Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg P and L Podcast. I'm Pim
Speaker 1: Fox along with my co host Lisa A. Bramowitz. Each
Speaker 1: day we bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful
Speaker 1: interviews for you and your money, whether you're at the
Speaker 1: grocery store or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg P
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Speaker 1: And with us this morning as we await testimony from
Speaker 1: a current FED chair, Janet Yellen is Dan Moss. He
Speaker 1: is economics editor and columnist for Bloomberg View, as well
Speaker 1: as Dave Wilson, who is our permanent bitcoin watcher and
Speaker 1: is watching the price sword. We've got a few other
Speaker 1: bitcoin watchers. I do have a bitcoin chart of the
Speaker 1: day out today. All right, we'll get to that in
Speaker 1: a second. Dan, I want to start with you, and
Speaker 1: I want to talk about Jannet Yellen with the gloves off.
Speaker 1: She has no longer going to be FED chair come
Speaker 1: early next year. Do you think that she's going to
Speaker 1: get kind of feisty and say things that are sort
Speaker 1: of controversial today? She's not a particularly feisty person. Having
Speaker 1: listened to her in her role as vice chair, her
Speaker 1: role as chair before that in the Clinton administration when
Speaker 1: she was chair of the c A. She's not a
Speaker 1: boastful person, very humble person. But look, she wouldn't be
Speaker 1: human if she didn't think, here's my chance to do
Speaker 1: a victory lack all right, So what's she going to do?
Speaker 1: Is she just basically going to go over the progress
Speaker 1: the FED did made under her control? Or is they're
Speaker 1: going to be possibly more of something more here? It
Speaker 1: depends what she's asked. I mean, there will certainly be
Speaker 1: an element of recapping where we've been, where we are nout.
Speaker 1: Don't forget she's still chair at this point until early February.
Speaker 1: She will be running the f O m C meeting
Speaker 1: next month. J Powell yesterday tipped the committee's hands somewhat
Speaker 1: by saying the case was coming together not such a surprise.
Speaker 1: The famous Dots last published in September projected that. But look,
Speaker 1: there's a number of things that he didn't say that
Speaker 1: she may now feel free to address, Like what happens
Speaker 1: if we're here this time next year they've had their
Speaker 1: three rate increases that the Dots projected, and inflation still
Speaker 1: is not close to two percent. What happens then now
Speaker 1: she's already observed that expectations of inflation might be starting
Speaker 1: to drift a little. So does the committee keep going
Speaker 1: even if inflation doesn't get back to target. Everything is
Speaker 1: predicated on inflation ultimately getting back to target. The other
Speaker 1: thing she could address is the other side of the mandate.
Speaker 1: You know, GDP has been bumping along give or take two,
Speaker 1: for the better part of the last eight years. But
Speaker 1: if there's one thing that's consistently surprised, it's the strength
Speaker 1: of the labor market. The unemployed element right just continues
Speaker 1: to grind lower. It's not inconceivable that in a year's
Speaker 1: time the unemployment right in the United States, for all
Speaker 1: its flaws, could be around three point five. Is that
Speaker 1: the point at which Phillips starts curving? The models all
Speaker 1: tell them it's bound to happen at some point. What
Speaker 1: is that point? Dave Wilson, I want to bring you
Speaker 1: into the conversation just to get your thoughts on what's
Speaker 1: going on in the markets right now. Looking at the
Speaker 1: SMP five hundred, we've got some winners Macy's, for example,
Speaker 1: Advanced Auto Parts, Nordstrom, Coal's viacom or moving higher. But
Speaker 1: Dow just seems to want to move up, and it
Speaker 1: is up more than a hundred points, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of winners today, no question, But one
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting here. We are in the midst of
Speaker 1: a transition in terms of who's going to be running
Speaker 1: the world's most important central bank, and you've got financial
Speaker 1: stocks on its hair. They're higher for the second day,
Speaker 1: and the S and P five hundred, you're looking at
Speaker 1: a four and a half percent gain in the SMP
Speaker 1: five hundred Financials index, biggest for that indicator in a year.
