Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly. We're right here every day bringing you the
Speaker 1: latest news from the world's of business and finance, plus technology, politics, economics,
Speaker 1: all harnessing the power of Business Week reporters and editors,
Speaker 1: and of course Carol that's part of a team of
Speaker 1: twenty seven hundred journalists and analysts and more than a
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty countries and Jason. You can download Bloomberg
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Speaker 1: can also listen to our radio show at two pm
Speaker 1: Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on
Speaker 1: YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. A lot of folks,
Speaker 1: us included, are thinking about what it's going to take
Speaker 1: to get back to the office. We're hearing that a
Speaker 1: lot here in the Tri state area. I mentioned a
Speaker 1: few minutes ago that New York City is starting to
Speaker 1: reopen as of next Monday. Neighboring Connecticut is also thinking
Speaker 1: about this a lot. Let's get into that with Dr
Speaker 1: Eric Shott. He is the founder and CEO of Semaphore.
Speaker 1: He joins us on the phone from Connecticut and Dr shot.
Speaker 1: It's really nice to to talk to you. I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: by your background and your experience in both the clinical
Speaker 1: and researches also and also the commercial help us understand
Speaker 1: what back to work testing looks like, especially when you're
Speaker 1: looking at Connecticut. Yeah, well great, too great to be on.
Speaker 1: So what it looks like is we need a more
Speaker 1: holistic solution, not just focused on testing, but really seeking
Speaker 1: to understand the context in which each employee is existing,
Speaker 1: like whether they have symptoms or not, who they're being
Speaker 1: exposed to, and so on, in addition to the testing,
Speaker 1: and we kind of wrap that altogether to provide guidance
Speaker 1: to employers on whether a given employee is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: low enough risk and not testing as positive and should
Speaker 1: be allowed no problem back into work, versus somebody at
Speaker 1: high risk UH and maybe should not be coming in,
Speaker 1: should stay remote. So this is what you guys are doing,
Speaker 1: and I'm reading something from the Stanford Advocate. I mean,
Speaker 1: you guys are increasing the capacity for your new coronavirus
Speaker 1: testing program to at least ten thousand tests daily up
Speaker 1: to twenty and we're talking about the test of whether
Speaker 1: or not you've got the virus. But also antibody testing. Correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's correct. And a lot of that volume driven by
Speaker 1: you know, uh, you know, working with the State of
Speaker 1: Connecticut Governor Lamont and the progressive strategy they have to
Speaker 1: really uh, you know, get people back to work. So
Speaker 1: proud to be helping those guys along. And so, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess and I love the fact that you're looking
Speaker 1: at it very holistically, uh, Eric, I mean, just as
Speaker 1: a sort of rank and follow employees and you know,
Speaker 1: folks who are commuting and things like that, as as
Speaker 1: human beings, and obviously folks who have pre existing conditions
Speaker 1: and are more at risk. I think there's a different,
Speaker 1: different set of circumstances. But what should the everyday person
Speaker 1: who's thinking about their office be Is there sort of
Speaker 1: a checklist that we should be thinking about in terms
Speaker 1: of our own uh thresholds, in our own sense of safety. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's interesting and the dozens of employers we've
Speaker 1: talked to about these go back to work strategies and
Speaker 1: use of testing, A lot of this is employee driven,
Speaker 1: like the employee wanting to understand how safe are they
Speaker 1: going to be at the workplace? Are they going to
Speaker 1: be exposed? Are they going to carry something back to
Speaker 1: the households which may have vulnerable others. So we're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of this driven by the employees. Some of
Speaker 1: the employers like they need individuals back to be productive,
Speaker 1: they want come back in the workplace. And so what
Speaker 1: we're seeing is the employees really saying, well, we'll make
Speaker 1: us safe if we do that. So there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of guidelines to the employers about how to you know,
Speaker 1: maintain social distancing within the workplace and so on. Um,
Speaker 1: there's the kind of symptom tracking that you want individual
Speaker 1: rules coming into to be taking. So increase awareness in
Speaker 1: the employee on whether they're you know, they're not feeling
Speaker 1: well or they've been exposed outside of the work environment.
Speaker 1: All of that, through the kind of digital engagement we have,
Speaker 1: can be reported and cataloged and used to assess risk
Speaker 1: in addition to the testing. So again it's it's trying
Speaker 1: to cover as many variables as possible. Well, once you're
Speaker 1: in the work environment again, you know, just smart maintaining
Speaker 1: social distancing, wearing a mask if you're in public areas,
Speaker 1: are exposed to other individuals and so on. And I
Speaker 1: want to press you on one point because you brought
Speaker 1: up and I think it's so important, which is this
Speaker 1: idea that if someone and I certainly trust my employer.
Speaker 1: I've worked for a great company and I'm not just
Speaker 1: saying that because I'm on its air. But you know,
Speaker 1: the thing that I think many people worry about is
Speaker 1: exactly what you said, the sort of inadvertently bringing bringing
Speaker 1: something home and is that just something? Is that a
Speaker 1: risk we're just going to have to to live with
Speaker 1: And how much of this goes down to kind of
Speaker 1: that individual responsibility and maybe the in between things that
Speaker 1: are happening between work and and the workplace and vice versa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a bit complicated because it has to take
Speaker 1: into account, you know, to to what extent does an
Speaker 1: employer actually need you working in the office. So one
Speaker 1: of the things we do with the employer groups is
Speaker 1: assessing helping them assess is an employee really needed to
Speaker 1: come back in or can they be remote? And if
Speaker 1: they fall into higher risk categories, i e. They have
Speaker 1: individuals at home who are more vulnerable, elderly elderly parents
Speaker 1: living with them, immune compromise individuals, and so on. So
Speaker 1: that's number one. Number two is age, age plays a
Speaker 1: significant role in in the severity of response you may
Speaker 1: undergo if you get infected, so all of those parameters
Speaker 1: are taken into account. Education is a key part of this,
Speaker 1: and it's helping everybody understand the risk to what is
Speaker 1: center they needed in the office, to what extent can
Speaker 1: they remain remote? And based on those, various thresholds are
Speaker 1: set for the different risk groups. Our guest at this
Speaker 1: hour Dr Eric Shot, founder and CE at Semaphore, a
Speaker 1: patient centric predictive health companies, also Dean for Precision Medicine
Speaker 1: and amount Sinai Professor and Predictive Health and Computation Biology
Speaker 1: at the Icon School of Medicine at Mount sina As
Speaker 1: we said, he's had lots of education and lots of schooling. Um,
Speaker 1: doctor Shot, it is nice to have you here with us,
Speaker 1: and you're talking about, you know, the work that you
Speaker 1: guys are doing at Semaphore with the State of Connecticut
Speaker 1: in terms of providing more access and more testing. Given
Speaker 1: your druthers, would you, as a member of the medical community,
Speaker 1: pervert that people ultimately just stay home a little longer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing, uh are already seeing that some
Speaker 1: of the timelines on when when governments wanted to see
Speaker 1: people back to work and people wanting to be back
Speaker 1: to work, that kind of getting delayed. Let things right
Speaker 1: out a little longer. The you know, the number are
Speaker 1: definitely going down. But I do ultimately think that testing
Speaker 1: is sort of a core part of a key part
Speaker 1: of evidence, along with other parameters that sort of assess
Speaker 1: whether somebody does have active infection or whether they've been
Speaker 1: infected and may be immune and dr shot. You know,
Speaker 1: I know that this is top of mind for you
Speaker 1: because you have been involved in the collection of a
Speaker 1: lot of very sensitive data. How do we protect privacy
Speaker 1: amid all of this, Yeah, that's a great question. You know.
Speaker 1: The digital solution we sort of provide to an employer
Speaker 1: that includes both an employer portal where they can upload
Speaker 1: who what employees do they want to have back in
Speaker 1: the workplace, so who's eligible, and then for the employee
Speaker 1: employee portals that we engage in clinical testing all the time.
Speaker 1: So this technology that keeps you know, we're dealing with HIPPA, uh,
Speaker 1: personal personally identifiable health information like all of that, we
Speaker 1: stay of the art um you know, encryption techn oologies
Speaker 1: and so on, and many of the employers, like once
Speaker 1: these tests are run unemployees, whether they're positive or negative, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, the employers often don't want to see that information.
Speaker 1: They don't want to take in, um, you know, what's
Speaker 1: medically happening to the individuals. So we have the ability
Speaker 1: to shield that information to guide UH employees who test
Speaker 1: is positive into the right channels of care. So it's
Speaker 1: employing the same kinds of techniques and technologies that we
Speaker 1: imply in clinical medicine to to to perform this kind
Speaker 1: of testing. I do feel like, you know, doctor Shot,
Speaker 1: that we have been talking about disrupting the medical community
Speaker 1: for a long time, and I feel like it's been
Speaker 1: resistant for many different reasons. But I do feel like
Speaker 1: what's happened with COVID nineteen is is revealing that we
Speaker 1: really need to change how we do things. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: as a result of that, we are going to be
Speaker 1: giving up more data, and there's going to be more
Speaker 1: sharing of data, and there's going to have to be
Speaker 1: data pools. Is that just kind of our new reality? Yeah, Carol,
Speaker 1: and I think you've hit it exactly on the head.
Speaker 1: This is going to be a transformational event that way,
Speaker 1: like there's going to be much more remote monitoring of
Speaker 1: patients and engagements remotely, a lot more information being transmitted
Speaker 1: digitally that way. I think increasingly patients and consumers more
Speaker 1: generally becoming more comfortable that UM sharing that kind of information,
Speaker 1: having more information collected on them will have lots of benefits.
Speaker 1: So there's kind of that risk benefit ratio that employees,
Speaker 1: you know, employees consumers always have in mind, and so
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, we'll gravitate towards a new equilibrium that
Speaker 1: I think will have us UM you know, tolerating higher
Speaker 1: risk and maybe greater privacy risk violations in trade for
Speaker 1: ensuring we stay healthier and don't bring bad stuff into
Speaker 1: the home. Last question for you before you let you go,
Speaker 1: what do you worry about the most interns of back
Speaker 1: to work? Yeah, I think it's having a holistic enough
Speaker 1: solution that well enough characterizes what's happening in an individual
Speaker 1: and what is their risk profile. Really, as we start
Speaker 1: getting into different types of sample collection and make it
Speaker 1: more convenient, whether it's saliva and at home collections, you know,
Speaker 1: are those sensitivity and bessicity of the tests? Are they
Speaker 1: going to be as accurate? So we're like a lot
Speaker 1: of energy being spent both with the state of Connecticut
Speaker 1: and all the testing we're doing to assess all of
Speaker 1: those different parameters to you know, we're all learning together.
Speaker 1: We have to adapt and as we learn, and and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, but yeah, it's that we'd be accurate enough,
Speaker 1: I guests would be mine. Now. I think that's I
Speaker 1: think that's exactly right. I mean, we had a great
Speaker 1: story a few weeks ago colleague of ours in London
Speaker 1: did about getting four tests and essentially two of them
Speaker 1: are negative, to them were positive, and so you do
Speaker 1: wonder about the accuracy and that ultimately will make a
Speaker 1: huge difference our Thanks to Dr Eric Shott, founder CEO
Speaker 1: of Semaphore Jinus on the phone from Stanford, Connecticut. They
Speaker 1: are working with the state Carol to get that state
Speaker 1: back to work. And I take his point at the
Speaker 1: end there. It's a really important one because that the
Speaker 1: data are only good if they're real and true, right correct,
Speaker 1: and it needs to be consistent. We've talked about this
Speaker 1: that if everybody is doing kind of their own thing
Speaker 1: and there's no consistency in terms of collection, and then
Speaker 1: you know how you look at it, it's not going
Speaker 1: to be ultimately useful in the end, so really really important.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well. Among our most read stories
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg today is one in the magazine this week.
Speaker 1: It's about how a decade of progress for women has
Speaker 1: evaporated overnight because of the pandemic. It was one of
Speaker 1: those stories we were talking about on our planning call
Speaker 1: this morning. The story by Shelley Banjo Bloomberg News is
Speaker 1: uh technology reporters. She joins us in a second lost
Speaker 1: nice place. She is our senior writer. Forgive me Shelley.
Speaker 1: Shelley Banjo is our senior writer at Bloomberg News. Wanted
Speaker 1: to get her title correctly. On the phone from Dallas, Texas,
Speaker 1: she joins us along with Bloomber Business Week editor Joe
Speaker 1: Weber on the phone in Brooklyn and Joel, I mean
Speaker 1: it's a special magazine this week in terms of what
Speaker 1: you guys are doing. What I love about this story
Speaker 1: is that you really dig into what's going on telling
Speaker 1: the story, uh, the numbers, the stories that really give
Speaker 1: us an idea of how the pandemic specifically is impacting women. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean every issue is special, Carol. You know, this
Speaker 1: is one of those stories that the momentum we started
Speaker 1: talking about it. I just said, this is supremely important,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's been sort of bubbling for a second,
Speaker 1: like we've seen some of these numbers come out, but
Speaker 1: this was the first time that we actually really managed
Speaker 1: to put them all in one place to get a
Speaker 1: sense of just how dramatic this moment is for women
Speaker 1: specifically who have basically shouldered the burden of the pandemic
Speaker 1: in a way that um that men haven't. Um, Shelley,
Speaker 1: as you did. You're reporting. What were the numbers that
Speaker 1: really jumped out to you? Oh, good question. I mean
Speaker 1: the first thing is definitely the job losses. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of terms. We compared this to what happened
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight, and a lot of those
Speaker 1: sectors that were most hard hit were things like housing,
Speaker 1: UM construction areas where a lot of men were and
Speaker 1: this time around it's a complete flip, but it's um
Speaker 1: areas where where women are. For that of the job losses, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, was a big one for me. And the
Speaker 1: other number that really shoot out to me was just
Speaker 1: the sheer number of women that are breadwinners in their family.
Speaker 1: I guess I just didn't really quite realize, um, you know,
Speaker 1: how much how much that was, and how much of this, Shelley.
Speaker 1: I mean, this was a stunning story in many ways,
Speaker 1: although as both Carol and Joelhood said, it was one
Speaker 1: of these things that probably if you think about it,
Speaker 1: was was hiding in plain sight. I mean, to me,
Speaker 1: one of the most troubling aspects of it is that
Speaker 1: it's going to be really it's gonna be a slow
Speaker 1: slog back to even where we were much less real progress.
Speaker 1: Talked to talk to us about that and and sort
Speaker 1: of how this may how hard it may be to
Speaker 1: to really reverse this, and and Jason, one thing to
Speaker 1: add just there is that last year or women made
Speaker 1: up the majority of the US workforce for almost the
Speaker 1: first time in a decade, right, sull you like, just
Speaker 1: think about that in context as you as you sort
Speaker 1: of respond to that. That's exactly right. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think your point on hiding in a plane site is
Speaker 1: a good one because a lot of these things you
Speaker 1: don't see, I mean, you don't see the hours, um
Speaker 1: that women are necessarily staying up later at night to
Speaker 1: finish and this kind of burnout potential of you know,
Speaker 1: I finish my work for the day, and then I'm
Speaker 1: with my kids, and then I'm planning on and again
Speaker 1: to work until two o'clock in the morning. And those
Speaker 1: are the type of kind of burnout that that starts
Speaker 1: to um, that starts to really weigh on people. UM.
Speaker 1: And I think that could you know, have some bigger,
Speaker 1: long good term implications. UM. You look at all the
Speaker 1: women that are just kind of bowing out of the workforce,
Speaker 1: taking leave, taking parental leave. Now, UM, that's going to
Speaker 1: impact longer term, longer term earnings and income for women. UM.
Speaker 1: And then you look at a lot of women that
Speaker 1: have no choice like that. They they're single women who um,
Speaker 1: you know, provide everything for their family and so they
Speaker 1: have no choice but to work. And so for them
Speaker 1: that means putting their kids in a lot of precarious
Speaker 1: and unsafe situations. You know what's interesting, Shelley and I
Speaker 1: think Jason, back to some of the early conversations we
Speaker 1: had once we went into you know, working from home,
Speaker 1: is that folks thought, you know, this might be helpful
Speaker 1: to women and giving them more flexibility in terms of
Speaker 1: working operations because everybody was at home. We were realizing
Speaker 1: it was working more effectively than I think anybody imagined
Speaker 1: and thought that this might be a boon for women,
Speaker 1: and it's interesting to see how it's playing out ultimately. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's right. I mean, working from home does
Speaker 1: save you sometime in terms of commute and things like that. Um,
Speaker 1: but you can't do two things that wants. You can't
Speaker 1: both you know, breastfeed the child and uh, I'll lead
Speaker 1: a conference call, which so I have seen that before. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it's you can't do two things
Speaker 1: at the same time. You can't be two places at once,
Speaker 1: and so kids some um, you know, I think it
Speaker 1: sums up in my fur in the very first line
Speaker 1: of the story, which is the reality of the pandemic.
Speaker 1: If someone has to stay with the kids, and so
Speaker 1: as long as you have kids, someone has to watch them,
Speaker 1: and in most cases that's ending up on the women.
Speaker 1: And when that means is then they can't do their jobs.
Speaker 1: And so you know, to me, in a frustrating part
Speaker 1: of this, companies are saying, yeah, we're trying to be um,
Speaker 1: we're trying to be understanding of this, but but really,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it takes some greater policies, and
Speaker 1: so that's something I thought was very interesting, UM from
Speaker 1: some of the think tanks that I spoke to, which said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is really a moment where we can
Speaker 1: either take what's happened and make things worse, or we
Speaker 1: can take what's happened and make things better and institutionalize
Speaker 1: some of these things that we've started to do around
Speaker 1: working from home and paid sickly even UM, some of
Speaker 1: these temporary provisions that have been written in for workers
Speaker 1: right now, and think, you know, how can we actually
Speaker 1: turn these into long term solutions because what the pandemic
Speaker 1: unveiled was, you know, we don't have this kind of
Speaker 1: safety net written into um, the government, into laws, into
Speaker 1: the way companies work and across the board. And so
Speaker 1: you know, where can we what can we learn from this,
Speaker 1: what can we take away, and how can we emerge
Speaker 1: from this better. It also revealed, speaking from personal experience here,
Speaker 1: the importance of school where you can put kids and
Speaker 1: and then actually, you know, go do your job. And
Speaker 1: you you know, just continuing that thought that you had
Speaker 1: there Shelly about what employers are are doing and can doing,
Speaker 1: Like what did you what else did you learn about
Speaker 1: um um you know, most effective policies that employers are
Speaker 1: using during this time. I think having a policy is effective.
Speaker 1: So a lot of companies have said, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're behind our employees, Well, we're gonna make um We're
Speaker 1: gonna make adjustments. But what I found from talking to
Speaker 1: a lot of these women are I don't want to
Speaker 1: ask for an adjustment. I don't want to ask for
Speaker 1: a special treatment just because I have to take care
Speaker 1: of my kids. It's a bad economic time. People are
Speaker 1: worried that their job prospects are shaky or that their
Speaker 1: next um, you know, promotion might not be there. If
Speaker 1: they're the ones who had to say, oh, you know what,
Speaker 1: during this time, it actually need you to give me
Speaker 1: a break a little bit, because for every person who
Speaker 1: might need a break right now, there are people who
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have the same kind of caregiving responsibilities that
Speaker 1: others have. And so UM, I think having a policy
Speaker 1: in place is something that makes it, um you know,
Speaker 1: streamlines the situation a little bit easier for people to take.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, I'm hearing too from a
Speaker 1: lot of folks that those policies need to be very
Speaker 1: clear concise, understood and really written out so that people
Speaker 1: understand truly, you know, what a company is, okay with
Speaker 1: it followed without any repercussion, exactly, followed up on and
Speaker 1: enforced and enforced fairly. Yeah, I think it's it's a
Speaker 1: really important point. This is a great story. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think it's really important and I love I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: going to put it out on Twitter because the numbers
Speaker 1: in it to really tell you what's going on right
Speaker 1: now on and in particular, um the disproportionate impact that
Speaker 1: women are seeing. Shelley Banjo. She is senior writer at
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News. She joined us on the phone from Dallas, Texas,
Speaker 1: along with Joe Weber, editor a Bloomberg business Week on
Speaker 1: the remote line from Brooklyn. Check out that story in
Speaker 1: the issue. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, let's
Speaker 1: talk a little Business Week economics. We talked about this
Speaker 1: story a little bit. We teed it up, I think
Speaker 1: rather nicely. For our next guest, Elena Shats, She's quoted
Speaker 1: in the story that is one of the most read
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg and it's all about what may happen
Speaker 1: next when it comes to who may lose their jobs
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of this pandemic. She, of course, is
Speaker 1: senior US economists for Boomberg Economics, joining us on the
Speaker 1: phone from Long Island and Yelena, I have to say,
Speaker 1: you know, reading this research and understanding the data that
Speaker 1: you and your team collected, it is troubling for a
Speaker 1: lot of our audience in many ways, who I think
Speaker 1: was probably able to say, Okay, well you know, I'm
Speaker 1: not an hourly restaurant worker. I don't work in retail.
Speaker 1: This is going to be much more widespread and as
Speaker 1: this continues, we're talking about a lot of higher paying
Speaker 1: white color jobs, right UH. And I think the key
Speaker 1: point here is that a lot of white college jobs
Speaker 1: and a lot of jobs in adjustent industry to those
Speaker 1: that work heat very hard in the first wave of leoffs.
Speaker 1: I still at RIPA. So even though we saw better
Speaker 1: than expected number in terms of a DP payrolls this morning, UH,
Speaker 1: another report from UH non Manufacturing sim Services suggested that
Speaker 1: things that really not improving that well, and the employment
Speaker 1: component of the survey was still at a very low level.
Speaker 1: So that tells me that maybe this optimism about how
Speaker 1: quickly the job market is going to improve is a
Speaker 1: little bit permecure. You know what can I just say, Lena,
Speaker 1: It reminds me of like using the um SPLC function
Speaker 1: on the Bloomberg the supply chain analysis, Right, Like you
Speaker 1: you look at a company, but you've got to look
Speaker 1: who do they buy from? Who do they sell from? Right,
Speaker 1: whenever there's a story, it's so much more, you know,
Speaker 1: wide reaching than just one entity. And that's what this is, right.
Speaker 1: You know that if you know restaurants are hit, well,
Speaker 1: there the whole supply chain and it includes technology, you know, workers,
Speaker 1: that includes health care, educate. I mean, there's just so
Speaker 1: much that goes into it. So what we did, what
Speaker 1: our team did in terms of the analysis, we looked
Speaker 1: at input output tables from the Bureau of Economic Analysis
Speaker 1: to kind of trace the linkages between different industries. So
Speaker 1: let me give you another example. So, uh, a really
Speaker 1: state less or somebody who rents out those um big
Speaker 1: retail spaces. They are in danger basically because a lot
Speaker 1: of stores are closing and maybe they're closing permanently. So
Speaker 1: these companies are at risk of losing jobs. So what
Speaker 1: we did we tried to estimate across the whole economy
Speaker 1: how many in more industries in danger because of that
Speaker 1: first wave of layoffs that we saw back March in April,
Speaker 1: and our estimates suggests that as many as six million
Speaker 1: jobs in danger because of um this potentially of an
Speaker 1: adjustent industries, and also because white college jobs are now
Speaker 1: a risk given that a lot of frontline workers lost
Speaker 1: their jobs and they might not be coming back. Well,
Speaker 1: that whole notion of coming back, I guess you'll and
Speaker 1: I want to just emphasize that point because one of
Speaker 1: the things that's given I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: comfort so far. And I'm sorry to dwell on this maybe,
Speaker 1: but I think it's so important is this idea of like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's gonna come back, It's gonna come back, and and
Speaker 1: I do feel like we're starting to get a sense
Speaker 1: that some of these jobs, especially the ones you're talking about,
Speaker 1: don't so easily come back. It is there a delineation
Speaker 1: that that you make between sort of that first wave
Speaker 1: in second wave? Can you quantify how likely it is
Speaker 1: in the snap back? It's very difficult, and of course
Speaker 1: there are a lot of different factors around it. So yes,
Speaker 1: things may turned really great and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: everybody rebounds in terms of growth and in terms of jobs.
Speaker 1: But I I think it's very unlikely. And uh, even
Speaker 1: though we we have seen a lot of optimistic signs,
Speaker 1: say coming from auto sales report. We so yesterday it
Speaker 1: was better than expected. Another report this morning, VP was
Speaker 1: better than expected. There's a lot of uh this um,
Speaker 1: you know, setbacks in terms of how much demand we
Speaker 1: will have in the industry, in the economy, on the
Speaker 1: part of consumers, on the part of other industries that
Speaker 1: might not be coming back in a V shaped form. Well,
Speaker 1: and you do wonder I think, Jason, I harken back
Speaker 1: to our conversation with Margret Keen and Synchrony Financial, which
Speaker 1: is a bit of your talks in the magazine this week.
Speaker 1: But who talked about, you know, people who had asked
Speaker 1: for more time to pay off some of those store
Speaker 1: credit cards, about them said, you know, we don't need
Speaker 1: these deferrals anymore, but they are paying down debt. And
Speaker 1: you know that also goes to if you're a little
Speaker 1: bit nervous about what the outlook is, you may not
Speaker 1: do any new spending. You're gonna you know, try and
Speaker 1: kind of shore up your financials. Uh. And what's interesting
Speaker 1: is one of the data points, more than one third
Speaker 1: of households making a hundred thousand dollars per year have
Speaker 1: lost some employment income since mid March, and and some
Speaker 1: of them, the statistics show they're worried about, you know,
Speaker 1: making next month's rent or paying the mortgage. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's really hitting all, you know, aspects of the
Speaker 1: income spectrum. All right, Elena selective it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much in your economist for Bloomberg Economics, A really nice one.
Speaker 1: Two punches that were between our Bloomberg Economics team and
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg News team really synthesizing some great data that
Speaker 1: Elena and her group put together. And it's all about
Speaker 1: white colored jobs not being safe from this pandemic that
Speaker 1: continues to really wreak havoc, not just from health perspective,
Speaker 1: but from an economic perspective as well. Carol, and you
Speaker 1: also start to think about it in the context of
Speaker 1: the civil unrest that we're going through and everything going
Speaker 1: on there that's also laying there, Uh, some really really
Speaker 1: tough economic truths. We're going to talk about that next hour.
Speaker 1: Nothing makes people feel more desperate than financial troubles, right,
Speaker 1: and either not having enough money to support your family,
Speaker 1: take care of your family, feed your family, keep a
Speaker 1: roof over your head. And you know, it's things that
Speaker 1: certain aspects of our society have dealt with for a
Speaker 1: long time, but it's certainly hitting a lot more today.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. In our weekly Bloomberg Green segment, Adjason, Today,
Speaker 1: investors are focusing on an interesting idea that we need
Speaker 1: to think of cars as more than just an automobile
Speaker 1: to keep selling that in a post COVID nineteen future. Provocative.
Speaker 1: So let's get more on this from Emily Chason. She
Speaker 1: is Sustainability editor a Bloomberg News and she joins us
Speaker 1: on the phone in New York City. I'm only good
Speaker 1: to have you back with us, so tell us about
Speaker 1: this this story. Yeah, So, what we're seeing, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me back, by the way, is what we're seeing
Speaker 1: is that people are coming out of COVID all over
Speaker 1: the world and they're a little bit nervous about using
Speaker 1: public transportation. So they're what they're doing is they're looking
Speaker 1: at cars again and then, but you haven't using your
Speaker 1: car for a while, so you might not buy anyone
Speaker 1: right And before this, everybody wanted people to switch to
Speaker 1: electric vehicles. Um, automakers have a lot of bottles that
Speaker 1: are coming out. Um there's now inventory. Um, so people
Speaker 1: are still buying electric vehicles all over the world. Um,
Speaker 1: probably because they were still on a wait list. It
Speaker 1: took months to get all but um, yeah, I guess
Speaker 1: electric vehicles have this optionality to them where they could
Speaker 1: be more than just a cars for people. They can
Speaker 1: hook up to the electric grid. There's a software they
Speaker 1: use there see if autonomous vehicle stuff. So you could
Speaker 1: actually think of your car as having an additional value
Speaker 1: composition in the future. Um, if it's an orcer car
Speaker 1: and people are sort of trying to unpack them with
Speaker 1: that looks like in what kind of future that could
Speaker 1: make for automakers. Well, and it's interesting to think about
Speaker 1: to Emily, and and this is an area very familiar
Speaker 1: to you. It's there's also an element, at least there
Speaker 1: has been so far that you know, buying an electric
Speaker 1: car sort of says something about you, you know, it
Speaker 1: sort of says something about who you want to be.
Speaker 1: And I do wonder from a lifestyle perspective, how that
Speaker 1: has changed in your estimation, not just in terms of
Speaker 1: the dollars and cents of buying a car and some
Speaker 1: of the infrastructure, but also about the maybe the softer
Speaker 1: side or the harder to quantify side of this. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: people were looking to buy electric cars. UM probably still were. UM,
Speaker 1: so it was sort of mutually did right. But today
Speaker 1: I think Mary Nickels out in California, who has in
Speaker 1: California everypoard, said they want to make the whole state
Speaker 1: in California electric vehicles only by so electro people are
Speaker 1: not going to be so rare anymore as they were
Speaker 1: in the past, Which means there's this whole infrastructure about
Speaker 1: elect of cars that really needs to be created right now. UM,
Speaker 1: are charging infrastructure is not there yet, it's the rest
Speaker 1: of the US. UM. The battery replacement structure is not there,
Speaker 1: battery recycling. UM, there's a whole systimity created. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of cool opportunities. I talked to this investor.
Speaker 1: He said, like you could think about your electric cars
Speaker 1: serving another pupots. It could be a generator for your house. Like,
Speaker 1: there's whole whole potential to have five days of power
Speaker 1: from your house, um, from your cars. You could plug
Speaker 1: your car into your house in the future. Um, And
Speaker 1: that's not really available yet, but automakers are looking at it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also do wonder how public policy or government policy
Speaker 1: can play into this. Again, we know that when you
Speaker 1: get you know, incentives, I mean we replaced some windows
Speaker 1: in our house years ago because we got a break
Speaker 1: because they were going to be you know, better insulated,
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. Like, I just do
Speaker 1: think about how government policy, whether it's a tax break
Speaker 1: or something, can really induce people to do things. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if what you're hearing is we're going to
Speaker 1: need a little bit more of this going forward. And
Speaker 1: actually though, can government afford it after some of the
Speaker 1: spending that they've had to do because of the shutdowns
Speaker 1: caused by the virus and and other well, electric car
Speaker 1: incentives are going to be really powerful going forward. We
Speaker 1: saw that like where electric car sales collapsed in covid Um,
Speaker 1: there weren't as many strong subsidies as there were in
Speaker 1: other places, and where cars electric cars was continued in
Speaker 1: covid Um, there were strong exensities. Um. So we're probably
Speaker 1: gonna need more that, especially because also automatic to have
Speaker 1: a lot of extra supply. They have been selling that
Speaker 1: many cars lately. They're going to lower their prices. Cell
Speaker 1: electric cars are usually more expensive, and they're going to
Speaker 1: have to try extra hard to compete, So we're gonna
Speaker 1: be those incentives. Studism might actually be incentivized to do
Speaker 1: this because they don't want all these people coming in
Speaker 1: their cars and creating extra air pollution, which we know
Speaker 1: as the problems for covid um and lots of other things.
Speaker 1: All right, so electric cars they may find reason to
Speaker 1: do it, or they may even find sort of a
Speaker 1: Harbon tax incentive. All right, Emily Jason, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: our sustainability editor for Bloomberg, joining us on the phone.
Speaker 1: How to make your electric car more than a car.
Speaker 1: I think people think about this a lot. I mean,
Speaker 1: even just looking at my neighborhood and sort of seeing
Speaker 1: you know, when people buy new cars, they're they're definitely
Speaker 1: thinking more about it. We've been talking about it. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you're waiting for the electric station wagon because
Speaker 1: you're a wagony stuff, but we do. But we talk
Speaker 1: about it a lot too. And you know who you
Speaker 1: know who we're you know, kind of waiting to do
Speaker 1: something UM so that it makes sense. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I would. I don't know. We've definitely talked about it,
Speaker 1: UM and I know your dad has one, UM and
Speaker 1: I know loves it, and I know everybody who has
Speaker 1: one loves it. I think, you know, we need to
Speaker 1: make sure that there are the charging stations that are around. UM.
Speaker 1: You really have to have the infrastructure to make it work.
Speaker 1: But I really do think, and I do wonder, is
Speaker 1: electric vehicles the ultimate answer because you still have those
Speaker 1: batteries you've got to deal with, right, Yeah, true? And
Speaker 1: I just true. And you've got power facilities that have
Speaker 1: to charge the batteries. And I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: ultimately the answer. So you just want cars that run
Speaker 1: on magic? What you're going for. I've been talking to
Speaker 1: Walt Disney and they've got some fairy dust that can
Speaker 1: Bob Iger in his role as executive chairman, is going
Speaker 1: to we can solve everything magic cars that don't run
Speaker 1: on anything. They've just run on pixie dust, hydrocarbon water,
Speaker 1: Like wouldn't that be great solar using the stuff. Like,
Speaker 1: there's just I just think we haven't pushed it, and
Speaker 1: maybe we need a global collaboration of people really trying
Speaker 1: to kind of push the envelope. Stop laughing at me,
Speaker 1: Jason Kelly, I'm laughing at you. Full confessions. Carol Masster
Speaker 1: pulls up in her Pixie desk. Car anyway, bro journal, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no, I
Speaker 1: want to Bible. Just drying baby, good questions, trying this
Speaker 1: drive to the globe. Thanks, we'll drying us down on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. All right, Well, as we head to another
Speaker 1: green Clothes it's become a bit of a habit lately.
Speaker 1: Let's check in with Michael Sheldon, executive director, chief investment
Speaker 1: officer for High Tower r d M Financial Group. Johnnys
Speaker 1: on the phone from Westport. Michael, nice to have you
Speaker 1: back with us. I trust all as well over there
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. Yeah, so far, so good, Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting, you know, hearing a little bit
Speaker 1: more about reopening plans. We had a doctor on earlier
Speaker 1: who based out near you, a little down down down
Speaker 1: the coast from you and uh in Stanford, you know,
Speaker 1: talking about some pretty aggressive testing that's going to go on.
Speaker 1: And we've heard a lot from your governor about what
Speaker 1: reopening looks like from where you are. What does reopening
Speaker 1: look like for Connecticut? Well, I think all the states
Speaker 1: are sort of in the same boat. I think the
Speaker 1: governors are looking at they want to see less cases
Speaker 1: going on, They want to see less people in hospitals,
Speaker 1: they want to see less mortality, less people dying. Obviously
Speaker 1: from this, they want to see some improvement. And I
Speaker 1: think generally in Connecticut was one of the first states
Speaker 1: to get hard hit, and especially Westport and Fairfield County
Speaker 1: where I am, and we've definitely seen some improvement, which
Speaker 1: is a positive sign looking ahead and sort of sort
Speaker 1: of bringing that towards the markets. I wanted to start
Speaker 1: off by saying that there's an old saying in the markets,
Speaker 1: which used to be don't fight the FED, and I
Speaker 1: think the new saying now is don't fight the Fed
Speaker 1: in Congress together. Fed in Congress have basically spent about
Speaker 1: six to seven trillion dollars over the past couple of months,
Speaker 1: and they're what they spent that need to temporarily replace
Speaker 1: the lost income from slowing down and shutting down the
Speaker 1: economy due to COVID nineteen. And now we're starting to
Speaker 1: see as the economy starts to open up, we're starting
Speaker 1: to see some improvement, which is now reflected in the
Speaker 1: equity markets. I feel like it's also Michael, you know,
Speaker 1: don't Fed, don't fight UM Germany, don't fight the e
Speaker 1: c B. You know, there's a headline that just crossed
Speaker 1: Anglo Merkel's coalition reaching a deal on a German stimulus package.
Speaker 1: If one thing investors can kind of count on right
Speaker 1: now is that leaders central banks they're going to do
Speaker 1: what they need to do to make sure everything financially
Speaker 1: continues to work and move smoothly, and that usually means
Speaker 1: pumping a lot of money into the system to make
Speaker 1: sure that there's no credit crunches or liquidity squeezes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you're right. Central banks around the world have
Speaker 1: definitely coordinated and they pump money into the economy. In
Speaker 1: the United States, talking about liquidity, for example, when the
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve rolled out, it's planned to actually start purchasing
Speaker 1: corporate both in the primary and secondary market. A few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, I thought to me that was a bit
Speaker 1: of a game changer, because the credit markets were really
Speaker 1: becoming on glued and just before the Fed even bought
Speaker 1: any corporate bonds, which they started just a week or
Speaker 1: two ago. They basically told the markets that they're going
Speaker 1: to do sort of their Mario Draggy moment where they
Speaker 1: said we're gonna do whatever it takes, and that's that
Speaker 1: announcement by the Federal Reserve a few weeks ago, basically
Speaker 1: started to free up the credit markets. And you need
Speaker 1: a functioning credit market for the economy to function. So
Speaker 1: what do you worry the most about here, Michael, I
Speaker 1: think there are a number of concerns we have right now.
