Hello Reader,
Yesterday was the 2nd month anniversary of this newsletter “Notes on the Crises”. I wanted to take out a moment to thank you all for your support, in whatever capacity you’ve been providing support, and review the media this substack has gotten over the past month and praise it's gotten on twitter. This month has really been the month of interviews for me. I was thrilled to begin the month by speaking to Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal on “How The Crisis Pushed The Fed Into New Territory” on their Bloomberg podcast Odd Lots.The description of the episode was also extremely generous:
Amid this crisis, Nathan Tankus, a researcher at the Modern Money Network, has emerged as one of the foremost experts on what the Fed has done, and what it’s capable of doing, through his widely read newsletter
A week later I was interviewed and quoted in a Washington Post story on the Federal Reserve interventions in the final paragraph of the story:
The weaker restrictions on recipients of the Fed’s lending program may be partly justified, said Nathan Tankus, research director at the Modern Money Network, which studies monetary policy. The corporate bonds that the Fed is purchasing from companies can be resold, whereas direct loans establish an agreement between the company and the government that makes the asset less valuable to the central bank, he said.
“Purchases of debt are a slightly more arm’s-length transaction than the loan, which is forming a bilateral relationship,” Tankus said. “But this is really just the fig leaf the Fed can use to justify lifting the restrictions.”
On May 1st Yakov Feygin and Dominik Leusder generously cited me in an essay on “The Class Politics of The Dollar System” in a publication of the think tank the Jain Family Institute. On May 11 I got the chance to be on economist David Beckworth’s podcast “Macro Musings” talking about authorizing the Federal Reserve to issue its own securities, the crisis and monetary policy more generally. That was an especially fun experience for me and I’m thrilled there’s a full transcript! To round out the month, economist Brad DeLong praised my series on the Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus actions on the Washington Center for Equitable Growth’s blog:
Yet all who are not experts deep in the weeds do not understand what he and his central bank have done and are doing. In order to find out, you need to be following the thoughtful and patient Nathan Tankus.
That same day I was interviewed on Sam Seder’s long-running podcast “The Majority Report” on “Pandemic Monetary Policy”. It’s been quite a busy month! I’ve also written 13 posts in the past month, which, while not the pace of my first month, is still quite frequent. Here’s the praise I’ve been getting on twitter for what I’ve been writing (though I’m sure I’ve missed some of it):
There’s a larger and larger crowd of people saying my work is extremely worthwhile and deserves continued support. I hope readers of this newsletter agree. I’ve continued to get paid subscriptions and can comfortably treat this newsletter as a full time job. If I keep on getting paid subscriptions I’ll be able to produce this substack indefinitely, but at a higher quality. If I get enough paid subscriptions, I’ll start a podcast to go along with the writing I do here. Please consider taking out a paid subscription if you haven’t as it really is direct support from readers which makes this kind of in-depth and detail-oriented writing- and education- possible. Thanks again.
Stay Safe!
Nathan Tankus