Trumponomics

The pandemic has raised the specter of mass unemployment across many developed economies. In Europe, governments stepped in to help pay millions of workers, hoping the crisis would quickly pass and businesses reopen. But with normality nowhere in sight and fresh waves of infection prompting new restrictions, the question now is which jobs should we try to save? On this week’s episode, Bloomberg ec...

Covid-19 has upended economies across the globe. In the fourth season of Stephanomics, we’ll be taking a closer look at the fragile path to recovery and which nations are doing better than others. This first podcast of the new season is brought to you by the letter K, or more precisely the K-shaped recovery which sees parts of the U.S. economy bouncing back while others still suffer. We start in C...

Andy Browne, editorial director for the Bloomberg New Economy, talks to Jonathan Hillman, author of the book The Emperor’s New Road: China and the Project of the Century. That project, of course, is the Belt and Road Initiative: the grand strategy of president Xi Jinping who has made it his foreign policy signature. But what is it exactly? An imperial effort, certainly. But according to Jonathan n...

One of the first global consumer companies to feel the impact of Covid-19 was the beer giant AB InBev, whose brands include Budweiser, Corona and Stella Artois. AB InBev operates a brewery in Whuan China where the pandemic began and which was the worlds first city to go into lockdown. But as life returns to normal in Wuhan and cities all over the world, beer is flowing again in record quantities. ...

Before the pandemic, relations between the U.S. and China were already at rock bottom. Since then, they've gotten even worse, with both sides trading blame for the Covid-19 outbreak, spinning conspiracy theories and abandoning cooperation on all fronts. To discuss what this all means for the Covid economy, Andy Browne caught up with two Wall Street Journal reporters, Lingling Wei and Bob Davis, to...

In this bonus episode, Andy Browne, the editorial Director of the Bloomberg New Economy, talks to Brian Chesky, chief executive of Airbnb. A few months ago, the company laid off a quarter of its staff. But since then, the business has since staged a remarkable comeback — and now Airbnb is said to be planning an IPO. Andy and Brian discuss the future of travel, and what a new nomadic workforce migh...

The novel coronavirus has reshaped the global economy, shifting the attitudes of governments, central bankers and consumers alike. It has changed how we work—if we work—and altered monetary and fiscal policy around the globe. As this tumultuous season of Stephanomics draws to a close, host Stephanie Flanders speaks with two leading economists about what they’ve learned from the crisis so far. Step...

The killers of Berta Caceres had every reason to believe they’d get away with murder. More than 100 other environmental activists in Honduras had been killed in the previous five years, yet almost no one had been punished for the crimes. Bloomberg’s Blood River follows a four-year quest to find her killers – a twisting trail that leads into the country’s circles of power. Blood River premieres on...

Great things can rise from the ashes of failed companies, so governments shouldn’t rescue firms that would otherwise go bust. That’s the thinking behind so-called creative destruction, but amid the unprecedented shock of the pandemic, does this economic theory apply, or is it too risky?  On this week’s episode, Stephanie Flanders talks to Bloomberg Federal Reserve reporter Rich Miller and Eurozone...

Wuhan will forever be known as the place where Covid-19 and lockdowns began. But the Chinese city also might be the best place to learn how to restart the global economy. On this week’s episode, Stephanie Flanders talks to Sharon Chen, Bloomberg’s Beijing bureau chief, about the lessons we can learn from Wuhan’s efforts to get life—and business—back on track, and why it pays to be in the instant n...

Covid-19’s fracturing of supply chains has left businesses and governments questioning the prudence of networks that crisscross the planet. Pandemic recovery plans talk of developing “strategic autonomy” in key sectors, and suggest that executives should bring production closer to home. But on the ground, companies say it’s not so easy.  Host Stephanie Flanders hears from Frankfurt-based Bloomberg...

Adam Neumann had a vision: to make his startup WeWork a wildly successful company that would change the world. He convinced thousands of other people -- customers, employees, investors -- that he could make that dream a reality. And for a while, he did. He was one of the most successful startup founders in the world. But then, in the span of just a few months, everything changed. Foundering is a n...

It’s no exaggeration to say the coronavirus has upended the global economy in ways few could have imagined. It's been called a wake-up call for capitalism and a foreshadowing of our exceedingly precarious future, one with more catastrophes waiting in the wings. What if anything can governments and central banks do about it? Host Stephanie Flanders digs into this question with two famous economists...

As protests against racial discrimination and police killings continue across the U.S., another injustice is ripping through American cities: Black-owned businesses are shutting down at an alarming rate. Host Stephanie Flanders talks with Atlanta-based Bloomberg reporter Michael Sasso on why twice as many Black entrepreneurs are being forced to close their doors amid the pandemic as compared with...

Protests all across America following the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, have put yet another spotlight on the deep inequality between black and white America. That disparity was also laid bare in last week’s jobs data, when a surprise drop in overall unemployment masked the fact that black joblessness has climbed to its highest level in more than a decade. Host...

Europe is emerging after weeks of lockdowns that kept shops and businesses shuttered, and residents safe at home. On this week’s episode, Bloomberg economy reporter Jeannette Neumann steps out onto the streets of Madrid to speak with restaurateurs and hoteliers. In a post-coronavirus world where travel is limited, outdoor dining mandatory and police decide how many tables are allowed, reopening a...

Covid-19 is the biggest threat to our physical and economic health in recent times, but on this week’s episode, Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs takes a 70,000 year perspective on the global crisis, what it will mean for international relations and even a potentially better future. Stephanie Flanders also speaks to Bloomberg Opinion editor Ferdinando Giugliano about the European Union’s...

There’s little debate that Covid-19 has crushed economies and triggered government rescue efforts not seen in modern times. On this week’s episode, World Bank Chief Economist Carmen Reinhart and fellow Harvard professor Kenneth Rogoff, authors of “This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly,” discuss what comes next with Bloomberg Economics executive editor Simon Kennedy. The depth...

Romanian home-care workers in Italy. Indian construction crews in Dubai. Filipino maids and cooks in Singapore. The world’s wealthy economies depend on a steady flow of cheap labor from lower-income nations. And people in those nations often rely on remittances from family members working abroad. Now it seems that the coronavirus pandemic that’s crushing economies all over the world is also upendi...

Just a few months ago, the economic debate about employment centered on how low the jobless rate could go. Now, with tens of millions out of work across the globe, it's about how bad it can get. On this week's episode, host Stephanie Flanders and economy reporter Katia Dmitrieva discuss how those "last in" to a boom economy are usually the "first out" in a downturn. Focusing on seven case studies,...

The Waffle House chain of U.S. restaurants, with most of its locations in the nation’s south, is famous for staying open during hurricanes and other severe weather. Now it’s facing what could be a tougher challenge: luring customers who are wary of spending time there because of the coronavirus. It’s all happening in Georgia, whose Republican governor made waves with his decision to let many busin...

How do you restart the global economy following a coronavirus-induced lockdown? China is the test case, and getting workers back to work is proving a lot easier than getting them to shop or patronize restaurants. On this week’s episode, Stephanie Flanders talks to Bloomberg Beijing bureau chief Sharon Chen about her recent visit to Wuhan, the starting point of the pandemic, and her subsequent 14-d...

Mid-April is when the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank hold their spring meetings, where finance ministers and central bankers gather to exchange ideas on keeping global growth intact. This year, the meetings will be virtual, and the discussions less about growth and more about avoiding an economic abyss. Gita Gopinath, in her second year as the IMF’s chief economist, is projecting t...

For years, a small band of economists pushed an unorthodox approach to government spending (particularly in the U.S.), arguing that concern about deficits and debt was wildly overblown. Now, with measures to contain the novel coronavirus shutting down commerce around the world, and fiscal authorities spending trillions of dollars to fill the gap, it’s starting to become more popular. Stephanie Kel...

In a matter of weeks the Covid-19 virus has turned the world upside down. In the start of a new season of Stephanomics, James Mayger and Zhu Lin report from China - the original epicenter of the virus – on how truck drivers there are trying to get back to normal. Then host Stephanie Flanders asks US economist Adam Posen how the economics profession has risen to the challenge of the crisis - and wh...