Press

Central banks face higher inflation

William White  had an article published in the OMFIF Bulletin on 18 March. He noted that the Gulf war with Iran could be a significant inflationary shock for the global economy.  Moreover, it comes at a particularly unfortunate time.  Inflation is already above target in many jurisdictions and inflationary expectations  might easily be shocked upwards. In addition, we are just beginning a new “Era of Scarcity” implying the need to deal with a whole host of secular inflationary forces. These include worsening demographics, deglobalization, climate change and the need for increased spending on defense. Central banks obviously would want to lean against these pressures but two other concerns might limit their capacity to do so. After decades of easy fiscal and monetary policy, record high levels of private sector and public sector debt threaten “financial dominance” and “fiscal dominance” respectively. The outcome might be significantly higher levels of inflation than is currently expected.

https://www.omfif.org/2026/03/central-banks-face-higher-inflation/

Posted by williamw in Articles, Press

Interview with Mark Dittli in “The Market”

“The Market”, a Swiss financial paper, published on February 27 an interview with William White. It began with a discussion of the “new world order”, identified bty Mark Carney at Davos, and what the implications might be for the future of the current dollar -based international monetary system. This led on to the issue of rising government debt, not least in the US, and the possibilty of governments choosing financial repression, including international capital controls, as the least bad solution to this problem. The discussion ended with questions about Kevin Warsh, and how his appointment as Fed Chairman might influence eventual outcomes.

https://themarket.ch/makro-maerkte/william-white-america-is-turning-against-the-very-system-it-has-built-ld.16219

Posted by williamw in Interviews, Press

Tremors have started

William White was interviewed on 12 February 2026 by Kai Hoffman of Soar Financial Group. White felt that current measures of global economic health seemed satisfactory but there were causes of concern under the surface; rising debt levels, unstable bond markets and growing threats to the dominance of the US dollar. Recent tremors in financial markets could be warnings of bigger problems to come. The interview focussed on the problems posed to monetary policy by government debt overhang (“fiscal dominance”), the implications for the gold market, and the possibility of the widespread use of the mBridge system for making international payments in local currencies.

 

https://youtu.be/wen0u9S8oTI?si=-uR7uq5xzt69UzY9

Posted by williamw in Interviews, 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

Central banks must confront the original sin of monetary easing.

On January 16 the FinancialTimes published a letter submitted by William White. In commenting on two previous articles in the FT, White drew attention to the buildup of debt, both private and public, in many countries. The “original sin” in the 1990s was leaving interest rates so low that debt was encouraged to rise quickly. Subsequently, central banks had little choice but “to ease dra­mat­ic­ally in sub­sequent cycles to fore­stall the burst­ing of the debt bubble that they them­selves had cre­ated”. Many countries now have a debt overhang that needs to be addressed in a serious way.

 

https://www.ft.com/content/0cb2d571-14b2-4b9a-b7db-8e102e5195dc

Posted by williamw

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