In Episode 221 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with Jim Grant, the founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer: a legend in the business of investor education and financial media. What separates Jim from millions of his fellow financial journalists, commentators, and authors is the historical perspective that he brings, informed not just by the immense volume of books and periodicals that he’s consumed over the course of his lifetime, but primarily by the wisdom of his own lived experiences and lessons learned from the experiences of others that he’s had the privilege to know and interview over the course his life.
Given the ongoing controversy around inflation—its causes and consequences—we couldn’t think of anyone better to talk to than Jim Grant. Jim has been warning his readers about the unintended consequences of overly-accommodative Fed policy and dollar debasement for as long as we have known him and he is uniquely positioned to provide us with the historical context to understand where we find ourselves in the present cycle. What we came to this conversation wanting to know from Jim, as someone who has lived through at least 3 major credit cycles, is if in fact he feels that this inflation is not transitory. If in fact, he thinks that we are in the process of up-anchoring inflation expectations and what this means for the Fed’s policy options, with important implications for assets like stocks, bonds, cryptocurrency, etc., whose prices have depended on the free-flow of credit that becomes less readily available in an environment of rising consumer and producer prices.
This is a phenomenal conversation that will help you integrate the history of inflation and what we know about its causes into the unique circumstances of our modern political-economy, which is characterized by historically high debt levels, aging demographics, and technology-driven deflation, in a way that can make you a better, more thoughtful investor. Topics discussed during the Overtime include precious metals, cryptocurrency, meme stocks, ethics in journalism, and more. You can access that part of the conversation, as well as the transcript and rundown to this week’s episode through the Hidden Forces Supercast Page. All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.
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James Grant was born in 1946, the year interest rates put in their mid-20th century lows. He founded Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, a twice-monthly journal of the financial markets, in 1983, two years after interest rates recorded their modern-day highs.
Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, he had thoughts, first, of a career in music, not interest rates—french horn was his love. But he threw it over to enter the Navy. Following enlisted service aboard the U.S.S. Hornet, and, as a newly minted, 20-year-old civilian, on the bond desk of McDonnell & Co., he enrolled at Indiana University. There he studied economics under Scott Gordon and Elmus Wicker and diplomatic history under Robert H. Ferrell. He graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1970. Next came two happily unstructured years at Columbia University that produced a master’s degree in something called international affairs but, more importantly, the privilege of studying under the cultural historian, critic and public intellectual Jacques Barzun.
In 1972, at the age of 26, Grant landed his first real job, as a cub reporter at the Baltimore Sun. There he met his future wife, Patricia Kavanagh, and discovered a calling in financial journalism. It seemed that nobody else wanted to work in business news. Grant served an apprenticeship under the longsuffering financial editor, Jesse Glasgow. He moved to Barron’s in 1975.
The late 1970s were years of inflation, monetary disorder and upheaval in the interest-rate markets—in short, of journalistic opportunity. It happened that the job of covering bonds, the Federal Reserve and related topics was vacant. In the mainly placid years of the 1950s and 1960s, those subjects had seemed too dull to care about. But now they were supremely important—even interesting—and the editor of Barron’s, Robert M. Bleiberg, tapped Grant to originate a column devoted to interest rates. This weekly department, called “Current Yield,” he wrote until the time he left to found the eponymous Interest Rate Observer in the summer of 1983.
Grant’s books include three financial histories, a pair of collections of Grant’s articles and three biographies. The titles are these: “Money of the Mind” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992), “The Trouble with Prosperity” (Times Books, 1996) “Minding Mr. Market” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993), “Mr. Market Miscalculates” (Axios Press, 2008) and “The Forgotten Depression, 1921: the Crash that Cured Itself” (Simon & Schuster, 2014), which won the 2015 Hayek Prize of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.
Also, “Bernard M. Baruch: The Adventures of a Wall Street Legend” (Simon & Schuster, 1983), “John Adams: Party of One” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005) and Mr. Speaker! The Life and Times of Thomas B. Reed, the Man Who Broke the Filibuster” (Simon & Schuster, 2011).
