P&L: Venezuela Is Going to Collapse, New America's CEO Says

Joining us now is and Marie Slaughter, the president and the chief executive of New America Foundation UH, formerly policy advisor in the U. S. State Department. And Marie Slaughter, thank you very much for being with us. My pleasure. You wanted to focus on equality and women's rights and the workforce, and I'm wondering if you could just give us a sort of encapsulated version of what your presentation

was about and what you hope to achieve. So with the greatest thing about being in here was that the audience was certainly majority men. Often when we have this conversation as women and I had a very simple message, which was, we are never going to get to gender equality unless we change our expectations of men as much as we've changed our expectations of women, so that all

policies have to be gender neutral. You can't have maternity leave, uh, and no paternity leave or long maternity leave but short paternity leave. You have to assume all human beings have children. Think about same sex couples, for instance, our adoption. But you also have to assume that you know a man with children is going to slow down if you assume that a woman with children is gonna slow down, or assume a woman has a lead parent at home the way you assume a man has a lead parent at home.

And finally, you're going to have to change the automatic as some and uh that you know the person who works longest works best and actually look at results rather than FaceTime. You wrote a story an article, uh, why women still can't have it all in the Atlantic in two thousand twelve. Um, you have two boys going back. If you could do it all over again, what would you have done differently? Let's make it easier? Oh? Nothing, really? I mean you know, I was a tenured professor and

my husband was a tenured professor. It doesn't get better than that. And I was a dean, and but Andy was a tenured professor, so we had that flexibility. So the only thing, you know, I could have not taken the job with Secretary Clinton, but I would never say I should have done that, because even as hard as it was, it was totally worth it. And um, you know, I tell young women all the time if they're going to go work on the National Security Council, I say,

do it. You know you'll love it. It's great for your resume. But just to understand, you're not going to see your children, so don't try to do both. And if your spouse is not willing to be redparent, you've got a big problem because you really aren't gonna be able to do both. So I wouldn't change it. Um, And you know, I have been home as much as I'm ever home. My kids would say my definition of being home is different than many people's, but for for both of them, all the way through the end of

high school. And I wouldn't trade that. Now. You served as a Director of Policy Planning for the US State Department from two thousand nine to two tholeven. You were the first woman to actually hold that position. What did you learn as a result of your tenure and are there things that you wish you knew about? What was accomplishable? What was the real world versus the policy world. Can you give us some some insight. Yeah, well, so I learned a lot. So you have to start with a proposition.

Having been a tenured professor, I was fifty years old before I ever had a boss, because at the academy you do not have a boss. So getting used to having a boss, even a fabulous boss like like Hillary Clinton, took some doing. Um, I would say, I really did experience something I had read about but not not seen that.

You know, women, anybody will be cut out of a meeting in Washington, but effectively to be in the meeting you have to act like, of course, I'm going to be in this meeting, which I think is harder for women to do than men. The other thing is that the you know, this should have been obvious too, but the in this case young men networks. They weren't a

whole boy networks. They were young men. There were thirty two year olds through from the White House, through the Treasury to d O D to State that's where the information traveled, and information is gold in politics, and so they just weren't enough women to have that kind of network so that you always were one step ahead of your boss. Given your experience an international relations I would

be remiss not to ask you. Looking around right now, people are worried about a lot of crises around the world. Which do you think is most imminent and important to watch and that the U S could potentially help to abeliate. It's hard to know where to where to start. Uh, you know, I do so imminent. We are watching the implosion of the entire Middle East and we are not

going to be able to cabin that. I disagree sharply with the President on his Syria policy because I think not just refugees, but we're just incubating another whole generation of terrorists and we are destabilizing a region that is very important to us. So I think that that is critical. The crisis I worry about most is a accidental collision or incident in the South or East China Sea, where

for domestic political reasons, Japan goes on alert. Japan is archery d the ally we back Japan, China goes on alert. China has to feed its nationalist youth, and suddenly it looks like nineteen fourteen, where nobody really wants to go to war, but no one can see a way out. So that's one I worry about. And then the last one, which we could do much more about, is Venezuela is

going to collapse. And when Venezuela collapses, it's gonna be bad for energy markets, it's going to be terrible for refugees, It's could further destabilize Colombia. You know, we we need to be paying much more attention and doing what we can to help stabilize that country, preferably with the rest of the Oias. Thank you so much. This was really

really tremendous. And Maurice Slaughter, a long time UH policy adviser to the president but also professor and UH now currently president and CEO of New America, thank you so much for being with us. We heard a lot of really fantastic things for the year ahead. I'm hopeful, paim I've got to tell you a little bit more helpful

than I was when I started. I'm hopeful for your We are here with an esteemed guest, Valerie Jarrett, Senior, adviser to President Barack Obama and longtime confidante here at the Bloomberg Here Ahead Summit to talk about some of the issues and some of the progress made in workplace issues. Valerie, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you, Lisa and Pim. It's a delight for me to be here, and I appreciate you putting a spotlight on these issues

that are so important to working families. So what have some of the biggest surprises been for you as you've pushed through some of your workplace agenda. Well, frankly, how easy it is to convince businesses about what's in their self interest once you show them the data. So, for example, UM, eight years ago, it was hard to get businesses to really talk about investing in their workforce in the form of paid leave, paid sick days, workplace flexibility, affordable childcare,

equal pay. There wasn't fun and center. In fact, I would venture to guess if I'd been invited to Bloomberg, that wouldn't have been the topic that you'd wanted me to address. And I've been so hardened to see truly a transformation over the eight years in terms of the awareness and not just with the large companies publicly health companies, but small businesses who care about their culture and care about retaining their workforce and recognizing it's not just enough

to get him in the door. You've got to be able to compete in the twenty one century UM marketplace, and that's dependent upon recognizing the needs of the century worker. The President has just signed an executive order having to do with companies that do business with the federal government.

Wonder if you could just expand on that. Sure, well, we recognize right now that there's no national paid sick day requirement UM, and so there's legislation pending called the Healthy Families Act that would require companies to give their workforce at least seven days of paid sick time. I would mention also that we're the only developed country in the world that doesn't have a federal paid lea paid

sickly policy. So, in light of Congress is failure to act, the President sign an executive order saying all right, well, at least if we're spending federal taxpayer dollars, we want to know that the workers are going to at least have seven days of paid sick time. And so if you want to do business with the federal government, then you're going to have to pay your workers um paid sick days for seven days. Everybody gets sick, and I don't know about you, but if I go to a restaurant,

I actually want the worker to be healthy. So this isn't just that it's good for the worker and good. If I'm a mom and my daughter sick, I don't want to get doctor day's work because I want to stay home and take care of her. I want to be able to do that. And all too often, particularly lower wage workers can't afford to choose between going to work or missing that day's pay, or little losing your

job if you don't show up. So that's what the executive and we're very familiar as consumers about following the whole supply chain. In this case, it goes back to a person. It goes back to a person exactly. And if you're an employer, you're only going to be as good as the people who you employ, and recognizing that you've got to take care of them and invest in them is not just good for women. This is a working family issue, but it's also good for business, and

it's good for our economy. We're now competing with companies all over the world. I just mentioned I was here several months ago at Spotify, and they just announced twelve months of paid leave. Twelve months. Why because their headquarted in Sweden where they offer eighteen months, and they're having a hard time with their workforce because the ones that work here are going or wait a minute, look what's happening over in Sweden. So they're needing to close that gap.

And that's happening all over the world. And so companies that recognize the importance of investing in their work in their workforce are seeing the results of that investment. As the mother of two small children who works full time and as a husband who some time, I totally understand this.

But I also understand, you know, when you hear about equality of pay for women, and you hear about the child care issues, how complicated it is and how they're so many factors that go into it with respect to the wishes and sort of whether people are directed by virtue of getting time off to be the primary caregiver

going forward, what do you think needs to happen. That's a really good question where one of the steps of the president has also taken is to require companies um that are over a hundred have over a hundred employees to collect data on pay and send it to the Department of Labor. And it's a tool for the companies, but it's also a tool for policymakers to try to figure out whether or not there is a discrepancy and pay.

