Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser - The First 30 Years

Week after week for three decades it has been the country's most widely watched and trusted source of economic and financial advice. Now join us for this special one hour look back at an American classic. Street Week With Louis Rukeyser the first 30 years. Good evening. I'm Louis Rukeyser This is Wall Street Week. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. It's now been 30 years since I first welcome viewers to this program but the sentiment has always been sincere. When we started a few people thought they would be much of an audience to welcome in the first place. There was no such thing as a national television program about money in those days. And the reason was simple. TV executives and Madison Avenue vice presidents thought the subject was too dull and or too complicated to attract an audience large enough to form a bowling team. Turns out they were wildly wrong. And right from the start. People do care a lot about money. In

fact I've found it's usually one of their two principal preoccupations. They just don't want to be put to sleep in the process of learning about it. I had already been working for more than two years as TV's first national economic correspondent and commentator. The job I feel that ABC from 1968 to 1973. So this little gig for public television down in Owings Mills Maryland started as an experimental bit of moonlighting supposedly just for 30 weeks. Isn't it amazing how time flies when you're having fun. Even I as a perennial optimist had not suspected how many millions of weekly viewers were ready for a solid pocketbook information clear uncredible about how to make their money grow. And one of our first and best rules was not to take ourselves too seriously. So before we get to some of the really historic stuff let's clear away the fog and take you behind

the scenes. It's been a program for all seasons and some fascinating locations. Good evening I'm Louis Rukeyser This is Wall Street Week. Welcome back. Well

one thing's for sure this is not always Mills Maryland. It is in fact the floor of the world's newest and most technologically advanced stock market. The one year old Toronto Stock Exchange. But this is the OEM trading pit at the Chicago Board Options Exchange from Tokyo produced Friday May 28. Welcome to the very first Wall Street Week from St. Louis. And boy is it about time. Well here we are in jolly old London and life certainly does look different when you travel to a strange foreign country. Welcome to a very special Wall Street Week from Rio. And we gave some fascinating career advice to the Signal 30 30 seconds you move your fist up and down like this. That ought to clear away the wimps. Want to buy a hundred contracts at that place. Yes do this. I kid you not and for a thousand.

Make like an Indian. Of course we never advocated anything as crass as gambling. You know I've always advocated long term investing. So I'll spring for one more quarter. Now you're talking. Some strange characters showed up from time to time. What's up Doc besides the market. Welcome back everybody wants to get into the act. In total darkness it's infrared illumination let you know who is around and what they're saying. It's OK folks it's only your friendly neighborhood economic commentator. I'll be a little late for dinner tonight. Yes. Oops wrong show. Buy low sell high.

But I tried to keep my dignity at all costs. The Wonderbra which is based it would seem on the conviction that things don't have to be precisely what they seem. Peekaboo chiffon nightgown and Matt Sheen G-string. It's me 0 0 0. 0. 0. 0. 0. An innocent pet turtle that mutates into a fierce teenage ninja. Take that short sellers. If your broker advise you to stay out of the market in 1995 you might want to try this nerf secret shop on the rascal. Nerf bow and arrow sets. Just the thing for fending off overly insistent brokers bubble sacks features the favorite instrument of our president. And will

presumably be especially useful if you want to soft soap Congress. How sweet it was Mao used chocolates in Cleveland is offering this choice item for just one dollar with crisp rice inside the milk chocolate and Mellie's tells me I'm the first non athlete to have his own candy bar. Obviously they've never seen me play second base and the warm sentiment has always been the same even when some wild young kid was hosting the show back in the early seventies. Meanwhile there's been Wall Street Week I'm Louis Rukeyser good night and have a happy and hopefully a prosperous New Year. Who knew that the show was destined to become not just America's favorite money program. But a cultural icon as well. First you reach a star do you miss.

What you like. Well sure we discard. Well listen I'm going to skip it today OK I'm going to but I already made the popcorn and the cash registers are heaved out. That evening I'm boys. Well. It's been an up and down week on Wall Street but ridden the roller coaster to which speak after gorging themselves on the cotton candy overvalued issues. For St.. Louis. Well folks I suppose it had to happen one of these days. The newest superstar in the world of money actually is a bit with us tonight as our special guest on Wall Street Week board. Oh. No you. Don't. Good morning same. Thing you're stuck. Yes and they're all down.

You know what can stand must come out. Thank you. Louis Rukeyser when the program started in 1970 the Dow Jones Industrial Average had never closed above 1000 let alone 10000. But it finally accomplished this in 1972. Not long after though it went into its greatest known since 1929. And as the Dow Jones Industrial Average indicates the market's downhill run was virtually uninterrupted by the end of the week the closely watched Dow the average had dipped below which previous 1974 lows to a depth it hadn't seen since October 26 1962. Few other price indexes can make that claim. The weeks loss was more than forty one points to five hundred seventy seven point six zero. And as usual fear soon beat greed by a landslide. But in fact the Dow never again traded at so low a level. Still the

wiseguys sneered when a few precious optimists talked of much better times ahead. Some people incorrectly regard you as a bear because you were correctly pessimistic at certain key junctures including 73 but in fact you've just given us a pretty optimistic viewpoint. And I've heard you talking about even higher figures for the ultimate future do you still see 3000 4000 5000. Oh yes every generation has its big bull market that blows off we had in the 20s we had in the 50s and 60s we were good in the 80s and 90s. How high we're going to go. I would say there's a better than even chance that within six seven or eight years we will see the Dow Jones Industrial Average sometime above 3000 in October 1981 eight months before history's greatest bull market began. I interviewed a seemingly bizarre guest who turned out to be an uncannily accurate forecaster.

I'm a little confused you said we're in a bear market but earlier you said we were going to be in a bull market. When and when do we get out of this bear market into the bull market. The end of the bear market. The earliest I can count it is about. August 26 1982. It might be a little later. Where we go lower than we've been between now and then probably. But I'm not one of these 600 boys. I think. 750 to 70 is more like. The range of the final Oh August 26 1982. Now how do you pick the day like that. And can you tell me precisely what time Eastern are you know about seven or eight miles is the count for the middle section. The standard time spans. Which appeared in the encyclopedia of stock market techniques.

But you're thinking the exact day of a low or a high is usually done by the count from the middle section. Your predictions are so specific and so long range that I think the remarkable thing is not that you're sometimes wrong but the you're ever right. I think you're absolutely incredible. Well even if you don't know the count from the middle section from Count Dracula you have to admire the late Mr. Lindsey. The market took off almost precisely on his schedule six years after his appearance on the eve of what became known as the crash of 1987. There was another famous Bull's-Eye prediction in the other direction hadn't been looking for a bear market for seven really in my own mind looking for a crash president to talk about it publicly because it's like shouting fire in a crowded theater. And there's other ways to play it you just took your strategy negatively and you shut your mouth and only look for a brief decline that a vicious one.

MARTIN You had it exactly right. A week later after the worst crash since 1929 I offered a little reassurance to terrified investors around the globe. OK let's start with what's really important tonight. It's just your money not your life. Everybody who really loved you a week ago still loves you tonight. And that's a heck of a lot more important than the numbers on a brokerage statement. The robins will sing the Crocus is will bloom. Babies will gurgle and puppies will curl up in your lap and drift happily to sleep even when the stock market goes temporarily insane. And now that that's all fully in perspective let me say. I watch. And eek and medic and once again it transpired the end of the world really hadn't arrived. The Dow not only regained what it lost. It doubled and doubled again and kept on rising. But as always with investing there were

occasional brief interruptions. Some seem to hurt worse than others. Good evening. I'm Louis Rukeyser This is Wall Street Week. Welcome back. Well a funny thing happened to me on the way to the studio. There we were jogging along blissfully toward 10000 on the Dow. When we fell into this huge hole and got battered pretty badly. Were you there too. Did you get her to. Guys I'm sorry but there's no way that the misery was shared by so many nice people has me feeling better already. How about you. Again I reassured America that patience and perseverance would bring profits. And what do you know they did. Will we ever have bear markets again.

