Current Government Spending is Unsustainable with Richard Sylla

Interview recorded - 5th of July, 2023

On this episode of the WTFinance podcast I had the pleasure of speaking with Richard Sylla, Professor Emeritus of Economics and finance historian.

During our conversation we spoke about whether the system can handle rising interest rates with the high debt levels, if this would require depreciation of the currency, whether financialisation is a bad thing and more!

0:00 - Introduction
1:23 - How can we compare recent economics to the past?
5:05 - Can the system handle increasing interest rates with high debt?
8:45 - Depreciation of currency
10:30 - Where would economic growth come from?
11:45 - Have emerging markets taken growth away from developed markets the past decades?
15:32 - How can central banks overcome inflation?
19:35 - Will the FED push the economy into a recession?
22:10 - Unemployment remaining strong
24:20 - Have interest rates ever increased so much without a recession?
25:55 - What is real interest rate?
29:03 - Is financialisaton a bad thing?
31:35 - Japanification 
34:10 - Are central banks kicking our problems down the road?
37:50 - Looking at the long term
42:00 - One message to take away from our conversation? 

Richard Sylla is a Professor Emeritus of Economics and the former Henry Kaufman Professor of the History of Financial Institutions and Markets at New York University Stern School of Business. He teaches courses in financial history, economic and business history of the United States, and comparative enterprise systems.

Professor Sylla has been with NYU Stern since 1990. His primary areas of research include historical studies of money, banking, and finance. He is the author of several books, including The American Capital Market and A History of Interest Rates. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Journal of Economic History, Explorations in Economic History, Business History Review, and Enterprise & Society. He is also on the editorial board of many journals that include the Financial History Review, Enterprise and Society, and Economic and Financial History Abstracts. Professor Sylla has also been the recipient of several awards and grants including National Science Foundation grants, an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation grant and the Citibank Award for Excellence in Teaching at the Stern School. He served as President of the Economic History Association and the Business History Conference, and is currently the Chairman of the Museum of American Finance. He is a Fellow of the Cliometric Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Prior to joining Stern, Professor Sylla taught at North Carolina State and the University of Pennsylvania among others. Professor Sylla received his bachelor of arts from Harvard University before studying at the Indian Statistical Institute at Calcutta. He then received both his master of arts and his doctorate of philosophy from Harvard University.

Richard Sylla - 

Website - https://www.stern.nyu.edu/faculty/bio/richard-sylla
Research - https://www.nber.org/people/richard_sylla?page=1&perPage=50

WTFinance - 

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