Economics Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff

Andrew Fesiak rejoins Economics Matters with reassuring news about the war in Ukraine. As I'm traveling in Europe until early June, my son and occasional co-host, Alex, interviews Andrew.  This is Andrew's 6th appearance on Economics Matters. He is, as ever, fully up-to-date on what's happening for real in Ukraine. Indeed, our military and everyone in the Administration, particularly the President, would do well to watch this podcast. Ukraine, it seems, is acquiring more and better cards than Russia and doing so at an accelerating pace. Where and when this will end is largely in Putin's court. But, as Andrew points out, and which the Wall Street Journal confirmed the next day, Ukrainian drones and missiles are hitting Russia everywhere that Putin looks. And, as he looks, he realizes he can't hold the regular May Day parade, i.e., with scores of tanks, missiles, and other military equipment. Doing so risks their parade-time destruction. Imagine the message that would send to the World. Hence, as Andrew predicted and the Journal has since confirmed, May Day in Russia will be an equipment-less parade  -- one that's as short as possible, permitting Putin to dive back into his bunker in record time. Andrew is Senior Consultant at Black Trident Defense and Security Group. He’s an expert on Ukrainian and Russian relations, politics, history, culture, and the ongoing war. Andrew has lived in Ukraine for decades, having emigrated from Canada. His grandparents and parents were Ukrainian (as was one of my grandfathers). 

This will be of interest to anyone who seeks more money, less risk, and a better life. Wade Pfau is one of our country’s truly exceptional thought leaders when it comes to personal finance. He holds a PhD in economics from Princeton as well as the CFA and RICP® designations. Wade is a professor of practice in the Retirement Income Certified Professional® (RICP®) Program at The American College of Financial Services.Wade asked me to use my company’s MaxiFi Planner software to illustrate economics-based financial planning. Whether you are new to economics’ prescriptions for handling your financial life or have been applying its prescriptions for years, you’ll find this presentation of interest.

Forget what Wall Street says, risky investing is an option, not a starting point when it comes to your financial plan. No investment is perfectly safe and Economics Matters does not provide investment or any other form of financial, tax, or insurance advice. What this blog and podcast do is discuss options. Because TIPS -- Treasury Inflation Protected Securities -- are U.S. Treasury bonds, but ones that are protected against inflation, they are, arguably, the safest asset on the planet. As I write, the 30-year TIP is yield north of 2.6 percent real. That's very high historically speaking. TIPS yields on shorter maturity are also unusally high. Yes, Uncle Sam could default on his debt, but there are many moves he can take to get his fiscal house in order short of default -- something that would destroy all financial assets. Given this, given the high yields on TIPS, given the stock market's high volatility, this may be the time to lock in future real income. Kevin Esler returns on Economics Matters for his third appearance to walk us through his remarkable and totally free tool -- tipsladder.com. For those who haven't used tipsladder.com, this episode will show you everything you need to know to build your own ladder. For those who have used tipsladder.com, this podcast will be a refresher, but also show you tipsladder.com's latest features. Kevin is a retiree from Australia with an extensive background in software and technology, which he leveraged into a series of top software engineering jobs at a range of leading companies including IBM, HP, and Disney Plus. After moving to the US he settled into a series of roles that saw him specializing in evolving technology and software development. Kevin is uniquely positioned as an authority due to his multifaceted expertise in tech and finance, particularly in understanding and managing investment strategies involving Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).

John Campbell has made major contributions to the fields of macroeconomics and finance, solved a number of critical problems in both fields, and received all manner of fully deserved top awards in economics and finance. Grab a copy of his outstanding new, co-authored book, Fixed. It will turn your stomach, but keep you safe from Wall Street's terrible financial predation.  He is the Morton L. and Carole S. Olshan Professor of Economics at Harvard University, where he has taught since 1994.Campbell delivered the Ely Lecture to the American Economic Association in 2016 and served as President of the American Finance Association in 2005. He is a Research Associate and former Director of the Program in Asset Pricing at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Fellow of the Econometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy and Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and holds honorary doctorates from BI Norwegian Business School, the University of Maastricht, the University of Paris Dauphine, and Copenhagen Business School. Campbell co-founded and serves on the board of Arrowstreet Capital, LP, a Boston-based quantitative asset management company. 

World-Renowned, Fantastic Economist, and Former CEA Chair, Gregory Mankiw, Discusses his Career, the Iraq War, Trump Policy and Advisers, and His Top Research HitsGreg may be the world's most influential economist as millions of students, in the US and abroad, have studied introductory economics and intermediate macroeconomics using his leading text books. He's also been a major US policy player, including serving as Chair of the President's Council of Economic Advisers under Present George W. Bush. But Greg's greatest contributions have been to macroeconomics. One of his early hits explains that the relatively small costs of individual firms adjusting their prices can lead to slow micro adjustment and remarkably major macroeconomic problems, including exacerbating business cycles.  A second major contribution concerns the degree to which households are cash-flow constrained and, as a result, make the economy far more volatile. A third article tests and partially rejects the Solow Model, a central model of national saving. A fourth shows, paradoxically, that competition in the face of monopoly can be inefficient.  A fifth helps explain stock market volatility. A sixth helps understand the dynamics of inflation and unemployment based on slow acquisition of information of price setters. Greg describes these contributions as part of our wide ranging, fascinating conversation.  Gregory Mankiw's BioN. Gregory Mankiw is the Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics at Harvard University. As a student, Greg studied economics at Princeton University and MIT. As a teacher, he has taught macroeconomics, microeconomics, statistics, and principles of economics. Professor Mankiw is a prolific writer and a regular participant in academic and policy debates. His research includes work on price adjustment, consumer behavior, financial markets, monetary and fiscal policy, and economic growth. His published articles have appeared in academic journals, such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Quarterly Journal of Economics, and in more widely accessible forums, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal.He has written two popular textbooks—the intermediate-level textbook Macroeconomics (Worth Publishers) and the introductory textbook Principles of Economics (Cengage Learning). Principles of Economics has sold over four million copies and has been translated into twenty languages. In addition to his teaching, research, and writing, Professor Mankiw has been a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an adviser to the Congressional Budget Office and the Federal Reserve Banks of Boston and New York, and a member of the ETS test development committee for the advanced placement exam in economics. From 2003 to 2005 he served as Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Disclaimer --  Any opinions expressed Economics Matters' posts are those of the authors and guests. These are not the opinions of Boston University or Economic Security Planning, Inc. 

Glenn is an absolutely brilliant economist and a public intellectual extraordinaire. In addition, Glenn is the pioneer of podcasting by academic economists. Glenn's remarkable podcast -- The Glenn Show -- debuted in 2008. In this episode of Economics Matters -- the Podcast, I ask Glenn to talk about the Glenn Show, including the topics and guests he's had during the show's now almost two-decade run. But as you'll hear/see, Glenn also uses this occasion to vigorously convey his long-held positions on race relations and the path to improving them. In particular, he makes a very strong case that Black America cannot expect White America to improve its position in society. As Glenn puts it, "No one is coming to the rescue." This is a marvelous podcast from a person who has dedicated a major part of his life to providing a national, politically incorrect conversation on issues of pressing concern, no matter their sensitivity. Glenn's Short Bio:Glenn C. Loury, Merton P. Stoltz Professor Emeritus of Social Sciences, Professor Emeritus of Economics, and Professor Emeritus of International and Public Affairs, is an academic economist who has made scholarly contributions to the fields of welfare economics, income distribution, game theory, industrial organization, and natural resource economics. He is also a prominent social critic and public intellectual, having published over 200 articles in journals of public affairs in the U.S. and abroad on the issues of racial inequality and social policy. A Fellow of the Econometric Society, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a past Vice President of the American Economics Association, Prof. Loury has been a visiting scholar at Oxford, Tel Aviv University, the University of Stockholm, the Delhi School of Economics, the Institute for the Human Sciences in Vienna, and the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and was for many years a contributing editor at The New Republic magazine.The Glenn Show is a podcast and video series hosted by economist Glenn Loury, a professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.  Glenn, a self-described Black conservative, provides heterodox perspectives critiquing both progressive and conservative extremes. The show is rated right-center biased but high in credibility for its analysis grounded in real eventsIt features in-depth conversations with guests from academia, journalism, and public affairs, focusing on race, inequality, economics, politics, and social issues. Episodes often include regular discussions with linguist John McWhorter on race and politics, alongside solo commentary and live Q&A sessions. Recent topics have covered U.S. foreign policy, identity politics, free speech, and events like ICE incidents or Epstein files. The show is available on Substack (glennloury.substack.com), Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and Bloggingheads.tv, with weekly updates and paid subscriber exclusives like early episodes and bonus content. It originated on Bloggingheads and continues through Loury's independent platform.

Martin Wolf is Chief Economics Commentator at the Financial Times, London. He was awarded Commander of the British Empire in 2000 "for services to financial journalism". This is Martin's third appearance on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. Martin's 2023 book, The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, warned that liberal democracy was in recession, with authoritarianism on the rise. Two years later his dark vision has become America's reality. In this riveting interview, Martin spells out just how quickly our Shining City on the Hill is becoming a dark and foreboding dungeon with our great leader closely following the footsteps of history's megalomaniacs. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from the world's best informed and impressively clairvoyant global and political economist.  Martin is simply brilliant in both the British and American meanings of that word. 

Are we about to have another financial meltdown or at least a major crash? Is this the time to get liquid and stay poised to buy low rather than lose high? Please let one of the world's top financial guru's, John Rutledge, provide his deeply informed sense of the current financial system. John focuses on times the economy is out of wack -- far from equilibrium is his language.  He is Chief Investment Strategist and a member of the Investment Committee at Safanad, a global principal investment firm in New York, London, and Dubai. He is Economics Contributor for CNBC, and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University where he teaches and chairs dissertations in the economics and finance PhD program. He sits on a number of boards of directors for public and private companies.John's Extraordinary ResumeOne of the architects of the Reagan Economic plan and has advised the Bush administration on both tax policy and the reconstruction of Iraq. Honorary Professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is Chairman of Tara’s Kids, a non-profit organization that builds libraries for schools in remote villages in China and Tibet. After tours of duty in both academics and government policy, he has started, run, chaired, owned and harvested dozens of companies, and has managed money in marketable securities, private equity, and real estate.Too many more accolades to list...

President Trump's interest is largely self interest. According to The NY Times, he has personally pocketed $1.4 billion over the past 12 months. While not stuffing his pockets and those of his family, he has transformed our "shining city upon a hill" into a quasi-fascist state, sold out our allies, upended the rule of law, deployed a private army that murders American citizens in broad daylight, orchestrated political witch hunts, and abrogated our civil liberties, including, of late, the right to bear arms. Whether we'll have a fair and free election in November is anyone's guess. How much of Trump's behavior is dictated by Putin, an inner demon, mental illness, or avarice, no one can say. But the world no longer respects America. It fears and despises America. And it is realigning away from America at a rapid rate. I've invited Anders Åslund back to Economics Matters -- the Podcast to assess the damage, and its perilous implications. Per Anders Åslund is a Swedish economist and former Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is also a chairman of the International Advisory Council at the Center for Social and Economic Research (CASE). His work focuses on economic transition from centrally planned to market economies. Åslund served as an economic adviser to the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine and from 2003 was director of the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Åslund was an advocate of early, comprehensive, and radical economic reforms in Russia and Eastern Europe.[1] He worked at the Peterson Institute for International Economics from 2006 to 2015. In 2013, neoconservative David Frum wrote that "Anders Aslund at the Peterson Institute is one of the world's leading experts on the collapse of the planned Soviet economy." From 2010 to 2013 and again in 2022 he contributed to The Moscow Times, an independent English-language newspaper; he is also a long-time contributor to the Kyiv Post.[3]

Paulo Nogueira Batista is one of Brazil’s most prominent, influential, and instrumental economists. Paulo was vice president of the New Development Bank, established by the BRICS in Shanghai, from 2015 to 2017, and Executive Director at the IMF for Brazil and 10 other countries in Washington, from 2007 through 2015.  Paulo, as you'll hear/see, and as his bio clearly documents, is a sober, sophisticated, accomplished global intellectual, actor, and statesman -- someone who thinks deeply and carefully before he speaks. Hence, when he pens a column entitled, "Brazil is Running an Existential Risk," which I reposted in Economics Matters last week, about Brazil's need to obtain nuclear weapons, it's time to sit up and listen.  Take a read of Paulo's column and ponder the meaning of his quote of Clemenceau, “The United States is the first to pass from barbarism to decadence without knowing civilization.” Then watch/listen to this extraordinary podcast. 

Ciff Winston is back on Economics Matters. He's also just out with an impressive new book -- Market Corrections NotGovernment Interventions: A Path to Improve the US Economy. The book is a devastating critique of government policy failures -- policies that the private sector had to ultimately overcome or sidestep. Cliff joins us precisely one year after our podcast on Biden's infrastructure bill, which was passed with great fanfare, but started slow and then ran into Trump executive orders or disorders, depending on your perspective. This is an extraordinary, evidenced-based exposé of the market’s innovative power to creatively destroy market failures, including those engineered and entrenched by both ‘regulators’ and ‘reformists.’ This is surely the most important government policy book yet written.Here's the skinny on Cliff.   Clifford Winston, a nonresident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Economic Studies program, has been with Brookings since 1984. Winston has also been co-editor of the annual microeconomics edition of Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. Prior to his fellowship at Brookings, he was an associate professor in the Transportation Systems Division of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Civil Engineering. The author of numerous books and articles, Winston has published “Market Corrections Not Government Interventions: A Path to Improve the U.S. Economy” (2025); “Reforming Occupational Licensing in the U.S.: Reducing Social Costs and Increasing Social Benefits in the Legal, Medical, and Financial Services Professions” editor (2024); “Revitalizing a Nation: Competition and Innovation in the U.S. Transportation Industry” with Jia Yan and Associates (2024); “Gaining Ground: Markets Helping Government” (2021); “Trouble at the Bar: An Economics Perspective on the Legal Profession and Proposals For Reform” with David Burk and Jia Yan (2021); “Autonomous Vehicles: The Road to Economic Growth?” with Quentin Karpilow (2020); “First Thing We Do, Let’s Deregulate All the Lawyers,” with Robert Crandall and Vikram Maheshri (2011); “Last Exit: Privatization and Deregulation of the U.S. Transportation System” (2010); “Government Failure versus Market Failure” (2006); “Deregulation of Network Industries: What’s Next?” with Sam Peltzman (2000); “Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer,” with Jose A. Gomez-Ibanez and William B. Tye (1999); “Alternate Route: Toward Efficient Urban Transportation,” with Chad Shirley (1998); “The Evolution of the Airline Industry,” with Steven A. Morrison (1995); “The Economic Effects of Surface Freight Deregulation,” with Thomas M. Corsi, Curtis M. Grimm, and Carol A. Evans (1990); “Road Work: A New Highway Pricing and Investment Policy,” with Kenneth A. Small and Carol Evans (1989); “Liability: Perspectives and Policy,” with Robert E. Litan (1988); “Blind Intersection? Policy and the Automobile Industry,” co-author (1987); and “The Economic Effects of Airline Deregulation,” with Steven Morrison (1986). His articles have appeared in such journals as the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Economic Literature, Bell Journal of Economics, and the Rand Journal of Economics. Dr. Winston received his A.B. in economics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974, his M.Sc. from the London School of Economics in 1975, and his Ph.D. in economics from U.C. Berkeley in 1979.

Innovation is the hot sauce of economic progress. Trevor Chandler is one of the hottest inventors on the planet. Whether it's inventing Covid detection masks, AI-driven portable disease-detection machines, or robotic AI-guided robotic sensors, Trevor is a whirlwind of discovery and practical implementation. Join me in this fascinating and highly entertaining interview with Trevor Chandler. You'll meet his robots, learn about Mask Zero -- the future of pandemic protection, which I previously discussed with Trevor's extraordinary business partner, Adam Pener, and find yourself at the frontier of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), if not Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI). Trevor's patents may well represent not just the hot, but the secret sauce to achieving AGI and ASI.

