Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: As we turn out to an important conversation. I've said
Speaker 2: it more than once today, we are throwing the best
Speaker 2: of Bloomberg at this election coverage, and of course that
Speaker 2: includes our colleague, Bloomberg's Wall Street Week anchor David Weston,
Speaker 2: who joins us now for a special conversation with Larry Summers,
Speaker 2: the former US Treasury Secretary and Wall Street Week contributor.
Speaker 3: David.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Joe, Thank you very much, Chris. That is the
Speaker 4: very best of Bloomberg is Larry Summers, who's our special
Speaker 4: contributor in Wall Street and of course belong identic with Harvard.
Speaker 4: We're on the edge of the Harvard campus right here
Speaker 4: in Cambridge. Larry, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3: Good to be with you.
Speaker 4: It's election day, Election night. What's done your mind?
Speaker 1: I'm nervous and watching like everybody else. No one knows
Speaker 1: what's going to happen, and it's foolish to try to predict.
Speaker 1: I'm struck that Kamala Harris, I think, has had a
Speaker 1: very good week. Her at the Lincoln Memorial was a
Speaker 1: very different thing than Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden,
Speaker 1: the vibes are pretty clearly moving one way. Women have
Speaker 1: turned out on an epic scale. I'm told the exit
Speaker 1: polls are saying democracies the primary issue. So I have
Speaker 1: a feeling that there may be a fair sized turn
Speaker 1: in her direction. But look, we'll know the answer in
Speaker 1: a few hours, and no one can really know, so
Speaker 1: we'll just have to We'll just have to see. But
Speaker 1: who's ever the next president? They are going to have
Speaker 1: quite a difficult and challenging inbox on the economy.
Speaker 4: Well, that's what I want to talk about, because time
Speaker 4: will tell. We'll see how much time it is is
Speaker 4: required to tell, but we'll know sooner or later whether
Speaker 4: it's Donald Trump, oconwall Aris, whoever it is. When they
Speaker 4: walk into the Oval office, what in terms of economics
Speaker 4: will they have on their desk?
Speaker 1: Look, the positive thing they're going to have is that
Speaker 1: the American economy has been epically strong in a structural
Speaker 1: sense throughout the twenty five century. We've grown far more
Speaker 1: rapidly than Europe, far more rapidly than Japan. China is
Speaker 1: really having a lot of trouble. The American economy and
Speaker 1: American companies capacity to deal with technology is really quite
Speaker 1: extraordinary and is a huge source of strength for our country.
Speaker 1: And that is an enormous asset. And we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about all the problems, but I'd rather be playing
Speaker 1: the hand of the United States than the hand of
Speaker 1: any other country. That said, just because things are going
Speaker 1: your way doesn't mean there aren't huge challenges. We have
Speaker 1: a huge national security challenge in a way we have
Speaker 1: not since the end of the Cold War.
Speaker 3: The combined axis of.
Speaker 1: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea is at to our long
Speaker 1: run security interests the likes of which we have not
Speaker 1: seen probably in two generations. And the best way to
Speaker 1: respond to that is with economic strength, and that starts
Speaker 1: from a painful question, how long can the world's greatest
Speaker 1: debt or remain the world's greatest power. And we do
Speaker 1: not have a national debt and deficit situation that is
Speaker 1: currently on a sustainable basis. There is no way that
Speaker 1: you can debate whether we go three years, whether we
Speaker 1: go five years, whether we go one year, whether we
Speaker 1: go fifteen years.
Speaker 3: But there is no argument that the.
Speaker 1: Current path is likely to be sustainable. And that means
Speaker 1: that we need some very difficult adjustments. Those adjustments are
Speaker 1: not going to come given the security environment from cutting
Speaker 1: national defense. I think it's politically extremely difficult. And in
Speaker 1: a world where the top social security benefit is for
Speaker 1: an individual forty or forty five thousand dollars, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's especially attractive to think about cutting social security
Speaker 1: benefits as a response. So we are going to need
Speaker 1: to raise revenue as a country, and that's why the
Speaker 1: most important thing that the President of the United States
Speaker 1: is going to deal with on the economy in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five is going to be the tax system, and
Speaker 1: is going to be all those provisions that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: put in place that are scheduled to expire, and how
Speaker 1: we deal with it, and whether we're able to raise
Speaker 1: revenue on a substantial scale to start putting the deficit
Speaker 1: on a healthy path.
Speaker 3: That's probably going.
Speaker 1: To be the most important issue for the new president.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, they've got to keep things going in a
Speaker 1: way that maintains confidence. I'm hugely troubled by what Candidate
Speaker 1: Trump has said about he's going to advise and guide
Speaker 1: the Federal Reserve system. We've had a lot of history
Speaker 1: with presidents telling the Fed what to do, and none
Speaker 1: of it is happy. In the end, it leads to
Speaker 1: higher interest rates because the Fed doesn't listen that much,
Speaker 1: and so short rates don't change, and the market does listen,
Speaker 1: and so long rates go up. I've been disturbed by
Speaker 1: things I've heard about trashing the dollar and.
Speaker 3: Hoping that the dollar goes down.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of restiveness out there with respect to
Speaker 1: the dollar. I don't think there's a viable alternative to
Speaker 1: the dollar as the world's reserve currency, and I think
Speaker 1: we're going to maintain that competitive advantage. But gosh, we
Speaker 1: can't maintain it if our goal becomes to reduce the
Speaker 1: value of the dollar. So doing something about the deficit,
Speaker 1: being macroeconomically responsible.
Speaker 3: And then here's the big thing.
Speaker 1: Being a country that can get things done. We used
Speaker 1: to be a country that could build highways. It costs
Speaker 1: three times as much now per mile of highways as
Speaker 1: it did foury or fifty years ago, even after controlling
Speaker 1: for inflation. Projects that we used to do quickly now
Speaker 1: take huge, long periods of time. We have got to
Speaker 1: be a country again that can get things done. That
Speaker 1: means looking at excesses of regulation. That also means making
Speaker 1: sure that there's a predictable environment for business. So I
Speaker 1: hope the new president is going to focus on these
Speaker 1: questions of making it possible to do things quickly. Look,
Speaker 1: we've got a huge revolution coming, David, in terms of
Speaker 1: what artificial intelligence can do, what it can do to
Speaker 1: support workers to increase their productivity.
Speaker 3: But that's going to require energy.
Speaker 1: It's going to require immense amounts of electricity, and that
Speaker 1: electricity is going to have to be transmitted from one
Speaker 1: place to another. And we're going to have to be
Speaker 1: a country that can build transmission lines, that can actually
Speaker 1: take decisions and in the length of time it took
Speaker 1: to fight World War Two three and a half years,
Speaker 1: actually build transmission transmission lines. So that set of issues
Speaker 1: around being able to get things done is I think
Speaker 1: really going to be crucial for who's ever the next
Speaker 1: time president.
Speaker 4: So let me go back to some of those very
Speaker 4: important points and start with the debt and the deficit.
Speaker 4: It does strike me that you think that is really
Speaker 4: an important thing to address, and yet neither of these
Speaker 4: two candidates, whoever ends up being president, really has come
Speaker 4: up with a plan for dealing with that. To be sure,
Speaker 4: the analysis suggests that a Kamala Harris's president would dig
Speaker 4: the hole a little less fast, but it would still
Speaker 4: be digging a hole. She'd still extend some of the
Speaker 4: Trump tax cuts. So does the next president, whoever it is,
Speaker 4: whichever candidate is, do they have the support of the
Speaker 4: American people to make some of those tough decisions that
Speaker 4: you talk about, particularly with the Congress that may be resisting.
Speaker 1: Support the American people depends on how they're led, And
Speaker 1: it's going to be an important part of the task
Speaker 1: of the next president to educate the public, to identify
Speaker 1: crucial challenges not just to our prosperity but to our security,
Speaker 1: and get people to support the actions that are next necessary. No, David,
Speaker 1: I don't think that consensus has been built during the
Speaker 1: presidential campaign, but I hope it will be built over time,
Speaker 1: and sooner or later, I don't know which it is.
Speaker 1: There are people who think it's really very imminent. They
Speaker 1: might be right, I'm not sure. Sooner or later, the
Speaker 1: bond market's going to do some of the educating, and
Speaker 1: when interest rates spike, that will be a moment that
Speaker 1: will change many people's views, many people's sense of urgency
Speaker 1: around these deficit issues. And so my guess is that
Speaker 1: we're going to probably be in a situation where, once again,
Speaker 1: in a democracy, fear does the work of reason, and
Speaker 1: so we'll get a moment when the interest rates spike
Speaker 1: and that will drive more constructive action.
Speaker 3: It would be better if we could.
Speaker 1: Prevent it and solve the problem before the problem makes
Speaker 1: itself manifest.
Speaker 3: But that's not going to be easy.
Speaker 4: And we have had some rumblings in the guilt markets
Speaker 4: with respect to some of the fiscal steps taking over
Speaker 4: the UK that might indicate may be a little bit
Speaker 4: shaky here. How do you position yourself to deal with
Speaker 4: that fear that you talk about when in fact a
Speaker 4: crisis comes. If there's a debt crisis.
Speaker 1: I think you need to start by emphasizing that our
Speaker 1: debt is unsustainable, that an important part of the national
Speaker 1: strategy has to be making it sustainable. That some of
Speaker 1: making it sustainable is accelerating the rate of economic growth,
Speaker 1: because the faster you're growing, the more debt you can afford,
Speaker 1: and the more tax revenue the government takes. But you
Speaker 1: can't solve the whole problem just by accelerating growth, and
Speaker 1: so people are going to have to accept that there
Speaker 1: are changes that are going to be necessary. My own
Speaker 1: instinct is that most of those are going to need
Speaker 1: to be on the revenue side, and there's plenty of
Speaker 1: room for raising revenue. You look at the tremendous sums
Speaker 1: of money they are passed in estates that almost completely
Speaker 1: avoid a state taxation, and there's something important to do there.
Speaker 1: I think President Trump made a serious and the Congress
Speaker 1: made a serious policy error when they cut the corporate
Speaker 1: tax rate all the way down to twenty one percent.
Speaker 1: That's less than the Business Roundtable was asking for at
Speaker 1: that time. I think we should be reversing some of
Speaker 1: those taxing tax cuts.
Speaker 3: There's room to.
Speaker 1: Raise revenue from and that's where it should start from
Speaker 1: those at the very top of the income just But
Speaker 1: I think ultimately we may need.
Speaker 3: To do more than that.
Speaker 1: We may need to raise revenues to finance social security
Speaker 1: and medicare more fully, given that the burdens of those
Speaker 1: programs are going up as people live longer and a
Speaker 1: larger fraction of our population is aged.
Speaker 4: One of the things that has been in this campaign
Speaker 4: is growth, and to some extent the extent of which regulation,
Speaker 4: excessive regulation, may be impeding the growth.
Speaker 3: That we otherwise would have.
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris has not been outspoken about deregulation at all,
Speaker 4: whereas Donald Trump has. Is she going to change a
Speaker 4: position if she becomes president.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to speak for anybody except myself. Look,
Speaker 1: I don't think the right way to frame this is
Speaker 1: regulation or no regulation. I think the right way to
Speaker 1: frame this is smart regulation. And I think we've had
Speaker 1: a lot of regulation that hasn't been smart, that has
Speaker 1: chilled things in quite dangerous.
Speaker 3: Ways. I think that we are less energy secure than.
Speaker 1: We would be if we'd had more appropriate regulatory policies.
Speaker 1: I think with this huge surge and electricity demand that
Speaker 1: we're going to have, we have to find ways of
Speaker 1: reducing regulation so that we can cite power plants and
Speaker 1: so that we can transmit electricity more effectively than we can.
Speaker 1: There are real issues about monopoly. There are important issues
Speaker 1: about monopoly, and we need to have strong enforcement of
Speaker 1: the antitrust law. But do we really need for more
Speaker 1: than half of the fortune five hundred by value to
Speaker 1: be subject to anti trust investigation?
Speaker 3: I doubt it.
Speaker 1: At a time when American companies, particularly in the technology area,
Speaker 1: are involved in existential struggles with companies in the rest
Speaker 1: of the world, sometimes the job of our government should
Speaker 1: be to support our national champions rather than to try
Speaker 1: to break our national champions apart. So I think there
Speaker 1: are things we really do need to look at in
Speaker 1: the regulatory area at the same time.
Speaker 3: At the same time, there.
Speaker 1: Are areas where there are new technologies coming forward where
Speaker 1: we don't have any regulatory framework at all, and we
Speaker 1: need to put in place an appropriate regulatory framework. Not
Speaker 1: because most businesses are bad. Most businesses want to do
Speaker 1: the right thing. But the problem when you don't have
Speaker 1: regulation is that the bad actors are able to cut prices,
Speaker 1: are able to cut product quality, or able to sell
Speaker 1: dangerous products and make it hard for the good.
Speaker 3: Actors to compete.
Speaker 1: So we need pro market smart regulation, and that's the
Speaker 1: way the debate should be framed, not the sterile debate
Speaker 1: about more or less.
Speaker 3: Larry, it's great to be with here in Cambridge. Thank
Speaker 3: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 4: And that is Larry, some of yourself Harvard former of
Speaker 4: course Secretary of the Treasury,