Follow Our Podcast
Recent Episodes
The mind games of cybercrime
Cybercrime is often more than just a demonstration of hacking skills. The attacker could be motivated by money, but equally by nationalism, a search for notoriety or revenge. The victim may be random and innocent, but he/she could have been singled out because of an emotional weak spot. Following the crime, other human emotions, such as guilt or shame, may prevent the attack from being disclosed.So when addressing cybercrime, we need to focus as much on psychology as on technology. As internet-enabled fraud reaches ever more alarming proportions, in the latest New Money Review podcast I interview Sarah Armstrong-Smith, author of a new book called “Understand the Cyber Attacker Mindset”.In the podcast, we cover:Why pandemics and war are great news for fraudstersThe amplification effect of social mediaHow disinformation campaigns drive polarisation in societyWhy nation-state hackers are well-resourced and focusedWhy cybercrime and fraud are the invisible crimeHow police forces are scrambling to catch up"Pig-butchering": blaming the victims of fraudSeeing frauds as human-to-human relationshipsBolstering our defences as organisations and individualsThe need for transparency about cyberattacksWhy sanctions are most effective at the individual level
Rebuilding trust
We need a new approach to building trust in economic and monetary systems, says Ian Grigg, my guest on the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast.Grigg, a computer scientist and cryptographer, is one of the pioneers of internet-based money. In the 1990s, he worked on digital cash systems, which applied strong cryptography systems to money transfers. Grigg also published articles on shared ledgers, triple-entry accounting, proof-of-work systems, smart contracts and social reputation systems well before the emergence of bitcoin.In the podcast, Grigg talks about the ballooning problems of financial exclusion, money laundering and financial crime. He argues that the current US-driven approach to isolating bad actors and excluding them from the financial system is bound to fail.Instead, says Grigg, we need to focus on rebuilding identity and money systems from the ground up, using models found in countries where trust in governments and financial institutions is largely absent.To listen to the podcast, click here. In it, we cover:How the cypherpunks became interested in digital moneyWhy Satoshi Nakamoto was a cryptographer, not a cypherpunkWhy strong cryptography caused a revolution in accountingThe prospects for triple-entry accountingWhy state identity systems cannot fulfil humans’ need for trustHow community money can fill the trust gapThe ballooning costs and falling returns of banks’ compliance effortsWhy anti-money-laundering (AML) and know-your-customer (KYC) rules have failedThe problem of false positives in AML monitoringWhy governments cannot beat the money launderers—the OODA loopBuilding virtuous circles of trust—in communities, countries and globally
The US should issue a Fedcoin—without delay
In the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast I’m joined by someone who says we’re in the middle of a historic battle between the public and private sector over money. And it’s one the state can’t afford to lose, he argues. Our future global money will be digital, cheap and mobile, says Richard Holden, professor of economics at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, but it may be issued by a tech giant or an emerging economy rather than the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank or Bank of England. And that right to issue money will confer massive power on the winner of the digital currency race.In his new book, “Money In the 21st Century”, Holden makes a passionate defence of state money and says the US central bank should get its act together and start issuing its own digital money, which he calls Fedcoin.In the podcast, we cover:Why should we go cashless?What about those who rely on physical cash?How should we go cashless?Why is it a problem if a private currency wins the digital currency race?Why should the US issue a “Fedcoin”?Aren’t faster payment systems enough?What did we learn from Facebook’s digital currency experiment?China, the US and the geopolitics of digital moneyThe future role of the banking system
The problem of debt
In the latest episode of the New Money Review podcast I’m delighted to welcome Satyajit Das, a former investment banker, derivatives expert and author.His book “Traders, Guns and Money”, published in 2006, remains one of the best books ever written about the world of high finance.It’s been called “a wickedly comic exposé of the culture, games and pure deceptions played out every day in trading rooms around the world. And played out with other people’s money.”Das went on to publish “Extreme Money” and “The Age of Stagnation”, in which a common theme is the high global levels of debt.In the podcast, Das talks in detail about debt and the complexities of measuring it. He says all financial markets are now at risk from excessive leverage. Japan, whose currency has recently undergone a big devaluation, may point the way ahead for all of us, he says.We discuss:Why debt is like heroinHow the marginal productivity of debt has been fallingReaching the “trust moment” in government bond marketsHow vulnerable are US Treasuries to a liquidity crisis?Why inflation may be higher for longer……and interest rates could overshoot expectationsDebt on debt and the challenge of understanding leverageHow tech entrepreneurs borrow against equityComplexities in leverage chains—the example of GreensillWhy non-bank financing of debt is particularly riskyWhy regulators struggle to monitor shadow banksCross-border exposures in the Evergrande bankruptcyWhy the “usual disinfectants”—better disclosure and more capital—no longer workHow Japan finally escaped its debt trapWhy sovereign wealth funds are buying up global infrastructureThe end of financial engineering
Bringing AI back to earth
Excitement over the prospects for artificial intelligence (AI) has driven US stock market valuations to a historic high. Can AI technologies deliver on their promise? Or is this yet another case of irrational exuberance?In the latest New Money Review podcast I am joined by Eric Siegel, a former Columbia University professor who has taught computer science courses in machine learning and AI. Siegel, now a consultant, has just published a new book called “The AI Playbook—Mastering the Rare Art of Machine Learning Deployment”.In the podcast, we explore some of the paradoxes surrounding AI: why this tech tool with apparently unlimited greatest promise may be the hardest to use, and why computers promising us greater autonomy may in fact require more supervision.We cover:What is artificial intelligence (AI) and what is machine learning (ML)?What is generative AI?What explains the current AI hype?How predictive analytics can improve organisations’ performanceExamples of successful machine learning in practice: UPS and credit scoringWhy do so many ML projects fail to reach deployment?Why artificial general intelligence (AGI) is “the most compelling ghost story ever”Why computers that seem more human-like may give us less autonomyWhat goals can ChatGPT reach and where does it fall short?Why AI hype may be costly
POWERED BY BLUBRRY
