Odd Lots

Odd Lots

Henry Blodget on the Software Selloff Hysteria and the Problem for OpenAI

March 7, 2026
Henry Blodget views the current AI disruption as analogous to the early 1990s internet boom, characterized by a wide range of predictions swinging between catastrophe and euphoria, leading to market twitchiness.

Lots More on the Seaborne Chaos Around the Strait of Hormuz

March 6, 2026
War risk insurance premiums for shipments transiting the Strait of Hormuz are surging by up to 30 times their traditional rate due to short cancellation periods on existing policies coinciding with the conflict.

Former Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein on Why He Doesn't Tweet

March 5, 2026
Lloyd Blankfein attributes his decision to quit tweeting primarily to his ingrained risk management instincts, viewing it as a way to avoid potential negative consequences ("getting killed") before being forced out.

How the Speed of a Trade Got Down to Nearly the Speed of Light

March 2, 2026
The evolution of trading speed has moved from human-perceptible timeframes (tenths of a second) to machine-centered trading in the nanosecond regime, fundamentally changing trading strategies and required skills.

Introducing: Bloomberg This Weekend

March 1, 2026
The new program, "Bloomberg This Weekend," hosted by David Gura, Christina Ruffini, and Lisa Mateo, offers unique weekend coverage of business, news, lifestyle, and culture.

James van Geelen on His Viral AI Doom Scenario

February 28, 2026
The unexpected virality of the Citrini Research piece, "The 2028 Global Intelligence Crisis," highlights significant underlying nervousness and uncertainty within the market regarding the speed and implications of AI advancement.

The Scramble Is On for Businesses to Get Their Tariff Refund Checks

February 27, 2026
There is a high degree of certainty among trade attorneys that importers will receive refunds for the struck-down tariffs, with the process likely being complex and potentially taking years, though guest Ryan Petersen predicts refunds could arrive this year.

How Insurance Costs Make NYC Construction So Expensive

February 26, 2026
The exorbitant cost of construction in New York City is significantly driven by insurance costs, which are reported to be 10-12% of total project costs, compared to about 2% in other states, largely due to New York's unique 'Scaffold Law' imposing absolute liability.

Alison Roman's Plan to Conquer the Tomato Sauce Market

February 23, 2026
Scaling a beloved home recipe into a high-volume consumer packaged goods (CPG) product requires significant, continuous tweaking of ingredients and processes, as demonstrated by the challenges in replicating the caramelized shallot anchovy sauce flavor profile at scale.

Jamee Moudud on the Intellectual Roots of Zohranomics

February 21, 2026
The orthodoxy of modern neoclassical economics, which treats the economy as a separate, eternal, and naturalistic system, emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by eviscerating the older tradition of political economy, which viewed economic questions as inseparable from politics and law.

A16Z's David George on How Private and Public Markets Fused Into One

February 20, 2026
The private technology market has grown to represent a staggering \$5 trillion in market capitalization, nearly a quarter of the S\&P 500, indicating a massive shift where the best and fastest-growing companies often reside privately.

Jared Sleeper On Which Software Companies Will Survive The Saaspocalypse

February 19, 2026
The current market panic in software, dubbed the "SaaSpocalypse," is driven by terminal value concerns regarding AI's long-term impact, even though current financial performance metrics for many software companies remain relatively stable.

Ray Wang on How AI Is Causing DRAM Prices to Surge

February 16, 2026
The current DRAM shortage is driven by a supply constraint stemming from conservative capital expenditure during the prior COVID-related down cycle, coinciding with an accelerating demand surge fueled by AI, particularly the wafer-intensive HBM.

The Sixth Bureau, Episode 1: Your Friend From Nanjing

February 15, 2026
The episode introduces a consensual body recording of an interaction between an undercover FBI agent (posing as "Chen") and an alleged Chinese intelligence operative, Ji Chaoqin, on April 25th, 2018, in Chicago.

Why Adam Posen Thinks Inflation Will Surge Back to 4%

February 13, 2026
Adam Posen maintains his non-consensus thesis that headline CPI inflation will reaccelerate to 4% by the end of the year, driven by lagged effects of tariffs, anti-migration policy, further fiscal easing, and declining Fed credibility.

