David Malpass Talks US Election Impact, Economy

Published Oct 29, 2024, 11:37 PM

Former World Bank President David Malpass talks about the health of the US economy, global economies and what's ahead for the World Bank in a Trump or Harris presidency. He spoke to Bloomberg's Tom Keene and Paul Sweeney.

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

David Malpass. Many of you will know him as a driving force for Alan Schwartz at bear Stearn's Economics years ago. Of course, the service to the nation at the World Bank for President Trump. And we're thrilled he can join us in the studio. Now there's four or five six topics David we can talk about. You are the rarest of rare ducks, a Colorado College physicist who was so dumb he actually ran for public office. I want to focus on this election. Come on, you're an institutional guy. You can do the foreign the foreign policy and all that. Forget about it.

What was it like.

Campaigning in Broome County in twenty ten against Senator Gillibrand Tom That was.

An experience for the lifetime. I had the minivan and drove around New York State and really talked about how could Washington actually stopped growing? And so remember it was the tea pot of the year in twenty ten. The Senate seat had been Hillary Clinton's Senate seat and Jillibrand was holding it in twenty twenty nine and ten. So I decided to run because I really think that the issues can be changed in Washington if you have people leaders in Washington talking about what to do about the budget, what to do actually about the dollar and keep it stable. These are important topics.

Most important tweet of the last twenty four hours was the wonderful Michael besh Loss who put out a photograph of a Puerto Rican in a Pittsburgh Pirates uniform. And the bottom line is the rhetoric and dialogue across all parties, but particularly what we've seen in the last forty eight hours is just totally unexcusable. And this guy hired you to run the World Bank. How can guys like you, in your lovely wife who ran Manhattan GOP support this guy with a rhetoric we're.

Hearing Tom I'm not into the election itself, but into the policies. And as you look at where the US stands in the world, it's a it's a voice of weakness around the world. It's causing instability all through Africa. Any international meeting I went to, people were almost pleading saying can't the US have a voice? And that it's not there. And the policies that are being projected by the current administration and into the future look like the more wants to get.

In here pause looking at me like, what is this a monologue? But I was just in Rome, and I'm sorry they're petrified of a certain candidate winning here. How does your part? Could you run for secretaries? Could you take secretary of State under a new Trump administration? Would you accept that position?

That's not not even a question? Can the US grow more? And will that be stabilizing in the world? And the answer is yes. And is the budget that's now in front of the US nation from the Biden Harris administration acceptable? The answer is no, it's an unacceptable budget and it's not going to lead to growth. They are willing to have the country grow at one and a half percent per year with big government. That's their dream of how a country will look.

What will become of the World Bank if Trump wins on Tuesday.

As an institution, it's got its shareholders, so I don't think that would be the focus of change. And the World Bank's not very big within the world scene. One of the things that has to be discussed the United Nations. Antonio Guterres, the head of the United Nations, just went to the Bricks Summit in Russia, why aren't people talking about that? And did the US protest that Here he is in Kazan, Russia with uh, you know, shaking hands bowing at the time of a vicious war that's going on in Ukraine, And so how does the world really interact with these institutions that are that are harming people around the world.

Trump presidency was kind of more, you know, just nationalistic as opposed to internationalism. Doesn't he want to step back from the world stage? Doesn't he want to? I mean, how does that project world US influence globally.

Case by case? For one, you don't want to have permanent wars. And it sure looks like we've gotten into a very long term war in Ukraine and Russia where we're arming one side and they're arming the other side.

Not on the field. We're letting the Ukrainians fight our wars and that's the best strategy.

No, that's not a good strategy at all. They're dying and so that's a best fight.

All we're doing is funning and we're letting them fight against your your.

Question of nationalism. So Trump's been pretty clear that he would pick his pick his fights, and that through deterrence, the US would be a stronger nation. And I think that's a very defensible position to be in. If you say to Putin or to China, we are going to be the strongest growing country. We're going to have the best technology. We're supporting our troops one hundred percent. They're going to be more reluctant to start wars.

The three percent economy that we have. Everyone, every political persuasion, every economic persuasion, has been shocked by the growth that we've seen. David Malpass, do you equate the growth we have in twenty twenty four directly to the stimulus of twenty twenty one or can we actually say there's a productivity, a technology overlay going on right.

Now, some of both, but with a big thing is the government is running a six and a half percent fiscal deficit. Now, this has never happened where you have a full employment economy and the government treed, and so some part of our GDP growth right now is just the expansion of the national debt. The government borrows money.

Okay, so go there, David. It's good Colorado College physics. But the bottom line is, do you hear either candidate going on the path of Peterson Paul Saugus and Sam Nunn and getting our debt and deficit trajectories in better control.

No, but to those three people, those were austerity policies, and what Trump is talking about is growth policies. They're very different. That means changing the regulatory policy so that people will actually build things. You know, a giant part of the semiconductor problem right now is you can't build a factory because of the rules that go into that IRA Bill, and so they're pumping money into the economy but getting nothing for it. That can all be changed, and that's not as hard to change as people think. It just means sensible decisions at the top in Washington to spend the money less wastefully.

Is there a will in Congress to get that done.

No, to some extent, they're part of the problem. That's why I ran in twenty ten for the Senate. So they love it when you just spend money and it doesn't matter if it has effect. But that can change through leadership from the top. We're just not getting it now.

Tell us about money and running a campaign. I mean, you know, I look at the day to day battle of each of the candidates and all that out in the trenches as you were in twenty ten. Are you just basically waking up in the morning and trying to raise money.

Yes, Plus I was spending quite a bit of my own money because I really believed in the cause. But the secret, I don't know that it's very much of a secret, is there's corruption across the whole system. How is it that Washington is the richest part of the country. That doesn't make sense? And with them moving up every year on a leader on the leaderboard, Washington's the big winner, right, And so that comes from campaigning constant campaigns.

This has been a really successful interview. Everyone that's been listening to it thinks that I'm a piece of garbage floating around the East River. David Malpass, thank you so much for joining us and for a spirited debate here as we go to November fifth. Mister Malpass, of course, is a former president of the World Bank.

Bloomberg Talks

Curating today’s top interviews from around Bloomberg News. Hear conversations with the biggest name 
Social links
Follow podcast
Recent clips
Browse 1,752 clip(s)