Bogleheads On Investing Podcast Episode 86, Joe Davis, Vanguard Global Chief Economist and author of "Coming Into View", host Rick Ferri
Sep 28, 2025
Joe Davis, Vanguard’s global chief economist and author of Coming Into View. He explores AI and technology as central megatrends, their potential to boost growth and disrupt jobs, and how that mixes with inflation, interest rates, and fiscal deficits. He also examines globalization, demographics, and portfolio implications like risk-managed allocations and core-indexing with selective active satellites.
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Lunch With Jack Bogle Launched The Framework
- Joe Davis tells the origin story: a 2004 lunch with Jack Bogle sparked a 20-year effort to build a framework linking megatrends to investor returns.
- Bogle asked Davis to quantify how economic trends affect earnings, valuations, and interest rates for planning purposes.
AI Is The Key Determinant Of Future Growth
- AI is the dominant megatrend and the main driver that could materially lift productivity, GDP, and moderate inflation if transformative.
- Vanguard's data-driven simulation shows about a 60% tilt that AI will be augmentative or transformative across many occupations by 2029–2030.
Tug Of War Between AI And Deficits
- There's a tug‑of‑war: if AI is transformational growth rises; if it disappoints, aging and deficits push growth lower and interest rates higher.
- Vanguard's model estimates the Fed's status‑quo forecast has only ~15% probability.
