Speaker 1: How interest rate stay low. That's the question. The whole
Speaker 1: wants to know. How interest rate stay low. It seems
Speaker 1: like if they're going up, they're going Welcome to all thoughts.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Halloway, executive editor at Bloomberg Markets, and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe wasn't All, Managing editor at Bloomberg Markets. Joe, you're
Speaker 1: a country music guy, right. I am a huge country
Speaker 1: music fan. That is correct. Um. Sorry that question sounded
Speaker 1: a bit judgmental, but why no, it's fair to be
Speaker 1: judgment I don't know. I I can't explain it. I
Speaker 1: like I like songs with distinct melodies. I like songs
Speaker 1: with uh distinct lyrics. I went to college in Texas
Speaker 1: and my wife is from Mississippi, so I feel like
Speaker 1: I have this uh natural somehow I became a sort
Speaker 1: of adopted Southerners, so just kind of all fit together
Speaker 1: for me. So I know you're a fan of country music,
Speaker 1: and I know you were sad to hear that Merl Haggard,
Speaker 1: who's a titan of country music, passed away earlier this month.
Speaker 1: I was a huge moral Haggard fan. I went to
Speaker 1: see him in concert last year. He was definitely one
Speaker 1: of my favorite musicians. He was the originator, one of
Speaker 1: the originators of something called the Bakersfield Sound music that
Speaker 1: was actually written about agriculture, sort of emanating from agricultural
Speaker 1: workers in California, and um he had earlier in his
Speaker 1: career he had all these really reactionary right wing posts.
Speaker 1: Are right wing stories, uh, the fighting side of me,
Speaker 1: okay from Muskogi about hating the way the world was changing.
Speaker 1: Those are my go to karaoke song. Unfortunately, I know
Speaker 1: that from personal solicitors are probably wondering why we're talking
Speaker 1: about this, right, like, why are we talking about my
Speaker 1: love of country music? Well, in the Odd Lodge podcast,
Speaker 1: I thought, to ease your pain and your sadness at
Speaker 1: Mr Haggard's passing, we could bring in the financial equivalent
Speaker 1: of Merl Haggard. Right. So back of the day, during
Speaker 1: the crisis, there were the music videos that popped up
Speaker 1: by someone who had the brilliant name Merle Hazard, which
Speaker 1: of course sounds like Merl Haggard, but also sounds like
Speaker 1: moral hazard. One of an economic phenomenon, and he's still
Speaker 1: kicking around. We used to watch those videos during the crisis.
Speaker 1: The blogs picked them up every time there was a
Speaker 1: new one from Merl Hazard, they would get posted. So
Speaker 1: in honor of Merl Haggard, we decided to ring up
Speaker 1: Merl Hazard and see what he's up to exactly. And
Speaker 1: it's a really good time to be doing it because
Speaker 1: he actually has a new music video out and I
Speaker 1: think it might be one of my favorites so far.
Speaker 1: Let's bring him in. That's the question over will borrowing
Speaker 1: be free subsidized? Hi, John, welcome to the show. Hi,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me. Do you prefer us to call
Speaker 1: you John or Merle? Well, if I'm talking like this,
Speaker 1: it would be John, and if I'm talking like this,
Speaker 1: it would be Merle. That's a good distinction. So let's
Speaker 1: just jump right into it. How did you become Let's
Speaker 1: just start from the beginning. How did you become Merle Hazard? Well,
Speaker 1: it was not a rational calculation. Um when the financial
Speaker 1: crisis was just starting. I mean people say it was
Speaker 1: two thousand eight, but really in two thousand seven, a
Speaker 1: couple of Bear Stearns hedge funds started to crack. That summer,
Speaker 1: I was talking with a friend, Josh May, who lives
Speaker 1: in Nashville but covers central bank policy for a firm
Speaker 1: in New York and um, anyway, we were talking about
Speaker 1: how well this is real estate is going to be
Speaker 1: a slow motion train wreck. It's probably going to wind
Speaker 1: up as a festival for moral hazard. And if you're
Speaker 1: a financial person and you live in Nashville, we both
Speaker 1: started laughing and thought, well, that sounds like the name
Speaker 1: of a country saying a Merle Hazard, and uh. I
Speaker 1: was just really taken with that idea, and that evening
Speaker 1: I was thinking, you know, I would really love to
Speaker 1: live in the world in which there were such a
Speaker 1: figure as Merle Hazard who would accurately explained financial matters
Speaker 1: through the medium of country music. And then I thought, well,
Speaker 1: obviously nobody's going to do this unless I do it.
