Scott Sumner didn't follow the typical path to economic influence. He nearly lost his teaching job before tenure, did his best research after most academics slow down, and found his largest audience through blogging in his 50s and 60s, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Yet this unconventional journey led him to become one of the most influential monetary thinkers of the past two decades.

Scott joins Tyler to discuss what reading Depression-era newspapers revealed about Hitler's rise, when fiat currency became viable, why Sweden escaped the worst of the 1930s crash, whether bimetallism ever made sense, where he'd time-travel to witness economic history, what 1920s Hollywood movies get wrong about their era, how he developed his famous maxim "never reason from a price change," whether the Fed can ever truly follow policy rules like NGDP targeting, if Congress shapes monetary policy more than we think, the relationship between real and nominal shocks, his favorite Hitchcock movies, why Taiwan's 90s cinema was so special, how Ozu gets better with age, whether we'll ever see another Bach or Beethoven, how he ended up at the University of Chicago, what it means to be a late bloomer in academia, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded December 27th, 2024.

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On this special year-in-review episode, Tyler and producer Jeff Holmes look back on the past year in the show and more, including covering the most popular and underrated episodes, fielding listener questions, reviewing Tyler’s pop culture picks from 2014, mulling over ideas for what to name CWT fans, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded December 17th, 2024.

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What can Thomas Hardy’s tortured marriages teach us about love, obsession, and second chances? In this episode, biographer, novelist, and therapist Paula Byrne examines the intimate connections between life and literature, revealing how Hardy’s relationships with women shaped his portrayals of love and tragedy. Byrne, celebrated for her bestselling biographies of Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, and Barbara Pym, brings her unique perspective to explore the profound ways personal relationships, cultural history, and creative ambition intersect to shape some of the most enduring works in literary history.

Tyler and Paula discuss Virginia Woolf’s surprising impressions of Hardy, why Wessex has lost a sense of its past, what Jude the Obscure reveals about Hardy’s ideas about marriage, why so many Hardy tragedies come in doubles, the best least-read Hardy novels, why Mary Robinson was the most interesting woman of her day, how Georgian theater shaped Jane Austen’s writing, British fastidiousness, Evelyn Waugh’s hidden warmth, Paula’s strange experience with poison pen letters, how American and British couples are different, the mental health crisis among teenagers, the most underrated Beatles songs, the weirdest thing about living in Arizona, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded November 14th, 2024.

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