Propulsion 2020 Session - The Great Acceleration: How 2020 Is Bringing the Future Faster

Transcript

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Introduction: Be’Anka Ashaolu, Director of Marketing, Propel

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Be’Anka Ashaolu: We're just three weeks away from the US election and up next for propulsion 2020 political strategist and lobbyists Bruce Melman shares his overview of what to expect.

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BA: As a nonpartisan policy specialist Bruce's insights extends far beyond politics to include business economic and social trends every political leaders should understand

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BA: Bruce is part of the bipartisan firm Mehlman, Castenettie, Rosen and Thomas founded after serving as senior levels in politics policy and business.

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BA: Mehlman, Castenettie, Rosen and Thomas helped fortune 500 companies and innovative startups understand anticipate and navigate the ever evolving policy environment and trends likely to impact the global marketplace.

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BA: This session cannot be more timely as we prepare for what's next in our country. Let's get him a great acceleration with Bruce Mehlman

Presentation by Bruce Mehlman

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Bruce Mehlman: Thank you very much. Be’Anka, it is it's very much an honor to be with you today, even if I'm not actually with you today. This is a conference humble, like many others that I've been to. I'm sure you feel the same. In fact, it's a year, unlike any that any of us have lived through

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BM: If 2020 feels historically disruptive. You should probably trust your instinct.

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BM: I went back in American history and looked starting in the year 1900. This is the 31st presidential election in that window.

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BM: The 24th recession. We've been through, through about 25 or 30 years where you've had sustained multi city mass protests and thankfully only for global pandemics.

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BM: But how many years have had all four of these. At the same time, just one just 2020 it is historically disruptive year but in trying to figure out what what does that then mean

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BM: What should. What's that mean for the future, we've concluded, we believe that 2020 is going to prove far more accelerative than transformation.

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BM: And we think to really appreciate where things are going, you need to first look at the trends of yesterday, what brought us here before 2020

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BM: How are they shaping today and what are they going to mean for tomorrow. And in particular, we're looking at three trends technological trends geopolitical trends and cultural trends.

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BM: So 30 years ago, we wouldn't be having a virtual conference, but over the past three decades. Everything's become digitized everything's become networked

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BM: Increasingly, things have made mobile and influenced by social media. Now that's created extraordinary opportunity if you create an app, you can reach 4 billion plus customers.

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BM: The ability to leverage the cloud. The ability to leverage talent all around the world. The ability to work on shared projects never had this kind of innovative potential

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BM: At the same time, it's created challenges McKinsey Global Institute describes this as a superstar economy.

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BM: With those with more education more skills more access to capital, not only have a lead among firms among individuals among cities, but that lead is growing.

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BM: Inequality has been rising and many fear that competition has been shrinking.

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BM: And so as a result, as we headed into 2020 we began to see a backlash against some of the technology of backlash in particular.

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BM: Against the data dominant companies such as Apple, such as Google. And so really disruptive three decades.

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BM: Now while that was going on, though other things were happening to the world was changed in 1989 the Berlin Wall came down

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BM: And just two years later, the former Soviet empire dissolve that all of those nations join the global economy.

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BM: Also in 1991 India and acted major reforms and they became much more integrated globally.

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BM: If you only add two years, China and acted similar reforms in 1993 and that was the same year, the EU was born.

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BM: add just one more year. So it's a three year condensed window, you have the passage of NAFTA and the creation of the World Trade Organization.

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BM: As a result, globalization boomed. We had three decades in which there was extraordinary possibilities for interconnectivity global supply chains accessing talent or market or capital all around the world.

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BM: Here again, though, we saw a backlash for millions of Americans and others in other developed nations.

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BM: They perceived a giant sucking sound of their jobs going to places such as China, or Mexico as a result of tax arbitrage or labor arbitrage or regulatory arbitrage.

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BM: And while we were all assured that when China was admitted to the World Trade Organization, they become more liberalized under President Xi, they become more authoritarian

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BM: So here again at the end of this three decades of backlash. This one's been growing for a little bit longer to backlash against globalization.

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BM: We saw the successful campaigns and elections of populist in places such as Brazil also narrow Mexico Mo, the United States, Donald Trump.

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BM: The UK Boris Johnson and the Brexit tears, that's also a very disruptive three decades. Well, that was going on our nation was changing as well.

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In 1970 68% of Americans were both white and had not gone to college, they were comfortable in their conformity. But for a lot more diverse Americans things weren't

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BM: Nearly what they needed to be as a result of demographic change and multiple civil rights movements, what we find today is far more opportunities for new voices to be heard.

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BM: Now it's obviously true from the murder of George Floyd and others that we still have miles to go before we realize our nation's ideals.

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BM: But it's still fair to say there are more opportunities for diverse Americans than there were 50 years ago 100 years ago or 200 years ago.

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BM: While these new voices are being heard one of the voices that's been lost to the voice. The referee.

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BM: The most trusted person in America in 1969 was not a military leader was not a religious figure was not a government leave

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BM: The guy who read the news on TV, Walter Cronkite was the most trusted person and Americans would watch the news together. He is where the other two networks, why

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BM: To be informed what's happening with Vietnam or Watergate. What a split nickname when it was time to vote or time to make decisions on policy issues. We started with a set of shared facts.

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BM: That's not what the media does these days, both cable and social media are far more likely to affirm pre existing beliefs.

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BM: There was a poll that came out last week from Pew 90% of those who only get their news from Fox or conservative talk radio believe the United States government has done everything we possibly could have done to contain the virus.

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BM: Those who only get their news from MSNBC or CNN or NPR only 3% agree with that fact.

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BM: Once upon a time, the other side of the aisle was the Loyal Opposition today there are a threat to the nation and thus we see a backlash here to in this case it's a backlash against the pace.

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BM: Of progress or pace of change those left of center States taking too long, women are still paid less to do the same job than men.

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BM: There is still systemic racism and how our nation police's itself on the right. There are those who say they feel like strangers in their own country.

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BM: They feel like they no longer have an opportunity to work hard and to get ahead, and thus the backlash is twofold. Now in the 20th century, where would we turn to make sense of all of this disruptive change.

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BM: But we all belong to institutions and we might look at the institutions we belong to, to help us navigate what's going on.

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BM: In the 21st century, we've lost confidence in these institutions. They're run by all to human figures who demonstrated thanks to the radical transparency of the internet.

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BM: That they are flawed. And so when Gallup asks the question about various institutions and they asked it every year. Do you have a great deal of trust, quite a lot. Various lesser

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BM: What you find is if you compare. We were where each of these institutions were in terms of the level of public trust in 1979 and compare it to where it is today. There has been a massive erosion of public trust and almost every institution, save the military.

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BM: So when an age of accelerating disruption, where we don't trust the institutions or political parties, what does that mean for politics.

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BM: Answer it means disruption comes to politics. We've got a federal election every two years between 1968 and 1978 there were 10 of them.

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BM: Of those 10 three saw the party in control of the House, the Senate or the White House change hands. Fast forward you have 10 more federal elections from 1980 to 1998

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BM: Of those 10 for were changed elections this century. We've had 10 more federal elections between 2000 and 2018 of those 10 eight have been changed elections.

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BM: For those whose theory of the cases, everything is explained by Donald Trump. Remember he arrived in 2016 politically he's far more of a symptom than a cause.

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BM: And it's my contention that the cause of the populace, and the cause of people voting for change is the general sense that the institutions and policies and parties of the 20th century.

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BM: aren't making people feel protected against the realities of the 21st century. And I opened with three very stark realities of 2020. If anything, it feels like this year should exacerbate

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BM: That sense of fragility. Think about the pandemic. Who could have seen a pandemic come. Well, the answer is anybody who ever picked up a Time magazine almost in the last 20 years

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BM: Whether it was SARS, and oh three or H one in one, and oh seven while you'll be wearing masks again 2009 cover 2017 the next pandemic. We are not ready.

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BM: We should have seen this coming. We didn't prepare likewise this year has exposed extraordinary gaps in our safety net.

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BM: Yet we shouldn't be shocked. We knew going in more than half of American households had no emergency savings.

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BM: The 36 million Americans without health insurance were more likely to have pre existing conditions which are coven comorbidity melodies.

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BM: The 21 million plus Americans who don't have broadband at home. It can't work from home, their kids can't go to school and learn when schools go virtual if you didn't have paid sickly

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BM: Well, you might have spiked the fever, but you went to work in the restaurant or the meatpacking plant because your family needed the paycheck.

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BM: And we're talking about social justice justifiably so this year at the same time. These are long standing failures and trends.

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BM: White Americans have long earned more than African Americans doing similar work to get wealth gap between white households and African American households is a staggering 10 to one.

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BM: If you're African American, and you are unarmed and confront the police are more than four times as likely to be killed in that encounter than if you're white, and you're significantly more likely to be incarcerated.

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BM: That's the world of yesterday we were fragile, we had this disruptive change and the institutions parties and policies weren't making us feel that they were up to the task. So we were looking for other things. So what's happening today.

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BM: And again I will go through technology geopolitics and culture technologically the digitized are thriving.

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BM: Tech enabled businesses have been able to work from home to maintain productivity to continue to work and a tech companies themselves. They've been the stars of the pandemic.

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BM: Through last week. If you take a look in the stock market. The s&p 500 not counting the IT companies is down about 3%

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BM: The biggest IT companies, the ones most frequently in the news have been through the roof. The digitized are thriving.

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BM: The and digitize the EDS the meds, the feds we've been failing so extraordinary to me that 19 years after 911 shut down all of the commercial airspace over the United States.

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BM: Congress still had no plan to work remotely in a national emergency their big this in 2020 their big innovation and process in the house is called proxy voting. The biggest thing Congress need to innovate, how they operate in decades is literally phoning in it.

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BM: States have different rules about elections. Some are making it easier to vote. Some make it pretty hard to vote, which is frustrating as an American citizen for sometimes if you live in those states, but almost none.

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BM: Offer the flexibility that we so desperately need here, three weeks out from the election with the risk of a second round of coronavirus growing across the United States.

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BM: We've seen wonderful possibilities from telehealth. Telehealth really is solving a lot of problems, but there were barriers heading into this year.

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BM: That didn't need to be in place. And as a result, both providers and patients didn't have the experience at using Telehealth that if they'd had it would make it even more effective this year.

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BM: And when you think about schools. If you're a parent you like I am frustrated that schools didn't seem well prepared when you look at what schools were prepared for

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BM: Here's a New York State statute, they require K to 12 schools to have 12 fire drills per year not 11 not 13 in advanced

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BM: Obviously, you want to make sure your kids know how to leave a burning building, but at the same time. What are the 21st century challenges for our school kids.

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BM: They are the ability to work and learn anywhere to learn continuously the ability for teachers to teach remotely is something we should have practiced yet. We didn't

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BM: We weren't ready. And as a result, we're not nearly getting the outcomes from government from education, healthcare, we want

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BM: geopolitically today it's fair to say multi-lateralism was sick or before coven so

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BM: When you think about the trade wars they undermine cooperation, coordination and trust among world leaders. So when this concurrent outbreak happened.

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BM: They weren't prepared. You know, if you ran this in an optimized way you would have had the ventilators and protective gear start in China, just in time it would have gone to Italy and Spain than just in time, the New York City and where it's needed.

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BM: Instead nations have had to fight one another over having stockpiling supplies American states.

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BM: Have had to compete against one another because there was not a single point of purchase an acquisition distribution by the federal government from the States had to each vie for themselves.

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BM: The two nations best positioned to help the world deal with this would be the United States and China, but we're not cooperating. We're blaming each other.

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BM: China says we terribly mismanaged and it's a much worse around the world and in the United States because everyone is management. We say China lied.

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BM: That China didn't wasn't truthful that President Xi in China was playing down early on. Maybe he didn't want people to be afraid.

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BM: Maybe he didn't want to cause panic, but his dishonesty undermined the ability of other nations around the world to prepare

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BM: By the way, the Council on Foreign Relations last week came out with a report and said, both are true China live in the United States mismanaged

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BM: We'll see if there are nation states that fail. I hope not but they're likely refugee crisis and they're already our food insecurity leading the hunger.

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BM: It's my fear, but I think a likely reality that more children, especially around the world are going to die from hunger caused by coven then from covert itself.

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BM: Now I had hoped. When the loose was a global pandemic and I thought about. I thought, you know, maybe this is going to lead to better

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BM: Multilateral better global cooperation, going forward, but I may be Miss applying my history lessons.

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BM: 918 15 or 1945 after World Wars, we tend to try to fix what went wrong world wars or failures of diplomacy. So that's what was fixed the 1950s or 1945

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BM: This time, a lot of folks think the mistakes were excessive reliance on global supply chain and excessive allowance of global travel and tourism.

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BM: Were more likely to see nationalism shut those things down this culturally. As an American, I want to believe we're all in this together. I want to feel that way.

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BM: But you look at the economic data, unlike, say the recession of 1990 or even a wander away.

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BM: There is a case shape recovery here and the highest earning 25% are meaningfully doing better. It does not feel like we're all in this together not economically and not culturally

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BM: Culturally, it feels more like climate change debate, remember after the financial collapse. There were net bailouts of half a trillion dollars.

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BM: We tap that we topped out at 8.6 million Americans on the unemployment rolls a quarter of us were on social media, at the time, and that was enough to give rise on the left.

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BM: To the Occupy movement demanding more redistribution on the right, the Tea Party movement demanding smaller government

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BM: Well this time the bailouts are already six times larger. And they're talking about taking it to eight or 10 times larger.

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BM: Seven times as many Americans at most have received unemployment, this year, three times as many of us are on social media.

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BM: We're not calling ourselves occupy two point O with tea party 2.0 but that's sort of what it feels like. On the left, they say, well, you need to trust science.

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BM: On the right, they asked you mean the scientists that the CDC WHO MESSED UP. The tests are the experts was shorter Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.

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BM: On the left, they say, Look, it's about collective responsibility, whether it's to the future, or to your family or to your neighbors or the old couple down the street that are at greater risk.

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BM: On the right, it's the voice of Ilan musk if you don't want to work. We're not going to make you work, don't you tell me I can't go to work. I want to take the risk I built this business of my hands.

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BM: I don't want to see it go away. On the left, we need to save lives. On the right, we need to save jobs.

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BM: And we become a nation in masks astounded at the ignorance of those who won't wear masks wearing mega hat and our nation and MHz astounded at the arrogance of those wearing masks. Who thinks everyone can easily work from home.

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BM: It's redefine the 2012 election, the events of this extraordinary year now really are going to set the stage for who wins and who loses.

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BM: In three in three ways. First, there'll be a lot of voters who are going to make this election a referendum on the pandemic. How do we think the current administration handled dependent

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BM: Now, President Trump will tell you he is a wartime president he's a master of visuals and when you look on TV. Looks like you know he looks like a wartime president

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BM: His big challenges. It doesn't feel like we're winning the war, it feels more like 1942 1943 then V Day or VG day VJ day

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BM: And when you look at the polling consistently. The President is down almost 20 points between him and Joe Biden, who would handle the bad temper pandemic better

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BM: His net approval on handling a pandemic remains majorly underwater a referendum on the pandemic means the President loses.

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BM: But for other voters. It's not a referendum its choice. We're going to be digging out of a meaningful recovery more than 100,000 small businesses have died and who's going to have the policies best suited to help the economy grow again.

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BM: For the White House. They say it's a choice between the reopened or in chief and locked down, Joe.

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BM: And in most of the polls that we've seen throughout the year, including in September and October, the President has maintained a small

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BM: Admittedly narrowing lead on who will be better for the economy. So the last question is who's the right leader for this point in American history.

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BM: And here you have to listen to the two campaigns, three weeks remaining closing argument. The Trump closing argument is that you won't be safe in Joe Biden's America.

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BM: They say he is too weak, the President says he has to work or politically correct. It has been in Washington too long. By contrast, the Biden campaigns closing arguments is that Donald Trump is failing America. He's too divisive. He's too chaotic. He's too corrupt.

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BM: In the 20th century, the famous polling question is which of the candidates. Would you rather grab a beer with. Who do you like more

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BM: These days, the question is who do you dislike less and what you saw in the 2016 exit polls were kept where voters who said I don't like Hillary Clinton and I don't like Donald Trump, they went for Trump by 17 points.

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BM: Right now voters who say I don't like Donald Trump, and I don't like Joe Biden, they're going for Biden by double digits. That's a big change for those of you who are hoping that Joe Biden wins. Here's a chart that should make you happy.

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BM: When you went when two to one Americans feel like we're on the wrong track as opposed to moving in the right direction, as a rule, the party holding the White House loses that control.

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BM: Here's a chart for though. Here's yeah here's a chart for those of you who are hoping Donald Trump wins.

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BM: Voting people who vote for change. Change can be changing the guy right now sitting in the White House or changed can be the person who's less of a Washington candidate.

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BM: So in the 10 federal elections between 1936 and 1972 the candidate who spent more years in Washington shown on the left side of the chart.

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BM: That. CANDIDATE one, nine out of 10 times voters would look for people with expertise with experience being in Washington as a senator as a congressman in a cabinet or as a vice president was was considered positive then comes Vietnam and comes Watergate.

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BM: In the 11 presidential election since 1972 the candidate with more years in Washington again on the left side of the chart last nine out of 11 times

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BM: What does that mean for 2020 Well Joe Biden served as the United States Senator 36 years and as a vice president eight years that's 44 years of Washington experience on his resume President Trump has for

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BM: If people think change means change the guy there now because I don't like these last four years. He's going to lose.

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BM: If people think change means who's more likely to be different than the way Washington has been these last three decades that could well be Donald Trump once again.

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BM: The standard itself is also up and play the house is not going to flip. I'm sorry to say for my Republican friends who are who are in the house that's Congress, folks.

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BM: It's if anything, the Democrats are better poised to pick up a couple seats than Republicans, the Senate, however, is too close to call

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BM: And here is a Larry sabotage of UVA, one of the great watchers charts. He sees 49 lean or better democratic states and 49 lean or better republican seats with Iowa, North Carolina, being a toss up

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BM: Republicans have a great senator and colleague and Corey gardener in Colorado, a great senator and Susan Collins and main maybe they can hold on. But it's a really tough year for Republicans to be in those two states. Likewise, Doug Jones of Alabama has done nothing

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BM: That should cause anybody to disrespect him or to feel like he's anything other than a hard working on a senator, but he's a democrat in Alabama in a presidential year

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BM: pretty unlikely he can survive the tide South Carolina has unexpectedly become a toss up in some races Lindsey Graham appears to be the TED CRUZ of

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BM: His opponent has raised more money than the Federal Reserve can print as best one can tell that all said you bet on the republican and South Carolina in 2012. So that's where we were and where we are, where are we heading and again I'll take a look at technology geopolitics and culture.

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BM: I'm an optimist about the future which you have no reason to believe is true, given everything I've been saying for the last 20 minutes, but I really am. And, you know, my mind goes to

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BM: When America went to the moon was an extraordinary achievement in 1969 the year after the assassination of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy and, you know, pretty true in Vietnam war protests were going on trying times, but it was more than a shot in our arm.

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BM: As a result of this, the semiconductor industry took off innovations such as Velcro King, when you look at the world coven and how businesses are changing what they do.

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BM: To say nothing of the types of innovations that we're seeing.

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BM: What I believe this, this year will go down as historically when you read about it 20 years later 30 years later, there will have been a Cambrian explosion.

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BM: Of innovation in business processes in leveraging open source or leveraging the cloud or coming up, not with just new processes, but new technologies, things like wearables

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BM: Are going to have progressed five or 10 years and their ability to help us live healthier lives, to say nothing of using AI to come up with a better therapeutics and better vaccines.

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BM: The fourth industrial revolution is being accelerated in ways that we don't necessarily see but boy is it going to make our lives better going forward.

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BM: Now I will acknowledge, there is a dark cloud in this silver or dark lining in this silver cloud, which is

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BM: If, if the tech halves and digitize the and digitize of the tech haves and have nots was we're already driving inequality, that's going to grow.

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BM: And so the tech lash against thing among policymakers Republicans and Democrats Americans and Europeans Feds and states, that's going to continue

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BM: Likewise geopolitically, you know, the world of the Cold War America versus the Soviet Union, that was long over

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BM: And we had this nice for America unipolar world, but that was coming to an end. The next I think decade plus will feature a return of great power lively

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BM: Whether it's President Joe Biden or President Donald Trump act to friction between the United States and China is only going to grow.

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BM: Decoupling especially in certain sectors is only going to continue but I remain hopeful that that will lead to a reset to a new normal world order that was already overdue.

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BM: You think about the multilateral institutions purpose built for a cold war against the Soviet Union, and they serve magnificently well

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BM: We've got to rethink their missions their mandates and their models for a new US, China future with the 21st century and the climate challenges and the technology changes that they bring

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BM: I talked about the globalization, I remain hopeful that absent award. We're not going to see less net globalization five or 10 years from now.

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BM: But it's absolutely true to say that the rate of acceleration in cross border flow data and goods people capital knowledge that's going to slow down.

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BM: I may create more opportunities here at home, it will definitely create challenges for multinational businesses and industries and finally

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BM: That the economics of trade David Ricardo and Adam Smith wrote about comparative advantage that hasn't gone away.

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BM: But once upon a time, maybe you would have taken work that was manufacturing and you would have outsourced that abroad and then you would have imported the goods.

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BM: With automation with 3D printing. You may no longer need to do that, in fact, a lot of that. A lot of that manufacturing may come back, creating a huge maker movement.

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BM: Opportunity in the United States and the carrots of domestic subsidies, the sticks of things such as tariffs and export controls are disrupting trade economics.

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BM: Culturally every couple of decades we redefine the parties.

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BM: We see a realignment we've been having that already proceeded Donald Trump has been heavily accelerated in the Trump era. And it looks like that's continuing and it's happening in four areas. First

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BM: Education when I graduated college if you had a college degree, you are 4% more likely to be a Republican these days with a college degree you're 20% more likely to be a Democrat.

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BM: Number two, gender, when women were asked by the NBC Wall Street Journal poll. Which party. They would rather see control Congress

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BM: As recently as 2010 it was democrats plus six. Today it's democrats plus 23rd, we're seeing the growing rural, urban divide

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BM: And and one of my favorite political scientists Dave Wasserman of the cook political report. He noted that urban counties tend to have whole food markets.

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BM: And rural counties tend to have cracker barrels and so he went and took a look at the democrats winning percentage in counties with whole foods which is large and growing.

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BM: And he's compared that to the democrats winning percentage in counties with Cracker Barrel, which is small and fallen.

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BM: And we found is that rural, urban gap. It was 20 points when Bill Clinton was first elected 25 upon his reelection, it's gone up every election since

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BM: Finally, we're seeing a gap among race in who the parties elect to represent them. So in 1961 America 95% of House Republicans and 93% of democrats elected to the House were both white and male

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BM: These days, the Democratic Party looks a lot more like the nation as a whole, only 38% of their elected House representatives are both white and male unfortunately my Republican Party is down to just 90%

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BM: And I say, unfortunately, in part because I don't think you can be a great durable National Party.

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BM: Unless the whole nation perceives that you are able to represent them. And, as a rule, people don't trust and aren't looking to leadership.

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BM: To those who haven't walked a mile in their shoes, shoes, who those who can't demonstrate that they understand their life experiences. It's very hard to represent people

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BM: Unless you are representative of those people and what we may see is we may see as we've seen in decades past a durable new political majority emerged.

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BM: The Democrats certainly start in a in a better position to be able to pull that off, but we'll see if they can win this. And if they can, if they can build such a majority.

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BM: We're also seeing the change in psychology, especially as the as the pandemic and the economic challenges linger longer and it's happening in four ways first

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BM: The drive for efficiency is giving away to a drive for resilience. So just in time is shifting the just in case.

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BM: For government, that means they need to fund stockpiles excess capacity backup plans.

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BM: For businesses all the supply chains are going to move from China, back to the United States, whether it's American businesses Japanese or Australians are others that all looking for more optionality and less reliance on China.

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BM: We're redesigning maybe how sports stadiums look or public transportation how our offices flow but also how frequently we go in our offices and how our teams collaborate

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BM: Individuals may be more inclined to take a car than a metro. They may prefer to live in a suburban and city.

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BM: Second, the drive for interdependence is giving away to a focus on self sufficiency, we would always talk about the defense industrial based increasingly that's becoming five g or semiconductors. That's what China's 2025 plan is all about.

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BM: That will probably extend to pharmaceuticals to health protective gear to food borders will reopen, even for us Americans, I expect new limits.

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BM: Businesses that had long focused on getting into every market global integration.

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Are looking at vertical integration. How do you gain more control over your own supply chain to have fewer vulnerabilities so many of us who are working or schooling or or

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BM: Cooking at Home can't wait to get back to the restaurants and back to the office, but a lot of those habits may stick

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BM: I was a five day a week early to late guy I may be a four day a week in the office and work here from home because I found I can get a lot of things done and for certain projects. This is a more productive environment for

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BM: The huge appetite for leveraging risk is given away to a focus on margin and safety recall after the 911 attacks, there were new transportation security laws new cargo security laws.

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BM: After 9/11 that was after 9/11 after the financial collapse, there was new rules on systemic risk and new rules on banking.

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BM: Clearly we're going to have new public health, public safety rules and regulations, put in place, and we're going to re examine those safety nets that failed so that

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BM: Businesses face new liability risks they may want to hold larger rainy day funds because it seems to rain a lot

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BM: Individuals may prefer to rent then own they may prefer Big employers who can borrow from the Fed to startups. Okay.

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BM: And finally, the mindset of abundance, especially if this goes long may give way to a mindset of austerity and I think about the 25 year olds. If you're 25 in the first month of first grade, you were setting home because the 911

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BM: in eighth grade when you got home. Your parents were sitting around the kitchen table wondering if the family could afford the mortgage and stay in their home.

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BM: These days, you're sitting on a mountain of student debt for a college degree, we're told you needed. You're starting to wonder

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BM: What's the future hold for me, we saw with the Great Depression Era generation folks like that are more inclined to borrow less span less save more and has a big impact on them as consumers or as entrepreneurs.

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BM: We may see businesses inclined to hold deeper reserves.

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BM: In an era of hyper activism. Maybe you don't want to pay dividends and keep doing the buybacks that you always did with money that was loaned to you by the government, while you're laying off workers.

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BM: For government in the short term, look, we took on Congress, a lot, give them credit the 4 trillion that they spent in March and April. Maybe you could have spent it better, but by spending that much that fast by the Fed doing everything they did we reverted another Great Depression.

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BM: More stimulus is needed, according to the Fed Chairman. I tend to think that's also true, but in the medium to long term, they're going to look to cut spending once again.

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BM: They're going to look for more revenue which is to raise taxes, my last slide here, my last observation is that

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BM: If I were making this presentation. A year ago, I would still have concluded with the observation that we've reached a period of time, like the Gilded Age.

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BM: When the policies and the institutions and the parties of last century aren't making people feel protected from the realities from the technological change the geopolitical trains cultural change.

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BM: Of the new century. And as a result, has happened in the Gilded Age, people are looking for change. This next decade was always destined to be a reform era.

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BM: But that reformers accelerating, first and foremost, how do we modernize the safety net.

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BM: It was already unsustainable. We knew within the next decade or so. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We're going to go bankrupt.

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BM: But I think one thing that's increasingly clear is there also insufficient safety nets for folks.

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BM: Whose are going to need who are going to be lifelong learning, we're going to need constant re, re skilling we've got to reimagine those likewise need to reimagine regulation.

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BM: The Chicago School of antitrust doesn't appear to have anything negative to say about Google or Amazon. A lot of their competitors do

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BM: On the one hand, we certainly don't want to kill the golden geese that have made America so productive and so innovative. On the other hand, we need to make sure that innovators don't get crushed by the new

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BM: Rockefellers and Carnegie's antitrust was invented in the Gilded Age when we last had this huge mismatch between last century's policies and this centuries reality.

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BM: It's extraordinary that here at the end is the first time I point out that we've had more than a million acres burned in California.

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BM: The most ever in recorded history and we've had now 10 hurricanes hit the continental United States, the most sense at least 1916

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BM: We've not been coping with climate change whatsoever and the challenges from it are only going to grow.

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BM: pandemics are over. It's not like, okay, we had this one, we can wait another hundred years, odds are, we're going to face more of them in the future. They can be deadly.

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BM: Cyber remains a challenge. We need to build a more resilient system. But for me, the biggest change and the one I spend the most time thinking about is, how do we expand the winner's circle.

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BM: I'm a capitalist I started my own business, all of my consulting firms clients are for profit businesses or associations.

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BM: Containing for profit businesses, I very much believe that the capitalist market based system is the best way to unleash human potential, the best way to promote

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BM: Global wealth and freedom, but just because it's the best system doesn't mean it never needs to change. We saw in the Gilded Age.

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BM: You need it, and I trust law need worker safety law and food safety law, you need to make changes to have more people, more Americans dealt in

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BM: As I think about the future is I think about where the nation is going. I think there are extraordinary opportunities, led by technology in the medium and the long term.

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BM: In the short term, we're going to have to slog through we're going to have to make some improvements and some amendments, so people stop voting for change. Stop.

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BM: despairing stop lacking trust, but rather have new systems that they can believe in and new opportunities that they believe are reasons they should be part of the system and that they should support a market driven economy.

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BM: I really appreciate the opportunity to be here this morning, I am more than happy to take questions from anybody who has questions and I do look forward to the discussion, but thank you again.

Propulsion 2020 Session - The Great Acceleration: How 2020 Is Bringing the Future Faster

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