How NPR's Former CEO Left the Liberal Bubble and Learned to Love the Right

It has gained some acceptance in Congress. Indeed, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said over the weekend that the bill include. The bill's support includes all of the forty eight Senate Democrats, as well as twelve publicly committed Republicans, enough to overcome any filibuster. So is there a chance of some kind of bar bi partisan resolution here? To help us understand the divide that exists between Republicans and Democrats is Ken Stern.

He is an author and the former chief executive of NPR, and he's the author of the new book entitled Republican Like Me, How I Left the Liberal Bubble and learned to love the right, and he joins us in our studio, can thank you for being here, thanks for having me

on the show. Well, maybe as a jumping off point, this idea that because we're waiting to hear what's gonna happen with any kind of health care legislation, I wonder if you could kind of take that and then explain why you wrote this book and a little bit of your experience learning about different perspectives when it comes to such important issues like healthcare. Yeah, I think it's actually an interesting example. So let me tell you why I wrote the book, and then we'll tie it into healthcare.

So I wrote the book because I've become increasingly concerned about the polarization. Um More and more we live in our own world. We don't um communicate with the other side, and we've continued to think a worse than were to the other side. And it actually has relatively little to do with issues issue polarization. How much we disagree hasn't really changed in this country over the last twenty five years. How much we hate the other side has gone off the charts. Um So, so my book is really and

and there's a reason for that. The reason has become more divided geographically and demographically. We don't know the other side. When you don't know the other side, it becomes easy to demonize them. Um. So my book was about me leaving my democratic m ward in washing d C. And spending as much time as I could with Republicans where they work, where they pray, where they where they hunt. Uh.

And it was an eye opening experience for me. And one of the things I learned along the way is when it comes when you get polarized like this, it's often not about substances, about whether you're winning or losing. There's actually a lot of social science around it doesn't actually matter that actually underlying merits doesn't matter. It's about my side beating your side. And I think that's a lot to do with politics and washing d C. Right now, you can before we get into what you found as

you to this trip across the country. I'm wondering whether you are saying that as the chief executive officer, the former chief executive officer of NPR, you think that NPR and other media outlets do perpetuate these ideas well. I think so, So let's that's actually two different issues to talk about. There um. In the broader scheme of things, um um. I think what media, like all people do, they live in their own bubble. Uh, they're in a

place they they they tend to perpetuate themselves. They hire people like themselves. Uh, they think like themselves. They have a confirmation bias always going on. And it's not a necessarily intentional thing, but it's an important thing because it terms what's important, who you talk to, what issues you cover. And I think that's why a lot of the country feels locked out of sort of what's called mainstream media. Um. And that's a subtle thing that I think is hard

to grapple with, but it's real. The issue I think we found more recently in the Trump era is that media has discovered that conflict play. It's not actually not a really new concept. You know, if it bleeds, it leads. But you know, the best thing that's happened to the New York Times is Trump's attack on the failing New York Times. And the best thing that happens that Trump is the New York Times attacks on him. Um. And there's actually a win win for them and kind of

a lose lose for democracy and sort of civility. Well, let's go back to that, because that's those are not things you can legislate. No, I think that's you know, Uh, these are tough things. Um, where does it come from? Based on your trips and your meeting of people? How did what do they say to you in order to explain why they feel the way they do? So I think, Um, it's a it's a challenging question because I think people uh in the flyover states. So let's just be Yeah,

I was suppose pick an example, maybe an anecdote or too. Yeah, in Kentucky when you go down and talk to people who are seeing their coal mines closed. Um, you're in Appalachia, which has been essentially an internal colony of the East coast of the United States for a hundred years, where coal mining provided a semblance of of middle class life. And they see the their economy going, they see their hope going, they see opioid addiction on the rise, they

see um, their kids, um not having an opportunity. Uh, they get angry. They don't see those stories are told, they hear things like climate changing. They just see sort of their outside clone. The colonial powers from Washington City, New York California shutting them down and shutting them down without really a concern about um their livelihood, and that translates into anger, that translates in the rejection of science, that translates into a whole, a whole gestalt of one

side against the other. And you know, you can argue the facts a lot, but the facts matter less than the feelings. Okay, So at a time when the facts matter less than the feelings and you have these sort of increasingly ingrained winner and loser type of mentality that is not easy to resolve, even on the issues. As

you point out, what's the path forward? I mean, I'm sure that if you were to sit down with one person who thinks differently from you, who's from a state that's not in your bubble or in a world, you could find commonality because we're human beings. But like from a sort of social level, what's the way forward at a time when Donald Trump is having a Twitter war

right now with Bob Quirker, Republican Senator. I don't think there's any easy answers, and I will assure you my book does not have any conclusions that solves the problem. But I think it starts first with um, something I realize a long way, which is we're actually an exceeding in the era of high discourse and high anger, actually an exceedingly moderate people actually talk to people and actually look at the data around the most polarizing issues of

the day. People actually move towards the center on abortion, on healthcare, on guns. It's actually an extraordinary amount of commonality. And if you actually and actually sort of telling people that and trying to translate that into the ideas like the other side, or actually, aren't the radicals the other sides?

Are people telling us where the radical right? But here's the problem, because we were just talking about how blood cells, you know, and and so if you know, if if the conflict is what people want to read, how do you you know, tell them over and over again you're moderate, You're we're all moderate. We all just want to come ground. I mean, what I just I think that that's the problem is that you know, in a time when everyone's

looking for attention, you are seeing you know, increasingly inflammatory rhetoric. Yeah, um, you know, I think there's gotta be uh so before again, tell you I don't have the answers, um uh And you can cook kick me out of the studio for being frustrating. Um. It's also the political parties are part of the problem. And I think one of the things you know, you always hear people complain about the politicians

Washington political parties. I'm from Washington. I've never really felt that until this trip, Uh, and understanding how the political parties have actually found progress for themselves fundraising electioneering off of conflict UM. And the example I use is UM sort of odd when it's abortion. UM an area of conflict. But the American opinion and abortion has not changed in

fifty years. We've tracted since Roe v. Wade UM. And yet both of the parties are are trumping in the fact that they have the most extreme positions of that. So thank you so much, Ken Stern. Fantastic to to hear what you have to say. Kencern, author and former chief executive officer of NPR, author of the new book Republican Like Me, How I Left the Liberal Bubble and learned to love the right Well. The Chinese Communist Party approved a revised charter enshrining President Jijin Ping's name under

its guiding principle. This was a departure from the prior to leaders of China which did not get their names enshrined here. To explain why this is actually a very big deal is John from Her, senior executive editor for Business, Finance and Energy at Bloomberg News. Thank you so much for joining us. So this this is a big deal. Why this is a this is a huge deal. This is one of the most important political developments in China

in decades. Essentially, this means that she and Pining, the current president, will be in power and will extend his influence over over Chinese politics, over the economy of the markets,

potentially for decades to come. In theory, he was supposed to set down in five years time, but the fact that he is now elevated at the same level as Mout Tongue and Deng Xiaoping in the Chinese constitution means that he has the status that goes way beyond that of any other politician in China thought for the new era of socialism with Chinese special characteristics. That's the phrase,

at least the translated phrase. Maybe you could explain what that means, and also in that context that the Communist Party, the party in China sits above the government to a certain extent. That's right. I mean, the key animating thought for all Chinese leaders always is to is to preserve the legitimacy of the party. And it's just it's it's hard to imagine this now, but you know, Chinese leaders

have very long memories. They are obsessed with history, and they talk a lot about how if you look at Chinese history, there are regular sort of breaks, revolutions, disruptions like that are are are a pretty sort of constant feature of Chinese history, and they're determined to do everything they can to make sure that the Party stays on

top of all of that. And I think, you know what we're seeing now in China, this is she and ping himself talks about the third development of communism and the third step in communism, but I would say telling established it during the revolution. D J. Ping Um sort of you know, created the second wave of of of the of an economic revolution, and now that he is now leading China into a third period where he will restore China as a great power, which is something he

spoke about a lot in his speech. So that's you know, you sort of have to parse the language of all of these leaders, but that, I think is what the key messages from this from this congress. But John, can you square the idea that the Communist Party is still at the top, ahead of the government at a time when now j Ping himself, this charismatic leader, is leading the nation. He it seems like he's kind of on top of the Communist Party. Now he's on top of both.

I mean he isn't He is the president if you look at his title as the President of China. So his title, actually, if you look at Chinese history, is one of the lesser titles. He's head of state, whereas the really important role is to run the party. So he now runs both. He's head of the military as well, which is another really key When he controlled this is where his power has come from. He controls the three or four most important officers in both the party and

the state himself. And he's also been pretty vocal about wanting to be a global economic power and competing and how does the concept of competing in a broad capitalistic economy mesh with communist values. I think that that argument in that debate was probably one one in lass in Beijing many many many years ago. Again, but the way the Chinese leaders look at it they're all about prosperity for the Chinese people. And as then, as Dan Dropping himself once said, it doesn't matter if you have a

black cat or a white cat. The most important things that are catch as mice. The way the party leaders will look at it doesn't matter what your ideology is, as long as you are you are raising the tide for the Chinese middle classes, and you are bringing everybody in China up to a certain level of prosperity and sort of undoing what they see as the great sort of economic um sort of backwards steps that China took

in the nineteenth twente century. Doesn't matter how you get their most important part is that all you bring as much of society with you as possible. Very important thing to bear in mind as well. In the speech, which we can talk about more if you like, present, she talked a lot about restoring or or addressing imbalances and inequalities in Chinese society. Is not just about economic growth anymore.

He's obsessed now with sort of fixing some of the inequalities, both in terms of standards are living and also environmental factors that have been a byproduct of China's economic miracle. Over the last thirty or forty years. By all means, if you if you have other things in the speech that you want to highlight, I mean, I was going to talk about the vote in the Central Committee and how an ally UH, an enforcer really of of j Pink's Andy corruption move, is not going to be part

of this. Well, that's right. So Lankie Shan, there was a lot of speculation that he would also he would be restored to the to the Standing Committee. UM. That would have been controversial because there's an unofficial rule in China that once you're over sixty five you need to retire. He's now sixty seven. UM. So there was some speculation that maybe if she had put him, had kept him on, that he would have broken UH with that long standing tradition.

He didn't do that. You could possibly arguing again, you know, China is a very opaque place and the governing structures are very opaque. So a lot of this speculation, you could argue that one Key Shan his job was done, like what his job was to clamp down and corruption at the height at the top of the Chinese Party, and in a lot of ways it was one key Shan was she's battering round. He was his instrumental power.

It was one key shan that basically put the fear of God into all of the top Chinese leaders, and that was what allowed she to exercise the power that's taken them to the pinnacle of power. Now, thank you very much for spending time with us. Has always looked forward to future visits. So John freyher is senior editor for Senior executivetor for Business, Finance and Energy for a

Bloomberg Turn. Attention now to the world of food and restaurants McDon donald, Hippotle, McDonald's today benefiting from what they call their high low menu strategy. Here to tell us more about it, Mike Halin, senior restaurant analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence. Mike, good to have you. What is it? Tell people? What is this high low menu strategy and how's it working for McDonald's. UM. So, it's basically offering a lot of

value items, some lower end items. UM. Also, you know the Mike pick two which they do in different combinations. It might be two items for two dollars and fifty cents or four items for four dollars, but offering value and as we know as the you know, largest chain in the world. They can source their product cheap, more cheaply than everyone else, and offer lower price points their customers and still allow their franchisees to make something off

of it. And at the same time, on the high end, they're improving the quality of a lot of their items with the signature craft inline of chicken sandwiches and and burgers, and so that's also drawing um new customers or lapse customers into the chain. Um. You know, it's what we call a Barbell strategy kind of in in this fast food industry. One day, Wendy's is another chain that's doing it pretty well, um and also benefiting from it. You know, Mike, I have to confess something. When I see you, I

think he ate McMuffin this morning. He ate neg McMuffin this morning because we had a whole the gym. No no, no, not because of that, Because months ago we were talking about how the breakfast menu was really bolstering their sales and getting them, getting them this momentum. But here we are, and it seems like this momentum is here to stay. It's not just the egg McMuffin that we talked about,

which you which you liked? Yeah, which I liked. And you know, value was probably the first thing, and operations in the stores, and then right after that was was the all day breakfast. But um, yeah, they they've attacked their problems on a lot of different fronts, um. And you know it's the culmination of all these things that's leading to this very strow momentum. You know you you know I have said it before. You know, you can't turn around an aircraft carrier on a dime. Um, you know.

