Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
Speaker 1: global business, finance and tech news as it happened. Sloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stentovic on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, Happy New Year. Welcome to our holiday weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week, and Happy New Year to
Speaker 1: your too, Carol, you too. Over the next two hours,
Speaker 1: look back at the year that was, from the NonStop
Speaker 1: discussion over inflation and monetary policy globally to the crypto
Speaker 1: collapses and undoing of the individual considered that you know,
Speaker 1: the Jp Morgan of crypto, we're talking about Sam Bankman Freed.
Speaker 1: We are indeed so important was crypto This year, Business
Speaker 1: Week devote an entire issue to delve into the Crypto story,
Speaker 1: what it's all about. It's a must read. Other issues
Speaker 1: took deep dives into the undoing of Roe, v Wade,
Speaker 1: the New Economy, good business, and more. A many stories
Speaker 1: this year. We're about the world's second biggest economy, though, Carroll,
Speaker 1: we talked about it a lot, and it's constant impact
Speaker 1: on everything we're talking about. China that's right more in
Speaker 1: a moment, and let's not forget the gift that keeps
Speaker 1: on giving this year. Elon Musk and Twitter top tech
Speaker 1: stories in our Business Week Pursuits team, they talk about cars,
Speaker 1: they talk about museums. That's in our second hour. But
Speaker 1: on this New Year's weekend, we begin with a thoughtful
Speaker 1: and an omniscition to editor behind it all. He joins
Speaker 1: us every day on our daily broadcast and podcast. We're
Speaker 1: talking about Joel Weber, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week,
Speaker 1: along with another key member of the team driving coverage
Speaker 1: at the magazine, Jim Ellis, Assistant managing editor. Alright, guys,
Speaker 1: a lot going on. A busy year. Hard to believe
Speaker 1: we're at the end of it. So, Joel, when you
Speaker 1: look back at this year, how do you think about
Speaker 1: it in your coverage? Well, there were a couple big
Speaker 1: themes and and you hit on a few of them.
Speaker 1: They're really eloquently. Kind of was preparing for this little
Speaker 1: conversation with you. Um. I looked back and one of
Speaker 1: the first covers of the year actually was about the
Speaker 1: Winter Olympics, and that was the cover line was China's Games.
Speaker 1: And we had a really clever podium arrangement where g
Speaker 1: was at the top podium, and it really did speak
Speaker 1: to how much the world has changed since the last
Speaker 1: time the Olympics were in China. Back then it was
Speaker 1: the Summer Olympics, and that story spoke to how much
Speaker 1: the global dynamics have changed from the Summer Games to
Speaker 1: these Winter Games, and um, it also speaks to uh China,
Speaker 1: and that was a bigger story that I wanted to
Speaker 1: take a couple of minutes and and talk through all
Speaker 1: the various facets of what the Chinese economy has been
Speaker 1: going through, what the people there have lived through, what
Speaker 1: some of the companies with global exposure and are rooted
Speaker 1: there um faced this year, and also what that means
Speaker 1: is we start to kind of look ahead. Let's do
Speaker 1: that with a Jim Ellis, He's assistant managing editor of
Speaker 1: the magazine. Jim, it's pretty incredible to think about, you know,
Speaker 1: not just the impact that China has on our economy globally,
Speaker 1: but the key things driving our cover of China this year.
Speaker 1: If we start with the Olympics is sort of one
Speaker 1: of the book ends. What's the other book end at
Speaker 1: the end of two But at the end of two.
Speaker 1: It's the idea that after a year of of following
Speaker 1: a COVID zero policy where they they've been willing to
Speaker 1: effectively shut down their economy at off and on throughout
Speaker 1: the year, and um, and since they're the world's factory
Speaker 1: shutdown factories for the rest of the world, they've suddenly decided, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're we're cool, We're gonna go ahead and open up.
Speaker 1: And it's turning out that the reopening of China after
Speaker 1: COVID is going to be just as difficult as dealing
Speaker 1: with COVID. I don't think people really understood that. They
Speaker 1: didn't expect that, and it's sort of turned out to
Speaker 1: be sort of a shock. It means that three is
Speaker 1: not going to be this sort of joyous sort of
Speaker 1: bounce back, you know, in China, and for all the
Speaker 1: people around the world, the companies around the world to
Speaker 1: depend on them to do manufacturing, are still going to
Speaker 1: have a hell of a time next year. One of
Speaker 1: the things that surprised me was, um, you know, just
Speaker 1: a few years ago, we always talked about if China
Speaker 1: ever sees growth go below seven, oh my god, you know,
Speaker 1: at the end of the world, I mean, China this
Speaker 1: year is probably gonna do about three point five. That
Speaker 1: is amazing. I mean you've basically seen the growth there
Speaker 1: slow dramatically over the last four years and they're not
Speaker 1: ready for that. But we're probably not ready for that either. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what it's and it's interesting too. And I
Speaker 1: think about, you know, coming off the pandemic, globalization, pushback,
Speaker 1: supply chains, like, there's so many issues that go back
Speaker 1: to China. Uh. And I think about also something that
Speaker 1: the magazine covers so well, and that's Tesla and specifically
Speaker 1: it's exposure to China and what that means going forward.
Speaker 1: I mean, China if the economy opens up good but
Speaker 1: also bad because of concerns about global inflationary pressures. But
Speaker 1: if it doesn't, what that does to global demand and
Speaker 1: global growth? Like It's investors have already sort of sort
Speaker 1: of awakened to this when they've been pulling Tesla's share
Speaker 1: price down in part because of of danger of Chinese
Speaker 1: business they're dropping. I mean we've seen um I guess
Speaker 1: recently Tesla saying that it might lower production at the
Speaker 1: Shanghai plant. By this is the first time this plant
Speaker 1: has ever gone down from its maximum capacity. Other than
Speaker 1: when they shut Shanghai down for two months. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is an amazing thing to see this happen. And
Speaker 1: after months of basically having to wait forever to get
Speaker 1: your Tesla, Tesla is able now to provide you a
Speaker 1: Tesla within thirty days in China, there is no backlog.
Speaker 1: In other words, the business that is, you know, for
Speaker 1: them in their second most important market is truly slowing
Speaker 1: down and we haven't seen that before. Something is going
Speaker 1: on there. And because they depend so heavily on China,
Speaker 1: not just for serving the Chinese market but also for
Speaker 1: exporting to Europe, this is a bad thing for Tesla.
Speaker 1: What about when it comes to competitors to Tesla in China.
Speaker 1: We often talk about them in the context of hundreds
Speaker 1: of different companies, but one of them in particular that Uh.
Speaker 1: You a story that you edited this year about out
Speaker 1: by d R b y D, which is broader than
Speaker 1: just electric vehicles, but it's a massive producer of electric vehicles.
Speaker 1: It is um you know, Virtual Halfway supports it, a
Speaker 1: big investor in it, and it is Uh. It's turned
Speaker 1: out to be a very big supplier. They're a real
Speaker 1: competitor too, but also an exporter of cars to Europe
Speaker 1: and the rest of Asia. We normally don't think about
Speaker 1: China as this giant car exporter. But the strange thing,
Speaker 1: quietly because they don't export here to the US, but quietly,
Speaker 1: China is going to surpass the US in the coming
Speaker 1: year as an exporter of cars. I wouldn't have thought
Speaker 1: that was possible five years ago. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that distinguishes b y D to GYM is
Speaker 1: their emphasis on batteries. Right this, right this is a
Speaker 1: battery company that happened to become a car company, and
Speaker 1: I think that is a really interesting place for us
Speaker 1: to think about the rest of what the auto industrys.
Speaker 1: But all of these American companies are are They're coming
Speaker 1: out of slightly differently than the Chinese have. And the
Speaker 1: Chinese have a huge advantage in terms of having so
Speaker 1: much of their infrastructure already in this electric already there,
Speaker 1: and also having access to all sorts of you know,
Speaker 1: sort of medals, precious metals that are needed to actually
Speaker 1: build batteries, and um, what it's doing now is it's
Speaker 1: uh forcing American companies to think differently. For example, GM
Speaker 1: and Ford now are talking about being willing to actually
Speaker 1: go into deals with um lithium producers, which is something
Speaker 1: that Tesla had not been willing to do, to go
Speaker 1: in and put money into these companies. They want to
Speaker 1: buy from them, but it didn't want to basically be
Speaker 1: on the hook for helping support their development. This is
Speaker 1: a real change, but it's an opportunity that the US
Speaker 1: has now to grab a bigger piece of that business,
Speaker 1: because if you don't control batteries, you don't control the
Speaker 1: future of evs well, and China still want to be
Speaker 1: a big part of tourism, and you guys certainly did
Speaker 1: dug into that as well, and we've been watching it
Speaker 1: when it comes to some of the gambling names, the
Speaker 1: US gambling names. But with incredible exposure to macau Um,
Speaker 1: what are we seeing when it comes to tourism and travel,
Speaker 1: because that's something you guys certainly covered. It's been a
Speaker 1: really tough time because of COVID zero. People have been
Speaker 1: unable to travel. There's been all sorts of restrictions to
Speaker 1: the typical places that Chinese tourists would go to. People
Speaker 1: forget that Chinese tourists had become the number one travelers
Speaker 1: in Asia, but they were also extremely important travelers in Europe,
Speaker 1: especially for luxury brands. They love to travel to shop,
Speaker 1: and it's that was all cut off. International air travel
Speaker 1: for most people was cut off during the pandemic. Even
Speaker 1: when it came back for places like Hong Kong, you
Speaker 1: still had the quarantine, so people didn't take advantage of it. Moreover,
Speaker 1: Intra China travel, which had been the largest single domestic
Speaker 1: Arab market in the world, you know before the pandemic,
Speaker 1: that has gone down dramatically. We're only now up to
Speaker 1: about thirty percent of what it was before the pandem
Speaker 1: m that's a huge drop for a very large market.
