Latest / Trumponomics / Will the World's Most Powerful People Lose Their Jobs?
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The title of the world's most powerful people will soon
- 0:03Speaker 1: be up for grabs. No, we're not talking about elections
- 0:06Speaker 1: in the US or Germany or what's happening behind the
- 0:09Speaker 1: scenes with China's Communist Party. Since this is a podcast
- 0:13Speaker 1: about global economics, you might guess that we are referring to, Yes,
- 0:17Speaker 1: the heads of the world's major central banks, the people
- 0:21Speaker 1: who essentially control the price of money, which affects the
- 0:24Speaker 1: prices of just about everything else people buy and sell.
- 0:28Speaker 1: So who are these people and what's going to happen
- 0:30Speaker 1: to them? Let's find out today on Benchmark. I'm Scott
- 0:44Speaker 1: Landman and economics editor with Bloomberg and Washington. You know,
- 0:48Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Most, Global economics rode for Bloomberg View in
- 0:51Speaker 1: New York. So, Dan, we spent a lot of time
- 0:54Speaker 1: in our careers covering central banking. Uh, there have been
- 0:57Speaker 1: times when it was pretty exciting, times when it was
- 1:00Speaker 1: it boring. But what makes the next two years exciting? Well,
- 1:03Speaker 1: There's been a lot of discussion about President Donald Trump's
- 1:07Speaker 1: ability to reshape the Federal Reserve given the vacancies that
- 1:11Speaker 1: are coming up. But the much broader picture is in
- 1:14Speaker 1: the next couple of years we could potentially see new
- 1:18Speaker 1: heads of central banks in every major economy. Janet Yellen's
- 1:23Speaker 1: term is up in February. Two months later, Hirohiko Coroda's
- 1:28Speaker 1: term finishes in April in London. Bank of England Governor
- 1:32Speaker 1: Mark Karney departs in as does Mario Dragi, head of
- 1:37Speaker 1: the European Central Bank. And then there's the perennial speculation
- 1:41Speaker 1: regarding the future of China central bank government. Big questions
- 1:46Speaker 1: how many of them will keep their jobs, and if
- 1:48Speaker 1: they depart, what will be their legacies and what kind
- 1:52Speaker 1: of people will replace them. Well, fortunately we have just
- 1:56Speaker 1: the right person to discuss this. Let's bring him in.
- 1:59Speaker 1: Adam poson Is is probably better situated than just about
- 2:02Speaker 1: anybody to talk about this topic. He's been in the
- 2:05Speaker 1: room as a policymaker at the Bank of England. He's
- 2:08Speaker 1: worked at the FED and co authored a book on
- 2:10Speaker 1: inflation targeting with former FED chair Ben Bernanke. He even
- 2:14Speaker 1: wrote a book about Japan's economy, and since early he's
- 2:19Speaker 1: been president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington,
- 2:24Speaker 1: where it's basically his full time job to keep abreast
- 2:27Speaker 1: of world economic affairs. Adam thanks for joining us today
- 2:30Speaker 1: on the road from London. No, thank you Scott, Thank
- 2:33Speaker 1: you Daniel. Nice introduction, I hope to help Adam. Why
- 2:37Speaker 1: should the average person in the US, the UK, Germany
- 2:41Speaker 1: or Japan care about who's the head of their central bank.
- 2:45Speaker 1: The fundamental reason is, even if not the most powerful
- 2:48Speaker 1: economic person in the world, he or she who runs
- 2:51Speaker 1: one of these major central banks has a lot to
- 2:55Speaker 1: do with the well being of every household and every
- 2:57Speaker 1: business in the economy. And if you're running the US
- 3:00Speaker 1: Central Bank and to lesser degree, the European CenTra Bank,
- 3:04Speaker 1: you have an effect on the well being and every
- 3:06Speaker 1: household around the world, at least that's part of global markets.
- 3:10Speaker 1: You the people who run these central banks become important
- 3:14Speaker 1: in two senses. First, they have to help set the
- 3:17Speaker 1: agenda and and move They are committees mostly that run
- 3:21Speaker 1: these banks, but then move the committee to making decisions
- 3:25Speaker 1: day to day on what's important, what the state of
- 3:27Speaker 1: the economy is, how to calm things down, how to
- 3:30Speaker 1: speed things up. And they have some tools that approximately
- 3:34Speaker 1: let them do this, like interest rates or in crisis times,
- 3:37Speaker 1: purchases of government securities. The second way in which they
- 3:41Speaker 1: matter is if God forbid there is a crisis, as
- 3:44Speaker 1: the US and the UK and Europe went through in
- 3:47Speaker 1: two thousand eight two thousand nine. You want someone who
- 3:51Speaker 1: is creative and flexible and strong enough to take action.
- 3:55Speaker 1: Keying off of that the main suspense. Now we might
- 3:58Speaker 1: not have a crisis. But here in Washington, we're pondering
- 4:03Speaker 1: who's going to be head of the Federal Reserve once
- 4:06Speaker 1: Janet Yellin's for your term is up in February. What's
- 4:10Speaker 1: your take on that? Do you think she's going to
- 4:12Speaker 1: be reappointed by President Trump or is he going to
- 4:14Speaker 1: be uh? Is he going to pick someone else like
- 4:17Speaker 1: his economic advisor Gary Cone, uh former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.
- 4:22Speaker 1: How do you see this shaking out and how's that
- 4:25Speaker 1: going to affect the economy depending on what happens. Well,
- 4:28Speaker 1: your Bloomberg colleagues had a piece a couple of weeks
- 4:32Speaker 1: ago with sort of the six leading names that made
- 4:35Speaker 1: sense to me, and so I put things in three categories.
- 4:38Speaker 1: There's the probability, the possibility that Janet yelling gets reappointed,
- 4:42Speaker 1: and actually, contrary to what some people think, I think
- 4:45Speaker 1: that would be the most hawkish, meaning the most likely
- 4:48Speaker 1: to raise rates, the most likely to worry about inflation
- 4:51Speaker 1: in the near term. But I think she has a
- 4:53Speaker 1: very small chance of being reappointed because she's not just
- 4:58Speaker 1: formerly a Democrat, but she's also someone who probably doesn't
- 5:02Speaker 1: want to deregulate financial markets as much as Mr Trump
- 5:05Speaker 1: would like. And so I put like a temper center
- 5:07Speaker 1: less chance on that. I put a sixty plus percent
- 5:10Speaker 1: chance that the president appoints one of the Republicans who's
- 5:15Speaker 1: been active either at the Federal Reserve or around the
- 5:18Speaker 1: Federal Reserve for a long time, and advised previous presidents
- 5:22Speaker 1: that list would include John Taylor, Kevin Walsh, Glenn Hubbard,
- 5:27Speaker 1: and I put like a sixty percent chance one of
- 5:29Speaker 1: those three would be picked. But that still leaves you
- 5:32Speaker 1: within our thirty percent. And this is what I worry
- 5:35Speaker 1: about in particular. On that list, there were two names
- 5:38Speaker 1: of people who are not economists, not even policy types,
- 5:42Speaker 1: to sort of general bankers or business people. And during
- 5:45Speaker 1: the campaign President Trump talked a few times about putting
- 5:49Speaker 1: a normal business person at the FED. Our experience in
- 5:53Speaker 1: history of doing that is very poor. Last time we
- 5:56Speaker 1: tried that with a man named g. William Miller in
- 5:58Speaker 1: the late seventies under Carter that turned into a near
- 6:01Speaker 1: disaster for the US in terms of high inflation and
- 6:04Speaker 1: variable currency value. So I hope the president doesn't do that,
- 6:08Speaker 1: but I can't rule it out. So two months later,
- 6:11Speaker 1: the Bank of Japan governor's term expired. Now, since the
- 6:15Speaker 1: Bank's gained independence in the late ninety nineties, no governor
- 6:19Speaker 1: has been reappointed. It's also true that Japan's economy, while
- 6:24Speaker 1: not awesome, he is looking relatively good right now. What
- 6:28Speaker 1: do you think is going to happen there? Well, I think,
- 6:30Speaker 1: and you're absolutely right, Um, Of all the central banks
- 6:33Speaker 1: you mentioned, I think at the start, I think Governor
- 6:37Speaker 1: Corona and the Bank of Japan are the one most
- 6:39Speaker 1: likely to have a reappointment. UM. Governor Crow is a
- 6:43Speaker 1: little bit on the older side, but he's still very active.
- 6:46Speaker 1: And as you rightly point out, if you look at
- 6:48Speaker 1: the data, UM, including things like per capita income growth,
- 6:52Speaker 1: which is basically the most the best single measure we
- 6:55Speaker 1: have of well being for macro economy, Japan has been
- 6:59Speaker 1: doing okay. It was obviously thrown off base by the
- 7:03Speaker 1: crisis in the North Atlantic, but it wasn't its own
- 7:06Speaker 1: fault and it was pretty resilient. There is a problem
- 7:09Speaker 1: in Japan, and it's something of a puzzle that inflation
- 7:12Speaker 1: hasn't gone up more than it has so far. But
- 7:15Speaker 1: Governor Krota has done pretty much everything that either the
- 7:18Speaker 1: outside economists or Prime Minister Abbe could have expected him
- 7:21Speaker 1: to do on inflation, and I think he'd continue to
- 7:23Speaker 1: do it. All right, that's two down. Let's go to
- 7:27Speaker 1: where you are right now, London. Bank of England. We
- 7:30Speaker 1: have Mark Karney. I don't think he's even British. You
- 7:34Speaker 1: didn't overlap with him directly in your service, but he
- 7:39Speaker 1: has made his position clear I believe on Brexit, and
- 7:44Speaker 1: he's going to step down in what do you make
- 7:48Speaker 1: of his tenure and what do you think is going
- 7:50Speaker 1: to happen once he leaves? What kind of person will
- 7:53Speaker 1: replace him? Governor Karney is a very almost larger than
- 7:58Speaker 1: life figure in the UK right now, but also in
- 8:01Speaker 1: central banking circles UM. He has also served as head
- 8:05Speaker 1: of the FSB, the Financial Stability Board, which is the
- 8:09Speaker 1: global coordinating body on financial regulation UM and he previously
- 8:15Speaker 1: was Governor of the Bank of Canada. And they are
- 8:16Speaker 1: very very few people in history you've been governor to
- 8:19Speaker 1: central banks. But as you point out Scott. This is
- 8:22Speaker 1: all taking place in the context of the British economy
- 8:26Speaker 1: exiting the European Union, which is a pretty disruptive and
- 8:31Speaker 1: most of us believe, including Governor Garney in a speech
- 8:34Speaker 1: a week ago, pretty negative development for the UK economy.
- 8:38Speaker 1: So and there are people who get angry when he
- 8:40Speaker 1: points that out. So he's gonna have a bit of
- 8:42Speaker 1: a rocky tenure for the remaining two years of his term.
- 8:45Speaker 1: I think despite that, if he announced that he wanted
- 8:48Speaker 1: to be extended, I bet people would extend him here,
- 8:51Speaker 1: but I think it is quite unlikely he will have
- 8:53Speaker 1: served a long period. But then it's very open season. Uh.
- 8:58Speaker 1: The governor of the Bank, Amngast, seemed to alternate often
- 9:02Speaker 1: between somebody promoting somebody inside who's been senior versus somebody
- 9:07Speaker 1: who has direct relevant experience but external. It's possible they
- 9:11Speaker 1: might go either way following Karney. They could promote one
- 9:15Speaker 1: of the current deputy governors because Carney didn't come up
- 9:18Speaker 1: through the bank, or they could promote someone from the
- 9:20Speaker 1: financial sector because Garney did come from a central bank.
