Ladies and general, welcome to Grant's interest rate observer of the air. I am Jim Grant,

and with me as always, Eric Whitehead is at the dials, and the great Evan Lorenz, the deputy

editor of Grant, is on hand, as is Phil Grant, who writes almost daily grants. That's so

he doesn't have to commit to do it like every day, which is a crashing war. And also, the

markets are closed in the weekend, so it's almost daily. And we have a guest today. And our guest

is Alex J. Pollock. Alex, what do they call you? They call me a distinguished senior fellow.

As well they might.

And I'm very glad to be with you.

Well, Alex came to R Street from the American Enterprise Institute, where he was then a resident

fellow.

And before that, he was, if you please, the president and CEO, the Federal Homewound Bank of

Chicago. And he's a director of the CNM CEO, the federal home loan bank of Chicago.

And he's a director of the CNME group.

So he is not merely a writer about these things, although he is certainly that, but also a

practitioner.

And his most recent book is Finance and Philosophy.

And the subtitle is even more descriptive, why we're always surprised.

It was published just last year, and we distributed this book very gladly indeed and proudly at the grants. I think it was a fall conference, was it not, Alex?

It was, and thank you again for doing it.

Yeah, it was a fabulous reading.

I've been asked from time to time, would I kindly mention the books that I am reading or can

vouch for?

...