The Conservative Perspective with Stephen Moore

GET INSIDE the MIND of Donald Trump’s economic advisor! In this TWO part mini-series, I am going to be sitting down with 2 of the top PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORS from each side of the political spectrum. You're going to hear The Conservative Perspective AND The Liberal Perspective on today's economy. Too often we put blinders on and don't ever hear the story from the other side of the room. We watch only our favorite new stations, get fed social media content that the algorithm knows we want to see, and the truth becomes a one-sided conversation. This is EXACTLY why I wanted to make this two-part series for you all to receive as much unfiltered information straight from the mouths of the ones closest to the action, without the news or social media skewing the data with biases. My first guest, Stephen Moore, was an advisor to President Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and a former member of The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Stephen was nominated by Trump to become a governor of the Federal Reserve and is also a former FOX News and CNN commentator. I have to be honest with you, we don’t agree with each other on everything... But I'm holding NOTHING back as we challenge one another to find the TRUTH. MY JOB IN BOTH INTERVIEWS IS TO ASK HARD QUESTIONS! IM NOT POLITICAL, I HAVE NO AGENDA. I ASK DIFFICULT QUESTIONS ABOUT TRUMP (and his philosophies )AND NEXT WEEK I DO THE SAME WITH OBAMA! We talk about everything MAJOR from the state of the US Economy, unemployment, inflation, and interest rates, to Trump's greatest accolades, and who he REALLY is behind closed doors. Next week I'll be releasing the 2nd part of this 2-part mini-series; The Liberal Perspective, with a very special guest! I want YOU to be fully equipped so that you can VOTE based on the FACTS and make the BEST decision not just for you, but for your family and for the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 P.M. And my third day, 6:00 P.M. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over $12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff. Borrow better.

• 1:01Speaker 01

  Mr. President, my company, for me, of the explosion on our rig.

• 1:05Speaker 02

  On October 2nd.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:25Speaker 01

  I'm not the first nanny.

• 1:27Speaker 02

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 1:38Speaker 03

  This is the Ed Miler Show.

• 1:46Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. Today, we are going to talk the economy. And we're gonna take a look at what I'd call the conservative perspective on it. And then next week, we're gonna talk the economy and have a more liberal or Democrat perspective. And I have, I think, the best person on earth to discuss the economy from this perspective. The gentleman to my right is Stephen Moore. Stephen was an economic advisor to President Trump's 2016 campaign. He was just nominated by President Trump recently to be a member of the Federal Reserve. And was also the chief economic writer for the Wall Street Journal.

• 2:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, for 10 years.

• 2:18Ed Mylett?

  For 10 years. So this is a perfect time. I'm really grateful you took the time, Steve.

• 2:21Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 2:22Ed Mylett?

  Thanks, Steve.

• 2:22Speaker 04

  Great house, home you have.

• 2:24Ed Mylett?

  Thank you, thank you. And you're welcome here, as I told you, anytime you want to be here. Okay, so, why do you think, let's get right into it. Why do you think there's a perception that the economy isn't working for everybody? That most people think this economy, capitalism in general, right now, isn't working for the vast majority of people? Is that, is that a false belief? And why do you think people think that?

• 2:46Speaker 04

  Well, I actually would even challenge the question. I think people feel pretty good about the, the economy right now. I mean, the statistics show, you know, about 60 to 65% of Americans feel like the economy's either good or great. And that's a pretty good number.

• 2:58Ed Mylett?

  But do they think that economy is good or great for them?

• 3:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, they do. I mean, we're seeing nice income gains. Right now, I think things are pretty good. I mean, think about this. We've got the lowest unemployment rate in the United States in 50 years. We've got the lowest inflation rate in 50 years. We've got the lowest interest rates in 50 years. We've got the biggest wage gains in 20 years. We have, one of the statistics I love to use, is 7.1 million. You know what that number is? That is the number of unfilled jobs in the United States. 7.1 million? That's larger than the entire population of the state of Indiana. That's how many surplus jobs there are. So if you're a worker, looking for a job, and you have a skill, you know, that actually employers want,

• 3:37Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  You can find a job. This is probably the best job market in 50 years. Now, whether we can sustain this, you know, who knows what the future will bring. But right now, this is a pretty damn good economy. It really is. And now, our growth rate isn't quite where we'd like it to be. It's fallen down, you know, we wanted, Larry Kudlow and I wanted to get to 3% to 4%. Trump would have said, "I want 5%!"

• 3:56Ed Mylett?

  Right, right, exactly.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  But, you know, so we're now growing at 2% to 2.5%, which is decent. You know, I think the China situation has been a problem, you know, for Trump in terms of trying to get that trade situation resolved. But no, I'm gonna say, it's a pretty darn healthy economy.

• 4:12Ed Mylett?

  Right. I think that, well, I could tell you, by the way, I'm not gonna tip my own hand on what I believe in. I'm gonna challenge things from both you and Austin. And, you know, I could tell you that when I see this recent advent, this drive for socialism.

• 4:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:25Ed Mylett?

  Or what I'd call a real modification of capitalism. I think that's driven out of a sentiment, I'm not talking about that, I think, I think most people think, hey, the economy is going well. Obviously, unemployment's lower, African-American unemployment's lower than it's ever been, Latino unemployment, Latino wages are higher than they've ever been, Asian wages higher than they've ever been. And so I think people see that, but I don't think most people feel like that they're benefiting, that they're growing from it. So we disagree about that. And that my proof of that is this advent of a massive shift, to some extent, in some people, in some circles, particularly Democrat circles, for a more socialist-type economy, a more redistribution-type economy.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  You know, I'm gonna challenge you again on that one, cuz I think, my view is, because we do have prosperity now. People feel, you know, look, this is, this, the recession ended in June of 2009. This is October of 2019, so this has been a long, it hasn't been the most powerful expansion, but it's been a long one. And my feeling about this is, people are kind of taking prosperity for granted right now. They think, oh, this is just the natural course of things, for things to grow.

• 5:29Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  And when people get, you know, better off, then they, then they're willing to say, oh, well, let's give stuff away for free, and, you know, move towards a more socialistic model. I think it's almost a symptom of the fact that things are going well, that people are starting to say, oh, let's have free healthcare, let's have free college tuition, let's have the, you know, my patron saint economist, I don't know who yours is, was Milton Friedman.

• 5:53Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 5:53Speaker 04

  And I, did you know Milton?

• 5:54Ed Mylett?

  I know who he is, of course, I've read his life.

• 5:56Speaker 04

  I was fortunate enough to know Milton pretty well, especially at the end of his life. And I consider him the greatest economist of the last 200 years, since Adam Smith. And, you know, Milton used to say to me, Steve, he said, you know, what was the most important enduring lesson of the 20th century? And, you know, he would answer his own questions, say, it's, it's that free-market capitalism is a success. And communism, socialism, Maoism, Stalinism, Nazism, all these massive government-control models are failures, right? And then he would forlornly say to me, Yet the lesson we seem to have learned from all this is we need more socialism.

• 6:33Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  And I don't get it. Socialism is a failure almost everywhere it has been tried. And so I shudder to think we're going to move in that direction because I just think it's so wrong. And the other thing that I'm really concerned about is the war against wealth and the war against success and the war against anyone. You've made it, you've built a business, you're successful, you've experienced the American dream. What's wrong with that?

• 7:03Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  I mean, people think that people like you are villains because you're successful.

• 7:08Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  I mean, listen to the rhetoric out of Elizabeth Warren. And I think that's pernicious, frankly. I mean, John F. Kennedy, who was a Democrat, used to say, "A rising tide lifts all boats." And that's what we want. We want to be an aspirational country. I don't hear a lot of aspiration from the politicians these days.

• 7:28Ed Mylett?

  I don't, on either side, by the way. And I think you'd agree with that. The reason I wanted you on, and the reason I want people listening to this is, I think politics has become this debate of who's good and who's bad. President Clinton actually had a great quote one time, I don't know that he really believed it or not, but he said, "Politics shouldn't be about about who's good and bad, but who's right and wrong." And we demonize each other, which I think creates these extremes in both sides of the party. And I want people listening to this today, because there's, half my audience agrees with everything you say. The other half, how about today, and I'm going to do this with Austin too, for the conservatives, just listen to what they have to say.

• 8:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:01Ed Mylett?

  Let's hear their perspective. So, I want to...

• 8:03Speaker 04

  By the way, it's so funny you should say that. I was just doing an interview the other day, and I said exactly the same thing. The biggest thing, I think, troubling thing I see in America today is people are hanging out with only people who agree with them, right?

• 8:16Ed Mylett?

  Correct.

• 8:17Speaker 04

  And, you know, I may disagree with you, but I don't think you're evil.

• 8:21Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  I mean, and I don't disagree with you, but I mean, the idea that somehow because you disagree with something, someone, you find them offensive.

• 8:28Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  That's a new thing in America, and it means we're not listening to each other, we're not coming to any kind of bipartisan consensus, and this is leading to a polarization in the country, which I don't know about you, but I don't... I've never seen it this bad.

• 8:40Ed Mylett?

  I've never seen it this bad, and I think there's a lot of factors contributing to this. I just watched what Ellen said a few weeks ago, which was a very reasonable thing she said about sitting with President Bush, and she just got destroyed for saying a very reasonable thing. And I think one of the reasons that that is, is that technology has begun to feed us only what we believe in as well. So not only do we only associate personally with people who agree with us, but because of what we click on, we're getting more of what we click on.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  It's self-reinforcing.

• 9:06Ed Mylett?

  Right, all the time. But to be specific, then I'm going to challenge you on something. Be specific. If someone said to you, "Hey, look, I do feel like what Ed said. I don't feel like the economy's working for me," or "I'm a young person. I've come out of a pretty liberal university. I look at wage growth prior to recent, you know, prior to the last year, so wage growth was terrible in our country, statistically anyway, since the 70s and even the 50s."

• 9:32Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no. So this is...

• 9:33Ed Mylett?

  Recently, it has changed.

• 9:34Speaker 04

  I'm going to challenge you on that one, too. I wrote a book not long ago that I wish people would, you know, it's a picture book, actually. It's called, it's called, It's Getting Better All The Time. And it's really a history of the last 100 years. Everything from what's happened with health, to the environment, to incomes, to the things we can afford, you know, every, you know, every records that are reached, and the conclusion is undeniable, undeniable. The average poor person today has a higher living standard than the average middle-class person 50 years ago. The average poor person actually, in some ways, has a higher living standard than even wealthy people than, you know...

• 10:15Ed Mylett?

  What's that living standard measured by?

• 10:17Speaker 04

  By life expectancy, by health, by the things that you can buy. I mean, my goodness, you know, you have a cellphone, everyone has a cellphone, everyone's listening to this. That cellphone has more computing power than every computer that was used during World War II.

• 10:32Ed Mylett?

  Well, I don't think most people would argue, Steve, that technology has advanced quality of life for people. But I challenge you on that because I think it's, I think the statistics will show now that, for example, new home buyers... So I'd look at someone like my sister who's 30 years old, her husband's in his mid 30s, they make a great living, they live in California. They can't afford to buy a home. Whereas, many, many years ago, a single income family could own a home in this country.

• 10:56Speaker 04

  Well, that's a fair enough.

• 10:57Ed Mylett?

  Let me give you a couple, let me give you a statistic. Top 1% in 1979 earned 12% of all market income. In 2016, they earned 20% of all market income.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Do that one again.

• 11:07Ed Mylett?

  Okay. Top 1% in 1979, the top earners earned 12% of all market income that was earned. In 2016, it's 20%, so it's almost double.

• 11:15Speaker 04

  Of all the what?

• 11:16Ed Mylett?

  Market income, income in the country.

• 11:17Speaker 04

  Oh, the income, yeah. Okay, but so what? You know, look, I think that's a bogus statistic. Because you know what? We have Mark Zuckerberg, we have, you know, Bill Gates, we have, you know, all of these billionaires like Warren Buffett. But the fact that they, this is my whole point, the fact that Warren Buffett and Bill Gates and, you know, Zuckerberg have billions and billions of dollars doesn't make you or me poor. I mean, think about the people who benefited from everything. People say, oh my God, the, you know, the founder of Facebook has, you know, let's say, you know, Zuckerberg's wealth is 30, 40 billion dollars. Well, first of all, think of all the people that he's made into millionaires because of Facebook. Number two, you know, a billion people around the globe use Facebook. Nobody puts a gun to your head and says you have to use Facebook, right?

• 12:00Speaker 04

  And, you know, I just, I hate this idea. Just because one person gets wealthy doesn't, it's not a zero-sum game. It's not like because you have more, I get less. No, it's an additive game. You're wealthy because you've added to the economy, you've helped other people. Google is a good example. I mean, when I first came to Washington, I wrote a column recently on this. My first job was literally warehousing myself in the Library of Congress to find statistics for the, you know, and I'd literally spend hours and hours trying. Now, literally, I go to Google and in three seconds, I can find out the answer to things that it took me, you know, three days to find.

• 12:37Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 12:38Speaker 04

  And, you know what? You know what? Google charges me for that?

• 12:40Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:41Speaker 04

  Zero.

• 12:41Ed Mylett?

  Zero, right.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  That's pretty amazing.

• 12:43Ed Mylett?

  No, I do think it's amazing. I think there's two, I think there's two, so.

• 12:46Speaker 04

  And help, by the way. Look at the survi, look, what if, God forbid, that you or I were diagnosed with cancer? The survival rates from cancer today are. You know, almost seventy percent.

• 12:57Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 12:57Speaker 04

  Versus even thirty or forty years ago, you know, if you got a cancer diagnosis, you it was like a death sentence.

• 13:02Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  So, a lot of the things we just take for granted that are so much better now. Now, my premise is, and you may disagree with this, this is the single greatest time to ever be alive.

• 13:13Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 13:13Speaker 04

  And, and I would add to that, we are living in the greatest place to be alive. Now, of course, we

• 13:18Ed Mylett?

  Right, no, right, right.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  This is a pretty good, but I mean, this, I mean, by that, our country, you know, where we have freedom and liberty. And you got me going here, I want to make one other point.

• 13:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 13:27Speaker 04

  I do hear the grousing, you know, you know, well, it's hard to get a home and we have homeless people. And I'm not saying there aren't problems in this country. But, and, and people want to move toward socialism. Whenever I give speeches, and I know you give a lot of speeches yourself. I talk about freedom and free market capitalism and the, the dangers of socialism. And what is so interesting to me is the people who always come up to me after my speeches. You know who they are? They're people who actually came from socialist countries.

• 13:54Ed Mylett?

  You're right.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  People who live behind these, you know, the, you know, the Berlin Wall in, in, in East Germany. And people who didn't have freedom. And they'll come up to me and say, I came here because we have freedom. And now Americans are trying to give away those freedoms. They said, we had government healthcare, you know, in Romania. It wasn't very good. Let's not have that in the United States.

• 14:15Ed Mylett?

  No, you're right. And I have a lot of friends in Canada, I travel there often, like be careful what you wish for.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:20Ed Mylett?

  So, I'm, I'm not, I, I'm, again, I'm not trying to tip my hand on where I agree. I'm trying to take the devil's advocate position.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  I'm not, I'm saying, when I say you, I mean

• 14:28Ed Mylett?

  I know what you mean.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  Kind of an attitude in America.

• 14:31Ed Mylett?

  I think what people would argue, and I would also argue, is that I don't think there's any question that the world's better than it was fifty years ago. There's no question that medical science has improved, technology's improved. I think what most people are saying is if I'm in the middle, my financial life, the way we live, the fact that both of us need to produce an income now that it is harder to own a home in this country, that savings rates are, the average American has four thousand bucks saved. Right?

• 14:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's a problem.

• 14:53Ed Mylett?

  The average individual, individual income is thirty-one thousand dollars a year. The top one percent, individual, not household.

• 14:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 14:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay, the individual income's thirty-one thousand dollars and the average one percent is at one point five million. There's an income gap, it's, it's expanded. We could argue, and I, by the way, I, I think that, I don't think most people, well, they may, you may be right. Most people may think, well, when one person's getting richer, I'm getting poorer. And I certainly, I certainly don't believe that's true. I want to take another angle on capitalism for you for a minute, outside of the economy. And that is, I've been reading a lot about this lately, and maybe you agree with this. Because I don't even think we really-

• 15:23Speaker 04

  Exactly, I say that capitalism-

• 15:25Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 15:25Speaker 04

  Is not a good term.

• 15:27Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 15:27Speaker 04

  Because people are against capitalism.

• 15:28Ed Mylett?

  Capitalism.

• 15:29Speaker 04

  So I like to use the free enterprise system or free market capitalism because, you know, capitalism, people think of, you know, of Marxism and, you know, that just capitalism means, you know, you're holding down people to get ahead and so on, so-

• 15:41Ed Mylett?

  Correct. I think, good point. And I think, I think one thing that the conservative-

• 15:44Speaker 04

  Terminology matters.

• 15:45Ed Mylett?

  I think the conservative side of most arguments, they're terrible at phraseology.

• 15:50Speaker 04

  We are. And the left is great at it.

• 15:52Ed Mylett?

  And the left is very good at it. And I also think that, and we need, even in this dialogue, I think sometimes the conservative perspective sounds disconnected, sounds like it doesn't care.

• 16:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:04Ed Mylett?

  I think you know that.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 16:05Ed Mylett?

  And it's something that really needs to be guarded against.

• 16:08Speaker 04

  Incidentally, my, one of my heroes in life, another hero was Jack Kemp, remember?

• 16:12Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  The great congressman who played a big role. And Jack used to say, "Nobody cares what you know-"

• 16:20Ed Mylett?

  Until they know what you care.

• 16:21Speaker 04

  Until they know what you care, that you care. And there's so much truth to that. If you don't think I give a damn about you, you don't, you're not going to listen to what I have to say.

• 16:28Ed Mylett?

  That's exactly right. And I think the Republicans have lost that debate many years ago. They've lost that narrative. I want to give you one other-

• 16:34Speaker 04

  That's what I liked with Trump. One thing Trump did that I kind of liked was, he went into the inner cities and he'd say, "Look, give us a try." You know, the people who run Chicago, or Newark, or Cleveland, or Detroit, you know, they haven't done so well, why don't you try a different approach?

• 16:48Ed Mylett?

  Right. I thought it was wonderful that he made that effort as well. I'm going to give you one other argument about capitalism, because I don't even know that we are a capitalist society. I think we're sort of modified capitalism. We have a progressive tax rate system, which is essentially almost socialist-type tax rate system. And I know you helped Trump with his tax plan, which we're going to talk about in a minute. But having said that, one of the other things I've been reading about capitalism, or the lack of regulation in capitalism, okay, is this idea that there becomes much more control, almost monopoly-type control. You referenced Google earlier. People would argue that there's some danger that Google controls 80% of all the searches in the country. That Facebook has somewhere between 70, 80% of all social media.

• 17:31Ed Mylett?

  Get a couple stats, two corporations own 90% of all the beer we drink. Five banks control half of the nation's assets. A lot of data says once banks get over 50 billion, they become a little bit less efficient. Many states' health insurance markets, 80 or 90% are one or two companies. In Alabama, it's one company, almost 90%. High-speed internet, all local monopolies. Four players control the beef market.

• 17:55Ed Mylett?

  After a couple mergers, three companies will control 70% of the world's pesticide market. How do you feel about that? That there seems to be this contraction of control in the economy that we have now over some really important things like a Google or an Amazon. Amazon makes it very difficult. They control who gets on their shelf. They make it very difficult for retailers to make a breakthrough as well. Is that just part of the big eating the small? And that's what you get in capitalism, because people see that as well?

• 18:21Speaker 04

  My view is that, you know, you, once you get to be the king of the hill, like a Google or like an Amazon, and by the way, it ain't easy. You know, if we're easy, you know, I hear all these people say like, oh, you know, that we should, you know, we should break up these companies. I'm not in favor of that, as long as you can compete, as long as it's a competitive environment. One of my favorite books of all time is called, and I want you to get it, okay? I'm gonna send it to you. It's called The Myth of the Robber Bearens. Because remember the whole anti-trust stuff? That was, came in, you know, in the, in the progressive era, in the first part of the 20th century. And there was this view that JP Morgan and John Rockefeller and, and all these people,

• 19:03Speaker 04

  Henry Ford were monopolists and that they, you know, were hurting poor people. And in fact, the truth is, there's a few, few people who's done more to build the United States, than Johnny Rockefeller, Henry Ford. And I don't like the assault against success. It gets back to the theme we've been talking about. Now, I think, my view about Google and Facebook, by the way, I hate, I hate Facebook's politics. I'm a conservative, they're a liberal. So, you know, but I still defend, I, my-

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Response to Facebook's politics is I just don't have a Facebook account, you know? I don't want to use their product, nobody forces me to use it. But I think, look, I, let's do this show 10 years from now.

• 19:41Ed Mylett?

  Okay, fair enough, I'd love to.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  In October of 2000, you know, 29. And I guarantee you, Google will not be one of the biggest companies. Facebook will not be one of the biggest companies. Amazon, you know, who knows, Amazon, you know, could go bankrupt. I mean, it's, you know, it's, these companies. I remember, by the way, in the financial, you know, distress, you know, of 2008. When you had these big banks, within a matter of weeks, remember? You remember that, they failed. So, I don't, I don't want the government...

• 20:09Ed Mylett?

  I think you make a good point, look at a blockbuster video, they didn't evolve. Now Netflix dominates that market, so typically even...

• 20:14Speaker 04

  One other thing, you know, I'm on the board of two startup companies that are in the technology industry.

• 20:19Ed Mylett?

  Talk about that for a second.

• 20:20Speaker 04

  And, you know, we, both of the companies, you know, we hope, you know, they're startups. They're always high risk when you start up a new company, you've done that yourself. But, one of the things we hope is, look, you know, we've started with maybe $5 million of capital that we raised. We hope to get to maybe $50 million valuation, then you know what we want? Well, Google to buy us, you know? I mean, so the fact that you have the Googles and the Apples and the, and the Amazons out there actually inspires new businesses to start because you got somebody out there who can buy you out.

• 20:50Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 20:50Speaker 04

  You disagree with that?

• 20:51Ed Mylett?

  I'm not gonna say if I agree or disagree.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  I didn't convince you.

• 20:55Ed Mylett?

  But I, but I will say, I'm gonna ask you about a couple of things that I do think that are out there. I want to talk about the tax plan that, that you helped produce for President Trump, the 2016 tax plan. Is it 2016, I guess?

• 21:05Speaker 04

  We passed it December 22nd, 2017.

• 21:09Ed Mylett?

  Okay, 2017, okay. And, you know, I read often, most people would say, well, the majority of those cuts went to corporations. And although wage growth has spiked, data shows that a lot of those corporations took that extra money, bought back their own stock, that it didn't necessarily trickle down necessarily to the employees. That's something that you're gonna hear. Facts do support that that's true to some extent? How do you feel about that?

• 21:31Speaker 04

  First of all, the tax cut itself, when we talked to Donald Trump about it back now four years ago, Larry Kudlow and I, we recommended a reduction in the business tax rate because we believe that was the biggest problem with the economy. Now, look, you just get this from a competitive standpoint. The United States had a 40% tax rate on our businesses, small businesses and large corporations. The rest of the world was down at about 20%. And by the way, they kept going down, down, down, down, down. And we had seen, you know, we had seen major American companies that were involved in what were called inversions, where they were actually giving up their US citizenship and moving to Canada, or Mexico, or China, or Ireland. Ireland has the lowest tax rate. So we told Trump, look, this is hurting, this is not putting America first.

• 22:15Ed Mylett?

  And a lot of Democrats believed that as well.

• 22:17Speaker 04

  They did, actually. We got, you know, unfortunately, none of them were on our bill. But the point is, we wanted to make America, the whole idea was, how do we make American companies competitive in a global economy? You know, this is a global world. There's no putting the genie back in that bottle, right? And so the idea was, let's get the rates down so we're in the game. And Trump loved that idea. By the way, he was the one who insisted, not just for big corporations, but also for, there's 26 million small businesses in this country. 26 million. Let's make sure every man and woman who runs a business gets this lower rate. Now, I'm not going to apologize for that because I actually think it's been a big success. One of the things that's happened is we're sucking capital now from the rest of the world into the United States. We're the it country right now. Japan isn't growing. Germany has been in a recession. Europe is flatline.

• 23:02Speaker 04

  China's economy is falling. You know, we're doing really well relative to the rest of the world. And I would argue as a competitive, you know, point of view, by cutting those rates, we made America a more, you know, attractive place to invest in.

• 23:14Ed Mylett?

  Some people would argue, though, that that has been true. We've seen that happen. But having said that, that this was going to be paid for with GDP growth and that the deficit is growing as well, and that that's not a very conservative principle.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  All right, I'm going to give you a statistic, okay? You ready for this one? So in 2019, with this today, when we talk, it's what, about October 22nd? The, so we now, the fiscal year for 2019 ended on September 30th. So we now know what were the numbers for 2019. Federal tax receipts, the collections into the federal treasury in 2019, adjusted for inflation, were the highest they've ever been in American history.

• 23:51Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 23:52Speaker 04

  Now, what that tells me, but then you're saying, "Well, why do we have a trillion-dollar budget deficit?" And what that tells me is, we do not have a revenue problem. Our revenues are just fine. We have an overspending problem. And I will blame both the Republicans and the Democrats for that. You know, the Republicans want to spend more money on the military. The Democrats want to spend more money on social programs. So what did we do? We spent more money on both.

• 24:12Ed Mylett?

  Both, right.

• 24:13Speaker 04

  And that's why we have a deficit.

• 24:15Ed Mylett?

  Okay. And are you good with this? Are we good that we keep going on a few of these things?

• 24:18Speaker 04

  Is this okay?

• 24:19Ed Mylett?

  Okay, I love it.

• 24:20Speaker 04

  Okay, go, go, go.

• 24:22Ed Mylett?

  I have friends in the know, I won't say who they are, that think they're in the know, that say, "This is not an Obama..." You know, the Democrats will tell you, "This is an Obama economy."

• 24:31Ed Mylett?

  And Trump then immediately took credit for the economy when it was going well after his plan was instituted, and even prior to that plan being put in place, he was too. Because let's be honest, most of this stuff's just happening now, as you said. I have a lot of friends that say it's neither. It's a Fed economy.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  A Fed economy.

• 24:44Ed Mylett?

  A Fed economy. That this has been a quantitative easing, this has been a printing-money economy, and that, A, that neither one of these two should be taking credit for anything that's happened in the economy, and secondly, that if a recession does come, and I'd like your opinion about this, do you see one coming the next two to four years, as most people in your position seem to be predicting? That perhaps it could be a much, it's a long question, a much more extended recession, maybe not as deep, but could be longer, because there's not a whole lot the Fed could do to help this time, because it's all been done?

• 25:16Speaker 04

  So, you know, I've been in the policy game now for 35 years. You know, this is what I do, economic policy. So I clearly don't agree with this idea that, "Oh, it doesn't really matter who the president is." But policy matters. You know, when you make policy shifts, it makes a big difference. I mean, I lived through what I call the Three Stooges of the American presidency: Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford, and Jimmy Carter. I mean, it just didn't get much worse than that, right? And, you know, by the way, you know, these are pretty amazing statistics. I think you know them, but people are surprised when I say that. From 1968 through 1982, which was a 14-, 15-year period, adjusted for inflation...

• 25:53Speaker 04

  The stock market lost 62% of its value. 62% of its value. But why? We had high inflation, we had high tax rates, we just, we're doing everything wrong. A big welfare state we built up. And the way I like to put it, I'm a little biased folks, but I'll just say it. The clouds dispersed, the sun came out, and God gave America Ronald Reagan. And what did Reagan come in? He came in, cut taxes, cut regulation, restored sound money, expanded trade. And we had one of the biggest booms in the history of the country. And by the way, it, just so people don't think I'm, you know, some kind of partisan. Economy boomed under Reagan, it grew even faster under Bill Clinton.