New CFTC Chairman Michael Selig on How to Regulate Prediction Markets

February 12, 2026
The CFTC regulates prediction markets because the definition of a "commodity" under the Commodity Exchange Act is extraordinarily broad, encompassing virtually everything except for expressly carved-out items like onions and motion picture box office receipts.

Ricardo Hausmann Explains How the Venezuelan Economy Collapsed

February 9, 2026
Venezuela's catastrophic economic collapse was fundamentally caused by the erosion of rights, property rights, and the rule of law under the Chavez/Maduro regimes, rather than solely by the drop in oil prices.

Evolving Money: The Tokenization Tipping Point (Sponsored Content)

February 8, 2026
Tokenization is predicted by experts like Rick Edelman to be the dominant investment platform, eclipsing ETFs within the decade due to technological superiority offering lower costs, higher liquidity, and broader asset access.

Lots More With Charlie McElligott on This Week's SaaSpocalypse

February 6, 2026
The recent market selloff, impacting software, crypto, and gold, was driven by crowded, lazy consensus narratives (like debasement/de-dollarization) hitting inflection points, exacerbated by high gross leverage across systematic and retail strategies.

How a Former Fed Vice-Chair Is thinking About the Next Fed Chair

February 6, 2026
The nomination of Kevin Warsh for Fed Chair is generating unusually split reactions across the economic spectrum, prompting sociological questions about the role itself.

This Is How The US Can Become a Player in Rare Earth Metals

February 5, 2026
The US can compete with China's rare earth dominance not by outspending them in traditional mining, but by leveraging innovation to leapfrog existing chokeholds through material engineering and biotech solutions.

The Surprising Similarity Between the US and Chinese Internets

February 3, 2026
Despite vastly different governance regimes, the evolution of the US and Chinese internets has converged toward centralization, tribalism, and conflict, defying early utopian predictions of liberalization.

The Utilities Analyst Who Says the Data Center Demand Story Doesn't Add Up

February 2, 2026
The utilities analyst, Andy DeVries, argues that utilities are already committed to connecting nearly twice the amount of power capacity (110 GW) needed to meet third-party forecasts for data center demand (50 GW needed by 2030).

Lots More With Skanda Amarnath on the Risks of Kevin Warsh

January 30, 2026
The nomination of Kevin Warsh for Fed Chair has drawn mixed reactions, with some, like Neil Dutta, being highly critical, while others, including Jason Furman and Mohamed El-Erian, praise his expertise.

Jeff Currie on the Crazy Surge in Metals, And Why The Supercycle Has Years to Run

January 30, 2026
The current surge across copper, gold, and silver is driven by a confluence of factors including debasement, de-dollarization, and diversity/stockpiling concerns, rather than just simple inflation.

What It's Like to Do Big Ag Business in Venezuela and Ukraine

January 29, 2026
Operating large multinational businesses in hyperinflationary environments like Venezuela requires specialized teams focused on generating hard currency (dollars) through creative means, as local currency becomes worthless and imports cease without it.

What It Takes to Build One of the World's Biggest Banks

January 26, 2026
Despite the digital shift, physical branch density (around 7-8% share in a market) remains a critical competitive advantage for controlling retail deposits and economics, driving PNC's aggressive branch building strategy in growing markets.

Blackstone's Michael Zawadzki on How Private Credit Got so Big

January 23, 2026
Private credit's massive growth is attributed to its efficiency, acting as a "farm-to-table model" that cuts out middlemen and brings borrowers directly to investors, resulting in better outcomes for all market participants.

Pimco CEO Manny Roman on Japanese Bonds and the Sell America Trade

January 22, 2026
The recent market trifecta (S&P 500 down, yields up, dollar down) is viewed by Pimco CEO Emmanuel Roman as a modest reaction, suggesting the market is largely discounting immediate geopolitical noise like the 'Sell America' trade fears.

Why the Tech World Is Going Crazy for Claude Code

January 19, 2026
The excitement around Claude Code stems from its ability to operate locally on a machine, granting it access to the file system and Unix commands, which overcomes the stateless nature of traditional LLM chatbots and significantly lowers the technical friction for coding tasks.

Lots More on the Protests and Financial Crisis in Iran

January 16, 2026
The current civil unrest in Iran feels qualitatively different from past protests due to widespread economic hardship affecting every household, contrasting with previous social freedom drivers.

