Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Allaway and I'm Joe Wise Joe. It is
Speaker 1: a very special episode of the Odd Blots podcast. It
Speaker 1: is the Christmas call in Show. I am very excited.
Speaker 1: We've never done you know, we've never done an episode
Speaker 1: like this. We've never really had like sort of listener participation,
Speaker 1: We've never had anything resembling a call in show. We've
Speaker 1: never really done an episode like about us, which feels
Speaker 1: a little narcissistic. I usually like being I like I
Speaker 1: like asking questions more than answering questions, right, That's why
Speaker 1: we all became journalists. But you're right, this is a
Speaker 1: special one for us. We asked people to send in
Speaker 1: audio recordings of them asking us questions, and we are
Speaker 1: now going to attempt to answer them. We also are
Speaker 1: doing this in in junction with our producer, Carmen Rodriguez.
Speaker 1: She is here with us right now. And Carmen, you
Speaker 1: put together some questions of your own, right I have?
Speaker 1: I have, And I just feel like I'm being robbed
Speaker 1: of my moment to say thanks for having me, so
Speaker 1: thanks for having me jumped right into the perfect way.
Speaker 1: I guess You're not the perfect guest, the perfect coast,
Speaker 1: the perfect host, the perfect co host, but it is
Speaker 1: exciting that the listeners are hearing your voice for the
Speaker 1: first time. I guess maybe they heard it on some
Speaker 1: of those live episodes. Maybe maybe. Anyway, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. I'm happy to be here, even the I'm
Speaker 1: here every day we are. We are happy to have
Speaker 1: you in front of the camera and the microphone UM
Speaker 1: as opposed to behind it for once. Uh, what's your
Speaker 1: first question? My first question is how did you meet
Speaker 1: and how was odd Lots born. I guess I'll start
Speaker 1: with the beginning, which is I remember the first time
Speaker 1: I met Joe, and you know, we we had both
Speaker 1: been covering UM finance and markets for a long time.
Speaker 1: Joe was at Business Insider at the time and I
Speaker 1: was at the Financial Times, And I remember I met
Speaker 1: him in a bar in Midtown and it must have
Speaker 1: been like two thousand twelve or it was in the
Speaker 1: midst of the Eurozone crisis, and we were having a
Speaker 1: sort of finance Twitter gathering, but Joe and I showed
Speaker 1: up first. And I remember, for those who have never
Speaker 1: met Joe in person, he can be intense and I
Speaker 1: remember there was no like, no chit chat. It was
Speaker 1: just like, Hi, I'm Tracy, Hi I'm Joe. And then
Speaker 1: Joe's first question was like, so you think the Eurozone
Speaker 1: is going to collapse? That was a yeah, no, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's Tracy is right about that. I'm not good at like,
Speaker 1: you know, chit chat and stuff like. I just want
Speaker 1: to get right into it. But anyway, obviously, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we hit it off pretty well despite the lack of chip.
Speaker 1: I joined Bloomberg in late so basically exactly eight years ago,
Speaker 1: and as part of like my job at Bloomberg is
Speaker 1: like evolved numerous times since then, like I've done numerous
Speaker 1: different things and different permutations. But one of the first
Speaker 1: things I was given the opportunity to do is Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna do something digital. Wasn't a podcast or anything
Speaker 1: like that yet, and I had a chance to go
Speaker 1: out and hire some people to work, and Tracy was
Speaker 1: the very first person that I wanted to hire. Clearly,
Speaker 1: I answered the your zone question correctly, you got it right.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what you said, but clearly you got
Speaker 1: it right. Because I had always been a fan of
Speaker 1: Tracy's work when she was at the f t and uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: she agreed to come on, and you know, it's like
Speaker 1: she had been at Bloomberg once, so there was like
Speaker 1: a little like bureaucracy like getting back and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: But we didn't really know what we were doing. But
Speaker 1: I was excited and that yeah, and so um that's
Speaker 1: how we both both wounded up here nice great so
Speaker 1: on the then and then I guess I'm like the
Speaker 1: podcast question and it just before we forget about that.
Speaker 1: We sort of like didn't know what we were doing
Speaker 1: and we're doing a lot of different things, and I
Speaker 1: remember like one day I like turned to Tracey. I
Speaker 1: was like, we do a podcast together. And you know,
Speaker 1: we sort of like at the time, podcast weren't nearly
Speaker 1: as big as they are now. Not every media company
Speaker 1: like had their whole podcast strategy and all these podcast
Speaker 1: startups and Bloomberg was like, yeah, okay, you guys can
Speaker 1: We don't know what it's gonna be about or anything
Speaker 1: like that, but all right, we'll give you like an
Speaker 1: hour of radio studio once a week or something to
Speaker 1: do whatever. We didn't know what odd Lots was going
Speaker 1: to be about, but turn on the microphone. And that
Speaker 1: was late twenty fifteen who've been doing it like seven years.
