Press

The run on fiat currency

Paul Buitink of Reinventing.Money interviewed William White on 3 February 2026. Initially the discussion focussed on Canada, White’s country of birth, and its resilience to the Trump administration’s trade threats. However, reference to Canada’s recent trade deal with China then elicited a discussion of China’s  increasing relience on exports, to spur domestic growth, and its intentions concerning the reserve staus of the renmimbi. Turning to US monetary policy, White expanded on his  recent letter in the Financial Times. It aaccused the Fed of having commited “original sin” in the late 1990’s by keeping interest rates low when productivity growth  was improving. This encouraged a big builup of debt that put the US on the bad path of an ever expanding government safety net and rising exposure to both financial and fiscal dominance.   White expressed concern that Kevin Warsh might continue to underestimate the importance of this threat to financial stability , the dominance of the dollar and fiat currencies more generally.

 

https://youtu.be/ck2Dkjx0Jeo

 

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

Lessons Learned Oral History Project Interview

The Yale University Program on Financial Stability in May 2025 conducted an interview with William White asking for his views on the role of central bank “easy money” policies in the runup to the Great Financial Crisis and subsequently. The interviewer, Mercedes Cardona, had read a great deal of White’s published work and was well prepared to question some of his responses.

Mercedes Cardona Intreview

 

 

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

Is Europe Playing with Fire?

The magazine “The International Economy” recently asked a number on international economists to comment on the wisdom of extending the quantity of bonds issued by the EU and supported by provisions of “joint and several” responsibility. WilliamWhite reponded by saying that there were good reasons for supprting such bond issues to date. However, he felt their were also good reasons for believing that this was not a precursor to the issue of EU bonds supported by an expanded capacity of the EU to levy increased taxes across the EU. Given growing nationalist sympathies among the European states, a further near -term move towards fiscal union was likely a bridge too far.

http://www.international-economy.com/TIE_Su25_EUBondSymp.pdf

Posted by williamw in Articles, Press

Global Debt Bubble Could Trigger Financial Crisis

On November 7, 2024, William White was interviewed on the David Lin Report. He again made the case that rising debt levels, particularly of sovereigns in advanced countries, made the prospect of some kind of financial crisis more likely. Whereas White in the past had recommended rather tighter monetary policies to lean against debt accumulation, that accumulation was now so large that such tightening could have dangerous implications. Also, given the likelihood of further stagflationary shocks going forward, White felt that policymakers might be forced to accept higher inflation and also to introduce instruments of financial repression. On international cooperation, White worried that conflict between China and the US would impede cooperation for many years. This would have negative effects on financial stability, environmental change, public health and elsewhere.

 

https://youtu.be/UWT_zFTPYkw

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

Former Chief Economist Explains Monetary End Game

William White was interviewed on 15 September by Paul Buitink of “Reinventing Money”. They covered current concerns including the sustainability of sovereign debt service in a number of advanced countries. White also reflected on the dymanics of “boom bust” cycles and how debt overhang problems might be dealt with. In this latter regard, he concluded there were currently only bad options available. A fuller description of the contents is provided at the beginning of the recording.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDWkIRFbEXU

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

How money is created in a modern economy

William White and Douglas Laxton, director of the Better Policy Project, had a discussion on 3 September focussed on how money is created in a modern economy. White stressed his strong support for the school of endogenous money that recognizes that banks create money out of nothing by making loans (a bank asset) and then crediting the borrowers deposit account with an equivelant amount of money (a bank liability). This capacity underlies the recurrent observation of costly boom and bust credit cycles, and the cumulative build up of debt and other economic imbalances that now threaten economic and financial  stability. Laxton then led a discussion of how AI might, or might not, lead to significant increases in productivity that might alleviate such problems.

 

 

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

That’s the Monetary End Game

William White recently gave an interview to Gold Republic Global, who summarized the conversation as follows. “Former top central banker at BIS William White breaks down the dangerous consequences of decades of ultra-easy money. From exploding debt and central bank paralysis to inflationary threats, financial repression, and the return of gold—this conversation reveals why the global financial system is reaching a breaking point. White breaks down the growing risks of financial and fiscal dominance, the fragility of the current debt-laden system, and the historic forces driving us from an “age of plenty” to an “age of scarcity.” From malinvestment and financial repression to the rising role of gold and the BRICS monetary pivot, this episode offers a rare insider perspective on where the global economy is heading.”

 

 

 

 

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

Is a serious global debt crisis likely?

This question was adressed by a number of economists in the Summer 2024 edition of The Internationl Economy. William White (page 25) noted that the global economy is a complex, adaptive system and such systems often break down. We have had three major, global recessions since 1990 and they have all arisen from the financial sector. In each case, a sharp easing of monetary policy led to a debt buildup that then contributed to the next financial crisis as interest rates rose again.  Moreover, the credit granted as a counterpart to this debt has increasingly been granted by non-regulated entities. We do not know who has lent to whom. Against this backdrop, we now seem likely to encounter a number of inflationary pressures arisisng from secular forces; demographics, deglobalisation, climate change etc. A future, global debt crisis now seems more than likely.

 

InternationalEconomyTIE_Su24_GlobalDebtSymp

 

Posted by williamw in Articles, Press

Central banks need escape route from cycle of boom and bust

In his FT article of 1 November, 2024, John Plender made favourable reference to my most recent publication “Why the monetary framework in advanced countries needs fundamental reform”. It has been published as a chapter in the book “The age of debt bubbles”, edited by Max Rangely and published by Springer. Plender concludes that we urgently need debate on excessive monetary easing and the neglect of credit and debt developments. I totally agree, and would add (see my recent AEI presentation) that central banks have essentially ignored supply side developments as well.

https://www.ft.com/content/72b48b7d-ec17-4135-aa40-98b96eec2e64

Posted by williamw in Press, References

Grading the Negative Rate Experiment

A panel of economists responded to this challenge in the Spring Edition of  “The International Economy”. The panelists assessment were almost evenly divided between “A” and “F”  with an equal balance of division across all the letters in between. William White aligned himself with those giving an “F” ranking. While negative rates did not lead to the catastrophic outcomes suggested by some, they constituted an extension of the ultra-easy monetary policies in place since the Great Financial Crisis. White believes these policies were fundamentally misguided, leaving us exposed to both “financial dominance” and “fiscal dominance”.

InternationalEconomyGrading the Negative Rate ExperimentJune 2024

Posted by williamw in Articles