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Billionaire-politician-activist Michael Bloomberg talks to TOI about the future of cities, the importance of local government and his business and political plans.
Q: How do you see the new government in India?
Michael Bloomberg: It is not my business to criticize and I don't know the machinations of politics here. I will say that I spent an hour with Prime Minister Modi in New York and spent an hour with him on Monday and he has one characteristic that is very useful in a leader. You look at him and you think that you are the only one in the room. That's very important for somebody like him because that is how you get people to work with you, that's how you get people to give you good ideas. He is very smart and, I think, very tough. I think he is going to need some luck but everybody needs luck. He is going to need a few crises because crises are great for governing. And if you get through them then you have an awful lot of credibility to do other things. I think he will do a good job. I am an optimist.
Q: You were in Delhi on Monday, which has the worst air pollution in the world. You have run a huge city like New York. How can go about reducing pollution without derailing economic growth?
Michael Bloomberg: One of my guys went with me for a run in Delhi. He just started coughing. Beijing has exactly the same problem. I would view it as a great challenge, but there's this false choice between economic development and environmental quality. I would argue that if you don't focus on the environmental quality you will not be able to fix the economic side. The purpose of government is to help people live longer, happier lives. Yes, you need jobs, you need a lot of things but to say that you need those before you need your health -- I would say if you are dying, you might look back and say that wasn't a good decision.
The problem is, it's easy to put a figure to growth, but how do you value two more years of life for 14 million people? People may say electricity is more expensive than coal, but that's not true if you add the health cost of taking care of people, or the cost of building hospitals.
Q: What are the concrete steps one could take? Would you support saying that you can only have cars with odd-numbered licence plates and even-numbered plates running on alternate days?
Michael Bloomberg: Well, some states tried that and everybody just got two cars (laughs). There are a number of things you can do to get the private sector involved. All the progress in the US in cleaning the air has come from the private sector and from local governments. Life expectancy in New York went up because of the policy initiatives I took. In 12 years, it improved by three years, so it is now three years more than the national average. So yes, things can change even in big cities. People say, 'You could do that in New York but Mumbai is so chaotic'. Yeah, it seems chaotic if you come from New York. This city looks so much more crowded, but if you live in Mississippi, New York can seem pretty chaotic.
Q. Delhi just voted in a state government which campaigned almost completely on local issues...
Michael Bloomberg: I know you need anti-terrorism, you need an army and you need basic research and science. But most of us just live day in and day out. I want to be able to walk out of the door and not have the building fall down, not step on garbage, find a school for my kids, be able to get a job, get to work and get home and maybe go out and have a good time on a clean beach or at a concert or something. It's the little things that matter to most of us most of the time. And that's local governments. It's easier to hold them accountable. A local government is supposed to pick up the garbage. Look out of the window. Did they or didn't they? The press can focus people's attention, get elected officials to do a better job. You can measure education, crime, garbage, pollution, traffic congestion, building standards.
Q. You've just launched an initiative to reduce traffic deaths in Mumbai.
Michael Bloomberg: My non-profit, Bloomberg Philanthropies, has signed an MoU with the Maharashtra government to try and reduce the number of fatal road accidents in Mumbai from about 700 a year to 70 a year within five years. Mumbai is one of 10 global cities that we selected as part of the initiative, and no, the judges didn't know that I would be coming down here when they made the choice. They picked Mumbai because they thought the local authorities showed genuine interest in introducing reforms.
Q. Are you still in the market for a newspaper? There's talk that you may buy the Financial Times?
Michael Bloomberg: I buy a newspaper every day. Then I read it and put it away (laughs). Look, there's no reason for me to buy a newspaper. We don't need brand building. We have a pretty good brand around the world. It's a very tough business to make it profitable. Besides, if I wanted to own a newspaper, I'd probably want to own a tabloid. I like this guy. I don't like that guy. I'll tell my staff, 'Hey, write a good story about this guy, write a bad story about that guy.' You can't do that in a serious newspaper (laughs).
Q. 2016 is coming up. Are you interested in running for President? Or if you are offered Secretary of Treasury or Secretary of State, would you take it?
Michael Bloomberg: Absolutely not. It would be great to be President but I would never get elected. I am a fiscal conservative so liberals don't like me and I am a social liberal so conservatives don't like me. I would not want to serve in the next administration because I've just gone back to a job that I absolutely love, which is running my company. I want to do this till I am 80, which might be a nice point to start another career. Will I make it that far? Well, I run every day, so my doctors say I probably will.
Q. You're also running the Bloomberg newsroom...
Michael Bloomberg: No, I've hired John Micklethwait to run it. I have taken 10 different organisations which exist today within the group, and I have put the head of every one of those around where John's desk is. There will be no excuse for these organisations not to share interviews or work together.
Q. Do you have a policy for China?
Michael Bloomberg: I think every country has a right to decide what comes into it. A reputable news organization like Bloomberg should decide on its own what stories to write and how to write them and what they say. They got upset once about a story (which traced the wealth of Chinese Communist leaders and their families). I got a call when I was still mayor. I told the guys, 'You have two days to fact-check. Just make sure you get it right. If you're certain, publish it and don't call me back'. The Chinese were very upset. But we still do business in China and it is growing.
I will never tell our journalists not to write things. But they have to be sure it is accurate. I don't think our journalism should about assassinating people, or become a blood sport. A lot of journalism now is about getting more clicks by doing sensationalist stuff. I would like to think our journalism is a cut above that.
