this week on "bloomberg big decisions," roger ferguson. roger ferguson, welcome to "big decisions." roger: thank you. it is a pleasure to be here. david: you have devoted your career to the subject of financial security. why? roger: what do people want in their lives? first and foremost, they want security. one of the areas that is most mysterious to people is finance. and so, the notion of creating security around this thing that is a little mysterious becomes very, very important. david: this idea, how deep is it inside of you? i know that you have talked about your father, who grew up during the depression. that made an impression on you. roger: the depression made an impression on my father because it was a moment of incredible financial insecurity for millions of americans and around the world. and he wanted to understand why this was the case. he was not an economic historian, but he was really interested in these banks, how did they work, why did they fail? in our household, when most dads are talking about sports scores, golf games, my father was fascinated with interest rat

now, roger ferguson leads tiaa

now, roger ferguson leads tiaa, managing over $1 trillion in assets for five million

now, roger ferguson leads tiaa, managing over $1 trillion in assets for five million teachers,

my conversation with roger ferguson is next.. ♪ david: a growing crisis in providing for retirement. roger ferguson, the head of tiaa, says it is not necessarily a crisis yet, but it is getting to that point. he says that is why he we has the job he has and why tiaa exists. roger: about half of the people that can live to 85 will run out of money before that point. we are having an increase in life expectancy in this country that creates an increasing risk that somebody may run out of money before they run out of time, and that is one of the reasons why tiaa exists, to make sure people have money as long as they have time. david: we are living longer, and that means retirement will be 20, even 30 years for a lot of people, and they haven't provided for that kind of money at all. alix: not at all. life expectancy has grown, yet the ag retire really hasn't -- yet the age you retire really hasn't. 64 and 65 is still the average retirement age in the u.s., and you could live to 100. david: take a look at this chart. to 84 we think o

roger ferguson took his pension for love of learning to harvard.was one of the first african americans to get a phd in economics. after he the list on bank regulation, he was tapped to be vice chair of the federal reserve, the only board member there when terrorists hit washington on 9/11. now he leads tiaa

have "balance of power" with david westin and his interview with roger ferguson.arkets are trading at session highs right now. the s&p is hitting session highs, up .6%. this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ david: from bloomberg world headquarters in new york, i'm david westin, and welcome to "balance of power." -- disappointing chinese numbers and escalating tensions in the middle east, and kevin cirilli on capitol hill discussing treasury secretary steve mnuchin. peter, let's talk about the chinese numbers. it shows this since the last year. just to be clear, the white line is retail sales. the blue line is industrial production. how troubling is this? peter: it is bad, and the purple line is real estate investment that is taking up, but it is night positive thing. china's economy is slowing. we have a story talking about a double-dip. in china says double-dip, they still mean -- when china says double-dip, they still mean

. ♪ david: roger ferguson was the only member of the fed there on 9/11 and this is what he experiencedent down, i was right next to both the new york stock exchange and also bank of new york mellon which is a major payment system operator. i knew the system itself would be in trouble. i decided our most important role was to keep the financial system open and operating. what did we do? a number of things. parallel. first was clear communication. very brief, very sis income of the fed is open on operating. fed stands ready to backstop the monetary needs of the system. that created a lot of confidence. then we had to live up to those words using a number of technical tools that the fed has at its disposable -- it's disposal. the third thing we had to do was this severe crisis that was occurring in new york and washington did not span across the country and around the globe. tool theveraging every federal reserve had, bringing currency to new york, keeping the payment systems up and operating literally 24/7. lending u.s. dollars on a massive scale to other central banks so they can lend o

roger ferguson took his pension for learning about the world of finance with him to harvard, where heafrican-americans to get both a juris doctor and phd in economics. ferguson was tapped to be vice chair of the federal reserve, the only board member there when terrorists hit new york and washington on 9/11. now,