❝ The unhappy scenario is one in which confidence in the dollar is lost abruptly…I worry about risks to financial stability that could lead to a disorderly migration away from the dollar before adequate alternatives exist.
— Barry Eichengreen

Episode Details

Guest: Barry Eichengreen
Book: Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale, Editor-in-Chief of econVue
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Friday, May 1, 2026 | 48 minutes

Episode Overview

Barry Eichengreen joins econVue editor Lyric Hughes Hale on the The Hale Report to discuss his new book, Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto. The conversation ranges from ancient coins and Spanish silver to sterling, dollar dominance, gold, stablecoins, and central bank digital currencies. His book spans centuries, from the history of money, to the state of US dollar dominance, and the future of digital money.

Eichengreen does not believe that the dollar is about to be replaced by the euro, renminbi, gold, or crypto. Instead, he warns that geopolitical fragmentation, US debt, sanctions, pressure on Federal Reserve independence, diminished faith in institutions, and new forms of market fragility could erode trust in the dollar system faster than alternatives can develop.

The result would not be a clean transition to a new reserve currency, but a more unstable monetary system, marked by increased reserve diversification, parallel payment systems, digital money, gold accumulation, and echoes of the 1930s.

About Our Guest

Barry Eichengreen is one of the world’s leading economic historians and monetary scholars. He is Distinguished Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he holds the George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Chair. He is also affiliated with the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, and previously served as Senior Policy Advisor at the International Monetary Fund.

He is a regular columnist for Project Syndicate and a past president of the Economic History Association. His most recent book is Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto.

🎤 Topics and Key Moments

Money Beyond Borders: Money That Travels
The conversation begins with one of the book’s central ideas: currencies become international through trade before they become tools of finance, from ancient coins to Spanish silver to the US dollar.

The Life Cycle of Global Currencies
Eichengreen discusses whether reserve currencies rise and fall according to a recognizable life cycle, and whether the dollar’s century-long global role is entering a new phase.

The Dollar Under Stress
The dollar remains dominant, but Eichengreen argues that its strength depends on more than markets. It also rests on political stability, rule of law, Fed independence, and alliance trust.

❝ International currency status has economic and financial prerequisites, but it also has important political prerequisites.

Gold, Oil, and War
The conversation explores why central banks are buying gold, how sanctions are reshaping reserve management, and how Eichengreen sees events in the Middle East.

❝ I do think events in the Middle East are dollar negative and renminbi positive.

China, Silver, and Hong Kong
Eichengreen explains why the renminbi lags far behind the dollar, what China’s silver standard period reveals about global money, and why Hong Kong’s dollar peg depends on unusually specific institutional conditions.

Crypto, Stablecoins, and CBDCs
The discussion turns to Bitcoin, stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits, and central bank digital currencies, including Eichengreen’s warning that stablecoins could create new forms of Treasury-market fragility.

❝ We know from history that something that is safe and liquid today can become unsafe and illiquid tomorrow.

Monetary Fragmentation and the 1930s Scenario
The episode’s darkest warning is not that the dollar will be replaced overnight. It is that confidence in the dollar could be lost before alternatives are ready.

❝ The unhappy scenario is one in which confidence in the dollar is lost abruptly.

Policy and Practical Takeaways
To preserve the dollar’s role, Eichengreen argues that the United States must protect Federal Reserve independence, address its fiscal trajectory, maintain institutional credibility, and reassure allies.

Mentioned in This Episode

• Barry Eichengreen, Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto
  Eichengreen’s newest book and the focus of the episode.

• Barry Eichengreen, Exorbitant Privilege
  Referenced through the discussion of dollar dominance and the advantages and burdens of the dollar’s global role.

• Federal Reserve Act of 1913
  Discussed in relation to the creation of the Federal Reserve and the early use of the dollar in international trade finance.

• GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act
  The GENIUS Act, signed into law in 2025, created the first federal framework for payment stablecoins, including rules on reserves, redemption, supervision, anti-money-laundering obligations, and sanctions compliance. The related CLARITY Act, still under debate in Congress, addresses the broader digital-asset market structure by clarifying regulatory jurisdiction between the SEC and CFTC.

• Dodd-Frank Act
  Discussed in relation to post-global-financial-crisis regulation, stress tests, and capital requirements.

• Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
  Referenced as part of the 1930s breakdown in trade and global liquidity.

• Project mBridge
  The cross-border central bank digital currency project involving China, Hong Kong, Thailand, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia.

• Simon Kuznets’s “four kinds of economies” line
  A memorable reference to “developed, developing, Argentina, and Japan,” used to explain Japan’s unusual place in the global economy.

• John Greenwood
  Referenced in connection with the Hong Kong dollar peg. Greenwood is widely associated with the design and defense of Hong Kong’s modern currency board system, which restored the Hong Kong dollar’s fixed link to the US dollar in 1983. In the episode, his views are discussed in relation to the peg’s automatic convertibility and rule-bound credibility, as a comparison to stablecoin protocols.

• Paul Warburg
  Discussed as a central figure in the creation of the Federal Reserve and Eichengreen’s chosen dinner guest.

  ---

About Our Host

Join the Conversation!

Our Next Live Event: May 12th Panel Discussion

Register Now: Our next panel discussion on the upcoming Trump-Xi Summit will be held on May 12 at 9am CDT. Click here to register and to receive more details about our speakers.

Register for May 12th

Guest: Arthur Laffer
Title: The Other Side of Taxation: Incentives
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Mon March 17, 2026 · 57 minutes

Art Laffer on Incentives, Policy Design, and the Future of the Global Economy

My conversation with Arthur Laffer explores a central question in economic policy: how incentives—shaped by taxation, trade, and monetary systems—drive outcomes across the global economy. What follows is a short guide to some of the key ideas discussed in the episode.

About our Guest

Arthur Laffer is best known for the Laffer Curve—the idea that beyond a certain point, higher tax rates can discourage work, investment, and entrepreneurship, ultimately reducing both economic activity and government revenue. His work helped shape the tax reforms of the Reagan era and continues to influence debates about taxation and growth today. Trained at the University of Chicago and long engaged at the intersection of academic theory and public policy, Laffer has spent decades focused on a central question: how incentives shape economic behavior.

In this conversation, Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Arthur Laffer about how those ideas apply today—at a moment when policy decisions are reshaping the structure of the global economy.

🎤 Topics and Key Moments

Laffer’s framework is deceptively simple:

“ Incentives are what economics is all about.”

From this starting point, the conversation moves across taxation, trade, healthcare, and monetary policy—but consistently returns to the same underlying principle: policy does not merely allocate resources, it shapes behavior, often in ways that are not immediately visible.

This is something that, in Laffer’s telling, policymakers either recognize—or fail to recognize—at critical moments.

One of the more striking parts of our discussion—and one that aligns with broader questions about structural imbalances in the global economy—was Laffer’s critique of tax-exempt institutions.

He argues that exemptions, particularly in healthcare and education, have created significant imbalances in how capital is allocated. Resources flow not necessarily to their most productive use, but to sectors where tax treatment is most favorable.

“We could get rid of the income tax… just by eliminating those exemptions.”

The point is not simply fiscal. It is structural. When policy privileges certain sectors, it shapes the direction of investment, the cost structure of services, and ultimately the behavior of institutions.

On trade, Laffer offers a perspective that reflects both classical theory and contemporary reality.

“No one wins from a trade war—but they don’t all lose the same.”

That distinction reflects a shift from theory to application. Trade relationships are no longer evenly balanced, and policy tools—especially those executed through executive authority—can be deployed quickly and strategically.

Here, Laffer’s experience across administrations becomes instructive. He describes Ronald Reagan as unusually open to economic reasoning—willing to adopt ideas such as broad-based tax reform and energy decontrol, even when they ran counter to internal resistance. Policy, in that context, was designed with a clear view of incentives.

That same emphasis on execution appears in his description of Donald Trump—not in ideological terms, but in operational ones. As Laffer recounts, the ability to move from concept to action quickly can itself shape outcomes.

“President Trump doesn’t sit there and study a subject for 300 years… he makes a decision and it’s done.”

Whether one agrees with the policy or not, the observation points to something fundamental: the timing and clarity of decisions can be as important as the ideas themselves.

In discussing energy policy, Laffer points to earlier moments when shifts in policy reshaped entire markets. As he noted at the time—in a New York Times op-ed during the Reagan administration—measures such as oil price decontrol were not simply about prices, but about changing the incentives that governed production and investment decisions across the energy sector.

The lesson is consistent: policy works through the signals it sends—and those signals propagate across the system.

The conversation then turns to healthcare, where Laffer identifies a structural challenge rooted in the absence of information.

Without price transparency, markets cannot function effectively. Consumers cannot make informed choices, and providers face limited pressure to compete on cost or quality. The result is a system in which prices rise, but signals remain unclear.