John Llewellyn, Lehman's Former Chief Economist, Head of Independent-Economics, and Leading Global Analyst,Talks Today's and Tomorrow's Geoeconomics and GeopoliticsJohn, as you'll quickly learn from this terrific podcast, has seen more and knows more about the global economy, regional economies, and geopolitics than virtually all of the world's top finance and economics ministers as well as treasury secretaries. John founded Independent-Economics after Lehman's bankruptcy and his internal warnings went unheeded. Prior to working at Lehman, John spent two decades at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris where he was, first, Head of International Forecasting and Policy Analysis and then Chef de Cabinet to the Secretary-General. His OECD positing came after a decade-long professorship in economics at the University of Cambridge where he was a Fellow of St. John’s College. John holds an undergraduate degree from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and a doctorate in economics from the University of Oxford. He has published widely.

Dan is the Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation at NYU Law School, is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School. Before entering law teaching, he spent three years each in private practice, and at the Joint Congressional Committee on Taxation, where he worked on the Tax Reform Act of 1986. In 1987, Shaviro began his teaching career at the University of Chicago Law School, and he moved to NYU in 1995. In 2023, he received the National Tax Association’s Daniel M. Holland Medal, recognizing lifetime achievement in, and outstanding contributions to, public finance.Shaviro’s scholarly work mainly focuses on tax policy and other fiscal policy, along with inequality and the intersections between law, literature, and social science. His books include Bonfires of the American Dream in American Rhetoric, Literature, and Film (2022), Fixing U.S. International Taxation (2014), Decoding the U.S. Corporate Tax (2009), and Do Deficits Matter? (1997). He has also published a novel, Getting It (2010), and a memoir, Now Is Now and Then Is Then.At NYU School of Law Shaviro teaches various tax and other courses, including a scholarly colloquium on tax policy and public finance.

With the leading ten AI companies comprising one third of the value of the S&P and none showing a profit plus the threat they pose to our jobs, let alone humanity, we best keep careful track of the industry. My former graduate student, Seth Benzell, is one of our nation's top AI experts. Seth discusses AI's so-called scaling law, the problem of too little data to fit the industry's parameters mystically being cured by double descent, and the bitter lesson. Seth also talks us through how much money AI can save and, therefore, make by replacing humans in accomplishing existing tasks.Seth is an assistant professor of Management Science at the Argyros School of Business and Economics at Chapman University. He's a Digital Fellow at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy as well as a Digital Fellow at the Stanford HAI Digital Economy LabHe received a B.A. in economics and a B.S. in physics and mathematics from Tulane University before earning his economics PhD at Boston University. Seth's website is https://www.sethgbenzell.com/. He works on the economics of digitalization, including automation, networks, and information systems. Seth and his co-host, Andrey Fradkin have a terrific podcast, called Justified Posteriors, that focuses on AI. 

Orlando Patterson is simply mesmerizing. We all take "freedom" for granted. But Orlando has studied what it is and isn't -- now and across the millenia. The result of this immensely deep as well as deeply fascinating scholarship is a sober take on what we take for granted -- that freedom is clear cut, fundamental, universal, and here to stay. Orlando sets us straight, not based on opinion but based on decades of profoundly insightful research. Please share this podcast to any and all -- blue, red, and purple. "The Land of the Free and the Brave" is not something to take for granted -- certainly not now when our individual and collective freedoms are subject to daily erosion. In this regard, it is worth recalling these words from President Kennedy.The most powerful single force in the world today is neither Communism nor Capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile -- it is man's eternal desire to be free and independent.A public intellectual, Professor Patterson was, for eight years, Special Advisor for Social policy and development to Prime Minister Michael Manley of Jamaica. He was a founding member of Cultural Survival, one of the leading advocacy groups for the rights of indigenous peoples, and was for several years a board member of Freedom House, a major civic organization for the promotion of freedom and democracy around the world. More recently he has chaired the Commission for the Transformation of Education in Jamaicabased in the Office of Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica. The author of three novels, he has published widely in journals of opinion and the national press, especially the New York Times, where he was a guest columnist for several weeks. His columns have also appeared in Time Magazine, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, The Jamaica Gleaner, The Public Interest, The New Republic, and The Washington Post.He is the recipient of many awards, including the National Book Award for Non-Fiction which he won in 1991 for his book on freedom; the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award of the American Sociological Association; the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, the Barry Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Hegel Prize from the city of Stuttgart, Germany He holds honorary degrees from several universities, including Yale, London University, the University of Chicago, U.C.L.A. and La Trobe University in Australia. He was awarded both the Order of Distinction and the Order of Merit by the Government of Jamaica. the nation’s third highest national honor. Professor Patterson has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences since 1991 and of the American Academy of Science and Letters since its founding in 2024.Orlando Patterson, a historical and comparative sociologist, is the John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard University. He previously held faculty appointments at the University of the West Indies, and the London School of Economics where he received his Ph.D. His academic interests include the origin, culture and practices of freedom; the comparative study of slavery and ethno-racial relations; and the cultural sociology of poverty and underdevelopment with special reference to the Caribbean and African Americans. He has also written on the cultural sociology of sports. Professor Patterson is the author of numerous academic papers and 10 major academic books including, Slavery and Social Death (1982/2018); Freedom in the Making of Western Culture (1991); The Cultural Matrix: Understanding Black Youth (2015); The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Condition (2019); The Paradox of Freedom: A Biographical Dialog (2023); and Enslavement: Past and Present (2025)

I'm not a big fan of investment advisors. Economics teaches us that not everyone can beat the market. Yet, there are tens of thousands advisors out there who will tell you that they and they alone have the secret sauce. Actually, economics teaches us that no one can beat the market unless they have inside information. But economics also tells us how to keep the market from beating you -- by taking risk, but limiting your downside, diversifying, and following your brain, not your emotions in making investment decisions. Fred has decades of experience valuing roughly 10,000 companies. He also knows that markets can go nuts. Today, a third of the value of the S&P comprises 10 AI companies who have yet to make a profit. So, is an S&P index really diversified? Not so clear. It may simply be everyone’s green dream. Or not. Fred is back to help us better hedge our bets in a time of national, global, and technological upheaval the likes of which we didn’t see in 1929 when things went poof simply because everyone collectively decided they were going poof. In short, we don’t need crazy to go crazy. Fred is pure shelter from the storm - real and imagined. So watch/listen to Fred and pull up the song by you know who on YouTube! Fred has over 40 years of investment and corporate finance experience, as a portfolio manager, a private equity investor and an investment banker. Fred's clients have included Staples (where he was a founding investor); Advanced Micro Devices; Forest Laboratories; ULTA Beauty; Tractor Supply; Berlitz International; Rexnord; Fairchild Industries; Plantronics; and numerous others. Fred is also a highly experienced private equity investor, having invested in more than 80 private companies. Fred received his A.B, cum laude from Harvard College and his MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.Prior to founding Lane Generational in September 2020, Fred was Senior Vice President, Investments at Raymond James & Associates, Inc. from October 2014 to September 2020 and also served as Vice Chairman, Investment Banking from May 2009 to October 2014. Fred was Chairman, CEO and Founder of the investment banking firm Lane, Berry & Co. International, LLC (which was acquired by Raymond James in May 2009) from January 2002 through January 2013. Prior to that, Fred was a Managing Director and Principal of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation (DLJ). Fred joined DLJ in 1976 and was instrumental in the growth of DLJ's investment banking business. He also served as Co-Head of the Mergers and Acquisitions Department at DLJ and as Managing Director – Senior Advisor of Credit Suisse First Boston upon CSFB's acquisition of DLJ in 2000.

Steve Laffey is a true American rages-to-riches success story. But Steve took the biblical saying, "to those who have much is owed," fully to heart. After a highly successful career in banking, Steve returned to run for mayor in his birthplace -- Cranston, Rhode Island, taking it from bankruptcy to solvency and growth. His remarkable story is conveyed in this Wikipedia entry. This is Steve's 4th appearance on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. Steve is an expert on America's problems. His film, Fixing America, which he made after serving two terms as mayor of Cranston, is a must see. And stevelaffey.com is a must visit. Steve tells it like it is and his survey of President Trump's first nine months -- its damage to our international standing, to our rule of law, to our civility, to our economy, and to our comity -- holds no bars. What we need is not to make America great again. What we need is to make America America again. Steve Laffey reminds us of just what that means and looks like. 

