Interviews

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.

https://rvtv.io/2o2Jge6

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

In this conversation on 25 July 2017 with Jesse Felder of The Felder Report, Bill discusses where his contrarian economic philosophy comes from, and how it leads him to worry a bit more than most about the undesired side effects of experimental monetary policy and its possible end games.

On the Undesired Side Effects of Experimental Monetary Policy

William White is chairman of Economic and Development Review Committee at the OECD. He says US$215 trillion in debt at the end of 2016, is “an unprecedented level”.

Interview by Nassim Khadem (Sydney Morning Herald) on 17 June 2017

At a meeting of the Beat Siegenthaler of the UBS Knowledge Network in Zurich on Jan 20, Bill discussed how even a relatively limited fiscal stimulus by the Trump administration might give the Fed cover to tighten monetary policy, which in turn could lead to more overt political pressure on the central bank.

6670612b-23d4-4aa6-8258-1bc4bf30ed3b.pdf

Interview by Philippe Béguelin – Finanz und Wirtschaft on 30 December 2016

Publication:  Finanz und Wirtschaft Date:  30 December 2016

As early as 1996, White was critical of Alan Greenspan, who was head of the US Federal Reserve at the time, due to his ultra-loose monetary policy with which he had hoped to unleash the financial markets. He also warned of the coming crisis on the mortgage market long before Lehman went belly up.

But few were interested in what the economist had to say at a time when the apparently all-powerful financial industry was driving the economy around the world. Once Lehman collapsed, however, that industry threatened to implode and take the global economy along with it, not unlike an immune system that turns on its own body and destroys it.

Der Spiegel Date:  17 November 2016