Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast counts Saturdays at
Speaker 1: one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on
Speaker 1: demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Lisa Matteo. This week a
Speaker 2: conversation with Lisa Jarvis about Moderna's tough road ahead, Claudia
Speaker 2: Sam with a look at why so many Americans are
Speaker 2: downbeat about the economy, and insight into what the future
Speaker 2: holds for the farming industry with Laura Williams. But first,
Speaker 2: Justin Fox joins us with a look into the homicide
Speaker 2: rate of Black Americans. The title of your opinion piece,
Speaker 2: where It's most Dangerous to Be Black in America, That
Speaker 2: itself is eye catching, but the stat that you give
Speaker 2: right off the top really hits home. I'm going to
Speaker 2: say it for you. Black Americans make up thirteen point
Speaker 2: six percent of the US population in twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: and fifty four point one percent of the victims of
Speaker 2: murder and homicide. Now you check with data from the
Speaker 2: CDC explains what this works out to as far as
Speaker 2: homicide rate, for Black Americans and just the scope.
Speaker 3: Of it, I mean, the homicide rate for Black Americans
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty two. And this data isn't totally completely
Speaker 3: final yet, but I've been checking it for a while
Speaker 3: and it isn't changing much. And this is all on
Speaker 3: the CDC's online Wonder database that anybody can look into,
Speaker 3: although it takes a while to get up to speed
Speaker 3: on it, which I did sadly early in the pandemic. Anyway,
Speaker 3: the homicide rate for Black Americans last year was about
Speaker 3: thirty per one hundred thousand people. For everybody else in
Speaker 3: the country it was about four and four is still
Speaker 3: pretty high by the standards of like other rich countries
Speaker 3: in Europe and East Asia and such. I mean, in Japan,
Speaker 3: it's just zero point two per hundred thousand, but it's
Speaker 3: you know, thirty per hundred thousand is similar to even
Speaker 3: higher than in places like Brazil, Colombia, Mexico that are
Speaker 3: kind of known as being very, very violent. And it's
Speaker 3: also a lot higher than the rate was before the pandemic,
Speaker 3: and especially around twenty fifteen twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: Right, and you mentioned when the homicide rady goes up,
Speaker 2: black Americans suffer disproportionately.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like when you look at the increase in homicides,
Speaker 3: especially from twenty nineteen to twenty twenty. I mean, as
Speaker 3: we've said, a little over half of all homicide victims
Speaker 3: in the US are black, but the increase was about
Speaker 3: sixty five percent Black Americans, So it's clear that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: when there's a wave of violence, it's it's Black Americans
Speaker 3: who suffer the most. And when that wave recedes, as
Speaker 3: this one is now doing, it's you know, down a
Speaker 3: bit in the CDC data for last year, and in
Speaker 3: crime statistics from New York, Los Angeles everywhere else, it's
Speaker 3: down a lot so far this year too, So at
Speaker 3: least that news is good. But wow, it went up
Speaker 3: a lot, especially during the pandemic, but there'd also been
Speaker 3: something of a rise in a couple of years before then.
Speaker 2: All Right, and you mentioned when the racial definitions have
Speaker 2: changed recently, you talk about that as more government agencies
Speaker 2: classify Americans as multiracial. So how does this change things
Speaker 2: when you were going through the article.
Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't change it much. It just makes
Speaker 3: it a pain because basically, in all the data from
Speaker 3: twenty eighteen and earlier, the CDC uses the old racial definitions,
Speaker 3: which are basically sort of are you mostly black, are
Speaker 3: you mostly white? Whatever? With the twenty twenty census, and
Speaker 3: they started doing before then, they're much more open to no,
Speaker 3: I'm multiple, I'm lots of things, which I think in
Speaker 3: a lot of ways is great and very healthy development
Speaker 3: for our country. But it's a pain when you're trying
Speaker 3: to look at developments in long run statistics by race.
Speaker 3: It doesn't make that big a difference on a national
Speaker 3: level in these numbers. The more recent statistics, who were
Speaker 3: for people who identify as Black or African American only,
Speaker 3: but you know in the census and all the people
Speaker 3: who identify themselves as more than one race are sort
Speaker 3: of in this no man's land. It couldn't get great
Speaker 3: per capita statistics on them. With some of the cities
Speaker 3: I looked at, it made a difference, but not enough
Speaker 3: to really change the trajectory in a big way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what I want to get to. Some
Speaker 2: of those numbers. So the black homicide rates far lower
Speaker 2: in some parts of the country than in other parts.
Speaker 2: And you really broke down that twenty twenty two rates
Speaker 2: for the country's most populous metro areas. So talk about
Speaker 2: who topped the list, who came out at the bottom.