Speaker 1: So people were really worried about where things were going
Speaker 1: to be headed from here. You wouldn't see that kind
Speaker 1: of a move. I don't think. Let's get this in
Speaker 1: a perspective, And Dan, I wanted to bring you in
Speaker 1: on this, I mean J. Powell. Jerome Powell yesterday, uh,
Speaker 1: the upcoming likely FED chair come early next year, was
Speaker 1: very specific about the fact that he did not think
Speaker 1: that there were any too big to fail banks anymore
Speaker 1: in the US and the thought that regulations had been
Speaker 1: had gone a little too far and seemed to really
Speaker 1: note a de regulatory push. I mean, is that what
Speaker 1: we're seeing in the market today, Dan, look he comes
Speaker 1: down on the deregulatory side of the Ledger, but he's
Speaker 1: not what someone like Elizabeth Warren would call a crazy
Speaker 1: de regulator. Look. J. Pale is from the centrist Republican tradition.
Speaker 1: He was original a George H. W. Bush Treasury of Pointe.
Speaker 1: This is not someone who's out there, you know, in
Speaker 1: the constellation where many House Republicans might find themselves in
Speaker 1: the regulatory environment. And just to get back to Dave's point,
Speaker 1: I mean, no one is saying the economy is in
Speaker 1: poor shape. Probably one of the great stories of this
Speaker 1: year when we look back on it is twelve months
Speaker 1: ago people saying, ah yeah, new normal, mediocre global growth. Now,
Speaker 1: this term synchronized upswing appears to be everywhere, and we've
Speaker 1: heard this, but oddly we're not. We haven't heard that before. Well,
Speaker 1: but I want to ask you how much. Also, this
Speaker 1: has to do with the tax plan, and I'm wondering
Speaker 1: what other sectors are going to be benefiting the most
Speaker 1: from the tax plan, which looks like it has a
Speaker 1: better chance of passing the GOP right now, given the
Speaker 1: fact that it would unleash a lot of money for
Speaker 1: these companies for them to buy back shares. Is that
Speaker 1: what we're seeing in some of these stymes. Well, there's
Speaker 1: no doubt that's part of the mix. That there are
Speaker 1: a couple of points though. I remember reading somebody's commentaries
Speaker 1: like how many times can stocks rally on the same
Speaker 1: tax plan? That's one piece of it. Another one another
Speaker 1: one is you know you're comment about stock repurchases. You know,
Speaker 1: we're seeing companies increasingly move away from buy backs and
Speaker 1: towards things like capital spending because business is picking up.
Speaker 1: So you know, you have to wonder, you know, if
Speaker 1: indeed it all does come down and you have the
Speaker 1: tax plan place and lower rates and you name it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, money coming in from overseas, potentially, where is
Speaker 1: it going to go? Is it going to go into
Speaker 1: shareholders pockets? Has happened a decade or so ago in
Speaker 1: large measure when there was a tax holiday, or is
Speaker 1: it going to be? Dare I say it different this time?
Speaker 1: Let me just also mentioned that, of course we're waiting
Speaker 1: for Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yelling to begin her t
Speaker 1: stimony before the Joint Economic Committee in Washington. And just
Speaker 1: to come back to your point, Dave, about banks and
Speaker 1: specifically regional banks, and then your thoughts as well. John
Speaker 1: Kennedy yesterday, Republican senator from Louisiana questioning Jerome Pale specifically
Speaker 1: about whether there was going to be some segmentation in
Speaker 1: terms of oversight, whether banks that are not huge, let's
Speaker 1: say money center banks, all that term maybe out of
Speaker 1: date now, banks such as and I'm just picking the
Speaker 1: list of stocks that are moving higher in the SMP
Speaker 1: five hundred, Dave, sun Trust, Citizens, Huntington's Region, Zience, fifth third,
Speaker 1: BB and T Camerica Discover Financial. These are not what
Speaker 1: you would call too big to fail institutions. Will there
Speaker 1: be a lighter regulatory touch for these institutions and as
Speaker 1: a result, will they be able to enjoy the growth
Speaker 1: that they, at least at the moment, have said has
Speaker 1: been constrained because that they have been targeted with the
Speaker 1: same kind of regulations that big banks have have been
Speaker 1: hit with. Oh, Pimmy, Ryan Kennedy's question really stood out
Speaker 1: because a lot of them were trying to bait him
Speaker 1: on tax correct and he was never going to be
Speaker 1: a surprised. Also, Republican from Louisiana, and I thought that
Speaker 1: he was one of the most sort of direct questioners
Speaker 1: about this particular issue, but is specifically community in regional banks.
