The Hale Report

My guest today is Barry Eichengreen, one of the world’s leading economic historians, professor of economics and political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of many books including his newest, Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto. His work has shaped how we understand the gold standard, the Great Depression, exchange-rate regimes, sterling, the euro, and the dollar, one of the of the key topics we will be discussing today.

Today’s guest is Arthur Laffer, one of the most influential economists in modern public policy.Dr. Laffer is of course best known for the Laffer Curve, the idea that tax rates can reach a point where they discourage work, investment, and entrepreneurship — ultimately reducing economic growth and government revenue.His work helped shape the tax reforms associated with President Ronald Reagan, and his ideas continue to influence debates about taxation and economic growth today. For his contributions he received the Presidential Medal of Honor.

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

In this episode of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Ruby Wang about China’s rapid transformation of its healthcare system - and why it matters far beyond medicine.Drawing on personal experience, economic analysis, and cultural insight, the conversation explores how healthcare has become central to China’s development model, its approach to aging and demographics, and its growing influence in biotech, digital health, and pharmaceutical supply chains.The discussion also confronts one of the most persistent barriers to understanding China: fundamentally different assumptions about privacy, data, and the relationship between the individual and the state.

Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with David Marsh, the founder of OMFIF about Europe’s fractured landscape: Germany’s struggles, Russia’s war, US- China rivalry, regulation, the euro—and what must change for the continent to endure.

Guest host Marsha Vande Berg speaks with Karthik Muralidharan, Tata Chancellor’s Professor of Economics at UC San Diego and founder of the Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS). They discuss his acclaimed new book, Accelerating India’s Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance, exploring how better state capacity—not just more spending—can unlock India’s vast potential. A conversation about evidence-based reform, economic inclusion, and India’s evolving role on the world stage.

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

Today on The Hale Report, I’m joined by Joel Ross—investment banker, veteran dealmaker, and the unfiltered voice behind The Ross Rant. For decades, Joel has called out trends in finance, real estate, politics, and policy- long before they hit the headlines. From pioneering hotel securitizations on Wall Street to writing some of the most candid—and controversial—market commentary out there, Joel has never shied away from saying what others won’t.We’ll talk about the intersection of economics and politics, why markets can’t be separated from Washington, and what risks Joel sees just over the horizon. Be prepared for a conversation that’s equal parts markets, money, and straight talk.

Welcome to the 71st episode of the Hale Report. We are back after a short summer hiatus. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I am Editor-in-Chief of econVue and your host today, Tuesday, August 19, 2025. Our topic: Money in Motion: Stablecoins, Payments, and the Global FinTech Race. Today I’m joined by Collin Canright — a pioneer in Chicago’s fintech community, a seasoned journalist, and founder of FinTech Rising. For more than three decades, Collin has been making complex technologies accessible for business and financial leaders, from the earliest days of electronic banking in the 1980s to today’s digital payments and fintech revolutions. He’s also the founder of the Chicago Payments Forum and a coach to emerging leaders in the industry. Through his writing, publishing, and community-building, Collin has become one of the most trusted voices on the future of money.

EconVue editor Lyric Hughes Hale is joined by George DiMartino, professor of International Economics at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. They discuss his most recent book, The Tragic Science: How economists cause harm and they aspire to do good. Economic research has life  or death policy consequences seen by economists as trade-offs—not right or wrong, in the moral sense. De Martino believes that economics is a profession in search of a standards. A surgeon can yield a scalpel, and either do harm or good. For that reason doctors are tested, licensed, and have to ascribe to a code of ethics. This is not true for economists. As he writes: “Economists wield extraordinary power—but unlike doctors or lawyers, they do so without a professional oath, license, or code of conduct. That must change.”— The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics

Today, I’m joined by the Honorable Deborah L. Wince-Smith, a key figure in US innovation and competitiveness policy, whose expertise spans the intersections of science, technology, and economics.

In the 68th episode of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Brian McCarthy, founder of Macrolens and one of the sharpest voices on China and global macroeconomics. They discuss the latest round of U.S. tariffs, China’s mounting structural challenges, and how geopolitics and markets are colliding in 2025. Is China’s growth story over? What does that mean for investors and policymakers alike? Tune in for a wide-ranging conversation on trade, deflation, financial flows—and the illusion of stability.

Lyric Hughes Hale talks markets, economics, and geopolitics with Bluford "Blu" Putnam, a distinguished economist with over 35 years of experience in the financial services industry, encompassing roles in central banking, investment research, and portfolio management. Among other roles, he served as Chief Economist at CME Group. Given current market and policy volatility, he says that it is important to distinguish between uncertainty and risk.  They also talk about his new book, “The Apprenticeship of Warren Buffet”.

In Episode 66 of The Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale interviews Kerry Brown. His new book Why Taiwan Matters: A Short History of a Small Island that will Dictate Our Future was released today in the US. It is sobering and, I think, realistic. Professor Brown doesn’t see a way out of the current status quo in Taiwan:“For today, strenuous defence of the stalemate is all that we can meaningfully do. Anything else is insanity.”

My guest today is Rebecca Patterson, a distinguished American economist and investment strategist with over 25 years of experience analyzing the intersection of politics, policy, and economic trends in financial markets.

Dr. Ed Yardeni is a distinguished economist and investment strategist with over four decades of experience analyzing global financial markets. He is the President of Yardeni Research, Inc., a firm specializing in global investment strategies and asset-allocation analyses.

My guest is economist Jesper Koll, and our topic is Japan. We will be discussing how Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba's recent election has introduced significant shifts in Japan's political and economic landscape.

Welcome to the 62nd episode of the Hale Report. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I am editor-in-chief of EconVue and your host today, Friday, Nov 1st, 2024. My guest is Jason Furman. Professor Furman is the Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) and the Department of Economics at Harvard University.

On the 61st episode of the Hale Report, Lyric Hughes Hale welcomes Brian Wesbury. Chief economist at First Trust LP, he has advised the Federal Reserve and Congress. Mr Wesbury is a well-known business economist and a contrarian pundit on global economic issues, and a frequent media commentator.

Lyric Hughes Hale, editor-in-chief of econVue interviews Marc Faber. • Marc Faber is a legendary Swiss-born investment analyst and fund manager. His academic background in economics, combined with years of hands-on experience in financial markets, has helped shape his analytical style. • He is known for his contrarian views on financial markets and often pessimistic predictions about the global economy, earning him the nickname Dr Doom. He gained international prominence through his newsletter, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report, which focuses on economic trends, asset bubbles, and market volatility.

My guest is a household name in the world of finance, John Mauldin of Mauldin Economics. As you'll hear from our lighthearted banter on serious topics, John and I go way back. Uniquely, he is both highly knowledgeable, and entertaining. He makes complex topics approachable to broad audiences, including more than a million subscribers to his free weekly newsletter, Thoughts from the Frontline. John Mauldin is co-founder of Mauldin Economics. He has also written seven books on economics and finance, focusing on macroeconomic issues and the future of the global economy. His perspective is sought after in the financial industry for thought-provoking viewpoints, and by investors for his personal approach to money

Lyric Hughes Hale interviews David Sanger, national security and White House correspondent for the New York Times. They discuss his boo, The New Cold Wars.

My guest for the 57th episode of the Hale Report is Yohan Iddawela. He is a data scientist and LSE economist who shares his insights on the intersection of geospatial data science and economics. An Australian, he has lived around the world, did a stint at the World Bank, and currently conducts research at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

Lyric Hughes Hale interviews David Malpass, former president of the World Bank, for the Hale Report @econVue.

Welcome to the Hale Report. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I’m Editor-in-Chief of EconVue, based in Chicago, is a home for independent voices and expert analysis of critical global economic issues. ·      My guest today is Christopher Wood, the author of the legendary financial newsletter he began writing in 1996, Greed & Fear which comes with an equally legendary caution against forwarding to others, adding to its must-read cachet.  Chris, welcome, are you speaking to us today from Switzerland? ·      That Chris’s writing is engaging is not surprising. He began as a journalist at the Far Eastern Economic Review, then served as bureau chief in both New York and Tokyo for the Economist. He now serves as Global Head of Equity Strategy at Jeffries, the investment bank.   ·    Chris Wood has one of the best track records in the business. Few analysts were able to foresee the Global Financial Crisis, but Chris Wood did, warning for years about debt securitization. Today, he is concerned about private debt. We discussed liquidity, interest rates and the curious case of Japan, among many other topics that investors are focused on today as they try to assess both risks and opportunities in world of increasing geopolitical uncertainties .

Eleanor Hughes is guest host for the 54th edition of the Hale Report. She interviews fellow Japan expert Richard Katz about his new book,The Contest for Japan's Economic Future.

Lyric Hughes Hale interviews Stephen Bryen, a leading expert in security strategy and technology. He has held senior positions in the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill and as the President of a large multinational defense and technology company. He writes for Asia Times, American Thinker, the Jewish Policy Center and for many other newspapers and magazines. He has published four books on security subjects. Dr. Bryen was twice awarded the Defense Department's high civilian medal for Distinguished Public Service. He was also the founder of the Defense Technology Security Administration and served as a Commissioner on the US-China Security and Economic Review Commission. Bryen is a senior fellow at the Center for Security Policy and at the American Center for Democracy.

Lyric Hughes Hale interviews economist John Rogers on The Hale Report to discuss the Chinese economy.

Welcome to the Hale Report. My name is Lyric Hughes Hale, and I’m Editor-in-Chief of EconVue and your host today, Friday, February 16, 2024. EconVue, based in Chicago, is a home for independent voices and expert analysis of critical global economic issues. Thank you for joining us. My guest today for the 51st episode of the Hale Report is Edward J Pinto who is Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. He serves as Codirector at the AEI Housing Center.

Lyric Hughes Hale discusses monetary policy with British economist Timothy Congdon of the International Institute of Monetary Research. Congdon believes that the money supply, as controlled by central banks, is the key determinant of the health of a nation's economy. A drop in the money supply could signal a recession. On this episode of the Hale Report, they discuss prospects for the global economy in 2024.

Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Richard Haass, former diplomat and president of the Council on Foreign Relations. They discuss current conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine, and domestic relations in the US, and his new book, The Bill of Obligations about the state of democracy now and in the future.

Lyric Hughes Hale interviews Newt Gingrich to discuss his new book March to the Majority, The Real Story of the Republican Revolution. A wide ranging discussion that covers foreign affairs, upcoming elections, and the health of the American economy.

Lyric Hughes Hale speaks with Thomas E Gorman about his new book, Getting Russia Right.

You are going to be hearing a lot more about Iran soon. While geopolitical speculation has focused on Russia, China, and the United States, another country could be the locus of major instability —Iran. The US is increasing its military presence in the Persian Gulf, a move crowded out by discussions of other risks in these dog days of August. On that cautionary note— Welcome to The Hale Report. My guest for our 46th episode is Trita Parsi and our topic is Iran.

The assumption that carbon fuel will recede in the rear view mirror of our electric vehicles just might be wrong. I first began to question the concept of peak oil when speaking with experts Albert Bressand many years ago, and then Daniel Yergin, both guests of this podcast. Then at a meeting in Washington of the National Association of Business Economists, I wandered into a panel session with Mark Mills. His explanation of the resource issues associated with electrification of the global economy was revelatory. It is not just a matter of sourcing rare minerals such as lithium and cobalt for batteries, it is how we will dispose of those thousand-pound batteries when they come to the end of their life cycle. One thing he said really stuck in my mind: “There is no such thing as renewable energy.” There are realities we must deal with in terms of mineral availability and toxicity. A physicist by training, Mark P. Mills is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a Faculty Fellow at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science at Northwestern University.  I asked Mark Mills to join me on The Hale Report to explain his views on the future of energy and to discuss his book The Cloud Revolution: How the Convergence of New Technologies Will Unleash the Next Economic Boom and A Roaring 2020s  Mark is an expert in all things energy, with a broader focus on the technology of energy and telecommunications. His in-depth knowledge crosses several domains, as you will soon hear. He is a first-rank iconoclast whose opinion I highly value-as do many others. Although you might think Mark is a pessimist based on his views on electrification, he is actually quite optimistic about the future. The thesis of his book is convergence- microprocessors, materials and machines will symbiotically create a new economic boom. He believes that we are at what is called a Perez irruption point, the end of the beginning of a phase change, named after the economist Carlota Perez.

Lyric Hale talks to Mark Roeder, Australian author and futurist, about his book "What We Do Next Really Matters". Hale Strategic will be releasing a new report on the implications of artificial intelligence, or as some are now calling it, augmented intelligence. To mark its publication, we thought that you would enjoy getting to know more about its author, Mark Roeder. He challenges conventional wisdom about how the world works today, and discusses what we must do how to ensure its future.

Lyric Hughes Hale interviews Daniel Yergin Daniel Yergin, Vice Chairman of IHS MARKIT and founder of CERAWEEK. He is an expert in the geopolitics of energy and the global economy, and is a Pulitzer-prize winning author. His latest book is The New Map: Energy, Climate and the Clash of Nations was published by Penguin Press last year. The book is actually about the convergence of several maps: America, Russia, China, the Middle East, and Road and Climate maps. They discussed a wide range of topics, from climate change to cryptocurrencies to Ukraine-- even the Four Ghosts of the South China Sea, and the utter serendipity of innovation.

Lyric interviews Martin Wolf, the economics commentator for the Financial Times and author of a new book the Crisis of Democratic Capitalism. The book is a deeply thoughtful exploration of some ideas that might be troubling, including whether the economic and political system we presently enjoy is sustainable.

Lyric interviews Brad Setser, an economist and Whitney Shepardson senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Lyric has long admired Brad for his deep knowledge of global economic data, and his ability to interpret that information. Brad is one of our country’s most highly respected analysts of global capital flows, national tax competition, and trade imbalances and sovereign debt restructuring, a skill that I imagine is in high demand these days.

Lyric interviews Paul Dibb, an Australian strategist, academic and former defence intelligence official. They talked about two amorphous regions named Eurasia and the Indo-Pacific, and then Australia’s changing role.

Today's guest Shannon K. O'Neil is the vice president, deputy director of studies, and Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is an expert on global trade, supply chains, Mexico, Latin America, and democracy.

Our guest today is Professor Karim Pakravan, currently an Adjunct faculty in the Department of Economics and DePaul University in Chicago after retiring from full-time teaching at DePaul University, where he had been a Visiting Associate Professor of Finance at DePaul University (2008-2016). Prior to that, Pakravan had a 25-year career in global banking and finance with major U.S banks, focusing on global financial issues: Country Risk Management and later, Foreign Exchange and Emerging Markets advisory

Lyric Hughes Hale, editor-in-chief of EconVue, interviews Ali Wyne. Ali Wyne is a senior analyst with Eurasia Group's Global Macro-Geopolitics practice. He is a David Rockefeller fellow with the Trilateral Commission, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a security fellow with the Truman National Security Project. He also serves on Foreign Policy for America's Board of Directors. He is the author of the new book America's Great-Power Opportunity: Revitalizing U.S. Foreign Policy to Meet the Challenges of Strategic Competition (Polity, 2022).

Lyric Hughes Hale, editor-in-chief of EconVue, interviews Eric Yu-Chua Huang, who is the KMT’s Representative in Washington D.C., and an entrepreneur. They talked about mainland China and Taiwan relations, Taiwan's demographic challenge and the current global political landscape.

Lyric Hughes hale, editor-in-chief of EconVue, interviews Nell Minow, an expert on corporate governance. Nell has worked as an attorney for the EPA, the OMB, and the DOJ. She was formerly the principal of LENS, an activist investment firm, where our listeners probably first heard about her. She became known as the CEO killer, and the Queen of Corporate Governance. She is now head of Value Edge Advisors, a corporate governance consulting firm. She has written hundreds of articles on this subject.

My guest today for our 34th episode of the Hale Report is the Honorable Carla Anderson Hills, who is speaking with us from Washington DC. Carla Anderson Hills is a Californian who was trained as a lawyer at Yale and studied at Oxford. She has an illustrious career as a diplomat, a negotiator, a cabinet official, advisor & director to Fortune 500 companies and institutions. She now heads her own global advisory firm, Hills and Co.

My guest today for our 33rd episode of the Hale Report is Dante Alighieri Disparte, who is Chief Strategy Officer and Head of Global Policy for Circle. He also is a member of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Advisory Council, founder and chairman of the Risk Cooperative and serves on the World Economic Forum’s Digital Currency Governance Consortium. Our guest is going to answer the big questions: The shortcomings of legacy payment systems have created an opening for the development of blockchain-based finance. How big is the opportunity?

Dr Phil Levy Chief Economist at Flexport where he leads qualitative and quantitative economic research informed by public policy developments and proprietary data. • Dr. Levy's research informs the market on global trade trends and helps Flexport teams make product and business strategy decisions to best serve their clients.

My guest today for our 31st episode is Nicholas Benes, who is speaking to us from Tokyo. Mr Benes, or should I say Benese-sensei studied Japanese at Stanford, Sophia and Keio as the Japanese miracle began to unfold in the mid-seventies, just before another guest on our podcast Ezra Vogel wrote his famous book, Japan as Number One. He then earned a joint MBA and law degree at UCLA. He worked for more than a decade at JP Morgan in corporate finance, M&A, capital markets, swaps & derivatives, equity research, and real estate in New York, Tokyo, and London. He served as senior managing director of Kamakura Corporation, a risk management firm and then founded his own advisory firm, JTP Corporation, an M&A and corporate governance firm, and in addition is CEO of a non-profit, The Board Director Training Institute of Japan. Nick will be explaining a bit more about BDTI later in our podcast.

My guest today for our 30th episode is Andrew Smithers, and we are here to talk about his new book, “The Economics of the Stock Market’. I know that this is a topic that interests just about everybody in the Hale Report audience. He is here with us today to tell you that what you think you know about the stock market and interest rates is wrong.