Odd Lots

In September, Gallup released a poll that showed that 43% percent of Americans viewed socialism positively, the highest approval since Gallup began the poll back in 2010. Since Zohran Mamdani won the NYC mayoral election, the left has made a number of gains across national politics. Still, the majority of Americans view socialism negatively, according to Gallup. As a longtime DSA member and veteran of leftist media, Bhaskar Sunkara is one of socialism's leading advocates, and he's spent much of his career charting what a socialist economy in America might look like. Unlike some other leftists, he believes the market has a place. In fact, he thinks markets and entrepreneurs are an objective good in society. He proposes a vision of so-called "market socialism" in his recent co-authored book The Blueprint, and he lays out this system for us in today's episode. We talk about how many features of capitalism — from small businesses to monetary policy — might be remade under socialist principles. Read more: Ocasio-Cortez Boosts El-Sayed and 2028 Talk With $1 Million Check An Economist Makes the Case for Mamdani-Style Populism Only Bloomberg - Business News, Stock Markets, Finance, Breaking & World News subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots Subscribe to the Odd Lots Newsletter Join the conversation: discord.gg/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The third and last episode from our Chicago live show is with James Robinson, a professor at the University of Chicago and a recipient of the 2024 Nobel Prize in economics (which he shared with Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson). His most famous work is 2012's Why Nations Fail, and in that book he and his co-author Acemoglu document the institutional factors — whether it is reliably run elections or open markets that help facilitate innovation — that determine why some states thrive and others don't. So we ask Robinson the big question: What would have to happen for the US to be considered a failed state? Read More: ‘Middle Powers’ Grapple With New Survival Strategies Under Trump Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission was practically brand new when Terry Duffy started working at CME Gropu almost five decades ago, and over the course of his career at the exchange, this legend of the trading world has seen an enormous amount of change when it comes to finance regulation, including the rise of prediction markets, 24/7 trading and perpetual futures. Duffy is set to transition out of his current position as CEO next year, and this conversation, recorded live at City Winery in Chicago, is a sort of exit interview. He tells us how regulation has evolved since the start of his time at the CME. We also talk about why he is against perps, the credibility issues prediction markets face, his definition of spreads versus futures, and what he wishes he knew at the start of his career, now that he is nearing retirement. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we spoke to Don Wilson, founder and CEO of DRW, in Chicago last year, he told us he wanted to build a market for GPUs that would eventually be bigger than oil. A year's time in the age of AI is an eternity, and so for the first episode of this year's Chicago live show - recorded at City Winery - Wilson joins us on stage again to talk about what's changed and what hasn't in his quest to help build this market. We get his take on the recent tech selloff, including credit concerns around neocloud CoreWeave. And we also discuss how DRW is developing a “crunch spread” (the GPU version of a crack spread), the latest on his plans to launch GPU futures, and the possibility of token futures too. Read more: Jump, DRW Bet on New Compute Market as AI Boom Faces Scrutiny Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

History is littered with ideas that have been tossed aside, only for them to gain relevance at some later date. Think of Moby-Dick: forgotten in Melville's time, but now regarded as the great American novel. Or the work of economist Hyman Minsky, which became influential a decade after his death, when the 2008 financial crisis made “the Minsky Moment” a mainstream term. These are just a couple of the things we talk about with the legendary musician David Byrne on today's podcast. Byrne's new book, Sleeping Beauties: Why Good Ideas Go Dormant and How They Wake Up, looks to categorize numerous “sleeping beauties” - ideas that were lost but then rediscovered. Besides Melville and Minsky, we also talk about the lost Roman recipe for concrete and we get into Byrne's thoughts on how to write a song and his own experience of having his music rediscovered by a new generation. Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox, plus unlimited access to the site and app. bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.