The Ricochet Podcast - Kudlow, Gen X, and Tom Wolfe

Episode Date: May 18, 2018

After a rousing live edition of the podcast in DC, we’re back on virtual home ground and we hit the ground running. First up, our old pal Larry Kudlow former Ricochet podcaster, current Director of the National Economic Council stops by to dish on the economy, Milton Friedman, working in the White House, and he declares a certain podcaster #NeverTrump (spoiler alert: it’s not who you think it is). Source

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we have both the science and the expertise to deliver. We offer convenient payment plans and are partnered with VHI and Leah. Beacon Care Fertility, where science meets life. We have special news for you. The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Are you going to send me or anybody that I know to a camp? We have people that are stupid. So when the MS-13 comes in, when the other gang members come into our country, I refer to them as animals. And guess what?

I always will. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. It's the Ricochet Podcast with Rob Long and Peter Robinson. I'm James Lylex, and today we talk to Larry Kudlow and Matthew Hennessey. Let's have ourselves a podcast. Bye-bye. finding private, local, smart, charitable solutions that promote your conservative values. Learn how at DonorsTrusted.org slash Ricochet. And we're brought to you by Bowling Branch. The right sheets can take your sleep and your style to the next level. With Bowling Branch, that upgrade has never been more affordable.

So go to BowlingBranch.com, that's spelled B-O-L-L and Branch.com, and use the promo code Ricochet to get $50 off your first set of sheets plus free shipping in the U S and we're brought to you by texture. Texture is the app that offers over 200 top magazines all in one place. Texture is usually $9 99 cents a month, but they're giving listeners a free trial free to start your seven day free trial. Go to texture.com slash ricochet. And of course we're brought to you by ricochet. And if you're still not a member, on what's it going to take you're missing out on great events like the one well all three of us were in dc last week when a grand time was had right guys it was amazing

and i would say to anyone who missed it um it was too bad we we had every seat taken and uh you should be you should become a member today if you today, you'll be able to go to the next one, which is coming up sooner rather than later. And we had white wine in a think tank, which is the very definition of insider access, I believe. I like to also think we had an open bar for the Glob podcast. So it was actually – I got to say it was an incredible value, I have to say. It really was.

And you got lunches, and if you were part of the Ricochet crowd, we had a Ricochet meetup, and you got a free drink, and you got drinks during GLOP. I mean it was like very – we really do have to thank Donors Trust and American Enterprise Institute for sponsoring it and giving such a beautiful room and helping us put it on. And we're just going to keep putting them on. If you're not a member now, may as well join now because that's how you get to go. It was great to see you both. We hadn't done a podcast together, I think, for 200 episodes

or thereabouts, or maybe one on the ship or something. We have to do this more than every four or three years, but perhaps we'll be in D.C. soon. Again, do you think the podcast, Con Podcast, was a great deal of fun? It wasn't just the flagship. It was lady brains. It was conservatarians.

I mean, it was everybody. And what a show it was. Yeah. And we had a fun evening event with Ricochet. We brought Kevin Williamson and Charles Cook back together to do Mad Dogs and Englishmen. And that was a very, very, very funny, spirited conversation. And you could only be there if you were a member. So that is the benefit of membership.

Become a member today. And it was held at a bar that was about four feet wide. That was one of my favorites. That's right. Old D.C. has got a lot of those little nooks and crannies where in the second floor nobody's really renovated it for the last 50 years, but it has charm. It's rare that you find that sort of rough rough charm in dc these days since the relentless uh office building of vacation of everything continues apace i mean it really is a remarkably prosperous clean place

now rob thinks it's a dump but i think it's a dump are you right but peter i know that you loved it you wait a minute you think it's you don't think it's a dump physically. It's more the effect on the spirit, isn't it? It's a little bit of both, to be honest. It's actually too prosperous, isn't it? It's definitely too prosperous, but it also doesn't thrill me aesthetically, I've got to say. Well, it has its virtues. One of them is not necessarily the metro station. I remember I was getting on a metro with Simon, as a matter of fact, a Ricochet member from Tasmania. Hi, Simon.

And I was pointing out that the train we were on, the only real sign that you had where you were going was an LED readout that said red. That's it. Not the direction. Not the next stop. Not the time. Just red. And when you came to a stop, there was always this and you could never, never know what they were saying.

So you always encounter a little bit of a DC beyond the official DC that is so shiny and marble. But I'm sure though that that sign and the speaker conform to all federal OSHA guidelines. Possibly so. Possibly so. I do know that they have to shut down vast areas of the metro to replace the lines. There's concrete panels that haven't been properly installed. The Silver Line is 20 years overdue. So I'm happy to see that sort of not able to get it done on time DC that I knew still lives in someone. I don't have to live there,

so I don't have to experience it. Well, gentlemen um i would just like also to say that being with the two of you you were you were kind you were faithful you did not use the house as a lavatory i could say that you're you were animals in the best possible sense of the word. But we have another definition. Is this one for – did Rob not read the newspapers yesterday for once? Oh, I read them. I have plenty of time to read the newspapers.

I was just on mute for a minute. But, yes, I – wait, James, were you going to sort of bring us up to speed on that controversy or should I just jump right in? Jump right in. I think everybody knows. I sort of agree with Molly Hemingway. I mean I hate saying this because it's just so lazy, but it's lazy because the press is lazy. This is why we have Trump because he clearly was saying something that made complete sense and that everybody should agree with. He was trying to be anodyne down the middle. Who doesn't think MS-13 are animals?

And yet it's just this constant barrage of – talk about missing the forest for the trees. Well, Peter, many blue-checked Twitter people don't believe that they're animals because they believe it's wrong to dehumanize anybody. They're still human beings after all, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. The point is that they had dehumanized themselves. They were behaving like animals because of their own choices about the way this is the MS-13 gang. And they've been, Trump has, there've been some especially, even by MS-13 standards, unusually brutal murders, beheadings, repeated stabbings, that sort of thing. That – who wouldn't – I mean it's so exasperating. The press this week – it's unbelievable actually this week.

One, they tried to mock Trump. First of all, the New York Times was out – straightforwardly – I hate to use the word because it's overused, but they were lying. They said that Trump had referred to immigrants as animals. It was obvious from the context that he wasn't referring to all immigrants as animals, which was obviously what the New York Times was trying to permit its readers to believe. But he was referring to the MS-13, these brutal gangs as behaving in a subhuman way. They had lowered themselves to the state of animals. One. Two, the press tried to suggest that Israel was aggressive, brutal, so on, so forth, in

killing, I think it was about 60 people in the end, who had rushed. When the United States opened its embassy in Jerusalem. They rushed the border fence in Gaza. Gaza, 60 people ended up dead. Hamas itself a day later claimed that 50 of the dead were Hamas, members of Hamas, in other words, known terrorists. And then the New York Times runs this piece, this long piece about the latest on the Trump investigation in which sharp eyes such as those of Molly Hemingway and Kim Strassel. No, wait a moment.

Donald Trump said way back when that they spied on his campaign. And now these leaks to the New York Times do what? They confirm exactly that. The FBI had one, two, three, four targets in the Trump campaign and at least one informant in the Trump campaign. I mean the – exactly, Rob. I'm with you. I hate to give the other side credit, but this is what they were – it was fake news from beginning to end. From beginning to end. And what's amazing is it's not as if people are running out of things, certainly the left, to be outraged about Trump for.

I mean, you don't you don't have to lie. That's the most Trump is a gift to these people. He did. He does say things that are, I think, beyond the pale. He does believe we'll find out soon exactly what he believes economically that I think are silly. There's plenty of stuff that's real legitimate to disagree with him on. You don't need to invent, and yet the inventions become more and more frenzied and more and more crazy. It was like

when I was teased by my older brother and cousin when I was younger, so they could drive me into, you know, red face, rage.

And all I saw was a red fog and I would be flailing and flailing and flailing. It was so easy for them. All I need to do is to push me over or trip me or like hold me back, you know, like in cartoons when they, when you stretch out your arm and you hold the person back and all they do is swing at fists at the air. That's –

Windmilling. You windmill. The press is so incompetent in this country, it can't even legitimately critique President Donald Trump. That is – A critiquable person. I mean what happens is the president says they were spying on my campaign and everybody in the media and John Oliver and all the late night hosts who and holler and point and laugh and grin and say that's absolutely ridiculous. He's paranoid. Comes out that they were. And then the response is, well, of course they were. They makes you wonder exactly what they want. Oh, perhaps impeachment. Oh, perhaps Mike Pence to start the FEMA camps for the gay. I don't know what they want. Hey,

listen, before we go to our first guest, I have to say this. I'm giving Rob no chance to interrupt. That's because we're under the gun here. We're under the gun here. But we're talking about something important. One of our sponsors, one of the great sponsors we have at the podcast, of course, is Donors Trust. Now, the most important work being done to promote conservative values isn't taking place in Washington, and it is not usually being done by politicians. What's that you're saying? Well, that's where Donors Trust comes in. Donors Trust is the community foundation for liberty. Donors Trust clients are people just like you

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the Investing in Liberty Guide that offers a step-by-step process to strategically support America's bedrock principles through your giving. Again, go to DonorsTrust.org slash Ricochet and see how you can leave a legacy of liberty. And our thanks to Donors Trust for sponsoring this, the Ricochet podcast. And now we welcome back to the podcast, Larry. Before Larry Kudlow became the 12th director of the National Economic Council appointed by President Trump, he was, of course, a well-known podcaster right here at Ricochet. And we might add a frequent guest on this very show. We're glad that he has time in his busy schedule to talk to us. And Larry, my first question has to do with this China telecom deal.

We were told that we didn't want these guys in our market, and now we get tweets about how it's important to help ZTE. And then there's this reporting about the money the Chinese government is loaning to a project that Trump has some interest in. Unpack this for us, because this seems odd on many levels. Well, look, I'm not going to comment on the alleged Trump business loans. I don't have any knowledge about that. And that's certainly not part of the conversation right now. Regarding ZTE, the issue here, this is not really a trade issue. This is a legal enforcement issue. They've been a chronic violator of laws, important laws, I might add, and hacking and trying to get

classified information, so forth and so on. I don't know how that's going to be worked out. Secretary Wilbur Ross, it's under his jurisdiction. He was asked by the president to take a look at the remedies and see whether it makes sense. I know that if there are some amendments to their remedies, I'll call them, they're going to be extremely stiff. It will be a gigantic fine. It would be a total change in management, a total change in the board, and very punitive compensation requirements. Now, those are things under discussion, I want to be very clear. This is up to Mr. Ross, and he will make the final decision and then give his recommendation to the president.

But that is under discussion. They're not going to be let off the hook, et cetera, et cetera. They're not getting any monetary breaks, and they will lose control of the company. But beyond that, I'm just going to leave it there. It's something that's being discussed. Larry? When it comes to seeking fertility treatment, time can be of the essence. At Beacon Care Fertility, we are proud to offer prompt access to affordable fertility care.

With over 60,000 babies born across our fertility clinic network, we have both the science and the expertise to deliver. We offer convenient payment plans and are partnered with VHI and LEIA. Beacon Care Fertility, where science meets life. I want to add quickly, again, we have always regarded this. This came up when we were in China a few weeks ago, and yes, it has resurfaced. This is not a trade issue. This is an enforcement issue, really on a different subject. Trade issues. Larry, Peter here.

How are you? Congratulations on your new job. Rob and James and I're sleeping better at night, checking our bank accounts less often knowing that you're in there. Compound interest and Larry Kudlow are at work. Peter, you remain my favorite never-Trumper. You really are. You're still my favorite never-Trumper. I'm not a never-Trumper. Larry, let me quote something that you and I regard as just only slightly short of a saint. This is in 1989 in Milton Friedman. The sainted Milton Friedman said, if the Japanese government – we can now read Chinese government – if the Japanese government is so ill-advised as to send us goods at below cost. Why should we as a nation refuse reverse foreign aid? As a consumer, all I can say is the more dumping, the better.

Close quote. In principle, why is the administration so concerned about dumping, about aggressive Chinese trade when it benefits American consumers. Explain it, would you please? Yeah, yeah. I mean, Milton's principle is correct. I subscribe to it. And by the way, the dumping is only a small part of our trade discussions.

We're trying to get a restructuring of their entire trading operation, which has been unfair and WTO illegal. And it's put us and the rest of the world at a great disadvantage. The whole world agrees that China must come into the first world and must abide by the usual legal practices of trade and technology. Now, having said that, I think that, you know, regarding China, it may not be as clear as some people want, but there's a pretty good lot of evidence that because China is a state run economy, over half of it is

run by these state owned enterprises and they're financed by state run banks and have trillions of dollars of non-performing loans. They will, in order to keep hiring people, sort of they pretend to work and then the banks pretend to pay for it. And it's a system that shows up all around the world and they do it as a strategy. So they like to push out other companies because they're the low-cost producers. Low cost doesn't do it justice. I mean, it isn't just like falling prices. They are actually subsidizing companies who lose money. And the reason they do that is because they're trying to take over certain sectors of the world economy, whether it's manufacturing or whatever. And, by the way, it's a loser for them, and it's a loser for us.

And remember, they're driving businesses out. It's just not quite so simple as providing lower T-shirts for consumers. They're actually driving foreign companies, the U.S., but we're not alone, out of business. So such a studied strategic approach is a lot different than what Milton was talking about. Look, I'm a free trade guy, but you do have to play by the rules. I mean, honest to God, the world trading system is a mess. China's in the center of that mess. And I believe this can be fixed, you know, in very positive pro-growth ways. Larry, I know Rob wants to come in for sure.

I have one other question, though. It's Peter here once again. And as you know, I live out here in Silicon Valley and I see things. And here is what is driven home to me again and again and again. The Chinese have something the Soviet Union never had, cash. It's one thing when they steal our IP, right? It's one thing when they engage in predatory trading. You've just addressed that.

Are we doing what we need to do to address the problem when the Chinese simply buy our technology, when they simply move in and target critical startups, critical sectors, and they just buy it fair and square according to the marketplace? How do we handle that well there's that fair and square part that's quite interesting because okay uh they look they have an angle here they have an angle and the angle is to grab our technology and buy these companies for cash so called first of all these are not in many cases, they are not legitimate private sector transactions. They are Chinese government-run transactions. The banker is the state. So that's really different. And as part of this China trade deal, by the way, you haven't asked me the key question, and that is how the deal is going. I'm leaving the non-technical stuff to Rob, Larry.

Yeah, I know you're going to get to the real pithy matter here. But before you get there, we will be taking action to protect the integrity of American technology, which is the key to our economy. We are the most, as you know, we are the most innovative economy in the world. The technological backbone is the key. We make the app, we invent the stuff, and then we apply it in ways that virtually nobody else in the world applies it. China can't do it. They have a failure. And so they're trying to take every means possible, all right, whether it's to buy up companies, to try to shut down companies with profit losses, whether they want to infiltrate telecommunications, whether they want their students to go to our great universities and then take the best ideas back home.

We will be protecting some of America's very key technologies with respect to security as well as economic growth. We will be taking steps. We've informed the Chinese government of this. And the great hope here is that they will reform their own trading practices. So we won't have to worry so much about that. But right now, the experts have shown, and again, you're talking to a guy who's a free trader, but the experts have shown that the China theft of our intellectual property, the forcing technology changes and transfers has to stop. It has to stop. It has to stop here. It should stop there. But we at least can have some say over our own fate. Director Kudlow, it's Rob Long here, and I'm still

stinging from the insult that Peter is your favorite Never Trumper. I assume that I was. No, I don't think you're as pure as Peter. I really think you were more flexible. That's nice of you to say. Imagine Rob like a raven

perched on a bush. Quoting Rob Long. Never Trump. I may not qualify as a never Trump, but I definitely qualify as an always Kudlow. I completely agree with you as far as China goes. I guess my question is more the mechanisms. How's the deal going? And what leverage do we have? I mean my fear isn't that – I mean I don't think we're wrong.

I mean I think that for 25, 30 years, every businessman I knew who went to China knew that his – they knew your – they know – they tell you when you leave, your laptop is going to be sniffed. When you turn on your cell phone, when you land, it's a spoof China telecom or China mobile site that actually gets into your – everybody knows that. What leverage do we have to fight back? How much pain are we as an economy willing to endure? And then my third question is if there was ever a time to do it, isn't it now when the economy seems to be growing and unemployment is doing down to three-something percent? No, that's a great point. That's a very good point. I think leverage is a funny thing.

On this, President Trump, to his great credit in my view, he has raised these points. But unlike prior presidents, and I'm going to be bipartisan here, Republican presidents and Democrat presidents have often raised these unfair trading practices points, but they never follow through and they never do anything about it. And POTUS is doing something about it. He's not going away. And this is a case where, you know, he is America first. He doesn't necessarily want to be America alone, but if he has to be alone, he will do it. And so if they want access to our markets, and I welcome that in a sense of economic efficiency and helping our businesses, consumers, they must, A, play by the

technology rules and B, give us access to their markets. All right? So my thought here is the way to solve this optimally is, first of all, bring them to the bargaining table and, you know, try to talk some sense into them about violating the rules of the game. Second, take down your barriers. Take down your tariff barriers. Take down your non-tariff barriers, of which there are many. Open markets don't close them. And if you do that, Americans, which we are becoming once again the most competitive economy in the world, a lot of this has to do with Trump's own tax and

regulatory policies and so forth, about which we have all talked about in the last couple of years, we will export a lot more. I mean, it's interesting. The newspapers have this sense that we are forcing them to buy more. Actually, while that may occur, it will occur if they lower their barriers and allow us to export more of our very good goods and services. You follow? There's a difference here. One is a growth approach. The other one is a punitive approach. Now, I don't want to predict the outcome.

All I'll say is the meeting with Vice Premier Luija and his group has gone better than probably anybody in the U.S. government, including the president, thought. All right. Does it mean there's a deal? Larry, were you there? Did you sit in? Have you negotiated with the Chinese yourself? You were there. OK. Can I just jump in one more question? What's at stake for us? I mean one of the ways in which country A will retaliate against country B or country A will respond to country B's trade violations is for country A to subsidize their own businesses, to say, well, if you're going to subsidize that, we're going to subsidize our own. Is that something that we're willing to do? Well, look, the word subsidy is a little vague, but let me just say to repeat President's own view. We would like to make a good deal.

And again, I want to emphasize this. We made very good progress yesterday, including the president, who was rather more optimistic than I've seen him on this topic. If in your quiver of arrows, if you will, to try to fix the trade problem, you want negotiation. But if you must, you have you may have to use tariffs, which is, you know, not my favorite approach. But if they will, we will. And they need to know that we will be tough. I mean, President Trump's a tough dealmaker, and he would prefer not to shackle the world with a million tariffs. But if need be, I think he would resort to tariffs. Again, I don't think that's certainly not my first choice. I'm not sure it's his first

choice, but he is willing to do whatever it takes to try to rectify some of these unfair trading practices. Look, he's trying to protect the American economy. He's trying to protect American businesses. He's trying to protect American workers. You do protection like that, the best way is to open markets. Let me be very clear, And lower barriers. That gives us access. But if need be, we will take more punitive steps. I hope we don't have to. But again, speaking for him, he is prepared to do whatever it takes to make sure there's some kind of level playing field, which there is not right now. Larry James Lallix here in prosperous Minnesota. We know that the left thinks that the White House Oval Office has levers that control the price of gasoline and wages and everything else. It's a rather simplistic view. And we know that you have to get back to working those levers. So we'll leave you with this. What's ahead? Everyone says that the Republican president always suffers a recession.

Everyone seems to believe that we've had 10 years of robust runaway growth, and now we're due for a crash. What keeps you up at night? How do you see the future? I think the future looks pretty good. I mean, there's no recession. We're right now at the – we're entering an economic boom. I mean, the economy is growing in the last four quarters at 3% at an annual rate. I think the next quarter, the spring quarter, which will end June 30th,

will probably be over 4% economic growth. There's a very big pickup in investment, business investment, what CapEx caps capital spending, which produces jobs and higher wages and better productivity. I mean, I think we're in very good shape. Stock market's in good shape. Inflation rate is nil. The dollar is actually strengthening. Gold is falling. These are positive signs for the economy. I think even in the early stages of the tax cut aftermath, we're seeing terrific results, perhaps even faster than guys like me thought. And for the political pundits out there, well, look, think about this.

The generic ballot is now closing again to, what, four, five, six points. That's essentially a toss-up. GOP is once again the party of growth. It has a president who's a growth president like the one we work for. And that's going to matter come election time. That is going to matter a lot. And there's no recession in sight. For my Democratic friends, God bless them, there's no recession.

Instead, what you've got is a stepped up recovery. So if I entered the punditry prediction game, all I'll say is don't count your chickens before they're hatched. Larry, when are we going to see wage growth? We are seeing wage growth. We're seeing that already? We're all seeing wage growth. Yes, depending on how you measure. Look, wages are starting to rise. They're going to continue to rise. We're getting growth in the real economy, not just in the stock prices, correct?

That's correct. Yes. That's the importance. Now, Peter, I want you to really focus on this. This is important for your continuing economic education. Yes, director. Yes, director. There you go.

I like that a lot. Now, business investment in structures and equipment and technology and all the rest, including car factories, for heaven's sakes, that's the key to creating jobs. And from production comes consumption. So people need to look at the releases, the statistical releases, about factory orders and ISM manufacturing and services and the overall business fixed investment from the GDP accounts. And what you're seeing is after two flat years in 2015 and 2016, and by the way, barely any growth since the year 2000. We are now moving towards 6%, 7%, 8%, depending on which series you measure. That's the key. There's your job creator, there's your wage creator, and there's your productivity creator. And the world is investing in the USA as we hope. Capital is flowing to the. once again from all around the world.

So let's keep our fingers crossed and hope that the supply-side analysis carries through. Larry, I have one last question. Okay. Here's one last question, then we go to Robin. You can get back to work. You can't let go of me. I know you want to talk. It's okay.

I'm here. I'm here to send you off. Okay. Larry, listen. I'm reverse toxic. I'm good toxic. And you are. Okay, Larry, listen, here's a question. I'm reverse toxic. I'm good toxic. That's exactly right.

We both served in the Reagan administration. We know that a White House has different moods. During Iran-Contra, the mood even in the Reagan administration was dark. So we've got Mueller out there working on his investigation. You've got the press against you, overwhelmingly against you. And so what I want to know is what's the mood? working on his investigation. You've got the press against you, overwhelmingly against you. And so what I want to know is, what's the mood? You actually sound personally pretty upbeat. Are you having fun? Is this a White House that expects to get wiped out in November and get crushed by what? What's it feel like? What's it feel like? You have you've got to you've got to understand the importance of the Kudlow factor, the re-energizing, the motivations, the incentive effect, the kindness. Somebody wrote a lovely story that I was killing people with kindness.

I love that. All that stuff is completely – up here on the second floor of the West Wing, it's just wild. People are happy, and we we're succeeding and we have smiles on our faces. It's terrific, absolutely terrific. And we're being led by a great leader who's really moving us. I mean, you know, give him a little credit. Give him a little credit. The economy is getting better and the possibilities of a diplomatic breakthrough, for example, in a crazy place like the Korean Peninsula, that's out. There's a re-energizing going on here. And Kudlow factory, you should come up and visit me, for heaven's sake.

I've got great real estate here. I've got everything you want. All right, Director Kudlow, I've got to ask you two questions. Yes. One is, all right, you put to bed my first question about wage growth, which seemed like it was sluggish, but you're saying a tight labor market's going to rocket that higher. You're not worried about the new metric people are searching for, the pundits always want to find something.

Is the flattening yield curve, you don't think that signals anything? That's just what growth happens when growth takes off. Yeah, you know, that's a fair point. Look, I'd keep an eye on it. It's a very good monetary indicator. I would note, by the way, it's it's beginning to widen again. The 10 year bond rate is, I guess, about three point one percent. So it's been rising that, you know, I look at that as a signal of growth when these long-term rates are rising, principally because of the growth factor. There may be a little bit of oil inflation inside that that will prove to be temporary. But, you know, rates go up because the economy is producing higher capital returns and the demand for investment is rising. That's a good thing. So if you have an inversion of the curve, it would

not be good. But we're really not in that position. If you were looking at it from a business point of view, this is what it seems like to me. And tell me – this is purely anecdotal – is that there was a lot of money on the sidelines waiting for the past almost 10 years. And suddenly now, if you're a CFO or you're a CEO or you're trying to build a company, now is the time to buy. Now is the time to spend. Now is the time to open a factory. Now is the time to increase your payroll because it feels like you've got at least a sort of deregulatory atmosphere the next four years, maybe the next eight years. It feels like now is the time to invest.

Buy low, right? Is that supported by any anecdotal – I mean, I'm sure you've got a million CEOs calling you and asking you questions and telling you what they're planning to do. Does that feel like it? Look, we had – yes, I mean, yes, yes, yes. Look, right after the tax cut was signed in, I guess, late December, there was a spate of corporate announcements, hundreds of companies, you know, paying bonuses, higher wages, more stock options, but also announcing huge investment projects. That was really the key. I mean, we've had,

you know, one of the wonderful things about this position is I do get to interact with a lot of leading CEOs and they're coming in here, like Tim Cook, for example, who is a very brilliant man. He was not Donald Trump's biggest supporter. I get that. But he comes in here. He sits with me for a good while. He goes downstairs, talks to POTUS for a good while. I was in that meeting. The first thing he said was, thank you for your tax reform. And then he, Apple is investing, what, $350 billion over the next 10 or some years. That's a tremendous, tremendous investment in the United States. And, you know, I use Apple because it's a great company.

Michael Dell was here, I think, yesterday giving essentially the same report. And all these companies, I mean, I don't follow the announcements anymore because there's probably over 400 or 500 of them. But sure. But look at the actual evidence. It's showing up in all these statistical reports. We are having the first investment boom since the year 2000. And I agree with you. That's the key.

I mean, Rob Long, you get high economic marks here. See, I've been listening, Larry. So I got one – I know you got to run. I got one last – it was really more of a personal question. I'm here for you. I'm here for you. Oh, you're so nice. My god.

I'm going to atone for all my sins. Well, the last time you were working in the White House, how many years ago was that? I mean it was a different time. We'll just say put it that way. Larry was only 19 years old. You're 19. Look, I work in the White House once every 35 years, whether I need to or not. So my question is, how have you said earlier, it made me think uh you said i'm you know i'm killing him with kindness i'm i'm how how are you different 35 years later i mean not just the white the white house is different the president's different the country's different the culture's different

but when you walk into that white house and i know that whatever people say about it it's got to be a complicated place it's a very temperamental person at the top. Rightly or wrongly, his personality is what it is, mercurial. How are you different when you walk into that White House than you did when you were a young man? That's a fair question. Look, let me just make one quick point. President Trump has been unbelievably good to me. I mean, he has been accessible.

I see him almost every day, sometimes more on the phone and the plane. I mean, he has just opened himself up. And that by itself has been a fabulous experience for this fellow, for me. In terms of me, look, I've come along, you know, I've had my ups and downs. You learn. I have a lot of faith. You fellows know that. We've talked about that. And I'm in great shape, and it's different. Look, I'm older. This is a much more senior position than what I held at OMB many years ago. And it's a great opportunity. But most of all, most of all, it's serious business. And I don't want that to be a cliche.

You know, you're in the Oval Office or you're maybe in the dining room next to the Oval Office. You might be alone with the president. You might be in a group of people with the president, your colleagues. This is very serious business. This is the business of the United States of America, and we have to make it as good as we can make it. That's the only goal I have.

I have no ambitions. I'm not looking for any other job. I didn't even look for this job and didn't know I'd be here. But being here now, the trick is to make things better. And you know me, I'm a growth guy. I want prosperity. I have a word up on my bulletin board in the office. It's growthier, growthier. That's a Kudlow adverb, I think. Growthier. But whenever I have meetings with my group and other people, I make sure they see that on the board. Everything we do has to make America growthier and more prosperous. And then, of course, on the national security side, give them as much help as we possibly can.

This is the greatest country in the world. It was when Peter and I worked here a long time ago, but people didn't know it. It became it again. We go through our ups and downs. I believe America is having a renaissance. It's not just the president, although he's part of it. I think the American people are once again turning more upbeat and optimistic. That's what the surveys are suggesting. That's what business is suggesting. I just want to contribute to that, fellas. I am without ambition.

Without ambition. Really. I'm way too old for ambition. I just want to make this, leave it a little better than what I came in. Well, I think that's happening right now. And we cannot thank you enough for taking time out of your day

to talk to us, give us a continuing Economics 101 lesson that even thick-headed guys like Peter and me, some of it gets in. I'll tell you, some of it actually enters the thick skull. Rob, you have come a long way. You have come such a long distance.

There's more work to be done, Larry, believe me. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, listen, really me. I'm so proud of you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, listen, really appreciate your time. Talk to you soon. Take care. You bet.

Larry, thanks so much. Take care. I will say, Peter, that when he said he talks to the president every day, he's in there all the time, he's on the plane, I physically relaxed. There is a physical reaction to me to know that there is a person, not just with the smarts and the savvy and I think the good judgment of Larry Kudlow, but just the heart and the soul of him. He is one of the most decent people I think I've ever met. And I mean that not in a – decent in the true sense of the most decent people I think I've ever met. And I mean that not in a – not decent in the true sense of the word, just a very, very good, honest soul.

It is – it's worth taking two sentences to remind our listeners of Larry's history. He was a brilliant young economist in the Reagan administration. I knew him then. Of course, he's a much more senior – by the way, even in the Reagan administration. I knew him then. Of course, he's a much more senior. By the way, even in the Reagan administration, everybody listened to Larry. He went off to Wall Street and he became an addict. He got addicted to cocaine. He will tell you the story himself. And so we're talking to a guy now who was at the top and then sank to the very bottom and then rebuilt his career as a commentator and an economist.

And I believe him when he says that at this stage, he really has all that youthful nonsense about grasping and status to all the stuff that we all went through when we were in our 20s and 30s. It's just gone now. Larry is a tough guy. You have to be tough. Yeah. Character to pull yourself out of something like that. But he is also a truly good human being. I've known a lot of people who struggle with addiction. I've known a lot of people who have had that struggle. What's remarkable about Larry K to do, um, to, to, to have built relationships before you, you, you, you got ill and then to recover and then to keep those relationships

going. That's a hard thing to do. And it's, it's remarkable that he was able to do it. And, um, and it just shows you what a kind of person he is. And the second thing I would say is I hope, I know he's busy. I hope that there are a handful, if I knew any of them, I would tell them to, of younger staffers. There's always – go to White House. They're always around for sure. It's shocking at the White House as you walk in. I would prefer to have seen only gray hair, right, only old people who've been through stuff. But the truth is it requires a certain amount of energy and a certain amount of youth and exuberance.

There's a lot of people in their 20s. And I would tell them – Look to Larry now. You need to knock on his door. Yes. You need to say – you need to get 20 minutes of his time. You need to ask five questions about your career and about how to do this job well and about how to think about the future. You need to – he is a very wise man, and he should be –

if you're in the old executive office building or wherever he is and you're in proximity and you're in orbit or you see him at the White House mess, take advantage of that. There aren't that many people around like that. He stood where you stand now. Yeah, and he knows stuff, so better to ask because people who know stuff don't talk about it. You've got to ask. Speaking of knowing stuff, I know that I'm terrible at this, so I'm just going to jump right into it.

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Try the product because they're confident. They know they've got a great product, and that's what Ball and Branch did, and they're great. They're great. That's all I can say. Ball & Branch, thank you. Now I'm still kind of in the weird glow of Larry Kudlow. It's great, but we're going to segue poorly because it's me to our old friend Matthew Hennessey, who is the associate op-ed editor of The Wall Street Journal. His new book is Zero Hour for Gen X, which sounds grim. Matthew, I should say, is also the husband of former Ricochet editor Ursula Hennessy. He's been a friend of the podcast and a friend to Ricochet for many, many years, and we welcome him. Okay, so I got a question. Before we start, the book is called Zero Hour for Gen X.

So define just for me Gen X. I think I know the years, but it shifts. What are the Gen X years for you? Well, I go by Pew's definition, which is 1965 to 1980. But it's very fuzzy. You get people saying, I don't know what I'm in. And, you know, it's not an exact science. It's generations. A lot of people don't even think they exist. So but for just for the purposes of sort of setting the ground rules, we'll say 1965 to 1980. I have a shorthand, which is that if Google helped you get through high school, then you're not Gen X.

But you'd be on the other end. You're on the old side of that. Yeah, but younger people always want to know whether they're Gen X or millennials. Right, but I mean was there Gen Y in between Gen X and millennial? No? Yeah, I think it got swallowed up by millennials. That's the thing about millennials. They're very colonial.

They just sort of uh capture and dominate and uh consume everything that they come in contact with well i remember when the gen x uh designation sort of uh occurred and i am technically i'm not technically according to your definition i'm leading edge gen x so i am right there at the very beginning of that generation but whenever i would say that to, they would kind of roll their eyes like, yo, come on, you are not. You are a trailing edge boomer, my friend, not leading it. But 65 to 80, that doesn't seem like a generation should be under that umbrella. That's 15 crazy years in American life. Yeah, I mean, like I, you know, I knew this was going to be a big issue when it came to writing the book.

So I spent a little bit of time thinking about it and sort of inserting all of the qualifications. We all know people like Rob who sort of seems like he's a peer of Frank Sinatra's or something like that, some guy who's kind of young but seems old. And then we know like younger people who have old souls and stuff like that. So we can't say – That would be me, correct, Matt? I guess so, yeah, sure. We can't say you were born this year, and therefore these are your political views and your attitudes towards social issues and all of them, you know, on down the line. Obviously, we can't do that any more than we can say, well, if you're a college educated white woman, we know who you're going to vote for. But we can make some pretty broad claims and get away with it.

Right. And so your point is that that generation is the last one that was that is adult. What do you mean by the last adult generation? So we're the last one to ride bikes without helmets. We were the last ones to disappear in the neighborhood for hours at a time with our parents not quite knowing where we were. We were the last generation to, like, I tell people this now and they can't even believe, I kind of can't even believe it. I remember smoking, like, you know, there was a pizza parlor near my high school that had a cigarette machine. And we would go in there, 15, 14 years old, I don't know, and buy a pack of cigarettes and sit in the pizza parlor and pretend to smoke it. And nobody said boo about it.

So, I mean, you could argue that it's good that that's not allowed anymore, but I think that when I say the last adult generation, I really mean something like the last free-range, naturally free-range organic childhoods that were a little dangerous. Is that good? Why is that good? I mean you've got kids. Yeah, why is that good? Well, because it equipped us with a certain sort of attitude towards the world that we didn't necessarily realize or appreciate until we started losing it or until we started seeing what happened to – yes, I do have kids. And I feel this impulse all the time to sort of protect them from the world, to bubble wrap everything so they don't get a boo-boo. And I realize that it's a problem and that I need to sort of push against it. What I worry about is that we're the last generation of Americans who's even going to think it's a problem. So that's why I'm trying to sound the alarm. Well, so practically, what does that mean for you? Does that mean that you – because it seems to me that a parent – just say you woke up tomorrow and you said, I'm resolved to not – to raise a more free – children to be more free range, to use the term people use, right? How hard would that be in 2018?

It's pretty much impossible. I can't un-invent the internet. I can't pretend that the world isn't saturated with social media and smartphones, all that kind of stuff. So I have to make some very prudential judgments about what I'll let them be exposed to. And in a way, I guess you could say that's its own form of stage managing their childhoods. I mean, I think you guys both know we homeschool our kids, and this book's not that. It's not like, well, here's what you need to do to recreate 1985 in your own life and pass it on to the next generation. It's not that.

It's more like, listen, the world that we grew up in is not the one that we're inheriting? And is it too late to, you know, pump the brakes on a few things, maybe scale a few things back, maybe put down the telephones, maybe, you know, we're not that, here's the thing I want to, here's the point I want to make. This social media revolution and the internet age, it's not really that old. We're not that deep into it. We're only, let's say, 10 or 15 years, 10 years into the Facebook world, or maybe 15 years into the era where you check your email constantly all day long. So for most people my age, we went pretty deeply into our adult lives without any of that stuff. Now we wake up and we're in our mid forties and some of us are into our

fifties and we look around and we're like, well, wait a minute. I'm tied to this thing all day long. I'm staring at this screen all day long. I go home. I can't stop thinking about it. I'm checking it when I should be doing other things. I'm wondering if anybody tweeted me or sent me a message. Right. What the heck, what the heck has happened to us? You know? I think, I think we're at that stage right now with the data privacy and the Cambridge Analytica and people shutting down their Facebook.

We're heading towards a correction. And I think that's great because my book is coming out August 14th and it's perfectly targeted to this theme. So Matt Hennessey, you have written a book about the without anticipating the coming correction. Is this I knew it was coming. OK, by the way, I want to add something to the introduction of Matt Hennessey, even though we're in the middle of the interview. And that is that Matt Hennessey has an ear. Matt Hennessey is one of I think I counted it up the other day, six people, five now that Tom Wolfe is gone, whom I will read just because I see the byline. If you see Matt in City Journal, if you see him in the Wall Street Journal, if you see an op-ed under Matt's byline, just stop, just read it. Matt writes beautifully. The prose is its own reward, quite apart from the argument. But now back to the argument. So this book, the subtext is my fellow Gen Xers shape up or my fellow Gen Xers, we started as adults, let's end as adults. What is sort of the subtextual argument here?

The subtext is that we are very shortly. It doesn't feel that way because we're in the prime of life, but we are very we generational tsunami swamping the American cultural scene of the last part of the 20th century. You know that famous John Kennedy's inauguration where he says the torch has passed? Yes. The new generation. And I thought to myself, they're going to pass this torch right over our heads to the millennials because the millennials are, believe it or not, are a larger cohort than even the baby boomers. So Gen X is kind of like the runt of the litter. I have a friend who calls us the neglected middle child.

So you have these two gigantic peaks on the graph with Gen X in the middle. So, and, and, and, and we are in the middle, this is the middle of our lives. And in about, uh, so people have, so I had a conversation with a young lady who the lady who took my picture for the book, and she was, she's maybe 25. And she asked me like, what's the book about? I told her, and she, she, the concept of generation X was confusing to her. She didn't recognize that she didn't know what I was talking about. We talked a little longer and then she said, oh, I remember now you're the generation that's not going to get a president. And I said, you're kind of right. Yeah. I'm like the next president could be Joe Biden, for all we know, or Bernie Sanders, eight years of that.

And then who's going to follow that? It's going to be Mark Zuckerberg or someone from the millennial generation that are going to demand to elevate one of their own. So my – the subtext or the main text – I'm not sure. What's the opposite of the subtext? Is that this is it. There's no later. It's right now for Generation X. But will they – do you think it's going to happen? Yeah. As a Gen Xer, I mean I can – I hear you, and I'm responding to that, but I'm also thinking to myself, you know, really?

I mean first of all, everybody always hates the – Gen Xers were the millennials before they were millennials to complain about. People complained about my generation. Someone once called them the rerun generation because all we did was sit around in the afternoon and watch reruns. Are we really the – are we really up to it? I understand the chronological argument you're making, but what's the upside that you have a bunch of former fans of spin doctors and Nirvana running things? Maybe it's better that we have the millennials run things. They seem to have all the energy and the sort of entrepreneurial zeal. Or what am I missing? Well, you're missing the influence of the Internet.

You talked about reruns, the rerun generation. I remember that. I remember the claim that Gen Xers couldn't concentrate for longer than 22 minutes or whatever the length of your standard sitcom is. And my reply always is, what would you give to be able to concentrate for 22 straight minutes right now? Right? Things are declining. The millennials, lovely people filled with a lot of, like you said, entrepreneurial zeal and energy. They had the bad misfortune of coming along just as the internet was entering its full flower. And that's had, that's had an, that had an effect on the way they were

raised and the way they encounter the world. That's very different than the way we were raised and the way we were, uh, we encounter the world. I'm not suggesting that we can sort of like, you know, gather up a posse and, and ride out to the frontier and create some sort of brave new land where everything is going to be sort of old-fashioned and analog and brick and mortar, and it's going to be great. I'm not calling for that. And, you know, Rob, if you don't want to participate, that's fine. We'll build paradise without you. That's right. Well, you might have to because, as I've always said, I'm leading EdgeX that first year.

So, you know, I'm on the other side. So you don't want me. You want the young whippersnappers who were born in the late 70s who still kind of remember things. I'll tell you what. I'll talk to the guys, and we'll make a ruling about you and get back to you. That's good. Report to Gen X Central. Hey, Matt, thanks for joining us.

The book, once again, it's called Zero Hour for Gen X. Could follow you on Twitter at Matt Hennessey. When does the book come out? August 14th. Is it orderable on Amazon right now? We can preorder, right? Yes, it is, sir. Thank you for asking.

You can preorder it now if you like. I'd be grateful if you did. We will do that. It sounds like a great book. And get back to me on whether I qualify to arm the barricades with you. Matt, have a seat. And best to Ursula. Thank you. I will pass that on.

All right. Take care. Definitely best to Ursula. Okay, Matt, give our love to Manhattan. Will do. Or wait, Rob is there. The heck with it. Take it back. Yeah, have that. Yeah. Take care. Thanks. to manhattan will do or wait rob is there the heck with it yeah yeah take care um thanks uh

that's it is interesting like that that i remember eye rolling about gen x and then discovering that i was technically in gen x but this is like discovering that you're actually malaysian after all your life assuming that as as Rob Long, you were English and German or something. I think these things emerge. It was the boomer and then a boomer echo. I always thought it was a boomer echo, but then there were enough of a boomer echo to be called Gen X. But 1980 seems like slightly late, but I guess the idea is that at a certain point you were old enough and suddenly there was AOL, right? So I guess that was it. And of course, as you know, AOL, the internet destroyed magazines or did it? Are you paying attention not just to this podcast but to everything? If you're like me, when you're not listening to podcasts, you're reading about the latest ideas and issues in your favorite magazines.

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gonna say he didn't listen to this but he's's going to listen to it and think to himself. No good. On the other hand, I'm no you. Did I even attempt to interrupt? Did I see it coming? No. No, you were busy checking your email and Twitter and doing the stuff that Matt Hennison says that all you guys do. Before we go, though, I think we need to say farewell to a dear friend and a friend of the podcast and a friend of yours and a friend of Ricochet, Tom Wolfe. He wasn't – go. Let's start with the professional. Where does he rank as a writer? Well, I think he ranks way, way, way.

He ranks at the very top, doesn't he? Very, very high. I mean, as not just a writer, I mean, obviously the style and the prose and all that stuff, the unmistakable – his own unmistakable alphabet almost. He ranks right up there as a chronicler. If you wanted to understand 20 years in American history, Bonfire of the Vanities is a great place to start. If you want to understand, I think, the paradigm of technology and how technology changes us and how we change it, the right stuff I think is endlessly, endlessly rich and deep. It means more than just a very, very insightful look at the space program. It's analogous to what happens in Silicon Valley every day. It's really, really remarkable. I said this on Twitter when he died.

So many of the obits said, oh, well, he was the bard of status. Well, he was extremely conscious of what motivates people. And of course, people are always looking over their shoulder to see who's coming up behind them. People are status conscious. That's part of what human nature is. But the idea that he was limited to that is absurd. He understood so much. Don't you agree?

Yeah, I think that's a way. I mean, I think that is – I think people say status because there were so many details in that book, and there were so many stories about people jockeying for position or for influence in a very complicated and competitive world, and he chronicled that. But what I said when he died, what I said to people and I sort of tweeted it is that what was the most remarkable thing about him was he would wear this blinding white suit. And when the two of us had dinner with him in New York, he was wearing his white suit. I bumped into him in a hotel lobby in Paris. And you didn't bump into Tom Wolfe because you could see him from 200 yards away. But somehow he managed with that costume and those shoes and that demeanor,

he managed to get people to tell him things about themselves and about their struggles. He was able to almost disappear and listen. Alone, really, among writers, now, he never wrote about himself. He wrote about

what he observed. He had notebooks filled with stuff. And he told, I think, a very moving story about writing Bonfire of the Vanities. He said he was an older writer at that time. He'd written a bunch of things. He was surrounded in New York City by writers and people writing and novels and short stories and everything. writing his first novel and he was terrified because he would go up to the bronx courthouse and he would see unfolding life and like richness and stuff and incredible stories happening and he was in the middle of the city which was changing rapidly and and and and so much stuff was happening in new york city and he couldn't believe that he was not going to be out and scooped by someone younger, someone who had more energy, could do more pages, someone who could be in more places in one day.

And it made him incredibly anxious. I mean he said he was nervous all the time. And then he wrote the book and no one – even to this day, there hasn't been a true competitor or a true companion to that kind of writing. And it's really a tragedy. He – also think of that. Think of the – while we're on him as a writer, my judgment is he's one of the ones who will be read a century from now. He stands there with Twain and Hawthorne and Faulkner as the chroniclers of – of course the other thing is that he is specifically, distinctively American. He is in love with the country as it exists, not some notion of what it could become but as it exists.

But think of – so think of the risk he took. He was – what was he? Who would have been – certainly in his late 40s when he started the book and Bonfire is published in 1987. But you remember where it first appeared in large part, right? Right. He serialized this thing in Rolling Stone because he thought, what the heck, if Dickens could write his novels in serial form, so could I. And we know from interviews. I mean, I asked he it – he didn't have the whole novel written. He'd write a chapter. It would appear and then he'd get to work on the next chapter. Now, the whole book didn't appear in serial form.

But he was at a point in his career when he already had nothing to prove to anyone. He was from then and forevermore the author of Radical Chic and Mau Mauing the Flag Catchers. He was already that. And he just went out on the high wire. He strung a high wire between, in effect, the World Trade Towers and just walked across that high wire for all of us to watch. It was just an astonishing performance. I remember having the other thing is that how hard he worked.

He made it look easy because he was a southern gentleman and because he had an air of almost southern grace and grace about him when you see him in new york or you'd see him for dinner but i remember having lunch with him out on uh out in the hamptons one day he would go out he rented a house in south hampton for years and i said we had dinner actually and i said tom how did the writing go today and of, I shrank because that what a stupid you never ask a writer how it's got what a stupid thing. And Sheila, that's why his wife was seated right next to me. She grimaced and tensed. I had asked the wrong question. And Tom's face fell. He just and I said, Tom, even you, meaning he'd had a hard day writing was clear to see the body language and he said peter it is just as hard for me today as it was when i was getting started the only difference is that now i can look up from my desk across to the bookshelf and see three shelves of books with my name on the spine and think to myself wolf you did it once you must be able to do it again. Ten pages a day, triple

space, ten pages a day before he would permit himself to knock off. He was a hardworking guy. A hardworking guy, but he put in the time early on. I mean, he had notebooks. He had observances. He went places and asked questions that I think that's just rare now. It's rare to think of a guy, especially somebody basically so personally flamboyant, who could disappear in a conversation so he could hear everything, who could disappear in a courtroom so he could write workout session was just – it was like an opera. It was so perfect and the details were so perfect that only somebody who knew how to shut up and take notes and listen. And who put in the time, who was meticulous about it. And put in the time, yeah.

Personally on Tom, he was almost the opposite in person of the way he seemed. He was so flamboyant in print. In print, he could be very rough on people, for goodness sake. Really, Leonard Bernstein never recovered from Tom's attack on him. It's radical. Frankly, he never deserved to recover. But Leonard Bernstein went to his grave, still chafing at the piece that Tom wrote about him. But in person, Tom was so sweet and so

gentle and so kind and had such a capacity for friendship. He was all, I remember what I got in touch, sent him an email. He was busy. I was going to be in Manhattan. He was busy. I had some, and he said, stop by the apartment after your dinner. And so I stopped by his apartment at 10 o'clock at night. And I thought to myself, I knocked on the door and i thought to myself if ever tom wolf wears jeans i'm about to see it and the door opens at 10 o'clock and there's tom in his full dress white that's hilarious and that's hilarious he had he was like bill also he was like bill buckley in that he was always himself the man off stage he was sweeter than you might have guessed from the prose. But he was always himself and he was also like Bill in that he had just such a capacity.

It was a curious thing because they were both very famous men and there were far too many people who wanted to correspond with them, meet them, have dinner or lunch with them than they could possibly accommodate. But if you did become a friend the capacity for friendship was endless just bought right right yeah i i just want to just so we just to bring it all down to politics for one second i know we have to run but what what was what's remarkable about him is that he by any measure his politics were you know center maybe moderate center right you know maybe oh i i he was he was a reagan man but he didn't well but he never he never that was like electoral politics bored him i tried to get him going i just bored him it just and i but but to hear people now talking about how he was conservative that it's so strange how our lexicon has become weaponized.

He was a 1950s liberal at the most, right? I think so. I mean maybe he turned more conservative later, but his writing wasn't any more – it was never a screed. He was never driven by politics. Oh, I see what you mean. No, he never was. In fact, I remember – someplace I have this letter that he wrote to me and he said the American politics bores – this is in the 90s I guess, this letter dates – that American politics, electoral politics, the cut and thrust, the kind of thing we were just talking about with Larry Kudlow. That bored him because he saw American – the United States of America was like a train running down a track.

Right. the United States of America was like a train running down a track and there was the left on one side and the right on one side, on the other side and it didn't really matter because this huge, great, big show was just going to roll along. That was his view but culturally he took, he

was attacking constantly I don't think there's any, the cultural left, I'm hesitant to use the word because I take your point. I didn't wade into politics. But he attacks Leonard Bernstein for sucking up to the Black Panthers from our house to Bauhaus. He attacks the culture, the architectural establishment and the painted word. It's the art establishment, the elite, the left. He's never – he's not interested in electoral politics, but he sure was interested in culture.

But he – I mean I guess what I mean to say is that his politics were so fantastically, cleverly, brilliantly American middle class. Yes, yes. You know what? You go to the museum and a guy painted a bunch of stripes on a canvas and I guess it's great, but boy, I love that picture of the seashore. Yeah, I guess a big glass box that doesn't have any ornament is okay, but boy, I really love those skyscrapers with all that stuff on the side. There was a kind of a – it wasn't – it isn't really political. It's just normal in a way and that used to be considered normal American values, which were kind of

distorted in the 60s and 70s and he was this very observant guy without an axe to grind reminding us that that it's okay to say some of this is nonsense it's okay to make fun of this it's okay and and i i think for people he was always a middle-class guy from a southern household he was all i mean in his values yeah and i just say to younger people, when you read Bonfire of the Vanities, understand something that – for those of us who remember reading it for the first time, the most astonishing thing is it predates all of the things that came – that were now famous and came after it. It predates Reverend Al Sharpton. It predates the kind of racial politics and racial outrage we see. It predates Trayvon Martin. It predates all of these things. It anticipated all of them and wrote them all, but it didn't – he was imagining a future that actually ended up unfolding months

after the publication date i mean really years in some ways yeah but he was that's how up to the minute he was you know yes yes so your favorite tom wolf book choose oh well i i probably bonfire i think bonfire the right stuff one one of those two. I'll take the other one. The Right Stuff is just – all right. The show has gone long. It's been a good show. We had Larry. the right stuff. I was in England. I was feeling homesick for America. And there was the right stuff, which was an American story in American prose. Tom Wolfe did things with the language that no Englishman would ever have considered doing. It was just like having a slice of America delivered fresh and raw and dripping with juices to me right there. Anyway, it was a very gruesome. Last point is the right.

He researched the right stuff. Yeah. For years, five, six years. He did interviews. He did research. I mean, it was capacity for friendship. The pros is obvious and it will live forever. I guess the sort of closing point about Tom personally is the capacity for friendship was enormous, and the capacity for hard work was also just huge. Hard work, friendship, curiosity, research, and listening.

He listened. Yes, he did. In many ways, what we think of as the modern world and modern world insights came first from Tom Wolfe's pen, so he will be missed. He has no heir at this point, which is really too bad. Maybe Michael Lewis, I think, is the closest. Closest, closest. Although Michael Lewis' prose is quite a – yes, yes. That's a separate conversation, but yes, for now, yes, as an approximation, yes. That's your novel. Yeah, exactly. Well, I think it has to be up until now because we've already gone about an hour and a half on this podcast, and I think that's just too much value for the listeners. And if you're a listener and you are not a member of Ricochet, shame on you. Please go to Ricochet.com and join, not just so you can go to great events that we had like we had last week and we'll have more of, but also because we need your support.

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