At more than $10 trillion outstanding, the eurodollar market is one of the biggest forms of shadow banking activity out there. It's also one of the most interesting markets in existence, allowing non-US banks to hold and lend offshore dollars that effectively sit outside of the Federal Reserve's control. But where did eurodollars actually come from? Why did the US allow these "shadow dollars" to exist at all? And what do eurodollars mean for the greenback's role in the global financial system? In this special three-part series, we look back at the hidden history of the eurodollar market. The story is told by Columbia Law School Professor Lev Menand and Federal Reserve Bank of New York Policy Advisor Josh Younger. We start in the aftermath of World War II, when Europe is in the midst of an expensive reconstruction and the world is in the early throes of the Cold War. It's here that the eurodollar is born.

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Regardless of your political ideology, it's easy to agree that government should work well; that it should be able to hire talented officials, and build things in a timely, cost-effective manner. Of course, what that means in practice is open for debate, and different people will have different priorities. But at the moment, there are reasons to believe the public sector isn't operating optimally. Things move incredibly slow in many cases. Software systems are often old and extremely costly, and don't do a good job serving the public's needs. It can be extremely difficult to bring on the best workers, even setting aside questions about public sector salaries. Jennifer Pahlka is the author of Recoding America, and was the founder of Code for America. She has also served as the US Deputy Chief CTO and has seen how much of government operates up close. We talk to her about what she's seen, how waste happens, how government operations get bogged down by inertia, and why simply identifying things that are going wrong isn't enough to change them. She talks to us about Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, and why a major jolt may be necessary to get better results.

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In the 1950s, a businessman, looking for a new way to settle his lunch tab, sparked a payments revolution and paved the way for today’s cashless economy. Now, the growing use of stablecoins like USDC is leading businesses and consumers to an era of digital payments that’s even faster and cheaper than a credit card.

This episode is sponsored by Coinbase.

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One of the biggest stories in markets right now is the huge selloff in government bonds. And we're not just talking about the US here. The UK is seeing multi-year highs in long-end yields. So is Japan. And of course, the US 10-year Treasury is close to its highest level in a year, despite the recent rate cuts from the Federal Reserve. So what's going on? Is it just about inflation and growth expectations or is there more to it? On this episode, we speak to Jay Barry, head of global rates strategy at JPMorgan Securities, who breaks it all down and gives us his estimate of where fair value now stands.

Read More: Fed’s Barkin Says Term Premium Moving Long Rates, Not Inflation

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Utilities in the US have a couple big jobs to do. On the one hand, they need to deliver affordable and reliable power to their customers. On the other hand, they also need to maintain and upgrade huge amounts of fixed infrastructure. Balancing those two jobs is getting more complicated thanks to America's aging electricity grid and the shift towards renewables. So how are big utilities squaring those two objectives? How do they decide how much money they need to fund new capital investment? How do they decide which customer pays what rate? And what role do regulators play in all these discussions? In this episode of the podcast, we speak with Lon Huber, senior vice president of pricing and customer solutions at Duke Energy, one of the largest utilities in the US. We talk about why the ramp-up in renewable energy hasn't led to lower electricity prices for everyone, why fuel is ultimately the most marginal cost of electricity generation, and how utilities are handling booming demand from data centers.

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If you look at various surveys, Americans feel grim about the state of the economy. But even outside of the economy itself, you see negative readings for faith in various American institutions. Pessimism seems to be in right now, at least on a societal level. But it wasn't always this way. In the 1990s, we were between the Cold War and the War on Terror. The stock market boomed through much of the decade. Optimism was in. So what was that like, and then how did it come to an abrupt end in the early years of the new millennium? On this episode, we speak to Colette Shade, author of the new book Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything, about this time period in America, what stood out, and what is relevant today.

Related reading: Author of 'Dow 36,000' Book on Lessons Learned Since the 1999 Prediction

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In the US right now, there is a lot of talk about a so-called "nuclear revival." But it remains to be seen whether we'll see a meaningful uptick in actual power generation, from either new reactors, or old reactors getting a restart. Meanwhile, in China, nuclear construction is full steam ahead. In the last decade, China has built 37 nuclear reactors, and several more are coming down the pipe. So what does it take to build nuclear at scale? On this episode, we speak to David Fishman, a China-based energy analyst at The Lantau Group. He walks us through all the elements of the country's nuclear success, from financing to manufacturing to its domestic power markets. We also discuss what, if any, lessons could be applied elsewhere.

Previously: What’s Next for Uranium After the Big Price Surge

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As is becoming something of an annual tradition here, we recently asked Odd Lots listeners to send in any questions they have about the show to Tracy and Joe, via voice memo. We took as many as we could, and answered questions on all kinds of things, ranging from our favorite economists to career advice to changes in how the news media operates.

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