- 9:23Speaker 1: I think there's uncertainty there. What do you think the
- 9:26Speaker 1: effects will be on the UK economy and the approach
- 9:30Speaker 1: to Brexit. You know what would be your best guess
- 9:33Speaker 1: on that. My best guess is that the Brexit is
- 9:36Speaker 1: creating a lot of uncertainty, not just sort of about
- 9:40Speaker 1: what happens in these famous negotiations between the UK and
- 9:43Speaker 1: the European Union, but fundamentally going forward. That it means
- 9:47Speaker 1: the UK's place in the world economically and how much
- 9:51Speaker 1: investment it will get and who it will trade with
- 9:53Speaker 1: are fundamentally more uncertain for a long time. And so
- 9:57Speaker 1: in the next couple of years, and whoever succeeds Governor
- 9:59Speaker 1: Karney after that, they're gonna have to cope with the
- 10:02Speaker 1: UK economy. It's more like the nineteen seventies and the
- 10:05Speaker 1: nineteen nineties, meaning a lot more fluctuation in exchange rate,
- 10:08Speaker 1: which we're already seeing, a lot more up and down
- 10:10Speaker 1: in the inflation rate, which again we're already seeing probably
- 10:14Speaker 1: a slower average growth rate going forward, which Governor Carney
- 10:17Speaker 1: spoke about recently at the I m F and which
- 10:19Speaker 1: I agree. It's gonna be a time of tough choices
- 10:22Speaker 1: and the fear is just like when Carter appointed g
- 10:26Speaker 1: William Miller or Nixon appointed Art Burns in the seventies
- 10:30Speaker 1: that the government will try to pick somebody who is
- 10:34Speaker 1: more to their taste and less about standing up to
- 10:37Speaker 1: the tough things. We'll see what happens, Prime Minister Jeremy Colbyn.
- 10:42Speaker 1: One seen inconceivable, now seen entirely possible. Is that the
- 10:47Speaker 1: fact to X in this discussion. Yeah, thank you for
- 10:51Speaker 1: making me spell it out, Daniel Um. I mean, I
- 10:54Speaker 1: don't have terribly much partisan preference for the current government
- 10:59Speaker 1: of Visa May versus the potential government of Jeremy Corbyn
- 11:03Speaker 1: or their associated versions of their parties. But I do think,
- 11:07Speaker 1: given Um leader of the Opposition, Corbyn's repeated statements of
- 11:11Speaker 1: his beliefs about the economy, that they could potentially end
- 11:15Speaker 1: up with someone rather strange if he's picking who's the
- 11:19Speaker 1: next governor of the Bank of England. There are good
- 11:22Speaker 1: economists who support the Labor Government and the Labor Party
- 11:26Speaker 1: in the past, and and good policymakers. I'm not saying
- 11:29Speaker 1: it's impossible, but as was seen in some of his
- 11:32Speaker 1: remarks on the economy in general having to do with
- 11:35Speaker 1: what he calls People's qui, which sometimes sort of cites
- 11:38Speaker 1: me or renationalizing certain industries these are things. They're not
- 11:42Speaker 1: necessarily bad ideas, but they're indicative of a worldview that's
- 11:47Speaker 1: probably very interventionist and probably very big change from the
- 11:51Speaker 1: current way the Bank of England operates. Next up on
- 11:54Speaker 1: the ticket, European Central Bank Mario Drags term ends twenty
- 11:59Speaker 1: nine contain he, unlike the others, is term limited and
- 12:05Speaker 1: this is also subject to the vagaries of EU politics,
- 12:08Speaker 1: the bargaining. What do you think is going to happen there?