I've been a huge fan of Holman Jenkins for years. His columns are deeply insightful and fun -- skewering the left and the right in equal measure. I found our conversation remarkably calming. Holman is a true student of history, so when he says this too will pass, it's particularly reassuring. Many columnists come and go. But Holman has been writing for and guiding the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal for a third of a century. That tenure is a remarkable tribute to both Holman and the Journal. Please listen/watch this premier American journalist. He's truly one of a kind. Holman's Bio Holman W. Jenkins Jr. is a member of the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal. He writes the twice-weekly “Business World” column that appears on the paper's op-ed page on Wednesdays and Saturdays.Mr. Jenkins joined the Journal in May 1992 as a writer for the editorial page in New York. In February 1994, he moved to Hong Kong as editor of The Asian Wall Street Journal's editorial page. He returned to the domestic Journal in December 1995 as a member of the paper's editorial board and was based in San Francisco. Mr. Jenkins won a 1997 Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business and financial coverage.Born in Philadelphia, Mr. Jenkins received a bachelor's degree from Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University. He was a 1991 journalism fellow at the University of Michigan.

President Trump's on again, off again tariff mania is, well, choose your adjective. From one day to the next, imported products, be they pharmaceuticals, kitchen cabinets, lumber, or foreign movies, are being tariffed at massive rates. Brazilian products are facing 50 percent tariffs because Brazil isn't treating recently convicted former Brazilian President, Bolsonaro, to the President's liking, and other countries are now locked into a high tariff for the conceivable future. Cambodia, for example, is facing a permanent 19 percent tariff on selling products to the U.S. A good country-by-country list of tariffs now in place, scheduled, or threatened is available here. What impacts are the imposed tariffs, the announced tariffs, and the potential tariffs having on importers? What legal liabilities are importers facing thanks to tariff uncertainty. Will Trump's tariff policy, actual and potential, expand or undermine US manufacturing? To address these questions, I invited one of our top trade specialists, attorney Irene Chen, to join me on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. Irene represents and counsels foreign producers and U.S. importers in international trade matters through her law firm, VCL Law, LLP. As her bio bio details, Irene has had extensive experience working for the U.S. International Trade Commission and the U.S. Department of Commerce. Get ready to learn the not so good, the bad, and the ugly about current tariff policy and how it is impacting real companies in real time. 

Andrew Fesiak rejoins me on Economics Matters. He addresses these questions and more: Is Russia winning? Is Ukraine Short on Manpower? Is Trump selling out Ukraine and NATO by deed, if not word? Can Ukraine even up the sides with its new Flamingo cruise missile? What did the US refusal to join other NATO members in shooting down the Russian drone incursion in Poland tell us? Is Ukraine now exporting drones? Is Russia testing NATO's response to air incursions to demonstrate that the US is no longer a real part of NATO? Is Russia gearing up to attack the Baltics? How will the war end? Andrew is Senior Consultant at Black Trident Defense and Security Group. He's an expert on Ukrainian and Russian relations, politics, history, culture, and the ongoing war. Andrew has lived in Ukraine for decades, having emigrated from Canada. His grandparents and parents were Ukrainian. This is Andrew's 5th appearance on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. His analysis of the military and political situation have been dead on. If you want the facts on the ground, including Trump's mounting acts of betrayal, all packaged in mellifluous words of support, this podcast is for you.

Back in May, Moody's joined the other two major U.S. debt-rating companies, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Group, in downgrading US government debt. No surprise. Federal debt was close to 30 percent of GDP a quarter Century back. Today it's close to 100 percent and projected to exceed 150 percent by mid Century. No one is better positioned to discuss our nation's fiscal condition than David Levey. David spent almost 19 years servicing as Managing Director and Co-Head of the Sovereign Ratings Unit of Moody's Investors Service. Indeed, David is arguably the father of sovereign risk rating having developed country-credit analysis at Moody's. When David retired, he was credited by Moody's as having rated the official obligations of over 100 countries across the world. In addition, David has been involved in rating a host of foreign and domestic industry- and company-specific securities. David holds a BA in Economics from the University of Chicago and a PhD in Economics from Harvard University. Before joining Moody's, he taught at Yale, the New School for Social Research, and Wayne State University. He also served as Senior Economics Writer for BusinessWeek, Country Risk Manager for Wells Fargo, and President of his own risk-evaluation consulting company. David's had a long career sizing up failing states. The US is not a failing state, but is, it seems, working overtime to join that club. Please listen as one of our few remaining grownups in the room explains what our politicians know, but won't say -- our country is going broke hand over fist, with serious implications for how we all should you invest your money.  

Peter Coy has been writing about economics for decades -- for the Associated Press, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. Peter is currently a freelance columnist. His terrific substack is petercoy.substack.com. I consider Peter our nation's top economics journalist. Unlike almost all other economics commentators, Peter does his homework. He reads academic economists' writings extensively. He reads them carefully, no matter how opaque, theoretical, or deep in the statistical weeds. And he immediately and fully comprehends their arguments, which is no small feat, even for a well-trained, top, PhD, let alone a BA in history (from Cornell). Peter was my guest on Economics Matters in February 2024. Here's the interview. In today's podcast, we switched sides. Peter interview me -- about retirement mistakes, economics versus conventional (aka Wall Street's) financial planning, Social Security's Ponzi-scheme method of finance, how to fix Social Security for good, and our nation's overall fiscal insolvency, in which Social Security plays a major part. 

Ignazio Visco is a superb economist and central banker. He should be everyone's choice for the next President of the European Central Bank. Italy has a bad economic rap among those with a cursory knowledge of its fiscal condition and financial system. In fact, it's ranked as the most fiscally sustainable of all major EU countries and has one of the world's safest banking systems. The former is thanks to relatively small off-the-books pension, healthcare, and other off-the-books liabilities. The latter is largely due to Ignazio's 12-year leadership of the Italian Central Bank. Ignazio has had an amazing career. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, joined the Bank of Italy as a junior economist, quickly became Head of the Bank's Research Department, was named Chief Economist of the OECD, and then appointed Governor of the Bank of Italy. He has served on the boards of the ECB, the ESRB, the BIS, the FSB, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the InterAmerican Development Bank. There are few people on the planet with Ignazio wealth of international economic exposure, expertise, and knowledge. Please do listen/watch this episode of Economics Matters -- the Podcast. It's terrific. 

This podcast is not to be missed. Greg Clark is a brilliant economic historian with a remarkable, fact-based take on the role of genetics in economic evolution. Genetics is, of course, a dangerous word when used to discuss humans and their success. But genetics, indeed, simply the ability to live longer and procreate better, can make a major difference over the long sweep of economic history. It can also become a marker and sustainer of social status not because of DNA, but cross-generational genetic connections as in "Of course we are going to admit X to Oxbridge. The last ten generations of X's attended Oxbridge." Clark, whose grandfathers were migrants to Scotland from Ireland, was born in Bellshill, Scotland. He attended Holy Cross High School in Hamilton. In 1974 he and fellow pupil Paul Fitzpatrick won the Scottish Daily Express schools debating competition. He earned a BA degree in economics and philosophy at King's College, Cambridge in 1979 and a PhD in economics at Harvard University in 1985. His thesis was supervised by Barry Eichengreen, Jeffrey G. Williamson, and Stephen Marglin. He became an assistant professor at Stanford University from 1985 to 1989 and at the University of Michigan from 1989 to 1990. He moved to the University of California, Davis and became associate professor in 1990 and professor of economics in 1996. He was formerly (until 2013) chair of the economics department at the University of California, Davis and became a distinguished professor emeritus there since 2018. Between 2017 and 2020, Clark was a visiting professor in economic history at the London School of Economics. In 2023, he became the Danish National Research Council professor of economics at the University of Southern Denmark. Clark's areas of research are long-term economic growth, the wealth of nations, the economic history of The Industrial Revolution, England and India, and social mobility. He is also a visiting professor in the Economic History Department at The London School of Economics and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Davis.

I met Bill Raduchel as a grad student at Harvard. He was then and remains today a rare combination of pure genius and utter humility. My interactions with Bill were limited. But I instinctively realized he was some form of economics, software, and computer god rolled into a lovely person who could teach you about those subjects or anything  else of interest. I met up again with Bill two years back and, gee, nothing had changed. I was awestruck then. I'm awestruck now. When I heard he'd written an autobiography of his amazing career, I lept at the chance to share Bill with followers of Economics Matters -- the Podcast.  Bill's book, which you can purchase here, is entitled: The Bleeding Edge -- My Six Decades at the Forefront of the Tech Revolution (from Scott McNealy to Steve Jobs to Steve Case to Steve Ballmer and Other Titans of Technology) Here's the Wiki description of Bill. Dr. William J. Raduchel is an independent director, angel investor and strategic advisor. He was a professor of economics at Harvard for ten years, and an assistant dean at Harvard and Radcliffe. He has been an executive at Ruckus Network, Sun Microsystems, AOL Time Warner, Xerox Corporation, and McGraw-Hill. He also serves on boards for the Salvation Army and STEP (National Academy of Sciences).“Bill Raduchel is a pioneer of the digital revolution. The deeply instructive stories in this book are much more than a compulsively readable personal history. They’re a master class in how to succeed in the business of technology.”—Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google, and co-author of The New Digital Age“For more than half a century, Bill Raduchel has been the Zelig of the tech world—somehow involved in nearly everything and knowing everyone. This book should be required reading for anyone thinking about a career in tech.”—Steve Case, cofounder and former CEO, AOL, and author of the New York Times bestseller The Third Wave“Bill has been my thesis advisor, dorm advisor, economics professor, mentor, CXO, friend, and co-worker since 1973. At Sun for over a decade, he helped us take revenue from $1 billion to $14 billion. He steered us through a financial crisis in 1989 and was in the middle of every major deal and innovation. The Bleeding Edge gives a perspective on management and change that is unique. He was there. He lived and helped formulate it.”—Scott McNealy,co-founder and former CEO, Sun Microsystems“I hired Bill to advise the Daily Mail and General Trust because of his long experience in technology and media. As this book shows, he’s also a shrewd judge of people and the systems that make companies successful.”—Jonathan Harmsworth,4th Viscount Rothermere and chairman of Daily Mail and General Trust“Few in the tech world are as accomplished and as deeply embedded in its firmament as Bill Raduchel. The Bleeding Edge is more than just a memoir—it’s a mini-MBA, a computer science degree, and a front-row-seat history of the digital revolution all rolled into one must-read book.” —Christopher A. Smith,author of Privacy Pandemic and digital security expertBut the real story of Bill Raduchel is summarized by these blurbs of his book and their authors.      

When it comes to personal finance journalism, Richard is simply as good as it gets. After I read Richard's Next Avenue column, What the Heck is Going On at Social Security, I realized it was beyond time to have him on Economics Matters -- the Podcast.  Richard Eisenberg is an “unretired” writer, editor, podcaster and author. He writes “The View From Unretirement” for MarketWatch, biweekly articles about Medicare on Fortune.com and pieces for Next Avenue and AARP about money and work for people over 50. He co-hosts the  and runs the NYU Summer Publishing Institute Digital Media Strategies program. He was formerly Managing Editor of PBS’ Next Avenue site, Executive Editor of Money for 19 years, and Special Projects Director of Good Housekeeping. He wrote How to Avoid a Midlife Financial Crisis and The Money Book of Personal Finance. He is a graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Richard Eisenberg is a writer, editor and podcaster specializing in personal finances, older adults and aging. He "unretired" in January 2022 when he left his job as Managing Editor and Editor of the Money and Work & Purpose channels of Next Avenue, the PBS site for people 50+. He was part of Next Avenue's launch team in 2011. Previously, he served as Executive Editor of Money Magazine, Front Page Finance Editor of Yahoo! and Special Projects.Director/Money Editor of Good Housekeeping. Richard currently co-hosts the Friends Talk Money Podcast (with my co-author, Terry Savage, and the equally amazing, Pam Kreuger), which focuses on personal finances for people 50+ and teaches a MasterClass in Unretirement at NYU. He is author of the books "Howto Avoid a Midlife Financial Crisis" and "The Money Book of Personal Finance" and served as Director of the NYU Summer Publishing Institute's Digital Media Strategy program for three years. Richard graduated from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and lives in New Jersey. Here's a terrific recent column by Richard on whether you should let AI give you personal financial advice. For a host of outstanding MarketWatch columns by Richard, click here. And here's a link to a wealth of additional columns by Richard posted at Muckrack. Finally, check out Richard's columns and podcasts for Next Avenue here. 

Back in January 2023, Peter Fox Penner appeared on Economics Matters -- the Podcast to discuss his fabulous book,  Power After Carbon, Building a Clean Resilient Grid. Peter, who studied engineering in college and economics at the University of Chicago, where he earned a PhD, is surely among the most knowledge people in the country on America's energy system. He's back in this fascinating podcast to discuss a new study be co-authored with The Brattle Group. Its title is Affordability, Rates, and Clean Capital Efficiency: A Path for the Power Industry's Turbulent Next Decade.Power is a huge issue for all of us. Will AI data centers drive up electricity demand, prices, and carbon emissions? Peter's joint study looks at what's coming on both the demand and supply sides. But it also also shows how we can meet our exploding power needs largely by improving energy-capital efficiency. Please enjoy this timely presentation that's as relevant to climate deniers as it is to climate advocates. We are, for better and worse, all in the same boat. Peter explains in crystal clear terms both the rapids ahead and how to avoid them. Peter received a B.S. in engineering from the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago. During the Clinton Administration, Peter worked closely with Vice President Al Gore's team, serving first as a senior official at the U.S. Department of Energy and then in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Before and after working for the federal government, Peter was engaged in economic and energy consulting. This included serving for over two decades as Principal and Chair of The Brattle Group, one of our nation's premier consulting firms. Peter left the Brattle Group to found and direct Boston University's Institute for Sustainable Energy and served as a Professor of Practice at BU's Questrom School of Business. Peter is currently a Partner and Chief Impact Officer of Energy Impact Partners, one of the world's largest dedicated clean energy private equity fund groups. He also serves as Senior Advisor to The Brattle Group, as a member of the Global Leadership Council of the World Resources Institute, and as an Advisory Board member of Mobility Impact Partners.  Peter's is a frequent speaker on energy topics and the author of numerous published articles and books. Peter's research has been widely cited, including in one Supreme Court decision. It spans electric power strategy, regulation, and governance, energy and climate policy, sustainable finance, and the relationships between public and private economic activity.

Jean Chatzky is one of America's leading personal finance journalists and authors. Jean and I are long-time buds. I'm delighted to have her on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. Jean is in the midst of an extraordinary career. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in English, Jean did equity research for Dean Witter and then moved into financial journalism -- first with Working Woman, then Forbes, then Smart Money (as Senior Editor), then Money Magazine as well as Finance Editor and Reporter for NBC's The Today Show, and now AARP's Personal Financial Ambassador. (Go to AARP.org to read Jean's columns.) As if this career, interspersed with appearances on Ophra, Live with Kelly and Regis, and the View and writing for Cosmopolitan, Parents, and Seventeen, weren't enough, Jean has authored 14 books on personal finance -- one better than the next. But, hold on. Jean's real claim to fame is hermoney.com. Jean launched HerMoney in 2018 -- a multimedia company changing the relationships women have with money — inspired by her weekly podcast, HerMoney with Jean Chatzky.Please view this special interview with Jean, particularly if you are a woman. Jean has been helping this half of our population with their special financial needs, skills, and advantages for years. As the podcast makes clear, Jean Chatsky is one of our nation's most important financial resources. But so are financial journalists, in general. I've been honored to interview of Who's Who of these special financial coaches. The full list includes Scott Burns, Terry Savage, Allan Roth, Allison Schrager, Liz Weston, Phil Moeller, Paul Solman, Mary Beth Franklin, Kerry Pecter, Rob Berger, Robert Powell, Nancy Lloyd, John Mauldin, Kerry Hanon, and Richard Eisenberg. These 15 podcasts plus over 100 more are yours for the free hearing/viewing by clicking here.

As Senator Ernst sweetly reminded us, we're all going to die. But not all of us will be prepared financially to die. Thinking about the afterlife is rather unpleasant for most of us. Yes, there's heaven to look forward to. But who knows if we'll make it. There's lots of religions, different from our own, that are convinced that we'll be rejected before we even apply. So, we put off planning for the end game and then put it off some more. Trouble is, game over can occur when you least expect or deserve it. And when you pass, you'll be passing on an estate, perhaps tiny, perhaps huge. But unless you do proper estate planning, what you leave may not go to the people you wish or in the form you wish. The morbid moral here is that we all need to do estate planning and, indeed, do it on a routine basis as our finances change. There are a zillion estate attorneys out there to assist you. But it's critical to know the score before engaging anyone. This is why I invited Alan Gassman to talk about estate planning, particularly the value of trusts. Alan, as his bio copied below attests, is a big deal in the field of estate planning. He has a terrific estate, tax, and business law firm, has built outstanding software that handles all manner of estate issues, and is one of the most respected and acclaimed estate attorneys in the country. Do listen to this exciting -- yes, the end game is full of excitement -- discussion with Alan Gassman. He's a magnetic speaker and chock full of essential information and advice. 

Economics PhD, CFP, President of Lyon Financial Planning, Jay Abolofia shows you how to do estate planning using MaxiFi Planner's new spending cap and other unique features. If you're a MaxiFi Planner user, you already know and trust Jay. Jay provides bi-monthly MaxiFi office hours and uses MaxiFi in his own financial planning practice. Jay also provides a terrific co-piloting service for MaxiFi users who like to have a true expert review their use of the tool. Jay is one of the best teachers I've yet encountered and I've met thousands. This podcast is typical of his ability to convey important information in clear, concise, and actionable terms. Please listen/watch Jay and I discuss MaxiFi's new estate planning capacities. This discussion is NOT about trust, wills, probate, living wills, powers of attorney, or any of other legal estate issues. Nor are we focused on reducing federal or state estate taxes. This podcast is about what we all do -- rich or poor, namely plan, either explicitly or by default, to leave assets to our heirs. Whether you have a billion dollars or are living on the margin, you have assets, be it just a house, a car, or furniture that you'll be passing on if you pass. MaxiFi shows you your contingent estates -- what you'll bequeath depending on when you die. Many MaxiFi users have significant means -- so many resources that they aren't able or interested in spending everything they spend on a safe basis. MaxiFi's new spending limit lets them tell the program not to spend beyond what they wish in any future year. By setting the spending cap or using other features in the tool that Jay describes, well-off and, indeed, all users can see the trade off between spending more on themselves and leaving more for their heirs.

I've known Larry Leamer forever thanks to my close friendship with Larry's recently departed, economist extraordinaire, brother -- Edward Leamer. Ed wasn't bowled over by any economist. But he was in awe of Larry, years before Larry became one of our nation's leading biographers. Much of Larry's work focuses on the rich and scandalous. Warhol's Muses certainty meets that bill. The book, which is fresh off the press, is Larry's umpteenth. The list includes Capote’s Women, Madness Under the Royal Palms, Mar-A-Lago -- Inside the Gates of Power, The Kennedy Women, King of the Night -- the Life of Johnny Carson, and, well, here's the now-outdated Wiki list. I copy below Penguin-Random House's careful description of the book. But, as you'll hear in the podcast, Larry raises a darker question than whether Warhol was a deeply evil person. He questions whether the art world fell for the NFT-artist of the day, specifically whether Warhol's oeuvre, including the $195 million The Blue Shot Marilyn, constitutes works of art or the art of self-perpetuating, financial fabrication.   From the jacket of Warhol's Muses by Laurence Leamer “Now and then, someone would accuse me of being evil,” Andy Warhol confessed, “of letting people destroy themselves while I watched, just so I could film them.” Obsessed with celebrity, the silver-wigged artistic icon created an ever-evolving entourage of stunning women he dubbed his “Superstars”—Baby Jane Holzer, Edie Sedgwick, Nico, Ultra Violet, Viva, Brigid Berlin, Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet, Mary Woronov, and Candy Darling. He gave several of them new names and manipulated their beauty and talent for his art and social status with no regard for their safety, their dignity, or their lives.  In Warhol’s Muses, bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer shines a spotlight on the complex women who inspired and starred in Warhol’s legendary underground films—The Chelsea Girls, The Nude Restaurant, and Blue Movie, among others. Drawn by the siren call of Manhattan life in the sixties, they each left their protected enclaves and ventured to a new world, Warhol’s famed Factory, having no sense that they would never be able to return to their old homes and familiar ways again. Sex was casual, drugs were ubiquitous, parties were wild, and to Warhol, everyone was transient, temporary, and replaceable. It was a dangerous game he played with the women around him, and on a warm June day in 1968, someone entered the Factory and shot him, changing his life forever. Warhol’s Muses explores the lives of ten endlessly intriguing women, transports us to a turbulent and transformative era, and uncovers the life and work of one of the most legendary artists of all time."

This is Fred's third appearance on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. I wanted to get Fred back on asap as part of my ongoing quest to keep people financially safe. Fred is the Founder and Managing Member of Lane Generational LLC, an independent registered investment advisor headquartered in Boston (www.lanegenerational.com). Lane Generational provides investment management services on a discretionary basis to individuals, families, trusts, foundations and institutions. Full disclosure. My wife and I are investors in Fred's fund. But I have no financial relationship of any kind with Fred. I'm not a financial advisor and am certainly not recommending any investments of any kind, including Fred's. This is an educational podcast. For investment advice, please consult with an investment professional. The market is down roughly 4 percent since President Trump took office on January 20th. But since then, it's experienced dramatic volatility with the "fear index" - the VIX -- rising, apart from COVID, to its highest value since the Great Recession. This week the Dow rose 1000 points in one day on the "good" news that rather than tariffing China at embargo-level rates, we've "paused" them at 30 percent. This means Mattel will be able to keep selling Barbie dolls, which are made in China, albeit at a far higher price. To be clear, a 30 percent tariff is astronomical. Even  Google's AI gets this right. Yes, a 30 percent tariff can be considered astronomical, especially when compared to average global tariff rates and historical tariffs. Thus, most Americans with children will now be able to afford, say, 15 Barbies rather than the usual 30. That means Mattel will lay off perhaps a quarter rather than all of its salesforce. In short, we're not out of the dark. We're out of the pitch black. The U.S. market is partially benefiting from the potential lack of competition. But who knows where it will go once investors wake up and realize that, from a tariff perspective, it's likely the Great Depression all over again. How should anyone invest in this climate? That's the key question I asked Fred who is one of the most informed and savvy investors around. Don't take it from me. Take it from CNBC and other major media outlets who routinely invite Fred to comment on markets, the economy, and policy. Here's a brief bio.  Fred has over 40 years of investment and corporate finance experience, as a portfolio manager, a private equity investor and an investment banker. Fred's clients have included Staples (where he was a founding investor); Advanced Micro Devices; Forest Laboratories; ULTA Beauty; Tractor Supply; Berlitz International; Rexnord; Fairchild Industries; Plantronics; and numerous others. Fred is also a highly experienced private equity investor, having invested in more than 80 private companies. Fred received his A.B, cum laude from Harvard College and his MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School.Prior to founding Lane Generational in September 2020, Fred was Senior Vice President, Investments at Raymond James & Associates, Inc. from October 2014 to September 2020 and also served as Vice Chairman, Investment Banking from May 2009 to October 2014. Fred was Chairman, CEO and Founder of the investment banking firm Lane, Berry & Co. International, LLC (which was acquired by Raymond James in May 2009) from January 2002 through January 2013. Prior to that, Fred was a Managing Director and Principal of Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette Securities Corporation (DLJ). Fred joined DLJ in 1976 and was instrumental in the growth of DLJ's investment banking business. He also served as Co-Head of the Mergers and Acquisitions Department at DLJ and as Managing Director – Senior Advisor of Credit Suisse First Boston upon CSFB's acquisition of DLJ in 2000. 

I'm just delighted to have Anders Åslund on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. I met Anders in the late 1990s when he asked me to go with him to Russia to discuss pension and other economic reforms with the Russian government. At the time, Anders was working for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is now Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. This was a period of great hope for Russia, making it the first of many fascinating consulting and research (with the Gaidar Institute) trips to Russia. But the best part of returning to Russia (which my great grandfather had escaped on a stolen horse!) was meeting Anders, who is both a marvelous economist and extremely well informed about the global economy and geopolitics. Please listen to/watch this podcast to learn Anders assessment of the future of Ukraine, what's driving President Trump's policy, and his scary assessment of the world economy. 

Mark and Kara are a 50-50 combination of Top Gun and The Right Stuff. Mark was chosen by the Airforce to fly the U-2 Spy Plane -- at 72,000 feet, in a space suit to keep from compressing to a raison. Kara was picked to fly the Airforce's enormous C-5 cargo plane -- large enough to hold five trailways buses. Mark was Kara's flight instructor years before they accidentally reconnected and ended up getting married. After leaving the Airforce, the two started flying for United. Mark still does, while Kara trains Airforce pilots to fly large military drones. Mark and Kara are avid users of my company's MaxiFi Planner software, which is how we connected. Nicer people you won't meet. And they make "Thank you for your Service" as large an understatement as it gets. They also remind us why we feel safe entrusting pilots. They are that rarest of breed -- people on whom we can really count. Please listen/watch this video to get simply fascinating, insider information on aviation, both military and commercial. Kara and Mark are starting to work with my company -- providing office hours to newbie users of MaxiFi, doing demos for financial advisers, and, shortly, offering concierge financial planning for clients who want real pilots in the cockpit. 

The markets are going nuts for a good reason. The Administration is taking, at random, three steps backwards and 1 step forward on a wide range of issues. These include effectively eliminating trade with China, threatening the independence of the Fed, attacking our nation's comparative advantages in education, scientific achievement, training foreign students, and providing tourists a warm welcome to our country. Now our chosen one is in the process of turning back the best and the brightest, attempting to deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants, denying habeas corpus, knifing Ukraine and NATO in the back, abrogating the rule of law, and fill in the blanks. This is my take. Torsten Slok, whose wiki page is here, is not party one way or the other to my views. He's sticking strictly to the facts in appraising the markets and our national and global economy. In so doing, he provides a stark warning about our economy's near-term economic and financial futures. Torsten is a brilliant economist. But he's also as informed as it gets on what's going on in all corners of our and the rest of the world's markets. Hence, this is a podcast you don't want to miss! 

David Barboza, a Brilliant, Informed, and Thoughtful China Expert, Discusses U.S.-China Relations. The Relationship has gone from Distant to Close and Now to Dangerous as the U.S. Faces Economic Irrelevance

Trump, the German View. A Discussion with Rüdiger Bachmann, One of Germany's Most Influential Economists and Public Intellectuals

Is Musk-Trump's Evisceration of Financial Oversight Sheer Lunacy? Richard Berner, NYU Professor of Finance, Former First Director of the Treasury's Office of Financial Research, and Former Morgan Stanley Chief Economics Sounds the Alarm!I'm delighted to have my long-time friend, Dick (Richard) Berner, on the podcast. Dick is among the most knowledgeable economists in the world when it comes to the workings of U.S. and global financial markets, particularly their risk of collective collapse. Dick is Clinical Professor of Management Practice in the Department of Finance, and, with Professor Robert Engle, Co-Director of the Stern Volatility and Risk Institute. Having served as Chief Economist for Morgan Stanley and the first Director of the U.S. Treasury's Office of Financial Research (OFR) -- our government's financial market watchdog, Dick is perfectly poised to address the risks arising from the Trump Administration's arbitrary termination of top financial-stability officials as well as DOGE data breaches of every American's tax and other financial records. More on Richard BernerProfessor Berner received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in Economics from Harvard College in 1968, and his PhD in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976. Berner was counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury from April 2011 to 2013. Professor Berner was a managing director, chief US economist at Morgan Stanley from 1999 to 2011 and co-head of Global Economics from 2008 to 2011. Berner served as executive vice president and chief economist at Mellon Bank. He also was a member of Mellon's Senior Management Committee (1992-99). Previously, he served as a principal and senior economist for Morgan Stanley, as a director and senior economist for Salomon Brothers (1985-91), as economist for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company (1982-85) and as director of the Washington, DC, office of Wharton Econometrics (1980-82).Professor Berner served on the research staff of the Federal Reserve in Washington (1972-80). He has been an adjunct professor of economics at Carnegie-Mellon University and at George Washington University. He is an advisor to FinRegLab, an innovation center that tests new technologies and data to inform public policy and promote a responsible and inclusive financial marketplace. He is a member of the Milken Fintech initiative, led by former OCC head Tom Curry and former Treasury official Melissa Koide. He is a senior advisor to MacroPolicy Perspectives, an economic consulting firm. He is a member of the Board of Advisors of HData, which helps data companies involved in RegTech and Legal Tech solutions. He is a member of the IMF panel of experts for financial stability. He is a member of the Advisory Council of the Alliance for Innovative Regulation.

Terry Savage, our Nation's Brilliant Personal Finance Guru, Returns to Economics Matters to Discuss Roth Conversions

Superb Economist, Moshe Milevsky, Discusses Mitigating Longevity Risks Via Past, Present, and Future Tontines/AnnuitiesMoshe Milevsky is one of my all-time favorite economists. He's a true expert on personal financial economics and when it comes to longevity risk, there is no greater authority. He's also a joy to learn from. Moshe has an uncanny ability to deliver complex ideas in the simplest possible manner with the help of his secret weapon -- his terrific sense of humor. You are going to thoroughly enjoy this Economics Matters podcast. Here's Moshe's wiki bio.  Moshe Milevsky is a professor of finance at the Schulich School of Business at York University, and a member of the Graduate Faculty in the Department of Mathematics & Statistics, in Toronto, Canada, where he has been based and teaching for over 25 years. He earned a B.A. in mathematics and physics from Yeshiva University in 1990, an M.A. in mathematics and statistics from York University in 1992 and a Ph.D. in business finance from York University in 1996. His area of expertise is in mathematical financial economics, pensions, insurance, actuarial science and history of financial products. He has done extensive research on exotic option pricing, quantitative personal financial planning (focusing on investment strategies for retiring individuals), insurance derivatives, pensions, annuities, tontines and stochastic mortality models.[2] He is also the executive director of the Individual Finance and Insurance Decisions Centre (IFID), a non-profit corporation dedicated to generating advanced research at the intersection of wealth management, personal finance, and insurance.[3] For his contributions to the Fields Institute and to the Canadian mathematical community, Moshe was inducted as a Fields Institute Fellow in 2002.[4] Moshe A. Milevsky is the author of 17 books, including the popular Are You a Stock or a Bond, and The 7 Most Important Equations for Your Retirement and the more advanced The Calculus of Retirement Income, which summarizes much of the research that Milevsky has done on quantitative retirement income planning.[5] His recent books include King William's Tontine: Why the Retirement Annuity of the Future Should Resemble Its Past (Cambridge 2015) and The Day the King Defaulted: Financial Lessons from the Stop of the Exchequer in 1672.

Liz Weston, the Internet's Most Read Personal Finance Columnist Joins Economics Matters -- the Podcast to Share Her Career-Long Trove of Critical Financial Secrets and Advice Liz Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist on the Internet. Her twice-weekly columns for MSN Money generate 10 million page views each month, and millions more read her Q&A columns that appear in newspapers including the Los Angeles Times and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, as well as her regular column for AARP. She is a frequent commentator on American Public Media’s Marketplace Money and contributor to National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered. Her television appearances include Dr. Phil, Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Fox Business and CNBC’s Power Lunch.I've known Liz for a long time. She is a wonderful journalist and person. Please listen/view this highly informative podcast covering Liz's career, advice, and thinking on a wide range of personal finance questions. Regardless of your walk in life, this podcast will provide you food for both thought and financial action. 

Jay Abolofia, PhD economist, CFP, and President of Lyon Financial Planning, joins me to discuss your ticket to potentially major lifetime tax savings. It's MaxiFi's Roth Conversion Optimizer. The Optimizer is a powerful new addition to MaxiFi Planner. MaxiFi, developed by my software company, Economic Security Planning, Inc., does economics-based financial planning. 

A year back, George Kinder joined Economics Matters -- the Podcast, to discuss his life's passion -- integrating Mindfulness, Meditation, and Money. They sound like strange bedfellows, but George is one part Henry Thoreau, one part Zen Master, one part Financial Guru, and ten parts Mensch. George's bio is here. He's a giant in the field of personal finance, based not just on his unique philosophical approach to money, but due to having trained thousands of financial planners -- in person or via his writings, about the path to personal and professional enlightenment. This requires, as George's new book points out, learning how to freeze, release, and expand each of our moments. Our lives are a sequence of moments. We have the freedom to control those moments, to make them longer by making them more productive and meaningful. This carries over to expanding the effective time in our lives, permitting us to have the time of our lives -- for ourselves and others. That's real freedom. 

Medicare Open Enrollment Is Here! And Phil Moeller's Back to Discuss his New Book: Get What's Yours for Medicare: Revised and Updated.  Phil's hot new book, Get What's Yours for Medicare: Maximize Your Coverage and Minimize Your Cost --  is available at Simon & Schuster as well as here, here, and here. Phil's my good friend and co-author with PBS NewsHour's Paul Solman of our NY Times best seller and fully up-to-date, Get What's Yours -- the Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security. This is Phil's second appearance on Economics Matters -- the Podcast. We discuss recent changes to Medicare and how best to decide whether to choose Traditional Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan during the current open enrollment period. This is a complex decision.  Grab your kids, grab your spouse, grab your friends, and have everyone read Get What's Yours for Medicare: Revised and Updated before helping you make this major decision. 

Famed Washington Post Columnist and Editorial Board Member, Eduardo Porter, Joins Economics Matters --- the Podcast! Eduardo's books, The Price of Everything and American Poison are must reads. But then there's been an endless and ongoing stream of simply outstanding columns. Take this 2018, NY Times article on the Rust Belt. Roughly 800 words later, you have almost all you need to know about why "Make America Great Again" is not about fighting our supposed foreign economic enemies or keeping out rapists immigrants stealing our jobs. Instead, it's about education, city-specific economic initiatives, attracting new business, and capitalizing on the diversity of the available workforce. Listen or watch as Eduardo discusses our terrible, mixed-up, tribal, and also sporadically fantastic country and world. Eduardo has lived everywhere, investigated everything, listened to everyone, and thought out of the box on the entire gamut of economic, political, and social issues. He's a national treasure, not just for what he writes, not just for how he writes, but for showing everyone what journalism at the highest level continues to be.  Here's Eduardo's Washington Post bio page with a treasure trove of his writings. And those are simply articles in the Post. Eduardo spent two decades writing for and serving on the editorial board of the NY Times.  Before that, it was Bloomberg and others. Eduardo speaks five languages. 

One of the World's Top Economists -- MIT's Daron Acemoglu -- Discusses Automation, the Secret to Development, AI, the Origins of Conflict, Networks, the Sustainability of Democracy, and, Well, Your Jaw Will Drop.  Daron's Wiki page is here. The key point in is bio? At 40, Daron received the John Bates Clark Medal for the top economist under 40. He's just turned 57. Were there a prize for the top economist under 57 or, indeed, 100, Daron would be the sure winner. Please listen/watch this terrific episode of Economics Matters -- the Podcast and spend time with, arguably, the world's top economists, who is also the most down-to-earth, humble, and wonderful person.

Everything has changed since September 2022 when I discussed Israel's economy and geopolitics with Eytan and Yuval Steinitz, one of Israel's top security experts and former Finance Minister. Eytan's extraordinary bio, covering his amazing academic, public policy, and private-sector careers, is posted here. Please listen/watch this podcast that provides an up-to-date assessment of the war in Gaza, Israel's escalating confrontation with Iran and its proxies, particularly Hezbollah, and the political situation -- domestic and international. Eytan is a pure, but tough Mensch. You can hear in his voice the agony of this conflict -- for Israel, the hostages and their families, the thousands of innocent Palestinians who have been killed or injured, and for his own grandchildren, several of whom are in the military.  

Kevin Esler is the creator of ⁠⁠tipsladder.com⁠⁠, a free website that helps you purchase TIPS -- Treasury Inflation Protected Bonds. Back on July 18th, Kevin joined Economics Matters - the Podcast to walk everyone though his tremendously valuable tipsladder.com website. Kevin's spent the last few months making the tool far more accessible and versatile. You can now use a slider bar to see how much a ladder will cost that produces a given amount of annual real income over your specified number of years. You can also adjust the cost to determine how much real income will be forthcoming over your specified interval. I think watching / listening to this new podcast, either on its own or in combination with the prior podcast, will leave you an expert on the tool. In particular, you'll see that it's truly no big deal building (by purchasing) a tips ladder that can match up with the withdrawals of regular and retirement account assets needed to sustain your living standard. These withdrawal amounts are calculated by MaxiFi Planner. Just look for the red withdrawal amounts in the saving reports for both regular and retirement accounts.Kevin is a retiree from Australia with an extensive background in software and technology, which he leveraged into a series of top software engineering jobs at a range of leading companies including IBM, HP, and Disney Plus. After moving to the US he settled into a series of roles that saw him specializing in evolving technology and software development. Kevin is uniquely positioned as an authority due to his multifaceted expertise in tech and finance, particularly in understanding and managing investment strategies involving Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS).

Take the guesswork out of financial decisions at every stage of life with Maxifi: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://maxifiplanner.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Designed by Economist Laurence Kotlikoff. Andrew Fesiak joins Professor Kotlikoff on Economics Matters for the 3rd time. He is a notable expert in Eastern European military and political affairs, particularly regarding Ukraine and Russia. Andrew’s insights are shaped by his profound connection to Ukraine, having lived there for over 22 years and studied at Kyiv State University. As a member of Black Trident, a U.S. security and defense consulting group, and a frequent commentator on Middle Eastern platforms, Andrew provides a nuanced and authoritative perspective on the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Topics Covered: War and Peace Dynamics Ukrainian Defense Strategies Russia's Economic Struggles Implications of Western Support Time Stamps: 00:00 Arabic press prefers Russia; Middle Eastern interviews frequent. 08:38 Ukraine has reopened Black Sea trade routes successfully. 14:09 First post-WWII invasion and occupation of Russia. 19:37 Ukraine develops missiles independently, bypassing production within Ukraine. 22:04 Ukraine's drones hit Russia, affecting morale notably. 31:08 Ukraine's nuclear threat deters Russian escalation, speculation. 34:53 Biden needs advice from gang leaders, not Sullivan. 41:56 Is peace by conceding eastern Ukraine possible? 47:53 Western support critical for Ukrainian morale and combat. 49:36 Russians poorly equipped; conscripting older soldiers. 55:09 Andrew's insights: Patriotic, optimistic, urging West to support Ukraine. 01:01:36 US can't support Ukraine, can't defeat China. This discussion presents invaluable insights for anyone interested in international relations, military strategy, and the geopolitical intricacies of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Andrew Fesiak's deep-rooted understanding of the situation offers perspectives that are not only academically rich but also grounded in real-world implications. ____________________________________________________ Laurence Kotlikoff is a Boston University Economist, a NY Times Best Selling Author, President of maxifi.com, and Author of Money Magic. Follow Professor Kotlikoff: Facebook: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠kotlikoff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@kotlikoff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠laurencekotlikoff⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://larrykotlikoff.substack.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Books: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://kotlikoff.net/books/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠  Company: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://maxifiplanner.com/⁠⁠⁠