WEBVTT - A Exposé of a Permanent Financial Dystopia 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:03.640 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and 0:00:03.720 --> 0:00:08.280 Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio our next guest. 0:00:08.320 --> 0:00:11.400 But years working at several iconic Wall Street firms, former 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:14.440 Goldman sax Managing Director, former senior managing director at bear 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.280 Stearns over in London, before that Lehman and Chase Manhattan. 0:00:18.320 --> 0:00:21.279 Nomi Prince is an economist. She's also an author and 0:00:21.320 --> 0:00:24.560 an investigative journalist. She's also the author of several books, 0:00:24.560 --> 0:00:28.200 including her newest, Permanent Distortion, How the Financial Markets Abandoned 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:31.040 the Real Economy Forever. She joins us live in the 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:34.960 Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio this afternoon. No me, congratulations on 0:00:35.000 --> 0:00:37.559 the new book. Just came out on October eleven, so 0:00:37.600 --> 0:00:39.239 it's been out for a couple of days. We're going 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:40.840 to talk about the book. We got a great chunk 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:44.440 of time with you. But given your background, your role 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:46.400 as an economist, we gotta get your take on what's 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:48.640 happening in the markets right now and what's happening in 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:50.560 the economy. I mean a wild day on Wall Street 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:52.960 where we saw markets open down more than two percent 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:55.760 and then end up finishing the day close to session highs. 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:59.960 What's going on here, um mass insanity in the markets. 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.080 I mean, what's happening right now is that the markets 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.040 don't know how to process whether they're going to have 0:01:06.160 --> 0:01:07.920 sort of cheap money forever, whether the FED is going 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:09.640 to go back to sort of what it used to 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:11.440 be like, whether it's going to continue to high grates, 0:01:11.440 --> 0:01:14.120 how to actually interpret every little teeny piece of data. 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:17.600 So there's no idea forward looking analysis in the markets 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:21.119 right now. It's all reactive um. And that's something that's 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:23.880 very new to the period that we're living in right now, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:25.840 versus when I was on Lall Street, when it was like, okay, 0:01:25.840 --> 0:01:27.880 this is what rates are. They go up, they go down, 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:29.720 they're sort of a balance. But by the time we've 0:01:29.720 --> 0:01:31.840 gotten to this point where rates have been at zero 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.640 for for so much of the last fourteen years and 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.400 now they're sort of moving up. But the feed is 0:01:36.440 --> 0:01:38.839 still sitting on a book of almost nine trillion dollars 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.200 worth of assets, and all the central banks around the 0:01:41.200 --> 0:01:44.920 world are in similar kind of positions. It's really hard 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:50.440 to figure out where there's actually value in sectors, in names, 0:01:50.480 --> 0:01:52.640 and in the specifics of the market. So a lot 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.760 of this is more knee jerk reactive than necessarily forward analysis. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.520 How should we think about the financial markets? Is it 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.440 the real world, the real economy? It isn't and and 0:02:03.440 --> 0:02:06.280 and this is part of the process that we've been 0:02:06.400 --> 0:02:08.680 in since really two thousand eight and a little bit 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:10.520 before that. I mean, when we got into two thousand eight, 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:12.560 because in the beginning of the two thousand, two thousand, 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:14.240 two thousand and one, we had rates very low, we 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:17.040 had mortgages going crazy at a subprime crisis, and we 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:19.839 got this whole quantitative easing period that we are still 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:21.720 living in right now. And we're not at the back 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:23.760 of this by a long shot. We're we're like in 0:02:23.800 --> 0:02:27.680 the middle of potentially you know, quei forever um, even 0:02:27.720 --> 0:02:29.639 if books come down by a little bit. And so 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.200 what does that mean? I mean, the real economy doesn't 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.359 necessarily get the benefit of financing the same way it 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:37.640 used to get the benefit of financing in the sixties 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:39.200 and the seventies and the fifties when we were building 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.440 roads and highways. Because it's come second to money being 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:47.799 created quickly, being leveraged excessively, and flowing into financial assets 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:49.919 that are quicker to turn around. So can I ask 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:54.560 you something? So the sophistication of markets and how we 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:57.919 can trade it and slice and dice it. Is that 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:00.720 why you're saying it doesn't It's just a whole different 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:04.480 game on Wall Street versus years ago, decades ago, when 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:06.640 it really was reflective of what was going on in 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.520 the economy. Well, there was certainly more information that was 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.360 coming from the direct economy through companies that were involved 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.520 in creating different components of the economy and being more 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:17.400 directly related to individuals. And now, of course we have 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.880 much more technology of much more analysis. We also far 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:23.680 more leverage um, and so we combine the technological leverage 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.840 with the financial leverage, we have this complete disconnect between again, 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:31.160 money going into the economy and sticking around and being 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.320 used for longer term capital investments and creation and all 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.720 of that relative to I'm here now, I'm there. Now, 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:40.120 I'm trading on momentum, on trading on technological factors, I'm 0:03:40.160 --> 0:03:43.360 trading on computer science, and I'm not necessarily trading on 0:03:43.480 --> 0:03:47.560 value and the long term view. You said something that 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.480 makes me think about the role that government takes, because 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:52.520 when you think about big infrastructure projects in the nineteen 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:54.240 fifties and nineteen six do you think about the post 0:03:54.240 --> 0:03:56.520 World War two boom here in the United States, the 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.560 building of Levittown, for example, all of these like shovel 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:02.800 ready projects. That's something that you need to have, you know, 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:06.360 widespread agreement on when it comes to putting that, you know, 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:08.760 implementing them. We don't have that right now. It's all 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.560 a joke. It's always infrastructure week right and Washington and 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.960 nothing ever gets done. Is that a big obstacle to 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:18.560 kind of getting past where we are the financialization of 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:21.159 the economy. That's a really good question, and it's true. 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.000 In the fifties and sixties we had we had a 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:25.880 connection in politics that related to the connection of what 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:27.680 was needed to be done in the country, the building 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:29.719 of those highways, the building of the space program, the 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.800 building of permanent, lasting features. We've been had that in 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:34.680 the nineteen thirties, like Whoever Dam was built in the 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.520 middle of the Great Depression, because it was a process 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:40.039 that had started and it had financing, and it retrieved 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.240 that financing throughout the all the years that it took 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.120 to build it. So there's a lot of longer term 0:04:44.240 --> 0:04:48.320 thinking and longer term capital commitment in those days, not 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:51.480 just from the direction of Washington, I had that too, 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:54.159 but also from the direction of private industry, from Wall Street, 0:04:54.160 --> 0:04:56.560 from companies throughout the country. That there was a collaboration 0:04:57.080 --> 0:04:59.960 that that has really become disintegrated. Now we can't even 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.599 build a tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey. We we can't. 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.400 We haven't been able to do that, and there's an 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.120 incredible need for it. We've got no me priends with us. 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:11.200 She's an author and investigative journalist. She's got the new 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:14.200 book out, Permanent Distortion, How the Financial markets abandoned the 0:05:14.200 --> 0:05:17.640 real economy Forever. She was a managing director at Goldman Sachs. 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:20.040 She ran the International Analytics Group. As a senior managing 0:05:20.120 --> 0:05:22.480 director at bear Stearns, she was a strategist that Lehman 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:25.920 brother She was also at Chase Manhattan Bank before that UM. 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:29.039 She also was on Senator Bernie Sanders Federal Reserve Reform 0:05:29.080 --> 0:05:31.479 Advisory Council. Know me, what I want to talk to 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.160 you is about how you made the transition from banking 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:38.560 into becoming an author an investigative journalist, Like why did 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:40.960 you leave the industry, did you run from the industry. 