Speaker 1: Yeah, Welcome to the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Tom Keene
Speaker 1: with David Gura. Daily we bring you insight from the
Speaker 1: best of economics, finance, investment, and international relations. Find Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Surveillance on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Bloomberg dot Com, and of course,
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg. Our first guess Russ Castrick, who joins
Speaker 1: us set now from our studios in New Yorker Bloomberg
Speaker 1: and living three at studios. He is at portfolio manager
Speaker 1: for black Rocks Global Allocation. Russ, great to speak with
Speaker 1: you once again. Sorry I couldn't be there in person.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you first of all, just what you're
Speaker 1: gonna be listening for tomorrow? As I mentioned the FED
Speaker 1: kicking off this two day meeting today, I expect we'll
Speaker 1: get some commentary on on the balance sheet. What are
Speaker 1: you gonna be listening for? When FED chere? Jannyellen takes
Speaker 1: to the podium after that meeting, concludes tomorrow, Well, good morning.
Speaker 1: I think there are a couple of things. Obviously, the
Speaker 1: balance she's gonna be front and center. I think the
Speaker 1: other is we had up until August a string of
Speaker 1: consistently weak inflation reports that started to shift in August
Speaker 1: thanks to some some hike in gasoline and energy prices.
Speaker 1: What is the Fed's view of inflation. Are they still
Speaker 1: concerned about the disappointments earlier in the year, or do
Speaker 1: they believe those are transitory and therefore a December hike
Speaker 1: is more likely if we see indications that that that
Speaker 1: inflation area had wins. Our transitory confirmed something that Janet
Speaker 1: Yellen said now many months ago, she walked it back
Speaker 1: a little bit when she was speaking and testifying on
Speaker 1: on Capitol Hill. Has her initial assessment of that been
Speaker 1: confirmed by the data that we've seen here over these
Speaker 1: last few months. Well, certainly the August print was stronger
Speaker 1: than we've seen. But I think there is a legitimate
Speaker 1: question here because many times we talk about the transitory
Speaker 1: nature of the data. We cite particular instances, whether it's
Speaker 1: hotel accommodations or data charges going down, and the fact is, well,
Speaker 1: those might be one off events. You could also view
Speaker 1: those through the prism a secular downward UH price pressure
Speaker 1: in many industries and telecom in hotels, and that's something
Speaker 1: that that may continue, and perhaps the inflation numbers are
Speaker 1: not quite as transitory as we think we're focusing here
Speaker 1: on inflation. I think it's safe to say that, uh,
Speaker 1: since since these last few meetings, we've been speaking less
Speaker 1: about the labor market. When you when you look at
Speaker 1: the US labor market today, the health of it, how
Speaker 1: much of a concern isn't Do you think that we've
Speaker 1: been a bit neglectful here not talking more about the
Speaker 1: state of the labor economy, focusing so much on inflation. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the funny thing is, the labor market has
Speaker 1: been so steady, uh in some ways, you know that
Speaker 1: the CPI print has become what the non farm payroll
Speaker 1: number used to be. I think what's remarkab about the
Speaker 1: labor market is not the consistency the job gains. It's
Speaker 1: the fact that we're creating jobs at a faster pace
Speaker 1: than than to to keep a neutral unemployment rate, and
Speaker 1: yet wages remain stuck at around two and a half percent.
Speaker 1: And that, to me is the big conundrum. And it
Speaker 1: ties back to this inflation argument. When are we going
Speaker 1: to start to see will we start to see that
Speaker 1: for aditional relationship the so called Phillips curve between the
Speaker 1: labor market and inflation. So far, it just hasn't manifested
Speaker 1: the way economic textbooks say it should. So that's the question,
Speaker 1: as you've been chewing this over, are you Are you
Speaker 1: any closer to, if not an answer a theory on
Speaker 1: why that's the case. Well, I think the theory is
Speaker 1: that there has been some things that have changed, and
Speaker 1: it's not as if the laws of economics have been
Speaker 1: repealed at some point. I think if the labor market
Speaker 1: remains tied enough, you will nudge wages higher. But clearly
Speaker 1: some of the mechanisms have changed, and I would cite,
Speaker 1: uh the role of globalization, I would say technology. I'd
Speaker 1: also probably cite the decline in private sector union membership
Speaker 1: as severing one of the links between cost pressures and
Speaker 1: wages that existed up more clearly thirty or forty years ago.
Speaker 1: Broadcaster with a set from Blackpark, Tom Keane wandering you
Speaker 1: walk to work today? Tom? How did you get in
Speaker 1: with the the traffic? I walked to work, of course, Key.
Speaker 1: It was so busy and the security was so There's
Speaker 1: a little knoll on Central Park where the risk you
Speaker 1: can get down to pick me up. They usually do
Speaker 1: that at three SHO couldn't even do it today even
Speaker 1: know It's like where Nathan Hale was before he got
Speaker 1: over the third Avenue. It was tragically killed and it
Speaker 1: was like a revolution kind of thank good morning, David.
Speaker 1: Gr Lots lots going on here in New York. Terrific
Speaker 1: news flow. We'll get to that through the hour. Good
Speaker 1: morning everyone, coast to coast and worldwide as well. Russ
Speaker 1: consters with us and just brilliant ideas for us over
Speaker 1: the last hour and a half with you. Let me
Speaker 1: tie in your work with one Jeffrey Rosenberg, he of
Speaker 1: Carnegie mel and Mr Rosenberger black Rock will join us
Speaker 1: on our FED show this tomorrow. Are you strategizing in
Speaker 1: a one unit one economy Gaussian probability world, a Bell
Speaker 1: curve of one America? Or are we so split in
Speaker 1: our wealth, in our inequality, in the amount of equity?
Speaker 1: Were we so split that it's not only two America's politically,
Speaker 1: but it's who America's financially. For black Rock, well, certainly
Speaker 1: the economy looks different, and I think you're asking a
Speaker 1: very legitimate question. You We spoke back on on the
Speaker 1: air a few minutes ago about the wealth effect. Now
Speaker 1: the wealth effect goes exactly to your question. We've seen
Speaker 1: this enormous surgeon wealth household wealth up fifty in about
Speaker 1: six years. That is very significant for one part of
Speaker 1: the country. It's almost irrelevant for another part, particularly to
Speaker 1: the extent that much of those wealth games came through
Speaker 1: the stock market, whereas you will know, many Americans simply
Speaker 1: don't participate. And I want to really emphasize, folks, this
Speaker 1: is something David and I've talked about, which is it's
Speaker 1: not East coast, West coast anymore, or you know Nashville
Speaker 1: saying they're the third coast. It's about in every region.
