Heroes in Business - General Wesley Clark and Susan Kucera, retired five star US Army General and former Presidential Candidate; and Film Director, Producer and Writer Hot Money Film

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

Searching for the Truth Behind Global Warming..General Wesley Clark and Susan Kucera, retired five star US Army General and former Presidential Candidate; and Film Director, Producer and Writer Hot Money Film are interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and host of the Eliances Heroes Show. Broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio and online syndication.  

Up in the sky, look, it's captivating, it's energizing, it's Alliances Heroes. Alliances is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's right. And again, have I got the best job in the world to be able to share secrets of some of the most successful people in the world that we all can learn lessons from no matter what level we're at. And thank you for the feedback I had when I recently interviewed the President of the United Nations General Assembly. So make sure you check out past interviews at alliances.com.

That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S dot com. So what happens when you mix a U.S. Army general retired after 38 years and former presidential candidate with a director, producer, and writer, and acclaimed producer? Well, you get some magic. And we have with us today, General Wesley Clark and Susan Kuchera. Welcome to the Alliance's Hero Show. Thank you. And they could both be reached by going to hotmoneyfilm.com. Okay. First, the dying question is, how did you both come together and be able to produce the film?

Shall I start? So we did a, General Clark was involved in another film that we made with Jeff Bridges called Living in the Future's Past. And that's where we met. And then I met him again. We were speaking in Las Vegas at a convention. And he said, hey, you know, you really need to start looking at the money behind everything, all the climate change problems and, you know, the cost of climate change and said, you've got to call my son. So I did. And Wes Clark Jr. and this whole wonderful collaboration started and I was privileged to get to film them in very sort of intimate conversations. And then we included other experts and that's pretty much how it came to be. All right.

So, General Clark, when you heard about this, talk to us a little bit more about the money. Talk to us specifically about the money and what all that means. Well, when I got out of the military, I figured I had to go into business, so I tried to do some investment banking. I learned a little bit about how money works. And, of course, we all went through the Great Recession of 2008. about how money works. And of course, we all went through the Great Recession of 2008. And when you look at what's happening and how the world is interconnected through financial firms, through insurance, and what happens to the insurance and through home mortgages and through commercial real estate, the world runs on money. And money flows between countries and between

projects and between people and between businesses. And when there's a problem with it, it affects everybody. And as we look at climate change, there's just going to be more problems, more storms, more floods, more droughts, more flooding in coastal areas, problems with mortgages, real estate, valuations, everything. So it's clear that you have to pay attention to the money. You know, that's what they always say, follow the money. Follow the money. So let me ask you, is there any magic to, you know, solve this? Is there any, you know, is there any, quote, quote, silver bullet, so to speak?

Well, you know, the real solution to it is we have to have a little bit of help from government. We have to have a lot of help from each other. And so if we pay attention and look to the future and understand what the forces of nature are, something that we've created and helped shape ourselves through human activities, then yes, we can work through this problem. It's not something we cannot overcome, but it is the most significant, challenging problem mankind, as humankind as a whole, has faced in our 10,000 years of earthly civilization. Susan, tell us more about the film. Well, just to add to that, the film is, of course, very serious, but it's also very playful because we

employed a New Yorker cartoonist to help explain some of these ideas like the derivatives market. And so I would say there's one part in the film where we talk about deleveraging climate risk from the derivatives market. And I think that's something that people could definitely focus on. So that was just adding to that other little discussion. But what was your other question? My question was, is so how do you tell me more about the film itself? And why are listeners viewers should be going and seeing it? our listeners, viewers should be going and seeing it? Well, for me, I don't have a PhD in economics or, you know, I'm just pretty much an average person who has a limited understanding of how

things work. And I would say for myself, putting this together and listening to all the experts, it really helps you understand how the systems of finance work, how the global systems of finance are so entwined with the real estate market. And so I think it behooves people to certainly understand that first and to start looking about how we are, how do you put it in the film general? You talk about leveraging and we're over leveraging into the future and the

future is not looking too rosy. Well, we're going to help fix that with both of you educating our listeners and viewers, because you're with me, David Kogan, host of the alliances hero show. Make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E L I A go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com because we have with us General Wesley Clark, U.S. Army General who retired after 38 years serving. And also with us, Susan Kuchera,

film director, producer, and writer. You can reach them both by going to hotmoneyfilm.com. We got a couple of questions that came in from our listeners. And one of those is for you, General Wesley Clark. What was it like the day that you retired after serving? I mean, an incredible career of 38 years in the military. It was a fantastic day. It was a warm, sunny day in June. There was a parade.

Family and friends came there, people from Little Rock, high school friends, college friends. It was a fantastic day. But then it was a completely new world because for the first time in my life, I was on my own. There was no mother army to look to. No one was going to guarantee me a paycheck other than what I got for retirement. No one told me what to do. I had no security. I had no driver, had no house. It was a real wake-up call. I mean, from the time I was 17 years old, I'd worn a uniform, and then I didn't. Well, thank you very much for serving our country and for protecting our country. And Susan, what was it like when you met General Wesley Clark and decided to come together and film this? I mean, with somebody who's so well known.

And I remember seeing you many times on TV. Actually, I've been a documentarian for a long time, and so I've filmed a lot of people. And I never get nervous before interviews, but the very first time I met General Clark for the other film, that was the first time I actually got nervous. But I remember he walked in the room and he said, I'm ready to roll, put everyone at ease. And so I just found, you know, he's got an amazing mind and he's certainly got an amazing background. And again, one of the things in this new movie, the relationship between him and his son, Wes Jr., and it's just a wonderful dialogue. I think if anything for that,

the film is worth listening to. I think a lot of people can relate to the discussions that they're having in the film. Yeah, you know, David in the film, I'm the old guy, I'm the straight man. I'm the one that says, hey, I think it might work. And my son, he's the young revolutionary.

He's like, dad, you better understand this. You better figure this out. You didn't know this, and this is what's happening. So it's a fun dialogue. We argue about and discuss everything from Greek philosophers on to modern economics. So you mentioned about the future and that. What can we as the general public do? What can our listeners and viewers do? Something now that they can do to help shift have government decree things. It has to be done on the basis of, well, maybe go to the store, supply and demand. But you can shape the prices in the market so people make the choices that will help us overcome the struggle to slow down climate change. And the way you do that is you put in a price on carbon. Carbon is the principal greenhouse gas element, carbon dioxide. And it comes from all from hydrocarbon fuels. It comes from lots of different products. And if you price that into the price that the consumer pays, we will move away from those products. We won't consume as much. You have to do it in a smart way. But look, if gasoline costs $15 a gallon, pretty soon automobile manufacturers would say, you know,

I think we should consider using electricity instead. And they would move that way. And if your electric power that was generated by coal, as it still is in many places in the United States and certainly overseas, if there was an added fee charged to that, people would say, I don't want that power. I want power that comes from the sun or from wind energy or is stored up from hydroelectric power or batteries or something. But get rid of the coal. They would do it.

And it's the best way to do it is to price the carbon in. Got to take care of the people who will be the most hurt economically and can't afford to be. So people in my state of Arkansas, some of them driving 30, 40 miles a day to get a relatively low-income job. Yeah, if you're going to raise the price of gasoline, you've got to give them some help with it. We need our government to do the things for us that we can't do for ourselves.

We cannot individually make the right decisions to move away. We've got to have leadership from the United States government. That's what it's there for. It's our government. So write to Joe Biden, John Kerry, tell him, Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, let's get busy and fix this climate change problem. You can do it. Your leadership, put it on them, and we'll be the faithful followers. put it on them and uh you know we'll be the faithful followers also one one thing that i learned um that seems to be a cycle is we again we create all this um uh you know um debt out there and then when there's a problem everyone calls in there you know once wants to get paid back right and? And there's too much of that,

because then it seems like then we have to, you know, come up with a bailout plan, and who's going to be paying for the bailout but all the taxpayers? And so I think that's a real core problem, and we also highlight that in the film quite well, I think, and that's what really turned the light bulb on for me. We've got to figure out a way to stop this constant cycle because we're going to, we just had a disaster. We're going to have more coming down the road here. All right. We've got a question that came in here from Eric Molden, who's part of alliances. His question was, what role do you see business in playing to ensure geopolitical stability? Because it seems more and more that the two are intertwined. Well, you know, in the Cold War, we didn't have to worry about this because back 40 years ago,

30 years ago, when the Soviet Union was an iron curtain, you couldn't get in there to do business with them and they couldn't do business with us. But today the world is a lot more complicated. And I think that if we're looking at the role of business, I think we have to ask business to help us protect our own values. And that means business has to understand that the nation state, the United States of America, hasn't disappeared. We have a need for it. If you're an American business, you need some loyalty to the United States of America.'t disappeared. We have a need for it. If you're an American business, you need some loyalty to the United States of America. It's not just about the almighty dollar. It's not about what your great quarterly earnings statement might show. But when your government says,

please don't sell to this country, please protect this technology. Please pay your taxes that are due to us. Please don't cheat the people of America on the earnings that you got. We expect business to comply. And I think that we have to understand that as long as the world is divided into rival groups who have different sets of values, if you value freedom, if you value democracy, your privacy, your individuality, then you don't want to live in China or Russia. And if that's the case, you want to have businesses that support American values. Susan, what stands out most to you of making the film? I mean, a lot of work, a lot of energy, a lot of time, probably sleepless nights and stuff. But if there was one specific thing that stands out the most of making the film, what would that be?

Again, I think it's just the understanding of how the global systems of finance actually work. And I think for a regular person, you know, you really need to understand that you need to understand how everything is really connected. need to understand that. You need to understand how everything is really connected. And so that when you go to vote or when you're even at a local level, you're so much more educated in that department. And I mean, we've got a lot of problems in the United States. We've got this whole national flood insurance that's going to be, you know, that's costing a lot of money. And it's costing all of us a lot of money. And so are we going to continue allowing building, you know, in certain areas that inevitably we're going to have to, you know, pay for or move people? And then in California, same sort of issue, although that's private insurers. And so I think land use is very important. But again, back to the film, I think two things, very, very introspective look at father and son dialogue, two different

generations. And again, how the systems of finance work. I think those are the two things that stand out for me the most. What stands out for me, David, is not only did Susan know how to shoot the film, how to produce this, how to take the photos and all that stuff, but sometimes she was down on her knees looking up at us

and had a table play with little toys and stuff like this. She was really good like that, but she was really interested in it. And she would say, well, that's an interesting point. Go back and explain that again. And so she was into the substance, as you can tell by listening to her describe her experiences. And to me, this was the biggest thing that makes the film is she actually was guiding this spontaneous dialogue. When we would have these fierce discussions, oh, let's have some more of that. Amazing, amazing. General, I've got a question for you here. You've received many awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Distinguished

Service Medal, five awards, Silver Star, Brownstone, Purple Heart. I mean, what's left? And with all of those awards that you've received, and I want to do a little bit of snooping right now too because I see that we're in your home. What's something that you're most proud of that you have? I see pictures on the wall and that. What's something either unique or something you're most proud of? I've been married for 53 years going on 54.

I guess that's what I'd have to say I'm most proud of. It've been married for 53 years going on 54. I guess that's what I'd have said I'm the most proud of. It's been one heck of a journey you know. I got we got married a year after I graduated from West Point and a man came to see me when I was a student at Oxford. We had dinner with him he said he said you Clarks have to understand you're starting life on the dessert course. And about two years later, I was laying in the jungle in Vietnam and the bullets were snapping in around me. And I'd been hit with four rounds. And all I could think about was I got to get home and see my son who's four months old and I've never seen him. And that's life, you know. So that's what I'm most proud of is my family.

Excellent. And we have time for one more question here for both of you, and I think it's very critical. Both of you are extremely successful. You've made your mark and continue to make your mark on the world. What are some advice you can give for parents out there to be able to raise their children to be able to make a mark in the world and lead the right path? Wow. Well, I have a daughter. She is 27. Actually, I haven't seen her in a whole year. She goes to school in England. So that's been a bit painful.

But I think just raising her, I let her follow her own path. I think that's very important. And have compassion and nurturing, you know, and encouragement when needed. Well, I think you've got to help children have a sense of security and be part of something like a family or a cause or something. I think they need that. Not every child is going to be the same. Some are inner motivated. Some are less inner motivated. Some seem to have no motivation at all. But for me, I always want to see young people have the courage to have a dream and pursue it. And somehow, if you can convey that magic in some indirect way to your children and give them a purpose in life and let them seek, give them something to seek, some challenge

to help them orient their lives, to help them give meaning, to help them shape and seek their talents. I think that's a great gift. If you can give it, some people won't take it. But I think that's probably what most parents would like to be able to do. Well, phenomenal advice from both of you. General, you've kept the American soil safe for so many years. And now you and Susan both are working together with a whole host of other experts to help protect all of us in the world

and raise awareness to bring about a brighter future. That's what heroes do. General Wesley Clark and Susan Kuchera. Make sure you check out the film, hotmoneyfilm.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance of Heroes show. guitar solo Thank you.