Bubbles Lurk in Sovereign Debt, Financial Engineering, With Michael Ehrlich

Check out the new Substack and sign up to listen without ads or announcements -- and get the Daily Contrarian briefing and podcast each morning. Michael Ehrlich, director of the Leir Center for Financial Bubble Research at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, joins the podcast to discuss his views. Dr. Ehrlich has identified two areas of concern: sovereign debt and financial engineering. This is not his only area of interest however, as Dr. Ehrlich is passionate about early-stage venture/angel investing, which guides the discussion in the second half of the episode. Content Highlights It's been a long time since the last sovereign debt crisis. Too long (1:47); Keep an eye out for private equity as well (8:02); Bubbles are part of the market and can even be viewed as a good thing. Until they aren't (9:44); SPACs and cryptos are two examples of financial engineering potentially gone awry (10:56); Background on the guest (15:07); Venture capital has historically controlled early-stage investing. But this is changing (18:07); Financial technology, aka 'fintech' is one area Dr. Ehrlich likes a lot (20:20); What about driverless cars? (23:35) For More Information on the Guest NJIT.edu biography; Henry J. and Erna D. Leir Research Institute for Business, Technology, and Society website. More Coverage of These Topics S3E12: The Real and Present Regulatory Risk Facing Cryptocurrencies; S2E35: How Bubbles and False Narratives Made Financial Markets; S2E4: Private Credit is Fentanyl.