Podcasts

Steve Caplin tells Simon Rose about a new app that will sing the words you type - in different musical styles. He also looks at online disasters for Facebook and the Conservative Party, at a bus that cleans up pollution, Amazon's new store, the phone with 5 cameras and an over-complicated, expensive way of cooling drink as you drive.

James Cameron-Wilson looks at the UK box office, topped by the ostensible comedy Night School. James reviews this and laments the difficulty in seeing Oscar hopeful The Wife, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. James thinks she must be a favourite, finally, to lift the statuette. He also looks at the home release of Elvis documentary The King, which he also recommends strongly.

Graham Spooner of The Share Centre discusses the market's disappointment with Tesco's overseas operations, the dramatic fall in Royal Mail's share price and results from plumbing group Ferguson. He also looks ahead to results from Mondi, Martsons and Hargreaves Lansdown.

Child benefit and state pension - It’s not the most obvious link. But if you are a parent who is looking after a child instead of working, you need to register for child benefit in order to build up your entitlement in retirement age. Austerity swept away the universal child benefit and those households where one parent earns more than £50,000 have to start giving it back until it is removed altogether above £60,000. Unsurprisingly, many who fall into this bracket simply opt not to take it and see no point in registering. Unfortunately, mums and dads who stopped work to look after children are now finding they’ve missed building up their state pension. It should be easy to fix, but HMRC and the government have been stalling parents affected. That’s why This is Money has started a campaign to get this mess fixed, before it gets any worse. On this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost discuss how this all happened and why it matters to not just those affected. And finally, can you really have a weekend away in Europe, flights and a decent hotel for £57? Yes you can, thanks to a very clever new website we tracked down.

Want to keep up with the latest earnings updates from the States? Well join Chris Hill and the Motley Fool Radio Show team here on Share Radio, direct from Washington DC, for news, views and analysis of the US stocks that matter. In this week's show: The SEC sues Tesla CEO Elon Musk for fraud; Analysts David Kretzmann, Seth Jayson, and Jason Moser talk Tesla, Nike, Vail Resorts, McCormick, Michael Kors, hot IPOs, and Dunkin’s new name.

The reports of buy-to-let’s death have been greatly exaggerated. That is the view of one of the few professional residential property fund managers in the UK. Alan Collett, who runs the Hearthstone fund, believes for the astute investor there is still money to be made from Britain’s homes. You could answer, ‘well, he would say that’, but for those interested in the property market, his reasons are worth listening to. In this week’s podcast, Simon Lambert, Sarah Davidson and Georgie Frost dig into the current state of buy-to-let and whether those without an entire property fund at their disposal can still turn a healthy profit if they think long-term. Also on this week’s show, they discuss where the most homes have been built over the past decade, why Goldman Sachs’ new bank Marcus has got everyone talking thanks to an eye-catching savings rate and whether insurers really do spy on you – including if you’re burgled while Instagramming your holiday. And finally, the new 68 registration plate was launched this month and that should have meant a surge in car sales, except as was suggested by one dealer we may already have reached peak new car and that has combined with diesel worries to sink sales. The good news is that means bargains for car buyers, with as much as £10,000 off some models. We reveal which ones.

App development company The Distance almost didn’t go the distance, coming close to failing two years ago. Now it is thriving, with a near seven-figure turnover. In conversation with Simon Rose, MD Anthony Main offers advice to other businesses on how to survive tough times, get through a lean patch and emerge the other side healthier than ever.

Adam talks to coach and mentor to millennials Ich Loch about the challenges facing young people in career and business. They discuss the challenges facing those under the age of 30 and the huge opportunities available. They explore whether the attitude of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) is leading to a lack of focus and commitment which could impede millennials from being successful in business.

The idea of the “Entrepreneurial State” or the “state as investor” has taken off in recent years – following the release of an influential book by economist Mariana Mazzucato. This view that state investment weighs very heavily in economic growth, now forms the basis of contemporary public policy. Our government’s Industrial Strategy effectively proposes that the state should play a key role in “rebalancing the economy”. Joining us today, the IEA’s Head of Research Dr Jamie Whyte and James Price, Campaign Manager at the Taxpayers’ Alliance put this totemic idea under the spotlight. They weigh up how much growth can actually be attributed to state-led investment as is often claimed. Interviewed by Editorial Manager Madeline Grant, they question a number of common assumptions about state-led investment and provision of services – and ask whether contemporary attempts to ‘rebalance the economy’ differ from the old-school industrial strategy of the 1970s – or are merely re-packaging the same bad ideas?

Ian Forrest of The Share Centre explains how Unilever is trying to disenfranchise most private investors in its important domicile vote. He also looks at the takeover of Sky and the Randgold merger as well as analysing news from Next and Boohoo.