How to Make Money From the Booming Demand for Energy

January 15, 2026
The massive, accelerating global energy demand, driven by population growth and economic activity (despite efficiency gains), is creating structural, long-lasting opportunities in energy and infrastructure investing, moving beyond the cyclical nature of the past.

The Fight Over Fed Independence Just Got Taken To a Whole New Level

January 12, 2026
The subpoena served to Fed Chairman Jerome Powell by the DOJ, potentially leading to criminal charges over office renovations, represents an unprecedented escalation in the political fight against the Federal Reserve, moving beyond mere removal threats.

Cullen Roche on the Art of Building a Perfect Portfolio

January 12, 2026
The traditional 60/40 portfolio's effectiveness is being questioned due to recent high inflation, prompting a need to re-evaluate asset allocations.

Greg Grandin on how the Monroe Doctrine Became the Donroe Doctrine

January 9, 2026
The Monroe Doctrine, originally a cautious 1823 statement by James Monroe, has historically been reinterpreted by U.S. presidents (like Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt) to assert increasing dominance and police power over the Western Hemisphere.

Here's What Could Happen to Venezuela's Messy $170 Billion of Debt

January 8, 2026
Sovereign debt restructuring is complex due to a diverse creditor group (bonds, trade creditors, arbitration awards) that ranks equally below multilateral institutions, unlike corporate debt which has a formal bankruptcy structure.

This Is What Maduro's Arrest Means for the Oil Market

January 7, 2026
The immediate market reaction to Maduro's arrest was minimal because Venezuela's massive oil reserves are currently inaccessible due to severe infrastructure decay, sanctions, and high costs, making current production capacity the only relevant factor for short-term oil prices.

What Really Happens at a Fed Research Conference

January 5, 2026
Federal Reserve research conferences, like the Boston Fed's 69th Annual Flagship Economic Conference, serve as the intellectual groundwork where academic research on timely issues like tariffs, supply chains, and inflation first collides with real-world data and shapes future policy debates.

The Business of Butterworth's, the Hottest New Restaurant in Washington DC

January 2, 2026
The restaurant industry, particularly in D.C., serves as a microcosm for broader economic issues, reflecting current trends in food costs, labor availability, and consumer spending.

Tracy and Joe Answer All Your Questions

January 1, 2026
The hosts of Odd Lots occasionally kill and do not publish episodes that they feel do not meet their standards, a practice Joe Wisenthal believes journalists should embrace more often.

Goldman's Hatzius and Snider on the Outlook for 2026

December 29, 2025
Goldman Sachs forecasts 2.6% real GDP growth for 2026, supported by accelerating productivity growth (estimated at 2% trend) which helps square growth with flat unemployment at 4.5%.

Merryn Talks Money: John Law, The Gambler Who Invented Modern Money (Part 1)

December 26, 2025
John Law, the subject of this *

Scott Kupor's New Plan to Bring Tech Workers Into the Federal Government

December 25, 2025
The Director of the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Scott Kupor, is launching the US Tech Force to recruit 1,000 engineers for two-year stints to modernize federal infrastructure and address a severe early-career pipeline problem.

Why Americans Are Falling Behind on Auto Loans At Their Highest Level Ever

December 22, 2025
Credit scores are relative measures of risk, meaning a score of 720 today reflects a different risk profile than a 720 score from three years ago due to changing economic conditions outside the individual's control.

The Booming Business of Chinese Peptides

December 19, 2025
The burgeoning use of non-FDA-approved peptides, often sourced cheaply from China, is driven by biohacking communities and tech workers seeking optimization, spurred initially by the popularity of GLP-1 drugs.

Meet the Politician the AI Industry Is Trying to Stop

December 18, 2025
New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores is being targeted by a $100 million AI-industry Super PAC, Leading the Future, primarily due to his sponsorship of the RAISE Act, which proposes safety standards for advanced AI research.

MeatEater's Steven Rinella on the Economic History of Hunting

December 15, 2025
Hunting and animal products, particularly deerskins, were a major, often overlooked, economic driver in early American colonization, second only to rice in value exported from South Carolina at one point.

D.A. Wallach Explains Why Biotech VC Is So Different

December 12, 2025
Biotech investing is fundamentally different from traditional tech VC because it involves pricing options based on extremely low probabilities of success (e.g., 5% for small molecules) over very long time horizons.

