WEBVTT - Biden's Missed Oil Opportunity and CDC Mistrust 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:05.039 You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.200 at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, 0:00:08.280 --> 0:00:11.440 the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:16.800 on demand wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.599 I'm Amy Morris. Now this week we'll take a look 0:00:19.640 --> 0:00:22.520 at the top priority. What should it be for the 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:27.000 CDC Job One just might be regaining the public trust. 0:00:27.520 --> 0:00:30.840 There is a race among workaholics and women are starting 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:33.000 to gain some ground. We're going to look at why, 0:00:33.600 --> 0:00:36.720 and we'll take a look at the latest trendy neighborhood 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.839 used to just be called Wall Street. Let's get started. 0:00:41.280 --> 0:00:43.640 We begin with a focus on oil and whether the 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:47.560 past week changes the narrative in a significant way. After 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:50.680 the White House announced last fall it would refill the 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:55.600 Strategic Petroleum Reserve at specific oil prices, President Biden making 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.440 that announcement, United States Godment is going to purchase oil 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:02.600 to refill the Strategic Patrol reserved when prices fall to 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.160 seventy dollars a barrel, and that means oil comments can 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:10.120 invest to wrap up production now with confidence they'll be 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.240 able to sell their oil to us at that price 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:15.920 in the future seventy dollars. But it didn't happen, and 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.600 prices are going up again. So what did happen? Let's 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.040 bring in Bloomberg opinion columnist Liam Denning, he covers energy 0:01:23.400 --> 0:01:26.480 and commodities. We can start with the surprise cut that 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.160 OPEC announced this past week. Liam, How does that change things? Well, 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:34.319 it changes things immediately, just in terms of the oil price. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.000 You know, it was kind of ironic that the OPEC 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.680 supply cut was accompanied by a statement talking about preserving 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:45.479 the stability of the market, and then the very next 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.320 thing that happens is an eight percent jump that day 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:53.840 in the oil price. OPEC's idea of price stability, of course, 0:01:53.880 --> 0:01:56.200 tends to err on the side of those prices going 0:01:56.360 --> 0:02:00.680 up rather than down, and I think it may cause 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:07.280 some additional problems for the Biden administration, but also for 0:02:07.320 --> 0:02:11.400 the FED and other central banks, because the weakness in 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.399 all prices has obviously been useful for them, as they contemplate, 0:02:16.840 --> 0:02:20.239 you know, on the one hand, raising rates further to 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.320 combat inflation, but also on the other mindful of the 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:29.400 fact that we've just gone through an acute banking crisis, 0:02:29.680 --> 0:02:33.520 which which still doesn't seem quite settled just yet. Since 0:02:33.560 --> 0:02:36.320 the White House did make the announcement that the SPR 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.520 would be replenished, and it hasn't happened yet, it's been 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.760 a lot of ups and downs. Walk us through that. Yeah, 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:46.359 So what happened was, obviously last year we had the 0:02:47.240 --> 0:02:53.320 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Oil prices spiked. US gasoline prices 0:02:53.320 --> 0:02:57.600 got to their highest level ever last June, averaging more 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:00.600 than five bucks a gallon for the first time, and 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:06.000 in response, President Joe Biden authorized drawing down one hundred 0:03:06.000 --> 0:03:11.600 and eighty million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. In October, 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:18.640 the administration announced a plan to replenish the SPR, but 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.920 in a slightly different way from what we've been used to. 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:27.200 They said, you know, our plan is to basically start 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:32.640 replenishing the SPR once oil falls into a range, and 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:37.000 their words were around sixty nine to seventy two dollars 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.320 per barrel. Now, what has happened since then? A couple 0:03:41.320 --> 0:03:44.760 of things have happened. One is, in effect, we have 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.200 actually replaced about three quarters of that one hundred and 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:53.520 eighty million barrels through a sort of congressional slight of hand, Basically, 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:58.160 future sales that were mandated by Congress got taken out 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:03.400 under legislation, and so that has net net replaced a 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:07.760 lot of those barrels. However, there's still forty million barrels outstanding, 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.040 and that will rise to more than sixty million barrels 0:04:11.040 --> 0:04:16.040 because we still have some congressionally mandated sales happening this year. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:20.080 But the other big thing that's happened is that effectively 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:25.200 the administration has just not really shown any kind of 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:29.599 commitment to that process. And that strikes me as quite 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:36.240 odd in a couple of ways. Politically, why come out 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:39.400 and say it if you don't really plan on following 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:41.599 it up, you're just kind of creating a hurdle for 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.520 yourself that you then fail to clear. But secondly, for 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.880 the oil market, the whole idea of this was to 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.640 do two things. One was it was to sort of 0:04:51.720 --> 0:04:56.520 legitimize drawing down oil from the SPR because the government 0:04:56.560 --> 0:04:59.359 was effectively saying, look, if all prices get too high, 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:01.800 we are going to release barrels from the ESPR to 0:05:02.680 --> 0:05:06.040 dent the economic impact. On the other hand, if all 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:10.159 prices get too low below that sixteen seventy two range, 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:13.760 we will step in and start buying barrels for the 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.000 spr which, if you think about it, is kind of 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.159 an olive branch to the oil industry's saying, look, price 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:20.960 is full too much. We're going to help you out. 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:24.320 You can go out and drill with confidence. And it's 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:27.040 kind of balancing that green agenda on the one hand 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.560 for Biden, but also the need to balance it with 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:35.000 energy security. But since then, we've seen advisors like Amos hostein, 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:39.320 you know, kind of attaching conditions. And then when we 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:42.479 saw all prices really drop in the week of Silicon 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.520 Valley bank failing, we didn't really see the government move. 0:05:46.279 --> 0:05:48.719 You write in your column that the US is essentially 0:05:48.760 --> 0:05:51.440 swung from being this huge net importer of oil to 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:56.280 a net exporter, usefully repurposing a critical piece of public infrastructure. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:59.400 But then, as you said, the administration attached that new 0:05:59.440 --> 0:06:03.880 condition and kind of brought everything to a standstill. What 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.680 did it do, Well, you're you're right now that the 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.599 US is a net exporter of oil. I think the 0:06:11.640 --> 0:06:16.160 administration quite rightly said, Look, the main threat to US 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.880 from oil these days is less that we got to 0:06:18.920 --> 0:06:21.000 cut off and we actually run out of oil. It's more, 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.440 one of the economic impacts of high oil prices, if 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:31.440 someone like Russia does something disruptive the problem is by 0:06:31.760 --> 0:06:35.680 by going out there and saying, when oil falls into 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:38.800 this range of sixty nine seventy two, we will proactively 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:43.279 refill the strategic Petroleum Reserve. What the administration is really 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.400 doing there was was trying to put a put into 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:48.640 the market, and everything the administration has done since then, 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.599 I don't think, for just to be clear, I don't 0:06:51.600 --> 0:06:54.719 think anyone is expecting the White House to suddenly turn 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.000 into a you know, a day trader of oil with 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:01.360 its finger constantly, you know, poised over the buttons, sir. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:06.000 The body language, and the lack of quick movement when 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:10.280 all prices collapse, I think can only help to shred 0:07:10.320 --> 0:07:14.160 any credibility that was there that they will actually follow 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:16.600 through on this. And more and more it seems like 0:07:17.160 --> 0:07:21.640 a political act, a desire to be seen to be 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:25.720 doing something for energy security without actually following through quickly 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:29.880 to really do anything substantive. Liam. Let's also talk about 0:07:29.920 --> 0:07:32.840 the timing of this. That's significant. We watched the regional 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.600 bank turmoil, the SVB failure, all of that happening as 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:40.000 they're talking about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and replenishing it. 0:07:40.440 --> 0:07:43.880 How did they link together? They were separate incidents that 0:07:43.920 --> 0:07:47.640 seemed to impact each other, or at least one more 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:53.800 than the other. I think the link here is is 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:57.760 kind of how the Silicon Valley Bank failure affected the 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.560 old market. And if you look at the data that 0:08:01.600 --> 0:08:06.280 we get from the CFTC, which shows the physician essentially 0:08:06.280 --> 0:08:09.720 if hedge funds in all futures, what you see when 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.320 an SVB fails is just as we saw in other 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.920 types of asset classes, people sold first and ask questions later. 0:08:19.280 --> 0:08:22.880 So you saw a huge drop in the positions of 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.480 hedge funds in oil futures. Think about that another way. 