Bloomberg Benchmark

What on earth is going on in Brazil? Less than a year after impeaching one president for fiddling fiscal accounts, her successor is on the ropes amid allegations of graft. Dig a little deeper and the real problem is a recession deeper than any the country has ever experienced. With Brazil one of the world's 10 largest economies -- and Latin America's largest -- it matters beyond the nation's borders. Sao Paulo native Vivianne Rodrigues, who runs Latin American political news at Bloomberg, joins Dan and Scott to explain what gives. We also hear that the gas station in Brasilia at the center of the scandal doesn't actually have a car wash!

Donald Trump's road to 3 percent growth might run through New Zealand. The faraway nation is the only developed economy that's been expanding at such a torrid pace, thanks to the one factor that Trump railed against on the campaign trail: immigration. How did the land of "Lord of the Rings" become such a desired destination, and how are all those people squeezing into such a small country? Joining Dan and Scott is Tracy Withers, who has spent almost two decades covering the economy of his native land as a Bloomberg reporter in Wellington.

A major puzzle in the U.S. economy is why wage gains have been relatively subdued in the last couple of years, even as all signs point to a tight job market where employers are having trouble filling positions. One reason is that labor unions just don't have the clout they used to in America. While there are occasional victories, the situation is a far cry from the glory days of the 1970s, and it's also helping reshape the political landscape. Jared Bernstein, former chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden and an expert on labor economics, joins Scott and guest co-host Patricia Laya to explain.

The world's easiest place to do business, the second-largest container port and the biggest center for commodities trading. There's a lot more to Singapore than a ban on chewing gum, which is mostly honored in the breach. Smaller than Rhode Island, settlements around modern-day Singapore rose and fell centuries ago on the China maritime trade. Think of it as an Oceanic version of the Silk Road. And as China's economic power expands, the little entrepot is well positioned to keep rising. John Curtis Perry, author of "Singapore: Unlikely Power" tells all to Dan and Scott.

Israel's economy is so innovative that it's forcing otherwise hostile Arab neighbors to look at ways they could also benefit -- and the result could eventually be a gradual normalization of relations, if all continues to go smoothly. One example: trade and collaboration in technology and intelligence are flourishing below the radar between Israel and a host of Arab states. Sure, there are a lot of caveats, and whether this will affect relations with Palestinians or Iran is another question, but just the fact that Israelis and Saudis are quietly getting along in one way is a start. Jonathan Ferziger, a reporter for Bloomberg in Tel Aviv, joins Dan and Scott to tell the story.

Here's an economic statistic you don't see very often: Top-flight surfing breaks can drive growth. Fresh from his 11-year-old daughter's surfing lesson just outside Sydney, Mike Heath asks guest Sam Wills to run through experiments that he says confirm the theory, especially during El Niño years. Stay tuned as Dan pines for the apartment he left behind in Bondi Beach two decades ago.

G, a D and a P. Three letters, lots of trouble. Gross Domestic Product is the world's most common way to measure the value of all goods and services produced in an economy. But does it really deserve its pedestal? Lorenzo Fioramonti, a professor at the University of Pretoria, tells Dan and Scott that the acronym should actually stand for "Gross Dumb Product." He argues that it's responsible for all manner of sins, ranging from the pillaging of a South Pacific island to an instrument used by austerity-craven northern Europeans to hammer Greece. Time for a revolution, Fioramonti insists. Just make sure investors don't crucify you.

President Donald Trump spent plenty of time on the campaign trail accusing China of stealing American jobs by taking away factories and using unfair trade practices. But China is actually giving a lifeline in one hard-hit part of the Rust Belt. That makes things between the two nations more complicated than Trump might want to admit as he meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time. Michael Davis, economic development director for Moraine, Ohio, and Case Western Reserve University professor Susan Helper explain the story to Scott Lanman and guest host Andrew Mayeda.

We usually don't think about economics as a life-or-death subject. But for white Americans without a college degree, there's no other way to describe it. With job opportunities limited and an opioid epidemic in full throttle, death rates among this group are skyrocketing, an issue that probably helped elect Donald Trump as president. Anne Case and Angus Deaton, the married academic couple who brought this issue to the forefront, have just issued a followup paper to their groundbreaking 2015 study on the subject. Case returns to Benchmark to discuss the latest findings with Dan and Scott -- and offers her ominous take on what it portends for the future of the nation.

Post-industrial Midwestern America helped propel Donald Trump to the nation's top job. You've heard that a hundred times. But did you hear about St Louis? A wave of Bosnian refugees, many of them Muslim, arrive in the city, starting in the mid-1990s. The result: a surge in business and job creation, revitalization of the community and help in the transition from a manufacturing to a service economy. Sadik Kukic tells Dan and Michelle about his journey from Balkan concentration camps to a pillar of the local community: He's now president of the Bosnian Chamber of Commerce. What could be more American?

