David M. Smick, Sr. is an American global macroeconomic strategist, magazine publisher, best-selling author, and documentary filmmaker. He is the chairman and CEO of Johnson Smick International, a global strategic advisory firm in Washington, D.C. where he is in partnership with former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Manuel H. Johnson. (The firm was originally known as Smick Medley International, Inc.) The firm has provided strategic advice to some of the world's most successful investors, including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, George Soros, Nomura Securities, Tiger Management, Duquesne Capital, the Central Bank of Singapore, the First Bank of Chicago, Commerzbank, Bank of Tokyo, and many others. Smick, who first registered to vote as a Democrat, switched to Republican during the Carter Administration and is now a registered independent. He has worked on tax reform and on dollar policy solutions with legislators from both political parties.
Early life and education
Smick grew up in a blue collar neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland. His father was a Presbyterian minister.
Career
In 1975, Smick started working as a member of the policy staff of the United States Senate. In 1978, at the age of 26, he served as chief of staff to a member of the United States House of Representatives.
Beginning in 1985, as a private consultant, Smick co-organized a series of distinguished global monetary conferences, sponsored by both the U.S. Senate and House leadership, involving many of the industrialized world's finance ministers, central bankers, and leading foreign exchange experts. These ″U.S. Congressional Summits″ took place over the course of a decade in Tokyo, New York, Washington, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich. The first conference set the stage for the official 1985 Plaza Accord, the G5 agreement among industrialized nations, to bring down the value of the dollar during heightened trade tensions. Washington Post correspondent Hobart Rowen wrote that the conference was an important “final nail in the coffin of the pure floating exchange rate system.”
Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ), a prime co-sponsor of the summits, at a later event in Zurich, floated the idea of developing-world debt restructuring (forgiveness) which, within several years, led to the issuance of the popular Brady Bonds. Those bonds helped lead to a developing world economic rebound.
David Smick is the founder (1987), publisher, and editor of the distinguished quarterly magazine The International Economy, which the president of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet called ″both agenda setting and inspiring.″
David Smick has written op-ed pieces for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. He has appeared as a commentator on a variety of news outlets including CNN, CNBC, The Charlie Rose Show, Bloomberg News, Fox Business, and Morning Joe.
In 2020 (with help from Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson who served as executive producer), Smick wrote and directed Stars and Strife, a full-length documentary that predicted a coming tidal wave of political, social, and economic division in America and throughout the industrialized world. Tom Friedman of the New York Times said of the film: ″Incredible work. Stars and Strife was acquired by Lionsgate and premiered on Starz on September 21, 2020.
Smick's 2024 documentary America's Burning had its world premiere at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival and was shown nationwide on Regal Cinemas. The film features a bipartisan cast that includes James Carville, Leon Panetta, James Baker, Katherine Gehl, Larry Summers, Stan Druckenmiller, Arthur C. Brooks, Rahm Emanuel, Ken Langone, Ian Bremmer, Hawk Newsome, and many others. The film is executive produced by Academy Award-winners Michael Douglas and Barry Levinson, and narrated by Michael Douglas. David Ignatius of the Washington Post called the film ″incredibly powerful.″ Whoopi Goldberg on The View labeled the film ″imperative.″
Smick's first book, The World Is Curved (2008) was described by David Brooks of the New York Times as "astonishingly prescient." The book discussed the financial perils of globalization and questioned whether the Wall Street banks were in full understanding of the values of the assets on their balance sheets. The book arrived just as the 2007–2008 financial crisis hit. President Bill Clinton called it ″one of the three best books on the financial crisis.″ Smick's second bestseller, The Great Equalizer: How Main Street Capitalism Can Create an Economy for Everyone, argues that a ruthless corporate elite with deep political connections is rigging American capitalism, making it less efficient and producing a dangerous decline in social mobility and the loss of the American Dream.
Personal life
Smick is married and has three children and four grandchildren.
Books
- The Great Equalizer: How Main Street Capitalism Can Create an Economy for Everyone. New York: PublicAffairs. 2017. ISBN 978-1-61039-784-1.
- The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy. New York, N.Y: Penguin. 2008. ISBN 978-1-59184-218-7.
References
- Biography, from the personal website.
- https://www.ineteconomics.org/research/experts/dmsmick
- Brooks, David (October 6, 2008). "The Testing Time". The New York Times.
In his astonishingly prescient book, "The World Is Curved: Hidden Dangers to the Global Economy," David M. Smick argues ...
External links
- David Smick at IMDb