WEBVTT - Interview with Jeffrey Sachs: Masters in Business (Audio) 0:00:00.120 --> 0:00:02.320 Masters in Business is brought to you by the American 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:07.160 Arbitration Association. Business disputes are inevitable, Resolve Faster with the 0:00:07.160 --> 0:00:12.240 American Arbitration Association, the global leader in alternative dispute resolution 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.800 for over ninety years. Learn more at a d R 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:22.720 dot org. This is Masters in Business with Very Ridholts 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:26.159 on Bloomberg Radio. This week on the podcast, I have 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:31.040 Professor Jeffrey Sachs, and this is really a fascinating conversation 0:00:31.560 --> 0:00:35.040 and it doesn't get very wonky. We talked about all 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:41.040 sorts of things, from sustainable investing to where President Trump 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.720 should be spending his infrastructure dollars. Uh. There are so 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:50.800 many things that Professor Sachs has experience and expertise in. 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:56.520 If you are all interested in macroeconomics, in sustainable investing, 0:00:57.200 --> 0:01:01.920 in a variety of issues that lie at the intersection 0:01:02.640 --> 0:01:06.880 of politics, technology and economics, then I think you'll find 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:11.240 this conversation quite fascinating. So, with no further ado, my 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:18.200 conversation with Professor Jeffrey Sachs. This is Masters in Business 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:23.399 with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.920 is Professor Jeffrey Sachs. Of Columbia University. I am going 0:01:27.959 --> 0:01:30.920 to give you a greatly abbreviated version of his CV, 0:01:31.160 --> 0:01:34.760 otherwise will have no time left for questions. He is 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.280 the University professor at Columbia. It is the highest rank 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:43.040 the university bestows on any faculty member. UH. He is 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.039 an economist director of the Earth Institute. He's written numerous 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:52.120 New York Times bestsellers, The End of Poverty, Commonwealth, and 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.120 the Price of Civilization. His most recent book is Building 0:01:56.160 --> 0:02:00.680 the New American Economy, Smart, Fair and Sustainable. He has 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:06.840 advised countries such as Bolivia, Poland, Slovenia, Estonia, and Russia 0:02:07.200 --> 0:02:11.440 as to how to become market based economies. I can 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:16.600 describe his background forever. But rather than just dwell on 0:02:16.760 --> 0:02:19.000 his advice to the World Bank, to the Organization of 0:02:19.040 --> 0:02:22.960 Economic Cooperation, to the World's Health Organization, why don't I 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.119 just say, Professor Jeffrey Sachs, welcome to Bloomberg. Hey, Verry, 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.600 thank you very much. Great to be here. So our 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.880 timing couldn't be more auspicious, because we've entered a uh 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.840 somewhat new era, it seems, following the election and questions 0:02:37.919 --> 0:02:45.079 about jobs and productivity and sustainability and inequality are everywhere. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.440 So so let's let's jump right into this. In in 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.320 one of your books, you reference that you had an 0:02:52.360 --> 0:02:57.440 economic vision beyond g DP. What does that mean? We're 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.280 pretty rich in this country. And if you just look 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:06.600 at our total output, our gross domestic product and divided 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:14.000 by the population, were at some dollars or so per person, 0:03:14.360 --> 0:03:20.320 pretty darn good. It's risen basically three times in the 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.600 last half century. And yet we don't feel so good. 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:27.920 And this is a paradox. It actually even has a 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:33.320 name in academic economics. It's called the Easterland paradox, named 0:03:33.320 --> 0:03:38.080 after a professor at a University of Pennsylvania who tracked 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:41.600 the data and he looked at how Americans think about 0:03:41.640 --> 0:03:46.480 their happiness over the last fifty years. And the economy says, 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.040 the economy is going up, but the happiness is stuck. 