Who says economics has to be all about numbers? Take a trip back in time with the Benchmark crew to the early 1980s, when double-digit inflation was such a scourge that it inspired a lyric in the hip-hop classic "The Message." Ed "Duke Bootee" Fletcher, who wrote most of the song, joins Scott and Dan to talk about those lyrics -- and a whole lot more. Then Alice Rivlin, a former Fed vice chair, gives perspective on inflation from her decades in the economic-policy world.

Americans like to think of themselves as great risk takers, rolling back frontiers and imbued since birth with a spirit of entrepreneurship. But what if the technological revolutions spawned in Silicon Valley were, ironically, symptoms of a risk-averse country? Underneath the latest app for sex or music, we are becoming older and more comfortable with stasis and statism, according to guest Tyler Cowen. Dan and Scott ask him why we've become more like Europe and poster children for sclerosis: France, Germany and Italy.

Forget Vladimir Putin. If Donald Trump and the Republicans want to stay in power, they could do well to emulate the approach of Poland's Law and Justice Party. After sweeping to victory in 2015, the conservative party has mixed nationalist rhetoric, populist economic policies and social conservatism to maintain a healthy lead in polls while driving liberals and the media crazy. So what's in the secret sauce, besides an unpronounceable brand of beer? Scott and Dan are joined by two Polish colleagues who can answer that question: Wojciech Moskwa, Bloomberg's Warsaw bureau chief, and Kasia Klimasinska, a Bloomberg reporter in Washington.

Widening inequality is a blight on the modern economy and will ultimately undermine growth. But wait. Let's not hurry to fix it because history shows it can only really be addressed by total war, total revolution, state collapse or Black Death-like pandemics. That's the conclusion of Stanford professor Walter Scheidel, who joins Dan and Scott. Scheidel takes us on a tour-de-force of the rise and fall of inequality from cave societies through the bubonic plague to the two World Wars. He's not an optimist.

Donald Trump has had plenty to say about the smash hit musical "Hamilton": "Highly overrated," for one. But if we focus instead on Hamilton's economic policy, the president might find something to applaud. The first U.S. Treasury secretary wanted to protect industry. Hamilton also sought to roll back globalization and replace foreign-made goods with domestically produced ones. Sound familiar? Bloomberg's Rich Miller joins Dan and Scott to explain.

The nation's leader takes a sudden action that only a handful of people know about beforehand. His populist base loves it, even if it could disrupt the economy. Donald Trump's executive order on immigration? No, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's move to invalidate more than 80 percent of currency in circulation, a bid to stamp out corruption. Three months later, do the benefits outweigh the costs? Or will the hit to the economy be felt for years to come? Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad and Bloomberg reporter Sho Chandra join Scott to share their recent firsthand experiences from India and help explain why the action might just end up working.

Even in Deep Red America, the cosmopolitan world of Chardonnay and dual passport-holders is alive and well. Right alongside is a middle class enmeshed in that same world -- yet infuriated by it, a rage that opened the door to Donald Trump. Sure, this alternate universe may be shrinking, but it's still kicking up a lot of dust. Such are the revelations from a series of coast-to-coast road trips by bestselling author Robert D. Kaplan. Driving between New York and San Diego, Kaplan marvels at the strength of America's geography and its ability to project global political and economic leadership -- if only the middle class still wants it.

"Make America Great Again," Donald Trump's campaign slogan, became the government's guiding policy when he was sworn in last week as the 45th U.S. president. But how will we know just how great America is becoming? Forget GDP or unemployment: we'll tell you all about five Trumpian economic indicators you need to follow, including the share of workers with full-time jobs, the pace of business creation and how many prime-age Americans are in the labor force. Bloomberg Intelligence chief U.S. economist Carl Riccadonna and Bloomberg News economy editor Vince Golle join Scott to give you the rundown.

Too often the study of economics and exchange rates can seem very arcane. What does it mean in real life? For one meat smuggler, the end of 15 years of car trips to and from France with a trunk full of pork, beef and lamb. The Swiss franc's surge and the euro's swoon has encouraged more and more people to turn their hand to smuggling. There could be more to come. Catherine Bosley, a Bloomberg economics reporter in Zurich explains why to Dan and guest host Joe Weisenthal. And then there is the case of the $30,000 cash found in a sunglasses case.

Everyone knows inflation is out of control in Venezuela. But the government long ago stopped publishing figures on a regular basis, leaving economists to dial up what are essentially wild guesses. Enter the Bloomberg Cafe Con Leche Inflation Index. It tracks just one item: A piping hot coffee at a bakery in eastern Caracas. Yet it provides a unique look at inflation in one of the world's most dysfunctional economies. David Papadopoulos, a Bloomberg managing editor in New York, and Fabiola Zerpa, a Bloomberg correspondent in Caracas, join Scott to talk about the gauge, and just how bad things really are in the nation.