meets the world of business. today, maria tadeo from frankfurt on ecb president draghi threading the needle between hawks and doves. the departure of the puerto rican governor, and jessica roth on what to take away from the robert mueller hearings. let's go to maria in frankfurt. when i first heard the statement i thought this would be dovish because they will consider everything, but then the market said not so much. maria: that was exactly what the market was telling us. mario draghi said we will go lower. he did not cut today but it was clear that will be the next move from the ecb. that statement also read is not just rates. we can look at anything. we can look at qe2. we can look at the tiering system, which many will tell you is a good thing, but it was a lack of clarity on the details

that have a market underwhelmed if not disappointed. mario draghi made it clear there is no unanimity on these positions. we are going into the summer break in the next meeting is scheduled for september. they willear whether have time to come to an agreement. these are technical issues. , the ecb iss to qe already running up against limits of what it can buy and how much of it. ghen you look at the tierin system, this is incredibly technical. it is difficult to see how from now until september they come up with a package so they will be ready to announce when that meeting takes place. guy: thank you so much for joining us. from frankfurt, that is maria tadeo. now let's go to michelle in new york. we no longer have the same governor in puerto rico. michelle: he resigned late night at midnight. as scheduled, it would be the secretary of justice that would take over as governor. beello's last day will

august 2. david: what does this mean? goingis a huge proceeding on to try to sort out the puerto rican mess financially. what effect will this have on that? michelle: that will continue. there is a federal oversight board in place. they are in charge of representing puerto rico in the bankruptcy court. that will progress. we have anticipating a debt restructuring plan to be submitted to the court that has yet to happen. the lawyers are promising within a few weeks. david: a lot of big changes in puerto rico. for our third story we welcome jessica, a former prosecutor in new york and a professor of law. we watched robert mueller through two hearings. what did we learn? jessica: we do not learn any new facts. he stuck to his report. he said he would when he had the

press conference in may. he said the report is my testimony. if i am called before congress, i will not go beyond what is in my report and he was true to that pledge. david: something you and i have talked about before is if this ,ad been a private citizen would you a prosecutor have charged obstruction of justice? did robert mueller answer that question? jessica: he did not. he was asked about the letter from over a thousand process uterus saying they would of chart -- a thousand prosecutors saying they would have charged. he said this is a unique circumstance and he returned to the theme a number of times, particularly when asked about why he had included that that were inculpatory of the president when he was not going to charge him. he stressed this is the unique situation and we are talking about the president of united states who cannot be indicted. david: there are some democrats,

including some on the panel who say they would like to go forward with impeachment proceedings. did robert mueller give them anything more or any articles of impeachment if they wanted to draft them up? jessica: he did not give them any new facts. he did not give them any that would build a case for impeachment. as a political matter it is hard to say whether it moved the needle. it was not riveting,. people were tuning in, i'm not sure how closely they paid attention. it will depend on how what is elicited at the hearing is played out in the press. what may matter more is whether mcgannitnesses like don would testify. david: that is a big one. former white house counsel. now let's get a check on the markets with abigail doolittle. abigial: we are looking at stocks and bonds sliding. the dow down a second day in the row. worst two days since the

beginning of june. a risk off tone. the s&p 500 and nasdaq retreating from all-time highs. down .8%. as for bonds, price rates in verse to yield and is on the disappointing policy move by the ecb. investors wanting more bonds here and in europe. as for the influence of higher yields on the s&p 500 sector composition, not much. it is a risk off sector. all 11 sectors lower. defensive consumer staples up when 8%. you would think the rising -- up .8%. financials down .6%. energy down 1.2% despite the fact that oil is higher. let's take a look at the drags on the energy sector. we are in the hearts of earnings season. pain are cutting their forecast. valero missing on second-quarter

earnings. sincet plunging the worst 2007 as china is taking a bite into their business. q2 for four down 7%. down.tlook -- for ford , the worst day since january. ,acebook down, despite beating their sales growth is disappointing. after the bell, amazon and alphabet, it will be interesting to see what the rest of the faang trade does put up. david: we will come back to that trade with senator marsha blackburn of tennessee. up, the british government has a new direction. we talked to the british consul to new york anthony phillipson about what to expect. that is next. this is bloomberg. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television. i'm david westin. we turn to mark crumpton for first word news. mark: boris johnson is hitting the ground running, speaking to parliament for the first time since becoming prime minister. he urged the european union to rethink renegotiating a brexit deal and reiterated his onmitment to leaving the eu october 31. the eu rejected johnson's demand that the irish border backstop should be scrapped. the justice department says will carry out executions of federal death row inmates for the first time since 2003. the department says five inmates will be executed started in december. in 2014 president obama directed

the department to review -- that review resulted in what was effectively a freeze on the death penalty. the white house is condemning the order by a federal judge requiring president trump's administration to stop denying asylum to anyone who travels through another country to reach the u.s. border. the press secretary called it meritless and the tyranny of a dysfunctional system. the ruling came hours after another federal judge in washington, d.c. let the nine-day-old policy stand. the new head of congo's fight against an ebola outbreak is promising to have the disease under control by the end of the year. the epidemic has lasted a year and killed more than 7000 people. global publicd a health emergency. congo has brought in an expert who is one of two people

dispatched to the country in 1976 to investigate the first known outbreak of the virus. global news 24 hours a day, on air and @tictoc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. david? johnson gave his first speech to parliament as prime minister earlier today and he reiterated his firm commitment to the brexit he has favored for so long. >> this parliament has already voted several times to honor the mandate of the people, to come out of the eu, and that is what we should do. anthony: we welcome anthony phillipson -- david: we welcome anthony phillips and, her magic cease trade commissioner for north america. -- her majesties trade commissioner for north america. one of the things that has changed with boris johnson is the possibility of a brexit without an agreement.

the markets are certainly pricing that in. is the british government preparing for that possibility internally? are people taking actions just in case it will happen. anthony: thank you for having me on. it is great to see you. the british government has always been preparing for no deal, at the simon -- at the same time negotiating a deal and aiming to deliver on the outcome of the referendum with an agreement to the future relationship. saidrime minister yesterday and in the house today that he has made clear we need to deliver on the democratic rule of the people. he is turbocharging no deal preparations so we are ready to leave on the 31st of october without a deal. he made it clear that is not a preference. his preference is to leave with an agreement. that is what he and his government will turn attention to negotiating with the eu in the days we happen to october 31. david: explain the government system in this way.

is it physically possible to have a brexit with an agreement in 90 days -- in 98 days? there's a lot of work that has to be done. if they got an agreement tomorrow, with that given up time to effectuate a brexit by october 31? antony: the prime minister has said he has spoken to the head of the civil service to make sure the civil service is doing what is necessary, is to be ready for all eventualities. his preference is to leave with an agreement on october 31. if we are not able to leave with an agreement on the 31st, his conviction is we must leave without an agreement, and the government and the civil service must do what is necessary to be ready for that. david: one of the things we saw was a sweeping set of changes in the cabinet. a lot of positions turned over. memberan you have with a of the same party taking over as opposed to the opposite party. what does that do to the internal workings of the government?

does that slow things down as people to out where the washroom is and things like that? antony: i've been civil service for a long time. i have seen changes of party in power but also changes within. commented this was quite a sweeping change. there are two elements of continuity. the the policy of brexit, prime minister would say he is now determined to carry out, the policy is not different. the other priorities, education, social care, funding the nhs, and delivering productivity growth across the cake, those are constant -- across the united kingdom, those are policies inherited from his predecessor. the other carryover is the civil service. my politics will be briefing there new ministers.

we do not know who the junior positions are, but as they come in will be briefing them. david: let's be parochial. what does it mean united states? what can create differences are we likely -- what concrete differences are we likely to see between the united states and the u.k. because of this change of government? antony: i do not think there will be substantial change of policy. the prime minister said he is committed to accelerating work on free trade agreements. we will now continue to do what withed to do to understand our u.s. colleagues what putting together an fta looks like and when we are out of the eu we be ready to negotiate from the get-go. on the foreign security side, there will be new relationships to be created at the top of the system, but there are a lot of relationships that will continue further down the food chain. david: one relationship that has developed is between donald trump and boris johnson. do you think that might facilitate some of these things,

such as a free trade agreement? president trump was unabashed in his support for boris johnson. antony: you have some did up perfectly. he was very vocal in his support of boris johnson and has been complementary about boris johnson since he won the tory leadership election. i would note that the previous prime minister and the president were committed to negotiating, so there is continuity. the change of tone is something people have remarked on, but again it helps to put this extraordinary relationship together and it is the future. david: extraordinary relationship. what is number one in terms of a challenge of u.k. u.s. relations? antony: i'm not sure i see a challenge. we talk a lot about opportunity, about deepening and strengthening the relationship between our countries. we are already the biggest investors each other countries. i talk in terms of the u.s. been the fundamental source of consumer information. this is a strong platform to

build on, but our contention is if we look at the global economy of the future and the challenges we need to address, including some areas where we are not on the same page, maybe climate change, and the prime minister recommitting the government to zero greenhouse emissions by 2050. these are areas where we will be working with the u.s. on all levels. we share of substantial policy agenda we want to carry out together. david: anthony foxx -- anthony phillipson, here is majesties -- her majesties trade commissioner for north america. coming up, we talked one of the lawmakers raising the possibility of more regulations, senator marsha blackburn of tennessee. that is next and this is bloomberg. ♪

david: you are watching "balance of power." i'm david westin.

this week the antitrust division of the department of justice announced that it was investigating whether big tech companies may be running afoul of antitrust laws in the way of they have gained and maintain their dominance. we welcome senator marsha blackburn of tennessee who heads the senate judiciary tech task force. she comes to us from capitol hill. tell us about your task force. what are you doing? sen. blackburn: this is a bipartisan group open to every member of the senate judiciary committee. need tograham said we make certain everybody has the institutional knowledge and we are all on the same page as we begin to look at all of the different facets with privacy and data security and transparency and censorship and prioritization. all of those issues that affect everyone as they have moved more their transactional life online, and as companies have set up

platforms that allow consumers to have more of that functionality online. we have the task force started last week. it is bipartisan. our first topic was privacy. we had the global privacy match, from snap, to layrce, and mozilla out what they are doing and how they are approaching privacy and talk to us about how they would see a privacy structure. we talked about some of their vulnerabilities and some of their successes. david: it has not always been clear to me that big tech was paying on debt paying attention to what has been going on with capitol hill. did you finally get their attention? facebook said we would take down some of our projections as a result of a possibility of

regulation. do you have a sense they are finally paying attention? sen. blackburn: we have been working on this issue for seven years. that is when we did the privacy and data security working group in the house. here is what i think has happened. the american public, the online public has finally realized that when they are on all of the social media apps, they are the product. interfaces and these are data mining you, whether it is you tube or facebook or google. the revenue stream for them is in your data and these companies , the social media platforms are big advertising companies. they sell your data to certain parties and you do not know that they are benefiting from your data. the better, more high-quality

the data is, the more money they make. david: i read in the paper today about some people in washington talking about the possibility of requiring data companies to pay for the data, to pay those of us who might be on facebook or twitter or google. is that a serious possibility that congress might take action and require people to pay for the data? emma: this is some -- sen. blackburn: this is something that has been batted around for a while. the company say we are giving you a free service so we will not pay you for your data. here is why privacy is so important. you need to give the consumer the ability to opt in to protections for their personally identifying information, their sensitive information and let them all in if they want you to share that with a first party. you need to give them the ability to opt out and prohibit you from sharing your nonsensitive information, which

is many times transactions or searching they are doing online. that would change the business model of the social media platform. david: give us a sense of the timeline, if you can. we have the department of justice starting an investigation. you have your task force going. which will give results sooner? sen. blackburn: we will be giving you results on a rolling basis. it is possible that this fall you will see privacy legislation move forward. puts iner at, which place one set of rules for the ecosystem, one regulator, opt in, opt out components, it is bipartisan and you will have judiciary committee, commerce committee looking at these issues. i think you'll see something soon. david: i have you come back in the fall and tell you all about it. sen. blackburn: be happy to. thank you so much. david: thanks to marsha

blackburn, republican from tennessee. our stock of the hour is ford. shares trading at the lowest in two months. am a --emma chandra is in london. it was a forecast outlook for the year, particularly the profit forecast. that came in below analyst expectations and that seems to have rattled investors. they had been buying into ford's turnaround plan, that $11 billion turnaround plan. if you look at how the shares have performed through 2019, they are up 25% as of today. if you looked at yesterday, they were up 35%. the share prices today taking a chunk out of that rally we have seen in 2019 for four. part of the companies turnaround has been cutting costs and they have been doing that through the second quarter. that has not been enough to make up for a drop off in sales, particularly in china.

the company struggling in china, and that is we are seeing the car market in china contract for the first time in a generation and seeing impacts from the trade war. we have a chart which shows you how ford sales to china have fallen off in recent quarters, more so than rival gm. david: thanks so much to emma chandra from her new perch in london. up next, the debt ceiling issue is behind it, which leaves the new issue with canada and mexico. we speak with senator mike braun of indiana. live from new york, this is bloomberg. ♪

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springs provide edge to edge support, responsiveness and comfort, while premium foams relieve pressure. keep you comfortably cool and limit motion transfer. leesa's hybrid mattress is not only recommended by experts, experts choose to sleep on it too. try it yourself in any west elm store. or order online and we'll ship it to your door so you can try it risk free. the leesa hybrid is american made. built to last. and, because everyone needs a place to rest, we donate tens of thousands of mattresses to those in need. experience the leesa hybrid mattress. right now, it's on sale. order today. go to leesa.com. david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television, i'm david westin. mark: democrats are pivoting

away from questions of impeachment, saying they are going to own the august recess on issues such as health care and prescription drug costs. speaker pelosi and other democrats gathered on the house steps today to discuss other policy goals as they prepare to leave washington for five weeks. spain's acting prime minister toay to -- failed receive the support from parliament. prime minister had rose tried to intoe the far left a government coalition, but the rivals failed to agree on how to divide up cap net post. lawmakers now have until september 23 to break the deadlock, or spaniards will be called back to the polls. stepping upis pressure on the u.s. over stalled nuclear disarmament talks. kim jong-un's regime has resumed missile testing. south korea said the north fired at least two short-term missiles into the sea east of the korean peninsula. happened hours after u.s.

national john bolton left south korea. nearly three years after hurricane matthew cause massive damage across the southeastern united dates, some storm victims are still waiting for promised government assistance, and some ts suffered residen more damage to their homes after hurricane florence. the federal government awarded north carolina 230 $7 million for recovery, but as of this month, the state has only went about 6% of it. global news, 24 hours a day, on air and at tic-toc on twitter, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton, this is bloomberg. david? david: thanks, mark. bipartisanship roque out with washington this week, where the president announced a deal with both parties to lift the deabt limit for the next two years. we welcome now a member of the senate budget committee, ravenna public and senator mike

braun from indiana. great to have you with us. sen braun: good to be on, david. david: for a couple of years we will not have to deal with this, but at the same time it came at a cost. was it a good deal, despite the fact we are running up the deficit? sen braun: the benefit of being a freshman legislator now, i was one back in indiana about four years ago. i know how the system works. i come from main street as an entrepreneur, and of course we do things more quickly. get the problems way ahead, unless the marketplace -- or else the marketplace takes you out. i was disappointed. they knew where my vote was going to be when i got here in the first place. i voted on -- i ran on trying to make this place run more like main street. it was such a coup by our moment. it did not take that long. we did nothing in terms of

attaching reforms to it or anything other than something so far out, which is one of the gimmicks, that whatever you spend in the present, all the offsets near six through 10, when everyone has forgotten what you did five years earlier. so in our own conference i spoke against it. i understand it for the president, and we do not want to government shutdown. but i want us to get out and do some real things between now and november 2020 on how we are going to fix the system, so when we arrived here again we are not just doing the same thing all over again. democrats roll over for republicans on defense, and we do vice versa on domestic spending, and we are perpetuating not having had a budget now in almost 20 years that we have appropriated two. i would be laughed at anywhere else in the real world. david: you and i have both seen strategic plans have six to 10 year issues, we called it the

hockey stick approach. not so good in the beginning, but takes off in your six through 10. but there are arguments economy needs this right now, because it is fiscal stimulus. this is significant fiscal stimulus going into the economy. is there a time when the economy could use this, because there is some softness around how to do the spending. sen braun: you could say that, but we are also in the context of the longest perio -- longest period of boom in forever. everything i did here with the act, nothing has been more measurable, i think we will get beyond the sugar effects, and democrats talk about it. i think we have to get back to classic economics. when times are good, you build a rainy day fund. i have just introduced a bill called the map act, which means tappingwould start

spending to a percentage of our based on data from the past, take the revenue we have generated over the last 50 years, average it, and start working ourselves back from 18% %, 19%, down to 17 which is sustainable over time. that is the kind of stuff we need to start looking at, otherwise we will perpetuate what we are doing. david: that will make a huge difference over time with the compounding effect. let's talk about trade. looking at the exports from your home state of indiana, canada in mexico figure largely that. the usmca has not been ratified, the fed deal to secede nafta. what are the prospects now that we have the debt ceiling issue behind us that congress can move on that come fall? sen braun: that will pass with flying colors in the senate.

it will pass with flying colors in the house if speaker pelosi will bring it to the floor. it is sad that so much of what happens here is calculated politically. thing for the biggest president trump this year, and that is why it is being stonewalled currently. farmers, business people, americans, hoosiers, they all want it to get across the line. i do not know of anyone that is against it. regrettably, it is being stonewalled for political reasons. that speaker policy will pay a political price, -- speaker pelosi will pay a political price, because i do not know the one who is against it. david: she is a pretty shrewd politician in the end, and farmers, doesn't she need those people to vote for the freshman congressman who came in and took republican districts last november? sen braun: i think she knows

that, but i think she will try to extract a few favors by belaboring the point. things have gotten so cynical around here and so political, one of the reasons i ran was to cut through all of that and get the solutions quickly, take the politics out of it. that is one of the frustrating things, again, about being an entrepreneur and coming from an affected state government like mine, but that is the way the game is played. i think it will happen. i just think it is silly we are delaying it. david: senator, we appreciate you being with us, as we always do. senator mike braun from the state of indiana. president trump is vetoing legislation that would have blocked arms sales to saudi arabia and the uae. we talk about that to former defense secretary leon panetta. that's next. this is bloomberg. this is bloomberg.

david: you are watching "balance of power." i'm david westin. spent decadesas in government, and joined is now for today's conversation. thank you so much for being back with us. leon: good to be with you, david. david: let's start with the news from overnight, president trump has vetoed legislation out of congress that would have curtailed u.s. arms sales to saudi arabia and the united arab emirates. this is tied to the could shoji murder as well -- the shoji -- k hashoggi murder. this?s your opinion on thesewhen it comes to

kinds of issues, very frankly, it would serve the administration to try to sit down with the leadership in the congress and try to work out an approach to these issues. i think there is concern, shoggi and about kha what happened there, and the war in yemen. we obviously have a relationship with the saudi's. i think it is important for the tosident and the leadership decide, what should we ask the to address those two issues so we do not just walk away from that situation? otherwise, the president will continue to face this legislation in the future. david: we heard from the administration that saudi arabia is an important potential ally in the middle east. the you have a sense from the outside on the deal with the saudis, what are we getting back?

leon: i think that is the question. obviously right now in a situation where the middle east has a lot of problem areas, otherr it is syria, iran, states in the middle east, we have a relationship with modern arab states in that region. we work with them in trying to deal with some of these challenges, and so we try to protect that relationship. we have also provided military support to the saudi's, uae, and to others. is important that while we try to maintain that relationship, we also ask them to deal with the problems that are there, that are real. khashoggi is a situation that was terrible in terms of what happened, what took place, and

it violated, obviously, international laws of decency. so i think the saudi's have to do more to show us they are dealing with that situation, and they are not. the same thing is true in regards to gehman. yemen, frankly, continues to represent a threat, and it is not just something we can walk away from. at the same time, we have to figure out what is the best approach to continue dealing with the crisis in yemen. we have not done that yet. there is a lot of work to be done here, but the only way it is going to be resolved is if the president and leadership in the congress are willing to sit down and try to develop an approach to those issues. have a new successor in mr. s perot, the new defense secretary. he worked for weighty on her sometime, and i -- for raytheon for some time, and i have heard about revolving door, conflict of interest. but you are knowledgeable at the

military thing and knows his way around an important part of the military. where do you come down on the revolving door when it comes to defense secretaries? leon: well, i think it's important to have somebody who knows their way around the pentagon and knows their way around defense issues. i think this new secretary has that kind of background, not only serving as the terry of the army, but having worked on defense-related issues. i think it is important to have that background. at the same time, he has to be careful that he does not cross a line when it comes to conflicts of interest. he will have to watch himself as he deals with issues that affect some of the companies that he worked for. i think he can do that. i think there are a lot of issues that this secretary is going to have to confront, and i feel confident that he is the kind of individual that can make those decisions without running into any ethics problems. david: he is going to be responsible, in large part, for

the national defense. as were you when you were in that position. he has come up with trade as not just a matter of economics, but national security concern. role of theith the defense secretary in participating in those decisions in washington? role of the secretary of defense, like the role of director of the cia and the role of president of the united dates is to protect our country. oft is the first most role those positions, is to protect our national security. so there is concern about huawei . we have had a lot of concern about what they were doing and the potential threat they represented with regards to our security. and so it is important that we make clear that china, if they to going to allow huawei continue to operate, that they are going to have to adhere to

requirements that ensure that our security is protected in the process. will be the only approach that works here if we are able to resolve huawei and resolve the issue of tariffs on china. david: how big of an issue is this? we had the director of the fbi, before congress and say there are a number of investigations going on, including in china. here is this. >> we have about 1000 plus investigations across the country involving attempted theft of u.s. intellectual property, whether it is counter espionage or proliferation. almost all are leading back to china. that sounds like a pretty big problem. leon: it is a problem, and we have known it for a long time. keith alexander, when he was head of the nsa, said that the

largest loss of wealth in our country has been with the chinese have done in regards to intellectual property, and i think that is a fact. china continues to pursue our secrets, whether it is in the private sector or the public sector. we have to take steps to protect ourselves from that loss of intellectual property. we have to protect ourselves in terms of our security. it is really important, if we are going to have these negotiations with regards to tariffs, that we also recognize the importance of china taking that weat will ensure protect our security at the same time. you can't do one without the other. they will have to be part of an integrated agreement when it comes to resolving those issues. ivid: finally, mr. secretary, want to turn back to afghanistan and iraq.

there was a poll done of the general public and the veterans of iraq and afghanistan, which was quite striking. somewhatays was, by a narrow margin, people were more disapproving of what went on if they served over there than the general public. by the way, the percentages were 64% form of58%, range. people are against what we have done there, but particularly the veterans. what does that tell us, the veterans of the war thought it was not worth fighting? well, with great respect, you can't decide national security issues based on polls. you have to decide his issues based on what is important, to protect our national security interests. iraqhe reality is that if were to collapse, that would threaten our national security. if afghanistan were to collapse and the taliban and al qaeda and

isis control afghanistan, that would threaten our national security. so i think this country has to make its decisions both with regards to iraq and afghanistan, and for that matter, other countries, based on what is the most important step to protect our national security. not based on how people may or may not feel about these kinds of things, but what is most important about protecting the united states of america. david: fair point. you don't run the army by publicizing it. fair point. at the same time, looking back over it, those wars were started in a different administration from you. was it worth it, in terms of money and blood that was shed? is it worth it, what we did in iraq and afghanistan? i think when it comes to confronting al qaeda, and let's andforget that iraq

afghanistan, in many ways, were some of the consequences from 9/11. we were attacked on 9/11. al qaeda was responsible for that attack, and we went to war against al qaeda in order to try to protect our country. obviously there are some questions about whether or not we should have gone into iraq, but the reality is in the end, we had to deal with the al qaeda threat in iraq. the same thing is true in afghanistan. afghanistan was the base of operations for bin laden and others in attacking our country. you can't just walk away from that responsibility. if we are going to protect our country, we have to deal with those who attacked us. that is something that will , ofin a key objective protecting our national security interests. david: a very powerful point. defenseetta, former secretary as well as former cia director.

up next, an interview with secretary of state mike pompeo after the market close today. this is bloomberg. ♪ this is bloomberg. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on david westin. -- power," i'm david westin. this created the basis of our financial system. one person helped administer that system for many years with alan greenspan, chairman of the fed. he was there at bretton woods, just in a different way. he explained why he was there, and it had nothing to do with monetary policy. >> i was at the mount washington hotel, and bretton woods, new hampshire. i did not have a clue what all that noise around me was. someone said, there was a big convention here. i said oh, too bad.

i didn't think about it again for 75 years. [laughter] >> and what were you doing their? you were not part of the delegation? >> no, i was on vacation. serving asband, entertainment for the people who went to the hotel. i have not a clue what i was missing on the floor below. it was historic news. it cames historic, and out of a particular time, when the war almost over, but it was on their way. there was a consensus that we needed to collaborate internationally going forward. including on monetary policy. you had cooperation, certainly

, while you were running the fed, but it was harder to find that coalition building? >> one of the things about the imf and the world bank group, ividualsind that represented those organizations, we would meet periodically and discussed world affairs. a good deal of time in switzerland, for example. same group of people, and some of them are still around, like le france.nt of bank and it was one of the most interesting experiences in my life. into meetings,g dinner meetings, on sunday night, with wonderful chefs. elite of the

international financial community. ndashead of the bu bank, the head of the bank le france, and we all met in different places. more from them interacting, especially, then i did buy any other means of communication. that was former federal reserve chair alan greenspan, speaking with me at his office in washington. coming up, "commodities edge" with alix steel. this is bloomberg. ♪

alix: the big red line. what could draw a ron and the west into a war no one wants, and what it would take get them back to the negotiating table. activist investor is mad. austin dental says he does not know what he is talking about. the fight over occidental's acquisition of anadarko. and another round of lawsuits over monsanto weedkiller roundup. we speak to the head of crop science in north america on new technology for farmers. ♪ alix: i'm alix