0:03:49.080 --> 0:03:52.040 And I just looked at the very most recent data 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:55.240 and not surprisingly, the happiness actually going down. It's not 0:03:55.320 --> 0:04:00.560 even treading water anymore. So America Americans feel that we're 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:05.360 off track. Uh, there's a lot of unhappiness, disgruntlement where 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:07.640 at each other's throats. We don't trust our government, We 0:04:07.640 --> 0:04:11.040 don't trust each other, and that means that we're not 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:15.440 getting what we would have expected to get out of 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:18.880 all this affluence. And in this sense, since an economy 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.280 is basically to serve the human purpose, it's not to 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:24.599 make numbers in a table of G n P. It's 0:04:24.640 --> 0:04:30.480 to help make us prosperous, healthy, happy, and it's not 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.919 happening right now. We need to look more deeply at why. So, 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:40.280 so let's discuss that Thomas Picketty's book really resonated with 0:04:40.320 --> 0:04:42.919 a lot of a lot of people. Uh, it was 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:47.240 really a very deep dive into economic inequality. But when 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:52.360 we look at the data, inequality has been expanding for decades. Now, 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.640 why has it taken so long for this to reach 0:04:55.680 --> 0:04:58.680 a boiling point? Well, I think it is like a 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:03.120 boiling point, which is that you can put the pot 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.400 on the stove and for a while you don't see 0:05:05.400 --> 0:05:10.200 any bubbles, and then it does start boiling. And I 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.599 think that exactly, you know, you warm the frog who 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.039 just sits in the water until they're they're gone, And 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:22.160 I think that for us, Uh, we see really now 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:26.760 for almost four decades a rise of inequality, and for 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:31.200 a while we were just into the greed is good category. 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.479 In the eighties that was a new boom period. And 0:05:34.520 --> 0:05:36.760 then with the end of the Cold War, we thought, Okay, 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:38.839 now we're going to have our big peace dividend, and 0:05:38.839 --> 0:05:41.680 then we went back to World War War UH in 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:46.040 at the start of this century. And yet all through 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:51.719 this the economy has expanded, technology has improved, and inequality 0:05:51.800 --> 0:05:54.480 has widened, and more and more Americans say they don't 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:56.960 like government, they don't trust each other, and they're not 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:02.760 so happy. So it's really, in this sense, very peculiar 0:06:04.760 --> 0:06:10.080 unsatisfying moment for America. And I think the election of 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:15.120 Donald Trump, which is a signal of the most divided 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:20.040 we've ever been in in the last century, UH is 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.800 really making us take another look at all of this. 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.240 I just read a fascinating study, and I'm sure I'm 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:33.320 getting this slightly wrong. Something like a third of the 0:06:33.360 --> 0:06:37.880 opponents of Obamacare don't realize the A c A and 0:06:37.960 --> 0:06:42.040 Obamacare are the same thing. How much of this discontent 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:45.839 is genuine people are actually hurting, and how much of 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:51.000 it is a product of people being either uninformed or misinformed. 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:57.039 I think that the discontent is real. I think the 0:06:57.160 --> 0:07:03.080 mood is surly. We clearly have a real cultural divide 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.119 in this country, because when you look at the election map, 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.320 the big cities by and large go for the Democrats, 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.760 and the rural areas and the smaller towns and the 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:18.880 suburbs more or less go for the Republicans. And that's 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.160 not true just in the most recent elections. So that 0:07:22.240 --> 0:07:26.600 division is really quite real. The perceptions of the world 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:31.240 are quite different. Um, and why we're not able to 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:38.600 use our clear much greater wealth, our ability to solve problems, 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.120 to camp this down. Why we are at the boiling 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.840 point is a bit of a mystery. Not every country 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:48.760 is like ours, that is at each other's throats. Were 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:51.840 not alone in this though. By the way, it's Brexit 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:57.760 and France exactly. All of that signals that this cultural 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.800 divide is real. I'm very rital. You're listening to Masters 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:05.120 in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest today is 0:08:05.160 --> 0:08:10.560 Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University. His latest book, and 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:14.320 I'm grabbing it right here, Building the New American Economy, Smart, 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:19.160 Fair and Sustainable, with a forward by Bernie Sanders. So 0:08:19.360 --> 0:08:23.080 let's talk a little bit about the new American economy 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:27.240 as much as we've been hearing that globalization is the enemy, 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:32.040 how accurate is that compared to the rise of robots, 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:35.719 the rise of artificial intelligence. It's been famously said by 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:40.120 some venture capitalists software is eating everything. How much of 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:43.640 this is technology and how much of this is really globalization? 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:48.200 Globalization is not the enemy. Globalization is the reality. We 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:53.520 have global scale production systems, global scale payment systems, global 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:59.040 scale communication systems, global scale internet, and it's gonna be 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:03.640 that way because is it's just so productive. And that's 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:07.800 what makes a world economy that's now a hundred twenty 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:12.960 five trillion dollars uh, And that means a world economy 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:19.120 that is about seventeen thousand dollars per person on this planet. 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:25.120 Really amazing, unbelievable productivity. And that's why globalization is not 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:29.480 going away, because we depend on it for prosperity. How 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:35.040 much does technology enabled globalization? Well, technologies everything, even something 0:09:35.080 --> 0:09:39.880 that one might not even think of as technology, a 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:44.320 standardized container that you can load and unload. That was 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:48.720 an invention in the early nineties sixties. There's a wonderful 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:52.400 book called The Box that's the history of you got it. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.160 It's really quite fast and and you know that seems 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:58.480 pretty basic, but it was the ability to standardize international 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:01.320 trade that was fundamental, or the rise of East Asia. 0:10:01.760 --> 0:10:04.880 But more than that, of course, computer assisted design and 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:11.800 manufacturing and then ubiquitous broadband and standardization of information systems 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.840 and digitization are of course transforming the whole world, transforming 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.760 every sector of the world, disrupting every sector of the 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.200 world on the whole, adding to our well being and 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.880 our productivity, but not uniformally. That's a big part in 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:32.400 any technology revolution. You have people that are left behind, 0:10:32.440 --> 0:10:37.280 people who are put unemployed. Uh, And the decency of 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:40.719 a normal society is to say, we continue with progress, 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.000 but we make sure that we don't open up large 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.360 pockets of poverty. And so you're really addressing something right 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:51.920 here that is key to the discontent that's out there. 0:10:51.960 --> 0:10:58.560 What is the proper role of government in supporting a 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:04.439 middle American blue collar working class that are losing their 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:08.920 jobs to technology. What's the proper response. The proper response, 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.839 which should have been a response already thirty years ago, 0:11:12.360 --> 0:11:16.680 is we're here to help with retraining, with real skilling, 0:11:17.360 --> 0:11:22.640 with the tuition coverage, with the support for your children 0:11:22.720 --> 0:11:28.640 to get a decent education. That's what normal good societies do. 0:11:28.920 --> 0:11:32.680 I would put Canada in that list. I had put 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:38.560 countries in Scandinavia, put Germany in that list. In recent decades, 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:43.280 in the United States, we had an odd lurch from that, 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:50.600 and that started on January twenty Ronald Reagan stepped up 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:53.360 to take the oath and he said, the government is 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.199 not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem. 0:11:57.240 --> 0:11:59.440 And we had, for the first time in the United 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:04.600 States in modern American history, a president who said I'm 0:12:04.640 --> 0:12:08.840 here to preside over the dismantling of basic functions of 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:11.680 government because government is the problem. I think it was 0:12:11.720 --> 0:12:15.520 a lousy diagnosis back in nineteen one. We've lived with 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:20.040 it for thirty five years, and uh, we're in our 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:22.440 thirty sixth year of that right now, and I think 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:28.160 it's a big mistake. It It appeals though, for one basic, 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.360 overwhelming reason. Everybody in our country loves tax cuts. And 0:12:33.480 --> 0:12:36.720 so if you say we were gonna cut government down 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:40.040 to size, and we're gonna give you our umteenth middle 0:12:40.080 --> 0:12:44.760 class tax cut, everyone jumps up and says, hussah. And 0:12:45.000 --> 0:12:48.640 this is really a big problem. I I say that 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:52.760 fundamentally America is failing the marshmallow test. Uh, you know 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:58.480 the famous cost of can we delay gratification for a moment? Well, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:01.480 clearly the richest people in our country can't because they're 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:05.000 so desperate for their next tax cut, and a lot 0:13:05.040 --> 0:13:08.520 of other people are enticed to believe, uh, we're going 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:10.960 to give you another tax cut. But what we're really 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.600 doing is gutting the budget so that the budget can 0:13:15.600 --> 0:13:19.760 no longer provide decent education. It can no longer guarantee 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:25.080 basic healthcare, it can no longer provide a childcare. It 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:29.160 can't guarantee as so many countries do, paid vacation, which 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.920 for Americans, oh my god, how could it be? But 0:13:32.080 --> 0:13:35.400 most high income countries the world have guaranteed paid vacation. 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.800 Most high income countries in the world have guaranteed maternity, 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:44.480 even father's the time off for for newborns. It's decent, 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.200 you know, you think, Okay, we worked so hard as 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.960 a civilization for hundreds of years to get this wealth. 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:54.400 Let's enjoy it a little bit. Let the mom stay 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.560 home with the kids. But I paid for it. What 0:13:57.679 --> 0:14:01.760 I find so fascinating about the tax cut issue is 0:14:02.400 --> 0:14:07.440 I don't ever recall there being a schism amongst the 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.160 top one percent of the top one percent on issues 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.240 like tax cuts. So you have on one side of 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:18.160 the aisle Warren Buffett and Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.280 and a run of left of center hedge fund managers 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:25.640 who are worth billions who say, you know, I pay 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:30.120 a lot of taxes, but I also, as was famously said, uh, 0:14:30.400 --> 0:14:33.479 taxes are the price of living in a civilized society. 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:37.080 You know. They can't spend this money, so they're trying 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.480 to figure out ways to give away billions of dollars. 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:41.880 They don't need more tax cuts. It's not going to 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.600 do anything for their incentives, for their work effort, for 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:49.000 their creativity. These people want to make a mark on 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.120 the world. It's not that they need another billion dollars. 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:58.000 They're trying to form new companies, new technologies, anticipate the 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:01.160 new ways to do things, and there's saying, really, stop 0:15:01.240 --> 0:15:04.480 it already. Of course, others are saying, my god, I'm 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.720 only twenty three on the Forbes list. I gotta get 0:15:07.760 --> 0:15:09.840 to sixteen on the fourth How did you show your 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:14.840 face at the club as number twenty seven billion dollars 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:20.040 net worth? You know, my friend down the block has 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:24.000 a twenty three billion It's absurd and and and that 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:26.880 is a big part of it. I'm Barry Rihults. You're 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:30.160 listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special 0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:34.360 guest today is Professor Jeffrey Sachs. He holds the title 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:38.560 of University Professor. It's the highest rank Columbia bestows on 0:15:38.640 --> 0:15:42.640 any faculty member. He's written multiple best sellers, most recently 0:15:43.160 --> 0:15:46.680 Building the New American Economy. Let's talk a little bit 0:15:46.720 --> 0:15:52.360 about the global fight against poverty and hunger. Um. You 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:55.000 were at Harvard for a long time. One of your colleagues, 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:59.400 Stephen Pinker, wrote a wonderful book called The Better Angels 0:15:59.440 --> 0:16:03.280 of Our Nature Sure, and within it he describes how 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.840 despite the terrible parade of news we see, there's never 0:16:07.880 --> 0:16:11.080 been a better time to be a human on this planet. 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:16.760 Uh inequality on a global basis has shrunk, Poverty has shrunk, 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.080 starvation is shrunk. War wars are are less. Less people 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:23.840 are dying in wars than ever before. Violent crime has 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:27.920 fallen into record lows. The number of children who are 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:32.600 nutritionally deficient are at all time lows. So what does 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:37.760 this say about the fight against global hunger and starvation. 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.200 It is indeed good news. The only footnote I would 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:46.120 add to the list is that on war, my god, 0:16:46.160 --> 0:16:50.600 we're so bad at peace that don't believe trends. Just 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.840 keep fighting against new wars. But on all the other trends, 0:16:54.960 --> 0:16:57.320 I think they're real, and I do think they're long term. 0:16:57.320 --> 0:16:59.320 I wrote a book in two thousand five called The 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:01.960 End of Popery where I said, we could end extreme 0:17:02.000 --> 0:17:06.160 poverty on the planet in our generation. That's indeed what 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:11.080 the trends show. For me. It's not only good news, though, 0:17:11.119 --> 0:17:13.560 it's a little bit of anguish, because when you see 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:18.280 that suffering can be stopped because we have the tools 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.600 to do it, and it's not stopped even though the 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:26.040 numbers of those trapped in poverty are going down, you 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.320 perhaps feel a little bit more anguish. And that's how 0:17:29.359 --> 0:17:32.359 I feel about it. We have nearly a billion people 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:36.600 still in extreme poverty as a share of the world population. 0:17:37.240 --> 0:17:40.600 The estimates are that it's around ten percent of the 0:17:40.640 --> 0:17:47.399 world population. Now what used to be back before the revolution. 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.879 Uh and uh, I know that we could bring it 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.239 down to essentially zero in a short period of How 0:17:55.240 --> 0:17:58.159 would we do that? I was involved over the last 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:02.119 fifteen years, and something called the Millennium Development Goals, which 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:05.760 were the u n's objectives to fight poverty. I recommended 0:18:05.800 --> 0:18:09.320 back in two thousand and two thousand one that we 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:14.520 established a new fund to fight AIDS, TB and malaria. 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:17.919 I was delighted to hear just yesterday talking to some 0:18:18.000 --> 0:18:20.760 of the experts that there are now eighteen million people 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.760 around the world alive because they're getting access to the 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:30.680 medicines that fight the AIDS virus. And I misremembering, did 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:34.920 you work with the Bush administration AIDS program in Africa? Absolutely, 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:37.920 that was a wildly successful program and by the way, 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:41.200 very interesting because I went in to see Condoles Rice 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:45.399 in two thousand one February at the National Security Council 0:18:45.440 --> 0:18:47.439 in the situation room with the White House, and I 0:18:47.560 --> 0:18:51.400 pitched a US program for three billion dollars a year 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.240 to fight AIDS, and Uh, she was very nice. Had 0:18:54.280 --> 0:18:56.560 the NSC there asked me back in a couple of 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:58.960 couple of weeks after that, I came back a second time, 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:02.439 and then the President's Economic adviser walked me out of 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:04.159 the West Wing and said, Jeff, you know that was 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:07.600 pretty good, Uh, pretty persuasive. But don't hold your breath, 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.720 you know, this is just not our thing. Well, it 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:12.800 turned out to be the president's thing, by the way. 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.320 I don't think he came into office knowing that he 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.600 was going to be the great AIDS champion. But by 0:19:17.640 --> 0:19:21.880 some measures, it's the most successful program under the Bush administration. 