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Stan how do you feel going into 2020 about the markets. Yeah my health and the markets the economy we could talk but health too if you like. Let's not . Well you have very low unemployment here . You have fiscal stimulus in Japan . Fiscal stimulus and a lot of confidence coming to Britain . We're running a trillion dollar deficit for full employment . Apparently we're going to have some sort of green stimulus in Europe . And we have negative real rates everywhere and negative absolute rates. A lot of places. So with that kind of unprecedented monetary stimulus relative to the circumstances it's hard to have anything other than a constructive view on the markets risk and the economy. Intermediate term. So that's what I have. Because everywhere you turn you're being encouraged to take more . I don't need to take more. I have enough. But I just I've always believed that expansions and usually with tight monetary policy or credit problems. And I think what we're doing is definitely borrowing from the future and we'll probably end badly as the 0 7 period did. But you know that could be years. I'm 66. I might be dead by the time it happens. So the intermediate term technicals are good. Your breath at an all time high . Economies fine. And if anything our biggest our biggest problem going in once once the Fed shifted away from their duty and tightening program. Our biggest problem was obviously global trade and worries over global trade. And I'm not saying everything is all peaches and roses now but certainly on a rate of change basis. I don't see that being if anything there's a de-escalation not an escalation there. So for now all systems go. So you're constructive all systems go . How you're expressing that in your portfolio . Well I'm long equities . I'm long some commodities. I'm short fixed income and I'm a long commodity currencies short the yen. So all sort of for now . Betting on a benign economic outlook kind of benign market outlook. But as you know Eric I tend to change my mind. So let's for today hopefully it'll last at least a couple of weeks. Let's be a little more specific if we can short the end commodity currencies I'm assuming Canadian dollar. Australian dollar . That's very good. Anything else I'm missing there . I have some New Zealand lying around. I even have some Mexico lying around. They're not they're not big massive positions but they're enough to matter in my non competing world. I might have more if I still had clients . Commodities have been unloved for an awfully long time. What do you own . I own copper. Believe it or not . Basically I think on the margin as I just described particularly with fiscal stimulus and monetary easing at the same time and the diminution of trade worries global economies it's going to be better than the IMF thinks. And copper has a little extra kicker relative to the other ones . We think that even these probably add point 1/2 percent a year in demand and the supply outlooks challenged to come more challenged. The Chile situation. Doesn't clear up but that's not why we own it . We don't own energy . Probably should. But I just I just think the demand outlook is so challenged long term . Just not that interested. If you like the commodities short term it kind of makes the equities challenge too because they're a long dated asset and hopefully will go greener and greener. I am on the board of Environmental Defense Fund so I'm perfectly happy if oil doesn't go anywhere and in the stock market anything particularly like it's interesting. When we met a year ago my portfolio was heavily growth oriented particularly the cloud. It was service . Now remember Microsoft. Yeah the theory being there's like a 10 year runway and these companies will grow very well in a low nominal growth world . I still own that stuff but my mix has changed dramatically to stuff that we'll do well in a higher nominal growth world. So I have banks financials I own Japanese so I wouldn't call it a mix evaluated. I wouldn't call it a mix dominated by value but it looks more like a normal mix. Now it's not just concentrated into companies that would do well in a low nominal growth world and short fixed income which I interpret as short the treasury market. What a difference a year makes. Yeah. Last year the Fed was on this. Well about around this time they were about to do a hike. And Jerome Powell also followed that up post saying quantitative tightening shrinking the balance sheet was on automatic pilot . And I think there are dots called for four hikes. We had a year . That's right . I thought that those were inappropriate and I think I looked at the transcript from last year. I think we're along quite a few treasuries. So it's it's almost the exact opposite view for the exact opposite reason. I don't think Jerome Powell will have the courage to raise rates next year . It's a lot easier to change your mind from a tightening to an easing mode. But I definitely don't think . I don't think they'll be easing . It's kind of absurd when you look at where nominal growth and real growth in this country are. And you look at unemployment and you look at all the other circumstances to have rates at one and a half percent . If I came down from Mars and you showed me the broad landscape and asked where Fed funds would be I probably would guess three and a half somewhere in there . So if you don't think you'll have the courage to raise rates next year should I imply that your short position is a little further out in the curve. Yeah we're we're we're short the long end because I just think these rates for these economic circumstances are inappropriate. I thought they were inappropriately high last year or particularly the quantitative tightening and I think they're inappropriately easy this year . It's actually quite remarkable because the Fed has continued to talk about this mid to late 90s period where they were doing insurance cuts. I remember running Quantum at Soros and in 98 credit completely dried up with Russia and it looked like the financial the Asian financial crisis could spill over in America. Greenspan cut three times twice in October and once in November. Stock market went to a new high . Took off . And since he was insuring against the Asian financial crisis he took back the insurance by the way . He had cut rates three times from five and a half to 475. Then he started hiking. So the most fascinating thing about the recent press conference and the one before it was some reporter I don't think it was a Bloomberg reporter but some reporter cited this period. And I'm using the insurance cuts as a model and said Chair power. What happens if the trade war dies escalates and it's no longer that big of a worry. And what if Brexit is solved. Would you raise rates . And he said absolutely not. And the guy said well why you . That's why you cut them. You said that was insuring against us . And he said well because the inflation rate is much lower now and we didn't have the risk of deflation back then . And Eric that doesn't sound right to me because I remembered distinctly that period Greenspan running the great experiment with a booming economy with low inflation. I looked back and the core E was one and a half in 98 and 99 when Greenspan started raising rates again from four. Seventy five is currently 1 7 and he's got them at one and a half. I mean honestly I don't get these guys last year when we meant no credit had been issued for a month. The stock market was down 10 percent . Economic conditions were a meltdown. And they hike and they leave. Q T Automatic pilot Now credit conditions are booming . We have a new IPO every day. The stock market's an all time high. Employment's a three and a half percent. Confidence is picking up and we just did three cuts. So it's like these guys are pretty hard to figure . I want to ask you some more questions about the Fed but before I do we haven't talked about your favorite currency. We lost the pound heading into the British election. I was . It is my favorite currency . And I just you know I'm very good friends with Johann Rupert. And he had told me he calls her Mrs T and that's Margaret Thatcher. And he said you know I when I met with Mrs T. She said never underestimate the common sense of the British people . And I just I just felt that they were not going to go for socialism. And frankly when I look at what's going on in Europe and then I when I look at what's going on in Britain . I was always sort of a Brexit tier because. They did perfectly fine for five hundred years without that union of countries down there who whose all hate each other and they can't make a decision on anything. So I think this is going to be actually very good for the British economy. I separate myself from most on that . I think Boris Johnson is sort of a smarter version of Trump without some of the the antics to go along with it. And I would expect investments to fly into that country. And I think they'll do . I think they'll do very well there. So you know it's funny if you look at it. What if I were to tell you there was a Republican president but a better version and you had two thirds Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and you had a deficit to GDP of two not four and a half. And you had a debt to GDP lower than the United States and 12 times earnings and a 4 percent yield. Sounds like a decent place to invest to me . So we not only had the pound and still do we had the British financials the banks we have some Barclays Lloyds that kind of stuff lying around which just lying around. Well it's worth it . I don't take big positions anymore and become a coward since I stopped competing. But enough that it gave me a smile on Friday . Let's go back to the Fed. You're a frequent critic of the Fed have been over time for reasons you've articulated well . You say you can't figure these guys out but do you feel stand any more confident about the direction of monetary policy today than you did a year ago . No I feel much worse . First of all if you remember a lot of debate a year ago was about quantitative tightening. And despite the fact that at least seven or eight previous times we had done QE. Bonds had gone down and stocks had gone up . John Williams and some others there said that QE Kuti had no impact on markets . And frankly we switched from to T to QE and what happened . Bonds are going down in price and equities are going up. But you know he was just lucky. Eight out of eight . But. I just first of all the editorial cabinet I wrote we said don't raise rates for now. This was back in December of Jihye Lee. Our interview was the day before the hike. We wouldn't raise rates for now. We weren't saying to cut them. And one of things we said in our interview is if . You hike now you may get really scared and have to start cutting and do something drastic. The next year which of course they've done I'm not sure why but you know I think it's always easy to be easing and things are great and you just feel like you're the cat's meow your rumba . Bernanke's claiming victory in 0 4 with the Great Moderation and Greenspan was a maestro. But I will go to my grave believing that that financial crisis happened because of bubbles created by easy money. And I just don't understand why we mean interest rates where they are now. We normalize. We're trying to normalize. OK things got too tight. Should back off but you