WEBVTT - Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend - August 16th, 2024 0:00:02.440 --> 0:00:06.800 Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news. 0:00:08.360 --> 0:00:12.720 This is Bloomberg business Week Inside from the reporters and 0:00:12.920 --> 0:00:16.480 editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:20.680 global business, finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:25.640 Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio. 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.080 Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend podcast. 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:33.680 Acquired week with the back of US economic data released 0:00:33.760 --> 0:00:37.040 as the warm up act to this coming week's annual 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:41.320 gathering of central bankers, policymakers, academics and economists at the 0:00:41.400 --> 0:00:45.160 Jackson Hole Economic Symposium. The main attraction at that event 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:47.559 fed Chair J. Powell's speech on Friday. 0:00:47.880 --> 0:00:50.040 We're going to be all Jackson Hole guests in the 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.120 upcoming presidential election and its outcome may come up, if 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:56.840 not with Jair J. Powell, perhaps with others our take 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:58.920 on the elections this week on how to raise a 0:00:58.960 --> 0:01:01.920 citizen of all that in just a moment. 0:01:01.760 --> 0:01:04.200 Also this hour, what it's like when ozembic takes over 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:08.240 an entire town, or when Scarlett Johansson and Chris Evans 0:01:08.280 --> 0:01:10.400 talked to US troops deployed overseas. 0:01:10.600 --> 0:01:12.679 All of that to come, We begin though, with something 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.280 that might freak you out just a little bit. But 0:01:15.319 --> 0:01:18.039 it may not be all that surprising. According to the 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:22.760 twenty twenty three Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey, nearly one 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.319 in five Americans can't name a single branch of government. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:28.760 It's executive, legislative, and judicial. 0:01:28.880 --> 0:01:31.720 By the way, that's twenty percent. I know it's a lot, 0:01:31.800 --> 0:01:34.000 all right. Perhaps it's not surprising given the state of 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.080 civics education in the United States. According to the Committee 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:40.080 for Economic Development that's the public policy center of the 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.800 Conference Board, only seven states require a full year of 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.120 civics or government in schools, and thirteen states have no 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:50.760 civics course requirements. Tim, I say, I feel kind of lucky. 0:01:50.840 --> 0:01:54.280 We talked about news, current events, politics at home sometimes 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.520 againable heated with my older siblings. Same for my daughter. 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.560 She's born into it, being the child of parents who 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:01.440 are both in the news business. How about for you, 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:02.320 what was it like grown up? 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:02.760 Oh? 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:04.800 Yeah, we talked about it all the time growing up. 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:06.920 I'm trying to figure out what to do with my kids, 0:02:07.000 --> 0:02:07.360 are you. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:07.680 Yeah. 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:09.280 The thing is is they're at the age now where 0:02:09.280 --> 0:02:12.200 you can't really listen to news in the morning when 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:15.000 they're around. Because there's so much disturbing stuff happening around 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.239 the world, you don't want them to hear those things. Yeah, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:19.359 so it's kind of a delicate balance. But let's just 0:02:19.400 --> 0:02:21.360 say there are a lot of questions coming up about 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:22.320 the way society works. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.080 You have super smart kids, especially your older one, who 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:26.639 is really curious about things. 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:28.560 It is almost the younger one still can't talk about 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:29.320 she's coming. 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:30.560 She's going to be right behind them. 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:32.920 Well, with some thoughts on how to teach our children 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:36.120 about the government, we turned to Lindsay Kormack, Associate Professor 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.680 of Political Science and director of the Diplomacy Lab at 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:41.720 Steven's Institute of Technology. She's got a new book out 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:44.160 called How to Raise a Citizen and Why It's up 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:45.359 to You to do It. 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:48.200 Yeah, so you all are lucky, because that's that's atypical. 0:02:48.240 --> 0:02:50.520 Most of our families don't have those sorts of discussions. 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:51.959 In research that we did for the book, we found 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.080 that only twenty five percent of eighteen year olds report 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.880 that they ever had an intentional discussion about politics or 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.800 government with their parents. And my sort of stance on 0:02:59.840 --> 0:03:02.480 this is you can't start it too early because kids 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:04.360 are just trying to make sense of the world around them. 0:03:04.400 --> 0:03:06.400 They're soaking it up. So if they hear us talking, 0:03:06.400 --> 0:03:08.639 you know, like saying like politicians are all bad or 0:03:08.639 --> 0:03:11.400 they're negative, they're liars, they're cheaters, they're going to hear that. 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:13.639 And so it's not that not talking to them doesn't 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:15.480 give them a message. They sometimes just pick up the 0:03:15.480 --> 0:03:17.560 negative pieces. So it's up to us to kind of 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:19.799 recast the narrative around this in front of them. 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:22.000 Okay, and I have a large family, a lot of 0:03:22.040 --> 0:03:24.920 nieces and nephews. What do you do though, when a 0:03:25.000 --> 0:03:27.560 twenty something year old or an early thirties like, yeah, 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:31.600 all the politicians they're really lousy. What's the right response? 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:33.520 How do you deal with that where they're kind of 0:03:33.600 --> 0:03:35.960 so set in their view. 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:39.000 Yeah, So when I hear something like that, I usually 0:03:39.080 --> 0:03:41.320 think that people are talking about federal politicians and I 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:43.320 try to change the conversation and think about who their 0:03:43.400 --> 0:03:45.960 local and state representatives are. Yeah, because for the most part, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:48.280 the people who do this work at lower levels. They're 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:50.160 not bad, they're not out there to do ill. They're 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:53.280 really trying their best, and oftentimes they're not that well supported. Financially, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.560 the jobs don't pay that well. People yell at them, 0:03:55.560 --> 0:03:57.280 and so really, I think most of the people doing our 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.080 politics are trying their best. 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:00.960 You know, we hear what you said. We hear a 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:03.000 lot from the mayors we talked to. We check in 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.040 with mayors around the country quite a bit, and oftentimes 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.720 they are Democrats or Republicans. They're required to have a 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:13.720 party affiliation, but regardless of what party there in, they 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:17.760 don't really consider themselves members of a certain political party 0:04:17.800 --> 0:04:20.159 because their job is to come up with solutions to 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.320 you know, fixing potholes and making sure that things are 0:04:24.400 --> 0:04:26.680 running on time in a small city or in a 0:04:26.720 --> 0:04:32.000 metropolitan area. And it's an interesting issue because there is 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.360 this separation between the local level versus what happens on 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:39.240 the federal level, and so much air is taken out 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.680 by national politics. And that's sort of the vibe that 0:04:42.960 --> 0:04:43.880 people pick up on. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.560 Yeah, that's absolutely true. You know, we talk about federal 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:49.880 politics more than anything else, despite the fact that local 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.599 politics is some of the most consequential for our quality 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:53.719 of life decisions. 0:04:54.200 --> 0:04:56.839 You know, it's funny my husband and I, as I said, 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:58.599 he's a news guy too, and it just said, you know, 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:00.640 when he was kind of and his way up, you 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:04.159 always went to the town hall meetings and local politics. 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:06.120 And part of it is, you know, the demise of 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:09.760 local journalism, like there's just no reporting on it anymore. 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:13.200 And so it's all kind of the same stuff, as 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:15.400 you said, a lot of it at the federal level, 0:05:15.440 --> 0:05:18.159 but it's not really getting down to, you know, what's 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.920 happening on a different level. It is why I will 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.440 be Tim's right, like we love talking to mayors, We 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:27.120 love talking to governors, like what's going on in your state, 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:29.240 what's going on in your towns. It's really important. 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:30.760 All right. 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:32.640 So you've got a five year old, how do you 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:33.679 teach them about government? 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:35.600 Yeah, I think if you have a five year old, 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:37.720 the point is just to make sure that you are 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.120 comfortable doing it in front of them, have conversations around them, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:42.040 have conversations in front of them. We don't need to 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:43.800 raise like little government trivia experts. 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:43.960 You know. 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.120 They don't need to know all the presidents, they don't 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:47.880 need to know how Bill becomes a lot at that age. 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:50.560 But it's about giving them the vocabulary, letting them hear 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:52.160 these words so they can kind of start to make 0:05:52.200 --> 0:05:55.080 sense of it. For every other subject, we start kindergarten 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.279 with little concepts, little vocap and we build. But for government, 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:00.000 a lot of the times we wait until their own 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:01.800 eighteen and then say like, here, we're going to teach 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:03.960 you everything right now. And so it's just this idea 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:06.640 of scaffolding, like we do with every other skill and subject. 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:09.360 Okay, so parents can't always be the ones who are 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.320 doing this because they're not necessarily the ones who are 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:12.880 doing this. What's your view on how this should be 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:13.599 taught in schools? 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:17.720 So we do need to take an approach that prioritizes 0:06:17.760 --> 0:06:20.520 things younger, like we do with everything else. Well, a 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:21.839 lot of the ways that we do this is very 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:24.160 idiosyncratic because states will say here's how we think we 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.000 should do it, but then it gets further devolved down 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.159 to school boards or it gets devolved down to counties, 0:06:28.200 --> 0:06:30.080 and so we don't have a unified curriculum. We never 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:32.440 are going to. But the thing that we can do 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:35.800 is start earlier and start building over time instead of 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.520 just backloading everything in that second semester of senior year 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.960 when kids really aren't that receptive to new information anyhow. 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.840 You know what's interesting I'm getting some messages from a 0:06:44.880 --> 0:06:46.960 member of our audience who says that the kids aren't 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:51.200 necessarily the problem. It's the parents who seem to be 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:55.560 the least educated, the most susceptible to misinformation. 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:56.680 Those grown up kids. 0:06:56.720 --> 0:06:57.240 What do we do with it? 0:06:57.320 --> 0:06:57.480 Yeah? 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:58.680 What do we do with those grown ups? 0:06:59.320 --> 0:06:59.480 Yes? 0:06:59.560 --> 0:06:59.800 You know what. 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:01.160 That's one of the reasons I wrote this book in 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:02.640 the way I did. The first half is sort of like, 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:04.479 here's the problem, here's what our kids need to know. 0:07:04.520 --> 0:07:06.599 And the second half is a primer because I understand 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.680 that people who are parenting today, we are products of 0:07:08.720 --> 0:07:11.520 systems that were deprioritizing civic education. A lot of times 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.120 we had parents who were not comfortable talking about these topics, 0:07:14.360 --> 0:07:16.720 and so whoever's pointing that out to you, I share 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:18.760 that viewpoint with the parents. We need a little bit 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.720 more education here too, And that's sort of what this 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:22.000 effort is about. 0:07:22.640 --> 0:07:24.560 How do you you know? It's interesting because I think 0:07:24.560 --> 0:07:29.480 we've all had conversations with adults where it gets heated. 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:32.240 How do you have that conversation like, well, wait a minute, 0:07:32.240 --> 0:07:34.520 you don't really understand how this works, Like, how do 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:35.120 you do that? 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:37.920 Yeah, I'll tell you the strategy. I'm mostly talking with 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:39.800 college students I eighteen to twenty two year olds, and 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.560 they get heated too. But instead of asking someone what 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.560 they think or why they believe that, the first question 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:47.160 I always like to ask is what have you heard 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:49.280 about that? Because I think when you ask someone what 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:52.400 have you heard? It removes them from having the responsibility 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.040 of defending or justifying a position. They can say, oh, 0:07:55.040 --> 0:07:57.120 I heard this on Twitter, Oh I heard this from 0:07:57.120 --> 0:07:59.200 my uncle or whatever it is, and then you can 0:07:59.240 --> 0:08:01.120 kind of work with that instead of putting it on 0:08:01.160 --> 0:08:03.720 them to defend whatever it is. They're trying to think. 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:07.320 Source matters, right. It's funny that, I mean, I find 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.120 myself doing that to a lot, like where did you 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:09.440 hear that? 