The Reluctant Central Banker

Is the Federal Reserve’s independence a pillar of democracy or a convenient shield that allows elected officials to duck their responsibilities? This week on Capitalisn’t, we confront a shift in Washington after the Justice Department served subpoenas on the Fed. Joining the conv ... Show More

Is the American tax code a fair engine for growth, or a "second estate" where the rich choose whether or not to pay? We are often told that the top 1% of earners already pay 40% of all taxes, while nearly half of Americans pay nothing at all. Legal scholar Ray Madoff argues that ... Show More

Is capitalism a force of nature, or a human-made order that we have the power to shape? In this episode, Luigi and Bethany sit down with Sven Beckert, a Harvard historian and author of the new book A Global History of Capitalism, to tackle a question that seems basic but remains ... Show More

On this edition of Wall Street Week, Key Square Capital CEO Scott Bessent says that the Fed hasn't been very independent under President Biden. Columbia Law School Professor Kathryn Judge tells us how the Supreme Court's Chevron reversal could affect bank regulations. Former Brit ... Show More

Central bankers emerged from the financial crisis with more clout than ever before. Can this be reconciled with democratic legitimacy? Former Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker explains why monetary authorities have become “overmighty citizens”, and how to rein them in. ... Show More

Patrick Jenkins and guests discuss the future of European banking post Brexit on the sidelines of the FT's first Banking and Finance Conference in Paris, plus the latest on separate initiatives by Facebook and by a group of 13 banks to explore the potential for bitcoin transactio ... Show More

The Royal Bank of Scotland was once the biggest bank in the world. Then, hubris got the best of it. During the financial crisis the UK government spent £46bn to bail out the bank. Seventeen years and a rebrand to NatWest Group later, the government just sold its last shares in it ... Show More

In Unexpected Revolutionaries: How Central Banks Made and Unmade Economic Orthodoxy (Cornell University Press, 2024), Dr. Manuela Moschella investigates the institutional transformation of central banks from the 1970s to the present. Central banks are typically regarded as conser ... Show More

Central bankers are like celebrities in the finance world: every word they say gets closely scrutinised. Did their comments always elicit such interest, and do they ever tell us anything they shouldn't? Bloomberg Opinion columnist and avid central bank watcher, Daniel Moss, joins ... Show More

Goldman Sachs Vice Chair Robert Kaplan, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, says he expects sluggish growth but not a recession. Speaking with Sonali Basak at the Goldman Sachs Tenth Annual Leveraged Finance and Credit Conference in Dana Point, California, Kap ... Show More

How did it feel to take on then Prime Minister Boris Johnson when Baroness Hale ruled his suspension of Parliament "unlawful"? Why does the Trump administration present such a threat to the international rule of law? The ‘Spider Woman’ has been at the centre of the legal battle f ... Show More

This weekend we're joined by Anat Admati, co-author of The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It. New bank failures have been a rude awakening for everyone who believed that the banking industry was reformed after the Global Financial Crisis, and ... Show More

Peter Orszag is a London School of Economics trained economist, best known for decades for his service in government as part of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, and eventually for his Cabinet position as head of Presid ... Show More