Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Votes and Verdicts podcast hosted
Speaker 1: by Bloomberg Intelligence, the investment research platform of Bloomberg LP.
Speaker 1: This podcast series examined the intersection of business policy and law.
Speaker 1: I'm Elliott Stein. I'm an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence covering
Speaker 1: financials litigation.
Speaker 2: And my name is Nathan Dean, and I'm an analyst
Speaker 2: with Bloomberg Intelligence covering financials policy.
Speaker 1: So we're delighted today to be joined by Mick Mulvaney,
Speaker 1: former Congressman from South Carolina, former OMB director under President Trump,
Speaker 1: and also former Acting White House Chief of Staff and
Speaker 1: acting CFPB director. This is the inaugural episode of this
Speaker 1: podcast series, and we're obviously really excited to have as
Speaker 1: our first guest someone who has seen Washington from the
Speaker 1: inside from multiple perspectives and who can give us a
Speaker 1: lot of unique insights about the intersection of Washington and business.
Speaker 1: So Director Mulvaney, welcome, and thank you very much for
Speaker 1: joining us.
Speaker 3: Elliott, thanks for having me. I didn't realize this was
Speaker 3: the very first one. That's a lot of pressure on me.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of pressure on you, a lot of
Speaker 1: pressure on us. But I think we're going to be
Speaker 1: just fine. So you obviously have a fascinating and very
Speaker 1: successful life story. You've been a practicing lawyer, a congressman,
Speaker 1: director of the Office of Management and Budget, acting White
Speaker 1: House chiefs of Staff, acting cus COMD Director Special Envoys
Speaker 1: in Northern Ireland. You're a consultant now. Now that's an
Speaker 1: impressive resume. We thought it'd be interesting for you to
Speaker 1: tell us and our listeners you know, how you got
Speaker 1: to where you are, which role you like the most,
Speaker 1: which role was the most challenging, and then maybe also
Speaker 1: tell us about what you're doing now.
Speaker 3: Oh, I don't think that the story about how I
Speaker 3: got here now is very interesting. The most challenging job,
Speaker 3: Let's do it this way. The best job I ever
Speaker 3: had in my entire life was the Director of the
Speaker 3: Office of Management and Budget. It's the job I wanted
Speaker 3: once I got to Washington. I remember being in twenty
Speaker 3: eleven being on the budget committee. Then we interviewed this
Speaker 3: CBO director whose name I cannot remember because as I
Speaker 3: get older, I cannot remember people's names. But I remember
Speaker 3: going through that committee hearing going, wow, you know, I
Speaker 3: haven't heard of that job since what's his name? David
Speaker 3: Stockman had it in the nineteen eighties under Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 3: But boy, does that sound like a really cool job.
Speaker 3: And I did a little bit of work with Rick
Speaker 3: Perry in twenty twelve, which included, by the way, debate prep.
Speaker 3: Please don't tell anybody that, but I was hoping if
Speaker 3: Rick had become president, to be the O and B director.
Speaker 3: Then I worked with Rand Paul in twenty sixteen with
Speaker 3: the same sort of understanding. And then I ended up
Speaker 3: getting the job from somebody that I didn't even work
Speaker 3: for to get elected, which was with Donald Trump. The
Speaker 3: job is the job that I think many people think
Speaker 3: they are getting when they get elected to Congress. It
Speaker 3: is one hundred percent policy all of the time. It's
Speaker 3: the real nuts and bolts of how the government works.
Speaker 3: I mean for geeks, for budget geeks, for numbers geeks,
Speaker 3: for government geeks. It's just heaven. And that was the
Speaker 3: best job I think I ever had. It's not surprising,
Speaker 3: by the way that that transitioned into the chief of
Speaker 3: staff position. I think that has happened half a dozen
Speaker 3: times in my lifetime. In fact, I think the last
Speaker 3: four administrations had chiefs of staff that had previously been
Speaker 3: directors of the Office of Management Budget. There's a reason
Speaker 3: for that. We you talk about if you want to.
Speaker 3: But that was the best job I think I've ever
Speaker 3: had in my entire life and enjoyed every single minute
Speaker 3: of every sixteen hour day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's super fascinating. And so maybe tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about what you're doing now too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not much trying to figure out what I want
Speaker 3: to be when I grow up. I don't know where
Speaker 3: what you do after you have your dream job, right,
Speaker 3: So I'm doing a little bit of advising to companies
Speaker 3: how to deal with the federal government, doing a lot
Speaker 3: of work overseas on what it's like to do business
Speaker 3: with the US government, so companies that are dealing with
Speaker 3: regulatory issues. Again, most of it oversees. The political climate
Speaker 3: here is really really bad for former Trump people, which
Speaker 3: is fine. I mean, that's that's the way the pendulum swings.
Speaker 3: The Europeans don't like Trump any more than the Americans do,
Speaker 3: it seems, but they don't care about the politics. They
Speaker 3: just want to make money. So I'm doing a good
Speaker 3: bit of that. I was involved in Crypto fairly early.
Speaker 3: I don't remember when we started the Caucus David Schweiker
Speaker 3: and I started the Blockchain Caucus I twenty thirteen, fourteen.
Speaker 3: I can't remember. All I remember is that bitcoin was
Speaker 3: exactly two hundred dollars when I started the caucus. I
Speaker 3: did not buy any because I thought it was a
Speaker 3: conflict of interist I had staffers who did, who have
Speaker 3: now since retired. They're very thankful for that, I think.
Speaker 3: And I got involved in crypto very early on and
Speaker 3: have stayed involved in that. I'm on the board of
Speaker 3: the Digital Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC, one of
Speaker 3: the leading trade associations for blockchain and crypto, and so
Speaker 3: I'm advising a couple of smaller startups in the in
Speaker 3: the navigating the crypto world, and that has been fun.
Speaker 3: So I do a good bit of television radio, including
Speaker 3: with you folks. Always enjoy being on Bloomberg, both both
Speaker 3: on audio and on video, but again mostly just trying
Speaker 3: to figure out what to do. I don't know what
Speaker 3: I do for a living, Elliott, but I do know
Speaker 3: it takes all of my time.
Speaker 1: Those are good answers, all right, So you know, why
Speaker 1: don't we stick with the crypto topic and I'll kick
Speaker 1: it over to Nathan to go from there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, let's talk about your history of crypto
Speaker 2: and you know, like you just mentioned, you were one
Speaker 2: of the you know, the earliest proponents of blockchain technology.
Speaker 2: I mean, here we are, like eight or nine years
Speaker 2: after you've founded the Blockchain Caucus, and you know, I
Speaker 2: just real quickly, what was the first time you heard
Speaker 2: about crypto and why did it pique your interest?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was at a conference. I was on the
Speaker 3: Financial Services Committee I think at the time, or at
Speaker 3: least I was. I was, I know, it's on the
Speaker 3: Budget committee at least, and I got invited to speak
Speaker 3: at a conference and my topic that day was the
Speaker 3: gold standard. And I'm not one of these hardcore, you know,
Speaker 3: pro gold standard guys, but I know about it. I
Speaker 3: understand some of the advantages of it. So I sort
Speaker 3: of there to try and give both sides of the
Speaker 3: gold standard on a panel discussion about whatever I can't
Speaker 3: remember what it was. And it was a young woman
Speaker 3: there who introduced me to the crowd for the first
Speaker 3: time to this thing called bitcoin. And as she sat
Speaker 3: there and she described it sort of this introduction, introductory
Speaker 3: lecture on what what bitcoin was, I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: what there's there's a good bit of overlap there between
Speaker 3: what bitcoin is and what a gold standard could be.
Speaker 3: And so I talked with her afterwards and started doing
Speaker 3: a little bit research, and that's when I discovered the
Speaker 3: underlying technology of blockchain and bitcoin is fascinating to me.
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's interesting. I don't invest
Speaker 3: in it. I've never owned a bitcoin in my life,
Speaker 3: but it was blockchain that really really got my attention
Speaker 3: because as they sitting there doing the research trying to
Speaker 3: figure out what this was, this distributed ledger of technology,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know what, this has the potential to
Speaker 3: take every three party transaction in the world and make
Speaker 3: it into a two party transaction. I had practiced law
Speaker 3: for a while, did a lot of real estate, and
Speaker 3: know what a three party transaction is. Know what escer is,
Speaker 3: Know why we have a register of deeds. Those are
Speaker 3: all three party transactions. I've been Washington financial services learning
Speaker 3: about credit card companies work three party transactions. In fact,
Speaker 3: when I'm not on the radio talking to people in public,
Speaker 3: I say pretty much all of our interactions accept sex
Speaker 3: or probably three party transactions in the world. And someone
Speaker 3: pointed out that some sex is three party transactions. But
Speaker 3: we've probably wandered off the topic now.
Speaker 1: Anyway, that's a different podcast.
Speaker 3: Exactly, But I say it occurs to me, if you
Speaker 3: have the ability to make three party transactions two party transactions,
Speaker 3: you have the ability to change the world. And that's
Speaker 3: what really really got my attention. That's what I decided,
Speaker 3: you know, what we need to focus on this blockchain
Speaker 3: thing is this could be as big as the Internet is.
Speaker 3: I still believe that. By the way, I think that
Speaker 3: crypto has sort of become a distraction on top of blockchain,
Speaker 3: but I think that the underlying technology and the concept
Speaker 3: is one of the most earth changing things that I've
Speaker 3: been involved with in my entire adult career.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned distraction, and I think that's a good
Speaker 2: word to go to our next question, and it's really
Speaker 2: about in the light of the FTX collapse. You know,
Speaker 2: there was a lot of momentum last year in terms
Speaker 2: of work being done on certain bills. You know, you
Speaker 2: mentioned the digital Chamber of commerce, and obviously FTX and
Speaker 2: coinbase have spent a lot of time on the hill
Speaker 2: talking about bills. You know, I just it's really a
Speaker 2: two part question, and the first part is is that
Speaker 2: you know, you know, many in the cryptocurrency industry have
Speaker 2: called for this new regulatory framework AA aka there's we
Speaker 2: have a new asset class. And then you have others
Speaker 2: like SEC Chairman Gary Gensler who have said that, you know,
Speaker 2: three nineteen thirties era securities laws still applicable. You know,
Speaker 2: does there need to be a renewed regulatory framework from Congress?
Speaker 2: And if so, you know, what do you think that
Speaker 2: should that look like? Should it define what a security
Speaker 2: is versus a commodity? Should the SEC get more power
Speaker 2: or should the CFTC power? And I guess the third
Speaker 2: part to my two part question is do you think
Speaker 2: something can pass in this new divided government.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me do the last one first, because the
Speaker 3: answer is yes. You know, close friends with Patrick Henry
Speaker 3: Unknownpatrick for probably twenty years now, and I was very
Speaker 3: excited when it was going to become clear that the
Speaker 3: Republicans were taking the majority and he was going to
Speaker 3: be the committee chairman on Financial Services, and then especially
Speaker 3: pleased last week when I found out he was creating
Speaker 3: a new digital asset sub committees, putting french Hill from
Speaker 3: Arkansas in charge. French is probably one of the if
Speaker 3: not the most capable members of that Financial Services Committee
Speaker 3: on the Republican side. So clearly McCarthy McHenry has a
Speaker 3: great deal of trust in him. And I think what
Speaker 3: Patrick would tell you if he were on this podcast is, look,
Speaker 3: there's not very many bipartisan topics right now in Washington.
Speaker 3: Maybe antipathy towards China, maybe you know, distrust of big tech.
Speaker 3: But the third one would be an interest in digital
Speaker 3: assets doesn't mean you're for it, doesn't mean you're against it.
Speaker 3: It's just you're sort of looking at it. Both parties
Speaker 3: want to know more about it, and that's a good sign.
Speaker 3: Why is that a good sign because as of right now,
Speaker 3: let's call it digital assets is sort of the asset
Speaker 3: class is not politicized. Even despite some Republican efforts to
Speaker 3: try and and taint the Democrats with the Sam Bemmerfried
Speaker 3: financial contributions, the bottom line is still that this is
Speaker 3: not perceived as a Republican topic or a Democrat topic.
