Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Trumpcare Bill Doesn't Age Well, Nisen Says
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- 0:05Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg P and L Podcast. I'm Pim
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- 0:32Speaker 1: So we were talking about that healthcare bill that was
- 0:34Speaker 1: just released, and we want to bring in Max Niece
- 0:36Speaker 1: and bloombergad Fly columnists covering all things healthcare and Max
- 0:41Speaker 1: as Greg was just saying, healthcare shares are surging, Can
- 0:45Speaker 1: you give us a sense of what in this bill
- 0:47Speaker 1: that was just released caused this rally? Why is this
- 0:51Speaker 1: being viewed as a positive for the healthcare industry? Um?
- 0:55Speaker 1: You know, so I'm just like everybody else, including a
- 0:58Speaker 1: large number of Republican senator I'm still making my way
- 1:01Speaker 1: through the bill yet, I I you know, i'd like
- 1:05Speaker 1: to say I have, but but not quite yet. I'm
- 1:07Speaker 1: kind of just jumping through looking for snippets. Um. So
- 1:10Speaker 1: what it looks like is that this isn't kind of
- 1:12Speaker 1: a dramatic departure from what the House passed. There are
- 1:16Speaker 1: some modest differences to the subsidies that low income people get,
- 1:20Speaker 1: and um, some of the Medicaid cuts are deeper in
- 1:23Speaker 1: the long run, but this doesn't diverge dramatically from what
- 1:27Speaker 1: people know already. And I guess resolving some of that
- 1:30Speaker 1: uncertainty might, um might be causing some of that jump
- 1:33Speaker 1: in stock rise based on what you know, how likely
- 1:36Speaker 1: is this to be reconciled with the House bill and
- 1:38Speaker 1: actually make it to the President's desk. Um, You know,
- 1:41Speaker 1: I I think that the issue isn't gonna be reconciling
- 1:45Speaker 1: it with the House bill in this case, it's whether
- 1:47Speaker 1: it can get through the Senate, because I mean, the
- 1:50Speaker 1: really kind of salient detail here is that the Republican
- 1:54Speaker 1: senators who have to vote for have not seen it yet,
- 1:57Speaker 1: most of them, so they're kind of grappling it in
- 1:59Speaker 1: the same way that um, we are as reporters and
- 2:02Speaker 1: and the country is right now, so there are there
- 2:04Speaker 1: are things that some you know, conservatives aren't gonna like
- 2:07Speaker 1: parts of this bill, and moderates as well. It's the
- 2:09Speaker 1: same problem that's been there for the start politically, so
- 2:12Speaker 1: that's going to have to be worked throughing in a
- 2:13Speaker 1: pretty short time period. If they want to vote on
- 2:15Speaker 1: it next week. Well, and let's talk about the fact
- 2:17Speaker 1: that U. S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said
- 2:20Speaker 1: that he would like a vote to come next week.
- 2:24Speaker 1: And given the fact that it's just being released now,
- 2:26Speaker 1: even to some Republican the Republicans own members in the Senate, UM,
- 2:33Speaker 1: why do they want to rush this? Um? I think
- 2:36Speaker 1: the kind of thing we've learned over the course of
- 2:39Speaker 1: the process with the House polls that this bill doesn't
- 2:42Speaker 1: or this particular effort, policy effort does not age well,
- 2:46Speaker 1: does not hold up to UM. Scrutineer right Eric, particularly well,
- 2:50Speaker 1: it does some things that are are going to be
- 2:53Speaker 1: very unpopular, including weakening protections for those with pre existing
- 2:57Speaker 1: conditions in a different way than the House will, but
- 2:59Speaker 1: but a heres to still do so, and cutting Medicaid
- 3:03Speaker 1: really substantially, and that's not popular at all. Medicaid do
- 3:06Speaker 1: doesn't just cover low income people, it also covers kids
- 3:09Speaker 1: and a majority of people that are in nursing homes
