WEBVTT - Rebuilding American Prosperity 0:00:02.520 --> 0:00:07.000 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:12.240 You're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek with Carol Masser and Tim 0:00:12.280 --> 0:00:14.400 Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.759 JP Morgan announced a new program today. It's a venture 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:20.920 aimed at expanding economic opportunity and local communities across the country. 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:25.080 It's called the American Dream Initiative. It'll span six focus areas. 0:00:25.079 --> 0:00:27.640 It includes small businesses where the effort will focus initially 0:00:29.160 --> 0:00:31.680 on well housing and financial health. 0:00:31.760 --> 0:00:33.280 Yeah, and we really wanted to talk more about the 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:35.920 American Dream and how capitalism in the economy can be 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:36.600 more inclusive. 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:36.960 It is a. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:40.000 Subject of a new book. It is by John Hopebriant. 0:00:40.080 --> 0:00:42.720 He is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Operation Hope. 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:46.080 It's the nation's largest on the ground financial literacy and 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:49.480 economic empowerment nonprofit. He's also the founder of Bryant Group 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.520 Ventures and Bryant Group Advisors. Previously led the Promise Homes Company. 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:56.600 He's also advised the administrations of both George W. Bush 0:00:56.640 --> 0:01:01.600 and Barack Obama in financial literacy and author of many books, 0:01:01.640 --> 0:01:05.360 including his latest Capitalism for All Inclusive Economics in the Future. 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:11.000 Proofing of America really gets to the heart of I think, really, 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:13.920 what is a problem here in America when we think 0:01:13.959 --> 0:01:16.479 about where we are today. John is here with us 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.440 in studio, so nice to have you here. I was 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.640 telling these guys I'm a fan too of how many 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:26.000 conversations we had around the pandemic and coming off of 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:28.959 what happened to, you know, the murder of George Floyd. 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:32.399 Like we've just talked so much about diversity inclusive. Tell 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:34.640 us a little bit about this book, because you've talked 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.000 about this subject a lot. Tell us about what your 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:38.759 mission was with this book and what you were looking 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:39.240 to get at. 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:45.760 It's not the morals message, it's the math message. My 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.920 goal here, I'm going on tour starting tomorrow, and I'm 0:01:49.920 --> 0:01:51.480 going to go to black and brown urban I'm gonna 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:54.360 go poor white rule. I'm gonna go from Main Street 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:56.640 to Wall Street. I'm gonna go from the penthouse to 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:01.160 no House. And I want people, I'm literally looking for 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:02.200 people to start like. 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:05.880 This, to be skeptical in the beginning. 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:09.760 And then my gold for myself is within fifteen minutes 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:14.880 they're doing this and their heads are little cocked in there. 0:02:15.919 --> 0:02:19.360 This is interesting, So I don't I'd rather respect me 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:22.040 and learn to like me. They like me and never 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:27.800 respect me. The math is the message. And if I 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.320 can combin in the math with a narrative and then 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.160 layer in a little bit of emotionalism about all of 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:38.720 us giving people an excuse to come back to the middle. 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.640 I mean, most Americans and most people in around the 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:46.320 world are somewhere in the middle. They're not in these extremes. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:54.000 And I found the only universal color is the economic green. 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:56.760 It's not about black or white, or red or blue. 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.200 It's not about some partisan view of the world. When 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.000 you start understanding that, the really the lesson in my 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.280 book makes us very clear capitalism for all, the lesson 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.919 of KKR that just got announced, where they bought built 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:13.440 a company, bought a company and sold it and then 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:19.600 provided profit sharing to the employees. Watch the story, read 0:03:19.600 --> 0:03:22.079 the story, listen to the story. Look at the faces 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.680 of the employees and they explode with I'm part of this. 0:03:27.440 --> 0:03:29.799 And you say, that's that's America. That goes back to 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:32.280 the early nineteen hundreds. So the Henry Fords and the 0:03:32.360 --> 0:03:35.520 rocket failures, and that's America. Look at look at what 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.200 Walmart did and said, I'm not going to lay off 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:41.440 an employees. We're going to train them in AI and 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:45.520 upskill them. They're the largest employer in the world. Look 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:47.960 At what Apollo's doing with some of its subsidiaries around 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.800 employee stakeholder stakeholder ownership. Look at what what Delta Airlines. 0:03:53.160 --> 0:03:55.520 One of the forwards in the book is at bashing 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:58.360 and CEO of Delta is doing with their owne hundred 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.320 thousand employees and financial coaching. I was on a Delta 0:04:01.360 --> 0:04:04.000 flight last night and on the way to the flight, 0:04:04.040 --> 0:04:06.800 the Delta person talking my ear off about her new 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:10.040 credit card and now she's just got a limit increase 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:12.240 and she's managing finances. I didn't as say a word 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.080 to her for twenty minutes. Yeah, she's wearing me out 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.160 about her credit score. And people coming on the plane, 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.680 the flight attendants talking about one thousand dollars Emergency Saviors 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.000 account they got because they got financial literacy and how 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:28.000 that changed their life. Now they're all in on Delta. 0:04:28.240 --> 0:04:30.960 They feel like their owners and they've profit sharing. Delta 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:33.840 does a couple of billion a year every year. That 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:38.160 weds them to capitalism and free enterprise. The last thing 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.640 I'll say is in the book, I knew there'd be 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.920 skeptics and critics and people making assumptions. I put right 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:48.440 up front a fifty year impact study that's already done 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.039 on why inclusion works. Is a fifty year study about 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.560 women in nineteen seventy two. And just to make this 0:04:55.640 --> 0:04:57.760 really clear, it was white women. Just to be really blunt, 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:01.800 nineteen seventy two, a woman, a white woman, your mother, 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.880 your mother, and by extension, my mother not white. All 0:05:05.920 --> 0:05:09.760 couldn't get a bank account, not eighteen seventy two. And 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:13.120 there was a whole debate in this country about women's 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:15.320 roles and should they have did it. And women couldn't 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.520 get alone unless her husband co signed it. So women 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:22.400 were outside the economy because of Black's pursuit of affirmative 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:27.159 action justice, which is Kennedy Johnson, Johnson, Kennedy Johnson and 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:31.440 then honorary President doctor King. They opened that door. And 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:33.880 then Nixon comes in as a reaction to Johnson and 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.960 Kennedy and King, and he codifies of her reaction for women. 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:38.960 By the way, he doesn't get credit because of all 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:42.400 the other stuff he did a lot of good stuff. Anyway, 0:05:42.640 --> 0:05:45.400 it gets codified. Make a long story short. Come now 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:47.800 to present moment. Women are a third of the US 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:51.040 economy eight to ten trillion a year. I got to 0:05:51.040 --> 0:05:52.600 remind myself it's a t nott of b because it's 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:55.400 such a big number. Eight to ten trillion dollars or 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:58.360 GDP are women's participation in the economy. If we had 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:02.520 not gotten that experiment, right, we also ran a country 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.359 in the world today. And there's so many more examples 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.840 of the math in two hundred pages of this book, 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.200 but I make it so that it is really there's 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:12.120 no other door to go through. 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.800 You bring up a lot of examples of companies that 0:06:14.839 --> 0:06:18.000 are private, sharing with employees, or are doing well by 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:21.920 doing good, and I think a lot of the folks 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:25.080 who work for those companies are already a step ahead 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:27.960 of a lot of other Americans who don't have the 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.560 opportunity to work for those companies, who are worried about 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:35.120 the cost of education, who are drowning in student loan debt. 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:39.960 How do they How do they get included the ones 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:41.480 who don't yet work at these companies. 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.960 So this is the reason for the book and why 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:49.200 I think there's a fierce urgency of now. If we 0:06:49.200 --> 0:06:51.039 were just talking about poor people, and with the question 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.520 you raise, I wouldn't be sitting here, not because you 0:06:53.560 --> 0:06:56.279 don't care, It just wouldn't be relevant to your audience. 0:06:56.880 --> 0:06:59.760 But half of was seventy percent of the US economy 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:03.520 is consumer spending. Right, seventy percent of all Americans are 0:07:03.520 --> 0:07:06.920 living from patrick to paycheck. Right. If you're making one 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.200 hundred thousand dollars a year, fifty percent of those a 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.440 living from patrick to paycheck. Okay, let me get closer 0:07:11.440 --> 0:07:13.760 to your viewer. Now, if you're making a quarter million 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:16.680 dollars a year, a third of those a living from 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.680 patient to paycheck. And that's before cost of living has 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.240 gone increased with the oil prices popping and all the 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:24.640 rest of this stuff. So now you're a fierce urgency 0:07:24.640 --> 0:07:26.760 of Now it's gonna it's gonna affect politics, it's gonna 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:31.040 affect lifestyle, it's gonna act choices you make, and now 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:32.840 we get to decide what kind of country you want 0:07:32.880 --> 0:07:36.240 to live in? Is this okay? When the reality is 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.000 is the third, the bottom third have always come from 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:41.120 the bottom up to the middle class. The middle class 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.360 is always pushed that that's what's driving the US economy. 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.520 We have a K shaped economy now with the top 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:52.440 end when and really the market gains giving people I 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.880 think a false sense of safety. That group is now 0:07:56.000 --> 0:07:59.680 almost half of the consumer spending. Not good because not 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:03.440 good because when they turn off the faucet. 0:08:02.400 --> 0:08:02.520 Uh. 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:06.200 Yeah, So we are at a in the two hundred 0:08:06.200 --> 0:08:08.880 and fifteenth anniversary of America. To answer your question, we 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.600 have to figure out do we reward work? Are we 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:15.520 giving up on the worker and saying AI has the 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:17.640 end of jobs? That's a false I think that's a 0:08:17.640 --> 0:08:22.160 complete false narrative if I can prove it. So, Uh, it's 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:25.840 gonna be tough because everybody's being thrown into brutal capitalism 0:08:25.840 --> 0:08:28.360 and free enterprise with no or and no trainings, no 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:31.320 training wheels. But this is the time to teach financial 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:33.680 literacy and have the and have a fierce urgency of Now. 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:35.560 This is a time for this legislation like the right 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:39.160 to vote, where where we say we demand we the 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:42.440 people demand K through twelve that this is taught UH 0:08:42.480 --> 0:08:44.679 and embedded in our school system. This is a time 0:08:44.679 --> 0:08:50.000 where we get tax codes for that incentivized uh internships 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.960 and apprenticeships, so you have tax breaks for that. This 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:56.000 is the time I think everything gets reimagined in the 0:08:56.280 --> 0:08:58.439 in the fierce urgency of now so that you support 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:00.880 those are too much money at the end of their money. 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.480 We've a million questions we're talking about answer no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:06.360 do not extra time. We love it love. We just 0:09:06.400 --> 0:09:08.720 want to remind everybody we just kind of blew our 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:10.880 break because we want to talk more with you. John O'Brien, founder, 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:14.520 chairman and CEO of Operation Hope. So many other things, 0:09:14.520 --> 0:09:16.920 but we're talking about as newest book, Capitalism for All, 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.600 Inclusive Economics and the future proofing of America. John, I 0:09:20.640 --> 0:09:24.280 remember one of these conversations during COVID and we talked 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:29.079 about an individual and it was with regards to George 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.200 Floyd and about we talk about having seats at the table, 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:35.400 not everybody has seats at the table. And I feel 0:09:35.600 --> 0:09:37.800 financial literacy. I've been doing this for a long time 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.959 and we've been talking about this a long time too. 0:09:41.080 --> 0:09:45.000 How do we really finally get there so that not 0:09:45.080 --> 0:09:49.120 just income generation but wealth generation. Right, we finally changed 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:52.840 the conversation, hallelujah, But how do we then really move 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:56.600 the needle on that because buying a home we've talked 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.080 about this right, is also so important to creating wealth 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:01.559 and generational wealth. How do we finally get there? 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:03.880 So, as you know, since I've seen you last, we've 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:09.320 had a reversal of our approach in this country. It's 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:12.120 no longer safe just to be really blunt. It's no 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:16.880 longer safe to bluntly support what people call I don't know, 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.440 minority activities or black. To me, it's just greens, just 0:10:20.440 --> 0:10:24.600 emerging market customers. But it's more complicated now, okay. 0:10:24.240 --> 0:10:26.960 Fine, dea is a bad word now, yeah, And I. 0:10:26.920 --> 0:10:30.120 Don't care about d Just to be really clear, we're 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:32.880 black people were fourth on the list anyway, right, women, 0:10:32.920 --> 0:10:35.679 by the way, we're first, and veterans, et cetera. But 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:38.600 I could care less about a program. What I care 0:10:38.600 --> 0:10:41.040 about is when you look at the CEOs who call 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:44.240 me fortune. If I've heard of CEOs, they're like, sh John, 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:47.679 We're still in. We can't say it publicly. We don't 0:10:47.679 --> 0:10:50.120 want to get our head knocked off politically or in 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:53.040 the public. But we this is good business, right, It's 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:54.240 not just about it Max feel good. 0:10:54.280 --> 0:10:56.520 Some of that off air when we talk to people. 