Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisenhal and I'm Tracy Hallaway. Tracy, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is most surprising
Speaker 1: or striking about the Biden administration, of the first two
Speaker 1: years of the Biden administration is how slim the sort
Speaker 1: of congressional majority was, like just fifty seats in the Senate,
Speaker 1: extremely narrow and yet legislatively an incredibly consequential two years.
Speaker 1: I would say, Yeah, I'm trying to think of all
Speaker 1: the big spending bills that happened past. But you had
Speaker 1: like the Inflation Reduction Act, you had a climate bill, uh,
Speaker 1: you had the the emergency sort of fiscal um stuff
Speaker 1: that was announced right at the beginning of COVID. There's
Speaker 1: a lot that happened. Yeah, and of course do as
Speaker 1: the Chips Act as well, So it's really consequential. Also
Speaker 1: usage of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in kind of a
Speaker 1: novel way. Just like a very big two years. And
Speaker 1: when we think about these bills, and you know, Obama
Speaker 1: had a pretty big to his first two years, and
Speaker 1: pretty big because Obamacare got passed during that time, you know,
Speaker 1: it seems too many, and I guess I would say
Speaker 1: I would include myself in that category that like, not
Speaker 1: just are these sort of big pieces of legislation that
Speaker 1: got passed, but kind of a break from how past
Speaker 1: presidents have treated economic management, specifically with things that seemed
Speaker 1: to resemble like industrial policy. Yes, it's funny that you
Speaker 1: said industrial policy because I see people use the term
Speaker 1: industrial strategy a lot. It's almost like industrial policy has
Speaker 1: like negative connotations. But you're right, You're right. It feels
Speaker 1: much more I also don't know if interval ninist is
Speaker 1: the right word, but it feels much more active in
Speaker 1: identifying choke points in the economy, things that are important
Speaker 1: either from a strategic perspective or maybe they're important for
Speaker 1: overall quality of life for Americans, um and prices and
Speaker 1: things like that, and then doing something about it right
Speaker 1: identifying say, domestic battery consumption, identifying battery materials, identifying the
Speaker 1: need to have good chip fabrication domestically. This was not
Speaker 1: an approach that Trump took. It wasn't approach that Obama took.
Speaker 1: I don't think I was an approach that Bush talk.
Speaker 1: So it feels very new, and so it is a
Speaker 1: good time to like take stock of what was done
Speaker 1: in the last two years and sort of like how
Speaker 1: will we evaluate ultimately the success of these pieces of legislation. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: and we really do have the perfect guests to do that.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes that line is like, okays it the perfect guest.
Speaker 1: In this case, I believe that actually is the case
Speaker 1: because we are going to be speaking with Brian des
Speaker 1: He is the head of the President's National Economic Council,
Speaker 1: involved in all of these sort of major actions, and
Speaker 1: he's leaving. This is we're recording this February fifteen. This
Speaker 1: is his last week on the job. He's getting a
Speaker 1: very I assume, much needed break. So, Brian, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming back on odd lots. Thank you
Speaker 1: both for having me. I'm excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So let's start with that. I mean, like, so I
Speaker 1: alluded to this in the beginning, but you know, I
Speaker 1: would like your take on it, which is a you know,
Speaker 1: it has biodynamics so to speak, been characterized as industrial
Speaker 1: policy and setting aside terminology, how much do you perceive
Speaker 1: this approach to economic management is having been a sort
Speaker 1: of major break from the likes of which we saw
Speaker 1: under Trump, Obama and other previous presidents. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that we have a long history in the United States,
Speaker 1: going back to even the early days of this country
Speaker 1: in experimenting or utilizing industrial strategies, and you guys were
Speaker 1: talking about the industrial strategy industrial policy to different terms.
Speaker 1: I think it is the case that over the course
Speaker 1: of the last forty years, there were forces that really
Speaker 1: pushed the concept of industrial policy into being viewed as
Speaker 1: a sort of dirty word, or being viewed as somehow
Speaker 1: um inconsistent with a capitalist, market based economic system and
Speaker 1: the things that you need. I also think over that
Speaker 1: time the world has changed in pretty important and fundamental
Speaker 1: ways and has brought back into clear relief the economic
Speaker 1: need for something approximating an industrial strategy. And I think
Speaker 1: it's totally fair and right to look at the Biden
Speaker 1: economic strategy and this through line between, in particular the
Speaker 1: three big bills that were passed, the Infrastructure Bill, the
Speaker 1: Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. You
Speaker 1: see a common thread, which is use public investment to
Speaker 1: try to crowd in private investment in key areas of
Speaker 1: the economy where we believe, for strategic or economic purposes,
Speaker 1: we want to increase productive potential. So clean energy, innovation, semiconductors,
Speaker 1: high value infrastructure. These are places where we are on
Speaker 1: apologic getically saying the private market on its own is
Speaker 1: not going to generate sufficient industrial capacity or a sufficient
Speaker 1: output in the United States to meet our economic and
Speaker 1: security needs, and so therefore we do need an explicit
Speaker 1: and active strategy. I think the way I would frame
Speaker 1: it as an active and energetic government approach to try
Speaker 1: to lay the foundation and crowd in private capitalist scipe.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned America having a long history of industrial strategy.
Speaker 1: Can you expand on that a little bit more, because
Speaker 1: I think you do tend to get or one does
Speaker 1: tend to see a knee jerk reaction amongst Americans over
Speaker 1: government interference rather than perhaps government guiding, um, you know,
Speaker 1: more capital and more money into strategically important things and industries. Well,
Speaker 1: I think if you look back at history, we have
Speaker 1: seen some of our greatest moments and opportunities for innovation
Speaker 1: have been connected to this idea of having an industrial strategy.
Speaker 1: Hamilton's was, in fact, I think the first principle thinker
Speaker 1: and doer to lay out the idea that having a
Speaker 1: government role in supporting the build out of a domestic
Speaker 1: system of manufacturing was important for economic and national security reasons,
Speaker 1: and that the private market alone wasn't going to wasn't
Speaker 1: going to solve that. Um. You saw it in Lincoln's time,
Speaker 1: investing in the internet, intercontinental railroad. You saw it in
Speaker 1: the fifties and the sixties in the wake of the
Speaker 1: Second World War, investing not only in physical infrastructure but
Speaker 1: in our research and innovation base. Obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: that connected to the space race, but I think the
Speaker 1: best historical analog to what we're trying to do now
Speaker 1: is the nineteen sixties, where you saw both a significant
Speaker 1: investment in physical infrastructure and also in our innovation infrastructure
Speaker 1: as well. You know, with the Chips Act, obviously there's
Speaker 1: a lot of constern nation about the idea that you know,
Speaker 1: the world needs semiconductors, and we produced fewer and fewer
Speaker 1: of them here domestically, and this is a reason to
Speaker 1: be concerned what happens if the supply were to be
Speaker 1: disrupted with great with the with the Inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 1: you know, a big part of the goal there is
Speaker 1: accelerating the fight against climate change, but also there is
Speaker 1: this sort of geopolitical element, particularly about China's dominance with
Speaker 1: certain materials for batteries and so forth. When it comes
Speaker 1: to passing legislation, how much does it help if the
Speaker 1: issue at hand is somehow couched in real or perceived
Speaker 1: geopolitical competition. Well, I think a couple of things help.
Speaker 1: One is a clear connection to why is it important
Speaker 1: to build domestic industrial capacity here at home? And with
Speaker 1: respect to clean energy, you know, the United States has
Speaker 1: a competitive advantage with respect to energy, lower cost energy,
Speaker 1: and we have an imperative to address the climate crisis.
Speaker 1: And the basic theory of the investments in the Inflation
Speaker 1: Reduction Act is around providing long term technology neutral incentives
Speaker 1: to dramatically drive down the cost of low carbon and
Speaker 1: zero carbon technologies in the United States at scale, which
Speaker 1: will have a global benefit but will create significant economic
Speaker 1: strength here at home. So having that story um and
Speaker 1: having that credible story very important. Second thing that's important
Speaker 1: and is true of all of these investments both but
Speaker 1: both on cleanergy and semiconductors, is that they are explicitly
Speaker 1: place based, in the sense that if you're a member
Speaker 1: of Congress or you're thinking about this in terms of
Speaker 1: what is it actually going to mean? The goal is
Speaker 1: to encourage actual investments in places, particularly in places that
Speaker 1: have where their productive potential has not been fully realized.
Speaker 1: And that means parts of the country that you know
Speaker 1: that have been that have not fully benefited from higher
Speaker 1: economic expansions. That helps too, because it allows people to see, um,
Speaker 1: the way in which this might concretely help their district.
Speaker 1: And it's what you see. We see the changing politics
Speaker 1: of this. On the ground. You see a number of
Speaker 1: either read or purple districts around the country where now
Speaker 1: there's a historic amount of investment in building it, whether
Speaker 1: it's a battery factory or new production of hydrogen or
Speaker 1: small modular nuclear reactors, and these become sources of jobs
Speaker 1: and economic opportunity and revitalization in their own right. Um.
Speaker 1: And then you know, I think that they I guess
Speaker 1: what I would say about that. Your the geopolitical point
Speaker 1: in your part of your question is that I don't
Speaker 1: think any of this can be done and thought of
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. We've made mistakes in policy in the
Speaker 1: past of trying to think of the sort of free market,
Speaker 1: the global free market as a as a as a monolith.
Speaker 1: And one of the things, particularly in the post pandemic
Speaker 1: environment is that we have to be very clear eyed
Speaker 1: and realistic about the state of geopolitical and global economic competition.
Speaker 1: And so therefore, whether you're you have to identify those
Speaker 1: places in those areas where China, through non market practices
Speaker 1: and a stated commitment to dominate certain industries, has ended
Speaker 1: up expropriating technology and distorting the market in ways that
Speaker 1: we have to grapple with realistically, and we can't ignore.
Speaker 1: And so that is certainly always part of the conversation.
Speaker 1: In some cases it's a you know, in some cases
Speaker 1: it adds an additional argument to the case, but in
Speaker 1: all cases it has to be very present. We can't
Speaker 1: ignore those things anymore. So just on this note, I mean,
Speaker 1: there is a fine line between strategic industrial policy and
Speaker 1: protectionism and beggar thy neighbor type policies. And we have
Speaker 1: seen some U S allies make noise about, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the issues embedded in bills that happened past um,
Speaker 1: you know, specifically the Inflation Reduction Act and maybe the
Speaker 1: Chips Act UM. And then when it comes to China specifically,
Speaker 1: we have seen the Biden administration in some respects go
Speaker 1: harder on China's technology sector than um, you know, even
Speaker 1: the previous Trump administration. How do you encourage strategically important
Speaker 1: industrial initiatives and capabilities in the US without causing issues
Speaker 1: or tensions with other countries. Yeah, it's a great question. Look,
Speaker 1: I think the first important thing is when we're identifying
Speaker 1: elements of an industrial strategy, it's important to recognize that
Speaker 1: with clean energy and semiconductors, you both have sectors or
Speaker 1: areas where the world, the global economy is significantly short supply.
Speaker 1: So over the next decade, we're going to need to
Speaker 1: significantly advance the rate of semiconductor production, both legacy and
Speaker 1: cutting edge semiconductor production all around the globe. Clean energy, uh,
Speaker 1: we are in every jurisdiction on the planet going need
Speaker 1: going to need to significantly scale clean energy production in
Speaker 1: terms of electrons, storage, distribution, transmission. That needs to happen everywhere.
