WEBVTT - 60: These Were the Most Interesting Stories of 2016 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.160 Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Odd Lots Podcast. 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:17.160 I'm h and I'm Tracy Halloway. So, Tracy, it's a 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:22.160 been quite a year. Huh, that's one way of putting it. Yes, 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:25.599 a lot of a lot of things happened this year 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:30.600 that probably people wouldn't have necessarily predicted coming into this year. 0:00:31.200 --> 0:00:33.040 I think we can be a bit stronger than that. 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:34.920 I think we can say a lot of crazy things 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:37.120 happened this year. All right, Yeah, I think you're right. 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:39.199 I think maybe I was understating a little bit, but 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:41.159 I just wanted to be I just wanted to be 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:42.879 on the right side of things. I wanted to be 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.839 sort of conservative. But yeah, it was pretty wild year. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:49.440 And I feel confident in saying that for several years 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:52.000 down the road, people are going to be talking about 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:56.320 various events that transpired in the year. Yeah, the history 0:00:56.360 --> 0:00:59.760 books will be looking back just like us, and there 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:02.040 probably all the historians are probably gonna be listening to 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:05.560 the Odd Lots Podcast really really get a sense of 0:01:05.560 --> 0:01:07.720 what happened, don't you think, Yeah, we should bury this 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:11.479 in a time capsule, right, Yeah, I agree. So there's 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:15.319 obviously the obvious stories, you know, Brexit, Trump all that, 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.600 but they're probably also a lot of facets to these 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.520 stories and stories that people missed that we don't want 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.160 those historians to pass over and miss That's right, So 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:30.320 we are going to um do the historians work for them, 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:32.240 I guess, and try to dig up some of the 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.959 lesser known stories that happened this year, some things that really, 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:39.800 um maybe taught us a lesson or entertained us or 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.360 amused us in some way, or that we thought were 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:46.480 very important. So who do we have? So We've brought 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.480 together a bunch of folks from Bloomberg News who cover 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.960 various aspects of our world day in and day out. 0:01:56.080 --> 0:01:59.600 It cover stories better than just about anyone in the world. 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.560 I guess I'm gonna I'll go around and introduce them, 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.000 and then we're going to talk to them about their 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:09.320 favorite stories of the year, so we can catch all 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.799 the stories that we might have missed. All right, So 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:14.560 let me, uh, let me go around the room. I'll start. 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.440 Ed Hammond is with us, Hey, Ed, how are you doing? 0:02:17.600 --> 0:02:22.400 He covers deals at Bloomberg. We have Mike Reagan, who 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:25.800 is a veteran coverer. I don't think that's a word 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:29.840 journalists covering the market, particularly the stock market for a 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:34.160 long time. Who's leading a new blog venture here at Bloomberg. 0:02:34.280 --> 0:02:37.960 Thanks for coming, Mike, Thanks for having me. Max Abelson 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:44.440 Wall Street, Wall Street, Uh, Wall Street whisper Wall Street reporter, 0:02:44.520 --> 0:02:48.520 he gets a Wall Street to speak his mind, st 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.920 legend Wall Street. He stumbled on the word yeah, I 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:56.880 was going there was Wall Streets. Max A. Wolson Dan 0:02:56.960 --> 0:03:01.040 Moss are top editor for economics coverge great to be 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:03.680 made a great prediction going into this year, which we'll 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.560 talk about, um what probably one of the best predictions 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:10.120 of the year. And Megan Murphy who led all of 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:14.080 Bloomberg's politics coverage this year and is now on a 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:18.560 new venture leading Business Week magazine. So thanks for joining us, Megan, 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.160 Thanks for having me. All right, So now that we 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.400 have all that out the way, let's talk about our 0:03:24.480 --> 0:03:27.960 favorite stories this year. And uh, Ed, Let's start with you. 0:03:28.360 --> 0:03:32.560 What was your favorite story of I'm not going to 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:34.280 go with the deal story. I was sort of tempted 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.480 to self grandize and go with the deal that we 0:03:36.480 --> 0:03:39.640 had broken by I decided instead to go with the 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.640 story from July, which I partly like because it was 0:03:41.720 --> 0:03:43.480 kind of in the summer when everything was quiet, and 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.560 it was the story of Brett Barner, who was the 0:03:46.600 --> 0:03:49.840 hedge fund manager um at Louis Bacon's fund, and he 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:52.000 trashed his mansion out in the Hampton's and it was 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.720 just it was one of these classic you know, we 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.640 all sort of no hedge fund guys like that, and 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.040 they all pretend desperately that they're not a tool like that, 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.120 and they're actually very responsible and they do all this 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:04.560 charity stuff. But he did exactly what we all know 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:07.200 they really do, which was go to a mansion, spray 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:11.400 people with champagne, throw midgets in a swimming pool, um, 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:14.480 I think, leave the mansion in a pretty despicable state. 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:17.440 And then obviously he went on to NBC and defended 0:04:17.520 --> 0:04:20.440 himself and said that it was all good fun, it 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.159 was harmless, that the midgets weren't actually there was sort 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.280 of paid entertainment. They were friends of his family. Uh. 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.200 And Louis macn um eventually fired him and I think 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:32.719 put out a statement which was sort of ridiculous, that's 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:36.120 something like his behavior was not consistent with the personal 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:38.159 views of the fun and it was just one of 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:42.160 these great, you know moments where it all kind of 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.520 it was all, um, what we think about these guys, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:48.160 and as I say, they worked very hard to beat 0:04:48.200 --> 0:04:51.279 anything but that, and it became incredibly public and it 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:53.080 was very foolish of him, I think, to go on 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.320 to the NBC and m making very limp case in 0:04:56.440 --> 0:04:59.480 his defense. It was actual Wolf of Wall Street, right, 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.560 I think it was billed at the time. You know 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:04.880 what what's ironic about each using that story, ed, is 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:06.440 that one of the best stories of two thousand and 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:11.039 fifteen was his boss, Louie Bacon's unbelievable brawl with his 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:13.000 neighbor out in I think it was like the Bahamas, 0:05:13.120 --> 0:05:16.520 Peter Peter and I guard and it was, oh man, 0:05:16.600 --> 0:05:18.760 their fight was awful. You guys remember this. They accused 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:21.919 each other of murder, being in the Ku Klux Klan, 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:26.480 try dealing drugs. Louie Bacon and his neighbor really want 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.280 after each other. And uh that story And wasn't it 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.719 all because one was having potties like off the midnight? 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:36.240 It was? Indeed. Yeah. The other interesting thing about this 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:38.080 story is it's also kind of a story of about 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:40.400 like modern media and social media because it was all 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.520 over Instagram, right, so there probably is a time when 0:05:43.520 --> 0:05:47.080 they could have had this party and then just paid 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:49.440 the owner of the house the clean up fee and 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:51.320 maybe some extra fee, and that would have been it. 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:53.680 But the fact that all these people came to the 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.560 party and posted about it on social media. Uh, and 0:05:57.640 --> 0:06:01.440 so that that those images live forever really makes um 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.320 really makes it hard for these stories to remember. The 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:10.240 hashtag spray than which apparently is a thing, right who knew? 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.000 But apparently all these guys doing a sprayer thon, and 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.320 it was this kind of this great disconnect between the 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:18.680 behavior of the people there are apparently with the people there, 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:20.719 and what they were doing it for, which was apparently 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:22.880 to raise money for I think was it an animal 0:06:22.920 --> 0:06:25.400 shelter like I Lost dog shelter or something, And yet 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:27.320 they were obviously doing things that were seen as some 0:06:27.880 --> 0:06:30.479 overly debauched even by their employers standards. It was a 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:32.400 rental house too, I believe didn't you didn't you rent 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:35.080 the house? It was? And I think the sort of 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.720 the alternate version of the story, the one that Mr 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:40.719 Barnard came out with, was that the owner of the 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:42.719 house was just trying to shake him down for more money, 0:06:42.760 --> 0:06:44.480 and the person who rented in the house and asked 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.599 for like twenty dollars in cash up front, and was 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:48.520 this kind of dodgy guy and had all these other 0:06:48.800 --> 0:06:50.480 things going on. I think it was. It did come 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:52.120 out that the guy who rented in the house had 0:06:52.200 --> 0:06:54.279 some problems of his own, But anyway, it was just 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:55.920 one of these great stories in the middle of the 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:58.080 summer and everything is normally quite quiet and flat, and 0:06:58.080 --> 0:07:00.760 it's sort of it brightened up my July. And none 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:02.880 of us were invited. Is the worst part? That is? 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.479 That is the real worst part. Speak for yourself. Do 0:07:06.520 --> 0:07:08.800 you think part of the reason why that story took 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:12.120 off was look in the middle of a campaign season, 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:18.000 you know, Wall Street vilified by more than one candidate, 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:22.440 and you know, just the midget throwing. It's almost like 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.920 a cliche. It's almost like, could this really be true? Wow, 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:28.520 it is actually true. I believe the official name of 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:31.160 the sport is dwarf tossing, not midget throwing. I just 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.520 want just for the record for the historians. Traditionally, this 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:39.120 kind of debauchery takes place at market tops, right, and 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.680 everyone just is so so flush with cash that they 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.640 decided to spend it on rented midgets or dwarves or um, 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:50.520 whatever term we choose. Well, what was the date, because 0:07:50.560 --> 0:07:53.520 the bond market did peak on July eight, so maybe 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.840 we could go back to uh, maybe maybe that was 0:07:57.000 --> 0:07:59.800 in fact the bottom of ten year yields. That would 0:07:59.800 --> 0:08:03.800 be a great one. This was July seven. He got fired. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:05.640 He got fired on the seventh. I think the party 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:11.320 was the weekend before. But why, in the political climate 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:16.400 that you know prevailed for much of this year, and 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.640 really the post financial crisis landscape, why would you give 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:25.000 your foes something like this to grab hold off. I 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:29.120 don't get it. That is that's the huge blunder. All right, Max, 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:33.199 let's stay on the Wall Street theme and uh, let's 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:40.880 talk to you. What was your favorite story of Business Week? 0:08:40.920 --> 0:08:43.360 Does a good thing called the envy List where everyone 0:08:43.400 --> 0:08:46.360 has to pick an article by someone outside of Bloomberg, 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:48.760 which is good because you know, if you flat of 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:50.880 your colleagues too much, you see it as a sucker. 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.719 So I picked some stories outside of Bloomberg that I 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:56.960 admired very much. One of them was about something that 0:08:57.000 --> 0:08:59.320 I just I don't think I even really knew existed 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:03.559 before private prisons. Mother Jones did this four month investigation 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:08.160 into private prisons that was so good that basically the 0:09:08.520 --> 0:09:11.360 Department of Justice within a few weeks after it was like, yeah, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.079 we're not going to use private prisons any longer. And 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.600 the stock plummeted. And the amazing thing for me, besides 0:09:18.600 --> 0:09:21.200 the fact that the story was just an incredible story, 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.600 because that it had all this effect and that, but 0:09:23.679 --> 0:09:27.120 on the other hand, Trump won the election, of course 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.080 the stock went right back up to where it was 0:09:30.160 --> 0:09:34.080 before for the Mother Jones investigation and private prisons came out. Yeah, Joe, 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.000 I remember we wrote that story right like the day 0:09:37.040 --> 0:09:40.920 after Trump's win. We wrote the prison private prison stocks 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:45.200 were surging and the idea was maybe, um, the Justice 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:46.920 Department was going to back down on all of this. 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:50.199 It's it's incredible. I wonder what the writer, whose name 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:52.120 is Shane Bauer, I wonder what he thinks that he spent. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.720 What he did is he got a job in a 0:09:54.760 --> 0:09:57.040 private prison run by c c A. It's that the 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.640 Corrections Corporate America, although actually they just they just changed 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:02.960 their name to too Much. It has like it's called 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:06.760 like civics now something it's gotten very probably it has 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.720 very benign sounding name. So you know, afterwards, the Department 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.959 of Justice, the Inspector General Report came out with a 0:10:14.040 --> 0:10:16.520 report that basically agreed with this guy's investigation. He got 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:18.240 a job in one of these prisons, and it is 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:20.760 it's a dark I really recommend everyone reads it very 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:22.880 very very depressing. It sounds like something from the wire. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.839 It's really really bleak portrait of how untrained these guards are. 0:10:28.480 --> 0:10:32.480 And you know, I assume the stock market pop because 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:35.120 Trump is going to reverse that decision and they're going 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:36.800 to go back to it. Yeah, those stocks really went 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:39.840 nuts the day after the election. On the other hand, 0:10:39.880 --> 0:10:41.559 I just have to say two downs sixteen was such 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:43.360 a good year for business. Jersalm. I want to give 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:44.720 a quick shout out to a couple of other things 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.920 that I've loved. So because I'm a classy guy surrounded 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.839 by English people, I want to mention the London Review 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:55.640 of Books had a beautiful, beautiful piece about Satoshi and 0:10:55.880 --> 0:10:58.800 it was by a guy named Andrew O'Hagan, the bitcoin founder. 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.240 The bitcoin founder. Though the question is what was this 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:04.199 guy the bitcoin founder. It's like the size of a novel. 0:11:04.280 --> 0:11:06.440 It's like forty thou words. I think it must have 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.880 taken up all of the l RB that week. Also 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.600 a beautiful, beautiful story that's similar to that first one. 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:15.600 A little bit dissatisfying because you get to the end 0:11:15.600 --> 0:11:19.080 of this monster monster piece and you're not quite sure 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:21.839 which way is up. But that's I think that's sort 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:23.760 of an accurate that's only you know, no one knows 0:11:23.760 --> 0:11:26.440 which way is up in in bitcoin anyway. I mean, 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:29.280 I quickly have to say, my former New York Observer 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.000 colleague Gabe Sherman just went bonkers this year writing about 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.959 Fox Fox News, I mean basically single handedly costs the 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:40.120 top man his job. That's like a good example of 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.320 someone who just like owned a story for a long 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:44.760 time and then just like went to town and just 0:11:44.800 --> 0:11:49.160 totally dominated it. And unless you had been following Fox 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.560 News as a beat for years, you could never have 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:53.520 done what he did. What's cool for me as a 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.280 journalist is that Gabe wrote a book about Fox News 0:11:57.280 --> 0:12:00.440 a couple of years ago that said that Roger Ales 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.480 was basically creepy with women. But then the thing is, 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.720 nothing happened. The book sort of disappeared, and he stayed 0:12:06.760 --> 0:12:08.679 on the beat for years after the book came out, 0:12:08.720 --> 0:12:10.760 which you know, I whant to write a story, even 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:12.520 if I've only spent a couple of weeks on it 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:14.080 and it doesn't do well. I want to like, I 0:12:14.120 --> 0:12:15.840 want to die. I want to crawl up under my 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:19.400 bed and not work ever again. But he's got sued 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:22.240 over that didn't something I don't. I don't think gig 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.000 got suit. No, Okay, well we've had to kind of 0:12:27.120 --> 0:12:32.040 wall streety politics see things. Why don't we go over 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:34.760 Let's let's do Mike and let's have him maybe maybe 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:36.600 bring us a market story. I don't know, Mike, what 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:39.400 do you have for us? Well, this one's a little 0:12:39.440 --> 0:12:41.360 bit out of left field, and and Max is going 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:43.080 to make me feel like a suck up here for 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:46.240 actually choosing a Timberg Business Week story. But it really 0:12:46.320 --> 0:12:49.280 was my favorite story of the year, by Matthew Campbell 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:53.400 and Kit chill l It was about a Goldman Sachs 0:12:53.520 --> 0:12:58.040 trader in Libya. He went to Tripoli and it was 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:01.000 right when sort of Libya's markets were ringing up. And 0:13:01.679 --> 0:13:04.120 the story, if I were to pick one story of 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.160 the year that would sort of you could make a 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:08.680 feature film out of, this would be it. And it 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.240 starts off describing like you know what a lousy place 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.600 Libya is for a banker to do business. You know, 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:18.040 there's not many five star hotels, not many courbet restaurants, 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.199 but there is a sixty billion dollar sovereign Wealth fund UM. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:26.720 And this trader, Yusef Cabbaje cozied up to the sovereign 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:31.000 Wealth fund and it was a good salesman. They the 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.760 story describes him as Goldman's basically their biggest rainmaker. He 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.680 got the Sovereign Wealth Fund to invest in a lot 0:13:38.720 --> 0:13:45.760 of very risky equity, uh, derivative synthetic equity derivatives in 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:49.560 positions in banks, and the timing was really unfortunate. It 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:54.160 was right before the financial crisis, and very quickly these 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.640 positions just went south and uh he handed up losing 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:01.520 the sovereign wealth and ended up losing about one point 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:05.160 two billion dollars uh. And this guy basically had to 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:08.760 flee for his life out of Tripoli. And the reason 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:10.960 I think this year it's kind of interesting is because 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.280 the story came out at the same time as a 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:17.960 big discussion in the US about the fiduciary standard. Uh, 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:23.040 you know, should you hold brokers accountable obviously for mom 0:14:23.040 --> 0:14:26.560 and pop retirees, and this case went to court this year. 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:29.520 Actually Goldman won the case. And you know, the argument 0:14:29.640 --> 0:14:33.760 was should a sixty billion dollars sovereign wealth fund, you know, 0:14:33.960 --> 0:14:36.880 shouldn't they be sophisticated enough to know what they're dealing with. 0:14:36.920 --> 0:14:39.320 They they claimed that Goldman had sort of led them 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:44.240 astray with these uh, with these investments. UM. So fascinating story. 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:46.840 I encourage everyone to google it and hopefully it will 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:50.320 be a motion picture someday, if there's anyone from Hollywood listening. 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.440 So Goldman in the end, Um, they didn't get in 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:58.080 trouble for it, right they Yeah, they were cleared. Yeah, 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:01.160 they won the case. I mean it. You know, it's 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:04.560 dragged on for years. Obviously Kadafi was ousted and then 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:09.680 that that complicated things. But the verdict came uh police 0:15:09.760 --> 0:15:13.240 it was in the fall around October, uh, and Goldman 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:16.040 actually prevailed. So fascinating. You know what I love about 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:18.560 stories like this is when we think of trading in 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.640 the year sixteen or seen. You just think of someone 0:15:22.720 --> 0:15:27.040 behind a terminal looking at lots of screens with numbers 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.760 blinking green or red, uh, looking at charts and lines 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.120 on charts and going through spreadsheets, but any story that 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:39.400 involves legwork and having to say, hey, here's a huge 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.440 pile of money somewhere. It's in Libya, and I'm going 0:15:42.520 --> 0:15:45.120 to get on a plane and try to get some 0:15:45.160 --> 0:15:47.160 of it. And anything you know that's it's sort of 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.800 real is a good reminder that there is in finance, 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.640 there's still this sort of uh, you know, well literal 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:57.560 frontier market but sort of wild west frontier aspect to 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.600 it that if you have the sort of get on 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:03.040 a plan and try and get some of it, that 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.960 you can make money that way. Yeah. Matt Levine wrote 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.560 a column about it that was pretty interesting, basically saying 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:11.520 the sort of the salesmanship has been sucked out of 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.840 Wall Street because of computerized automated trading. Uh. And here's 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:19.960 an example of a good salesman, right for better or worse? 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.040 You know this what's and also what's fascinating to me 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.000 is this guy went from being considered, you know, Goldman's 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:29.400 top rainmaker too when everything went south, he was sort of, 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:32.160 you know, the biggest goat in the Goldman you know. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.280 And and it's it's interesting how quickly your fortunes can 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.360 change on Wall Street. You know, one day, you're at 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:39.760 the top and then something goes wrong and you're you're 0:16:39.800 --> 0:16:42.240 quickly find your way on the bottom. I wonder what 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:45.680 the hero or anti hero of that story would make 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.000 of the hotel scene in Tripoli right now. I mean 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.600 that was back when Libya had a government, right right, 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:57.000 So probably as rough as it is, that than significantly 0:16:57.120 --> 0:17:01.520 rougher ye exactly accuately, the would be a few more opportunities. 0:17:02.360 --> 0:17:04.920 That's a good point. I don't know what the golden 0:17:04.960 --> 0:17:07.720 will to send an army over to investigate. We'll see, 0:17:08.200 --> 0:17:12.840 all right. Megan Murphy, you had probably the most important 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:19.480 beat often as a leader of Bloomberg's politics coverage, obviously 0:17:20.240 --> 0:17:24.000 the election of being the defining story of the year. 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:28.800 So as you look back at what was your favorite story, 0:17:29.000 --> 0:17:30.720 I have to say this, just because I'm on with 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:32.680 with with Joe and Tracy, that I have picked out 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:36.160 a market's theme. Thank you. Um, it's probably like our 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:39.720 first one. So for me that it was really the 0:17:39.760 --> 0:17:43.760 Mexican pay so because here's why, you know, when as 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.960 the politics editor of the cycle, I have to admit 0:17:47.040 --> 0:17:48.840 that people will come to me with all sorts of crab. 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.240 You know, Oh, we're seeing a reaction and you know, 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.160 various different esoteric corners of the market as the sort 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.000 of Trump and Clinton uh punch off sort of lumbered along, 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:00.760 and we and we have to be you know, we 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:03.119 would always say to people that you know, even as 0:18:03.200 --> 0:18:05.760 late as the summer, we weren't really seeing that much 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.760 impact in the market. We we felt that markets were 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.560 very late and sort of thinking about a Trump presidency 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:13.119 and pricing in the reality of this, and that market 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:15.960 seemed relatively calm, and so I have to admit that 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:18.520 we would we constantly sort of back back. I think 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:20.159 Tracy and I were probably some of the people that 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:24.840 came to random stories. But the one, sorry, Megan, the 0:18:25.040 --> 0:18:29.840 one thing that was actually real was the Mexican pay 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:32.480 so and and just that sort of with you know 0:18:32.560 --> 0:18:36.560 of Mexican uh, you know, exports going into the US 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.280 and watching that currency and watching how much I went 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:41.159 back this morning and actually was looking back at some 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.320 of the moments. So I'm talking moments when sort of 0:18:43.320 --> 0:18:47.240 Trump's groping tape gets released. It's like Mexican PAYSA strengthens, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:50.040 and there's all these bloomer headlines. It's like Mexican pasa 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:54.879 strengthens as groping video. It's released, and and and it 0:18:54.920 --> 0:18:56.600 was fascinating to me because you know, I did the 0:18:56.600 --> 0:18:59.119 election that coverage and on the night, you know, I 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:02.679 think the pay so fo what was it? And just watching, 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.399 you know, watching that and again it was it was 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:08.440 almost you know, it became such a barometer and such 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.040 a fun, I hate to say that, a very fun 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.440 indicator of where we were going after the debates and 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:17.000 every little moment in the Trump campaign when I think 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:18.920 about it, and became a running joke on my desk 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.000 is where's the Mexican pay So There's two things I 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:25.040 really like about the fact that the pace so became 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:29.520 the ultimate barometer for how the election was going. One, obviously, 0:19:29.680 --> 0:19:33.320 I just amused at all these politics reporters having to 0:19:33.400 --> 0:19:38.400 follows in my hands, but more importantly, not only politics 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:42.000 reporters having to follow a currency, but learning that when 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.520 the Mexican paceo goes down, the line on the chart 0:19:44.640 --> 0:19:46.560 is going up, which must have known a bunch of 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:50.040 people's minds, because of course, the convention and currencies is 0:19:50.080 --> 0:19:54.400 that in most cases are three exceptions. The dollar comes first, 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.560 so it's US d m x N, which means that 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.960 the traditional way you characterize that is to the dollar 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:04.359 rallying against the pace. So so I'm so happy that 0:20:04.480 --> 0:20:06.960 all these politics reporters that have never thought about this 0:20:07.640 --> 0:20:12.320 learned an important aspect of quote currency quoting conventions because 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:16.120 of this election. And some were very skeptical. Some were 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:19.359 very skeptical. Some were very skeptical. There's also a bit 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.080 of irony in that that weaker currency was, you know, 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.879 probably a really a good thing for Mexico's economy. Ultimately, 0:20:24.920 --> 0:20:27.960 you know how many Americans are checking out Cabo now 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.480 for for spring break because it's so true. Mexico's manufacturing 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.480 competitiveness having increased because the currency plunged on Trump's wind 0:20:35.600 --> 0:20:39.840 is the ultimate irony. And these were very, very sophisticated views. 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:43.840 I visited our colleagues in Mexico City Bureau in August, 0:20:44.520 --> 0:20:49.240 and you know, almost without question, the economists, the officials, 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:53.880 the investors that we met, they all knew far more 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:57.880 about what had transpired in the campaign that day than 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:02.040 I did. Be going to breakfast at an investment bank 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:04.480 at seven o'clock, they had all read five thirty eight, 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:06.960 they had all read the daily two oh two. They 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:10.080 were all set for the day that well, I guess that. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.320 I mean that gets to one of the interesting things, 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:15.399 um that I was thinking when we were watching them 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.399 pay so, is like I get how it became a 0:21:18.400 --> 0:21:22.520 barometer for the election outcome. But on the other hand, 0:21:22.600 --> 0:21:26.000 there's it was kind of weird that people just settled 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.680 on this one asset as the thing that they were 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:33.119 going to trade, um, the election with, right, because you 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:36.440 could have chosen all sorts of things you could have chosen, 0:21:36.760 --> 0:21:39.800