Speaker 3: And that's a really, really good sign for the likely
Speaker 3: chance of having a decent piece of legislation. The FTX
Speaker 3: thing was certainly a big deal. Did it move the needle,
Speaker 3: you know, listen. I was in Switzerland last week at
Speaker 3: a digital conference, had some great conversations. Was talking to
Speaker 3: Anthony Scaramucci, who overlapped with for eleven days, which has
Speaker 3: now become a term of art. Eleven days in the
Speaker 3: White House is called a mooch. And you know, he's
Speaker 3: been in crypto for a long time, and he and
Speaker 3: I have discussed this before. I posited the thesis that
Speaker 3: FTX was going to make it more likely that the
Speaker 3: CFTC would fall out of favor as the as the
Speaker 3: chosen lead regulator, and that would give more strength to
Speaker 3: the SEE, and Anthony disagreed and said that he didn't
Speaker 3: see it that way at all. He thought the CFTC
Speaker 3: still sort of had was in the ascendency on where
Speaker 3: Congress wanted to put the lead regulatory authority. So I
Speaker 3: think the jury's very still much out on that. I
Speaker 3: prefer the CFTC, if for no other reason. Then you
Speaker 3: know your question had a little bit of a bias
Speaker 3: in it. You know about a nineteen thirty three security regulations,
Speaker 3: but it's not wrong. Gensler is anti blockchain crypto, and
Speaker 3: I don't want a regulator who's anti I want a
Speaker 3: regulator who is interested in seeing what they can do
Speaker 3: to encourage innovation, to encourage growth, to protect consumers, but
Speaker 3: not to make the unilateral decision that this asset class
Speaker 3: of that asset class is good or bad. I want
Speaker 3: the market to do that, not a regulator. So if
Speaker 3: you asked me, is that SEC versus CFTC, I come
Speaker 3: down the CFTC sign but mostly because it's Gensler and
Speaker 3: not and not just because the institutional entity of the SEC.
Speaker 3: There was three parts to you two part question. I
Speaker 3: can't remember what the first part was. I was going backwards.
Speaker 3: If you if you remember, we can do it. That
Speaker 3: go on.
Speaker 2: Now you actually got it all, you know, I actually,
Speaker 2: you know, just talking about the SEC for example, you know,
Speaker 2: was do you think that there's any regulatory or policy
Speaker 2: blame that can be assigned to the SEC in terms
Speaker 2: of ft X and even just some of the you know,
Speaker 2: what you hear for a lot from the crypto community
Speaker 2: is there's this like uncertainty where there you know, we.
Speaker 4: Just don't know the you know, they'd say, we don't
Speaker 4: know the playing field, we don't know, and you know,
Speaker 4: there's been a lot of criticism levied at the SEC
Speaker 4: to not bringing forth soon enough enforcement actions.
Speaker 2: You know, does the SEC have anything to blame here
Speaker 2: or is this just a situation where you know, Congress
Speaker 2: needs to step in and figure it out and.
Speaker 3: We'll just move forward. You know, Certainty is one of
Speaker 3: those words. This sort of you know, gets a lot
Speaker 3: of attention to Washington, d C. Everybody wants a lot
Speaker 3: of certainty. Life is not very certain so, I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't know if the FED is going
Speaker 3: to raise rates quarter point a half point or something
Speaker 3: else next week. There's no certainty there. So certainty is
Speaker 3: sort of an overused word. I think what you're looking
Speaker 3: for is clarity from the government as to how it's
Speaker 3: going to treat an asset class, how they're going to
Speaker 3: do rule making, what their purposes are. And I think
Speaker 3: that's more important to focus on. I don't blame this
Speaker 3: SEC for the FTX situation. I blame Sam Bankman Freed
Speaker 3: in his his in his in his group. I don't
Speaker 3: see FTX as a crypto thing. I see FTX as
Speaker 3: a is a fraud thing, is a theft thing. Bernie
Speaker 3: Madoff was in a regulated industry and Round was in
Speaker 3: a regulated industry, and they still figured out a way
Speaker 3: to break the law and steal people's money. So folks,
Speaker 3: are you know bad people are always going to do that.
Speaker 3: Of course, I say that these are allegations and not proven,
Speaker 3: so I don't want to get sued, you know, So
Speaker 3: we'll say, you know, assuming the allegations are true, as
Speaker 3: we sort of as we couch this discussion. But I
Speaker 3: don't blame the SEC for SBF's behavior. I blame him
Speaker 3: for his behavior. And I don't think that any particular
Speaker 3: guardrails would have stopped somebody who seems to have been
Speaker 3: that intent on taking people's money. So no, I don't
Speaker 3: look at the government as protecting us from all ills
Speaker 3: in life. I do think it's incumbent upon the government
Speaker 3: to give business clear guidelines. It's one of the things,
Speaker 3: by the way, the industry has been requesting for the
Speaker 3: very from the very beginning. I was in a small
Speaker 3: business committee in twenty and eleven and we had a
Speaker 3: hearing laid in that term. So it's probably early twenty
Speaker 3: thirteen on asset classes. And all the industry wanted at
Speaker 3: that time is tell us what we are. That was it.
Speaker 3: And I think at that time and that you did
Speaker 3: ask this question about you know, is it a security,
Speaker 3: is it a commodity, is it something else? And I
Speaker 3: remember doing research at the time that I think it
Speaker 3: was the Germans who created its own separate asset class,
Speaker 3: So it wasn't this or that, it was its own things.
Speaker 3: That's what I want the government to do. Sometimes you
Speaker 3: want the government to make a decision even if it's wrong,
Speaker 3: because at least if they make a decision, you can
Speaker 3: plan and you can go forward. That that's not certainty,
Speaker 3: that's clarity, and that's what I think it's incumbent upon
Speaker 3: the government to give. And I think that's what the
Speaker 3: industry is looking for, has been looking for, and will
Speaker 3: continue to look for. Maybe with this new Republican Control
Speaker 3: of Financial Services Committee and the still bipartisan interest in
Speaker 3: the industry, we will get clarity out of the government,
Speaker 3: out of this Congress.
Speaker 2: So, Director Molvini, you know, in light of the FTX collapse,
Speaker 2: you know, there's been a lot of discussion about centralized
Speaker 2: versus decentralized, and really, like I guess my question is
Speaker 2: is that, like, where's the future of crypto?
Speaker 3: Do you see it?
Speaker 2: I mean, you're doing a lot of work right now
Speaker 2: in this space, you know, is it in the centralized
Speaker 2: space like FTX, or is it more decentralized so that,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe it's the new technology in the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know. If you all had a chance
Speaker 3: to watch the Senate hearings. I think I watched a
Speaker 3: little bit of the Senate and the House hearings, and
Speaker 3: a couple folks raise that issue about centralized versus decentralized finance,
Speaker 3: and they try to draw, you know, a line from
Speaker 3: Mount Gox all the way to FDx. The one sort
Speaker 3: of central feature of that is that those are all centralized,
Speaker 3: you know, financial institutions. That's where all of the difficulty
Speaker 3: has been. I don't want if we say fraud, but
Speaker 3: that's that's that's where the that's where the land mines
Speaker 3: have been, and there's never been a circumstance of a
Speaker 3: you know, a major decentralized problem. I think that's where
Speaker 3: the industry is going. It's it creates some interesting challenges
Speaker 3: because the decentralized system looks a lot less like you know,
Speaker 3: the traditional banking system. So then the question becomes, you know,
Speaker 3: how do you how do you reconcile those two things?
Speaker 3: How do you take decentralized finance and and put it
Speaker 3: that that square peg in a round hole. You asked
Speaker 3: me earlier about some of the work I'm doing overseas.
Speaker 3: I worked for a company called the astrap Protocol which
Speaker 3: is doing k y C and a m L for DeFi,
Speaker 3: and it's a it's a fascinating technology, and I think
Speaker 3: there's a lot of folks looking at how do we
Speaker 3: take this new looking thing of DeFi and and put
Speaker 3: it in the the the you know, sort of the
Speaker 3: the square peg in the round hole of of what
Speaker 3: we've got right now. So I think if once folks
Speaker 3: figure out how to do that, take all the benefits
Speaker 3: of what we see in with blockchain, but figure out
Speaker 3: a way to meld it into the more traditional sort
Speaker 3: of environment, I think that's gonna be a huge success.
Speaker 3: You saw the DJ announce a money laundering case I
Speaker 3: think just yesterday against a Russian crypto firm. If you
Speaker 3: can do KYC, if you can do a m L properly,
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff doesn't happen. So that's why I
Speaker 3: think folks like Astro and some of the other folks
Speaker 3: that work with are in an interesting place at the
Speaker 3: cutting edge, because I think that's where the that's where
Speaker 3: the future is going.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to go back to something you said
Speaker 1: where you know, you're talking about the discussion you were
Speaker 1: having with Scaramucci and how you thought, you know, the
Speaker 1: FTX collapse would result in Congress given the SEC more power,
Speaker 1: you know, rather than the c STC, and Scary Muci
Speaker 1: had a different view. I'm sort of curious why why
Speaker 1: you think that, and sort of where the difference is
Speaker 1: between you know, your view and the opposite view.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really interesting. A lot of it. I think
Speaker 3: it's do with politics. You know, Anthony's very politically savvy,
Speaker 3: but he's never been elected, and he knows a hell
Speaker 3: of a lot more about markets than I do, and
Speaker 3: he's forgotten more than I will ever know. So I
Speaker 3: think we just came to look at it from two
Speaker 3: different perspectives, and I don't know which one of us
Speaker 3: is right. We might both be wrong. But I looked
Speaker 3: at it as well. If SBF was in it and
Speaker 3: he was lobbying hard for the CFTC, that will carry
Speaker 3: a taint and that will push the needle over towards
Speaker 3: the SEC. And if I had to put words in
Speaker 3: his mouth, and I want to make clear that I'm
Speaker 3: doing that. I hope I'm not violating any confidences that
Speaker 3: I don't think our conversation was off the record. I
Speaker 3: think if I had to put words in Anthony's mouth,
Speaker 3: it would be fundamentally the CFTC is still the right
Speaker 3: place to do it, and and the SBF situation with
Speaker 3: FTX won't change that, and that the CFTC is still
Speaker 3: the right place to do it, and that will ultimately
Speaker 3: prevail on the merit. So again, I think it's it's
Speaker 3: the exact right conversations that you want to have. When
Speaker 3: you try to sort of looking at the industry, you
Speaker 3: get two different respectives and the folks make up their
Speaker 3: own mind. I'm sure Congress is going through the same analysis.
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's members of Congress like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 3: I was sort of leaning towards CFTC, but boy Sam
Speaker 3: Peg mcfreed like that, and he's a really he could
Speaker 3: he could be a real distraction here. So let's go
Speaker 3: look back and look at the SEC. And there could
Speaker 3: be other folks look at it and say, you know what,
Speaker 3: I don't care what FTX is all about. I think
Speaker 3: that was a fraud case. I still think CFTC is right,
Speaker 3: let's push it in that direction. I think that the
Speaker 3: conversation that I had with Anthony last week is probably,
Speaker 3: you know, in a nutshell sort of analogous to a
Speaker 3: lot of what's going on on the hill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And like you said, that's
Speaker 1: exactly you know, the debate we're going to suit play
Speaker 1: out in Congress over you know, the next several months.
Speaker 1: All right, So turning from crypto to let's let's move
Speaker 1: on to the cf TOB the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Speaker 1: for those who are not, as you know, intimately familiar
Speaker 1: with it as as you are. Actually, that's not even
Speaker 1: the name you wanted to call it, right you. One
Speaker 1: of your first moves as acting direct the CFPV was
Speaker 1: a change today. But that that's neither here nor there
Speaker 1: unless you want to talk about it. But really I
Speaker 1: want to. I want to talk more about the Fifth
Speaker 1: Circuits ruling in October, which was you know, pretty monumental.
Speaker 1: It was in a lawsuit by payday lenders challenging the
Speaker 1: CFPB's payday rule, as you know, and the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 1: vacated the rule. But more, you know, more importantly, I
Speaker 1: guess was the reason behind the ruling, and that was
Speaker 1: that the Fifth Circuit held that the the CFPB's funding
Speaker 1: structure is unconstitutional because it comes out of the Federal
Speaker 1: Reserves funding and not directly from congressional appropriations. You know
Speaker 1: that that's a pretty big decision. It's likely to have
Speaker 1: profound implications for the future of the CFP. B You know,
Speaker 1: you're a former director of the or acting director of
Speaker 1: the Bureau. You've also been an outspoken critic of the
Speaker 1: CFPV so I'm curious to hear your thoughts about the
Speaker 1: Fifth Circuits ruling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the name change was interesting, by the way.
Speaker 3: I tried to change it to the Bureau of Consumer
Speaker 3: Financial Protection and everybody you know, looked at me crosside
Speaker 3: and say, why would you start there? I said, because
Speaker 3: I read the statue. You know, I'm doing the research
Speaker 3: on that. I knew what the CFPP was for my
Speaker 3: time on the on the I was Financial Services Committee,
Speaker 3: and then the President asked me to go over and
Speaker 3: take over it. I was doing double duty between there
Speaker 3: and omb. Those are interesting days, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go over and run this place. I'll read
Speaker 3: the statute and then the first line it says, Congress
Speaker 3: creates the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. You know, like, boy,
Speaker 3: you really think maybe the name of the of the
Speaker 3: entity should should match what Congress created. So apparently that
Speaker 3: was that was heresy of the highest order inside the building.
Speaker 3: But that's not your question. I uh, you want to
Speaker 3: talk about the Fifth Circuit decision. I was actually in
Speaker 3: National Airport I don't know, three weeks ago, going through
Speaker 3: security and I hear this voice behind me and says, hey, Mick,
Speaker 3: can I turn around? And it's Richard Cordray, who was
Speaker 3: my predecessor as a director, and we had a really
Speaker 3: brief conversation about that. Of course, the the you know,
Speaker 3: the sell A law decision had comeing out, had to
Speaker 3: come out out of the Supreme Court. I can't remembers
Speaker 3: two years ago. And another piece of the cfpb uh
Speaker 3: the status of the director and the unconstitutionality of the
Speaker 3: statute as it dealt with the whether or not the
Speaker 3: president could could fire the the the director of the
Speaker 3: or of the organization. But anyway, rich and I had
Speaker 3: a good conversation about the funding. I think it's a
Speaker 3: fascinating decision, you know, of all, but I don't like
Speaker 3: the fact that the CFPB is funded out of the
Speaker 3: Federal Reserve. Keep in mind folksh aren't familiar with this.
Speaker 3: It's it's a little bit arcane piece of the CFPB history,
Speaker 3: but it's a very interesting insight into what the CFPB
Speaker 3: was created to be, not just what it was created
Speaker 3: to do, but to be. It was created it's brainchild
Speaker 3: most folks know of Elizabeth Warren. It was created to
Speaker 3: be outside of politics. Her attitude was that if you
Speaker 3: allowed politics to influence this, then sometimes the Republicans would
Speaker 3: have control and sometimes Democrats would have control, and that
Speaker 3: was not good. That you needed to have something that
Speaker 3: was outside of politics. So she aided almost or at
Speaker 3: least something that was sort of strived to be the
Speaker 3: perfect left wing permanent bureaucracy with people that were hired
Speaker 3: entirely by the left and then thereafter couldn't be fired,
Speaker 3: that had almost zero accountability to Capitol Hill. One of
Speaker 3: my favorite days of my entire professional careers when I
Speaker 3: went down to testify to Congress, and my opening comment was,
Speaker 3: I'm here to testify, but I don't have to because
Speaker 3: you folks put in the statute that language that suggests
Speaker 3: that I don't even have to be here to talk
Speaker 3: to you. I'm doing it, but I'm not obligated to
Speaker 3: do it. That's how far removed the CFPB is from Congress.
Speaker 3: And of course a big piece of that was funding.
Speaker 3: Instead of giving Congress, as it has with almost every
Speaker 3: other aspect of the executive branch of government, control over
Speaker 3: the spending, it took that away. The CFPB Act dob
Speaker 3: Frank took that away from Congress and essentially said, look,
Speaker 3: the CFPB gets its money automatically as from the Federal Reserve,
Speaker 3: and it has the right to draw down on a
Speaker 3: certain formula. And it is not an exaggeration, guys, not
Speaker 3: an exaggeration to say that at any time during my directorship,
Speaker 3: I could have written, handwritten on a napkin, please give
Speaker 3: me eight hundred million dollars okay, walked across the street
Speaker 3: or down the street to the Federal Reserve, given it
Speaker 3: to the right people, and they would have had to
Speaker 3: give the money to the CFPB. That that was the
Speaker 3: funding mechanism that was set up, and that's what's under
Speaker 3: attack in the in the fifth Circuit. That being said,
Speaker 3: I'm I haven't read the opinion. I fully admit that
Speaker 3: i'd be curious to know what the unconstitutional nature of
Speaker 3: that is, because we do that already with the Federal Reserve.
Speaker 3: The Federal Reserve is outside of the appropriation system of Congress,
Speaker 3: and I'd be curious to see how the Supreme Court,
Speaker 3: I assume it's going to take In fact, I think
Speaker 3: it already has taken it up or granted sert that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they haven't yet. But you know, the CFPB petition
Speaker 1: for CERT and the industry group that you know brought
Speaker 1: the lesson in the first place, is actually asking for
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court not to grant CERT on the constitutional
Speaker 1: list because they say, you know, they absolutely they don't
Speaker 1: want to disrupt that ruling, but they do want they
Speaker 1: do want to be granted on some of the other
Speaker 1: claims that were rejected by the Fifth Circuit. Actually, so
Speaker 1: we're still waiting to find out if the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so again the constitutionality, I assume someone has challenged
Speaker 3: the funding mechanism for the Federal Reserve of the course
Speaker 3: of the last one hundred years and that it's been
Speaker 3: upheld constitutionally. So be curious to see how that wedge
Speaker 3: gets driven between the Fed and the cfp B. But
Speaker 3: it's a fascinating, a fascinating process and just goes to
Speaker 3: show you how unusual, how unusual the CFP b is
Speaker 3: in its in its structure, in its operation. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think one of the arguments, or at least
Speaker 1: one of one of the reasons that the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 1: cited for the CTPB being unconstitutionally funded in their opinion,
Speaker 1: is that it sort of has this double layer of
Speaker 1: insolarity from Congress. Right, So they're getting the funding from
Speaker 1: the FED, which is essentially getting you know, you know,
Speaker 1: is getting some funded in a certain way, not directly
Speaker 1: from Congress, but Congress has articulated how the FED will
Speaker 1: get funding. So I think I think that's the concern,
Speaker 1: that this double layer. But I'm curious. So, you know,
Speaker 1: let's say the Supreme Court does take it. Let's say
Speaker 1: they affirm it. Let's say the current funding mechanism is unconstitutional.
Speaker 1: You know, how difficult do you think it would be
Speaker 1: for you know, sort of what happens next, Like the
Speaker 1: CFP would have to go through the normal appropriations process.
Speaker 1: How difficult do you see that being.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a fascinating question because of course, the Court
Speaker 3: if the Court's doing what courts are supposed to do.
Speaker 3: It doesn't really have the right to write legislation right
Speaker 3: has the right to strike it out. So if that
Speaker 3: particular provision is unconstitutional, then do you have to write
Speaker 3: a new appropriating section to the to the bill where
Speaker 3: that have to be passed? Would it automatically simply be
Speaker 3: treated as as something that's on appropriations for Congress. It's
Speaker 3: a really good quest question and goes to the larger issue.
Speaker 3: Then larger issue is this is this is this whole
Speaker 3: thing constitutional in the first place. I never liked the
Speaker 3: place and folks. I'd like the people, but I never
Speaker 3: liked the idea. I shouldn't say that I like the
Speaker 3: idea of having one stop shopping for consumer protection. Somebody
Speaker 3: asked me. I did an interview I don't know about
Speaker 3: a year ago, and they said, what one nice thing
Speaker 3: can you say about Elizabeth Warren and the CFPV part
Speaker 3: of Dodd Frank And I said, the idea of having
Speaker 3: a single regulator when it comes to anything is really
Speaker 3: really powerful, And I think, good. You know that when
Speaker 3: I do work with all these European companies, they always
Speaker 3: ask me, well, you know, who's my regulator? Like, what
Speaker 3: do you do, and they tell them like, well, you've
Speaker 3: got four or five or six different regulators that they
Speaker 3: just drives them nuts. The concept of this one regulator,
Speaker 3: I think is an admirable sort of goal. That being said,
Speaker 3: this is the worst possible way to achieve it. And
Speaker 3: I really, really really wanted instruction from the White House
Speaker 3: to shut the place down and lock the doors and
Speaker 3: just pay the folks because I had to pay them legally,
Speaker 3: but not not allow the thing to exist. And that
Speaker 3: was in the middle of the Mueller investigation. I remember
Speaker 3: the White House counsel at the Times look at me
Speaker 3: and said, Mick, I got bigger things to worry about
Speaker 3: the CFPB, just go over there and do what you can.
Speaker 3: And so we were that close to actually shuddering the
Speaker 3: place and seeing what happened after that. But that goes
Speaker 3: back to your Dunkin Donuts question. So as it was
Speaker 3: why I did that because it was a very interesting
Speaker 3: relationship with the with the organization when I was there,
Speaker 3: because I didn't like it from the get go.
Speaker 2: So does that mean that we can say that you're
Speaker 2: a dunkin Donuts fan and Krispy Kreme not so much?
Speaker 2: Or was it more just on your way to work.
Speaker 3: It was all my way to work. It was. It
Speaker 3: was a trick that we learned. It was a very
Speaker 3: interesting insight into Washington, d C. And how Washington works.
Speaker 3: It was a trick I learned when I was in Congress.
Speaker 3: Whenever we had protesters at my district office back here
Speaker 3: in South Carolina, we would feed them and you know,
Speaker 3: go get pizza and get donuts whatever, and just say, look,
Speaker 3: you're welcome, we love the fact you're here protesting. You know,
Speaker 3: we're not gonna be nasty about it. Have you all
Speaker 3: had lunch and your constituents for the most part, And
Speaker 3: you know, we'd get your get your coffee, donuts, and
Speaker 3: you know, sit and chat about the issues, and you
Speaker 3: can protest you want to, and you know, we'll go
Speaker 3: about our business. So I figured we'd do that, and
Speaker 3: I we're gonna was gonna take these donuts to the
Speaker 3: protesters on my way to work. I go to work
Speaker 3: fairly early. I think I was there at seven or
Speaker 3: seven thirty in the morning, and I had all these
Speaker 3: donuts and there were no protesters yet. And I got credit,
Speaker 3: by the way, for bringing the employees, the folks who
Speaker 3: worked there donuts on my first day, and we got
Speaker 3: good press out of that, But the truth of the
Speaker 3: matter was it was for the protesters who didn't show
Speaker 3: up until nine o'clock. And what I learned later was
Speaker 3: that these were protesters for hire and that they weren't
Speaker 3: supposed They weren't on the clock until nine o'clock. So
Speaker 3: it was a little bit different than the folks I
Speaker 3: dealt with back home, and that was that was a
Speaker 3: really interesting insight into how to Washington works. The protest
Speaker 3: for higher business is a cottage industry in Washington, DC,
Speaker 3: and I think that's just an absolutely fascinating sort of
Speaker 3: sidebar to how the town works.
Speaker 1: I think that might be the biggest takeaway from this episode,
Speaker 1: that if you're going to be protest and you want
Speaker 1: to get there early because you may get donuts out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, and to your point, a Krispy Kreme man,
Speaker 3: I'm from the Carolinas and the Krispy kreman is down
Speaker 3: in Duncan Donuts. I don't know where they're from, but
Speaker 3: I grew up on Krispy Kreme Donuts. My son lives
Speaker 3: in Charlotte, North Carolina now, which is my hometown, and
Speaker 3: there's a Krispy Kreme donut place across the street, and
Speaker 3: they have a promotion which the when the Hot Donuts
Speaker 3: Now sign is on you get buy one, get one free.
Speaker 3: So it's being handed down in the family the clearly
Speaker 3: Krispy Kreme over Duncan every single time.
Speaker 2: That's great. So let's just let's start to do debt
Speaker 2: ceiling real quick, you know, just because obviously that's something
Speaker 2: that's always in the news cycle right now. You know.
Speaker 2: We even just saw recently that the Secretary of Treasury,
Speaker 2: Jennet Yellen, sent out the letter to Congress essentially saying
Speaker 2: June fifth is the date that ordinary measures runs out.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Our analysis says that it could go a little bit further,
Speaker 2: but we'd love to know what do you think is
Speaker 2: going to happen with the debt ceiling? Is this a
Speaker 2: is this a debt ceiling crisis? Will the US be
Speaker 2: able to avoid a breach? You know? And if so,
Speaker 2: do you have any thoughts on how they would do it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're going to raise the debt ceiling, Okay. The
Speaker 3: question is under what terms and conditions? What's going to
Speaker 3: be part of the deal. I think that's the right
Speaker 3: way to look at it. That's how Barack Obama looked
Speaker 3: at it. That's how John Bayner looked at it back
Speaker 3: in two thousand and When I think the lasting with this,
Speaker 3: twenty eleven or twenty thirteen, I can't remember. You know,
Speaker 3: you've got divided government in Washington, d C. You need
Speaker 3: to compromise on this. I cannot believe Biden is getting
Speaker 3: a free pass on his comments about how he's not
Speaker 3: going to negotiate on this. You're not going to negotiate
Speaker 3: on it? What's the justification for that? The law is
Speaker 3: what the law is, which is that you have a
Speaker 3: debt ceiling. Why do you have a dead ceiling? So
Speaker 3: that now now and then you have to raise it.
Speaker 3: You have a discussion about why you have to raise it.
Speaker 3: That's why we have it. If Biden is right and
Speaker 3: you don't have any negotiations and there's no compromise at all,
Speaker 3: I'm raising the dead ceiling, then the dead seling doesn't
Speaker 3: need to be there at all. Now. I know a
Speaker 3: lot of Democrats feel that there shouldn't be a debt
Speaker 3: ceiling law, but there is one. And last time I checked,
Speaker 3: you know, there's swarmed up and hold the Constitution and
Speaker 3: the law is what the law is. So it's a
Speaker 3: very strange position to take, and I cannot believe he's
Speaker 3: getting as much a free pass as he is. Should
Speaker 3: he give in to everything the Republicans are asked going
Speaker 3: to be asking for the dead Celing Absolutely not, because
Speaker 3: the Democrats control the White House in the Senate. So
Speaker 3: I mean, if you want to do the simple math,
Speaker 3: you know it's a two third one third type of deal.
Speaker 3: The Democrats get a little something, the Republicans get a
Speaker 3: little something. Against how it gets raised. It's absolutely going
Speaker 3: to get raised as much as the former Tea Party
Speaker 3: House freedmcock of Sky and me says, Look, I don't
Speaker 3: think we should raise it at all, and I think
Speaker 3: we should look at prioritization of payments because the one
Speaker 3: thing that Washington lacks is a cost benefit analysis view
Speaker 3: on life. They never measure one project against another. They
Speaker 3: just measured against what they want, and they never have
Speaker 3: to cheer use between two or three things. That's how
Speaker 3: you get thirty one trillion dollars of debt. And by
Speaker 3: the way, both parties have done that to us, not
Speaker 3: the Democrats alone that have put us here. So I
Speaker 3: think it's going to be great whaling and gnashing of teeth,
Speaker 3: as there always is on every government shutdown and every
Speaker 3: debt sealing crisis. There's going to be all these horror
Speaker 3: stories written about defaulting on the debt and what it
Speaker 3: means for the world economy and the reserve status of
Speaker 3: the currency and all that. And that's just you know,
Speaker 3: media hoping for a plane crash because it sells more
Speaker 3: newspapers than a plane landing on time and safely. But
Speaker 3: I think, you know, the last sixty four times we've
Speaker 3: done this, we've done it, and I think the sixty
Speaker 3: fifth time, and I'm making up that number. I can't
Speaker 3: remember howy times we raise it is going to be
Speaker 3: the same. Is there going to be political negotiations? I hope.
Speaker 3: So that's how that's how the government is supposed to work.
Speaker 3: And I hope if anybody, if anybody refuses to negotiate,
Speaker 3: that they get called out for violating the spirit of
Speaker 3: the law, if not the letter.
Speaker 2: You know, just one last question for me, is really
Speaker 2: the usage of ESG has gotten a lot of criticism
Speaker 2: from Republicans over the last couple of years, especially when
Speaker 2: you talk about banks. In the usage of ESG, you know,
Speaker 2: we even just saw recently a tweet from Representative Scalise
Speaker 2: saying that CEOs are going to have to come testify
Speaker 2: about these practices and so forth like that. You know,
Speaker 2: what would you think? I guess what is what's going
Speaker 2: to happen with specifically in your old committee, the House
Speaker 2: Financial Services Committee and some of the other House committees
Speaker 2: in terms of ESG and how banks are CEO is
Speaker 2: going to be testifying? Is there going to be legislation?
Speaker 2: And what is I think the Republican goal for this year.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the Republican goal is to is to
Speaker 3: simply not allow corporations to have it both ways, especially
Speaker 3: big corporations. Look for my entire adult lifetime for the
Speaker 3: last century, I don't know how long it goes back,
Speaker 3: but you know, corporations have usually taken the position. Look,
Speaker 3: we get involved in policy, especially as it relates to
Speaker 3: our business, but we don't get involved with politics. We
Speaker 3: gived about sides. We give to neither side. We are
Speaker 3: not a political creature. Okay. We are in the business
Speaker 3: of making widgets. We want to make widgets as well
Speaker 3: as well as we can to increase returns to our
Speaker 3: to our owners, to our shareholders to keep our employees
Speaker 3: safe and employed and so forth, and we don't get
Speaker 3: involved in stuff that's outside of our lane. That is
Speaker 3: changing dramatically with ESG. And it does not surprise me that,
Speaker 3: you know, the Republicans, because they're on the short end
Speaker 3: of the stick here, are pushing back by saying, look,
Speaker 3: you want to get involved in politics, welcome to the game.
Speaker 3: We'd like to come down and testify next week and
Speaker 3: tell us what you're up to, because that's that's the business.
Speaker 3: And I have to imagine, I have to imagine that
Speaker 3: the folks have made the decision to go down this
Speaker 3: ESG road took that into consideration if they really thought,
Speaker 3: if the corporate leadership of pick a company that's heavily
Speaker 3: involved in the ESG, I won't pick on anybody in
Speaker 3: this podcast, said you know what, we think we're going
Speaker 3: to get involved on these social issues and we're going
Speaker 3: to be able to do it without any you know,
Speaker 3: pushback at all from some of our political friends. And watch.
Speaker 3: That may be the most naive leadership mistake I've seen
Speaker 3: this century, but clearly it must have happened because now
Speaker 3: you're seeing that the one group there's only a couple
Speaker 3: of groups in Washington that have no friends right now.
Speaker 3: It is China, to a lesser extent, Big Tech, and
Speaker 3: then any major corporation that's going esg. They'll never do
Speaker 3: enough to satisfy the Democrats, and they've done enough to
Speaker 3: upset the Republicans. The Chamber US Chamber of Commerce is
Speaker 3: perhaps the most poorly run organization politically that I have
Speaker 3: ever seen in my entire life. They've managed to alienate
Speaker 3: their base and not pick up any friends on the
Speaker 3: other side. And that is really, really, really hard to do.
Speaker 3: It's almost like you have to set out to do that.
Speaker 3: In Washington, d C. There was an interview, there was
Speaker 3: an article the other day about the role the Chamber played,
Speaker 3: and the person who runs it now was asked, have
Speaker 3: they talked to Kevin McCarthy, you know, since Kevin was
Speaker 3: made speaker, and the person dodged the question, and I
Speaker 3: know the answer least I knew the answer is a
Speaker 3: couple of days ago, which is no chance. No Republican
Speaker 3: wants to be seen with the United States Chamber of
Speaker 3: Commerce right now. That actually hurts you in a primary.
Speaker 3: That is a tremendous destruction of the brand, and it
Speaker 3: comes from getting involved out of you, getting out of
Speaker 3: your lane, getting out of your depth, and getting involved
Speaker 3: in politics, which is what ESG is. So it's a
Speaker 3: fascinating case study. Be curious to see where it goes
Speaker 3: from here. I don't know where corporate America goes for
Speaker 3: friends in Washington, d C. But it could be a
Speaker 3: long road back out of the desert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's super fascinating. All right, So I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna move away from some of the substantive topics and
Speaker 1: sort of go to what we're calling our grab bag questions.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Kevin McCarthy, so I thought i'd ask you,
Speaker 1: do you miss doing in Congress? Do you wish you
Speaker 1: were in Congress now, particularly with the you know, the
Speaker 1: speakership threat that we saw a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 3: You know, I missed the collegiality, you know, I missed
Speaker 3: the I missed the men and women I worked with.
Speaker 3: In fact, that was even different from being in the administration.
Speaker 3: Administration is very highierarchical place. I had one boss and
Speaker 3: at one point I had you know, two thousand employees
Speaker 3: on the hill. I had five hundred and thirty five colleagues. Well,
Speaker 3: I had four hundred and thirty five colleagues and then
Speaker 3: one hundred people who thought they were in the House
Speaker 3: of Lords. But that's another that's another question entitely, but
Speaker 3: there is a certain collegiality in a legislative branch that
Speaker 3: doesn't exist in the executivenchure, and it certainly doesn't exist
Speaker 3: necessarily even in business, which is a little bit more
Speaker 3: you know, executive sort of driven world. So I miss that. No,
Speaker 3: I don't miss the BS. I was in Washington. I
Speaker 3: was on the floor in fact, for a lot of
Speaker 3: the McCarthy stuff is in the chamber. I still have
Speaker 3: that privilege, thankfully. Once you're a member, you can always
Speaker 3: go on the floor and participated in that. Was stunned
Speaker 3: by some of the similarities what it was like when
Speaker 3: I was there, and some of the differences, some of
Speaker 3: the personalities that were the same, and some new folks
Speaker 3: who would come in. So it's a fascinating dynamic. I
Speaker 3: find it very interesting. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed.
Speaker 3: You know, whatever work I do, I still interact with
Speaker 3: Congress a good bit because it's just it's it's never boring.
Speaker 3: But no, I don't I don't want to make a
Speaker 3: living doing that. People ask me all the time if
Speaker 3: I'm going back into elected politics, and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: absolutely not. And I said one. I said, because I
Speaker 3: got tired of being nice to people that I don't like.
Speaker 3: I'm just too old for that now. And you have
Speaker 3: to do that in a legislative branch. And I'm not
Speaker 3: any good at it. So Kevin's good at it, and
Speaker 3: he's managed to keep this conference together. You know, he
Speaker 3: asked that he'd be judged by how it finishes rather
Speaker 3: than how it began. I think that's right. I think
Speaker 3: the interesting corollary to that, though, wasn't finished yet. He's
Speaker 3: got to get through these next two years and and
Speaker 3: see what he can do, see if he can. You know,
Speaker 3: he's gonna, invariably, Matt Gates is going to make the
Speaker 3: motion to vacate the chair. That was the one thing
Speaker 3: that Matt wanted. Matt insisted on a one person threshold
Speaker 3: for that instead of five. My opinion is that Matt
Speaker 3: did it because that gives Matt the ability to do
Speaker 3: it by himself, as supposed to having to convince four
Speaker 3: people to go along with him. So he'll be on TV,
Speaker 3: you know, three times a week. This year threatening to
Speaker 3: vacate the chair, because that's what a lot of us
Speaker 3: was about, was about getting people on TV, getting their
Speaker 3: Q ratings up, getting the social media, preparing them for
Speaker 3: running for higher office governor, senate, president, et cetera. That
Speaker 3: kind of stuff that that high school crap. I don't miss,
Speaker 3: but it's certainly still prevalent in Washington, d C. And
Speaker 3: that's probably inevitable. So no, I don't I don't miss it,
Speaker 3: but I still enjoying watching it from a distance.
Speaker 1: All right, So we have time for I think one
Speaker 1: last question, So we'll ask you if you know, if
Speaker 1: you were standing on a desert island, what what three
Speaker 1: pieces of music would you take?
Speaker 3: Ooh do these singles, these albums, what are they up
Speaker 3: to you?
Speaker 1: Up to you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would take I would take I would take.
Speaker 3: The first thing I would take would be would be
Speaker 3: I'd take something from Dire Straits, probably something from the Beatles,
Speaker 3: probably the White Album because it counts as two. And
Speaker 3: then something I still enjoy classical music, so something from
Speaker 3: Mozart because it's an interesting change of pay. So if
Speaker 3: I had three pieces of music, that would be it
Speaker 3: deep deep, deep down in my heart, I know that
Speaker 3: I would want to put Pet Shop Boys on that
Speaker 3: list because I'm still an eighties music addict, but I
Speaker 3: would never admit that in public because it really undermines
Speaker 3: my my reputation, not with us.
Speaker 1: At least, not with you. I can't think for Nathan,
Speaker 1: but as a charter the eighties, I also think that
Speaker 1: music is really underappreciated.
Speaker 3: Actually, it's happy, fun music, and I like, you know,
Speaker 3: for the most part, I like listen. I like people
Speaker 3: who like what they do. I like people are happy
Speaker 3: with their lives. I like people are happy in their marriage.
Speaker 3: I just it's I think it's it's one of those
Speaker 3: things that makes life worth living. And I think a
Speaker 3: lot of the music of that era was was was
Speaker 3: was just fun music, and I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's aged. Well, go ahead, and.
Speaker 2: Eliot Ellian, I think we need to talk to Bloomberg
Speaker 2: about seeing if we can get that as our opening
Speaker 2: theme song for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my piece for our copyright issues, all right, So
Speaker 1: I think with that we'll wrap up this inaugural episode
Speaker 1: of Votes and Verdicts. We are extremely grateful to direct A.
Speaker 1: Mulvainy for appearing on this episode as our first guest
Speaker 1: ever and for all his really interesting insights. So thank
Speaker 1: you Director mulvaney, and we thank you the listener for
Speaker 1: taking the time to join us. As well as a
Speaker 1: reminder you can read all of our Bloomberg intelligence research
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal at THEI Go And with that,
Speaker 1: thank you and have a great day.