WEBVTT - Odd Lots Revisited: Our First Episode with Tom Keene 0:00:10.119 --> 0:00:14.120 Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Loves Podcast. 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm Joe wasn't All, and I'm Tracy al went Tracy. 0:00:17.079 --> 0:00:18.759 You know what I just found out. You know, people 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:20.400 have asked me when did odd Lots start? And I 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.600 didn't know the date up until just now. The exact date. Yeah, 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:28.880 I know, roughly in our first episode November. I think 0:00:28.920 --> 0:00:31.479 I would have said a little bit earlier, but October, 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:35.879 like summer or something. But we've been doing this, so 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:39.760 that's crazy. So it's like seven years more than seven years. Wow, 0:00:40.240 --> 0:00:43.720 time time flies when you're having fun. That's a long time. 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.000 And when we first started, you were in New York, yes, 0:00:47.120 --> 0:00:49.400 and then you went to I went to Abby Dhabi 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.280 and I remember I remember sitting on my living room 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:56.400 floor on this big Oriental carpet with like a Moroccan 0:00:56.480 --> 0:01:00.000 poof in front of me and recording all thoughts episode 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.000 at six pm in the evening. And then and then 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:04.760 I went to Hong Kong, and then you made your 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:06.760 life even then you made it even more. And then 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.040 it was like ten or eleven pm at night, and 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.560 I was recording these episodes from an apartment that was 0:01:13.640 --> 0:01:16.559 mostly made out of cement, which means that the sound 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:19.000 just echoed off of the walls and it was a 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:22.960 complete nightmare from an audio perspective. When in that process 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.959 did you get your dog? Oh? That was so he 0:01:26.000 --> 0:01:29.080 was a pandemic puppy, and so he would have been 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:32.000 making noise in the background while I was huddled under 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.600 a blanket. And I used to cut the air conditioner 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:36.560 in Hong Kong as well because it was really noisy. 0:01:36.640 --> 0:01:40.160 So I'd be in a cement apartment under a blanket 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.800 without any air conditioning, and the humidity is like a 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:46.000 hud percent and it's you know, ninety degrees out and 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:48.960 the puppy is winding behind me. So I'm glad to 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.280 say that, at least from my perspective, the recording options 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:57.560 have improved vastly since then. Yeah, I'm glad you're back. 0:01:57.640 --> 0:02:00.080 I felt bad by the end, like you, having to 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:03.360 do these episodes there one that I did it like 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:05.920 three in the morning one. But it must have been 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:09.560 a really good guest. Yes, it was all worth it. 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:11.400 It was all worth it, and it led us to 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.400 um this moment here where we're reunited in the New 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:18.680 York office. We're in a proper recording studio and we 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:21.400 get to talk about our first ever episode. So I 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:24.400 think we actually recorded that episode in the exact studio 0:02:24.400 --> 0:02:26.120 that we're in right now. We've recorded it in a 0:02:26.120 --> 0:02:28.520 few different places, but I think it was literally in 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:33.280 this room right So for this festive holiday season, we 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:37.200 are re releasing our first ever episode. Our guest for 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:40.720 that episode was Tom Keane, who is our colleague over 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:44.240 here at Bloomberg News. You might recognize him from Bloomberg Television. 