Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: There's been so much optimism, Carol, about the future of AI,
Speaker 2: the future investment. People are watching the markets from here,
Speaker 2: dazzled by the same numbers that you're seeing. But optimism
Speaker 2: is not the same thing as hope. And this is
Speaker 2: a conversation that we wanted to bring you here just
Speaker 2: to give you a sense of the diversity here of thought.
Speaker 2: At Milkin, look no further than John Paul Bryant. That's correct,
Speaker 2: Operation Hope, founder, chairman and CEO, who's out with a
Speaker 2: new book, Capitalism for All, with a forward I note
Speaker 2: by none other than Michael Milkin. It's great to see
Speaker 2: you and welcome back to Bloomberg TV and Radio. Well
Speaker 2: it's our honor. So we've got billionaires bumping into each
Speaker 2: other here talking about opportunity, investment, the future. Are they
Speaker 2: talking about hope when they sit down with you?
Speaker 3: They're talking about hope with a business plan? Okay, I
Speaker 3: mean you mentioned I'm chairman of Operation Hope, thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm also chairman of Brian Greadventures and so it's for
Speaker 3: profit and a philanthropic vision. I understand balance sheets and
Speaker 3: income statements and capital sacks and I've raised and deployees
Speaker 3: five billion ols with the capital. But it's all about
Speaker 3: unleashing untapped human potential at scale. I'm a lot of
Speaker 3: emerging markets, and so I think we've been looking at
Speaker 3: this entire conversation in the wrong way. And essentially what
Speaker 3: my book says is what you guy. What some people
Speaker 3: see is social I see as market development. So nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy two, my book makes this case that the experiment's
Speaker 3: already been made. Carol's mother, your mother, and my mother.
Speaker 3: In nineteen seventy two, white or black couldn't get a
Speaker 3: a credit card or a loan unless her husband co
Speaker 3: signed it, couldn't get a bank account. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 3: blacks and affirmative action teed up what Nixon codified as
Speaker 3: affirmative action, gave it to women and to be blunt
Speaker 3: white women, which was I'm fine with white women, open
Speaker 3: the door to all women. Women today are third of
Speaker 3: the US economy, eight to ten trillion dollars.
Speaker 1: Great transfer of wealth going to women, also one.
Speaker 3: Hundred percent coming. That's eighty eight to one hundred trillion
Speaker 3: dollars of wealth transfer the next ten years, and women
Speaker 3: are forty one percent of all businesses in America today,
Speaker 3: So without women getting that necessary step into the economy,
Speaker 3: we'd be a secondary nation today. GDP wise, they're a
Speaker 3: third of our GDP. Black and Latinos are forty percent,
Speaker 3: about about sixty seven trillion dollars of all GDP, so
Speaker 3: that's a meaningful, meaningful portion. Immigrants are twenty just under
Speaker 3: twenty percent of GDP for this country. And you've got
Speaker 3: ten thousand baby boomers walking out of the economy every
Speaker 3: day because they're retiring, and by twenty thirty four they'll
Speaker 3: all be gone. So what I'm talking about in this
Speaker 3: book is about emerging markets. I'm talking about literally the
Speaker 3: future of the biggest economy in the world. And my
Speaker 3: rich friends, even my poor friends, do better if only
Speaker 3: to stay rich. So when people understand me, they understand
Speaker 3: that I'm going to bring them customers, I'm gonna bring
Speaker 3: them market share.
Speaker 1: Let's go there. Because we've talked with you before. You know,
Speaker 1: if anything I've learned in doing businessors for a long
Speaker 1: time and even being at Bloomberg like you and I
Speaker 1: have been talking money intersects with everything. Follow the money
Speaker 1: that's right, and so here you're talking about you know
Speaker 1: Black and Latinos like money follows market, So why hasn't
Speaker 1: money followed this? We were talking about affordable housing here
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg. We've talked about that with you, like why
Speaker 1: isn't money going to these areas where there's money to
Speaker 1: be made?
Speaker 3: President Bill Clinton once said it's hard to get somebody
Speaker 3: agreed to the truth on the lives paying their paycheck.
Speaker 1: Wow, what does that mean? That means here in today?
Speaker 4: It means people want a sugar hie. They live in
Speaker 4: the moment.
Speaker 3: Some people are afraid to open their mouth because they're
Speaker 3: afraid of being persecuted, prosecuted or targeted in the moment.
Speaker 3: So people sort of go along, get along until things
Speaker 3: change because things are working for them at the moment.
Speaker 3: So we're in a transactional environment. It's in the moment. Uh.
Speaker 3: But people who I talked to offline all know that
Speaker 3: you've got a plan not for three months or even
Speaker 3: three years, you got a planned for you know, ten
Speaker 3: years and thirty years. And so I just think that
Speaker 3: moments change at the moment, and no pun intended. People
Speaker 3: are in a survival mindset versus a thriving or winning
Speaker 3: building mindset, which is really the American ethos, So you
Speaker 3: need the bottom in the traditional thought process.
Speaker 1: The bottom doesn't have seats at the table.
Speaker 3: You and I tell you that I'm here in the
Speaker 3: middle class. By the way, this is not even a
Speaker 3: bottom issue. The middle class have got too much month
Speaker 3: at the end of their money. You're making two hundred
Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars a year, you're a third of those
Speaker 3: of living from paycheck to paycheck, one hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 3: a year, half of those of living from paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 3: So this is becoming everybody's issue, but they don't have
Speaker 3: seats at the table. Thank you, Michael Milkin to make
Speaker 3: sure that I am here for this as his voice, and.
Speaker 2: We'll hold that for a moment, because when you walk
Speaker 2: around here, we're very impressed by the diversity in ideas
Speaker 2: here at Milkin. Does that need to be matched by
Speaker 2: diversity in culture. This is a reflection of the c
Speaker 2: suite and the boardroom, and you have the ultimate perspective
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: And I love that you mentioned that because we've been
Speaker 1: at Milkin in years past, Joe and we talked about
Speaker 1: diversity inclusion big time. Nobody talks about it anymore.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna gain and these private rooms that I have
Speaker 3: been in, particularly Sunday night was a big, you know,
Speaker 3: private dinner. Michael Milkins actually brought up, he repeatedly, repeatedly,
Speaker 3: the power of immigrants, the necessity for it. I'm going
Speaker 3: to commend him for saying out loud what most people
Speaker 3: are afraid to say, which is this is a positive,
Speaker 3: that positive, not in that negative, that immigrants have actually
Speaker 3: caused more income to the US government, to the economy
Speaker 3: and tax receipts. Then they calls by farward thirty years.
Speaker 3: So I like math because it doesn't have an opinion.
Speaker 3: Mike calls me his little brother because we think in
Speaker 3: the same way. But Mike can't bend the c suite.
Speaker 3: He can't put somebody in a CEO position, so he
Speaker 3: can only invite who sit there and leadership. Unfortunately, it
Speaker 3: looks pretty uniform. I do believe the world's changing. I
Speaker 3: have I met with a number of these CEOs, a
Speaker 3: number of these billionaires. They all what they say to
Speaker 3: me privately is very encouraging.
Speaker 1: What do they say without giving who? What are they
Speaker 1: saying to you privately? John? That gives you hope.
Speaker 3: We're in full support of what you're doing. We think
Speaker 3: that you've made a brilliant business case. Thank you for
Speaker 3: giving us a new language, inclusive of economics that's not
Speaker 3: fraught with political dynamics.
Speaker 4: In it.
Speaker 3: The color is green, not black or white or red
Speaker 3: or blue. Let's fold in behind that. Let's wait for
Speaker 3: the moment when you know, when everybody can come together again,
Speaker 3: which we believe is sooner rather than later. People are just,
Speaker 3: you know, as you know, markets a dynamic. The current
Speaker 3: stock market moves a lot on a sentiment. Yes, and
Speaker 3: so I think people are riding the wave, and sometimes
Speaker 3: some things are more comfortable as a conversation. I think
Speaker 3: things have been in the last couple of years uncomfortable
Speaker 3: to address difficult issues other than to be angry about it.
Speaker 3: People are now saying angry is out of strategy. I
Speaker 3: really hope, like every by the way, we've got the
Speaker 3: extremes in both parties that are driving agendas both parties.
Speaker 3: I hope that the Mayor of New York and the
Speaker 3: White House administration. I hope the mayor of the Mayor
Speaker 3: of la all read this book and steal ideas from it.
Speaker 3: I don't want credit for it, but the majority of
Speaker 3: this country is actually pretty moderate. I mean, forty eight
Speaker 3: percent of this country are basically independence and you've got
Speaker 3: almost half of each party who say, I don't really
Speaker 3: like the rhetoric in my own party, but they don't
Speaker 3: have a voice. So I'm trying to talk economically through
Speaker 3: math to give reasonable people and reasonable thought of voice.
Speaker 3: And it's about what I'm about, what I'm for, not
Speaker 3: what I'm against.
Speaker 2: All the while, states are redrawing their congressional maps to
Speaker 2: potentially make things even more partisan in Washington red versus blue.
Speaker 2: If anger is not a strategy, we need a new playbook.
Speaker 2: I cover Washington with carols, in New York covering markets.
Speaker 2: How do we get out of this morass?
Speaker 3: You go far enough of the North Pole, you end
Speaker 3: up south. So look, this is going to go until
Speaker 3: it goes. But we're the two hundred and fifty anniversary
Speaker 3: of American it's one hundred anniversary of Black History Month.
Speaker 4: You can't make this up.
Speaker 3: The whole country is having one huge calonic right, it's
Speaker 3: one huge family fight after this, Yes, yes, we realized
Speaker 3: that fighting is not an answer. Anger is not a strategy,
Speaker 3: and yes I was angry, and I okay, did that
Speaker 3: give you more market share? Did that pay your mortgage?
Speaker 3: Did that pay your car note? Are you better off?
Speaker 4: Or you know?
Speaker 3: Is it really everyone wants to be an American, but
Speaker 3: Americans and we need to not stop knocking each other
Speaker 3: because unless we want to speak Mandarin in twenty years,
Speaker 3: meaning Chinese because their economy is we got to figure
Speaker 3: out whether we're better together.
Speaker 4: The Bible says the house divided cannot stand.
Speaker 3: So I think that we're in the short term, we're
Speaker 3: gonna we're gonna fight, That's what families do. I think
Speaker 3: we're gonna find that something's worked, some things didn't. We're
Speaker 3: gonna have clarity of vision, and we're gonna comet rainbows
Speaker 3: after storms. We're gonna come back together again.
Speaker 1: So do you think it starts with the midterms? John,
Speaker 1: and I would love to, You know, we talk specifics
Speaker 1: with you, like what if you could change two or
Speaker 1: three things, be it political, private, private or public sectors.
Speaker 1: Go into specifics for us, what would you change.
Speaker 3: I would have financial literacy for all. I'd make it
Speaker 3: a civil rights issue with this generation, whether you're black
Speaker 3: and brown, urban or white rule, financial literacy is a
Speaker 3: requirement K through college.
Speaker 1: I would love that because we've been talking about it
Speaker 1: for decades.
Speaker 3: I would read. I would not shut down to the
Speaker 3: proper of education. I give it a new mission. AI upskilling.
Speaker 3: I do a Marshall Plan for America. I'd upskill all Americans.
Speaker 3: Don't Walmart has brilliant. They didn't fire people, they were
Speaker 3: training them in. AI is brilliant. It'll be a dip
Speaker 3: in jobs with AI. And then it's gonna be a
Speaker 3: surge on the other side, because it's gonna be your
Speaker 3: job not replaced by AI. Your job replaced body who
Speaker 3: can use AI. So I'd make AI and financial literacy
Speaker 3: future literacy. I would then give an intern a tax
Speaker 3: credit for internships, a tax credit for apprenticeships, a tax
Speaker 3: credit to sponsor a school, and entrepreneurship, a tax credit
Speaker 3: for a sponsor for sponsoring a small business UH and
Speaker 3: investing some capital and intellectual capital to get them spooled up.
Speaker 3: I would I would use the tax system to inspire
Speaker 3: economic growth and expansion of markets.
Speaker 4: I'd build more houses.
Speaker 3: I would incentivize affordable housing votes of single family, and
Speaker 3: I'd let single family go from rent to own right
Speaker 3: for the rental companies rent to own as a and
Speaker 3: incentivize that returning inventory back into communities, and then give
Speaker 3: a pathway for that through financial literacy. And I'd raise
Speaker 3: credit scores to seven hundred, by the way, because seven
Speaker 3: hundred credit card communities don't write, they go shopping.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are simple, non controversial.
Speaker 2: So you said, what's the reckoning look like in the miries?
Speaker 4: I think people are just sick and tired of being
Speaker 4: sick and tired.
Speaker 2: But does that mean a Democrat takeover of.
Speaker 3: Here's here's even the Democrats don't have the answer because.
Speaker 2: The pendulum swings.
Speaker 4: Yes. Look, I'm not a political uh No.
Speaker 3: I'm saying I'm saying that people want change. They're going
Speaker 3: to make a decision about who's on the ballot books,
Speaker 3: but you're going to see them. What they're really signaling
Speaker 3: is I'm saying I'm not I'm not saying I want
Speaker 3: you or I want you. What I want is not this.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to rattle this cage. America is going
Speaker 3: to rattle this cage. And that's signaling that if somebody
Speaker 3: can get in the in the in the solutions business,
Speaker 3: I'm for you. If you can be in the I'm
Speaker 3: a radical movement of common sense business. I'm for you
Speaker 3: if you can actually have me, create a situation where
Speaker 3: you actually listen to me and my day is better
Speaker 3: to marvel than was yesterday.
Speaker 4: I'm for you.
Speaker 3: At some point, somebody's going to get that message. I
Speaker 3: think the ideal politician has a Republican head and democratic heart.
Speaker 1: I know one, but I'm not going to mention who
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 4: I am. I certainly have no political ambitions whatsoever. Make
Speaker 4: that saying that in the camera.
Speaker 3: But I am a capitalist with a heart, and I
Speaker 3: want a movement. I do want to finish that. This
Speaker 3: is the third reconstruction.
Speaker 1: Twenty thirty seconds, Really quick, John, I know you can
Speaker 1: do this.
Speaker 4: I stumped you.
Speaker 1: You did, and now I lost my place.
Speaker 4: Twenty to thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: Oh are you talking to President Trump? Do you have
Speaker 1: a voice in the White House? Real quick? Twenty seconds?
Speaker 3: I know, minution, I know some of his people. If
Speaker 3: they call me, I answer the phone.
Speaker 1: Trump taking your calls.
Speaker 3: I'm not involved in politics. I don't think this. I
Speaker 3: don't think right now my voice is helpful. I think
Speaker 3: that when people want to talk reasonably about reasonable stuff
Speaker 3: and have solutions at the end of problems, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: get it done.
Speaker 4: Party.
Speaker 3: And that's not a party, by the way, it's an
Speaker 3: operating system. I want to get something done.
Speaker 1: Thank you for waiting while my synapsies started working, John.
Speaker 4: O'Brien, I might have made my bait nothing. That was nothing,
Speaker 4: nothing for all
Speaker 1: Of the book who we're going to continue with much
Speaker 1: more for Milk and he is, of course, John O'Brien.