Conversation 503-016

TapeTape 503StartFriday, May 21, 1971 at 3:40 PMEndFriday, May 21, 1971 at 5:26 PMTape start time02:56:00Tape end time04:19:19ParticipantsNixon, Richard M. (President);  Stein, Herbert;  Shultz, George P.;  Connally, John B.;  Burns, Arthur F.;  Sanchez, Manolo;  Bull, Stephen B.Recording deviceOval Office

On May 21, 1971, President Richard M. Nixon, Herbert Stein, George P. Shultz, John B. Connally, Arthur F. Burns, Manolo Sanchez, and Stephen B. Bull met in the Oval Office of the White House from 3:40 pm to 5:26 pm. The Oval Office taping system captured this recording, which is known as Conversation 503-016 of the White House Tapes.

Conversation No. 503-16

Date: May 21, 1971
Time: 3:40 pm - 5:26 pm
Location: Oval Office

The President met with Herbert Stein, George P. Shultz, John B. Connally and Arthur F. Burns.

     General conversation

     US economy
          -Recovery
                -Forecasts
                -Unemployment
                -Inflation
                      -Consumer Price Index [CPI]
                -Retail sales
                      -April, May
                 -Forecasts
          -Unknown person
          -Wholesale price index
          -Mortgage interest
          -CPI
          -Gross National Products [GNP] calculations
          -National income calculations
          -Unemployment
          -Price increases
                -Response of American people
                -Inflation
          -George Meany
                -Lunch with Burns
                -Support of President
                -Labor support of President
          -Prize freeze
                -Review board
                      -Negotiations
                      -Regulations
                      -Lifting
                      -Timing
                -Prices

          -Interest rates
          -Housing starts
          -Food prices
          -Non-food commodities
          -Economic policy
          -Commodities

Manolo Sanchez [?] entered at an unknown time after 3:40 pm.

     Iced tea

Sanchez [?] left at an unknown time before 5:22 pm.

     US economy
          -Agriculture
                -Drought
          -State of economy
          -Rate of inflation
          -CPI
          -Construction business
                -Price controls
     Steel industry
          -Labor
                -Strikes
          -Management’s attitude
          -Quotas
          -Government intervention
                -Rate increase
                -Tariff
                -Relief
                -Moral persuasion
          -Labor
          -Government intervention

     Construction industry
          -Figures
          -Productivity
          -Unemployment
                -Labor union
          -James D. Hodgson

     Steel industry

     -Strike
           -Timing
     -Collective bargaining
           -Posture
           -Compared to past negotiations
                -John N. Mitchell
                      -President’s role
           -Work rules
                -Compared to railroads
           -Productivity
                -Work rules
           -Piece work
                -Effect on productivity
           -Conrad Cooper
                -Productivity commission
                -Work rules

Labor unions
     -Work rules
          -Construction
          -Railroads

Steel industry
     -Negotiations
           -Intervention
                 -President’s role
                       -Effect on the country

US economy
     -Prices
           -Increases
           -Stein, Shultz opinions
           -Controls
                 -Price indexes
           -Burns statement
     -Price controls
           -Meany
           -Employment
           -Office of Price Administration [OPA]
           -Burns
           -Timing of initiating
     -Steel industry

          -Hodgson
          -Foreign production compared to US production
               -Effect on labor management relations
               -Japanese labor
          -Possible Presidential statement
               -Television
                     -Educational networks
                     -Prime-time
               -William L. Safire
                     -Peter G. Peterson
               -Competition with rest of world
                     -Burns
                           -Audience
               -Educational television
                     -Stein
               -Content of President's remarks
               -Visual aids
               -Radio talks

Budget
    -Forthcoming budget session
    -Peterson, Connally, and the President
          -Discussion of goals
Financial markets
    -Expansion
    -Fluctuations
          -Peter M. Flanigan
    -Future
          -Burns
    -Expansion
    -Democratic economists
          -Walter E. Heller
          -Paul A. Samuelson
    -Unemployment
    -Inflation
    -Deficit
          -Fiscal 1971
                -Outlays
          -Fiscal 1972
    -Revenue
          -Tax returns
                -Social Security

           -Deficit
                 -Fiscal 1971
     -Fiscal 1972
           -Appropriations
           -Social Security
           -Welfare Reform Bill
           -Social Security
     -Gross National Product [GNP]
     -Social Security
     -Tax returns
     -Depreciation
     -Outlays
     -Welfare Reform Bill
     -Medicare
           -Cost savings
     -President's budget
           -Congress
           -Appropriations
                 -Education bill
     -Deficit
     -Inflation
     -President's budget
     -Revenue sharing
     -Strategy for getting President's budget through Congress
            -Compared to Fiscal 1971
           -Fiscal 1973 budget
                 -Taxes
     -Budget deficit
           -Public perception
                 -Administration’s strategy
           -Implications
     -Economic plans
           -Prize freezes
           -Wage freezes

US economy
     -Expansion
     -Projections
           -Full employment revenues
                 -1971
                 -1972
     -Congress

           -Appropriations bills
                 -Timing
           -Opposition party
                 -Strategy
                       -Deficit spending
                       -Fiscal policy
                             -Jobs
                       -Deficit spending
                 -Public awareness
                       -Full employment budget
                             -Stein
                 -Developing a plan of action
     -Fiscal policy
           -Economic stimulation
           -Inflation
           -Congress
                 -Social Security
     -Council of Economic Advisors [CEA]
     -Congress
     -Public awareness
     -Press
     -Social Security increases
           -Public awareness
                 -Benefits
                 -Costs
            -Blacks
           -Poor

Automobile industry
    -John A. Volpe
    -Airbags
         -Price of automobiles
         -Bicycles

Monetary policy
    -Banker's meeting
          -Burns
          -George W. Mitchell, James Dewey Daane, Paul A. Volcker, Connally
          -Paul Grover
          -Congress, Treasury Department
          -International Bankers Association
    -Europe

          -US
          -Congress

     Economic policy
         -Connally’s role
         -Secretary of State’s role
         -CEA
         -Secretary of Labor
         -Secretary of Treasury
         -Coordination of economic policy
               -Connally
         -Connally's plan
         -Secretary of Treasury
         -CEA
         -Economic spokesman
               -Secretary of Treasury
         -Role of CEA
               -Stein
               -Paul W. McCracken
               -Shultz
         -Strategy
         -Europeans
               -Knowledge of US foreign policy
         -CEA
         -Shultz
         -Maurice H. Stans
          -Hodgson
         -Plan
         -Burns
         -Connally
         -Meetings of the Quadriad

Stephen B. Bull entered at an unknown time after 3:40 pm.

     President's schedule
           -Forthcoming meeting with Robert D. Murphy
                 -Kissinger’s conversation with Murphy
                 -People's Republic of China [PRC]

Bull left at an unknown time before 5:22 pm.

