Interviews

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.”

Wiliam White was interviewed by Ed D’Agostino of Mauldin Economics on  August 2, 2024. The conversation was centered around White’s view that a combination of negative supply shocks, and the need for massive expenditures to confront national security, environmental and other requirements, would in the end have to squeeze consumer expenditures. Higher interest rates would be part of the process for doing this. Transitioning to an Age of Scarcity will create formidable political challenges to the democratic order. The interview itself, and the transcript, are attached below.

https://youtu.be/d2GG2u7agsE

Chris Sheridan, host of FS Insiders Podcast, recently interviewed William White about his most recent INET Working Paper. White reviewed the various shortcomings of the current framework; not least, how it has contributed to ever bigger credit bubbles and and ever higher stocks of both public and private debt. In spite of these developments, central banks showed no willingness to reassess either the framework itself or the set of false beliefs on which it rested. White expressed the hope that the conduct of monetary policy could be improved while maintaining the current institutional structure. However, he felt that it was also appropriate to assess seriously alternative and more radical options like the introduction of a “narrow money” regime. The widespread introduction of central bank digital currencies might facilitate such a change

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/4z8kmp8g1je5nrxeto75l/Bill-White-FSN-Interview.mp3?rlkey=cmj8y4g6fwjr6nxy1v6ziyk02&dl=0

MNI Market News posted on 3 March a podcast with William White, conducted by Greg Quinn of the Ottawa bureau. White listed a variety of reasons for expecting future aggregate supply to be constrained, and for future investment needs to strengthen. This implied a sustained need for higher real and nominal interest rates, raising fears of both financial instability and fiscal unsustainability. White suggested that fiscal restraint, directed primarily to reduce consumption, could aid in the battle against inflation and would also help ensure longer run fiscal sustainability.

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbW5pZmVkc3BlYWs/episode/ZGE4NGQzY2UtYjlkNy0xMWVkLWI2NDAtMGYzZGMzZWZkMDY5?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwjA6Nu8jsD9AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