Black Box - English version

Hosted by Guido Brera - Chora Media

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Nov 2024

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About the 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

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45 recent

November 20, 202411 min

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 of deregulation, tax cuts, devaluation, and tariffs. Should it succeed, it will lead to the highest point ever seen by the American dollar, followed by a slow and constant decline – by design of the USA, and in accordance with the rest of the world.

November 13, 202410 min

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, the order of priority for an operation, and the length of a prison sentence. In a hyper-technological version of Franz Kafka's The Trial, the real predators to fear would be Them: the digital bureaucrats.

October 16, 202410 min

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 from crashing. After five long seconds, the orders slowly start up again, and the money reappears as well. But Sarao was able to take advantage of what will become known as the “flash crash”, and for a few moments human ingenuity managed to trump the domination of algorithms and models.

October 9, 202413 min

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 the national territory, almost fifteen million people live here; they make up a consistent portion of GDP and they’re home to quality manufacturing districts. And this is exactly where the idea for an Italy of the future needs to start from.

October 2, 202414 min

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 the heroin epidemic of the seventies to the current opioid crisis, which is destroying the heartland of America. Drugs are the one perfect good that can never be overproduced, and the one market that never creates a bubble. In short, they’re secretly a capitalist’s dream.

September 25, 202412 min

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 gone up since 2009 – despite inflation and the increase in productivity. While the current presidential candidates seem to want to dodge the issue, the virus of poverty continues to wreak havoc amongst the invisible army of working poor.

September 18, 202413 min

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 change in the assets of globalization. Just like back in the days of his speech whatever it takes, Draghi continues to push for “more Europe”, and for the sharing of debt on a continental scale.

June 26, 202412 min

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 multicultural district of Hammersmith. The building is renovated in 2014 with cheap materials that are so flammable that the entire high rise catches fire in just a few minutes. The Grenfell Tower fire is a class fire, emblematic of “necro-politics” which produces both profit and death. And in the West, those that die are always the poor and forgotten, the hordes of the army of invisibles.

June 19, 202414 min

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 certain manner by which to face an opponent on the other side of the net, and by which to maneuver the fluctuations of the markets. Recently, Roger Federer – one of the greatest tennis players of all time - received a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Dartmouth College. The champion’s commencement speech is an inspiring lesson on how to accept both victory and defeat: in tennis, on the financial markets, and in life.

June 12, 202411 min

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 by computers, algorithms and more-or-less thinking machines. Timidity itself (and its antonyms) reminds us of the importance of remaining human.