Billionaire: $30k/year is not enough to live on

Eldridge co-founder & CEO Todd Boehly joins 'Influencers with Andy Serwer' to discuss inflation and income inequality in America.

Video transcript

ANDY SERWER: So where do we stand now? What phase are we in, in terms of the recovery? And there's-- well, there's a lot of questions to ask. Are you concerned about inflation? What about fiscal and monetary policy? Give us your assessment, generally.

TODD BOEHLY: Yeah. So, you know, I think inflation is interesting, right? I think what you're having is labor costs are going to go up, period. And I think they should, right? So, you know, I look at $15--

ANDY SERWER: Why do you think they should?

TODD BOEHLY: Because I think that for this whole partnership that we're all in together, as the US, right, there should be more balance between kind of what people are getting paid. And ultimately, I think we're working on figuring out that balance. But you have a situation where there's going to be wage inflation because, you know, $30,000 a year is not enough to live on.

So I think from our point of view, we think there's going to be that type of inflation. But then when you look at the total market, right, and you look across, does that mean that your tech platforms are going to start charging you more? No. Does that mean that your banking platforms are going to start charging you more? No. Does that mean your media companies will start charging you more? No. Right?

So I think, you know, when you start to dissect what part of the industry is likely to have inflation-- and frankly, people talk about things right now like steel and lumber, and I'm not so sure it's actually the commodity itself that we're being starved of, but it's actually the labor base that's manufacturing that process into the end unit, whether it's steel or whether it's wood. I just think we need more people back working. So therefore, I think those types of costs are going to go up higher.

So when you start to think about inflation, I think it's going to be attached to, you know, the physical world where there's labor attached to the end product. And that's going to be marked up, you know. And ultimately, that will then cycle through, in the terms of the costs. So I think we're going to be paying more for hotels and more for food and more for restaurants-- which, frankly, we should.

ANDY SERWER: Right. And can you have inflation in one part of the economy and not another part? And then ultimately, what does that mean? Does that mean it's sort of a bout of inflation?

TODD BOEHLY: You know, I think it's almost like a market correction within a universe that is representative of a part of the-- part of the economy. But I don't think it's going to be widespread.