Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm
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Speaker 1: by searching Bloomberg Global News. Well, this is a conversation
Speaker 1: we've been looking forward to all week, Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: I have because he's our go to guy when it
Speaker 1: comes to jobs, and this one we have to understand fully.
Speaker 1: Chris lew back with a senior fellow at the University
Speaker 1: of Virginia Miller Center. He's also a former Deputy Secretary
Speaker 1: of Labor under President Obama, worked across all three branches
Speaker 1: of government. He joins us on the phone from Washington. Chris,
Speaker 1: great to talk to you, and what a day to
Speaker 1: try and make sense of it all. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I remember the very first jobs report we got in
Speaker 1: the Obama administration. We had lost eight hundred thousand jobs
Speaker 1: January two thousand nine h This is twenty five times bigger. Uh,
Speaker 1: And so this is staggering for people like me who
Speaker 1: um every Friday look at these numbers and used to
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand up, hundred thousand down. To see twenty
Speaker 1: million losses is it's it's it's hard to explain. So
Speaker 1: I do wonder too, And this is where your insight
Speaker 1: and your experience really helps us out. Chris, is what
Speaker 1: are the conversations that you think are going on inside
Speaker 1: the White House? UM about this? Because obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of steps have already been taken to help out workers,
Speaker 1: but we know these numbers are going to be tough
Speaker 1: for a while. And I do wonder about the conversations
Speaker 1: we need to be having about once we get through
Speaker 1: the virus and things start to reopen. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: the conversation that should be happening is to treat this
Speaker 1: as a public health crisis, which is what it is.
Speaker 1: Because until you get that public health crisis fixed or
Speaker 1: it gets to get it reduced. Um, you can't really
Speaker 1: start to deal with rebuilding the economy. And and that's
Speaker 1: the problem where we are right now. We're kind of
Speaker 1: half reopening the economy, but not really fully dealing with
Speaker 1: the public health issues. You know, we continue to have
Speaker 1: cases at a steady state, well over twenty new cases
Speaker 1: every day. We've continue to have well over two thousand
Speaker 1: deaths every day. Uh. And and that's the problem because
Speaker 1: all of the U. S economy or the U. S
Speaker 1: economy is based on consumer spending, and consumers spend money
Speaker 1: when they feel confident, and right now there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of confidence. And so you could reopen parts of
Speaker 1: the economy, but that's not going to make a big difference.
Speaker 1: The only difference you're probably going to make is you
Speaker 1: may actually be undoing some of the great work that's
Speaker 1: happened over the last six weeks. And so, Chris, help
Speaker 1: us understand where you see that consumer economy in these numbers,
Speaker 1: because we see it, you know, really in the breakdown.
Speaker 1: It feels like of the types of workers who lost
Speaker 1: their job, they are you know, they're working in in
Speaker 1: a lot of consumer facing things because people aren't out
Speaker 1: they're not spending money, so help us understand that aspect
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, well, well it's a great point because
Speaker 1: the leisure in hospitality, seven point seven million jobs was lost,
Speaker 1: which is sort of what you'd expect. The challenge there
Speaker 1: is that, you know, if you think about something like
Speaker 1: airlines or hotels or tourist areas, those might not come
Speaker 1: back even if the economy is fully opened, because that
Speaker 1: again depends on consumer confidence. But what was striking about
Speaker 1: these numbers is how across the board they work. You
Speaker 1: lost the million jobs in construction and manufacturing and healthcare,
Speaker 1: you lost two million in professional and business services. You
Speaker 1: started to see some of the hemorrhaging of state government.
Speaker 1: So this is uh and across the board economic downturn.
Speaker 1: And if you're sitting in the White House, you're probably
Speaker 1: trying to figure out, Okay, how much of this is permanent,
Speaker 1: how much is this temporary? Which of these industries is
Speaker 1: most likely to bounce back, Which are the ones need
Speaker 1: a little bit of help to stabilize or or to
Speaker 1: grow eventually in the future. Well, that is certainly something
Speaker 1: our Bloomberg News team has been tackling over the last week.
Speaker 1: Chris and and We've written numerous stories about how much
Speaker 1: of the temporary workers who've lost their jobs become permanent.
Speaker 1: With your knowledge of the labor markets, how much do
Speaker 1: you think comes back, how much doesn't. Well, what's interesting
Speaker 1: in these numbers is about of the job losses, at
Speaker 1: least as the Bureau of Labor Statistics characterized, it was
Speaker 1: considered temporary. And if you look at polls of workers,
Speaker 1: about seventy of workers in a recent poll said their
Speaker 1: layoffs are temporary. Now, that may not be consistent with
Speaker 1: the reality of where business owners, restaurant owners are as well.
Speaker 1: And the problem is that, you know, as this continues,
Speaker 1: this shutdown continues to go on, a lot of those moments,
Speaker 1: top businesses, which are such a driver of the US
Speaker 1: economy just won't be able to come back. Um, they
Speaker 1: already were operating under very small profit margins, and they
Speaker 1: just might make the decision they come back, can't come back,
Speaker 1: or they can't come back until they get fully reopened.
Speaker 1: Because even in the states where there are reopening uh
Speaker 1: right now, they're still operating under you know, restaurants can
Speaker 1: only have capacity, cables have to be six ft apart.
Speaker 1: That's hard to really kind of turn a profit or
Speaker 1: be fully employed with those restrictions. Yeah, that's such a
Speaker 1: really that's such an interesting point. And I've been thinking
Speaker 1: a lot about that, Chris, that you know, even if
Speaker 1: you are able to reopen, I mean, I think about
Speaker 1: you know, the restaurants and retail establishments here in my
Speaker 1: little town in suburban New York that you know, maybe
Speaker 1: they don't hire everyone back. Maybe they reopened, and maybe
Speaker 1: they don't hire people back for six twelve months or
Speaker 1: or ever. And I would imagine that's hard to model
Speaker 1: at this point. Well, and it's hard to adele. And
Speaker 1: then it's hard to figure out what the economic remedy
Speaker 1: is that because so much of the relief programs that
Speaker 1: are out there are intended for either businesses that are
Speaker 1: fully closed or for workers that are completely unemployed. We
Speaker 1: don't really know what to do if we've got you know,
Speaker 1: the workers coming back but only working part time, which
Speaker 1: is also an important thing that was in space jobs.
Speaker 1: You know, five million people, there's five million additional people
Speaker 1: were registered as working um part time, not by their
Speaker 1: own choice. Uh, And so I think that's something that's
Speaker 1: not fully considered within these numbers that we have a
Speaker 1: huge number of people unemployed. We've got a lot of
Speaker 1: people who are underemployed as well. All right, well, stick
Speaker 1: with us. We're going to continue this conversation. Always good
Speaker 1: to talk with Chris Lew, senior fellow down at the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia Miller Center, and of course former Deputy
Speaker 1: Secretary of Labor under President Obama, and some great context
Speaker 1: right there at the top that you know, they looked
Speaker 1: at eight hundred thousand jobs lost and probably at that
Speaker 1: moment thought this is catastrophic, and today twenty five times that. Wow,
Speaker 1: it's remarkable. All Right, we'll continue that conversation with Chris.
Speaker 1: In just a moment, you are listening to Bloomberg Radio,
Speaker 1: we are talking with Chris Lew, senior fellow at the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia Miller Center, former Deputy Secretary of Labor
Speaker 1: under President of Bama, still with us on the phone
Speaker 1: from Washington, d C. You know, Chris, I was just
Speaker 1: thinking about as Charlie Pellett recapped the markets, and we
Speaker 1: talked at the top of our show that despite this
Speaker 1: staggering monthly jobs report, which we knew was going to
Speaker 1: be kind of mind blowing, um investors increasingly certainly equity
Speaker 1: investors are looking past it, and you know, we've got
Speaker 1: a risk on trade today. I am always curious about
Speaker 1: how much internal talk goes on at the White House,
Speaker 1: UM and at the various departments about what's going on
Speaker 1: in the financial markets and particularly in the stock market.
Speaker 1: We certainly have a president who watches it very closely,
Speaker 1: But I'm just curious how much of that did you
Speaker 1: guys think about, and how much should we as leaders
Speaker 1: also take that into account when when thinking about policy
Speaker 1: and moves. Well, look, I think it's certainly one measure
Speaker 1: of the health, the economic health of the country, but
Speaker 1: it's probably not the one that most Americans can relate to.
Speaker 1: You know, when we were in the obob administration at
Speaker 1: the depths of the Great Recession, you know, we were
Speaker 1: laser focused on these jobs announcements every month, UM, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how we get ourselves out of the
Speaker 1: whole as well as the jobs that were created to
Speaker 1: the very stimulus measures. I can't ever remember sort of
Speaker 1: focusing on what the Dow or s and T we're doing,
Speaker 1: and I certainly don't think we ever sent President Obama
Speaker 1: out to tout about that. You know, part of because
Speaker 1: the relatively small number of Americans that own stock at all,
Speaker 1: whether um individual stocks, neutral funds, or four in one case.
Speaker 1: I think it has been a mistake of President Trump
Speaker 1: to continue touting this on the way up, because you
Speaker 1: pat it on the way up, you own it on
Speaker 1: the way down. But I think on a day like today,
Speaker 1: we especially see the disconnect between where the market is
Speaker 1: and what everyday Americans are feeling, and so, Chris, you know,
Speaker 1: part of what's got to happen next, presumably, is everybody
Speaker 1: in Washington has to get on something close to the
Speaker 1: same page about where to put additional stabilization or stimulus
Speaker 1: funds or rescue funds, depending on how you want to
Speaker 1: characterize it or how one wants to characterize it. What
Speaker 1: is the advice you would give, especially to lawmakers. You're
Speaker 1: very familiar with the Congress and how it works in
Speaker 1: terms of where they can and should be putting a
Speaker 1: next round, which could be the last round of stimulus
Speaker 1: or stabilization. Yeah, I think you're right. I think this
Speaker 1: next round is I would say it's the next round
Speaker 1: is probably the last round of economic relief. We may
Speaker 1: be on economic stimulus after that. Uh, there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things that jump that come to mind. One is
Speaker 1: the enhanced unemployment benefits. Those expire at the end of July.
Speaker 1: That's the extra six hundred dollars a week that went
Speaker 1: into people's unemployment checks. That probably needs to be extended.
Speaker 1: Maybe not at the six hundred dollar level, but probably something.
Speaker 1: I do think that there needs to be an infusion
Speaker 1: of money and to stay in local government. We didn't
Speaker 1: see many job losses in this round of of data,
Speaker 1: but you know, when I hear Governor Cuomo saying that
Speaker 1: New York is running a fifteen fifteen billion dollar deficit,
Speaker 1: or Governor Whitmer in Michigan saying they're running a three
Speaker 1: billion dollar deficit and they have no ability to raise
Speaker 1: revenues at this point or even collect the revenues that
Speaker 1: are owed to them, So they're going to have to
Speaker 1: start to layoff teachers and police and firefighters. That's the
Speaker 1: next round of layoffs unless we provide some some additional
Speaker 1: relief to them. And I still think more needs to
Speaker 1: be done with the p p P program um and
Speaker 1: particularly in terms of targeting it to really really small businesses.
Speaker 1: And I know this isn't your your your world Chris,
Speaker 1: but I mean I am still blown away. And Jason
Speaker 1: I talked about this a lot. You know, we hear everyone,
Speaker 1: whether it's a CEO, whether it's members of Congress, whether
Speaker 1: it's governors, talking about the importance of testing, and it
Speaker 1: still seems like there is such, um, you know, a
Speaker 1: roadblock when it comes to that that if we talk
Speaker 1: about reopening the economy and how important that is, but
Speaker 1: yet it still feels like we're not getting to our testing.
Speaker 1: What what is the roadblock that you see or where's
Speaker 1: the problem? Well, look, I think that the approach this
Speaker 1: administration has taken from day one has you know, they
Speaker 1: started going down the road that they were going to
Speaker 1: ceneralize this and then they sort of pulled back and
Speaker 1: kind of left it to the state, uh into the
Speaker 1: private sector, and it's become kind of the wild West
Speaker 1: right now. And unfortunately, this is only the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that the federal governments effectively do. And we can
Speaker 1: look at the contrast. We look at South Korea, which
Speaker 1: does have much more aggressive testing, which really has been
Speaker 1: imposing a structor of social distancing requirements and as a
Speaker 1: results of that, they've been able to keep their cases
Speaker 1: down and actually have some kind of a functioning economy.
Speaker 1: So really this is the federal government that you take
Speaker 1: charge of this issue. Well, thank you so much, Chris.
Speaker 1: We really always appreciate the time you find for us,
Speaker 1: and really a nice in depth conversation again with Chris
Speaker 1: lou Thank you so much, senior fellow, University of Virginia,
Speaker 1: Miller Center, former Deputy Secretary of Labor under President Obama.
Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Jason
Speaker 1: Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well on Saturday tomorrow. America's live
Speaker 1: sports industry, largely shuttered since March, It's gonna lurch back
Speaker 1: into action big time. Our Evan Kobie Williams actually writes
Speaker 1: that on the terminal. We're gonna talk about that little
Speaker 1: bit more later, but in the meantime, also writing about
Speaker 1: the UFC in a timely story on Bloomberg Business Week.
Speaker 1: It's in the magazine this week. It's about how the
Speaker 1: UFC the dominant force in Marshall Mixed Martial Arts. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: m m A has been fighting. Come on, Carol, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get too much in here. I should just
Speaker 1: go to the story. Josh Idolson morning here. Darn, I'm
Speaker 1: so glad it's Friday. Josh Idle said, his labor reporter
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg News. He wrote this story. It's really interesting
Speaker 1: because it gets into some of the allegations against the UFC.
Speaker 1: Josh is on the phone from Palo Alto, also with
Speaker 1: us at Joe Webber, Bloomberg Business Week editor on the
Speaker 1: phone in Brooklyn. Uh and Joel, UM, come on in
Speaker 1: on here, because UM, just reading even just the beginning
Speaker 1: of this story about what one fighter says he has
Speaker 1: gone through is really gut wrenching. Well, I mean, you
Speaker 1: can watch it UFC fighting. You see the guys get
Speaker 1: into the octagon, and UM, you have to assume that
Speaker 1: it's at least got wrenching. But I think what Josh's
Speaker 1: story is ultimately about is what happens sort of outside
Speaker 1: the ring. Um. I think this is a really finally
Speaker 1: important story. UM. For a for the reason that you
Speaker 1: said at the top, which is this is as as Americans,
Speaker 1: I think right now we are creating sports. UFC is
Speaker 1: almost going to be the first one to really address
Speaker 1: that with this about small But the bigger story here
Speaker 1: is is that jeez are fighters who are effectively contractors,
Speaker 1: they're untrajected workers. And if we're a decade now, there's
Speaker 1: been this case sort of building against UFC that's basically
Speaker 1: an anti trust case. Um, Josh, you want to come
Speaker 1: in there, what's the what's the context that the fighters
Speaker 1: are are kind of uh finding themselves uniting a run. Sure,
Speaker 1: this is a five billion dollar antitrust monopoly case. And
Speaker 1: when people talk about monopoly in the US, they're often
Speaker 1: talking about how companies get an advantage over consumers. In
Speaker 1: this case does allege that the UFC has monopolized the
Speaker 1: market for selling abouts, but it's also about what's called monopsony,
Speaker 1: which is when you're a monopoly in dealing with your workers.
Speaker 1: That the UFC has monopolized the labor market so that
Speaker 1: workers don't have much else to turn to if they
Speaker 1: don't like what the UFC is offering them. As we
Speaker 1: say in the story, it's like the ground in pound
Speaker 1: that you might see in the octagon. According to the plaintiffs,
Speaker 1: that these workers are trapped, there's not somewhere else to go.
Speaker 1: And then the company has been able to layer on
Speaker 1: more and more restrictive rules and keep a much larger
Speaker 1: share of the revenue for the ownership rather than the players,
Speaker 1: then you would see in a lot of major league sports,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually to that end like that. I think
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting little details that Josh found
Speaker 1: out through his reporting was like, even if as a
Speaker 1: fighter you were going to have some sort of endorsement
Speaker 1: deal over time, UFC has actually intermediated that relationship and said,
Speaker 1: we'll actually negotiate those sponsorships for you and then give
Speaker 1: you just you know, a share that we say is reasonable,
Speaker 1: which I just think, you know, it's sort of an
Speaker 1: interesting twist. M Josh. I also just want to talk
Speaker 1: about his sports in general, because this isn't unique to UFC.
Speaker 1: Every other sporting league has has versions of of this
Speaker 1: where there are the players and the owners or the
Speaker 1: leagues and there's always that relationship. I'm thinking of baseball specifically.
Speaker 1: So how do we view this case in that context. Well,
Speaker 1: the argument that plaintiffs would make is they are just
Speaker 1: the latest to go through these struggles, and that it's
Speaker 1: a struggle that in every other great sport comes along eventually,
Speaker 1: as one of them said, and where the players have won.
Speaker 1: So there is the Muhammad Ali Act in boxing, there
Speaker 1: is free agency, now in baseball. And an interesting thing
Speaker 1: about this history is that each time there's been this conflict,
Speaker 1: management has argued, this will destroy the sport if you
Speaker 1: change it in this way. Now Here again you have
Speaker 1: these fighters saying they should have more leverage in dealing
Speaker 1: with management, and UFC has said that this lawsuit is
Speaker 1: an attack not just on them, but a threat to
Speaker 1: business's ability to be risk taking in successful Elsewhere. UFC
Speaker 1: says there wouldn't be much competition in m m A
Speaker 1: without them, because there wouldn't be much of an m
Speaker 1: m A industry in the first place without them. Well,
Speaker 1: and it's an argument, Josh, that's sort of like turns
Speaker 1: onto itself because they have been very savvy about and
Speaker 1: and you described this so well in the story about
Speaker 1: essentially just buying everything up and so this whole idea
Speaker 1: of it wouldn't exist without us. It's like, yeah, it
Speaker 1: wouldn't because you've got the market cornered. So how does
Speaker 1: this get figured out? Well, any day now or any
Speaker 1: month now, we could have a ruling on class certification
Speaker 1: come down from a federal district judge in Nevada. Judges
Speaker 1: when they're ruling gets work from home also So we
Speaker 1: are on the cusp of a very big step in
Speaker 1: this case, which is the judge ruling either for or
Speaker 1: against certifying a class of what could be twelve hundred fighters.
Speaker 1: We would really turbocharge this lawsuit and change the discussion
Speaker 1: about the lawsuit and about what it might look like
Speaker 1: if it could be settled. Now, UFC says this is
Speaker 1: not just a bad lawsuit, but a destructive legal theory
Speaker 1: behind the lawsuit, and that they're committed to defeating it.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the judge has already said he is
Speaker 1: confident that however he rules, this is going to get
Speaker 1: appealed to Federal Appeals Court, could get appealed from there
Speaker 1: to the U. S. Supreme Court. So we are five
Speaker 1: years into a legal struggle that could go on much further,
Speaker 1: but that is going to take a new form very
Speaker 1: soon with this judge's ruling that will get noticed, as
Speaker 1: scholars told me, not just in m m A, but
Speaker 1: in all sorts of companies. But I do wonder, Josh,
Speaker 1: if there was more competition in mm A, would we
Speaker 1: not be having this discussion and why isn't there more competition? Well,
Speaker 1: the argument of the laws suit is that there are
Speaker 1: a series of different exploitative practices that have gone on
Speaker 1: that reinforce each other. The lawsuit talks about everything from
Speaker 1: exclusive contract with sponsors to the contracts with the fighters,
Speaker 1: and there's a catch twenty two in that. The one
Speaker 1: of the phrases that comes up in some of the
Speaker 1: internal correspondence that's been unearthed is people you have seen
Speaker 1: talking about choking off the oxygen to their competition, and
Speaker 1: in particular they mean the players. So you deprive the
Speaker 1: competing promoters of the chance to get at the players.
Speaker 1: You deprive the players of having somewhere else to go
Speaker 1: if they don't like what's being proposed in your contract.
Speaker 1: And these are contracts that allegedly become effectively perpetual because
Speaker 1: UFC has a chance to extend them for everything from
Speaker 1: you got injured too, you became a champion. It's like
Speaker 1: an mm A sweatshop is kind of to some extent
Speaker 1: going on. So this case sounds and we're so craved
Speaker 1: for sports, I know, I know, Well that's exactly the point.
Speaker 1: That's going to be millions of people that watch, and
Speaker 1: you know he again is also in need of it.
Speaker 1: Unless you want to watch Jordan's highlights from the nineties again, which,
Speaker 1: for the record, are our sensational film. Yeah yeah, nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that, Nothing wrong with that. All right, Thank
Speaker 1: you both so much. I really appreciate it. It's a
Speaker 1: great story. It's on the terminal and on Bloomberger dot Com.
Speaker 1: In next week's issue of Bloomberg Business Week, Josh Idelson
Speaker 1: wrote at UFC wants you to watch brawls, not it's
Speaker 1: five billion dollar lawsuit. This is Bloomberg Business Week with
Speaker 1: Carol Messer and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, we
Speaker 1: talked with our next guest back in late March, as
Speaker 1: those COVID nineteen cases were adding up, back with us.
Speaker 1: Dr Penny Wheeler, who is president CEO at a Line
Speaker 1: of Health. They've got twelve hospitals in the Minnesotia Minnesota area,
Speaker 1: doctors about clinics, fifteen retail pharmacies um throughout that region.
Speaker 1: The system's total operating revenue in fiscal twenty eight was
Speaker 1: about four point four billions. So let's talk about the
Speaker 1: virus in particular, what's going on in the Midwest. She
Speaker 1: joins us on the phone from Minnesota. Dr Wheeler, nice
Speaker 1: to have you back with us. How are you guys doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: nice to be back. Thank you for having me. We're
Speaker 1: doing okay. I mean we've used that we still alright,
Speaker 1: just for cover Cuomo saying that down the downslope there
Speaker 1: on the New York side, we are still on the
Speaker 1: upfloat here in the Midwest. So but we've used the time,
Speaker 1: I think, to prepare and really kind of expand our
Speaker 1: capacity for for the community that we're ready. So we're
Speaker 1: continue to see an uptick in cases and sadly in
Speaker 1: death as well in our geography. Well, let's talk about that,
Speaker 1: Dr Wheeler. What have you seen and what have you learned?
Speaker 1: I guess both in terms of preparation, but also you know,
Speaker 1: how has the virus been a little bit different maybe
Speaker 1: in the in the ways that it's played out. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously each state, each locality is a little bit different.
Speaker 1: I wonder what you see versus what we've seen maybe
Speaker 1: on the coasts. Yeah, I think, Well, we're grateful, as
Speaker 1: as many governors have. We're grateful hour for our governors.
Speaker 1: Tim Wallas's actions on the physical distancing parameters and the
Speaker 1: closure and the decrease of elective surgery, and that allowed
Speaker 1: us to build up not only the personal protective equipment.
Speaker 1: But also like in our organization, we've doubled our intensive
Speaker 1: care unic capacity in that time, so we feel much
Speaker 1: more ready to take on the surge as we're still
Speaker 1: approaching it. We still don't anticipate that surge in this geography,
Speaker 1: and all models are helpful for planning a flawed in
Speaker 1: some way, but we don't anticipate that surge until probably
Speaker 1: fully into July now. But but it tells us, but
Speaker 1: it tells us to prepare, right, But it tells us
Speaker 1: a lot about because you guys had a little bit
Speaker 1: of a lead time, right to prepare that, whether it
Speaker 1: was taking some measures to stem the amount of cases
Speaker 1: that maybe you ultimately have to do with, but just
Speaker 1: getting your facilities ready, you know, because that's been a
Speaker 1: big debate, as you know, about the inability for many,
Speaker 1: certainly in these hotspots um to not be prepared, that
Speaker 1: they weren't given maybe enough lead time about it. Boy,
Speaker 1: you are so right, and we are grateful that we
Speaker 1: had the lead time. And I think that we have
Speaker 1: a community, not just our organization, but we've actually collaborated
Speaker 1: with all the health systems in our geography to make
Speaker 1: sure we're preparing for that together well, and that time afforded.
Speaker 1: Us has used that and actually time to increase our
Speaker 1: testing and increase our personal protective equipment for the safety
Speaker 1: of our staff as well. So I am curious about
Speaker 1: what you're seeing in terms of trends of the virus.
Speaker 1: One of the troubling stories that we talked about earlier
Speaker 1: was about what we're seeing in kids and trying to
Speaker 1: make sense out of, you know, different symptoms coming out.
Speaker 1: We're talking about rashes on kids, kids who we thought
Speaker 1: we're not, you know, vulnerable to this virus. Um just
Speaker 1: talk to us about what you're seeing in terms of
Speaker 1: the cases. Yeah, but boy, what we're learning something every day.
Speaker 1: And even though thousands have been affected by this and
Speaker 1: and thousands have sadly died from this, we're still learning
Speaker 1: about this virus all the time. And you're right, it
Speaker 1: has many different manifestation it appears. And so we're actually
Speaker 1: for testing criteria. You know, it used to be coffin fever, right,
Speaker 1: and now the testing criteria for symptoms of things like
Speaker 1: fatigue or lots of smell or other things are expanding
Speaker 1: for our testing criteria. Even as we see different manifestations
Speaker 1: of this diseases, most recently to your point, Carroll, the
Speaker 1: one that we saw in children. And so Dr Wheeler,
Speaker 1: as a physician, what do you make and as someone
Speaker 1: who you know ultimately has to deal with this very
Speaker 1: much on the front lines at your facilities, what do
Speaker 1: you make about the debate that we're having across the
Speaker 1: country amid among everyone about reopening and you know what
Speaker 1: that looks like, and especially in a place like where
Speaker 1: you are, where as you say, it's still on on
Speaker 1: the upswing, how do you sort of come down on them.
Speaker 1: I think that one of the things that we've learned
Speaker 1: is that we are going to have to coexist with
Speaker 1: this virus for a long time. So we're always going
Speaker 1: to have to dial up what we can be able
Speaker 1: to open, what we can be able to do, depending
Speaker 1: on what the community disease burden is in our communities.
Speaker 1: So right now, for example, we've reopened some of the
Speaker 1: I will say scheduled surgeries because nobody really elects to
Speaker 1: have surgery very often, but the scheduled surgeries, we've been
Speaker 1: able to open some of those up um in before
Speaker 1: the wave because we've been seeing more people who need
Speaker 1: either they have intractable pain and need a hip replaced,
Speaker 1: or they have a tissue diagnosis that they need to
Speaker 1: see if they have cancer. So these are kinds of
Speaker 1: things that if delayed too long, would cause patient farms
Speaker 1: who are having to balance those things with actually the
Speaker 1: viral load in our community, and I think we're just
Speaker 1: going to have to coexist and and be able to
Speaker 1: serve those things in addition to those who are affected
Speaker 1: by COVID at the same time. You know, this is
Speaker 1: going to obviously the old world's kind of gone and
Speaker 1: won't go back, and this is a virus we're gonna
Speaker 1: be coexisting with for some time now. And how we
Speaker 1: tight trate up opening up our organization's healthcare, and how
Speaker 1: we tight trade opening up our communities and economies is
Speaker 1: going to have to be continually monitored and watched. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really good point. The coexistence point, I think
Speaker 1: is a really good one and one that I think
Speaker 1: we're all starting to get our heads around, especially as
Speaker 1: we look at a day like today from a market
Speaker 1: perspective and from an economic perspective. You know, this massive
Speaker 1: job loss that we're seeing across the country. Dr Penny Wheeler,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. Presiden Cyo. Good to visit with
Speaker 1: you again. A line of health on the phone from Minnesota, Carol. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to. We're gonna see a world where
Speaker 1: there's medical facilities. You know, if you've got the virus,
Speaker 1: here's where you go, and so that other facilities can
Speaker 1: open up and start doing kind of those normal testings
Speaker 1: and screenings. I'm already seeing it in my world where
Speaker 1: you know, things you know that were canceled are being
Speaker 1: they're now reaching out to me to reschedule. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: living with risk to some extent is one of the
Speaker 1: things we gotta get used to road macro journal now.
Speaker 1: But you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: drive home, honey, please, I'll do the riding drivel. I
Speaker 1: want to drive. Just drive, baby, the questions trying. This
Speaker 1: is the drive to the globe. Give me thanks. We'll
Speaker 1: drying us down on bloom Bird Radio. Yep. And as
Speaker 1: we drive to the clothes on this Friday, getting ready
Speaker 1: to trap to wrap up another trading week, we are
Speaker 1: taking another leg up. We're pretty much hovering at our
Speaker 1: highs of this session. And I was just looking Jason
Speaker 1: at the five day moves on the Dawdly, SMP, and
Speaker 1: the NASA. We've had quite a rally this week now,
Speaker 1: Deck alone up about six percent two and a half
Speaker 1: percent and higher on the down the S and P
Speaker 1: up about three and a half per cent. So a
Speaker 1: lot of optimism and the risk trade definitely on. So
Speaker 1: let's see what J. J. Kenahan has to say about it,
Speaker 1: Chief Market Strategies at t D A marriage trade. They've
Speaker 1: got one point to trillion in assets under management. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: got that right, uh? And J J joining us on
Speaker 1: the phone from Chicago. JJ, nice to have you here.
Speaker 1: Man investors. Yeah, I hope you're doing okay. UM investors
Speaker 1: definitely looking past, you know, still the numbers that we
Speaker 1: increasingly get on the virus. We just checked in UM
Speaker 1: with the CEO of A Line of Health and they are,
Speaker 1: you know, still on an upward slope when it comes
Speaker 1: to the virus out there in the Midwest. Investors. Are
Speaker 1: they too optimistic too soon? Well? I think that the
Speaker 1: risk is uh, you know exactly what you're saying right now.
Speaker 1: It's optimism. It's fantastic, but I think we have a
Speaker 1: risk to the market and probably four to six weeks
Speaker 1: when optimism perhaps meets the reality of businesses perhaps not
Speaker 1: opening fast enough for people's liking if you will, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at the jobs reports this morning showing all
Speaker 1: those jobs being laid off in you know, uh, restaurants
Speaker 1: and bars, etcetera. Hotels, you would expect that a lot
Speaker 1: of those will come back. Although how long will take
Speaker 1: those those hotel jobs to come back in the hospitality industry?
Speaker 1: And you know, again, so I just think, as I
Speaker 1: look at that jobs reports this morning, will it take
Speaker 1: people longer to get back to work than the markets
Speaker 1: pricing in right now? And uh, in a market that's
Speaker 1: going to be driven by as you're referencing COVID news,
Speaker 1: maybe tariff news. Uh, you have another factor that in
Speaker 1: a few weeks, and that's going to be are we
Speaker 1: getting back to work fast enough? Right? And so when
Speaker 1: you factor all of that in, you know, Carol mentioned
Speaker 1: and Charlie Peller mentioned he was running through the numbers.
Speaker 1: You know, tech has essentially looked entirely past all the
Speaker 1: drama and trauma of this year. Is tech sort of
Speaker 1: the safest place to be at this point? Generally? And
Speaker 1: what are some of the names you like there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So I think in general, you know, Jason Tech obviously
Speaker 1: has been particularly the chip makers for the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. I think have been the big surprise, because
Speaker 1: you know, all we talked about was they were going
Speaker 1: to get hit badly when we had tariffs, except etcetera.
Speaker 1: But then you look at a company like Quarribo q
Speaker 1: U r v O, I don't don't think I Querribo
Speaker 1: might be something a little different. Do you think you
Speaker 1: had to tonight J. J. Good, I'm thinking about I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about five minutes from now. Quite honestly, you know,
Speaker 1: you look at their numbers today, not only phenomenal, at
Speaker 1: the biggest thing I thought about that willing to come
Speaker 1: out and say, here's what we're projecting, and we're projecting
Speaker 1: good numbers in a market where people are not projecting.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting the one stock that I thought in
Speaker 1: all these companies that have pulled their projections, there was
Speaker 1: only one stock. I thought God heard on that, and
Speaker 1: that was actually Intel. If you remember that morning, they
Speaker 1: got hurt for not not projecting. So it is interesting
Speaker 1: to me that the chips continue to do pretty well
Speaker 1: during all of this, and I think that that's where
Speaker 1: we have to continue to look for leadership. Is it
Speaker 1: a good leading indicator. I believe it is. And because
Speaker 1: h A, if the demand there stops, what you're saying
Speaker 1: is so many electronic devices. Uh, their demand is slowing
Speaker 1: down pretty considerably. Also, so even though Apple had you know,
Speaker 1: the sales there were a little bit disappointing in their
Speaker 1: recent earnings, the fact is, uh, we're still seeing demand
Speaker 1: overall for what you know, people replacing devices, buying new devices.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's a really really positive sign.
Speaker 1: Not to say that that's going to be a straight
Speaker 1: line up also, but as people do get back to work,
Speaker 1: hopefully you see some pent up demand that j J.
Speaker 1: What do you make of the name like Macy's Right now,
Speaker 1: Carol and I were it's sort of in our chat
Speaker 1: that we have going back and forth on the sidelines
Speaker 1: of the show talking about that one, especially in light
Speaker 1: of what you saw with Neimans this week, what you
Speaker 1: saw with Jay Crew. I mean, Macy's is a troubled retailer.
Speaker 1: It's a troubled company in a troubled industry. Do you
Speaker 1: stay away from retail at this point? Right? And which
Speaker 1: and and this and we should point out today right
Speaker 1: they delayed, Um, they're gonna they're announcement. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw they delayed the results. And actually the funny thing
Speaker 1: is the stock up on that news. But uh, you know,
Speaker 1: here's what I would say to most people want it
Speaker 1: is a five dollar stock though, Let's just remember but
Speaker 1: that's exactly where I was going. Is when stocks get
Speaker 1: under ten dollars and you know, not on the ascension,
Speaker 1: but on the descension, I think a that's a little
Speaker 1: bit of a warning sign for most investors generally, when
Speaker 1: everybody in your sector seems to be saying that they're
Speaker 1: having trouble um and and let's face it, most of
Speaker 1: the Macy stories, particularly in Chicago and New York, take
Speaker 1: up some big real estate spaces. It's tough to put
Speaker 1: the amount of inventory in those uh spaces that that
Speaker 1: makes them look filled. But on the other hand, you
Speaker 1: don't want to carry too much inventory, particularly with the
Speaker 1: swiftness with which you can do things online. So there
Speaker 1: they I think they're at that point where they're still
Speaker 1: deciding what they want to be and that's not a
Speaker 1: good place to live right now. And there's stock maybe
Speaker 1: up at their bonds are tumbling, and you know, in
Speaker 1: a case like this, i'd like to watch the debt
Speaker 1: markets for what it tells us Um, I don't know
Speaker 1: you've seen market cycles, I don't know it. For me,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's going to be a while before
Speaker 1: we get back to kind of a normal market cycle
Speaker 1: with normal factors normal quote unquote, you know, impacting it.
Speaker 1: What's what's your thoughts? Got about forty seconds here? Uh yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: I think you're you're hitting out. I had I just
Speaker 1: think our our definition of normal is going to change
Speaker 1: pretty significantly. Uh. The other thing being, at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, you know, talking about this in times
Speaker 1: of crisis, you want to go with perhaps lower beta stocks,
Speaker 1: companies that have a lot of cash, and in this
Speaker 1: market where of a ten year yield, you know about
Speaker 1: points about seventy five basis points, you want to maybe
Speaker 1: look for dividends at least for a while until to
Speaker 1: your point, Carl, you get more of a feel of
Speaker 1: what normal will be. All right, Well, we're gonna leave
Speaker 1: it there paid the way for you to get Quervo J. J.
Speaker 1: Kenahan great to catch up with the chief market strategies
Speaker 1: for t dum are trade soon joining us on the
Speaker 1: phone from Chicago. Soon enough, sooner, than us. It sounds
Speaker 1: like we got a couple of hours to go. I'm
Speaker 1: watching you. I'm watching you get his water in tea
Speaker 1: in front of me. That's all. I have got an apple.
Speaker 1: I'm staying away from the cinnamon rolls. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, Southcloud,
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