Here again, the issue is not simply cost, but structure. When information is obscured, incentives shift—and behavior follows.

From there, the conversation turned to monetary policy, where Laffer draws a sharp historical contrast.

Prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, he describes a system in which money was largely private—issued by banks, backed by their balance sheets, and subject to market discipline. Bank-issued notes circulated alongside one another, with their value tied to the credibility of the issuing institution.

From his perspective, the transition to a centralized system marked a profound shift.

“Starting in 1913, all hell broke loose.”

Laffer contrasts this with the earlier era of commodity-linked and privately issued money, which he describes as one of long-run price stability. While that period included cycles of inflation and deflation—including during wartime and financial disruptions—the overall price level remained broadly stable over extended periods, rather than exhibiting the persistent upward trend that has characterized much of the modern era.

It is in this context that he views the emergence of digital currencies:

“Stablecoins are the private market’s attempt to replace government money.”

Much like earlier bank-issued currencies, instruments such as Tether are designed to provide a stable medium of exchange, backed by underlying assets and governed—at least in principle—by market mechanisms.

This perspective places current developments within a longer intellectual lineage—one that extends through Laffer’s own work to that of Robert Mundell. Mundell, often described as the father of the euro, argued that the world had not yet gone far enough—that a truly international currency was still needed.

Laffer suggested that we may be closer to that trajectory than many assume—a market-driven, technologically enabled step toward a more global monetary system.

If there is a single thread that runs through this conversation, it is that policy design shapes incentives—and incentives shape outcomes. Taxes are simply negative incentives.

Policy structures evolve quietly, and become embedded in systems that appear stable, even beneficial in the short term. Over time, they influence behavior in ways that are difficult to reverse.

At a moment of structural change in the global economy, the question is whether incentives are aligned with the most beneficial global policy outcomes. And the answer is that we have a long way to go.

📚 Related Reading & References

Taxes Have Consequences: An Income Tax History of the United States, coauthored by Arthur B. Laffer, Brian Domitrovic and Jeanne Sinquefield

🎙️ About Our Host

💬 Join the Conversation

Feel free to share this podcast. To receive new episodes of The Hale Report and additional econVue insights, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

Dear Readers,

Last month, we lost Karen Petrou. I wanted to reshare a conversation I had with her five years ago, a podcast we recorded in March 2021.

I first contacted Karen after reading her excellent reports at Federal Financial Analytics. She did me the honor of reading and commenting on mine. I planned to be in Washington for an event where she was speaking, and we agreed to meet after her speech. As I sat listening in the audience, I noticed that she had a dog at her side. Only then did I realize she was blind.

I could not believe that she was able to digest and analyze the enormous amount of information required for her reports, and I never complained again about having too much to read. I learned so much from her, especially from her book on Federal Reserve policy and inequality, which we discussed during this podcast five years ago, and personally from her remarkable ability to make what she did seem effortless.

It was a great privilege to know Karen. She never let her blindness keep her from the truth. Her work, including as Board Chair of Foundation Fighting Blindness, mattered to so many.

–𝓁𝓎𝓇𝒾𝒸 💬

About this Podcast

The March 2021 Hale Report podcast is my interview with Karen Petrou, discussing her new book, Engine of Inequality: The Fed and the Future of Wealth in America. Just published, it is already the #1 book in its category on Amazon.

Ms Petrou is a well-known and influential commentator on monetary policy and banking regulation, and is managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics in Washington DC. We have often included links to her analysis in our newsletter, and I have had the great pleasure of meeting her both in Chicago and Washington. 

That was not possible this time of course, so I interviewed Ms Petrou remotely. She made several key points: the Fed is responsible for the record rise in inequality between 2010 and 2016, and it continues to look for data in all the wrong places. Other potential countermeasures to inequality such as education simply take too long.

She strongly believes that the Fed should have a third mandate in addition to employment and price stability, economic equality. I've included excerpts from her remarks below, but hope that you will find time to listen to our half-hour podcast via the link below.  I always hope our listeners will learn something they didn't know before, or hadn't thought about in that way. I think this interview accomplishes just that.

Excerpts

❝ I think, sadly, the data the Fed uses are often way off base, because they're averages and aggregates. And in a highly unequal country, as the United States has become, that's very misleading.

❝ Something happened in 2010 and income and wealth inequality grew far worse, far faster than ever before. And the one thing that clearly changed, starting in 2010, after the Great Financial Crisis's worst effects were behind us, was new monetary and regulatory policy. And that's what this book is about. What happened in 2010, and how could it have made us so much less economically equal and, as you said, what can we now do to change?

❝ Think about it though, economic inequality, what's it about? It's about income and wealth. That's the engine that makes us more or less equal. But what is its fuel? In economic inequality, the fuel is money. There is no agency in the United States with the power over money other than our central bank. That's what monetary policy is all about. Bank regulation, what is it about? It's about who has the money, who gets the money, how much does it cost to get the money.

💬 We used to live in a kind of high-trust globalization. What we have now is a world of great connectivity — but high-fear globalization.

🎙️Episode Details

Guest: Steve Clemons
Title: The Man About Town in a Fragmenting World
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Mon Feb 16, 2026 · 60 minutes

Episode Overview

What happens when the era of high-trust globalization gives way to something more conditional, more fractured—and far less certain?

On this episode of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with journalist and global policy convener Steve Clemons, a longtime observer of power, who has spent decades moving between Washington, journalism, and the world’s major geopolitical forums—from Tokyo and Brussels to Davos.

Clemons did not come to journalism through the usual route. Trained in economics, policy, and U.S.–Asia relations, and shaped by a childhood spent on U.S. military bases abroad, he built a career convening conversations among policymakers, business leaders, and thinkers across ideological and national lines. That perspective informs a wide-ranging discussion of how global alliances, domestic politics, technology, and journalism itself are being reshaped in real time.

From the legacy of Chalmers Johnson’s developmental state to Japan’s political transformation under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, from NATO’s evolving role to the growing power of Big Tech, Clemons argues that the world is reorganizing into more conditional and ad hoc arrangements. The United States remains central—but no longer unquestioned.

At home, he sees a Washington defined by internal fractures and performative politics, while globally the risk of conflict may arise less from deliberate strategy than from miscalculation in an increasingly unstable system.

Underlying the entire conversation is a quieter theme: the role of journalism in such a moment. In an era of fragmentation and personality-driven media, Clemons offers a reminder that the journalist’s task remains what it has always been—to illuminate reality, not become part of the spectacle.

About our Guest

Steve Clemons is a journalist, policy strategist, and global convener. He serves as Editor-at-Large of The National Interest and is the founder of Widehall, an international forum convening leaders across policy, business, and media.

Over the course of his career, Clemons has held senior roles at The Atlantic, The Hill, and Semafor, and founded the influential Washington policy blog The Washington Note. He has worked closely with leading figures in U.S. foreign policy and international economics and has been recognized internationally for his contributions to transatlantic understanding.

He is widely known for bringing together diverse voices across ideological and national divides to foster substantive global dialogue.

Topics Discussed

• The formative influence of growing up abroad and entering journalism through policy and economics

• Chalmers Johnson, industrial policy, and lessons for China and the United States

• Japan’s political evolution and the leadership of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi

• Remilitarization of Japan and Germany post-WW2

• The shift from “high-trust” to “high-fear” globalization

• NATO, conditional alliances, and Europe’s emerging strategic autonomy

• Washington’s internal political fractures and performative partisanship

• Big Tech’s growing structural power and parallels to the robber-baron era

• AI, surveillance, and the future of privacy

• The rising risk of accidental conflict in a fragmented world

• The coming midterm elections in the US

• Journalism’s credibility crisis—and the importance of remaining neutral, factual, and accountable

🎤 Key Moments

❝ Unconditional alliances are over. They are going to be more conditional and ad hoc.

❝ Both parties are an exercise in the study of schizophrenia.

❝ I worry more about escalation, miscalculation, and accident than deliberate war.

❝ Journalists are not the story. They should never be the story.

📚 Related Reading & References

• Chalmers Johnson — MITI and the Japanese Miracle

• Graham Allison — Essence of Decision

• Thomas L. Friedman — The Lexus and the Olive Tree

• Brad Smith — Tools and Weapons: The Promise and the Peril of the Digital Age

• George Orwell — 1984

• Richard Vague — The Banker Who Made America: Thomas Willing and the Rise of American Finance

💬 Join the Conversation

Feel free to share this podcast. To receive new episodes of The Hale Report and additional econVue insights, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Subscribe now

🎙️ About Our Host

📍 Chicago

Guest: Dr Ruby Wang
Title: Update on the Chinese Health Care System
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Tues Dec 16, 2025 · 60 minutes

Our last podcast of the year is about a subject that is close to my heart: the Chinese health care system. And I cannot think of a better person to discuss this topic with than Dr Ruby Wang, speaking to us from London.

