WEBVTT - Writing a Book With Paul Volcker 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:06.720 Paul Vulker is a giant of global finance, literally and figuratively. 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.119 At six ft seven inches or about two meters tall, 0:00:10.360 --> 0:00:13.880 he towered over most everyone around him, and as Chairman 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:16.479 of the Federal Reserve in the nineteen eighties and in 0:00:16.600 --> 0:00:19.759 countless other roles in public service, he made his mark 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.280 on the world. Now, at age ninety one, he's published 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.480 a new memoir called Keeping at It, and his collaborator 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:29.560 happens to be one of our Bloomberg colleagues, Christine Harper. 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:33.040 This week on Benchmark, we'll talk with Christine about why 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:34.839 he wrote the book and what it was like to 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:47.960 work with him. Welcome to Benchmark. I'm Scott Landman, economics 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:51.600 editor with Bloomberg News in Washington, and now I'm Daniel Moss, 0:00:51.800 --> 0:00:56.200 columnist at Bloomberg Opinion in New York. Were joined by 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:01.160 Christine Kappa, editor of Bloomberg Markets the same She's been 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:04.959 a reporter and editor with Bloomberg for twenty years. I 0:01:05.160 --> 0:01:08.920 first met Christine in the early aughts in the London office, 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.200 when she was wrestling with stories about Merrill Lynch's bond desk. 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:19.280 We're recording this on Tuesday. The book Keeping at It 0:01:19.280 --> 0:01:22.600 should be available wherever you buy good books. Christine, welcome 0:01:22.640 --> 0:01:25.959 to Benchmark. Thanks for having me. It's a it's a pleasure, Christine. 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.479 Congratulations on the book. How did you come to work 0:01:29.560 --> 0:01:32.520 with Paul Wolker on it? Well, it really does a 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:35.160 hugely lucky break. Unlike the two of you, I'm not 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.920 an economics expert, as you know, I have been covering 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:42.440 the financial industry here for a long time at Bloomberg, 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.479 and I happen to know a man named Peter Osenos 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:50.080 who runs a publishing firm called Public Affairs. He's quite 0:01:50.200 --> 0:01:54.120 close to Paul Volker, having having published Mr Walker's book 0:01:54.120 --> 0:01:58.480 in h called Changing Fortunes. So Peter called me up 0:01:58.520 --> 0:02:01.680 one day and said that Paul Wolker was interested in 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.320 writing a memoir. But at that point he was a 0:02:04.400 --> 0:02:09.040 vettor ninety and Peter, who's been in publishing for a 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.519 long time, thought it might make sense to have somebody 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:14.800 work with him, And it might make most sense if 0:02:14.840 --> 0:02:17.400 it was somebody in New York City who could easily 0:02:18.200 --> 0:02:22.600 get back and forth to Paul's office and um to 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.800 his home to work with him. So was I interested, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:29.920 and I said, let me think about it for one 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:32.200 day and pretty quickly realized this was a once in 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.400 a lifetime opportunity. Even though I had never written a 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.400 book and I was an expert economics, I couldn't imagine 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:39.440 there was any downside and getting to spend time with 0:02:39.440 --> 0:02:42.480 Paul Walker and learned all his stories and just see 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.160 what that was like. So, um, that's what I did. 0:02:46.320 --> 0:02:49.120 And uh, and I think Peter's view was that there'd 0:02:49.120 --> 0:02:51.880 be some kind of chemistry that we would work well together. 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:53.880 I'm not really sure why he had that insight, but 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.720 it proved to be correct. Paul didn't know me from Adam. 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:00.919 When he was introduced to me, he immediately was very 0:03:00.919 --> 0:03:03.760 friendly and very willing to work with me, and we 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.560 started having regular meetings where I would record these interviews 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:09.280 with him, with the thought being that I would eventually 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:11.919 take the transcripts and blend them all into a book. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:14.800 But of course, you know, even though he was kind 0:03:14.800 --> 0:03:17.160 of in and out of the hospital with various health issues, 0:03:17.680 --> 0:03:20.680 he ended up started churning out pages and pages on 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:25.000 a yellow pad of basically the manuscript and having his 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.919 assistant typed them up. And I looked at them and said, well, 0:03:27.960 --> 0:03:30.839 these are really good. Keep going. So I would get 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:34.880 these emailed files his assistant would you know, send them 0:03:34.880 --> 0:03:37.720 along to me, and I would work with Paul and 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:39.480 them and he was just great. And I kept waiting 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:44.040 for him to become in some way, you know, difficult 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:48.000 to our dolimineering or stubborn or something, and he was. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:49.800 He never was. We just had a great time. I 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.040 never went to a meeting with him, and we we 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.280 we've been meeting now for more than a year, several 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.480 times a week. I never left a meeting with him 0:03:57.520 --> 0:04:00.240 not feeling happier than when I went into it. He's 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.680 just a wonderful guy. And I learned so much every 0:04:03.800 --> 0:04:09.080 every meeting. Okay, now, twice in that answer, you've mentioned 0:04:09.160 --> 0:04:11.960 that you're not an economics expert. You don't have a 0:04:12.000 --> 0:04:14.760 background in economics. I think you're selling yourself a little 0:04:14.760 --> 0:04:18.600 short here. You have run finance reporting at Bloomberg News. 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.760 But to the core of that question, did that make 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:28.359 your role easier or harder not having formal qualifications in economics. 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:30.480 I think it was probably a little bit of both. 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.480 So I I didn't have the familiarity with some of 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.600 the um stories that both of you I'm sure would 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:39.000 have had, so I had to do more research to 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.400 understand them. But I also sort of forced him to 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.240 explain things that maybe somebody who was very comfortable with 0:04:45.279 --> 0:04:49.200 economics wouldn't have needed explained and might have been just 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.960 more willing to fall into sort of a jargony insider voice. Um. 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:57.239 That said, he his natural inclination is to be pretty 0:04:57.279 --> 0:05:00.200 plain spoken. So a lot of the out of the 0:05:00.200 --> 0:05:02.680 book is very readable just because he writes in a 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.280 very readable way. He doesn't like to um to use jargon. 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:10.080 He really doesn't. I mean, I don't. I don't know 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.040 if can I tell the story about how we came 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:17.240 up with the title. Okay, So we really struggled with 0:05:17.279 --> 0:05:21.200 the title, and it was very telling about him because 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:23.520 but we were coming up with all these titles that 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:26.760 sounded like, you know, the titles of a great man's book, 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.520 you know, um, Mr Chairman, and you know, things with 0:05:30.600 --> 0:05:34.120 great sort of august themes, and he couldn't stand that. 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:36.520 He really was opposed to anything that sounded pompous. He 0:05:36.560 --> 0:05:40.400 didn't want anything like, for instance, Ben Bernanke's book The 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.440 Courage to Act. He was allergic to that type of 0:05:43.560 --> 0:05:47.320 tone in his in in a book title. So we 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:49.680 kept going back and forth, and there's a story if 0:05:49.680 --> 0:05:51.640 you read the book that he starts out with a joke, 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.120 and the joke is about a parent. And so he 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:56.560 wanted the title to be, and he was quite serious 0:05:56.560 --> 0:05:58.800 with this. He wanted the title to be The Wise 0:05:58.839 --> 0:06:03.320 Parrot Speaks, and the publisher and I and everybody around 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:05.080 him sort of said, well, that's very funny, but I 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:08.040 don't think anybody will understand it. They don't really necessarily 0:06:08.040 --> 0:06:10.520 recognize what that's about. And he said, yeah, but that'll 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:13.200 that'll intrigue people. People buy it anyway. So we had 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.880 a lot of we had a lot of discussion that 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:18.760 this was probably the most difficult thing. And then finally 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:20.719 one day I said, well, there's this phrase in some 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.960 of the minutes sustained commitment, which I think sort of 0:06:24.120 --> 0:06:28.039 sums up your description of your life and you're fighting 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:31.559 against inflation. And he looked at me and said, keeping 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:36.200 at it, and I realized, like, that's the simplest way 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:39.719 to say sustained commitment. So that's that became the title. 0:06:39.960 --> 0:06:43.239 So he gave up on The Wise Parrot Speaks, and 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:48.800 UH gracefully suggested the title that we have now. Um, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.080 I'm glad to hear that. I'm curious also, Christine, you 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:55.680 know some more about the collaboration process that you were 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:58.920 starting to go into. Yeah. I think he refers to 0:06:59.080 --> 0:07:01.840 in his book that that that you were checking and 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:06.080 rechecking some of his anecdotes. I mean, as someone in 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.400 his forties now, I think it would be difficult for 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:12.040 me to write my own memoir. And yet at age 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.320 he was recalling things from his childhood, you know, all 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.120 sorts of events early in his life, a lot of 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:21.880 his work life in the fifties, in sixties at the 0:07:21.920 --> 0:07:25.160 Treasury and and the Fed. How were you able to, 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.800 you know, to flesh out some of these stories that 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:31.760 he told. Well, one thing that's so remarkable about his 0:07:31.840 --> 0:07:35.440 life is almost every chapter there are stories that have 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.360 entire books written about them. So my my home office 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:43.480 right now is stacked from from Florida ceiling with various books, 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.160 which in many cases are just to sort of do 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.920 more research on a few paragraphs in one chapter of 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.120 his book. So you know, I just wentn't to find 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.360 any kind of source material, I shood there are a 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.120 lot of it was and you if you look at 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:58.720 the notes, a lot of it is looking back at 0:07:58.840 --> 0:08:01.760 news articles from the time. You know, there are great 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.400 archives on the New York Times website, for instance, which 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.000 really help, and then newspapers dot com things like that 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.240 where you can find news articles about events as they 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:12.800 were happening, and that's that was a pretty helpful way 0:08:12.800 --> 0:08:17.680 to check things. Many people would recognize Vulcar as the 0:08:17.840 --> 0:08:21.600 central banker that broke the back of inflation, of course 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.920 in the United States. How comfortable is he with this 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:31.360 kind of canonization, Well, I he appreciates that, with the 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.679 fact that people um sometimes still come up to him 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:36.480 on the street and thank him for what he did, 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:42.080 He's humbled by it, but he's grateful, and he feels 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:47.120 so strongly about serving the country that to know that 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:49.800 he's done something that people feel made a difference, I 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.120 think matters a lot to him. I think he's constantly 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:55.160 coming up with new things he wants to fix in 0:08:55.200 --> 0:08:57.440 the country, and he's also quite humble about ways in 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:59.679 which he failed to do things. I mean, there's a 0:08:59.720 --> 0:09:01.800 lot of the beginning of the book is about his 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:07.280 failure to basically create an international monetary system, and once 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:10.360 Breton Woods broke down and he was really he was 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.360 really upset about that. So um, there's a combination in 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.719 the book of I think him telling the sort of 0:09:17.760 --> 0:09:20.440 heroic story of Paul Wolker, which you can't avoid but 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.320 admit is heroic in many respects, but also being quite 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.480 self critical at points. He doesn't always come off as 0:09:28.320 --> 0:09:35.360 an amazing superhero. Do circumstances create the man or does 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:41.320 the man shape the circumstances. Would anyone serving as chair 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:45.959 of the FADE, given the inflation landscape at the time, 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:49.719 have taken the steps he took. Well, that's interesting thing 0:09:49.760 --> 0:09:53.840 that he likes to talk about. So obviously he followed 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:58.160 two FED chairman who didn't take the action that was required. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:02.120 When he was brought in, the problem was so acute 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.840 that he felt that he had great support in doing 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:09.480 things that were very difficult. So he he does sort 0:10:09.520 --> 0:10:12.560 of admit that as much as he gets credit for 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:16.600 being strong and fighting back against politicians who wanted to 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.840 impeach him, he always felt there was this reserve of 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.360 public support from him because things had gotten so bad 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:26.120 and they were at such a point of crisis. So Um, however, 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:28.280 I mean, he did have to be very clever and 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:30.120 how he did that, and there's a section and how 0:10:30.160 --> 0:10:34.600 he where he describes the decision to target the money 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:38.880 supply as effectively sort of lashing the FED to the mast. 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.600 They had no choice but to follow through, and that 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.760 inoculated him against some criticisms because he could say, we're 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.120 just looking at the money supply. We're sorry, he and 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:52.040 he admits if if he had ever been told interest 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:54.080 rates were going to go up, he might have just 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.640 run away immediately, but he sort of he sort of 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:01.240 created a system where he almost had had an ability 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:03.280 and the Fed had ability to say, it's out of 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.760 our hands. We're just we're just looking at something else. 0:11:05.960 --> 0:11:09.040 Interest rates are not under our control anymore. We'll get 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:11.800 back to the issue of targets in a minute. It 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.880 seems like Christine that you know, there are so many 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:18.760 interesting stories about his early life and his childhood, and 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:23.040 one of them in there may even have informed his 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.920 thinking when he was at the FED in the late 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.360 seventies without him even knowing it. And it seems like 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.760 it that that comes from his mother's economics textbook that 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:36.720 he found from all the way back in nineteen eleven 0:11:36.840 --> 0:11:39.760 and the notes she wrote in the margins. Can you 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.160 tell us a little bit about that part of the story. Yeah, 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.440 this is this is this was an amazing discovery. I mean, 0:11:45.480 --> 0:11:47.720 we talked a lot in the book about his father 0:11:47.800 --> 0:11:50.160 and they influence his father and his father's career in 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.199 public service had on Paul. But what was really interesting 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.640 was right towards the end when that we already actually 0:11:57.679 --> 0:11:59.680 put out the Galley version of the book and we're 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.760 making final corrections to it. I was at his home 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:04.600 and I was looking through He has this room with 0:12:04.720 --> 0:12:07.760 the you know, bookcases all around the room, and I 0:12:07.800 --> 0:12:09.720 was looking for a book that he said I could 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.000 find somewhere, and I found another book and it was 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:17.280 a tiny, little hard wound volume which was printed in 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.280 in the early nineteen hundreds. It was it was his 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:25.080 his mother's Vasser economics text book from nineteen eleven. It 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:27.520 had a lot of her handwriting in it. All all 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:31.720 the margins were covered with her handwriting, and including on 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:34.800 page eight, I think there was a sentence where she 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:38.080 had scrawled economic laws cannot be dependent upon if we 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:42.200 disregard psychology, et cetera. And I showed this to him 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:44.240 and he was, first of all, he'd just dunfounded, he'd 0:12:44.240 --> 0:12:47.280 forgotten he had it. It reminded him that his mother 0:12:47.360 --> 0:12:50.280 had been I guess, really passionate about economics, studying it 0:12:50.360 --> 0:12:54.360 before the FED was created in nineteen eleven. Anyway, he 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.839 he had completely forgotten how much his mother cared about economics, 0:12:57.840 --> 0:13:00.480 and also that people were having this in site about 0:13:00.480 --> 0:13:03.880 the importance of psychology even before. He sort of feels 0:13:03.920 --> 0:13:06.400 that he had that insight during his career at the fact, 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:09.000 in the understanding that you had to find a simple 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.920 way to communicate with the public about what you were 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.120 doing and the money supply with the way to do it. 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:55.720 He appointment in nineteen sev nine by Jimmy Carter can 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.640 also be seen as the start of the quote unquote 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:06.000 model an era in central banking. Uh thereafter inflation not 0:14:06.120 --> 0:14:08.840 so much of a problem, but also the idea of 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:14.920 policy and the controversy that it's sometimes courted being associated 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:17.800 with a single figure, and it sort of helps that 0:14:17.880 --> 0:14:23.360 he's this towering guy. Do you think Carter knew what 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:27.520 he was getting into when Volka was appointed? How big 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:32.520 a job was the Federal Reserve chairman back in the day. Well, 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:35.080 he describes how there was a lot of controversy he 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:38.160 knows about appointing him, and there was a camp in 0:14:38.200 --> 0:14:40.640 the Carter White House that was very opposed to appointing 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:43.560 him because they recognized he would be independent, they wouldn't 0:14:43.560 --> 0:14:45.800 be able to control him. He was likely to raise 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:48.120 interest rates a lot. That was not going to be 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.600 good for Carter and his reelection chances. And they were right, 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.200 But there were obviously other voices that persuaded him. It 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.920 was important he was going to be popular and Wills 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:01.560 read for instance, and and Carter realized the problems were 0:15:01.600 --> 0:15:04.400 so bad he couldn't get anything done that he had 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:07.160 to deal with this inflation problem and basically took a bullet, 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.440 basically agreed to do this. And it was one of 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:13.120 the things that perhaps cost some re election. But yes, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:17.400 so you have this FED chairman who's got the willingness 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.520 of the President and also his successor, Ronald Reagan, who 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.560 supported him publicly all the time to do what what 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:26.000 needed to be done. And uh, and he did it. 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.240 And that was a big difference because a lot of 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:31.000 other FED chairman had had I mean, Arthur Burns had 0:15:31.040 --> 0:15:33.880 a great you know, he was very well respected figure, 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:38.440 he was very well known, but he just didn't do 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:42.000 what was required. Through the eighties when you and I 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.760 were growing up, there was a narrative that the Carti 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:48.200 years were sort of a shorthand for American weakness and 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:52.040 American failure. That view, you know, has come into some 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:56.160 scrutiny lately, and President Carter looks better with a couple 0:15:56.200 --> 0:16:01.080 of decades hindsight. How does folk feel about President card Well, 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.760 so early in our discussions, early in our meetings, he 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:07.600 was reading the early version of Stuart Eisenstadt's book about Carter, 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.720 and there's a big chapter in there about Vulcar and uh, 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:12.680 and he was very pleased by that, you know, because 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.240 Stewart Eisenstadt was one of those people who opposed Vulcar 0:16:15.560 --> 0:16:17.040 back in the day. He was, you know, more on 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:19.760 the liberal wing. He was afraid about high interest rates. 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.880 But now in hindsight recognized and recognizes that one of 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.040 the great things that President Carter did was named Paul Wolker. 0:16:26.680 --> 0:16:28.960 And President Carter has always said that as well. So 0:16:30.040 --> 0:16:33.880 I think, you know, obviously Paul Wolker loves that, and uh, 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.200 and I think he really respects Carter and and his 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.080 willingness to do the difficult things. Um and and sort 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.200 of the way he also has behaved in his post 0:16:42.280 --> 0:16:45.160 presidency He sees him as a really great public servant 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:47.560 who hasn't quite gotten his due. He recognized this, that 0:16:47.600 --> 0:16:50.600 he made mistakes, and there are reasons that, you know, 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.760 Reagan was able to achieve things that Carter wasn't. But 0:16:54.160 --> 0:16:57.080 you know, I think he considers Carter one of the 0:16:57.080 --> 0:17:00.000 presidents he admires. For sure. It sounds like he thinks 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.159 or is still underwrited. Yes, I would say that's true, Christine. 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:09.720 In the thirty years since Vulcar left the chairmanship of 0:17:09.720 --> 0:17:15.040 the FED, he's rarely set still. He served on many 0:17:15.320 --> 0:17:21.920 public commissions, reparations for Nazi victims, the the Obama uh 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:26.359 financial regulation initiative that eventually became the Vulcar Rule. He 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:30.920 even expresses some amusement that his name always became attached 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.240 to these commissions, like the Vulgar Commission, the Vulcar this 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.760 the Vulgar that does any of these? Do any of 0:17:38.800 --> 0:17:42.960 these particular roles stand out for him as the most 0:17:43.200 --> 0:17:47.920 memorable or the most important in his post FED career. Uh? Well, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.480 I mean he talks about how pretty much the first 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.520 thing he left he left to do after leaving the 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:56.760 FED was to serve on a national commission for public service, 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:00.320 and then he immediately served on another one, and he 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.760 has devoted his career in the last few years to 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.600 an organization called the Vulkan Alliance, which is trying to 0:18:06.760 --> 0:18:10.520 improve public service. So I think that, above all is 0:18:10.560 --> 0:18:13.680 the thing that he cares about the most. Obviously these 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.960 other things. Trying to end corruption is incredibly important to him, 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:19.280 and he feels very proud of what they did, um 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.760 with getting some money back for the families of Holocaust victims, um. 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.320 But you know the thing, that thing that really strikes 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:28.320 me about all of that is that he he did 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:32.320 a lot of these very difficult, very controversial jobs that 0:18:32.400 --> 0:18:35.639 required somebody of great integrity, and he wouldn't take money 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:38.439 for that. And I sort of mentioned this to him 0:18:38.440 --> 0:18:39.920 while we were working on the book, that should we 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.439 mention you didn't take money. He said, now, so we 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:44.639 don't even have that in the book. But he he 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:47.160 really felt that it was important to do and he 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.399 didn't want to get renumerated for it. I want to 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:53.879 get back to this issue of his chairmanship and the 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.240 dawn of the modern central bank. I mean, again partly 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:01.359 helped by the break of inflation and the fact that 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:06.440 Vulcar is physically a very big guy. Do you think 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:11.159 that the cult of personality surrounding many central bankers in 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:16.920 the world today is a good thing, and more importantly, 0:19:17.320 --> 0:19:20.760 does Vulca think it's a good thing. Well, I I 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:22.920 don't think we ever talked about the cult of personality, 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:24.800 but I'll tell you a few things that he said 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.840 that sort of connected to that. One is that it 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.240 bothers him that he's sometimes criticized for being having been 0:19:31.359 --> 0:19:34.480 secretive at the FED. And he will point out that 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.880 there was one year he testified in front of Congress 0:19:36.920 --> 0:19:39.800 something like thirty four times. He felt he was on 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:42.760 things like the Sunday Morning Meet the Press shows, which 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:44.919 you don't see the FED chairman do anymore. He was 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.160 very out there, So it bothers him that he's sort 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:52.879 of sometimes tagged with the secrecy thing. He also feels 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:55.320 very strongly that it's helpful to have central bankers who 0:19:55.320 --> 0:19:59.280 aren't just academic economists. He reserves a little bit of 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:02.960 scorn for the academic economists in the book, and things 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:05.640 like econometrics he's not a fan of. Well. He talks 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:07.920 about how how he was going to get his PhD 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.480 but kept putting it off and putting it off. Yeah, yeah, 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:13.480 he never He never did his dissertation, and he really 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:16.800 feels what he what he learned about economics that served 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:19.480 him well was understanding the psychology of the market from 0:20:19.520 --> 0:20:21.560 sitting on the trading desk at the New York FED 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.240 and from being a chase for two stints in his 0:20:25.320 --> 0:20:28.320 early career and working in the Treasury department. So he 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.840 is very supportive of having people at the FED who 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:35.520 aren't just academic economists. So I'd say, you know, the 0:20:35.520 --> 0:20:37.880 current FED chairman who served in the Treasury, he served 0:20:37.920 --> 0:20:40.919 in business. He's he likes that about him. That's what 0:20:41.000 --> 0:20:45.200 I would say. More than anything, he thinks you should 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.400 have people who really understand the markets in the real world. Christine, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:52.439 on a lighter note, I learned some new words in 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:54.639 this book, and there was one in particular on page 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.520 one oh nine called disappeal. I guess it's a French 0:20:58.560 --> 0:21:00.680 word and it means the state of being dressed only 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.040 partially or nightclothes. And it doesn't that make the book 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:08.040 sound sexy? Don't you want to run into that? Central 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:12.040 Banking is sexy, but full of words like that that 0:21:12.080 --> 0:21:14.320 doesn't really use it in a in a sexy ways 0:21:14.240 --> 0:21:19.200 us to refer to some people protesting the FEDS monetary policy. 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:24.160 But I understand that he did have a very fascinating vocabulary. 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:26.200 Can you tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.199 I mean that. One thing that was interesting to me 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:30.680 as sort of the professional writer who came into that 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:34.800 exercise and him being a you know, central banker and 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.920 government official, was how often I would come across these 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.560 words that he would use that I'd say, Wow, that's 0:21:42.560 --> 0:21:46.720 an interesting, unusual word, and I'd look it up and 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.240 and he'd nailed it. He'd find that he'd find these 0:21:49.440 --> 0:21:51.960 uses of words that I wouldn't. And I did look 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:53.320 in this book because I wanted to talk about it. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:55.360 I couldn't find any quick examples. But that's a good 0:21:55.359 --> 0:21:58.119 one that dil. We had a whole debate about whether 0:21:58.200 --> 0:21:59.840 that was really the right word. We looked it up 0:21:59.840 --> 0:22:04.280 in various dictionaries. But he cared immensely about word choice, 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:06.960 and he would go back and forth and come up 0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:09.320 with exactly. You know, we we discuss what is the 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:12.640 best word to describe this person? You know? And and 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:17.520 when you read Minutes, you see how much of the 0:22:17.560 --> 0:22:20.439 discussion often comes down to how do we communicate this 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:23.760 particular idea and what what wording should we use in 0:22:23.760 --> 0:22:28.639 the statement, because so much about how central bankers communicate 0:22:28.760 --> 0:22:31.760 and and do their job is through word choice and 0:22:32.040 --> 0:22:35.720 writing and communications and and so so he does have 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.480 this gift for language, which I hadn't really anticipated when 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.320 I went into it. I've written thousands of words about 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:44.639 one or two words in the FED statement. I can 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:47.159 exactly agree with that. On the subject of the minutes. 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:50.800 Back to the transparency issue, it is also true we've 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:54.840 become accustomed two minutes of each Federal Open Market Committee 0:22:54.840 --> 0:22:59.000 meeting coming out three weeks after that meeting. That didn't 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.040