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Bloomberg


Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway explore the most interesting topics in finance, markets and economics. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday.


Odd Lots

You always hear about startup exits. Big acquisitions. Big IPOs. But of course this isn’t the fate for most new ventures. Many of them die outright, without any kind of “exit” at all for shareholders. So how do you wind down a company, and sell off the scraps? How do you actually pull the plug? David Johnson of Resolution Financial Advisors specializes in exactly that. Because the formal bankruptcy process is very expensive, many companies look for some way to salvage value by doing an asset fire sale. David tells us how the process works, and also goes through a bunch of fun examples of odd transactions, such as the time he had to find a buyer for some actual human skulls that were in the office of a dying startup.
 
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This Is What Happens When a Startup Dies

President Trump and others have talked about the idea of the US having a Sovereign Wealth Fund, a la the UAE or Singapore. It feels like a longshot, but as it turns out, there is actually one Sovereign Wealth Fund in the United States, which is the Alaska Permanent Fund. The fund was established in the 1970s to manage the state's booming oil fortune, and ensure that the boom benefitted the residents of the state for years into the future. Today the fund manages over $80 billion, contributing a substantial portion each year to Alaska's state budget, including an annual check paid directly to almost all residents of the state. On this episode, we speak with the fund's CEO Deven Mitchell and CIO Marcus Frampton about how the fund operates, its relationship with the government of Alaska, and how it's investing its money in order to fulfill its purpose long into the future. We also discuss what lessons from the APF could apply to any similar project done at a national level.
 
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Lessons From the One Sovereign Wealth Fund in the United States

You can kind of understand why it's so hard to build housing in New York City. There isn't much available land. It's already pretty built up. And then, add in the fact that so many people want to live in New York, and you can understand why it's so expensive. But what's the deal with Alaska? There seems to be plenty of land. And population has actually been in a a general state of decline. And yet, housing remains strained, with many of the same affordability problems seen elsewhere in the country. So what are the specific challenging dynamics to be overcome? On this episode, we speak with Jimmy Ord, Daniel Delfino, and Stacy Barnes of the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation to understand the challenges they face, and the work they do to ease the strain. We get into both the specific logistical, political, and financial tools available to reduce pressure.
 
Read more:
NYC Approves Midtown Rezoning to Allow 9,500 New Housing Units More Estate Agents Are Reporting Falling House Prices, RICS Says
 
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Housing Is a Problem Even in a State With Declining Population

Right now, you could make a good argument that inflation is still too hot, and that with the stock market booming, and the unemployment rate at 4.2%, that it's crazy to think about cutting rates. You could also argue that much of the economy is stalling, that the pace of job growth has slowed dramatically, and that with housing in the tank, we need lower rates. Then on top of this situation, layer in the fact that we have this weird bifurcated economy, with the AI sector growing like gangbusters. And then add onto that the attacks on the independence of the Federal Reserve coming from the Trump administration. And furthermore, trade policy is still a moving target. To make sense of this complicated time — and to look ahead to next week's Jackson Hole conference — we speak with Skanda Amarnath, the executive director of Employ America.
 
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Lots More With Skanda Amarnath on This Moment in Macro

We're in an age where shocks can occur on both the supply side and the demand side. On the supply side, the causes are well known. Pandemics, trade wars, and climate disruption have exposed the frailty of supply chains in goods too numerous to list. On the demand side, the tendency for certain goods to suddenly go "viral" among consumers can be impossible to predict. Take Dubai chocolate. The craze for pistachio-filled candy came out of nowhere, in part thanks to social media. Our guests on this episode are super bullish on a different nut. Burton Flynn and Ivan Nechunaev are managing partners at Terra Nova Capital Advisors, where they look for unusual investments in frontier markets all around the world. On this episode, they tell us about their bull case for hazelnuts, including where they're grown, the economics of hazelnut agriculture, and the limited ways of playing this popular nut.
 
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The Investors Who Think Hazelnuts Will Be the Next Pistachios

We're interested in trucking here at Odd Lots. It's one of those industries that can tell us a lot about the economy, both in terms of the short-term cycle, and also long-term structural trends. Of course, we know that the industry is prone to big boom and bust cycles. And Alaska itself -- driven so much by oil and natural resource extraction -- is also known for its boom and bust cycles. So on our trip there, we spoke with Josh Norum, the CEO of Sourdough Express, an Alaska based trucking company that's been around for over a century. We talked about how the business works, the history of the company, the current economic environment, tariffs, and the unique challenge (and opportunity) of moving freight in America's northernmost state.
 
Read more:
Uber Freight Founder Joins Autonomous Big Rig Startup Waabi
Driverless Trucks Lumber Along With Safety-First Approach
 
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How to Move Freight Across the Icy Roads of Alaska

Alaska is no stranger to supply chain issues and a higher cost of living. Almost everything has to be imported into the state, incurring longer lead times and extra transportation costs — and that’s even before adding in the new tariffs from the Trump administration. In this episode, we speak with Dave Cavitt, the founder and CEO of Furniture Enterprises of Alaska, which owns furniture stores for brands including La-Z-Boy, Mattress Firm, Ashley’s Furniture, and many more. We talk to him about the logistical challenges of selling furniture in Alaska, consumer demand right now, the impact of the tariffs, and much more.
 
Read more:
Who Loses the Most From Trump’s Tariffs? Who Wins?
US, Japan Working to Announce Reciprocal Tariffs Won’t Stack
 
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What an Alaskan Furniture Company Tells Us About Tariffs

Alaska is one of the states in the Federal Reserve's 12th District, which is headquartered in San Francisco. For Mary Daly, the head of the SF Fed, the state right now is a leading indicator for the US economy overall. In an interview recorded on a trip to Anchorage, Daly tells us what she's learning from businesses in the state, how it relates to the rest of the US economy, and how she uses what she's learning on the ground in order to best guide monetary policy. We also get her big picture views on structural trends such as AI and an aging workforce, and why she's growing increasingly confident that the tariffs will not contribute to sustained upward pressure on inflation.

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Mary Daly on Why Alaska Is a Leading Indicator for the US Economy

The Chinese Communist Party is probably one of the most difficult entities in the world to grasp due to its opacity of its inner workings. A new book from Joseph Torigian, a research fellow at Stanford's Hoover History Lab and an associate professor at American University, sheds light on the entity by examining the life of Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping. The elder Xi was one of the earliest and important players in the revolution, and his life trajectory -- having spent 16 years out of power during the Cultural Revolution -- offers a lens into how the party operates. On this episode, we discuss Xi Zhongxun's life, the constant pressure to stay on the correct line, and what his struggles might tell us about how his son rules China today.
 
Read more:
China Draws Red Lines on US Chip Tracking With Nvidia Meeting
The AI Showdown: How the US and China Stack Up
 
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Joseph Torigian on Xi Zhongxun and Elite Chinese Communist Party Politics

Late last week, Donald Trump shocked Wall Street by firing Erika McEntarfer, the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency responsible for publishing some of America's most important economic data. The firing came after the BLS released a weaker than expected jobs report for July, with just 73,000 new jobs added for the month (compared to forecasts for 103,000). The bureau also revised jobs numbers for the prior two months down by nearly 260,000 jobs. Trump called the data "rigged." But why does the BLS make these revisions, and what does the firing of the BLS chief mean for anyone trying to gauge the direction of the US economy? In this episode, we speak to Bill Beach, a former BLS chief, about the latest drama in US economic statistics.
 
Read more:
Trump to Name New Fed Governor, BLS Head in Coming Days
S&P 500 Bounces 1% After Weak Jobs Data Stokes Rate-Cut Optimism
 
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Bill Beach on How Trump Just Politicized US Economic Data

Earlier this year, it emerged that the London Metals Exchange had been holding a bunch of bags filled with stones instead of the nickel needed to back trades for major commodities players, including Trafigura. Before that, commodities trader Mercuria was given painted rocks instead of the copper it was supposed to take delivery of. In short, the commodities world is no stranger to fraud. But what is it about the business of trading, moving and storing commodities that makes it so susceptible to scandal? In this episode, we speak to repeat Odd Lots guests and commodities collateral specialists Mercury Group CEO Anton Posner and President Margo Brock, about some recent episodes of counterfeiting in commodities world, why they seem to keep happening, and what could be done to prevent further instances from occurring.

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Counterfeiting Scandals Keep Slamming the Commodities Market

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