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Looking at the CalFire website right now, ninety two wildfires have burned twenty nine thousand, fifty three acres five fatalities as of now in Los Angeles County are our live blog pointing out the Palisades Fire and the Eton Fire continue to be out of control, while that Hearst fires ten percent contained and the fire and Running Canyon is currently out of control. Joining us now with Moore is will Wade, power and renewable energy reporter. He joins us
here in the Bloomberg Business Week Studio. Will you write about power? You write about renewable energy, the connection to climate. What do you think about when you see a situation like this unfold in Los Angeles? What's top of mind for you?
Well, it's top of mind is that it's just a huge tragedy and we're going to see more of these. I mean look, I grew up partly in southern California. I grew up partly in Pasadena. I know this area. I know those winds. Every fall they'd start coming in from the east and you'd smell smoke when the hills catch on fire. That's that's just normal. But let me hit you with the number seventy eight. Okay, I just
saw this stat today. There are seventy eight more fire days in California these days than there were fifty years ago.
What's a fire day?
A day when there's a when there's a big wildfire burning.
So it's a fire the size of something that actually something.
It's something big enough to get measured and noticed and cause problems.
So make the connection for us? What does that mean?
Why is that it's a climate change thing? This is comparing you know how dry the hills get. I mean in California it mostly rains in the winter, and over the course of the summer, the hills get baked dry. It's nothing but tender and fuel for fires. Once they start, they get really out of control. But now it's hotter, it's drier, there's less rain, so there's more fuel. Once it starts that they're hard to bring in under control.
I mean, well, that's the point, right that, in other words, we'll find out ultimately what started or caused this fire, but the underlying conditions of the dryness, right and just make it right for these intense and very destructive fires. And that's the result of climate change.
That's exactly right.
So you know, it's interesting, you know, we're kind of this meld, if you will, of politics as we honor and remember former President Jimmy Carter and thinking about his policies and talking about, you know, the environment in the late seventies and the importance of it, and here we are watching these fires out on the West coast. We
have a lot of conversations with you. You know what, again is the narrative as we get ready for a change in the White House and we're talking policy, and Joe, you're saying, not likely that that's going to be a priority in terms of climate change initiatives. Is there any interesting narratives that kind of give you hope that things can get better or at least slow down.
I'm really concerned that the new administration is going to not be supportive of climate policies. Certainly, we have no evidence that Trump is a supporter of climate policies. As he comes in, he could throw the brakes on policies. He could reverse some policies. It's going to be turbulent.
What about the business environment and business leaders and other leaders who either you know, a lot of times we take our cues from what's going on in Europe in terms of products and safety and so on and so forth, or even social media or something like that. But a business that might be in California and has to think about fires that they maybe more embrace greener alternatives because they understand that it kind of has to do with the existence of their own business and their future.
You know, certainly we saw that in the first Trouble.
Which was supposed to be I think kind of the whole idea of it. But well, put that on the side for now.
But do you know what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, in the first Trump administration, even as Washington was not being a leader in climate policy, a lot of states and cities were taking the initiative and a lot of businesses were definitely enacting green policies because they could see that it was in their financial interests to try and curb carbon divisions, and it wasn't just for the optics
and the politics of saying we're a green company. It's because they could see how it affected their business.
Stately, California, fifth largest economy in the world. It has the power to do that. But can states do this stuff without help from the federal government if administration doesn't want to actually do those things.
States have the power. You know, states have their own decisions that they can make.
Do they have the money, do they have the funds, do they have the resources to do it?
It's a challenge.
It is a challenge. It is I'm right now I'm looking at New York State, which twenty nineteen enacted one of the most ambitious climate policies in the nation, and now we're taking stock and it's not clear if they're going to make those goals. So the states have power, but it's not easy, and it's certainly like in the past.
You know, we've been talking the past year and a half here about inflation making everything more expensive, and all of a sudden, these green goals are more costly and people are becoming more concerned about that.