Speaker 1: So when there is a globally a need for greater supply,
Speaker 1: you have less concern about the sort of traditional critique,
Speaker 1: which is that you have a fixed supply and then
Speaker 1: you're going to create an inefficient um uh, an inefficient
Speaker 1: subsidy race to try to uh, you know, buy off
Speaker 1: a fixed supply in both of these areas, you don't
Speaker 1: have that operating. That's number one. Number two is if
Speaker 1: you look at the Inflation Reduction Act in particular, our
Speaker 1: allies don't really have anything to fear and have a
Speaker 1: lot to gain by the United States providing this long
Speaker 1: term technology technology neutral set of incentives. The principal effective
Speaker 1: which will be to drive down the cost of deployable
Speaker 1: clean energy technologies. So our investments, for example, in accelerating
Speaker 1: deployable low cost hydrogen or deployable low cost small modular
Speaker 1: nuclear reactors will have a very significant global benefit because
Speaker 1: it means those technologies are deployable at lower cost and
Speaker 1: greater scale uh worldwide. We've seen this in the past
Speaker 1: in Germany's investment in solar technology two decades ago, the
Speaker 1: United States investment in solar and wind technology a decade ago,
Speaker 1: and that generates benefits. At the same time, it's also
Speaker 1: important that we take seriously and work with our partners
Speaker 1: and allies and identify common challenges. We all benefit from
Speaker 1: having more secure supply chains and clearer access to the
Speaker 1: inputs and the components necessary to build out semiconductors, to
Speaker 1: build out clean energy inputs, we've all seen and we've
Speaker 1: all experienced what happens when those supply chains are brittle
Speaker 1: and they break. So there's a lot of opportunity to
Speaker 1: partner together. But in the main, when the world needs
Speaker 1: much greater supply and you have the the US government
Speaker 1: stepping up and saying we are going to drive greater
Speaker 1: supply in a way that drives down costs of deployable technology,
Speaker 1: that's a much more opportunity than constraint from the world
Speaker 1: count Since you mentioned driving down prices of important clean
Speaker 1: energy components, I mean, it is true that China has
Speaker 1: made a lot of investment into renewable tech, including solar panels.
Speaker 1: So how does the administration balance I guess the need
Speaker 1: to build up some of that capability at home with
Speaker 1: the efficiencies and perhaps the lower, you know, the lower
Speaker 1: cost of production of Chinese made renewable technology like solar panels.
Speaker 1: I think the experience of the last several years underscores
Speaker 1: how important it is for the United States and for
Speaker 1: our allies as well, to have reliable access to secure
Speaker 1: supply chains that are not reliant on China dominating certain
Speaker 1: technologies and certain industries. We need to diversify those supply
Speaker 1: chains um. That in the main means that we need
Speaker 1: to build capacity here in the United States, including as
Speaker 1: you mentioned, in upstream solar technologies, including an upstream battery technologies.
Speaker 1: A lot of the actual I P the original technology
Speaker 1: that has gone into these uh these outputs was created
Speaker 1: in the United States, and over the course of a
Speaker 1: decade or two, the Chinese model was to take or
Speaker 1: expropriate that technology, use massive subsidies and non market interventions
Speaker 1: with the goal of trying to then dominate those industries.
Speaker 1: That model is not something that we can rely on
Speaker 1: over the um. Over the long term. We need diversification,
Speaker 1: and so that has to be that has to be
Speaker 1: a priority, and it has to be a geopolitical and
Speaker 1: an economic priority to do so. And so the question is,
Speaker 1: how can you do that in a way that is
Speaker 1: the most efficient and effective. And that's what I think
Speaker 1: we're trying to do now, which is provide these long
Speaker 1: term incentives. You know, I I talked to a lot
Speaker 1: of companies and CEOs who are trying to assess the
Speaker 1: impact of the inflation reduction now, for example, and what
Speaker 1: I hear consistently is we now have the certainty that
Speaker 1: we need. These incentives are highly efficient because they are
Speaker 1: technology neutral and they're locked in for the long term.
Speaker 1: So we now have the certainty that we need to
Speaker 1: plan against that, and that's going to allow the kind
Speaker 1: of build out in the United States that I don't
Speaker 1: think we've seen in the past decade. I said in
Speaker 1: the introduction that the first two years, these first two
Speaker 1: years of the bind administration have been almost shockingly consequential.
Speaker 1: But in a way like I kind of think that
Speaker 1: might be premature, because well, the Chips Act and the
Speaker 1: Inflation Reduction Act are both big bills that take on
Speaker 1: big challenges. We don't know that they're going to be
Speaker 1: a success. And I think the jury is obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to wait several years, you know,
Speaker 1: going to the Chip sac specifically, you know, at what point,
Speaker 1: I don't know, five years, ten years, two years, What
Speaker 1: should we look at. What are the benchmarks that we
Speaker 1: should say this worked or didn't. Absolutely, and I think
Speaker 1: you are right that the proof of the pudding here
Speaker 1: is going to be in the execution and the implementation
Speaker 1: across time. With respect to the Chips Act, the most
Speaker 1: important outcome metric, even you know, across all of the
Speaker 1: outputs of semiconductor fabs that dot the landscape of the
Speaker 1: American economy is, have we changed that downward trajectory where
Speaker 1: we used to produce about the global chip capacity and
Speaker 1: we're now down to Have we changed the trajectory where
Speaker 1: today none of the leading edge chips sort of the
Speaker 1: most cutting edge technology are made in the United States?
Speaker 1: And are we moving back to a place not where
Speaker 1: the United States is producing all of the world's chips
Speaker 1: or even most of the world's chips. That's not. But
Speaker 1: the goal is to build capacity back to a place
Speaker 1: where we have the core elements of it, of the
Speaker 1: innovation base around the chip technology and the core capabilities
Speaker 1: of manufacturing at scale through fabs in the in the
Speaker 1: United States, we can we will be able to look
Speaker 1: forward and back a decade from now and say how
Speaker 1: far along that journey have we made. I think we're
Speaker 1: off to a very strong start. Even before we have
Speaker 1: given out the grants under the Chips Act. We're seeing
Speaker 1: companies across the sector, in the industry and across the
Speaker 1: country moving forward and breaking ground on facilities. So we
Speaker 1: are off, I think, to a strong start, but that
Speaker 1: the proof will will be in the putting there. And
Speaker 1: I would add in addition to chips in the i RA,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't site of the infrastructure investment because really the
Speaker 1: way that I think about this is you have to
Speaker 1: look at how those three piece of legislation interact, and
Speaker 1: some of the investments that were in the infrastructure law
Speaker 1: are actually going to be key to unlocking the potential
Speaker 1: of the clean energy and the semiconductor investments as well.
Speaker 1: Now all of that has you are right, all of
Speaker 1: that has to work together. There's lots of things that
Speaker 1: we need to keep an eye on and keep focused
Speaker 1: on the flip side of it, though, is you know,
Speaker 1: it's been decades since the United States has been able
Speaker 1: to say that we now have enacted law through Congress
Speaker 1: and on the other side, these kind of multi year
Speaker 1: public investments tools at the ready, and you know that
Speaker 1: really does represent a you know, we're in a different place.
Speaker 1: We're in a very different place were before. So I
Speaker 1: want to ask one more follow up on chips specifically,
Speaker 1: And you mentioned, you know, the the incentives to build
Speaker 1: fabs here, and as you said, there already have been announcements.
Speaker 1: It seems very likely that we are going to see
Speaker 1: more building that being said, you know, when I think
Speaker 1: about like the crowding in effect that you mentioned and
Speaker 1: past positive experiences that the US has had with it,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the stories is not just the
Speaker 1: incentives of the public money, but the public buyer. The
Speaker 1: fact that whether it's the Defense Department, whether it was
Speaker 1: NASA was a huge buyer of semiconductors in the past.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things I read in
Speaker 1: Chip Wars was they were talking about how like the
Speaker 1: NASA in particular was a great accelerant of consumer tech
Speaker 1: because it the miniaturization drive to fit technology onto the
Speaker 1: rocket accelerated gains that then helped create the consumer tech
Speaker 1: market because smaller things, you know, make for good consumer products.
Speaker 1: Is that going to be a challenge, Like that scene
Speaker 1: is different than past successful areas of industrial strategy, the
Speaker 1: lack of that sort of like buyer of last resort
Speaker 1: for domestic made tech, and is that going to be
Speaker 1: a challenge? Well, you mentioned tip Wards is a great book,
Speaker 1: and and we have we have benefited from Chris Miller's
Speaker 1: the author's insight along even the last year quite a
Speaker 1: bit all the way. Yeah, I think so it is
Speaker 1: absolutely the case. One of the one of the under
Speaker 1: represented issues in the semiconductor market is recognizing how important
Speaker 1: the customer is and the end customer is. And one
Speaker 1: of the most interesting conversations that we've had over the
Speaker 1: course last year was when the President went out to
Speaker 1: Phoenix to u t SMC. They're Brown, They're a a
Speaker 1: groundbreaking for their second fab and we met there at
Speaker 1: t s MC, not only with the leadership of that company,
Speaker 1: but with Tim Cook from Apple, Lisa Suit from a
Speaker 1: m D of the are big consumers, and around the table,
Speaker 1: the conversation was very instructive to your point, which is
Speaker 1: that the the outcomes here are as much about the
Speaker 1: end consumer as they are about the the producer, and
Speaker 1: that interplay between the two is critical. Now now to
Speaker 1: your question, where does the US government play in being
Speaker 1: a buyer of last resort or being an innovator by
Speaker 1: dint of our purchasing power. Well, there's two parts of
Speaker 1: the semiconductor pieces that are important. One is there are
Speaker 1: critical chip technologies for core national security priorities, for actual
Speaker 1: um munitions and other elements of our national security complex,
Speaker 1: where we are, in fact the last the buyer of
Speaker 1: last resort, and we have a huge incentive for innovation
Speaker 1: around downscaling, around durability in all all manner of different
Speaker 1: weather conditions and otherwise. So that is one element and
Speaker 1: I think that that will that will become relevant. But
Speaker 1: the other part, the part of the Chips Act that
Speaker 1: people have paid less attention to, is there's these big
Speaker 1: grants to encourage the building of fabs, but there's also
Speaker 1: eleven billion dollars, a historically large amount of money to
Speaker 1: invest in building research and innovation close to the building
Speaker 1: of chip fabs to try to rejuvenate the innovation base
Speaker 1: and the research base for key leading edge to chip
Speaker 1: technology technological applications. And that research will be done in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the Department of Defense. UH. The other services
Speaker 1: will be done with the National Labs. And that's also
Speaker 1: a key part of this because at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, if you don't actually created an ecosystem for innovation,
Speaker 1: then the fab you build will, by the time you
Speaker 1: build it will be sort of out of sync with
Speaker 1: where your customers are going to want to be down
Speaker 1: the road. Just on this note, you know, Joe kind
Speaker 1: of asked you the forward looking question of how do
Speaker 1: you evaluate the success of all these programs I'm going
Speaker 1: to ask you a backwards looking question, but I always
Speaker 1: wanted to you know, I always wanted to hear your
Speaker 1: perspective on this. But how do you actually go about
Speaker 1: identifying these sorts of choke points in the US economy
Speaker 1: in real time or these areas that require additional investment?
Speaker 1: Because some things, okay, sure, post COVID, maybe they became obvious,
Speaker 1: like the fact that we had a bunch of ships
Speaker 1: waiting to unload at the ports. That was something that
Speaker 1: we could see and everyone could talk about it. But
Speaker 1: what is the process for actually identifying these areas of
Speaker 1: strategic interest? Do people come to you and talk to
Speaker 1: you about, you know, potential investments or how does it work? Exactly? Well,
Speaker 1: it works in a couple of ways. The first is
Speaker 1: that a lot of what we have been focused on
Speaker 1: over the course of the last two years and really
Speaker 1: the eight that eighteen month period of really trying to
Speaker 1: design and craft and work with Congress on legislation, I
Speaker 1: was trying to execute and implement on identified priorities that
Speaker 1: people have been working on for several years. And even
Speaker 1: where we came into office that the president as a
Speaker 1: candidate was identifying as priorities, and so particularly if you
Speaker 1: think about what is needed to drive the deployment of
Speaker 1: clean energy at scale and low cost. That's been work
Speaker 1: that has been underway scientifically, technologically, in policy terms for
Speaker 1: some significant set of years, but but in terms of
Speaker 1: how we operate from the government side. One of the
Speaker 1: first things we did here in the first month in
Speaker 1: office was the President exist issued an executive order and
Speaker 1: we launched this effort to try to study in a
Speaker 1: deep way supply chain resilience and supply chain vulnerabilities across
Speaker 1: the economy. Because to try to actually identify choke points
Speaker 1: where you had that intersection between economic and national security
Speaker 1: risks and also places of opportunity where you might be
Speaker 1: able to use public investment to actually solve a problem
Speaker 1: with the private market on its own wasn't going to solve.
