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Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday, Thursday, and Friday
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Transcribed
9 NOV 2026 · According to Joshua Goodman, trash collection in New York is one of the last services the city offers that is not yet touched by neoliberalism. What he means is that it's the last free and unlimited city service — there is no opt-in; it is not means tested. Goodman — who is the DSNY's deputy commissioner for public affairs and customer experience — tells us that the city deals with 24 million pounds of trash every day, and on today's podcast, he explains the logistical dance required to sort through all that garbage. We also get into why NYC produces less trash than you might think, the DSNY's new containerization program (and the new side-loading trucks they built in less than 18 months), and why recycling is not a scam. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcastSee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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6 NOV 2026 · We don't need to tell you that the midterm elections were historic: The Democrats won bigger than even they imagined. But as the dust settles, an open question we are puzzling over is the market's ongoing reaction to this massive political sea change. Democratic control of Congress — and control over a number of formerly red statehouses, like Texas and Iowa — will influence everything from the composition of the FOMC to data center construction. And what we're seeing right now, with stocks like Tesla and SpaceX tumbling, is a direct response to these conditions. To get a better sense of this macro moment, we turn to Odd Lots regular, Employ America's executive director Skanda Amarnath to talk about how the midterms will influence the Fed's battle with inflation, Elon Musk's political instincts, and what a Democratic majority means for the market, tariffs, and AI. See Odd Lots live in NYC on Dec. 9. https://events.bloombergevents.com/event/OddLotsNYC/summarySee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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5 NOV 2026 · When we last talked to James Bosworth, it seemed like an “orange wave” was going to take over Latin America and further realign the region’s interests with those of the Trump administration. But with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s surprise victory in Brazil’s presidential election last month, and opposition leader María Corina Machado’s return to Venezuela, it now looks like the orange wave might be cresting. Bosworth — a non-resident fellow at the Stimson Center and the author of the Latin America Risk Report newsletter — comes back to the show to explain how Lula pulled off his upset win over Flavio Bolsonaro, the impact of Machado’s return to Venezuela, and why 2027 might further reshape the politics of Latin America. See Odd Lots live in NYC on Dec. 9. https://events.bloombergevents.com/event/OddLotsNYC/summarySee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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3 NOV 2026 · Nate Silver tells us he is calling this midterms the “rock and a hard place election” — the background conditions are great for Democrats to win both the House and the Senate, but for that to come to pass, the party has to pull off some things that haven't happened in generations, like winning Texas. To believe that will happen requires a certain leap of faith, which is anathema to pollsters. Still, the polls generally believe Democrats are favored, but many professional pollsters would end up with egg on their face if the night does not go that way. Silver — the founder of Silver Bulletin — joins us today to discuss why popular narratives around polling error are wrong, prediction markets, why he doesn't think AI will replace pollsters, and what he is paying attention to tonight as the polls close. Read more:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-02/when-will-we-know-who-s-won-the-midterm-elections?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-02/trump-s-doj-turns-to-supreme-court-in-california-ballot-clash?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
Join the conversation: https://discord.gg/oddlotsSee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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2 NOV 2026 · The structured products business in the US has gotten very large recently — on track to hit $300 billion in sales this year. That they are all the rage means a once opaque financial product is getting a lot more attention. So what are structured products, exactly, and how are they influencing the economy? In short, structured products are basically a fusion of a bank IOU with a derivative product, but that underplays how complex these things are and how they are shaping market dynamics. What is particularly interesting about structured notes is how they've become a stand-in for how investors are betting on the AI trade — the ways these products are structured allow market actors to really capitalize on some of the turbulence we're seeing. On this episode, we speak with Alex Micalizzi, who is the international head of equity structured notes at Nomura, and he gives us what might be the clearest explanation of how structured products are created, how they work, and why sales in structured products have grown so much in the last year.
