Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. We're right here every day bringing you the
Speaker 1: latest news from the world's of business and finance, plus technology, politics, economics,
Speaker 1: all harnessing the power of Business Week reporters and editors,
Speaker 1: and of course Carol that's part of a team of
Speaker 1: twenty seven hundred journalists and analysts more than a hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty countries and Jason. You can download Bloomberg Business
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Speaker 1: also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube
Speaker 1: by searching Bloomberg Global News. Well, let's do our Friday
Speaker 1: check in with Dr Ian Lesbian, Clinical Associate Professor of
Speaker 1: Medicine over at n y U s Lango On Medical Center,
Speaker 1: joining us as he does on the phone from New
Speaker 1: York City. So you know, it's interesting, Ian, because I
Speaker 1: feel like every day, maybe not quite as much as you,
Speaker 1: but every day Carol and I, individually and together having
Speaker 1: conversations with people about the virus, how it's playing through society,
Speaker 1: how it's playing through schools, work from home, work from
Speaker 1: the office. All of those things progress with vaccines, we
Speaker 1: look to you to separate the signal from the noise.
Speaker 1: As they say, what's the most important thing you heard
Speaker 1: this week when it comes to the virus? Hi guys,
Speaker 1: Happy Friday, Shnatava to some of our listeners and hopefully
Speaker 1: all all as well with with you folks. No no
Speaker 1: monkeys here, No, unfortunately in the office, maybe there are
Speaker 1: a few high Is that crazy? Come on, we are
Speaker 1: about traffic stuff, you know. I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: heard that. Don't try this at home. It's only for professionals.
Speaker 1: I agree. So, UM, you know, always interesting news on
Speaker 1: on COVID and UM. I think the most interesting story
Speaker 1: that I heard this week was about some airlines testing
Speaker 1: point of care, which is a saliva test. And today
Speaker 1: just had a patient from one of universities and they're
Speaker 1: all all the professors and and many of the students
Speaker 1: are getting these saliva tests before returning to class, which
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. And what the airlines are
Speaker 1: doing or some of them is testing, um, the travelers
Speaker 1: before they get on at these point of care uh
Speaker 1: departures tests you know that come back in in a
Speaker 1: few minutes and I think that's very reassuring to other
Speaker 1: travelers that everyone is negative before they get on board
Speaker 1: for a nine or ten or eleven hour flight. And
Speaker 1: it's similar to what we do at the hospital before
Speaker 1: procedure surgeries pulmonary functions as struss tests. We do something
Speaker 1: more invasive than nasal swab, but and that turns around
Speaker 1: in twenty four hours. So I think what we're trying
Speaker 1: to do is to reassure people that the other people
Speaker 1: there with are safe. And I think that that's an
Speaker 1: interesting development. Why aren't we all Why are they just
Speaker 1: using saliva tests all the time. It sounds like if
Speaker 1: they're it's easier, it's quicker, is it as UM you know? UM,
Speaker 1: it's fairly accurate, accurate activity and specificity is fairly accurate UM,
Speaker 1: And I think as data you know comes through it
Speaker 1: it's looking similar to the nasal swabs. The PCR tests,
Speaker 1: they're they're different tests. One is an antigen test, the
Speaker 1: other UM is a polymerized chain reaction or PCR that
Speaker 1: amplifies the amount. Now there can be false positives and
Speaker 1: false negatives. We certainly can see some people who have
Speaker 1: had COVID who have recovered and when you do their
Speaker 1: nasal swab, their PCR test is positive. It's not active virus,
Speaker 1: but the the RNA is still there magnified. So sometimes
Speaker 1: you can get, you know, data that's really not helpful.
Speaker 1: But this point of care or the anergen or saliva test,
Speaker 1: I agree with you should really be done more widespread,
Speaker 1: and I think that would reassure people. We're seeing that
Speaker 1: in schools and colleges. Many of the kids now we're
Speaker 1: getting a once or twice a week, even us alive
Speaker 1: a test, and this way you can identify in an
Speaker 1: early case and kind of isolate that group or that floor.
Speaker 1: I mean, could we have a setup and you know,
Speaker 1: we're basically like before Jason and I went to work,
Speaker 1: like you just quick did that and then once it's
Speaker 1: okay you can go into the office. I mean, do
Speaker 1: we have enough of those tests? Can we can we
Speaker 1: operate like that? I think that would be the goal.
Speaker 1: And I think we need to sort of step away
Speaker 1: from you know, sort of the you know, political or
Speaker 1: demonstrations and cops and all of that and focus some
Speaker 1: resources on getting a lot of those point of tear tests,
Speaker 1: because I think many offices and businesses can really reopen
Speaker 1: in schools. Can we're comfortably reopen if we do that
Speaker 1: on a periodic basis. You know, obviously there's some cost involved,
Speaker 1: but I think if we can ramp that up, people
Speaker 1: would until the vaccine arrives, and we do think that's
Speaker 1: probably January February, and you know, again that's going to
Speaker 1: be stage. We can talk about that, but I think
Speaker 1: until that comes around, these point of care tests makes sense.