But they've been really aggressive and it's enabled them to to really turn things around a lot faster than anyone expected. How is the the ongoing effort to sell off the units to franchise, you know, franchisees and then just take a percentage of the of the money back. Yeah, they hit their goal or a year ahead of schedule. So um, you know, they've they've been um aggressive, They've they've been um you know, whether it be operations or better food,

or with the structure of the company and the refranchising. Um, they've been able to hit their targets and and achieve their goals faster than most expected. So then why are are their shares only up one and a quarter percent today, stocks up fift in the last year. Trees don't grow out of the sky, you know. And I mean there's just huge expectations baked in, right and and so the sames Our sales were um that you know that the strong strange sames Our sales trans across the globe are

continuing um. But you know, revenue and EPs was kind of just in line. So you know, um, you know, it's like like I said, stocks don't go off forever, you know, you know, they have to take a breather at some point. You're not just the egg McMuffin at a certain point just can't get any larger for you to have for breakfast. Just too much. You never know, you never you know. In what you describe it, it

rings a bell for me. And it it says, you know, high price or higher price and customization and personalization that works, right, the high end of that high low menu, the low end convenience and low cost that works. It's sort of like you're describing the retail industry as well. The high end does well, the low end does well, in the middle just struggles. Yeah, I think that's that's that's a

good point. I mean, and you don't really talk about kind of in the middle much because, um, you know, fast casual has kind of destroyed that, right, So like, you know, just getting a decent meal for eight bucks, you know six bucks is you know, is that that doesn't come with table service? No, it's and it's been stolen away by a lot of these fast casual names. So, um, you know, that's why we're doing deep value, and that's why we're trying to improve the high end because we

have that competition. You know, POSR has that competition from Task Causual only have to compete. So let's talk about the middle that's suffering. Chipotle, they were for earnings today at four ten pm Wall Street time, and uh, you know, they've been really suffering with a series of illness scandals and others. What are we what are we looking for today?

We you know, as always, we're looking at the pace of the same store sales in the traffic recovery, especially since there was another neuro virus outbreak in July in a Virginia store. Uh that that's number one, two and three. You know, there was a five fifty basic point impact for the week following the outbreak. Across the chain. We want to see how um that affects the entire quarter. Uh. And number two would be restaurant margins because there's kind

of some conflicting opinions about this. You know, we tend to think that there's still room for pretty significant restaurant margin expansion. UM. Management was very slow to take labor out of the stores. Your sales drop, you have employees just sitting around, you know, so they really needed to take labor out of the stores, and they weren't aggressive about that. So we think we think there's some more

um low hanging fruit there. Others might disagree on the street, um, but that's the other thing that that uh, you know, people are gonna look at. And of course Caso and the their impact that impact on same road, cheese on it and Americans will just come funneling in the door. Yeah, clearly. Mike Halin, thank you so much for joining us. Mike Halin is seenior restaurant analysts for Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us

here in our living three studios. Gold prices are down today and they've been sort of on a choppy down trajectory over the past week or so. And uh, here to explain what's driving that is, Mike Judas partner and Metals and Mining Analystic Vertical Church Partners based in Stanford, Connecticut. Mike, I want to first just get your view on what

the bigger driver of gold prices is right now. Is it the dollar which is starting to strengthen a little bit, or is it the sort of risk on environment which makes people not go to sort of have in trades like gold. Lisa, Good morning, morning pimp. So I would argue that I hate to split the baby here, but it's probably about fifty fifty, maybe weighted more towards the

dollar that I would say. Ever since early September when gold peake fifty, Lisa, the dollars bounced about two or three percent against trade weighted and we've seen gold prices retreating kind of in this little a little little near term downward range. But I think the dollar has been

a pretty good explanation for it. And secondly, there's been much more risk risk on, not only for the equity markets, no need to explain that with some of the great earnings of being produced this morning, but also when you think about geo political tensions which have kind of up and pushed off for for a bit. Hey, Mike, I'm just wondering if I can drag your attention out to Indonesia for a moment, because I want to get your thoughts about a mine out there. This is the world's

largest combination copper gold mine. This is the Grassburg mine, and it's owned or you know, it's currently owned I think fifty one by Freeport mcmaran and the subsidiary of THEIRS, and they're trying to do a deal with the Indonesian government and that's proven a problematic. I just want you to use that as an example to explain to people what it's like to have to invest in a mind, how long it takes to get your money out of the ground after you've spent it. That's a very good observation.

And just quickly on on this mine and Indonesia. Grassburg, which is discovered back in the nineties sixties by Freeport mcmaran and UM. It has been the an amazing asset and the largest copper gold deposit. As you mentioned, uh, the government and right now currently Freeport owns stake in the assets, but the Indonesian government is now negotiating with report to grab or to take a fifty stake and buy at a market price to the asset from freeport. Um that that's an issue that will work itself out.

