Massachusetts. Got his law degree at yale law school. He has served in the Obama Administration and many positions there, one is the deputy head of the nec at that time and also as deputy head of omb and for a while acting head of omb. Between the Obama Administration and the biden administration, he worked in the private sector at black rock, where he was the head of Global Sustainability investing. Thank you so much for coming. Let me ask you the first and most important question, are we going to go into a recession anytime in the foreseeable future . [laughter] brian thank you for having me. [laughter] i shouldve expected nothing less. Thank you for having me. Thank you for putting this together. We are no doubt in uncertain times. But i think that if you look at the u. S. Economy, my perspective, the most striking feature of the u. S. Economy right now is resilience the resilience of households, consumer Balance Sheets, business and business investment, and globally, the resilience of the u. S. Economy in an uncertain global environment. We are certainly in a complicated and in many ways and precedents transition, but theres a lot of reason to have confidence in the u. S. Position, in the context of a globally uncertain environment. David i will take that as a maybe, i dont know. [laughter] as you may know, during the carter years, carters inflation advisor used the r word once in a press briefing, and carter said dont do that again, i am running for reelection, that scares people, so you so he said, we might be heading into a banana. [laughter] you dont see a banana in the horizon . You are not predicting a banana . [laughter] brian we could have a conversation of a manner of different fruit. David let me ask you an easier question. Brian yeah, please. [laughter] david do you think the u. K. Is in a recession . [laughter] brian well [laughter] i think the situation in europe and the u. K. Is very, very difficult right now. They are facing a very difficult situation. In terms of the u. S. Position, they are significantly more exposed to the energy price volatility. And they dont have some of the incumbent strengths that we have here economically, so i think it is and is going to be a tough period for the u. K. And for the European Union over the course of the next set of months. David in the u. S. , normally, when you cut taxes, it is designed to stimulate the economy. And that is what happened but its had an unfortunate impact on the british economy, the stock market has gone down and people are upset about it. Are you surprised about that . Brian i wasnt surprised that the market reaction. I think that if we an Economic Policy has to be in the context of the situation that we are in. In a monetary tightening cycle like this, the challenge with that is it puts the Monetary Authority in a position of potentially having to move even tighter. I think that is what you saw in the reaction. And also, i would think say, it is particularly important to maintain fiscal prudence, something we have been focused on here. David lets talk about another easy subject. Inflation. Inflation is as high as its been since i was in government. I managed to get a higher rate than you have gotten so far. But i wanted to know, in your view, is inflation now coming down a bit, as a result of the feds hiking . Do you expect the fed to continue to hike in the november and December Fomc meetings . Brian the second part of your question is the easy one, as you know, because part of the fed [indiscernible] the market expects that. David ok. Brian i dont have any wisdom beyond that. But if you look at most of the data points over the course of the last couple of months, we have certainly seen headline inflation on a month over month basis slow dramatically, basically its been flat for the last couple of months, that is a function of the fact we have seen Energy Prices come down, gas prices, and that is offset has offset price increases elsewhere. If you look broadly across the economy, you are seeing a number of places where you are seeing the shift in this transition happen in real time. Commodity prices have come off. You have seen that in a number of durable goods segments. At the same time, as you know, this operates with some leg. That is why even as you look over the course of the last couple of months, you have got even in a moment of heightened uncertainty, you have to do whatever you can to lift up from individual monthly data points. When i went to college many years ago, the standard textbooks that inflation was on average three or 4 a year, that was relatively normal. The last 25 years, we have had 2 inflation so we have gotten used to 2 inflation. My children have never seen higher inflation. But the fed now says they want to get inflation back to 2 , but why not 3 or 4 . Why is 2 a goal . Brian a big part of inflations expectations. The risk with inflation is not only the Immediate Impact on purchasing power, but also the risk that expectations get more unanchored, and it is much more difficult to bring inflation down. When you ask the question about bringing down to a level, one of the most important questions is the shape of policy what the shape of policy is focused on, making sure we dont lose control of the focus. To your question of the process, look, i am fundamentally optimistic about the American Economy. I am optimistic that we can navigate through this transition in a way where we come out of this as a country and as an economy in a stronger position than when the pandemic hit. So at the core i do believe that there is no certainty in any way or no way inevitable that we are going into a downturn. David so your former colleague at the white house and the Obama Administration, Larry Summers you know him quite well i think he recently said something to the effect that he would be willing to bet anybody that we will have six months unemployment over 5 before we have six months of inflation over 2. 