2: And one week he sort of described crypto more or
Speaker 2: less as a Ponzi scheme. And then a week later
Speaker 2: on stage with these two heads of STATA, I was like,
Speaker 2: this is a turning point, and I just intuitively felt
Speaker 2: it in real time right then.
Speaker 1: It was very surreal. One journalistic process question. I mean,
Speaker 1: we knew we were going to write the comments up
Speaker 1: and publish an article, so we set about doing that,
Speaker 1: and one thing we made sure to do was we
Speaker 1: made sure that the resulting story was free outside of
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg paywall, so that anyone could read it, and
Speaker 1: so that it could kind of get as many legs
Speaker 1: as it could as a sort of I guess public service.
Speaker 2: Also, the headline of that story was SBF described yield
Speaker 2: I left Matt Levine stunned. I feel like that was
Speaker 2: a recognition that part of the story was leaving a stunt,
Speaker 2: leaving mad stunned, and so we sort of recognized that
Speaker 2: at the time. It wasn't just that he sort of
Speaker 2: described very clearly of the ponzonomics, but that our milder
Speaker 2: sort of gape. He said the.
Speaker 1: Quiet part out loud, which was the major surprise there.
Speaker 1: I think when I.
Speaker 9: Miss Corey, i'mrom New York City, what would you say?
Speaker 9: Is your most unpopular food opinion?
Speaker 1: Most unpopular food opinion. I can't tell what's popular and
Speaker 1: what isn't.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 1: Oh, I hate uh intermittent fasting. I think it's an
Speaker 1: incredibly clever rebranding of what women have for decades called
Speaker 1: dieting or crash dieting. And we were very much not
Speaker 1: encouraged to talk about dieting in a public setting, especially
Speaker 1: the office. But somehow, if you're intermittent fasting, it's completely
Speaker 1: acceptable to wander around the office and say that you're
Speaker 1: about to faint because you haven't eaten for three days.
Speaker 2: That's a really good take. My I really like almost
Speaker 2: all food. I consider myself like sort of like an
Speaker 2: enthusiastic omnivoral try anything. This might be sort of scandalous,
Speaker 2: but I'm not into like locks or smoked fish Joes.
Speaker 1: Oh, I hate locks, okay.
Speaker 2: And I feel like, you know, I grew up like
Speaker 2: a Jewish family, like people eating bagels and locks and
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and I just like, I feel like
Speaker 2: I should like it.
Speaker 1: I like fish, You like sushi that we've had sushi totally?
Speaker 2: Uh, smoked fish generally, it's just what those various flavors
Speaker 2: of fish that people put on bagels. It doesn't do
Speaker 2: it for me.
Speaker 1: I generally don't like fish very much, as you know. Actually,
Speaker 1: this is a funny story. The first time Joe ever
Speaker 1: invited me over to his place for dinner, he asked
Speaker 1: me if there is anything I don't eat, and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not a big fan of fish, and then he
Speaker 1: sorry about that, and then he made a poke ball
Speaker 1: with raw tuna for dinner and it was very good.
Speaker 1: And it's not that I will never eat fish, it's
Speaker 1: just not it's not my favorite. I kind of have
Speaker 1: to be in the right mood for it.
Speaker 2: I was in those days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for sharing your poke passion, Joe.
Speaker 9: My name is Mike. I'm from New York and my
Speaker 9: question is really for the producers. How big of prima
Speaker 9: donnas are Joe and Tracy off the mics or are
Speaker 9: they really easy to deal with? And if you're not
Speaker 9: going to answer that question, my question for Joe and
Speaker 9: Tracy is in the era of Venmo and Zell, is
Speaker 9: fed now a solution in search of a problem or
Speaker 9: is there a real use case for it?
Speaker 1: Should we let the producers answer that question?
Speaker 4: Since we have about half a dozen producers on the
Speaker 4: show currently, I will say, uh, for the listeners, Joe
Speaker 4: and Tracy are probably the easiest people I've ever worked
Speaker 4: with as a pretty Kale.
Speaker 1: That is incredibly sweet, Kale. I feel like I have
Speaker 1: to say, you've only been working for us for like
Speaker 1: two months, but I appreciate that. But I'm sure it'll
Speaker 1: get worse.
Speaker 4: I'm sure it will, but it's also there. Joe and
Speaker 4: Tracy are both the most willing to do their their
Speaker 4: job every single day. I've worked with people who are
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit more reluctant to do this and
Speaker 4: you know, oh we have to go and we have
Speaker 4: to re record something, we have to you know, let's
Speaker 4: schedule one more episode for that same day. And Joe
Speaker 4: and Tracy are always completely willing and actually probably more
Speaker 4: often than not, pegging us to do more work. So
Speaker 4: they are the most willing and the most kind of
Speaker 4: on the spot capable people that I've worked with.
Speaker 2: It is very kind, that's true. I will just say
Speaker 2: on that last point, like, I really enjoy this job.
Speaker 2: I really. I think it's like a real privilege to
Speaker 2: get to host odd lots. So when you say, like
Speaker 2: we're into doing it, I really am, and I sort
Speaker 2: of feel the I guess, you know, it's an honor.
Speaker 2: It's great to be able to do this job, and
Speaker 2: that people listen to us. And so the idea of
Speaker 2: not wanting to put in the work or not being
Speaker 2: enthusiastic about showing up and recording even when there's something
Speaker 2: you know, extra takes time, like Ite's unfathomable to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, part of me still, I still can't believe that
Speaker 1: this is our main job now and we basically get
Speaker 1: paid to talk about things that we're interested in and
Speaker 1: to learn more about them. The other thing that I
Speaker 1: would say is Cale is one hundred percent correct that
Speaker 1: probably the main source of tension between us and the
Speaker 1: producers is that we constantly kind of want to tear
Speaker 1: up the schedule because we found something new and interesting. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and we want to get it out asap. And nine
Speaker 1: times out of ten they are comple deletely quilling and
Speaker 1: accommodating and very flexible and will let us kind of
Speaker 1: do that on a regular basis. So thank you guys
Speaker 1: for bearing with us in our enthusiasm to get stuff
Speaker 1: out quickly.
Speaker 4: Always our pleasure.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, as for the other question to me and
Speaker 1: Joe about FED now.
Speaker 11: I think it's.
Speaker 1: Really interesting because part of me cannot believe that the
Speaker 1: US has existed for so long without this kind of
Speaker 1: real time settlement program. And I think in our episode
Speaker 1: with Michael Barr, I mentioned this that in the UK,
Speaker 1: I can remember when an equivalent system came into being.
Speaker 1: I think it was like two thousand and eight or
Speaker 1: something like that. It was more than a decade ago,
Speaker 1: and here we are in twenty twenty three and the
Speaker 1: FED is unveiling and equivalent. That said, you're absolutely right
Speaker 1: that there is instantaneous payment technology that already exists. There's
Speaker 1: also the clear House system, and I think it's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting that the FED has basically created a competitor
Speaker 1: to the Clearinghouse payment system. And again we spoke about
Speaker 1: this with Michael Barr. It's going to be really interesting
Speaker 1: to see the take up for the FED system, how
Speaker 1: it compares with the Clearinghouse one, and whether or not
Speaker 1: we see different types of payments sort of splitting on
Speaker 1: those two channels.
Speaker 4: Right now, it's just myself and our rotator Oshna in
Speaker 4: the studio because all the other producers are currently out
Speaker 4: with COVID and one of them our show lead Carmen
Speaker 4: has a question for Joe and Tracy. While she's having
Speaker 4: COVID induced fever dreams. She's wondering if you have ever
Speaker 4: had any odd lots related dreams or nightmares.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know why she's asking this. It's because I
Speaker 1: posted in our little internal office chat. I posted a
Speaker 1: dream last week that was very all plotzy. Okay, I
Speaker 1: will I will answer this. I have extremely literal dreams
Speaker 1: that you can very easily connect with things that happened
Speaker 1: to me during that particular day. So recently, we had
Speaker 1: drinks with some of our listeners who are active in
Speaker 1: the discord, and one of them gave us a very
Speaker 1: nice present. It was some chocolate from Germany. It's really delicious.