     Economic policy formation

     -Purpose of meeting of Quadriad
           -Secretaries of Commerce, Labor, Agriculture, Housing
           -H. R. (“Bob”) Haldeman
           -Hodgson
           -Stans
     -Foreign policy formation
           -William P. Rogers
                 -"Meet the Press"
           -Kissinger
                 -Backgrounder
           -President's role
     -Role for Connally
     -Press
     -Role for President
     -Role for Connally

Monetary policy
    -Burns meeting with unknown banker
    -Upcoming meeting in Europe of central banks
          -President's meeting with Connally, May 20, 1971
          -US policy
                -Strength
                -Fiscal policy restraints
                      -Education Bill
                -Productivity
                -Governors
                -Balance of payments
                 -International monetary policy
          -Willy Brandt
                -West Germany
                      -Unemployment
          -US economic policy
                -International monetary system
                -Balance of payments
                -US domestic economy
                      -Relationship to European economies
                            -1970
                -President's visit to Europe in February, 1969
                      -US economic policy
                            -Inflation
                      -[James] Harold Wilson's Cabinet
                            -Effect of US economy

                              -Japan
            -International money markets
            -Interest rates
                  -Federal Reserve Board
                  -Effect of steel strike
            -Strength
            -Confidence
-Price of gold
      -Rogers
      -Possible increases
      -Previous crisis
      -The Hague
      -Central bankers
-International monetary meeting
      -Foreign policy
            -Strategic Arms Limitation Talks [SALT]
            -Compared with international monetary policy
                  -Dutch, Belgians, Germans, British
                  -US leadership
      -Clarifying US policy
            -Possible changes in international monetary system
      -Brandt
            -Germans
                  -US policy
-International monetary affairs
      -Connally
      -Swiss currency
      -Austrian currency
       -Dutch currency
      -Germany currency
      -Icelandic currency
      -Inflation
      -Gold
            -Burns and George W. Romney
            -US Reserves
            -Price
            -Revaluing
            -Foreign debt
            -Malaysia
                  -Gold request
      -Burns
      -Connally

                     -Poker

**********************************************************************

[Previous PRMPA Personal Returnable (G) withdrawal reviewed under deed of gift 06/06/2019.
Segment cleared for release.]
[Personal Returnable]
[503-016-w003]
[Duration: 6s]

     Poker
          -The President’s advice on how to play
          -Played while in the US Navy

**********************************************************************

**********************************************************************

[Previous National Security (B) withdrawal reviewed under MDR guidelines case number
LPRN-T-MDR-2014-025. Segment declassified on 04/12/2019. Archivist: DR]
[National Security]
[503-016-w004]
[Duration: 2m 16s]

     US international economic dealings
          -John B. Connally's conversation with an unknown person
                -Friendship [?]
                -Speeches
                -American sacrifices
                -European countries
          -French
          -European attitude towards Americans
                -Envy
          -Germans
                -Government unsound economically
                      -Willy Brandt
                           -The President’s view
                           -His politics
                                 -Socialists

**********************************************************************

     The President's schedule
          -May 22, 1971
               -Breakfast

Stein, Shultz and Connally left at 5:22 pm.

     US International Monetary Conference
          -Possible attendance
                -French, British, Italians, US, Japanese
          -Planning
          -Price of gold

     SALT announcement on May 20, 1971
         -World War II

     Burns’ statement
          -Commerce
          -President's assessment
          -Connally's assessment

Burns left at 5:26 pm.

This transcript was generated automatically by AI and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite this transcript as authoritative. Consult the Finding Aid above for verified information.

We are at a point which is, I suppose, unusual.
difficult to assess.
We can see that the economy is, but the economy, the recovery is not, in my opinion, declared itself as sluggish, moderate, moderate, vigorous.
We're hoping that it will be vigorous, but I think it's, you know, to her to say that it's confirmed that this will be a vigorous recovery.
And while that's probably the forecast amount of
Well, the future, I think, in our view, we are probably almost certain that it's all short of the targets that we set up earlier in the year, at least with respect to unemployment, to support something like the 4.5%.
I don't think it's going to be better than that.
It's coming closer to the target, but I think it's just rather the risk, or chances are more on the other side.
Because of the inflation, I don't think they're going to get very good numbers in the consumer price index for about, for four months, including the year, so they're going to sign on the way to sign.
And so we're going to get a seasonal sign, but it's going to be a much better recovery,
This is the structure of the, you know, the strong path of recovery that we have set out to target despite the good first quarter here.
But I think we see in April, and first half of May figures of retail sales, we are not getting the rise there.
We'll be on the path to get some big raise advances
that seems to be kind of the central tendency of the event and sort of our target level.
Finally, we'll have to come up with a forecast in five minutes.
Okay.
But who?
We talked about it.
I interrupted you years ago.
What are your shoes?
41 minutes.
And we do.
And I think another thing that should be said is that I think it would be
But we are not quite on the path of typical strong recovery as we have become.
We hit a bottom in November and have become absent for five months.
There has not been progress in the classes that we ordinarily make.
But I think that there is also both sides of the picture.
A very rapid recovery this year.
I'd be careful with my games.
It's an accident.
I agree with everything you said.
Precisely, more than eight years is very unsatisfactory.
They don't come to you regularly.
They're not published.
Call the price index.
Here's what I wanted.
What price index?
Well, Earth commented on it.
That shows real improvement.
I don't have a calculation of this thing without mortgage interest rates.
Just look at that.
First of all, first of all, it's very much smaller.
If you take another consumer price index, which is unpublished,
The time that is based on our TMP calculations, our National Income Accounts calculations, 4.9, 4.7, 4.4.
The angles, the progress is very uncertain, and that's still the case.
Well, now with the economy picking up, getting momentum by year end,
The right look to next year, I don't know why they think it's going to be, and Mr. Brosnan was going to be down.
I'm going to be a little bit still in the word of you.
I think it will.
I think it's something we're aware of how much, you know, how careful that the price increase will be high.
The theory about that, Mr. Brosnan, that is American people are fed up with price increases.
That doesn't knock.
That's my theory.
I may have this impression because of the kind of people I meet.
But, uh, it doesn't have to be what the inflation that they're having.
Don't you agree with me this week?
We don't know where we're nearly ready to do that.
You know, the president doesn't like it.
I don't like it.
I don't like it.
The board didn't support you?
He said yes and no.
But most would, but some would walk.
Oh, well.
He worked with us for not wanting to go back to boot.
Now, it's up to him.
Not to talk to Gleason.
Making it easy to start with the review board.
to a very poor steel case, bizarre, and the recommendation on steel would not be accepted.
All right, the uneasy method, the monetary method, a freeze for six months, it's a drastic decision.
I'd like to see it lifted, you see.
There is an area of my own mind in different ways.
Now, you run a risk there.
You run a risk that after you lift it, you could have an explosion.
Now, one way of dealing with that would be to lift it.
Let's say that you... Let's say you lift it early in the year.
You're bored now.
Once per September, it doesn't work.
You swing the steel kicks, and that would be a test kick.
You put it in the breeze for six months.
You hit it by March or April.
Then you announce...
But if there is an explosion, you reimpose it.
I'm concerned about what we have in the crisis and the effects that we have on interest rates and on housing next year and the effects that we have on the election.
And you're concerned that what do you think is a probable scenario for crisis somehow measured?
in the first four months of this year.
Except for one, the food prices, which we do not expect for the rest of the year either.
I think that if you look at the non-food commodities, which I think is kind of evident in the whole thing, you've got very good performance for four months now.
The rate of non-food commodities in the first four months was one and a half percent.
We're not going to do that.
But that thing, I mean, I think there is
My philosophy is that we've got to think today about possible actions to take tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.
So, as for that, I don't, I don't know, I can't, I can't tell you what to say.
It's a bliss.
It's an aside.
When you look at commodities, you see, it's foreshadowing.
I see, I see.
It's good, I see it.
I don't know what consequences of that will be.
I think it's worrisome, I think, but I think we're going to, if I were to say what's the most problematic expectation from the point of order, I don't think we're going to have a great inflation.
I don't think we're going to continue the CPI as low as it had been in the first four months of this year.
I think that the general trend of things
Now, my concern is about how much of, you know, for expecting any time to raise the question.
We have, after all, partly Sweden.
In fact, every single time we're based on the ways in which, you know, this is the
We really expect that we are going to be in for a period of more rapidly rather than relatively in time.
I think that to pursue the policy which was initiated, I would say, at the time of the speech, about doing what we can in selective capitalism, I think one thing we ought to be thinking about is whether we're getting what we should be getting out of the construction business.
Having harassed that metal and making quite an
We're getting 12%.
That's about what you have to plug.
We were lucky at the end.
Actually, we're doing a little better.
And we also have a director.
But I ask this question.
What about Spiel?
Is the prospect there just mad?
And from everything I hear, Spiel, the worker, is lost, right?
And Abel, the assistant, he's got to have a hell of a lot more.
Spiel's industry, of course, doesn't give a damn.
They never have.
We get the voluntary bullets.
That's why you think it's worse.
Does anybody have any encouragement before they steal anything?
Is there anything we can do?
Anything we can do?
Can we do something?
Say something?
Can we hear people come at you?
I don't know.
Well, we can do it.
We can do it.
Honestly, you're talking to a lot of people on both sides of us.
I don't think we can get that chance, but...
intervention by the government at a very high level.
If the copyrights are willing to do the important thing as a threat, that might have an effect here, but it doesn't really affect us.
It doesn't really affect Matthew.
Well, you have to get the vote in, I think, and say that, but we will continue to assess the list.
If...
If we could get some understanding from you, or a package with a limited price increase and renovation increase of this.
Otherwise, we can go to the Tariff Commission and ask for relief against the injury and determine if it must last out then.
I'm proud of what you care about.
I'm not as scared of them.
Well, they're too big to be there now.
They have our success for four years.
I know that's why he is.
He don't scare the hell out of them.
He'll beat you to a bunch of legs.
You know the same thing.
I'll be abolished.
Wouldn't the Steelers be the people who have to get better somehow other than try to wreck the file?
Workers.
If you talk to I.W.
Abel, he's fully aware of the rubble.
He certainly needs to be aware of the rubble.
We'll be back in a bit.
The whole problem of being Trump is not as easy.
The question of being Trump may not work.
They want to do it.
They'll bring them in here and say, look, we're going to hold it up.
That would be an important thing.
Well, can we go back to what?
Can we go back just for a second to construction?
Sure.
Oh, and we haven't come down from 20 to 10.
Here are the figures.
The increase in the first quarter of 1970 was 13%.
Next quarter, 13%.
Next quarter, 16%.
Next quarter, 14%.
Go back to that.
And this is Merrillville.
Whatever the action is, what is a start to the very, very low-collective learning instruction during the first quarter of any year.
It really starts in April.
And this, whatever effect this floor will have, it hasn't really been established there yet about the time of the first quarter.
Well, this is what we know of that.
We have a calculator on the floor.
I'm as confident as I am in defending the board.
That said, I think it's going to be a tough exercise.
You mean the board has not yet been reflecting on the first quarter figure 20 case?
That's fair.
They just really had their first case that tested anything last week.
That was a 12% case.
I agree with the statements of people like Steve Teckel, Will Knight, and his people.
The question of the deterioration of productivity in the industry, that things are quite a lot better.
You can see in the construction industry how unemployment works more directly in the industry than most because the jobs turn over so fast and employers
have the right to reject people who are set by the union.
They'll go back to the union hall and get another worker, but if the union sends somebody they don't want, they just tell them to go away, which, now, that's done all the time.
So the fact that there are people on the bench as they could does have an impact in that industry that happens more and faster than possible.
Could I ask this?
Could I ask this to be done now?
What is, I think the, I think in this case, how should it be?
I'd like to get a scenario with regard to what our options, what, if anything, we should be, I don't know, we always say all the things about steel.
I said it at press conference at the University of, I'm sure, too.
It's our business.
I don't know if we get to do it.
Ours might just like to see what we can do.
I would rather not we.
do till they uh well the strike is here and they say what the hell we're going to do i don't know there's some time to move now maybe we'll look what does it sell in july well it seems to me it would seem to me based on the one on this field and then you'd have to start doing something around the first of the 15th of june which the fourth of that day or the first of july maybe
30 days before.
Of course, the other thing to do is to wait until they get it in August.
And then you start to ask really what the clutch is.
They don't really market seriously until they get it pretty now.
I don't know.
Their pattern is that they've been for a couple of days here in Washington.
They're going to buy it in Washington.
That's nice.
They could get it in New York and the company would go to Pittsburgh.
So they went on to Washington.
We're here.
That's what that is.
and, uh, making posture-type statements to each other.
And as I understand it, I'm married.
Uh, company by company, and, you know, we're in a national bargain.
I think they, they, they, they, uh, they may just, uh, give us a study on this.
Have something I can look at.
What?
I don't know what we could do.
They may decide to do nothing, but I think they ought to be able to participate.
I've been on a seal before.
One of them is my experience.
That dam strike went on for 90 days.
That's where we were in.
We were there 14 days.
Yeah.
Well, it worked.
Well, I think it ought to be a deliberate decision.
I didn't want this field thing to happen to us.
There we go.
I remember, too, we did, that was quite a process, too.
We sat and met with the men over hours and hours and hours.
You sat with them?
Yeah, well, all gentlemen.
I get a creditor, he mentions, he could have done it if I hadn't been there because we got out of my house after nine straight days and I stopped there.
Mitchell, you know, he knew how we were, all the numbers and so forth.
But I was just there to put the heat on it, and I kept it on.
But Mitchell was the engine.
He settled.
But I remember going to the major part I had to play.
I had to go up and sell the engine.
I went up to the Walmart and started.
They had all the steel ones.
All the steel presidents, of course they had big steel, and all the other ones that were there, Bethlehem.
I spoke to the Iron and Steel Institute as a senator, and here's what's more of a company.
Forget what a sad group they were.
I mean, here are all these guys, I mean, I don't know if you remember, because we had to sell them, see?
After we got the union, so we had to sell them to smaller companies.
Because the main thing, the main factor that was disturbing to them, there wasn't any of it to give on work rules.
That is real.
They say there was a little.
If you know George, they set up that little committee or something, and they would not always talk about that kind of thing.
The rules that these people have got to fight sometimes.
If we could, if somebody could get out of it, is it impossible to get a whole leg able to talk about work rules?
So I believe myself in the area of trying to get a reconciliation of some kind.
I just don't think you're going to get any of it to settle for anything other than somewhere where it can't be that non-operable.
In terms of productivity, in terms of productivity and work rules,
in that area.
I think he could darn near start working on that very soon.
It is something where everybody is strong.
It's the tax industries in morally bad shape.
And they aren't going to get it simply by driving prices.
They've got to give management more of a chance to rest.
I don't know if you've heard of this.
I don't know if you've heard of this.
Work groups.
Productivity problems.
Not productivity problems.
Respective work groups.
Sir, here's a great thing about my company and locality.
They're very heavily on piecework now, and they're sort of ambivalent about it.
They like it on the one hand, and on the other hand, after piecework has been in effect for, say, three years now, even,
job usually is a detriment to productivity rather than they just have that characteristic to it so i really think there are things that could be done people could be interested in doing the problem that steel bargaining that you got into was somehow that issue came out
In a planetary way.
Sure did.
And, uh...
Practically broke up the negotiation deal.
Now, the promise to get this country concerted in a way, that seems to be a constructive move to the party.
Now, how did he appear in 1959?
Was it Blau or... Well, Conor Cooper, particularly, who was sort of a... Well, he's gone.
No, he's gone.
Yes.
Well, in fact, he was a member of the Productivity Act.
Cooper was tough and strong, a little football player, and he just got there.
He gave it, and he gave them the argument so that both Goldberg and our friend McNaughton were able to say, well, Cooper brought up the issue of work rules and the smoke screen, and I'm not talking about the numbers.
Now, it could have been just that.
I think there is an issue.
I mean, I gather, because what little conversation I had with them.
But I think it's broader than that.
I think that's the real problem with the ODIs generally is the work rules.
It's a sure hell of a job.
That's a question in some of the construction trades.
And it's a question in railroads.
Railroad was what's all about.
Right.
Right.
I think there are two distinct problems.
One, regardless of any intervention that you might make, whether or not you can do any good with respect to the .
And I agree with George.
I think they work and they all consist of something.
So I doubt short of willingness on your part to ultimately
really take the next step, that you can get into the active, I don't want to get into innovation, I don't want to get into this question, but you can get into the active and negotiations on this deal, and I hope to have a significant impact on the ultimate outcome of it.
So that's one point.
But the other side of the problem is related strictly to the impression
that you leave in the country, as to whether you'd let a negotiation of this magnitude go without doing something.
And it seems to me that from a strictly political standpoint, that you'd probably gain by trying to do something, as opposed to
to just sitting and doing nothing.
Even though, in crime, you don't accomplish a great deal, at least you get credit for having tried.
This is not an easy thing to take, but it may lay the predicate for what you may want to do later.
I don't know what you want to do later.
I agree basically with both Herb and Arthur that I think we have some reason to be concerned about prices.
I think you're going to see a price move
I don't think there's anything wrong, obviously, with thinking about what you might want to do in terms of ultimate position controls.
I surely would not recommend it now.
I don't think it's justified now.
I don't think it would be understood now.
I think your indexes today reflect that you've got some more time to look at it.
I'm not a bit sanguine about the fact that these indexes are going to stay down or the prices are not going to increase.
And I, as I've told you, I feel very strongly that the funding is going to hit us first and be the most pervasive argument.
I think we're going to go up this season quickly.
And Arthur has been, and frankly, I think that I've been, for your sake, a little committed this week.
I'm not sure that I've been very good on it.
That was on Thursday, Wednesday, I think.
But your statement had an excellent restraining effect on it.
Well, it was fun.
It's good for a week.
No, that's not all.
They're going to glue that up.
They're going to glue these brakes up.
And I don't know if you know this, but on this side of this law, we have a law where they, I mean, they impose controls.
We talk about the freezing this and that and everything.
You go too far and you just freeze and you stir.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
You got to get it wrong.
Yeah.
I mean, it'll certainly help us with employment.
because we set up patient price controls, 53,000 jobs.
That's how many were working in the dot and OPA when we got rid of 53,000 leashes.
Now, I agree.
So that's the reason I feel so uncontrolled.
I know what we may have to do and so forth, but it's not a pleasant sight.
It's the part where you're against it.
You hear it all.
You hear it all the time.
You hear it all the time.
I'm not sure the testing had to do it.
You're saying maybe we have to do it because we're going to have it sitting out there.
I'm not saying that we ought to have it.
I just said I'm a forum.
I think now it would be certainly premature to have to do it.
I said there's not any wrong with the testing.
And I was thinking about it as long as nobody knows you're doing drugs.
In terms of preparing papers, auction papers, and so forth around this government, it's out in the newspapers.
It's only a minute long.
So I don't know what you have to say.
I think it shows as well.
I think I've seen a reason for it.
It's sealed.
I think that's too much.
It's going to let me go to hell.
Let me suggest that we talk to Jim Hodgson and practice on his people on a very low-key basis, very low-key, with no publicity at all, and see if we can, and this may be a crazy idea, go into these various local communities with all the information we have, all the charts, and the graphs on what's happening to steel.
production around the world.
What's happened to steel production in the United States?
I'm not trying to persuade them.
It's a hard set up.
In certain cases, partners just say, OK, we're not here to interfere with your negotiations.
We're not trying to scare you.
We just want you to know you work with them to know what the facts are with respect to steel production around the world and the price.
We're just going to make them a bitch and walk out.
I don't know if it will do any good, but it won't do any harm.
It won't do any harm.
And the story of their reaction, kind of like my guess is, is to put on a protest.
It's like some labor in Japan, you know.
All right.
The truth of the matter is that our blacks are right to even put on a protest.
It still won't make a difference.
Or their reaction will be right.
What their reaction is, the point of it will go down, but I'm saying, I'm saying, all right, well...
There's got to be a lot of objections to it, but there has to be.
I think that's a very good point.
We should get out that kind of a statement in any case and publish it.
That's correct.
I might take steel industry and use it.
I couldn't use it on anyone.
You don't want to.
It might be a way to use the educational network.
We'll talk to you about the Americans here in a minute.
And here's where we work, here's where, you know, some of the, and I talked to a very, in an informal way, which could be quite persuasive now.
Point is, how many steel workers and others will listen to your remains to be seen.
But you could be surprised, what if you were paying for my sticker with those lines?
The other thing, so they want you to know, the reason that you cannot take prime time for that is that, well, there's just a number of reasons you can't take prime time
everybody understands, and they're all going to be listening, so let your audience just go right now.
But the educational network is always available.
I mean, they work for anybody at all.
Mr. President, we will soon have a quite thorough report on this, too, on this.
We didn't prepare a conference yet.
We may not have a document or a television chart.
Let me suggest this, that you get to Sapphire and have Tom Newark with Peterson.
You know, Peterson, of course, has got some stuff.
And he's a great chart man.
And your people, see if they can work up a...
a very understandable 30-minute pitch on here's an American industry, here's the problem.
And I'd like you to know what the problem is.
Just think about this problem.
And it isn't, we're not singling out this industry, but it is so important to the future of this country and so forth, we've got to know it.
And then all of us in America have got to see what are we going to do?
I mean, how are we going to compete with the rest of the world?
I think Parker's point is very well stated.
The people most likely to look at it, they're going to be the business side.
And they should be reassured that at least we were thinking about it.
They said that if they get a sign, they don't get a dad about it.
We care very much.
They don't have to determine whether they have to do anything.
It's just the press over the nation.
It's not just a person.
It's not just a person.
I'm on that education television.
My God, of course, magazines, everybody took this story, plenty of people on education television.
Herb and I suggest this is a detail, but on the first thing, if you draw a chart, black people, like one of these fountains, the steel industry getting the fountains, and then out of each fount comes automobile people, refrigerators, and so forth.
So what do you mean to America?
So that you don't just narrow it to the context of steel and steel workers and steel ranchers and steel heads and we don't have to say, yeah, there are some who believe, you know, the no growth school in this country that we should be made steel anyway.
We should be a service industries country.
We shouldn't have a steel industry.
We ought to turn it off.
It's another reason that it's quite fundamental.
While we hope that it will never be in our time, but in the next hundred years that we may have a world that will certainly not have war,
that'll come soon, but where nations might
The time is ever going to come, the whole course of human existence.
They're not going to be highly competitive.
And one's going to try to do it, and the other people, you do it.
Communities do it to communities.
Companies within industries do it to companies within industries.
Unions do it to unions.
That's human conduct.
And believe me, the second coming of Christ, the walk into every single planet is going to change the people.
Maybe a little.
Maybe a little.
They might not shoot each other.
They're still going to compete.
So, well, listen, I say crack at that.
That might be interesting.
But I mean, making visual this time rather than just...
The other way to do it is to go on and talk about it.
I can go on and talk about it.
See, I have a series of radio talks coming up on Sunday afternoon.
I could recognize the name very nicely there.
The trouble is that the, you know, steel thing, I think the visual could be quite effective.
The visual could be quite effective.
I'm not sure.
For now, he would be, um, good.
This would have, uh, beneficial influence.
Correct.
The police knows we know.
Well, let's go on to, I thought we could probably get to the news department.
The budget is worse than this, so don't take long, please.
We're going to plan, evidently, a two-day budget session in about the last week of June, like we always have.
And we'll have a two-day session on.
Where do we go from here that you and I were talking about yesterday?
What are our goals with Oakland and so on?
And some people should come and tell us about the question.
I don't know if that's a huge question.
But you know how bad it is?
Just as an additional comment, I don't know if Eric and Arthur were saying that, but I can't help but feel the difference between the only people who couldn't understand what I was saying
that I've had, and I know others have had, been in work with current histories, even with the kind of build-up that's going on.
But there's an awful lot of discounting in these markets.
I mean, many of these meetings with Peter Flanagan have been about old Christchism and so on, which, of course, makes me feel good.
They're stating it as a complaint, but it's a sign that markets are soft.
Now, here's the thing.
The way Archer thinks the economy is likely to move, which it would be to say, I guess, substantial below the 10.55 kind of movement.
I've talked about polls.
None of these markets are going to stay more or less the way they are now.
They're going to be a lot worse.
They're going to be a lot better.
They're going to maintain that, and I think there will be a discipline by that.
But the opinion is, however, that, uh, that they need to move pretty steadily.
And, uh, the criticism that's made on the debate side is that we aren't anywhere near expensive enough.
And we're getting that all the time, particularly from the Democratic economy.
So, uh, y'all are running on that all the time, Taylor and Samuelson and so on.
Uh, but, uh,
They don't recognize how stimulating the budget is, how it's shaking up.
And I think they're probably underestimating to some extent the strength of any kind of budget that we may very well get.
Then I think our problem, I'll agree very much with Arthur, that our problem next year will not be unemployment and all the discussion about that.
It will be inflation.
It's a very big deficit.
It's going to be very hard to counterweight.
That brings me to the budget picture.
In 71, we have a fairly good fix on that.
Our holidays will be pretty close, certainly within a billion, and perhaps a little less than that.
We're now moving holidays into fiscal 71 as much as we can.
from fiscal 72 to the extension of the shift that we feel that we might as well build up fiscal 71.
The revenue estimates as John's people have now had their April 15 tax returns, they've revised downward.
They're down to about $191.5 at this setting from about $194
Now, that drop is partly due to the Social Security wage-based referral, but not much.
Mostly it's a re-estimate.
That gives us a deficit for fiscal 71 on the order of $21 billion.
Ways will be within the full-time revenues for a while, but that's where I'm sure that we can...
The 72 picture is fairly uncertain.
We don't have any appropriation yet.
And we only know the things that have already been done to that budget.
Finally, Social Security, moves by H.R.
1, various things that we have set up.
It's the welfare reform bill, but it isn't just the welfare reform bill.
It's the Social Security.
Big changes in Social Security in the animal categories and various things of that kind.
The thing that we don't have is the...
Operating off a 1065 GNP, so it's comparable.
1065, basically estimated 217.6 when the record was published.
Social Security registration referral.
1065.
The Treasury is rethinking about the yield likely of those with the tax return of the extension of the depreciation of the utilities.
We bring the revenue estimate down to 212.3.
So we have that projected outweigh of 229.2.
You remember the time the budget was 3.
Mostly congressional increases through the HR1 through
extension of Medicare through not doing what we were trying to get it to do on cost savings in the medical system and a whole variety of things.
And about four and a half billion or so added to the budget prospectively.
As a congressional, some is uncontrollable, some is out of the business.
We've done it in response to the congressional.
In other words, basically a whole niche.
Right.
Well, uh, the president's budget has submitted.
That's true.
And, uh, all the things that have been done in the Senate, that'll all get passed exactly the way it was submitted.
And I'm saying, well, if you make that assumption, you get out of the Senate, you get $235 billion.
$235 billion.
So you're up, you're up pretty, well, whatever the
6,000.
The appropriations, you say you haven't even started, but you haven't got any single appropriation bill?
No.
The only one that's acting on it at all is just the education bill.
We used to have that.
Oh.
Where our big victory was avoiding a billion dollar interest in the budget and getting it down to a little under 300 billion.
Now...
has been the posture of the 21 billion deaths back to back to the 22 billion deaths.
We wind up in 72 with a lot of inflation.
That's going to be a tough thing to heal.
Obviously, there are places where it's likely that there'll be less than in the present,
through that course for HCC.
We were grinding for all these programs, kind of the sharing and so on.
And we want those programs now for, you might say, a $235 million budget if we were writing for all of them.
Myself, there are more fiscal stimulus.
But I appreciate what this budget picture really is.
And I have, John and I were talking about this the other day at one of the meetings.
I've wondered whether or not we shouldn't adopt a little different public posture than we did last year.
Last year we had the, we just didn't talk about the budget until the appropriation were finished.
So we didn't really keep people posted on what was happening.
It would very well be that we should.
Periodically, not necessarily every month or regularly, but periodically, make a candid statement of what we think is now happening.
And I'm just concerned about this.
I hate to talk like this.
I'm beginning to be more and more of a budgeteer, I guess.
Uh, I haven't said anything about the fiscal 73 budget.
No, not yet.
We have learned, because we're dealing on this base, and we have full-fledged revenues with the taxes going down.
We're just not there.
I think your problem now is to convince the country to list deficit for loans from the activities
The plans of the opposition party.
What you're going to need, you're going to need like what?
A cumulative budget.
I made the calculation, but I think the cumulative budget deficit for your administration is going to be larger.
Mr. Rick?
I think this is one way, and another way, Mr. Ruff, it is.
The, uh, I think we might all have to do some unorthodox thinking on the economic plans in which you can go before the country, or something.
I'm putting an end to that.
I...
I don't know.
Maybe you pass it, maybe the rest of the way to Greece, and you need to know the policy, because this isn't where the old economic policy is landing us.
I think that's a sure spot, you know.
I'd like to go on this.
I'm thinking out loud, George, you know.
I'm thinking out of thought, and I'm thinking of a constituency that I know and know well, and that's the business and financial community of that country, and I know what they react to things like this.
The posture that we have tried to take here is that the basic budget plan has put into effect this good.
And we should hold some steadiness.
And I certainly would agree that we should continue to talk that line.
Here, of course, if a supposed expansion doesn't come through, then we can look at it very strongly.
And we're going to look much better here than how we've been.
That's my direction.
The question is what effect that has actually on the economy and within the restraints
or the limitation, shall we say, of the full employment revenues.
Yes, sir.
I don't know who you are in any way in the background, but you know you are for 71.
For 71, we're still all right.
And we'll have all four years in a row there in 72.
The full employment revenues, the order of $228 billion.
All right.
We'll set it above that.
We'll set it above that.
Well, I think on 72, the person who started the reports for that, who had a hell of a long time, about three or four months for the Congress to start passing the appropriations bills, and they wanted to have a big, big bump.
And I think you ought to follow George's suggestion, put out these periodic reports on it for several reasons.
to the extent that you're getting beaten over the head by the opposition, Congress, the Hellers, the Ilkins, and so forth.
It is largely that you're not doing it in an expansionary way.
Now, if you're going to bear the brunt of that criticism, you're also going to bear the brunt
criticism of deficit spending, you might at least tie the two together by periodic reports and say, they're wrong.
We are doing this.
We are engaging in deficit spending.
We are trying to stimulate the economy by fiscal means in order to provide a job.
To face up to the tangential benefit you get from it seems to me is a reporting to the American people so they know what's happening on a periodic basis and so you can share some of the criticism.
of death suspending among those who were more criticized with the Congress.
Because they're contributing substantially to it.
And you're going to ultimately, you're going to have a breakdown and you're going to look for another blessing.
And if you don't keep people informed and you go along, you'll never be able to bring high half beyond that.
There is a downside to this.
both the fact that it's happening and the fact that you're reporting it.
And that is the business community.
Basically, after you've heard, I don't mean to say calamity, except that the business community is going to view it as a very funny thing.
But it's happening anyway.
The business community knows it.
So you might as well get everybody else to know it.
So you're not telling them something they're not aware of.
And so I think there are a lot of reasons why you ought to go home and...
We've got a plan on how we can do that.
Well, that's a good idea.
Also, we could just base it on that volume.
No, I think we ought to tell them.
I think there's no problem here about whether we're going to require the revenue.
Well, we don't have to do that.
No, we don't have to do that.
We don't have to do that.
I just say to the Spanishers, and just over the over, I'm at that now, and say that under certain circumstances that...
This is not going to be that.
We're doing these things for the truth.
We're paying for both sides.
That's right.
Our friends, the spenders say we're not spending enough.
I guess the terrible thing about it is the idea that physical policy matters.
This is day 12.
Of course, there are months for that.
And if this economy is really expanding even as fast as our economy is, and fiscal policy can't stimulate the economy, then we're going to put an awful lot in there.
There's another reason for this, Mr. President.
I'm very firm in my own view that next year your principal problem is going to be how do you handle the inflation factor.
No question about it.
All year we've made these reports.
We're saying that Congress is overspending.
We're saying that they're responsible for the Social Security.
They're responsible for this.
And you report this to the people.
At least you played a part in it.
I think it's a very good idea.
I think the suggestion
You've got to report, you know, you've got counsel and attorneys that kind of need it more.
You know, we're talking about it.
They said that all of your opposition needs a Congress to report it.
They don't know what's happening.
They may have tried.
Sure, they have tried.
And then if you don't disclose it, then they blast you for trying to cover it up, trying to hide something.
At least this way, you end up on here.
I mean, perfectly candid with the American people and say, here it is, here's what's happening to you.
And I think that's not a room for it.
I think it helps with the threats, generally speaking.
And I respect the people who are aware.
I don't think they already did.
George, the average fellow doesn't know.
All he knows is that people who benefited by the raise of Social Security, they go around and say, boy, I'm in good shape.
But the people who are going to have to pay for it don't realize what it costs them.
The people who benefited by Social Security agreed to see me the other day, and they said it was just...
Brian, you were saving up for some tough, tough business.
You keep a hold of it.
I've seen the whole process of what we have done up to this time, Amy.
We've been very generous to the wives, to the poor, to my dad.
We've raised their prices.
Look at you, cold as the water, James.
Get over here.
Look at that goddamn airbag.
We've raised the price of the apartment, James.
That thing doesn't always just came with an inch.
Did you really?
Yeah, they had it all fixed out, and they had the order run and put out.
They had to put out every car, and they had to have an airbag next year.
It's unbelievable what those safety nuts were for you.
I didn't prevent it.
They went over there and had bicycles.
I mean, Icicle Icicles, they have it in the car.
They've been working to kill them in Icicles, and they're our automobiles.
Well, I think that's enough on that subject.
We've got to spend a little time because we don't have a monetary thing here.
Okay.
Mr. President, we've got a lot of international scientists.
Those are all leaving.
Let me say that you go to this snake meeting or a different one.
How does all this work out?
No one's going to the snake meeting.
You all go to the snake meeting?
Yes.
Weird.
Yeah.
All right.
There are six of us, I guess, on the program.
Too many.
I hope you all can say something.
Arthur's on the program.
Governor Mitchell and his shop's on the program.
Governor Billy Dane's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's on the program.
Paul Volcker's
through the, uh, uh, where is it?
The International Bank Association.
Well, I don't think we're going to run into a conflict.
I'll have two men under cover, and they're going to have the same audience.
Excellent.
We'll have a chance there to really pull things together.
The, uh, the part that I originally told you on the page that they told her to do after on that, uh,
The, uh, this has to do with the number 72, which is related to it, but through an all-state engineering, and certainly not exclusively, but the problem in Europe, and there's certainly a problem in the United States, and that's because we've been very, very, uh, let alone members of Congress, of course, are many members of Congress.
The situation is different.
We distinguish that.
But I think it's, uh,
I went over to see John yesterday.
He's the economic spokesman for the administration in the field of economic and monetary policy.
The Secretary of State is the chief foreign policy spokesman.
