Best Existential Echo Podcasts (2025)

1
AI Mayhem and Magic with The Lone Wolf 45:37

1d ago45:37

45:37

By danderton2019

1
The Chinese Chip Giant That Could Be Nvidia's Biggest Threat 39:43

2d ago39:43

39:43

Right now, Nvidia stock is back near its all-time highs, thanks to seemingly unquenchable demand for its AI chips. When it comes to profiting off of this boom, Nvidia's lead and lock-in looks almost unassailable. But there is one particular company that is clearly on the mind of CEO Jensen Huang, and that is Huawei. On this episode, we speak with W…

1
Targeting Type 1 Diabetes (Sponsored Content) 17:01

3d ago17:01

17:01

Madison Carter is a fearless investigative reporter. She takes no day for granted because she lives with type 1 diabetes (T1D). Dr. Doug Melton is a world-renowned stem cell researcher and distinguished fellow at Vertex – and his now grown children, Sam and Emma, live with T1D. Along with scientists like Dr. Felicia Pagliuca, who leads Vertex’s res…

1
Giuseppe Paleologo on Quant Investing at Multi-Strat Hedge Funds 29:46

4d ago29:46

29:46

Quantitative investing is one of those terms that you hear all the time, but there's various explanations of what it actually means, or how quants actually make money. And of course, the term means different things in different contexts. In this live episode, recorded at the Bloomberg Equity Intelligence Summit on June 12, we speak again with Giuse…

1
Losing Yourself Quietly with The Lone Wolf 45:41

4d ago45:41

45:41

By danderton2019

1
Zichen Wang's Exit Interview From America 46:53

5d ago46:53

46:53

Zichen Wang is the writer of the Pekingnology newsletter, which translates important speeches and articles from China into English, and contextualizes them for Western readers. Over the past year, he's been a master's degree student at Princeton University, although he's recently returned home to resume his career at a think tank in China. His stin…

1
Tearing the Veil Hidden Realities with The Lone Wolf 49:44

5d ago49:44

49:44

By danderton2019

1
Gillian Tett on Complex Derivatives and the Fifth Stage of Capitalism 47:42

6d ago47:42

47:42

After the GFC, there was a lot of angst over the fact that so much effort and brainpower went into designing complex derivatives, and other financial instruments. Not only was this seen as wasteful, the complexity was deemed to be the heart of the crisis, and therefore bad. But all these years later, looking back, how bad is financial complexity re…

1
Open Mic Night with The Lone Wolf 52:17

6d ago52:17

52:17

By danderton2019

1
RFNB - Entrapment 7:25

8d ago7:25

7:25

Send us a text In this episode of Radio Free Neo Babylon, Diogenes exposes the invisible cage of modern life—how we're trained to love our own oppression through comfort, distraction, and control. From corporate "freedom" to quiet rebellion in the Undercity, it's a call to wake up, resist, and imagine something real.…

1
Jim Egan on the Mortgage Gap That's Dividing America 35:26

9d ago35:26

35:26

Somehow, the American consumer remains quite strong. Despite higher interest rates, tariffs, general economic uncertainty and so forth, people are continuing to spend. And yet there are some pockets of weakness that you can observe, especially if you look at delinquency data for various types of credit. But even here the patterns aren’t totally obv…

1
The Big Gulf AI Deal That's Divided the White House 26:50

11d ago26:50

26:50

Back in May, President Trump announced this big plan whereby American tech giants would participate in major AI projects in both Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The announcement has created divisions within the White House, and more generally among people who are thinking about the intersection of artificial intelligence and geopolitics.…

1
Trump Economic Advisor, Stephen Miran, on Tariffs and Tax Cuts 40:25

12d ago40:25

40:25

The Trump administration seems to have a lot of big ideas about reshaping America, including its economy. We've seen the unveiling (and delaying) of sweeping tariffs aimed at boosting US manufacturing. The 'Big, Beautiful Bill' is currently working its way through Congress and features a lot of supply-side economic ideas, including an extension of …