Speaker 1: That's right, and his questions were quite pointed as well,
Speaker 1: I mean, amidst the plethora of the committee, this was
Speaker 1: not a SoundBite type inquiry he was making. Look and
Speaker 1: Pale was careful not to commit himself. Remember the object
Speaker 1: of a Senate confirmation hearing is don't create a target
Speaker 1: for yourself and get through. Having said that, the mood
Speaker 1: music of Pal's response was pretty sympathetic in greed, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's sympathetic to these banks. Correct that there
Speaker 1: would be some kind of bifurcation that there was. Actually
Speaker 1: what he was saying is if there's something we can
Speaker 1: do that avoids you getting caught up in the net
Speaker 1: that's been placed around the bigger banks, then we're happy
Speaker 1: to look at it. And he really did sound sympathetic.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, the to be shut not a
Speaker 1: lot of meat real quick. We'd be remiss if we
Speaker 1: didn't also mention North Korea and what was going on there,
Speaker 1: just briefly, Dave, markets don't care, do they. Well, it's
Speaker 1: something that you pay attention to, but you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: trade off at day in and day out, until there's
Speaker 1: something more specific that becomes a front and center issue
Speaker 1: for people. It'll be interesting to see whether Jenny Allen
Speaker 1: has asked about the complacency and markets that were currently feeling.
Speaker 1: We've been listening to Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yelling testify
Speaker 1: before the Joint Economic Committee in Washington. We just heard
Speaker 1: from the chairman, pet Tiberry, the congressman from Ohio Republican
Speaker 1: who will be uh leaving Congressmen. Let I just say something.
Speaker 1: This room was almost entirely empty. This is the last
Speaker 1: time that Jenny Allen is going to speak before the
Speaker 1: Joint Economic Committee, and possibly the last time she testifies
Speaker 1: ever as Federal Reserve Chair. And it was an almost
Speaker 1: empty room, a fairly sort of dry sort of overview
Speaker 1: of her tenure, but nothing really, uh particularly that stands out.
Speaker 1: But it was just sort of amazing to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: it sort of highlights how she's being viewed at this
Speaker 1: point as a lame duck in a way. Well, and
Speaker 1: except for her chairing the next f o MC meeting
Speaker 1: in December, this is perhaps one of her last official
Speaker 1: duties that will be at least in the public eye.
Speaker 1: And we heard questioning from Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz,
Speaker 1: as well as a variety of we had Carolyn Maloney,
Speaker 1: Democratic congresswoman from New York. I just want to point
Speaker 1: out that Pim Fox was really listening and keeping track
Speaker 1: of absolutely everyone, while well, I just thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting only in the sense that, well, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's let's be informed rather than talk about what's interesting.
Speaker 1: Let me bring in Chris Condon, Bloomberg News reporter who
Speaker 1: covers the Federal Reserve. And Chris, thanks for being with us.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to ask you, you know, at the
Speaker 1: very beginning the chairman, Representative Congressman Tiberi. UM, he talked
Speaker 1: about small banks, and that picks up on a theme
Speaker 1: that was mentioned yesterday during the nomination hearings for Jerome
Speaker 1: Powell to succeed Janet Yellen by Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I'm wondering whether this issue of trying to make
Speaker 1: the regulatory environment for small and medium sized banks less
Speaker 1: onerous will will that be something that you believe will
Speaker 1: take take center stage? UM. There certainly is a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure on the FED on that. UM. Yeah, fair
Speaker 1: to say it's in center stage. Whether it's going to happen.
Speaker 1: I have to save him. I've been hearing everyone say
Speaker 1: they're in favor of easing the regulatory burden on community
Speaker 1: banks for years in Washington, Democrats, Republicans, people at the FED,
Speaker 1: people at other regulatory agencies. So what's preventing it from happening.
Speaker 1: It just seems to well, first of all, if they
Speaker 1: wanted to do it legislatively, UM, they can never seem
Speaker 1: to get their act together. UM. There seemed to be
Speaker 1: a lot of bipartisans support UM a while back when
Speaker 1: UH Shelby Richard Shelby was in charge of the Senate
Speaker 1: Banking Committee, but when he went to make some changes
Speaker 1: to UM legislation, he kind of he kind of reached
Speaker 1: too far to the point where Democrats would not get
Speaker 1: on board. So they never kind of carved this area
Speaker 1: out in a piece of legislation and say let's just
Speaker 1: do this for the community banks, which they know everybody
Speaker 1: is in favor of. There's always somebody trying to chuck
Speaker 1: something else into the legislation. Now on the agency sides,
Speaker 1: you know, I I I'm not entirely an expert into
Speaker 1: in terms of the inter agents, the dynamic but there
Speaker 1: seems to be just a sort of dereacratic slowness to this.
Speaker 1: It does take a long time to agree to things. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: Randy Quarrels is the new vice chair for Supervision at
Speaker 1: the FED. J. Powell will be the new chairman. The
Speaker 1: two of those guys are very close, and maybe they'll
Speaker 1: have a chance to speed things up, to put a
Speaker 1: little new energy into that that area where everyone seems
Speaker 1: to already agree. Yeah, well, I guess that we will see. Chris,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. Chris cond and
Speaker 1: Federal Reserve reporter for Bloomberg. One thing that Chair Yellen
Speaker 1: was asked about was the tax plan currently uh sort
Speaker 1: of careening toward being passed by the GOP and joining
Speaker 1: us now is to lou Alrinapa, he's a White House
Speaker 1: correspondent for Bloomberg, and you wrote a story that I
Speaker 1: thought was really compelling. Uh. And Tolu, why don't you
Speaker 1: just lay it out for us regarding what you found
Speaker 1: when you looked at companies and what they might do
Speaker 1: the extra cash that they that would be freed up
Speaker 1: from the tax cuts. Yeah. One of the most compelling
Speaker 1: arguments of the White House has tried to make about
Speaker 1: this tax bill on the corporate tax cut, is that
Speaker 1: basically the companies would take all of this extra money
Speaker 1: that they're going to get from lower taxes and plow
Speaker 1: it directly into higher wages and new jobs. They even
Speaker 1: put out a report saying that there would be an
Speaker 1: average wage increase of four thousand to nine thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: So what we did was look at what the CEOs
Speaker 1: of these companies are telling their investors, and we're hearing
Speaker 1: a very different message. They're telling their shareholders that a
Speaker 1: lot of this money is going to go directly into
Speaker 1: share by backs and paying for dividends and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of rewarding their investors, not necessarily paying for higher
Speaker 1: wages and rewarding their workers with higher wages and better jobs.
Speaker 1: So that that disconnected something that we looked at, and
Speaker 1: it's sort of undercuts the message that the President has
Speaker 1: has been putting out as he's trying to try to
Speaker 1: campaign for this tax cut, saying that this is the
Speaker 1: way to create jobs and create wages. Instead, it does
Speaker 1: appear that a lot of these companies are going to
Speaker 1: use this money just to reward their shareholders and not
Speaker 1: necessarily give it directly to their workers or start uh,
Speaker 1: you know, creating new jobs and reinvesting in plants. So
Speaker 1: that was sort of what we looked at in the story,
Speaker 1: and we highlight a lot of the commentary that we've
Speaker 1: seen from CEOs from a lot of major companies that
Speaker 1: have a lot of this money either piled piled up
Speaker 1: overseas or currently uh anticipating a very large windfall from
Speaker 1: a lower corporate tax rate, and they're already making plans
Speaker 1: or where they're going to do with the money, and
Speaker 1: it does not sync up with what the White House
Speaker 1: is saying it's going to happen to lou I wanted
Speaker 1: to just throw you something and if it's not in
Speaker 1: your Bailey Wick, you know, please by all means say so.
Speaker 1: But you know, there's been a back and forth debate
Speaker 1: about what happens with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mack, and
Speaker 1: the Federal Housing Finance Agency is in discussions with the
Speaker 1: White House over what to do with more than seven
Speaker 1: billion dollars that is actually owed to the government at
Speaker 1: the the year by Fannie and Freddie. Have you heard
Speaker 1: anything about these negotiations and any information about the sort
Speaker 1: of perspective that the White House has about the future
Speaker 1: of these g s s. Yeah, this is a little
Speaker 1: bit outside of my expertise, but I do know that
Speaker 1: with this current fighting going on with the Consumer Financial
Speaker 1: Protection Bureau, um, that's one of the things that the
Speaker 1: White House is looking at, sort of trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do when it comes to Fannie Mae
Speaker 1: and Freddie mac. It does appear that the White House
Speaker 1: has struggled to sort of have a governing coalition that
Speaker 1: looks at, um, some of these major issues, how how
Speaker 1: involved the government should be in the housing market, how
Speaker 1: heavily involved the government should be with regulations. It's not
Speaker 1: something that we've heard the President talk about directly, so
Speaker 1: it's it's somewhat of a mystery to know sort of
Speaker 1: what's going on behind the scenes. Um, But it isn't
Speaker 1: an issue that is going to be on the President's
Speaker 1: desk pretty soon, and we just haven't haven't heard very
Speaker 1: much publicly out what his position is going to be.
Speaker 1: To Luke, can you just give us a sense of
Speaker 1: what's ahead as far as the most controversial portions of
Speaker 1: the GOP bill that still have to be sold, as
Speaker 1: well as well as just sort of the schedule going
Speaker 1: forward of passing the bill. Yeah, probably right now. What
Speaker 1: has emerged as the most controversial portion is this idea
Speaker 1: of a trigger in order to get a couple of
Speaker 1: the holdouts to vote for this, uh, this tax bill.
Speaker 1: They they're working on some sort of trigger that would
Speaker 1: be sort of a backstop in case the growth project
Speaker 1: projections that have been put forward don't um don't come
Speaker 1: into fruition over time, then we would have some kind
Speaker 1: of trigger to return some of that revenue and make
Speaker 1: sure that the government doesn't end up increasing the federal debt.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of pushback from a number of various
Speaker 1: conservative groups, a number of different senators who don't like
Speaker 1: the idea of automatic tax increases that could happen even
Speaker 1: during a economic downturn. But sort of square ring that
Speaker 1: hole and making sure that you have those senators who
Speaker 1: are concerned about the deficit as well as those senators
Speaker 1: who are concerned about the idea of a trigger being
Speaker 1: able to appease both of those camps is going to
Speaker 1: be very complex, and they're working on that and sort
Speaker 1: of behind the scenes, and if they're able to do that,
Speaker 1: then we could see a vote as quickly as Thursday
Speaker 1: on the Senate floor. Then they would go to conference
Speaker 1: and over the next few days the House in the
Speaker 1: Senate would try to work out even more of the
Speaker 1: issues that they have between the two houses. Some of
Speaker 1: the differences in the bill would have to be worked
Speaker 1: out before a final vote in a bill that would
Speaker 1: make it to the President's desk. Thank you very much
Speaker 1: for being with us. Always a pleasure to lou Alaripa.
Speaker 1: He is our White House correspondent for Bloomberg News and
Speaker 1: thanks for listening. I'm pim Fox my co host Lisa Abramowitz.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast.
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