Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovk. We're here every day bringing
Speaker 1: you the latest news from the world to business and finance,
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Speaker 1: You can also listen to our radio show at two
Speaker 1: pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on
Speaker 1: YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. A few headlines we just
Speaker 1: want to mention, uh in terms of COVID number of
Speaker 1: recorded COVID nineteen fatalities surpassing five million. As the world
Speaker 1: continue to roll out the biggest vaccination program in history,
Speaker 1: some seven billion shots have been administered across the globe
Speaker 1: and effort that has really helped to slow the pace
Speaker 1: of deaths. And here in the US we're set to
Speaker 1: surpass a new milestone in vaccination efforts. Today of adults
Speaker 1: will have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Speaker 1: So that's some good news. Yeah, that that feels like
Speaker 1: a pretty significant number. We saw Maderna, though under a
Speaker 1: lot of rusher, down almost close to seven percent at
Speaker 1: it's lows here after the Covin nineteen shot, though failed
Speaker 1: to win US regulatory authorization for teenagers, the US FDA
Speaker 1: saying it needs more time to consider the biotech company
Speaker 1: shots in this age group, as the agency moles the
Speaker 1: risk of a rare heart inflammation. All right, let's get
Speaker 1: to it. A go to voice for us on the
Speaker 1: pandemic over the past eighteen nineteen months and counting. Dr
Speaker 1: Sandra Galia, he's doing a professor at Boston University School
Speaker 1: of Public Health. He's got a new book at the
Speaker 1: Contagion Next Time, because folks, there's gonna be a next time.
Speaker 1: He joins us again on the phone from Boston. The
Speaker 1: book is called The Contagion Next Time. The other stuff
Speaker 1: I just added in Dr Galia. Great to have you
Speaker 1: here with Tim and myself. How are you? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: thank your girl, Thank you and you and Tim for
Speaker 1: having me on again. Well, it's good to have you here.
Speaker 1: You always help make sense of the deluge of headlines
Speaker 1: that come out when it comes to the pandemic and
Speaker 1: the vaccine um. In terms of kids getting the vaccine,
Speaker 1: are you hopeful? Does it feel like we're moving forward,
Speaker 1: that that's going to be a significant accomplishment maybe the
Speaker 1: next few months. Yeah, I am hopeful. I think it's
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction. And as we've discussed before,
Speaker 1: and as we know, kids have been at low risk
Speaker 1: of getting COVID and low risk of being sick from COVID.
Speaker 1: Having said that, they represent a group that potentially could
Speaker 1: have a symptomatic COVID and pass it on to others.
Speaker 1: So having kids vaccinated first of all protect tickets themselves,
Speaker 1: of course, but I think also reduces the number of
Speaker 1: people in the population who are susceptible to COVID and
Speaker 1: reducing transmission fundamentally. Where we want to get to right
Speaker 1: now when you were mentioning in the intro but of
Speaker 1: adults having at least one shot, is having few and
Speaker 1: fewer and fewer people who are susceptible to the virus
Speaker 1: so that the virus stops transmitting. Given that we've seen
Speaker 1: hesitancy among US adults for many months about getting a vaccine,
Speaker 1: do you think that parents will be hesitant to give
Speaker 1: this vaccine to kids if, like you said, kids have
Speaker 1: shown that they are not as affected by COVID. Well,
Speaker 1: I suppose there are two ways of looking at that.
Speaker 1: I think undoubtedly we're going to see some hesitancy, but
Speaker 1: we also are much more are accustomed to having kids
Speaker 1: be vaccinated. Obviously, there are many mandatory pediatric vaccines that
Speaker 1: kids have to show proof of before going to school,
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping that that will offset some of the incitancy.
Speaker 1: I'm worried that the vaccine for kids comes at a
Speaker 1: time when we've been talking seemingly endlessly about vaccine hesitancy,
Speaker 1: which undoubted little color some of the reaction to vaccinating kids.
Speaker 1: But I think all parents and parents listening need to
Speaker 1: know that the FDA takes safety enormously, sues for the
Speaker 1: first thing they look at, and these vaccines are safe
Speaker 1: and effective for kids. Hey, Dr Gilia, what about when
Speaker 1: it comes to mixing and matching? And people who listen
Speaker 1: regularly know that this is a conversation, Caroline, I have
Speaker 1: had a lot both on air and constantly. We're still
Speaker 1: trying to make sense of it. Vaccines. What do we
Speaker 1: need to know about potentially getting a moderna booster and
Speaker 1: you know, vice versa. Yeah, the data are not not
Speaker 1: as sharp as one would like them to be. But
Speaker 1: more or less, we know that mixing and matching is
Speaker 1: actually fine. There's some question as to what are not
Speaker 1: actually Mixing and magic might be better than getting the
Speaker 1: same kind of vaccine, but I'm not entirely sure that
Speaker 1: that's that's certainly right, I got modern at the first time,
Speaker 1: and I got a booster of mittern as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But I think fundamentally what matters is anybody who's all
Speaker 1: rule for a booster should get a booster. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter which one of these vaccines one gets.
Speaker 1: We we've actually been quite lucky, as we've discussed previously
Speaker 1: on your show, that these vaccines are actually excellent. They
Speaker 1: really are highly applicationous vaccines with excellent safety profiles, and
Speaker 1: that that's actually a remarkable achievement, right, It certainly has.
Speaker 1: It does feel like it's helped us in our fight
Speaker 1: against this pandemic um, because we need to be ready
Speaker 1: for the next time. And you write about this the
Speaker 1: contagion next time, I mean it's going to happen. Correct.
Speaker 1: This may have been a first for many of us
Speaker 1: in terms of a generation of understanding what a pandemic
Speaker 1: is like, but there will be more. There will be
Speaker 1: And we've had many closenesses. I mean, stars one which
Speaker 1: was about ten years ago, was was an extraordinarily close miss,
Speaker 1: and that that was a virus which was perhaps less
Speaker 1: transmissible but potentially more lethal then Source copey Do, which
Speaker 1: is the virus behind the COVID nineteen. So the odds
Speaker 1: are it will happen, and it's not a matter of if,
Speaker 1: but a matter of when. So it seems to me
Speaker 1: like now is the time for us to start thinking
Speaker 1: about what do we need to do to mitigate the
Speaker 1: next pandemic? What do we need to do well in
Speaker 1: the same breath as I mentioned and that vaccines have
Speaker 1: been excellent, They've been efficacious and safe, and I think
Speaker 1: we definitely need to do work on making sure we
Speaker 1: have rapid availability of vaccines and detection of pathogens and
Speaker 1: all that. I argue in the book that that's not enough.
Speaker 1: And the reason I argued that is because the consequences
Speaker 1: of COVID were fundamentally social consequences, economic consequences that reflect
Speaker 1: things that we were doing poorly before COVID hit, and
Speaker 1: I argue that we should tend to those things just
Speaker 1: to give one concrete example, we as a country are
Speaker 1: live sicker, shorter lives than do all other high income countries,
Speaker 1: meaning we have higher prevalence of things like diabetes, hyppertension,
Speaker 1: and those are actually the conditions that made us vulnerable
Speaker 1: to COVID, because COVID has a higher severity among people
Speaker 1: with underlying conditions, and that those are the people have
Speaker 1: been a greater risk of dying. So we should be
Speaker 1: looking at what is it that causes those diseases? Why
Speaker 1: are we at higher prevalence than other high income countries
Speaker 1: and dealing with them now, not when we have another pandemic?
Speaker 1: Dr Galia, are you optimistic here? Help help? As Carol mentioned,
Speaker 1: you don't seem to have woken up on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of the bed. I'm just being cynical today, but
Speaker 1: I just bring it out there. I just don't see
Speaker 1: I I don't see I don't see evidence yet of
Speaker 1: a shift in American public health following this pandemic. I
Speaker 1: am going to be optimistic because I prefer alternative Okay.
Speaker 1: I actually think that that it is a good time
Speaker 1: to have hope, that that we are paying attention to
Speaker 1: issues that we should have been paying attention to years
Speaker 1: and decades ago. Now will we or will we not? Well?
Speaker 1: I think it behooves us to have the conversations that
Speaker 1: pushes us forward. Colleague recently said we are at the
Speaker 1: moment of a renaissance of these ideas, and I actually
Speaker 1: think that captures it beautifully. I think we are at
Speaker 1: the moment where we are realizing that unless we tend
Speaker 1: to some fundamentals in our world, the next pandemic will
Speaker 1: hit and we'll hit us just as hard, it's not harder.
Speaker 1: So the moment is now. If we don't tender these
Speaker 1: things now, I'm not sure when we will, And frankly,
Speaker 1: if another pandemic, kids will be sitting ducks and will
Speaker 1: deserve the consequences that come with it. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about health care, something you know so well, and you
Speaker 1: guys there at Boston University, you know you are are
Speaker 1: educating the next generation who will be figuring out wellness
Speaker 1: health medical policies for years to come. How do we
Speaker 1: change the system that is so entrenched on dealing with
Speaker 1: you when you're sick versus really thinking about keeping you well.
Speaker 1: I think you're captured it well. Fundamentally, we want to
Speaker 1: orient our system to reward providers to keep people well
Speaker 1: rather than to treat people when they're sick. Now, there
Speaker 1: are many different ways of doing that, and we can
Speaker 1: get into the mittigridy of health policy, but I think
Speaker 1: there are efforts moving in that regard. I had the
Speaker 1: privilege of conversation with the administrator of CMS Decenter for
Speaker 1: Medicaid and Medicare Services a few weeks ago, and I
Speaker 1: think she's committed to this idea to innovating programs in
Speaker 1: in that direction. And you are seeing it in a
Speaker 1: big health system. So organizations like Kaiser, for example, that
Speaker 1: are launching programs to incentivize their doctors to keep people healthy.
Speaker 1: None of us really like going to the doctor, right.
Speaker 1: We actually want to be as healthy for as long
Speaker 1: as possible. But we have been going through a system
Speaker 1: where my incentive, which is just to stay healthy, is
Speaker 1: not the same as my doctors incentive, which is to
Speaker 1: have me sick so I can go see him as
Speaker 1: much as I can so that he can build and
Speaker 1: and that needs to change, and that needs to change
Speaker 1: so that we together see that our shared value is
Speaker 1: staying healthy and living healthy, long lives. You really said that, now,
Speaker 1: Like that's interesting, right, I mean you actually went there
Speaker 1: that I mean, for give me. But the medical community
Speaker 1: benefits when we're sick, it does well. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think this tradition give you no I know, but
Speaker 1: people don't at least say it. And if if you
Speaker 1: talk to people within the medical community, doctors don't say right.
Speaker 1: Doctors don't say I'm a doctor and I'm saying it.
Speaker 1: And I think that is a misalignment. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think doctors go into medical school to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. Doctors in the medical school to keep people healthy.
Speaker 1: But then of course we stream people through the ways
Speaker 1: in which we incentivize them and pay them. And then
Speaker 1: doctors are rational actors and they operate with in the system.
Speaker 1: So it requires system change. It requires us to accept
Speaker 1: that collectively we want to stay healthy. That means we
Speaker 1: want our healthcare system to keep us healthy, and we
Speaker 1: want to invest in parks and clean air and drinkable
Speaker 1: water and safe food, all of which also keep us healthy.
Speaker 1: So if there's one lever you could pull that would
Speaker 1: make a big significant change in making sure that we're
Speaker 1: all focused on keeping people well. And just got about
Speaker 1: forty seconds, what would that lever? What would be the
Speaker 1: lever you would, Paul, I think as at one lever,
Speaker 1: I would actually make sure that everybody in understand the
Speaker 1: next presidential debate, the presidential candidates are are grilled with
Speaker 1: questions about what are you going to do to keep
Speaker 1: people healthy? Not just to make them better when they're sick,
Speaker 1: because I think then we'll see true investment at federal, state,
Speaker 1: local levels in the structures that make us healthy. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's tough. And you know what's hard though, too is
Speaker 1: for politicians. What matters for voters is how much money
Speaker 1: do I have? What am I taking home? Do I
Speaker 1: have a job, do I feel confident? What's the economy
Speaker 1: and the economic outlook? How much money each month is
Speaker 1: going to healthcare? Too? Um, Really thoughtful stuff. Dr Sandra Galia,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Dean Boston University, School of Public
Speaker 1: Health on the phone from Boston. Check out his new book.
Speaker 1: It is called The Contagion. Next time, this is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, eighteen billion dollars in emergency
Speaker 1: loans to eight seven countries to get through the pandemic.
Speaker 1: Got one and eighteen billions? Did I did I leave
Speaker 1: off a number? Oh? I must have ye, hundred and
Speaker 1: eighteen billions. Lot, it's a lot. And over understanding This
Speaker 1: is the crux of this story. Over understanding or accounting
Speaker 1: of where much of it went en eighteen That's kind
Speaker 1: of what this story is about. I don't know where
Speaker 1: it went. How much are we talking about? All right,
Speaker 1: let's get to it. Jonius right now is the reporter
Speaker 1: who wrote at Bloomberg News, senior investigations writer Sheridan Process.
Speaker 1: She joins us on the phone in Washington, d c
Speaker 1: Um Sharon, tell us about this story. What's going on? Alright,
Speaker 1: good afternoons. Yeah, it's it's fascinating. You know, this is
Speaker 1: public money, a hundred and eighteen billion dollars that the
Speaker 1: I M MAP said, Look, we're going to rush this
Speaker 1: out and try to help countries UH with the COVID pandemic,
Speaker 1: and we will get the money out in a hurry.
Speaker 1: But as the funds managing director said Christaline to George Eva,
Speaker 1: she said, do whatever it takes to fight the pandemic,
Speaker 1: but make sure you keep the receipts. And the reason
Speaker 1: is because some of those countries have been required to
Speaker 1: audit how they spent that money afterwards, and now it's
Speaker 1: about eighteen months later, we're trying to figure out where
Speaker 1: it all went. Who is requiring them to audit? Be
Speaker 1: I Mass as a condition of dispersing more loans to
Speaker 1: some of these countries, has said, look, we'll give you
Speaker 1: more money if you can come up with an audit
Speaker 1: of how you spent that last COVID money that we
Speaker 1: gave you. And so it's quite interesting to see the
Speaker 1: countries that have been required to do these audits. In fact,
Speaker 1: only forty countries, less than half out of the seven
Speaker 1: that received the loans in the first place, have been
Speaker 1: required to come up with an account of how they
Speaker 1: spent that money. Well, and what's interesting is that you know, um,
Speaker 1: here we go. And it's just another reminder that during
Speaker 1: the pandemic listen, everybody was racing to understand what was
Speaker 1: going on, trying to figure out how to fix the situation.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was spending like a hundred dollars on
Speaker 1: ten and nine masks at the time, so I wasn't
Speaker 1: saving receipts. I mean, Joel, this is where we were
Speaker 1: blueboard business. We get our Joe Webber joining our conversation.
Speaker 1: I mean we were frantically trying to do things. Governments
Speaker 1: were throwing money at things. I mean, there's going to
Speaker 1: be screw ups totally. But we're so far past that
Speaker 1: point where now we get to look back and second
Speaker 1: guess everything and try and find bids of dollars that
Speaker 1: walked out the door. So so she how far along
Speaker 1: into the audit process are all the countries that receives
Speaker 1: some of those some of this money. Well, very interestingly,
Speaker 1: we know that some of the countries have done the
Speaker 1: audits that were required. For example, Nigeria was the biggest
Speaker 1: recipient of this money. They got three point for a
Speaker 1: billion dollars. They have done an audited apparently, but we
Speaker 1: don't have public access to it, so we don't know
Speaker 1: how much of their money got misspendam disappropriated. But what
Speaker 1: we do know is that in countries like Cameroon and
Speaker 1: Malawi and even Congo to DRC, we are starting to
Speaker 1: see the results of those audits being published and they're
Speaker 1: showing that hundreds of millions of dollars at least so
Speaker 1: far has been misappropriated. Um Now, Transparency International has been
Speaker 1: trying to track this and figure out where this money went.
Speaker 1: And it's quite interesting that when you ask the I
Speaker 1: m F the about it, what they like to say is, well,
Speaker 1: we disburse the money and it went to those countries,
Speaker 1: and those countries they spent their money then on COVID relief,
Speaker 1: so you can't really trace it back to us and
Speaker 1: say it was ours at that point. So there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a transparency issue in terms of who
Speaker 1: is going to be accountable for this well. As Tim
Speaker 1: said to me during the break before you started problems
Speaker 1: in the Congo, yeah, I mean shocking well, and it's led,
Speaker 1: as you write share, it's led to former health minister
Speaker 1: being arrested in August, though he has publicly denied the allegation. Hey, Sherry,
Speaker 1: I'm wondering if there are any examples, any reporting of
Speaker 1: countries where the debits equal to credits, where things do
Speaker 1: add up. You know, we're not even getting that level
Speaker 1: of this disclosure at this point. Um. There are certainly
Speaker 1: some countries that, especially in Latin Herricket, that have put
Speaker 1: in place, uh, these kind of websites where you supposedly
Speaker 1: are able to go on and see the contracts that
Speaker 1: were awarded and who got them. Um. This was also
Speaker 1: in some cases required by the NMF, and the im
Speaker 1: not says, well, if you include that universe of countries,
Speaker 1: then we actually do have quite a lot of accountability
Speaker 1: out there. But the question of whether and when these
Speaker 1: audits of the misspending are ever going to be released
Speaker 1: is a good one. But you know that's said. I mean,
Speaker 1: the i m F had a very difficult dilemma at
Speaker 1: the time. I mean, this is one of the most
Speaker 1: difficult things that UM, that a relief effort can can
Speaker 1: ask is do you push the money out quickly, UM
Speaker 1: and try to just hope and make sure it gets
Speaker 1: to some of the right places, or do you take
Speaker 1: longer time to put state guards in place and then
Speaker 1: in that event you also cause lives j loss. You know,
Speaker 1: I think the speed at which money was deployed I
Speaker 1: kind of joked earlier, but I mean I think it
Speaker 1: was imperative considering the circumstances. But there are also has been,
Speaker 1: you know, some precedent for this and that eventually would
Speaker 1: ask for receipts. Isn't that right, Jerry? This is the
Speaker 1: first time really that we are starting to actually see,
Speaker 1: um this this level of accountability you know, the IMF
Speaker 1: only released in t to put into place, uh, increased
Speaker 1: safeguards for corrupt anti corruption measures. And so this is
Speaker 1: actually the first kind of global crisis in which we
Speaker 1: do have at least some attempts to try to figure
Speaker 1: out where that money has gone. And we're in general
Speaker 1: we've gotten better at tracking down um missing money for this.
Speaker 1: And you spoke with people at Transparency International, what what
Speaker 1: kind of perspective did they offer on on being able
Speaker 1: to monitor this much money? You go, I'm missing? So
Speaker 1: what groups like Transparency International and also Human Rights Watch
Speaker 1: has been looking at this too. What they'd like to
Speaker 1: see is actually just a lot more accountability and transparency
Speaker 1: on the on the part of these governments in terms
Speaker 1: of their spending, what sorts of contracts and uh kind
Speaker 1: of you know, just the receipts and everything that that
Speaker 1: the IMF had asked for to be available online. And
Speaker 1: the idea is that when you do that, then you
Speaker 1: have civil society in each of these countries to be
Speaker 1: able to follow up. You have media pressure, you have
Speaker 1: you know, various forces to be able to say, hey,
Speaker 1: look this money was misspent. That money, you know, looks
Speaker 1: like it went to the right place and that actually
Speaker 1: acts as as a as a checks and balances on
Speaker 1: the whole system. Well, the whole point is, you know,
Speaker 1: and you hope for some change because ultimately we may
Speaker 1: joke about it and not surprised to see maybe you know,
Speaker 1: in some of these parts of the world developing in
Speaker 1: particular where there's you know, it's business as usual in
Speaker 1: terms of misallocation of funds or more severe. But people
Speaker 1: are impacted as a result, right for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: what what Transparency International says is, you know, look, whenever,
Speaker 1: whenever you have this misallocation of money, it's it's not
Speaker 1: just about money, It's about lives, right, It's about less
Speaker 1: money for ventilators, less money for mobile hospitals and ppe
Speaker 1: and you know, it really comes down to people who
Speaker 1: just aren't getting the relief at the very bottom of
Speaker 1: the food same. So what will change going forward if
Speaker 1: more money uh leaves the m f H to to
Speaker 1: you know, countries and need are there any safeguards that
Speaker 1: have been in place put in place now that weren't
Speaker 1: there a year ago? But the must says that they
Speaker 1: are as as a condition of some of the future
Speaker 1: loans that they're giving out their demanding more accountability, more transparency.
Speaker 1: Of course, a lot of these countries, as we know,
Speaker 1: I mean they you know, even at the best of times,
Speaker 1: they really sort of lacked safeguards and they're spending uh
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes can't always be traced quite so easily.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean there's necessarily, you know, embeddlement of people
Speaker 1: rushing off money in his bank account. Sure do we
Speaker 1: gotta run, but it's uh definitely start. We should check
Speaker 1: out at Bloomberg dot com dot com shod in Process
Speaker 1: senior investigations report at Bloomberg News and our thanks to
Speaker 1: Joel Webber, editor a Business Week. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Carol Master along with Tim Stanovic and in Focus this
Speaker 1: week Top twenty six meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. Top of
Speaker 1: mine for everyone there whether rivalry between the world's two
Speaker 1: biggest polluters who churn out, cough up you can pick
Speaker 1: your description some global admissions they are the big polluters?
Speaker 1: Will they both be agents of change? Our roadblocks in
Speaker 1: the process and he wrote about it in the Saturday column.
Speaker 1: Andy Brown is editorial director at Bloomberg New Economy. He
Speaker 1: joins us on the phone from New York City. So, Andy,
Speaker 1: the rivalry between the US and China doesn't It's not
Speaker 1: just when it comes to technology, it's not just when
Speaker 1: it comes to physical might. It also comes to the
Speaker 1: green ambitions. So who is going to win here are
Speaker 1: the incentives aligned? Well? The question, the question, I think
Speaker 1: is whether these two trees they're going to race each
Speaker 1: other to the top or to the bottom on climate Um,
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious that we're not going to get decarbonization
Speaker 1: in the time frame that we needed and at scale
Speaker 1: which we needed without real collaboration, deep collaboration between the
Speaker 1: US and China. Um. They are, as you just noted,
Speaker 1: the world's two largest polluters account of all polluted pollute,
Speaker 1: all emissions, China is by far the biggest China. China
Speaker 1: is has more emissions than all developing countries combined. These
Speaker 1: emissions are bigger than the next four countries combined, that's
Speaker 1: the United States, in Japan and Russia and so But
Speaker 1: also they have, you know, some of the best world's
Speaker 1: best technologies at both ai superpowers. They have the biggest
Speaker 1: pools of research scientists, um, you know, and and it's
Speaker 1: hard to imagine that technologies that we need coming on
Speaker 1: stream at scale without the two of them working to
Speaker 1: go and not just on the technologies themselves, but on
Speaker 1: the regulations, on the standards, on the trading systems that
Speaker 1: will be required. You know, it's like a bad family
Speaker 1: spat Andy, I think about this in that will they
Speaker 1: decide to kind of bridge their differences and understand that
Speaker 1: for the greater good of humanity? Really, when we're talking
Speaker 1: about climate change, will these two nations put aside their
Speaker 1: differences and do the right thing? Is their political will
Speaker 1: geopolitical will? Is there? You know, a social consciousness of
Speaker 1: the two to really set it straight, especially when you've
Speaker 1: got the United States has flip flopped Trump versus maybe
Speaker 1: where we are today and prior to President Trump. And
Speaker 1: then you've also got China who is all in on
Speaker 1: coal still, but they're also very aggressive when it comes
Speaker 1: to green It's a great question. So we've we've got
Speaker 1: two examples of what happens when the U. S. And
Speaker 1: China decide to collaborate and what happens when they don't.
Speaker 1: And the first was in two thousand and fifteen UM,
Speaker 1: and it was really deaf us diplomacy that got China
Speaker 1: on board UM disagreement to limit temperature increases to one
Speaker 1: point five degrees centigrade above UM pre industrial levels and
Speaker 1: well below two degrees. Without China UM, that agreement would
Speaker 1: not have occurred. That was that was a real triumph
Speaker 1: of American diplomacy UM. In two thousand and nine, which
Speaker 1: was the previous United Nations meeting um UH, this meeting
Speaker 1: ended in complete disarray UM. China was the spoiler, and
Speaker 1: things got so bad that at one point China's chief
Speaker 1: Climate negotiated you don't want ends up raising his voice
Speaker 1: literally yelling President then President Obama UM for having a
Speaker 1: temerity to walk into a room where Chinese Premier Wa
Speaker 1: Jaba was having meetings where they believe that the Indians
Speaker 1: and the South Africans UM so and unfortunately the atmosphere
Speaker 1: is surrounding the Glasgow Scotland talks UM much care simply
Speaker 1: is much more similar to Copenhagen UH than to Paris.
Speaker 1: In fact, relations between these two countries have not been
Speaker 1: as bad UM since they were restored, All since they've
Speaker 1: stablished diplomatic relations UM you know, and and the the
Speaker 1: Americans are saying to the Chinese, listen, we've got lots
Speaker 1: of problems on the military, on the security, on trade,
Speaker 1: investment in song, but let's carve out this area um
Speaker 1: of climate change where we can collaborate for the good
Speaker 1: of humanity and the Chinese a basis saying, you know,
Speaker 1: no way, you don't get to play with us. We
Speaker 1: don't you know, we're not gonna play play play ball
Speaker 1: with you on climate and and and and and be
Speaker 1: at loggerheads on everything else. Andy, what would constructive competition
Speaker 1: look like? Though, because you do raise in your column
Speaker 1: some important points about what China is doing right now
Speaker 1: in terms of production of solar panels and and actually
Speaker 1: use of electric vehicles. Yeah. Well, I mean if you
Speaker 1: if you take some of the most promising technologies um
Speaker 1: around for instance, you know, green hydrogen or carbon capture
Speaker 1: and storage. A lot of these technologies of Bill Gates
Speaker 1: was pointing out in an opened in the Financial Times,
Speaker 1: like it was yesterday. They've been invented and now they required.
Speaker 1: What's required is that is to model them, um and
Speaker 1: then roll them out at scale. Um. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: China is the place where you can actually do this. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, it has the world's biggest market. One in
Speaker 1: three solar panels and wind turbines are deployed in China.
Speaker 1: Half of all the evs in the world in China.
Speaker 1: Um you know. But but doing that is going to
Speaker 1: require the US and China collaborating around the technology. And
Speaker 1: if you think about the electric car, what is it, Well,
Speaker 1: you know you've got a lithium ion battery and guess
Speaker 1: what China has of the global output of lithium iron batteries.
Speaker 1: It also requires technology hardware, and guess what you know
Speaker 1: pretty much every advanced semiconductor in the world is built
Speaker 1: with US technology. Now, if if, if, if, automats automakers
Speaker 1: can't be sure that they can integrate these US and
Speaker 1: Chinese technologies in a single vehicle, it's going to seriously
Speaker 1: impede the rapid development of CONTE one example of what
Speaker 1: needs to happen very very quickly for the world to
Speaker 1: avoid the worst. Never more have we needed collaboration between
Speaker 1: the U S and China. Andy, Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Andy Brown, editorial director at Bloomberg New Economy. Check out
Speaker 1: his column. You can sign up for the New Economy
Speaker 1: daily newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash New hyphen Economy.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. So something
Speaker 1: we all seem not to be able to get enough of.
Speaker 1: It's also something we'll be talking about this week him
Speaker 1: at the upcoming Bloomberg Life Financial Innovations Conference. It's about
Speaker 1: crypto Wall Street amassing a crypto army and paying up
Speaker 1: for recruits. Banks and financial firms added one thousand crypto
Speaker 1: rose crypto roles since two thousand eighteen, and they're getting
Speaker 1: some pay bumps. Yeah, it's one of the most read
Speaker 1: stories on the Bloomberg today. So let's get to it
Speaker 1: with Bloomberg News Finance and Investing reporter Eleanor's song. She's
Speaker 1: in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio here in New York City.
Speaker 1: So Eleanor, what's going on here? So we're seeing banks
Speaker 1: really ramping up their pay and and crypto hires in
Speaker 1: the past three and five years. And another set of
Speaker 1: LinkedIn data shows that the number of annual new hires
Speaker 1: has more than tripled since sounds like a lot, yes,
Speaker 1: yes for sure, and um these positions can include researchers, traders,
Speaker 1: risk analysts, as well as engineers and colders. And we're
Speaker 1: saying that a pay bunk pay pumps. So there are
Speaker 1: um offering a premium for a mid level trader or
Speaker 1: banker role compartable over a comfortable position at the same institution.
Speaker 1: And then yes for for roles that like head of
Speaker 1: crypto teams, research team, trading teams, they could get the
Speaker 1: number of premium as highlights. Wow, what's so interesting about
Speaker 1: this is it's all happening when there's this sort of
Speaker 1: bifurcation happening between big banks and startups that are well,
Speaker 1: are they fintech companies? Are they banks? What do you
Speaker 1: regulates think? It's kind of unclear, Yeah, exactly. And these
Speaker 1: startups are actually competing with banks in hiring cryptal talent.
Speaker 1: I talked to so many people moving from banks to
Speaker 1: the crypto native space, and they are all saying that
Speaker 1: they are hiring extensively from the traditional finance market. So
Speaker 1: this is so fascinating because we were talking before we
Speaker 1: got going that for how long the traditional financial firms,
Speaker 1: big banks, Wall Street firms for years go back, certainly five, seven,
Speaker 1: ten years ago. We're saying this crypto thing, I don't
Speaker 1: know so much about it. Um, what what do they
Speaker 1: say when you reach out to them? Are they willing
Speaker 1: to talk freely or tell us how you're figuring out
Speaker 1: what's going on? It's interesting. They definitely need a little
Speaker 1: convincing and some just straight up don't really want to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Um, but they are all saying that, okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we we need to. We are showing interest while
Speaker 1: keeping in mind that there's regulation and there's definitely risks
Speaker 1: and caution that we need to have. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: banks are still quite reserved about it. But um, they
Speaker 1: can't really, um be hesitant anymore because clients are looking
Speaker 1: to to invest in crypto and asking and they can't
Speaker 1: risk their clients going to the competitors. Well, and that's
Speaker 1: the key part here is the clients. And it's something
Speaker 1: that I'm reminded about when I think about which Jamie
Speaker 1: Diamond of JP Morgan Chase has said repeatedly about his
Speaker 1: thoughts on crypto, and it's something that you refer to
Speaker 1: in the piece. You say, remind us that he called
Speaker 1: it worthless in October after deeming it a fraud back in,
Speaker 1: So is what's happening at JP Morgan and the other banks.
Speaker 1: They're saying, wait a second, even though we might not
Speaker 1: think it's something that personally we want to invest in
Speaker 1: and we want to be a part of our clients
Speaker 1: want it, so we need to have a presence there
Speaker 1: right Yeah, exactly. And we're seeing from from the LinkedIn
Speaker 1: data um that JP Morgan is actually among the top
Speaker 1: banks that have hired cryptal talents, and right now on
Speaker 1: the linkeding job posting site, they also have a lot
Speaker 1: of postings for cryptal talents. But you guys call the
Speaker 1: firms or when you call them in the reporting and
Speaker 1: you say JP Morgan or City Group of Morgan's day
Speaker 1: and they tell us what you're doing. Are they freely
Speaker 1: telling you what they're doing. No, they're pretty quiet about it.
Speaker 1: It is fascinating because you do wonder I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think about the summit that we're getting ready to do, Tim.
Speaker 1: I mean, everybody within the established financial world are trying
Speaker 1: to I'm going to talk to the H and R
Speaker 1: Block CEO, you know there in terms of tax filings
Speaker 1: for individuals, for small businesses, everybody's keeping an eye on
Speaker 1: what's happening in the crypto space, and you can definitely
Speaker 1: see that at this point, Eleanor, I mean, everybody's kind
Speaker 1: of going after I guess what you could say is
Speaker 1: a smaller pool of individuals right now exactly. Um. Actually,
Speaker 1: I have sources telling me that banks right now are
Speaker 1: looking specifically for people who left banks in eighteen and
Speaker 1: joined the crypto equal system, and they're trying to attract
Speaker 1: them back because those people who have an understanding of
Speaker 1: systematic trading in crypto. Okay, So I pose a question
Speaker 1: to you that Carol posted me that I couldn't answer
Speaker 1: just a few minutes ago, and it's about the connection
Speaker 1: and the parallels between the dot com boom in the
Speaker 1: late nineties early two thousands and the underlying technology. How
Speaker 1: would you answer the question of what your sources are
Speaker 1: saying is the technology that's here to stay if some
Speaker 1: of these cryptos do end up going to zero, Well,
Speaker 1: they are saying, honestly, my sources don't see the bear
Speaker 1: market coming anytime soon, and they are calling this crypto
Speaker 1: as the early days of capital markets two point oh um.
Speaker 1: And they're um in comparing their crypto startups to like
Speaker 1: early days of Facebook, Apple, and saying that over time,
Speaker 1: Wall streets ability to offer competitive compensation will diminish because
Speaker 1: these firms, these cryptal startups, are able to offer ownership stakes,
Speaker 1: digital tokens, and later on probably really high salaries. It's
Speaker 1: hard not to feel that something's going to change, but
Speaker 1: it's just not quite sure how it all takes out. Um,
Speaker 1: but we know how it's taken out when it comes
Speaker 1: to if you've worked in the crypto industry. While Street
Speaker 1: apparently wants you, that's Eleanor's song. She's finance an investing
Speaker 1: reporter Bloomberg News. Yeah, I bet you let me drive.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, no, no, this is not a home
Speaker 1: a right, please, I want to drive the question drive.
Speaker 1: This is the drive to the globe down on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: All right, just about tim nts left in today's trading session.
Speaker 1: So let's get to it. Let's drive to the clothes
Speaker 1: with Hank Smith back with us, head of investment strategy
Speaker 1: over at however, Trust once again on the phone from
Speaker 1: Bradner Pennsylvania. So Hank, good to have you here. Feels
Speaker 1: like we've gotten through a lot over the last month
Speaker 1: in terms of earnings. We're seeing out performance once again
Speaker 1: when it comes to earnings beats and we're seeing the
Speaker 1: markets up a lot as a result. We're up six
Speaker 1: percent gain in the benchmark since the earning season began,
Speaker 1: best performance of our comparable period in seven years. Just
Speaker 1: I fight in your view and will it continue? Yeah,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, Kyle. Great to be with you. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is justified. Far cry from where we were in early
Speaker 1: September when the markets were concerned about third quarter earnings
Speaker 1: based on the slowdown economic slowdown and concerned about the
Speaker 1: debt ceiling and Washington d C uncertainty. And of course
Speaker 1: Corporate America has come through beautifully in the third quarter
Speaker 1: with of those companies reporting beating on the bottom line
Speaker 1: and beating on the top line. And so I think
Speaker 1: what I think, Actually, Tim's going to correct you because
Speaker 1: I think it's what is to be specific according to
Speaker 1: data from research you read our mind, Hank, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the detail. Sorry, continue, go ahead, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I think what is proven to be is this continues
Speaker 1: to be a buy on the dips market, as has
Speaker 1: been all year and in fact since the start of
Speaker 1: the new bull market March two thousand and twenty as well.
Speaker 1: Despite the rise in yields. With a tenure treasury at
Speaker 1: one point five seven, it is still not competition for
Speaker 1: the stock market. So we're still in a tina environment.
Speaker 1: There is no alternative, and when you come right down
Speaker 1: to buying the tina, they all apply. If you're in
Speaker 1: the doors, then we know we're I don't know we're
Speaker 1: moving on. No, Hank, when does the party and no,
Speaker 1: when does the music stop? Well, let's just frame it
Speaker 1: this way. The tail winds continue to be stronger than
Speaker 1: the headwinds, and when that changes, I think we're we're
Speaker 1: going to have a correction. The tail winds very simply
Speaker 1: incredible monetary stimulus, incredible fiscal stimulus, incredible corporate earnings, and
Speaker 1: a consumer that is in excellent shape and is willing
Speaker 1: to spend. We still haven't really seen all the the
Speaker 1: unleashing of pent up demand, because that delta variant did
Speaker 1: pour some cold water over what was really an extraordinary
Speaker 1: unleashing of pent up demand. The headwinds simply remains number
Speaker 1: one covid um. If covid re emerges, uh, we're going
Speaker 1: to slow down Washington d C uncertainty. We still have
Speaker 1: a debt ceiling to pass and We still don't know
Speaker 1: what the reconciliation bill is going to be um of
Speaker 1: the final version of it, but we do know that
Speaker 1: the taxes aren't going to be nearly as ownerous as
Speaker 1: as what was feared two quarters ago. China slowing growth
Speaker 1: is a issue as well, and of course inflation, and
Speaker 1: that the debate that we've had now for the past
Speaker 1: several quarters. Is this transitory inflation or is this persistent
Speaker 1: insidious inflation? So if you're a betting man and you've
Speaker 1: got to make investment calls for clients, would you do so?
Speaker 1: What would you say? Can we Is it too early
Speaker 1: to say here's what we think holds for everyone? It's
Speaker 1: funny I was at an event and someone said to me,
Speaker 1: because they know what I do, and like so many things,
Speaker 1: is gonna happen with interest rights? What do you think?
Speaker 1: And I said, even if they go up a little bit,
Speaker 1: there's still low by a historical measure, And so I
Speaker 1: don't think the Fed's going to do anything drastic. But
Speaker 1: you're you're the guy who's got really got to, you know,
Speaker 1: make decisions for you know, millions of dollars of investment money.
Speaker 1: So what's your bed? Carol? You're you made a good
Speaker 1: point there. The FED, whatever it's gonna do, is going
Speaker 1: to be wealth telegraphed, and it's going to be gradual.
Speaker 1: And I mentioned unleashing of pent up demand. We still
Speaker 1: believe there's plenty of that to go, and we think
Speaker 1: that is going to drive the economy uh through two
Speaker 1: thousand twenty two incliporate earnings are going to remain robust
Speaker 1: in that in that environment. So the Delva variant just
Speaker 1: throw a temper very wet rag over over this unleashing
Speaker 1: of pent up demand. It will it will resume. And
Speaker 1: but the worry is if we do get let's say,
Speaker 1: if anything, the Delta variant. It was troublesome, but we
Speaker 1: managed our way through it right for the most part.
Speaker 1: There's certainly a hotspots, and I would never say that
Speaker 1: we've gotten through completely. But if we get something that
Speaker 1: isn't so easily manageable, or the current vaccine doesn't isn't
Speaker 1: able to deal with it, that's going to be a
Speaker 1: problem potentially. But look, COVID reared its ugly head last
Speaker 1: winter and we got through that as as well. So
Speaker 1: I'm very optimistic that politicians are not going to repeat
Speaker 1: the same mistakes they did early in two thousand and
Speaker 1: twenty when they locked down the economy that I think
Speaker 1: one of the lessons is that was not the right approach,
Speaker 1: just choking off the economy entirely. So uh, maybe that's
Speaker 1: misplaced optimism with regards to politicians making the right decision,
Speaker 1: but I think I think in this case they they will. Um,
Speaker 1: so we're rather optimistic. Yes, they're gonna be bumps in
Speaker 1: the road. The SMP has not had a correction since
Speaker 1: the start of this UH bull market over a year
Speaker 1: and a half ago. That's highly unusual. Then azdec did
Speaker 1: a year ago back in September October, but the SMP
Speaker 1: is not an investors should uh always expect corrections. But
Speaker 1: we believe that's going to be a buying event as
Speaker 1: opposed to something that morphs into a bear market, which
Speaker 1: we think is very unlikely because the risk of a
Speaker 1: recession occurring over the next twelve eighteen months is very
Speaker 1: very well. So where we started buying the dip and Tina,
Speaker 1: al right, it comes back to that exactly. Hey, just
Speaker 1: in the last thirty seconds that we have with you
Speaker 1: hand changing on farm payrolls, we're getting that data on
Speaker 1: Frida A four and fifty thousand is what Bloomberg economists
Speaker 1: are expecting, or surveyed by Bloomberg, I should say, Um,
Speaker 1: how could things go haywire? Well, well, certainly the last
Speaker 1: month's report was way way off the mark. And and
Speaker 1: here's the unknown here. Uh, look, we do have a
Speaker 1: labor disruptions, uh for for sure. And how much of
Speaker 1: it is uh people taking earlier retirement that will not
Speaker 1: come back into the workforce, and that is something that's
Speaker 1: very very hard to quantify. I think once we get
Speaker 1: through the fears of of the pandemic, that we have
Speaker 1: schools and daycare fully reopened, uh and and some of
Speaker 1: the government policies kind of step away and the private
Speaker 1: sector takes over, you know, I think the labor markets
Speaker 1: are gonna recover even uh very very well. Thanks smith Over, however, Trust,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your thoughts. Appreciate it. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud,
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