Category
Money & markets
The economy, the markets, and the money in your pocket. What moved, why it matters, and how the system really works.
In this category
Short selling and the GameStop saga
How investors profit when a stock falls, why the practice is so controversial, and how a crowd of retail traders turned short sellers' own bets against them in the GameStop frenzy.
12 min
The petrodollar and the power of pricing oil in dollars
How the arrangement to price global oil in US dollars entrenched the dollar's dominance and handed the United States extraordinary financial leverage — and what could unwind it.
12 min
The Index Fund Revolution
Jack Bogle's unglamorous idea — just buy the whole market cheaply — quietly outperformed most professional stock pickers and moved trillions. Explore how passive investing works and how it reshaped finance.
12 min
Hyperinflation and how money dies
When a currency collapses, prices can double in days. Explore the mechanics behind hyperinflation through Weimar Germany and Zimbabwe, what actually triggers it, and how it ever gets stopped.
12 min
The 2008 crisis, explained through one instrument
How mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations bundled risky home loans, earned top ratings, and detonated the global financial system — the anatomy of the meltdown in the products at its center.
12 min
How central banks conjure money out of nothing
What actually happens when money is 'created' — the mechanics of central banking, reserves, and quantitative easing, and what really limits how much money can exist before it loses value.
12 min
COBOL processes $3 trillion in daily commerce.
Billions in global transactions still rely on a programming language from 1959 that almost no one under fifty knows how to code. It is the story of how technical debt became the load-bearing pillar of the modern financial system.
12 min
India and Pakistan are trading oil for tomatoes
Explores the rise of sophisticated modern barter systems where nations bypass the US dollar to settle debts with fruit and tea. This shift reveals how the global financial plumbing is being re-engineered by countries facing chronic currency shortages.
12 min
About Money & markets
How money really moves — the mechanics behind the headlines, one episode at a time. Listen to how central banks conjure money from nothing, how the 2008 crisis detonated through a single instrument, why pricing oil in dollars handed the US so much leverage, and what actually happens when a currency dies. The stream mixes evergreen mechanics with what markets are doing right now, so the economy stops being background noise and starts making sense on the commute.
Fylom episodes are researched and written by AI. Automated checks help catch inaccuracies, but episodes aren't reviewed by a human and AI can still get things wrong. Treat them as a starting point, not a source of record — more in our accuracy disclaimer.