1
Ricardo Hausmann on What it Takes to Win a Trade War 44:07

13d ago44:07

44:07

The focus of Trump's trade policies is clearly China. There are tariffs on everyone, of course, but it's the growing Chinese manufacturing might, and the various perceived risks associated with that, which have catalyzed this impulse to rethink how America trades with the rest of the world. But can the US actually move the manufacturing center of g…

1
The Lone Wolf You Owe No One Your Ruin 59:16

14d ago59:16

59:16

By danderton2019

1
Prepared for the Unseen with The Lone Wolf 48:27

15d ago48:27

48:27

By danderton2019

1
Vladislav Zubok on What the Cold War Actually Was 55:10

16d ago55:10

55:10

These days, it's common to talk about the emergence of a New Cold War that exists between the US and China. It's debatable whether or not this is a useful framing. But in order to answer the question, it requires that you have some conception of what the original Cold War actually was. Vladislav Zubok, a professor at the London School of Economics,…

1
Introducing: Everybody's Business 1:27

17d ago1:27

1:27

Bloomberg Businessweek brings you a smart and fun chat show about all things...business. Hosted by award-winning business and economics journalists Max Chafkin (author of The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power) and Stacey Vanek Smith (former co-host of NPR’s Planet Money and reporter for Marketplace), Everybody's Business…

1
A Major American Egg Farm Just Lost 90% of its Chickens 21:19

18d ago21:19

21:19

Egg prices have come down a lot since their recent record and bird flu has largely faded from the headlines. But the epidemic is still raging and, per one farmer, risks becoming endemic in the US. Glenn Hickman is president of Hickman's Egg Ranch in Arizona, one of the largest egg producers in the US. You might remember him from our series last yea…

1
The Lone Wolf When Machines Do It All Whats Left of Us 59:48

18d ago59:48

59:48

By danderton2019

1
Lots More on What America's Busiest Port is Seeing from the Trade Tariffs 16:52

19d ago16:52

16:52

We're about two months on from Liberation Day, and there's still a lot of confusion about what's going on with global trade. Some countries, like China, have been granted delays from tariffs. But other trade restrictions, like the 50% tariff on foreign steel, have come into effect. So what exactly is going on and what impact is this having on the p…

1
I See Dead People with The Lone Wolf 49:12

19d ago49:12

49:12

The Lone Wolf explores a world full of blank stares and hollow lives—where common sense is gone and no one’s truly home. This isn’t horror—it’s reality. Walk with us through numbness, noise, and the forgotten fire of those still willing to feel.By danderton2019

1
Jersey City's Mayor on How the City Built So Much Housing 39:39

20d ago39:39

39:39

To some extent, at least in big cities, it feels as though the cost of housing is enveloping almost everything else in terms of politics right now. Booming areas that drive GDP have gotten incredibly expensive in large part thanks to rent, and even the well paid residents are forced to turn over a significant share of their income over to their lan…

1
Weather by Design with The Lone Wolf 48:46

20d ago48:46

48:46

Weather by Design with The Lone Wolf exposes the hidden hands behind extreme weather. From cloud seeding to geoengineering, this podcast unearths the technologies and motives shaping our skies. Truth meets turbulence—no forecast can prepare you for what’s uncovered here.By danderton2019

1
The Power of the Unspoken Word 46:28

20d ago46:28

46:28

By danderton2019

1
Why It's So Hard for Apple to Move Production from China to India 46:02

23d ago46:02

46:02

President Trump wants Apple to make iPhones in America. The company itself has talked about — and to some extent already has been — moving more of its production to other countries, like India. But in reality, Apple remains deeply, deeply enmeshed in the Chinese supply chain. In fact, the rise of Apple, and the iPhone specifically, is the ultimate …

1
How Do We Define a Currency? 57:52

25d ago57:52

57:52

What is a currency? This turns out to be one of those questions we just kind of skip over because we don't have clear answers to it (and because economists often like to skip over these foundational things). This special episode of the Odd Lots podcast was recorded as part of Princeton University's “How to Write the Biography of a Currency” event, …