This Is What It Takes to Get a Data Center Financed

December 11, 2025
Data center financing is complex, blending real estate, high-tech assets, and massive power infrastructure needs, often utilizing financing structures similar to those used for cell towers and solar securitizations.

Dan Ivascyn Is Excited About a New Era in Fixed Income

December 8, 2025
The bond market in 2025 offers attractive absolute and relative valuations compared to equities, suggesting bonds may outperform stocks over the next decade, even without relying on correlation arguments.

How Microsoft Excel Conquered Corporate America

December 7, 2025
Microsoft Excel's dominance, which has made Microsoft one of the world's most valuable companies, stems from its early adoption of a graphical interface and aggressive bundling strategies like Microsoft Office and Microsoft 365.

Affirm's Max Levchin Breaks Down How Buy Now, Pay Later Really Works

December 5, 2025
Affirm's core business model is fundamentally differentiated from traditional credit cards by its commitment to never charge late fees and never compound interest, aligning lender incentives with borrower success.

AI Can Tell Us Something About Credit Market Weakness

December 4, 2025
The increasing prevalence of specific structural protections in credit and M&A deal terms, tracked by Noetica, signals growing anxiety and a "flight to fortification" among lenders and borrowers in the market.

Travis Kavulla Explains Why Electric Bills Shot Up

December 1, 2025
Electricity price increases are driven by two distinct, yet interacting factors: the steady, unidirectional rise in regulated transmission/distribution costs and volatile wholesale commodity prices.

This Is Why Credit Card Interest Rates Are So High

November 28, 2025
Credit card banks achieve significantly higher Returns on Assets (ROA) (often 3.5% to 4%) compared to the average bank (1% to 1.2%) primarily due to charging high interest rates to revolving borrowers.

Graham Allison on the Risks of a US-China War

November 27, 2025
The central theme of the discussion, introduced by Professor Graham Allison, is the Thucydides Trap, where the rise of a new power (China) instills fear in the established ruling power (US), historically leading to war in about three-quarters of observed cases.

Ray Dalio on the Five Forces That Make This a Historical Moment

November 24, 2025
Ray Dalio posits that the current era is defined by the convergence of five major historical forces: the mechanics of money/debt/economics, wealth/value differences leading to internal conflict, the changing world geopolitical order, acts of nature, and technological invention (like AI).

Risky Business Preview

November 23, 2025
The podcast being previewed, *

Why America's Cattle Ranchers Keep Getting Squeezed

November 22, 2025
The U.S. beef industry is experiencing a dysfunctional marketplace characterized by an inverse relationship between soaring retail beef prices and falling live cattle prices since 2017, driven by industry consolidation and increased imports.

What Susan Collins Wants to See Before Supporting Another Rate Cut

November 21, 2025
Boston Fed President Susan Collins emphasizes balancing concerns over stubbornly elevated inflation (currently at 2.9% for Core PCE) against potential labor market deterioration, noting that recent rate cuts have positioned the Fed appropriately for now.

Tyler Cowen on Why AI Hasn't Changed the World Yet

November 20, 2025
The primary reason AI's impact has not yet been revolutionary is that legacy organizations are using it as an add-on to existing workflows, requiring a slow turnover or the creation of entirely new, AI-centered organizations for true transformation.

The Politics of AI Are About to Explode

November 19, 2025
The political conversation around Artificial Intelligence is rapidly escalating, moving from a minor 2024 topic to a major issue expected to dominate the 2026 midterms and the 2028 election due to concerns over labor displacement, energy use, and potential government bailouts.

Jeffrey Gundlach Says Almost All Financial Assets Are Now Overvalued

November 17, 2025
Jeffrey Gundlach is deeply concerned about the financing of long-term U.S. Treasuries due to ongoing deficit spending and inflationary policies, predicting that long-term interest rates are likely to rise in the next recession, contrary to historical patterns.

Citi's Dirk Willer on How You Know When the Bubble Is Over

November 15, 2025
Dirk Willer defines a market bubble as asset price appreciation exceeding two standard deviations above the long-term real trend, noting that historically, the correct move upon entering bubble territory is to buy, as these phases tend to continue rising before an eventual, bad-ending correction.