Speaker 1: And so we ran a process over six months and
Speaker 1: twelve months of trying to ask our experts at the agencies,
Speaker 1: whether it was in biopharmaceutica sceutical products, or semiconductors or
Speaker 1: clean energy upstream components, to say, tell us what you
Speaker 1: know about based on the existing research and data and otherwise,
Speaker 1: and try to pull that together into a more comprehensive
Speaker 1: diagnostic of where do we see the gaps, where do
Speaker 1: we see the challenges. That work is hard work to
Speaker 1: do at the same time that we're in the frenzied
Speaker 1: pace of the ports are shutting down, the ports of
Speaker 1: ports are overclogged, or we have a you know, a
Speaker 1: particular problem around fertilizer, or you know, or uh, Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin decides to invade Ukraine, and we have all of
Speaker 1: these fast moving issues in the world. But it's also
Speaker 1: important work to do to take advantage of the expertise
Speaker 1: and the embedded knowledge base across the executive branch. So
Speaker 1: we've tried to do those in tandem. I think some
Speaker 1: of the most important work that we have done exists
Speaker 1: in those ports. For example, we have these now we
Speaker 1: issued reports on the one year anniversary of that that
Speaker 1: kind of went through these different six difference key supply chains.
Speaker 1: We studied and analyzed. Some of those conclusions were immediately
Speaker 1: adopted and built into for example, of the Chips act
Speaker 1: as it um as it ultimately passed, because you know,
Speaker 1: it took us in the legislative process a bit longer
Speaker 1: than we had originally anticipated to get that bill done,
Speaker 1: So it's a work in progress and iterative building on
Speaker 1: work that's done before, but really trying to do that
Speaker 1: study at the same time that you're managing fire girls. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you mentioned um this sort of like the fire
Speaker 1: drill hair unfired challenge of dealing with all of these
Speaker 1: supply chain issues in real time, which is a good
Speaker 1: opportunity for me to pivot a little bit to the
Speaker 1: current macro conditions because we have seen a lot of
Speaker 1: supply chain healing by almost any objective measure. I don't
Speaker 1: think there are the big lines at the ports the
Speaker 1: way there were. Many of the eruptions seemed to be fading,
Speaker 1: and yet inflation still uncomfortably high. We got a CPI
Speaker 1: report that kind of came in line this week, but
Speaker 1: I think when people looked at it, they're like, this
Speaker 1: is not an economy where we're on some sort of
Speaker 1: like glide path down to two per cent? Why is
Speaker 1: inflation still so persistently high? In your view, after all
Speaker 1: of the supply chain healing, a lot of the transitory
Speaker 1: factors having passed. Well, everything about the economy today is unique,
Speaker 1: and one of the things I take away from two
Speaker 1: years is an extraordinary amount of humility that almost all
Speaker 1: of the confident projections about the ways in which past
Speaker 1: models applied to the current situation would operate have proved
Speaker 1: to be at best challenged and often wrong. I think
Speaker 1: that if you look at the course of the last
Speaker 1: six months, if you look at the last two quarters,
Speaker 1: I think you we continue to see that story, which is,
Speaker 1: we have seen meaningful progress in inflation moderating into an
Speaker 1: environment where we have continued to see ongoing labor market
Speaker 1: resilience and ongoing resilience at the consumer level. The recent
Speaker 1: consumer data that we have gotten, I think was surprising
Speaker 1: to some as well in that respect, and so I
Speaker 1: think that that moderation in the context of a resilient
Speaker 1: labor market and a resilient consumer was something that a
Speaker 1: lot of people thought was not going to come to
Speaker 1: pass over the course of the last six months. And
Speaker 1: so the question now going forward is and we continue
Speaker 1: to see that progress in moderation on the inflation side
Speaker 1: without having to give up all of the economic gains
Speaker 1: associated with the resilient labor market and consumer and business
Speaker 1: balance sheets. As I look forward, I certainly think there's
Speaker 1: a good and clear path for that to happen. It
Speaker 1: does involve some of the you know, some of the
Speaker 1: elements on the inflation side. The dynamics on goods and
Speaker 1: services and housing are all distinct right now, and so well,
Speaker 1: I we always try to check ourselves from doing the
Speaker 1: kind of great decomposition of pulling every element in or
Speaker 1: out of the inflation numbers, which we've all done over
Speaker 1: the course of time. We know that, you know, the
Speaker 1: housing data that's in the inflation prints we're seeing now
Speaker 1: probably reflects actual economic circumstances from about six months ago.
Speaker 1: You guys have spent a lot of time on the
Speaker 1: housing related topics, so I know you know that well,
Speaker 1: and so you know, I think that if we look
Speaker 1: forward to the both to the next six months, but
Speaker 1: a little bit beyond, I do think that the fact
Speaker 1: that we've got a degree of resilience in our labor
Speaker 1: market and we have companies in no small part because
Speaker 1: of our policy looking forward and investing through this transition
Speaker 1: give us a unique set of economic strengths that very
Speaker 1: few other countries have right now to sort of navigate
Speaker 1: through this next leg of this long term You know,
Speaker 1: you were the sort of unacknowledged inspiration for a recent
Speaker 1: Add Thoughts episode about the price of plastic and the idea,
Speaker 1: the idea that maybe you know, packaging costs had gone
Speaker 1: up a lot, and packaging is on virtually everything that
Speaker 1: we buy. Can you talk a little bit more in
Speaker 1: a sort of more granular way about unexpected pockets of
Speaker 1: inflation over the past few years. What surprised you most
Speaker 1: in that respect or what do you think was most
Speaker 1: impactful for the overall American experience when it comes to
Speaker 1: higher prices. Well, I'll tell you one of my persistant
Speaker 1: sources of frustration, and it goes to the issue that
Speaker 1: you are describing, which is why have we seen the
Speaker 1: kind of stickiness in inflation for packaged foods. So we've
Speaker 1: obviously looked a lot at food at home inflation, which
Speaker 1: is a wonky kind of one of one of those
Speaker 1: bad wonky Ethan euphemisms, which actually means food that you
Speaker 1: buy at the grocery store, and that if you decompose
Speaker 1: food at the grocery store. We've seen meaningful we've seen
Speaker 1: cooling overall in that category, but most in fresh foods
Speaker 1: and in meat and other proteins, where that the really
Speaker 1: high run up in some of those categories has come
Speaker 1: down quite significantly over the course of the last six months.
Speaker 1: We'll put eggs aside. Exist is a is a separable
Speaker 1: issue because of the Avian flu. The place where there's
Speaker 1: really been persistence is in these packaged too goods and
Speaker 1: packaged products. And I and we have spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time on the phone with the ceo s and
Speaker 1: teams at the major grocery stores and tried to understand
Speaker 1: what's going on there when they interact with their suppliers.
Speaker 1: Why is it that they're not able to, you know,
Speaker 1: put more pressure constructor pressure on them to bring prices
Speaker 1: down through the supply chain. And I think that there
Speaker 1: is a an issue there that we need to spend
Speaker 1: more time on looking in the future around why and
Speaker 1: how the packaging itself of the food because most of
Speaker 1: the you know, in this category, most of the cost
Speaker 1: is not actually the food input itself, it's the packaging
Speaker 1: and it's the other elements that go in. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like you look at a box of cereal, that
Speaker 1: principal cost is associated with the packaging and the like.
Speaker 1: And so that has been a persistently sticky one and
Speaker 1: I think it's been frustrating to the to some of
Speaker 1: the some of the end retailers. I think we are
Speaker 1: starting to see that, but the low through has been
Speaker 1: frustrating and surprising that it takes a longer period of
Speaker 1: time for those that changes in the upstream supply of
Speaker 1: the input components to actually flow through to the outputs.
Speaker 1: I think there are some competitive issues that probably would
Speaker 1: merit greater scrutiny when we get to the other side
Speaker 1: of this. I want to ask. I guess it's like
Speaker 1: a how DC works question, and maybe I'm the only
Speaker 1: one interested in this, but you know, like one area
Speaker 1: in which the Biden administration's approach seems to have clearly
Speaker 1: reduced inflation is through the SPR and the selling of oil,
Speaker 1: reducing gasoline prices, and it's something that we've talked a
Speaker 1: lot about on this show over the last year and
Speaker 1: a half or so. But my question is, actually, you know,
Speaker 1: when they say, okay, you're gonna we're gonna sell oil
Speaker 1: from the SPR with this commitment to buy it, and
Speaker 1: then there's this long process where it's like, Okay, the
Speaker 1: Department of Energy has to spend all this time coming
Speaker 1: up with the rules for the auction and the tender
Speaker 1: to buy back the oil at some point in the
Speaker 1: future unnecessary component. Why does that take so long? I
Speaker 1: mean everyone reports to the same boss, the president. Why
Speaker 1: does it Why can't it be one of these things
Speaker 1: where the President says, I want to do this, and
Speaker 1: then it's like and get the rules, and like the
Speaker 1: next week they're like, all right, this is how we're
Speaker 1: gonna do it. What is the sort of like process
Speaker 1: by which is like, are still waiting on the Department
Speaker 1: of Energy to come up with the explanation? Like, why
Speaker 1: do things seem to take so long? You're like channeling
Speaker 1: my inner monologue of frustration as any c director on
Speaker 1: a daily basis learn in this seat about how the
Speaker 1: executive branch actually operates. Well, well, look, I mean you're
Speaker 1: the specific example you're raising is I think a good
Speaker 1: example of both the ways in which you can move
Speaker 1: both really quickly and then also where you can't. So,
Speaker 1: you know, in the wake of in the wake of
Speaker 1: about a year ago, right in the wake of Putin's invasion,
Speaker 1: when we took a policy decision and the President took
Speaker 1: a policy decision that it was right and appropriate to
Speaker 1: execute a historically large sale out of the strategic petroleum reserve.
Speaker 1: That action happened on a very expedited basis. We went
Speaker 1: to our international allies. We had to convene the at
Speaker 1: the within the i e A, the International Energy Agency,
Speaker 1: with our partners and allies to get agreement around a
Speaker 1: coordinated response. We then needed to actually execute operationally to
Speaker 1: release oil from the reserve, which is actually not a
Speaker 1: single reserve. It's a set of caverns, salt caverns underground
Speaker 1: where oil is stored. That happened historically fast, and it
Speaker 1: historically large scale and stretched the physical capacity of the
Speaker 1: reserve itself in significant ways. And so one of the
Speaker 1: things that we're now facing is that there is a
Speaker 1: lot of operational and maintenance work that needs to take
Speaker 1: place in order to maintain the capacity for these reserves.
Speaker 1: They're they're fascinating reserves. They actually are caverns that they
Speaker 1: aren't static, They actually breathe, and they you know, they
Speaker 1: sort of moved back and forth because they are these
Speaker 1: physical facilities, and if you differ maintenance associated with them,
Speaker 1: then you're actually going to reduce the ability to to
Speaker 1: release from the reserves in a moment of crisis. So
Speaker 1: we're actually in a period right now where we need
Speaker 1: to prioritize some important maintenance on that front. It also
Speaker 1: underscores to my mind the need to do a larger
Speaker 1: infrastructure upgrade of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve itself to address
Speaker 1: some of these issues there are. There also is, to
Speaker 1: your point, though, this question of how do we move
Speaker 1: more nimbly, two new ideas that we have not done before.
Speaker 1: So the idea of how you how the Department Energy
Speaker 1: goes into the market and does a commitment to purchase
Speaker 1: down the forward price curve is an idea that in
Speaker 1: concept makes a lot of sense. In execution is novel
Speaker 1: and so from illegal and a practical and an operational
Speaker 1: perspective you have to take. You have to take the
Speaker 1: time to figure out how to do something that is novel. Certainly,
Speaker 1: I think I could name lots of examples where I
Speaker 1: personally would have liked to see that novel process work
Speaker 1: more quickly. There's also a lot of reasonable imprudent reasons
Speaker 1: why you don't want it to move too quickly, because
Speaker 1: you know you don't want to do something that might
Speaker 1: have unintended consequences, for example, pushing the limits of the
Speaker 1: physical capacity of the reserve beyond the point at which
Speaker 1: you would then take away an emergency release opportunity since
Speaker 1: you mentioned novel new ideas and just going back to
Speaker 1: the grocery aisle for a second, and the idea of
Speaker 1: maybe lower input costs not necessarily being passed on to
Speaker 1: the consumer in a timely fashion. Biden has talked about
Speaker 1: this idea of corporate greed at various points and potential
Speaker 1: price gouging at a time when a lot of Americans
Speaker 1: are under pressure by higher from higher prices. And I
Speaker 1: know there's corporate minimum tax included in the Inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 1: but is there anything else that could be done on
Speaker 1: that front? I mean, Germany has been experimenting with price
Speaker 1: controls on gas. In the UK, there's the windfall tax
Speaker 1: on oil and gas companies, which is something that Biden
Speaker 1: has mentioned. Um, is there more you can do on that? Well?
Speaker 1: The President has been talking in recent days about the
Speaker 1: rationale behind increasing the tax on corporate stock by backs.
Speaker 1: We implement We implemented a one tax excise tax on
Speaker 1: buybacks in the Inflation Reduction Act and in the presence
Speaker 1: budget that will come out in a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: he will pro propose to quadruple that to a four
Speaker 1: percent excise tax. But I think the other thing to
Speaker 1: do in this context is, you know, it's less about greed,
Speaker 1: because you know, there is a part of the constructive
Speaker 1: impulse of capitalism is for people to be motivated by
Speaker 1: um by profit, but instead identifying those parts of our
Speaker 1: economy where we have insufficient competition and so that profit
Speaker 1: mode it turns into generating really negative outcomes for consumers
Speaker 1: or for workers. And so the other thing I think
Speaker 1: this president has done and can do more of, is
Speaker 1: trying to be more aggressive about identifying places where, either
Speaker 1: through regulatory or in some cases deregulatory steps, we can
Speaker 1: increase competition in markets and actually reduce the ability for
Speaker 1: incumbents to actually generate profits in a way that actually,
Speaker 1: you know, has negative economic outcomes. My favorite example of
Speaker 1: this is on hearing aids, where we eliminated a rule
Speaker 1: that required hearing aids to be sold required a prescription
Speaker 1: before you could get hearing it, and so now hearing
Speaker 1: it's can be sold over the counter at drug stores
Speaker 1: and the like. Um that was a deregulatory step, but
Speaker 1: what it's done is that it's opened up this new
Speaker 1: playing field for competition where there's now new new technological
Speaker 1: innovation to try to sell lower cost hearing rates. Those
Speaker 1: folks who are innovating are motivated by the ability to
Speaker 1: make a ton of money, But they're making a ton
Speaker 1: of money with more innovative products that will end up
Speaker 1: costing the end consumer less. And so you know, that's
Speaker 1: the kind of step where you're using more fairer and
Speaker 1: more open competition to generate better economic outcomes. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of other places where there's opportunity to do that
Speaker 1: on the labor market with noncompete agreements, etcetera. I think
Speaker 1: that that's another place where this president, this administration can
Speaker 1: continue to break in the ground. So I think it's
Speaker 1: fair to say that with Republicans having one control of
Speaker 1: Congress that the legis late of window for anything significant
Speaker 1: is certain is closed for the next two years. UM,
Speaker 1: maybe some marginal stuff, you know. The one sort of
Speaker 1: area in which I don't perceive the Biden administration to
Speaker 1: have made major gains or built upon was anything sort
Speaker 1: of related to permanent um sort of welfare state expansion.
Speaker 1: The child tax credit was left to expire. Nothing was
Speaker 1: ultimately done on things like universal childcare or expanding childcare benefits, etcetera.
Speaker 1: In your view sort of looking back, like why is that?
Speaker 1: Was it? Just? Look, there's only so much that any
Speaker 1: Congress can really focus on. Was it the fault of
Speaker 1: high inflation and the fact that there is not an
Speaker 1: appetite to increase sort of sort of you know, social
Speaker 1: benefits spending at a time of high inflation that SAPs
Speaker 1: political will? Why was that a hard area to sort
Speaker 1: of consolidate or make gains up. Well, first, one caveat
Speaker 1: to your point, which is that because of the expansions
Speaker 1: that was that were first enacted in the Rescue Plan
Speaker 1: and then extended in the Inflation Production Act, this president
Speaker 1: has actually signed into law the largest structural expansion in
Speaker 1: healthcare coverage, the second largest since the nineteen sixties, the
Speaker 1: largest being the Affordable Care Act increase in the number
Speaker 1: of people getting healthcare through the Affordable Care Act exchanges,
Speaker 1: and that has led to us having the lowest uninsured
Speaker 1: rate in history. So that I think is an important caveat,
Speaker 1: non trivial caveat to um But I take your your
Speaker 1: your overall point. I think that part of what we
Speaker 1: need to do is to break out of a narrative
Speaker 1: that looks at things like UH, the child tax credit
Speaker 1: and more affordable and accessible childcare as social programs, and
Speaker 1: make more clearly and aggressively the economic case with respect
Speaker 1: to labor supply and with respect to UH, you know,
Speaker 1: family balance sheets, about why investing in UH in kids
Speaker 1: and families in this country is a is a core
Speaker 1: at core an economic priority and an economic issue that
Speaker 1: would actually have the impact of increasing labor supply and
Speaker 1: reducing price pressures in our economy across time, while also
Speaker 1: obviously generating better health and better educational outcomes for our kids.
Speaker 1: So I think the economic case is really quite compelling,
Speaker 1: but I think we need to make it and make
Speaker 1: it more clearly and avoid the sense in which that
Speaker 1: type of policy falls into a different category, a different
Speaker 1: category of social policy or family policy, and therefore is
Speaker 1: thought of differently. These need to be thought of as
Speaker 1: sort of core acton coomic priorities and things that could
Speaker 1: help in accelerating this transition that we are in the
Speaker 1: irony right now, is that things that we could do
Speaker 1: right now that would increased labor supply without adding to
Speaker 1: the federal deficit would be extraordinarily helpful in accelerating this
Speaker 1: transition that we are in, even as the FED is
Speaker 1: engaged in a sort of in there in a in
Speaker 1: a monetary tightening cycle. Since we're doing your exit interview,
Speaker 1: can I ask do you have any regrets or is
Speaker 1: there anything that you would have done differently? I mean,
Speaker 1: for instance, the big criticism of the American Rescue Plan
Speaker 1: was that perhaps it could have been more targeted so
Speaker 1: as to avoid a big bump in inflation. Or with
Speaker 1: the p P P there's a lot of discussion about,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe that could have been more targeted to
Speaker 1: so that you would avoid some of the fraud issues
Speaker 1: that have since emerged. Is there anything you would have
Speaker 1: done differently? You know, if I look back, there's on
Speaker 1: a daily and weekly basis, I think there's like there's
Speaker 1: there's dozens of micro things that as I will have
Speaker 1: time to reflect, I probably will see opportunity for us
Speaker 1: to have done differently at the margin on all of
Speaker 1: the big decisions. I think history will ultimately judge, but
Speaker 1: I I, as we sit here today, I feel quite
Speaker 1: confident that the President and we made the right call.
Speaker 1: Understanding that the legislative process is imperfect, you end up
Speaker 1: with imperfect pieces of legislation. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: I do think one thing that is a a reality.
Speaker 1: But but if you could have changed it would have
Speaker 1: would have been better. Is that you mentioned earlier. But
Speaker 1: if you think about it, the President made the call
Speaker 1: for the American Rescue Plan on January. He signed into
Speaker 1: law of the Inflation Reduction Act on August two. That's
Speaker 1: five d and seventy nine days. It was a long time.
Speaker 1: It was a long process of legislative interaction, which I
Speaker 1: was appropriate and necessary to try to get done what
Speaker 1: we were trying to get done in a very narrowly
Speaker 1: divided Congress. But I think it was also a wearing
Speaker 1: process and it was more difficult for the American people
Speaker 1: to fully understand the thread of legislative sausage making over
Speaker 1: that long period. So you know, in a perfect world,
Speaker 1: you could could collapse that time and have gotten more
Speaker 1: quickly to the task of implementation that this administration is
Speaker 1: now in. Um we don't live in a perfect world.
Speaker 1: And at the end of the day, more important is
Speaker 1: to get the right type of legislation done. But that's
Speaker 1: certainly something that you know, that's a that has been
Speaker 1: a reality of the past two years. Briandes, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming back on odd lots, and even
Speaker 1: though this is your last week at the administration, doesn't
Speaker 1: mean this has to be the last time you come on.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to talking again at some point. UH really
Speaker 1: appreciate giving us an hour of your time is great.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys, Uh and UH and I look forward
Speaker 1: to talking to Thank thanks so much well, Tracy. I
Speaker 1: definitely thought that it was a treat getting to speak
Speaker 1: to Brian on his last week. And again, you know,
Speaker 1: it has been an extraordinary two years. But the proof
Speaker 1: that any of it will matter, you know, will come
Speaker 1: in the years ahead of whether the dials turn on,
Speaker 1: like our domestic capacity and all these things. Absolutely, I
Speaker 1: do think it is kind of crazy that we still
Speaker 1: don't necessarily seem to have a firm idea of exactly
Speaker 1: how inflation works. One of our oldest fingers here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for some years, right, well for years, Sorry to bring
Speaker 1: it up again, but you know, for years it was
Speaker 1: wise and inflation higher, and now it's wise and inflation lower.
Speaker 1: And we're doing all these things, and we haven't necessarily
Speaker 1: seen companies pass on the savings, and it's going to
Speaker 1: take time for a lot of these efforts to come
Speaker 1: to fruition. Anyway, I thought that was a fascinating discussion. Um.
Speaker 1: I loved his point about packaging um and this idea
Speaker 1: that you know, maybe there are sort of unappreciated factors
Speaker 1: going into certain elements of inflation. Absolutely, you know, just
Speaker 1: also the sort of like the big historical ebbs and
Speaker 1: floods of as he put it, a government that is
Speaker 1: active in the domestic economy making prioritization, trying to crowd
Speaker 1: in investment, and it feels like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: one of those things where like that really did go
Speaker 1: out of favor for style for decades, for decades. Probably,
Speaker 1: I think the inflation of the nineteen seventies following on
Speaker 1: some of the more active years in the night teen
Speaker 1: sixties helped kill that. So you know, it'll be interesting
Speaker 1: to see like how long this persists. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the striking things to me is like deficit politics,
Speaker 1: how much they've gone away, how much you don't really
Speaker 1: hear about them? Are people worrying about you know so much?
Speaker 1: Like there's clearly, I would say, on both sides of
Speaker 1: the aisle, for maybe different reasons, there's a greater appetite
Speaker 1: for the government to have like this, like you know,
Speaker 1: an active economic player. Yeah, I do wonder I have
Speaker 1: to say in the future, what happens if so now
Speaker 1: we're basically pulling forward a lot of investment, and what
Speaker 1: happens if in a few years, you know, the economy
Speaker 1: starts to slow, maybe the government is more constrained um
Speaker 1: and it's spending ability. I know, you don't like to
Speaker 1: hear that show, or at least politically like feels more
Speaker 1: constrained um. And then what happens because it does feel like, yes,
Speaker 1: all of this is needed, but it also feels like
Speaker 1: you're sort of front loading a lot of this well,
Speaker 1: and then you know specifically, you know, and that's kind
Speaker 1: of why I asked that question about, well, what is
Speaker 1: the government's role as a buyer last resort, which is that, Okay,
Speaker 1: what happens if we build the semitic conductor manufact plans
Speaker 1: and then we have a downturn? So it's gonna be
Speaker 1: downturns ahead in the future, and you know, there is
Speaker 1: not a space race going on, et cetera, Like are
Speaker 1: they going to be idol factories? Are they gonna be
Speaker 1: oversupplied factories? So like cheap goods or you know, a
Speaker 1: price war like these are still like big questions about
Speaker 1: how how all of this stuff will play out. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: shall we leave it there? Let's leave it there. This
Speaker 1: has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy
Speaker 1: Alloway and I'm Joey Isn't All. You can follow me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at the Stale Work. You can follow Brian
Speaker 1: I think his personal I suspect he'll be tweeting from
Speaker 1: at Brian c d s, his personal account that he
Speaker 1: used before taking the job. I think he's probably gonna
Speaker 1: go back to that account book we'll see Follow or
Speaker 1: do sers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman Ermann and Dash Bennett
Speaker 1: at Dashbot. Follow all the Bloomberg podcasts at podcasts and
Speaker 1: for more odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg dot com
Speaker 1: slash odd Lots, where we blog, post transcripts, and we
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Speaker 1: and sign them. Thanks for listening.