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Lev Menand and Josh Younger on *Money and the Public Debt: Treasury Market Liquidity as a Legal Phenomenon*

Release Date: 10/02/2023

Sam Lyman on the Digital Payments Race Between the US and China

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Sam Lyman is the head of research at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and formerly was a senior advisor and speechwriter for Treasury Secretary Bessent. In Sam’s first appearance on the show, he discusses Secretary Bessent’s secret skill, the competition in the digital payments space between the US and China, why the strategic Bitcoin reserve is important, what the future of Bitcoin holds, where things stand with the CLARITY Act, the Q Day conundrum, whether Satoshi Yakamoto is alive or dead, where Sam thinks the anti-AI sentiment is coming from, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube...

Stephan Luck on What History can Teach Us about Financial Stability

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Stephan Luck is a Financial Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In Stephan’s first appearance on the show, he discusses how the 2008 Great Financial Crisis shaped his career, how he and his coauthors leverage LLMs to comb through massive amounts of historical data, what this data can teach us about responding to bank failures, what people get wrong when they try and make historical analogies to the GENIUS era, the lessons we can learn from the German hyperinflation, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s episode, now...

Barry Eichengreen on the History of Global Currencies

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Barry Eichengreen is well known author, economist, and economic historian from the University of California, Berkeley. In Barry’s first appearance on the show he discusses a career in untangling the world’s monetary history, the origins of his new book Money Beyond Borders: Global Currencies from Croesus to Crypto, the first uses on currencies in the 7th Century BC, the unexpected start of the dollar, how we landed on the central bank model, the dollar’s rise to global reserve currency, which if any currencies as poised to take on the dollar, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube...

Yesha Yadav, Chris Odinet, and Andrea Tosato on the Moneyness of Stablecoins

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Yesha Yadav is a professor of law, the Milton R. Underwood Chair, the Associate Dean & Robert Belton Director of Culture & Community, and the Co-Faculty Director, Master of Laws (LL.M) Program at the Vanderbilt University Law School. Chris Odinet is a professor of law, Mosbacher Research Fellow, and Affiliate Professor of Finance at Texas A&M University School of Law. Andrea Tosato is professor of law at the Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law. Yesha, Chris, and Andrea join the show to discuss their avenues into stablecoin regulation, their four-part definition of...

Jeffrey Lacker on What a New Fed Treasury Accord Might Look Like

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Jeffrey Lacker is the former president of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank and is a senior affiliated scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jeff returns to the show to discuss the history of the Fed Treasury Accord, the state of fiscal dominance, his five proposals for a new Fed Treasury Accord, his calls for reform around the discount window, a memorial to his friend and colleague Charlie Plosser, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on May 20th, 2026 Subscribe to David's Substack: Follow David on X: ...

Nik Bhatia on Bitcoin and the Case for Using Stablecoins for Statecraft

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Nik Bhatia is an author of two economics books, a visiting fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute and the founder of The Bitcoin Layer. In Nik’s first appearance on the podcast, he discusses his niche in the Bitcoin community, the role of Bitcoin as a transaction asset, the threat or lack thereof of quantum computing on Bitcoin, his issues with the current eurodollar market, his new proposal to use stablecoins as statecraft, and much more. Watch on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s episode, now with links. Recorded on May 5th, 2026 Subscribe to...

Bryan Cutsinger, Peter Ireland, and Will Luther on Lessons Learned from the Fed Framework Review

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

Bryan Cutsinger is an assistant professor of economics at the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University. Peter Ireland is a professor of Economics at Boston College. Will Luther is an associate professor of economics at the College of Business at Florida Atlantic University and is the director of the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project. Bryan, Peter, and Will return to the show to discuss the big takeaways from the 2025 Fed framework review, the flip flopping of FIT to FAIT back to FIT, the biggest lessons from the 2020 Fed framework review, the...

Brendan Greeley on the 500 Year History of the Dollar

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...

David Zaring on Skinny Charters and the Future of Banking

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

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 on our new YouTube Channel! Check out the for this week’s...

Bill Beach on the Future of United States’ Economic Statistics and Fiscal Position

Macro Musings with David Beckworth

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...

More Episodes

Lev Menand is an associate professor of law at Columbia University and Josh Younger is a senior policy advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a lecturer at Columbia Law School. Lev and Josh also recently co-authored a paper titled, *Money and the Public Debt: Treasury Market Liquidity as a Legal Phenomenon.* They are also returning guests to Macro Musings, and rejoin the podcast to talk about this paper and its implications for the Treasury market. Lev, Josh, and David also discuss the transition from bank to market financing, whether an increasing level of debt is leading to more instability, the impact of recent regulations on the primary dealer system, how to restore the balance between public debt and money creation, and a lot more.

Transcript for this week’s episode.

Josh’s Columbia Law profile

Lev’s Columbia Law profile

Lev’s Twitter: @LevMenand

David Beckworth’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

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