YouSaid · the spoken record

Eric Wallerstein

lines on the record: 73
first: 2026-03-11
most recent: 2026-03-11
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Within the EU, like Norwegian duration selling off as is French duration, but like those are also an Italian duration, but those are two very different economies. It's just like, it's kind of finding where those intra block opportunities are after a big tangible shock like this. So that's the way I've been viewing it. Obviously, the duration of this conflict is still open-ended, but I think those kind of like dispersion trades can keep you on sides regardless of the duration of the conflict.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From rate cuts to rate hikes. I don't know. I think the markets were wrong on AI. I think markets don't really know what they're doing in terms of Iran. Like, we're kind of all sitting on our hands right now, like freaking out, staring at the screens. But ultimately, we're not. Taking to heart like the geographical discrepancies. And that leads to a lot of opportunity. So, like, within EM, you have a huge sell-off, but ultimately like Brazil and India are two different completely different countries. So you have the long end selling off yet like one's a complete beneficiary and one's totally going to lose off this.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Regional discrepancies kind of faded, and just assets were selling off, or you know, there was a premium for certain commodities. And that was just the shock. And that was kind of how I viewed the AI thing as well. So it's interesting those two things were happening just right around the same time or in sequence. So ultimately, when something like that happens, a shock drives assets across the board. You want to look for geographical discrepancies. Okay, if you had a fundamental story for England or for the EU or for East Asia or for the US, and then everything just co-moved together, clearly there's some winners and losers that aren't being priced in yet. So I don't really buy the ECB rate hiking story. And frankly, if they do, like, you should just be short, like you should just be short European equities in the case that they don't hike or in the case that they do hike. And I think that's why the euro is getting pounded regardless of a complete repricing.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What they're driving is cross asset correlations higher, but just assets across the world are co moving. So duration moved across the world, kind of irrespective of borders. You just had a big sell-off. Rates mark front-end rates, reprice. You kind of had like.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not taking into account the country by country differences or region by region differences with their labor markets, how their economies function, whose services heavy, who's not. And then Iran happened and we repriced for hikes across the board, like ECB, BOE, Fed, everyone. And it's funny because Japan and South Korea, they're not seeing the same thing because I think they realize those central banks are not the same. They're not willing to be as hawkish maybe. when growth and unemployment are both in the picture. But I just think both, I was trying to make sense of both of those and understand like, okay, what could possibly drive such a dramatic multiple sigma move on either side when kinetic action in Iran and a labor market disinflationary shock are two completely different things? And so the way I framed them was like, because these are very tangible physical narratives,”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Take the fact that you're worried about the unemployment output gap and not necessarily just unemployment on its own. I actually think TIF, the BOC governor, has done a great job of in his public speeches talking about that and like what the difference of stimulating an output gap that can't take it is versus stimulating unemployment when it's much higher than it really could be a potential. But ultimately, we had this huge repricing across the world.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, you know, I think the really interesting thing about when I ran happened, it was kind of right on the back of the AI labor market fear story. And I mean, rates, like even just a Friday before the strikes, like rates markets were pricing in war cuts across the world, private credit fear. It was like private credit AI. I honestly think Satrini wrote the most influential piece of macro research of the last few years. But I think that all kind of combined, and we were worried that AI was no longer This, like, tangible physical real world industrial build out. It was now a real physical, tangible labor market shock that was going to foster unemployment. Now, I think the market didn't really.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, so that's a really good context leading into the current situation ahead today, the geopolitical situation we're recording here Monday, March 9th. Oral hit 100 bucks overnight, retrace back a bit recently. We've had the Iran strikes. And the lead up before that was, of course, what happened to Venezuela. And so I'd love to just leverage some of those insights we have in terms of the process here to better understand how you're viewing the geopolitical situation at hand. You've been writing some great research at Lock Tower, digging into your geopolitical framework right now. And I just would love to hear you unpack how you're thinking about where we go from here, what's the context, and perhaps leaning on a little bit of what you understood from how those big players were playing within the Trump administration, do how you think they're thinking about this current situation in Iran right now.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like reading through that enormous document, which is probably like one or two people who are probably pretty senior and maybe principals or just the level below deputies. Maybe that's their priorities and maybe it's really smart. But I don't know if that's reflected by, you know, there's different personalities and there's different people. And I think when action happens in this admin, it tends to be when either it's POTIS and it's a big priority of his, or it's like one or two principles who kind of coalesce to something that they want to do. And then that goes up to POTIS and then it becomes a policy. But yeah, I don't like the dollar is going to reflect macroeconomic fundamentals for the next couple years. And people trying to position for some sort of grand strategy, like they're side of the trade, I guess.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Much bigger and a much bigger kind of abuser of these policies. But I don't, I think understanding those dynamics was the first step and to call them out as opposed to leaving the dollar as if it like it didn't matter, which the Fed is one of the few central banks that almost doesn't incorporate FX into its policy directive, right? Like it obviously includes it in its forecast and it's aware of what the impact for inflation is, but it doesn't really think about it as much. I think it's good, frankly, that policymakers are thinking more about the value of the dollar because you can either offset that through tariffs or like you can do things to help alleviate it and help generate your tradable sector. But ultimately, there's no weak dollar policy. There's no like overarching strategy. And I think people put even in other parts of the admin, people put too much weight on like the national security strategy.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, I think the dollar policy quote unquote of the administration was a little overblown as if there was a targeted policy, right? And a lot of people, you know, point into Governor Myron's paper that he wrote before he was in politics, talks about the Mara Lago accord, whatever. I mean, I don't think there's any policies to like degrade the de facto reserve currency status. And then some people might yell at me about tariffs, but that's fine. You know, like objectively, if you looked at the real exchange rate of the dollar, it was really, really high. It was super lofty. And if you looked at, you know, currencies abroad, like even East Asian, like our allies, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, like their currency doesn't really reflect macroeconomic fundamentals, right? Like there's just a lot of downward pressure from that side of the world. I mean, China is obviously.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's well articulated. And yeah, just also curious your thoughts on the role of the dollar within that context of the spirification and changes. And yeah, both domestically, what is the value proposition of the US dollar versus its relative valuation? And then, yeah, just the rest of the world as well.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know that just that point of leverage, maybe it wasn't really realized how significant it was. And that's a strong point of leverage. I don't think like China is our equal, so to speak, or has the same geoeconomic leverage. I think Venezuela and Iran prove they clearly don't have the same leverage as us. But I think in the context of that and this upcoming summit with Xi, if it still happens, it kind of recontextualizes the tariff story a little bit. That said, I mean, I think we're going to have 15% tariffs in the rest of the world for the foreseeable future, even post-2028, I think a Democrat will keep them. I think it's kind of the new, again, spherification of the world and putting a premium on supply chain resilience and, you know, national security.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Positive ramifications or benefits there, or just countering China. Maybe you got on board with that, or national security reasons, whatever. But ultimately, these things don't exist in a vacuum. And I think it's been pretty tough to, you know, post China using rare earths as leverage. I think the US has come a long way in terms of like starting to address this issue. And where we are today versus a year ago is two completely different things. And I think our trajectory looks fantastic and ultimately this was an issue that was going to come about at some point. So frankly, I'm great. I'm glad that we nipped it in the bud now, so to speak. And we're starting to work towards that and kind of rebuilding supply chains here and in the near abroad for national security reasons or whatever.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, you know, the issue with tariffs is like evaluating them in a vacuum is one thing and then evaluating them relative to the confluence of political and geoeconomic cross currents is also pretty tough. I think if you would have asked someone in October, like a European finance minister or whomever, they would have been completely shocked and like a little tail between their legs because they really felt like the US won quote unquote extracted a ton of taking non-tariff barriers down across the world. We obviously race tariffs 10 to 15 percent or 20 minus exceptions. It was more like 10 to 15 depending on the partner. So yeah, honestly, that looked great. And then China was 30 to 35 percent. And like whether you were pro-tariff or anti-tariff, I think a lot of people kind of came around to some of the possible.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so on the first, I mean, I think there were myriad goals with tariffs and ultimately like depending on what your preference is. And I think different people within the administration probably had different things they were looking towards. It might have been deficit reduction. It might have been altering the trade deficit and balance of payments. It might have been countering China at some point and raising the marginal tariff rate between the rest of the world and then the rest of the world of ex-China and China to offset some of that mechantilism and what is basically like the biggest surplus relative to global growth we've ever seen”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I can't. That's just a wild perspective. And I agree a lot of folks really discredited Ranoff off the bat. And obviously, you know, he's gives some pretty out of consensus views. But yeah, I would say that there's probably good lessons learned there overall in terms of he was probably, I'd say, more pragmatic and data driven than the average person. You can debate the warrants of the data that he was deriving it from, but at least there was data to back it up and reasoning. So I definitely respect that. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about you joined the CEA right after Liberation Day. And from then until basically the last few months has been, you know, when I think about global priorities and the whole tariff thing and what was trying to be achieved there, it felt like there was two key vectors that they're trying to change. And one of them was the balance of payments in terms of trade via the use of tariffs. And then the other one was, what is the role of...”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Lot of people like discredit it, or maybe like cast out on his views regarding inflation growth, whatever deregulatory regime and what the implications were. And I think a lot more people have come in his direction and given a lot more credence to those views because they've been honestly looking much better than people gave him credit for. So yeah, no, it was a hell of a year. And really, I was a strategist. I did that for a year. Now I'm a strategist again. And I feel like completely evolved. So it's great to be back in the seat, so to speak.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Provision like global maritime defense and less interventionism. If anything, that's accelerated over the past year. So I think that's been really interesting and instructive for me. And then, yeah, I was able to go to the fed with Steve, which was pretty awesome. It really felt like I was picked up from when I was on the desk, like before COVID and during COVID, when like QT was starting to cause all these issues in the repo market. And then quite literally dropped into the same situation like six or seven years later. Like you're having the same issues. So that was really, I mean, like I felt like I was providing a lot of value there. And I think. We did a lot of really good work. Governor Myron gave a ton of speeches. I think”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'd never really imagined myself in the White House. So, Steve bringing me along was really an amazing opportunity. And I think it was really instructive for me as well in terms of marrying like, okay, what are I tend to be someone who prefers looking at like macroeconomic fundamentals and constraints to understand where the direction of policy is going? Naturally, you have to also marry that with like the personality aspect. What is someone's goals and like ultimately like what do they prefer in terms of outcomes and public perception? And those two things, I think, have caught people off guard in terms of how they've been intertwined. Like, I think the MAGA America First Movement was putatively isolationist and people were expecting this complete withdrawal from multilateral institutions, which has happened, but that hasn't necessarily equated with like a pullback from the world.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, no. So I joined CEA a couple weeks after Liberation Day. So a very hectic time in the White House, in the markets, and at CEA as well. And so kind of I was in the front office. So I was a senior advisor to the chairman, which is kind of an in-between between like the economists on staff who are frequently professors at universities or economists at other agencies. And then like the chairman, the two other council members, the chief of staff, and you're kind of doing half economic analysis and like, you know, framing and communication and also just like internal White House interagency dynamics, thinking about like where you guys are fit. It's a little more like palace intrigue type things. But it was super interesting. You know, I had always been kind of a policy person, but never like a”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, thank you for having me, Felix. It certainly has been quite a year for me and for all of us, really. But it's great to be back here and I'm looking forward to sharing some of my thoughts.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Think like the world is going into spheres, whether you like it or not. We're going back to like natural resources matter. It's like a tangible story. I don't know who the next president is, but if it's a Republican, I think it'll be Don Rhodoctrin for another four years. Sel America, I never really bought into, but buy the Americas, I really buy into. I don't think like China is our equal, so to speak, or has the same geoeconomic leverage. I think Venezuela and Iran prove they clearly don't have the same leverage as us. I think markets don't really know what they're doing in terms of Iran. Ultimately, we're not taking to heart like the geographical discrepancies and that leads to a lot of opportunity.”
2026-03-11 · Forward Guidance · The Global Economy Is Splitting Into Spheres | Eric Wallerstein · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT