September 6, 2023 • 44 mins
Will economic history keep repeating itself? We talk with Peter Cunningham, former international trade director and lead professor of economics to discuss his approach to imparting decades of experiences onto his students. In this episode of Can I Get a Retake? Cunningham shares his style of teaching, prioritizing real lived experiences over just theory and history. He also shares a few riveting stories of his time as an international trade director for a variety of state governors. Learn more about Peter's Economics textbooks at grl.pub/cunningham
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Can I Get a Retake, where we explore the accomplishments of our innovative community.
(00:09):
Each month we speak with one of Great River Learning's higher ed instructors and authors.
Together we discuss trends in education, areas of study, and a variety of teaching styles
and philosophies.
My name is Michaela, your marketing coordinator.
My name is Michelle, your web design supervisor.
And this is Great River Learning's Can I Get a Retake?
(00:34):
Today on Can I Get a Retake, we are speaking with Peter Cunningham.
Peter is lead professor of economics at Mount Hood Community College in Oregon.
Peter received his bachelor of arts in international affairs from George Washington University
and a master's of science from the London School of Economics.
Peter has earned the National Association of Small Business International Trade Educators,
(00:57):
International Trade Educator of the Year award in 2022.
He has over 30 years experience in economics and international trade, directing state international
trade operations, and advising multiple US governors and mayors in international trade
policy.
Most importantly, but we're biased, Peter is the author of four GRL titles, Introduction
(01:20):
to Economics, Principles of Macroeconomics, and Principles of Microeconomics in a Contemporary
Context, The Impact of China, Brexit, and the USMCA on the Economy.
His latest title with GRL is Trade Director Diaries, Real Life Experiences Navigating
International Trade.
(01:48):
Have you ever been asked, can I get a retake?
No, I haven't.
I've never, usually I get my takes in the first time so I don't have to do a retake.
Then we'll just ask you to launch into your background and how you came to be where you
are now as an educator.
Cool.
Well, you know, I started my studies college at George Washington University.
(02:13):
I always knew I wanted to do something internationally, but it wasn't until I took my first intro
to international business course that I realized that this is trade and business, economics.
This is something that I really have a passion for and what I'd like to devote my career
to.
So for the first, I'd say two thirds of my career, I worked in government, mostly state
(02:34):
government, federal government, helping US governors come up with effective trade policy
and economic policy to deal with the challenges of globalization.
And I wrote a lot about that in my fourth book, The Trade Director Diaries.
So it was an interesting pathway.
I really love the content, the training at George Washington.
I did my master's work at the London School of Economics, which really is a whole different
(02:59):
approach to education and really helped me via the Socratic method become much more inquisitive.
And I really love that form of teaching.
And then I started teaching sort of part time back in the mid 80s.
Love that too.
I just had this second career going.
So when I decided to retire from the politics and from government, it made sense for me
(03:26):
to step into this full time role as a tenured economics instructor for Mount Hood Community
College.
So that's a quick snapshot of how I've gotten to where I am today.
Yeah.
And we really wanted to talk to you a bit about what that trade director role looks like.
So I guess, could you explain what did you do as a trade director?
What does that look like?
(03:47):
Yeah, it was a pretty, I started out as an international trade specialist, kind of as
a junior role.
And that position was more working with companies, helping them identify markets for their products
and services globally, helping to create jobs in the various states that I worked in.
That was a really great sort of foundation.
I got my first chance to work as a trade director for Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan.
(04:13):
I was working in Colorado as a trade specialist and I had a chance to meet him and he had
just been elected and wanted to do more for job creation for Wyoming and felt that this
would be a great way to put some energy into trade development, helping small and medium
sized companies in Wyoming find markets globally.
So that's how I got into that, helping to write marketing plans for the companies.
(04:34):
I wrote the marketing plan for the state.
It was a really interesting and exciting period of my career.
I have noticed that you have worked in different states across the country, totally different
regions.
Was there a lot of cultural difference even between the Southwest versus New England?
No question.
(04:54):
Yeah, I'm originally from upstate New York.
So I was pretty familiar with that part of the country, but moving to the South was a
big challenge for me, North Carolina.
I had a really good friend who was the trade director for Mississippi.
We actually wrote one of the books together, Liz Cleveland, and she made me do a test of
what it takes to be a Southerner.
Of course, I failed it horribly.
(05:17):
I think what really helped shape me throughout my career was I learned all the content and
knowledge from the academic training and the practical experience at West as a director
and specialist.
Then I had this amazing boss in North Carolina, Secretary Jim Fain, who ran the Department
of Commerce for North Carolina.
(05:38):
He was a very distinguished statesman and just very cool, calm.
He helped me take all my energy and enthusiasm for trade and my approach to life and be more
cool about it.
I had to adapt to the Southern culture.
I couldn't go in gangbusters like I had in previous states, in the Northeast or out West.
(06:03):
It was a really good training for me.
Probably one of the highlights of my career was working in North Carolina.
That was the height of globalization.
We lost so many jobs due to companies relocating their textile plants, their furniture plants,
all these different technology plants offshore to China, India, Vietnam.
We had to move quickly to figure out how to adjust to that economy.
(06:26):
All that was included in the book, the trade director diary, some of what I learned in
terms of that process.
I also saw that you were on a lot of different trade missions.
When you went abroad, what were your goals?
What was your goal to bring back to the governors and your plans in the State Department?
(06:48):
Yeah.
Well, again, we wrote this.
This is included in the book.
We have a whole section devoted to doing what it takes to organize a trade mission.
Trade mission is 101.
My first trade mission I led in the first time in the mid-80s, in 87, I was in Colorado.
I had, again, an amazing regional manager at the Department of Commerce, Sam Serato,
(07:10):
who gave me the opportunity to organize and lead this trade mission to Italy, Sweden,
and Holland, basically, so the Netherlands.
It was a challenging job.
Recruiting companies, getting them to commit so many resources.
Hiring companies for senior executives to be away from their company for so long.
It's a big job.
(07:31):
We scaled it down to basically about a two-week period.
We came back with $6 million in projected sales from the meetings that we had.
With a lot of work, Commerce has some amazing operations globally.
Their commercial operations based out of the US embassies and consulates.
It's their job to help small and medium-sized companies find partners to generate jobs in
(07:54):
various US states.
They were great.
It was a really wonderful experience.
The recruitment aspect was brutal, getting six-plus companies to make it worthwhile and
then to plan everything.
I had to go over to do an advance mission to make sure all the I's were dotted and T's
were crossed, meet my partners in the various locations.
We had a big success.
Again, a big highlight.
(08:14):
It gave me a taste for trade missions and really gave me an edge as I went on into my
career to work for various governors.
I had that experience under my belt.
I knew how to plan a governor's trade mission without too much trouble to various countries
globally.
I'm curious for your expertise when it comes to global trends, policies, markets.
(08:35):
What should the average layperson be aware of or be following?
One of my favorite chapters that I wrote in both the micro book and the trade director
diary book is the international trade 101.
Where we go from back to Ricardo when he was the original developer of comparative advantage
(08:59):
theory in the 1700s.
We start with that and we come to modern day.
How do we deal with the challenges of globalization today?
Basically, there are a lot of... I try to frame the learning in a way that so students
walk away understanding the history, but they understand how it applies today.
(09:21):
We don't just want to know a bunch of theory from the 1700s.
We want to know, okay, why should I care about international trade today?
Why should the Smoot-Hawley Act in the 1930s be relevant today?
What did we learn in the 30s during the Great Depression when we raised the highest levels
of protectionism ever in the history of global economics?
What happened?
It was the worst economic downturn we've ever experienced.
(09:43):
There are lessons to be learned from history in trade.
I try to frame it in a way.
I actually have a few surveys that I do, interactions with the students.
After they've been exposed to the history, I ask them, well, you've learned all the different
approaches to international trade.
Are you a free trader?
Are you a fair trader?
(10:04):
Are you a protectionist?
It's interesting to get the feedback from the students and have that discussion.
I just want to have them aware of that when they leave these courses and when they finish
these actual chapters in the various books.
For me, it's very satisfying to have had all these experiences and be able to translate
them into basic understanding for the average person so they know when they're hearing a
(10:28):
politician talk about, oh, protectionism is good for our country, they have a background
to say, well, is that really our history?
For some people it works, for others, we need to look at the big picture.
What do we learn from history?
Going back to Michelle's question about cultural within the United States, when you traveled
internationally, I'm sure there were a lot of cultural differences and changes.
(10:54):
What was that like to have to meet people from a lot of different countries?
I've been sending them to business with you, too.
