Jon Hartley and Thomas Hoenig discuss Tom’s career as an economist, as Vice Chair of the FDIC, President of the Kansas City Fed, topics including the global financial crisis, banking regulation, Glass-Steagall, Too Big To Fail, moral hazard, lender of last resort powers, Basel III, the Dodd-Frank Act, capital requirements, deposit insurance after the Silicon Valley Bank regional banking crisis, and quantitative easing.
Recorded on June 10, 2025.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Thomas Hoenig is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Mr. Hoenig engages in research and comments on economics, money and banking, and related policy topics. He also provides economic outlook and related services to investment firms and businesses across the country.
Prior to joining the Mercatus Center, Mr. Hoenig served as Vice Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation from 2012 until 2018. In that capacity, he oversaw FDIC operations and policy related to deposit insurance pricing, bank supervision, financial stability, and bank resolution. He served as Chair of the FDIC’s Bank Appeals and Audit Committees, and served as Director of NeighborWorks America, which was established by Congress in 1978 to address housing issues nationwide. He also served as a member of the International Association of Deposit Insurers’ board from 2012 to 2017, and as the President and Chairman from October 2015 to October 2017.
Previously, Mr. Hoenig was President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and a member of the Federal Reserve System's Federal Open Market Committee from 1991 to 2011. Mr. Hoenig was with the Federal Reserve for 38 years, beginning as an economist and then as a senior officer in banking supervision. As President and Chief Executive Officer, he led the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City during the Great Recession and the banking crisis of 2008 and 2009.
During his time with the Federal Reserve, Mr. Hoenig chaired several key committees, including the Conference of Presidents, the Committee on Bank Supervision, Regulation, and Legislation, and the Information Technology Oversight Committee. Also, during his tenure, Mr. Hoenig organized and hosted the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s Jackson Hole economic symposium for global central bankers.
Mr. Hoenig is from Fort Madison, Iowa, and received a doctorate in economics from Iowa State University.
Jon Hartley is currently a Policy Fellow at the Hoover Institution, an economics PhD Candidate at Stanford University, a Research Fellow at the UT-Austin Civitas Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), a Senior Fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and an Affiliated Scholar at the Mercatus Center. Jon is also the host of the Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century Podcast, an official podcast of the Hoover Institution, a member of the Canadian Group of Economists, and the chair of the Economic Club of Miami.
Jon has previously worked at Goldman Sachs Asset Management as a Fixed Income Portfolio Construction and Risk Management Associate and as a Quantitative Investment Strategies Client Portfolio Management Senior Analyst and in various policy/governmental roles at the World Bank, IMF, Committee on Capital Markets Regulation, U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and the Bank of Canada.
Jon has also been a regular economics contributor for National Review Online, Forbes, and The Huffington Post and has contributed to The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, Globe and Mail, National Post, and Toronto Star, among other outlets. Jon has also appeared on CNBC, Fox Business, Fox News, Bloomberg, and NBC and was named to the 2017 Forbes 30 Under 30 Law & Policy list, the 2017 Wharton 40 Under 40 list, and was previously a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
ABOUT THE SERIES:
Each episode of Capitalism and Freedom in the 21st Century, a video podcast series and the official podcast of the Hoover Economic Policy Working Group, focuses on getting into the weeds of economics, finance, and public policy on important current topics through one-on-one interviews. Host Jon Hartley asks guests about their main ideas and contributions to academic research and policy. The podcast is titled after Milton Friedman‘s famous 1962 bestselling book Capitalism and Freedom, which after 60 years, remains prescient from its focus on various topics which are now at the forefront of economic debates, such as monetary policy and inflation, fiscal policy, occupational licensing, education vouchers, income share agreements, the distribution of income, and negative income taxes, among many other topics.
For more information, visit: capitalismandfreedom.substack.com/