- 12:11Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right now, you know, I mean,
- 12:13Speaker 1: we people have to recognize not only is it certain
- 12:17Speaker 1: that Drag does not continue as President of the European
- 12:19Speaker 1: Central Bank, but that the chances of a big change
- 12:23Speaker 1: are are quite large. This is partly because in some
- 12:27Speaker 1: sense Drag has arguably had the most difficult job of
- 12:30Speaker 1: any of the central bank governors, because what you referred
- 12:33Speaker 1: to as the vagaries of the European Union. You have
- 12:36Speaker 1: a very very large committee twenty seven excuse me, not
- 12:39Speaker 1: twenty seven members but UM seventeen euro members plus six
- 12:42Speaker 1: members of the board UM running the e c B,
- 12:46Speaker 1: and he has to marshal that. And there are some
- 12:48Speaker 1: very very deep ideological divides and national divides in Europe.
- 12:54Speaker 1: Over how the e c B should respond to the
- 12:56Speaker 1: persistent unemployment in Southern Europe, how they should respond if
- 13:00Speaker 1: there's another crisis in Portugal and Greece. How seriously should
- 13:04Speaker 1: they take the target of two percent inflation as a
- 13:07Speaker 1: cap rather than as a long term average. So in
- 13:11Speaker 1: a sense, this is the most as without the respect
- 13:14Speaker 1: of my friends at the bank hang and this is
- 13:15Speaker 1: the most consequential appointment because it could have the biggest
- 13:18Speaker 1: shift the German government. The German people have in a
- 13:24Speaker 1: sense the most voting power because they're the biggest economy
- 13:27Speaker 1: and the most influential in Europe, and they have to
- 13:32Speaker 1: date uh not insisted that the German be the head
- 13:36Speaker 1: of the e c B, even though the e c B,
- 13:39Speaker 1: or perhaps because the ECB is in Frankfurt, and because
- 13:43Speaker 1: it's modeled on their former central bank or their current
- 13:45Speaker 1: center bank, but they no longer running things central bank
- 13:48Speaker 1: the Bundesbank. Anyway, long story short, the real question is
- 13:52Speaker 1: do they appoint the current head of the Bundesbank yans
- 13:55Speaker 1: Viedman to succeed dragging and that would be to make
- 13:58Speaker 1: an American analogy, that would be taking someone more extreme
- 14:03Speaker 1: on rules and anti inflation and supposedly hawkish like John Taylor,
- 14:09Speaker 1: but more extreme than that to replace Jennet Yellen. And
- 14:13Speaker 1: that's a very big swing with potentially very big consequences,
- 14:17Speaker 1: And does the German election we've just had playing to
- 14:21Speaker 1: this at all. In my view, it makes it slightly
- 14:25Speaker 1: more likely that you get um. I think Chancellor Merkel
- 14:29Speaker 1: is a consummate politician, as we've seen, despite the election results,
- 14:33Speaker 1: she's very much in the sense of a lot of
- 14:35Speaker 1: other top politicians that she everything is a bargain. I mean,
- 14:39Speaker 1: there are certain moral lines she won't cross, like with
- 14:41Speaker 1: Russia immigrants, but beyond that, everything is a bargain. You
- 14:44Speaker 1: can trade off stuff. So she's not going to come
- 14:46Speaker 1: out early and say I insisted the Videman or a
- 14:50Speaker 1: German be the b bcb president. What she's gonna do
- 14:53Speaker 1: is wait until late in the game and when Druggist
- 14:56Speaker 1: term is nearly up and see what she can get
- 14:59Speaker 1: for it. And if somebody makes her an offer, well
- 15:01Speaker 1: we want the bank the France president instead, and will say, well,
- 15:05Speaker 1: what are you gonna give me? And we'll see. But
- 15:08Speaker 1: the ultimately the election I think makes it more likely
- 15:11Speaker 1: that she pushes a bit at the end for Viteman,
- 15:13Speaker 1: because then she's giving something to the so called liberals,
- 15:17Speaker 1: the Free Democratic Party and the right wing of her
- 15:20Speaker 1: party in Germany. She's pushing a German forward who will
- 15:24Speaker 1: be tougher in theory on the Greeks and the Portuguese
- 15:27Speaker 1: and the Spanish and especially the Italians. And so I
- 15:31Speaker 1: think she mildly favors that, but it's more that she
- 15:35Speaker 1: will earn points with her own domestic constituencies without having
- 15:39Speaker 1: giving anything up by doing that. One last question, Adam,
- 15:44Speaker 1: going back to where we started, how much power do
- 15:47Speaker 1: these central bankers really have or are they hostage to
- 15:50Speaker 1: global economic forces that are really bigger than them? I think,
- 15:55Speaker 1: though it's a bit dicey Scott, I kind of make
- 15:58Speaker 1: an analogy to a general. You know, a general. If
- 16:02Speaker 1: you're in charge of a big army, big military, and
- 16:05Speaker 1: it's well equipped and your enemy isn't anywhere near as big,
- 16:09Speaker 1: you will usually win. And some generals will win more
- 16:12Speaker 1: or less quickly, with more or less losses. And there's
- 16:15Speaker 1: been this sense, particularly in the late nineties early two thousands,
- 16:18Speaker 1: with people like Greenspan at the FED or Burvin King
- 16:21Speaker 1: at the Bank of England that central markers could just
- 16:23Speaker 1: make things happen, but it's really they were up against
- 16:28Speaker 1: much smaller armies. I don't mean literally in size, but
- 16:31Speaker 1: the challenges that were up against in part through luck,
- 16:33Speaker 1: we're just not as great. So in the end, you
- 16:36Speaker 1: can't fight the FED. If the Fed wants something to
- 16:38Speaker 1: happen over time, they generally will be able to make
- 16:42Speaker 1: it happen. But there's a lot more uncertainty about which
- 16:46Speaker 1: tools work, how dependable they are, how much you have
- 16:50Speaker 1: to do then there used to be. And also like
- 16:54Speaker 1: with generals after the Vietnam, more with central bankers after
- 16:58Speaker 1: the global financial crisis, there's a lot less trust in them. Uh,
- 17:01Speaker 1: they're experts, their technocrats. They mostly want to do the
- 17:05Speaker 1: right thing for the right reasons. But understandably the public
- 17:09Speaker 1: is not as willing to just turn over the fate
- 17:12Speaker 1: of their in this case, economy to them without check.
- 17:16Speaker 1: And that's part of why, particularly the Bank of Japan
- 17:21Speaker 1: or the Bank of England is going to have an
- 17:23Speaker 1: easier ride because their publics, for whatever reason, seem to
- 17:27Speaker 1: have more faith despite their respective crises in the central banks,
- 17:31Speaker 1: whereas in the US environment the Federal Reservice very much
- 17:35Speaker 1: under suspicion in Congress in some parts of the country politically,
- 17:40Speaker 1: and I'm not saying that's justified. I'm saying it's understandable
- 17:44Speaker 1: and that's the reality. So like generals after Vietnam, central
- 17:47Speaker 1: bankers after the crisis are going to have to try
- 17:49Speaker 1: to bring people on board and not be too aggressive
- 17:53Speaker 1: because they may lose the support they need. Adam, thank
- 17:56Speaker 1: you so much for joining us today. That's been a
- 17:58Speaker 1: really fascinating conversation. And in the meantime, Will White for
- 18:02Speaker 1: the ken Burns documentary on the Central Bank is with
- 18:06Speaker 1: an audience one tenth of the ken Burns audience sounds great.
- 18:12Speaker 1: Benchmark will be back next week and until then, you
- 18:15Speaker 1: can find us on the Bloomberg terminal, Bloomberg dot Com,
- 18:18Speaker 1: our Bloomberg app, as well as on Apple Podcasts, pocket Casts,
- 18:21Speaker 1: and Stitcher. While you're there, take a minute to rate
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- 18:27Speaker 1: and please let us know what you've thought of the show.
- 18:29Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at at Scott Landman
- 18:33Speaker 1: Dan you are at Moss Underscore Echo, and Adam our
- 18:37Speaker 1: guest is at at Adam Posen. Benchmark is produced by
- 18:40Speaker 1: Sarah Patterson, thanks for listening, See you next time.