| Todd Sanders: | 00:00 | Well, welcome to the Inaugural Podcast. We are so pleased and honored to have Jim Rounds, the founder, and the president of Rounds Consulting here with us today. Jim, welcome.
| Jim Rounds: | 00:11 | It's always good to see you.
| Todd Sanders: | 00:13 | Good to see you as well, my friend. Have a long background together. We cut our teeth at the state legislature many, many, moons ago, and have remained friends and colleagues in that time. So really, really pleased to have you here today. For those of our audience that don't know you very well or haven't met you yet, obviously your bio's everywhere. You specialize in policy, as it relates to tax and economic development, and a whole slew of important economic type of activities. But tell us something about Jim Rounds that we wouldn't find on your bio.
| Jim Rounds: | 00:45 | Let's see, what wouldn't it be on my bio? I was a master bagger at Fry's Food Stores. I was a champion. I went to ASU for my undergrad and grad school, and I had no intention of going into anything that had to do with politics. But one of my favorite professors, Dr. Dennis Hoffman, said, "I think you can do it." I said, "There's no way I could go down and speak to these policymakers. They must be brilliant if they were able to get elected." And I went down there and I found that my bench was a little bit too high. And so, I was able to work it out. And I really enjoy it. I really love it.
| Jim Rounds: | 01:26 | I like the economics, but I call myself an economic and policy advisor, because the marriage of the two is really when you get stuff done. It's not just about analyzing some numbers and crunching some things. You got to tell a story. You have to go beyond the economist. Just like a lobbyist is always more skilled, if they know economics and other things at the city level, planners that know economic development and vice versa are highly skilled, your background, all of these different things, you know what I'm talking about, but this diversity, it makes life more fun too, when you're working in this environment.
| Todd Sanders: | 02:00 | Well, and I think it's such a good point. Because, when I think about you and what you bring to the table is you can translate. But I think that's where you bring such value to the table.
| Jim Rounds: | 02:09 | Well, it's fun being known as a problem solver because you never have the same... Well, you sometimes have similar projects come up with regular clients, but the bigger ones are all unique. We might have one assignment where we're trying to figure out, what would the economic benefit be to the state if
| | | we just caught up with the US on environmental tech jobs,
| | | where we should already be above? Well, doing that math is
| | | that call to action for later. Or identifying like what we did for
| | | the business community, you all, and the board of regions
| | | recently on, what would the gains be if all we did was catch up
| | | to the US average on educational attainment? So, our bumper
| | | sticker says strive for average. But that gives us an extra half a
| | | billion dollars to spend every year on advancing the economy
| | | further.
| Jim Rounds: | 02:53 | So, it's great when you can monetize things. And it's great when
| | | you can convert things into principles that both Democrats and
| | | Republicans understand, like return on investment. If we're
| | | going to be taking taxpayer money, we're going to be taking the
| | | money out of their wallet, essentially, I'd like to be able to put it
| | | into programs where we're giving them more than what we're
| | | taking, ultimately. That's where you get the positive ROI. But it's
| | | fun coming up with new ways of looking at things, because the
| | | communication, I feel like, is just as important, maybe even
| | | more important than the math sometimes.
| Todd Sanders: | 03:20 | It is. And I think, to your point, it's not just a hunch-based type
| | | decision at the legislature. You want to have a decision that's
| | | based on facts. Let's pivot a little bit. We've had a lot of great
| | | economic news for the last few, well, several years, are we
| | | headed into a recession?
| Jim Rounds: | 03:37 | Well, we'll be in a recession by early next year. Some people are
| | | saying that we're in a recession now, but that's how you looked
| | | at defining recessions three decades, four decades ago. You
| | | have to look at more things. So, it's coming, but we're going to
| | | be better in Arizona, and especially greater Phoenix, compared
| | | to the US, so I'm not worried. Sometimes it's good to hit that
| | | reset button. And what really happened this time around is it's very different than the great recession that we had. This
| | | reminds me very much of my old textbook case study of the old
| | | Volcker recession, which we had a lot of additional spending in
| | | the sixties and seventies. We had interest rates at near zero for
| | | too long and inflation ramped up. We had energy supply issues.
| | | Sounds very similar. Paul Volcker had to go through and
| | | basically throw us into a recession by raising interest rates, and
| | | that hit the reset button.
| Jim Rounds: | 04:27 | We're going through the exact same thing right now. But I'm
| | | encouraged, because when you can identify the story, when you
| | | can actually tell, then you can figure out how problematic things
| | | are going to get in terms of depth, how long it might last. It's
| | | where you don't have an understanding or a feel for what's happening, that those are the things that worry me. But I feel like the story is writing itself, and it's writing itself for us to have a little bit of a struggle in the state, like everybody will. We'll be top five in most categories. And I think it'll be our best expansion ever this next one coming up.
| Todd Sanders: | 05:00 | Let's shift a little bit. Everybody, I think of a certain age, remembers inflation, but many have never experienced it, never have seen it. Talk a little bit about why is it that we're having this inflation. And is it transitory, like they talked about, or is it going to be around for a while?
| Jim Rounds: | 05:17 | Very straightforward story. We got hit with COVID. The economy closed. It opened up again, but we didn't start making stuff right away, so we had supply chain problems. We also went through a period where a lot of people didn't want to go back to work. We had a lot of government subsidy programs, so they were able to stay out of the workforce longer, and that pushed up some prices.
| Jim Rounds: | 05:38 | But the biggest reasons really have to do with bad public policy at the federal government level. We made money really easy to get and really cheap through the fed for too long. So, we were in a period where, even though the recession primarily impacted lower income people, those making less than $40,000, we were giving huge government stimulus checks to everybody. Higher income, if you were making between $100,000 and $150,000 or north of that I guess, you actually did quite well financially. You made money after going through this recession. So, it was a bad plan for initially targeting where the money got spent at the federal level. And it was keeping interest rates too low for too long and making it too easy.
| Jim Rounds: | 06:24 | Now, the fed is pulling money out of the economy and they're raising rates at the same time, which is, again, Volcker recession type of a discussion. But it's not a bad thing. Sometimes you have to go through some tough times and you have to hit that reset button. Yeah, I remember when we were working on state budget issues, you go through a recession, it's terrible. You have to really look at all these government budgets in detail, but that lets us cut the fat out of government a little bit, and then you can grow from there. So, there is something to be said for having challenges on occasion. I'd rather not have a recession, but I feel much better being based in Arizona than if we were maybe in a Rust Belt state.
| Todd Sanders: | 07:04 | Absolutely. I mean, this growth has been tremendous. The state
| | | legislature, multi-billion dollars surplus. I mean, it actually
| | | caused problems at the legislature to [inaudible 00:07:13]
| | | because there was so much money. You're advising the new
| | | governor, the House and Senate, what cautions should they
| | | look at in terms of long-term spending, not just one time
| | | spending?
| Jim Rounds: | 07:24 | Okay, so they have to be careful with the budget, because the
| | | surplus, the true surplus, isn't quite as robust as it seems, and
| | | the reason being is that you need about two to two and a half
| | | billion dollars to get through a recession, a mild recession, if you
| | | don't cut any spending, you don't raise taxes, you don't get
| | | forced to do gimmicks, like sell buildings, things like that. Well,
| | | we have basically a billion dollars set aside in the rainy day
| | | funds, so that's a big piece of it. But we're going to need to
| | | utilize some of that. What happened is because all this extra
| | | spending and all that flooding the market with money, that
| | | pushed up people's incomes and what they spent money on. So,
| | | tax collections went through the roof for everybody. It wasn't
| | | just an Arizona issue. It was a lot of states that typically don't
| | | even perform as well.
| Jim Rounds: | 08:14 | Some of that's not going to be here as we get to the point
| | | where we're post-recession. We're not going to have as low of
| | | interest rates. Everything will return to more normal times. But I
| | | do feel like there's enough money for us to go through, in at
| | | least this coming legislative session, this next spring, and
| | | working with whoever the next governor's going to be, I'd love
| | | to go through and say, here's a reasonable amount of money to
| | | spend on key priorities.
