A social contract is the agreement between government, business, wealthy and ordinary households in how to apportion the costs and benefits of society. The recently concluded (?) American election comes to mind, as a potential first step towards a new (green?) deal. In this, the 34th episode of Making Sense, Jeff Snider identifies another, less obvious freshly fashioned contract: China and its recent 14th Five-Year plan. But as Snider explains, question marks are not unique to democratic republi...
Nov 11, 2020•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 34
Broadcasting from the kingdom of NYE, I'm Art Bell and this is Coast to Coast AM from the great beyond. Tonight we'll talk to General Johnson Jameson from his bunker complex beneath the Saskatchewan crust, as to whether Y2K can still happen. Then... 'Do you want to believe?!' The government doesn't want you to. Chris Carter, creator of the X-Files, will tell us exactly which episodes the government didn't want you to see. Also, Rod Sterling will join me live in studio... well in a manner of spea...
Nov 02, 2020•55 min•Ep. 33
The bread of this podcast hotdog features Jeff Snider putting into context how far behind the times monetary authorities are, and that all may not be as it seems with the appreciating Chinese currency. But the middle, the wiener if you will, is about the unit root. But please! Before you throw your device across the room in disgust rather than listen to yet another podcast about monomial equations and non-stationary processes realize that it's all about econometricians assuming economies do not ...
Oct 26, 2020•55 min•Ep. 32
American economist and New York Times columnist, Paul Krugman entered the economics profession to follow in the footsteps of Hari Seldon, a psychohistorian living on Trantor, approximately 10,000 years into the future. Seldon, psychohistory and Trantor are all from Isaac Assimov's Foundation series published between 1951 to '53. Seldon used, "the mathematics of human behaviour to save civilisation," as Krugman put it. Admittedly, "economics is a pretty poor substitute", muses Krugman, "[b]ut I t...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 31
As your podcaster put the finishing touches on Episode 30 word came down from up-on-high: 'We need to do errata!' Yes! Finally! This podcaster's long-time goal would be a reality: to make economics erotic again. To tell the world that economists can stimulate. To inform that offshore bankers do it in the shadows. To broadcast that technical analysis has the best curves with those plunging chart necklines. The undulating data and heaving economic activity. Going long Treasuries. Wanting yield. Oh...
Oct 12, 2020•56 min•Ep. 30
Advanced-economy money centers make the world go round. In the early 1800s London and Paris funded globalization cycles. Berlin and Vienna joined the exclusive club as the century waned; New York at the start of the next. Today, East Asia's cities are members, including Singapore and Hong Kong. But the 800-pound sumo wrestler of the Pacific basin is, and has been, Tokyo. Some speculate it was there at the beginning of the eurodollar, putting overseas dollars, held by WW2 service members, to work...
Oct 04, 2020•56 min•Ep. 29
In 1969 Johnny Carson was hosting The Tonight Show and, in one particular episode, Bob Hope headlined. After Carson finished interviewing Hope he called out his next guest, George Gobel. To everyone's surprise the person that walked out on stage was most certainly not Gobel. It was none other than the Italian Crooner himself, Dean Martin. Now, as was Martin's style in those days, he was already two cognacs into the next day's hangover, which made for a rocking good show. Eventually Gobel did mak...
Sep 27, 2020•46 min•Ep. 28
US President Harry Truman prosecuted the war to its conclusion, finishing his predecessor's near-impossible task. Then, with bitter irony, History reversed his role as "anchor" for the Second World War into "lead" for the third. As the trilogy approached its near-miraculous end decades later, one could hear an echo of a Truman slogan - “Education is our first line of defense” - in the 1980s cartoon GI*Joe that averred, “Knowing is half the battle.” Both aphorisms are twigs coming off the "Knowle...
Sep 20, 2020•57 min•Ep. 27
How much is several? What is a few? If you were to put a numerical value on "probably" would it be more, or less, than "likely"? To your podcaster's great consternation the linguistic gatekeepers of Middle English appear to have been rather disinterested about it all. And so, people are constantly late... or early! 'I thought we were to meet in a few hours?' 'No! It was several.' 'Oh, right.' Women seem to revel in these nuances, arriving for a date with this podcaster when it pleases them and t...
Sep 14, 2020•52 min•Ep. 26
Last week, current and former Federal Reserve officials offered a mea culpa, saying the timing of the 2015-18 rate hikes may have curbed a potentially quicker recovery from 2008. Apparently, seven to ten years is not enough time. Well then, if time is the problem your podcaster will take a page out of Hugh Hendry's book. Recently the early-21st century Scottish philosopher suggested the Fed would be taken seriously at its attempt of irresponsibility if it was headed by the funny, mixed martial a...
Sep 06, 2020•52 min•Ep. 25
"I am Oz, the Great and Terrible. Why do you seek me?" They looked again in every part of the room, and then, seeing no one, Dorothy asked, "Where are you?" "I am everywhere but to the eyes of common mortals I am invisible. I will now seat myself upon my throne, that you may converse with me." "We have come to claim our promise, O Oz." "What promise?" asked Oz. "You promised to send me back to Kansas when the Wicked Witch was destroyed. "And you promised to give me brains," said the Scarecrow. "...
Aug 31, 2020•50 min•Ep. 24
Magrathea. It is one of legendary, advanced-economy planets of the human imagination sitting along side Asimov's Trantor of the Foundation Series, and Cybertron, home of the Autobots and Decepticons. Sure, there are other fabled worlds like Cameron's Pandora, Besson's Fhloston Paradise Herbert's Arrakis, but these are - let's be honest - emerging economies. What made Magrathea a galactic leader in economic complexity is that it WAS a planet-building planet. As we learn in Douglas Adams' Hitchhik...
Aug 23, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 23
The final setting of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale occurs well into the future, at a symposium of historians examining the Handmaid era. Your podcaster expects a similar, future gathering of sober scholars evaluating the Time of CoVid. They'll likely conclude it was an economic and political bankruptcy - a mathematical and moral fiasco. Still, it wasn't all bad, and this podcaster imagines that sitting at the back of the room a lowly assistant will indecorously interrupt proceedings with...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 22
Life is full of problems. And when particularly irritated by them, we turn to professionals for help. Sure, men - especially the married kind - will insist they can take care of it. Plumbing? No problem. The Johnson-rod is loose in the car? I got it. Open wound with compound bone fracture? Rub some dirt on it. Still, eventually even men will get to a point when they'll ask for directions, because what can be done - they built the city all wrong. And so, when the technical expert is called we dam...
Aug 09, 2020•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 21
Baseball. The nation's pastime. For well over a century the sport has nestled itself in the romantic nook of America's soul. Its greatness captured in sentimental movies like The Natural and Field of Dreams. But light is balanced with darkness and for all its majesty the sport bears scandals and self-inflicted wounds: the 1919 Black Sox, a racial barrier. And of course, there's that gray space between light and dark where tragi-comedy lies. The 1888 poem Casey at Bat. Yogi Berra's relationship w...
Aug 03, 2020•52 min•Ep. 20
Now, admittedly SOME commodity prices have gone up. Half of the agricultural and livestock prices are up year-to-date. Copper is up! But these are the results of supply line disruptions and demand surges. The temporary, transitory reactions to the CoVo. NOT the persistent, broad-based multi-year inflation carried in by a monetary surge that central bankers suggest. Almost every energy-based commodity is DOWN. Most all industrial metals are DOWN. We address the issue in three segments, in this, t...
Jul 27, 2020•54 min•Ep. 19
2008. Albuquerque, New Mexico. The first business meeting of what would become the best-known chemist team since Nobel-prize winners Molina, Crutzen and Rowland was not auspicious. Pinkman wanted to cook as an artist, with chili powder. White, called Pinkman's chili-p recipe -- garbage. In-turn, Pinkman dismissed White's science; all he needed was a big jar. He was actually referring to a volumetric flask, which as - the appalled chemistry teacher Mr. White responded - is for general mixing and ...
Jul 20, 2020•50 min•Ep. 18
Plato, Kant, Nietzsche, Buddha, Confucius, Rousseau, Aristotle, Bastiat, Molinari, Cicero, Hegel, Hobbes, Kant... LL Cool J. The contemporary philosopher sits on the social and political branch of the Western tradition. He began releasing treatises in 1985 after collaborating with Def Jam. Radio was his first. Two years later, Bigger and Deffer . But 1989's Walking with a Panther was 'too pop-y', said the Philosophical Review . 'So much empty fluff,' pondered the British Society for Phenomenolog...
Jul 11, 2020•49 min•Ep. 17
After half-a-century, some 8,000 episodes and numerous tournament of champions the American television game show Jeopardy! decided to hold its definitive contest to determine its ultimate victor. The trial featured three accomplished champions: Ken Jennings, Brad Rutter and James Holzhauer. The selection of these three remains one of sports' great scandals -- right up there with the Czechoslovakian judge in Lillehammer. The three contenders were fine, having won more than a 100 contests and $10....
Jul 04, 2020•38 min•Ep. 16
Published in 1862, Les Misérables by Victor Hugo is "the novel of the century" according to David Bellos, professor of French and comparative literature at Princeton University. When asked on The Great Books podcast what qualifies this novel to be on the show Bellos responded, "It tackles a huge range of human experience, with an enormous amount of passion. If there ever was a great book, it must be Les Misérables." The story focuses on 'the suffering ones', 'the humiliated'. It's set in the soc...
Jun 27, 2020•47 min•Ep. 15
Your podcaster shunned traditional university education and instead sought a guild apprenticeship. Drawn to parapsychology and the occult even as a sma' one, it was natural this podcaster's inclinations were in alchemy, phrenology, gryphography, cryptozoology and economics. However, The Inquisition and Salem Trials had somewhat narrowed opportunities in these first options; opportunities which are now reserved for only the most gifted. With an aptitude optimistically scored by one high-school co...
Jun 20, 2020•50 min•Ep. 14
Upon its release the book was met with popular indifference. And no wonder. A cautionary tale about indulgence, extravagance and social upheaval? Right into the racing heart of the Roaring Twenties and its cloche hat wearing flappers, smoking Lucky Strikes and listening to jazz? No thanks. When Fitzgerald asked his editor about the book's reception he was told, "Sales situation doubtful, but excellent reviews." The author, in response, closed with, "Yours in great depression." It wasn't until th...
Jun 12, 2020•38 min•Ep. 13
Legendary figures took on the mantle of "Mail Carrier!" including: founding father Benjamin Franklin, Wells Fargo cowboys of the Pony Express, and nice guy Mr. McFeely from Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood . In more recent decades the profession saw its reputation sullied. Represented at one end of the spectrum by the austere, virginal, trivia-oracle Clifford C. Clavin, Jr. and at the other end the covetous and lurid Newman. But in this episode of Making Sense , Jeff Snider endeavors to bring back the p...
Jun 05, 2020•43 min•Ep. 12
In the mid-80s parents allowed their children to watch an innocent-looking television program titled V thinking it was some kind of Sesame Street offshoot. Imagine little Johnny and Suzy Q's horror when, instead of Reading Rainbow , they were watching a sci-fi melodrama about disguised reptilians. The Visitors, presenting themselves as competent, benevolent beings here to teach the backwards ape a few things, were hiding behind masks -- including their beautiful smokeshow of a leader Diana -- an...
May 29, 2020•37 min•Ep. 11
We are informed by the financial press the agitated creation of reserves are, to capital market participants, a mix of whiskey and Felix Felicis; liquid courage and luck. The first manifestation of the wealth effect, which will encourage households to consume and corporations to invest. The financial market animal spirit. The economist's Patronus Charm. But what did the Federal Reserve do - and more importantly not do - in 1929, 1987 and throughout 2008-20 to support US stock markets? When was t...
May 22, 2020•39 min•Ep. 10
It is often said that there is, "nothing new under the sun", and with a few exceptions (e.g. negative nominal interest rates, negatively priced oil, TikTok) that is true, even with a monetary gewgaw like quantitative easing. Japan, so as to revive its economy, has been implementing different flavors of QE for just under two decades now (that's all one really needs to know about its effectiveness). In this episode we explore what lead up to the first QE program with a tour guide: Milton Friedman....
May 15, 2020•33 min•Ep. 9
Will unlimited dollar swaps by the Federal Reserve solve the dollar shortage? How does collateral shortage in the repo market affect, for example, equities? Why does the gold price plunges when there are collateral fails in the repo market? Does re-pledging and/or re-hypothecation take place in the repo market? If there's liquidity crisis, why do corporations get such cheap loans still? Interest rate swaps go negative; what does it mean? Why aren't bank reserves useful to the monetary system? Wh...
May 12, 2020•45 min•Ep. 8
Quantitative easing, like foie gras, is controversial. The gavage-based production of duck and goose livers is considered cruel to the animal, gorged helplessly as it is in a pen. Central banks likewise perform a force-feeding, a monetary gavage of reserves forced onto the private bank balance sheet. What makes it a peculiar practice is that the monetary farmer expects this gorged banking goose to then dance around carefree - honking out credit at every passing leaf or tussled blade of grass. Si...
May 08, 2020•40 min•Ep. 7
In 1929 a plague struck Florida resulting in an overwhelming government response. The consequences were not only agricultural but financial as banks, heavily exposed to the Sunshine State's horticulture sector, approached insolvency. Bank stability, Federal Reserve responses and a suitcase stuffed with six million dollars are all part of the thrilling story. But so is the notion of bureaucratic delay, wild swings from hope to despair (and back), contemporary titans of industry offering reassurin...
May 01, 2020•39 min•Ep. 6
The Earl of the Eurodollar Jeff Snider ( @JeffSnider_AIP ), Chief Investment Officer at Alhambra Investments and Emil Kalinowski ( @EmilKalinowski ) discuss the four topics. First, what happened this past week when the price of oil to be delivered in May was priced at a negative $50(ish) dollars per barrel? And much more importantly than the bizarre price, what does the back-half of the oil futures curve say about the medium-term condition of the global economy? Nothing good unfortunately. Secon...
Apr 24, 2020•46 min•Ep. 5
