Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Karl Masser and I'm
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanovk. We're here every day bringing
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Speaker 1: Eastern Time on the Bloomberg Radio or watch us on
Speaker 1: YouTube search Bloomberg clovel News. Timan I mentioned some of
Speaker 1: the headlines that are out there. We mentioned the FDA
Speaker 1: authorizing Fiser's COVID booster for sixteen and seventeen year old
Speaker 1: some mornings from the New York City mayor build the
Speaker 1: Blasio concerned about hospitals. And the thing is, Tim, we
Speaker 1: know that this variant right is not as virulent, but
Speaker 1: we are seeing it's more contagious. I want to be careful.
Speaker 1: We don't know at this point. Okay, folks have told
Speaker 1: us exactly yeah, and and and indications seemed to be
Speaker 1: an indications seemed to be pointing in that direction, but
Speaker 1: it's still we're still at a point from understanding that
Speaker 1: we're waiting on the data to come in, right we
Speaker 1: do any more data, that's a good point. The thing
Speaker 1: is where are concerned about the stresses on our system,
Speaker 1: whether it's our medical and healthcare system, which we've definitely
Speaker 1: seen already around the world. Uh Meantime, we did mention
Speaker 1: a study showing the omicron variant four time four point
Speaker 1: two times more transmissible than the delta variant in its
Speaker 1: early stages. And again that's based on data that we're
Speaker 1: getting out of South Africa. So let's get to it
Speaker 1: with our guest. Dr Cassar to a Lot is with us.
Speaker 1: She is Associate Professor of International Health. She's gonna expertise
Speaker 1: and infectious disease and diseases and international health at the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She joins us
Speaker 1: on the phone from Tacoma Park, Maryland. Dr to Lot,
Speaker 1: good to have you here on Bloomberg Radio. How are
Speaker 1: you very well? Thank you and it's a pasure to
Speaker 1: be here. Well, it's great to have you here when
Speaker 1: you get up in the morning and you want to
Speaker 1: know what the top headlines are when it comes to
Speaker 1: the pandemic. What are the things that you're most looking
Speaker 1: out for. I'm looking for the number of cases, how
Speaker 1: quickly they're going up or whether they're coming down. Also
Speaker 1: the number of deaths. UM. I'm looking to see how
Speaker 1: fast the omicron variant is spreading, UM and how many
Speaker 1: countries and UM. Also looking to see UM any vaccine news.
Speaker 1: So it's very exciting today that the FDA authorized the
Speaker 1: booster for sixteen and seventeen year olds. So what would
Speaker 1: you advise sixteen and seventeen year olds who have gotten
Speaker 1: two shots. Would you say, hey, go out and get
Speaker 1: a booster as soon as you can. I think it
Speaker 1: honestly depends on their risks. So if they are living
Speaker 1: in a state where they because most sixteen and seven
Speaker 1: two year olds haven't been vaccinated for as long just
Speaker 1: because they weren't an initial priority group, UM. So if
Speaker 1: they were living in a state where they have really
Speaker 1: high transmission rates and the cases are going up very quickly, UM,
Speaker 1: and they're going to school there may be going to work, UM.
Speaker 1: Often they you know, kids are in service jobs where
Speaker 1: they're forward facing with the public, I would say would
Speaker 1: be something to think about. Um, you know, if they are,
Speaker 1: if they don't have a lot of risk factors, they
Speaker 1: don't live with somebody who's necessarily I mean compromise, they
Speaker 1: could probably wait because, um, you know, at sixteen and seventeen,
Speaker 1: your immune system is amazing, and so they've had a
Speaker 1: very good response to the original two doses of vaccine.
Speaker 1: I always wonder too, And maybe because I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, for me once, shame on you, for me twice,
Speaker 1: shame on me. And I guess I bring that up
Speaker 1: because you know, if I go back a year ago,
Speaker 1: I think we all thought we would be. We're in
Speaker 1: a much better place, no doubt about it. A lot
Speaker 1: of vaccines have gone out. I'm back at work regularly,
Speaker 1: so are a lot of my colleagues. Restaurants are open,
Speaker 1: you can go in and out of stores. But I
Speaker 1: do think we thought, okay, we would be out of this. Um,
Speaker 1: we're learning a hard lesson in real time. What is
Speaker 1: it What is it that we need to keep in
Speaker 1: mind about that and maybe what it tells us about
Speaker 1: our future? UM. I think what we we need to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is that nobody is safe on tob
Speaker 1: are all protected, and so we live in a very
Speaker 1: very connected world. And so until everybody in the world
Speaker 1: is vaccinated, we're going to keep seeing variance arizing. UM.