Speaking of health, you might be able to tell that I was a little hoarse from a cold. but I am glad that I (hopefully) got that annual winter experience over before the new year.

If you have time over the long holiday weekend, I think you will enjoy this conversation as much as I did. A peaceful, prosperous, and yes, healthy New Year to all of our subscribers!

💬 𝓁𝓎𝓇𝒾𝒸

🎙️ Host of the Hale Report®

📍Chicago

In Episode 76 of The Hale Report® Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Dr Ruby Wang about how China’s health care system actually works—its strengths, fragilities, and contradictions—and what it reveals about state capacity, trust, and notably, global risk.

About Ruby Wang

Ruby Wang is a UK-trained physician and global health strategist focused on China’s health care system and its global implications. She is the founder of Lintris Health, a cross-border health care and life sciences advisory firm, and the author of China Health Pulse, a Substack newsletter and podcast.

Born in China and raised in the UK, Dr Wang brings a rare cross-cultural perspective to how healthcare, technology, and geopolitics intersect. She trained in medicine and neuroscience at Cambridge University and later earned a master’s degree in health and technology policy at Tsinghua University as a Schwarzman Scholar. She has worked with the UK government and the United Nations in China and is currently an Honorary Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

Why This Conversation Matters Now

China’s rise has been analyzed through many lenses—trade, technology, military power, and demographics. Yet one critical system remains deeply misunderstood in the West: health care.

Over the past decade, China has undertaken one of the fastest health care transformations in modern history, integrating digital platforms, data-driven medicine, biotech innovation, and state capacity at extraordinary scale. It has done so while confronting rapid aging, declining birthrates, a rising incidence of chronic disease, and intensifying geopolitical strain.

🎤 Key Moments

🔑 Takeaways

In this 60-minute conversation, Lyric Hughes Hale and Ruby Wang discuss:

• Why Western assumptions about China’s health care system lag reality

• Speed, scale, and state capacity—and why they matter

• Innovation alongside inequality in China’s rural–urban divide

• Doctors under strain: incentives, burnout, and patient violence

• Who really pays for care—and why “universal coverage” isn’t free

• Privacy, data, and collectivism in medical decision-making

• AI, biotech, and China’s growing role in global health care innovation

• COVID as a stress test—and the lessons still unlearned

• Pharmaceutical supply chains, decoupling risks, and global cooperation

  ---

💬 After we finished recording, our producer Sam Fu, who, like our guest is also a medical professional, Sam and Ruby had a wonderful conversation about the differences between the US and Chinese hospital systems. I wish we had recorded that discussion as well, but let me take this opportunity to thank both Sam for all he does for the Hale Report throughout the year, and Ruby for joining us.

In Closing: Health Care is More than a Sector—It is a Lens

One point runs through this entire conversation. China’s health care system is neither a dystopia nor a miracle. It is fast, hypercompetitive, technologically ambitious, and capable of operating at enormous scale—but it is also uneven, underinsured, and under intense social pressure.

Understanding that tension matters. It explains why doctors are under strain, why competition becomes corrosive, and why global cooperation, whether on pandemics, biologics, or supply chains, is far more complicated than it appears from the outside. And very hard to unwind.

Health care is one of the clearest windows we have into how China governs, how society absorbs stress, and how global risk travels. And if we don’t understand that system as it actually exists rather than as we imagine it, we risk misunderstanding far more than medicine.

Guest: David Marsh
Title: Can Europe Survive?
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Wed Nov 19, 2025 · 43 minutes

Why This Conversation Matters Now

Europe enters 2026 facing a rare convergence of pressures: a stagnant Germany, war in Ukraine that has reached a perilous new stage, rising populism, demographic decline, against a background of intensifying US–China superpower rivalry. David Marsh argues that the next three years may determine whether Europe muddles through, or begins to fracture.

In Episode 75 of The Hale Report® host Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Marsh about his latest book, Can Europe Survive? The Story of a Continent in a Fractured World which was just published by Yale University Press on Nov 11.

About David Marsh

David Marsh, CBE, has spent five decades watching Europe from every possible vantage point — as a journalist, an analyst, an adviser to governments, and since 2010 as co-founder and chairman of OMFIF, the global forum for central banks and sovereign investors.

He began his career at Reuters, moved on to the Financial Times in France and Germany, and has been chronicling Europe’s political and monetary evolution ever since. Few people have seen more — or understand more deeply — how Europe’s institutions, markets, and leaders think.

His new book arrives at a moment of extraordinary events not many predicted on the continent or the UK. I am sure that you will learn as much from this very enjoyable conversation as I did.

💬 𝓁𝓎𝓇𝒾𝒸

🎙️ Host of the Hale Report®

📍Chicago

🎤 Key Moments

🔑 Takeaways

In this fast-paced 43-minute conversation, Lyric Hughes Hale and David Marsh discuss:

• Why Europe lost its growth engine

• How Germany’s model became fragile — and what broke

• Why Europe lags in technology and scale

• Immigration, demographics, and the rise of populism

• Europe caught between China and the United States

• Whether the eurozone will fragment — and what the first signs would be

• Why “variable geometry” may be Europe’s only path forward

• And Marsh’s striking prediction: Europe will face peak pessimism around 2028–29

The Holy Roman Empire (c. 1700)

Marsh argues that today’s EU increasingly resembles the loose, overlapping structures of the Holy Roman Empire, full of jurisdictions, compromises, and variable geometry.

Transcript

Editor’s Note:
The audio of The Hale Report will always remain free. Beginning with this episode, and because so many listeners have asked, we are also offering edited transcripts as a subscriber benefit. The transcript continues after the paywall. If you’re not already subscriber, please consider supporting independent journalism, with our thanks!

Read more

Guest: Karthik Muralidharan
Title: Accelerating India's Development
Guest Host: Marsha Vande Berg
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Tue Oct 21, 2025 · 62 minutes

In Episode 74 of The Hale Report®, guest host Marsha Vande Berg speaks with Karthik Muralidharan, Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at UC San Diego, and founder of the Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS).

They discuss his acclaimed new book, Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance, and explore how improving state capacity—not simply increasing spending—can drive more equitable growth and opportunity across India. And beyond India, the lessons for other emerging economies. Their discussion touches on the challenges of decentralization, public-private balance, and India’s place in the shifting global economy.

The conversation also highlights how these lessons extend beyond India to other emerging economies facing similar governance challenges.

🎙️Guest Host

📍San Francisco

🎤 Key Moments

🔑 Takeaways

In this wide-ranging conversation with Marsha Vande Berg, Karthik Muralidharan challenges long-held assumptions about how economic progress happens in developing democracies.

• He argues that better governance, not just faster growth, is the key to lifting millions into sustainable prosperity. India’s federal structure, he explains, gives its states both the opportunity and the responsibility to innovate.

• By improving state capacity with data, incentives, and accountability, India can deliver more effective education, health, and social services.

• His message extends beyond India: building capable, evidence-driven governments may be the defining development challenge of the 21st century.

  💌 Enjoy The Hale Report? Subscribe for more conversations with leading thinkers in economics, policy and global affairs

👤 More About Our Guest

Karthik Muralidharan is the Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at the University of California, San Diego, and founder of the Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS).

His research focuses on education, health, and the economics of governance, combining rigorous field experiments with practical institutional reform.

Karthik’s recent book is a serious and important read for anyone who wants to understand India’s rise. Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance (Viking, 2024), has been widely praised for redefining how policymakers think about state capacity and inclusive growth. Educated at Harvard and MIT, he represents a new generation of economists bridging the gap between scholarship and nation-building.

Follow him: on X @karthik_econ and on LinkedIn.

📚 Influences

At the close of the episode, Marsha asked the Hale Report signature bookend question: “Who would you most like to have dinner with, in this world or the next?”

Karthik Muralidharan chose Dr. Vikram Sarabhai, the father of India’s space program. He explained that Sarabhai embodied the balance he himself strives for: “scholarly standards of global excellence while being deeply committed to institution-building for India”.

Karthik said he would love to spend an evening learning from him about the broader motivations and life lessons behind that journey. Economists are after all, explorers too.

🎧 Listen to the full conversation on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or right here on Substack

Guest: Adair Turner, Baron Turner of Ecchinswell
Title: Carbon Pricing and Markets: Managing Systemic Climate Risk
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale, Editor-in-Chief of econVue
Producer: Sam Fu
Recorded: Wed Oct 1, 2025 · 60 minutes

In Episode 73 of The Hale Report, Lord Adair Turner — economist, former head of the UK Financial Services Authority, and chair of the G30 Working Group on Carbon Pricing, discusses the group’s new report:

📑 Carbon Pricing and Markets—Enabling Efficient Emission Reductions 🔗

Whether you are an expert in the field, or just learning about carbon pricing, you will find this conversation to be both realistic and enlightening. Turner discusses why taxes on carbon emissions is at the center of climate and economic policy today. Turner has spent his career navigating systemic risks, from financial crises to the climate emergency, and here he explains why the two are more alike than they seem.