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.720 Too, Oh, absolutely, And it's the same. I'm sure we 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.040 could trade names either the biggest names in the most 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:06.160 conservatively run institutions because these are emerging markets, not just 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.679 a feel good look. I've already said a third of 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.640 all customers, third of our economy as women. Okay, forty 0:11:12.640 --> 0:11:16.240 percent of this economy is black and brown. Forty percent 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:18.280 of the country is black and brown. It's going to 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.320 be a majority of minorities. Here's a shock here for you. 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.160 Ten thousand baby boomers are walking out of the economy 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.920 every day. Let that sink in for your audience. Ten 0:11:29.320 --> 0:11:32.400 not a year, not a month. Ten thousand a day 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:36.760 are retiring. Bye, going to play golf. Everybody's going to 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.000 play golf at the same time. Who's going to replace them? 0:11:40.240 --> 0:11:42.400 And even if you don't care about them, I mean 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:45.480 the them. My rich friends need my poor friends to 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.440 do better, if only to stay rich. Because it's a 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:50.840 circular firing squad. You know, the way you're shooting, you're 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.760 shooting your replacement. We have got to understand unless we 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.920 want to speak Mandarin in twenty years Chinese and have 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.000 them biggest, the biggest economy in the world. We are 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.880 all we got. Here's another shocker for you. It's all 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:04.440 this is in the book, and I have asked really 0:12:04.440 --> 0:12:07.280 smart people, these questions like what do you think the 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.800 banking the traditional banking sector is what are you percentage 0:12:09.800 --> 0:12:15.000 do you think are non non immigrant foreign born people? 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.680 What percentage of of the banking new account activity? Oh, 0:12:18.800 --> 0:12:24.760 five percent, fifty four percent, sixty eight percent. And people 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.360 just shocked, what do you mean? Because ninety five percent 0:12:27.360 --> 0:12:30.320 of America is banked, ninety percent of traditional America has 0:12:30.320 --> 0:12:33.560 already has an account. So the new exectivity is coming 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:35.880 to all the big banks. And I've seen the data 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.120 from foreign born new to country. That's where the boosted. Well, 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.360 that's what happened in the early twentieth century when the 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:45.520 Irish and the Polish and the Jewish and whatever came 0:12:45.559 --> 0:12:47.680 to America. This is not a new story. It's just 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:52.920 these folks look a little different, right. So I love 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:55.120 the math to quote Melody Hobsing because it doesn't have 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:58.240 an opinion. I think we had to push back, and 0:12:58.280 --> 0:12:59.959 now you're going to have to forget. Now the America 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:03.480 is going to push forward, and the business plans, the 0:13:03.480 --> 0:13:05.960 balance sheets are going to push forward. Why you can't 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:08.960 grow an economy by shrinking it, I'm gonna say that again. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.560 You can grow Can I grow GDP by making the 0:13:12.600 --> 0:13:15.480 economy smaller, and we have made this is not a 0:13:15.520 --> 0:13:17.880 political statement, it's just the facts. We have made the 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:22.400 economy smaller because there's less people participating in it. The 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:29.120 unemployment rate for after Americans has doubled the last year. 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:31.360 Three hundred black women lost their jobs in the first 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:36.040 two quarters of twenty twenty five. These are not These 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.640 are not good signals for the economy. And these aren't 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:41.040 lazy people are These are folks who want to work. 0:13:41.440 --> 0:13:44.600 So I think the City group reporting this in this 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:49.439 book discrimination against black alone between the year two thousand 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.680 and the year twenty twenty, twenty twenty call through UITs 0:13:52.679 --> 0:13:57.960 economy sixteen trillion dollars trillion, and if you just knock 0:13:58.000 --> 0:14:01.200 it off, it returns tree dollars a month. You add 0:14:01.200 --> 0:14:04.280 the twin dollars a month to the GDP. These are meaningful, 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.239 big numbers. 0:14:07.440 --> 0:14:12.360 You were speaking our language when you're talking about these numbers. 0:14:12.360 --> 0:14:17.880 You're talking about GDP. You've advised a couple of presidents 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:20.880 on financial literacy. Would you run for president? 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.600 I've been asked a couple of times, never on air. 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.160 Well ask me because when you said you were going 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:31.160 on tour for this book, it sounded like the way 0:14:31.200 --> 0:14:33.720 you were approaching. It was almost like a politician approaches. 0:14:34.920 --> 0:14:36.640 And I don't mean that in a pejorative sense. A 0:14:36.640 --> 0:14:38.560 lot of people think, you know, that's a pejorative thing 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:40.600 to say, but it sounds like the way somebody who's 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:45.200 running for something approaches reaching everybody to get their vote 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:46.320 or to communicate to them. 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.200 So my model, I'm glad you actually said this, because 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.400 this out of the way. My model is doctor King, 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.040 not Johnny JFK, you know, or a president of Barack 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.280 Obama or President Clint who I actually love. I think 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.880 that guy is amazing what he did in reducing the 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:04.120 deficit and increasing the economy for all people at the bottom. 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:08.360 And but I know I have no interest in running 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:10.960 for political office, and this is not what that is about. 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.480 I am, though, moving a get it done party, not 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:17.000 a party, but I am moving. I am moving like 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:18.960 this is. I just told my team this morning, think 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:23.240 of this as if it's a presidential national effort. I'm 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:25.520 going on tour. I want to talk to everybody because 0:15:25.520 --> 0:15:27.000 if we need, we need to have a third way. 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:29.520 We got to break this cycle of the far right 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.640 and the far left going in their camps and just 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:36.320 talking to their echo chambers when the biggest group in 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.280 America are independents and they got to have a voice 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:41.200 at all. And I just want, I want there to 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.960 be a moment where the middle forces the edges back 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.360 to the middle from both parties, because both parties, in 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:53.040 my opinion, are out of sync with America. And if 0:15:53.080 --> 0:15:55.760 I can do that by not running, by not being political, 0:15:55.920 --> 0:15:59.120 by not being partisan. In fact, I said this morning, 0:15:59.200 --> 0:16:02.000 I'd rather I hope that the Mayor of New York 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:04.920 and the mayor and the President of the United States 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:09.440 in the administration steal every idea in this book. Don't 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.960 you give me credit for it? Rip it off and 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:16.040 use it because if they win, we win. If they lose, 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:20.000 we lose. So I have no agenda personally other than 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.440 continuing doctor King's unfinished work, the Poor People's Campaign when 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:27.160 he's assassinated and Andrew Young my mentored Frederick Douglas's work 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.160 one hundred years before that. I think this is the 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:32.080 third reconstruction, is what I'm telling you. First reconstruction was 0:16:32.080 --> 0:16:33.720 after slavery, after Civil Wars. 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.560 Does all the change happen in the private sector? And 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.240 I'm just curious, you're really smart, by the way. To 0:16:38.280 --> 0:16:41.560 answer me that question, have you talked to mayor Mom, Donnie? 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:43.640 Have you talked I have been asked a White House. 0:16:44.080 --> 0:16:46.200 I haven't asked if I would not debate, will not 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:48.840 have a conversation with the mayor? And I said, yes, 0:16:49.000 --> 0:16:52.640 be happy to a public conversation. I have met last 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.960 year with Secretary Bessont, who I've considered a friend. I 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.400 like him. I don't think the environment was right for 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:01.600 him to talk to me, and for this to have 0:17:01.640 --> 0:17:05.560 a bipartisan I called it a Lincoln Douglas conversation, Abraham 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:08.240 Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to bring the country together through 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:10.359 financial literacy. I don't think the environment was right a 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:13.560 year ago. It's not still quite right. But I think 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.440 it's warming up that the country is going to force, 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:19.240 not me, but it's going to force this conversation because 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.160 affordability is not affordable, because folks got too much month 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.040 at the end of their money, because we've broken the 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:27.120 promise that if I work hard, play by the rules, 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.960 do the right thing, keep my nose clean, pay my taxes, 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:32.679 I'll get a reasonable shot a success or failure on 0:17:32.760 --> 0:17:36.040 my own merit, and I'll say something about the administration. 