I just want to mention from the live blog that's tracking the LA Wildfires. Mayor Karen Bass saying, thanks to the bravery and collaboration of the LA Fire Department, this Sunset fire is fully contained. She is messaging her citizens, if you're returning home, please drive slowly, watch the road. Firefighters are still working in some damaged areas, and we know that that is continuing. Just back to kind of alternative energy. We talk about AI, generative AI all of
the power that's needed for that. Joe Biden's administration, President Joe Biden's administration, we got a story a couple of days ago looking to push for geothermal as a key energy source. Any of you chuckle, any of these, I mean, any of it or nuclear? All of this is going to take time.
Right, Yeah, I mean I liked YOUO thermal. I'm a fan of geothermal. Traditionally, you can only do it in certain parts of the world.
Iceland does a lot of it, right, you have to.
Be in an area that has a lot of geothermal activity. There's actually a big spot called the Geysers in central California. There's a push for like the new kind of geothermal where you dig down until you can top the hot rocks. So there's some promise there I think we'll see more geothermal, but I don't know that it's going to be big enough to be a massive mainstream thing. But it's just, you know, one of many options.
Of the alternatives, just twenty seconds of the alternatives. You look at each and every day, which one is the most promising?
You know, I'm a big fan of nuclear. I'm always I'm always right about news.
But that's going to take time too.
It's very slow. That's a problem in fusion. But things take time.
Sorry, Carol, we don't time to talk about nuclear waste, which is Carrol's favorite topic when we talk about nuclear and.
Nim always said nobody wants to talk about that.
He always keeps us real with me.
Just going to say, we'll wade. Thank you, always always will wade. Of course our power and renewable energy editor, so appreciate getting his input. Continue to track the fire. Five people have died, more than twenty nine thousand acres have burned. Will continue to keep you updated on that, and continuing to think about former President Jimmy Carter. On this Thursday, this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us Live weekday afternoons from two to five e's during listen on Applecarplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube, and.
We're going to stay on former President Jimmy Carter and really the policies that today continue to impact our world, things that he worked on with us.
Now is Terry Haynes, Founder at Pangaea Policy. It's an independent and international political and policy forecasting firm for financial markets and investors. Terry has a more than a handful of presidents held high level US government posts, serving both the private and public sectors. Terry joins us from Washington, d c. Terry, top of mind for you as we get ready as a nation to later rest the thirty ninth President of the United States too his final resting place. What's top of mind for you?
Well, a couple of things. You know.
I'm a little too young to have been in Washington during the Carter years. I came in the Reagan days, but I knew a lot of the top people and worked with a lot of the top people in the Carter administration, most prominently his Press secretary Jody Powell. I worked with stu Isa said a bunch of other people that served in high levels in those administrations had a lot of conversations with him over the years, as well
as the people that were in Congress. My top of mind really is, firstly, politicians too often are little more than their ambition. You could never accuse Carter of that. He was hugely ambitious, but very grounded. He had a very useful life, wanted to have a useful life. That's been discussed a lot, so I won't belabor it. Even though he was president nearly half his life ago, he was model of He was a model and interestingly Richard Nixon of what a post president's world looked like and
how they could be useful. And Carter really led in that regard. And finally, I would say that the Carter presidency, in a lot of ways, picking up on what Carol said, is really a hinge to the world that we have today, and nowhere more than the fact that markets ought to be thanking Carter every day for taking on inflation, slaying inflation in the United States, bringing Paul Volker into the Federal Reserve, pushing that at great cost to his presidency.
Reagan also kept vulgar on those policies at some cost to his own. But that was all Carter, and that took a lot of guts and determination and really kind of epitomized, you know, both for good and bad, the kind of president he was, stubborn, determined, dedicated to seeing it through. So pats off to him.
Yeah, there was I think mention Terry in one of the eulogies about his thinking long term, right, that he wasn't necessarily thinking about reelection or getting a second term, but he was thinking about the longer term impact, be it on the United States or more globally on the world.
Yeah, it's said that one of the surest ways to get on Carter's bad side was to mention that some initiative or another would be negative for his reelection prospects. I can tell you secondhand anyway through the people that I knew who worked for him, that that's true. But you know, whether it be that, whether it be the energy policy, or of many many other things that went on in the Carter administration. He was very determined to
kind of move the country in a particular direction. He found out very quickly, I think, to his detriment that you know, the presidency has limits and that he needed to work more with the public, work more with Congress, to get more in the direction that he wanted. But he certainly achieved a lot and at worst started a lot of conversations and was on the right side of history with a lot of those as well.
Point out, well, let's talk about some of those things. Carol and David Gera. We were just speaking about climate change and the fact that Jimmy Carter was talking about climate change at a time when nobody was talking about climate change. During his memorial today we heard different aspects of deregulated markets come up, the beer industry, the airlines, for example. What are his legacies that we're still talking about today that are still present today.
Oh, it's there are a lot of them.
You know.
The energy is one of them, and on issues energy is one, certainly domestically.
Energy.
You know, for the first time there was a focus on domestic energy production and consumption U and that was a double edged sword for Carter and for his administration because you know, as it was noted before, he was really mocked for that. But there was a double edged sword because the intrusion into daily lives that Carter perceived to be necessary was very much resented by people who a few years ago didn't have to think about any of those things at all. You know, there's a lesson.
There's a lesson there for any future, any succeeding president, which is, you know, you've got to bring the public along, You've got to bring Congress along as you're trying to accomplish things. Foreign policy legacy is hugely ambitious and mixed, can't be able to accords of course are his greatest
success there. But at the same time, the the Iranian hostage situation and Russia's incursion into Afghanistan created a situation where the United States, fairly or not, was perceived to have been weaker at the end of his presidency than it was at the beginning. And that was difficult for him,
in part because I think that wasn't entirely deserved. Human rights, both on its own and as an attack on Soviet legitimacy was very important, and as I say, you know, the monetary policy legacy and the economic legacy, I think there's a touch of time.
All right, we'renna leave it there. Terry Haynes, thank you so much, really appreciate your thoughts on this. Founder of penjea Policy. Joining us from DC.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple Coarflay, and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
All right, everybody, you are listening and watching Bloomberg Business. We Carol Masser along with Tim Stanovick. A lot going on and on this Thursday, January ninth, you know, the stock market has closed, the bond market closed at two pm Wall Street time. We have a guest that has seen a lot of different market and economic cycles under several different administrations. So we're kind of tying our world together here. Louis Navalier's chairman and founder at Navalier and Associates.
He joins us from Florida. Louis is good to have you here. I'm trying to think where I want to start, because it feels like, you know, we're thinking a lot about the US as a country, about leadership because of the state funeral a former president, Jimmy Carter, and I kind of want to start there. I think you got your undergrad and business administration in seventy eight, your MBA
in finance in seventy nine. Take us back, what do you think about that time and era and what it was like to be a leader a president at that moment.
It was super difficult.
I actually worked for the Federal Home owned Bank in San Francisco at the time, and we have this inverted yield curve and the banking failure, and of course with Paul Volker and they were experimenting with monetrazation and all that stuff. But it was really hard for Jimmy Carter because we had rampid inflation and he was still fighting that. You know, prior to Carter, we had the Nixon price controls and.
And that really hurt him.
The stock market went up in his four year term, went up, I think almost forty five, but net of inflation, it lost ground. So he didn't have the most spectacular economic oversight. But a lot of it was just luck. You know, it's a poor guy, you know, he's obviously it was a wonderful person. And and then you know, I still remember when he addressed the nation. We had we had an energy crisis, and we had high energy prices. He was wearing a sweater because he was telling us
we need to turn our thermostat down. And I think at that time the view of the world was more status and then obviously Ronald Reagan became the next president. He was more upbeat, and.
It's we're kind of a similar situation now.
We you know, we got to defeat the inflation that that reappeared probably was mostly stimulus related, and then once we defeat the inflation, we got to be more upbeat and try to grow.
Look at us as a static economy.
You know, it's interesting. First of all, I was telling my daughter to put a speeder on you either too. I'm like, I'm not kicking up the heat anymore, like it's cold out, like put a speeder on. One thing I want to stick with, though, is the appointment of Paul Volker as Chairman of the FED, someone who we look back as an iconic FED share at this moment in time and kind of goes down in history on that.
Steward Eisenstat, President Carter's domestic policy adviser gaven eulogy this morning at the Washington National Cathedral, and he commented on that difficult decision of appointing Vulgar all.
Were the objection of all of his advass He chose Paul Voker to lead the Federal Reserves, knowing in advance that Voker's tough monetary policy would raise interest rates and unemployment because Paul told him that and would do so in a presidential election. Yurope, you take care of the economy, Paul, I'll take care of the politics.
That, of course, is Stuart Eisenstadt this morning from the Washington National Cathedral giving a eulogy Stuart Eis Eisenstadt. Excuse me, President Carter's former domestic policy advisor. Heyis we're talking with Louis Navalier. The importance of putting someone in place who would do some hard stuff Paul Volker did. He raised rates with a political costs to then President Jimmy Carter. You know, I think about the time we are in right now, or even what we've seen from Jay Powell.
I mean, the importance of that independent FED doing what's necessary when it comes to monetary policy and ensuring a stable economy. It's important, super important. How do you think about it in today's day in time?
Well, first of all, our FED is not going to do what Volker did.
I mean, Volker went from twenty percent to eight and a half percent back up to twenty percent in one year. And there was I still remember there was a home builder in front of Congress asking for Volker's head on a platter.
So the good news it broke inflation.
The bad news is that it came at a horrible cost of economy. So we're obviously much better shape right now. I think obviously the FED is going to continue to cut. I personally think they're going to cut four times because rates are going to be collapsing in Europe and we're going to have this global rate crash in twenty twenty five.
We already see it in China.
China's bonniles are lower than Japan, and it looks like China is going to be the new Japan for the next couple decades. And it's demographically driven. It's hard to grow your economy when you're shrinking in population. And that's not only China, that's all Europe and UH and much of the rest of the world.
Is that is that also a risk the US with a crackdown on immigration.
I don't think they'll deport people that have jobs. I can't imagine they'll do that. Obviously, they want to deport criminals and gang members and all that stuff.
But I think if you have a.
Job in America, it's going to be very hard to be deported unless you committed some sort of crime.
So it's just, uh, I just can't imagine.
You know, the Tyson Foods, the Hormale foods, they get a lot of the illegals and they make them legal.
You know, they work for them, they process their paperwork and all.
So I just can't imagine they would do that because Trump would do that because it make chicken prices go up. We already have chicken prices up because the bird flew out west. We don't need to have more chicken inflation. Yeah.
I do own two A companies though, so I'm very happy. One I already announced, Mae Talmane one of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Vital Farms is the next one.
That's organic eggs in Austin, Texas.
So if you want your chickens to live a happier life, I order their eggs, but they're more money.
I do, but I have to take a mortgage out to buy eggs. Right now, I'm just going to put that out there. I mean, how are you looking at today's market environment? I think we're trying to figure out. I think there's a lot of questions about what ultimately we heard on the campaign trail from Donald Trump, the president elect. You know, how much comes to fruition and what it means in terms of tariff's, taxes, you know,
regulatory and so on. I don't know. Do you feel like your crystal ball is clear for twenty twenty five?
Yeah? I do. I think Trump is very simple.
He just likes to win, and he likes to put you in an uncomfortable position when he negotiates.
But I think he'll be making a deal with everybody. And I don't think we're going.
To have twenty five percent tariffs on Mexico or Canada because they will be doing what Trump wants they have to.
He might tinker with NAFT a.
Little, you know, byd moves to Monterey, Mexico go and tris imboard cars.
I think, yeah, he'll probably mess with that.
I'm sure that most of the tariffs will be on China as far as your's concerned. You know, he'll you know, they put higher traffs on us and we do on them. So they'll be making a deal there. Whether it'll be LNG or US putting higher tariffs on them, we'll find out.
But Louis, one place you think that he will not actually follow through is when it comes to immigration. Why do you think he'll do all this other stuff that he said he'd do, But he won't do that.
It's just impractical, it's expensive, and it would hurt the economy.
So I think would that hurt him politically not to do it because the expectation is there.
I don't think anybody expects someone with a job to be deported. Okay, so obviously you got to wait five months to get a job, But once you get a job, I.
Would be shocked if he deports you, unless you committed a crime or have a bad rap sheet, you know.
But it's logistically very expensive to deport everybody, and so so I think though, yeah, they might deport six eight hundred thousand people, but after that it will probably slow down.
All right, We're going to leave it there. Hey, Louis, thank you so much, so appreciate your thoughts and really just looking back to during the Carter administration and giving us some really smart perspective, Louis Navalier, chairman and founder at Navalier and Associates.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five these during that listen on Applecarplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
All right, Well, a voice that we lean on a lot when it comes to all things politics, today's politics, historical politics, and that is Wendy Schiller, political science, international public affairs and director of the Tauman Center for American Politics and Policy at Brown University. And she joins us from Providence, Rhode Island. Professor Schiller, So nice to have
you here with us. I have to say, I think so many of us spent this morning this past week watching the honoring the sea marking the life and legacy a former president Jimmy Carter. A lot of ceremony this morning. Not to say that he would have liked it, potentially, He's much a much simpler individual, smart, sometimes stubborn, or so we've heard. How are you thinking about this past week against that one hundred year life of Jimmy Carter?
Only four years in the White House, but certainly someone who had a much broader and longer impact on our world.
Well, Hi, Carol, I think that we have to really look at that entire record and think what held up from the presidency and what held up afterwards.
And certainly, you know, his attempt to.
Define what the US stands for, he chose to say human rights. That was his you know, Moniker, you know George W. Bush chose to frame it a different way, Reagan a different way from that, but that there would be a consistent theme and message about what it is to be American. And you know, he worked very hard on civil rights. He came to office after a very tumultuous time in American politics with.
Civil rights, the women rights movement, Vietnam.
You know, lots of things were swirling when Jimmy Carter was president, and his own self was changing so much even in that short period of time of nineteen seventy seven to nineteen eighty one, so you know, he sort of had to ride many waves, and he created things like, you know, support for alternative energy. People don't remember he really had the first major energy bill that the Congress passed,
and that made a difference. And today the inflation Reduction Act, rounder Biden rests on the shoulders of that.
So there were accomplishments in his.
Administration that we forget about, given that the end of the administration was plagued by inflation.
And certainly the Iranian hostage crisis.
So we have to really look at the record more deeply and see what has persisted today.
Yeah, a couple things that came up in eulogies today solar panels on the roof of the White House and then a decline in actual energy consumption by Americans during his term as president. I want to focus on something that you said at the end there though, Wendy, and the idea of what he did when it comes to foreign policy, a very mixed record of course with the he Ran hostage crisis, but also what happened with brokering peace between Egypt and Israel. What do you think he'll be remembered for.
Well, I certainly think to him that he will be remembered for the campaignd piece of chords, and certainly having won the Nobel Priest Prize.
You know, a long time after that, and.
We think about the Middle East today and I think all of us are very frustrated with the conflict and loss of life in all sectors of the Middle East. But can you imagine a world where there hadn't been peace between Egypt and Israel, even with Israeli God as a conflict. Now, if Israel and Egypt had been at war or in direct conflict, that would have made this circumstance just so much worse. So when you think about that,
that's a lasting relationship and lasting peace. You know, Jimmy Carter felt like you could project strength and care about human rights. He raised the defense spending budget in nineteen seventy nine nineteen eighty his proposed budget was higher, and Ron Reagan built on that, but he wanted to do the same both at the same time.
How do you reject strength?
Trob will be interesting because he is not someone who says he loves war. He doesn't think military conflict and engagement abroad is something that Americans need to do or
that it's a winner for America. So that we might be shades of Carter actually in the actual implementation of Donald Trump's foreign policy, which may seek to sort of take over Panama on Greenland, we don't know yet, but nonetheless Trump has said I don't see the need of you know, expending money and lives to fight foreign wars. And I think that's an interesting perspective when we think about Jimmy Carter.
You know, I have to say, Wendy, I was looking so much watching the ceremony in the Washington National Cathedral, and I guess, I don't know. It's kind of mesmerized watching former president Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton walk in, a former secretary of State, once presidential candidate herself, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, vice president Kamala Harris. I mean, it was just kind of interesting the dynamics and just
watching that. But I do think about the timing here, this funeral coming really at a big moment of transition for the United States. We saw a major shift right when it went from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. Do you think we are in a repeat of that kind of major transition in less than two weeks here.
Well, first of all, on ourmind us all not to take for granted the fact that all these former presidents and presidential candidates, you know, two female presidential candidates Kamala Harrison, Hillary Clinton, among others, but also former presidents and sitting together and behaving quite civilly and respectfully, particularly Barack Obama and and Donald Trump having a conversation that is crucial as a symbol and a signal to the world, and
that Carter of all people would have been very pleased to see that. And it's something about continuity and about this sort of the system is bigger than any political conflict. Whether that survives the second administration of Trump, I think that it will.
I think that Donald Trump's presence there.
Today and his conversation with Obama.
Is a signal that it will.
Will policy change, It's difficult to change the federal government. It's a slow moving instrument. And as much as Donald Trump wants to change it, he's going to find obstacles there. And we see inter party conflict and in Trump party conflict and the Republican Party. So when we think how big this difference will be between Trump and Biden, how much will Trump be able to repeal or unravel from Biden's administration, you know it's very difficult to do. Trump
tried to Obamacare, it didn't work. It's more embedded, more spread now than ever before. So you know, when the American people decide they like a policy and they like a benefit, they don't like when it's taken away, and.
That's whatever party you are. That's the lesson. I think a lot of presidents take a little while to learn.
So we'll see what Trump attempts to do and in what spheres of policy that he tries to do it.
Listen, It's hard to get inside anybody's head and wonder what they're thinking. But again, kind of as you said, I think watching the ceremony, watching the president's former presidents, presidential candidates being very civil with one another. For me,
it was very short and comming. Having said that, I do think about President Donald Trump getting ready to come back to the White House his second term and listening to so many individuals talk about the legacy in life of former President Jimmy Carter in glowing terms integrity, morality, truth, and I do wonder as we all get older, we
think about our legacy. And again, hard to get in someone's head, but I do wonder if you think that Donald Trump was thinking about his legacies he gets ready for a second term.
Well, I'm not sure he's thinking about his legacy per se, And certainly President Biden's ula Gi was all about character, and we can't think that's an accident since the Democrats tried to use that in several elections against Donald Trump.
But I think that Donald Trump, you can tell he is happier. There's approval rating us higher than it was.
Ever before, and he walks in with some momentum, and you have to think that he wants to be better thought of, but not only by the world we aders, but by the American public and maintain those approval ratings. And because he doesn't have a reelection incentive because he constitutionally cannot run for office again, doesn't mean he won't try, but right now the twenty second Amendment prohibits him.
From doing so.
You know that's a big enforcer in terms of thinking what will he do that will be productive because that he can be chaotic and he can be whimsical and capricious. On the other hand, he wants to be successful and he's looking for wins.
And that's where you.
Know he backed off getting above in the congressional debate about strategy versus tax cut bill.
Right, reconciliation one, reconciliation two. You figure it out.
That was the message from yesterday's meeting to Congress because he doesn't want to get bogged down in losing fights.
So this is what Donald Trump is looking for. He's looking for quick wins and wins that will be popular, and that's that's going to really take shape.
And if you are a liability and you don't get him a win, or you start to be unpopular pop like Elon Musk, maybe he.
Will genison you the way he gettisons anybody.
Because I think, Carol, I don't know about legacy, but he certainly wants to maintain his popularity.
Yeah, I think that's fair probably a better word. Hey, listen, I want to mention a quick headline, black Rock exiting the net zero Alliance for asset managers. We continue to see the financial community kind of pull back from maybe some of their focuses on climate goals and initiatives. Just got about thirty forty seconds, Wendy, when you think about this, former President Jimmy Carter environment, he thought about that, and here we are watching these fires out on the West coast.
The importance of the White House in our fight against climate change. Just some final thoughts thirty forty seconds here, Well, I'd look.
To energy companies energy companies are diversifying. Energy companies are investing in wind and solar. Certainly fracking natural gas. That's a whole nother controversy, but the point is there is significant investment.
By fossil fuel companies in alternative energy. So I don't see it as possible in a.
Devar of energy under Trump to roll back every support for alternative energy, because I just think that's not where the business markets have gone. And certainly the American public has expressed some design not to have massive hurricanes, tornadoes and fires they can't control. So I don't think that Trump administration can roll back completely, but I think they will leave.
It more to the business community than they will have fed atle the government.
Wendy Schieler, thank you so much. Always appreciated. Of course. They're at Brown Universities. Follows political science, International public affairs.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five these during listen on Apple, Karplay and Android Otto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
We spent a lot of time today thinking about and talking about the life and legacy of the former president hearing about his four years in office and then as many years of service following his time in the White House. One theme that has come up is how he was different than other presidents in a lot of ways, but politically, and potentially to his detriment, he didn't necessarily play the political games that a lot of modern presidents and modern politics requires to get.
Some things done.
He even faced resistance during his presidency from within his own party as a result. Understanding presidents and their decisions is what Gotham Makunda does. He's lecturer of management at Yale School of Management. He's author of the book Picking Presidents, How to Make the Most Consequential Decisions in the World. He joins us this afternoon, Professor, I'm wondering how you would characterize President Carter's decision making during his time in office.
So it was clearly different, and it was different in ways that sometimes benefit of the country and sort of hurt his own political prospects, and sometimes sometimes it just didn't work out as well as it could have. But he was unique, and it's important to remember that that he does not sort of he was not a president who sort of blended into the background of other presidents, and just because he was a one termer, we kind of forget just how impactful he was on the upside.
For example, he negotiated the Camp David of the Cords by person being in Camp David, for I think it was for twelve to fourteen days with the leaders of Egypt and Israel, spending full time as president of the United States, mediating that it's essentially impossible to imagine any other president doing something like that.
Just go ahead, No, you know, it's interesting. In one of our earlier discussions, I thought I heard someone say that there were like twenty drafts that he had helped create, and he went back and forth between the two camps while at Camp David, just you know, trying to work to make sure that something could get done.
Yeah.
It's both this combination of his focus on making peace, which was remarkable, but also the and I think this was sort of more Jimmy Carter than anything else, the
giving up of ego. Right, he was the most powerful person in the world, and he was not above essentially running back and forth between the leaders of two countries, both of which combined were the size of sort of a medium sized American state until they got to an agreement, if that's what it took, and the agreement that he forged has stuck.
So what was his motivation there?
In Jimmy So with most politicians, the easiest example of the easiest motivation is always the most cnical one.
But with Jimmy Carter, that just doesn't work.
Whatever else you might say about him, and you know, I criticize him and praise him both in my books, but whatever else you can say about him, Batman did not have a cynical bone in his body. It just doesn't seem to be been part of his personality. I think his motivation was that he really really wanted to bring piece to the Middle East, and he thought it was the most important thing he could do.
I feel like, man, we could do some great debate on this. Was he a good leader? Was he a good president?
Oh? It was?
That is a wonderful debate.
So I would say we remember him better than he was at the time, and not just because of his extraordinary post presidential life and how admirable it was. There are real achievements during his presidency. The Camp David Accords are one of them. But you know, the devil that
destroyed his well, his reelection was inflation. We usually give credit to taming inflation to Paul Volker, the fed cher that he appointed, knowing that Vulgar would take measures that would hurt him politically but that might be good for the country. That's a pretty big achievement. On the flip side, I think he really was hurt and profoundly hurt by the same outsider status that made him so special. He'd only had one term as governor from Georgia. He had
never spent time in the federal government. He just didn't know how it worked, and that showed there was one characteristic of the Carter administration that was consistently negative.
It was managerial failure.
He just was not good at getting the federal government to work, and however much.
He cared about it.
The most famous example of this, and the extent to which his sort of micromanaging Tennessee took over, is when Jimmy Carter was president, if you wanted to play on the White House tennis courts, you had to get his personal approvalent.
Why do you think that was.
The calendar?
He was managing the calendar for the White House Tennesports.
Not a not a job, A typical president does, and one necessary and something that perhaps shows a challenge of delegating.
Partly a challenge in delegating.
But so I talked to him for his administration about this once because it seems so insane, and he explained to me that it was essentially a consequence so sort of the larger political fissures within the administration kind of materializing and growing around and sort of focusing in on this particular problem.
But that is not and that is not an explanation that actually makes.
It worse, right, because it says that he allowed those kinds of political debates within his own and White House to become so severe that he ended up having to intervene in this frankly ridiculous way.
And again this is sort of a confluence.
Had he you wonder if he might have done better if he had him a senator two terms on Congress.
We have to unfortunately interrupt Gotham Makanda of course over at Yale goal of management.
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