PODCAST · news
Black Box - English version
by Guido Brera - Chora Media
The world of finance is complicated. Governed by complex ebbs and flows, and arcane algorithms. Finance is the liquid that we live in, even when we don’t see it. This series talks about the mechanisms behind global finance and finds a way inside its very heart: its black box. Black Box is sponsored by Docebo. Guido Brera's English voice has been generated using generative AI technology by Voiseed (www.voiseed.com) Black Box is a Chora News podcast, produced by Chora Media and sponsored by Docebo. Written by Guido Brera with I Diavoli. Text translation by John Vincent. Editorial supervision by Francesca Milano. Intro and sound design by Luca Micheli. Post production and editing by Luca Micheli and Mattia Liciotti. Sound editing by Emanuele Moscatelli. Production organization by Alex Peverengo
Episodes
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Ep.45 - Donald Trump and the Mar-a-lago accord
The Mar-a-Lago accord is a hypothetical project that both Trumpian economists and outside observers are following closely. It is bound to be an ambitious new direction for the international economic equilibrium, and certain to affect the following four years – for good or for ill. A combination…
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Ep.44 - Franz Kafka and AI
The rise of Artificial Intelligence brings to mind the fear of an apocalypse. In one of these dystopian predictions, thinking machines will take over the giant maze of bureaucracy at the core of modern society. In this scenario, AI will be tasked with deciding if and how to give out a mortgage…
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Ep.43 - When Nav Sarao shook Wall Street
It’s 2.42 PM on May 6 2010. Navinder Sarao, a thirty-two year old British Indian and self-taught trader, plunges Wall Street into chaos. In just a few minutes, 750 billion euros disappear from the financial markets. All screens go black. It’s the stop logic function, put in place to avoid prices...
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Ep.42 - A manifesto for the future of Italy
They’re called “inner areas”, they’re the spaces of a deep Italy, which have been kept far away from public debate for too long, without public investment and services, forced to a drastic fall in habitability, ever more subject to climate change and environmental disasters. They make up 60% of…
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Ep.41 - Drugs and the politics of pain
When we talk about drugs, we also have to talk about economics and urban spaces, about repressive policies and laws. We have to talk about poverty and the lack of prospects. About inefficiency, about markets, about capital and the laws of offer and demand. Drugs open and close each phase, from…
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Ep.40- Minimum wage and the virus of poverty
In the western world, poverty is an epidemic amongst low-wage workers. Introducing, extending and increasing the minimum wage are just some of the ways in which we can face this social crisis. In the United States, the federal minimum wage amounts to 7 dollars and 25 cents per hour, and it hasn’t...
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Ep.39 - This is Europe
The ex-president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi delivers his report on European competitiveness, and invites us to change our current course. The European Union is going through a crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, by geo-political instability, by competition with China and by a...
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Ep.38 - The army of invisibles
On the night of June 14 2017, seventy-two people die in the flames of Grenfell Tower, in North Kensington, London City. 221 feet high, 24 stories tall, housing 120 apartments, Grenfell Tower is built in 1974 as part of a public housing plan. An appendage of urban blight in the poor and...
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Ep.37 - Roger Federer and high finance
If tennis is a metaphor of life, then it’s also a metaphor of finance – seeing as finance determines every aspect of life itself. There’s a strong connection between the trajectories impressed onto a tennis ball and the thousands of variables that dominate financial exchanges. Just like there’s a...
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Ep.36 - What separates us from machines
There’s something in common between Soviet Lieutenant Stanislav Petrov, American activist Aaron Swartz and the co-founder of OpenAI Ilya Sutskever. In different times and ways, all three of them have put aside their timidity and opposed the war-thirsty, proprietary and neo-feudal order incarnated...
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Ep.35 - A bitcoin a day / Part two
Since June 2019, Nayib Armando Bukele Ortez has been the President of the Republic of El Salvador. Bukele hasn’t just freed the country from the throttle of drug gangs, but also started an unexpected economic upturn with the introduction of bitcoin as legal tender. It’s something that has never...
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Ep.34 - A bitcoin a day / Part one
Leather jacket, mirror shades, a neatly trimmed beard and slick hair, Nayib Bukele has been the President of the Republic of El Salvador since 2019. Following his election, he’s repressed the drug gangs in his country with an iron fist. Last February he won a second mandate using a constitutional...
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Ep.33 - J.H. Simons, the mathematician who conquered markets
This May 10 we lost James Harris Simons, a legend of high finance, the so-called “King of Quants”, the mathematician who left university and conquered the markets. In 1982, he founded the New York Renaissance Technologies, which would soon become one the greatest global hedge fund firms in the...
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Ep.32 - The bunker: the dream of the West
We live in an age of permanent catastrophes: viruses and wars, nuclear threats and climate crises. If danger is everywhere, then it’s necessary to seek protection in closed up and impenetrable spaces: such as the North Star Missile Silo, one of the most secure havens ever made. North Star can be...
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Ep.31 - The American civil war
Theatres are seeing the release of Civil War, by British director Alex Garland, and in the meanwhile the United States truly seem to be under the influence of irreconcilable differences. If we look to the markets we can see the best of all possible worlds, but in the streets Fentanyl is causing...
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Ep.30 - The carnage of Rana Plaza
On April 24th 2013, at 8.45. Rana Plaza – an eight-story building which houses several activities including some textile factories, at Savar near Dacca in Bangladesh – collapses upon itself. 1,134 people are killed, and 2,515 are wounded. The carnage wasn’t unexpected – and at the same time, it…
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Ep.29 - The future of the woods (and our own)
Humans have being changing the landscape and balance of the Alps for over a century. The ecosystem was compromised after the devastation of the First World War and its reconstruction based on a monoculture of European spruce trees. One hundred years later, extreme weather events caused by climate...
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Ep.28 - The scourge of the forests
A catastrophe is befalling the woodlands of Italy; in the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige, Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It’s scientific name is Ips typographus, but it’s better known as the European Spruce Bark Beetle, because it loves to devour spruce bark trees. It’s a tiny beetle that…
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Ep.27 - The United Markets of America
The financial indicators right now are wildly optimistic. The bond market especially is looking reliable, still supported by the liquidity injected last year to save regional banks affected by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank. Also, the stock market is seeing a large wave of purchases – not…
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Ep.26 - Obesity: the ignored epidemic
Obesity is the disease of our modern affluent societies. More than one billion people suffer from it globally, which is double the amount of 1990. According to predictions, by the year 2035 they could be two billion. In the USA, 32% of the male adult population and 37% of the female adult...
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Ep.25 - Silicon Valley and Social Inequality
Back during the gold rush, there was a sudden explosion of inequality. In the mining towns, some owned concessions, business licenses and strategic assets – and these were the ones who made the most money. Everyone else (especially the miners) just got poorer. It’s called the “Cantillon effect”…
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Ep.24 - American nightmare
This November, the USA will elect its president. The markets may seem to portray an image consistent growth, with unemployment under 4% and the best markets in recent memory, but the victory of the democrats is anything but certain. The Biden administration managed the post-Covid phase with a new...
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Ep.23 - Seven signs from the future
According to a report from ARK – invest (the monetary fund which analyses the frontiers of innovation), we can currently pinpoint seven mega-trends on the future that we’re facing already. Artificial intelligence, robotics, electric mobility, space industry, crypto-currencies and cutting edge...
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Ep.22 - Architecton: against the architecture of concrete
Architecton is a documentary by Russian director Kossakovsky, presented at the latest edition of the International Berlin Film Festival. The film is a strong critique against construction in concrete – a material which tragically represents our modern day: short-lived, perishable, polluting and...
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Ep.21 - The water crisis in the time of AI
Water is the most commonly exchanged resource in the world. The “virtual market” of blue gold is four-hundred times that of petrol. But the water crisis is one of the main emergencies of our time, especially since technological acceleration requires a constant use of water. For every twenty…
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Ep.20 - Elon Musk and the Magnificent Seven
A few days ago, a Delaware court suspended the payment of Tesla’s compensation package to founder Elon Musk, which was originally decided in 2018. The package was worth about 56 billion dollars, which is unprecedented even for the fantastical world of tech companies. And this sanctions the…
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Ep.19 - Artificial Intelligence and thermonuclear war
Moscow, 26 September 1983. It’s a few minutes past midnight, when lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov looks the apocalypse right in the eyes. On the screens connected to OKO - a satellite system which signals the launch of nuclear warheads from the USA – five missiles have appeared on their way...
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Ep.18 - The Two Faces of Davos
“Rebuilding Trust in the Future»” was the theme of the latest edition of the World Economic Forum, held like every year in Davos. This title immediately sounded vague when considering our present time of constant crises and the earthquake that is shaking globalization itself. Despite this, the...
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Ep.17 - The crisis of global routes
In the last few weeks, we’ve seen a new danger for global markets. The raids of the Houthi, a Yemenite rebel militia supported by Iran, have blocked one of the arteries of global commerce: the Red Sea route on which 12 percent of global wares and about one third of containers travel. Several...
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Ep.16 - Finance and the best of all possible worlds
Looking at the main financial indicators, the situation at the start of 2024 looks better than the most optimistic predictions. Inflation is dropping, American growth is constant, unemployment is stable under 4%. The equity sector and Big Tech shares are all booming. The markets are telling the...
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Ep.15 - 2023: return of the Leviathan
"2023 was the year in which the State regained control of economic policy with so-called de-risking: a risk reduction strategy by which the West wishes to move away from reliance on the Chinese market in strategic sectors such as technology and renewable energy. Some of the crises have since...
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Ep.14 - The five days that did (not) shake OpenAI
The latest earthquake to shake Silicon Valley was last Friday 17th November. The epicenter was at 601 Mission Street, San Francisco, headquarters to OpenAI – the leader of the AI sector. In less than a week, the CEO was first ejected and then reinstated on his chair. The tremors at the top of...
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Ep.13 - Artificial Intelligence between the apocalypse and techno-optimism
It’s called Artificial Intelligence as a Service, and it’s the AI of our near future. It’s practical, easy to use, and available to all: just like electricity. It seems to be a revolution, but the debate is raging, and many are starting to push back against it. The doomsayers on one side –…
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Ep.12 - Artificial intelligence and war games
The debate surrounding artificial intelligence is dominated by the concept of “existential risk”, or the fear that we as humans feel that an invention can get out of our control. Humanity is facing the dangers of a sudden technological paradigm shift, just like at the times of nuclear energy and...
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Ep.11 - The Gig Economy is broken
They call it the “Gig Economy”. It’s the field of short-term services, such as private drivers, deliveries, and food couriers struggling to complete as many tasks as possible within the shortest time. As they do so, they get points and go up in their ranking, just like in videogames. But this is…
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Ep.10 - Airbnb, the night of techno-finance
Recently, the court of Milan has seized 779 million euros from Airbnb, the largest web service in the short-term homestay market. According to investigation, the digital goliath failed to pay its taxes for the Italian market in the years 2017 to 2021. Many things have changed since Airbnb was...
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Ep.9 - Coltan and the map of pain
It’s called Coltan, and it’s a precious mineral used to make electronics and computers. Essential to build smartphone capacitors and batteries, mostly extracted in Africa. In the last year and a half, the map of central Africa itself has been riddled by violent state coups. This map of political...
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Ep.8 - The new gold rush
In 2023, the price of gold has almost reached a historic high, and rising. The greatest safe-haven asset, the most coveted metal, is the answer to the great crises that have been battering us incessantly, shaking global assets and panicking markets. While its price reaches two-thousand dollars an...
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Ep.7 - Federico Caffè and the Ghosts of Keynes
30th of October 1998, the Court of Rome officially declares the presumed death of Federico Caffè – the economist who disappeared without a trace one morning in April 1987. Professor of Economic and Financial Policies at the University of Rome, uncompromising Keynesian. Caffé literally vanished...
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Ep.6 - Central Banks on the wire of inflation
The specter of inflation is back in the western world, and the Central Banks are struggling to keep it under control. The war in Ukraine and the Middle East, the return of supply chains after thirty years of unbridled offshoring, and the demand for higher salaries in the USA are all factors in…
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Ep.5 - The economic consequences of war
The conflict between Hamas and Israel may have repercussions on the world economy (already weakened by the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic and by the war in Ukraine). The price of oil and energy are the main concerns: the USA reserves of crude oil are at their lowest in recent memory, and prices are reaching...
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Ep.4 - The never-ending apocalypse of Vajont
La sera del 9 ottobre 1963 uno tsunami di milioni di metri cubi d’acqua, provocato dalla caduta di una valanga in un bacino idroelettrico, si abbatta su una valle al confine tra Veneto e Friuli-Venezia Giulia, cancellando il paese di Longarone e provocando più di 1.900 morti. Da quella notte di...
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Ep.3 - The elephant in the room
With more that 32 trillion dollars in public debt, the United States are the country with the largest debt on earth. China and Saudi Arabia are no-longer buying American government bonds, and as the next Presidential election looms, many are starting to fear a new government shutdown: where…
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Ep.2 - The United States are a wounded giant
The United States are apparently in turmoil. While the American public debt is growing at a frightening pace, and the dollar’s supremacy as currency of the world reserve is in doubt, a dark sickness grips its people. In 2022, the United States saw a record 50,000 suicides. Never before, in the…
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Ep.1 - This is China
Xi Jinping’s absence at the recent G20 summit, and the catastrophe that hit China’s real-estate sector just this August, may be deeper signs of change in the global balance. Meanwhile, in the West economists are divided: those that follow the school of Keynes see Beijing’s difficulties as caused…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
The world of finance is complicated. Governed by complex ebbs and flows, and arcane algorithms. Finance is the liquid that we live in, even when we don’t see it. This series talks about the mechanisms behind global finance and finds a way inside its very heart: its black box.
Black Box is sponsored by Docebo.
Guido Brera's English voice has been generated using generative AI technology by Voiseed (www.voiseed.com)
Black Box is a Chora News podcast, produced by Chora Media and sponsored by Docebo.
Written by Guido Brera with I Diavoli.
Text translation by John Vincent.
Editorial supervision by Francesca Milano.
Intro and sound design by Luca Micheli.
Post production and editing by Luca Micheli and Mattia Liciotti.
Sound editing by Emanuele Moscatelli.
Production organization by Alex Peverengo
HOSTED BY
Guido Brera - Chora Media
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Black Box - English version have?
Black Box - English version currently has 45 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Black Box - English version about?
The world of finance is complicated. Governed by complex ebbs and flows, and arcane algorithms. Finance is the liquid that we live in, even when we don’t see it. This series talks about the mechanisms behind global finance and finds a way inside its very heart: its black box. Black Box is sponsored...
How often does Black Box - English version release new episodes?
Black Box - English version has 45 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Black Box - English version?
You can listen to Black Box - English version on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Black Box - English version?
Black Box - English version is created and hosted by Guido Brera - Chora Media.
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