Speaker 1: Um people are afraid to travel. They hadn't been allowed
Speaker 1: to travel. Now they're afraid to travel because by ending
Speaker 1: COVID zero, you've let people jump on planes, You've let
Speaker 1: people sort of go outside their neighborhoods, but they're not
Speaker 1: testing anymore. They got rid of the mandatory testing and
Speaker 1: for masses, and they also are letting people sort of
Speaker 1: go out without any sort of fix on where they go.
Speaker 1: They got rid of the tracking system. But what that
Speaker 1: means is this is a country where only one percent
Speaker 1: of the people have had COVID. There's no herd immunity
Speaker 1: built in there. So that's the reason why all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you're saying, oh, nine thousand new cases a day,
Speaker 1: because this is virgin territory for the virus. This is
Speaker 1: not going to end well, right, Hey, jo is there
Speaker 1: some company or some CEO that came up in almost
Speaker 1: all of your planning meetings when it comes to when
Speaker 1: you think about companies in business in general, I mean,
Speaker 1: can stop making news? Truthfully? I mean it started earlier
Speaker 1: in the year when we revealed that he actually had
Speaker 1: a massed a position in Twitter, and then uh, he
Speaker 1: became he acknowledged that and like put forward that he
Speaker 1: was going to buy it, and forty four billion dollars
Speaker 1: seemed like a lot of money, And then it really
Speaker 1: seemed like a lot of money a couple of months later,
Speaker 1: as the market sort of started to melt down and
Speaker 1: he tried to get out of that, and then we
Speaker 1: had a very entertaining process that ended up eventually with
Speaker 1: him acquiring the company and tweeting. And maybe you've noticed
Speaker 1: it's like he keeps tweeting, Joel. Entertaining is one word. Hey,
Speaker 1: here's a hint. I have a feeling you're gonna be
Speaker 1: talking about it. We're not going to stop, al right, everybody,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, appreciate it. That's Joel Webber, the
Speaker 1: editor of bloom Brig Business Week, along with another key
Speaker 1: member of the magazine driving coverage this year, Jim Alice,
Speaker 1: He's assistant managing editor. Coming up, he delved into the
Speaker 1: major financial headlines of two and the Crypto story that
Speaker 1: just keeps on adding chapters. You're listening to bloom business Week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg. Please sees Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Tim Stinevic from Bloomberg Radio. For just the
Speaker 1: second time ever in an entire issue of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine was dedicated to a single topic from a
Speaker 1: single writer, Paul Ford's What is Code? You might recall
Speaker 1: that was the first That was a few years ago.
Speaker 1: This time around Bloomberg Opinions, Matt Levine gave us forty
Speaker 1: thou words on digital assets, a primer on the innovation
Speaker 1: that could forever change the way that we transact and
Speaker 1: how we view the world of finance. The October thirty
Speaker 1: one issue was dubbed The Crypto Story, Your Guide to
Speaker 1: What it Does, What it Means? And why it still matters.
Speaker 1: Matt did have a helping hand on his way to
Speaker 1: compiling his definitive Digital Asset God, and that came courtesy
Speaker 1: of Bloomberg Business Week Markets and Finance editor Pat Regnar,
Speaker 1: and Pat joins us now to reflect on that journey,
Speaker 1: and perhaps he can also try to help us make
Speaker 1: some sense of the saga that we're continuing to see
Speaker 1: in this space, headlined, of course by none other than
Speaker 1: Sam Bankman freed and is now bankrupt Crypto Exchange f
Speaker 1: t X. So Pat, let's take a look back on
Speaker 1: on how this came together, because here we are at
Speaker 1: the end of two How did you guys approach this
Speaker 1: idea of an actual takeover and how did you settle
Speaker 1: on You know, Matt Lavine, who I know is familiar
Speaker 1: to pretty much everybody who's listening right now. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: with things like this, it really started with what does
Speaker 1: Matt want to do? Um, we we were really thinking
Speaker 1: about how to really get something out of him that
Speaker 1: people would want to read. He has such a huge
Speaker 1: following and he's so crisp and clear on so many issues,
Speaker 1: from elon to sort of strange quarters of corporate finance,
Speaker 1: and here we have this topic crypto, where he was
Speaker 1: so often writing columns we would read every day and
Speaker 1: you would just go, oh, wow, this thing that I
Speaker 1: didn't understand, Now I get it. Because crypto has just
Speaker 1: been this thing that's lose so quickly that I think
Speaker 1: people have been kind of like chasing to sort of
Speaker 1: understand like all of the things that are happening. And
Speaker 1: so what he did was really kind of explain it
Speaker 1: from the ground up, and I think in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways he ended up foreshadowing a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that we're talking about now. What's amazing, you know,
Speaker 1: to pat when I think about it, we all often said, oh,
Speaker 1: the crypto world, crypto, crypto, and we like kind of
Speaker 1: throw everything in one basket. And what Matt did is
Speaker 1: really pull apart the details, dig into everything specifically, provide
Speaker 1: the transparency. I feel like we all needed to kind
Speaker 1: of understand the relationships and truly what it all meant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean he really starts with kind of explaining like
Speaker 1: what a blockchain is, which you know, I'm often surprised
Speaker 1: you can talk to somebody for quite a long time
Speaker 1: and they'll be speaking to very authoritively about blockchain, and
Speaker 1: then you might stop and ask a very basic question
Speaker 1: and say, you know what, I'm not actually under percent
Speaker 1: for I understand that part of it myself. So you know,
Speaker 1: it was like very refreshing, Like you know, you've been
Speaker 1: in the desert and somebody gives you a glass of water,
Speaker 1: so sort of just like somebody finally explained to you
Speaker 1: some of these fundamentals which can often be hard to
Speaker 1: tease out when reading things like white papers that you'll
Speaker 1: see online or somebody's proposing something, and like, you know,
Speaker 1: and honestly, a lot of what Matt saw was that
Speaker 1: underlying a lot of this jargon and talk were you know,
Speaker 1: scams and things that would be best described as Ponzi schemes.
Speaker 1: I mean that seems incredibly prescient with what happened, you know,
Speaker 1: just a couple of weeks after the issue came out,
Speaker 1: and then what happened in December as well, with the
Speaker 1: rest of Sam Bankman freed, and of course the collapse
Speaker 1: of of f t X. How do you view the
Speaker 1: crypto issue in the context of what continues to happen
Speaker 1: with crypto news that we read about and news that breaks, Like,
Speaker 1: is this some sort of reference guide for people to
Speaker 1: go back to and and understand current events. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I hope that when people look at it they'll see
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, so here's a way to think clearly
Speaker 1: about all of the things that have happened and all
Speaker 1: of the little kind of um corners and side roads
Speaker 1: that you know, this story is going to go into.
Speaker 1: You know, you look at what s N Free is
Speaker 1: accused of doing, and you know some of it. There's
Speaker 1: a simple way of telling the story, and the simple
Speaker 1: thing is customers sending money. He took the money, and
Speaker 1: he moved it over to the hedge fund, and then
Speaker 1: he lost the money, right Like, So at one level
Speaker 1: you don't have to think about it too hard. But
Speaker 1: then when you go a little deeper into what he's
Speaker 1: accused of doing, it gets a lot more complicated and
Speaker 1: mechanical more quickly. And so, for example, it has to
Speaker 1: do with well, what does it mean for something to
Speaker 1: be a crypto exchange? And how was this exchange using
Speaker 1: margin and things like that. And the reason that stuff
Speaker 1: is important to understand is that, um, you know, Sam
Speaker 1: bank and Free has been laying the groundwork of a
Speaker 1: defense of what he's been doing. Um, and it kind
Speaker 1: of depends a little bit on people being I think,
Speaker 1: maybe overwhelmed by some of the detail. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I hope is that you could you could
Speaker 1: read this and then you would have a firm enough
Speaker 1: grasp on the detail to see through why some of
Speaker 1: the things that he's saying are just mistakes maybe could
Speaker 1: be characterized as something considerably worse than a mistake. I
Speaker 1: gotta say, Pat and nothing against boring white papers, but
Speaker 1: they're boring. And Matt tells this in such a wonderful read. Um,
Speaker 1: and then the way you and your team, the graphics,
Speaker 1: the pictures, the quote, the polls, like, it's just it's
Speaker 1: really pretty incredible to go through and and um, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say it's like reading a novel because it's reality,
Speaker 1: but it really was, um a treat and enjoy to read.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, you know, we get the
Speaker 1: magazines in the newsroom, and it was hard to find this.
Speaker 1: This is one that everybody was like, do you have
Speaker 1: the crypto issue? Do Matt's crypto Issie do the business
Speaker 1: with crypto issue? Because everybody took it because they wanted
Speaker 1: to read it and understand it. And I'm curious what
Speaker 1: kind of response have you guys gotten from the bigger,
Speaker 1: broader crypto world or just the world in general. People
Speaker 1: would be very positive about it. God, as you know,
Speaker 1: they liked it a lot. But I've even heard from
Speaker 1: people who are some of the strongest crypto critics. You've said, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we really like Matt in the way that
Speaker 1: he explains to these things. Um, that that's been kind
Speaker 1: of pardning that. Uh, it seems to be well received
Speaker 1: across people with different opinions about this space which is
Speaker 1: now so very much on ourline. Okay, what's the future here?
Speaker 1: How do you think about it? You know, I think
Speaker 1: that what's happened with SPX is a really existential crisis
Speaker 1: for crypto I think, Um, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: things that Matt lays out at the end of his
Speaker 1: piece is like, you know, they've they've built this large,
Speaker 1: complicated financial system, and the question is is it all
Speaker 1: a ponzi? Um? And or are they going to build something?