Speaker 1: And so just vaccinating the United States and people in
Speaker 1: the United States over and over again isn't going to
Speaker 1: protect us from the development of these variants. I do
Speaker 1: want to actually UM caveat something I just said about
Speaker 1: sixteen and seventeen year old UM. The f d A
Speaker 1: has authorized the boosters that the CDC has not yet
Speaker 1: MUTCH recommend them it. So right now I would not
Speaker 1: recommend that they get it because it's not available to them. UM.
Speaker 1: But if the CDC advisor Community Aimization Practices meets UM
Speaker 1: and recommends it, then it would be something to consider. Right.
Speaker 1: There's that whole process and and and now we get listen,
Speaker 1: we get caught up in it too. It's like, wait,
Speaker 1: it's a great way, no way, because there's there's multiple
Speaker 1: set as we as we remind everything, it's all happening
Speaker 1: in front of us. Uh, and we're learning a lot
Speaker 1: along the way. UM. You know. I guess what's interesting
Speaker 1: too is I often wonder, I mean, can the can
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen. Can it just burn itself out? Can it
Speaker 1: just die out? I don't think it's going to die out,
Speaker 1: But what we all hope for is it will eventually
Speaker 1: become a milder and milder illness as we all acquire immunity,
Speaker 1: hopefully through vaccination, but unfortunately many people in the world
Speaker 1: are acquiring immunity through repeated natural infections, and as we
Speaker 1: can we see in South Africa. You know, natural infection
Speaker 1: isn't enough to protect you against reinfection with new variants
Speaker 1: and so um, it's really important to get the vaccine
Speaker 1: even if you've had covid um. I think the best
Speaker 1: we can hope for at this point is that it
Speaker 1: will become a cold virus. So I wonder, you know,
Speaker 1: Tim and I were talking as we get into it,
Speaker 1: that one thing we are different from a year ago
Speaker 1: or so is certainly at the start of all of this,
Speaker 1: is we do have vaccines, We do have treatments if
Speaker 1: you are hospitalized. We have a better understanding, We understand
Speaker 1: the value of masks and social distancing, so that when
Speaker 1: there are flare ups, we kind of know what to do.
Speaker 1: Having said that shutdowns working from home UM social distancing again,
Speaker 1: is that something that you think we need to still
Speaker 1: respect and have as a constructive and productive part of
Speaker 1: that tool kit. I think, UM, it would be a
Speaker 1: last resort. UM. But if we if we go through UM,
Speaker 1: are you know, if we try to get people vaccinated
Speaker 1: and we encourage people to wear masks and we still
Speaker 1: see cases rising out of control and hospitalizations um uh,
Speaker 1: the hospitals filling up and people UM not being able
Speaker 1: to access healthcare because there is no space in the
Speaker 1: hospital for them to be admitted for whatever medical problem
Speaker 1: there they have. UM. I think then that's something that
Speaker 1: shut down from UM need to be considered UM. In
Speaker 1: order to protect the health of the public. UM. There's
Speaker 1: so much that we can do to prevent those from happening,
Speaker 1: and vaccination the number one thing that we can do.
Speaker 1: Doctors a lot. I want to go back to something
Speaker 1: that you said earlier, the idea that it must we
Speaker 1: really vaccinate the world. We're going to continue to see
Speaker 1: variants emerge. Given you know that what we've seen in
Speaker 1: the United States, is it kind of unrealistic to think
Speaker 1: that we can actually vaccinate the world. And this is
Speaker 1: going to turn into something like the flu where we
Speaker 1: see new variants each and every year, and we have
Speaker 1: to get shots that are tailored towards toward those versions
Speaker 1: of the flu. We may need to do that, but
Speaker 1: I think we we vaccinate the world against the whole
Speaker 1: post of diseases. You know, the vast maturity of people
Speaker 1: in the world are vaccinated against these. Granted we do
Speaker 1: that in children, UM, young children, UM for the most part,
Speaker 1: but we are increasing our vaccinations for diseases such as
Speaker 1: HPV that we vaccinate ours. So I think, UM, if
Speaker 1: there is a will, we can vaccinate the world. It
Speaker 1: might take a little bit of time. UM, But vaccine
Speaker 1: manufacturers have the capacity to increase manufay ucturing. They should
Speaker 1: be sharing this technology with manufacturers and in the lincome
Speaker 1: countries that are eager and able to make the vaccines. UM,
Speaker 1: and we should be able to get vaccines into as
Speaker 1: many arms as possible. Do you think we could get
Speaker 1: to a point where this could be the type of
Speaker 1: vaccine that we could give children and we can actually
Speaker 1: eradicated in a way that we've only eradicated truly one disease.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to eradicate a restaurant. Um, it is possible. UM.
