October 20, 2025 • 49 mins
Today, the Two Mikes dive deep into America’s economic future with economists Ian Fletcher and Marc Fasteau, co-authors of Industrial Policy for the United States: Winning the Competition for Good Jobs and High-Value Industries. This episode dismantles the globalist free trade orthodoxy that’s gutted U.S. manufacturing and empowered Communist China.
Follow Two Mikes on Pickax: https://pickax.com/twomikes
Get your FREE Gold & Silver Guide from My Gold Guy: https://mygoldguy.com/twomikes
Follow Two Mikes on Pickax: https://pickax.com/twomikes
Get your FREE Gold & Silver Guide from My Gold Guy: https://mygoldguy.com/twomikes
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, listen, we want to thank everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We're going on a fifth year now and five hundred
and fifty plus shows. How do you like that? Go
to the website Network Radio dot Us, Network Radio dot
Us or our website has it all. Toomikes dot Comtomikes
dot com you get everything rumbled Network Radio Freedom first,
Maverick wherever we are, and then you can go to
(00:25):
the America out Loud dot Newsamerica Outloud dot News website
and listen to our show we do every Monday night,
Doctor Mike and I. We do the National Security out
We're the first of five shows. Great host on that network.
By the way, Oh we're cranking man on listener notes
National Security. I was right up there. But let me
tell you something. We want to thank every one of
your people, which is eighty percent in America and the
(00:49):
twenty other twenty percent is around the globe. We are
now one point two the top one point two percent
of podcasts in the world, inclusive America in the world. Okay,
we are now one point two percent of three million,
six hundred thousand podcasts. How's that? Thank you very much,
(01:13):
And on the score we're forty two or forty five,
so that goes from one to one hundred, so we're halfway.
But I mean we rarely kicked ass. Thank you very
very much. No matter where you are around the globe,
on Apple, Rumble, Bumblebee, what you whatever app you have,
We're on every app. Okay, iHeartRadio, We're on all of them,
(01:34):
tune in, you name it. So we want to thank you,
and please go to our website and look at the archives.
A lot of shows, a lot of good people, great
things going on, and what else housekeeping again always tomikes
dot Comtomikes dot com. You can see our latest shows,
and we want to thank you again one more time.
(01:56):
Go to the website and make a comment on the
blog whatever you want to do, and we appreciate it,
and we want to thank Faddy once again. By four
(02:35):
three two to one, Hey, welcome back. You're own with
two Mikes, doctor Michael Schuyer, New York's Times best selling
author and Colonel Mike. And before we get to today's show,
don't forget to go to two Mikes tw o Mike's
dot us, two Mikes dot Us, visit the website, say
hello to the sponsors, say hello to the blog. See
the last couple of hundred shows we did, I don't
(02:55):
know we did. We had Leonardo up there recently and
we did Ed Dutton's going up by the way this week.
All righty, So he's back with us from Finland, all right,
and today we're going back to books. We got two
interesting people here on the show today, Ian Fletcher and
Mark fast Though, and doctor Mike is going to do
the intro for their book. Very interesting. I'm going to
(03:17):
ask questions about why did did Donald Trump get a
copy of this? And this was recommended by a friend
of ours, Dan Black, who sends us guests from time
to time. We want to thank you Dn. So let's
say hello to Mark Fastao and Ian Fletcher. One is
on the west coast, one is on the east coast,
and as you know, Mike and I are in the valley.
Good morning, good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
We're good?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Thank you great?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All right?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So Mike, why don't you intro the book and let's
ask some questions about this book? Sounds good, all right.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
I think that's the best way to introduce the book,
which sounds like a fascinating book, is to read the
overview of it. And so I'll do that. The US,
according to this book, is losing the competition for good
jobs and high value industries because most of Washington believes
trade should be free, the dollar should float, and that
(04:11):
innovation comes exclusively from the private sector. In this book,
the authors make the bold case that these laissez faire
ideas have failed, and that a robust industrial policy is
the only way for America to remain prosperous and secure.
Trump and Biden have enacted some of its elements, but
it meets, but it needs to be made systematic and comprehensive,
(04:33):
including tariffs to protect key industries, a competitive exchange rate,
and federal support for commercialization not just invention of new technologies. Timely,
meticulously researched, and bipartisan, this impressive analysis replaces misunderstandings about
industrial policy with lucid explanations of its underlying economic theory,
(04:57):
the tools that are used to implement it, and its
successes and failures in America and abroad. The book examines
key industries of the past and future, steel, automobiles, television, semiconductors, space, aviation, robotics,
and nanotechnology. It concludes with a real, realistic, actionable policy roadmap.
(05:20):
I founded a work of vigor and ambition industrial industry.
Industrial policy for the United States is clearly essential reading
for all. I don't think I've seen many reviews better
than that one.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
All right, so Mark, give us a little bit of background,
and Ian give us your background, and then we'll go
to it.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Go ahead, Okay, you mean our personal backgrounds? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, Okay. Well,
I'm a lawyer by training. I worked on the hill
between college and law school. I took a bunch of
economics and college, and I've been a practice briefly as
an investment banker for fourteen years. Then I started an
(06:04):
insurance company. We eventually sold it to Progressive. It became
their homeowners company, and then I've been on you know,
I got used to interested in government policy stuff when
I was in d C about twenty years ago. I
started thinking, you know, what's happening to our working class?
I mean, where are all those jobs going? And they
(06:27):
started were starting to go to China, obviously, and that
got me thinking about this subject. So I've been sort
of on it, writing stuff, lobbying. I am now one
of the vice chairmen of the Coalition for a Prosperous America,
(06:47):
which is the leading think tank and lobbying organization for
a sound industrial policy.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Nice.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Nice is that located in Washington, Yes, it is. You're
off the screen. By the way, if you want to
hit a button and get back on a screen, diego.
When you said you were practicing, I thought you meant
practicing the screen. I'm just joking. I know. We have
one listener and guests who's going to be very interested
(07:18):
in this because he writes a lot about all these
jobs went overseas and moved to China or in different places,
and there's no more forty hour work week and over
time in two weeks, vacation and golden watch at the
end of twenty years, you know, and he's going to
be interested in hear this. Okay, Ian, let's hear a
little bit about you.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, my background was originally in the IT business, and
in two thousand and seven I sat down to write
a book came out three years later entitled free Trade
Doesn't Work?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
What should Replace It?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And Why. When I started doing that, there were fewer
than ten intelligent people in the country I could even
talk to about criticizing free trade because it was so
much the gospel. It was the gospel from politics, it
was the gospel from the academics. It was what business
community wanted. You were just an idiot if you asked
(08:15):
any questions. Then six years after the book comes out,
you have mister T gets elected, and four years after
that Joe Biden and Trump pulls back from free trade.
He openly attacks it on the campaign trail, and then
after he gets into office he pushes through the biggest
(08:37):
protectionist turned in two generations in this country. And when
Biden was elected after him, I was afraid. I was
absolutely terrified. He was going to say, well, all this
protectionist stuff came from crazy mister T, and the guy's
a son of a bitch, so we got to get
rid of it. It's got to be bad policy. But
(09:00):
his heart, Biden kept the Trump protectionist moves and even
doubled down on a bit of it with one hundred
percent tariff on Chinese electric cars. So anyway, about the
time Trump got elected the first time, Mark and I
sat down to write the book that we're here to discuss,
(09:22):
which is industrial policy for the United States winning the
competition for good jobs and high value industries. And the
reason is, if you say okay, free trade is a mistake.
We're not going to do that. Well, that kind of
opens a whole can of worms of mainstream economics, which
(09:43):
is les a fair, ultra capitalist, neoclassical, neoliberal, a bunch
of different names people call it. Well, that whole economic
mentality isn't right. So the question is what's your overall strategy?
Just what do you do in terms of trade, but
(10:04):
what do you do in terms of your domestic economy.
And one of the interesting things we discover is prior
to World War Two, the US had been a lot
more into this active government support. Everybody knows about things
like the Transcontinental Railroad, but there was a lot more.
So that's how our book got written.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
In all of that history. The history you mentioned the
Transcontinental Railroad, that was all written by extremely protectionist governments.
It was all conducted under extremely.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Protectionist governments protections and the US goes right back to
Andrew Hamilton. You know, he was the first systematic US
advocate of it.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The Lincoln went to war to prevent free trade in
the South. So in a way, yes, he was pretty
much patron saint after Alexander Hamilton of protectionism.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
We was certainly in favor of big public projects to
justice the economy and move it forward. Question that was
the industrial policy of the day, and that, of course
you have to have a trade policy which messed with it,
which is really one of our biggest points. We both
got into this thinking as Ian said about well, what
(11:27):
trade policy should we have? Policy? Should we have tariff's
protectionism not protection? Well you really can't answer that effectively
unless you step back a level and you say, okay,
what kind of economy do we want?
Speaker 5 (11:44):
You're still not on the screen. If you want to
fix the camera, I'm looking at a wall. You want
to put your head on a screen. Maybe let's see
you can juggle with him.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And if you won't, that's my phone that keeps doing
that for the whole thing. Great, Okay, there we go.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
There you go, You're perfect.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Continue, go ahead. Okay, So you have to, as I said,
you have to decide what kind of economy you want,
not just this year, but next year. And that means
that you have to decide what industries are important both
short term long term for national security, for indirectly to
(12:34):
create good jobs and prosperous America for everyone, not just
a few, and what kind of you've got to fund
primary basic research and applied research so that you not
only have support the industries of today, which you are
(12:56):
in a position to develop, and then man you make
the industries of the future, the ones that are going
to come up with the next big thing that make
everybody in the country richer and more efficient. So that's
where you need to start, and then the trade policy
that you figure out should be tailored to mesh with
(13:18):
that to support those. For example, one of the things
that I don't think that the Trump administration has done
right is these across the board tariffs on countries. That
really doesn't make a lot of sense. There's no reason
to tariff shoes or t shirts or little frippery toys
(13:40):
and stuff that a lot of small businesses use. We
don't need to make that here. We can't do it efficiently,
and it does raise prices for those people in those
small businesses. So we can avoid that. So we should
focus on what we call the advantageous industries, from bioscience
(14:02):
to military technology. It's not that hard to figure out
what those industries are. Several presidents have had their science
committees come up with these lists. They're readily available, so
we need. It's a whole panoply of tools that needed
to be you can deploy to do that. We have
(14:23):
a whole chapter on the tools for industrial policy. And
the last point I'm making then I'll stop, is that
the policy has to be very industry oriented and very granular.
Different industries need different kinds of support. Sometimes it's short
term support, whether it's the very capital intensive long term
(14:46):
like new materials, for example, take a very long time
to develop and are critical, So it has to be
granul It's not just thought about. Shouldn't just be thought
about well financially financially financial support or not, tariffs or not.
If it's really to be efficient, experts in the government
collaborating with industry experts and irrelevant science people to really
(15:11):
do it right, Mark.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
I And to ask me a question, did any people
on the hill read this book?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Well, it's been circulated to a network people.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah. I'm the one who manages pushing the book out
to people at the high end. We've got a fair
number of high end people who've at least had a
copy of this book. I personally sent a copy to
Steve morand Myron I'm sorry, the chairman of the Council
of Economic Advisors, whether any of these guys have actually
(15:45):
read it, or whether it just sits on their nightstand,
or whether they use it as a door stop or
throw it away. I of course have no idea, but
we definitely have a high end readership. But it's a
big book. It'll take people a while to get through,
and books never translate directly into policy. But I did
say with my first book comes out in twenty ten,
(16:07):
saying free trade is a mistake, and three years later
I gave up. I thought the country was stuck on
free trade forever. But six years later the damn breaks
and everything is going the way I wanted it to.
So we'll be patient, but I think we're gradually getting
to people.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, there are people.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Both of you, Mark as well. I want to ask
you both a question. How do you feel about the
government going in and partnering opposite of going to the
private money? You know, I mean since you were investment banker,
what do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Well, again, it's all the details. Government in certain circumstances
can be a useful partner, especially if they have a
non voting share. Gives them a window into what's going
on and it will allow for better coordinate at the
(17:01):
top of the enterprise. I get a little nervous when
the government takes over and has a commanding interest can
call the shots. That's that was necessary during the two
thousand and eight plus bailout because they're basically not just
taking a stake, they're basically supporting the whole enterprise. But
(17:23):
the problem with if your golden share, you know, allows
you to control the board, is that management of a
company gets politicized, and that's rarely, rarely good. I mean,
if you have a wonderful non political bureaucracy, that's smart.
(17:46):
They can add value. So I don't think it's the
magic change whether they own a share or not. The
key is what are you doing, what's the plan and
how are you executing it? Does a plan actually make sense?
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Well, you know about the mic go ahead.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
We haven't exactly covered ourselves with glory. When when the
government has been involved in picking winners and losers, Well
that's you look over the country and you see these
these idiot wind turbines that are collapsing, or you being
used to transmit things back to China. The companies we
(18:26):
put billions of dollars into make Uh those panels, those
all went belly up within weeks or months. And uh,
and you know there also has to be if you're
going to mix the government with business, how do you
prevent corruption?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (18:48):
It's there's And I'm not I'm not arguing that you're wrong.
I just these are things that I wondered.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
About, Mike. I'm quite happy to argued that I'm wrong.
I bring ideas out and I'm prepared to respectfully defend them.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Well, that's good, sir. I'm happy to hear it, because
I have to admit that over the past two decades
I've gotten pretty joniced about government picking people or industries
or methods that should be applicable to us at all
in our whole economy.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Okay, first thing I would point out is I totally
agree with you that as a general rule, you don't
want to have government interference in the economy unless there's
a good reason for it. The things we're talking about
are things like, can we really live in a world
where our number one geopolitical adversary controls production of the
(19:45):
most advanced computer chips with which they can make robot
flying weapons that can attack the United States and defeat
US at will in any battlefield in the world. No,
of course, not so when you get quarnered into a
situation like that. Well, that's why the federal government partnered
with TSMC to bring production of these computer chips to
(20:08):
the US. That's why the federal government is now invested
in Intel, because we absolutely have to have that capability. Now,
in terms of the green energy technologies you mentioned, I
don't mean to tell you that you're wrong, but my wife,
as it so happens, works in the wind turbine business,
(20:31):
and I would respectfully suggest that wind turbines are actually
an effective technology that most of the criticisms leveled against
them are based on the performance they had twenty years ago.
And there's a reason why the number one state in
the Union for installing solar panels. Do you know what
(20:52):
it is. It's not liberal California, it's conservative Texas. Why
because they make economic sense. They're done right. They no
longer require a government subsidy.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
But here's the window, don't they, sir.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
We're talking about solar panels for a second. I'm going
to point out that the reason that photovoltaics, which are
the panels the things that operate off sunlight. The reason
those are economically viable and are being installed like gangbusters
in places like Texas and Florida is because their efficiency
(21:29):
has gone up by about ninety percent since the nineteen nineties.
And the reason this happened is because of two government
projects at the Department of Energy. The first one was
called sun Shot and the second was called which is
still going on, sun Shot twenty thirty. This is the
kind of governmental investment in developing technology that we're in
(21:52):
favor of because if you can bring the performance of
these technologies to the point where they're economically viable, you're
absolutely correct. You don't need a government subsidy. You don't
need government pushing the stuff. It will install itself because
it's profitable.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
So the other thing is that in terms of picking
winners and losers, it's rare that that's necessary. It's usually
for a nascent technology. The way to think about it
is you've got pure research. Nobody knows exactly what's going
to come out of it, but we have almost one
hundred years of well seventy years of history that that's
(22:32):
how the big things come from. That government has to
pay for that. Then you have more applied research, which
sometimes involved some significant government expenditures, but also requires collaboration
with the businesses. To come back to the wind turbines,
for example, the Energy department first study of it produced
(22:57):
some results, but they fail didn't work for all. The
second you'll see why that worked. The second study was
done instead of just by the department itself, directly in
collaboration with business and that's the step that got the
technology to the point where it was d risked enough
(23:20):
for the private sector to take over. And d risking
is a good way to think about this. The government
needs to be involved in new technologies, not just pure
science and not just the beginnings of commercial prototype, but
enough developing it far enough and supporting it enough, say
including with procurement, among many other tools, to the point
(23:44):
where I've done some mentor capal investing where vcs and
or strategic business investors are able and willing to take
the risk. The criteria are how risky is it and
what's how long do you have to go spend money
before you start getting money back. Every venture fund has
(24:06):
those limits. So that's why the government has to be
involved occasionally, you know, in these bailout situations which he
and alluded to. Boeing is certainly one intel is another
there the government is directly involved in supporting a particular company.
(24:28):
That is I think the core of what the objection
is that should be very rare. In a big economy
like the United States. We don't have to have a
single national champion and almost everything. Those those are two
where we do need them.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Well, Mark, I go back to the seventies when the
bailout worked.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
We had Leiah.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Coca, remember that. Yeah, Christ, Look, he salvaged Christ because
he was an automobile man. You know, he understood automobiles,
and you know, he saved the company for quite some time.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, he got government money to do it, but he
did it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
But and in fact he paid I think it was
during Jimmy Carter and then he paid it back in
advance too. And then eight came along, and then we
had the fiasco with the GM bailout where a lot
of people got you know, taken out on that deal
with the Obama administration. However, sometimes the bailout works, sometimes
it doesn't. But I agree with you guys in a
way that the government should be involved. Look, China is
(25:28):
involved with everything with their country. No matter who they are,
the front companies or the back companies. China is in
every aspect of the industries over there.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Oh for sure, I make some mistakes in doing it, obviously,
But the big picture here is if it's not like
we're operating, you know, in a world alone, if we
don't have an industrial policy which identifies these key industries
and supports them, and China do that, then we're basically
(26:02):
playing the role, the subordinate role that they assigned us
that they're all.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
I totally agree with you on it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, no, go ahead, and you want to.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Speak, Yeah, I want to talk for a second about
industries and where success in industries come from. Because people
often talk about the economy like it's one big, homogeneous lump.
You know, wrote is three percent, unemployment is four percent,
inflation is two percent whatever. An economy is made up
of industries. And I want to talk about for a second,
(26:36):
what are the best industries in America? That is what
two industries? Is the US most globally dominant in Okay,
in terms of global market share, in terms of superior technology,
in terms of profits, you name it. Well, our best
industries are space launch and then aviation. Now aviation is
(26:57):
run into a bit of trouble with Boeing, but space
launch like SpaceX, there's no Chinese equivalent to SpaceX. We
are head and shoulders above them. We're head and shoulders
above the Europeans. And it's a huge business. Now space
rockets are not this little thing like in the sixties
with the moon landing. I mean, it's a giant, multi
(27:19):
tens of billions dollars business. And if you look at
how that industry is set up in this country, it
violates all the rules that the neoliberal people will tell
you are correct. Like it has had massive government support
since John F. Kennedy and the first Space Program, huge
(27:40):
amounts of government support for the technology, not just the
pure science, but developing the technology, had massive governmental support.
And you know what, we ended up with a world
beating industry. Tell you, in other things, because of the
military implication of space rockets, okay, like a rocket that
(28:00):
can put a satellite in orbit is basically the same
technology that can drop an ICBM nuclear warhead on someone
else's head. Okay, So it's strictly controlled for national security
reasons that you can't export this stuff. And you also
can't have foreign parts in your supply chain. There's something
(28:20):
called ITAR. It stands for International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
It's US law that basically says SpaceX is not allowed
to put Chinese parts in their rockets. And it covers
a whole lot of other stuff. I mean, it would
apply to F twenty two stealth jet, you name it anyway.
The point is the space launch industry has just about
(28:40):
the most purely all American supply chain of any significant
industry in this country. And the Thomas Friedman types will
tell you that's a recipe for a disaster. You can't
do it that way because you can't buy the best
in the world. It's going to cost too much. You're
gonna have mediocre technology. It's going to suck. That is
(29:00):
what happened. So here we have an example of why
the kind of policies we advocate can, if you do
it right, lead to success. And the idea is that
the neo liberals, the laissez fare types, the globalists are
telling you just don't square with the facts.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I'd like to come back to the solar panel thing
for just a moment. Yes, those solar US solar companies
failed well, why did they fail? They failed because China
has been, was, and still is hugely subsidizing its solar industry.
(29:44):
So it wasn't that our technology was worse. It was
that they pumped so much money into subsidies that couldn't
we couldn't complete compete economically. Now, a number of years later,
when tear were again put on solar panels, I can't
(30:04):
remember whether it was done at the end of the
first Trump administration or the beginning of the Biden All
of a sudden, we had US companies making a lot
of solar panels even with the higher prices, and installations
of solar kept, you know, rocketing along. It looked like
a big j curve going up even with the somewhat
(30:26):
higher prices. Now that was undermined by a refusal to
extend the tariffs to buy surface panels, and that's sort
of in the name of getting them up faster and
saving the environment, which again pushed hard down on the industry.
But that illustrates the point here is it illustrates very
(30:48):
directly how you have to have a trade policy that
supports your industrial policy, that supports the industries that you're
trying to help. The reason those US solar paneled companies
failed is they didn't have it?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Gentlemen, I want to both of you a question. What
do you think of Peter and Navarro with his policies
or what he's directing the president in the trade policy?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Well, well, I was in Peter's movie Death by China,
which came out nearly twenty years ago. Now, Peter had
his heart in the right place for a very long time.
He was fighting for this stuff back when almost none
of us were. A lot of his ideas are valid.
(31:38):
He is one of the more strategic thinkers in the
Trump administration. I think one of the most strategic thinkers
in the first Trump administration was probably Bob Leitheiser. But
clearly Navarro has a big picture. There are all sorts
of issues with him as an individual I won't even
get into. But in terms of the policy, pic sure, yeah,
(32:01):
he is, you know, more or less on the track
that we would favor. It's no secret that what the
Trump administration is doing has been a lot of it's reactive.
Well could say it's clumsy, they're thrashing about, but they
have been going in the right way. And I think
that for example, the recent crop of section two thirty
(32:22):
two investigations. I brought robotics into the picture for the
first time. Recently, they do seem to be putting together
a rational protectionist package of what industries should be protected
in this country. So I'm cautiously optimistic this is going
to end up where it should. But it was never
going to be a pretty looking process, given that it
(32:45):
took the country forty years to get into this mess.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Oh well, no, I'm glad you mentioned this. I'm glad
you mentioned this for the listener and Mike and I
because you know, we don't really know who Peter Navarro is.
We see his name and he's involved all this trade
policy and whatnot. So that's good hearing from people like you.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Go ahead, Mark, Yeah, So I agree with what Ian
just said, but there are two parts of a sound
industrial policy that are missing almost entirely in one instance,
going backwards in this administration, and that is the cuts
(33:26):
to our primo industrial policy idea generating system that cuts
to the National Institutes of Health Research and to the
National Science Foundation in IH through direct research and through
its funding of university research all over the country. It's
(33:50):
not just Harvard, by the way, but a lot of others.
They are the source of ninety nine percent of the
new drugs that are Big Pharma ultimately does trials for
manufactures and makes a lot of money for everybody in
the country. If you cut that pipeline of research, you're
(34:10):
basically putting big Pharma out of business and as soon
as the patents of their existing drugs run out. So
that's totally counterproductive. Whatever. You know, they have all sorts
of other rationales for doing it, but that that's a
bad move. That's a bad move.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
I hope, you know, you know, I think they're they're
the key. The key to any kind of an industrial
policy is coming sense. Maybe that maybe the key to
every policy. But and I don't want to keep going
back to the to the to the wind terminals, in
(34:48):
the in the the solar panels. But you know, if
you're looking at an industrial policy that requires developed, dependable energy,
then fossil fuels are going to be there for a
long time yet because you can't depend on an energy
(35:09):
producer that doesn't quite work as well if it's cloudy
for prolonged periods, or if what was the other one,
the sun does the sun doesn't shine or whatever.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
It is.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
It's like the whole business of trying to produce electricity
out of the ocean that's never worked, and yet we
keep paying for it. And to me, it is necessary
to have a little bit of common sense. Now, I mean,
just on the point of the pharmaceuticals. Our pharmaceutical industry
helped to kill thirty million people around the world with
(35:44):
their bad COVID things. Now, why would we go back
to them and expect them to deliver any different if
they got away with it. I think what Kennedy did
was a first step, at least I hope it is
in rounding up and hanging as many people if they
can be convicted, who are responsible for that murder. So
it's just a very difficult thing. I don't disagree with
(36:07):
the with the plan or the idea. I think it's great.
I think there's many things we could the government could
help with, but they shouldn't be doing things that seem
to be common lacking common sense, like advertising the idea
that that CO two is a danger to you and
so you've got to you've got to uh, stuff the
butt closed of cows and stuff like that. We're covered
(36:32):
with Charlatan's that's that seems to me the people who
not only Charlatans but also make themselves tremendously rich.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Well, I would challenge some of your factual premises on these,
but I don't think that's really the point. On the
on the energy point, nobody with a common sense and
put it that way advocates, Uh, okay, let's just you know, demonstrate,
let's shut down the oil companies. Let's do this, let's
(37:05):
let's not drill for anymore. To you, what makes sense
is they and all of the above approach, and you know,
fossil fuels get plenty of subsidies already, a few subsidies
to get these new green technologies going is not a
bad idea in our view. I think in my view,
(37:29):
I'll leave the other end of your question to Ian.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, Michael, you're absolutely right when you talk about Charlatan's.
I mean the place where Mark and I encountered this
is questioning free trade. As I said, I started doing
that in twenty ten, when almost the entire academic and
governmental establishment free trade was just gospel, and if you
questioned it, you're an idiot. Well, they got exposed, I mean,
(37:57):
their intellectual constructs turned out to be well, it's not true.
But I was on the phone a couple of weeks
ago with a gentleman at the Port of Seattle who
shall remain nameless, but he told me that Washington State
is literally having to refuse companies that want to come
(38:17):
to the state and set up manufacturing plants because they
don't have enough electric generating capacity in the state at
any price. The electrons just aren't there. And this is
happening at a time when they're blocking installation of wind power.
Washington is a coastal state, great place for wind. And
(38:41):
let me tell you something else. I saw it calculated
recently that if you did the build out on the
Pacific coast of the wind turbines that they would like
to install. And you've got to remember, these devices are gigantic.
It's not tall like a power transmission line you see
in the countryside. It's tall like a skyscraper in downtown Chicago.
(39:04):
These things are absolutely enormous. Anyway, if you put in
all these turbines, it would consume enough steel to absorb
the entire production of the entire US steel industry while
it was going on. So if you want to bring
back manufacturing industry, is like steel. If you want to
(39:25):
bring back these skilled blue collar jobs, welding machine technicians
and so forth, well that's one of the ways that
you would do this. And yes, okay, wind tech it's
a technology like anything else, from a butter knife to
a pickup truck. There are things that can do, there
are things that can't do. And yes, it doesn't work
when the wind doesn't blow, but the wind blows enough
(39:47):
of the time you get a ton of free electricity
when it does well.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Free if you don't cut what you're paid for to
put up the thing. Yeah, of course, no, it's I
don't I'm not an expert on this, but I sense
so much scam, not in what you've said, but in
the peddlers of these things, whether it's pharmaceuticals or or
(40:13):
butt stuff in cows. It's it's just it raises questions.
I think the government should be involved in things that
are essential to us. If there's a way to produce
more co two, that's probably one of the best things
to invest in. But the way we the way we think,
(40:33):
is not clear as it is in the way you
guys think. And I'm afraid where a country that is
is kind of at the mercy of a culture that
is is money oriented to the extreme. I had one
other question, and i'll shut up in your in the
review I read of your book with very good review.
(40:55):
When he when it comes down to mentioning the key industries,
he doesn't mention agriculture. Was there is that not considered
in industry?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
No, it's obviously important, but we can't talk about everything
in the book. We also left out worker training, which
is obviously really important. We left out regional economic development
like cities and so forth. The book is eight hundred pages.
I mean you don't want to break the reader's risk.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah, I mean there it is traded, so in theory,
you know, it's part of it could be part of
an industrial policy book. And there certainly are you know, uh,
security issues and making sure we have a agricultural sector. Uh.
The only comment I would make on it, it would
be more secure for the country if it weren't so monocultural,
(41:45):
you know, not just the big commodity stuff, but that
we had we grew more of the of the other
things that we we eat. Yes, And just to come
back to.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
What I said, without a doubt your rights.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah, So just to come back to NIH in general,
and I'd say this is true for every institution, certainly
including the National Science Foundation, and they all need reform.
They all develop clogged arteries to some extent. But both
(42:20):
of these institutions have in fact been the major generators
of technical and medical drug progress in this country. So
what they need is reform, not to be you know,
not to drive a lot of the highly qualified researchers,
(42:43):
some of them we worked hard to attract from other countries,
not to drive them away to our competitors, which is
what's happening. Reform, yes, but you know, torchings counterproductive. I think.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Let me tell you a story about pharma since around
the subject long time ago. American Home Products, which is
a big pharmaceutical manufacturer, was business client of mine out
in New Jersey, and I went there on the first day.
They give everybody a tour and I'm being led around
this campus which is huge. All these buildings produce this,
(43:20):
labs for that, and the guy giving us a tour
tells us two things a stick in my mind. The
first thing is he asks everybody at the start what
is a medicine? And people guess and they're like, oh,
it makes you better when you're sick. It's like, oh,
it's something you buy. The drug story says, no, a
medicine is a small dose of a poison. The other
thing he said, which goes to what Mark said, is
(43:44):
just between you and me. Nobody does real research anymore.
We have spies at the NIH and then figure out
how to manufacture the stuff, which I later discover is
not really a secret, and it's actually the way things
are supposed to work, because the natural drug itself is
a public good, the scientific discovery, and then the pharma
(44:06):
companies their job is to make it and distribute it.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
So that's how it works. We have a chapter on that,
by the way, called the Massachusetts Life Science Cluster, which
talks about all this in detail.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Well A, it's a you know, I'm a kind of
a simple character, and I think it's going to take
a generation to rebuild the trust that we once had
in the pharmaceutical people. And it's going to be comical
(44:51):
for many people in the United States to see if
the government goes back into the machinery that's representative of
stopping climate change, as if that's such a thing was possible.
That's why I'm always where's the common sense in these things?
Where's the common sense? And you know, what did you
(45:14):
learn in arbor day when you were in When I
was in sixth grade, they talked about the fact that
nothing lives on life without it, on earth without co two. Now,
how do you cope with people who go around saying
that and teaching it in schools? I tend to think
that the crux the whole problem, and all of the
things you beautifully line out, and I look forward to
(45:38):
reading your book, but I mean, the crux of the
problem is the educational system. It's you know, the stuff
it teaches, the stuff it doesn't teach. I know, we
interviewed quite a few people before the last election, congressional level,
people in West Virginia and virgin and they were they
(46:01):
brought up quite a bit, quite often, rather the idea
that a lot of school systems in the country are
not have have pledged themselves or by by by law
in that in that particular state or or city, not
to teach children about the scientific method anymore. And once
(46:26):
you know, don't question things. That's amazing, Yes, it is amazing.
I was amazed. I said, you know, when we talked
to them, we thought, now that can't be true, and
they documented it. The Natural National Teachers Association sponsors it.
And uh, what does that build in people? But acceptance
(46:49):
for power, acceptance for leadership from the top without question.
So I'm sorry, we don't want that, for sure, we
certainly don't want that, sir, but we've got enough of
it now. You look at you listen to some of
the the people who are very outspoken against Trump or
(47:09):
accounts against Biden. They don't really understand what they're there
there there problem is with them, except they don't like
the personality. And if that's well, if that's the case,
you know it's it's if that's we're going to be
focused on forever. We're never going to be focused on
(47:29):
quality or patriotism or industrial policy. We're going to be
scrapping at each other's uh.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
You know, uh.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Looks or or mean the way he speaks or she speaks.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
So well, that's why I got to get the book.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
It's time to talk about getting the books. So I'm
sure it's on Amazon and everywhere else. Guys. It was
a great conversation both marketing.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Oh thanks, If you want the commons set by the way,
you want to talk about sense. You want the common
sense version of idea. It matters of our idea. It
matters whether America makes petuiter chips or computer chips. That's
what it comes down to, it does.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
Sir, And I think to make sure that your future
is the one that we secure, the one you've written about,
then you almost have to consider like you do the
pharmaceuticals and the NHS. You have to consider it as
something that has to be reformed. The current educational system
(48:35):
in this country is is a myopic disaster. They look
only at their political interests or in their dislike for
people who are in power on either side. And if
you're not producing well educated children who go through the
process of education and can ask intelligent questions and just
(48:57):
as important to note bullshit when they hear.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
It and have critical thinking and have.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Critical thinking, where are we going to go? So I
would put that, I think industry in your industry list.
I think that education is turned out to be an
industry for negativism or problems. And I think also agriculture
has to be in there is not the b end
and all. But again, as you both said, reform more
(49:24):
produce more commodities made at home with good good intent
and good good turnout in terms of people who hate them.
So I've enjoyed this very much, and I don't mean
to be cantankerous or at all. It's it's just been
a very good experience for me. I will get the book,
(49:45):
and I hope you'll come back and see us again.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
Well, that would be a pleasure. Thank you very much,
thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. All right, that's it to
two mikes and we'll see you next week.
Hey, listen, we want to thank everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
We're going on a fifth year now and five hundred
and fifty plus shows. How do you like that? Go
to the website Network Radio dot Us, Network Radio dot
Us or our website has it all. Toomikes dot Comtomikes
dot com you get everything rumbled Network Radio Freedom first,
Maverick wherever we are, and then you can go to
(00:25):
the America out Loud dot Newsamerica Outloud dot News website
and listen to our show we do every Monday night,
Doctor Mike and I. We do the National Security out
We're the first of five shows. Great host on that network.
By the way, Oh we're cranking man on listener notes
National Security. I was right up there. But let me
tell you something. We want to thank every one of
your people, which is eighty percent in America and the
(00:49):
twenty other twenty percent is around the globe. We are
now one point two the top one point two percent
of podcasts in the world, inclusive America in the world. Okay,
we are now one point two percent of three million,
six hundred thousand podcasts. How's that? Thank you very much,
(01:13):
And on the score we're forty two or forty five,
so that goes from one to one hundred, so we're halfway.
But I mean we rarely kicked ass. Thank you very
very much. No matter where you are around the globe,
on Apple, Rumble, Bumblebee, what you whatever app you have,
We're on every app. Okay, iHeartRadio, We're on all of them,
(01:34):
tune in, you name it. So we want to thank you,
and please go to our website and look at the archives.
A lot of shows, a lot of good people, great
things going on, and what else housekeeping again always tomikes
dot Comtomikes dot com. You can see our latest shows,
and we want to thank you again one more time.
(01:56):
Go to the website and make a comment on the
blog whatever you want to do, and we appreciate it,
and we want to thank Faddy once again. By four
(02:35):
three two to one, Hey, welcome back. You're own with
two Mikes, doctor Michael Schuyer, New York's Times best selling
author and Colonel Mike. And before we get to today's show,
don't forget to go to two Mikes tw o Mike's
dot us, two Mikes dot Us, visit the website, say
hello to the sponsors, say hello to the blog. See
the last couple of hundred shows we did, I don't
(02:55):
know we did. We had Leonardo up there recently and
we did Ed Dutton's going up by the way this week.
All righty, So he's back with us from Finland, all right,
and today we're going back to books. We got two
interesting people here on the show today, Ian Fletcher and
Mark fast Though, and doctor Mike is going to do
the intro for their book. Very interesting. I'm going to
(03:17):
ask questions about why did did Donald Trump get a
copy of this? And this was recommended by a friend
of ours, Dan Black, who sends us guests from time
to time. We want to thank you Dn. So let's
say hello to Mark Fastao and Ian Fletcher. One is
on the west coast, one is on the east coast,
and as you know, Mike and I are in the valley.
Good morning, good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you?
Speaker 2 (03:39):
We're good?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Thank you great?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
All right?
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So Mike, why don't you intro the book and let's
ask some questions about this book? Sounds good, all right.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
I think that's the best way to introduce the book,
which sounds like a fascinating book, is to read the
overview of it. And so I'll do that. The US,
according to this book, is losing the competition for good
jobs and high value industries because most of Washington believes
trade should be free, the dollar should float, and that
(04:11):
innovation comes exclusively from the private sector. In this book,
the authors make the bold case that these laissez faire
ideas have failed, and that a robust industrial policy is
the only way for America to remain prosperous and secure.
Trump and Biden have enacted some of its elements, but
it meets, but it needs to be made systematic and comprehensive,
(04:33):
including tariffs to protect key industries, a competitive exchange rate,
and federal support for commercialization not just invention of new technologies. Timely,
meticulously researched, and bipartisan, this impressive analysis replaces misunderstandings about
industrial policy with lucid explanations of its underlying economic theory,
(04:57):
the tools that are used to implement it, and its
successes and failures in America and abroad. The book examines
key industries of the past and future, steel, automobiles, television, semiconductors, space, aviation, robotics,
and nanotechnology. It concludes with a real, realistic, actionable policy roadmap.
(05:20):
I founded a work of vigor and ambition industrial industry.
Industrial policy for the United States is clearly essential reading
for all. I don't think I've seen many reviews better
than that one.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
All right, so Mark, give us a little bit of background,
and Ian give us your background, and then we'll go
to it.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Go ahead, Okay, you mean our personal backgrounds? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, Okay. Well,
I'm a lawyer by training. I worked on the hill
between college and law school. I took a bunch of
economics and college, and I've been a practice briefly as
an investment banker for fourteen years. Then I started an
(06:04):
insurance company. We eventually sold it to Progressive. It became
their homeowners company, and then I've been on you know,
I got used to interested in government policy stuff when
I was in d C about twenty years ago. I
started thinking, you know, what's happening to our working class?
I mean, where are all those jobs going? And they
(06:27):
started were starting to go to China, obviously, and that
got me thinking about this subject. So I've been sort
of on it, writing stuff, lobbying. I am now one
of the vice chairmen of the Coalition for a Prosperous America,
(06:47):
which is the leading think tank and lobbying organization for
a sound industrial policy.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
Nice.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
Nice is that located in Washington, Yes, it is. You're
off the screen. By the way, if you want to
hit a button and get back on a screen, diego.
When you said you were practicing, I thought you meant
practicing the screen. I'm just joking. I know. We have
one listener and guests who's going to be very interested
(07:18):
in this because he writes a lot about all these
jobs went overseas and moved to China or in different places,
and there's no more forty hour work week and over
time in two weeks, vacation and golden watch at the
end of twenty years, you know, and he's going to
be interested in hear this. Okay, Ian, let's hear a
little bit about you.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Well, my background was originally in the IT business, and
in two thousand and seven I sat down to write
a book came out three years later entitled free Trade
Doesn't Work?
Speaker 3 (07:51):
What should Replace It?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
And Why. When I started doing that, there were fewer
than ten intelligent people in the country I could even
talk to about criticizing free trade because it was so
much the gospel. It was the gospel from politics, it
was the gospel from the academics. It was what business
community wanted. You were just an idiot if you asked
(08:15):
any questions. Then six years after the book comes out,
you have mister T gets elected, and four years after
that Joe Biden and Trump pulls back from free trade.
He openly attacks it on the campaign trail, and then
after he gets into office he pushes through the biggest
(08:37):
protectionist turned in two generations in this country. And when
Biden was elected after him, I was afraid. I was
absolutely terrified. He was going to say, well, all this
protectionist stuff came from crazy mister T, and the guy's
a son of a bitch, so we got to get
rid of it. It's got to be bad policy. But
(09:00):
his heart, Biden kept the Trump protectionist moves and even
doubled down on a bit of it with one hundred
percent tariff on Chinese electric cars. So anyway, about the
time Trump got elected the first time, Mark and I
sat down to write the book that we're here to discuss,
(09:22):
which is industrial policy for the United States winning the
competition for good jobs and high value industries. And the
reason is, if you say okay, free trade is a mistake.
We're not going to do that. Well, that kind of
opens a whole can of worms of mainstream economics, which
(09:43):
is les a fair, ultra capitalist, neoclassical, neoliberal, a bunch
of different names people call it. Well, that whole economic
mentality isn't right. So the question is what's your overall strategy?
Just what do you do in terms of trade, but
(10:04):
what do you do in terms of your domestic economy.
And one of the interesting things we discover is prior
to World War Two, the US had been a lot
more into this active government support. Everybody knows about things
like the Transcontinental Railroad, but there was a lot more.
So that's how our book got written.
Speaker 4 (10:26):
In all of that history. The history you mentioned the
Transcontinental Railroad, that was all written by extremely protectionist governments.
It was all conducted under extremely.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
Protectionist governments protections and the US goes right back to
Andrew Hamilton. You know, he was the first systematic US
advocate of it.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
The Lincoln went to war to prevent free trade in
the South. So in a way, yes, he was pretty
much patron saint after Alexander Hamilton of protectionism.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
We was certainly in favor of big public projects to
justice the economy and move it forward. Question that was
the industrial policy of the day, and that, of course
you have to have a trade policy which messed with it,
which is really one of our biggest points. We both
got into this thinking as Ian said about well, what
(11:27):
trade policy should we have? Policy? Should we have tariff's
protectionism not protection? Well you really can't answer that effectively
unless you step back a level and you say, okay,
what kind of economy do we want?
Speaker 5 (11:44):
You're still not on the screen. If you want to
fix the camera, I'm looking at a wall. You want
to put your head on a screen. Maybe let's see
you can juggle with him.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
And if you won't, that's my phone that keeps doing
that for the whole thing. Great, Okay, there we go.
Speaker 5 (12:08):
There you go, You're perfect.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Continue, go ahead. Okay, So you have to, as I said,
you have to decide what kind of economy you want,
not just this year, but next year. And that means
that you have to decide what industries are important both
short term long term for national security, for indirectly to
(12:34):
create good jobs and prosperous America for everyone, not just
a few, and what kind of you've got to fund
primary basic research and applied research so that you not
only have support the industries of today, which you are
(12:56):
in a position to develop, and then man you make
the industries of the future, the ones that are going
to come up with the next big thing that make
everybody in the country richer and more efficient. So that's
where you need to start, and then the trade policy
that you figure out should be tailored to mesh with
(13:18):
that to support those. For example, one of the things
that I don't think that the Trump administration has done
right is these across the board tariffs on countries. That
really doesn't make a lot of sense. There's no reason
to tariff shoes or t shirts or little frippery toys
(13:40):
and stuff that a lot of small businesses use. We
don't need to make that here. We can't do it efficiently,
and it does raise prices for those people in those
small businesses. So we can avoid that. So we should
focus on what we call the advantageous industries, from bioscience
(14:02):
to military technology. It's not that hard to figure out
what those industries are. Several presidents have had their science
committees come up with these lists. They're readily available, so
we need. It's a whole panoply of tools that needed
to be you can deploy to do that. We have
(14:23):
a whole chapter on the tools for industrial policy. And
the last point I'm making then I'll stop, is that
the policy has to be very industry oriented and very granular.
Different industries need different kinds of support. Sometimes it's short
term support, whether it's the very capital intensive long term
(14:46):
like new materials, for example, take a very long time
to develop and are critical, So it has to be
granul It's not just thought about. Shouldn't just be thought
about well financially financially financial support or not, tariffs or not.
If it's really to be efficient, experts in the government
collaborating with industry experts and irrelevant science people to really
(15:11):
do it right, Mark.
Speaker 5 (15:13):
I And to ask me a question, did any people
on the hill read this book?
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Well, it's been circulated to a network people.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Yeah. I'm the one who manages pushing the book out
to people at the high end. We've got a fair
number of high end people who've at least had a
copy of this book. I personally sent a copy to
Steve morand Myron I'm sorry, the chairman of the Council
of Economic Advisors, whether any of these guys have actually
(15:45):
read it, or whether it just sits on their nightstand,
or whether they use it as a door stop or
throw it away. I of course have no idea, but
we definitely have a high end readership. But it's a
big book. It'll take people a while to get through,
and books never translate directly into policy. But I did
say with my first book comes out in twenty ten,
(16:07):
saying free trade is a mistake, and three years later
I gave up. I thought the country was stuck on
free trade forever. But six years later the damn breaks
and everything is going the way I wanted it to.
So we'll be patient, but I think we're gradually getting
to people.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
Yeah, there are people.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Both of you, Mark as well. I want to ask
you both a question. How do you feel about the
government going in and partnering opposite of going to the
private money? You know, I mean since you were investment banker,
what do you feel about that?
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Well, again, it's all the details. Government in certain circumstances
can be a useful partner, especially if they have a
non voting share. Gives them a window into what's going
on and it will allow for better coordinate at the
(17:01):
top of the enterprise. I get a little nervous when
the government takes over and has a commanding interest can
call the shots. That's that was necessary during the two
thousand and eight plus bailout because they're basically not just
taking a stake, they're basically supporting the whole enterprise. But
(17:23):
the problem with if your golden share, you know, allows
you to control the board, is that management of a
company gets politicized, and that's rarely, rarely good. I mean,
if you have a wonderful non political bureaucracy, that's smart.
(17:46):
They can add value. So I don't think it's the
magic change whether they own a share or not. The
key is what are you doing, what's the plan and
how are you executing it? Does a plan actually make sense?
Speaker 5 (18:03):
Well, you know about the mic go ahead.
Speaker 4 (18:06):
We haven't exactly covered ourselves with glory. When when the
government has been involved in picking winners and losers, Well
that's you look over the country and you see these
these idiot wind turbines that are collapsing, or you being
used to transmit things back to China. The companies we
(18:26):
put billions of dollars into make Uh those panels, those
all went belly up within weeks or months. And uh,
and you know there also has to be if you're
going to mix the government with business, how do you
prevent corruption?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (18:48):
It's there's And I'm not I'm not arguing that you're wrong.
I just these are things that I wondered.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
About, Mike. I'm quite happy to argued that I'm wrong.
I bring ideas out and I'm prepared to respectfully defend them.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Well, that's good, sir. I'm happy to hear it, because
I have to admit that over the past two decades
I've gotten pretty joniced about government picking people or industries
or methods that should be applicable to us at all
in our whole economy.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Okay, first thing I would point out is I totally
agree with you that as a general rule, you don't
want to have government interference in the economy unless there's
a good reason for it. The things we're talking about
are things like, can we really live in a world
where our number one geopolitical adversary controls production of the
(19:45):
most advanced computer chips with which they can make robot
flying weapons that can attack the United States and defeat
US at will in any battlefield in the world. No,
of course, not so when you get quarnered into a
situation like that. Well, that's why the federal government partnered
with TSMC to bring production of these computer chips to
(20:08):
the US. That's why the federal government is now invested
in Intel, because we absolutely have to have that capability. Now,
in terms of the green energy technologies you mentioned, I
don't mean to tell you that you're wrong, but my wife,
as it so happens, works in the wind turbine business,
(20:31):
and I would respectfully suggest that wind turbines are actually
an effective technology that most of the criticisms leveled against
them are based on the performance they had twenty years ago.
And there's a reason why the number one state in
the Union for installing solar panels. Do you know what
(20:52):
it is. It's not liberal California, it's conservative Texas. Why
because they make economic sense. They're done right. They no
longer require a government subsidy.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
But here's the window, don't they, sir.
Speaker 2 (21:08):
We're talking about solar panels for a second. I'm going
to point out that the reason that photovoltaics, which are
the panels the things that operate off sunlight. The reason
those are economically viable and are being installed like gangbusters
in places like Texas and Florida is because their efficiency
(21:29):
has gone up by about ninety percent since the nineteen nineties.
And the reason this happened is because of two government
projects at the Department of Energy. The first one was
called sun Shot and the second was called which is
still going on, sun Shot twenty thirty. This is the
kind of governmental investment in developing technology that we're in
(21:52):
favor of because if you can bring the performance of
these technologies to the point where they're economically viable, you're
absolutely correct. You don't need a government subsidy. You don't
need government pushing the stuff. It will install itself because
it's profitable.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
So the other thing is that in terms of picking
winners and losers, it's rare that that's necessary. It's usually
for a nascent technology. The way to think about it
is you've got pure research. Nobody knows exactly what's going
to come out of it, but we have almost one
hundred years of well seventy years of history that that's
(22:32):
how the big things come from. That government has to
pay for that. Then you have more applied research, which
sometimes involved some significant government expenditures, but also requires collaboration
with the businesses. To come back to the wind turbines,
for example, the Energy department first study of it produced
(22:57):
some results, but they fail didn't work for all. The
second you'll see why that worked. The second study was
done instead of just by the department itself, directly in
collaboration with business and that's the step that got the
technology to the point where it was d risked enough
(23:20):
for the private sector to take over. And d risking
is a good way to think about this. The government
needs to be involved in new technologies, not just pure
science and not just the beginnings of commercial prototype, but
enough developing it far enough and supporting it enough, say
including with procurement, among many other tools, to the point
(23:44):
where I've done some mentor capal investing where vcs and
or strategic business investors are able and willing to take
the risk. The criteria are how risky is it and
what's how long do you have to go spend money
before you start getting money back. Every venture fund has
(24:06):
those limits. So that's why the government has to be
involved occasionally, you know, in these bailout situations which he
and alluded to. Boeing is certainly one intel is another
there the government is directly involved in supporting a particular company.
(24:28):
That is I think the core of what the objection
is that should be very rare. In a big economy
like the United States. We don't have to have a
single national champion and almost everything. Those those are two
where we do need them.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
Well, Mark, I go back to the seventies when the
bailout worked.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
We had Leiah.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Coca, remember that. Yeah, Christ, Look, he salvaged Christ because
he was an automobile man. You know, he understood automobiles,
and you know, he saved the company for quite some time.
Speaker 3 (25:02):
Yeah, he got government money to do it, but he
did it. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
But and in fact he paid I think it was
during Jimmy Carter and then he paid it back in
advance too. And then eight came along, and then we
had the fiasco with the GM bailout where a lot
of people got you know, taken out on that deal
with the Obama administration. However, sometimes the bailout works, sometimes
it doesn't. But I agree with you guys in a
way that the government should be involved. Look, China is
(25:28):
involved with everything with their country. No matter who they are,
the front companies or the back companies. China is in
every aspect of the industries over there.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Oh for sure, I make some mistakes in doing it, obviously,
But the big picture here is if it's not like
we're operating, you know, in a world alone, if we
don't have an industrial policy which identifies these key industries
and supports them, and China do that, then we're basically
(26:02):
playing the role, the subordinate role that they assigned us
that they're all.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
I agree with you.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
I totally agree with you on it.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, no, go ahead, and you want to.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Speak, Yeah, I want to talk for a second about
industries and where success in industries come from. Because people
often talk about the economy like it's one big, homogeneous lump.
You know, wrote is three percent, unemployment is four percent,
inflation is two percent whatever. An economy is made up
of industries. And I want to talk about for a second,
(26:36):
what are the best industries in America? That is what
two industries? Is the US most globally dominant in Okay,
in terms of global market share, in terms of superior technology,
in terms of profits, you name it. Well, our best
industries are space launch and then aviation. Now aviation is
(26:57):
run into a bit of trouble with Boeing, but space
launch like SpaceX, there's no Chinese equivalent to SpaceX. We
are head and shoulders above them. We're head and shoulders
above the Europeans. And it's a huge business. Now space
rockets are not this little thing like in the sixties
with the moon landing. I mean, it's a giant, multi
(27:19):
tens of billions dollars business. And if you look at
how that industry is set up in this country, it
violates all the rules that the neoliberal people will tell
you are correct. Like it has had massive government support
since John F. Kennedy and the first Space Program, huge
(27:40):
amounts of government support for the technology, not just the
pure science, but developing the technology, had massive governmental support.
And you know what, we ended up with a world
beating industry. Tell you, in other things, because of the
military implication of space rockets, okay, like a rocket that
(28:00):
can put a satellite in orbit is basically the same
technology that can drop an ICBM nuclear warhead on someone
else's head. Okay, So it's strictly controlled for national security
reasons that you can't export this stuff. And you also
can't have foreign parts in your supply chain. There's something
(28:20):
called ITAR. It stands for International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
It's US law that basically says SpaceX is not allowed
to put Chinese parts in their rockets. And it covers
a whole lot of other stuff. I mean, it would
apply to F twenty two stealth jet, you name it anyway.
The point is the space launch industry has just about
(28:40):
the most purely all American supply chain of any significant
industry in this country. And the Thomas Friedman types will
tell you that's a recipe for a disaster. You can't
do it that way because you can't buy the best
in the world. It's going to cost too much. You're
gonna have mediocre technology. It's going to suck. That is
(29:00):
what happened. So here we have an example of why
the kind of policies we advocate can, if you do
it right, lead to success. And the idea is that
the neo liberals, the laissez fare types, the globalists are
telling you just don't square with the facts.
Speaker 3 (29:20):
I'd like to come back to the solar panel thing
for just a moment. Yes, those solar US solar companies
failed well, why did they fail? They failed because China
has been, was, and still is hugely subsidizing its solar industry.
(29:44):
So it wasn't that our technology was worse. It was
that they pumped so much money into subsidies that couldn't
we couldn't complete compete economically. Now, a number of years later,
when tear were again put on solar panels, I can't
(30:04):
remember whether it was done at the end of the
first Trump administration or the beginning of the Biden All
of a sudden, we had US companies making a lot
of solar panels even with the higher prices, and installations
of solar kept, you know, rocketing along. It looked like
a big j curve going up even with the somewhat
(30:26):
higher prices. Now that was undermined by a refusal to
extend the tariffs to buy surface panels, and that's sort
of in the name of getting them up faster and
saving the environment, which again pushed hard down on the industry.
But that illustrates the point here is it illustrates very
(30:48):
directly how you have to have a trade policy that
supports your industrial policy, that supports the industries that you're
trying to help. The reason those US solar paneled companies
failed is they didn't have it?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Gentlemen, I want to both of you a question. What
do you think of Peter and Navarro with his policies
or what he's directing the president in the trade policy?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Well, well, I was in Peter's movie Death by China,
which came out nearly twenty years ago. Now, Peter had
his heart in the right place for a very long time.
He was fighting for this stuff back when almost none
of us were. A lot of his ideas are valid.
(31:38):
He is one of the more strategic thinkers in the
Trump administration. I think one of the most strategic thinkers
in the first Trump administration was probably Bob Leitheiser. But
clearly Navarro has a big picture. There are all sorts
of issues with him as an individual I won't even
get into. But in terms of the policy, pic sure, yeah,
(32:01):
he is, you know, more or less on the track
that we would favor. It's no secret that what the
Trump administration is doing has been a lot of it's reactive.
Well could say it's clumsy, they're thrashing about, but they
have been going in the right way. And I think
that for example, the recent crop of section two thirty
(32:22):
two investigations. I brought robotics into the picture for the
first time. Recently, they do seem to be putting together
a rational protectionist package of what industries should be protected
in this country. So I'm cautiously optimistic this is going
to end up where it should. But it was never
going to be a pretty looking process, given that it
(32:45):
took the country forty years to get into this mess.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Oh well, no, I'm glad you mentioned this. I'm glad
you mentioned this for the listener and Mike and I
because you know, we don't really know who Peter Navarro is.
We see his name and he's involved all this trade
policy and whatnot. So that's good hearing from people like you.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
Go ahead, Mark, Yeah, So I agree with what Ian
just said, but there are two parts of a sound
industrial policy that are missing almost entirely in one instance,
going backwards in this administration, and that is the cuts
(33:26):
to our primo industrial policy idea generating system that cuts
to the National Institutes of Health Research and to the
National Science Foundation in IH through direct research and through
its funding of university research all over the country. It's
(33:50):
not just Harvard, by the way, but a lot of others.
They are the source of ninety nine percent of the
new drugs that are Big Pharma ultimately does trials for
manufactures and makes a lot of money for everybody in
the country. If you cut that pipeline of research, you're
(34:10):
basically putting big Pharma out of business and as soon
as the patents of their existing drugs run out. So
that's totally counterproductive. Whatever. You know, they have all sorts
of other rationales for doing it, but that that's a
bad move. That's a bad move.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
I hope, you know, you know, I think they're they're
the key. The key to any kind of an industrial
policy is coming sense. Maybe that maybe the key to
every policy. But and I don't want to keep going
back to the to the to the wind terminals, in
(34:48):
the in the the solar panels. But you know, if
you're looking at an industrial policy that requires developed, dependable energy,
then fossil fuels are going to be there for a
long time yet because you can't depend on an energy
(35:09):
producer that doesn't quite work as well if it's cloudy
for prolonged periods, or if what was the other one,
the sun does the sun doesn't shine or whatever.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
It is.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
It's like the whole business of trying to produce electricity
out of the ocean that's never worked, and yet we
keep paying for it. And to me, it is necessary
to have a little bit of common sense. Now, I mean,
just on the point of the pharmaceuticals. Our pharmaceutical industry
helped to kill thirty million people around the world with
(35:44):
their bad COVID things. Now, why would we go back
to them and expect them to deliver any different if
they got away with it. I think what Kennedy did
was a first step, at least I hope it is
in rounding up and hanging as many people if they
can be convicted, who are responsible for that murder. So
it's just a very difficult thing. I don't disagree with
(36:07):
the with the plan or the idea. I think it's great.
I think there's many things we could the government could
help with, but they shouldn't be doing things that seem
to be common lacking common sense, like advertising the idea
that that CO two is a danger to you and
so you've got to you've got to uh, stuff the
butt closed of cows and stuff like that. We're covered
(36:32):
with Charlatan's that's that seems to me the people who
not only Charlatans but also make themselves tremendously rich.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Well, I would challenge some of your factual premises on these,
but I don't think that's really the point. On the
on the energy point, nobody with a common sense and
put it that way advocates, Uh, okay, let's just you know, demonstrate,
let's shut down the oil companies. Let's do this, let's
(37:05):
let's not drill for anymore. To you, what makes sense
is they and all of the above approach, and you know,
fossil fuels get plenty of subsidies already, a few subsidies
to get these new green technologies going is not a
bad idea in our view. I think in my view,
(37:29):
I'll leave the other end of your question to Ian.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah, Michael, you're absolutely right when you talk about Charlatan's.
I mean the place where Mark and I encountered this
is questioning free trade. As I said, I started doing
that in twenty ten, when almost the entire academic and
governmental establishment free trade was just gospel, and if you
questioned it, you're an idiot. Well, they got exposed, I mean,
(37:57):
their intellectual constructs turned out to be well, it's not true.
But I was on the phone a couple of weeks
ago with a gentleman at the Port of Seattle who
shall remain nameless, but he told me that Washington State
is literally having to refuse companies that want to come
(38:17):
to the state and set up manufacturing plants because they
don't have enough electric generating capacity in the state at
any price. The electrons just aren't there. And this is
happening at a time when they're blocking installation of wind power.
Washington is a coastal state, great place for wind. And
(38:41):
let me tell you something else. I saw it calculated
recently that if you did the build out on the
Pacific coast of the wind turbines that they would like
to install. And you've got to remember, these devices are gigantic.
It's not tall like a power transmission line you see
in the countryside. It's tall like a skyscraper in downtown Chicago.
(39:04):
These things are absolutely enormous. Anyway, if you put in
all these turbines, it would consume enough steel to absorb
the entire production of the entire US steel industry while
it was going on. So if you want to bring
back manufacturing industry, is like steel. If you want to
(39:25):
bring back these skilled blue collar jobs, welding machine technicians
and so forth, well that's one of the ways that
you would do this. And yes, okay, wind tech it's
a technology like anything else, from a butter knife to
a pickup truck. There are things that can do, there
are things that can't do. And yes, it doesn't work
when the wind doesn't blow, but the wind blows enough
(39:47):
of the time you get a ton of free electricity
when it does well.
Speaker 4 (39:52):
Free if you don't cut what you're paid for to
put up the thing. Yeah, of course, no, it's I
don't I'm not an expert on this, but I sense
so much scam, not in what you've said, but in
the peddlers of these things, whether it's pharmaceuticals or or
(40:13):
butt stuff in cows. It's it's just it raises questions.
I think the government should be involved in things that
are essential to us. If there's a way to produce
more co two, that's probably one of the best things
to invest in. But the way we the way we think,
(40:33):
is not clear as it is in the way you
guys think. And I'm afraid where a country that is
is kind of at the mercy of a culture that
is is money oriented to the extreme. I had one
other question, and i'll shut up in your in the
review I read of your book with very good review.
(40:55):
When he when it comes down to mentioning the key industries,
he doesn't mention agriculture. Was there is that not considered
in industry?
Speaker 2 (41:05):
No, it's obviously important, but we can't talk about everything
in the book. We also left out worker training, which
is obviously really important. We left out regional economic development
like cities and so forth. The book is eight hundred pages.
I mean you don't want to break the reader's risk.
Speaker 3 (41:22):
Yeah, I mean there it is traded, so in theory,
you know, it's part of it could be part of
an industrial policy book. And there certainly are you know, uh,
security issues and making sure we have a agricultural sector. Uh.
The only comment I would make on it, it would
be more secure for the country if it weren't so monocultural,
(41:45):
you know, not just the big commodity stuff, but that
we had we grew more of the of the other
things that we we eat. Yes, And just to come
back to.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
What I said, without a doubt your rights.
Speaker 3 (41:59):
Yeah, So just to come back to NIH in general,
and I'd say this is true for every institution, certainly
including the National Science Foundation, and they all need reform.
They all develop clogged arteries to some extent. But both
(42:20):
of these institutions have in fact been the major generators
of technical and medical drug progress in this country. So
what they need is reform, not to be you know,
not to drive a lot of the highly qualified researchers,
(42:43):
some of them we worked hard to attract from other countries,
not to drive them away to our competitors, which is
what's happening. Reform, yes, but you know, torchings counterproductive. I think.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Let me tell you a story about pharma since around
the subject long time ago. American Home Products, which is
a big pharmaceutical manufacturer, was business client of mine out
in New Jersey, and I went there on the first day.
They give everybody a tour and I'm being led around
this campus which is huge. All these buildings produce this,
(43:20):
labs for that, and the guy giving us a tour
tells us two things a stick in my mind. The
first thing is he asks everybody at the start what
is a medicine? And people guess and they're like, oh,
it makes you better when you're sick. It's like, oh,
it's something you buy. The drug story says, no, a
medicine is a small dose of a poison. The other
thing he said, which goes to what Mark said, is
(43:44):
just between you and me. Nobody does real research anymore.
We have spies at the NIH and then figure out
how to manufacture the stuff, which I later discover is
not really a secret, and it's actually the way things
are supposed to work, because the natural drug itself is
a public good, the scientific discovery, and then the pharma
(44:06):
companies their job is to make it and distribute it.
Speaker 3 (44:08):
So that's how it works. We have a chapter on that,
by the way, called the Massachusetts Life Science Cluster, which
talks about all this in detail.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Well A, it's a you know, I'm a kind of
a simple character, and I think it's going to take
a generation to rebuild the trust that we once had
in the pharmaceutical people. And it's going to be comical
(44:51):
for many people in the United States to see if
the government goes back into the machinery that's representative of
stopping climate change, as if that's such a thing was possible.
That's why I'm always where's the common sense in these things?
Where's the common sense? And you know, what did you
(45:14):
learn in arbor day when you were in When I
was in sixth grade, they talked about the fact that
nothing lives on life without it, on earth without co two. Now,
how do you cope with people who go around saying
that and teaching it in schools? I tend to think
that the crux the whole problem, and all of the
things you beautifully line out, and I look forward to
(45:38):
reading your book, but I mean, the crux of the
problem is the educational system. It's you know, the stuff
it teaches, the stuff it doesn't teach. I know, we
interviewed quite a few people before the last election, congressional level,
people in West Virginia and virgin and they were they
(46:01):
brought up quite a bit, quite often, rather the idea
that a lot of school systems in the country are
not have have pledged themselves or by by by law
in that in that particular state or or city, not
to teach children about the scientific method anymore. And once
(46:26):
you know, don't question things. That's amazing, Yes, it is amazing.
I was amazed. I said, you know, when we talked
to them, we thought, now that can't be true, and
they documented it. The Natural National Teachers Association sponsors it.
And uh, what does that build in people? But acceptance
(46:49):
for power, acceptance for leadership from the top without question.
So I'm sorry, we don't want that, for sure, we
certainly don't want that, sir, but we've got enough of
it now. You look at you listen to some of
the the people who are very outspoken against Trump or
(47:09):
accounts against Biden. They don't really understand what they're there
there there problem is with them, except they don't like
the personality. And if that's well, if that's the case,
you know it's it's if that's we're going to be
focused on forever. We're never going to be focused on
(47:29):
quality or patriotism or industrial policy. We're going to be
scrapping at each other's uh.
Speaker 2 (47:37):
You know, uh.
Speaker 4 (47:41):
Looks or or mean the way he speaks or she speaks.
Speaker 2 (47:45):
So well, that's why I got to get the book.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
It's time to talk about getting the books. So I'm
sure it's on Amazon and everywhere else. Guys. It was
a great conversation both marketing.
Speaker 2 (47:56):
Oh thanks, If you want the commons set by the way,
you want to talk about sense. You want the common
sense version of idea. It matters of our idea. It
matters whether America makes petuiter chips or computer chips. That's
what it comes down to, it does.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
Sir, And I think to make sure that your future
is the one that we secure, the one you've written about,
then you almost have to consider like you do the
pharmaceuticals and the NHS. You have to consider it as
something that has to be reformed. The current educational system
(48:35):
in this country is is a myopic disaster. They look
only at their political interests or in their dislike for
people who are in power on either side. And if
you're not producing well educated children who go through the
process of education and can ask intelligent questions and just
(48:57):
as important to note bullshit when they hear.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
It and have critical thinking and have.
Speaker 4 (49:03):
Critical thinking, where are we going to go? So I
would put that, I think industry in your industry list.
I think that education is turned out to be an
industry for negativism or problems. And I think also agriculture
has to be in there is not the b end
and all. But again, as you both said, reform more
(49:24):
produce more commodities made at home with good good intent
and good good turnout in terms of people who hate them.
So I've enjoyed this very much, and I don't mean
to be cantankerous or at all. It's it's just been
a very good experience for me. I will get the book,
(49:45):
and I hope you'll come back and see us again.
Speaker 3 (49:47):
Well, that would be a pleasure. Thank you very much,
thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
Oh, you're welcome. Thank you. All right, that's it to
two mikes and we'll see you next week.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.