Chief Economic Advisor, Allianz
Squawk Pod: Alan Greenspan’s legacy: Mohamed El-Erian & Walter Isaacson - 06/22/26 | Audio Only
Economist Mohamed El-Erian remembers this titan of American economics, including his historic career as Fed Chair for five ...
About Mohammed El-erian
Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz and a professor at the Wharton School, has stated he expects the Federal Reserve to keep interest rates unchanged for the remainder of the year, a position he described as a "strong expectation." He characterized the Fed as undergoing a necessary transformation after years of policy mistakes, including its 2021 characterization of inflation as transitory and issues with compliance and forecasting. El-Erian also said the Fed is likely "tolerating a 3% target" rather than its stated 2% target. He noted that the ECB's rate hike was appropriate given its single mandate, whereas the Fed, with a dual mandate, should wait. Regarding inflation, El-Erian said "the worst of inflation is behind us" and that it will likely peak in mid-2025. He linked remaining inflationary pressures partly to AI-related investment, which he described as having a positive supply-side effect. On AI, El-Erien said its productivity potential "can be more than Greenspan," but warned the industry has a "massive PR problem" and that more attention is needed on adoption and diffusion. He called tech valuations a "rational bubble," arguing that over-investment is a less costly mistake than under-investment. El-Erian expressed concern that the bond market cannot fund the combined needs of AI investment, government deficits, and corporate borrowing without higher yields, asking rhetorically where the funding will come from.
Transcript (86 segments)
K
Katie Kramer0:00
Bring in show music, please.
Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, the financial world remembers a giant of American economics. Alan Greenspan has died at age 100. Chairman of the Federal Reserve, reappointed time and again, Greenspan's legacy is enormous. Mohammed El-erian joins us.
M
Mohammed El-erian0:23
Think of it. He served 20 years, five terms, four administrations. His career in jazz and economics and the mark he left on American business. He was the Fed at its best because he had that command of details and was willing to look forward and say, you know what, I'm going to let this economy run. And he unleashed an enormous productivity gain.
W
Walter Isaacson0:46
Then Walter Isaacson on Elon Musk over a week out from SpaceX's IPO. What's next for the world's first trillionaire? I think there will be a Tesla SpaceX merger, buyout, because it makes sense. They're both basically companies making real world things that are driven by AI.
K
Katie Kramer1:06
Plus, Toy Story 5 has notched the biggest box office weekend of the year. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is stepping down and more talks between the US and Iran led by Vice President Vance in Switzerland.
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Eamon Javers1:19
It's just tough to sift through all the rhetoric from both sides to find out where things really are. There's an old saying in diplomacy, Joe, that talking is better than shooting.
K
Katie Kramer1:27
It is Monday, June 22nd. Squawk Pod begins right now.
Stand back to you in 3, 2, 1. Cue, please.
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Becky Quick1:38
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to Squawkbox right here on CNBC. We are live from the NASDAQ market site in Times Square. I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan. Andrew is off today. And yes, it was a beautiful sunrise this morning on the way in. And all I could think about is the days are getting shorter from here. Back to the dreary, dreary, dark days of winter already on my mind.
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Joe Kernan2:00
Because this is what you think when you get up early in the morning, right? All of you who are up early with us in this part of the world know exactly what we're talking about.
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Becky Quick2:09
Yep, it is. It's a beautiful hour, right? Beautiful. It was beautiful all weekend. It's good Father's Day.
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Joe Kernan2:14
Yeah, it was. Oh, happy Father's Day. Thank you. You too. Father's Day. Well, Matt, Matt, Matt. Yeah.
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Becky Quick2:20
Yeah. It's beautiful, beautiful days of summer. And for those of us who've been doing this for a while, you think everyone was home. Please let this last. Blake got home. Yeah. It's really nice. Yeah. Good. I'm glad you got to see all of your children. Blake's corgi and your grand puppies.
J
Joe Kernan2:35
Yeah. And the grand puppy. That's right. Some signs of progress at US-Iran talks in Switzerland though. President Trump threatened the country again over the long weekend and said that the US might impose its own tolls on the ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And CNBC's Eamon Javers joins us now with the latest. Good morning, Eamon.
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Eamon Javers2:55
Yeah, good morning to you, Joe. It was a tense weekend of negotiations between the United States and Iran over the weekend along with delegations from Qatar and Pakistan in Lausanne, Switzerland. This weekend, Vice President Vance led the US delegation on site as President Trump huddled with advisers at Camp David through the weekend. President Trump at various points Sunday threatened to relaunch hostilities against the Iranians, telling Fox News that if the Iranians don't cut a deal, he will blow the S out of them. And also threatening to take over the Strait of Hormuz by military force and charge tolls on that waterway, which is something that the US military was unable to do during the war.