don't need to go the other way to the extent we've had. And then this crazy president saying we need negative rates to compete with negative rates in countries where they clearly aren't working they're not growing as well as I do. It's the most any capitalists idea I could ever dream up. And he's pushing Palin. You know I didn't want to believe this but it's pretty clear now that he's had an effect on Palin. Of course the media has got all he's really standing up to him. Well with verbiage not an action inaction. He's been cutting and doing the president's bidding. He hasn't gone negative. God help us . Some people say he deserve high marks. Whether it's the media or others deserve high marks for resisting some of that pressure from the White House. Kind of grade. Would you give Jay Powers Fed chairman . Not a good one. I don't think he's resisted anything. He just . Well rate him against Yellen. Bernanke. Greenspan . He. He's a weaker version of Yellen without the monetary framework. Bernanke he and I philosophically disagree about easy money and helicopter money . But the man had conviction and he controlled the room . Which I think is really important in a Fed chair. And I don't see that here . And of course let's not compare him with my true hero Paul Volcker who the late great Paul Volcker. Yes. Who he cited his courage . And I couldn't agree more. And it's too bad we don't have some kind of courage at the Fed today . You brought up your friend Kevin Warsh with whom you wrote the op ed arguing for the Fed to pause and not raise rates as it subsequently did. That is raise rates in December of 2018 . Kevin is considered a candidate for the job of governor of the Bank of England. You think he'll get it . I don't know whether he'll get it. I don't know whether he wants it. I don't know anything about this father . I hope for my sake it's not true because he's one of his trusted adviser . Who knows. Not me. Stan tell me what you think of Christine Lagarde as the new ECB president. It's early days yet . She's a lawyer . I think it's way too early to judge her. I'm a little taken aback by linking climate change with monetary policy . I am on the board of a mile of fence so I'm a greenie. But you know I think there's other buckets to execute climate change through and it shouldn't have anything to do with monetary policy. But who knows how strongly she feels about that. But it's early days and I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt and ask me in a year if we're still here . Central bankers whether it's policymakers at the ECB or for that matter members of the FOMC seem determined at whatever cost to bring inflation back to 2 percent. In Europe it's meant negative rates here. They're now beginning to talk about inflation averaging a catch up period if it hasn't met the 2 percent target for a period of time . My question to you isn't whether negative rates necessarily work or whether averaging inflation is necessarily a good idea . You're free to answer both but first I want to know whether you think inflation matters anymore . Well first of all there's 14 recognised measures of inflation . 12 of them are above 2 percent. Their preferred measure the core P C E is at one point seven percent. The risks they are taking with regard to misallocation of resources bubbles all that stuff because something is at one point seven as opposed to two. And now they're talking about a makeup period. First of all monetary policy is supposed to look forward not backward. So why are we looking backward. And if there's a makeup period after inflation was 10 percent in the 70s why didn't we have a target of minus 10 a year in the 80s. And we're talking about decimal points here about something that you can't even really measure. So and I'd like to remind everyone because now they've turned it into a mandate. There is no mandate for 2 percent . The mandate states very clearly price stability and full employment in this country. Yes . Well I live in this country and so does the Fed. And I don't know how. One point seven percent. It's not like the greatest success ever. If we're talking about price stability. So this thing about it's the greatest challenge of our time to get up from one point seventy two when we don't even know whether it's 1 or 3. It's just you know the measurements are so random. I just find it astonishing . We're living in a time of technological advancement all kinds of new innovations that are creating deflationary pressures surely reflected in that one point seven whether you think it's adequately or accurately measured . Where does that fit into your thinking about the importance of inflation at all. I'm glad you asked because you know when the last big . Technological revolution was it so late. Eighteen hundreds . And we had 3 percent deflation and 8 percent real growth for 10 years. So I remember talking to a central banker. So medical is 19 percent of GDP here . What if you found a way either through copayments or whatever to get the consumer to respond to price. And then you used our technological wunderkind. Let's just call it for no better term . What if we Amazon and the whole medical system and you drove the costs of medicine not medicine of health care down this country from say nineteen to thirteen. It's eleven in most other countries. Would the Fed then panic because it sends the CPI under zero is just some horrible thing that we're gonna have . It's going to be the greatest crisis of our time and have a huge response to no. And I would say the same thing about all this stuff writ large. You have these magnificent productivity increases going on right now at the corporate level because of cloud content and so forth. There's nothing pernicious about inflation if it's driven deflation if it's driven from the supply side. I don't see people walking around oh my God I'm not going to buy a car this month because it might be cheaper in three months. And by the way we haven't even had deflation . It's just sort of this imaginary thing that it's not up to their 2 percent arbitrary target for the time being anyway. This obsession if we can call it that with inflation has driven these insurance cuts and helped once again to reflate financial our assets. 2019 was an extraordinary year for investors. How did you do . Not as well as our like. I just got into double digits last week. I wouldn't even been able to say that. I'm just too conservative in my old age. I was I was well positioned but very timidly. I'll leave it at that . Why are you timid . You've got nothing to lose. I have a lot to lose. That's that's one of the reasons I'm timid. I don't know when I was competing and managing other people's money. I do some very competitive person and I felt the compulsion to take risks. I'm still a competitive person but it's either that or something about my age. I don't trust myself or the last year in particular . I've just never trusted this administration not to do something that would preclude me from taking positions that I just felt were safe and secure and all and risk. And I think unfortunately a lot of people probably felt the same way as you know people have actually sold equities and put them into bonds this year. I didn't do that. I was just timid about what I did do. But this administration with wondering about where the hell the next bomb is coming from just doesn't allow me to take some of the positions I've taken historically where I just thought it was a one way bet. To me this was always binary and a two way bet . It's not just policy uncertainty it's something. How would you describe what you call it. Policy uncertainty is a great term . One of the reasons I'm pretty sanguine right now is I think we're close enough to the election at least we can breathe for a few months that I think I don't expect any dramatic policy that can overwhelm the favorable backdrop of monetary stimulus and a decent economy . You describe yourself as being timid. Maybe we'll use the word cautious in part because you're no longer competing. There are still lots of people who are competing. And yet many of the greatest fund managers we've seen in our lifetimes are struggling to generate good returns. Why . Well if you're talking about the macro community where the biggest problem has been they're just not the opportunists who were in the 80s and 90s because with central banks suppressing interest rates there has not been. As for the one way high risk reward bet . There were you know I remember when the Japanese when Milano and appropriately tighten after a big bubble I bought Japanese bonds at 7 percent. OK. And I mean a lot of them when I was at Soros. OK. Are you gonna go plow into the 10 year at 1 90 or whatever it is. No but you might think rates are going down so you just take less of a position. I also think a lot of them seem to be led around by the nose by the Fed and the Fed. You know they talk about the dots and they obsess over this. I always made my money when I felt differently. The Fed and I went in the other direction because once the Fed changes you make money. And the Fed's been very wrong on the economy and on the markets and on policy. And I think those that followed them that's a problem. The other things happened. Obviously as you've suppressed currencies but there are plenty of great young money managers who are killing out now . They're mainly in technology stocks. There were long the disruptor in short the disrupted. We'll see what happens now if the world is changing the way I think it is. But yeah I think that's those are some reasons. Who impresses you among the current generation of young men that I'd rather not say because someone asked for that seven years ago. And I think I kirst the people I answered. So but let me say this. I think one of the reasons I had the record I did I was the only person in my class and seventy five who went to the securities business at BOWDEN and there were of the higher ed schools and BOWDEN. I don't think anybody at the end of a seven or eight year bear market was going to Wall Street . So the level of competence I was competing against in the 80s and early 90s made me look quite good . Once once you've been through 20 years of bear market these kids that oh come in the industry in late 90s and 2000 not to mention the quants like Jim Simons and all those guys they've all got like 50 IQ points on me. So you know I just think one of the reasons it's tougher is a lot of really really talented human capital has been brought in . And with the Internet a lot of the old trade secrets that I had that were in my head about what leads and lags markets. Now Ned Davis is sending you like five emails today telling you if this happens and then happens you just don't. I think a lot of these investors don't have the edge. We had back then I was extremely fortunate to come into the business particularly the macro business when I did from both an opportunity set and who I was competing against . Well you've told me before quants have changed the game for fundamental investors and people like you need to adapt. Yes we do. So how are you adapting . Well I think we talked about this last year but one of my big things and you got beat up for it a little bit. That's okay . One of my big things in investing was price action versus news and gathering price signals from the market. And I think those price signals versus news were very effective for 20 or 30 years . Now with the clients who respond to a different set of variables than we used to back then I used to want to buy a stock maybe in what I would call the second inning when something's go on that much. Their models may have figured out they're just going to go back to the first inning before proceeding on its merry way . What I've tried to adapt to is having a fundamental belief. And if they're creating volatility in the markets using the volatility rather than getting abused by the volatility then Eric I'm not that secure in my fundamental beliefs. I liked it better when I could just use price signals. But you know I've tried to adapt. I'm doing all right. I'm going to hold you accountable to something else he told me a year ago. You said at the time you thought we'd been in a global bear market for a year. Yeah not a correction in a secular bull market. Yes . Was gonna be hard to. Was that the wrong diagnosis. Or are we still in a global market . Absolutely the wrong diagnosis where we're at new highs. Twelve months later I'm proud of the fact that I pivoted before it before it mattered but I couldn't have been more wrong. But I would say until the last month or so the US was about the only one that continued in this kind of markets. But no question that was wrong. The question is how long is this going to last. The answer is I don't know . Knowing it long enough that maybe Jim Simons knows . I'm not sure Jim Simons knows but I bet his machine that he created knows where he can sleep at night and the thing makes money for him. God talk about their follow . So it's awfully hard of course to predict when the next downturn is going to come. Do you have any idea Stan particularly as someone who's made more money in bear markets than in bull markets. What will trigger it . Yeah if if there's a political event change of leadership in the White House that goes to some of the anti capitalists I would think that would definitely trigger a bear market. Whether it would permanently end the bull market I don't know. But that would trigger it. The other thing that would obviously trigger it is if by the end of this year we started to get enough inflation that the Fed started tightening . And then of course the other thing is if we had a credit event . And if you look at the credit markets it's very obvious that you've got a really a lot of bad apples out there that are not being exposed because the interest costs are so low by the way one of them being the US government . We're running a trillion dollar deficit. Why. Because we can affect a lot of these new professor geniuses think this is just a free lunch. But I would think it's one of those three events a political be change in Fed policy because you know who knows when inflation turns. You can come up with a theory why it would turn. I kind of believe the secular forces will hold it down. But I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong . And then the future. And then the third one is and this is more what happened in 0 7 0 8 that the bubble just collapses on itself because things have just gotten so ridiculous. I don't think we're anywhere near there but I've been wrong before. And you know these things seem to happen after elections. In fact when I first came in the business my first boss told me just by two years after the election and then sell the election. And then that worked like every four year period. It worked until Bush tried to extend the cycle and for the whole four years and we blew up . Is that where you're going to try heading into this election . What's up. Is that what you're going to try heading into this election. What. So I don't know what I'm going to do . I'm only going to. So when I start to see the signs to say good so I can have all these great long term pontificating. But as a practitioner you know I can't really think about the long long term. But I need to be aware of it so that I can pull the trigger to go that way. Let me go back to your point about anti capitalists . Would an Elizabeth Warren presidency really be that bad in your view . In what respect. Well are we talking about markets or we're talking about the United States. What are we talking about . Well let's start with the markets because that's how we got onto the point. And then you can expand . Well with regard to the markets. Let me just put it this way . Every consultant that ever studied Duquesne said I have a negative correlation to the S&P and I do wear a well in bear markets. I think a Warren presidency would be very good for my business but not necessarily good for America . Is there a Warren hedge . Well let's see if it happens first. But yeah. Yeah. Just so you could just short stocks and not real complicated and you probably sell the dollar. I mean there's all kinds of stuff but . I'm kind of on the other side and this is not just one of all this rhetoric out there including the business community about failed capitalism and we need to improve capitalism. Capitalism is a failed experiment. So you're on the other side. Meaning what . I think capitalism . I'm a dyed in the wool capitalist who believes in free markets and believes in creative destruction and believes so . I just I'm a little offended by the narrative in the media. Not that it's anti capitalist . Everyone's entitled to their own opinion. I don't have a monopoly on the truth but on the facts. So I don't think most people are aware. Let's just take poverty in the United States . It was 26 percent a few decades ago . It was 16 percent in the financial crisis. And it's 13 percent now. It's at an all time low. It's 13 percent poverty rate low enough. Absolutely not. And it's something we have to work on . But do you think 99 percent of Americans would guess too high or too low on what had happened to the change in the poverty rate the last 15 or 20 years much less the last five years. Or let's look at globally . You've got since 1999 when you had a billion seven people in the world in extreme poverty . No today is 700 million. So one billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the last 20 years. Why. Because obviously India and China adopted a free market model . And with regard to all this other talk about billionaires and so forth. So during that same period you've created 20 500 billionaires but you've brought a billion people out of poverty . So that means for every billionaire you've created four hundred thousand to one have limited have exited extreme poverty . Now you can be for capitalism or you're not be for capitalism . But I object to the facts that are out there which are simply incorrect. I gave you another one. And as you know I'm not a great fan of the president. But the fact of the matter is this income inequality talk . It really doesn't stand up to the facts. The middle class and the poor are doing very well. In fact they're doing better than they've done in quite some time. Are they doing well enough. No. Are they doing as good as Jeff Bezos . No. But on an absolute basis they're definitely improving relative to where they were five or 10 years ago. And you'll probably be astonished to know that if you take income after government transfer payments and negative taxes which I think we all agree it should be total compensation the top quintile has had the same percentage increase as a bottom quintile. Now I'm not going to have phony facts appear for you. The 1 percent have done better because they own stocks. But in terms of the lower middle class for the first time they're actually improving relative to the upper quintile . Here's how I would put it to you in terms of political risk . At the end of the day stand. Does it matter . Of course the data do matter. But does it matter to those people who feel screwed or feel like they're getting screwed . What the data show to them all that matters is how they feel and how they feel. Why did they say what they're going to try . They feel that the votes at the ballot box. Why did they feel that way. One of the reasons it's because your profession goes out and validates that feeling with a misstatement of facts on a daily basis. How many times have you heard how the poor and the middle class are getting screwed. Of course are getting screwed relative to just Jeff Bezos. But you know what. Again . To me that's capitalism. And I'd rather have . A rising tide where one group is not rising as fast as another group. Then I won't have them all sinking . I would also posit that it's not a binary choice between capitalism and raising taxes on billionaires which is clearly what some people running for the Democratic nomination want to do . Well since most billionaires own stocks and assets it's hard to believe they didn't. OK I'm all for raising taxes on billionaires because as you know for years including when I ran hedge funds I've said I wanted to normalize capital gains that we should be paying just as high rate as a plumber's paying. I've been against carried interest been against pass through ISE all that stuff to me inside the tax code. Now that's not why I guess it is officially raising capital gains but that's not officially raising taxes. But what it will do it will raise taxes on the wealthy. I would also say there is another false narrative how they've cut taxes on all the rich for the rich with with the Trump tax plan. I don't know. You live in New York. I don't know about you. My taxes went up. They didn't go down. I got a tiny cut in my rate and I can't deduct state and local so my taxes went up. I'm not complaining again. I'm just stating facts here. I don't object to the other side's argument. I disagree with it but I don't object to it again. I don't have a monopoly on the truth but I really object to a misstatement of facts out there . Do you think . I think it's feeding this feeling. You're talking about getting screwed. That may very well be true but at this point heading to November of 2020. Do you genuinely believe that capitalism as we know it is is in question or at risk or is it just an argument around the edges of. I think the system we have I think we need more capitalism not less. To me when you have a prison United States who puts hundreds of billions in tariffs and then goes and picks and chooses individual economic actors who pay those tariffs and who don't depending on winners and losers. Exactly. It might as well be the Politburo when you have monetary policy around the world with negative rates and you cannot have capitalism. You don't have a hurdle rate for investment. So we don't really have the markets allocating capital the way they would under a capitalist model . That's that's another version of it. You know it's funny because Trump . If if if things if Trump gets re-elected and things implode in the second term capitalism will get a very bad name in my opinion and we'll probably have a big political response but it will be under someone who's sort of the antithesis of capitalism . Then you've got the other side who want to villainize billionaires which is OK . But their view is if I take money away from this billionaire that means the lower the lower income levels are going to rise. Eric that's not the way it works. That's like Trump's trade thing with a zero sum game. If if China loses we win. No you can both lose. It's the same thing. The economy if you screw Jeff Bezos and he decides to take his his entrepreneurship and go home. OK. This man is created six hundred fifty seven thousand jobs. If you take out the Whole Foods acquisition. All right. And you know all this innovation all this stuff going on and you reverse this kind of well we can both lose. Yeah you can punish Jeff Bezos . But how do you really hurt the poor and the middle class. Bad economic policy. That's how you hurt them . One of the things you've been doing for years already in an effort to maybe counter bad economic policy is give your money away. What have you been doing with your money lately. Stand . And do you think philanthropy has as bright a future in this country as it as it's had the past several years. Well first of all I want to be clear. I don't give my money away because of bad economic policy. I give my money away because I can . It's hard to explain but . I was unbelievably lucky to be born in this country . I think the odds were 23 to 1. The day I was born that whether I had been born in America. And I can talk to myself about how I pulled up my bootstraps or this or that but I could have been born in North Korea or I ran or Rwanda kind of guessing I would have had the economic success I've had. Then the other thing I would say in our in our system I have a skill set. My mother in law says I'm an idiot savant . I was not in the top 10 percent of my high school class but I'm very good at compounding money. And I just get a real pleasure both emotional of just trying to make sure other individuals have the same shot I had. I was in a bad school district. My father moved me. You know I had an opportunity. Had he not moved me I don't think I'd be sitting here today. And I see. So it's not bad economic policy. It's inside a lot to help people who haven't been as lucky as you. I'm helping myself to I love giving money away . It gives me pleasure. And to me it's a privilege. I think a lot of people would do it if they had the kind of resources I have. It gives me a thrill to be at Memorial Sloan Kettering and see them moving the needle on on cancer. It really gives me a thrill to see that we're providing kids in Harlem and others the same shot or at least a better shot at the American dream . So we you know one of the things we emphasize and we like to give two is economic mobility . There's a lot of very cool stuff going on . I my latest and most passion of this experience is with Blue Meridian . When during my Harlem Children's Zone. Well I'm still. Those days are continuing. But when we founded Harlem Children's Zone Jeff and I. There was a woman that I've known McConnell Clark named Nancy Rube and they helped us set up our original business plan. And she did the due diligence on us for 20 years. And believe me when you're on the other side of strong due diligence you get to learn how talented someone is. So when Nancy told me that the Clark Foundation wanted to liquidate and she wanted to set up this thing to satisfy the mismatch between all the wealth that's been created today and then there's this whole incredible group of young launch social entrepreneurs out there who want to deal with the problem. But the money is kind of stuck here and the supply of talent is here. And her concept was to transfer the money in there . You've got stuff going on like the giving pledge and all this stuff that shows an intent . Unfortunately neither do either. There's not a there's not a lot of movement yet but I'm pretty optimistic given the tent and also given the talent that's out there and the social entrepreneurs sector. When I talked about talent being drawn in the financial sector it's amazing the talent's been drawn into this social enterprise sector. I think it's a sign of our times and everything we're talking about . So I'm hopeful enthusiastic excited that a platform like Blood Meridian that brings these funders together with these practitioners is going to work and deal with some of the problems. What problems in particular. Economic mobility I think is the biggest one. So look already and is funding place based strategies like Harlem Children's Zone funding nurse family partnerships which is you know her early life because obviously kids if not properly attuned to their first two or three years don't have the vocabulary and the chance. But you know just helping helping mothers single mothers give the same kind of attention to their baby that our children might . But there's a number of organizations across the board. But the idea is if you take great leaders and you identify them I was lucky enough to meet Jeff Canada . And you invite the same investment principles I've used in my lifetime in investing which is find a winner backed them scale them up don't sell them ride the winner keep investing with them as long as they're innovating. And that's the concept here. So we're we're making big big bets putting the dream out there of 100 to 200 million dollars of funding for organizations that we think can be scaled up that will solve the economic mobility problem or not solve it but put a big dent in it and give others a chance of the American dream. So perhaps a little timid with investing the not so timid in your philanthropy . Definitely not timid in philanthropy and hugely excited about what might what might lie ahead in this in this country for it. And you know I don't mean to be on a soapbox about this thing but I know there's been some commentary about billionaires and their pets . I can just say that I think using the private sector . To encourage innovation with these social entrepreneurs and then if the model work. Then plowing the money in there . That's a lot more exciting to me than giving the money to Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi. I'd much rather give it to Jeff Canada or some of these other organizations. These entrepreneurs .