That's what really attracted me to the field of international trade and international business
because there's so many variables, nothing is ever the same.
You have to learn about the different cultures that are going to be successful in doing business
(11:16):
there.
In chapter two in the trade director diaries, I talk about doing business in Japan.
In Japan, in many Asian cultures, you don't just arrive, meet your potential business
partner and sign a contract and fly back home.
It's not like that.
You have to build relationships.
You have to build trust.
You have to go out and sing karaoke and have dinners.
(11:39):
It's a lengthy process.
It's a huge commitment.
You have to do your research.
Is this market really big enough to justify all this time and investment of money as well
as your time to develop this market?
Japan is one of the top five markets globally.
It's really important.
I had the same experience in Mexico.
Right after NAFTA was signed in the 90s, I took so many trade missions to Mexico City,
(12:06):
to Monterrey and Nuevo León and to Guadalajara.
There's so many Western US companies that had no connection to Mexico because it had
been perceived as an economy with limited potential for sales.
We had to start from the ground up.
Again, it's tiempo latino.
You don't just go to Mexico and start doing business.
You have to build relationships.
(12:27):
It's not quite as extreme as Japan, but it's still, there has to be trust.
There has to be willingness to work together and to get to know each other first before
we open the doors for business.
You have four titles of JRL, I believe.
Correct?
Four titles.
(12:48):
That's right.
What was your key motivation to create your own digital materials?
I was approached by one of your former colleagues, Mary Hem, and she reached out to me at a time
when I was frustrated with other materials that were out there.
There were good materials out there, but what I found with the traditional publishers model
(13:09):
was you write something and then four years later you do another edition, two years later
another edition, and you're always behind what's happening in your field.
For example, during that time, Brexit was a hot issue in the UK, and was Britain going
to leave the EU?
Was it going to leave the, what were the impacts of all that?
(13:30):
It's a very hot issue.
There were no publications discussing this because it was so up to the minute.
I thought when Mary approached me, I thought this would be great.
Here's my chance to take all my stories and put them in one place.
Here's a chance for me to frame the discussions, frame the education.
From my perspective, looking backwards, if I had known about the different schools of
(13:52):
thought from chapter one in economics, that would really help me understand.
As I learned the different theories, am I Keynesian?
Do I believe in government intervention?
Am I a classical economist who just feels that let the market decide that we shouldn't
be involved?
Am I a neoclassical economist during the Reagan administration, the Reaganomics, which is
(14:15):
a reinvention of classical economics for the 1980s?
All these different things, the training was really, it was very, I wanted to frame all
this for the students to make it easier for them.
I thought with Mary giving me this opportunity, I thought this is a great idea for me to organize
the way I want and bring some current videos into the publication and also to be able to
(14:43):
change it as often as I need to, which I love.
I don't have to wait for two years until the next publication deadline or edition to make
it work.
So students get up to the minute, sent trends, which is important.
Inflation is a hot issue right now.
We talk about why did Chairman Powell wait so long, the chairman of our Federal Reserve,
(15:03):
to begin reducing interest rates?
Normally you start intervening once interest rates, inflation gets above 2%.
He waited until it was like 8%, 9%.
That's a really good discussion we're having right now in the classes.
You have any tips or things that you help your students with in class to prepare them
(15:26):
for a trade director life?
Yeah, that's part of my job as a tenured economics instructor at Mount Hood Community College.
Part of my job is advising.
I have to advise the students.
A lot of them come to me.
I just had one student who decided to major in economics as a result of these courses.
(15:47):
And he's just one.
I actually created a scholarship at the college.
All of my royalties for the books that I sell to the college go directly into a scholarship
fund for students for econ majors.
So I'm trying to encourage the next generation to really focus on this area and really build
core competencies and contribute to the field.
(16:08):
So it's kind of interesting to help students along that journey to give them advice about
what schools to go forward to, what bachelor's programs have the best programs for international
trade and international business or economics in general.
So that's a very satisfying part of the job for me as well.
Yeah.
When it comes to some of the methods you learned at LSE, for example, that Socratic method,
(16:33):
are you able to apply that method to your own courses?
Oh, very much so.
It's a little harder in the asynchronous courses where we're not really interacting via Zoom
or in person.
But now things are opening up again.
I'll be back teaching some in-person classes this winter and this next spring back on campus.
(16:54):
So I typically bring the publication up on the screen and we'll talk about the learning
objectives.
We'll talk about the material.
We'll watch the videos.
And then we'll have some discussions.
And that's part of the Socratic.
I learned more from that when I was in grad school than studying PowerPoints and reading
the book and highlighting the book and the old fashioned way of absorbing a lot of information.
(17:16):
What I love about this format is it's very modern and allows the students to use all
this material that are at their fingertips to learn and to move forward in their careers.
Right.
You kind of started talking about my next question, which is what kinds of things did
you not like about other books that you made sure that you included in your books?
(17:39):
Yeah.
I think the key thing for me was the ability to edit it and add new material.
And Brexit's been one example where we've gone back and as it's evolved, added new material,
especially to the trade director diaries and to the micro text.
But it's a lot of work.
(18:00):
It took a lot of time.
My first book that I did was the micro book.
My advice to any instructor considering this would be to choose a chapter that you're really
passionate about.
It's easier to write about things you really love.
Of course, no surprise, I chose the international trade chapter.
I had like 12 learning objectives and went on and on for pages and pages because I had
(18:22):
a lot to say and a lot of experience.
I was excited to have my best practices, all my experiences put somewhere finally where
it can be of use and not just in my head.
The flexibility is great.
The ability to structure the book, which you think makes the most sense based on your experience.
(18:44):
All my chapters started with, let's talk about the history first.
Let's talk about the schools of thought.
I wish I'd had that when I was a freshman in college.
That's a follow-up to my next question, which is if we have aspiring authors listening,
what were the pros and cons of that development process for you?
(19:09):
For me, it was worth giving it a try.
You have to be super disciplined.
When you have a participation agreement in place, you map out, I'm going to finish chapter
one this week and chapter two this week.
Or maybe I'm going to go to chapter seven first and then finish chapter eight, whatever.
For me, I'm at my most creative part in the morning.
(19:30):
I can sit down and close everything off and just focus on the writing.
I'd spend about one or two hours a day each weekend just cranking out the various chapters
on various topics.
You have to be disciplined.
The cool thing is your editors really are super in terms of helping us map out a plan.
We can adapt it as we go forward, but there's a lot of support there.
(19:57):
I was amazed by that.
You have editors to help with the actual writing and production of the content, but then you
have also creative graphic people that can help choose the right images and all that.
It's a beautiful partnership where we all work together.
Once you've done one, it was easy for me to do the other three.
(20:18):
I had a pretty good sense of what the workload was going to be.
I tried to do this during the summer when I wasn't quite so busy teaching.
That makes a big difference as well.
Do you feel like your teaching style has changed now that you have your own publications that
you're using?
Or do you feel like they're just an aid to what you were already doing?
I'd say it's more the latter.
(20:39):
I've always been a Socratic method instructor.
Some of my students get freaked out by that because they're used to, in high school, having
their professors spoon feed them everything.
Here's a PowerPoint.
Let me go through.
You don't have to do anything.
Just come to class and breathe.
My class is expected to do all that before you get to class.
Then we have really good discussions about what's happening in the current environment.
(21:01):
There's one exercise we do in macro where I actually have them, after we've had all
the training about fiscal versus monetary policy, how do you manage a macroeconomic
economy?
I have them.
I assign them a country.
I make them the economic czar.
You're in charge of the US of fiscal and monetary policy.
First of all, who's in charge of fiscal policy for the US and who's in charge of monetary
(21:23):
policy?
I created this video of a 747 showing what it takes to manage an economy.
We actually produced it together with GRL.
The students love that because if the plane's going too fast, you crash the economy.
If the plane's going too slow, you crash the economy.
We have four engines, two on each side of the wings to guide the economy.
(21:46):
They love that kind of analogy.
I have them jump in and they make advice to the political leadership of these various
countries what should be done or maybe congratulations for doing what you're doing.
They walk out of the class with a really clear understanding of how economics works.
It's hard to get people excited about economics.
(22:09):
It's typically viewed as the dismal science.
If you ever saw the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, there's one scene where it's the
economics professor teaching the students that are in the time out and they're all falling
asleep and he's teaching monetary and fiscal policy.
I figure if I can make it more interesting, I'm going to take that as a win.
(22:32):
Yeah.
It's funny that you say that because I took micro and macro when I was in college.
I don't remember any of it.
I remember all of my classes except that.
I wish I remembered more of it now as an adult because obviously it's a lot more applicable
once you are in the workforce and you're paying more attention to world policy and all of
(22:53):
that.
Now I'm like, wow.
My brother though, he was an econ major.
I just have to text him and ask him.
That's great.
Just reach out to me.
I'm happy to help with any questions.
Sounds good.
Yeah.
I know.
For me, it was the same.
I think I'm going to stick with it because I've had some professors that my first international
trade course was it was just we spent an entire semester on the theory of comparative advantage.
(23:16):
It's an important theory, but it's not really relevant to today.
We're talking about the 1700s of UK versus America.
We never saw his face.
He was up at the board doing X, Y, X, X, Y, X, supply, demand, equilibrium.
It's like a major head kind of hurry after a while.
But I stuck with it and I realized that it's important to understand this foundation.
(23:38):
Michael Porter at Harvard kind of took that and modernized it and made it more in the
1980s and 90s.
He wrote this book called The Competitive Advantage of Nations.
I quote a lot of this in my books.
We talk about what does it take to be a successful country economically in today's 21st century?
(24:02):
It's about focusing on industry clusters and putting energy in areas where there's technology
being applied.
We want the higher quality jobs being created using technology as the major input.
So he was way ahead of the curve in that in the late 80s and 90s.
It's still that his cluster theories are really it makes it more relevant to today's economies.
(24:24):
Yeah.
Speaking of technology, this is a new question that we're really asking.
That is, what do you see the effect of generative AI like CHAD GPT and its role, one, in your
classroom and two, its effects on the global economy?
Yeah, it's a little scary.
(24:45):
One of my cousins is a tenured professor at University of British Columbia in the sciences.
A lot of his students are writing papers.
So the AI is generating all the papers.
It's really creating quite a trauma in that particular field.
In my field, the students are graded based on competency in understanding the various
(25:11):
learning objectives.
They're taking quizzes.
They're taking final exams.
So there's not a lot of writing other than the writing is that we have discussion questions
in our forum on Blackboard every week.
They have to respond to each other and respond to my questions.
I haven't really seen AI too much.
I'm sure it's creeping in.
I'm sure it's there as a threat.
But it's there.
(25:33):
We have to deal with it.
It's not going away.
So for me, it hasn't really affected us so much in economics.
But I'm sure in writing classes, science classes, where you're writing a lot of essays,
I'm sure there's going to be some new technology developed to identify it and deal with it.
That's what's been the trend in the past.
(25:54):
We had special software to help identify this and to put a stop to it.
Because all the students are doing there is cheating themselves.
You're there to learn.
You want to learn these skills so you can take them forward into your life.
Absolutely.
Oh, great.
And I'm just I'm interested in how this broad and accessible AI is going to affect a broad
(26:19):
range of industries too.
Yes, it's interesting.
It's the fourth wave.
In economics, we call this the fourth wave, the emergence of AI.
And I talk about that in the books.
It's there.
And we have to be aware of it.
And technology is going to have a huge impact over the next 100 years plus.
We'll have to take you up on your offer of contacting you with questions.
(26:43):
Oh, yeah, please.
Anytime.
I love it.
I love to talk, as you can see.
I'm in the right field.
I had a couple more things I wanted to ask you about your trade missions and traveling.
I was wondering, like, did you travel with an interpreter for a lot of these missions?
Or do you did you learn a lot of new languages?
(27:05):
Yeah, languages are not my skill.
Ironically, you know, being an international trade, international business, I learned that
early on.
I barely made it through French, right?
And I tried to learn Chinese.
I just gave up.
It was just too much.
Right.
So the key thing is you learn in this field the key priority of having partners.
And so anytime we bring a governor to China or to another country where English was not
(27:29):
the main language, we'd hire interpreters.
And we're class A interpreters.
If it was a really serious big meeting with a high level political or business official.
But most people at that level have studied English at university.
So it was rarely an issue.
But in formal meetings, you had to have interpreters, right?
And you hired the best to make sure there's no miscommunication.
(27:52):
Right.
That would be so stressful.
Just worrying about whether or not you're communicating your true intention.
Yes.
That's high stakes.
Was there ever a case where knowledge of or ignorance of the local norms either cost or
helped a mission that you were on?
Well, you know, Secretary Jim Fame in North Carolina was just amazing.
(28:14):
He was so he just worked so hard.
Right.
We do the briefing packets and he'd be working up to the minute to add whatever was in the
current newspaper articles that morning into his speeches to show he was in tune with what's
happening in that community.
We had 9-11 that just happened.
(28:35):
And we were just we were all kind of freaked out.
We were planning a major trade mission to Japan.
It was actually a regional mission.
We had there's an organization called SEUS, Southeast U.S.-Japan Organization.
And it was started post-World War II to strengthen relationships between southern states and
Japan in the area of foreign direct investment and trade development.
(28:58):
And every year they would like one of the southern states would host it and then it
would go back to another region of Japan and vice versa.
So it's a big long term deal.
I'm sure it's still going on.
So we we had a decision to make.
It was about a week or two after 9-11.
Then we canceled the mission.
Right.
And all the other states that were on this mission with us or seven other states, they
all canceled.
And I advised the secretary, I said, look, you know, this is probably the safest time
(29:21):
ever to travel in the history of aviation travel.
It's going to be super, super safe.
I think it's our role as government leaders to establish confidence and stability back
into the market.
So I think it really makes sense for us.
I think we'll make a bigger impact if we go ahead.
It may not be perfect.
But we don't we shouldn't require people to come with us or they don't want to come.
(29:44):
We lost about two thirds of our mission.
But a day or two before we left, quite a few people decided to come along at the last minute
and they were really glad they did.
But when we arrived in Japan, normally we would meet with like the senior vice president
of corporations or we'd meet with these various mid-level managers.
We met with the president of every corporation because we're the only ones there.
And there was such outpouring of sadness and concern and empathy for what happened.
(30:11):
And it's just it was he was amazing.
He was he was on like the Today Show of Japan.
We had was just an amazing experience.
And that was we had that hard discussion.
And I'm so glad we came to that conclusion.
I gave him the strong advice that we should go for it.
Other people were saying, no, no, it's too scary.
No, we shouldn't do it.
Now let's push it a year.
And that was I'll never forget that because it was a really incredible mission.
(30:31):
We actually went from Tokyo to Nagoya, where it's in center of automotive industry for
Toyota.
And we again, we've had long term relationships with Toyota.
They we've had a lot of Japanese investment into North Carolina at the period.
No big no big plants like there's no big Mercedes never came.
Toyota never came.
(30:52):
Nissan never came.
We North Carolina was unwilling to give the excessive incentives to make that work.
Right.
So we would get like the smaller suppliers.
But anyway, we met with ICE and AW, which is a they made transmissions for Toyota's.
Right.
And we went out karaoke and oh, my God, it was also stressed out and exhausted.
(31:15):
But we made the really strong connection with them during that particular mission.
And they decided to invest in North Carolina as a result of that.
Virginia was on the table.
They they stayed home.
You know, they missed the opportunity.
We were able to translate that courage and that leadership into actual jobs that were
being created in North Carolina as a result.
(31:36):
That's my that's my positive story.
My negative story.
Oh, boy, I had I won't tell you the state.
You had I had one senior political official from the US.
I'll leave it at that, who was quite colorful.
And you know, we had we had a delegate.
We had the ambassador from Japan arriving.
And I was trying really hard to again, strengthen relationships, cultural relationships, you
(32:00):
know, you know, educational relationships.
All these things are important for that attract Japanese investment to this particular state.
We had to, you know, you couldn't just flip a switch.
You had to there had to be a cultural commitments or to be educational commitments.
A big deal.
So we had the ambassador coming, which is a really big deal.
And we the political figure agreed to meet with me and to meet with the ambassador.
(32:27):
And we arrived at the point we were all going to meet up.
And he this person arrived with an entourage of people that I didn't know.
I mean, I'm like, you know, time out.
Can we like talk a little bit about what's going on?
We're meeting the ambassador in like 20 minutes.
And, you know, we've been through this is a very formal process, even though he's you
know, he understands Americans and understands America.
(32:50):
You know, we still have to be respectful to the cultural processes of Japan.
And you'll be in the room by yourself talking to him and hear your talking points.
I'm sure his staff has prepared talking points.
And this is how it's going to go.
Right.
Well, no, no, these, you know, these people are my friends and, you know, they they want
to be with me in this meeting.
I'm like, well, you know, this is right after the Kobe earthquake.
(33:12):
It happens.
Right.
So he made one comment.
