Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel, talks with retired professor, consultant, Discovery Institute fellow, and a winner of the NTT DoCoMo Mobile Science Award, Jeffrey Lee Funk, about his recent book Unicorns, Hype, and Bubbles: A Guide to Spotting, Avoiding, and Exploiting Investment Bubbles in Tech (Harriman House, 2024). The book provides readers with funda ... Show More
Nov 20
Ivan Franceschini et al., "Scam: Inside Southeast Asia's Cybercrime Compounds" (Verso Books, 2025)
“If I had been enslaved for a year or two, I might not be able to believe in humanity any more.” “I am a victim of modern slavery.”
These chilling words come from a Taiwanese female lured by a fake job offer, only to be sold into a scam compound in Cambodia. She is not alone. Sh ... Show More
50m 32s
Nov 15
Richard H. Thaler and Alex Imas, "The Winner's Curse: Behavioral Economics Anomalies, Then and Now" (Simon and Schuster, 2025)
Alex Imas is the Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Professor of Behavioral Science, Economics and Applied AI and a Vasilou Faculty Scholar at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where he has taught Negotiations and Behavioral Economics. He is a Faculty Affiliate of the ... Show More
54m 22s
Nov 11
Hilary Allen, "Fintech Dystopia: A Summer Beach Read about Silicon Valley Ruining Things" (2025)
Silicon Valley wants to disrupt finance, and it might just succeed. In FinTech Dystopia, professor Hilary Allen offers an accessible, irreverent, and occasionally furious account of how tech elites are quietly taking over the financial system and making it worse in the process. D ... Show More
52m 13s
Apr 2025
Mingwei Huang, "Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century" (Duke UP, 2024)
In Reconfiguring Racial Capitalism: South Africa in the Chinese Century (Duke UP, 2024), Mingwei Huang traces the development of new forms of racial capitalism in the twenty-first century. Through fieldwork in one of the “China malls” that has emerged along Johannesburg’s former ... Show More
1h 2m
Aug 13
#477 – Keyu Jin: China’s Economy, Tariffs, Trade, Trump, Communism & Capitalism
Keyu Jin is an economist specializing in China's economy, international macroeconomics, global trade imbalances, and financial policy. She is the author of The New China Playbook: Beyond Socialism and Capitalism.
Thank you for listening ❤ Check out our sponsors: https://lexfridm ... Show More
1h 57m
Aug 2024
Le Lin, "The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China's Supplemental Education Industry" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
An in-depth examination of the regulatory, entrepreneurial, and organizational factors contributing to the expansion and transformation of China’s supplemental education industry.
Like many parents in the United States, parents in China, increasingly concerned with their children ... Show More
1h 40m
Aug 23
How does China's system really work? This famous Chinese professor explains
How do China's government, political system, and socialist market economy actually work? How does China see democracy, the USA, and Donald Trump's trade war? Renowned Chinese scholar Zhang Weiwei explains the China model in this interview with Ben Norton. VIDEO with subtitles her ... Show More
29m 49s
Jan 2025
The Big 2025 Economy Forecast: AI and Big Tech, Nuclear’s Renaissance, Trump vs. China, and What’s Eating Europe?
Happy new year! And what better way to celebrate the freshly torn calendar page than by welcoming one of Derek's favorite writers to the show to tell us what's in store for the 2025 economy. Michael Cembalest is the chairman of market and investment strategy for JPMorgan Asset Ma ... Show More
1h 10m
Jun 2025
How Malaysia Did Economics Differently
Ever wondered how a small nation like Malaysia transformed from a colonial commodity hub into a Southeast Asian economic powerhouse? Nestled in the heart of global trade routes, Malaysia’s rise is a masterclass in leveraging geography, smart policies, and foreign expertise. But c ... Show More
17m 38s
Sep 2024
Thomas White, "China's Camel Country: Livestock and Nation-Building at a Pastoral Frontier" (U Washington Press, 2024)
China today positions itself as a model of state-led environmentalism. On the country’s arid rangelands, grassland conservation policies have targeted pastoralists and their animals, blamed for causing desertification. State environmentalism - in the form of grazing bans, enclosu ... Show More
1h 6m
Sep 24
China’s economy vs the world. With Michael Pettis
US President Donald Trump has railed against his country’s trade deficit with China. But as Chinese surpluses continue to flow into other countries, it’s worth asking how China got to where it is today, and whether Chinese growth can lift all boats. In this week’s episode, Martin ... Show More
33m 42s