Latest / Trumponomics / 57: JD Vance and the Rise of the White Working Class
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Brought to you by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch. Seeing
- 0:03Speaker 1: what others have seen, but uncovering what others may not.
- 0:06Speaker 1: Global Research that helps You Harness disruption voted top global
- 0:09Speaker 1: research from five years running. Mary Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and
- 0:13Speaker 1: Smith Incorporated. How would they feel about the idea that
- 0:16Speaker 1: they booted a descendant of aristocrats out of Downing Straight? Well,
- 0:20Speaker 1: I think my my mammal, who I write about, is
- 0:22Speaker 1: sort of the hero of the book. She'd probably feel
- 0:24Speaker 1: pretty proud of herself. Hi, and welcome back to Bloomberg Benchmark,
- 0:36Speaker 1: a show about the global economy. I'm Daniel Moss, executive
- 0:39Speaker 1: editor for Global Economics in New York. It's Thursday, October six.
- 0:43Speaker 1: I'm joined by my co host, Scott Lanman, an economics
- 0:47Speaker 1: editor in Washington. Hey, Dan, So, today we're going to
- 0:50Speaker 1: hear about how an impoverished, relatively uneducated group of people
- 0:55Speaker 1: in a part of the US often regarded as a
- 0:58Speaker 1: backwater has actually cheaking up the political and economic order
- 1:02Speaker 1: around the world, and how their lack of power has
- 1:06Speaker 1: ironically increased their cloud. That's right, a steadily diminishing chunk
- 1:11Speaker 1: of the American economy has sent shock waves far beyond
- 1:15Speaker 1: these shores, the kind of phenomenon that booted Brittain out
- 1:18Speaker 1: of the EU, David Cameron out of Downing Street, and
- 1:22Speaker 1: perhaps set the French far right on a course to
- 1:26Speaker 1: the Alisa Palace. So what gives what connects these threads? JD.
- 1:31Speaker 1: Vance and his new book Hillbilly Elegy, a story about
- 1:36Speaker 1: his journey and his family's journey from Kentucky to Ohio,
- 1:41Speaker 1: to the Marines, to Iraq and now to the world
- 1:44Speaker 1: of venture capital in San Francisco. So JD welcomed the show,
- 1:48Speaker 1: Guy Arios, congratulations on the book and the remarkable story
- 1:53Speaker 1: that you've kind of described as an escape. It's a
- 1:56Speaker 1: very timely book. Much of the commentary about it has
- 1:59Speaker 1: he never to be focused on the presidential rice. I
- 2:02Speaker 1: suspect there's a lot more going on than just whether
- 2:05Speaker 1: Trump or Clinton. Thanks the Oath on January twenty. But
- 2:09Speaker 1: let's stop that. Why do you think your book has
- 2:11Speaker 1: captured this sense of the moment. Sure, this is a
- 2:15Speaker 1: group of people who are relatively neglected by the media,
- 2:18Speaker 1: and consequently, not a whole lot of folks really understand
- 2:21Speaker 1: who they are, where they come from, what they think about.
- 2:23Speaker 1: And so I really I think through the book and
- 2:25Speaker 1: through the story of my family's history, sort of shed
- 2:28Speaker 1: a light on this population that is relatively neglected and
- 2:31Speaker 1: that folks are very curious about because of and this
- 2:33Speaker 1: is the second reason, because of Donald Trump. This is
- 2:37Speaker 1: an area of the country, a part of the population
- 2:39Speaker 1: that is heavily supportive of Donald Trump. And so it's
- 2:42Speaker 1: causing a lot of people to ask why who are
- 2:44Speaker 1: these people? Why are they so supportive of Donald Trump.
- 2:47Speaker 1: Of course I don't talk about Trump at all in
- 2:49Speaker 1: the book, but because I do talk a little bit
- 2:51Speaker 1: about the political frustrations and some of the underlying cultural
- 2:54Speaker 1: frustrations that exist, I think that people have sort of
- 2:57Speaker 1: grabbed onto my book as an explanation or a partial
- 3:00Speaker 1: explanation for the Trump phenomenon. Now, you didn't really set
- 3:04Speaker 1: out to write that kind of story to weave what's
- 3:06Speaker 1: really a morality tale of the contest? Was that more
- 3:10Speaker 1: of an accident? But first, just to go back, I mean,
- 3:13Speaker 1: what really made you put the pen to paper or
- 3:15Speaker 1: fingers on the keyboard to start writing this book? So
- 3:19Speaker 1: it was definitely an accident, non intentional at all. And
- 3:22Speaker 1: what caused me to put pen to paper is that
- 3:24Speaker 1: when I was a third year law student at Yale.
- 3:27Speaker 1: One of the things that really troubled me is that
- 3:29Speaker 1: I felt like this cultural outsider. It occurred to me
- 3:31Speaker 1: that there weren't many other kids like me, meaning white
- 3:34Speaker 1: working class kids or black working class kids frankly, who
- 3:38Speaker 1: existed at Yale Law School. And so I really wanted
- 3:40Speaker 1: to sort of understand this this problem of upward mobility
- 3:43Speaker 1: in the United States, why we had so little of it,
- 3:46Speaker 1: Why perhaps the area that I came from could sort
- 3:49Speaker 1: of explain why there were so few kids like me
- 3:52Speaker 1: at places like Yale. And that's really what I set
- 3:54Speaker 1: out to do. I wanted to try to answer that question,
- 3:57Speaker 1: and that's why I started writing the book. Of course,
- 3:59Speaker 1: that Donald's Trump thing has been um has caused a
- 4:01Speaker 1: lot of attention and and positive press to go to
- 4:05Speaker 1: the book, which I'm appreciative in certain ways, But as
- 4:08Speaker 1: I as I told my wife, maybe it's it's a
- 4:10Speaker 1: bad for the country, but good for j D's books.
- 4:12Speaker 1: So I guess on balance, maybe not a good thing.
- 4:16Speaker 1: Has there been much interest in your book from across
- 4:19Speaker 1: the pond? You know, the first global primal roar of
- 4:23Speaker 1: the white working class was perceived to be the Brexit vote,
- 4:28Speaker 1: Brexit voters and the people you lovingly described essentially the
- 4:33Speaker 1: same kind of person. Is there some global connection here, Yeah,
- 4:37Speaker 1: there has definitely been some interest in the UK, and
- 4:40Speaker 1: we actually when we first started to try to sell
- 4:43Speaker 1: the book to overseas publishers, no one was really interested.
- 4:46Speaker 1: But since then we've actually gotten a UK publisher and
- 4:50Speaker 1: there's been a lot of interest in the UK from
- 4:52Speaker 1: the UK press, from UK media. So, and I definitely
- 4:55Speaker 1: think that comes from this, this sense that the same
- 4:59Speaker 1: population of voter is that caused Brexit are the same
- 5:02Speaker 1: population of voters that may very well cause a Trump presidency.
- 5:05Speaker 1: And so I do think that there's some connection. There
- 5:08Speaker 1: is definitely a large segment of the population of both
- 5:11Speaker 1: of these countries and other countries too, that feel a
- 5:14Speaker 1: little neglected and a little left behind by the world economy,
- 5:18Speaker 1: So there is some connection. I'm not an expert on Brexit,
- 5:21Speaker 1: so I won't draw the line to finally, but I
- 5:24Speaker 1: do think that there are some similarities in the group,
- 5:26Speaker 1: just from what I've read and what I've seen on
- 5:28Speaker 1: both in both countries. Now, you think some of the
- 5:30Speaker 1: characters in the book that again, just to be clear,
- 5:33Speaker 1: you lovingly and in some cases reverentially described it's a
- 5:37Speaker 1: very hot felt story. How would they feel about the
- 5:41Speaker 1: idea that they booted a descendant of aristocrats out of
- 5:44Speaker 1: Downing Straight. Well, I think my my mammal, who I
- 5:50Speaker 1: write about, is sort of the hero of the book.