• 26:27Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  Bill Clinton was a genuine new Democrat. I mean, think, can you think of any of these Democrats on the stage today who would say the era of big government is over?

• 26:35Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 26:36Speaker 04

  Would any of them cut the capital gains tax? Would any of them, you know, promote free trade and that thing? We had the biggest retraction of government spending under Bill Clinton.

• 26:44Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 26:45Speaker 04

  Since Harry Truman was president. So my point is, that, you know, when you get things right, things go well. I mean, we, and, and then, you know, I, I believe that the Obama, you know, recovery, I don't believe this, this is a fact, it was the weakest recovery we had from a recession since the end of World War II. And Trump capitalized on it. People, a lot of people would say, gee, why are people voting for Donald Trump? Everything's so good in America. Well, you know what? Yeah, if you lived here in, you know, in Laguna Beach, California, or lived in Hollywood, if you lived in Silicon Valley, if you lived in, where I lived, the swamp of Washington DC, or Wall Street, things were going great. Things, but you know, when, when I was on that presidential campaign?

• 27:27Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 27:27Speaker 04

  We went to, we would go to places like Erie, Pennsylvania, and we'd go to Charleston, West Virginia, and we'd go to Frankfurt, Kentucky, and we would go to Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And I would say, you know, I'd talk to the folks, and I'd say, you know, how's that Obama recovery going for you? You know what they'd say? What recovery you talking about? There is no recovery here in Erie, Pennsylvania, or, you know, Flint, Michigan. So there were whole areas left behind. I'd feel kind of proud, I think the country is doing better now. You know what? We're gonna know the answer to this in one year. You know, because people are gonna decide.

• 27:56Ed Mylett?

  So you think that a recession could be pending, but you think it has something to do with who gets elected into the?

• 28:01Speaker 04

  Well, look, at any point in time, as you know, there's always a 15 or 20% chance in the next year or two. So when you ask me, is there gonna be a recession in the next three years? It's probably a 50/50 chance, you know, I mean, you know, because the economies do go through cycles, there's all sorts of things that could happen, but I'm pretty confident, I think this is a good economy. If we can get this trade deal done with China.

• 28:24Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  It's a mini-deal, it's not a great deal, but I think that'll take a lot of the pressure off, because one of the things I'm worried about right now is that there's not enough capital spending by businesses. Now, in terms of the Fed, I mean, this is amazing, I can't quite, I have to confess, I can't quite figure this out. I mean, did you ever think we'd have an era of negative interest rates?

• 28:42Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  I mean, that's insane.

• 28:44Ed Mylett?

  Insane, yeah.

• 28:44Speaker 04

  It's crazy. I mean, you can, who buys, even like here in the US, who buys a 30-year Treasury bill at 2% interest rate?

• 28:51Ed Mylett?

  No, I mean...

• 28:53Speaker 04

  I mean, do you think the next 30 years we're gonna have less than 2% inflation?

• 28:57Ed Mylett?

  Uh, yes.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  And by the way, when you, if both, when you buy a negative interest rate bond, what you're saying is that, you know, you're paying the government to hold on to your money, you'd be better off taking your money, putting it in a suitcase, and burying it in your backyard.

• 29:09Ed Mylett?

  100%, 100%.

• 29:10Speaker 04

  What's going on here? So, I have to say, I'm mystified by this, but one of the things I've advised the Trump administration to do, I had a Wall Street Journal article about this a few weeks ago, my God, as long as we got 2% interest rates, we should be issuing 50, 100-year bonds, and locking in these low-interest rates forever, because I, and I've been wrong, I don't always admit when I'm wrong, but I've been wrong, every speech I've given for the last 10 years, I say, "Interest rates can't go any lower," and they keep going lower.

• 29:35Ed Mylett?

  Incredible, right, incredible.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  I mean, when you and I were, I don't know exactly how old you are, I'm almost 60, when I was in high school, the mortgage interest rate was almost 20%.

• 29:44Ed Mylett?

  I lived through those days.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  Now you can get a 3.5% mortgage rate.

• 29:47Ed Mylett?

  It's unbelievable, I know, it's unbelievable. So, okay, so, so, I wanna, I wanna give you a couple things, I wonder why there's this perception in the country. One of the things that does tweak me is just when facts aren't told accurately. So, there's this notion, and as you know, that, that the rich aren't paying their fair share, that, you know, that somehow the top 1% somehow avoids taxation, which we both know isn't true. The top 1%, you know the stats better than I do.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  They pay 40% of the income tax.

• 30:17Ed Mylett?

  I mean, that's incredible, they pay almost 40% of the income, and they earn about 21% of that. So they earn 21% of it, but they pay 40% of the tax revenue. So it's just an absolute untruth that the top don't pay their fair share.

• 30:29Speaker 04

  And I want to add another statistic.

• 30:30Ed Mylett?

  And the bottom 50% pay no federal income taxes.

• 30:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, they pay, you know, two, maybe 2% or something like that.

• 30:36Ed Mylett?

  They pay almost nothing.

• 30:37Speaker 04

  So it's a highly progressive system.

• 30:38Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Now, I hear all this talk, oh, let's go back to the golden age when we had 70 and 80, 90% tax rates. Well, you know what? This will surprise a lot of your viewers and listeners. Back then, the rich actually paid a smaller share of the income tax than they do now.

• 30:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 30:53Speaker 04

  You know why?

• 30:53Ed Mylett?

  No.

• 30:54Speaker 04

  Because rich people have tax accounts and they, they didn't pay those rates. What I'm for is the flat tax. No deductions, no loopholes, no special interest provision. You can't hide your money from the IRS. Everybody pays a rate, I don't know if it's 17 or 18%. If you're a family of four, your first $30,000 of income is tax-free. You fill out your tax form on a tax, I mean, I'm not a rich guy. I'm not rich. I know I'm doing pretty well, but I'm not rich. I had the 200-page tax return.

• 31:21Ed Mylett?

  I know.

• 31:22Speaker 04

  It's ridiculous.

• 31:23Ed Mylett?

  Why is that never gaining traction? Is that because there would be a reduction for the top rate?

• 31:27Speaker 04

  I'll tell you why.

• 31:28Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 31:28Speaker 04

  Because do you think anybody in Washington wants a flat tax? All the power, we talk about the swamp. The tax code is the swamp. It's all tax attorneys and tax lawyer. I mean, why would you come to be lobbyists? Do you think a lobbyist wants a flat tax?

• 31:42Ed Mylett?

  So if you feel strongly about that, you have Trump's ear. Why is that not something he'd go run on in the next?

• 31:46Speaker 04

  Well, you know, we, we tried to sell him on it and, you know, we, that's why we wanted to bring the rates down.

• 31:51Ed Mylett?

  Lower.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  You know, I mean, this is why, look, if, ladies and gentlemen, if you reintroduce 50, 60, 70, 80% tax rates, I guarantee you within three years, you're going to have so many loopholes in that tax code. I mean, it's just the natural course of events.

• 32:05Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 32:06Speaker 04

  And that's the worst tax system of all. I want a low rate with, with a broad base. And it seems like the left wants a high rate. And by the way, some of people just say, we want to be punitive. We don't even care if it raise revenue. We just want to sock the rich. I, I have a problem with that.

• 32:23Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Who does that help?

• 32:24Ed Mylett?

  It's, it's, I'm going to leave that alone, but I don't think it helps.

• 32:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, who does that help?

• 32:27Ed Mylett?

  What do you feel about universal basic income from Mr. Yang?

• 32:31Speaker 04

  People are looking at that, they like it, how do you feel about that? You know, my big, I'm not totally against it. Wow, wow. But what worries me is that it becomes a disincentive to work. Look, what we need Americans to do is work. One of the problems we had in the Obama years, we still have in the Trump years, we got a lot of Americans on the sidelines who could be working and should be working. And, look, people who work longer have longer life. Work is a good thing, actually. Work gives you a self-worth. It expands your, people retire or actually die at a younger age than people who continue to work. So, you know, work gives you a purpose in life, I think. Don't you agree with that? I do, absolutely. And so, you know, I don't want people on the sideline.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  I don't want the government giving people, you know, I do think, look, we're a rich country. People should be able to have healthcare. We want housing for everyone, so on. But I don't want to disincentivize people to work. That's why I don't want high tax rates. That's why I don't want big welfare giveaways. I do think, look, if you work 40 hours a week, you know, you should have a guaranteed income, you know, and not necessarily the employer providing it, that will provide you a subsidy if you're working. You gotta work, though. If you're sitting on the sidelines, no, we're not gonna subsidize. But how's that different than just raising the minimum wage? And why wouldn't you be for that? Because I'll tell you why. Because if you raise the minimum wage, then all of the cost is borne by the employer. What's the employer gonna do? You hire people.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  If you, you know, I always say, you know, $15, $16 on a minimum wage? I have two teenage boys. I love them to death. I don't always like them, but I love them. And I always say, you know, but you'd be insane to pay these kids $15, $16 now. I don't want to price people out of the work market. Do you remember the first job you had? I do. I do, too. I was working in a little factory, a busboy. I was working in a little factory filling orders, you know. And you learn a lot from your first job. Sure. Don't you? How to show up, how to be nice to your boss, how to just be an employee. I don't want to price those jobs out of the market, because the first job oftentimes is the most important job you have. Well, and the consumer pays a price for that, too. They do. You're gonna have a $7 hamburger. So, and what I'm talking about is you let the market set the wages,

• 34:38Speaker 04

  and if some people fall below what we would consider, you know, an acceptable wage. The government would subsidize it. But you have to work. It has to be tied to work. That is shocking and reasonable.

• 34:50Speaker 04

  By the way, here's the thing. We already spend over a trillion dollars on all these welfare programs. So we could easily do that with the money we're already spending.

• 35:00Ed Mylett?

  But you're assuming, that's not how it works though. You're assuming that somehow there'd be a give and take.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  Exactly, that's the problem.

• 35:05Ed Mylett?

  Government programs aren't taken away.

• 35:07Speaker 04

  That's right. So what I'm saying is, let's get rid of all the welfare programs.

• 35:10Ed Mylett?

  It'll be a grand bargain.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:11Ed Mylett?

  Kind of a grand bargain.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  I like it.

• 35:12Ed Mylett?

  Okay, a couple more things. Because there is this good news, and I think you've made some really great points, that of which is mainly drowned out by the chaos and noise that we hear out of the executive branch and the media that covers the executive branch. And so, I've heard you say that you're, obviously you're a huge supporter of President Trump. Do you agree that, to some extent, that if we could quiet some of this noise, that perhaps it would be healthier for the country? Whether that be tweeting or some of the comments. Can you make a comment about that? If you have a criticism, if you're willing to offer one up of the thousands of things you love about the President, the economy, where it's going. What is one thing you'd say, I kind of wish this didn't exist? There's got to be something.

• 35:51Speaker 04

  I think, you know, I've told the President this, and he doesn't like to hear it, but, you know, I want this President to be the President of all the people. All the people. It's one thing to be running a campaign, and you're, you know, going out and trying to get your, you know, your voters stirred up. And I went to the rallies, they were a lot of fun. I mean, they were amazing political events, cultural events. But, you know, then you're elected, and be that, you don't represent just the people who voted for you. You represent all Americans. And I think, if I have one criticism of Trump, it's that. Reach out to the people who didn't vote for you. Don't, you know, don't just always appeal to your base. And I would like to see more of that from Trump, because I think he would be more effective that way. And I think the tweeting, one worry I have is, there is chaos, and there's always, Trump

• 36:35Speaker 04

  is, almost feeds on chaos.

• 36:37Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 36:37Speaker 04

  And I do worry the American people are just getting tired of it.

• 36:39Ed Mylett?

  Fatigue.

• 36:40Speaker 04

  You know, fatigue, right, Trump fatigue. And I worry about, I told the President, you know, stop tweeting so much. You don't have to comment on everything that happens, every moment of the day, unless you're going to tweet at me, then you can.

• 36:51Ed Mylett?

  Right, right.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  Then you can do that. And he's done that a few times, and my book sales go up when he does. But, you know, I agree with that. I think he's... He is sometimes his own worst enemy.

• 37:02Ed Mylett?

  It seems an awful lot of the time. And a couple more questions regarding that. Tell us something about him. So there are people watching this that are fans of his. There's people here that, as you know, aren't his fans.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Well, one, a couple of things.

• 37:13Ed Mylett?

  What do you know about him? We don't, that is an interesting fact.

• 37:16Speaker 04

  It's a great question. So I have a book called Trumpenomics that I wrote with my friend Art Laffer.

• 37:21Ed Mylett?

  We'll put it up on the screen.

• 37:21Speaker 04

  A couple of years ago. And, you know, in the first couple of chapters are maybe, I think, the most interesting. It's just about how we met Trump and how we got to work for him and what he's like to work for. And, you know, I say in the book that when I first met Trump, which was, remember there were like 15 Republicans running for president. I think I knew 14 of them. I knew Jeb Bush and I knew, you know, John Kasich and I know Marco Rubio and I knew Dr. Penn Carson. The only one I had never met was Donald J. Trump.

• 37:46Ed Mylett?

  You're kidding me.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  And so, you know, we get a call, would you like to meet with Trump? And, you know, I was, I was curious about him because there was something going on in this country. And I, you know, it surprised me as much as it did anybody. So we went in in about January of 2016 and sat down with Trump and, you know, we went up the escalator, up to Trump Tower, went up to him. And first of all, I was impressed by the fact that all the people around him, you know, his secretaries and his assistants and the people, they loved the guy. You know, and you can tell something about, you know, a person by how they treat the people that work for them. And I was impressed by that. And then we spent about an hour in the room with him and had a great conversation. And we, he likes to argue, you know, which I like to do too.

• 38:26Speaker 04

  So we, you know, I don't agree with him, you know, but we, it was, and I gotta tell you, I walked out of that room and I had stars in my eyes. I was like, wow, this guy is gonna be the next president of the United States. And I don't know what I'd, you know, I think, you know, I've always said there were three presidents in my lifetime who had the kind of, that X factor that just connects with people. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton.

• 38:49Speaker 04

  Barack Obama, the three of them, you know, I've been in politics and they walked in a room, they lit up the room, you know, the man, but Trump sort of has that himself too, that X-factor. And the other thing I'd say about him is that, you know, and I say this as a joke, you know, and sometimes it gets in trouble, you know, 95% of politicians you're gonna meet are wonderful people in public and jerks in private. Trump is a jerk in public and a wonderful person in private. And really, I mean, when you meet him personally, he could not be a more charming, more, and he's always come to my personal, I consider him a personal friend because he's, he's always been really good to me. So, he's, he's a good man. He's, the other thing I'll say about him, we were talking about this off the camera, the guy's the Energizer Bunny. I mean, I've never seen anybody with more energy than Donald Trump, and he's, how old

• 39:34Speaker 04

  is he? He's like 70 something?

• 39:36Ed Mylett?

  73, 74?

• 39:37Speaker 04

  He's in his 70s, yeah. And, you know, I, he was running circles around me, you know, and we'd, we'd do three or four events a day and, and he's just always going, you know, he'd call me up at 1:30 in the morning, "Hey Steve, what are you doing?" "Uh, sir, I'm sleeping."

• 39:49Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right.

• 39:50Speaker 04

  Most people are, you know, so I think he's got four or five hours of sleep.

• 39:53Ed Mylett?

  One of the things that I, obviously I've seen that he's a, he's a hoss, he works hard. One of the things that I've observed about you and most people that I consider to be people I trust with decision-making, they don't seem all that concerned with what people perceive them as. In other words, they're more concerned with what they stand for, what they believe in than they are necessarily, even today, you know, that I agree with everything you say or the audience does. I think it's an odd thing in him, it appears that he cares so deeply about these perceptions.

• 40:20Speaker 04

  He does.

• 40:21Ed Mylett?

  It, it feels like, candidly, like an emotional weakness of his, that he cares so deeply about people's opinions all the time.

• 40:29Speaker 04

  I know. It's a, you know, look, every, it, every great leader throughout history, with a few exceptions, would have some fatal flaws, right? And that's his fatal, I mean, a Shakespearean, you know, flaw. And, you know, Trump has that Shakespearean flaw, and I think he's, in a lot of ways, he's a great business leader, I think he's been a good president, but you're right, I think he cares way too much about what people think about him. And he's very thin-skinned, you know, what I see, you know, when I'm on TV... You know, eight out of 10 things I'll say about them are positive. But when I go see him, what do you think he remembers?

• 41:04Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 41:04Speaker 04

  The two out of 10 things I say that it.

• 41:06Ed Mylett?

  But ironically, that's what makes you believable, in my opinion. What makes you believable and relatable is that not everything is perfect all the time when you're describing it. Which is my last question, and I want to make sure, by the way, everyone knows about the crypto market that you're involved with. Because you're involved with a company, and then just tell us your overall feeling about this cryptocurrency economy that started that 99.9% of the people in the world have no understanding of. Frankly, including, including me, who is an actual investor in a few of these places.

• 41:32Speaker 04

  So I'm glad we spent some, you know, left some time to talk about this. So I'm a big believer, I think it's the next big thing.

• 41:38Ed Mylett?

  You do.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  You know, I really do, I think, you know, because of the blockchain, that's almost all transactions in the future will be done via electronic transfers of funding and so on. And I think there are two big advantages to crypto, or what I call kind of digital currencies. And we think we've got a great product that Frax. Number one is privacy. You know, why should the government have a monopoly on money? You know, why not have private monies? This, by the way, this freaks out people in Washington. The people at the Federal Reserve Board are freaked out about it. The SEC is freaked out about it. The Commodities Future Trading Corporation, you know, the Treasury Department. They don't want it, they want to maintain their monopoly over money.

• 42:19Speaker 04

  I like the idea of having private competitors to government money, because for one thing, I think it keeps them honest. And so there's that, you'll have privacy. You won't, you can make transactions with a cryptocurrency like a Frax without the government knowing what you're doing. And, but people say, oh, well, that just means drug runners and criminals are going to use it. No, 99.95% of the people are going to use this are law-abiding people who just, you know, I'm kind of libertarian, I don't want the big brother knowing what I'm doing. So that's one advantage. The second advantage is that because we have a, what we think is a very effective digital currency. By the way, our currency called Frax, F-R-A-X, will be tied in value to the dollar. So one Frax will be one dollar. And, and, and there are other, you know, there's this one big one called Libra.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  I don't know if you've heard about this one, this is Facebook's big initiative. It hasn't gone so well the last few months. Business companies have been dropping out of it. But they, they're linking their, their currency, their Libra, to a basket of other, you know, currencies. We think that's, we think the dollar is more stable. So the, the advantage of this is that. The transaction costs of using a cryptocurrency like a Frax are much smaller than they are if you use a credit card or use PayPal or, you know, whatever. And you can't use a dollar bill in an electronic.

• 43:33Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  So, we think the transaction costs, now, somebody making a hundred dollars of purchases, that's not gonna be a big deal. But if you're talking about millions of dollars of purchases, that saving of one or two or three percent is significant.

• 43:46Ed Mylett?

  Okay, and a global economy, too.

• 43:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:47Ed Mylett?

  Speaking of that, two more questions. China, you mentioned China earlier, and if I don't ask about it, people will be frustrated. Clearly, it looks like this mini-deal is being struck that is probably to our benefit. I think even a lot of Democrats are excited about the fact that he's taken this on. What about the criticism that, as we've made a few of these deals, although they've been wins, that we are a partner in a global economy, which seems to be in a recession, the global economy, that there's this ancillary damage that's been done to our relationship with many of these countries, where we have struck deals that are in our favor, but maybe the long-term relationship with even countries that are allies of ours isn't so favorable? How do you feel about that?

• 44:28Speaker 04

  Well, there's two couple of points. Number one, China is a nemesis. They are a menace right now. I mean, and I don't say that with any joy. I mean, for thirty years after Mao died, Mao was one of the greatest villains whoever, you know, stepped on the planet. He killed tens of millions of his own people. But once they moved from communism and they moved towards, you know, they, back in the late seventies, they moved towards a more free enterprise, free market type, not entirely, but they moved in that direction. And then you have one of the great, you know, things that ever happened in history with the, you know, literally half a billion people moved out of poverty, they became a middle-class country in a very short period of time. So it was a great success story. But in the last seven or eight years, they've moved in the opposite direction. Look what's happening with, in Hong Kong, you know, where there's trying to, you know,

• 45:10Speaker 04

  I think the people's, quote, liberation argument, liberators, they're not liberators, you know, is gonna move into Hong Kong. Look what they're doing in terms of, you know, they're building up their military in a very aggressive way circa Japan in 1939. So I think Trump deserves a lot of credit for calling them out and saying, wait a minute, these are no longer friends or allies, this is, this country is an adversarial power. I also think that Trump did the right thing in basically saying, look, we can't go, we were in an abusive relationship with China. I mean, we've opened up, for thirty years, we opened up our markets to them, they have never opened up their markets to us. Now, I'm a free trader. I believe in free trade. But, you know, I remember that meeting we had that I was talking about with Trump.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  He said, you know, "Look, I believe in free trade, but it's gotta be a level playing field." And it's not a level playing field. And it was one thing when China was a four or five billion trillion dollar economy. Now they're, what, 14? You know, they're a big boy now. They've gotta play by the rules. And they won't unless Trump uses the leverage that he has to get them to do it. Has he been successful so far? Hmm, you know, it's tough. I mean, I think he's fighting the right fight with China. And Trump used to say to me, "Look, we can't trade with China, we sneeze. If they can't trade with us, they catch pneumonia." And there's a lot of truth to that. They need our consumer markets. So, now, you pointed to, I think, a strategic mistake that he has made. One of the great lessons of history is you don't fight a multi-front war.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  That's what the Germans made many times. So, you don't pick a fight with everybody at the same time. And I think, you know, going after, you know, Canada and Mexico and the Europeans. By the way, you know, he has some legitimate gripes with the Europeans. They don't always play by the rules either. But I think it would have been a much better situation. What we need to do, in my opinion, is isolate China, right?

