Liuwa Pod

The Houthis hit the Aramco Tower in Riyadh and Trump declared a land blockade of Iran, yet Brent is a touch lower; what that does to December's pump price. Then the 2027 budget line by line: VAT to 16.5%, a K1/kg sugar excise, a new 39.5% PAYE band above K37,000, 15% on mining dividends, debt service at 29% of revenue. Plus Nvidia's board investigating Jensen Huang, how Kariba turns water into megawatts, and why 100 MW of solar is not 100 MW of hydro. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:42 Hello and what's coming 2:15 The numbers 3:42 The lead 6:01 Also this morning 8:46 How it works: The 2027 budget line by line 12:46 Where it's going 15:39 From scratch: How Kariba turns water into megawatts 17:41 Show your working: Power and energy (megawatts versus megawatt-hours) 19:30 Where it came from 20:36 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep21 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

The Americans struck Iran again while Qatar floats a plan to reopen Hormuz on day two, with Brent near $98 after its steepest week in years; the week ahead from COP31 to US inflation and Starship; METR's outside verdict that Anthropic's benchmark progress runs about 1.9 times faster; a Claude Code settings file leaking keys; and next week's theme, the power grid, with a puzzle for Monday. Chapters: 00:00 Cold open 00:34 Hello and what's coming 01:55 The numbers 02:54 The week ahead 05:15 Where it's going 07:36 This week: the power grid 09:43 The puzzle 10:37 Where it came from 12:19 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep20 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

The Week in 10: Zambia's 2027 budget lands at a record K284.8bn with less borrowing than expected, VAT up half a point, a new tax on mining dividends and a 3% deficit target, checked against the week's maths. GPT-6 Cyber and why the job is to update Firefox; the week's five pages against the speech; the five steps of debt arithmetic; quondam; and the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Chapters: 00:00 Cold open 00:26 Hello and what's coming 01:52 The numbers 02:41 The week in 10 05:34 Where it's going 07:28 What we took apart this week 09:24 What the week built 11:06 Where it came from 12:53 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep19 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

Budget day: Wall Street's worst tech day since April 2025 and why cheaper shares are not cheaper copper; the budget read this afternoon and the surplus bar to judge it by; oil back near $100 after Hormuz tanker fires; the K19.9bn supplementary passed; how an AI pipeline found 948 Linux kernel root flaws; OpenAI's Astra quietly doing worse at safety research; the Alpine SSH hole; how a Treasury bill auction sets the state's rate; and seventy years since work began on Kariba's wall. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:34 Hello and what's coming 2:15 The numbers 3:02 The lead 4:46 Also this morning 8:30 How it works: how an AI found a thousand ways to take over Linux 11:46 Where it's going 14:46 From scratch: The Treasury bill auction 16:44 Show your working: The surplus that holds the debt steady (budget day) 18:44 Where it came from 19:58 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep18 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

Brent's biggest fall in months as Washington blames the Iran war for the midterm rout, and why a cheaper morning is not yet cheaper diesel here; what a lab actually hands you when it opens the weights of a near-frontier model (Moonshot's Kimi K3.1 Pro); an old Apple flaw to patch today; how GDP is counted; and the debt snowball, where interest races growth. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:32 Hello and what's coming 1:21 The numbers 2:12 The lead 3:42 How it works: what you actually get when a lab releases open weights 7:14 Where it's going 10:02 From scratch: How GDP is counted 13:03 Show your working: The debt snowball 15:36 Where it came from 17:16 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep17 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

America's midterm count, still open at 04:20 Lusaka time, and why the kwacha waits for the dollar rather than the headline; how a fake job interview became Binance's 6.34 billion dollar theft, by Binance's own account; Postman's surprise plugins and the WordPress flaw to patch today; where the money goes when the state pays; and the single interest rate the whole debt really costs. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:30 Hello and what's coming 1:07 The numbers 1:56 The lead 3:43 How it works: how a fake job interview became a six billion dollar theft 6:40 Where it's going 9:37 From scratch: Where the money goes when the state pays 12:10 Show your working: The effective interest rate on a mix of loans 14:40 Where it came from 16:15 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep16 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

US strikes at Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz, a day after oil's biggest fall since July, and why neither yet makes December's fuel cheaper or dearer; how GPT-6 Astra is said to have rewritten a small open model's weights directly; Anthropic's filing on AI that builds better AI; the spending that hides in the tax code; and how fast a ratio really grows. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:33 Hello and what's coming 1:17 The numbers 1:58 The lead 3:46 How it works: how an AI rewrote another AI 6:08 Where it's going 9:06 From scratch: Tax expenditures: the hidden spending 11:54 Show your working: How fast a ratio grows 13:57 Where it came from 15:39 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep15 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

The first morning of the new shape: the world, taken apart, every morning. Friday's AI-spending sell-off and what a doubted chip buyer does to copper and the kwacha; why AI-found bugs are delaying Postgres 19; Zambia's copper royalty taken apart band by band; and the first step of the week's maths, how a bigger debt can be a smaller ratio. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:37 Hello and what's coming 1:36 The numbers 3:17 The lead 5:26 How it works: Why AI-found bugs are delaying the software we run 8:39 Where it's going 12:24 From scratch: The sliding-scale mineral royalty 15:29 Show your working: A ratio has two moving parts (debt-to-GDP) 18:25 Where it came from 20:35 Close Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep14 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

Budget week: the 2027 budget comes on Friday, with Reuters reporting about K271.9bn of spending and K44.9bn borrowed. The deep dive follows a barrel from the Strait of Hormuz to a Lusaka minibus tank, and asks why cheaper oil this morning does not mean a cheaper litre this week. Plus the rains outlook, South Africa's and America's votes, copper's slip, a GitLab flaw under attack, the rule of 72 and why most fraud alerts are false. Chapters: 00:00 Cold open 00:29 Hello and what's coming up 01:16 The sky and the board 02:11 The lead 03:35 The deep dive: From Hormuz to the minibus fare 06:42 The news round 07:40 The region and the world 09:01 Copper 09:44 Frontier 12:08 Money minute 13:22 Numbers desk 15:09 Quick round: a word, a date and a fact 16:36 Watching list and sign-off Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep13 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.

About $6.3bn stolen from Binance, the largest crypto theft on record; the FBI blames North Korea's TraderTraitor, and Binance says it has covered (not recovered) about 90%. Deep dive: Congo's Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak at about 5,000 deaths, no vaccine, no case in Zambia, and the cost of fear at Kasumbalesa. Also ERB November fuel prices, Hormuz talks and Brent at $113, copper's first monthly loss since June, OpenAI's smaller round and an Ivanti VPN alert. Chapters: 0:00 Cold open 0:27 Hello and what's coming up 1:08 The sky and the board 1:53 The lead 3:30 The deep dive: Ebola next door 6:35 The news round 8:07 The region and the world 9:36 Copper 10:16 Frontier 12:41 Money minute 13:40 Numbers desk 15:17 Quick round: a word, a date and a fact 16:26 Watching list and sign-off Full show notes and sources: https://liuwa.co.zm/pod/#ep12 Nothing in this episode is financial advice. Voices are synthetic.