- 5:52Speaker 1: I think that if you put it like that, she'd
- 5:54Speaker 1: probably feel pretty proud of herself. Yeah, you know, it's
- 5:58Speaker 1: it's a very there's a very strong, long undercurrent of
- 6:00Speaker 1: anti elitism that that exists in this population. And you know,
- 6:04Speaker 1: in some ways it goes back to Andrew Jackson and
- 6:07Speaker 1: sort of the populist movement in the early eighteen hundreds,
- 6:10Speaker 1: but I even think it predates that. I think it
- 6:12Speaker 1: goes back to sort of the ancestral history of some
- 6:14Speaker 1: of these places, and so there there's definitely an anti
- 6:18Speaker 1: rich and anti elitism cinnamon that runs through a lot
- 6:21Speaker 1: of my family, a lot of my culture, and so
- 6:23Speaker 1: I I do think maybe my grandma would feel pretty
- 6:26Speaker 1: happy to think that she had booted in aristocrat tin
- 6:29Speaker 1: Downing Street. Now, you talk a lot in your book
- 6:32Speaker 1: about how it's not necessarily these kind of global economic
- 6:36Speaker 1: forces that are buffeting the working class people in Ohio
- 6:39Speaker 1: and Kentucky. It's more their own choices that have added
- 6:42Speaker 1: up over time, the multiple partners, taking drugs, things like that.
- 6:47Speaker 1: You know, how much of the problems besetting you know,
- 6:51Speaker 1: white working class people today are you know, as you
- 6:54Speaker 1: would you say, their own fault and how much are
- 6:56Speaker 1: the global economy's fault? Sure? Well, it's very complicated, and
- 7:00Speaker 1: I would say it's both. One of the reasons I
- 7:02Speaker 1: focused on the more cultural side of the equation is
- 7:05Speaker 1: that I felt that there had just been a lot
- 7:06Speaker 1: written about globalization in the way that it affected the
- 7:09Speaker 1: working class, so I decided to focus on something else.
- 7:12Speaker 1: But I do think that there's this strong element of
- 7:15Speaker 1: culture that that's underlying a lot of these problems. And
- 7:18Speaker 1: I don't know that I would say that it's about
- 7:20Speaker 1: individual choices so much as it is about cultural expectations.
- 7:24Speaker 1: I mean, one of the things I write right about
- 7:26Speaker 1: is that when you grow up in an area like this,
- 7:28Speaker 1: you really acquire this sense of helplessness, this sense that
- 7:30Speaker 1: your choices don't matter, that no matter how hard you work,
- 7:33Speaker 1: how much you try to get ahead, nothing that you
- 7:35Speaker 1: ever do will actually produce good outcomes. And so that
- 7:40Speaker 1: that's not so much a failure of individual responsibility or
- 7:44Speaker 1: individual morals. But I think it it is a cultural
- 7:47Speaker 1: problem that isn't necessarily amenable to, you know, flipping the
- 7:51Speaker 1: government policy switch or reversing globalization and making that stuff
- 7:55Speaker 1: go away. Now that said, I do buy into, you know,
- 7:59Speaker 1: the sort of of consensus thesis that globalization has been
- 8:03Speaker 1: very hard on these areas of the country. So again,
- 8:05Speaker 1: it's not so much to me in either or equation.
- 8:08Speaker 1: It's more about everything is going on here, and I'm
- 8:11Speaker 1: trying to understand one side of that. That that equation.
- 8:15Speaker 1: I mean, you sketch a community, uh, and it's coming
- 8:18Speaker 1: across in your comments. Now that feels like it has
- 8:22Speaker 1: no steak in the modern globalized economy. But JD, let
- 8:26Speaker 1: me just push you gently there. Should they have a steak?
- 8:31Speaker 1: I mean, these don't sound like the people who would
- 8:33Speaker 1: vote for a socialist. You talk in your book about
- 8:37Speaker 1: reverence for the military and indeed the transformative experience that
- 8:40Speaker 1: the military had in your life. This is a deeply
- 8:43Speaker 1: patriotic group of people. But what could be more American
- 8:48Speaker 1: than capitalism? Isn't this just part of the capital cycle?
- 8:52Speaker 1: Industries rise and fall, regions rise, and fall. I mean,
- 8:56Speaker 1: does an American as apple pie, isn't it? Well? In
- 9:00Speaker 1: some cases, I don't disagree with you. There's definitely a
- 9:03Speaker 1: part of the economy that's cyclical in nature. Industries rise
- 9:06Speaker 1: and fall. The steel jobs aren't coming back, the coal
- 9:09Speaker 1: mines aren't necessarily coming back. And it's definitely important to
- 9:13Speaker 1: recognize that as both someone who's living on the ground
- 9:15Speaker 1: in these areas, but as a policymaker or a businessman,
- 9:18Speaker 1: it's it's important to recognize that you can't reverse these trends.
- 9:21Speaker 1: You can't just go back to the nineteen sixties and
- 9:23Speaker 1: hope that everything is going to be okay. But what
- 9:25Speaker 1: I do think is unique about this, you know, relative
- 9:28Speaker 1: to prior periods of economic disruption, is that there is
- 9:32Speaker 1: a unique cultural isolation that's going on. So if you
- 9:35Speaker 1: think of you know, Date and Ohio, it may just
- 9:37Speaker 1: be the case that a fifty five year old worker
- 9:40Speaker 1: in Date in Ohio who spent his entire life in manufacturing,
- 9:43Speaker 1: that he may not be able to find a good
- 9:46Speaker 1: paying job for the rest of his working life. I
- 9:48Speaker 1: think that we we maybe have to fess up to
- 9:50Speaker 1: that and admit to that. Again, both on the Washington
- 9:53Speaker 1: side of the equation, but also for people in my
- 9:55Speaker 1: own community. But what I do think is really unique
- 9:58Speaker 1: is that that guy in Date No. I will increasingly
- 10:01Speaker 1: live in a concentrated enclave of people who are like him,
- 10:05Speaker 1: folks who don't have a whole lot of opportunity. And importantly,
- 10:08Speaker 1: his kids will grow up and that's sort of secluded
- 10:11Speaker 1: enclave of folks who don't have a lot of hope
- 10:13Speaker 1: for the future, don't have a lot of optimism about
- 10:16Speaker 1: what's possible. And so what's what's unique about this particular
- 10:19Speaker 1: moment in history isn't the economic disruption, which is always
- 10:23Speaker 1: going to be there. It's that the folks who are
- 10:25Speaker 1: economically disrupted are living increasingly segregated lives from the world
- 10:30Speaker 1: elites and from folks with financial power. Let's take a
- 10:33Speaker 1: break right now to hear a word from our sponsor,
- 10:36Speaker 1: and then we'll come back to this idea brought to
- 10:42Speaker 1: you by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Seeing what others
- 10:45Speaker 1: have seen, but uncovering what others may not. Global Research
- 10:48Speaker 1: that helps You Harness Disruption voted top global research from
- 10:52Speaker 1: five years running. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Venner and Smith Incorporated
- 11:04Speaker 1: all right, Well, I want to continue j D with
- 11:07Speaker 1: that idea of cultural isolation. I mean that that brings
- 11:10Speaker 1: true to me personally. I grew up in suburbs of
- 11:13Speaker 1: New Jersey, relatively more stable family, probably that than you had,
- 11:17Speaker 1: but culturally distinct. Culturally distinct, but still you know, it
- 11:22Speaker 1: wasn't until I was able to live for a few
- 11:26Speaker 1: years in San Francisco myself that I felt that I
- 11:28Speaker 1: was more exposed to the world than before. So I
- 11:32Speaker 1: want to ask you, how do you expand this idea
- 11:35Speaker 1: of becoming culturally less isolated. You refer a little bit
- 11:39Speaker 1: in your book to the idea of spreading out section
- 11:43Speaker 1: eight vouchers some more so they don't take over a community.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Does mixed income housing or mixed income communities carry a
- 11:51Speaker 1: lot of weight and maybe and having some kind of
- 11:54Speaker 1: remedy for this issue, well that that would definitely be
- 11:58Speaker 1: part of the solution. But my my much broader sense
- 12:01Speaker 1: is that folks from the elites and folks from the
- 12:04Speaker 1: working class just don't spend enough time to each other.