Speaker 1: And um, you know we're now looking at massive uh
Speaker 1: you know, alleged fraud at the heart of crypto markets.
Speaker 1: It's not the first one, um, and we still you know,
Speaker 1: that's not just that's not only pushing prices down. It's
Speaker 1: really raising questions about like, you know, why would why
Speaker 1: would you put your money into this? Like the the
Speaker 1: simplest ways to invest are very you know, nervous making
Speaker 1: uh for people and um, you know, and then we
Speaker 1: still haven't addressed the question of what what are you building?
Speaker 1: What what are you making? UM? I think that's gonna
Speaker 1: be really really tough on um, especially because you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of what's going on with FBX is about
Speaker 1: the stuff that people thought was building. You know. UM,
Speaker 1: people would say, well, bitcoin, like, you know, it doesn't
Speaker 1: have any intrinsic value. It's just sort of a bet.
Speaker 1: I'm sort of like a token price going up or down.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, that's just like kind of
Speaker 1: the simple economics of bitcoin. It's just it's just a
Speaker 1: pure bet on adoptions. Then, but like maybe the next
Speaker 1: thing that will happen is people will come up with
Speaker 1: tokens that give people, you know, util be and kind
Speaker 1: of represent um, you know, some kind of piece of
Speaker 1: the growth of a company. Well, what's name Like one
Speaker 1: of those tokens, Well, one of those tokens was the
Speaker 1: token that that f t x UH issued for itself
Speaker 1: and actually seemed to be a very big part of
Speaker 1: its lab right that it's like what, you know, what
Speaker 1: is actually here that people want? And I think like
Speaker 1: people in the crypto community are going to have They've
Speaker 1: got a lot of work to do, um to to
Speaker 1: prove that this isn't just a place to speculate. Pat,
Speaker 1: I didn't hear you use the term magic internet money
Speaker 1: when you were describing that. Oh, that's for all right,
Speaker 1: that's the next full issue, um. Incredible work, Pat, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for joining us. Happy New Year, Thank you.
Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg business Week. Markets and Finance editor Pat Rignier
Speaker 1: still had on the New year's weekend edition of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, where U S monetary policy goes from here
Speaker 1: as a year full of wallet breaking inflation and jumbo
Speaker 1: interest rate hikes comes to a close, or does it?
Speaker 1: That's the big question. Well, from pandemic labor constraints to
Speaker 1: the reversal of Roe v. Wade, US women have lost
Speaker 1: decades worth of progress in just a matter of months,
Speaker 1: and it's costing the entire country dearly. We're gonna explain next.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg broadcasting from the financial capital of the world.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg eleve in Frio in New York to Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg one oh six one to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg nine six to the country Sirius XM Chanel one
Speaker 1: nine team, and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg Radio dot Com. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Massier and Tim Stenove from Bloomberg Radio. In
Speaker 1: mid December, we saw Wall Street's hopes for a loosening
Speaker 1: monetary policy take a big hit. The Federal Reserve did
Speaker 1: dial back a bit when it raised interest rates by
Speaker 1: fifty basis points that followed four consecutive seventy five point hikes. However,
Speaker 1: fits you J Powell saying officials were not close to
Speaker 1: ending their aggressive campaign of rate increases and signaled borrowing
Speaker 1: costs Wood had higher than expected. J. Powell also saying
Speaker 1: that the Central Bank would not cut rates until it's
Speaker 1: confident that inflation is moving back towards its stated two
Speaker 1: percent inflation goals. Higher interest rates and rising prices have
Speaker 1: been the prevailing economic themes in America over the past
Speaker 1: year and really throughout much of the world. To help
Speaker 1: put it all in context as we head into the
Speaker 1: new year, let's bring in Bloomberg Business Week Economics editor
Speaker 1: Christina Lynn Blad Christie and I feel like it's been
Speaker 1: the story that keeps on giving. We just constantly talk
Speaker 1: about monetary policy in the US and globally. Um, how
Speaker 1: do you think about the coverage that you guys have
Speaker 1: done over the year and kind of where we are
Speaker 1: ending up. I think about a word that Powell used
Speaker 1: a lot at the beginning, which is humble, and how
Speaker 1: the macroeconomics profession has been humbled because nobody really saw
Speaker 1: this coming and the persistence of it, if you be bowl,
Speaker 1: I guess said they would. But um, but here we are,
Speaker 1: and we have a cause like a glimmer of good
Speaker 1: news this week with the CPI print, you know, we're
Speaker 1: core inflation. I just you know, November that was the
Speaker 1: smallest print we've had since August. So maybe the medicine
Speaker 1: is starting to work, and I think that's what everyone's hoping.
Speaker 1: I think that's going to be the big thing to
Speaker 1: watch in well. Speaking of themes, right, like, I do
Speaker 1: feel like the FED is for the most part had
Speaker 1: one message of like, you know, it's about getting inflation guys,
Speaker 1: you know down and that's what we're focusing on. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, another theme has been consistently when
Speaker 1: it comes to the US economy is the strength of
Speaker 1: the labor market, and and that I guess gives the
Speaker 1: FED some wiggle room, but it's also kind of worrisome,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to the wage pressures. Worrisome. I
Speaker 1: think it's one of the parts of the puzzle that
Speaker 1: people can't really figure out. I was saying to somebody
Speaker 1: that when after the COVID recession, every job support, you know,
Speaker 1: it was amazing. You just couldn't believe house as it
Speaker 1: was coming back, especially compared to the previous recession after
Speaker 1: the financial crisis, which we had a long, grinding recovery,
Speaker 1: right jobless recovery was called, and this was just like,
Speaker 1: you know, boom, these jobs are coming back. And now
Speaker 1: though we're in this place where when those right A
Speaker 1: report come and they're strong, you know you avert your eyes.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you know, because you know that it means
Speaker 1: that rates will stay higher for longer. You know, there's
Speaker 1: still a real, really high level of job openings. Companies
Speaker 1: are still creating jobs that they say they can't fill.
Speaker 1: Um and that and wage pressure is strong and at
Speaker 1: this point now we're seeing real wage gains because inflation
Speaker 1: is starting to trend down, but wage growth is still strong.
Speaker 1: So that's also going to be one of the things
Speaker 1: that everyone's going to be looking at going into next year.
Speaker 1: It feels like, you know, there's data points for everybody,
Speaker 1: you know. Meantime, you know, strong market that's out there,
Speaker 1: but we've seen housing sloaded like it's just it's very
Speaker 1: difficult to make sense of it. Having said that, do
Speaker 1: you feel like, like like you mentioned the last recession coming
Speaker 1: out of the financial crisis. I think about how the
Speaker 1: magazine Business Week and you and your team have covered
Speaker 1: kind of going back to the past, and we have
Speaker 1: talked a lot about Paul Bulker during the seventies and
Speaker 1: his inflation fight and what that might mean for what j.
Speaker 1: Powell has to do and the FED. I think that
Speaker 1: has been a big shadow, right, a larger than life
Speaker 1: shadow that has you know, loomed over Powell in the
Speaker 1: whole f O m C. There are many similarities but
Speaker 1: also many differences in the way everything played out. Then
Speaker 1: I think now what haunts them is, you know, the
Speaker 1: ghost of Arthur Burns really who was the said chief
Speaker 1: who who thought he'd beaten inflation, and then you know,
Speaker 1: started listening too fast. And you know, we see that
Speaker 1: Wall Street is perennially hopeful that this pivot will come
Speaker 1: and you know, and they want the pivot to come
Speaker 1: in they want the said to start cutting rates. Powell
Speaker 1: push back on that, you know, saying the most likely,
Speaker 1: you know, we see from the new economic projections that
Speaker 1: the cuts will not happen until well, I know we're
Speaker 1: gonna be talking about this a lot in the new year,
Speaker 1: no doubt about it. I want to get to another
Speaker 1: critical development that took place in two and that was
Speaker 1: the major setback for women's reproductive rights we saw take
Speaker 1: place with the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade.
Speaker 1: It's a very personal story, but it also made us
Speaker 1: take a look more broadly at women and their place
Speaker 1: in their economy and really just kind of the setbacks. Christina,
Speaker 1: you've been one of the key voices as we unpacked
Speaker 1: the sweeping economic implications of that decision, as is Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News Equality team leader Rebecca Greenfield, and Rebecca, I want
Speaker 1: to bring you into this conversation as well. Tell us
Speaker 1: about this issue where you guys did UM some really
Speaker 1: deep diving and some deep coverage of what had happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, the Supreme Court made a huge decision and
Speaker 1: overturned UM, what was almost fifty years of president and
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade. And it really felt like a very
Speaker 1: big moment in US history, specifically for women who have
Speaker 1: made a lot of progress economically, UM, and otherwise in
Speaker 1: the US that seems to be slipping and this moment,
Speaker 1: the decision really felt kind of like a big turning
Speaker 1: point in the wrong direction for rights and in the economy.
Speaker 1: So UM, we put this breaking point issue where we
Speaker 1: took the moment to step back and say, what is
Speaker 1: happening two women in the US? What I have to say?
Speaker 1: You know, you guys included in this coverage in the
Speaker 1: magazine This is Back in August, some numbers thirty three
Speaker 1: million women of child bearing age living in twenty six
Speaker 1: U states expected to institute abortion bands twenty four out
Speaker 1: of a hundred thousand. The US has the highest maternal
Speaker 1: mortality rate ratio of any industrialized country. And then a
Speaker 1: trillion dollars projected increase in US g d P over
Speaker 1: a decade resulting from narrowing the gender divide in labor
Speaker 1: participation rates to levels prevailing in Europe. Wait very personal,
Speaker 1: very individual in terms of the impact you think about it,
Speaker 1: and but it's also there's business implications, economic implications for
Speaker 1: the setbacks of women that we've seen as of late
Speaker 1: Christina also equality. We did a piece in which we
Speaker 1: looked at decades worth of economic studies that looked at
Speaker 1: the impact of abortion access and people have been able
Speaker 1: to get some very granular information and they looked at
Speaker 1: women who were not able to access abortion, you know,
Speaker 1: had higher chances of being poor, falling into debt, children
Speaker 1: that were also going to be poor. So it's the
Speaker 1: impact extends across generations. The Supreme Court decision came at
Speaker 1: the end of two very trying years for women. Right.
Speaker 1: We had something that people called like this she Session,
Speaker 1: because when schools and childcare closed, some women had to
Speaker 1: quit working, right, And then we had lots of other
Speaker 1: things we had, you know, the we had a formula
Speaker 1: shortages in the US. I mean, who thinks that, you know,
Speaker 1: a major industrialized, one of the world's top economy you
Speaker 1: cannot get formula for your child. There were just kind
Speaker 1: of these like drip drip, drip drip, and then came
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court thing, which is something that you know,
Speaker 1: people had positive for a while and there was even
Speaker 1: this League decision, but it was still was a shock, Rebecca,
Speaker 1: as you guys rolled out the coverage, I mean, what
Speaker 1: just kind of stood out for you in doing this
Speaker 1: series of stories. Yes, I think the biggest thing that
Speaker 1: has to have re since the decision and was a
Speaker 1: big part of the coverage is that the way that
Speaker 1: the decision has played out is that it's really not
Speaker 1: solely about abortion and safe abortion and economic implications of that,
Speaker 1: but it's really becoming an issue of fave pregnancy and
Speaker 1: maternal health, and that really seems to be the really
Speaker 1: big risk that women place. There are safer ways for
Speaker 1: women to get abortions in places where it's not legal
Speaker 1: than fifty years ago. That's true. We've written about that,
Speaker 1: and even in the places that have these near total
Speaker 1: abortion bands, but they're having these ripple effects on women
Speaker 1: who have wanted pregnancies that need to get medical care
Speaker 1: that that is an abortion but is not technically legal
Speaker 1: or it's not clear of its legal And we ran
Speaker 1: a big story by clear said it's about maternal mortality
Speaker 1: rate there, which are very high in the US for
Speaker 1: a developed country, and particularly high in parts of the
Speaker 1: U S and she irrid in on this um rural
Speaker 1: area in Texas, But we've seen so many more stories
Speaker 1: since then in places that aren't you know, completely in
Speaker 1: the middle, you know, very with very little healthcare, where
Speaker 1: people who want to have children that are running up
Speaker 1: against these laws and it's very scary. Yeah, it's pretty incredible.
Speaker 1: And I have to say with something that I always
Speaker 1: find Bloomberg Business Week does so well, Like you'll tell
Speaker 1: the big macro story UM and the data or the
Speaker 1: research behind it, but you also always have individuals so
Speaker 1: that you know, it's so easy to get lost in
Speaker 1: the data, Rebecca, but I feel like when you drill
Speaker 1: down and you tell individual stories, like we all can
Speaker 1: relate to it. That was the year that was for women.
Speaker 1: It led to the breaking point Business Week cover story
Speaker 1: that was out back in August. We're going to continue
Speaker 1: with Christina and Rebecca about what three may have in
Speaker 1: store when it comes to women getting back some of
Speaker 1: their lost prosperity of more when our New Year's holiday
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week continues. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio, continuing our important discussion about
Speaker 1: what's next for women in the United States following the
Speaker 1: landmark reversal of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, we
Speaker 1: spent it forward and we're still talking with Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: Equality Team leader Rebecca Greenfield and Bloomberg Business Week Economics
Speaker 1: editor Christina Lynn Blad. Guys, you know, coming off the
Speaker 1: mid terms, I think we were all just kind of
Speaker 1: watching so closely to see how it played out. Um,
Speaker 1: I do wonder mid term outcome and then thinking ahead
Speaker 1: to the next presidential election. Rebecca, let me start with you,
Speaker 1: do you think things could change for the better when
Speaker 1: it comes to women? Great question, so we hope so. Um.
Speaker 1: I told the election was super interesting because abortion ended
Speaker 1: up being such a big issue for voters. There were
Speaker 1: a bunch of referendums and some days but specifically ask
Speaker 1: voters what they thought about an abortion of it wanted
Speaker 1: it to be legal. All of them indicated yes, people
Speaker 1: want abortion protections. That also helped some Democratic candidates in
Speaker 1: those days and in other places when in a year
Speaker 1: where a lot of people expected, you know, just the
Speaker 1: usual things to happen, where the other party does not
Speaker 1: empower the Republicans to get more votes. So it was
Speaker 1: a really big galvanizing issue. So the election and of
Speaker 1: itself was super interesting from that. Absolutely, Christina, come on
Speaker 1: in on it, you know, as you it's what we want, right,
Speaker 1: We want to quotify them to law. For years, we
Speaker 1: lived this time waiting for a challenge to this precedent
Speaker 1: that might bring it down, right, it was always a possibility.
Speaker 1: So I am heartened. But yeah, by the results of
Speaker 1: the midterms that showed that reproductive rights were an issue
Speaker 1: in voters mind. So yeah, yeah, I was very heartened
Speaker 1: by that. As we know, politics can go a lot
Speaker 1: of different ways in funny ways. When you look at
Speaker 1: three and I do feel like there's a lot of
Speaker 1: the issues that we talked about that will obviously continue
Speaker 1: into the new year. But Rebecca, what's kind of front
Speaker 1: and center for you? Definitely still abortion things I really
Speaker 1: shaking out even in states where you you know, we've
Speaker 1: had predicted that there were these trigger band laws. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of lawsuits, there's a lot of challenges and
Speaker 1: balot measures even in very deep red states that's going
Speaker 1: to continue to play out. And then I think that
Speaker 1: there's this like three year long fatigue of especially working
Speaker 1: parents and working months that has not been any solution
Speaker 1: to that that nothing has been floated. I think that
Speaker 1: I've moved floateded have fallen through. So it's just something
Speaker 1: we're always looking for and seeing if if it will happen,
Speaker 1: if they'll bring anything back or can get anything past
Speaker 1: help working parents. Christina, what's kind of front and center
Speaker 1: for you as you think about Well, I think for
Speaker 1: me it's it's looking at this this possibility of recession,
Speaker 1: but also a job market that has defied expectations. Um
Speaker 1: stories that we've done talking to employers and which companies
Speaker 1: that had trouble staffing up after the COVID lockdowns are
Speaker 1: saying we're going to think twice and three times before
Speaker 1: laying off people in a downturn, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Not not so fast, of course, it gets to happen,
Speaker 1: but I mean I think that sort of people look
Speaker 1: at their sort of inputs of production, they really realize
Speaker 1: how important labor is in the equation. And you know,
Speaker 1: now as we have an economy, it's kind of skewed
Speaker 1: highly towards services, so recession and yeah, and for me
Speaker 1: and and the labor market and and just to also
Speaker 1: dial back to what Rebecca was saying in terms of childcare,
Speaker 1: we have something looming that's a negative, which is money
Speaker 1: that was in the Biden stimulus for daycare centers and
Speaker 1: there was quite a chunk uh that money is going
Speaker 1: to dry up going into like at the end of
Speaker 1: this year, in the beginning of the year, and you know,
Speaker 1: we've talked to some childcare providers and they're saying they
Speaker 1: don't know how, you know, they gave their staff wage
Speaker 1: increases to hang on to them because they were losing
Speaker 1: them to warehouse jobs and the you know, higher paying jobs,
Speaker 1: and they say, we don't know how we're going to
Speaker 1: be able to cope without this aid. And that has
Speaker 1: a huge impact, and you think about the implications of that. UM.
Speaker 1: I know we could talk a lot longer on this,
Speaker 1: and looking forward to your coverage, both of you when
Speaker 1: it comes to Business Week's coverage in Thank you so
Speaker 1: much and Happy New Year. Bloomberg business Week Economics editor
Speaker 1: Christina Lynn Blad and Bloomberg News Equality Team leader Rebecca
Speaker 1: Greenfield always appreciate their thoughtful coverage and reporting. And that
Speaker 1: wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser, substad
Speaker 1: Eva back with me as we take a dive in
Speaker 1: the next hour down the big tech rabbit hole. Head
Speaker 1: in our next hour, Elon and Tesla Metta and Mark
Speaker 1: Ev explosions and a museum in the desert for the
Speaker 1: lucky few tech in pursuits. They're coming up next in
Speaker 1: our holiday weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week inside from the reporters and
Speaker 1: editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine. Plus
Speaker 1: global business finance and tech news as it happened Sloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stinebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Plenty of in our second hour of this holiday weekend
Speaker 1: edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including the electric vehicles that
Speaker 1: are just so cool and so expensive they just aren't
Speaker 1: mad for the masses, They're just not for you. And
Speaker 1: meet him not yet, That's part of the issue. Plus
Speaker 1: fine art from the Nevada desert and all the way
Speaker 1: to the Canals of Venice, and plenty of glitz and
Speaker 1: glamor in between. We celebrate the best of Bloomberg pursuits.
Speaker 1: In first Up this hour, we mentioned Evis Earlier the
Speaker 1: last hour we spoke about them at the top with
Speaker 1: Joel Webber and Jim Elis, and Joel mentioned the man
Speaker 1: that may be most synonymous with electrified transport on this planet.
Speaker 1: You know what we're talking about, Elon Musk. Except Musk's
Speaker 1: ultra valuable e V Empire at Tesla did not appear
Speaker 1: at the top of his agenda for much of the
Speaker 1: past year. Instead, it was his forty four billion dollar
Speaker 1: purchase of the social media platform Twitter. Tell us make
Speaker 1: sense of what Musk really accomplished with his takeover, as
Speaker 1: well as some other key takeaways from the world of
Speaker 1: technology over the past twelve months. Let's bring in Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week columnist Max Chafkin. Max, I feel like there
Speaker 1: was so much to cover this past year, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it did. It did feel like every day
Speaker 1: there was something with Elon Musk. Yeah, you know, we've
Speaker 1: been writing stories uh here and other publications have two
Speaker 1: over the last almost like a decade about how poorly
Speaker 1: run Twitter has been. You know, it's this, um, incredibly
Speaker 1: culturally salient service. You know, obviously we love that's the
Speaker 1: news agenda, journals are addicted to it. But but it
Speaker 1: has really struggled for a very long time to to
Speaker 1: turn himself into a successful business. And I guess over
Speaker 1: the last year we've just seen maybe you know, comparatively,
Speaker 1: they were doing actually a pretty good job because Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: you know, world's greatest entrepreneur according to many people's you know,
Speaker 1: super respective innovator, has for for whatever reason, maybe these
Speaker 1: are problems of his own making, or maybe these are
Speaker 1: actually some of the challenges with Twitter has really really
Speaker 1: really struggled to run this thing. And we have just
Speaker 1: watched kind of this rolling series of kind of media
Speaker 1: circus slash disaster. It almost feels like, you know, the
Speaker 1: political version of like the first six months of the
Speaker 1: Trump presidency or something, where um, you kind of can't
Speaker 1: look away. He's just dominating conversation. But it's also not
Speaker 1: totally clear, um, what exactly been accomplished. You kind of
Speaker 1: took the words right out of my mouth because in
Speaker 1: reading your columns over the past few months, as Elon
Speaker 1: Musk has spent more time on Twitter. One thing that
Speaker 1: comes to mind is the way that acts with people
Speaker 1: tweeting about him, and it actually is similar to what
Speaker 1: we saw from President Trump when he was on Twitter.
Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit about this idea that
Speaker 1: that Elon Musk is kind of like amplifying his own
Speaker 1: voice in several different ways through fan accounts on Twitter. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Musk has long had this kind of army of followers,
Speaker 1: but as he's become more active on Twitter, um and
Speaker 1: as he's sort of I think like leaned into this
Speaker 1: mode of conversation which involves, as you said, interacting with
Speaker 1: these fan accounts. Also, you know he talks to kind
Speaker 1: of his these these quote bought accounts that that post,
Speaker 1: you know, notable things. He said, it's it's a quote
Speaker 1: for me, Elon Musk. Elon Musk times in and says,
Speaker 1: well said um and um. And you know, fans, anyone
Speaker 1: who comes in and says you know, you're a genius,
Speaker 1: or you're being persecutor or any number of things, you know,
Speaker 1: Musk is right there to buck them up. Now. That's
Speaker 1: why I think actually a pretty good strategy from a
Speaker 1: sort of marketing perspective. Musk is I think, even still,
Speaker 1: even with all the challenges at Tesla and Twitter, a
Speaker 1: really great marketer, kind of within a suitive marketing sense,
Speaker 1: kind of like I would argue Trump, but stuck in
Speaker 1: the kind of bubble of Twitter. We've sort of seen
Speaker 1: the kinds of things that I think happened to a
Speaker 1: lot of us if we spend too much time on Twitter,
Speaker 1: kind of happened to Elon Musk, where where it almost
Speaker 1: feels like he's consumed with this ultimately meaningless conversation and
Speaker 1: maybe taking his eye off some more important issues, you know,
Speaker 1: one of which is, uh, this rocket company that he's
Speaker 1: he's running that's trying to get to Mars and the
Speaker 1: other courses. Is this electric car company that you know
Speaker 1: faces some some serious challenges, and I think we're seeing
Speaker 1: investors um and maybe even car buyers react to that.
Speaker 1: I always feel like when there's a headline on Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: I'm always like, oh, Ellen, because it's like this weird
Speaker 1: individual who you have to give him his props in
Speaker 1: terms of pushing e vs out into the market much
Speaker 1: sooner than everybody thought. That the way he thinks, whether
Speaker 1: it's SpaceX, whether it's the boring company. He really moves
Speaker 1: the needle on things and really thinks in a different way.
Speaker 1: At the same time, I've never seen a CEO of
Speaker 1: a publicly held company go out on Twitter and say
Speaker 1: things that could financially impact you know, his company, like
Speaker 1: how do you get your head around this? Well. Musk,
Speaker 1: you know, has always had this larger than life persona
Speaker 1: has given him a lot of power, and over the
Speaker 1: years we've seen that sometimes create controversy. You know, with Tesla,
Speaker 1: when Tesla bought Solar City, like there was a bunch
Speaker 1: of lawsuits. It kind of looked like self dealing. You
Speaker 1: have a situation where Elon Musk can basically do whatever
Speaker 1: the heck he wants at these companies, which is something
Speaker 1: you see across you know, other tech companies. Now it
Speaker 1: almost feels like with Twitter he reached escape Velocity or whatever,
Speaker 1: where it's not only does he have complete control, not
Speaker 1: only does he own it, but he's sort of operating
Speaker 1: with no kind of controls at all, where you know,
Speaker 1: where he came in with basically a bunch of his
Speaker 1: friends as his you know, executive team, and it really
Speaker 1: looked kind of like an army of basically Elon fanboys,
Speaker 1: and you know that is not even even the greatest executives,
Speaker 1: even the greatest marketers. Um I think need good advice
Speaker 1: and maybe need to hear criticism, and I think that
Speaker 1: is has been a place where Musk struggled. Can I
Speaker 1: how do you think about for Elon Musk? Well? I
Speaker 1: think there are a couple of questions, Like one is,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want Twitter to survive and thrive,
Speaker 1: you're sort of hoping he loses interest he you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe he likes seed some day to day control
Speaker 1: to people who actually know what they're doing. Or maybe
Speaker 1: he just kind of takes his foot off the gas
Speaker 1: a little bit and just instead of trying to constantly
Speaker 1: stir the pot, just tries to run this thing more efficiently.
Speaker 1: You know, he is capable of that, and I think
Speaker 1: you know, one thing we have seen at Twitter is that, yes,
Speaker 1: like he's laid off huge numbers of people, have been
Speaker 1: huge lots of resignations, but some people have stuck around
Speaker 1: because even for all the craziness, Elon Musk is still
Speaker 1: a business hero and people want to want to work
Speaker 1: for him even with all the downsides. And the other
Speaker 1: thing that I think is probably the more important question
Speaker 1: is Tesla, because you know Tesla, for years and years
Speaker 1: people have been talking about these other car companies are
Speaker 1: gonna have evs that are gonna be just as good
Speaker 1: as Tesla. You know, other car companies have advantages that
Speaker 1: Tesla does not have service marketing, and you have these
Speaker 1: competitive car companies coming, You have China being a huge
Speaker 1: source of uncertainty, China super important to Tesla. And then
Speaker 1: you have Elon Musk lighting basically his main asset on fire,
Speaker 1: which is his reputation as brand, and that I think
Speaker 1: is going to create real challenges for Tesla and could
Speaker 1: lead to some disruption in the EV market if if
Speaker 1: Elon Musk doesn't find a way to kind of grab control.
Speaker 1: He said, you said Meta, so we got to go there,
Speaker 1: and you didn't say Facebook, which I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting and also telling for one of your recent columns
Speaker 1: about how mark it is. But I mean, for anyone
Speaker 1: who's covered this company for its its entire existence, you
Speaker 1: understand that the core business is still the business that
Speaker 1: makes money, and it's still the business that investors are
Speaker 1: are punishing right now. Well, I mean it's like speaking
Speaker 1: of potential CEO and competence. I mean, the crazy thing
Speaker 1: about the Elon Musk tenure is he's kind of made
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg look good. And I feel like, if if
Speaker 1: Elon Musk had not, you know, been had such a
Speaker 1: crazy two we to be talking about Mark Zuckerberg. How
Speaker 1: could somebody take this amazing asset. Facebook is an amazing service.
Speaker 1: You know, three billion people a day are using this thing.
Speaker 1: It's like half the world's population. It is a marketing
Speaker 1: engine like nothing the world has ever seen. And Zuckerberg
Speaker 1: basically about a year ago, decided no, no no, no, I'm
Speaker 1: done with that. We're gonna have you know, meeting rooms
Speaker 1: with no avatars and no legs. We're gonna have you know,
Speaker 1: second life, but Facebook version. And you know, people have
Speaker 1: responded to that kind of the way that you would
Speaker 1: expect them to respond to that, which is they don't care.
Speaker 1: And you know, Facebook spent all this money, you know
Speaker 1: on Super Bowl ads. They ran a Super Bowl ad.
Speaker 1: In February, Zuckerberg goes on the Joe Rogan podcast, you know,
Speaker 1: biggest podcast in the world, one of the most influential
Speaker 1: radio shows. There is no one cares um and we're
Speaker 1: talking about you know, hundreds of thousands of people using
Speaker 1: this thing called Horizon Worlds, despite the fact that Facebook
Speaker 1: has spent you know, something like thirty billion dollars and
Speaker 1: that of course has severely damaged the stock um. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's led to all sorts of questions about Mark
Speaker 1: zuckerberg leadership ability because again, just like with Musk, you
Speaker 1: have this guy who is basically the absolute ruler of
Speaker 1: the company and suddenly, you know, maybe for the first
Speaker 1: time ever, seems not up to the task. And that
Speaker 1: is I mean that maybe that's one of the big
Speaker 1: themes of two. We've seen these kind of you know,
Speaker 1: great leaders stumble in ways that they haven't stumbled before. Max.
Speaker 1: Another theme of this past year has been, you know,
Speaker 1: the slump that we've seen in digital advertising, is that
Speaker 1: part of the problem. If we weren't in that slump,
Speaker 1: in the economic conditions that have created that slump, that
Speaker 1: maybe Meta wouldn't be in such a tough place that
Speaker 1: it would be better and we'd be all kind of
Speaker 1: more willing to deal with Zuckerberg kind of chap the company.
Speaker 1: And there are other factors here. Of course, you mentioned
Speaker 1: the slow down digital advertising. Uh, you know, if if
Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg right here, he'd be you know, saying, you know,
Speaker 1: Tim Cook and coughing. Because of course, Apple has changed
Speaker 1: a bunch of the rules around digital advertising ways of
Speaker 1: impacted Facebook business now. I do think the broadly speaking, though,
Speaker 1: what is happening is during COVID, during the pandemic, there
Speaker 1: was a lot more usage of these of these digital
Speaker 1: services and digital advertising you know, spiked, you know suddenly,
Speaker 1: probably because people are spending more time, probably because there
Speaker 1: was more money to be you know, people were just
Speaker 1: spending their you know, stimulus checks or whatever, and and
Speaker 1: that has gone away. We're going back to something that
Speaker 1: looks like the way it was before. But like if
Speaker 1: you're Mark Zuckerberg, the way it was before was pretty good.
Speaker 1: I mean, you look at Facebook in twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: that was a dominant, successful company. And I think the
Speaker 1: argument that you know, maybe they should have instead of
Speaker 1: investing or losing really billions of dollars in the metaverse,
Speaker 1: maybe they could have just tried to show up the
Speaker 1: core business. That that's something that that you're seeing investors
Speaker 1: increasingly kind of bring up. Although again, you know, people
Speaker 1: still do believe in Mark Zuckerberg, and you do still
Speaker 1: hear people talking about the promise of the metaverse, so
Speaker 1: you know it's possible that that this thing will eventually
Speaker 1: come to fruition. Although it has not been a good
Speaker 1: year for for Zuckerberg. I'm cloe with the metaverse. As
Speaker 1: long as I have my avatar has legs. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I like my legs right. Also, check out
Speaker 1: Max has had some great reporting on Sam Bateman fried
Speaker 1: f t X, including the food behind the Crypto collapse.
Speaker 1: That was a really great story. Um Max Chapkin calumnist
Speaker 1: for the magazine, covering so many different things and of
Speaker 1: course all things tech. Max, thank you so much, thanks
Speaker 1: for having me. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up,
Speaker 1: we hit the road with our Bloomberg Pursuits team and
Speaker 1: check out some sweet rides and amazing, aren't we do? Indeed,
Speaker 1: this is Bloomberg. Please sees Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Messer and Tim Stinevic from Bloomberg Radio. Alright, time for
Speaker 1: babbles and Bugatti's, museums and Maserati's and many inspiring and
Speaker 1: just really cool things in between. You like what I
Speaker 1: did there, didn't you? It's Chris Rouser. Chris Rouser is
Speaker 1: the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits. You can hear him chuckling
Speaker 1: at the great writing that Carol just read. He's our
Speaker 1: We also joined Literation Writing one oh one. We're also
Speaker 1: joined by our intrepid auto columnist Han to Elliott. Every
Speaker 1: week a trip into the world of wow and wonderful.
Speaker 1: We do that in the world of Bloomberg Pursuits. So, Chris,
Speaker 1: how you know, going into the end of the year
Speaker 1: thinking about everything that Hannah has done throughout the year,
Speaker 1: throughout well, I mean, I don't want to put too
Speaker 1: much Hannah her career. Are you thinking about the end
Speaker 1: of the year issue? You know, Hannah has maybe the
Speaker 1: coolest job of anyone in there. You know, we're talking
Speaker 1: about world Hannah, I'm talking about right in front of her.
Speaker 1: And you know, she test drives all these incredible cars,
Speaker 1: but she also has like a bird's eye view into
Speaker 1: the whole industry, especially when it comes to luxury cars,
Speaker 1: uh and where the industry is going electric vehicles. And
Speaker 1: you know, she was talking about the cars that she
Speaker 1: reviewed this year, and she was talking about how she
Speaker 1: crab walked with like the electric hummer through the Desert
Speaker 1: and she drives these incredible Porsche's and and it was
Speaker 1: just so fun to think about everything that she's tried
Speaker 1: out um and everything that she's seen this year. So
Speaker 1: we had a lot of fun looking back at the
Speaker 1: year with her favorite cars. Well, speaking of cars, I mean,
Speaker 1: I do feel like evs are there's gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot of buying next year. But how do you think
Speaker 1: about it from your advantage point? Hannah, Well, I have
Speaker 1: to say I was so happy this year with the
Speaker 1: offerings from the e V world. I mean, for so long,
Speaker 1: of course, it's been Tesla and then you know, we
Speaker 1: had like a Prius as a hybrid and some other
Speaker 1: sort of minor things. But this is the first year
Speaker 1: that really the luxury automakers gave us some real options
Speaker 1: in the e V world. I mean, Audie has their
Speaker 1: Etron line, which include a small sedan and then like
Speaker 1: a hatchback thing and an SUV. BMW gave us multiple
Speaker 1: sedan and SUV e vs. We're seeing a whole EQ
Speaker 1: line from Mercedes of evs. So this is the first
Speaker 1: year where it has really felt like, wow, we have
Speaker 1: a lot of options, and I think it's been really
Speaker 1: interesting that is. You know, we start to hear some
Speaker 1: people say, I'm not feeling so hot about Tesla cars.
Speaker 1: You know, for many reasons, people are kind of ready
Speaker 1: to like what else is there? And finally, we actually
Speaker 1: do have a lot of things to choose from. And
Speaker 1: we talk about this all the time in pursuits because
Speaker 1: luxury people don't always realize the way that luxury can
Speaker 1: define the rest of an industry. You may remember Miranda's
Speaker 1: cerulean monologue from The Devil Horse product Um, but Tesla really,
Speaker 1: you know, it taught people that an e V doesn't
Speaker 1: have to look like a Lodgins, doesn't look like have
Speaker 1: to look like a toaster that you're driving, you know,
Speaker 1: and and we're hoping that people are learning about that
Speaker 1: this year. You know, Hannah has all these prescriptions that
Speaker 1: she thinks that should happen in the next year. So
Speaker 1: not only like electric cars are gonna look better, they're
Speaker 1: gonna drive better, they're gonna have better luxury quality, but
Speaker 1: also they need to be cheaper, right Hannah, Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know I remember writing that story. And you know, the
Speaker 1: average price of an evy is almost seventy thou dollars,
Speaker 1: where the average price of a regular non e electric
Speaker 1: new car is closer to forty eight thousand dollars, so
Speaker 1: there's still a really big price disparity. And it is
Speaker 1: true at the omit that typically evs are driven by
Speaker 1: weth your people. Well, if evs are going to save
Speaker 1: the world, they need to be driven by a wide
Speaker 1: range of people. It's not just about getting more high
Speaker 1: priced evis in the market, even though personally that's what
Speaker 1: that's what I love, um, it is really about, you know,
Speaker 1: giving a broad range from very affordable to of course
Speaker 1: a lot of options. Is this the one with a
Speaker 1: refrigerated champagne cooler. I think many of them have nothing
Speaker 1: to drive a wagon, I know, standard issue rolls, Royce
Speaker 1: paraphernalia right there. It's interesting because you you don't you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who don't drive evs, I
Speaker 1: think are worried about range. They have range anxiety. But
Speaker 1: as you write in one of your recent pieces, most
Speaker 1: Americans are only driving what fewer than forty miles a day,
Speaker 1: so it's not necessarily that you need a longer range.
Speaker 1: But you still write that you need charging to be better.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Right, that's a great point.
Speaker 1: I think, um Now, really, what I hear and what
Speaker 1: I experienced when I drive these vvs is not really
Speaker 1: range anxiety. It's more about charging anxiety. And what I
Speaker 1: mean by that is the availability of chargers once you
Speaker 1: get there, that they're not broken, they're not occupied, and
Speaker 1: they're not going to take the twelve hours to charge.
Speaker 1: All of those are things that um, yes, have to
Speaker 1: do with the network, the charging network that we need
Speaker 1: to improve, but also with charged times that these evs
Speaker 1: can have. Once they can charge quicker and quicker and quicker,
Speaker 1: that will really alleviate a lot of the anxiety that
Speaker 1: consumers have around evs, not just with range, but also
Speaker 1: with what is very valuable time. Yeah, and that's also
Speaker 1: an access thing, right, I mean, that's also more more
Speaker 1: people can have it when that it's that's that's more robust. Now.
Speaker 1: Something we also talk about a lot is that the
Speaker 1: most green thing you can do is not even buy
Speaker 1: a new car. It's by an old car, which brings
Speaker 1: up is my favorite thing, which is which brings up
Speaker 1: one of me and Hannah's favorite websites, which is bringing
Speaker 1: trailer dot com You, Hannah and my dad. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: probably lots of Dad's right. Not a week that goes
Speaker 1: by that Hannah doesn't send me a listing of a
Speaker 1: Jeep Grand Wagon. Here, you need this, and it's down
Speaker 1: incredibly well this year, right, Hannah, it has done insane.
Speaker 1: Bring a Trailer was formed about ten years ago. This
Speaker 1: year they already clelled cleared one billion dollar in sales
Speaker 1: and they are on track to do about one point
Speaker 1: three billion dollars in sales this year, which is astounding. Now.
Speaker 1: Bring a Trailer, of course, is the online auction website
Speaker 1: where you can search for any car basically and you
Speaker 1: can join a live auction and see bids put in
Speaker 1: real time and quotes, uh comments and and people talking
Speaker 1: about the car in real time. It's really addictive and
Speaker 1: it's really fun. And the beauty of it is the
Speaker 1: fees are so low, so it's really beat this old
Speaker 1: auction model of selling cars live, you know, under auction tens.
