Speaker 1: Steve Manuchin service Treasury Secretary under Donald Trump's first term.
Speaker 1: Today he's running a global private equity firm. I had
Speaker 1: a chance recently to sit down with Steve Manuchen to
Speaker 1: talk about his days as Treasury secretary, the investment environment,
Speaker 1: and the global economy. So you served as the seventy
Speaker 1: seventh Secretary of the Treasury when President Trump was reelected.
Speaker 1: Did you say maybe I want to go back in
Speaker 1: again or you.
Speaker 2: Had enough government service?
Speaker 3: Well, it was an extraordinary experience working for him and
Speaker 3: being part of the whole first campaign. And now I'm
Speaker 3: really focused on private investments and opportunities. But I am
Speaker 3: trying to help from the outside.
Speaker 2: So you're not going to go back in anytime soon.
Speaker 3: I'm happy doing what I'm doing and giving a little
Speaker 3: coaching from the outside.
Speaker 1: You know, you served for four years, and President Trump,
Speaker 1: to my knowledge, never criticized you in public.
Speaker 2: I don't know about private, but.
Speaker 1: You know, so to be four years and never be
Speaker 1: criticized in public, that was pretty impressive.
Speaker 2: So what's the secret. Have you told the new Secretary
Speaker 2: of Treasure what to do?
Speaker 3: I haven't told him what to do. I think he's
Speaker 3: in very good shape. Look I understood the President's agenda.
Speaker 3: I had the opportunity to help shape the economic agenda,
Speaker 3: and we were proud of what we did.
Speaker 4: The first term.
Speaker 3: We were focused on tax cuts, getting the biggest tax
Speaker 3: cuts done, trade and regulatory relief, and I'm excited to
Speaker 3: see them focused on it again.
Speaker 1: So how do you think the tariffs are going to
Speaker 1: affect the economy? Why does President Trump like tariffs so much?
Speaker 3: The President's been very focused on tariffs for a long time,
Speaker 3: and he fundamentally believes it's a good source of revenue
Speaker 3: and that it's impactful in getting people to change behavior,
Speaker 3: and that's what we're seeing today.
Speaker 1: You think that tariffs will be ultimately good for the
Speaker 1: US economy.
Speaker 2: I assume you have a similar view.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the market really wants certainty and understanding
Speaker 3: certainty adjust to whatever they are. I think the problem
Speaker 3: right now is we don't have certainty. My own view
Speaker 3: on the tariffs would be that if he wants to
Speaker 3: do something, I like the idea of the ten percent
Speaker 3: tariff across the board, it's a consumption tax on foreign goods.
Speaker 3: But if you were to do that, he should do
Speaker 3: that through the reconciliation process. So that can be scored,
Speaker 3: I think would raise about two and a half trillion
Speaker 3: dollars and could be used to pay for tax cuts.
Speaker 1: As an example, speaking of tax cuts, you engineered with
Speaker 1: President Trump the very large tax cut of his first term.
Speaker 1: Do you think a similar size tax cut is essential now?
Speaker 3: Well, the biggest focus for them is just extending the
Speaker 3: personal side of the tax cuts which are going to expire,
Speaker 3: and I think that that was a signature part of
Speaker 3: his first term, and I think that's got to be
Speaker 3: the priority to continue now. On top of that, I
Speaker 3: know he wants to do additional tax cuts and that'll
Speaker 3: be a little bit more challenge with the pay force.
Speaker 1: Or during the campaign, he talked about a couple other
Speaker 1: tax cuts. One is no tax on tips. Are people
Speaker 1: getting tips actually paying a lot of taxes?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: You know, we're not in as much as a cash
Speaker 3: society as we used to, so there's a lot of
Speaker 3: tips that go through an electronic mechanism. I think if
Speaker 3: he wants to have a small carve out for tax
Speaker 3: on tips.
Speaker 4: I think that makes sense.
Speaker 3: I think obviously, if you start giving tips to investment
Speaker 3: bankers at the end of the year instead of bonuses
Speaker 3: and they don't get tax that would be a little
Speaker 3: bit more problematic. And you know, you could tax your lawyers,
Speaker 3: and so I think if he does that, it needs
Speaker 3: to have a small carve out.
Speaker 1: When you were working on the tax cut, when you
Speaker 1: were Secretary of Treategy, how did you find the intellectual
Speaker 1: level of the ways and means committee members?
Speaker 3: You know, when we passed the tax cuts, and this
Speaker 3: was a lot of work, we were very engaged with
Speaker 3: both the House and Senate, and actually we had weekly
Speaker 3: meetings which was called the Big Six. It was me
Speaker 3: and Gary Cohne from the White House, it was the Senate,
Speaker 3: and it was the House, and literally every week we sat.
Speaker 4: Down and went through details.
Speaker 3: So I mean, as you know, I mean, we had
Speaker 3: sweeping tax reform across everything. This time it is actually
Speaker 3: a lot simpler. But I do think Secretary Bessett needs
Speaker 3: to be very focused on working with the House and
Speaker 3: the Senate to get this across the finish line.
Speaker 1: In recent decades, the annual deficit has been fairly high.
Speaker 1: I think under President Trump's first four years, I think
Speaker 1: it was maybe six to eight trillion dollars of additional
Speaker 1: debt added to the total debt.
Speaker 2: We have that thirty six trillion.
Speaker 1: Now, how are we going to get the debt down
Speaker 1: and the deficit down if we have these big tax cuts.
Speaker 3: Well, David, let me just say I think the deficit
Speaker 3: is probably the most important issue today in terms of
Speaker 3: the long term.
Speaker 4: Impact on the economy.
Speaker 3: And just to put this in perspective, in the first term,
Speaker 3: we had debt to GDP ratio of about an hundred percent,
Speaker 3: and with the tax cuts and economic growth before COVID,
Speaker 3: we were growing the economy faster than we were growing
Speaker 3: the debt, so that that ratio would have come down,
Speaker 3: and I think we were trying to get it down
Speaker 3: to ninety to ninety five. The big focus on the
Speaker 3: first term was military spending. We unfortunately had to increase
Speaker 3: non military spending to get it through the House and Senate.
Speaker 3: But what really impacted us was COVID, and I think
Speaker 3: as you know firsthand, you know, we had to spend
Speaker 3: a lot of money in COVID or we would have
Speaker 3: had a worldwide depression, not recession. I think the problem was,
Speaker 3: you know, the first two trillion dollars was well spent,
Speaker 3: the next two trillion we never should have spent. And
Speaker 3: then the Biden administration kept on spending. So you know,
Speaker 3: we have debt to GDP of close to one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty five percent today. That's a gigantic problem. Secretary
Speaker 3: Besant has talked about getting the deficit down from six
Speaker 3: percent to three percent of GDP and that's got to
Speaker 3: be a major folks. So if we're going to do
Speaker 3: the tax cuts, we need to make sure there's pay
Speaker 3: for us, and we need to make sure there's economic growth.
Speaker 1: When Bob Rubin was Secretary of the Treasury, he once
Speaker 1: talked about the value of the dollar, and he made
Speaker 1: a mistake, he later would say, by talking about saying
Speaker 1: something other than we want a strong dollar. And now
Speaker 1: every Treasury secretary is told you can only say one
Speaker 1: thing about the dollar. We want a strong dollar. But
Speaker 1: what can former secretaries and Treasury say about that? Can
Speaker 1: they say we want a strong dollar? Can you say
Speaker 1: maybe it should weaken a little bit and to make
Speaker 1: it our exports easier to sell.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's funny that you say that, And
Speaker 3: Bob really was kind of credited with the strong dollar policy,
Speaker 3: and I think it's kind of every Treasury secretary after
Speaker 3: that kind of you know, you got Treasury one oh
Speaker 3: one training, and the first thing they told you was
Speaker 3: just talk about a strong dollar.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: Actually, when I was at Davos, I come into it
Speaker 3: on a balanced, stable dollar as opposed to saying a
Speaker 3: strong dollar, and all of a sudden, the dollar moved significantly.
Speaker 3: I think on the long term it is important that
Speaker 3: we have a strong dollar. The dollar is the reserve
Speaker 3: currency of the world, and a strong dollar affects a
Speaker 3: strong economy. In the short term, particularly because of trade,
Speaker 3: you know, the strength of the dollar can have a
Speaker 3: negative impact. But I think the most important thing is
Speaker 3: actually a stable dollar so that there's not volatility.
Speaker 1: Speaking of stable, what do you think about the Secretary
Speaker 1: of Treasury or the US government supporting cryptocurrencies. They didn't
Speaker 1: really have them so much when you were Secretary of Treasury,
Speaker 1: but now cryptocurrencies seem to be very heavily supported by
Speaker 1: President Trump and his administration.
Speaker 2: Do you have any comment on whether that's a good
Speaker 2: or bad thing.
Speaker 3: Look, my view on crypto has been pretty consistent. We
Speaker 3: did a lot of work on this in the first term.
Speaker 3: If people want to buy crypto as an asset class
Speaker 3: like they.
Speaker 4: Buy gold, that's fine to me.
Speaker 3: The bigger issue has been making sure that crypto is
Speaker 3: not used for illicit activities. And you know, we spent
Speaker 3: a long time getting rid of Swiss numbered bank accounts,
Speaker 3: making sure that we have a mechanism that crypto can
Speaker 3: be compliant with BSA and all of our money laundering regulations.
Speaker 3: And I have concerns today about that.
Speaker 1: You know, in the business world, investment world, if you
Speaker 1: hire more fundraisers, you usually raise more money. In the
Speaker 1: IRS world, if you get more agents, you usually raise
Speaker 1: more money. But for some reason, the Republican Party seems
Speaker 1: to want to have fewer agents, and therefore they reduce
Speaker 1: the number of agents, and therefore maybe they're not going
Speaker 1: to raise as much money. Do you have a view
Speaker 1: on whether cutting back the IRS agents that were put
Speaker 1: in under a President Biden is a good thing to
Speaker 1: do or not.
Speaker 3: I actually don't think we need more agents. What we
Speaker 3: need is a bigger investment in technology. In the IRS,
Speaker 3: the systems are outdated, and I think in this day
Speaker 3: and age, there's a lot we can do with technoloology
Speaker 3: that we don't need physical agents auditing people.
Speaker 4: It can be done electronically.
Speaker 1: So when you became the Secretary of the Treasury. There
Speaker 1: was somebody on the Federal Reserve Board who had been
Speaker 1: appointed by President Obama, James J.
Speaker 2: Powell, who used to.
Speaker 1: Work at my firm, and then you recommended him to
Speaker 1: President Trump, I think, to be the chairman of the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve. President Trump was not happy with him at
Speaker 1: the beginning. I guess any regrets about recommending J.
Speaker 2: Powe.
Speaker 4: I do think Jay's done a very good job.
Speaker 3: You know, as President Trump he had a bunch of
Speaker 3: issues with him raising rates, but then during COVID he
Speaker 3: did give him the Most Improved Player Award when he
Speaker 3: dropped rades down to zero at the time.
Speaker 1: So generally the President of the United States is not
Speaker 1: supposed to talk to or lobby the Chairman of the Fed,
Speaker 1: but the Secretary of Treasury usually meets regularly with the
Speaker 1: Chairman of the Fed.
Speaker 2: Did you meet with him fairly regularly? I did.
Speaker 3: I mean we inherited a tradition which has been kept
Speaker 3: up is that the Secretary of the Treasury and the
Speaker 3: Chairman of the Fed meet weekly. It alternates every week
Speaker 3: between being at the Treasury and the FED. And I
Speaker 3: found those meetings very helpful. I mean a big focus
Speaker 3: was obviously what we were doing on regulation monetary policy.
Speaker 3: I never talked about monetary policy publicly, but yes, of
Speaker 3: course we did talk about those types of things. We
Speaker 3: talked about the economy, and I think we had a
Speaker 3: very good working relationship.
Speaker 1: So today, if you were Jpowe, would you lower interest
Speaker 1: rates in the next six months or so?
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty clear the Fed is going to
Speaker 3: lower rates. So I mean, if you look at the
Speaker 3: dot plot, which is you know what the Fed governors
Speaker 3: have publicly said, you do see rates coming down to
Speaker 3: about three in a quarter, and you see the long
Speaker 3: term rate at about two point eight. I do think
Speaker 3: the long term rate between being closer to two and
Speaker 3: a half than three. And I think we're going to
Speaker 3: see rates lowered next year. And by the way, I
Speaker 3: think the ten year has that already built in to
Speaker 3: the market. So I think we're going to see three
Speaker 3: and a quarter three and a half percent and funds
Speaker 3: and I think we'll see about four percent ten year treasuries.
Speaker 1: You left Secretary Treasury and you start a private equity firm,
Speaker 1: Liberty Strategic Capital. So is private equity as fulfilling as
Speaker 1: you thought? I know you were in it a bit
Speaker 1: before you became Secretary of Treasury. But how do you
Speaker 1: enjoy the private equity world?
Speaker 3: Well, David, you know, I've been in the investment business
Speaker 3: and the markets businesses now for forty years, and I
Speaker 3: think kind of every job I did kind of prepared
Speaker 3: me more for the future. And when I became Treasury
Speaker 3: as secretary, I think it was helpful that I had
Speaker 3: a background in markets and risk. I had been CEO
Speaker 3: of a bank, so that, you know, I understood a
Speaker 3: lot of these issues. You know, we're small enough that
Speaker 3: we focus on a handful of investments. We've done about
Speaker 3: ten investments to date, and you know, I find it
Speaker 3: very interesting you.
Speaker 1: Agree with my view that the highest calling of mankind
Speaker 1: is private equity.
Speaker 2: I do not. No, you don't think so there's something
Speaker 2: more important, but I don't know what it is. But okay, I.
Speaker 3: Would have thought you were going to tell me the
Speaker 3: highest calling was to own a baseball team.
Speaker 2: If it's a winning team.
Speaker 1: Yes, But so let me ask you, Well, one of
Speaker 1: the pleasures of being Secretary of the Treasury is you
Speaker 1: get your handwriting on the dollar bill.
Speaker 2: Something like that.
Speaker 1: Some secretary of Treasures had incomprehensible, indecipherable handwriting and you
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out who actually was signing it. But what
Speaker 1: was the pleasure like of getting a bills one hundred
Speaker 1: dollar bills or dollar bills and having your signature on it?
Speaker 2: Was that fun or not?
Speaker 3: You know, David, I changed my signature because my signature
Speaker 3: was completely illegible, okay, And I thought, if I'm going
Speaker 3: to have my signature on the money forever, it would
Speaker 3: be nice if you could see it and read it.
Speaker 3: So I simplified my signature a lot.
Speaker 4: I guess the question.
Speaker 3: Is, is you know, I wonder if President Trump wants
Speaker 3: his signature on the money.
Speaker 1: One of the most important parts of the Treasury Code
Speaker 1: IRS code is something called carried interest taxation.
Speaker 2: You're probably familiar with that.
Speaker 3: I've heard about it a few time times. I heard
Speaker 3: about it during the first I know.
Speaker 1: President Trump has never been a big fan of that.
Speaker 1: I think you know, and I think in this current
Speaker 1: speeches he's made about he said he wanted to get
Speaker 1: rid of current I carried interest taxation and whatever benefit
Speaker 1: sports owners gets as well.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly what they are.
Speaker 1: But so do you have a view on carried interest
Speaker 1: now that you were in the private EQUI world.
Speaker 3: One of the issues, as you know, on carried interest,
Speaker 3: is if you have two investors and we invested. You know,
Speaker 3: if I invested fifty percent, you invested fifty percent, we'd
Speaker 3: need to pay a.
Speaker 4: Certain amount to tax to the extent in it.
Speaker 3: You create a fund and we decide as opposed to
Speaker 3: it being fifty to fifty, we're going to exchange profits.
Speaker 3: It doesn't change the tax that the government collects. So
Speaker 3: I think from an academic standpoint, you know there's a
Speaker 3: reason behind this. From a revenue standpoint, that'll have to
Speaker 3: be something that Congress looks at.
Speaker 1: What is the biggest pleasure you've gotten out of having
Speaker 1: a private equity fund? Now you raised the fund, You've
Speaker 1: made a number of investments. Are you enjoying us as
Speaker 1: much as being Secretary of treasurer or being a partner
Speaker 1: at Goldman Sachs or not as much?
Speaker 3: I mean, David, all these experiences were really extraordinary. I mean,
Speaker 3: what I find interesting about this is investing in businesses
Speaker 3: and being able to impact certain businesses. You know, I've
Speaker 3: had a long experience in banking. We made a big
Speaker 3: investment that we bailed out and saved what was a
Speaker 3: Flagstar bank, it was called New York Community Bank at
Speaker 3: the time, and you know, banking is something that's been
Speaker 3: very interesting to me.
Speaker 4: So this is the second time I did this.
Speaker 1: Now, President Trump and his administration are very focused on
Speaker 1: the trade deficit, which is very, very high these days.
Speaker 1: But is the trade deficit that big a problem compared
Speaker 1: to the budget deficit? If you were to worry about
Speaker 1: which deficit, wouldn't be budget deficit be more important than
Speaker 1: the trade deficit.
Speaker 3: Well, as you said, we have what's called the twin deficits.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, the budget deficited two trillion dollars annually
Speaker 3: is a.
Speaker 4: Much bigger problem.
Speaker 3: And I think, by the way, if you brought down
Speaker 3: the budget deficit, by definition, you'd bring down the trade
Speaker 3: deficit because you'd have less demand for goods in general.
Speaker 3: And I do think the idea of resetting trade relationships.
Speaker 3: I mean, President Trump is right that the US market
Speaker 3: has been open for foreign trade and foreign markets have
Speaker 3: not been opened in the same way.
Speaker 4: You know, we spent a.
Speaker 3: Lot of time with China on the Phase one deal.
Speaker 3: They haven't lived up to that. But the whole idea
Speaker 3: was if we could allow access to our business to
Speaker 3: a growing China middle class.
Speaker 4: That's an enormous opportunity for US business.
Speaker 3: And I do think kind of a big part of
Speaker 3: the trade deficit is we don't have fair trade in
Speaker 3: both directions.
Speaker 1: Now, President Trump has made a big push on getting
Speaker 1: American companies and foreign companies to invest in the United
Speaker 1: States manufacturer things that would probably be somewhat inflationary because
Speaker 1: by definition, if you have people produce things overseas, probably
Speaker 1: because it's the lowest cost producer, if you bring them
Speaker 1: back the United States with higher labor costs, it'll be
Speaker 1: a higher cost production, therefore maybe more inflationary. Despite that,
Speaker 1: you think it's a good idea to have more things
Speaker 1: manufacturing United States.
Speaker 3: Well, I definitely think US manufacturing jobs has always been
Speaker 3: a big focus of his. I think, you know, there
Speaker 3: was a large part of the economy that was left behind,
Speaker 3: and I do think that's a focus now. Obviously, there
Speaker 3: are different markets that can be competitive, so I think
Speaker 3: we can have the same thing, but his focus should
Speaker 3: be US investment.
Speaker 1: In your view, is Congress likely to deal with the
Speaker 1: budget deficit in a way where we won't have to
Speaker 1: deal with the government shutting down. Do you think that's
Speaker 1: a real risk that the government could shut down again.
Speaker 3: Look, I'd say, you know, there's two issues that again
Speaker 3: that I spent a lot of time on, both the
Speaker 3: debt ceiling and government funding. So as Treasury, we could
Speaker 3: have the money and not be able to spend it
Speaker 3: right because of government funding, or we could have the
Speaker 3: government funding but not have enough money because of the
Speaker 3: dead ceiling.
Speaker 4: My major focus was the dead.
Speaker 3: Ceiling, and one of the things I think now is
Speaker 3: the most important issue is the Republicans need to get
Speaker 3: the dead ceiling into a reconciliation bill quickly and raise
Speaker 3: the dead ceiling.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventeen, the death ceiling was first imposed, and
Speaker 1: we've now raised it more than ninety times. President Trump
Speaker 1: has said before we should get rid of the dead ceiling,
Speaker 1: and we're the only country in the world with one
Speaker 1: other than Denmark. So what is your view on do
Speaker 1: we need a dead ceiling because we can we changed
Speaker 1: it all the time anyway, or should we just keep
Speaker 1: the dead ceiling.
Speaker 3: Well, given the side of the debt that we have
Speaker 3: today and the focus on the debt, I would keep
Speaker 3: the dead ceiling. I think it's an important mechanism. It's
Speaker 3: become too political, but I think spending and the dead
Speaker 3: ceiling should be passed at the same time. So whenever
Speaker 3: Congress passed is whatever the spending is, they should simultaneously
Speaker 3: pass the debt ceiling so that you can afford to
Speaker 3: pay for that. But I don't think, you know, unlimited
Speaker 3: spending is a good thing. As I mentioned earlier, you
Speaker 3: know COVID, we had to do trillion dollars spending. We
Speaker 3: then got spending out of control, and we need to
Speaker 3: get that back into control.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Many countries around the world have something called a sovereign
Speaker 1: wealth fund, and the United States doesn't have that. We
Speaker 1: have the printing press, we print dollars and people buy
Speaker 1: those dollars, but we don't have.