- 12:07Speaker 1: So part of that is a neighborhood problem. We don't
- 12:09Speaker 1: have nearly as many mixed income neighborhoods as we used
- 12:12Speaker 1: to part of that is is a much more broad
- 12:16Speaker 1: geographic isolation. So it's increasingly the case that folks who
- 12:19Speaker 1: go off to college get an education work in you know,
- 12:23Speaker 1: relatively high education, high income occupations. They're living in certain cities,
- 12:27Speaker 1: they're living in certain parts of the world, and so
- 12:30Speaker 1: my my, my sense is that there there's something very
- 12:33Speaker 1: unique about this moment in time where the folks who
- 12:36Speaker 1: have political and economic power, who are perceived to have
- 12:39Speaker 1: political and economic power, are more and more segregated from
- 12:42Speaker 1: the working classes. And I don't think it's surprising that
- 12:45Speaker 1: that segregation is creating a certain resentment and frustration, if
- 12:48Speaker 1: for no other reason that it's very easy to caricature,
- 12:52Speaker 1: you know, the financial and political elites, if you don't
- 12:54Speaker 1: have any idea what they're actually doing all day, if
- 12:57Speaker 1: you're only real exposure to them is you know, on
- 13:00Speaker 1: the Internet or on television or from some talk radio host.
- 13:04Speaker 1: But they now have the power. I mean, if you
- 13:06Speaker 1: look at the narrative of this election campaign and the
- 13:10Speaker 1: narrative of Bregg sit on I days, I We'll hear
- 13:12Speaker 1: more about it in France next year. I mean, they
- 13:15Speaker 1: have the power now. It's shaped seemingly the entire contools
- 13:20Speaker 1: of the rights. Well, they have political power in this
- 13:23Speaker 1: particular race, but I don't know that they have sort
- 13:26Speaker 1: of long term engagement with their communities. And those are
- 13:28Speaker 1: distinct concepts to me. It's one thing to be able
- 13:31Speaker 1: to vote your frustration. It's another thing to not be
- 13:34Speaker 1: frustrated in the first place. And my suspicion is that, again,
- 13:38Speaker 1: as expected as this economic dislocation is, what is what
- 13:43Speaker 1: is really unique is this very broad sense of shared frustration,
- 13:47Speaker 1: this idea that there are two classes in America. There
- 13:50Speaker 1: are the elites and the people with the political power,
- 13:52Speaker 1: and there's everybody else, the folks who are condescended to
- 13:55Speaker 1: by the elites, the folks that the elites don't care about.
- 13:58Speaker 1: And I really think that that oaks, you know, like me,
- 14:01Speaker 1: and you, and and and everybody who's who's on the coast,
- 14:05Speaker 1: so to speak, that we have a certain responsibility to
- 14:08Speaker 1: make our fellow countrymen feel a little bit more engaged
- 14:11Speaker 1: with the world, a little bit more engaged with their
- 14:13Speaker 1: political and economic culture. Because if it's the case that
- 14:16Speaker 1: a guy in Daton, Ohio is not just disallocated from
- 14:18Speaker 1: the economy, but that his children and grandchildren have no
- 14:21Speaker 1: real opportunity to get an education and to integrate with
- 14:24Speaker 1: that new world economy. Then it's it's going to create
- 14:28Speaker 1: necessary frustrations and alienations. And I think that's what we're
- 14:32Speaker 1: really seeing. Let's dwell on that point about the world
- 14:35Speaker 1: economy a little bit, and it's not like the characters
- 14:38Speaker 1: in your book are completely unaware of things. I thought
- 14:42Speaker 1: that was a very interesting passage way you describe when uh,
- 14:45Speaker 1: the steel plant, the big employer took on a Japanese partner,
- 14:49Speaker 1: and I think it was your Paul Paul who said, well,
- 14:52Speaker 1: I'm not worried about the Japanese. I'm more worried about
- 14:54Speaker 1: the Chinese. Heck, we might end up fighting them one day. Sure,
- 14:58Speaker 1: How are they feeling about We've talked about elates in
- 15:01Speaker 1: the United States. How are they feeling about economic forces
- 15:06Speaker 1: or economic elates, or economic decisions that transcend the United States? Well,
- 15:13Speaker 1: I don't know how much they're thinking about economic forces
- 15:16Speaker 1: that transcend the United States. I mean, my sense is
- 15:18Speaker 1: that the perception is that the global economy is working
- 15:23Speaker 1: for a few select people in the United States, and
- 15:26Speaker 1: it's not working for most other people. And so I
- 15:28Speaker 1: actually read an article this morning by a Washington Post
- 15:31Speaker 1: reporter who went to my hometown, and it was interesting
- 15:33Speaker 1: that he interviewed some folks and they said something in
- 15:35Speaker 1: the effect of, they don't necessarily believe the recent positive
- 15:39Speaker 1: economic news that came out because they don't necessarily see
- 15:42Speaker 1: it in their own communities. And so to the degree
- 15:45Speaker 1: that they think about global economic trends, they probably perceive
- 15:49Speaker 1: that those trends are something that people in Washington or
- 15:52Speaker 1: New York have some control over, that those people living
- 15:56Speaker 1: in Washington and New York benefit from, and that they
- 15:59Speaker 1: don't really care how those trends impact people like my,
- 16:02Speaker 1: my papal or the folks who are still living in Middletown.
- 16:05Speaker 1: There there is a broad recognition that the global economy
- 16:08Speaker 1: is shifting in a really incredible way. But the perception
- 16:13Speaker 1: is that it's shifting in a way that benefits rich
- 16:15Speaker 1: people in rich countries and poor people in poor countries,
- 16:18Speaker 1: but that it doesn't benefit poor people in rich countries,
- 16:21Speaker 1: and that that that's a very real perception. I think
- 16:23Speaker 1: that that it's definitely rooted in some reality, and that
- 16:27Speaker 1: that again, I don't know that it's a super sophisticated perception,
- 16:32Speaker 1: but it does turn back towards those who they believe
- 16:35Speaker 1: are controlling those global currents and trends. Now, we we
- 16:38Speaker 1: can talk about these global economic forces and their effects
- 16:41Speaker 1: on on these communities for for a long time. But
- 16:45Speaker 1: to go back to another topic that really pervades your
- 16:48Speaker 1: book is the the drug use among members of your
- 16:51Speaker 1: family people in the communities that, as we know from
- 16:55Speaker 1: many many news reports and and statistics today is on
- 17:00Speaker 1: fortunately killing many many people. And I was struck that
- 17:05Speaker 1: you didn't really suggest that attacking the drug problem more
- 17:09Speaker 1: fiercely would be a you know, I would really help
- 17:13Speaker 1: the people in these places. Do you feel that more
- 17:17Speaker 1: resources need to be directed towards getting this problem at
- 17:21Speaker 1: its core, to take the drugs that are that are
- 17:24Speaker 1: the source of addiction for so many people out and
- 17:27Speaker 1: at least helping people get back on their feet or
- 17:30Speaker 1: avoid that kind of scourge. Yeah, so, so I definitely do.
- 17:34Speaker 1: And I think I should say that the book is
- 17:36Speaker 1: relatively light on policy prescriptions, partially because I felt like
- 17:40Speaker 1: it was already long enough, and partially just because I
- 17:43Speaker 1: didn't want to artificially start laying down a number of
- 17:46Speaker 1: policy prescriptions that I hadn't necessarily thought that well through.
- 17:49Speaker 1: But my sense is that the drug problem is one
- 17:53Speaker 1: of the most significant social problems in these parts of
- 17:56Speaker 1: the country, and that we should definitely devote more resources
- 17:59Speaker 1: to trying to solve the I mean, there there are
- 18:01Speaker 1: a lot of things that we could do, and and
- 18:03Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that we should probably
- 18:04Speaker 1: be thinking about is trying to change the cultural perception
- 18:08Speaker 1: around some of these prescriptions that make it more difficult
- 18:12Speaker 1: for folks to overdose or to even have a craving
- 18:15Speaker 1: for in arcotics in the first place. And so you know,
- 18:17Speaker 1: things like methodone. There's a real intense cultural stigma around
- 18:22Speaker 1: folks who are using pharmaceuticals to try to combat their
- 18:25Speaker 1: drug problem. But again, I'm sort of in all of
- 18:27Speaker 1: the above type person. I think we have to fight
- 18:30Speaker 1: this on all fronts, and we really need to devote
- 18:33Speaker 1: a lot of resources and a lot of focus to
- 18:35Speaker 1: this area and this problem, because it is something that's
- 18:39Speaker 1: it's ripping families apart, it's having disastrous economic consequences, and
- 18:43Speaker 1: it's of course causing human life in a pretty outrageous way.
- 18:47Speaker 1: There's a statistic that I just find so outrageous, and
- 18:50Speaker 1: I learned after I wrote the book that in the
- 18:53Speaker 1: county that I grew up in, last year, deaths from
- 18:56Speaker 1: drug overdoses outnumbered deaths from natural causes. That's just an
- 19:00Speaker 1: extraordinarily bad j D. Again, I just want to come
- 19:04Speaker 1: back to you know, these global trends and the people
- 19:08Speaker 1: you describe in the book and their perceptions of their
- 19:10Speaker 1: place in the world. Now you know there are steel
- 19:15Speaker 1: rust belts in China as well. I visited one GM
- 19:21Speaker 1: gets a very large chunk of its revenue from China.
- 19:25Speaker 1: One of the biggest banks in Mexico is owned by
- 19:29Speaker 1: city group Banner Max. Is there any sense that this
- 19:33Speaker 1: flows both ways or is this just like a conversation
- 19:37Speaker 1: on another planet. Yeah, I have never heard much of
- 19:41Speaker 1: a recognition that there are rust belts in China. I
- 19:44Speaker 1: do know that there's a recognition that there are a
- 19:47Speaker 1: lot of Chinese workers who are probably mistreated, who don't
- 19:50Speaker 1: enjoy the same labor protections as folks in the United States.
- 19:53Speaker 1: And so what you'll hear a lot of times is
- 19:56Speaker 1: that people recognize that a lot of these jobs are
- 19:59Speaker 1: going to overseas, and the perception is that part of
- 20:02Speaker 1: the reason they're going overseas is that you don't have
- 20:04Speaker 1: to pay these workers as well, and you don't have
- 20:06Speaker 1: to treat these workers as well. So I don't know
- 20:08Speaker 1: that creates a ton of of sort of affinity or
- 20:11Speaker 1: bond between a steel mill worker in Ohio and a
- 20:14Speaker 1: steel mill worker in in China, But I do think
- 20:18Speaker 1: it feeds into this idea that there's this amorphous, faceless
- 20:22Speaker 1: set of elites who are sort of playing the puppet
- 20:24Speaker 1: strings to their own benefit that hurt everyone else in
- 20:27Speaker 1: the process. But you know, I will say that, you know, certainly,
- 20:31Speaker 1: recognizing that the Chinese labor laws are imperfect and that
- 20:35Speaker 1: Chinese workers don't have the best conditions, it is definitely
- 20:39Speaker 1: the case that globalization has radically reduced global inequality, even
- 20:45Speaker 1: as on these sort of microeconomy scales country by country,
- 20:49Speaker 1: it's sort of increased inequality. So there is something to
- 20:52Speaker 1: the perception that a lot of these global trends are
- 20:55Speaker 1: good for poor people in poor countries but not so
- 20:58Speaker 1: good for poor people in rich countries. Is they're totally
- 21:00Speaker 1: made up, right? But is there a perception that the
- 21:03Speaker 1: US and US employees benefit as much from globalization as
- 21:08Speaker 1: the supposed people in China in Mexico who are quote
- 21:12Speaker 1: aiding out launched unquote. Oh, absolutely, there's definitely a recognition.
- 21:16Speaker 1: It's it's sort of folks feel that there are two
- 21:18Speaker 1: people who are benefiting. It's it's the workers who are
- 21:21Speaker 1: poor but in other countries, not the workers who are
- 21:23Speaker 1: poor here at home, and the people who have access
- 21:27Speaker 1: to you know, financial power, political power, what have you.
- 21:30Speaker 1: There's there's definitely a sense and I think a certain
- 21:32Speaker 1: frustration at local, homegrown companies for not hiring more workers.
- 21:36Speaker 1: I mean, that's why Made in America, Buy in America
- 21:39Speaker 1: has such cultural appeal, because people do recognize that there
- 21:43Speaker 1: are there are other people in the country who are
- 21:45Speaker 1: benefiting from some of these trends, even if they don't
- 21:48Speaker 1: understand precisely how. There's definitely that broad perception out there.