Of course we will. But as this program is always pointed out the way that most people are going to make the most money is by buying quality for the long term not by trying to outguess the market by the kind of in and out trading that periodically seduces the unwary. We've always tried to keep you ahead of the curve on genuine long term trends and one of the ways was by offering the kind of expert incisive analysis of key industries that had previously been available only to millionaires. Our guests and panelists have peered into some remarkably accurate crystal balls. So Ali how serious is the energy crisis. Lou it's large. It's going to be with us for a long time. It's going to be a fact of life which we have never experienced before which is going to change our way of life

and the future of our industrial society. Frank Caprio Alan Ehrlich of course from New York says he's looking for what he calls undervalued growth stocks and he'd like an opinion of companies involved in the video games and video recording industry. I think video games is the rigging of your TVs to play electronic kaki or electronic tennis and it's a growth area 3 million last year. That's up 10 times from 1700. But it's a tricky area and the company I like Innes area and I think there is growth here would be a company called Warner Communications. This is a company that not only has a fine subsidiary Atari which produces the games but also has other things in motion pictures and so on. Selling it six times earnings I think it's undervalued video recorders This is an entirely new area about a year old. As far as the residential home market is concerned the leader here in taping TV shows and showing them

again on the set is Sony with its better Macs for an operation. But I much prefer the much use system which RCA will market very shortly and it's a good way to play the system. And RCA may be a good turnaround candidate. I think the movie industry for the next oh let's say three to five years in terms of theatrical viewing in t it is I believe it's going to continue to be approximately flat and I would say two and a half to three billion dollars a year will be spent on it. However I think that the actual viewing of movies is going to increase dramatically as it has been doing over the last five years. This is going to happen on video cassettes this is going to happen on pay cable in five years what's going to be the most significant difference in TV from today in five years what's going to be the most of it. There will be four major networks. Fox will be the fourth with a news operation as well. Yes.

Well we're going to miss you is just made a vice president of Morgan Stanley is making his fourth appearance in four years on this program which shows what we think of his consistently highly rated analyses of aerospace and defense stocks. On his last appearance as my guest in May 1980 I asked him what further events might be anticipated on the international security scene and he replied and I quote. Well God only knows Iran invading Iraq Libya trying to bump off President Sadat. Various things which affect our interests fairly directly. Wealth that kind of precision in public forecasting is rare anywhere on any subject. What is your crystal ball tell you now about the international scene. Well I'm hopeful peace will break out as we proceed during the course of the year. Many years before a new economy became a glib catchphrase is when technology investors will be widely viewed as side file wackos. Some

brave souls came to Owings Mills and made what may have been the most profitable recommendations ever heard on television. Our primary recommendations are Intel which is over-the-counter Texas Instruments and National Semiconductor. I gather that the hot new word in the industry is microprocessors which you define it for us and tell us why it's hot. Yes the microprocessor is not simply a full fledged computer on a single chip of silicon about a fifth of an inch by a fifth of an inch. And it is a revolution in the computation. It allows you to have a computer for the price of about $10. And I predict Louis that five years from now you're going to have a microprocessor in your home in your car on your wrist in your telephone and perhaps in other places. Well I certainly hope not. Are any of the companies you mentioned particularly well-positioned to take advantage of them.

There is no question that Intel which is the inventor of the microprocessor dominates the microprocessor field will probably dominate the microprocessor for years to come. I think it is probably the most exciting development in technology that I'm aware of. What other buys do you say. I think long term Microsoft is an excellent company. Sun Microsystems seems to be coming back. But as the host has always reminded you there are no guarantees from the management and not every prediction made by my guests belongs in the financial Hall of Fame. You have used phrases rather more severe than the economy turning down your suggestion that we may have the worst depression in our history. Yes I have said that we probably would have a worse depression than the nineteen twenty thirty three depression. But even then it isn't the apocalypse you know I lived through it. You didn't. So I know what it was like I caught the end of it.

At the back of your book says that you predicted a major economic downturn probably starting this year with a 70 percent chance it will become a full scale inflationary depression. Do you now feel that our current episode will not become a full scale depression. Not this current one. You know what I thought in the book indicated that the other 30 percent probability was we'd have a recovery from this one one more time then we'd move into that inflationary depression. Right now I'd say it's 60 40 that we're going to find ourselves in a recession from which we will have an inflationary recovery but I think the real inflation is going to take up sometime toward the end in 1901 which will lead us into an inflationary depression. You think we're really going to have a gold standard very soon it's inevitable. What's great is how soon the first well very soon means. Before Reagan's first term is up and the movement to it I believe will begin before next spring. Do you think Disney will get NBC. I think that's probably a 40 percent chance is my bet at the moment.

I think she is interested in selling if the price is high enough. Of course they haven't really come out and officially said they're going to sell but the easiest deal to happen is one with a private company a division of a company. So it's much easier to negotiate with G.E. for NBC than it is to go and try and buy one of the other network companies. And how about CBS who was going to get CBS. Well Mr. Tisch says that he isn't interested in selling out at all. And anybody that says anything different from that doesn't know him at all. This question have any future as a car maker. You know I think that Chrysler is terminal in your judgment then is there any good reason to bail out Chrysler through a massive U.S. aid program. I really think the company is terminal. This show has never been soley about investments. We've talked about anything that

affected people and their money. And my guests have included some of the most powerful persons in the world business leaders who run for president present and future cabinet officials world class economists and the two men who have been chairman of the Federal Reserve Board for more than two decades. First thing we've got today is realize that the market is only likely if the individual investor is in the market now that a lot of people are going to bankers and those who love to see him down there tonight. Big masterbation was very attractive these Democrats have a small investor day in the sunshine to provide liquidity in the market the price of oil today bears no relationship to economic reality. There's no relationship to the production cost of oil that the cost of alternative sources of energy. It was a political decision on the part of a cartel to quadruple the price of oil arbitrarily because they control 67 percent of the world's proven reserves. Well let's turn to the rest of the economy. You said earlier this year that you would be mightily concerned if the

deficit in the federal budget went over 80 billion dollars according to Congress's reckoning this week. It's likely to top seventy two billion. How concerned are you. Is this likely to destroy our recovery from recession. Well I think it's big. I think it's going to destroy the recovery from the recession the trouble with these deficits. And not so much the size of the deficit when there's a lot of unutilized capacity in the economy. But are we on a course that carries us continuing along with these kinds of deficits as the economy does recover and economy is. Has begun to recover it's been recovering rather vigorously for some months. And it's certainly time looking ahead to begin seeing reducing the deficit and I would remain buried Mr deficit as we move ahead and as we kind of removed. We have to balance our social aims and desires against our investment needs. The more you spend in the social area the less you'll have to spend in investment. Investment means jobs and you're going to have to watch a tradeoff the more you go for

one the less you'll have on the other. And the only way you can make it up for your social aims is to have the government the United States spend the money. And there in lies the problem if the government decides to come into the capital markets in a large way there's less capital available for everyone else. If the government. Cuts back on its desires there will be enough capital to go around. Seems to me you're suggesting that we are going to go a little bit downhill as well that I correct. I think so yes I think that when you begin to look at the world of the 1990s I think the United States comes down a notch or two where we live worse or just live not as relatively better I think not as relatively But look you know there are a lot of talk about the United States losing its sort of per capita income of leadership in the world. But the real issue is that you know average American household has got the best homes in the world. It's got the best sets of appliance the best telecommunications. The average American

still lives far better than the average anything else. The trouble is is that the gap which we used to be huge is now beginning to know it's going out for them. Nope we only have about a minute left. Let's see if we can hop scotch a little bit. Should we abolish the Federal Reserve Board. Yes. What would you replace it with a computer and what would you tell the computer to do. I would tell the computer to see to it that the money supply goes up at exactly 2 percent per year or is closer to if you can manage on a week by week month by month year by year basis. Is there any form of government regulation that you favor. Absolutely. There are many forms I favor the form of government regulation which says that if you murder your wife you go to jail. I favor the form of government regulation which is you have to drive on the right side of the road. Can you have never lost faith in the power of government to cure economic ills. But most of the country apparently has. How do you explain that. Well there's no doubt about that.

My generation is responsible. Throw the Keynesian revolution the welfare revolution a great many Americans a majority of Americans have become. Comfortable happy and have a doubly conservative. Base those that vote. Welcome welcome we're just delighted to have you with us. I would sure please. If that. Build up I mean. A little trepidation would you be trepidation. I know you're intimidated but take it easy. You may have a career if you do well tonight. How come Forbes is often called the happy capitalist and when look just now I will tell you why. In addition to his notable holdings he is the chairman he's the editor in chief as well of Forbes business magazine founded in 1917 by his father a Scottish immigrant. It's now one of the largest and most respected in the field. Malcolm you were born rich you've become a heck of a lot richer but most of the public attention as I already suggested is centered on the way you've spent all that money.

Now your father they tell me it was a pretty tight Scott. How do you feel about all this publicity. Well I'm sure you wouldn't mind the publicity yes the price that was it was stingy in expenditures without the household atmosphere. No he wasn't stingy he was stingy in non-essential expenditures of which he considered over generous allowances in that category. I remember whenever we left the living room going to dinner we were all taught to turn out the lights on the way into the dining room. He wasn't just had a great respect for money. And I've developed a great affection for him. What is your attitude toward money. That it's a very nice thing to have. While parts of your book read eerily like a script for what's been happening in Europe this month for example you wrote preciously and I quote a common currency will be the final step in a completely integrated market and the European economic community has moved toward this

eventuality. But this surrender of sovereignty touches the very heart of the nation state to lose control of the right to issue currency is an attack against one of sovereignties most valued rights should we expect next in this European currency crisis. Well I think it was almost inevitable that what happened last week was going to happen. Now once you have disparate economies and disparate nation states and a market as big as we now have fixed exchange rates are an artifact of the past. The float is the only thing that will act as a shock absorber between disparate national policies. We Americans are notorious for a short memory spans but you and I have been around for a while. Can you recall any time when raising taxes actually reduced the deficit. I think you're going to see this time with what we lock in the way of this program a very material reduction in that deficit and I haven't seen that and I will long time

and I'll tell you who reacts to it. The bond market has they believe it. You're seeing almost a hundred basis point drop in interest rates and that is a substantial stimulus to this economy. There's no question that the bond market has endorsed what's going on the economy. But isn't it a bit weird for a Democratic president to be finding his chief support in the bond market. I think it's still light fall in October 1982 then camera shy money manager from Boston made his television debut. His mutual fund had the best five year record in investing and soon he would become a household name at least in the Lily Tomlin then done Rickles house elves. Obviously the typical investor as an individual doesn't have the time to spend all the time you spend on all this. But is there anything he or she can learn from what you do. BI I'm amazed that the average investor is out there in some industry or in the polyvinyl chloride industry their insurance their in textiles and they're going to see those industries turn.

And they're not going to buy those stocks they're going to go buy some stock from somebody in the National Guard are they going to something on television and by genetics they have a big edge in me I work awfully hard and they're months ahead of me. They can be healthier so they're seeing new products they should work on that on that that they have in front of them as they used to tell writers write what you know you're telling them by which you know what would you tell them not to do what you do the most common steak I do I think people buy stocks because they've fallen from price x to two thirds of X or half of X on that basis alone you're buying a stock that's called bottom fishing the stock market very very difficult I've had a rough go with Stanwell how this year fell from 90 to 60 and I told everybody the stock is not going to go any lower than I want to 50 and I said this is it no lower. It went through 40 I said to people this is it. Finally when it got down under 30 and people said what you think is Ohio I said What the what does Ohio do I don't know I don't know that. How can you you know I actually back away from

it in my to buy low. One of the pleasures of hosting this program has been meeting some of the most successful investors of all time. Back in 1995 I interviewed a stripling of ninety eight years about the markets. So what's the single most important thing that you have learned about investing over the past three quarters of a century. Patience patience tell expand on that. How do you apply patience. Well I buy things for myself and for clients to hold for five years 10 years so I won't be around for 10 years or any sizeable part of it. But you have told us before you could fool us again. One of the most remarkable things about you is that you don't rest on your laurels you're out there every day as an active investor. What do you think of this stock market today.

I think it is so dangerous at present levels. Two and a lot of froth on the Boehm. I think probably you were in for maybe something like 1987 when the market went down 500 points in one day. Perhaps I have a repeat of that. But in the long run this is a great country. Just by being having too much government and I think in the long run why the market will recover and people will buy the right stocks and said I'm not going to do very well. What do you do given your experience when you think that may be too much froth when you think there may be a major correction even a crash to sell your stock. No I really don't do anything just show that patience I want to for the long haul I like and I have seen a lot of recession's and I can live through them and I can do it again perhaps.

In 1984 after we had already been on the air for 14 years I decided that viewers by then could trust me enough not just to be showing home movies. When I bought my father 87 year old financial journalist Merrill Stanley Rukeyser to Owings Mills he quickly became our viewer's favorite guest the ageless boy wonder of Wall Street. Wall Street's never been. Popular. And it's an easy plaything for the demagogues. And I think that those who speak about fairness in the fairness of an incumbent president in the tax bill are not only attacking the incumbent whether attacking the whole system because the nature of a competitive system is in the quality we pay people according to their productivity. If you want to play it

pay people equally. Then I recommend communism. They promise that they don't always perform well at 87 you belong to one of the constituencies that was singled out for special attention this week. How do you feel about being described as a senior citizen. I resent it. I'm against hyphenated Americans where the German Americans a Jewish Americans are Italian Americans or gay Americans are a sober American. And you think you just a citizen. The big story of this past year in the economy was all the corporate mergers as we have had this before. We've had mergers before but I think some aspects of it need a little straightening out. I think it's a conflict of interest when management puts itself in conflict with the stockholders and makes a leveraged buyout that they've been hired to work for the stockholders not to trade against them. You were quoted earlier this year in one magazine with some that still sounds pretty good to me. You talk about

constant she said There's no surer investment no chance of being right every time all you have to work with is careful selection. Persistent supervision and diversification to cushion your mistakes. Successful investors know themselves and do their own thinking. They don't react to each market fluctuation they find a good investment and let it pay off. Would you want to amend that at all now. No it was pretty clever of me I didn't remember this thing. You still hold of common stocks. I am but with the advice and consent of my as in essence. I took advantage of my age and bought a non refund annuity so I could afford the whole whole common stuff that only paid a small rate on the purchase. The market value. But when you are investing for your own account you still believe in the future of the stock market. Yes and I believe that I was assuming certain risks. I didn't think I was making a risk Lisah venture.

You're obviously not a newsletter writer because they don't have any risk latest tell us they know the answer well if you subscribe for about 60 to 80 dollars a year. You can have this risk was the venture. The only thing is that they run out of town after a big break. Your life covers a whole cycle in American life in terms of our international position. We were a debtor nation we became a creditor nation our debtor nation again how can we become more competitive in America. A return to excellence we all missed in the 1980s and 1990s brought a new type of business leaders of the four that was the corporate raider and the here to four anonymous CEO as cult figure. When you say you are the champion of the stall small stockholder of the British corporate rate rater said James Goldsmith says and I quote him. They does it takeovers or quote for the public good. But that's not why I do it. I do it to make money. Isn't that really your number one motivation. Lou I'd be be sitting here lying to you if I

told you that we did not expect to make money out of these deals at the same time if you'll go back and look at what we've done with the stockholders and you know if you just take the four deals we're talking about there are 13 billion dollars in profit that profit went right back into to this economy and it's moved around very quickly some back into stocks and whatever else but it creates jobs it does a lot of things in America. So I like to see that capital moved around and I like to see people make money off of these deals and they do. I don't like to see managements that their stock sale at a huge discount to praise but that does annoy me. One of the reasons we pay CEOs as much as we do is that they have to sustain more headaches and the average person just this month it was revealed that a memo from May an executive in your old Long Island district had trashed low asset customers and suggested the firm wasn't very interested in handling them. Is that the French policy. You could have gone the whole evening without bringing that up because it's just so far

it's a policy that but morally it is diametrically opposed to the policy that brought us to where we are sign metrically opposed to the policies that we have in place and certainly it's not something we're proud of I think the young man made a mistake. I know he regrets it but certainly this is not something that we will contend with nor proof. My first brokerage trade was for a grand total of two hundred ninety five dollars a home for the $25 purchaser for you all make sure there is. Thank you. I'm up to 300 now. OK. You have been a leader in Wall Street thinking for a long time now. Do you think the boldness of this merger encouraged on the Benz and Chrysler. I think there's been a lot of deals since we've announced our deal and I think that was what I what I like saying is that we've created a new management concept called co CEO which I also see happened in that deal while the relationship between you

and Sandy is obviously very close and you present yourself as equals in this merger. Sandis chief aide Jeremy Diamond has been named president of the new Citi Group and there's a lot of speculation the traveller's is going to be the dominant partner here. Is this incorrect speculation. I think so I think what we did is Sandy and I want a way about 10 days ago and with Jamie Dimon a number of other people and we agreed as to how he wanted to run the company. PaineWebber had record earnings this past year. Is this a good time to sell a company. It's a good time to buy some more companies artists who are in the early stages of a very long term opportunity. You're looking for something to buy now. Not at all. Not yet. You first came to public attention with Apple. In recent weeks it's been one of the failure stories of Wall Street and indeed of the American economy what went wrong at Apple. Oh gosh.

You know Apple I've been there a long time but my perception we won't blame you for what happened last 10 years. No I mean my perception may not be complete but from the way I see I mean Apple is a company that was based on innovation. When I left Apple 10 years ago we we were 10 years ahead of anybody else it took Microsoft 10 years to copy Windows. The problem was is that Apple stood still. I think the way out is not to slash and burn is to innovate. That's how Apple got to its glory. And I think that's how Apple could return to it. We've seen a great deal of cost cutting in unfair cutting in the industry as a whole. What's the future for the other side of the equation better passenger comfort and service. I think it's very limited very limited very limited. The reality is that the airline industry is intensely competitive. We do what our customers have told us they want us to do. I made a speech the other day and I made the observation that that generally speaking the public has said they would

rather have more seats in the airplane and lower prices. And they've given us a very clear signal about that we have tried on several occasions taking seats out in the public each time. He said We will not pay for that extra space in either money or by waiting for a flight and you're comfortably on when we're through with our meeting. We're going to go home even if we go home and scrunched up air. I said a generous Bob Dylan. But. I accept your forecast though it disheartens me. What in economic policy is this Congress capable of what do you think is the most likely result. Steve I think it's going to do some good although it's not going to as you say have a B of miraculous Congress but I think they will make a serious effort to cut the capital gains tax and some other taxes which will be good. I think that will be a very serious effort on welfare reform. And I think we're going to start to see real hearings on the most exciting tax proposal. Dick Armey who will become the

majority leader in the house for a flat tax 17 percent rate no tax on dividends interest capital gains or estates. And for a family of four thirty six thousand dollars of tax free income that's going to sum the economy off like a rocket. And I think it'll happen after the 96 elections. IPO is Japan an unfair player at the World Economic game. I don't think so because that maybe that is a difference with the viewpoint. For example from us sometime American dupes own fear for example America all the money. Comparing the Japanese export by one and them buying from Japan automobile and as yet they built it increasingly saw such as. For us the fit.

They weren't perfect but neither alas was your genial host. Don welcome. Delighted to have you north of the Mason-Dixon line. You as a number of our more astute viewers pointed out Maryland is actually south of the Mason-Dixon line. And then there was the time I tripped up on English literature. And finally let's really get out the perfume and lace for the most adorable creature of 1987. The stock market only Shakespeare I fear will do. So let's try. How do I love thee. Let me count the ways. Nineteen hundred two thousand twenty one hundred twenty two hundred. Keep it up baby. You're beautiful. Okay first things first let's stop all those great poets and shocked English teachers from spinning in their graves. For this was the week when I finally found out what you people out there really care about. And as a result tonight I have to make my first public correction in

17 years of Wall Street Week as hundreds upon hundreds of literate viewers have triumphantly nay gleefully pointed out I was less than entirely accurate last week when in the course of offering some Valentine verses of my own I suggested that the sonnet including the words how do I love thee let me count the ways was by Shakespeare. From every corner of this noble land by post by phone by telegraph viewers rush to shout gotcha shame and at last many to be sure tried to become mind as they happily stabbed at my high school report card. As Mary Sutton Gilchrist of Syracuse New York affectionately put it how do we love you more ways than are countable. Your talent with VS is just insurmountable. But one year last I had Mitt left me frowning. That wasn't Shakespeare. It was a beret Brownie. Others not so generous fired at me with first that

was not so much black as a point Black wrote Joseph Cotton of Palo Alto California Roses are red violets are blue Louis Rukeyser made a boo boo. Then there was the time when having singlehandedly boosted the stock market to a series of all time highs. I decided it was safe to do some privately. As it turns out I didn't know my own strength. Well OK so what did I do on my summer vacation this year. I went to Moscow and they had a coup. I kid you not. There I was sleeping peacefully in my hotel room in the very capital of the evil empire when a bunch of hard line coming this had the temerity to try to overthrow the government. Who did those guys think they were dealing with. Well they ought to know by now because I sure showed them. By the end of the week as you

may have heard the coup was defeated world communism it crumbled. The Baltic states were liberated the evil empire had disintegrated and the Soviet Union was history. The nerve of those guys. Now my only question is where should I go on vacation next year. One of the nicest things about this program is the warm family relationship we've always had with our viewers five years ago we decided it was time to answer a vast array of viewer questions on such world shattering issues as. Who writes my material. Do the panelists get the same the questions in advance and other cosmic queries to which all America was apparently breathlessly awaiting the answers it was designed to show you everything you could possibly want to know about what you don't see on the screen every Friday.

If it's Friday this must be Owings Mills. I've been coming to the studios of Maryland Public Television to do this program almost every Friday for the past quarter century. It began as a bit of moonlighting. I was already a commentator for ABC News and continued as a full time ABC political and economic analyst for the next three years. Since then I've been out of my own like the other six days of the week. Hi Kelly. Always mills which I like to think of as the financial nerve center of the universe is actually a suburb northwest of Baltimore. And though I live hundreds of miles away. This building has become a sort of second home. I generally arrive in the early afternoon. And my first important job is to have lunch. I know that you love your outfit. Thank you. And I was a young newspaper reporter and editor once told me that serious journalists should always order a ham and cheese on rye and thereby save their creative powers for their

work. I then read every comment that viewers have sent me that week and answer as many letters as I can. We really do have the most loyal and astute audience in the world and I always look forward to finding out what they're thinking now. Next I work the phones and check the news a bit. We're going to fuel future projects and don't actually start to write that night show until about 4:30 pm and yes I do write my own stuff every syllable of it whose stuff did you think I wrote. I check over the graphics for that night show making any last minute changes. Chat with rich Dubrovsky who has been producing the show for the past 14 years and is one of the three most conscientious people in the history of television. And around six began writing that night's opening commentary if inspiration doesn't immediately appear I look for him in the hall. Good evening I'm Louis Rukeyser This is Wall Street Week. Welcome back.

Meanwhile the panelists and guests begin to arrive while I'm typing. They are eating having makeup applied and getting acquainted. Natalie Saltz our own air hostess in the role of Miss Smith is making them feel a little more at ease that the crew is getting ready and so is our director George Bennett. George is the only other person besides me who has been with the show since it started and he's been our director for 19 years. He's also an extremely conservative dresser. If all goes well we pre-taped the show starting about 7:45 p.m. Eastern Time. Otherwise we do it live at 8:30. If we're taping nightly will lead the group into the studio around 7:15. It takes me about 90 minutes to write my opening. So it's usually close to 7:30 when I finish up and pop in to get a little makeup. Please remember that there's only so much they can do with the raw material I provide. Next it's into the

studio about five minutes before show time. No time of course for anything so boring as a rehearsal. I'll quickly check my opening position and say a friendly hello to the guest whom I will not have seen until then. For a lot of our guests it's their first time on television and I try to make them feel at home one time. The show itself is the easy part and usually lots of fun. Afterwards those guests who want them get some photographs taken. Most enjoy watching the show with us as it goes out to viewers and then we'll work on next week's program on the weeks we use viewer questions I'll pick them and have them sent to the panelists who

can do the necessary research instead of answering them off the cuff. Even for certified geniuses like our panelists that's usually not a bad idea. It's generally close to midnight when I leave the building thinking about next week's show and how we can do it better. I'm determined that we're going to go on doing it until we get it right. Well I hope we've gotten that right for you. More often than not. One thing I know we've learned is that what happens in the world of money is inseparable from what's happening in the rest of the world. It's no coincidence that a global turn toward political and economic freedom has coincided with unprecedented success for investors. No sensible politicians at home or abroad sneer at business success these days. They are far more likely to be taking credit for it.

Deeds may not always match words but free enterprise free trade free markets permeate the international rhetoric of the early 21st century to a degree that would have seemed fantastic 30 years ago. And that makes the outlook for the next 30 years even more thrilling. No one not even our famous elves knows exactly what the next three decades will bring but it's sure to be quite a ride for you your family and your money. And we'll be doing our darndest to keep you in the front ranks of that ride ahead of the financial curves and having a lot of fun along the way. I can't wait to see what happens next. And every week after that and we want to share that ride with you. Until we get it right. I'm Louis Rukeyser. And I'm awfully glad you came to help us celebrate. Meanwhile there's been Wall Street Week.

I'm Louis Rukeyser. Good night good night good night good night good night tonight. Wall Street Week With Louis Rukeyser the first 30 years is produced in association with Kaiser television incorporated added by Maryland Public Television. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run. Run run. Run. Run. Run. For. Her to order a

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