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:25.760 It surpassed all its targets. Not only did it work, 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.560 but the President said in a op ed afterwards, said 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.119 this is my proudest legacy. Wonderful, thank you. It's great. 0:19:33.480 --> 0:19:36.960 And so Obama went in to see early in two 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:41.119 thousand nine and I pitched a similar thing, and he said, no, 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:43.800 we don't have the votes. And I was pretty disappointed 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:46.280 by the way, you know, because it's not a matter 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:50.520 of votes, it's a matter of leadership. And strangely enough, 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:56.399 neither Clinton or Obama really did much in international assistance. 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.600 George W. Bush, who I disagreed with on a lot 0:19:59.600 --> 0:20:03.080 of other things, became the champion of fighting disease abroad. 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:07.720 With Trump. You know, he comes in with the reportedly 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.960 pretty surly attitude towards AID. But you never know because 0:20:11.280 --> 0:20:13.919 he may say, and rightly so, by the way, that 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:16.879 for a small amount of money, we could ensure that 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:20.600 kids everywhere are in school and don't get radicalized. That 0:20:20.640 --> 0:20:25.600 would be a really smart investment future security component billion dollars, 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.280 and you'd be able if we pulled together, say with China, 0:20:29.359 --> 0:20:33.080 with Germany, with others, into a global fund for education. 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:37.880 We could stop the child soldiers, we could stop the radicalization. 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:40.360 We could stop the fact that kids are growing up 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:44.399 without schooling and therefore can't get jobs in the one 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.960 I think you have a trip coming up to d CS, Well, 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:49.720 I'm ready to go any moment. I'm very rich Helts. 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.960 You're listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.560 special guest today is Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:01.359 formerly of Harvard, and let's talk a little bit about 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:07.040 UM infrastructure, sustainability, and and some changes that are taking place. 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.560 Let's start with infrastructure. We heard from both candidates during 0:21:11.600 --> 0:21:16.639 the election that they each wanted a trillion dollar infrastructure. 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.240 If you were tapped by the president to say, Jeff 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.520 I need some advice as to where to spend the 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:26.159 trillion dollars on on US infrastructure, what sort of advice 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:28.480 would you give him? I would tell him how to 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.680 get good advice, because what I would do is say, 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.840 let's go down the block from the White House to 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:40.440 the National Academy of Engineering. We have the world's leading engineers, 0:21:40.520 --> 0:21:46.480 and get some really good advice on connectivity, on smart grids, 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:51.800 on renewable energy, of which our country has unbelievable amounts 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:57.080 from onshore wind, offshore wind, solar power, hydropower. Uh, and 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.080 let's make a system design. You know, when I was 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.399 growing up, which is a long time ago, UH, the 0:22:04.480 --> 0:22:09.000 Interstate Highway system was being built, started in the fifties. 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:12.400 I was one year old when that was the first voted. 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.920 It went on for thirty years. To me, very interesting 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:19.199 because what do we do in our country anymore that 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.879 takes thirty years. But that was an important investment. It 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:29.200 went through Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter. UH. It 0:22:29.280 --> 0:22:34.000 was basically a across all the political lines. We paid 0:22:34.040 --> 0:22:36.560 for it with the gasoline tax and said we want 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.679 to have a modern highway system. Now we need a 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:43.159 modern grid. We need to bring the wind power from 0:22:43.200 --> 0:22:47.160 the Dakotas to Chicago, to the population centers. We need 0:22:47.200 --> 0:22:51.080 to bring the immense solar energy of the Majabbi in 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:55.280 the American Southwest to California to Texas to with the 0:22:55.320 --> 0:22:58.639 rest of the country. We need to bring fantastic offshore 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:02.960 wind of the America in northeast to New York City. 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:06.920 They just sunk a few UH offshore winds far off 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:14.480 the coast of Montauk recently, first major wind projects in 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:16.600 the Northeast. This is great stuff. And one of the 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:19.040 companies that's going to be doing it in our neighborhood 0:23:19.160 --> 0:23:22.240 is stat Oil, which is interesting because it's the oil 0:23:22.280 --> 0:23:26.159 and gas company of Norway. But they learned how to 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.320 drill offshore well enough that they now how to know 0:23:29.440 --> 0:23:35.320 how to put in offshore wind with that same manufacturing 0:23:35.800 --> 0:23:39.080 and construction expertise. So they're going into the wind business, 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:44.320 which is fantastic. And the problem is the President, unfortunately, 0:23:44.440 --> 0:23:48.240 is kind of stuck in nineteen eighties infrastructure. When he 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:52.879 thinks of infrastructure, apparently thinks of the Dakota UH pipeline 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:55.600 and he thinks of Keystone pipeline. That's the last thing 0:23:55.600 --> 0:23:58.399 we need in the century. We just don't need that stuff. 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:02.439 That's billions of dollars down the drain. We need twenty 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:06.120 one century infrastructure. Obama made the same mistake, by the way, 0:24:06.160 --> 0:24:10.000 because in two thousand nine he said, we need infrastructure, 0:24:10.000 --> 0:24:12.680 but it should be shovel ready, and I thought, oh 0:24:12.680 --> 0:24:15.679 my god. You know that's okay for the w P 0:24:15.800 --> 0:24:18.679 A and three, but but why do we need shovel 0:24:18.760 --> 0:24:23.000 ready infrastructure. We need fast rail, which is going to 0:24:23.119 --> 0:24:25.920 take years to plan and design. Well, they never did 0:24:25.960 --> 0:24:28.520 their homework. So let me push back a little bit 0:24:28.640 --> 0:24:30.280 on some of the things that have been going on. 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:36.080 The idea of these things being a multi decade economic multiplier, 0:24:36.760 --> 0:24:41.240 like the the interstate highway system, makes a ton of sense. 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:46.240 It doesn't seem the political political will the marshmallow test 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:48.640 as you described it, as there. And look no further 0:24:48.680 --> 0:24:53.560 than the gasoline tax which was instituted by Eisenhower for 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:59.120 the highway trust system. It's been frozen. I want to say, 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:01.919 you've got it in exactly right. It has been frozen 0:25:02.359 --> 0:25:07.199 since I think it's about eighteen cents a gallon, not 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:12.080 inflation adjusted, nothing twenty five years ago. Unbelievable. And and 0:25:12.160 --> 0:25:15.119 that trust, the Highway Trust Fund is is depleted. And 0:25:15.160 --> 0:25:18.919 now the other issue I have to raise politically is 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:23.560 we've seen certain states like Arizona and New Mexico, Nevada, 0:25:23.680 --> 0:25:27.720 and Florida. Some of them have introduced lash legislation, and 0:25:27.760 --> 0:25:32.199 I believe Nevada and Florida both have um Nevada passed it. 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:34.679 I don't know if it if it passed in Florida 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:40.720 that rolled back the mandate that consumers could put solar 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:43.720 on the roof and sell it back to the utility. 0:25:44.000 --> 0:25:47.000 Are we going to see each of the states succumb 0:25:47.080 --> 0:25:51.280 to the persuasive abilities and money of local utilities and 0:25:51.280 --> 0:25:55.720 and make this a stillborn technology. It's even more crazy 0:25:55.840 --> 0:26:01.879 because all these places are in despert risk of climate change, 0:26:02.200 --> 0:26:05.040 whether it's rising sea levels which would submerge a lot 0:26:05.080 --> 0:26:09.840 of Florida, whether it's a drought exactly, whether it's you know, 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:14.240 massive drought or what happened in UH in our state 0:26:14.640 --> 0:26:20.040 with Hurricane Superstorm Sandy. UH and we just to clean 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:23.600 up is billions of dollars. And to take what's called 0:26:23.960 --> 0:26:29.080 adaptive measures is price tag of forty billion dollars. And 0:26:29.359 --> 0:26:31.840 we're paralyzed because who's going to pay for that? So 0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:37.720 I think this question of long term thinking probably is 0:26:38.200 --> 0:26:42.040 America's weakest point right now. UH. And it's the first 0:26:42.119 --> 0:26:45.960 thing that I would say to our leadership, understand what 0:26:46.160 --> 0:26:50.080 made America great in the past, whether it's the highway 0:26:50.160 --> 0:26:53.000 system or going to the moon. The President John F. 0:26:53.080 --> 0:26:55.680 Kennedy did not say we'll go to the moon next month. 0:26:56.040 --> 0:26:58.480 He also didn't say we'll go to the moon next century. 0:26:58.560 --> 0:27:05.359 He gave a decade timeline, and amazingly they made that timeline. 0:27:05.640 --> 0:27:09.480 We need bold goals, transformative but they're not going to 0:27:09.600 --> 0:27:12.959 happen overnight, and they require planning, and they require the 0:27:13.000 --> 0:27:16.480