Speaker 1: One is China US relations seem to be getting worse
Speaker 1: after starting to get better last year. We have rising
Speaker 1: debt levels, that levels arising very quickly as a result
Speaker 1: of all the spending going on. We don't think that's
Speaker 1: a problem for right now because it's so inexpensive to
Speaker 1: finance all this debt, but but down the road we
Speaker 1: may certainly face higher taxes. We have the upcoming election
Speaker 1: this fall, which will bring some uncertain and then there's
Speaker 1: obviously concerns about the strength the recovery, how long will
Speaker 1: we replet, how long it will take to replace all
Speaker 1: the jobs that have been lost. And then there's also
Speaker 1: the fear as we go into the fall, that COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen could make a return later this year. That's what
Speaker 1: I worry about though, um certainly that the virus coming back,
Speaker 1: but I do wonder about labor dislocations of you know,
Speaker 1: temporary workers losing jobs and those temporary job cuts become permanent.
Speaker 1: And we just did a story. We talked with our
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Economics team. You'll initially of our senior US economist,
Speaker 1: you know that it's not just blue collar now we're
Speaker 1: looking at another way that will start to impact blue
Speaker 1: white collar jobs as well. Right Like, It's just a
Speaker 1: reminder that when they're just slow down in the economy,
Speaker 1: it's not just one entity, one industry, one company that
Speaker 1: gets impacted. It's their whole whole supply chain, who they
Speaker 1: sell to, who they buy too. It'll be it'll be
Speaker 1: very interesting. We get the monthly jobs before coming out
Speaker 1: this Friday, and the numbers are expecting right now or
Speaker 1: once again going to be sky high. They're expecting a
Speaker 1: decline of about another eight million workers and the unemployment
Speaker 1: rate of nine But I think one of the key
Speaker 1: things going forward is when we had the last job's number,
Speaker 1: the last jobs report, I think the number was something
Speaker 1: like seventy eight five of all the workers said that
Speaker 1: their jobs had just been temporarily downsized. So if those
Speaker 1: jobs do ins fact, if those furtherard workers do eventually
Speaker 1: come back in the not too distant future, I think
Speaker 1: that would certainly set the stage for a more robust
Speaker 1: pickup in the economy and consumer sentiment, consumer spending, So
Speaker 1: that that the job market is definitely something that needs
Speaker 1: to be watched over time. And and so just to
Speaker 1: to press that point a little bit, Michael, the job picture,
Speaker 1: you know, we saw a DP. Never say we see
Speaker 1: jobless comes tomorrow, as you say, we see the monthly
Speaker 1: jobs report on Friday, Like what's the what's the number
Speaker 1: amid all of that, you know, or even a specific
Speaker 1: data point within one of those reports that your most
Speaker 1: uh focused on seeing. Well, I think it's important that
Speaker 1: in general, we economic data has been trending higher. So
Speaker 1: it's not the absolute level that investors are watching, it's
Speaker 1: the rate of change, and that rate of change is
Speaker 1: starting to get better. Weekly jobless claims have now declined
Speaker 1: for eight consecutive weeks, and they were still over two
Speaker 1: million last week, which is incredibly high number. Historically, but
Speaker 1: the trend is definitely positive, and you're seeing that in
Speaker 1: other areas like auto sales, for example, which rose from
Speaker 1: about eight and a half to twelve million units yesterday.
Speaker 1: The I S M Services Index rose from about five.
Speaker 1: So you're seeing a number of economic statistics either getting
Speaker 1: less worse or starting to get better. But jobs will
Speaker 1: definitely be important. It could very well take several quarters
Speaker 1: or two or three years until we make back the
Speaker 1: majority of the jobs that were lost over the past
Speaker 1: several months. Michael, the jump back that we've seen in stocks,
Speaker 1: um the bounce back we're up about the S and
Speaker 1: P five was still off are high, yes, but we're
Speaker 1: still down about three percent so far to day. Makes
Speaker 1: sense to you so far? Or is? Do you think
Speaker 1: the equity markets are getting ahead of them and just
Speaker 1: got about thirty seconds here? Sure? Well, looking at evaluation
Speaker 1: right now, the S and P s trading at about
Speaker 1: twenty four times this year's numbers and twenty times next
Speaker 1: year's numbers, so a lot of good news has certainly
Speaker 1: been been priced in. I think as long as the
Speaker 1: direction of the economy continues to improve in the months ahead,
Speaker 1: I think the benefit of the doubt will be towards
Speaker 1: higher equity markets, but it won't be in a straight line,
Speaker 1: all right, Michael Sheldon, thank you so much. Good to
Speaker 1: catch up with you as always. Michael Sheldon is the
Speaker 1: executive director, chief Investment Officer of High Tower RDM Financial Group,
Speaker 1: joining us on the phone from Westport. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on Itune,
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