Grant’s television appearances include “60 Minutes,” “The Charlie Rose Show,” Deirdre Bolton’s “Money Moves” program on Bloomberg TV and a 10-year stint on “Wall Street Week”. His journalism has appeared in a variety of periodicals, including the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Foreign Affairs, and he contributed an essay to the Sixth Edition of Graham and Dodd’s “Security Analysis” (McGraw-Hill, 2009).
Grant is a 2013 inductee into the Fixed Income Analysts Society Hall of Fame. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a trustee of the New-York Historical Society.
He and his wife live in Brooklyn. They are the parents of four grown children.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Si enim ita est, vide ne facinus facias, cum mori suadeas. Quae similitudo in genere etiam humano apparet. Verba tu fingas et ea dicas, quae non sentias?
Hoc etsi multimodis reprehendi potest, tamen accipio, quod dant. Quid, si etiam iucunda memoria est praeteritorum malorum? Atque ita re simpliciter primo collocata reliqua subtilius persequentes corporis bona facilem quandam rationem habere censebant; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quis enim potest ea, quae probabilia videantur ei, non probare?
Hoc dictum in una re latissime patet, ut in omnibus factis re, non teste moveamur. Verum esto: verbum ipsum voluptatis non habet dignitatem, nec nos fortasse intellegimus. Ex ea difficultate illae fallaciloquae, ut ait Accius, malitiae natae sunt. Ab hoc autem quaedam non melius quam veteres, quaedam omnino relicta. Itaque a sapientia praecipitur se ipsam, si usus sit, sapiens ut relinquat.
Mihi quidem Homerus huius modi quiddam vidisse videatur in iis, quae de Sirenum cantibus finxerit. Negare non possum. Igitur ne dolorem quidem. Quis suae urbis conservatorem Codrum, quis Erechthei filias non maxime laudat? Sit hoc ultimum bonorum, quod nunc a me defenditur; Unum nescio, quo modo possit, si luxuriosus sit, finitas cupiditates habere. Ecce aliud simile dissimile. Huic mori optimum esse propter desperationem sapientiae, illi propter spem vivere. Eorum enim omnium multa praetermittentium, dum eligant aliquid, quod sequantur, quasi curta sententia; Non dolere, inquam, istud quam vim habeat postea videro; Deinde prima illa, quae in congressu solemus: Quid tu, inquit, huc? Conferam tecum, quam cuique verso rem subicias; Respondent extrema primis, media utrisque, omnia omnibus.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Hoc etsi multimodis reprehendi potest, tamen accipio, quod dant. Omnis enim est natura diligens sui. An est aliquid, quod te sua sponte delectet? Primum quid tu dicis breve? Prave, nequiter, turpiter cenabat; Qui ita affectus, beatum esse numquam probabis; Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quod praeceptum quia maius erat, quam ut ab homine videretur, idcirco assignatum est deo. Ex quo intellegitur officium medium quiddam esse, quod neque in bonis ponatur neque in contrariis. Beatus sibi videtur esse moriens.
Ex quo illud efficitur, qui bene cenent omnis libenter cenare, qui libenter, non continuo bene. Itaque dicunt nec dubitant: mihi sic usus est, tibi ut opus est facto, fac. Cui Tubuli nomen odio non est? Roges enim Aristonem, bonane ei videantur haec: vacuitas doloris, divitiae, valitudo; Quod idem cum vestri faciant, non satis magnam tribuunt inventoribus gratiam.