Speaker 1: It's really fast, it's cheap, and it's really fun. I
Speaker 1: think people have, you know, this idea that the types
Speaker 1: of cars available and Bring a Trailer are those really
Speaker 1: inaccessible vehicle stuff that's super expensive. But you write that
Speaker 1: there's really you know, it really runs the gamut Oh,
Speaker 1: there's something for everyone. I mean, I get on and look.
Speaker 1: I mean, Chris knows, I've I've been a little bit
Speaker 1: obsessed with old corvettes, like C three corvettes. You can
Speaker 1: you can get on and find, you know, an old
Speaker 1: corvette for ten thousand bucks. You can look for old broncos.
Speaker 1: You can look for old BMW wagons which actually are
Speaker 1: kind of going up in value. Um, you can. There's
Speaker 1: there's something for everyone again, And I think that's why
Speaker 1: it's so popular. Even if you're not actively fitting, you
Speaker 1: kind of think you could because not everything is that expensive,
Speaker 1: and it's really fun to get on and just live
Speaker 1: vicariously through whatever auction you're following at the moment. What's
Speaker 1: really cool is it sounds like that's why this individual, right,
Speaker 1: the founder of the making right the Bloomberg fifty on
Speaker 1: the list this year. Yeah. I'm really happy that he
Speaker 1: has been on the list because the point of the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg fifty is to really highlight people who have up
Speaker 1: ended their industries, and Randy really did that. You know,
Speaker 1: he comes from uh he worked at a BMW dealership
Speaker 1: UM in northern California, and he and some friends were
Speaker 1: sort of just trading car listings back and forth to
Speaker 1: each other, which is kind of how this idea was born.
Speaker 1: And he has really transformed, uh, the industry. Like I said,
Speaker 1: with something that is really accessible, easy, you get instant gratification.
Speaker 1: And it has forced the other auction houses like Gooding,
Speaker 1: r M, Southby's, Bottoms to come up with their own
Speaker 1: ways of selling cars online. He he really showed this
Speaker 1: is a lucrative endeavor and it's forced the other guys
Speaker 1: to kind of follow, hurry up and and follow follow suit,
Speaker 1: all right, rap and around? Uh yes or no? How
Speaker 1: do you buy in a car this year? This coming year? No?
Speaker 1: I can't. I already bought two. I bought one last year.
Speaker 1: Chris Rouser, No, no I need. I just need a
Speaker 1: vehicle that can transport a toddler and I already have that.
Speaker 1: To no way, I'm happy with this. Sad, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've got a nineteen year old is like I got
Speaker 1: my license, It's time for a car. So well, thine
Speaker 1: she should buy the car. Tv D t B D guys,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Happy New Year, Happy holidays. I
Speaker 1: thanks to Bloomberg Pursuits auto commist Hannah Elliott for all
Speaker 1: of our great work. We love reading our columns this year,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to what's to come in still
Speaker 1: to come on Bloomberg Business Week, Chris Rouser sticking with us,
Speaker 1: and we're going to dive into the even pricier world
Speaker 1: of fine art. This is Bloomberg Broadcasting from the financial
Speaker 1: capital of the world, Bloomberg. He Love the Frio in
Speaker 1: New York to Washington, d C. Bloomberg to Boston, Bloomberg
Speaker 1: one O six one does San Francisco, Bloomberg nine six
Speaker 1: to the country, Sirius xm chenal one Mine Team and
Speaker 1: around the globe the Bloomberg Business and Bloomberg Radio dot Com.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim
Speaker 1: Stenova from Bloomberg Radio. It wouldn't be a best of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Pursuits discussion if we didn't highlight some of the
Speaker 1: work and travel of our great arts columnist James Army.
Speaker 1: He is pretty incredible, You know that? Are you just
Speaker 1: saying that because he's with us right now? Kind of okay? Well,
Speaker 1: he is with love, I love you know. Just keep
Speaker 1: it coming please. In addition to James, we were also
Speaker 1: really pleased to have back with us Bloomberg Pursuits editor
Speaker 1: Chris Rouser. He's gonna take us inside some of the
Speaker 1: most exclusive places in the art world and beyond time
Speaker 1: to go mind some art, Chris, I want to I
Speaker 1: want to start with you because you oversee the Pursuits
Speaker 1: section and kind of just how your approach this year
Speaker 1: when in the context of what James does in art, Well,
Speaker 1: the amazing thing about the Pursuits team is they have
Speaker 1: an incredible level of access um. So when James goes
Speaker 1: to art fairs, for example, he knows all of the
Speaker 1: gallery and he knows some of the artists, and he
Speaker 1: gets invited into everything um. And one of the coolest
Speaker 1: things he did this year was he was the second
Speaker 1: journalist to go into the city, which is this giant,
Speaker 1: incredible art creation and then the Nevada Desert um and
Speaker 1: he was really the first journalist to go around and
Speaker 1: talk about what it was like to be there. So
Speaker 1: we have all these incredible opportunities for coverage because James
Speaker 1: is such an expert and know so many people. Was
Speaker 1: that like your favorite moment of the year? Really, it
Speaker 1: was one of these singular bucket list experiences that I
Speaker 1: had obviously known about for a while, because so what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is this art installation in the Nevada
Speaker 1: desert that has been under construction for fifty years, so
Speaker 1: not exactly a secret, but something that no one was
Speaker 1: allowed into, at least professionally for a really, really long time.
Speaker 1: So it had been on my radar and basically this
Speaker 1: year they have finally started allowing people inside and I
Speaker 1: had been dying to go and managed to actually make
Speaker 1: the make the trek. So what was it like? So
Speaker 1: getting there is a whole thing. You know, it's around
Speaker 1: three hours from Las Vegas, but the first hour and
Speaker 1: a half you're on highway, find smooth sailing. But then
Speaker 1: you get to this town of Alamo and you get
Speaker 1: into this kind of tricked out suv and you spend
Speaker 1: the next hour and a half driving through the desert
Speaker 1: and then you sort of appear at this massive installation,
Speaker 1: which at first you don't realize that it's there because
Speaker 1: most of it is excavated underground. So then you kind
Speaker 1: of get into it and all of a sudden you
Speaker 1: realize that you're in something that doesn't look like anything
Speaker 1: you've ever seen before. Basically, it's utterly quiet because you're
Speaker 1: there totally by yourself. While I was walking through it,
Speaker 1: I began to figure out what the artist was trying
Speaker 1: to do, which is create a maximalist form of minimalism,
Speaker 1: which sounds sort of abstract, but in reality he was
Speaker 1: able to take the contours of the earth and create
Speaker 1: this kind of exquisite, almost three dimensional painting out of it.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the artists and and his history and
Speaker 1: land art. Yeah, so he is a progenitor of this.
Speaker 1: This is Michael. This is Michael Heiser. He is sort
Speaker 1: of a like a cowboy. A whole part of land
Speaker 1: art was like saying that New York gallleries were way
Speaker 1: too fancy and pop art with way too glitzy, and
Speaker 1: they wanted to kind of go back into nature and
Speaker 1: impress themselves upon the land. So, of course the New
Speaker 1: York galleries are paying for all of this, but let's
Speaker 1: not focus too much on that. But he dug these
Speaker 1: huge trenches in a mesa, and he's done these kind
Speaker 1: of concrete indentations in California. He's very much a person
Speaker 1: who not only places his own idea of minimalism on
Speaker 1: the land, but he gets people behind it, and he
Speaker 1: gets people to kind of get extremely excited about it
Speaker 1: and fund all of his crazy endeavors, and this is
Speaker 1: really the craziest of them all. Was there any risk
Speaker 1: that once you you took the trip, that there's a
Speaker 1: chance that you couldn't have gone to see it or
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have let you in the end. Actually, I
Speaker 1: was delayed a couple of days because it rained, which
Speaker 1: is an unusual thing, um, and it washed out the
Speaker 1: road and made it totally impassable. But no, once I
Speaker 1: had been kind of locked into going, it was all
Speaker 1: pre arranged. The thing was that they kept saying no
Speaker 1: for a really, really really long time until they finally
Speaker 1: said yes, and I called up Chris and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm getting on a plane. Can we go now? Or no?
Speaker 1: Good luck? Well. And so it costs very little, I
Speaker 1: think around a hundred and fifty dollars, and that's just
Speaker 1: for the cost of transportation that they provide for you. Um,
Speaker 1: But that's assumes that you're in Las Vegas, which is
Speaker 1: not necessarily the case. When it was announced that it
Speaker 1: was open to the public, around ten thousand people applied
Speaker 1: to visit in the first week. Um. It is very
Speaker 1: very sought after thing, and their whole attitude about it
Speaker 1: is that people should be able to have the experience
Speaker 1: that I had, which is this kind of quiet, solitary,
Speaker 1: multi hour long experience in it. And that means that
Speaker 1: they're really limiting how many people can come in at
Speaker 1: any time. Moreover, they don't let people in when it's
Speaker 1: bad weather, when it's raining, because they just can't get there.
Speaker 1: So you can go, but there's a bit of weight
Speaker 1: that you'll have to expect to be able to make.
Speaker 1: But the good news is it's there and it's not
Speaker 1: going anywhere. Well, speaking of something that's there, and finally
Speaker 1: back is the Venice bien l A. The long delay
Speaker 1: due to COVID, you got to go there as well.
Speaker 1: How were the themes this year in terms of, you know,
Speaker 1: how they're thinking about the year. Let me just say
Speaker 1: that the Venice bion l A is why I have
Speaker 1: stayed an art journalist. It is absolutely the most funds
Speaker 1: because they turn over the entire city of Venice to art.
