Bill Beach is the former commissioner of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics and the current executive director of the Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill. In Bill's first appearance on the show he discusses a career in and around public service, the important niche his new organization fills, the frightening fiscal outlook of the United States, exactly how long we have before Social Security runs out, why he believes it will take lots of small changes instead of a big one to fix our fiscal outlook, the important role of the BLS, why our statistical methods needs reform, the most underrated economic statistical indicators, and much more.

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Recorded on April 15th, 2026

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:25 - Bill's Career

00:10:11 - Fiscal Lab on Capitol Hill

00:17:23 - Fiscal Challenges of the United States

00:30:05 - Surveys from Bureau of Labor Statistics

00:43:12 - Challenges to Survey Work

00:52:13 - Outro

Tyler Goodspeed is the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors and is currently a chief economist in the private sector. In Tyler's first appearance on the podcast he discusses his new book highlighting a different way of looking at recessions, the challenge of breaking away from the human inclination of ascribing patterns to random phenomena, whether recessions are more Dorian Gray or Peter Pan, what history and stories like Jay Cooke tell us about recessions, how to evaluate supply side shocks and the 2008 Financial Crisis, why Milton Friedman's Plucking model might be the best we have at modeling recessions, and much more.

Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!

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

Recorded on April 15th, 2026

Subscribe to David's Substack: Macroeconomic Policy Nexus

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Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:00:43 - Recessions

00:07:07 - Epiphanies or Apophanies

00:26:40 - Peter Pan vs. Dorian Gray

00:33:40 - Jay Cooke and the Railroad

00:39:00 - Models of Recessions

00:47:55 - Supply Shocks

00:50:12 - Recessions in Different Places

01:00:25 - Outro

Recorded live in front of the Wharton Financial Regulation Conference, former guest Peter Conti-Brown joins David Beckworth as a Macro Musings co-host on this week's episode. Peter and David discuss the inflection point of 2008 in FinReg scholarship, how Macro Musings has become just as much a show about financial regulation as about macro, what to make of the Trump administrations changes to bank supervision, whether we should be enthusiastic about the GENIUS Act and digital assets, the true identity of Satoshi Nakamoto, the crisis that could become Claude Mythos, why networks and Substacks are becoming more important, and much more.

Watch the full length video on our new YouTube Channel!

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

Recorded on April 10th, 2026

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Follow the show on X: @Macro_Musings

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Timestamps

00:00:00 - Intro

00:01:29 - History of Financial Regulation

00:04:23 - Monetary Policy vs. Financial Regulation

00:07:48 - Bank Supervision

00:11:59 - Digital Assets

00:22:48 - Claude Mythos and Banking

00:30:35 - The Market Argument for the Discount Window

00:35:44 - Academia vs. Real-World Impact

00:40:28 - Audience Q&A

00:54:16 - Outro