Speaker 2: A sovereign wealth fund.
Speaker 1: President Trump has signed an executive order I think, creating
Speaker 1: a sovereign wealth fund. Where would the money come from
Speaker 1: for that sovereign wealth fund?
Speaker 3: Well, David, as you know, most countries that have sovereign
Speaker 3: wealth funds are because they have certain resources today that
Speaker 3: are going to be limited.
Speaker 4: Obviously, oil and energy.
Speaker 3: Is a big focus, and the purpose of the sovereign
Speaker 3: wealth fund is to capture a huge amount of those
Speaker 3: revenues today so that it can be spent over generations.
Speaker 4: The US is not in that situation.
Speaker 3: So if we're going to have a sovereign wealth fund,
Speaker 3: I think obviously we'd have to borrow to put the
Speaker 3: money in the sovereign wealth fund since we don't have
Speaker 3: a surplus. And if we did that, I think you
Speaker 3: should be very limited in scope. For are there certain
Speaker 3: areas that we need government support, It shouldn't be used,
Speaker 3: obviously to crowd out private investments.
Speaker 1: The third rail of American politics is thought to be
Speaker 1: the social Security system and medicare. Some people say, ultimately
Speaker 1: we were running out of money to fund the social
Speaker 1: Security system because people are living longer and so forth,
Speaker 1: and we have more people retiring and then living longer.
Speaker 1: Are you worried about the security of the subsecurity system.
Speaker 3: David, One of the big titles I had in government
Speaker 3: was managing Trustee of the Social Security Trust Fund. And
Speaker 3: when I got there, I thought I actually could do
Speaker 3: a lot of good. And one of the things I
Speaker 3: was actually very focused on social securities. Still has paper cards,
Speaker 3: and I thought, one of the most ridiculous thing is
Speaker 3: the social Security number is the identifier most people use.
Speaker 3: I wanted to focus on creating electronic ID and I
Speaker 3: think that's still something we should do now. As it
Speaker 3: relates to the Trust Fund, we did sure report every
Speaker 3: year the trust Fund is going to run out of money,
Speaker 3: and I think it's something that Congress has to deal with.
Speaker 3: I hope that in the second half of the president's
Speaker 3: term he can focus on Social Security reform because it's
Speaker 3: a problem. The fund is going to run out of
Speaker 3: money and there's lots of people who rely upon it,
Speaker 3: so it needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1: Bismark. I think it used to said that the two
Speaker 1: things you don't want to see being made are sausage
Speaker 1: and legislation. And what is it like when you're doing
Speaker 1: tax bills. You're sitting in a smoke filled room and
Speaker 1: you're sitting there with the members of Congress and they say,
Speaker 1: I'll give you this, and you give me this, and
Speaker 1: how does that really work?
Speaker 3: You know, we worked very closely with the House and Senate.
Speaker 3: These are huge, complicated issues. Of course, there have to
Speaker 3: be trade offs. You have to think of how they
Speaker 3: were paid for us. I mean, when we did this
Speaker 3: the first time, it was a trillion and a half
Speaker 3: dollars static, trillion dollars dynamic, and we had about five
Speaker 3: hundred billion in what we considered to be baseline issues.
Speaker 3: So of course there have to be trade offs, and
Speaker 3: then I would just comment on even once tax reform
Speaker 3: was passed, we spent the next year writing tax regulations
Speaker 3: and treasury which is a very important function to institute
Speaker 3: the law.
Speaker 1: So, if you were king for today and you can
Speaker 1: make any change in the way the economy, the finance
Speaker 1: structured the United States is based, the spending is done,
Speaker 1: what would be the one thing that you think we
Speaker 1: should do to make our economy better or make our
Speaker 1: financial system better than it is today.
Speaker 3: One thing I would reform the spending process and the
Speaker 3: debt sealing process so that there was a real process
Speaker 3: of the administration having a budget, that budget going through
Speaker 3: Congress every year, and that kind of the focus around spending.
Speaker 1: Okay, so for the time being, you're going to be
Speaker 1: in the private sector, You're not going to be drafted
Speaker 1: back in the government, and you're happy with the highest
Speaker 1: calling of mankind that you're now pursuing private equity.
Speaker 3: Right, the highest calling was serving the people in the environment.
Speaker 4: I know you think this is the highest.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
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