| Jim Rounds: | 08:41 | Workforce training is one of the biggest. We've been having to
| | | do a little bit of gimmicks on workforce training programs as well. All these new businesses coming in, we have to send some
| | | of the workers out of country to get trained. So, we need to
| | | catch up with the rest of the country. We are below average
| | | when it comes to educational attainment in the workforce
| | | programs, even though they've been advanced many times over
| | | by people like you and others that work on these things
| | | specifically to help advance the local and the state economy. So,
| | | we've been making some strides forward, but we still need to
| | | go further.
| Jim Rounds: | 09:16 | But if we can have a discussion that's bipartisan, if we can have
| | | a discussion where it's good for the taxpayer, this is going to be
| | | a positive ROI, so the conservatives can say, "I feel like I'm
| | | looking out for the taxpayer." It'll be, we're spending money on
| | | education. The liberals will say, "Well, we've wanted to spend
| | | more money on education." If we make it economic based, and
| | | we have the discussions like you and I often have, I think that
| | | we can get through and we can bust through that political
| | | barrier a little bit.
| Todd Sanders: | 09:44 | Yeah. Well, and it sounds like, last year, it was a spending spree.
| | | There was so much money. Now, you're saying, "Hey, be
| | | targeted and look for the ROI," because that's what's going to
| | | get us through this, hopefully, short recession, and to really
| | | start to rebuild the economy after that period.
| Jim Rounds: | 10:00 | Yeah, and that's right. And there's a difference between what's
| | | underlying budget, state general fund money. And then we still
| | | have grant money that can be distributed. So, I feel like we can
| | | still make some investments on the state budget side before we
| | | roll into the next recession, because we did diversify the
| | | economy. We do have more money in the rainy day fund than
| | | we've ever had. But the grant money, we can go through and do
| | | a positive ROI analysis on that. I think that we need to identify
| | | good projects. We need to figure out what they cost. We have
| | | to figure out how it's going to benefit the state and the local
| | | regions. And then, we have to queue them. And then, we say,
| | | "Governor-elect, here's a list of five fantastic items related to
| | | workforce are higher ed," or pick your topic. And do the same
| | | thing with legislative leadership, whoever that's going to be this
| | | next year as well.
| Jim Rounds: | 10:50 | I want to come in with a plan with my colleagues from the
| | | chamber and others. I want to come in instead of being asked
| | | mid-January or even late February sometimes, well, what's the
| | | economic development plan we should put together? Let's get
| | | this locked down, so we're selling it during session. We're not creating it during session,
| Todd Sanders: | 11:11 | Small and midsize business owners, they're watching this. I
| | | think they're thinking, okay, we're going to be okay. How would
| | | you advise a small to midsize business owner today? Clearly,
| | | retail is probably going to start slowing down. Costs hopefully
| | | will fluctuate down. But what would you tell a business owner
| | | today to say, all right, next 18 months, here's what you need to
| | | prepare for to get through this period?
| Jim Rounds: | 11:34 | That's probably the most difficult question that I've had for a
| | | while, because there's already challenges for the small and
| | | midsize businesses. And technically, a small business, I think,
| | | the federal government says it's less than 500 workers. To me,
| | | that's a big business. My business, with just a handful of the full-
| | | time people, and then some part-time people, is a small
| | | business. But you're going to see some things get better. So,
| | | we're not going to see as much money that's going to be giving
| | | people the options of not working. They're going to have to go
| | | back into the labor market and it'll help supply some of the
| | | shortages, in some cases though. When you're short of the
| | | really high quality talent, where it takes years to design, to
| | | develop, that's not going to remedy itself anytime soon. So, I
| | | would expect, if it was retail, you're going to see a little bit of
| | | slowing, because you've been at artificially high levels until now.
| Jim Rounds: | 12:31 | The delta, the change between these peaks versus what could
| | | happen when we reset could be a little bit greater. But if you
| | | plan for it, you're okay. And a lot of the businesses that I've
| | | talked to, through the Small Business Association or whatever it
| | | might be, even though they've seen these extra sales, because
| | | there's been constraints on materials and there's been
| | | constraints on labor, they haven't ramped up as much as they
| | | otherwise would have, which means they're not going to have
| | | to collapse the activity to the same degree. So, it's going to be
| | | challenging like every other recession, but just thank God that
| | | you're in Arizona compared to some other places. Because, you
| | | will get through it if you plan ahead.
| Todd Sanders: | 13:07 | In terms of supply chain, do you foresee that loosening up as
| | | well to help alleviate some of the stress?
| Jim Rounds: | 13:14 | Yeah, eventually you're going to see just activity, global activity,
| | | constraints from getting materials from China and other places,
| | | eventually those will ease up a little bit. But I think a bigger
| | | opportunity is now people really want to... They realize that
| | | there's national security issues with some basic goods. They realize that you don't want to put families in danger by having
| | | bad public policy related to the import of infant formula.
| | | There's a lot of different opportunities to change policy and the
| | | regulations, which will make things more efficient and we can
| | | be responsible with it. It's not just getting rid of regulations, it's
| | | being responsible. But I would love to see a push where Arizona
| | | partners even more with, say, Sonora, Mexico. And we figure
| | | out ways of bringing in additional businesses that might've gone
| | | past our state, but chose our combined state opportunities
| | | between Sonora and Arizona. I feel like there's a lot of
| | | opportunity there. I feel like there's opportunities in different
| | | industries. I feel like where there's still room to diversify. But if
| | | we don't have the fundamentals, then we're going to have a challenge trying to fill those voids.
| Todd Sanders: | 14:24 | I think some success stories, like you talked about the Sonora,
| | | Arizona combination, Lucid Motors, what a great story about
| | | something that's done on both sides of the border. So, I think
| | | there's something there. Since I know you're never worry or you
| | | don't have a problem with tough questions, I'm going to shift a
| | | little bit. You talked about the global nature of the economy.
| | | You got to talk about Russia, the impact that that's having,
| | | obviously, on gas, prices, energy. Any concerns about a variable
| | | like that we can control in terms of how it might impact the US
| | | economy?
| Jim Rounds: | 14:55 | We have to make some tough decisions on, what do we want
| | | our environmental plan to look like? And I know it sounds good
| | | to certain policy makers that it's okay to have gas prices high,
| | | because we'll be shifting to electric. If we shifted all cars to
| | | electric right now, our grid would crash. It doesn't work that
| | | way. It has to be gradual. And very few lower income people
| | | can afford to go buy a new electric car. They're going to be
| | | driving the old one. So, we need to resolve the gas price issue.
| | | Now, there's some things that were beyond our control, like
| | | what's happening in Russia. We can influence things at the
| | | margin, but not a whole lot. But we need to be a little bit more
| | | open to getting the energy out of the ground. There's going to
| | | be a push, and I think there's even a legislative committee for
| | | on hydrogen issues. We're doing some economic analysis for
| | | some energy companies.
| Jim Rounds: | 15:44 | I feel like if we embrace that we need to change our
| | | environmental policies over time, but we can be strategic with
| | | it, I think that we'll actually benefit. Because, I feel like there's
| | | no real strong hub for green tech job development across the country, and Arizona would be the perfect place for it. I feel like
| | | there's opportunities in other industries as well, like
| | | immunology, and virology, and biodefense. What happens if we
| | | get the universities together with the economic development
| | | groups, with the policy makers, and we have a strategy for it?
| Jim Rounds: | 16:22 | I think the best way to go forward, whether it's talking about
| | | energy and what you're talking about or anything else, is you
| | | have to have a little bit of a plan. Now, I'm not talking about a
| | | government plan where it's a thick notebook, and basically
| | | every bullet point says, we're going to try to do better at stuff.
| | | We need a shorter list that says we're going to do these things
| | | over the next six months, and then we're going to do these
| | | things over the next six months. And here's who's going to take the lead on item one. Here's who's going to lead on item two. And we have to get really focused, especially when it comes to workforce, because there's a lot of different efforts out there. And I feel like we got to tie them together.
| Todd Sanders: | 16:58 | Absolutely. And to your point, sometimes the solutions can be simple.
| Jim Rounds: | 17:01 | Yes.
