Episodes

April 22, 2024

Private Equity Plays Pass the Parcel

This week we turn our attention back to private markets where Richard’s prior smoke signals may be bearing fruit. That is, we’re getting reports that private equity is playing pass the parcel: selling assets to themselves tha...

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April 15, 2024

Behind the Balance Sheet with Stephen Clapham

This week we have a distinguished guest with an estimable track record at calling out the machinations and malfeasance behind the numbers: Stephen Clapham, the driving force of Behind the Balance Sheet, a podcast of the same ...

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April 8, 2024

Troubling Times

Our recent episode on Reddit was a surprise hit, as was the stock - temporarily - so we’ll be diving into that and much more. This week, a look at the volatile nature of financial markets with discussions around recent …

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April 1, 2024

You Can't Lead If You Don't Know Where You're Going: Big Tech vs Big …

This week we speak with Bill Raduchel, who has served as a high-level executive and strategic adviser for organizations such as Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner, Xerox, McGraw-Hill, and the Salvation Army. Over half a centur...

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March 25, 2024

Fiscal Drag Queen

This week, we’re talking taxes. Don’t switch off, don’t fall asleep and please don’t hire an accountant as the next 45 minutes will defy the laws of gravity and make taxes sexy. Or make saxes testy… Mentioned in today’s show:...

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March 18, 2024

Reddit and Weep

So let's look forward and prepare you for the next big sexy blockbuster tech IPO, you’ve read all about it - that’s right. Reddit is going to ring the bell. For more on Bubble Trouble, including transcripts of the show, …

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March 11, 2024

Browser Wars: Brave vs. Goliath

When looking at today's issues of privacy, social media, and AI, we can draw a lot from the battles of the browsers over the past 30 years. To explore this, we welcome a close friend onto the show, the father …

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March 4, 2024

Kill the Chicken to Scare The Monkey with guest Linda Yueh

This week we talk with Linda Yueh, author of the book The Great Crashes. Since America's Wall Street Crash of 1929, the global economy has weathered the most tumultuous century in financial history. From the currency crises o...

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Feb. 26, 2024

Brussels - Muscles or Mussels?

This week, Will is just back from Brussels after addressing the European parliament on media and technology and, well, he’s doesn't see too impressed with his first visit since Brexit. And given we’ve discussed super stocks l...

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Feb. 19, 2024

Super Fans Meet Super Stocks

This week Richard puts Will on the hot seat, and review all his amazing work on the economics of the music industry, something that is a lot smaller than everyone imagines, even if it touches all of us deeply. For …

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Feb. 12, 2024

All Your Eggs in One Big Tech Basket

This week we get into portfolio theory, or lack of, as for many the rush to big tech and wilful ignorance of everything else Wall Street has to offer seems to be the rule as opposed to the exception. Why …

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Feb. 5, 2024

Constructing Bubbles with David Trainer

This week we’re going to keep on pricking bubbles with a fellow cynic of the sycophants and stenographers. Here to help us is David Trainer of New Constructs, whose company makes “robo-adjustments” to the reported accounts of...

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Jan. 29, 2024

Hugh You Looking At

Our guest this week is Hugh Hendry, a man who found fortunes walking the tightropes as booms turned to busts. Founder and CIO of Eclectica Asset Management, London, a Global Macro Hedge Fund, from 2002 to 2017, where its “hi...

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Jan. 22, 2024

Advertising Icebergs

One of the giant iceberg industries - it's all around us but we don’t really see it - is advertising. Frequently touted as the first to suffer, first to recover on the economic cycle, but also counter cyclical, since you …

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Jan. 15, 2024

Smoke Signals for '24

With 340-odd days ahead, what are the smoke signals - good and bad - that you need to be aware of? Today we look forward, and make sense of the madness ahead of us in 2024. For more on Bubble …

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Jan. 8, 2024

Big Brother Bubbles with Sir Peter Bazalgette

This week we’re in conversation with a special guest, someone who The Independent argued that he may be “the most influential man in British television.” Sir Peter Bazalegette. The man who brought Big Brother to our screens d...

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Jan. 1, 2024

Water Works with Feargal Sharkey

Today, we turn our attention to a massive credit bubble that burst and dumped toxic sewage in the form of shell companies and endless debt on public utilities. A scandal is unfolding at Thames Water - London’s waterworks tha...

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Dec. 18, 2023

Bubble Trouble Wrapped 2023

This week we want to wrap up a stellar year of topics, guests and unimaginable bubbly behavior, and not just of the kind of champagne at holiday parties. For more on Bubble Trouble, including transcripts of the show, visit us...

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Dec. 11, 2023

A Global History of Financial Bubbles

Economics wont get you a lot of spicy dates… but we delve into a fantastically accessible book that compliments this podcast like gin and tonic. This week we’re going to be in conversation with the authors of "Boom and Bust: …

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Dec. 4, 2023

In Conversation with Former Enron CFO Andy Fastow Part Two

This week wrap up our conversation with Andy Fastow, the former CFO of Enron. [Part 2 of 2] For more on Bubble Trouble, including transcripts of the show, visit us online at http://bubbletroublepodcast.com You can learn more ...

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Nov. 27, 2023

In Conversation with Former Enron CFO Andy Fastow Part One

This week we take you back to one of the biggest bubble bursting in living memory, Enron, which went from Americas 7th largest company to bankrupt within a year at the turn of the millennium. How many booms, busts, frauds …

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Nov. 20, 2023

When Bubbles Become Clouds

This week we’re going to tap into a topic that’s been ignored to date - the excitement that surrounds the big three cloud services of Microsoft (Azure), Google (GCP) and the market leader Amazon AWS. Are we getting ahead of …

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Nov. 13, 2023

Solving for X with Alex Kantrowitz

This week we turn to the unavoidable Mr Musk and his beached fail whale, X, formerly known as Twitter. Did he take something mediocre and make it worse? Was it deliverate sabotage, or willful ignorance? Blunder or bluster, me...

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Nov. 6, 2023

A Call for Activism

This week we look at that special "class" of investors who are busy raising their heads again to challenge management in a time of turmoil: the activist. Who are they, what gives them power and when they wield that power …

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