The Most New Yorker New Yorker Tom Knows

I mean, we have nineteen people, and you're the most new Yorker person. I know your mother's acclaim checker. Yes, I do remember when there was nothing that the Trump Tower was not the Trump Tower exactly. You have apartment store, collective memory, bringing our guests more than you. That's why he That's why he's at in that location. How are divid if it's of course of David, if it's an associate, he's the founder and the chairman of a veteran of

the retail industry, and how are always a pleasure? Happy Thanksgiving to you? And you know what I'm I'm speaking of, right, I mean, the Trump Tower was on the land that was originally I believe it was a best in company, and then you had bond with Teller and a variety.

But having said all this, I want to ask you about something having to do with the company whose name we know, Lord and Taylor, owned by Hudson Bay right, the Canadian retail giant, And recently there were the big headlines that Walmart is really upping its game by having Lord and Taylor merchandise on their website. And this is

supposed to be an upscale fashion forward event. I know I'm not the prime audience for whatever Lord and Taylor is gonna sell, But having said that, I just never thought of Lord and Taylor as the X siding fashion forward uh kind of retailer. And so I'm curious why would Walmart do this rather than even going close to home? Because when I think of fashion forward, I look at people like Mark Zuckerberg and I think, Gee, he's wearing

that hoodie? Who made that hoodie? Or what happens to have been made in Middlesex, North Carolina by a company called American Giants. So there I've laid it out for you. What are your what are your thoughts? Well, I think every time there's an obituary. Lordon Taylor loses a customer. I mean, that's who they are. It's a failed business again, all part of the department store sector, which is a catastrophe, and Lord and Taylor is a piece of that. They

are in the very weak part of that. Now, the guy that owns Lord and Taylor, Baker, is a brilliant real estate guy. I mean, he bought Sacks for two point two billion. It's unbelievable. One Sacks store on Fifth Avenues were three point five bit. Now, either the Sacks management were a bunch of total morons or Baker is a genius. But something went wrong selling the company for two point two billion. Of Baker the genius. What he

did in Canada was unbelievable. Hudson's Bay. He sold that real estate to Target for a fortune of fortune and then the Target liquid they did in All the stores are empty and Baker has got the money. Now, this guy is what I call a real estate operator, a zipped Now as a retailer, not so good. And Walmont in fashion, if you're naked and you gotta stay naked, you go to Walmart because they cover up. That is the extent of Walmont fashion efforts. So I mean, that's it.

That's what they do. That is the extent of their efforts. Any time they tried to step out of that, they've gotten destroyed. They've done it three or four times. They were a model the apparel sector knew, fixed is rugs, whatever it is. Why do it because you have to do something. I don't know why they did it. They've got a very aggressive guy in in charge of this whole thing. He's spending billions. That got Walmut Labs. They have acquired nineteen companies that one of they're going bananas.

They're buying everybody. They've got to do something about Amazon, so they're doing everything. How is it all gonna come out? I have a lot of doubts that the Walmut culture can make this work. A lot of doubts. The decision on Lord Taylor is similar to buying Jet carn for three point three billion, a one year old company losing money three point rebillion. You wish you had two of

those businesses to sell the Walman exactly. So I don't know about what they're doing, all right, But you mentioned the purchase of Sacks Fifth Avenue being a smart real estate movie. Okay, but if you can't do anything else with that real estate, if it's locked in to be a store, what's the difference, what the prices? It's not locked in to be a store, That's the point. It's not. It could be. It could be just what Lord and Taylor did with their store on Fifth Avenue, multi use.

It could be a condo. It could be a combination of a condo in a hotel and an office and a smaller Sacks store, which would make a lot of sense. You do bowling in sacks. The stores way too big, just like the Lord and Taylor was like old Black Friday. And I'm so honored to have Pim Fox here with our divinoments right now to bring in a man I've really wanted to speak to. Grover Northquest A lot of people will say has one message. I found his over

the year. He's an awfully nuanced about his thoughts on tax receipts, the money coming in. He joins US now and tax cuts. Grover. I I looked at the news flow in the analysis flow over the weekend. I could not find one single removed person who liked the Senate bill. Do you find any value to the Senate legislation. Well, the good news is that the Senate bill will likely pass um next year next week end of the week, uh and that it will go into conference with the

House bill. The Senate bill is like the House bill on taking the corporate right, but it's the lays of the year. I tend to think that will go with the House without the delay. But at the end of the day, if you like to have twenty years going to permanently uh now or a year from now, pretty close to the same thing. Uh So there's not a lot of difference. Sometimes the Senate will pass one bill and the House of pass another bill, and they are

on different planets. One is, but these are easily conferenceable. Okay, they're easily conferenceable. Are you gonna have to change the name of your shop Americans for tax reform? Are you gonna have to change it to Americans for tax cuts? Well, we've always been for lower taxes as part of tax reform.

But even though they're doing a tremendous amount of things here in terms of lowering rates and dealing with pass through companies which the corporations, which we've not worked on in the past, we're taking the corporate rate down to make us modestly competitive with the rest of the world thirty five, Chinas at twenty five for crying out loud,

England's at fifteen, Ireland's at twelve and a half. Repatriation allowing people to bring American companies to bring to bring their money back without being double tax getting rid of the tax deductive antility of state local taxes, which is a massive subsidy for incompetence mayors and governors who don't keep their tax rate. And well, I mean every article I read this weekend toward this legislation to shreds pim.

Well what I what I understand you kind of you're you're offering kind of a pejorative about states that tax their citizens, but much of that tax money ends up going to the federal government that gets then gets redistributed to states that don't have either a high tax rate or don't have any income tax at all. So, uh, it's either a United States or it's a Disunited States when it comes to taxes. Why why do you make that distinction? What we have is, uh, there're two issues here.

One is the federal taxes. And you're right, it's interesting that New York senators. In California, senators vote very high federal tax rates on businesses and high income earners, and much of that money gets shipped out to red red states. UM two states with a lot of of welfare recipients. Uh So that's very generous of them, but they've decided

to do that. However, at the state level, you see California with income tax rates in the stating come tax rates over ten, New York with high stat income tax rates, Minnesota, Hawaii, New Jersey. Uh. There was a wonderful article in Politico where they went and quoted the head of the state Senate in New Jersey said, our number one goal was going to be a millionaire's tax. And now that they're going to get rid of the tax of doctability of

state local but we're not gonna do that. It changes everything. So if you live in a in a blue state with high income taxes, the best thing that's going to happen to you for the next fifty years is the downward pressure on high income tachments. I mean, I over What I find stunning here is the number of people

calculated to see their tax bill go up. Do you have an optimum number A percent of people that should have their tax bill go up to get corporate tax reform, UH optimum numbers zero and the corporate side pace for itself and the individuals. But come on, every article. I I must have read ten articles this weekend without kidding, and and it's it's it's of Americans are going to see increased taxes off of some proposals. Do you buy that? Um? No? And I'll tell you the tricks that they use to

get those numbers. First of all, UH, a number of the tax cuts are technically temporary, so the only last ten years or eight years? Why did why did the Republicans in the House and Senate decide that certain taxes would be permanent? Is there paid for with other offsets and others? Are uh? End it eight years? Ten years? And that's why they'll say this at tax increase in

what's that? That's the end of the tenure window. And a number of the tax deductions credits lower lower rates, and that year they picked the ones that will never end. Remember when the Republicans under Bush had a ten year tax cut and Obama made that permanent because he had to the faster depreciation going. So you're just expensing. You're just assuming that the temporary tax cuts of a decade ish will be made permanent more than assuming. I've talked

to the republic leadership. They don't expect to wait until we get there to make those permanent. There will be a series of tax reforms tax cuts going out into the future, and those will be made permanent as we move forward, long before we get to year ten. So and you, our friends on the left, say that's not fair.

This is a bigger tax cut than the Republicans are saying, because they know darn well that some of the ending of certain tax cuts, like they the House built has full business expensing, full and immediate business expensing rather than longing depreciation schedules for five years, and everyone knows that that's going to be permanent. So they're they're misstating when they say the tax cuts only one point five trillion, it's actually more like four some some larger number. And

the answer is, yeah, you're right. We had to fit it into your box. It was your stupid box. We didn't want to have a box that side. You made up imaginary rules, were playing by your imaginary rules. And by the way, these will But I still don't understand exactly how if people if you're going to literally you're going to be taking money away from people that would obviously spend it, how does that square with the idea to put more money in the pockets of consumers. I mean,

that's just a fact. That's just what's gonna happen. Well, i mean, forget ten years. No one knows what's going to happen. In ten years, happened over the next ten months, well in in the next, over the next, over the next ten years, every income group will see a significant reduction in their taxes and then their tax rates. So you that's what people are trying to do is cherry pick somebody with a very interesting collection of deductions and credits and how they that you know, But but over

we do that every day with John Tucker. We cherry pick John Tucker is representative of someone who's going to see his taxes go up. We gotta come back Grover Norcas with us, and we were a huge amount of mail with Mr norc was on because you know, I'll be honest with him. A lot of people they respect his persistence on doing what everybody wants, which is lower taxes.

But how do you get there, because I haven't seen it over the last ten years of you know, and I'm still waiting for the empirical evidence which ties corporate tax cuts to greater economic growth. Should we get him going, I'm gonna come back and talk to Grover Norcast about a Paul Krugman chart that'll get grows, that'll ruin his Thanksgiving, his post Thanksgiving grow norcrist with his folks, of course, from the Americans for tax reform, always controversial thrill he

could be with us. Uh. And it is a glorious, beautiful perfect day here in New York City, less so in Egyp hears the right through from Danna Crutchy and Ahmed Khalil, I'll sayd out our Cairo bureau. At least a hundred and fifty five killed. This is an abombing and a mosque to the northeast of Cairo, up on the Mediterranean towards the Gaza Strip. A hundred and twenty others wounded. UH militants in four vehicles drove up to the mosque. They set off a explosive device and then

the guns on the carnage began. This is a story that is moving at light speed by no means is that an accurate count? And we'll go from there. We are privileged to have with us UH Lennoid, our Cairo Bureau chief, she's out of Bristol and out of the American University at Beirut, has a terrific perspective on the Middle East. Lynn that it's not an everyday occurrence. But it is safe to say that Mr l c C

does not have control of the security of Egypt. When you look month to month and quarter to quarterback, there seems to be an endless sequence of these tragic events. Um. Yes, Um, this is a particularly large attack. I mean in terms of the number of people killed, a hundred and fifty five in a single attack. I can't remember the last time that many people were killed, you know, in one incident. UM. So in terms of scale, this is an unusual and it's worrying. UM. In terms of the place where the

attack has taken place, um, it's it's in northern SINAI. Yes, the government has been government forces have been um fighting an insurgency there for years. Attacks are common, um, small smaller scale attacks up and you know, very often mostly they target security forces. Um. Um. But we have seen like at Easter um and um at Christmas in December of year, big attacks on churches, which again were a major depart from the kinds of a taxi through before.

So I think what's really changed is who are the targets, you know, no longer just security forces, ordinary people worshiping in churches and mosques. The mythology of Egypt that so many of our listeners in America have is Lawrence of Arabia. And there's a scene where Lawrence goes across the sina and hits the Suez Canal, and it makes for great movies in great drama. Tell us about the tourist industry that's been destroyed. Um yeah, so um yeah. SINAI, you know,

used to be a huge tourist destination for Egypt. Um. It's got amazing red sea diving resorts and seaside resorts

along the northern coast, beautiful Mediterranean coastline. Um um. Um. Mount Catherine, where there's a monastery at the top of the mountain, was a great place that people used to love to misit um and that's mostly been um, you know, decimated by the attack that brought down a Russian passenger plane in late two thousand and fifteen and two d and twenty four people were killed in that UM in

that incident. UM. And since then, the government has been trying to attract tourists bat UM, trying to you know, show that it's got the security situation under control so that you know, people will come back, because tourism was very important for the Egyptian economy. However, I think an attack like this, UM, even though it's quite far from where the resorts are, UM, you know, you see a headline like this, and you know that's going to put people off coming coming to Egypt so so so so

that will set them back. Then can I just ask you to be a little political force for a moment here, because earlier in the week, I believe it was on Tuesday that the Lebanese Prime Minister Ad Hariri he with the Egyptian President of Delft all CC in UH Cyprus. I believe, and I'm wondering, you know, what has been going on with Hariri and Hezbollah in Lebanon plus the Saudi visit. Is there a reason why you've believed this might have occurred at this particular time. UM. I don't

think that, UM, But those issues are linked. Actually, Um, this attack, we believe UM was on a mosque that's frequented by Sufi Muslims, and they belonged to a kind of a mystical They have a mystical interpretation of Islam and Islamic State, and groups like Islamic State are are very opposed UM. You know to those kinds of they're they're very rigid in their interpretation of Islam, and they don't like people who view it differently and worship differently.

UM and UM. So it looks at the moment like they that like the attack was focused or like that was the reason. That's that's why domestic there's a purely domestic issue to a certain extent. Yes, I don't think it was an attack or it doesn't so far look like UM, it's related to regional politics or to see these recent efforts to kind of play a mediating role

in various conflicts around the Middle East. UM. And obviously the militants in North sign I have attacked to the Muslims before, UM, but they've attacked individuals, they've executed individuals, they've attacked shrines, but they haven't carried out an attack on the scale one more question, because I know you've got to get back to the leadership of covering this terrible story. Lynn. Is this linked in any way to the other challenges of Cairo and particularly the tensions of

the Muslim Brotherhood or is it separate and discreet? Um, It's linked in some ways in in in the sense that the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood has been you know, very I mean, there are thousands of people in jail, lots of people have been sentenced to death. UM. You know, the group has been outlawed, many many people in exile now.

And it's linked in the sense that, UM, some disaffected Muslim Brotherhood members may have kind of abandoned their their commitment to peaceful politics and kind of been encouraged to join these more militant groups. In that sense, you know that there there is a link, UM, But they're not the same group. They're not you know, they're not the

same people. But yeah, but there are there is certainly a sense amongst some you know, particularly among younger people who would have been Muslim Brotherhood members, UM, that they have no option but to turn to violence, and you know, some of them may then be more easily recruited by the more militant groups. Linn, thank you so much. Lennoi, charge of our Cairo operation, joining us today our North Africa Bureau chief. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Surveillance podcast.

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