Turner’s reputation is built on tackling the hardest problems: stabilizing the UK financial system during the 2008 global crash, guiding Britain’s Climate Change Committee in its early years, and now shaping global thinking on how to design carbon markets that actually work. With a voice both pragmatic and urgent, he argues that carbon pricing is not a side policy, but the linchpin of any credible path to net zero.

Yet the world remains far from alignment, as the G30 Report reveals. Only about 28% of global emissions are priced today, and most at levels far too low to change behavior. Turner acknowledges the skepticism: carbon taxes can be politically toxic, carbon credits are vulnerable to greenwashing, and developing nations face steep trade-offs between growth and climate. Still, he insists that well-designed carbon pricing — with integrity, transparency, and fairness can prevent climate policy from repeating the same mistakes as finance: ignoring risks until they explode.

For Turner, the lesson of 2008 is clear: systemic problems can’t be left to markets alone. Just as unregulated financial innovation gave us subprime mortgages and a near-collapse of global banking, weakly policed carbon markets could create a bubble that bursts at the worst possible time. His warning is blunt: don’t confuse market activity with real solutions.

This episode isn’t just about economics — it’s about the political and moral choices that determine whether carbon pricing becomes a tool for progress, or another failed experiment.

💬 𝓁𝓎𝓇𝒾𝒸

🎙️ Host of the Hale Report®

📍Chicago

🎤 Key Moments

On choosing his life’s work

❝ My life has been about systemic risks — whether in finance or climate. Both demand foresight, honesty, and coordination.

On why carbon pricing matters now

❝ Only 6% of emissions are priced at effective levels. That gap is existential. Unless we scale, we won’t achieve deep decarbonization.

On carbon removal and credits

❝ By 2050, demand for carbon credits could reach 8 billion tonnes — but integrity is everything. Otherwise, it risks becoming indulgences for polluters.

On who pays for carbon taxes

❝ Companies may pay initially, but costs flow to households through higher bills. The political challenge is cushioning that impact…ultimately consumers pay.

On global equity

❝ Emerging economies now account for two-thirds of emissions. Rich countries must share revenues or the system will lack legitimacy.

On CBAM (EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism)

❝ It’s both a climate tool and a trade weapon. It pressures others to price carbon — and reshapes industrial policy at the same time.

On parallels with the 2008 financial crisis

“Carbon markets risk becoming today’s subprime if they’re opaque and complex. The lesson is: don’t confuse innovation with value.

On the road ahead

“Carbon prices may need to exceed $500 a tonne by 2040. Whether through tech breakthroughs or political will, we must prepare.

🔑 Takeaway

Turner’s central message: carbon pricing is unavoidable, but it must be designed with fairness and integrity to drive real change. He stresses that the goal is not to let polluters “buy indulgences,” but to force a shift from old, carbon-intensive production to new, zero-carbon methods. The echoes of 2008 are clear: just as unregulated finance created a subprime bubble, weakly regulated carbon markets could implode. For Turner, the global challenge is balancing equity for developing nations, political acceptance at home, and the scale of transformation required.

🎙️ About Our Guest: Adair Turner

Economist, regulator, and climate leader

• Chair, G30 Working Group on Carbon Pricing

• Chair of the Energy Transitions Commission (ETC)

• Former Chair, UK Financial Services Authority (during 2008 crisis)

• Former Chair, UK Climate Change Committee

• Author of Between Debt and the Devil (2015)

  ---

📚 Influences

Asked who he would most like to share a dinner with, Adair Turner chose John Maynard Keynes. Keynes, he explained, combined the rare ability to navigate theory, policy, and politics — and to communicate with wit and style. For Turner, a conversation with the architect of modern macroeconomics would be the ultimate exchange on how to balance markets, government, and human progress.

🎧 Thank you! Share now on Substack or your favorite podcast platform.

Share

Guest: Joel Ross: The Hale Report Ep. 72 
Title: Where Main Street Meets Wall Street 
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale, Editor-in-Chief of econVue 
Producer: Sam Fu 
⮑ Recorded Thu Sep 4, 2025 · 2:00 PM CDT (Chicago) · 77 minutes

In Episode 72 of The Hale Report, Joel Ross, a Wall Street veteran and author of the legendary Ross Rant newsletter, joins Lyric Hughes Hale to discuss what markets are telling us, and why. For decades, Ross has called out trends in finance, real estate, politics, and policy–long before they hit the headlines.

From pioneering hotel securitizations on Wall Street to writing some of the most candid—and controversial—market commentary out there, Joel Ross has never shied away from saying what others won’t. Although his writing is bold and acerbic, in person he has the calm demeanor of your favorite professor, serenely comfortable with his subject.

One of the few people to forecast the mortgage-backed securities crisis back in 2007, Ross shares the risks he sees today, just around the corner. It’s a conversation that’s equal parts markets, money, and straight talk.

🎤 Key Moments

On Vietnam and the Gulf of Tonkin

❝ Vietnam made clear to me things are not always what they appear to be, and what Washington tells you may have little coincidence with the truth.

On why he started The Ross Rant

❝ I started in late 2007 sending emails to my YPO forum group. Over time it spread, and now it’s read by some of the top people on Wall Street and in Washington. If somebody doesn’t like what I say, they can unsubscribe.

On the stock market
❝ The market’s gone up for the moment, but if they don’t straighten out the fiscal mess, we’re going to have a crisis.

On real estate developers

❝ Real estate developers are a breed of their own. Risk is what they’re all about—putting their head through the wall and smashing it down.

On empty office buildings

❝ Older C-class and B-class properties are getting emptied. The economics don’t work. They’ll be demolished. You can’t put windows in the middle of a building.

On housing prices

❝ It’s not the rate, it’s the price. Home prices have to come down 10–15% to make any sense. That’s the only way affordability comes back.

On AI & labor markets

❝ We’re in the first inning. 95% of early attempts may fail, but like the industrial revolution, businesses will be created out of the innovation.”

On leadership

❝George Washington—I can’t imagine how he motivated ragged soldiers to cross the Delaware in the middle of winter. How did he put it all together?

🔑 Takeaway

Joel Ross sees the stock market’s recent rally, which he predicted, as real but fragile—propped up by policy moves and momentum, but overshadowed by looming fiscal risks. In his view, Wall Street’s strength doesn’t erase Main Street’s localized structural problems, especially in real estate, nor Washington’s spending problem. And he does not believe that lower interest rates will make any difference. His message is clear: markets, politics, and policy are inseparable.

🎙️About Our Guest: Joel Ross

After serving two tours of duty in Vietnam, Joel Ross began his career as a Wall Street investment banker; and then later became CEO (North America) of a UK conglomerate. He founded Ross Properties (1981) and Citadel Realty Advisors (1999). He was a pioneer of hotel CMBS programs with Nomura/Lexington Mortgage in the early 1990s; and has has closed $3B+ in financings. Like President Trump, he is both a Wharton grad and a New York real estate developer.

🎙️About Our Host: Lyric Hughes Hale

📍Chicago

📚 Referenced in this Podcast

• Joel Ross – The Ross Rant
  Independent newsletter on markets, politics, and real estate, distributed via Mailchimp. Subscription available via RossRant LLC on PayPal.

• Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO)
  Where Ross first circulated early drafts of The Ross Rant among his forum peers (2007).

• Urban Land Institute Conference (Chicago, May 2007)
  Where Ross sparked an industry discussion on the looming crash in mortgage-backed securities—but was largely unheeded.

• Leon Cooperman
  Legendary investor; Ross is part of Cooperman’s “brain trust” circle..

• Mark Mills
  Energy and technology analyst, cited by Ross on the realities of cloud demand vs. AI hype in the data center market. (A previous guest of The Hale Report.)

  ---

📑 Reports

📌 MIT: "The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025 PDF Link

Found that ~95% of enterprise AI pilots fail to impact P&L—highlighting a major gap between adoption and transformation.

📌 Moody’s Analytics: Bringing the Housing Shortage into Sharper Focus PDF Link

Provides a detailed, neighborhood-level breakdown of a ~2M housing shortfall in the US, especially in workforce rental markets.

Share

💬 If stablecoins become widespread and adopted, they could actually cement U.S. dollar dominance — rather than weaken it.

🎙️ Episode Overview: Money in Motion

Stablecoins, Payments, and the Global FinTech Race

For the 71st episode of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale is joined by Collin Canright — a pioneer in Chicago’s fintech community, seasoned journalist, and founder of FinTech Rising. He reflects on the long arc of financial technology, from digital experiments in the 1980s to today’s debates over stablecoins, online identity, and shifting global economic power.

