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Speaker 2: Looking at the CalFire website right now, ninety two wildfires
Speaker 2: have burned twenty nine thousand, fifty three acres five fatalities
Speaker 2: as of now in Los Angeles County are our live
Speaker 2: blog pointing out the Palisades Fire and the Eton Fire
Speaker 2: continue to be out of control, while that Hearst fires
Speaker 2: ten percent contained and the fire and Running Canyon is
Speaker 2: currently out of control. Joining us now with Moore is
Speaker 2: will Wade, power and renewable energy reporter. He joins us
Speaker 2: here in the Bloomberg Business Week Studio. Will you write
Speaker 2: about power? You write about renewable energy, the connection to climate.
Speaker 2: What do you think about when you see a situation
Speaker 2: like this unfold in Los Angeles? What's top of mind
Speaker 2: for you?
Speaker 3: Well, it's top of mind is that it's just a
Speaker 3: huge tragedy and we're going to see more of these.
Speaker 3: I mean look, I grew up partly in southern California.
Speaker 3: I grew up partly in Pasadena. I know this area.
Speaker 3: I know those winds. Every fall they'd start coming in
Speaker 3: from the east and you'd smell smoke when the hills
Speaker 3: catch on fire. That's that's just normal. But let me
Speaker 3: hit you with the number seventy eight. Okay, I just
Speaker 3: saw this stat today. There are seventy eight more fire
Speaker 3: days in California these days than there were fifty years ago.
Speaker 2: What's a fire day?
Speaker 3: A day when there's a when there's a big wildfire burning.
Speaker 2: So it's a fire the size of something that actually something.
Speaker 3: It's something big enough to get measured and noticed and
Speaker 3: cause problems.
Speaker 2: So make the connection for us? What does that mean?
Speaker 3: Why is that it's a climate change thing? This is
Speaker 3: comparing you know how dry the hills get. I mean
Speaker 3: in California it mostly rains in the winter, and over
Speaker 3: the course of the summer, the hills get baked dry.
Speaker 3: It's nothing but tender and fuel for fires. Once they start,
Speaker 3: they get really out of control. But now it's hotter,
Speaker 3: it's drier, there's less rain, so there's more fuel. Once
Speaker 3: it starts that they're hard to bring in under control.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, that's the point, right that, in other words,
Speaker 4: we'll find out ultimately what started or caused this fire,
Speaker 4: but the underlying conditions of the dryness, right and just
Speaker 4: make it right for these intense and very destructive fires.
Speaker 4: And that's the result of climate change.
Speaker 3: That's exactly right.
Speaker 4: So you know, it's interesting, you know, we're kind of
Speaker 4: this meld, if you will, of politics as we honor
Speaker 4: and remember former President Jimmy Carter and thinking about his
Speaker 4: policies and talking about, you know, the environment in the
Speaker 4: late seventies and the importance of it, and here we
Speaker 4: are watching these fires out on the West coast. We
Speaker 4: have a lot of conversations with you. You know what,
Speaker 4: again is the narrative as we get ready for a
Speaker 4: change in the White House and we're talking policy, and Joe,
Speaker 4: you're saying, not likely that that's going to be a
Speaker 4: priority in terms of climate change initiatives. Is there any
Speaker 4: interesting narratives that kind of give you hope that things
Speaker 4: can get better or at least slow down.
Speaker 3: I'm really concerned that the new administration is going to
Speaker 3: not be supportive of climate policies. Certainly, we have no
Speaker 3: evidence that Trump is a supporter of climate policies. As
Speaker 3: he comes in, he could throw the brakes on policies.
Speaker 3: He could reverse some policies. It's going to be turbulent.
Speaker 4: What about the business environment and business leaders and other
Speaker 4: leaders who either you know, a lot of times we
Speaker 4: take our cues from what's going on in Europe in
Speaker 4: terms of products and safety and so on and so forth,
Speaker 4: or even social media or something like that. But a
Speaker 4: business that might be in California and has to think
Speaker 4: about fires that they maybe more embrace greener alternatives because
Speaker 4: they understand that it kind of has to do with
Speaker 4: the existence of their own business and their future.
Speaker 3: You know, certainly we saw that in the first Trouble.
Speaker 4: Which was supposed to be I think kind of the
Speaker 4: whole idea of it. But well, put that on the
Speaker 4: side for now.
Speaker 3: But do you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 3: in the first Trump administration, even as Washington was not
Speaker 3: being a leader in climate policy, a lot of states
Speaker 3: and cities were taking the initiative and a lot of
Speaker 3: businesses were definitely enacting green policies because they could see
Speaker 3: that it was in their financial interests to try and
Speaker 3: curb carbon divisions, and it wasn't just for the optics
Speaker 3: and the politics of saying we're a green company. It's
Speaker 3: because they could see how it affected their business.
Speaker 2: Stately, California, fifth largest economy in the world. It has
Speaker 2: the power to do that. But can states do this
Speaker 2: stuff without help from the federal government if administration doesn't
Speaker 2: want to actually do those things.
Speaker 3: States have the power. You know, states have their own
Speaker 3: decisions that they can make.
Speaker 2: Do they have the money, do they have the funds,
Speaker 2: do they have the resources to do it?
Speaker 5: It's a challenge.
Speaker 3: It is a challenge. It is I'm right now I'm
Speaker 3: looking at New York State, which twenty nineteen enacted one
Speaker 3: of the most ambitious climate policies in the nation, and
Speaker 3: now we're taking stock and it's not clear if they're
Speaker 3: going to make those goals. So the states have power,
Speaker 3: but it's not easy, and it's certainly like in the past.
Speaker 3: You know, we've been talking the past year and a
Speaker 3: half here about inflation making everything more expensive, and all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, these green goals are more costly and
Speaker 3: people are becoming more concerned about that.
Speaker 4: I just want to mention from the live blog that's
Speaker 4: tracking the LA Wildfires. Mayor Karen Bass saying, thanks to
Speaker 4: the bravery and collaboration of the LA Fire Department, this
Speaker 4: Sunset fire is fully contained. She is messaging her citizens,
Speaker 4: if you're returning home, please drive slowly, watch the road.
Speaker 4: Firefighters are still working in some damaged areas, and we
Speaker 4: know that that is continuing. Just back to kind of
Speaker 4: alternative energy. We talk about AI, generative AI all of
Speaker 4: the power that's needed for that. Joe Biden's administration, President
Speaker 4: Joe Biden's administration, we got a story a couple of
Speaker 4: days ago looking to push for geothermal as a key
Speaker 4: energy source. Any of you chuckle, any of these, I mean,
Speaker 4: any of it or nuclear? All of this is going
Speaker 4: to take time.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean I liked YOUO thermal. I'm a
Speaker 3: fan of geothermal. Traditionally, you can only do it in
Speaker 3: certain parts of the world.
Speaker 2: Iceland does a lot of it, right, you have to.
Speaker 3: Be in an area that has a lot of geothermal activity.
Speaker 3: There's actually a big spot called the Geysers in central California.
Speaker 3: There's a push for like the new kind of geothermal
Speaker 3: where you dig down until you can top the hot rocks.
Speaker 3: So there's some promise there I think we'll see more geothermal,
Speaker 3: but I don't know that it's going to be big
Speaker 3: enough to be a massive mainstream thing. But it's just,
Speaker 3: you know, one of many options.
Speaker 2: Of the alternatives, just twenty seconds of the alternatives. You
Speaker 2: look at each and every day, which one is the
Speaker 2: most promising?
Speaker 3: You know, I'm a big fan of nuclear. I'm always
Speaker 3: I'm always right about news.
Speaker 4: But that's going to take time too.
Speaker 3: It's very slow. That's a problem in fusion. But things
Speaker 3: take time.
Speaker 2: Sorry, Carol, we don't time to talk about nuclear waste,
Speaker 2: which is Carrol's favorite topic when we talk about nuclear and.
Speaker 4: Nim always said nobody wants to talk about that.
Speaker 2: He always keeps us real with me.
Speaker 4: Just going to say, we'll wade. Thank you, always always
Speaker 4: will wade. Of course our power and renewable energy editor,
Speaker 4: so appreciate getting his input. Continue to track the fire.
Speaker 4: Five people have died, more than twenty nine thousand acres
Speaker 4: have burned. Will continue to keep you updated on that,
Speaker 4: and continuing to think about former President Jimmy Carter. On
Speaker 4: this Thursday, this is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
Speaker 1: Live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during listen
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Speaker 4: We're going to stay on former President Jimmy Carter and
Speaker 4: really the policies that today continue to impact our world,
Speaker 4: things that he worked on with us.
Speaker 2: Now is Terry Haynes, Founder at Pangaea Policy. It's an
Speaker 2: independent and international political and policy forecasting firm for financial
Speaker 2: markets and investors. Terry has a more than a handful
Speaker 2: of presidents held high level US government posts, serving both
Speaker 2: the private and public sectors. Terry joins us from Washington,
Speaker 2: d c. Terry, top of mind for you as we
Speaker 2: get ready as a nation to later rest the thirty
Speaker 2: ninth President of the United States too his final resting place.
Speaker 2: What's top of mind for you?
Speaker 5: Well, a couple of things. You know.
Speaker 6: I'm a little too young to have been in Washington
Speaker 6: during the Carter years. I came in the Reagan days,
Speaker 6: but I knew a lot of the top people and
Speaker 6: worked with a lot of the top people in the
Speaker 6: Carter administration, most prominently his Press secretary Jody Powell. I
Speaker 6: worked with stu Isa said a bunch of other people
Speaker 6: that served in high levels in those administrations had a
Speaker 6: lot of conversations with him over the years, as well
Speaker 6: as the people that were in Congress. My top of
Speaker 6: mind really is, firstly, politicians too often are little more
Speaker 6: than their ambition. You could never accuse Carter of that.
Speaker 6: He was hugely ambitious, but very grounded. He had a
Speaker 6: very useful life, wanted to have a useful life. That's
Speaker 6: been discussed a lot, so I won't belabor it. Even
Speaker 6: though he was president nearly half his life ago, he
Speaker 6: was model of He was a model and interestingly Richard
Speaker 6: Nixon of what a post president's world looked like and
Speaker 6: how they could be useful. And Carter really led in
Speaker 6: that regard. And finally, I would say that the Carter presidency,
Speaker 6: in a lot of ways, picking up on what Carol said,
Speaker 6: is really a hinge to the world that we have today,
Speaker 6: and nowhere more than the fact that markets ought to
Speaker 6: be thanking Carter every day for taking on inflation, slaying
Speaker 6: inflation in the United States, bringing Paul Volker into the
Speaker 6: Federal Reserve, pushing that at great cost to his presidency.
Speaker 6: Reagan also kept vulgar on those policies at some cost
Speaker 6: to his own. But that was all Carter, and that
Speaker 6: took a lot of guts and determination and really kind
Speaker 6: of epitomized, you know, both for good and bad, the
Speaker 6: kind of president he was, stubborn, determined, dedicated to seeing
Speaker 6: it through. So pats off to him.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was I think mention Terry in one of
Speaker 4: the eulogies about his thinking long term, right, that he
Speaker 4: wasn't necessarily thinking about reelection or getting a second term,
Speaker 4: but he was thinking about the longer term impact, be
Speaker 4: it on the United States or more globally on the world.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's said that one of the surest ways to
Speaker 6: get on Carter's bad side was to mention that some
Speaker 6: initiative or another would be negative for his reelection prospects.
Speaker 6: I can tell you secondhand anyway through the people that
Speaker 6: I knew who worked for him, that that's true. But
Speaker 6: you know, whether it be that, whether it be the
Speaker 6: energy policy, or of many many other things that went
Speaker 6: on in the Carter administration. He was very determined to
Speaker 6: kind of move the country in a particular direction. He
Speaker 6: found out very quickly, I think, to his detriment that
Speaker 6: you know, the presidency has limits and that he needed
Speaker 6: to work more with the public, work more with Congress,
Speaker 6: to get more in the direction that he wanted. But
Speaker 6: he certainly achieved a lot and at worst started a
Speaker 6: lot of conversations and was on the right side of
Speaker 6: history with a lot of those as well.
Speaker 2: Point out, well, let's talk about some of those things.
Speaker 2: Carol and David Gera. We were just speaking about climate
Speaker 2: change and the fact that Jimmy Carter was talking about
Speaker 2: climate change at a time when nobody was talking about
Speaker 2: climate change. During his memorial today we heard different aspects
Speaker 2: of deregulated markets come up, the beer industry, the airlines,
Speaker 2: for example. What are his legacies that we're still talking
Speaker 2: about today that are still present today.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's there are a lot of them.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: The energy is one of them, and on issues energy
Speaker 6: is one, certainly domestically.
Speaker 5: Energy.
Speaker 6: You know, for the first time there was a focus
Speaker 6: on domestic energy production and consumption U and that was
Speaker 6: a double edged sword for Carter and for his administration
Speaker 6: because you know, as it was noted before, he was
Speaker 6: really mocked for that. But there was a double edged
Speaker 6: sword because the intrusion into daily lives that Carter perceived
Speaker 6: to be necessary was very much resented by people who
Speaker 6: a few years ago didn't have to think about any
Speaker 6: of those things at all. You know, there's a lesson.
Speaker 6: There's a lesson there for any future, any succeeding president,
Speaker 6: which is, you know, you've got to bring the public along,
Speaker 6: You've got to bring Congress along as you're trying to
Speaker 6: accomplish things. Foreign policy legacy is hugely ambitious and mixed,
Speaker 6: can't be able to accords of course are his greatest
Speaker 6: success there. But at the same time, the the Iranian
Speaker 6: hostage situation and Russia's incursion into Afghanistan created a situation
Speaker 6: where the United States, fairly or not, was perceived to
Speaker 6: have been weaker at the end of his presidency than
Speaker 6: it was at the beginning. And that was difficult for him,
Speaker 6: in part because I think that wasn't entirely deserved. Human rights,
Speaker 6: both on its own and as an attack on Soviet
Speaker 6: legitimacy was very important, and as I say, you know,
Speaker 6: the monetary policy legacy and the economic legacy, I think
Speaker 6: there's a touch of time.
Speaker 4: All right, we'renna leave it there. Terry Haynes, thank you
Speaker 4: so much, really appreciate your thoughts on this. Founder of
Speaker 4: penjea Policy. Joining us from DC.
Speaker 1: This is the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each
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Speaker 4: All right, everybody, you are listening and watching Bloomberg Business.
Speaker 4: We Carol Masser along with Tim Stanovick. A lot going
Speaker 4: on and on this Thursday, January ninth, you know, the
Speaker 4: stock market has closed, the bond market closed at two
Speaker 4: pm Wall Street time. We have a guest that has
Speaker 4: seen a lot of different market and economic cycles under
Speaker 4: several different administrations. So we're kind of tying our world
Speaker 4: together here. Louis Navalier's chairman and founder at Navalier and Associates.
Speaker 4: He joins us from Florida. Louis is good to have
Speaker 4: you here. I'm trying to think where I want to start,
Speaker 4: because it feels like, you know, we're thinking a lot
Speaker 4: about the US as a country, about leadership because of
Speaker 4: the state funeral a former president, Jimmy Carter, and I
Speaker 4: kind of want to start there. I think you got
Speaker 4: your undergrad and business administration in seventy eight, your MBA
Speaker 4: in finance in seventy nine. Take us back, what do
Speaker 4: you think about that time and era and what it
Speaker 4: was like to be a leader a president at that moment.
Speaker 5: It was super difficult.
Speaker 7: I actually worked for the Federal Home owned Bank in
Speaker 7: San Francisco at the time, and we have this inverted
Speaker 7: yield curve and the banking failure, and of course with
Speaker 7: Paul Volker and they were experimenting with monetrazation and all
Speaker 7: that stuff. But it was really hard for Jimmy Carter
Speaker 7: because we had rampid inflation and he was still fighting that.
Speaker 7: You know, prior to Carter, we had the Nixon price
Speaker 7: controls and.
Speaker 5: And that really hurt him.
Speaker 7: The stock market went up in his four year term,
Speaker 7: went up, I think almost forty five, but net of inflation,
Speaker 7: it lost ground. So he didn't have the most spectacular
Speaker 7: economic oversight. But a lot of it was just luck.
Speaker 7: You know, it's a poor guy, you know, he's obviously
Speaker 7: it was a wonderful person. And and then you know,
Speaker 7: I still remember when he addressed the nation. We had
Speaker 7: we had an energy crisis, and we had high energy prices.
Speaker 7: He was wearing a sweater because he was telling us
Speaker 7: we need to turn our thermostat down. And I think
Speaker 7: at that time the view of the world was more
Speaker 7: status and then obviously Ronald Reagan became the next president.
Speaker 7: He was more upbeat, and.
Speaker 5: It's we're kind of a similar situation now.
Speaker 7: We you know, we got to defeat the inflation that
Speaker 7: that reappeared probably was mostly stimulus related, and then once
Speaker 7: we defeat the inflation, we got to be more upbeat
Speaker 7: and try to grow.
Speaker 5: Look at us as a static economy.
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting. First of all, I was telling
Speaker 4: my daughter to put a speeder on you either too.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I'm not kicking up the heat anymore, like
Speaker 4: it's cold out, like put a speeder on. One thing
Speaker 4: I want to stick with, though, is the appointment of
Speaker 4: Paul Volker as Chairman of the FED, someone who we
Speaker 4: look back as an iconic FED share at this moment
Speaker 4: in time and kind of goes down in history on that.
Speaker 4: Steward Eisenstat, President Carter's domestic policy adviser gaven eulogy this
Speaker 4: morning at the Washington National Cathedral, and he commented on
Speaker 4: that difficult decision of appointing Vulgar all.
Speaker 8: Were the objection of all of his advass He chose
Speaker 8: Paul Voker to lead the Federal Reserves, knowing in advance
Speaker 8: that Voker's tough monetary policy would raise interest rates and
Speaker 8: unemployment because Paul told him that and would do so
Speaker 8: in a presidential election. Yurope, you take care of the economy, Paul,
Speaker 8: I'll take care of the politics.
Speaker 4: That, of course, is Stuart Eisenstadt this morning from the
Speaker 4: Washington National Cathedral giving a eulogy Stuart Eis Eisenstadt. Excuse me,
Speaker 4: President Carter's former domestic policy advisor. Heyis we're talking with
Speaker 4: Louis Navalier. The importance of putting someone in place who
Speaker 4: would do some hard stuff Paul Volker did. He raised
Speaker 4: rates with a political costs to then President Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 4: You know, I think about the time we are in
Speaker 4: right now, or even what we've seen from Jay Powell.
Speaker 4: I mean, the importance of that independent FED doing what's
Speaker 4: necessary when it comes to monetary policy and ensuring a
Speaker 4: stable economy. It's important, super important. How do you think
Speaker 4: about it in today's day in time?
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, our FED is not going to
Speaker 5: do what Volker did.
Speaker 7: I mean, Volker went from twenty percent to eight and
Speaker 7: a half percent back up to twenty percent in one year.
Speaker 7: And there was I still remember there was a home
Speaker 7: builder in front of Congress asking for Volker's head on
Speaker 7: a platter.
Speaker 5: So the good news it broke inflation.
Speaker 7: The bad news is that it came at a horrible
Speaker 7: cost of economy. So we're obviously much better shape right now.
Speaker 7: I think obviously the FED is going to continue to cut.
Speaker 7: I personally think they're going to cut four times because
Speaker 7: rates are going to be collapsing in Europe and we're
Speaker 7: going to have this global rate crash in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 5: We already see it in China.
Speaker 7: China's bonniles are lower than Japan, and it looks like
Speaker 7: China is going to be the new Japan for the
Speaker 7: next couple decades. And it's demographically driven. It's hard to
Speaker 7: grow your economy when you're shrinking in population. And that's
Speaker 7: not only China, that's all Europe and UH and much
Speaker 7: of the rest of the world.
Speaker 2: Is that is that also a risk the US with
Speaker 2: a crackdown on immigration.
Speaker 7: I don't think they'll deport people that have jobs. I
Speaker 7: can't imagine they'll do that. Obviously, they want to deport
Speaker 7: criminals and gang members and all that stuff.
Speaker 5: But I think if you have a.
Speaker 7: Job in America, it's going to be very hard to
Speaker 7: be deported unless you committed some sort of crime.
Speaker 5: So it's just, uh, I just can't imagine.
Speaker 7: You know, the Tyson Foods, the Hormale foods, they get
Speaker 7: a lot of the illegals and they make them legal.
Speaker 5: You know, they work for them, they process their paperwork
Speaker 5: and all.
Speaker 7: So I just can't imagine they would do that because
Speaker 7: Trump would do that because it make chicken prices go up.
Speaker 7: We already have chicken prices up because the bird flew
Speaker 7: out west. We don't need to have more chicken inflation. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I do own two A companies though, so I'm very happy.
Speaker 5: One I already announced, Mae Talmane one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: And Vital Farms is the next one.
Speaker 7: That's organic eggs in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 5: So if you want your chickens to live a happier life,
Speaker 5: I order their eggs, but they're more money.
Speaker 4: I do, but I have to take a mortgage out
Speaker 4: to buy eggs. Right now, I'm just going to put
Speaker 4: that out there. I mean, how are you looking at
Speaker 4: today's market environment? I think we're trying to figure out.
Speaker 4: I think there's a lot of questions about what ultimately
Speaker 4: we heard on the campaign trail from Donald Trump, the
Speaker 4: president elect. You know, how much comes to fruition and
Speaker 4: what it means in terms of tariff's, taxes, you know,
Speaker 4: regulatory and so on. I don't know. Do you feel
Speaker 4: like your crystal ball is clear for twenty twenty five?
Speaker 5: Yeah? I do. I think Trump is very simple.
Speaker 7: He just likes to win, and he likes to put
Speaker 7: you in an uncomfortable position when he negotiates.
Speaker 5: But I think he'll be making a deal with everybody.
Speaker 5: And I don't think we're going.
Speaker 7: To have twenty five percent tariffs on Mexico or Canada
Speaker 7: because they will be doing what Trump wants they have to.
Speaker 5: He might tinker with NAFT a.
Speaker 7: Little, you know, byd moves to Monterey, Mexico go and
Speaker 7: tris imboard cars.
Speaker 5: I think, yeah, he'll probably mess with that.
Speaker 7: I'm sure that most of the tariffs will be on
Speaker 7: China as far as your's concerned. You know, he'll you know,
Speaker 7: they put higher traffs on us and we do on them.
Speaker 7: So they'll be making a deal there. Whether it'll be
Speaker 7: LNG or US putting higher tariffs on them, we'll find out.
Speaker 2: But Louis, one place you think that he will not
Speaker 2: actually follow through is when it comes to immigration. Why
Speaker 2: do you think he'll do all this other stuff that
Speaker 2: he said he'd do, But he won't do that.
Speaker 7: It's just impractical, it's expensive, and it would hurt the economy.
Speaker 2: So I think would that hurt him politically not to
Speaker 2: do it because the expectation is there.
Speaker 7: I don't think anybody expects someone with a job to
Speaker 7: be deported. Okay, so obviously you got to wait five
Speaker 7: months to get a job, But once you get a job, I.
Speaker 5: Would be shocked if he deports you, unless you committed
Speaker 5: a crime or have a bad rap sheet, you know.
Speaker 7: But it's logistically very expensive to deport everybody, and so
Speaker 7: so I think though, yeah, they might deport six eight
Speaker 7: hundred thousand people, but after that it will probably slow down.
Speaker 4: All right, We're going to leave it there. Hey, Louis,
Speaker 4: thank you so much, so appreciate your thoughts and really
Speaker 4: just looking back to during the Carter administration and giving
Speaker 4: us some really smart perspective, Louis Navalier, chairman and founder
Speaker 4: at Navalier and Associates.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 4: All right, Well, a voice that we lean on a
Speaker 4: lot when it comes to all things politics, today's politics,
Speaker 4: historical politics, and that is Wendy Schiller, political science, international
Speaker 4: public affairs and director of the Tauman Center for American
Speaker 4: Politics and Policy at Brown University. And she joins us
Speaker 4: from Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Schiller, So nice to have
Speaker 4: you here with us. I have to say, I think
Speaker 4: so many of us spent this morning this past week
Speaker 4: watching the honoring the sea marking the life and legacy
Speaker 4: a former president Jimmy Carter. A lot of ceremony this morning.
Speaker 4: Not to say that he would have liked it, potentially,
Speaker 4: He's much a much simpler individual, smart, sometimes stubborn, or
Speaker 4: so we've heard. How are you thinking about this past
Speaker 4: week against that one hundred year life of Jimmy Carter?
Speaker 4: Only four years in the White House, but certainly someone
Speaker 4: who had a much broader and longer impact on our world.
Speaker 9: Well, Hi, Carol, I think that we have to really
Speaker 9: look at that entire record and think what held up
Speaker 9: from the presidency and what held up afterwards.
Speaker 10: And certainly, you know, his attempt to.
Speaker 9: Define what the US stands for, he chose to say
Speaker 9: human rights. That was his you know, Moniker, you know
Speaker 9: George W. Bush chose to frame it a different way,
Speaker 9: Reagan a different way from that, but that there would
Speaker 9: be a consistent theme and message about what it is
Speaker 9: to be American. And you know, he worked very hard
Speaker 9: on civil rights. He came to office after a very
Speaker 9: tumultuous time in American politics with.
Speaker 10: Civil rights, the women rights movement, Vietnam.
Speaker 9: You know, lots of things were swirling when Jimmy Carter
Speaker 9: was president, and his own self was changing so much
Speaker 9: even in that short period of time of nineteen seventy
Speaker 9: seven to nineteen eighty one, so you know, he sort
Speaker 9: of had to ride many waves, and he created things like,
Speaker 9: you know, support for alternative energy. People don't remember he
Speaker 9: really had the first major energy bill that the Congress passed,
Speaker 9: and that made a difference. And today the inflation Reduction Act,
Speaker 9: rounder Biden rests on the shoulders of that.
Speaker 10: So there were accomplishments in his.
Speaker 9: Administration that we forget about, given that the end of
Speaker 9: the administration was plagued by inflation.
Speaker 4: And certainly the Iranian hostage crisis.
Speaker 9: So we have to really look at the record more
Speaker 9: deeply and see what has persisted today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple things that came up in eulogies today
Speaker 2: solar panels on the roof of the White House and
Speaker 2: then a decline in actual energy consumption by Americans during
Speaker 2: his term as president. I want to focus on something
Speaker 2: that you said at the end there though, Wendy, and
Speaker 2: the idea of what he did when it comes to
Speaker 2: foreign policy, a very mixed record of course with the
Speaker 2: he Ran hostage crisis, but also what happened with brokering
Speaker 2: peace between Egypt and Israel. What do you think he'll
Speaker 2: be remembered for.
Speaker 9: Well, I certainly think to him that he will be
Speaker 9: remembered for the campaignd piece of chords, and certainly having
Speaker 9: won the Nobel Priest Prize.
Speaker 10: You know, a long time after that, and.
Speaker 9: We think about the Middle East today and I think
Speaker 9: all of us are very frustrated with the conflict and
Speaker 9: loss of life in all sectors of the Middle East.
Speaker 9: But can you imagine a world where there hadn't been
Speaker 9: peace between Egypt and Israel, even with Israeli God as
Speaker 9: a conflict. Now, if Israel and Egypt had been at
Speaker 9: war or in direct conflict, that would have made this
Speaker 9: circumstance just so much worse. So when you think about that,
Speaker 9: that's a lasting relationship and lasting peace. You know, Jimmy
Speaker 9: Carter felt like you could project strength and care about
Speaker 9: human rights. He raised the defense spending budget in nineteen
Speaker 9: seventy nine nineteen eighty his proposed budget was higher, and
Speaker 9: Ron Reagan built on that, but he wanted to do
Speaker 9: the same both at the same time.
Speaker 10: How do you reject strength?
Speaker 9: Trob will be interesting because he is not someone who
Speaker 9: says he loves war. He doesn't think military conflict and
Speaker 9: engagement abroad is something that Americans need to do or
Speaker 9: that it's a winner for America. So that we might
Speaker 9: be shades of Carter actually in the actual implementation of
Speaker 9: Donald Trump's foreign policy, which may seek to sort of
Speaker 9: take over Panama on Greenland, we don't know yet, but
Speaker 9: nonetheless Trump has said I don't see the need of
Speaker 9: you know, expending money and lives to fight foreign wars.
Speaker 9: And I think that's an interesting perspective when we think
Speaker 9: about Jimmy Carter.
Speaker 4: You know, I have to say, Wendy, I was looking
Speaker 4: so much watching the ceremony in the Washington National Cathedral,
Speaker 4: and I guess, I don't know. It's kind of mesmerized
Speaker 4: watching former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton walk in,
Speaker 4: a former secretary of State, once presidential candidate herself, George W. Bush,
Speaker 4: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, vice president Kamala Harris. I mean,
Speaker 4: it was just kind of interesting the dynamics and just
Speaker 4: watching that. But I do think about the timing here,
Speaker 4: this funeral coming really at a big moment of transition
Speaker 4: for the United States. We saw a major shift right
Speaker 4: when it went from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. Do
Speaker 4: you think we are in a repeat of that kind
Speaker 4: of major transition in less than two weeks here.
Speaker 9: Well, first of all, on ourmind us all not to
Speaker 9: take for granted the fact that all these former presidents
Speaker 9: and presidential candidates, you know, two female presidential candidates Kamala Harrison,
Speaker 9: Hillary Clinton, among others, but also former presidents and sitting
Speaker 9: together and behaving quite civilly and respectfully, particularly Barack Obama
Speaker 9: and and Donald Trump having a conversation that is crucial
Speaker 9: as a symbol and a signal to the world, and
Speaker 9: that Carter of all people would have been very pleased
Speaker 9: to see that. And it's something about continuity and about
Speaker 9: this sort of the system is bigger than any political conflict.
Speaker 9: Whether that survives the second administration of Trump, I think
Speaker 9: that it will.
Speaker 10: I think that Donald Trump's presence there.
Speaker 9: Today and his conversation with Obama.
Speaker 10: Is a signal that it will.
Speaker 9: Will policy change, It's difficult to change the federal government.
Speaker 9: It's a slow moving instrument. And as much as Donald
Speaker 9: Trump wants to change it, he's going to find obstacles there.
Speaker 9: And we see inter party conflict and in Trump party
Speaker 9: conflict and the Republican Party. So when we think how
Speaker 9: big this difference will be between Trump and Biden, how
Speaker 9: much will Trump be able to repeal or unravel from
Speaker 9: Biden's administration, you know it's very difficult to do. Trump
Speaker 9: tried to Obamacare, it didn't work. It's more embedded, more
Speaker 9: spread now than ever before. So you know, when the
Speaker 9: American people decide they like a policy and they like
Speaker 9: a benefit, they don't like when it's taken away, and.
Speaker 10: That's whatever party you are. That's the lesson. I think
Speaker 10: a lot of presidents take a little while to learn.
Speaker 9: So we'll see what Trump attempts to do and in
Speaker 9: what spheres of policy that he tries to do it.
Speaker 4: Listen, It's hard to get inside anybody's head and wonder
Speaker 4: what they're thinking. But again, kind of as you said,
Speaker 4: I think watching the ceremony, watching the president's former presidents,
Speaker 4: presidential candidates being very civil with one another. For me,
Speaker 4: it was very short and comming. Having said that, I
Speaker 4: do think about President Donald Trump getting ready to come
Speaker 4: back to the White House his second term and listening
Speaker 4: to so many individuals talk about the legacy in life
Speaker 4: of former President Jimmy Carter in glowing terms integrity, morality, truth,
Speaker 4: and I do wonder as we all get older, we
Speaker 4: think about our legacy. And again, hard to get in
Speaker 4: someone's head, but I do wonder if you think that
Speaker 4: Donald Trump was thinking about his legacies he gets ready
Speaker 4: for a second term.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm not sure he's thinking about his legacy per se,
Speaker 9: And certainly President Biden's ula Gi was all about character,
Speaker 9: and we can't think that's an accident since the Democrats
Speaker 9: tried to use that in several elections against Donald Trump.
Speaker 10: But I think that Donald Trump, you can tell he
Speaker 10: is happier. There's approval rating us higher than it was.
Speaker 9: Ever before, and he walks in with some momentum, and
Speaker 9: you have to think that he wants to be better
Speaker 9: thought of, but not only by the world we aders,
Speaker 9: but by the American public and maintain those approval ratings.
Speaker 9: And because he doesn't have a reelection incentive because he
Speaker 9: constitutionally cannot run for office again, doesn't mean he won't try,
Speaker 9: but right now the twenty second Amendment prohibits him.
Speaker 10: From doing so.
Speaker 9: You know that's a big enforcer in terms of thinking
Speaker 9: what will he do that will be productive because that
Speaker 9: he can be chaotic and he can be whimsical and capricious.
Speaker 9: On the other hand, he wants to be successful and
Speaker 9: he's looking for wins.
Speaker 10: And that's where you.
Speaker 9: Know he backed off getting above in the congressional debate
Speaker 9: about strategy versus tax cut bill.
Speaker 10: Right, reconciliation one, reconciliation two. You figure it out.
Speaker 9: That was the message from yesterday's meeting to Congress because
Speaker 9: he doesn't want to get bogged down in losing fights.
Speaker 10: So this is what Donald Trump is looking for. He's
Speaker 10: looking for quick wins and wins that will be popular,
Speaker 10: and that's that's going to really take shape.
Speaker 9: And if you are a liability and you don't get
Speaker 9: him a win, or you start to be unpopular pop
Speaker 9: like Elon Musk, maybe he.
Speaker 10: Will genison you the way he gettisons anybody.
Speaker 9: Because I think, Carol, I don't know about legacy, but
Speaker 9: he certainly wants to maintain his popularity.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's fair probably a better word. Hey, listen,
Speaker 4: I want to mention a quick headline, black Rock exiting
Speaker 4: the net zero Alliance for asset managers. We continue to
Speaker 4: see the financial community kind of pull back from maybe
Speaker 4: some of their focuses on climate goals and initiatives. Just
Speaker 4: got about thirty forty seconds, Wendy, when you think about this,
Speaker 4: former President Jimmy Carter environment, he thought about that, and
Speaker 4: here we are watching these fires out on the West coast.
Speaker 4: The importance of the White House in our fight against
Speaker 4: climate change. Just some final thoughts thirty forty seconds here, Well,
Speaker 4: I'd look.
Speaker 9: To energy companies energy companies are diversifying. Energy companies are
Speaker 9: investing in wind and solar. Certainly fracking natural gas. That's
Speaker 9: a whole nother controversy, but the point is there is
Speaker 9: significant investment.
Speaker 10: By fossil fuel companies in alternative energy. So I don't
Speaker 10: see it as possible in a.
Speaker 9: Devar of energy under Trump to roll back every support
Speaker 9: for alternative energy, because I just think that's not where
Speaker 9: the business markets have gone. And certainly the American public
Speaker 9: has expressed some design not to have massive hurricanes, tornadoes
Speaker 9: and fires they can't control. So I don't think that
Speaker 9: Trump administration can roll back completely, but I think they
Speaker 9: will leave.
Speaker 10: It more to the business community than they will have
Speaker 10: fed atle the government.
Speaker 4: Wendy Schieler, thank you so much. Always appreciated. Of course.
Speaker 4: They're at Brown Universities. Follows political science, International public affairs.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us
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Speaker 2: We spent a lot of time today thinking about and
Speaker 2: talking about the life and legacy of the former president
Speaker 2: hearing about his four years in office and then as
Speaker 2: many years of service following his time in the White House.
Speaker 2: One theme that has come up is how he was
Speaker 2: different than other presidents in a lot of ways, but politically,
Speaker 2: and potentially to his detriment, he didn't necessarily play the
Speaker 2: political games that a lot of modern presidents and modern
Speaker 2: politics requires to get.
Speaker 4: Some things done.
Speaker 2: He even faced resistance during his presidency from within his
Speaker 2: own party as a result. Understanding presidents and their decisions
Speaker 2: is what Gotham Makunda does. He's lecturer of management at
Speaker 2: Yale School of Management. He's author of the book Picking Presidents,
Speaker 2: How to Make the Most Consequential Decisions in the World.
Speaker 2: He joins us this afternoon, Professor, I'm wondering how you
Speaker 2: would characterize President Carter's decision making during his time in office.
Speaker 11: So it was clearly different, and it was different in
Speaker 11: ways that sometimes benefit of the country and sort of
Speaker 11: hurt his own political prospects, and sometimes sometimes it just
Speaker 11: didn't work out as well as it could have. But
Speaker 11: he was unique, and it's important to remember that that
Speaker 11: he does not sort of he was not a president
Speaker 11: who sort of blended into the background of other presidents,
Speaker 11: and just because he was a one termer, we kind
Speaker 11: of forget just how impactful he was on the upside.
Speaker 11: For example, he negotiated the Camp David of the Cords
Speaker 11: by person being in Camp David, for I think it
Speaker 11: was for twelve to fourteen days with the leaders of
Speaker 11: Egypt and Israel, spending full time as president of the
Speaker 11: United States, mediating that it's essentially impossible to imagine any
Speaker 11: other president doing something like that.
Speaker 4: Just go ahead, No, you know, it's interesting. In one
Speaker 4: of our earlier discussions, I thought I heard someone say
Speaker 4: that there were like twenty drafts that he had helped create,
Speaker 4: and he went back and forth between the two camps
Speaker 4: while at Camp David, just you know, trying to work
Speaker 4: to make sure that something could get done.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 11: It's both this combination of his focus on making peace,
Speaker 11: which was remarkable, but also the and I think this
Speaker 11: was sort of more Jimmy Carter than anything else, the
Speaker 11: giving up of ego. Right, he was the most powerful
Speaker 11: person in the world, and he was not above essentially
Speaker 11: running back and forth between the leaders of two countries,
Speaker 11: both of which combined were the size of sort of
Speaker 11: a medium sized American state until they got to an agreement,
Speaker 11: if that's what it took, and the agreement that he
Speaker 11: forged has stuck.
Speaker 2: So what was his motivation there?
Speaker 11: In Jimmy So with most politicians, the easiest example of
Speaker 11: the easiest motivation is always the most cnical one.
Speaker 12: But with Jimmy Carter, that just doesn't work.
Speaker 11: Whatever else you might say about him, and you know,
Speaker 11: I criticize him and praise him both in my books,
Speaker 11: but whatever else you can say about him, Batman did
Speaker 11: not have a cynical bone in his body. It just
Speaker 11: doesn't seem to be been part of his personality. I
Speaker 11: think his motivation was that he really really wanted to
Speaker 11: bring piece to the Middle East, and he thought it
Speaker 11: was the most important thing he could do.
Speaker 4: I feel like, man, we could do some great debate
Speaker 4: on this. Was he a good leader? Was he a
Speaker 4: good president?
Speaker 8: Oh? It was?
Speaker 12: That is a wonderful debate.
Speaker 11: So I would say we remember him better than he
Speaker 11: was at the time, and not just because of his
Speaker 11: extraordinary post presidential life and how admirable it was. There
Speaker 11: are real achievements during his presidency. The Camp David Accords
Speaker 11: are one of them. But you know, the devil that
Speaker 11: destroyed his well, his reelection was inflation. We usually give
Speaker 11: credit to taming inflation to Paul Volker, the fed cher
Speaker 11: that he appointed, knowing that Vulgar would take measures that
Speaker 11: would hurt him politically but that might be good for
Speaker 11: the country. That's a pretty big achievement. On the flip side,
Speaker 11: I think he really was hurt and profoundly hurt by
Speaker 11: the same outsider status that made him so special. He'd
Speaker 11: only had one term as governor from Georgia. He had
Speaker 11: never spent time in the federal government. He just didn't
Speaker 11: know how it worked, and that showed there was one
Speaker 11: characteristic of the Carter administration that was consistently negative.
Speaker 12: It was managerial failure.
Speaker 11: He just was not good at getting the federal government
Speaker 11: to work, and however much.
Speaker 12: He cared about it.
Speaker 11: The most famous example of this, and the extent to
Speaker 11: which his sort of micromanaging Tennessee took over, is when
Speaker 11: Jimmy Carter was president, if you wanted to play on
Speaker 11: the White House tennis courts, you had to get his
Speaker 11: personal approvalent.
Speaker 2: Why do you think that was.
Speaker 8: The calendar?
Speaker 12: He was managing the calendar for the White House Tennesports.
Speaker 2: Not a not a job, A typical president does, and
Speaker 2: one necessary and something that perhaps shows a challenge of delegating.
Speaker 12: Partly a challenge in delegating.
Speaker 11: But so I talked to him for his administration about
Speaker 11: this once because it seems so insane, and he explained
Speaker 11: to me that it was essentially a consequence so sort
Speaker 11: of the larger political fissures within the administration kind of
Speaker 11: materializing and growing around and sort of focusing in on
Speaker 11: this particular problem.
Speaker 12: But that is not and that is not an explanation
Speaker 12: that actually makes.
Speaker 11: It worse, right, because it says that he allowed those
Speaker 11: kinds of political debates within his own and White House
Speaker 11: to become so severe that he ended up having to
Speaker 11: intervene in this frankly ridiculous way.
Speaker 12: And again this is sort of a confluence.
Speaker 11: Had he you wonder if he might have done better
Speaker 11: if he had him a senator two terms on Congress.
Speaker 4: We have to unfortunately interrupt Gotham Makanda of course over
Speaker 4: at Yale goal of management.
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