47 min listen
Michael Pettis, Senior Fellow, Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy
FromAlpha Exchange
ratings:
Length:
53 minutes
Released:
Aug 8, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Michael Pettis is no stranger to episodes of financial crisis. Trading through multiple Latin American debt crises in the 1980’s, the Southeast Asia currency debacle in 1997 and, in its aftermath, the capital flight that engulfed Brazil, Michael has developed a rigorous framework for the how and why of these disruption events. Central to his approach is Hyman Minsky’s focus on the balance sheet and the relationship between assets and liabilities both for individual entities and across the system. Driving financial fragility, in Michael’s rendering, is a specific type of mismatch in which the payments on the liability side are vulnerable to sharply increasing when conditions become less favorable. Our conversation considers these events in the context of China, a country that Michael moved to in 2002 and has become a renowned expert on. Seeing China on an unsustainable debt path as early as 2007, Michael argues that the conditions for financial crisis are less obvious given the closed nature of the Chinese banking system and the powerful ability of the regulators to be able to force the creditors to restructure. Michael has plenty to share on a number of other important topics including MMT and his recent, important book, “Trade Wars are Class Wars”, in which he lays out the impact of globalization on wages and the resulting shifting of political tides in the US and abroad. Please enjoy this episode of the Alpha Exchange, my discussion with Michael Pettis.
Released:
Aug 8, 2020
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
James Grant, Founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer: A gunner’s mate in the Navy and a graduate of Indiana University, Jim Grant ventured to the financial desk at the Baltimore Sun in the early 1970’s. He joined Barron’s in 1975 before launching his firm in 1983. For more than 3 decades, Grant’s Interest Rate observer has twice monthly landed on the desk top of its readers, providing analysis that is deeply insightful, often skeptical and written in Jim’s uniquely compelling writing style. My conversation with Jim covers the bad old inflation days of the early 1980’s and the courage of Paul Volcker, the many lessons learned through risk cycles, negative interest rates and his view on the damage done to the price discovery process wrought by the interventionist activities of the modern Central Banker. Jim even shares his views on the National Weather Service in the course of our excellent discussion. Gold enthusiast, Fed critic, entrepreneur, accomplished author and father of 4, by Alpha Exchange