The Breakdown

A daily analysis of macroeconomics, bitcoin, geopolitics and big picture power shifts, hosted by Nathaniel Whittemore @nlw. The Breakdown is part of Blockworks.

Business
Investing
1651
The Power and Peril of the 'Bitcoin Fixes This'...
Cities around the country have been engulfed in protest in the wake of the murder of 46-year-old black man George Floyd. There is an intense battle for the narrative around the protests. Are they legitimate outcries against institutional racism and...
25 min
1652
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 30 2020
The week's episodes in one convenient file.  Monday |   Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
238 min
1653
The Battle for the Future of Money, feat. Lawre...
As the economic dimension of the COVID-19 crisis comes into clearer view, what have we learned about the battle for the future of money? Does the dollar reign supreme? Are within-the-system competitors like the euro or China’s digital yuan gaining...
48 min
1654
The Geopolitical Implications of a Too-Strong D...
You know the meme: Money printer go brrr. It means inflation right?  Not necessarily, says Brent Johnson. Since 2016-2017, Johnson has been arguing the big economic issue of our time isn’t inflation of the U.S. dollar due to excess money...
64 min
1655
Why Innovation Matters (and How Not to Screw It...
Twenty-one different people can reasonably claim to have invented the light bulb, but Thomas Edison is the one we know about. Was it just good PR? According to Matt Ridley, it was because Edison was the progenitor of an “innovation factory” that...
47 min
1656
Deglobalization and Other Narrative Violations,...
The battle to control narratives is the battle to shape how people understand the world around them. But the traditional gatekeepers of narratives - the media - have never had more competition to shape what is perceived as truth.  In this...
54 min
1657
Dollar Dilemmas & Central Banks Gone Wild: The ...
Highlights from some of the most interesting conversations on The Breakdown from the last two months.  4/1 - Peter Zeihan on why the world we’ve known for 30 years is changing forever 4/6 - Emerson Spartz on a moment of punctuated...
32 min
1658
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 23 2020
The complete week's shows in one convenient episode Monday | Economic Freedom in the World After Capital, feat. Albert Wenger Tuesday | Lessons from the Financial History of Pandemics, feat. Jamie Catherwood Wednesday | Why a Strong Dollar Is Bad for...
238 min
1659
In The Shadow of Satoshi's Ghost: Why Bitcoin M...
On Wednesday, a batch of coins mined just a month after bitcoin’s birth were moved. It was the first time since August 2017 that any bitcoin from early 2009 had been transferred, and the action set Bitcoin Twitter on fire. While a number of bitcoin...
30 min
1660
‘Dismantle the Euro to Save Europe’ Feat. Tuoma...
The European Union and the euro are part of the most ambitious political and economic experiment of the 21st century. The COVID-19 crisis, however, has exacerbated growing questions of political will and political legitimacy and led some to wonder if...
45 min
1661
Why a Strong Dollar Is Bad for the US and Bad f...
The dollar has a unique role in the world due to its reserve currency status. For many years that status has created incredible opportunities for the U.S. Increasingly, however, some are wondering if the global standard has outlived its usefulness -...
59 min
1662
Lessons from the Financial History of Pandemics...
Jamie Catherwood works at O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, a quantitative long-equity investment firm. More importantly, however, he is the finance history guy on Twitter. His “Financial History: Sunday Reads” curation pieces and longer form...
35 min
1663
Economic Freedom in the World After Capital, fe...
Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures as well as a prolific thinker and writer. His “World After Capital” is an evolving digital book project that looks at a set of megatrend shifts as the world moves between economic paradigms from...
62 min
1664
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 16 2020
The complete week's shows in one convenient file  Monday | The Great Monetary Inflation: Paul Tudor Jones' Complete Case For Bitcoin Tuesday | How We Future Now - Live With Kathleen Breitman, Caitlin Long and More Wednesday | A Coming Reckoning:...
246 min
1665
The Great Inflation Escape: Where Bitcoin Fits ...
Niall Ferguson has called this moment an “age of experimentation” when it comes to currencies. One of the unique features of this moment is the experiments are not limited to the traditional actors. It is not just nation-states trying to elevate...
47 min
1666
Surveying The Carnage: Movies, Sports, and Educ...
  This is the second in a series of episodes on how the economic crisis is challenging and transforming different industries. NLW looks at: Movies Direct releases are already making more than box office counterparts AMC is on the verge of...
32 min
1667
A Coming Reckoning: Why The Fed Can't Outspend ...
Two powerful and diametrically opposed forces are shaping the economy.  On the one hand is inflationary economic policy, which keeps the price of assets like real estate and stocks rising ever higher, but at the expense of savings as the value of...
68 min
1668
How We Future Now - Live With Kathleen Breitman...
There is a shared sense that the world has shifted. Now begins the messy work of figuring out what it means for the future we’re headed into.  This live episode of The Breakdown podcast with NLW features four conversations about how the future...
63 min
1669
The Great Monetary Inflation: Paul Tudor Jones'...
Jones' letter lays out his bitcoin and macro thesis.  Last week, investing legend Paul Tudor Jones rocked the world of crypto and traditional markets with his full throated entrance into the bitcoin market via his latest letter to Tudor BVI...
27 min
1670
The Breakdown Weekly Recap | May 9 2020
The week's complete show run in one convenient file.  Monday | Why Buffett’s Bearishness Should End V-Shaped Recovery Talk Tuesday | Why Crypto Matters for Financial Inclusion, Feat. Celo's Marek Olszewski Wednesday | Surveying the Carnage:...
131 min
1671
Could These Currencies Be Dollar Killers? Feat....
Libra, the Euro, China's DCEP.  Do any of these currencies have a chance at displacing the dollar in the global order? Or is it possible - as Niall Ferguson suggestions on this episode - that we're poised to shift back to a multipollar,...
25 min
1672
9 Reasons Why Bitcoin Has Never Been Stronger G...
The bitcoin halving is just a few days away and the growing excitement is palpable. On this episode of The Breakdown, NLW argues that the excitement is also legitimate, and looks at nine reasons why bitcoin has never been stronger going into one of...
21 min
1673
Surveying the Carnage: How Real Estate, Travel ...
The second order effects of the COVID-19 crisis are here, and they’re painful. In this episode, NLW looks at how COVID is impacting three industries: Travel and tourism 100m lost jobs expected globally  $2.7 in lost GDP  Airbnb lays of...
25 min
1674
Why Crypto Matters for Financial Inclusion, Fea...
Around the world, an estimated 1.7 billion people remain unbanked and lacking access to high quality financial services.  Some projects see cryptocurrency as an answer. In this episode of The Breakdown, NLW speaks with Celo co-founder Marek...
35 min
1675
Why Buffett’s Bearishness Should End V-Shaped R...
One month after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in 2008, Warren Buffett wrote an Op-Ed saying that he was buying stocks. Yet during the Coronavirus crisis, he is sitting firmly on the sidelines.  On Saturday night, the “Oracle of Omaha”...
16 min