24: Meet The Most Important Country Singer in Economics

Tracy Alloway (0:21)

Welcome to Odd Lots. I'm Tracy Alloway, executive editor of Bloomberg Markets.

Joe Weisenthal (0:25)

And I'm Joe Weisenthal, managing editor at Bloomberg Markets.

Tracy Alloway (0:29)

Joe, you're a country music guy, right?

Joe Weisenthal (0:32)

I am a huge country music fan, that is correct. Why?

Tracy Alloway (0:38)

Sorry, that question sounded a bit judgmental, but why?

Joe Weisenthal (0:40)

No, it's fair to be judgmental. I don't know, I can't explain it. I like songs with distinct melodies. I like songs with distinct lyrics.

I went to college in Texas, and my wife is from Mississippi, so I feel like I have this natural, somehow I became a sort of adopted southerner. So it just kind of all fit together for me.

Tracy Alloway (1:05)

So I know you're a fan of country music, and I know you were sad to hear that Merle Haggard, who's a titan of country music, passed away earlier this month.

Joe Weisenthal (1:15)

I was a huge Merle Haggard fan. I went to see him in concert last year. He was definitely one of my favorite musicians. He was one of the originators of something called the Bakersfield Sound music that was actually written about sort of emanating from agricultural workers in California.

And earlier in his career, he had all these really reactionary right-wing posts, right-wing stories, the fight inside of me, Oki from Muskogee about hating the way the world was changing. Those are my go-to karaoke songs.

Tracy Alloway (1:52)

Unfortunately, I know that from personal experience.

Joe Weisenthal (1:56)

So listeners are probably wondering why we're talking about this, right? Like, why are we talking about my love of country music?

Well, in the intro to the Odd Lots podcast?

Tracy Alloway (2:04)

I thought to ease your pain and your sadness at Mr. Haggard's passing, we could bring in the financial equivalent of Merle Haggard.

Joe Weisenthal (2:14)

Right. So back in the day during the crisis, there were these music videos that popped up by someone who had the brilliant name, Merle Hazard, which of course sounds like Merle Haggard, but also sounds like Moral Hazard, one of the economic phenomenon.

And he's still kicking around. We used to watch those videos during the crisis. The blogs picked them up. Every time there was a new one from Merle Hazard, they would get posted.

So in honor of Merle Haggard, we decided to ring up Merle Hazard and see what he's up to.

Tracy Alloway (2:46)

Exactly. And it's a really good time to be doing it because he actually has a new music video out. And I think it might be one of my favorites so far.

Hi, John. Welcome to the show.

Jon Shayne (3:11)

Thanks for having me.

Tracy Alloway (3:13)

Do you prefer us to call you John or Merle?

Jon Shayne (3:16)

Well, if I'm talking like this, it would be John. And if I'm talking like this, it would be Merle.

Joe Weisenthal (3:20)

That's a good distinction. So let's just jump right into it.

How did you become, let's just start from the beginning. How did you become Merle Hazard?

Jon Shayne (3:30)

Well, it was not a rational calculation.

When the financial crisis was just starting, I mean, people say it was 2008, but really in 2007, a couple of Bear Stearns hedge funds started to crack that summer. I was talking with a friend, Josh May, who lives in Nashville, but covers central bank policy for a firm in New York. Anyway, we were talking about how, well, this is real estate. It's going to be a slow motion train wreck.

It's probably going to wind up as a festival for Merle Hazard. And if you're a financial person and you live in Nashville, we both started laughing and thought, well, that sounds like the name of a country singer, Merle Hazard. And I was just really taken with that idea. And that evening, I was thinking, you know, I would really love to live in a world in which there were such a figure as Merle Hazard who would accurately explain financial matters through the medium of country music. And I thought, well, obviously nobody's going to do this unless I do it. So that was the genesis of it. And it was very quick. You know, that was, I think, a Wednesday. I wrote the first song, you know, Thursday night, Friday night, recorded it Saturday, very crudely in my basement. And we shot a very simple video Sunday, put it on YouTube. And then by Thursday of the next week, it had been picked up online by the New York Times, and it just caught on.

Tracy Alloway (4:54)