Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovk. We're here every day bringing
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Speaker 1: search Bloomberg Global News. There's a fair amount of COVID
Speaker 1: and vaccine headlines. Once again Novavax's vaccine candidate showing strong
Speaker 1: efficacy against the virus, including some of those mutated variants.
Speaker 1: That was a large trial, and we have also those
Speaker 1: saw the uk UH in terms of their lockdown they
Speaker 1: extended or expected to announce. I don't think it's happened
Speaker 1: yet or did Borce Johnson do it a four week
Speaker 1: extension into pandemic restrictions beyond June. Because of that surge
Speaker 1: in that delta variant, we are all focused on that
Speaker 1: variant yeah, Well, let's get right into it with dr
Speaker 1: Iman Abuse Aid co founder and CEO of Incredible Health,
Speaker 1: joins us once again from San Francisco. Dr abbuside, it's
Speaker 1: great to have you back on the show. Um, how
Speaker 1: have you been. I'm doing well. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. Well, let's get right into it. And
Speaker 1: because we are getting some mixed signals from around the world.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, we're getting more great data about
Speaker 1: vaccines here in the United States and more and more
Speaker 1: people getting vaccinated. But you have a unique position as
Speaker 1: being on the front lines essentially because of of what
Speaker 1: you do of being a career marketplace for connecting hospitals
Speaker 1: to nursing talent. So we always love to get a
Speaker 1: update from you about how your employees, how the nursing
Speaker 1: talent is feeling right now, what's the latest that you're seeing. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: certainly in many parts of the country there's some relief
Speaker 1: right particularly where vaccination rates are very high, like at
Speaker 1: California as one example, Washington State as well. Um, However,
Speaker 1: the nursing shortage and our our shortage of healthcare workers
Speaker 1: in this country continues, um as as a demand for
Speaker 1: health for you know, for their work continuing to rise. Um,
Speaker 1: we are seeing an all time high in terms of
Speaker 1: demand for for nursing and hellm, how bad is it
Speaker 1: dr abuse in terms of demand. Give us an idea
Speaker 1: and how it compares with where we were pre pandemic um.
Speaker 1: It has probably the demand has probably increased by at
Speaker 1: least thirty or for the pandemic um. What's specifically different, Yeah,
Speaker 1: ahead in a few metrics. So one is that we're
Speaker 1: seeing that nurse turnover, So nurses quitting um has gone up.
Speaker 1: It used to be seventeen annually. That's an annual turnover
Speaker 1: that has gone up to more like two percent now.
Speaker 1: And then the other big change we're seeing is the
Speaker 1: days to fill, So the number of times that the
Speaker 1: amount of days it takes to higher a nurse has
Speaker 1: extended from the eighty two day average to closer than
Speaker 1: ninety days now on average across the country. You know,
Speaker 1: it's so it's it's so interesting. I'm just thinking. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the Federal Reserve. We talked about the idea
Speaker 1: of things being transitory chip shortages, shipping container shortages, and
Speaker 1: demand exceeding supply. Right now we're seeing the same thing
Speaker 1: when it comes specifically to to nursing talent. And I
Speaker 1: wonder what this solution is here, Dr Apps. Is it
Speaker 1: all about it? Is it about raising wages? Is about
Speaker 1: paying paying these nurses more? Yeah, so certainly that's already
Speaker 1: been happening. Wages over the last twelve months have increased
Speaker 1: over twelve percent UM, which is a big which is
Speaker 1: a big increase in the twelve month period UM. And
Speaker 1: then there's two you know, there's two issues to resolve here.
Speaker 1: One of the improving the efficiency of hiring and the
Speaker 1: second is increasing the underlying supply. UM. On the efficiency piece,
Speaker 1: we're like seeing that a lot more hospitals and healthy
Speaker 1: spines are embracing any kind of technology and marketplace technology
Speaker 1: that that can UM that is to their advantage. Right. So, well,
Speaker 1: what we're seeing if we've just hit an exciting milestone
Speaker 1: ourselves in our mission where we're partnering with over of
Speaker 1: the best hospitals on the US News and World Report
Speaker 1: list UM and that's very rapid growth for a team,
Speaker 1: that for a company that only just started a couple
Speaker 1: a few years ago, and that's UM. We've just seen
Speaker 1: a substantial increase in growth in the last eighteen months.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned also increasing supply, and I do wonder
Speaker 1: who typically becomes nurses, and I do wonder in terms
Speaker 1: of immigration restraints, is that part of the problem. It is,
Speaker 1: so you know that the underlying supply shortage is has
Speaker 1: is a multi fascinate problem. Um. First, first and foremost,
Speaker 1: we can't act. We're struggling to train more nurses. So
Speaker 1: nursing schools are completely full. Um. There they have very
Speaker 1: long waitlists because they simply can't get in more faculty
Speaker 1: to train more nurses. Um. And so there's a bottleneck there.
Speaker 1: There's another bottleneck happening after nursing school where not enough
Speaker 1: hospitals and healthystons are willing to train nurses new graduate nurses.
Speaker 1: Um and so there's another bottle neck there. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: to your point, there is an an integration bottleneck as well.
Speaker 1: In the past we were able to really welcome nurses
Speaker 1: from all over the world. That's become much more challenging
Speaker 1: as um. You know, the US immigration and rules have changed.
Speaker 1: And also, to be honest, I mean in the U
Speaker 1: S we have a nursing shortage, but there's also a
Speaker 1: global nursing shortage going on as well. That's what I
Speaker 1: was curious if this is U S specific or if
Speaker 1: this is very similar what's happening around the globe. It's
Speaker 1: happening across across the globe. I know you just mentioned
Speaker 1: the UK and new challenges. They have the exact same,
Speaker 1: exact same challenges that we have here in the US.
Speaker 1: As the CEO of this company, Dr Apps, I'm wondering
Speaker 1: how you're thinking about when this gets resolved. What's your timeline? Um,
Speaker 1: there is It's it's perpetual. I mean, there is no
Speaker 1: timeline for how this gets for for this getting resolved.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a multi faceted problem problem. We're gonna
Speaker 1: need some government intervention. We're ne gonna need hospital and
Speaker 1: health system leaders to take the initiative. We're gonna need
Speaker 1: nursing schools to step up as well, and we're going
Speaker 1: to really have to make nursing as a profession as
Speaker 1: well the other healthcare worker professions appear more attractive UM
Speaker 1: and to attract more and more people into those professions.
Speaker 1: How do we do that? Is it just money or
Speaker 1: is it something more than that. It's it's emphasizing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is this is for the amount of education you
Speaker 1: need to become a nurse, which isn't too many it's
Speaker 1: not too many years. UM. The average pay for a
Speaker 1: nurse in the US right now is eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: In states like California and New York, it's definitely well
Speaker 1: over a hundred thousand dollars annually. So this can be
Speaker 1: a lucrative career for for for you know, maybe only
Speaker 1: three or four years of education. UM. And so we
Speaker 1: definitely need to promote the career a little bit more
Speaker 1: and really um make the appear the career, emphasizing the
Speaker 1: mission of the career too. I mean, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, that care deeply about patient care and
Speaker 1: taking care of people, and that is the ultimate driver
Speaker 1: for why UH individuals enter the nurse and profession and
Speaker 1: other healthcare worker contessionals. What are the changes that you've
Speaker 1: had to make an incredible health as a results of
Speaker 1: this shortage, UM, We've had to really just emphasize operation
Speaker 1: efficiency of hiring. We've had to add, you know, first
Speaker 1: of all, add lots of features that automate the interview scheduling,
Speaker 1: that provide data analytics that help identify any bottlenecks, and
Speaker 1: really really have built quite a little lot of software
Speaker 1: to improve the efficiency of the hiring and then on
Speaker 1: the talent side, we really have to add a whole
Speaker 1: range of features and tools for nurses beyond just getting
Speaker 1: a job. UM. So we've become the place where they're
Speaker 1: managing their career, things like free continuing education for the nurses.
Speaker 1: We've had to add mental health services as well as
Speaker 1: a community for nurses inside our inside the Incredible Health
Speaker 1: apps as well. UM. That's really been paying off. You know,
Speaker 1: over fifty of hospital beds in both Texas and California
Speaker 1: or facilities that use Incredible Health to hire permanent nurses,
Speaker 1: and in some cities like the l A area, in
Speaker 1: the Dallas area, it's almost seventy percent of hospital beds
Speaker 1: are using are using our platform. You know you mentioned
Speaker 1: UM the milestone for you folks about now UM participating
Speaker 1: in over sixty of the top hospitals in the United States.
Speaker 1: And there's a stat you shared with our producer Paul
Speaker 1: Brennon hospital send an interview request every four minutes UM
Speaker 1: their platform, flipping this raftin giving healthcare workers and precedent
Speaker 1: and control over their careers, but an interview request every
Speaker 1: four minutes on the platform. So talk about that is
Speaker 1: wild demand, dr Aposide, It really is. I mean there's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, so every four minutes, another interview request is
Speaker 1: being sent from from an employer to a two talent
Speaker 1: on the platform. UM. And we've really had to, you know,
Speaker 1: step up our operations and make sure that you know,
Speaker 1: both the talent and the employers are having a very
Speaker 1: delightful experience on the platform. And you're right, we are
Speaker 1: seeing more demand than we would have ever expected. UM.
Speaker 1: And the other thing is the product works. I mean,
Speaker 1: we we do very you know, we do an effective
Speaker 1: job of ensuring that hiring happens rapidly as well. Dr Episade.
Speaker 1: One last question here wondering about the patient experience. If
Speaker 1: we're having so much trouble getting nurses, how does that
Speaker 1: translate into what patients experience in the hospital. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: does translate very directly, honestly. When so when a unit
Speaker 1: is understaffed, we see healthcare outcomes drop. So the quality
Speaker 1: of Jerry Cross UM, and so that is something that
Speaker 1: every um, gosh, every every single person on the executive
Speaker 1: team in a hostel or health system is concerned with.
Speaker 1: And so UM, they've there's several different initiatives that base
Speaker 1: put in place in order to kind of mitigate that, um,
Speaker 1: they've added more support staff. So so beyond nurses, you know,
Speaker 1: there's other types of staff that you can add that
Speaker 1: can do some of the kind of lower skill work, um,
Speaker 1: in order to enable nurses to operate at the top
Speaker 1: of their license. UM. But it's definitely, it's definitely a
Speaker 1: challenge that every executive across across the country is facing
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah, this is not a group that's you know,
Speaker 1: we know they've already been stressed and certainly would like
Speaker 1: to lighten the load. Uh, certainly in today's environment. Dr
Speaker 1: Iman abuse Aide, thank you so much. Dr Abuse, great
Speaker 1: to have you back with us. She's co founder and
Speaker 1: chief executive officer at Incredible Health. Joining us once again
Speaker 1: on the phone from San Francisco. You're listening to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim
Speaker 1: Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Among our most stories on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg in fact, I think it might be the number
Speaker 1: one most read story. Who's going back to work exactly?
Speaker 1: And you know what the return to office among the
Speaker 1: Wall Street community. You know, everybody's not saying the same tune. Tim,
Speaker 1: They're certainly not. Some banks are moving faster than others. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: we have Sally Bakewell, Finance team leader here at Bloomberg News,
Speaker 1: joining us right here with us in the Bloomberg Interactive
Speaker 1: Broker Studio. Sally, it's great to have you on the show.
Speaker 1: Let's start with Goldman Sachs, because today is a big
Speaker 1: day for him. Yeah, it is a big day. And
Speaker 1: we have one of our reporters, Shinali Bassack, down there
Speaker 1: today as the employees streamed in in the drizzling rain. Um.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a tale of two wool streets really,
Speaker 1: because we have Goldman on the one hand that's been
Speaker 1: incredibly ambitious. It wanted everyone back by today. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know there was a bit of fan fast surrounding.
Speaker 1: It had food trucks, there was music, There are coffee machines.
Speaker 1: They're trying to create this very welcoming, exciting atmosphere. They
Speaker 1: have interns coming into right, so I bet it's trying
Speaker 1: to welcome them and make them feel good exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: But then on the other hand you have City Group,
Speaker 1: which taking a slightly more flexible approach. Employees don't have
Speaker 1: to be back in their HQ until July, and even
Speaker 1: when they do return that they're going to be able
Speaker 1: to work on under a flexible schedule. I wonder about
Speaker 1: specifically about what it means for morale and and and
Speaker 1: having employees back in there in some places after being
Speaker 1: a part for fourteen sixteen months in some cases, and
Speaker 1: at the same time Sally where we've heard that so
Speaker 1: many of them have been uh working a lot. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I think Goldman is interesting here because, um I heard
Speaker 1: today that seventy percent of staff are either millennial or
Speaker 1: under thirty. So perhaps the family issue isn't such a
Speaker 1: big issue there, and so it's maybe a bit easier
Speaker 1: for some people to come back, but of course for
Speaker 1: a lot of other people. Um as well as the
Speaker 1: morale issue, and you know this kind of psychological shift
Speaker 1: from being virtual to being in the office. You also
Speaker 1: have the addition childcare element. And perhaps you know City
Speaker 1: is now under Jane Fraser, and just going to ask
Speaker 1: you that I do wonder it with Jane Fraser at
Speaker 1: the top of a City group, whether there's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a different perspective there. It's very interesting question.
Speaker 1: I mean, this has got to be one of the
Speaker 1: biggest decisions for her in her new gig, and so
Speaker 1: how she handles it and what she's done is a
Speaker 1: real differentiator. UM. And you know she she's a brand
Speaker 1: new CEO on a on a Wall Street that's generally
Speaker 1: been white dudes UM for so long. So it does,
Speaker 1: but you know she's charting slightly different course here. The
Speaker 1: thing that I wonder, and I think we've done some
Speaker 1: reporting on this, is all of the all it's going
Speaker 1: to take is for one Wall Street firm to get
Speaker 1: the deal because there was a face to face meeting
Speaker 1: that somebody else didn't do because they were embracing hybrid
Speaker 1: and then I feel like everybody's going to say we
Speaker 1: want you back in the office. Is that I don't know,
Speaker 1: Like what's the conversations around that. I think I recall
Speaker 1: Diamond even saying something to that. You know that they
Speaker 1: have lost out on deals because of the lack of fate,
Speaker 1: face to face interaction. So it's definitely I think it's
Speaker 1: definitely going to be a factor that they'll try to
Speaker 1: mediate and try to avoid. But there is perhaps part
Speaker 1: of the striking of the deal where that really matters
Speaker 1: in and preference will go to those interactions right. Well, Look,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons we talked about this a lot
Speaker 1: in what the banks are doing is because the health
Speaker 1: of the finance industry is inextricably tied to the health
Speaker 1: of New York City and the economics of New York
Speaker 1: City and the economy of New York City. And in
Speaker 1: this story by your own Jenny Serene, she talks about
Speaker 1: how a significant portion of New York City's economy relies
Speaker 1: on the finance industry. There directly or indirectly take us
Speaker 1: into how important it is for these people to be
Speaker 1: back in office is when it comes to the city's health,
Speaker 1: super important. And I think Shinali was telling me earlier that, um,
Speaker 1: there were local vendors who noted the employees going into
Speaker 1: the building and we're asking them, how long are you
Speaker 1: going to stay? You open for good? How long you
Speaker 1: staying open? Because it's such a huge force, huge commercial
Speaker 1: force and business force for them. So each one of
Speaker 1: these banks that they have this ecosystem around them which
Speaker 1: is a very um and they're a very powerful force
Speaker 1: in the economy. Well, and it's interesting too that this
Speaker 1: comes on a day where JP Morgan, Jamie Diamond came
Speaker 1: out and talked about wanting of a bigger trading revenue
Speaker 1: drop after the pandemic boom, and you know, he's he
Speaker 1: felt like he was touching upon, you know, the competition
Speaker 1: amongst some of the fintech startups and just whether or
Speaker 1: not competing with it. So, you know, I wonder what
Speaker 1: he's trying to do, whether it's to be like, listen, folks,
Speaker 1: we are to be back at work figuring out, strategizing,
Speaker 1: you know, what's next, because there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: coming at us. Absolutely, and actually was quite interesting what
Speaker 1: he said today about their trading revenue. They're expecting it
Speaker 1: and Gorman echoed the sentiment they're expecting it to be
Speaker 1: to be to drop or not to have the gangbusters
Speaker 1: feel that they had in the first quarter. Um, but
Speaker 1: with that was something it was expected, and I think
Speaker 1: Diamond was perhaps quite clever in that he said that,
Speaker 1: Um he kind of reset expectations a bit in a
Speaker 1: way that means they will probably still um not due
Speaker 1: too badly next to analyst predictions. UM. So it was
Speaker 1: a kind of you know, reset expectations a bit about
Speaker 1: their numbers for the second quarter. So how are other
Speaker 1: banks thinking about the summer right now and potentially getting
Speaker 1: people back by Labor Day. Um. So we had Gorman
Speaker 1: Morgan Stanley CEO today saying that they would be disappointed
Speaker 1: if people aren't back by Labor Day. This was Goldman, sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: And um we have Bank of America said says that
Speaker 1: it's asking it's UM employees that are vaccinated to start
Speaker 1: coming back and giving them thirty days notice. So I
Speaker 1: think there is a kind of expectation that Labor Day
Speaker 1: perhaps is where everyone's galvanizing around. Well, I think it's
Speaker 1: important for a couple of reasons. One is returned to school,
Speaker 1: and people who work for these companies who have kids
Speaker 1: and child care has been such I speak as a parent,
Speaker 1: childcare has been such an issue over the last fourteen
Speaker 1: fifteen months, I mean as as schools have been closed.
Speaker 1: And I wonder about flexibility on the other side, and
Speaker 1: you alluded to Jane Fraser, but I'm wondering if there
Speaker 1: is going to be some sort of see change in
Speaker 1: the way that these companies think about work life balance.
Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about balance and I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like you know, being a parent and also being an employee.
Speaker 1: I think it will be what it will be as
Speaker 1: a really interesting leverage element. So depending on what you
Speaker 1: do in the bank, maybe that gives you more leverage
Speaker 1: to be more flexible. Um. There are certain jobs, we know,
Speaker 1: the trading floor, where it will be more difficult perhaps
Speaker 1: to um be a kind of work from home or
Speaker 1: hybrid employee, but I think it will. It would be
Speaker 1: really interesting how that does settles which rank ranks of
Speaker 1: staff are able to kind of get the flexibility that
Speaker 1: they one, and which actually find that they don't, they're
Speaker 1: not afforded it and they want to move elsewhere, And
Speaker 1: that kind of thing we might see in September when
Speaker 1: a lot of these policies really hit flost into place.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is is just that these banks did
Speaker 1: really well during the pandemic, right, even with everybody working
Speaker 1: at home. They were really productive. But yet we're on
Speaker 1: the other side and things are changing, right, and so
Speaker 1: maybe the differences between firms could give someone an advantage
Speaker 1: of another. Possibly. Yeah, I think that's an excellent point,
Speaker 1: and we'll we'll definitely see that play out. And I
Speaker 1: feel like there's a divide between what's going on in
Speaker 1: Wall Street versus corporate community. Overall, no one knows what
Speaker 1: answer is no, that is that is so clear exactly, Sally.
Speaker 1: Good stuff, great stuff. Thank you so much, Sally Big
Speaker 1: while she's our Finance team leader of Bloomberg News, joining
Speaker 1: us in our Interactive Broker studio. This is Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: Carl Master along with Tim Stanovik in our Interactive Broker Studio.
Speaker 1: Top of mind for us this Monday, and especially as
Speaker 1: we wait to hear from President Biden from Brussels this
Speaker 1: weekend's gathering at the leaders of the world's richest economies.
Speaker 1: What needs to be top of mind really for them?
Speaker 1: And here to get into it is Bloomberg New Economy
Speaker 1: Editorial Director Andy brown Out with his latest column. He
Speaker 1: joins us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. Andy. They
Speaker 1: talked about a lot of things, but you really kind
Speaker 1: of whittle it down to what they really need to
Speaker 1: be concerned with. Talk to us about this, So we
Speaker 1: need to be concerned about vaccines, And it looked like
Speaker 1: they were concerned about vaccines, and they are concerned about vaccines.
Speaker 1: But they fallen short. They promised a billion additional vaccines
Speaker 1: to the developing world, and this it was a big,
Speaker 1: deliberately big splashy number, and it was meant to signal
Speaker 1: the superiority over the of the free market democratic system
Speaker 1: over the autocracies of China and Russia. And the reality
Speaker 1: is they came up short. They didn't have a billion
Speaker 1: new vaccines. They actually had six hundred million. And the
Speaker 1: US came out of this the best looking, the best
Speaker 1: it's it's kicked in five million, UK kicks in one million,
Speaker 1: and the rest was sort of sort of calum it
Speaker 1: up through creative accounting, accounting all of the existing pledges,
Speaker 1: both of doses and of money. But a billion is
Speaker 1: not enough. Yeah, we're a world round eight times that,
Speaker 1: so we need more than that. Um. You point out
Speaker 1: in your peace andy statistic from the Economists to notes
Speaker 1: that uh, seventy percent, or that I should say that
Speaker 1: magazine argues that rich nations are passing up the deal
Speaker 1: of the century. That's that's a quote from the Economist. Um,
Speaker 1: seventy percent of the world to get vaccinated, only fifty
Speaker 1: billion dollars. That's not much money, right, It is not
Speaker 1: much money. So you know what they should have said
Speaker 1: at the meeting in Cornwall is we're the world's richest countries.
Speaker 1: We are just going to underwrite this entire effort, whatever
Speaker 1: it takes, and we will lobby in however many doses
Speaker 1: it is required, because it's in everybody's best interests, including us.
Speaker 1: The I m F says that and the accelerated vaccine
Speaker 1: UH campaign would add something like seven trillion dollars to
Speaker 1: the global economy, four trillion to rich countries. Right, So
Speaker 1: that's why the economy says this is the deal of
Speaker 1: the century, and and it looks it looks like they've
Speaker 1: turned it down. So Andy, it's you know, above and beyond,
Speaker 1: it's the right thing to do right for the developed
Speaker 1: world to help out the developing world. We've talked with
Speaker 1: was it Joseph Steglenn talked specifically about this as well
Speaker 1: on our air. But it's just it's also there's an
Speaker 1: economic cost by this delay, and we continue to talk
Speaker 1: about this being it's a global health pandemic and it
Speaker 1: doesn't know borders, and if we don't eradicate it, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. It's going to kind of stay within our world. Look,
Speaker 1: we don't even know what this cost me. The cost
Speaker 1: could be astronomical. What would happen if it already costs?
Speaker 1: But what's going to happen if if if we get
Speaker 1: a variant that renders the existing vaccines ineffective, and then
Speaker 1: we're all back to square one again? Right, Exactly where
Speaker 1: does China come into this? Because there was a Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week story a few weeks ago that talked about
Speaker 1: the way that many of the countries that were not
Speaker 1: contributing to the vaccine effort around the world are missing
Speaker 1: out because China is stepping in and saying, here, use
Speaker 1: our vaccine. It is but you know, their vaccines aren't
Speaker 1: as effective. They're just quite simply not as good as
Speaker 1: Visor and Madonna and Astra Zeneca. And they've got one
Speaker 1: point for billion people that they need to vaccinate to.
Speaker 1: So the world can't count on China to rescue them.
Speaker 1: It's going to be there in the end. It's going
Speaker 1: to be the rich world that's gonna that that is
Speaker 1: going to have to come in way, way bigger. We're
Speaker 1: talking about billions of vaccines and not one billion. Well,
Speaker 1: and this what's interesting to you have a quote in
Speaker 1: your story from the Deputy General Secretary General excuse me,
Speaker 1: of the United Nations who said this to the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal. This has become the inequality of virus. It's
Speaker 1: something we have talked about so much over the past year.
Speaker 1: And if we don't even get this right in terms
Speaker 1: of getting vaccines out, I mean, those gaps just widen
Speaker 1: even further and it takes a long time to kind
Speaker 1: of regain ground. This is a genuine catastrophe. I mean,
Speaker 1: it unwinds so many of the gains that the emerging
Speaker 1: world has made over the last forty fifty years, which
Speaker 1: has resulted in hundreds of millions of people being lifted
Speaker 1: out of poverty, and now you're seeing a hundred million
Speaker 1: or more people being plunged back into poverty. Is it
Speaker 1: too late? It's not too late, but it needs to
Speaker 1: happen now. And this was the other problem that came
Speaker 1: out of Calm Well, that that these vaccine supplies were
Speaker 1: promised in the future, sometime into next year, and of
Speaker 1: course the pandemic is ripping right now through India and
Speaker 1: could rip through Africa. Do we know why the priority
Speaker 1: seems to have shifted? Do we know why that the
Speaker 1: United States, which originally had talked about helping with a
Speaker 1: goal such as this, Why and why other developed nations
Speaker 1: aren't stepping up? Well, of course they prioritize domestic populations,
Speaker 1: which of course every country, every country can and and
Speaker 1: and should do. But and and and look, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to I want to hit out at
Speaker 1: the United States. I mean, it's it's done better than
Speaker 1: any other country, right, five hundred million. But the fact
Speaker 1: is that they have been vaccinated. You're now vaccinating younger
Speaker 1: people in rich in rich countries when the vaccination program
Speaker 1: hasn't even begun. I mean, Haiti hasn't had one vaccine, right,
Speaker 1: So we're talking about emergency work as elderly people in
Speaker 1: the emerging world that are completely defenseless, while younger people
Speaker 1: who are less susceptible to the virus are being vaccinated
Speaker 1: in rich countries. This is the kind of inequality that
Speaker 1: the United Nations has been talking about. This is what
Speaker 1: I want to ask you. You know, this is part
Speaker 1: of the problem. Going back to almost day one, right,
Speaker 1: it was like everybody is thinking about their own country
Speaker 1: and Andy, you know, we talked about that there needed
Speaker 1: to be a global response to this, and that we
Speaker 1: could have said, all right, the most vulnerable globally, let's
Speaker 1: do them first. We didn't do any of that. And again,
Speaker 1: does it just go back to we weren't together as
Speaker 1: a as a global community in terms of dealing with this.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right, and it makes it really
Speaker 1: worried about you know, if the world can't pull together
Speaker 1: against this pandemic, what about the even greater threat of
Speaker 1: climate change in terms of getting that done? So where
Speaker 1: do we go from here? I mean, is there as
Speaker 1: you know? Timid asked, is this are we too late? Um?
Speaker 1: How do we ramp up? What can developed nations do?
Speaker 1: At this point? The big debate now is around intellectual
Speaker 1: property protection. The World Health Organization and others have been
Speaker 1: calling for rich countries to waive i P protections for
Speaker 1: vaccines so that you can start getting production ramped up
Speaker 1: in the developing well. Joe Biden has come out behind this,
Speaker 1: got a lot of criticism, had got a lot of
Speaker 1: got a lot of criticisms to him. It looks like
Speaker 1: Angelo markel uh in Germany's block this this The G
Speaker 1: seven statement talked about ramping up manufacturing in poorer countries,
Speaker 1: but it didn't address this this issue of IP transfer.
Speaker 1: What's the best economic argument for the world to get
Speaker 1: together and vaccinate the parts of the world that don't
Speaker 1: have access. Well, it's it's it's just as as as
Speaker 1: Carol says, the pandemic doesn't end until everybody has been vaccinated. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's in everybody's economic interest and it's a moral
Speaker 1: imperative of course to get that process started immediately. I
Speaker 1: do wonder when we get on the other side of this,
Speaker 1: whenever the heck that will be andy? Do we walk away?
Speaker 1: I mean, what you folks do at New Economy, You
Speaker 1: have these global conversations, right, and often these problems are identified,
Speaker 1: we know where they are, what needs to be done,
Speaker 1: and yet here we are, you know, still to some extent,
Speaker 1: dealing in crisis mode. So how do we fix this?
Speaker 1: What do the smart voices say? You know it? In
Speaker 1: the end, I'm afraid what happened at the G seven
Speaker 1: doesn't give us much much faith that the world is
Speaker 1: going to fix this. I mean, these are the world's richest,
Speaker 1: most powerful countries, you know. And and the interesting thing
Speaker 1: was that China halved over this whole. Everything they talked
Speaker 1: about was sort of you know, China was behind it,
Speaker 1: and here they are coming out to say, you know,
Speaker 1: we democracies, you know, the free market economies, we've got
Speaker 1: the answers, and you know what an opportunity right now.
Speaker 1: They could and should have come out and said, we're
Speaker 1: gonna do this. We're gonna get this done. We're going
Speaker 1: to vaccinate the world, right, that's how we're going to
Speaker 1: demonstrate this, and it's in their power to do it. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, they have the technology, they have the vaccines,
Speaker 1: they certainly have the money, and they kind of felt
Speaker 1: came up short. So wait just one more time, because
Speaker 1: I know we're so why aren't they? Like to me,
Speaker 1: it's a no brainer, right, And it's like I said,
Speaker 1: you know, it's morally the right thing to do. Why
Speaker 1: aren't they Lack of vision, lack of will, lack of
Speaker 1: political purpose, all of the above. Politics a big thing
Speaker 1: in terms of domestic politics for each of these folks
Speaker 1: back at home. That's that's that's certainly part of it.
Speaker 1: Look off to number one, Andy, Just from a logistical
Speaker 1: point of view, I'm wondering about the number of vaccines
Speaker 1: that that companies can actually produce right now without actually
Speaker 1: transferring the intellectual property. UM is it something that's feasible
Speaker 1: within the next you know, X number of months, given
Speaker 1: the availability of vaccine, given what we know about how
Speaker 1: quickly companies can manufacture them, and given what we know
Speaker 1: about distribution, Like, what's a realistic way to think about this?
Speaker 1: If if the United States and other G seven nations
Speaker 1: were to go to commit to getting the world vaccinated? Well,
Speaker 1: there are there, there are, There are dozens of vaccines
Speaker 1: in the pipeline. We just heard today about the test
Speaker 1: results of another incredibly positive I think it was like
Speaker 1: effect the novovax vaccines. So you know, we we've we've
Speaker 1: got a lot coming into the pipeline. The question is
Speaker 1: equitable distribution of what we have right? Well? And I
Speaker 1: think which kind of shocks me is I feel like
Speaker 1: all along the past year we kind of knew where
Speaker 1: this was going, right, We had these conversations last year,
Speaker 1: what about the developing world? You know, you have millions
Speaker 1: billions of people, uh, and you look at Africa, you
Speaker 1: look at India, you look at emerging Latin America. What
Speaker 1: were we going to do? We knew that this was
Speaker 1: going to be a problem. Yeah, Africa, Africa could be
Speaker 1: the next problem. I mean, they seem to have sort
Speaker 1: of miraculously escaped. So we don't quite know why, but
Speaker 1: right well, I will. The last thing I'll say is
Speaker 1: it also speaks the importance of having a single dose
Speaker 1: shot because if you think about the respective of and
Speaker 1: look again, I only know what what I know and
Speaker 1: what I experienced here in the US, But I was
Speaker 1: helping relatives figure out how to use the websites to
Speaker 1: schedule their vaccines. UM. We were, you know, taking time
Speaker 1: off of work to go to the second dose UM.
Speaker 1: And it speaks to the importance of having a single
Speaker 1: shot to be able to do this in an effective
Speaker 1: way if you don't have so much of the world
Speaker 1: actually having that technology. Right well, it's a very thoughtful column,
Speaker 1: and you know, here we are. We kind of knew
Speaker 1: we were going to get there, but it's upsetting to see,
Speaker 1: especially after the G seven meeting where you thought this
Speaker 1: was the perfect environment for them to all come together. Andy,
Speaker 1: thank you as always, Andy Andy Brown. He's our editorial
Speaker 1: director of Bloomberg New Economy Inner Interactive Brokers Studio. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Joining us now
Speaker 1: is Joel Weber, editor a Bloomberg business Week, also Lucas Shaw,
Speaker 1: entertainment reporter at Bloomberg News. Lucas, you have a fantastic,
Speaker 1: fantastic feature available in the current issue of Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week magazine you can get on news stands now in
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash business Week. It's called The
Speaker 1: King of Cards. Tell Us Lucas who is Ken Golden Golden.
Speaker 1: Ken Golden is a lifelong sports collectibles enthusiast hobbyist who
Speaker 1: started electing cards and other collectibles when he was a
Speaker 1: twelve year old kid in in South New Jersey. He
Speaker 1: now runs what is the largest independent auction house for
Speaker 1: sports collectibles and trading cards. Uh and the house that
Speaker 1: so far this year has broken a new record for
Speaker 1: sales just about every month. He's been doing this for
Speaker 1: some time, correct. Yeah, he started Golden Auctions in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve. He saw, coming out of the global recession
Speaker 1: in No. Seven or oh eight, that there was an
Speaker 1: interest in investing in alternative assets and that trading cards
Speaker 1: would be one of those places that that all these
Speaker 1: people with excess cash would put their money. But the
Speaker 1: business has really taken off over the last twelve eighteen months,
Speaker 1: so much so that they had a recent auction right
Speaker 1: and crashed the site. Is that right? Yeah? There has
Speaker 1: been he works at this coming on simple auctions dot com.
Speaker 1: And because Golden is such kind of a shameless self
Speaker 1: promoter and has attracted so much attention, there are hackers
Speaker 1: that frequently have attacked the site during his auctions. Let's
Speaker 1: bring in Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Weber, who joins
Speaker 1: us now on the access line from Brooklyn. Joel, why
Speaker 1: do you think that that that this type of asset
Speaker 1: right now? I mean, look, Lucas said, it's it's been
Speaker 1: having a moment over the last twelve years, but why
Speaker 1: over the last year, over the last sixteen months, has
Speaker 1: it really been having a moment. I think people are
Speaker 1: craving um assets that are are slightly alternative, right, and
Speaker 1: I think like even things like memestock sort of have
Speaker 1: shown that so as we did in that cover story
Speaker 1: um just a couple of months ago about sneakers being
Speaker 1: yet another place if if you can flip something and
Speaker 1: make a buck, h have fun doing it. H I
Speaker 1: think all of that stuff suddenly starts to resonate in
Speaker 1: newfound ways when you know many people have too much
Speaker 1: time on their hands. Um. You know the question I
Speaker 1: have for you, Lucas is, um, how much are all
Speaker 1: these baseball cards from my childhood worth film? You know?