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:10.040 It does? 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.960 But I think one challenge now is the polarization that 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:17.080 we see on these online platforms. So you have you know, 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.640 for example, the Elon Musk, the owner of X, has 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.960 endorsed Donald Trump and he has hosted a conversation with 0:08:25.080 --> 0:08:28.720 him on the platform. He is in complete control of 0:08:28.760 --> 0:08:32.240 that platform. Can you imagine the outrage that you'd hear 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.800 from folks out there if you saw the opposite, like 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:38.600 on Facebook or something like the CEO of. 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.760 Oh, like if Bluckerberg sat down with Kamala Harris. 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:43.520 Yeah, exclusively or endorses her. 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:45.920 Yeah, you know what that might be like a pulse 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:49.160 on current politics, because I imagine that that probably would 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.000 have more outrage than what happened with one point two 0:08:52.040 --> 0:08:55.800 million people listening to Elon Musk and Donald Trump. But yeah, 0:08:55.840 --> 0:08:57.840 it's hard to know, but you're probably right. Your intuition 0:08:57.880 --> 0:08:59.400 there kind of goes with what I would think too. 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:05.920 Lids, we mentioned that you have got basically five rules 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.319 or five skills that you think kids ought to have. 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:09.320 Can we go through them? 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:11.160 Sure? Thing, This is the things that you need to 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:13.040 go over with your kids before they leave your house, 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.720 so before they're gone for college or whatever awaits them after. 0:09:16.320 --> 0:09:17.680 The first one is they need to know how to 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.120 have hard conversations. And one of the reasons that I 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.160 note that that's true is as a college professor, I 0:09:22.200 --> 0:09:24.360 have students who are afraid to upset anyone and they're 0:09:24.360 --> 0:09:27.280 afraid to feel this discomfort themselves, and so that's like 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:28.960 a big skill that we need to make sure that 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:31.480 they have. The second one is parents need to make 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.440 sure their kids know how to register to vote. And 0:09:33.480 --> 0:09:35.680 then they have to change it when they move. I 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:37.840 take our kids just to vote every year when we 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:40.000 have an election, and without fail, some of them are 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.120 turned away because they thought they were registered and they 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.040 don't realize that if you're registered in one county, it 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.240 doesn't transfer to the other. So make sure that they 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:48.040 understand how to do this and how they change that 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.199 when they move. The third one is they need to 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:53.719 understand the difference between primaries and general elections. All too 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.079 often we only focus on general elections when we talk 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:58.000 about this in schools, and so they really miss out 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.839 on this big piece of power, which is picking some 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:03.040 in a primary election. The third thing is they need 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:05.880 to have an understanding of federalism because we so are 0:10:05.920 --> 0:10:09.160 the fourth thing. Rather, we oftentimes focus on the federal level, 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.760 and then they don't realize that state and local governments 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.680 control so many things. When we think about big policy 0:10:14.679 --> 0:10:18.320 issues like gun licensing or healthcare or marijuana policy, things 0:10:18.320 --> 0:10:20.800 that matter to young voters, this happens at the state 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:22.880 level for the most part, and so having an appreciation 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:24.719 of these different levels it's an important thing for them 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:26.960 to have. And the fifth one, and this is a 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:28.680 hard sell, but a lot of parents that I'm talking 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.120 to are pretty receptive to it. Your kids need to 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:33.800 have read the Constitution at least once before they leave 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.520 your house. It's our charter of government, is the rules 0:10:36.520 --> 0:10:38.600 of the game, and once they have an understanding of it, 0:10:38.640 --> 0:10:41.720 they can't be as suayed with bad information or misinformation 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:43.760 because they'll really just have a rooted understanding of what 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:44.800 our system is all about. 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.040 And yes, you can start with Hamilton, like it'll get 0:10:47.040 --> 0:10:51.280 you really excited like that. No, seriously, Like I think 0:10:51.280 --> 0:10:54.000 about something like that gets people interested, like, oh wait 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.120 a minute, this is really our history in a fun form. 0:10:57.160 --> 0:11:00.240 But there's a lot of information there. What is it 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.719 that the kids that you teach eighteen to twenty one, 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.640 twenty two? You've got a young daughter too. But I 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:09.480 am curious about the questions that come up the most 0:11:10.679 --> 0:11:13.199 when it comes to government politics. What do they want 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:14.720 to know? What is it that they're like, I don't 0:11:14.720 --> 0:11:16.840 really understand this. I feel like when there's a piece 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.560 of legislation going through Congress, we all are kind of like, wait, 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:22.760 where are we in this process? And where are we 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:24.920 and what vote is this and how does this work? 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:27.800 Because there's still things I think the mechanics that don't 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:30.040 always make sense or don't you know, there's just it 0:11:30.040 --> 0:11:32.520 feels like nuances do it. But anyway, what do kids 0:11:32.520 --> 0:11:33.280 ask you the most? 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:35.240 I mean, I wish I could tell you that there 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:37.240 was this one thing that they didn't understand, but truly 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.880 they're lost. Like their understanding of the courts is based 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:42.800 on like courtroom drama TV. Their understanding of the presidency 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.280 is sort of like whatever they've seen on Instagram or 0:11:45.320 --> 0:11:47.559 TikTok that morning. And when it comes to like how 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:50.760 the legislature works, it's really hard and so it's not 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:52.760 something where we can fix it overnight. But I do 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:54.600 think that if we start a little earlier, if we're 0:11:54.600 --> 0:11:56.720 a little bit more intentional about it, and we recognize 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:58.800 that we have a role as families in writing this thing, 0:11:59.240 --> 0:12:01.200 we can get to a lot of their questions because 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:02.680 they're kind of lost all over the place. 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.160 Do the social platforms have a role too? You mentioned 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:09.640 Instagram and TikTok just now, how do you see them? 0:12:10.559 --> 0:12:12.760 I mean, they're already here. They're going to be here 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.679 for good, I think, and so we have to understand 0:12:15.720 --> 0:12:18.200 what they are. I think something that parents can do is, 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:19.480 you know, We're not going to see the same things 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.040 as our kids. We're algorithmically fed different things. We all 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:23.720 know this, and something that I argue in my book 0:12:23.840 --> 0:12:26.160 is that take a little time with each other and say, like, 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:27.719 what is it that you're seeing and make sure that 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:29.880 you kind of have an understanding of what their algorithm 0:12:29.960 --> 0:12:31.920 feeds them, and let them see what you're getting fed 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:33.880 as well. That way, you can talk about things with 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.160 a better understanding of the background inputs that either side has. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:40.439 We talked about education, Tim, you asked earlier. I think 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.679 let's you some questions. But do we need to have 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:47.199 mandatory civics classes in school? Do we need to have 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:49.120 a civics test before people vote? 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:51.559 I don't think a civics test is necessarily the way 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.920 to do it. The people who study like education, the 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.360 people who are experts in this field, always come back 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.480 to this idea of action civics, which is like giving 0:12:58.559 --> 0:13:00.480 kids a project so that they can really see how 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.480 the process works. You know, they find like a playground 0:13:02.480 --> 0:13:04.559 and say, oh, our basketball courts are kind of cracked 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.400 and they don't really work. How can we figure out 0:13:06.400 --> 0:13:08.520 how to fix that? And that process is, you know, 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.319 figuring out which branch of government is responsible, which level 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:13.800 is responsible, trying to figure out how you activate to 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:15.680 talk to those people, and even if you don't succeed 0:13:15.720 --> 0:13:18.120 in getting better basketball courts, you understand a lot more 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.360 about the process. And so the people who study that 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:22.000 sort of like what can we do in schools, they 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.079 mostly point to action civics versus study for a test, 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.320 get ten answers right, and go on with your life. 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:32.439 The January sixth riot on the Capitol was that, I mean, 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.040 how do you think about that in our political history? 0:13:36.720 --> 0:13:41.320 And I'm just thinking, like, does it make you nervous? 0:13:41.360 --> 0:13:44.160 Like those individuals did they think, well, this is democracy. 0:13:44.240 --> 0:13:47.880 I believe the vote was stolen. You know, like, how 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:51.640 do you kind of teach around that that those are 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:57.839 citizens to people who may have thought, listen, you know, 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:03.080 we think things weren't democratic, and so we're protecting our state. 0:14:04.600 --> 0:14:06.280 Yeah, that's a really hard one, and I talk about 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:07.960 this a little bit in the book. I think one 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.200 of the things that's challenging there is my guess is 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:12.120 that people who are stormed in the Capitol on January 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:13.680 six I don't think many of them ever worked as 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:16.160 poll workers or election workers. Because I think if you had, 0:14:16.480 --> 0:14:18.920 you would understand how difficult it is to actually steal 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.200 an election or how unlikely it is that enough people 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.800 would conspire to do that. And so this is all 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:25.320 sort of going back to the point of like, if 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:28.200 we understand our systems better, I think they operate in 0:14:28.240 --> 0:14:31.440 better ways and we're less prone to things like misinformation 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:33.800 that could incite violence. So I think about January six 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.200 as an ultimate failure of political education more than anything else. 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:40.360 But many Americans do still believe the twenty twenty election 0:14:40.480 --> 0:14:43.160 was stolen and question and again I'm going to the 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:47.280 American Bar Association. They write that they question the integrity 0:14:47.360 --> 0:14:51.280 of our election systems, and you actually hear the current 0:14:51.320 --> 0:14:55.520 front runner and Republican nominee still questioning the twenty twenty election. 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:58.680 How do you view those in positions of power making 0:14:58.680 --> 0:14:59.480 comments like that. 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:02.480 So I think it's easier to give Donald Trump a 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:06.040 pass versus season of politicians a past, because seasoned politicians, 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.160 you know, they understand these systems, they've interacted with them 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:10.560 for a longer time. I think what Donald Trump kind 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.920 of brings is more of an infotainment style of things 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:15.800 and not a deep rooted understanding of how the processes 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.400 that underlie our systems work. I think it's kind of 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:21.400 dangerous for us to kind of take that as the 0:15:21.400 --> 0:15:24.120 teaching versus going back to basics and saying, you know what, 0:15:24.360 --> 0:15:26.240 maybe I'll go volunteer as a poll worker and go 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:28.080 see how that actually is. That would be the version 0:15:28.120 --> 0:15:30.360 of doing like your own real research. And I think 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:32.720 when people do that, they realize it's very hard to 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:34.800 steal an election. It's very hard to do these sorts 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:36.880 of things because we have so much redundancy in place 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:37.640 in the US system. 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:39.520 Hey, lindsay one last question. We've got to wrap up, 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:41.040 but got about a minute. I think there are a 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:43.120 lot of folks too there like this isn't my government, 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:46.400 it's companies who do lobbying. You worked at a lobbyist 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:49.280 in Washington for about a year. They're like, why should 0:15:49.280 --> 0:15:51.240 I vote because it doesn't really matter, because my vote 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.560 doesn't matter because it's money that matters. What do you 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:55.280 say to them? And again, we just got about forty 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:55.880 five seconds. 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:58.240 Yeah, I think I think that's a hard feeling, and 0:15:58.280 --> 0:16:00.080 I understand it to think that you're inconsequential. So the 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:02.040 thing is, you're truly not at all the local and 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:05.120 state levels. Federal government, sure, you're a small piece of that, 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.200 but when you're doing things that are understand local level, 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.800 you are pivotal. We have elections that are decided in 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.280 fewer than hundreds of votes, So I understand that concern. 