| Todd Sanders: | 17:03 | Let's go to the question of workforce. Not too long ago, I had a conversation with Sandra Watson, who you just talked about. And she told me, she said this is the best flow of new companies coming into Arizona in any time people can remember. And you and I have talked about this, and that's incredible. It means new jobs. It means a lot for our state. But I think you alluded to this earlier, we're going to need people to go to these new highway high skill jobs. You just recently completed a study on this as it relates to higher ed. Talk to us a little bit about it. And I think maybe you can break it down into in terms of where are we now, what's needed, and how we might get there.
| Jim Rounds: | 17:42 | When you take a look at Arizona and greater Phoenix, it doesn't matter which, when you compare it to our economic development competitors, we do quite well in some categories, like we're usually top five in job growth, population growth, personal income growth, because we're a growth state. Where we slid a little bit, over the last couple of decades, but we're on the cusp of improving, is on the quality measures, like per capita, personal income, average wages, gross state product, which is like GDP for the state, per person.
| Jim Rounds: | 18:09 | If you look at those variables, very small changes, in terms of the trajectory, translates into massive amounts of extra tax revenue that comes in and more jobs coming in. So, what we identified as just one example of a calculation is if all we did was catch up with the US average, so strive would become average, on educational attainment from high school going to college, finishing college, it was $5 billion over 10 years, so half a billion dollars a year. If we caught up on the shortage of bachelor's degrees, it was going to be $8 billion over a 10 year period. So, we're talking about billions with just improving a little bit.
| Jim Rounds: | 18:50 | And this is why I'm excited. And here's why I respond differently when people indicate that, that commentary is negative about the state, it's not. It's we're doing well. We're going to
| | | outperform the US during this next downturn, like we just
| | | talked about. And the pedal isn't even halfway down to the
| | | floor right now in our car. We still have a lot of improvement
| | | that we can do. And if we work on these areas with this extra
| | | surplus that we have, if we use some of the grant money wisely,
| | | and it's a positive ROI, again, this is going to be the best
| | | expansion that the state's ever had. And we've had some good
| | | ones in the past.
| Jim Rounds: | 19:23 | But this is going to be a great one because of the policy makers
| | | being involved, the economic development community, yourself
| | | and others, setting the stage for us to be able to take advantage
| | | of that. All I do is calculate the math and what the benefits
| | | could be. And I can sometimes make a suggestion for a policy
| | | topic. I'm not out there in the trenches trying to land the
| | | businesses or trying to implement an education program. That's
| | | what you all do very well. And I think it's been critical for where
| | | we've gone as a state and for the region itself.
| Todd Sanders: | 19:57 | As it relates to other states, how far behind are we and why?
| | | Why is it that we slid a little bit?
| Jim Rounds: | 20:04 | We are significantly behind. That's why the gains, if we just
| | | caught up with the US, and we're not talking about 2% or 3%,
| | | it's double digit, and then some. Now, the background goes to, I
| | | think, not as diverse and dynamic of a discussion on the
| | | economy until the last few years. So, we went through the great
| | | recession. We got slapped around from an economic
| | | perspective. We had to change things. So, people were more
| | | willing to maybe incorporate and enhance economic
| | | development programs, tax cuts in the right places, all the
| | | different things that regulatory reform, the different things have
| | | been implemented. But the there's also this misconception
| | | about we don't need bachelor's degrees, what we need are the tech degrees. Well, we need both actually. Because, if we don't
| | | have that base sector job that might require a bachelor's and
| | | also a tech degree, we're not going to have a lot of the other
| | | technical or a certification-type jobs. You need these others to
| | | generate those. They're tied together. You cannot separate
| | | them.
| Jim Rounds: | 21:14 | And so, if we don't continue to push for the high-wage jobs,
| | | we're going to cause massive damage to the low-wage jobs. So,
| | | a lot of policy makers are going down the wrong path with their
| | | thinking and saying, we just need a bunch more technical
| | | degrees. We are short by doing the math, not just reading an
| | | article from one of our favorite biased political publications,
| | | doing the math and saying here's what the gains could be. And I
| | | think if we can disseminate that information, especially this next
| | | year, before revenues get too tight the following year with a
| | | recession coming. After that, I think there'll be more
| | | opportunities to expand. But this next year is going to be so
| | | critical to get that foundation in, get everybody on the same
| | | page.
| Jim Rounds: | 21:58 | We identified what the gains are, but the next step is to
| | | identify, what are the projects that we need to implement to
| | | get to those gains? What's the ROI? Cue them. And again, hand
| | | them to the next governor in legislative leadership, and say, "Go
| | | at it." It's all about messaging. The chamber does a great job
| | | with that. Your partners in economic development do a great
| | | job with it. Economists aren't the best storytellers a lot of the
| | | time, but our math is sometimes correct, so I guess that's a
| | | positive. But I feel like people are come together and they're
| | | telling a similar story. You know what it was like 10 years ago, or
| | | even 20 years ago, when we were working down there, it was
| | | different. Everything was very piecemeal.
| Jim Rounds: | 22:38 | I remember the most important tax issue that came up, one of
| | | my years when I was at the legislature, was if we could cut the
| | | vehicle license tax by a small amount. That was not an economic
| | | development tool, but it was, I just don't like the tax discussion.
| | | Far different than now, which is, what's our gain? Are we going
| | | to create jobs? Can we stay competitive? Are we going to be
| | | able to enhance the budget? What are we going to be doing?
| | | Are we going to be able to create natural ways for income to
| | | rise rather than do artificial minimum wage increases beyond a
| | | certain level?
| Jim Rounds: | 23:07 | The great thing about economics, and this is why I love it so
| | | much, is everything works out, if you give it a little bit of time and you season things properly so that you get it to how you
| | | want through public policy. It always ends up working out. It's
| | | when we force things, if we try to put that square into the
| | | round peg or whatever, round cylinder into a square hole,
| | | whatever it is, I can't remember, that's when we have problems.
| Jim Rounds: | 23:34 | And I'm very friendly with some of these folks, but we'll have
| | | people come in from out of state and say, "You need to reduce
| | | your individual income tax." The one time that I had an
| | | opportunity to ask, can I see your research into how
| | | competitive we are compared to our economic development
| | | competitors on the income tax? And why do you think we're
| | | going to have a better ROI from that versus these other three
| | | things? They said, "Well, I don't know, it's just low tax states do well from an economic development perspective." Well, it depends on where you are. If your tax is very high in an area and it's not competitive, a tax cut might be the best use for that money. If you're already competitive, but you're deficient in say the higher ed issues, we might have a bigger return on investment from putting a little bit of money there. So, you have to analyze, like that stereo equalizer example, you might have to analyze 20 different things and figure out where we stand.
| Jim Rounds: | 24:27 | It gets complicated, but we're not landing somebody on the moon. We're just trying to get the right sound out of the economy. And if you get the right people in the room, they look at the right data, and they go in without being biased in some of their ideas, really great things can come. And so, I often will make fun of policymakers and others. But I have a great deal of respect for them, and I want to be one someday, because the really good ones are really, really good at what they do.
| Todd Sanders: | 25:00 | I think part of what you talk about is, how do you share voice of the politics in order to make really good policy choices? And everyone has an opinion. Love to get your thoughts. What's your grade for the fed? How are they doing?
| Jim Rounds: | 25:11 | The fed?
| Todd Sanders: | 25:12 | Yes.
| Jim Rounds: | 25:12 | Disaster. It's a disaster. This might be one of the worst teams that we've ever had. The fact that most economists were calling for increases in interest rates above the near zero, or zero, as early as last year... I just happened to look up the first time where I was quoted to saying they better do something, and it was the beginning of the prior year. And I'm a local economist. I'm a novice compared to some of these others that were making recommendations. But if we, at the local level, like at the state level and city level for a lot of our analyses, can identify that, I feel like they should have.
| Jim Rounds: | 25:52 | They have two tools. One is they can put money into the economy and they can take it out through buying and selling bonds. And then, they can raise interest rates. They left a lot of money out there. Interest rates were low, and it caused a big chunk of the inflationary problems that we're seeing right now. And then, because they took so long, they're overreacting. They're actually playing catch up. They're not overreacting. And
| | | they're raising rates too quickly, which is why we would've had a recession in 2024, maybe 2025. And it will come this next year. And it potentially could even be identified at the end of this year. But here's what's great is they messed up, in my opinion, they're fixing it now, we're going to go through some tough times, but we're hitting that reset button where we get the clean slate after the recession. And it's going to be very clean and opportunistic for Arizona and greater Phoenix.
| Todd Sanders: | 26:47 | As we wrap up, you're so generous with everyone, you speak to policymakers, business groups, kind of anybody who wants to really get information on what's happening out there. I'd like to ask you, is there a question that no one ever asks you that you would like to address today?
| Jim Rounds: | 27:05 | We have a pretty diverse group of colleagues, and friends, and people that we deal with, because I treat the firm a little bit different than just a consulting firm. So, we do consulting, but maybe about a third of my time in a year I spend volunteering working at different committees or giving free speeches in the rural parts of the state, because they can't afford to bring in an economist for a few thousand dollars to give a speech. We spend a lot of time, which means I can talk to more people, which means it gives me a chance to ask people questions, and then they can ask me questions.
| Jim Rounds: | 27:43 | I have to give a presentation this next month for a real estate group. And I asked purposely if, instead of giving the full presentation of 45, 50 minutes, if we could do some Q&A. And I'd like to ask the group two questions at the end of my speech, because I'm actually interested in hearing what they have to say. And then, that'll probably create a good conversation.
| Jim Rounds: | 28:06 | I love doing it, because if I do research for you all or somebody else, it's not just to pay the rent. You're learning something new, or you're learning a new way to communicate, or you're learning what not to do. If something doesn't go the way you want it, then you have to fix it. Or when you're talking with people, it's a way of keeping that learning going. And there's only so much you can do on the economic side and public policy side through textbooks. You just have to go around the block. You have to lose hair, get gray hair, put on weight, feel beaten down by life, but knowing in your heart and in your mind that you're right about how you interpret something now. Where, when we were in our twenties and thirties, we thought we were right. Looking back, we weren't even close in some cases.
| Todd Sanders: | 28:55 | Ignorance is bliss, right?
| Jim Rounds: | 28:56 | That's right.
| Todd Sanders: | 28:57 | Well, before we wrap up, we're going to do a quick lightning round. Very easy. We're going to start with the first question. Guilty pleasure.
| Jim Rounds: | 29:04 | Seventies music.
| Todd Sanders: | 29:06 | I like that. First job.
| Jim Rounds: | 29:09 | The day I turned 16, bagging groceries and realizing just how mean the public can be to people. If they feel like they've been overcharged by nickel for a can of beans, they'll whack you in the head with that can of beans. And it happened before. But I learned a lot. In fact, that job helped me get my job at the Capitol. Because when I brought up that I may not have as impressive of a resume for internships and things like that, I remember Ted Ferris, who was a director of JLBC at the time said, "Don't underestimate the value of dealing with the public. It's going to be very similar to lawmakers." And I think I said, "Does that mean lawmakers are going to be throwing things at me?? And he kind of just looked. So-
| Todd Sanders: | 29:48 | You know that now to be true.
| Jim Rounds: | 29:49 | That's right. That's right.
| Todd Sanders: | 29:50 | Excellent. And then, the final question, and you can't answer your current job, so, maybe you'll have to make something up or maybe you have an answer, but dream job.
| Jim Rounds: | 29:58 | Dream job. My dream job is I would like to open up a tent between the House and the Senate at the Capitol, air conditioned of course, I guess, heated in the winter during session. And I want to be like that Peanut stand where you just answer questions. Now, I'd like for someone just to say, "I'm going to give you a million dollars and you'll go do this." They're not going to do it, but maybe I can go rogue sometime and pretend I have a permit, go down there, open up a stand and make them kick me out. But wouldn't it be fun to just have a business card that says thinker? And then, having whoever wants to ask you a question, "Does this bill mean something bad," and being able to just say, "Yeah, it's terrible. Don't put your name on it," or, "Oh, this is fantastic, but tweak it another
| | | way." I think just informally doing that would be such a fantastic job.
| Todd Sanders: | 30:51 | I think that would be phenomenal. And in some ways you do that now, and we're really grateful that you do, my friend. Want to thank you for spending so much time with us today. Thank you for your leadership and also your friendship.
| Jim Rounds: | 31:05 | It's good to see you. That was great.
| Todd Sanders: | 31:06 | Awesome.