Money Talks from The Economist

Taylor Swift’s rise to the top of the music industry has not been without controversy. A dispute with her old record label could have derailed the singer’s career—but instead, she used it to propel herself to superstardom. In the second of two special episodes from August 2024, “Money Talks” host Alice Fulwood gets the inside story of the battle to acquire the rights to Swift’s first six albums. Then she finds out how the artist used the story of the dispute to remake the music industry to her advantage.Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird. Guests: Tim Ingham, the founder of Music Business Worldwide; Kristelia García of the Georgetown University Law Center; Michael Schill of the Darden School of Business; and Bill Werde, former editorial director of Billboard magazine, current director of the Bandier Program at Syracuse University and author of the “Full Rate No Cap” newsletter.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Earlier this month, Taylor Swift played the final show of her Eras tour. More than 10 million people attended one of 149 shows in the tour, which grossed more than $2bn. In this episode, first released in August 2024, “Money Talks” host Alice Fulwood travelled to Nashville, where Swift’s career began, to find out how she built the biggest brand in music. Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Mike Bird. Guests: Tim Ingham, the founder of Music Business Worldwide; Kristelia García of the Georgetown University Law Center; Michael Schill of the Darden School of Business; and Bill Werde, former editorial director of Billboard magazine, current director of the Bandier Program at Syracuse University and author of the “Full Rate No Cap” newsletter.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

It’s the time of the year when the Money Talks hosts kick back with a glass of cheap sparkling wine and test their knowledge of the year’s business and economics stories in our annual festive quiz. But can you beat them?Hosts: Mike Bird, Alice Fulwood, Tom Lee-Devlin and Ethan Wu.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Argentina has become famous for its repeated defaults and rampant inflation. Successive governments have promised to get the country out of its economic mess, but have failed. Argentina’s current president Javier Milei is a self-described anarcho-capitalist, who came to power with a mandate to slash public spending and end the country's triple-digit inflation. After a year in the job, what impact have his drastic measures had?Hosts: Mike Bird, Ethan Wu, and Alice Fulwood. Guests: The Economist’s Kinley Salmon; Santiago Bulat, director of the Argentinian economic consultancy Invecq; and Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Until 2018, sports betting was illegal in every state but Nevada. Now, some 40% of Americans say they wager on everything from which team will win the Super Bowl to which player will be crowned baseball’s rookie of the year. But how did sports betting take the US by storm?Hosts: Alice Fulwood, Mike Bird and Ethan Wu. Guests: The Economist’s data editor Dan Rosenheck; and Peter Jackson, boss of Flutter.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

India’s financial system is going through a rapid transformation. With the spread of fintech, and financial products aimed at small investors, millions of ordinary Indians who never before had access to capital markets now own tiny stakes in publicly traded companies. It’s fuelled the country’s remarkable stock market rally over the last five years. But is India’s financial system resilient enough to sustain this change? And what happens if things go wrong?Hosts: Ethan Wu, Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood. Guests: The Economist’s Tom Easton; Saurabh Tripathi, Head of Financial Institutions at BCG in Mumbai; and Sundararaman Ramamurthy, CEO of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

For decades, western companies looked to Asia for growth. They saw an opportunity to establish their brands with a rapidly-expanding middle class. But now, in many parts of Asia, the growth of that aspirational class is slowing. So, what happened to Asia’s middle classes?Hosts: Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood. Guests: The Economist’s Ethan Wu; Wolfgang Fengler, CEO of research firm World Data Lab; and Ibrahim “Ben” Suffian of the Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Countries around the world finally agreed on the need to transition away from fossil fuels at last year's COP summit. The latest climate conference is now underway in Baku, Azerbaijan. But how much is the immense transition to clean and green energy really going to cost? And who is going to pay for it?Hosts: Mike Bird and Alice Fulwood. Guests: The Economist’s Gavin Jackson; and Adair Turner, Chair of the Energy Transition Commission.For more on COP29, check out the latest episode of our “Babbage” podcast, in which our correspondent travels to South Africa for lessons on how to end coal.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.

Stock markets rallied, the dollar surged and Treasury yields jumped higher as it became clear Donald Trump would be returning to the White House. Investors bet on lower taxes boosting growth, while higher tariffs and an immigration crackdown may drive up inflation. But will investors get what they’re expecting from the return of Trumponomics?Hosts: Alice Fulwood and Mike Bird. Guests: The Economist’s US economics editor Simon Rabinovitch; and Piper Sandler’s Donald Schneider, who was the chief economist on the House of Representatives’ main tax-writing committee last time Trump was in the White House.For more US election analysis, check out our sister podcasts “The Intelligence” and “Checks and Balance”.Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts.Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.For more information about how to access Economist Podcasts+, please visit our FAQs page or watch our video explaining how to link your account.