Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. All right, let's switch
Speaker 1: gears from the markets a little bit talk about pay
Speaker 1: and the pay gaps, the gender pay gaps. We've heard
Speaker 1: a lot about this issue. It's not getting better by
Speaker 1: many standards, and maybe the pandemic made it even worse.
Speaker 1: And it's certainly affecting all parts of the economy and
Speaker 1: that includes uh NBA's as well. A Lissa Sangster joins us,
Speaker 1: the CEO of Forte Foundation and Lista, thanks so much
Speaker 1: for joining us here. So talk to us about the
Speaker 1: NBA market. Um, I'm on the board of the NBA
Speaker 1: School at Dukes, so I kind of know the day
Speaker 1: to hear. But just share with us, what's the difference
Speaker 1: the pay gender gap for NBA students when they get
Speaker 1: out and then made even later in their career. Sure,
Speaker 1: that's great. I I'd love to say that, you know,
Speaker 1: we're seeing improvement across the board, but of course every
Speaker 1: road has its thorn. UM And on the bright side,
Speaker 1: we're seeing NBA gender pay gap overall shrinks from around
Speaker 1: two years ago to about now so between men and women.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying the GAP's gone, but it definitely has
Speaker 1: um improved. And where is that improvement impetus coming from.
Speaker 1: Is that on companies that these graduates are applying for.
Speaker 1: Is it NBA schools themselves trying to help even things
Speaker 1: out UM? You know, I think it's a combination of factors.
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing more women in the NBA pipeline
Speaker 1: pursuing these UM top careers, so I think you're seeing
Speaker 1: them have access to more of those high paying salaries UM.
Speaker 1: And I think you're seeing companies pay more attention to
Speaker 1: it over the last few years about how they're advancing
Speaker 1: UM employees internally and making sure that there is equitable
Speaker 1: advance intimate across all of those top paying jobs. You know, Lissa,
Speaker 1: one of the issue things that I've seen experienced personally
Speaker 1: in my career having managed people UM, is that oftentimes,
Speaker 1: you know NBA's will male and female will come in
Speaker 1: at a similar or the exact same compensation package. UM,
Speaker 1: But then things go arrive from there. Uh that's where
Speaker 1: the women will lag in future years. And so when
Speaker 1: you get to the partner or managing director level, there
Speaker 1: is by far there's not a fair representation what are
Speaker 1: the challenges there and what are some of the ways
Speaker 1: to address those? Sure, So UM, I definitely think different
Speaker 1: choices are made, and so I think there's kind of
Speaker 1: a combination of uh decisions by the companies and also
Speaker 1: by the individuals pursuing opportunities. And so I think we
Speaker 1: see in our research that women end up several years
Speaker 1: later having fewer direct reports, they have had fewer promotions
Speaker 1: than their male counterparts. And so UM exactly what the
Speaker 1: find all that UM is not specifically clear. Like I said,
Speaker 1: it is a combination of things. But I also think
Speaker 1: that women are often motivated by UM their impact on
Speaker 1: the organization there UM, they're motivated by kind of the
Speaker 1: value that they see that they're contributing. Their less motivated
Speaker 1: by achieving that top salary and that being the indicator
Speaker 1: of their success. And so I think that you see
Speaker 1: women making maybe very different choices about which path they
Speaker 1: take in their career, and often it might be walking
Speaker 1: away from a top salary at a big company and
Speaker 1: going to a smaller company where they feel like they
Speaker 1: have bigger impact, maybe not as big as pay. If
Speaker 1: we kind of step back and take a look at
Speaker 1: the thirty thousand foot view, an NBA isn't cheap, right.
Speaker 1: It costs you a lot of money to invest in
Speaker 1: getting that additional education. Does it still pay off? It
Speaker 1: definitely doesn't and your long term career earnings and in
Speaker 1: the opportunities that are available to you. And so I
Speaker 1: think that often what you see, especially in these full
Speaker 1: time programs you mentioned Duke students are coming through this
Speaker 1: program as career switchers, and they're looking to pivot in
Speaker 1: their career and go into something that they would not
Speaker 1: have had an access to normally without that NBA experience
Speaker 1: or pathway. So it's opportunity to top jobs working for
Speaker 1: very important companies and places that they can do amazing things.
Speaker 1: And so those opportunities aren't always available to you without
Speaker 1: that pivot. And I will say that one of the
Speaker 1: things Sporting Foundation does is supply scholarships through our Business
Speaker 1: School for women pursuing those MBAs so they are given
Speaker 1: opportunities those top women candidate to pursue these nbas with
Speaker 1: a substantial scholarship support. So listen, can you give us
Speaker 1: maybe some examples or an example of an industry or
Speaker 1: a company that's doing this well that it's narrowing that
Speaker 1: gender pay pay gap UM. I think that, uh that
Speaker 1: I well, I don't know that I have a specific
Speaker 1: a company or industry. I would say those the companies
Speaker 1: that are out there working UM at this you know,
Speaker 1: a graduation you mentioned, they're all on parity, but as
Speaker 1: they progress through their career. I think the monitoring of
Speaker 1: that is probably something that's the bigger companies are doing
Speaker 1: better because they are required to pay attention to these
Speaker 1: things from external forces UM and and additionally, they are
Speaker 1: very internally committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and so
Speaker 1: they have big operations inside that are actually monitoring this.
Speaker 1: And honestly, those who are monitoring it are the ones
Speaker 1: that are going to be seeing this success. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that they can eliminate all of the other factors
Speaker 1: in terms of decision making by the women, but they
Speaker 1: are looking at how they advance UM diverse UM employees
Speaker 1: through that pipeline into leadership. All right, lista, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, we appreciate it. Listened Sankster, CEO Forte Foundation,
Speaker 1: talk about the gender pay gap. That is an issue
Speaker 1: clearly for a lot of businesses and a lot of people,
Speaker 1: including MBA's Consumer confidence came out for the month of September.
Speaker 1: Still a pretty good number, but below expectations. Let's check
Speaker 1: in with Lynn Franco, Director of Economic Indicators and Surveys
Speaker 1: at the Conference Board to break down this data. So Lynn,
Speaker 1: again a little bit less than what Wall Street was expecting,
Speaker 1: but still a decent number. Help us put into context. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, we had a decline in confidence
Speaker 1: and it's actually sort of going on a downward trend
Speaker 1: for the last three months. But a lot of this
Speaker 1: is really doing really the result of the delta variant,
Speaker 1: which has really sort of been this dark cloud over consumers.
Speaker 1: It continues to dampen optimism, but there's still optimistic enough
Speaker 1: that they feel that the recovery is going to continue
Speaker 1: not only for the remainder this year, but into two
Speaker 1: as well. I find the dig around the labor market
Speaker 1: particularly interesting. We were just listening to FED chairman Jerome
Speaker 1: Pale testifying on Capitol Hill in front of the Senate
Speaker 1: about how participate is still really low. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of jobs out there, but not necessarily enough people to
Speaker 1: fill them. And I see that in the survey, fifty
Speaker 1: six of consumers said that jobs are plentiful. So people
Speaker 1: know there's jobs out there, Yes, they do. And I
Speaker 1: think what we're seeing is that some of these labor
Speaker 1: shortages are in sort of you know, gu collar type jobs. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of that is due a to you know, inability
Speaker 1: to find labor. There's still some fears about COVID, there's
Speaker 1: still some childcare issues which are preventing women in particular
Speaker 1: from getting back into the labor force. So there are
Speaker 1: some challenges um that we are still facing, and a
Speaker 1: lot of those are delta related. So I think as
Speaker 1: we begin to sort of hopefully see the variant retreat
Speaker 1: a bit, I think we're seeing at least some indications
Speaker 1: maybe that you know, the levels are starting to come down,
Speaker 1: that will continue to recover, and that you know, the
Speaker 1: employment growth will be a little bit more robust. And
Speaker 1: the Expectations Index, which is based on consumers term outlook
Speaker 1: for income, business and labor market conditions that fell to
Speaker 1: eighty six point six from eight. Is that concerning to you.
Speaker 1: I think what we're just saying here is a very
Speaker 1: cautious consumer, right, So we've seen a little bit of
Speaker 1: a decline in their expectations for the economy over the
Speaker 1: short term jobs in particular, also a little less so
Speaker 1: in income. So that's good news because we expect to
Speaker 1: consumers to continue to spend and support economic growth. I
Speaker 1: think it's going to be very important to see what
Speaker 1: happens over the next month or two because I think
Speaker 1: we've shifted gears from a very optimistic consumer early in
Speaker 1: the summer to a more cautious optimistic heading into the fall.
Speaker 1: How do inflation expectations factor into this as well, because
Speaker 1: to this point, consumers have been pretty tolerant of the
Speaker 1: fact that prices have been going up because of higher
Speaker 1: input costs. But at a certain level, I would imagine
Speaker 1: that they're going to become less tolerant in that Fears
Speaker 1: around inflation with effect behavior, right, you know, generally tend
Speaker 1: to impact a consumer sub perceptions of earning power, and
Speaker 1: we would see that sort of in the income expectations.
Speaker 1: Are interest rate expectations actually fell, So that's good news.
Speaker 1: It's still elevated, um, but it's it's fallen off a
Speaker 1: little bit, and so far we really haven't seen it
Speaker 1: have a major impact on spending. Supplemental unemployment benefits began
Speaker 1: expiring for a lot of people in early September. How
Speaker 1: did that factor into the data or the expectations data?
Speaker 1: I think you know, it really factors into perhaps income expectations,
Speaker 1: but we didn't take a hard hit there in terms
Speaker 1: of employment expectations. That's pretty much following business conditions, right.
Speaker 1: We need better business conditions and in order to generate
Speaker 1: more employment. So I think you know, in both ways,
Speaker 1: consumers are just a little bit cautious. They've probably hit
Speaker 1: the pause button temporarily, but we don't think this is
Speaker 1: sort of a continued downward trend. All right, Lynn, thank
Speaker 1: you so which we appreciate that. Linn Franco, Director of
Speaker 1: Economic Indicators and Surveys at the conference board on the
Speaker 1: consumer confidence data out this morning for the month of September.
Speaker 1: That was Secretary of the Treasuric Jenny Yelling, along with
Speaker 1: FED Chairman j Palell testimony in front of members of Congress. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's get a little bit of a recap there, we
Speaker 1: can do it that the Bloomberg's Economics editor Michael McKee. Michael,
Speaker 1: first of all, why are these two individuals testifying in
Speaker 1: front of Congress? Why are they bringing their testimony? This
Speaker 1: is a relic of the Cares Act. When the Care's
Speaker 1: Act was passed, it required the Secretary of the Treasury
Speaker 1: and the Fed Chairman to come up to Capitol Hill
Speaker 1: quarterly and report on how things are going in terms
Speaker 1: of spending out the money and the rescue programs that
Speaker 1: they had in place. So it's a bit of a
Speaker 1: relic now since most of the money has been distributed,
Speaker 1: but it's still in place, so so they are there.
Speaker 1: Obviously this is used in part to do some political
Speaker 1: posturing on the behalf of these senators. A lot of
Speaker 1: debate on the fiscal conversation that doesn't necessarily have bearing
Speaker 1: for the Fed Chairman. But asked about the debt ceiling
Speaker 1: was the Treasury secretary and she warned about it being
Speaker 1: potentially disastrous if it isn't raised, saying that these are
Speaker 1: bills that are already due for money that's already been spent.
Speaker 1: Why does the market seem to not care about it? Then,
Speaker 1: at this point, because we've been through this before and
Speaker 1: a number of times over the past couple of decades,
Speaker 1: and Congress has always extended the debt ceiling at the
Speaker 1: very last minute. It's a political football. Both sides like
Speaker 1: to attack the other side for being profligant. Uh, they
Speaker 1: only want to spend money when they're in power, and
Speaker 1: when they're not in power, they want to cut back
Speaker 1: on spending because they think it makes them look better politically.
Speaker 1: So that's what's going on. It's just, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: a political debate, and the market is fairly convinced that
Speaker 1: they will settle this because they always have. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: on the sidelines, the commentators, as they usually do, say well, gee,
Speaker 1: this time could be different. Well what could be a
Speaker 1: little bit different this time is it's all kind of
Speaker 1: tied in with the fiscal stimulus legislation, the spending plan
Speaker 1: that Congress is also looking at, the taxation plan to
Speaker 1: pay for it. Could this all get tied up? Is
Speaker 1: this something that the market maybe should be more concerned about. Well,
Speaker 1: if if we get to that point, the market will
Speaker 1: suddenly become concerned. It is it is a little more
Speaker 1: problematic this time. There's a little bit of a Rube
Speaker 1: Goldberg effect of how they're going to have to do this.
Speaker 1: Because the Democrats put forth a combined continuing Resolution to
Speaker 1: keep the government funded and debt sailing last night, Republicans
Speaker 1: wouldn't even let them have a vote on it. And
Speaker 1: so now the Democrats have to decide are they going
Speaker 1: to take out the Continuing Resolution and vote on that separately,
Speaker 1: which they probably will, which still leaves the debt limit.
Speaker 1: Republicans still say they will not allow the Democrats to
Speaker 1: vote on extending it, and so the Democrats can put
Speaker 1: it into the Continuing Resolution or rather continue into the
Speaker 1: reconciliation bill that holds the Biden plan. But the problem
Speaker 1: with that is then they need to pass a new
Speaker 1: budget first with that as an instruction, and then they
Speaker 1: need to go through a whole the whole day of
Speaker 1: what they call vote rama, where anybody is allowed to
Speaker 1: offer amendments. And so it will take time for that
Speaker 1: to happen. And I think that's why Janet Yellen put
Speaker 1: a date on at this time, because she's saying, basically, um, guys,
Speaker 1: don't screw around. This is how much if you're gonna
Speaker 1: do this, is how much time you have? Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: all on the fiscal side, Mike on the monetary policy side,
Speaker 1: and those who have the ability to decide monetary policy
Speaker 1: center shared. Brown asked both Yelling and pal about diversity
Speaker 1: on the FED Board of Governors and whether it's time
Speaker 1: to have a black woman and especially in light of
Speaker 1: the resignations of Rose and Grenham Kaplan yesterday in the
Speaker 1: wake of the trading scandal, how could we be looking
Speaker 1: at a different FED going forward. Well, I think you're
Speaker 1: going to see in the search committees for both Dallas
Speaker 1: and Boston a strong effort to find minorities, whether it's
Speaker 1: a black or whether it's a woman, it could be Hispanic,
Speaker 1: uh and Alis in particular would be a sort of
Speaker 1: logical move. So I think you're going to see that,
Speaker 1: and I think the FED Board will try to influence
Speaker 1: that the FED has historically been a refuge of old
Speaker 1: white males, and as was pointed out, there are very
Speaker 1: few black economists at the board. And I think Congress
Speaker 1: is going to continue to keep the pressure on and
Speaker 1: we will see some changes in a historic day yesterday.
Speaker 1: You know it's not every day you see two FED
Speaker 1: presidents step down. Is this going to change the way
Speaker 1: the FED man, you know, it puts people onto the
Speaker 1: board or just or tracts talent. It could. I think
Speaker 1: what you'll see is the FED put in place a
Speaker 1: much more robust set of ethics requirements. Perhaps anybody coming
Speaker 1: in would be required to put their holdings in a
Speaker 1: blind trust something like that, uh, which you know you
Speaker 1: can easily argue should have been done before. What they
Speaker 1: don't want to do is completely keep anybody who's made
Speaker 1: any money off the board, because yes, the board needs diversity,
Speaker 1: but that also means they need some people with market
Speaker 1: ex variants and so uh you know Rob kaplan K
Speaker 1: from Goldvin Sachs, he was one of the strong market
Speaker 1: voices and that's a loss for them at this point. Yea,
Speaker 1: all right. Michael McKee, economics editor for Bloomberg TV and Radio,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your thoughts. We appreciate that. Well,
Speaker 1: just about twenty minutes ago, Kaylee and I were just
Speaker 1: sitting here chatting, saying, boy, the supply chain, this is
Speaker 1: a big issue, the challenges we're facing on a global scale.
Speaker 1: And uh, I wonder to what extent that they're contributing
Speaker 1: to some of this inflation we're seeing out there and
Speaker 1: I said, we need to get smarter on what's going
Speaker 1: on out there with the ships and the trains and
Speaker 1: the trucks. And luckily we have Bloomberg Intelligence with us,
Speaker 1: and they have the experts on all these industries. At
Speaker 1: lea classical he's the senior transport logistics and shipping analysts,
Speaker 1: one of the most popular analysts these days at Bloomberg Intelligence. Solely,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at map go on my term and I
Speaker 1: see a bunch of cargo ships anchored off the coast
Speaker 1: of Los Angeles. And then even if they get their
Speaker 1: cargo unloaded, then the trucks have to get the containers
Speaker 1: and the railroads have to get the containers. Give us
Speaker 1: an overview of how bad things are out there in
Speaker 1: terms of global shipping, global logistics. UH, and how do
Speaker 1: we get here? The supply chains are truly gummed up?
Speaker 1: And you know the how we got to this point,
Speaker 1: which the shocks to the system have really been unprecedented
Speaker 1: and just one after the other. I mean, obviously economy
Speaker 1: shut down with the pandemic, and then China recovered quicker
Speaker 1: and earlier than the US, and that created a lot
Speaker 1: of imbalances. UH. And the trans specific trade. So there
Speaker 1: were ships coming to the southern California and other points
Speaker 1: unloading um containers, but there were no empty containers to
Speaker 1: bring back, and that created a capacity crunch on the water.
Speaker 1: And also the container liner industry has a long history
Speaker 1: of just being completely irrational players. They got a little
Speaker 1: this a plan during this down cycle and they took
Speaker 1: some ships out uh and they slowly brought them back,
Speaker 1: so that created um also some some choke points uh.
Speaker 1: And then it was like one black swan after the next.
Speaker 1: You know, you had the the the ever given blocking
Speaker 1: this to West Canal. Um. You had, um, you just
Speaker 1: one thing after that, you had the rail industry embraced
Speaker 1: something called precisions scattering railroading, which is really just six
Speaker 1: stigma for the rails, and that impacted service, probably not
Speaker 1: in the best way as well, because they were you know,
Speaker 1: taking assets off of their network and then when demand
Speaker 1: came up, you know, they were slow to bring back
Speaker 1: those assets. UM. You know, you have you have huge
Speaker 1: log jams in Chicago, which has always been a problem
Speaker 1: UM and the rails have been doing what they can
Speaker 1: uh to kind of alleviate those choke points and not
Speaker 1: to just to to to ramble on too long, but
Speaker 1: really it's all about available labor. Um. You know, every
Speaker 1: transportation company is facing a labor shortage. Uh. You know
Speaker 1: your listeners might remember last week when FedEx released their earnings,
Speaker 1: they pointed out about four fifty million dollars of a headwind. Um.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of coin. Uh. And that's just trying
Speaker 1: to find enough people to deliver the packages. And when
Speaker 1: they have holes in their system, you know, it creates
Speaker 1: a much less efficient network for them. So Lee is
Speaker 1: basically what you're telling us here that it is a
Speaker 1: lot easier to create kinks in the supply chain than
Speaker 1: it is to smooth them back out. Yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and and that is a because we're more of you know,
Speaker 1: it's for digital globalization. I mean, we're still a global economy.
Speaker 1: The nikes that you might be wearing are being manufactured
Speaker 1: in Vietnam or in China. And with China's zero tolerance
Speaker 1: towards COVID outbreaks, you know you're seeing them shutting down
Speaker 1: terminals at various ports, very busy ports, and that's creating
Speaker 1: headwinds as well. And then you know when you have
Speaker 1: on the U S side, Um, you know, you just
Speaker 1: don't have enough people to to kind of face that backlog.
Speaker 1: I mean, I read the other day on Bloomberg there
Speaker 1: was something like seventy eight ships waiting outside of l
Speaker 1: A Long Beach. These are unprecedented times, uh, and it's
Speaker 1: gonna take a long time, you know, our call for
Speaker 1: UM rates on at least on the liner side. You know,
Speaker 1: we believe things will get a little better into the
Speaker 1: Chinese New Year, but rates will remain a like at
Speaker 1: these unsustainable levels probably through the first half of the
Speaker 1: year and then kind of moderate uh into the second half. UM.
Speaker 1: And then you have on on the roadside. For trucking
Speaker 1: in North America, the spot rates are up something like
Speaker 1: this year, contractual rates are up double digits. UM. They
Speaker 1: have pricing power because they can't find the people to
Speaker 1: drive the trucks to deliver the stuff. So when you
Speaker 1: talk to these transportation companies, whether the big shipping companies
Speaker 1: are the rails and trucks, is this a supply chain
Speaker 1: problem that's going to go into next year? I mean
Speaker 1: hard stop. Yeah, It's it's gonna be uh an impact.
Speaker 1: I mean I think that it will moderate, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and but that's assuming a lot of things.
Speaker 1: That's assuming not another black Swan event or another you know,
Speaker 1: variant of the coronavirus which could shut down whether it's manufacturing,
Speaker 1: um or or reports. And then you also have right now,
Speaker 1: I mean you have another kind of crazy thing. We're
Speaker 1: talking about China having not enough power, um so they
Speaker 1: have to manage their economy and they might close the manufacturing.
Speaker 1: So you know, if you're expecting you know, some furniture
Speaker 1: from from China, you might have to wait another month. Alright, Lee,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for jumping on with us. Really appreciated.
Speaker 1: This is a global issue. It as a one that's
Speaker 1: been developing since the pandemic began, and it doesn't appear
Speaker 1: to be uh easing anytime soon. Lee Classgow, Senior Transport
Speaker 1: Logistics and Shipping Annals from Bloomberg Intelligence. He joins us
Speaker 1: on the phone from Bloomberg's Princeton office. Uh and Kaylee,
Speaker 1: this is something you know. I'm sure it's earnings coming
Speaker 1: up here. Once again, we're going to have companies probably
Speaker 1: blaming this using as an excuse perhaps for the weather. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I think we're going to see some serious margin
Speaker 1: pressures coming in, which is to be expected that profit
Speaker 1: margins would contract. It's what a lot of analysts, strategists
Speaker 1: are expecting. But when you talk about those higher input costs,
Speaker 1: higher freight costs, higher labor costs, all that is cost
Speaker 1: and is it transit where That's going to be the
Speaker 1: big question. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast.
Speaker 1: You can subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm
Speaker 1: on Twitter at Matt Miller. Put on false Sweeney. I'm
Speaker 1: on Twitter at pt Sweeney before the podcast. You can
Speaker 1: always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio