Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week. What's the state of
Speaker 1: corporate governance? The deficit is a real issue. The US
Speaker 1: economy continues to send mixed signals to the financial stories
Speaker 1: that cheap our world fed action to con concerns over
Speaker 1: dollar liquidity and encouraging China data. The five hundred wealthiest
Speaker 1: people in the world. Through the eyes of the most
Speaker 1: influential voices Larry Summers, the former Treasury Secretary, star Ward, CEO,
Speaker 1: Kevin Johnson, sec Chairman J Clayton, Bloomberg wool Street Week
Speaker 1: with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio. When it comes to technology,
Speaker 1: it's not just social media and artificial intelligence and five
Speaker 1: G the United States is competing with China over. It's
Speaker 1: also energy and the race to develop new ways of
Speaker 1: generating energy, ways that go well beyond traditional fossil fuels.
Speaker 1: I talked with the U S Secretary of Energy, Dan
Speaker 1: Briette about the energy race, and he said we should
Speaker 1: be concerned about the competition. The global energy landscape has
Speaker 1: changed dramatically over the last few decades, and our position
Speaker 1: as the United States has changed within that landscape. Eight
Speaker 1: you know, in that time, we've seen a dramatic shift
Speaker 1: in the flow of US resources to developing economies all
Speaker 1: across the world. And I was looking at some statistics
Speaker 1: earlier today. You know, back in nineteen sixty nine of
Speaker 1: the monetary flows back then were categorized as official development
Speaker 1: assistance by the US government, and in two thousand and
Speaker 1: five eight instead came from the private capital market. So
Speaker 1: that's you know, that's that's an intense shift away from
Speaker 1: government resources to the private sector. And that was fifteen
Speaker 1: years ago, so I'm sure that number could be even
Speaker 1: higher than today, but it clearly ended, you know, illustrates
Speaker 1: that the private sector is playing a bigger role in
Speaker 1: the international arena. And one component of our mission here
Speaker 1: at the Department of Energy is to reach out and
Speaker 1: engage with these increasingly important global actors. And with that
Speaker 1: in mind, our department d OE Department of Energy is
Speaker 1: leading some efforts to develop what we think are cutting
Speaker 1: edge public private partnerships and they'll help achieved results in
Speaker 1: the very dynamic energy landscape. And we're doing that with
Speaker 1: our partners and within the inter agency, primarily the UH
Speaker 1: what's known now as the dfc UH, the old OPEC,
Speaker 1: the old Overseas Private Investment corporation. We've been working very
Speaker 1: closely with them. But you know, we're very excited about
Speaker 1: these partnerships because they not only yield economic growth, but
Speaker 1: they enable the US to strengthen its ties to international
Speaker 1: partners and to provide new opportunities all across the world
Speaker 1: for American businesses. And UH. I just talked to a Dr.
Speaker 1: Fatti Barole at the International Energy Agency and he tells
Speaker 1: me that is now set to see the loclent and
Speaker 1: energy investment on record. Obviously due to the pandemic, but
Speaker 1: this is a reduction of roughly one fifth, or almost
Speaker 1: four hundred billion US dollars, and that's in capital spending
Speaker 1: compared to capex as well, as we call it. I
Speaker 1: e A is reported on the opportunity for policy actions
Speaker 1: UH and and we've we've worked closely with them. They're
Speaker 1: targeting energy investments to boot growth, boost growth, to create
Speaker 1: even more jobs, and to continue reducing energy related emissions.
Speaker 1: And even more, there's real potential here to expand energy
Speaker 1: access by nearly two hundred and seventy million people and
Speaker 1: provide cleaner cooking solutions to nearly four hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: million people all across the Globe is my predecessor, Rick Perry.