I mean, there may be others who will get the White House to me.
Basically, the Council of Economic Ambassadors, of course, had a special role in protecting the state county, his area, and Secretary Waver, his area.
It's important to have that coordination in that context so that when the Secretary of the Treasury goes down to testify, that somebody else says something else the next day and so forth.
It's not a criticism of anybody, everybody, or this is certainly something that we're working on.
But John is set up in his office.
He didn't ask for this.
That's what pushed him into it.
But he has got it set up in his office, a procedure that should be a simple procedure, and a procedure through which there can be versions.
I know you already are doing.
We can all get together and discuss what your mind is going to be.
And second, there's going to be a significant testimony or a significant speech that we have the Secretary of the Treasury enact, and any other possibility to
as to how it can be done and be never done through the Council of Economic Advisers.
The difficulty with that is that I think that we realize that in terms of a public solution, the big gun is your secretary or treasurer.
He's the guy that's got to get out there and carry the thing.
And others are the in the White House, of course.
I mean, I've told John, the Council can be used and should be used, of course, for purposes
You know, for me at this time.
If you could say it, if you could do it, John, do that.
I mean, I like to see you work on it.
You've been discussing it with Herb and Archie, Paul, of course, and George.
And I think Jim has done it in a different way than Jim and Maureen.
the more that we can have that single voice.
It's far better to have a single voice in any area of the evolution.
And even though it's wrong, what people call schools do is to get, and has the confidence factor too, is involved here.
Now the, it's heavy, I understand, I don't know, a couple of cataclysmics, the Europeans, I don't get to say this is not, they said it is not a problem, but many feel that
the board of policy, they know very well where we are.
The one legitimate thing that did come recur from time to time was, you know, the feeling that the rest is just cooperating hard with everybody.
And it doesn't mean that, may I say, it does not mean that I do not, I want, and it's very important, the number of forums we have and so forth and so on, that the members of the council
and George and places where it is.
So we'll deal with it when you're on the secretary level.
And the stands and conscience should not speak out.
But I do think that we need something to work out.
Rather than my getting to it, I think of all of you who sit around and give us a scheme.
It would be very helpful.
Arthur, you and I talked about this many months ago, you know, about this, at the time, I think, before 15th century.
It's a very good idea.
Now, the other point is that in terms of Arthur's relationship, because we have a naturalness, he doesn't have a special relationship.
What we have to carry on there is that the Secretary, that John Connolly and Arthur Burns, and I know they're doing that, to not know what each other's doing and talking, of course, Arthur.
The relationship there is good.
But I think that if we could do that, we need, in that connection, we need more meetings of the Quadriads.
We'll have more meetings of the Quadriads.
Excuse me.
Let me say that I don't want to expand this
The kind of meeting, to me, is most useful, is one that's relevant, except for cosmetic purposes to, say, bring in economic policy.
If you invite, for example, and we tried it for a while, if you invite the Secretary of Commerce and the Secretary of Labor and agriculture thinks they should be there, housing thinks they should be there because housing is a big part of it, but what actually set the whole dam
Yeah, and it is not a discussion.
It's just, you know, that you have briefings and not abuse.
I keep it tight.
I want to keep it tight.
I have seals and rituals, and I want all of you to, you know, you people are contacted.
Take it hard.
Like I'm speaking, but I would suggest that if I can't do it sometimes.
I think it might be very useful to have a Hodgson come in and participate in the discussion on steel and just listen, you know, talk about it.
Because there are a lot of answers that we don't have.
In the same way, there may be something where Stan says something to the director.
We're also about to get a procedure that will be sure that everybody has an opportunity, Mr. President, to meet at other meetings where Jim and Maury come in.
It's not only a question of meetings and everybody having a meeting of minds, but it's a question, too, of setting up a system by major statements.
Major statements are, and I don't mean clearances in terms of rhetoric or any of that sort of thing, but major statements that are going to be received.
big play that you get because that you at least call someone.
Like for example, before Roger still saw me in the press or, you know, he calls me on the phone.
We know, we can know that there are about three or four questions where he wants to be damn sure he doesn't get off the reservation before Christopher has the background or he, he says, well, I plan to get in front of this.
See, the foreign policy area, I control this.
In fact, the domestic policy, I've got, I think I've,
We have to put it calmly.
We need to do it.
Not from major statements, but from anonymous, high-profile officials said, and I'm not saying we should, but his private view of what the administration's policy ought to be, but didn't.
How do we get it done?
There's only one way, Mr. President, self-discipline.
and a strong word from you to what i'm concerned well i hated the word here and i would expect john to give the word down the line and crack it but we don't and it's as i say it's it's hard to you know all the people who work in this are smart people and they have pride and
They don't want to appear dumb, and sometimes I can press ask them a question, and so they give their views.
I understand that, and, you know, everybody's sort of busy, but I've made a contribution that way.
But in the long run, it's not going to help the cause.
In a conversation today with, probably the best senator of my career, the 15th senator of my career, the President of the United States of America,
And, uh, you know, we have to appreciate them on that front.
So this, uh, because, uh, I don't know, the thing that I would hope when you all go to Europe, because John and I talked yesterday, and I know that he had talked to you, so I think it's very important that in Europe, it's very important that we, that we have a confident mind, and tell us what to do.
I think it's important with regard to our economy, that our economy is strong.
Second,
It could be a very aggressive line with regard to the fact that in fiscal policy we are going to have restraints.
Restraints that were not agreed to on the education bill.
You did the governor to take a million dollars to take those teachers off the job.
It'll have a few more.
All right.
And we are keenly aware of this problem.
that as our, as the, in our, in our studies on productivity, I think also, however they should be understood, is that, I think they've got to know this because every one of them thinks in these terms.
They don't worry a hell of a lot about balancing things.
And the question is,
the question is a choice between an international monetary uh or the future of our own economy that's the problem with the germans i mean brandon's a socialist grant will not give up on any of those programs and he's gonna let them go they're gonna play more it's gonna get worse one half of one percent i know the germans and i mean at least i know brandon what they're up to
I understand.
That's a political decision.
But I think that we should, we have got to be, they must, they must realize that we do have, we are, of course, we are concerned about the international, stable international monetary situation.
We are concerned about our balance of payments.
We are concerned about inflation.
We also have
We are very, very concerned, and that our primary responsibility, therefore, is for our own domestic economy.
And the strong, growing, expanding American domestic economy is very much in their interest.
You know, the downturn last year didn't help Europe at all.
It hurt them too, you know, every time.
I remember my first trip to Europe as president in 1969.
I was around there talking about how we were going to cut the budget and all the rest.
What year did that happen?
69.
In February of 69, I actually came into office and I said, we've got all this inflation, we're going to cut the budget.
I was meeting, as a matter of fact, with the Wilson's Academy.
And to my amazement, I mean, I thought they'd all say, gee, that's great, you're being very responsible.
Because all the people here told me that's what I was supposed to say to the police.
They may have believed it, but they said, let us just say one thing.
What really matters to us is to be sure that the American economy stays strong.
Because if it goes down, that's going to hurt us.
It's going to hurt everybody.
And the same thing I got the training in, which happened at a later time.
So we all know that.
we all know this that the tendency is i think when we go to europe uh i mean i speak now in a political sense and you've also run into an economic sense the tendency is i'm breaking to these very wise men who you know run the money markets of the world and so forth and so on and things that are worth saying and they're very wise men and so forth and so on uh they don't know all the answers
And also, I think that we must be very positive, confident, aggressive, indicate that we believe we're doing the right thing, the right thing, that we're not going to be irresponsible.
But we are going to watch the American economy and see that that economy continues to grow.
I'm in this field.
I know, I know the problem of it.
I know, I know, I just, I know some of the figures here as to what happened.
