a special edition of politicking on larry king president donald trump is taking credit for record breaking stock market substantial cuts in government regulations trade policies that he claims will help american businesses and of course the tax reform plan which he tells as a gift to the middle class critics denounces nothing more than a corporate tax benefit so what's the truth and how will the trump an administration policies help or hurt the american economy in the twenty eighteen year let's talk about that with robert nardelli american businessman he's a former chairman and c.e.o. of the chrysler corporation as well as c.e.o. of the home depot from two thousand to two thousand and seven prior to that he rose to become one of the top executives that. is very active in one of the most successful businessmen thanks for coming here it's great to be here thank you ok robert what state what as we end the year what state is our economy in so larry i

think we made tremendous progress this year i am very fortunate to have the opportunity to talk with and meet with a lot of my colleagues current c.e.o.'s prior c.e.o.'s like myself and i think there is such a positive and optimistic view of the economy one of the recent surveys. has it's the second highest optimism that we've seen in the last thirty years on a score of you know zero to ten it's about seven point five so the optimism is very high why you mentioned it in your opening comments we've seen regulation roll back which has been very helpful not only to large corporations but i spent a lot of time recently with small corporations family offices and they see that it's a very very positive for every new regulation you have to roll back two or three i see you mention the tax issue i think. what they've done now to help the small

business man or woman no longer having to take their taxes at the personal rate but to get more of a corporate rate well everyone i've talked to has said it's going to allow them to invest more to hire more i think corporate tax is when i was running g.e. power systems having a compete with siemens and a.b.b. is a tremendous boost to allow us to level the playing field on a global basis larry so i i see a lot of positive things that have happened this past year to really support business and business growth you know we've seen a lot of pullback in the area of r. and d. the tax credits that will come through allow us to start reinvestment to really drive innovation in today's world larry as you know you either innovate or you will evaporate and i think all these things are very positive has a very positive climate the economy is not the only thing though why is the popular

is fighting where how much credit to strum debt for this well i think a couple of things his popularity is improving slightly and i think part of that is you know we were talking earlier there's really two president trumps there's the business focused trump who has really done i think a tremendous amount to get the economy where it is i think he deserves a lot of credit relative to where we've seen equities in the stock market today i think creating that optimistic view people to believe in reinvestment certainly talking about tax now he's talking about infrastructure we're talking about repatriation of a couple a trillion dollars that was offshore up to this point and i hope that corporations and c.e.o.'s use that prudently i i would have suggest that maybe twenty five percent of the repatriated dollars would have gone to a government bond to support infrastructure i would have thought maybe another twenty five. percent would have been mandated to go into our indeed to create more

innovation you're talking earlier about global competitiveness and in this not only in strategic arms but it's actually in the economic side you know when you talk about china and what they're doing there and they've done a phenomenal job when when they put together their multi-year plan they say here's what we're going to do fast forward five years and they've done it and so i think we have to think about that global competitiveness in that in the world of globe ality today and make sure that we are staying ahead certainly keeping pace but certainly staying ahead of our competitors are that big meeting when c.e.o.'s were present walked in the secretary was there and they asked them to raise hands or how many you're going to increase salaries and reinvest only two or three hands were not you know well that was just a trickle down as it ever worked yeah i i well i've been around a long time and been in business like for seven years so we've lived through various cycles right maybe some together and i do think that we will see

a positive improving here if you look the last two quarters right we've had g.d.p. growth over three percent if you look back at eight years the last eight years we hardly got to two if you look at unemployment you can see unemployment is coming down it is true that wages have not really benefited from this but i think they will i think going forward as the economy continues to grow you know the c.e.o. has two choices if he increases wages has two choices one to take a hit to earnings or to pass it on the consumer in today's previous you know today in prior economy you probably weren't going to have any pricing authority or pricing pressure so if they raise wages and you don't necessarily raise wages when you've got such large unemployment you're not competing for talent going forward what i hear a lot from the c.e.o.'s is that we will be competing for talent so you are going to

have to increase wages to be able to attract motivate and retain a high performance workforce in the world of high finance corporate level. is the investor more important than the employee. well i don't know that they're more important i would say that you know my experience at home depot we have three hundred thirty thousand associates and and every associate. that would engage with the customer was really the differentiation in whether the customer left with a bag of goods or left empty and so i put a lot of stock in making sure that your employees your associates are well trained highly motivated share a common purpose and mission because the brand may get you in the door but it's that individual as you know larry that really converts the sale now investors are critically important too because they're putting their hard earned money down into these corporations i think we don't talk enough about the four a one case that are

invested in these corporations that are getting a good and right bump in there for one case as this economy grows so i think i think you have to balance that there's a broad range of constituents today more than when i started in one thousand nine hundred one that you have to be sensitive to and satisfy wasn't crisil one of the leaders in employee getting involved employees getting involved with management yeah i think you know when i was there i was privileged to to get to know ron gettelfinger who was the president of the u.a.w. now ron and i still stay in touch you know at least once a month and we're we both retired from that business but if it wasn't for ron and his executive board and the understanding in the commitment of those employees into that running walter ruther known no this was this was posted and so if it wasn't for his leadership his executive team in the employees the u.a.w.

you know we may not have been able to save chrysler through that economic downturn when the financial institutions melted down or ok to start markets they say it always has curves right is it going to go down well we've all been we've all been anticipating at each of these record setting loves us you know when are we going to get that ten percent adjustment or twenty percent adjustment and it continues to elude to vegas i guess. as we go forward i mean if you look at today it was when i walked it was like up one hundred eighty points and so i think this tax program has a lot of legs to it and i think it's really stimulating continual investment in the equities market so it's you know in performance too if you look at the various companies a lot of them are delivering consistent predictable earnings quarter after quarter which has also you know given credential to the growth in this economy why is this so much upset over the tax reform how come the simple those eleven hundred pages.

that people. to how well you can say ten economists and eleven opinions but some will say this is not this helps only the wealthy and not the middle class how do you see the tax where i see it i see it as a very favorable set of policies going forward i see it because one of the corporate tax rate and it is corporations that employ a significant number of of individuals here in the country number one i see the repatriation as a very positive way to get couple of trillion dollars back into our economy i see the reduction in policies and regulations as very very positive so i think what we're seeing out there today is a series of of connected decisions that really you know you talked earlier in the program about making america great again and i think that you know that really

resonates certainly resonates in the heartland of our country where people have maybe been forgotten and haven't been able to benefit now there is complications i mean if you think about we were talking earlier about these small small companies the mid cap companies now unfortunately lawyers doctors myself will not be able to benefit from that we're still going to be paying at a higher rate because of the regulation is more to support those small businesses that employ large numbers of people as opposed to doctors lawyers if you think about all of the financial services companies like you see and so forth they won't benefit from this tac reg regulation either because it's a large partnership of individuals so i think there is some clarification that has to take place to make sure people understand the benefits that they will derive as individuals and small businesses in this country is that regulation.

do you regulate everything no i mean you're have to regulate dietary i mean that's part of governance that's what government supposed to do there are there are certain things that i think are very appropriate for regulation right if you think about military and you know some of the things that need to be controlled at a corporate level i think the pendulum probably swung too far in that direction i think what we're seeing back roll back now a lot to the states i think we're seeing a lot of rollback to the individual corporations to do right voluntarily or things that you know may have been overreaching at the government level from an environmental standpoint from an employment standpoint except in so it's kind of taken the handcuffs off corporations and mid-cap companies to really you know get a sense of opportunity to run your business as opposed to being over regulated and i think people are going to do right momentarily larry as we go forward stay right with us we'll be right back with more politicking right after this.

the air.

robot governments can be much more rational and lots more compassionate than the current oligarch healing governments that we have i suspect people will be more happy with this situation than they are with the. los angeles the city of luxury and fame but also an alarming number of people living in the streets. a simple fact in l.a. he's there's just not enough shelter even if people on the streets right now decided to come in there's nowhere to come in it's been a struggle. this man found his own response to the problem and constructed dozens of tiny homes for people in need of shelter when you have nothing in order

to go. you know having something like this may as well be a castle but do the authorities accept such solution tiny house on a city parking space is not a solution her to someone monitoring the site otherwise it will be a free for all and is there a better alternative to end the homelessness crisis. like the politicking i'm with robert nardelli the former chairman and c.e.o. of chrysler the c.e.o. of the home depot from two thousand to two thousand and seven zero eight to see him thanks for being with us thank you thank you. the. earth. how do you compare this is still a very successful country do you like the idea of america first. i do

and i i want to frame that in the you know reference that in the framework of how i understand that and that's not isolationalist that is really reinvesting in america it's really making sure that we have fair trade it means that we're going to reinvest in innovation that we're going to help infrastructure that whole number of things i mean if you saw the recent comment about terrorism and so forth and how putin called the present to thank for us helping for oil what could have been a disaster over there to me that's still making america great and it shows that we are open and we are trying to be you know focused on those things that not only affect united states but are global issues for us on our on terrorism are you concerned about the russian investigation. obviously you know that's going to play out larry and i think if there were some issues there then they ought to come to

surface you know depending on what side i guess of the aisle you are you could say it's kind of frivolous it's a little bit of a witch on if you're on the other side where they found some indictments already on some of these so you know i just am not in the position to have the inside information on no other cool isp let's let it play out it is creating some distraction i think it does kind of counter some of the good things that are happening in our country today there's always that ok but there's always that but thing and i think it's a little distracting before obamacare we were the only major nation only nation in the free world that had no national health plan yes they'd all been rejected truman eisenhower. and now we have a health care plan it's not daughter so what do you what do you like about it what don't you like about it well fed dog business you know your view of obama care so

it is had i would say a very negative impact on businesses why particularly the midcap businesses where people have to consciously stay under a certain trip they have to have those types of things i think the penalty that you pay to impose if you don't sign up with kind of negative i can speak for myself on a personal basis you know i have i have some family here in and we are on our fourth insure our company every year they get canceled we're paying six thousand dollars deductible and about three hundred fifty dollars a month for a thirty year old was in perfect health and so i just don't know how someone that age can afford to have that kind of burden and of course i've influenced them no you're not going to pay the penalty i want you to have health insurance but that's what we have to pay today under this program so i certainly am for health care and

making sure we provide health care for those people that need it the nation is riches are in an affordable and effective way we all know that there's inefficiencies there's tremendous inefficiency in the government today you know i would say twenty to thirty percent i like to say let's waste less to be able to buy more with our with our with the hard earned dollars that are contributed to the government that's at the at the federal level it's at the state level certainly is in the insurance in delivery process many of the democratic and loves his policies on trade. while many republicans really don't like it either you see his policies well there are big issues for example if you think about the border tax and so forth that was being proposed i know for you know some of the large retail companies that have a significant amount of goods being imported would be a problem would be problematic but on the other hand that's what trumps trying to do president trump trying to do is to repatriate some of those jobs and some of

those goods and services back here now while i was c.e.o. i never had an outsourcing strategy never but i did have a global competitiveness strategy what does that mean that means if i have to compete with the likes of all strum siemens a b. and b. then i've got to make sure that i source globally to be able to compete to have the cost position to to penetrate those markets so i had to back to your earlier question that was in response to recognizing investors' money to make sure that i could have employment rather than having to cut back on employees to be able to add we added a hundred thirty thousand net new jobs at home depot while i was there we opened a thousand stores we open a new store every forty eight hours so i think you know that team at home depot deserves a tremendous amount of credit they were customer focus market centric product development and i think that's why you see the success in that company today and

some of their personal errors what. what makes a good c.e.o. . wow what makes a good c.e.o. i think is to is to think about strategy structure and people i've always had a philosophy of enhanced in the core extending the business and then expand in the market and working with my team in a culturally cohesive collegiate competitive manner so that everybody was focused that we shared a mission and had purpose in that we were investing in our social it's a given example you know capital investment you have physical capital and human capital physical capital when you invest in it larry depreciates but when you invest in human capital there's a double entendre there right you show up rishi ation for the individual and their personal value appreciates now you hope that that appreciation stays within the

firm or the company and it doesn't leave but that's why you have retention programs in cultural awareness and succession plan and so forth so i think a c.e.o. today is probably more challenging than ever we talked earlier about the broad range of constituents from the communities that we're privileged to live and work in government regulation you have activists when you and i were growing up it was green male now it's a little more softer term called activists and then you've got this whole issue of globality you have this whole issue of innovation and so i think a c.e.o. today has a huge a very challenging job to be successful and to to get the kind of support and recognition for his people in his products i was in no way recently admittedly a much smaller country and they have a rule that the c.e.o. cannot make more than ten times what the lowest employee makes yes. income

inequality does that concern why would why should a c.e.o. or. even c.e.o.'s who fail to get bailout money you know explain that to me of the inequality of tape you know well one of the reasons when i was talking about the repatriation is why would i was hoping that they would allocate certain portions of it because i would like i would not like to see that money come back to a corporation to buy stock back because i think you're playing right into the pundits that will say well you're increasing the price because you have all these options and therefore you are feathering your own part in your own product pocket i hope that that isn't the case number one and number two like it or not a lot of this is human capital competitiveness. what makes a great c.e.o. also makes that c.e.o. he or she very competitive in the marketplace and it's what the market will bear and so a lot of these men and women who have either learned or born with these skills are

really market competitors it's like any pro athlete right they can go out there and compete and be a franchise player you know they they're able to just say you know the words of london i read that just like you larry. and i read the commissioner of the n.f.l. makes forty million dollars a year fifty now fifty over the contract ok. that seems mind boggling you know and the owners approve that correct right the only area billionaires you know employing millionaires yes right yes so in their mind i don't know i've got to say he's worth it would have to say that given his role what he's done both publicly and privately with all the issues the n.f.l. has faced they must they've given him a vote of confidence that it's that important to keep him in that position. jackie

gleason once told me the great was a great mentor of mine nobody is overpaid if somebody thinks you're worth it exactly he was ahead of his time so i. think you were did you ever think at the height of your running major companies like you've run. a paid. listen i've i've had several go out of money i've been very lucky larry i'll be honest with you i had a very. modest upbringing and i was able to. you know how chief things that early in my career i never thought i mean when i started with general electric in one thousand nine hundred one i was fortunate to get a job during that time it was a downturn and when i speak on college campuses a harvard or wherever i say i you know i started ninety six hundred dollars in the

students will say a week i said no a year that was my starting salary in one thousand nine hundred eighty one so when i look back over fast forward i've really been blessed to have great men and women around me and we were able to achieve very significant things of success and i'd like to think that everybody on the team was rewarded for their effort in their commitment these are today's world these are twenty four seven jobs when you're dealing globally sunday is not a day off when you're dealing in in asia right with saudi arabia or so forth so these are twenty four seven jobs they're very demanding and not everybody wants to have that level of responsibility in those that do are being paid in compensated for those trade offs that they have to make in their life i think larry how confident are you as we go ahead how optimistic are you looking at twenty eighteen so i like you know the majority other c.e.o.'s that i interface with very

optimistic now what could derail that those are things that are outside you know c.e.o.'s control there is global issues politics war war larry for sure that that could derail that i don't think we're i don't think we're in a position now where we would encourage all of these financial meltdowns like happened when i was running chrysler and i get a call at nine o'clock one night they say hey bob tomorrow you can't lease a car and that was sixty percent of the volume in can a twenty percent of the volume here in the u.s. the fica scores went up you had to have seven fifty and five thousand dollars on the hood so it just crushed you know the. automotive industry wait if the government had let that go down larry it would have been catastrophic because you've got about ten to one ratio ten jobs outside the automotive industry supporting every one job in the automotive industry it's always great seeing a lot of us not make time laughs too much thank you very much larry and thank you

for joining me on this edition of politicking you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me have kings things and don't forget use the politicking hash tag and that's all for this edition of politicking.

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don't know. if you found my jewish but you might. just think that the feeling is testing discussed at the custos there i mean just turn over young. this is the last edition of cross talk for the year and we're doing something different we enter questions from you our viewers.

the headlines on our t.v. internet kidnapped and then sold for just over two thousand dollars on an ice old slave market we speak to a fifteen year old girl who has just escaped terrorist captivity. life expectancy in. the world. and washington.