Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Now, many including those that are wealthy, are concerned about
Speaker 2: some of the priorities of incoming New York City mayor.
Speaker 2: Mumdani now weighing on this was one billionaire who does
Speaker 2: not call New York City home. We're talking about Citadel
Speaker 2: founder Ken Griffin. He talked about the city yesterday at
Speaker 2: a conference in Paris.
Speaker 3: I think that New York City is a red flag
Speaker 3: because people put aside good sense and common sense to
Speaker 3: let somebody who is incredibly charismatic, who ran a really
Speaker 3: powerful campaign on social media, but who ultimately doesn't have
Speaker 3: the ability to deliver on the promises that he set forth.
Speaker 3: New York took a big set back during the Deblasio days,
Speaker 3: and I hope that Mandamie starts to think about how
Speaker 3: to pivot to a more thoughtful set of policies that
Speaker 3: will allow New York City to maintain its position. Not
Speaker 3: only is one of the greatest cities in America, but
Speaker 3: one of the greatest cities in the world.
Speaker 2: And that, of course was Citadel founder Ken Griffin there
Speaker 2: with Danny Berger of Bloomberg News. We want to get
Speaker 2: into our guest, Kathy Wilde. She is president and CEO
Speaker 2: outgoing president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City,
Speaker 2: which represents much of the city's corporate leadership. So we're
Speaker 2: talking about real estate developers, private equity firms, banks, many,
Speaker 2: many companies. Bloomberg LP, by the way, is a member
Speaker 2: of the Partnership for New York City. She is also
Speaker 2: the part of New York City Mayor Elect Zeroon mum
Speaker 2: Donnie's transition team, and we have a lot of questions
Speaker 2: to ask her. Also with us is of course Bloomberg
Speaker 2: News senior reporter Miles Miller, all of us here in studio.
Speaker 2: I told you as you sat down that we have
Speaker 2: about an hour of question So we're going to start
Speaker 2: and Kep, we'll talk fast. We will talk fast. Why
Speaker 2: did you want to be a part of the transition
Speaker 2: team for the Mayor elect of New York City.
Speaker 4: Well, I think to the point that Ken Griffin of
Speaker 4: Citadel just made, and he's one of our members as well,
Speaker 4: and is a great corporate citizen of New York and Miami.
Speaker 4: He has he made the point about the concerns about
Speaker 4: the high expectations that Mayor Elect mom Donnie gave to
Speaker 4: his voters, and he, to his credit, brought out one
Speaker 4: hundred and seventy thousand new voters, mostly young people. In
Speaker 4: the primary. The cutoff age for his voter his voter
Speaker 4: support was forty five. So many of us are beyond
Speaker 4: that point and looking around and saying, oh, dear, does
Speaker 4: he have the seasoning to be able to do this?
Speaker 4: And I think that he's got the energy and the intelligence,
Speaker 4: and it's up to all of us who have a
Speaker 4: little more seasoning and to be helpful. And so that's
Speaker 4: why I joined the transition team and was happy to
Speaker 4: do that, and then working on the economic development workforce
Speaker 4: activities there. But in general, I think working with him
Speaker 4: to capture the enthusiasm and the energy. We came out
Speaker 4: of the pandemic very negative and we lost a million jobs,
Speaker 4: and then concerns about the cuts from the federal government
Speaker 4: on entitlement programs, whether it's Medicaid and health insurance, that
Speaker 4: there's the fight going on now. This casts a real
Speaker 4: Paul over New York City, which is very dependent on
Speaker 4: those funds. So I think that what he's brought is
Speaker 4: a positive energy and we ought to capitalize on that
Speaker 4: and hopefully he'll be the best marketer of this city
Speaker 4: has ever had.
Speaker 1: Your role on the transition team, does it turn into
Speaker 1: a full time job in the Mundani administration.
Speaker 4: I am definitely not at my age looking for a
Speaker 4: full time job. I'm trying to get away from a.
Speaker 3: Full time because you're outgoings of the partnership.
Speaker 4: I am outgoing and I do not plan to take
Speaker 4: another job, but I do plan to help the new
Speaker 4: mayor if he wants it.
Speaker 1: So beyond the transition period, you would stay on as
Speaker 1: an advisor.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't know in what capacity. As I say
Speaker 4: I'm there, I'm certainly going to help Governor Hokeel deal
Speaker 4: with her challenges. Where I've worked closely with her, She's
Speaker 4: done a great job, and I think we're counting on
Speaker 4: her to continue to manage New York's relationship with Washington
Speaker 4: and the relationship between the state and the city, which.
Speaker 5: Is very important.
Speaker 4: Our affordability problems will not get solved by the city alone.
Speaker 4: This is going to take federal, state, city cooperation, and
Speaker 4: so I think all of us who are committed to
Speaker 4: New York City in future, we have to be thinking
Speaker 4: of all three levels of government and how we work
Speaker 4: with the leadership at all levels.
Speaker 5: You brought mom Donnie to meet with business leaders on
Speaker 5: several occasions. I wonder if you can talk about what
Speaker 5: his demeanor is in these meetings. Right, I've talked to
Speaker 5: Bill de Blasio about how he works a room, how
Speaker 5: mum Donnie works a room and really gets the business
Speaker 5: community to be comfortable around him, but also talk about
Speaker 5: some of these policy proposals that business leaders wanted answers
Speaker 5: to what are the things that business leaders said to him, Well,
Speaker 5: that sounds like a lofty thing that won't get done,
Speaker 5: or hey, that sounds like something that is much more
Speaker 5: than we're willing to back.
Speaker 4: Well, there's been quite an evolution since he won the primary,
Speaker 4: so in terms of his having a more nuanced position
Speaker 4: on a lot of the policies. You know, during the
Speaker 4: primary campaign there were whole slewer candidates and everything was
Speaker 4: one liners, and the social media stuff was one liners
Speaker 4: or you know, show and tell. When you get into
Speaker 4: conversation with CEOs, they want to hear data, they want
Speaker 4: to hear facts. And I have watched him evolve and
Speaker 4: grow over the last eight months. Where we had conversations
Speaker 4: last week, one on housing, one on childcare, where He
Speaker 4: was there with a pen and a notebook, taking notes,
Speaker 4: asking questions and coming back with very substantive responses. So
Speaker 4: he has absorbed a lot and is now digging deep
Speaker 4: on these issues that you know, Ken Griffin expressed concern
Speaker 4: about the fact that he made a lot, you know,
Speaker 4: raised a lot of expectations, create a lot of idealistic
Speaker 4: notions of out housing and childcare and how we can
Speaker 4: do all this for free. I think he's very quickly
Speaker 4: figuring out none of this is free. Raising taxes creates
Speaker 4: real issues. You may raise the rates of taxes, but
Speaker 4: that may not result in more revenues if you scare
Speaker 4: people away, or if you scare companies away, or as
Speaker 4: we've seen lately, we've seen a real threat to jobs
Speaker 4: in New York for the first time, the first time
Speaker 4: in my experience over fifty years, are seeing a decline
Speaker 4: in the number of jobs in our financial services industry.
Speaker 4: Scary thing. That's forty percent of our state income tax revenues.
Speaker 4: We don't I mean, these are you know, We've got
Speaker 4: to pay attention, and I think he gets that. But
Speaker 4: we've got to be at the table discussing these issues
Speaker 4: and helping figure out how to employers help solve the
Speaker 4: childcare problem.
Speaker 2: Kathy, you know, one of the things I think about
Speaker 2: and I remember, you know, being at milk and years
Speaker 2: ago and talking with very wealthy investors who said, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's about time we pay more taxes. So what is
Speaker 2: the balance? And I am curious among those folks that
Speaker 2: you talk to who are very wealthy, and a lot
Speaker 2: of times their wealth is not an income, it's assets
Speaker 2: and it's investment gained. What do they think though, should
Speaker 2: be maybe more of their contribution. And I know they
Speaker 2: often contribute in philanthropy and so on. I know that,
Speaker 2: but I'm just curious, what is the balance of willing
Speaker 2: to pay more when again, I've had side conversations with
Speaker 2: folks are surprised that they aren't paying more in taxes.
Speaker 4: So what I've found, and for somebody who's upper income
Speaker 4: earned income in New York, which is the you know,
Speaker 4: our biggest tax payers, we're paying fifty five percent of
Speaker 4: our income to the federal, state and city government with
Speaker 4: you all in so we're paying more than half my
Speaker 4: paycheck goes to the federal government. So it's not like
Speaker 4: we're getting away with something. For the very wealthy who
Speaker 4: are capital gains, et cetera. The big problem there is
Speaker 4: if they move their legal residents out of New York City,
Speaker 4: get we don't share or get taxes. They aren't taxed
Speaker 4: here on the basis of their global income, and so
Speaker 4: we may get their a piece of their paycheck, but
Speaker 4: not their wealth. And that's a big question.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 4: But what I found is over many years, when business
Speaker 4: leaders and the big taxpayers are at the table and
Speaker 4: they see that Number one government is doing what they
Speaker 4: can to figure out how do we offer the most efficient,
Speaker 4: the most effective services at the lowest cost possible. How
Speaker 4: do we make government more efficient? On the one hand,
Speaker 4: then so then you begin to narrow, So what's the
Speaker 4: delta in terms of what do we need to raise
Speaker 4: revenues for? So, for example, when Dick Ravage in two
Speaker 4: thousand and seven, for Governor Patterson led the effort to
Speaker 4: figure out how are we going to pay to upgrade
Speaker 4: our subways which were falling apart, we supported and the
Speaker 4: business community supported, creating a payroll mobility tax where a
Speaker 4: portion of payrolls of corporations employers who were in the
Speaker 4: metropolitan region would go to that eighty two percent of
Speaker 4: the employees who work for our companies based in Manhattan
Speaker 4: take the public transit to get here. That was something
Speaker 4: everybody signed off on we supported. We supported an increase
Speaker 4: in that tax twice. Same thing with congestion pricing. We
Speaker 4: supported congestion pricing. Obviously a user fee where you get
Speaker 4: something reduce congestion more time in your day is easier
Speaker 4: to sell, so it is not. And actually, when Mike
Speaker 4: Bloomberg was elected mayor right after nine to eleven, the
Speaker 4: city had to raise real estate taxes in order to
Speaker 4: rebuild and recover from the nine to eleven shock. We
Speaker 4: supported that eighteen percent tax increase in real estate taxes.
Speaker 4: So it's not that we're anti all taxes. Is government
Speaker 4: doing what they can to keep costs down, to be
Speaker 4: responsible in what they're spending. And then what is the
Speaker 4: contribution and how do we make it that makes the
Speaker 4: most sense, gets the most bang for the buck.
Speaker 1: Just very briefly, because you've spent such a big part
Speaker 1: of your career working on affordable housing, I'm wondering if
Speaker 1: the mayor is sticking to freezing rent as his solution
Speaker 1: for affordability, because not one person that we have spoken
Speaker 1: to over the last few months thinks that not increasing
Speaker 1: supply and rather freezing rent is the right way to
Speaker 1: approach the affordability crisis with housing.
Speaker 4: Well, the new mayor is very well aware that those
Speaker 4: are not mutually exclusive options and that if there's no
Speaker 4: economic return, nobody's going to build housing. He's figured that out,
Speaker 4: so he has He has said really since pre primary
Speaker 4: that he understood the private sector had an important role
Speaker 4: in the supply side, and he was going to work
Speaker 4: on that. So I think that again, his view is
Speaker 4: much more nuanced when he says now when he talks
Speaker 4: about freezing the rent, he says, and one thing that
Speaker 4: will enable us to do that is if we do
Speaker 4: reduce property taxes on rent stabilized regulated buildings. So he
Speaker 4: gets it. He can add and subtract.
Speaker 2: So can you come back, I said, you said, we
Speaker 2: had an hour.
Speaker 1: We had an hour hour's worth of question service.
Speaker 2: But we so appreciate Kathy, Thank you, good luck, thank
Speaker 2: luck having Kathy Wilde, president and CEO of Going President
Speaker 2: and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, part
Speaker 2: of the transition team of the New York City mayor elect,
Speaker 2: and of course our Bloomberg News senior reporter Miles Miller,