5 . Would you be willing to take that bet . Brian another good thing about my job, i am not allowed to engage in the type of activity. [laughter] david all right. Brian cant buy individual stocks. David were you surprised larry said that . Brian im not surprised by anything larry says. [laughter] david ok. Let me go back to the nec. It was started under president clinton. Bob rubin was the first person to hold that job. Continue to can you explain to people what it does and what the nec does daytoday, for example, who was in the nec, what is your job . Brian the National Economic council, the job, the mandate, the mission of the organization is to coordinate Economic Policy across the executive branch and across the cabinet, to make sure the president is getting the benefit of, when making decisions, of his entire economic cabinet, and also the cabinet is getting clear direction from the president as well. It is a coordination function. On the nec itself, all of the relevant cabinet members, there is a core economic team, omb, the treasury, the secretary of labor, secretary of commerce. My team, the nec team, is a small team in a white house whose job is to do the coordination across a range of economic policies. David you were the deputy in the Obama Administration in the nec. Now you are the director. Which nec worked better, the obama or biden one . Brian on the issues i worked on in the Obama Administration, it worked very, very well. The current nec works very well, as well. [laughter] david President Biden, is he a person who wants to read a lot of memos about the economy . Do your brief and morally . Orally . How often do you see the president . Brian i see the president very regularly depending on his travel schedule. Similarly to the on the National Security side, we will do regular briefings and preparations for events that he is doing or engagements he is doing, a speech, public event, engagement with a foreign leader. With President Biden, it is a combination of things. He does read, quite a bit. He also is somebody who talks, likes to talk through briefings and through preparations as well, so it is a balance of both. David recently we had the Inflation Reduction Act. Who came up with that name, really . [laughter] brian its a great name. David i guess so. What do you really think it is going to reduce inflation . It seems like it was spending a lot of money. How is inflation going to be reduced by that . Brian because it is the Inflation Reduction Act. [laughter] joking aside, i actually think that it is an appropriate name it goes to the structure of, if i could say it in a wonky way, the role of fiscal policy and a period of monetary tightening, what you want to do is you want to take measures that will lower costs for individuals and do it in a way that lowers the federal deficit. If you are lowering the federal deficit at the same time you are lowering costs for individuals, you are operating in the same direction. That is complicated from a policy perspective but that is exactly what the Inflation Reduction Act accomplishes. David does it really lower federal debt and federal deficit . I thought it was just lowering it it is not actually producing a reduction in the federal debt, is it . Brian the appropriate way to judge any piece of legislation is, is it going to reduce or increase the deficit compared to the baseline at the time . The Inflation Reduction Act will reduce the deficit compared to the baseline by about 260 billion. In the first decade. Probably more than a trillion dollars in the second decade. And it does it in ways probably the simplest way to understand is the provision that allows medicare to for the first time to negotiate for better prices for prescription drugs. That doesnt mean that medicare is spending less money on drugs. That will lower federal spending. It will also lower the cost of drugs to medicare recipients and also to recipients in the private markets, since medicare is such a less purchaser. David so the Inflation Reduction Act did not have all the things in the build back better act. Have you made a commitment to joe manchin or anybody that the things that were in the build back better act that didnt get in the Inflation Reduction Act will maybe be put into some piece of legislation . To try to push that through later on . Brian the way we are approaching the question as to say that weve now passed multiple pieces of really important legislation not just the Inflation Reduction Act, but also the chips and signs act, the Semi Conductor and research bill, etc. In the aggregate, they are providing a very serious historic Public Investment agenda over the course of multiple years. As we then look forward and say, what are the pressing economic needs, how do we match those with places where we can get things done . There are number of places that come to mind there are a number of places that come to mind. Investing in things that provide more care to get more parents and more workers into the workforce would be economically sensible. The approach is to say, what makes economic sense at the time and what can we get done . David if you lose either house of congress and the midterm elections, will you propose different legislation, if you are able to control both houses, or if you lose both houses . Brian the political context always affects how your positioning policy proposals. Certainly that will be affected. One thing that i will say and this is one of the reasons why i am optimistic about the American Economy is that over the last 20 months, we have been able to do more things in a bipartisan way than anyone wouldve anticipated 20 months ago. Certainly, we have done so in a challenging political situation. But serious things that people did nothing were necessarily possible. So we will continue to take that approach. And try to get as much done as we can. David when senator manchin started his lastminute negotiations with senator schumer, was the white house informed about what was going on . Did you know there was negotiation going on . Did he want the white house input . Brian the process that led up to the Inflation Reduction Act this summer was a process that had been going on for a long time, and we had been working with senator manchin and other members of the senate, and the house as well, to pass her version of the bill back in december of last year. Over the course of that entire process, we kept open lines. We were always aware of, sometimes having the conversations directly, sometimes having senator schumer have those conversations, as well. We always had open lines of communication. David for people who have been washington politicians, is it more difficult when unemployment is going up or when inflation is going up . Inflation affects everybody. Unemployment doesnt affect everybody. What is a political tradeoff . Which is more difficult for politicians, for the administration . Brian well, look, i will say there is no question that inflation affects everybody, and it affects the psyche. I think that when it affects, it also affects sentiment, the way things are out of control. We see that in Consumer Sentiment data. At the same time, we also, you asked the question on the political side, as Economic Policymakers, we need to recognize a way that economists think about inflation and the way the americans think about inflation often differs that we have this idea of headline inflation versus core inflation. Economists say you should pay less attention to headline, food and gas. But her typical people, you ask what inflation is, it is food and gas. Understanding the interplay between the economics and the politics of inflation is something that we have not been is used to. Brian in the invasion of ukraine, the special military operation by russia, it obviously had oil prices and other prices going up because of that, some people have said that we have not been sufficiently drilling in the u. S. And we should encourage more drilling so that we can either ship more lng to europe or have more for our own needs. Is it your view that the war in ukraine has changed administrations policy on the importance of having more oil and Gas Exploration and development in the u. S. , or really has not changed much . Brian let me start by actually just briefly explaining whats actually happened with the war in ukraine. Since the war in ukraine, on the natural gas side, exports are up 20 and the share of u. S. Exports of gas going to europe is doubled has doubled. Directing those exports to europe by working with partners and allies around the world to try to prioritize the needs in europe. When we saw this was happening on the oil side, we engaged with the industry and said, we want you to produce more, you have an economic incentive to do so because of prices. And based on an assessment that they would likely be able to increase by about a Million Barrels a day by this fall, we decided to do something unprecedented and release about a Million Barrels a day from the Strategic Petroleum reserve. Over the course of time, you have seen increase as a result. That has been part of a strategy of the u. S. Contribution into a global effort to try to maintain Global Supply which is important to economically important economically but also as a way of holding the alliance together, in response to putins aggression. Thats been the explicit strategy. In response to an unprecedented invasion. I think underneath your question, maybe, is that changed our broader policy in respect to clean energy, i would say less so. When it to clean energy. We need to do so in a way that takes advantage of our strengths as a country. And frankly one of the core elements of the Inflation Reduction Act is doing that in a historic way. We have been able to accomplish that even in the context of the war in ukraine. David i think the Administration Made a commitment that it would support senator manchins proposal, attached to the spending bills, defeated in a cloture vote, to make it easier to produce natural gas and oil and coal, and that is not going to be a part of the spending bill, but the administration continued to support mentions efforts, or has it failed in the senate . Brian the president supports the legislation. We are going to work to try to get it done. That is where we are. If you look at that bill, one of the significant things that it would do would be to help streamline the process to build out significant elements of infrastructure that we need for clean energy in the zero carbon economy. There are elements of the bill that are vitally important to accelerating the Clean Energy Transition. David lets talk about your own background for a moment. I mentioned you grope in the boston area. Grew up in the boston area. [laughter] brian my father was an educator. He teaches. My mother is a civil engineer. By training. Worked as an environmental engineer. David he went to middlebury. What did you study there . Brian i studied Political Science and economics. With international focus. David after you graduated, what did you do then . Brian i came here to d. C. On a fellowship. I was doing interNational Economic development. I have spent the better part of a year in argentina in 1999 right before the collapse of there. I came here to d. C. David the argentina economy collapsed while you were there . Brian right after i left. [laughter] david you got out. Then you came back to washington to do what . Brian i stayed here. I shifted from international policy, domestic policy, then i went to law school. Then came back here. David you want to law school to be a lawyer or not . Brian i went to law school no, not to be a lawyer. Because i was working i was fascinated working on economic elements that most of policy is actually understanding law in different ways. I went with the idea that i wanted to continue to work in policy. David how did you get involved with the Obama Administration . Did you get involved how did you get involved in the campaign or administration . Brian i started working on the 20072008 campaign. The most important experience, i campaigned against candidate obama for about nine months, working for senator clinton secretary clinton. After they lost, i was fortunate enough to then join the obama campaign. David what did then senator obama say about that . Brian i was junior enough in the campaign i dont think he was particular aware of my transition. [laughter] david so he got elected, then you got the position of special assistant to president of economic to the president Economic Policy to the president. What was your first project . Brian my first project was to work as part of the team that did the restructuring of General Motors and chrysler as well as a finance companies. That was basically from many of you all recall november, december of 2008 right through to december of 2009, that was my override. David after the Obama Administration, you joined the dark side of money management. And you worked for blackrock. In charge of Global Sustainability. What does that really mean . What were you doing at blackrock . Brian two things, one was trying to actually do Financial Research to understand what other drivers of longterm Economic Performance that are financially relevant, b ut may not be on the mind of traditional investors. To give you a concrete example, one of the most persistent measures of financial performance, uncorrelated, is the rate of change at which a Company Brings down its Carbon Emissions. Not just a level of Carbon Emissions but the weight of change in doing so. And we did a lot of research around that to find that is in part because it is an uncorrelated measure of operational performance. Better management teams actually better manage against that. So that becomes a kind of thing you can invest against, but also extends a universe of what investors are thinking about. David blackrock has been a leader in esg performance, but some people have criticized it, some people have said that blackrock has pushed people so far on esg, that it has ignored the need for Carbon Energy to some extent. Do you understand that criticism or disagree with it . Brian the approach that makes sense is to actually look at, what other drivers of longterm return . Those are things that investors can and should necessarily be paying attention to fiduciaries. If you look at the economy, you look at the impact of Climate Change is having on the physical economy as well as policy development, do not take those kinds of factors into account i think is not being prudent. David one President Biden was starting to run for president , you knew him when he was Vice President during the Obama Administration, did you support him . Did you work for thenpresident right in order for somebody else . President biden or for somebody else . Brian anytime anyone called, i would offer help. David when did you get involved with a biden people, after he won the election . Brian i did some work in volunteering to help on the developing of the elements of the platform during 2020. That came together in his general election Economic Policy. Then after the election, when they asked. David ok, so the American Rescue plan, the plan to get our economy Going Forward following covid and following the election of President Biden, some people said that it was so big that it was going to be inflationary. The administration said it was not going to be true. Do you think some of the people and they woul people in the administration misread this . Brian every policy decision, with the benefit of hindsight, i think the American Rescue plan was the right approach. It has proven out. We were doing two things. One was an important measure of insurance against an incredibly uncertain pandemic and pandemic trajectory where the economy was really on its back at a moment. I think that if you look at where we are in terms of the inflation situation, the predominant drivers inflation are obvious, because they are global. Look at inflation in the u. K. , the eu, it is higher than here in the u. S. The predominant drivers were the pandemic and the impact its had, and the uncertain series of events we have had, a series of supply shocks we are still navigating through as a globe. David in hindsight, it would say you are happy with the size of the plan and dont regret it, you would say . Brian you can always improve your policy thinking and hindsight. In hindsight. If you look at where the economy is now, we have the stronger the labor market economy in modern american history, tens of millions of people have benefited as a result of that. Household Balance Sheets are in a stronger position than they were prepandemic and inflation in the world right now is outpacing the u. S. I think all of those are a function of policy choices that we have made and i think that ultimately they were the right policy choices. David the minimum wage in the u. S. Is still 7. 50 an hour. The administration tried to get it raised to 12, Something Like that. The administration has proposed that recently. Is that because of a concern about inflation . Or do you still support raising the minimum wage no . Brian the president still strongly supports raising the minimum wage to 15 an hour. It would be done across time. I think it is wise Economic Policy. I think what youve seen over the course of this recovery as you have seen a lot of the largest is you have seen a lot of the largest privatesector employers moved to achieve that objective, states moving in that direction as well. The economic literature on raising the minimum wage actually rebuffs the premise that there is that kind of start tradeoff, between employment and wages, particularly in that segment of the population, because the benefits you get in terms of retention and job quality. I think theres a strong economic case. Theres a strong basic fairness Case Associated with that. And weve made a lot of progress on wages. The wage growth we have seen in this Economy Associated with a strong labor market has been the strongest in the bottom half of the income distribution. And the strongest for a lot of the job segments where you would have the most concerns about minimum wage increases. That is an important element of this recovery. David in the Inflation Reduction Act, a lot of the tax increases the president previously proposed in the build back better act did not get in there are those tax increases off the table for the remainder of the biden term . Brian [laughter] those are policies the president thought made sense. Wouldve supported if they were in the legislation and continues to support Going Forward. For all the things that were not in there, one of the reasons to go back to your previous question, why the bill reduces the deficit, it actually helps in reducing inflation, what is and there is any 15 minimum tax for the largest corporations, those with over 1 billion in earnings. That is a kind of reasonable common sense tax reform. That kind of brace bargaining base broadening reform, theres a lot of importance to it. David the u. S. China relationship is the probably the most important bilateral relationship in the world. Why is the relationship not in such good shape . Do you think it is in better shape than the average person might think . Do you think there are signs of hope we can actually get in a better economic relationship with china than we have today . Brian our relationship to china, this has been the president s view since before he took office, has to be based on a realistic assessment of where the chinese leadership is retina. What is in the interest of america and the American Economy. One of the things this president did importantly visavis the u. S. China relationship was to say the most important thing we can do to have competition without confrontation with china is to focus on building our sources of economic strength at home. One of the reasons why we have prioritized investing in infrastructure, like the Semiconductor Industry and the chips bill i mentioned before, is that the best way that we can actually compete in a way where we understand each other and avoid unnecessary conflict is by building those reservoirs of economic strength at home. Ultimately that is our source of strength. That is what is animating the relationship. Certainly we have no interest. We dont think it is in anybodys interest is the escalation of conflict. But we are going to compete and compete fairly. David some economists have said, if you took off the trump era tariffs on chinese imports, it would reduce inflation a bit. Why have you not been willing to take off those tariffs . Brian we have done a couple of things on that respect. The first thing is we have formally opened the process that allows for u. S. Businesses or others to identify areas where those tariffs are actually harming u. S. Competitiveness, u. S. Jobs, u. S. Economic interests. That gives us the ability to actually look in a specific way, not just a general way, at whether there is a credible case to be made and take action associated with that. That is a principal way that we are approaching that issue right now. And what we have heard and what i have heard from a number of operating companies is that it is that type of approach that is most useful right now, because there are some unintended consequences and we want to make sure that we have a way of addressing the. A way of addressing them. David the president is probably going to meet with xi jinping at a g20 meeting, if they do me, do you think theres going to be any changes on the Economic Policy towards china, or not likely to happen in the near future . Brian i think we are more likely to see continuity than a significant shift. In partly because the president has had an ongoing engagement with xi over the course of time. They have spent a lot of time trying to make sure that they clearly understand each other. That we avoid any unnecessary escalation. And where we can cooperate, we will. David lets talk about the economic sanctions imposed on russia, they dont really seem to be hurting the russian economy that much, but they still seem to be selling oil and natural gas are very high prices. Higher than they were before. Are you thinking there are any more sanctions left to impose . Brian i would respectfully rebuff the premise of your question. Those who look carefully at the russian economy right now would say that the russian economy has been quite significantly impaired. And, we said this from the beginning of the sanctions, that the important thing with sanctions is to be patient and consistent, and willing to stick to them, because they have a isolating impact across time. For example, one element of the sanctions policy is to not allow imports of key components that are important to Key Industries and of russia. That takes some time to go into effect because you have 369 months of spare parts. Even in the core micro statistics, the reason you have not seen a dramatic move in the currency, is because they are intervening and having to take unprecedented intervention in their own economy. And frankly, we have been able to demonstrate that we can hold together a unified Global Coalition that i think is as strong today as when putins incursion started. I think that sends a very important signal. The sanctions send an important signal, in addition to the economic pain, that you have a unified front. David we have economic sanctions as well on iran. If we reach an agreement on nuclear weapons, the sanctions would go away to some extent. Do you have any optimistic belief that there could be an agreement on the Iranian Nuclear issue . Brian it is certainly possible. But we are going to need to make more progress. David lets talk about, if we could, about the global Climate Change situation. The president has been a big proponent of this. Secretary kerry is his lead person on this. Do you think we have made a lot of progress on Climate Change and the less year and a half or so . Or do you think we have made modest progress, reasonable progress . Brian so, i think we have actually made history. And that the combination of the infrastructure bill, the chips act, most important leave the Inflation Reduction Act, do represent the most significant action that the u. S. Government has ever taken on Climate Change. And i think it reflects the right way of approaching it as well. Because now we have in place, embedded into our policy architecture longterm, very powerful incentives to encourage private investment in accelerating the transition. That is true in transportation, in the power sector, and that approach coupled with a sensible regulatory approach leads me in a situation where never before in my lifetime could i sit in and actually say, the u. S. Has the policy architecture in place to meet the 2030 chemicals we have set. David maybe a third of americans do not believe that Climate Change is caused by human activity or is that wrong, maybe a different percentage. A reasonable number of people think Climate Change is maybe not due to human activity. Is there anything you can do to educate people about that . Do you already have ongoing education efforts in that direction . Brian the answer is, absolutely. The facts are clear. The urgency is clear. Whats also clear is that half of Americans Last year were directly affected in one way or another by extreme and unique weather events that affected their daily life, whether that is because there were not able to actually send their kids to school in the west because of the smoke from wildfires, or because of flooding in the southeast, the midwest, that affected crop operations in the heartland. I think people are starting to not just starting, but people are feeling these impacts in their lives. Not just starting to see, but people are feeling these impacts in their lives. Its also incredibly important on this issue to meet people where they are. On this issue. And make sure they understand the stakes for their own community. Not just for the world, but for their own community. Unfortunately that is becoming easier to do fortunately that is becoming easier to do because it is more apparent in people. David you mentioned the chips act. Some would say that as a subsidization of the Semiconductor Industry. Some would say that his industrial policy which traditionally was not viewed as a good idea. Why is the chips act not basic industrial policy and why should other industries not come to you and ask for a subsidy like that . Brian well, as you know, there is a long history of industrial policy in the u. S. It has not always been a dirty word. Alexander hamilton was the big proponent of the theory behind having industrial policy in the u. S. I have talked a lot about an industrial strategy. I think the debate about whether the u. S. Should have an industrial strategy has long since passed and the question is not should we have one, but how to do it and how to do it most effectively. In a global economy, where it would be naive to think that we operate in a global economy, where every actor is equal and all we need to do is freemarket but we have to do it in a way that is calibrated toward our economic priorities and ergonomic interest. On the chips bill specifically, the answer is that this is a bill that was very carefully designed to make sure that we are building the industrial capacity that we need here in the u. S. To diversify our countrys exposure to semiconductor production. But in a way where the benefits will redound to people, communities, the economy, not just individual companies. David the dollar is at record levels against the pound. It is thought maybe the dollar will go to parity with the pound, maybe even with the euro. During the reagan administration, there was an accord where there was a global readjustment of currency levels, putting them more in accord with what made since the people. Do you see any possibility of a global accord to adjust currency values the way it was with th at, or is it not something you are focused on . Brian i do not anticipate that isheed david ok. Lets ask about the middle east for a moment. President biden went to the middle east, saudi arabia. What would you say is the economic relationship we have now with saudi arabia . Is he able to get a positive response out of the saudi government, or is it too hard to say . Brian the relationship with saudi arabia, all of the gulf countries is one that is broader than just Economic Policy. Our focus is on our Core National interests. We are looking and seeking collaboration wherever we can. One of the areas where we are making the most progress is in accelerating clean energy technologies, because many of those countries including saudi arabia, their dependents and desire for diversification but also their geographic exposure to the impact of Climate Change, theres a lot of interest in actually building up more Clean Energy Technology in investing their capital to do so. That is one of the number of places where we are making a lot of moves. David good news good news travels at the speed of light and bad news moves slowly. When theres bad news, who has to send the memo in . [laughter] brian the good news is me. Unless somebody elbows me out of the way. David when do you have bad news, does he throw pencils or anything . How does he say he is mad . Brian one of the things one of the realities of the last 20 months of our economy and Economic Policy making is that its been unprecedented. Weve been through a lot of ups and downs. A lot of unexpected and unanticipated things. Including Economic Data thats surprised in significant ways across the board. One of the important things about being in these policy jobs is the ability to recognize the highs are never as high as you think they are and the lows are never as low as you think you are. Your ability to look through the lows and understand what is important and communicate that clearly, that is one of the important parts. David on the day the Inflation Reduction Act was signed, record high Inflation Numbers came out. Did you ever consider maybe adjusting the schedule of the signing ceremony . Was it something who told the president the numbers were going to be that high this morning and you should change the signing ceremony . Brian [laughter] it is funny you frame that. The actual number that came out that day was the headline inflation had increased by 0. 