How a Fund Manager Teaches His Kids About Money and Banking

Joe Weisenthal (0:09)

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast. I'm Joe Weisenthal.

Tracy Alloway (0:15)

And I'm Tracy Alloway.

Joe Weisenthal (0:16)

So Tracy, I think we've been talking about it a lot on recent episodes, but we've had most of our episodes this year, they've kind of been gloomy or negative, just sort of, we started the year like on a real, just sort of a down vibe, wouldn't you say?

Tracy Alloway (0:31)

Maybe we're just capturing the zeitgeist? I don't know.

Joe Weisenthal (0:34)

Maybe, yeah, it could just be the sort of overall mood, but I think today is going to be a break for that. I think not only is today's episode, hopefully not going to be depressing, but actually might be sort of very positive and uplifting, and maybe even kind of heartwarming.

Tracy Alloway (0:53)

Joe, let me tell you, I could use both some heartwarming and some cheering up. So what are we talking about?

Joe Weisenthal (1:01)

So we're going to be talking to a fund manager, which I guess is not often what you think of when you think of heartwarming or uplifting. But he's a really interesting writer, a really interesting thinker, and he's a writer. And one of the things that he does is he teaches his kids about finance and teaches his kids about banking and interest rates and sort of complicated questions.

And he writes about these, from time to time, these lessons that he teaches his kids. I think anything with kids is sort of, you know, heartwarming.

Tracy Alloway (1:39)

Well, I was going to say, does that mean we're going to get a bunch of really cute stories about how kids spend their allowance and that sort of thing? Because I'd be up for that.

Joe Weisenthal (1:47)

I think that's basically going to be it. We're going to have an episode of cute stories about kids spending their allowance money, more or less.

Tracy Alloway (1:56)

But it's going to tell us something important about finance and money as well, right?

Joe Weisenthal (2:01)

Yeah, exactly. So I think like most parents or a lot of parents might give their kids some sort of allowance, maybe a few dollars a week for taking out the trash or making their bed or anything. But of course, when a fund manager does it, especially one who's very into the theoretical constructs of the financial system, they make it a little more interesting than just a few dollars a week. They actually try to teach something profound and not just teach something, but potentially learn something through the process about how people think about money.

Tracy Alloway (2:33)

All right. So don't keep us in suspense.

Who is it?

Joe Weisenthal (2:36)

All right. Today we are going to be talking to Toby Nangle. He is the global co-head of asset allocation at Columbia Threadneedle Asset Management, and we have him on the line. So let's bring him in. And let Toby, thank you very much for coming in today.

Toby Nangle (3:01)

Well, thanks very much for having me, Joe and Tracy. It's great to be here.

Joe Weisenthal (3:04)

So, first of all, who are you?

How many kids do you have? What do you do, and how many kids do you have? And why do you like to use spending money and allowances as a way of sort of exploring the financial system?

Toby Nangle (3:22)

Sure, okay. I've got three kids who are four, seven, and nine years old, and that's a lot of kids, and I'm a fund manager. So part of my day job is to think about how money works and that sort of thing. And actually, to be honest, I spent probably a lot of my career, as do most fund managers, not really thinking very much about money and just sort of taking it for granted. But probably over the past 10 years, I've been thinking more about money and asking lots of stupid questions.

And suddenly I've got this captive audience to ask stupid questions to in the form of my kids. So why wouldn't I use them?

Joe Weisenthal (3:57)

I love that. Now, as you say, most fund managers probably don't spend much time thinking about what money is or how the financial system really works. I talk to fund managers all the time, and they talk about this or that company or this or that commodity.

But before we even get to the lessons you teach your kids, why do you think this is an interesting avenue to explore?

Toby Nangle (4:23)

Well, I think that in the era of heterodox monetary policy, then you can have all sorts of things which sound quite scary or weird or wacky, which aren't actually really scary or weird or wacky once you think about money a bit. So because there can be something like helicopter money coming or when quantitative easing was first sort of... There were a lot of like broken notes out there about how Weimar levels of hyperinflation were going to come back because it was money printing, etc., etc.