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: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. This week we
Speaker 2: look at the bond between parent and child and how
Speaker 2: it can sometimes be a little too much. Bloomberg's Alison
Speaker 2: Schrager tells us how the kids of so called helicopter
Speaker 2: parents are less likely to take risks. We'll also look
Speaker 2: at those trendy new weight loss drugs and find out
Speaker 2: what doctors are asking. Bloomberg's Lisa Jarvis tells us just
Speaker 2: how long do you have to be on them? And
Speaker 2: will your weight come back if you stop? Plus the
Speaker 2: latest push for a new sport in the Olympics, e
Speaker 2: Sports Adam Mentor writes about a strong argument for why
Speaker 2: the Olympic Committee might want to consider gaming as a
Speaker 2: new Olympic sport. At first, we begin with the return
Speaker 2: to the office or lack of it, and the housing
Speaker 2: market Now. Earlier this month, Bloomberg's Wall Street week Daily
Speaker 2: spoke with Joshua Pristall, head of real estate at Predium.
Speaker 3: What we're seeing is that supply is being destroyed faster
Speaker 3: than demand as a result of rising rates, and that's
Speaker 3: really a function of what we call the mortgage lock
Speaker 3: in effect. So the averaging place mortgage is about three
Speaker 3: point six percent interest rate. People can't afford to move
Speaker 3: to a smaller house let alone, or larger if their
Speaker 3: thirty year mortgage is going to more than double. But
Speaker 3: the real solution resides with building more supply. We continue
Speaker 3: to see the best value long term in the states
Speaker 3: that are in the smile of the country southeast southwest.
Speaker 3: Now that doesn't mean that there aren't great opportunities in
Speaker 3: other places, but where people are moving and where the
Speaker 3: job growth is is generally where there's.
Speaker 4: Not enough housing.
Speaker 2: And that was Joshua Pristall, head of real estate at Predium,
Speaker 2: speaking with Bloomberg's Wall Street week Daily earlier this month. Now,
Speaker 2: the big migration story of the pandemic was the emptying
Speaker 2: out of major US cities. As more employees begin to
Speaker 2: return partly or even fully to their offices, people have
Speaker 2: started talking about a possible rejuvenation, but not everyone believes
Speaker 2: that's going to happen, at least not quite yet. Let's
Speaker 2: bring in Bloomberg opinion columnist Connorson, founder of Peachtree Creek Investments,
Speaker 2: and Connor, you talk about in your column how major
Speaker 2: US cities emptied out during the pandemic, But aren't people
Speaker 2: coming back now? Don't you see a rejuvenation coming?
Speaker 5: We certainly have seen a big back to the office movement,
Speaker 5: and at least in my circles, it seems like four
Speaker 5: days a week with Friday being flex Day, is sort
Speaker 5: of the new normal for corporate America. So I think
Speaker 5: that for the most part, return of the office has
Speaker 5: now played out. And the reason I wanted to write
Speaker 5: my column is that we get new Census data in
Speaker 5: December for what migration trends look like in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 5: and that's going to capture the period between mid twenty
Speaker 5: twenty two and mid twenty twenty three when existing home
Speaker 5: sales really fell off as mortgage rates rows. And so
Speaker 5: my belief, and based on postal service data, is that
Speaker 5: it will show that migration really tailed off. So there's
Speaker 5: a very little movement away from New York and Chicago
Speaker 5: and the West Coast, all the places that lost a
Speaker 5: lot of population during COVID, and it's not necessarily due
Speaker 5: to back to the office, but just because high mortgage
Speaker 5: rates and low home sales mean nobody's moving right now, I.
Speaker 2: Want to get into that. But you said something about
Speaker 2: the postal service, and I think it's fascinating how they
Speaker 2: were able to track these pandemic migration trends. What was
Speaker 2: the system that they used.
Speaker 5: So what they do is, if you ever move, you
Speaker 5: can do a change of address request and you don't
Speaker 5: have to, but a lot of people do. So it's
Speaker 5: sort of a consistent data set over time, and they
Speaker 5: look at buy zip code, the number of requests from
Speaker 5: a certain zip code and to a certain zip code.
Speaker 5: So if you're moving from New York to Miami, maybe
Speaker 5: you'll send a request from New York or to Miami,
Speaker 5: and so that data is tracked and you can aggregate
Speaker 5: that to see sort of a pretty good way of
Speaker 5: looking at where people are leaving and moving to over time.
Speaker 2: So they keep track of this using those change of
Speaker 2: address forms exactly.
Speaker 5: And so we saw there was a pretty big drop
Speaker 5: off from twenty twenty one to twenty twenty two as
Speaker 5: the pandemic started to reced people went back to the office,
Speaker 5: and then we saw that in the sense of data
Speaker 5: a year ago, and then looking at the post service
Speaker 5: data we have so far this year, we've seen another
Speaker 5: big drop off as the lack of home sales and
Speaker 5: people sort of unable to move due to high mortgage
Speaker 5: rates has led to another tail off in migration.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that. The migration slowed as the housing
Speaker 2: market sputtered. But the conventional wisdom is that the housing
Speaker 2: market will be coming back as people return. You say,
Speaker 2: don't hold your breath, Well, I think that.
Speaker 5: I do think housing transactions are going to pick up
Speaker 5: because life happens, and most people can't put off a
Speaker 5: move for years and years and years. And if it
Speaker 5: means eight percent mortgage rates, prices will go down, if
Speaker 5: that's what they have to do. And so you know,
Speaker 5: it might not be three months and might not be
Speaker 5: six months, but over the next two, three five years,
Speaker 5: home sales are likely to pick up. And that means
Speaker 5: the migration patterns we saw during COVID, maybe not to
Speaker 5: the case and destinations, but from the northeast and west
Speaker 5: coast to the mountain west and south we'll pick up again.
Speaker 2: So interstate migration and the level of existing home sales
Speaker 2: are linked.
Speaker 5: They're connected exactly because for the most part, two thirds
Speaker 5: of households or homeowners, if you want to move, you're
Speaker 5: selling a house to buy another house. If you're moving
Speaker 5: from New York to Florida, you're probably selling a New
Speaker 5: York house to buy a Florida house. So if you're
Speaker 5: not seeing many home sales, you're not seeing much migration.
Speaker 2: And we're talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Connorson who tells
Speaker 2: us that the exodus from big cities isn't over yet,
Speaker 2: but it does Connor, seem like it's on pause. How
Speaker 2: long is this pause going to last?
Speaker 5: And that's really where the housing market plays in. So
Speaker 5: I think this is important if you're in a Miami
Speaker 5: or a place like that, or you're in New York
Speaker 5: and you're saying, well, is this the new normal? Did
Speaker 5: we have a one off boom in migration during COVID,
Speaker 5: Now we got back to the office, Now this is
Speaker 5: the new normal? And I don't think it is. I
Speaker 5: think that people this was all always set to be
Speaker 5: a decade with a lot more migration as millennials agent
Speaker 5: their family forming years and wanted more space as baby
Speaker 5: boomers were tired and maybe didn't need to live in
Speaker 5: the Midwestern Northeast anymore. And then also the ability to
Speaker 5: sort of work at least hybrid or remote some of
Speaker 5: the time makes it easier to not be in a
Speaker 5: big city, at least somewhat easier than it was before.
Speaker 5: So I do think we're due for a big migration boom,
Speaker 5: but the housing market and mortgage rates right now are
Speaker 5: keeping that from happening.
Speaker 2: Let's build on something you just said. Had it not
Speaker 2: been for the pandemic, that migration for lack of a
Speaker 2: better word, or the exodus from those cities may have
Speaker 2: been happening anyway because of the baby boomers, the millennials
Speaker 2: in their career Pathsah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we saw that migration in the late twenty tens
Speaker 5: was higher than it was in the early twenty tens,
Speaker 5: and part of it was the economy was better as well.
Speaker 5: So in the early twenty tens we were still in
Speaker 5: the aftermath of the foreclosure crisis. The labor market was
Speaker 5: pretty tough and that was holding back migration as well.
Speaker 5: So there was sort of some pent up migration from
Speaker 5: sort of lack of movement in the early twenty tens,
Speaker 5: so it was already starting to pick up. The pandemic
Speaker 5: was kind of a one off frenzy, and I think
Speaker 5: some of that was maybe likely to be repeated. Like
Speaker 5: I don't think that Lake Tahoe will see a boom
Speaker 5: of migration going forward. That might have been a remote
Speaker 5: work thing, but certainly there's places with cheaper housing and
Speaker 5: now more jobs as companies are trying to spread out
Speaker 5: where their jobs are nationally, that kind of migration is
Speaker 5: going to come back.
Speaker 2: But what about rising interest rates? Would that be enough
Speaker 2: to slow them?
Speaker 5: It certainly is for now, and the question is how
Speaker 5: long is that going to persist. Most people think that
Speaker 5: existing home sales are going to be very low next year.
Speaker 5: I think they're going to pick up. We're seeing that
Speaker 5: housing inventory is sort of starting to rise at an
Speaker 5: unseasonable time of the year, and I think part of
Speaker 5: that is just because people decided not to sell their
Speaker 5: homes eighteen months ago and sort of the life changed.
Speaker 5: Reasons for movement your deaths, divorces, babies, all that, those
Speaker 5: are still happening, and maybe you put off the move
Speaker 5: for a year eighteen months, but you probably can't do
Speaker 5: it for three or five years, and so I do
Speaker 5: think we're going to see more inventory like next year,
Speaker 5: and more inventory is going to lead to more transactions
Speaker 5: as the housing market isn't quite so inventory constrained.
Speaker 2: Because remember last how people were selling their homes at
Speaker 2: more than the asking price, and homes would be going
Speaker 2: as soon as they're listed, or maybe they wouldn't even
Speaker 2: make it to the list at all. They would be
Speaker 2: sold just side unseen. I can give you anecdotal, an
Speaker 2: anecdote about my aunt retiring, selling her house to her
Speaker 2: neighbor who said, I've always wanted your house, I want
Speaker 2: it now, and just there it was. It was just
Speaker 2: a quick sale. That's not happening as much now. But
Speaker 2: do you see that happening again, I mean, was last
Speaker 2: summer or one off?
Speaker 5: Well, the wild thing is that obviously affordability is the
Speaker 5: worst it's been in forty years right now, and yet
Speaker 5: if you still talk to real estate agents, they say
Speaker 5: that there are more buyers and sellers because there's so
Speaker 5: little inventory out there. So homes that are put on
Speaker 5: the market and priced well are still moving quickly, and
Speaker 5: if they had more inventory, they would have more sales.
Speaker 5: And it doesn't mean prices would go up. I think
Speaker 5: when we think about what does the housing market need
Speaker 5: right now, it's not higher prices. It's more inventory, more transactions,
Speaker 5: more liquidity, And the fact that we're seeing inventory rise
Speaker 5: right now suggests that we will see those sort of
Speaker 5: beneficial dynamics next year, even if it doesn't mean. I
Speaker 5: don't think we're going to see much price growth next year,
Speaker 5: but I do think we'll see more transactions.
Speaker 2: It seems like that would be counterintuitive to an exodus.
Speaker 2: Then if the home sales are then rising, then wouldn't
Speaker 2: you want to go back into the city and go
Speaker 2: back toward where your offices are Or has that dynamic
Speaker 2: been completely changed in our own minds by what we
Speaker 2: went through with the pandemic.
Speaker 5: Well, I think the reason why people move to New
Speaker 5: York tends to be young people moving for jobs and
Speaker 5: immigrants moving to the US, and the people leaving New
Speaker 5: York tends to be retirees and people moving out for
Speaker 5: more space. So it gets to why people move to
Speaker 5: certain places, and so sort of, if the housing market
Speaker 5: is more liquid, it lets people sell their homes and
Speaker 5: move out of the places where people tend to move
Speaker 5: away from. When the sort of that kind of pattern
Speaker 5: of migration.
Speaker 2: So what are you looking for in the next few months?
Speaker 2: Then what should we watch for?
Speaker 5: So I am focused most primarily on inventory because I
Speaker 5: think inventory will lead to sales and if we see
Speaker 5: that sort of flywheel kick in. And part of it too,
Speaker 5: is that if you want to move, sometimes you can't
Speaker 5: move if there isn't a home for you to buy.
Speaker 5: So if there's more inventory, not only can you find
Speaker 5: something to buy, but that late makes you able to
Speaker 5: sell as well. And if we get that flywheel dynamic
Speaker 5: of more inventory, more transactions, that I will sort of
Speaker 5: project that migration is going to pick up again. And
Speaker 5: seeing which places are the new hotspots for migration in
Speaker 5: this sort of post COVID new normal.
Speaker 2: Got any idea what those hot spots might be.
Speaker 5: Too? So I think it's toughest because yeah, it's the
Speaker 5: price of movements have been so extreme, like you sell
Speaker 5: the booms busts and Boise and Austin and Miami, and
Speaker 5: so I think we need to see things settle out
Speaker 5: a little bit more until we know for sure.
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you Connor.
Speaker 3: Thanks.
Speaker 2: Amy Connorson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and founder of
Speaker 2: Peachtree Creek Investments. Now coming up, we'll look at the
Speaker 2: bond between child and parent and how sometimes it might
Speaker 2: be a good eye to loosen those apron strings a bit.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast cotch us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm Eastern.
Speaker 6: On Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg
Speaker 6: Business app, or listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. You know
Speaker 2: parents are spending more time than ever with their kids.
Speaker 2: In nearly every wealthy country, the parent child together time
Speaker 2: has steadily increased, and this hyper attention might actually be
Speaker 2: harmful to children. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Alison Sriger covers economics
Speaker 2: and joins us with some insight. Now, Allison, we've heard
Speaker 2: all the stories about how gen X is the last
Speaker 2: of the free range kids. You stay outside, you play
Speaker 2: all day, you go home before the street lights come on,
Speaker 2: you drink from the hose. I know you've heard all
Speaker 2: the stories. There is something to be said, though, for
Speaker 2: parents who do spend more time with their kids than
Speaker 2: maybe we got when we were kids. How can that
Speaker 2: be bad?
Speaker 4: Well, in some ways, there are a lot of benefits.
Speaker 4: I mean, the evidence is somewhat mixed, but I mean
Speaker 4: there's no doubt that kids are safer, They're less likely
Speaker 4: to die in accidents and things like that. And you know,
Speaker 4: I think, you know, there is evidence that parents who
Speaker 4: can you know, who can spend more time engaging with
Speaker 4: their kids do do well for developmental reasons. But I mean,
Speaker 4: they're diminishing returns to the fact it could even be harmful.
Speaker 4: And I think, you know, there was a recent paper
Speaker 4: that came out in the journal Pediatrics sort of suggesting
Speaker 4: that this might be one of the reasons why kids
Speaker 4: are also a lot more emotionally anxious and depressed, because
Speaker 4: you know, spending time on your own as a child
Speaker 4: is really important developmentally. It's how you develop like a
Speaker 4: sense of control over your environment. It's how you develop
Speaker 4: independence and ability to resolve conflicts. All these things are
Speaker 4: really important to your development. And you know this this
Speaker 4: article came out and just for another my book project,
Speaker 4: I happen to be speaking to a lot of people
Speaker 4: about this already, and I was speaking to a professor
Speaker 4: at Georgetown a psychology professor, and her work says there's
Speaker 4: something called the age of release, which sounds really like
Speaker 4: you're get In fact, when I was googling it to
Speaker 4: try to find her work, I kept finding things about prison.
Speaker 4: But this is actually a psychological term for children for
Speaker 4: when you're allowed to sort of roam free, or at
Speaker 4: least go places by your own or unsupervised. And she
Speaker 4: finds that your age of release actually is very indicative
Speaker 4: of your ability to take risks when you're older, your
Speaker 4: ability to handle setbacks. And as I said it, like
Speaker 4: the age of release, she says, is ticked up over
Speaker 4: the years, six or seven years to the point where
Speaker 4: the age of release, you know, I don't know. I
Speaker 4: kind of had a loose parents, so I had a
Speaker 4: very early age of release, even compared to other people,
Speaker 4: even for people of my generation. Sure, but so I
Speaker 4: was like six or seven, but like now it's like fourteen.
Speaker 2: Wow. And let's just clarify because I picked up on
Speaker 2: that in your column, the age of release, And that's
Speaker 2: sort of like when you're first allowed to go to
Speaker 2: a sleepover or maybe walk to school by yourself, or
Speaker 2: do those things that are unsupervised. That seem like a
Speaker 2: rite of passage. When you are as young as six.
Speaker 2: I think I was maybe seven or eight perhaps when
Speaker 2: that time came along, was just pretty normal. But you're
Speaker 2: saying now, it doesn't happen until they're in their teen years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And she was telling me how she asked her
Speaker 4: class recently, how old were you when you were allowed
Speaker 4: to play unsupervised? And they're just like, we were too
Speaker 4: old to play by the time we were unsupervised. It's
Speaker 4: just sad.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's rough. And so the point of all of this,
Speaker 2: and the point of that article you were referencing, is
Speaker 2: that if you're not allowed to play unsupervised by a
Speaker 2: certain time, then you're missing out on that developmental gift
Speaker 2: that gives you to be able, to what reason, be
Speaker 2: comfortable in your own skin, be comfortable on your own
Speaker 2: What is it you're missing?
Speaker 4: Well, kin, this is it. I mean at the Journal
Speaker 4: Pediatrics article talked a lot about how it might be
Speaker 4: contributing to depression and anxiety. Talking to the press or Georgetown,
Speaker 4: we are talking more about your comfort with risk taking.
Speaker 4: And her research is finding you know, she's comparing across
Speaker 4: different countries and found that like kids with later ages
Speaker 4: of release were just like more fearful and less comfortable
Speaker 4: with risk taking. She found like over the years her
Speaker 4: Georgetown students, you know, found like she'd be like, explain
Speaker 4: the last time you were scared or you're an intense situation,
Speaker 4: and they'd describe things that used to not even register
Speaker 4: and they're more like some of them won't even leave campus,
Speaker 4: they won't take public transportation. So it ends up really
Speaker 4: having this impact on your comfort with the world and
Speaker 4: comfort with risk, you know, for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: Now, when these kids grow up, how will this childhood
Speaker 2: and how they spent it manifest itself in the workplace.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean I personally, I mean it's hard to
Speaker 4: prove empirically, but I suspect it might be. Were been
Speaker 4: seeing an overall decline in risk taking for young adults, certainly,
Speaker 4: like despite all the hype and we hear about less
Speaker 4: job changing, less moving, less, lower rates of entrepreneurship, you know,
Speaker 4: on you know, all sort of things that require you
Speaker 4: to be have some comfort with ambiguity and uncertainty. And
Speaker 4: I suspect those things might be related, like being raised
Speaker 4: with less comfort with risk and then taking less economic
Speaker 4: risk and perhaps even emotional risk. When I was doing
Speaker 4: I said the book research, you know, even like, you know,
Speaker 4: there's all these reports that young people are less likely
Speaker 4: to form relationships or even date anyway. You know, it's
Speaker 4: so much easier to meet people with apps and whatnot.
Speaker 4: And you know a lot of surveys people said, what
Speaker 4: is your fear about dating? And they're like, it feels risky.
Speaker 4: And when I was talking to some professors about this too,
Speaker 4: they're just like they're talking about like I assume they
Speaker 4: meant risk, like emotional risk. You might get hurt, you
Speaker 4: might get rejected, and that's scary. And she was like, no,
Speaker 4: They're like, well, I could end up talking to someone
Speaker 4: and it could feel awkward. They're like, or like this
Speaker 4: conversation stalling, or like all these very human things.
Speaker 2: Wow, And we are talking the Bloomberg opinion columnist Allison Schreker,
Speaker 2: who who has a column on the Bloomberg Terminal about
Speaker 2: how perhaps American parents should teach their kids more about
Speaker 2: taking risks. And Alison, how is it parents are able
Speaker 2: to spend more time with their kids now compared to say,
Speaker 2: in the nineteen sixties, when not everybody was working.
Speaker 4: It's fascinating to me, we're spending so much time with
Speaker 4: kids because they compared to the sixties. Because women were
Speaker 4: like housewives in the sixties and now most we're in
Speaker 4: the labor force. Where's this time coming from? And I mean,
Speaker 4: I suspect it's also like in the sixties they also
Speaker 4: to spend a lot more time doing housework because they
Speaker 4: didn't have the same technology. It's a big cultural shift
Speaker 4: that we're seeing. And also it could be that, you know,
Speaker 4: people are having fewer children, they also have more money,
Speaker 4: so they just you know, I've read studies that's found
Speaker 4: like a lot of people when they're trying to delve
Speaker 4: into why people spend more time with their kids, and
Speaker 4: one of the big things that kept coming up is
Speaker 4: people just enjoy their kids. You know, maybe in the sixties,
Speaker 4: when you had like a million chores to do to
Speaker 4: also take care of your kids, felt like not that
Speaker 4: people didn't love the kids, but it felt like this
Speaker 4: extra burden. And now that I guess we're richer and
Speaker 4: live more comfortable lives, people are just relishing time with
Speaker 4: their kids more, which is nice in a lot of ways.
Speaker 4: And you are noticing, like you observe, people complain about
Speaker 4: this a lot and developmenttally, I don't know how healthy
Speaker 4: it is that people seem to be friends with their
Speaker 4: kids all through high school and college. It's not like
Speaker 4: when we were young, where we would just like go
Speaker 4: to college not speak to our parents for three weeks
Speaker 4: and it's nice. I guess in some ways they're like
Speaker 4: friends with their parents and don't have this period of
Speaker 4: individuation where they barely speak to them, even though developmentally
Speaker 4: that might have some value.
Speaker 2: The flip side of this coin, though, is that parents
Speaker 2: got to be facing a lot of pressure when it
Speaker 2: comes to being involved in their kids' lives. The pressure
Speaker 2: that the kids are feeling to be able to excel
Speaker 2: and achieve and to win and to push themselves. The
Speaker 2: parents are feeling similar pressure as well when it comes
Speaker 2: to being the best parent ever. And that's going to
Speaker 2: mean spending more time with the kids.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, you see surveys where parents are like,
Speaker 4: my kid would really benefit from more alone time, but
Speaker 4: when everyone else is and there's a lot of social shame,
Speaker 4: and also it feels like a very economically cutthroat environment.
Speaker 4: I'm actually sure that's true, but certainly that's the perception.
Speaker 4: It's amazing to me that so many parents, like every
Speaker 4: parent I know spends a lot of time with their
Speaker 4: kids on their homework. Like, my parents never got involved
Speaker 4: in my homework.
Speaker 2: God, I don't think my parents knew what classes I
Speaker 2: was taking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's like if I wrote, if I had
Speaker 4: like a bad homework assignment and I got a bad grade,
Speaker 4: that was like my problem to bear, that's on you. Yeah,
Speaker 4: But like people like with kids, like you know, they
Speaker 4: feel like they've got to like be involved in their kids' homework,
Speaker 4: which is very time consuming and I honestly can't imagine enjoyable.
Speaker 4: But I think it is feeling like I've got to
Speaker 4: give my kid every shot. They've got to like do
Speaker 4: as well as they can in school. And you know,
Speaker 4: whether or not that's really true, or whether or not
Speaker 4: that's really correlated with emotional well being. Like I think
Speaker 4: there's also a lot of correlation between anxiety and depression
Speaker 4: in top colleges, So I mean there's that, So I mean,
Speaker 4: maybe it's not worth it, but I think that's also
Speaker 4: part of it. Is it feels like there's this rat
Speaker 4: race and you have to give your kid every advantage,
Speaker 4: and that involves this of sort of hyper concentrated attention
Speaker 4: on them.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Alison Schreger covers economics now coming up.
Speaker 2: Weight loss drugs are all the rage, but there are
Speaker 2: some pressing questions like how long do you have to
Speaker 2: take them? And will the weight come back when you stop?
Speaker 2: And don't forget. We're available as 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 coutch Us Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm Eastern.
Speaker 6: On Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg
Speaker 6: Business App, or listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Opinion. I Mami Morris. Obesity Week used
Speaker 2: to be a quiet, annual meeting of weight loss specialists
Speaker 2: and a few farmer reps, but not this year. There's
Speaker 2: a new family of weight loss drugs available, and these
Speaker 2: new drugs are changing everything. Even teenagers are interested in
Speaker 2: getting their hands on the drugs. Seventeen year old Emma
Speaker 2: Leah Zumo was part of the drug trial and found
Speaker 2: dramatic results.
Speaker 6: I was really excited that there was a chance to
Speaker 6: help me and maybe help me lose weight and finally get.
Speaker 7: A control on something that's been uncontrollable my whole life,
Speaker 7: and also help other girls like me.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, doctor Veronica Johnson with Northwestern Medicine
Speaker 2: says there is also a risk of using off brand
Speaker 2: versions of these drugs.
Speaker 8: If a patient elects to use a compounded form of
Speaker 8: the medication, we cannot guarantee what's actually in that drug.
Speaker 2: Let's get some insight now from Bloomberg opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis,
Speaker 2: who covers biotech, healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. Lisa, always
Speaker 2: a pleasure. We've talked about these drugs before, you and
Speaker 2: I and I have asked you before how long is
Speaker 2: a person going to have to take these drugs? And
Speaker 2: then what happens when you stop?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 7: So you know, right now forever, it's sort of the
Speaker 7: message around you know, how long you're going to have
Speaker 7: to take these drugs? Because the studies that were conducted
Speaker 7: to get the drugs approved, you know, they've shown they've
Speaker 7: kept some people on the drug and given people placebo
Speaker 7: after they've been on it for a year, and you
Speaker 7: can see the downward you know, curve stays the same
Speaker 7: for the people who keep on the drug, and the
Speaker 7: people who are given a placebo gain their weight back,
Speaker 7: not necessarily all of it, but most of it over
Speaker 7: the course of the next year. So, you know, I
Speaker 7: think for long term health effects, the realistic answer is forever,
Speaker 7: but the kind of practical answer is maybe not. I
Speaker 7: think that's a thing that's been explored among doctors right now,
Speaker 7: not necessarily in clinical trials, but in the real life setting.
Speaker 7: In some cases they've had to explore it because of
Speaker 7: the drug shortages and the cost of the drug. So
Speaker 7: many people are paying for these out of pocket that
Speaker 7: they simply can't afford them anymore and they have to
Speaker 7: stop taking them. So it's a thing that's a subject
Speaker 7: of a lot of conversation in the OPCD medicine field.
Speaker 2: Are we also learning more now about what side effects
Speaker 2: these drugs may bring on.
Speaker 7: I know there's some things that we're learning that are
Speaker 7: getting some media attention that we're known but as many
Speaker 7: many people take them. For example, there's a thing called
Speaker 7: gastroparesis where it's very rare, but essentially the drugs keep
Speaker 7: you feeling full in part by your stomach is actually
Speaker 7: full for longer you empty it. Takes you a lot
Speaker 7: longer to empty your stomach. Some people have their stomachs
Speaker 7: aren't emptying, and so that can be dangerous. That's in
Speaker 7: a very rare, very very rare cases, and you want
Speaker 7: to know about that when people are on the drugs
Speaker 7: because of that, if, for example, you were in an
Speaker 7: accident and you needed to get surgery, your antithesiologist needs
Speaker 7: to know that you around these drugs because that means
Speaker 7: your stomach might be fuller than someone who hadn't eaten recently.
Speaker 2: Other than the weight loss, obviously, what side benefits are there.
Speaker 7: That's the thing that's kind of exciting about these drugs.
Speaker 7: We've seen studies already that companies are running dozens and
Speaker 7: dozens of trials to try to prove that there are
Speaker 7: health benefits outside of the way, And already we know
Speaker 7: with we GOV that it can lower the risk of
Speaker 7: heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes. They stopped a trial
Speaker 7: early recently around chronic kidney disease. So I think we're
Speaker 7: just going to see more of these unfold and then
Speaker 7: that helps us, you know, to kind of form an
Speaker 7: argument around the societal cost of the drugs versus the benefits.
Speaker 2: So we're very early into this weight loss drug stage
Speaker 2: where we are seeing that there are benefits and that
Speaker 2: there are some side effects, but that for the most part,
Speaker 2: it is doing what is supposed to do, which is
Speaker 2: help you lose weight. Is there a way to change
Speaker 2: the formula? Do you see some evolution there the dosed,
Speaker 2: the frequency to help tailor the drug to the patient.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think a lot of that experimenting is happening
Speaker 7: because you know, one side effect is that it makes
Speaker 7: people nauseous, you know, I mean, I think that's one
Speaker 7: that some people decide they're going to tolerate. For some
Speaker 7: people it goes away over time. Others it just doesn't
Speaker 7: and they decide like I'm just going to be minorly nauseous,
Speaker 7: or they take zofran and drug to kind of, you know,
Speaker 7: deal with the side effect. I think doctors at this
Speaker 7: conference I was recently at that was focused on obesity,
Speaker 7: talked about can we take it intermittently once you hit
Speaker 7: your weight plateau, you know, can we take people to
Speaker 7: a lower dose. And there is one study that Lily
Speaker 7: is running that's like, you know, for a year you're
Speaker 7: on the high, you're high dose, and then we're looking
Speaker 7: at what happens when some people go to a lower
Speaker 7: dose and some people stay in the high dose, and
Speaker 7: some people go on placebo. There's a ton of drugs
Speaker 7: that are in development that would be less frequently dosed
Speaker 7: to their pills and development. You know, we'll see how
Speaker 7: well the balance is between tolerance and weight loss and
Speaker 7: long term maintenance.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 7: The other thing that people are trying is and you
Speaker 7: know TBD on whether it works or not, is switching
Speaker 7: people to drugs that are older like q SIMA. This
Speaker 7: is a totally different class of weightless drugs that's been
Speaker 7: around for a while. Once people hit their plateau, can
Speaker 7: they go on one of these cheaper, older drugs and
Speaker 7: just maintain? Is that better tolerated? We know those drugs
Speaker 7: stop working after a while, but it could help curb
Speaker 7: some of the intents hunger some people feel when they
Speaker 7: stop taking these drugs.
Speaker 2: And we're talking with Bloomberg opinion columnist Lisa Jarvis about
Speaker 2: what doctors want to know about these new weight loss drugs.
Speaker 2: What is it that doctors want to know besides how
Speaker 2: long do I have to keep my patient on these drugs?
Speaker 2: What's the consensus I think.
Speaker 7: Most doctors who are OBC medicine specialists would tell you
Speaker 7: got to stay on the drug forever. But they know
Speaker 7: that there's like a realism that they need to embed
Speaker 7: in that conversation. So they want to know when they're
Speaker 7: talking to a who's considering these drugs, like what are
Speaker 7: the options for how we can approach them? And then
Speaker 7: what are the options for off ramping someone you know?
Speaker 7: And so right now it's a lot of trial and error,
Speaker 7: and I think sharing information between each other. I don't
Speaker 7: think that companies have a lot of incentive to study
Speaker 7: what happens, you know, if you can take the drugs
Speaker 7: less often, So I think I think, you know, it's
Speaker 7: going to be kind of one doctor told me the
Speaker 7: art of medicine right now. I think the concern is
Speaker 7: that increasingly we're going to see primary care physicians prescribing
Speaker 7: these drugs who just aren't going to have the same
Speaker 7: kind of information right and know how to tailor them
Speaker 7: appropriately to patients. So I think there's going to be
Speaker 7: a lot of learning in the next two to three
Speaker 7: to four years. Because this is of these rights are
Speaker 7: pretty revolutionary. We've talked about them several times before, and
Speaker 7: there's still a lot to learn because they're really shaking
Speaker 7: up medicine, and.
Speaker 2: They're shaking up more than just medicine, aren't they Fast food,
Speaker 2: alcohol memberships, even if you're just going out to eat,
Speaker 2: the casual dining industry are all feeling the ripple effects
Speaker 2: of the popularity of these drugs.
Speaker 7: It's really pretty astounding to watch because you know, I
Speaker 7: think we're all trying to prognosticate and understand the way
Speaker 7: that it's going to affect, you know, different industries, the
Speaker 7: way we live life. Even you know, when people go
Speaker 7: out to eat and they don't want a larger meal,
Speaker 7: you know, they can only eat small amounts. What does
Speaker 7: that mean for social life? You know, what does it
Speaker 7: mean for the alcohol industry. We're all, I think everyone's
Speaker 7: trying to read the tea leaves and understand, but it
Speaker 7: I do think that until we really get solved the
Speaker 7: issue of insurance coverage, understanding how sustainable it is to
Speaker 7: be on these drugs for the long term, and some
Speaker 7: of the supply issues around you know, just being able
Speaker 7: to get the drugs. Until those three things are sorted,
Speaker 7: it's going to be hard to really say here's the number,
Speaker 7: you know, here's what society looks like, you know, a world
Speaker 7: where we have you know, workable OBESD drugs.
Speaker 2: So there is more work to be done. What do
Speaker 2: you see coming down the pipe.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we're going to start to see some data on
Speaker 7: other drugs. We'll still we'll see more health data on
Speaker 7: the two drugs that exist. Munjara Lily's drug is currently
Speaker 7: approoved for diabetes and will be approved for OBESD by
Speaker 7: the end of this year. But we're seeing other types
Speaker 7: of drugs where they combined the receptors that are in
Speaker 7: the current drugs with another one to try to you know,
Speaker 7: increase the weight loss, have it maybe you know, attenuate
Speaker 7: a little bit how quickly you lose the weight, but
Speaker 7: then you lose more over longer period of time.
Speaker 5: Maybe some of the.
Speaker 7: Drugs you might be able to take once a month
Speaker 7: or once a quarter. So there's a lot of work
Speaker 7: being done exploring you know this kind of they all
Speaker 7: act on our own natural hormone system, exploring this interplay
Speaker 7: between our brain and our gut. So you know, we're
Speaker 7: going to continue to see a lot of excitement and
Speaker 7: data out of you know, those drugs going forward. You know,
Speaker 7: the a I may called obesity a disease you know,
Speaker 7: about a decade ago. But I don't think societally we've
Speaker 7: shifted our mindset to think of it as that. I
Speaker 7: think there's still been so much, you know, blaming the
Speaker 7: person rather than kind of it being the biology, you know.
Speaker 7: And so I do think that conversation is shifting. I've
Speaker 7: seen a shift even just in the last year in
Speaker 7: the way these drugs are covered, and so that's also
Speaker 7: a work in progress, and we'll see where it ends up.
Speaker 2: Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, healthcare,
Speaker 2: and the pharmaceutical industry. The hottest ticket in Asia Pacific
Speaker 2: earlier this fall wasn't for a soccer match or an
Speaker 2: NBA exhibition game. People wanted tickets to the metal event
Speaker 2: debut of competitive video gaming E sports, the nineteenth Agent
Speaker 2: Games are being hailed as an unprecedented success, and there
Speaker 2: is an argument to be made about making video game
Speaker 2: competitions an Olympic sport. We bring in Bloomberg Opinion columnist
Speaker 2: ad a Mentor who covers the business of sports, and Adam,
Speaker 2: we know the Olympics are not interested, at least not yet.
Speaker 2: But you argue that's a mistake.
Speaker 8: Why, well, it's a huge mistake because around the world,
Speaker 8: especially in emerging markets, especially in emerging Asia, esports are
Speaker 8: arguably the most popular competitive spectator sport that's out there.
Speaker 8: By the estimation of new Zoo, which is a global
Speaker 8: esports consultancy, more than five hundred million people watch competitive
Speaker 8: esports they stream it. It's a huge, huge audience in Asia.
Speaker 8: Just as a point of comparison, during the US Open
Speaker 8: this year, there were around three and a half million
Speaker 8: people who watched it. During the League of Legends finals,
Speaker 8: League of Legends being one of the most popular competitive
Speaker 8: video games, you had over five million. So that gives
Speaker 8: you a sense of what the audience is just to
Speaker 8: watch this stuff. Then you add in the people who
Speaker 8: are at home playing these you know, New Zoo estimates
Speaker 8: that there are probably three and a half billion competitive
Speaker 8: egame esports players out there in the world. Now, this
Speaker 8: could be somebody with a gaming council at home. This
Speaker 8: could be somebody playing League of Legends on their laptop.
Speaker 8: Where could be you or me playing on our phone
Speaker 8: while we're talking to each other. Whatever it is, people
Speaker 8: out there are interested.
Speaker 2: So with that interest, what is the revenue.
Speaker 8: Well, the revenue is huge, I mean more than one
Speaker 8: hundred billion dollars from all the various revenue sources, licensing
Speaker 8: of games, competitive esports tournaments. Remember, esports tournaments have sold
Speaker 8: out places like Madison Square Garden multiple nights in a
Speaker 8: row as far back as twenty sixteen. You know, that's
Speaker 8: not on the radar screen of a lot of sports fans,
Speaker 8: people who watch the Knicks who also play at the
Speaker 8: Madison Square Garden and don't always sell it out. But
Speaker 8: for a lot of younger people who are interested in
Speaker 8: video games, that's a big moment. Las Vegas has its
Speaker 8: own East Sports Arena in Hangzo, China, where this where
Speaker 8: the Asian Games took place. They had a custom built
Speaker 8: esports arena that can hold over five thousand people, which
Speaker 8: is relatively small for in esports arena. If you go
Speaker 8: up to Seoul, which is I would argue the esports
Speaker 8: capital of the world, they have bigger arenas and they
Speaker 8: have multiple So when you look at all these revenue sources,
Speaker 8: it's an enormous business. The challenge for people going into
Speaker 8: it is that it's still very young and a lot
Speaker 8: of it's in emerging markets, so.
Speaker 2: What's the Olympic Committee's beef with it? Why do they
Speaker 2: say no, they're inching ever closer to it.
Speaker 8: I mean, they called themselves a sponsor of the Asia
Speaker 8: Games E Sports competition. But they have two big issues,
Speaker 8: which both of which I think can be overcome. Number
Speaker 8: one is Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC, does
Speaker 8: not like violence, and he says that if video games
Speaker 8: would have to overcome their violent legacy, they're violent present.
Speaker 8: To me, it's a little bit ridiculous considering that the
Speaker 8: roots of a lot of Olympic sports are warfare. I mean,
Speaker 8: what is the javelin? It's throwing a spear, But I'm
Speaker 8: not the president of the International Olympic Committee. The second
Speaker 8: issue is licensing, and that's a little bit thorn near
Speaker 8: because something like Dota, League of Legends, World of Warcraft,
Speaker 8: these are very popular games over the years. They are
Speaker 8: owned by an entity, they're owned by a game publisher,
Speaker 8: and the International Olympic Committee has never really faced this before.
Speaker 8: How do you put a sport on at the Olympics
Speaker 8: that is owned by somebody else that there's copyrights and
Speaker 8: so they'll need to figure out a way to overcome that.
Speaker 8: But clearly it's happening because the Asia Games is doing it,
Speaker 8: and I think just the reality is the growth and
Speaker 8: the money and the popularity of these games makes it
Speaker 8: increasingly ridiculous, especially in emerging markets with young people, that
Speaker 8: these aren't a part of the Olympics, and so maybe
Speaker 8: that would be the way to open the door to
Speaker 8: this for the IOC. They're not violent, you know, for
Speaker 8: example the soccer games. You know, FIFA is a co sponsor,
Speaker 8: they work with people on these. Maybe that would be
Speaker 8: the route into the IOC eventually doing this.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Adam Mentor covers the business of sports
Speaker 2: that does it for this week's Bloomberg Opinion. We are
Speaker 2: produced by Eric Mullow, and you can find all of
Speaker 2: these columns on the Bloomberg terminal. We're also available as
Speaker 2: a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 2: Stay with us today's top stories and global business headlines
Speaker 2: coming up. I'm Amy Morris. This is Bloomberg