Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast counts Saturdays at
Speaker 1: one and seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on
Speaker 1: demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I Amy Morris. This week it's
Speaker 2: a matter of trust, trust in science and in scientists.
Speaker 2: We'll talk with Bloomberg's Faith Lamb, and we'll explore the
Speaker 2: erosion of trust in politics in our country's institutions and
Speaker 2: where that might lead the country in an alarmingly short time.
Speaker 2: But we begin with Taylor Swift and her Era's tour
Speaker 2: that took her through Brazil. The Grammy winner returned to
Speaker 2: the stage in Rio de Janeiro. Here she is performing
Speaker 2: Bigger Than the Whole Sky. It's one of her surprise
Speaker 2: songs in that tour. It happened a day after she
Speaker 2: had to postpone her ERR's tour because of the extreme
Speaker 2: temperatures at the time. This also appeared to be something
Speaker 2: of a tribute to a fan who died reportedly in
Speaker 2: connection with that triple digit heat. The heat index reached
Speaker 2: fifty nine point seven degrees celsius at one point, that's
Speaker 2: nearly one hundred and forty degrees fahrenheit. Let's talk about
Speaker 2: this with Bloomberg Opinion colonist Lara Williams. She covers climate change. Lara,
Speaker 2: those temperatures are insane. I had to double check those numbers.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're ads the importantly, so that's the heat indebt.
Speaker 3: So it combines the actual heat, which was around forty
Speaker 3: degrees celsius one hundred and two fahrenheit, with the humidity,
Speaker 3: and that that's what really was made in The temperature
Speaker 3: is so dangerous. Just the heat humidity combination can be
Speaker 3: really really.
Speaker 2: Bad, and a fan actually passed away. Swift had trouble breathing.
Speaker 2: The tour had to be postponed. And as you point
Speaker 2: out in your column, this is not the first perform
Speaker 2: means to be impacted by the effects of climate change.
Speaker 3: No, so Billboard has been keeping tally of major concerts
Speaker 3: around the world that have been impacted by extreme weather,
Speaker 3: and I think the count, not including the tailor concerts,
Speaker 3: actually was above above thirty. And you know, so that's
Speaker 3: you know, evacuations, cancelations, postponements, and it's you know, everything
Speaker 3: from you know, people being directly impacted by extreme rain,
Speaker 3: extreme heat. To Pearl Jam had to cancel three concerts
Speaker 3: because their lead singer got throat damage from performing in
Speaker 3: an outdoor concert in Paris and got affected by the
Speaker 3: heat and dust and wildlife smoke. So there are all
Speaker 3: these kind of not on effects from climate change that
Speaker 3: aren't even direct. It can be indirect as well.
Speaker 2: And you say thirty, at least thirty performances, and that's
Speaker 2: just this year, just.
Speaker 3: This year, and that's just major ones that Billboard have
Speaker 3: picked up. So I'm sure there's been plenty of smaller
Speaker 3: gibs and you know, up and coming musicians that have
Speaker 3: been affected.
Speaker 2: To I completely forgot about the wildfires too, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: So would this then help drive the message of climate
Speaker 2: change home? Or is any when listening or people just
Speaker 2: annoyed that their favorite show is being postponed.
Speaker 3: I'm sure lots of people were annoyed that their favorite
Speaker 3: show is being postponed. I know some people didn't make it.
Speaker 3: Saturday Night Dot postponed to Monday, and some people weren't
Speaker 3: going to be in Rio on Monday, so that was
Speaker 3: annoying for them. But I think kind of longer term,
Speaker 3: it really makes the point that we need to be
Speaker 3: able to adapt and have plans in place so that,
Speaker 3: you know, concerts can go on without pausing. Danger to
Speaker 3: life disasters happen when these extreme events hit preexisting vulnerabilities.
Speaker 3: And the important thing is that the tailor concert, probably
Speaker 3: the gig shd's have gone ahead. But also funds weren't
Speaker 3: allowed to bring their own personal water bottles into the show.
Speaker 3: There was reports of in azituit distribution of the free water.
Speaker 3: You know, funds complained that it was too crowded, and
Speaker 3: so those things together really combined, you know, and potentially
Speaker 3: led to the death of one fan.
Speaker 2: We are talking with Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lara Williams about
Speaker 2: how climate change is impacting live tours and performances and shows,
Speaker 2: and you were talking about the adaptation that we're all
Speaker 2: going to have to see, and we're specifically targeting, of course,
Speaker 2: these live shows and these tours and these concerts in
Speaker 2: this particular interview. Venues are going to have to change
Speaker 2: those rules, like you said, allowing people to bring in
Speaker 2: their own water bottles, maybe even putting a disclaimer on
Speaker 2: the ticket about a climate change impact type of thing
Speaker 2: where you may or may not be allowed to get
Speaker 2: your money back, or trading your ticket for something else.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing are we going to see more of.
Speaker 2: Are you hearing any chatter or any hubbub about changing
Speaker 2: how the venues are able to do business based on
Speaker 2: the impact of climate change? And even as I say that,
Speaker 2: that sounds really remarkable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I'm not hearing it. I've not heard
Speaker 3: anything specific to the music industry, but I think, you know,
Speaker 3: people are starting to pay attention and adaptation has been
Speaker 3: one of those forgotten you know, aspects of the kind
Speaker 3: of climate era. You know, Historically, adaptation was almost looked
Speaker 3: down upon because people saw it as a controversial thing
Speaker 3: that was taking money and attention away from the you know,
Speaker 3: we need to reduce emissions, which is obviously still you know,
Speaker 3: really important, but we need to remember that climate impacts
Speaker 3: are already here and so we need to be able
Speaker 3: to adapt. And so, you know, you'd hope that stuff
Speaker 3: like this and high profile events being affected does make
Speaker 3: you know, venues pay attention and start putting together proper
Speaker 3: heat you know, and governments as well. This obviously has
Speaker 3: to turn from governments. Governments are also not very good
Speaker 3: at planning for you know, the physical risks of climate change,
Speaker 3: and either are companies. So I think the more we
Speaker 3: talk about it, the more people are going to start
Speaker 3: building this into their kind of operations and you know,
Speaker 3: into laws. The Brazilian government actually reacted with emergency rules,
Speaker 3: you know, to to ensure that venues have to provide
Speaker 3: water and have to allow personal water bottles into venues. So,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a shame that it took such a
Speaker 3: tragedy to kind of spark that, but to be fair,
Speaker 3: Brazil did respond very quickly over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Have we seen this before? Is this quite unusual?
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I mean we've seen lots, you know,
Speaker 3: as the billboard list shows that, you know, we've seen
Speaker 3: lots of uh, you know, climate impacts. We're burning, man,
Speaker 3: they all aren't rained in sure.
Speaker 2: Let me just clarify. That's for for this year, and
Speaker 2: they've they've started doing a tally for this year. But
Speaker 2: we haven't seen tallies for years before, have we. I mean,
Speaker 2: the idea that concerts and venues are having to change
Speaker 2: how they do business because of the impact of climate
Speaker 2: change seems really fresh and new.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's that's a good point. We haven't been paying
Speaker 3: attention to this before, and so in that way, and
Speaker 3: you know, to be fair, we've we've seen you know,
Speaker 3: the physical risks of climate change really comes to the
Speaker 3: fall in the last couple of years. We are we're
Speaker 3: now in an El Nino year, which is you know,
Speaker 3: raising global temperatures and potentially you know, itsascerbating the the
Speaker 3: you know, the the heat risk and extreme weather risks.
Speaker 3: And I think, yeah, people's new that people are paying
Speaker 3: so much attention to adaptation.
Speaker 2: Can we expect to see more of this then, not
Speaker 2: just with concerts and live entertainment, but other organizations, companies,
Speaker 2: venues having to adapt.
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. For you know, the SMP Global Corporate Sustainability
Speaker 3: Assessment is a kind of survey of thousands of companies
Speaker 3: around the world, and only one in five companies have
Speaker 3: an adaptation plan to you know, adapt their supply chains
Speaker 3: and operations to the physical risks of climate change. And
Speaker 3: so we'll probably see a lot more companies. You know,
Speaker 3: there's there's basically a lot of lots of companies need
Speaker 3: to touch up to the you know, the current climate
Speaker 3: and current climate change risks, and so we'll probably see
Speaker 3: that happen in the next year or so, and then.
Speaker 2: The flip side of this coin, it's actually quite true.
Speaker 2: Swifties are really a force of their own. If they
Speaker 2: can't recruit more gen z ors to the climate change fight,
Speaker 2: if not Taylor Swift, then who I mean. It seems
Speaker 2: like this is well, it's an awful tragedy and it's
Speaker 2: a very difficult thing to face. At the same time,
Speaker 2: enormous amounts of attention are being paid to it now.
Speaker 3: Yes, no, exactly. I think one thing that could make
Speaker 3: it even more impactful is if you know Taylor herself,
Speaker 3: we've talked about climate change, and you know, obviously it's
Speaker 3: very early on. She's in the middle of a global tour.
Speaker 3: I'm sure the events on Friday and you know, over
Speaker 3: the weekend have really affected her personally, and so I'm
Speaker 3: not surprised that we haven't heard her speak out about
Speaker 3: it yet. But if Swifties and you know, Taylor Swift
Speaker 3: should talk about climate change and raise awareness, and that
Speaker 3: could be really powerful.
Speaker 2: You know, it almost seems like an opportunity for like
Speaker 2: a live aid, a band aid, some sort of concert
Speaker 2: or gathering to help raise awareness for the for the issue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I think I have I have heard that,
Speaker 3: you know, people involved with Live Aid did want to
Speaker 3: do a clime at one and I think last year
Speaker 3: Billie Eilish, I think did there was a bid. There
Speaker 3: was a bid festival in maybe Paris or somewhere like
Speaker 3: that for you know, to raise money and awareness about
Speaker 3: climate change. But we can't. Yeah, we're just that.
Speaker 4: Momentum needs to continue.
Speaker 3: We need to keep the momentum going and so hopefully
Speaker 3: you know, something good will come out of this, and
Speaker 3: that's you know, more awareness well the needs for adaptation
Speaker 3: plans and also more awareness someone gen Z about climate
Speaker 3: change and the very real risk that climate change poses
Speaker 3: not only to you know, people in abstract time periods
Speaker 3: and countries, but you know, to their enjoyment of their
Speaker 3: own lives.
Speaker 2: Really, Lara, thank you for taking the time with this
Speaker 2: on this today.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Lara Williams covers a climate change and
Speaker 2: coming up. Science and trust in scientists is taking a
Speaker 2: hit in the United States. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Bloomberg Opinion podcast count US Saturdays
Speaker 1: at one and seven pm. Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app, or listen
Speaker 1: on demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I may me more as
Speaker 2: science and trust in scientists is taking a hit in
Speaker 2: the United States, A new Pew Research Center poll finds
Speaker 2: that Americans trust and scientists continues to decline. Among both
Speaker 2: Democrats and Republicans, trust in scientists is now lower than
Speaker 2: it was before the pandemic. Similarly, the positive views of
Speaker 2: science and belief in its positive effect on society continues
Speaker 2: to dip. Now, this is not a new phenomenon. During
Speaker 2: the pandemic, In Texas, pediatrician Christina Props made an appeal
Speaker 2: to the public to continue to take precautions to avoid
Speaker 2: getting and spreading COVID, even after the state reopened businesses
Speaker 2: and lifted mask mandates.
Speaker 5: We are doing our part, and so it is really
Speaker 5: a painful experience to feel that our elected officials don't
Speaker 5: trust us, don't trust our expertise, and are not listening
Speaker 5: to the science.
Speaker 2: But this is not all about the pandemic necessarily. Bloomberg
Speaker 2: Opinion columnist Faith Lamb joins me now Fay Cover Science
Speaker 2: and his host of the follow of the Science podcast,
Speaker 2: they where's this coming from, this distrust of science and scientists.
Speaker 6: Well, I think that there is a connection with the pandemic.
Speaker 6: The Pew Research Foundation just came up with some new
Speaker 6: numbers where the public trust in science did take quite
Speaker 6: a dip from twenty nineteen to now. And you know
Speaker 6: what else, what else seems likely to have changed. We've
Speaker 6: had this pandemic, We've had scientists telling people what to
Speaker 6: think and what to do. And I don't think it
Speaker 6: has anything to do with astronomers or physicists or other scientists.
Speaker 6: I think it has to do with medical science primarily,
Speaker 6: and public health and some of the missteps that public
Speaker 6: health made during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: But this also crosses party lines, which is not something
Speaker 2: we saw during the pandemic. In fact, quite the opposite.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think maybe over time it does. Republicans are
Speaker 6: less likely to trust scientists than Democrats, But I think overall,
Speaker 6: there have been some flaws in the way the pandemic
Speaker 6: was handled that the general public is more likely to
Speaker 6: be concerned about right now.
Speaker 2: Is this also a reflection of the muddying of the
Speaker 2: message during the Trump administration, which was a very intentional thing.
Speaker 2: Or is there something else happening that has caused the
Speaker 2: public to continue to distrust science. Is this this a
Speaker 2: lingering after effect or is there more to it?
Speaker 6: I think there is more to it. In fact, one
Speaker 6: of the things I'm going to be writing about in
Speaker 6: this column is a book that I really like. It's
Speaker 6: called Within Reason, and it's written by Sandra Galia, who's
Speaker 6: dean of public health at Boston University. And this book
Speaker 6: is just a really nice, sort of honest reckoning with
Speaker 6: what public health got wrong during the pandemic and why
Speaker 6: they got it wrong. And I had a very nice
Speaker 6: talk with him, and I think he has the humility
Speaker 6: to recognize that this might not be completely something wrong
Speaker 6: with the public. It might also be something wrong with
Speaker 6: the way scientists handled things. I think that there's been
Speaker 6: there have been a few editorials by scientists saying, well,
Speaker 6: what we've got to fix the general public so they
Speaker 6: trust us again. But I think that there is a
Speaker 6: real place for self reflection. And I think one of
Speaker 6: the things that went wrong during the pandemic was what
Speaker 6: I call false false certainty. You know, when people were
Speaker 6: saying things when they did I didn't really know and
Speaker 6: would say, no, we definitely know, you should do this
Speaker 6: or do that, and now you know in retrospect when
Speaker 6: they got things wrong, they said we didn't know. But
Speaker 6: then my question to them is, well you didn't know,
Speaker 6: why didn't you say you didn't know? And I saw
Speaker 6: that happened early in the pandemic. It wasn't just a
Speaker 6: flip flop on masks. There was a flip flop on
Speaker 6: how to think about the pandemic. So in January and February,
Speaker 6: there was actually a lot of evidence building out that
Speaker 6: the problem in China was incredibly disruptive and that the
Speaker 6: disease was spreading and that we could face a real problem.
Speaker 6: But I was seeing editorials running in the paper saying
Speaker 6: seasonal flu is a bigger threat, you know, don't worry
Speaker 6: about this, And there was there should have been a
Speaker 6: huge effort at that time to prepare hospitals, to get
Speaker 6: ppe for all of the workers, to prepare the general
Speaker 6: public for a possible disruption, to give businesses in private
Speaker 6: citizens time to prepare for these lockdowns. But instead, even
Speaker 6: though the science didn't make a U turn, the science
Speaker 6: was evidence was building up, but the scientists did take
Speaker 6: a big u turn from don't worry to stay in
Speaker 6: your house. And yes, some of the restrictions they made
Speaker 6: also were counter to what scientific evidence was was building up.
Speaker 6: That there was already fairly early on and understanding that
Speaker 6: outdoors were safer than indoors. And yet we saw you know,
Speaker 6: playgrounds being taped up, and people, you know, police chasing
Speaker 6: people out of parks, and skateboard parks being filled in
Speaker 6: with sand, you know, stuff that was not following the science.
Speaker 2: And we are talking with Bloomberg Opinion colonist Faith Lamb
Speaker 2: about this new pole regarding trust in science and why
Speaker 2: that trust is waning on a general level. Fay is
Speaker 2: trust in short supply across the board in the United
Speaker 2: States anyway, just not it is in science.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 6: In fact, scientists were still more trusted than almost everybody else,
Speaker 6: including journalists. So what people really need isn't trust in
Speaker 6: individual scientists, but trust in the process of science and
Speaker 6: the methods of science. Things like clinical trials. Double blind
Speaker 6: clinical trials are actually designed as sort of an anadote
Speaker 6: to human fallibility in human bias. And the reason that
Speaker 6: science produces reliable knowledge for us all is the methods
Speaker 6: of science and the way this sort of group project
Speaker 6: of science keeps adding to that knowledge. But individual scientists
Speaker 6: are fallible and it's very hard to If we do
Speaker 6: develop trust in science, then our trust in individual scientists.
Speaker 6: How do people know which scientists are the right scientists?
Speaker 6: There are plenty of people that are considered outliers and
Speaker 6: even hucksters who have PhDs and mds behind their name,
Speaker 6: and so there's also a problem with fringe scientists. So
Speaker 6: I think understanding, you know, trust in the big picture
Speaker 6: science can help people recognize when scientists who are trustworthy.
Speaker 6: Scientists who are trustworthy will point to the wider body
Speaker 6: of knowledge that is science, not try to say, oh,
Speaker 6: all of those scientists everybody else is wrong. I'm right,
Speaker 6: that's a red flag.
Speaker 2: So then the onus would be on the general public
Speaker 2: right to know the difference between science and pseudoscience and
Speaker 2: just outright fraud.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, but they do know that evidence that you
Speaker 7: should come with evidence, you know, and if you're a scientist,
Speaker 7: you better have some really strong evidence evidence, and that
Speaker 7: there is a sort of connection between things we know,
Speaker 7: things that we've built.
Speaker 6: Up, knowledge we've known from the past. It's why those
Speaker 6: vaccines worked so as well as they did because they
Speaker 6: were built on years of biological experiments, and then they
Speaker 6: also had to go through clinical trials that were designed
Speaker 6: to flag problems and you know, make sure that they
Speaker 6: really worked the way they thought they worked.
Speaker 2: This isn't just distrust of scientists though this Paul also
Speaker 2: shows that Americans are questioning the positive role that science
Speaker 2: has on society. Did that surprise you a little.
Speaker 6: Bit, Yeah, because that seems like, you know, we have
Speaker 6: we're surrounded by so many things that are that are
Speaker 6: made possible by our advancing scientific knowledge. But I think
Speaker 6: the pandemic may have left people so bitter that they
Speaker 6: may be reacting to that. You know, polls are it's
Speaker 6: sometimes it's hard to know without more detail where that's
Speaker 6: coming from.
Speaker 2: What can the scientific community do to win people back.
Speaker 2: It almost sounds like they need a pr campaign, But
Speaker 2: that just seems wrong.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: I think that one of the things I really liked
Speaker 6: about this book Within Reason was the idea that science
Speaker 6: has to sort of rise above all of the politics
Speaker 6: and has to be self reflective, has to be honest
Speaker 6: about where they might have gotten things wrong and where
Speaker 6: some of the policies during the pandemic weren't completely science based,
Speaker 6: and that with that kind of reckoning and radical honesty,
Speaker 6: that that is where trust I think could be re earned.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Faith. Faith Lem is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist
Speaker 2: who covers science and his host of the Follow the
Speaker 2: Science podcast coming up. Trust in politics, It's not a
Speaker 2: pipe dream. There is a measure of trust in our
Speaker 2: political system that is eroding to a perilous end. This
Speaker 2: is Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 1: You're listening to The Bloomberg Opinion podcast catches Saturdays at
Speaker 1: one in seven pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com, the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business App, or listen on
Speaker 1: demand wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Opinion. I Maymy Morris. There is a
Speaker 2: difference between the twenty twenty four election season and the
Speaker 2: election of twenty sixteen, now eight years ago. The race
Speaker 2: for the White House was won by a candidate who
Speaker 2: had categorized himself as an outsider, a businessman, someone different
Speaker 2: who would serve as a disruptor. But this election season,
Speaker 2: voters know who Donald Trump is and he's promising to
Speaker 2: build camps for migrants, purge the vermin from obstructing his endgame.
Speaker 2: He has praise for dictators, all while he's facing numerous
Speaker 2: indictments and legal entanglements that don't seem to slow him
Speaker 2: down at all. And the disconnect here might very well
Speaker 2: be a matter of trust. Bloomberg opinion columnist Clive Crook
Speaker 2: is a member of the editorial board covering economics, and
Speaker 2: he joins me now, and Clive, you have this really
Speaker 2: great column on the Bloomberg terminal. Your view is that
Speaker 2: Donald Trump could never really have gotten this far actually
Speaker 2: without Democrats unwitting assistants, in part because of their refusal
Speaker 2: to recognize the collapsing trust in this country. Can you
Speaker 2: expand on that?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean I think that made sense actually those
Speaker 8: time around, you know, when Trump was first elected, I
Speaker 8: think just as you say, you know, he campaigns an outsider,
Speaker 8: as something of a wreckor you know, someone who wouldn't
Speaker 8: about out to the rules, that would just you know,
Speaker 8: fix what needed fixing.
Speaker 9: And the fact that he succeeded before, you know, shows
Speaker 9: that people didn't really trust politics as usual. So I
Speaker 9: think that fact was already in play. But this time around,
Speaker 9: I think it's vastly more serious. I mean, to be
Speaker 9: honest with you, I wasn't that worried about Trump first
Speaker 9: time around. Perhaps I should have been, but I wasn't.
Speaker 9: I thought he'd betained by the system, you know, controlled
Speaker 9: somewhat by the system, and I think to a large
Speaker 9: degree he was. But I think it would be a
Speaker 9: big mistake to suppose he won't be any more dangerous
Speaker 9: next time. I think he's out for revenge for the
Speaker 9: way he's been treated by the system. And the astonishing
Speaker 9: factor is that he commends very wide support in the
Speaker 9: country and the people who are telling posters. But therefore Trump,
Speaker 9: having seen what's happened and having listened to what he
Speaker 9: said lately, they're basically expressing a complete lack of confidence
Speaker 9: in the system as usual. So I think as it
Speaker 9: were going into another Trump administration, it would be a
Speaker 9: much more destabilizing, much more dangerous prospect than it was
Speaker 9: last time around. And that is saying something.
Speaker 2: Do you believe that the electorate from the beginning didn't
Speaker 2: really have a lot of healthy trust in the system,
Speaker 2: And that's how Donald Trump was able to make those
Speaker 2: gains in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. He was able
Speaker 2: to capitalize on that and now it has turned into
Speaker 2: its own, It's taken on a life of its own,
Speaker 2: if you will.
Speaker 9: Yeah, well I do. I think there were sort of
Speaker 9: compounding factors in twenty sixteen, and in my view, Hillary
Speaker 9: Clinton was wont you know, she basically expressed disdain for
Speaker 9: a good part of the population in that campaign. You remember,
Speaker 9: you know, the notorious remark about deplorables that was really
Speaker 9: like an instruction to people that told them, you know,
Speaker 9: she has no interest in their views, and you know
Speaker 9: that can get lost. I mean, what an extraordinary position
Speaker 9: for a politician seeking election to take. So I think
Speaker 9: that was, as it were, a compounding factor last time.
Speaker 9: But you know, as I say, this time, it's going
Speaker 9: to be much worse because we've seen so many dimensions
Speaker 9: of trust break down more radically than before. I mean,
Speaker 9: I can you know on things of several examples, I mean,
Speaker 9: Biden and his officials are refusing to listen and take
Speaker 9: seriously people's complaints about what's happened to prices. You know,
Speaker 9: the Biden administration's position is Bidenomics is a work of genius.
Speaker 9: You know, we're transforming the economy, and people who are
Speaker 9: worried about high prices and what's happened to their real incomes,
Speaker 9: just failing to understand the statistics, and if only they
Speaker 9: would listen to the experts, their concerns would go away. Well,
Speaker 9: this is nonsense. I mean, many people are in a
Speaker 9: state of genuine financial insecurity. The averages on this are
Speaker 9: very misleading. You've got to look at people who are
Speaker 9: struggling because of this spiking prices, and Biden administrations basically said,
Speaker 9: you know, we're not interested this is this is misinformation,
Speaker 9: so we're not going to address it. I want to
Speaker 9: think of other dimensions of this.
Speaker 6: I mean.
Speaker 9: Trust and experts has formed because of what happened during
Speaker 9: the pandemic, the school closures, all the back and forth
Speaker 9: over whether you need mess whether they work, whether they're essential,
Speaker 9: and all that I think sort of roaded trust. And
Speaker 9: now we have this extraordinary sort of weaponization of the
Speaker 9: justice system to put Trump in jail by any means necessary.
Speaker 9: Now I do think Trump, I should make it clear.
Speaker 9: I mean, I'm Trump scares me. I mean I do
Speaker 9: think he has authoritarian appetites and it dismays me that,
Speaker 9: you know, the prospect that he could win an election
Speaker 9: just both amazes me. And asmaze me. But look at
Speaker 9: it from the point of view of his supporters. What
Speaker 9: they see is politically active prosecutors going after him from
Speaker 9: all these different directions. Unfortunately, the US has a highly
Speaker 9: politicized criminal justice system. The prosecutors in many cases are
Speaker 9: political actors with political ambitions, and so they can't take
Speaker 9: it for granted that people will assume that what they're
Speaker 9: doing is in the public interest. That always the suspicion
Speaker 9: of advancing a political agenda. Now have they restrained themselves
Speaker 9: given that is the case, I would say no, they
Speaker 9: have not. Quite the opposite. They're doubling down. What it's
Speaker 9: done is it's told people we were right not to
Speaker 9: trust the criminal justice system. And that is a terrifying
Speaker 9: thing that I.
Speaker 2: Think we're seeing that we are talking with Bloomberg Opinion
Speaker 2: colonist Clive Crook about the degradation of trust in the
Speaker 2: United States and politics, government institutions and where that might
Speaker 2: lead us. How did we get here, Clive.
Speaker 9: Well, it's the key question. And I do hold Biden
Speaker 9: somewhat responsible for this because he won his election on
Speaker 9: a promise to be the moderay to the unified. That
Speaker 9: was his whole shtick. You know, there was this battle
Speaker 9: going on within the Democratic Party between you know, woke
Speaker 9: progressives and more mainstream Democratic politicians, and Biden was regarded
Speaker 9: as a mainstream guy, a deal maker. He has a
Speaker 9: history of you know, striking compromises in Congress, and I'm
Speaker 9: finding kind of middle way through. In fact, many of
Speaker 9: his past positions are an embarrassment for him within the party,
Speaker 9: and I think that is what many voters wanted. They
Speaker 9: wanted that kind of moderate centrics. Now has he governed
Speaker 9: as that, I would say no, he has not. He
Speaker 9: basically has gone all in on a sort of hard
Speaker 9: left progressive economic and political agenda, and so people feel
Speaker 9: that he broke his word, and so they don't trust
Speaker 9: him now. I think if, of course, Biden has many
Speaker 9: other issues as well. To put it mildly, people don't
Speaker 9: trust trust a man of his age and evidently declining
Speaker 9: faculties to do a good job. If the Democrats could
Speaker 9: find it within themselves to listen to those complaints about
Speaker 9: Buide and find that that's a candidate, and the party
Speaker 9: has plenty of good candidates that I think, you know,
Speaker 9: Trump could be beaten.
Speaker 2: When we're talking about this, we are specifically talking about
Speaker 2: the re election of Donald Trump. But I'm curious about
Speaker 2: what may follow after Donald Trump. Is there a concern
Speaker 2: that a door has been opened to allow similar minded
Speaker 2: candidates a shot at national office?
Speaker 9: I would say so, actually, I mean that is a
Speaker 9: that is a concern and a certainly concerned of mine.
Speaker 9: I don't think we're taking it sufficiently seriously. But why
Speaker 9: do people suppose that if only Trump can be beaten,
Speaker 9: this problem goes away Once trust in our core institutions
Speaker 9: collapses and I think it might perhaps that it hasn't collapsed,
Speaker 9: but it's seriously damaged. Once that happens, then an avenue
Speaker 9: open for this kind of aggressive populist candidate to come through,
Speaker 9: someone who you know is going to say, you know,
Speaker 9: forget the rules. There are no rules. You know, these
Speaker 9: people will keep us out of office by any means necessary,
Speaker 9: and we're done with that. I mean, why should that
Speaker 9: stop at Trump? This is why the crucial thing is
Speaker 9: to restore trust. And it depresses me no end that
Speaker 9: the Democrats aren't a tune to this challenge. They have
Speaker 9: to restore trust.
Speaker 2: Clive Crook is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist and member of
Speaker 2: the editorial board covering economics. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion.
Speaker 2: I'm Amy Morris. Have you heard about America's impending fiscal doom?
Speaker 2: It is said to be a moment in the not
Speaker 2: too distant future when there will be too many elderly
Speaker 2: people for younger generations to support, and that would leave
Speaker 2: the federal government unable to fulfill its financial obligations. Want
Speaker 2: to talk about this with Bloomberg Opinion columnist and labor
Speaker 2: economist Catherine Edwards. Okay, Catherine, First of all, would this
Speaker 2: be a foregone conclusion? Is this a fiscal apocalypse that
Speaker 2: we can't avoid?
Speaker 4: No, of course not. It's a It certainly a reflects
Speaker 4: a flair for the dramatic, if nothing else. But there's
Speaker 4: nothing faded about either our economic or fiscal future that
Speaker 4: policy can't change.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about policy. What can the government
Speaker 2: do right now to avoid this fiscal doom?
Speaker 4: What the government is worried about is the obligations that
Speaker 4: are going to go fund the income and the healthcare
Speaker 4: of the baby boomer population. And they're not wrong, and
Speaker 4: that there is going to be an incredible number of
Speaker 4: elderly Americans in the near future. The youngest baby boomer
Speaker 4: is currently fifty nine. But you know, I think they're
Speaker 4: a little bit focused on the old. The cost drivers
Speaker 4: of the elderly is that there's a lot of them
Speaker 4: and they live a long time. I mean, those are
Speaker 4: two things that you basically can't change. So if that's
Speaker 4: going to be expensive to the federal government, then they
Speaker 4: need to make sure that the programs that support the
Speaker 4: elderly are in tip top shape, which means that they'd
Speaker 4: have to reform Social Security, which they haven't done since
Speaker 4: well before I was born. And then they're going to
Speaker 4: have to bolster the finances of the young. If we
Speaker 4: are going to afford an aging population, it is going
Speaker 4: to be young people that pay for it.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about that. How can we bet on the young?
Speaker 2: How can we ensure that the young people will be
Speaker 2: able to pay for it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because either way they will. Right, Let's say Congress
Speaker 4: passes a benefit cut to Social Security and Medicare. Who
Speaker 4: do you think is going to make up the difference?
Speaker 4: The same young workers who would be financing the program.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's young families who are going to pay
Speaker 4: for their elders no matter what. You know, the way
Speaker 4: to make the health less expensive is to radically alter
Speaker 4: our health insurance system so that it's high cost aligns
Speaker 4: with better outcomes. I mean, we're in the worst of
Speaker 4: both worlds because we have some of the worst outcomes
Speaker 4: for the highest prices. But there doesn't seem to be
Speaker 4: an appetite in policy worlds to fix health care or
Speaker 4: to change it in any dramatic way. And I can
Speaker 4: understand that. I mean, that's moving miles from where we are.
Speaker 4: Whereas the labor supply policy that could increase the number
Speaker 4: of workers who are young, I mean that's moving inches right.
Speaker 4: Let's have mandatory paid sick days. Let's have adjustments to
Speaker 4: the Fair Libor Standards Act, so you're required to accommodate
Speaker 4: workers who want to work part time, who need to
Speaker 4: have flexible arrangements a few days a week. You know
Speaker 4: your tenured staff says they're going to work from home
Speaker 4: two days a week. You're probably increasing the number of
Speaker 4: workers by a couple million in the long run. We
Speaker 4: also need a paid family leave system. I mean, that's
Speaker 4: just kindness. If we know that there are going to
Speaker 4: be roughly eighty million people over sixty five, those children
Speaker 4: are going to have some hard moment where their parents
Speaker 4: are sick and they need to take care of them,
Speaker 4: and we don't really offer them a way to do
Speaker 4: so that doesn't almost always require them losing or leaving
Speaker 4: their job. There's some easy gains like sick days, accommodation policy,
Speaker 4: pay family leave. I mean, then there's some investments that
Speaker 4: we just need to make, something like paying for childcare,
Speaker 4: something like having a decent long term unemployment system that
Speaker 4: helps retain workers whose jobs are automated. None of these
Speaker 4: things are that radical in general. They only seem radical
Speaker 4: in the US because we're the only country that doesn't
Speaker 4: have them. But I you know, it's all tenable, it's
Speaker 4: all possible. I think what is the true challenge is
Speaker 4: to make healthcare less expensive. And so I kind of
Speaker 4: put this as like, hey man, we can go with
Speaker 4: the easy option first. The easy option is let's work
Speaker 4: on workers and then the healthcare fight, you know, the
Speaker 4: healthcare debacle, whatever you want to call it. I think
Speaker 4: that one's more of the apocalypse. Nothing about aging in
Speaker 4: the workforce. We can we can afford old people. It's
Speaker 4: I don't think it's I don't think we should frame
Speaker 4: it as that. And I don't think we should spur
Speaker 4: any type of intergenerational who is getting the resources. You
Speaker 4: don't have to have that fight if you don't position
Speaker 4: the economy as a zero sum game.
Speaker 2: Bloomberg Opinion columnist Catherine Edwards is a labor economist and
Speaker 2: independent policy consultant. And that does it for this this
Speaker 2: week's Bloomberg Opinion. We are produced by Eric Mullow, and
Speaker 2: you can find all of these columns on the Bloomberg Terminal.
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Speaker 2: and global business headlines are just ahead. I'm Amy Morris.
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