Can You Predict a Recession?

Lost Debate

The Branch

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.6 • 607 Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2026

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What if everything you’ve been told about recessions is wrong? On this episode, Ravi Gupta sits down with economist Tyler Goodspeed to challenge the classic “boom and bust” narrative—arguing that downturns aren’t inevitable consequences of excess, but the result of unpredictable shocks like energy crises, policy mistakes, or global events. Drawing on data stretching back to the 1700s, Tyler makes the case: “economic expansions don’t die of old age—they’re murdered”—and that trying to time the next crash may be a losing game. It’s a sharp, perspective-shifting conversation that reframes how the economy actually works—and what truly puts it at risk. Tyler Goodspeed’s Recession ----------- Leave us a voicemail with your thoughts on the show! 201-305-0084⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Follow Ravi at @RaviMGupta Notes from this episode are also available on Substack: https://thelostdebate.substack.com/ Read more from Ravi on Substack: https://realravigupta.substack.com Follow The Branch at @thebranchmedia Listen to more episodes of Lost Debate on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-lost-debate/id1591300785 Listen to more episodes of Lost Debate on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7xR9pch9DrQDiZfGB5oF0F Listen to Where the Schools Went: https://thebranchmedia.org/show/where-the-schools-went/

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to The Lost Debata Show for Political Eclectics. I'm Robbie Gupta. And today I have on Tyler Goodspeed, who is the chief economist of Exxon Mobil Corporation and has been an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute since 2014. He previously chaired the White House Council of Economic Advisors during the first Trump administration and also
0:22.1	served in a number of roles in government. This is an interesting interview for a number of reasons.
0:26.7	Tyler had a book come out just recently called Recession. So we talk all about like what causes
0:32.6	a recession, what kind of moral and policy meaning do we attach to various recessions?
0:39.9	And this is notable for a couple of reasons this interview.
0:41.9	Number one, a lot of you always ask me to put more Trump people on here.
0:45.4	So Tyler is certainly that from the first administration.
0:48.4	Two is obviously in his seat as the chief economist at ExxonMobil, given everything happening
0:53.6	in the world, he's certainly got an
0:54.7	interesting perch, although we do stick to mostly history here. And third is, you know, I try in this
1:01.0	interview to state in the sort of depths of the economics speak, because this is a fairly technical
1:06.5	book, and I do my best as a non-economist to to hang with the conversation and sort of
1:12.1	prod Tyler with what I think are the sort of opposing views and I try to stop at various points
1:18.4	to to give you the so what so like okay like we're having this technical debate about economics
1:23.5	like what does this mean to a person who's not an economist? So I try to signpost along the way.
1:28.6	And I think what you'll learn here is that in the world of economists, there are fairly high-stakes
1:34.7	debates about meaning that I think crossover from academia to journalism, to investors, to policymakers. And the goal in this conversation is to illuminate that.
1:47.3	We are releasing this on Friday just because there were certain things happening in Tyler's
1:51.4	world in terms of public announcements and whatnot that he wanted to make sure it happened
1:55.9	this week before we put the episode out. And so, you know, normally we like to put this out
2:00.5	in the middle of the week,
2:01.3	but we're pretty accommodating because this is not brain surgery.
	...

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