limited time, get $225 off - and free shipping too. just go to buyleesa.com today. you need this bed. ♪ alix: coming up on bloomberg's best, the most compelling conversations on business and finance in the americas. volatility returned with a vengeance, creating opportunities for some and anxieties for others. >> the market may be wrong now. >> long-term, the market is always right. alix: trade was a topic of constant conversation. nafta nations managed to work through their differences. >> eminently achievable win win win out of nafta. alix: there was more aggression between the u.s. and china. >> the only way will get foreign countries to lower their inordinate barriers is by making it more painful for them.

alix: the fed continued on a hiking path. will they pick up or pause? >> we don't have to be projecting planned rate hikes. >> i think we can take our time. alix: facebook data controversies while microsoft reaped rewards from the cloud. executive share their vision. >> security is always an arms race. they try to misuse. >> technology and its importance in our societies, our economies, has gone through a sea change. alix: there is market insight aplenty. >> i don't think the tightening is going to be as big as expected. it will affect asset prices. >> i am buying stocks. i'm not buying them because i think they're going to go up next year. alix: it is straight ahead on this special edition of bloomberg best.

hello and welcome. i'm alix steel. this special edition of "bloomberg best," and we are going to look back by looking at some of the most interesting interviews. conversations about the markets. the year began with u.s. equities on a bull run with volatility seeming like a distant memory. but a correction in february jerked investors back to reality and the wall of worry grew harder to climb. >> things are going to happen. there will be something that happens in the world. someone will get elected. a company will go under. a natural disaster. a cyber event. war, pestilence. something will happen that will cause all the relationships of one asset to another to have to readjust against each other. it has been an unusual time where that has not happened. people are not sure with the

-- what the reason why is it people write dissertations down the road and they look back, they will say because of qe and central banks around the world buying risky assets, as much as they could get, almost as fast as that was issued, that tends to be a blanket over spikes in asset prices and kept things low. people anticipate that coming off, i think we are going to see more volatility. david: if goldman was planning for this -- a contingency. you are planning for a possibility. is it fair to infer goldman is doing pretty well in its trading? commodities, fixed income? we heard from quite a few quarters, the problem with trading was a lack of volatility. >> this is a better environment. this is a much better environment. >> in the last five years, do i believe this is a more uncertain time? yes, i do.

the question i am raising, is this 1994 when the markets were very concerned about growth? the federal reserve, easing when they should have been tightening. they got it wrong, too. the market reasserted itself. five year bull market. the market may be wrong right now. gdp will continue to grow. the trade conversation is not that difficult for international commerce. m&a will continue. if that is the case, we will wake up and the markets are going to be -- if we have a true tariff wars, we will see the markets down 10-15%. >> you wouldn't call this a tariff war? >> we will see what happens with

the next $200 billion proposal with china. right now, it is talk. let's see if there is a resolution on that. >> why aren't tariffs, $50 billion of chinese goods, tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and tariffs imposed on europeans -- why doesn't that constitute a trade war? >> it is a minor trade war but has little impact on global gdp. it is too small. symbolically, it is having an impact. it is having an impact on investor sentiment and that is what we are seeing. we are seeing investors pause until there is greater certainty. >> i am calling for caution. alarm sounds alarming. i don't think it is appropriate to be an alarmist. the economy has gone up for

almost 10 years. the markets for almost 10 years. too much money phenomena, it is underway. it would be a mistake to have as much risk today as you did two years ago. five years ago or 10 years ago. you have to acknowledge that. i use the term calibrate. today is not the time for max risk. bull risk. or in my opinion evenly , balancing offense and defense. >> your portfolio should be skewed toward less risk. >> yes. not extremely. >> if you step back, what is going on? you are in a tightening process. three and probably four rate increases this year. that has consequences. the ability of monetary authorities to shrink balance sheets limits what they can do. political turmoil. it is not surprising the markets have been anxious.

against the backdrop, in certain sectors, faang stocks -- incredible run up in valuations. hundreds of billions of dollars of value created in some of these companies. it is not surprising some of that is taken off the table. >> there is a lot of debate. i guess it is reflected in the volatility we see over the things you itemized. sustainability of u.s. growth. pace of rate increases. magnitude of rate increases. implications of the standoff the administration is undertaking with china. is there any consistency around that debate? as far as what you hear from clients? >> the most important thing to take away, there is a lot going on. every morning you get up right

now and there is a strong news flow from overnight. brexit. tariffs. political risk, anti-immigration. protectionism. >> it is a longer list. >> before you get to china, what is going on in the middle east, the sanctions in russia, the war in syria, it is a lot for investors to absorb. north korea. investors are confronted with that against the backdrop of strong economic fundamentals. on the other hand, tightening ,nd clearly corporate credit let's just say it is full. issues around triple b credit. it is not surprising the markets are anxious. this is what markets do with uncertainty. they get anxious. in the short-term, sometimes they get it very wrong. the market always is right. alix: still ahead, more talk about the markets with ray dalio who is concerned about the next

downturn. >> if we have a downturn, i think it will be a difficult time. alix: up next, another constant, the tension over trade. some action and a lot of words. >> we are going to fix the problem of protectionism around the world. >> this trade war doesn't benefit anyone. alix: this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: this is "bloomberg best." i'm alix steel revisiting the , best interviews in the americas. talking trade. president trump vowed to replace the nafta agreement and the u.s., canada, and mexico put together a new deal. the u.s. mca still has to he approved by congress. the negotiations were compensated by aluminum and steel tariffs.

we travel to a steel mill where justin trudeau gave his opinion. >> we can't say we are a security risk when we are partnered on so many different issues. the level of complex integration and supply chains means tariffs to canada would be harmful to american workers as well. we have made that argument. we continue to work for it on nafta. i am optimistic. we are going to get to a win win win as the president has set a couple times. >> how much does it heard that -- does it hurt that you have to wait? >> we have done so many things around innovation, immigration, making a case for investing in canada. canada is a good place to invest for the long term. we have long-term stability on the economy, politics,

social immigration that is very , attractive. diversity and all sorts of things. there are a couple people saying -- what is going to happen with nafta? i am confident we are going to get to the right place. there is an eminently achievable win win win out of nafta and we will get there. >> canada lobbied for the 2-3-2 exemption on aluminum and steel. you talked to the president. the new economic advisor for the president was on television saying you were on the phone with the president making concessions hand over fist. is that correct? what did you give him? >> canadians know i have been consistent standing up for canadian interests. that is what they have elected me to do and that is what i am doing. we are getting the exemption on aluminum. we are standing up for ourselves on the nafta table. a good deal for canada also means a good deal for the u.s. and mexico and i am not

flinching on that. alix: u.s. trade tensions with china were another major story. tit-for-tat tariffs, overtures and talks but relations remain volatile. bloomberg spoke to political observers. >> i am looking forward to frank discussions. to continue those discussions and see if we can reach a mutual solution. the good news is, president trump and president xi have and -- have been talking about the trade imbalance. president xi acknowledged the objective is to have a more balanced trade relationship. the presidents have a close relationship. i'm going over there with the large economic team to see what i can get. >> if i were the chinese and i was listening to that team that you just described it is going

, to be you, the u.s. trade representative. peter navarro. you often hear rather different things. >> and larry kudlow. an secretary ross. >> should i be listening to you? or to peter navarro? is there a united front? >> you should be listening to all of us. we have a terrific economic team and we meet almost daily on these issues. we meet with the president regularly. it is good to have a diversity of opinion. when we go over there, we will have one voice. >> what is success? >> i think you will know it when you see it. david: what happens when there is a tension between growth and jobs? that is what the president's first order of business was. getting fairness reciprocity? if you have to choose between them would you rather have less , trade and less growth and have it be fairer and less -- and more reciprocal? >> we want it to be fairer and

more reciprocal. reciprocity is an important keynote to our trade policy. the question is, how do you get there? the only way we are going to get foreign countries to lower their inordinate barriers is by making it more painful for them to continue those practices than to get rid of them. that is what this is all about. this is about an endgame that is free, fair, reciprocal trade. it is not about making money out of tariffs. that is not the endgame at all. we need something to induce changes in their behavior. it is already happening. in steel and aluminum, once we put our tariffs on, europe is taking safeguard measures to protect their border.

they were not doing that before we put the tariffs on. japan had never had a trade enforcement group in their government agency. now they have a 20 person trade enforcement group. we are going to fix the problem of protectionism around the world. we are going to fix it by making it more painful for those countries to do bad practices than to do the right thing, which is to lower the trade barriers and their tariffs. >> this trade war does not benefit anyone. the tariff impasse is a serious thing. david: is there a better way, more effective way to get the opening in the markets than there is now? they have pride. saving face is important to them. >> i don't think there is an easy way. by far the best way to do it is , to work with our allies to

exert pressure. exert pressure that way as opposed to tariffs. not only is the public confrontation an issue but the other thing about tariffs, people focus on the short-term impact. it is attacks on american consumers. on americanattack tax onrs -- it is a american consumers. they think we don't pay enough attention to the dangerous long-term impact. countries want to do business with the u.s. because we have reliable, stable economic policies. is china going to start looking for new markets? our -- which they are going to buy soybeans? are they going to be concerned if there is another tariff war? do they need other suppliers?

what about the foreign companies, are they going to want the u.s. to be a supplier? they think the united states will come in and breakup the supply chain? is a foreign investor going to want to build a plant in the united states if they are afraid they will be in the middle of a tariff war? there are some real potential risks. i applaud the objective of opening of the market. past efforts haven't been as successful. i worry about the long-term impact. alix: much more to come as we revisit the top interviews with bloomberg's coverage of the americas in 2018. conversations with the most prominent executives intact. >> we know we did not do a good -- in tech. >> we know we did not do a good

enough job protecting people's data. >> you should think of privacy as a human right. alix: and straight ahead, bridgewater sees economic danger high on the list of worries. >> there are more ious than can -- that can be dealt with. that is a problem. alix: this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: you are watching a special edition of "bloomberg best." conversations from 2018 on business, finance and politics in the americas. i am alix steel. ray dalio founded what is now the world's largest hedge fund, bridgewater associates. in june, he discussed risks with the global market starting with debt. >> as far as the debt crisis, we calculated we would have a debt rollover crisis.

we have a situation in which the number of ious we have not only debt but health care and such, are a lot. there are more ious than can be dealt with. that is a problem. as we sell more bonds into the market because we are in the process of having a larger deficit, that is supply and demand. if we take three things in terms of the most important issues of our time, other than the cycle, how we deal with the next downturn, i want to take a second. if you have a downturn, it will be a difficult time. you can get more political polarity. the left can be more extreme, the right can be more extreme. i am worried about that.

longer-term, the three things would be -- how well does capitalism get reformed? in a way that it is working for the majority of people? people feel like they are benefiting, they are invested in it. >> that is right. anyway that creates incentives. that pay for themselves. i'm not talking not your social -- i'm not just talking social programs, enabling and empowering people. number two, the relationship between the u.s. and china. we come into a rivalry. how is the rivalry handled? will that be handled peacefully or antagonisticly? the third thing is, information management, data, big data and ai. when we look at the world 10 years from now, 5-10 years from

now, not so far, we are going to see a world very different depending on how we handle -- the world in terms of data and artificial intelligence. how we use it -- it will be a different world. the world in terms of that conflict or competition will be a big deal. whether we can operate as a country as a whole in which we lism, soave the factiona we are pulling together to be effective, those are the three things. >> can i go back to the point you are making about the amount of debt that is going to have to be sold to fund these commitments we have made and the deficit the government has created? who is going to buy this and at what price? >> when we calculate who are the buyers and what do they

represent in terms of percentage of portfolios, it looks to us like there is more debt being need, we willill have -- >> supply and demand. prices smart? >> what will really happen is the fed selling program, reducing its balance sheet, will go at a slower pace than is planned. they will be reactive to that. there will be a weakness. if you have an interest rate, that rations demand the way that , happens is it reduces economic activity. the fed's job is to deal with that notion. the federal reserve will slow down the rolling down of the balance sheet or terminated -- terminate it or if things get bad enough, add more. i don't think the tightening is

going to be as big as expected. it will affect asset prices and so on. at the end of the day, you are going to probably see changes in the nature of monetization or rolling down the balance sheet. alix: plenty left to talk about as we look back at the year end -- the year in conversation in the americas. on the president speaks neutral rate. >> it is inprecise, uncertain. neutral is one piece of information we think about when we think about monetary policy. alix: thoughts from warren buffett on the markets and more. >> we keep buying when it is an attractive business at a reasonable price. alix: this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: welcome back. this is a special edition of "bloomberg best." playing back the years top interviews. the federal reserve had an eventful year under jerome powell. he took over from janet yellen in february. his policy of tightening drew controversy from the white house. the generated debate within the fomc. here's what some had to say. >> for me, this is my forecast, three this year, two the next year, two the next after. some have accelerated that pace. i have not seen an acceleration of inflation.

we still see good job numbers. i don't think there is a rush. we do not have to rush normalization back to neutral. i am open-minded. if inflation starts to accelerate, i could support a december increase. >> what are you looking for in a pause? 3.7% unemployment. 200,000 people getting hired. every month. what do you accomplish by waiting? >> what do you accomplish by moving? there is good news in the economy. i think there is some risk. i worry about the inversion of the yield curve. i would like to slow the pace. >> financial conditions loose after the fed tightening. long rates are low. is there any effect raising interest rates, going 0.25% in december, when it matter?

-- would it matter? >> i don't know. yes, financial conditions are accommodative. we are moving short end. there are a lot of reasons why the long end is not moving. i think we can take our time moving the rates up. >> i think this is a goldilocks economy. low unemployment, strong job growth. low and stable inflation. average hourly earnings dropping. the phillips curve very flat. the relationship between inflation and unemployment is always more tenuous than we think from our economics courses we took. i see strengthening, underlying trend in wages. i see wage growth generally around 3%. consistent with the strong labor market. i see positive signs. we are seeing earnings growth. jobs growth.

stable inflation. >> when do we see wages rise enough to feed into inflation? >> we are watching for that. i am watching data carefully. we are not seeing signs of that. i expect inflation to go below 3.5% for next year. i would expect to see continued rise in wage growth and that is consistent with a strong economy. i am not worried about inflationary pressures for the next year or two. we want to sustain this expansion. keep it in good balance. we do not want to see inflationary pressures pick up. we have not seen them yet but we will be watching closely. >> jay powell said we may go past neutral but we are a long way from neutral at this point. what did he mean? >> this issue of neutral rates has gotten a lot of attention. what the neutral interest rate is. if you look at my colleagues,

from our recent estimates people , put it at about 3% for the short-term. it is above 2%. for the fed funds target. we have a ways to go to get to what people think of as neutral. we don't really know where that is. we are getting closer. we will continue to get closer to the range of neutral over the next year. neutral is one piece of information we think about when we think about monetary policy. wage data, inflation job growth, , gdp growth. we look at a lot of indicators. in the u.s. economy and abroad. neutral is just one of those. it is important. to me, it is just one piece of the puzzle. >> we are close to neutral today. when i look at inflation expectations from the tips market, it looks like they are at about 2% on a personal

consumption expenditures basis. or below. as of now, the market doesn't really think we are going to hit our inflation target. that suggests to me we have about the right level of rates today and we should react to incoming data. see if it surprises to the upside or downside. we have had a good run, good news on the economy. it may not always be that way. one day, we may get some bad news. prepared that news is not always good. >> they have helped members the in line whenmore it comes to dots expectations for this year. the consensus is four rate hikes. the problem is, what happens when it comes to 2019?

dots go on the bloomberg showing exactly how divided fed members seem to be. what are your expectations? >> my main point is we are at a good level of rates for our environment today. i am the low dots in this picture. we don't have to be projecting planned rate hikes at this point. we can react to data as it comes in and see where we want to go. i don't think it is a situation where we need to get a lot higher with the policy rate to contain inflation. they're just isn't that much inflation pressure in the u.s. economy. weakips curves are very today compared to the past. >> i have been saying 2018 will

be a strong year. we have a substantial amount of fiscal stimulus. not just the tax agreement but also the budget bill which increases government spending. we have been forecasting 2019 growth would be weaker. 2020 would be weaker still as fiscal stimulus wears off. we still have this headwind of an aging population. slowing workforce growth. my outlook is pretty consistent. i have been expecting some moderation of growth because i have been believing the fiscal stimulus is going to wane next year. >> we are getting closer to the neutral rate. you put it at 2.75%. how close are you to possibly making a policy mistake? >> the estimate of the neutral rate is a concept, imprecise,

uncertain, part of the mosaic i look at. it could be 2.5%, it could be 3%, we are going to have to make that judgment over the next year as the economy unfolds. to your point, i am very sensitive to not being rigid or predetermined about the pace at which we get there. the reason is i expect gdp , growth to be strong. i expect it to moderate as the fiscal stimulus starts to wane '20.9 and we have to deal with the headwinds of slowing workforce growth. getting this balance right is going to require me to keep an open mind, not be too predetermined. that is the challenge of this. we are going to have to make these judgments and i will make

these as we had along this path. -- head along this path. alix: still to come, conversations with sheryl sandberg and warren buffett. >> we never run this company for short-term gains. >> we hope there is more of a national law. we don't want increased transaction costs. >> we are so much more efficient. alix: this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: this is "bloomberg best." i'm alix steel. we are looking back at business, finance, and politics in the americas.

in april, emily chang sat down with sheryl sandberg. facebook found itself in the midst of a storm. privacy and politics scandal. sandberg admitted the company had much to answer to. >> we know we did not do a good enough job protecting people's data. i am sorry for that and mark is sorry for that. we are taking strong action. starting monday, we will be rolling out to the world, all the apps they have connected to and an easy way to delete those. we will tell anyone whose data might have been affected by cambridge analytica who they are. we are taking steps to restrict data. we are looking beyond.

we announced yesterday we are taking steps to shut down certain use cases. these are the latest steps. this is going to be a long process. we are systematically looking at the ways facebook data is used. we will find more things and tell you about them and shut them down. this is a forever process. security is an arms race. you build. people misuse. you build. we are committed to this for the long run. >> mark has taken responsibility, saying we did not take a broad enough of view. how much do you feel personally responsible? >> i feel deeply personally responsible. there are real mistakes we made and that i made. if you take a step back and think about what happened, we were focused on building social experiences. a lot of good happened because of those. when we found problems, we would shut down that problem.

the case of cambridge analytic was shut down in 2015. we are taking a broader view. we did not build our operations fast enough. that is on me. 10,000 people working security at the beginning of the year. alone wed of this year , will more than double to 20,000. we are massively investing in smart technology. we are doing this to get to a place where we can proactively protect data. >> you have constructed a business model where you share data with businesses. you are the chief architect. how will that impact the bottom line? >> we have never run this company for short-term gains.

we have never run this to maximize profit. we have run it for the long-term health of our community and business. we announced these investments are big and will impact profitability and that is ok with us because it is the right thing to do. >> how much? >> we will update next quarter. >> mark has been asked if he is the right person to lead they -- to lead facebook. do you believe he is? >> i believe deeply in mark. he had a vision for what social services and social sharing could be and that vision remains important. mark, along with me and all of us, takes full responsibility for what is happening. we are making an important shift. we are going to keep building social products. sharing is important to people over the world. we are going to be much more proactive. i am not going to sit here and say we will not find more problems. we will. we will find problems.

we are going to shut down situations when we find them. this is a forever thing. security is an arms race. it is something we are signed up for not just now but on an ongoing basis. alix: the issues of data security came up again in october. >> you are already living in a world where the secular movement around individual data is you should think of privacy as an individual right. gdpr, europe, legislates that. we have done a lot of work implementing that and taken some of the rights and made them available globally. this is something the u.s. will look at, california has that. we hope there is more of a national privacy law. we don't want increased transaction costs.

that would harm small businesses, not large companies. if you really want a level playing field, having a level playing field is an important thing. legislative framework reduces cost. is the other thing. the u.s. is pleased to see us, we had to go to this in court and fight our own government but we did. we worked with the legislative bodies to get cloud act passed. it is fantastic. it creates a new equilibrium how nations can balance their need for privacy in one end and national security on the other. this is something i'm hoping, there will now be bilateral deals. >> you helm a fascinating

company, and you are on stage talking about it. it is evolved. it has looked at regulators. it is still one of the most valuable companies the world. how do you look at some of the other big technology giants see them having to catch up to charges and arguments and resolutions you have had to find in your past? >> i can only speak for our own experience. i don't say this as a terms of competition. when i look back in our own now,ry between 1975 and technology and its importance in our society, economy has gone through a sea change. tech industry is 5% of gdp. i think it's influence on the rest of the 95% is greater than it ever has in. -- ever has been in our history. i think all of us including

microsoft, is to be comfortable knowing we will be held to a different standard. that is what i think about as microsoft. everything from operational security posture, our ethics. how are we going to go and ask for regulation where i think it will create more of a rule of law, a framework for us to make progress? especially in liberal democracies. these are the places where there needs to be a level of maturity. beyond day-to-day competition. alix: for the last words, none other than the oracle of omaha, warren buffett. >> as society gets more specialized, more and more rewards from the system will flow to the top unless we do something about it. alix: this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: welcome back to this special edition of "bloomberg best," and coming up a year-end , conversation with the focus on the americas. let's wrap up with words from warren buffett. we spoke with the legendary investor. it was his 88th birthday in new york. the conversation ranged across a number of topics, starting with his appetite for investing in equities. >> i am buying stocks. i'm not buying because i think they will go up next year. i don't know whither they are going to go up next month or next year. i know they are good businesses. you have to measure investments in relation to each other.

the alternative is fixed income. you get 3.02%. 30 years. would you rather invest in a company earning 20% or have a 3% bond which can never earn more than 3%? >> at the same time, there are stocks which are bargains. when the market is this high, values have gone up quite a bit. you are sitting on a lot of cash. don't we have to have more fear in the marketplace? before you are deploying cash? >> i don't love it for the country as a whole. that creates prices that make me want to shovel out the money as fast as we can. we have been shoveling out money anyway. it is not as attractive as a one -- as i was buying in 2008 and 2009. 1974 was the best year for

buying securities in my lifetime. that will happen from time to time. you can't sit around and wait for it. you are not going to catch the bottom. we keep buying as long as we find something attractive to us. an attractive business at a reasonable price. i love it if it is a juicy price but i keep buying. >> health care, i have heard you talk about this. going back to 1960, the total gdp in taxes, has gone from 4% to 2%. percentage and health care has grown from 5% to 18%. you are involved in a joint venture with jpmorgan. how are you going to then that -- bend that cost curve? >> i wish i know. -- i wish i knew. the answer is getting smartest people we know working on that. we have a terrific leader. give them free reign. not expect something is going to happen next year or the year after. this is $3 trillion or something like that. every dollar has a constituency

and it has all kinds of factors. you can't just chip a little bit here and there. we are not in a hurry. we would like to be in a hurry. we're not going to do something faster than it can be done. >> you have two options. you spend less than what you are getting where you get less. how much will be extracting monopoly rents, saying to people, you cannot have the drug, the service you expect. >> we will not do it unless a substantial majority of the people feel they will be better off under what they are -- under what we are proposing. but you can spend smarter. you can spend smarter. throughout industry, we spend smarter all the time. we are so much more efficient making cars than 50 years ago. it is not impossible to think smarter about something.

you get rigidity built in and various self interest and it is hard to rearrange. it is like a rubik's cube. there's a lot of things to rearrange before you get to where you want to get. it is a big challenge. >> you have said being born in the u.s. is the best time in history to be born. >> unbelievable. >> the u.s. is going through transformation, particularly in the political arena. more extreme positions and actions being taken. can you see a world in which we start to erode away that advantage of being born in the u.s.? >> i don't think so. going back to the late '60's or early '70's, we were torn apart over vietnam. we had a president resign. we go through all kinds of things. we have been through a great depression. we went through a great panic that almost turned into another great recession not that long ago, but this company keeps -- country moves forward.

it will keep moving forward. the luckiest person in the history of civilization is a baby being born today. >> how much depends on where they are born and to whom? the top and the bottom are growing apart. >> we have the problem of a family getting richer and richer and richer. the market system which works wonderfully in terms of delivering output gives more and more to the people on the top. if you go back to hundred years, -- 200 years 80% of people on the farm, if you were the best farmhand in the world and i was the worse, there were some differential but it was not 1000 to one. as society gets more specialized more and more rewards to the , market system will float to the people at the top unless we do something about it. alix: that wraps up our special edition of "bloomberg best." hope you have enjoyed these conversations. we look forward to bringing you more news and interviews in the year ahead.

thank you for watching. i am alix steel. this is bloomberg. ♪

carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." jason: we're here at bloomberg's global headquarters in new york. carol: we have conversations from the year ahead summit. >> some of the most influential figures in business and politics spoke at this event. we heard from the ce