But what it does explain to what it just show for investors that where a lot of these base medals and and soft medals are located around the world are areas where governments need the revenues, need the taxes, and there are in areas that have are less developed. And the amount of capital that's required to develop a mind you can't even replace some like a freeport for for

anywhere more than several billion dollars. The time it would take from the first negotiations of first drill hole to when you're producing gold, silver, lead, copper out of the ground. You know, at the best, if everything works out well, it's uh six seven years and you're talking more like eight to ten years from a full mind life cycle. So it is a very dicey situation. And uh and it's difficult to you know, when you're looking longer term

it where the new Mind's gonna be built. They're not gonna be built in politically safe places and morobably can say US Canada, it will be some will be in areas around the higher risk tolerance required. Yeah, and it's definitely going to be interesting to see what the supplied demand kind of dynamic right now, because a lot of people have been talking about bitcoin is being sort of a century version of that's where I was going with it.

So you know, people are saying, you know, we conbind that while we wait, and people have been using that as a proxy, and I'm wondering in some ways of whether that reduces gold's appeal as a haven trade because people are finding other havens that are decentralized and uncorrelated and makes it more of a currency and commodity play

than it has well. And also it becomes a situation sometimes, I think where the marketing or the publicity around bitcoin tries to appeal to the retail investor in a way that some gold advocates also try to appeal to those potential investors by trying to paint paper currency and fiat money as being something that will disappear within their lifetime or indeed, you know what happens if the world ends, You're gonna need something other than money backed by a

government in order to buy and sell the things you need, just to give you some sort of reference points. Gold spot gold prices up about ten percent so far this year, so not terrible, right, exceeding bonds right, But a lot of this has been driven by the commodities rally, A lot of it has been driven by the weaker dollar. There is an expectation that that weaker dollar will not continue, Mike Doodas going forward for the rest of the this

year and perhaps the next six months out. What do you think will sort of be the main driver for prices? Do you think that if if the dollar sort of stays where it is with respect to it's uh competing currencies, where the gold prices go. I think if dollars stays where it is, I think gold probably creates bit higher. Um, there's still some speculation said and what not only what they may do in December, but what a new Fed governor Shairman of the said might do for for gold prices.

So there could be some near term volatility there. But but those days where there's I think gold prices drift higher, not dramatically higher, as you know, as we can also see when you think about gold as a safe haven, if the equity markets were to correct, or if the bond market spikes a bit here to get some risk of trades off the table. What about investing in gold stocks right now or even in mining shares? You know, we at the cycle. I mean, I keep looking at Freeport.

I'm sorry of you know, keep banging the table on this one. But you know it's fifteen dollars a share the stocks of what about thirteen so far? The thirteen percent so far this year. It was led left for dead year ago, right in January, year ago January, and you have made some pretty decent money since then. But

it has not been a straight shot. No, it has, and I think we are we are through the phase one of the early recovery cycle in mining, in the commodities in general, in the mining stocks in particular, we've had some tremendous moves off the bottom to from January for two thousand and sixteen. I think report stock has been held back by this Indonesian negotiation and the uncertainty

how it's willing to play out. Once that gets settled, I think there's significant upside and Freeport share price because copper prices, in our view um look to be very supportive to move higher, not just on a near term basis of meeting UM a long term basis, as demand picks up and the supply issues that we talked about tim starts to show up in more detail in two thousand, eighteen,

nineteen and twenty. When you talk about the supply demand dynamic, is are we running out of supplies of the precious metals right now? Is demand outstripping what's available? UM, We're not running out of supply. Supply is getting more difficult to to extract. We had a capital spending decline and deficit over the past five or six years of the mining industry, and so that that is going to limit the amount of new supplies that come into the market.

What's different about gold versus some other commodities like copper letters is that you know, gold is still around above ground throughout the world. There's probably ten years worth of annual demand in central bank vaults globally, and all the goal that's ever been mine in the world is still

around technically somewhere. So it tries gold prices isn't as much supply demand though it does help, but it's much more sentiment and from a macro basis, also the inflationary expectations and a dollar touch on copper lend and zinc and those medals. Um we anticipate demand's gonna supply, and that's gonna lead to tighter to higher deficits, higher prices, and eventually more investment. But that's gonna take some time

to come, all right, Thanks very much, Mike Dodass. He is a partner Medals and Mining Analysts for Vertical Research, speaking about gold and other medals, as well as that Grassberg mine that is owned by the company Freeport mcmaran. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa

abramowits one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bluebirg Radio