Jonathan Roth, an associate of John Mauldin, interviewed William White and Grant Williams (a co-founder of Real Vision) on October 9, 2020. Both agreed, for a whole host of reasons, that negative policy rates were not a good idea. They were unlikely to stimulate aggregate demand as desired, and could have undesirable and unintended side effects.
William White was interviewed, along with Grant Williams, by Jonathon Ross of Mauldin Economics. The interview was part of a series entitled the “Seven Deadly Sins” directed to identifying vulnerabilities in the global economy and to shortcomings in the policy responses to these vulnerabilities. This particular interview focuses on the undesirable implications of introducing negative interest rates to stimulate aggregate demand. They will not work as intended and will have unintended consequences.
On 26 September, William White was interviewed for a podcast based in New York city called, “Hidden Forces”. Demietri Kofinas raised questions about the current economic and financial outlook and the extent to which central banks and regulators might have inadvertently contributed to new problems while trying to solve old ones. The discussion also touched upon climate change and the implications this might have for the governance of the financial system.
William White answered a number of questions from Marc Schroers about the current and prospective conduct of global monetary policy. The interview was published on 25 September in Borsen Zeitung. The German version and an English translation are referred to below.
SchorerarticleSept2019
On September 10 William White had an interview with Amanda Lang of BNN. Her questions were primarily about the conduct of monetary policy in the global economy, against the backdrop of rising debt ratios and rising trade tensions. Mr White suggested that fiscal policy might have to be relied upon more heavily in the face of any coming downturn. He concluded the interview by noting that monetary policy in small, open economies like Canada was essentially about coping with the monetary policies being followed by much larger countries, above all the United States.
Bill White gave a radio interview on 17 May to Chris Sheridan for the California-based Financial Sense Newshour. The Financial Sense Newshour is a free financial/market broadcast that features analysis of current market events and interviews with financial experts. While directed in large part to the implications for public policy of embracing the concept of the economy as a complex adaptive system, the discussion ranged more broadly over issues pertinent to both monetary policy and financial regulation. One important issue raised was an evaluation of Modern Monetary Theory, its near term allure but its longer-term dangers.
https://static.financialsense.com/audio/2019-05/fsn2019-05-22-white-0533049305e50.mp3
This interview with Bill White was published in the Swiss paper, Finanz und Wirtschaft on 6 April, 2019. In it, Bill reflects on how the “debt trap” will impede monetary normalization, and how central banks got into this situation. He also discusses how other policies might be used to raise the possibility of getting out of this trap.
Central banks are biased towards loose policy https://www.fuw.ch/article/central-banks-are-biased-towards-loose-policy/
Bill gave an interview to Real Vision, a subscription channel on the internet, which was put out on 18 August, 2018. The interview extends over 90 minutes and covers many of the economic and financial events shaping Bill’s long career. He concludes that the lessons that ought to have been learned from past crises have not been learned. As a result, the global economy not only faces severe risks looking forwards, but global authorities are also increasingly constrained in their capacity to respond. While seeing the full interview requires a subscription, some flavour is given by the following links.
In this interview, published in Börsen-Zeitung on 8 June 2018, Bill answers questions related to the Swiss referendum (the “Vollgeld” initiative) on whether a “narrow money”regime should be introduced in Switzerland. He agrees that the current fiat money system in place almost everywhere has serious deficiencies. Thinking carefully about how it might be improved or even replaced is a worthwhile endeavour. That said, replacing the current Swiss system with one so radically different, and at such short notice, coud result in unintended and undesired consequences. The interview in German, and the English translation, can be found below.
SchroersInterview8june2018