- 3:12Speaker 1: in the United States. So, um, you know, they the
- 3:15Speaker 1: point of kind of rushing the process is potentially getting
- 3:19Speaker 1: less political backlash actually getting it done. For people. Senators
- 3:22Speaker 1: go back to their districts and get uh and get
- 3:25Speaker 1: another earful about the bill. Well that's the thing, right,
- 3:28Speaker 1: because of the congressional recess. Yeah, exactly. So Congress is
- 3:32Speaker 1: out after next week for a for a pretty long one,
- 3:34Speaker 1: and then again in August. So they really want to
- 3:37Speaker 1: get this done as quickly as they can. Just to
- 3:39Speaker 1: play devil's advocate. A lot of Republican Senate leaders have
- 3:42Speaker 1: come out and said, look, uh, more money does not
- 3:45Speaker 1: necessarily mean better healthcare, and they're trying to allocate cash
- 3:49Speaker 1: and and and create the right incentives to create a
- 3:51Speaker 1: better health care system. What's your response to that, Um,
- 3:56Speaker 1: I think that's just kind of typical uh rhetoric that
- 4:00Speaker 1: you hear. I mean, of course, government is not always
- 4:03Speaker 1: the most efficient way of allocating money. That I don't
- 4:06Speaker 1: I don't think anyone would argue that. But when you
- 4:08Speaker 1: cut in this case, Medicaid by more than eight hundred
- 4:12Speaker 1: billion dollars, people lose a lot of healthcare. That that's
- 4:15Speaker 1: just that's not an equation you can really contest or
- 4:19Speaker 1: argue with. And the same goes for subsidies for health insurance.
- 4:23Speaker 1: Let's get a little more detail from Max and Neeson
- 4:25Speaker 1: are a Bloomberg Gadfly columnist. Listening to both a Senator
- 4:30Speaker 1: Schumer and Senator McConnell, I wanted to begin by asking you.
- 4:34Speaker 1: Senator Schumer talked about affordable insurance, and I'm wondering he
- 4:39Speaker 1: made certain claims about this will do away with affordable
- 4:42Speaker 1: insurance for people. Is that accurate? I think it will
- 4:45Speaker 1: definitely be accurate for for certain subsets of the population.
- 4:49Speaker 1: And the ones that come to mind are people that
- 4:52Speaker 1: get subsidies under the A C A that will get
- 4:55Speaker 1: less generous subsidies under under they change the acronym. I
- 5:00Speaker 1: think it's the B C R A now UM. And
- 5:03Speaker 1: the other thing one that comes to mind is people
- 5:05Speaker 1: that lose coverage under the Medicaid Expansion or Medicaid in general,
- 5:09Speaker 1: and also people that have certain conditions. While the Senate
- 5:12Speaker 1: bill appears to maintain a prohibition against charging people with
- 5:16Speaker 1: pre existing conditions more which was states could wave that
- 5:20Speaker 1: under the House version, it does maintain um, the ability
- 5:25Speaker 1: for states to get rid of the requirement that states
- 5:27Speaker 1: cut that ensures cover a certain essential health benefits like
- 5:31Speaker 1: mental health care, for example, So you can't charge someone
- 5:34Speaker 1: with mental health care issues more. But you can offer
- 5:38Speaker 1: a plan that doesn't have mental health care in it
- 5:41Speaker 1: and make it much less expensive, and the plan with
- 5:43Speaker 1: that kind of care much more expensive, so effectively with people,
- 5:46Speaker 1: it's those sort of long term expensive issues. Health health
- 5:49Speaker 1: care will become unaffordable potentially in some states. Maxim struck
- 5:54Speaker 1: by the GOP's UH sent a proposal to include an
- 5:57Speaker 1: additional fifty billion dollars over four years to stay abilize
- 6:00Speaker 1: insurance exchanges. This was exactly the provision the Republicans have
- 6:04Speaker 1: criticized in the past, is a way to keep insurers
- 6:07Speaker 1: in the marketplace. Why did they reverse course and include this?
- 6:11Speaker 1: I think it was an effort to kind of build
- 6:14Speaker 1: a broader consensus around the bill. Um, you know, some
- 6:17Speaker 1: more near term stability and and more cynically, Um, it
- 6:20Speaker 1: just means that going into the next couple of electoral
- 6:23Speaker 1: cycles you have a more stable market. A lot of
- 6:25Speaker 1: the impact of this bill the kind of big shift
- 6:28Speaker 1: from the households that it's pushed out further, so the
- 6:31Speaker 1: big Medicaid cuts, the ending of the Medicaid expansion, it's
- 6:35Speaker 1: pushed out a little bit further. The big changes to
- 6:36Speaker 1: the A c A as well. UM, and that's kind
- 6:39Speaker 1: of evidence by these these funds. So that might create
- 6:42Speaker 1: a problem with the conservative wing of the party. They
- 6:44Speaker 1: they especially hated these payments when they were part of
- 6:47Speaker 1: the A C. A. They won't like it. That something
- 6:50Speaker 1: that could be described, I imagine as something of a
- 6:52Speaker 1: bailout by by that wing of the party. It's now
- 6:55Speaker 1: in this bill, so that might be a problem. Thank
- 6:58Speaker 1: you so much for joining us Maxnis and Blueberg Gadfly columnists.
- 7:00Speaker 1: UH you can follow his work at Bloomberg dot com
- 7:03Speaker 1: slash gad fly, and I'm sure Max you will be
- 7:06Speaker 1: opining on this proposal. Center Republic Industry Itierate did release
- 7:10Speaker 1: their healthcare proposals to replace Obamacare, providing an additional fifty
- 7:14Speaker 1: billion dollars over four years to stabilize insurance exchanges. This
- 7:17Speaker 1: is the plan that has been long awaited that Senate
- 7:20Speaker 1: Majority Leader Mitch McConnell would like to have a vote
- 7:22Speaker 1: on as soon as next week, and it will affect
- 7:25Speaker 1: a broad swath of the US economy. Right now, we
- 7:40Speaker 1: are looking at oil prices that are finding some stability
- 7:44Speaker 1: after a pretty significant swoon, after falling to the lowest
- 7:47Speaker 1: levels UH in ten months. It is rising just a
- 7:50Speaker 1: bit with the value of crude going to forty three
- 7:53Speaker 1: a little over forty three dollars a barrel. To get
- 7:55Speaker 1: a better sense of the direction of these prices, I
- 7:57Speaker 1: want to bring in John killed Off. He has founding
- 8:00Speaker 1: partner of again at Capital in New York. John, have
- 8:03Speaker 1: we seen the lows this year? Four crew? It's hard
- 8:09Speaker 1: to tell at this moment not to uh cop out
- 8:11Speaker 1: or avoid your question. Yesterday's sell off to two oh
- 8:15Speaker 1: five a barrel with significant it matches up with the
- 8:17Speaker 1: low from November. So there's a potential for technical traders
- 8:21Speaker 1: to see that as a double bottom, and I'm having
- 8:23Speaker 1: to abide that at the moment. But really I think
- 8:25Speaker 1: the path of least resistance is still lower down into
- 8:28Speaker 1: the upper thirties, upper thirties. How long would it stay there,
- 8:34Speaker 1: that's a good question, PIM. I think it would stay
- 8:36Speaker 1: there um for a good amount of time. What the
- 8:40Speaker 1: market is right now in the process of doing is
- 8:42Speaker 1: is calling and taking OPEC to task for not doing enough,
- 8:47Speaker 1: so they're challenging. The market gets into these modes where
- 8:49Speaker 1: they challenge the producing community, sometimes on the upside. Right
- 8:53Speaker 1: now it's on the downside to react and the statis
- 8:57Speaker 1: apparently are scrambling right now to to find the way
- 9:00Speaker 1: to react to this and to get the prices back up. John,
- 9:03Speaker 1: when I talk with bulls oil bulls, they say, look
- 9:06Speaker 1: Saudio Saudi Arabia in particular has great incentive to prop
- 9:11Speaker 1: up and give a floor to oil prices based on
- 9:13Speaker 1: the fact that they're planning to do an initial public
- 9:16Speaker 1: offering for Saudi Aramco in the near future. What do
- 9:20Speaker 1: you say to those traders who still have faith that
- 9:25Speaker 1: there will be a floor because of those political incentives. Well,
- 9:29Speaker 1: I think that the sadis you know, bristle at having
- 9:32Speaker 1: to go with a loan. They've they've been carrying most
- 9:36Speaker 1: of the load since the beginning, and now they're having
- 9:40Speaker 1: to deal with potentially covering as the as the oil
- 9:44Speaker 1: Minister put it, Libya and Nigeria, whose production in a
- 9:48Speaker 1: surprise I think to the market and certainly to OPEC
- 9:50Speaker 1: and the non OPEC participants have come rowing back. They're
- 9:53Speaker 1: back to really full output from being near zero for
- 9:57Speaker 1: the better part of the year or two oh in
- 10:01Speaker 1: the Historically, the Staudies reach a point where they won't
- 10:06Speaker 1: do it, and they instead turned press the market by
- 10:10Speaker 1: over supplying it. Now, this Stadio ramfil thing is a
- 10:13Speaker 1: new wrinkle. And with the new Crown Prince and the
- 10:15Speaker 1: new oil Minister, UH, they seem more committed to engineering
- 10:19Speaker 1: a higher price, potentially through more cutbacks. But boy, it's
- 10:23Speaker 1: a bitter pill for them to swallow, and historically in
- 10:26Speaker 1: my experience with them, they don't swallow it. Well, John,
- 10:30Speaker 1: to bring into the equation the swing producer, the United
- 10:34Speaker 1: States and its role in uh not only domestic energy markets,
- 10:38Speaker 1: but now international energy markets as an exporter, well that
- 10:43Speaker 1: and that is the big monkey wrench that has also
- 10:45Speaker 1: been thrown into this OPAC non OPEC agreement UM. And
- 10:48Speaker 1: also to keep pointing out to everyone that while the
- 10:52Speaker 1: shale players get all the glory and the headlines, you know,
- 10:55Speaker 1: like a big wide receiver on a football team, we've
- 10:58Speaker 1: had a lot of production increases from the Gulf of
- 11:00Speaker 1: Mexico this year from projects that have been on in
- 11:02Speaker 1: the works for years, and they're that production is not
- 11:05Speaker 1: going away no matter how low prices go. And a
- 11:07Speaker 1: lot of the shale plates have hedged a lot of
- 11:09Speaker 1: their production when prices got back up into the that
- 11:14Speaker 1: production is going to be a lot more stickier this
- 11:16Speaker 1: time around. And as you said, pim Uh China in
- 11:18Speaker 1: particular has sought out the U S shale producer oil
- 11:21Speaker 1: and we've been exporting increased the masts to China again
- 11:26Speaker 1: in a battle from market share with the Saudis that
- 11:29Speaker 1: they bristle at historically, that they don't accept and that
- 11:32Speaker 1: they end up fighting back on. So that's that's the
- 11:34Speaker 1: issue I had with all of this, and I really
- 11:36Speaker 1: think there's a potential, uh for the production war to breakout,
- 11:40Speaker 1: not a price war. You know, John, just wanted to
- 11:44Speaker 1: get your thoughts on some of these leveraged shale producers
- 11:48Speaker 1: in the US, UH. You know, they they are thought
- 11:51Speaker 1: as the swing producer and having the upper hand frankly,
- 11:54Speaker 1: but if you look at the debt markets, particularly energy
- 11:57Speaker 1: junk bonds, they have dropped more than three and a
- 11:59Speaker 1: half percent so far this month, and there's a lot
- 12:01Speaker 1: of concern that we're going to see another wave of carnage.
- 12:03Speaker 1: What's your what's your feeling in that space? We start
- 12:06Speaker 1: seeing largely the washout of the weakest players. No, I
- 12:10Speaker 1: think if we get down into the upper thirties, they'll
- 12:13Speaker 1: be more of that to come. Enough of their production.
- 12:17Speaker 1: Any of these folks to get them through. I think
- 12:20Speaker 1: another episode like that. Um, and all right, we're gonna John,
- 12:25Speaker 1: we gotta break in, John Kildeff. I want to thank
- 12:27Speaker 1: you breaking in. John Killoff is the founding partner of
- 12:30Speaker 1: Again Capital. Let's get a little bit more detail about
- 12:45Speaker 1: this potential deal. I want to bring in Dina Camel
- 12:48Speaker 1: Middle East aviation reporter joining us from Dubai and Michael
- 12:53Speaker 1: Sasso airline reporter from Bloomberg News joining us from Atlanta. Dina,
- 12:57Speaker 1: maybe you could speak a little bit about what Squtar
- 13:00Speaker 1: bring to any kind of shareholding and what is the
- 13:04Speaker 1: connection between Cutar Airways and global air travel. Yes, high there, Um, Actually,
- 13:11Speaker 1: this is not the first time that we're seeing Cutar
- 13:14Speaker 1: Airways go into this type of venture, and already in
- 13:18Speaker 1: in April, we saw the Cutar Airways CEO of Rebecca
- 13:22Speaker 1: say that he was thinking of adding one more acquisition
- 13:26Speaker 1: to his portfolio of you know, many many airlines and
- 13:31Speaker 1: many previous purchases. Um. So today's announcement is actually one
- 13:35Speaker 1: in a series of acquisitions that the airline has already done. Um.
- 13:40Speaker 1: The first one was, you know, gradually building up a
- 13:45Speaker 1: stake in British Airways. Parents I g UH. They've also
- 13:49Speaker 1: recently tooken up, taken up ten percent of latam um.
- 13:53Speaker 1: So they've been pursuing an organic growth. And this latest
- 13:58Speaker 1: interest in in American sort of completes the triangle of
- 14:02Speaker 1: of trying to capture traffic from across the Atlantic. I
- 14:06Speaker 1: want to bring in Michael here. So cut Our Airways
- 14:09Speaker 1: has been criticized by American airlines for unfair competition. What
- 14:14Speaker 1: does this potential investment in American airlines do with respect
- 14:18Speaker 1: to the rivalry here? Well, I think that's the big question. Um,
- 14:24Speaker 1: there's some you know, I've heard some analysis that maybe
- 14:28Speaker 1: Cutter is trying to get a foothold in this controversy
- 14:32Speaker 1: in the United States. You may be aware that all
- 14:35Speaker 1: three of the US major US airlines, including American Delta,
- 14:40Speaker 1: UH and UH and United Airways United Airlines all have
- 14:43Speaker 1: trying to bring a trade case against Cutter and Emirates
- 14:48Speaker 1: and ATA Airways, suggesting that they're unfairly flooding the US
- 14:53Speaker 1: market with with cheap flights, that they're being subsidized by
- 14:57Speaker 1: their home governments. I mean, there's a there's a thought
- 15:01Speaker 1: out there that maybe this could be some attempt to
- 15:04Speaker 1: influence that process. Uh. Some could they have some influence
- 15:08Speaker 1: in with the Trump administration or some influence with American maybe, Uh,
- 15:13Speaker 1: but that's just kind of spot analysis. Well, and we're
- 15:16Speaker 1: not exactly sure yet. Well, and you talk about the
- 15:19Speaker 1: conflict between Cutter Air and some of the US airlines,
- 15:23Speaker 1: but the conflict with Cutter goes much beyond that. I mean,
- 15:26Speaker 1: recently we've seen a lot of news coming out of
- 15:29Speaker 1: the Middle East with respect to Saudi Arabia and it's
- 15:33Speaker 1: worsening relationship with Cutter as well as with the U
- 15:36Speaker 1: s Dina. Can you speak a little bit about how
- 15:38Speaker 1: this type of investment complicates that or is uh perhaps
- 15:43Speaker 1: despite that or as a result of that. I mean,
- 15:45Speaker 1: just to remind people, cut Our Air is state owned. Yes,
- 15:50Speaker 1: that's that's correct. It might be a little bit too
- 15:52Speaker 1: early to stay at at this point. Um, how this
- 15:55Speaker 1: plays into the geopolitical tensions that that cuts are is
- 16:00Speaker 1: facing at the moment um. As you correctly pointed out,
- 16:04Speaker 1: cut Our the nation is being isolated by four other
- 16:08Speaker 1: neighboring Arab countries Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UM, Bahain and the
- 16:13Speaker 1: United Arab Emirates UM for who accused Cutter, UM for
- 16:18Speaker 1: supporting UM Islamic terrorism and financing extremists UM, which are
- 16:23Speaker 1: allegations that that cut our denies UM and and and
- 16:27Speaker 1: in the meantime, they've also closed down UM their airspace
- 16:31Speaker 1: to all Cutari flights. So let's just put cutter airways.
- 16:35Speaker 1: UH in a very difficult situation. UH, it's it's had
- 16:38Speaker 1: to face longer reroutes, very expensive reroutes around that airspace. UM.
- 16:44Speaker 1: So the idea that it's now trying to UM solidify
- 16:48Speaker 1: its partnerships, you know, with one World members UM and
- 16:52Speaker 1: and basically trying to diversify its streams of of of
- 16:56Speaker 1: revenue so that it's not reliant on any one part
- 17:00Speaker 1: of the world too heavily UM for where it's earnings
- 17:03Speaker 1: come from. UM AND. I think that move ties in
- 17:06Speaker 1: with the political pressure that it's that it's facing here
- 17:09Speaker 1: in the region. Already, it's been denied access to eighteen
- 17:14Speaker 1: destinations in those four countries that are imposing the ban,
- 17:18Speaker 1: so there's a sense that it wants to diversify and
- 17:21Speaker 1: and and spread itself across regions. Well, I want to
- 17:25Speaker 1: thank you very much both of you for really giving
- 17:28Speaker 1: us some detail about what is going on. Dina kamel
- 17:30Speaker 1: is our Middle Eastern aviation reporter. She joins us from Dubai.
- 17:34Speaker 1: Michael Sassau, our airline reporter, coming to us from Atlanta.
- 17:50Speaker 1: Let's turn our attention now to the big topic of
- 17:52Speaker 1: asset price inflation. Brentan Brown is the chief economist and
- 17:55Speaker 1: head of economic research for Mitsubishi u f J Securities.
- 18:00Speaker 1: He is also the author of a Global Monetary Plague,
- 18:04Speaker 1: Asset Price Inflation, and Federal Reserve Quantitative Easing. Good to
- 18:09Speaker 1: have you with us here in our studio. Thanks for
- 18:11Speaker 1: being here. Maybe you just can begin by talking about
- 18:14Speaker 1: this idea of bubbles and asset price inflation. How is
- 18:18Speaker 1: it defined and how should we be applying those concepts
- 18:21Speaker 1: to what we see in the stock and bond in
- 18:23Speaker 1: commodity markets currently. So, asset price inflation is the unleashing
- 18:28Speaker 1: of irrational forces in markets by monetary distortions. And what
- 18:34Speaker 1: I mean by that is interest rates being pressed way
- 18:37Speaker 1: below natural neutral level and to expand. And why that's happening,
- 18:43Speaker 1: I would say over the last twenty years and especially
- 18:46Speaker 1: the last ten years, pressure of globalization China coming into
- 18:49Speaker 1: world markets pushes prices down, which in general most people
- 18:54Speaker 1: gain from In terms of our real living standards. The
- 18:57Speaker 1: FED and other central banks have been trying trying to
- 19:00Speaker 1: get to this two percent inflation standard. Goodness knows where
- 19:03Speaker 1: it came from, and certain not in a Federal Reserve Act.
- 19:05Speaker 1: Nobody's ever mandated two percent inflation. But the Fed, somehow,
- 19:08Speaker 1: out of its own wisdom, decided two percent inflation. But
- 19:11Speaker 1: if you aim for two percent inflation when the natural
- 19:13Speaker 1: rhythm of prices is actually downwards, you can only do
- 19:16Speaker 1: that by by pushing rates way low, very low, and
- 19:20Speaker 1: keeping them very low. And that's that creates a desperation
- 19:24Speaker 1: for yield. And that desperation for yield shows up in
- 19:28Speaker 1: all these areas of of of irrational forces gaining the
- 19:32Speaker 1: upper upper force. So Brendan, it's been about five years
- 19:36Speaker 1: of people warning about as at price bubbles and the
- 19:38Speaker 1: potential demise of the financial system when they collapse. And
- 19:42Speaker 1: here we are twenty seventeen. The feed is starting to
- 19:45Speaker 1: high rates, and you do see stock prices climbing higher.
- 19:48Speaker 1: While there are some jitters in the high O bond market,
- 19:50Speaker 1: for example, because of oil prices, we have not seen
- 19:53Speaker 1: an implosion. Does that mean that it's not going to happen?
- 19:56Speaker 1: I would make two points here. I think, first of all,
- 19:59Speaker 1: the monetary force or the monetary monetary distortions this equilibrium,
- 20:04Speaker 1: I would say, have actually been growing UM in the
- 20:07Speaker 1: last eighteen months. First, we had for yelling FED last
- 20:10Speaker 1: year walking back from rate rises because of a China shock.
- 20:13Speaker 1: This year we've had the surprise for for Trump administration
- 20:17Speaker 1: did nothing to change matters in the FED, whereas there
- 20:20Speaker 1: were expectations that they may, and we've had the ECB
- 20:23Speaker 1: and the b o J merrily going on with their
- 20:27Speaker 1: QUI expansions and negative rates or though that had been
- 20:30Speaker 1: some expectations that would all slow down. So if anything,
- 20:32Speaker 1: we've had an increase in this monetary stimulus. As we
- 20:35Speaker 1: listen to some of these policies in these House and
- 20:38Speaker 1: the Senate hearings, how much do you pay attention as
- 20:41Speaker 1: an economist? How much does this way on your growth
- 20:45Speaker 1: outlook and the way you assess you as economy well,
- 20:49Speaker 1: the whether the fiscal plans and the tax cut move
- 20:52Speaker 1: ahead is one of the factors go into the economic outlook.
- 20:56Speaker 1: But I do tend to think that the importance of
- 21:00Speaker 1: UM shouldn't be exaggerated. UM. At best, it looks as
- 21:04Speaker 1: if what we're getting here is going to be some
- 21:07Speaker 1: sort of temporary tax cut rather than permanent. But haven't
- 21:13Speaker 1: you've written that they've that the Trump administration as well
- 21:16Speaker 1: as the Republicans in Congress, they've squandered an opportunity in
- 21:21Speaker 1: another area. But maybe this is all conflated in some way. Yeah,
- 21:25Speaker 1: I mean, if one looks at the trio of what's
- 21:28Speaker 1: making up for Trump administration program now um of infrastructure,
- 21:33Speaker 1: tax reform, health, the big gap in all of this is,
- 21:36Speaker 1: of course, anything on the monetary side. We have a
- 21:39Speaker 1: tremendous as we were discussing earlier, monetary distortion going on
- 21:44Speaker 1: at the FED, aiming for two percent inflation target, long
- 21:48Speaker 1: term interest rate controls, and nothing is on foreseeable legender
- 21:53Speaker 1: to change any of this. And that's you know, you
- 21:55Speaker 1: only have to read Milton Freeland's Capitalism Freedom to to
- 21:58Speaker 1: realize that any agenda of economic reform and unleashing forces
- 22:04Speaker 1: in a capitalist economy has to start with monetary reform.
- 22:07Speaker 1: You know, I'm struck by what JP Morgats Bob Michael
- 22:09Speaker 1: said earlier today on Bloomberg Television, which is, at some
- 22:13Speaker 1: point some of some of President Trump's policies will get
- 22:16Speaker 1: past and there will be an upside surprise with healthcare.
- 22:19Speaker 1: For example, healthcare is almost eighteen per cent of the
- 22:22Speaker 1: U S economy, and we do see healthcare share surging
- 22:25Speaker 1: on the prospect that there will be some solidification of
- 22:28Speaker 1: what the outlook is for healthcare in the US. But
- 22:31Speaker 1: you're saying any step they take will probably be incremental
- 22:34Speaker 1: and won't necessarily have uh that material of it of
- 22:37Speaker 1: an impact on the on the growth outlook in terms
- 22:40Speaker 1: of overall growth outlook. Yes, I mean, I think the
- 22:43Speaker 1: main growth positive aspect of the Trump fiscal agenda is
- 22:48Speaker 1: the cut in corporation tax, which will bring some economic
- 22:54Speaker 1: activity back from low tax jurisdictions abroad, whether it's Canada
- 22:58Speaker 1: or other places in and that in the longer term
- 23:01Speaker 1: will boost economic activity in the United States. By the way,
- 23:04Speaker 1: that will put some pressure upwards on wages. I mean,
- 23:07Speaker 1: these these measures to boost production in the United States
- 23:11Speaker 1: basically come to increased demand for US labor. It's not
- 23:14Speaker 1: necessarily going to be as positive as maybe Wall Street
- 23:18Speaker 1: imagines for earnings and equities. You know, I've heard so
- 23:21Speaker 1: many people talk about what will or won't boost inflation,
- 23:24Speaker 1: and so many people have gotten this so wrong. Do
- 23:26Speaker 1: you find yourself questioning what will actually lead to higher
- 23:30Speaker 1: wages is given the frustration and lack of understanding of
- 23:33Speaker 1: why they e remained so stagnant. I I don't know.
- 23:35Speaker 1: I don't believe that wages are a key element to
- 23:39Speaker 1: look for in an inflationary process. I think the inflationary
- 23:42Speaker 1: process is in this cycle is asset prices. And I
- 23:46Speaker 1: think also we have an inflationary dimension in goods and
- 23:51Speaker 1: services markets, but it's not immediately apparent. And what I
- 23:53Speaker 1: mean by that is that if you measured inflation today
- 23:58Speaker 1: in the United States, and say way as it was
- 24:00Speaker 1: measured in the fifties and sixties or any time before that,
- 24:02Speaker 1: without all this hedonic price adjustment, today's inflation rate would
- 24:06Speaker 1: be three and a half to four percent UM. So
- 24:10Speaker 1: so there is an inflation there. If you have asset
- 24:12Speaker 1: price inflation was always going to be good inflation alongside,
- 24:15Speaker 1: because it's part of the same phenomenon, but it's it's
- 24:17Speaker 1: not necessarily immediately apparent. Last question, Now we are awaiting
- 24:20Speaker 1: comments from President Trump, who is meeting with a big
- 24:24Speaker 1: technology company leaders in Washington. I just wanted to get
- 24:27Speaker 1: your sense, Brennan, going forward, do you agree with guests
- 24:31Speaker 1: on previously in this program that we have five more
- 24:34Speaker 1: years in this credit cycle. I I would never say
- 24:38Speaker 1: anything like that. I think we're we I hate to
- 24:40Speaker 1: say we're in a new, new era or new experiment.
- 24:44Speaker 1: But the enormity of this particular monetary distortion, with every
- 24:49Speaker 1: major central bank pursuing or having huge balance sheets and
- 24:55Speaker 1: interest rates so low low, is something we haven't encountered before.
- 24:59Speaker 1: We have encountered asset price inflation before, but for example,
- 25:01Speaker 1: size of asset price inflations is small. It's probably eight
- 25:04Speaker 1: in the last hundred years. And to find one with
- 25:08Speaker 1: this degree of a normality of of distortions, I can't
- 25:11Speaker 1: find um. Moreover, this is happening in an era when
- 25:15Speaker 1: there isn't much good economic news. You know, previous asset
- 25:17Speaker 1: price inflations have mostly been accompanied by fantastic economic good news,
- 25:21Speaker 1: whether it was the late nineteen nineties or with late
- 25:23Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. First time there isn't good news. So so
- 25:26Speaker 1: with a lot of differences, but if you asked me
- 25:28Speaker 1: for the bottom line, I think the new mare is
- 25:30Speaker 1: going to be more within the next two years rather
- 25:32Speaker 1: than five years. Thank you very much for joining us. A.
- 25:35Speaker 1: Brendan Brown as chief economist and head of Economic Research
- 25:38Speaker 1: for Mitsubishi u f J Securities. Thanks for listening to
- 25:44Speaker 1: the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and
- 25:47Speaker 1: listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast
- 25:51Speaker 1: platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at
- 25:55Speaker 1: pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa Abramo. It's one
- 25:58Speaker 1: before the podcast. You can now plays Catch us worldwide
- 26:01Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio