Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20240622

Last june sparked a national debate. His latest book is called between the world and me, written in the form of a letter to his 14yearold son. I am pleased to have him at the table the first time. Welcome. Thanks, charlie. Rose its a pleasure. Id like to talk biography first. Tell me about growing up in baltimore, about family, about influences, about shaping identity. Yeah well, i was very fortunate. I have six brothers and sisters total. I lived in a household in west baltimore, down the street from where the disturbances in baltimore started earlier this year. You know, the world you grow up in, what you know in terms of what you go out and see and then there is, you know the world thats on tv. The world that i knew was one in which there was a great deal of violence among the neighbors, violence shaped the social customs of vehicles and a kind of larger violence that was not as obvious, was not somebody pulling out a gun not necessarily five boys jumping another one, but societal violence and shaped the outlook of the folks in my community. The think i think of when write the book, i lived in a household with a mother and father. Most my friend had a mother and and this was not with my friends. I had a mother and father who both worked, provided me food clothing et cetera. When i left for school every day, i confronted all the sort of things that all the other boys and girls in my neighborhood confronted. Rose which was the risk of violence . All the time. All the time. Constant. Constant, constant, constant. Itits the Little Things which as a child, i have to tell you, i took as normal but now i look back and its insane. For instance, how many people am i walking with when i go to school . I think about that one all the time. I remember when alan iverson came into the n. B. A. And there was all this hubbub about why is he with a possie why does he need a possie . I understood exactly why he needed a possie because he came from a place where it was clear you needed security around you because you never knew what somebody might do to you. Rose but growing up, did you think im going to do what with my life . I had no idea. Rose really . I knew what i liked but i had no idea what i liked might actually be a career because as i was instructed, what you did with your life or how successful yoursuccessfulyou were and life was basically determined about how well you did in school. I was not a particularly highperforming student at all. As i write about in the book, i was kind of caught between two things. Even as i taught to you about the rules for keeping yourself out of danger, i wasnt the best either. I wasnt the best at street life either. But, at the same time, i cant say that i even had the security of being a nerd and being great at school. I didnt have that either. And, so, i had no idea what was going to become of me and that, too, added to the kind of fear that i remember. For young black boys growing up in west baltimore in that period and i suspect growing up in our cities today school is not just, you know, will i get into harvard or not. Its not, you know, how far up the ladder. Its will i go to jail or not will i be shot or not. Its a matter of life and death and thats the way parents talked to kids, you know, when i was a child and that was the message we took in. Rose is it true today in baltimore . I dont know. I dont know. I suspect it is. I have been asked about baltimore quite a bit but i want to be clear, i havent lived in baltimore for 20 years. But from what i see when i go back to visit, i strongly suspect so yes. For instance, i want to high light this the video of the woman beating on her son the young man whom rose and everybody was saying we need more parents like that. But thats fear. She said i dont want him to end up like another freddie gray. Thats fear you see from that woman. Rose that her son might be next. Very much so. And she wants him to go home where shelf hes safe and can be protected. That was very familiar to me. Rose thats the product also of whats commonly called whats the talk parents give their children where they say youve got to stay away from where violence might happen. Right, right. Rose and more, though. Africanamerican parents understand the consequences. Rose of the talk. Very much so. The idea is that you have to educate your children on how to, basically, deal with violence. And while, over the past year weve seen that violence focus on the police and the things the please do, thats part of it. When i was a child, and again i suspect its the same for other folks, i know its the same with my son and with my child, it doesnt just concern the violence of the police. It concerns the violence of the neighbor. Africanamerican neighborhoods are, you know on balance much more violent than other neighborhoods. Rose and why is that . I think that goes right back to when i was trying to write about in the case for reparations. Africanamericans, after, you know, enslavement, after that period, did not, you know, walk out of the chains and the labor and the cotton fields and immediately walk into america. In fact, they suffered 100 years of segregation. The thing i focused on in my article in cases of reparations is housing segregation, and thats very important because housing segregation restricts where you can live obviously, it also restricts what you can do with your money because housing is so central to wealth in this country. It restricts what youre exposed to because your kids can only live in certain neighborhoods, in certain areas. On top of that all the other sort of discrimination africanamericans suffered from, im talking about job discrimination in terms of federal programs school, hiring education, all that piled into one single geographic region and the inability to escape that. You know, it creates a sense of deprivation. It creates a kind of frustration. You have people who have obvious economic need, so its no surprise those neighborhoods tend to be more violent than neighborhoods where people have more opportunities. Rose you escaped to had you evertoharvard i mean to howard. Not harvard. Rose but better than harvard. You called it mecca. I did. Thats what it was referred to because to have the long history the university has of attracting people like Toni Morrison. It was an awakening for me. Rose in what ways . Its probably the first place i saw black people doing a variety of things. You know, hib aware of that i had been aware of that. I was not really deprived, but this was the first place where you met black people who would do i feel silly saying this but somebody might Say Something like im going to take a year off and go study in spain. Im, like, what . You can do that . laughter its, like that actually happens in the world is not as restricted as you think it is. Little things like that, having professors from other places. A professor from trinidad, you know, who just i mean, the very thing i was talking about when i was talking about like what housing segregation deprives you of, i had so so much exposure at howard university. You know, just completely other ways of living, quite frankly. Rose you also thought about being a poet, didnt you . Yes, i very much wanted to be a poet and i wrote quite a bit probably the first two or three years after i left my parents home. I think even though i didnt end up being a poet, i think that that really, you know marked my journalism, that study rose it was about command of language or yeah, and i think ultimately taught the economy of language. Its command too but economy is so crucial in journalism, you know, the ability to Say Something with as much power as you can in the briefest amount of space. Rose youve met a friend of mine and a friend of yours, david karr sort of first job as a reporter. Yes. Rose you spoke ol quintly you spoke eloquently about him. Mmhmm. Rose what did he do that made you feel so thankful . Well, david saved my life. As i was telling you before, i think i met david about two years after i had gone to college. Im, like, two years out of baltimore at that point. I was telling you, even as i got out, it was not clear to me i would make anything of myself. I came from a very, very positive home where folks really, really encouraged me. Rose but your dad was a former black panther . He was, and a person with really High Expectations for his children, and it was not clear to me that i had the ability to live up to those expectations. Its not clear i had it within me. When i went to work for david at 20 years old, right out of boyhood, he made it clear that i could do this and i could write and thats possible and i could actually make a living doing that. To me, i could not believe that the essence of the job was you find some interesting question, you call some people up, you go meet with some people to, you know, investigate it and then you write it down and then they give you a check for it. Rose yes i know. laughter and he taught you . The story i think of most about david is i had caught wind of a story in washington, the sort of story i had to do at the time, to actually perform the act of evictions when people would not pay their rent. There was a service and they were hiring Homeless People to do the evictions. Homeless people making other people home less, effectively. David, as someone, a brilliant journalist, but knew he had to sell a paper, that headline got him right away. He said, you know, go find that story. Go find it. I had no hint of who was doing it or where it was. I went down to a homeless shelter a few days after he sent me there and i went up to the first person, scared out of my mind and said hi, do you do evictions . The guy looked at me and said, no, but that guy over there does. laughter and that was the story and he demanded you go out and face that fear of asking people awkward questions, you know. Hes very good about that. Rose then the atlantic came next . No laughter i started working with david in 99, and i worked a series of really not fun jobs. I think i lost three straight jobs, then i came to the atlantic in 2008, through david by the way who got me that job too. Rose was it Jamie Bennett . Thats exactly it, he knew james bennett. I think we overlapped the times together and he wrote james and said, you should take a look at this guy. Im sorry david is not here to see this. Rose i miss him. He was such an often guest on this program and he just had something unique about the ability to go right to the core, and even if everybody else was somewhere else he knew where it was. He did. Rose why is what you were doing resonating so much and so deeply with people like Toni Morrison . That, i cant answer. I dont know. What i can tell you is i think certain aspects of africanamerican humanity and anger is one of those aspects, are not allowed to be aired in public the same way with other people. I think theres great fear when black people talk about their anger, negative emotions and hatred of certain things. I think that makes people very, very uncomfortable. Rose you also think though, that and help me understand, and i dont want to define you i want you to define yourself in a sense that there is built in to the establishment in america an understanding that building on slavery, that what we had is people who feel empowered to do violence to the body of other people. And i select those terms violence and body directly from reading you. Yeah, and i do think that. Rose and it gives them power and control. And i think we have ways of covering that even for people as they do it. One of the things that ive tried to make clear repeatedly is any sort of term that you think, you know is innocuous or a euphemism that relates to race and policy in terms of race and black people ultimately comes back to violence and doing violence to africanamerican bodies. For instance, you take something that seems terribly abstract and disconnected as a debate over affirmative action and how is that related to physical violence . I assure you the africanamericans in this country that want their kids and leave aside what you think of the policy, where you like it or not but the africanamericans trying to get the advantages for their kids are trying to get them in the hopes that they improve their station and grow up somewhere thats not like where they grew up. Behind that is not because i dont want you to grow up poor working class or whatever. Its almost always, i dont want you to have to walk out the door and look and watch your back like i did. Rose thats why youre writing this letter to your son. Yes. Rose that brings me to an essential point. Also still very much with us, this act of violence against the body. Mmhmm. Rose your terms. Mmhmm. Rose you have a basic difference in terms of how you see that from the president. Probably. Rose well, probably. Youve had debates with him in the white house yes, thats true. Rose exactly i think the president reflects, you know, in his Public Comments and to the extent that weve had this debate this time a kind of optimism that is very much rooted in the africanamerican experience. I think the notion of hope the notion it will be better is almost or maybe not even almost religious within the africanamerican community. A lot of that comes out of the church in the aspect or the belief that good ultimately triumphs, that justice does ultimately win out at the end of the day and that there is a sense of inevitable progress. The quote that Martin Luther king used to use and the president uses the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice. Rose you do not believe that . I hope it does. Rose but you dont believe it. I see no reason to be assured it does. This comes out of my beliefs about the world and the natural world. If you were, you know, say an africanamerican who was enslaved in this country and died during the period of slavery, thats the end of your arc as an individual human being, thats the end of your arc. You lived and died as an enslaved person. Black folks who were lynched and killed in this country say during the red summer, thats the end of their arc. Rose what then . There is no broader, bigger justice. Rose and what about People Killed by acts of Police Violence today . Thats the end of their arc. Aragons arc ended right there as a fiscal human being. When he was choked out in Staten Island thats the end of his body. Whatever great thing is going to come out of it, hes not going to see it. Even assuming some sort of great reform comes out of his death. Rose are you speaking for him . No, its just my belief about the world. I dont believe threes an afterlife hell look down and see. Rose youre atheist, too. Yes, and that forms my opinion about rooting this in the body. This is crucial to accept. If you can get that then you can get to the pain of whats happening. Martin luther king was shot and killed and thats it. And thats it. Rose and your hero malcolm x was shot and killed. Same way. Rose however, if i would say to you malcolm was killed by black people, if i were to say to you the case thats so stunned you or resonated within you, the story of a very, very accomplished young man your family friend as i remember. My friend prince killed by an africanamerican police officer. Rose but that doesnt matter at all, whats relevant is he was a black man who shot the gun. And he was living in a system that cast him into racism. Rose but you dont want to hear black on black violence . I can hear it. Take the example of malcolm x which we started. Malcolm x shouldnt have been in the fight, he should have been a senator and governor. Rose his skill and talent. Yeah, he never should have had to have been in that conversation. The fact he had to be there cannot be taken away from White Supremacy. The fact prince jones was gunned down cannot be subtracted for the fact he was mistaken for another black person who was in fact a suspected criminal and they were both black and there are certain presumptions about that. It doesnt matter who the actual agent is. Its a broad, systemic thing. Rose you believe and write this is simply the forward projection of history from slavery. I do very much so. I think until theres a serious direct reckoning with this, were going to keep going over and over and over again on the same thing. I dont mean to harp on this but the question of who the kill killer is and race sticker i think its a distraction that takes us awe way rose but its also a distraction, tell me when you watched the eulogy that the president gave in charleston you were sitting somewhere being interviewed, right . Yes, but the sound was off so we were looking at it and i watched the whole thing later. Rose what did you think about that because it now is enshrined as one of the great president ial i thought in my lifetime, it was one to have the greatest president ial addresses ive seen. Rose but. I dont have abu. Rose you do have abu. No i dont. Rose yes, you do. I mean in the context of who he is. Rose ah. As president of the United States. Rose he had to speak that way . Yeah, but i think judged against other people who could have, like, for instance, had anybody else been there whos been president or could have been president , john mccain, Hillary Clinton, anybody else potentially in that spot, i want barack obama in that spot, and i thought the address he gave was better than anything anybody else could have. Rose he did do a bow to the fact that were all responsible. Right, right, right. Rose and hes all said that. Yes, yes, yes. Rose and you quarrel with that, dont you . No. No no, i dont. I think as americans we are all responsible. Rose well, he quarrels with the fact that some people not only are responsible but we have to be accountable for ourselves. To read you my impression is i go with that. Rose exactly. But he didnt do nat in that particular speech. Yes, i do, i quarrel with the notion that individual virtue is somehow a match for the forces and the resources of a society angled in a particular direct, in this case toward White Supremacy. I dont think individual virtue which some people call personal responsibility is enough. Rose it will not get you there. No, no, no. My parents were very simplous virtuous and morally and personally responsible. This does not change the fact they lived in a community shaped by housing segregation. Rose so its structural. My grandmother raised three kids in the projects, sent all three of our young daughters off to college. She scrubbed white peoples floors and went to school at night. When it was time for her to buy a home, she had to buy a home on contract in a way that white people did not. That decreased the ability of my family to accumulate wealth. No amount of personal virtue on the behalf of my grandmother would have stopped that. That goes to the issues of the statement of society. Rose and thats structural. Thats structural yes. Rose why is there a comparison between james bald within and a fire next time and you and between the world and me, and reparations in. Because i was deeply inspired by james baldwin. That was at the core. Rose what was it that inspired you . Well, hes a beautiful writer. Rose of course he is. No, no, thats what inspired me. Literally. Rose not what he wrote about but the fact of the way he wrote it. Yes. I cannot emphasize that enough. Its the literary ability. Its the form. Its how he begins it as a letter and them slips into memoir and the whole way drawing a theme through the entire book its an amazing act of literature. Rose what do you aspire to do . To continue to write you know, for the rest of my natural days and to continue to what i hope one cant really aspire to this, but i hope that allows me to continue to be able to care for my family. If i can do that i will have a very very happy life. Rose do something you love and care for your family. Oh, my god, what else is there . Rose pretty good for me, too. Yeah. Rose i do want to try to understand the message. Mmhmm. Rose beyond the elephants, beyond the command of word beyond the poetry, it is, it seems to me, those things are tools right. Rose and skills in the exercise of presenting beliefs yes. Rose ideas, convictions, experience. Thats true. Im not trying to be difficult. Youre exactly right. You know, its not that i dont im a writer, and if not for my interest in the tools, i would care about the message but i probably would be home thinking about it not writing it. Rose but thats what artists do. Right. But the tools are important to me and it may come a day when i use the tools rose are the tools more important to you than the content . Thats a great question. Personally, probably yeah. Rose yeah, i know i hear that from you. Personally probably, yeah. Rose but youre being championed and you are being championed. Right. Rose for the content. Yes, the skill, but the content. I dont know. Rose so maybe you have given the content more fire because of your you know i hope some day very very soon to use those same tools to do something else. I guess what im saying is rose you mean write the Great American novel . Who knows. But i guess what im saying is it is not i do not you know, when i think about the rest of my life, i do not see that i necessarily will be using those tools to write the same thing, to convey the same message. Rose do you go back to all that malcolm x did and said and just simply you were most amazed by the eloquence you brought to it rather than what he said . Im pretty amazed by his eloquence. I really am. The reason im differentiating is a lot of people may have felt like baldwin and malcolm felt but the ability to articulate it in that manner is incredible. Rose but what happens is what artists do is they give expression with their intelligence, talent skill, to what we see and i suspect people think youre on the raw edge to what they feel. They feel maybe im not into false humility, i cant rose you go to aspen, write about that, enjoy it. But you see people experiencing what youre saying. I do very much so. But its no guarantee they experience it the way i the obvious case of that is charleston. What i just was talking about. This idea of forgiveness the way folks interacted with that and the notion the optimistic notion of there being some great justice that will triumph at the end of the day i dont share that. Obviously, a large number of africanamericans do. Rose starting with king and oh, yeah, its all through the tradition. Its a dominant its even in malcolm x. But i dont have that. It was even in his nation of islam i did because the idea was that through nationalism, one will triumph in the end. I dont know necessarily know that i have that so thats why its hard for me to say im connecting with a large mass of people because its a very internal thing. Its very very internal. Rose can but connected i mean, my impression was that you had, because of the Life Experience you had, because of the curiosity you had because of your overwhelming sense of wanting to understand, comprehend, you know, that you are opening yourself up to a dialogue and a conversation to try to figure things out for yourself, and then give expression to it. Thats true. Thats very, very true yes. Thats true. Rose go ahead. No, you go ahead. Rose no you. I was going to say im grappling with the question you asked before about the message and the tools. I dont know, i love writing, like a personal need. I really adore before i came here, i was sitting here, trying to work on something, trying to write another piece for the atlantic and working through the problems of the piece and had to do much with what was in the book on the case of reparations but trying to work it through and make it into something that was coherent. I really really enjoy that. Rose but as someone once said, the joy is in the doing of the thing. Its not necessarily the end result. But i think i might be doing it even if i had a different message. Thats why im saying thats probably the premier thing for me. Rose do you in all that you have done and said here to your son, who is 14, do you believe there is something that could change the way things are . In that book. Rose well, in your in my writing . Rose no, in your head, in your heart. I mean, i think the idea for the case of reparations is a good idea. Rose rep ranges is reparations is a good thing. Yes. Rose , why because it would say you have been wronged . Yes, what is at the root of the vast majority of problems in this country, racism or White Supremacy, is the inability to acknowledge the debt. I think thats at the root of everything. I think if we acknowledge the debt and acknowledge what we have done to folks, the moral debt and the economic and financial debt, our policies would look very different in this country. Rose and therefore whats happened to the Confederate Flag you find what . I find progress. Its a very good thing. I think its a very, very good thing and its built on nearly a half century of work by historians and activists in this country. Rose nearly a half century of work by historians and activists, so there is as the president wanted to take note progress. Yeah. Rose but progress that came as a result of activism, of struggle. Right. If you asked me if there had been progress over the past 150 years as a result of the struggle i would agree with you. What i disagree with is the idea of inevitable progress. I dont think anythings predetermined. Rose you mean it needed something to precipitate . An agent . Yeah, and even if you have an agent present, that you will necessarily win. I dont believe its inevitable. Rose does the fact that you recognize that has what impact on you . Well, i think it actually has the impact on the question about whats more important than me. I think thats why the reason things that are personal to me are so important because it means you cant really pin your happen necessary or how much you get out of your life on things that are outside your control. Thats one of the biggest messages in the book. Rose i believe that totally. You know, whether you live to see the fall and destruction of White Supremacy in this country or not you have to find beauty in your life, nonetheless. Its very important. Rose totally. I totally agree. And i think thats what comes through, too in what youre trying to say to your son. Youve got to deal with the fear and find the beauty at the same time. Mmhmm. Rose but you do believe that things can change with struggle. They can, yeah. Rose and they have. Yeah, they can change. Yes, i do believe that. Rose and do you go to france in the part other than to joy all the joy of france and paris to see if there is a different system a different approach or somehow a different point of view about these issues that you have been writing about here and here and here . Not really. Rose just going over for a good time . No, i go over to explore my love of the french language. Its been important to me and my life to have our son exposed to orthothings. We always wanted our child to be bilingual. Thats a big part of it. You know, youre not completely off. I do go over in the sense to see how france deals with their problems. Its not my expectation i will find rose well, sometimes with respect to some problems like immigration, they dont deal very well. I think thats very much correct. Rose you simply, if you were writing your own epitaph today, i would assume the thing you would like is the as the first word was writer. Yeah, decent human, maybe. Maybe decent human than writer. Rose tell me about your father today. My dad works as a publisher and a printer just outside of baltimore. I was just on the phone with him before i got here. Rose what was the conversation, if i may ask . The conversation was about what contract i signed for that book. He knows publishing. Rose but what does he say . What does he when he reads this and he knows its his son addressed to his grandson . Right. Hes proud. Theres a degree of distance you know, a necessary distance that i think he affords me to allow me to tell my story and i think he says thats tanehisis story. If he were writing a book, i think he would have it from a different per superior courtive in a different way, but hes giving me that different perspective in a different way but hes giving me the space to write. Rose between the world and me. This is required reading, says Toni Morrison, and David Remnick and so many others have said this is an important, important book and we ought to read it, in part for what he says in part for what he observes in part for what he says it all. Tanehisi coates. Thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Rose back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose Peter Kiernan is here, entrepreneur philanthropist and advisor t businesses and government. He previously spent two decades at Goldman Sachs where he was senior partner. His book, american mojo, considers the growing threat to the future of the middle class in america. I am pleased to have Peter Kiernan at this table. Welcome. So happy to be here. Rose this grew out of a conversation you had with a young businessman in china . It did. I was walking in shanghai and finished a book on something i did in china. We became good friends and he said i studied america thoroughly and i think i get you, but there is one thing that baffles me. We are trying so hard to create a middle class, its so difficult to do and you have one of the great middle classes ever created in history and youre systematically dismantling that. Just share with me, whats the strategy behind that . Why are you doing that . And i fumbled through what was a terrible answer at the time. The whole fight back i was thinking, why are we doing that . That doesnt make sense. That was why one book led to the other and thats what led to the birth to have the book. Rose whats the answer to the question . That we have to look at the middle class differently. Its a totally different construct than what we once experienced. Anytime you try to solve a problem by looking through the rearview mirror, youre going to screw things up. We have a middle class today thats so different in so many ways and add to that when we create our middle class after world war ii when 16 million g. I. S came through, it was an extraordinary thing, charlie because the entire country worked together business government, law all came together reaching out out of a sense of duty and entitlement and loyalty to the people who fought. At that time, the rest of the worlds manufacturing lay in ruins, and we rose to the occasion. Thats not today. Nothing close to it. So we have to realize its a whole new Playing Field and a global Playing Field. Rose and its very competitive. And as you say there will be a billion more members to have the middle class outside our borders in the next twenty years. Rose if you look at the emerging economies the reason the emerging economies, brick communities included, was the idea they created a middle class which created some buying power, which enabled our economy to grow and enabled them to become an export economy in some cases but it was the middle class that fueled the growth of their economy. Absolutely, and when you talk to the leadership in those countries and each of the bricks is a trilliondollar economyplus and what theyre saying is we believe the key to driving this is having a strong middle class, and they are doing things much like we did after world war ii. Theyre doing things to support, nurture, develop grow their middle class at a time when were being casual and sort of letting our middle class go by the wayside. Rose are you saying the reason our middle class is in trouble is because we no longer have the empeus the of being alone as we were after world war ii . The competition has done things that are necessarily not to the benefit of our middle class. Heres how i answer that. There is a home game and away game answer to that question. The home game answer is that we have failed to recognize that we have an extraordinary talented group of people in our country, but were not managing that talent appropriately. So, for example, in the next ten years, were going to create in this majestic economy, this 15 trillion 16 trillion, were going to create a million and a quarter Computer Science jobs in this country. That is a fantastic element of creation because every one of those jobs is a multiplier jobs. Means more people get hired. Lets look at the Talent Management side. Were graduating about 40,000 students a year in Computer Science. So over ten years thats 4 h hundred thousand. Thats 800000 or 900,000 jobs short and everywhere you go, if you talk to the people running the big corporations and say we have at microsoft et cetera, we have thousands and thousands of jobs and probably 4 million skillbased jobs that do not need to be created theyre there, they need to be filled. Rose but the key is skillbased jobs. It is skillbased jobs. And one of the things we have to do we must do, is recognize it. As we let go one trapeze bar and float as we are in midair, there is another trapeze bar coming our way, and we have to train ourselves and spend the money, and the question is can we do it. I believe we can. I believe theres a homegrown opportunity to do that. But it means were going to have to change a lot of things. Rose what do we mean by middle class . Middle class has gone through a big change, and one of the things that ive said once upon a time was a block of granite. You detained it by what people earned. Today the face of america so dramatically changed that you cant use the old measurements. Ill give you one example. Today in the United States there are about 45 million poor people which is entirely too many, but just above that seam of the poverty line are another 50 Million People who are what i call in the book hovering poor. One twist of lifes knife away from a trip to an experience in poverty. Rose a disaster in the family. One of the leading causes of bankruptcy in the lower middle class is a cancer diagnosis a car accident. What happens is suddenly you have 40 of the kids in this country will spend some of their childhood on food stamps. What we have to realize is that the middle class has a whole new energy so we have about 50 million latina and hispanic people in the United States and of that there are probably 10 million to 15 million who would qualify by any definition as middle class. Rose if you ask the political candidates starting with Hillary Clinton who just made a huge speech about this, they all know that this is americas crisis, whats happening to the middle class. But you dont see that many so far, really unique and creative and innovative ideas. They know, for example, that the middle class is not as well off as it was. They know that the children of the middle class their expectations are not the same as theirs might have been. I mean they understand all of this, but theyre searching for a kind of narrative, you know, and a strategy. One of my great frustrations and one of the reasons i wrote the book, in fact my publisher said dont come out in the middle of the election. Those begin to solve the problem. I call them necessary but nowhere near sufficient. Ill give you an example. If you think of every person in the city of los angeles, every single soul and add to that every single soul in the city of philadelphia thats how many people there are in our country between the age of 16 and 25 who are not on employment education or training. If you go to the subway exit, you will see a dozen young people sitting around right now. Thats not an Afterschool Program that will achieve anything. We have to do something. We cannot allow somebody to be 22 years old whos not reading or writing up to skill base, may have been incarcerated with no options, no job prospects, no future, that is a very expensive anchor on the middle class. But there are some Creative Things you can do. One example i talk about in the book everyone agrees that we have a major problem with our infrastructure. Thats not a contested debate. The big debate is how to pay for it. I think i can pay for it now. World war ii, 1941 we made 3 million cars in the country. From 1941 to the end of the war because f. D. R. Said were not in the car business anymore we did not make 150 cars because we basically had to move our economy to where the need was. We have to do the same sort of thing today. I have a way without raising a penny of taxes which may help which is to create American Infrastructure Bank which will not do loans or derivatives but only spend money on infrastructure. Lets commit to raise a trillion dollars, i believe we would need 300 billion in equity. If we went to every corporate and Union Pension finned, we would put the people to work and go to everyone, we could get it. Rose we would rebuild the infrastructure and put people to work with. Yes. If we went to the American People and said now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of our country weve just raised a trillion dollars and that trillion dollars is going to go to fund not just roads and bridges and the obvious infrastructure, but the more subtle, powerful kinds of infrastructure. Through robin hood, im involved in the school and we had a problem the kids were hanging out at the school on the steps even in the cold, fall nights. We said what is going on . The reason the young people were there is the only place they could get wifi. We have a digital divide. There are other pipelines in keystone we need to build. We need to build an infrastructure to let young people get wifi wherever they live. Rose when the Obama Administration came in had a democrat congress, created a Stimulus Program. They did. Rose 800 billion with Tax Advantages as well which the republicans insisted on. What happened . Two things happened. One, i would never confuse an orangey of spending with a Stimulus Program. One of the things this was an orangey of spending. New uniforms for the t. S. A. Im not degrading the t. S. A. , but is that a statement matter . Libraries getting money where they had one and two employees. A Stimulus Program is something where you do several things you engage people in the recreation of the economy, you uplift them by giving them jobs and you do one more thing, you basically build american momentum. Thats not what happened. Rose whos responsible for that . I think its a shared responsibility, and its a great thing because everybody owns it and no one really does. If i were king, i would say i think every state, every municipality ought to have a department of regulatory sanity, just somebody who sits down and says, how can we get things shovel ready. Because a lot of people i talked to in washington when i was researching the book said that really would have worked but we didnt have must enough stuff that was shovel ready. Rose meaning to start immediately. Immediately. Weve had a history of figuring out ways to solve the shovelready program. Dont come to me if youre running for president of this country and say the problem with our infrastructure is we dont have things that are shovel ready. Get them shovel ready. That is a problem that manpower and women power and brain can resolve. But those two things starved what was a unique opportunity to rebuild our infrastructure, to rebuild the jobs were talking about. Rose a man on the moon urgency or man hasnt project exactly. So exactly. So and the same way f. D. R. Somehow persuaded ford motor not to make cars anymore and to make airplanes you know, the government is cloaked in immense power, and leadership means that you have to go and solve the dire problems. Rose i interviewed one National Security person after another, and at least half of them will say the biggest problem facing our National Security is not overseas its domestic and it is sort of gridlock in washington. I mean, you tack about ostriches, domestic ostriches in your book. Yeah, i think one of the things weve done is allowed ourselves to create not just a democratrepublican divide were used to that. We have an architecture of divide that weve created now and means things like lobbyists which used to be a Cottage Industry is a multibilliondollar industry with millions of professionals practicing it. There are think tanks with bigger endowments than some small colleges that we basically have influencers into policy that play games that kind up at stalemate. You and i know from looking at many many problems no great problem ever got solved by one sector alone. Business cant solve it alone philanthropy, government, they have to Work Together on rebuilding the middle class. It can be done. Rose the president says he or shes coming to washington to create the bipartisanship that built the country, then they run into one problem after another. Its very, very hard. I would fault business. I think business brand is broken. I think its been harmed since 2008 and i would wish that the leaders of the Business Community would say, here is the way forward and acknowledge that whatever happened in 2008 was an abberation and something well bro protect against but it shouldnt block us. One of the thingss weve done many times in the course of our history is have a government that spoke with business fluency. Weve had leaders in business government working for a dollar a day and that is the kind of energy that we need to create. Now, some of it is being done in the country. If you go to places like houston. Houston has something called the Greater Houston Partnership and they are bringing in the academic leaders, the religious leaders, the government leaders, the rose the n. G. O. Leader. Exactly and saying how do we build our economy here . And ill give you one example that shows it was working. The number three city in the country for foreign consulates is houston, texas. So washington, new york houston. Thats not because of proximity to the state department something is happening here. Rose im surprised at that because i would have assumed it would be San Francisco because of the proximity to silicon vale. Well, Silicon Valley is where the energy and by that translated also to new york the energy of the new jobs were creating. Mckenzie did a study that said were going to wind up with in ten years, a million and a half too few College Graduates that were creating phenomenal jobs and anybody who says americas lost its energy, if you go to Silicon Valley, people are sparkling with ideas. The energy to create new businesses, to disrupt and serve those middle class people going in all of thee around the world. Rose i was just with ash carter. Sure. Rose and he was speaking to a group of people essentially froms Silicon Valley and saying we have to have a partnership here because in a lot of areas where government used to do the research and development off of the internet came from government projects from the department of defense and was an outgrowth of that and in coordination with the business he basically was saying we have to have a partnership because a lot of new ramp and development, you people are so far out ahead of the world and government here, we have to figure out a way to have you bear a significant part of the burden of innovation and creating new approaches that have at their base technology. Were starting to see that in biotechnology and others where the n. I. H. Left the funder and were the instigator. But once the commercialization opportunity begins to break over the horizon now one of the things that troubles me is i dont think we have enough support of legislation for venture capital. Venture capital in 2000 was over 100 billion a year. And the last year, its been about 25 billion or 26 billion. Its way way down. I think one of the things we have to acknowledge is that Small Businesses are the craid of job creation, for anybody whos running for office, and the one level i care, but i would like anybody who knows to say whatever we do lets move heaven and earth to create new jobs. So if somebody wants to invest in the start of business, cut out the one , i dont care. But if you have a startup business that employs people and go for three or four or five years and thes by prospers and you sell some or all of it, you should get a tax break because thats how great jobs get created. And great jobs are momentum creators, its a pebble in the water, they are multipliers on jobs. Rose when you look at the discussion of the mac. You also have to address the idea of income inequality. Yeah. Theres an orangey of evidence that shows we have concentration at the top, not just here but across the world. There are 85 people, we could fit them in the room who know more than most everybody else. We have two massive forces in our economy, in my opinion. One that creates a very small group of people that are very, very rich, and another that is creating new record highs in hunger and homelessness and poverty. We have to acknowledge that, somehow, though two factoids those two newtonian certainties like gravity have to be relegated. How do you do it . I think taking money from one and giving it to another is only a beginning. Rose transference of wealth. Sure. If you want to do that i actually dont think personally, this notion you work your life and you spend and die and after you die the government takes a big chunk of what you have is a terrible way to redistribute wealth. So there is going to be the greatest transference of wealth ever coming when this generation passes on and learns rose youre not against an estate tax . Not at all. People say you cant tax it twice. I dont know where its written. Im not a believer in you cant tax money twice. I do think one of the tests that we should have for anybody running for office that says im going to tax more great, what are you going to do with the money . You have this bucket of money from the 1 , what are you going to do with it . Are you going to have something for the 6 million kids that are literally doing nothing between ages 25 and 16 years old . Are you going to help them . People say educations the answer. Okay youre going to fund education. Just how great does a teacher have to be . We have 4 million in our k12 public system here, thats an army of excellence for us. That is a unique selling proposition for the United States. But the trouble is, if you think of everybody in the city of dallas, thats how many kids today are going to go out of a building when the School Bell Rings and have no home to go home to. 1. 3 million kids will leave school today with no place to go but the shelter or a at the present time or wherever they can sleep. How good does that teacher have to be for the eight hours that student is in class if theyre hungry, homeless . We have survival issues that we have been in denial about. We have to. There is no Stimulus Program, no race to the top good enough or Strong Enough if your stomach is gurgling and you havent slept because youre fearful rose not only that, mall nutrition affects cognitive ability and everything else. It does. I was with somebody in the hospital who says the biggest iditia of poor health in the country by far, not your dna its poverty. These things all run together. So whomever is going to lead us after the president steps down and we have a new one has to address these things in an engaged and interconnected way, not in silos. Rose american mojo, lost and found, restoring your macvalues before the world blows by, Peter Kiernan. Thank you. Rose thank you so much. Wonderful being with you. Thanks for joining us. For more about this and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org this is nightly Business Report with Tyler Mathisen and sue herera. Stocks and commodities tumble and odds are the Federal Reserve is taking notice. Drug powerhouse teva buys allergens generic drug unit. Sales speed bump chrysler gets hit with a massive fine and is forced to buy back hundreds of thousands of vehicles. Will buyers care . All that tonight on nightly Business Report. A global selloff, what started in china spread to europe and landed here with a thump in the u. S. Stocks tumbled across the world after chinas