Speaker 2: What did you find out?
Speaker 3: This is among the thirty largest metro areas. And the
Speaker 3: kind of interesting thing with the CDC data is you
Speaker 3: can basically ask it to give really detailed stuff like
Speaker 3: how many people were murdered in some small county in
Speaker 3: Texas in twenty thirteen, and for that it won't tell
Speaker 3: you because it basically won't disclose data if they're fewer
Speaker 3: than ten people involved, because the idea is that that
Speaker 3: would make it possible, and it doesn't really with murder,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really matter, but with other causes of death,
Speaker 3: it would invade people's privacy. It's really helpful to do
Speaker 3: big groups. The CDCED used to publish a lot of
Speaker 3: this data by metropolitan area. You could just click I
Speaker 3: want everything sorted by metropolitinaria. For some reason, they don't
Speaker 3: do that anymore. But you can go in and pick
Speaker 3: all the counties in a metropolitan area and ask it
Speaker 3: to combine all of which is a long excuse for
Speaker 3: why I only did thirty metropolitan areas rather than anymore. Anyway,
Speaker 3: So these thirty biggest metropolitan areas, the worst is Saint Louis,
Speaker 3: which is a bunch of counties in both Missouri and
Speaker 3: across the river in Illinois, and Baltimore is not far behind.
Speaker 3: And then the best are basically New York, San Diego,
Speaker 3: and best of all, Boston. And that's for overall homicide
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: Did anything surprise you about the results that came out
Speaker 2: from that?
Speaker 3: I mean, this kind of started. I wrote a piece
Speaker 3: a year ago looking at CDC data just to it
Speaker 3: was sort of at the moment when crime in New
Speaker 3: York was really top of mind and lots of people
Speaker 3: around the world seem in the country seemed to think
Speaker 3: New York was just such a dangerous place. And I
Speaker 3: looked at homicides, it's not bad in New York. You
Speaker 3: throw in accident data in New York is like one
Speaker 3: of the safest places in the country. So that didn't
Speaker 3: surprise me. But it's still kind of funny to see
Speaker 3: it down at the bottom here. It kind of remarkable
Speaker 3: how low Boston is. I mean, it's not that surprising
Speaker 3: when you think about it, but it's like another big
Speaker 3: step lower than in New York or it's only two
Speaker 3: per hundred thousand overall, and the nationwide for everybody is
Speaker 3: something like five point seven five point eight, so it's
Speaker 3: a lot lower in Boston. In New York, it's three
Speaker 3: point seven per hundred thousand. Saint Louis, the overall homicide
Speaker 3: rate is fifteen point seven per hundred thousand, But then
Speaker 3: you break it down by race, and it's just it's
Speaker 3: an even bigger gap in some cases.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that gap. And you also
Speaker 2: found some regional patterns to this data too.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, the worst places, at least in this thirty
Speaker 3: biggest metro area list in both the worstplaces in overall
Speaker 3: homicide rates are pretty much all kind of rust Belt
Speaker 3: or russ I guess Baltimore is not officially in the
Speaker 3: rust Belt, but it kind of feels like it. And
Speaker 3: you know, Saint Louis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, and then Atlanta's
Speaker 3: pretty high too. When you break it down, what you
Speaker 3: get is really this these old Saint Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia
Speaker 3: stand out, and then this bizarre newcomer Portland, Oregon, which
Speaker 3: wouldn't have been high on this list at all five
Speaker 3: years ago but is just awfully high now. It's more
Speaker 3: dangerous to be black in Portland last year than in
Speaker 3: Detroit or Baltimore or Chicago.
Speaker 5: That's crazy.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about those incidents of police violence that go
Speaker 2: viral a spark protests. We've seen it. They can tend
Speaker 2: to be followed by local increased is in violent crime.
Speaker 2: So talk more about how this affects those homicide rates.
Speaker 3: Obviously, police violence, I mean sometimes it's inevitable. A lot
Speaker 3: of times it's not. People have lots of reasons to
Speaker 3: protest against it and be mad about it and try
Speaker 3: to fix it. At the same time, it's you know,
Speaker 3: black people killed by police officers. It's around two hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty a year as opposed to more than thirteen
Speaker 3: thousand black victims of homicide overall. And it's so it's
Speaker 3: pretty clear that, you know, if the focus is that
Speaker 3: black lives matter, and it should be that it's getting
Speaker 3: down crime rates is the most important thing. And having
Speaker 3: effective policing, which generally means police departments that aren't abusing
Speaker 3: their citizens, but at the same time means police departments
Speaker 3: that are arresting people and fighting crime, is really important
Speaker 3: to save people's.
Speaker 2: Now, justin I think it's important to note that you
Speaker 2: did all of this intense, intense research for this story,
Speaker 2: and you are not black. What motivated you to take
Speaker 2: this on?
Speaker 3: I mean, the initial thing is just as as mentioned,
Speaker 3: I got familiar with these CDC databases early in the
Speaker 3: pandemic and was like looking at all the things that
Speaker 3: were more or less likely to kill you than COVID.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that starts coming out when
Speaker 3: you're looking at younger people is that you know, it's
Speaker 3: mostly not diseases did kill young people. It's accidents, it's suicides,
Speaker 3: it's homicides. And then you start storing it by race
Speaker 3: and especially by gender, and like it's for black young men,
Speaker 3: it's homicide is the number one cause of death most
Speaker 3: of the time. It might not be in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two for the awful reason that the opioid epidemic is
Speaker 3: sort of moved from rural areas where that are mostly white,
Speaker 3: into cities. And so I mean that's the initial thing.
Speaker 3: It's just this is this thing that I don't think
Speaker 3: it's enough attention. And then I I do think it
Speaker 3: was this frustration with especially the mainstream media coverage of
Speaker 3: police violence and the black Lives Matter movement that I
Speaker 3: just think has underplayed this sort of underlying reality that
Speaker 3: the biggest threat to young men's black lives is not police,
Speaker 3: it's violence in their own communities, and police can make
Speaker 3: that better, can make that worse. But it's just it
Speaker 3: just feels like the focus of the discussion has been
Speaker 3: way too much in one place. And I think it's
Speaker 3: mainly because the mainstream media is full of white journalists
Speaker 3: like me who feel uncomfortable writing about these things. So
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, I don't have good answers.
Speaker 3: Here are good explanations of why this problem persists, but
Speaker 3: it does seem really important to note that it was
Speaker 3: much better a few years ago, and it's much better
Speaker 3: in some cities than others. This is not some inevitable thing.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist justin Fox. Coming up, we'll speak with
Speaker 2: columnist Lisa Jarvist about moderna and vaccine development. This is
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion Podcast Contest Saturdays at
Speaker 1: one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on
Speaker 1: demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Lisa Matteo. Let's bring
Speaker 2: an opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis to get her thoughts on
Speaker 2: where Moderna stands among the competition as it expands into
Speaker 2: other infectious diseases. Moderna has had a tough road ahead
Speaker 2: of it. That's the feel from this opinion piece that
Speaker 2: you put together. Now, you mentioned that the company's biggest
Speaker 2: challenge has shifted from proving that it's mrina vaccines and
Speaker 2: products work to convincing the world that they offer something
Speaker 2: better than what's out there. I mean, how tough is
Speaker 2: that a sell?
Speaker 6: I think it's definitely a tougher sell than when they
Speaker 6: had this captive market which just you know, a vac
Speaker 6: seen from them and from Advisor, and everyone was feeling
Speaker 6: very motivated to take it. But the products that they
Speaker 6: have coming up next, and you know, I'll to say
Speaker 6: it's impressive. They have four things that are likely to
Speaker 6: be on the market by twenty twenty five. You know,
Speaker 6: if we're talking about a different biotech company, that might
Speaker 6: feel really impressive. But all of those things already have
Speaker 6: existing products and so so far, what they've shown is
Speaker 6: what they can offer is something that's about the same
Speaker 6: as what's already out there. So they'll have an RSV vaccine,
Speaker 6: a flu vaccine, a vaccine that combines covid and flu,
Speaker 6: you know, to note that is novel, and then they'll
Speaker 6: have a next generation covid vaccine. So you know, RSV
Speaker 6: and flu are really competitive markets. And so the question is,
Speaker 6: you know, are they offering something better? Are the side
Speaker 6: effects worse for their vaccine? You know, how do they
Speaker 6: convince people that they should choose their mRNA vaccine over
Speaker 6: you know what already? You know we're all familiar with.
Speaker 2: Right and you spoke with Maderna's CEO. I mean, does
Speaker 2: he like the progress that he's seeing?
Speaker 6: He definitely does. And you know, I think what they're
Speaker 6: trying to pitch to investors right now is that they're
Speaker 6: really transforming, you know, and you know that they have
Speaker 6: a very full pipeline and that they're not going to
Speaker 6: be just a one product company. In fact, they have
Speaker 6: a platform that is delivering. Each of their phase threes
Speaker 6: has been successful, so I have to give them credit
Speaker 6: for that. And they are going to be active in
Speaker 6: three areas infectious diseases, cancer, and then rare diseases, which
Speaker 6: you know that's a little further in the distance when
Speaker 6: we'll start to see products coming out of that. So,
Speaker 6: you know, I think he's basically trying to convince everyone
Speaker 6: to be patient to you know, that it's going to
Speaker 6: cost them some money to get these things to market,
Speaker 6: you know. I think just the question is, you know,
Speaker 6: how they adjust to a different reality than they faced
Speaker 6: during COVID when it comes to marketing their products and
Speaker 6: showing that they have something that is better.
Speaker 2: Now, let's get in to that money. So as MODERNA
Speaker 2: moves into other infectious diseases that you were just talking about,
Speaker 2: it's facing a lot of competition, right, and they've been
Speaker 2: putting a lot of money into late stage clinical studies.
Speaker 2: Can the payoff of its transformation justify the cost?
Speaker 6: That really is the key question that they need to answer.
Speaker 6: I mean they think yes, obviously, I think they're going
Speaker 6: to be putting They said twenty five billion dollars in
Speaker 6: R and D between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 6: That that puts them in the same league, just below
Speaker 6: Gilead Sciences, which obviously has been around for a lot
Speaker 6: longer and has a lot more successful products on the market.
Speaker 6: And so you know, I think what they need to
Speaker 6: prove is that they can be the kind of marketing
Speaker 6: powerhouse that they're going to need to be to get
Speaker 6: these products out there and convince people that they're worthwhile.
Speaker 6: You know, that there really is going to be demand
Speaker 6: for say, a vaccine that combines covid and flu. To me,
Speaker 6: that's the most unique thing that they've got going for them.
Speaker 6: And then I think last is their cancer vaccine that
Speaker 6: could be potentially be on the market by twenty twenty five.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of excitement around that. The you know,
Speaker 6: kind of other issue they have is that right now,
Speaker 6: it's very expensive to make these products, and so they
Speaker 6: need to get down you know, that cost so that yeah,
Speaker 6: that even if they are making you know a lot
Speaker 6: of money off of these vaccines, that you know, there's
Speaker 6: actually a profit there.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's get to the funding, because it really
Speaker 2: depends on the continuing sales of the vaccine. I mean,
Speaker 2: is is the demand strong enough for the vaccine.
Speaker 6: They have no choice but to rely on Americans wanting
Speaker 6: Americans and people around the world wanting to roll up
Speaker 6: their sleeves for this new booster that you know, has
Speaker 6: recently become available. This updated shot to XBB. You know,
Speaker 6: we know that last year only seventeen percent of people
Speaker 6: in the US opted to get that that shot, and
Speaker 6: so I think their hope is this is the first
Speaker 6: year that we're in a actual commercial market. They're the
Speaker 6: ones who are trying to get out there and get
Speaker 6: the word out that they've got this vaccine. It's not
Speaker 6: the government that's providing it. So it's going to be
Speaker 6: interesting to see what happens. I think there's some skepticism that,
Speaker 6: you know, their projections for how many people are willing
Speaker 6: to get their shot, you know, will be matched with
Speaker 6: the reality of some of the hesitancy that's out there
Speaker 6: around you know, whether people feel like they need a
Speaker 6: COVID vaccine or not.
Speaker 2: Okay, now you mentioned some of these, but let's kind
Speaker 2: of break it down a little bit talk about the
Speaker 2: other vaccines in development. Let's start with Moderna's RSV vaccine.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that vaccine, you know, it's a good product.
Speaker 6: It's a year behind. This is their problem. It's a
Speaker 6: year behind vaccines that recently became available from Pfizer and
Speaker 6: Glaxo Smith Cleent. So you know, I think, you know,
Speaker 6: they need to play catch up. What they're trying to
Speaker 6: sell is being differentiated is that they're offering the vaccine
Speaker 6: in a pre loaded pen, so the other two products
Speaker 6: come into vile and the pharmacist has to mix it.
Speaker 6: And they're arguing like, well, in a busy pharmacy environment
Speaker 6: where we know everybody you know is experiencing shortages of
Speaker 6: you know, healthcare workers, having this pre loaded pen is
Speaker 6: going to be attractive. Their flu vaccine, you know, had
Speaker 6: been struggling a little bit. They came out this was
Speaker 6: the other big news. They came out with you know,
Speaker 6: good phase three data on that last week. The question is,
Speaker 6: you know, the side effect profile. All of us who've
Speaker 6: gotten a COVID shop you know, an mRNA shot know
Speaker 6: that the side effects can be a little rough. You know,
Speaker 6: Will people decide that something that's as good as what's
Speaker 6: there is enough? And I think what they need to
Speaker 6: prove is that what they have is something better like that,
Speaker 6: you know, it does better, performs better than the other
Speaker 6: flu vaccines that are out there right now, we only
Speaker 6: have antibody data on that, but having some actual like
Speaker 6: outcomes data, you know, do people do more people live?
Speaker 6: You know, do fewer people get the flu? Or have
Speaker 6: a severe case that would be really helpful for them.
Speaker 6: And then they have this vaccine that they're working on
Speaker 6: where they're going to combine covid in the flu. That
Speaker 6: vaccine incorporates a next generation covid vaccine they've been working
Speaker 6: on that they hope, well, they'll be able to give
Speaker 6: people a smaller dose of and it'll work better than
Speaker 6: what we have now. So you know, again, I think
Speaker 6: the question is what does demand look like in a
Speaker 6: year or two or three years, because we don't really
Speaker 6: know how the pandemic or you know, the kind of
Speaker 6: virus will start to you know, affect people if in
Speaker 6: coming years. So those are their main products. And then,
Speaker 6: as I mentioned, this cancer vaccine is the other one
Speaker 6: that everyone's really excited about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and what about those ambitions? I mean, what does
Speaker 2: the CEO say it's going to take to get FDA approval?
Speaker 6: This has been the question on investors' mind. I mean
Speaker 6: so many people have been just clamoring for information. When
Speaker 6: are they going to file for approval? I think they
Speaker 6: had really good data that came out on this cancer
Speaker 6: vaccine showing that it could reduce the risk of skin
Speaker 6: cancer as certain kind of skin cancer from returning or
Speaker 6: from people dying by forty four percent, you know, and
Speaker 6: so a lot of investors think, well, that should be
Speaker 6: enough for you to file for approval. The CEO, you know,
Speaker 6: says three things need to happen, you know. One, they
Speaker 6: have to start a phase retrial, which they've done, you know. Two,
Speaker 6: they are going to have some data later this year
Speaker 6: that will kind of show over a longer time horizon
Speaker 6: whether those numbers hold up or if maybe they even
Speaker 6: get a little better in terms of how well that
Speaker 6: vaccine performs. And then three, these are highly personalized products.
Speaker 6: They take, They use of patient's own tumor cells to
Speaker 6: create the vaccine, and so that's very complicated from a
Speaker 6: manufacturing perspective, and they're trying to get all of that
Speaker 6: in place because I do think legitimately his pushback on
Speaker 6: filing for approval now is like, well, we could do that,
Speaker 6: but we couldn't actually treat everybody who's going to want
Speaker 6: the product.
Speaker 2: Right, And the company recently said it's well on the
Speaker 2: way to becoming a big biotech contender. What's your take.
Speaker 6: If they can move their technology a little beyond where
Speaker 6: COVID was. I mean, they showed that mRNA works, if
Speaker 6: they can show works as a therapeutic, if this cancer vaccine,
Speaker 6: you know, continues to progress in the way we'd like
Speaker 6: to see it progress and help people. That will you know,
Speaker 6: certainly show that it's not just like as good as
Speaker 6: the existing technology that's out there, and that it could
Speaker 6: be really transformative. But you know, they've got some work
Speaker 6: on that. We have to be patient and see what happened.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis there. The Federal Reserve was
Speaker 2: in focus this week when FED Chair J Powell held
Speaker 2: rates unchanged but signaled they'll be higher for longer.
Speaker 5: We're prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and we
Speaker 5: intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we're
Speaker 5: confident that inflation is moving down sustainably toward our objective.
Speaker 2: In addition to bringing down inflation, he clearly laid out
Speaker 2: the Fed's objective.
Speaker 5: Soft lending is a primary objective, and I did not
Speaker 5: say otherwise.
Speaker 6: I mean, that's that's what we've been trying to achieve.
Speaker 2: Powell's had success in bringing down inflation this year, and
Speaker 2: the stock markets had a strong twenty twenty three, but
Speaker 2: many Americans are downbeat about the economy. Economist Claudia sam
Speaker 2: joins us to explain why inflation rates falling back toward
Speaker 2: more normal levels. We have the labor market, it's strong.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a good reason to be optimistic about
Speaker 2: the economy, right, But you're saying Americans are still gloomy.
Speaker 2: This is what you put in your opinion piece. Now,
Speaker 2: how bad is sentiment? Put it into perspective for us?
Speaker 5: Well, first of all, it is absolutely appropriate and understandable
Speaker 5: that people are gloomy.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Inflation is high. Yes, the labor market is good, but
Speaker 5: inflation has been high and it's been high too long.
Speaker 5: So then the question is in some of the measures
Speaker 5: that we normally use to gauge overall sentiment across all
Speaker 5: people across the country, these have been really low, like
Speaker 5: lower than you would historically have happened, even if you
Speaker 5: take inflation into account. Right, So this isn't saying people
Speaker 5: are overreacting to inflation. It's just saying their reaction to inflation.
Speaker 5: And then there's more And what's particularly notable about this,
Speaker 5: I mean these are these sentiment go back to the
Speaker 5: nineteen four eight right, So this is a long period
Speaker 5: of time to watch how people. Their views about the
Speaker 5: economy change over time. And what's notable and what I
Speaker 5: write about is the fact that this gap, this unexpected
Speaker 5: gloom extra gloom, it showed up about the same time
Speaker 5: the pandemic did. So we've had this for multiple years
Speaker 5: now and we haven't made up that lost ground.
Speaker 2: Now. Dig into these consumer confidence surveys that we hear about.
Speaker 2: What do they ask people.
Speaker 5: There's a few different surveys, and they ask you know,
Speaker 5: the questions very a little bit, but in general they're
Speaker 5: asking people, how are you doing? Often the survey that
Speaker 5: I look at comes out of the University of Michigan's
Speaker 5: it's like, how are you doing relative to a year ago?
Speaker 5: Is it a good time to go buy? And then
Speaker 5: forward looking questions, how are your finances going to do
Speaker 5: in the next year, get better, get worse? And then
Speaker 5: how do you think more the economy as a whole,
Speaker 5: how businesses are going to do in the next year,
Speaker 5: the next five years. So it's it's a wide range
Speaker 5: of views about the economy and and not surprisingly, every
Speaker 5: single one of these measures plummeted in the COVID recession.
Speaker 5: That's what they do in recessions. What has happened is
Speaker 5: though they have recovered as economic conditions have improved, Inflation
Speaker 5: is coming down, the labor market has been good, there's
Speaker 5: still this gap and it's one that going back decades
Speaker 5: and decades, we don't we don't see this right. And
Speaker 5: so that's where it raises the question of and And
Speaker 5: to me, what's important as an when I do my
Speaker 5: work as an economist is not to say, oh, well
Speaker 5: you people cheer up. It's to figure out, well, what
Speaker 5: is I havep heer to do that that you try
Speaker 5: to here out what are people trying to tell us?
Speaker 5: Because when you have a pattern that's so at odds
Speaker 5: with what you've seen in the past, there's a reason
Speaker 5: there are lots of different possible explanations. So I don't
Speaker 5: pretend that I know the answer. And yet I know,
Speaker 5: having worked with these data for well over a decade
Speaker 5: at the Federal Reserve, these can be very useful in
Speaker 5: helping us gauge the economy.
Speaker 2: All right, so let's dig into why this sentiment has
Speaker 2: really failed to rebound. Now, you say, the less talked
Speaker 2: about but more likely explanation is COVID.
Speaker 5: The timing, first of all, is somewhat obvious on some level.
Speaker 5: But when I say COVID, it's it's not just the
Speaker 5: virus itself, people who passed away from the virus to
Speaker 5: have long COVID. It's also thinking about the way our
Speaker 5: daily life was upended, the way our institutions changed. And
Speaker 5: at this point it's it's you know, no one wants
Speaker 5: to remember back to March of twenty twenty, we shut
Speaker 5: the US economy down. We sent everyone home. To a
Speaker 5: large extent, that was a huge change in people's lives
Speaker 5: and a huge change in how in their livelihoods. And
Speaker 5: one thing that I argue in the is that you know,
Speaker 5: we're just now seeing the you know, the supply chains
Speaker 5: start to get back on track, right like, And these
Speaker 5: were also very disrupted in twenty twenty we are in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three, but they're just kind of get people
Speaker 5: take a long time to get back on track too, right.
Speaker 5: So the idea that we still have something that we're
Speaker 5: holding with us, even if it's not on our mind
Speaker 5: every day, that's really impacted our lives, to me, that's
Speaker 5: a very plausible explanation that we're just carrying along extra
Speaker 5: effects of the pandemic. And there were some places in
Speaker 5: the same survey where we like income expectations, I mean
Speaker 5: not in this main measure that showed some after effects
Speaker 5: of the Great Recession for a few years and then
Speaker 5: it popped back up. So this big events can have
Speaker 5: effects like this. Of course, it's hard to prove that
Speaker 5: definitively right.
Speaker 2: And then there's also politics can play a role in this.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're coming up on an election year.
Speaker 5: One of the fascinating and maybe not surprising aspects in
Speaker 5: the survey they have for some time now, not all
Speaker 5: the way back, but for some time ask people about
Speaker 5: their political affiliation, and what you can see in the
Speaker 5: data are these views about the economy, owned finances future.
Speaker 5: They are very much tied with is the is your
Speaker 5: party in the White House? And then when you'll see
Speaker 5: this big divide right now, you know Democrats are much
Speaker 5: more upbeat about you know, they have much higher sentiment
Speaker 5: than Republicans, but under President Trump that was reversed and
Speaker 5: in the last two election cycles, these are big gaps
Speaker 5: now for the overall sentiment. That's what I'm looking at,
Speaker 5: and I argue why this is unlikely to be an
Speaker 5: explanation is they're about the same size and magnitude. They're
Speaker 5: just flipping around and the split in the population is
Speaker 5: pretty similar. So it's unlikely to tell us why we
Speaker 5: have this extra gap. Now, it is informative in thinking
Speaker 5: about how divergent the views are that we have at
Speaker 5: any one point in time about the economy.
Speaker 2: Right and then on top of that, we have negative
Speaker 2: economic news story the things people here, you know, as
Speaker 2: they're listening and watching TV and doing all that. What
Speaker 2: seems that actually seems to be reversing a little bit,
Speaker 2: but it still has an impact.
Speaker 5: Correct the survey, and I think this is really helpful.
Speaker 5: You can do a lot of let's measure the media,
Speaker 5: let's put it on some kind of positive negative scale,
Speaker 5: and yet you don't really like what are people listening to?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 5: Like that That's where what kind of gets in gets
Speaker 5: in the head. So the survey ask people about the economy,
Speaker 5: what economic news have you heard lately? And they will
Speaker 5: is this positive? Is this negative? They ask about specifically
Speaker 5: what is this and it again, just like with sentiment overall,
Speaker 5: we would expect it to be negative, you know, more
Speaker 5: negative than before COVID, just because inflation is high and
Speaker 5: there are problems in the economy that weren't with us
Speaker 5: before COVID, but the news media, this balance between positive
Speaker 5: news and negative news has rebounded more. It's not back
Speaker 5: to before COVID levels, and it's also moved a lot
Speaker 5: more with the economic conditions. So it's a little harder
Speaker 5: to gauge with this one. But when you look at
Speaker 5: these responses from households about what they're hearing, it doesn't
Speaker 5: line up in the same way as when you ask
Speaker 5: them what do you think about the economy in terms
Speaker 5: of the gloominess. So there could be a piece of it,
Speaker 5: but it's not. It's not that it noted like, there's
Speaker 5: not a sign of a clear bias in what people
Speaker 5: say they have heard. That's setting aside what's out there
Speaker 5: in the news.
Speaker 2: Got it now? Based on all that we've talked about,
Speaker 2: Is the data still useful?
Speaker 5: Yes, we have to There are many relationships that in
Speaker 5: terms of the economy, in terms of the kind of
Speaker 5: data that economists look to, that have broken down in
Speaker 5: this pandemic. So sentiment does not stand out in that regard.
Speaker 5: I there is an argument that has been made that's like, well,
Speaker 5: if you look, you know, we ask people and they're
Speaker 5: very gloomy, But if you look at consumers, they're spending,
Speaker 5: they're out there, and we should just look at their behavior,
Speaker 5: and you know, who knows why they're saying what they're saying.
Speaker 5: I disagree with that. I think, you know, again, people
Speaker 5: can tell us something that the regular data can't, and
Speaker 5: we don't have complete data on what they're spending and
Speaker 5: all of that. So I think there's an important trying
Speaker 5: to figure out what people are telling us. And it
Speaker 5: has been the case in the past, and this is
Speaker 5: difficult given the break in the series or how the
Speaker 5: data has been acting. But the sentiment data in the
Speaker 5: past have been helpful in seeing a little bit around
Speaker 5: the corner in terms of a recession coming or a contraction,
Speaker 5: so potentially we can still get some signs from that.
Speaker 2: Claudia Sam thanks for joining us. Coming up why most
Speaker 2: corn grown doesn't end up on our plates. Bloomberg's Laura
Speaker 2: Williams has a look into farming's climate friendly future. And
Speaker 2: don't forget We're available at It's a podcast on Apple,
Speaker 2: Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. This is Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Count us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm. Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app, or listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Lisa Matteo. What lies
Speaker 2: ahead for the future of farming Bloomberg Opinions. Lara Williams
Speaker 2: joined in to talk about a problem with our global
Speaker 2: food systems. Lara, thank you for joining me. You start
Speaker 2: off your Bloomberg Opinion piece about farming's climate friendly future
Speaker 2: by really setting the scene. Now, you say how our
Speaker 2: global food systems have become incredibly dysfunctional. What exactly do
Speaker 2: you mean by that?
Speaker 4: So what I mean is that's loads of really healthy produce.
Speaker 4: Is that saying diverted away from people plates? So if
Speaker 4: you imagine a big American corn field, I naively thought
Speaker 4: that lots of that food would end up on people's plates,
Speaker 4: but actually thirty nine percent ends up being fed to livestock,
Speaker 4: thirty seven percent is used to produce ethanol for fuel,
Speaker 4: fourteen percent is exported, and then it's just ten percent
Speaker 4: of the porn which is eaten. And then half of
Speaker 4: that is a sweetener, so like highst corn syrup. So
Speaker 4: that's not a healthy way of eating. And it's also
Speaker 4: so this isn't this isn't working for us. More than
Speaker 4: eight hundred and twenty million people lack sufficient food. Unhealthy
Speaker 4: diets now pose a greater risk of morbidity and mortality
Speaker 4: than unsafe sets, alcohol, dread, and tobacco used combined. So
Speaker 4: it's not good for human health, but it's also not
Speaker 4: good for the for the planet. Food production contributes about
Speaker 4: a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. It's the way
Speaker 4: that we use pesticides and fertilizer and change the use
Speaker 4: of the lands of facilitated tatastrophic declines and biodiversity. It
Speaker 4: really draws on fresh water, like use the seventy percent
Speaker 4: of the fresh waters available worldwide. And you know, as
Speaker 4: the global population grows, it just at the moment seems
Speaker 4: like it's only going to get worse.
Speaker 2: So let's dig into this new study was published in
Speaker 2: the scientific journal plast Climate. Now, this looks into several
Speaker 2: elements that can combine to help reduce emissions, diet shift,
Speaker 2: waste reduction, those are really a big focus of this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, And so I think the important thing to
Speaker 4: take away from this is the study was really about
Speaker 4: how to pull all the levers. We have to create
Speaker 4: something that works much better. And actually, you know, food
Speaker 4: production is one of the only industries where we get
Speaker 4: to negative emission, so it's drawing down more carbon dioxide
Speaker 4: than it's emitting into the atmosphere, and that's a that
Speaker 4: could be a really really powerful thing moving forward, and
Speaker 4: you know, helping offset other polluting industries and kind of
Speaker 4: you know, cleaning up the mess that we made up there.
Speaker 2: Okay, there's the importance also production efficiency and technology to.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so basically if you take a look at the
Speaker 4: non tech interventions, and that's so that sunds like adopting
Speaker 4: a healthier flexitarian diet where you eat mainly plant based
Speaker 4: foods and you can have still a little meat and
Speaker 4: reducing food waste. That actually half global food emissions. But
Speaker 4: that'll be a massive progress. But it can't actually tat
Speaker 4: used to net zero because if we're producing food, we're
Speaker 4: producing emissions at the moment. So if we improve production
Speaker 4: efficiency and so that is reducing the gap between what
Speaker 4: agricultural areas can deliver and what's produced. If we close
Speaker 4: that adapt all our fields are as productive as they
Speaker 4: can be. Then also use these novel technologies, and so
Speaker 4: that can be things like you know, helping reduce emissions.
Speaker 4: Further By, there's food additives you can give to cows
Speaker 4: to stop them burpinged up methane. There's also technology to
Speaker 4: use to help farmland absorb AMOSPHERICIO two. And if you
Speaker 4: use all four of these things together, you can reach
Speaker 4: negative emissions. But the trick is the second to using
Speaker 4: those novel technologies will really help us take it to
Speaker 4: the negative and net zero zone.
Speaker 2: Easier said than done. What challenges still exist for this?
Speaker 4: One important factor is that lots of these novel technologies
Speaker 4: are novel, they're really new, and so there's lots of
Speaker 4: knowledge aapps we need to address. We need to know
Speaker 4: about how much these things are doing a cost, We
Speaker 4: need to know if they work at the huge scale
Speaker 4: that they'll need to. There's also obviously going to be
Speaker 4: you know, challenges in actually even you know, convincing Pete
Speaker 4: enough people to adopt more flagetarian diet, because there's lots
Speaker 4: of personal and cultural reasons behind diet choices people make.
Speaker 4: There's challenges in every kind of zone, which is why
Speaker 4: we kind of need to use each of the four
Speaker 4: kind of methods to remove carbon from the food production,
Speaker 4: because we'll get the match benefits without putting all our
Speaker 4: edits in one bastiff.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion, Lara Williams, there does it. For this week's Opinion,
Speaker 2: we're produced by Eric Molow. Stay with us. Today's top
Speaker 2: stories and global business headlines are coming up right now.