Podcast Summary

GoodFellows: Are We Doing This Again? Andrew Ross Sorkin on “1929” and the GoodFellows on 2025
Hoover Institution, December 17, 2025
Guests:

• Andrew Ross Sorkin (NYT, CNBC, author of "1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History")
  Panel: Bill Whelan (moderator), John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster

Overview

This episode uses the lens of Andrew Ross Sorkin’s book “1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History” to examine the lessons (and misconceptions) of the 1929 stock market crash, drawing echoes to today’s financial system, policy responses, and regulatory climate. The discussion also reviews the most significant events, trends, and individuals shaping 2025 and offers predictions for 2026.

Segment 1: Understanding 1929 — Myths, Realities & Parallels to Today

[02:18–21:12]

Key Discussion Points

• Misunderstanding 1929:

  • Sorkin emphasizes that the crash wasn’t a single day event followed by inevitable depression:

    “A lot of people think there was a crash that happened on one day in October and that somehow magically, we had a Great Depression. … The crash was just the first of a series of dominoes.” (Sorkin, 03:09)

  • Policy mistakes, not just the crash, created the Depression’s severity.

• Role of Leverage and Tech Mania:

  • The Roaring Twenties featured unprecedented leverage (margin 10:1) and a tech boom (RCA was the “Nvidia of its time”).
  • Niall Ferguson draws the parallel:

    “There’s a kind of tech boom to the 20s… RCA was one of the really hot stocks. … I started to see patterns that were recognizable… particularly in the kind of inter of Wall street and an increasingly retail focused financial sector.” (Ferguson, 04:36)

  • Sorkin on democratizing finance, both then and now:

    “We’re trying to democratize finance again in some ways… There was a remarkable amount of inequality in the 20s; there’s a remarkable amount of inequality today.” (Sorkin, 05:36)

• Market Mechanisms & Financial Plumbing:

  • John Cochrane probes for deeper cause and effect beyond “greed” or “optimism”:

    “Speculation is natural… But there are features of the markets that mean speculative activity and huge volume… optimism doesn’t create volume, volume is churn… The Fed was lending money to banks so that banks could then lend money to stock speculators.” (Cochrane, 07:01)

  • Sorkin acknowledges technical factors, including lagging ticker data, that fueled indiscriminate selling and panic.

• Policy Failures Post-Crash:

  • Not the crash alone, but policies like tariffs, tight money, and the gold standard worsened the situation.
  • Sorkin:

    “Had we been able to print money earlier, I don't think we would have been talking about necessarily the kind of bank failures that we did in 1932…” (Sorkin, 10:41)

  • “30% deflation is huge when you have to pay back borrowed money.” (Cochrane, 13:31)

Notable Quotes

• Sorkin: “The real misunderstanding… is that the crash alone caused the Great Depression. It was the domino of terrible policy decisions that made it so devastating.” [03:09]
• Niall Ferguson: “There’s a kind of tech boom to the 20s… RCA was, you know, probably the greatest example. It was sort of the Nvidia of its time.” [04:36]
• Cochrane: “Speculation is natural... but there are features of the markets... margin lending... the Fed lending money to banks for stock speculation.” [07:01]

Segment 2: Who’s to Blame? Policy Makers, Institutions, and Human Agency

[14:09–22:44]

Key Discussion Points

• Agency and Responsibility:

  • H.R. McMaster probes who could have prevented the crash/Depression; Sorkin explains the complexity:

    “There’s two questions. One is, what could you do on the front end to prevent the crash unto itself? … But I don't think it's even the most instrumental domino.” [14:59]

  • Importance of Congress and other actors (Carter Glass, Andrew Mellon) in shaping outcomes.
  • Niall Ferguson: “It’s not just the President... Congress is a very important player. You give appropriate billing… to Carter Glass, the Senator… the beauty of the book is that we see all of these different characters in their different roles.” [16:31]

• Moral Choices and Rules of the Game:

  • Sorkin describes the absence of modern regulation and moral judgments:

    “Back then, there was no SEC, there was no insider trading rules... I went looking for people who opted out for moral reasons, and I couldn’t find them.” [21:16]

Segment 3: Then vs. Now — Modern Parallels, Markets, and the Fed

[22:44–31:21]

Key Discussion Points

• Comparing Treasury Secretaries and Presidents:

  • Sorkin and Cochrane debate the role of the modern Treasury Secretary (Scott Besant) vs. Andrew Mellon, and how administration styles have changed.
  • “Coolidge’s style of governance, taciturn, aloof and minimal, was about to be retired. … Not sure all this energy is so great.” (Cochrane, 25:10)

• Lessons from Fed Policy 1929 vs 2008+:

  • Niall Ferguson: “Bernanke was doing the opposite of what the Fed did in the Great Depression.”
  • Sorkin:

    “The right answer… is to do things like Bernanke did in 2008… when you have a crisis, you need to throw money at the problem… That was the lesson of 1929, which is we didn’t throw money at the problem.” [27:22]

  • Worries about when the bond market may no longer tolerate US borrowing:

    “I just don’t know when the bondholders of the world say, ‘Excuse me, this doesn’t work for us’… You create a really vicious and painful cycle.” (Sorkin, 27:22)

Notable Quotes

• Sorkin: “The independence of the Fed does matter… when you have a crisis, you need to throw money at the problem, as politically unpalatable as that may very well be.” [27:22]
• Cochrane: “We are still stuck in bailout like crazy and then pass hundreds of thousands of regulations that don’t work and then we bail out like crazy again.” [28:43]

Segment 4: Financial Regulation, Crony Capitalism, & New Risks

[28:43–36:27]

Key Discussion Points

• Enduring Crony Capitalism:

  • Sorkin recounts learning that even the vaunted “Glass-Steagall” was shaped by private interests.
  • Growing concern that policy always fights the last war, creating unintended consequences (e.g., Dodd-Frank driving lending into unregulated private credit).
  • Sorkin:

    “The entire loan business has just moved from the banking system, which is regulated, to the private credit system, which is not.” [29:48]

• Antitrust and Hollywood Mega-Deals:

  • Warner Bros. bidding war discussed as a symptom of fading antitrust logic, rise of political influence.

Notable Quotes

• Sorkin: “I had a view before I started writing this book that somehow the good old days didn’t have lobbying and didn’t have cronyism… Then you realize the bill … was written by a banker trying to screw over another banker.” [29:48]
• Cochrane: “The solution is competition. There is no durable monopoly other than that offered by the federal government.” [33:14]

Segment 5: Multi-Causal Shocks — Why Crises Are Never Simple

[33:41–38:07]

Key Discussion Points

• Multiple Causes, Not Just Policy:

  • Niall Ferguson highlights forthcoming work (Goodspeed, “Recession”) showing plagues of locusts (!) may have contributed to bank failures in the Great Depression.
  • Summary: Financial crises are an intersection of diverse shocks — policy, nature, international links.

• Deposit Insurance Debate:

  • Cochrane and Sorkin note Hoover and Roosevelt opposed deposit insurance, fearing moral hazard — which remains an unsolved issue.

Segment 6: 2025 Review – Biggest Stories, Underreported Events, Person of the Year

[40:36–48:30]

Highlights

• Most Important Event of 2025:

  • Ferguson: Trump’s explosive first 100 days of his new term — “transformative, disruptive.” [40:46]
  • McMaster: Israel’s counteroffensive and its wider Middle East consequences. [41:17]
  • Cochrane: End of “100 days,” especially “Liberation Day” when tariffs signal the beginning of the end for the Trump era. [41:34]
  • Whelan: Operation Midnight Hammer — Destruction of Iranian nuclear facilities. [42:21]

• Underreported Story:

  • Regulatory revolution in US agencies (Cochrane), surge of students registering disabilities at Stanford (Ferguson), tightening Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis (McMaster), Jimmy Lai’s prosecution in Hong Kong (Whelan).

• Person of the Year:

  • Ferguson: Scott Besant for averting economic crisis.
  • McMaster: Maria Karina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader, for courage.
  • Cochrane: Trump — central to the “vibe shift” of this era.
  • Whelan: Polish mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel for an epic feat.

Segment 7: 2025 Cultural Picks & Lessons Learned

[49:18–54:54]

Media Recommendations & Takeaways

• H.R. McMaster:
  • Rick Atkinson’s history of the American Revolution, Ken Burns’ documentary on the revolution.
• John Cochrane:
  • “The Princess Bride” (and laments decline of movie writing).
• Niall Ferguson:
  • “Drayton and McKenzie” (novel), Scotland’s World Cup qualification (sports moment).
• Whelan:
  • Netflix's “Death by Lightning,” Candice Millard’s “Destiny of the Republic.”

Lessons Learned in 2025

• Ferguson: Limit frequent long-haul flying — “you will get hypertension.” [52:36]
• McMaster: Limit long absences; cherish family and grandkids.
• Cochrane: US government aid system is increasingly managed via nonprofits; policy bottlenecks are everywhere.
• Whelan: Get more sleep; maybe delete YouTube.

Segment 8: 2026 Predictions & New Year’s Resolutions

[54:07–end]

Predictions for 2026

• McMaster: Authoritarian regimes are brittle; US may regain national confidence.
• Cochrane: Democrats take the House; left will have to find a new focus.
• Ferguson: Doubts Scotland will defeat Brazil in World Cup; not that optimistic.
• Whelan: Denver Broncos make the Super Bowl.

New Year’s Resolutions

• McMaster: Maximize time with grandkids.
• Cochrane: Prepare better for GoodFellows.
• Ferguson: Walk a new dog every day (new grandchild is a secret!).
• Whelan: Get in better shape; read more purposeful books.

A brief, humorous Santa cameo ensues to close the show.

Conclusion and Tone

The podcast blends serious historical analysis with current events, jokes, and good-natured ribbing. Sorkin’s command of the narrative and historical parallels prompts wide-ranging and insightful debate among the panel, highlighting both recurring hazards and virtues in American economic governance.

Selected Memorable Quotes

• “The real misunderstanding… is that the crash alone caused the Great Depression. It was the domino of terrible policy decisions that made it so devastating.” — Andrew Ross Sorkin [03:09]
• “There’s a kind of tech boom to the 20s… RCA was… the Nvidia of its time.” — Niall Ferguson [04:36]
• “Wanting the government to notice bubbles happening and stop them ahead of time is pretty ambitious. I think the policy mistakes in the wake of the crash are more significant.” — John Cochrane [16:21]
• “[Fed independence]… when you have a crisis, you need to throw money at the problem, as politically unpalatable as that may very well be.” — Sorkin [27:22]
• “One thing I learned in 2025: don’t fly long haul every week. You will get hypertension.” — Ferguson [52:36]

Key Timestamps

• 02:18 Sorkin explains common misconceptions about 1929
• 04:36 Ferguson draws parallels between 1920s tech boom and modern times
• 07:01 Cochrane probes causes behind repeated financial booms and busts
• 10:41 Sorkin on policy, deflation, and the Great Depression
• 14:09 McMaster questions “who’s to blame?”
• 25:10 Cochrane on presidential styles and policy
• 27:22 Sorkin on Fed independence and crisis response
• 29:48 Sorkin exposes persistent crony capitalism
• 33:14 Cochrane: “The solution is competition…”
• 40:46 Panel reviews biggest event of 2025
• 42:30 Underreported stories of the year
• 47:14 Person of the Year picks
• 49:18 Best cultural picks and 2025 lessons learned
• 54:07 2026 predictions and resolutions

For listeners and readers:
This episode offers a multidimensional look at crises past and present—how human fallibility, institutional design, and shifting “plumbing” all contribute to financial vulnerabilities, and how echoes of 1929 remain salient as we navigate new risks in the 2020s. The discussion moves from deep history to contemporary policy, with trenchant insights, wit, and plenty of candid self-awareness.