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Peter Orszag

Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, Lazard

Search every verified Peter Orszag interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Peter Orszag, chief executive officer and chairman of Lazard, discussed inflation, monetary policy, and fiscal issues in recent media appearances. In an October 15, 2026 interview with The New York Times, he argued that the traditional central bank guidance to look past supply shocks carries less weight after six such shocks in six years, describing a "new supply-side era" in which lagged effects from tariffs and other constraints can appear in prices a year or more later. He also said he expects Kevin Warsh to "surprise to the upside" in exerting independence as Federal Reserve chair, and discussed hypothetical financial distress in the AI build-out, noting uncertainty about where liabilities would rest and whether the government would treat AI labs as too big to fail. On October 9, 2026, Orszag appeared on Bloomberg Television, where he said the interest rate environment is different from three or four years ago and that "the bond vigilantes are coming back." He also warned that Social Security and Medicare face financing problems as part of a broader fiscal imbalance of 6 to 7 percent of GDP, and said history suggests such issues are only addressed during crises. He expressed support for automatic enrollment in retirement savings accounts, including for children in the new "Trump accounts," citing the power of defaults and inertia.

Recent appearances

Notable quotes

“I think Kevin Warsh is going to surprise to the upside in terms of the degree of independence that he exerts on behalf of the Fed. This is a position that he has long wanted. This is you know, a dream job kind of thing. And I'm reminded when I became head of the Congressional Budget Office, Bob Reischauer who was one of the icons of former CBO directors pulled me by the to the side and said Peter just remember don't ”

“I think it does have to be the Fed, but maybe I could talk about the consequences of this new paradigm, the new supply-side error we're in for monetary policy. Because historically, if you go back to your Econ 101 kind of intro Econ, the argument was a supply shock like the 1970s oil shock hits, that the central bank shouldn't respond to it. It's a one-time price level change. It doesn't affect ongoing inflation. It ”

“Social Security and Medicare have looming problems with financing. They will have to be addressed. It is part of a fiscal imbalance of 6%-7% of GDP. History shows we do not deal with these problems until they are crises. The last Social Security reform did not occur until literally checks were not about to go out the door. You need that forcing event to focus people's attention.”

“The most important thing is not the victory lap but why did we say that? We are living in a new supply-side era where if you want to understand inflation today you need to look at the supply shocks that happened a year or two ago. I just read research suggesting that do not worry in the next few months he will see a tailing off of inflation. OK, but our other point is there will be continue will do supply shocks. We ”

“Both Social Security and Medicare have looming problems associated with their financing. They will have to be addressed. This is part of an overall fiscal imbalance of 6 to 7% of GDP. And history shows we don't deal with these problems until they're crises. The last Social Security reform did not occur until checks were literally not about to go out the door. That's the part of the Greenspan Commission that people mi”

“I definitely think that the interest rate environment is different today than it was 3 or 4 years ago. It's unfortunate, by the way, that we didn't take advantage of that moment when we had an extended moment when we had low rates to extend the maturity of treasuries, which is something that Bob Rubin and Joe Stiglitz and I had called for, and said, we have been shortening maturity. That's too bad. But I think we are”

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