Best New Ideas in Money

If you want to hear about interesting economy related things this is the podcast for you

I’ve really enjoyed listening to this show. Some episodes are better than others—I’ve especially enjoyed the recent episodes “Making chips at home again” and “Does the Fed have a monopoly on ‘Fed’-ing?” (bad title, good episode). On the whole, I find the episodes about more complex and less covered topics more interesting and valuable. I do think the show could assume a greater level of sophistication among its listeners. Some of the episodes feel a bit Econ 101-y. I don’t think anyone is voluntarily listening to a MarketWatch podcast who doesn’t have a solid foundation in finance/economics. Finally, I don’t understand why the show doesn’t lean on Stephanie Kelton more. She’s a legit star economist and is great at communicating ideas to a broad audience. The structural conceit used in some episodes of a peer-like conversation between her and Charles Passy is a bit nonsensical in its current manifestation. She’s the expert. He’s a journalist. Why not frame it as Charles (the everyman) trying to make sense of a complex topic by asking Stephanie (the expert) questions? In this moment of near-constant blockbuster economic news, it feels like a real missed opportunity to not have Stephanie lend her topical commentary. It wouldn’t have to be with a political slant—she could frame the issue and the legitimate arguments on either side.

The Best New Ideas podcast often provides solutions that focus on government intervention, the modification of laws to force change that is in line with a particular way of thinking or a change in general government policy. I would have expected this podcast to be more focused on entrepreneurial innovation. Needless to say, nothing really groundbreaking.

I love this podcast because it applies academic economics to current issues and presents them in ways that everyone can understand. It is relatively apolitical and deals with facts and data, interpreting them so we can all understand how and why current economic issues affect us in our daily lives.