Speaker 1: Did you ever have a moment when you were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we should really hone in on what it is that
Speaker 1: we're doing here because we're all over the place like
Speaker 1: at the beginning, or did it just kind of naturally
Speaker 1: form itself into what it is now? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think I think that kind of flexibility is in my mind,
Speaker 1: a strength of odd lots, and it means that, like,
Speaker 1: we haven't confined ourselves to one topic in particular, and
Speaker 1: it means that we've been able to evolve along with
Speaker 1: the news cycle. So if you go back and look
Speaker 1: at some of our early episodes, some of them are
Speaker 1: really out there. Like I remember we did one on
Speaker 1: Nana's basically because I'd read a book about bananas. For nowadays,
Speaker 1: we would look at that episode and say, it's a
Speaker 1: banana supply chain episode. But then we did a lot
Speaker 1: of finance stuff. You know, we just sort of like
Speaker 1: went along with the news cycle until we arrived at
Speaker 1: where suddenly a lot of it was about things happening
Speaker 1: in the real economy. And I think that's really benefited
Speaker 1: us that we haven't said, you know, this is a
Speaker 1: podcast specifically about this and then been bossed in. I
Speaker 1: do think, you know, maybe late nineteen, like it's tracy,
Speaker 1: like the first episodes, you could go back and look
Speaker 1: like they're super random, like bananas. We did a few
Speaker 1: episodes about like Florida real estate. We did an episode
Speaker 1: about catfish, the catfish bubble, the catfish bubble. We did
Speaker 1: an episode I think about cattle trade, and he was
Speaker 1: there kind of all over the map. I think it
Speaker 1: was like late nineteen we started like finding it a
Speaker 1: little bit, you know. We did some of the uh
Speaker 1: we did an episode I think with resulting in when uh,
Speaker 1: they'll look qudity and the repo stuff and the federal
Speaker 1: reserves are draining. But it really was early with the
Speaker 1: pandemic that it felt like we were starting to get
Speaker 1: a groove in terms of what is the show kind
Speaker 1: of about and what is our relationship between the episodes
Speaker 1: and the news cycle. And I think that's what we
Speaker 1: really found out rhythm. On that note, I also wanted to,
Speaker 1: you know, to continue that basically. So I've seen you
Speaker 1: sort of follow the pulse of what's going on in
Speaker 1: markets and that kind of dictates a lot of the programming.
Speaker 1: But every now and then you kind of get these
Speaker 1: like weird, unexpected connections, and I think that's very particular
Speaker 1: to the Odd Lots brand, And so I want to know,
Speaker 1: have you ever seen these unexpected connections directly or somewhat
Speaker 1: directly affect the market structures that aren't the more cyclical
Speaker 1: things in the stories or anything like that. You are, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think I think, like the way I think about
Speaker 1: markets is it's sort of this tangled web, and some
Speaker 1: bits of the web are more obvious than others, but
Speaker 1: some of them are really hidden. And so I think
Speaker 1: whenever you have something big happens, or you have a
Speaker 1: crisis of some sort, you kind of start to pull
Speaker 1: the threads and you start to see these connections. And
Speaker 1: the great thing about All Lots is we will have
Speaker 1: a conversation about one thing um like semiconductors, and then
Speaker 1: it just leads us down a rabbit hole to the
Speaker 1: next thing. And the global economy and markets right now
Speaker 1: are so interconnected that you are always finding those hidden relationships,
Speaker 1: and so it's almost like it's really easy to book
Speaker 1: episodes now because one episode will naturally lead into five
Speaker 1: other episodes. And we always joke about it that we
Speaker 1: come away with an episode with five other episode ideas,
Speaker 1: but it's really true. Yeah. You know. The other thing
Speaker 1: I would say these days too that makes it easy
Speaker 1: is and we've talked about this and listeners have talked
Speaker 1: about this, like for years. I would definitely say our
Speaker 1: episode topics financial for obvious reasons. You know, it's coming
Speaker 1: out of the financial crisis and you know, and then
Speaker 1: are like episode with COVID and the pandemic started screwing
Speaker 1: more towards physical supply change, and so now you just
Speaker 1: see it everywhere, right, like you just whether it's like
Speaker 1: prices on the menu or everyone experiencing a shortage of something.
Speaker 1: And so then we sort of it's all like the
Speaker 1: physical visible world becomes a really big source. Now you
Speaker 1: just like see it everywhere, and so trade like there's
Speaker 1: too many topics for us to possibly discuss, Like there's
Speaker 1: always more things we want to talk about that we
Speaker 1: could talk about like in a given month or a
Speaker 1: given week, just because like you look around like, oh
Speaker 1: that'd be interesting, that'd be interesting, And so yeah, there's
Speaker 1: just a it's a it's an endless fire hose of
Speaker 1: topics that we see from just observing the real world.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite unexpected moment, unexpected connections moment. Oh,
Speaker 1: I have one, and I only know this because I
Speaker 1: wrote about it, But it's um, sawdust and housing and
Speaker 1: milk prices. So so you know when we're talking about
Speaker 1: this sort of web of relationships in the real economy.
Speaker 1: And this is a good example, which is that after
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, you had a rise in milk prices
Speaker 1: and there was someone who like dug into why that
Speaker 1: was happening, and they found out that the reason it
Speaker 1: was happening was because the housing bubble had burst, so
Speaker 1: there wasn't as much housing construction, which meant that there
Speaker 1: wasn't as much sawdust being produced. And it turns out
Speaker 1: that cows really like to sleep on beds of sawdust.
Speaker 1: So basically, because of two thousand eight and the housing
Speaker 1: bubble bursting, a bunch of cows were unhappy and we're
Speaker 1: producing less milk, which translated into higher milk prices. I
Speaker 1: just want to jump in here really quick and say
Speaker 1: that that reading that before you said this um actually
Speaker 1: won me at trivia the other night because someone was like,
Speaker 1: do cows produce more or less milk when they sleep
Speaker 1: on sawdust? And I'm like, I don't know who wrote
Speaker 1: this question. It was one of those card games you
Speaker 1: have to guess whether it's true or false. And I
Speaker 1: was like, that is you knew? They like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: has to be more sawdust because you have to be
Speaker 1: comfortable and happy so that they make my milk. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you. I did win. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I think the recent one we did with Ken Jerash
Speaker 1: where he mentioned that because of the semiconductor shortage, they
Speaker 1: produced fewer cars. Because they produced fewer cars, they had
Speaker 1: less demand for hides for seeds. Because there was less
Speaker 1: demand for hides for seeds, there was less gelatin produced
Speaker 1: from as a byproduct, and that impaired the production of
Speaker 1: gummy bears. It was like a really amazing one that
Speaker 1: I would have never thought of. But I do think
Speaker 1: it speaks to like the complexity of the Like there
Speaker 1: is sort of this obvious complexity to supply chains, right,
Speaker 1: it's like point A, point B, point ce you just
Speaker 1: roup something than the whole ripple effects. But I think
Speaker 1: it's like seeing these sideways things where it's like the
Speaker 1: even Ken I think in that episode he's like, it's
Speaker 1: not a supply chain, it's a supply web, and that
Speaker 1: was really interesting, Like there's not just like some start
Speaker 1: product and end product. There's like all these sideways moving
Speaker 1: from all the by products that get created, the waste
Speaker 1: products that get used, and the other things. And I
Speaker 1: think it's really hard explains why it's really hard to
Speaker 1: know how huge disruptions to society like a pandemic are
Speaker 1: really going to play out because no one talks about
Speaker 1: these things in normal time. It's like they're so submerged,
Speaker 1: so invisible during normal times. You only see them after
Speaker 1: the fact. Like shoot, the impairment of cars affected gummy bears,
Speaker 1: no one would ever talk about that relationship prior to
Speaker 1: it having been exposed. And that's for your next trivia game, listeners, Yes,
Speaker 1: do you have anything that you now can't stop thinking about?
Speaker 1: Like I think an example where for me would be
Speaker 1: I'm eating Anthony Bourdain's I'm reading Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential,
Speaker 1: and he describes about how how chefs designed their menu
Speaker 1: based off of what's available and when when they're delivered.
Speaker 1: Like if you're lady, if you're ordering fish on a Thursday,
Speaker 1: that might not be the best day because it's not
Speaker 1: as fresh, whether or not this is true now It's
Speaker 1: all I can think about whenever I look at a menu,
Speaker 1: So like, have you learned anything via odd lots that
Speaker 1: still sticks with you in the same capacity today? I think,
Speaker 1: for me, the one thing and it's not like some
Speaker 1: sort of like necessarily idiosyncratic thing like that, but I'm
Speaker 1: and maybe it's not even the odd lots, but I'm
Speaker 1: very I really notice energy waste in heat, particularly after
Speaker 1: all the episodes we've done on European energy costs and
Speaker 1: having to turn down the temperature and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Like a few months ago, Joe has turned into like
Speaker 1: the ultimate Dad where you just wander around the house
Speaker 1: like flipping off light switches and turning down the third step. Well,
Speaker 1: a few months ago I went to a public beach
Speaker 1: and it was like a shot hour at the beach
Speaker 1: and you know, like clean off your feet and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and the shower had a warm water option,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what are you doing, Like people don't
Speaker 1: need warm waters at a public shower at a beach
Speaker 1: to white to wash up your feet. I was like,
Speaker 1: this is a really scandalous waste of energy. Like two
Speaker 1: years ago, like oh, like turn on the showers like
Speaker 1: nice warm water for feet, But I was like, this
Speaker 1: is a huge waste. Why didn't they even give this option?
Speaker 1: So I do think that like energy waste and heat
Speaker 1: in particular, like I just like think about all the
Speaker 1: time all the time. Now, yeah, I don't take it
Speaker 1: for granted anymore. I mean I guess on a similar note,
Speaker 1: I think about supply chains a lot more than I
Speaker 1: used to. But I also, you know, setting the real
Speaker 1: economy stuff post side. I also think a lot about
Speaker 1: incentives and why people do the things they do, like
Speaker 1: often have to do much more with short term incentives
Speaker 1: than necessarily like rational long term outcomes. For instance, if
Speaker 1: you if you're talking about like wire invest or is
Speaker 1: investing in risky, higher yielding stuff, Well it's because they
Speaker 1: have a bunch of new inflows and they have like
Speaker 1: a yield bogey that they need to actually meet. And
Speaker 1: so I think about that a lot more like how
Speaker 1: are the incentive set and how does that influence what
Speaker 1: people are actually doing? Pivoting away now and talking about crypto.
Speaker 1: Was there a moment when you decided like, okay, we
Speaker 1: should actually start paying attention to this and taking it seriously,
Speaker 1: at least for the newsake. I would love to know
Speaker 1: if you had a moment like that, Joe, you go first, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like, look, so I'm a market s reporter.
Speaker 1: I always have been, and people ask me what's market
Speaker 1: and I would say completely and ironically, it's like it's
Speaker 1: a line that goes up and down. If there's a
Speaker 1: line on a screen that goes up and down, it's
Speaker 1: probably a market story. Uh, And Crypto is like the
Speaker 1: ultimate line that goes up and down. And you know,
Speaker 1: in the beginning, I think it was. It didn't take
Speaker 1: very long for me not to like take it seriously
Speaker 1: per se, but to realize that maybe some of my
Speaker 1: assumptions about like oh this is just a flash in
Speaker 1: the pan, like we're gonna be wrong. And I probably
Speaker 1: like wrote some like Crypto obituaries and like twenty eleven
Speaker 1: or something like that, and then like eventually, like it
Speaker 1: didn't die, and I kept thinking it would. So at
Speaker 1: some point I guess I was like, well, tried to
Speaker 1: wrap my head around like what is this, like what
Speaker 1: is actually going on? And after like a decade, like
Speaker 1: I still don't really have like an opinion or review
Speaker 1: or an idea where it's going, but I guess if eventually,
Speaker 1: like something doesn't die long enough, if it goes on,
Speaker 1: then naturally I think if you're a journalist or if
Speaker 1: you're anyone, you should sort of have some like, Okay,
Speaker 1: what am I getting wrong? Maybe I should actually like
Speaker 1: pay attention so something we are in I remember writing
Speaker 1: a piece four Business Insider, and I was like I
Speaker 1: was wrong, like about crypto, and I sort of like
Speaker 1: admitted it. And I did not like, oh, bitcoin is
Speaker 1: gonna become the world's reserve currency or something or anything
Speaker 1: like to capitulatory, but I did say, like, okay, like
Speaker 1: I it hasn't died, and I don't think it's going to.
Speaker 1: And there's some interesting problems that it seems to solve,
Speaker 1: like it in computer science. And ever since then, I've
Speaker 1: just sort of had this like tried to be like
Speaker 1: open mind and curious, and after all this time, I
Speaker 1: still don't have a view, but you know, I try
Speaker 1: to be trying to be open minded that like there's
Speaker 1: something there. So two things, they're one I totally agree
Speaker 1: with the idea of crypto is like the ultimate expression
Speaker 1: of lines going up or down, like the ultimate momentum play.
Speaker 1: And so if you cover markets like you know, there
Speaker 1: is a natural interest. The second thing is someone once
Speaker 1: described it to me as far more interesting than it
Speaker 1: is important, which I thought was a really good way
Speaker 1: of putting it, because you're talking about the creation you know,
Speaker 1: you're talking about new technology, but you're also talking about
Speaker 1: the creation of a new type of money, and that
Speaker 1: just opens up all these interesting questions about well, what
Speaker 1: is money? And how do you design a new financial system?
Speaker 1: And then lastly, the one other thing I would say
Speaker 1: is I think we made a conscious decision to engage
Speaker 1: with the space and try to ask some of the
Speaker 1: harder questions like where does the yell to actually come from?
Speaker 1: What is the use case for this brand new technology
Speaker 1: that you say is going to change the world. And
Speaker 1: you know, we have asked those questions in various iterations
Speaker 1: for many many years now, um, and it's an open
Speaker 1: question about whether or not we've gotten a satisfactory answer,
Speaker 1: but like we have tried to engage with the space
Speaker 1: to ask those hard questions. Yeah, I think like engaging
Speaker 1: with the space like in good faith and like you
Speaker 1: know sort of and it's like let's engage with it
Speaker 1: on its own terms, and like talk to people who
Speaker 1: un ostensibly are its best, uh, you know, the best,
Speaker 1: most involved characters who should have the best answers, and
Speaker 1: to sort of like come at it with it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: clearly we have skepticism. We don't really know what it's
Speaker 1: forwards going. We want to like hear honest answers and
Speaker 1: have like genuine questions. But it's true that even after
Speaker 1: all this time, like I literally have no idea like
Speaker 1: what it's ultimately going to be used for, if anything.
Speaker 1: So we're going to get to the questions for the
Speaker 1: audience soon. But do you have a favorite guest that
Speaker 1: you've had on over the years. I think, I mean,
Speaker 1: we have so many. Um it's like asking us to
Speaker 1: name favorite children. Um. I I really enjoyed having this
Speaker 1: was before your time, Carmen. This was way in the beginning.
Speaker 1: We had on the archaeologist Arthur Demorrist, who's been at
Speaker 1: various times described as the real life Indiana Jones. And
Speaker 1: I have like a very small hobby where I like
Speaker 1: to read archaeology and anthropology books and so talking to
Speaker 1: him was fascinating, and I remember the conversation was about
Speaker 1: the collapse of civilizations. I think about that episode a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I you know, I really liked
Speaker 1: a recent episode with Gordon McGill, which I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, is he my favorite guest? I would
Speaker 1: not necessarily say that, but I would say, like, in
Speaker 1: terms of what I would say if I wanted to identify,
Speaker 1: if I wanted to send someone what I would think.
Speaker 1: It's like a very like quint to Central episode of
Speaker 1: Odd LODs would be something like that, we like dive
Speaker 1: into something deep. We talked to a guest who was
Speaker 1: not like a huge household name, which is one of
Speaker 1: the things I really like about having done this show
Speaker 1: for years, Like we have had some really big guests on,
Speaker 1: like big names, and I'm really like thrilled that they'll
Speaker 1: come on, Like it's cool. How often like say Neil
Speaker 1: cash Cary, the head of the Minneapolis Fed, has come on,
Speaker 1: or Jan Goldman Sacks for people like that. But I
Speaker 1: have to say, for me, like, the most satisfying thing
Speaker 1: or one of the most satisfying things that we do
Speaker 1: is when we find someone Tracy mentioned Arthur, people who
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily household names, and people are like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is someone who really uh is good? You know? Stincent
Speaker 1: Dean The lumber Trader is another one. Kind of like that.
Speaker 1: People who are like really in some area aren't nearly huge,
Speaker 1: but because of their localized expertise, can really speak to
Speaker 1: some really big macro topic. Should we take some questions
Speaker 1: from the audience? Hi, Tracy and Joe, This is well
Speaker 1: thanking from London. Over the last couple of years, Odd
Speaker 1: Lots has become a favorite podcast. I have to admit,
Speaker 1: though there are episodes like those on market structure, what
Speaker 1: my comprehension level is in the most optimistic estimate, given
Speaker 1: the breadth of topics you gets covered with the perfect
Speaker 1: guests to each of you have a comprehension of of
Speaker 1: your episodes, Thanks and keep up the great work. Uh
Speaker 1: do we actually understand what we're talking about? I mean,
Speaker 1: I would say, like, we cover a lot of stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think it would be unrealistic to assume that,
Speaker 1: like both Joe and I arrive at every episode with
Speaker 1: a total understanding of the particular market or topic that
Speaker 1: we're speaking about. And I think that actually lends itself
Speaker 1: to a better show because we are starting at the
Speaker 1: same level of knowledge as your average listener, and so
Speaker 1: we can ask the basic questions like what do we
Speaker 1: mean when we say like whatever? Um? And then the
Speaker 1: other thing I would say is uh, I don't know
Speaker 1: if our listeners know, but Joe and I UM. We
Speaker 1: go through all the transcripts of our show and we
Speaker 1: edit them ourselves and we publish them, and it takes
Speaker 1: hours to do. But I actually kind of like doing
Speaker 1: it because it gives you a chance to go back
Speaker 1: and read everything and really like internalize it in a
Speaker 1: way that maybe you didn't have the chance to do
Speaker 1: when you were actually speaking. So from that perspective, the
Speaker 1: transcripts help. I couldn't agree. I couldn't agree. More like,
Speaker 1: first of all, there are episodes particularly related to market
Speaker 1: structure or bond market liquidity or fed plumbing, etcetera. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I think I'm just going to sort of sit back
Speaker 1: and listen to Tracy and I guess talk because I
Speaker 1: feel like I know the less. But as Tracy pointed
Speaker 1: out to like, that's really like I I do think
Speaker 1: it worked often coming to topic with like not that
Speaker 1: much knowledge or maybe not that much prep because then
Speaker 1: you are sort of like asking the questions that naturally.
Speaker 1: Like when I think of like odlats, I think like
Speaker 1: we have a very intelligent listener listener base, but you know,
Speaker 1: like anyone else, like there's only there's a limit to
Speaker 1: how much you can be informed on. So I think
Speaker 1: a lot of our questions are sort of like what
Speaker 1: are like a fairly smart, plugged in person asked about
Speaker 1: a subject with which they really were unfamiliar. And I
Speaker 1: think that is sort of the top the approach that
Speaker 1: Tracy and I take to a lot of these interviews.
Speaker 1: For what it's worth, I think that's a strength of
Speaker 1: the show because a lot of people come in and,
Speaker 1: like this person said, they don't really know everything, but
Speaker 1: by the end of it, like, well I understood some
Speaker 1: of it now, so I really just a little bit Well,
Speaker 1: even if you're putting you're just putting something on someone's
Speaker 1: radar so that they can, you know, go off and
Speaker 1: learn about it more after the episode. I think that's
Speaker 1: important to should be here. The next one, this is
Speaker 1: Leo from Massachusetts, and my question is what are your
Speaker 1: uncut thoughts on MMT? That once for Tracy and for Joe,
Speaker 1: what are your uncut thoughts on Austrianism? Thanks shall go
Speaker 1: first with m m T for it. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I can do totally uncut thoughts um okay uh A
Speaker 1: nice thing. First. So I'm on the record this year
Speaker 1: as saying that my most MMT adjacent thought is that
Speaker 1: if a problem can be solved with money, then it's
Speaker 1: probably not that big of a problem. And I think
Speaker 1: that reflects m m t s emphasis on real resources,
Speaker 1: and I think like that part of it has genuinely
Speaker 1: been useful for the past couple of years. I guess
Speaker 1: the bit that I'm a little bit less convinced by is,
Speaker 1: you know, the emphasis on the constraint to government spending
Speaker 1: is inflation. Like that's what mm T tells you. It's
Speaker 1: not that a government has a budget like a household.
Speaker 1: It's that is what they're spending on actually going to
Speaker 1: cause inflation in the short term or long term. And
Speaker 1: so you hear a lot about, you know, people saying, well,
Speaker 1: MMT change the narrative. So now we don't have politicians
Speaker 1: who go, oh, we can't afford this. Instead we have
Speaker 1: discussions about is this inflationary or not? And I really
Speaker 1: think one of the things we've learned from the past
Speaker 1: two years is that actually we do not have a
Speaker 1: good understanding of what causes inflation or how it works.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure passing the buck from like can
Speaker 1: we afford this or not? Too? Is this going to
Speaker 1: cause inflation or not? Is that useful? And I think
Speaker 1: like the idea of politicians getting together in real time
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out like if we do this,
Speaker 1: is that going to cause a price spike? Like basically
Speaker 1: I think you're you're trading one debate for another. That's it.
Speaker 1: I like. I like both those answers, the plus and
Speaker 1: the minors. Okay, Austrian is um you know when I
Speaker 1: was like a kid in college. I still have. I
Speaker 1: have a copy of Human Action Lidwig Vonsis book on
Speaker 1: my in fact, Nathan Tanks recently he was at my
Speaker 1: house face only, and he tweeted a photo of me.
Speaker 1: Hold as you can go and find it. So that's proof.
Speaker 1: I have read a fair amount of Austrian economics. I
Speaker 1: don't know like the thing. I don't find it that useful.
Speaker 1: I don't find it that interesting. If I'm being totally honest,
Speaker 1: like I've read a fair amount. Seems kind of repetitive.
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure if it has much connection. I
Speaker 1: want to say something like nice about it. I don't
Speaker 1: think that like assuming that the starting point of like
Speaker 1: the economy is this, like pure market, is even that
Speaker 1: useful even in the most abstract sense. Um, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of something like nowice like that like incorporated
Speaker 1: Austrian thinking. By and large, it just seems like to
Speaker 1: imagine a world and a set of scent incentives that
Speaker 1: strict me is pretty divorced from anything real or useful.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I wanted to say something kind of nice
Speaker 1: like Tracy did, and I have some some of my
Speaker 1: best friends are Austrian. Now I have some I have
Speaker 1: some choke say about it. I don't know, Yeah, alright, sorry,
Speaker 1: I wish I could say something. I wish I could
Speaker 1: say something like more. But in all that kind of
Speaker 1: it's all good. We can we can go onto the
Speaker 1: next one. So in when I started listening, a lot
Speaker 1: of the financial conversations were around financialization and plumbing in
Speaker 1: the financial system. So the switch from liberal to sufur
Speaker 1: reverse repo rate spiking UM just generally questions around whether
Speaker 1: the zero interest rate policy was actually working and whether
Speaker 1: the natural interest rate had changed. UM, and we were
Speaker 1: in a new era, and now the question seems to
Speaker 1: have shifted to more real economy topics, geopolitics, oil, um,
Speaker 1: a lot of issues around inflation, supply chains. So my
Speaker 1: question is, are we in a true paradigm shift where
Speaker 1: for the next decade or so we can expect the
Speaker 1: questions to stay focused on the real economy as opposed
Speaker 1: to financialization. Thank you. You know, it's a good question.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, like obviously, like as the question
Speaker 1: or as Jonathan notes, like, yeah, absolutely, um, there's been
Speaker 1: this like shift and we've alrea and we've talked about it,
Speaker 1: paradigm shift. I suspect I do think that the twenty
Speaker 1: tens for certain things like energy security, semiconductor availability, certain
Speaker 1: things like that. I think a lot of governments kind
Speaker 1: of we're a little bit asleep at the wheel, assumed
Speaker 1: that a lot of these things were taken care of,
Speaker 1: and that, like particularly with energy security, it was just
Speaker 1: not top of mind, and it was sort of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: fossil fuels are going to ride off into the sunset,
Speaker 1: and we're going to replace them by electrical cars and
Speaker 1: other forms of renewable energy. And this is the final chapter.
Speaker 1: And I think we did get a pretty rude awakening
Speaker 1: over the last year about how difficult. This process is
Speaker 1: how much governments have to take energy security again, how
Speaker 1: unstable even the source of the commodities for electrification are
Speaker 1: going to be. Even if things settle down, and even
Speaker 1: if prices come down and we don't end these supply
Speaker 1: chain disruptions fade and inflation comes down, I don't think
Speaker 1: it'll be a while before we can forget the physical
Speaker 1: world is, so to speak, like these are long cycles,
Speaker 1: and so I think these are now, regardless of price,
Speaker 1: going to be pretty top of mind topics for some time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would agree with that, And it actually it kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to what we were discussing with with MMT,
Speaker 1: which is like, so if you can throw money at
Speaker 1: a problem and solve it, it's probably not that big
Speaker 1: of a problem. And I think this might be one
Speaker 1: reason why we moved away from UM a lot of
Speaker 1: financial episodes, although we still talk plenty about it. But
Speaker 1: you know, one thing we learned, I think between two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight and two is that there's a sort
Speaker 1: of like endless number of things that central banks can
Speaker 1: do to prop up a market or fix a particular
Speaker 1: liquidity issue. So when you get these big financial crises,
Speaker 1: like like oh, well, the FED just came out and
Speaker 1: supported the entire U S treasury market, or they announced
Speaker 1: the corporate bond buying program and things like that, Whereas
Speaker 1: some of the real economy issues that were thrown up
Speaker 1: by the disruptions of they are much more difficult to solve,
Speaker 1: I think, because you're also dealing with two graphic restrictions
Speaker 1: like you know who has oil and who doesn't, and
Speaker 1: how do you actually move it from one place to another?
Speaker 1: And so I think those relative shortages like have just
Speaker 1: been thrown into sharp relief by and I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be hard for governments to forget that, which
Speaker 1: is why you've seen more of an emphasis on how
Speaker 1: we actually build up strategically critical infrastructure and resources and
Speaker 1: things like that. This is Fam Glover calling in from Chicago.
Speaker 1: Ifewer go back a medium amount of time, so like
Speaker 1: five to ten years, what is the take that you
Speaker 1: had at the time that is most wrong today? And why?
Speaker 1: Oh wow? I mean, I'm pretty sure I wrote at
Speaker 1: least two or three bitcoin obituary throughout my career, which
Speaker 1: makes me reluctant to write another one. So the so
Speaker 1: then it's then it really is going to die this time,
Speaker 1: now that you're now that you're reluctant. Oh, that is
Speaker 1: a that is a good question. I think I probably
Speaker 1: would have assumed that, I mean, I definitely was wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, I would. I would. I did not think
Speaker 1: that we would have like a big inflationary spike like this.
Speaker 1: I would have assumed that it would have taken a
Speaker 1: lot more, either from a real economy standpoint or a
Speaker 1: spending capacity or a sort of political collapse standpoint, to
Speaker 1: get the sort of level of inflation that we've seen
Speaker 1: over the course of two Also, like Tracy, you know,
Speaker 1: probably many big, many cryptocurrency takes I've completely gotten wrong
Speaker 1: trying to think those. I guess those are probably the
Speaker 1: two big ones, two huge things. Basically, Yeah, two huge
Speaker 1: things that I've gotten wrong. Great, should we hear from
Speaker 1: another Joe from Justin? This is just Joe asking question.
Speaker 1: And I am, by the way, for listeners, I am
Speaker 1: in Austin. So the fact that we have another Austin, Texas,
Speaker 1: we're desperately trying to keep things weird. My question for
Speaker 1: you is, what's the weirdest thing you've ever seen someone
Speaker 1: like a boatload of money trading? Oh? You know, um,
Speaker 1: we did a Beanie Baby episode back in the day.
Speaker 1: And I don't think I can't remember if I mentioned
Speaker 1: this or not, but in like six or ninety eight,
Speaker 1: like at the top of the beanie baby bubble, when
Speaker 1: I was ten or eleven years old, I sold a
Speaker 1: tie ed eyed colored lizard beanie baby at some like
Speaker 1: market event for two hundred dollars and that was like
Speaker 1: the most amount of money that I had ever seen
Speaker 1: or had, And that was a highly successful trade for
Speaker 1: me that I have never never since replicated. You know,
Speaker 1: I had a trade. So I when I was after
Speaker 1: my freshman year of high schools, like during the dot
Speaker 1: com bubble, and I was like trading with a friend
Speaker 1: and we did very well because everyone was doing well
Speaker 1: in those days, and we took we had, like, um,
Speaker 1: both of us, like took two thousand dollars from a
Speaker 1: summer job, and like by the end of the summer
Speaker 1: we had turned it into twenty thous dollars, which was
Speaker 1: like pretty great obviously, but uh, by the end we
Speaker 1: started getting really good and we like figured out there's
Speaker 1: like weird glitch. We started trading like penny stocks, and
Speaker 1: it was like we found some patterns that were like
Speaker 1: pretty easy to replicate day after day. And it was
Speaker 1: like one stock that I traded and I knew it
Speaker 1: was going to go up a lot the next day,
Speaker 1: and but I was also flying, I had, I was
Speaker 1: studying abroad, and so I couldn't do anything with it.
Speaker 1: And if I had like pushed back my flight to
Speaker 1: Switzerland from study for studying abroad one day, I think
Speaker 1: I would have made like fifty thou dollars overnight. I've
Speaker 1: gone from twenty thousand to fifty thou and I didn't.
Speaker 1: So it was sort of like I was like, so
Speaker 1: I my biggest sort of like shocking thing was, you know,
Speaker 1: are the biggest thing that I remember was uh, not
Speaker 1: making a lot of money on one day. I can
Speaker 1: tell the whole story some other time. So now still
Speaker 1: keeps him up at night. Yeah, you know, we've never
Speaker 1: actually done an episode which was like Joe's lessons trading
Speaker 1: penny stocks. We should do those. Yeah, I think that'd
Speaker 1: be interesting. Cool. Hi Tracy, Hi Joe, This is David
Speaker 1: calling to Berlin, Germany. First time caller, longtime listener. I
Speaker 1: was wondering what do you too plan on doing for retirement,
Speaker 1: like how, when and where if you plan to kick
Speaker 1: the bucket in front of a terminal at the Bloomberg office.
Speaker 1: That's fine too, but I think you've got a broad
Speaker 1: enough variety of listeners. Were all on a different route. Oh, Matt,
Speaker 1: do we do we plan to die in front of
Speaker 1: our terminals in the Bloomberg? Yes. I do not see
Speaker 1: myself doing anything else for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, if I retired, I would just will
Speaker 1: just be at my computer posting and tweeting. So it's
Speaker 1: like as long as Twitter exists, So I don't really
Speaker 1: see my achieve whether I'm technically employed or not employed
Speaker 1: in terms of what I do. UM. I believe Joe
Speaker 1: when he says that I think one of the great
Speaker 1: things about add lots is it does give you an
Speaker 1: opportunity to talk about virtually anything that we're interested in.
Speaker 1: So I mentioned, you know, archaeology and anthropology before, and
Speaker 1: I would love to get an anthropologist on at some
Speaker 1: point to talk about cryptocurrencies, UM and Wall Street in general.
Speaker 1: So it does give you this opportunity to do a
Speaker 1: bunch of different things. That said, I am a big
Speaker 1: fan of like just going out and learning new skills
Speaker 1: and doing new things. So it's it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to imagine that like my entire life, I'm going to
Speaker 1: be writing about finance and markets. I feel like I
Speaker 1: will do something maybe alongside it at some point, you know,
Speaker 1: before I forget the one other thing. I really want
Speaker 1: to do something with music in my life, either like
Speaker 1: sell a song or like play some concerts. I write
Speaker 1: music I've played. I really like country music, So that
Speaker 1: would be the one other thing I hope to achieve
Speaker 1: something and the rest of my years beyond this is
Speaker 1: like something or other to do with music. But even that,
Speaker 1: all thoughts provides an outlet, Like we have done live
Speaker 1: shows where you're perform We have a new genre of
Speaker 1: music called financial country music. You have Joe to blame.
Speaker 1: We could do that for We could do that by
Speaker 1: this year. Cool. So we got some questions in from Twitter,
Speaker 1: and there's no voice memos for those, but I'll read
Speaker 1: them out loud from J. M. Cambreras. Question for you
Speaker 1: both which role plays Twitter and building the topics for
Speaker 1: your episodes in terms of finding guests, searching trends, getting background,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Thanks for odd lots. It's awesome, huge. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know it's not everything, but it's like a huge
Speaker 1: source of inspiration in terms of literally meeting people, seeing
Speaker 1: what people are talking about niche industry experts. That's actually
Speaker 1: one of the main reasons I'd be concerned of like
Speaker 1: Twitter everyone away the ability to find like random niche
Speaker 1: people who know one specific thing and have them sort
Speaker 1: of service too abroad to I can't think of another
Speaker 1: platform that does it that well. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I I'll take the opposite side of that, which is like,
Speaker 1: you know, Twitter, Twitter, um, Twitter like can be a
Speaker 1: massive distraction, but it's also really helpful from a productivity point,
Speaker 1: and I think it basically just allows you to do
Speaker 1: stuff that you would be doing in the normal course
Speaker 1: of journalism, but just slightly faster. So instead of like
Speaker 1: emailing a bunch of people and going like, oh, hey,
Speaker 1: do you know anyone who might be good to talk
Speaker 1: about the number prices or whatever, you can send out
Speaker 1: a tweet and immediately have it go to thousands of
Speaker 1: people who can direct you to the right person. So
Speaker 1: to me, it's a productivity tool. I you know, would
Speaker 1: I be sad if if it went away? Part of
Speaker 1: me would be and I would probably spend more time
Speaker 1: sending emails and stuff like that. But like I think,
Speaker 1: I think we could still find good topics and good guests.
Speaker 1: I mean, this episode would have been way harder to
Speaker 1: make if it wasn't for Twitter. So I'm also nobody
Speaker 1: asked me, but I'm team Twitter. Um Okay, So one
Speaker 1: last question from Twitter. Speaking of um and at end,
Speaker 1: drone In says Matt King of City has said twice
Speaker 1: on your show that it's never the analyst recommending to
Speaker 1: the portfolio manager to buy something. It's always the PM
Speaker 1: that says that we have new inflow and we have
Speaker 1: to put the money somewhere. So doesn't this suggest that
Speaker 1: there's too much investable money and not investable opportunities after
Speaker 1: us since two thousand global GDP doubled and increased again
Speaker 1: by half, and that money has to go somewhere. So
Speaker 1: I have a lot of thoughts on this, mostly because
Speaker 1: I think about Matt King's research a lot. But this
Speaker 1: is so I coined the term China's Great Ball of Money.
Speaker 1: This idea that you just have a bunch of like
Speaker 1: extra money that's in a closed financial system and it's
Speaker 1: just rolling from thing to things, so it will go
Speaker 1: into housing and then it will go into stocks, and
Speaker 1: then it will move back somewhere else. But if you
Speaker 1: expand that, you know, China is an extreme example of that,
Speaker 1: but if you expand that to the whole world, I
Speaker 1: don't think it's like a massive stretch to say that
Speaker 1: there is a lot of excess liquidity slashing around the
Speaker 1: financial system and it needs to find a home somewhere,
Speaker 1: and so sometimes it goes into things kind of indiscriminately,
Speaker 1: which also ties into another one of my favorite sayings,
Speaker 1: which is flows before pros, which is also based on
Speaker 1: a Matt King note, and the idea there is that like,
Speaker 1: sometimes the way to make alpha is just to invest
Speaker 1: in the thing that everyone else is investing in or
Speaker 1: will invest in early. And so, you know, in an
Speaker 1: era of sluggish economic growth, which um our our question
Speaker 1: are alluded to, like maybe the way to outperform is
Speaker 1: just to do pure momentum plays. And so that's like,
Speaker 1: that's kind of how yeah, I think about that in
Speaker 1: the context of crypto, which we already mentioned is the
Speaker 1: ultimate momentum play. But I also think that more and
Speaker 1: more of the market is like being driven by just
Speaker 1: pure flows, and a lot of people are sort of
Speaker 1: embracing that so, for instance, the explosion in short dated
Speaker 1: um equity options like zero day options and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: that to me is just people like purely betting on
Speaker 1: like outcomes and flows. At that point, I just I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna I agree with what Tracy said. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: the right answer. Thanks, Joe, Yeah, I just agree with you.
Speaker 1: I just agree with what you said. Should we leave
Speaker 1: it there, Tracy? Are we going to leave it there?
Speaker 1: Let's leave it there? Well. Thank you to everyone for
Speaker 1: your questions. Thank you to Carmen for coming on the
Speaker 1: podcast making our first front of camera appearance, and for
Speaker 1: all your great questions as well, and all your help
Speaker 1: producing over the past year. For those who don't know,
Speaker 1: Carmen was kind of thrown in at the deep end
Speaker 1: of odd lots um and there's a lot, a lot
Speaker 1: to do, so you've definitely like stepped up to the
Speaker 1: plate and had defend. Absolutely. Thank you. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go blush in a corner now. This has been another
Speaker 1: episode of the All Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You
Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe Isn't Though. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: the Stalwart. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez at Carmen Arman
Speaker 1: and Dash Bennett at Dashbot, and check out all of
Speaker 1: our podcast Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts and more
Speaker 1: odd Lots content go to Bloomberg dot com slash odd
Speaker 1: Lots when we post those transcripts, we blog, and we
Speaker 1: write a newsletter once week you should subscribe to. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to