WHAT WOULD JACKSON DO? (Guest: Marvin Barth)

Kevin Muir (0:04)

It's Friday, October 9th, 2026, and I'm Kevin Muir. I'm flying solo today as my international man of mystery partner is traveling to South America. But have no fear, we have a terrific guest to take Patrick's spot.

It's my great pleasure to welcome to the show Marvin Barth. He is the author of Thematics Markets, his institutional grade research. And seriously, Marvin, his free non-consensus thoughts on markets and the global economy. Marvin, thanks for making time for us.

Marvin Barth (0:32)

Kevin, thank you for having me back on. I really enjoy your podcast. I'm sorry that I'm going to miss Ms. Patrick.

Yes.

Kevin Muir (0:42)

So I want to start off.

And for anybody who didn't have the pleasure to go and listen to your previous episode that you were on the show, I highly suggest you go listen to it because at the time you made a call that seemed so outrageous, so non-consensus, exactly that.

And I just want you to know that our listeners, they're a smart bunch because when it happened, when it surprised everyone, everyone came back to me and said, Marvin called it, Marvin called it. They all were there and they didn't forget. And what I'm talking about, of course, is the fact that Kevin Warsh as Fed chair, now it seems so obvious and so clear. But back then, when you said that it was going to happen, he was what? A one in 20 chance? Maybe one in 10? Very low, right? Nobody thought he was there. And you were insistent, it's going to be Kevin Warsh. You went out, you stuck your neck out, and it ended up being true. Walk us through that call, why you were so confident, and maybe from there, we'll leapfrog into what it means for markets going forward.

Marvin Barth (1:50)

Well, yeah, I think the leapfrogging part is important because the evolution over the last three Fed meetings has also been really interesting. And while I nailed the June meeting, I got the July meeting disastrously wrong. And so it's like, okay, well, what happened there, Marvin?

So let's first of all, how you got it, though. So let's, yeah, to your point, let's start with, you know, why was I so confident that Kevin Warsh was going to be the pick?

So some of this will strain the credulity of some of the more anti-Trump listeners out there. But, you know, you know me. I try and, well, I think I seem to come across very pro-Trump because many of my calls seem to agree with a lot of the things that are happening with him.

I really honestly try to be an analyst and get the market call right. So it's really digging into, okay, what makes this man tick? What makes it think? And I think we talked a bit about in the past how he is an absolute manifestation of Andrew Jackson and Jacksonian populism. So there's a very long American tradition of this. I mean, and it goes right down to his personality. His personality is very much like Andrew Jackson. And so whenever you have one of these conflicts where Trump is saying this over here and saying this over here, my sort of framework is what would Jackson do, right? So, you know, what would Jesus do? Well, in this case, WWJD is what would Jackson do, right?

And because ultimately, one, I think he is instinctually Jacksonian, but two, that is where his base is. His base is naturally Jacksonian. And so whatever he's saying is a lot of rhetorical tricks or just, you know, frankly, Trump craziness sometimes. And go to your base case, the sort of mean reversion is he's going to be that. Jacksonians are naturally conservative, right? And if you look at what Trump's base wanted, Trump's base, their top issue, and this is really interesting. This is going to be important for thinking about post midterms. Top two issues among trunk voters in 2024 were number one, inflation. Number two, the federal deficit in spending, right? So I just, you know, one, assumed he would, despite his rhetoric, he was ultimately always going to lean in favor of the person who was going to be a hawk. And not only a hawk, but the other thing, what is Jackson most famous for? Jackson is most famous for killing the second bank of the United States. Jacksonian populism is highly, highly distrustful of centralized finance. And they dislike central banks in particular. So if you think about... Can you actually take...

Kevin Muir (5:10)

Well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but for those... Please. For those that are not as familiar, and I'll include me in there as a... What?