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The global push into infrastructure, breaking the IPO logjam in text. The financial stories that sheep are work cutting inflation without losing jobs. Do we need rate cuts and if so, how many? Investing in a time of geopolitical turmoil.
Through the eyes of the most influential voices.
Ten Rogueff Economists of Harvard, former FDIC had Shila Bert ge CEO, Larry Kulp, San Francisco FED President Mary Daily Bloomberg.
Wall Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio.
A big win for labor in Great Britain, the Biden presidency hangs in the balance, and France heads into the second round of elections. This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston. This week, Ken Jacobs of Lazard explains why the Supreme Court decisions in this term may not be as good for business as many people think.
We shouldn't suddenly cheer this decision as pro business and.
As the United States celebrates its Independence Day. The former head of Young and Rubacam tells the storyory of how he went from a boy in a labor camp in communists Romania to rise to the top of the advertising business.
These idealistic views of America meant so much to me.
We start with US jobs numbers that came out on Friday and what they tell us about the US economy with Stephanie Flanders, Bloomberg Senior Executive editor for Economics and Governments. So, Stephanie, thanks so much for being back with us. So it's an interesting set of jobs numbers. On one hand, they increased the non farm payrolls by a goodly amount, but they also took revisions taking them back down. So on net net, what did we learn?
You know, I think we learned quite a lot from this, and I think one of it was that actually, something that our chief economist, Anna Wong has been talking about for a while is that there had been the rate of job growth that we've seen actually for the last year or so was being exaggerated by the way that there of label cysics is including those business failures and
successes in their numbers. So she had estimated already that relative instead of the sort of two hundred thousand jobs additions every month that we've seen on average for some time now, it was actually going to be revised to half of that figure, more like one hundred thousand when
you took business failures into account. And we haven't fully seen that revision yet, but I think that was one thing that certainly that bond market investors were focusing on in these numbers, that you had some big downward revisions in the past numbers. So even though the headline was pretty close to what we had forecast, but there was
a bit lower than expected by others. Even though that headline looked healthy, I think we are starting to see that deterioration under the surface, which was emphasized also by the increase in the unemployment rate, which was again was higher than expected. So I think all of that points to a slightly more a more significant weakening, or a more advance weakening in the labor market than perhaps many had thought.
Yeah, and that having is terribly important, as I understand it. Economists tell us that basically to sort of replicate the number of jobs you have now, it's around one hundred thousand a month. So if it's two hundred thousand, that's really a growing job market. If it's one hundred thousand, that's a lot closer to just break even flat.
Yeah, and obviously you know we have seen we haven't seen the recession that the BlueBag economics had expected, and that's it's definitely been a stronger economy than we expected, you know, even six or six to nine months ago, but the sort beneath the surface weakening, and again pointing to that rising unemployment rate, I think all points to, you know, points as still towards rate cuts in September and then and maybe another one before the end of the year.
I guess, you know, that's that's it. We were in normal times.
But of course, you know, there's a few other things going on in the next six months, and those are things that the bond market and indeed the Federal Reserve are going to have to some attention to as well.
Well. Let's talk about exactly that, Stephanie, because as you point out, there's sort of a push and pull going on here. On the one hand, there seems to be a slowing job market and as you say, the unemployment rate is ticking up slowly, which might indicate we really have to back off on the fiscal policy. On the other hand, we do have this little election coming up in November, and there have been some substantial developments this week, and that particularly about who the nominee is going to
be for the Democrats. As President Biden is really going through a tough time. We've seen some reaction from the bond markets to that phenomenon.
Yeah, a lot of talk about the Trump trade, and I think we saw that particularly in the immediate aftermath of that disastrous debate performance a week ago by President Biden. You know, we had perhaps been in a situation where many in the markets and certainly in the betting markets, thought it was more likely than not that President Trump would come into office in the November elections. But we sort of went from more likely than not to an
apparently unstoppable over the last week or so. As a course of not us that just deteriorating sort of prospects potentially for President Biden on the back of that performance.
But a lot of people, certainly a lot of people sitting in congressional seats and senators thinking on the Democrats side, wow, those not only is we not going to have cottails coming from an incoming, you know, a re elected president, we could seriously be in trouble and we could be looking at a clear, clean suite for the Republicans come November.
If any of that it does come to pass, then I think people are looking down the track and saying, Okay, that's going to mean more unsustainable fiscal policies and are probably maybe good for the economy sort of short term in terms of growth, but it certainly points to higher interest rates for longer on the long end on the bond deal.
Then, yeah, this is a terribly important point. I'm curious about your perspective, not only from your time in London. Also you spent some time in Washington in the administration. Actually you've been watching this for some time. Do the markets basically favor a divided government in the United States, that is to say, they don't like it when it's all Democrats or are Republicans in both houses of Congress plus the presidency, because a lot more can be done.
I think there is a nervousness around that. And thank you for reminding me, David that actually the last time when I was in the Treasury, unfortunately I only had a junior job, but when I was in the US Treasury was the last time we had a budget surplus in the US on the federal side. It's been a
very long time since we had one of those. But I think It's also there's a Trump specific factor here, right, but he's he's talking about across the board tariffs that would add to inflation at a time when yes, you want to also have increased defense spending. And we're already in an economy, you know, this is an economy that is probably you know, potentially at the peak of the cycles,
certainly at full close to full capacity. That's been running at six or seven percent of GDP budget deficits year after year. And if that's only going to go up or at least stay at that level as the cost of servicing that debt goes up, that is looking very unsustainable.
I guess the key question is, even if you have a strong equity market in that context, you're certainly going to have a sort of longer term sell off on bond from the bond market, and you're going to have trouble for the Fed, potentially pressure on the dollar for way down the road.
Okay, it's in the books now, Stephanie, I think it's fair to say a landslide win for secure Starmer and the Labor Party. What do we think that may mean for economic policy going forward?
If anything, Well, we do have a pretty we have a first female Chancellor of Exchequer almost certainly one called Rachel Reeves, who we're going to get to know. She is actually a former Bank of England economist and is considered to be very by the book, quite orthodox in her approach to economics. So at some level this is not a This is certainly not a corbyn Er Jeremy Corbyn style incoming Labor government, very more on the tradition of Blair. And that's what kir Starmer has done with
the Labor Party. Has managed to sort of.
Drag it back from that fringe period under.
Jeremy Corbyn and make it an electable alternative to the Conservatives. And boy, the voters really wanted alternative to the Conservatives. They gave them an absolute kicking in this election, didn't really plant a lot more votes for Labor, but had a half of the votes for the Conservatives.
The focus is going to be on growth.
I think the big difference, if there is one, will be potentially the approach to Europe and the rigorous focus on house building and investments. You know, that is something where the previous government had not wanted to. You know, you get a lot of arguments from people Oh, I don't want to have that wind.
Farm on my regret, you know, near me. I don't like it.
I don't want to have this new housing estate near me. They have promised that they're going to push through that opposition, but I guess we'll wait and see.
Oh, when you talk about the new chance with the checker, it's her job now to come up with the money for that investment. Where's that money going to come from?
Well, so her answer to that is faster growth. But of course, you know, you have a chicken and egg problem. So if the UK had just grown at its long term average rate after the Globi Falantocrassis after two thousand and eight, the economy would be forty percent larger now and there will be a lot more tax revenues to fund a lot more of the demand for public services that is undeniably there.
In the UK. Pent up demand we don't have.
We've had much weaker growth than that, and it's hard to sort of immediately turn on the switch. But I think she will be looking for ways to get credit from the official, the independent fiscal watchdog for things that she's doing now affecting growth over the longer term. So if she does things that really convince that watchdog. Oh, actually growth could be a little bit higher over the
next few years, while potential growth is going to go up. Well, that will also actually give her a bit more room on the spending side because it'll look more sustainable over time.
So when you talk about the actual growth versus the potential growth for the British economy, some of us might think a question about Brexit and what effect it had on that differential. At the same time, I don't recall a lot of discussion Brexit at all in this election. It doesn't sound like Circuit Sharma is going to be saying let's get back into the European Union. So how are they going to bring back the actual growth without addressing the Brexit issues?
You know, I think it's been it's been a controversial question and there's been a lot of pressure. When you look at polls, there is a large majority now, especially of many labor voters, wanting to potentially even go back in the EU, which I don't think is a practical suggestion, but certainly to have a closer relationship maybe in the Single Market, joined the Customs Union. He has ruled all of that out and has not wanted to talk about it.
When we saw the results last night, we saw a little bit of why because the second place party in a lot of the seats that label was winning back were not the Conservatives but the Reform Party, which, as you'll remember, David, is a kind of an anti europe, anti immigrant party. That's the sort of remainder of the big campaigners for Brexit.
So there's a still quite a.
Many of the people who voted for Brexit, working class voters in northern constituencies, old industrial constituencies. They are still feeling aggrieved about Brexit, and I don't think Labour wants to go near it. They do want to unlock smaller
deals that will reduce some of these obstacles. The red tape, which you're absolutely right, has hit growth, and I think even that could have an impact if they make it easier for importers and exporters who are now facing a lot more red tape, even without changing anything else, that could help trade at the margin and help growth.
So Stephanie, let me push you here a little bit, because we have two big elections. We've just had the UK elections, now we're about to have the second and final round of the parliamentary elections in France, which seems to be a quite different story where actually you have one would to anticipate substantially to the right candidate in Marine Lapen, who looks like she'll do reasonably well there.
The one constant seems to be anti incumbent. But is there any through line through those two elections.
I think you've you've hit it, David.
I'm not.
Actually I'm on a bit of election road trip at the moment because I'm going to be going off to Paris and on Sunday to see those final results for myself. It's been quite the week, but it does look as though Marine le Penn's party Rassean Blemont Nationale is not going to win a majority, in part because they've been
able to do the center, which is very weak. Mackerel's party have been able to do some deals on the sort of case by case basis with the left, who are way to the left of certainly of the Labor Party in the UK.
Stephanie has always such a treat to have you on Wall Street Week. Thank you so much. That's Stephanie Flanders. She's Bloomberg Senior Executive editor for Economics, and government coming up. The Supreme Court thought it was helping business when an overruled Chevron, but was it right. We talked with Kenny Jacobs of Lazard. That's next time of Wall Street Week on Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg.
Great, this is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston. Everyone is talking about the Supreme Court decision this week on presidential immunity. But for the business community, the more important ruling may have been the one a week ago that overturned the Chevron doctrine. To take us through what that may mean, we welcome back now, Ken Jacobs. He is executive chairman of Lazard, so Kent, welcome back. Almost two years exactly since we talked about this subject. You are
ahead of your time on Chevron. Take us through exactly what the risks of overturning Chevron really are.
Sure the potential exists contrary to conventional wisdom that Chevron turns out to be anti business. I think the knee jerk reaction, the immediate reaction is is that Chevron is a pro business decision.
Because courts can overturn more than that.
If you step back and you think about it.
If the US has three competitive advantages that have endured for the last one hundred and fifty two hundred years. It has rule of law, it has actually favorable demographics, and it has one unified market. The risk in Chevron
is twofold. First around unified market. Unified market means that when you have a product and you want to go to market, you've got a market of three hundred and thirty million people, second only to China, with one set of effectively one set of rules, with the exception of two or three industries financial.
Services, utilities, healthcare services.
With the exception of those industries, you essentially have one market, three hundred and thirty million people, one set of rules. As a startup company and an innovator, that's phenomenal. That's why this company attracts entrepreneurs innovators like no other country does in the world. The risk on Chevron is really twofold. One is that you end up with uncertainty related to the fact that there's just going to be a lot
more litigation. This opens up the possibility of being much more litigation, so it creates unpredictability and uncertainty about what the rules really are and what they will really be. The second risk is around the fact that there just may not be as much rulemaking at the federal level for good reason. It's going to be more likely it'll
be overturned or litigated in court. But what that means is there's a vacuum, and nature it abhors vacuums, and that tends to then end up being regulated at state level. And the risk of all this is you end up with a market that was unified fragmenting into ideological, partisan and procli interests. Now, I'm not suggesting that's taking place over overnight, and I think there are also some protections
in place where that may not happen. But we shouldn't suddenly cheer this decision as pro business.
It has a real risk of being the opposite.
So can you've spent a distinguished career advising clients, thinking about doing M and A and things like that, What does it do to you as an advisor when a company comes to you and says, do I buy it? Do I not buy it? Do I do this deal? Not do this deal? What does it do if you're not exactly sure what the rules?
Well, let's use real practical examples. You have a choice.
You can buy a company in Europe that is primarily a European company, young company going to start up in Europe it's operations, or you can plant yourself or buy a company in the United States buying. If you think about a young company in the United States, you've got a market of three hundred and thirty million people. Accessing the market is easy in Europe. You know, the EU is better than the what existed before, but it's much
more complex. You have rulemaking at the top level, but you still have enormous authority in the role of countries, so that market isn't as unified as the US. And as an innovator, you would always choose to be in the US. And as a company if you're buying an innovator, the same thing.
Also, let's talk about the litigation costs, because, as you said, it looks like right now there'll be a big incentive for a lot of people to challenge rules, a lot of lawyer's money being generated. I'm not against that. I'm a lawyer. You know it's all fine, But what are the litigation costs, the friction costs they're being generated for this.
Well, First, it just creates some predictability when you have decisions made by experts, which is, for better or worse, what we're dealing with.
A lot of the time in agencies.
I don't mean for worse, but you know, most of the agencies are people by civil servants who are really expert in their field. And when you have experts, you usually can predict what experts are going to do. I mean, yes, there's a lot of regulation that is imperfect, but you can generally guess what they're going to do. When it comes to courts, it's very different. You have ideology that gets involved. We can see that in some of the
decisions coming out of Texas on abortion rights. We have deep social beliefs in the same way you have people's different views of the economy. Many of these trials could end up in the hands of juries, which become less predictable. So I think that's the real risk is you go from something that is not perfect really is not perfect.
I'm a regulatory regime is not perfect at the federal level, but generally speaking, it's the same everywhere, and it's more predictable than it's likely to be under this new regime.
So you have the Chevron decision, which is one of them, which really overturned the rule that regulatory agencies we defer to in the courts. Is this a pro business court? Supreme Court?
I think this is a pro court court.
That's how I describe it, because I'm not sure these decisions turn out to be pro business if you go from predictable to unpredictable, and I think the key to business is predictability. That is, uncertainty is the curse of business and the curse of markets. And you only really know that when things are really uncertain. That's when you crave the predictability. So I don't think we're going to see this overnight. But no, I don't think this is
necessarily pro business. It may in the beginning feel like it is, but I think the real risk is the predictability issue.
I think this is very pro courts.
I think we're going to see a lot more litigation, a lot more intervention by courts and decisions which in the past sort of happened.
As a business leader, how confident are you the Supreme Court understands the ramifications in the real world of what they're deciding.
Look, I have huge respect for the people that are on the Supreme Court. I mean, these are all enormously accomplished people, and when you actually sit down and you read these decisions. I'm not a lawyer, they're impressive writing and they're very well argued and such. I think the risk at the Supreme Court, and I think generally if more power is going to the judiciary, is that I don't think any of these any of these judges have
really ever managed a company. They've nearly They've never had to deal with a budget, They've never had to deal with a workforce, They've never had to deal with the board of directors or with shareholders, and so I think there's a little bit of ideology naivete at work here about not being in the real world. Now, maybe that's a curse of our system, that is it's next to impossible. I think something you and I talked about before, where it's next to impossible to get confirmed by a Congress
if you have a record. But I think that's the real risk here.
Ken, it's always great to have you this, Thank you so very much. That is Ken Jacobs of Blizard. This week, the United States celebrated its Independence Day, and Wall Street Week traveled across town to talk with one of the many who immigrated to America and helped Wall Street and
the country become what it is today. We're here at the Museum of the City, New York, where a lot of the history of New York City is portrayed, and we are joined by Peter Georgescu, former head of Young In Rupham, who himself is part of that history.
So Peter, it's great to be with you. David, what a thrill. Delighted to be with you.
So it take us back to when you came to New York and made some history in nineteen fifty four war.
Oh my goodness. Well, my story starts thousands of miles from here in Romania, born of Romanian parents, just at the eve of the Second World War. So my parents smelled that it was going to be trouble in the capital, so they shipped my brother five years old and I to Transylvania with my mother's parents, aging grandparents, wonderful people, and so the Second World War was with my grandparents in Romania, and we survived the war and it wasn't pleasant,
but it wasn't horrific. And so my father, unfortunately was put in prison by the Germans because he worked for an American company exile and uh in the oil fields and uh Germans of course took an ally guy and threw him into prison. They almost killed him. But then the president of Romania decided that he better get some friends on the other side. What if the Germans don't win the war. So he literally faced the firing squad and they gave him a last minute reprieve close. But anyway,
he worked for they. He they didn't know that he worked for the oss from prison. That's another story. So we reunited as a family in forty six in Romania, my brother, my m you know, the organic family. I learned how to bite from my father and that was the actually the longest time a year that I've ever spent with my parents. What happened was, uh, the beginning
of forty nine. In January, my mother and father came to New York for a general manager's meeting at thirty Rock here in New York City for excellent for the exile worldwide Manager's meeting. He was at a time that the Communists took over Romania. The Aaron Curtain comes down, and little O me alright, uh, at that time was just over seven years old. Was there, Ah, the birth of communists, one of most powerful autocracy that the world
has ever seen, and Romania was another one. It has a reputation that it was not so bad.
It was the worst.
Three hundred thousand people were killed and so then shortly thereafter they arrested my brother, myself and my grandmother were thrown close to the Russian border in a small town called Boshan. And Uh, that's always see the beginnings of what do you do people are funcible? Do you use people to do things?
Uh?
And I I I was a witness to what I learned and later learned to understand was totalitarianism, autocracy. And we were pawns. I never knew why they kept us alive, but we became pawns, as I mentioned in a minute. But anyway, in in this little town, we got up at six o'clock in the morning, We went to work six days a week, ten hours a day. Sundays you slept.
And you were howled.
And I was ten years old. No books, no learning, no nothing. You go into work six days a week, you slept on Sundays.
That was life.
And there was no hope. There was no discussion between us, my brother and I. But hey, how is it gonna be when we grow old or when we grow up or we're nothing? And then in New York they tried to give my father to spy for them, and that's why they had kept us alive to be debate. Wanted to see your children alive again, you're gonna spy for us. My father went home from the office where he met with this guy and my mother and he talked. The next morning he went to the FBI and said, this
is what happened. Whether I do they say, become a double agent? My father said, uh, I've seen that play. It doesn't work well. Sooner or later they will kill the kids. Anyway, what do we do? Eventually they said, go public. The Russians wanted the world to think of Communism is friendly and nice and warm and fuzzy, and so maybe they'll tell the Romanians they can kill the kids. So that's what they did. Every little town in America had a story of the blackmail of uh parents about their kids.
In Romania.
A wonderful woman from Ohio, Francis Payne Bolton, she took over her husband's seat. She was in want to be a woman in Congress. Not only that she was head of the Congressional Foreign Relations committing in Congress, she had met Style and she knew this story close up. My father said, I get you boys out of Romania. Not a long story. But at the end of the day she calls her friend Eisenhower, whom she helped elect as president.
So she had some chits on Ike. We got traded for a bunch of Russian spies.
So the President United States intervened on your behalf to get you out of Romania, and so he did. When we come back, we continue our conversation with Peter georg Escu about his rise to the top of Young and Rubecamp, the opportunities he had, and whether he sees the same opportunities for those starting out today. That's next on Wall Street Week on Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio.
This is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston. Peter george Escu fled Communist Romania and climbed to the top of the average industry in New York. We talked with him about the opportunities he enjoyed, the strengths of the capitalist system he helped drive and what has changed over the course of his career.
Right apprenticed in the research department at Yander Rubikam and I ended up running the company. It says, I was your first non American around the CEO to do that, to be CEO in America, they were not. The immigrants never got to run things in those days.
The contrast between the system in Romania you came from and the one you found in nineteen fifty four, and it says, could not have been more overwhelming.
It was a stunner. That was the biggest difference. Freedom, kindness of people who reached out. Even there in Romania, everybody was afraid of everything, because this is what totality Terranism is an insidious disease, you know, it's s uh, really strong people, cruel, inhumane who protect the interests of one minorities against the vast majority of the population. And that's what communists really was. It was not an ideology
that was nonsense. There was just the people in power who took it all, who lived well, we got the money and they were determined and committed to just carry on for the next generation of communists, and so forth and so on, and there was no freedom, there was no there was no public good. And here there was democracy, this thing, as I learned way back.
The Greeks played around with that.
But democracy was about people. That's what it means. It's of the people, by the people, for the people. And we in America have been blessed by Gene our forefathers, who believed in a few critical principles that I so embraced. When I learned about them, I said, my God, old men are created equal. These idealistic viewers of America meant so much to me, and I believe I learned to believe and have faith that I'll be okay in this country.
It does strike me coming to the United States in nineteen the fifties, there was a time of almost unlimited opportunity, at.
Least for some. As you say, the equality question had a lot.
Of work to be done on it, but unlimited opportunity and equality of opportunity at least was the goal. That always the goal people saw it. Do we have that same level of opportunity and equality of opportunity today the United States? As you saw in nineteen fifty four, You.
Know, David, the magical thing is that, as you said, I got to the American dream importantly because of the time America during right after the war was probably for the next forty years, was the best of America. Was the most selfless that America or a country could be, that ever was.
In the world.
And then things began to change slowly in the eighties or so. Business became something else. Business was uh caring about workers and s shareholders and communities and the customer a lot four or five stakeholders. And then it all changed. It changed in the early nineteen eighties and the mantra became the the leaders of business and government. The Reagan administration decided, we're paying workers too much money, why do we need that. Let's kill the unions, which they did.
Now unions had some problems, they'd be fixed. It became criminalized and so forth. So they're not angels. But the idea was listic advantage of everything that we can and maximize short term share of the values, and let's make the few of us again where it was moving towards we, the rich people who were going to take We'll have our kids well educated and all the rest of it. The hell of the rest of the people. And forty years of that and America became the most unequal nation
in the world economically financial well being. Today, sixty percent of American people say I'm financially secure, I'm worried about my existence. In fact, sixty percent of American families can't put food on the table, so pay their rent most months, and they have to borrow money sometimes. And it's not the bank, it's private people. It's very expensive. It's tough out there. We have become the most socially inept the ability to move from one strato society the next compared
to anybody else in the developed world. And even our education. We invented public education, and yet our kids today are the bottom of the developed world. So that's what happened in forty years, driven by business, and the government did not do enough to fix the.
Problem well, and in some instances the government may have exacerbated some of that for its own reasons. And we've had a couple of major crises in this century, with the Great Financial Crisis in two thousand and eight two thousand and nine, for the government felt they had to come in and give support to the economy, and then we had the pandemic. Again, the government feld had to
come in, and again there are reasons for that. At the same time, it did tend to enhance the wealthy and the people particularly owned capital, to the disadvantage the people who did not have capital.
It's exactly right, because there's a fix here. And that's why I'm saying people don't understand that it was the business community that really helped drive this level of inequality in America, and it is business and capitalism that has to fix it. Capitalism is the right engine. Capitalism doesn't care who the beneficiary is, whether it's twenty or thirty percent of America or the vast majority of America. Capitalist works in China, and it's a machine. It's having access
to access to resources, risk taking ability. That's what capitalism. It's not an ethical machine. The only thing he knows is produces wealth and well being. Now, who benefits from that is the governance. That's it, and we had the wrong version of it. Everything went to the shareholders by design, and it was kept that way. And now it's beginning to change because it has to.
Well what about that beginning to change? Is it changing and what is causing him to change?
Well, it has, you know, in many ways, I believe it really must change, because why am I saying that the precursor of totality Terranism that I sold in Romania is a large enough minority of people who are under educated. They don't have the confidence in the society will help them, They become desperate, they become anarchists. And now today we're seeing lots of those folks who don't believe that the current system will ever come to help them.
Many thanks to Peter George Escu, former head of Young and Rubicam. Nearly two hundred years ago, in his epic Democracy in America, Alexei Diktkvil wrote that the position of Americans is quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever replaced in a similar one. This week, the United States celebrated its two hundred and forty eighth birthday, still trying to live up to that potential.
Jane Hartley, the US Ambassador to the Court of Saint James, at her annual Fourth of July celebration in central London this year, noted the irony in British elections being held on American Independence Day. If only King George the third had included the colonies and elections back in seventeen seventy six, things might have turned out very differently. These days, we have no shortage of politicians telling us that we're exceptional.
I've always believed that one of the greatest trands of America.
You've retired of hearing me say it is our diversity.
We're going to make America great again. We're going to make it better than ever before November fifth. Remember, November fifth is the most important day in the history of our country.
But Independence Day is always a good time to take stock of how we're doing. Sure, there are some ways that the United States is different from much or all of the rest of the world, like, for example, and the and barrage of TV ads for pricey prescription drugs up to and including the latest craze of shots to
help us all lose weight. And America certainly has distinguished itself by demonstrating every Fourth of July ways to put on the weight we need to take off, like by holding contests to see how many hot dogs we can eat, though this year the perennial Coney Island favorite Joey Chestnut was disqualified by cheating on the traditional hot dog with
a plant based alternative. But there are other more important ways in which the United States continues to lead, as in its having more developed, deeper capital markets than anywhere else.
Most of our capital markets and the attraction globally to invest in our economy is based on the rule of law, and it's based on the independence and the capability of our institutions, even with all of the political challenges that we have to function in a way that can create certainty, certainty for employer, certainty for investors.
And having an economy that, at least for the time being, is the envy of the world, attracting investment like never before.
US exceptionalism or US dynamic investment is still going very, very strong. That's really for no reason except we have great innovation in the US, we have great technology AI and then of course rule of law when it comes to financial markets.
And there is one other way that the United States continues to be exceptional, one that sometimes may seem like a problem, but that actually signals a strength. Everyone wants to come here, sometimes against the law, providing a constant source of political conflict and burdens on our cities.
It looks like We have substantially increased immigration right.
Now, but much of the immigration recently has been entirely legal and has helped spur our economic growth while controlling wages.
Immigration is good, but a rational immigration policy would be better.
One of those who came to the United States to pursue his dreams was the late great Peter Jennings, for many years anchor of ABC World News Tonight. Peter was proud of being a Canadian, and some question whether so much of America should be getting its news every night from a foreigner. Peter and I became quite close during our time working together at ABC News, including through his marathon anchoring of our twenty four hour Millennium program and
then his NonStop nine to eleven coverage. We shared the same birthday and each year would exchange gifts. One day, he came to my office with my gift that year and told me, with tears in his eyes, that he had just become a US citizen. Peter never hesitated to
question and even criticize his adopted country. He saw the ways in which we fell short, but he never lost sight of the potential for exceptionalism that Totolkville had seen, and he gave me my present that year, a pair of American flag cuflinks that I wear to this day.
That does it.
For this episode of Wall Street Week, I'm David Weston. This is Bloomberg. See you next week.