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:15.160 I think you should put it away and still exercise 0:16:15.200 --> 0:16:16.200 the rights that you have here. 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.560 That was Lindsay Kormack, Associate Professor of Political Science and 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.840 director of the Diplomacy Lab at Steven's Institute of Technology, 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:24.920 her new book, How to Raise a Citizen and Why 0:16:24.960 --> 0:16:26.080 It's up to You to Do. 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:28.600 It coming up. For more than eighty years, the USO 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.440 has been supporting members of the US Armed Forces and 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:34.080 their families. The CEO of the nonprofit joins us. 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:37.000 On the other side, you're listening to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. This 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:41.400 is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:44.520 Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm 0:16:44.560 --> 0:16:47.280 Easter Listen on Apple car Play and then brought auto 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.440 with a Bloomberg Business act or watch us Live on YouTube. 0:16:52.080 --> 0:16:54.560 Our next guest has quite the resume. He was Assistant 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.520 to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor from March 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.120 two thousand and five until June two thousand and seven, 0:17:00.280 --> 0:17:03.240 he served as US Ambassador to Romania in the early 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:06.399 two thousands. He also served as Assistant Secretary of Defense 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.320 for International Security Policy from two thousand and one to 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:10.400 two thousand and three. 0:17:10.520 --> 0:17:12.960 From nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety two, he was the 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:17.160 Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, 0:17:17.480 --> 0:17:19.399 and from nineteen eighty four to nineteen eighty six he 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:22.320 worked for the Assistant Director for Strategic Programs in the 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:25.840 US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. He was also an 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.760 advisor to the US Delegation on Nuclear and space arms 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:30.560 talks with the former Soviet Union. 0:17:30.800 --> 0:17:33.840 And yeah, he also founded a tech company. We could 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:35.520 definitely go on and on and on, but what we 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.440 really wanted to do is talk to our next guest 0:17:37.440 --> 0:17:41.440 about so much, including now running the organization that's been 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:43.840 serving the men and women in the US military since 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:45.240 nineteen forty one. 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:45.800 JD. 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:49.879 Crouch, President and CEO at USO, also known as United 0:17:50.000 --> 0:17:53.919 Service Organizations, on why what they do today carries the 0:17:53.960 --> 0:17:57.000 same significance as it did more than eighty years ago. 0:17:57.359 --> 0:18:00.959 The USO today is in many ways, it's a modernized 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.919 version right of what in a very relevant version of 0:18:03.960 --> 0:18:08.520 what happened in nineteen forty one. We still have entertainment connections. 0:18:08.560 --> 0:18:11.600 It's not Bob Hope today, but it's Scarlett Jorhanssen, or 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:14.360 it's Chris Evans, or it's people like that who go 0:18:14.480 --> 0:18:17.600 out and talk to the troops, spend time with the troops, 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:21.680 and the purpose is really the same. It's to really 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.280 give them a taste of home and make sure that 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.560 they understand that people back home are supporting them and 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:29.960 are thinking about them. But we also do it in 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.760 a million other ways, not just entertainers. You know, we 0:18:32.800 --> 0:18:35.960 have two hundred and seventy five locations all around the world. 0:18:36.600 --> 0:18:40.000 There's just as an example, there's over ten thousand American 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.199 troops in Eastern Europe right now as a result of 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.640 the situation in Ukraine, and the USO is there with them, 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:49.600 providing support through centers that we've built on military basis, 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.879 and all kinds of other programs like care packages and 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.280 things like that. So the USO is a multifaceted set 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.840 of programs. It's all designed to make sure that our 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.919 service members understand the gratitude of the American people. 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:06.960 Can you remind everyone about the structure of the organization 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:09.520 where the funding comes from, because this is a it's 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:14.600 a nonprofit, terrible corporation that is chartered by Congress. Where 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:15.520 does the money come from? 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:19.639 Yeah, well, the money largely comes from the American people. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:24.240 We have, you know, donations that are as small as 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.479 you know, five dollars or less from people who've been 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:31.520 supporting I've actually gotten I got a letter from a 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.000 little lady who's who met her husband at a USO 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.439 dance in nineteen forty four, and she sent me a 0:19:38.560 --> 0:19:43.680 quarter that that was, you know, taped to the letter. Okay, wow, 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:46.960 all the way up to big corporations and companies that 0:19:47.000 --> 0:19:49.520 we have strategic partnerships with. I know you've got a 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.600 lot of businesses that are watching this. You know, we 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:55.679 have got some great strategic partners with fantastic brands that 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.880 go back a Coke back to nineteen forty one, the NFL, Kroger, 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.840 and lots of others. The Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin, people 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:06.919 like that, Companies like that that really are leaning in 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:09.520 on supporting the troops. So there's all kinds of ways 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:14.400 to help support what we're doing at USO dot org. 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:18.000 What about when you know, individuals come home. I always 0:20:18.000 --> 0:20:21.280 think about the support once they come back. How do 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.879 you guys kind of continue the support there. 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:27.639 Yeah, well, you know, when they are overseas, we're actually 0:20:27.680 --> 0:20:30.480 back home supporting their families. I mentioned the Eastern European 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:34.119 deployments that those are unaccompanied tours. They're not going with 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:37.320 family members, so we're back home supporting them around the basis. 0:20:37.320 --> 0:20:40.560 But when they do return, if you know, obviously we're 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.840 usually there with some kind of a welcome home for them. 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:45.680 We had a great welcome home for the aircraft carriers 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:48.360 that have just deployed to the Middle East that came 0:20:48.400 --> 0:20:52.560 home to Norfolk. But beyond that, as they're looking to 0:20:52.600 --> 0:20:55.879 transition out of the military, the USO has a broad 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:59.439 range of services that help them smooth that transition so 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:01.400 that they can get we had a good job, get 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:06.320 the educational benefits that they deserve, and integrate into their community. 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:09.680 So we really are there from the time they enter 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:12.560 the service and you know, raise their right hand all 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:14.520 the way to the time that they transition out. 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:16.439 Jadie, you know what I always think about with an 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.720 organization like this is folks who might be listening to 0:21:19.760 --> 0:21:23.119 this conversation right now, are just Americans in general, what 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.879 would surprise them about? I think we just forgive me, 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.240 but I think take for granted that there's going to 0:21:29.240 --> 0:21:33.480 be people doing military service and protecting our nation, protecting 0:21:34.000 --> 0:21:37.480 you know, our allies. But what would they be surprised about, 0:21:37.480 --> 0:21:40.920 Like what you guys see on a regular basis, maybe 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:43.440 some of the folks that help you, whether it's going 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.359 to entertain the troops, what would they be surprised that 0:21:46.400 --> 0:21:48.760 they might find or what that you guys find on 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:49.760 a regular basis. 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:53.000 Yeah, Well, the first thing I would say is, you know, 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:58.200 I think there's tremendous in some cases sympathy or certainly 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:03.639 pride in our military among most Americans. But that's different 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.200 than really understanding what it's like to wear the uniform. 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:09.560 And so part of this, you know, part of the 0:22:09.560 --> 0:22:11.159 thing I think when they when they when they do 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.240 get an opportunity to see either what we do or 0:22:13.280 --> 0:22:15.760 what they do, they're amazed by a lot of things. 0:22:15.960 --> 0:22:19.119 One is they're just amazed at how, you know, really 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:23.000 how American people are that are serving. That is to 0:22:23.040 --> 0:22:26.320 say they're like them. You know, we tend sometimes to 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.480 put our military on either on a pedestal or or 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.480 some people might tear them down, but but where they 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.280 might feel like they're victims or something. But that's not 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.000 the way they see themselves. They see themselves as just 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.840 patriotic Americans who are doing their job for the country. 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.920 And I think a lot of Americans would be surprised 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:47.960 at that. I mean, you know, we we tend to 0:22:48.000 --> 0:22:50.040 get what we get from the movies and things like that, 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.280 so that's certainly one thing, you know, And in terms 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:55.920 of what the USO does, I think I think maybe 0:22:56.119 --> 0:22:58.879 people would be surprised at how much we're supporting families, 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:02.600 you know. So this force is very different than the 0:23:02.640 --> 0:23:06.280 World War II force. Sixty percent of them are married 0:23:06.800 --> 0:23:09.160 and over half of them have children, and so it's 0:23:09.200 --> 0:23:14.400 a very different type of force. And consequently supporting their 0:23:14.440 --> 0:23:17.600 families back home, I think is a critical part to 0:23:17.680 --> 0:23:21.040 getting future generations of Americans to raise their hand and 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:21.960 say they want to serve. 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.280 It's also interesting the way that technology has changed deployment 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.280 and keeping in touch with family. If you think about 0:23:28.280 --> 0:23:31.400 it from the perspective of Okay, waiting months to get 0:23:31.480 --> 0:23:36.000 letters back in World War Two or even Vietnam to 0:23:36.240 --> 0:23:43.159 getting emails in post war, during the War on Terror, 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:48.080 and now troops abroad being able to maybe do skype 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:51.560 or FaceTime with their families. How do you think about 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:53.720 the ways that families are able to keep in touch 0:23:54.040 --> 0:23:55.120 while folks are deployed. 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:58.359 Well, as you know, this is the in touch generation. 0:23:58.480 --> 0:24:02.359 I mean most of most of the rank and file, 0:24:02.400 --> 0:24:05.520 as we say and listed are actually gen Z now 0:24:05.840 --> 0:24:10.760 and obviously gen Z and millennial and consequently they're used 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.639 to being in touch. So what's the most requested service 0:24:13.680 --> 0:24:18.280 at USO centers everywhere? Internet? Wi Fi? Yeah, absolutely, it 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.280 brings them in. It's what keeps them connected. One of 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:25.080 our really exciting programs is our gaming program. And you know, 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:27.959 gaming used to be kind of isolating, but now it's not. 0:24:28.280 --> 0:24:30.240 It can be a fan activity, it can be a 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:34.560 friends activity, and so we host gaming competitions and things 0:24:34.600 --> 0:24:36.360 like that, and a lot of times people just want 0:24:36.400 --> 0:24:39.680 to come into our center relax, game with their friends 0:24:39.920 --> 0:24:42.600 who might be next door or they might be four 0:24:42.640 --> 0:24:43.560 thousand miles away. 0:24:43.880 --> 0:24:46.879 You've been CEO for about a decade. How has the 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.720 organization changed and where do you think the USO needs 0:24:49.760 --> 0:24:51.080 to go in the next ten years. 0:24:52.000 --> 0:24:53.680 Well, you know, we have spent a lot of time 0:24:54.160 --> 0:24:57.040 something you you wouldn't see you from an organizational stape, 0:24:57.080 --> 0:25:01.280 but consolidating the organization and bringing it to together. When 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:04.400 I first joined, we were nineteen independent five oh one 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:09.639 c threes. We're now one. And this has really helped 0:25:09.720 --> 0:25:11.879 us to be able to not only raise more funds, 0:25:11.880 --> 0:25:16.040 but also to move those resources where we need them 0:25:16.080 --> 0:25:18.600 because the troops are moving in different places. Who would 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:21.200 have thought two years ago we would have had five 0:25:21.280 --> 0:25:25.479 or six centers in Eastern Europe, for example, And so 0:25:25.560 --> 0:25:29.960 where it's going is always where they're going. And I 0:25:30.080 --> 0:25:32.920 give you an example of the innovation that we're just now. 0:25:32.960 --> 0:25:35.840 I think your earlier clip talked about the Abraham Lincoln 0:25:36.200 --> 0:25:40.240 sailing to the Middle East. The USL is now putting 0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:46.080 USO centers on aircraft carriers. Wow, very cool program. And 0:25:46.119 --> 0:25:49.359 again this is this is five thousand people on a 0:25:49.440 --> 0:25:53.680 contained area with nothing to do except their jobs. And 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:56.359 so this is a little R in R center buried 0:25:56.440 --> 0:25:59.439 right in the middle of the aircraft carrier. We'll be 0:25:59.480 --> 0:26:01.440 on nine carriers by the end of the year and 0:26:01.440 --> 0:26:03.760 then hope to get on the other ones in twenty 0:26:03.800 --> 0:26:07.679 twenty five. So it's those kinds of innovations that we 0:26:07.760 --> 0:26:10.840 will always seek to make sure that we are with 0:26:11.000 --> 0:26:13.480 our service members and their families wherever they go. 0:26:14.200 --> 0:26:16.200 You mentioned Eastern Europe, and you have a lot of 0:26:16.280 --> 0:26:18.360 experience in Eastern Europe, as we mentioned before, you were 0:26:18.480 --> 0:26:20.640 US Ambassador to Romania two thousand and four to two 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:24.280 thousand and five. You also were an advisor to the 0:26:24.359 --> 0:26:27.520 US Delegation on Nuclear and space arms talks with the 0:26:27.560 --> 0:26:32.480 former Soviet Union back in the nineteen eighties, I believe. 