Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast. Catch us Saturdays
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Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: I'm Amy Morris. This week, we take a closer look
Speaker 1: at the political divisions around Donald Trump's legal complications. Plus
Speaker 1: we're going to take a deep dive into the debate
Speaker 1: over the abortion pill, and we're gonna look at who
Speaker 1: isn't returning to the workforce post pandemic. Let's get started.
Speaker 1: The Federal Reserve hiked rates for the ninth straight time.
Speaker 1: FED Chair J Powell signaled their work might not be
Speaker 1: done yet. We need to raise rates higher. We will,
Speaker 1: I think for now, though. We as I've mentioned, we
Speaker 1: see the likelihood of credit tightening, and FED Chair Powell
Speaker 1: says they don't expect to cut rates at all this year,
Speaker 1: despite turmoil within the banking industry. This says he assured
Speaker 1: the public that regulatory action demonstrated safety in the banking
Speaker 1: system and that all depositors savings are safe. Treasury Secretary
Speaker 1: Janet Yellen, however, struck a different tone on Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: during a Senate hearing, and it's not considered or discussed
Speaker 1: anything having to do with blanket insurance or guarantees with points.
Speaker 1: As Treasury Secretary Yellen says, the US is not considering
Speaker 1: those blanket deposit insurance without first working with Congress. Within
Speaker 1: all of this turmoil in the banking sector, the commercial
Speaker 1: real estate market has come into focus as another at
Speaker 1: risk sector. Let's get into this a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg opinion columnists Connorsen, founder of Peachtree Creek Investments, joins
Speaker 1: me now and Connor. You argue in your column that
Speaker 1: the US could actually benefit from a real estate bust,
Speaker 1: but a very specific type tell us about that, right, So,
Speaker 1: if you live in a community that has seen very
Speaker 1: rapid increases in home prices over the past few years
Speaker 1: and has an above average meeting income, but you'd have
Speaker 1: a lot of tired, old, dated sort of shopping centers
Speaker 1: and office buildings from maybe thirty or forty years ago,
Speaker 1: this could be maybe not a good news for the
Speaker 1: owner of the property, but good news for your community
Speaker 1: as these properties can finally be redeveloped. So, but it
Speaker 1: takes money to redevelop and will and strength and time
Speaker 1: and effort. Is there enough of that leftover in space? Well,
Speaker 1: so the bottom that holding back the redevelopment a lot
Speaker 1: of these cases is that the market has said there's
Speaker 1: a lot of demand for these communities, but the owners
Speaker 1: of these buildings might have held on them for the
Speaker 1: variety of reasons. Maybe there were some kind of week
Speaker 1: tenants who were still taying the rent. Maybe the building
Speaker 1: was being financed at very low indust rates, and so
Speaker 1: even if it was sort of performing mediocre, they were like, well,
Speaker 1: the checks are still coming in, so it's fine. And
Speaker 1: this is really the catalyst for the market saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: it's time for you hand over the keys. It's time
Speaker 1: for somebody else to take a shot at this property,
Speaker 1: and with the community to do so well, as evidenced
Speaker 1: by incomes and home values, the markets saying that this
Speaker 1: is a sort of right for redevelopment. Okay, let me
Speaker 1: get into a couple of things here. First, for clarification
Speaker 1: for the audience, what is it you mean when you
Speaker 1: say commercial property? So the most obvious would be if
Speaker 1: sort of a dying or dead office park with a
Speaker 1: lot of surface parking, that's probably the most prime opportunity
Speaker 1: for redevelopment, but also shopping centers in stunt cases as well,
Speaker 1: where the shopping center could be several decades old, maybe
Speaker 1: it's half full, maybe the tenants aren't so great, but
Speaker 1: the surrounding community is really strong. Sort of these are
Speaker 1: the sort of areas between higher interest rates and then
Speaker 1: a client in the office market that are most interesting.
Speaker 1: And how would a commercial property owner know when it
Speaker 1: is time to let it go. Well, if the tenants
Speaker 1: go away and there's no money coming in, that's a
Speaker 1: good sign. Or if they have a loan coming do
Speaker 1: maybe the loan on the property. If there's leverage on
Speaker 1: it and it was financed during the low interest rate environment,
Speaker 1: now it's a much different interest environment, and if they
Speaker 1: can't afford it, or the lender says we're not interested
Speaker 1: in sort of offering you this opportunity. So there's sort
Speaker 1: of two forcing functions here, and I think both will
Speaker 1: happen in a lot of cases. But not every place
Speaker 1: is as prime for this. Not every place with a
Speaker 1: vacant office building is going to be in a position
Speaker 1: for redevelopment. What are some of the criteria, right, And
Speaker 1: so this is sort of a bit like the mall
Speaker 1: discussion ten years ago. We were talking about dying malls
Speaker 1: and dead malls, and that really wasn't the case, in
Speaker 1: that a lot of malls are building fine, sort of
Speaker 1: class A malls still doing well. It's really a function
Speaker 1: of the surrounding community. Does the community have a lot
Speaker 1: of people as a growing are the income strong? If so,
Speaker 1: then there's always an opportunity to turn that into something
Speaker 1: new or sort of a refreshed concept or redevelopment. If
Speaker 1: the surrounding community isn't doing well, then it's like anything else.
Speaker 1: If it's a mall goes away or an office building
Speaker 1: goes away, and you're less likely to see something happen
Speaker 1: on that piece of lands. Are there any communities you
Speaker 1: have in mind when you are thinking of this? You
Speaker 1: labeled a few in your column, right, So I'm in Atlanta,
Speaker 1: so I can see it here that there was a
Speaker 1: lot of population growth, in home price appreciation during the pandemic,
Speaker 1: and out in the northern suburbs a lot of very old,
Speaker 1: sort of uninteresting commercial real estate, and there's opportunities there.
Speaker 1: I think Orange County, California, Northern New Jersey, probably in
Speaker 1: northern Virginia, Dallas, just anywhere where there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of sort of economic growth, but maybe an old, aging
Speaker 1: commercial real estate footprint that was built thirty or forty
Speaker 1: years ago. I'm going to throw you a bit of
Speaker 1: a curveball here. You're in Atlanta, I'm in Washington, DC.
Speaker 1: DC is unique in that a lot of those empty
Speaker 1: buildings you refer to, they're owned by the federal government,
Speaker 1: so it's not really commercial property, it's not really private property.
Speaker 1: And there is a move afoot to encourage workers to
Speaker 1: return to the office at least a few days a
Speaker 1: week to get those buildings up and running and populated again.
Speaker 1: But is that something that the federal government could also consider,
Speaker 1: is just letting those buildings go absolutely and hopefully government
Speaker 1: probably works in the lag where you'll need to see
Speaker 1: that movement happening in the private sector first. But there's
Speaker 1: certainly a lot of interest in the sort of Washington
Speaker 1: metro with increasing housing affordability and just more having in general,
Speaker 1: and so hopefully that is a way to sort of
Speaker 1: tie two things together and convert some of that property
Speaker 1: into housing. You also talked about the home market, the
Speaker 1: housing sector, and that you're seeing some optimism in the
Speaker 1: housing sector. You mentioned this in one of your columns
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg terminal. Let's get into that a little
Speaker 1: bit and how that's primed right now. It's a really
Speaker 1: interesting time because with mortgage rates being so high, a
Speaker 1: lot of homeowners who locked in mortgage rates during the
Speaker 1: pandemic at very low levels aren't interested in selling and
Speaker 1: just will sit on their home their low mortgage rate.
Speaker 1: And even though sort of buying demand is down because
Speaker 1: of affordability issues and hire mortgage rates because there's no resilementory,
Speaker 1: the resilmentory levels remains very low. It's sort of pushing
Speaker 1: people into the new home market and as results, creating
Speaker 1: a boom for homebuilders. And they're reporting pretty good earnings.
Speaker 1: The stocks are doing well even in this environment. And
Speaker 1: I think you're going to see eclished home production, even
Speaker 1: with mortgage rates to seven percent, just because there's so
Speaker 1: little reci elements were in the market right now. Does
Speaker 1: that have anything to do with what we saw last summer?
Speaker 1: Remember last summer, everybody was selling their home at the
Speaker 1: asking right plus ten thousand plus twenty thousand. They were
Speaker 1: getting ridiculous amounts for their homes. When they were putting
Speaker 1: them on the market and they were selling before they
Speaker 1: were even listed. It seemed like, is that sort of
Speaker 1: a hangover from that? Yeah. That what happened was we
Speaker 1: went from a really hot boom to a really cold
Speaker 1: bust very quickly last year when mortgage rates went up
Speaker 1: so much, and I think a lot of buyers sort
Speaker 1: of took nine months off where mortgage rates had five
Speaker 1: percent in the spring, they said, Okay, I'm done. I'll
Speaker 1: come back next year and see what things look like.
