Dr. Pippa Malmgren is an economist and a former adviser to President George W. Bush.
In times of economic uncertainly, it’s necessary to balance innovation with inflation. But figuring out that balance is tricky, Dr. Pippa Malmgren said.
“It’s a race between inflation and innovation, because the more you innovate, the more it holds down inflationary pressures,” the former adviser to President George W. Bush told the crowd at the opening session of the Restaurant Finance & Development Conference at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas November 11.
With President-elect Donald Trump taking office in January, Malmgren said she has a positive outlook for the U.S. economy looking into 2025. She said the world is on a trajectory to resolve wars, which would save the United States a lot of money—cash that could be spent on boosting the economy.
“Having wars is hugely expensive and not having wars means you can go make money again,” Malmgren said. “This is very human-level interest: Why are we having wars? We need to be off making money.”
There’s a lot of fear and confusion on what’s to come for the country—and the world, Malmgren said. With that fear, though, comes change, which makes her feel confident about 2025.
“We’re in such an extraordinary moment in American history and I do think that much of the future depends on people sitting around in restaurants talking,” she said.
Supercomputers are getting faster and their capabilities have improved in ways that will be beneficial for restaurants and other businesses.
“It means we are able to solve problems on a scale that has never been known in the course of human history,” she said. “It does mean the introduction of things like robotics into your industry, and I know everyone is afraid of robotic foundation and AI. Everybody says, ‘Wait, am I going to totally lose my job as these things come into play?’ I think the honest answer is the opposite.”
Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence will lead to innovation in the workplace, Malmgrem said.
“Automation robotics doesn’t equal loss of jobs,” she said. “It equals change of jobs, and it means maybe, yes, they’ll have fewer people that are actually doing manual labor, but more people who are doing marketing.”
Youth turnout for the election cycle this year was high, and their voting trends tell Malmgren that the next generation wants change that will positively impact the future. A big part of that is health and nutrition. That’s where restaurants come in.
“We’re no longer in the world where we have to look at tradeoffs between costs and nutrition. They’re starting to align,” she said.
For innovation going forward, Malmgren said leaders need to look to new heights: outer space. It’s not just for astronauts or moon exploration, but for mining resources and connecting the world.
As the country is one of the few in a new so-called space race, with tech entrepreneur Elon Musk piloting U.S. interplanetary internet efforts with his company Starlink, people are wondering why that investment is worth it. Malmgren said outer space is the next frontier for technology and earthbound problems.
“All of that is about providing space-based solutions to our most profound earthbound problems: energy, power, getting all the things we need in terms of resources for high-tech and connectivity,” she said. “You can’t beat that as a recipe for growth for the future.”
The Restaurant Finance & Development Conference runs through November 13 at the Fountainebleau in Las Vegas.