Speaker 1: Secretary Rick Perry said, you know, there's still so many
Speaker 1: people around the world without access to commercial energy, and
Speaker 1: we want to help fix that problem for them and
Speaker 1: create opportunities for us here in America. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: as we know, and as we've discussed in the past,
Speaker 1: governments alone don't have the resources for all of those investments.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna rely upon and it will require,
Speaker 1: you know, very strong public and private partnerships based on it. Well,
Speaker 1: we refer to here in the United States as a
Speaker 1: bottom up energy philosophy, one that supports free markets, It
Speaker 1: funds scientific research, and it honors the choice of producers
Speaker 1: and consumers alike. Um. So, with our private sector counterparts,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be focusing here on things like nuclear technologies
Speaker 1: and working to develop new reactors and new fuels for
Speaker 1: those reactors, fuels that are accident tolerant and non prolifferent.
Speaker 1: We're also focusing on wind and solar technologies, which is
Speaker 1: a priority for our department, and a large portion of
Speaker 1: our R and D budget here at the Department of
Speaker 1: Energy will be spent on the work that's coming out
Speaker 1: of our National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden Colorado. In
Speaker 1: that vein, we're gonna be pursuing some new battery technologies,
Speaker 1: and all of our innovators here and entrepreneurs in the
Speaker 1: private sector, we're working lockstep on some new carbon capture,
Speaker 1: utilization and storage process projects. So in short, you know,
Speaker 1: the government and DEWE can and we should play of
Speaker 1: very crucial role in helping to bring all of these
Speaker 1: new projects over the finish line. Um. So, David is exciting.
Speaker 1: It's an exciting time to be in the energy business.
Speaker 1: It's an exciting time to be an energy policy and
Speaker 1: as the world changes, so will we. It was very
Speaker 1: helpful and it's clear you want more energy, and you
Speaker 1: want to achieve, you want more investments, you want some
Speaker 1: private investment in particular. We've talked before, as you said,
Speaker 1: and you tend to say it's all of the above
Speaker 1: when it comes to energy. As I try to get
Speaker 1: a choice between renewables versus fossil fuels, things like that
Speaker 1: give us a sense of what that really means in practice.
Speaker 1: Doesn't the government have to pick some with it winners
Speaker 1: and losers. Well, look, winners and losers or something we
Speaker 1: avoid in the marketplace. We don't as a government, we
Speaker 1: don't want to pick individual players, um, but as technology
Speaker 1: picking winners and losers and technology it's not something that
Speaker 1: we want to engage in either. What we want is
Speaker 1: to pursue as you and I have discussed and all
Speaker 1: of the above strategy and uh, you know the President
Speaker 1: has talked about this publicly and those words mean exactly
Speaker 1: what they are. We're gonna pursue renewable technologies very very aggressively.
Speaker 1: We just announced on the West Coast a brand new
Speaker 1: facility at one of our laboratories there that's gonna allow
Speaker 1: us to develop greer scale storage battery storage. This is
Speaker 1: Tony Mega Watson above. It allows us to develop the
Speaker 1: next generation of battery stores that will allow renewables to
Speaker 1: be integrated into our current electric grid much more easily
Speaker 1: and much more efficiently. That was Dan Briette, US Energy Secretary,
Speaker 1: coming up. Corporate America isn't just looking inward, it's also
Speaker 1: looking at the outside world to see what it can
Speaker 1: do to move us forward on the pressing issues of
Speaker 1: our time. Just ask ed Bastion, the CEO of Delta Airlines.
Speaker 1: That's next on Wall Street Week on doom This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Will Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: The aftermath of the killings of Brianna Taylor and George
Speaker 1: Floyd made all of us face the deep divisions in
Speaker 1: our country and the ways we've fallen short of making
Speaker 1: this a more perfect union. Ed Bastion, CEO of Delta Airlines,
Speaker 1: has been addressing what a major public and traded company
Speaker 1: can and should do to address the need for societal
Speaker 1: change since he first took over as leader of Delta,
Speaker 1: and he was thrust in the controversial issue of gun regulation.
Speaker 1: We spoke to at the Virtual Blue Brig Equalities on it.
Speaker 1: The bottom line on this is that we have a
Speaker 1: responsibility at our company to be not just a great
Speaker 1: airline but also a great steward of our resources and
Speaker 1: help build up our own people opera adoptunes for our
Speaker 1: own team, as well as within our community where we
Speaker 1: fly and where we invest our time. UH And one
Speaker 1: of the things the pandemic has shown to us is
Speaker 1: the vulnerable have become even more at risk and it's
Speaker 1: it's led to their voices being heard. It's been an
Speaker 1: interesting phenomena where has everything has quieted down as the
Speaker 1: world has had to come to us stop. It's allowed
Speaker 1: us opportunity to listen to those people that are actually
Speaker 1: have been speaking to us for some time, and maybe
Speaker 1: we've been too busy to listen. And I know at
Speaker 1: Delta that's been the case. And we've had a renewed
Speaker 1: focus on on racial equality, systemic bias, and injustice and
Speaker 1: all the things that we can do as corporate leaders
Speaker 1: to make a difference in our community. And in your
Speaker 1: statement you actually referred to the need to listen as
Speaker 1: you just said, and talked about having town hall meetings
Speaker 1: and things like that to really learn more from the
Speaker 1: people at Delta. Have you done that yet and what
Speaker 1: have you learned Because you knew about this issue before,
Speaker 1: what perhaps new did you find out from that? We
Speaker 1: we have done a lot of that. We've had regular
Speaker 1: town hall meetings on large company wide tens of thousands
Speaker 1: of people as well as on small scale matters, and
Speaker 1: we're doing it in many, many parts of our company.
Speaker 1: And you're right, David, we've been focused on diversity inclusion
Speaker 1: for a long time and we've got a pretty good
Speaker 1: track record. We've been making progress. But the one thing
Speaker 1: that that I have paid a lot closer attention to
Speaker 1: is disaggregating the information Diversity inclusions abroad umbrella. It includes gender, race, ethnicity,
Speaker 1: and in other areas of opportunity. But when you look
Speaker 1: at the information and you see underneath the specific groups
Speaker 1: that are potentially not keeping up with the broader economy
Speaker 1: or our corporate opportunities, it's been the black community with
Speaker 1: within at least within Delta, we've got twenty percent of
Speaker 1: our employees are are black, yet only seven percent of
Speaker 1: the top leaders in the company are and that's a
Speaker 1: pretty wide gap that we need to commit to close. Well,
Speaker 1: that's something that we see replicating a lot of you
Speaker 1: as industry. I suspect certainly in industry. I know about it. ABC,
Speaker 1: we had those challenges. How is the African American situation
Speaker 1: somewhat different from other people of color? I mean, there's
Speaker 1: an issue for all, but as you said, it's went
Speaker 1: different perhaps because we have four years of slavery. There's
Speaker 1: history of slavery to account for. Yeah, that's this. This
Speaker 1: has been going on for not just decades, but centuries.
Speaker 1: And the thing that we've we've learned here at Delta
Speaker 1: is that we all have a role to play to
Speaker 1: to owning the issue. You know, it's one thing to
Speaker 1: say that we've got to get better. It's one thing
Speaker 1: to to acknowledge the numbers. As we said, it's it's
Speaker 1: important to be transparent about the numbers, but to really
Speaker 1: understand the reasons and the rationale and put yourself in
Speaker 1: someone else's shoes. That's where the listening and the understanding
Speaker 1: and the reflection have coming are coming from. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that we've talked a lot about Delta
Speaker 1: is also being truth tellers, acknowledging the fact that our
Speaker 1: company does not have a great record on this in
Speaker 1: the past and may have some challenges it needs to
Speaker 1: correct for in order to be a more just company
Speaker 1: going forward. And while the leaders of the company may
Speaker 1: not have been here at the time some of those
Speaker 1: inequities were first initiated, we have to go back and
Speaker 1: reconcile and make sure we understand what our company's responsibility is,
Speaker 1: not just our individual responsibilities. And part of the challenge
Speaker 1: we have for all the society, business, I think, and
Speaker 1: perhaps even the Delta is it's not just enough to
Speaker 1: say going forward, we're going to be even we've got
Speaker 1: some history, we have to make up for How do
Speaker 1: you do that without alienating people who are not benefited
Speaker 1: by them by the actions. Well, it's a great question,
Speaker 1: and you're right, there's a lot of people wondering, well,
Speaker 1: what about me, you know, or does that mean I'm
Speaker 1: gonna now be by by implication, disadvantaged relative to to
Speaker 1: an African American colleague. And the answer is no. The
Speaker 1: answers We've got to raise the bar for everybody we
Speaker 1: there are. There are plenty of great talented leaders within
Speaker 1: our African American community that we need to invest more
Speaker 1: time and more understanding in. And when you look around
Speaker 1: the room, you see the room is filled with with
Speaker 1: people that look just like you and me. So it's
Speaker 1: clear that we've had advantages. We may not have uh
Speaker 1: been explicit about it, but implicitly we've had advantages. And
Speaker 1: we've got to bring others along with us too. And
Speaker 1: you've mentioned the numbers a couple of times. How do
Speaker 1: you measure success? How will you know when you've achieved
Speaker 1: what you need to achieve? And is it basically based
Speaker 1: on numbers? It's it's not based on numbers, David. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that I know within Delta and
Speaker 1: as well as within the corporate community. Is when you're
Speaker 1: transparent and you're held accountable, things get done. You know,
Speaker 1: people pay attention. And we never want this to be
Speaker 1: seen as a quota system or or lowering the bar
Speaker 1: as as one would might say, Uh, this is about
Speaker 1: ownership and accountability and being able to measure that the
Speaker 1: success that we're having. So numbers are, it's it's an outcome,
Speaker 1: it's not not the not the driving force. But when
Speaker 1: we do see that gap closed, and in the memo
Speaker 1: you referenced, I've committed to close that gap in half
Speaker 1: over the next five years, so it's not a lot
Speaker 1: of time to make some pretty good difference. That will
Speaker 1: be one measure of success. But when I hear from
Speaker 1: our our black community within Delta that the opportunities, the discussion,
Speaker 1: the sense of of of belonging and opportunity is greater
Speaker 1: than it was, that will tell me that we've really
Speaker 1: made that difference. When you talk about closing the gap
Speaker 1: for those who haven't had the opportunity dis memo and
Speaker 1: I recommend it to people, you disaggregate those numbers as well.
Speaker 1: You have the overall population of the Delta employees. But
Speaker 1: then you have management and then you have a smaller
Speaker 1: group at the very top. Are you committed to closing
Speaker 1: that gap across the entire set of different groups, Yes,
Speaker 1: I am David Uh. In total, we have about of
Speaker 1: our our team are people of color, about thirty percent
Speaker 1: in the in the low thirties are actually UH. In
Speaker 1: the leadership ranks of the company. More broadly speaking, from
Speaker 1: front line leaders on up are people of color, and
Speaker 1: about eighteen percent of our pusers are people of color.
Speaker 1: But when you figure out what the black component, the
Speaker 1: African American component of the same population skill set, is
Speaker 1: half of our people of color black, but only a
Speaker 1: third of our top leaders are black. So you can
Speaker 1: see that there's been even within the designation of people
Speaker 1: of color, there's been some inequity in imbalance there, and
Speaker 1: that's what we've got to focus on how we can
Speaker 1: do better. That was Ed Bastion, CEO of Delta Airlines,
Speaker 1: coming up the Tesla underwhelmed with its battery day and
Speaker 1: the wheels started to come off at Nicola. As its
Speaker 1: chairman stepped down, we talked with Joseph Stack of RBC
Speaker 1: Capital Markets about the tech side of autos. That's next
Speaker 1: on Wall Street Week on Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Wall
Speaker 1: Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio. In the
Speaker 1: great tradition of startups, we started Apple because we wanted
Speaker 1: the product ourselves. There is one person or two people
Speaker 1: who are both the creator and the market so that
Speaker 1: they know the marketing requirements intuitively because they're the market themselves.
Speaker 1: So gradually we were pulled into business. It wasn't We
Speaker 1: didn't start out to build a large company. We started
Speaker 1: out to build a few dozen computers for us and
Speaker 1: our friends. That was Apple co founder Steve Jobs back
Speaker 1: in talking about how he came to create computers for
Speaker 1: the masses. This week, another high tech entrepreneur who dropped
Speaker 1: out of college made news, but of a very different sort.
Speaker 1: Trevor Milton didn't come up with his one big idea
Speaker 1: right away. He tried an alarm sales company, an online
Speaker 1: classified website, and an energy storage company before fastening on
Speaker 1: his one true passion, making big trucks with zero emissions.
Speaker 1: He called it Niccola, after Nicola Tesla, who basically invented
Speaker 1: alternating current. Starting only five years ago, Milton built his
Speaker 1: company rapidly, taking a public just last June and seeing
Speaker 1: its market cap briefly exceed at a Ford Motor Company.
Speaker 1: But then, like Icarus, maybe he climbed too close to
Speaker 1: the sun. He made a big deal for GM to
Speaker 1: buy eleven percent of his company, which triggered the short
Speaker 1: seller Hindenburg Research to call it all quote an intricate
Speaker 1: fraud built on dozens of lies, including a claim Nicola
Speaker 1: really was nothing more than a licensee and packager, which
Speaker 1: Mr Milton vigorously denies. Here's the important thing to know.
Speaker 1: We've already built the Badger from the ground up ourselves,
Speaker 1: so everything in it is owned by Nicola. What we
Speaker 1: decided to do is leverage common parts with GM. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you for those who don't know, General Motors has
Speaker 1: the best purchasing power pretty much in the world. They
Speaker 1: their parts are cheaper than When I see cheaper, they
Speaker 1: mean they pay less for their parts than anyone else
Speaker 1: in the world, pretty much with exception to make me Volkswagen.
Speaker 1: So if you think about that, being able to leverage
Speaker 1: all their parts, we can commonize things so like a
Speaker 1: window regulator or an inverter. I mean, why why spend
Speaker 1: two thousand dollars on an in burger if you can
Speaker 1: pay four hundred bucks for it or five for it,
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, that's the value you get with GM.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that there that we're that we're not
Speaker 1: doing anything. It means we're commonizing parts and o EAMs
Speaker 1: do this all the time. The SEC and Justice departments
Speaker 1: started investigations, the stock fell, and Mr Milton had to
Speaker 1: quit as chairman. We don't know where this will all end.
Speaker 1: Mr Milton says he'll defend himself against what he calls
Speaker 1: false allegations, and GM insists it did all appropriate due
Speaker 1: diligence before it made the deal, leaving us all the
Speaker 1: wonder whether Mr Milton will ultimately be proven to be
Speaker 1: the revolutionary innovator he claims to be, or an extremely
Speaker 1: good salesman whose marketing prowess got the better of him.
Speaker 1: Nicola's goals have caused it to be compared with Tesla,
Speaker 1: but there are some key differences between the two. We
Speaker 1: asked OURBC Capital Markets analyst Joseph Spack, what exactly Nicola
Speaker 1: is trying to do? Yeah, Nicola is, um, you know
Speaker 1: a little bit. I think of a misunderstood story. Um,
Speaker 1: there's definitely a lot of noise around the name. I
Speaker 1: think the short report brought out a lot of issues
Speaker 1: which um you know, I'm certainly not going to defend here,
Speaker 1: but I think that when you look at the crux
Speaker 1: of what Nicola was trying to do, they were trying
Speaker 1: to bring together a whole bunch of partners from the
Speaker 1: manufacturing side, from the fuel cell and battery side, and
Speaker 1: from the infrastructure side to be able to offer their
Speaker 1: customers a point A two B route that they can
Speaker 1: take over for them, UM, make green and efficient with
Speaker 1: hydrogen fueling technology, uh, and be able to offer a
Speaker 1: fuel cell lease. Now, if you can build out a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of A two B back and forth routes
Speaker 1: where you can get customers to sign up for that,
Speaker 1: slowly but surely, you can build out efficiently hydrogen charging
Speaker 1: infrastructure network and that helps solve the chicken and egg
Speaker 1: problem that exists with hydrogen. But clearly, um you know,
Speaker 1: some of the issues that that have been brought up,
Speaker 1: and not a cloud that surround the company, I think
Speaker 1: he's putting some of these partnerships and potentially customers at risk,
Speaker 1: and it does mean that the whole idea or concepts
Speaker 1: can fall apart. So we've heard in the past about
Speaker 1: the opportunities and hydrogen fuel self for long haul so
Speaker 1: to speak, in the big trucks going in long distances,
Speaker 1: that that might well make sense. So that's not a
Speaker 1: new thought. What is it that's new that Nicola brings
Speaker 1: to the party. Yeah, I think UM. I think first
Speaker 1: of all, you're right, I think you know, battery electric
Speaker 1: vehicles UM for for commercial trucks as it stands today,
Speaker 1: with the current state of battery technology, UM makes a
Speaker 1: little bit less sense for the longer range because of
Speaker 1: a number of issues including recharge times, battery degredation, and
Speaker 1: just the weight of battery. So fuel self seems like
Speaker 1: to get it to work a more ideal solution. UM
Speaker 1: the UM why now or why Nicola? Because I think
Speaker 1: what Nicola was trying to do was come up with
Speaker 1: more of a business model innovation again what they're trying
Speaker 1: to accomplish with their customers. And they had this pilot
Speaker 1: program with Anheuser Busch which is UM, you know, we
Speaker 1: will UM lease, we will sell you this fuel truck's please.
Speaker 1: That includes both the truck, all the fuel and the
Speaker 1: service and maintenance and so the effectively, like I said,
Speaker 1: they take over that that dedicated route, that a tow
Speaker 1: B route for Anteuser Busch and if they know they
Speaker 1: could get a lot of route, put a lot of
Speaker 1: density on that route. Um, it's sort of de risks
Speaker 1: the infrastructure build needed for hydrogen because they can use
Speaker 1: the the proceedge from the fuels at least to help
Speaker 1: build out the infrastructure. That was Joseph's back of RBC
Speaker 1: Capital Markets. Coming up, we wrap up the week with
Speaker 1: our special contributor Larry Summers. This is Wall Street Week
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week with David
Speaker 1: Weston from Bloomberg Radio. Well, we had a week gre
Speaker 1: going uncertainty about the return of the virus, about whether
Speaker 1: we're gonna get more fiscal siminis, than about the looming election,
Speaker 1: with President Trump adding that we this might not go
Speaker 1: when he was told to go. He might not conceive
Speaker 1: that election that if it goes against him. The more
Speaker 1: uncertainty there is, the more that we help from our
Speaker 1: special contributor Larry Summers of Harvard. So, Larry, great to
Speaker 1: have you here. First of all, start with that election,
Speaker 1: because we have a lot of people now the markets included,
Speaker 1: starting to be concerned about whether we're gonna have some
Speaker 1: chaos after the election. Are you concerned about that? Of
Speaker 1: course I'm concerned, and there's a risk. But my best
Speaker 1: guess is right now that we're gonna know who won
Speaker 1: the election by on election night, because the returns are
Speaker 1: going to come in from Florida and they're going to
Speaker 1: suggest that Joe Biden won Florida. And when that happens,
Speaker 1: there's not gonna be much question about the overall outcome. So, yes,
Speaker 1: it certainly could go close. It certainly could be terrible
Speaker 1: in a variety of ways. But my best guess right
Speaker 1: now is that we're gonna know before we go to
Speaker 1: sleep on Wednesday night, on Tuesday night, what the result
Speaker 1: of uh the election has been. I think things are
Speaker 1: moving uh in that way. So let me ask a
Speaker 1: question that has some travesty to it. We all know
Speaker 1: that you basically are in favor of foreign Vice President
Speaker 1: Biden gett elected. How much difference does it make? I mean,
Speaker 1: does the particular policies we took a president at this
Speaker 1: point make that big a difference? Or are we facing
Speaker 1: bigger problems than that with, for example, a pandemic. Look,
Speaker 1: there's a lot that's not even our control. Does the
Speaker 1: virus UH mutate, How aggressive does China choose to be,
Speaker 1: What are the consequences of climate change? How much does
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence turn out to exacerbate UH inequality. So it's
Speaker 1: a mistake to think that who the president is and
Speaker 1: what the policy is are is the only thing that's
Speaker 1: going to determine how good the next four years are.
Speaker 1: That said, there is an enormous amount to be gained
Speaker 1: from a restoration of normality. Normality in the sense of
Speaker 1: comedy and decent relations with other countries. Normality in the
Speaker 1: sense of a president who seeks to bring Americans together
Speaker 1: rather than pit racial groups against each other. Normality in
Speaker 1: the sense of a president who respects UH the law,
Speaker 1: who respects UH scientific expertise, who values a competent civil service.
Speaker 1: In UH government, there are a whole set of issues
Speaker 1: which go beyond and come logically before the issues where
Speaker 1: Republicans and Democrats have different views where there will be
Speaker 1: a huge difference if things turn UH in UH this election.
Speaker 1: Differences between democratic and Republican policy are well down in
Speaker 1: the list in terms of what's at stake in this election. UH.
Speaker 1: That's I imagine why John McCain's widow endorsed Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: That's why all kinds of former military figures who usually
Speaker 1: stay out of politics or tend to the Republican side,
Speaker 1: have endorsed UH Joe Biden. That's why people like UH
Speaker 1: Bill Crystal and Lincoln Project, which is made up of
Speaker 1: really staunch Republicans, the kind who loved George W. Bush
Speaker 1: when Democrats were very bothered by things he was doing,
Speaker 1: have endorsed UH Joe Biden. I think there's a ton
Speaker 1: that said stay in normality and normality and reasonable process.
Speaker 1: Is that much more important given how much that we
Speaker 1: can't control that's coming down the road. At least we
Speaker 1: have to be competent and caring with respect to the
Speaker 1: things that are within our control. I want to pick
Speaker 1: up on one thing you refer to, which is climate.
Speaker 1: The issue of climate. We had a remarkable announcement out
Speaker 1: of President g in China this week basically saying we're
Speaker 1: gonna get the carbon neutral by what did you make
Speaker 1: of that? Two things, Uh? One that China is buying
Speaker 1: for global leadership, It is doing the kinds of things
Speaker 1: that the United States once did making forward looking commitments,
Speaker 1: and the other in the hope that others will follow
Speaker 1: and trying to set the terms of the global debate,
Speaker 1: and so in many ways, the fact that they were
Speaker 1: making this kind of forward looking UH statement said more
Speaker 1: to me about our China policy than it did about
Speaker 1: our environmental policy. It said to me that China is
Speaker 1: not an issue for the defense budget, It is not
Speaker 1: even an issue just for the conduct of our diplomacy,
Speaker 1: but it is something on which we are going to
Speaker 1: have to organize our effort for domestic renewal if the
Speaker 1: United States is going to maintain the kind of position
Speaker 1: and the leadership of leadership in the world that most
Speaker 1: Americans I believe very much want the United States to have.
Speaker 1: It also pointed up to me the essential role of
Speaker 1: renewal of energy systems worldwide, whether it's the discovery and
Speaker 1: implementation of at our battery technologies, David, whether it's moves
Speaker 1: on carbon pricing, which I think are very very important. UM.
Speaker 1: Whatever the particular steps UH are, we are gonna have
Speaker 1: to as we renew our country's infrastructure, pay very close
Speaker 1: attention UH to UH energy issues. There may be there
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that I think are wrong
Speaker 1: and overdone in some of the green new Deal proposals,
Speaker 1: which seems to me go way beyond UH climate change.
Speaker 1: But we're certainly gonna need a new deal on green
Speaker 1: issues and do things very differently. And that's one of
Speaker 1: the things that I hope will start to happen in
Speaker 1: the next several years. So learn as you know. Every
Speaker 1: week we like I'd like to finish the week with
Speaker 1: a lightning round of Larry says. Let me start out
Speaker 1: way asking what was the biggest disappointment for you this week?
Speaker 1: The failure to failure to move forward on stimulus at all,
Speaker 1: and that stimulus is a low priority, but appointing a
Speaker 1: Supreme Court in the month before an election is a
Speaker 1: high priority. I have to say, as an economic policy maker,
Speaker 1: I worry that a president who makes a travesty of
Speaker 1: reasonable process with respect to the Supreme Court can hardly
Speaker 1: be counted on to respect the independence of the Fed
Speaker 1: when it counts. So if that's a disappointment, what was
Speaker 1: encouraging for you this week? Even Mitch McConnell basically made
Speaker 1: clear that the president had gone way beyond the lines
Speaker 1: when he threatened to stay in office even if he
Speaker 1: lost UH the election. The absolute clarity with which even
Speaker 1: the people who inexplicably to me have been loyal to
Speaker 1: the president made it clear that if that happened, enough
Speaker 1: would be enough. Okay, and we had those two. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about what the biggest mistake was you saw made
Speaker 1: this week? Probably probably uh no, no, uh no forward
Speaker 1: movement on stimulus, on stimulus at a time when we
Speaker 1: hugely need an insurance policy against a double dip for
Speaker 1: the economy. The labor market is slowing down. UH. Landlords
Speaker 1: are having much more difficulty UM paying rents uh to.
Speaker 1: Tenants are having much more difficulty paying rents uh to
Speaker 1: uh landlords. Firms are getting ready as they realize this
Speaker 1: is going to go on for a long time, to
Speaker 1: pay off um to layoff workers. And above all, David,
Speaker 1: people are just wishing COVID was over and acting like
Speaker 1: it was even and look at your ape, and look
Speaker 1: at your many look at Europe. Okay, many things. Now
Speaker 1: the special Wall Street can we contribute he is, of course,
Speaker 1: Larry Summers. Finally, one more thought. The least dangerous branch,
Speaker 1: that's what Alexander Bickle called the federal judiciary. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have the power of the purse, it doesn't command any armies.
Speaker 1: This week we lost the very embodiment of that least
Speaker 1: dangerous but all important branch of our government. Ruth Bader
Speaker 1: Ginsburg stood barely over five feet tall. She weighed all
Speaker 1: of a hundred pounds. Her stellar record in law school
Speaker 1: didn't give her a place in a powerful law firm
Speaker 1: for one reason. She was a woman. It was Ruth
Speaker 1: Bader Ginsburg who thought that the U. S. Constitution should
Speaker 1: treat every American equally, regardless of genders. But in the end,
Speaker 1: she showed them all. She showed us all all, almost
Speaker 1: by herself. She changed the course of the law, particularly
Speaker 1: when it came to the role of women, something we
Speaker 1: continue to struggle with. And now, ironically, in her passing,
Speaker 1: she poses for us the most fundamental question about the
Speaker 1: role of the judiciary she so loved, for the very
Speaker 1: power of the least dangerous branch lies in the fact
Speaker 1: that it is not political. We don't elect our judges.
Speaker 1: They have no fixed terms. They are the keepers of
Speaker 1: principles rather than expediency. We are now in the midst
Speaker 1: of an intensely political fight over the branch of government
Speaker 1: that is not supposed to be political. And if in
Speaker 1: the end the Supreme Court is seen by us all
Speaker 1: as yet another expression simply of our extreme partisan politics.
Speaker 1: Then does the Supreme Court, even our Supreme Court, have
Speaker 1: the same not power but authority that the framers intended
Speaker 1: it to have. That does it? For this episode of
Speaker 1: Wall Street Week, I'm David Weston. This is Bloomberg. See
Speaker 1: you next week. S