1 , which was one of the lowest month over month headline increases. But of course, because of where we are in the economy now and recently people look at core inflation, not headline inflation, no, we didnt look at changing the signing. But i do think that joking aside, that number and others go to how people are experiencing inflation today. Because one of the principal reasons why that headline number was basically flat was because in the months prior, gas prices had come down by a very significant amount. And that is really important for typical americans monthly Balance Sheets, and also because it is one of the most visible price signals in our economy. David we focused on the unemployment rate, but also we talked about how many people were in the workforce. Right now we have about 62 of adults in the workforce, when normally to 66 . Are you worried people 50 and older have more or less retired from the workforce because they lost their jobs during covi tsurenko but where they are staying out of work . Is there any progress in that area . Brian a bit of a technical point, which is, if you look at the working age population, actually, Labor Force Participation has rebounded very fast in this recovery and faster than in previous recoveries. Of the share of the population that is working age, we have actually seen a faster rebound. A lot of the prognostications about the great resignation, for working age population, that has not come to pass. What we have seen is people coming back to the labor force. The difference is being driven by demographic changes. The fact that we are aging as a country. Also immigration. When we think about this problem, we think, how do we actually increase the Labor Force Participation rate for the working age population even more . That goes to some of the things i referenced earlier around, how do we get more women into the workforce, get Labor Force Participation up even higher for women and families . We also have demographic challenges we need to take into account. And certainly, there are a variety of different ways that we can address them policy ways we can address them. I do think it is important that even as we look at that question , we dont lose sight of the fact that actually, notwithstanding all of the labor supply challenges we have as a country right, people have come back to work quite quickly particularly over the course of the last year. David coming back to work, but are they coming back to their offices . Many dont want to go back to their offices. Do you really care one way or the other . Brian job that i do brian with the job that i do, most of my staff, we really need to be in person. David so all your stuff is coming back to the office . Brian because of staffing and also because of the sensitive National Security information and otherwise, it is a more difficult to more difficult job to do remote. Big picture, i think this is one of the most interesting questions that frankly i would argue there is Interesting Research to date on, but i dont think we really can answer this question without more experience around the productivity benefits and losses associated with these structural shifts to remote work. Its one of many things we pay a lot of attention to because it drives a lot of structural change. For example, in the demand for housing. David we are all familiar with the classification process we have for National Security documents. The Economic Policy people, are your documents classified . Who can be classifying them . And you say they are not classified and that is how it ends . [laughter] how does that work . Brian i officially have no comment. [laughter] all of the classification system is the same, National Security classification. David you have the same. But you cant take those documents home, i presume . I think you are not allowed to take classified documents out. How do you declassify those documents . Brian i dont. [laughter] david you just ask the present, would you like to declassify them . Brian no, neither do i declassify them or get closer to the set of questions you are asking. [laughter] david when unemployment numbers come out, Inflation Numbers, you got them the night before. How do you make certain that nobody gets them who can trade on them . Is there a process to make sure that nobody gets this data before they are supposed to and they cant trade on them . Brian absolutely. It is an incredibly important question. There is a very strict security protocol around the handling of that information. And it is done in secure ways, into a and to a very small set of people, those who have an immediate and necessary reason. David how do you deal with the fed, for example . Do you regularly meet with people at the fed . The staff, members . Do you not do that . Brian i do on a periodic basis. It is historical practice and has been practiced that the president will meet from time to time with the care of the fed, either individually or in the context of being briefed by the financial regulators. That happens from time to time. I meet periodically with the chair and members of the fed to make sure we are exchanging views on the economy. David and the fed is now a membership of Seven Members . Brian yes. David they only apply for a few years, does it make a big difference at now they have seven . Brian that question would be better posed to them. We had that if i quality candidates and get them confirmed. We have a full slate for the core Monetary Policy function of the fed and also the supervisory and regulatory function. David white house staff jobs are notoriously long hours, and you have two little children. How do you manage your time . How come you have no gray h air, as a result of working these long hours, in two administrations . Brian if the camera gets close enough, you will see some. It is a constant challenge. I dont have particular wisdom or insight into how to answer it other than, you know, needing to be extremely efficient with the time that you have, higher grade staff, build a great team. Ive got an extraordinary nec team and the core team inside the white house, that i wouldnt be able to do this without. It also takes an understanding family. Because no matter how good you are at prioritization, time management, productivity with their own time, there is always something that happens and something that comes up. David your children are young. Do you go to pta meetings . To people give you economic advice . To they say i have an idea for you on fighting inflation, does that ever happened . Brian people are extraordinarily generous with their advice. [laughter] david do you ever follow up with any of it . Brian i always you say, that is a good idea, i never thought of that . Brian i always say that. [laughter] theres a good idea or to the thats come and expect to look. David you are almost two years into the