1
Krishna Memani on Wall Street's Very Expensive "Free Lunch" 39:20

26d ago39:20

39:20

We're told over and over again that the one "free lunch" in investing is diversification, and that you can improve your returns over time simply by investing in a wider range of assets. This is textbook modern finance. And yet over the past several years this hasn't been the case. An investor would have done great (with the occasional hiccups) just…

1
Michael Cembalest on Why AI Is the Stock Market Bet of the Century 58:52

27d ago58:52

58:52

Michael Cembalest has been an investment analyst for almost 40 years and his research notes have drawn a cult following on Wall Street. He's known for going super deep into a wide range of topics, like energy and healthcare. And lately he's been writing a lot about AI, with a particular interest in figuring out whether all the investment in data ce…

1
Why Asset Allocators Love Multi-Strategy Hedge Funds 49:43

30d ago49:43

49:43

Multi-strategy hedge funds have been having a moment with big asset allocators pouring billions of dollars into names like Millennium and Citadel. And given all the growth, multi-strat funds have also been battling each other for talent. But why, exactly, do big investors seem to love multi-strats so much? What actually makes a multi-strat good to …

1
Zohran Mamdani, the Socialist Who Could Be NYC's New Mayor 46:58

1M ago46:58

46:58

We're just a month away from the hotly-contested Democratic primary for New York City Mayor. And one of the candidates -- Queens assemblyman Zohran Mamdani -- is running on a somewhat unusual platform. Endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, he's proposing rent freezes, universal childcare, higher taxes on corporations and the wealthy, fr…

1
Why Interest Rates Are Shooting Up All Around the World 43:20

1M ago43:20

43:20

This week the big story in markets is the selloff in bonds. Yields on benchmark 10-year US Treasuries jumped 20 basis points from last Friday’s low, while the 30-year rate is back above 5%. Meanwhile, 30-year Japanese government bonds clocked their highest yield since records began in 1999. And rates on UK gilts, German bunds, and Australian bonds …

1
Scott Bok on How Bankers Spread the Gospel of Capitalism 53:25

1M ago53:25

53:25

When we think about the prospect of deglobalization (whatever that means) we often think about it in terms of the goods economy. Supply chains get rerouted. Manufacturing becomes more localized, and possibly less efficient. But changes to the global world order also have implications for Wall Street, and the world of dealmaking. On this episode of …

1
Atlanta Fed's Raphael Bostic on Monetary Policy During Extreme Uncertainty 48:13

1M ago48:13

48:13

This is obviously an extraordinarily difficult time to make economic forecasts. Nobody really knows how tariffs will affect the US economy. And beyond that, nobody knows what the ultimate state of tariffs will be, or if they'll ever settle into a predictable rate. So how do you conduct monetary policy in this environment? On this episode, recorded …

1
The Oil Industry's Double Whammy of Higher Costs and Lower Prices 43:16

1M ago43:16

43:16

The new administration has a "drill, baby, drill" mantra and a much more liberal attitude towards the oil and gas industry than the last one. But that hasn't translated into great profits for the oil industry itself. Crude prices have sunk and tariffs have raised the cost of components for companies trying to get energy out of the ground. So, what'…

1
Perry Mehrling on Trump's Echoes of the Nixon Shock 29:04

1M ago29:04

29:04

There's been a lot of talk recently about parallels between Donald Trump's economic policies and the Nixon Shock of the early 1970s. That was when the former president took the dollar off the gold standard, introduced hefty tariffs, and pressured the Federal Reserve to ease monetary policy. The moves sparked stagflation in the US and shook up the g…

1
RFNB - Employment 6:45

1M ago6:45

6:45

Send us a text In this episode of Radio Free Neo Babylon, Diogenes unpacks the machinery of labor in Neo Babylon. Who truly benefits from your exhaustion? Why does survival cost your life? Blending existential philosophy with street-level clarity, this reflection explores the systems that commodify time. What happens when we begin to reclaim our ho…