Speaker 1: It depends on what kind of condition they're in? Are
Speaker 1: if are they have you had them graded? Are they
Speaker 1: essay eight or above? No? I have not emims grated. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think there's um, it's a lot of like
Speaker 1: maybe don notdingly seven tops cards. I will say it's
Speaker 1: distressed me how much? Now? I think I could probably
Speaker 1: look at a card and analyze all the tiny little
Speaker 1: flaws in it. Because I had Ken sit down with
Speaker 1: me one day to talk me through these, Like we
Speaker 1: had ten Michael Jordan's rookie cards graded one to ten,
Speaker 1: and I actually it was very easy to spot the
Speaker 1: defects at the lower end. Seeing the difference between what
Speaker 1: the p s A eight and a p S A
Speaker 1: ten seems pretty arbitrary to me. Okay, so a grade
Speaker 1: ten is in the example in your piece from Michael
Speaker 1: Jordan's Michael to Michael Jordan example, a grade ten is
Speaker 1: four hundred and eighty thousand dollars versus a Grade eight
Speaker 1: that would be just eleven thousand, six hundred to twelve
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. Not to mention if you go all the
Speaker 1: way down to a Grade one, which is poor condition,
Speaker 1: U under two three dollars. Lucas. Yeah, there's a huge
Speaker 1: range in prices, uh, you know, all of which is
Speaker 1: determined by these third party grading companies. P s A
Speaker 1: is the number one, but there's also back at those others.
Speaker 1: They have been so overwhelmed by demand this year because
Speaker 1: of people probably like Joel, trying to get their cards graded,
Speaker 1: that they stopped grading new cards for a period. P
Speaker 1: s A has sworn to me that they're hoping by
Speaker 1: July to be back up and running fully. Hey, listen,
Speaker 1: I want to understand how this story came to be,
Speaker 1: so Joel, what was the pict or how did it like?
Speaker 1: How did it come especially start like this with a
Speaker 1: character like this, As with so many things, it starts
Speaker 1: with Lucas and I talking about something else, and then
Speaker 1: he and then he would he emailed me a little
Speaker 1: bit later and he goes, by the way, what are
Speaker 1: you doing about trading cards? And I was like, nothing,
Speaker 1: tell me more, tell me everything, And he was like, well,
Speaker 1: there's this character that that we should profile and and
Speaker 1: and thus began his reporting. Um uh so, So Lucas,
Speaker 1: I'm curious, like, you know, the there's the cards that
Speaker 1: I grew up with, and then which are, let's just
Speaker 1: be honest, worth nothing, and then there are the cards that,
Speaker 1: um are are truly collectibles, and they I think they
Speaker 1: might even they might even push the envelope of like
Speaker 1: what a card means, right, So talk to us about
Speaker 1: where the market is has gone on that front. Yeah,
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened a long time ago.
Speaker 1: There used to be people would manufacture tons of different cards,
Speaker 1: and now all the card manufacturers have gotten a lot
Speaker 1: smarter about it, and so there are going to be
Speaker 1: just kind of generic rookie cards which can be really valuable,
Speaker 1: but they also make kind of one off cards or
Speaker 1: limited sets of ten. Like there's this Luca don Chech
Speaker 1: card that that sold early this year for more than
Speaker 1: four million dollars, and it's because it's one of one,
Speaker 1: and he's this guy who everybody thinks is going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, the next Lebron the next Michael Jordan's. So
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of a lot of efforts to
Speaker 1: restrict supply and create special editions to kind of create scarcity,
Speaker 1: because that's like any market, it booms based on scarcity.
Speaker 1: There's also the added wrinkle sort of where do n
Speaker 1: f T s fit into this, because they're kind of
Speaker 1: like trading cards, but they're not like trading cards. And
Speaker 1: even Ken Golden has started to sell them in his auctions,
Speaker 1: none of them have generated as much money as the
Speaker 1: top of the top of the line trading cards, but
Speaker 1: they still go for tens of thousands of dollars. So
Speaker 1: that's what I was just going to ask you about
Speaker 1: Lucas or n f T s and if that's sort
Speaker 1: of the way in for the next generation, or if
Speaker 1: the next generation is going to continue with the classics.
Speaker 1: I think that a lot of the people buying these
Speaker 1: cards now are the next generation. They're younger people buying
Speaker 1: Pokemon cards. They're also buying basketball cards. The real shift
Speaker 1: in the collectibles market here has been from people who
Speaker 1: want to buy the Don Mattingly cards, the old baseball,
Speaker 1: old school baseball cards, the people who want the the
Speaker 1: contemporary athlete, especially in like basketball, football, soccer. They a
Speaker 1: lot of people have compared it to a form of
Speaker 1: gambling or form of fantasy sports where you are, you know,
Speaker 1: you see somebody play well and their value will jump
Speaker 1: in the market, or you see somebody have an off
Speaker 1: game and maybe you go in to buy it because
Speaker 1: you think that their prime to actually play really well
Speaker 1: for the rest of the season. What about my POGs,
Speaker 1: I think you're you're, you're, you're your out of luckments.
Speaker 1: I don't know if much about right now, Lucas. You
Speaker 1: had a number of really good voices in the story.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what was your what was your favorite interview
Speaker 1: that you got to do and what and what was
Speaker 1: the insight that you got from it. Um, It's a
Speaker 1: good question. Uh, there were a lot of good ones.
Speaker 1: I mean, I love talking to Bill Simmons, who's a
Speaker 1: lifelong collector and who has who has looked at space
Speaker 1: for a long time. I like talking to Kevin Durant's
Speaker 1: business partner, Um, because Kevin Durant has gotten really into collecting.
Speaker 1: We didn't even end up getting to quote him in
Speaker 1: the story, but Kevin Durant has gotten really into collecting
Speaker 1: his own cards. And there was an auction that I
Speaker 1: was monitoring, uh in in in March that Ken did,
Speaker 1: and he had been on the phone with Kevin Durant's
Speaker 1: business partner earlier in the day strategizing to get this
Speaker 1: one rookie card, and then over the course of the night,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant his partners based in New York, fell asleep
Speaker 1: and the Ken didn't have the clearance to go above
Speaker 1: a certain price threshold to bid on it. So Kevin
Speaker 1: Durant ended up getting out bid for his own rookie card. Um,
Speaker 1: which was just funny to hear. Uh, Steve Cohen, there's
Speaker 1: an aspect of this story, right. Steve Cohen, along with
Speaker 1: this collector, Nat Turner, who was probably the most helpful
Speaker 1: collector that I spoke with, bought this bought Collectors Universe,
Speaker 1: which is the parent company of that grating firm p
Speaker 1: s A. Nat Turner. By the way, this guy who
Speaker 1: you know, he sold his healthcare company along with his
Speaker 1: co founder for like one point nine billion dollars to
Speaker 1: Rosch a few years ago and has since. He is
Speaker 1: he is sitting on so many different cards, is so
Speaker 1: much value that he doesn't know how many cards he
Speaker 1: has or what they're worth. He just knows that all told,
Speaker 1: he's probably got like cards that are worth at least
Speaker 1: a few hundred dollars apiece. So how much is Golden
Speaker 1: really making off all of this? His firm takes a
Speaker 1: cut from every sale so so far this year, I
Speaker 1: think they're at like a hundred fifty or two hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars in sales, which means that his company is
Speaker 1: taking thirty to forty million, which by the way, is
Speaker 1: more than they made in total sales, like the net
Speaker 1: sales from just a couple of years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: he he sold his majority stake in his company earlier
Speaker 1: this year for about forty million dollars, mostly to a
Speaker 1: company called the Churning Group. But there were a ton
Speaker 1: of celebrity investors, and I spoke with Ken not long
Speaker 1: after that deal closed, which at the time it seems
Speaker 1: like a lot of money because he'd never made anything
Speaker 1: close to it, and he already felt like he probably
Speaker 1: sold too soon and didn't get enough given given the
Speaker 1: amount of money that's not coming in for him. Hey,
Speaker 1: lucas Um, when I when I think about the work
Speaker 1: that you've you've done over the last year, I think
Speaker 1: a lot about well a lot of course media reporting,
Speaker 1: but a lot about the way that you've written about
Speaker 1: the way that musicians have sold their catalogs to private
Speaker 1: equity investors and how some investors are treating those as
Speaker 1: an asset class. Is there any connection here to what
Speaker 1: we're seeing with with trading cards? And I know you
Speaker 1: do mention this in the piece, but what is the
Speaker 1: connection between the way that that investors are thinking about
Speaker 1: this type of asset um It's a little I do.
Speaker 1: I think it's related in that there is just too
Speaker 1: much money out there among people to deploy the differences.
Speaker 1: Is music makes a lot of sense to an average
Speaker 1: investor because it performs kind of like a bond. It's
Speaker 1: just an annuity, right, You're like buying an asset that's
Speaker 1: gonna you generate a very reliable amount of money every year,
Speaker 1: and you're betting that that's going to keep going up
Speaker 1: because of streaming. Trading cards does feel a little bit
Speaker 1: more like art, where it's kind of arbitrary people choose
Speaker 1: to just set the market um. But you know, you
Speaker 1: could also, like I said earlier with the gambling, you
Speaker 1: could argue that this is sort of like playing the
Speaker 1: stock market, where you're betting different players. As an individual
Speaker 1: stock you're basically by buying a card of John and
Speaker 1: you're basically buying a stock a piece of a piece
Speaker 1: of stock in his long term value. Alright, we're gonna
Speaker 1: leave it on that note. It's a great I'm sorry, Joel,
Speaker 1: did you have a last one? Oh? I just was
Speaker 1: gonna the One of the other things that this UM
Speaker 1: story and in the accompanying video that was also an
Speaker 1: incredible UM revealed to me is that there's thing I
Speaker 1: think called a break, which is like truly like kind
Speaker 1: of a public service announcement, I guess so, So, Lucas,
Speaker 1: can you quickly describe what a break is and how
Speaker 1: I can get in on it? So when you you
Speaker 1: can buy a box of cards, right, and each one
Speaker 1: of these boxes has several packs within it. And one
Speaker 1: thing that has become very popular on YouTube and Instagram,
Speaker 1: which is how a lot of young people have gotten
Speaker 1: into it, is they make a display of opening these
Speaker 1: boxes and going through it because there's a there's an
Speaker 1: element of surprise right where you open that pack and
Speaker 1: you're going through, it's like want oh, and then on
Speaker 1: the seventh hard happens to be the thing that's gonna
Speaker 1: be really valuable. So Ken breaks every week on Instagram
Speaker 1: with his son. Bill Simmons, the sports writer breaks often
Speaker 1: with his son on Instagram and Ken Golden Flute to
Speaker 1: l A and part earlier this year because he did
Speaker 1: a like a Pokemon break with Logan Paul, the YouTube celebrity.
Speaker 1: So this is a huge thing in youth culture right now.
Speaker 1: I've seen that online. Um, great stuff and a great read, Lucas,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Entertainment report at Bloomberg News on
Speaker 1: the phone in Los Angeles, Joe Weber, Editor Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week on the remote access from Brooklyn, and they're actually,
Speaker 1: I guess tried and entertainment pitching an unscripted TV show
Speaker 1: set in the world of trading cards, and we produced
Speaker 1: by a former ESPN executive and a Pond Stars producer,
Speaker 1: which was I was thinking, this has a Pond Stars
Speaker 1: element to it right big time. Yeah. Look, after reading
Speaker 1: this piece by Lucas in Bloomberg Business Week, I'm thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is something I want to know more about. And
Speaker 1: also my pods. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week.
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