Speaker 1: And because you had nine months of the buyer demand
Speaker 1: that didn't happen. They came into the market January and said, well,
Speaker 1: for life reasons, I have to buy a house, and
Speaker 1: there may be desperation buyers, and so they're looking at
Speaker 1: what's available and they're saying, there's nothing in the resil
Speaker 1: market for me. I guess that means I have to
Speaker 1: go to a home builder and get something new. And
Speaker 1: they might not like the price, they might not like
Speaker 1: the selection, but when you need a house, you need
Speaker 1: a house. In a lot of cases. I like that
Speaker 1: you talked about new construction, but it seems like that's
Speaker 1: a different animal only because you're having to deal with
Speaker 1: labor shortages and material shortages and those are still an
Speaker 1: issue or is that starting to clear up now? It's
Speaker 1: starting to get better. And the home botherers have said
Speaker 1: that the early stage of construction, so framing a home,
Speaker 1: pouring the concrete, all that that's actually finally speeding up,
Speaker 1: but the later part of the cycle, putting in finishings
Speaker 1: and appliances and things like that, that's still backlogged. And
Speaker 1: think if it's sort of like a pig going through
Speaker 1: a python where because there was a slowdown and housing
Speaker 1: starts about nine months ago, that early stage part of
Speaker 1: the process has kind of cleared up, but the later
Speaker 1: stage is still backlogged. But we should expect later in
Speaker 1: the year that that late stage part of the process
Speaker 1: will speed up as well and just really sort of
Speaker 1: make things a lot easier for builders trying to build
Speaker 1: and buyers trying to buy a home. Now, Connor, you've
Speaker 1: been following this for quite some time, so when you
Speaker 1: are looking at the commercial real estate market or even
Speaker 1: the home sector, the home buying, the home building sector,
Speaker 1: has it ever been quite this volatile or has this
Speaker 1: sort of par for the course considering everything else the
Speaker 1: economy has been going through over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: and we can all lay it at the doorstep of
Speaker 1: the pandemic. It's a very strange environment because you have
Speaker 1: the unemployment rate that's the lowest in fifty years, and
Speaker 1: yet maybe the worst environment for office buildings in decade.
Speaker 1: That's kind of weird. And then you have housing affordability
Speaker 1: that buy a lot of measures is the worst it's
Speaker 1: been in forty years. And yet home mothers are doing
Speaker 1: well in this environment because we didn't build home through
Speaker 1: a ten years. The sort of millennial generation isn't at
Speaker 1: those years. We're buiking to buy homes, there's nothing to resell,
Speaker 1: and it's pushing people into the building market. So when
Speaker 1: you explain it, it it makes sense, but it just kind
Speaker 1: of weird from a macro standpoint because things are all
Speaker 1: out stored. I want to circle back very briefly before
Speaker 1: I let you go about the real estate bust that
Speaker 1: we started with, and how rebuilding and refinishing those comm
Speaker 1: properties force use somewhere else, some way else could actually
Speaker 1: be better for the community. Who are some of the
Speaker 1: people who could benefit from that. I'm not sure if
Speaker 1: they're enough developers who have the skill set and ability
Speaker 1: and willingness and financing to do this. This might take
Speaker 1: some time because there might be a lot more properties
Speaker 1: turning over than there are developers willing to redevelop, and
Speaker 1: so this process could take a while, especially if bank
Speaker 1: credit is going to be tight for a bit. But
Speaker 1: I think if you moved to a community, and maybe
Speaker 1: you moved out there for family reasons or life reasons,
Speaker 1: and you say, I love my neighborhood, I love my house,
Speaker 1: but we've got to get rid of these old buildings
Speaker 1: that have are underutilized and haven't been used very well
Speaker 1: for decades. This is finally the opportunity for you to
Speaker 1: see your community turn into what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Connerson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and founder of Peachtree
Speaker 1: Creek Investments and coming up. The debate over the abortion
Speaker 1: pill has put at least one pharmacy in a no
Speaker 1: win situation. We'll look into that. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm am Morris. Women's health advocates,
Speaker 1: so small victory in the FDA decision to allow pharmacies
Speaker 1: to dispense the abortion pill Mythopriss Stone. The day after
Speaker 1: that decision, Walgreen's Boots Alliance was the first of the
Speaker 1: big pharmacy owners to sign on CBS at Rite Aid
Speaker 1: quickly followed, and then came the pushback. Vice President Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris reacted to this. It is FDA approved and was
Speaker 1: approved twenty years of goal. This is not just an
Speaker 1: attack on women's fundamental freedoms. It is an attack on
Speaker 1: the very foundation of our public health system. All right,
Speaker 1: and for more on this, we bring in Bloomberg opinion
Speaker 1: columnist Bethcoed. Now, at first glance, and you made this
Speaker 1: point in your column. Walgreens, CBS and write Aid all
Speaker 1: women run companies. But this got complicated quick bring us
Speaker 1: up to speed, Yes, very quickly, got very complicated. In January,
Speaker 1: these companies applied to get certified through this program. But
Speaker 1: then in February they received a letter from a group
Speaker 1: of republic In state attorneys general that basically said it
Speaker 1: was a warning, do not distribute in our states. There
Speaker 1: will be letical ramifications if you do. Walgreens responds and says,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't have plans to distribute in your state,
Speaker 1: so you know, no problem. Basically that's when they started
Speaker 1: getting pushback from the left. So we've already got the
Speaker 1: pushback from the right, now we have the pushback from
Speaker 1: the left. Basically what Kamala Harris said, you know that
Speaker 1: these drugs should be districted. It is legal that should
Speaker 1: be distributed, and you know women need access to these pills.