Speaker 1: So you get to go into these private homes, you
Speaker 1: get to see all of the most cutting edge artworks
Speaker 1: which countries from around the world have brought. Um. You
Speaker 1: get to kind of trapes through the Jardini looking at
Speaker 1: these different pavilions filled with different national efforts. Um. It's
Speaker 1: a huge deal. And beyond it simply being fun, it's
Speaker 1: actually super, super, super important because what it does is
Speaker 1: it charged arts basically the way that the rest of
Speaker 1: the art world is going to go for the next
Speaker 1: several years. Um. It's a it's a way of seeing
Speaker 1: what's going to be next. So for a while, the
Speaker 1: art world had been really inward looking, or maybe not
Speaker 1: even inward looking in the art world itself, but inward
Speaker 1: looking on the people who are making the art. Very
Speaker 1: much about identity, politics, very much about nationality and background
Speaker 1: and biography. That has really begun to change, first to
Speaker 1: be kind of change in Venice, and now we're actually
Speaker 1: seeing it change in the art market itself. In Venice,
Speaker 1: it was all about the future. What it was about ecology,
Speaker 1: It was about climate change, very very interesting because it
Speaker 1: was trying to take an artistic perspective and really apply
Speaker 1: it to something that affects everyone. Um. And sometimes it
Speaker 1: was successful and sometimes it wasn't. But it was very
Speaker 1: different than what we've been seeing for a while. There
Speaker 1: is one story I want to get to that you did. Um.
Speaker 1: This past year, James, and I feel like this is
Speaker 1: near and dear also to Chris, and this has to
Speaker 1: do with watches, Southbyes, Pablo Picassos. So Chris, first of all,
Speaker 1: this story, I mean watches, you guys do a lot
Speaker 1: of coverage. We know you love them, um, but they
Speaker 1: have become quite the investment. Watches have had a kind
Speaker 1: of up and down year this year. Um. They became
Speaker 1: huge in the past couple of years on the secondary market,
Speaker 1: which is people buying pre owned watches online or at auction,
Speaker 1: and that was partially fueled by like the crypto craze.
Speaker 1: It was very much like a speculation sting and also
Speaker 1: a pride thing. Um. And prices have softened in the
Speaker 1: second half of the year, which is which is good,
Speaker 1: I think. But Christie's and Sotheby's and the other auction
Speaker 1: houses have really started focusing on luxury because the whole
Speaker 1: secondhand market, from bags to cars to watches to jewelry
Speaker 1: has really really boomed. And there you know, they don't
Speaker 1: make as much money on a particular piece, like a
Speaker 1: Protech is not going to go up for as much
Speaker 1: as a Picasso, but there's a lot more protexts out
Speaker 1: there than there are picassos, and it's easier to play
Speaker 1: a volume game with them. So James talked to the
Speaker 1: CEO of Southebys about their whole luxury strategy, which has
Speaker 1: really evolved in the past couple of years. It's interesting
Speaker 1: because for a while, quote unquote, luxury was something that
Speaker 1: was very much less than less prestigious, less interesting, less volume,
Speaker 1: less room for growth than art for a lot of
Speaker 1: these auction houses. And they realized relatively recently that actually
Speaker 1: this was a huge growth market that they could really
Speaker 1: tap into. And that coincided with, of course, a lot
Speaker 1: of people board at home during COVID buying stuff, and
Speaker 1: there was a supply shock. Right If everyone all of
Speaker 1: a sudden has extra money because they're not spending it
Speaker 1: on travel or restaurants, and everyone decides that, you know,
Speaker 1: they're going to treat themselves to a fancy watch, well
Speaker 1: there's only a finite number of fancy watches out there,
Speaker 1: as Chris can talk about. So ultimately auction has become
Speaker 1: a major beneficiary of people realizing that if they wanted
Speaker 1: a fancy watch, they were going to have to buy
Speaker 1: a used one, and that has become not only a
Speaker 1: source of growth for these auction houses, but a a
Speaker 1: real strategy for the way that these auction houses are
Speaker 1: charting their course over the next couple of years. You
Speaker 1: got to say, I can't wait for the coverage Pursuits
Speaker 1: coverage in the coming year. It's always a fun thing
Speaker 1: and love kind of sitting in here and just chatting
Speaker 1: with you guys all about it to looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us, Yeah, thank you. Happy New Year.
Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg Pursuits editor Chris Rouser, along with arts columnists
Speaker 1: James Tarmy. Another amazing year of work from the entire team, guys,
Speaker 1: and we really barely scratched the surface. Carrol, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: much there to cover. Check it all out online at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot com slash business Week. Our deepest thanks to Chris,
Speaker 1: James and all the other great individuals we get to
Speaker 1: work with. Jim Gaddy, Kate Crater, Hannah Elliott of course,
Speaker 1: are undercover reporter Brandon press Or, just to name a few.
Speaker 1: He's always worth a read, always worth of giggle. Uh
Speaker 1: And we just love reading your work and being able
Speaker 1: to bring it out to the world. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week coming up We wrap up our New
Speaker 1: Year's weekend programming with some final thoughts from the editor
Speaker 1: of the magazine, Joe Weber. This is Bloomberg. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stinovic
Speaker 1: from Bloomberg Radio. We brought up our New Year's holiday
Speaker 1: weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Weekend. With it, we want
Speaker 1: to bring back the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, Joel Weber.
Speaker 1: Joel so much. We talked about the Top China, we
Speaker 1: talked about Ellen, a lot of important stories from the
Speaker 1: past year. That wholely issue devoted to crypto. How are
Speaker 1: you thinking about three already? Look, I think we spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time talking about crypto this year, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that story is over. You know an
Speaker 1: interesting thing here. There was a cover story we did
Speaker 1: in the middle of the year about the Lehman Brothers saga.
Speaker 1: We are more than a decade after Lehman, We're still
Speaker 1: unwinding Lehman. And that story was about the consultants who
Speaker 1: come in and basically are squeezing every last dime out
Speaker 1: of the state of Lehman Brothers. Right, and here we
Speaker 1: are with Crypto. I don't know if it's gonna last
Speaker 1: ten more years to squeeze everything out that that was there,
Speaker 1: but we are going through something. This Crypto winter that
Speaker 1: we've been documenting all year culminates with the Crypto story
Speaker 1: by Matt Levin and the magazine covered cover issue, and
Speaker 1: in that time since then, look you've got the ft
Speaker 1: X implosion, You've got more quakes, and it just feels
Speaker 1: like this industry that has been growing for a decade,
Speaker 1: but now it sort of feels on far shakier ground.
Speaker 1: So I don't think we're nearly done covering crypto. Next year.
Speaker 1: As a business journalist, it excites me because there's gonna
Speaker 1: be much more to say, many more developments, and I
Speaker 1: don't begin to have a clue what those could look like,
Speaker 1: but we'll be there. But that also ties into I
Speaker 1: think another big topic here, which is the global economy
Speaker 1: and the American economy and what we're now living through
Speaker 1: in terms of interest race increases. It just speaks to
Speaker 1: what the economy we're all going to be talking about
Speaker 1: this more next year. And the R word recession is
Speaker 1: one that we've been talking about a lot, but like
Speaker 1: whether or not America falls into recession, if it manages
Speaker 1: to stay out of it, if there's the soft landing, Like,
Speaker 1: we're not nearly done talking about j PAL and the
Speaker 1: FED or inflation, right, So so that's gonna be a
Speaker 1: topic of conversation. And boy, I hope we get to
Speaker 1: talk about markets going up rather than down, because that
Speaker 1: was all we got to really do this year. So
Speaker 1: it's the short seller's calling and they're really ticked off
Speaker 1: at you. Well, that's I mean, that's my question though,
Speaker 1: and specifically about technology because if we think about sort
Speaker 1: of one change that we saw in two it was
Speaker 1: layoffs and Silicon Valley, the potential that tech sort of
Speaker 1: loses its mantle as being, you know, one of the
Speaker 1: main drivers and engines of this economy. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying it's gonna necessarily lose that, but it's it's not
Speaker 1: what it was in the era of low interest rates.
Speaker 1: Look like, I think we are having an existential moment
Speaker 1: right now. I don't think that the tech industry is
Speaker 1: going away anytime soon, but I do think the valuations
Speaker 1: that we saw, the lack of profitability that a lot
Speaker 1: of these companies have had, We're in a moment now
Speaker 1: where the when the cost of money becomes exponentially greater,
Speaker 1: the appetite for risk comes down, and our alli becomes
Speaker 1: a consideration that probably hasn't been when money was free.
Speaker 1: So I think we're just in a tough spot for
Speaker 1: a second, and it's going to challenge a lot of
Speaker 1: very smart people to really really push for things that matter.
Speaker 1: So I think the it's going to be an exciting
Speaker 1: time to watch. We're not nearly done with it. You
Speaker 1: think about some of the strides that had been made
Speaker 1: and where things like artificial intelligence could or could not go.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be a wonder It's a really exciting time
Speaker 1: to be alive and see where some of this stuff goes.
Speaker 1: And in general, I am an optimist, so I hope
Speaker 1: that we can have more sun and less clouds next year.
Speaker 1: But it also does speak to like back to the
Speaker 1: crypto idea um something that largely like what's it for again?
Speaker 1: You know, like, is that is that going to be
Speaker 1: a thing that can continue tender or are we in
Speaker 1: a much more rational, tangible version of reality. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the best parts of our job is getting to
Speaker 1: work with you each and every day. That's Bloomberg business.
Speaker 1: We get her Joel Weber, who is with us once again,
Speaker 1: a constant for us and the head of one of
Speaker 1: the best business publications in the world. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and say the best business publication. We love working
Speaker 1: with you and the team, and thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us this year. Happy New Year, Joel, Thank you.
Speaker 1: And that wraps up the weekend edition, our holiday weekend edition,
Speaker 1: our New Year's edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Carol Masser
Speaker 1: and I'm Tim Stanovik. Be sure to tune into Bloomberg
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