Apologies if I missed it somewhere else, but I felt that the newest episode should have it’s own thread.
As a former economics teacher I feel like I have a better than average level of knowledge about the basics of the FED and monetary policy. However, I am certainly not an expert by any stretch of the imagination. This episode was VERY enlightening.
Don’t be intimidated by the subject matter. Give it a listen! Really looking forward to digging into the book once summer break starts.
Kudos @Randy for continuing to use the TrapDraw as a conduit to entertain AND inform.
This was awesome. The TrapDraw is touching on some real avant garde shit these days. Come for the occasional golf-adjacent content and stay for the macroeconomics.
If you want to get technical, there are only seven voting members on the Board of Governors at one time. They are confirmed by the Senate for their terms, so there is at least some part of the Republic at work here
But monetary policy was never supposed to have any downside???
Also I’ll never forget my macro economics professor telling me that the second most powerful person in the world is the chair of the Fed.
I’m not going to pretend to be any sort of genius, but this idea of the federal reserve being wayyyy out on a limb because of quantitative easing is not a new one. That being said, I greatly appreciated the pod and being to listen to it all over again succinctly. Did a good job of bringing this out of the back of my mind and right back into my anxiety center.
So this is the type of convo I really geek out on. I loved being able to speak with Christopher and am happy you guys have seemingly enjoyed too.
I will say, a point his book makes, which really struck me, is how our fiscal mechanism is totally broken. At the beginning of this decade the Tea Party threw a wrench into government which pushed any type of responsibility to the Fed. Remember, the Tea Party at one point allowed US treasuries to get downgraded. As such, the Fed saw economic disaster as a real potential and acted within their means.
They only have a couple weapons, and they probably massively overplayed them, but there’s an aspect to this story which is the complete breakdown of governing by our Congress.
I know where you’re coming from - After reading the fifth risk by Michael Lewis I was a bit down for a while & I don’t even live in the States…
Still think I’ll pick up this one though @Randy terrific podcast again as always - you really hit some of those questions right on the head!!!
Great job @Randy Im looking forward to this book. I’ve always had the belief we have been kicking the economic can down the road since the mid 2000’s but have never had the time or energy to dig into why. I also might not be that smart. It bothers me that we never seem to be willing to pay up on economic loans or policies once we get on the other side of whatever disaster we find ourselves in.
Related… I’m sure the book dives deeper but I’m wondering how this plays out and how this bubble bursts. Inevitably it’s got to have some of these big banks defaulting on loans or extending themselves so far the floor does fall out from under them. Certainly makes me worried about where my money lives.