Well, some of my friends want to donate to the Kobe, you know, fund to help rebuild Kobe
in Japan.
Like, oh, OK, I think I can sell this.
So they got the phone and call the ambassador said, look, it's a slight change of plans.
(33:32):
We have a small group of people who are friends of, you know, our senior political leader
who wish to donate to the Kobe fund.
Would you like me to accept the checks down here and you can meet the ambassador?
Can you commit this individual?
Oh, no, no, no, Peter.
Fine.
Bring them all up.
Come on up to this week.
We'll have a chat.
Well, so up they come.
I mean, very clear in the elevator.
(33:52):
Please keep conversation to a minimum.
This is a very formal meeting.
It's a very important, you know, we're trying to make headway with this ambassador.
It could lead to significant investment in our state and tourism and trade.
It's all in place.
You're a deputy as ambassadors.
So in we go, you know, they all they present, you know, the checks and they insist on photographs,
(34:16):
of course, which is ambassadors are very gracious.
And then, you know, we're supposed to go into the private room and the political leader
wants all these entourage with him in the room.
Right.
So I'm there trying to, you know, run interference.
And so we sit down and the first thing out of the political leaders mouth is, you know,
(34:36):
I really wish you had more time to spend, you know, in our particular city.
I have this amazing collection of Japanese internment camp furniture on my property.
And I'd really like to show you this property.
This collection is quite unique globally.
You know, and I'm like, oh my God, what?
(34:57):
I know it was really hard.
You know, everyone knew even the entourage knew that was the wrong thing to say.
Right.
But it was like, you know, luckily, this ambassador was pretty savvy.
He spent quite a bit of time in the U.S.
I'm sure we're a case in the Japanese Foreign Service, you know, training about what not
to do in a high level political meeting.
But my heart sank about 18,000 feet.
(35:18):
And I just stepped in at that point and took charge of the meeting.
And we focused on the talking points of the importance of trade, tourism and linkages
between this particular state and, you know, Japan.
So we got through it.
But boy, it was that was I'll never forget that experience.
And I think the students have told me they they like reading these stories.
(35:38):
You know, it's not just, you know, boring, you know, trade theory.
We have some practical.
That's what we call the diaries.
And it's interesting things that happen to us during that period of time, which I'm glad
we have a we have a place to for those stories now, which is the trade director diaries.
That is so stressful.
I can't imagine.
It's almost like a movie or like it's a great book.
(36:01):
It'd be great, you know, as a even if it was fiction, but it's real.
Yeah, it was it was not funny at the time.
I couldn't believe it was happening.
Oh, God, no, it's one of those things.
You can look back and laugh at it in the moment.
I wanted to die.
I did everything right.
I did all the talking points.
Keep it simple.
Focus, focus, focus.
(36:21):
You know, it just it was it was too much.
It was too funny.
And that that's just one example.
There are a lot of fun things.
And my other colleagues, you know, Liz Cleveland from the state of Mississippi had even more
outrageous experiences.
And Mary Regal had some experiences, too, from the state of Wisconsin.
So the three of us together recovered the south, the Midwest and the West.
It was of course, I traveled other states as well.
But we had it made for really it makes a really interesting read.
(36:44):
It goes back to the importance of learning history, of learning cultural norms and differences,
not only this profession, but across the board.
Yeah, true.
It's true.
In many fields, you have to have a broad background in all these areas, right, especially in international
business.
And that's what attracted me to it.
You had to know history.
(37:05):
You had to know culture.
You had to know marketing.
You know, you had to know law.
There are all these things that it was never, ever dull, never the same thing twice.
So that's where I go.
That's how I go.
This gray hair.
Were there any international ambassadors that embarrassed themselves or was it only Americans
that embarrassed themselves?
(37:26):
Well, in my experience, any high level political figures I met with were amazingly polished,
amazingly effective in their roles.
I can't think of any, not one that comes to mind.
That was a challenge for us.
Here we are in these smaller states with not a lot of international sophistication trying
(37:47):
to help these governors project the right image, focus on what was important so we could
generate jobs.
That was all about job creation in our respective states.
So some of us were more successful than others, but it was a learning curve.
Because back in the 50s and 60s, states didn't care about international.
(38:10):
It was all done at the federal level.
It became like in the 80s and 90s, they realized that there was all this opportunity for growth
and development, but we can't leave it to the feds.
We have to, each state has to promote their own best economic interests.
So it was an interesting time to be involved in all that.
Yeah.
Well, and I love talking about things like this because there are jobs that exist that
(38:34):
you didn't know.
I never knew that that was actually a job until I was researching you to prepare for
the podcast and looking at your publications.
And I'm like, oh, wow, that's a real thing that anyone could do if you go to school for
the right thing.
So that's what I like about talking with you and our other authors that we've done on the
(38:54):
podcast so far.
Yeah, just about professions and careers that you wouldn't know existed.
It was great.
I kind of stumbled onto it.
I always knew I wanted something international.
I had members of my family that were teachers globally, so they'd come back.
And when I was very young, I'd be exposed to their experience living in Nigeria or living
(39:15):
in Northern Canada or the Caribbean.
They had all these funny accents, funny clothes.
And I thought, wow, that's kind of interesting for a small town boy from New York state.
But it wasn't until I went to college that I realized there are careers out there where
you could do this full time.
And I really loved it.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed our conversation today.
(39:37):
I think we could have multiple podcasts.
Continue on.
We'd definitely like to have you on again sometime.
We'd love to.
It was so much fun.
Thank you both for your great questions and for the opportunity to promote the books.
I really appreciate that.
I'm happy to chat with you anytime.
It's always a pleasure.
Can I ask you one more question?
(39:58):
Of course, of course.
Yeah.
So we do this little spiel called You're Wrong at the end.
It's kind of your opportunity to rant about some kind of miscommunication or misunderstanding
that people have about the industries you've been in or economics in general.
So is there anything that kind of gets your goat?
(40:18):
Well, here's a chance to tell the world.
Well, the big thing for me is protectionism, right?
It's just like this, you know, during the Trump administration, he was pursuing aggressive
protectionist policies.
And for any student of economics, international economics, international trade, you know,
we've learned I mentioned earlier in the podcast about the Smoot-Hawley laws that were passed
(40:42):
post the beginning of the Great Depression in the early 30s.
And it just sent the world into an economic downward spiral.
So I was just shocked at how so many citizens had no recollection of this.
You say Smoot-Hawley, they don't know what you're talking about, right?
It's a more of an academic thing for historians or for economists.
But what I hate to see, what makes me crazy is, you know, if we're going to repeat the
(41:06):
same mistakes we've made back in the 1930s, we learned that was the worst thing to do.
The way you help economies recover is you focus on, you know, where we have comparative
advantage, right?
And, you know, technology, entrepreneurs, and we have to support entrepreneurs, we have
to use technology as a tool to help industries evolve.
And we don't want to, what we've seen historically is if you protect an industry, they don't
(41:29):
do anything.
They just go back and keep doing what they're doing and reaping in the profits.
You know, protectionism doesn't work, right?
We all are better off when there's competition.
I mean, not unbridled competition, you know, there's a balance.
That's why I view myself as a Keynesian economist, you know, that there's a role for regulation.
We needed regulation post 2008, you know, we had the housing crisis.
(41:51):
We needed, we had let those regulations go too loose, and we had to bring that back,
right?
So we needed some regulation, but not too much regulation, you know, so it's those are
my beefs, right?
And I just hate to see history repeat itself.
When we, you know, when we we've learned these lessons the hard way, you know, in during
the 20th century.
Yeah, that's good.
Thank you.
(42:11):
Thank you so much.
Okay, so it's great to meet you both.
I really enjoyed this.
Me too.
Thank you.
We'd like to thank Peter again for the lively discussion and for sharing his unique experience
with our audience.
Our conversation really stands on its own.
(42:34):
So I'll leave with my final thought.
Peter's emphasis on practical knowledge is invaluable.
And it is the retelling of these lived experiences that will ignite the next generation of a
economist and trade experts in a way that theory alone cannot match.
All of Peter's publications integrate practical knowledge and experiences, but trade director
(42:57):
diaries really delves into those tales of interfacing with local governments and sister
cities throughout the world.
Hands on real life examples are what capture students imagination and show them what is
possible for them in terms of future careers.
I think anyone who teaches economics and wants to showcase this avenue their students can
take should pick up this title.
(43:27):
Can I Get a Retake is hosted by Michelle Manneman and Michaela Albee.
The show is edited by Maggie Christensen.
Artwork for the podcast was designed by Michelle Manneman.
Our intro and outro music was created by Coma Media.
