The Big View

Reuters Breakingviews columnists tap their best contacts to explore the biggest issues driving business and markets today. Every Tuesday, Global Editor Peter Thal Larsen and his team tackle a pressing question with a senior executive, financier, policymaker, or other expert. The Big View helps you understand what is going on, explore all sides of the argument, and think about what happens next.

[For previous The Exchange podcast users, we didn't want to leave you hanging so we've decided to repurpose this feed for the launch of The Big View podcast. You can still find the legacy episodes below marked under the old title]

News
251
The Exchange: Tiananmen 3.0
Han Dongfang was expelled from China for organising worker protests that were bloodily suppressed in 1989. He founded China Labour Bulletin, which tracks factory protests, strikes and policy. He speaks with Pete Sweeney about the economic stress on wor...
17 min
252
The Exchange: Surviving the digital-media meltdown
Venture capitalist Ben Lerer, whose firm backed BuzzFeed and Axios, drops by Breakingviews to discuss why startups in the news industry have been suffering. Unlike some of his peers, Lerer reckons these minnows can have mutually beneficial relationship...
33 min
253
The Exchange: Hong Kong's political crisis
Michael Tien was among the first politicians from the city’s pro-Beijing faction to oppose the controversial extradition proposal. Just before protesters ransacked the legislature, he spoke with Breakingviews about Chief Executive Carrie Lam’s future a...
17 min
254
The Exchange: Escaping carbon’s grip
Saipem made its name building drills and pipelines for fossil-fuel giants like Saudi Aramco. CEO Stefano Cao visits Breakingviews to discuss how climate change is pushing the company into greener projects – and how tech challenges and a need to protect...
24 min
255
The Exchange: John Delaney
The first Democrat to bid for 2020’s presidential election has a pitch rarely heard in today’s political slugfest: that Democrats and Republicans can get along. Despite being a peacemaker, the former Maryland congressman has some punchy views on China,...
23 min
256
The Exchange: Dick’s sticks to its guns
Dick’s Sporting Goods lost sales, customers and suppliers when it banned assault-style weapons from its stores last year. Over a year later, boss Ed Stack tells Breakingviews what he learned from taking a stand on gun violence, and addresses his newer ...
13 min
257
The Exchange: Dustin Yellin
Is there a better way to signal the hydrocarbon era’s end than by flipping a 1,000-foot oil tanker vertically from the sea to create the world’s largest sculpture? Not according to the artist behind “The Bridge,” who discussed his project with Rob Cox ...
17 min
258
The Exchange: The trouble with America
The country no longer loves the unremarkable and its inequitable universities are unsustainable, NYU’s Scott Galloway tells Breakingviews. As his new book “The Algebra of Happiness” hits the shelves, he also discusses his prescient Amazon call and why ...
30 min
259
The Exchange: John Taylor
The economist and leading proponent of a rules-based strategy for monetary policy recently convened a powwow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution at which top policymakers brought diverse views on the Fed’s conduct to the fore. He fillets some of the choic...
24 min
260
The Exchange: Margrethe Vestager
The EU’s antitrust commissioner is famous for imposing multi-billion-dollar fines on Alphabet and Apple. She joins Peter Thal Larsen and Liam Proud to explain why combatting the greed, power and fear that stifles competition is even more crucial in a d...
29 min
261
The Exchange: Joseph Stiglitz
Americans are unequal, unheeded and underpaid, the former White House economist argues in his new book “People, Power, and Profits.” He stopped by Breakingviews to discuss why global trade needs a rewrite, Facebook deserves a break-up and socialism is ...
34 min
262
The Exchange: Marco Polo 2.0
Italy irked the United States by backing Beijing’s grand infrastructure plan. The country needs to improve ties with the People’s Republic to sell more wine and other exports, says Rome’s top China expert. Overcoming trade ba...
27 min
263
The Exchange: Laurence Boone
The yellow vest protests are fizzling out in France, but the inequities that fueled them haven’t gone away. That it takes six generations for the poorest to reach the middle class is a big one. The OECD chief economist discusses this, Brexit, Italy and...
32 min
264
The Exchange: Fomenting rugby fever in Hong Kong
As the city braces for the annual Sevens showdown, organiser Robbie McRobbie tells Breakingviews what the event reveals about its host. From fancy dress and fancier corporate suites, to a real estate dilemma, the sports extravaganza tracks the financia...
17 min
265
The Exchange: The water-crisis marathoner
Investors and companies are ill prepared for the rising scarcity of this most important natural resource. With World Water Day on March 22, Thirst CEO Mina Guli lays out the issues and explains why she decided to run 100 marathons in 100 days to draw a...
22 min
266
The Exchange: Out of the desert, into a trade war
Weijian Shan spent his youth labouring in the Gobi Desert. Now he runs $30 bln at PAG, after stints at TPG and the World Bank. One of the first Chinese to study in America after the Cultural Revolution, Shan discusses trade tensions, and the economic r...
19 min
267
The Exchange: Austerity in the age of populism
Fiscal restraint is going out of fashion. In his new book “Austerity”, Harvard professor Alberto Alesina sets out to explain when it’s needed. He tells Breakingviews of the hidden long-term risks of U.S. President Donald Trum...
26 min
268
The Exchange: Fixing tech's gender disparity
Women hold too few roles in corporate America, especially in engineering and computer science. Verizon’s Genia Wilbourn joins Breakingviews to discuss how she and the telecom company are addressing that, from diversity traini...
32 min
269
The Exchange: Hollowing out white-collar jobs
In “The Globotics Upheaval” Richard Baldwin predicts machine learning and instant communications will disrupt service workers just as automation and offshoring upended Western factories. He tells Breakingviews what’s coming, and what we can do to slow ...
23 min
270
The Exchange: Huawei’s U.S. security chief
Andy Purdy, who previously worked in academia and for the U.S. government, talks about the geopolitical edge to allegations about Beijing’s influence at Chinese tech group Huawei, and how communications equipment needs global standards and better testi...
22 min
271
The Exchange: How Facebook takes away our humanity
That’s the way early investor Roger McNamee describes what the social network - and Google - is doing without proper oversight. In discussing his book, “Zucked,” he explains why just changing Facebook management won’t solve its problems and why he rema...
23 min
272
The Exchange: Joseph Tsai
Alibaba’s co-founder and executive vice chairman joins Breakingviews to reveal what the future holds for the $400 billion tech giant. As investors fret over economic uncertainties, Tsai also tackles the recent fallout from Huawei, a bruising trade war ...
19 min
273
The Exchange: Flint Mayor Karen Weaver
Before its tainted-water scandal hit in 2014, the Michigan city was already infamous for high crime and poverty rates after a prolonged economic slump. Weaver discusses the fallout from the water crisis – and explains how the birthplace of General Moto...
33 min
274
The Exchange: Big Weed's big year
Bruce Linton runs the world's biggest cannabis producer, Canopy Growth. He visited Breakingviews to discuss what's coming down the pipe in 2019, why a $100 bln weed company is still some way off, and why he doesn't actually partake - yet.
53 min
275
The Exchange: How corporate competition died
Jonathan Tepper’s book “The Myth of Capitalism” is full of scary facts: two companies control 90 pct of America beer, while five banks account for half the country’s banking assets. He joined Breakingviews to explain the inexorable rise of monopolies a...
22 min