Speaker 1: It takes a tremendous amount. I mean, as we see,
Speaker 1: we've only eradicated successfully one human disease completely, smallpox. UM.
Speaker 1: We're very close on a couple of others. But it's
Speaker 1: the effort is tremendous. UM. I'm hoping that we get
Speaker 1: to a point where this is a flu like illness
Speaker 1: or a cold like virus UM, where it doesn't cause
Speaker 1: as much severe disease as it is now UM. But
Speaker 1: that that's going to take time, and it's going to
Speaker 1: take a concerted political will from everybody to make her
Speaker 1: that we're all protected. You know. I also do wonder
Speaker 1: it's interesting. Earlier today for the Bloomberg Sustainable Business Sumit,
Speaker 1: I caught up with Sanda O Giambo over at You
Speaker 1: Not in Nations the Global Compact. She's head of that,
Speaker 1: and she talked about the importance of it and said, basically,
Speaker 1: until we are able to get access to vaccines globally,
Speaker 1: will not ever be able to say we are truly
Speaker 1: free your safe from COVID. Having said that, it just
Speaker 1: reminds me about the importance of global collaboration at a
Speaker 1: time where we're seeing strained relations between companies, most notably
Speaker 1: the US and China. Does that worry you going forward?
Speaker 1: So I'm not I'm not a political scientist, but yes,
Speaker 1: I mean every time there are there there is distrust UM,
Speaker 1: there is going to be a lack of willingness to
Speaker 1: share information freely across UM borders and it's and for
Speaker 1: diseases such as UM, for viruses and transmission, it is
Speaker 1: so important for the information to be shared as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible so that the world is aware of what's
Speaker 1: happen beenning. I mean, South African science should be commended
Speaker 1: and applauded for sharing that information so quickly to set
Speaker 1: off the alarm about the omicon variant and and we
Speaker 1: want to encourage that end. When we have free and
Speaker 1: open exchange of ideas UM, it makes things much easier,
Speaker 1: and political stresses can sometimes interfere with that. All right,
Speaker 1: We're gonna leave it on that note. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate your time today. Dr Kassar to a
Speaker 1: lot Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Speaker 1: Public Health, of course, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Bloomberg, ALP and Bloomberg Philanthropy. She's joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Maryland. You know, these conversations every day.
Speaker 1: I kind of learned something and I feel like we
Speaker 1: fine tune what we know about the virus that spread
Speaker 1: and how to deal with it. And look, this is
Speaker 1: you know, somebody who's studied uh bola and vaccines and
Speaker 1: a bolo vaccines and malaria, um vaccines and influenza, and
Speaker 1: she's optimistic that we could actually vaccine ate the world
Speaker 1: against this out. No, absolutely, and I think that comparison,
Speaker 1: that point that she makes when it comes to other
Speaker 1: things that we have certainly eradicated from the world, it's
Speaker 1: a reminder of what we can do. You're listening to
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes
Speaker 1: Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio Business Week. The cover story
Speaker 1: also happens to be among the most read on the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Today and Tim, it's also the Bloomberg Big Take it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all about one vaccine to rule them all. I
Speaker 1: couldn't help but think of some sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings reference. There is that Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. I don't know, it's one vaccine to rule
Speaker 1: them all, wanting to rule them all. It is and uh,
Speaker 1: the story, though, I think is a little bit more nuanced.
Speaker 1: That voice that you're hearing is none other than Joel Webber,
Speaker 1: editor at Bloomberg business Week. He joins us in the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio along with Bob Langrath, healthcare reporter
Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News, also with us in the Bloomberg and
Speaker 1: Active Broker Studio. Bob's story is the cover of the
Speaker 1: new issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's available on
Speaker 1: news stands, online, and at Bloomberg dot com Slash business Week.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this story, Rate is you talk about
Speaker 1: this idea for super vaccine to build to really beat Delta,
Speaker 1: amicron and more. But there's a lot more going on here, Joel,
Speaker 1: about whether or not indeed it will get done. It's
Speaker 1: not just a science story or medical story. It's also
Speaker 1: an economic story. It's all of that. Um But what
Speaker 1: we're ultimately talking about here isn't about just a booster
Speaker 1: or or even anything that's specifically about COVID, although it
Speaker 1: could solve it with but there is a very very
Speaker 1: very early science that suggests that we could actually be
Speaker 1: able to develop something that looks like a pan coronavirus.
Speaker 1: So that would account for not just COVID, but remember mers,
Speaker 1: remember stars, Uh, even maybe even the common cold. Um.
Speaker 1: And again let me underscore this early science. Uh. And
Speaker 1: if this plays out a little bit though, knowing what
Speaker 1: we know now about being able to develop vaccines, it
Speaker 1: might not be so much that the science would be
Speaker 1: the thing that would hold us back so much as
Speaker 1: the economics of it. All Right, So so Bob, take
Speaker 1: us to Singapore, um where some where the science as
Speaker 1: part of the sciences is coming from. Yeah. So we
Speaker 1: begin the story with a lead of one of the
Speaker 1: from one of the kind of world's top bat coronavirus exports,
Speaker 1: a guy named Linfa Wang, and Singapore has been studying
Speaker 1: bad born viruses for decades and one had led the
Speaker 1: team that discovered that stars that was at one of
Speaker 1: the the coronavirus UH deadly chroma virus epidemic and two
Speaker 1: us in three he discovered that came from bats uh
Speaker 1: and uh So when the UH the pandemic started to
Speaker 1: happen early on, he had this idea that maybe some
Speaker 1: of these stars survivors and Singapore some kind of special
Speaker 1: antibodies that they could protect against COVID to look at them.
Speaker 1: It turns out they didn't. But then about a year later,
Speaker 1: you know, those survivors in Singapore, the original stars, you know,
Speaker 1: started getting UH immunizations for COVID, and he had this
Speaker 1: idea like, now they've kind of this is this rare
Speaker 1: window into immune systems have been exposed to these different
Speaker 1: you know, epidemic strains of coronaviruses, and do they have
Speaker 1: some special cross reactive anybodies. They looked again, and they did.
Speaker 1: They had antibodies of protection against like five different coronaviruses
Speaker 1: that have never been a humans before. It feels like
Speaker 1: a holy grail on this. That was the first signs
Speaker 1: like this sort of thing might be possible. And he
Speaker 1: and about you know, ten twelve, thirteen other labs and
Speaker 1: a bunch of smaller biotechs or you know, racing to
Speaker 1: work on this. But you know, a long term the
Speaker 1: key question is if if this continues to look prompting,
Speaker 1: who's going to put up the money to do it
Speaker 1: for the big kind of Manhattan project to do it?
Speaker 1: Fights in Madeia, I don't know so about that. That
Speaker 1: was part of One of the most interesting parts of
Speaker 1: the story I thought is that you know, here we
Speaker 1: are with the omicron variant making its way around the world,
Speaker 1: and the executives of these companies are being asked, are
Speaker 1: you working already on an omicron variant shot? If they're
Speaker 1: giving some sort of shot every six months to attack
Speaker 1: a new variant, that's money in their pockets. So incentives
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily aligned with them creating the shot to end
Speaker 1: all shots. All right, they have a thing, you know,
Speaker 1: that works right now, and they've a kind of procedure
Speaker 1: they know that probably gonna work to make something for
Speaker 1: a new variant, at least for you know, we don't
Speaker 1: know how long these things are gonna work. That's one thing.
Speaker 1: Then if new variants keep coming, you know, even with
Speaker 1: m RNA, which is faster than other vaccine technology, you're
Speaker 1: still scrambling to keep up. You've still gotta know a
Speaker 1: virus that raises ahead of things. So, you know, so
Speaker 1: the riskier thing, but it could pay off, would be
Speaker 1: to put in a lot of money, a big Manhattan
Speaker 1: style research project by someone to see if this universal
Speaker 1: thing is really possible. But someone has to put big
Speaker 1: bucks behind it. If the research continues to be promising. Well,
Speaker 1: the other thing here is like there's there's Big Bucks
Speaker 1: and and there's some of that, right and I h
Speaker 1: just put some of them in there, But there's even
Speaker 1: like potentially different technologies, right, Like we've all come to
Speaker 1: understand the m RNA is one thing, but nanoparticles, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's one of the new tell more. Yeah, i'd
Speaker 1: say like the next next generation like vaccines. So the
Speaker 1: idea behind these nanoparticle vaccines, which is one of the
Speaker 1: main technologies are pursuing for a kind of pan or
Speaker 1: coronavirus shots, is that you have a little kind of
Speaker 1: virus sized particle, it's either some sort of bacterial or
Speaker 1: kind of artificial protein you could just add on a
Speaker 1: little different spike proteins or surface proteins from different coronavirus
Speaker 1: is kind of all over the top. So so it
Speaker 1: looks like to the immune system, looks like a virus
Speaker 1: with pieces of ten different coronaviruses on top, and that
Speaker 1: in theory might train the immune system to kind of
Speaker 1: generate cross reactive antibodies against multiple coronaviruses. And that's what
Speaker 1: they're showing in these lab experiments and area and it's
Speaker 1: mostly lab experience. There's a few Phase one human trials,
Speaker 1: but not many. That's what they're showing that may be
Speaker 1: happening in some of these early experiments. And yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's very intriguing. Okay, so slow that down a little bit.
Speaker 1: It's a completely different technology. It is, some of it
Speaker 1: is being tested. It's very early. Uh, little dongles hanging
Speaker 1: off there, like what what how exactly does all of
Speaker 1: this stuff come together? And if that technology bears out? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll exactly show your question. But it's basically a little
Speaker 1: little you know, protein balls to which you can just
Speaker 1: depend like different spike proteins are literally literally these a
Speaker 1: little little cages and jeer uh. And there's several other
Speaker 1: technologies they're pursuing. And then the question we've got to
Speaker 1: sort through these and you know, see which ones are
Speaker 1: most promising and to go ahead with on a larger scale. Bob,
Speaker 1: does the flu vaccines give us any insight into any
Speaker 1: of this? That's that's a very good question. So you know,
Speaker 1: one thing we note in the story is that you know,
Speaker 1: back on the forties, when you know, at the University
Speaker 1: of Michigan, Uh, there was a guy named Thomas Francis
Speaker 1: and his protege you may have heard of him, Jonah Salk.
Speaker 1: They developed in the first flu vaccines, and early on
Speaker 1: with the flu vaccine, they thought, hey, these look highly promising.
Speaker 1: The results look really really good. Seventy efficacy and oh yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some variants of the flu, but no problem, we'll
Speaker 1: gotta handle of on that. By you know, varying the
Speaker 1: flu from strange from year to year, it was only
Speaker 1: told decades later. So they realized that the efficacy the
Speaker 1: flu vaccine can was mediocre. So the flu, you know,
Speaker 1: provides an example of how hard it is to get
Speaker 1: a handle and you know, respiratory viruses, what's kind of
Speaker 1: annual vaccines. It's a great story. There's so much going on,
Speaker 1: uh and just to understand how science is moving along
Speaker 1: on this and an understanding and maybe a breakthrough going
Speaker 1: down the road. It is the cover story of Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week. It's the big take. It's among the most read.
Speaker 1: Bobbling Breath, another great story as we continue to go
Speaker 1: through this pandemic. All your stuff has always been a
Speaker 1: must read. Bob blaneg greath healthcare reporter U Bloomberg News.
Speaker 1: Here in our Interactive Broker Studio. Jill Webber, Editor Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Business Week, ME Magazine. He's in the kids chair here
Speaker 1: in our studio, kids chair in in a in a
Speaker 1: suit that you know looks really good on a colleague
Speaker 1: to all right, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: So one of the names that we've been watching today
Speaker 1: is Apple again as it continues to grind. It's not
Speaker 1: really grinding higher today, it's just down about two tens
Speaker 1: of percent, so we'll change. But we're watching it so
Speaker 1: closely because it's almost hitting three trillion. Ye right now,
Speaker 1: it's at two point eight six seven billion to trillion.
Speaker 1: Excuse me, two point eight six seven. It's been a
Speaker 1: bit above that. But um, we all are um, let's
Speaker 1: get to it there because there's some interesting stuff. Are
Speaker 1: Mark German put out a story about Apple Apparently there
Speaker 1: are company's self driving car project, him losing three key engineers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So interestingly enough, a lot of those engineers headed to
Speaker 1: other transportation startups. For this, we bring in Ed Ludlow,
Speaker 1: West Coast correspondent at Bloomberg News. He joins us now
Speaker 1: from our Los Angeles bureau in southern California, no longer
Speaker 1: northern California. It's usually joining us from. And a couple
Speaker 1: of things stand out to me about this story. One is,
Speaker 1: you know who who actually left Apple, but but also
Speaker 1: where they're going. Let's get to that in just a second. First,
Speaker 1: what do we know up to now about what Apple's
Speaker 1: doing when it comes to autos? Well, just retty quick,
Speaker 1: I mean Carol talking about three trillion, right. The reason
Speaker 1: that Morgan Stanley raised his price target at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the week is they said these future endeavors, future
Speaker 1: products like an Apple car, just aren't priced into the stock.
Speaker 1: That's why we're paying such close attention. Right. But this
Speaker 1: is has been the main podcast story, not what they've done,
Speaker 1: but the sort of merry go round of executives. You know,
Speaker 1: their leader on the right radar front has departed for
Speaker 1: a startup. Radar really important part of the sensor suite
Speaker 1: which goes into autonomous technology. And we know from Mark
Speaker 1: German's fantastic scoop last month that is what Apple wants
Speaker 1: to do, right, They want to start with a fully
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicle, not sort of a normal car, and build
Speaker 1: up to it. What's going on here? Is it just
Speaker 1: so much competition ed for these individuals as expertise in particular. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone is finding this difficult, first of all, to decide
Speaker 1: what the product is. You know, if you think about Cruise,
Speaker 1: you know, the startup backed by General Motors or Zooks,
Speaker 1: the self driving arm of Amazon, they have got a
Speaker 1: very clear model. They're making this shuttle. It has no
Speaker 1: steering wheel, no pedals, You sit in it, multiple passengers
Speaker 1: facing each other. It's not a passenger car. Then you
Speaker 1: look at Weymo. Weymo's model has been to retrofit normal cars,
Speaker 1: and even though they have a steering wheel and the iron,
Speaker 1: you know, take the driver away. And for a long
Speaker 1: time that's been the story of Apple. They couldn't quite
Speaker 1: decide what it is they were building toward until last month,
Speaker 1: of course, when Mark German reported they'd settled on this
Speaker 1: fully autonomous, no steering wheel, no pedals design and it's
Speaker 1: basically a passenger shuttle. The question is can Apple achieve that? Right,
Speaker 1: They're not a car company. Can Apple achieve that with
Speaker 1: these relatively high level defections as well. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: really interesting because in all parts of the electric vehicle industry,
Speaker 1: which I use as an umbrella, right and thinking of
Speaker 1: rivians and loosers and testers, all the self driving specialists,
Speaker 1: the battle for talent is fierce. But it seems with
Speaker 1: Apple they've brought in some really high profile people and
Speaker 1: those people haven't lasted very long. You know, Project Titan,
Speaker 1: you know, the special projects division of Apple has been
Speaker 1: working on this since two thousand fourteen. There's been no consistency,
Speaker 1: and it's in leadership and you know, the high stink profile,
Speaker 1: and some of that was Doug Field, Right, Doug Field
Speaker 1: led the project for three is he went to Ford
Speaker 1: this year to be their sort of chief technologist, which
Speaker 1: doesn't speak very much to Apple's progress, right, yeah? He
Speaker 1: Are these folks leaving um Apple? Is it because they
Speaker 1: can get more money elsewhere? Or is it because there's
Speaker 1: still some confusion. Perhaps I'm just throwing out a word
Speaker 1: in terms of the Apple car project because I feel
Speaker 1: like we've been talking about Apple Car for a long time. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's fantastic question. You know, we do have to read
Speaker 1: between the lines a little bit because Apple is so secretive.
Speaker 1: That's what Morgan Stanley said in their note One reason
Speaker 1: the share price doesn't reflect the potential of an Apple car.
Speaker 1: We don't know anything about it. But what we do
Speaker 1: know is that Kevin Lynch, who is kind of the
Speaker 1: leader of the Apple Watch and health software at Apple,
Speaker 1: has taken over ownership of this car project. So the departures,
Speaker 1: you know reading you know, the fantastic bloombed coverage and
Speaker 1: the names that have come and gone. It seems that
Speaker 1: with each turn Apple makes in a new direction of
Speaker 1: what this project actually is, That's where you see people
Speaker 1: move on. You know, no one doubts Apple software expertise.
Speaker 1: I think that universally across Wall Street, across industry experts,
Speaker 1: people say, yep, Apple can get the software side of
Speaker 1: this done. What it takes from an AI perspective to
Speaker 1: achieve full autonomy? Where are their car expertise? Where are
Speaker 1: their expertise in the hardware like lidar radar that goes
Speaker 1: into this project, And that seems to be where there's
Speaker 1: the highest turnover, and interestingly enough, back to where we
Speaker 1: started at the high level, relatively high level of defections,
Speaker 1: they're headed to um flying taxi startups air tax Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: what what is the promise here when it comes to
Speaker 1: getting from one place to another? Like an uber with
Speaker 1: with with air through the air, like an uber for
Speaker 1: the air. Get ready to cringe, guys, I can already
Speaker 1: feel your shoulders. This is the most Silicon Valley answer
Speaker 1: I'll ever give you. But but lots of these people
Speaker 1: are mission oriented, right, their project oriented. You know, there
Speaker 1: are people who are fantastically successful at Tesla for example,
Speaker 1: and moved on one of them moved on to Apple
Speaker 1: for example, for example. Many have moved on to Rivian
Speaker 1: because they take a thrill out of succeeding with the
Speaker 1: new products bringing it to market. That's one answer, right
Speaker 1: that they look at a new opportunity and say, I've
Speaker 1: been an Apple a few years, We've not made progress.
Speaker 1: I would love and to launch a flying electric taxi
Speaker 1: air taxi. That's just nuts to say out loud, but
Speaker 1: it's true. You know, these are engineers with fantastic talent.
Speaker 1: There's a point where getting on the moon was considered
Speaker 1: fantastical and here we you know, look at what we're
Speaker 1: doing right now. It's pretty remarkable. Ed La Loow, We
Speaker 1: love you, Ed Laulow's West Coast correspondent AP Bloomberg News
Speaker 1: got in San Francisco today. He's an l A. That's
Speaker 1: because he's going to be alive from the port tomorrow
Speaker 1: Los Angeles and Long Beach, and he's going to bring
Speaker 1: us the latest on what's going on there? Are we
Speaker 1: emptying them? Am? I only get mahmided gifts the way
Speaker 1: to translation that we get tomorrow that read that could
Speaker 1: be yeah, but you let me drive. Oh no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, this is not a toy. All right, I
Speaker 1: want to try. It's a good question. This is the
Speaker 1: drive to the clothes on Bloomberg Radio. All right, folks,
Speaker 1: So just about ten minutes left in today's trading session
Speaker 1: here on this Thursday, we've been bouncing around here on
Speaker 1: the equity average. Is dug breaking it down. We're definitely
Speaker 1: off our best levels of the day, in particular on
Speaker 1: the SMP and the nasdacs. They were still lower on
Speaker 1: the SMP and NAZAK. The Dow though the out performer,
Speaker 1: and it's just off its highs of the session, but
Speaker 1: not huge moves. Although techt and beating up a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a consumer discussionary as well. Thanks to TESLA
Speaker 1: being significantly lower. Um, I'm watching the range here because
Speaker 1: what in the spund at least, yeah, range anxiety, UM,
Speaker 1: the range of the S As far as where it's
Speaker 1: traded today, it's relatively narrow. I mean just about trading
Speaker 1: between you know, up and down six tents of a percent,
Speaker 1: all negative. But I think the last three days not significant, No, exactly.
Speaker 1: We've seen some really big swings in either direction depending
Speaker 1: on what's going on with COVID, the omicron variant, what
Speaker 1: the thinking is in terms of market psychology when it
Speaker 1: comes to the FED, I think it's safe to say
Speaker 1: that at this point, I mean, the vics though we're
Speaker 1: seeing a bit of a bump up one point four
Speaker 1: points higher today one though still low if you think
Speaker 1: about it on a historical basis. But I think it's
Speaker 1: really safe to say that because of the inflation report
Speaker 1: tomorrow and the FED meeting, we're going to see investors
Speaker 1: to some extent market time. Why not why not wait
Speaker 1: to see what kind of clarity we get out of
Speaker 1: the effect. Well, let's see what kind of clarity we
Speaker 1: get from Hillary Cramer, President and chief investment Officer at
Speaker 1: A and G Capital Research. Also the author of Game
Speaker 1: Change or Investing, How to Profit from Tomorrow's billion dollar trend.
Speaker 1: She joins us on the phone from Mexico. Hillary, how
Speaker 1: are you very good tim n to speak with you today.
Speaker 1: You're doing better than us Mexico. Well, Mexico was actually
Speaker 1: very interesting because the labor here is extremely cheap. It's
Speaker 1: just unbelievable because I've spent a lot of time in Mexico.
Speaker 1: I was involved with building the Teluco whole road many
Speaker 1: years ago, and uh, it's kind of shocking. And then
Speaker 1: I went to Walmart, um and because we had a
Speaker 1: lost suitcase, and I couldn't get over that. It's much
Speaker 1: more expensive than in the United States. And I give
Speaker 1: Walmart kudos for there. It must be artificial intelligence and
Speaker 1: they've figured out exactly how to price and so I'm
Speaker 1: still doing my store checks and still working even down here.
Speaker 1: That's good to hear. Okay, So, um, hell, you want
Speaker 1: to get your thoughts on what Carol and I were
Speaker 1: talking about and trying to make sense of after three
Speaker 1: day rally. Really what we're seeing today the sp f F
Speaker 1: F under training and kind of ano range and really
Speaker 1: the underperformers, the NAZAC and Russell two thousand. That's right,
Speaker 1: and it's really uh the what would your thousand? That
Speaker 1: was just looking really really like getting destroyed. You know,
Speaker 1: I had to rest bite and it's going down fast. Look,
Speaker 1: we have a lot of pressures. We have the property
Speaker 1: situation in China and the and the concern about a
Speaker 1: default China. Okay, we have the whole issue of let's
Speaker 1: say software stocks for example, UM that look too already peaks.
Speaker 1: We have retailed down eleven percent XR R. Teason's early November,
Speaker 1: which both is very poorly given that we're in the holidays,
Speaker 1: and we have all this pressure on the sad. Okay,
Speaker 1: it's the CPI tomorrow. Is what it's really all about,
Speaker 1: is we have another hot CPI. The political pressure from
Speaker 1: the consumer UM puts the seat in a very very
Speaker 1: difficult situation. Well, and it's interesting because we just had
Speaker 1: David Weston catching up with Brian moynahan Bank of America CEO,
Speaker 1: and he did talk about raining inflation is going to
Speaker 1: be the hard work. But he also talked about consumer spending.
Speaker 1: Is that more than vers so that's above pre pandemic levels.
Speaker 1: The consumers really strong. I scratched my head with so
Speaker 1: many people, what do we what was the headline, Americans
Speaker 1: have quit more from April to September of this year,
Speaker 1: have just quit the labor force. We're Americans getting this money.
Speaker 1: It has so much really been saved up during the
Speaker 1: pandemic because we know those government programs are coming to
Speaker 1: an end or have come to an end. Well, that's
Speaker 1: exactly the point, Carol, you really hit on it. Everyone
Speaker 1: has become and I say everyone, I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: everyday investor, everyday person has become so used to um
Speaker 1: the entitlement that that came out of necessity. Of course,
Speaker 1: I mean that was that was a life favor when
Speaker 1: they came, but everyone became used to a certain lifestyle. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know, and now give companies that you know right,
Speaker 1: companies can't fill jobs. They just can't fill jobs. And
Speaker 1: people aren't going back into the workforce, which is why
Speaker 1: it circled right back to the set. And how ridiculous
Speaker 1: it is. I know that they're bringing it to an end,
Speaker 1: but how can the stead be buying a hundred billion
Speaker 1: dollars a month of of bonds when you have all
Speaker 1: of these people who aren't working, and you have all
Speaker 1: this consumer pressure and costs going to the roofs and
Speaker 1: people are spending and that's creating more of the demand
Speaker 1: and they've made money in the market lot of it's
Speaker 1: a stock market rally. I mean, that's trillions of dollars
Speaker 1: that we've seen. Well, let's talk a little bit about Apple,
Speaker 1: because that's a company that you say is is priced
Speaker 1: for growth. We're on three trillion dollar watch right now.
Speaker 1: Why are you bullish on Apple? Apple tied it all up.
Speaker 1: They're really brilliant. I used to think it's a hardware company,
Speaker 1: and hardware companies always have a demise in the end,
Speaker 1: but it's not. Apple figured it out, so their software,
Speaker 1: their hardware, um they own it all. And now that
Speaker 1: Apple has migrated and taken over businesses, right, that was
Speaker 1: the last like that. That was really where they had
Speaker 1: to go and they did it. The pandemic took them
Speaker 1: over the edge and companies have gone to Apple. And
Speaker 1: that was and there was so much resistance as we
Speaker 1: know for years regarding that. Are you talking about Apple
Speaker 1: pay in particular or what are you talking about? The
Speaker 1: pay hasn't made it the way when you think about
Speaker 1: you know, payple out there in Venmo and Zel and
Speaker 1: what they've done. But Apple pay will find a way.
Speaker 1: But what do you mean, what do you mean people
Speaker 1: like during the pandemic have found Apple and have gone
Speaker 1: over to Apple. What do you mean just real quickly
Speaker 1: just got over because they had to go virtual and
Speaker 1: when faced with the decision and the choice for it,
Speaker 1: they they they went to Apple. And companies, big companies
Speaker 1: that were all networked for um, you know, computer PCs,
Speaker 1: they went to Apple and they had to because it
Speaker 1: was all interconnected with the handheld devices. So Apple just
Speaker 1: forced them into it. When when that BlackBerry died, I
Speaker 1: don't think many people realize that you could put your
Speaker 1: money into Apple and you could become a billionaire. Really
Speaker 1: matter here? All right, Hillary, We've got to run. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much, Hillary Kramer, She's president, chief investment officer
Speaker 1: at A and G Capital Research, on the phone from Mexico.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast
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