For more than three decades, Collin’s mission has been to make technologies accessible for business and financial leaders—from the earliest days of electronic banking in the 1980s to today’s digital payments and fintech revolutions. He’s also the founder of the Chicago Payments Forum and a coach to emerging leaders in the industry. Through his writing, publishing, and community-building, Collin has become one of the most trusted, cogent, and rational voices framing the discussion on the future of money.

Collin explains how storytelling plays a vital role in making fintech understandable, especially for audiences less familiar with the technology. Stablecoins are explored as both a promise and a risk — offering faster, seamless transactions and the potential to reinforce US dollar dominance, but also raising concerns if private organizations take control of money’s design.

Collin emphasizes that finance is ultimately built on trust and identity. Unlike other industries, moving fast and breaking things can be dangerous in financial systems, where verifying who we are is just as critical as moving money. On the global stage, he warns that the United States risks losing ground as China leapfrogs layers of infrastructure to scale quickly in digital payments, while cities like his hometown of Chicago adapt their strengths in physical trade to digital networks.

He suggests the concept of money may evolve faster than the banking system, which remains slow-moving by design. The real signal of transformation will come when the underlying technology — whether crypto, tokenization, or traditional banking — becomes invisible to users. And both Lyric and Collin agree that Tradfi and Defi are likely to combine to create the infrastructure of payment systems. (The current valuation of the crypto market is roughly $4 trillion dollars, about the same as the market cap of Nvidia.)

Their wide-ranging conversation includes broader reflections on the vital need for a trusted digital identity, the risks of AI-generated content feeding on itself, and the lessons history can offer. Collin closes by pointing to Alexander Hamilton as a figure whose vision and ambition still resonate in shaping the financial system of today and tomorrow.

Topics Discussed

• Evolution of payments – electronic banking in the 1980s through to today’s digital systems.

• Stablecoins – their role as a bridge between traditional finance and crypto, plus risks of “private money.”

• U.S. dollar dominance – whether stablecoins could reinforce rather than erode the USD.

• Security challenges – banking hacks, crypto wallet risks, and the rise of AI-driven fraud.

• Digital identity – the urgent need for secure identity systems in finance and online life.

• Global competition – China’s lead in mobile payments.

• Future trends – quantum computing, tokenization, and micropayments for media and local journalism.

🎤 Key Moments

❝ Storytelling is really important to understanding fintech. Younger people may get it immediately, but for older listeners, it’s the story that helps them understand why the fintech revolution matters.

❝ A lot of the problems we face in fintech today are the same ones we were trying to solve in the late 80 s — how do we make money move seamlessly across borders, across systems, and across generations of technology?

❝ The transparency in how the one-to‑one peg works is very important. Stablecoins were designed to reduce friction — to make trading between coins, and between organizations, smoother, the same way international payments once tried to be.

❝ In finance, it’s not just about money — it’s about identity. If I’m a banker, how do I know who you are? That’s the real question that needs solving. We need a way to prove who we are in a digital world, or the system will eventually crash.

❝ If private organizations are effectively designing money, we could see a return to the days of private currencies — like before the Civil War, before the greenback.

📚 Influences: Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton created America’s financial foundation — a national bank, federal debt assumption, and a stable currency to anchor trust in the new republic. Lincoln, decades later, rebuilt that foundation in crisis with greenbacks and national banks, replacing chaotic private money that was issued by local banks. Hamilton was the architect; Lincoln the reformer who reforged the system under fire.

Hamilton trusted strong central institutions to stabilize credit; Alan Greenspan trusted markets to regulate themselves. Hamilton built guardrails for a young system; Greenspan loosened them in a mature one. The first was a builder of trust, the second a manager of complexity — one created resilience, the other revealed its limits.

💬 Join the Discussion

Do you think stablecoins will strengthen the U.S. dollar’s global role — or fragment the financial system like private currencies once did?

Leave a comment

🎙️About Our Guest

📍Chicago

• Instagram: canright.co/garden

• LinkedIn: Collin Canright

• Company website: Canright Communications

🎙️About Our Host

📍Chicago

📚 Related Reading & Listening

Hamilton’s Vision

The Big Man. A reflective profile of Alexander Hamilton's influence on America’s financial foundations. Joseph Ellis, The New Yorker, 2001.

Decentralized Finance

Greenback (1860s Money). Overview of Civil War–era US paper currency system — background to Collin’s private‑money comparison.

China Is Worried About Dollar-Backed Stablecoins, Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Foreign Policy, 19 Aug, 2025.

Lincoln’s Hamiltonian Financial Revolution

Review of Roger Lowenstein’s Ways & Means, highlighting how Lincoln modeled Hamilton's financial innovations.

AI & Media

• Hard Fork (NYT Podcast). The podcast Collin referenced—Kevin Roose & Casey Newton explore the rapidly evolving tech landscape.

• The Best Podcasts of 2023 (Vogue). Highlights Hard Fork as a must-listen for tech and fintech topics.

Finance & History

The Money Plot (by Frederick Kaufman). Explores the evolution of money—its power, mythology, and stories—a thematic fit with fintech storytelling.

Quantum Computing

Quantum Payments — YouTube (August 17, 2025)
Recap of a Chicago Payments Forum event held during TechChicago Week, featuring Peter Tapling on banking implications and Rob Weiss on the legal and international issues of quantum computing.

More about Fintech on econVue

Guest: George DeMartino: The Hale Report Ep. 70 
Title: Forecasting Harm? The Ethical Tragedy of Economics 
Host: Lyric Hughes Hale, Editor-in-Chief of econVue 
Producer: Sam Fu 
⮑ Recorded THU JUL 17, 2025 · 2:00 PM CDT (Chicago) · 62 minutes

In this new episode of The Hale Report, George DeMartino—Professor of International Economics at the University of Denver and author of The Tragic Science—joins Lyric Hughes Hale to discuss the moral responsibilities of economists. They explore the profession's lack of a formal ethical framework, the dangers of economic paternalism, and how cost-benefit analysis can trivialize and obscure real harm.

From trade policy to artificial intelligence, in order to restore public trust, DeMartino calls for a more humble, inclusive, and ethically self-aware economics—one that recognizes the limits of forecasting and gives those most affected by economic decisions a voice in shaping them.

🔑 Key Insight: DeMartino warns that economists often do harm, despite their good intentions, because their models ignore the moral weight of real-world consequences— while merely appearing to pay them close attention.

💬 As I read George DeMartino’s book, The Tragedy of Economics, I knew immediately I wanted to invite him to be a guest for this podcast. He writes about the ethical issues that economists confront—something I have not heard discussed anywhere else—which is odd when you consider the Greek origin of both words, ethics (ēthikē) and economics (oikonomia). Originally, economics was a branch of ethics, so it is ironic that ethics is now a neglected appendix to economic modeling. This book, and our conversation, are about returning to the norm, restoring ethics to its proper place, and exploring why there should be a code of behavior for economists.

Prof. DeMartino spoke with me from his study high atop the Rocky Mountains, at 10,000 ft, but his career began in the trenches. He spent ten years as a union organizer and negotiator, before finding his way to economics.

He is a wonderful writer. While his book requires your active participation in his arguments, you will find yourself buoyed along by his clear, precise language, erudition, and concern for ordinary people affected by poor economic policymaking—including disturbing concepts such as VSL (Value of a Statistical Life). It is an important conversation to have right now, when economic policymaking around the world is in overdrive.

💬 𝓁𝓎𝓇𝒾𝒸

VOICES

📍Chicago

💌 Subscribe to the econVue newsletter for expert insights, and to receive future episodes and panel invitations.

Subscribe now

🎤 Key Moments

🔍 More from George DeMartino

📌 The Tragic Science: How Economists Cause Harm as They Aspire to Do Good (University of Chicago Press, 2022)

📌 The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2016)

📌 The Economist’s Oath: On the Need for and Content of Professional Economic Ethics (Oxford University Press, 2011)

📚 Works Referenced in this Podcast:

Economics as Religion, From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond by Robert Nelson (Penn State University Press, 2014)

Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics by Robert Nelson (Rowman & Littlefield, 1991)

Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen (Alfred A Knopf, 1999)

Critique of Practical Reason by Immanuel Kant (1788)

Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel Kant (1785)

🎧 Share now on Substack or your favorite podcast platform:

Share

Or feel free to comment—what do you think about this episode?

Leave a comment

💬 If we don’t invest in R&D while our competitors do, we’ll fall behind in the technology races that define this century.

🎙️ Episode Overview

(Airdate May 28, 2025)

Can America stay ahead in the global innovation race? Deborah Wince-Smith thinks we still can—and she knows what it takes.

What do Bronze Age archeology and global competition have in common? Our guest on the Hale Report explains how she began her career at Vassar and Cambridge, studying the ancient classical world of Greece. That early academic lens continues to inform her work today—designing frameworks that integrate technological advancement with economic strategy, echoing the enduring ingenuity of ancient innovation hubs.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Deborah Wince-Smith, President and CEO of the Council on Competitiveness (compete.org) about the future of American innovation and the global race for technological leadership. Wince-Smith shares insights from her decades-long experience shaping US science, technology, and economic policy—spanning the Reagan administration to today’s shifting geopolitical landscape.

