The book is called job creation how it really works and why government doesnt understand it, the coauthor is andy puzder. Mister puzder, you talk about a certain factor here. Its at the time we wrote it back in 2009 it had been 2010. There was a lot of uncertainty in the economy because of actions the president obama was taking so long progressive lines as opposed to conservative economic lines which the Business Community would have preferred so with respect to tax, energy and regulation there was great uncertainty in the Business Community about where the government was going and what kind of obstacle it would become. We tried to convey the message that if the government would provide positive certainty, that we get we could rise out of the recession, that we were still in the recession until june 2009 so we were out of it technically but i dont think people for years that we were out of it really. If youwant the kind of dynamic Economic Growth youre expecting rising out of a recession, you have to do positive things and give the committee Business Community certainty you are not going to hurt them. What are some of the measurements that go into the effect . The one that we focus on work tax reform, Energy Policy, Regulatory Reform and reduced government spending. This was the only trunk agenda item we didnt get was healthcare reform but this was 2009 and 10, not as big an issue as it was today. We didnt know what a negative impact it would have on the economy. Spending, tax reform, Regulatory Reform and Energy Policy you talk about reform in the book, can you give an example of what you would like to see as a former corporate gm . When you take it at the state, local or federal level , i was in california at the time so we can spend the entire segment talking about one 10th of the problems diseases have in california with regulation. On the federal side was a constant influx of new regulation such as at the department of labor. In putting in place new requirements, making it easier to unionize, they were trying to discharge, they had the blacklisting legislation where the blacklisting regulation. Relations that were going to require attorneys to disclose the discussions they were having with their employer clients during the course of attempts to unionize. The comment that was called blacklisting. They had an employer standard where they tried to make a voice jointly viable for the employers of their franchisees which would have destroyed the franchise business model, it wouldnt have existed anymore. There were efforts to increase the 48,000 salary level below which you have to pay overtime so even if you have somebody managing a restaurant and not an incentivebased bonus, which would have urged particular franchise restaurant business, Retail Businesses in general economically. All this is coming down the pipe that you anticipated that with the progressive expert secretary of labor, secretary of treasury, a very progressive president that we were going to have problems in the next few years and we were trying to save those off to get americans working again. Job creation isnt i think what the government envisioned it to be, it isnt something that inevitably occurs. There is a six cycle you can lock into and its going to go out which was what a lot of the president s advisers thought at the time. Larry summers and jason furman, a cop thought coming out of the recession they were going to get four percent gdp. Back in 2010 a white house projected four percent adp growth. Thinking they were on this coming out of the recession cycle and what we were trying to say was with these policies you can hit those numbers, without then you cant. You right at the unfortunate reality is that federal spending initiatives are intended to expand the power and influence of government rather than improve the economy and create jobs to. This is the progressive velocity, the Progressive Movement starting with wilson and probably the only president who was more progressive than barack obama but the idea has always been to expand government power, to the ability to control the economy in the hands of an elite group of people, political appointees, the bureaucracy and academics and time elected officials rather than having the direction of the economy driven by consumers and purchasing. So i think rahm emanuel said it back. If you dont want a crisis to go to waste so every time theres been a crisis whether it was the early 1900s or the Great Depression or the recession, theres always this expansion of government that the solution to our problems when all it really does is prolong those problems because the goal isnt actually to create Economic Growth, the goal is to expand government , empower this elite group who will redistribute the benefits. The wealth of the nation, more equally. Which takes every kind of, more equally lower than higher. But instead of raising everybody off, it lowers everybody down. They review that as a more just society. Were trying to say if you get more just society by generating growth. Kennedy said all those, we wanted to create a tie that would lift everybodys economic boat, make it easier for workingclass people to get to the middle class, making it easier for workingclass kids to find jobs, reducing income inequality by reducing everybodys income, not increasing the top and bottom. In your book you focus more on deployment rather than unemployment, why is that . The focus should be how you get people back into jobs, what caused somebody to hire a person because when you got for example, take one of our restaurants. Our restaurants are employed by 25 people and most people taken on it that way, restaurants got 