Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Brendan Greeley is a veteran journalist from the Financial Times and current PhD student at Princeton studying monetary history. In Brendan's first appearance on the show, he discusses why he went for a PhD after being a journalist for 20 years, why the dollar's history goes far beyond America's founding, when America actually achieved a currency union, the untold origins of the dollar, how Herbert and Lou Hoover's date nights played a role in the history of the dollar, the crucial importance of Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz in understanding the dollar's history, the happy accident of Eurodollars, what the future of dollars looks like, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on May 4th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
Follow David on X: @DavidBeckworth
Follow Brendan X: @BHGreeley
Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings
Check out our Macro Musings merch!
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:12 - Brendan's Career
00:06:27 - How Old Is the Dollar?
00:25:24 - Where Did the Dollar Start?
00:38:11 - The Modern Dollar
00:57:08 - Future of the Dollar
01:01:59 - Outro

David Zaring is legal scholar and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In David's first appearance on the show, he discusses the role the Great Financial Crisis played in FinReg scholarship, how he came up with the term "skinny" in the new skinny Fed master accounts, the tumultuous road of Custodia vs. the Fed, a reimagined way to look at federal bank charters, whether commerce and banking are actually still separate, Fed independence and how it functions in a more corporatist model, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on April 24th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth
Follow David Zaring X: @ZaringDavid
Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings
Check out our Macro Musings merch!
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:04 - The Great Financial Crisis and FinReg Scholarship
00:04:58 - David's Experience with Fintech Charter Litigation
00:17:18 - Skinny Charters
00:37:16 - How to Govern the Fed
00:55:10 - Outro

Bill Beach is the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the current executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. In Bill's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in and around public service, the important niche his new organization fills, the frightening fiscal outlook of the United States, exactly how long we have before Social Security runs out, why he believes it will take lots of small changes instead of a big one to fix our fiscal outlook, the important role of the BLS, why our statistical methods needs reform, the most underrated economic statistical indicators, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on April 15th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth
Follow Bill Beach X: @BeachWW453
Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings
Check out our Macro Musings merch!
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:25 - Bill's Career
00:10:11 - Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill
00:17:23 - Fiscal Challenges of the United States
00:30:05 - Surveys from Bureau of Labor Statistics
00:43:12 - Challenges to Survey Work
00:52:13 - Outro

Tyler Goodspeed is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and is currently a chief economist in the private sector. In Tyler's first appearance on the podcast he discusses his new book highlighting a different way of looking at recessions, the challenge of breaking away from the human inclination of ascribing patterns to random phenomena, whether recessions are more Dorian Gray or Peter Pan, what history and stories like Jay Cooke tell us about recessions, how to evaluate supply side shocks and the 2008 Financial Crisis, why Milton Friedman's Plucking model might be the best we have at modeling recessions, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on April 15th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth
Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings
Check out our Macro Musings merch!
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:43 - Recessions
00:07:07 - Epiphanies or Apophanies
00:26:40 - Peter Pan vs. Dorian Gray
00:33:40 - Jay Cooke and the Railroad
00:39:00 - Models of Recessions
00:47:55 - Supply Shocks
00:50:12 - Recessions in Different Places
01:00:25 - Outro

Recorded live in front of the Wharton Financial Regulation Conference, former guest Peter Conti-Brown joins David Beckworth as a Macro Musings co-host on this week's episode. Peter and David discuss the inflection point of 2008 in FinReg scholarship, how Macro Musings has become just as much a show about financial regulation as about macro, what to make of the Trump administrations changes to bank supervision, whether we should be enthusiastic about the GENIUS Act and digital assets, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the crisis that could become Claude Mythos, why networks and Substacks are becoming more important, and much more.
Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!
Check out the transcript for this week's episode, now with links.
Recorded on April 10th, 2026
Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus
Follow David Beckworth on X: @DavidBeckworth
Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings
Check out our Macro Musings merch!
Timestamps
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:29 - History of Financial Regulation
00:04:23 - Monetary Policy vs. Financial Regulation
00:07:48 - Bank Supervision
00:11:59 - Digital Assets
00:22:48 - Claude Mythos and Banking
00:30:35 - The Market Argument for the Discount Window
00:35:44 - Academia vs. Real-World Impact
00:40:28 - Audience Q&A
00:54:16 - Outro