The interest rates go up.
We can bounce up strongly.
I mean, again, instead of having 1,900,000 starts, we've got 1,200,000 again.
They've come awful fast.
We just can't have that happen.
Now, the interest rates, in fact, the first thing we did when we came to the Fed, I don't know if you remember,
You lower the interest rates.
Last summer, we had the Dan Steele strike.
We looked pretty good, but I don't know where it was.
The point is that they, that I, I'm talking around this pretty much because I only know it, but I know these meetings.
You look at them, all of you that must look at them, and try to raise financial and economic gains.
But they have enormous political work.
the Germans, the rest all together.
And I just want you people to be, as a human, hope here and make us think that we think they're the right thing.
It's very important for us to go over there strong, confident.
Now look here, we're not denying that we're black or any of that sort of thing, but that we're not going to change our policies because of the concerns that this or that or the other country has.
One other point I make briefly,
i think all of you will share this because it's a it's a i i've always been intrigued with arthur's point of operation the price of government that that's what i know about that seems to me it's because of something that i can grab and see but whether that is the right move or something else is the right move for me
or some other place and sat down with a bunch of bankers and worked out some new scheme in order to save the market.
It was the end.
Exactly.
That's the point.
But here's the point that I wish to make.
I have raised, as you remember, I raised it over a year ago.
I said, why don't we have an international monetary meeting?
People said to me during the crisis and everybody said, listen, John, see, the way I feel at that point
It is the same thing I feel about foreign policy in general.
We have this very significant breakthrough on arms talks just because we have a major deliberate plan.
We have to keep the lid on everybody and it will work.
It will work.
The monetary policy or any monetary policy to realize that this is the systematic deduction
the Belgian bank, or that kind of the Germans, or the British, or anybody else that has this power.
We have.
We're the biggest.
They depend a hell of a lot more on us than we depend on them.
Now, the United States also is the leader.
We should act like the leader.
We should be the leader.
There should be no international monetary policy conference, a conference in which it's even suggested that we're going to develop some sort of a new system
Unless and until we have our doubts in the road, we know what we want to come out from that thing.
Now, it may be incidentally that all of you, the experts in my life, I hope you always think about this, you may decide, by golly, maybe it is time to do it.
Maybe we should move in that direction.
If so, let's decide it.
Let's plan it.
Let's initiate the conference.
Let's organize it and direct it and have it come out the way we want.
Now, that's my attitude on that.
I just don't feel it, but I don't feel we should get it.
But they have problems here, there, and other places.
Even though we are partially responsible, let's assume that, but our reaction should be to rush over and say, oh, what can we do and beat our press and then do something about our press.
I think we were very wise to keep our heads and not just go rushing over there.
A telephone call or two, we made a call, and that was fine.
That's a little cute.
But we didn't pay off too much.
I was glad we didn't have to approach Iraq here and things like that.
Because we had a very important fish at the moment.
And I would not want to pay down something in this area where in the political field we may be able to do something.
That is very important.
We just want to hold on to it.
I started to have a feeling I had gotten off.
You've got a different view, John.
I didn't share this with you.
I did share this with you, but I don't have a different feeling at all.
I mean, we still have a little disturbance, as you know.
The switch to re-evaluate to 7% lost you 5-1-5.
But that should blow you.
No, it won't.
uh, difference from what the fixed parity was.
And, uh, the same is true of the Germans.
The feeling is that when it all settles down at the maximum flow, uh, that there might be, be 5% difference in the fixed parity of 366, uh, that was in existence before this disturbance.
And, uh, it's very difficult for anybody to be wise enough to know that 5% of what kind of currency values are in the world in which we live.
They've given so much that the Germans have announced they're going to come back to a fixed parity.
Now whether or not it will be the old, the best guess is it will probably be a little bit above the old.
I mean, first of all, I'm a son of the Howard.
Parent is in the three or lower, depending on which way you look at it.
Parent is in the old.
If they give us the next frame, I think Howard County may have improved the point there.
The question may have hurt them to the point where the situation may be entirely reversed.
Well, I haven't had a chance to talk to Arthur about that.
I'm sorry he didn't do that in the face of his presence, because this is something that I don't think we ought to be talking about.
He obviously can't talk to you about it, but I had talked to him in strictest of confidence that anybody would want to talk about it.
What are you talking about?
No, I'm talking about something else.
It's the, uh, not the, not the golden door.
That's what I heard about that.
Yeah.
You know, about somebody in Europe.
uh or we die crisis because we have official
obligations and official debts in excess of $26 billion in the hands of foreign governments.
Now, it is significant that Malaysia came in here, a little country, but they asked for $5 million in gold the other day.
And if this gets started, we will have to close the deal with them.
Maybe this is what we want.
That ought to be a deliberate decision that we make as a government.
It ought not to come as an accident.
So let me just say this, that I suggest this as something that I am not.
sophisticated on, and I'd like for you and John to talk about this.
Oh, sure.
We did talk about it.
That's why I'm still here.
No, we may be talking about it.
You know, we talked a little bit more about it.
Yeah.
Maybe we are.
You understand?
I just wanted to make sure that I brought this up because I can't.
Is there anything more?
Is that the right line of this conversation?
I'm sorry to be on the question.
And, uh, I think basically you and Arthur are the key to it.
You sit there.
You always fall together.
He's an old poker player, and I am too, and I think we can all remember when he was.
Do you ever play any poker?
John?
No, sir.
You don't?
I don't play any poker.
You know, like I said that day tonight, I say that because I do other things.
I'm sorry to say that.
The only way to play poker is to play all night.
I used to play at 8.
I think you all know that I'm not going to take the rest of the television.
I'm not going to think about the Prince's sister.
I'll take the Prince's sister, the Prince's sister.
You know, he started talking to me about it.
And I said, and I just called his hand, and I said, and I just made a speech.
And I said, 25 years, how would you like it?
I said, all we've done is used the resources of this nation.
We've used the manpower of this nation.
We've spilled blood for you.
We've spent gold for you and hundreds of billions of dollars.
And we've used the military strengths, the social strengths of this nation, the dreams and the drive of the people of this country.
We've used the economic wealth of this nation to do our best to rebuild the nation and restore it in every way that we know how.
And I thought he'd come with prayerful praise.
of Europe now to talk about us, looking on them with the nines left.
I said, that's not a part of our history in any of our actions that we've ever taken.
Of course, I didn't mean that.
I don't mean that.
The French are always like the fly speckers.
I do.
If I answer that, I think it's true of most of the other nations.
I mean, look at the United States.
We are enormously successful in many fields.
They like to say, oh, those poor students are Americans.
And they're not always right either.
I don't think we ought to take a firm, confident posture.
We've got good men.
We know what we're doing.
These people can trust us and so forth.
Like when you see the Germans, you float around with those people.
Because that government particularly is not a sound government from the economic standpoint.
And it will never be fully profitable.
I'm glad the politics have something else again.
Political decisions are a socialist government, and that's part of the reason that they won't, they aren't going to fight.
You talk about our fiscal response, they're not going to fight.
They're not going to fight.
They're not going to fight.
They're not going to fight.
They're not going to fight.
They're not going to fight.
that the French, the British, the Italians, us, maybe the Japanese, I don't know.
I love it here.
If we don't get up on this planet and know where we want to go, where we don't go, then as a matter of fact, as a matter of fact, then for example, if we decide we want to go up there, let's do that.
We can exactly do that.
That's what I mean by planning a conference, you see.
Rather than going, going right, running over there and making a game.
You go there mostly to have a conference, I don't know, explore it with you.
No, I will.
I will see.
Don't worry, I don't understand enough about it.
But I, you, you get my thinking.
You see, this, uh, this thing we announced yesterday is probably,
He has some substance to the point.
I thought you wouldn't, and maybe not.
I'll let you know.
Did I come through?
All right.
Goodbye, Harkner, and thank you for your view.
That's your conference.
Hello.
Where is, uh, incident action?
Both of you have something to do.
I'll sign it.
He doesn't have anything either.
One minute.
Thank you very much.
Have a good day.