Economics Matters with Laurence Kotlikoff

President Trump's on again, off again tariff mania is, well, choose your adjective. From one day to the next, imported products, be they pharmaceuticals, kitchen cabinets, lumber, or foreign movies, are being tariffed at massive rates. Brazilian products are facing 50 percent tariffs because Brazil isn't treating recently convicted former Brazilian President, Bolsonaro, to the President's liking, ...

Andrew Fesiak rejoins me on Economics Matters. He addresses these questions and more:  Is Russia winning? Is Ukraine Short on Manpower? Is Trump selling out Ukraine and NATO by deed, if not word? Can Ukraine even up the sides with its new Flamingo cruise missile? What did the US refusal to join other NATO members in shooting down the Russian drone incursion in Poland tell us? Is Ukraine now export...

Back in May, Moody's joined the other two major U.S. debt-rating companies, S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Group, in downgrading US government debt. No surprise. Federal debt was close to 30 percent of GDP a quarter Century back. Today it's close to 100 percent and projected to exceed 150 percent by mid Century. No one is better positioned to discuss our nation's fiscal condition than David Leve...

Peter Coy has been writing about economics for decades -- for the Associated Press, BusinessWeek, Bloomberg, and the New York Times. Peter is currently a freelance columnist. His terrific substack is  petercoy.substack.com . I consider Peter our nation's top economics journalist. Unlike almost all other economics commentators, Peter does his homework. He reads academic economists' writings...

Ignazio Visco is a superb economist and central banker. He should be everyone's choice for the next President of the European Central Bank. Italy has a bad economic rap among those with a cursory knowledge of its fiscal condition and financial system. In fact, it's ranked as the most fiscally sustainable of all major EU countries and has one of the world's safest banking systems. The f...

This podcast is not to be missed. Greg Clark is a brilliant economic historian with a remarkable, fact-based take on the role of genetics in economic evolution. Genetics is, of course, a dangerous word when used to discuss humans and their success. But genetics, indeed, simply the ability to live longer and procreate better, can make a major difference over the long sweep of economic history. It c...

I met Bill Raduchel as a grad student at Harvard. He was then and remains today a rare combination of pure genius and utter humility. My interactions with Bill were limited. But I instinctively realized he was some form of economics, software, and computer god rolled into a lovely person who could teach you about those subjects or anything  else of interest. I met up again with Bill two years back...

When it comes to personal finance journalism, Richard is simply as good as it gets. After I read Richard's Next Avenue column,  What the Heck is Going On at Social Security , I realized it was beyond time to have him on  Economics Matters -- the Podcast .    Richard Eisenberg is an “unretired” writer, editor, podcaster and author. He writes “The View From Unretirement” for MarketWatch, biweekl...

Back in January 2023, Peter Fox Penner  appeared  on Economics Matters -- the Podcast to discuss his fabulous book,   Power After Carbon, Building a Clean Resilient Grid .  Peter, who studied engineering in college and economics at the University of Chicago, where he earned a PhD, is surely among the most knowledge people in the country on America's energy system. He's back in this fascina...

Jean Chatzky is one of America's leading personal finance journalists and authors. Jean and I are long-time buds. I'm delighted to have her on  Economics Matters -- the Podcast .  Jean is in the midst of an extraordinary career. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.A. in English, Jean did equity research for Dean Witter and then moved into financial journalism -- first wit...

As Senator Ernst sweetly reminded us, we're all going to die. But not all of us will be prepared financially to die. Thinking about the afterlife is rather unpleasant for most of us. Yes, there's heaven to look forward to. But who knows if we'll make it. There's lots of religions, different from our own, that are convinced that we'll be rejected before we even apply. So, we put...

Economics PhD, CFP, President of  Lyon Financial Planning , Jay Abolofia shows you how to do estate planning using MaxiFi Planner's new spending cap and other unique features. If you're a MaxiFi Planner user, you already know and trust Jay. Jay provides bi-monthly MaxiFi office hours and uses MaxiFi in his own financial planning practice. Jay also provides a terrific  co-piloting service  for Maxi...