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:48.440 He hosts the Surveillance Morning Show, and when you listen 0:02:48.520 --> 0:02:51.200 to it, you might notice that a few things are different, 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:53.960 a few different here and there. You know, we probably 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.840 sound a little bit different as well. We didn't know 0:02:56.880 --> 0:02:58.959 what we were doing. We didn't know what Odds was 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:00.600 going to be. I mean, I still don't know what 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:02.799 it is, but we definitely didn't know at the time, 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:04.919 and so it was one of these things that were 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:07.600 like whoa podcast seemed fun, A lot of people are 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:11.120 listening to them, and you know, before we joined Bloomberg, 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:15.160 like Tom Keane sort of this legendary figure at the company, 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.400 sort of like someone that many of us idolized or 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.760 I certainly did, and his interview style and his intelligence 0:03:21.760 --> 0:03:24.160 and just the sort of like general flair and esthetic 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.440 of Tom Keene for those who know him, a very 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.120 distinctive figure. So it's like, I gotta talk to Tom, 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:31.919 you said. Distinctive figure. For those who don't know Tom 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:36.640 is like what six ft seven or something. He's big. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:38.360 He wears a bow tie. I think he used to 0:03:38.360 --> 0:03:42.720 play hockey, and he just kind of strides the corridors 0:03:42.760 --> 0:03:46.800 of Bloomberg's office, throwing out one liners like slope matters, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:50.080 and if you get him going, he's really into talk 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:54.440 about musical instruments, like his banjo, got some some guitar 0:03:54.520 --> 0:03:56.880 strings that he bought off a guy who lives in 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.640 Europe that he's always wanted amps. He can talk about anything. Yeah, 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:03.560 So I think this is one of the reasons why 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.840 we had him on. He was sort of our like 0:04:06.120 --> 0:04:10.000 initial test subject, just to see what it would be 0:04:10.040 --> 0:04:12.640 like recording a podcast, but we also wanted to talk 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:15.200 about things with him, So I think on this episode 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:18.239 we spoke about music, as you just mentioned, We talked 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:20.680 about Matt Winkler, who was sort of one of the 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.240 founding fathers of Bloomberg News. We talked about both ties 0:04:24.960 --> 0:04:28.039 and his wardrobe. I think we talked about how his mom, 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:31.400 Tom's mom taught him how to make stock charge. Oh, yes, 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:35.160 very important. This is where the whole Slope Matters thing 0:04:35.279 --> 0:04:38.320 comes from. So there's you know, it was one of 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:42.200 our first interviews. But it's also very very so it's 0:04:42.200 --> 0:04:45.120 interesting to listen to just from from that perspective to 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.600 see how far we've come. But it's also with Tom Keane, 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:50.440 who's an interesting guy, and uh, we should we should 0:04:50.440 --> 0:04:53.039 listen to it again. I am really excited that we 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.920 are digging this one from the vaults, both because I'm 0:04:55.960 --> 0:04:59.159 still such a big fan of Tom and also sort 0:04:59.160 --> 0:05:01.920 of take stock of the last seven years, how far 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.800 we've come figured out this format. And you know, one 0:05:04.880 --> 0:05:08.120 day in the year I guess twenty nine, we'll be 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:11.720 listening to this episode and we're like, Wow, we've come along. 0:05:11.760 --> 0:05:14.880 Hopefully we've come along basin our production values. Have it 0:05:15.160 --> 0:05:19.279 improved immensely? Um? Okay, Well, without further ado, here is 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:23.400 the rerun of our very first Odd Lots episode featuring 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:32.880 Bloomberg's Tom Keane. Enjoy Hello, and welcome to the first 0:05:32.960 --> 0:05:36.080 episode of Odd Lots. I'm Joe Wisnthal, co host of 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:38.920 What Do You miss and editor of Bloomberg Markets. Now, 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:42.520 I'm Tracy Alloway, executive editor of Bloomberg Markets. Here at 0:05:42.520 --> 0:05:45.920 Odd Lots, we want to have a discussion every week 0:05:45.960 --> 0:05:52.320 about economics, finance, markets, market structure, which Tracy loved, maybe 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:56.800 some politics and culture thrown in stuff that doesn't necessarily 0:05:56.880 --> 0:05:59.800 fit into the normal day to day conversation. And we 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.119 couldn't think of any guest better to have than Tom 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:09.119 Keen in my Guinea Pig, You're the guinea pig. Tom Keane, 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.680 as everyone should know, is the host of Bloomberg Surveillance 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.839 on TV and radio here Bloomberg. He knows more about 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.640 markets and economics and world events than just about anyone 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.800 else in the room. He's a very eclectic background in 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:27.400 music and mathematics. And I wanted to have I wanted 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:29.200 to have Tom Keene on the show because Tom is 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.040 always interviewing people, but he's never answering questions, never behind, 0:06:33.960 --> 0:06:38.080 try to avoid it. So we're gonna doing this for you, Joe. 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.120 I'm doing this for Tracy. Everybody knows that. But who 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:44.440 are you Tom? Why are you here? How did you 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:48.080 get to be Tom Keane who everybody knows and love? 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:51.080 I get it a lot, And what I would suggest 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:55.800 is it's one part short term stuff, one part long 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:59.080 term stuff, and one part blind luck. The long term 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:01.760 thing is is being acutely aware when I was a 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:06.680 kid and evermore every day knowing how twisted the early 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:10.040 years where I found something met Stan Freeburg record and 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.360 you don't know Stan Freeburg is he was a great comedian. 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.680 He just died this year. And then recently it was 0:07:15.760 --> 0:07:19.640 about the privilege of running into Matt Winkler and basically 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:22.440 Matt and I with the support of l Mayers who 0:07:22.520 --> 0:07:26.160 runs Bloomberg Media, and Ted Fine who runs TV, they're 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:28.640 the ones that made all this happen. Matt win Clair, 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:31.600 for our listeners who don't know, is the guy who 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:35.160 founded Bloomberg News essentially, so you got lucky met Matt 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.520 win Clair. He just hired me because the bow tie. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:41.480 But to make a long story short, you get lucky 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:46.000 and I met Matt and we basically invented what you see. 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.800 That's that's a safe statement. What were you doing before then? 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:51.680 Because when I think of you, I think you projected 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.320 or of someone who's been doing radio for decades. But 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.920 what were you doing before you did radio and TV? 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.800 Well before the media thing, I was in the investment business. 0:08:00.800 --> 0:08:03.680 But there's a whole sidecar thing in music and an 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:08.640 entertainment um, for example. And I gauge it off my 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:12.320 oldest child's age. I used to hold him in my 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.800 arms into the stock report in Boston. And this is 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.000 the vanilla days, not cross asset, the dal Jones industrial 0:08:19.000 --> 0:08:22.040 average up forty two points today, eight forty two blah 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:25.360 blah blah. You know that. And so I did a 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:27.720 little bit of investment stuff back then, but a lot 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:30.120 of it was just the music business as well, which 0:08:30.160 --> 0:08:33.240 is the show business aspect which a lot of people 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:36.480 in business media try to ignore every day. And they're wrong. 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.280 I mean, the f T s pink. It's pink for 0:08:39.320 --> 0:08:42.160 a reason. It's pink. It's like what you did. I mean, 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:47.959 you invented the modern headline in modern business journalism. So 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.200 it's just you know that Wisnthal wrote that headliner. You 0:08:51.240 --> 0:09:12.319 just know that. How has her investment experience informed your career? 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:16.400 Huge huge um. It's a massive type two and that 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:21.440 you learn so much enjoying losing money. It's it's for 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:24.320 those of you gaus see and it's log normal. Uh, 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:26.680 you learn way more on the downside and the upside. 0:09:26.960 --> 0:09:29.600 Lots of fat tail risks. There's fat tail risk, but 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.960 that's not that that's over emphasized. It's the joy of 0:09:33.160 --> 0:09:38.679 losing money within the fat tails, which is I think 0:09:38.720 --> 0:09:43.439 that's when you learn factors more losing money than making 0:09:43.480 --> 0:09:46.480 money factors. But I can tell you that the way 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.199 I learned to lose money was enjoying losing money in 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.720 the options market. And then so when you're doing the show, 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.160 whether on radio or TV, how do you apply that 0:09:55.640 --> 0:09:58.280 the fact that you learned so much more when you 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.319 lost money. When you think about it, humility show, it's 0:10:01.320 --> 0:10:06.040 a it's a humility thing of knowing every day how 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:10.120 dumb you are and trying to always work at getting smarter, 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:15.000 laughing at your mistakes. There's a there's a lot there's 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:18.360 less now after the financial crisis, but there's lots of 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:25.160 people strutting around with a certain intellectual arrogance about economics, finance, investment. 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.080 Right now nobody has arrogance and international relations. Did you 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:31.880 have to learn how much you don't know? Like, what's 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:33.679 the point earlier in your career where you thought you 0:10:33.760 --> 0:10:38.600 knew it all and then you know certitude of yeah, 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:42.640 you you you learn from a wide set of mistakes 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:48.160 and cycles, which gives you a humility which forces you 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:50.560 to get smarter. For example, I went to a wedding 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:54.720 this weekend and half the wedding was from Uruguay. I 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.840 know nothing about Mona Badeo except one of my kids. 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:01.480 Friends all went down there because it couldn't get a 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.920 job in America. And I read seven articles this weekend 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:09.520 in Uruguay just to to begin to I have no 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:14.600 clue about Uruguay. There's that kind of madness, but compounded 0:11:14.600 --> 0:11:17.280 over time. I know nothing about Uruguay. I know nothing 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:19.520 about Monte Videt was a great humble bred because you 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.040 slide in how easily you knew the capital. Now I 0:11:22.080 --> 0:11:25.840 have to ask you talk about certitude on Wall Street 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.040 And in addition to having a musical background, you also 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:32.280 have a mathematical background. And it seems like one of 0:11:32.280 --> 0:11:35.360 the areas in markets where people start to get really 0:11:35.480 --> 0:11:39.040 certain and have that certain mathematical swagger is when it 0:11:39.080 --> 0:11:42.400 comes to models, and you love talking about models. How 0:11:42.400 --> 0:11:45.280 does your experience in mathematics feed into yeah that the 0:11:46.000 --> 0:11:48.679 background there was growing up with it. I have the 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:53.079 clearest memories of gooding up on my tiptoes and looking 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:57.320 over my father's desk. Is he did very sophisticated triple 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.120 integration of space satellites and I would literally play on 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:03.480 the floor with the French curves is a million years 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:06.280 ago and like like think spot Nick and I g 0:12:06.480 --> 0:12:09.800 y and all that, and all of that became a 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:15.240 mathiness which culminated in Max peters fabulous program at the 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:20.079 University of Colorado. Max Peters was a highly decorated Italian 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:23.160 infantryman up the spine of Italy and World War Two, 0:12:23.520 --> 0:12:26.240 and he went out to Colorado and put together, uh, 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.959 the mother of all grinds in engineering academics. And I 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:34.720 was extremely fortunate to parachute into that for a couple 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.000 of years. So you take, you know what I get 0:12:38.000 --> 0:12:39.679 in math and what I don't get, and trust me, 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:42.520 is a lot I don't get. And then you overlay 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:48.040 that into some of the certitude of quantitative finance and 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:52.520 you get a massive humility. I think the math overlay 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.439 is a it's a massive type one. You've got it, 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.560 But what it really is, and I see it every 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:00.960 day and it's getting worse. It's a little better in 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.600 a couple of last couple of years. Is the math 0:13:03.679 --> 0:13:10.160 phobia within economics, finance, investments just stunning. It's just breathtaking 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:14.120 that you see rampant math phobia, because other people have 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.640 argued that it's just the opposite, that economics and finances 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.079 become too mathy to the point where people can't explain 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.040 in clear English what they're talking about. Yeah, well, let 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.600 me part that debate. You're absolutely right, Joe. The basic 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.720 idea is there was an era, particularly coming out of 0:13:29.720 --> 0:13:34.440 World War Two, of math, too much math, math anxiety, etcetera, etcetera. 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:38.319 And then at the undergraduate level, not at the PhD, 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:40.599 not at the doctor trak level, the graduate level, but 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:45.440 at the undergraduate level, a vast majority of people don't 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:49.480 have the dynamics in their head to do even basic 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.280 martiality and microeconomics or you know, name the flavor of 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:56.920 macro you want to do. The British are very different. 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.640 In the French, they have much better, as a rule 0:13:59.640 --> 0:14:03.360 of thumb, undergraduate mathematics than we do. If I, if 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.720 I talked to British students, their knowledge of first order 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:11.400 difference equations off the chart honors undergraduate programs in the US. 0:14:11.480 --> 0:14:13.880 Some of them. They have no clue what what that is. 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.800 I'm pleased to say I've I've forgotten almost all the 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:21.520 mathematics I learned interversity and college. However, however, I want 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:24.280 to know. So when you see something like the events 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.080 of August when the market sold off and a lot 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.480 of people were talking about mathematical formulas and model based 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.840 equations and risk parody at the center of that sell off, 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.800 what do you think. I think some of it was 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:43.080 extremely valid this time around. Uh I, I think that 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:47.480 the model fatigue is much more in the macro area. 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:49.640 The work Olivia Blanchard did at the i m F 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:55.840 with Joe Stiglson others really important to ask the non 0:14:55.880 --> 0:15:00.560 sophisticated and the very sophisticated differential equation models that pro 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.520 PhDs use, and I don't pretend to be fluent in them. 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.040 They're very suspect after what we went through in August 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.880 of O seven. Stepping back, so you have this interest 0:15:10.920 --> 0:15:14.160 in lifelong interest in mathematics in music, which I was 0:15:14.360 --> 0:15:16.400 also want to get to. But then how did that? 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.800 When did it click that markets and investments when you 0:15:19.880 --> 0:15:22.840 were in the earliest memories, earliest it was permeating in 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.200 my house. My my grandfather knew a w CO and 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.200 the point and figure guy. He did point and figure charts. 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.480 My mother did point and figure charts. Comes from a 0:15:32.520 --> 0:15:40.680 family totally totally permeating investment theory and investment analysis, you know, 0:15:40.800 --> 0:15:44.520 just original Graham, Dodd and Coddle up. And in addition 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:46.720 to everything else, you were always interested in. You always 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.760 knew that this was something you wanted to know. You know, 0:15:50.080 --> 0:15:52.680 you didn't know it just was there, just there, It 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.720 was just there kind of thing. I'm also, I don't 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:58.520 think a lot of people know about your musical background, 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:02.800 but why do you give us the six Here's Tom 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.520 King's music. The ninety second version is real simple. At 0:16:05.560 --> 0:16:08.880 eight years old, I walked into a place called Stutsman's, 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.640 which is legendary and the acoustic music business with my father. 0:16:12.720 --> 0:16:16.520 There were six Grutch White Falcons lined up and Rochester, 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.800 New York Kodak, and my father bought me a forty 0:16:19.800 --> 0:16:23.080 two dollar you know, acoustic guitar and then I just 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:28.160 began grinding away and there were three or four iterations 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:31.000 of it. But to make a long story short, I 0:16:31.160 --> 0:16:34.720 ended up doing the New England singer songwriter thing, juggling 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.560 a bunch of other stuff. There's a place in Nashville 0:16:37.600 --> 0:16:44.160 called the Blueberg Cafe, which is magical. You know. It 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:45.920 was just the New England folks and it was sort 0:16:45.920 --> 0:16:50.200 of you know in terms of artists around it. Uh, 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.840 it was post Tracy Chapman, Um Susanne Vega was really 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.800 happening with Luca and Solitude standing and then a whole 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.760 host of people came on, really jumped, started by a 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.760 guy named David Wilcox who did an album called Either 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.000 Hurricane for A and M Records, which just there was 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:10.879 like this mini folk boom and what was so cool? 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:13.880 We knew when we this is before the internet. That's 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:17.320 a key statement. Even we had no idea what was 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.680 coming in digital, but we knew how lucky we were 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:24.600 to do it. When we were doing it, we knew 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:28.160 it couldn't last. What was the greatest guitar you've ever owned? 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:31.639 The one I got now with the greatest guitar my 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:35.400 my concert Gibson J one hundred, which was picked out 0:17:35.400 --> 0:17:39.159 by Eric Schoenberg up in Boston, was stolen and I 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.240 got it back four years ago. I told Dave Drummond 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:44.119 and Google. I got it off Google Images. There was 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.080 my guitar and Google images. But that and I've got 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:50.600 some others now, but I think that's you know, I 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:53.160 guess the best ones that when my father had, but 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:58.280 that's been lost. So with your very very idiosyncratic background 0:17:58.800 --> 0:18:04.240 in mathematics, so it's like Joe Wisenthals an investment. When 0:18:04.240 --> 0:18:06.680 you do your show today at Bloomberg and you look 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:08.720 around the world, what do you see as the most 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:13.240 important story going on right now? Um, I think the 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.760 number one stories. One of my kids said to me, Daddy, 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:18.919 when does this get got to be fun? And I 0:18:18.960 --> 0:18:24.520 think there's a massive understanding by people of a certain 0:18:24.640 --> 0:18:29.720 vintage that the kids don't have. They have lots of 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:35.000 wonderful digital stuff and medical stuff, etcetera, etcetera, but the 0:18:35.119 --> 0:18:41.199 optimism has been shattered. And the answer Jeff emmel I 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.720 was with two years ago, I'm guessing and he said, look, 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:45.560 all we need is three point two percent g d 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:48.439 P and that solves a lot of problems. That's a 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:52.960 very smart comment by the applied methematician from Dartmouth. We 0:18:53.040 --> 0:18:57.520 don't have that. The the younger people, people under about 0:18:57.640 --> 0:19:02.240 thirty two, have never no own normal so when you 0:19:02.280 --> 0:19:06.000 look at the world, you don't necessarily see problems of inequality, 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.720 you see generational problems. No, I think they're both there, 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:14.480 but I think in two thousand and fifteen that the 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:19.240 generational issues are less spoken, which to an extent speaks 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.760 of the anger in the politics today. When do you 0:19:21.800 --> 0:19:24.119 think it wasn't normal or when was it was? Well, 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:26.119 you know, you stand on the floor of the Republican 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:28.800 convention ex conventions ago and you go, well, this is 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:33.359 surreal or the Democratic doesn't matter which part party, But 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:38.000 the answer is we are programmed for certain nominally real 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.120 GDP that ain't happened. There's a quarter here at quarter there, 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:46.760 Macroeconomic Advisors right now is third quarter at one. The 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:49.879 next quarter is a little bit better. But we we 0:19:49.960 --> 0:19:54.359 have not had the run rate of GDP that provides 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:59.880 base psychological comfort to a lot of people, whether it's 0:20:00.359 --> 0:20:04.119 over educated torps like my kids, or you know, people 0:20:04.200 --> 0:20:07.040 really struggling millions of Americas. Do you think I mean, 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:11.359 I remember thinking in and when we had the Raging 0:20:11.400 --> 0:20:13.480 Dead ceiling debate, and I think that was the first 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:16.560 time that we saw this huge I would say the 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.800 crisis and the economy seeming to really spill over into 0:20:19.840 --> 0:20:22.600 politics and we had to start division the Tea Party 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:25.679 and leadership. But it hasn't faded as much as I 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:30.119 would have guessed, given how far unemployment has dropped. I mean, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.359 the economy is much better than it was in eleven, 0:20:33.400 --> 0:20:36.000 but we still have and look at Donald Trump and 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.639 leading in the polls, and you have a rise of 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.159 more radical politicians everywhere. Do you think it's something beyond economics. 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:45.320 It has to do with the media environment, the Internet. 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:47.440 It has to do the media, and it has to 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:49.439 do with speed of trans Twitter and all. I mean 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:53.320 the cypress crisis alone with Twitter was surreal that Saturday 0:20:53.320 --> 0:20:58.879 morning when how the Twitter dialogue changed the discussion. But 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:01.919 what I would what is under emphasized from a Newtonian 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.439 mechanics standpoint is inertial force and the word chronic. And 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.520 the answer is you totally right about ten and eleven. 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.760 And what's different now is it may not be force 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:16.520 masure like it was then, but there's just this chronic 0:21:16.960 --> 0:21:21.600 weight of gridlock in Washington, this chronic sense of g 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:26.080 d P under performing even while unemployment supposedly gets better. 0:21:26.160 --> 0:21:29.880 And that goes back to productivity. You know, we could board. 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:37.200 Everybody was three ratio productivity analysis. Productivity in the media 0:21:37.320 --> 0:21:43.119 is appallingly reported. There's capital, there's labor, and there's a 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:47.600 separate ratio wrapped around something called total factor productivity or TFP. 0:21:48.680 --> 0:21:52.639 And the pros know all that and they sort of just, 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:55.520 you know, when we talk about productivity, gloss over it. 0:21:55.960 --> 0:21:59.439 But the answers labor ain't happening. And certainly for a 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:02.520 part of America, this Angus Deaton winning the Nobel Prize 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:05.400 a big deal, big big deal. This is the death 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:10.160 of aggregate aggregation, of summoning everything together, and that that's 0:22:10.200 --> 0:22:13.160 a really big deal that I talked to Shower tonight 0:22:13.160 --> 0:22:15.560 and I'm a chance to talk about it. Well, that 0:22:15.640 --> 0:22:18.199 brings us to again to your show. When you go 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.840 out and talk to people, what makes some good interviews 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.760 and who are the best interviewees that you think you've had, 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.040 it's a it's a chemistry. It's a mixture, uh, And 0:22:28.080 --> 0:22:32.879 there's always exceptions. There's hyper academic people that fail, and 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:35.000 and that I do think it's a chemistry. We keep 0:22:35.119 --> 0:22:37.199 very careful track of who we like and who we 0:22:37.280 --> 0:22:41.119 don't like. And I would say the third rail is 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.480 we don't want people that are scripted or consulted. That 0:22:44.680 --> 0:22:47.639 was the rage to three five years ago. There's less 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:50.560 of that now. We have less and less people on 0:22:50.720 --> 0:22:53.159 talking points, which is where a consultant comes in and 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:55.919 tells them four things to say. That's going away. But 0:22:56.160 --> 0:22:58.680 mostly it's you know, it's a media phrase. Pop. They've 0:22:58.680 --> 0:23:18.320 got to have pop, particularly radio is critical. So we 0:23:18.400 --> 0:23:22.119 talked about these sort of big general generational issues that 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.080 you see is the main thing? What about this moment 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:28.320 specifically when you look at financial markets? What are the 0:23:28.359 --> 0:23:31.840 big things that you're watching. We're gonna get into prediction 0:23:31.920 --> 0:23:35.240 season soon for what do you? What do you what 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:37.280 do you have your on? What would you what are 0:23:37.320 --> 0:23:39.200 the charts that you look at first thing in the morning. 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:41.679 My chart of the year's inflation adjusted come out of 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:44.160 these back sixty seventy years. I've shown it in TV 0:23:44.280 --> 0:23:46.800 probably ten times. You can still it's a great chart, 0:23:46.880 --> 0:23:53.360 great great chart, and it looks like a persistent decline 0:23:53.560 --> 0:23:57.480 in commodity prices over many years. And then there's a 0:23:57.600 --> 0:24:00.800