Speaker 1: And I'm glad the airlines are doing that, and I
Speaker 1: certainly me getting on a plane, I would I'm happy
Speaker 1: to do it and I feel happy. Or if everyone
Speaker 1: on board is also negative, Yeah, yeah, I agree with
Speaker 1: that for sure. I mean I do wonder Ian. You know,
Speaker 1: as we think about going back to school and what
Speaker 1: we've learned so far from both the colleges and from
Speaker 1: the secondary schools, it's uneven when it comes to learning.
Speaker 1: Let's set that aside for a second. But as you've
Speaker 1: monitored the various sort of outbreaks in college towns and
Speaker 1: things like that, what do you take away from that. Well,
Speaker 1: we do have some data that, um, there's a big
Speaker 1: increase in COVID in young people in their twenties, UM,
Speaker 1: and really the demographics UH in Europe and elsewhere have
Speaker 1: have shifted from the sick people and more people at
Speaker 1: an older age to now bigger reservoir in younger people,
Speaker 1: probably due to you know, less social distancing and masks
Speaker 1: and socializing and that sort of thing. You know. The
Speaker 1: good news for them is that they really do tend
Speaker 1: to do a lot better. There are really very few
Speaker 1: young children who have been severely affected by this. Of
Speaker 1: the two hundred thousand you know dead, we're talking you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps a hundred kids affected, So it's it seems to
Speaker 1: be much better tolerated. Unfortunately, they have fewer symptoms and
Speaker 1: can infect older people who are more vulnerable. That's the
Speaker 1: rationale for more testing of this sort of point of
Speaker 1: care testing where where you don't have to sit down
Speaker 1: and have a nurse stick of swab down your UH
Speaker 1: in your nose. So Dr los Bader, let me ask
Speaker 1: you about it. Is truly our most read story on
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg in the past eight hours. This is what
Speaker 1: folks have been reading, and it talks about UM the
Speaker 1: loss of an immune function for some UH COVID niteen patients.
Speaker 1: And they're talking about the lack of a of a
Speaker 1: substance called interference that apparently, I guess helps orchestrate the
Speaker 1: body's defense against viral pathogen. So talk to me a
Speaker 1: little bit about this, like how significant is this and
Speaker 1: what might this mean in terms of treating patients that
Speaker 1: come down with the virus. You know, I think has
Speaker 1: potentially very positive news. You know, interference are a normal
Speaker 1: uh mammal cell response to infections, typically viral infections, And
Speaker 1: we've known about it for decades and we've used interference
Speaker 1: for a variety of diseases, including hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
Speaker 1: We have much more effective anti virals and interference are
Speaker 1: used for a variety of other kinds of autoimmune and
Speaker 1: immunologic diseases, and we certainly know that that they have
Speaker 1: anti viral properties prevent viral replication. And for most people
Speaker 1: who have the flu, that kind of fever and muscle
Speaker 1: aches that you feel are really related. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's in a good way to interfere in response. It's
Speaker 1: the body's natural response, and it does work in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways, and there are many different kinds of
Speaker 1: interfere on um and so it makes sense that interferon
Speaker 1: might be helpful with with this virus. You know, widespread
Speaker 1: studies should be done. Generally, it's a safe medication and
Speaker 1: certainly may be helpful as part of a cocktail of
Speaker 1: perhaps including M deservere or steroids. And you know, we
Speaker 1: have yet to figure out sort of the ideal treatment
Speaker 1: early on to reduce the depths and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: identify that subset of patients. But I think it's very
Speaker 1: encouraging and very exciting. Uh is certainly not standard therapy
Speaker 1: at this point, but certainly studies should be done while
Speaker 1: we're waiting for vaccines and more definitive therapy. And I
Speaker 1: think it makes a lot of sense. I do. I
Speaker 1: say this argues for having um an electronic record, a
Speaker 1: national universal health care record, because part of the problem
Speaker 1: is gathering all of this data, whether it's reporting data.
Speaker 1: You have all of these smaller systems, and it takes
Speaker 1: time for the government to gather the data. Had we
Speaker 1: had one universal health care system, you'd be able to
Speaker 1: get this data. You'd be able to do studies more
Speaker 1: easily and really be more on top of the information.
Speaker 1: Obviously there's some you know, we have to be careful
Speaker 1: with security and so forth, but uh, that's a bit
Speaker 1: of a tangent. It's my plug for us thinking about
Speaker 1: a universal health care record. But certainly something like um
Speaker 1: interfer on really does have potential, but it has to
Speaker 1: be studied in this subset. We know it works in
Speaker 1: many viruses, how well will it work for for this virus?
Speaker 1: Stars Covie too, We have to see. You know, one
Speaker 1: thing Ian I was thinking about when we were talking
Speaker 1: about the rapid testing that I wanted to go back to.
Speaker 1: I read something in and I think we treat you
Speaker 1: as a little bit of a MythBuster, as we said,
Speaker 1: you're you're a go to guy. I've read a couple
Speaker 1: of them. Uh yeah, yeah, you could wear like one
Speaker 1: of those berets, um I do. I have read a
Speaker 1: couple of things that basically say, you know what, taking
Speaker 1: your temperature before you go to school or go into
Speaker 1: the office, like that's kind of I mean, it works
Speaker 1: to an extent, but really, isn't that great an indicator?
Speaker 1: What do you make of that? I agree completely. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of what we do in life makes
Speaker 1: us feel better but doesn't really make a difference. Um. So,
Speaker 1: certainly people could take thailand old before they go to school,
Speaker 1: or they may have a very low grade temperature or
Speaker 1: they it is one kist. It's it is the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to do to squeeze a thermometer, you know, a
Speaker 1: remote thermometer as someone as they come in. And certainly
Speaker 1: if someone has a high fever, look you would you
Speaker 1: don't want them coming in. But it certainly doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that someone who doesn't have a fever can't have the
Speaker 1: virus and can't communicate it with someone else. So it's
Speaker 1: sort of the floor. The very basic thing that you
Speaker 1: can do before people either go into a classroom or
Speaker 1: to an office building or get on an airplane would
Speaker 1: be to check their temperature. And certainly if they have
Speaker 1: a fever, look that they have tuberculosis, Could they have
Speaker 1: some other issue? Could they just have the common cold? Yes,
Speaker 1: So it's a very non specific and it's helpful, but
Speaker 1: it certainly is not going to pick up everyone who
Speaker 1: comes in. I think it makes people feel better, see
Speaker 1: we're doing something to screen to make it a safer environment.
Speaker 1: But it is certainly Uh, it's one element, and I
Speaker 1: don't think too much weight should be put on it,
Speaker 1: but I do think it does Like Jason, you said,
Speaker 1: didn't you at one point didn't feel well or something
Speaker 1: you stayed home or right. I do think it makes
Speaker 1: it makes me think twice, like totally if I'm not
Speaker 1: feeling well, because I know there's that check whether or
Speaker 1: not it's it's great. It makes me think a little
Speaker 1: bit about what, you know, kind of. I think we're
Speaker 1: all more sensitive as to how we're failing when we
Speaker 1: wake up every morning just to think about what we're
Speaker 1: going to do that day, and maybe ultimately that is
Speaker 1: a it is a positive thing that we can take
Speaker 1: from this Lustige are always good to catch up with
Speaker 1: You always enjoyed our MythBuster. I really enjoyed catching up
Speaker 1: with him all right. He is associate clinical professor at
Speaker 1: n y use Langgoon Medical Center. Thank you. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio, the Equality issue of Bloomberg Business Week Magazine,
Speaker 1: pairing with the Bloomberger Quality Summit. So we've been talking
Speaker 1: about a lot of things that have been that have
Speaker 1: really come to the four Carol in these past few months.
Speaker 1: These dueling pandemics we've often called them, we and others
Speaker 1: have called them. So let's talk about it's happening in
Speaker 1: one specific city. Susan Burfield is here with his projects
Speaker 1: and investigations reporter for Bloomberg Business Week. She's on the
Speaker 1: phone also joining us Joel Webber, the editor of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. He joins us from Massachusetts. Uh, Joel t
Speaker 1: this up for us. This is a fascinating story. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And when that Susan flagged to us a few months
Speaker 1: ago now and just said, Hey, this is one that
Speaker 1: we've got to find a way to do and that
Speaker 1: it makes so much sense in the quality issue. And
Speaker 1: this is a story about the city of Stockton, which
Speaker 1: America has not been known for basic income. That is
Speaker 1: an idea that has been used a lot and had
Speaker 1: it continues to be used uh in in in other
Speaker 1: international UM countries, in particular Finland had a huge experiment
Speaker 1: with universal basic income UM. Stockton has emerged as as
Speaker 1: the first place in decades that that is flirting with
Speaker 1: US in America. And it couldn't have come at a
Speaker 1: more relevant time because basically as the program started, COVID
Speaker 1: hit Uh, Susan pick it up from there. What what
Speaker 1: has the city of Stockton learned about free money experiments? Yeah? Sure,
Speaker 1: So thanks for having me on Um. The experiment in
Speaker 1: Stockton is unusual and a little bit different than um, say,
Speaker 1: the experiment in Finland. UM. And it's what made it
Speaker 1: kind of particularly interesting to me and relevant to the issue,
Speaker 1: and that is, you know, the the design of the
Speaker 1: experiment and the attempt is not too focus on just
Speaker 1: the unemployed as the experiment in finlandon. You know, as
Speaker 1: Andrew Yang during the presidential campaign, did you know, assuming
Speaker 1: people might lose their jobs from automation and are going
Speaker 1: to need a little extra help, This program is looking
Speaker 1: very specifically at people who live in low income neighborhoods
Speaker 1: who need you know what they call it, essentially a
Speaker 1: financial vaccine. They need something that makes them a little
Speaker 1: more resistant, um, a little more a little less vulnerable
Speaker 1: to all of the kinds of shocks um that existed
Speaker 1: before the pandemic and then especially uh those that came
Speaker 1: because of the pandemic. I love this story. I know
Speaker 1: the magazine has talked about this before, Susan Um. We're
Speaker 1: not talking about welfare though, right, It's different. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: this is the notion that you know, people know, um
Speaker 1: what they need, and you know, when they don't have
Speaker 1: a lot of money, what do they need they need money,
Speaker 1: and and they and that they know how to spend it.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a cash UM, it's a cash dividend,
Speaker 1: you know. In this case, it's given out every month. UM.
Speaker 1: It was it was five dollars UM. The program was
Speaker 1: meant and in July, and because of the pandemic, the
Speaker 1: mayor and others found additional funding to continue it through January.