Speaker 1: David helped me with the Carolinas here. I mean in
Speaker 1: every region, there's a city here, a city there that's booming.
Speaker 1: Is that right, David Caroline, you mentioned North Carolina where
Speaker 1: I'm from. Of course, a lot of that seems to
Speaker 1: center around places where you have us tuitions of higher education.
Speaker 1: You've got universities and colleges, and that seems to to
Speaker 1: make a difference. And you see a lot of effort,
Speaker 1: particularly in western North Carolina, central and western North Carolina,
Speaker 1: to to kick start communities that had relied on furniture
Speaker 1: other forms of manufacturing. And then do we have a
Speaker 1: fed dealing with that Russ and then that lead us
Speaker 1: to bubbles. You know, Steve roach X Morgan Stanley now
Speaker 1: at Yale University. Uh lad the charge on bubble analysis?
Speaker 1: Are we bubbly? Are we bubblicious? Well? I think there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things. I mean, first of all, on
Speaker 1: the FED. In fairness to the FED, people have leveled
Speaker 1: a lot of criticism at them. The FED really doesn't
Speaker 1: have the tool set to adequately deal with some of
Speaker 1: the issues we're talking about. You know, rates are very
Speaker 1: blunt instrument, and I'm not sure that the ideal mechanism
Speaker 1: to tackle inequality. Uh. In terms of bubbles, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we're necessarily an equity bubble. What I
Speaker 1: do believe is that we're in this unusual set of
Speaker 1: circumstances where stocks and bonds are expensive at the same time.
Speaker 1: We haven't seen that, at least to this extent, in
Speaker 1: many decades. Let me ask you just about the prospect
Speaker 1: of change at the fedizer If we've talked about this
Speaker 1: a little bit this week and the week before, of course,
Speaker 1: fights chairs stand Fisher announcing his resignation effective in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks at time. Who knows what's going to
Speaker 1: happen to the FED chair. There are other vacancies on
Speaker 1: the FED as well. How what transformative is this moment
Speaker 1: for the FED? You know, it's it's a great question
Speaker 1: because we talked about the FED, we talked about the
Speaker 1: fans reaction function. But obviously the FED is an organic
Speaker 1: institution and it will change as its members change, Which
Speaker 1: raises the question, what is the FED gonna look like
Speaker 1: in a year? Uh? You know, my my own view
Speaker 1: is I don't believe we're going to see a significant
Speaker 1: shift in policy, uh, given some of the comments from
Speaker 1: the administration, given some of the views they've expressed on
Speaker 1: the dollar, I would personally be surprised if we saw
Speaker 1: many of the open positions filled by UH economists or
Speaker 1: or or others that have a reputation as being fairly hawkish.
Speaker 1: Do you think we're to see more business people? In
Speaker 1: other words, is the day of the FED stacked with
Speaker 1: with PhD economists coming to an end? Well, I don't
Speaker 1: think it's coming to an end, but I certainly think
Speaker 1: you will see more business people. There's been that Tennessee
Speaker 1: already with the administration up and again that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: a bad thing. I mean certainly the economy is changing
Speaker 1: in ways that are not fully captured by textbooks and
Speaker 1: getting some of that granular, more tactile experience. I don't
Speaker 1: think that would be bad. And Browing Russ Costers, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for a perspective with black Rock with
Speaker 1: their strategy and sset allocation as well. David Burrick here
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. And the Ronald Reagan Building for
Speaker 1: a Bloomberg Live event on the future of healthcare, Unlocking
Speaker 1: and supporting value. Tom Keane in New York and our
Speaker 1: Bloombergo eleven three oh studios, and I'm joined by Dr
Speaker 1: Toby Constate with the CEO of the Cleveland Clinic. I'll
Speaker 1: be speaking with him a little bit late or on
Speaker 1: a panel with three other CEOs, the head of American
Speaker 1: Cancer Society, the head of Visor, and the head of
Speaker 1: Walgreen's Boots Alliance as well, and we're gonna be talking
Speaker 1: about value based healthcare. I told you, what is it,
Speaker 1: uh exactly? Help me do my homework here head to
Speaker 1: the panel. This is the new watchword. We're hearing this
Speaker 1: a lot across the healthcare spectrum. What is it exactly? Well,
Speaker 1: currently and most places are being paid on the basis
Speaker 1: of uh, an individual procedure or treatment. And what we're
Speaker 1: really looking at is beginning to treat people on the
Speaker 1: basis of the outcomes and that and the idea is
Speaker 1: to keep people from getting sick, keep them out of
Speaker 1: the hospital, and we'll be paid on the basis of
Speaker 1: maintaining their health. And so the healthy you are, the
Speaker 1: better off it will be for us. And uh so
Speaker 1: the objectives aligned with the patients. You say we uh,
Speaker 1: and I wonder what we means in this context. I'll
Speaker 1: be talking with you you run a big, big hospital,
Speaker 1: big medical center, and be talking to the head of
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical company Walgreens Boots Alliance in the American Cancer scize. Well,
Speaker 1: are all the parties together working on this. Who's who's
Speaker 1: taking the league when it comes to this transition. Well,
Speaker 1: the risk are really going to be on the providers. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, we will be paid a certain amount per months,
Speaker 1: remember per months to look after patients. Uh, and we
Speaker 1: will be responsible for all of their care. Uh. And
Speaker 1: so the really the providers, I want to take the
Speaker 1: risk and the WIE as the providers, what's the risk exactly?
Speaker 1: It sounds at face like this makes a lot of
Speaker 1: sense that that you should be paying for something that works,
Speaker 1: you should be paying for things that are bundled, paid
Speaker 1: for the whole the whole day. What's what's the risk
Speaker 1: that you're taking on with this transition. Well, the risk
Speaker 1: is UH twofold. First of all, Currently there's an upside risk.
Speaker 1: If we do better, we get to share in the
Speaker 1: UH in the difference if we then eventually it will
Speaker 1: be downside risk too. And if we don't do is
Speaker 1: well and cost less for taking care of patients, we're
Speaker 1: going to be responsible for that and we will lose
Speaker 1: money on it. So there's incentives both up and down.
Speaker 1: Where did this this idea come from? Does it date
Speaker 1: back to Michael Porter at Harvard Business School who had
Speaker 1: this revolutionary idea? Why are we doing it at this
Speaker 1: point in time? Is it's something catalyzed by the Affordable
Speaker 1: Care Act? Well, it actually dates way back before that.