1
Philip Diehl on the Booming Business of Gold Coins 41:59

1M ago41:59

41:59

Gold prices have been booming and are near record highs. And seeing the line go up — especially during a period of so much uncertainty — makes people want to buy more. That includes acquiring actual gold coins. But where do gold coins come from? Why do people want coins, as opposed to just bullion? And who is buying them? On this episode, we speak …

1
Why the World Keeps Getting Shocked by China's Technological Progress 39:01

2M ago39:01

39:01

Over the last several years, the world has watched as China edges close to or past the technological frontier in more and more areas. Earlier this year, US investors were jolted even further when DeepSeek's AI model proved to be close to the state of the art American models. So what is the process by which China actually develops new tech? Why has …

1
Sarah LaFleur On the Existential Threat From the Tariffs 40:16

2M ago40:16

40:16

America's textile industry has famously declined over the years, with a bunch of production moving to lower-cost places like China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Now, with the Trump administration imposing heavy tariffs on exports from these countries, the US clothing industry is facing another big shock. In this episode we speak with Sarah LaFleur, fou…

1
How China Might Actually Handle a US Trade War 52:28

2M ago52:28

52:28

By now, everyone recognizes that the US and China are in the middle of a trade war, with the Trump administration having imposed tariffs of as much as 125% on Chinese goods. For an export-focused economy like China's, that's a big deal. At the same time, China is pretty much the only major country that's chosen to retaliate against the US with its …

1
The Tariff Buzzsaw Is Coming For Hardcore Gamers 46:52

2M ago46:52

46:52

Every industry is going to be affected by the trade war in different ways. In many cases, we don't know how it's going to play out. Other industries are seeing an immediate impact. Companies that specialize in computer gaming are highly reliant on inputs from China and other East Asian countries. These companies assemble customized gaming rigs and …

1
Brad Setser on the Big Surge in the Taiwanese Dollar 29:11

2M ago29:11

29:11

There are several markets that have really settled down since the tumult of early April. But strange, unusual things are still popping up, particularly in the currency space. Over the last few days, we've seen a huge surge in the Taiwan dollar. This is important, in part, because Taiwanese life insurance companies are major buyers of US dollar asse…

1
Henry Blodget on AI, Dot-Coms, and What's Changed In 25 Years 54:47

2M ago54:47

54:47

What does history say about how big the AI boom can get, and who will ultimately win out? When does a boom turn into a bubble that turns into a bust? On this episode of the podcast, we speak to Henry Blodget, the founder of Business Insider (and Joe's old boss there). In the late '90s, Henry was one of the most well-known Wall Street analysts cover…

1
Chris Hughes on How to Craft a Thriving Market 53:38

2M ago53:38

53:38

Over the last several years, both parties in the US have been drifting away from laissez-faire thinking about the economy, and more towards the view that the state has an active role in shaping markets. You have Republicans talking about stricter anti-trust and sovereign wealth funds, and of course Democrats embracing things like industrial policy …

1
What The 'Lentil King of Saskatchewan' Knows About World Trade 52:03

2M ago52:03

52:03

We don't know what the end state for the tariffs are going to be, but inevitably there will be some shifts in the way that goods and dollars flow around the world economy. Of course, some parts of the economy are always subject to changing rules around subsidies and tariffs, and that's particularly true in agriculture. On this episode of the podcas…

1
Blackstone's King of Hedge Funds on Alt Investing Right Now 47:11

2M ago47:11

47:11

Everyone knows by now that college endowment funds have gone big on alternative investing, pouring billions of dollars into private equity and hedge funds. But that investing model now seems to be under pressure and there are reports that Ivy League institutions like Yale and Harvard are looking to unload some of their more illiquid investments. So…

1
Some of America's Most Important Economic Data Is Decaying 47:23

2M ago47:23

47:23

Gathering official economic data is a huge process in the best of times. But a bunch of different things have now combined to make that process even harder. People aren't responding to surveys like they used to. Survey responses have also become a lot more divided along political lines. And at the same time, the Trump administration wants to cut ba…

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