Speaker 1: So it'll be for almost two years, about a d
Speaker 1: twenty people have received an extra five hundred dollars every month.
Speaker 1: And that's in addition to whatever other benefits they may
Speaker 1: be receiving. UM. And it's you know, not meant to
Speaker 1: replace those, but to give people flexibility. And Susan why Stockton?
Speaker 1: Why was that the place that became sort of the
Speaker 1: petree for this particular experiment. The Stockton's interesting for a
Speaker 1: lot of reasons. UM it is in some ways, UM,
Speaker 1: typical American city. You know, in that UM it was
Speaker 1: falling behind in some ways. UM it is atypical. And
Speaker 1: that it's very diverse, mean, among the most diversities in America. UM.
Speaker 1: But with that has come you know, inequality. There's a
Speaker 1: pretty high poverty rate. Stockton was known as being one
Speaker 1: of the early epicenters of the housing crisis in two
Speaker 1: thousand and eight, it was the first major city to
Speaker 1: declare bankruptcy before Detroit. Uh, and so you know it
Speaker 1: was it had kind of come in and out of
Speaker 1: the national attention and more recently in it elected a
Speaker 1: very young, um black mayor who is a very effective
Speaker 1: advocate for the city and brought this program to Stockton
Speaker 1: and and is its biggest champion. Yeah. And we should
Speaker 1: point out that Mayor Michael Stubbs, he has been supported
Speaker 1: by Michael Bloomberg. He graduated from a Harvard mayoral training
Speaker 1: program back in Mayor Stubbs did, and also Blueberg philanth
Speaker 1: Frees has donated to a Stockton education reform group. Just
Speaker 1: want to put that out there, so Susan, as other
Speaker 1: cities have seen what's been going on. Is this something
Speaker 1: especially you have mentioned this earlier that Andrew Yang, the
Speaker 1: presidential candidate, had sort of put out this idea. Does
Speaker 1: this have the potential to catch on? Yeah? So just um,
Speaker 1: just this summer, Mayor Tubbs announced a coalition of other mayors.
Speaker 1: There's twenty five now who are willing and interested in
Speaker 1: advocating for some kind of policy like this at the
Speaker 1: state and federal level, and maybe even more important, are
Speaker 1: committed to raising the money to put in place experiments
Speaker 1: in their own cities. Uh. And you know what we
Speaker 1: could say about that is that, uh, I think in
Speaker 1: part um, you know, Stockton's experiment has shown so far
Speaker 1: it's still underway. Obviously, you know that people are hot year,
Speaker 1: that they're less stressed, you know, and that they feel
Speaker 1: like they can make better decisions for themselves and their
Speaker 1: families with this money. So I think during a pandemic,
Speaker 1: you know, alongside civil unrest and protests against racism, that
Speaker 1: this is a policy that more mayors at least are
Speaker 1: considering and thinking are worth while to try to fund. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know, we'll see what happens beyond that, right. Well,
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is is it kind of gets These
Speaker 1: are people who are working, they have jobs. It's just
Speaker 1: they can barely make things, you know, meet and provide
Speaker 1: for their families. And so that's what's interesting. And the
Speaker 1: virus has reminded us, and you write this in your
Speaker 1: story about how vulnerable many many Americans are to a
Speaker 1: sudden shock and needs some kind of assistance like this,
Speaker 1: All right, Susan. Susan, thank you so much, really appreciated.
Speaker 1: Susan Burfield, she's Projects and Investigations reporter at Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week on the phone from New Yorker. Thanks to Joe
Speaker 1: as well. Check out that equality issue. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: great story, definitely worth thread and part of, as you say,
Speaker 1: a big issue dedicated to equality, pairing nicely with our
Speaker 1: equality summit which you've been hearing a lot about this week.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. In today's Business Week Economics excited
Speaker 1: to back with us, and really it's a double dose
Speaker 1: for me because Danny blanche Flower was so gracious to
Speaker 1: join me in a few of our Bloomberg colleagues earlier
Speaker 1: today for chat with breakaway CEOs. He is professor of
Speaker 1: economics at Dartmouth College, former Bank of England Monetary Policy
Speaker 1: Committee member. On the phone from Florida. Um, Danny, first
Speaker 1: of all, I know have messaged you, but thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, because you really were a great force this morning. Um,
Speaker 1: we talked with a bunch of CEOs. You you know,
Speaker 1: you talked about unemployment that you know, the outlook for
Speaker 1: the economy. It's pretty grim in terms of how you
Speaker 1: see it. Um, I'm just curious if you had some takeaways, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, from from what from our discussion. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the big takeaway was that some people are doing
Speaker 1: pretty well, and obviously particular boosnesses have managed to see
Speaker 1: their way through this, and obviously actions by the Fed
Speaker 1: of boosted asset prices, and obviously we've had some sort
Speaker 1: of fallback over the last week or so. But that's
Speaker 1: one thing. The other worry is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: tail end of the labor market is in is in
Speaker 1: big trouble. I mean, one of the big things if
Speaker 1: you look at the wage grower to is you see
Speaker 1: that it's growing at about six and makes no sense. Well,
Speaker 1: what it means is that the lower part of the
Speaker 1: wage distribution has dropped out. And the concern is, well,
Speaker 1: what happens going forward? Are they going to come back,
Speaker 1: are the temporary furloughed firms going to survive? And are
Speaker 1: people going to change their long round behavior? And I
Speaker 1: think the answer is that none of these things look
Speaker 1: especially good. And the predictions by the FED that the
Speaker 1: unemployment rate next year is going to go to five
Speaker 1: and a half, and the year after that is like
Speaker 1: to go to four point six is in well cloud
Speaker 1: cuckoo land. And I think the prospects of weakening labor
Speaker 1: markets up there, and the fact that the stimulus has
Speaker 1: been dragged on suggests that we're going to see something
Speaker 1: worse before we see something better. And so are they
Speaker 1: just being too optimistic or they reading the data wrong? What? What?