I've known Larry Leamer forever thanks to my close friendship with Larry's recently departed, economist extraordinaire, brother --  Edward Leamer . Ed wasn't bowled over by any economist. But he was in awe of Larry, years before Larry became one of our nation's leading biographers. Much of Larry's work focuses on the rich and scandalous.  Warhol's Muses  certainty meets that bill. The book, which...

This is Fred's third appearance on  Economics Matters -- the Podcast.  I wanted to get Fred back on asap as part of my ongoing quest to keep people financially safe. Fred is the Founder and Managing Member of  Lane Generational LLC , an independent registered investment advisor headquartered in Boston ( www.lanegenerational.com ). Lane Generational provides investment management services on a...

I'm just delighted to have Anders Åslund on  Economics Matters -- the Podcast . I met Anders in the late 1990s when he asked me to go with him to Russia to discuss pension and other economic reforms with the Russian government. At the time, Anders was working for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is now Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. This was a period of great hope for...

Mark and Kara are a 50-50 combination of Top Gun and The Right Stuff. Mark was chosen by the Airforce to fly the U-2 Spy Plane -- at 72,000 feet, in a space suit to keep from compressing to a raison. Kara was picked to fly the Airforce's enormous C-5 cargo plane -- large enough to hold five trailways buses. Mark was Kara's flight instructor years before they accidentally reconnected and en...

The markets are going nuts for a good reason. The Administration is taking, at random, three steps backwards and 1 step forward on a wide range of issues. These include effectively eliminating trade with China, threatening the independence of the Fed, attacking our nation's comparative advantages in education, scientific achievement, training foreign students, and providing tourists a warm welcome...

David Barboza, a Brilliant, Informed, and Thoughtful China Expert, Discusses U.S.-China Relations. The Relationship has gone from Distant to Close and Now to Dangerous as the U.S. Faces Economic Irrelevance

Trump, the German View. A Discussion with Rüdiger Bachmann, One of Germany's Most Influential Economists and Public Intellectuals

Is Musk-Trump's Evisceration of Financial Oversight Sheer Lunacy? Richard Berner, NYU Professor of Finance, Former First Director of the Treasury's Office of Financial Research, and Former Morgan Stanley Chief Economics Sounds the Alarm! I'm delighted to have my long-time friend, Dick (Richard) Berner, on the podcast. Dick is among the most knowledgeable economists in the world when it...

Terry Savage, our Nation's Brilliant Personal Finance Guru, Returns to Economics Matters to Discuss Roth Conversions

Superb Economist, Moshe Milevsky, Discusses Mitigating Longevity Risks Via Past, Present, and Future Tontines/Annuities Moshe Milevsky is one of my all-time favorite economists. He's a true expert on personal financial economics and when it comes to longevity risk, there is no greater authority. He's also a joy to learn from. Moshe has an uncanny ability to deliver complex ideas in the simplest po...

Liz Weston, the Internet's Most Read Personal Finance Columnist Joins Economics Matters -- the Podcast to Share Her Career-Long Trove of Critical Financial Secrets and Advice Liz Weston is the most-read personal finance columnist on the Internet. Her twice-weekly columns for MSN Money generate 10 million page views each month, and millions more read her Q&A columns that appear in newspapers in...

Jay Abolofia, PhD economist, CFP, and President of Lyon Financial Planning, joins me to discuss your ticket to potentially major lifetime tax savings. It's  MaxiFi's Roth Conversion Optimizer . The Optimizer is a powerful new addition to MaxiFi Planner. MaxiFi, developed by my software company, Economic Security Planning, Inc., does economics-based financial planning. 

A year back, George Kinder  joined  Economics Matters -- the Podcast, to discuss his life's passion -- integrating Mindfulness, Meditation, and Money. They sound like strange bedfellows, but George is one part Henry Thoreau, one part Zen Master, one part Financial Guru, and ten parts Mensch. George's bio is  here . He's a giant in the field of personal finance, based not just on his unique philoso...