And if you get to the fact that there is, then you can go behind the numbers and figure out why. We've also asked companies to take what we're calling an equal Pay pledge. We have fifty seven companies around the country, big companies you know, from Amazon to Google to um GM, who have taken this pledge. And what the pledge requires is once a year, look at your data, look at what are the structural impediments to equal pay and other impediments to keeping work women in the workplace, and then

make a commitment to try to deal with them. And what we do with the White House is try to show what are those best practices and if we're keeping women in the workforce, half of our horse is now comprised of women. Women are graduating from college that higher rates than men. Thank you, I'm familiar with that. But in a field such as computer science, they're only staying in three years and the number one reason they give

for leaving the field culture. And so it's also not just a matter of lease of having these important policies on your books of your company, but you also have to create a culture where people feel comfortable to take them. At the White House, we have three months paid leave for men and women equal because we think they should. But just let's for one second. I mean, your job is incredibly important as it is, you do a lot

of things. If if you were in that position, would you be able to extract yourself for three months or kind of a fallacy? No, you could, And that's what That's why I always give the White House as an example, because what's more high powered, high pressure than that? Where

do we all think we're indispensable? But we have had several senior member is in the White House team, including my own deputy who left for three months, and we have now created the kind of culture where if you don't take that three months, then there's pure pressure and it's like, well what are you doing back here? And

so you reinforce it. You know what happens while you're going somebody steps up and we all cover for each other, and we've created the environment where there isn't any resentment for it because it gives younger people a chance to move up for a second and get and sometimes that leads to promotion because people more senior get to see

them in action. So if you can do it in the White House, and you can do it equally for men and women, and you work on that culture, and it takes a deliberate effort, you can't just say yes, you can do it. You have to model. People can't be what they can't see. And so when the Press Secretary, who's a man, Josh Ernist, takes paternity leave, that sends a message throughout his entire core group that if the Press Secretary can be out of pockets, so can everybody else.

Just give you a quick twenty seconds here. Eight years Obama is ending his two terms. You're going to be ending eight years at the Washington White House. And so right, what are you going to miss the most? Oh my gosh, or what are you gonna miss the least? Congress? Okay, that was a much easier because I'm gonna miss so much.

I'm gonna I'm gonna miss the people and I don't just mean the people with whom I work, but the people across this country who I have the privilege of meeting every day from all walks of life, who are really just trying to do right by their family. And I've met the most ordinary people who do extraordinary things, and we try to lift them up by inviting them

to the White House and see them around. Um. So I will miss just the diversity of my day, and I'll miss the majesty of coming through those gates every morning, right every single day for nearly eight years. I just pinched myself at the privilege of working at the White House. I don't drink coffee, but I bet it's pretty good everything else from the White House mess. Maybe mess is really good. Thanks very much for joining us. A Valerie Jarrett,

senior advisor to President Barack Obama. This is Bloomberg him. No better person for us to talk to you in the morning when I could be on my third cup of coffee than Andrea Ellie, Chairman and Ellie Cafees of Ellie Cafees, sp a on about his life. I want to talk to you first before we talk about climate change. I want to talk first about the fact that you are four years old when you had your first cup of coffee. Can you please explain to me how that how that came about as a mom of a four

year old. Well, I was sipping coffee by the spoon, not drinking coffee four years old, but I was assisting my mother preparing the very first espresso. There was no expresso technology for home at that time, so she was grinding and dozing and waiting and then tamping. It took probably half an hour up to forty five minutes to get the one, and we were probably spoiling, you know, wasting three of them in order to get the good.

But then the coffee was perfect. So all these has been completely revolutionized with the first paper pot that my father was able to innovate at the beginning of the eighties, and suddenly, uh, with the easy pots and the successful technology with capsules, these espresso technology became available worldwide and made the espresso to become global and loved by you know, consumers all over the world, and made the basically espresso to become the most you know, enjoyed way of drinking

coffee even by tea drinkers and filter coffee drinkers. Let's talk about the Elie brand and the reach right now, because you're here at the Year Ahead Summit to learn, to meet, but also to share some of the new programs that you would put together at Elie to draw b in and to expand the brand when it is the is the most global coffee brand. Were present in over forty one hundred forty countries and we do basically one third of our stays in our domestic country, Italy.