Q: How do you see the new government in India?
Michael Bloomberg: It is not my business to criticize and I don't know the machinations of politics here. I will say that I spent an hour with Prime Minister Modi in New York and spent an hour with him on Monday and he has one characteristic that is very useful in a leader. You look at him and you think that you are the only one in the room. That's very important for somebody like him because that is how you get people to work with you, that's how you get people to give you good ideas. He is very smart and, I think, very tough. I think he is going to need some luck but everybody needs luck. He is going to need a few crises because crises are great for governing. And if you get through them then you have an awful lot of credibility to do other things. I think he will do a good job. I am an optimist.
Q: You were in Delhi on Monday, which has the worst air pollution in the world. You have run a huge city like New York. How can go about reducing pollution without derailing economic growth?
Michael Bloomberg: One of my guys went with me for a run in Delhi. He just started coughing. Beijing has exactly the same problem. I would view it as a great challenge, but there's this false choice between economic development and environmental quality. I would argue that if you don't focus on the environmental quality you will not be able to fix the economic side. The purpose of government is to help people live longer, happier lives. Yes, you need jobs, you need a lot of things but to say that you need those before you need your health -- I would say if you are dying, you might look back and say that wasn't a good decision.
The problem is, it's easy to put a figure to growth, but how do you value two more years of life for 14 million people? People may say electricity is more expensive than coal, but that's not true if you add the health cost of taking care of people, or the cost of building hospitals.
Q: What are the concrete steps one could take? Would you support saying that you can only have cars with odd-numbered licence plates and even-numbered plates running on alternate days?
Michael Bloomberg: Well, some states tried that and everybody just got two cars (laughs). There are a number of things you can do to get the private sector involved. All the progress in the US in cleaning the air has come from the private sector and from local governments. Life expectancy in New York went up because of the policy initiatives I took. In 12 years, it improved by three years, so it is now three years more than the national average. So yes, things can change even in big cities. People say, 'You could do that in New York but Mumbai is so chaotic'. Yeah, it seems chaotic if you come from New York. This city looks so much more crowded, but if you live in Mississippi, New York can seem pretty chaotic.
Michael Bloomberg: I know you need anti-terrorism, you need an army and you need basic research and science. But most of us just live day in and day out. I want to be able to walk out of the door and not have the building fall down, not step on garbage, find a school for my kids, be able to get a job, get to work and get home and maybe go out and have a good time on a clean beach or at a concert or something. It's the little things that matter to most of us most of the time. And that's local governments. It's easier to hold them accountable. A local government is supposed to pick up the garbage. Look out of the window. Did they or didn't they? The press can focus people's attention, get elected officials to do a better job. You can measure education, crime, garbage, pollution, traffic congestion, building standards.
Q. You've just launched an initiative to reduce traffic deaths in Mumbai.
Michael Bloomberg: My non-profit, Bloomberg Philanthropies, has signed an MoU with the Maharashtra government to try and reduce the number of fatal road accidents in Mumbai from about 700 a year to 70 a year within five years. Mumbai is one of 10 global cities that we selected as part of the initiative, and no, the judges didn't know that I would be coming down here when they made the choice. They picked Mumbai because they thought the local authorities showed genuine interest in introducing reforms.
Q. Are you still in the market for a newspaper? There's talk that you may buy the Financial Times?
Michael Bloomberg: I buy a newspaper every day. Then I read it and put it away (laughs). Look, there's no reason for me to buy a newspaper. We don't need brand building. We have a pretty good brand around the world. It's a very tough business to make it profitable. Besides, if I wanted to own a newspaper, I'd probably want to own a tabloid. I like this guy. I don't like that guy. I'll tell my staff, 'Hey, write a good story about this guy, write a bad story about that guy.' You can't do that in a serious newspaper (laughs).
Q. 2016 is coming up. Are you interested in running for President? Or if you are offered Secretary of Treasury or Secretary of State, would you take it?
Michael Bloomberg: Absolutely not. It would be great to be President but I would never get elected. I am a fiscal conservative so liberals don't like me and I am a social liberal so conservatives don't like me. I would not want to serve in the next administration because I've just gone back to a job that I absolutely love, which is running my company. I want to do this till I am 80, which might be a nice point to start another career. Will I make it that far? Well, I run every day, so my doctors say I probably will.
Michael Bloomberg: No, I've hired John Micklethwait to run it. I have taken 10 different organisations which exist today within the group, and I have put the head of every one of those around where John's desk is. There will be no excuse for these organisations not to share interviews or work together.
Q. Do you have a policy for China?
Michael Bloomberg: I think every country has a right to decide what comes into it. A reputable news organization like Bloomberg should decide on its own what stories to write and how to write them and what they say. They got upset once about a story (which traced the wealth of Chinese Communist leaders and their families). I got a call when I was still mayor. I told the guys, 'You have two days to fact-check. Just make sure you get it right. If you're certain, publish it and don't call me back'. The Chinese were very upset. But we still do business in China and it is growing.
I will never tell our journalists not to write things. But they have to be sure it is accurate. I don't think our journalism should about assassinating people, or become a blood sport. A lot of journalism now is about getting more clicks by doing sensationalist stuff. I would like to think our journalism is a cut above that.
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Subscribe to The Economic Times Prime and read the ET ePaper online.