Now, on social media, the president said Sunday, 'Iran must immediately stop their highly paid proxies in Lebanon from causing trouble. If they don't, we'll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder.' Now, it was unclear if any progress was made on the diplomatic front in the weekend. A senior US diplomat engaged in the negotiations said, 'We had robust discussions on all elements of the nuclear deal.' And as of 1:00 a.m. Swiss time, negotiations were still ongoing last night, and at that time, officials said they expected them to go through the nighttime hours and conclude at some point today.
Now we just within the past hour or so, guys, have gotten a statement now from the prime minister of Pakistan on social media and he says the discussions have concluded. They were held in a positive and constructive atmosphere and yielded encouraging progress including agreement on a roadmap toward a final deal within 60 days. The establishment of a high-level committee to provide political oversight and the commencement of further technical talks. So talks have concluded but talks are ongoing. The threats continue. The tension is very high and we'll see where all of this can lead. Guys, back over to you.
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Joe Kernan4:58
Just stay tuned, which is probably the operative term for the last, I don't know, at least month as we've tried to find a way out of this. Obviously an off-ramp looks like it's progressing though. Eamon, I don't know what the chances are for a renewed round of shooting on both sides of things. Hopefully that's not in the cards at this point. And it's just tough to sift through all the rhetoric from both sides to find out where things really, really are.
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Eamon Javers5:34
It is. You know, there's an old saying in diplomacy, Joe, that talking is better than shooting. And even if the talking is, you know, extremely tedious and progress seems like it's not being made, at least you're around a table somewhere in the world hashing it over and not fighting.
That said, the president was in a pretty bellicose mood over the weekend. I mean, he was continuing to threaten the Iranians time and time again. And it seemed as if at one point to me, the Iranians were really trying to drive a wedge between the US and Israel here, leveraging the continued strikes in Lebanon as their vector to control the Strait of Hormuz and to control the tenor of these negotiations. And that's something that the president has been willing to do, is to signal that there is a divide between the United States and Israel. He's not happy with Bibi Netanyahu, and he is willing to cut a deal that maybe the Israelis don't want to cut yet. And I think that gives the Iranians a little bit of leverage in terms of exploiting that gap in the relationship. I think that's what we were seeing play out over the weekend. But it's, you know, we're just going to have to wait and see because as you say, there's a lot of rhetoric from a lot of sides here and it's often difficult to piece through what's actually happening behind the scenes.
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Joe Kernan6:49
I mean, there is, you look at the schism in this country on what our foreign policy concerning Israel should really be and it's a divided country. In the Journal today, their op-ed writers are totally with Israel. What are we going to, you know, we're going to threaten to cut off arms like the Biden administration? It's our best ally in the Middle East. What are we doing? We're now criticizing Israel instead of Iran. Then you've got other people on different sides of the aisle that are like, Israel's controlling, this is the only reason we got involved. Netanyahu's in charge and he's leading Trump around by the nose. It's just like how wide the schism is on public opinion on what we should be doing. I guess once again, somewhere in the middle is where we're going to end up.
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Eamon Javers7:44
Well, look, Trump did push back over the weekend. Go ahead. Answer that first, Eamon. Well, I was just going to say, you look at the shaky political footing, as Joe points out, to be launching a war in the first place. And then you see this division here where JD Vance is out there criticizing members of the Israeli cabinet who've been criticizing Trump and saying, 'Hey, look, we're basically your only ally in the world left.' And so you shouldn't be criticizing us at all.
I mean, there's some real bristling on the US side from complaints from the Israeli side about US willingness to cut a deal here. But all of that was knowable at the time that we launched the war, right? I mean, the political foundation in the United States, the strategic value of the Strait of Hormuz and the difficulty of opening that, all of that had been war-gamed for years if not decades. All of the factors we're seeing playing out now were available and visible at the beginning of the war, the day before the war. So this is a situation that the president has gotten himself into. It's going to be really difficult to extract himself and I think it's going to come with a political cost and we'll just have to see how much that political cost ends up being.
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Becky Quick8:59
Look, you pointed out that Iran is trying to play on that schism between the United States and Israel. The president said over the weekend, President Trump, that he would bomb Iran if they didn't get a hold of their proxies, particularly Hezbollah, and reign them back in. And I think that's the big question. Is Iran going to continue to say one thing and then use Hezbollah to kind of irritate and go after the Israelis on their flank? I mean, that's how you can see the potential for any of this working or not working is through that access.
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Eamon Javers9:37
Yeah. I mean, and look, the solution of bombing Iran, the president said himself that you can't just continue to bomb. You're not going to ultimately affect the outcome here. And history has shown that air power alone is just not enough to win wars when you're fighting against a culturally and politically cohesive group, right? I mean, think of the Battle of Britain, right? The Nazi bombing of London, that was not enough to bring Britain to its knees, even though the Nazis were convinced that it would be. The US bombing campaign in Vietnam didn't bring the Viet Cong to their knees, even though we dropped more bombs in Vietnam than we did in all of World War II. There is a history of bombing campaigns that the people doing the bombing think are going to change the minds of those people receiving the bombing and actually having the opposite effect. It tends to create a rally-around-the-flag effect and brings that population tighter together and that might be what we're seeing play out in Iran as well.
J
Joe Kernan10:35
I don't know that this population supports that regime.
E
Eamon Javers10:38
Well, that's a good question, right? And we don't entirely know. I mean, this war began with an effort by the United States and Israel to create a popular uprising in Iran against the regime and either there wasn't the political will there for that or there wasn't the capacity among people who don't support the regime to do it given lack of access to weapons.
J
Joe Kernan10:58
I was going to say they don't have the ability. I mean, they were slaughtered when they rose up. They don't have the ability to push back against it.
E
Eamon Javers11:08
Right. So, I mean, President Trump has said at different times, more bombing is not going to help or I'm going to resort to more bombing. And so, you can kind of see how that's going to play out.
J
Joe Kernan11:19
All right, Eamon, thank you. Obviously, we'll be talking to you a lot as these talks continue.
B
Becky Quick11:26
In the meantime, internationally, United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer is stepping down. He made that announcement earlier this morning.
K
Keir Starmer11:35
Every decision I've taken has been about putting the country I love first. That is why I will resign as leader of the Labour Party. I have spoken to His Majesty the King this morning to inform him of my decision. I will ask the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party to set out a timetable with nominations opening on the 9th of July and completed by the summer recess.
B
Becky Quick12:04
Starmer said that he will stay on as prime minister until his successor is in place. That could be mid-July if there's only one candidate in the leadership contest or September if it turns out to be a contested race. Traders on Kalshi give Andy Burnham a 95% chance of becoming the next prime minister. Burnham served as a member of parliament for a decade and a half before becoming mayor of Manchester in 2017. He won a seat in parliament last Thursday in a special election. And just moments ago, he announced that he is putting himself forward, in his words, for prime minister.
J
Joe Kernan12:42
Toy Story 5 scoring the biggest box office opening of the year, the fifth installment, hence Toy Story 5 in Pixar's series earned $160 million in domestic weekend receipts. We'd never say anything unnecessary, would we? It added another $152 million overseas. This was the best debut for a Toy Story film ever. The previous record was held by Toy Story 4, which was the fourth release, and that was released 7 years ago and earned $120 million in its opening weekend. Citing industry data, the Wall Street Journal says domestic box office receipts are at their highest level for this time of year since 2019. And that story made the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
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Becky Quick13:25
Big deal. Yeah. I love movies. I love rocket ships. Like that's exactly what I thought as soon as you said that. We've been sitting too long.
J
Joe Kernan13:34
David Faber wrote a blog 20 years ago. 20 years ago because they were making us write blogs, 'I like rockets.' He can't live that down.
B
Becky Quick13:43
I know. He wishes he hadn't. I think at this point he just wishes he hadn't shown you. Me.
J
Joe Kernan13:50
This just breaking now. Alan Greenspan has died. He steered monetary policy in the US for five terms as Federal Reserve chairman. He's survived by his wife of 29 years, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell. In a statement, she said, 'Alan passed away at our home this morning at the age of 100 from complications of Parkinson's disease.' She went on to say, 'He was a giant of a man' — and we can confirm that — who helped shape the US economy for decades under presidents of both parties. He was always honest in acknowledging his mistakes. She said, 'To me, though, he was my husband who shaped my life.' From our very first date in 1984, he had irrational exuberance for baseball, the Washington Commanders, tennis, golf, and music, especially jazz. And he will be remembered for his brilliance and his kindness, and being his life partner was the joy of my life.
We could spend the next three hours talking about everything involving Alan Greenspan. From when he was appointed, he worked under Arthur Burns, he was a colleague of Ayn Rand and paid tribute to her. We're going to talk more obviously about this, but Alan Greenspan at the ripe old age of 100 finally passing today and he will be missed.
Welcome back to Squawk Pod from CNBC today with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick. Here's Joe. Joining us now, Mohammed El-erian, Allianz's chief economic adviser and Wharton professor who you've coined some terms too. Mohammed, you like to look around corners and you like new normals and you like multi-speed economies. I remember them all over the years. I've never heard you say this, but there's times when I think you should have. This is a famous Greenspan quote. Everyone knows this or the writing. 'I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure that you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.' You remember that one?
M
Mohammed El-erian16:08
I remember that one. It was in Congress. It was epic. Alan Greenspan. Epic Alan Greenspan. And it shows you how much Fed communication has evolved. Look, I don't think anybody comes close to him when it comes to his dedication to public service, his incredible command of details. I've sat with him over the years. Incredible command of details and this ability to pivot the Fed from defense to offense. Never underestimate how difficult that is. And that was him. And he did all that with enormous intellectual curiosity.
J
Joe Kernan16:41
And his stature was — I guess Volcker had stature, but I think Greenspan almost eclipsed Volcker just in terms of — I mean he lived to be 100 as well, but he was a true institution. Think of it, he served 20 years, five terms, four administrations.
M
Mohammed El-erian17:01
Four administrations. I mean, it was incredible. And now, as he admitted himself in front of Congress, there are things he underestimated, including excessive risk-taking. But he will be remembered for taking a massive productivity bet. And he was the Fed at its best because he had that command of details and was willing to look forward and say, 'You know what? I'm going to let this economy run.' And he unleashed an enormous productivity gain.
J
Joe Kernan17:29
And here we are.
M
Mohammed El-erian17:31
And here we are. I mean, the Fed has changed quite a bit since. But the whole productivity thing, this whole thing that you just mentioned, is back in focus with the new Fed chair and whether he's going to try to orchestrate the same thing or at least thinks the same way about that. And running hot — and I was very much hoping that he would get that appointment. And I love the fact that at his very first press conference he said, 'Here are five things we need to reform about the Fed and I'm putting in place not just a working group to look at them but I'm going to use outside experts,' something that the Bank of England does all the time and something that this insular Fed has refused to do. And I love this breath of fresh air that has come into an institution that needs reform.
J
Joe Kernan18:17
What were your main complaints about the Fed for the last — how far back do your complaints go? To who? To who? When? Who?
M
Mohammed El-erian18:28
The last six or seven years.
J
Joe Kernan18:29
Six or seven years.
M
Mohammed El-erian18:30
Yes. I mean, first, no one can ignore the fact that they've missed their inflation target for 63 straight months. Secondly — and that's an argument for raising rates and I don't think Kevin Warsh is going to — I'll come back to that, okay? Because there's a real question, how stale is that data given what has happened to oil prices. The second issue is communication. It has been confused. It has been confusing. The third issue is forecasting. And the fourth issue is the internal compliance culture. Five Fed officials, senior Fed officials, having to resign due to unproven allegations of financial irregularities. If you look at this Fed and just abstract away from the important issue of independence, this is a Fed that needs reforms. And on day one, his first press conference, the new chair came in and said, 'Here are the five areas and they are the five areas that need reforms.'
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Joe Kernan19:26
So when you heard — I mean, focus group, but task force, what are they? So you think that's a good idea. I guess he just can't, you know, slash and burn. You need to set these things up and move forward with changes in an orderly manner. Is that the reason? Because a lot of times you hear government setting up, and it's like, oh god, not this again, right?
M
Mohammed El-erian19:52
No, I think you need it for two reasons. One is there are really tricky analytical issues that need to be looked at. You need to know how to measure inflation first. You need to know how to measure inflation. You need to understand the sources and uses of funds. All the five areas are complex and they've been brushed aside by this awful phrase, 'We're data dependent,' as if the data is going to determine where we are in 12 to 18 months. And then the second issue is you need to get buy-in. A new Fed chair comes in, he or she needs time to assert themselves on a committee. He's got 18 other people. It was incredibly brave to come in and say, 'I'm not submitting dots because I believe that this exercise has outlived its usefulness.' And I agree with that.
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Becky Quick20:39
Mohammed, what do you think is going to be the end result given where oil prices are now, the way the economy is acting right now? Are you confident that the next move is not a hike?
M
Mohammed El-erian20:54
So, and this comes to you Becky, I'm confident that based on what we know today, the Fed will leave rates unchanged for this year. That's what I'm confident.
B
Becky Quick21:06
They won't lower. They won't hike.
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Mohammed El-erian21:07
They won't lower. They won't hike. They won't lower because the economy is doing well. They won't hike because part of this inflation is going to pass through the system.
B
Becky Quick21:16
Just back to that idea of being critical because the inflation's missed its target for 63 months running. When's the time where you have to say, 'Hey, enough is enough.' And go Volcker, where you just drive inflation out by raising rates.
M
Mohammed El-erian21:30
So, I think the new Fed chair tried to make that very clear. The last sentence of this incredibly shortened and refreshing statement that came out was that commitment to bring back inflation. You know what — to bring it down. You know there's going to be a lot of — when I said Volcker, Volcker had a horrific inflationary picture to deal with. This is not the same. I mean, he came in with 16% inflation. And I think a very interesting comment that he kept on saying that the press didn't catch on to is, 'I'm looking at the left hand of the decimal point.' He kept on saying that. I think in general, Becky, what I found disappointing but not surprising is that the market mostly tried to interpret what happened last Wednesday using a Powell-era playbook. They don't understand as yet. It's going to take one or two FOMC meetings to realize this is a fundamentally different Fed.
J
Joe Kernan22:30
Yeah. The — Elon Musk said something recently. I'm trying to see exactly what he said about the prediction about the size of the economy in the next —
B
Becky Quick22:41
Oh, enormous. He said like a factor of 10 or 100. I can't remember.
J
Joe Kernan22:45
Possible. I don't know what kind of GDP it would imply. But let's say that just in terms of the direction he's right. Maybe not the magnitude. Seen Tom Lee say we're going to have the best two and a half years of stock market performance in recent memory. Are you bullish right now?
M
Mohammed El-erian23:04
I am bullish on the economy. If we don't trip ourselves up. If we don't trip ourselves up, we've got a massive productivity gain in our immediate future. We are outshining other economies. We will attract a tremendous amount of capital from the rest of the world. And we can have an enormously beneficial run on the economic front. By the way, when you looked at your phone, I thought you were going to look at the Mets and I got really worried. So, thank you for not doing that.
J
Joe Kernan23:34
I'm not looking at the Mets or the Reds.
B
Becky Quick23:36
Well, you destroyed us last week. But you should congratulate me. Egypt had its first World Cup win ever. And if it wasn't for this show, I would have been able to watch it till the end.
J
Joe Kernan23:48
So, 3-1. Oh my god. Congratulations. Scoring. That's a bonanza. So, you didn't say anything about the stock market. You said you like the economy. Stock market's tougher.
M
Mohammed El-erian24:03
The stock market is tougher because we've had such a great run. And it's been a concentrated run. So, it's tougher. It's tougher than the economy. I think the economy is very clear to me if we don't trip ourselves up.
J
Joe Kernan24:16
Okay. Mohammed, thank you.
M
Mohammed El-erian24:18
Thanks for having me. All right.
J
Joe Kernan24:20
Up next on Squawk Pod, newest trillionaire Elon Musk's biographer Walter Isaacson on the massive SpaceX IPO. Yep, we're still talking about it.
W
Walter Isaacson24:31
With that money he's been able to raise, he's able to get things built well and get them built quickly.
B
Becky Quick24:42
This is Squawk Pod and Becky Quick. You are watching Squawkbox right here on CNBC. Hi, I'm Becky Quick along with Joe Kernan. Now, believe it or not, it's only been a little over a week since SpaceX has begun publicly trading. Those shares are up by about 32% in that period of time. Joining us right now to talk about the company and the growing wealth of Elon Musk is Musk biographer Walter Isaacson. He's an advisory partner with Perella Weinberg, a Tulane University professor and of course a CNBC contributor as well. And Walter, this has been something to see. You've known this man for a very long time. You're his biographer. You've put all this together. What do you think of the SpaceX IPO?
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Walter Isaacson25:28
Well, I think it shows that he has a real product. People are saying, 'Oh, it's just hype or something.' He's put 10,000 satellites into orbit. He's able to have the heaviest, biggest rocket ever made get up into space. He's able to bring astronauts down and back. And he's been able to consolidate this into a company that also includes everything from xAI to data stations in outer space. So a lot of times you see vaporware or weird things getting high valuations. This is something where even a company like Anthropic is paying him $1.25 billion a month in order to create data centers, because with that money he's been able to raise, he's able to get things built well and get them built quickly.
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Becky Quick26:22
Yeah. This isn't just a high valuation for a company though. This is what now the third most valuable company on the planet.
W
Walter Isaacson26:29
Well, it also — there is some of the aura around it. There's some emotionalism. But you've been involved in markets for a long time, Becky. You realize sometimes people get excited, but it's being excited about what the future could bring. New things come along all the time, especially in Elon Musk world. Who would have thought that there would be a market for putting AI data centers in low Earth orbit, or for that matter creating landers to get to the moon, or for that matter having direct internet and cell connections from low Earth orbit satellites? These are all things that as he was creating SpaceX they came along. I suspect people think other things may come along. Who knows — mining of minerals in space. So in this era in which so much is happening with AI, we don't know what the future is. This is something that's pretty real. These are real satellites and real rockets and you notice other companies aren't able to get things into orbit this way. More than 90% of all tonnage gone to orbit in the past couple of years has come from SpaceX.
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Becky Quick27:51
That is pretty incredible. You know, people wonder what he's going to do with the money. He's now the first trillionaire on the planet. He pretty quickly exercised options that brought him to a 20% voting stake in Tesla and that has people wondering if this SpaceX-Tesla combination will happen sooner rather than later.
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Walter Isaacson28:11
Yeah, I think there will be a Tesla-SpaceX merger, buyout, because it makes sense. They're both basically companies making real world things that are driven by AI, and keeping track of which engineers are working on which projects in which place doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I think that he keeps money deployed in his companies. He wants control of his companies and the trillion dollars isn't a trillion dollars that he's using as money for himself. It's almost like in his head he's an avatar in a game and these are points. But more importantly, it's money being deployed in these companies. He's not taking them out of these companies. And that's why — so this is money on paper. Eventually if he takes that money out and it's in the bank and starts buying houses, I hope he'll find something useful to do with it as well.
J
Joe Kernan29:18
Walter, you are the biographer of all biographers. Everybody from Elon Musk to Steve Jobs to Ben Franklin to Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein. I mean, you've watched them all and today we got news about the loss of another financial great and that's Alan Greenspan. What was the man's legacy?
W
Walter Isaacson29:40
Yeah. And his legacy will be a lot better than some people tagged him after the financial crisis. Let me tell a really quick story. You know, he was a great clarinetist. And in the mid-1940s, he played clarinet down in my hometown of New Orleans at the Blue Room of the Roosevelt. And my father when he came back from World War II, he got married in that room with Alan Greenspan as a clarinetist. The thing about Alan Greenspan is he was always data driven. We're not all that data driven these days, but when you talk to him, he could tell you how many trucks were going into warehouses at Walmart each day, and it would help him figure out financial metrics. Now, with satellites and AI, we're going to take Alan Greenspan's talents and kick them up two orders of magnitude.
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Becky Quick30:32
Yeah. A giant. We've called him that time and time again today. Someone who we called the Maestro who was capable of orchestrating what was happening in the economy and beyond. But I think it's hard to really get your head around what a huge impact he had on central banks and the economy of this nation.
W
Walter Isaacson30:56
He also had a wry sense of humor. He could get along with people and it was an earlier time. I mean he was 100 years old. It was a time in which it wasn't totally politicized. And even though he was a Republican, he was able to work well and try to figure out how do you steer the economy based on data, based on evidence. And I'm hoping Kevin Warsh and others will take some lessons from saying, 'No, it's not about politics. It's about the data and what can help keep both inflation under control but unemployment down.'
J
Joe Kernan31:38
He played at your parents' wedding?
W
Walter Isaacson31:40
He played in 1944-1945, he played clarinet in the Blue Room of the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. And he used to love telling those stories including walking out of the Roosevelt going to the levee and realizing that the river was higher than the levee and that didn't make much sense to him. My parents didn't know who he was when they got married, but he was in the band.
J
Joe Kernan32:04
Oh man, Walter, that's incredible. Thank you very much for joining us this morning.
W
Walter Isaacson32:09
Great being with you.
B
Becky Quick32:10
It's great to see you.
K
Katie Kramer32:14
And that is Squawk Pod for today. Thanks for listening. Thanks for starting your week with us here on the podcast. Squawkbox is hosted by Joe Kernan, Becky Quick, and Andrew Ross Sorkin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern or get the best of our TV show right into your ears when you follow Squawk Pod wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great Monday. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow.
B
Becky Quick32:38
We are clear. Thanks, guys.