Podcast
Macro Hive Conversations With Bilal Hafeez
Hosted by Bilal Hafeez · EN
We talk economics and markets with leading policymakers and investors.
30episodes
Episodes
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Ep. 367: Brendan Greeley on The Almighty Dollar, 500 Years of History, and the Eurodollar Market
1w ago00:45:53Tap to summarizeBrendan Greeley has spent twenty years as a journalist, covering economic and monetary policy. He was the US economics editor at the Financial Times and continues to write a regular column there. Before that, he was a staff writer for Bloomberg Businessweek and The Economist, as well as an anchor and correspondent for Bloomberg TV. He has also written for The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal Europe, and received a New York Press Club Award for special event reporting. Brendan graduated from Tulane University with honours in German. He is currently completing a PhD in financial history at Princeton University. In this podcast, we discuss: The "Ancient Dollar's" Bohemian Roots Skepticism of Monetary Sovereignty The Constitutional Shift to Private Banking Nationalising Money via the Civil War The Primacy of Federal Deposit Insurance Endogenous Money: How Banks Create the Dollar The Rise of the Offshore Eurodollar Market Stablecoins as "Schmanks" (Unregulated Banks) Career Longevity and the "Turn-Taking" Marriage
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Ep. 366: Mikihiro Matsuoka on Japan's Inflation, BOJ Policy Shifts, and the Weak Yen Challenge
2w ago00:44:01Tap to summarizeMatsuoka-San is the Chief Economist of SBI Securities in Japan. Before that, he was the Chief Economist for Japan at Deutsche Bank. Overall, he has been involved in macroeconomic analysis at research institutions and financial institutions for the past 30 years. He is known to be one of the leading Japan economists with unique insights on structural issues. Over the years, he has been highly ranked in numerous surveys, including the Institutional Investor survey. In this podcast, we discuss: The "Inconvenient Mix" of Inflation Japan's Real Neutral Interest Rate The Case for Nominal GDP Targeting Consumption Tax: Regressive Relief? Wage Growth Divergence The Working Hours Trap Fiscal Dominance and Vulnerability The Enigma of Yen Weakness Work-from-Home and Birth Rates Erosion of the US Dollar's Premium The AI/Semiconductor "Vertical Jump" US vs. Japan: Labour Participation Trends
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Ep. 365: Stefan Jansen on Agentic AI, ML Workflows, and the Evolution of Machine Learning for Trading
3w ago00:55:08Tap to summarizeStefan Jansen is the founder and CEO of Applied AI. He advises Fortune 500 companies, investment firms, and startups across industries on data & AI strategy, building data science teams, and developing end-to-end machine learning solutions. Before his current venture, he was a partner and managing director at an international investment firm, where he built the predictive analytics and investment research practice. He was also a senior executive at a global fintech company with operations in 15 markets, advised Central Banks in emerging markets, and consulted for the World Bank. In this podcast, we discuss: Defining AI as a Moving Target The Trading vs. Business Data Science Divide Synthetic Data and the "Fat Tail" Challenge Shapley Values: Turning Black Boxes Grey Agentic AI and Unstructured Data RAG, Provenance, and the Context Window Debate The "Alpha Factory" Workflow Reinforcement Learning (RL) for Execution, Not Prediction The Critical Role of Human Context Advice for the AI-Native Job Market
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Ep. 364: William Beach on the US Fiscal Precipice, Tax Reform, and AI's Impact on Labour
4w ago01:05:35Tap to summarizeWilliam W. Beach is the Senior Fellow in Economics at the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) and the Coffin Fellow at the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation. Beach also serves on the UKG Workforce Institute Advisory Board. Prior to these appointments, Beach was the fifteenth Commissioner of Labor Statistics at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington, DC. He took up his duties there on March 28, 2019. Prior to joining BLS, Dr. Beach was vice president for policy research at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University from February of 2016 to March of 2019; and, prior to that served as the Chief Economist for the Senate Budget Committee, Republican Staff, from 2013 through early 2016. In this podcast, we will discuss: The "Fiscal Precipice" The "Crowd Out" Effect Social Drivers of Debt The "Undemocratic" Tax System The Social Security Countdown The Future of "Enhanced Labour" The Data Response Crisis Modernising Federal Statistics
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Ep. 363: Martin Wolf on AI's Colossal Impact, Central Banking Risks, and the Democratic Recession
