Press

On November 16, The Market, a Swiss financial paper, published an interview  with William White conducted by the editor, Mark Dittli. White pointed out the existence of a vicious circle that has been repeating for decades. A financial crisis elicits a necessary central bank response that eventually leads to easier monetary conditions. This encourages even more debt accumulation (and leverage) that leads to another and even more serious  financial crisis and so on. This process is not sustainable. In the last part of the article, White refers to a set of commonly held beliefs that are simply not true.

“The idea that price stability is sufficient for economic stability? Wrong. That easy money always stimulates demand? Wrong. That the economy is self-adjusting, back to a full employment equilibrium? Wrong. That financial markets are efficient and bad things can’t happen? Wrong. That wealth will trickle down to all levels of society? Wrong. These are big beliefs. And false beliefs are dangerous”.

https://themarket.ch/interview/william-white-central-banks-keep-shooting-themselves-in-the-foot-ld.3053

William White appeared on Bloomberg Television on 7 April, and then on a radio podcast with Tom Keene, Jon Ferraro and Paul Sweeney. He expressed concern about the possible ineffectiveness of still more monetary easing and the possibility of unintended and undesired consequences. He supported the greater reliance on fiscal expansion in the current pandemic crisis, noting that the market was likely to be “patient” before responding badly to sharp increases in government debt. White noted however that the market’s “patience” was not likely to be infinite and that thought should be directed to solving this problem going forward.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2020-04-07/surveillance-monetary-policy-with-william-white-podcast

On 14 May 2020 William White was interviewed on  radio by Mark Burgess, the Asian Chairman of OMFIF. Mr White described the state of the global economy, pre covid-19, as “an accident waiting to happen”.  The global economy now faces a period of prolonged distress because of a combination of circumstances; these preconditions, aggravations arising from the pandemic itself, then the costs of the government lock-down in response to the health threats, and finally the fiscal and monetary measures taken by governments to ease the economic costs of the lock-down. Perhaps most importantly, the preexisting  problem of very high global debt levels has now worsened significantly. The conversation then turned to possible outcomes ranging from lingering depression to very high inflation.

https://www.omfif.org/podcast/debt-restructuring-in-the-post-pandemic-economy/

On May 12 William White was interviewed by Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital on Real Vision. White spoke about the limitations of both monetary and fiscal policies going forward, and the need for countries to improve the capacity of the institutional framework to cope with a potentially sharp  increase in debt restructurings. In the wide ranging conversation, attention was also drawn to increasing constraints on central bank “independence” and some inherent flaws in the International Monetary (Non) System.

https://rvtv.io/365xDbl

On 9 April 2020 William White participated in a webinar panel organized by OMFIF and chaired by their chief economist, Danae Kyriakopoulou. The other panelists were David Marsh and Mark Sobel. In his comments, White commended national governments and central banks for their speedy response to the crisis, but also noted the almost total absence of a coordinated G20 response. He was also concerned that forecasts of a speedy rebound would prove too optimistic, and that there seemed to be no internationally agreed criteria for deciding when social distancing, with its heavy economic and social costs, might be lifted.

http://www.omfif.org/events/covid-19-consequences-economic-impact-and-g20-response/

Christof  Leisinger of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung interviewed William White, and the results were published in German on 1 April 2020 (a translation follows). Mr White welcomed the swift easing of fiscal and monetary policy to support the economy, in the face of the epidemic, but cautioned that measures should be targeted in order to increase effectiveness and reduce moral hazard. He also stressed that, pre-crisis, the global economy was already exposed to a prospective deep downturn because of the buildup of debt and various financial imbalances.  Since the policies being followed at the moment are essentially “more of the same”, thought must be given to more sustainable policies in the future. Reforms to the International Monetary (Non) System should rise further up the policy agenda.