• 47:00Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I agree.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I wish he would do that. We gotta pass, Nancy Pelosi, if you're watching this, pass the US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. That would be a big plus for the world economy. But this is unknown. This is the one big unknown, whether Trump can pull this off. The Chinese, they're patient people. Their economy's getting rocked by these terrorists, but they may just say, "We're gonna wait out Trump." I hope I'm wrong about that.

• 47:25Ed Mylett?

  I hope you're wrong, too. Last question. There's an election coming. And, um, yeah, that's what I'm told. And whether, I think I know who you think's gonna win and who you want to win, but I want you to talk about this finally. And it's something, because you're involved in the media. I watched you on Fox the other night, I've seen you on CNN. So, these are colleagues of yours to some extent. One of the things that frustrates me the most, and this is not political left or right, is the bias in the media. Obviously, Trump's got this unbelievable contentious relationship. He calls the liberal media a partner of the Democrats. And some would argue that- Summit Fox News are partners of the Republicans. I have no problem with someone like Sean Hannity being a, an advocate and a biased person for a more conservative viewpoint. I think he's transparent about that.

• 48:10Ed Mylett?

  I don't think he pretends to be down the middle. And I don't think he pretends to be in the news business. I think he pretends to be in the editorial business. My frustration is when I see people on certain channels that pretend to be in the middle. Pretend to be news people that we know are biased. And then I see these same people hosting debates. So they're, they're narrators of debates and we know going in, and the more and more I'm hearing the phraseology of even the questions in these debates. They're skewed with a bias towards them. Just talk to the audience from your perspective as they start watching this coverage. Cause for most people, they're watching it a little bit. But over the next five, six, seven months, the vast majority of Americans are going to start getting their news through these cameras and through their phone. What would you tell them about what they're seeing being reported?

• 48:53Ed Mylett?

  Is, is, do you agree that there's a bias on almost all the reporting they're, they're seeing nowadays?

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Is that a fair question? I mean, of course there is. I mean, you know, I, I spent two years, the last two years until recently with CNN, you know, fake news. And look, it was the hate Trump network. I mean, literally 95% of the guests that would have come on would trap. I mean, just turn it on anytime and look, it's all thrashing Trump. Hour after, after hour. It's a, by the way, that's a tragedy to me. I love Ted Turner's idea, you know, of what CNN was supposed to be. Remember when he's a 24 hour news network where he could actually find how it's happening in the world?

• 49:26Ed Mylett?

  I just want to inject one thing. So people listening to this would probably go, I agree with you. And you know what that's been? That's been a response to what Fox did to Barack Obama.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  Well, except, you know, look, Roger Ailes was a genius. I know that there's this Netflix thing about him that makes him out like, and I don't know about his sexual experience. But I'm just saying, what he recognized is something we as conservatives have been complaining about for 40 years. Which is that, yeah, you could watch three networks and they were all liberal. And he recognized, hey, there's 40% of the country that's conservative and they're not being served. And, you know, he tapped into that market. Fox News is a conservative network and you know CNN and MSNBC are extremely liberal. But I know this from being in the newsroom. I spent 10 years at the Wall Street Journal. Most journalists are liberal, just by their orientation.

• 50:15Speaker 04

  And so what Trump did actually kind of effectively, I think, was it drove the mainstream media crazy. He did an run around. You asked me, why does he tweet so much? Partly because he feels like I can get directly to the people without going through the media. I just wish there were some network out there that just... If I were to want to turn on the TV right now, I just want to know what's going on in the world. I don't want somebody's opinion about Trump, or positive or negative. What's going on? What's going on with the stock market? What's going on? And I think there's a market for that. I think it's too bad. The other thing I would say, you know, I think this is true about the schools too. You know, we have a public schools, government school system because we want to teach people

• 51:00Speaker 04

  how to think, how they can be productive and educated and informed citizens. This is not, you know, original to me, but I think it's so true. Now our schools don't teach people how to think, but what to think. And the media does the same thing. They're not trying to present you with the evidence so you can make a decision. They're trying to tell you what you should think. And I think people are getting sick of it, don't you?

• 51:21Ed Mylett?

  I do. And that's why I think things like today are so valuable and I want to do more of them. And again, everybody, next week...

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Well, you're gonna have my buddy...

• 51:26Ed Mylett?

  I'm gonna have your friend Austin on, right? Who's a different side of the aisle.

• 51:29Speaker 04

  And he actually, you would be surprised. He and I probably agree on 60%.

• 51:32Ed Mylett?

  I can't wait to tell him that you're opening a universal basic income. I think he's gonna love that.

• 51:35Speaker 04

  But we get rid of the wealth first, Steve.

• 51:37Ed Mylett?

  But I just want the audience to know, I'm glad we finished with that because I think, I don't believe that network exists. I don't believe Fox is fair and balanced. And I certainly don't think CNN's down the middle. And I think MSNBC has raised their hand and said, "Look, we're out there left," right? I just, I don't appreciate...

• 51:51Speaker 04

  But who's in the middle today? That's my point.

• 51:52Ed Mylett?

  I don't think it exists. And that's okay. That's okay. Because you know why CNN did it? Because it drives ratings. They watch Fox's ratings...

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, but you've seen ratings lately?

• 52:00Ed Mylett?

  Well, theirs aren't very good. But that could be argued because it's divided up between the two...

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Ever since they lost me as a contributor, their ratings have gone up.

• 52:05Ed Mylett?

  They just tanked, right? Well, we know my ratings are going up because you're here today. So, Steve, thanks. Thanks so much for today. Let's do it again. I enjoyed it. Everybody, if you enjoyed it, remember next week you'll hear the other perspective. If you get a chance, go buy Steven's books if you want to hear more about his perspective. And make sure every day on Instagram you're following me in the Max Out 2 Minute Drill. I make a post every day, 7:30 Pacific, 10:30 Eastern, and I want to engage with you. You'll meet some of my guests, you can come see me speak, tickets to events, my book, gear, ride on the jet with me, all kinds of cool stuff. We pick, and it's cool, and we pick a winner every single day. So all you gotta do is make a comment in the first 2 minutes, number 1, or comment on other people's comments, start communicating, or just comment every day on every post. We pick winners at the end of the week, or just engage with me every day. I'd love to hear more from you. God bless you, and Max out.