Why Paul Kedrosky Says AI Is Like Every Bubble All Rolled Into One

November 14, 2025
The current AI boom is considered a "meta-bubble" because it uniquely combines the core ingredients of every major historical bubble: real estate speculation, disruptive technology, loose credit (especially private credit), and the potential for a government backstop.

Cliff Asness on How Markets Got Dumber in the Last 10 Years

November 13, 2025
Cliff Asness contends that markets have become more susceptible to bouts of irrationality and greater deviations from fundamental value over the last decade, a concept he terms "The Less Efficient Market Hypothesis."

Jerry Neumann on the Problem With Investing in AI Right Now

November 12, 2025
The current AI boom is analogous to the final stage of a previous technological wave (the computer revolution), rather than the eruption phase of a new one, suggesting value capture will favor incumbents who can leverage existing infrastructure.

How Chinese Real Estate Became the Biggest Bubble in History

November 10, 2025
China's massive real estate sector developed as a crucial, yet ultimately problematic, financing model for local governments following 1994 tax reforms, driven by the need to fund spending obligations after centralizing revenue collection.

The Viral Milk That Helped Set Off America's Protein Boom

November 8, 2025
Fairlife's success is driven by its specialized filtering process (ultra-filtration) which boosts protein and cuts lactose, combined with Coca-Cola's distribution power and aseptic packaging that allows for long shelf life.

Lots More on the Worsening State of the US Labor Market

November 7, 2025
The absence of official Non-Farm Payrolls data due to a government shutdown is forcing reliance on alternative data sources like ADP and Challenger, which are currently presenting conflicting signals about the labor market's health.

Dmitry Shevelenko on Perplexity's Vision for Reshaping the Internet

November 6, 2025
Perplexity's core differentiation from competitors like ChatGPT lies in its optimization for accuracy and trust, achieved by using the best available models and maintaining transparency through source citation, rather than optimizing for user engagement.

San Francisco's New Mayor on Homelessness, Unaffordability, and AI

November 3, 2025
San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie asserts that addressing homelessness requires a shift from a "live and let live attitude" to actively moving people from the streets into short-term stabilization centers and then into appropriate long-term treatment programs, especially given the fentanyl crisis.

How Hudson River Trading Actually Uses AI

October 31, 2025
Hudson River Trading's current trading strategy is entirely driven by large, data-consuming AI models that have superseded older, handcrafted feature engineering methods, similar in concept to how large language models like ChatGPT are trained.

The Movement That Wants Us to Care About AI Model Welfare

October 30, 2025
The core focus of Eleos AI, as discussed on the *

Why It's Still So Expensive to Build Homes in America

October 27, 2025
Construction labor productivity in housing has either fallen or remained flat since 1970, unlike most other physical goods, contributing significantly to high housing costs discussed in the *

The Hidden Supply Chain Making Every Menu Feel Familiar

October 25, 2025
The foodservice distribution industry, dominated by companies like Sysco, operates as a largely invisible but powerful middleman shaping the standardization and, arguably, the homogenization of American dining menus.

Daniel Yergin on What Happened to the Energy Transition

October 24, 2025
The initial optimism surrounding a rapid energy transition to net-zero has faded as the reality of maintaining the $115 trillion global economy's energy foundation has reasserted itself, leading to continued reliance on hydrocarbons.

Why The World Started Hedging Its US Dollar Exposure

October 23, 2025
The sharp dollar decline in April, where stocks, bonds, and the dollar fell simultaneously (a "triple decline"), was primarily driven by investors hedging pre-existing US dollar exposures ex-post, rather than a wholesale "Sell America" trade.

Olli Rehn on the Big Competitiveness Challenge Facing Europe

October 22, 2025
Increased European defense spending presents a significant economic opportunity to foster a deep and liquid European capital market through common procurement and joint R&D.

Raghuram Rajan on Surging Gold and Growing Risks to Financial Stability

October 20, 2025
The surge in gold prices is attributed to a combination of geopolitical risk leading central banks to diversify reserves away from weaponizable currencies, growing distrust in major safe assets like the US Dollar and Treasuries due to fiscal deficits, and the general froth in markets anticipating rate cuts.

Introducing: The Mishal Husain Show

October 19, 2025
Mishal Husain is launching a new podcast, previously associated with Bloomberg Weekend, to move beyond daily headlines and explore the ideas and people shaping the world.

A Trip to Alaska With San Fran Fed President Mary Daly

October 17, 2025
San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly's trip to Alaska served as a crucial, on-the-ground information-gathering exercise to supplement official economic data, particularly regarding the real-world impact of tariffs and supply chain fragility.

Why the Trump Administration is Now Taking Equity Stakes in American Companies

October 16, 2025
The Trump administration's approach of taking direct equity stakes in companies like Intel and MP Materials marks a novel shift from historical U.S. government support, which typically involved only bailouts or non-equity instruments like loans and grants.

Why Argentina Needs Bailout After Bailout After Bailout

October 15, 2025
Argentina's recurring financial crises stem from a political inability to sustain necessary fiscal reforms, contrasting with other Latin American nations that stabilized after the 1990s.

Andrew Ross Sorkin on the Stock Market Crash That Shattered America

October 13, 2025
The primary lesson from the 1929 crash is that every financial crisis is fundamentally a function of excessive leverage in the system, which requires external guardrails as self-regulation is difficult.

John Ganz on the Era When America Was Consumed by Panic With Corporate Japan

October 10, 2025
The panic surrounding corporate Japan in the 1980s and early 1990s, characterized by fears of economic takeover and visible in pop culture (like *

Why the Price of Money Surged in the Last 6 Years

October 9, 2025
The central theme of the *

James Van Geelen on the Next Phase of the AI Buildout

October 6, 2025
The massive AI infrastructure buildout, exemplified by OpenAI's Stargate data center in Abilene, Texas, is driving a significant, real-world industrial CapEx cycle involving the construction of dedicated power generation facilities like natural gas plants.

Lots More with Joe Abate on the Fed's New Target and the Rising Price of Money

October 3, 2025
The Federal Reserve's traditional method of targeting the Fed funds rate, which relies on interbank lending, has become less active due to the ample reserve regime implemented since 2008, turning the Fed funds rate primarily into a communication device.

Terry Duffy on the CME's Big Push into Retail Trading

October 2, 2025
The CME Group is actively pursuing the retail trading revolution through partnerships like the one with FanDuel to offer short-duration, binary event contracts, aiming to bridge the gap between traditional finance and speculative/gaming platforms.

Tarek Mansour on Kalshi's Plan to Create Markets in Everything

October 1, 2025
The current boom in prediction markets like Kalshi is fundamentally enabled by a significant shift toward a friendlier regulatory environment, which overcame the historical constraints that stifled prior platforms like Intrade.

The King of Chicago Trading Wants to Build a GPU Market Bigger Than Oil

September 29, 2025
Don Wilson, founder and CEO of DRW, predicts that the annual global spending on GPUs will surpass that of crude oil within the next decade, necessitating a large, liquid commodity market for compute.

Introducing IVF Disrupted: The Kindbody Story

September 28, 2025
Kindbody marketed itself as a revolutionary fertility care provider, promising a patient experience that felt like visiting a trusted friend.

Jack Morris on Finding the Next Big AI Breakthrough

September 26, 2025
Current AI model progress often feels incremental, with awe-inspiring breakthroughs being less frequent than in the past, though significant advancements like reinforcement learning (RL) still unlock future potential.

Ozan Tarman on What's Driving The Nonstop Rise in Gold and Tech

September 25, 2025
The simultaneous rise of gold and US tech stocks, traditionally seen as inversely correlated, is driven by a complex interplay of declining confidence in US sovereign stability (boosting gold) and an intense fixation on the success of major US tech companies (driving tech stock bids).

Jim Cramer on the Retail Trading Revolution

September 22, 2025
The traditional advice to "index, index, index" is being challenged by a new wave of retail investors actively participating in speculative trading, which in turn is influencing institutional investor strategies.

Michael Froman on the New 'Polyamorous' Global Trading System

September 20, 2025
The global trading system is under significant stress, moving away from a rules-based multilateral order towards a more complex, multi-aligned world where countries pursue diverse relationships based on their specific interests.

Henry Wang on China's Role in the New Emerging World Order

September 19, 2025
China's understanding of globalization is primarily economic, focusing on mutual benefit and development rather than ideological or political alignment, and they advocate for a multipolar world with reformed international institutions.