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Speaker 1: This is a special anniversary episode of Wall Street Week.

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Speaker 1: I'm David Weston bringing you Stories of Capitalism. It was

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Speaker 1: just a year ago that we debuted this new version

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Speaker 1: of our program. It's been through several lives since Lewis

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Speaker 1: Rockeyiser first broadcast his original version on PBS back in

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Speaker 1: November of nineteen seventy.

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Speaker 2: Good evening, I'm Lewis Rugeiser. This is Wall Street Week.

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Speaker 2: Welcome back, Well folks, it's New Year's again. Habby, Welcome back.

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Speaker 2: You've made this walk ten times. I think you know

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Speaker 2: the way.

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Speaker 3: Thank you, Lucy.

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Speaker 1: A lot has changed in the fifty five years since then,

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Speaker 1: in the media world, in the worlds of markets and finance,

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Speaker 1: and in the world at large. You our audience have

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Speaker 1: largely remained the same, smart, serious investors. But since you

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Speaker 1: now have so many ways of staying up to date

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Speaker 1: on the markets, we took the program in a new direction,

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Speaker 1: focusing on timely but longer term stories told from a

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Speaker 1: range of perspectives.

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Speaker 4: Still stories of.

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Speaker 1: Capitalism, but not quite as much what you need to

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Speaker 1: know as what you need to think about. This week,

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Speaker 1: we go to New Orleans for a different sort of anniversary.

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Speaker 1: The Extraordinary Story of the rebirth of a city that

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Speaker 1: came close to death's door when Hurricane Katrina struck twenty

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Speaker 1: years ago, what it took to survive, how far it's

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Speaker 1: come back, and what the future may hold for its residents,

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Speaker 1: its businesses, and its economy. But we start with two

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Speaker 1: updates on two stories we brought you over the last year,

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Speaker 1: stories that drew your particular attention and that remained every

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Speaker 1: bit as timely as when we first aired them. Starting

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Speaker 1: with what we called the story about Potential, the potential

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Speaker 1: for further integration across the border between the United States

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Speaker 1: and Mexico. When we first told the story in October

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Speaker 1: of last year, President Trump had not yet been elected,

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Speaker 1: creating uncertainty about the future of US trade with Mexico

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Speaker 1: and the USMCA trade agreement. Now, nearly a year later,

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Speaker 1: the potential we talked about is still there, but so

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Speaker 1: is the uncertainty.

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Speaker 5: The plastic comes from pipings.

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Speaker 1: Baldwin Britain is a manufacturer based in Monterey, trying to

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Speaker 1: seize what some are calling the Mexican moment.

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Speaker 5: And everything comes as as pellets and it gets melted

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Speaker 5: in this machine.

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Speaker 1: As CEO of Classic Exports, he runs several factories in

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Speaker 1: northern Mexico making plastic components and finished consumer products in

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Speaker 1: his newest plant kitchen containers.

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Speaker 5: So this is for consumer products that we're selling to

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Speaker 5: the United States that basically came from near sharing projects.

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Speaker 5: So these products were previously made in China and they're

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Speaker 5: relocating into Mexico.

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Speaker 1: This closer integration between Mexico and the United States was

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Speaker 1: jump started by the North American Free Trade Agreement or

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Speaker 1: NAFTA back in nineteen ninety four, covering Canada as well

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Speaker 1: as the US and Mexico. Britain is willing to bet

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Speaker 1: you'll find something he makes in your home. As a

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Speaker 1: longtime supplier of parts to US and European home appliance companies,

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Speaker 1: his new customers are just as likely to be Chinese

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Speaker 1: multinationals you've never heard of.

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Speaker 5: Thirty years ago, we saw a lot of shifts of

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Speaker 5: business from Mexico to China, and the last four years

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Speaker 5: we have seen the shift come back to Mexico.

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Speaker 1: Are Chinese company is coming in to compete with you?

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Speaker 5: Yes, they are coming. They're setting up plants in Mexico

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Speaker 5: as a matter of fact. And lebolon the state of

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Speaker 5: Leboleone which is an industrial help of Mexico. They're setting

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Speaker 5: up so that basically forced US companies like us to

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Speaker 5: be in our a game to compete.

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Speaker 1: Shannon O'Neil is Senior Vice president of the Council on

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Speaker 1: Foreign Relations. She sees the window of opportunity others do,

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Speaker 1: but also some troublesome risks for investors. As you talked

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Speaker 1: to investors in Mexico, how concerned are they about some

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Speaker 1: of the issues you identified, like judicial reform for example.

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Speaker 6: These really are front and center, and investor's mind is,

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Speaker 6: so the justice reform will mean that judges are now elected,

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Speaker 6: and so businesses worry that those judges could be bought

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Speaker 6: or influenced by the government in particular cases.

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Speaker 1: What about security in particular, because it wasn't that long

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Speaker 1: ago that it felt like some of the individual Mexican

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Speaker 1: states were almost in a state of civil war with

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Speaker 1: the cartels.

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Speaker 6: Security has worsened under this last government. Homicide rates have

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Speaker 6: remained at near record highs, but things like extortion, embezzlement,

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Speaker 6: and other kidnappings have grown.

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Speaker 1: One of the things an investor tends not to like

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Speaker 1: is uncertainty, and.

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Speaker 6: It's building an uncertainty that happened under the last administration.

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Speaker 6: It's continuing and even deepening, and we've seen it in

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Speaker 6: the investment. You know what Mexicans were hoping twenty twenty

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Speaker 6: four would be a record highs in terms of investment,

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Speaker 6: and most of it has been frozen, both international investment,

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Speaker 6: foreign investment, but also domestic investments. So this is a

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Speaker 6: time of uncertainty in Mexico, even as companies are looking

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Speaker 6: for alternatives to Asia.

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Speaker 1: And if that weren't enough, the USMCA itself, that successor

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Speaker 1: agreement to NAFTA underpinning the near showing system, will be

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Speaker 1: up for review in twenty twenty six. With new governments

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Speaker 1: in both the United States and Mexico.

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Speaker 6: I do think these are going to be pretty difficult negotiations.

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Speaker 6: The really looming issue for the review of the USMCA

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Speaker 6: is China and where does China fit into supply chains

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Speaker 6: in North America and where does China fit into production

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Speaker 6: more broadly in North America.

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Speaker 1: Marcelo Abrard is the new Minister for the Economy for

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Speaker 1: President Shanebaum, coming to the job after serving as Mayor

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Speaker 1: of Mexico City and as Foreign Minister under President Andres

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Speaker 1: Manuel Lopez. Obrador. A broads appointment itself could be assigned

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Speaker 1: the President. Shanebaum welcomes further US investment and supports more

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Speaker 1: economic integration. In the last administration abroad lead negotiations for

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Speaker 1: the US Mexico Canada Agreement.

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Speaker 7: Well, we are extremely linked with the United States companies

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Speaker 7: and market. So if you put chariffs on Mexico exports,

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Speaker 7: for instance, those charists are going to translate in a

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Speaker 7: high prices for consumers in the United States. So I

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Speaker 7: think we have a strong argreement in order to reduce

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Speaker 7: this possibility to have tariffs in our experts to the

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Speaker 7: United States. Because there are American companies exporting the United States.

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Speaker 7: You don't solve any wars between US. Doesn't make sense

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Speaker 7: because it's the same economy practically.

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Speaker 1: I know you have some terris still for example from China.

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Speaker 1: At this point, how do you see the role of tariffs?

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Speaker 1: When do they make sense? When do they not make sense?

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Speaker 7: Well, it's easy to abuse about tariffs, to put tariffs

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Speaker 7: for any kind of article. At the same time, we

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Speaker 7: are not especially friendly with the tariffs for several fields

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Speaker 7: because can be costly for our economy, even for the

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Speaker 7: United States economy. So we need to have a common

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Speaker 7: policy with US. Let's see what happens in the next

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Speaker 7: election in order to have a conversation about the competition

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Speaker 7: with China. Let's do something really effective, because you are

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Speaker 7: not going to solve competitiveness through tarifts.

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Speaker 4: Doesn't work.

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Speaker 1: But in the end, Minister Abroad recognizes that the real

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Speaker 1: potential of the Mexican economy and it's further integration with

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Speaker 1: the United States will depend on its ability to attract

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Speaker 1: private capital, and he can see a world where that

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Speaker 1: integration transforms the world of Mexican exports.

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Speaker 7: There are no other way to do it because we

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Speaker 7: are not going to find new resources from oil or no,

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Speaker 7: it doesn't exist. Everything is going to depend on our

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Speaker 7: capacities to produce better and more.

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Speaker 1: How far can you go? How much progress can you

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Speaker 1: make building the Mexican economy through integration with the United States.

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Speaker 7: I think that if we are agree, if we have

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Speaker 7: a comminbition with let's say the private capital in the

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Speaker 7: United States, this can be something near twenty five percent

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Speaker 7: of the imports from North America. So you can imagine

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Speaker 7: the impact of this Mexico. You can change the country

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Speaker 7: in ten years.

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Speaker 1: Why not since we spoke with Minister Abroad in Monterey

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Speaker 1: last October. President Trump has gone forward with tariffs on steel, aluminum,

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Speaker 1: and auto imports, though they apply only to the non

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Speaker 1: US parts of vehicles imported under the USMCA. What this

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Speaker 1: means for auto companies and their parts suppliers is still

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Speaker 1: playing out, but Ontario based manufacturer Martian Rea is seeing

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Speaker 1: the ramifications in Canada, Mexico and in the United States.

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Speaker 8: Martin Raya, the Tier one auto supplier, were leaders in

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Speaker 8: structural parts, lightweight structures, and propulsion systems. We make parts

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Speaker 8: for cars. We're one of the larger suppliers in North America.

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Speaker 1: Rob Wildebor is the executive chairman of the auto parts

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Speaker 1: company he co founded in nineteen ninety three. He says

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Speaker 1: the tariffs have been disruptive up and down the supply chain.

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Speaker 8: Parts on average can cross the border anywhere from six

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Speaker 8: to eight times. But certainly we make parts that go

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Speaker 8: into assemblies that go into vehicles, so I'd say a

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Speaker 8: lot of our parts probably probably too three.

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Speaker 1: Times that flow has been disrupted by President Trump's imposition

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Speaker 1: of a twenty five percent tax on foreign vehicles. In turn,

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Speaker 1: Canada announced a tariff on US assembled vehicles. Companies like

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Speaker 1: Martin Rea are collateral damage in the diplomatic feud between neighbors.

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Speaker 8: So effectively, on average, Canadian assembled vehicles have fifty percent

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Speaker 8: or more US parts, so effectively you're paying half the

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Speaker 8: nominal tariff, and our argument is that we should basically

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Speaker 8: move to get rid of that. The interesting thing between

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Speaker 8: Canada and the United States is that when you look

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Speaker 8: at assembled vehicles, Canada buys less from the United States

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Speaker 8: and the US buys from Canada. But when you look

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Speaker 8: at the parts, the US actually has a surplus with

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Speaker 8: Canada in auto so parts plus assembly. And that's in

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Speaker 8: part because vehicles assembled in Canada that go to the

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Speaker 8: US have at least fifty percent US parts. So there's

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Speaker 8: not a trade disparity in that sense between Canada and

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Speaker 8: United States, contrary to what you often see in the papers.

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Speaker 1: And so now, for the first time in thirty years,

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Speaker 1: Canada imports more vehicles from Mexico than from the United States.

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Speaker 1: But what sounds like a win for Mexico might be

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Speaker 1: a loss for the long standing trade relationship among the

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Speaker 1: North American countries.

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Speaker 8: This is what works for North America. You need a

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Speaker 8: fortress North America approach. We shouldn't have tariffs on vehicles

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Speaker 8: because we make vehicles together, and we shouldn't have tariffs

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Speaker 8: on parts, and for most auto parts there are no

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Speaker 8: teriffs right now. If you put tariffs on auto parts,

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Speaker 8: you would shut down the industry because there would be

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Speaker 8: suppliers that do not cross the border. The second thing

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Speaker 8: we need is stronger North American content, which the US

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Speaker 8: wants and so the supply base wants. The third thing

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Speaker 8: is we need a penalty for not complying with that

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Speaker 8: North American content. Right now it's two and a half percent.

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Speaker 8: It should be higher because if you have a low penalty,

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Speaker 8: people essentially.

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Speaker 4: Don't follow the rules.

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Speaker 8: The fourth thing is, I think it's good to have

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Speaker 8: a tariff or some measure to OEMs in Europe, Japan,

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Speaker 8: and Korea to make more vehicles here, and the US

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Speaker 8: has done that with terris. I think ultimately you will

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Speaker 8: see more assembly in North America because of that. And

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Speaker 8: then the fifth thing is, I think you've got to

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Speaker 8: keep China out in terms of OEMs and parts as

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Speaker 8: well as investment, because China doesn't play by the same

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Speaker 8: rules as the rest of the world does. When you

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Speaker 8: have that, you're going to effectively have a regime that

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Speaker 8: really works. So our advocacy, whether it's at Martin Area

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Speaker 8: or whether it's part of the Canadian Automotive Partnership Council

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Speaker 8: or the Autoparts Manufacturers Association or MIMA, all these associations

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Speaker 8: that we're members of, we basically say, what really works

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Speaker 8: for North America and the competitiveness of our vehicle industry

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Speaker 8: is tari free movement. And that will get cheaper vehicles

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Speaker 8: to consumers, which is what we all want, and it

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Speaker 8: will make our industry as efficient as it can possibly be.

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Speaker 8: So with respect to the tariff song Canadian assembled vehicles

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Speaker 8: going into the US and Mexican assembled vehicles going into

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Speaker 8: the US, we've got to work towards a zero percent tariff.

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Speaker 8: Is quite frankly, that's how the integrated supply chain works.

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Speaker 1: The history of the North American auto industry is rooted

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Speaker 1: in tariffs. Canada's auto industry began in nineteen oh four

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Speaker 1: when Henry Ford went to his neighbor in Windsor, Ontario

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Speaker 1: to establish the Ford Motor Company of Canada to avoid

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Speaker 1: Canadian tariffs on US autos. As it turns out, history

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Speaker 1: is repeating itself or at least rhyming for the auto industry.

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Speaker 1: Up next, another story we covered this year that is

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Speaker 1: very much in the news today, the Trump Administration's efforts

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Speaker 1: to expel undocumented immigrants and what it means for our workforce.

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Speaker 1: Last October, we told you a story about our neighbors,

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Speaker 1: neighbors integrated into our communities and businesses that have come

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Speaker 1: from abroad. Neighbors like Anna Yore of North Dakota.

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Speaker 9: You can work in gold Glass without noisperien, without know.

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Speaker 1: English, what's for amigrant and anyone in it job. My

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Speaker 1: job with Missine technician, I'm making.

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Speaker 9: Spots of the window at this so you make it

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Speaker 9: and then put that glaff on.

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Speaker 1: You're moved from South Sudan to the city of Fargo

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Speaker 1: fourteen years ago, seeking a better life. In twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 1: she started working at Cardinal Glass and has been an

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Speaker 1: employee there ever since.

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Speaker 10: Have Minni immigrant.

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Speaker 1: We worked like a family, a friend and teamwork and

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Speaker 1: we help we support each other.

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Speaker 11: So here in Fargo we have three hundred and forty

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Speaker 11: seven teammates. About seventy percent of our team is comprised

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Speaker 11: of people born outside of the United States.

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Speaker 1: Plant manager Mike Arnsen has worked at Cardinal Glass Fargo

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Speaker 1: since it opened in nineteen ninety eight. The company manufactures

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Speaker 1: residential glass for windows and doors, with ten thousand employees

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Speaker 1: across its forty nine locations. In Fargo alone, it employs

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Speaker 1: about four hundred workers.

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Speaker 11: What we want to do is attract and hire the

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Speaker 11: most qualified, the best qualified.

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Speaker 10: Teammates that we can attract.

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Speaker 11: And it just so happens that a lot of those

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Speaker 11: folks that we're attracting happy.

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Speaker 10: To be immigrants, and we're more than happy to have

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Speaker 10: them here.

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Speaker 1: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, North Dakota has

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Speaker 1: the worst worker shortage in America, with only thirty work

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Speaker 1: for every one hundred available jobs. That's well below the

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Speaker 1: national average of ninety five workers for every one hundred jobs.

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Speaker 12: There are thirty thousand open jobs in North Dakota, and

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Speaker 12: although our workforce continues to grow, if we get every

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Speaker 12: high school and college graduate, every individual coming out of

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Speaker 12: our correction system, every person on disability into the workforce tomorrow,

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Speaker 12: we would still have thousands of open jobs. And so

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Speaker 12: we really do need to be looking outside of our

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Speaker 12: states borders and outside of our nation's borders to help

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Speaker 12: identify how we can recruit workers to fill the jobs

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Speaker 12: that we have available.

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Speaker 1: Katie Ralston Howe is director of North Dakota's Workforce Division,

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Speaker 1: overseeing the newly created Office of Legal Immigration. Their goal

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Speaker 1: to bring together immigrants seeking employment and companies that need workers.

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Speaker 12: With the political climate that we're in, immigration has become

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Speaker 12: a really hot topic, and when we talk about the

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Speaker 12: work that we're doing through the Office of Legal Immigration,

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Speaker 12: a lot of times the conversation does go to conversations

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Speaker 12: around the border or illegal immigration, and that's really not

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Speaker 12: what we're doing. Really, our focus is proactively identifying appropriate

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Speaker 12: pathways and programs that we can utilize to help fill

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Speaker 12: jobs in North Dakota. Employers have been responding really well.

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Speaker 12: There's a ton of enthusiasm around the work that we're doing.

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Speaker 12: Communities are responding well too, and so we've been able

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Speaker 12: to really work with those who are already working in

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Speaker 12: this space.

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Speaker 1: North Dakota may be the extreme case, but its shortage

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Speaker 1: of workers can be seen in various forms across the country.

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Speaker 1: According to the US Chamber of Commerce, labor shortages affect

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Speaker 1: just about every industry in nearly every state. Although shortages

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Speaker 1: have become less significant over the past two years. The

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Speaker 1: latest national data show that we still have over eight

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Speaker 1: million job openings in the US and fewer than seven

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Speaker 1: million people looking for those jobs. North Dakota businesses like

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Speaker 1: Cardinal Glass have no doubts about how important immigrant workers

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Speaker 1: are to the success of its operations and to the

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Speaker 1: North Dakota economy overall.

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Speaker 11: As the economy grows, we need people to move to

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Speaker 11: Farga morehead to help us run our businesses. And whether

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Speaker 11: they come from Kansas City or New York City, or

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Speaker 11: Los Angeles, or Somalia or Bosnia, we just need people

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Speaker 11: to move here to help keep our economy growing. You

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Speaker 11: don't even have to speak English to come work at Cardinaliji.

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Speaker 10: We've cracked the code on that.

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Speaker 11: We have master trainers that are multilingual, that can train

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Speaker 11: our new teammates in their native language. And so we

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Speaker 11: have entry level jobs where we can get people contributing

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Speaker 11: right away, and as they grow in their comfort in

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Speaker 11: those entry level jobs, then they can graduate on jobs

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Speaker 11: with a little more difficulty, a little more skills required,

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Speaker 11: and probably within the course of a year, they can

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Speaker 11: be contributing in a lot of different ways.

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Speaker 1: Since we first talked with Arnstein, President Trump came to

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Speaker 1: office and his administration has deported what it says are

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Speaker 1: over three hundred and fifty thousand immigrants. We returned a

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Speaker 1: year later to see what effect the administration's actions may

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Speaker 1: have had on an employer like Cardinal Glass.

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Speaker 10: We have three hundred and fifty teammates here.

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Speaker 11: Seventy percent of those teammates were born outside the United States,

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Speaker 11: but they're all legal immigrants, so it's had minimal effect

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Speaker 11: so far. But there is a question about Haitian Temporary

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Speaker 11: Protected status. We have a number of Haitian teammates here,

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Speaker 11: and about two dozen of those teammates are here still

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Speaker 11: on a TPS status temporary protected status, and so well

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Speaker 11: they may be asked to move back to Haiti next

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Speaker 11: February unless something changes. Hopefully that Haitian TPS gets extended

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Speaker 11: beyond February. We are working at sponsoring those teammates, but

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Speaker 11: that's a very very long process, and I hope we

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Speaker 11: can get it done by February, but I'm not sure

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Speaker 11: that that's going to be possible.

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Speaker 1: One of those Haitian teammates is Joseph Fleury, who has

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Speaker 1: been in the United States since twenty ten under temporary

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Speaker 1: Protected status a status that is likely to end in

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Speaker 1: February twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 9: I got eleven years work in here. I like to stay,

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Speaker 9: but for it the government mad right now, so I'm

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Speaker 9: scared because I got TPS and then they want to

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Speaker 9: change everything. So I don't know how I can I stay.

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Speaker 9: I hope to stay because my bountry so bad now.

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Speaker 9: It's so bad because the gun kill people, kidnap people.

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Speaker 9: So it's very difficult to go with it. If I go,

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Speaker 9: how I can leave over it?

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Speaker 1: From your point of view, is somebody who employs these

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Speaker 1: workers and others from outside.

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Speaker 4: The United States?

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Speaker 1: What comes next to the United States? What should come next?

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Speaker 1: How should we treat the immigration problem?

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Speaker 11: You know, demographically, we are entering a major workforce shortage,

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Speaker 11: and really there's four ways to mitigate that shortage.

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Speaker 10: Automation, local workforce development.

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Speaker 11: Which we're already at seventy two workforce participation rate, importing

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Speaker 11: goods or inputs from other countries, and that with the tariffs, that's.

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Speaker 10: Kind of slowing down. And then immigration important workers from

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Speaker 10: ound the countries.

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Speaker 11: And so we have to keep up with workforce demands

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Speaker 11: or it's going to affect our economy negatively.

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Speaker 1: How much stress will that put on you, particularly if

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Speaker 1: there's a worker shortage overall.

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Speaker 11: In North Dakota, Well, we're gonna have to find twenty

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Speaker 11: five more teammates to hire. Fargo Moorehead has a seventy

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Speaker 11: two workforce participation rate, so it's the highest in the country.

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Speaker 11: We have like a one point two percent unemployment rate

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Speaker 11: here in Fargmorehead. For every unemployed worker, there are two

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Speaker 11: point four open jobs here in Fargo Moorehead.

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Speaker 10: So it's not easy to find new teammates when you

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Speaker 10: need them.

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Speaker 11: And so if if two dozen of my teammates and

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Speaker 11: I don't know how many other Haitian folks are here

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Speaker 11: in Fargmorehead under temporary protected status, if they all have

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Speaker 11: to move back to Haiti, it's going to leave a

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Speaker 11: big hole.

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Speaker 1: Despite the TPA extension being up in the air, the

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Speaker 1: Fargo economy remains strong, an economy driven in part by

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Speaker 1: immigrant workers.

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Speaker 11: Our economy continues to grow. You know, we're doing really well.

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Speaker 11: Workers are moving to the region because of the great

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Speaker 11: job opportunities here.

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Speaker 10: You know, at Cardinal I g and.

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Speaker 11: Fargo, our wages are forty five percent above what the

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Speaker 11: nation nationwide averages for light industrial workers. So we are

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Speaker 11: attracting probably more than our fair share of workers, but

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Speaker 11: it's just not fast enough to keep up with our

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Speaker 11: growing economy.

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Speaker 1: Coming up twenty years after Katrina laid waste too much

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Speaker 1: of New Orleans, we return to the Big Easy to

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Speaker 1: see what was done to rebuild, where it is today

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Speaker 1: in its recovery, and what future it hopes to achieve.

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Speaker 1: This is a story about coming back to life. Two

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Speaker 1: decades ago, the city of New Orleans was nearly lost

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Speaker 1: when it was hit by Hurricane Katrina, the costliest natural

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Speaker 1: disaster in American history and one of the deadliest. On

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Speaker 1: the twentieth anniversary of the hurricane, we went back to

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Speaker 1: New Orleans to see what it took for the people

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Speaker 1: and businesses who stayed to rebuild their shattered city.

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Speaker 6: At this hour, monster storm Hurricane Katrina bears down on

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Speaker 6: New Orleans.

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Speaker 13: There's a lot of aid surging toward those who have

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Speaker 13: been affected, a lot of people working hard.

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Speaker 1: The results are not acceptable.

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Speaker 3: We took a helicopter and landed at the super Dome

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Speaker 3: and I could see my home on Napoleon Avenue.

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Speaker 10: I grew up.

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Speaker 3: It's really still under water, and I started crying.

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Speaker 14: It was the largest disaster by a long shot in

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Speaker 14: the US in many, many, many decades.

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Speaker 15: Right, I lost everything, just like everyone else. I had

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Speaker 15: thirty napis thirty. I knew all of them. Today I

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Speaker 15: have four.

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Speaker 16: My business is in the street of New Orleans, and

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Speaker 16: it's like, oh, what do I do now?

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Speaker 1: Nearly eighty percent of New Orleans flooded and more than

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundred lives were lost. The economic toll over two

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Speaker 1: hundred billion dollars in damage adjusted for inflation. But as

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Speaker 1: stunning as the video and the overall numbers are, the

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Speaker 1: real story of what happened to New Orleans in August

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Speaker 1: of two thousand and five is told in the experiences

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Speaker 1: of the individual people living there.

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Speaker 15: You all right, all right, you get bad, you got

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Speaker 15: out at somebody.

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Speaker 16: This whole area, all full floors above it were all destroyed.

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Speaker 1: People like Rick Blount, who runs the iconic French Quarter

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Speaker 1: restaurant Antoine's, owned by his family since his great great

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Speaker 1: grandfather founded it in eighteen forty.

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Speaker 16: It was way worse than I could have imagined. I

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Speaker 16: thought that a wall had fallen down, and I thought.

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Speaker 4: We could fix a wall.

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Speaker 16: But when we got into the building, the entire building

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Speaker 16: looked like it was going to fall any second, and

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Speaker 16: I didn't know what to do about that.

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Speaker 1: Given the devastation, Blount, along with so many of those

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Speaker 1: in New Orleans, had to make a choice. Cut his losses,

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Speaker 1: move on, move out, or rebuild, knowing that a new

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Speaker 1: New Orleans would never be the same.

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Speaker 16: And some of the spokes were broken.

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Speaker 1: For Blount, the decision was an easy one. Did it

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Speaker 1: ever occur to you? I'm sorry, it just can't be

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Speaker 1: done it. No, I don't think I had that luxury.

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Speaker 16: Maybe I did and I didn't know it, but I

444
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:56,159
Speaker 16: didn't ever have that feeling. I had the feeling that

445
00:26:56,240 --> 00:26:59,760
Speaker 16: it was my duty to rebuild it. Antoine's needed to

446
00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:03,600
Speaker 16: be what Antoine's always was. Right after Katrina, when the

447
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:05,359
Speaker 16: city was still flooded and the only people that we

448
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:10,800
Speaker 16: hear were military and police and reporters. So when the

449
00:27:10,840 --> 00:27:12,680
Speaker 16: reporters would ask, you know, what are you going to do?

450
00:27:12,760 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 16: You know this has got to be the end. If

451
00:27:14,440 --> 00:27:18,000
Speaker 16: my great grandfather could have survived the Civil War, and

452
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 16: my great grandfather could survive the First World War and

453
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 16: Prohibition and the Second World War, it's.

454
00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 4: Been a lot.

455
00:27:26,920 --> 00:27:28,119
Speaker 16: This happened to Antoines.

456
00:27:29,240 --> 00:27:30,440
Speaker 4: I think we could figure out a.

457
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:35,919
Speaker 1: Hurricane and figure it out. They did, but it wasn't simple.

458
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:38,639
Speaker 1: It took a lot of money and time for BLOGNT

459
00:27:38,680 --> 00:27:41,280
Speaker 1: to rebuild, as it did for the rest of the city.

460
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:44,800
Speaker 1: Roughly one hundred and twenty billion dollars in federal aid

461
00:27:44,840 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 1: poured in, with the government spending nearly fifteen billion dollars

462
00:27:48,640 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 1: to rebuild and improve the levees, flood walls, gates, and pumps.

463
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:55,320
Speaker 14: One of the biggest investments was in the levee system,

464
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,760
Speaker 14: so we now have the best levees in the country.

465
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 1: Alison Plier is the chief demographer at the Data Center,

466
00:28:02,600 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: a nonprofit that since Katrina has compiled a biannual New

467
00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:10,240
Speaker 1: Orleans index keeping track of the city's progress.

468
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:14,760
Speaker 14: A lot of the money, of course, went to homeowners

469
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:18,639
Speaker 14: to rebuild their homes, and that's contributed substantially to the

470
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,880
Speaker 14: recovery of the population. It would be the city would

471
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 14: be virtually depopulated had we not gotten a lot of

472
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:27,239
Speaker 14: funding to support homeowners in rebuilding their homes. And then

473
00:28:27,280 --> 00:28:30,200
Speaker 14: of course we had to rebuild schools, hospitals, all of it.

474
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:34,000
Speaker 14: Those kind of investments were absolutely critical for getting the

475
00:28:34,040 --> 00:28:36,680
Speaker 14: city back on its feet. When we're thinking about how

476
00:28:36,720 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 14: to justify that or if it was worth it, you

477
00:28:39,480 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 14: have to think about the role that the city and

478
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 14: the metro plays in the nation's economy. The shipping, although

479
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 14: doesn't produce a lot of jobs, the shipping and ports

480
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:52,320
Speaker 14: here are critical for the exporting of all of the

481
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 14: grain and other food stuffs from the Midwest. The oil

482
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 14: and gas that is drilled off our coast is an

483
00:28:59,000 --> 00:29:01,560
Speaker 14: enormous contribution to the national economy.

484
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 3: Standing here in the square, you kind of see all

485
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 3: the pillars of No Orleans.

486
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,880
Speaker 1: Walter Isaacson was there from the start of the reconstruction efforts.

487
00:29:11,480 --> 00:29:14,480
Speaker 1: Born and raised in New Orleans, Isaacson left the city

488
00:29:14,520 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: to build a career as an acclaimed biographer, as well

489
00:29:17,600 --> 00:29:22,000
Speaker 1: as running Time magazine, CNN, and the Aspen Institute. But

490
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 1: when Katrina hit he answered the call to return home

491
00:29:25,000 --> 00:29:28,360
Speaker 1: and pitch in. Today, he's a professor of history at

492
00:29:28,360 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: Tulane University.

493
00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 3: The governor called and said, will you be the vice

494
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 3: chair of the Recovery Authority?

495
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:35,880
Speaker 4: I said sure, but who's the chair?

496
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 3: And she said Norman Francis, And he's a living saint

497
00:29:39,400 --> 00:29:44,120
Speaker 3: here forty years head of the largest historically black university here,

498
00:29:44,320 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 3: and so together we said we're going to have to

499
00:29:46,280 --> 00:29:50,840
Speaker 3: unite the city black and white, Democrat Republican, because we're

500
00:29:50,880 --> 00:29:51,800
Speaker 3: all in the same boat.

501
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:56,080
Speaker 13: Now, how did you do that? Unite the city? You

502
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 13: know a crisis should do it, meaning in the same boat,

503
00:30:02,440 --> 00:30:05,040
Speaker 13: you say, all right, we don't care where you're from,

504
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 13: or what your beliefs or anything else.

505
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,840
Speaker 3: I think we did it by saying, look, put every

506
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:13,480
Speaker 3: agenda side, put all partisanship aside.

507
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:16,000
Speaker 1: How did you take apart the problem and say we

508
00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:18,000
Speaker 1: need to do this first, this second, this third.

509
00:30:18,360 --> 00:30:21,160
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, we needed to get the electricity

510
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 3: back on. And we were in the back room of

511
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 3: Mother's Restaurant, a Poe Boy restaurant to fare when President.

512
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 4: Bush came down and Laura Bush was with us.

513
00:30:29,320 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 3: Everybody's going around the table, and somebody said, well, the

514
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:35,720
Speaker 3: traffic lights aren't working in Saint Bernard Lower nine, and

515
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 3: somebody said, well, that's because the electricity is not back on,

516
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:41,320
Speaker 3: and people kept going around the table talking. Ms Bush

517
00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 3: turned to me and said, wait a minute, the electricity

518
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,880
Speaker 3: is not back on. And so the FEMA director, who

519
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 3: is no hero there, said well, we're trying to figure

520
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:53,000
Speaker 3: out whether the generators were capital or other typics, and

521
00:30:53,200 --> 00:30:56,160
Speaker 3: George Bush said, get the electricity back on, so that

522
00:30:56,280 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 3: was step one. Then we had two big jobs. One

523
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 3: was the school system and one was housing.

524
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,719
Speaker 1: As Walter Isaacson was working with his commission to get

525
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: the electricity back on and houses and schools rebuilt, Rick

526
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,760
Speaker 1: Blond had his own task of putting antoines back together.

527
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: Although the restaurant was able to partly reopen towards the

528
00:31:17,360 --> 00:31:20,280
Speaker 1: end of two thousand and five, it was years before

529
00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: the Historic Establishment was back to its former self.

530
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 16: We had a huge amount of water damage because we

531
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 16: lost the whole roof structure.

532
00:31:28,520 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 4: The main building is four stores.

533
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:35,320
Speaker 16: The top two floors of the east side collapsed and

534
00:31:35,360 --> 00:31:39,680
Speaker 16: collapsed into the street, and so that sort of collapsed

535
00:31:39,720 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 16: the entire inside of the building. All the floors sort

536
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 16: of fell down on top of themselves, all four floors

537
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 16: of them, push down onto the first floor and caused

538
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 16: a massive, massive amount of damage to that building.

539
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: But in order to get back up and running, you

540
00:31:57,960 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 1: need labor, and even among those who wanted to stay

541
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:04,240
Speaker 1: and work in the city, there were no easy options.

542
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:06,440
Speaker 4: Even if you hadn't left for the storm.

543
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,920
Speaker 16: You were now completely flooded and you had to be evacuated.

544
00:32:09,960 --> 00:32:12,640
Speaker 16: You were taken out of New Orleans. We had to

545
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,960
Speaker 16: figure out housing for people so that we could bring

546
00:32:16,000 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 16: them into New Orleans to work. Within a matter of weeks,

547
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:26,600
Speaker 16: all of our employees were calling and stopping in and

548
00:32:26,640 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 16: trying to figure out their lives and wondering how we

549
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,560
Speaker 16: were doing. And we figured out pretty soon that they

550
00:32:31,600 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 16: needed two things. They needed health insurance, which we kept

551
00:32:35,120 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 16: them all on health insurance, and then we tried to

552
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,479
Speaker 16: hire them all. We tried to bring them all back in.

553
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 16: So I had several of my waiters. They had a

554
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 16: ship that the corp of Engineers had parked in the port,

555
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 16: and they were renting bunks in the ship for people

556
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:51,640
Speaker 16: to sleep. So I was housing a handful of my

557
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:56,440
Speaker 16: waiters in there, and we're using my own staff to rebuild,

558
00:32:56,520 --> 00:32:59,160
Speaker 16: to do all of the labor work that were here.

559
00:32:59,880 --> 00:33:04,120
Speaker 16: And we had these really great skilled craftsmen, this team

560
00:33:04,200 --> 00:33:09,360
Speaker 16: of curial gentlemen from Western Louisiana that literally saved that building,

561
00:33:09,400 --> 00:33:14,479
Speaker 16: that saved our building from collapsing. And I even to

562
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 16: this day, I owe them a huge debt of gratitude

563
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:23,320
Speaker 16: for their expertise and their patients and their dedication to

564
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:28,040
Speaker 16: preserving a building that I think should have been preserved,

565
00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:32,160
Speaker 16: and they got it done. This is the dining room

566
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 16: that in eighteen fifty six when Antoine bought this building,

567
00:33:37,280 --> 00:33:39,720
Speaker 16: that he was operating Antoine Truster, And this is a

568
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,080
Speaker 16: building that had all the major damage in Katrina. And

569
00:33:42,120 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 16: this building and these beams above her head were made

570
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 16: of cypress, and when the building came apart, it put

571
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 16: all the pressure, all the weight of the building down

572
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 16: on these cypress beams above these columns.

573
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: As devastating as Hurricane Katrina was for Antoine's and the

574
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 1: French Quarter, the rest of the city, it was the

575
00:34:01,880 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 1: Lower ninth Ward that was hit the hardest, not by

576
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: Katrina itself, but by the pressure of the storm put

577
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,200
Speaker 1: on the levees, which eventually broke.

578
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,080
Speaker 3: One reason the Lower ninth is called that is because

579
00:34:14,120 --> 00:34:17,960
Speaker 3: it's lower on the river and it's beyond the levees

580
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,280
Speaker 3: on the Industrial Canal. In other words, if you're upriver

581
00:34:21,360 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 3: from the levees, you're in the Upper Ninth, or you're

582
00:34:23,920 --> 00:34:27,200
Speaker 3: in the seventh Ward or other places, that makes it

583
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:28,200
Speaker 3: harder to protect.

584
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:31,080
Speaker 4: It's further downriver. Its lower level.

585
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 14: The difference with the Lower ninth Ward was that the

586
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:37,440
Speaker 14: levees broke in such a way as the rush of

587
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 14: water pushed the houses off their foundations. Unfortunately, that makes

588
00:34:42,160 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 14: it much more difficult to rebuild. Lower ninth Ward has

589
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 14: therefore had much slower recovery rates than much of the

590
00:34:49,080 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 14: rest of the city. I think about a third of

591
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,239
Speaker 14: the population is back, and it's incredibly sad because that

592
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 14: was an area that had higher home ownership rates than

593
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:03,200
Speaker 14: the city average. Lot of folks there who were craftsmen,

594
00:35:03,360 --> 00:35:06,880
Speaker 14: helped build across the city, built their own homes, and

595
00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:10,760
Speaker 14: a lot of the properties were handed down to grandkids

596
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:12,240
Speaker 14: and great grandkids.

597
00:35:13,000 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 15: All this grass and high weeds, all that was houses

598
00:35:16,480 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 15: and businesses we had.

599
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,800
Speaker 1: One of those residents who did come back is Brunelle Cotlin.

600
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: He grew up here and spent his life savings to

601
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,879
Speaker 1: open the only grocery store in the Lower ninth Ward.

602
00:35:27,480 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 15: My childhood dream was to be a policeman, so I

603
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 15: ended up joining the United States Army and I was

604
00:35:33,320 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 15: the police of all places in Germany. But unfortunately I

605
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:40,560
Speaker 15: came home just in time for Hurricane Katrina. After I

606
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,920
Speaker 15: rebuilt my personal home, I noticed we.

607
00:35:43,920 --> 00:35:44,800
Speaker 4: Didn't have anything.

608
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:47,640
Speaker 15: We didn't have any grocery stores. We had nothing. I

609
00:35:47,719 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 15: called up every big box store you can think of,

610
00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:53,280
Speaker 15: and I begged them to open up a grocery store

611
00:35:53,320 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 15: here in the lower night board. So I said, well,

612
00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 15: you know what says they're not going to build anything,

613
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,960
Speaker 15: I'm gonna build it before I open up these doors.

614
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 15: I had a small grocery store window this right in

615
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:05,720
Speaker 15: the back. I opened that window up in two thousand

616
00:36:05,760 --> 00:36:08,760
Speaker 15: and nine. I was selling everything out this little bitty window,

617
00:36:08,920 --> 00:36:10,840
Speaker 15: and I had to save all my money before I

618
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:14,240
Speaker 15: had enough money open up these stores. I sold everything

619
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 15: out this window. Milk, eggs, bread, cheese, you name it.

620
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 15: It all went out this window. Right back there is

621
00:36:20,560 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 15: where I collected money, the cashcage. And I'm not going

622
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,360
Speaker 15: to see the lady's name because she still shots today.

623
00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:28,319
Speaker 15: But she came then. She had her grandkids with her.

624
00:36:28,400 --> 00:36:30,800
Speaker 15: She had like a gallon of milk, some chipped in candy,

625
00:36:31,320 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 15: and she swiped her card and it declined, and she said,

626
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 15: mister bee, can I do it again? And see I

627
00:36:36,200 --> 00:36:39,959
Speaker 15: tried again and it declined again, and she spoke around

628
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:42,080
Speaker 15: the tips right behind me to start crying. So I

629
00:36:42,120 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 15: came out of the cash caage. I did something my

630
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:47,160
Speaker 15: boy was supposed to do. I gave a hug and

631
00:36:47,200 --> 00:36:50,720
Speaker 15: I said, when you get your stimless money or your unemployment, whatever,

632
00:36:50,760 --> 00:36:53,799
Speaker 15: you come back and pay. And I saw it again

633
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,120
Speaker 15: and again and again. So what I did. I took

634
00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 15: out a little tablet and I started a journal and

635
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,480
Speaker 15: I would write down customers name and how much they owe.

636
00:37:02,600 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 15: Some came back and on at de tabs unfolded some dayton.

637
00:37:06,520 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 15: It was hard in this steel haart even.

638
00:37:08,680 --> 00:37:13,840
Speaker 1: Today, despite the devastation, despite all the lives lost and

639
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: companies driven to the point of extinction, New Orleans did

640
00:37:17,160 --> 00:37:20,279
Speaker 1: come back thanks to people like Brunell Cotlin, and Rick

641
00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:23,839
Speaker 1: Blount and Walter Isaacson, turning the city back into a

642
00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:26,520
Speaker 1: living and breathing version of what it had once been

643
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 1: with the hope of a brighter future. And that's where

644
00:37:30,640 --> 00:37:33,560
Speaker 1: we turn next to the state of the city today

645
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:51,600
Speaker 1: and its prospects for tomorrow. There was nothing easy about

646
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:53,799
Speaker 1: the long way back that New Orleans faced in the

647
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,080
Speaker 1: wake of Hurricane Katrina.

648
00:37:57,640 --> 00:37:59,919
Speaker 14: When you're thinking about a city and whether it's being

649
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 14: resilient is whether it can rebound to its pre disaster trends, right,

650
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,840
Speaker 14: So we're kind of rebounded to our pre disaster trends,

651
00:38:07,840 --> 00:38:11,880
Speaker 14: but we haven't really transformed where we're actually improving those trends.

652
00:38:12,080 --> 00:38:13,920
Speaker 14: And that's some of the big challenges that we've got

653
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:14,800
Speaker 14: going forward.

654
00:38:15,800 --> 00:38:17,840
Speaker 1: So how is the city at the foot of the

655
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: Mississippi different from what it was twenty years ago? Alison

656
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,480
Speaker 1: Plier says, one way to find out is to look

657
00:38:24,480 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: at jobs and the population.

658
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 14: The city has about ten percent, or the metro, i

659
00:38:29,520 --> 00:38:32,360
Speaker 14: should say, has about ten percent fewer jobs than it

660
00:38:32,400 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 14: did before Katrina. The population has been declining as well

661
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,600
Speaker 14: across the metro, and it's now about seven percent less

662
00:38:38,600 --> 00:38:41,399
Speaker 14: than it was pre Katrina. We don't have the kind

663
00:38:41,400 --> 00:38:44,239
Speaker 14: of jobs that pay wages that would help folks to

664
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,720
Speaker 14: build wealth. And that has to do really with something

665
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,040
Speaker 14: that people don't talk about that much about New Orleans,

666
00:38:50,040 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 14: which is that we continue to focus on older industries.

667
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:57,239
Speaker 14: So New Orleans is kind of like Detroit in the

668
00:38:57,280 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 14: way that we're looking at these old industries oil and gas, petrochemical, manufacturing, shipping,

669
00:39:04,000 --> 00:39:07,360
Speaker 14: all of which are replacing workers with automation.

670
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:11,840
Speaker 1: What about wealth and income disparity? Is it getting better?

671
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:12,880
Speaker 1: Is it getting worse.

672
00:39:13,400 --> 00:39:16,799
Speaker 14: It's not getting better. I'd say, we do know that

673
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,560
Speaker 14: white households in New Orleans and in the New Orleans

674
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,560
Speaker 14: metro have about ten times the wealth of Black households

675
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:25,880
Speaker 14: and about six times the wealth of Hispanic households. You know,

676
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:29,200
Speaker 14: one of the challenges is that our tourism industry continues

677
00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:32,800
Speaker 14: to pay lower wages, and that makes it really hard

678
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 14: for the people of color who are in a lot

679
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:39,000
Speaker 14: of the hospitality occupations to accumulate wealth and have the

680
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 14: kind of wealth necessary sometimes even to buy homes or

681
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 14: put their kids through college, etc. The tourism industry is

682
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 14: still the number one driver industry of the region, and

683
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:52,280
Speaker 14: again it pays lower wages. But it too, like oil

684
00:39:52,320 --> 00:39:57,160
Speaker 14: and gas and shipping and logistics and petrochemical, is declining

685
00:39:57,160 --> 00:40:02,560
Speaker 14: in jobs because workers are being replaced my computers, various

686
00:40:02,640 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 14: kinds of automation. So that makes it really hard for

687
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,120
Speaker 14: people to generate wealth.

688
00:40:08,760 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 1: One driving factor behind getting a good job is having

689
00:40:12,040 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: access to education. And one of the projects that Walter

690
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,839
Speaker 1: Isaacson took on was using the tragedy of Katrina to

691
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:21,080
Speaker 1: rethink the entire school system.

692
00:40:21,600 --> 00:40:25,480
Speaker 3: We decided to have sort of like you'd call charter schools,

693
00:40:25,480 --> 00:40:26,680
Speaker 3: but that's a loaded word.

694
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:29,160
Speaker 4: So we gave all the schools autonomy.

695
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 3: They got to run themselves, they got to try to

696
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 3: attract students, and they got funded based on how many

697
00:40:34,760 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 3: students they attracted. So is a competitive system based on

698
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 3: parents having a choice, and that made it so some

699
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:43,239
Speaker 3: of the schools said, well, we're going to stay up

700
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: until five pm, because dumping a kid on the streets

701
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,839
Speaker 3: at three PM's not a great idea, and they would

702
00:40:49,920 --> 00:40:52,160
Speaker 3: end up getting more students. So it was just that

703
00:40:52,400 --> 00:40:55,760
Speaker 3: simple thing of letting parents have choice that helped upgrade

704
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:56,520
Speaker 3: the school system.

705
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,040
Speaker 1: You rebuild the school system. Is it working and is

706
00:40:59,080 --> 00:40:59,959
Speaker 1: it working better than before?

707
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:01,720
Speaker 4: How do you know it used to be?

708
00:41:02,080 --> 00:41:04,480
Speaker 3: You know New Orleans school system was at the bottom

709
00:41:04,520 --> 00:41:07,000
Speaker 3: of the state, at the bottom of the nation. The

710
00:41:07,239 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 3: increase in reading scores just this past year, I mean

711
00:41:10,760 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 3: every year it gets better because we.

712
00:41:13,040 --> 00:41:14,200
Speaker 4: Still have the same system.

713
00:41:14,200 --> 00:41:17,160
Speaker 3: If people don't like the school, they can move their

714
00:41:17,280 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 3: kid to another school. And so the reading and mass

715
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:24,120
Speaker 3: scolers have had double digit gains, more than any school

716
00:41:24,160 --> 00:41:27,759
Speaker 3: in the state, and putting New Orleans now in the

717
00:41:27,760 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 3: center of the pack at least nationally, which may not

718
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:31,960
Speaker 3: be the best, but it ain't.

719
00:41:31,719 --> 00:41:32,640
Speaker 4: The bottom of the pack.

720
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,600
Speaker 14: We have nine universities and colleges in New Orleans, everything

721
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:40,880
Speaker 14: from Tulane University in Loyola University to historically black colleges

722
00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:45,880
Speaker 14: and universities like Dillard and Xavier. Xavier produces more graduates

723
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:48,400
Speaker 14: who go on to medical school than any university in

724
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 14: the country. The university has really worked together post Katrina

725
00:41:52,560 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 14: to increase the knowledge that we all have about resilience

726
00:41:56,239 --> 00:41:58,440
Speaker 14: and how to be resilient in the face of shocks.

727
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:02,120
Speaker 14: They employ a lot of folks and in the last

728
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 14: about ten years they've increased the educational entertainment of our

729
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 14: adult population, so we're now on par with the nation.

730
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 16: Huge water damage in Katrina.

731
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,160
Speaker 1: Rick Blunt's restaurant, Antoine's, has come a long way back

732
00:42:16,239 --> 00:42:19,600
Speaker 1: from the damage of Hurricane Katrina. But in twenty twenty,

733
00:42:19,800 --> 00:42:23,200
Speaker 1: the restaurant was hit with another big blow, one affecting

734
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 1: not just New Orleans but the entire world. In twenty twenty,

735
00:42:26,960 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 1: you had the pandemic hit. What did that do your business?

736
00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 16: That one was also very painful and very painful from

737
00:42:32,120 --> 00:42:36,440
Speaker 16: our staff too. The force closure of a business at

738
00:42:36,480 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 16: covid I had about two hundred employees.

739
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:40,200
Speaker 4: It wasn't quite.

740
00:42:39,920 --> 00:42:41,840
Speaker 16: Two hundred families. But let's you say one hundred and

741
00:42:41,880 --> 00:42:43,880
Speaker 16: fifty families, but there's one hundred and fifty families that

742
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 16: depend on getting a paycheck on Friday from this business.

743
00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:52,320
Speaker 1: Are you fully recovered from that in terms of a business.

744
00:42:52,640 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 16: I think we're now ready to turn a financial page

745
00:42:55,520 --> 00:42:59,799
Speaker 16: from COVID. It took substantially longer for the economy to

746
00:42:59,800 --> 00:43:02,040
Speaker 16: reach build in New Orleans. There was a lot of

747
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:05,240
Speaker 16: damage it was, and a lot of damage to the economy.

748
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:08,800
Speaker 16: So it took years and years longer for New Orleans

749
00:43:08,800 --> 00:43:11,640
Speaker 16: to recover from Katrina than it did for New Orleans

750
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 16: to recover from COVID.

751
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:13,960
Speaker 4: We're just a.

752
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 16: Little picture of this bigger picture, which is our community.

753
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:22,680
Speaker 16: We live and die by the success or the failure

754
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 16: of that community. One of the wonderful things to reflect

755
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 16: on twenty years later is how well damned community's done.

756
00:43:31,440 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 16: And I'm very, very proud of that. I think that

757
00:43:36,280 --> 00:43:38,080
Speaker 16: I think New Orleanians ought to be proud of it.

758
00:43:38,920 --> 00:43:42,560
Speaker 1: Even in the ninth ward, there's been some progress, though

759
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:45,600
Speaker 1: still nowhere near as close to the rest of the city.

760
00:43:45,920 --> 00:43:48,760
Speaker 15: In this building right here I have a barber shop,

761
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:51,400
Speaker 15: I have a hasse line of a sweet shop, a

762
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:55,359
Speaker 15: snowball stand thanks to Ellen Degenius, a laundromat, and the

763
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:58,960
Speaker 15: most important thing, the grocery store. This is the only

764
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 15: business here twenty years later.

765
00:44:01,960 --> 00:44:02,520
Speaker 4: This is it.

766
00:44:03,040 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 15: If you want something to eat, you're coming to see me.

767
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 15: You want to wash your clothes, You're coming to see

768
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:12,759
Speaker 15: me today. I have four four neighbors. So I tell people,

769
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,239
Speaker 15: if you have a community, you have a store, you

770
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 15: have a neighbors or outside to hug your neighbors, hug

771
00:44:18,080 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 15: your store. Just be grateful, appreciate that you have all

772
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,120
Speaker 15: of that, because not have anything. I don't wish this

773
00:44:25,320 --> 00:44:29,040
Speaker 15: on anybody. If I wasn't here, this community wouldn't have anything.

774
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,000
Speaker 15: You cannot live your life in fear. You're here for

775
00:44:33,040 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 15: a reason. You have to find your purpose. I found

776
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,960
Speaker 15: my purpose of life. My purpose is serviced, so you

777
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:41,720
Speaker 15: have to embrace it. So I just like I served

778
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 15: my country, not to serve my community. And you can't

779
00:44:44,040 --> 00:44:47,040
Speaker 15: be afraid. So I'm not afraid of another hurricane. I'm

780
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 15: not afraid or not that of nobody. You just have

781
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 15: to keep on going.

782
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:54,280
Speaker 1: The City of New Orleans and its people have seen

783
00:44:54,320 --> 00:44:57,839
Speaker 1: some of the worst mother nature can offer. Its survived

784
00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: and reclaimed a good part of what it will. But

785
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:02,080
Speaker 1: what's next.

786
00:45:02,360 --> 00:45:06,680
Speaker 3: The schools the better, the entrepreneurial spirits better, the politics,

787
00:45:06,800 --> 00:45:09,400
Speaker 3: the sense that we're all in this together is better.

788
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 3: What we have to do is start growing our population,

789
00:45:13,719 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 3: growing our business, and growing the number of jobs we

790
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 3: have for young people.

791
00:45:18,120 --> 00:45:21,120
Speaker 14: I do think it's really important that the folks working

792
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:24,319
Speaker 14: on economic development in Louisiana and in the New Orleans

793
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 14: area really start to have a forward vision. They continue

794
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 14: to really emphasize and incentivize these older industries that are

795
00:45:33,560 --> 00:45:36,600
Speaker 14: just replacing workers with automation. As they said, oil and

796
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:40,560
Speaker 14: gas has fifty percent fewer jobs than it did twenty

797
00:45:40,560 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 14: five years ago, and that's because of automation. And so

798
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,160
Speaker 14: I think here in New Orleans, just like across the country,

799
00:45:46,239 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 14: we really have to look carefully at what industries are

800
00:45:48,719 --> 00:45:53,520
Speaker 14: growing jobs and invest in those industries rather than industries

801
00:45:53,520 --> 00:45:54,000
Speaker 14: of the past.

802
00:45:56,680 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 4: We have a creative industry.

803
00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:01,919
Speaker 3: We have all sorts of musicians and artists and even

804
00:46:01,960 --> 00:46:03,720
Speaker 3: writers like myself or whatever.

805
00:46:04,239 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 4: But it makes for in a creative economy. We had

806
00:46:06,480 --> 00:46:07,279
Speaker 4: to celebrate that.

807
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,719
Speaker 3: Our biggest hope is that so many young and educated

808
00:46:11,760 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 3: people have come down here, which is wild of teaching

809
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 3: my class at Tulane, and these people are starting businesses

810
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:22,200
Speaker 3: and I think you're going to see an entrepreneurial economy here.

811
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:25,640
Speaker 1: So what's the case for investor to say invest in

812
00:46:25,680 --> 00:46:27,840
Speaker 1: New Orleans as supposed to some alternatives that they have.

813
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,600
Speaker 3: I think what you need to invest in New Orleans

814
00:46:30,840 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 3: is for small, medium size and startup companies that are

815
00:46:34,640 --> 00:46:40,000
Speaker 3: doing great things in biotech, tropical medicine, diseases, carbon capture, energy,

816
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 3: where we have great strengths here. We have great engineering

817
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 3: coming out of Tulane now, but we also have people

818
00:46:46,719 --> 00:46:50,440
Speaker 3: who are very experienced in oil and gas and energy

819
00:46:50,920 --> 00:46:56,400
Speaker 3: and for that matter, tropical diseases, medicine, biotechnology. So I

820
00:46:56,440 --> 00:47:01,000
Speaker 3: don't think people are going to be building huge operations here,

821
00:47:01,200 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 3: but I do think that having the type of funds

822
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:06,000
Speaker 3: we now have, the venture funds we now have, we're

823
00:47:06,000 --> 00:47:08,240
Speaker 3: getting a lot of people to start businesses here.

824
00:47:08,960 --> 00:47:11,800
Speaker 1: New Orleans has been through an ordeal few American cities

825
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:14,520
Speaker 1: have faced, and it's taken a lot of money and

826
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: hard work and hope to bring it back to where

827
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 1: it is now. And yes, maybe just a bit of providence.

828
00:47:22,239 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 3: I thought the city for a moment, we thought we've lost. Boy,

829
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:30,520
Speaker 3: I get sil choke up feeling that way. And then

830
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 3: we made a deal with the Good Lord. We said,

831
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,040
Speaker 3: all right, bring the city back and have the Saints

832
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 3: win the super Bowl. And then the Saints won the

833
00:47:37,880 --> 00:47:39,959
Speaker 3: super Bowl, and that's when we knew we were coming back.

834
00:47:41,719 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: That does it for us here at Wall Street Week,

835
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,880
Speaker 1: I'm David Weston. See you next week for more stories

836
00:47:46,880 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: of capitalism.