Bill Beach is the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the current executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. In Bill's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in and around public service, the important niche his new organization fills, the frightening fiscal outlook of the United States, exactly how long we have before Social Security runs out, why he believes it will take lots of small changes instead of a big one to fix our fiscal outlook, the important role of the BLS, why our statistical methods needs reform, the most underrated economic statistical indicators, and much more.

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Recorded on April 15th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:25 - Bill's Career

00:10:11 - Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill

00:17:23 - Fiscal Challenges of the United States

00:30:05 - Surveys from Bureau of Labor Statistics

00:43:12 - Challenges to Survey Work

00:52:13 - Outro

Tyler Goodspeed is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and is currently a chief economist in the private sector. In Tyler's first appearance on the podcast he discusses his new book highlighting a different way of looking at recessions, the challenge of breaking away from the human inclination of ascribing patterns to random phenomena, whether recessions are more Dorian Gray or Peter Pan, what history and stories like Jay Cooke tell us about recessions, how to evaluate supply side shocks and the 2008 Financial Crisis, why Milton Friedman's Plucking model might be the best we have at modeling recessions, and much more.

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Recorded on April 15th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:43 - Recessions

00:07:07 - Epiphanies or Apophanies

00:26:40 - Peter Pan vs. Dorian Gray

00:33:40 - Jay Cooke and the Railroad

00:39:00 - Models of Recessions

00:47:55 - Supply Shocks

00:50:12 - Recessions in Different Places

01:00:25 - Outro

Recorded live in front of the Wharton Financial Regulation Conference, former guest Peter Conti-Brown joins David Beckworth as a Macro Musings co-host on this week's episode. Peter and David discuss the inflection point of 2008 in FinReg scholarship, how Macro Musings has become just as much a show about financial regulation as about macro, what to make of the Trump administrations changes to bank supervision, whether we should be enthusiastic about the GENIUS Act and digital assets, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the crisis that could become Claude Mythos, why networks and Substacks are becoming more important, and much more.

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Recorded on April 10th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:29 - History of Financial Regulation

00:04:23 - Monetary Policy vs. Financial Regulation

00:07:48 - Bank Supervision

00:11:59 - Digital Assets

00:22:48 - Claude Mythos and Banking

00:30:35 - The Market Argument for the Discount Window

00:35:44 - Academia vs. Real-World Impact

00:40:28 - Audience Q&A

00:54:16 - Outro

Basil Halperin is an assistant professor of economics at the University of Virginia. In Basil's first appearance on the show he discusses the famous but flawed Citrini essay, why Silicon Valley's growth expectations aren't showing up yet in interest rates, the impact of Less Than Zero by George Selgin, what the true frictions in the economy are, the differences between Calvo and menu-cost pricing, the impact of transformational AI on emerging economies and the housing market, and much more.

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Recorded on March 27th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:20 - Global Intelligence Crisis

00:07:04 - Transformative AI and Interest Rates

00:21:05 - Optimal Monetary Policy Under Menu Costs

00:48:13 - Transformative AI and its Macro Implications

00:55:41 - Outro

Rich Clarida was the vice chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and is currently a professor of economics at Columbia University and a managing director at PIMCO. Rich returns to the program to discuss whether we give the Fed too little credit for its soft landing, the problem of persistent inflation, how the Fed should respond to rapidly succeeding negative supply shocks, the case for nominal GDP, the state of the Fed's balance sheet, why a synthetic FOMC could help the real FOMC, and much more.

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Recorded on March 31st, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:03:59 - Persistent Inflation

00:11:14 - Inflation Expectations

00:18:34 - Responding to Negative Supply Shocks

00:29:38 - Nominal GDP

00:34:59 - Fed's Balance Sheet

00:45:20 - Synthetic FOMCs

00:51:36 - Outro

Kris Mitchener is a professor of economics at Santa Clara University and is an economic and monetary historian. In Kris's first appearance on the show, he discusses how he fell in love with building data sets out of old dusty archives, the origins and fall of bimetallism, the pros and cons of the gold standard, the problem of operating losses on the Fed's balance sheet, what truly anchors the price level, and much more.

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Recorded on March 4th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:33 - Kris' Career Path

00:06:32 - What Is Bimetallism?

00:14:41 - The Gold Standard

00:28:55 - Disinflation Policies and Central Bank Finances

00:49:25 - What Anchors the Price Level

00:55:22 - Outro

Steve Kamin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and was previously the director of the Division of International Finance at the Federal Reserve Board. Mark Sobel is the US chairman of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum and is a veteran of the US Department of Treasury. Steve and Mark return to the show to discuss the status of dollar dominance, the future threats to dollar dominance, the role or lack thereof that stablecoins will play in dollar dominance, the new findings in the Treasury Foreign Exchange Report, the current state of tariffs, whether we are in a second China shock, and much more.

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Recorded on March 5th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:02:26 - Termites Eating Away at Dollar Dominance

00:16:52 - Future Threats to Dollar Dominance

00:19:47 - Stablecoins and Dollar Dominance

00:33:40 - Treasury Foreign Exchange Report

00:44:28 - Tariff Policy

00:53:25 - Second China Shock?

01:00:38 - Outro

Ruth Judson is a monetary economist, economic historian, and veteran of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. In Ruth's first appearance on the show she discusses her career at the Fed, field trips tracking counterfeit dollars around the global, how we know how much currency is held overseas, why money doesn't matter anymore, the problem with cashless societies, how to understand TIC data, the promise of dollar backed stablecoins, and much more.

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Recorded on March 4th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:13 - Ruth at the Fed

00:08:09 - Currency

00:31:29 - Counterfeits

00:39:00 - TIC Data and Safe Assets

00:44:18 - Dollar-Based Stablecoins

00:49:55 - Outro