Reflections on the Unsustainability of the US Current Account Deficit

Thomas Hoenig is a distinguished senior fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, where he focuses on the long-term impacts of the politicization of financial services as well as the effects of government-granted privileges and market performance. He was formerly the vice chair of the FDIC from 2012 to 2018 and the 20 years prior to that, he was president of the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank. Tom is also a returning guest to Macro Musings, and he rejoins to talk about the Treasury market, public debt sustainability issues, and the state of banking in the United States. David and Tom also discuss the history of Tom’s influence on the Jackson Hole Conference, the growing size of the US current account deficit, the Fed’s role as the primary Treasury market backstop, the dangers of risk-weighted capital regulation, and more.

Transcript for this week’s episode.

Register now for the Bennett McCallum Monetary Policy Conference!

Thomas’s Twitter: @tom_hoenig

Thomas’s Mercatus profile

David Beckworth’s Twitter: @DavidBeckworth

Follow us on Twitter: @Macro_Musings

Join the Macro Musings mailing list!

Check out our new Macro Musings merch!

Related Links:

*Housing IS the Business Cycle* by Edward Leamer

*Understanding the Greenspan Standard* by Alan Blinder and Ricardo Reis

*Living with High Public Debt* by Serkan Arslanalp and Barry Eichengreen

*Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?* by Raghuram Rajan

*Resilience Redux in the US Treasury Market* by Darrell Duffie

*Meet the Man Making Big Banks Tremble* by Jeanna Smialek and Emily Flitter