If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support the podcast, please subscribe,
share, rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
(43:51):
To join the conversation, you can find us on Instagram at Can I Get a Retake?
For show notes and episode transcripts, visit GreatRiverLearning.com slash podcast.
Welcome to Can I Get a Retake, where we explore the accomplishments of our innovative community.
(00:09):
Each month we speak with one of Great River Learning's higher ed instructors and authors.
Together we discuss trends in education, areas of study, and a variety of teaching styles
and philosophies.
My name is Michaela, your marketing coordinator.
My name is Michelle, your web design supervisor.
And this is Great River Learning's Can I Get a Retake?
(00:34):
Today on Can I Get a Retake, we are speaking with Peter Cunningham.
Peter is lead professor of economics at Mount Hood Community College in Oregon.
Peter received his bachelor of arts in international affairs from George Washington University
and a master's of science from the London School of Economics.
Peter has earned the National Association of Small Business International Trade Educators,
(00:57):
International Trade Educator of the Year award in 2022.
He has over 30 years experience in economics and international trade, directing state international
trade operations, and advising multiple US governors and mayors in international trade
policy.
Most importantly, but we're biased, Peter is the author of four GRL titles, Introduction
(01:20):
to Economics, Principles of Macroeconomics, and Principles of Microeconomics in a Contemporary
Context, The Impact of China, Brexit, and the USMCA on the Economy.
His latest title with GRL is Trade Director Diaries, Real Life Experiences Navigating
International Trade.
(01:48):
Have you ever been asked, can I get a retake?
No, I haven't.
I've never, usually I get my takes in the first time so I don't have to do a retake.
Then we'll just ask you to launch into your background and how you came to be where you
are now as an educator.
Cool.
Well, you know, I started my studies college at George Washington University.
(02:13):
I always knew I wanted to do something internationally, but it wasn't until I took my first intro
to international business course that I realized that this is trade and business, economics.
This is something that I really have a passion for and what I'd like to devote my career
to.
So for the first, I'd say two thirds of my career, I worked in government, mostly state
(02:34):
government, federal government, helping US governors come up with effective trade policy
and economic policy to deal with the challenges of globalization.
And I wrote a lot about that in my fourth book, The Trade Director Diaries.
So it was an interesting pathway.
I really love the content, the training at George Washington.
I did my master's work at the London School of Economics, which really is a whole different
(02:59):
approach to education and really helped me via the Socratic method become much more inquisitive.
And I really love that form of teaching.
And then I started teaching sort of part time back in the mid 80s.
Love that too.
I just had this second career going.
So when I decided to retire from the politics and from government, it made sense for me
(03:26):
to step into this full time role as a tenured economics instructor for Mount Hood Community
College.
So that's a quick snapshot of how I've gotten to where I am today.
Yeah.
And we really wanted to talk to you a bit about what that trade director role looks like.
So I guess, could you explain what did you do as a trade director?
What does that look like?
(03:47):
Yeah, it was a pretty, I started out as an international trade specialist, kind of as
a junior role.
And that position was more working with companies, helping them identify markets for their products
and services globally, helping to create jobs in the various states that I worked in.
That was a really great sort of foundation.
I got my first chance to work as a trade director for Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan.
(04:13):
I was working in Colorado as a trade specialist and I had a chance to meet him and he had
just been elected and wanted to do more for job creation for Wyoming and felt that this
would be a great way to put some energy into trade development, helping small and medium
sized companies in Wyoming find markets globally.
So that's how I got into that, helping to write marketing plans for the companies.
(04:34):
I wrote the marketing plan for the state.
It was a really interesting and exciting period of my career.
I have noticed that you have worked in different states across the country, totally different
regions.
Was there a lot of cultural difference even between the Southwest versus New England?
No question.
(04:54):
Yeah, I'm originally from upstate New York.
So I was pretty familiar with that part of the country, but moving to the South was a
big challenge for me, North Carolina.
I had a really good friend who was the trade director for Mississippi.
We actually wrote one of the books together, Liz Cleveland, and she made me do a test of
what it takes to be a Southerner.
Of course, I failed it horribly.
(05:17):
I think what really helped shape me throughout my career was I learned all the content and
knowledge from the academic training and the practical experience at West as a director
and specialist.
Then I had this amazing boss in North Carolina, Secretary Jim Fain, who ran the Department
of Commerce for North Carolina.
(05:38):
He was a very distinguished statesman and just very cool, calm.
He helped me take all my energy and enthusiasm for trade and my approach to life and be more
cool about it.
I had to adapt to the Southern culture.
I couldn't go in gangbusters like I had in previous states, in the Northeast or out West.
(06:03):
It was a really good training for me.
Probably one of the highlights of my career was working in North Carolina.
That was the height of globalization.
We lost so many jobs due to companies relocating their textile plants, their furniture plants,
all these different technology plants offshore to China, India, Vietnam.
We had to move quickly to figure out how to adjust to that economy.
(06:26):
All that was included in the book, the trade director diary, some of what I learned in
terms of that process.
I also saw that you were on a lot of different trade missions.
When you went abroad, what were your goals?
What was your goal to bring back to the governors and your plans in the State Department?
(06:48):
Yeah.
Well, again, we wrote this.
This is included in the book.
We have a whole section devoted to doing what it takes to organize a trade mission.
Trade mission is 101.
My first trade mission I led in the first time in the mid-80s, in 87, I was in Colorado.
I had, again, an amazing regional manager at the Department of Commerce, Sam Serato,
(07:10):
who gave me the opportunity to organize and lead this trade mission to Italy, Sweden,
and Holland, basically, so the Netherlands.
It was a challenging job.
Recruiting companies, getting them to commit so many resources.
Hiring companies for senior executives to be away from their company for so long.
It's a big job.
(07:31):
We scaled it down to basically about a two-week period.
We came back with $6 million in projected sales from the meetings that we had.
With a lot of work, Commerce has some amazing operations globally.
Their commercial operations based out of the US embassies and consulates.
It's their job to help small and medium-sized companies find partners to generate jobs in
(07:54):
various US states.
They were great.
It was a really wonderful experience.
The recruitment aspect was brutal, getting six-plus companies to make it worthwhile and
then to plan everything.
I had to go over to do an advance mission to make sure all the I's were dotted and T's
were crossed, meet my partners in the various locations.
We had a big success.
Again, a big highlight.
(08:14):
It gave me a taste for trade missions and really gave me an edge as I went on into my
career to work for various governors.
I had that experience under my belt.
I knew how to plan a governor's trade mission without too much trouble to various countries
globally.
I'm curious for your expertise when it comes to global trends, policies, markets.
(08:35):
What should the average layperson be aware of or be following?
One of my favorite chapters that I wrote in both the micro book and the trade director
diary book is the international trade 101.
Where we go from back to Ricardo when he was the original developer of comparative advantage
(08:59):
theory in the 1700s.
We start with that and we come to modern day.
How do we deal with the challenges of globalization today?
Basically, there are a lot of... I try to frame the learning in a way that so students
walk away understanding the history, but they understand how it applies today.
(09:21):
We don't just want to know a bunch of theory from the 1700s.
We want to know, okay, why should I care about international trade today?
Why should the Smoot-Hawley Act in the 1930s be relevant today?
What did we learn in the 30s during the Great Depression when we raised the highest levels
of protectionism ever in the history of global economics?
What happened?
It was the worst economic downturn we've ever experienced.
(09:43):
There are lessons to be learned from history in trade.
I try to frame it in a way.
I actually have a few surveys that I do, interactions with the students.
After they've been exposed to the history, I ask them, well, you've learned all the different
approaches to international trade.
Are you a free trader?
Are you a fair trader?
(10:04):
Are you a protectionist?
It's interesting to get the feedback from the students and have that discussion.
I just want to have them aware of that when they leave these courses and when they finish
these actual chapters in the various books.
For me, it's very satisfying to have had all these experiences and be able to translate
them into basic understanding for the average person so they know when they're hearing a
(10:28):
politician talk about, oh, protectionism is good for our country, they have a background
to say, well, is that really our history?
For some people it works, for others, we need to look at the big picture.
What do we learn from history?
Going back to Michelle's question about cultural within the United States, when you traveled
internationally, I'm sure there were a lot of cultural differences and changes.
(10:54):
What was that like to have to meet people from a lot of different countries?
I've been sending them to business with you, too.
That's what really attracted me to the field of international trade and international business
because there's so many variables, nothing is ever the same.
You have to learn about the different cultures that are going to be successful in doing business
(11:16):
there.
In chapter two in the trade director diaries, I talk about doing business in Japan.
In Japan, in many Asian cultures, you don't just arrive, meet your potential business
partner and sign a contract and fly back home.
It's not like that.
You have to build relationships.
You have to build trust.
You have to go out and sing karaoke and have dinners.
(11:39):
It's a lengthy process.
It's a huge commitment.
You have to do your research.
Is this market really big enough to justify all this time and investment of money as well
as your time to develop this market?
Japan is one of the top five markets globally.
It's really important.
I had the same experience in Mexico.
Right after NAFTA was signed in the 90s, I took so many trade missions to Mexico City,
(12:06):
to Monterrey and Nuevo León and to Guadalajara.
There's so many Western US companies that had no connection to Mexico because it had
been perceived as an economy with limited potential for sales.
We had to start from the ground up.
Again, it's tiempo latino.
You don't just go to Mexico and start doing business.
You have to build relationships.
(12:27):
It's not quite as extreme as Japan, but it's still, there has to be trust.
There has to be willingness to work together and to get to know each other first before
we open the doors for business.
You have four titles of JRL, I believe.
Correct?
Four titles.
(12:48):
That's right.
What was your key motivation to create your own digital materials?
I was approached by one of your former colleagues, Mary Hem, and she reached out to me at a time
when I was frustrated with other materials that were out there.
There were good materials out there, but what I found with the traditional publishers model
(13:09):
was you write something and then four years later you do another edition, two years later
another edition, and you're always behind what's happening in your field.
For example, during that time, Brexit was a hot issue in the UK, and was Britain going
to leave the EU?
Was it going to leave the, what were the impacts of all that?
(13:30):
It's a very hot issue.
There were no publications discussing this because it was so up to the minute.
I thought when Mary approached me, I thought this would be great.
Here's my chance to take all my stories and put them in one place.
Here's a chance for me to frame the discussions, frame the education.
From my perspective, looking backwards, if I had known about the different schools of
(13:52):
thought from chapter one in economics, that would really help me understand.
As I learned the different theories, am I Keynesian?
Do I believe in government intervention?
Am I a classical economist who just feels that let the market decide that we shouldn't
be involved?
Am I a neoclassical economist during the Reagan administration, the Reaganomics, which is
(14:15):
a reinvention of classical economics for the 1980s?
All these different things, the training was really, it was very, I wanted to frame all
this for the students to make it easier for them.
I thought with Mary giving me this opportunity, I thought this is a great idea for me to organize
the way I want and bring some current videos into the publication and also to be able to
(14:43):
change it as often as I need to, which I love.
I don't have to wait for two years until the next publication deadline or edition to make
it work.
So students get up to the minute, sent trends, which is important.
Inflation is a hot issue right now.
We talk about why did Chairman Powell wait so long, the chairman of our Federal Reserve,
(15:03):
to begin reducing interest rates?
Normally you start intervening once interest rates, inflation gets above 2%.
He waited until it was like 8%, 9%.
That's a really good discussion we're having right now in the classes.
You have any tips or things that you help your students with in class to prepare them
(15:26):
for a trade director life?
Yeah, that's part of my job as a tenured economics instructor at Mount Hood Community College.
Part of my job is advising.
I have to advise the students.
A lot of them come to me.
I just had one student who decided to major in economics as a result of these courses.
(15:47):
And he's just one.
I actually created a scholarship at the college.
All of my royalties for the books that I sell to the college go directly into a scholarship
fund for students for econ majors.
So I'm trying to encourage the next generation to really focus on this area and really build
core competencies and contribute to the field.
(16:08):
So it's kind of interesting to help students along that journey to give them advice about
what schools to go forward to, what bachelor's programs have the best programs for international
trade and international business or economics in general.
So that's a very satisfying part of the job for me as well.
Yeah.
When it comes to some of the methods you learned at LSE, for example, that Socratic method,
(16:33):
are you able to apply that method to your own courses?
Oh, very much so.
It's a little harder in the asynchronous courses where we're not really interacting via Zoom
or in person.
But now things are opening up again.
I'll be back teaching some in-person classes this winter and this next spring back on campus.
(16:54):
So I typically bring the publication up on the screen and we'll talk about the learning
objectives.
We'll talk about the material.
We'll watch the videos.
And then we'll have some discussions.
And that's part of the Socratic.
I learned more from that when I was in grad school than studying PowerPoints and reading
the book and highlighting the book and the old fashioned way of absorbing a lot of information.
(17:16):
What I love about this format is it's very modern and allows the students to use all
this material that are at their fingertips to learn and to move forward in their careers.
Right.
You kind of started talking about my next question, which is what kinds of things did
you not like about other books that you made sure that you included in your books?
(17:39):
Yeah.
I think the key thing for me was the ability to edit it and add new material.
And Brexit's been one example where we've gone back and as it's evolved, added new material,
especially to the trade director diaries and to the micro text.
But it's a lot of work.
(18:00):
It took a lot of time.
My first book that I did was the micro book.
My advice to any instructor considering this would be to choose a chapter that you're really
passionate about.
It's easier to write about things you really love.
Of course, no surprise, I chose the international trade chapter.
I had like 12 learning objectives and went on and on for pages and pages because I had
(18:22):
a lot to say and a lot of experience.
I was excited to have my best practices, all my experiences put somewhere finally where
it can be of use and not just in my head.
The flexibility is great.
The ability to structure the book, which you think makes the most sense based on your experience.
(18:44):
All my chapters started with, let's talk about the history first.
Let's talk about the schools of thought.
I wish I'd had that when I was a freshman in college.
That's a follow-up to my next question, which is if we have aspiring authors listening,
what were the pros and cons of that development process for you?
(19:09):
For me, it was worth giving it a try.
You have to be super disciplined.
When you have a participation agreement in place, you map out, I'm going to finish chapter
one this week and chapter two this week.
Or maybe I'm going to go to chapter seven first and then finish chapter eight, whatever.
For me, I'm at my most creative part in the morning.
(19:30):
I can sit down and close everything off and just focus on the writing.
I'd spend about one or two hours a day each weekend just cranking out the various chapters
on various topics.
You have to be disciplined.
The cool thing is your editors really are super in terms of helping us map out a plan.
We can adapt it as we go forward, but there's a lot of support there.
(19:57):
I was amazed by that.
You have editors to help with the actual writing and production of the content, but then you
have also creative graphic people that can help choose the right images and all that.
It's a beautiful partnership where we all work together.
Once you've done one, it was easy for me to do the other three.
(20:18):
I had a pretty good sense of what the workload was going to be.
I tried to do this during the summer when I wasn't quite so busy teaching.
That makes a big difference as well.
Do you feel like your teaching style has changed now that you have your own publications that
you're using?
Or do you feel like they're just an aid to what you were already doing?
I'd say it's more the latter.
(20:39):
I've always been a Socratic method instructor.
Some of my students get freaked out by that because they're used to, in high school, having
their professors spoon feed them everything.
Here's a PowerPoint.
Let me go through.
You don't have to do anything.
Just come to class and breathe.
My class is expected to do all that before you get to class.
Then we have really good discussions about what's happening in the current environment.
(21:01):
There's one exercise we do in macro where I actually have them, after we've had all
the training about fiscal versus monetary policy, how do you manage a macroeconomic
economy?
I have them.
I assign them a country.
I make them the economic czar.
You're in charge of the US of fiscal and monetary policy.
First of all, who's in charge of fiscal policy for the US and who's in charge of monetary
(21:23):
policy?
I created this video of a 747 showing what it takes to manage an economy.
We actually produced it together with GRL.
The students love that because if the plane's going too fast, you crash the economy.
If the plane's going too slow, you crash the economy.
We have four engines, two on each side of the wings to guide the economy.
(21:46):
They love that kind of analogy.
I have them jump in and they make advice to the political leadership of these various
countries what should be done or maybe congratulations for doing what you're doing.
They walk out of the class with a really clear understanding of how economics works.
It's hard to get people excited about economics.
(22:09):
It's typically viewed as the dismal science.
If you ever saw the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, there's one scene where it's the
economics professor teaching the students that are in the time out and they're all falling
asleep and he's teaching monetary and fiscal policy.
I figure if I can make it more interesting, I'm going to take that as a win.
(22:32):
Yeah.
It's funny that you say that because I took micro and macro when I was in college.
I don't remember any of it.
I remember all of my classes except that.
I wish I remembered more of it now as an adult because obviously it's a lot more applicable
once you are in the workforce and you're paying more attention to world policy and all of
(22:53):
that.
Now I'm like, wow.
My brother though, he was an econ major.
I just have to text him and ask him.
That's great.
Just reach out to me.
I'm happy to help with any questions.
Sounds good.
Yeah.
I know.
For me, it was the same.
I think I'm going to stick with it because I've had some professors that my first international
trade course was it was just we spent an entire semester on the theory of comparative advantage.
(23:16):
It's an important theory, but it's not really relevant to today.
We're talking about the 1700s of UK versus America.
We never saw his face.
He was up at the board doing X, Y, X, X, Y, X, supply, demand, equilibrium.
It's like a major head kind of hurry after a while.
But I stuck with it and I realized that it's important to understand this foundation.
(23:38):
Michael Porter at Harvard kind of took that and modernized it and made it more in the
1980s and 90s.
He wrote this book called The Competitive Advantage of Nations.
I quote a lot of this in my books.
We talk about what does it take to be a successful country economically in today's 21st century?
(24:02):
It's about focusing on industry clusters and putting energy in areas where there's technology
being applied.
We want the higher quality jobs being created using technology as the major input.
So he was way ahead of the curve in that in the late 80s and 90s.
It's still that his cluster theories are really it makes it more relevant to today's economies.
(24:24):
Yeah.
Speaking of technology, this is a new question that we're really asking.
That is, what do you see the effect of generative AI like CHAD GPT and its role, one, in your
classroom and two, its effects on the global economy?
Yeah, it's a little scary.
(24:45):
One of my cousins is a tenured professor at University of British Columbia in the sciences.
A lot of his students are writing papers.
So the AI is generating all the papers.
It's really creating quite a trauma in that particular field.
In my field, the students are graded based on competency in understanding the various
(25:11):
learning objectives.
They're taking quizzes.
They're taking final exams.
So there's not a lot of writing other than the writing is that we have discussion questions
in our forum on Blackboard every week.
They have to respond to each other and respond to my questions.
I haven't really seen AI too much.
I'm sure it's creeping in.
I'm sure it's there as a threat.
But it's there.
(25:33):
We have to deal with it.
It's not going away.
So for me, it hasn't really affected us so much in economics.
But I'm sure in writing classes, science classes, where you're writing a lot of essays,
I'm sure there's going to be some new technology developed to identify it and deal with it.
That's what's been the trend in the past.
(25:54):
We had special software to help identify this and to put a stop to it.
Because all the students are doing there is cheating themselves.
You're there to learn.
You want to learn these skills so you can take them forward into your life.
Absolutely.
Oh, great.
And I'm just I'm interested in how this broad and accessible AI is going to affect a broad
(26:19):
range of industries too.
Yes, it's interesting.
It's the fourth wave.
In economics, we call this the fourth wave, the emergence of AI.
And I talk about that in the books.
It's there.
And we have to be aware of it.
And technology is going to have a huge impact over the next 100 years plus.
We'll have to take you up on your offer of contacting you with questions.
(26:43):
Oh, yeah, please.
Anytime.
I love it.
I love to talk, as you can see.
I'm in the right field.
I had a couple more things I wanted to ask you about your trade missions and traveling.
I was wondering, like, did you travel with an interpreter for a lot of these missions?
Or do you did you learn a lot of new languages?
(27:05):
Yeah, languages are not my skill.
Ironically, you know, being an international trade, international business, I learned that
early on.
I barely made it through French, right?
And I tried to learn Chinese.
I just gave up.
It was just too much.
Right.
So the key thing is you learn in this field the key priority of having partners.
And so anytime we bring a governor to China or to another country where English was not
(27:29):
the main language, we'd hire interpreters.
And we're class A interpreters.
If it was a really serious big meeting with a high level political or business official.
But most people at that level have studied English at university.
So it was rarely an issue.
But in formal meetings, you had to have interpreters, right?
And you hired the best to make sure there's no miscommunication.
(27:52):
Right.
That would be so stressful.
Just worrying about whether or not you're communicating your true intention.
Yes.
That's high stakes.
Was there ever a case where knowledge of or ignorance of the local norms either cost or
helped a mission that you were on?
Well, you know, Secretary Jim Fame in North Carolina was just amazing.
(28:14):
He was so he just worked so hard.
Right.
We do the briefing packets and he'd be working up to the minute to add whatever was in the
current newspaper articles that morning into his speeches to show he was in tune with what's
happening in that community.
We had 9-11 that just happened.
(28:35):
And we were just we were all kind of freaked out.
We were planning a major trade mission to Japan.
It was actually a regional mission.
We had there's an organization called SEUS, Southeast U.S.-Japan Organization.
And it was started post-World War II to strengthen relationships between southern states and
Japan in the area of foreign direct investment and trade development.
(28:58):
And every year they would like one of the southern states would host it and then it
would go back to another region of Japan and vice versa.
So it's a big long term deal.
I'm sure it's still going on.
So we we had a decision to make.
It was about a week or two after 9-11.
Then we canceled the mission.
Right.
And all the other states that were on this mission with us or seven other states, they
all canceled.
And I advised the secretary, I said, look, you know, this is probably the safest time
(29:21):
ever to travel in the history of aviation travel.
It's going to be super, super safe.
I think it's our role as government leaders to establish confidence and stability back
into the market.
So I think it really makes sense for us.
I think we'll make a bigger impact if we go ahead.
It may not be perfect.
But we don't we shouldn't require people to come with us or they don't want to come.
(29:44):
We lost about two thirds of our mission.
But a day or two before we left, quite a few people decided to come along at the last minute
and they were really glad they did.
But when we arrived in Japan, normally we would meet with like the senior vice president
of corporations or we'd meet with these various mid-level managers.
We met with the president of every corporation because we're the only ones there.
And there was such outpouring of sadness and concern and empathy for what happened.
(30:11):
And it's just it was he was amazing.
He was he was on like the Today Show of Japan.
We had was just an amazing experience.
And that was we had that hard discussion.
And I'm so glad we came to that conclusion.
I gave him the strong advice that we should go for it.
Other people were saying, no, no, it's too scary.
No, we shouldn't do it.
Now let's push it a year.
And that was I'll never forget that because it was a really incredible mission.
(30:31):
We actually went from Tokyo to Nagoya, where it's in center of automotive industry for
Toyota.
And we again, we've had long term relationships with Toyota.
They we've had a lot of Japanese investment into North Carolina at the period.
No big no big plants like there's no big Mercedes never came.
Toyota never came.
(30:52):
Nissan never came.
We North Carolina was unwilling to give the excessive incentives to make that work.
Right.
So we would get like the smaller suppliers.
But anyway, we met with ICE and AW, which is a they made transmissions for Toyota's.
Right.
And we went out karaoke and oh, my God, it was also stressed out and exhausted.
(31:15):
But we made the really strong connection with them during that particular mission.
And they decided to invest in North Carolina as a result of that.
Virginia was on the table.
They they stayed home.
You know, they missed the opportunity.
We were able to translate that courage and that leadership into actual jobs that were
being created in North Carolina as a result.
(31:36):
That's my that's my positive story.
My negative story.
Oh, boy, I had I won't tell you the state.
You had I had one senior political official from the US.
I'll leave it at that, who was quite colorful.
And you know, we had we had a delegate.
We had the ambassador from Japan arriving.
And I was trying really hard to again, strengthen relationships, cultural relationships, you
(32:00):
know, you know, educational relationships.
All these things are important for that attract Japanese investment to this particular state.
We had to, you know, you couldn't just flip a switch.
You had to there had to be a cultural commitments or to be educational commitments.
A big deal.
So we had the ambassador coming, which is a really big deal.
And we the political figure agreed to meet with me and to meet with the ambassador.
(32:27):
And we arrived at the point we were all going to meet up.
And he this person arrived with an entourage of people that I didn't know.
I mean, I'm like, you know, time out.
Can we like talk a little bit about what's going on?
We're meeting the ambassador in like 20 minutes.
And, you know, we've been through this is a very formal process, even though he's you
know, he understands Americans and understands America.
(32:50):
You know, we still have to be respectful to the cultural processes of Japan.
And you'll be in the room by yourself talking to him and hear your talking points.
I'm sure his staff has prepared talking points.
And this is how it's going to go.
Right.
Well, no, no, these, you know, these people are my friends and, you know, they they want
to be with me in this meeting.
I'm like, well, you know, this is right after the Kobe earthquake.
(33:12):
It happens.
Right.
So he made one comment.
Well, some of my friends want to donate to the Kobe, you know, fund to help rebuild Kobe
in Japan.
Like, oh, OK, I think I can sell this.
So they got the phone and call the ambassador said, look, it's a slight change of plans.
(33:32):
We have a small group of people who are friends of, you know, our senior political leader
who wish to donate to the Kobe fund.
Would you like me to accept the checks down here and you can meet the ambassador?
Can you commit this individual?
Oh, no, no, no, Peter.
Fine.
Bring them all up.
Come on up to this week.
We'll have a chat.
Well, so up they come.
I mean, very clear in the elevator.
(33:52):
Please keep conversation to a minimum.
This is a very formal meeting.
It's a very important, you know, we're trying to make headway with this ambassador.
It could lead to significant investment in our state and tourism and trade.
It's all in place.
You're a deputy as ambassadors.
So in we go, you know, they all they present, you know, the checks and they insist on photographs,
(34:16):
of course, which is ambassadors are very gracious.
And then, you know, we're supposed to go into the private room and the political leader
wants all these entourage with him in the room.
Right.
So I'm there trying to, you know, run interference.
And so we sit down and the first thing out of the political leaders mouth is, you know,
(34:36):
I really wish you had more time to spend, you know, in our particular city.
I have this amazing collection of Japanese internment camp furniture on my property.
And I'd really like to show you this property.
This collection is quite unique globally.
You know, and I'm like, oh my God, what?
(34:57):
I know it was really hard.
You know, everyone knew even the entourage knew that was the wrong thing to say.
Right.
But it was like, you know, luckily, this ambassador was pretty savvy.
He spent quite a bit of time in the U.S.
I'm sure we're a case in the Japanese Foreign Service, you know, training about what not
to do in a high level political meeting.
But my heart sank about 18,000 feet.
(35:18):
And I just stepped in at that point and took charge of the meeting.
And we focused on the talking points of the importance of trade, tourism and linkages
between this particular state and, you know, Japan.
So we got through it.
But boy, it was that was I'll never forget that experience.
And I think the students have told me they they like reading these stories.
(35:38):
You know, it's not just, you know, boring, you know, trade theory.
We have some practical.
That's what we call the diaries.
And it's interesting things that happen to us during that period of time, which I'm glad
we have a we have a place to for those stories now, which is the trade director diaries.
That is so stressful.
I can't imagine.
It's almost like a movie or like it's a great book.
(36:01):
It'd be great, you know, as a even if it was fiction, but it's real.
Yeah, it was it was not funny at the time.
I couldn't believe it was happening.
Oh, God, no, it's one of those things.
You can look back and laugh at it in the moment.
I wanted to die.
I did everything right.
I did all the talking points.
Keep it simple.
Focus, focus, focus.
(36:21):
You know, it just it was it was too much.
It was too funny.
And that that's just one example.
There are a lot of fun things.
And my other colleagues, you know, Liz Cleveland from the state of Mississippi had even more
outrageous experiences.
And Mary Regal had some experiences, too, from the state of Wisconsin.
So the three of us together recovered the south, the Midwest and the West.
It was of course, I traveled other states as well.
But we had it made for really it makes a really interesting read.
(36:44):
It goes back to the importance of learning history, of learning cultural norms and differences,
not only this profession, but across the board.
Yeah, true.
It's true.
In many fields, you have to have a broad background in all these areas, right, especially in international
business.
And that's what attracted me to it.
You had to know history.
(37:05):
You had to know culture.
You had to know marketing.
You know, you had to know law.
There are all these things that it was never, ever dull, never the same thing twice.
So that's where I go.
That's how I go.
This gray hair.
Were there any international ambassadors that embarrassed themselves or was it only Americans
that embarrassed themselves?
(37:26):
Well, in my experience, any high level political figures I met with were amazingly polished,
amazingly effective in their roles.
I can't think of any, not one that comes to mind.
That was a challenge for us.
Here we are in these smaller states with not a lot of international sophistication trying
(37:47):
to help these governors project the right image, focus on what was important so we could
generate jobs.
That was all about job creation in our respective states.
So some of us were more successful than others, but it was a learning curve.
Because back in the 50s and 60s, states didn't care about international.
(38:10):
It was all done at the federal level.
It became like in the 80s and 90s, they realized that there was all this opportunity for growth
and development, but we can't leave it to the feds.
We have to, each state has to promote their own best economic interests.
So it was an interesting time to be involved in all that.
Yeah.
Well, and I love talking about things like this because there are jobs that exist that
(38:34):
you didn't know.
I never knew that that was actually a job until I was researching you to prepare for
the podcast and looking at your publications.
And I'm like, oh, wow, that's a real thing that anyone could do if you go to school for
the right thing.
So that's what I like about talking with you and our other authors that we've done on the
(38:54):
podcast so far.
Yeah, just about professions and careers that you wouldn't know existed.
It was great.
I kind of stumbled onto it.
I always knew I wanted something international.
I had members of my family that were teachers globally, so they'd come back.
And when I was very young, I'd be exposed to their experience living in Nigeria or living
(39:15):
in Northern Canada or the Caribbean.
They had all these funny accents, funny clothes.
And I thought, wow, that's kind of interesting for a small town boy from New York state.
But it wasn't until I went to college that I realized there are careers out there where
you could do this full time.
And I really loved it.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed our conversation today.
(39:37):
I think we could have multiple podcasts.
Continue on.
We'd definitely like to have you on again sometime.
We'd love to.
It was so much fun.
Thank you both for your great questions and for the opportunity to promote the books.
I really appreciate that.
I'm happy to chat with you anytime.
It's always a pleasure.
Can I ask you one more question?
(39:58):
Of course, of course.
Yeah.
So we do this little spiel called You're Wrong at the end.
It's kind of your opportunity to rant about some kind of miscommunication or misunderstanding
that people have about the industries you've been in or economics in general.
So is there anything that kind of gets your goat?
(40:18):
Well, here's a chance to tell the world.
Well, the big thing for me is protectionism, right?
It's just like this, you know, during the Trump administration, he was pursuing aggressive
protectionist policies.
And for any student of economics, international economics, international trade, you know,
we've learned I mentioned earlier in the podcast about the Smoot-Hawley laws that were passed
(40:42):
post the beginning of the Great Depression in the early 30s.
And it just sent the world into an economic downward spiral.
So I was just shocked at how so many citizens had no recollection of this.
You say Smoot-Hawley, they don't know what you're talking about, right?
It's a more of an academic thing for historians or for economists.
But what I hate to see, what makes me crazy is, you know, if we're going to repeat the
(41:06):
same mistakes we've made back in the 1930s, we learned that was the worst thing to do.
The way you help economies recover is you focus on, you know, where we have comparative
advantage, right?
And, you know, technology, entrepreneurs, and we have to support entrepreneurs, we have
to use technology as a tool to help industries evolve.
And we don't want to, what we've seen historically is if you protect an industry, they don't
(41:29):
do anything.
They just go back and keep doing what they're doing and reaping in the profits.
You know, protectionism doesn't work, right?
We all are better off when there's competition.
I mean, not unbridled competition, you know, there's a balance.
That's why I view myself as a Keynesian economist, you know, that there's a role for regulation.
We needed regulation post 2008, you know, we had the housing crisis.
(41:51):
We needed, we had let those regulations go too loose, and we had to bring that back,
right?
So we needed some regulation, but not too much regulation, you know, so it's those are
my beefs, right?
And I just hate to see history repeat itself.
When we, you know, when we we've learned these lessons the hard way, you know, in during
the 20th century.
Yeah, that's good.
Thank you.
(42:11):
Thank you so much.
Okay, so it's great to meet you both.
I really enjoyed this.
Me too.
Thank you.
We'd like to thank Peter again for the lively discussion and for sharing his unique experience
with our audience.
Our conversation really stands on its own.
(42:34):
So I'll leave with my final thought.
Peter's emphasis on practical knowledge is invaluable.
And it is the retelling of these lived experiences that will ignite the next generation of a
economist and trade experts in a way that theory alone cannot match.
All of Peter's publications integrate practical knowledge and experiences, but trade director
(42:57):
diaries really delves into those tales of interfacing with local governments and sister
cities throughout the world.
Hands on real life examples are what capture students imagination and show them what is
possible for them in terms of future careers.
I think anyone who teaches economics and wants to showcase this avenue their students can
take should pick up this title.
(43:27):
Can I Get a Retake is hosted by Michelle Manneman and Michaela Albee.
The show is edited by Maggie Christensen.
Artwork for the podcast was designed by Michelle Manneman.
Our intro and outro music was created by Coma Media.
If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to support the podcast, please subscribe,
share, rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts.
(43:51):
To join the conversation, you can find us on Instagram at Can I Get a Retake?
For show notes and episode transcripts, visit GreatRiverLearning.com slash podcast.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.