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#FinanceDaily: Bidenomics with Robert Wolf | Fed’s soft landing
Recorded: June 28, 2023 Duration: 1:47:01Space Recording
Short Summary
The conversation primarily revolves around economic policies, particularly Bidenomics, and its impact on the economy, including infrastructure investments and inflation concerns. There is a discussion about the role of journalism in venture capital and the influence of corporate profits on inflation. The dialogue also touches on the importance of bipartisan legislative victories and their potential long-term benefits for the economy.
Full Transcription
Hey, hey. How's everybody doing?
Doing well. Good morning.
Good morning. I just read a really interesting article.
I'm going to post comments, actually.
These, I'm just, again, this is no hate, but I'm just wondering what people's thoughts are about this.
Hold on. Where is it?
I can't find the Axios article.
There was an article about how this VC firm just raised, like, I don't know, 50 million or something small.
But they raise money because they want to bring, let me bring Scott up.
Actually, Roman, can we bring Scott up?
But...
They raise a $50 to $100 million, or I think it was $50 million.
And essentially the point that they're making is that they want to bring journalistic rigor to venture capital.
Guess what space they're going to invest in?
Can anybody guess?
If you were going to guess one space that's like super hypey right now, what space would that be?
No, but.
They're going to invest in AI.
They want to bring journalistic rigor to AI investing.
Very curious to see what that looks like.
By the way, like former tech writers and stuff.
Kind of interesting.
I mean, I don't know.
ating on journalists, I'm just saying they're not the ones that predict the future.
It's very rare for them.
They're usually like curve.
So expect lots of investments and hype.
And so kind of interesting.
Do you think that actually, before we get, we're waiting on Robert Wolfe as well.
He's going to be joining morning to talk about Bidonomics.
We're also expecting sure Michael Singleton to join.
And then we have Dan up here as well.
We're going to talk about that about 15, 20 minutes.
I want to make sure.
you know, the room is full, that we can talk about all of this.
And there's a, this is like, this is making big news on at least one side of the aisle.
Oh, perfect, Roberts here.
But, you know, we're going to talk by Dynamics, just waiting for the room to kind of fill up.
So are you skeptical?
Are you skeptical of this shift?
What's the, are you skeptical of the shift of a journalist trying to become VCs, I guess?
I joined like a little late, so I missed the initial.
Yeah, no, no, the point that I was making is like.
So, you know, what's really interesting is obviously, I mean, I'm not crazy. I know Mike Moritz is a journalist, but journalism has quite a lot in the last 15-20.
Yeah.
Yeah, so I know that there have been last investors that came from journalism.
The point that I think I'm making is that journalists have changed quite a lot in the last 10, 15 years.
The quality of the work, the level of intelligence, the level of journalistic integrity, all of that has changed quite a lot.
Now, a lot of journalists work hand in hand with the PR firms.
It's really difficult to journalists, there are writing stories, there are,
everything feels like a gotcha you know like people aren't talking about what's actually happening you know
if i was a journalist right now and we're the journalists that join us so i apologize if i'm being
mean um but i wouldn't be talking about what everybody's talking about i'd be focusing on the next thing
right like on what's coming next if you're a tech journalist shouldn't you be focused on hey what does
this look like everybody's talk about
And I'm not going to go too deep into this because, again, it's an area of strong interest for me.
But instead of just talking about large language models, everybody else is talking about
and talking about foundational language models, maybe you should start talking about what's coming next here who does AI.
Jeff, myself, Eugene, what are we fucking talking about?
We're talking about computer vision.
That's next.
Heads up.
Right?
And like how many articles are computer vision and foundational models for computer vision?
None.
So where are these journalists?
Are they really going to be focusing on the next thing?
Are they going to be focusing on the current thing?
And if they keep focusing on the current thing,
is that really going to do real good investments?
And that's the beauty.
Like, it was exciting.
And the reason why people like Mike Moritz and others
often was because they were able to pick out
what is going to be the next thing.
And that's, you know, half of the job.
The other half of the job is due diligence
and making sure that these people aren't.
Yeah.
you know, grifters, but hilariously in the article with Axios, and I'll have to find the article.
If somebody can find it and post it, that'd be great.
But, you know, interestingly, in the article, the first example they gave of VCs not doing due diligence was FDX.
A hilarious example to go into because guess who wrote beautiful, loving articles about FDX?
Tech journalists.
Like, Jesus.
Are we kidding right now?
And so it was incredibly interesting to see that as being hailed as the main example
when all the entire tech industry was calling foul.
And now they're trying.
And again, we're not perfect.
We've made mistakes on stage.
The difference with me and our team is that we're very open to saying,
hey, guys, you know, we were wrong.
Robert has made me look wrong like a million times,
and I'm going to argue with them again today.
Right? Like, that's why Robert comes up here because he gets flowers all the time. You know, he loves his trophies. But, you know, ultimately, I'm the first one to say, look, I was expecting things to be a lot worse right now. Housing has surprised me. Guys, you guys have been listening to me for how long. Housing has surprised the crap out of me. Did you guys see the housing data yesterday? Holy cow, Robert was right.
right
and Cody was right
and it's okay
I can be wrong
but the difference here is
you know
we speak in logic
we're not
I don't consider myself
a real journalist
right
I'm just like talking to look.
I just like asking hard questions from really smart people.
And then just, you know, hopefully listening and giving my thoughts back.
I mean, Robert only has a few years on me.
So, you know, I'm using that to my advantage.
Robert, not calling you old.
I'm just saying, I'm calling you experienced.
Eugene?
Yeah.
Yeah, I was going to say, I think it's a very fair point that journalism and media has changed.
And, you know, the folks like Mike Moritz and others, you know, who started in journalism.
And, you know, journalism is about seeking truth, right?
Isn't that like the basic, you know, that that's like what it's trying to do, is what aspires to do, doesn't always achieve that.
And it's kind of similar in some ways to...
investing in the sunset. I remember it was like,
it was Dan Loeb. I saw him.
He came to,
he came to my school because he,
you know, he had graduated.
He was an alma mater there. But he was like,
oh, you know, like, Dan Loeb is a
hedge fund manager at third point. But he was like,
well, you know, investing is kind of like, you know, sort of like being a
philosopher. And at the time,
I thought it was a little odd for him to say that.
But, you know, especially given, you know,
his reputation as, as,
as, you know, an activist investor, pretty aggressive, et cetera.
But it sort of makes sense, right? I mean, that
They share similarities in that you're trying to seek truth.
But, you know, back 100 years ago, we had yellow journalism, right?
Which was, like, similar to some of the issues we're having today in terms of social media-fueled journalistic issues.
And obviously, trying to seek journalistic integrity is, you know, is at fault.
So I see, like, the connections between the two professions.
But I do agree that sort of what the last 10 years has bred in media and journalism doesn't necessarily –
equate to in general being good investors.
I know nothing about these folks.
So I don't know if they'll be great or not.
But I do get your point, Donish, and sort of agree that, you know, the quality of journalism has degraded dramatically, right?
So perhaps they don't make the best investors necessarily, right, out the gate.
Yeah, it's just fascinating.
And there are some people that I respect who are journalists, who became VCs, but then they became like real VCs.
They didn't just say, oh, I used to be a journalist.
A good example is Chrissy Farr.
I'm giving her a shout out.
But Chrissy came from CNBC, and she was the digital health expert in CNBC.
She was like an actual expert and usually spoke truth to power.
So, you know, she usually pushed back quite a lot.
and now she works for omers, which is a really good firm, and does a decent job, right?
I may not agree with all of her investments, but I do understand her thought process and her thesis,
and she's been pretty true to her underlying thesis.
And so it's very interesting to see that.
I will say the old school days of,
of thinking about investors as just, you know, capital allocators is changing quite a lot.
I think people, people like me, people who have startups in general, they're growing,
are looking for more than just somebody with money, that they're looking for real help.
And I don't know.
I'm not sure if just getting the word out there is what, especially in this day and age when I think news media is dying.
like traditional news media is dying.
Is this really the time that one of the benefits
is the ability to get into the biggest newspapers
or get the best PR?
I'm just not convinced that that's what's going to drive value
for the average startup founder right now
is not thinking about, hey, how do I get in the news?
I mean, I was in the news last week.
It was great, yeah, but it didn't affect the underlying changes.
It didn't affect my underlying business.
You know, like we're doing the exact same this week that we were doing last week.
Maybe we got a few inbounds and, you know, all of that.
But none of that really, in my opinion, matters.
But I'll ask this.
For any founders or operators, they're listening,
if you could get money from a VC that used to be a journalist
Would you do it?
Would that be like your top choice?
And if so, why?
I want to understand the positive side of it.
Maybe I'm missing something.
And don't worry, I'm not going to be investing in your startup.
And I'm not a real journalist.
So, you know, I'm kind of interested to...
kind of interested to hear that.
But, you know, we didn't join here to hate on VCs today.
That was not our, it happens naturally, but it's not my goal.
I love our VCs.
Our investors are awesome.
If you're listening, which I know you often do, I love you.
Thank you so much for supporting us.
Sorry, I have to say that as a way to not get into trouble.
Okay, but we're going to move on.
We have Robert Wolfe with us today.
Robert, I love that when you join.
Today, I know that there is a broader conversation that we wanted to have,
and I wanted to give you the opportunity to share this.
Now, I'm going to give Robert.
Robert knows this before he starts and gives us the lay of the land on this biodynamics, you know, conversation.
Robert, I don't know if you know, but we're going to be a little bit skeptical.
Okay.
We've been talking about the economy quite a lot.
And, you know, not everybody might agree with you, but I'm interested to hear what you have to say.
And I honestly commend you for wanting to use our stage to talk about this.
And, you know, foregoing maybe more of the mainstream media.
So kind of excited to hear from you.
And for people that don't know Robert, he was, you know, the head of UBS, one of the most
well-known people in the Obama administration and has been working with us to actually bring
some reality to our doom and gloom. So Robert, wanted to give it to you. Go ahead. It's all you.
Well, thank you. Do you guys hear me? Yeah, we hear you clearly. Great. Thanks. So today,
I'm going to chat a little about Bidenomics.
And to make sure that everyone knows that, as Dana said, I'm not old, but I'm experienced.
I'm talking about, you know, 40-ish years of experience.
So instead of starting with Bidenomics, I'm going to shift and explain to you why I was at one point a Reagan Democrat and why I supported Reaganomics in the 80s and why I support Bidenomics today.
And so hopefully that gets a few of you more on my side than usually on these calls.
But, you know, when I started Wall Street after graduating from Warrant,
I was at Solomon Brothers and I went to UBS.
And if you started Wall Street in the 80s, then whether Republican or Democrat,
you were pretty much a fan of Reaganomics.
You don't have to ask me, just look at the election.
1984, I think...
President Reagan won 49 states, and I think Mondale won his Minnesota. So I wasn't alone.
But Reaganomics that everyone touts trickle down. The Dems called voodoo economics. I'm not here to give a history lesson.
But it was very different then today when we, then, than it is today when we started talking about tax cuts.
Taxes were 70% back then.
We were coming out of stagflation in the 70s.
We were coming out of a recession in the 80s.
Inflation was double digits.
So we're talking about, when you talk about trickle down
and working from the top down in a consumer-driven country,
it's a lot different when taxes are going from 70% to 50%
than when they're going from 30% less plus.
Bidenomics is very different, and I think it's working.
And the facts I think I'll bring out today will tell you it's working.
I'm not here to tout, it's the end all, and that there aren't other policies that could make the economy better or things like that.
But I do think binonomics, the whole idea of binonomics, I think, works, especially in a post-COVID world, partly because the middle class,
and those in the lower class, and I mean from an economic perspective, are much, much bigger than the upper class.
If we can get the middle class growing from the middle out and the bottom up as to quote President Biden, we're going to be much better off as a country and as an economy.
That has been his focus.
I have not been a supporter of trickle-down economic way before the Trump tax cuts.
If you go look at my history of debating over the last decades, I have not said it has been a performer.
you'll see that actually the upper echelon doesn't change their spending irrespective of the cycle.
So it really doesn't trickle down.
What we need to make sure in this post-COVID world, which I think we all agree was kind of the K-shaped economy, right?
You know, the upper class continued to do well, and the middle class and bottom class struggled,
whether it was with food insecurity or whether it was job security.
So let's talk a little about Bidenomics and what the president's going to talk about today.
I don't work for the president.
I don't actually speak on behalf of the administration.
I'm just a guy like you guys talking about what I think actually makes sense from an economic perspective.
And you'll know that I'm not BSing you because, you know, I was speaking about this 15 years ago when I was advising President Obama and I testified in front of the Senate on infrastructure.
So I'm going to talk just about a few different lanes and then I'm ready to take target practice from all my fans on this call.
So one is the infrastructure bill.
He's going to tout that.
We're talking about north of 35,000 projects that they're going to talk about,
not just highway and roadway and, you know, the physical part of infrastructure,
but that includes high-speed internet.
And we'll talk a little about that.
And I'm going to make a comparison to Governor Warner.
But I will tell you, infrastructure is the fastest multiplier of GDP.
Period. For every dollar spent, it's like a 1.6 times multiplier. It also has some of the highest wages with respect to jobs, much higher than this fight for 15. We're talking about, you know, people making 40, 50, 60 dollars an hour or more.
So big support of infrastructure, and I think that's right, left center.
If anyone's not for infrastructure, and they think that that's not going to be helpful to the economy and have the wind at our back, they are kidding themselves and they don't know the economy.
The second thing I want to talk about and something that I don't think that we spent enough time on the last week, Danish,
is the $40 billion investment on affordable high-speed internet that the president has touted to rural areas
that's going to impact somewhere around 10 million people.
Now, I will tell you how important this is. In 2006,
I became friendly with then-Governor Warner of Virginia.
Governor Warner was thinking of running for president.
He was the most popular governor in the country at that time.
He was what's called a blue dog.
You know, he was kind of a Democrat and a purplish, reddish state back then.
And the reason he became so popular is he took tobacco litigation money and decided to build fiber to all the rural areas so they can start getting internet and cable and phones.
And they could start going up into the next century of economic prosperity.
And that made Virginia an incredibly buoyant economy.
By the way, that's what this president is doing today on many of those areas that didn't take place.
So I think we underestimate the impact of this.
But, Robert, I wanted to talk about the economics associated with this...
rural access to internet deal.
Danish, if I can pontificate for one more minute and then I'll take the questions, if you don't mind.
I just think it's important to frame this up. This is not left or right. I'm talking about the
things that impact America. Left right or center, purple or red, blue. It doesn't make a difference.
Infrastructure.
These rural areas getting, you know, Wi-Fi and high-speed internet.
I mean, if we had that for areas during COVID, we'd be talking very different about the underserved getting education.
I mean, let's be honest, they couldn't even have a lot of, you know, be able to get Wi-Fi in their homes.
You know, let's talk about the second part, which I think, once again, we underestimate the Chips Act.
Yes, we talk a lot about, you know, chips in Taiwan, but the Chips Act is going to change our country over the next decade.
There's already almost 500 billion.
of private sector commitments into growing the Chips and Manufacturing Act.
There's a reason, by the way, with all the job gains we've had,
we've almost had a million job gains just in manufacturing.
It's been the biggest move ever in manufacturing.
So this is just not infrastructure.
We're also talking about the rebirth of industrial America
to have us compete in this next century.
As you guys talk about, whether it's AI or computers and all the things that are next generation, these are the things that we're building for today in the future.
If you don't have manufacturing, if you don't have infrastructure, and if you don't start building your own chips and technologies and EV battery stations,
These are the things we're talking about.
I hate to say, everyone can piss on this, but it's working.
Why is it working?
Because facts matter.
Look at the labor market strengths.
Look at where unemployment is.
Look at where we have with productivity.
Look at where we have with job market participation.
These things are working today.
And so I just want to be clear that I think irrespective of politics,
We should make sure we understand the policies and the legislation that's been put forward by this president and give him his due.
Now, there may be a bunch of other things we can debate on, but I think with Bidenomics, I do think we should listen and see what's been working and understand it's not something that is left or right.
This stuff's working.
So happy to answer questions on Bidenomics, on the economy.
on on anything else danish and i guess i can start with you yeah well so let me just give a
little bit of the land broadly in terms of sentiment i want to start there because that's what
it's happening right that's why he's releasing it that's why he's coining it he wants people to
stop talking about bidenflation and start talking about bidenomit right uh and i'll and i'll
I mean by that.
More than half of Americans disapprove
of how Biden is handling his job.
I think it's 54% last I saw.
You know, only 35% of people think he's doing a good job
with the economy.
orders have rated economy as their top issue.
What was said during the Clinton administration,
it's the economy stupid, right?
So people really care about this.
The US economy grew up 1.3% annualized rate in the quarter.
Unemployment is low.
It's at an all-time historic lows,
but a lot of people think that a labor participation
is also low, that that might be through the numbers.
You know, I will say yesterday's housing data, Robert,
compelling. There's no doubt that that's going better than expected. But, you know, a lot of the people, a lot of saying, hey, this is premature. Calling victory right now is incredibly premature, considering we may have prices down. You know, if we, if the Fed continues to hold and pause, hold for longer,
certain things might break in the system.
And so essentially,
Biden coming out and touting that,
hey,
look this money in infrastructure.
We put this money in the middle class,
and it's going to pay dividends.
And, you know, the old way of tax cuts and others is the way.
You know, some people are saying, hey, one, you're taking it for the tax cuts and their impact.
It takes time for tax cuts and their impact to show.
Danish.
Can I, can I, can I, number one.
Danish, Danish, Danish.
Do me a favor.
Pause.
Okay.
Pause.
Because, you know, I'm not trying to be disrespectful here, but a lot of what you say,
a lot of what you're saying is just not accurate.
Okay.
So pause for a sec.
Okay, one, I want to start with, I'm not spiking any football here.
Okay, I'm not saying that, you know, the nation is in the best situation it's ever been.
I'm saying that things are working and we're much better off than we were and the future is strong.
that's one number two first of all the labor participation rate is at a three-year high so i would
just tell you that yeah but you know yeah no no i wait a second i'm not i listen we're talking
up wait a second danish we're talking about biodynamics here yes we can talk about where participation
was in all different times but we're talking about since he's been president okay so we we can we can
mix and match however you want secondly
Of course, this is not President Biden spiking the football either.
This is him saying that things are working.
And I can't tell you that inflation didn't.
I've been the, by the way, I've been the one saying that inflation is going to have a longer
tail than anyone on this call.
I'm the one that's saying when all you guys were saying that the Fed should cut rates, I was saying you guys are smoking weed.
Okay.
It's just so let's be clear.
I haven't been the one that said inflation doesn't impact everyone, that the Fed shouldn't stay its course because it does impact everyone.
So we're not saying that things are the best they've ever been.
With respect to the G7, let's be clear, we have the best GDP and we have the lowest inflation.
So if you're looking at the large economies, the U.S. is doing better than anyone by far.
I mean, that's just a fact as well.
And there's graphs to show it.
So we should just be clear.
We're talking about where we are today and where we're going.
We can't put back the genie in the bottle.
That's fair.
You can give a counter argument, but make it factual.
Right.
I do have a, well, it was factual.
I gave actual numbers.
But I was going to say that, you know,
compared to data,
participation is still low.
Now, again, it's higher than it was in the middle of COVID.
which a lot of people can understand why it is.
But, okay, let's move.
The other big thing is a lot of people...
I would just say one of the biggest blunders.
One more thing for the group, Danish, Danish,
one more thing for the group.
We have had...
Just to give you an idea on small businesses,
which really are our future.
You guys talk about entrepreneurship all the time.
We've had over 10 million small business applications.
Okay. If you don't think that's going to impact the labor market, we're kidding ourselves, right? That's, remember, small businesses and entrepreneurship is what makes America America. Every large business you guys talk about started as a small mom and pop business, whether it's Amazon or anything else.
So the challenge is some of the impact.
No, some of the impact of what has been done.
So let me talk about what may not be as clear in terms of its impact.
So nobody here.
Is there anybody here that wants to argue about the?
Everybody thinks that that was a good decision.
I think that was a big legislative win.
And I think Biden deserves that across the finish line.
Anybody here will...
against the Infrastructure Act?
I'll wait.
Everybody wants to.
You can jump in.
Probably not, because I think infrastructure is broadly popular.
I think infrastructure helps the middle class.
There's no doubt about that.
And actually, as you mentioned, broadband infrastructure.
But I will push back.
With only 8.5 million people affected, it turns out to be a cost of nearly $4,000.
per person and $4,952, I think, is what I saw when I was doing the analysis on the back end.
And so in preparation, because I knew Robert will be bringing receipts.
So I thought I'd bring my own.
But so that turns out to be way more expensive than he could if he partnered, for example,
with thinking other solutions that are out there that would be about 500 bucks.
So it's very interesting.
Wait a second.
Let me pause there.
Yeah.
Danish.
First of all.
Robert,
I'm not correct.
Just so you know it's Donish.
It's okay.
You can call me Danish.
No, no.
I'm not.
Donish.
Go ahead.
What?
I was saying you can call me Danish.
But I don't let people say that unless I really upset them.
It's Donish, just so you're aware.
Just because you're going to be getting a bunch of messages saying it's done.
Go ahead.
No, all good.
To be clear.
Working with the private sector.
is not always easy, right?
There's always a distrust between the public and the private sector.
When the private sector does really well, the government gets pissed,
and when the private sector doesn't do well, they blame it on the government.
Trust me, I've been at the intersection of both.
There are better ways to do, whether it's laying fiber, all these things?
Absolutely.
There used to be a thing that was called, you know, Dig 1.
It was the whole idea of let's lay fiber across 190 million miles across the country at one time instead of, you know, do it in this rinkety dinky way and it never got approved.
Yes, there could be other ways that are more cost effective.
But the idea that we're going to get high speed internet.
to rural areas and areas that are going to help with,
you know,
whether it's building different economies or getting the education,
you know,
kids need to be able to compete with those in the higher,
the higher socioeconomic areas is a good thing. Whatever the cost is, I guarantee it will come back
in spades if we educate the appropriate way. So wanted to make sure that we talked about not only
the good, which is what you've done, which I think is fair, but also some of the
decisions that I think we would both agree were not so good.
But really wanted to frame up again the main points of the Bidenomics agenda,
which was, hey, look, we're going to invest
And by the way, one thing that has happened is you were mentioning about how hard it is to work with the private sector.
But with the Chips Act, we have actually seen incentives drive good behavior from the private sector.
I will say that is one of the-
$500 billion of investments for chips, manufacturing, EV battery, clean energy.
it's like we've never seen before.
And that is not just Democrats investing.
We're talking about all businesses across the board.
Agreed.
So again, Robert, I'm agreeing with you, but then I'm going to add my disagreements.
So what I'm agreeing with is around the fact that, look, this investment and this approach that's been taken, which is legislative win after legislative win, no one can push back against that, I don't think.
The part of it that we have to admit that has been done.
incorrectly is fueling the inflation fire. And I'll walk through my argument for that. And then I'll let
other people jump in as well. The American rescue plan was one of the, in my opinion, one of the worst
policy decisions that was made early on in the administration. And it was
seen by many as a thank you to the supporters in terms of, to his supporters, in terms of the amount of money that we threw at ARPA funds, which by the way, we're incredibly mismanaged. We know this now, where they're going to be looking into this. I believe that we still have an independent...
system for checks and balances.
The OIG is looking into how the ARPA funds will use.
I think that makes this administration stronger
because they are evaluating how ARPA went.
But the ARPA funds were used.
But the American Rescue Plan
was a big blunder. Now, everybody's allowed some blunders, but it was a multi-trillion dollar blunder.
And I think us acting like that did not happen. Now, by the way, Robert, when you're not here,
often I say things like, hey, inflation is global. Blaming one administration for inflation is kind
of stupid, right? It's not real. But at the same time, at the same time, American Rescue Plan was a blunder.
It was clearly a blunder.
So while other things that are being touted are correct,
just throwing money at the problem is not always the answer.
That's one big, I think, mistake that was made early on in the administration.
The other big mistake that's occurring with the administration is around this entire issue around immigration.
Right.
So right now...
We have issues with immigration that are not being managed.
We have record high illegal immigration.
Right. And we have issues with legal immigration.
Now, I know that he just, and that legal immigration issue is leading to us not getting some of the best talent in the world.
And we're struggling with that.
By the way, that is very antithetical to the old approach that we took.
And we being, you know, I'm an old school liberal, old school Democrat, right?
And so I believe that we were pro immigration for a long time.
But for some reason, legal immigration is still in deadlock.
and so, you know, which by the way
might be fueling the fires
when it comes to unemployment
and I think that that
that causes more trouble.
So there's a lot of other issues that are occurring on the margins.
But yes, has manufacturing started to have a return?
Sure.
I will also push back with one last thing.
And then I do want to go to the rest of the people.
I know Sher Michael's here.
And I want Sher Michael to push back as well on Bidenomics.
Sure Michael, I'm sure you're very familiar with anything.
And then I want to go to...
We don't all have to...
By the way, we don't all have to push back, Donish.
Some people can also agree.
Oh, I know, I know.
But...
But Robert, you have to understand.
I'm largely agree with you.
I'm happy to respond to your last few comments when you want as well,
but I'll let other people to talk.
Yeah, I just want other people to weigh in as well
because I don't want it to seem like we're pushing Bidenomics.
I think we want to have like an honest discussion around it.
And by the way, if you look at the comments,
most people are agreeing with you.
So you've made a compelling case.
By the way, I have to play devil's advocate.
Because if I don't, then people will think that, oh, Donish, the liberal,
is pushing liberal policies on all of us.
And I just don't want that.
I want it to be a fair.
And we're bringing up people that may disagree
so that we can have an honest conversation around this.
Okay.
So the last thing that I wanted to say,
so I talked about immigration,
I talked about inflation and the American rescue plan,
which I think was a big blunder.
I think that ultimately what's happening with the banking sector
and the decisions that were made by the,
Treasury, maybe masking some of the issues that are going on right now.
And then the last point, the last point that I have to make is perhaps, Robert, it is
not Biden's decisions that are leading to this much prosperity for small business.
Maybe it is the fact that we had corporate tax cuts that are finally showing their impact.
So when you look at what happened with Reaganomics, right, in Reagan's time, a lot of the impact of those policies didn't actually show up immediately.
It takes time for the system to show its impact.
So, Robert, I'll let you respond to that really quick before I go to Sher Michael and then, you know, there's a bunch of hands up.
So go ahead, Robert.
Sorry.
Yeah, I'll make it quick.
I mean, we can debate the Recovery Act and what the rounded amount of money is.
I was definitely, and you can go look at all my interviews.
You guys know I'm on Fox.
that I thought it should have been smaller.
But we were also at a time where it was we had the most unknown time in our life.
And, you know, as a country, we usually spend our way out of it.
And, you know, I'm probably more fiscally conservative than most people on this phone.
So, yes, I could debate things we could have done differently.
But unfortunately, there's not a mulligan we got, you know.
And we had an unknown time.
And this is the way that I thought that...
you know, we made decisions. And we, we could debate each line item on that. And I think we would
agree on 30 percent. We would have changed differently. On immigration, of course, I agree with you.
One, I would tell you, illegal immigration is down over the last, uh,
month. That's not saying we're at a good point. I'm just saying it is down. I'm 100% to change the
visa process and make sure we get the labor force we need. We have over 10 million open jobs.
Of course, I think we should have comprehensive immigration reform. I mean, I think everyone on this
phone would unanimously support that. It's just not going to happen with this Congress. It's not like
the president can just put a magic wand and said, voila, here we are.
And with respect to the banking system, I mean, I hate to say, I've been right. You guys have been wrong. I'm happy to have that challenge and debate anytime you want. That's fair. Sure, Michael, did you want to jump in now? Do you want to jump in now? Robert thinks I listened to a lot of what you had to say in terms of
perceived successes of the economy under President Biden for individual workers, for entrepreneurs.
And I have a question for you.
I want to sort of become a little more nuanced in this conversation.
I think we're having a pretty good macro combo here.
And I'll even cede some of your points.
And I don't want to pick on the president on this particular issue.
I think this is part of the failings of both major political parties.
But I'm going to bring this up in terms of President Biden.
since this particular demographic group happens to be a demographic group that gives him the highest approval numbers in comparison to every other ethnic group in the country, and that's black Americans.
So you talked a little bit about entrepreneurship. During the COVID pandemic, we saw about 51, 52 percent.
of black small business owners completely decimated.
The president has somewhat talked about wanting to focus on rebuilding those businesses trying to help those individuals become whole again.
Yet there really haven't been any specific or direct programs targeting black business owners and entrepreneurs who saw their businesses wiped away during the COVID pandemic.
Number two, I also would love to get your thoughts on black Americans having a higher disproportionate rate of consumer debt compared to Americans, more generally speaking.
And granted, black unemployment rate has gone down, but there's a high percent, really high percent compared to other groups of black Americans that have just completely gotten out of the labor market altogether.
They just aren't looking for jobs.
And so I think, generally speaking, while we've seen some improvements,
nationally in terms of the economy, that really hasn't translated specifically to the largest group
in the country that supports Democrats and that supports the president.
And so I'd love to hear what exactly is the administration doing specifically to alleviate these things and target some of the issues I've raised more specifically because while the president's talked about it,
there's yet to be any direct policies.
And a lot of black news outlets have really criticized the White House in these terms.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
Yeah. I mean, listen, like I said, I don't speak on behalf of the administration.
I can't tell you I have the detail on every policy. I can tell you that, that, listen, we know that whether we like it or not during COVID, it absolutely impacted the black and Hispanic community more than anyone.
You look at where unemployment went.
for, you know, white Americans versus black and Hispanic Americans. It wasn't even close. It went to
double-digit unemployment. We know that at that point, the service sector, whether it's those
who worked during COVID while people like us on this phone stayed home and worked from home,
was disproportionately impacted minorities, black and Hispanic. So,
Listen, they are coming out of a much deeper, tougher environment post-COVID because of where the starting point was.
I will tell you, I think some of the things this president has done was more important.
right off the bat for the underserved and the minority community.
Let's just talk about it.
I mean, one, with respect to prescription drugs and with respect to diabetes medicine,
you know, capping insulin.
That was incredibly important.
Number two, if you look at a lot of where they're looking at their community acts over the last couple days,
some of the things they're touting where they're working on infrastructure and where they're putting tax credits,
it's absolutely going right to the urban and rural communities that have been impacted the most.
If you look at how they're looking at child care and elder care, it's absolutely impacting those who were, you know, disadvantaged the most during COVID.
So I would tell you a lot of his programs are actually going right towards those who were part of the most underserved community.
I mean, we can debate like Donish was doing all day.
Is there a better way maybe to do high-speed internet?
Yes.
But he's impacting eight and a half million.
of individuals who are part of that underserved community. Is it going to happen overnight? No.
But I will tell you, we're seeing, you know, black unemployment at all time low.
We're seeing women enter the workforce at all time high. We're seeing wages for women increasing
dramatically. So I will just tell you that in this post-COVID world, it's going to take time
But the data is showing it's improving.
Are we at that voala moment or like Donish says where, you know,
Robert likes to get his trophy?
Fuck no, we're not.
And I'm not saying that on this call.
And I'm not saying that we should spike any football there.
I'm saying that versus where we were, the Biden economy and the legislative,
bipartisan, I want to be clear, bipartisan victories that we've had.
are going to give us wind at the back that we need during some of the toughest times.
And we're seeing that versus rest of world.
Like I said, I think we're seeing dramatic improvement, which is why I have been clear.
I think inflation is going to have a longer tail.
And I think we're not going to have a recession, but we're still in this flip of a coin.
Hey, Robert, can I just ask one quick follow-up?
Is that okay?
Yeah.
Yeah, please.
In terms of some of the programs that you've listed, I do acknowledge them, and I do know that they're going to impact a lot of people in the black community in a positive way.
But do you think that these things are going to lead to sustained economic alleviation? Do you think that these steps will lead to sustained wealth creation? And then I also want to add thirdly, in terms of education, I mean, if you try to lift someone out of poverty, if you try to give them a new step on.
life, if you will, economically, you sort of have to have the education to compete. You have to
have the education to understand financial literacy, right? And all of those things are important.
So do you see steps coming from the White House, the administration, democratically speaking,
to target these things?
As far as a long-term strategy versus it's more ancillary, you know, this is a temporary thing,
and election is coming up, so I understand the nuances of that.
But if I'm looking at the policies that are being advocated for today, can I in five to ten years trace from this moment and say,
wow, these were the steps that led to long-term economic sustainability and growth and wealth creation?
Or will I look back and merely say this was just politics as usual?
I'm hoping you can say the former.
I'm really hopeful, but it's hard to assess our educational programs here.
And whether, you know, everyone's socioeconomic environment is really the thing that forces, you know,
those who can move further ahead faster.
I think one of the reasons, and I really think we haven't spoke enough about this, you know,
high-speed Internet is...
You know, all I will tell you is, you know, my son worked for teacher American in an all black and brown school and then worked for the city of New York during the COVID time.
And he used to tell me about the areas that did not have internet service.
So when I say you had the K-shaped economy, the haves and have-nots,
I'm not just talking about the rural areas or, you know,
but even in the wealthy New York City, you had areas that, you know,
you know, a lot of the black and brown community did not have Wi-Fi capability in their house.
So when we were having this new type of virtual education, they weren't getting it.
And so, yeah, I think that it's going to take time, and I think that the underserved community probably got hurt education-wise.
And, you know, everyone got hurt education-wise, but more than others because of, you know, listen, where we were with food and security and where we were with the programs.
But it's also why...
You know, Donish and I have debated with this group on the recent debt ceiling and how everyone wants to, you know, go after, you know, discretionary non-defense.
Great. Well, that's the SNAP program and that's child care and that's elder care and that's veterans benefits.
Really, that's the things you want to hit in a post-COVID world.
So listen, nothing's going to happen with a magical wand.
But I will just tell you, I think we're on the right track.
And that was my point.
I started out by Sangliss and I was a Reagan Democrat.
I'm also a supporter of Biden economics.
They cannot be more different.
Thanks, Robert.
Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Eugene, you've been waiting for a while.
Go ahead.
Sure, yeah, I mean, it's been a great discussion.
Robert, wanted to ask a question and frame up in a certain way.
And there's a lot to learn, a lot to discuss.
But the first is on Internet speeds, right?
So just specifically on Internet, and the second is on infrastructure.
So on the Internet side, definitely agree about how Internet can enable
you know, innovation in some ways, right? So South Korea, I think, very famously, in the early
2000, spent a lot of money in infrastructure. And today, it's GDP per capita on a PPP basis,
not nominal, PPP. It just exceeded the UK, right? So if you look at a PPP graph on a per capita
basis, it's like, it's skyrocketing. So even though it was one of the Asian tigers from,
you know, the 60s 70s, 80s, it has kept up with its innovation because of internet speeds, right? So that's like
an argument in favor of internet. But the
But the flip side would be, well, you do have these private enterprises like Starlink, right?
I mean, here in the U.S., we got, you know, van lifers using Starlink, you know, even in Ukraine,
there was Starlink.
And then, of course, there was a lot of headlines about issues around it.
So one question around private enterprise and the collaborations there.
And the point I'll make about that is Starlink specifically, like, you know,
does Internet actually bring productivity?
It seems like it does, but I would say the vast majority of folks, you know, tend to use it to, you know, like,
like, you know, scroll TikTok and stuff like that, right?
So, I mean, certainly I don't think it, it says, you know, it creates, you know,
it creates productivity uniformly, but generally speaking, you know, good internet's better than not,
right? So that's just, you know, something to consider.
And number two, the question I have around is infrastructure.
And the infrastructure side is this, right?
So, you know, there are going to be some jobs created.
around construction, which is great. I think a number I saw here was like 150,000 jobs. So great, right?
Because, you know, we're not so great at making things here in the U.S. anymore. We used to be,
right? You know, called 50 years ago. But now we kind of ceded that and become an entirely service
sector economy. And I'll say that,
The thing I see, so I was just in, like, Dubai, which also, by the way, has really fast internet.
It was great.
UAE in general has done a good job with that.
And I was across Asia.
And I think we've known for years, I mean, the, if anyone's been in China, you know that, you know, you blink and a skyscraper appears, right?
It's like the stereotype.
And I think it's not too far from the truth.
And then when I lived in San Francisco for five years, it took like, you know, it took, you know, we had this like muni project, which is a glorified bus stop.
And it took like five years.
And there was literally just holes in the ground.
And.
And I was wondering, like, how much money we're spending to do basically nothing, right?
Here in the U.S.
So, you know, and this time I went through out Southeast Asia, went to, you know, not only Singapore,
which has already been developed, but like Thailand, Vietnam.
And they make things really well and really fast, too, right?
I mean, you think about China building things, but you have these developing countries doing a great job,
building infrastructure, doing it fast, doing it extremely cheaply.
So we're just here in the U.S. are just so much worse at that, right?
Today, it costs too much money to do too little.
So...
I guess is it doesn't make sense to put money.
I mean,
infrastructure in general is great,
but it's like,
it's just inefficient,
I guess that would be the comments.
Yeah.
yes,
it's definitely harder to move things
in our country than others.
And we are the largest economy, and we have a different rule of law, and sometimes regulations hinders, you know, what I would say, our speed of change.
So, yeah, I'm with you.
But let me just talk about infrastructure, because I think that there is a disconnect, how I think of infrastructure, and maybe how we articulate infrastructure.
Infrastructure includes water treatment centers.
that we have to change, you know, throughout this country.
It includes next generation GPS.
How the F do we still use, you know, literally towers instead of next generation GPS for all of our flights?
It includes a national electric grid.
Why aren't we using the winds of the Midwest?
Right.
to actually, you know, make our energy more vibrant and cheaper, right?
A national electric grid.
It includes, as we said, getting everyone high-speed gas.
high-speed internet. It includes, you know, upgrading to our rail systems. So it's not just,
you know, digging and it includes all of these areas. It includes, in my opinion, clean energy,
okay, making sure whether it's solar or wind or electric. I mean, so I just think when we think
of infrastructure, it's everything we touch.
And one of the reasons, you know, when I testified in front of the Senate in 2009 or 10,
why we need to have a national infrastructure bank is because it's very hard to get infrastructure to cross state line.
So it's hard to do things around the northeast corridor or the Midwest or the southwest where all states are working with each other.
Right? It's also hard.
to do things with the private sector when you're on an annual budget.
Okay, but these are 10-year projects.
So I just think that there's a lot of change we can make to be better.
But I'm also very pumped about what this administration did in a bipartisan basis on some of the most important things we need, like infrastructure and chips.
So, yeah, I'm not saying we're at the end all, but I'm saying some of the things we've done over the last two years is going to make an incredible change over decades to come.
Yeah, it's interesting. Justin?
Justin.
I know you may disagree, so I wanted to give you a chance to jump in.
Why is that my reputation?
Or maybe he agrees.
Well, what I was going to say is I'll never disagree with Robert Wolf on anything,
and he's probably the smartest person I've ever seen in the world.
No, just kidding.
I also do agree with an earlier point that it's nearly impossible to pin any economic woes on a president,
especially in a first term.
And just a little disclaimer, I think, you know, Trump obviously...
absolutely obliterated the national debt. I think he was I think he holds the record now.
So I guess congratulations to the former president. But the pushback I do have is obviously we had a
banking crisis. The all items index is up 8.3 percent, I think in just the last few years,
food index is up 9.4. This might someone correct me, but
might be the highest rate since 1980s.
CPI is up four.
This is all just in the last year.
Supply chain delays, according to the NRF, are still a big problem.
But this is despite container prices dropping.
And our own Rob Nunn just dropped that American debt percentage or per capita in the U.S.
passes the median net worth of millennials.
So I don't know if I can say Biden screwed anything up, but I also don't know if I can say Biden economics is working.
And, you know, later add on to this the fact that we had student loan debt that was going to be paid for.
And I disagree that was the right move from a government to do that.
But.
They promised it would be paid for.
And so student debt has actually gotten worse over Biden's term because they promised to pay for it, said it would be paid for, didn't pay for it.
And no one was making payment on their loans, therefore they went up.
So, I mean, at least that we can directly pin on him.
But I appreciate you being here, Robert.
And I'll bring yourself up for questions.
Really nice.
So a lot to unpack there.
Some I'm going to agree with you.
Yeah, it is.
Some I'm going to disagree.
So let me first talk the last point on student loan.
I have been on the other side of the president on student loans.
Everyone has seen me.
If you hear me on Fox, if you hear me talk,
I have always thought student loans should be income-based.
I think when you come out of college, you should pay, I'm going to say, call it 5% of your income over a 10-year period.
And then at that point, maybe it gets forfeited.
I always thought it should be a percentage of income.
I have not supported the forfeiture of $400 billion of student loan.
So, you know, I don't agree on every aspect that this president does.
I had a different view.
I thought it should have been income-based, just like I have a debate often where I think
Social Security should be means-tested in some ways.
Number two, on debt and deficit, listen, here's what I would say.
I wish we started talking about debt, not at the aggregate amount at 30-plus trillion.
but as a percentage of GDP, right? Because if GDP was a hundred trillion, you wouldn't give a shit that debt was at 30.
Okay. So the question we have to talk about is how can we grow our revenue faster?
One of the areas, unfortunately, is our taxes right. What did the Trump tax cuts really impact with respect to the deficit?
I'm not going to blame all of the deficit on Trump tax cuts.
We also had COVID.
But yes, he has the record for $7.5 trillion of debt.
So, yeah, he has the record.
He likes to be number one.
So he does have the record for that.
I think he added 25% to the debt.
But listen, we had Trump tax cuts that didn't pay for himself and then we had COVID.
Right.
You know, I think during COVID, a lot of what he did made a lot of sense.
And then I think Biden took it to the next step, and we can debate whether he went too far or not.
I think with respect to, you know, the debt, I'm with you guys.
I think we're in an inflationary period.
My argument would be more with the Fed.
I have not been supportive when they were calling it transitory.
I equally don't support that our target should be 2.2.5% in a post-COVID world.
If we were on this phone today, we said inflation was at 3.5%.
We'd say, fine.
We wouldn't say get it to 2, 2.5%. We'd actually say, that's a soft landing. Hallelujah.
So I do think we have to be nervous about them overshooting. And I have said on this call that I, in my biggest concerns, more inflation than it is the economy. I hope that answers some of it.
You know, it's interesting. I wanted to get, Jeff, I'll come to you and Dan in a second. I wanted to get Jim in because.
I know that Jim disagrees with some of the things that Biden has done.
But Jim, I wanted to like to.
Wait a second.
As do I.
No, I know.
Okay.
You do.
100%.
But I'm talking about.
Super quick side note on what Robert said, which I also agree with, the National Electric did, just for a note, because I'm in the middle of Iowa here in Iowa, we have a ton of wind power.
And so I was asking a bunch of energy people, you know, without going into details, just a bunch of energy people who knew more about it than I.
I was like, why don't we put these things all over the whole country?
And why can't we deliver the power all across the country?
It's just simple technology problems.
No, Justin, it's insanity that we're not taking advantage with our own resources.
Well, we can't.
That's the problem.
We can't.
Like, we can't actually put wind turbines in different states because of wind patterns, apparently.
This is what I've been told because the turbines...
wouldn't actually deliver energy in other states.
So that's why you only see them in Iowa,
a little bit of southern Minnesota, I think, in Texas.
Michigan.
There's some jet streams.
And then also it's still, no one's really solved the problem of energy delivery either.
Rob, I wish Rob was in here because he knows a lot about this.
This is what he's working on.
But energy delivery is the other problem.
As soon as that energy leaves a turbine from like a farm in Iowa, there's this degradation of energy to source.
So that's why it's like very difficult to get it over a bunch of states.
So, yeah.
That's not just an investment problem.
It's just a no one knows how to do it problem.
There's a technology limitation there.
Also, you know, in reality, we have to put all tools on the table.
Everything should be on the table.
I think that taking certain things off the table is a bad decision in this environment.
But just for clarity, I'm of the Obama philosophy of the all-in energy approach.
I'm not for one of ridding one versus the other.
I think we have to re-look at nuclear.
Obviously, we need clean energy.
We have to understand how we can maintain fossil fuels, but reduce it over time.
You know, how do we capture carbon?
I mean, there's a lot of things to do in this energy space.
And so, you know, the concern is...
is that there has been poor energy policy.
And if that's part of binomics, count me out, right?
Like, that's been one of the big blunders in my opinion.
Look, ultimately, we can do demand destruction through the Fed as much as we want.
But if we can improve supply constraints, that will have a pretty big impact.
And let's remember that inflation is the greatest tax on people.
people of lower and middle socio-economic status.
And so to try to not think about that as, you know,
again, like you and I both, I think agree, as you mentioned,
that, you know, we need to have all energy tools on the table.
But Jim, I wanted to go to you and give you the chance to kind of weigh in.
And then if you have any questions for Robert, go ahead.
And by the way, even in disagreement,
I'm always on me on the same stage with Robert Wolfe.
That's for sure.
So, um,
Real quick, hitting inflation.
It's not only the biggest tax for the lower middle class.
It's the biggest tax period.
Let's just be very clear on that.
It is by far the largest tax.
I agree.
Yeah, that any human being has to undertake.
Yeah.
And so, Robert, you know, I want to get to the, I'm going to talk about tax cuts,
but I want to talk about this inflation thing real quick.
you know, the reality is this, the Federal Reserve has really screwed the pooch over the last 10 years.
So they ran this low interest rate policy when roughly, and I'm putting my thumb in the air and twisting it side to side,
you know, when we had zero percent, it really should have been at the three to four percent range.
If you really look at the market and Trump benefited somewhat from that and it's going to the detriment of Biden.
But that's a Fed problem of not understanding things.
And I think that that's that then when you add to that the fact that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden,
signed massive spending bills, the $5 trillion of which during COVID was almost entirely funded by Fed printing as opposed to real asset sales on the market.
You know, then you really create this suit that's a problem.
So I'm very anti-fed in general.
And I think it's a big issue.
I'm curious what you have to say about that.
Yeah.
So, Jim, you know.
If you look back on a bunch of my interviews,
I did not agree with the Fed on,
I think it was QE 3 and 4.
I was supportive of QE 1 and 2.
I think having zero rates makes zero sense.
And also, not only...
you know, is it not smart?
I mean, think about saving rates
and think about, you know,
everyone, you know, forces into risk assets
that they don't even know
what they're really thinking or doing.
So one, we're probably more aligned
on where the Fed was.
And then I was also obviously not supportive
when the Fed called it transitory.
I actually think the Fed has done a good job
recently because I've been supportive of tax of rate hikes.
And I, you know, I think that they will continue.
And I've been saying that all along.
With respect to, you know, the printing during COVID of $5 trillion,
I was below both what Trump did and Biden did on the total amounts.
But I do give them a pass on having an unknown that none of us on this phone ever lived through.
Right.
So this is kind of, you know, the Spanish flu meets the Great Depression.
Well, I grant that you did come close in 2007 yourself as anyone else.
Yeah, but yes, go ahead.
And so I just don't know.
I think it's unfair for us to judge what we would have done sitting in the seat with COVID.
It's easy to look backwards when it's never happened ever, right?
So, yeah, so did they overshoot? Yes. Are we paying for it? Yes. Is inflation a huge tax? Yes.
Is anyone surprised we have inflation when the entire world opens up in a three-month period? No.
But I do think where because of some of the things, I do give this administration, you know, props.
Some of the things they're doing and, you know, we can say some of it was inherited or not,
whether it's the labor market and 13 million jobs, whatever it may be.
We're doing better than rest of the world.
And does that mean it's perfect?
No, but isn't that what part of our comparison is?
How do we do versus others?
I mean, I don't know what the litmus test is, but it's one of them.
Yeah, and listen, I think we do agree on Fed policy.
We may not agree possibly on the existence of the Fed.
I'm just, I'm not a fan.
But nonetheless, I mean, you know, the Fed, I'm very Milton Friedman.
If you're going to be a monitorist, you need to listen to Uncle Milty, in my opinion.
But I wanted to address taxes, too, because you mentioned,
about the Trump tax cuts.
Of course, we had big arguments over the Bush tax cuts.
I was...
working for Tim Heelskamp at the time when we took down Plan B when John Boehner wanted to raise taxes on the wealthy.
I was right in the middle.
Actually, I think it was Tim Heelskamp primarily and me that got that taken down.
So I'm a big hawk on this stuff.
People argue about the Reagan tax cuts.
The one thing that I've got a problem with on that thesis that constantly comes up over all my lifetime.
is that revenues do keep going up.
Like we'll have slight dips here and there,
nothing major ever.
We had a slight dip recently,
mostly related to COVID,
but right after a big spike,
So, you know, the tax cut thing, although I do not believe that tax cuts is the nirvana of economic growth.
In fact, if you look, my analysis of the Reagan administration is you had a few things working.
First of all, to Jimmy Carter's credit, he got rid of the Civil Aeronautics Board and they had massive deregulation of DOT that actually played a
nice role, one and everything, but it was good.
You had Volker actually doing the right Fed policy in a very tough situation, and he was
really a hero, I think, in many ways in terms of a Federal Reserve chairman, if you can call
anybody that.
And you had the Reagan tax cuts, and that did help.
But I think the biggest thing that happened was while the Congress was ignoring the Grace Commission report on deregulation of industry and reducing that,
Congress was ignoring it, but Reagan was implementing it by cutting the federal register nearly in half.
Trump went on the same path or similar path, not quite as extensive.
And I'm convinced that government meddling in the economy is probably the most
significant factor that we have.
All these other things are important.
What the Fed does, tax rates, a lot of these things are important.
But federal meddling in the economy is the biggest problem.
And that is on the uptick here in the Biden administration.
Yeah, but Jim, the point that Robert's making, which I don't hear you pushing back at,
is that all this money going into infrastructure was a good thing.
I'm not convinced to that.
I will disagree.
But the data says otherwise.
Well, listen, I think short term, like Robert, you also mentioned, I mean, or maybe Donish, you made it, you said it, but you can't get a good sense of economic policy in a first term of a president.
Like, this is going to play out further.
When you get massive infrastructure development, I think that can cost some long term.
Jim, so let me respond to a few things, and we can all talk about our history lesson.
I mean, yes, I was supportive, as I said, of the Reagan tax cuts of the early 80s.
And I was supportive of Bush 41 tax cut in 86.
Yeah.
You know, I think those two things made sense coming out of where we were.
But remember, we were talking about going from 70%, yeah, we took it down to, I think, 35% at the time.
And then it went back up to 39 for all those who want to know my age.
It's in the 601.
I think the second thing, Volker is one of my close, close friends.
Let him rest in peace.
You know, I have had.
many, many chats with Paul Volcker about the 1980s.
I was on the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board where he was the chair.
We used to talk a lot about, you know, what the 80s were like versus, you know, the post-recession, post-Lean crisis.
So, yes, my guess is he would have done things very differently than the Fed would is doing over the last decade.
I would disagree with you on infrastructure.
I think if you look at the data, it's the fastest multiplier of job growth,
and it's the best wage growth for employment.
But that's to be debated.
So, yeah, I think we agree on a bunch.
On the tax cuts on the revenue side, the one thing I would probably disagree is because of our debt burden, we need more revenues.
Because of where we are in a post-COVID world where Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, military is increasing, I actually think that, you know, the revenues versus expenses are going upside down.
And the tax cut is one of the detriments to that. We would not have known that.
Because when they did the tax cuts, although I used to laugh with Steve Moore and Forbes and Kudlow that you guys aren't paying for any of it, the idea that you think GDP will be at 5% is a joke.
With all that being said, no one could have predicted COVID.
But now that we're in this post-COVID world and so many things are upside down, taxes are going to have to be one of the revenue, what revenue generators for us, whether we like it or not.
Well, but you don't disagree with the laffer curve, do you?
I mean, is that Boguch, in your opinion, supply side type, anything?
What's your thoughts?
I'm mixed on it.
Art and I have had many debates on it.
I think a lot of this stuff made more sense during a different time and a different economy.
I don't think it necessarily stands forever.
I kind of think it's long term, but I will say this.
One of the big factors that has caused problems in recent years is spending on wars.
I mean, let's be honest about that.
That has added a burden to our federal budget.
And listen, I'm not a pacifist.
I believe in having a badass military.
but not using it.
And I think I'm not quite all the way down the road of anti-military.
But the reality is we spent trillions of dollars on wars,
that has added to this entire problem as well, too, as revenues.
have been pretty darn good. And we can't go back and change the past. I grant that, Robert. But moving forward, we do have to have something of austerity. So the biggest thing that I think we need to do is figure out a way politically to get to a place where people can own their social security accounts and change the Ponzi scheme.
you know that's a different debate how we want to privatize social security and should we go to
means testing and over a multi-decade period should we change the age but that's for a whole different
debate that's a different day guys so i wanted to make sure that i can uh you know i can
continue the conversation of bi dynamics i want i know that jeff's been waiting for a while
jeff you put your hand down does that mean that your question was answered or did you have a comment
Yeah, I said a comment. I mean, first off, I really appreciate having Robert up here.
I think I come from definitely kind of a different spectrum politically, but I just, your,
your comments are just, you know, incredibly sensible, especially on the Fed, just in terms of
what I agree with. But I just, a couple of comments, my backgrounds in high tech manufacturing.
And, you know, I actually do appreciate.
elements of the Inflation Reduction Act and the Chips Act.
I think they're going to be good, especially when they really kick in and start producing
output.
But there's some things that just don't feel like they're really well thought out.
Like in the Inflation and Reduction Act, for example, autos, EVs that are built in Mexico,
you know, get an IRA credit from the United States government.
So I don't know how that's going to help.
U.S. jobs.
It just, and I see
Ford expanding down. I know Ford's also building,
expanding in the U.S. as well, but
it just didn't make sense to me.
But the bigger thing for me is the Chips Act.
And I just don't think it's well thought through
from my perspective, my background against
in supply chain design.
Like, we're going to build silicon in the U.S.
And then where's it going to go?
Like, what are we, are we thinking about that system level manufacturing of consumer electronics and larger devices here in the U.S.? Are we literally going to create an inflationary
process of building, now building more silicon in the U.S.
And then just transporting it back to, you know,
China and South Korea to be put into product and then to be shipped back to the U.S.
That's just going to be highly inflationary.
So there's, I like these.
I like these policies, but I think there's some things that are like, I would say, in a critical state that I haven't been well thought through.
And Jeff, what I would say, you're much smarter than me on this sector, so I'm not going to debate you on it.
I would agree with you that execution and implementation is always the key to any policy, right?
Right.
you know um and it also has to be somewhat iterative right what we do today could be very
different what we do with the chips act four or five years my overarching theme on the chips act away
from it's important we get manufacturing you know vibrant in this country and we start
building things here it is a smart hedge over the next decade with respect to southeast asia right so
all everything else aside
Having a major chip insurance policy in our country in the future from a geopolitical perspective
perspective is smart. Whether we get there, Jeff, to your point, I don't know. But I do think from
someone who's looked at risk my entire life, I would give them a check plus on that.
Yeah, and also, you know, we saw that during the pandemic as well.
What happens when our supply chains get disrupted?
I mean, Jeff, I'm assuming that this is also part of, as Robert's explaining, there's geopolitical risk and there's also having control over your own supply chain, though?
Yeah, no, there is.
It's just...
Like, we don't expect the Chips Act to lead to a world in which America pretty much makes its own chips.
That's just not realistic.
But having control over a percentage of our supply chain is probably not a bad idea.
No, totally.
I agree.
So I wanted to go to Dan.
Dan, you know, wanted to hear your thoughts on Bidenomics.
And I again want to preface.
The timing is very interesting when even Robert will concede that the large majority of Americans don't think that the Biden administration is doing a good job.
with the economy and you know it does i didn't donish i did not articulate it that way no i know
but my my point though is that it's not about what you're where you're articulating in my opinion
what i was saying is the biden administration coming out and releasing this and kind of trying to
coin this term uh you know we can i mean robert the timing is interesting right it could be seen
as tone deaf no no i think just the opposite i
I think it's letting everyone know that our legislative policies that we did on a bipartisan basis is going to change today and tomorrow.
And I think it's the idea of the-
But if the average American doesn't feel it, because again, inflation affects people's feelings and how they feel about the day, right?
And like the average consumer is feeling like they're, you know, they're paying more.
wage increases have not gone up as much as they wanted.
Sorry, we'll go to Danish.
I agree, but you've got to tell your story.
If he wasn't telling his story,
everyone in this phone would say,
oh, Biden's not, you know,
isn't giving the right narrative or he's not leading or he's,
you know,
he's President Biden, not candidate Biden.
This is smart to do to go out.
during these times of infrastructure issues like an i-95 in philadelphia and tell what they're doing i think
it's a there's never a negative when the president's touting bipartisan legislative actions
and wins i can say i guess but yeah go go ahead dan okay thank you so i hold on one sec can you guys hear me all right
Yeah, we can hear you. Go ahead.
Okay, good deal.
So I think we're missing the most important variable of this entire discussion when we talk about inflation
and the spending pressures that Americans are facing every single day right now.
And there's been so many different topics that have come up in the last hour that I've just loved to...
you know, to, like, have a chance to chime in on, especially when it comes to the tax cuts.
I mean, when you look at supply side or Reaganomics or trickle-down economics, I mean, the idea is sound, but the problem is, is when we cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the country and for giant corporations, that money was...
we gave them those tax cuts so that they could hold jobs and stop them from impacting unemployment even more.
And instead, they use those tax cuts to initiate the largest corporate buyback and corporate stock buyback in history.
And then they fired tens of thousands of people anyway.
So that was a big problem I saw with those tax cuts.
And when we're talking about energy, infrastructure, and transportation, I mean, I love that we're talking about solar that's or a,
I'm sorry, wind, that's great.
But there's so much more to it.
I mean, like someone had said, you can't put windmills everywhere in the country.
And what we need to be really looking at is a diverse clean energy portfolio where we have strong jet streams and strong winds.
We have wind energy there.
In the southwest, where we have, you know, a lot of solar energy, we have solar there.
Right.
where we have our giant rivers, the Mississippi, we are utilizing hydro energy.
We're utilizing kinetic energy on the coast.
And we're also looking into clean nuclear energies like thorium for more urban areas.
But it's a really diverse, you know, clean energy field we need to be talking about, not just a single aspect of it.
And the reason that we're not talking about these things is because...
It's a bipartisan issue in Congress where we have our legislators on both sides of the aisle, our Democrats and our Republicans, taking money from corporations like BP and Exxon.
And then we look at BP's profits for 2022, and they had a 75.6 increased profit.
or ExxonMobil last year had a 62.02% increase in corporate profits.
And then they're using that money to put millions of dollars into candidates' pockets
to make sure that legislation isn't going to get past these diverse, clean, renewable platforms.
Sorry, that's just – I wanted to bring that out about energy
because I think that is one of the most important aspects of our society that's really holding us back.
And then when we talk about rural Internet and broadband, I live in Arkansas –
One of the things about Arkansas is we have a very rural state. We have a very diverse state where northwest Arkansas, central Arkansas, our average household income is around like $48,000 a year. Everyone is struggling to give
but they're managing. But then when you look at the counties in the Delta region, we have
household incomes, not just, you know, a single person's income, but household incomes that are
averaging between $23,000 and $25,000 per year because there's no jobs out there.
there. And what the billion dollars we're bringing into Arkansas for broadband is going to do is it's
going to allow us to get internet to those areas so that people in those areas can get remote work.
As we're helping them get a remote education and get remote work, we're going to start
bringing income from out of state into these rural areas that
really need it. So it's extremely important here in Arkansas. And I'm really glad that, you know,
the Democrats and the current administration were able to get that infrastructure package passed so that
we could do, you know, that huge constructive action here. Dan, one question I have is,
doesn't inflation hurt those people the most?
And that's my, the biggest variable we're all missing.
I mean, when we look at inflation, what are we looking at?
We are trying to hold a single person in the executive branch accountable for it.
But what we're not talking about is what is inflation?
It's paying more for things, paying more for gas, okay?
Fossil fuel profits are going up.
It's paying more for groceries.
Kroger 2020.
Hold on.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Hold on.
Hold on.
You're saying that it's because of the fossil fuel profits that the cost of, uh,
crude is going up, that the cost of gas is going?
No, no.
That's the cost of what you're paying at the pump is going up.
Sure, but it's gone.
Okay, anyways, keep going.
Sorry.
I disagree, but it's okay.
Go ahead.
Yeah, and, you know, when it comes to groceries, we have our giant grocery trains, Kroger, Walmart, Albertsons.
They're all posting, you know, between 4.99% and 7.3% record profit increases.
And we're not talking about how while we're paying more, we're actually paying these corporations more while we're cutting their taxes, and they're just charging us more for the same things.
And, yeah.
Those are the issues I think we need to be talking about.
When we're looking at credit card debt and credit card interest, I mean, people are paying anywhere
between 18 to 27.95% in credit card interest, and that's a specific way that it is hurting
lower and working class families, people who can't afford to buy, you know, next week's groceries
on cash.
So, Robert, do you agree with Dan that we should blame the corporations for all of this?
that we gave them tax cuts and they're not doing us the service and that you know I guess
free market's not working go ahead Robert okay first of all sorry I'm just being honest I agreed
with Dan on just about everything he said I would probably frame the corporate side a little
differently I'm absolutely for open architecture and capitalism I do think that
that we should look differently at corporate buybacks and when they take government money,
you know, how it's spent and what they're able to do and not to do, you know.
And obviously during COVID, we should have had different checks and balances.
And we should have, you know, if you're bailing out, you know, the airlines,
there should have been certain restrictions that come along with it.
And, you know,
and taxpayers should have made sure they got whole.
So there's things we need to do.
You know, when you're a public company,
public, I don't mean government,
but public company with a public stock versus a private company.
But yeah, I think that,
I think that there's an imbalance between corporations caring about the shareholders versus being the employer of choice.
And that usually happens in a tough market like COVID, right?
You know, in a bull market, you can be, you know, do great for your shareholders and be the employer of choice.
And when the shit hits the fans, you know, the employer of choice goes to the wayside and you care more about, you know, the shareholders because...
it's kind of who your number one constituent is
in the eyes of the investor community.
Yeah, you know, I think it's also kind of interesting
to try to, you know, in this situation,
so just to kind of summarize Dan's...
But I should just tell you,
I thought what Dan said was smart and spot on,
and I appreciated his comments.
Yeah, I mean, I think I agree with him on the first part,
which is, look, it's affecting...
what we don't realize is the opportunity is not equally distributed in this country,
which I think is true.
I think that people in rural areas are suffering.
There's no doubt about that.
We have tons of data on that not only in terms of access to health care, but access to everything and access to jobs.
And, you know, but the underlying problem is that we're, I think,
or...
overall, we're trying to find blame for the inflation issue.
And it's a multifaceted issue.
David, I got your DM on the back end.
I wanted you to jump in and kind of share your thoughts.
Yeah, there was a discussion about the Fed previously and whether they kept rates so low for so long and the QE and how big and how big that was and that being a driver of inflation.
I think the Fed was able to.
do those things because the inflation,
the overall inflation rate and the expectations rate,
when you look at the five year forward inflation expectation,
were so low.
So they were able to do and keep rates
as low as they did for as long as they did
because they were just providing liquidity.
Liquidity was very strong in the markets.
But once March 2021 hit,
where but by and by the time i mean yes COVID was still obviously a question mark and we had a
vaccine and and and and deaths were slowing down but but by the time we got the march 2021
like the stock market and even the russell 2000 which would be a little bit more reflective of
main street rather than just wall street
even the Russell 2000 had blown away its pre-pandemic highs by March of 2021 in fact
at March 2021, that's kind of when the Russell peaked,
that it kind of stopped going up at that point.
And housing prices had gone all the way,
had blown past their pre-pandemic highs by the time.
So from a, I mean, from a,
maybe from a health standpoint, COVID might have been a bigger question mark.
But from an economic standpoint, an asset price standpoint,
there wasn't a question mark.
I mean, the markets had priced out.
the pandemic completely and was right on board and then we throw all this money into the system
and it just blew inflation.
I mean, that's why the Fed had to go as fast as they did with their rate hikes because,
I mean, they went from a policy that was okay to do in a very low inflation environment.
And then now inflation is spiking up because of fiscal policy.
Fiscal policies that weren't necessarily needed because we didn't have as big of a question mark.
And money supply spiked and still remains strong.
And what didn't get a lot of pub yesterday, but the M2 came out yesterday.
and it jumped back up on a month,
on a month over month basis,
back up to 0.6%.
So it had been negative,
and a lot of people talking about how money supply
has been dropping,
has been negative for the past so many months.
It jumped back up to being positive
to a level that's,
was actually a pretty high month over month level historically
in context.
It's a pretty strong number.
So, you know, and I've told you this before,
I don't think inflation,
I think inflation that obviously has been coming down.
And I think that's the easy part where you raise rates,
you get inflation down.
But you're starting to see that this pace of decline
is starting to slow down.
and we might be bottoming out here.
And that's,
that's the problem in my opinion of.
And,
And Bidenomics. And that's going to be the big legacy of binomics is by the time it's all
said and done, inflation was below 2% by the time he was elected. And this entire term, whether
he, whether it's his fault or not, because you can't put everything on one person, but his,
the legacy of this term will be inflation. And that's just the, no matter what other acts get passed.
I mean, it's interesting because inflation on its own may not be the worst culprit.
Obviously, it's a tax on the poor.
It's a regressive tax.
I think it affects people that make that $20,000 more than anybody else.
And so it's not surprising that the average person, who, by the way, isn't on Twitter, right?
The average person is just trying to do their job.
Wait, what? Hold on. Breaking. Breaking.
Yeah.
Justin, you're above average.
Isn't that surprising?
But I was going to say, sorry,
but I was going to say that, you know,
that ultimately the point that I'm making is
that the average person is being affected by this way more.
So it's not surprising that the average person
is actually not happy with the current administration.
And they, unlike you, David,
who has a nuanced understanding of the economy
and talking about M2 money supply.
I mean, like, you know,
The average person is saying, hold on, my job, my wages haven't gone up as fast as the cost of everything else has.
And so that's why the average person doesn't care about the stock market.
The average person doesn't care about, you know, in my opinion, narratives.
I think the average person is struggling.
Like we're seeing it.
And, you know, it's going to be very interesting to see how it all shows.
shakes out, I agree with Robert.
So what you all don't know is that,
and maybe you do because I'm not as good at hiding it,
I actually do agree that we need a little bit of both.
We actually need some Bidenomics and then we need some Reaganomics.
You actually kind of need both.
You need a way to spur growth in the economy and through small businesses
without just relying on, you know, legislation to drive who gets what money.
Right? Like that's the actual answer.
So it's good that there's a counterbalance to just Reaganomics.
Like Robert, when I was at school...
In business school, it was literally all people talk about is when you take an econ class, they talk about this.
And so, you know, ultimately, we keep hearing about the value of trickle down and corporations.
But, you know, they don't always do the perfect things.
And they're focused on maximizing shareholder value.
Right? And so it's not surprising. I mean, but by dynamics and choosing winners and losers,
choosing which, why does Chips Act happen in other areas don't? Why are we choosing certain industries
to thrive while we're choosing other industries to hurt? It is a question that, you know,
you have to ask, hey, is this the right instrument? Or is tax cuts actually a better approach? It's,
maybe a little bit of both. I don't know. But Mickle would love for you to jump in.
Yeah, no, I was someone who was pretty skeptical of what the economy was going to look like under Biden.
And I will say I've been pretty impressed how well everything is held up.
I mean, we really did go into an unprecedented scenario.
And in my opinion, everyone was predicting a...
massive recession and because rates were going up, we had to have this recession imminently.
And for the most part, the labor market is held up. Everything's been chugging along.
Earnings haven't been great, but they've been a lot better than people were predicting.
So overall, I've been impressed on that front. And I will just say, me as someone and people
on this stage who really watch these things closely, I think we can all kind of really agree
with what Robert's been preaching.
And I think it makes a lot of sense.
I will say, though, from someone who has a lot of younger friends and people who don't watch these things that closely, a lot of them just look at the current scenario and say, prices are high, things aren't going well.
It's because of this president's fault.
So I think a lot of us can see the nuance in saying, hey, there was this massive pandemic.
There's lag effects.
All these things aren't necessarily because of one specific policy.
While people who are a little less educated on everything going on, just look at the current scenario and directly blame it on the person in charge.
Overall, though, I really do kind of agree with Robert.
And if you were to ask me two years ago where the economy would be, I would expect it to be a lot worse than it is today.
I've been thoroughly impressed that everything is held up the way it is,
especially considering things like the banking crisis we went through,
and just the super high inflation that has come down relatively quickly
compared to most people's expectations.
Yeah, Jim, can you agree with Mickle here at least that maybe things have held up
a little bit better than even you were expecting?
Well, I'm not so sure.
whether they've held up as well as better than I was expecting.
I mean, we still have a workforce participation rate problem
when it comes to one of the key factors you brought up related to employment.
I mean, we've been running lower participation rates,
lower unemployment rates for some time now.
And that's maybe the biggest, one of, maybe the biggest factor,
to indicate how this economy is going.
But what I want to do, though, and what I was thinking about,
as I heard both Robert and him talking, is this issue,
or as you talking, Donish, I'm sorry,
is the dichotomy between inflation, living in an inflation world,
which is, you know, inflation is almost entirely triggered
when it's in a broad base.
It's entirely intriggered by fiscal policy because it's the confluence of what Fed actions have to be undertaken to support the spending we're doing in government.
That interaction has been there.
for a long period of time. In fact, the reason we
abandoned Bretton Woods and
created the Fed to begin with was to facilitate
government spending, particularly related to war, but other factors
as well. So there's the dichotomy of that world
and Reaganomics. I think those are dichotomies. I think they're
yin and yang. Jim?
Jim, yeah, yeah.
I would normally agree with you, but I have to take the other side on the inflation of recent inflation.
Sure.
Do I think we would have had inflation because of spending at some point?
Yes, although we didn't see that over the last decade.
This inflation was not because of spending.
This inflation during COVID, we had durable goods inflation during COVID that we never have, right?
Durable goods is what, 20% of GDP.
It's a small percent versus services.
And then the economy opened and we shifted from durable goods where everyone took either their, you know, bought pelotons or computers or couches because they were living at home.
And then we shifted to the services economy.
post-COVID, which is five times bigger. I mean, that's where inflation goes. You know,
think about it, hospitality and leisure, wages were up 20 plus percent. I mean, that's where
the reopening simultaneously happening with geopolitical risk with Ukraine and Russia that spiked energy
prices, all of those things collectively...
That was not Fed-driven, even though I think you and I would agree that Fed was behind the eight ball and we probably would have gotten there.
But this inflation that jumped so quickly was really, you know, COVID hits, you know, hits geopolitics at one time.
Well, you know, this is kind of the interesting confluence of micro and macroeconomics, so to speak.
So I totally agree with you.
Post-COVID reopening brought about, particularly an immediate energy inflation spike that receded.
somewhat and then pick back up later like in changes in energy policy and yes by the way yes i'm
i'm agreeing with you that there were those areas of inflation increase but we cannot in my opinion
and you're a smarter economist than i am having had more responsibility than i ever had but when i look at
this
And you talk about printing $5 trillion, any fact.
You know, I don't want to dig into the details.
There's more to it than just that.
That's the correlation between monetary supply and inflation is nearly one to one.
No, you and I in agreeing that this would have likely happened.
I'm just saying that what happened at this time,
was a confluence of an event that we have not seen together.
This was the oil embargo meets the post-Persian Gulf, you know, recession,
okay, meets, you know, the post-Lean crisis.
I mean, this was everything at one time happening.
No, I totally agree.
I mean, and to be clear, it's not just the pandemic.
It wasn't just the printing of money.
It was the fact that we entered into a proxy war with Russia.
It's the fact that oil and gas has also been affected.
It's the fact that we also have had other legislative spending and entitlements along the way,
the timing of which is going to...
Again, we don't know what the impact of this is going to be.
You know, we know the Inflation Reduction Act happens over a decade.
Like, the impact of it is going to be seen for a decade.
We know the Chips Act is probably not going to lead to improved in our supply chain for at least three or four years, if not longer.
I mean...
We know that the impact of all these decisions has probably not borne out yet.
And so it is interesting.
Again, to me, if Robert's saying that they're not spiking the football, that sounds great.
But maybe they're just leading a narrative before it comes out.
I will say the markets are starting to really buy into this soft landing narrative, which is interesting.
I find that fascinating the markets are actually buying it.
I'm not buying it yet, but I've always been a doom and gloom kind of guy.
So I understand.
And Robert's called me out for it before.
But I was going to say, Jeff, I want to go to you real quick before we go back to Robert.
Go ahead, Jeff.
Jeff, you got on mute, bottom left.
All right, Robert. You get to push back at me, but you have to admit that we've done a lot of crazy things recently. There's a lot going on.
Donish, I'm not going to debate you on there. There's a ton of going on. And we're mixing and matching a lot of things on this call. And we're not in the perfect situation. And it's not a time to spike the football. My point of today and I appreciate people hearing me out is that
because of the legislative victories that were done on a bipartisan basis, which is what we all want.
We're going to have some wind at our back that a lot of people, for political reasons, don't want.
And we should just be frank about where the data is showing you and where we're going.
And I think Biden making a speech today makes sense because of what everyone says on this call that people don't feel it.
You know, his poll numbers suck.
All these different reasons of why he's doing this.
I don't, listen, once again, I don't view him as candidate Biden.
I view him as President Biden. I think it's smart that the president, you know, has these type of discussions and letting people know that things are happening a good. And if the polls change, the polls change. If they don't, they don't. Everyone has one vote. That's all we have. And so my point is, I just think we should be frank about where things are and where they may be going.
I'm not predicting the future.
I just am more positive on where it is than how a lot of these calls have been.
Yeah, that's fair.
So on that note, I think, you know, I think Jeff is unavailable right now.
But I was going to say that, you know, just want to remind everybody,
that the goal of this forum today was to discuss this policy.
I don't think any of us really know, like Robert, you know, has said, you know, he is more optimistic about the future.
But I can tell you if Robert could predict the future, he wouldn't be on this space with us.
He'd be on his yacht.
by some island, which you probably could be anyway,
which is funny in hindsight of that comment.
But I was going to say, you know,
ultimately what we're hearing is there is a new game in town.
Bidenomics is now something that people are going to start talking a lot about.
And all of you that are listening are now educated on the main tenets of it.
It is spending on infrastructure.
It is spending on the middle class.
We can't call it trickle up, but that's kind of what we're talking about here.
And ultimately, what we're saying is if we invest in Made in America, in our infrastructure, in our broadband, it could potentially lead to a world where we have more growth.
again, I'm saying this reluctantly because I'm not 100% sure, but that this poses a completely
different viewpoint than the traditional regonomics approach where you give tax cuts to the corporations
and that money trickles down to the middle class. Because middle class is what built this country.
And if we don't remember that, I think we all lose. So Robert, thank you so much for
for coming in. Thank you so much for sharing your point of view. This was incredible for us.
And as a nerd, this was like the most incredible day. So appreciate you.
Next, uh, next Twitter spaces. How about we go to Robert's yacht? What do you think, Robert?
You know, I don't have one, but, uh, I did grow up in a boating town and one of the probably
the only kids that didn't have a yacht or a boat, but, uh,
But I'm one of those blue-collar guys,
so I appreciate actually some of our conversation today.
And I do think we have to build from the middle out.
No, absolutely.
Thanks, guys.
Have a wonderful day.
Thanks, everyone.
Bye.