Speaker 1: I've eaten it all already. And that day, I think
Speaker 1: during one of our recordings, I also I mispronounced something
Speaker 1: and so one of the producers asked me to re
Speaker 1: record a sentence, which is not an unusual practice in
Speaker 1: podcast land. And that night I had a dream where
Speaker 1: we met with one of our listeners and he gave
Speaker 1: us a present. It was like a card game, sort
Speaker 1: of like Cards against Humanity, and the name of the
Speaker 1: game was he dropped a consonant and she swallowed a.
Speaker 2: Vow and it was amazing.
Speaker 1: It was literally a game for spotting podcast hosts verbal tics.
Speaker 1: So if someone misstated something or mispronounced something, you would
Speaker 1: play a card, and I guess you would win by
Speaker 1: like playing the most cards or spotting the most verbal tics.
Speaker 1: And so yes, you can actively see me working out
Speaker 1: my issues in my dreams.
Speaker 2: As far as I know, I don't recall having like
Speaker 2: I can't think of one right now, but just Tracy, like,
Speaker 2: I don't think that game sounds that fun. No, but
Speaker 2: I think that's a great name for a game, and
Speaker 2: so I think you should come up with a game
Speaker 2: called was it He dropped a consonant, she dropped.
Speaker 1: Out, she swallowed a val Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 2: Great name for a game, So you got to figure
Speaker 2: out a game for it. I just don't think there's
Speaker 2: a big enough market for spotting podcast host verbal tics.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 1: I have a lot of like very literal finance trades.
Speaker 1: You know, when Ackman did really well on his treasury
Speaker 1: trades this year, I had a dream that he like
Speaker 1: called me up and asked me for a date, and
Speaker 1: his pitch was literally like I had a really good
Speaker 1: year in the bond market. You want to come out
Speaker 1: and talk about it.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's probably Tmimi.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we need all of the analysts and our audience
Speaker 4: to get on these stats.
Speaker 1: Hi, Joe and Tracy. My name is Devin, and I'm sure,
Speaker 1: And we were wondering, what's something that you've previously covered
Speaker 1: on odd lots that you most want to revisit in twenty.
Speaker 10: Twenty four, or kind of the inverse, if there's anything
Speaker 10: that you thought was going to be a really big
Speaker 10: deal of twenty twenty three that turned out not really
Speaker 10: to be.
Speaker 1: So I love that there's like a couple calling in
Speaker 1: and alternating sentences. Are they finishing each other's sentence?
Speaker 2: Is extremely sweet?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, something that we want to cover in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four. That's pretty easy, And we kind of alluded
Speaker 1: to this earlier when we were talking about our producers.
Speaker 1: But our major challenge is sort of streamlining all the
Speaker 1: things that we want to talk about and choosing among them.
Speaker 1: But I would say insurance is a big one for
Speaker 1: us right now, and I think it's kind of under
Speaker 1: discussed even within financial journalism, despite being this absolutely massive industry.
Speaker 1: I guess Historically it just hasn't been that sexy a topic.
Speaker 1: But we are starting to see the real world impact
Speaker 1: of insurance and it feels to me like, I think
Speaker 1: there was a book written about this a long time ago,
Speaker 1: and I read it, and I really wish I could
Speaker 1: remember the title and the author of it. But there's
Speaker 1: an argument to be made that in the current environment
Speaker 1: where we are seeing these sort of like one off
Speaker 1: risks multiplying or you know, cascading disruptions, whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call it, the insurers kind of become the arbiters
Speaker 1: of behavior and accepted industry practice. They're the ones making
Speaker 1: the decisions about whether or not they're going to compensate
Speaker 1: you for particular things, whether or not what you're doing
Speaker 1: is acceptable in their minds. And you've seen bits and
Speaker 1: pieces of this right so obviously real estate in Florida.
Speaker 1: The fact that insurance is becoming incredibly expensive and in
Speaker 1: some cases prohibitively so, is really interesting. But also, you know,
Speaker 1: like tankers in the Middle East, whether or not insurers
Speaker 1: are going to find it acceptable for people to keep
Speaker 1: going on the same routes that they historically have been.
