Anderson capital management. Thanks so much for joining us, good to see you. Youre welcome. Maria so are you surprised . It was a week of mario versus jay. The European Central bank talking about more stimulus on the way, you had jay powell and all of the speculation that were going to see lower rates now for some time hate arer on in the year as well. Whats your take on the broad economic backdrop and whether or not we should actually see it erased . Well, you know, maria, i am dead set against rate cuts. I think that the reasons that are being floated out there for rate cuts are kind of baffling to me, actually. It seems to be more focused on the tariff and trade war, which i think is way outside the feds agenda in terms of keeping unemployment low and inflation low. We hardly have any inflation. So i think that is a terribly misdirected initiative in the their narrative right now. Maria especially since youve got unemployment at a 51year low, were going to talk with Steve Schwartzman about that coming up because hes got his hand in so many different businesses, and the economy feels like its doing well, so if they were to get on this program of significant and consistent rate cuts, is that telling us something that we dont know . Well, i think were telling them something they dont know, actually, which is just as you said, the Unemployment Rate is historically low, earnings look very, very strong, you know, companies are doing very well in the united states, and i think its this dark shadow of this tariff war that is really getting people so distracted from the fundamentals. And let me just say a couple more things about this tariff situation. You know, ive looked into this in more detail, and i think there are two things people are getting confused about. The first thing is that, you know, the Chinese Culture is different from the american culture, and so while we are thinking this thing is going to resolve in days to weeks, in reality i think we should be looking at months or years, frankly, because thats just how the two sides have lived their culture for years in terms of negotiations. And the other thing is that, you know, it just will take more time. And if it we need to realize that these players, we are not most economists say this, that they are idealistic players in this game, but this is not idealistic, you know . We have far more nonangelic behavior where we cut corners, theres cheaters, theres liars out there. So you have to model that into all these economic schemes in order to produce a reasonable expectation of when this thing is going to resolve. Maria yeah. Particularly since the chinese have made it clear that theyre not going to give up stealing intellectual property. And it doesnt appear that President Trump could do a deal unless they commit to stopping the theft of ip. So well see what happens next week at the g20. The president said hes going to meet with president xi next week. Of course, a deal cant be done, i dont think, in a day, but maybe well get more clarity next week. The the president s going to g20. He said he spoke with president xi, and they will have a meeting. Well, what i expect is, yes, well have these little bits of information as we always have had, right . Where theres a tweet that comes out that says something positive, and you can see how the u. S. Markets respond tremendously positively when that happens. So i expect that to go on. And as an investor, what you look for is when there is a negative piece of information out there, your favorite stocks usually dip. Its a classic behavior, and thats a time to actually buy some of your favorite stocks when maybe the incremental news isnt as positive as it has been. Maria peter, its great to have you. Thanks so much. Youre welcome. Maria peter and everybody accept. Andersen. Dont go anywhere, more coming up. Danny meyer has been a leader in the restaurant game for two decades, so whats his recipe for success . Maria goes oneonone with the man behind shake shack when wall street returns. This is not a bed. Its a revolution in sleep. The sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now during our lowest prices of the season. It senses your movement, and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. It even helps with this. So you wake up ready to hit the ground running. Only at a sleep number store. Its the lowest prices of the season. The queen sleep number 360 c4 smart bed is now 1,299. Save 400. Only for a limited time. Sleep number. Proven, quality sleep. That have made the rx crathe leading luxury suvogy of all time. Lease the 2019 rx 350 for 399 month for 36 months. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Its nice. You got this woo maria . For more than two decades, danny meyer has been a major innovator in the food industry. As the man behind shake shack and Union Squares hospitality group, hes earned an unprecedented 28 james beard awards. Recently, i sat down with danny to talk about his growing restaurant empire. Watch. I think that were in a period in our lives right now where food as an experience and bringing people together is really an antidote to a lot of the disconnection that, quite frankly, apps have caused. I think that we are fooled into thinking that because we have a community of followers on instagram and twitter and whatever else, whatever else you happen to be on, that youre actually connecting with people. The smartphone is almost rarely used these days as a phone. Texting, email. And i think people crave the more hightech we get, the more touch people really, really crave. And so were looking for businesses to invest in the that truly understand people want the experience of being with people. Sometimes its in a restaurant, sometimes its a piece of technology that brings people together. So if you look at our investments, gather is a Company Based in atlanta that brings people together and creates a marketplace because most of us dont know which restaurants have private rooms or not. If you look at a company like rezi, which was one of our early investments, and many years ago i invested in open table, those are businesses about bringing people together and also about creating the kind of intelligence for restaurants to know more about their guests so that they can better customize the experience. Maria you considered looking into alternative meat companies. You ultimately decided not to go that way. Tell me why, because we just saw beyond meat have a huge quarter with the stock. The stock soared after reporting better than expected earnings, and theres this movement toward, obviously, vegan and vegetarianism but also alternatives to meat. Yeah. I think that its a fascinating thing to keep our eyes on, and we are. Ive read about somebody in israel who is actually creating meat in a lab using a petri dish to actually grow out meat cells which will actually become real meat, its just that you will not have had to raise and slaughter an animal in order to do it. Maria oh, wow. I think people are looking at all kinds of ways of addressing two things; people want to be more healthy, they know that while meat protein is an incan credibly satisfying incredibly satisfying thing to eat, i do it quite a bit myself, that were not going to have unlimited amounts of land, were not going to have unlimited amounts of water. And i also think that people understand that over time we do want to eat more vegetables and vegetable protein even together with that. So were watching that very, very carefully. Were not going to hit every investment with our fund. Maria youve taken some positions and taken some stakes in things that you believe are going to be winners. You opened your first restaurant the, union square cafe, in new york, 1985. Nine years later you opened gramercy tavern in 1994. Tell me how in the empire started getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Well, i think by rejecting the word empire, because as far as im concerned it sounds like a big land grab, and it was never that. Look, lets face it, manhattan which is where most of our full Service Restaurants are is a game of inches, and it can feel like an empire because every time someone gets it weve never taken that approach. Weve basically looked at restaurants as place makers. How can you take a park that was dangerous Like Union Square park and make it a place that people want to be . If how can you take a a place like Madison Square park where nobody wanted to go and make it a place that is beautiful where people want to be . How can you take a street, 20th street in where nobody was, and now its a great restaurant row with gramercy tavern and others . So if you look at restaurants as people collectors and place makers, thats really the approach we take. And every now and then you might just get one that captivates people so much that it makes their lives better. Maria you took shake shack public. What was behind that decision . It was a big deal when you first took it public, a lot of people wanted in on that deal. It did very well. Why that company and you dont have any others that you decided to take public . Well, the reason that we took shake shack public was that we needed Growth Capital at that very, very moment, and we looked at the various alternatives. At that point shake shack had had exactly one infusion of private equity, capital, and it was a 20 million i think it was about a 20 million investment. And the team running shake shack led by an exceptional ceo made that investment last right up til the point that we had the ipo. But that was not going to, that was not going to fund the type of growth that we wanted at shake shack. And by going public in 2015, it also created a way to compensate our Staff Members and to maria which is so important. It is so important. Our banker said they had never seen a company that had asked for a directed Share Program for 100 of their employees. So we had hourly workers at shake shack, some of whom had never even had a job before this, who had an opportunity to buy 21 shares. And when that first trade happened at 46 [laughter] maria wow. Those guys we were all locked out, but those guys were in the money, and it felt really, really good. Maria i bet. You did away with tipping, which surprised some people. Hows that going as you look in retrospect on this decision . Weve now been doing this for about four years. Our First Experience was at the modern, and approximately every 46 months after that we would roll out another restaurant. The one that we thought i would never work is actually working incredibly well, porch light, our bar on the west side. Everyone knows you go to a bar and you put down a couple bucks as a tip, and its amazing that consumers have really, really warmed to it. Especially in a bar, especially in a restaurant. You have a bottle of wine, our math skills dont necessarily improve after after weve had a bottle or two of wine [laughter] and its just such a pleasure for people to be able to sign the check and know that its the restaurants responsibility to fairly compensate their team. Its not your responsibility. Maria my thanks to danny meyer. Dont go anywhere, my oneonone with blackstone chief Steven Schwartzman is next. A recordbreaking donation to oxford university. So what does Steven Schwartzmans pledge mean for the future of a. I. . 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I can schedule a time for them to call me back, its great you have our number programmed in . Ya i dont even know your phone anymore. Excuse me . what . I dont know your phone number. Aw well. He doesnt know our phone number you have our fax number, obviously. Todays xfinity service. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Ill pass. Its a revolution in sleep. The sleep number 360 smart bed is on sale now during our lowest prices of the season. It senses your movement, and automatically adjusts to keep you both comfortable. It even helps with this. So you wake up ready to hit the ground running. Only at a sleep number store. Its the lowest prices of the season. The queen sleep number 360 c4 smart bed is now 1,299. Save 400. Only for a limited time. Sleep number. Proven, quality sleep. Maria welcome back. What a performer blackstone has been. The stock is up 60 in the last six months. Ever since the Company Announced a change to its structure. This week also blackstones ceo pledged 188 million to oxford university. This is the largest single donation in the schools history. The money will go in part to creation of a new institute devoted to ethics around Artificial Intelligence. I spoke with Stephen Schwartzman to talk about this historic pledge today. Oxford is the number one ranked humanities faculty in the world, and its also the number one ranked Philosophy Department in the world. And and as i was looking at a project that the head of oxford brought to me in late 2017 which was to help them with a building to bring together the humanities faculty for the first time in a thousand years [laughter] that, which i thought was a good idea, but what was really compelling for me was looking at the way their expertise, their knowledge of humans and humanity and western culture basically fits in terms of what were going to have to do to figure out with a. I. What you can introduce, how you can introduce it, what appropriate regulations are. And to know all these things by way of tradeoffs, you have to understand what the human condition is, what humans want out of this trade. Because a. I. Can do remarkable things, and we want those good things, and what are we willing to trade to get the good stuff but not have unemployment of a significant level, and you need to know what your core values are to make those differentiations. And so thats what appealed to me. Not just the humanities part, which is great and unique, but employing that knowledge to marry it, if you will, with the Scientific Community which typically doesnt have as much of those soft skills. Maria yeah, lets talk more about that, because this donation is going to be funding a center for humanities where the ethics of Artificial Intelligence would be studied. And there are ethical issues around Artificial Intelligence. Id had the former president of google china on recently who said at some point 40 of jobs will go away because of Artificial Intelligence. So talk to us about why the ethics of a. I. Are so important to you. Well, maria, you cant let all of those jobs just go away because of the impact on society. It will be massive in terms of unemployment and tack revenues tax revenues and how governments work and what peoples demands will be made of them in terms of what they want government to do. And so since we know from kai fus discussion with you and other leaders in the field, we know this dislocation is coming. The western approach, i think and it will also impact china will be that you just cant let these things happen, and youre going to need a confederation of government of ethicists in universities, researching universities and companies to, in effect, referee what gets introduced, when it gets introduced, how it gets introduced so we can minimize the downsides of this technology and if take advantage of the astonishing upsides. Maria what can you tell us about the broad Economy Today . If i know youre traveling in europe, so id love to get your take, your reaction to what youre seeing in europe, what youre seeing in the u. S. In terms of the economic backdrop, steve. Given your investments across the board in various industries. Yeah, sure. I think in the u. S. The manufacturing economy has been slowing, and, you know, it really feels a little soggy. The Service Economy is doing quite well. And so u. S. Economic growth, im expecting somewhere to be in the 2s, probably 22. 5 which is lower than last year. China continues growing despite all the difficulties with trade whether thats 56 president , 6 56 , 66. 5, i dont know, and its probably very difficult to measure in any case. Theres a little bit of softness there, but theyre using policy to try and stabilize that growth rate. And europe is, you saw with draghi on Interest Rates maria yes. That theyre having trouble. Theyre having trouble in europe really creating a lot of growth. And, you know, the brexit issues, you know, in effect the separation of the u. K. From the continent, you know, calls a lot of things into question, certain kinds of adjustments. And so i think that europe will probably stay as a relatively flatish economic area. Maria you recently announced youre going to change the structure of the company, going from a publiclytraded partnership to a corporation. Your stock is up, what, 60 in six months because thats going to lead to more people being able to buy blackstone stock. Is that right . Hows it going . Welk, you know well, you know, up 60 doesnt sound bad to me, maria. [laughter] maria thats good [laughter] you know, its not even been six months. So, you know, part of that is the conversion and part of it is because of the enormous strength of our business of blackstone and our ability to gather assets and put them to work at very high returns with historically very little downside. And so the strength of our business model, i think, is whats really doing that kind of appreciation with the Dividend Rate somewhere around 5 ish and lots of growth. Its really a very good place to be, and its a good place to be particularly as a customer. Maria my thanks to Steve Schwartzman of blackstone. Dont go anywhere, more wall street right after this. Whos already won three cars, two motorcycles, a boat, and an r. V. I would not want to pay that insurance bill. [ ding ] oh, i have progressive, so i just bundled everything with my home insurance. Saved me a ton of money. Love you, gary you dont have to buzz in. Its not a question, gary. On march 1, 1810 [ ding ] frederic chopin. Collapsing in 226 [ ding ] the colossus of rhodes. [ sighs ] Louise Dustmann [ ding ] brahms lullaby, or wiegenlied. When will it end . [ ding ] not today, ron. Can determine your future. But no matter what neighborhood you grow up in, the y creates opportunities for all. For a better us, support your local y today. Maria comeing up right here next weekd on the program, join me, we have a special program. The chief Security Officer of huawei, andy curry, is my special guest amidst lots of pushback about huawei being a National Security risk. On sunday this weekend, join me on sunday morning futures on the Fox News Channel live at 10 a. M. Eastern, were talking with congressman if devon knew yesterday and former congressman trey gowdy. Miss if, start smart if every weekday right here on fox business, tune in from 69 a. M. Eastern for mornings with maria right here on fox s. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. S. Thatll do it for us for now. Thanks so much for joining me. Have a great rest to have weekend, everybody, and ill see you again next time. Gerry hello and welcome to wall street journal at large. This week were at the cannes lyons festival of creativity, as they like to call it here on the french live area ya. Its an annual gathering of Senior Executives from advertising, television, media, Digital Companies around the world. They come here, a hardship journey, no doubt, to south of france to discuss trends in media, advertising and marketing. And, of course, they come to do