Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray on w b Z,
Speaker 1: Boston's Radio.
Speaker 2: All Right, welcome back everyone. We're going to change topics
Speaker 2: here and we're going to welcome back to the program.
Speaker 2: Professor Greg Staller, he teachers at Boston University School of Business,
Speaker 2: the Questrum School of Business at Boston University. Professor Staller,
Speaker 2: welcome back to Nightside. How are you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan, appreciate the opportunity to come back.
Speaker 2: Well, you were my go to guy here. We talked
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago about tariffs, which of course
Speaker 2: have royaled the stock market. The market today had a
Speaker 2: pretty good day. It was almost a mirror reflection of yesterday,
Speaker 2: which was a pretty bad day.
Speaker 3: That was absolutely correct. It was about two point seven
Speaker 3: percent today and it was down two point five percent yesterday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the future suggests it's opposed to open tomorrow
Speaker 2: a little higher, which again some people believe that some
Speaker 2: people don't. Well, we'll see how it works out. A
Speaker 2: lot of people are worried at this point. I guess
Speaker 2: what were the factors today that that perhaps helped quiet
Speaker 2: the market. The market down It was up around a
Speaker 2: thousand points middle of the day, and then in the
Speaker 2: early afternoon, it slid back down about six hundred, about
Speaker 2: four hundred points down into the six hundreds, and then
Speaker 2: it came back up and end of the day, I
Speaker 2: guess eleven hundred to the good. What was it the
Speaker 2: president's comments that he's not going to fire Powell? Did
Speaker 2: that make at least no plan scurrently to fire Powell?
Speaker 2: Is that much?
Speaker 3: Ballace bounced towards ballast towards the end of the day.
Speaker 3: I think what caused the markets to go up in
Speaker 3: the first part of the day was Trump gave an
Speaker 3: indication that maybe the China related tariffs that are up
Speaker 3: to one hundred and forty five percent at this point
Speaker 3: might be coming down. And I think he's also getting
Speaker 3: pressure from a variety of different advisors and constituents, and
Speaker 3: I think he is rethinking his approaching.
Speaker 2: Okay, now, of all the people who I know, nobody
Speaker 2: has been to China with as many students on as
Speaker 2: many trips as you have. You began this process how
Speaker 2: long ago in your career as a professor.
Speaker 3: As a professor, from my first first trip to China
Speaker 3: in two thousand and one, but as a civilian, if
Speaker 3: you will, my first time was in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Okay, so you got over there in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Now it's thirty years later. We're in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 2: so it's really almost thirty one years later. How substantially,
Speaker 2: since China is our big economic competitor, how substantially has
Speaker 2: China changed in the thirty years from the China that
Speaker 2: you first arrived at in nineteen ninety four to the
Speaker 2: China of today.
Speaker 3: Remarkably so. In the late eighties early nineties, there was
Speaker 3: something which is in Chinese called geigo kaifong or the
Speaker 3: reform and opening that you know. Again, this is not
Speaker 3: Nixon opening China with his historic trip, et cetera. But
Speaker 3: this is more of an economic perstroika of sorts. Is
Speaker 3: China decided that they wanted to embrace the West, and
Speaker 3: they ended up having a really great system where they
Speaker 3: would take foreign investor capital, and they would build factories,
Speaker 3: they would use labor, and they would export those goods
Speaker 3: and services to an extent, sort of like India did
Speaker 3: with business process outsourcing to the rest of the world.
Speaker 3: And everybody was happy until the wheels came off the bus.
Speaker 2: Okay, let me take get back to ninety four when
Speaker 2: did did China was? Was it at some point China
Speaker 2: granted Favored nation status by the World Trade Organization?
Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, the favored trade status came in the early
Speaker 3: two thousands, and it u and I'm just checking the
Speaker 3: exact date on that. And the fact of the matter
Speaker 3: is that it further continued to let the good times
Speaker 3: keep rolling off in the sense that back back in
Speaker 3: ninety four, Dan labor rates were so cheap, and the
Speaker 3: Chinese weren't concerned at that point about clean water, they
Speaker 3: weren't concerned about providing living wages. They were looking at
Speaker 3: themselves as sort of a direct competitor to Japan in
Speaker 3: the in the in the decade of Japan inc. Produce
Speaker 3: it for low dollars and sell it off and make
Speaker 3: a lot of money.
Speaker 2: Okay. It also was a time, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 2: with there was some political reform. With economic reform, there
Speaker 2: was also some political reform. And actually I think that
Speaker 2: churches were allowed to Chinese citizens were allowed to exercise,
Speaker 2: you know, some limited form of free speech, and churches
Speaker 2: were treated a little bit better, you know, after all
Speaker 2: of the events of Tenement Square in nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So there was there not just there was
Speaker 2: there was trade reform, economic reform, but there was also
Speaker 2: some what we would view as political reform.
Speaker 3: That's my one hundred and by the way, beyond most
Speaker 3: Favored Nation status they received they being China joined the
Speaker 3: World Trade Organization in December of twenty oh one. So
Speaker 3: you're right, it was the combination of everything. It was
Speaker 3: political reform, I think what I would call cultural reform
Speaker 3: and economic reform. And you know, to your point, we're
Speaker 3: talking about two decades ago, right, two decades ago, everything
Speaker 3: was coming. The United States was buying, the West was buying,
Speaker 3: and China was manufactured.
Speaker 2: And there was there was a lot of Western money
Speaker 2: that went into China to produce the manufacturing plants. And
Speaker 2: there's I'm sure you know this stuff cold, but there
Speaker 2: are a lot of American companies that took their manufacturing
Speaker 2: over to China because they felt it was beneficial to
Speaker 2: their stockholders and to their bottom line.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. So if you think about just FBI
Speaker 3: foreign direct investments, and you think about where it started
Speaker 3: in the New millennium, it was forty billion US dollars.
Speaker 3: A little more than a decade later, eleven years to
Speaker 3: be specific it ballooned to one hundred and twenty four billion.
Speaker 3: So think about that, in eleven years it went literally, yeah, tripled.
Speaker 2: Okay, and we weren't worried about that at that time.
Speaker 2: I don't recalled. I remember in the nineties people talked
Speaker 2: about our trade in balance, but it was always our
Speaker 2: trade in balance with the world. There was no focus
Speaker 2: on China. It was we were we were buying too
Speaker 2: much and exporting too little. I remember that was a
Speaker 2: political issue. And then that political issue seemed to go away.
Speaker 2: I don't know why the lact way, but correct. Did
Speaker 2: we as the American public just lose interest in that?
Speaker 2: Did the politicians decide, hey, this isn't driving the votes,
Speaker 2: so therefore we'll, you know, we'll go off and highlight
Speaker 2: other issues.
Speaker 3: I think what shange good question. By the way, I
Speaker 3: think what changed is that in those eleven years, China
Speaker 3: kept improving its wages, that they moved from a living
Speaker 3: wage to actually, as I mentioned earlier, providing infrastry ructure,
Speaker 3: clean water, and opportunity for their citizens to not have
Speaker 3: to take a train for thirteen hours over Chinese New
Speaker 3: Year and live in a dorm like. Everything started to
Speaker 3: improve for the People's Republic of China. The problem with
Speaker 3: that is the labor rates that the West was relying
Speaker 3: upon in Western companies in terms of getting good margins
Speaker 3: steadily went down. And because they steadily went down, I
Speaker 3: think people said, the emperor no longer has the economic clothes,
Speaker 3: and why are we continuing to buy these products that
Speaker 3: the margins aren't so good. Let's talk about domestic manufacturing.
Speaker 3: And of course people said it's too expensive the United States.
Speaker 3: And then all of a sudden, as if a switch
Speaker 3: was flipped, people said, oh, by the way, we have
Speaker 3: a trade of balance, and the politicians just absolutely jumped
Speaker 3: on it like a shark who senses blood.
Speaker 2: Right. But I think this is something that President Trump
Speaker 2: has believed in for a long time. I think if
Speaker 2: you go back to his first term, you'll see there
Speaker 2: was some tariffs that were imposed. I don't know how
Speaker 2: successfully they resulted, But this is not his first rodeo
Speaker 2: in terms of tariffs.
Speaker 3: Correct, Oh, not at all, not at all. In you know, again,
Speaker 3: if you think about history. Right back in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: the CDP, the Customs and Border Protection Office, raised seventy
Speaker 3: three billion in tariff revenue that was in the fiscal
Speaker 3: year of twenty nineteen. To put that into perspective, since
Speaker 3: January twentieth of this year, they've raised twenty one billion dollars.
Speaker 2: So on a percentage on a on a basis, it's
Speaker 2: almost the.
Speaker 3: Same one hundred percent, correct.
Speaker 2: I mean if they raised seventy three billion in tariffs
Speaker 2: in twelve months, that's six billion a month, which sounds
Speaker 2: like a lot of money. But compared to you and
Speaker 2: you said, it's twenty one billion and we're almost four
Speaker 2: months in, that's about six billion. It's the same. What
Speaker 2: was it? What was it in the interregnum, if you will,
Speaker 2: when Biden was in the White House? That did tariff
Speaker 2: stay pretty much this where Trump had placed them.
Speaker 3: Or tariff stayed the same, Yeah, stayed the same.
Speaker 2: So so now he the president, with his you know,
Speaker 2: conversation about Liberation Day, he's dramatically increased the tariffs correct
Speaker 2: across the globe.
Speaker 3: Correct his bowl is And again you know me, Dan,
Speaker 3: hopefully your listeners know me. I'm always trying to be objective,
Speaker 3: so I can speak in support of President Trump's approach.
Speaker 3: I can speak against President Trump's approach in support of
Speaker 3: his approach. He's hoping that number is two billion a day.
Speaker 3: I don't think we're getting anywhere close to that. Again,
Speaker 3: according to CNBC, as I said earlier, we might be
Speaker 3: at around two hundred and fifty million a day. But
Speaker 3: last I checked my map, two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 3: is a lot different than two billion dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even if you get two hundred and fifty million
Speaker 2: a day, that that's maybe two billion a week. You're
Speaker 2: now at eight billion a month roughly, so correct, you know? Obviously? Well, okay, listen,
Speaker 2: don't want to get too deep into the weeds. When
Speaker 2: I come back, I want to ask you about your
Speaker 2: most recent trips there and what you're hearing, what China
Speaker 2: is thinking. I want to put you in the position
Speaker 2: of interpreting for us what China is thinking. At this point,
Speaker 2: I don't think China has budged. I know that that
Speaker 2: President Trump says he has a great relationship with Chairman
Speaker 2: g Presidents. I get all of that, but I haven't
Speaker 2: seen them moving. And at this point, I don't know
Speaker 2: how long the President can hang with this without some
Speaker 2: significant results. And I don't think we've seen the results
Speaker 2: that he had hoped for this quickly. We're about a
Speaker 2: month in not quite a month, and.
Speaker 3: I would agree with that. And by the way, to
Speaker 3: prepare for tonight, I have read multiple articles in Mandarin
Speaker 3: in the Chinese business press.
Speaker 2: I all interview I understanding is you speak seven languages.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's correct. I also talked with the Chinese journalist.
Speaker 3: So I would like to believe that I have a
Speaker 3: little bit of insight into what China is thinking right
Speaker 3: now in response to the reciprocal tariffs that have been
Speaker 3: placed upon them.
Speaker 2: All right, that is exactly what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2: If you would like to ask my guests. He's a
Speaker 2: great friend. He's been on this program many many times
Speaker 2: over the years. Uh, he is really one of my
Speaker 2: go to guests on anything. Oh, he is my go
Speaker 2: to guest on China. Professor Greg Styler with the Questum
Speaker 2: School of Business at Boston University. He has led delegations
Speaker 2: of students, both undergrads and on graduate students to China
Speaker 2: dozens of times. We'll get to all of that, and
Speaker 2: your phone calls six one, seven, two, five, four to
Speaker 2: ten thirty. If you really want to talk to someone
Speaker 2: who has spent time in China, who understands China's view,
Speaker 2: they are not as impetuous. I think, as we are
Speaker 2: as a society, we look for a turnaround within forty
Speaker 2: eight hours. They think of a turnaround, I think in
Speaker 2: terms of a short term turnaround, in terms of like
Speaker 2: forty eight years. We'll get to that as well with
Speaker 2: my guest professor Greg Styller right after this break six one, seven, two, five, four,
Speaker 2: ten thirty or six months seven nine three to one,
Speaker 2: ten thirty. Great opportunity for you to ask a question
Speaker 2: of someone who will give you a straight answer about
Speaker 2: a very complicated issue.
Speaker 1: Night Side Thought with Dan Ray. I'm WBZ Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest professor Gregg Staller. He is with the Boston
Speaker 2: University's Master lecturer at the Boston University Questrum School of Business.
Speaker 2: How many times have you taken students to China over
Speaker 2: the years.
Speaker 3: I've been to China over fifty times.
Speaker 2: Okay, in many of those with accompanying students. We can
Speaker 2: talk about that a little bit so so from China's perspective.
Speaker 2: I know you sent me a little summary which I
Speaker 2: really appreciated. The time you spent today you were checking
Speaker 2: out China television news, financial times in China, and in
Speaker 2: another website called Caxon, which I'm not familiar with. That
Speaker 2: is a Chinese based newspaper or.
Speaker 3: Is it a correct It's in Chinese, it's pronounced I seen,
Speaker 3: and it is the probably equivalent of Yahoo Finance here
Speaker 3: in the States.
Speaker 2: Gotcha? Okay? Perfect? Okay? So so they obviously representing many
Speaker 2: their articles represent the philosophy of the government more so
Speaker 2: than say, the New York Times and ABC and yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, Yahoo Finance represents the philosophy necessarily of the
Speaker 2: incumbent administration here. So when you read them, you're really
Speaker 2: reading what the Chinese government believes it. Am I correct
Speaker 2: when I say that? Or is that too correct?
Speaker 3: And obviously you know we can we can split hairs.
Speaker 3: I'm not necessarily sure that all three of those articles
Speaker 3: are direct mouthpieces for the Chinese government, right, not I
Speaker 3: but I but I think they are directionally correct.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay, and so so cumulatively, what do you think
Speaker 2: Chinese position here is when when when President Trump sits
Speaker 2: down with his advisors and he says to them, you
Speaker 2: know what's going on? What are they thinking? How come
Speaker 2: they haven't folded their tent here? We'll hit him with
Speaker 2: one hundred and tariff of one hundred and forty five percent.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Would I tak Yeah, I would tell them that there
Speaker 3: are three things going on. One is they are displaying
Speaker 3: a show of confidence. Second is that they are displaying
Speaker 3: a show of pragmatism. And third is they are calling
Speaker 3: President Trump's bluff, saying that he overestimated his bargaining approach
Speaker 3: on the terifficient.
Speaker 2: Okay, so how long are they willing to to steer
Speaker 2: him down? At what point does either side give or
Speaker 2: could this go one now for months?
Speaker 3: So that was the epicody that I had as I
Speaker 3: finished my third article and actually checked this with a
Speaker 3: Chinese national to make sure that my translation was correct.
Speaker 3: There are in the process of rejiggering their supledging. They
Speaker 3: are already in advanced discussions with German companies in China.
Speaker 3: They're already in discussions with Latin American companies in China.
Speaker 3: And they basically said, we gave the United States, for
Speaker 3: all intents and purposes, a right of first trading refusal.
Speaker 3: We love working with the United States. We worked with
Speaker 3: the United States since you know they got into the
Speaker 3: World Trade Organization in twenty oh one. But if times
Speaker 3: are going to change, and a direct translation from the article.
Speaker 3: If the US is proving to be unreliable, we still
Speaker 3: have a job to do.
Speaker 2: So in in layman's terms. In Layman's terms, what is
Speaker 2: the impact on us if that is not a bluff,
Speaker 2: but that is what they really believe in, what they
Speaker 2: really intend to follow through with.
Speaker 3: I think to your point before you went into a break,
Speaker 3: that the Chinese perspective of time is a lot different
Speaker 3: than we have it here in the United States, so
Speaker 3: they're in no particular rush. I think that President Trump
Speaker 3: was hoping for a quick turnaround on this, and it
Speaker 3: certainly is not happening as quickly as he would like.
Speaker 3: So I think that China is taking the pack of
Speaker 3: We'll keep talking and hopefully we can broker some sort
Speaker 3: of settlement, but we're not going to rush the process.
Speaker 3: And if you guys aren't making a decision, we are
Speaker 3: going to rejigger our supply chain. And it's sort of
Speaker 3: the game of musical economic chairs, and we hope the
Speaker 3: United States still has a chair when the music stops.
Speaker 2: Okay, when we get back, I'd like to talk about
Speaker 2: what is it that we so desperately need from China
Speaker 2: that that would would be a pressure point.
Speaker 3: Great, great question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and how long can we do without before a
Speaker 2: real crisis. I mean we're in a crisis now, but
Speaker 2: the crisis intensifies, that will be where we'll start on
Speaker 2: the other side of the news at the bottom of
Speaker 2: the hour. My name is Dan Ray. This is Nightside
Speaker 2: listening to my guest, Boston University professor at the School
Speaker 2: of at the School the Question School of Business. He's
Speaker 2: a master lecturer there. I was stunned that you speak
Speaker 2: seven languages. Greg. I've known you and I have a
Speaker 2: tough time speaking one and I'm the talk show host.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll keep in mind there. I stick at sports
Speaker 3: and I don't do hold improvement on the weekend, so
Speaker 3: I need something to keep myself.
Speaker 4: In the.
Speaker 2: Professor Greg Staller, the Boston University Question School of Business.
Speaker 2: If you'd like to join the conversation, you have the numbers,
Speaker 2: love to hear your questions. I'm trying to think of
Speaker 2: the best questions I can come up with, but I'm
Speaker 2: sure you have some better questions, So feel free to
Speaker 2: join our conversation at six month seven two five four
Speaker 2: to ten thirty six month seven nine three one tenth
Speaker 2: Already Professor Staller was telling me that it was with
Speaker 2: us just two or three weeks ago. I can go
Speaker 2: back and find the date. He said that he never
Speaker 2: had such response in all his times here on Nightside
Speaker 2: to this topic, which is in very large part why
Speaker 2: I want him to come back tonight and stay with
Speaker 2: us on a regular basis, because I think, just as
Speaker 2: COVID was the story of twenty twenty, this my instinct
Speaker 2: political instinct tells me this is the story of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. We'll be back on Nightside right after the
Speaker 2: news at the bottom of the hour.
Speaker 1: You're on Nightside with Dan Ray on WBZY, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: You are indeed on night Side with Dan Ray, but
Speaker 2: you were also on with Professor Greg Staller. He is
Speaker 2: a master lecturer at the Boston University Questum School of Business.
Speaker 2: It's been back and forth to China dozens of times
Speaker 2: in the last thirty years. Knows that economy as well
Speaker 2: as anyone I could imagine. So Greg, the question we
Speaker 2: left with on the other side of the break was,
Speaker 2: we're a We're an impatient We are impatient people in America.
Speaker 2: We want things done quickly and effectively and efficiently. At
Speaker 2: what point is this going to start to. Right now,
Speaker 2: we're worried about the fluctuations in the stock market, and
Speaker 2: people to worry about their fro one ks and their
Speaker 2: iras and all of that sort of stuff, their wroth accounts.
Speaker 2: They're worried about the value of their investments. When does,
Speaker 2: when does this get better anytime soon? And how do
Speaker 2: you see it getting better? Let's look positively, does the
Speaker 2: President Trump announced deals with sixty or seventy five major
Speaker 2: nations and isolate China or the China just hang out
Speaker 2: and effect make us uh so uncomfortable that that we're
Speaker 2: missing medications or we're missing computer chips. So whatever, what
Speaker 2: how does this end? Do you think?
Speaker 4: Again?
Speaker 3: Good question, Dan. You you might think I know a
Speaker 3: lot about China. You know more about politics than I
Speaker 3: could ever know in probably two lifetimes. It's my understanding
Speaker 3: at that's true, Uh, Craig if I'm wrong, but I
Speaker 3: believe that a number of elections, either at the local,
Speaker 3: the state or the national level, are often decided by
Speaker 3: people in terms of the impact of their pocketbook. And
Speaker 3: I think if if I think, if it's and you
Speaker 3: can you know, give all of the statistics that you
Speaker 3: want as a political candidate of how well you've done,
Speaker 3: But if the economy isn't humming along, people are going
Speaker 3: to use that against you. That's my understanding, right.
Speaker 2: And there are special elections that have come up recently.
Speaker 2: Even though the Republicans held two congressional seats in Florida,
Speaker 2: the margin of victory in those seats are pretty disquieting
Speaker 2: for the Republican Party because these were districts that in
Speaker 2: northern Florida, which President Trump carried by some thirty two
Speaker 2: or thirty four points, big, big, big victories, and they
Speaker 2: were within March, they were within ten point margins, huge difference,
Speaker 2: trending in the wrong way for the Republicans. So those
Speaker 2: would be a couple of canaries in the coal mine
Speaker 2: for the Republicans. And you know, at some point there'll
Speaker 2: be more of this, so that you know the politics
Speaker 2: very well as well. I'm more interested in the economic
Speaker 2: impact here.
Speaker 3: So the economic impact is that, according to a number
Speaker 3: of sources that I've been reading for the past three
Speaker 3: or four weeks, this could represent this being the tariffs,
Speaker 3: a loss of almost five thousand dollars per household if
Speaker 3: things continue unchanged.
Speaker 2: Is that worst case scenario.
Speaker 3: That is worst case scenario, and even though he's put
Speaker 3: a pause on it for ninety days, multiple outlets have
Speaker 3: reported that it could go anywhere from a low of
Speaker 3: three thousand to a higher seven thousand. I splewit the
Speaker 3: difference at five as the worst case scenario, and it
Speaker 3: could be a problem.
Speaker 2: Okay. Meanwhile, China sits back and there's nothing that we
Speaker 2: have or that they need that they now cannot afford.
Speaker 2: I mean, I assume that's part of the White House strategy.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, the White House strategy is saying, let's
Speaker 3: have this be a test of wills, and let's outstair
Speaker 3: one another and hopefully one side will blink. I mean
Speaker 3: to an extent. You know, I'm reminded by a great
Speaker 3: quote by Woody Allen that the definition of a good
Speaker 3: compromise is when both parties walk away dissatisfied. So I
Speaker 3: think that sure, you know, if President Trump is willing
Speaker 3: to give in a little, if President She is willing
Speaker 3: to give it a little, I don't think either side
Speaker 3: is going to declare victory. But don't don't forget Dan
Speaker 3: that China, only second to Japan, holds over seven hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty billion of US treasuries. Okay, oh yeah, they
Speaker 3: are not about to just you know, say goodbye and
Speaker 3: and just dismiss out of hand the United States and
Speaker 3: say see you later. It's the nice doing business with you.
Speaker 3: They know that a lot is invested in our economy.
Speaker 3: But I think the biggest thing that is concerning to
Speaker 3: me is there is no other nation on Earth where
Speaker 3: saving face is more important than in China. And I
Speaker 3: think that is the canary in the coal mine that
Speaker 3: you mentioned earlier, is that President she cannot just capitulate
Speaker 3: because that would be a cultural disaster. And by the way,
Speaker 3: I'm not so sure that President Trump could easily capitulate.
Speaker 2: It him right, which again would point you towards a
Speaker 2: compromise of some sort. Let's let's work some phone calls
Speaker 2: in here. Let me go to Dennis Dennis, Dennis, appreciate
Speaker 2: your calling in. Professor Greg Staller is with us. What's
Speaker 2: your question of comment, Dennis.
Speaker 4: Good evening, gentlemen. I believe that could you tell me
Speaker 4: the advantage in precious metals and how much in an
Speaker 4: advent is to China have over the US and precious metals.
Speaker 3: A huge advantage. A lot of what we take for
Speaker 3: granted in our cell phones are precious metals or or
Speaker 3: if you will, that exists in China, and that's part
Speaker 3: of the reason why the United States needs access to that.
Speaker 3: It's no longer a situation Dennis, that it is a
Speaker 3: lower labor costs, but it's rather access to minerals, it's
Speaker 3: access to components, and it's access to supply chain.
Speaker 4: And one other question, okay, energy, how much you're going
Speaker 4: to do does the Chinese have over the US and
Speaker 4: solar energy.
Speaker 3: Not as much as rare minerals. But again I think
Speaker 3: that you know, and this is the example Dan and
Speaker 3: Dennis that I use in my classes all the time.
Speaker 3: I wear a regular run of the male pair of
Speaker 3: dress shoes whenever I teach, and that is probably one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty one hundred and seventy five dollars a pair. Right,
Speaker 3: It's not gooky, it's not some design or brand. If
Speaker 3: the tariffs continue and that cost increases to three hundred dollars,
Speaker 3: I'm going to start working sneakers. I'm going to start
Speaker 3: going there for it. I mean, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: pay three hundred dollars for a regular pair of everyday shoes.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the problem right now, whether it's solar,
Speaker 3: whether it's cell phones or everything else. To Dan's point
Speaker 3: a few minutes ago, everybody's dealing with it, and so
Speaker 3: far we have hope that it's a ninety day reprieve.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah blah. If that ninety day reprieve
Speaker 3: expires and we go back to where we were a
Speaker 3: couple of weeks ago, then I think Americans are going
Speaker 3: to get really, really frustrated in terms of ballooning prices.
Speaker 4: All right, Hey, thank you very much, gentlemen, and we'll
Speaker 4: tell you later. Dan, appreciate your call.
Speaker 2: Dennis, talk soon. Let me go to Doreen and Chelsea Dorain.
Speaker 2: You're professor Greg Staller.
Speaker 5: Go right ahead, Dorian, good evening to both, Hie, Dan,
Speaker 5: I think everybody should just buy the cheap brand and
Speaker 5: everybody will be equal.
Speaker 2: I don't know that that's going to necessarily work that way,
Speaker 2: but I guess that's that's one strategy individual should use.
Speaker 2: Are you feeling any any crunch y at Doreen and you're,
Speaker 2: you know, going to the grocery store or anything like that.
Speaker 2: What's what's what's your economic status? No?
Speaker 5: I don't because i'll uh, i'll buy products that uh
Speaker 5: not named brands.
Speaker 2: Okay, so.
Speaker 5: Yes, because you see, for instance, can I mention Campbell soup?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 5: Absolutely good, all right, it's on the shelf.
Speaker 2: Right if you buy all of Campbell soup tonight for dinner,
Speaker 2: as a matter.
Speaker 5: Of fact, go right ahead, nothing wrong with it. If
Speaker 5: you look towards your right, you'll see, well, I don't
Speaker 5: know now how they display them on a shelf, the
Speaker 5: name brand like stopping shop Rand, it'll.
Speaker 2: Be a little less expensive. I got your point.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then the next next to that might be
Speaker 5: higher than Campbell.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, So you're a shopper and you'll you'll adjust accordingly.
Speaker 2: That's just you know, that's what probably a lot of
Speaker 2: people are going to try to do.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so.
Speaker 5: About a car, like for instance, I don't care when
Speaker 5: everybody says, and anybody does about what car they want
Speaker 5: to drive, But I'll take a forward any old time.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: That's that's one of the things that maybe will result here.
Speaker 2: Maybe people will.
Speaker 5: Be doing well because again, if you know, we don't
Speaker 5: really know where the paths.
Speaker 3: I understand that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I understand that. But it may be an
Speaker 2: impetus for some of the car manufacturers to do more
Speaker 2: work here and have less tariffs than the car I
Speaker 2: don't know Greg on that question. How quickly can we
Speaker 2: adjust our automotive industry in this country. It seems to
Speaker 2: me that's not something that we can get get it
Speaker 2: turned around overnight.
Speaker 3: So during a great question or great comment. By the way, again,
Speaker 3: based on multiple outlets that I researched, even US made
Speaker 3: cars have fort of foreign parks, So it's not this
Speaker 3: is not binary, this is not what we should buy
Speaker 3: American and we'll solve all of our problems. I will
Speaker 3: agree with you, Doreen that it certainly will help. And again,
Speaker 3: as I said earlier Dan, towards the top of the hour,
Speaker 3: I can speak for a same amount of time and
Speaker 3: support of what President Trump's trying to do and against
Speaker 3: what President Trump's trying to do, and support of what
Speaker 3: he's trying to do. To Doreen's point is get more
Speaker 3: Americans to invest in our own industry and buying American pros. Right,
Speaker 3: and by the way, sixty percent is still a majority.
Speaker 3: So even if you buy a forward, you're still investing
Speaker 3: in the USA because you've got sixty percent of the
Speaker 3: parts manufactured here. So, Doreen, you're making a lot of sense.
Speaker 3: But Dan, as you said, you can't just up and
Speaker 3: move a supply chain. You might be able to do
Speaker 3: it with I don't know, carpeting or flooring. You might
Speaker 3: be able to do it with other components that aren't
Speaker 3: as technologically complicated, but you can't do it with computers
Speaker 3: or phones. I mean that could take years.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And also I'll be going back to the
Speaker 2: car thing. If if there's a car that that is
Speaker 2: hit with tariff because it's made totally overseas, that's going
Speaker 2: to be a pretty more expense more expensive car. If
Speaker 2: an American car, domestic car is hit with a fort tariff,
Speaker 2: meaning forty percent of the value of the car, is
Speaker 2: it gets hit tariff of some level that's better than
Speaker 2: one hundred percent tariff, so that that might be a
Speaker 2: sufficient savings for some people. Do rein them up. My break,
Speaker 2: I gotta let you go is always. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you, Chris.
Speaker 5: Thank you, good night, great night, by bye bye, thank you.
Speaker 2: My guest is a professor Greg Staller of the Questrum
Speaker 2: School of Business at Boston University. I have some other
Speaker 2: questions we have some other callers. Let's we'll keep rolling
Speaker 2: here right after this break, we'll try to get everyone in.
Speaker 2: I'm going to ask quick direct questions of Professor Staller,
Speaker 2: and I haven't even touched upon the experiences that he
Speaker 2: has had. We have talked about them before, of him
Speaker 2: taking American students US students to China and interacting with
Speaker 2: Chinese companies and which has been a great, great success
Speaker 2: for various schools, including obviously Professor Staller's classes. And I
Speaker 2: guess that also might grind to a halt, but we'll
Speaker 2: talk about that as well. Coming back on Nightside, It's
Speaker 2: Night Side with Dan Ray on.
Speaker 1: Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guests Professor Greg Staller, Boston University, Question School of Business,
Speaker 2: Greg real quickly and again we're getting tired on time here.
Speaker 2: I want to get some more callers in. Give me
Speaker 2: your assessment of the economic team that Trump has assembled
Speaker 2: around him. You must have a sense of who these
Speaker 2: men and women are.
Speaker 3: I think that to President Trump's credit, he has assembled
Speaker 3: a team of loyalists, and I think in the world
Speaker 3: of politics, again, I want to stay in my lane, Dan,
Speaker 3: I'm not a political scientist. I don't teach that stuff.
Speaker 3: But from my understanding, there is so much at stake
Speaker 3: in terms of running a country that some presidents obviously
Speaker 3: have people who are not necessarily fourth right in terms
Speaker 3: of being a team player. I think to President Trump's credit,
Speaker 3: he's tried to assemble two types of people on the team.
Speaker 3: One is loyalist and people who come from extremely large
Speaker 3: business backgrounds that have run publicly traded companies, that are
Speaker 3: captains of industry who's hoping that their industry experience is
Speaker 3: going to affect meaningful change, as opposed to President Biden,
Speaker 3: who took more of a politically savvy approach to getting
Speaker 3: legislation done.
Speaker 2: Okay, And I also just quickly want to where are
Speaker 2: you on consumers are going to have a big impact.
Speaker 2: There'll be an impact on our consumers, but probably it'd
Speaker 2: be small business owners. So we're going to feel it first.
Speaker 2: How quickly will have they already begun to feel it?
Speaker 3: It's already happened. It's already happened over the past ten days.
Speaker 3: And I think that's the area of this that I'm
Speaker 3: most concerned about, is that people. A good friend of
Speaker 3: mine is in the carpeting, it's flooring business, and he
Speaker 3: called all of his customers and said, because of the tariffs,
Speaker 3: the quotes that I gave you are essentially going to
Speaker 3: expire in five or six days, So if you'd like
Speaker 3: to have that original quote honored, please pay in full
Speaker 3: over the next five or six days. And he had
Speaker 3: something like a ninety five percent positive response rate because
Speaker 3: he knows that as of day seven he isn't in
Speaker 3: a position to absorb the increases. And I think, once
Speaker 3: again that's the area that concerns me. Apple, Walmart, picked
Speaker 3: whatever large publicly traded company you want. Obviously Wall Street's
Speaker 3: going to scream and yell if their margins go down,
Speaker 3: but for a quarter or two they could take the hit.
Speaker 3: Small business, this is their vocation, this is their livelihood.
Speaker 3: They're not about to absorb a thirty percent increase in
Speaker 3: cost or twenty ten percent, pick whatever number you want.
Speaker 3: They're going to try and pass it on to the consumer.
Speaker 3: And the average consumer isn't going to be able to
Speaker 3: afford that. And to Doriam's point, you don't find maybe
Speaker 3: you buy a local brand, but that's assuming the local
Speaker 3: brand hasn't been impacted by a place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all great points. Let me go real quickly, Joel
Speaker 2: and Newton. Joel, we're fast running out of time here
Speaker 2: with unfortunately with Professor Staller, every hour with him goes
Speaker 2: by real quickly. It got you in here quickly, go
Speaker 2: right ahead.
Speaker 6: That's a I appreciate it. So I just had a
Speaker 6: hypothetical to run by us a Staller. So I did
Speaker 6: know Trump diminished the terrorists for cell phones and computers?
Speaker 4: Correct?
Speaker 3: Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but does that promote like us building it in
Speaker 6: the United States of America when somebody that computer. So
Speaker 6: that's the pay one hundred and forty percent terriff on battery.
Speaker 3: Very important. Ye, that that's exactly the point is, Joel,
Speaker 3: is that he is hoping through no fault of his own.
Speaker 3: By the way, I respect what the President is trying
Speaker 3: to do, which is to have US buy American made products.
Speaker 3: The problem is that so much of what we use
Speaker 3: is either a car or electronics. As I said earlier,
Speaker 3: you can't just up and move the supply chain in
Speaker 3: ten minutes and say, oh, we're just gonna we're going
Speaker 3: to inshore back to the United States. This stuff takes time.
Speaker 3: Now companies have been gradually doing that. They've been de
Speaker 3: risking by getting out of China. They've been going to Vietnam,
Speaker 3: They've been going to Laos, They've been going to Cambodia,
Speaker 3: they've been going to Puerto Rico, They've been going to
Speaker 3: all other locations. But a the process takes time, and
Speaker 3: something that the Chinese should be very proud of is
Speaker 3: they have a lot of infrastructure built so it's never
Speaker 3: a problem to get the stuff from the factory floor
Speaker 3: to a port of call and then exported out other countries.
Speaker 3: That's a evolving process.
Speaker 6: Noah, I appreciate that, but I just feel he's going
Speaker 6: about it willy nilly, and we're going to pay for it,
Speaker 6: that's all.
Speaker 3: I Again, I'm trying to be objective. I think I will.
Speaker 3: I will turn that question over to Dan, But I
Speaker 3: see what you're saying. Angel.
Speaker 7: Well, let me just say this, Joel, if if, if
Speaker 7: you're correct and and we end up paying for it
Speaker 7: in the end, he and the Republican Party will pay
Speaker 7: for a big time correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I hope people realize that.
Speaker 2: But well, I think I think it's just they vote
Speaker 2: with their pocketbook. As as Professor Stallas said earlier, I'm
Speaker 2: going to try to get one more in here. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Joel Warren, I got you really ted on time here.
Speaker 2: I got about a minute quick comment or quick question
Speaker 2: for professor.
Speaker 3: That's a quick question.
Speaker 8: I have the Man Street that was created before President
Speaker 8: Trump came in with all the imbalances. Why was that
Speaker 8: accepted by every other administration for Trump?
Speaker 3: I think it was accepted because, as we said earlier,
Speaker 3: people vote with their pocketbooks. I think if goods are affordable,
Speaker 3: I think if inflation has been tannted down, I think
Speaker 3: that if the average person so their summer vacation, aren't
Speaker 3: paying higher gas prices and everything else, people just choose
Speaker 3: to kick the can down the road, and nobody wants
Speaker 3: to deal with you know what I call the political
Speaker 3: third rail of trade and balances. But now, of course,
Speaker 3: as I said earlier, people are waking up and saying
Speaker 3: the emperor has no economic clothes, and now everything's open
Speaker 3: to debate and amendments.
Speaker 2: Well, and great question, great answer, Thanks buddy, appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you so much.
Speaker 2: You're very welcome, Professor Staalad. My final question is is
Speaker 2: this going to impact your student trips to China?
Speaker 3: Do you think that is something that literally has started
Speaker 3: to me up at night, is we are relying on
Speaker 3: so many be you is very very fortunate that we
Speaker 3: have close to twenty five percent of our students being
Speaker 3: non American students, and a lot of those students enroll
Speaker 3: in my classes and look forward to these field studies,
Speaker 3: oversee these treks. I'm concerned that they are worried about
Speaker 3: not getting back into the US. If the average American
Speaker 3: student cannot afford the cost of these trips anymore, that
Speaker 3: is what is concerning me. But again, the same way
Speaker 3: that I'm telling business owners to take it one day
Speaker 3: at a time, I've got to heed my own advice
Speaker 3: and just take it one week at a time and
Speaker 3: get through the spring semester and hope that cooler heads
Speaker 3: prevail on the full.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I said my last question, this is my
Speaker 2: last one. When is your next trek schedule? I assume
Speaker 2: you're done with them for this year?
Speaker 3: Correct? I am done, right, I'm done with the trek
Speaker 3: the latest trip. I changed the countries, the cities, and
Speaker 3: the companies every year. So twenty twenty five we went
Speaker 3: to Hong Kong and Vietnam. We are hosting an international
Speaker 3: case competition in Sweden in early June. So that's the
Speaker 3: next official case competition trip. The next trek is going
Speaker 3: to be in hopefully late twenty twenty five, in the
Speaker 3: fall or early twenty twenty six, and we're just hoping
Speaker 3: that we can continue to do this.
Speaker 2: All right, Professor Starer, once again, immense thanks. We'll get
Speaker 2: you back soon. I just want to continue to follow
Speaker 2: this story and you want to be our guide.
Speaker 3: Thank you again, Dan for the opportunity. I keep saying it,
Speaker 3: but it's true. I really appreciate the chance to come on.
Speaker 3: I'm a huge thank you to your listeners from earlier
Speaker 3: in April. I received so many follow on questions and
Speaker 3: I'm just very lucky to be able to do what
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: Well, we're likely to happy. We'll talk again, all right,
Speaker 2: Thanks thanks, professor. All Right, we are done for this hour.
Speaker 2: We have the news. I'm sorry I'm a little bit late,
Speaker 2: but I think the hour was well worth it. Back
Speaker 2: right after the news, not exactly sure what we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about. Stay with us, back on Night's side.