Speaker 1: What's the sort of missing link here? Well, they've traditionally
Speaker 1: read the data wrong. They read it completely. In my
Speaker 1: book working on a precisely about this said from two
Speaker 1: thousand fifteen. They don't seem to have a clue about
Speaker 1: the labor market. It's said in two thousand sifting through
Speaker 1: eighteen that the labor market was at full employment. I
Speaker 1: are in frequently that it clearly wasn't raised rates in error,
Speaker 1: and then we get eventually to power backtracking in and saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've got that wrong. We need to sort of adapt
Speaker 1: and worry about maximum employment. UM. I mean, in a sense,
Speaker 1: the thing they're having to do is to try and
Speaker 1: forecast forward, but it's really hard with these present data
Speaker 1: will work out exactly what's going on. And I think
Speaker 1: every time you look at it, you realize that the
Speaker 1: data are actually much worse and likely to get and
Speaker 1: worse again. How can you suddenly say they know that
Speaker 1: everything's going to be great in two thousand and twenty one,
Speaker 1: that it seems probably a five trillion dollar FISTS was
Speaker 1: stimulus and probably finding an effective vaccine that everybody takes
Speaker 1: and the furloughed firms all come back and no firms die. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Right, It's like
Speaker 1: everything goes as we would hope it would go, and
Speaker 1: that's not likely. I do wonder what are some of
Speaker 1: the discussions you're having with students at Dartmouth. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not back on campus, and I know we talked
Speaker 1: about it earlier. Just remind us kind of how that's
Speaker 1: all going right now? Well, it's gone, it's gone pretty well.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I taught it remotely in the
Speaker 1: in the spring. I'm teaching remotely again. Um there there,
Speaker 1: it seems to be done pretty well. Dart with is
Speaker 1: very well resourced. I think I said one thing, I
Speaker 1: noticed that there's not much interaction between student and student,
Speaker 1: although maybe they just take the each other. Would I
Speaker 1: just say, I mean, I think that's that's obviously what's happening.
Speaker 1: One of the benefits of what I teach is what
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you about. I get them to think
Speaker 1: about how the world isn't I actually start most classes
Speaker 1: and I say, this class is about what the heck
Speaker 1: is going on, which is what carroble. You guys, come
Speaker 1: on here and that's what you do too. I think
Speaker 1: that I mean in a sense there that they're in
Speaker 1: economics and in the class of society. They're incredibly interested,
Speaker 1: obviously in what's going on and trying to trying to
Speaker 1: see your way through this complex situation. We've never seen before.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've never seen anything like this. Don't kid ourselves.
Speaker 1: The UK so grow dropping output in one quarter, We've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like that. I mean in in twenty
Speaker 1: oh eight, you sort output dropped by about five percentage
Speaker 1: points in five quarters. So so the thing that we
Speaker 1: understand what's happening. We've not seen things that this, that
Speaker 1: this depth of dropped, but I think we haven't any
Speaker 1: precedent for what for the speed that this has happened.
Speaker 1: So to say that these kids aren't interested, well, they
Speaker 1: in to be interested and they're trying to understand what
Speaker 1: goes on because they're all were worried about getting jobs
Speaker 1: and are they going to be able to come back
Speaker 1: to Dartmouth for the for the spring and song. Um,
Speaker 1: so these are exciting and interesting and scary times. Well.
Speaker 1: And speaking of jobs, and especially for the college educated,
Speaker 1: which is you know, candidly the vast majority of our listeners.
Speaker 1: I mean, what does the job market look like for
Speaker 1: for the next couple of years for people who you know,
Speaker 1: do pursue an undergraduate just sticking with undergraduate education. Is
Speaker 1: it Is it okay for them? Well, the answer is,
Speaker 1: we know a huge fundamental factors. We've worked a lot
Speaker 1: over the years about unemployment amongst the young. The one
Speaker 1: thing we know probably of all things that you ask
Speaker 1: about college graduates is it's it's worse to graduate when
Speaker 1: the when the unemployment race is high. And so that
Speaker 1: means two things. It means that you basically and to
Speaker 1: lower down the job pyramids. And you normally would the
Speaker 1: pyramid of jobs, and you'd normally enter a place where
Speaker 1: college graduates enter where college graduates entered, well, they they
Speaker 1: actually end up entering lower and it takes a really
Speaker 1: really long time, if ever, to catch up that earning path.