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.280 It's panic now if you think about it from the 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:34.320 perspective of the White House saying it plans to proactively 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:38.320 buy barrels when all prices fall. Well, frankly, when you 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:41.400 have that kind of blood on the street's moment, when 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:46.600 everyone else is panicking, that's exactly when a buyer with 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.360 huge resources and an ability to take a long term 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:54.319 view should be stepping in. Although the White House nominally 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:57.679 had this plan to stabilize all prices with spr purchases, 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:03.080 it just didn't really feel any pressing need to follow through. 0:09:03.840 --> 0:09:05.960 I want to talk a little bit about the Biden 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:10.400 administration energy policy, because they've been pushing the green energy 0:09:10.440 --> 0:09:15.400 objectives really hard. Can the administration strike a balance between 0:09:15.960 --> 0:09:20.359 the strategic petroleum Reserve and having these green energy objectives 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.280 on the table. Is that something they can work together? 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.199 If you go back to when President Biden was campaigning 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:33.439 for the presidency, you know, he had pretty much the 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:39.000 greenest presidential platform we had ever seen. Then we get 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:45.200 the invasion of Ukraine and a reminder of how dependent 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.880 we are, even after the shale boom, how dependent we 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:55.200 are on global energy trade. President Biden is trying to 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:59.959 balance these two competing objectives. Longer term, you could argue, 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.960 if we get more of our energy from renewable sources 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:09.000 that aren't linked to whatever's happening in places like Russia 0:10:09.160 --> 0:10:12.080 or the Middle East, that that is that will actually 0:10:12.200 --> 0:10:15.440 enhance our energy security. The problem is, in the meantime, 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.160 we still use an awful lot of oil and gas. 0:10:19.360 --> 0:10:23.360 We still depend on those trade flows, and so you 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:25.960 know it's going to be a difficult balancing act. We've 0:10:26.000 --> 0:10:29.319 seen President Biden not just doing things like tapping the 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:35.200 Strategic Petroleum Reserve. But for example, recently approving a controversial 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:39.120 a new project on the north slope of Alaska known 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:43.720 as Willow which you know it drew criticism from within 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.720 his own ranks for approving that. He's going to have 0:10:47.800 --> 0:10:51.440 to steer a very narrow course on this. Bloomberg Opinion 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:55.600 colonist Liam Denning covers energy and commodities. Now, coming up, 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:58.679 we'll look at how Wild Street turned from an office 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:03.840 corridor into a fancy residential area. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:16.000 You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays 0:11:16.040 --> 0:11:19.199 at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.360 the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:27.160 on demand wherever you get your podcast. You're listening to 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:31.520 Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. The rise of remote work 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:34.960 during the pandemic has cut demand for office space. It's 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:39.160 left some American downtowns feeling like ghost towns. As a result, 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:42.479 we've heard a lot of talk of converting downtown offices 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.480 into apartments. Now we continue to watch the post pandemic 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.960 job recovery throughout the United States, but what we're finding 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:53.600 is that the job's recovery in New York City and 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.280 maybe some other cities too, is unbalanced. Let's get more 0:11:57.320 --> 0:12:02.400 information from Bloomberg opinion columnist Justin Fox. Justin New York 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:06.320 jobs are not back yet. Where is everybody? Um? I 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.080 mean they're they're getting close, but there's still about one 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:13.160 percent short of where they were right before the pandemic. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:17.360 And what the funny thing is, it's not the office workers, 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.800 the office jobs that have gone away. It's it's all 0:12:19.880 --> 0:12:28.800 the leisure and hospitality, retail and actually government as well, 0:12:29.480 --> 0:12:35.160 which is mostly local government employment and the stuff like finance, 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:40.559 information which is publishing, and some internet stuff, professional and 0:12:40.600 --> 0:12:43.240 business services. Those are all up in New York City. 0:12:43.800 --> 0:12:46.640 But those people, you know, aren't necessarily coming into the 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:49.880 office every day, so they're not in the office. Why 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:52.800 would that have a more significant impact on the economy 0:12:53.360 --> 0:12:56.160 in New York City, especially in Manhattan where all these 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.760 people come in from other boroughs and the suburbs. If 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.240 people aren't coming in as many days, there's a lot 0:13:02.360 --> 0:13:07.760 less spending going on, and you know, restaurants for lunch, 0:13:08.240 --> 0:13:11.800 going out after work, shopping while you're in at the office, 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:15.360 Bloomberg did an estimate a month or two ago that 0:13:15.400 --> 0:13:19.160 it's maybe a twelve twelve billion a year and lost spending, 0:13:19.440 --> 0:13:22.160 and that shows up in the retail and leisure to 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:25.480 hospitality jobs. And then you can feel it in Manhattan. 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:27.760 It's like the middle of the week, it feels like 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:32.400 it's totally back Friday especially, it really doesn't. One of 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:34.880 the columns that you have on the Bloomberg terminal is 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:38.880 about this talk of converting the downtown offices into apartments. Now, 0:13:38.880 --> 0:13:41.839 I can tell you in Washington, d C. Where I am, 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.880 a lot of the downtown office space is vacant, and 0:13:45.120 --> 0:13:49.040 it's federal space. It's, as you mentioned, government workers who 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:52.360 are still either working from home close to one hundred 0:13:52.360 --> 0:13:55.440 percent of the time or more than half of the time. 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:57.400 So they're trying to figure out what to do with 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:00.640 all these great, big, beautiful boxes that are empty now 0:14:00.640 --> 0:14:04.280 that used to have offices. Similar in other metropolitan areas 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:08.000 it turned. I mean, it's a little hard because they 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:12.320 give the monthly jobs data down in all these categories 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:14.240 for New York City. They don't do it for many 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.640 other cities, but they do for DC because it's a state. 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.800 Basically at least for statistical purposes. It's not voting purposes. 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.360 That's a whole different column, just exactly. But DC is 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.280 much much, much worse offce than New York. I mean, 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.440 the overall jobs are down four and a half percent 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:35.080 instead of about one percent like in New York City. 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:40.840 And it's just across every single job category except information, 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:44.720 which is like the media in DC and some internet 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:48.560 stuff everything, but that is down, which in New York 0:14:48.560 --> 0:14:51.280 a bunch of job categories are up. And I mean, 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:54.280 it's kind of funny because in DC government employment is 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.320 down less than another place, but you're right, government workers 0:14:57.320 --> 0:15:00.600 of just not coming back. In New York You've had, 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.440 definitely in the finance sector a lot of pressure to 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:08.320 bring people back, and I think in federal government has 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:12.040 just been stuck on that. And so that's interesting. You know, 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.800 the government employment is down more everywhere else in the country, 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:20.000 mostly local government, but in DC it's not down much, 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:21.920 but those people aren't coming in and that's having a 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.720 huge effect on the city. So converting those downtown offices 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.880 into apartments, as you alluded to in your column in Manhattan, 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:35.040 specifically Wall Street, actually how would that lure people back? 0:15:35.080 --> 0:15:36.920 If they won't come downtown to work. Are they going 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:39.640 to come downtown to live? Well, I mean in Wall Street, 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:42.200 that's happened. You could say at this point it's it's 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.880 it's more of a residential neighborhood than an office neighborhood. 0:15:44.880 --> 0:15:47.360 It still feels like an office neighborhood because it's got 0:15:47.360 --> 0:15:50.360 these narrow streets and very tall buildings. But there are 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:54.600 more than sixty thousand people living down in the Financial District, 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.560 where I think in nineteen seventy there were eight hundred, 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:01.400 and that's something. There are couple the Battery Park City 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:03.640 was this big new development built on sort of the 0:16:03.720 --> 0:16:06.240 land the dirt day dug up for the World Trade 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:09.160 Center that it's part of it. But since the nineties, 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:11.840 well in the nineties, there was this really concerted effort 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:13.560 by the city because there was a ton of vacant 0:16:13.560 --> 0:16:19.560 office space down there to convert especially older buildings into apartments, 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.560 and it happened. And what's kind of interesting is it's 0:16:22.640 --> 0:16:26.320 this like really fancy neighborhood now, even though it's all 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:28.360 these people who don't need to commute to work but 0:16:28.600 --> 0:16:32.640 have basically the best transit in the country, and they're 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.920 increasingly have restaurants and other things to go to as well. 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:39.080 Who are the big losers? Is there any sector that 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:44.240 can benefit and which sectors are struggling well? Among sort 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.920 of service sectors where there's a lot of jobs that 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.560 you don't need a college degree for, it's I mean 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:54.280 leisure and hospitality, and it's still down nationally too. Restaurants 0:16:54.280 --> 0:17:00.000 are almost back, but accommodation, hotels and sort of entertainment 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:03.040 is still down from where it was before. And then 0:17:03.440 --> 0:17:07.199 this category bank carey called other services, which is like 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:12.040 dry cleaners, manicurists, all of that is also down. And 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:16.479 so I mean one interesting thing in most places, another 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:19.639 category that is up that has some very high end 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:22.080 jobs but also a lot of not so high end 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:27.040 jobs is healthcare, and it's up in most place. Again, 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.840 in DC it's down, but in most places that's up, 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.600 But in New York it's up a lot. And at 0:17:32.640 --> 0:17:36.080 one level it feels a little unsustainable how fast healthcare 0:17:36.119 --> 0:17:38.320 employment and grown. It's like the biggest part of it 0:17:38.400 --> 0:17:41.720 is home healthcare services. But on the other hand, I mean, 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:45.159 at least given all the other service jobs that have 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:47.879 been lost in New York City, it's been kind of 0:17:47.920 --> 0:17:51.280 a welcome replacement, and you get the sense that some 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:56.000 people have shifted from sort of hospitality jobs to those jobs. 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:00.359 Let's talk about that shift. Is the workforce completely different now? 0:18:00.400 --> 0:18:04.520 Has the pandemic fundamentally changed the way most of us work? No, 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:06.480 I mean a lot of those jobs are exactly the 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:08.640 same as they were before. That's sort of the thing, 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:13.399 but it has impacted them. I mean, there are a 0:18:13.400 --> 0:18:16.760 lot fewer leasure and hospitality jobs. And it's interesting at 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.360 this point how much of that is, because I think 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:24.560 spending on restaurants is significantly higher in real inflation adjusted 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:26.960 terms now than it was before the pandemic. There's just 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:28.960 a lot fewer workers, and I think part of it 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:30.959 is just a lot of people when they lost their 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:32.680 jobs and that we're sort of like, I think I'm 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:35.760 going to do something else now and have shifted to 0:18:35.800 --> 0:18:38.840 other fields. I mean, it's just it's funny. In New 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.399 York City, so much of the attention, understandably has been 0:18:42.480 --> 0:18:46.359 about high end office workers and will they keep coming 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:48.560 to the city and will they stay and that's still 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:50.560 an issue, and how often people will come in as 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.119 an issue, and whether enough of them will use public 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.560 transit to pay the bills is an issue, But in 0:18:56.680 --> 0:18:59.680 terms of who's been leaving New York City, it's it's 0:18:59.720 --> 0:19:02.680 not it's people in the Bronx. I mean the Bronx 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.400 is now the big pop is the main borow it's 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.359 losing population, and that's the poorest borrow. It's the working 0:19:08.359 --> 0:19:10.919 class borough. And I think people there are just like, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:14.680 I'm not finding jobs that can pay my rent, so 0:19:14.920 --> 0:19:17.840 I'm going to move to North Carolina or Florida or wherever. 0:19:18.320 --> 0:19:20.960 So where is this going? Will the pendulum swing back? 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:25.520 I mean, New York's gonna be different. It's an interesting 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:29.480 like New York created a crazy amount of jobs in 0:19:29.520 --> 0:19:34.919 the last decade, but it feels like those jobs to 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.160 serve those people there just aren't going to be as 0:19:37.160 --> 0:19:39.560 many of those. And so it's just an interesting question 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:42.159 what it means for New York for its school system, 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:44.600 which has a lot fewer students with again the biggest 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:47.919 losses in the Bronx because so many people have been 0:19:48.000 --> 0:19:53.760 leaving to go find better work somewhere else. It's just weird. 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.840 It's it's very different from the population loss the city 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:00.960 had in the sixties and seventies, but it's a lot 0:20:01.000 --> 0:20:04.840 of population loss, and it's just going to be interesting 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:06.920 to see where this goes, and we're going to watch 0:20:07.000 --> 0:20:09.040 it with you. Justin, thank you so much for taking 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:12.600 the time with us. Thanks for having me. Justin Fox 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:16.240 is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. Don't forget We're available as 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:20.480 a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform, 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:23.080 and stay with us. Coming up, we'll pull back the 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:25.480 curtain and take a peek at what's going on behind 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:29.680 the scenes of the coronavirus pandemic. This is Bloomberg Opinion. 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:44.160 You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:47.280 at one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:50.000 the I Heart Radio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:55.080 or listen on demand wherever you get your podcast. This 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.760 is Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. Let's turn our attention 0:20:58.800 --> 0:21:02.199 now to the coronavirus pandemic. And you might recall that 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:06.479 COVID nineteen was already spreading widely across the world in 0:21:06.600 --> 0:21:10.439 February and in early March of twenty twenty, well before 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.199 many Americans had gotten the message that the disease was 0:21:13.240 --> 0:21:17.520 something to take seriously. Last fall, CDC director Rochelle Willinski 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:20.920 told ABC News she had been trying to get more 0:21:21.000 --> 0:21:25.119 Americans vaccinated as a self critical CDC report about the 0:21:25.160 --> 0:21:29.040 agency's messaging issues was public. I don't give up. My 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.240 job is to give people the information that they need 0:21:32.280 --> 0:21:36.040 to have in order to make the safest, smartest decisions 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:39.280 for their own personal health, and I will continue to 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:42.160 do that whatever possession I hold. Now we're learning through 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:44.879 a report by The New York Times that staffers at 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:48.879 the CDC's Disease Intelligence Service were pressured by the Trump 0:21:48.880 --> 0:21:53.000 administration to keep quiet about what they knew that COVID 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.760 was spreading asymptomatically joining us now to talk about it. 0:21:56.760 --> 0:22:00.760 Bloomberg opinion columnist Faye flam and faith an allegation that 0:22:00.840 --> 0:22:05.920 a federal agency, particularly a science based agency, is succumbing 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:09.000 to pressure from the White House. That's a serious allegation, 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:12.920 and it's also a risky one. It asks the question 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.760 if federal agencies can be trusted. It does, and there 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.320 was just a survey showing that a lot of people 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:24.159 don't trust CDC. This was actually known. I wrote about 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:26.920 this in March of twenty twenty, that the Trump administration 0:22:27.000 --> 0:22:29.560 was blatant and said Mike Pence was going to be 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:32.840 vetting statements coming out of CDC from that point on, 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:35.359 and I wrote that it should be the other way around. 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:39.480 CDC should be helping make Mike Pence not make scientific errors. 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:44.160 So how can the CDC then rebuild that trust? Well, 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:48.560 I think we have to look beyond this particular allegation, because, 0:22:49.240 --> 0:22:52.600 first of all, it's a little misleading, since most of 0:22:52.680 --> 0:22:56.520 us knew about the asymptomatic spread of the disease through 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:59.480 other scientific sources. I was writing about it. Lots of 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.680 science writers were discussing this because there were non CDC 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:07.439 scientists doing studies and openly talking about it, so it 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:11.520 was no secret. It was nothing that was successfully covered up. 0:23:11.560 --> 0:23:14.639 But I think the problem was that people weren't hearing 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:19.520 the bottom line from CDC, and CDC had brand name trust, 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:21.399 and we all would have done so much better in 0:23:21.400 --> 0:23:25.280 the pandemic if they had been able to give unbiased, 0:23:26.359 --> 0:23:32.760 a political information from this sort of central, known, trusted source, 0:23:32.880 --> 0:23:35.439 rather than having people pick up bits and pieces from 0:23:35.520 --> 0:23:40.479 Twitter or from television or from their favorite podcast or whatever. 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:43.880 I think that's a really important point. Like you said, 0:23:43.880 --> 0:23:47.360 the CDC did have this brand name trust and they 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:49.760 managed to lose it. But what I want to get 0:23:49.800 --> 0:23:53.199 down to is was this the result of maybe the 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.639 Trump administration narrative? Was it a series of unforced errors 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:01.560 bungles that the CDC made, It helped erode the public's 0:24:01.560 --> 0:24:05.639 trust in their own agency. It was a combination. I 0:24:05.680 --> 0:24:08.920 think it was both. I think it was incredibly damaging 0:24:08.960 --> 0:24:13.080 to have the Trump administrations say we're gon we're gonna 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:16.560 muzzle people at CDC. But the CDC had already done 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:20.840 a lot of things wrong, including things back in February 0:24:21.359 --> 0:24:25.640 when there were scientists who were warning everybody that COVID 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:30.120 was already spreading widely around the world, and we were 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:33.200 being given a lot of false reassurance, and we were 0:24:33.240 --> 0:24:35.880 just not getting what other countries were getting. The other 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:39.239 countries were getting widespread testing in February twenty twenty, they 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.320 were getting contact tracing, they were getting the people were 0:24:43.320 --> 0:24:46.040 getting a lot of help, and we were getting nothing. 0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:49.040 You made a really good point there that we were 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:52.240 getting a lot of false reassurance. I also wonder if 0:24:52.280 --> 0:24:55.800 some of this isn't the need to not say I 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:58.320 don't know, you know, because there were a lot of 0:24:58.359 --> 0:25:01.000 things they didn't know we did. No, they had no 0:25:01.040 --> 0:25:05.800 way of knowing. And it's not it's not exactly in 0:25:05.840 --> 0:25:09.000