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:34.280 So I want to talk a little bit about what's 0:26:34.280 --> 0:26:38.080 happening in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe right now and 0:26:38.119 --> 0:26:43.160 the different philosophies that are existing in the modern political environment, 0:26:43.200 --> 0:26:46.760 because it does seem like there's increasingly a large number 0:26:46.800 --> 0:26:49.640 of folks here in the US who are thinking about 0:26:49.680 --> 0:26:52.520 the United States and has taking a more isolationist approach, 0:26:52.520 --> 0:26:55.359 and we're certainly seeing that in Congress each time a 0:26:55.400 --> 0:26:59.760 funding bill comes up to support Ukraine and President Zelenski, 0:27:00.040 --> 0:27:03.560 how do you think about the US's role around the 0:27:03.600 --> 0:27:04.760 world right now? 0:27:06.280 --> 0:27:10.000 Yeah, well, you know, obviously the USO doesn't take positions 0:27:10.080 --> 0:27:14.480 right on wars or political positions on things like that, 0:27:14.840 --> 0:27:18.639 But I think, you know, personally, we do need to 0:27:18.680 --> 0:27:23.359 recognize that it's a pretty dangerous world. We've got the 0:27:23.440 --> 0:27:26.240 rise of China to become a global power. We have 0:27:26.280 --> 0:27:29.080 a riventrous Russia which is really seeking to kind of 0:27:29.480 --> 0:27:33.280 recreate and those are their words, not mine, recreate the 0:27:33.320 --> 0:27:37.479 former Soviet Lands. And then we have a revolutionary Iran 0:27:37.680 --> 0:27:39.920 in the Middle East. And not only are all these 0:27:39.920 --> 0:27:42.960 things happening at the same time, but they're actually aligned, 0:27:43.000 --> 0:27:47.199 they're working together, and so that presents the United States 0:27:47.200 --> 0:27:50.520 and its allies with a lot of challenges, and it 0:27:50.560 --> 0:27:53.439 has an impact on our business because it means the 0:27:53.480 --> 0:27:58.040 operational tempo of our military has gone up dramatically, and 0:27:58.080 --> 0:27:59.399 you see it in the Middle East, to see it 0:27:59.400 --> 0:28:01.399 in Eastern Europe and not so much, but it is 0:28:01.480 --> 0:28:04.639 also there in the Far East, and it means that 0:28:04.960 --> 0:28:08.320 the demand for our services is going up dramatically as 0:28:08.359 --> 0:28:11.359 a result of that operational tempo. So it is a 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.399 very dangerous world out there, and it's one that I 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:16.679 think we ignore it our own peril. 0:28:16.760 --> 0:28:18.760 Do you feel like it's more dangerous than some of 0:28:18.800 --> 0:28:22.440 the times where you were serving, whether it's George H. W. 0:28:22.520 --> 0:28:27.920 Bush or different George W. Bush excuse me, other times 0:28:27.960 --> 0:28:32.119 where you were helping out administrations. Does it feel more dangerous? 0:28:32.960 --> 0:28:35.639 Every generation has its challenge, Carroll, You know what I mean. 0:28:35.880 --> 0:28:39.080 It is what it is. And obviously during two thousand 0:28:39.080 --> 0:28:42.240 and one that was nine to eleven and the terrorist 0:28:42.280 --> 0:28:45.600 attacks and things like that. But this does feel like 0:28:45.680 --> 0:28:50.000 a return to kind of great power conflict and that 0:28:50.120 --> 0:28:53.080 has obviously the risk of escalation and things like that. 0:28:53.120 --> 0:28:55.440 So yes, I guess I would generally say it does 0:28:55.520 --> 0:28:58.080 feel a little bit more dangerous, almost a little bit 0:28:58.240 --> 0:29:01.000 maybe like it felt back in the early late seventies 0:29:01.000 --> 0:29:02.960 and early eighties. Well, oh, go ahead, Carol. 0:29:03.040 --> 0:29:04.760 Well, and I wonder you know, the US and its 0:29:04.800 --> 0:29:08.520 traditional allies in Europe. Do you think that comes undone 0:29:08.920 --> 0:29:11.560 or do you think that survives? 0:29:13.000 --> 0:29:16.320 Well, I think we have very strong alliance relationships and 0:29:16.480 --> 0:29:19.720 you know, not some obviously the older traditional ones with 0:29:19.760 --> 0:29:23.560 the United Kingdom as well as the other founding NATO members. 0:29:23.920 --> 0:29:26.480 But also I will say just a shout out to 0:29:26.760 --> 0:29:30.640 the polls and the Romanians who not only supported the 0:29:30.720 --> 0:29:33.520 United States after nine to eleven, not only sent troops 0:29:33.560 --> 0:29:36.880 to Iraq and Afghanistan, but who are actually investing in 0:29:36.920 --> 0:29:41.440 their defense in a serious way. And consequently, are you know, 0:29:41.560 --> 0:29:44.640 they're arm in arm with us as we're in Eastern 0:29:44.680 --> 0:29:46.920 Europe right now, we're not alone there. 0:29:47.440 --> 0:29:50.720 It's interesting to hear you say this just because we're 0:29:50.760 --> 0:29:53.320 in this political environment right now where I think a 0:29:53.320 --> 0:29:56.040 lot of folks are saying, you know, it's okay for 0:29:56.160 --> 0:29:59.200 us to ignore what's going on in other parts of 0:29:59.200 --> 0:30:01.440 the world. The alliance as of old aren't necessarily the 0:30:01.440 --> 0:30:05.520 alliances that we want to continue with. We hear criticism 0:30:05.560 --> 0:30:10.040 of some of these alliances from one presidential candidate in particular, 0:30:10.760 --> 0:30:13.840 what would you say to Americans who would say that 0:30:13.880 --> 0:30:17.239 they're critical of some of these alliances that have been 0:30:17.280 --> 0:30:18.720 traditional post World War Two? 0:30:19.640 --> 0:30:22.160 You know, I actually think if you go back and 0:30:22.200 --> 0:30:25.760 you look at the history of NATO, for example, even 0:30:25.840 --> 0:30:28.840 going back into the nineteen fifties, there have been president 0:30:28.880 --> 0:30:32.520 after president after president who said they need to do more, 0:30:32.960 --> 0:30:35.440 you know, they need to step up and invest more 0:30:35.440 --> 0:30:37.880 in their defense. And so there's a you know, in 0:30:37.920 --> 0:30:40.200 a way, it's I always say, it's a little bit 0:30:40.200 --> 0:30:43.600 like deja vu all over again, you know, And yes, 0:30:43.720 --> 0:30:46.800 these things wax and wane a little bit, but in particular, 0:30:47.120 --> 0:30:52.520 when the demand on American resources is higher. Is not wrong. 0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:56.440 I think for Americans to expect that our allies do more. 0:30:56.720 --> 0:30:59.560 Sometimes we don't hear about what they're doing. We don't 0:30:59.760 --> 0:31:03.120 really how much they're doing, and some of them, frankly, 0:31:03.160 --> 0:31:05.920 can do a lot more. So I think it's a balance. 0:31:06.440 --> 0:31:10.360 But that doesn't mean we shouldn't have allies, you know. 0:31:10.440 --> 0:31:13.080 In other words, we need to have allies I think 0:31:13.200 --> 0:31:16.479 and support our way of life. I mean we're not 0:31:16.880 --> 0:31:20.280 I don't think we're doing it for them or just 0:31:20.360 --> 0:31:23.400 for them. We're doing it because it's something that's important 0:31:23.440 --> 0:31:24.000 for us. 0:31:24.360 --> 0:31:27.120 Hey, Jad, just to wrap up, when someone mentions the USO, 0:31:27.240 --> 0:31:29.920 what do you want people to think of? First? 0:31:30.560 --> 0:31:35.000 I want them to think about a service member who 0:31:35.120 --> 0:31:38.720 is out somewhere on the frontiers of freedom, who's alone 0:31:38.760 --> 0:31:43.680 at Christmas, who is separated from their wives or their families. 0:31:44.360 --> 0:31:46.920 And I want them to realize that that there's almost 0:31:46.920 --> 0:31:49.959 nothing like that in the world, and that they need 0:31:50.200 --> 0:31:55.200 our continual support. And they need to know that Americans, 0:31:55.280 --> 0:31:58.440 no matter what their views are on you know, the 0:31:58.680 --> 0:32:01.280 political issues of the day. You know, they didn't make 0:32:01.320 --> 0:32:04.720 the decision to get sent to Eastern Europe or to 0:32:04.760 --> 0:32:07.200 the Middle East or someplace like that. Somebody else made 0:32:07.200 --> 0:32:10.840 that decision. But that means Americans still have an obligation 0:32:11.480 --> 0:32:14.440 to show them our gratitude and show them our support. 0:32:14.720 --> 0:32:16.640 And of course I think the best way to do 0:32:16.680 --> 0:32:18.920 that is supporting the USO, but there are other ways too, 0:32:19.280 --> 0:32:20.960 But that's what I want them to think when they 0:32:21.000 --> 0:32:21.760 think of the USO. 0:32:22.320 --> 0:32:25.920 That was JD. Crouch, President and CEO at USO, also 0:32:25.960 --> 0:32:27.880 known as United Service Organizations. 0:32:28.000 --> 0:32:31.240 Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, All aboard the GLP 0:32:31.360 --> 0:32:31.840 one train. 0:32:32.080 --> 0:32:34.880 It's time to head on over to ozempic Town. That 0:32:35.000 --> 0:32:35.680 story next. 0:32:36.040 --> 0:32:47.120 This is Bloomberg. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. 0:32:47.400 --> 0:32:50.360 Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on 0:32:50.520 --> 0:32:53.760 applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. 0:32:54.000 --> 0:32:56.840 You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our 0:32:56.880 --> 0:33:01.240 flagship New York station, Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty. 0:33:02.360 --> 0:33:04.680 So. One of the stickier investment and business trends of 0:33:04.720 --> 0:33:06.600 our world is the new class of diet drugs, the 0:33:06.640 --> 0:33:10.640 GLP one medications. They are put up by Eli, Lilly, Novo, Nordisks, 0:33:10.680 --> 0:33:13.800 and some others. The recent earning season showed Eli Lilly 0:33:13.920 --> 0:33:16.560 narrowed the gap with rival Novo in the race to 0:33:16.640 --> 0:33:19.640 dominate the red hot obesity market as it expands its 0:33:19.680 --> 0:33:21.160 supplies of weight loss drugs. 0:33:21.240 --> 0:33:23.800 A little over one week ago, Lily lifted its twenty 0:33:23.840 --> 0:33:26.360 twenty four revenue outlook for the second time this year 0:33:26.560 --> 0:33:28.720 on the strength of its weight loss drug sending the 0:33:28.760 --> 0:33:30.160 stock soaring on the news. 0:33:30.280 --> 0:33:33.320 And before that, Novo had reported disappointing second quarter sales 0:33:33.360 --> 0:33:36.480 of we Govi, saying price concessions for companies that manage 0:33:36.520 --> 0:33:40.400 prescription drug benefits in the United States cut into its performance. 0:33:40.720 --> 0:33:43.560 Novo shares sold off on the news, but if since bounce. 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:47.440 Back bottom line industry competition continues to grow. For a gutcheck, 0:33:47.480 --> 0:33:50.480 we turned to our GLP one guru, Bloomberg News health 0:33:50.480 --> 0:33:53.800 reporter Madison Muller, who also took us to Ozempic Town, 0:33:54.040 --> 0:33:57.520 also known as Bowling Green, Kentucky first stop though recent 0:33:57.560 --> 0:34:00.480 earnings joining Carol Is Bloomberg's Matt Miller kickie it off 0:34:00.600 --> 0:34:01.760 on the business of it all. 0:34:02.320 --> 0:34:05.959 Oh, zempic and we go v same thing right and 0:34:06.560 --> 0:34:11.400 is a higher dose? Okay? But Manjaro and zep bound 0:34:11.480 --> 0:34:13.640 zet bound same thing Okay. 0:34:13.320 --> 0:34:14.920 Yeah, it's very nice. 0:34:14.960 --> 0:34:17.960 Well, I'm just when we get these stats like zep 0:34:18.000 --> 0:34:21.480 bound sold one point two billion dollars worth in the 0:34:21.520 --> 0:34:23.960 second quarter, that does not count Munjaro. 0:34:23.719 --> 0:34:26.840 Right, they're separated out. And it's interesting because Manjaro has 0:34:26.880 --> 0:34:29.360 been on the market longer, but zep Bound has just 0:34:29.440 --> 0:34:29.840 ramped up. 0:34:29.920 --> 0:34:32.440 And it's also interesting because that's the one that people 0:34:32.520 --> 0:34:35.480 talk about as the fat drug, and the same is 0:34:35.520 --> 0:34:39.880 true with Novo. It's the non fat drug people talk about. Well, 0:34:39.880 --> 0:34:41.680 whatever you want to call it. I also think it's 0:34:41.719 --> 0:34:45.960 interesting that Eli Lilly calls their weight loss drug Manjaro, 0:34:46.160 --> 0:34:48.839 which is like, so where the Italian says for go 0:34:48.880 --> 0:34:49.479 eat your dinner. 0:34:49.560 --> 0:34:52.239 Right, Well, there's actually a story behind the name. What 0:34:52.400 --> 0:34:55.920 is it Mount Kilimanjaro, like smushed together, and so if 0:34:55.920 --> 0:34:57.440 you look at the label, you can see there's like 0:34:57.480 --> 0:34:58.600 two little mountains. 0:34:58.840 --> 0:34:59.680 Oh that's interesting. 0:35:00.040 --> 0:35:00.520 Who knew? 0:35:02.200 --> 0:35:04.200 All right, fun fac So let's talk the nuts and 0:35:04.200 --> 0:35:07.719 bolts of your world earnings Lily upby Novo not so much. 0:35:07.760 --> 0:35:10.600 Investors reacted accordingly, How are you thinking about the space 0:35:10.640 --> 0:35:12.040 and kind of the reporting that we're seeing. 0:35:12.120 --> 0:35:14.759 Yeah, I mean we've been talking about supply and the 0:35:14.760 --> 0:35:16.920 supply shortages for a long time, and that sort of 0:35:16.960 --> 0:35:18.160 continues to be the story. 0:35:18.520 --> 0:35:20.600 It's what we're seeing again with Novo and Lily. 0:35:20.640 --> 0:35:21.680 I mean, Novo. 0:35:21.840 --> 0:35:25.560 Struggled and missed sales estimates. Lily sort of smashed them 0:35:25.560 --> 0:35:26.240 out of the parks. 0:35:26.960 --> 0:35:28.560 So the business is good, it's just a matter of 0:35:28.600 --> 0:35:29.520 if you can keep up. 0:35:29.480 --> 0:35:30.200 Yes, exactly. 0:35:30.239 --> 0:35:33.360 And Lily like had I mean, both companies have invested 0:35:33.400 --> 0:35:37.239 billions into ramping up manufacturing. It just seems like Lily's 0:35:37.280 --> 0:35:41.440 issues are starting to ease a little bit faster than Novo's. 0:35:41.440 --> 0:35:43.799 Maybe are because they have way more money. So the 0:35:43.840 --> 0:35:47.560 idea is you can make as much as you can sell, right, definitely, 0:35:47.560 --> 0:35:52.239 and Eli Lilly is an eight hundred billion dollar company, right, 0:35:52.360 --> 0:35:57.239 so they have more resources to boost production. Novo is 0:35:58.000 --> 0:36:01.160 I don't know, like a ten bills million dollar company, right, 0:36:01.200 --> 0:36:02.799 I don't even know. It's less than ten. 0:36:02.960 --> 0:36:04.240 It's the biggest company in Europe. 0:36:04.280 --> 0:36:07.480 It's worth three point eight billion damage kroner. 0:36:07.560 --> 0:36:10.239 It's a five hundred and sixty eight billion dollar market 0:36:10.280 --> 0:36:12.080 cap company. The eighty rs at trade here. 0:36:12.200 --> 0:36:14.080 Oh is that three point eight trillion? In any case, 0:36:14.120 --> 0:36:16.760 it's worth less than Lily and it's done worse than Lily. 0:36:16.800 --> 0:36:19.520 Over the past five years. Eli Lilly shares are up 0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:20.880 six hundred and forty three percent. 0:36:21.000 --> 0:36:26.200 Yeah, I mean, Novo's a small Lily's more diversified. They've 0:36:26.200 --> 0:36:28.040 been at this for I mean both companies have been 0:36:28.080 --> 0:36:29.719 at this for a long time. But up until the 0:36:29.800 --> 0:36:33.560 last few years, Novo's bread and butter was just diabetes like. So, 0:36:33.800 --> 0:36:38.080 Lily has a slew of other drugs, cancer drugs, autoimmune drugs. 0:36:38.120 --> 0:36:41.640 They know how to ramp up right, you know, production, 0:36:41.760 --> 0:36:44.520 and they know how to do this and plan for 0:36:44.960 --> 0:36:48.080 future demand. And this is all relatively new for Novo. 0:36:48.320 --> 0:36:51.320 I mean there, this market is crazy. 0:36:51.360 --> 0:36:53.080 We want to get into a story that's on the 0:36:53.120 --> 0:36:56.040 Bloomberg that's a killer, But before we do that, we're 0:36:56.400 --> 0:36:59.680 about one and a half years into talking about this 0:36:59.719 --> 0:37:03.160 class drugs. You've been reporting so much, you know, I 0:37:03.160 --> 0:37:06.160 feel like every couple of weeks or something, there's like, hey, 0:37:06.160 --> 0:37:09.840 look what else these drugs can do? Your view you're thinking, 0:37:10.040 --> 0:37:13.040 you're reporting, how does it continue to evolve and how 0:37:13.080 --> 0:37:13.480 you think. 0:37:13.320 --> 0:37:14.040 About the future. 0:37:14.239 --> 0:37:17.440 On Eli Lilly's earnings call, they kind of like slipped 0:37:17.480 --> 0:37:19.959 this into the call. It wasn't huge news but they're 0:37:20.560 --> 0:37:24.360 no longer calling their obesity and diabetes business unit just 0:37:24.480 --> 0:37:28.600 obesity and diabetes. Now it's like cardio metabolic health, which 0:37:28.760 --> 0:37:31.479 sort of signals this bigger thing that we've been talking 0:37:31.480 --> 0:37:34.480 about that these drugs, you know, aren't just weight loss drugs. 0:37:35.000 --> 0:37:38.440 They have potential indications and are potentially able to help 0:37:38.480 --> 0:37:40.200 with a lot of other conditions that are sort of 0:37:40.239 --> 0:37:43.440 interrelated with heart disease and kidney disease and liver disease, 0:37:43.480 --> 0:37:45.799 and so like, I think that that is going to 0:37:45.840 --> 0:37:47.960 be a huge theme going forward, and the fact that 0:37:48.000 --> 0:37:50.879 Lily kind of mentioned that on the earnings call today, 0:37:50.920 --> 0:37:53.520 I was like, so they're thinking about it this way, brand. 0:37:53.440 --> 0:37:55.200 I mean, I want, you know, I want I want 0:37:55.280 --> 0:37:58.200 to take this forever, as you both know, not just 0:37:58.239 --> 0:38:00.640 because I'm fat, because I only need to lose like 0:38:00.640 --> 0:38:03.879 twenty pounds, but I want to have a healthy heart 0:38:03.960 --> 0:38:06.480 so I don't die soon. And I'm pretty sure I'm 0:38:06.520 --> 0:38:09.920 going to get Alzheimer's disease. This may stop that as 0:38:09.960 --> 0:38:12.839 well or slow it down. On the other hand, there 0:38:12.920 --> 0:38:17.560 is so much optimism for mRNA as well, and that 0:38:17.600 --> 0:38:20.239 didn't cure cancer yet, so maybe it's going to take 0:38:20.239 --> 0:38:20.880 a while. 0:38:20.800 --> 0:38:24.200 Yeah, I mean it's it's different, right, mRNA was amazing 0:38:24.200 --> 0:38:24.760 for COVID. 0:38:25.160 --> 0:38:27.719 It just was it that great for COVID because I 0:38:27.760 --> 0:38:29.439 took it and then kept getting COVID here. 0:38:30.800 --> 0:38:32.880 Yes, all right, to be fair, because I don't want 0:38:32.880 --> 0:38:34.440 to waste time, because I want to get. 0:38:34.320 --> 0:38:36.160 To the story, to the Bowling Green story. 0:38:36.320 --> 0:38:38.160 Let's talk about it. It's among the most read. Take 0:38:38.200 --> 0:38:39.200 us to a ZEPK town. 0:38:39.400 --> 0:38:41.920 Yes, so we've I mean you've known about this story 0:38:41.960 --> 0:38:43.839 for a long time because I spent quite a bit 0:38:43.880 --> 0:38:44.360 of time. 0:38:44.160 --> 0:38:46.200 In Bowling Green, Kentucky. 0:38:46.320 --> 0:38:47.440 In Kentucky, yes, not. 0:38:47.400 --> 0:38:49.920 Bowling Green, Ohio, because there is a Bowling Green, Ohio 0:38:49.960 --> 0:38:54.240 as Yeah, but has you know four percent of Bowling 0:38:54.320 --> 0:38:57.400 Green and the surrounding area people are on weight loss 0:38:57.440 --> 0:39:00.120 drugs and it's just changing the fabric of the the 0:39:00.160 --> 0:39:04.560 area economically, culturally, but in sort of surprising ways. Like 0:39:04.600 --> 0:39:06.520 I thought that I would go there and the restaurants 0:39:06.560 --> 0:39:08.480 would be empty and the gyms would be closing down. 0:39:08.520 --> 0:39:10.799 But it's sort of the opposite. I mean, restaurants are 0:39:10.840 --> 0:39:13.880 still full, the gyms are doing great. But what's happened 0:39:13.920 --> 0:39:17.520 is this like side economy has sort of formed alongside 0:39:17.600 --> 0:39:20.480 the drugs. So there's medical spas that are cropping up 0:39:20.520 --> 0:39:24.200 everywhere to sell these compounded drugs. The GNC is doing, 0:39:24.360 --> 0:39:27.680 you know, great business selling supplements that help with side effects, 0:39:27.760 --> 0:39:31.200 and so it's like it's actually helping business, but in 0:39:31.280 --> 0:39:32.400 sort of surprising ways. 0:39:33.160 --> 0:39:35.960 I have a couple of listener questions, okaya time, as 0:39:35.960 --> 0:39:37.320 long as they're pertinent to this story. 0:39:37.440 --> 0:39:40.279 Yes, so listener rights in related what happens if you 0:39:40.320 --> 0:39:41.680 take the pill and you're in shape, which is I 0:39:41.719 --> 0:39:44.279 think a good question because a lot of people, especially 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:47.319 you know, like on the Upper east Side, Yeah, they 0:39:47.320 --> 0:39:49.400 are already skinny, but they want to take it anyway. 0:39:49.680 --> 0:39:49.839 Right. 0:39:50.000 --> 0:39:52.760 Well, I mean that's the thing, is like doctors shouldn't 0:39:52.800 --> 0:39:55.400 be prescribing these drugs because it is a it's a 0:39:55.400 --> 0:39:56.200 prescription drug. 0:39:56.239 --> 0:39:57.799 But is it a problem to you stop eating and 0:39:57.840 --> 0:39:59.680 then you become like anarexic. 0:39:59.239 --> 0:40:02.319 Or I mean you that it could be dangerous, Like 0:40:02.360 --> 0:40:04.640 if you don't need to lose that much weight and 0:40:04.680 --> 0:40:07.359 you're on a weight loss drug that's really effective, probably not. 0:40:07.920 --> 0:40:11.680 Leads into the second question, when did these become over 0:40:11.719 --> 0:40:13.040 the counter and affordable? 0:40:13.600 --> 0:40:14.600 Well, that's a good question. 0:40:14.800 --> 0:40:18.000 Yeah, I mean they're probably never, I mean, I don't 0:40:18.040 --> 0:40:21.160 want to say never, but they are prescription drugs, so 0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:25.400 they're not over the counter. But generic drugs eventually will 0:40:25.400 --> 0:40:28.480 come down the pipeline. We're already seeing like some of 0:40:28.520 --> 0:40:31.240 the older GLP one drugs, the first sort of wave 0:40:31.280 --> 0:40:34.960 of these, like sex Senda, which is a drug called 0:40:35.000 --> 0:40:39.000 layer glue tide that's already on the way to becoming generics. 0:40:39.040 --> 0:40:44.120 So it's a better name too, or sex starter. 0:40:44.520 --> 0:40:46.200 Okay, all right, I'm gonna put you on the side 0:40:46.200 --> 0:40:48.399 for a moment, so go back to your story because 0:40:48.400 --> 0:40:49.080 it's really cool. 0:40:49.160 --> 0:40:49.560 You guys. 0:40:49.760 --> 0:40:52.640 It was several reporters involved in it, and you really 0:40:52.680 --> 0:40:55.120 get into the specific specifics of the people there. How 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:56.400 did you find it though? 0:40:56.560 --> 0:40:58.640 Yeah, So, I mean we worked with the data team, 0:40:58.680 --> 0:41:01.479 and we worked with this analy firm called Purple Lab, 0:41:01.800 --> 0:41:04.320 and they gave us three zip code level data, which 0:41:04.800 --> 0:41:06.719 you know kind of gives you like a city and 0:41:06.760 --> 0:41:09.920 then the surrounding area. So we looked all across the US. 0:41:10.160 --> 0:41:13.080 We wanted to see what the ozembic hot spots were, 0:41:13.120 --> 0:41:14.960 and you know, Bowling Green wasn't the only one that 0:41:15.000 --> 0:41:17.480 came up in the data. There was Huntsville, Alabama. There 0:41:17.560 --> 0:41:20.880 was like a few other areas, but Kentucky as a 0:41:20.920 --> 0:41:23.640 state has the highest concentration of weight loss drug users. 0:41:23.719 --> 0:41:25.880 So we were like, this is probably a good place 0:41:25.920 --> 0:41:29.239 to start. Clearly stands out in the data. And then 0:41:29.440 --> 0:41:31.480 once we started talking to people in Bowling Green, it 0:41:31.600 --> 0:41:34.600 was like, Okay, this is our spot because everyone here 0:41:34.880 --> 0:41:36.960 is either on the drugs or nos like five other 0:41:37.000 --> 0:41:37.879 people that are on them. 0:41:37.960 --> 0:41:39.920 I mean, can we make the assumption that's just an 0:41:39.920 --> 0:41:43.240 area where there's a fair amount of people that are overweight. 0:41:42.960 --> 0:41:44.920 Yeah, I mean the obesity rates are high there, the 0:41:44.960 --> 0:41:48.360 diabetes rates are high there, and in Kentucky across the board. 0:41:48.640 --> 0:41:49.960 So it's actually a good thing. 0:41:49.920 --> 0:41:52.799 That there's a lot of people taking these drugs in 0:41:52.880 --> 0:41:55.680 that area because you know, it means hopefully it's helping. 0:41:55.400 --> 0:41:57.239 With not just Kentucky. I mean you get off the 0:41:57.239 --> 0:41:59.759 airplane at CMH and Columbus, Ohio, and you notice that 0:42:00.080 --> 0:42:01.880 immediately as well. 0:42:01.880 --> 0:42:05.000 Listen. I mean, I think it's been an incredible game 0:42:05.120 --> 0:42:07.200 changer for a lot of people in their lives who 0:42:08.000 --> 0:42:10.440 struggle and there are people who struggle with being overweighted 0:42:10.520 --> 0:42:13.839 and who've tried a bunch of different things, and I've 0:42:13.880 --> 0:42:16.040 seen it firsthand with individuals and then they take this 0:42:16.120 --> 0:42:18.800 drug and it's just unbelievable the difference. 0:42:18.520 --> 0:42:21.279 Right, And I mean that's the big thing with these 0:42:21.360 --> 0:42:26.200 drugs is there's also been this changing understanding of obesity 0:42:26.320 --> 0:42:30.080 as you know, a biological health condition that's driven by 0:42:30.080 --> 0:42:34.320 someone's biology. That's not necessarily just because you know, these 0:42:34.520 --> 0:42:37.319 tropes that have long been repeated that someone's lazy or 0:42:37.320 --> 0:42:40.680 that they're eating too much. Like, there are biological mechanisms 0:42:40.760 --> 0:42:44.120 driving this and the these drugs help with that. So 0:42:44.160 --> 0:42:47.360 it's it's for people who need them. It's an absolute 0:42:47.400 --> 0:42:48.000 game changer. 0:42:48.080 --> 0:42:50.960 What surprised you about like going there and talking to 0:42:51.000 --> 0:42:51.480 these people? 0:42:51.920 --> 0:42:54.600 I mean, I that's a really good question. 0:42:54.920 --> 0:42:58.640 I like didn't have a lot of I don't know 0:42:58.760 --> 0:43:01.280 understanding going in because that was my first time in Kentucky. 0:43:01.320 --> 0:43:02.920 So I was like, I don't know what this is 0:43:02.920 --> 0:43:06.520 going to be like. And everyone was so willing to 0:43:06.600 --> 0:43:09.040 talk to us and share their stories and like they 0:43:09.040 --> 0:43:11.640 were so grateful for these drugs. But I think that 0:43:12.239 --> 0:43:14.719 maybe this is the thing that surprised us is like 0:43:15.800 --> 0:43:19.640 everyone had this great success at the beginning, and then 0:43:19.719 --> 0:43:24.520 something happened either their insurance cut them off or they 0:43:24.600 --> 0:43:27.120 couldn't find the drugs anymore because of supply shortages. And 0:43:27.160 --> 0:43:29.680 I guess that shouldn't have surprised me because those are 0:43:29.800 --> 0:43:32.239 all themes that we've been reporting on for a long time. 0:43:32.280 --> 0:43:34.239 But you're saying if they stopped taking the drugs, they're 0:43:34.280 --> 0:43:35.160 no longer successful. 0:43:35.560 --> 0:43:39.440 Well no, not necessarily, but and like they have found 0:43:39.520 --> 0:43:42.000 other ways to continue taking them. But I think I 0:43:42.040 --> 0:43:43.360 was surprised to keep taking. 0:43:43.120 --> 0:43:45.640 The drugs and they're still successful. Yeah, but if you 0:43:45.680 --> 0:43:47.240 stopped taking the drugs. 0:43:47.560 --> 0:43:50.400 Then oftentimes you gain the weight back exactly. 0:43:50.440 --> 0:43:52.440 I mean that's not something that we saw with the 0:43:52.480 --> 0:43:54.600 people that we spoke to, because they all were able to, 0:43:54.640 --> 0:43:57.560 like one guy switch to another drug, someone else started 0:43:57.600 --> 0:44:01.120 taking a compound of drugs. So, but I think it 0:44:01.200 --> 0:44:03.799 was surprising to me that, like everyone across the board 0:44:03.800 --> 0:44:06.839 that we talked to encountered one of these issues with 0:44:06.880 --> 0:44:10.040 accessibility or with you know, the supply shortages or price 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:10.920 or something like. 0:44:11.120 --> 0:44:13.320 It really is just affecting people a lot. 0:44:13.600 --> 0:44:15.920 Are most of these people though, is insurance paying or 0:44:15.920 --> 0:44:17.440 how much was out of pocket? 0:44:17.560 --> 0:44:20.920 It was most of the people insurance was paying at 0:44:20.920 --> 0:44:23.839 the beginning and then like six months in or once 0:44:23.880 --> 0:44:26.600 they lost a certain amount of weight, insurance stopped paying 0:44:26.600 --> 0:44:30.800 for them. Some people went to these compounded off brand 0:44:30.840 --> 0:44:33.799 drugs that we've talked about before. Other people were able to, 0:44:33.920 --> 0:44:36.799 like one guy switched from ozempic to manjarro because his 0:44:36.880 --> 0:44:40.080 insurance would cover manjarro but not ozempic, right, So, like 0:44:40.160 --> 0:44:42.520 everyone was able to continue taking the drugs for the 0:44:42.520 --> 0:44:45.400 most part. But I mean Pat Stiff, who's one of 0:44:45.440 --> 0:44:48.560 the characters in this story, Like he switched from ozempic 0:44:48.560 --> 0:44:52.919 to Manjarro and then couldn't find his Manjaro anywhere because 0:44:52.920 --> 0:44:54.479 the supply shortages were so bad. 0:44:54.560 --> 0:44:57.719 So he was, you know, as we're like finishing up. 0:44:57.600 --> 0:45:00.000 This story, calling me and saying that, well, I'm just 0:45:00.120 --> 0:45:02.200 gonna have to go off the drug and see what happens, 0:45:02.200 --> 0:45:04.680 and it'll be like an experiment. Hopefully I don't gain 0:45:04.719 --> 0:45:09.000 the weight back. But yeah, it's it's a struggle I think. 0:45:08.880 --> 0:45:09.600 For a lot of people. 0:45:09.920 --> 0:45:12.759 That's Bloomberg News health reporter Madison Miller her story in 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:16.120 Bloomberg Business Week magazine. Bloomberg's Matt Miller there as well, 0:45:16.200 --> 0:45:16.480 And that. 0:45:16.440 --> 0:45:18.200 Wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of 0:45:18.200 --> 0:45:21.439 Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Ahead in our next hour, 0:45:21.600 --> 0:45:24.760 the billionaire nerd Savior King and his quest to shape 0:45:24.760 --> 0:45:28.080 our world. You will definitely know this person, and by 0:45:28.120 --> 0:45:29.879 the way, he's also one of the richest out there. 0:45:30.239 --> 0:45:33.640 Plus how women became America's safety net, and well, no 0:45:33.719 --> 0:45:36.279 easy segue here, we're going to talk ready to drink 0:45:36.320 --> 0:45:39.719 cocktails with the head of the family owned Jeloso group 0:45:39.760 --> 0:45:40.360 of companies. 0:45:40.680 --> 0:45:41.919 This is Bloomberg Business Week. 0:45:41.960 --> 0:45:44.359 I'm Carol Messer and I'm Tim stenoveex Stay with us. 0:45:44.360 --> 0:45:47.160 Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up 0:45:47.239 --> 0:45:47.719 right now. 0:45:48.239 --> 0:45:51.759 You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us 0:45:51.800 --> 0:45:55.080 live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen 0:45:55.080 --> 0:45:57.279 on Apple car Play and ed Broud Auto with a 0:45:57.280 --> 0:46:01.920 Bloomberg Business at or want us live on YouTube tube. 0:46:01.880 --> 0:46:03.759 Plenty Ahead in our second hour of the weekend edition 0:46:03.800 --> 0:46:07.000 of Bloomberg Business Week, including the billionaire nerd Savior King 0:46:07.280 --> 0:46:10.160 aka Bill Gates and his quest to shape our world 0:46:10.239 --> 0:46:11.400 It's all in a new book. 0:46:11.480 --> 0:46:14.840 Plus women holding it all together and becoming our safety net. 0:46:14.880 --> 0:46:16.840 And after all that heavy stuff, how about wrapping it 0:46:16.920 --> 0:46:20.120 up with Aldo Jeloso, who runs the family owned Jeloso 0:46:20.160 --> 0:46:20.960 Group of companies. 0:46:21.040 --> 0:46:23.160 Yeah, I'm there, I'm totally there, all right, First up 0:46:23.160 --> 0:46:25.720 this hour, the team here at Bloomberg News analyzed government 0:46:25.800 --> 0:46:28.560 data and found that there's a gender divide in how 0:46:28.640 --> 0:46:32.160 recent college graduates are responding to a cooling US job market. 0:46:32.400 --> 0:46:35.120 While young college educated women are sticking with their job 0:46:35.160 --> 0:46:38.360 search even as the number of vacancy shrinks, many of 0:46:38.400 --> 0:46:41.560 their male peers are choosing to take a break, And 0:46:41.640 --> 0:46:44.480 women still aren't earning as much as men. Last year, 0:46:44.520 --> 0:46:47.320 women's earnings were eighty three point six percent of men's. 0:46:47.600 --> 0:46:49.799 This is according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. 0:46:50.280 --> 0:46:52.360 And yeah, come on, Tim, this shouldn't be news to 0:46:52.400 --> 0:46:53.960 anyone who's out there listening. 0:46:54.120 --> 0:46:56.279 What's talked about less though, is all of the work 0:46:56.280 --> 0:46:59.440 that women do that's unpaid. Think childcare, taking kids to 0:46:59.480 --> 0:47:02.720 the doctor, cooking for the family, managing the family budget, 0:47:03.040 --> 0:47:06.400 taking care of elderly family members, figuring out everything related 0:47:06.440 --> 0:47:09.040 to school, and yes, what the kids are doing for 0:47:09.040 --> 0:47:11.279 the summer. In a lot of ways, women are the 0:47:11.280 --> 0:47:14.880 family safety net. They're holding it together. And that's the 0:47:14.920 --> 0:47:18.960 title of Jessica Calarco's book. She's a sociologist and associate 0:47:18.960 --> 0:47:22.239 professor at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Her book out 0:47:22.360 --> 0:47:25.000 just a couple of months ago, Holding It Together, How 0:47:25.000 --> 0:47:26.960 Women became America's Safety Net. 0:47:27.480 --> 0:47:31.160 So essentially, women are the default caregivers for the children, 0:47:31.239 --> 0:47:33.359 for the sick, for the elderly, not only for kids, 0:47:33.400 --> 0:47:36.120 but filling in those kinds of jobs that you mentioned before, 0:47:36.480 --> 0:47:39.120 and essentially they are doing this work. This is actually 0:47:39.120 --> 0:47:41.399 related to the numbers that you mentioned before in terms 0:47:41.480 --> 0:47:43.680 of you know, women's equal pay or the lack of 0:47:43.680 --> 0:47:45.680 equal pay, in part because the kind of work that 0:47:45.719 --> 0:47:48.400 women are doing behind the scenes is a big factor 0:47:48.520 --> 0:47:51.239 in where that gender gap and pay comes from. That 0:47:51.280 --> 0:47:54.080 the more labor, the more unpaid labor, we heap onto women, 0:47:54.400 --> 0:47:57.320 the harder it is for them to advance in their careers, 0:47:57.320 --> 0:47:59.160 the harder it is for them to compete with men, 0:47:59.320 --> 0:48:02.480 and in ways that other countries don't. And research shows 0:48:02.520 --> 0:48:06.200 that one of the strongest predictors of our economic growth 0:48:06.239 --> 0:48:08.200 in countries is the amount of money that we invest 0:48:08.239 --> 0:48:11.239 in providing the kinds of supports that helped to alleviate 0:48:11.280 --> 0:48:14.160 some of those gender gaps in both unpaid work and 0:48:14.239 --> 0:48:16.120 also the kinds of gender gaps that show up and 0:48:16.120 --> 0:48:17.120 paid work as well. 0:48:17.239 --> 0:48:20.200 Jessica, if the pandemic hadn't ha happened, would you ever 0:48:20.200 --> 0:48:20.880 written this book? 0:48:21.280 --> 0:48:21.880 I don't think so. 0:48:22.640 --> 0:48:23.040 Certainly. 0:48:23.080 --> 0:48:25.680 This book started as a project. I was interested in 0:48:25.719 --> 0:48:27.359 what I thought of at the time as the sort 0:48:27.360 --> 0:48:30.360 of best laid plans of parenting, how you have ideas 0:48:30.400 --> 0:48:31.920 about the kind of parent that you want to be, 0:48:32.080 --> 0:48:34.840 and life intervenes, and life intervened in the sense of 0:48:34.840 --> 0:48:37.040 a pandemic happened in the middle of my data collection 0:48:37.120 --> 0:48:40.560 efforts and really pushed me to want to understand that 0:48:40.600 --> 0:48:42.600 the interviews that we were doing in the surveys we 0:48:42.600 --> 0:48:44.760 were doing with families across the US at the time, 0:48:45.239 --> 0:48:48.240 really showed how much of an impact the pandemic was having, 0:48:48.800 --> 0:48:51.720 especially on families with children, and especially on the moms 0:48:51.760 --> 0:48:54.560 within those families who were really trying to hold it 0:48:54.560 --> 0:48:56.799 together in the midst of this crisis, which which led 0:48:56.840 --> 0:48:58.920 me to want to understand, how did we get to 0:48:58.960 --> 0:49:01.200 this point of really lying on women to be the 0:49:01.239 --> 0:49:03.640 social safety net for us? And then, in the context 0:49:03.680 --> 0:49:05.880 of the failure of build back better, you know, why 0:49:05.960 --> 0:49:08.399 didn't we learn from the mistakes of the pandemic. Why 0:49:08.440 --> 0:49:11.719 didn't we pursue those kinds of policies that might have 0:49:11.840 --> 0:49:15.120 helped to put us on better footing, both genderwise and 0:49:15.160 --> 0:49:17.960 in terms of economic parity with other types of countries 0:49:18.000 --> 0:49:19.920 that have used those social safety nets for decades. 0:49:20.000 --> 0:49:22.239 Okay, So the simple question, with perhaps not a very 0:49:22.239 --> 0:49:24.600 simple answer, how did we get here? How did we 0:49:24.640 --> 0:49:27.399 get to the point where women became America's safety net? 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:29.280 In the book, I traced this back to the nineteen 0:49:29.320 --> 0:49:32.080 thirties and to the pushback in the wake of Franklin 0:49:32.160 --> 0:49:35.799 Roosevelt's New Deal. Essentially, at the time, the National Association 0:49:35.840 --> 0:49:39.160 of Manufacturers, a business lobbying agency, was looking for ways 0:49:39.239 --> 0:49:42.080 to resist some of the higher corporate taxes and higher 0:49:42.120 --> 0:49:44.960 taxes on wealthy people that were needed to pay for 0:49:45.040 --> 0:49:48.160 these kinds of strong social safety net programs. And what 0:49:48.200 --> 0:49:49.960 they found at the time I talked about in the 0:49:50.000 --> 0:49:52.960 book where a group of neoliberal economists out of Austria 0:49:53.000 --> 0:49:56.160 who were developing this theory that we don't actually need 0:49:56.200 --> 0:49:59.120 social safety nets as a country because if we don't 0:49:59.160 --> 0:50:02.040 have protection p people will take steps, make better choices 0:50:02.120 --> 0:50:05.239 to keep themselves safe from risk. And this theory has 0:50:05.280 --> 0:50:08.080 been debunked over time and showing that that's not actually 0:50:08.120 --> 0:50:11.200 how people respond to risk, but they use this to 0:50:11.560 --> 0:50:14.360 fuel not only changes in policy in the US, but 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:18.520 also massive propaganda campaigns things like General Electric Theater, which 0:50:18.560 --> 0:50:21.600 helped to create this perception of kind of pulling ourselves 0:50:21.680 --> 0:50:24.959 up by our bootstraps, this very American mentality, and also 0:50:25.040 --> 0:50:28.560 reinforce traditional gender roles, which helped to lay the groundwork 0:50:28.640 --> 0:50:31.520 for the kinds of policy decisions that we made after 0:50:31.600 --> 0:50:34.480 World War II. For example, of instead of trying to 0:50:34.520 --> 0:50:37.440 take steps to allow women to stay in the workforce 0:50:37.520 --> 0:50:40.120 to continue those rosy, the riveter jobs that they'd had, 0:50:40.160 --> 0:50:42.879 we shuddered the childcare centers that we put in place 0:50:42.960 --> 0:50:45.279 during the war, and we pushed women back home and 0:50:45.360 --> 0:50:49.520 really embraced the nineteen fifties culture around gender and that 0:50:49.680 --> 0:50:51.799 echoes of that still exist today and the way that 0:50:51.840 --> 0:50:53.320 we treat women as a reserve. 0:50:53.400 --> 0:50:55.080 Lin I have to jump in because here we are 0:50:55.160 --> 0:50:58.839 seventy years later and we're still talking about the same 0:50:58.880 --> 0:51:03.040 old problems. Teim. We talked about childcare, the costs, the juggling, 0:51:03.280 --> 0:51:05.880 like why haven't right It's. 0:51:06.040 --> 0:51:08.640 I mean, I can speak from personal experience. It's just 0:51:08.680 --> 0:51:12.000 a daily struggle figuring out who's picking up what kid, 0:51:12.400 --> 0:51:13.320 who's cooking dinner? 0:51:13.360 --> 0:51:15.560 And guys, I mean, and you guys have childcare. 0:51:15.600 --> 0:51:16.400 We have childcare. 0:51:16.480 --> 0:51:16.760 Yeah. 0:51:16.800 --> 0:51:18.480 So I just feel like, why are we still having 0:51:18.520 --> 0:51:21.640 these difficult conversations? Why haven't we figured out a better system? 0:51:21.680 --> 0:51:24.040 Why isn't it It's not a new thing, is it 0:51:24.880 --> 0:51:28.000 policymakers at the federal level? Is it state level? Is 0:51:28.040 --> 0:51:32.760 it just a society so entrenched that we don't value 0:51:32.760 --> 0:51:33.680 women as much? 0:51:33.840 --> 0:51:35.520 What is it? I mean? 0:51:35.600 --> 0:51:38.560 Essentially, other countries use social safety nets to help people 0:51:38.600 --> 0:51:42.280 manage these challenges and manage these risks. They use taxes 0:51:42.320 --> 0:51:45.800 and regulations to not only protect people from falling into poverty, 0:51:45.840 --> 0:51:48.279 but to help people manage the challenges of daily living 0:51:48.440 --> 0:51:52.000 things like childcare, things like healthcare, and also to ensure 0:51:52.120 --> 0:51:54.759 with things like limits on paid work hours, to ensure 0:51:54.760 --> 0:51:57.120 that people have the time and the energy to do 0:51:57.160 --> 0:51:59.400 this work of taking care of their families, taking care 0:51:59.440 --> 0:52:01.839 of their commune, is taking care of their homes even 0:52:01.960 --> 0:52:05.239 and in the US we instead try a DIY society. 0:52:05.280 --> 0:52:07.560 We tell people that they should be able to manage 0:52:07.560 --> 0:52:10.279 this risk on their own. But the reality is that 0:52:10.280 --> 0:52:12.839 that's not possible. And that's where women come in, in 0:52:12.880 --> 0:52:15.600 the sense that they're tasked with holding it together, with 0:52:15.719 --> 0:52:19.240 doing the unpaid and underpaid labor that makes it seem 0:52:19.400 --> 0:52:24.160 like this DIY illusion is possible even when it's leaving 0:52:24.280 --> 0:52:25.280 us on the edge of collapse. 0:52:25.840 --> 0:52:27.640 Just give us an idea of how you were able 0:52:27.640 --> 0:52:29.239 to gather these stories from so many women. 0:52:29.840 --> 0:52:32.400 Sure, So we started by recruiting two hundred and fifty 0:52:32.400 --> 0:52:35.160 pregnant women from prenatal clinics in Indiana, and this was 0:52:35.160 --> 0:52:38.120 in twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen, and we were following 0:52:38.120 --> 0:52:40.560 those same women over time with surveys and in depth 0:52:40.560 --> 0:52:43.719 interviews every six months from the time that they were 0:52:43.719 --> 0:52:47.040 pregnant through their first two years postpartum. And the pandemic 0:52:47.120 --> 0:52:48.560 hit in the middle of this, so we did three 0:52:48.560 --> 0:52:51.719 additional waves of surveys and interviews with the mothers and 0:52:51.760 --> 0:52:54.560 their partners and some of their social network contacts. And then, 0:52:54.600 --> 0:52:57.040 because this was mostly an Indiana based sample, we also 0:52:57.120 --> 0:53:00.000 did two national surveys each with over two thousand pairs. 0:53:00.080 --> 0:53:03.440 It's from across the US to better understand how to 0:53:03.520 --> 0:53:07.120 kind of contextualize the findings from our qualitative data. And 0:53:07.120 --> 0:53:09.000 then I also dug into a lot of the historical 0:53:09.040 --> 0:53:11.359 research and some media case studies for the book as 0:53:11.360 --> 0:53:14.080 well to better understand, you know, how do we get here? 0:53:14.120 --> 0:53:16.239 And then what are some of the myths that are 0:53:16.280 --> 0:53:18.680 helping to the cultural myths that are helping to keep 0:53:18.760 --> 0:53:20.480 us from changing. 0:53:20.680 --> 0:53:22.520 Let's go there, because that's where I want to go. 0:53:22.640 --> 0:53:25.200 Chapter six, The Mars Venus myth. I can't tell you 0:53:25.200 --> 0:53:28.200 how many times we're having conversations and it's like, well, 0:53:28.239 --> 0:53:31.840 of course, you know, Mars Venus. We're different, we're wired differently, 0:53:31.920 --> 0:53:34.640 so of course women are the caregivers. It's just the 0:53:34.640 --> 0:53:37.000 way it is. Go there because I love this. 0:53:38.080 --> 0:53:38.360 Sure. 0:53:38.440 --> 0:53:41.520 So essentially there's this myth that is perpetuated by many 0:53:41.560 --> 0:53:44.359 parts of our culture that suggests that men and women 0:53:44.440 --> 0:53:47.400 are just fundamentally different. Butgard the book women are the 0:53:47.400 --> 0:53:51.359 book two exactly, so I mean it stems in part, 0:53:51.360 --> 0:53:53.360 and certainly these ideas are much older than that, but 0:53:53.400 --> 0:53:55.840 it's echoed in this kind of John Gray's kind of 0:53:55.840 --> 0:53:58.840 classic Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, which almost, 0:53:58.920 --> 0:54:02.280 you know, suggests that men and women are from different planets, 0:54:02.360 --> 0:54:06.200 not only different species even and it's echoes of this. 0:54:06.280 --> 0:54:08.759 You can hear this in you know, recent conversations, things 0:54:08.760 --> 0:54:11.640 like Harrison Butker's commencement speech around this idea that women 0:54:11.680 --> 0:54:14.480 are just happier at home, that women are that that's 0:54:14.520 --> 0:54:18.120 their natural duty or their natural responsibility to be in 0:54:18.160 --> 0:54:20.440 the home. And what research shows is that belief in 0:54:20.520 --> 0:54:23.480 these kinds of mythical ideas and that they are mythical, 0:54:23.520 --> 0:54:26.040 That the gender is way more complicated than this sort 0:54:26.040 --> 0:54:30.719 of simple pink blue binary, and that socialization, early exposure, 0:54:30.760 --> 0:54:34.719 that parents and adult caregivers treat children very differently on 0:54:34.760 --> 0:54:37.600 the basis of perceived gender from very early on in 0:54:37.640 --> 0:54:39.880 their lives, and that this lay is the groundwork. You know, 0:54:39.920 --> 0:54:42.080 we expect girls to be mothers from the time that 0:54:42.080 --> 0:54:44.000 they're old enough to hold a baby doll in ways 0:54:44.040 --> 0:54:45.760 that we simply don't expect for boys. 0:54:45.800 --> 0:54:47.719 Oh what's interesting is you know, and I just want 0:54:47.719 --> 0:54:50.000 to stop for a moment. There was an interview you did, 0:54:50.000 --> 0:54:52.600 and Tim and I both like reading this. You know 0:54:52.680 --> 0:54:56.800 that Mars and Venus men and women are just fundamentally different, 0:54:56.840 --> 0:55:01.440 both psychologically. Is explanation rights also very convenient you have 0:55:01.480 --> 0:55:03.960 said in the past. It means though we don't need 0:55:04.000 --> 0:55:07.799 big structural solutions. That's kind of the payoff, right, If 0:55:07.800 --> 0:55:11.000 we believe that we are fundamentally different, it's not that 0:55:11.000 --> 0:55:14.160 there's something structurally wrong, and that is maybe why we 0:55:14.239 --> 0:55:17.880 continue to have this conversation decade after decade. 0:55:18.520 --> 0:55:20.759 Exactly what I find in the national surveys that I've 0:55:20.760 --> 0:55:23.440 conducted with parents is that the majority of dads, for example, 0:55:23.480 --> 0:55:25.919 believe that kids are better off with their mothers at home. 0:55:26.320 --> 0:55:28.799 And what I also find is that the dads who 0:55:28.880 --> 0:55:31.000 believe in that myth, who believe that it's better for 0:55:31.080 --> 0:55:32.640 kids to have a mother at home than to have 0:55:32.680 --> 0:55:35.040 a mother who's engaged in paid work, is that those 0:55:35.080 --> 0:55:37.799 are also disproportionately the dads who reject the need for 0:55:37.840 --> 0:55:41.160 a stronger social safety net, and essentially believing this myth, 0:55:41.239 --> 0:55:43.960 believing that women are just happier at home or that 0:55:44.000 --> 0:55:46.480 it's better for kids to have mom at home, allows 0:55:46.560 --> 0:55:48.200 us to feel like, well, maybe we don't need to 0:55:48.280 --> 0:55:50.600 invest in that stronger social safety net. Maybe we don't 0:55:50.640 --> 0:55:54.400 need paid parntal leave or universal affordable childcare because it 0:55:54.560 --> 0:55:57.080 just works better for everyone if mom is at home 0:55:57.160 --> 0:55:58.680 as opposed to in the paid work horse. 0:56:00.000 --> 0:56:02.480 What are we right now as we head into the 0:56:02.520 --> 0:56:05.240 election of twenty twenty four, because I was actually talking 0:56:05.280 --> 0:56:08.840 with I was talking with a guest early on our 0:56:08.840 --> 0:56:11.200 crypto show, and she she's big in the It was 0:56:11.200 --> 0:56:12.880 a crypto show, so she's big into crypto. And she 0:56:12.880 --> 0:56:15.719 sent a tweet out earlier this year, Jessica that talked 0:56:15.719 --> 0:56:21.400 about choosing between on the ballot women's bodies and the 0:56:21.480 --> 0:56:24.280 right to have autonomy over your body versus your wallet, 0:56:24.320 --> 0:56:28.040 because she doesn't believe that the Biden administration is pro 0:56:28.120 --> 0:56:32.160 crypto enough. And it was interesting to hear that juxtaposition 0:56:32.280 --> 0:56:34.480 because and I asked her, is it actually that black 0:56:34.480 --> 0:56:35.960 and that white for you? And she said, there are 0:56:35.960 --> 0:56:38.000 a lot of people who are single issue voters when 0:56:38.000 --> 0:56:39.520 it comes to crypto. 0:56:40.080 --> 0:56:41.080 But here in. 0:56:41.000 --> 0:56:42.520 Twenty twenty four, I think we're at a time when 0:56:42.560 --> 0:56:44.239 a lot of people never thought that Roe v. Wade 0:56:44.280 --> 0:56:48.200 would actually be overturned. How does the conversation in your 0:56:48.239 --> 0:56:50.000 world shift in an election. 0:56:49.760 --> 0:56:52.319 Year like this, Yeah, I mean, I think we have 0:56:52.360 --> 0:56:55.840 to think about the way that denying people bodily autonomy, 0:56:55.840 --> 0:57:00.480 denying reproductive rights makes it easier to exploit women labor. 0:57:00.640 --> 0:57:03.000 It can push them into motherhood in ways that make 0:57:03.040 --> 0:57:06.040 it difficult for them not only to have choices about 0:57:06.080 --> 0:57:09.160 things like finishing college or investing in the kinds of 0:57:09.200 --> 0:57:11.640 careers that they need to take time for, but can 0:57:11.680 --> 0:57:14.440 also lead them pushed into the kinds of low wage 0:57:14.520 --> 0:57:17.600 jobs that offer limited options for their families that make 0:57:17.600 --> 0:57:19.200 it harder for them to get ahead. And so I 0:57:19.200 --> 0:57:21.200 think we have to think about the way that these 0:57:21.320 --> 0:57:24.680 kinds of attacks on reproductive freedom are attacks also on 0:57:25.160 --> 0:57:28.560 women's economic opportunities and on their ability to take care 0:57:28.600 --> 0:57:31.200 of themselves and their families financially as well. 0:57:32.440 --> 0:57:35.080 You get into this idea, I don't want to end 0:57:35.200 --> 0:57:37.640 without thinking about, like, how do we fix this? You 0:57:37.680 --> 0:57:39.959 talk about a union of care. So we've got about 0:57:39.960 --> 0:57:42.520 a couple of minutes left. How do we move forward 0:57:42.640 --> 0:57:45.000 so that in ten years from now you and I 0:57:45.000 --> 0:57:47.080 aren't having this same conversation. 0:57:48.200 --> 0:57:50.520 Absolutely, I think we have to You mentioned before the 0:57:50.560 --> 0:57:53.320 importance of valuing care work in the sense that we 0:57:53.360 --> 0:57:56.160 know that women do twice as much unpaid care work 0:57:56.240 --> 0:57:59.160 in the US as women, and estimates suggests that that 0:57:59.320 --> 0:58:02.040 unpaid care work done by women is valued at over 0:58:02.080 --> 0:58:05.120 six hundred billion dollars a year. And so I think 0:58:05.120 --> 0:58:06.960 we can think about that the value that women are 0:58:07.000 --> 0:58:09.919 adding to the economy, even if they're not themselves being 0:58:09.960 --> 0:58:13.120 compensated for it, and also recognize how that kind of 0:58:13.200 --> 0:58:15.720 care work benefits all of us, and that if we 0:58:15.800 --> 0:58:18.880 all had the kinds of policy protections in place, that 0:58:18.920 --> 0:58:21.920 we could share that unpaid care work more equitably and 0:58:22.080 --> 0:58:24.440 also ensure that we have the time and energy to 0:58:24.520 --> 0:58:25.640 do it sustainably. 0:58:25.880 --> 0:58:29.120 That was Jessica Klarko, sociologist and associate professor at the 0:58:29.200 --> 0:58:32.320 University of Wisconsin Madison, her book, Holding It Together. How 0:58:32.320 --> 0:58:34.040 Women Became America's Safety Nut. 0:58:34.200 --> 0:58:36.400 You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, the tech 0:58:36.520 --> 0:58:40.120 Entrepreneur in Titan, the Philanthropist, the Billionaire, the Nerd, the Savior, 0:58:40.240 --> 0:58:40.880 the King. 0:58:41.080 --> 0:58:43.320 A new book on one of the few billionaires who 0:58:43.360 --> 0:58:46.040 has been in the public eye longer than most. This 0:58:46.360 --> 0:58:46.960 is Bloomberg. 0:58:52.920 --> 0:58:56.800 You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Listen live 0:58:56.880 --> 0:59:00.000 each weekday starting at two pm Easter I'll Applecar Player 0:59:00.120 --> 0:59:02.960 and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Ad. You can 0:59:03.000 --> 0:59:06.240 also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New 0:59:06.320 --> 0:59:11.120 York station. Just say Alexa play Bloomberg eleven thirty, a 0:59:11.120 --> 0:59:12.120 Bloomberg exclusive. 0:59:12.120 --> 0:59:14.840 This past week, The USED Department of Justice is mulling 0:59:14.840 --> 0:59:17.680 over a breakup of Alphabet's Google after a landmark court 0:59:17.760 --> 0:59:20.920 ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market. 0:59:21.160 --> 0:59:24.200 According to people with knowledge of the deliberations, the move 0:59:24.240 --> 0:59:27.400 would be Washington's first push to dismantle a company for 0:59:27.520 --> 0:59:32.160 illegal monopolization since unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft two 0:59:32.200 --> 0:59:32.880 decades ago. 0:59:33.240 --> 0:59:36.520 Bill Gates, co founder and former CEO of Microsoft, figured 0:59:36.560 --> 0:59:40.040 prominently in the US government's anti trust case that time, 0:59:40.080 --> 0:59:42.320 along with many others. Included in a new book on 0:59:42.400 --> 0:59:45.880 Gates by Anuprida Das, South Asia, correspondent for The New 0:59:45.960 --> 0:59:50.160 York Times. The book Billionaire Nerd Savior King Bill Gates 0:59:50.160 --> 0:59:53.040 in his Quest to Shape Our World. Our Conversation starts 0:59:53.040 --> 0:59:55.960 with the often talked and written about friendship between Gates 0:59:55.960 --> 0:59:59.320 and Warren Buffett that, like many things changed over time, 1:00:00.120 --> 1:00:01.040 spoke on the record. 1:00:01.120 --> 1:00:04.880 You know he is in fact, you know I used 1:00:04.880 --> 1:00:06.760 to cover Again, A lot of this goes back to 1:00:06.800 --> 1:00:09.440 the journal when I was a reporter. You know, I 1:00:09.480 --> 1:00:13.240 used to write about Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway. So 1:00:13.400 --> 1:00:16.520 the relationship of the two men was also equally interesting. 1:00:16.560 --> 1:00:19.040 The first time I saw them at the Berkshire Hathway meeting, 1:00:19.200 --> 1:00:22.600 just kind of walking around, you know, talking to shareholders, 1:00:22.680 --> 1:00:25.480 and it just struck me as kind of a you know, 1:00:25.520 --> 1:00:28.640 a very casual but very intimate friendship. And then I 1:00:28.680 --> 1:00:31.000 began looking at it and seeing that, you know, they've 1:00:31.040 --> 1:00:33.600 talked about each has talked about the other and sort 1:00:33.640 --> 1:00:37.160 of the magic of their friendship over the decades. And 1:00:37.200 --> 1:00:40.880 you know, Bill Gates definitely has kind of advertised that 1:00:41.040 --> 1:00:43.200 piece of it. It's almost like part of his brand. 1:00:43.640 --> 1:00:47.040 Every year, nearly every year on Gates Notes his blog, 1:00:47.440 --> 1:00:51.200 he posts something like a goofy video or post dedicated 1:00:51.280 --> 1:00:54.720 to Buffet, And so that's that was really interesting to me. 1:00:54.960 --> 1:00:59.040 But in recent years, I think once Buffett decided that 1:00:59.120 --> 1:01:02.800 he wasn't he had always said that he wasn't going. 1:01:02.720 --> 1:01:05.600 To give his money to anyone. 1:01:05.960 --> 1:01:07.600 He hadn't decided who he was going to give his 1:01:07.600 --> 1:01:10.920 money to after his death, but there was always like 1:01:10.960 --> 1:01:13.320 an assumption that the Gates Foundation stood to get all 1:01:13.360 --> 1:01:16.440 of the money. And when he eventually decided who was 1:01:16.480 --> 1:01:20.080 going to get that money after he died, it was 1:01:20.160 --> 1:01:22.200 not going to be the Gates foundation, and so I 1:01:22.200 --> 1:01:24.320 think there was a little bit of tension there that 1:01:24.360 --> 1:01:28.919 I tried to capture in that piece that The Times ran, 1:01:29.520 --> 1:01:32.120 and it was you know, I think they have very 1:01:32.120 --> 1:01:35.760 different lifestyles. Buffett, as I'm sure you guys know, is 1:01:35.840 --> 1:01:41.919 a kind of more folksy, simple sort of person, very Midwestern, 1:01:42.400 --> 1:01:45.120 and then Gates has more of the traditional trappings of 1:01:45.160 --> 1:01:49.040 a billionaire. So it was interesting to see their divergent 1:01:49.160 --> 1:01:52.200 paths but also examine the basis of their friendship. 1:01:52.880 --> 1:01:56.040 You know, you said earlier about you know, you wanted 1:01:56.080 --> 1:01:58.880 to kind of dig into the persona and the man. 1:01:59.040 --> 1:02:00.360 Are they that different? 1:02:01.800 --> 1:02:03.920 Yeah, that's that's a really interesting question. 1:02:04.120 --> 1:02:07.120 I think that plays into a lot of what we 1:02:07.280 --> 1:02:09.840 in the media, How we and what we write and 1:02:09.880 --> 1:02:12.760 what we choose to write feeds into the image of 1:02:13.320 --> 1:02:16.040 a person who's in the in you know, the public eye, 1:02:16.920 --> 1:02:20.480 in the sense that you interact with someone, you see 1:02:20.560 --> 1:02:22.960 him or her in a closed setting, you get more 1:02:23.000 --> 1:02:25.840 of a sense of who they are based on interactions, 1:02:25.880 --> 1:02:29.240 based on your sources. You start creating this image of 1:02:29.280 --> 1:02:32.480 a person in the media. So it's true the persona 1:02:32.600 --> 1:02:36.320 is based on many fundamental elements of who the person is, 1:02:36.680 --> 1:02:39.040 but then it also takes on its own life. And 1:02:39.080 --> 1:02:40.880 then if you're a billionaire or you have like a 1:02:40.880 --> 1:02:44.240 lot of resources that you can dedicate to that, then 1:02:44.440 --> 1:02:50.320 I think you're basically sustaining, nurturing, minimizing, you know, enhancing 1:02:50.400 --> 1:02:53.840 certain aspects of that image to really suit your needs 1:02:53.840 --> 1:02:54.320 and ends. 1:02:54.320 --> 1:02:55.200 And this isn't. 1:02:54.960 --> 1:02:58.880 Necessarily nefarious, but it's just what image making can do. 1:02:59.280 --> 1:03:03.560 And so I think their elements of a person's internal 1:03:03.600 --> 1:03:07.120 personality or like in closed settings, and then how that gets, 1:03:07.360 --> 1:03:10.040 how that feeds into a persona, and how then people 1:03:10.160 --> 1:03:14.640 kind of keep manufacturing and finessing it, which to me 1:03:14.800 --> 1:03:15.560 was really interesting. 1:03:15.600 --> 1:03:18.920 Budgates, did you like him as you did this process? 1:03:20.200 --> 1:03:22.960 Well, he didn't grant me an interview, so that you know, 1:03:23.280 --> 1:03:26.640 I couldn't tell you any more than that, But. 1:03:26.120 --> 1:03:27.919 But you talk to a lot of people about him, 1:03:28.080 --> 1:03:32.920 and we can get for a picture of someone maybe 1:03:33.000 --> 1:03:35.400 clearer than the narrative that's out there publicly. 1:03:36.680 --> 1:03:37.360 Absolutely. 1:03:37.480 --> 1:03:40.720 I think what was most interesting to me is that 1:03:40.800 --> 1:03:43.560 the essential person has not changed. 1:03:43.640 --> 1:03:43.800 Right. 1:03:43.840 --> 1:03:46.400 He's mellowed obviously over the decades, we all. 1:03:46.280 --> 1:03:53.640 Do, but his essential personality the way he's obviously supremely smart, 1:03:53.680 --> 1:03:56.640 but he can sometimes be abrasive, He can be impatient 1:03:56.720 --> 1:04:00.840 with employees. He enjoys a you know, working in a 1:04:00.840 --> 1:04:04.000 combative culture. And that was the case of Microsoft, and 1:04:04.040 --> 1:04:07.600 that is also the case of the Gates Foundation, except 1:04:07.600 --> 1:04:11.440 that what happens is that Microsoft rewarded that sort of competitive, 1:04:11.840 --> 1:04:15.200 you know, culture, whereas the Gates Foundation. I think people 1:04:15.480 --> 1:04:21.920 come from very different backgrounds. So it sat uncomfortably inside 1:04:21.960 --> 1:04:25.040 the Gates Foundation. But it struck me as really interesting 1:04:25.160 --> 1:04:29.160 that he was essentially the same person, but he had 1:04:29.200 --> 1:04:34.680 also changed his image over the decades, you know, to 1:04:34.800 --> 1:04:38.640 find that continuity, the consistency in so many ways, but 1:04:38.800 --> 1:04:41.640 to then place it against how we looked at him 1:04:41.880 --> 1:04:45.120 as a nerd, this sort of ruthless monopolist, this this 1:04:45.280 --> 1:04:47.880 you know, philanthropist. 1:04:47.200 --> 1:04:49.320 Rockefeller, like Robert Baron kind of thing. 1:04:49.480 --> 1:04:52.439 As you're right about absolutely. 1:04:52.000 --> 1:04:57.760 What was the anti trust? Was the anti trust issue 1:04:57.760 --> 1:05:00.640 at Microsoft? Was that a pivotal turning point for him? 1:05:00.720 --> 1:05:03.560 Or when do you think this metamorphosis or transformation began? 1:05:04.920 --> 1:05:05.680 Yeah, it did. 1:05:05.720 --> 1:05:07.880 I think he had always said that he was going 1:05:07.960 --> 1:05:11.200 to give the bulk of his fortune to philanthropy. I 1:05:11.240 --> 1:05:14.840 think the time hadn't been decided. And you have to 1:05:14.840 --> 1:05:18.280 remember that in the nineteen nineties there was only Microsoft. 1:05:18.320 --> 1:05:20.800 Now we think about Google and Amazon and Facebook and 1:05:20.840 --> 1:05:24.160 a lot of companies that are facing similar antitrust scrutiny. 1:05:24.480 --> 1:05:26.960 But in the nineteen nineties, the late the second half 1:05:27.000 --> 1:05:29.920 of the nineties, Microsoft was it. It was the company. 1:05:29.960 --> 1:05:34.080 It captured everyone's imagination. But also, and as a result 1:05:34.160 --> 1:05:37.360 of that, I think Gates' performance, even though we didn't 1:05:37.360 --> 1:05:40.440 have social media then and we didn't have viral moments, 1:05:40.560 --> 1:05:45.720 Gates's performance riveted the nation and people realized that this 1:05:45.840 --> 1:05:50.200 was a man who just who had become a distraction 1:05:50.280 --> 1:05:53.320 from Microsoft. So I think it made sense for him 1:05:53.320 --> 1:05:56.120 to then step step down from the CEO role in 1:05:56.160 --> 1:05:59.440 two thousand and Also, he was tired. I think he 1:05:59.640 --> 1:06:01.760 just he said a source of mind told me that 1:06:01.840 --> 1:06:04.240 he was tired, didn't nowhere else to go. And he 1:06:04.360 --> 1:06:08.000 just also felt that Microsoft was a shiny example of 1:06:08.440 --> 1:06:12.000 American innovation and why was the government going against him? 1:06:12.440 --> 1:06:14.680 And so I think there was a lot of confusion 1:06:15.000 --> 1:06:17.400 and a lot of pain. And then he turned to 1:06:17.400 --> 1:06:19.760 philanthropy because it was there. It was something he had 1:06:19.760 --> 1:06:23.440 always intended to do, and he found that he really 1:06:23.560 --> 1:06:25.720 liked it, and then it was go big or go home, 1:06:25.800 --> 1:06:30.000 because that's what Gates, that's who Gates is. He started Microsoft, 1:06:30.200 --> 1:06:34.080 changed the personal computing world, and now he's changed philanthropy 1:06:34.320 --> 1:06:36.080 with this Mammoth Foundation. 1:06:36.560 --> 1:06:40.360 Did you find a lot of surprises in this process 1:06:40.640 --> 1:06:43.280 in terms of new things you learned about Bill Gates? 1:06:45.520 --> 1:06:47.920 Yeah, I mean, I think one of the things, Carol 1:06:48.200 --> 1:06:52.480 is we didn't really understand and I think that despite 1:06:53.120 --> 1:06:57.400 I think the entire world AID doesn't quite understand why 1:06:58.040 --> 1:07:01.560 he met with Jeffrey Epstein times. And the question for 1:07:01.680 --> 1:07:06.120 me that's been the most interesting to explore is that 1:07:06.920 --> 1:07:09.080 if your Gates, or if you're a billionaire, you have 1:07:09.800 --> 1:07:12.720 armies of people whose job it is to sustain and 1:07:12.720 --> 1:07:16.160 polish and nurtery your image right. Building Bill's brand is 1:07:16.200 --> 1:07:19.720 something I examined in the book, and yet you have, 1:07:20.240 --> 1:07:23.760 despite having all these people, even a basic Google search 1:07:23.880 --> 1:07:27.680 right would reveal that Epstein by then was a convicted 1:07:27.720 --> 1:07:31.439 sex offender and someone who perhaps wasn't the best kind 1:07:31.480 --> 1:07:35.080 of person from an optics standpoint for a billionaire with 1:07:36.320 --> 1:07:40.080 what Gates was trying to do to interact. So that 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:42.280 was surprising to me. It was a failure lapse of 1:07:42.360 --> 1:07:45.960 judgment that I wouldn't expect. But it also ties back 1:07:46.000 --> 1:07:47.919 to the personality that Gates. 1:07:47.640 --> 1:07:51.440 Is pretty You were talking about Jeffrey Epstein just moments 1:07:51.440 --> 1:07:54.960 ago and the relationship that Bill Gates had with Jeffrey Epstein, 1:07:55.640 --> 1:07:58.160 and I got to tell you the parts in your 1:07:58.200 --> 1:07:59.800 book that focus on that. I've gotten a lot of 1:07:59.840 --> 1:08:03.960 me attention over the last couple of weeks. Just explain 1:08:04.080 --> 1:08:06.600 what you learned about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and 1:08:06.600 --> 1:08:09.680 why they found themselves having a relationship. 1:08:10.280 --> 1:08:15.240 Yeah, So what happened. My best reconstruction, based on my 1:08:15.360 --> 1:08:18.800 reporting and documents, is that in twenty ten you had 1:08:18.800 --> 1:08:22.360 the Giving Pledge, which was this effort, essentially a get 1:08:22.360 --> 1:08:25.120 out of the vote campaign by Gates, Warren Buffett, and 1:08:25.160 --> 1:08:29.840 Milliner French Gates to get other billionaires to commit to 1:08:29.960 --> 1:08:33.960 pledge to commit half or more of their fortunes to charity. 1:08:34.680 --> 1:08:39.720 And at that time a lot of billionaires were very 1:08:39.760 --> 1:08:43.439 interested in finding a way to put their money to use. 1:08:43.520 --> 1:08:46.240 Having the money is almost easier than figuring out how 1:08:46.320 --> 1:08:49.240 to give it away wisely, and so the Gates Foundation 1:08:49.560 --> 1:08:53.360 was very much set up to use billions of dollars 1:08:53.360 --> 1:08:56.800 and Gates was in the middle of this massive push 1:08:57.000 --> 1:09:00.320 toward polio eradication. He'd been the Foundation, being worked with 1:09:00.360 --> 1:09:04.240 other entities, and it was one of those times when 1:09:04.280 --> 1:09:07.440 Gates wanted to raise a lot of money. So Epstein 1:09:07.560 --> 1:09:10.320 kind of being in these circles of influence and power, 1:09:10.439 --> 1:09:15.320 he's someone who kind of collects, you know, collected bits 1:09:15.320 --> 1:09:19.200 and pieces of information, used leverage wherever he could, and 1:09:19.280 --> 1:09:22.479 realized that there might be an opportunity for him to 1:09:22.640 --> 1:09:26.920 pitch something called the donor advised fund, and he wrote 1:09:26.960 --> 1:09:31.880 in JP Morgan and Gibi Morgan had like another relationship 1:09:31.960 --> 1:09:35.479 with the Gates Foundation, so he looked at all of this. 1:09:35.640 --> 1:09:38.840 He began pitching this idea for a donor advised fund. 1:09:39.080 --> 1:09:41.880 He reached out to people who he knew at the 1:09:41.880 --> 1:09:46.080 Gates Foundation, who you know, had an overlap with Gates, 1:09:46.080 --> 1:09:50.920 of course, and began seeking an introduction. Now Gates took 1:09:50.960 --> 1:09:51.680 that introduction. 1:09:52.000 --> 1:09:53.160 There was there. 1:09:53.360 --> 1:09:56.719 He came and visited Epstein at his house the first time, 1:09:57.280 --> 1:10:01.080 and then there was another meeting where there was a presentation. 1:10:01.200 --> 1:10:06.320 Epstein had slides and everything. So that until then perhaps 1:10:06.439 --> 1:10:09.960 all well and good, but after that, the fact that 1:10:10.000 --> 1:10:15.120 he kept meeting with Epstein several times, ostensibly to discuss philanthropy, 1:10:15.160 --> 1:10:17.240 and Gates has always said that he hasn't That was 1:10:17.280 --> 1:10:19.000 the only reason then that he was sorry for the 1:10:19.080 --> 1:10:19.960 lapse in judgment. 1:10:20.680 --> 1:10:22.000 But it's still. 1:10:23.240 --> 1:10:27.320 Is a question for for Gates, essentially because he is 1:10:27.360 --> 1:10:29.880 perhaps the only person who would know why he kept 1:10:30.960 --> 1:10:34.000 going back and meeting with Epstein. There are people who 1:10:34.040 --> 1:10:39.120 say that Gates was enamored of Epstein's lifestyle. He did 1:10:39.160 --> 1:10:42.519 write to some employees and the Gates Foundation after saying 1:10:42.560 --> 1:10:44.919 that you know, he does have an adventure's different lifestyle, 1:10:44.960 --> 1:10:47.760 but it's not for me. I'm not putting words into 1:10:47.800 --> 1:10:51.000 Gates's mouth, but that was essentially the point of what 1:10:51.120 --> 1:10:56.960 he was saying, and so clearly there was maybe be amusement, 1:10:57.200 --> 1:11:03.519 maybe surprise, maybe anticipation. It's hard to say. But again, 1:11:03.640 --> 1:11:05.680 coming back to the point I was making earlier, it 1:11:05.720 --> 1:11:09.679 is a surprising lapse in judgment for the people who 1:11:11.000 --> 1:11:14.320 work for him, but for Gates himself it's actually not 1:11:14.439 --> 1:11:17.879 that surprising, given that he does have a certain naivete 1:11:18.040 --> 1:11:20.280 when it comes to personal relationships. 1:11:20.320 --> 1:11:22.559 Now, you said you didn't get to talk to Bill Gates, 1:11:22.640 --> 1:11:23.280 right for the book. 1:11:24.320 --> 1:11:28.400 No, I didn't. He turned down my request for an interview. 1:11:28.880 --> 1:11:31.679 Did he Were you able to ask him any questions 1:11:31.720 --> 1:11:33.400 like write and get responses or no? 1:11:33.560 --> 1:11:35.240 Nothing at all. No. 1:11:35.680 --> 1:11:38.120 So what happened was that it was interesting because I 1:11:38.200 --> 1:11:41.400 sent them detailed fact checking lists, both at Gates Ventures, 1:11:41.439 --> 1:11:44.519 which is a private firm, and the Gates Foundation back 1:11:44.560 --> 1:11:48.680 in January or February, months months before. They stalled in 1:11:48.760 --> 1:11:53.200 stonewalled and didn't acknowledge my emails, and at the end 1:11:53.200 --> 1:11:54.799 when I said you have to give me a comment, 1:11:54.840 --> 1:11:58.160 they said it was hearsay. And then just weeks before 1:11:59.360 --> 1:12:03.439 we went to publication, they got back on some of 1:12:03.439 --> 1:12:06.880 the Epstein related points and they refuted and said that 1:12:06.920 --> 1:12:11.280 they could present documented evidence, and I asked for that audden. 1:12:11.360 --> 1:12:14.960 They didn't provide anything, and the book went to print, 1:12:15.479 --> 1:12:18.880 and then the Daily Mail, of all the Daily Mail 1:12:18.960 --> 1:12:22.280 and the New York Post put out these tidbits from 1:12:22.280 --> 1:12:25.400 my book and they were overblown, then not entirely accurate, 1:12:25.840 --> 1:12:28.320 but the Gates found But then Gates is private firm, 1:12:28.400 --> 1:12:31.360 then put out a statement saying that it was all 1:12:31.439 --> 1:12:36.240 wild allegations and that they presented me with documented evidence 1:12:36.280 --> 1:12:37.719 that I chose to ignore. 1:12:37.760 --> 1:12:45.160 Which is not true speaking of wild things that potentially 1:12:45.160 --> 1:12:48.639 could come up. I was joking at the top when 1:12:48.640 --> 1:12:51.880 I said the microchip vaccine stuff, but only half joking 1:12:51.880 --> 1:12:55.040 in the sense that these are real conspiracy theories about 1:12:55.080 --> 1:12:57.839 Bill Gates. Can you talk a little bit about where 1:12:58.479 --> 1:13:00.960 those come from and the idea of this quote unquote 1:13:01.000 --> 1:13:02.920 Davos elite that wants to control the world. 1:13:04.880 --> 1:13:09.120 I think the fact that Gates was so prominent suddenly 1:13:09.640 --> 1:13:13.840 in everywhere he was suddenly everywhere. He was talking about vaccines, 1:13:13.840 --> 1:13:17.640 He was sharing the stage with doctor Anthony Fauci, he 1:13:17.840 --> 1:13:20.920 was advocating. He was kind of out there everywhere. He 1:13:20.960 --> 1:13:24.000 couldn't miss him, which led a lot of people to wonder, 1:13:24.040 --> 1:13:27.640 and I speak to I have one person in the 1:13:28.160 --> 1:13:31.120 book who said, who made the point that you know, 1:13:31.320 --> 1:13:34.040 I had always thought of Gates at the Microsoft co 1:13:34.240 --> 1:13:37.080 founder and suddenly, why is this guy talking about vaccines? 1:13:37.439 --> 1:13:41.040 And so I think if you are grown to conspiracy theories, 1:13:41.120 --> 1:13:43.960 I think that was kind of the first signed for 1:13:44.000 --> 1:13:47.160 a lot of people that maybe Gates has some kind 1:13:47.160 --> 1:13:50.280 of vested interest. And you know, conspiracy theories obviously take 1:13:50.360 --> 1:13:52.880 on a life of their own, and I think there 1:13:52.920 --> 1:13:55.240 was a study and don't quote me on this, but 1:13:55.280 --> 1:13:58.479 I think there's a study looking at the feasibility of 1:13:59.240 --> 1:14:04.840 having some information, you know, implanted into a person's under 1:14:04.880 --> 1:14:07.759 a person's skin, and it was an mit feasibility study 1:14:07.800 --> 1:14:11.280 and nothing came of it. But that led to this 1:14:11.360 --> 1:14:14.240 kind of big idea that somehow Gates was trying to, 1:14:14.280 --> 1:14:18.160 you know, implant chips and people and kind of all 1:14:18.240 --> 1:14:22.040 manner of things now I think for the vaccines, and 1:14:22.120 --> 1:14:25.400 you know, Gates was He's a rational guy. He's driven 1:14:25.439 --> 1:14:28.040 by evidence and science and tech, and I think he 1:14:28.280 --> 1:14:33.040 just didn't understand why there were people questioning what seemed 1:14:33.080 --> 1:14:36.280 to him very obvious steps. He couldn't understand being a 1:14:36.320 --> 1:14:39.160 personal target of the conspiracy theories. 1:14:39.880 --> 1:14:44.040 We just have about forty five seconds left here. Your 1:14:44.080 --> 1:14:49.520 title Billionaire, Nerd Savior King? Which is the most appropriate 1:14:50.080 --> 1:14:52.439 as you finish your book in terms of which word 1:14:52.479 --> 1:14:56.280 really you would most closely identify with him, And as 1:14:56.280 --> 1:14:58.679 I said, only got about forty seconds. 1:14:58.720 --> 1:14:59.840 Today, it would be King. 1:15:00.080 --> 1:15:02.439 He really kind of is on top of so many 1:15:03.439 --> 1:15:06.000 you know, I would say Savior King. Perhaps the billionaire 1:15:06.320 --> 1:15:09.799 is a fact the nerd is a version of him 1:15:10.320 --> 1:15:12.680 back in the day, but today he's kind of on 1:15:12.720 --> 1:15:15.920 top of the world, sharing the stage with heads of state, 1:15:16.640 --> 1:15:19.799 and he is a savior of people in the global 1:15:19.840 --> 1:15:21.040 South with the Gates Foundation. 1:15:21.320 --> 1:15:22.800 So I would say Savior King. 1:15:23.479 --> 1:15:26.040 That was on Uprida Das, South Asia, correspondent for The 1:15:26.040 --> 1:15:28.880 New York Times her new book Billionaire Nerd Savior King 1:15:29.160 --> 1:15:30.960 Bill Gates in his quest to Shape. 1:15:30.680 --> 1:15:33.360 Our World Still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week. Nothing like 1:15:33.439 --> 1:15:35.920 wrapping up the week with a ready to make cocktail? 1:15:36.240 --> 1:15:36.760 Are you in? 1:15:37.080 --> 1:15:37.320 Hey? 1:15:37.400 --> 1:15:39.559 You know how I roll? If it's non alcoholic, maybe 1:15:39.640 --> 1:15:43.200 has some bubbles, little fruit juice, not too much sugar. 1:15:43.240 --> 1:15:46.240 Though I'm really not fun. You need to know something 1:15:46.240 --> 1:15:47.760 about me. I'm not fun to hang out with. 1:15:48.360 --> 1:15:50.400 You are fun to hang out with you, just not 1:15:50.479 --> 1:15:54.439 necessarily with an alcoholic Where to come? 1:15:54.760 --> 1:15:55.880 This is Bloomberg. 1:15:56.479 --> 1:16:00.759 You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast live weekday 1:16:00.800 --> 1:16:03.759 afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple 1:16:03.800 --> 1:16:06.360 car Play and and Broun Auto with a Bloomberg Business 1:16:06.439 --> 1:16:08.560 act or wanted us live on YouTube. 1:16:10.120 --> 1:16:12.040 As a former colleague of ours used to say, it's 1:16:12.040 --> 1:16:14.439 five o'clock summer, doesn't Jimmy Buffett didn't he used to 1:16:14.439 --> 1:16:15.599 say that all the time too, ya. 1:16:15.520 --> 1:16:16.200 A lot of people do. 1:16:16.479 --> 1:16:19.080 One of the trends we are increasingly seeing from startups 1:16:19.080 --> 1:16:22.240 and the establishment alike is pre mad cocktails, easy to buy, 1:16:22.280 --> 1:16:24.400 no shaking nor stirring necessary. 1:16:24.560 --> 1:16:27.080 And that brings us to the family owned Jeloso Group 1:16:27.120 --> 1:16:30.080 of Companies, whose parent company was founded nearly six decades 1:16:30.120 --> 1:16:33.479 ago in Montreal, Canada, and now produces over one hundred 1:16:33.479 --> 1:16:36.479 alcoholic beverage products in the US and Canada with over 1:16:36.520 --> 1:16:39.160 three hundred and fifty employees and seven warehouses. 1:16:39.280 --> 1:16:42.000 Although Jeloso runs the second generation of the family owned 1:16:42.040 --> 1:16:45.720 Jelosa Group of Companies, which includes Jelosa Beverage Group USA. 1:16:45.840 --> 1:16:48.479 He sat down in studio joining Bloomberg's Matt Miller and 1:16:48.520 --> 1:16:50.719 me taking us back to how it all began. 1:16:51.520 --> 1:16:56.439 We're a family owned business. Immigrant parents immigrated in nineteen 1:16:56.479 --> 1:16:59.519 fifty seven, came here for a better life. We're from 1:16:59.520 --> 1:17:04.600 the South of it and basically my father ventured into 1:17:06.360 --> 1:17:11.200 importing grapes from California because in Canada you have liquor boards. 1:17:11.240 --> 1:17:15.800 And my father realized that in Quebec you only drink beer, 1:17:15.880 --> 1:17:18.479 and he said, we don't drink beer. As Italian so 1:17:19.200 --> 1:17:21.840 basically there was no wines to be had, and the 1:17:21.880 --> 1:17:26.240 wines that were available were very expensive, and being a farmer, 1:17:26.280 --> 1:17:28.000 he said, you know what, let me bring in grapes 1:17:28.040 --> 1:17:31.479 for the immigrant community. And then that's the story. 1:17:31.640 --> 1:17:33.479 So he brought in grapes to make your own wine 1:17:33.560 --> 1:17:37.280 in Quebec for immigrants exactly so, because you know, we're 1:17:37.320 --> 1:17:39.800 a legislative state, so there's a lot of taxation. 1:17:40.320 --> 1:17:42.759 It's not free market like it is here in the US. 1:17:42.960 --> 1:17:45.680 So that's how we started. And basically from there it 1:17:45.760 --> 1:17:48.639 went on and when people started hearing about my father 1:17:49.120 --> 1:17:51.800 making wine, he was never really making wine. He was 1:17:51.920 --> 1:17:55.760 crushing grapes and the must people would be bringing it 1:17:55.840 --> 1:17:59.400 home to ferment it. And the local authorities got wind 1:17:59.400 --> 1:18:02.000 of this and say, hey, this man is bootlegging. 1:18:02.360 --> 1:18:03.759 He's actually making wine. 1:18:03.800 --> 1:18:08.559 We're in control of the wine industry in Quebec, and 1:18:08.040 --> 1:18:11.559 they sequestered all the liquids that were in my father's 1:18:11.640 --> 1:18:16.040 warehouse and the liquids were then juice. Then six months later, 1:18:16.240 --> 1:18:19.600 my father's lawyer contacts them says, by the way, mister Jeloso, 1:18:20.439 --> 1:18:22.720 you know what, You're going to be charged with bootlegging. 1:18:22.760 --> 1:18:25.960 He goes, what it. You know what, they did a 1:18:26.040 --> 1:18:28.640 test and it's wine. He goes, but naturally it's going 1:18:28.680 --> 1:18:29.360 to ferment. 1:18:29.160 --> 1:18:30.960 It will turn into wine. 1:18:31.040 --> 1:18:34.519 So basically, my father brought in an anologist from Europe 1:18:35.120 --> 1:18:37.840 and my father won the case. And the lawyer asked 1:18:37.840 --> 1:18:40.320 my father, listen, now's the time to sue the government. 1:18:40.360 --> 1:18:42.120 My father said, I came here as an immigrant for 1:18:42.160 --> 1:18:44.840 a better life. I want them to give me a 1:18:44.880 --> 1:18:47.880 wine permit. That's why our family has the first wine 1:18:47.880 --> 1:18:48.639 permit in Quebec. 1:18:48.760 --> 1:18:50.879 Zero zero role, what a story. 1:18:51.960 --> 1:18:53.960 So tell us about what you got, what it's grown in. 1:18:54.120 --> 1:18:56.400 You've turned this into a company that does do you 1:18:56.600 --> 1:18:58.240 deal with beer now as well? 1:18:58.439 --> 1:19:02.599 We deal with beer, we deal with cider, we deal 1:19:02.800 --> 1:19:08.440 with spirits. We represent Bacardi, we represent Boston Beer in Quebec. 1:19:08.560 --> 1:19:08.720 Uh. 1:19:09.400 --> 1:19:12.280 Basically we are a one stop shop. 1:19:13.000 --> 1:19:16.040 And this is like one of the hottest growing areas 1:19:16.080 --> 1:19:20.320 of the alcoholic beverage segment, right, I mean everything from 1:19:20.320 --> 1:19:24.280 the from the lowest level to I mean there's really 1:19:24.360 --> 1:19:27.280 uppity mixed cockte pre mixed cocktails that you can order 1:19:27.320 --> 1:19:28.080 at a restaurant. 1:19:28.800 --> 1:19:31.200 What you have to realize is that whenever you're drinking 1:19:31.200 --> 1:19:34.400 a cocktail, at a restaurant, you'll never You'll never find 1:19:35.600 --> 1:19:40.680 unisons and taste. Somebody will add one more ounce of cognac, 1:19:40.760 --> 1:19:44.000 one more ounce of vodka. So what we ventured out 1:19:44.280 --> 1:19:48.639 was basically creating a malt. Why malt because malt gives 1:19:48.720 --> 1:19:52.959 us access to people, to markets, whereby spirits you're limited 1:19:53.000 --> 1:19:58.000 in general. So we actually patented the process whereby we 1:19:58.080 --> 1:20:01.360 cleaned the malt and we add the proper salts, the 1:20:01.439 --> 1:20:04.120 proper sugar levels, so that at the end of the 1:20:04.240 --> 1:20:07.840 day you can receive the natural flavors of whatever cocktail 1:20:08.160 --> 1:20:10.760 you want to build on. And what you have here 1:20:10.920 --> 1:20:14.680 cocktails being the first original cocktail and Sonny Margarita is 1:20:15.200 --> 1:20:20.479 the number one selling cocktail in the usseving Wow, it 1:20:20.560 --> 1:20:26.040 beats up every every other cocktail and this from Quebec. 1:20:26.160 --> 1:20:28.639 Could you believe that it's pretty cool stuff. It's a 1:20:28.680 --> 1:20:31.960 crowded market though increasingly. How do you get yourself noticed 1:20:32.040 --> 1:20:33.799 or how do you think about that? Because it feels 1:20:33.800 --> 1:20:35.360 like we talk to a lot of folks in the 1:20:35.400 --> 1:20:37.559 beverage in the alcohol space, and I just feel like 1:20:37.840 --> 1:20:39.400 there's a lot of startups, there's a lot of the 1:20:39.520 --> 1:20:41.880 establishment that are coming out with different brands. So how 1:20:41.880 --> 1:20:43.759 do you distinguish yourself or get noticed. 1:20:44.240 --> 1:20:47.680 You need agility, you need flexibility. You have to address 1:20:48.240 --> 1:20:50.880 not what the consumer wants, what you believe they want. 1:20:51.000 --> 1:20:53.720 One of the things that we pride ourselves is having 1:20:53.800 --> 1:20:57.439 the proper contacts with distributors, because, like you said, Carol, 1:20:57.720 --> 1:21:00.240 there are so many people out there wanting to load 1:21:00.320 --> 1:21:03.240 up the warehouses of all these distributors. Whereby, at the 1:21:03.320 --> 1:21:05.360 end of the day, you saw it in the craft 1:21:05.439 --> 1:21:09.200 beer business, whereby everybody got on board and everybody got 1:21:09.520 --> 1:21:13.040 stinged by it because the craft beer business somehow sued. 1:21:13.240 --> 1:21:13.479 Right. 1:21:13.880 --> 1:21:17.519 So what we've done is we provide proper quantities, We 1:21:17.560 --> 1:21:22.280 provide constant updates and flavor profiles. But at the same 1:21:22.320 --> 1:21:26.680 time we are authentic in terms of flavor. There is 1:21:26.720 --> 1:21:29.960 no nat there is no unnatural ingredients. And what we 1:21:30.080 --> 1:21:33.080 do is Okay, that's the sunny margarita. 1:21:33.080 --> 1:21:33.720 You're gonna enjoy it. 1:21:33.840 --> 1:21:35.760 It sounds like a beer, guys, it's not. 1:21:36.160 --> 1:21:39.400 It's not a beer like you know what. At the beginning, 1:21:39.439 --> 1:21:41.960 everybody used to tell me, by the way, it's mold. 1:21:42.120 --> 1:21:44.080 I go tell me something you like Scotch. 1:21:44.240 --> 1:21:45.120 Scotch is malt. 1:21:45.560 --> 1:21:48.800 So you have to get the people to understand that 1:21:48.920 --> 1:21:52.640 it's only the alcohol stream that gives you access to 1:21:52.680 --> 1:21:56.400 a network. So it tastes exactly like spirits because we 1:21:56.560 --> 1:21:57.960 redesigned it as spirits. 1:21:58.160 --> 1:22:01.120 All right, Carol is taking a sip now. Now you've 1:22:01.120 --> 1:22:04.120 poured it into margarita and it's nice. 1:22:04.840 --> 1:22:06.120 It has a hint of salt. 1:22:06.160 --> 1:22:07.800 And I'm picky about margarita's. 1:22:08.040 --> 1:22:10.080 It does have a hint of salt. That's an important part. 1:22:10.080 --> 1:22:10.920 So I haven't had a drink. 1:22:10.920 --> 1:22:11.960 I'm not going to put it near you. 1:22:12.040 --> 1:22:14.000 I haven't had a drink in two years, but I 1:22:14.280 --> 1:22:19.240 did drink alcohol. I loved the salt in the Martin margarita. 1:22:19.360 --> 1:22:22.000 Right, Yeah, that's incredible. 1:22:22.000 --> 1:22:26.920 What does this cost into retail? Yeah, that's a good question. 1:22:29.760 --> 1:22:30.759 I have no idea. 1:22:31.200 --> 1:22:32.799 Look to go to your website. 1:22:34.479 --> 1:22:37.040 It's like it's like I would say a thing about sorry, 1:22:37.200 --> 1:22:39.040 I didn't mean to do that to a It's a 1:22:39.040 --> 1:22:41.240 twenty two ounce can, so it's like a tall boy. 1:22:41.479 --> 1:22:41.639 Right. 1:22:41.760 --> 1:22:43.200 What do you think because I think about when you 1:22:43.240 --> 1:22:45.960 go to a bar, right, like a margarita is. 1:22:46.120 --> 1:22:50.120 Like ten twelve dollars team yah, Depending on do you 1:22:50.200 --> 1:22:53.879 make an alcohol free version or do you make alcohol 1:22:53.920 --> 1:22:55.120 free cocktails as well. 1:22:55.520 --> 1:22:58.600 We are the biggest producers of non alcoholic beverages. We 1:22:58.680 --> 1:23:01.800 started in nineteen eighty nine with wine coolers and what 1:23:02.320 --> 1:23:05.479 and what you have to realize we have we have 1:23:05.800 --> 1:23:10.679 brands that are non alcoholic because the demographics, the population, age, aging, 1:23:11.120 --> 1:23:15.799 better lifestyle. I say between now and twenty fifty, fifty 1:23:15.800 --> 1:23:17.919 percent of the people won't be drinking alcohol. 1:23:18.080 --> 1:23:20.439 Although I do wonder you know, Map brought up a 1:23:20.479 --> 1:23:23.920 great point about how a lot of people don't want 1:23:23.960 --> 1:23:28.080 any alcohol anymore. There's that trend. There's also a wellness 1:23:28.120 --> 1:23:31.000 healthier trend, no sugars, that kind of thing that's a 1:23:31.000 --> 1:23:34.519 real concern for a lot of individuals called bucha. How 1:23:34.560 --> 1:23:36.479 are you thinking about that in terms of how you 1:23:36.520 --> 1:23:39.519 guys do things well? And are you seeing that in 1:23:40.080 --> 1:23:41.000 adaptation as. 1:23:40.840 --> 1:23:43.559 A result, I mean, you see you when you see 1:23:43.600 --> 1:23:47.880 players like Molsen Cores change their name to the Molten 1:23:47.920 --> 1:23:50.680 Cores Beverage Company, they're starting to realize they have to 1:23:50.680 --> 1:23:53.880 walk away from beers of certain staple items. So you 1:23:54.000 --> 1:23:58.040 have non alcoholic was always considered zero point five because 1:23:58.080 --> 1:24:01.760 of the changing demographics. Now everybody's focusing on zero point 1:24:01.920 --> 1:24:05.360 zero because we have to attend certain other demographics or 1:24:05.360 --> 1:24:09.800 religious beliefs going forward because the population is changing and 1:24:09.920 --> 1:24:17.559 the wellness, I mean, there's hydration, there's longevity. You have 1:24:17.640 --> 1:24:20.200 to address it today and how we do it. Also, 1:24:20.240 --> 1:24:24.200 a non alcoholic and non acoholic is that we started 1:24:24.200 --> 1:24:28.120 in the eighties for the simple reason that we knew 1:24:28.160 --> 1:24:34.400 that people need an alternative and children. To make sure 1:24:34.439 --> 1:24:37.640 that children don't drink, they have to have products that 1:24:37.720 --> 1:24:41.559 are non alcoholic with a name that is alcoholic. So 1:24:41.600 --> 1:24:44.400 it takes that stigma away from them and that pressure 1:24:44.560 --> 1:24:48.520 because pure pressure is very strong. So we have non 1:24:48.600 --> 1:24:53.320 alcoholic champagnes, non alcoholic cocktails, and yeah, when you look 1:24:53.360 --> 1:24:57.280 at that, we offer that range across the board. 1:24:57.360 --> 1:25:00.240 You see a lot of growth in that area so. 1:25:00.280 --> 1:25:05.440 Much, and especially when you see big players themselves like Heineken, 1:25:06.360 --> 1:25:07.599 Budweis or and everybody. 1:25:07.680 --> 1:25:10.360 Yeah, what about for something like this where I think, 1:25:10.680 --> 1:25:12.600 I mean, I've actually you know, been either on a 1:25:12.680 --> 1:25:15.599 vacation or I sail and like there's not a lot 1:25:15.640 --> 1:25:16.880 of we don't keep a lot of stuff on the 1:25:17.040 --> 1:25:19.400 you know there and I've picked up these pre made 1:25:19.400 --> 1:25:22.760 cocktails and there it's really nice and convenient. So I 1:25:22.800 --> 1:25:24.320 am curious, what kind of growth are you seeing in 1:25:24.360 --> 1:25:24.840 this area. 1:25:25.240 --> 1:25:28.200 Well, we have grown double digits ready to drink Yeah, 1:25:29.120 --> 1:25:32.200 last six years. Every month we control the category in 1:25:32.280 --> 1:25:36.160 terms of margarita. We're the third largest in America and 1:25:36.400 --> 1:25:40.519 we still do our runway is still is still there 1:25:40.560 --> 1:25:42.000 because you know, it's like at the end of the day, 1:25:42.000 --> 1:25:46.200 we're fighting big boys and like, like Matt was saying, 1:25:46.280 --> 1:25:48.840 what makes us pertinent is the fact that we keep 1:25:48.880 --> 1:25:52.040 our ear with the distributor. We may we attend to 1:25:52.080 --> 1:25:56.439 their needs in terms of inventory levels. Uh. And at 1:25:56.439 --> 1:25:58.519 the end of the day, people only come back for 1:25:58.600 --> 1:26:02.000 only one simple reason, plaffability. It has to taste good. 1:26:02.600 --> 1:26:05.640 People will adopt at once, but they have to. 1:26:05.800 --> 1:26:07.519 I've had some non alcoholic stuff, and I have to 1:26:07.560 --> 1:26:08.840 be honest with you, I didn't like it. 1:26:09.040 --> 1:26:11.559 That's probably beer, right, non alcoholic beer and wine is 1:26:11.600 --> 1:26:12.120 no bueno. 1:26:12.360 --> 1:26:12.639 Right. 1:26:13.280 --> 1:26:16.600 But you can easily make a non alcoholic sex on 1:26:16.680 --> 1:26:20.599 the beach, you know, because these cocktails. I'm looking through 1:26:21.320 --> 1:26:25.840 what you got. Carol's drinking the margarita, you got the screwdriver. 1:26:26.000 --> 1:26:29.479 Obviously you've got Alabama slammer. 1:26:29.600 --> 1:26:30.320 Sex on the beach. 1:26:30.600 --> 1:26:32.880 Yes, sex on the beach along islandized tea. Most of 1:26:32.920 --> 1:26:37.000 these cocktails were mixed originally so that you couldn't taste 1:26:37.040 --> 1:26:39.960 the alcohol in them, and I imagine that makes it 1:26:40.000 --> 1:26:44.120 easy to make non alcoholic non alcoholic versions. How important 1:26:44.160 --> 1:26:47.040 is your distributor relationship. You must get all your intel 1:26:47.080 --> 1:26:47.400 that way. 1:26:47.640 --> 1:26:51.280 Our intel comes from the fact that we know the industry. 1:26:51.520 --> 1:26:54.720 Our distributor is our segue to the market. They have 1:26:54.840 --> 1:26:57.760 to believe in us. So our intel comes from the 1:26:57.800 --> 1:27:01.639 fact that we develop quaffable product and that are pure 1:27:01.880 --> 1:27:05.000 and taste and have no sugars in them. The only 1:27:05.040 --> 1:27:10.040 sugars are basically the alcohol itself, that is naturally sugar. Right. 1:27:10.280 --> 1:27:13.400 That's Aldo Jeloso of the family owned Jeloso Group of companies, 1:27:13.400 --> 1:27:17.480 which includes Jeloso Beverage Group USA along with Bloomberg's Matt Miller. 1:27:17.200 --> 1:27:20.240 Who, like you, is also into non alcoholic beverages. Yeah, 1:27:20.280 --> 1:27:22.640 been like sober for or not sober. I shouldn't say that, 1:27:22.680 --> 1:27:26.439 but that's staining. You could say that was my word, 1:27:26.520 --> 1:27:28.439 not Mad's. He's just been, you know, he's been on 1:27:28.479 --> 1:27:29.559 a healthier kind of kick. 1:27:29.640 --> 1:27:29.920 Yeah. 1:27:30.040 --> 1:27:32.799 I mean, he's like one of many right now, I think. 1:27:32.680 --> 1:27:34.479 Yeah, I agree. I think a lot of people are 1:27:34.479 --> 1:27:34.960 rethinking this. 1:27:35.080 --> 1:27:35.320 Also. 1:27:35.320 --> 1:27:38.280 It's interesting to see research coming out rethinking you know, 1:27:38.560 --> 1:27:40.759 a glass of wine or alcohol, you know the impact 1:27:40.760 --> 1:27:42.000 it can have on your health longer term. 1:27:42.040 --> 1:27:43.560 I think for Matt and me, I don't want to 1:27:43.560 --> 1:27:45.439 speak for him, but he's got young kids too, Like 1:27:45.640 --> 1:27:48.200 you know, Saturday morning, Sunday morning, you want to be 1:27:48.320 --> 1:27:50.160 there to chase them around. 1:27:50.560 --> 1:27:51.160 Did you love me? 1:27:51.200 --> 1:27:52.519 They come over and they open up your eyes. 1:27:52.600 --> 1:27:53.639 Yeah, yeah, that's great. 1:27:54.120 --> 1:27:54.400 All right. 1:27:54.400 --> 1:27:56.439 That wraps up our weekend edition to Bloomberg Business Week 1:27:56.479 --> 1:27:58.400 from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. 1:27:58.520 --> 1:28:00.920 Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Monday through Friday 1:28:00.960 --> 1:28:03.200 starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV, 1:28:03.280 --> 1:28:06.560 Bloomberg Radio, and on SiriusXM Channel one twenty one. You 1:28:06.600 --> 1:28:08.479 can also listen to us on Apple CarPlay and Android 1:28:08.520 --> 1:28:11.120 Auto Free in the Apple app Store or on Google Play. 1:28:11.160 --> 1:28:13.559 You can also watch our daily broadcast on YouTube search 1:28:13.560 --> 1:28:17.480 Bloomberg Global News. We're a summlcast on Bloomberg Originals, available 1:28:17.600 --> 1:28:21.679 at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Originals, and streaming platforms including Roku, 1:28:21.760 --> 1:28:24.479 Amazon fireTV, Samsung TV Plus, and more. 1:28:24.640 --> 1:28:27.599 Find our Bloomberg BusinessWeek podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, 1:28:27.680 --> 1:28:30.160 or wherever you get your podcasts, and the latest edition 1:28:30.200 --> 1:28:32.679 of the magazine is available on newsstands now at Bloomberg 1:28:32.720 --> 1:28:34.719 dot com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. 1:28:35.000 --> 1:28:37.160 I'm Tim Standebeck and I'm Krol Masser. Have a good 1:28:37.160 --> 1:28:39.840 and safe weekend. Everyone, Stay with us. Today's top stories 1:28:39.840 --> 1:28:42.400 and global business headlines are coming up right now. 1:28:42.960 --> 1:28:47.600 This is the Bloomberg BusinessWeek podcast, all available on Apple, Spotify, 1:28:47.760 --> 1:28:50.960 and anywhere else you can get your podcasts. Listen live 1:28:51.040 --> 1:28:54.439 weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern pud, Bloomberg 1:28:54.479 --> 1:28:57.800 dot com, the iHeartRadio app, tune In, and the Bloomberg 1:28:57.840 --> 1:29:00.759 Business App. You can also watch us live every weekday 1:29:00.760 --> 1:29:10.760 on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal MHM