Hester Peirce is a current commissioner at the Securities and Exchange Commission and serves on its crypto task force. Hester returns to the show to discuss her time and role at the SEC, the SEC evolving role in the regulation landscape, the problems with our current state of the financial surveillance, the state of crypto for a regulator’s perspective, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on August 11th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:56 - Hester’s Career

00:07:57 - Peanut Butter and Watermelon

00:17:37 - Crypto Mom

00:20:49 - GENIUS Act and CLARITY Act

00:22:47 - Crypto Task Force

00:24:04 - Feedback

00:26:53 - Being an SEC Commissioner

00:31:24 - Lane Drifting

00:37:31 - Dissent

00:40:20 - SEC Moving Forward

00:47:03 - Outro

Robin Brooks is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Robin returns to the show to discuss his previous appearance in March of 2020, life at a think tank, the changing or not-so-much status of the dollar, Trump’s trade war, the current landscape of geoeconomics and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on August 7th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:50 - Looking Back at the Pandemic War and Fiscal Dominance

00:07:07 - Robin’s Career: From Wall Street to Think Tank

00:18:53 - The Status of the US Dollar

00:27:28 - The Trade War

00:32:40 - Deglobalization

00:39:29 - Geoeconomics

00:47:28 - Secondary Sanctions

00:55:23 - Outro

Aditi Sahasrabuddhe is a political scientist at Brown University and the author of the new book, Banker’s Trust: How Social Relations Avert Global Financial Collapse. In Aditi’s first appearance on the show, she discusses how central bankers’ relationships in the 1920’s impacted the global economy, how the ending of those relationships played a part in the Great Depression, how we can apply those principles to the Great Recession and the present, and much more.

Check out the transcript for this week’s episode, now with links.

Recorded on July 30th, 2025

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:50 - Aditi’s Intellectual Journey

00:03:57 - Louis Franck at the National Bank of Belgium

00:05:46 - Relationships and Crisis

00:11:07 - Central Bank Club

00:17:06 - Central Bankers and the Butterfly Effect

00:22:33 - Montagu Norman and Benjamin Strong

00:32:06 - Émile Moreau

00:34:48 - Japan

00:38:11 - Benjamin Strong and the Great Depression

00:48:55 - Great Financial Crisis

00:51:18 - India

00:55:25 - Jerome Powell the Central Banker

00:58:23 - Outro