Speaker 1: Is this simply a culture war or is that an oversimplification.
Speaker 1: Is it more complicated than that. I think the culture
Speaker 1: wars are definitely a piece at this, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot more going on here right We are as a
Speaker 1: country grappling with what a post row America looks like,
Speaker 1: and I think this is changing every day. There's lots
Speaker 1: of legal cases going through the system right now that
Speaker 1: we don't know how they're how they're going to resolve.
Speaker 1: This is an issue that demands a lot of nuance.
Speaker 1: It's very complicated, and this is all happening in a
Speaker 1: time when nuance and you know, has got out the window.
Speaker 1: So I do think that the culture wars are a
Speaker 1: part of it, but this is really just a moment
Speaker 1: of change in flux and it's super challenging to be
Speaker 1: a company trying to navigate that. What is the biggest
Speaker 1: challenge at this point for a company like Walgreens, because
Speaker 1: it seems on the surface that if they just follow
Speaker 1: the state and federal laws, they're covered. They're fine. Just
Speaker 1: follow the law, one would think, right, But there's a
Speaker 1: dispute about what does compliance mean. Right, So on some levels,
Speaker 1: you know, well, legally FDA regulates drugs, so that should
Speaker 1: trump everything. But however, you know, a company like Walgreens
Speaker 1: really risks putting its staff in a terrible you know,
Speaker 1: in a terrible position here right now. So if if
Speaker 1: it's staff very stay law in some cases, they could
Speaker 1: risk finds moving their license, jail time. So there's there's
Speaker 1: real ramifications here. So you know, I think I think
Speaker 1: that is the big question. What a state law, what
Speaker 1: a federal law? Right now? That's you know, that's at
Speaker 1: least state laws are changing, and you know what happens
Speaker 1: when those things don't align, which is what we're really seeing.
Speaker 1: Have you come across this yet, We're maybe staff at
Speaker 1: Walgreens or CVS would have a moral objection to dispensing
Speaker 1: such drugs. Is that an issue that comes up. We've
Speaker 1: definitely already seen this um and we've run into issues
Speaker 1: and I you know, I'm not sure if this is
Speaker 1: Walgreens specific. I think we have seen a couple examples
Speaker 1: here where you know, harmacists have said they feel uncomfortable
Speaker 1: distributing and it goes against their morals. You know, I
Speaker 1: think that's a different, slightly different issue because that's sort
Speaker 1: of their personal beliefs versus the law. So I do
Speaker 1: think this sort of takes it to another level here.
Speaker 1: Are there any other drugs out there that have created
Speaker 1: this type of conflict or is it's just specifically this?
Speaker 1: Are we in a whole new realm of how to
Speaker 1: distribute pharmaceutical medication. This has really become such a hot
Speaker 1: fun issue because fifty percent of abortions, more than fifty
Speaker 1: percent of abortions in this country, our medication abortions to
Speaker 1: require these puzzles a huge deal. Anti abortion activists have
Speaker 1: said that this is where they're going to push, This
Speaker 1: is going to be the next frontier. I think the
Speaker 1: Bidens administration has really thought and pushed to widen access
Speaker 1: here when when we did see the doc's decision overturned rows.
Speaker 1: So I think that this has really taken this debate
Speaker 1: to a whole new level, a granular level, definitely, and
Speaker 1: it puts Walgreens in a pretty tough spot. But are
Speaker 1: other pharmacies also dealing with this sort of no win situation.
Speaker 1: They get pushed back from Republicans or Democrats, or pro
Speaker 1: life or pro choice, depending on how you want to
Speaker 1: categorize the people who are pushing So this is really
Speaker 1: interesting that the reason that Walgreens has become central to
Speaker 1: this is because we know that their response to the
Speaker 1: Republican state ages became public. We don't actually know what
Speaker 1: CBS or writing said, if anything, and they have managed
Speaker 1: to stay Studiously why it obs You can't really blame
Speaker 1: them when you see what's happened to Walgreens. But what's
Speaker 1: interesting here is if you look at this, Walgreens has
Speaker 1: not changed its position. When it applied for the program
Speaker 1: back in January, it said you will follow state and
Speaker 1: federal law. I think where things have gotten messy is
Speaker 1: actually in some of the reporting, because that even that
Speaker 1: is a complicated issue, right, So some of the headlines
Speaker 1: sort of said, you know, Walgreens won't distribute abortion pills
Speaker 1: in states where they are legal, right, So technically that
Speaker 1: is correct, okay, but it might be legal in the
Speaker 1: state of worship pills may be legal in the state,
Speaker 1: but it might not be legal for wagerings to distribute
Speaker 1: them in the state because there's extra regulations that require
Speaker 1: a physician be present or that they're dispensed through a physician.
Speaker 1: So even that is a very that even requires nuance there.
Speaker 1: It's it's not so simple. So what might come of this.
Speaker 1: Is this a place where a company would stand up,
Speaker 1: take a stand, fight back or no. I think this
Speaker 1: is the eternal question, right, It's it's a really, that
Speaker 1: is a really. I think that's probably something they're debating internally. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, they are in the spotlight right now, people
Speaker 1: are watching what they do. Um. I do think it's
Speaker 1: worth noting that we have seen, you know, we've seen
Speaker 1: the drug store companies say they're going to apply for
Speaker 1: this program. So at least they are distributing in some plan.
Speaker 1: And also, to be clear, no one's distributing anything yet
Speaker 1: right like they've been proved, so this is all sort
Speaker 1: of if they are approved for this program. But the
Speaker 1: big retailers Walmart, Albertson's, Costco, they all have pharmacy divisions
Speaker 1: and they have not even applied for this program. So
Speaker 1: I do think there is a little bit of a
Speaker 1: double standard here where you know, why are critics so
Speaker 1: focused on Walgreens, which is at least, you know, doing
Speaker 1: something as opposed to some of these other companies that
Speaker 1: we haven't even seen apply yet to distribute anywhere. Well,
Speaker 1: what should those who support the program, whether it be Democrats,
Speaker 1: pro choices, however you want to categorize them, what should
Speaker 1: they be doing at this point. I do think that,
Speaker 1: and this is starting to happen, is to maybe put
Speaker 1: some pressure on some of those companies we've not heard
Speaker 1: from what is your plan? I think that makes it
Speaker 1: easier for a Walgreens to not have to stand alone
Speaker 1: on this. You know, they are really being targeted, but
Speaker 1: we don't really know where the other the other corporations
Speaker 1: where they are going to come out. And I do
Speaker 1: think um lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers really saying you know, what
Speaker 1: is what is your plans? These other companies sort of
Speaker 1: makes it seem a little bit less like Walgreens is
Speaker 1: just hanging out over here, you know, on one side,
Speaker 1: and everybody else is on on the other. Um. So
Speaker 1: I really think that that I think that that is
Speaker 1: sort of the next step before I let you go
Speaker 1: how far is this going to go? I don't mean
Speaker 1: just this particular issue, but we saw the overturner rov Wade.
Speaker 1: We see them now concerned about the pills being distributed
Speaker 1: through pharmacies. What what is it? What's next? What does
Speaker 1: this end? Oh? Gosh, um, I think this is this
Speaker 1: is the beginning. I think you're right. I think there's
Speaker 1: a long way to go. Right now, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a case in Texas that could actually this might all
Speaker 1: be moved. Right there's a case going on in Texas
Speaker 1: right now that threatens to basically overturn the distribution of
Speaker 1: MEFO pristone nationally. Um. So again, this is just a
Speaker 1: moving target. We just don't have a clear vision yet
Speaker 1: of what again, the post row America looks like. And
Speaker 1: I think that's really honestly scary for a lot of people. Okay,
Speaker 1: Bethel to thank you for your time and thank you
Speaker 1: for watching this issue for us. Bloomberg opinion columnist beethco
Speaker 1: It covers corporate America and don't forget We are available
Speaker 1: as a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Speaker 1: Now stay with us. Coming up the latest legal entanglements
Speaker 1: for former President Donald Trump and then look at the
Speaker 1: gen Z workforce or the lack of one. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg opinion. This is Bloomberg opinion. I'm Amy Morris. We
Speaker 1: continue to follow the legal entanglements of former President Donald
Speaker 1: Trumps some issues that had cropped up, some even well
Speaker 1: before he took the oath of office. And even though
Speaker 1: the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary are nearly
Speaker 1: a year away, we're already seeing members of the GOP
Speaker 1: start to who's their alliances. After President Trump encouraged his
Speaker 1: supporters to protest his potential arrest, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy
Speaker 1: says that's not exactly what he meant when someone says
Speaker 1: that they can protest, he would probably be referring to
Speaker 1: my tweet. Educate people about what's going on. He's not
Speaker 1: talking in a harmful way, and nobody should. All. Let's
Speaker 1: bring in Bloomberg Opinion columnist Jonathan Bernstein. He focuses on
Speaker 1: politics and policy. He joins me now, and Jonathan, I
Speaker 1: want to get into the divisions between the GOP over
Speaker 1: Trump's legal entanglements. I want to get into all of that,
Speaker 1: but first, it kind of almost sounds like Donald Trump
Speaker 1: would almost welcome an indictment. And what I mean is
Speaker 1: Senator Lindsey Graham had said that an indictment could actually
Speaker 1: help Trump win the White House. Does he have a point?
Speaker 1: Probably not. You know, the initial reaction to an indictment
Speaker 1: might be rallying around the party leader. But we are
Speaker 1: as to say, months away from Iowa, away from New Hampshire,
Speaker 1: and you know, the truth is that most people who
Speaker 1: are strong Trump supporters are going to be strong Trump supporters.
Speaker 1: They're not going to care about indictment, They're not going
Speaker 1: to care about anything. But there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the party who are not particularly strong Trump supporters.
Speaker 1: They like him, almost all Republicans, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: sliver who've always been never Trump, but most of them
Speaker 1: like him. They think that he did good things as
Speaker 1: president because he followed, you know, for the most part
Speaker 1: traditional Republicans. He did traditional Republican things and so but
Speaker 1: they're not one hundred percent sold that he should be
Speaker 1: their nominee again. And over time, if we are facing
Speaker 1: an indated or most likely right now I'm multiple indicted
Speaker 1: on different cases, Republican candidates, they may start to worry
Speaker 1: about the general election, and well, they should, because most
Speaker 1: Republicans are going to vote for the nominee no matter what.
Speaker 1: We know that, whether it's Trump, whether it's whoever. But
Speaker 1: Trump always underperformed. He he ran for president twice, and
Speaker 1: he probably underperformed in both cases what a generic Republican
Speaker 1: would have done. And it's hard to see exactly who
Speaker 1: the people are who said no to Trump the first
Speaker 1: two times, and they're going to say, oh, yeah, now
Speaker 1: that he's been indicted, now I'm going to vote for him.
Speaker 1: So we don't know how many people he'll lose, but
Speaker 1: if he doesn't have a whole lot of leeway to
Speaker 1: begin with, given that he lost last time, so it
Speaker 1: probably hurts his chances in the general election, and that
Speaker 1: in turn probably winds up hurting his chances for the nomination.
Speaker 1: Would it also hurt chances for folks who were on
Speaker 1: the same ballot, those down ballot races, who maybe align
Speaker 1: themselves with him. That's basically how the mechanism works, is
Speaker 1: that they start worrying, you know, he's going to be
Speaker 1: a weak candidate, and then they look for an alternative
Speaker 1: and perhaps endorsed one of the other candidates, and that
Speaker 1: starts to hurt is standing with voters. It's not what
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a full, you know, quick assembly line.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody endorses the Santas and voters say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I think I'll go that way. But it tends to matter,
Speaker 1: and depending on the size of the of the impulse
Speaker 1: that people are hearing, it tends to hurt the candidate
Speaker 1: during the generalation because in the nomination because absolutely those
Speaker 1: candidates want to win and they're going to be concerned, well,
Speaker 1: you know what's going to come out in trials? How's
Speaker 1: it going to look. One indictment in New York might
Speaker 1: not mean that much. But what if there's also an
Speaker 1: indictment in Georgia. What if there's also an indictment on
Speaker 1: the Documents case by the federal government or on January
Speaker 1: sixth by the federal government, and we could have very
Speaker 1: easily all of those happening. Would that then be where
Speaker 1: these divisions within the GOP line more of a how
Speaker 1: does this affect Mike candidacy versus a concern about the
Speaker 1: behavior for which he is being scrutinized. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think that anybody who really cared only about the
Speaker 1: behavior would have been in the never Trump column long
Speaker 1: long ago. There's not anything really really new here, certainly
Speaker 1: not after January six, twenty twenty one. You know, one
Speaker 1: of the reasons that it's that he still has a
Speaker 1: chance is because unlike in the Democratic forty am the
Speaker 1: Republican Party twenty thirty, forty years ago, where messing up
Speaker 1: elections would have a huge cost, but the Republican aligned
Speaker 1: media is such an important part of the party right now,
Speaker 1: Fox News, the talk shows, etcetera, etcetera, and their centers
Speaker 1: are a little different. They don't really They probably do
Speaker 1: better with Joe Biden in the White House than with
Speaker 1: you know, Desantist or Mike Pence in the White House.
Speaker 1: They may not abandon Trump as long as he's good
Speaker 1: for rating. Still, would an indictment of Trump create a
Speaker 1: chilling effect on future officeholders? No, the real president here
Speaker 1: would be not to indict if assuming that the prosecutors
Speaker 1: have the goods on him. And you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: a lawyer, so I'm not going to have an opinion
Speaker 1: about that. But we don't have a former president indicted,
Speaker 1: not because there was some sort of doctrine not to
Speaker 1: in former presidents, but because former presidents generally haven't been
Speaker 1: crooked or if they if they were doing something illegal,
Speaker 1: it was subtle, it was you know, not coming to
Speaker 1: the attention of the authorities. That's just not the case
Speaker 1: with Trump. He has very much. You know, it's something
Speaker 1: like the documents case where he just refused to cooperate
Speaker 1: with the law and got himself in trouble in a
Speaker 1: way that was very difficult for the said to ignore
Speaker 1: and got himself raided and got you found out that
Speaker 1: he was lying to them. Well, that's the kind of
Speaker 1: stuff that typical citizens would get indicted for and has
Speaker 1: just never happened before in his United States. So no,
Speaker 1: I don't think that it changes the game at all
Speaker 1: if he's indicted. I think what would really change things
Speaker 1: if they look at this and say, you know what,
Speaker 1: a normal citizen would be indicted here, but we shouldn't
Speaker 1: do it for a former president. You know, that would
Speaker 1: let future presidents off the hook, and it might also
Speaker 1: let other politicians off the hook. You know, if governors
Speaker 1: are going to say, well, how come I own get
Speaker 1: that treatment. If you didn't indicte Trump for that, why
Speaker 1: shouldn't And we may sort of go in that direction
Speaker 1: of saying, well, candidates, former officials. Current officials should be
Speaker 1: treated differently and held to a you know, a different
Speaker 1: standard that they're allowed to do whatever they want. Historically
Speaker 1: we've said higher standard, but that would be a lower one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, foreign leaders have been indicted for former
Speaker 1: prime ministers, former presidents, and of course, you know, like
Speaker 1: you said, you know, at the lower level, plenty of
Speaker 1: former governors, current governors, former senators, current senators, Senate candidates
Speaker 1: have come under legal trouble. We never had the situation
Speaker 1: where a former president who is also a leading candidate
Speaker 1: for the nomination for the next cycles has you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's never come up before. You could say we're
Speaker 1: gonna have a president either way, but the real presidents
Speaker 1: are you prosecute people when there's when prosecutors have the
Speaker 1: goods on them. What would it take to actually cause
Speaker 1: more than a rift, more than a chasm? Well, I
Speaker 1: think you know, with Trump, there's always been this problem
Speaker 1: for Republicans that they don't believe that he is ultimately
Speaker 1: loyal to the party. You know, it's it's impossible to
Speaker 1: imagine Joe Biden or you know, before the Hillary Clinton
Speaker 1: saying you know what, you're not going to nominate me,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and run a third party campaign,
Speaker 1: or I'm gonna tell my supporters to stay home, even
Speaker 1: though I know it'll cost our party the election. Because
Speaker 1: somebody like that, even somebody like Bernie Sanders, who's not
Speaker 1: properly even a member of the Democratic Party, he has
Speaker 1: a strong preference, and everybody knows he has a strong
Speaker 1: preference for Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton to beat Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Nobody believes that about Trump. Everybody believes that he didn't
Speaker 1: really hear if it's not him, Does he care whether,
Speaker 1: let's say it's Ronda Santis, whether the Santis or Biden
Speaker 1: wins the presidential election. He may not care at all,
Speaker 1: and so he might try to run a third party campaign.
Speaker 1: He might just tellus supporters to stay home. We don't know,
Speaker 1: and that makes them the kind of wildcard that makes
Speaker 1: it very difficult for Republicans to deal with. Jonathan Bernstein
Speaker 1: is a Bloomberg opinion columnist. Now the numbers show we
Speaker 1: are getting back to pre pandemic labor force participation rates
Speaker 1: well most of us. There is one group still missing.
Speaker 1: Bloomberg opinion columnists justin Fox Cover's business, and it joins us. Now,
Speaker 1: justin what is gen Z's role in the labor force?
Speaker 1: Where are they? If you just look by age groups
Speaker 1: and they slice them into some pretty narrow ones, what
Speaker 1: stands out is people over sixty five and people in
Speaker 1: their twenties are still well short of where they were
Speaker 1: in terms of both labor force participation and employment versus
Speaker 1: right before the pandemic. Most groups sort of between those
Speaker 1: are pretty similar to where they were. And then teenagers,
Speaker 1: especially younger teenagers, how much higher labor force participation for
Speaker 1: the pandemic. But it's still not that many of them
Speaker 1: worked because that they used to decades ago, but that
Speaker 1: their their participation in the labor of force has fallen
Speaker 1: a lot over the years. Well, what's the hang up?
Speaker 1: Demand for labor is high, so the jobs are there? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you figure with the sixty five and older it's sort
Speaker 1: of either fear continuing fear of COVID, or just this
Speaker 1: sense that you know, I'm the eight years old, maybe
Speaker 1: I just stopped working and for a while there a
Speaker 1: lot of people's portfolios were growing a lot other that
Speaker 1: than less the case lately for people in their twenties.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and this is something that's gotten relatively
Speaker 1: little attention. I think the best explanation to me is
Speaker 1: just that that's an age that's people who are just
Speaker 1: about to go into the labor force when the pandemic hit.
Speaker 1: They got laid off at higher rates than anybody else
Speaker 1: because it's a more junior workers. And also lots of
Speaker 1: them were working in service jobs in restaurants and retail
Speaker 1: and stuff, and so they got laid off. Recruiting out
Speaker 1: of college got kind of paused for a few months there,
Speaker 1: and I just get this sense, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's basically down by about a percentage point their labor
Speaker 1: force participation. So it's not huge, huge numbers, but it's
Speaker 1: a few hundred thousand people who maybe got a little
Speaker 1: throne for a loop. O. Other things are a they
Speaker 1: got thrown out of their jobs, but they also got
Speaker 1: a bunch of money thrown at them early in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: which may have changed their equation, although they're you know,
Speaker 1: they don't have that money anymore. And another is a
Speaker 1: lot of people in their early twenties. They might have
Speaker 1: had to take care of younger siblings or older relatives
Speaker 1: when their parents had to go off to work. And
Speaker 1: schools were closed and such. What would it take to
Speaker 1: get these groups that you talked about back into the workforce.
Speaker 1: I mean, in general, it seemed the lesson of the
Speaker 1: past five or six years has just been a really
Speaker 1: tight labor market. You know, a lot of demand, higher
Speaker 1: wages pulls people back in, and so you figure, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple more years like the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: and it would probably be all better again. But obviously
Speaker 1: that's not exactly how things are looking right now this year.
Speaker 1: Beyond that, I'm not sure, like, how do you go
Speaker 1: find these people who really should be getting started on
Speaker 1: their careers and help them give them either that nudge
Speaker 1: or that little boost to get them working. It is
Speaker 1: a little worrisome, But I want to know from you
Speaker 1: how worrisome is this? I mean, can we get along
Speaker 1: just fine without this chunk of the workforce or has
Speaker 1: the pandemic completely changed how we look at the workforce,
Speaker 1: the face of the workforce, and how we look at work.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think in general, we are entering this
Speaker 1: new era where we're generally going to be short of
Speaker 1: workers after a couple of decades where we kind of
Speaker 1: felt like in a lot of jobs employers always had
Speaker 1: the upper hand and it was tough, tough being a worker.
Speaker 1: Sense that's great, and this is just because you look
Speaker 1: at demographics and there just aren't going to be all
Speaker 1: that many new people coming along. The baby Boomers are
Speaker 1: pretty much easing out of the workforce now, and there
Speaker 1: are a lot of millennials, but after them, the Gen
Speaker 1: Z is not quite as big a group of people,
Speaker 1: and so it looks like we're going to be generally
Speaker 1: short on workers and going to need workers. So it
Speaker 1: would be great if we could find a way to
Speaker 1: persuade or help these people in their twenties get back
Speaker 1: in the labor force or get into it for the
Speaker 1: first time. Justin Fox is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He
Speaker 1: covers business and that does it for this week's Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: We are produced by Eric Mullow. Don't forget We are
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