administration and you expect to stay for another two years. You are not worn out. You see yourself doing this for another two years at least if not more . Brian ive got no plans to leave and ive got my head down. I am certainly fully absorbed in the work we are doing. David in the next two years, lets suppose you control congress, what would you like to do most in Economic Policy in the next two years . What would be your highest goal other than getting inflation down, and unemployment . Another chips act, some other major piece of legislation you want to get through . Brian i think theres a number of priorities i would love to see us make more progress on. I will answer the question before first and most important thing that we are gripped by and focused on now is effectively implementing this historic set of legislation that we have accomplished. The implementation of this, to your point about chips and otherwise, the effective implementation across the board is going to make a difference a big difference in terms of the broader economic impact. But i think we need to make more progress on tax reform. We made some steps here. But its showing that we can, as a country, funds are priorities and also build fairness into the tax code. It is important for trust and for strengthening our democratic institutions. We need to make more progress underscoring that issue that often get referenced as care or the care economy are not social issues, they are core economic issues, they are core to our labor force, or productivity as a country. Our productivity as a country. And housing and housing costs, the fact that we have persistent under supply of Affordable Housing in this country is a policy choice. We can do something about that. Now is a really important time to do that, given the period in the Monetary Policy cycle. Theres a number of places where we can make progress. Where there is a lot of bipartisan support. I could go through a bunch a much longer list. David for young people watching this that say, i want to be brian deese, i want to work in the white house, what is your best advice to prepare for this kind of job . Brian if that is your exact inspiration, that is ill advised. [laughter] i would say, i cant encourage strongly enough, anybody who has any inkling toward public service, to engage in it. It is incredibly important in our country right now for more people to serve. It can the hugely impactful and rewarding to do so. And i know theres a lot of cynicism and skepticism out there. But i think there are so many different ways to serve the public, that if you have any inkling towards that, one, raced toward it, and if you are interested in getting into policy, there elements that are true in the public sector, too, be humble, be willing to work a lot, and be willing to not have any expectation or entitlement, but also have a lot of aspiration, and willing to step to the table. David what would you like to see as your legacy for what youve done with your career to date . I suppose, if somebody wants to write a book about you and say, here what would you like to have as your legacy . You got inflation down, unemployment down, you won the nobel prize in economics . What would be your legacy . Brian [laughter] and reflecting on your question, how boring a book it would be. Like, i think that i guess i would say two things. One is, i think that we are in a position where we can actually demonstrate that for the u. S. , doing dedicated Public Investment over the long term in areas of high productivity, research, semiconductors, infrastructure, clean energy, manufacturing, showing that we can actually do that in a way that changes the trajectory of the economy is something i would love to be a part of demonstrating and part of associated. The second thing for me is, one thing that ive tried to do and i think we have tried to do is to say that we are going to have an Economic Policy where accelerating the Clean Energy Transition is at the core of our Economic Policy. Its not that we have an Economic Strategy and we think about Climate Change and clean energy policy, is actually at the core. I think we are doing that. Effectively doing that. I hope that sustains. David whats the greatest pleasure of your job and the worst part of your job . Brian having gone out and being in a couple of administrations, one of the greatest pleasures is the people, you spend so much time with them, but also the quality of people that can come to the white house. In a sense, it is a terrible place to work, it is hard and the like, but it is also a place where the reservation price for the wage that you would pay is negative because everybody wants to come and have an opportunity so you can attract great people, diverse people, with diverse background, extraordinary things to bear. So you make friendships. And bonds with people. That is at the core the best part. David what is the worst part . Brian i think the most challenging part is that your time is ever your own. Never your own. You have to be prepared that something always can happen and something usually does happen. David you see President Biden almost every day. Some people say he is getting old. He is 79. Do you see any evidence that there is a problem because of his age in doing the job . Brian i see the opposite. Sometimes he drives all of us crazy because he will have read a memo that night before and he will have 17 very detailed questions that go into areas that we may not have thought of or that we have to go back and figure out how to answer. That is part of who he is and how he processes information. I see i also see somebody who has you asked, we were talking about china before, who also brings to the office and to the job a lot of perspective, from having dealt on the issue of for example the u. S. China relations for decades. He is bringing that in a way that i think is unique. Serving is uniquely well as a nation. David thank you for your time. I know you were dealing with an economic issue tonight that you couldnt talk about. Thank you for being here and for your service to our country. [applause] brian thank you. 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