25 employees but as you go to concentric circles, we hire people to build those restaurants, to design the restaurants, construction workers put the restaurants together. Youve got the farmers and the cattlemen who attend to the herd and grow the crops. The processors take the cattle and across and turn it into food that we get Grocery Stores and restaurants, guys who drive the trucks delivering food, youve got these concentric circles of restaurants and then all those people they buy close, go to the movies, they send their kids to school, do all the things that help generate Economic Growth so if you could focus on these core businesses and find a way to cause them to grow, youre going to see real Economic Growth and all of these concentric circles overlap with other businesses which is how america went from 13 in the backwoods colonies at the late 1700s to a nation thats all devastated and destroyed in the civil war where hundreds of thousands of americans died 1885 largest economy in the world and by world war i the highest standard of living in the world. This is because of an Economic System that relied on individual empower consumers, encourage individuals not only to create Economic Growth but to keep the methods of that growth to themselves which automatically benefits everybody else cause people as they try and grow and benefit themselves inadvertently smiths invisible hand, benefit everybody else so its a system that works tremendously well and we saw only putting a court in hourglass, the hourglass of Economic Growth. When we take the court out. So what is tka and whats been your role . Best larger enterprises, carl started with a hotdog cart in 1940 and hes the quintessential example of job creation, started with a hotdog cart and went to los angeles in 1941. By the time i met him he had half 1 billion in Public Companies called pkd restaurants so about 600 restaurants, carls jr. In the late 80s carls jr. Bought parties. It got in financial trouble in the late 90s and into thousand, i was at thegeneral counsel. They appointed me as ceo, chief executive officer to take the company, sell it or take it into bankruptcy. I realized that wouldve been a mistake, we had 70, 75,000 people working for the company that would have lost their jobs. Franchisees would have lost their investment. I have a great team and the next few years we didnt fix it. I retired april 2 and we had 3800 restaurants in 44 states and 41 foreign countries. 20 percent of our restaurants are overseas so it was a lot of fun. I am enjoying retirement as 16 years of ceo but it was a fun 16 years. Are you doing . Im writing a book that i have a publisher towrite a book. It was going to be about how i saw Hillary Clinton and obama Work Together to is not destroyed, at least significantly demean the American Free enterprise system which created such great opportunity for people. With President Trump having been elected i can write about how President Trump with the proper support in congress in particular given whats happening lately but with the proper support can bring back that American Dream spirit that lifted this nation so high and again, make America Great again as he would say. Weve got a real potential but i want to talk about, i dont think people know about Woodrow Wilson and what he did to the country, his disrespect to the constitution. There are things Franklin Roosevelt who didnt want the help of the business sector during the Great Depression. He actually said in a speech that they should leave us alone, they are not constructive and rely on government. How governmentexpanded and may be expanded too much. I dont say government doesnt have a role, it does have a role and its a constructive role and government can be meaningful but like anything, can be overdone. We seen it overdone lily over the past years. Andy puzder, why did you withdraw from consideration as labor secretary. I didnt have enough votes to confirm. If i had enough votes, i would have stuck it out to the end instead of having this very pleasant conversation in the beautiful paris hotel, id be sitting beating mybrains out in washington dc. But there was such a adverse reaction to divorce being approved as secretary of education, Chuck Schumer identified me as the target they were going to go after. The press was merciless, dishonest. Some other interview we can talk about, the fake news during this confirmation process but i got beat up pretty bad and it made some of the more liberal republicans a little nervous. Once you lose three people, you start off losing too. Youve got to do that didnt vote for betsy were going to vote for me no matter what i did. Use more you are in trouble and the more this piles on, the more the press can focus on this distorted story. And the more nervous made people and the press reported that i hadnt filed my government ethics papers and there must be something wrong because, i was like the first guy to file. I filed january 3, the problem was the government of all government ethics wouldnt react to my paper. A sat on it for six or seven weeks. In the meantime the president tweeted me up, schumer makes me the target, republicans got nervous and i didnt want the president to suffer a defeat on the senate floor that had my name attached to it. So discretion being the better part of valor. You were portrayed or are portrayed as being antiunion, is that a fair moniker . Im very supportive of collective bargaining, i think that you look back to the late 1800s, early 1900s and the union has had great victories with respect to child labor, eight hour workdays. Eventually Workers Compensation insurance and retirement, thats the unions had a great victory. I do think that the unions are currently struggling for relevance. In the private sector they are down to about. 4 percent representation, in the workforce. For the public and government combined its only 10. 7 and thats 100 year low. It hasnt been that low since 1915, 1916 so are they are struggling to be relevant and they are not focusing on what would create jobs, what would create Economic Growth. Theyre trying to focus on things they think will attract members into the union so trying to use government to bring members into the union and i think that can get overdone. So for example, they fight for 15. The 15 minimum wage, there was a report out of the San Francisco census that hurts low skilled workers, or the very workers, Something LikeSan Francisco that a bastion of Economic Policy. In San Francisco, they gone to 13, theyre going to 15. Our Business Schools have said it cause restaurant closures to increase 10 percent for every dollar. Harvard is not a bastion of conservative Economic Policy and in seattle where they went 13, the university of washington, a liberal based school came out and said that the minimum wage increase is just to 13, theyre going to 15. Already taken down low skilled workers hours nine percent and the private of 125 a week. These people cant afford that. This is low skilled workers, i started out in baskinrobbins. I have a job, talking a lot. I learned about inventory, taking care of customers, showing up on time, the things you learn when you have an entrylevel job. Theyre going to kill these entrylevel jobs but it isnt something to talk about on tv because the fbi does something to draw men in and it look like you are helping workers when they are really not yet in that sense im against the policy that the unions are pursuing to generate more union growth but im not at all opposed. I think collective bargaining is something workers should absolutely have the right to duplex does corals or parties have restaurants in seattle or San Francisco and how would that affect an individual restaurant . We do have franchise restaurants in san diego so this is something the franchisees employee the employees and they have to pay these wages but to the extent that it makes it harder to hire people so your labor costs go up cause you got to pay these increased wages. The tendency is to automate, the tendency is to reduce the number of your employees or to reduce their hours inches exactly, one of these restaurant its exactly what the Harvard Business school and university of washington study chose happens. I dont need study to tell people that happen. I did it wallstreet journal oped and informs. And got severely ridiculed for it and characterized as antiunion although im not. Ive been trying to convince the Restaurant Industry and the Franchise Association to increase, to go for an increase in the minimum wage, is too low. It could go to nine dollars, a level at which you could increase the minimum wage where it would not kill entrylevel jobs. 15 an hour kills jobs, hurts businesses, or to lesser skilled workers, it is bad for the American Worker and apparently its good for Union Membership but is not good for much else. You quote Milton Friedman in your book job creation, one of the great mistakes is to judge Government Policies andprograms by their intentions rather than their results. Thats such a good quote. Thats the way every Government Program should be judged. Look at the war on poverty. The intention was to reduce poverty, it hasnt. If we were losing a real war, we would change our tactics to win the war. Were still going, not only did we go with the same tactics that failed but we put more money into them. This is not a good plan. We have a president willing to change that. If we can getpolitical commitment and energy going, particularly in the senate, we can solve a lot of these problems and make a lot of improvements but we need the senate to get on board. What would have been your first action as labor secretary . Number one i wanted to implement policies that would create jobs in the inner cities. The policies implemented over the past eight years have her job growth in the inner cities. I want to see those entrylevel jobs, i want to see people get prepared for the jobs that exist so we would have apprenticeship and internship rams where i would coordinate with the private sector. The government spends about 300 million a year on job training or 300 billion. Excuse me, 30 billion and the private sector spends like300 billion. Lets coordinate with the private sector. Running around doing crazing things with our money that dont make any sense when the people that have jobs and are willing to train people for those jobs and are looking for people to build those jobs, theres many jobs i consider programmers, welders, construction workers where they cant find the people to fill the jobs. We have 6 million job openings, thats a historic high. There have never been 6 million job openings. We need to get people in the inner cities into the American Dream, they need to get into the process, into the system. When i worked at baskinrobbins, my professional career was when the franchisee owner handed me the key and said you are the assistant general manager, you can open in the morning. I opened and i bet it was the cleanest restaurant in america within a half hour. There was such pride and accomplishment that thats the kind of thing that keeps you in your family, that keeps you in school. The pride that leads you to a better life and a more profitable existence than the two out of gangs, keeps you away from the drugs. It does things that are so meaningful to people that are underestima