Speaker 1: There are all these decisions being made by insurers that
Speaker 1: are having real life consequences, and I really want to
Speaker 1: dig more into that totally.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that like insurance just does not get the
Speaker 2: attention other sectors of finance. And I would add to
Speaker 2: that accounting, and there's these huge accounting companies, and accounting
Speaker 2: is so interesting, and whether it's sort of forensic accounting,
Speaker 2: whether it's just sort of how the rules of accounting
Speaker 2: end up influencing real life because obviously people make business
Speaker 2: decisions in part because of you know, in part because
Speaker 2: of accounting. Like it's not just it's not just scorekeeping,
Speaker 2: it really matters. And so sort of related to this
Speaker 2: idea that there's huge squaths of money and finance that
Speaker 2: just don't get much attention. I would like to do
Speaker 2: more on that.
Speaker 1: We were talking about listener gifts before. One of the
Speaker 1: best gifts I ever got was actually when I was
Speaker 1: on ft Alphaville, someone sent me a leather bound copy
Speaker 1: of a really famous and very good accounting book and
Speaker 1: that was amazing and I still have it and I've
Speaker 1: been meaning to put it on my desk, so I
Speaker 1: should probably do that in the new year.
Speaker 9: Hey, I'm Claude from New York.
Speaker 6: Tracy what'd you do with the coal in your basement?
Speaker 1: I've burned it all.
Speaker 2: It's such a popular question. How many times have you
Speaker 2: been asked this, Tracy, quite.
Speaker 1: A few times. The non interesting reality is that I
Speaker 1: used it. I burned it in the coal stove. The
Speaker 1: house we bought in Connecticut that were renovating had absolutely
Speaker 1: zero insulation. When we bought it, it was very, very cold.
Speaker 1: There's an old coal stove in the kitchen. We learned
Speaker 1: how to use it. It worked pretty well. It heated
Speaker 1: almost the entire house. We had a basement full of
Speaker 1: coal us going for a complete winter. And then this
Speaker 1: summer we insulated the attic, which I highly recommend doing
Speaker 1: for energy efficiency purposes, but it is not a fun
Speaker 1: job to blow in insulation. But now we have insulation,
Speaker 1: and so we've used up all the coal and we're
Speaker 1: just running normal heating oil and the house has been
Speaker 1: pretty warm.
Speaker 7: So I'm John, I'm from New York, and I did
Speaker 7: actually cancel a first date to be here and ask
Speaker 7: this question. So I wanted to know what Tracy's favorite
Speaker 7: light sweet crude song.
Speaker 1: Oh man, Okay, two things on that I would like
Speaker 1: to apologize to whoever your date was, but I guess
Speaker 1: thank you for being there. Secondly, I have yet to
Speaker 1: listen the scary embarrassing. No, I have yet to listen
Speaker 1: because I'm waiting for your show, which is tomorrow, and
Speaker 1: I want to be I want to go into it
Speaker 1: completely blind and be completely wowed by your performance. So
Speaker 1: no pressure, Joe.
Speaker 2: I'll okay, I'll accept that excuse, but then will you
Speaker 2: please give it some Spotify listens after that to boost
Speaker 2: our numbers?
Speaker 1: Well, I also don't have Spotify.
Speaker 2: Apple, whatever you use.
Speaker 1: I will I Well, to be fair, I've been talking
Speaker 1: about your show in many, many episodes, so it's not
Speaker 1: like I haven't been picking you up.
Speaker 2: That's totally true, but you've done more than enough.
Speaker 1: I genuinely want to go into it just completely blind
Speaker 1: and listen to it there, and I'm really I'm super
Speaker 1: excited about it. We're recording this on December eighteenth, and
Speaker 1: it's tomorrow on the nineteenth. Should I wear like country clothes?
Speaker 2: Definitely?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, okay, So our last question, once again
Speaker 4: comes from your producers, and we're wondering if you weren't
Speaker 4: doing this with us, if you weren't covering finance, is
Speaker 4: there any other topic you would ever podcast about.
Speaker 2: Ooh. For me, you would definitely have to be something
Speaker 2: music related like that is the when I'm not sort
Speaker 2: of in finance mind, I listen to music all the
Speaker 2: time as much as I can, and that is definitely
Speaker 2: you know, I say that is the one thing that
Speaker 2: you know. I've been obsessed with music of various flavors
Speaker 2: and genres my entire life, and if I were in
Speaker 2: a different industry, that would be what I would like.