- 21:52Speaker 1: All right, well, JD, We've really covered a lot of
- 21:55Speaker 1: ground here, but one last question we we just can't
- 21:57Speaker 1: let you go without a prediction. Is going to carry
- 22:02Speaker 1: Ohio and who will win the presidential election? Will they
- 22:06Speaker 1: be the same person? I mean, usually they have been,
- 22:08Speaker 1: but this year might be different. Ohio might not go
- 22:12Speaker 1: the way of the country. So my prediction is that
- 22:16Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton will win the presidential election, and I think
- 22:19Speaker 1: that she'll eke out a small victory in Ohio. That's
- 22:22Speaker 1: my best guess, though I recognized I'm going out on
- 22:25Speaker 1: a limb because all the polls say that Trump is
- 22:27Speaker 1: up by three or four points. But you know, there's
- 22:30Speaker 1: something to be said for a relative conservatism in Ohio.
- 22:34Speaker 1: And it's not just the conservatism as it's used in
- 22:37Speaker 1: an ideological way, but it's the conservatism about fearing someone
- 22:40Speaker 1: who's potentially a little bit unstable or a little bit unpredictable.
- 22:45Speaker 1: And I do think that that that impulse in Ohio
- 22:47Speaker 1: politics may prevail, even though you know, there are a
- 22:50Speaker 1: lot of angry folks, a lot of people that I
- 22:52Speaker 1: love and care about, who are going to vote for
- 22:54Speaker 1: Donald Trump because they think, you know, let's let's sort
- 22:57Speaker 1: of throw the proverbial middle finger into this president initial race,
- 23:00Speaker 1: because things certainly aren't going to get better if we
- 23:02Speaker 1: stay on the path that we're staying on right now. Well,
- 23:05Speaker 1: J I, D. I can't sign off without asking you
- 23:07Speaker 1: how your sister is doing. One thing that comes across
- 23:10Speaker 1: repeatedly in the bookcase, what a load style she and
- 23:13Speaker 1: her family have been for you? How is she doing
- 23:16Speaker 1: and what does she think of all this? Well? My
- 23:19Speaker 1: sister is is my biggest fan, and it's one of
- 23:21Speaker 1: the most gratifying aspects of writing the book is that,
- 23:25Speaker 1: you know, whenever there's a criticism of the book on Facebook,
- 23:27Speaker 1: almost always it's my sister who's there defending me and saying,
- 23:31Speaker 1: don't don't you talk about about my brother. So she's
- 23:34Speaker 1: she's very proud of me, and I'm of course very
- 23:37Speaker 1: proud of her. She's doing really well. I actually saw
- 23:39Speaker 1: her last weekend and saw her beautiful daughter go to homecoming,
- 23:42Speaker 1: her first homecoming. So it really is is just wonderful
- 23:46Speaker 1: to see my sister and and and a lot of
- 23:48Speaker 1: my family back home doing well. And they're my biggest fans,
- 23:52Speaker 1: and I'm glad that I have them in my corner.
- 23:54Speaker 1: We'd love to have you back here some time to
- 23:55Speaker 1: talk about global economic trends and their impacts on individual
- 23:59Speaker 1: country reason communities, because you know, again, I do feel
- 24:03Speaker 1: you've tapped into something here with your book. Great to
- 24:06Speaker 1: have you will be back next week, and until then,
- 24:08Speaker 1: you can find us on the Bloomberg terminal and Bloomberg
- 24:11Speaker 1: dot com, as well as iTunes, pocket cast, and Stitcher.
- 24:15Speaker 1: Why they take a minute to rate and review the
- 24:17Speaker 1: show so more people can find us, and you can
- 24:20Speaker 1: find me on Twitter at at Scott Landman and Dan
- 24:23Speaker 1: at at Daniel Moss d C. I am at j
- 24:26Speaker 1: d evans one on Twitter. Thank you guys for having me.
- 24:29Speaker 1: Thank you, See you next week. Brought to you by
- 24:36Speaker 1: Bank of America. Merrill Lynch Seeing what others have seen,
- 24:39Speaker 1: but uncovering what others may not. Global Research that helps
- 24:42Speaker 1: you harness disruption voted top global research from five years running.
- 24:47Speaker 1: Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner and Smith Incorporated. I