If you’ve wondered why the debate over US competitiveness has taken center stage in recent policy discussions, you can thank today’s guest. These discussions just do not happen—they require a champion who is articulate, persistent, and has a platform. Wince-Smith’s ability to synthesize complex policy conversations into actionable frameworks has made her a prominent figure in shaping the trajectory of American progress in the 21st century.

Wince-Smith has an extensive background in science and technology policy, international economic affairs, and public-private partnerships. Her career began as a program director at the National Science Foundation, where she managed US research programs with Eastern European countries and US universities. She played a pivotal role in fostering initiatives such as President Reagan’s Innovation Initiative, and has worked across government, industry, and academia to enhance American competitiveness. She has consistently emphasized the critical role of the US national laboratory system in advancing basic research and driving innovation.

The episode highlights the need for a new compact—uniting academia, government, and industry—to ensure long-term prosperity and security in a volatile world.

Topics Discussed

• The structural pillars of US competitiveness, including the US national laboratory ecosystem

• Strategic challenges posed by China’s state-led innovation model

• Public-private collaboration in R&D and manufacturing

• The rise of regional innovation hubs across the country

• The importance of restoring federal R&D investment

• AUKUS, the trilateral security pact between Australia, the US, and the UK

• Dual-use technology, and the intersection of national security and innovation

  ---

🎤 Key Moments

❝Placemaking innovation is happening across the country—Silicon Valley doesn’t have a monopoly anymore.

❝ Innovation and national security are now inseparable. We need to build resilience into our industrial base.

❝ China’s system is not reciprocal—tariffs are not just about economics, they’re about restoring fairness.

❝ America’s strength has always come from its ability to unite diverse regions, industries, and talent pools under a common mission.

❝ We need a modern-day innovation compact—one that matches the scale of the challenges we face.

❝ Public-private partnerships aren’t just useful—they’re essential to solving the hardest problems of our time.

📚 Related Reading:

Compact for America : Council on Global Competitiveness (May 28, , 2025)

💬 Join the Discussion

🎙️About Our Host

📍Chicago

“Trump isn’t building a wall around the US. He’s building a wall around China—and he’s getting the world to help him do it.”

🎙️ Episode Overview

In this timely and far-reaching episode, Brian McCarthy, founder of Macrolens, joins Lyric Hughes Hale to explore the hard realities of China’s economic system, the accelerating decoupling from the US, and what it all means for global markets. McCarthy, a longtime observer of China's financial architecture and one of the most original macroeconomic thinkers today, explains why China is economically “stuck,” why a North Korea-style retreat is increasingly plausible, and why the US is now building a tariff wall around China.

The conversation weaves through currency dynamics, the collapse of real estate, FX manipulation myths, tech sector power struggles, and the strategic thinking behind recent tariff decisions. This episode is essential listening for investors, policymakers, and anyone trying to make sense of the seismic shift underway in US–China relations.

Topics Discussed

• The role of tariffs and how Trump’s new strategy signals a major shift in global economics

• The structural flaws of China’s investment-led growth model

• The "Impossible Trinity" and why China can’t maintain monetary independence, currency stability, and an open capital account simultaneously

• The 2015 RMB devaluation and its implications for global markets

• The RMB peg, devaluation risks, and FX forward fragility

• China's long-standing capital misallocation and the myth of consumption rebalancing

• The risk of China closing itself off from the world (the “North Korea scenario”)

• What investors should watch for next—including currency markets, capital flight, and geopolitical flare-ups

• How COVID lockdowns may have been a "beta test" for social compliance

🎤 Key Moments

On China's Economic Model

❝ The only way China can sustainably pivot to consumption is to surrender the control of the resource allocation process to entrepreneurs. And it’s never going to happen.

On the Currency Dilemma

❝ They either tighten monetary policy, let the currency go, or close trading. All three are viable. That’s not a market-based currency.

On Moral Hazard and Reform

❝ China’s investment is driven by central planning, not entrepreneurs. There’s a huge disconnect between GDP and real wealth creation.

On Xi Jinping’s Strategic Missteps

❝ Xi Jinping is in a box. If he really wanted to think outside the box, he’d do the last thing Trump expects—capitulate.

On the Supply Chain Shocks

❝ Trump wants carnage to light a fire under the rest of the world to get with his China decoupling strategy.

On De-dollarization Myths

❝ There is no alternative to the U.S. dollar. People conflate trade settlement with reserve status—they’re completely different.

📚 Influences

Jude Wanniski 

Influential American journalist and economist, known for his advocacy of supply-side economics

-Notable Work: The Way the World Works (1978)

-Founder of Polyconomics, a supply-side consulting firm influential in U.S. economic policymaking during the Reagan era

-Wanniski's principles—particularly around Say's Law and gold as a monetary benchmark—shaped McCarthy’s economic worldview

Say's Law implies that production is the key to economic growth and prosperity, and that government policy should encourage (but not control) production rather than consumption.

💬 Join the Discussion & feel free to share this podcast:

Share

What do you think about Brian McCarthy’s perspective on China’s economy?

Leave a comment

Follow Brian McCarthy

📈 MacroLens Substack
🐦 X (Twitter): @BrianGoBoSox

About our Host:

📍Chicago

If you enjoyed this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe to receive future episodes and posts and panel invitations.

Subscribe now

In this new episode of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale sits down with Bluford "Blu" Putnam, a distinguished economist with over 35 years of experience in financial services, including central banking, investment research, and portfolio management. As the former Chief Economist at CME Group, he brings a deep understanding of market volatility, monetary policy, and global trade dynamics.

🔑 Key Insight: Putnam explains why it’s critical to distinguish between uncertainty and risk in today’s economic climate.

They also discuss his new book, The Apprenticeship of Warren Buffett—a fascinating look at Buffett’s early years, before he became the legendary investor we know today. In other words, Warren Buffett before he became Warren Buffett.

💬 If you are feeling nervous about markets and the economy, this podcast provides highly useful perspectives.

🎤 Key Moments

💬 Join the Discussion (feel free to share this podcast)

What do you think about Blu Putnam’s perspective on markets and monetary policy? Do you agree that we are in a period of long-term economic transition?

Leave a comment

🔍 More from Blu Putnam

In addition to his new book, Blu has written:

📌 Economics Gone Astray – A critical look at why economists get so much wrong

Introduction To Economics Gone Astray

160KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

📌Analyzing the Pandemic of 2020 – Using physics to understand economic transitions and disequilibrium

2020 10 Rfe Pandemic Of 2020 Phase Transition Research

778KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

📍Chicago

• If you enjoyed this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe to receive future episodes and posts and panel invitations*.

Subscribe now

📄 Subscriber Tools: Full Transcript & Episode Highlights

Hale Report E67 Highlights

2.4KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Hale Report Blu Putnam Ep,67 3 12 25transcript

85.2KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

*Don’t forget our upcoming subscriber-only panel on Friday, March 21st at 4pm CDT.

Download

❝ Once China finds you, it doesn’t leave you alone."
– Kerry Brown, reflecting on his lifelong connection to China

In Episode 66 of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale interviews Kerry Brown. His new book Why Taiwan Matters: A Short History of a Small Island that will Dictate Our Future was released today in the US. It is sobering and, I think, realistic. Professor Brown doesn’t see a way out of the current status quo in Taiwan:

❝ For today, strenuous defence of the stalemate is all that we can meaningfully do. Anything else is insanity.

Very few people in the West know much about China’s history and cultural perspective on the rest of the world, yet that is critical to understand the most important relationship in the world today, The United States and China.

Kerry Brown is Professor of Chinese Studies and Director of the Lau China Institute at King's College London, where he specializes in Chinese history, international relations, and politics.

He has a master’s degree from Cambridge and a PhD in Chinese politics and language from Leeds University. From 1998 to 2005, he served as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Beijing.

To say he is a prolific writer requires a new word to supersede prolific. If you have an interest in Chinese history, explore Kerry Brown’s writing. He takes a complex subject and writes with elegant clarity. You can find his full repertoire on his website here: Kerry Brown - Sinologist and follow him on X as well @Bkerrychina

💬 Key Moments

1. Introduction

   Highlighting his expertise, his role at King's College London, and his upcoming book on Taiwan, described as dictating "the global future."

2. The Origins of His Interest in China:

   His "accidental" journey to China after the Tiananmen Square Massacre, the affinity he felt for the country.

3. Xi Jinping's Early Life and Political Ascendancy:

   Brown's analysis of Xi's perseverance in joining the Communist Party and his transformation into "a creature of the party." The remark about Xi's ten attempts to join the party stands out as an anecdote of Xi’s resilience.