Quas enim kakaw Graeci appellant, vitia malo quam malitias nominare. Atqui haec patefactio quasi rerum opertarum, cum quid quidque sit aperitur, definitio est. Praetereo multos, in bis doctum hominem et suavem, Hieronymum, quem iam cur Peripateticum appellem nescio. De hominibus dici non necesse est. Maximas vero virtutes iacere omnis necesse est voluptate dominante. Videsne quam sit magna dissensio? Est, ut dicis, inquit; Et nemo nimium beatus est;
Mihi quidem Antiochum, quem audis, satis belle videris attendere. Vide, quantum, inquam, fallare, Torquate. Neque enim civitas in seditione beata esse potest nec in discordia dominorum domus; Illa argumenta propria videamus, cur omnia sint paria peccata. At iam decimum annum in spelunca iacet. Familiares nostros, credo, Sironem dicis et Philodemum, cum optimos viros, tum homines doctissimos. Mihi enim satis est, ipsis non satis. Ab hoc autem quaedam non melius quam veteres, quaedam omnino relicta. Sed ad bona praeterita redeamus.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Quodsi vultum tibi, si incessum fingeres, quo gravior viderere, non esses tui similis; Ita graviter et severe voluptatem secrevit a bono. Quid, quod homines infima fortuna, nulla spe rerum gerendarum, opifices denique delectantur historia? Est igitur officium eius generis, quod nec in bonis ponatur nec in contrariis. Ne in odium veniam, si amicum destitero tueri.
Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Eadem nunc mea adversum te oratio est. Semper enim ita adsumit aliquid, ut ea, quae prima dederit, non deserat. Universa enim illorum ratione cum tota vestra confligendum puto. Quam nemo umquam voluptatem appellavit, appellat;
Nos autem non solum beatae vitae istam esse oblectationem videmus, sed etiam levamentum miseriarum. Non enim ipsa genuit hominem, sed accepit a natura inchoatum. Sed haec quidem liberius ab eo dicuntur et saepius. Si verbum sequimur, primum longius verbum praepositum quam bonum. Velut ego nunc moveor. Nihil enim iam habes, quod ad corpus referas; Erit enim instructus ad mortem contemnendam, ad exilium, ad ipsum etiam dolorem. Sin te auctoritas commovebat, nobisne omnibus et Platoni ipsi nescio quem illum anteponebas?
Ita prorsus, inquam; Que Manilium, ab iisque M. Cur igitur, inquam, res tam dissimiles eodem nomine appellas? Non semper, inquam;
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. De vacuitate doloris eadem sententia erit. Ergo hoc quidem apparet, nos ad agendum esse natos. Cur fortior sit, si illud, quod tute concedis, asperum et vix ferendum putabit? Ut proverbia non nulla veriora sint quam vestra dogmata. Si est nihil nisi corpus, summa erunt illa: valitudo, vacuitas doloris, pulchritudo, cetera. Sedulo, inquam, faciam.
Gloriosa ostentatio in constituendo summo bono. Zenonis est, inquam, hoc Stoici. Si mala non sunt, iacet omnis ratio Peripateticorum. Quid, si etiam iucunda memoria est praeteritorum malorum? Expectoque quid ad id, quod quaerebam, respondeas. Illa tamen simplicia, vestra versuta. At certe gravius. Primum in nostrane potestate est, quid meminerimus?
Duo Reges: constructio interrete. Quorum sine causa fieri nihil putandum est. Non autem hoc: igitur ne illud quidem. Ego vero volo in virtute vim esse quam maximam; Hic quoque suus est de summoque bono dissentiens dici vere Peripateticus non potest. Est igitur officium eius generis, quod nec in bonis ponatur nec in contrariis.
Sed eum qui audiebant, quoad poterant, defendebant sententiam suam. Unum nescio, quo modo possit, si luxuriosus sit, finitas cupiditates habere. Et quidem illud ipsum non nimium probo et tantum patior, philosophum loqui de cupiditatibus finiendis. Diodorus, eius auditor, adiungit ad honestatem vacuitatem doloris. Iam id ipsum absurdum, maximum malum neglegi. Varietates autem iniurasque fortunae facile veteres philosophorum praeceptis instituta vita superabat. Aliter enim nosmet ipsos nosse non possumus. Negat enim summo bono afferre incrementum diem.