Speaker 1: Romney really I brought this in in Massachusetts, uh and
Speaker 1: with the idea and we've really been looking at a
Speaker 1: new way over the last decade or so on how
Speaker 1: we get paid in healthcare and what the objectives of
Speaker 1: the reimbursements are. Ducher cosgrew wonderful to speak to you
Speaker 1: again after Davos this year, when when you look at
Speaker 1: the four or seven or eight, I can't keep count
Speaker 1: iterations of Republican proposed legislation in Congress, in Senate at
Speaker 1: six Pennsylvania Avenue. What's the best proposal for doctors and nurses? Well,
Speaker 1: I'm concerned about all of them. To be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I think the concern is that there's going to leave
Speaker 1: a lot of people uncovered. Uh. And I frankly don't
Speaker 1: think that the bills, the repeal bills, deal with the base,
Speaker 1: the root cause of the problems. The root cause the
Speaker 1: problem is, I see, it is the rising cost of healthcare.
Speaker 1: And that happens really for two reasons. First of all,
Speaker 1: you've got an older population. Uh. And secondly, there's more
Speaker 1: things that we can do as healthcare providers to to
Speaker 1: take care of them. So you're seeing across the world
Speaker 1: increasing costs of healthcare. Uh and uh, none of these
Speaker 1: bills really begin to deal with that. Are we going
Speaker 1: to go across Lake Erie and do a Canadian plan?
Speaker 1: Are we heading for some form of Canadian or United
Speaker 1: Kingdom plan? Well, I don't think that's a political reality
Speaker 1: at this point in the United States, I think that
Speaker 1: what I would like to see is that none of
Speaker 1: these repeals really take effect. If you look at the
Speaker 1: bill and you go back and what it really started
Speaker 1: out to do. It really wanted to increase coverage, which
Speaker 1: it did. It needed to improve the quality of healthcare.
Speaker 1: And if you see across the country over the last
Speaker 1: eight years, gradually you've seen an improvement in quality of
Speaker 1: healthcare for hospitals. UH. And then UH, the thing that
Speaker 1: it has not done well is control the cost of healthcare. UH.
Speaker 1: And so UH and I would hope that what we
Speaker 1: would see is UH coming together and a bipartisan fashion
Speaker 1: to begin to look at the cost of healthcare, both
Speaker 1: the efficiency of how we deal with patients who are sick,
Speaker 1: and also how we begin to keep people well and
Speaker 1: deal with the three epidemics which are really plaguing in
Speaker 1: the United States right now, which is smoking, obesity, and UH,
Speaker 1: the opiate condiction. David Gern, I want to get to
Speaker 1: the opioid issue here at a moment. Thank you Allen
Speaker 1: Krueger of Princeton for important comments yesterday. Dr Cosgrove, David Gerrn,
Speaker 1: I have to rip up the script and we do
Speaker 1: that with Toby Cosgrove, who wandered out a medical school
Speaker 1: in three cups of coffee. Later was in Denaying running
Speaker 1: twenty two casualties, staging flight, trying to get people on
Speaker 1: airplanes so that they could live coming out of wounds
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. We do this with a backdrop of ken
Speaker 1: Burns the Vietnam War. Yes, Mr Burns will join us. UM.
Speaker 1: We've been really trying to work with his schedule, and
Speaker 1: we'll have ken Burns on October. Dr Cosgrove George Will
Speaker 1: calls ken Burn's effort a masterpiece. What did you see
Speaker 1: in Vietnam that you need ken Burns to tell in
Speaker 1: his documentary? I think ken Burns will tell a story
Speaker 1: UM that is clearly the horror of war. UM. And
Speaker 1: there are no good, good guys or people who wear
Speaker 1: a high how white hat and a war UM. And
Speaker 1: I think until you have participated in war and you
Speaker 1: really don't recognize the magnitude of the destruction it is
Speaker 1: in both human lives and property within that is the
Speaker 1: medicine that you learned. We've gone to a medicine that
Speaker 1: is so removed most of us barely know who the
Speaker 1: pediatrician is. Or maybe the surgeon wandering by and three
Speaker 1: levels you may be not even sure who's going to
Speaker 1: operate on a given day. What can we learn about
Speaker 1: the medicine of another time and place around Vietnam, around
Speaker 1: the general care we knew that we can bring forward
Speaker 1: and rekindle today. Well, first of all, I think that
Speaker 1: you clearly recognize that the quality of care across the
Speaker 1: country has improved and dramatically over time, and uh, even
Speaker 1: since the time of the Vietnam War. Just uh, let
Speaker 1: me put it in perspective for you for a second.
Speaker 1: During the Civil War, of everybody who was injured died
Speaker 1: an he started injury in Vietnam, ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: the people who are injured survived. Now it is closer
Speaker 1: to so the quality of the care, both for civilians
Speaker 1: and the military has improved enormously. I think what is
Speaker 1: being lost and in fact, what we're trying to improve is, uh,
Speaker 1: the fact that we need to to concentrate on patients
Speaker 1: um and all of the things that surrounded patients, particularly
Speaker 1: the emotional aspects and the empathy that are require are
Speaker 1: to drive that. And at the Cleveland Clinic, one of
Speaker 1: the things that we did is we UH said that
Speaker 1: our matra is going to be petting patients first and
Speaker 1: everything that that involves, and everybody in the hospital, whether
Speaker 1: you are a neurosurgeon or you're driving the bus, UH
Speaker 1: is uh. The reason that they're there is for patients.
Speaker 1: And I think once you're centered around that, it begins
Speaker 1: to change of the attitude that people have in the
Speaker 1: empathy which they exhibit. My one of my first summer
Speaker 1: jobs was at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, working with
Speaker 1: the department that looked into quality. It was clear that
Speaker 1: was becoming the rage in healthcare policy, doing better at
Speaker 1: measuring the quality of care, looking at how patients were
Speaker 1: fearing and how they felt. Where do things stand now
Speaker 1: when you begin to assess the efficacy of treatment? Are
Speaker 1: we are we doing a better job of ensuring that
Speaker 1: the treatment is a quality treatment and that patients are
Speaker 1: doing better as a result. Yeah. We want people to
Speaker 1: come in the hospital to be safe, uh, free from
Speaker 1: errors and mistakes, and I think we're question that we
Speaker 1: are having a much more high reliability UH for our organization.
Speaker 1: The quality has improved, UH, and it is improved with
Speaker 1: measurement UH. And one of the things that I think
Speaker 1: is so important is the transparency that goes with measuring quality.
Speaker 1: The transparency has to be both internal, uh two members
Speaker 1: of the healthcare team, and it has to be external
Speaker 1: to the community. And we've attempted to do that over time.
Speaker 1: But if you look at quality, quality really falls into
Speaker 1: three categories. Uh. It's the clinical quality, which we are
Speaker 1: measuring like crazy. But until recently, we did not consider
Speaker 1: the physical nor the emotional quality that went with the hospitalization.
Speaker 1: And now we're much better at that um and measure it,
Speaker 1: report it, share it both internally and externally, and right
Speaker 1: down to individually. David, this is what you and I
Speaker 1: love to do, and this is what our team puts
Speaker 1: together every day. Alan Krueger yesterday a prince and I
Speaker 1: believe you have Dr Cosgrow with you in Washington from
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Clinic, a Dr Toby Cosco, the CEO of
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Clinic. And I'm still thinking about many of
Speaker 1: the statistics that Dr Krueger brought up yesterday on the show,
Speaker 1: among them that nearly half of prime age men, men
Speaker 1: between the ages of twenty five and fifty four who
Speaker 1: aren't in the labor force, take pain medication on a
Speaker 1: daily basis. Two thirds of those men are about two
Speaker 1: million of them take prescription pain medication on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: and brings some economics to what is a crisis in
Speaker 1: this country, the opioid crisis. Dr Toby Cosco has been
Speaker 1: thinking about and speaking out about this as well. Give
Speaker 1: us the lay of the land that we talk about
Speaker 1: it as a crisis. What constitutes that particular crisis? How
Speaker 1: bad are things as you see them? Well, I think
Speaker 1: if you look at it just in terms of deaths UH,
Speaker 1: this year there will be sixty two thousand deaths UH
Speaker 1: from overdoses. UH. That compares of what went on in
Speaker 1: Vietnam and then the total Vietnam War there are fifty
Speaker 1: eight thousand deaths UH. They expected to go to ninety
Speaker 1: thousand deaths over the next three years, which is UH
Speaker 1: doesn't begin to talk about the number of overdoses that
Speaker 1: there are. Just in Caihua County, we saw over seven
Speaker 1: thousand overdoses come into hospitals uh uh in the last year. UH.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't count the financial uh cost of maintaining this,
Speaker 1: nor the social or emotional costs of looking after these patients.
Speaker 1: It's really ah escalating at a very fast pace. How
Speaker 1: did we get here? And we don't need to to
Speaker 1: assign culpability if if you don't want to do that,
Speaker 1: but this is certainly something that has, as you say,
Speaker 1: taken off. How do we get to this point where
Speaker 1: so many people in the US are taking these kinds
Speaker 1: of drugs. Well, first of all, you know, we have
Speaker 1: had a try to maintain people without pain. Uh. And
Speaker 1: I think that you have to say that inadvertently the
Speaker 1: medical profession was responsible for a lot of this. We
Speaker 1: had gave out pain medication, and people did not realize
Speaker 1: the addictive nature of a lot of the new pain medications.
Speaker 1: Octic coding, for example, is UH was touted as not
Speaker 1: being as addictive as UH codeine was UH, and so
Speaker 1: it was prescribed widely. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: pain became one of the new vital signs, and people
Speaker 1: trying to contain people's pain by medicating them uh. And
Speaker 1: then the government began to reimburse us on the basis
Speaker 1: of how well we looked after people's pain. All these
Speaker 1: things began to suggest that physicians should give more and
Speaker 1: more pain medications, which they did. Um. And Uh. It
Speaker 1: turns out right now that of heroin attics started with
Speaker 1: some sort of perscrission drug. Uh. And then on top
Speaker 1: of that, Uh, we have seen uh an influx of
Speaker 1: new medications um. Uh they have seen um coming in
Speaker 1: from China. Now, Uh, what you have have begin to
Speaker 1: drugs that begin to be a hundred times more potent
Speaker 1: than morphine. Uh, and they're now being laced into the drugs,
Speaker 1: and so you may get a drug that has been
Speaker 1: laced uh and invertly way overdose from that. It goes
Speaker 1: back to the conversation we're having before the breaking part.
Speaker 1: We're talking about measuring quality. There's certainly been efforts to
Speaker 1: measure pain as well. Is is the measuring of pain
Speaker 1: is subjective thing. I know we've counted on patients to
Speaker 1: rate with the smiley face to the wincing cartoon face,
Speaker 1: how they're they're feeling at this point, Uh, is that
Speaker 1: still a problem measuring how much pain the patient is
Speaker 1: in and when the patient needs to take the kind
Speaker 1: of medications that we're talking about, No question about it.
Speaker 1: It is a subjective measurement and various. If I remember
Speaker 1: one time I had a kidney stone and I was
Speaker 1: well medicated, and uh, in in fact, that hurt a
Speaker 1: lot and so I just wanted more something. Yeah, please
Speaker 1: get rid of the pain. Um. But you know, we
Speaker 1: have to understand that about of people in the United
Speaker 1: States at some time in their life have back pain.
Speaker 1: And if we give all of those some sort of
Speaker 1: opioid medication, we're going to put a lot of that
Speaker 1: medication out into the into the environment. And so we
Speaker 1: have begun to look at new ways we can begin
Speaker 1: to treat people with back pain. Not everybody needs to
Speaker 1: have some sort of medication. Uh. And so we've treated
Speaker 1: with psychological support, with physiotherapy, et cetera. You're a Williams guy,
Speaker 1: I believe you know there's a small school up in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire called Dartmouth. Not that you'd pay attention to that,
Speaker 1: but when you when you in the Dartmouth grad Center,
Speaker 1: Apportman of Ohio get together and talk about opioid. Portman's
Speaker 1: had the courage to lead on this. How do we
Speaker 1: get from Portman's leadership to Ohio solution or the beginning
Speaker 1: of solution on this this heroin opioid epidemic. Well, I
Speaker 1: think the first thing we have to do is recognize
Speaker 1: the magnitude of the problem. Uh. And I think that
Speaker 1: generally not recognize what a serious problem that is. And
Speaker 1: I don't think it was generally recognized until fairly recently
Speaker 1: even amongst the medical profession. Um, and certainly it is
Speaker 1: not recognized amongst the general population. And until such time
Speaker 1: as people understand the magnitude of the problem, we're not
Speaker 1: going to get a solution to it. Because the solution
Speaker 1: is not just uh located in the medical profession. It's
Speaker 1: not just located uh in the public. It's frankly, it's
Speaker 1: gonna end and require education in the schools. It's going
Speaker 1: to require the physicians, it's going to require the law enforcement.
Speaker 1: It's going to require uh, the appreciation of this by
Speaker 1: legis legislators. Uh. So all of society has to begin
Speaker 1: to understand what it is, how serious it is, and
Speaker 1: and um the METI factorial approach to fixing it. Do
Speaker 1: you blame doctors? I mean, we we all perceive I know, Dr. Costco,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna be nice on this, But the fact is,
Speaker 1: David and I and everyone we know perceives quality or
Speaker 1: levels of doctors. Is there a part of the doctor
Speaker 1: during industry that's really been wrong on opioids? Well, I
Speaker 1: think all of us frankly, did not appreciate the magnitude
Speaker 1: of the problem. We didn't understand how addictive the drugs were.
Speaker 1: We didn't understand, uh the propensity that some people have
Speaker 1: to get easily addicted to some of these and uh
Speaker 1: so it's a process of education, educating us as a profession,
Speaker 1: and uh so we certainly are culpable or part of
Speaker 1: the issue we uh We talked to Dr Krueger yesterday
Speaker 1: is as we've mentioned, and one of the things he
Speaker 1: said is Washington's very good at convening meetings. You can
Speaker 1: get stakeholders to the table. We can talk about these issues,
Speaker 1: we can outline how big a problem it is. But
Speaker 1: solutions are another thing entirely. Imagine you've thought about what
Speaker 1: could be done differently or should be done going forward.
Speaker 1: Is it going to be something that emanates from this
Speaker 1: the nation's capital. Is it going to be done at
Speaker 1: the state, local level? What could make a market change here?
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing, Well, first of all, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it has to be all of these. Uh
Speaker 1: you know, let me tell you what we've done locally.
Speaker 1: We've begun to enter into reducing the amount of uh
Speaker 1: pain medications that we give to our patients. The state
Speaker 1: has now said that you get a seven day for
Speaker 1: adults uh in five days of prescription for children. UH.
Speaker 1: We have made it easier to understand about how people
Speaker 1: have had a successive prescriptions and so we uh so
Speaker 1: we can get that from the electronic medical record. We
Speaker 1: have begun to have education both for the community and
Speaker 1: uh for our physicians. We've begun to look at uh narcan,
Speaker 1: which is the antidote for overdose, and make that so
Speaker 1: you can get it without a prescription, UM and all.
Speaker 1: And we've begin to expand our treatments UH locations and
Speaker 1: capabilities to deal with people who are addicted. So that's
Speaker 1: sort of what's going on and the local ground level.
Speaker 1: Obviously Washington can help a lot with dancing and by
Speaker 1: being um a voice about the magnitude of the problem,
Speaker 1: particularly coming from the president. UM. But uh so it's
Speaker 1: going to I think there's lots of things that can
Speaker 1: come together. It can begin to help. I've got about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds left here. When somebody becomes addicted to these
Speaker 1: kinds of drugs, what is it like to get off of?
Speaker 1: How do you? How do you how do you begin
Speaker 1: to do it? Well? First, of all, I think you
Speaker 1: have to understand the problem and have to enter into
Speaker 1: a treatment. Uh. And treatment really is, depending on the
Speaker 1: magnitude of the problem, can be drug assisted UM and
Speaker 1: that's has been increasingly successful for people who have done that.
Speaker 1: Talk to Tubacatro, thank you very much for the time
Speaker 1: today joining us. Who knows the shock of the deficits.
Speaker 1: Douglas Holtz, he can he joins us on her phone
Speaker 1: lines or olds he can anything to talk about here.
Speaker 1: But I guess we go to the deficit. You have
Speaker 1: a vector of deficit to GDP growth that borders on frightening.
Speaker 1: Is anyone in Washington where of where our deficit to
Speaker 1: GDP is heading? I'd say people are aware of. The
Speaker 1: Congressional Budget Office has issued numerous reports, including the Long
Speaker 1: Term Budget Outlook, that paying a pretty dire picture, but
Speaker 1: it hasn't risen to the level of action so far.
Speaker 1: And the fundamental action that is needed is something which
Speaker 1: puts so Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act at
Speaker 1: the large federal health and retirement programs on a sustainable trajectory.
Speaker 1: Right now, so Security scheduled to have to cut benefits
Speaker 1: across the board under two decades. That's a bad way
Speaker 1: to run a retirement program, and it's a disservice to
Speaker 1: the overall economy to have a big deficit. The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal reports this morning the stuff of Douglas holes
Speaker 1: Heekins nightmares. One and a half trillion dollar tax cut.
Speaker 1: Uh that isn't paid for? Uh is what happened to
Speaker 1: the Republican Party. Didn't you used to be a Republican
Speaker 1: I mean, the Republican party with the deficit party at all?
Speaker 1: Where did those people go? I think they're still out there,
Speaker 1: But there is a division, uh, certainly in the folks
Speaker 1: who are running the House, sent in the White House
Speaker 1: right now. There's no evidence from his campaign that the
Speaker 1: president is concerned at all about budget deficits. When he
Speaker 1: announced his candidacy, I remember distinctly him saying, I'm not
Speaker 1: going to touch so security, I'm not gonna touch Medicare.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go get the money. I don't know
Speaker 1: what that means, but certainly, any reasonable assessment of the
Speaker 1: fisc Closs says that you're going to have to make
Speaker 1: sensible modifications of those programs. It's an imperative. So you know,
Speaker 1: the president sets the tone in any administration and in
Speaker 1: any UM Washington, and that's an important issue right now.
Speaker 1: Douglas seekin with this, the American Action Forum president, obviously
Speaker 1: former director of the CBO. But we all knew that
Speaker 1: Mike Rickie Alice Rivlin will join us on our FETE
Speaker 1: show tomorrow. Excellent. Well, and she invented it and the
Speaker 1: whole silly you can kick the thing forward. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that she would disagree with doug on the budget deficits. Uh,
Speaker 1: there is an argument monetary modern monetary theory. They're having
Speaker 1: a big convention UM next week, next month UM out
Speaker 1: in Kansas City. The people the adherence to this that
Speaker 1: suggests that because we have a printing press and we
Speaker 1: have a fiat currency, we can live with these deficits.
Speaker 1: It's not really a problem. And Uh, in essence, you
Speaker 1: can if you want to consider it monetization. The only
Speaker 1: thing you have to be careful of his inflation. So,
Speaker 1: given the experience of the Obama administration and the big
Speaker 1: deficits that were run up in trying to get out
Speaker 1: of the the Great Recession, why just for the sake
Speaker 1: of argument, couldn't we have a tax cut like they're
Speaker 1: talking about and a deficit like they're talking about and
Speaker 1: still survive it. So I think in the end, you
Speaker 1: can't decide now whether you like or dislike the rumors
Speaker 1: of a trillion and a half dollar additional deficit over
Speaker 1: the next ten years. That does depend on the quality
Speaker 1: of the tax policy. UH. There's no question that the
Speaker 1: US is growing poorly. It's transford activity growth is too low. UH,
Speaker 1: standard of living is rising too slowly. UH. Some combination
Speaker 1: of regulatory reforms, tax reforms, UH, and infrastructure and education
Speaker 1: are probably the best recipe. So we'll see what gets
Speaker 1: proposed there and I'll reserve judgment on that. But I
Speaker 1: think you have to always think about the death at
Speaker 1: very differently. At this point in the cycle, we are
Speaker 1: essentially at full employment by any measure, versus when you
Speaker 1: had ten percent unemployment. Those are very different animals. These
Speaker 1: deficits are far more difficult to get rid of, and
Speaker 1: they're more important to get rid of. Michael mckaway US,
Speaker 1: you only agree because the Denver Broncos are doing better
Speaker 1: than good and Mike, it's always a good time to
Speaker 1: speak to Dr whole Skin. Douglas hold Skin the American
Speaker 1: action for him, we talked about a vector for the
Speaker 1: deficit to GDP. Uh, Doug, is it a different vector?
Speaker 1: Is the makeup of our growing deficit to GDP different
Speaker 1: than the last time we did this ballet. Each time
Speaker 1: we do this, it becomes more and more a story
Speaker 1: that's just about the entitlement programs. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: go back to success in balancing the budget in the
Speaker 1: late nineties, that was largely accomplished by a the dot
Speaker 1: com bubble. I don't think we want to have a
Speaker 1: big bubble again. Be caps on discretionary spending, the annual
Speaker 1: decisions by Congress. And we're in a very different world now.
Speaker 1: We're we're in a world where two thirds of the
Speaker 1: budget is so security, Medicare and Medicaid, federal health programs. Uh,
Speaker 1: those programs are growing faster at rates like six and seven.
Speaker 1: Then you could plausibly have revenue grow, which is about
Speaker 1: four percent nominal. And in the end, those pro grams
Speaker 1: are growing so rapidly that they're really pushing out of
Speaker 1: the budget national defense, basic research, infrastructure, education, all the
Speaker 1: things our founders saw as the role of government. So
Speaker 1: we have a real problem both on the top line
Speaker 1: this nash Treen revenue and spending and in the composition
Speaker 1: of the budget when you look at those entitlement programs,
Speaker 1: do you have it? I suppose this is a naive question.
Speaker 1: Stan Collender would say, there you go, thinking logically again, Um,
Speaker 1: that's illegal in Washington, didn't do that. Do you have
Speaker 1: any hope that as uh, maybe misquoting WC. Fields are
Speaker 1: missing attributing this, but the the nearness of a hanging
Speaker 1: may concentrate the mind. Do you think that we will
Speaker 1: see any action over the next few years in terms
Speaker 1: of the the the entitlement programs? Well, I mean really
Speaker 1: two thoughts in that. The first is how important it
Speaker 1: is to move quickly, because it takes a long time
Speaker 1: to change those programs, and and changes have to be
Speaker 1: faced and people have to know what the deal is
Speaker 1: on their retirement for examp of Well, so there is
Speaker 1: some you know, urgency in my mind that's making some
Speaker 1: steps forward. And if you don't, the only thing you'll
Speaker 1: be able to do to close the deficit in the
Speaker 1: crisis jack of taxes. And generally you're in a crisis
Speaker 1: because the economy is not performing well, and that's gonna
Speaker 1: be the wrong time to be doing that. So you
Speaker 1: want to avoid that that sort of constellation of problems
Speaker 1: by getting going. Now, the one thing we did see
Speaker 1: this year was the House and the Senate take up
Speaker 1: healthcare bills, and if you look inside those bills, those
Speaker 1: were major reforms of two entitled programs, Medicaid and the
Speaker 1: Affordable Care Act. Whether you like those reforms or not,
Speaker 1: and that's a different debate. The fact that they took
Speaker 1: up entitle reform I think was really a tremendously important thing.
Speaker 1: It looks like the sentence trying to revive that effort.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's any real reason to be be
Speaker 1: optimistically getting done, but we do need to take on
Speaker 1: these rising spending programs and do it in a way
Speaker 1: that's sensible for the beneficiaries. Well, speaking of the entitlement
Speaker 1: programs in healthcare, you just mentioned, it looks like the
Speaker 1: the dead have arisen in Washington. Graham Cassidy, Uh, It's
Speaker 1: sort of two questions about this. But first, um, what
Speaker 1: do you think the odds are that the Senate would
Speaker 1: actually pass this? Oh? I think they're they're well less
Speaker 1: than fifty as we speak. But there has been a
Speaker 1: remarkable change in sentiments on the ground in the past week.
Speaker 1: I think even last Friday, there was no real reason
Speaker 1: to believe that Graham Cassidy was other than an exercise
Speaker 1: by its authors. But Republicans in the Senate have heard
Speaker 1: repeatedly from the people back home that they're unhappy with
Speaker 1: their failure. They're hearing from the donors that they're unhappy
Speaker 1: with their failure, and they are now serious about taking
Speaker 1: this back up. And that that's a sea change for
Speaker 1: me even a week ago. And I'm quite surprised by that.
Speaker 1: So we'll see how it evolves. I still don't see
Speaker 1: how it gets over the finish line, but um, the
Speaker 1: fact that they're even taking it up, I think is important. U.
Speaker 1: Let me follow that up with this question here and
Speaker 1: talking about the tax reform and the healthcare programs. Senator
Speaker 1: John Kennedy, this is not the old John, obviously, Senator
Speaker 1: from Louisiana. Yes, he said, he's quoted in the Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journalist Morning quote. For every economist, there's an equal
Speaker 1: and opposite economist, and they're usually wrong. Do you think
Speaker 1: the financial crisis did such damage to the reputation of
Speaker 1: economists that politicians feel completely free now to ignore whatever
Speaker 1: recommendations and economists may come up with if if it
Speaker 1: doesn't fit their preconceived idea. I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was just the financial crisis, but I do think you know,
Speaker 1: during the course of my career, I've been concerned that
Speaker 1: economists have oversold their capacity to forecast the economy, forecast
Speaker 1: the impact of policy changes, and basically fine tuned business
Speaker 1: cycles from Washington that that's never been a big success,
Speaker 1: and they're a long track record of of failure in
Speaker 1: that front. The financial crisis. Don't saw that comming out.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's helped um, but you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's not just economists. You you could also appeal to
Speaker 1: your common sense and uh, some of the things that
Speaker 1: are that are going on. For example, having a projection
Speaker 1: in the in the budget where interest on public borrowing
Speaker 1: will be the third largest program in the federal budget
Speaker 1: in ten years. I mean, that doesn't take it consteralize. Jeez,
Speaker 1: you're tying up all the money on just paying interest.
Speaker 1: This is an important insight, Mike, thank you to bring
Speaker 1: this up, and we consider Sender Kennedy to be of
Speaker 1: great value when he speaks with Bloomberg Surveillance, Doug, I'm
Speaker 1: going to disagree with the polarity of economists. There's one
Speaker 1: guy over there, there's another woman over there. They don't agree,
Speaker 1: and it makes for great TV or radio. The fact is,
Speaker 1: is a common central tendency to economists on a Venn diagram.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of commonality between John Taylor Stanford and
Speaker 1: Paul Krugman of Princeton. And the issue is within the
Speaker 1: crisis that central tendency was so far off I would
Speaker 1: go to the center rather than the polarities at Senator
Speaker 1: Kennedy brings up, I think that's a fair comment. I
Speaker 1: really do. I mean mccamas builds do agree, and um,
Speaker 1: the places where they don't agree get the most attention.
Speaker 1: And quite frankly, the notion that somehow e commists are
Speaker 1: uniquely equipped to to do forecasting, I think it's misplaced.
Speaker 1: I mean forecasting the teacher isn't hard like this is
Speaker 1: critically important? Is not? A Rabenia stated what everybody got
Speaker 1: wrong was the amplitudes. A lot of people predicted it,
Speaker 1: but we completely missed the sign functions, the amplitudes of
Speaker 1: these shocks and the crisis. Question From a listener here,
Speaker 1: Tom uh for doug as Congress considers fiscal policy and
Speaker 1: they're looking at gigantic tax cuts as as it um.
Speaker 1: They want to know which stimulus works best. I mean
Speaker 1: the government can buy things, can increase transfer payments we're
Speaker 1: talking about that, can cut taxes. Uh, can use corporate
Speaker 1: tax provisions. Um. What would be the best thing, the
Speaker 1: most effective thing to boost growth? So, Uh, this is
Speaker 1: not a stimulus um moment. We are essentially at full employment.
Speaker 1: There are very few opportunities for low hanging fruit where
Speaker 1: you put people back to work and do Keynesian style stimulus.
Speaker 1: This has to be genuinely focused on the supply side
Speaker 1: of the economy and raising the trend rate of growth
Speaker 1: and and doing that by raising productivity growth. So what
Speaker 1: is interesting about this set of discussions about tax formers.
Speaker 1: They are very much focused on the business tax issues
Speaker 1: and on the capacity of businesses to invest, innovate, do
Speaker 1: it in the United States and and higher workers and
Speaker 1: agin them raises. Uh. That's the key, and that's that's
Speaker 1: the test by which you should judge the tax proposals.
Speaker 1: If it's provide cash individuals to go out and spend,
Speaker 1: there's not gonna be much out of that. That has
Speaker 1: no no lasting impact on the economy. Thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Douglas huls A good generous of you to be with
Speaker 1: us this morning with the American action for him. Michael
Speaker 1: McKee is at the exit stage right, and it's good
Speaker 1: to have Mrs Lund Chris with us joining us now
Speaker 1: Scarlet Food of of fame and fortune. Tomorrow we have
Speaker 1: our fed day Scarlet Food leading our coverage with Bill
Speaker 1: Gross every two PM as well. But now is a
Speaker 1: lovely annual visit. We treasure this visit with a guy
Speaker 1: fourteen years in of building hockey from a comedy of
Speaker 1: four hundred some whatever the small amount of money was
Speaker 1: into a billion dollar business. I want to ask one question.
Speaker 1: I know Scarlett really wants to drive forward the present
Speaker 1: business converse station where you are now, what's the next
Speaker 1: stage for NHL. You had your huge Canadian TV deal,
Speaker 1: you this success of NBC up sports hockey. What's the
Speaker 1: next big commissioner like transaction for you. Well, first of all,
Speaker 1: it's good to be with you for our annual visit.
Speaker 1: And I know time flies when you're having fun, but
Speaker 1: it's actually been twenty four plus years through a decade.
Speaker 1: He's okay, you know, it's you get to be our
Speaker 1: age every year matters. Uh, We're very excited about the
Speaker 1: start of the season. UH. For us, the opportunities presented
Speaker 1: by digital platforms and the social media really gives us
Speaker 1: a way to connect with our fans. Our fans tend
Speaker 1: to be very tech savvy, very avid, and since historically,
Speaker 1: and I'm now talking thirty years ago, we were underserved
Speaker 1: by traditional media, the current landscape gives us a lot
Speaker 1: of great opportunities. Secondly, we currently have two teams in
Speaker 1: China and the opportunity to grow the game worldwide. There
Speaker 1: are a lot of places throughout the world where hockey
Speaker 1: is already strong. Roughly of our players come from outside
Speaker 1: and Mr would suggest that would be as Sweden actually
Speaker 1: is the largest exporter of NHL players. And I'm out
Speaker 1: of touch. Is Yager in a uniform this year? Not yet?
Speaker 1: Are you working on that? I don't work on that
Speaker 1: is saying that it's a good there's a good chance
Speaker 1: we'll see No, No, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have a contract. And he's a great ambassador
Speaker 1: for the game. He's one of the great players of
Speaker 1: the game. And we'll see if he hooks onto those
Speaker 1: of you globally. Not a hockey. Yeremi Hugger is two.
Speaker 1: You can still quite that Charlett. He works harder than
Speaker 1: any other twenty year old player. You talked about digital platforms.
Speaker 1: The NHL streamed a handful of games on Twitter last season.
Speaker 1: What did you learn from that experience, what worked, what
Speaker 1: needs to be tweaked refined? Well, the the issue I
Speaker 1: think ultimately is going to be not just taking broad
Speaker 1: cast content and stream it. It's whether or not, Uh,
Speaker 1: some of the social media or other digital companies decide
Speaker 1: that they're gonna produce games differently. That may be directed
Speaker 1: more to the way that excuse me, perhaps that's a
Speaker 1: surveillance sneeze that perhaps millennials and Gen z s will
Speaker 1: want to consume the games differently. We don't know that
Speaker 1: that's the case, because frankly, Rogers in Canada and NBC
Speaker 1: in the United States do incredible jobs covering our games.
Speaker 1: But as more and more young people are either cord
Speaker 1: nevers or there are cord cutters, we have to make
Speaker 1: sure that however we're presenting the game is relevant to
Speaker 1: particularly young people. How do E sports fit into that? Then?
Speaker 1: I view E sports as an opportunity for us to
Speaker 1: teach people the game and to use this hockey to them,
Speaker 1: introduce hockey to them, and to create a better sense
Speaker 1: of community. Ultimately, what we're gonna work on is a
Speaker 1: series of competitions where fans of teams will compete against
Speaker 1: each other and have some you know, North American tournament
Speaker 1: that's called engagement. Tom very good, Okay, I didn't. I
Speaker 1: didn't miss that, Gary. You know that I've been a
Speaker 1: critic of the changes in the games. I sometimes want
Speaker 1: to get upset called the National Deflection League, which is
Speaker 1: the only way you can get the party doesn't. What
Speaker 1: are you gonna do to open up the game? You've
Speaker 1: got some guys on NBC that used to play the
Speaker 1: game differently than it's played. Now, what are you gonna
Speaker 1: do to open up the game? And let me start
Speaker 1: with block shots? You got two guys in the ice
Speaker 1: gifted defenseman essentially being second and third goalies. Well, in effect,
Speaker 1: our game has what you called deflections because our players
Speaker 1: have never been more skilled. Coches have never been better
Speaker 1: on their system. Having said that, the game has never
Speaker 1: been faster, never in terms of lead changes in the
Speaker 1: game and ability to have the unpredictability we have in
Speaker 1: our season would would we like to see it a
Speaker 1: little more open, perhaps if goaltenders were a little smaller.
Speaker 1: And I don't mean physically, I'm talking about equipment, which
Speaker 1: is something that we're working on that will open up
Speaker 1: more space. Saw well, we we it's a work in
Speaker 1: progress and it's something we do with the Players Association
Speaker 1: and the Unofficial Goaltenders Union, and there's some resistance to
Speaker 1: some of the changes, which we understand because this is
Speaker 1: their livelihood. We we'd like to shrink the equipment, but
Speaker 1: not cause any risk of injury. I know, Scarlett, you've
Speaker 1: got I'm gonna ask one more question on this. I
Speaker 1: don't want you to go back to Gump Worsley. I
Speaker 1: don't want you to go back to me watching Don
Speaker 1: Cherry and l Arbor block shots years ago. I want
Speaker 1: you to get back to what Rennick did the guy
Speaker 1: on NBC ron excuse me, Jeremy Ronick A Thay, and
Speaker 1: what he does on NBC, what he did for the
Speaker 1: black Hawks, which is a thirty or forty shot that
Speaker 1: goes by the guy. I would respectfully suggest that's missing. Well.
Speaker 1: You you would be an advocate of bigger nets, which
Speaker 1: would open up more angles, but I'll take a shrunken
Speaker 1: goalie equipment. But also physically, the goalies are bigger in
Speaker 1: terms of height and weight than they've ever been. But
Speaker 1: it's not a problem, but it's a trend that we're
Speaker 1: watching and we'll make adjustments. One of the things we're
Speaker 1: doing as well is we're going to heighten the standard
Speaker 1: on slashing this year. Please. In the preseason game yesterday
Speaker 1: with the Rangers, we don't we don't want broken hands
Speaker 1: and fingers, particularly for the skilled players. So a slash
Speaker 1: adder around the hands, we're going to call him more tightly.
Speaker 1: Love it, love it. We're breaking news this morning on
Speaker 1: this Okay, that's not breaking, that's okay. Well, I understand
Speaker 1: you talk about bigger goalies. The players are smaller, they're
Speaker 1: more skilled. I'm thinking of Tyler Wong, who was an
Speaker 1: undrafted rookie still on a minor league contract, played in
Speaker 1: the Golden Knights first preseason game How to Hat trick Um,
Speaker 1: but his size five nine highlights how much the league
Speaker 1: has changed during your tenure from what was once just
Speaker 1: about size and braun it's speed and skill. The game
Speaker 1: we opened up the game. We we there are two
Speaker 1: things that play. One is because of the system we have,
Speaker 1: all of our teams can afford to be competitive. We
Speaker 1: have extraordinary competitive balance, the best in all of sports.
Speaker 1: And if you look at it, last season, seven teams
Speaker 1: made the playoffs that didn't make them the year before.
Speaker 1: And and I like competitive balance. I think it's a
Speaker 1: little more elegant. But but also um, we the four
Speaker 1: of the five worst teams from the year before actually
Speaker 1: made the playoffs as well. So no matter who you
Speaker 1: root for, you have hoped that your team can make
Speaker 1: the playoffs. We opened up the game, um in terms
Speaker 1: of how it's called. There's less what they used to
Speaker 1: call obstruction, hooking and holding and clutching and grabbing, and
Speaker 1: so if you've got speed and you can got skill,
Speaker 1: you can play this game. Let me ask you a
Speaker 1: final question here on the Vegas Golden Nights, Bill Fully,
Speaker 1: the owner of the team, has said that his team
Speaker 1: won't be available to bet on it some casinos on
Speaker 1: game day. Is there any plan for the league to
Speaker 1: ask bookies not to take better The answer is, we're
Speaker 1: not concerned about the betting on the game per se.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of betting going on, some of it legal,
Speaker 1: some of it's illegal. What we want to do is
Speaker 1: make sure that the environment in the arena is typical
Speaker 1: of what you see at an NHL arena, which is
Speaker 1: fan friendly, kid friendly, and like, we don't want it.
Speaker 1: Not that there's anything wrong with it, but we don't
Speaker 1: want it, like, for example, at a race track where
Speaker 1: you can go get a ticket and go sit down
Speaker 1: and watch the event. We're looking you know, people are
Speaker 1: gonna bet we don't want to make it part of
Speaker 1: the same experience you mentioned last year in your ute
Speaker 1: and wisdom. The resurgence of the Toronto A believes arguably
Speaker 1: the most valuable sports entity in the world. Some would
Speaker 1: argue that, but I don't. I'm with them on it.
Speaker 1: What's your insight this year on this season? Who are
Speaker 1: you watching? Um, it's it's well, well, what's gonna be
Speaker 1: interesting is the fact that we provided the Golden Knights
Speaker 1: with the deepest expansion dract you've ever had, so they
Speaker 1: will they should be more competitive, be fun to watch.
Speaker 1: What when you look at our game, the number of
Speaker 1: young players across the league, whether whether it's Keel and
Speaker 1: Buffalo or a line a uh in Winnipeg or McDavid
Speaker 1: and Edmonton or Austin Matthews in Toronto and two or
Speaker 1: three other young players on each of those teams. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a young man's game, Gary Batman, thank you,
Speaker 1: congratulations on another NHL season. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Surveillance podcast. Subscribe and listen to interviews on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
Speaker 1: or whichever podcast platform you prefer. I'm on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tom Keene. David Gura is at David Gura. Before the podcast,
Speaker 1: you can always catch us worldwide. I'm Bloomberg Radio