Barry Eichengreen for Opinion has It: Debt Wars

Barry Eichengreen considers what history can teach us about the purpose, power, and peril of public debt. The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Opinion Has It]( In this week's newsletter, we present the newest episode of our podcast, Opinion Has It. Every other week in Opinion Has It, host Elmira Bayrasli is joined by a leading expert to examine a critical and timely issue. Debt Wars In this episode, Elmira Bayrasli talks with Barry Eichengreen, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of [In Defense of Public Debt]( coming this month. Listen now on [PS]( [Acast]( [Apple]( [Google]( or [Spotify](. [Debt Wars]( The unprecedented fiscal spending that many governments unleashed in response to the COVID-19 crisis has fueled an increasingly heated debate over the risks posed by public debt. But the debate is far from new, and history holds important lessons that should inform it. This week on the podcast, [Barry Eichengreen]( considers what those lessons are. [Listen now]( Opinion Has It is also available on your favorite listening app. Listen now on [Acast]( [Apple]( [Google]( or [Spotify](. In this episode... Elmira Bayrasli: Still, resistance to debt-finance spending is growing. As you mentioned earlier, the Biden administration is struggling to get its spending proposals through Congress, even after they’ve been whittled down substantially. Do you think we’ll see a return to austerity or something like it? Barry Eichengreen: There is a debate about whether attitudes toward the role of government – that’s fundamentally what we’re talking about – and the role of debt finance in enabling that more expansive role for government. There’s a debate about whether this is a sea change and we’re moving from the neoliberal order that started with Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to a new New Deal order under Biden, or whether once COVID-19 is in the rearview mirror, we will go back to the neoliberal order. My own view is that there has been a change in... [Read the transcript]( Listen now on [PS]( [Acast]( [Apple]( [Google]( or [Spotify](. [PS. Subscribe now to receive your copy of The Year Ahead 2022: Reckonings]( Previously in Opinion Has It [America’s Afghan Debacle]( [America’s Afghan Debacle]( with [Annie Pforzheimer]( a former acting deputy assistant secretary of state for Afghanistan, a former deputy chief of mission in Kabul, and a non-resident associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies The Taliban has announced its interim government, and its all-male, often-hardline makeup seems to have confirmed many observers’ worst fears. Why did the US mission in Afghanistan fail, and what is in store for the country under Taliban rule? Listen now on [PS]( [Acast]( [Apple]( [Google]( or [Spotify](. Or [read the transcript](. [Check out the Opinion Has It archive]( Previously in Say More [An Interview with Giulio Boccaletti]( [An Interview with Giulio Boccaletti]( [Giulio Boccaletti]( challenges the notion of “efficient authoritarianism,” shows why the US must become an environmental republic, and cites human migration as one of the biggest risks implied by climate change. Boccaletti is an honorary research associate at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, University of Oxford, and the author of [Water: A Biography](. [Check out the Say More archive]( [New Special-Edition Magazine: New Summits. Order now.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.