Speaker 5: To be in.
Speaker 1: We should do more music economics episodes because there's so
Speaker 1: much to talk about. I mean, Taylor Swift would be
Speaker 1: a pretty easy one for me, I guess. I mean
Speaker 1: I have a lot of different hobbies, so any of those,
Speaker 1: but more conceptually, I really enjoy low level drama, and
Speaker 1: Joe will attest to this. I get very upset by
Speaker 1: like unfair things happening in the world.
Speaker 2: Someone who has like eight followers on Twitter will say
Speaker 2: something and Traca will turn to me and send me
Speaker 2: the tweet indignant.
Speaker 1: If it's unfair. It genuinely will bother me. So I
Speaker 1: think I would have something where I just like, what
Speaker 1: was that old family Guys sketch of like stuff that
Speaker 1: pissed off people.
Speaker 2: What about a podcast Tracy where we argue. Tracy argues
Speaker 2: with people in the comment and we invite people from
Speaker 2: the comment section, and I would do that and fight
Speaker 2: with them, but they can change their see if you
Speaker 2: can change their minds.
Speaker 1: There have been instances, I mean, a truism of the
Speaker 1: internet is like, hardly ever do you get someone saying,
Speaker 1: oh I was wrong and I apologize. But there have
Speaker 1: been a handful of instances where that has happened, where
Speaker 1: after I have argued with someone. And so those those
Speaker 1: five instances versus like thousands and thousands of comments, it
Speaker 1: was worth it. Joe keeps me.
Speaker 2: Going fell for twenty twenty four.
Speaker 1: Please don't say mean and unfair things to me on
Speaker 1: Twitter just to get a reaction, because it will.
Speaker 2: Work, Tracy. That was really fun. I love this tradition.
Speaker 2: I hope we do it for the next twenty years.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm always happy to answer anyone's questions. Joe and I
Speaker 1: are also obviously on Twitter and also on a discord,
Speaker 1: the Audlots Discord, so if you have even more questions,
Speaker 1: we can answer them there.
Speaker 2: And it is really I thank you so much to
Speaker 2: the listeners. Yeah, and the fact that there are like
Speaker 2: people who take time out of their day, even a couples,
Speaker 2: to record one and ask questions about our personal lives
Speaker 2: or things were interested. It really does mean a lot.
Speaker 2: Like it makes me very happy to hear all of those,
Speaker 2: to hear real people calling in so really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and whenever anyone says they listen to All Lots
Speaker 1: during their commute or while doing chores or working out,
Speaker 1: that makes me feel so happy that our conversations can
Speaker 1: make fairly routine things a little bit more bearable and interesting.
Speaker 1: So thank you to everyone who listened in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Send us your ideas for twenty twenty four, your guest ideas,
Speaker 1: your episode ideas. We are always eager to hear them.
Speaker 2: Love hearing from fans, love hearing from listeners absolutely. As
Speaker 2: Tracy said, ideas people sometimes feel apologetic like, oh, I
Speaker 2: bet you get lots of people suggesting this, but it's honestly,
Speaker 2: I know. We never mind hearing show ideas, guest ideas,
Speaker 2: topic ideas, etc. So keep it coming.
Speaker 1: On that note, shall we leave it there? Let's leave
Speaker 1: it there all right? This has been another episode of
Speaker 1: the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow
Speaker 1: me at Tracy Alloway.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe Wisenthal. You can follow me at The Stalwart.
Speaker 2: Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carman Arman Dashel Bennett
Speaker 2: at Dashbot, and kel Brooks at cal Brooks. And thank
Speaker 2: you to our producer Moses Onam. For more Odd Lots content,
Speaker 2: go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd Lots, where we
Speaker 2: have transcripts, blog and a newsletter. And check out our discord,
Speaker 2: where listeners like the ones who called in are chatting
Speaker 2: twenty four to seven about all of the topics we
Speaker 2: discuss them.
Speaker 1: And if you enjoy All Lots, if you like it
Speaker 1: when we do the annual Ask Me Anything episodes, then
Speaker 1: please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.