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.640 Now just kidding, UM nine eleven, how two things happened 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:45.280 from the industry, right, nine eleven happened. I was like 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:48.000 Goldman Sachs Corner office and twenty floor, the whole, the 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:49.880 whole thing, UM that was going on at the time. 0:05:49.920 --> 0:05:51.760 And at the time also there was a lot of 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:54.320 corruption that was happening on the corporate side. That was 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:55.800 sort of when en Ron was breaking, you know, it 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:57.440 was in world calm was breaking. There was a lot 0:05:57.480 --> 0:05:59.720 of like tension in terms of what the reality of 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.080 bound and sheets were, what the role of Wall Street was, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.240 and of course what we found it to be UM 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.240 in all those corporate scandals, and I was I was 0:06:06.279 --> 0:06:08.279 seeing a lot of that and getting sort of, you know, 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.800 very disgusted with a lot of them. And then of 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:12.840 course not eleven happens and sort of you know, add 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.040 one and one, get two and two is based on 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:16.520 I need to go and I need to talk about 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:18.159 this stuff, and so a lot of them. The first 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.840 writings I did, UM were about what was going on 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.440 in terms of the corporate scandals, telecom sector, the energy sector, 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.919 UM in Wall Streets connection, and I wound up taking 0:06:26.920 --> 0:06:29.719 that route into my first book, Other People's Money, The 0:06:29.720 --> 0:06:32.360 Corporate Monky of America UM, which also talked about the 0:06:32.360 --> 0:06:34.640 inns of golden sacks as well as the banking industry 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:36.279 and everything that was going on there, because I thought 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:38.400 at the time nobody was talking about it. I mean, 0:06:38.480 --> 0:06:40.360 at the time, we couldn't even talk about being inside 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.280 Wall Street's not like today where everybody's talking sort of 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.680 about everything all the time. It wasn't like that. It was. 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:47.120 It was very much a sort of more secretive sort 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:50.160 of situation, and I needed to talk about it, so 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:52.920 I needed to be outside to talk about inside. I 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:54.840 want to get right back to no Me. Prinds, author 0:06:54.880 --> 0:06:58.360 and investigative journalist. Google her because her backgrounds incredible. She's 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:00.279 got a new book app Permanent Distortion and how the 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:04.680 financial markets abandoned the real economy Forever Permanent Distortion. Why 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:08.479 is it permanent? Um? Excellent question. It was not taken 0:07:08.560 --> 0:07:11.240 lightly because I like words as well being an author. UM. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.400 It's because in the wake of the financial crisis, when 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:15.760 we went down to zero percent interest and and and 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.000 we created four and a half trillion dollars worth of 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:19.920 money from nowhere to take debt out of the market. 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:22.800 At the time, US debt in generals nine trillion dollars 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.160 four and a half trillion equivalent was on the Fed's books. 0:07:25.200 --> 0:07:28.240 Some of that was mortgages, treasuries, was all connected. Then 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.040 we had a double down situation that happened in twenty 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:32.880 So the period in between there was a lot of 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:35.400 speculation when will the Fed raise rates, etcetera. They raised 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:39.360 in markets were were insanely negative on that whole prospect. 0:07:39.480 --> 0:07:41.640 They didn't raise again until twenty six and then sort 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:44.120 of bits along the way to turned around in twenty 0:07:44.200 --> 0:07:47.400 nineteen and to twenty nineteen because Wall Street collateral wasn't 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:49.480 working between Wall Street and its own its own, its 0:07:49.480 --> 0:07:52.400 own customers, UM, the repoil markets were falling apart. So 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.320 the FED turned around and created more q E, brought 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.760 rates down again. UM talked about as if it was 0:07:57.800 --> 0:07:59.680 related to the economy, but in fact was related to 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:01.720 the quity on Wall Street, which, by the way, right 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:03.360 now we're going to see a lot of problems I 0:08:03.360 --> 0:08:05.600 think coming into tomorrow's numbers. But besides that, when we 0:08:05.600 --> 0:08:08.200 got into just a few months after that and the 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:11.480 pandemic hit, that's when there was an overdrive factor and 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.840 that's when the FED went to nine trillion dollars from 0:08:13.880 --> 0:08:15.960 at the time four point one, but effectively doubled in 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:17.680 a few months what it took a number of years 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:20.040 to get to the first time. Other central banks around 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.600 the world following and what became just a sort of help, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.200 which was enormous to begin with, became a permanent artificial 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:29.200 cushion to the markets. And even right now, even with 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.640 rates coming up now and all the speculations, the FEDS, 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:33.360 you know, totally changing and it's going to be this 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.520 inflation hawk. Even though can't fight a lot of the 0:08:35.520 --> 0:08:38.280 inflation it says it's trying to fight, it doesn't actually 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.120 change the fact that this cushion is underneath all the 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.280 financial markets. And that's why we have days like today 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.800 where the market basically spans fifteen hundred points and day 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:51.160 on the doubt, that's not normal, that's not healthy. That's 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:55.080 related to the speculation versus this permanent idea of this 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.440 distortion between where the money goes to the economy, how 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:00.200 it gets to the markets, where it stays it. It's 0:09:00.200 --> 0:09:02.680 not a question of blaming the FED. It's a question 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.920 of the Feed is responsible for creating the cushion. So 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:09.280 I blame the cushion. The FED created the cushion, So 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:11.720 in that respect, yes, I do blame the FET. But 0:09:11.760 --> 0:09:13.920 you have to look at the bigger picture, not just 0:09:14.000 --> 0:09:15.600 not just what is the FET and doing now with 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.400 interest rates? That obviously is creating uncertainty in the markets, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.160 and it's certainly oppressing people trying to get mortgages right 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:23.120 now which are twice as expensive as they were six 0:09:23.160 --> 0:09:25.439 months ago. That and that's a really quick change. And 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.480 if you're trying to budget and you're the bottom level 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:29.560 of your own you know, sort of the economy. But 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.200 this is more about the fact that cushion exists. It's 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:33.839 not just the FET, it's the Bank of England, it's 0:09:33.840 --> 0:09:35.640 the European Central Bank is a bankage, but it's the 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.240 global um central bank network that has basically created this 0:09:40.360 --> 0:09:44.200 this outside source of capital in order to be there 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.240 when it deems necessary, and that that uncertainty about what's 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.679 necessary is now what's permeating in the markets, and it's 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.679 a reason why capital can't go outside those markets when 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:55.840 they're going up or when they're going down to long 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:58.880 term projects into the foundational economy. To the same extent, 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:01.319 as before, and did this start I mean, would you 0:10:01.360 --> 0:10:03.280 say that this was the in the wake of the 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.040 Great Financial Crisis or was this happening earlier. It was 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:09.160 happening a bit earlier, but quantitative easing to the extent 0:10:09.240 --> 0:10:11.080 that we saw it, we see it now and in 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:14.040 the doubling sense of financial crisis was a post financial 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.480 crisis phenomenon. And we had a situation where the entire 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.480 banking system was so over leveraged and all of the 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.679 customers of all the over leverage mortgage product we're facing, 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:26.520 you know, potential largin calls and everything else out the 0:10:26.520 --> 0:10:28.920 whole system, from the top on all the way to 0:10:28.960 --> 0:10:31.400 the outskirts um. And so from that point on, when 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.839 the FED decided, Okay, Ben Vernaki just just want a 0:10:33.920 --> 0:10:37.679 noble prize for not noticing this happened in into nine 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.400 because we had a home bubble then too. Um. But 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:44.640 the point being that that this created um, this this 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:48.720 momentum in the fabrication of money that had not existed 0:10:48.840 --> 0:10:51.320 ever before. Japan kind of did it for a while, 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:53.600 did it since the nineties, but but nowhere near to 0:10:53.640 --> 0:10:55.400 the same extent that the FED did it. And then 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:58.920 every other central bank in the world followed, and so 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:02.240 again this became a global situation where the global cost 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:05.480 of money was zero and the global cushion continued to grow, 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:07.600 and that happened in the wake of the financial crisis. Soho. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:11.199 As a result, those who have access to that Christian 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:14.760 basically and that velocity of money have really benefited in 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.880 a big way. And hence we have this massive gap 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.280 in society that just gets bigger and bigger in terms 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:22.920 of wealth. That's right, because obviously if you're in the 0:11:22.960 --> 0:11:25.120 market and you can leverage yourself into the market, that's 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.720 whether you're a wealthy individual, the CEO of a company 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:30.559 that buys a lot of its own shares or has 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.800 the benefit of other leverage coming into that particular company, 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.520 or any of the financial markets, those have this buzz up. 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:38.360 Again right now, there's a bit of uncertainty, but for 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:41.840 the most part they have had this um, the acceleration 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:44.240 I would say, the velocity of money. So basically, this 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:47.720 this tush of money going into those areas and therefore 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:51.720 money money has choices, but money goes I talk about 0:11:51.800 --> 0:11:54.120 this in the book that the if you visualize where 0:11:54.120 --> 0:11:56.679 money is going, money is flooding into the place where 0:11:56.679 --> 0:11:58.840 it can go most easily and where it can stay 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.280 most easily, we can have the greatest impact. And that 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.800 means that anyone using it, anyone leveraging, and anyone that 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.760 has access to it gets that benefit and anyone who 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:11.559 doesn't simply doesn't and as a result that gap. We're 0:12:11.559 --> 0:12:14.040 speaking with Gnomi Friends, author and investigative journalist. She's got 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:16.880 the new book Permanent Distortion. How the financial markets abandoned 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.520 the real economy forever? You know me? How can banks 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:24.760 better serve the real economy? Banks can look at their 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.160 balance sheet in terms of where their small business loans are. 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:28.880 They can look at where they're paying people for the 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:32.520 interests on their savings account. They cannot charge ridiculous fees 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.760 relative to the amount of money that people have with 0:12:34.800 --> 0:12:36.880 accounts right now for example, No, I'm not going to 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.960 do that, and they're not, yes, because the incentives aren't 0:12:41.960 --> 0:12:44.040 aligned for this, right, the incentives aren't aligned for this, 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.480 so why would do so? So in I have this 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.880 conversation at the fed UM. I have this conversation as 0:12:51.880 --> 0:12:54.240 of saying at the fed UM in front of the FED, 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.600 the IMF and central bankers who are who are involved 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:58.080 in this in this, you know, the animal meeting they 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.280 have there and that the topic was why is into 0:13:00.280 --> 0:13:02.800 Wall Street helping helping Main Street? And I just got 0:13:02.880 --> 0:13:04.880 up and I said, because you you're not making them. 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:06.920 I mean, they basically have the benefit of all of 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:09.200 QUI all of the loans, all of the help, all 0:13:09.200 --> 0:13:12.600 of the access to zero percent money, and you're wondering 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.320 why they're not sort of just just giving it out 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:19.000 to sort of little people that hold accounts with them. 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:20.800 I mean, it's not really rocket signed, so not because 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.079 they don't have to. I get the argument for why 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.559 they should because of the assistance they got from the government. Right. 0:13:25.559 --> 0:13:27.840 And there are banks, as you know you worked at Lehman, 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:30.120 they're not around anymore, right, I mean, there are banks 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.800 that are are survived because of it. But I do 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:36.720 wonder as publicly held companies, they have got to constantly 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:40.080 think about returns to investors. And that's why I think. 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.520 I'm not pointing fingers or anything, but I mean that's 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.920 why they potentially don't do that. And we've just got 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:47.640 about thirty or forty seconds left here, So is there 0:13:48.000 --> 0:13:50.880 you talked about. I don't know what's the final takeaway 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:53.160 for our audience. Well, the final take of me is 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.640 when I say permanent, I actually mean permanent. I don't 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:57.640 think there's going to be a period where the FEDS 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.840 book is going to go back down to the billion 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:01.800 dollar or as it was before the financial crisis of 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:03.679 two thousand and eight. Maybe it dibbles from like nine 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:06.960 trillion into six seven trillion, it's still massive, and then 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:08.880 again you multiply that throughout the world. So what does 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:10.839 that mean. That means going forward we're gonna have more 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:13.560 and more of these volatile days to this magnitude. We're 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:17.080 going to have more of these crises, bubble, crises, bubble 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:18.920 So it's not necessarily gonna be one big thing. It's 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.520 going to just be a volatile scenario because there's a 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.560 permanent distortion of where money is created, where it goes, 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.680 who gets it and who doesn't, Which is in the 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:29.520 real consim is gonna be always a Christian out They're 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.600 floating and it's massive. Um, let me come back, please, 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.160 no me, friends, author, investigative journalists, so much permanent distortion. 0:14:36.240 --> 0:14:39.320 How the financial markets abandoned the real economy forever? Um. 0:14:39.440 --> 0:14:41.680 Great conversation. If you missed it, check out our podcast 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:45.960 feed on Bloomberg dot com. That's it. We gotta run 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:47.440 crazy day. We'll see you tomorrow.