So I feel when I hear in New York, I feel really I'm at home. And um, it's a family business controlled by the family. So we grow set finance, which is a challenge because we are the private company which grows the more relatively in percentage compared to let's say other strictly private one. So that means that only companies which grow more than us are public realist okay,

and we are obsessively focused only on quality. As a matter of fact, the company was founded upon the dream of my grandfather, the founder, to offer the greatest coffee to the world, and this dream became a mission the lighting lovers of goodness and beauty all over the world with the best coffee nature can provide enhanced by technology

and the beauty of the arts. This is our mission and UH we stick to it to such an extent where we are the only coffee company in the world offering only one coffee, because if you want to offer the best, it can be only one. So the famous really Blend this is it's done with the nine ingredients of the best Arabbica that we source directly from all

over the world in in in twenty countries. So next week there will be November one here in New York the very first international award awarding the best growers of the nine countries sourcing our our our blend. And then there will be also the best of the Best awarded by International jewel So with that, this Illy Blend is served globally and omni channel you can enjoy in the

hospitality restaurants, cafes, hotels at home through different channels. On on the air, we are we have been recently appointed as the official coffee of the United Airlines and UH and so on the go. We also have this partnership with Coca Cola for the really ready to drink, so you can get it everywhere. Well, Andrea, you know I'm

as I hear you talk. I'm kind of torn because I grew up in a family where my father is a professor and he spends a lot of his day tamping down the espresso and grind to get and measuring it. I mean, this is a very important pursuit in my household. On the other hand, you know, we hear so much about burning down the rainforests, and you know, and flattening areas and and sort of the unsustainability of a lot of the coffee industry. Can you speak to that? I mean,

how do you deal with that? So it used to be, it's much better now. Coffee has been uh, let's say, well negative negative lee known until three decades ago for deforestation and also harsh working condition in the producing countries. Situation has dramatically improved, let's say, since the the eighties, thanks to let's say, the revolution of good MC coffee. The revolution gour mc coffee made coffee to develop three virtues,

which are pleasure, health, and sustainability. Pleasure. There is much better quality around, better preparation, better places of consumption, more variety so people can have fun and enjoy health. The perception of health has dramatical increase Now not only sixty of people and the the reverted ratio before before believe

that coffee is good for health. There are several studies which confirm all confirmed that coffee makes you live longer and better and even the WORLL The Health Organization did reclassify coffee from possibly consinergenic to non consumer genny so, which is a huge achievement. And last, but the least, sustainability didn't improve. Environmental one, uh, no deforestation any longer.

The last two decades there has been a fifty increase in production with no more actors, So no more the deforestation. We can always confirmed that coffee planting contributes positively to a carbon sequestration. You know, also the water consumption has been dramatically reduced and the water pollution has been very limited. So this is all positive. Of course, on average there

can be always negative situations and the social one. The only thing that we can say is that the human development index of most of the producing countries in the last twenties did improve. Is it enough? No, it is not enough. There's still a lot to do, but the situation is improving. Can I just give you about twenty seconds, very short, you're on your way to Boston, home to Bloomberg twelve. But if you can just tell us what

are you planning to do in Boston. Well, in Boston, I'm going to have a conversation at the university level about the coffee culture in Jenna. This is just how people wear it is and what it's about. What this is a at the university at Boston and the detail I will tell you later. I still alright, alright, alright, but you're gonna be at Boston University. It was that private say all right, you're gonna learn everything you need

to know about coffee. Thank you very much. We certainly did. Uh. Andrea Eally he is the chairman of Elie Cafe is the worldwide. Did you feel like you've got a little coffee just even being next to someone who has just experienced it and lived it for so long. I think he's going to get you a cup of espresso right now. So yeah, alright, this is Bloomberg Markets. I'm pim Fox.

My co host Lisa Brahma, It's this is Bloomberg. I want to take a look now at Apple and what to expect after the bell today when they report earning. David Garretty CEO at g v A research here with us. Now, Dave, what are you expecting to see from Apple? At least, thank you. We're looking today for revenues to be approximately forty UM billion dollars, which is gonna be down about

nine percent year every year. Earnings about a dollar sixty five, which is gonna be down about sixteen percent year every year. In terms of iPhones shipments uh number about forty six million, which actually is down as well. Note that for Apple, this is gonna be the third consecutive quarter in which you've seen actually revenues and earnings down year over years. You have, but nothing can stop them, right, I mean, their shares are up almost four percent this year. Certainly

who cares? If we look back over the last six months, I mean, the stocks up almost thirty percent, while the S and P five hundred is up you know, roughly

about ten. So clearly people trading what typically has been sort of the product cycles for Apple, obviously by the stock ahead of a new phone launched with the iPhone seven, you know, certainly they've been benefiting here, and not just from what they've been doing with their own product, but the fact that Samsung is basically fully recalled the Galaxy