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.320 I don't care how smart you are, I don't care 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:40.040 how well meaning you are. And I think most people 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.960 are well meaning. But if you're a billionaire, for whom 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.480 we all should aspire to be, okay, you can't do 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.600 anything broke. If you're a billionaire or a cent a 0:17:50.640 --> 0:17:55.920 millionaire and you've got private planes and private security before 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:58.119 you've got secret service, if you haven't been to a 0:17:58.200 --> 0:18:00.880 grocery store in twenty years, I mean, I don't care 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:05.600 how nice you are. How can you possibly understand the 0:18:05.640 --> 0:18:08.440 pains of somebody who's got a red notice or cut 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.120 off notice. And I'm not being pejorative or in any 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:12.960 way political, It's just common sense. 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.960 It's similar. We had a conversation with Peter Atwater, who 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.840 is an economist or teaches economics at William and Mary. 0:18:18.880 --> 0:18:21.000 But this whole idea that people in terms of the 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:23.080 k you know, the upper rung, need to spend some 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:25.400 time with the lower rung to really understand. 0:18:25.480 --> 0:18:28.240 You know, a delta fighting coach for a week. Yeah, right, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.080 go go through the airport, through the terminal, stand in line. 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:34.159 Those are still wealthier people, Those are the ones that 0:18:34.240 --> 0:18:35.360 can afford to fly. 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.920 Go to a grocery store. Yes, by the way, still 0:18:37.960 --> 0:18:39.879 those are still middle class people. If you're a if 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:42.199 you're at a decent grocery store, you're still middle class. 0:18:42.960 --> 0:18:46.480 I think we everybody just needs a dose of reality. 0:18:47.000 --> 0:18:49.560 I go to what I call the hood. I go 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.560 to the community once a month. Just drive through it 0:18:52.800 --> 0:18:54.840 if I can. If I'm on the highway and I 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:56.399 can get there and have some time. I get off 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.359 the highway, I go through a working class neighborhood, and 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:03.159 I'm nosy. I'm just looking around, and it's amazing what 0:19:03.280 --> 0:19:09.199 you see. Check Casher payday, long lender, rent own store, 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.639 title lender as in car title, liquor store, forget your problems, 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:18.760 pawnshop one block church down the street, trying to make 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:20.320 you feel feel a little bit better once a week. 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:23.680 That's your neighborhood therapist. Right in that neighborhood of five 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.080 hundred to six twenty, you lived at sixty one years 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.000 of age. We by the way, I've mapped every zip 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.120 code in America by Credit Score with the data from Experience, 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.320 thank you very much. In from the US the US Census, 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:37.480 and we found you lived a sixty one years of 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:39.480 age for every fifty point increase in your credit score. 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:43.000 You live five more years, so fifteen minutes away from 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.639 every five hundred credit score neighborhood when live sixty one 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:48.320 years of age. You lived at eighty one years of age, 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.159 and your credit score is seven hundred plus, and the 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:51.240 economy is taken off. 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:54.440 John, just forty seconds, if you could change one thing 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:57.880 beyond reading your book and sharing the book and the message, 0:19:58.000 --> 0:19:58.920 what would you change? 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:04.760 Just quickly, anger O the Bible says the house divided 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:09.480 that cannot stand. It's also just good common sense. We 0:20:09.560 --> 0:20:11.320 have to all row the boat in the same direction. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:13.720 We have got to get out of our own way, 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.720 our problems us. Everybody wants to be an American, but Americans, 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.480 we've got to knock it off. We have to knock 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:22.119 it off. Russia wants our way of life. North Korea 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:24.600 wants our way of life, China wants our way of life. 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:27.040 They can't win in a fair fight. They got it. 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.440 They need us to destroy us and that we are 0:20:29.480 --> 0:20:32.560 helping them with. And so I'm hoping to shake up 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:35.800 the debate and the discussion. So it it's so an outsider, 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.080 maybe forceing people to come to the inside of the 0:20:38.119 --> 0:20:40.840 hearts and minds of the average person. Washing this in 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:46.320 their head is nodding, saying my God, finally common sense. 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:49.359 Thank you so much. We know you're starting a tour 0:20:49.600 --> 0:20:52.359 with the book. When you circle around again, come back. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:54.480