4. Comparison Between Trump and Xi Jinping:

   Brown's insight into their political styles: “Trump is very transparent; Xi Jinping is a cipher.” He humorously predicts the challenge Xi might face managing Trump.

5. Cultural Revolution's Lasting Impact:

   Brown's reflections on how this turbulent era shaped China and its leaders, with a poignant discussion on the silence surrounding its history.

6. The Taiwan Issue:

   Brown’s argument that the root problem between China and the West is "cultural" rather than political or economic, and host Lyric Hale’s view that Taiwan is the "unfinished business of World War II."

7. Xi Jinping’s Leadership Challenges:

   Discussion of Brown’s concerns about Xi’s centralized power creating a single point of failure, raising concerns about his limited grasp of economics, prioritizing of politics, and the risks of miscalculation.

8. China’s Global Role and Technological Advancements:

   A discussion of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, its dominance as a trading partner for over 120 countries, and China’s surprising advancements in AI and life sciences.

9. Decline in China Expertise in the West:

   The concerning trend of fewer scholars studying China and Chinese, and the consequences for US and UK policymaking and engagement.

10. The Dinner Party Hypothetical:

    Brown discusses the historical figures he’d dine with: Genghis Khan and Kangxi, in response to Lyric Hale’s standard closing question on the Hale Report.

Did you know… ⧉

The Kangxi Emperor (1654–1722) was one of China's most revered and consequential rulers. As the fourth emperor of the Qing Dynasty, he ruled China from 1661 to 1722, a remarkable 61 years, making him one of the longest-reigning emperors in Chinese history. Kangxi is celebrated for his wisdom, military prowess, and ability to balance diverse interests within a vast and complex realm. Key accomplishments:

⧉ Consolidated Qing control over China by quelling rebellions and stabilizing the empire.

⧉ Annexed Taiwan in 1683 after defeating the Kingdom of Tungning, securing Qing control over the island.

⧉ Fostered economic prosperity through agrarian reforms, flood control projects, and reduced taxation.

⧉ Promoted science and culture, inviting Jesuit scholars to his court, which led to exchanges in astronomy, mathematics, and cartography.

Closing Thoughts from Our Editor

Although China and the US have recently been pulling away from each other, as the market reaction to the Chinese AI firm DeepSeek revealed, the connections between the two are strong and in some sense, unbreakable. How do we deal with this new world?

Many thanks to Kerry Brown for joining me for this podcast, and to all the people behind the scenes who make econVue possible, especially our producer, Sam Fu.

For new listeners, econVue is a home for independent voices and expert analysis of critical global economic issues. You can also find The Hale Report on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Don’t miss out on more insightful conversations — share The Hale Report with your network!

📍Chicago

Leave a comment

In Episode 65 of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale interviews Rebecca Patterson, a leading economist and investment strategist with over 25 years of experience spanning journalism and finance, shares her unconventional journey — from covering foreign exchange for The Wall Street Journal to managing billions at firms like JPMorgan, Bessemer Trust, and Bridgewater Associates.

The conversation delves into the risks of U.S. fiscal policy, the potential fallout of future trade wars, and the limits of monetary policy in addressing income inequality. Patterson reflects on her time working with Ray Dalio, her views on "quantamental" investment strategies, and the importance of financial literacy in K-12 education. She also shares insights into upcoming geopolitical risks, economic volatility, and why transparency matters in financial markets.

This episode is an insightful exploration of where policy meets markets — and where the U.S. economy may be headed next.

💬 Key Moments

1. On Navigating Market Uncertainty:
   ❝ When I joined JPMorgan in 1997, it was trial by fire with the Asian financial crisis, Russian debt crisis, and LTCM collapse — but I was hooked. Volatility forces you to learn fast.

2. On the Risks of Trade Wars:
   ❝ If we go down the path of broader, bigger tariffs, the risk is greater retaliation — and someone always pays, whether it’s the consumer or the company.

3. On the Limits of Monetary Policy:
   ❝ Monetary policy is a blunt instrument. It can’t fix income inequality; that’s the job of fiscal policy and financial education.

4. On U.S. Fiscal Challenges:
   ❝ With our budget deficit between 6% and 7% of GDP and a debt of 100% of GDP, we don’t have as much fiscal room to respond to shocks.

5. On Financial Literacy:
   ❝ Even just one class in high school can lead to better loans, higher credit scores, and a more financially secure future. We need to give every student that opportunity.

6. On Working with Ray Dalio:
   ❝ Ray’s idea of outsourcing your brain to an algorithm — so you don’t forget what you learned 20 years ago — made a lot of sense. But radical transparency isn’t for everyone.

7. On Demographic Challenges in China:
   ❝ China’s demographic headwinds were predictable. The question was always: Could productivity growth offset the decline in the workforce? The answer, so far, is no.

Did you know… ⧉

Quantamental investing is a strategy that combines:

⧉ Quantitative Analysis: Using data-driven models, algorithms, and statistical analysis to identify patterns and make decisions.

⧉ Fundamental Analysis: Evaluating economic, financial, and qualitative factors (like company leadership, market conditions, and policy impacts) to make investment decisions.

This approach allows investors to benefit from the strengths of both methods — the objectivity of data-driven models and the adaptability of human judgment.

Closing Thoughts from Our Editor

This was a wonderful conversation that just flew by. My hunch is that you will be hearing more from my guest soon, as a key contributor to the economic policy debates so critical to the US—and the world—today.

Many thanks to Rebecca Patterson for joining me for this podcast, and to all the people behind the scenes who make econVue possible, especially our producer, Sam Fu.

For new listeners, econVue is a home for independent voices and expert analysis of critical global economic issues. You can also find The Hale Report on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Don’t miss out on more insightful conversations — share The Hale Report with your network!

📍Chicago

Leave a comment

❝ I think people forget that it’s not all about Washington. Washington meddles in the economy all the time. And my view, simply put, is it's amazing how well the economy does despite Washington.

Welcome to the 64^th episode of The Hale Report. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I am Editor-in-Chief of econVue, and your host today. My guest is Edward Yardeni. Dr. Ed Yardeni is a distinguished economist and investment strategist with over four decades of experience analyzing global financial markets. He is the President of Yardeni Research, Inc., a firm specializing in global investment strategies and asset-allocation analyses.

He earned his Ph.D. in economics from Yale University in 1976, completing his dissertation under Nobel Laureate James Tobin. He has served as Chief Investment Strategist and Chief Economist at a variety of Wall Street institutions such as Prudential Equity Group, Deutsche Bank, Prudential-Bache, and EF Hutton before founding his own firm. Additionally, he has held positions at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, and the US Treasury. Dr Yardeni is a frequent commentator in the financial media.

Dr. Yardeni sees the S&P 500 reaching 10,000 by the end of this decade and says that ‘animal spirits are back’ after the Trump win. Instead of Dr Doom (my previous guest Marc Faber) or Dr Gloom (Nouriel Roubini) I think that a fair description of Dr Yardeni might be Dr Boom—just in time for some holiday cheer and optimism. He believes that while stock market valuations, although high, are not too high:

❝ Investors will pay a higher P/E the longer they believe that the economic expansion will last. That’s because time is money.

Topics Discussed

• Personal insights and background

• Broader economic philosophy

• Market and investment outlook

• Economic scenarios

• Monetary policy and the Federal Reserve

• Bond markets and fiscal policy

• Technological and global economic risks

• Lightning Round: testing Ideas and challenging assumptions

Key Moments

❝ I think we're on the early stages of another productivity growth boom. Productivity was growing 0.5% in 2015. It's up to almost 2% right now. So that's a quadruple…and so I think that's the outlook: 3% to 4% growth in productivity over the next five years, which may sound totally delusional. But when you look at the chart, you see that that's kind of where productivity growth cycles peak.

❝ It made a lot of sense to believe that if the Fed funds rate goes from zero to 5.25% in two years, it's got to cause a recession. Why didn't it? Well, it did cause a financial crisis.

❝ Ask anyone on the street cognizant of the neutral interest rate concept, and everybody agrees that it can't be measured, it can't be seen, there's no way to know what it is.

❝ I want to be clear about my view that you shouldn't let politics get in the way of investing, don't let your personal politics affect your investment decisions. If you're a conservative or a progressive, it's pretty easy to get pretty depressed if the government is not to your liking. And we've seen a lot of that, but we've also seen that the stock market has basically gone up through thick and thin.

❝ China is clearly an important economic player. It'll remain important. But in some ways, it's like a bigger version of Japan.

Closing Thoughts

I think you see why speaking with Ed Yardeni—who is also a tech enthusiast—was so much fun, so positive, and so enlightening, all at the same time.

Many thanks to Ed Yardeni for joining me for this podcast, and to all the people behind the scenes who make econVue possible, especially our producer, Sam Fu.

For new listeners, econVue is a home for independent voices and expert analysis of critical global economic issues. Our publication and website have both just moved to Substack, and so far, so good! You can also find The Hale Report on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. To support our work and receive notifications about new podcasts and articles, please subscribe:

Subscribe now

This podcast is dedicated to the Three Ed’s. You know who you are.

📍Chicago

Welcome to the 63rd episode of the Hale Report.  My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I’m Editor-in-Chief of econVue and your host today, Wednesday, November 13, 2024. My guest is economist Jesper Koll, and our topic is Japan. We will be discussing how Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's recent election has introduced significant shifts in Japan's political and economic landscape.

Jesper Koll is a prominent economist and strategist specializing in the Japanese economy. We tend to forget it is still the world’s third largest with over $4T in annual GDP, one place ahead of India which has 11X the population. Japan’s per capital income is $40K per year, vs $34K in the US.

Since relocating to Japan in 1986, Jesper Koll has been an active participant in Japan’s financial sector. Over the past two decades, he has been consistently recognized as one of the top Japan strategists and economists, having worked as Chief Strategist and Head of Research for US investment banks J.P. Morgan and Merrill Lynch. 

He currently serves as Expert Director for the Monex Group and the Japan Catalyst Fund, Japan’s first retail investor-based corporate engagement/activist fund. He is one of the few non-Japanese members of the Keizai Doyukai, the Japan Association of Corporate Executives. 

Known for his optimistic perspective on Japan's economic future, Koll has authored several books in Japanese, including "Towards a New Japanese Golden Age" and "The End of Heisei Deflation." He also writes on Substack, and of course his moniker is Japan Optimist.

Topics Discussed

• What is unique about Prime Minister Ishiba’s coalition?

• Will expected new tariffs by the Trump Administration aimed at China have unintended consequences for Japan?

• Could China sanctions affect Japanese corporate performance? 

• What strategies will the Ishiba coalition adopt to enhance Japan's defense capabilities, and how will this impact Japan’s economy?

• What is the outlook for Japan's economy in the coming years?

• What is Prime Minister Ishiba's stance on social issues such as gender equality?

• How does PM Ishiba plan to address Japan's aging population and declining birth rates? What about immigration?

• What progress has been made in corporate governance reforms within Japanese companies, and how are these changes influencing foreign investment and overall economic growth?

• In what ways is Japan leveraging technological innovation to drive economic growth, and which sectors are leading this transformation?

  To receive new posts and explore subscription options:

Key Moments

The Nexus of Geopolitical and Economic Challenges

Koll highlights Japan's strategic position as a critical player in the US.-China conflict, explaining how two-thirds of Japanese corporate profits come from overseas operations and how Japan's reliance on both the US and China shapes its economic and political strategies. He emphasizes Japan's pragmatic approach to balancing these relationships and its emerging push for greater independence, including controversial discussions about nuclear capabilities.

Generational and Structural Shifts in Japan’s Workforce

Koll discusses the changing dynamics of Japan's labor market, noting the increasing empowerment of younger workers who are now leaving elite bureaucracies to join startups. He connects this shift to broader cultural changes, such as the move toward meritocracy in traditional seniority-based systems and the impact of labor scarcity, which is driving innovation, immigration, and altering corporate structures.

Japan’s Investment in Semiconductors and Quantum Computing

The discussion of Rapidus, Japan's initiative to revitalize its semiconductor industry, underscores Japan's ambitions to reduce reliance on Taiwan and become a leader in cutting-edge technologies. Koll expands on this by mentioning Japan's focus on other frontier technologies such as quantum computing and photonics, positioning these sectors as potential long-term investment opportunities in Japan’s evolving innovation ecosystem.

Share

I often ask my guests, if given the choice of an economist or leader who inhabits this world or the next, who they would most like to invite to dinner. In Jesper’s case he replied immediately, the Emperor Shōwa. Certainly hard to think of a more consequential and fascinating guest for anyone interested in Japan’s modern history.

Many thanks to Jesper Koll for joining our podcast today, and to all the people behind the scenes who make econVue possible, especially our producer, Sam Fu.

If you’d like to subscribe to econVue as well as listen to our podcasts, please visit our website econVue.com and if you can, support us on Substack.

Welcome to the 62nd episode of The Hale Report. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I am Editor-in-Chief of econVue. My guest today is Jason Furman for a conversation on economic policy and resilience.

Professor Furman is the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the Department of Economics at Harvard University. He co-teaches the largest course at Harvard, basically Econ 101. From 2013 to 2017 Furman was the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) under President Obama. In this podcast he does an excellent job of explaining key economic terms and concepts as he shares his past experiences in government and his current policy views.

We discussed a wide range of topics just prior to the election on the day of a disappointing October jobs report. In spite of robust employment numbers, inflation played a key role in US voters’ decisions. He gives a very clear explanation of the Fed’s dual mandate, saying that all central banks worry about both prices and employment.

When I asked which economist he would most like to have dinner with, Furman said John Maynard Keynes, which tells you a lot about his flexible intellectual framework.

In this podcast, you can clearly hear Furman’s focus on inclusive growth, and you will have no doubt why he is one of the most popular professors at Harvard. He takes the complex and makes it understandable, and he doesn’t let his devotion to numbers overshadow his concerns about the effects of economic policy on ordinary people:

A prolific user of X (formerly Twitter), Furman frequently shares his insights on economic issues. Follow him on @jasonfurman.

Topics Discussed

• The Sahm Rule

• The future of work & AI

• Consumer debt

• Economic inequality and mobility

• The Federal Reserve’s dual mandate

• Gold and crypto

• Equity valuations

• Healthcare reform

• Global markets

Key Moments

❝ John Maynard Keynes is the most fascinating economist. Part of why he was fascinating is that he didn’t form a fixed view and stick to it; he changed his mind based on new understanding and new problems.

❝ The third round (of stimulus checks) wasn’t necessary and did contribute to inflation, though other factors were also at play. By early 2021, employment and the economy were recovering well, so the decision was more political than economic.

❝ For emerging markets, (gold) is a diversification away from the dollar due to concerns about its stability, especially after U.S. actions like freezing Russian reserves.

Referenced in this Podcast

1. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, John Maynard Keynes, 1936.

2. Starting health reform from here, Jason Furman, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management Apr 30, 2024.

3. Why Did (Almost) No One See the Inflation Coming? Jason Furman, Intereconomics 57 2022: 79-86.

4. Review of The Resilient Society, by Markus K. Brunnermeier, Jason Furman, Journal of Economic Literature, 62.3, September 2024: 1258-1259.

Many thanks to Prof Furman, and to all the people behind the scenes who make econVue possible, especially our producer, Sam Fu.

If you’d like to subscribe to our newsletter and listen to more podcasts, please visit our website at econVue.com and if possible, support us on Substack.

.

^📍Chicago

Sponsored by Hale Strategic

Welcome to the 61^st episode of the Hale Report. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, your host and editor-in-chief of EconVue. My guest is Brian Wesbury, chief economist at First Trust Advisors LP. He has also advised the Federal Reserve and the US Congress, among his other policy roles.

Mr Wesbury is a well-known economist and media commentator, and I think it is fair to say, a contrarian pundit on global economic issues. He began his study of economics at the University of Montana, and earned his MBA at the Kellogg School at Northwestern University. Wesbury is a business-focused supply-sider, as he explains during this podcast. He lives up to Henry Hazlitt’s definition of a good economist, looking beyond the data and to the real economy, in order to understand the structural issues that affect global growth and innovation.

Topics Discussed

• All-time highs in the stock market

• What the Fed going to do the rest of this year, and why

• Inflation

• Housing

• Energy: Oil & Nuclear

• Bitcoin

• Trump vs Harris on economics

• Unrealized capital gains

• Price Controls

• Elon Musk & entreneurship

• Thoughts on China

• Twitter/X vs Substack

  Share

Key Moments

❝ If banks aren't trading federal funds anymore, why? Where does the federal funds rate come from? My answer is, well, the Fed just makes it up.

❝ The wealth of our world is created from ideas, from entrepreneurship, invention. Entrepreneurs put the world together in a different way.

❝ 60% of all the money in circulation has been created in the last 16 years.

Referenced in this Podcast

1. The Dangers of Price Controls, Henry Hazlitt and Brian Wesbury, Imprimus, Sep 2024.

2. Read Write Own: Building the Next Era of the Internet, Chris Dixon, Jan 2024.

3. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, circa 1605.

4. To find commentary by Brian Wesbury, subscribe to his First Trust Economics Blog, and follow him on Twitter/X @wesbury.

Special Offer

For articles, podcasts, panels, and more, if you are not already an econVue subscriber, here are details about a special Daylight Savings Time Offer, valid until Nov. 3rd.

Get 20% off for 1 year

Thank you to all the people behind the scenes who make EconVue possible, especially our producer, Sam Fu.

Lyric Hughes Hale

JANUARY 1, 2012

Read full story

^📍Chicago