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30 OCT 2026 · Earlier this year, cybersecurity researchers discovered a vulnerability in PHP, an open-source coding language used in roughly 70% of the world's websites, that had been lying dormant for a long time, and if exploited, could have led to disaster. And the researchers only understood the extent of this bug through the use of frontier AI models. Today, we talk to two staffers at Calif (CEO Thai Duong and engineer Bruce Dang), the cybersecurity firm that was among the first to discover the PHP vulnerability. Their firm partners with the major AI labs and neoclouds, and they help these companies test models and look for vulnerabilities in their infrastructure. Duong and Dang tell us how Calif uncovered the PHP hack, what the firm exactly sells, and what the future of cybersecurity looks like in the age of AI. Read more:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-29/ai-and-cybersecurity-why-cyberattacks-are-getting-harder-to-stop?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-29/japan-s-cyberattack-surge-tests-its-push-to-strengthen-defenses?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
Join the conversation: https://discord.gg/oddlotsSee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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29 OCT 2026 · It has been a big week for the AI trade — we've seen wobbles in the market, many of them in response to headlines like the Anthropic S-1 and earnings from the hyperscalers (Oracle, Microsoft, etc.). So what does Wall Street make of all the news, and how are they processing an increasing sense that the laws of the economy barely apply to AI? Today, we speak with Alexander 'Alty' Altmann, global head of equities tactical strategies at Barclays, and he helps us make sense of how Wall Street really feels about the AI trade right now. We also talk about the KOSPI-fication of the S&P 500, if there are any historical precedents for the capex going into the AI buildout, and if AI is really immune to interest rates.
Read More: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-28/microsoft-reports-quarterly-cloud-sales-that-beat-estimates?srnd=homepage-americas?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article
Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcastSee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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26 OCT 2026 · It's obvious that things are getting more expensive, and there are plenty of reasons behind the surge in prices — whether it's wars or inflation or companies padding their profit margins. But with the release of AI agents like Meta's Muse, tech companies are promising consumers that agents will start saving them tons of money by finding the best deals. According to today's guest, Lindsay Owens, the history of price gouging does not bode well for claims that things might get cheaper because of new technology, and research conducted by her think tank Groundwork Collaborative shows that a number of consumer facing agents end up serving customers more expensive items after learning more about their financial situation. Her new book Gouged: The End of a Fair Price — and What That Means for Your Wallet gets into the history of how companies got away with charging more for their goods, through means like data collection and surveillance. Today we talk to Owens about how AI agents are already changing the idea of a fair price, all the pre-AI ways that companies price gouged, and her new book. Read more:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-19/uber-wins-bid-to-dismiss-250-million-black-cab-driver-suit?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-20/ryanair-ceo-predicts-highest-air-fares-in-history-next-year?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article Only http://bloomberg.com/ subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
Join the conversation: https://discord.gg/oddlotsSee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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24 OCT 2026 · Richard Mott's first foray into hospitality was in the 1980s at the University of Chicago, where he started running a coffee shop in the basement of the business school when he was a grad student. By the time he graduated, he helped grow that single coffee shop into four locations across campus. He's a longtime Chicago-based restaurateur and his farm-to-table restaurant North Pond has been around since the late 1990s. Lately, he's expanded his business to include Spark Shared Kitchen, a catering facility and incubator for food entrepreneurs. He knows a lot about the practical economics of restaurants and hospitality at large, and in his decades-long career in the Chicago scene he's seen about everything. On our recent trip to Chicago, we sat down with Mott to talk about the ever-increasing price of food and labor, why diners are drinking less, and the expected and unexpected reasons that restaurants so often fail. Read more:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-21/chicago-seeks-to-borrow-for-police-settlements-revive-head-tax?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-10-23/chipotle-s-softening-sales-force-analyst-to-throw-in-the-towel?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=podcast&utm_campaign=odd_lots&utm_content=article Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcast http://bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
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23 OCT 2026 · In 1776, the field of economics was born with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. And among the book's earliest readers, and most ardent advocates, was a Regency-era novelist named Maria Edgeworth. In her time, Edgeworth was one of the most famous literary figures in England, and she smuggled into her stories economic concepts and debates around rent seeking, the idea of productive labor, and so on. These works were enormously influential and they helped expose a generation to practical applications of Smith's new theories. Yet when you read about the history of economics, Edgeworth's name is hardly ever mentioned. Jeanna Smialek, a veteran reporter and the Brussels bureau chief at The New York Times, thinks Edgeworth's name needs to be placed back in the pantheon of economic history. On this episode, we speak with Smialek about her biography, The Invisible Hand of Maria Edgeworth, and we discuss Edgeworth's friendly debates with the likes of Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, how the Irish potato famine reshaped economic thought, and how Edgeworth used the novel form to educate the masses on the value of economics.
Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Sign up at https://www.bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots?in_source=oddlotspodcastSee https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday, Thursday, and Friday
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| Author | Bloomberg |
| Organization | iHeart Podcasts |
| Categories | Investing |
| Website | - |
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