Tonight on The Brian Crombie Hour, Brian is joined by Sam Savrajan behavioral scientist and former financial executive for an urgently needed, honest conversation about Canada's debt, deficits, and economic future. They tackle the critical, often-avoided questions which include the debt cycle, why governments obscure where money is really going, voter power and the raising GST and retirement age. This is a must-listen for anyone demanding honest, transparent, and sustainable governance.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone to welcome to the Brian Crumby Radio ar.
It's a pleasure to have Sam Subagen back with us tonight.
He is really an interesting gentleman. He's an author, he's
a business executive. He's done an incredible job of taking
complex ideas and making them understandable. He's a behavioral scientist.
He's a keynote speaker. He's an author of a book
(00:38):
called The Uncertainty Edge. He's had a twenty five year
career in financial services where he's managed teams and trusted
with over eighty billion dollars in client assets. He's led
forty billion dollars in cross border m and A. He's
guided global teams through crises, crashes and transformation. And now
what he wants to do is help countries Canada, the
United States, etc. Get through our crisis. And today we're
(01:01):
going to talk about debt and deficit. Sam Savagen, Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Sir Brian. Always a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
My pleasure to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So you know, people have been talking a lot about
Canada's debt, about America's debt, reckless spending, you know, debt
and deficit that are too high as a percentage of GDP.
What do we do about it? What's your solution? Are
we at the max? You know? I've heard that France
is over six percent of GDP and deficits, the United
(01:35):
States is over six percent of GDP and deficit. Canada
is at less than three. So do we really have
a problem And if we do, what have we got.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
To do about it?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Particularly when you think about this budget that was recently
announced last week that has the deficit going up dramatically
and the Conservative Party complaining that it's outrageous, and then
other people saying, but we're not spending enough on some
of these major programs that people were ragging about, pipelines
from the east to the west, to the north to
the south.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, look, I think it's a complicated question to me
if you look at it. I think the new monetary theorists,
you know, which were in the vogue about five, six,
seven years ago, their view was that there's no such
thing as too much debt for a country. A country
it can issue whatever debt, because they basically print the
(02:26):
money and that's we'll take care of it. I happen
to be a little bit more old school and think
that countries like people like companies, deal with real I
would say financial forces. It's the law of finances, the
business equivalent or the country equivalent to the laws of physics.
You can't really violate them for too long. I think
(02:49):
the challenge becomes what is too much? It's this is
where human behavior becomes very very important. Brian. All of
these things work. Legal tender is accepted. A country's bond
or debt raising works as long as the public believes
(03:10):
that they're going to get paid back and that this
is going someplace. The moment that sentiment change, and it
can change on a dime, then all bets are off.
And we've seen these in countries like Argentina. We've seen
this in different time periods for even western nations around
the world. We saw this, for example with Liz trust,
(03:32):
the very short lived UK Prime minister a few years back,
who was forced to resign because she launched a budget
that was basically didn't give any confidence to the market
or bondholders that the UK was on a trajectory to
(03:53):
repay its debt. So I think the question that you
ask about the budget is a good one. Here to
say to anyone that you know, some of the spending
items aren't important in the broader scheme of what we're
trying to achieve as a country. What I do try
to point out is that the I think the electorate
(04:15):
needs to have a better sense of where that money
is being spent, why it is being spent, what trade
offs are going to be made, and why those trade
offs are necessary. My concern has always been we seem
to be having this kind of idea that we're going
(04:35):
to make this spending because this is important and it
will just take care of itself somehow. I think you
and I talked about this before, that the NATO spending
budget that we're committing to a five percent of GDP.
I'm not here to argue whether that's the right thing
or the wrong thing, et cetera. I think that is
a decision that are politicians are elected to make and
(05:00):
convinced the electorate. The point that I think has been
missed is that five percent of GDP translates to something
on the order of thirty five percent of the federal budget.
So the question that I that comes to my mind
is what programs are being cut as a result of that,
(05:22):
or what taxes are going to go up as a
result of that, or what debt are we taking on
as a result of that, and who's going to pay
for it? And I don't have the answers to that.
I think the question that we should ask as an electorate,
as a responsible electorate is shouldn't we be debating that?
Shouldn't we've taken a view on is this the trade
(05:43):
offs that we want to make and why we want
to make it?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, right now we have a minority of Parliament and
so we will at least the parties will be debating
it and they'll have an opportunity to vote it down.
I think the answer to your question is that it's
being financed primarily by increased debt. The deficit has gone
up dramatically, and so that debt will be paid by
you know, one would assume our children or our grandchildren,
(06:09):
because it certainly not going to be paid off in
my lifetime, and by some fairly dramatic planned reductions in
the civil service, albeit primarily by way of attrition. So
it's not going to be a massive cut or cull
of the civil service, but it's a planned efficiency in
the civil service, and I think most people think that
(06:31):
the civil service could and should be more efficient. Whether
that actually happens by way of attrition or by way
of more deeper cuts is I think a question that
needs to be addressed. And you know, while at the
same time as we've had a lot of criticism that
deficit is so high, dramatically higher than what it was
previously predicted, and national defense and meeting our NATO.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Commitments is one of the reasons.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I've heard a lot of people say, but they didn't
go far enough and that you know, I had a
right wing economist on my show that is saying that
we missed out on one of the most important and
most important national programs that we should be implementing right now,
which is a pipeline east and West. And we've got
to build these pipelines to get our gas and our
(07:16):
oil to foreign markets, not be reliant on the United States. So,
you know, I think at the same time as people
are saying debt and deficit are high, I think people
are also saying we need to spend money, and I
guess one of the things that the government, the current government,
has tried to do.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Whether it's right or wrong, I'm not sure. I'd be
interested in your point.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Of view is try to separate out spending of an
operating nature versus spending of what they deem to be
a capital nature, which is what you know companies would
do all the time, where you would have things that
you capitalize and advertise over time, and things like pipelines,
things like jets, things like submarines would be capital items,
(07:57):
and things like transfers to provinces for healthcare and housing
and social services would would be skurt spending. So what
do you think of that current strategy that we're pursuing
in the options that we have.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So I actually agree. I like this idea. It seems
very simple, and again critics would argue that it's a
slighter hand, but I think they missed the point. I
think separating out the budget into operational and capital is,
as you rightly point out, is what companies do is
what people do individually, and it gives a visibility and
(08:34):
a transparency that I think has been missing. The analogy
I would have is that look, people can take home
equity line of credit and borrow money against their house,
which is in effect what debt is. But if that
money is being used to spend dinners out or fancy vacations,
that is one thing. If it's being used to finance
(08:57):
an addition on the house or a down payment on
a new business or something, that's an entirely different thing,
and it so then there's they're very different types of debt.
So why shouldn't we as a country have that kind
of visibility that says, okay, this is money that is
being used for operational reasons. You know, whether it is
(09:20):
to subsidize a foreign investment that you know it doesn't
work out well, or to buy votes here or there
versus something that is meant to be an investment in
our country's future. I think to me that transparency at
least gives the basis for having a more nuanced and
(09:45):
more reasonable debate of what we should spend and what
we shouldn't spend. And you know, to your to the
point that you raise about the right wing economists, look,
I truly believe that we as a country need to
diversify our trading partners, need to diversify our economy. It
is what a prudent company would do. It is what
(10:08):
we should be doing, and if that requires investment, then
that might be the right decision that we have to make.
I think the only argument I would have against it
is not about the idea. Is we are the politicians
or the proponents making that case and winning the argument,
(10:28):
or are we assuming that this is just going to
be done and the electorate will basically rubber stamp or
sign a black check. That I have a problem with.
But the idea of investing in nation building, diversifying our economy,
diversifying our trading partners, I think that sound and prudent.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with our guest Sam Saraj and talking about
debt and deficit and budgets and economies and what we
got to do about it and importantly, how do we
educate and ensure that our populace is knowledgeable about the
issues so that we can make the right decisions.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Stay with us, everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Welcome back everyone to the Bran crimeby Radio Radio. How
I've got Sam Subrogen with us so tonight he's a
behavioral scientist, a keynote speaker. He's author of a book
called The Uncertainty Edge. He's had a twenty five year
career in financial services. And now what he does is
he writes, he teaches, he analyzes to try to understand
the challenges we're in from an economic standpoint, but particularly
(11:50):
from a behavioral standpoint, and how we make some changes.
And so I got to ask you, Sam, you know
we've run into this before. You know, after World War
Two we ran up the debt fairly dramatically in World
War Two for obvious reasons, we were a war. But
for some reason the populace was really behind paying down
(12:10):
the debt, and we did that fairly dramatically after World
War Two in the nineteen nineties. We had run up
the debt during the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, and
in nineteen ninety whatever, I can't remember the year, I
think it was ninety two, the Wall Street Journal called
it the Canadian peso crisis and suggested that the Canadian
(12:31):
dollar was going to be under attack and that we
were We had an economy that was as bad as Mexico,
and even though it was a liberal government in charge,
Jean Caci and Pal Martin really restructured the Canadian financial
system and by the end of the nineteen nineties we
actually had, surprise, surprise, the surplus. In the nineteen nineties,
(12:52):
the Uned States went through a similar change and Bill Clinton,
a Democrat, surprisingly restructured the spending in the United States.
Al Gore ran a program on cutting red tape, and
the Americans did that, and the Americans, surprise, surprise, we're
actually in a surplus in the late nineteen nineties, so
much so that I think you may know this better
(13:14):
than I. The people were actually worried that the surpluses
would go on forever and there'd be no more issuance
of government debt, and there was a question as to
what people would invest in if there was no government debt,
let like the deadlift. That was actually a belief in
the late nineteen nineties that.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Surplus could get so big. So what's happening.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Do we have to sort of relearn this fiscal sanity,
debt and deficit issue almost every generation.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
That's a great question, Brian, And unfortunately I think the
answer is yes. I think this is you alluded to
behavioral side of things, and this is human behavior. We
make the same mistakes over and over again, largely because
we forget. There's actually fascinating research that shows that it's
about three generations that it requires to remember back what
(14:06):
was went through. So there's a lot of research, for example,
that shows, which I find fascinating, that European rivers were
flooding regularly. So the first generation after a massive flood
has to go rebuild their homes, et cetera, and they
actually move significantly farther back from the river bank. But
(14:27):
by the time the third generation after that flood comes around,
they've forgotten about this or think that you know, the
technology is now there, that you know that we can
manage this uncertainty, and they go back towards the river
and have to relearn it again. And I think the
and this is something I talk about in my latest book,
(14:49):
The Uncertainty Edge. I think this all comes from an
idea that we can control things to a level that
we actually cannot. And I think that they the challenge
that we're having right now is this almost this myth
that you can have your cake and eat it too.
So people want more infrastructure, people want new businesses, people
(15:11):
want increased services, people want pay increases all around for
civil services, et cetera. And I'm not here to argue
that any of that is wrong. I think where we
fall down is nobody talks about how that is going
to be paid for, and I think the fundamental reality
is that somebody's got to pay for it, and pretending
(15:34):
that doesn't going to happen or that is going to
be taken care of because of you know, supply side economics,
which was a big Reagan thing for a long time,
and as you said, it was ironically a democratic government
that came in to fix you know, the Republicans as
slash and burn kind of view that they took in
(15:54):
with the taxes. Look, I'm not a bigger, any bigger
fan of paying more taxes than anybody else, any of
your listeners. I think the challenge becomes at some point,
as works for a household, the revenues coming in has
to be greater than the expenses going out, et cetera.
And other than that, it's a recipe for a long
(16:17):
term disaster. And ironically, and unfortunately, I think your conclusion
in your question is absolutely right. We do seem to
have to relearn this lesson every couple of generations or so.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So let me ask you a couple of questions if
I could. I sat down with Brian mulroney, former Prime minister.
Brian mulroney at one point in time was interesting. This
was after he left politics, and it was at a
wedding I was at and he was at and he
was off sitting in a corner. I said, my god,
Brian mulroney, former Prime minister sitting off in a corner.
An incredible opportunity to go chat with the Juma. And
we chatted for a while and he thought that the
(16:57):
two most important programs that he implemented were free trade
and the GST.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And he said the biggest mistake that Stephen.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Harper made, because this was after the time Stephen Harper
was cutting the GST by two points, and he said
that it was incredibly politically brilliant, but it was fiscal
suicide and that the country would live to regret it
because it would be next to impossible to have ever
put those two points back in. And he said that,
(17:27):
you know, free trade he fought election on and even
though the election was close, because in the end people
had voted for free trade, he could implement it. He said,
the mistake he made is they didn't fight the election
on GST, and he went down to massive electoral defeat
because of the GST. He blamed his party going down
(17:49):
to two seats completely on the GST, but he said
it would be remembered afterwards as the most brilliant tax
and fiscal policy put in place. So my question is,
could we actually increase the GST by two points? And
I use the US as an example. I think that
(18:10):
tariffs are effectively a tax. I've spoken to a couple
of economists who say, don't think tariffs are going away, Brian,
because the US government is making so much money from
the tariffs, and it is the American consumer that's paying
those tariffs. But they don't think of it as tariffs.
Don't think of it as a tax because it's called
tariffs because it's only supposedly on foreign goods. But it
(18:33):
is a huge sales tax, and it's a sales tax
comparable to the GST. But because it's called tariffs rather
than goods and services tax or a consumption tax, or
a consumer tax or a sales tax, the populace are
okay with it, and that the US government has become
addicted within just a couple of months to the revenue
(18:53):
that is flowing into their coffers from that tax. So
the question would be, could some government propose, could the
Canadian electorate put up with a two point increase back
to fifteen percent of the GST slus HSD.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Look, I think it's a great question. And the one
thing I'd point out is that Brian mulroney might have
lost that election on the GST, but ironically the liberal
government that followed didn't repeal it when they could have,
even though they fought it on the election on the
basis that they were going to repeal the free trade agreement,
repeal the GSD, et cetera. They didn't. They kept it.
(19:36):
And it was another conservative government that came in that
actually reduced the rate.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
And just to undertand that point, the rat Pack, which
were a couple of individuals in that liberal opposition, the
campaign so vehemently against the GST. Several of them actually
resigned from caucus because they felt so vehemently that they
had promised to repeal the GST. And we're shocked when
(20:03):
Ketch and Martin didn't repeal the GST.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
So some people really.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Felt that it was something that the Liberal Party had
to agree with, but given the economics, they couldn't because
it was so critically important to the financial structure of
the country's finances at the time.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Look, I think to your point, we have raised taxes,
you know, after the Second World War, in the nineties, etc.
Governments raised taxes all the time. They're not popular, but
they have to happen. We have stealth taxes increase, whether
it is through consumption taxes, you know, alcohol taxes. The
(20:43):
very fact that tax rates and the levels at which
the progressive rates of income taxation work doesn't keep up
with inflation is in effect an increase in tax although
it's not characterized that way. I think you make a
great point about tariffs being a consumption tax, but because
it's positioned as a tariff, and because of all the
(21:05):
pr that is that it's the foreign countries paying it
or the business is paying it, I think it's lost
on the person. So I think countries that are in
governments that are struggling to figure out how to pay
for the services that they need to are between a
rock and a hard place. They can increase the visible
rates of tax like income tax et cetera, which are unpopular,
(21:31):
particularly against particularly with the call it the lobby groups
and the you know, the the people that are supporting
the parties and primarily et cetera, the things like GSD
are raising the rates. It's it's a regressive tax, as
you know and your listeners know. It's it hits everybody equally,
(21:54):
and it has the greatest impact on those that are
least able to afford it, the low income people that
are having to pay at that extra tax on food
or other necessities, et cetera. So I mean, from a
pure policy point of view, income tax is always considered
to be a better progressive tax because it is designed
(22:17):
to affect be less detrimental to the lower income people,
where a consumption tax is regressive. But be that as
it may, the increasing GST, for example, by two percent,
would go a long way to put our house in
fiscal order, et cetera. And I wouldn't be surprised if
(22:38):
that becomes government policy whichever party comes into power and
they call it in the next five years, et cetera.
We have to find a way to balance our books.
We have to find a way to pay for all
of the things that we've deemed necessary and important, and
this might be the least offensive way of doing it
(22:59):
to the electorate it and and then the and then
the lobby groups as opposed to raising income tax.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I also asked Brian mulroney what he wished he could
have done, and he said, this is very unpopular, but
I proposed increasing the age of retirement. And you may remember, Brian,
he said that someone went on Parliament Hill in a
protest and said, keep your hands off my old age
(23:26):
pension check Charlie Brown and uh and and the population
raised up in arms, not in arms, but in protest
against any increase in the in the age of retirement.
But we all know that longevity our age is where
we're living longer than we did in the past. And
(23:47):
lots of people in their in their sixties that continue
to work, in fact, lots of people in their seventies
that continue to want to work, and and lots of
people will say, if you continue to work, you know
you'll stay more vie and your life expectancy might actually increase.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So why are.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
We keeping the age of retirement at sixty five? And
I know that this has been something that different political
parties both in Canada and internationally have thought about increasing
to sixty six or sixty seven. And in Canada we
do have an interesting structure where we incentivize some people
to delay taking their old age security to seventy And
(24:27):
it makes economic sense if you believe you're going to
live for a decade or so longer after seventy to
delay taking that old age pension until you're seventy. So
in an era where we're living longer, in an era
where there used to be five people working for every
one person that was older and on social security social services,
(24:49):
to today where there's two people working for every one
person that is older. That our pensions are prefunded, but
a lot of the other transfers like healthcare, et cetera
are not funded. Is there any way that the population
could be convinced do you think to increase the pension
age from sixty five to something greater.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Well, whether convinced or not, I think they will be.
It will happen, just again out of fiscal reality. And
by the way it's happened, it is happening internationally. It's
happening in Europe, it's happening in Japan, And you know,
a lot of the protests in France are very much
(25:32):
around the idea that people are talking about increasing the
retirement age, and your points about people living longer, people
wanting to work longer, and many people do. I think
is only one of the factors that are supporting this move. Look,
(25:52):
I think the reality of it is Again, this is
a lot of what I talk about in the book,
Like the thing is, we look for certainty, and certainty
doesn't exist, but we find ways that we can plan
and control as much as we can. So again I
will say that the way that the Europeans have done it,
or the way I think we will do it, is
(26:14):
that you're not trying to catch current people, you know,
preparing for retirement unawares. Like you're not going to say
to somebody that is sixty, guess what, We'll change the rules.
You're going to have to work for another year or
two years longer. That that's not going to fly, or
even somebody in their fifties perhaps, But if you sit
(26:35):
there and say, you know, starting in twenty years from now,
the retirement age is going up to sixty seven, I
think it's sure it's going to be unpopular. But that's
unpopular because people don't like change. But if you position
it and sit there and say you've got twenty years
or twenty five years to get used to this idea,
(26:56):
to prepare your savings, to adjust to adapt, et cetera,
I think that the grumbling will go away because the
reality of it is it doesn't fundamentally change their day
to day living, et cetera. But I think it's unavoidable.
It's unavoidable for all the reasons that you pointed out.
We don't have the five to one ratio anymore, et cetera,
(27:20):
and we won't, so you know, either we're going to
be bankrupt because we can't afford this kind of lifestyle
and this kind of payment systems that we've got, or
we have to make smart, rational choices how we're going
to adapt.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
But Sam, it doesn't appear that anyone's telling us about
these rational choices that you're suggesting we need to make.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
It appears that we're all living.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
In this illusion of control that everything's okay, that we're
going to like, how do we as a country, how
do we as a population, how do we as taxpayers
and electorate prepare ourselves for this future that is uncertain
that may mean tax is are increasing, how do we
prepare for that?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Look, I think part of my concern and part of
and I think I agree with you, I have a
challenge with our leaders, whatever political stripe, because we're not
having that conversation. We're not kind of equipping the electorate
to kind of sit there and say, here are the
(28:25):
choices that you are facing you. Look, I've believed, I
always believe that life is about trade offs. Choosing one thing,
you know, choosing to go to school, for example, versus
not going to school is a trade off, and we
make it knowing what the consequences of either choice are.
It's not making a judgment that one one choice is
(28:47):
better than the other. It's making an informed choice that
this is the consequences of doing one versus the other.
So I think we can agree that, you know, perhaps
our politicians would serve the electra better if they were
actually framing that conversation and having that discussion. In the
absence of that, I think the electorate and this is
(29:09):
one of the things. So I'm so passionate about this
topic because I think this ability to deal with uncertainty
in a productive way is going to be the defining
skill that is going to be mean success or failure
for all of us in the years to come. And
you know, part of what I talk about in the
(29:30):
book is this frameworks that you can use to kind
of see, you know, ideas about things. So the framework
that I've created and put in the book is edge.
So establish a foundation, focus on, for example, what you
can control and not control. Diagnose the situation. So that
means seeing the things situation objectively without bias. You know,
(29:53):
we may want to believe the taxes will never increase
because that's the way that you know, that makes us
feel good, right, but is that realistic given the state
of finances, et cetera. And if it's not, then we
need to understand objectively that what might the future look.
Then the next element in the framework is go deciding
(30:14):
how to move forward smartly without haste or hesitation. Most
people either Russian blindly or get into analysis paralysis. And
I think the key for all of us is to
figure out objectively are what's the world likely to happen?
And what kind of steps can we take to prepare ourselves?
And the last thing, the last element of the framework
(30:37):
is evolved because the reality is that no matter how
great your plans are, things will always happen that force
you to kind of adapt or evolve. I mean, you
just talked about it. We didn't think a year ago
that tariffs in twenty twenty five is going to be
such a big theme. It has been, and it will
be for the foreseeable future. So whatever plans we have
(31:00):
need to be adapted and involved. I think it's the
saying that I always struck me is the famous observation
by the boxer Mike Tyson, which is that everyone has
a plan until they get punched in the mouth and
the real punched in them out by taxes, by uncertainty,
by government policies, et cetera. And the key is not
(31:24):
you know, can you control it? The key is how
well you adapt your situation, your plan, your response to it.
I think that's the difference between success and failure. And
I think we all need to get our hands on it.
Whether it is we can hope for our politicians or
our leaders to kind of be more proactive, be more
(31:45):
visionary and think forward. In the absence of that, I
think we have to help ourselves do the best that
we can to prepare ourselves for whatever the world may bring.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You used an interesting work word in what you wrote
to me, and you know, lots of people will talk
talk about adapt or pivot or resilience. You use the
word invest in agility. How do you invest in agility?
And you say that this becomes and can become and
should become our competitive edge.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
How do you invest in agility?
Speaker 3 (32:15):
The investing in agility is again I think it's it's
a I believe it's a critical skill. The pandemic is
a great example. Okay, So there were many, many, many companies.
I was having dinner with somebody yesterday. They talked about
the fact that before the pandemic they were working remotely
(32:35):
maybe once or twice a month. Now they're working in
the office once or twice a month, okay, and they've
been able to respond with agility because you know, what
might have been a five year or ten year plan
to do zoom, digital collaboration, et cetera, got compressed into
(32:57):
three or four months for the companies that were successful.
Because they were agile, they were able to sit there
and not get caught up in analysis paralysis, to sit
there and say, okay, what is this going to mean
for our electorate? How for our you know, for our
employee base. What is you know, how are we going
to police it, how are we going to get compliance?
Blah blah blah blah. You know, they said, Okay, we're
(33:19):
going to be agile and test. One critical way of
doing it is not to try to grab a big goal,
but to focus on small wins and let them momentum build.
So one of my favorite stories on this is I'll
give a football story is in the nineteen seventies, the
(33:41):
Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL won four Super Bowls in
six years, creating one of the greatest dynasties in sports history.
But the interesting thing is they didn't dominate every game.
The statistics show they in fact that against stronger teams
they lost about half the time. Where they won wasn't
(34:04):
doing the small things well and consistently. So they won
almost every game against weaker teams. They focused on fundamentals
of winning the tackle, winning the possession, and through that
they built small wins that built momentum by compounding over time.
And this is what I mean by investing in agility.
(34:27):
Focus on your process and try to get the next
decision right and not overly obsess about what the outcome
is going to be. Maybe I'll give you one more example.
So for your listeners, Warren Buffett is a great example. Okay,
Warren Buffett I think, hands down most people would agree
(34:48):
is a great investor. Does he make bad investments, sure,
they are what I would call bad outcomes, But because
he's invested in such a great process, he's invested in
his agility. He has a track record that beats everybody else.
But this is one of the reasons he is investing
(35:10):
in agility by sitting on almost four hundred billion dollars
in cash right now because he thinks that there aren't
any viable opportunities to invest. But that resource that he's
saved as gunpowder, dry gunpowder, et cetera, is what's going
to give him the ability to be agile when the
(35:31):
opportunity arises.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Not many people are spitting on that kind of cash,
or even percentage of their assets in cash, And it
really does suggest that he thinks something's going to happen,
or that things are overpriced today. We're going to take
a break, a final break for some messages, and come
back with our guest sensor Rogen in just two minutes,
I can ask him about where Canada is versus the
(35:54):
United States, where we're going, and what we need from
our leaders, both from an institutional stamp point as well
as from a public gust standpoints.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
David as I want back in.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Two years, No Radio, No Problem stream is live on
SAGA ninety sixty AM dot CA.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian crimeby Radio. Our
guest tonight is Sam siv Rogen. Really interesting, gentlemen. He
spent about twenty years in financial services and has really
(36:35):
experienced what it's like to be in the marketplace, organizing
companies and investing in companies. And now what he is
is he he's a teacher, he's a keynote speaker, and
he's an author, and he's written really quite an interesting
book about sort of behavioral economics and how we can
be future ready. And he's got a newsletter, the Future
(36:55):
Ready Advisor Newsletter, that explores psychological reactance, the invisible force
that makes clients push back harder the more urgently you
present your expertise. You know, fascinating some of the things
that you've researched in that you read about. And I
really appreciate you joining us, so thank you very much.
We've been talking about really debt and deficit and how
(37:20):
the public, how the people have to adapt. Lots of
people think that US is really a challenge today, that
their debt and deficit are unsustainable, And to put some
numbers on it, I think that the US deficit is
over six percent of GDP. The Canadian deficit is under
three percent of GDP. And so therefore people that take
(37:41):
a look at Canada say, we got a big problem.
But the US has got a far bigger problem. Their
debt to GDP is higher than ours. They have passed
this big, beautiful bill that has decreased taxes on the
wealthy dramatically, but it comes with it some major cuts
to social services that at least the Democrats are complaining about.
(38:03):
Whether people actually get up in arms and complain about it,
we still have to see. So I can to ask you,
are we in better shape than the United States?
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Or are we in worse.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Shape than the United States. They've been spending five percent
of GDP on defense. We have not been spending five
percent of defense on GDP, and we're gonna have to
ramp up that spending. They are putting in tariffs to
reshore manufacturing some people think we need to go back
to like an autopac type system where you want to
sell in our market, you're going to have to produce
(38:36):
in our market because this free trade you know, orientation
that we've been on since nineteen ninety, since nineteen eighty eight,
seems to, according to our Prime minister, changed and we
cannot depend on the United States. You talked about agility, Well,
we've become seventy five percent reliant on one customer of
(38:56):
the United States. That's not what any company would do.
So I got to ask, are we in bad shape?
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I don't think we're in bad shape, but I wouldn't
say that we're in great shape. I think again it's
it's always hard to compare apples to oranges. So yes,
we have a lower deficit to GDP or debt to
GDP than the US, et cetera, but we also don't
have the productive base. I think the challenge for US is,
(39:24):
you know, my in history and geography when I was young,
I mean many many, many years ago, I think the
the knock on Canada was always that we are hewers
of wood and drawers of water, and the idea being
that we are rich in natural resources, but we haven't
actually moved beyond that primary economy, and I think, ironically,
(39:48):
in twenty twenty five, I don't know that that's that's
not true. So if you talk about it, for example,
some of the key technologies that are going to drive
the the industries of the future, whether it's clean tech,
whether it's AI, whether it's robotics, etc. Countries like China
(40:08):
have actually invested for the last twenty years on it
and they're dominating things like I mean solar for example,
they are the leaders in solar production. I think the
question for US is are we reacting defensively or do
we have a plan as a country of where to
go forward. So I'll give an example one of the
(40:32):
engines of the US growth. For many people, what they
would say is the US university system, which for years
has attracted the brightest minds from around the world with
a promise either implicit or explicit, that they could then
stay on after their studies to kind of grow live
(40:54):
in the US and build their lives there. We've seen
over the life that has worked remarkably well for creating
many Silicon Valley companies, et cetera that have employed people,
paid taxes to the US government coffers and created a
booming US economy in the technologies and services that people
(41:15):
are demanding, rightly or wrongly. I'm not arguing the politics here,
but the US has basically said we're ripping up that playbook.
We're not using that anymore in the US. I guess
my question is, we've seen this playbear work, and we
know that it works. We've seen it. Are we thinking
(41:36):
about doing something similar in Canada? And if not, why not?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
If there's anything, aren't we doing the opposite by making
it far more difficult for foreign students to come to
Canada right now?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And again, this is politics I saw. I totally agree Brian,
and again I'm not arguing the politics of it. But
it seems to me that we're making decisions that are
smart in the in the short term, but you know,
perhaps less smart in the long term. And I think
that we need to be as a country, as a government,
as a people, need to be playing chess and not
(42:08):
go fish. You know, we need to be sitting there thinks.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
You say we're playing go fish right now? Huh, you
think we're playing go fish right now?
Speaker 3 (42:18):
I think there are some decisions and policies that we're
making that would be extremely short term in nature, and
others that are you know, a more strategic and thinking.
I think it's not this has got a bad rap,
but like the old Soviet five year plans, et cetera.
I mean these, I would say, where China is right
(42:41):
now is the result of a twenty twenty five year
plan that they put in place and executed without you know,
going every which way when the when the noise, et
cetera comes in, et cetera. And I think we could
take a page from that book.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
So Sam, let me ask you, then, given this challenge
that we're faced in Canada and frankly the world is facing,
because you know, we're not alone in some of these challenges, what.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Do we need in leadership? You know, you've talked about China.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
China's got an authoritarian leader, it's got a communist party
that seems to control things. You know, We've lots of
people have debated the Beijing Consensus versus the Washington Consensus,
where the Beijing Consensus was all about industrial strategy that
was set from above, and the Washington consensus up until
Biden was you know, just let the.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Markets decide back in the.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Nineteen eighties, you know, Japan was in its incendency, and
people talked about kaisan and industrial strategy and that the
smart people were in what was it called METI, the
Ministry of whatever it was called. That was sort of
controlling going on in Japan, and that seemed to have
worked for quite a long period of time until it
(43:59):
didn't work. We've got some people saying that the United
States has an authoritarian like government today that's implementing things
like tariffs that we never heard about before.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
As you pointed out, We've.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Got polarization in the UK, in France, authoritarian regimes in
Russia and Hungary. You know, what's the solution. What type
of leadership do we need today to make the kinds
of changes that you think we need to make to
create this investment in agility.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's funny that you asked that question, because this is
actually the impetus that drove me to write this latest book,
because I am absolutely convinced that we need to have
leaders equipped with the right tools and the right mindset,
whether at the government level or in the corporate level,
to be able to deal with this rapidly changing world
(44:54):
that we're talking about and I think we're in the
The book is really for people in the midst of transformation,
so as they say, whether personal, organizational, or governmental. And
I think that the key is that we need to
acknowledge first that we live in a world of uncertainty,
and uncertainty means that you can't model it, you can't
(45:15):
control it. That you have to, as you say, invest
in agility, that you have to own the unknown. You
have to be comfortable with not knowing how things are
going to work out. But the leaders that we need,
I think are ones that build strong foundations. They know
what they can control what they can't. They have to
(45:35):
align their actions with their long term goals, and they
need to measure what matters. I think here process matters
more than outcome. I think the book talks about frameworks
and tools how to execute consistently when the world feels
like it's falling apart. I think the differentiator for leaders
(45:58):
that I think what we need. It's not about intelligence,
although that is important. It is not just about diversity
of perspective, although I think that's important. It is about
humility to say that you know, we don't know everything,
and we don't know what actions that we're going to
take how it's going to play out. I think the
(46:20):
key to that bit that humility is also building the skills,
the training, the mindset that we don't need to know
all the answers, but that we can trust ourselves to
adapt under pressure.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I liked your EDGE concept. Can you remind us what
each one of those letters stood for?
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Yeah? So edge is establish your foundations. Again, I think
the critical thing is this is building a foundations before
you're having to deal with uncertainty. So identify what you
can control, align your actions with your priorities. Most of
our actions have to make sense in the short term,
(47:00):
the suspen as well as the long term, and then
you track what matters. Once you built that foundation, then
you're ready to kind of be dynamic and adapt as
the situation evolves. So that's diagnosed. So are you seeing
the situation clearly and without bias? And I think that's critical.
(47:22):
We miss so many things that are happening because we're
not seeing downstream consequences of what might happen. Then once
you've diagnosed it properly, then you're ready to plan your
actions to go forward. So this gives you the opportunity
to go forward in a measured way without rushing in
blindly or stuck an analysis paralysis. And then finally, I
(47:44):
think it's this mindset that I talked about that you
have to be ready to say that, no matter how
great the plan is, what we put on paper, how
much analysis we've done, things are not going to unfold
the way that we've planned it to be. So that's
the evolve element of the last e of the edge work.
We need to be able to evolve as a circumstances change,
(48:04):
so and trust in our ability to be able to
do that. Maybe I can tell share one story with
your listeners that to me bring this brought this all home.
It's a real story. So it was in the summer
of nineteen forty nine when a wildfire took a place
in a remote canyon in Montana called Ma Gulch. So
(48:27):
sixteen smoke jumpers actually parachuted in to fight this battle,
but the fire exploded and it just moved faster than
anyone thought possible. These men were trapped in the canyon
and while most of them tried to outrun the fire,
which was a losing proposition, their leader, Wagner Dodge, actually
(48:47):
did something that was unprecedented. He stopped running and he
set fire to the grass in front of him, creating
a small burnt patch, and he threw himself down into
the ashes. So what do you created in that moment,
which has never been done before. Is out called an
escape fire, setting deliberately a smaller fire to starve the
(49:09):
main fire of any fuel. That saved his life, but
unfortunately almost all of his other men died. And what
this taught And there's a psychologist, Gary Klein, who studied
this incident, and he calls this naturalistic decision making. It's
what first responders do, It's what professional athletes do, it's
what emergency room doctors do. They rely on their training
(49:32):
and experience and take the pieces that you know from
previous experience that says, okay, we can apply it to
this situation, but learn how to adapt on the fly
and make changes to it because it's different. We all
have that capability, but we just need to invest in
it and trust in it and be able to do it.
(49:53):
And I think what I'd love to see our leaders
do is it's hard running a government or a company,
but we need to build that those capabilities that we're
able to adapt, you know, so when things don't exactly
unfold the way that we want to. That is what
I think innovation is all about, and that is what
I think is needed as we deal with the challenges
(50:14):
of the next five, ten, fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Sam Subagen, thanks so much for joining us. Remind us
please the name of the book and where we can
all buy it.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
The book is called The Uncertainty Edge, Lead with Clarity,
Adapt with Confidence, Win with Conviction. It's on Amazon Amazon
dot CA you can search it, or on my website
Sam Sebaragen dot com you'll find where you can buy it.
It's launches on November twenty eighth, Black Friday, and it's
available for pre order right now as a Black Friday discount.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
This is a great conversation and one that we all
need to pay attention to and listen to it, especially
our leaders. So thank you Sam Subagen for joining us today.
That's our show for tonight, everybody. Thank you for joining.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
I Remind you on myne every Monday.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Through Friday at six o'clock on nine sixty am. You
can stream me online from anywhere in the world at
TRIPLEWSAGA nine sixty am dot cl My podcast and videos
get put up on my website Briancromby dot com, on
social media, on YouTube, my channel, and on social media
and podcast service. As soon as the radio show gets broadcast,
air GOODNEIGHTI everybody, Sam always great, Thank you sir.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Good Night Wye What.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
sixty am dot C
The views expressed in the following program are those of
the participants and do not necessarily reflect the views of
Saga nine sixty am or its management.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Good evening, everyone to welcome to the Brian Crumby Radio ar.
It's a pleasure to have Sam Subagen back with us tonight.
He is really an interesting gentleman. He's an author, he's
a business executive. He's done an incredible job of taking
complex ideas and making them understandable. He's a behavioral scientist.
He's a keynote speaker. He's an author of a book
(00:38):
called The Uncertainty Edge. He's had a twenty five year
career in financial services where he's managed teams and trusted
with over eighty billion dollars in client assets. He's led
forty billion dollars in cross border m and A. He's
guided global teams through crises, crashes and transformation. And now
what he wants to do is help countries Canada, the
United States, etc. Get through our crisis. And today we're
(01:01):
going to talk about debt and deficit. Sam Savagen, Welcome
to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Sir Brian. Always a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
My pleasure to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
So you know, people have been talking a lot about
Canada's debt, about America's debt, reckless spending, you know, debt
and deficit that are too high as a percentage of GDP.
What do we do about it? What's your solution? Are
we at the max? You know? I've heard that France
is over six percent of GDP and deficits, the United
(01:35):
States is over six percent of GDP and deficit. Canada
is at less than three. So do we really have
a problem And if we do, what have we got.
Speaker 4 (01:44):
To do about it?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Particularly when you think about this budget that was recently
announced last week that has the deficit going up dramatically
and the Conservative Party complaining that it's outrageous, and then
other people saying, but we're not spending enough on some
of these major programs that people were ragging about, pipelines
from the east to the west, to the north to
the south.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
Yeah, look, I think it's a complicated question to me
if you look at it. I think the new monetary theorists,
you know, which were in the vogue about five, six,
seven years ago, their view was that there's no such
thing as too much debt for a country. A country
it can issue whatever debt, because they basically print the
(02:26):
money and that's we'll take care of it. I happen
to be a little bit more old school and think
that countries like people like companies, deal with real I
would say financial forces. It's the law of finances, the
business equivalent or the country equivalent to the laws of physics.
You can't really violate them for too long. I think
(02:49):
the challenge becomes what is too much? It's this is
where human behavior becomes very very important. Brian. All of
these things work. Legal tender is accepted. A country's bond
or debt raising works as long as the public believes
(03:10):
that they're going to get paid back and that this
is going someplace. The moment that sentiment change, and it
can change on a dime, then all bets are off.
And we've seen these in countries like Argentina. We've seen
this in different time periods for even western nations around
the world. We saw this, for example with Liz trust,
(03:32):
the very short lived UK Prime minister a few years back,
who was forced to resign because she launched a budget
that was basically didn't give any confidence to the market
or bondholders that the UK was on a trajectory to
(03:53):
repay its debt. So I think the question that you
ask about the budget is a good one. Here to
say to anyone that you know, some of the spending
items aren't important in the broader scheme of what we're
trying to achieve as a country. What I do try
to point out is that the I think the electorate
(04:15):
needs to have a better sense of where that money
is being spent, why it is being spent, what trade
offs are going to be made, and why those trade
offs are necessary. My concern has always been we seem
to be having this kind of idea that we're going
(04:35):
to make this spending because this is important and it
will just take care of itself somehow. I think you
and I talked about this before, that the NATO spending
budget that we're committing to a five percent of GDP.
I'm not here to argue whether that's the right thing
or the wrong thing, et cetera. I think that is
a decision that are politicians are elected to make and
(05:00):
convinced the electorate. The point that I think has been
missed is that five percent of GDP translates to something
on the order of thirty five percent of the federal budget.
So the question that I that comes to my mind
is what programs are being cut as a result of that,
(05:22):
or what taxes are going to go up as a
result of that, or what debt are we taking on
as a result of that, and who's going to pay
for it? And I don't have the answers to that.
I think the question that we should ask as an electorate,
as a responsible electorate is shouldn't we be debating that?
Shouldn't we've taken a view on is this the trade
(05:43):
offs that we want to make and why we want
to make it?
Speaker 2 (05:47):
Well, right now we have a minority of Parliament and
so we will at least the parties will be debating
it and they'll have an opportunity to vote it down.
I think the answer to your question is that it's
being financed primarily by increased debt. The deficit has gone
up dramatically, and so that debt will be paid by
you know, one would assume our children or our grandchildren,
(06:09):
because it certainly not going to be paid off in
my lifetime, and by some fairly dramatic planned reductions in
the civil service, albeit primarily by way of attrition. So
it's not going to be a massive cut or cull
of the civil service, but it's a planned efficiency in
the civil service, and I think most people think that
(06:31):
the civil service could and should be more efficient. Whether
that actually happens by way of attrition or by way
of more deeper cuts is I think a question that
needs to be addressed. And you know, while at the
same time as we've had a lot of criticism that
deficit is so high, dramatically higher than what it was
previously predicted, and national defense and meeting our NATO.
Speaker 4 (06:55):
Commitments is one of the reasons.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
I've heard a lot of people say, but they didn't
go far enough and that you know, I had a
right wing economist on my show that is saying that
we missed out on one of the most important and
most important national programs that we should be implementing right now,
which is a pipeline east and West. And we've got
to build these pipelines to get our gas and our
(07:16):
oil to foreign markets, not be reliant on the United States. So,
you know, I think at the same time as people
are saying debt and deficit are high, I think people
are also saying we need to spend money, and I
guess one of the things that the government, the current government,
has tried to do.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
Whether it's right or wrong, I'm not sure. I'd be
interested in your point.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Of view is try to separate out spending of an
operating nature versus spending of what they deem to be
a capital nature, which is what you know companies would
do all the time, where you would have things that
you capitalize and advertise over time, and things like pipelines,
things like jets, things like submarines would be capital items,
(07:57):
and things like transfers to provinces for healthcare and housing
and social services would would be skurt spending. So what
do you think of that current strategy that we're pursuing
in the options that we have.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
So I actually agree. I like this idea. It seems
very simple, and again critics would argue that it's a
slighter hand, but I think they missed the point. I
think separating out the budget into operational and capital is,
as you rightly point out, is what companies do is
what people do individually, and it gives a visibility and
(08:34):
a transparency that I think has been missing. The analogy
I would have is that look, people can take home
equity line of credit and borrow money against their house,
which is in effect what debt is. But if that
money is being used to spend dinners out or fancy vacations,
that is one thing. If it's being used to finance
(08:57):
an addition on the house or a down payment on
a new business or something, that's an entirely different thing,
and it so then there's they're very different types of debt.
So why shouldn't we as a country have that kind
of visibility that says, okay, this is money that is
being used for operational reasons. You know, whether it is
(09:20):
to subsidize a foreign investment that you know it doesn't
work out well, or to buy votes here or there
versus something that is meant to be an investment in
our country's future. I think to me that transparency at
least gives the basis for having a more nuanced and
(09:45):
more reasonable debate of what we should spend and what
we shouldn't spend. And you know, to your to the
point that you raise about the right wing economists, look,
I truly believe that we as a country need to
diversify our trading partners, need to diversify our economy. It
is what a prudent company would do. It is what
(10:08):
we should be doing, and if that requires investment, then
that might be the right decision that we have to make.
I think the only argument I would have against it
is not about the idea. Is we are the politicians
or the proponents making that case and winning the argument,
(10:28):
or are we assuming that this is just going to
be done and the electorate will basically rubber stamp or
sign a black check. That I have a problem with.
But the idea of investing in nation building, diversifying our economy,
diversifying our trading partners, I think that sound and prudent.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We're going to take a break for some messages and
come back with our guest Sam Saraj and talking about
debt and deficit and budgets and economies and what we
got to do about it and importantly, how do we
educate and ensure that our populace is knowledgeable about the
issues so that we can make the right decisions.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
Stay with us, everyone back in two.
Speaker 1 (11:10):
Minutes stream us live at SAGA nine sixty am dot CA.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Welcome back everyone to the Bran crimeby Radio Radio. How
I've got Sam Subrogen with us so tonight he's a
behavioral scientist, a keynote speaker. He's author of a book
called The Uncertainty Edge. He's had a twenty five year
career in financial services. And now what he does is
he writes, he teaches, he analyzes to try to understand
the challenges we're in from an economic standpoint, but particularly
(11:50):
from a behavioral standpoint, and how we make some changes.
And so I got to ask you, Sam, you know
we've run into this before. You know, after World War
Two we ran up the debt fairly dramatically in World
War Two for obvious reasons, we were a war. But
for some reason the populace was really behind paying down
(12:10):
the debt, and we did that fairly dramatically after World
War Two in the nineteen nineties. We had run up
the debt during the nineteen seventies and nineteen eighties, and
in nineteen ninety whatever, I can't remember the year, I
think it was ninety two, the Wall Street Journal called
it the Canadian peso crisis and suggested that the Canadian
(12:31):
dollar was going to be under attack and that we
were We had an economy that was as bad as Mexico,
and even though it was a liberal government in charge,
Jean Caci and Pal Martin really restructured the Canadian financial
system and by the end of the nineteen nineties we
actually had, surprise, surprise, the surplus. In the nineteen nineties,
(12:52):
the Uned States went through a similar change and Bill Clinton,
a Democrat, surprisingly restructured the spending in the United States.
Al Gore ran a program on cutting red tape, and
the Americans did that, and the Americans, surprise, surprise, we're
actually in a surplus in the late nineteen nineties, so
much so that I think you may know this better
(13:14):
than I. The people were actually worried that the surpluses
would go on forever and there'd be no more issuance
of government debt, and there was a question as to
what people would invest in if there was no government debt,
let like the deadlift. That was actually a belief in
the late nineteen nineties that.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
Surplus could get so big. So what's happening.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Do we have to sort of relearn this fiscal sanity,
debt and deficit issue almost every generation.
Speaker 3 (13:41):
That's a great question, Brian, And unfortunately I think the
answer is yes. I think this is you alluded to
behavioral side of things, and this is human behavior. We
make the same mistakes over and over again, largely because
we forget. There's actually fascinating research that shows that it's
about three generations that it requires to remember back what
(14:06):
was went through. So there's a lot of research, for example,
that shows, which I find fascinating, that European rivers were
flooding regularly. So the first generation after a massive flood
has to go rebuild their homes, et cetera, and they
actually move significantly farther back from the river bank. But
(14:27):
by the time the third generation after that flood comes around,
they've forgotten about this or think that you know, the
technology is now there, that you know that we can
manage this uncertainty, and they go back towards the river
and have to relearn it again. And I think the
and this is something I talk about in my latest book,
(14:49):
The Uncertainty Edge. I think this all comes from an
idea that we can control things to a level that
we actually cannot. And I think that they the challenge
that we're having right now is this almost this myth
that you can have your cake and eat it too.
So people want more infrastructure, people want new businesses, people
(15:11):
want increased services, people want pay increases all around for
civil services, et cetera. And I'm not here to argue
that any of that is wrong. I think where we
fall down is nobody talks about how that is going
to be paid for, and I think the fundamental reality
is that somebody's got to pay for it, and pretending
(15:34):
that doesn't going to happen or that is going to
be taken care of because of you know, supply side economics,
which was a big Reagan thing for a long time,
and as you said, it was ironically a democratic government
that came in to fix you know, the Republicans as
slash and burn kind of view that they took in
(15:54):
with the taxes. Look, I'm not a bigger, any bigger
fan of paying more taxes than anybody else, any of
your listeners. I think the challenge becomes at some point,
as works for a household, the revenues coming in has
to be greater than the expenses going out, et cetera.
And other than that, it's a recipe for a long
(16:17):
term disaster. And ironically, and unfortunately, I think your conclusion
in your question is absolutely right. We do seem to
have to relearn this lesson every couple of generations or so.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
So let me ask you a couple of questions if
I could. I sat down with Brian mulroney, former Prime minister.
Brian mulroney at one point in time was interesting. This
was after he left politics, and it was at a
wedding I was at and he was at and he
was off sitting in a corner. I said, my god,
Brian mulroney, former Prime minister sitting off in a corner.
An incredible opportunity to go chat with the Juma. And
we chatted for a while and he thought that the
(16:57):
two most important programs that he implemented were free trade
and the GST.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
And he said the biggest mistake that Stephen.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Harper made, because this was after the time Stephen Harper
was cutting the GST by two points, and he said
that it was incredibly politically brilliant, but it was fiscal
suicide and that the country would live to regret it
because it would be next to impossible to have ever
put those two points back in. And he said that,
(17:27):
you know, free trade he fought election on and even
though the election was close, because in the end people
had voted for free trade, he could implement it. He said,
the mistake he made is they didn't fight the election
on GST, and he went down to massive electoral defeat
because of the GST. He blamed his party going down
(17:49):
to two seats completely on the GST, but he said
it would be remembered afterwards as the most brilliant tax
and fiscal policy put in place. So my question is,
could we actually increase the GST by two points? And
I use the US as an example. I think that
(18:10):
tariffs are effectively a tax. I've spoken to a couple
of economists who say, don't think tariffs are going away, Brian,
because the US government is making so much money from
the tariffs, and it is the American consumer that's paying
those tariffs. But they don't think of it as tariffs.
Don't think of it as a tax because it's called
tariffs because it's only supposedly on foreign goods. But it
(18:33):
is a huge sales tax, and it's a sales tax
comparable to the GST. But because it's called tariffs rather
than goods and services tax or a consumption tax, or
a consumer tax or a sales tax, the populace are
okay with it, and that the US government has become
addicted within just a couple of months to the revenue
(18:53):
that is flowing into their coffers from that tax. So
the question would be, could some government propose, could the
Canadian electorate put up with a two point increase back
to fifteen percent of the GST slus HSD.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Look, I think it's a great question. And the one
thing I'd point out is that Brian mulroney might have
lost that election on the GST, but ironically the liberal
government that followed didn't repeal it when they could have,
even though they fought it on the election on the
basis that they were going to repeal the free trade agreement,
repeal the GSD, et cetera. They didn't. They kept it.
(19:36):
And it was another conservative government that came in that
actually reduced the rate.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
And just to undertand that point, the rat Pack, which
were a couple of individuals in that liberal opposition, the
campaign so vehemently against the GST. Several of them actually
resigned from caucus because they felt so vehemently that they
had promised to repeal the GST. And we're shocked when
(20:03):
Ketch and Martin didn't repeal the GST.
Speaker 4 (20:06):
So some people really.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Felt that it was something that the Liberal Party had
to agree with, but given the economics, they couldn't because
it was so critically important to the financial structure of
the country's finances at the time.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Look, I think to your point, we have raised taxes,
you know, after the Second World War, in the nineties, etc.
Governments raised taxes all the time. They're not popular, but
they have to happen. We have stealth taxes increase, whether
it is through consumption taxes, you know, alcohol taxes. The
(20:43):
very fact that tax rates and the levels at which
the progressive rates of income taxation work doesn't keep up
with inflation is in effect an increase in tax although
it's not characterized that way. I think you make a
great point about tariffs being a consumption tax, but because
it's positioned as a tariff, and because of all the
(21:05):
pr that is that it's the foreign countries paying it
or the business is paying it, I think it's lost
on the person. So I think countries that are in
governments that are struggling to figure out how to pay
for the services that they need to are between a
rock and a hard place. They can increase the visible
rates of tax like income tax et cetera, which are unpopular,
(21:31):
particularly against particularly with the call it the lobby groups
and the you know, the the people that are supporting
the parties and primarily et cetera, the things like GSD
are raising the rates. It's it's a regressive tax, as
you know and your listeners know. It's it hits everybody equally,
(21:54):
and it has the greatest impact on those that are
least able to afford it, the low income people that
are having to pay at that extra tax on food
or other necessities, et cetera. So I mean, from a
pure policy point of view, income tax is always considered
to be a better progressive tax because it is designed
(22:17):
to affect be less detrimental to the lower income people,
where a consumption tax is regressive. But be that as
it may, the increasing GST, for example, by two percent,
would go a long way to put our house in
fiscal order, et cetera. And I wouldn't be surprised if
(22:38):
that becomes government policy whichever party comes into power and
they call it in the next five years, et cetera.
We have to find a way to balance our books.
We have to find a way to pay for all
of the things that we've deemed necessary and important, and
this might be the least offensive way of doing it
(22:59):
to the electorate it and and then the and then
the lobby groups as opposed to raising income tax.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
I also asked Brian mulroney what he wished he could
have done, and he said, this is very unpopular, but
I proposed increasing the age of retirement. And you may remember, Brian,
he said that someone went on Parliament Hill in a
protest and said, keep your hands off my old age
(23:26):
pension check Charlie Brown and uh and and the population
raised up in arms, not in arms, but in protest
against any increase in the in the age of retirement.
But we all know that longevity our age is where
we're living longer than we did in the past. And
(23:47):
lots of people in their in their sixties that continue
to work, in fact, lots of people in their seventies
that continue to want to work, and and lots of
people will say, if you continue to work, you know
you'll stay more vie and your life expectancy might actually increase.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
So why are.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
We keeping the age of retirement at sixty five? And
I know that this has been something that different political
parties both in Canada and internationally have thought about increasing
to sixty six or sixty seven. And in Canada we
do have an interesting structure where we incentivize some people
to delay taking their old age security to seventy And
(24:27):
it makes economic sense if you believe you're going to
live for a decade or so longer after seventy to
delay taking that old age pension until you're seventy. So
in an era where we're living longer, in an era
where there used to be five people working for every
one person that was older and on social security social services,
(24:49):
to today where there's two people working for every one
person that is older. That our pensions are prefunded, but
a lot of the other transfers like healthcare, et cetera
are not funded. Is there any way that the population
could be convinced do you think to increase the pension
age from sixty five to something greater.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Well, whether convinced or not, I think they will be.
It will happen, just again out of fiscal reality. And
by the way it's happened, it is happening internationally. It's
happening in Europe, it's happening in Japan, And you know,
a lot of the protests in France are very much
(25:32):
around the idea that people are talking about increasing the
retirement age, and your points about people living longer, people
wanting to work longer, and many people do. I think
is only one of the factors that are supporting this move. Look,
(25:52):
I think the reality of it is Again, this is
a lot of what I talk about in the book,
Like the thing is, we look for certainty, and certainty
doesn't exist, but we find ways that we can plan
and control as much as we can. So again I
will say that the way that the Europeans have done it,
or the way I think we will do it, is
(26:14):
that you're not trying to catch current people, you know,
preparing for retirement unawares. Like you're not going to say
to somebody that is sixty, guess what, We'll change the rules.
You're going to have to work for another year or
two years longer. That that's not going to fly, or
even somebody in their fifties perhaps, But if you sit
(26:35):
there and say, you know, starting in twenty years from now,
the retirement age is going up to sixty seven, I
think it's sure it's going to be unpopular. But that's
unpopular because people don't like change. But if you position
it and sit there and say you've got twenty years
or twenty five years to get used to this idea,
(26:56):
to prepare your savings, to adjust to adapt, et cetera,
I think that the grumbling will go away because the
reality of it is it doesn't fundamentally change their day
to day living, et cetera. But I think it's unavoidable.
It's unavoidable for all the reasons that you pointed out.
We don't have the five to one ratio anymore, et cetera,
(27:20):
and we won't, so you know, either we're going to
be bankrupt because we can't afford this kind of lifestyle
and this kind of payment systems that we've got, or
we have to make smart, rational choices how we're going
to adapt.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
But Sam, it doesn't appear that anyone's telling us about
these rational choices that you're suggesting we need to make.
Speaker 4 (27:41):
It appears that we're all living.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
In this illusion of control that everything's okay, that we're
going to like, how do we as a country, how
do we as a population, how do we as taxpayers
and electorate prepare ourselves for this future that is uncertain
that may mean tax is are increasing, how do we
prepare for that?
Speaker 3 (28:03):
Look, I think part of my concern and part of
and I think I agree with you, I have a
challenge with our leaders, whatever political stripe, because we're not
having that conversation. We're not kind of equipping the electorate
to kind of sit there and say, here are the
(28:25):
choices that you are facing you. Look, I've believed, I
always believe that life is about trade offs. Choosing one thing,
you know, choosing to go to school, for example, versus
not going to school is a trade off, and we
make it knowing what the consequences of either choice are.
It's not making a judgment that one one choice is
(28:47):
better than the other. It's making an informed choice that
this is the consequences of doing one versus the other.
So I think we can agree that, you know, perhaps
our politicians would serve the electra better if they were
actually framing that conversation and having that discussion. In the
absence of that, I think the electorate and this is
(29:09):
one of the things. So I'm so passionate about this
topic because I think this ability to deal with uncertainty
in a productive way is going to be the defining
skill that is going to be mean success or failure
for all of us in the years to come. And
you know, part of what I talk about in the
(29:30):
book is this frameworks that you can use to kind
of see, you know, ideas about things. So the framework
that I've created and put in the book is edge.
So establish a foundation, focus on, for example, what you
can control and not control. Diagnose the situation. So that
means seeing the things situation objectively without bias. You know,
(29:53):
we may want to believe the taxes will never increase
because that's the way that you know, that makes us
feel good, right, but is that realistic given the state
of finances, et cetera. And if it's not, then we
need to understand objectively that what might the future look.
Then the next element in the framework is go deciding
(30:14):
how to move forward smartly without haste or hesitation. Most
people either Russian blindly or get into analysis paralysis. And
I think the key for all of us is to
figure out objectively are what's the world likely to happen?
And what kind of steps can we take to prepare ourselves?
And the last thing, the last element of the framework
(30:37):
is evolved because the reality is that no matter how
great your plans are, things will always happen that force
you to kind of adapt or evolve. I mean, you
just talked about it. We didn't think a year ago
that tariffs in twenty twenty five is going to be
such a big theme. It has been, and it will
be for the foreseeable future. So whatever plans we have
(31:00):
need to be adapted and involved. I think it's the
saying that I always struck me is the famous observation
by the boxer Mike Tyson, which is that everyone has
a plan until they get punched in the mouth and
the real punched in them out by taxes, by uncertainty,
by government policies, et cetera. And the key is not
(31:24):
you know, can you control it? The key is how
well you adapt your situation, your plan, your response to it.
I think that's the difference between success and failure. And
I think we all need to get our hands on it.
Whether it is we can hope for our politicians or
our leaders to kind of be more proactive, be more
(31:45):
visionary and think forward. In the absence of that, I
think we have to help ourselves do the best that
we can to prepare ourselves for whatever the world may bring.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
You used an interesting work word in what you wrote
to me, and you know, lots of people will talk
talk about adapt or pivot or resilience. You use the
word invest in agility. How do you invest in agility?
And you say that this becomes and can become and
should become our competitive edge.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
How do you invest in agility?
Speaker 3 (32:15):
The investing in agility is again I think it's it's
a I believe it's a critical skill. The pandemic is
a great example. Okay, So there were many, many, many companies.
I was having dinner with somebody yesterday. They talked about
the fact that before the pandemic they were working remotely
(32:35):
maybe once or twice a month. Now they're working in
the office once or twice a month, okay, and they've
been able to respond with agility because you know, what
might have been a five year or ten year plan
to do zoom, digital collaboration, et cetera, got compressed into
(32:57):
three or four months for the companies that were successful.
Because they were agile, they were able to sit there
and not get caught up in analysis paralysis, to sit
there and say, okay, what is this going to mean
for our electorate? How for our you know, for our
employee base. What is you know, how are we going
to police it, how are we going to get compliance?
Blah blah blah blah. You know, they said, Okay, we're
(33:19):
going to be agile and test. One critical way of
doing it is not to try to grab a big goal,
but to focus on small wins and let them momentum build.
So one of my favorite stories on this is I'll
give a football story is in the nineteen seventies, the
(33:41):
Pittsburgh Steelers in the NFL won four Super Bowls in
six years, creating one of the greatest dynasties in sports history.
But the interesting thing is they didn't dominate every game.
The statistics show they in fact that against stronger teams
they lost about half the time. Where they won wasn't
(34:04):
doing the small things well and consistently. So they won
almost every game against weaker teams. They focused on fundamentals
of winning the tackle, winning the possession, and through that
they built small wins that built momentum by compounding over time.
And this is what I mean by investing in agility.
(34:27):
Focus on your process and try to get the next
decision right and not overly obsess about what the outcome
is going to be. Maybe I'll give you one more example.
So for your listeners, Warren Buffett is a great example. Okay,
Warren Buffett I think, hands down most people would agree
(34:48):
is a great investor. Does he make bad investments, sure,
they are what I would call bad outcomes, But because
he's invested in such a great process, he's invested in
his agility. He has a track record that beats everybody else.
But this is one of the reasons he is investing
(35:10):
in agility by sitting on almost four hundred billion dollars
in cash right now because he thinks that there aren't
any viable opportunities to invest. But that resource that he's
saved as gunpowder, dry gunpowder, et cetera, is what's going
to give him the ability to be agile when the
(35:31):
opportunity arises.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Not many people are spitting on that kind of cash,
or even percentage of their assets in cash, And it
really does suggest that he thinks something's going to happen,
or that things are overpriced today. We're going to take
a break, a final break for some messages, and come
back with our guest sensor Rogen in just two minutes,
I can ask him about where Canada is versus the
(35:54):
United States, where we're going, and what we need from
our leaders, both from an institutional stamp point as well
as from a public gust standpoints.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
David as I want back in.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Two years, No Radio, No Problem stream is live on
SAGA ninety sixty AM dot CA.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
A welcome back everyone to the Brian crimeby Radio. Our
guest tonight is Sam siv Rogen. Really interesting, gentlemen. He
spent about twenty years in financial services and has really
(36:35):
experienced what it's like to be in the marketplace, organizing
companies and investing in companies. And now what he is
is he he's a teacher, he's a keynote speaker, and
he's an author, and he's written really quite an interesting
book about sort of behavioral economics and how we can
be future ready. And he's got a newsletter, the Future
(36:55):
Ready Advisor Newsletter, that explores psychological reactance, the invisible force
that makes clients push back harder the more urgently you
present your expertise. You know, fascinating some of the things
that you've researched in that you read about. And I
really appreciate you joining us, so thank you very much.
We've been talking about really debt and deficit and how
(37:20):
the public, how the people have to adapt. Lots of
people think that US is really a challenge today, that
their debt and deficit are unsustainable, And to put some
numbers on it, I think that the US deficit is
over six percent of GDP. The Canadian deficit is under
three percent of GDP. And so therefore people that take
(37:41):
a look at Canada say, we got a big problem.
But the US has got a far bigger problem. Their
debt to GDP is higher than ours. They have passed
this big, beautiful bill that has decreased taxes on the
wealthy dramatically, but it comes with it some major cuts
to social services that at least the Democrats are complaining about.
(38:03):
Whether people actually get up in arms and complain about it,
we still have to see. So I can to ask you,
are we in better shape than the United States?
Speaker 4 (38:13):
Or are we in worse.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Shape than the United States. They've been spending five percent
of GDP on defense. We have not been spending five
percent of defense on GDP, and we're gonna have to
ramp up that spending. They are putting in tariffs to
reshore manufacturing some people think we need to go back
to like an autopac type system where you want to
sell in our market, you're going to have to produce
(38:36):
in our market because this free trade you know, orientation
that we've been on since nineteen ninety, since nineteen eighty eight,
seems to, according to our Prime minister, changed and we
cannot depend on the United States. You talked about agility, Well,
we've become seventy five percent reliant on one customer of
(38:56):
the United States. That's not what any company would do.
So I got to ask, are we in bad shape?
Speaker 3 (39:02):
I don't think we're in bad shape, but I wouldn't
say that we're in great shape. I think again it's
it's always hard to compare apples to oranges. So yes,
we have a lower deficit to GDP or debt to
GDP than the US, et cetera, but we also don't
have the productive base. I think the challenge for US is,
(39:24):
you know, my in history and geography when I was young,
I mean many many, many years ago, I think the
the knock on Canada was always that we are hewers
of wood and drawers of water, and the idea being
that we are rich in natural resources, but we haven't
actually moved beyond that primary economy, and I think, ironically,
(39:48):
in twenty twenty five, I don't know that that's that's
not true. So if you talk about it, for example,
some of the key technologies that are going to drive
the the industries of the future, whether it's clean tech,
whether it's AI, whether it's robotics, etc. Countries like China
(40:08):
have actually invested for the last twenty years on it
and they're dominating things like I mean solar for example,
they are the leaders in solar production. I think the
question for US is are we reacting defensively or do
we have a plan as a country of where to
go forward. So I'll give an example one of the
(40:32):
engines of the US growth. For many people, what they
would say is the US university system, which for years
has attracted the brightest minds from around the world with
a promise either implicit or explicit, that they could then
stay on after their studies to kind of grow live
(40:54):
in the US and build their lives there. We've seen
over the life that has worked remarkably well for creating
many Silicon Valley companies, et cetera that have employed people,
paid taxes to the US government coffers and created a
booming US economy in the technologies and services that people
(41:15):
are demanding, rightly or wrongly. I'm not arguing the politics here,
but the US has basically said we're ripping up that playbook.
We're not using that anymore in the US. I guess
my question is, we've seen this playbear work, and we
know that it works. We've seen it. Are we thinking
(41:36):
about doing something similar in Canada? And if not, why not?
Speaker 2 (41:39):
If there's anything, aren't we doing the opposite by making
it far more difficult for foreign students to come to
Canada right now?
Speaker 3 (41:45):
And again, this is politics I saw. I totally agree Brian,
and again I'm not arguing the politics of it. But
it seems to me that we're making decisions that are
smart in the in the short term, but you know,
perhaps less smart in the long term. And I think
that we need to be as a country, as a government,
as a people, need to be playing chess and not
(42:08):
go fish. You know, we need to be sitting there thinks.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
You say we're playing go fish right now? Huh, you
think we're playing go fish right now?
Speaker 3 (42:18):
I think there are some decisions and policies that we're
making that would be extremely short term in nature, and
others that are you know, a more strategic and thinking.
I think it's not this has got a bad rap,
but like the old Soviet five year plans, et cetera.
I mean these, I would say, where China is right
(42:41):
now is the result of a twenty twenty five year
plan that they put in place and executed without you know,
going every which way when the when the noise, et
cetera comes in, et cetera. And I think we could
take a page from that book.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
So Sam, let me ask you, then, given this challenge
that we're faced in Canada and frankly the world is facing,
because you know, we're not alone in some of these challenges, what.
Speaker 4 (43:12):
Do we need in leadership? You know, you've talked about China.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
China's got an authoritarian leader, it's got a communist party
that seems to control things. You know, We've lots of
people have debated the Beijing Consensus versus the Washington Consensus,
where the Beijing Consensus was all about industrial strategy that
was set from above, and the Washington consensus up until
Biden was you know, just let the.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Markets decide back in the.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
Nineteen eighties, you know, Japan was in its incendency, and
people talked about kaisan and industrial strategy and that the
smart people were in what was it called METI, the
Ministry of whatever it was called. That was sort of
controlling going on in Japan, and that seemed to have
worked for quite a long period of time until it
(43:59):
didn't work. We've got some people saying that the United
States has an authoritarian like government today that's implementing things
like tariffs that we never heard about before.
Speaker 4 (44:09):
As you pointed out, We've.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Got polarization in the UK, in France, authoritarian regimes in
Russia and Hungary. You know, what's the solution. What type
of leadership do we need today to make the kinds
of changes that you think we need to make to
create this investment in agility.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
It's funny that you asked that question, because this is
actually the impetus that drove me to write this latest book,
because I am absolutely convinced that we need to have
leaders equipped with the right tools and the right mindset,
whether at the government level or in the corporate level,
to be able to deal with this rapidly changing world
(44:54):
that we're talking about and I think we're in the
The book is really for people in the midst of transformation,
so as they say, whether personal, organizational, or governmental. And
I think that the key is that we need to
acknowledge first that we live in a world of uncertainty,
and uncertainty means that you can't model it, you can't
(45:15):
control it. That you have to, as you say, invest
in agility, that you have to own the unknown. You
have to be comfortable with not knowing how things are
going to work out. But the leaders that we need,
I think are ones that build strong foundations. They know
what they can control what they can't. They have to
(45:35):
align their actions with their long term goals, and they
need to measure what matters. I think here process matters
more than outcome. I think the book talks about frameworks
and tools how to execute consistently when the world feels
like it's falling apart. I think the differentiator for leaders
(45:58):
that I think what we need. It's not about intelligence,
although that is important. It is not just about diversity
of perspective, although I think that's important. It is about
humility to say that you know, we don't know everything,
and we don't know what actions that we're going to
take how it's going to play out. I think the
(46:20):
key to that bit that humility is also building the skills,
the training, the mindset that we don't need to know
all the answers, but that we can trust ourselves to
adapt under pressure.
Speaker 2 (46:36):
I liked your EDGE concept. Can you remind us what
each one of those letters stood for?
Speaker 3 (46:40):
Yeah? So edge is establish your foundations. Again, I think
the critical thing is this is building a foundations before
you're having to deal with uncertainty. So identify what you
can control, align your actions with your priorities. Most of
our actions have to make sense in the short term,
(47:00):
the suspen as well as the long term, and then
you track what matters. Once you built that foundation, then
you're ready to kind of be dynamic and adapt as
the situation evolves. So that's diagnosed. So are you seeing
the situation clearly and without bias? And I think that's critical.
(47:22):
We miss so many things that are happening because we're
not seeing downstream consequences of what might happen. Then once
you've diagnosed it properly, then you're ready to plan your
actions to go forward. So this gives you the opportunity
to go forward in a measured way without rushing in
blindly or stuck an analysis paralysis. And then finally, I
(47:44):
think it's this mindset that I talked about that you
have to be ready to say that, no matter how
great the plan is, what we put on paper, how
much analysis we've done, things are not going to unfold
the way that we've planned it to be. So that's
the evolve element of the last e of the edge work.
We need to be able to evolve as a circumstances change,
(48:04):
so and trust in our ability to be able to
do that. Maybe I can tell share one story with
your listeners that to me bring this brought this all home.
It's a real story. So it was in the summer
of nineteen forty nine when a wildfire took a place
in a remote canyon in Montana called Ma Gulch. So
(48:27):
sixteen smoke jumpers actually parachuted in to fight this battle,
but the fire exploded and it just moved faster than
anyone thought possible. These men were trapped in the canyon
and while most of them tried to outrun the fire,
which was a losing proposition, their leader, Wagner Dodge, actually
(48:47):
did something that was unprecedented. He stopped running and he
set fire to the grass in front of him, creating
a small burnt patch, and he threw himself down into
the ashes. So what do you created in that moment,
which has never been done before. Is out called an
escape fire, setting deliberately a smaller fire to starve the
(49:09):
main fire of any fuel. That saved his life, but
unfortunately almost all of his other men died. And what
this taught And there's a psychologist, Gary Klein, who studied
this incident, and he calls this naturalistic decision making. It's
what first responders do, It's what professional athletes do, it's
what emergency room doctors do. They rely on their training
(49:32):
and experience and take the pieces that you know from
previous experience that says, okay, we can apply it to
this situation, but learn how to adapt on the fly
and make changes to it because it's different. We all
have that capability, but we just need to invest in
it and trust in it and be able to do it.
(49:53):
And I think what I'd love to see our leaders
do is it's hard running a government or a company,
but we need to build that those capabilities that we're
able to adapt, you know, so when things don't exactly
unfold the way that we want to. That is what
I think innovation is all about, and that is what
I think is needed as we deal with the challenges
(50:14):
of the next five, ten, fifteen years.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Sam Subagen, thanks so much for joining us. Remind us
please the name of the book and where we can
all buy it.
Speaker 3 (50:23):
The book is called The Uncertainty Edge, Lead with Clarity,
Adapt with Confidence, Win with Conviction. It's on Amazon Amazon
dot CA you can search it, or on my website
Sam Sebaragen dot com you'll find where you can buy it.
It's launches on November twenty eighth, Black Friday, and it's
available for pre order right now as a Black Friday discount.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
This is a great conversation and one that we all
need to pay attention to and listen to it, especially
our leaders. So thank you Sam Subagen for joining us today.
That's our show for tonight, everybody. Thank you for joining.
Speaker 4 (50:59):
I Remind you on myne every Monday.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
Through Friday at six o'clock on nine sixty am. You
can stream me online from anywhere in the world at
TRIPLEWSAGA nine sixty am dot cl My podcast and videos
get put up on my website Briancromby dot com, on
social media, on YouTube, my channel, and on social media
and podcast service. As soon as the radio show gets broadcast,
air GOODNEIGHTI everybody, Sam always great, Thank you sir.
Speaker 3 (51:20):
Good Night Wye What.
Speaker 1 (51:25):
No Radio, No Problem. Stream is live on SAGA nine
sixty am dot C
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