Note seven. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that this is a company that at least has already done or will do forty seven billion dollars in profit. Right, that's more. I think that GM did sales for the quarter of like forty eight. That might be a good year for GM. No. No, this is a great cash on their balance, like Bolivia has for

their entire condom. I mean, this is I just want to try to get my mind around the juggernaut that this machine is because people keep looking and I mean in relation to the stock, not into the ge whiz. We're gonna have an iPhone sixteen and it's gonna make dinner for me. The stock itself, do you think it's under priced? I think the stock right now still has some further legs on it and certainly has been assisted

here by Samsung. I mean, we are going into the strongest period seasonally year end holiday shopping in the Western Hemisphere. You go to the first quarter of next year, you have the lunar New Year in China. But you see, you're talking about the consumer. I'm talking about the stock. Here's my my my thesis, right is that if you want to buy into the revolution that smartphones are going

to be with us forever. If you want to invest in a company who produces a balance sheet and a profit and loss statement that you can read in English and understand, there really are not that many out there, right, I mean Samsung has it, and I'm not saying problems, no problems, but what else is there? Right? Apple is still very much your suit, your default way to trade

smartphones on a pure play basis. Clearly though if you look at some of the things that are being enabled by the technology, mean, Google remains a far more interesting company in terms of what it's actually making possible. And I'm not going to say that the Google Pixel is going to be suddenly like the new phone that they came out, correct, and it's not making is that Hawawei making it for that? That's actually it's a HTC I right.

But but in terms of having the Pixel out, I mean having the Galaxy Notes seven from Samsung fully off the market, clearly, consumers want to have a competing product relative to whatever Apple has two. So in some respects in this holiday season, it becomes default, perhaps the Google Pixel. So there's so much optimism here and and and good feeling. I have to bring it down a little bit and talk about Twitter. Um. You know, they said that they're going to plan job cuts, perhaps as much as three

hundred people. Uh, they're expecting to report earnings later this week. What could they say that wouldn't be regarded as a catastrophe from the market's point of view. I mean, the issue around Twitter primarily is just the fact of slowing user growth, I mean, less engagement. I mean, there's only so much that you can do historically within the confines of a hundred and forty characters. Granted they've expanded this.

If you want to start writing novels on Twitter, you might think about it, but nope, but nobody uses Twitter for having anything longer than basically sort of a very short, concise thought. Uh. And obviously, when Donald Trump goes away, I mean, obviously the Twitter user rates are going to go down. Um. But the thing that's more important to look at in terms of Twitter is that they've gone out to the market in terms of possibly looking the

strategic engagement of sale. Obviously pretty much everybody has walked away. Um. Clearly the company is sort of saying we need to retrench and we need to retrench now. And they really haven't figured out where they gonna go with this. So I'm not gonna say here ahead of Thanksgiving that we take Twitter and stick a fork in it, but nonetheless, until such time as as things to come, well, it won't last that long. It'll only be in morsel, not

a full meal in any event. In any event, but the issue for Twitter here is that they've They've tried to go, they tried to engage, they've failed, and there has to be a retrenchment. Uh. The question is how far does this extend going out into two thousand seventeen? David Carty? Are we're gonna be talking about Twitter in the next year ahead? I mean we're at the twenty you know, we're at the Year Ahead Bloomberg Summit here

at the at the bar quiet um. We've got a variety of guests looking at and are we really going to be talking about a company that does about two point two billion in sales, loses half a billion a year, and has a market capit twelve billion? Oh? Yes, it just happens to be Twitter. I mean, why do we care? Would I would only argue that Twitter is something that you'll be looking at in the rear view mirror in two thousand seventeen is basically being technology road kill. You're

going to continue to talk about companies like Facebook. Obviously, Apple is going to have the tenth anniversary of the two thousands of the iPhone coming out. It's expected that the next generation of the iPhone, the iPhone eight, is going to be something more significant. The company has the opportunity, given Samsung's missteps, to possibly move ahead of Samsung, which

is important from an innovation standpoint. People have been very critical of what Apple has not been doing in technology, whether it's around artificial intelligence, whether it's around virtual reality, augmented reality. There's clearly much wood for Apple to chop, so to speak. Well, thank you very much, David Garrity. He is the chief executive of g v A Research. I'm not I'm not giving up my Twitter again. Don't give you. You're very good. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg

pien L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at iTunes, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm out there on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm out there on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio