Steven Mnuchin on PE Fund, Inflation, Billionaire Tax - YouTube

Give me a bit of an overview then know the kind of meetings you've been having and what you've been able to secure any new

views. Well first of all it's great to be with you and it's great to be back in the region. My focus here is really to be

supportive to the economic transformation in the region. It's very important I think for economic stability that all these

countries transform their economies and expand them away from just energy. You raise 2.5 billion dollars in private equity

investments. Did some of it come from the likes of the public investment fund. I can't really comment on are raising funds.

What I can't comment on is what we're focused in doing. So our real focus is right now on technology with a big emphasis on

cybersecurity national security and data privacy which was an area I focused on when I was Treasury secretary. I was

responsible for cyber for all of financial services and it's a very big risk. So we want to make sure that companies and

governments are are taken care of and protected. Let's get to the macro story for a moment because the last time you discussed

inflation you said you were worried. Now quite a bit more data has come through. How has that view evolved since. Well I was

worried because I thought we'd see inflation. We have seen it. I think you know we're running probably in the 4 to 5 percent

inflation. My guess is will stabilize closer to three and a half. But that's that's still a significant issue for a long

time. The Federal Reserve was concerned that we couldn't get inflation up to 2 percent. But now just given the enormous

amount of fiscal and monetary support I am very concerned that we're going to see higher interest rates and the impact on

consumers. And then 10 year Treasury yields those still go to three point five. That's what he said last night. That's still

my prediction. OK what about the ability of the United States to grow itself out of pre and post pandemic debts and then massive

amounts of money that it's far well. There's no question that during this crisis we needed to have massive support. And I'm

most proud of the fact that we passed to the two carers bills 96 to 0 and 100 to 0 in the Senate. That was pretty extraordinary.

We spent four trillion dollars. I never thought I'd be saying those words for a trillion dollars. I think we need to spend

that money where we would have had a global depression not recession. But the new administration has continued to spend

another two trillion dollars now more money. I'm very concerned about the size of the national debt at twenty eight and a half

trillion today. I worry it could go up to thirty two trillion on a twenty three trillion dollar economy. It's quite concerning. I

want to stay with the fiscal side of things for a moment because the Democratic tax plan has been controversial for some of the

billionaire taxes. It's also called. Do you think that it's a good plan. Will it pass Congress. Well let me just first

say I think now is the wrong time to raise taxes on anybody whether it's billionaires or average consumers and spend. I

think we've done plenty of spending. I think the problem with the billionaire tax is one it probably won't raise much money

since a lot of this money will be given away to foundations so it won't be taxed. The other issue is probably unconstitutional.

And the third issue is it creates very very bad incentives. How do you tax public securities and not private securities. Think

about this. It's a complete disincentive to grow your business to basically say every year the government will take a little

bit more of your business away. That's not the right incentive for a long term investing. Shout out to Tom Keene for this

question. He is looking to find an answer on whether there's gonna be an opportunity for Republicans in 2020 in 2024 to

reassert a common policy out of the prison camps out of the present chaos. Well you know we'll see. It's it's politics. You

know my guess is a lot of things will change over the next couple of years. Again my biggest concern right now is we need

less spending and we need to worry about making sure we don't have inflation out of control and the national debt is

sustainable. We've seen a U.S. ban on a on a China telco. In many ways one would have thought that some of the tensions

between China and the United States would ease a little bit with the new administration and a new approach. Clearly that hasn't

happened this fast was not happening at all. Have you been surprised about how this has evolved. Well let me just say

Ambassador Light Howser and I spent a lot of time going back and forth to China. I think we probably had 20 different meetings

with the vice premier. And I think we're proud of the work we did on the Phase 1 trade agreement. My own opinion is a lot

work. More work needs to be done that there should be more. Kellogg As it relates to telecom look I think there are certain

areas that are national security areas at least as it relates to certain telecom equipment. And I'm not commenting on the

specifics of this. We want to make sure that our data integrity on the other hand these are two large economies that have to

coexist. And I think the work work needs to continue to be done on trade. China has always had the opportunity to have the U.S.

markets open and we need to make sure we have the same reciprocal opportunities.