Jun 1900:52:13Tap to summarizeMartin Wolf is the chief economics commentator at the Financial Times in London. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 2000 'for services to financial journalism'. In this podcast, we discuss: AI: The Ultimate General-Purpose Technology Market Complacency in the Middle East Jay Powell's "Superb" but Flawed Legacy The "Perverse" Risks of Kevin Warsh The UK's Productivity Puzzle and Brexit From "Democratic Recession" to Depression The "Graduate Trap" and Disaffected Youth Advice for the Next Generation
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Ep. 362: Dan Rasmussen on Private Equity's Stranded Assets, Private Credit, and the AI Bubble
Jun 1200:35:28Tap to summarizeDaniel Rasmussen is the founder and managing partner of Verdad Advisers, an investment firm with over $1 billion in assets under management across multiple asset classes. He is the author of The Humble Investor (2025) and American Uprising (2011). Prior to founding Verdad, he worked at Bain Capital Private Equity and Bridgewater Associates. In this podcast, we discuss: Investing as Meta-analysis The Evolution of Private Equity Stranded Software Assets The Private Credit Mirage The "Adjusted EBITDA" Trap Small-Cap Growth Dangers The AI Capex Cycle AI Productivity Mindset
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Ep. 361: Neil Dutta on the US Economic Outlook, Fed Policy Stasis, and AI's Role in Consumer Wealth
Jun 500:31:41Tap to summarizeNeil Dutta is Head of Economic Research at Renaissance Macro Research (renMac). He leads their macroeconomic research efforts, with an emphasis on analysing the US economy, the Federal Reserve, global trends, and cross-market investment themes. He is considered a market economist, looking at the economic data and trying to highlight the risks to the consensus as he sees them. Prior to RenMac, Neil spent seven years at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. There, he was a Senior Economist covering both the United States and Canada. In this podcast, we discuss: Neil's Wall Street "Origin Story" The Four Pillars of Economic Analysis The Real Income Squeeze AI, RSUs, and State Tax Revenues Pervasive Optimism and Reflexivity Risk The Fed's "Path of Least Resistance" The Warsh Nomination and Forward Guidance Productivity Boom or Demand Story? AI's Wealth Effect Beyond Accounting The 2027 Fiscal Headwind Substack vs. Institutional Research
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Ep. 360: Dirk Willer on Trading Global Macro Regimes, the End of QE, and Navigating Equity Bubbles
May 2900:39:24Tap to summarizeDr. Dirk Willer is a Managing Director and Global Head of Macro and Asset Allocation at Citi Research in New York. Prior to this role, Dirk headed global Emerging Market Strategy, where he and his teams were consistently ranked in the top three in the institutional investor surveys. Previously, Dirk worked at Omega Advisors and RHG Capital as a global macro strategist and portfolio manager, and at Swiss Bank as a fixed income strategist for Russia and Eastern Europe. Dirk holds a PhD and MSc in Economics from the London School of Economics. Dirk is also the author of an influential book on how to trade emerging market fixed income, published by Wiley in 2020, and of a book on global macro trading, released in 2026. In this podcast, we discuss: Unlearning the QE Reflex Trading "Close to the Fire" The Nearest Neighbour Regime Framework PMIs vs. "Noisy" Indicators Yield Curve Inversions and Fed Lags The "GMO" Bubble Methodology Credit as the Equity Canary The Four-Indicator Dollar Model Fading Geopolitical Shocks The Role of Human Judgment in AI
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Ep. 359: Dylan Smith on the Hormuz Supply Shock, US Macro Regimes, and Private Market Evolution
May 2200:41:14Tap to summarizeDylan is the founder of arcMacro, where he analyses macro and private markets. His previous roles include serving as an economist at Goldman Sachs and Rosenberg Research, and later as a private market consultant at McKinsey. In this podcast, we discuss: The Hormuz Supply Shock Stagflation as the New Base Case AI Capex vs. Energy Headwinds A Hawkish Fed Outlook Canada's Productivity Pivot The USMCA Trade Cloud Private Market Maturation Normalising Credit Defaults AI's Private Market Future
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Ep. 358: Shawn Edwards on Engineering Trust in AI, The Bloomberg Way, and the Terminal's Future
May 1500:49:39Tap to summarizeShawn Edwards is Bloomberg's Chief Technology Officer. Based in New York, he oversees the development of Bloomberg's global technology strategy. In 2017, Shawn was named in the top ten of the Institutional Investor Tech 40 – an annual ranking of financial industry technology leaders. Prior to joining Bloomberg in 2003, Shawn worked for Bear Stearns & Co., where he was a managing director in the company's fixed income trading group. He has also held positions at Mentor Graphics and IBM. In this podcast, we discuss: Engineering Trust through "Entailment" Automating "The Bloomberg Way" ASKB: Reimagining the Terminal Workflow-Specific AI Expansion Actionable Alternative Data Empowering Non-Programmers Accelerating Data Onboarding Competition vs. Domain Knowledge A Cautious View on AGI
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