Almost every state and local government worker in the US participates in a public pension system, creating a strong bond between the fiscal health of states and municipalities and their employees’ retirement systems. These smaller systems have faced the same demographic challenges driving concerns over Social Security’s funding, but they’ve also had to deal with rapid migration flows, fluctuating revenues, and the Fed’s aggressive interest rate hikes during the last four years. In this episode, we talk with JP Aubry, Associate Director of State and Local Research with the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, about how state and local pensions fit into the national retirement system, their impact on public budgets, and the biggest challenges they face in the coming years.

China’s booming real estate sector helped propel the country’s tremendous growth over the last few decades. This rapid increase in property valuations contributed to a speculative frenzy that led to overindebted firms, unfinished houses, and a collapse in consumer confidence for homeownership. In this episode, we talk with Kristy Hung, Senior Analyst for China Real Estate with Bloomberg Intelligence, about the fundamental forces driving China’s property sector, what caused recent issues at Evergrande and Country Garden, and global investors’ potential exposure to any systemic contagion. 

Oil prices have remained relatively steady during the last couple of years despite robust global demand and ongoing geopolitical risks from multiple foreign wars. The ability of domestic producers to increase production has played a large part in keeping prices in check, a notable contrast to only 20 years ago when the US was significantly more dependent on buying energy commodities from abroad. In this episode, we talk with Bryan Chapman, Market President for Energy Finance with First Horizon, about the multi-decade transformation of the US oil industry, the most important forces driving the industry today, and how oil companies are planning for the future.

As the Fed continues to fight high inflation, some analysts have argued that structural forces are making the ideal inflation target higher than 2% in the post-pandemic economy. Factors out of the Fed’s control are making it particularly difficult this cycle to fully restore price stability without tipping the economy into a recession. Although the current regime has a relatively short history, financial markets would almost certainly question the Fed’s inflation-fighting credibility if they were to raise the target. In this episode, we talk with Chris Low, Chief Economist with FHN Financial, about the history behind the Fed’s 2% inflation target, the main arguments for and against raising it from 2%, and the potential economic ramifications from a higher target.

Congress passed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) nearly 50 years ago to encourage lending within financial institutions’ local communities. Since its passage, regulators have tried to modernize the CRA in order to keep up with broad changes in the financial system. Today, banks and bank examiners are preparing for possible reforms in the coming years that would significantly alter how they comply with the CRA. In this episode, we talk with Brian Waters, President and Co-Founder of FindCRA, about the history of CRA, its efficacy amidst a shifting financial landscape, and some proposed changes on the horizon. 

Loans issued by the Small Business Administration are pooled into securities that are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, have a quarterly adjusting feature, and have no floating rate cap. The SBA market is big and liquid enough to function smoothly through shocks like legislative risk and the 2023 regional banking crisis. In this episode, we talk with Matt Peterman and Ruben Rodriguez of FHN Financial about the structure of SBA 7(a) securities, how the SBA market functioned through the pandemic economy, and the securities’ strategic role in the current interest rate environment. 

Recent research from the Congressional Budget Office suggests that an initial undercounting of undocumented migrants may help explain the surprisingly resilient US economy during the last two years. From a macroeconomic perspective, the future path of migration flows will significantly affect longer-term estimates of potential economic growth and public budget trajectories. In this episode, we talk with Julia Gelatt, Associate Director of the US Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, about the current state of US immigration, the most important drivers of US migration flows, the role of policy versus external factors, and the impacts of migration on the US economy and federal budget.

The Federal Home Loan Bank system started as a Great Depression-era effort to support homeownership across the United States. Ever since, it has transformed into a vital source of liquidity for its member banks in good times and bad. In this episode, we talk with James Hotchkiss, Senior Director of Strategies and Solutions at the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, about the FHLB system’s history, how it serves its member banks, and its role in the US financial system.

The labor market is at the center of overall economic activity and how the Federal Reserve understands inflation. It can be difficult to gauge underlying trends for employment and compensation, however, when some data series appear to be telling different stories. In this episode, we talk with Preston Mui, Senior Economist at Employ America, about how to understand the most important labor market data, how the Fed views labor market tightness in its fight against high inflation, and the outlook for 2024.

The use of derivatives has evolved since the global financial crisis, giving banks opportunities to protect against the risks and uncertainty that stem from aggressive Fed tightening. Now that the Fed is poised to begin policy easing later this year, these tools can also help banks weather falling interest rates to support financial system stability. In this episode, we talk with Brian Matochik and Christian Turner, Senior Vice Presidents with the Derivative Products Group at FHN Financial, about the value of derivatives for banks in a wide range of market environments, how regulators view the use of derivatives, and how institutions of any size can benefit from their use.