Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast count US Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one in seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
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Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. This week we
Speaker 2: look at the flu shot. Fewer kids are getting vaccinated
Speaker 2: for flu season, and that might actually pose a bigger
Speaker 2: problem for the older folks around them, like their grandparents. Also,
Speaker 2: after some severe whiplash in recent months, it looks like
Speaker 2: home buyers are about to catch a break, and the
Speaker 2: USDA is releasing its food guidelines soon. But if you're
Speaker 2: waiting for a warning against ultra processed foods, you might
Speaker 2: be waiting a while. But first, let's begin with the
Speaker 2: humanities and social sciences. Their popularity in the US has
Speaker 2: been waiting in recent years. Bill Falls is dean of
Speaker 2: the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Vermont.
Speaker 2: Earlier this year, he told a local television station that
Speaker 2: the school has trimmed its budget, letting about five percent
Speaker 2: of their full time professors go and transitioning others to
Speaker 2: part time.
Speaker 3: The concern that folks have had about taking away from
Speaker 3: the humanities. Maybe gets confused to think that somehow we
Speaker 3: don't value the humanities or don't want the humanities to thrive.
Speaker 3: I think it's just because of this shift in student interest.
Speaker 2: It is a shift, he says, that started to show
Speaker 2: up back in twenty ten, as many students focus on
Speaker 2: stem fields with skills more directly applicable to their careers.
Speaker 2: But perhaps the humanities and social sciences have failed to
Speaker 2: train students to be critical thinkers, and that may be
Speaker 2: where artificial intelligence comes in. We get more on this
Speaker 2: with Bloomberg opinion columnist Alison Schrager, who covers economics and
Speaker 2: is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Alison, why
Speaker 2: do you say in your column on the Bloomberg Terminal
Speaker 2: that the arts are no longer teaching students to be
Speaker 2: critical thinkers?
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, traditionally, you know, you would read the
Speaker 4: great books, you would get this very sort of like
Speaker 4: great nuanced view of history. But it seems like more
Speaker 4: and more that, I mean, at least we keep seeing
Speaker 4: coming out of universities is a simple, more reductive view
Speaker 4: of the world. And you know that also just doesn't
Speaker 4: really sort of ask the big questions and come up
Speaker 4: with a sort of a way of understanding very complex
Speaker 4: issues or really a great understanding of history. It seems
Speaker 4: like from definitely what we've been told or my friends
Speaker 4: who teach in the humanities, people, you're getting people they've
Speaker 4: sort of gone away from that, taken sort of a
Speaker 4: different view. Some call it postmodern, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of different viewpoints of history. That's certainly
Speaker 4: a valid one, but the problem is when it takes over,
Speaker 4: you don't really sort of get those critical thinking skills
Speaker 4: of seeing different problems from different perspectives.
Speaker 2: And it looks like that not only is enrollment in
Speaker 2: humanity's dropping, but more Americans are actually questioning the value
Speaker 2: of a college education.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and everyone keeps saying that that's because students just
Speaker 4: you know, college has got a lot more expensive, and
Speaker 4: they want to get value for money. They want to go,
Speaker 4: they want to study something that will give them a
Speaker 4: job right out of school. And I think there's a
Speaker 4: lot to that for the decline. But I think it's
Speaker 4: also worth asking is are the communities also not doing
Speaker 4: what they're supposed to do and students don't want to
Speaker 4: show up for a class and be lectured about their
Speaker 4: professor's political opinion. They actually do want to sort of
Speaker 4: like have a better sense of knowledge and truth. And
Speaker 4: you know, I think that's one of the reasons we've
Speaker 4: lost sight of why the humanities is actually very valuable
Speaker 4: and actually I think are going to be more valuable
Speaker 4: than ever for the way the economy is changing.
Speaker 2: Let's get into that. This is where AI comes in then,
Speaker 2: and changing of the economy. How does that fit into
Speaker 2: this puzzle and make humanities maybe more valuable.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean, no one knows what AI is going
Speaker 4: to mean for the labor market. There's a lot of
Speaker 4: doom and gloom. So I'm just going to rely on
Speaker 4: I think I mentioned to you I've not actually taken
Speaker 4: a lot of humanities in my own education, but I
Speaker 4: did take a lot of economic history, uh, just because
Speaker 4: I went to college in Scotland where they make you
Speaker 4: do that, and so I did study a lot of
Speaker 4: the Industrial Revolution and what that did to labor. So
Speaker 4: I'm going off my own history education of what I
Speaker 4: think could happen with AI, and what we found in
Speaker 4: the Industrial Revolution is labor did find a way, but
Speaker 4: the found the way if you managed to work with
Speaker 4: the new technology rather than be replaced by it. And
Speaker 4: so when it comes to artificial intelligence and it can
Speaker 4: do thinking, you know, you want to be someone who
Speaker 4: can really think well, so you can compliment that, like
Speaker 4: you know, you could I use AI right now, and
Speaker 4: I'm sure in the future a w'll be more as
Speaker 4: like almost like a research assistant for me myself. You know,
Speaker 4: it sort of digs up stuff, but I still am
Speaker 4: as a critical thinker then think, all right, give this
Speaker 4: information AI has given me, I take it to that
Speaker 4: next level. So critical thinking skills is a great compliment
Speaker 4: to AI. And if you just sort of had this
Speaker 4: very reductive simple view of the world, well then you know,
Speaker 4: AI can do what you can do. So we really
Speaker 4: need to be thoughtful thinkers and like just sort of
Speaker 4: learning vocational skills in college, those are the skills they're
Speaker 4: going to be replaced. So we really want to learn
Speaker 4: how to think well, and how to think critically, and
Speaker 4: how to especially people's skills, how to get along with
Speaker 4: people different ideas, how to weigh different arguments. I mean,
Speaker 4: this is really what you're going to learn. I have
Speaker 4: to learn how to do to thrive in the New Economy.
Speaker 2: And we are talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Alison Schreeger
Speaker 2: about how AI can help make humanities degrees more valuable.
Speaker 2: And Alison, let me see if I can sum up
Speaker 2: what you've just said. I want to make sure I'm
Speaker 2: following you here. The student would eventually be competing in
Speaker 2: a way with AI, so they'd have to be critical
Speaker 2: thinkers in a way artificial intelligence cannot be, and that
Speaker 2: gives them the skill that is more marketable, something that
Speaker 2: AI doesn't offer.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean everyone who is an AI enthusiast tells
Speaker 4: me AO would be doing critical thinking. But from well,
Speaker 4: I understand at least for large language models, and maybe
Speaker 4: things will change. It's really good at taking a lot
Speaker 4: of sort of existing information and sort of finding sort
Speaker 4: of the most common argument with that, And so I
Speaker 4: mean that's useful, that gives you a lot, But when
Speaker 4: it comes to sort of coming up with novel information
Speaker 4: or sort of being faced with new information, I know
Speaker 4: for my own work with statistics, it's less good for that.
Speaker 4: So while it's valuable and informs you really being able
Speaker 4: to think critically, how to really sort of understand different
Speaker 4: arguments and where they're coming at you and how to
Speaker 4: synthesize them actually becomes really valuable. And AI is super
Speaker 4: helpful but actually doesn't replace you.
Speaker 2: Is critical thinking just too hard? I mean, how did
Speaker 2: we get here to the point where critical thinking isn't
Speaker 2: valued or isn't taught?
Speaker 4: Well, it is hard, and it's really I got to say.
Speaker 4: I mean, I did a PhD, so I got pretty
Speaker 4: I guess advanced thinking skills, and I found the process
Speaker 4: very unpleasant. It's terrible. I mean it's upsetting as well
Speaker 4: for college students of all ages. It always has been,
Speaker 4: and I mean, I think this is an issue. It's
Speaker 4: not just that the curriculum gotten less critical. It's also
Speaker 4: gotten less rigorous, because you know, most ideas you have
Speaker 4: when you're young are kind of bad and stupid or derivative,
Speaker 4: and you know you need professors to tell you that,
Speaker 4: Like yeah, like a gazillion people said that about Plato
Speaker 4: with the first time they read it, and they're wrong,
Speaker 4: and here's why. And that's unpleasant to hear. I could tell,
Speaker 4: I could mark of my own education how upsetting it
Speaker 4: was to be told my ideas were derivative or not
Speaker 4: very good. But that's how you get better. And I
Speaker 4: feel like, you know, the humanities are supposed to be
Speaker 4: the tough ones who are like, guess what, you're kind
Speaker 4: of dumb. Here's how to think better. And I think
Speaker 4: there's a reluctance I noticed when I've teached to sort
Speaker 4: of be direct with students about that.
Speaker 2: Now are reluctance to be more direct with students?
Speaker 4: Yeah, as I said, because critical thinking skills are very
Speaker 4: unpleasant to acquire. They're incredibly valuable, yes, but they're hard
Speaker 4: to teach and they're even more unpleasant to acquire. And
Speaker 4: I feel like, you know, humanities are uniquely positioned to
Speaker 4: impart that, but just not really doing that work anymore.
Speaker 2: Is this a US phenomenon or is this something we'll
Speaker 2: see globally?
Speaker 4: I think it's global. I mean, I'm I said, I
Speaker 4: went to a university in Europe, and you know, from
Speaker 4: what I observe, I think it's happening there too.
Speaker 2: At the same time, when you have more Americans thinking
Speaker 2: that perhaps higher education isn't worth it, do we run
Speaker 2: the risk of going too far the other direction?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not as worth it as
Speaker 4: it used to be, but it's still worth it. I mean,
Speaker 4: all the evidence still suggests that if you do get
Speaker 4: a good college degree, and by that I mean go
Speaker 4: to a decent school, do a four year degree, it
Speaker 4: does pay off. You will not only have higher wages,
Speaker 4: but you have more stable wages, you have much less
Speaker 4: of an incident of unemployment. So but I do think
Speaker 4: that the education isn't maybe as good as it used
Speaker 4: to be in a lot of ways depending on what
Speaker 4: you study. And so I mean, I think we do
Speaker 4: run the risk of you know, the US I think
Speaker 4: is often succeeded more as an economy because we've also
Speaker 4: had the best universities in the world. And you know,
Speaker 4: if we don't really teach people how to be good
Speaker 4: thinkers at our universities, then you know, we do run
Speaker 4: the risk of people then not going to university, and
Speaker 4: then it just becomes a vicious cycle.
Speaker 2: I wonder where trade schools fall in here, because we've
Speaker 2: talked before about the need for trade schools and how
Speaker 2: we can't just write them off.
Speaker 4: No, they're super important. And you know, I was reading
Speaker 4: this article in The Economist about how the trades are
Speaker 4: really sort of dominating now the labor market, and it
Speaker 4: reminds me, have you seen a recent episode of South
Speaker 4: Park where it's always so present, where they have like
Speaker 4: this handyman who becomes effectively the Elon Musk of That's
Speaker 4: economy because he's the only one who can fix things.
Speaker 4: So reading this article in The Economists, it reminded me
Speaker 4: of that. So I mean that is also going to
Speaker 4: be an important part of the economy. Although, to be honest,
Speaker 4: like when I talk to like if a plumber comes
Speaker 4: to my apartment or I do have a contractor come, like,
Speaker 4: have you've seen their work? Like even there, they're not
Speaker 4: just like dirty work anymore. Like I mean, they also
Speaker 4: have to use a lot of skills, incorporate technology into
Speaker 4: what they do, and they also really have to be
Speaker 4: very thoughtful about what they're doing. Their work's getting a
Speaker 4: lot more complicated and technical too, So it's not just
Speaker 4: a matter of like doing a plumbing apprenticeship and then
Speaker 4: you're good to go. I mean they've got to really
Speaker 4: engage in, stay current and keep learning too. I mean,
Speaker 4: as I said, we've all got to learn how to
Speaker 4: be good thinkers. And I mean doing a four year
Speaker 4: Lobal Arts degree doesn't mean everyone should do it. I
Speaker 4: don't think it's efficient that the entire popular labor force
Speaker 4: go through that. But you know, if you are going
Speaker 4: to go that route, that's really I think a valuable
Speaker 4: path too, and I think we undersell it.
Speaker 2: Alison, thank you for taking the time with me today,
Speaker 2: Oh anytime. Alison s Trigger is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist
Speaker 2: who covers economics and is a senior Fellow at the
Speaker 2: Manhattan Institute. Coming up, we're going to look at the
Speaker 2: cold and flu season and how some parents are not
Speaker 2: getting flu shots for their kids, and why you're listening
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast count ut 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 Amy Morris, and we
Speaker 2: are well into cold and flu season, not just for adults,
Speaker 2: but for youngsters too. And while every parent knows the
Speaker 2: feeling of helplessness when your little one has a nasty
Speaker 2: cow or a fever, not every parent is making sure
Speaker 2: their child is vaccinated. Westchester County Health Commissioner doctor Shirlita
Speaker 2: Ambler in New York says people need to get those
Speaker 2: flu shots, even if they're tired of hearing about vaccines.
Speaker 5: I if anyone understands that there's a lot of vaccine
Speaker 5: fatigue out there, but we still have to work to
Speaker 5: protect ourselves and our family and everybody that we care about.
Speaker 2: Let's get more on this with Bloomberg opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis.
Speaker 2: Lisa covers biotech, healthcare, and the pharmaceutical industry. Lisa, does
Speaker 2: that make sense to you that there's just this vaccination
Speaker 2: slash shot fatigue and folks are tired of hearing about
Speaker 2: it and don't want to deal.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you know, I think that's certainly part of it.
Speaker 6: I think there's a confluensive issues potentially happening related to
Speaker 6: the rollout of the COVID vaccines, which might have made
Speaker 6: it so that people were having a hard time finding
Speaker 6: that vaccine and they were planning to get their flu
Speaker 6: shot at the same time and didn't do either if
Speaker 6: they couldn't find the COVID one. But certainly, you know,
Speaker 6: we have heard a lot for a while, every six
Speaker 6: months reminders to go get some sort of shot or another,
Speaker 6: and you know, I think people are starting to tune
Speaker 6: out a little bit. I think there's a number of
Speaker 6: things good on and I'm happy to talk about all those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's get into that. Why the hesitancy? What are
Speaker 2: some of the things that are going on.
Speaker 6: It's easy to kind of reflectively think, oh, it's COVID
Speaker 6: vaccine driven hesitancy. That's the reason behind this flu shot
Speaker 6: decline in kids. And it's a modest decline, but it
Speaker 6: matters because kids already weren't getting vaccinated at the rate
Speaker 6: that we'd like to see them at, because they're really
Speaker 6: important part of protecting adults when it comes to the flu.
