Business Daily

Latest Episodes:

Why whistleblowers need protection Oct 09, 2019

Show notes

A new EU directive grants new legal rights to those reporting corporate and government misbehaviour.

Ed Butler asks David Lewis, professor of employment law at Middlesex University, how significant the new legal framework is and why it was needed.

Plus we replay an interview from 2016 in which lawyer Mychal Wilson retells his early experiences as a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company in Los Angeles, and why he blew the whistle on underhand practices. And practicing Louisiana doctor William LaCorte talks about his reputation as a serial whistleblower - making tens of millions of dollars from exposing the wrongdoing of big pharma and hospitals.

(Picture: Whistle hanging in front of blue background; Credit: thomas-bethge/Getty Images)

Choose your own pay Oct 08, 2019

Show notes

What happens when a company lets its employees decide what their salaries should be? Will anyone ask to be paid less?

A number of tech companies are finding out, as they see it as a way of achieving greater fairness and transparency, as well as motivating staff to raise their effort to match their remuneration. Ed Butler speaks to Heather McGregor, executive dean of the Edinburgh Business School, and to David Burkus, the California-based author of a book about pay transparency, Under New Management.

(Picture: Woman covering face with fan of dollar bills looking at camera on yellow background; Credit: SIphotography/Getty Images)

The George Soros conspiracy Oct 07, 2019

Show notes

Why one financier is the target of a global conspiracy theory. Manuela Saragosa speaks to the BBC's Mike Rudin, who made a recent documentary on the Soros conspiracy, and to Joe Uscinski, associate professor of political science at the University of Miami - and an expert in conspiracy theories. And the BBC's Dhruti Shah speaks to David Mikkelson, the founder of Snopes, the company trying to debunk fake news for the last 25 years.

(Photo: Anti-Soros placards during a political demonstration is Macedonia in 2017, Credit: Getty Images)

End of the road for US truckers? Oct 04, 2019

Show notes

Truck drivers and the robots that could replace them. Jahd Khalil visits a truck stop in the US state of Virginia to find out why there's a chronic shortage of truckers in the US. Robert Brown from the robotics company TuSimple and Greg Hastings, associate partner at McKinsey & Co, tell Manuela Saragosa why long-distance driving is exactly the kind of job suited to robots.

(Photo: A truck stop on the US-Mexico border, Credit: Getty Images)

The right to repair Oct 03, 2019

Show notes

Why is it so hard to fix your own things? Ed Butler speaks to those campaigning for manufacturers to make it easier for us to fix our electronics goods - everything from tractors to smartphones. Clare Seek runs a Repair Café in Portsmouth, England, a specially designated venue for anyone who wants to get their stuff to last longer. And Ed travels to Agbogbloshie in Accra in Ghana, one of the places where our mountains of e-waste end up being pulled apart and melted down for scrap. The programme also features interviews with Gay Gordon-Byrne, executive director of The Repair Association; Kyle Wiens, founder of iFixit; intellectual property lawyer Jani Ihalainen; and Susanne Baker, head of environment and compliance at techUK.

(Photo: Broken iPhones, Credit: Getty Images)

The search for sustainable fabric Oct 02, 2019

Show notes

Modern textiles are environmentally problematic. Cotton needs gallons of water to produce, while polyester comes from crude oil. So could organic materials such as mushrooms and banana leaves hold the answer?

Manuela Saragosa speaks to Dr Richard Blackburn, chemistry professor at Leeds University, who has been studying the ecological impact of the garments industry for decades. Meanwhile the BBC's Elizabeth Hotson investigates innovative new fabrics preparing to hit the market, including MycoTEX, a material made from fungal mycelium, developed by Aniela Hoitink.

(Picture: Branch of ripe cotton; Credit: Gargonia/Getty Images)

The onward march of Chinese debt Oct 01, 2019

Show notes

Is the rapid build up of consumer and corporate credit a threat to China's economic wellbeing?

On the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic, Ed Butler asks whether the increasing dependence on debt of this officially communist nation is becoming a problem.

The programme includes interviews with Shanghai-based journalist Liyan Ma, Shaun Rein of business strategy consultants China Market Research Group, and economist Linda Yueh.

(Picture: People's Liberation Army personnel participate in a military parade at Tiananmen Square in Beijing to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Peoples Republic of China; Credit: Greg Baker/AFP/Getty Images)

Brexit and the currency speculators Sep 30, 2019

Show notes

Some traders are betting on the UK crashing out of the EU without a divorce agreement. Should we be concerned that they wield too much political influence?

Both the British Prime Minister's sister Rachel Johnson, and the former Conservative finance minister Philip Hammond, have publicly voiced concerns in recent day that Boris Johnson is backed by financiers speculating on a sharp fall in the pound following a possible no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

Manuela Saragosa asks how credible are such claims? How are the markets positioned for Brexit? And is there any way of even knowing who is "shorting" the pound, ready to profit from an unexpected fall in its value?

The programme includes interviews with David Riley, chief investment strategist at Bluebay Asset Management, and with Jane Foley, head of currency strategy at Rabobank. Plus the BBC's Edwin Lane learns how to play the foreign exchange markets from Piers Curran of Amplify Trading.

Producer: Laurence Knight

(Picture: A woman looks at a chart showing the drop in the pound against the dollar after the UK vote to leave the EU in 2016; Credit: Daniel Sorabji/AFP/Getty Images)

WeWork and the cult of the CEO Sep 27, 2019

Show notes

How WeWork's Adam Neumann lost his job after a disastrous attempt to list the company on the stock market. Manuela Saragosa speaks to the Wall Street Journal's Eliot Brown about the charisma of Adam Neumann and how it helped raise billions from investors, and to Andre Spicer from the Cass Business School about the cult of the founder-CEO. Scott Galloway, professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business, explains why WeWork's IPO failure should be a lesson to the markets.

(Photo: Adam Neumann, Credit: Getty Images)

Climate Action: Should we plant more trees? Sep 26, 2019

Show notes

Ed Butler speaks to Professor Tom Crowther from the Swiss university ETH Zurich, who says planting billions of trees around the world is by far the biggest and cheapest way to tackle climate change. Marcelo Guimaraes, chairman of Mahogany Roraima, a commercial timber and reforestation plantation in the northern Amazon rainforest, discusses how that would work in practice.

(Photo: A tree in a deforested area of the Amazon rainforest, Credit: Getty Images)

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected