He needs no introduction: When trade is in the news, we speak with Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations. Brad has been talking for awhile about the major imbalances of world trade, and the US-China relationship in particular. However, rather than building up a large trading bloc with our allies to counter Chinese influence, the Trump administration has chosen a path of going it alone, targeting friend and foe alike with large and wide-ranging tariffs. In this episode, we talk about the significance of the move, the potential damage, and what, if any, positive scenarios could result.

Read More:
Global Recession Fears Engulf Wall Street on Tariff Retaliation
Matt Levine: The Tariffs Have Some Math

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On Wednesday, President Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs against almost every country in the world. The size and scope was far beyond what anyone was anticipating, causing markets to subsequently plunge. But what's next? Could it work out for the US? Will we see a spike in inflation? Will the global trading system continue to operate? On this episode, we speak with Tom Orlik, the chief economist for Bloomberg Economics, on the historical nature of this stagflationary shock, and what happens to the US and global economies if these numbers remain in place.

Read More:
Economists Slash US Growth, Boost Inflation Forecasts on Tariffs
Germany and France Push for More Aggressive Tariff Response

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The 2008 financial crisis is fading into history, but the risks of something big happening again remain. In this episode, we speak with Tim Geithner, the former US Treasury secretary and head of the New York Fed during the tumultuous collapse of Lehman Brothers. The conversation coincides with the launch of Yale's New Bagehot Project, which is aimed at guiding the next generation of financial crisis-fighters (Geithner is Chair of the program on financial stability at the Yale University School of Management). We talk about what's most important when it comes to putting out financial fires, and what could have been done differently during 2008. And of course, we also talk current risks in the financial system.

Read more:
US Debt Load Tops Fed’s Survey of Financial Stability Risks
Fiscal Debt Binge Is World’s Biggest Stability Threat, BIS Says
Subprime Collapse to Global Financial Meltdown: Timeline

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Last month, Donald Trump fired the Federal Trade Commission's two Democratic commissioners. They have since filed suit, arguing that the law that created the FTC — as well as a 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent — prevent the president from firing them without cause. And now, what might seem like a niche legal dispute could end up having much bigger consequences for other independent government agencies, including the Federal Reserve. That would be a huge shock for Wall Street, which tends to value central bank independence. In this episode, we speak with Lev Menand, professor at Columbia Law School and author of The Fed Unbound, to talk about the huge stakes involved in this case.

Read More:
Trump and the Fed Are on a Collision Course
Who Will Protect the Fed’s Independence? The Markets

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Legendary media mogul Nick Denton, the founder of Gawker, is done with the US. He’s leaving New York City for good, and moving with his family to the Buda Hills near Budapest. And when it comes to his stock portfolio, he’s done with the US as well. On this episode of the podcast, he tells us why he’s bullish on China, and says that the fall of Elon Musk may be the biggest business story in the entire world. We also talk about the end of the Atlanticist dream, why European elites are turning so sharply against the US, and his investment approach.

Read more:
BYD Sales Top Tesla as Tech Focus Wins Over Chinese Drivers
Xiaomi Plans to Expand Beijing EV Factory to Meet Surging Demand

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One of the biggest questions hanging over the market right now is whether or not the seemingly unlimited appetite for more AI data center spending is slowing down or not. This type of tech infrastructure has been a massive sectoral winner over the last few years. But of course, this isn't the first time investors have gotten excited about this type of trade. The late 1990s and early 2000s are often remembered as being the time of a "tech bubble" or "dot-com bubble," but one specific aspect was the buildout in broadband infrastructure, or what became known as the telecom bubble. So what was that all about? Why were investors so optimistic? And how did it end? At our recent live episode in Washington DC, we spoke with Blair Levin, policy adviser to New Street Research. He was the chief of staff at the FCC during the telecom deregulation of the 1990s, and in the early 2000s went to work on Wall Street. He tells us about differences and similarities between then and now, plus the signs of when the ride is coming to an end.

Read More: What It Felt Like When Everyone Was Hopeful, Happy, and Rich

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Brad Jacobs has made a fortune in his career buying and building big logistics companies, like United Rentals, Waste Management, XPO (trucking company), GXO (warehouses), and RXO (freight brokerage). His current venture is QXO, which raised billions of dollars in order to enter the building supply industry. After a long search and a couple months of battling with the executive team, QXO announced last week that it would be acquiring publicly traded roofing supply company Beacon Roofing for $11 billion. So why expand into roofing supply? And why Beacon specifically? We sat down with Brad to talk about the roofing industry, his vision for improving the company, what other opportunities are out there, and what he's seeing in the general economy right now.

Read more:
QXO Agrees to Acquire Beacon Roofing Supply in $11 Billion Deal
Affordable Housing Developers Stalled by Blocked Federal Funds

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President Trump wants higher tariffs, and he also wants more industrial production in the United States. This we know. In the meantime, a coterie of economists and pundits have tried to assemble a larger intellectual architecture to explain that strategy in a coherent way. The story they tell is one where America gets paid by its allies for national security and access to American markets, while the US brings down its debt and deficits, and weakens the dollar, so as to make US manufacturing more globally competitive. Whether Trump sees things this way himself, and whether it will actually work is an entirely separate question. On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Jim Millstein, co-chair of Guggenheim Securities, about what he sees as the massive risks underway with this line of thinking. During his time in government, he was closely involved with the conservatorship arrangement of the GSEs, so we also talk about the possibility of re-privatizing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Read more:
Dalio Warns of US Debt Crisis ‘Heart Attack’ Within Three Years
Wishful Thinking Won’t Solve the US Debt Crisis

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