Conversation 562-003

Transcript (AI-Generated)

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 Do not cite this transcript as authoritative.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.

And also, particularly the other story that comes, maybe you work here sort of in the arms of earnings, an area whereby you might meet with the, after moving on this, then you meet with the international bankers or whatever they are, and say, now, what are we gonna do about this?

Because you're in a hell of a lot smarter position without import tax staring you in the face, right?

So there's another way to look at it.

Well, anyway, there's plenty to think about, and we don't have a plane out there, I guess.

Good.

Fine.

Good.

Anybody else?

Fine, fine, fine.

Okay.

Volker just called over from Prairie and said the day was worse than he had told Tom.

He was twisted at 6.25.

I'm going to put him at 2.50.

But I think what I hear, I think Volker just loves the old reality.

Yes, sir.

Volker?

Yeah, he's a, basically, it's his bag.

He's turned the alarms.

And I'll tell you what you do while I'm in the basket.

The rest of you get on with your jobs.

Pull him out whenever he's in and fill him in on this.

Talk to him about the company and about Volker and I want him to study these figures and so forth.

You know what I mean?

Whatever you need.

You don't want to see him right away.

Volker.

Oh, Christ.

Shut up.

Now hold on Schultz.

I'll see Schultz.

I'll see Schultz at about 3.

At 3 o'clock this afternoon.

He needs a couple hours.

I need a little time to do a little thinking.

About 2.

Okay.

All right.

Let's get Schultz to work on this.

And, uh, I thought Tom would be back.

Fortunately, that little trap farm is not way o'clock or something.

Yeah, it's an 8-12.

Right.

You leave here at 8-10.

All right.

We will invite all captains, so it's a quick run.

No problem.

All right.

And the worst comes to worst, you just can't go.

The opposite.

All right.

Good.

All right.

I'm very grateful and I'm also glad to have you around because it's so important at this point, too.

We don't want anything put out that is not active, but we don't want anything put out that makes our case worse than it is.

And that's the real problem, as you know, the compulsion of our opinion.

your father's sons, your sons-in-law, et cetera, et cetera.

That's the only thing they're talking about.

They're looking to be able to just take care of this job right now.

It must be pretty hard.

You must be fighting it out right now.

Well, I just try to call attention to the plus side of the ledger.

And there's so much that you should get credit for that you don't get the proper credit for.

And I just try to bring this to the attention of people to...

It's just, it's ignored, and the press likes to look on the black side of everything, and this is quite a problem to get a more balanced view.

Al does a very good job also, Mr. President, of getting the figures in some respect that come out of the census.

If we had the same thing with BLS, as Al and I discussed, we'd be happy.

He's able to take it and put the positive stuff

have a front so that people at least see that.

Most of the things that come out of census now have been coming out very strongly.

Yes, we had to go say those.

I don't know.

A lot of figures have come out of census.

Yeah.

Yes.

I mean, they, for the most part, and see, you might tell

Well, at the Consumer Council, where you talked here last week, wonderful talk, as usual, I was talking to Phil, and he was just saying how he himself felt very buoyed and spirited because of the settlement of the steel strike, the two days later settlement of the rail strike, and then the Lockheed passage, and he thought that these were two things coming together, which were sort of critical crisis-like events, which all went our way, so to speak.

The international monetary thing, of course, is the one how it bothers people a lot.

Of course, these are things we can't do very much about.

The situation has grown up over a period of years.

Well, at one point you may have to float the dollar or something like that.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I think we'll have to see how people in the New York financial community pay a lot of attention to that.

Sure, sure.

And some of the others.

Right.

But may I say that...

This whole economic thing is really a question of psychology more than anything else.

Just taking the one number on a planet, I know it's been a new summer here, and it must be that we need to talk to the effect that we need to do economic policies, voluntary wage price control and so forth, and various other things, so that we can get back to the prosperity that we had through previous administrations.

Now, somebody can just devastate me on that.

What does he want?

In the three Kennedy years, unemployment averaged 6%.

So, and is that what we want?

Was that prosperity?

And in the Johnson years, unemployment was less than 60 percent, but at the cost of war.

So it's a devastating thing.

I don't know about that.

They have never had unemployment less than, well, I mean, they've never had unemployment less than 5 percent.

Is that how it works?

Right at the end of World War II.

Sure.

It was only in the 90s in our years that we were able to accomplish that goal.

And I think that's the main reason it has to be here.

Our Council of Economic Accomplishments people don't get to talk.

They're just basically comments.

But the politicians have political times, too.

But that's a devastating point, what they're talking about, what prosperity.

6% unemployment without war, or 4% unemployment with war, which you want, or you want to have our goal, which is to bring unemployment down to 0.5% without war.

Yeah, right, right.

Romney is giving a speech in Atlanta today, and he worked it over with him yesterday.

He insists on it very, very, very much.

We'll probably have to look at the media coverage.

Of course, it's a positive thing.

The media's less usually, but the media don't want to ever accept that things aren't doing as well as they can be, to the extent that they have obsessed themselves with the idea that that was the great period of America's front of the century.

And when we look back on it, it was a disaster in foreign policy and economic policy.

It was incredible.

the inflation as it was in the ice in our years was not a major factor in those years.

Yeah, but it was because it was the conditions were established.

We had put ourselves through the rain.

Sure.

So we left a solid base.

Oh, yeah.

And the economy was growing.

But on the other hand, on a plant, they didn't crack it.

They did not crack it.

10.7, 50, 61, 5.5, 63, 5.7, and now 62, 5.7, 63.

Yeah.

And those were sluggish years, too, because you would fall out of 62.

The stock market just took a treatment of this.