Speaker 6: Older adults are the ones who are most vulnerable to
Speaker 6: the worst outcomes. But you know, as I mentioned, the
Speaker 6: commercial rollout of COVID shots really hit the pediatric vaccines
Speaker 6: the hardest, and so parents were scrambling for weeks after
Speaker 6: the vaccines were supposed to be initially available looking for
Speaker 6: those shots. And any parent that's had their kids vaccinated
Speaker 6: nose you only want to go once and get both
Speaker 6: shots at the same time, so you don't have the
Speaker 6: angst of two trips and more tears potentially, And so
Speaker 6: you know, if someone couldn't find a shot, they might
Speaker 6: not have gotten it at all. And there were some
Speaker 6: wrinkles when it came to coverage of the COVID shot.
Speaker 6: Initially not all insurers had the right coding in place,
Speaker 6: and so if you went in you had an appointment
Speaker 6: and then we're told you were going to have to
Speaker 6: pay for it out of pocket, you might have decided
Speaker 6: not to get either vaccine. And then anecdotally, you know,
Speaker 6: I've heard from pediatricians and I've noticed this in my
Speaker 6: own community that there have just been fewer vaccine clinics.
Speaker 6: A lot of times pediatricians' offices will run, you know,
Speaker 6: several weekends in a row of flu vaccine clinic and
Speaker 6: it's just like a mill, bring your whole family in
Speaker 6: and get the shots. And a lot of them didn't
Speaker 6: do that this year. In part, it seems like because
Speaker 6: there's just a shortage of healthcare workers, and so I
Speaker 6: think it's a complience of things happening, but all of
Speaker 6: it kind of translates into not a great situation.
Speaker 2: Do we know how many kids so far have gotten
Speaker 2: the flu shot percentage wise and what the goal is?
Speaker 6: Yeah, so as of early November, because there's a little
Speaker 6: lag in the data that we see from CDC the
Speaker 6: national numbers where thirty six point five percent of kids
Speaker 6: had gotten their shot last year and this year it
Speaker 6: was thirty two point six percent. That's the lowest in
Speaker 6: five years. Twenty nineteen, the trend had been overall kids
Speaker 6: were starting to get more their flu shot more consistently,
Speaker 6: and then we saw a little leap that first year
Speaker 6: of COVID. I think parents feeling helpless without a COVID shot.
Speaker 6: We're pretty good about getting their kids their flu vaccine,
Speaker 6: and we've just seen a decline. Since the goal always
Speaker 6: is to get seventy percent of the population vaccinated, we
Speaker 6: never get to that place in the US, you know,
Speaker 6: I think we do the best, which is good with
Speaker 6: older folks, but older folks also have immune systems that
Speaker 6: just don't aren't as robust even with vaccination, and so
Speaker 6: they rely on the rest of us to kind of
Speaker 6: help cocoon them from the worst outcomes of the flu.
Speaker 2: You were just talking about the elderly. Let's talk about
Speaker 2: that a little bit more. The risk isn't necessarily then,
Speaker 2: from what I'm hearing you say, for children per se,
Speaker 2: it's for the spread to make sure the kids don't
Speaker 2: give it to grandma and grandpa.
Speaker 6: That's right. I mean, just like we've all come to
Speaker 6: learn very well with the COVID shots, the flu shot
Speaker 6: isn't necessarily going to prevent you from getting the flu,
Speaker 6: but but like it does actually help lower the spread
Speaker 6: of the virus. And kids are vulnerable to you know,
Speaker 6: hospitalizations from the flu, just like they are from COVID.
Speaker 6: But really the biggest threat here is to you know,
Speaker 6: grandma and grandpa, and so, you know, folks over the
Speaker 6: age of sixty five are the ones who end up
Speaker 6: with the most hospitalizations and are responsible for, you know,
Speaker 6: the majority of deaths. One thing that I always keep
Speaker 6: in mind is that there was a study that people
Speaker 6: still cite kind of Japan that showed that when you
Speaker 6: had a high percentage of school age children vaccinated, you
Speaker 6: actually saw fewer deaths among older the older population. And so,
Speaker 6: you know, it just is it's I try to think
Speaker 6: about that when I think about why it is that,
Speaker 6: you know, I take my own kid in to get
Speaker 6: her flu shot. It's for her, but it's also for
Speaker 6: the people around her.
Speaker 2: Are there efforts being made on the government level, on
Speaker 2: the school level, the local level, to get more kids vaccinated.
Speaker 2: Is there a push there.
Speaker 6: I think there's always been a push, and the CDC
Speaker 6: had a different blue vaccine campaign. They try to change
Speaker 6: their messaging up a little bit this year, essentially to
Speaker 6: try to get at this idea that it's not gonna
Speaker 6: prevent you necessarily from getting the flu, but when you
Speaker 6: get the flu, it's not going to be a severe
Speaker 6: and they I think, you know, we're seeing mixed success
Speaker 6: with that. It's a complicated season, you know, to be fair,
Speaker 6: We've got COVID shots that we're rolling out, the flu vaccine,
Speaker 6: and then there's new RSV shots for older folks and
Speaker 6: in RSV preventive therapy for infants, and so I think
Speaker 6: just the messaging has been really muddled because people are
Speaker 6: trying to keep track of a lot of things. And
Speaker 6: as you know, you pointed out the very beginning, this
Speaker 6: is coming amid some fatigue around getting shots in general.
Speaker 2: Are there certain areas of the country that are are
Speaker 2: not getting vaccinated? Is it demographically divided?
Speaker 6: Yeah? I mean so, I think one of the reasons
Speaker 6: that there's you know, concern around hesitancy is because when
Speaker 6: you look at the map of the places that have
Speaker 6: dropped the most in terms of kids in flu vaccines.
Speaker 6: You know, many of them are in red states, some
Speaker 6: of them are in states where the political rhetoric around
Speaker 6: vaccination of COVID has been the hottest. And so you
Speaker 6: know Florida, for example, which has been in the bottom
Speaker 6: kind of twelve states in general in the past when
Speaker 6: it comes to vaccinations for the flu for kids, but
Speaker 6: this year they saw another drop in their vaccinations. And
Speaker 6: you know, we know we've heard that Governor Ronda Santis
Speaker 6: in his presidential campaign has really been kind of hitting
Speaker 6: on COVID vaccines and initially wasn't even going to participate
Speaker 6: in some of the booster rollouts for that, and so
Speaker 6: you know there's a worry that that's bleeding over into
Speaker 6: other childhood vaccinations.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about that just briefly, because you know, COVID,
Speaker 2: a rather vaccination hesitancy or anti vax if you will,
Speaker 2: is not new. That's been going on since before COVID.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering though, if now that we're seeing parents more
Speaker 2: hesitant to get the flu shot for their kids, is
Speaker 2: it becoming more mainstream. It used to be such an outlier.
Speaker 2: Now are more parents sort of jumping on the anti
Speaker 2: vax bandwagon. Where could this wind up?
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's really worrisome, to be honest with you. This
Speaker 6: is a thing that I've been trying to watch closely,
Speaker 6: and I think everyone is trying to see with every
Speaker 6: new scrap of data comes out, you know what it means.
Speaker 6: We saw that there was a drop in childhood vaccinations
Speaker 6: for kindergarteners. You know, when you go into school for
Speaker 6: the first time, there's a series of shots that you
Speaker 6: need to have. And fewer kids in January when the
Speaker 6: data came out, were up to date in twenty twenty
Speaker 6: two than had been in the past, which is concerning.
Speaker 6: I think it's hard to unravel if it has to
Speaker 6: do with vaccine hesitancy, if it has to do with
Speaker 6: fewer people having access to healthcare. You know, I probably
Speaker 6: is a number of factors. What does seem to be happening.
Speaker 6: They're kind of hardening into you know, I feel really
Speaker 6: good about vaccines or I really don't feel good about it,
Speaker 6: instead of there's less folks living in that grey area,
Speaker 6: and so that's worrisome, and I think, you know, certainly
Speaker 6: there's things that we need to be doing to understand
Speaker 6: where the demographics and where that's happening, and to be
Speaker 6: thinking about how to better target those folks.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis covers biotech, healthcare, and the
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical industry. This is Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast Countess 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: This is Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. Home Buyers have
Speaker 2: been suffering through some pretty severe whiplash in recent months.
Speaker 2: After hitting eight percent in October, mortgage rates are now
Speaker 2: kind of flirting with seven percent. There's some signs that
Speaker 2: sales and inventory are picking up. Let's learn more about
Speaker 2: this where this could be headed. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Connor
Speaker 2: Sen joins me now. He is a founder of Peach
Speaker 2: Tree Creek Investments and has been following the housing market
Speaker 2: very closely. Obviously, now, Connor, what has changed.
Speaker 7: It's really mortgage rates. That's the show stopping story. Where
Speaker 7: when rates hit eight in October, I think a lot
Speaker 7: of people said this is ridiculous. I'm not going to
Speaker 7: try to buy a house. I'm not going to try
Speaker 7: to sell a house. It's just it's broken. And then
Speaker 7: mortgage rates just have basically crashed over the past month
Speaker 7: due to a decline in inflation to some extent, some
Speaker 7: softening in the economy, and a belief that the FED
Speaker 7: will cut rates perhaps in the first half of next year,
Speaker 7: maybe as soon as March. And so rates have come
Speaker 7: down a lot, and it happening at a time of
Speaker 7: the year when people typically aren't buying houses. Maybe hasn't
Speaker 7: led people to appreciate that, but I think it sets
Speaker 7: the housing market up for a really interesting January.
Speaker 2: The US housing market, though, has been defying expectations. When
Speaker 2: you think it's going to zig its zags. Is that
Speaker 2: going to continue?
Speaker 8: I think so.
Speaker 7: And the same thing happened a year ago. If you're
Speaker 7: a call, where rates hit seven in October twenty twenty two,
Speaker 7: and that was at the time sort of unheard of,
Speaker 7: and people gave up on the housing market for the year,
Speaker 7: and then people came back in January and a lot
Speaker 7: of people who felt like they had to buy a house,
Speaker 7: they just went out there and tried to look and
Speaker 7: at the time it was the new home market that
Speaker 7: had supplied because builders had built up these big inventory
Speaker 7: levels when rates were lower and they had to sell them.
Speaker 7: So builders were in a position to sell homes to
Speaker 7: people who suddenly needed to buy them, in some cases
Speaker 7: using mortgage rate buydowns to make the rate more affordable.
Speaker 7: And that led to the first quarter of the year
Speaker 7: being surprisingly strong for the new home market. And I
Speaker 7: think now that we're seeing some signs of loosening in
Speaker 7: the resale market on the inventory side. We could see
Speaker 7: the same for existing home sales in the first quarter
Speaker 7: of twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Four, so we have seen this pattern before then as
Speaker 2: recently as this time last year.
Speaker 7: Exactly. It really is kind of an eerie groundhog day
Speaker 7: where you see mortgage purchase applications pick up in November,
Speaker 7: but people are busy with the holidays, maybe not paying attention,
Speaker 7: but you see signs in the weekly data that people
Speaker 7: are responsive to rates, and now that there's more supply,
Speaker 7: there's more choice for buyers, and I think again we're
Speaker 7: going to get past Christmas in the new year. First
Speaker 7: couple weeks of January, people went out there and you
Speaker 7: could see a lot more activity than people think.
Speaker 2: So that's when home buyers are going to start to
Speaker 2: see or feel that break and that pressure that you've
Speaker 2: been talking about coming up in January, the first quarter
Speaker 2: of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 7: Right, the seasonality in the housing market's really gotten weird
Speaker 7: since COVID, and I think maybe a part of it
Speaker 7: was COVID. Part of it just mortgage rates are so
Speaker 7: high that or went from so low to so high
Speaker 7: that it's a scrambled things. And then just the general
Speaker 7: lack of inventory has made it so that if you
Speaker 7: want to sell home, you can almost always sell it,
Speaker 7: no matter what time of the year you want. And
Speaker 7: then there are so many people looking to buy that
Speaker 7: you do have people looking to buy in November December
Speaker 7: just because they didn't they weren't able to in May, June, July.
Speaker 2: You know, let me clarify something with you, or get
Speaker 2: you to help me clarify it. You know, we started
Speaker 2: this by talking about home buyer suffering through the whiplash,
Speaker 2: and now they're about to get a break. What's that
Speaker 2: break going to look like exactly? Will it be stability,
Speaker 2: will it be affordability? What's the break they're waiting for?
Speaker 7: I think mortgage rates being lower all else EQL makes
Speaker 7: affordability better. I think the home price conversation is tricky,
Speaker 7: and we can get into that a little bit later,
Speaker 7: but I think the real one is just that there
Speaker 7: will be more inventory, and so if you've been feeling
Speaker 7: like there's nothing to buy, there'll be a little bit
Speaker 7: more choice. And that goes for first time buyers as
Speaker 7: well as people who have a home to sell before
Speaker 7: they can buy. So if maybe you haven't been selling
Speaker 7: your home because you haven't found the one you like,
Speaker 7: and now if you do find one you like, you
Speaker 7: can sell your own home, which then creates inventory for
Speaker 7: somebody else. So it kind of just unfreezes the market
Speaker 7: a little bit.
Speaker 2: And we are talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Connor Sen
Speaker 2: about home buyers finally starting to see a little bit
Speaker 2: of light at the end of the tunnel. However, Connor,
Speaker 2: you just said that the outlook for prices is tricky.
Speaker 7: How so I think you're rising inventory all SEQUL should
Speaker 7: put a little bit of downward pressure on prices because
Speaker 7: maybe price is held up this year just because there
Speaker 7: was nothing to buy and so there just wasn't an
Speaker 7: ability for prices to fall when there's always a buyer
Speaker 7: to step in whenever anything went for sale. So like Redfin,
Speaker 7: the online brokerage site, predicts that home prices will fall
Speaker 7: one percent twenty twenty four. And my view is that
Speaker 7: could they fall a little bit, sure, could they rise
Speaker 7: a little bit if mortgage rates fall, definitely, But it's
Speaker 7: really I think people have been looking for shelter. Think
Speaker 7: of it as are you looking for shelter and shelter
Speaker 7: that you own? And if so, then you should be
Speaker 7: focused on can I just secure the house I want?
Speaker 7: And am I going to pay two percent too much
Speaker 7: or too little? I don't know. I don't think you're
Speaker 7: looking at a big decline or big rise in either case.
Speaker 7: It's really just about it should be easier to find
Speaker 7: the home you want in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Let's get a little more granular with this. There was
Speaker 2: a time, particularly during and just after COVID, when people
Speaker 2: were just throwing money at realtors and throwing money at sellers.
Speaker 2: Whatever you're asking price is, I'll top it by another
Speaker 2: twenty grand, and they were selling houses. We're not seeing that.
Speaker 2: You don't anticipate that, do you?
Speaker 8: No?
Speaker 7: I don't think we're going to see big price booms
Speaker 7: like that. You might see bidding wars again, but that
Speaker 7: will be more about four people competing for one house
Speaker 7: and only one person can get it, even if I
Speaker 7: don't know if it'll be somebody will pay ten percent
Speaker 7: over just that, There's still are only so many houses
Speaker 7: to go around, and I think you will see more
Speaker 7: inventory next year, more more sellers, more new listings, but
Speaker 7: buyer demand could come in strong, just sort of people
Speaker 7: coming off the sidelines in response to not just rate stability,
Speaker 7: but rates declining.
Speaker 2: And are we seeing more of the flip side of that,
Speaker 2: coin sellers who are basically cleaning out a house, not
Speaker 2: really doing much with it cosmetically, not worrying about an inspection,
Speaker 2: and just selling it as is and getting it off
Speaker 2: their plate.
Speaker 1: I think so.
Speaker 7: And when inventory is low, they have the ability to
Speaker 7: do that, to just wave inspections and not do a
Speaker 7: whole lot of work because they know there is a
Speaker 7: buyer for the home, even in the shape it's in.
Speaker 7: And so again we'll see more inventory next year. I
Speaker 7: don't think it's going to be just a deluge, but
Speaker 7: it should be better than twenty twenty three, and sort
Speaker 7: of in my business. Just the direction and the change
Speaker 7: is more important than the levels.
Speaker 2: So the problem had been that people weren't selling. Why
Speaker 2: are they more motivated to sell now? I mean, is
Speaker 2: it beyond just the interest rates?
Speaker 7: It's time. So yeah, rates were low until about April
Speaker 7: May of twenty twenty two, and then rates shoot up.
Speaker 7: If you're a seller, you think, I don't want to
Speaker 7: get in there, I'll just wait until rates come down
Speaker 7: or whatever, and then time passes and eventually you just
Speaker 7: have to sell in a lot of cases, and sort
Speaker 7: of the interesting thing is one of the places where
Speaker 7: inventory is rising the most right now is Florida as
Speaker 7: well as Arizona, and I want or if it's because
Speaker 7: there are more retirees there, and so you do have
Speaker 7: more people just you know, dying or having to move
Speaker 7: into assisted living, and just you have people who sort
Speaker 7: of physically can't afford to wait and they're putting their
Speaker 7: homes in the market or they're a status putting their
Speaker 7: homes in the market.
Speaker 2: Now, you had said earlier in this interview that we've
Speaker 2: seen this before. Is this now the new pattern? Is
Speaker 2: this what we need to start anticipating in the next
Speaker 2: few years? Is this sustainable?
Speaker 7: I think twenty twenty three was peak mortgage rate lock
Speaker 7: in because you had sort of the most number of
Speaker 7: people with three percent mortgage rates that you'll ever see,
Speaker 7: and they also had had them for a very little
Speaker 7: amount of time. They hadn't been in their homes that long,
Speaker 7: so they could afford to wait a year and just
Speaker 7: not sell their home and wait for things to settle out.
Speaker 7: And now every year that passes there'll be fewer people
Speaker 7: with those pandemic error mortgages and more people who, whether
Speaker 7: it's for marriage or kids or death or divorce, whatever,
Speaker 7: feel they need to sell. And so I think from
Speaker 7: here inventories likely tick up, not rapid, but I think
Speaker 7: you'll see more supply in twenty twenty four than you
Speaker 7: did in twenty three, probably more in twenty five than
Speaker 7: you will in twenty four, and so it should get
Speaker 7: largely better from here.
Speaker 2: So more supply in the coming year, more supply possibly
Speaker 2: the year after that. If I were looking to buy
Speaker 2: a home, maybe hustle and strike while the iron is hot.
Speaker 7: There are a ton of buyers out there who want
Speaker 7: to come in, want to find a home. And again
Speaker 7: we saw in the new home market this year where
Speaker 7: I think if you bought that home in January when
Speaker 7: builders were still looking to sell and there were still
Speaker 7: options out there, they're pretty happy versus people who waited
Speaker 7: maybe thought mortgage ridge come down, thought prices would come down.
Speaker 7: And I think you want to get out there before
Speaker 7: spring and there's more of awareness that, oh, rates have
Speaker 7: come down, people are looking to buy. Beat the crowd
Speaker 7: would be my advice to people.
Speaker 2: When you are doing these types of analyzes, how long
Speaker 2: does it take for the market to sort of catch
Speaker 2: up with what it is you're saying.
Speaker 7: Well, the nice thing about housing is that there's pretty
Speaker 7: like certainly around this time of the year, there's pretty
Speaker 7: predictable seasonality. Even if you I wanted to buy a
Speaker 7: home today, it's not like maybe your wilter's on vacation,
Speaker 7: maybe the appraiser or some part of that chain that
Speaker 7: you need to actually secure that home can't be reached,
Speaker 7: and so you're kind of forced to wait until the
Speaker 7: new year. So I think the next three to four
Speaker 7: weeks it's going to be quiet just because you can't
Speaker 7: get people and so, but I think you will see
Speaker 7: signs of this by mid January.
Speaker 6: If I'm right, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Connor, We're going to wait and see if you
Speaker 2: are right. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 7: Thanks Amy.
Speaker 2: The US government's next set of dietary guidelines for twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five may include warnings against ultra processed foods, but
Speaker 2: nonprofits say, don't bet on that. There are just too
Speaker 2: many committee members with conflicts of interest. Bloomberg opinion columnist
Speaker 2: Bobby Ghost joins US. Now, Bobby first, set us straight.
Speaker 2: What's the difference between a processed food and an ultra
Speaker 2: processed food?
Speaker 8: Just cooking food makes it processed, right, But ultra process
Speaker 8: food is food that is that essentially comes out of
Speaker 8: a substantial degree comes out of a laboratory. I mean
Speaker 8: they come out of factories, but they're designed in laboratory.
Speaker 8: They're designed using the science of chemistry, and they're brought
Speaker 8: together and you know the way the US federal government
Speaker 8: defines that. It can be quite confusing. If you have
Speaker 8: a is bacon a ultra processed food or a processed food?
Speaker 8: If you have is bread processed or ultra process Take
Speaker 8: a guess. Most breads are ultra processed foods. You and
Speaker 8: I most people don't really think of bread like that,
Speaker 8: but particularly bread that is designed to survive for several days,
Speaker 8: which is not a natural thing. In bread, long life
Speaker 8: breads a certainly ultra process long like milk is ultra processed.
Speaker 8: All kinds of things are ultra processed.
Speaker 2: With so much evidence though that all these foods are
Speaker 2: bad for you, certainly the Committee would be mentioning them
Speaker 2: in these guidelines, you would.
Speaker 8: Think, except, of course, the Committee for decades has been
Speaker 8: under scrutiny, to put it politely, for pressured by or
Speaker 8: influenced by big food, the food industry through lobbyists. Many
Speaker 8: members of the Committee have been shown to have conflicts
Speaker 8: of interest, to have received money from big food to
Speaker 8: conduct research, let's say, and that has made its guidelines
Speaker 8: suspect in the eyes of a lot of people, and
Speaker 8: a lot of people who've been on the committee before
Speaker 8: say that they come under a lot of this pressure.
Speaker 8: Part of the problem is that the USDA, the Department
Speaker 8: of Agriculture. These guidelines come out from the USDA and
Speaker 8: the Health and Human Services, But the USDA's primary function
Speaker 8: is to try and promote the product of American agriculture,
Speaker 8: you know, to promote the kinds of foods that are
Speaker 8: produced by American farmers, and quite often American farmers are
Speaker 8: producing foods for the food industry, which then takes this
Speaker 8: stuff and processes it and ultra process it, if you like,
Speaker 8: and puts it on our shelves and in our restaurants
Speaker 8: and our fast food joints. And so there is a
Speaker 8: direct conflict of interest for the USDA itself.
Speaker 2: So then what's the point of having these food guidelines
Speaker 2: every few years?
Speaker 8: Therefore, nutrition is they are for policymakers. They're not for
Speaker 8: you and me. They're not really for consumers. There's a
Speaker 8: whole separate thing that is designed for consumers, and that
Speaker 8: is called my plate. You'll remember the food pyramid. You'll
Speaker 8: have seen it in your school, right. My plate replaced
Speaker 8: the food pyramid. Instead of a pyramid, it's the shape
Speaker 8: of a plate. It's like a pie chart that shows
Speaker 8: you what proportions of different things you should eat. But
Speaker 8: here's the thing that too, is produced by the government,
Speaker 8: the Obama administration, particularly Michelle Obama, the first Lady, put
Speaker 8: quite a lot of her personal energy into it. But
Speaker 8: that's kind of fallen by the wayside. Even those who
Speaker 8: have heard of it. A tiny, tiny fraction of people
Speaker 8: say they've tried to live by the prescriptions of my play.
Speaker 8: The larger point is that most people know that processed
Speaker 8: foods aren't good. If the government is serious about getting
Speaker 8: people to eat fewer processed foods, the solution is not
Speaker 8: that difficult. You tax these foods, you subsidize the more
Speaker 8: wholesome foods. But of course that would involve going against
Speaker 8: very powerful lobbyists, and the political climate just simply does
Speaker 8: not exist at the moment for that sort of action.
Speaker 2: Bobby goes. She is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering culture,
Speaker 2: and that does it for this week's Bloomberg Opinion. We're
Speaker 2: produced by Eric Mallow. Find all of these columns on
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg terminal, and we're available as a podcast on Apple,
Speaker 2: Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. Stay with us. Today's
Speaker 2: stories and global business headlines are coming up. I'm Amy Morris,
Speaker 2: and this is Bloomberg.