Single Best Idea with Tom Keene: Claudia Sahm & Adam Posen

Tom Keene breaks down the Single Best Idea from the latest edition of Bloomberg Surveillance Radio.

In this episode, we feature conversations with Claudia Sahm & Adam Posen.

Watch Tom and Paul LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news, the single best idea.
After an emotional month, we're deep into May, and after
an emotional week, and here with the jobs report doing
better than good. All in all, major shout out to

(00:24):
anawog of Bloomberg Economics who certainly had a huge part
of that buoyant seat to the job market, the trend
up near here one's sixty and whether it's one seventy
three month moving average one hundred and fifty five thousand,
and the stock market reacting to it at least here
on a Friday, as we tape at this moment, but

(00:45):
in amongst it with some tension. It's always good to
speak to people world acclaimed for their academics. Claudia Sam
leads our employment coverage definitive at Michigan. I'm thinking at
the fat I should say, as well, thinking about what
is recession? What the slowdown look like? First thing she
said in her conversation today, this is not a recession.

(01:07):
There is no recession out there. Late in the conversation
and here Claudia Sam on the speed, the rapidity of
our policy making.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
They need to slow it down, right, you know, I
disagree with the policies they're pursuing, but I'm strong, I'm
very concerned about the way in which they're being pursued.
This is very aggressive, this is very fast, and it
can potentially cause a lot of damage. So even if
you're in the spirit of having more industrial policy, having
higher tariffs, a smaller government, like, there's a way to

(01:37):
do this that doesn't cause maximal damage, right, And I'm
very concerned of and I think the White House and
you hear some messaging from them that you know, terorfrates
aren't sustainable with China, and we're doing negotiations, but like,
we need to see some action that actually pulls back
these costs before it's too late.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Claudia Sam there within this trade war, within this moment
for America in the world. John Authur's writing up at
Bloomberg Opinion. I thought the Martin Wolf essay I think
it was two ago on the trade war was just
brilliant over at the Financial Times. But the one essay
that for me sticks out was Adam Posen. I'm guessing
five ancient weeks ago, long weeks ago in Foreign Affairs,

(02:18):
Adam Posen absolutely definitive and with a piercing paragraph on
the zero sum fallacy of our trade war. We touched
on Adam Smith, the giant David Ricardo of about eighteen fifteen,
but late in the conversation with Adam Posen at the
Peterson Institute, we talked about his view on American education.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
It's insane, no matter how valid the criticisms may or
may not be. And I'm not going to touch that
because I'm not an academic, thank god, but destroying the
research capacity of the greatest research complex in human history,
that has been the source of American advantage and well

(03:02):
being and defense capacity for eighty years is possibly the
most destructive thing the Trump administration is doing. And I
don't mean just Harvard, and I don't mean worrying about
supposed anti Semitism, although I think that's not what really
motivates them, but who the heck knows. I think you're

(03:23):
destroying at National Institute of Health. You're destroying medical biomedical
research across the board. You're undercutting standards for research by
having an HHS secretary who makes stuff up in contrast
to all known research. I mean, I could just spew
on this, sputtering for hours. This is the golden goose

(03:46):
for the US economy for the world's wellbeing, and we
are destroying it. And that's where the UK and a
few other countries including Japan, Singapore, Australia, Germany, we have
to help step up and fry a home for talent
and find the money because this is something we can't replace.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
And I'm posing there at the Peterson Institute a major
shout out to an institution at Columbia University. There is
one guy that is written and thought about this more
than anyone I know. His name is Jonathan Cole Coillie,
and he's written definitive books on this miracle that was
wrought as a generalization out of World War Two, but

(04:26):
I would suggest started before that, at least with the
land grant program of the nineteenth century. Think the A
and M's Texas A and M and the rest as well.
But Jonathan Cole will say that the research capabilities of
this nation are centered around research universities bolted on to
the great academics of your kid getting an undergraduate degree,

(04:48):
and he centers there on the Johns Hopkins University and
on the University of Chicago. Somehow this will be a
theme forward. Janet Lauren is our expert on this at
Bloomberg will speak to her as we can across the nation.
On your commute. Good morning on Google thrilled with a
new Google technology, on Android Auto, just all sorts of

(05:11):
new stuff going on there. Good morning ninety nine one
FM in Washington, ninety two nine FM in Boston, and
Ploomberg eleven three to zero. Good morning to you. I
should say that we're on YouTube podcasts and this is
single best idea