Speaker 1: So that was the genesis of it. And it was
Speaker 1: very quick, you know. That was I think a Wednesday.
Speaker 1: I wrote the first song, you know, Thursday night, Friday night,
Speaker 1: recorded it Saturday, very uh crudely in my basement, and
Speaker 1: we shot a very simple video Sunday, put it on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and then the next you know, by by Thursday of
Speaker 1: the next week, it had been picked up online by
Speaker 1: the New York Times and it just caught on. So
Speaker 1: what was the first song? Well, the first song is
Speaker 1: actually not up on the web anymore, sadly because of
Speaker 1: the copyright issue. But man, it's hedge h E d
Speaker 1: G E. It's it's like Tammy Winnett song d I
Speaker 1: V O R C E. But it I love that
Speaker 1: one that spells out the word hedge fund. You know,
Speaker 1: my my h E d g E f U N
Speaker 1: D went bankrupt today. Goldman S A C H S
Speaker 1: took my fund in a way like that. Can we
Speaker 1: back up a little bit? So you talked about how
Speaker 1: you wanted there to be a you, You wanted there
Speaker 1: to be a country musician named role Hazard that explained
Speaker 1: these things in song. And then you realize you had
Speaker 1: to do it? But what were you doing before then?
Speaker 1: So were you already? Yeah? Start, where do you have
Speaker 1: a songwriting background? Well, I'm a money manager and uh
Speaker 1: uh got my own firm changing company here in Nashville.
Speaker 1: And it's long only fairly traditional, fairly boring, not nearly
Speaker 1: as exciting as a as songs and so forth. Um,
Speaker 1: and I've been doing that, uh. I mean, my first
Speaker 1: job on Wall Street was in the eighties. But um,
Speaker 1: but anyway, if you have to go back to college,
Speaker 1: I had a pop band in college called the Young Nashvillians,
Speaker 1: and I wrote for the college humor magazine. So there's
Speaker 1: some music and and humor back in my twenties and
Speaker 1: then pretty much nothing until I guess middle age. Are
Speaker 1: you a Are you a country music fan? Uh? Sort of.
Speaker 1: I mean I didn't really grow up listening to country,
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of the My dad was a
Speaker 1: businessman here and he's from Canada, and and my mom's
Speaker 1: family from Nashville. My mom, you know, played classical music
Speaker 1: and and and jazz and and uh. We didn't really
Speaker 1: listen to country growing up, although you can't avoid it,
Speaker 1: you know, with people came in from out of town,
Speaker 1: we'd take them to the opery. But I didn't really
Speaker 1: appreciate it until I was in college and a and
Speaker 1: a friend found out I was from Nashville, didn't know
Speaker 1: a lot about country music. This guy was from Connecticut
Speaker 1: and he's like, you need to listen to George Jones.
Speaker 1: And I started listening. I was like this, this stuff
Speaker 1: is pretty good, and yeah, it's ridiculous to live here
Speaker 1: and not. Well, have we watched a bunch of your videos?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you're really good at it and
Speaker 1: you have a you have a good ear for it,
Speaker 1: and you have a good voice. And I'm a really
Speaker 1: big country music fan, and obviously we had the idea
Speaker 1: of doing this episode of the podcast. Um after the
Speaker 1: passing of Merle Haggard, did you get into his work specifically? Well,
Speaker 1: I do like his work. I mean, my my Name
Speaker 1: is really more a punt on moral hazard, although it's
Speaker 1: a nice nice thing that it that it also brought
Speaker 1: to mind Merle Travis and Merle Haggard. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I really do admire his his work. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a you know, the Merle Haggard song that starts
Speaker 1: off with where he wishes uh the U s we're
Speaker 1: back at the time when it was a silver backed currency.
Speaker 1: So he also u uh So he also he also
Speaker 1: did a little bit of econ country music. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: a man, when a man would would still work and
Speaker 1: still could. Although I heard that he later said some
Speaker 1: of these songs that were kind of more write a center,
Speaker 1: he had more reactionary He thought they came out okay
Speaker 1: from Muskogee. I think he didn't approve of Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: exactly right. So like a lot of his early heads
Speaker 1: for the sort of right wing reactionary songs like Okay
Speaker 1: from Muskogee and Fighting Side of Me and uh, you
Speaker 1: know that one about how the good old days when
Speaker 1: women cooked and the dollar is still back to the the silver.
Speaker 1: But he did actually later in his career say he
Speaker 1: didn't really believe those things anymore. He's still sang them,
Speaker 1: and he still liked them, and the fans still enjoyed them,
Speaker 1: but he basically disavowed. It makes total sense to me.
Speaker 1: I I you know, I'm not no, I'm no moral haggard,
Speaker 1: but but I can understand how you write a song
Speaker 1: and then you don't anticipate quite how people take it.
Speaker 1: Do you have a specific example, And I have one
Speaker 1: that just made me sound like I'm a total gold bug.
Speaker 1: It was legal tender dollar bills printed by the Fed.
Speaker 1: Some folks call it stash or jack money, blah bread. Well,
Speaker 1: there's also one of my favorite ones. I think the
Speaker 1: inflation or deflation one. Perhaps, I mean it kind of
Speaker 1: perhaps sets up a false choice between Japan and Zimbabwe.
Speaker 1: It might be a middle pet and and that's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite ones. Th thank you. My favorite comment
Speaker 1: on on you you know that? The song says you
Speaker 1: know you know, inflation or deflation, tell me if you
Speaker 1: can when we become Zimbabwe or will and and on
Speaker 1: YouTube people can leave comments and if several people had
Speaker 1: sort of debates about that. And my favorite comment with
Speaker 1: somebody this was, you know, seven years ago or something,
Speaker 1: when it came out and somebody just left the comment
Speaker 1: Japan inflation or deflation? Tell me if you can we
Speaker 1: become Zimbabwe or where we be Japan. Some of your
Speaker 1: songs and music videos are incredibly well produced. Do you
Speaker 1: have someone helping you or how buckly do you manage
Speaker 1: to do this well? The videos? I work with Jim
Speaker 1: DeMarco and Matt Amy at the local PBS affiliate, Nashville
Speaker 1: Public Television. They're very talented and uh and the last
Speaker 1: I don't know, I didn't know the music. The last
Speaker 1: one I worked with Alison Brown, who's uh was a
Speaker 1: college classmate of mine and you know, moved to Nashville
Speaker 1: and his one Grammy Awards. And so if you team
Speaker 1: up with somebody like that, it makes it sound a
Speaker 1: lot better. Yeah, we were going back and watching them
Speaker 1: because I remember I watched the videos a lot back
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, like when, um, you know, during
Speaker 1: the crisis, and in my memory for some reason, I
Speaker 1: just assumed that it was sort of you standing in
Speaker 1: front of the camera. But then going back and watching
Speaker 1: these videos and they're like, oh, they're really they were
Speaker 1: really well produced, clever music videos that you did well. Thanks.
Speaker 1: What's your personal favorite? You know you it's a little
Speaker 1: it's a little bit like picking favorites among kids or
Speaker 1: something like that, which you just you you love them
Speaker 1: all and you know for what they're for what they
Speaker 1: can do or whatever, but uh, or what you know
Speaker 1: for who they are. But uh, I think I usually
Speaker 1: at any given moment, like the last one that I did,
Speaker 1: because it's been trying to address whatever I got wrong
Speaker 1: on the prior ones. I'm talking about song, not kids,
Speaker 1: but the uh so so the last one how long
Speaker 1: will interest rate? Stale? Which is the one Alison Brown
Speaker 1: plays on and then she got too equally awesome bluegrass
Speaker 1: musicians and um, and we put a little more effort
Speaker 1: into the video as well. It's a kind of a
Speaker 1: he hostile video to go with it. So besides the
Speaker 1: fame that and the recognition that you've got from YouTube
Speaker 1: videos and blogs picking up your music, where else has
Speaker 1: the Merle Hazard character taken you if you played events,
Speaker 1: what kind of how has it changed your life? It's
Speaker 1: a hobby, right, So I put out about one of
Speaker 1: these a year, and it it's a very small amount
Speaker 1: of my time. I'm a large amount of my fun.
Speaker 1: I hardly ever do anything live. There's a fair amount
Speaker 1: of uh, retakes and so forth to make it look
Speaker 1: like I know what I'm doing on the videos. But
Speaker 1: I've sung it the American Economic Association convention twice, which
Speaker 1: is really fun. There's a humor session there that you're on.
Speaker 1: Bowman runs We actually he was a guest on an
Speaker 1: earlier episode of Odd Lots. So right now we've had
Speaker 1: two guests specifically, not from any other aspect of the
Speaker 1: American Economic Association event, but to now specifically just from
Speaker 1: the humor section says about us. Joe STIGLETTZ hasn't made
Speaker 1: it on yet, but you've the sections. Okay, well, you
Speaker 1: know there's truth and humor too, um and uh you
Speaker 1: know somebody's birthday party. I've sung it here in town.
Speaker 1: But so most of it happens virtually, and it's it's
Speaker 1: fun to see college professors using classrooms and occasionally they'll
Speaker 1: write and say the students. Actually, you know, they're not
Speaker 1: quoting from the textbook, but they are quoting from your songs.
Speaker 1: That's that's sort of gratifying and probably means more that
Speaker 1: they didn't study than anything else. But it's still fun.
Speaker 1: And occasionally these songs will be quoted in academic papers,
Speaker 1: even in German. I'm guessing that was maybe the Greek
Speaker 1: duck crisis one. Oh, yes, the Greeks gave us Pythagoras
Speaker 1: and you click and play too and other wondrous stuff
Speaker 1: put balance in their national budget. Their budget, their budget apparently,
Speaker 1: is tough. What's your process for coming up with new songs?
Speaker 1: So you wrote that your latest one is this will inflate?
Speaker 1: Will rate stay low? Forever? Do they just sort of
Speaker 1: snap in your head one day and say let's do this,
Speaker 1: or do you sort of say, okay, it's time for
Speaker 1: a new song. Yes, that's a good question, and it's
Speaker 1: interesting to me how people come up with ideas and
Speaker 1: in my case, what seems to work. I don't sit
Speaker 1: there go it's time to put out a song. I
Speaker 1: don't do that. I wait until some phrase is stuck
Speaker 1: in my head. You know, for example, how long will
Speaker 1: interest rate stay low. I mean, songs are all things
Speaker 1: that have really been bothering me. I present them as humor,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's like the masks of comedy and tragedy.
Speaker 1: Those are two sides of the same coin. These are
Speaker 1: all pretty deep problems. Actually, I'd say they're so serious
Speaker 1: that you have to laugh about them. So how long
Speaker 1: will interest rate stay low? You know, if you're a retiree,
Speaker 1: you know that's an issue. If your money manager looking
Speaker 1: for assets with return, that's that's a problem. So anyway,
Speaker 1: if I find a phrase or an idea stuck in
Speaker 1: my head, I go, oh, well, if it's if it's
Speaker 1: something that's recurring and I'm turning it around, that could
Speaker 1: work as a song. And then I follow the thread
Speaker 1: from a phrase like inflation or deflation or how long
Speaker 1: will interest rate stay low? Or fiscal cliff was another song?
Speaker 1: Or dual mandate. Um, yeah, that's a good one. That's
Speaker 1: a really good one too. And I was watching that
Speaker 1: one just recently, and I really thought it was actually
Speaker 1: an excellent framing of this sort of economic debate between
Speaker 1: the conservatives and the hawks who are most concerned about inflation,
Speaker 1: and the more liberals and the walking types who are
Speaker 1: more concerned about keeping adequate demanding the economy. So I
Speaker 1: actually thought it was a very nice framing for anyone
Speaker 1: to understand the Fed debs. It's awfully hard to be
Speaker 1: a central banker. Rich folks like to see the currency strong,
Speaker 1: but the average Joe's not overjoyed as destitute and unemployed.
Speaker 1: Seems like every time I choose, I'm choosing wrong. Right
Speaker 1: says I should tighten up on credit credit And you
Speaker 1: know in the later songs, I've gotten to where the
Speaker 1: older I get, the less I think I know. And
Speaker 1: so I raised questions more than try to answer them.
Speaker 1: It's it's a dilemma, the dual mandate and attention between UH,
Speaker 1: stable prices and full employment. Those are what the FED
Speaker 1: calls the two sides of its dual mandate, and um,
Speaker 1: you know there's no perfect way to to square those John.
Speaker 1: Is there something about country music specifically that lends itself
Speaker 1: to covering these sorts of big financial questions? Or could
Speaker 1: you have gone in any direction musically? That is another
Speaker 1: deep question. Uh, I like to think that, you know,
Speaker 1: country music is about loving and losing, and love of
Speaker 1: making money and fear of losing money, seems to seems
Speaker 1: to map in some sense. Um, I imagine intellectually that
Speaker 1: any genre could work. You know, Tom Lair wrote Gilbert
Speaker 1: and Sullivan style songs, uh about politics. Um, that's not
Speaker 1: too too different. But um, but it is a lyrically
Speaker 1: focused genre. So I mean it does have the advantage.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you say Tom Lair and that's
Speaker 1: another good example. But we're not going to get jazz
Speaker 1: songs about the FED right probably less. I mean it
Speaker 1: is a good it is a good genre. That's a
Speaker 1: good clear lyrics, that's a good point. Yeah, here's a
Speaker 1: kind of a serious question. Does the process of writing
Speaker 1: one of these songs help you in any way actually
Speaker 1: clarify and form the debate? So you said, for example,
Speaker 1: you know, writing the song about the dual mandate really
Speaker 1: made you think about it. Now you've written a song
Speaker 1: about the interest rate outlook? Do you often you know
Speaker 1: that when we have these debates sometimes it can be
Speaker 1: hard to really grapple with the contours. But writing a
Speaker 1: song about it, with the constraints that a song requires,
Speaker 1: seems to me that it could actually be a helpful
Speaker 1: process for really sort of isolating the key ideas on
Speaker 1: either side. Do you find that it's true to a degree,
Speaker 1: but maybe not quite as much as you think. I mean,
Speaker 1: for one thing, i'll read about a topic a little bit.
Speaker 1: If I realize area so I don't know about, I'll
Speaker 1: show the lyric to a friend. Uh usually the same
Speaker 1: friend Josh may I mentioned who held me come up
Speaker 1: with the idea. We came up with it together. Really.
Speaker 1: Um and uh he'll point out, you know, well but
Speaker 1: in euro bids this or that, so it it does.
Speaker 1: It does foster dialogue. Yeah, it helps me refine my thought.
Speaker 1: I haven't guess, I haven't thought that much about it.
Speaker 1: But you know I had one other thought, just to
Speaker 1: turn back to something that you talked about about the
Speaker 1: sort of dual life and uh, uh, well it's not
Speaker 1: really dual life. Again, this is a hobby. But I
Speaker 1: remember when I said my twenties and I talked to
Speaker 1: my mom about, you know, I have these interests in
Speaker 1: you know, maybe doing investment work, and but I still
Speaker 1: like music. And she told me about Wallace Stevens, the
Speaker 1: poet you know, who was a vice president of the
Speaker 1: Hartford Insurance Company. That was actually what he did. His
Speaker 1: poetry was all written, uh, you know on the side.
Speaker 1: That's all we remember him for. But and he wasn't
Speaker 1: you know, he was a vice president of this big company.
Speaker 1: It was a fairly serious job. William, I'm not, I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding myself, but William Carlos Williams at the Poet
Speaker 1: was the head of pediatrics at the hospital. I'm by
Speaker 1: far not I'm not at all the first person to
Speaker 1: to create. And Tom Lair, who we talked about, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he only wrote about seventies songs his whole life. It's
Speaker 1: just that they're so good. So in other words, you know,
Speaker 1: you can be doing a sort of intense, numbers focused,
Speaker 1: professional kind of job and it's nice to have a
Speaker 1: creative outlet. Yeah. Yeah, And and it's it's been done
Speaker 1: before and done better than I'm doing it. Uh. Do
Speaker 1: you have anything kicking around right now? Can you give
Speaker 1: us any hints? Do you take requests? I do take requests.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I love getting ideas for topics, So if
Speaker 1: you have any I have I have a non uh.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of of non uh financial ideas
Speaker 1: I'd like to do, but I guess I'd better not
Speaker 1: say them out loud. Well, John, it's been fantastic having
Speaker 1: you on with us. We really appreciate it and we
Speaker 1: love listening to your music. Thank you. We're big fan
Speaker 1: and uh glad after years after seeing your videos for
Speaker 1: the first time, glad to finally get a chance to chat.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. It's really nice meeting you guys,
Speaker 1: and we'll be looking out for the next one whenever
Speaker 1: it dropped. Thank you, Thank you. Georgia CoA beach one
Speaker 1: Windy more or a mortgage ball trainer sits forlorn and Hampton. So, Tracy,
Speaker 1: are you are you a converted country music Fanly? You know,
Speaker 1: I think I'm still a fan of Mr Merle Hazard.
Speaker 1: I'm not entirely sure you've convinced me of the entire
Speaker 1: country music genre. Uh, you know what, I think it's
Speaker 1: really funny that that we've now had two people from
Speaker 1: the humor section of the eight A event and none
Speaker 1: from the other. We probably should fix that, but I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed talking to John. You know, I used to
Speaker 1: be a used to write songs, and I could not
Speaker 1: have a full time job and write songs at the
Speaker 1: same time. I just couldn't devote the energy. So I'm
Speaker 1: really jealous of people who make that work. I would
Speaker 1: like to see you write some songs. I think we
Speaker 1: could do well, uh in maybe creating like a punk
Speaker 1: rock band that sings about I don't know, CDs s
Speaker 1: and colateralized. I just found it so hard to work
Speaker 1: a full day and then keep then I was just
Speaker 1: so fried. Um. But no his and I loved his
Speaker 1: attitude towards everything. It just seemed like a really positive guy.
Speaker 1: And his songs are great and well. I think as
Speaker 1: journalists and people who spend their time often trying to
Speaker 1: make complicated, sort of hidden matters more accessible for a
Speaker 1: wider audience, I really respect the way he's gone about
Speaker 1: doing it. I think song is a great medium in
Speaker 1: which to describe sometimes esoteric things like the Fed Stuel Mandate.
Speaker 1: And the videos are just a lot of fun. So
Speaker 1: should you and I try writing a song about repo sometime?
Speaker 1: To huh, it's already been done and I promised to
Speaker 1: put it to music for me. Oh you wrote a poem, right, yeah?
Speaker 1: All right, Well it wasn't a poem, it was a ballad.
Speaker 1: All right. We'll work on that for a future episode
Speaker 1: of Odd Lots. But thank you for joining. I'm Joe Wisenthal,
Speaker 1: Managing editor of Bloomberg Market. She could follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at the Stalwart And I'm Tracy Alloway, Executive editor
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Markets. I'm on Twitter at Tracy Alloway. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening. Do you want to go double dipping? I said,
Speaker 1: double dipping. We head right up and then back down again. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's double dipping. As our social fabrics ripping. We'll have
Speaker 1: double dip recessions now and then