Speaker 1: So it's a really it's it certainly is harmful to
Speaker 1: graduate in the depths of a recession and where we've
Speaker 1: never seen anything quite like this, So obviously that that's
Speaker 1: a big concern. And I think the bigger concern even
Speaker 1: than that are people who are graduate or even dropping
Speaker 1: out of high school. What's going to happen to those kids?
Speaker 1: Where are they going to go? And I think at least,
Speaker 1: you know, the the college graduates mostly will be okay,
Speaker 1: but it's the one. It's the seventeen year old who
Speaker 1: dropped out of a high school in Queens or in
Speaker 1: Alabama or in San Francisco, which we're really going to
Speaker 1: have to worry about. And they and in the thirties
Speaker 1: they had to set up schemes to deal with them.
Speaker 1: The Civilian Conservation Corps was set up deal with millions
Speaker 1: of people and were slow to the act. Got to
Speaker 1: ask you about some research that you shared with Carol.
Speaker 1: She was nice enough to share with me, which is
Speaker 1: very close to hers and my heart. We talk about
Speaker 1: sleep all the time, and and what's interesting is you
Speaker 1: have given statistical and very well done academic evidence to
Speaker 1: what I have seen in my co host, which is
Speaker 1: too little or too much is not what we need.
Speaker 1: We need just the right amount of sleep. Tell me
Speaker 1: what you found, Well, the we have lots of evidence.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm a person as a labor so I'm
Speaker 1: interested in unemployment and I'm interested in the consequences of
Speaker 1: our employment. When it turns out, one of the big
Speaker 1: things that you find is that the unemployed um of
Speaker 1: really bad sleep. And I haven't really understood it's not
Speaker 1: only what they have disrupted sleep. That's the other thing,
Speaker 1: even if you get enough out is what we've seen
Speaker 1: in this great pandemic is people's disruption of But what
Speaker 1: I found is that short sleep is really bad and
Speaker 1: the unemployed disproportion you have shut sleep, and that's one
Speaker 1: of the big things that's going on now. But one
Speaker 1: of the serious consequences in a in a way it
Speaker 1: looks at not having a job, is that actually people
Speaker 1: sleep a really long time, they sleep too long, and
Speaker 1: that has has bad consequences as well. But I think
Speaker 1: the evidence right now is and Carol's point, worried about
Speaker 1: you during this during this pandemic, The evidence of all
Speaker 1: these academic papers is that people especially wake up in
Speaker 1: the night and they wake up and they worry. They
Speaker 1: worry about their family and their friends and the pandemic
Speaker 1: and how they're going to pay the bills and how
Speaker 1: they're gonna how they're gonna eat. So one of I
Speaker 1: think one of the things we're going to see is
Speaker 1: more and more documented evidence of the importance of sleep.
Speaker 1: And there's lots of medical journals all about it, but
Speaker 1: I don't think people really have connected together that, you know,
Speaker 1: an unemployment shot comes that product we're talking about, that
Speaker 1: is this pandemic shot. The economy shuts down. Unemployment comes
Speaker 1: in that The mechanism if you like to get to
Speaker 1: a bad outcome about health outcome mental or physical, is
Speaker 1: through sleep. And I think, what is this is? And
Speaker 1: carols the experts there wasn't it, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: having decent sleep really matters. And I think that's one
Speaker 1: of the things. It appears that's really taken a hit
Speaker 1: in the last six months and unlikely to suddenly get better,
Speaker 1: say again, and unlikely to suddenly better, which is if
Speaker 1: you think, if you think there's a V shaped recovery.
Speaker 1: One of the things I always say to people, it
Speaker 1: doesn't make sense. Do you think that in the next
Speaker 1: six months, suddenly all those issues are over. Carol's not
Speaker 1: going to worry about our kids and our kids been
Speaker 1: in school and all of that stuff. It's all suddenly
Speaker 1: going to go. You must assume our guests that your
Speaker 1: sleep is going to be Even if the economy does
Speaker 1: recover strongly, your sleep is not going to recover as
Speaker 1: quickly because we're all we're all anxious and depressed and
Speaker 1: lonely and all of that that's not going away. And
Speaker 1: so the idea that you're going to get a v
Speaker 1: shape it doesn't make any sense. Well, there's costs. I
Speaker 1: know you talk about healthcare costs, but you also to
Speaker 1: talk about you know, when people are in that position,
Speaker 1: they're less likely to get out there and look for
Speaker 1: a job. It just put them in a bad way. Well,
Speaker 1: I think of it. Think of the part of it
Speaker 1: was particularly if unemployed people sleep too long, what it
Speaker 1: means is they sleep too long, they miss the appointment.
Speaker 1: I mean we've seen that a lot in the UK.
Speaker 1: They've introduced all these sorts of measures about if you're unemployed,
Speaker 1: these are the benefits that you get, and you have
Speaker 1: to show up for a meeting. And one of the
Speaker 1: big things that happens is people don't shot up to
Speaker 1: their meeting. Now, why they lose their benefits? Some of it,
Speaker 1: I assume is that you can get up. I mean
Speaker 1: there's a reason for it. I mean that you might
Speaker 1: say because they're lazy, whatever. But if the evidence is
Speaker 1: people are sleeping too long, it means then they can't
Speaker 1: get to their appointments. They probably can't shot up for
Speaker 1: an interview. And even if they do get a job,
Speaker 1: not reliable because they don't come into work. That's bad.
Speaker 1: It's interesting too to think about, you know, this ultimately
Speaker 1: being a health crisis of multifaceted proportion. Carol, Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I do think we're all looking at things differently in
Speaker 1: terms of the costs and the impact um And luckily,
Speaker 1: you know, some people you know have the means or
Speaker 1: the health care that can take care of all of
Speaker 1: this stuff or a lot of it. Not everybody's that way. So, Danny,
Speaker 1: I don't know, leave us with some thought any optimism
Speaker 1: out there ahead of the weekend. Well, the thing I
Speaker 1: know in my happiness research is that there is a
Speaker 1: U shape in happiness, which means that the low is
Speaker 1: in the mid forties, but eventually it gets better. I mean,
Speaker 1: in general, economies do eventually bounce back. And if you're
Speaker 1: at the low point of the happiness function, what I
Speaker 1: can tell you is that you can be like me
Speaker 1: a little older and on the rising part of the
Speaker 1: happiness function, and you get grandkids. And the great thing
Speaker 1: is is when when they when they have a dirty diaper,
Speaker 1: you can hand it to moms. Would you manage? Would
Speaker 1: you kind of manage this? Please? I'm going fishing. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: we hope that we're we're on the upside of the
Speaker 1: year before too long. And we always, as always take
Speaker 1: you for your time and especially general us to Bloomberg
Speaker 1: today given the great conversation. I know you's incredible already.
Speaker 1: Earlier with Carol Masser, Danny blanche Flower is professor of
Speaker 1: economics at Dartmouth College. We love catching up with him.
Speaker 1: His better watch, Jason, I might just make Danny my
Speaker 1: co host. Listen, I would not be surprised. You're not surprised.
Speaker 1: You guys have great chemistry. This is Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. It's
Speaker 1: time for the Drive to the Clothes. We're getting to
Speaker 1: the close of trading here for the week, and as
Speaker 1: Charlie said, getting very close to the end of this
Speaker 1: quarter crazy September. It was interesting to hear the hedgephone
Speaker 1: story where they were saying, hey, workers don't come back
Speaker 1: till next July. Yeah, yeah, I know, I know. Time
Speaker 1: has started to become like sort of weirdly elastic. It
Speaker 1: feels like. Let's check in with Shaun Cruz, manager of
Speaker 1: trader strategy at t d Amor Trade. He joins us
Speaker 1: on the phone from Chicago, Sean, how are you. How
Speaker 1: are things out in Chicago? They're They're great so far.
Speaker 1: Some some pretty decent weather, which is always nice. You
Speaker 1: can these maybe get out and walk around, uh and
Speaker 1: occasionally sit out in a patio if there's if you
Speaker 1: get the chance, is it safer in terms of virus
Speaker 1: and your concerns or how do you How are you
Speaker 1: guys feeling that still? Uh? No, I think there's still
Speaker 1: a little bit of concern and they actually have taken
Speaker 1: some steps to not necessarily put in restrictions, but they
Speaker 1: have gone to asking you whenever you are interacting with um,
Speaker 1: you know, a server, to put your mask back on
Speaker 1: while you're conversing. When your order things like that. So
Speaker 1: I think they are sort of trying to go in
Speaker 1: the direction and get ahead of things a little bit
Speaker 1: because there is this expectation, I'm sure we'll get this
Speaker 1: in a second of the potential for it, a sort
Speaker 1: of a second round, our second wave of COVID coming
Speaker 1: um here in the US, which you've already started to
Speaker 1: see overseas, And so I think it is putting to
Speaker 1: get ahead of it a little bit if we can.
Speaker 1: Your bears are looking pretty good. We're not used to it.
Speaker 1: I always have some teams some things like to snatch
Speaker 1: victory for the positive that the Bears have been known
Speaker 1: to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. So both winds,
Speaker 1: but we'll take them to and those two and oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think you're playing my falcons this weekend. And we
Speaker 1: have had not a great start, very vulnerable to say
Speaker 1: the least. All right, so let's talk about what's going
Speaker 1: on in the markets if we can. You know, one
Speaker 1: thing that we actually didn't talk about as much as
Speaker 1: we probably should have yesterday is Costco. And I do
Speaker 1: wonder what you make of it, because I think a
Speaker 1: lot of our listeners out there, big Costco fans. Candidly,
Speaker 1: I certainly put myself in that in that category, But
Speaker 1: what was your read on what they said? Because it
Speaker 1: is sort of an interesting economic indicator. It feels like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so Costco. It's always interesting to to look into
Speaker 1: details of what Costco does do. You never really get
Speaker 1: too surprised by their revenue numbers because they put those
Speaker 1: out monthly, so we we sort of knew what the
Speaker 1: three month revenue picture was going to look like for them.
Speaker 1: But it's always interesting to look and see your foot
Speaker 1: traffic cart size. You maybe saw people making trips, so
Speaker 1: foot traffic was down, but you saw the average cart
Speaker 1: size go up. Um, that's something that you would expect
Speaker 1: to continue. Digital sales is actually fairly strong for Costco
Speaker 1: as well, but I think it reinforces when we try
Speaker 1: and paint this picture of what people are doing right now.
Speaker 1: People are maybe have kids home because they're not going
Speaker 1: off to college or even um if they have. You
Speaker 1: know some kids that that were millennials living in cities
Speaker 1: who now comorc remote decided to save save them money
Speaker 1: on the rent and just move back home as well.
Speaker 1: So I think there's more people in some of these homes.
Speaker 1: So they are now going out and cooking at home
Speaker 1: a lot more as well, and that sort of savers
Speaker 1: companies like Costcos. If you have four or five miles
Speaker 1: of feeding, it becomes pretty price efficient to go buy
Speaker 1: it all in bulk at Costco. Well, it's funny because
Speaker 1: we talked with the General Mill CEO this week and
Speaker 1: he said specifically, it's not like you're not only feeding
Speaker 1: yourself breakfast, but now you're feeding yourself lunch. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: and listen, we work for a company that would often
Speaker 1: feed us all of that, you know. But I mean
Speaker 1: people are definitely cooking more and they need more food
Speaker 1: at home. Yeah, And I mean that's I could say.
Speaker 1: I typically always, you know, eight lunch out in the
Speaker 1: city somewhere we you know, would would ordering for dinner,
Speaker 1: go out for dinner. So definitely, uh. I think even
Speaker 1: if you aren't doing it for the entire family, pretty
Speaker 1: much everyone across the board is having to some extent
Speaker 1: or another prepare food at home, and so that favors
Speaker 1: quite a few different businesses. Amazon with grocery deliveries another
Speaker 1: I think great example of of something that's shifted over
Speaker 1: the past couple of months. And I think that actually
Speaker 1: changes behaviors moving forward. People were a little SCARIU about
Speaker 1: am I comfortable ordering vegetables or something that can spoil
Speaker 1: quickly online? And now they've they've gotten comfortable with that,
Speaker 1: and I think the companies that are delivering that service
Speaker 1: have ironed out a lot of the wrinkles as well.
Speaker 1: So I think that is actually gonna be an interesting
Speaker 1: shift moving forward that we shouldn't expect that times on
Speaker 1: the swing back entirely the other way, even in a
Speaker 1: post COVID environment. Sean, what do you think about the action?
Speaker 1: You know, less than forty days out here? Uh, we
Speaker 1: are talking about it all the time from a news perspective,
Speaker 1: and certainly the political headlines are running fast and furious.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder both historically and everything is sort
Speaker 1: of thrown out the window. I feel like historically these days,
Speaker 1: how do you think about the election as it bears
Speaker 1: down on us, given that it is so close? So
Speaker 1: one thing I think in the past and this election
Speaker 1: will be maybe you can have one one president is
Speaker 1: you know maybe back in uh in Florida, UM, when
Speaker 1: there was the whole the hanging chat or deal and
Speaker 1: that took us some time UM to work through the
Speaker 1: court cases to really uh you know, officialize that the outcome,
Speaker 1: at least for Florida. I think now the expectation is,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one thing in which is Florida's just
Speaker 1: one state. We may have this across multiple states, and
Speaker 1: it may take some time to to get an idea
Speaker 1: of who the siginfield of winner for the election is.
Speaker 1: So I think it's generally agree upon across the board
Speaker 1: across the political spectrum. We're not going to know who
Speaker 1: the winner is on election day or probably even the
Speaker 1: days after, so it will be a little bit different
Speaker 1: than Okay, who won, I know who one now here
Speaker 1: is how I'm going to maybe react to UM, you know,
Speaker 1: what their policies are going to be. And there are
Speaker 1: two very different economic policies, especially from the tax point
Speaker 1: of view, being put on the table here. So there's
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some certainly some UM impacts on asset
Speaker 1: prices that I think dramatically one way or another based
Speaker 1: off who the eventual winner ends up being. Here. That
Speaker 1: the thing is is, I think there's going to be
Speaker 1: a significant amount of volatility. If we look at the
Speaker 1: volatility futures, they're sort of pointing to that as well,
Speaker 1: UM for the vault of these features in that November
Speaker 1: time period, and I honestly think you're going to have
Speaker 1: you think of the headlines that you get, you know,
Speaker 1: around COVID that can sort vaccinations, that can drive us
Speaker 1: one way or another day to day. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to be like that, but even more amplified um
Speaker 1: in the weeks after the election, based off of how
Speaker 1: the various counts and ruins are going to be going.
Speaker 1: I think that's going to be the big headline rest
Speaker 1: going into November. And I think that's even why in
Speaker 1: days like today, where you have pretty bob broad based strength,
Speaker 1: you're not seeing the zicks pulled back too much. I
Speaker 1: would expect to day with this much broad based route.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty much across the board. On the
Speaker 1: heat Matt Green, it's still above twenty six. So it's
Speaker 1: telling you there there's they're having a nice day. But
Speaker 1: you should expect choppiness and swings like this. I would
Speaker 1: say at least for the next two months or so. Well, Listen,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be crazy between the election, and if we
Speaker 1: start to see virus cases pick up, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: so many things being thrown once again at investors um Sean.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Good chat. Shawn Cruise, manager of
Speaker 1: Trader Strategy t D marriage Trade on the phone from Chicago.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download
Speaker 1: the podcast on iTunes, South Cloud, Blueberg dot com, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get a podcast. And of course you can
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