Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Affordability In Focus Ahead of Midterms; US National Wealth Tax Debate

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Affordability In Focus Ahead of Midterms; US National Wealth Tax Debate · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, everyone.
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  Speaker 5: Bloomberg Money on personal finance, retirement, and wealth management. I'm
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  Speaker 5: somehow getting through the week. Scarlett Fu and Tom Kane.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: I aged yesterday.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. What we saw in the market.
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  Speaker 5: And once again, today, it seems like we're healing a
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  Speaker 5: little bit as we have for the last five years.
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  Speaker 2: But it feels like we're in a new phase now
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  Speaker 2: where things are getting really messy, really volatile. We don't
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  Speaker 2: know if there's a bubble, if it's peaked already. It's
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: all very unclear.
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  Speaker 5: It's very, that's where I want to go. We're going
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  Speaker 5: to go there with Joe Weisenthal in a moment. Coming
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  Speaker 5: up today, well, what do we have? We have Whitney Tilson,
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  Speaker 5: editor of the Stansbury Research. Yes, we'll talk hedge fund talk,
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  Speaker 5: MAG7 talk, but also Scarlett, since we've talked to him
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  Speaker 5: about his public service, a mayoral candidate ago at the
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  Speaker 5: New York.
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  Speaker 2: He also helped found Teach for America as well. So
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  Speaker 2: we'll get into that. Plus, we've got Stephanie Gill, the
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  Speaker 2: chief investment officer at Robin Hood on how the digital natives,
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  Speaker 2: that is Gen Z, are using AI to help manage
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  Speaker 2: their investments. Yes, the young people.
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  Speaker 1: We'll have to see on that as well.
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  Speaker 5: Stocks, it's been all over the place with a nice
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  Speaker 5: recovery this morning. At one point, I actually saw the
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  Speaker 5: Nasdaq with green on the screen. You still have that
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  Speaker 5: right now up a nice six-tenths of a percent. The
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  Speaker 5: VIX out over 20 earlier. 20 is like.
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  Speaker 1: The new 30. It used to be nobody got rattled
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  Speaker 1: until 30.
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  Speaker 2: We're not yet at 20. We're below 20 right now.
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  Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about what's going on in the
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  Speaker 2: other asset classes, because as stocks look to fall for
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  Speaker 2: the week, the 10-year yield is moving higher. But look
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  Speaker 2: at that. It is below 5%. And of course, we're
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  Speaker 2: days away from the next Fed decision. Yeah, the dollar
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  Speaker 2: moving up marginally. It peaked in early October, has kind
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  Speaker 2: of stalled in the last two weeks. And WTI, crude oil,
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  Speaker 2: now at 103 a barrel or just about We're looking
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  Speaker 2: at four straight weeks.
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  Speaker 5: And Brent Cruder, that 116 print into the weekend. You know,
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  Speaker 5: from Istanbul down to Dubai, what our team is doing
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  Speaker 5: on Iran and the Persian Gulf will be critical this
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  Speaker 5: weekend as well. We need to drive a conversation for
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  Speaker 5: you on this Friday. We do that with Joe Weisenthal.
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  Speaker 5: He's co-host of Odd Lots Podcast with Tracy Alloway. Nikki
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  Speaker 5: Waller here, always driving forward our money coverage.
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  Speaker 6: Worldwide.
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  Speaker 1: And David Midterm-Gura is here. Blum, are you going to Kansas?
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  Speaker 1: Are you going to Minnesota?
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  Speaker 7: I will be right here, anchoring late in the evening
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  Speaker 7: and providing updates on the house races.
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  Speaker 5: And I've been advised, seriously, not a joke, late into
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  Speaker 5: the evening is really going to matter.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, midnight to two. Stay up late, Tom.
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  Speaker 5: We'll have to see that. Joe Weisenthal is with us.
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  Speaker 5: This is his first time with us. We talked to
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  Speaker 5: his people, and they said, yeah, okay, we'll try it.
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  Speaker 5: Why is Joe Weisenthal here? Headlines used to be, stocks
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  Speaker 5: are up today. And then a kid down in Texas,
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  Speaker 5: a couple years out of Texas, said, stocks go green.
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  Speaker 5: That's what Joe Weisenthal changed in business journalism. Tanking markets
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  Speaker 5: was an original Joe Weisenthal headline. My first question to you,
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  Speaker 5: I've never seen a fire hose. of distraction and news
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  Speaker 5: and emotion as we have right now, hour to hour,
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  Speaker 5: day to day. How do you adapt to the firehose
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  Speaker 5: of news that we didn't know when we were younger?
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  Speaker 8: I built a AI bot that scans it all for
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  Speaker 8: me and tells me what actually matters. This is, can
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  Speaker 8: we talk about the phenomenon of the firehose for a section?
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  Speaker 8: Then maybe we can actually get into some of these
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  Speaker 8: headlines and what actually matters. The AI philosophers who have
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  Speaker 8: been talking for like, you know, they talk about this
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  Speaker 8: idea of the singularity. And what they mean by that
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  Speaker 8: is that time is speeding up.
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  Speaker 4: Right.
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  Speaker 8: And so millions of years ago, you know, humans like
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  Speaker 8: went for a million years.
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  Speaker 6: They only came up with.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, I thought you were going to say clean shaven
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  Speaker 1: in Texas. A million years.
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  Speaker 8: There was a period of time in history on Earth
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  Speaker 8: where there was only one invention, and that was the
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  Speaker 8: hand axe.
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  Speaker 6: It went through like a million years.
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  Speaker 8: And then it's like, oh, maybe then a million years
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  Speaker 8: later they found a second invention, right? The space between
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  Speaker 8: novel developments keeps getting shorter and shorter. This even pre-AI,
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  Speaker 8: the space between important things.
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  Speaker 6: That happened here on Earth keeps getting shorter.
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  Speaker 8: And what we're seeing, again, AI aside, is that if
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  Speaker 8: you just count the number of things that maybe we
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  Speaker 8: would call red headlines here at Bloomberg, the things that
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  Speaker 8: catch your attention, that say we should talk about this,
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  Speaker 8: are happening so fast now that in a given day, Again,
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  Speaker 8: we went.
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  Speaker 1: A million years. Absolutely overwhelming.
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  Speaker 8: And now on a given day, we might get 100
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  Speaker 8: headlines that if we had the mental capacity, we might
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  Speaker 8: like to.
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  Speaker 1: Think about it.
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  Speaker 5: I envy Nikki Waller, who gets to do a story
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  Speaker 5: and plan it for three weeks.
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  Speaker 1: Going to Eddie's. Got to pick it up here on
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  Speaker 1: the news flow of the moment.
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  Speaker 2: With all these developments that you're referring to, they all
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  Speaker 2: come back to a handful of companies. And they're the
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  Speaker 2: big tech companies that we're all, at this point, overexposed to. Nikki,
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  Speaker 2: I know you're thinking a lot and writing a lot
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  Speaker 2: about the concentration. or the overconcentration to tech that we
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  Speaker 2: all have.
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  Speaker 9: Yeah, this is something that institutional investors are looking at,
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  Speaker 9: but it's also something that individuals should be thinking about
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  Speaker 9: as well. We all think that we are in index funds,
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  Speaker 9: we're doing the right thing, we're diversified, but actually those
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  Speaker 9: index funds are really making a big bet on a
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  Speaker 9: small number of U.S.
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  Speaker 3: Tech companies.
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  Speaker 6: And We are putting out a.
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  Speaker 9: Podcast called The Portfolio Reset that has been looking at this.
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  Speaker 9: It's a little bit of a how-to with Maren Webb
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  Speaker 9: and is kind of diving in using the SpaceX moment
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  Speaker 9: and other things.
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  Speaker 1: What do you reset to?
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  Speaker 5: What does Maren suggest that we reset to from a
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  Speaker 5: given 54% of a portfolio?
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  Speaker 1: In SpaceX.
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  Speaker 9: Well, we absolutely do not give investment advice here at Bloomberg,
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  Speaker 9: but we are telling people to understand what they're holding
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  Speaker 9: and get under the hood. And what you think might
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  Speaker 9: be really diversified is less than you imagine.
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  Speaker 5: So you know that I've been recommending the triple levers
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  Speaker 5: on cash fund.
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  Speaker 9: I'm in.
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  Speaker 2: I've been in from day one.
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  Speaker 9: I'll see you by the bike racks after work, Tom.
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  Speaker 2: So, Joe, I look at what's happening in the markets
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  Speaker 2: and the AI trade is kind of wobbly, certainly. And
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  Speaker 2: bonds kind of seem to be working again as a
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  Speaker 2: hedge for now.
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  Speaker 5: Right.
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  Speaker 2: The flight to safety is overwhelming the U.S. fiscal concerns.
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  Speaker 2: Feels like treasuries could be kind of be an anti-AI trade.
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  Speaker 1: This is so important.
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  Speaker 8: Think about like two months ago or a month ago
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  Speaker 8: when like rates were shooting up.
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  Speaker 6: And what were people saying?
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  Speaker 8: Oh, we're really worried about like fiscal dominance. We're really
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  Speaker 8: worried about the size of the national debt, etc. Did
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  Speaker 8: something change in the last two weeks that suddenly the
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  Speaker 8: national debt went down?
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  Speaker 1: No, clearly not.
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  Speaker 6: What does that tell us?
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  Speaker 8: Therefore, in retrospect, that all those stories about how it
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  Speaker 8: had to do with the national debt or whatever were wrong.
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  Speaker 6: What was correct, what.
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  Speaker 8: I believe is obviously correct, is that we have this
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  Speaker 8: extremely intense investment intent cycle. There's a lot of money
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  Speaker 8: being spent. That creates an inflationary impulse. When you have
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  Speaker 8: an inflationary impulse, that all things equal means the Fed
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  Speaker 8: has to raise rates. When these structural drivers of spending
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  Speaker 8: and AI is just one of them, are expected to.
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  Speaker 6: Go on for a long time. Rates are going to
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  Speaker 6: be high for a long time.
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  Speaker 5: He thinks it's a 52-minute odd lot podcast, doesn't he?
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  Speaker 1: Let me jump in. You mentioned flight to safety.
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  Speaker 5: What's the GOP flight to safety given 11 days to
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  Speaker 5: the election?
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  Speaker 7: I think things are looking pretty bleak. You had the
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  Speaker 7: president in Iowa last night. He won that state in 2016, 2020,
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  Speaker 7: and 2024. So wild to see him there delivering a
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  Speaker 7: stump speech for the Republican Senate candidate. Look, there's very
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  Speaker 7: little that he can do to change the narrative here
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  Speaker 7: 11 days out from the midterm elections. And I think
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  Speaker 7: a lot of Republicans are trying to plot a path
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  Speaker 7: forward here. But you look at the Cook political report,
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  Speaker 7: moving more Democrats into the likely category in the House.
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  Speaker 7: We have seen the frustrations of this House speaker dealing
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  Speaker 7: with a very slim majority.
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  Speaker 1: Where is the House speaker? Where is the House speaker?
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  Speaker 7: He is meeting with his caucus, trying to plot a
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  Speaker 7: path for you. Again, Tom, it's not looking like there's
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  Speaker 7: much that they can do here less than two weeks out.
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  Speaker 2: And, of course, some states are also going to be
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  Speaker 2: voting on one-time billionaire's taxes, like in California. The idea
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  Speaker 2: of a national wealth tax is kind of picking up steam,
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  Speaker 2: isn't it? Our Lisa Bromwitz talked with the CEO of
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  Speaker 2: United Airlines, who kind of gave his endorsement to the
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  Speaker 2: idea that maybe a national wealth tax wouldn't be a
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  Speaker 2: terrible idea. Fascinating.
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  Speaker 7: Building on the work of our former colleague, Jordan Holman,
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  Speaker 7: who sat down with Scott Kirby, Lisa, asking about this,
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  Speaker 7: and he's floated the idea that he'd be fine with it.
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  Speaker 3: He would be OK for him to have it.
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  Speaker 7: And he suggested it be done at a national level.
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  Speaker 7: And I think that's the most fascinating facet of what
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  Speaker 7: he said. If you do it on a state by
• 9:13
  Speaker 7: state basis, people are going to move. You're going to
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  Speaker 7: get the kind of threats that you saw from Mark
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  Speaker 7: Zuckerberg that maybe Kauai is more attractive than Palo Alto.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe indeed he would move. That wouldn't happen if we
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  Speaker 1: were national. You read my script.
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  Speaker 5: Joe Weisenthal, Mark Zuckerberg, I'm having a tantrum, I'm leaving California.
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: What did we learn from this recapitalization of Facebook?
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  Speaker 1: Well, yeah.
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  Speaker 6: So the key thing here is that, well, two things.
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  Speaker 8: They need more cash. Everyone needs more cash. We all
• 9:39
  Speaker 8: knew that. And he doesn't want to dilute his voting power.
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  Speaker 8: That's really important for him. So those are the two
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  Speaker 8: things we learned. But on the subject of the wealth tax,
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  Speaker 8: I would say two things. There is no doubt in
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  Speaker 8: my mind that across the, quote, Western world, et cetera,
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  Speaker 8: that we're going to need to find some way to
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  Speaker 8: tax wealth.
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  Speaker 1: Otherwise, the only.
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  Speaker 8: People were trying to build an entire tax base on
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  Speaker 8: W-2 workers.
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  Speaker 6: That's not working. That's not sustainable, obviously, because wealth.
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  Speaker 8: Is such a driver of people's ability to consume and
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  Speaker 8: so forth.
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  Speaker 3: We're going to do it.
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  Speaker 8: We're going to have to find a way to do it.
• 10:14
  Speaker 8: But capital, capital mobility is a real thing. We might
• 10:17
  Speaker 8: complain and say, Mark, you're greedy. Why you would leave
• 10:20
  Speaker 8: Florida or leave California, et cetera. Call him all you want.
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  Speaker 8: Doesn't change the reality.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Nobody cares.
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: What we care about is this. Your family's heritage at
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: the University of Texas. Can you see Mark Zuckerberg in Texas?
• 10:32
  Speaker 6: Really hot. This is what people don't get about Texas.
• 10:34
  Speaker 6: I love Texas.
• 10:36
  Speaker 8: But I think people moved there from California and they thought, oh,
• 10:40
  Speaker 8: it really is hot here.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: In October.
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  Speaker 9: I will say, too, I think these are boom times
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  Speaker 9: for state investigators who are trying to figure out residency
• 10:48
  Speaker 9: for everybody.
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  Speaker 2: The teddy bear test.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly. The what?
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: The teddy bear tax. Where is your teddy bear? And
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: that determines what state you actually live in.
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  Speaker 1: How did you know I had a teddy bear?
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  Speaker 8: This assumes that there are laws. We were in Chicago
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  Speaker 8: last week. And the first question, we interviewed CME chief
• 11:03
  Speaker 8: Terry Duffy.
• 11:04
  Speaker 6: The first question I asked him was like.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Are there laws anymore?
• 11:08
  Speaker 6: Do we live in a world.
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  Speaker 8: That actually has financial regulation? Because it doesn't look like
• 11:12
  Speaker 8: to me.
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  Speaker 1: He sounds like it's a philosophy class.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 8: And he was like, well, look, there's still laws, but
• 11:19
  Speaker 8: the state of like any sort of enforcement or regulation,
• 11:22
  Speaker 8: it's seen better.
• 11:24
  Speaker 6: Times for sure.
• 11:25
  Speaker 8: So, yeah, you can like what state do you really
• 11:28
  Speaker 8: rely on? Maybe there's a law, but someone actually has
• 11:30
  Speaker 8: to have the impulse to enforce it.
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: Thank you for wearing a green collar matching with the set.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Great style.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Joe Weisenthal going existential.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: He's the host of the.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: Odd Lots podcast. And of course, Nicky Waller, managing editor
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: for Money Coverage at Bloomberg News. And David Gurra, co-host
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: of Bloomberg This Weekend. Coming up, Whitney Tilson, editor at
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Stansbury Research. Who joins us next? Texas.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: It's like a seminar.
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: Texas.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Who's going to win, Joe? Joe, please. Seminars.
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  Speaker 5: You're listening to Bloomberg Money. Stay with us with more
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: to come after this. Bloomberg Money, welcome to all of
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: you on personal finance, on wealth management, on retirement as well.
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: It is good to speak to someone, particularly as we
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: come up close to these elections.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Who has chosen to run for office and all.
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: We'll talk to Whitney Tilson about that with his latest
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: run for mayor here in New York City, but far
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: more his work across investment.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: And in hedge funds where he's editor of Stansberry Research.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: Whitney, I want to really get to this with the
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: regret and the emotion that's out there at this time
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: on the 12 stocks that everybody either owns or doesn't own.
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: Here is a statement from Whitney Tilson buried in a
• 12:47
  Speaker 5: research note. Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta, three stocks as core
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: holdings April 17th of 2019.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Since then, with Whitney Tilson, they're up 168, 449, and 297%.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: An average of 305% on an arc of six years,
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: call it. Double the 164 of the S & P 500.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: That's not bad.
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: We've got three groups, Whitney, in the game right now.
• 13:11
  Speaker 5: They owned them and they kept them like you. They
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: never owned them. But I want you to talk about
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: the regret that's out there in the industry of people
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: that own those stocks. And then they got smart and
• 13:22
  Speaker 5: they got rid of them.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, those have been fabulously performing stocks, as you note.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: And I think the key to successful long-term investing is
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: find a handful of great companies and then own them
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: for a long period of time. The market is so
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: short-term oriented, I think the only way you can beat
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: it as an active investor is to play an opposite game,
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: long-term buy and hold of quality companies, like what Warren
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Buffett's been preaching.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: Like Warren Buffett, I know that was really important to
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: you within your value investing. Except now, as we talk
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: to Joe Weisenthal, there's a fire hose of noise, distraction.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: My morning program, Scarlett's morning program. There's too much information.
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  Speaker 5: How do you process it and yet hold on to
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: a given Amazon?
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's interesting.
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  Speaker 3: When I started my investing career more than a quarter
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: century ago, one of the challenges was getting access to information,
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: literally getting companies' annual reports. Took effort. Today, it's the opposite.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: As you point out, it's filtering. It's like drinking from
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: a fire hose and filtering the signal from the noise.
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: So that's a real challenge. One of the ways I
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: handle it is I invest with a long term perspective,
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: try and give long term advice, ignore the short term
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: noise of, you know, whatever Trump's tweeting today or, you know,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: what's happening to oil prices in the Gulf of Hormuz
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: and just try and identify quality companies that I think
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: their earnings will be double what they are today in
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: five years. And those stocks are going up.
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  Speaker 2: OK, so stay slow and steady when it comes to
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: your investments. I want to go back to what Tom
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: was saying and your political ambitions. You ran for New
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: York City mayor back in 2025 as a Democrat. Affordability
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: is the number one issue for voters this election cycle.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: The Democrats slammed President Trump's policy decisions, saying that it's
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: led to much higher prices. What's your response to criticism
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: that your Democrats have not offered up any kind of
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: direct solution to the affordability crisis beyond piling on Donald Trump?
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess I would say that your point
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: is well taken, that it's been more criticizing Trump's tariffs,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: the war in Iran, both of which have jacked prices
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: up for consumers. Democrats have, I think, struggled to define
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: a clear message. I think that's a fair critique of
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: the Democratic Party. I don't think it's unreasonable to just
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: say we're not going to do these crazy things Trump
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: is doing. You know, being being less bad is, I think,
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: sometimes in politics, that's how you vote. I do wish
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Democrats made a more positive case. And that's what I
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: tried to do as a candidate, you know, talking about
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: economic growth and, you know, You know, we Democrats, I think,
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: have become the party of regulation and so forth, which has,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: for example, constrained housing. Big issue. Housing affordability. And I
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: do think there are elements of the Democratic Party that are,
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: you know, trying to fix that and, you know, ease
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: regulations in cities like New York, in states like California,
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: where housing's become, you know, impossibly unaffordable.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, housing is top of mind for a lot of people.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: There's also the wealth tax that people are talking about
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: as well. United CEO Scott Kirby saying that he supports
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: a national wealth tax. I believe you're a member of
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: the Patriotic Millionaires Group. So you believe in restructuring the
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: tax system so that the wealthy pay a greater share
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: of their income in taxes. What do you think of
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: a national wealth tax? Is that something you are on
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: board with?
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: What I supported probably 15 years ago, I went down
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: to the White House with Obama, was the so-called Buffett rule,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: which was not a wealth tax, but it was simply saying,
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: we've got to make... It was a group of us.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I stood next to my secretary and pointed out that
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: as a millionaire hedge fund manager, I was paying a
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: lower tax rate than my secretary. And So it was
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a call for a minimum tax on the uber wealthy.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: And I still believe that's the case. I think California's
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: wealth tax, for example, is a bad idea. If one
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: state does it, you just drive out, drive people out. Right.
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: And you already see that happening. A national wealth tax properly,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: properly constructed. The devil's in the details, I think, could
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: work as well.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, good luck with that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: I got to ask you this with the heritage of
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: your family, the arc of your service to New York
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: City and running for office really with a strong effort.
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: The Democratic Party experiment.
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: Maybe comes from 1972 and George McGovern, or it comes
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: from a more conservative Democratic experiment that bounces off Obama
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: and Clinton.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Back to JFK.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, you live the JFK model with Teach America,
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: with the Peace Corps, and all that. How does a
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: Democratic Party extract itself from maybe 18% popularity in America,
• 18:16
  Speaker 5: I think that from Dave Wasserman at Cook Political Report,
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: and get back to the Democratic Party popularity that JFK
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: and that crew.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: LBJ, knew. Yeah.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: Well, look, one of the reasons I ran for mayor
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: is I saw a party that had swung too far
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: to the left. And in fact, it was my worst
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: fears were sort of manifested when a far left Democratic
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: socialist was elected as mayor. I will give credit to
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Mamdani that he has sort of tacked to the center,
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: actually now being the dog that caught the car. He's like, oh,
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: maybe I better not fire Jessica Tisch and have crime
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: spike in the city. And one area we agree is,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: is he's taken steps to construct more housing and ease
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: the housing shortage in the city.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: So, yeah.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: I have decided basically as a lifelong Democrat that I'm
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: going to focus on dragging my party back to the
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: center and trying to stop Trump and Trumpism so that
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: most of my efforts have been trying to flip the
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: House and the Senate back to Democrats as a check
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: on the last two years of Trump and mostly biting
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: my tongue and hoping for the sake of my city
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: that Mamdani is successful as mayor.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: You think we'll flip it? Not will.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: Democrats?
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: You're Democrats?
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: I think the odds on the betting sites right now
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: of almost certain to flip the House and maybe two
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: to one odds to flip the Senate are probably about correct.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Whitney, your role at this newsletter prevents you from buying
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: the individual stocks that you recommend. But I know you
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: like some of the big tech names. How do you
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: invest in the names that you like, but you're not
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: allowed to buy directly?
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I buy index funds. So the default, you know, I everybody,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: the vast majority of people should do what my daughters
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: and my sister and my parents do, which is have
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: money held back from your paycheck into an IRA or 401k,
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: something like that, and then just have it default automatically
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: put in the S & P 500, SPY. I don't
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: manage outside money, but I do tell my daughters and
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: my sister and my parents, I advise them. on what
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: they should do with their retirement accounts. And I've recently
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: recommended that they shift from SPY, which is market cap weighted,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: which means 40% of what you're buying is the top
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: 10 stocks, mostly tech stocks, which is an all-time high.
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: I worry that it's sort of getting top heavy. And
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: so I've recommended that they shift part of that into RSP,
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: which is an equal market cap weighted stock. S &
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: P 500 index and a bit of an index fund
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: called VXUS. It's a Vanguard XUS. So it's just an
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: international index fund. So I've just diversified a little out
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: of the SPY.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: All right. Good stuff. Whitney, thank you so much for
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: sharing that. Whitney Tilson is editor at Stansbury Research, former
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: hedge funder as well. Coming up, a conversation with Stephanie Guild,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: CIO of Robinhood, with a focus on personal finance, retirement
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: and wealth management. This is Bloomberg Money.
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: You're listening to Bloomberg Money. Stay with us with more
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: to come after this. Bloomberg Money, thank you for being
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: with us. It's on personal finances, and I'm never going
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: to retire, and also wealth management as well. I thought
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: Whitney Tilson was great there.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was really interesting.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Just the optimism about the system.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: And the idea that he is not going to make
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: any changes to the individual stocks, but he's going to
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: kind of tweak things to go equal-weighted towards.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: The S & P 500.
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: I mean, the world's coming to an end 12 hours ago,
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: and we've had a pretty good week once again across
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: the arc of this bull market.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: OMG, a bid.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: There is a bid. The Nasdaq is positive right now
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: compared to what it was yesterday, certainly. The Dow, however,
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: is still negative, and that's really because of Caterpillar and
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: American Express. The S & P 500 looks like it's
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: going to end the week on the downside, currently off
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: by about a quarter of 1%. And there's your VIX
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: almost at 20.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: It was a 20 and it's come in a little bit,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but it's not 30. It's just as simple as that.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: 20 is a new 30? That's what you said?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: Cross-ass it. I've got to look.
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: That's American oil down at the bottom, $ 103. Six cents
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: a barrel. That's up sprightly 3.6%. Brent is up 117.
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: That speaks volumes into a fractious weekend for the Middle
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: East and maybe with a tinge of Europe in there.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: Let's take a look at what our money team here
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: have been working on. And one article that caught my
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: eye is on how different generations are approaching the upcoming
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: midterm elections and how they're investing around it. 27 percent
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: of Gen Z investors have consulted a financial advisor about
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: election related risks. That is more than double that of
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: baby boomers, which are at 12 percent. This is all
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: according to a recent survey from the Nationwide Retirement Institute.
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Zijia Song wrote this story, and she joins us now. So, Zijia,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: they're concerned, Gen Z is, about this election. Affordability, obviously,
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: top of mind for them. Are they making changes to
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: their investments?
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: They are.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Actually, this recent survey shows that 72% of Gen Z
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: investors are making changes or considering doing so. And that's
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: more than four times the rate of baby boomers. And
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: part of that reason is because Their anxiety is spilling
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: into actions. And unlike baby boomers, they haven't gone through
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: like the dot-com bubble or financial crisis.
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: So they don't really know how to deal with this anxiety.
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: And that's why they're making more actions. Like 24% are
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: actually moving to lower risk conservative investments and some more
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: are diversifying into other assets.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Interesting. So what are strategists that you talk to saying
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: about how boomers versus Gen Z versus Gen X dealing
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: with pre-election anxiety?
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I actually talked to a lot of financial advisors
• 23:45
  Speaker 4: about how you can trade election or how to position
• 23:48
  Speaker 4: yourself before the midterms. And a lot of boomers have
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: worked with financial advisors a lot. So they are more
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: inclined to stay the course, which is what majority of
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: financial advisors advise to do. It's just to do nothing.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: And historically, we've seen that S & P 500 actually
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: had positive returns in the following 12 months following every
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: midterm election since 1950.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: This is great. I feel ancient sitting next to you.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: You're killing me here.
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: If we go down 35%, which does occur, how will
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: the young troops respond?
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: Well, you have to keep in mind that the younger folks,
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: they also have a longer investment horizon. Really?
• 24:27
  Speaker 10: Yeah.
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: So if you stay in the market, the long-term return
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: of S & P, of the broader markets, is always positive.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: They'll bounce back. But that anxiety is real. And that's
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: why a lot of Gen Zs are more inclined to
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: even trade elections or... try to seize on the moment nowadays.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: Sometimes taking action may not be the best course of action.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: All right, Bloomberg's Suja Song, thank you so much. You can,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: of course, read her work on Bloomberg.com.
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: Joining us now, highly anticipated, Stephanie Gould is with us.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: With her years at J.P.
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: Morgan, she had the huge challenge of going home, going
• 25:01
  Speaker 5: over to the youngsters. Robin Hood is their chief investment
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: officer and has done all sorts of fabulous work there
• 25:07
  Speaker 5: on a huge brokerage. experiment as well. I want to
• 25:11
  Speaker 5: get to an MMR in a minute, but I've got
• 25:13
  Speaker 5: to first, Stephanie, just say the last couple of days,
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: what have you observed at this unique experiment, Robin Hood?
• 25:20
  Speaker 10: We've been seeing customers actually take advantage of the pullback
• 25:24
  Speaker 10: in certain names in the AI space. They actually have
• 25:27
  Speaker 10: been selling Tesla and buying SpaceX in place of that.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: Interesting.
• 25:31
  Speaker 10: But also buying names like Micron, Intel, and then selling
• 25:35
  Speaker 10: actually some of the more consumer-oriented names, Nikes and iPhones.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: I featured General Mills this morning for the first time
• 25:44
  Speaker 5: in 15 years. Let's get to the Bloomberg Money must
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: read here because it's fabulous from Stephanie about the real
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: world out there.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Robinhood, they launched AI. Is it agentic? Nailed it.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: Agentic trading accounts, allowing retail customers to direct AI to
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: build and manage a portfolio on their behalf with funds
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: ring fenced from their main account.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: I've never said that in my life. That is original.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: What's it actually mean?
• 26:13
  Speaker 10: I mean, it means that you can set up a
• 26:14
  Speaker 10: separate account and you can plug in your agent using
• 26:19
  Speaker 10: a variety of different agentic providers. And then we also
• 26:23
  Speaker 10: are providing different MCPs. So what's an MCP? I'm bad
• 26:29
  Speaker 10: with this like something protocol, but essentially it connects you
• 26:32
  Speaker 10: to different data points that can get you data that
• 26:36
  Speaker 10: you need. And we're providing that at a subscription model.
• 26:38
  Speaker 10: So you can sort of all in the app, you
• 26:41
  Speaker 10: can connect to outside data and help your agent make decisions.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: What's the take-up of that among young people and among
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Tom's cohort?
• 26:48
  Speaker 10: I mean, we just launched it, so it's still relatively new,
• 26:50
  Speaker 10: and you're having a lot of people open accounts and
• 26:52
  Speaker 10: play around with it, but it's still kind of a
• 26:55
  Speaker 10: thing that people are getting used to.
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: What is your model portfolio turnover rate? To me, that
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: would be the first place to go. The kids want 100%. 200% churn.
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: What do you see?
• 27:04
  Speaker 10: You're going to have that no matter whether it's an
• 27:07
  Speaker 10: agentic count or not. I mean, you're seeing like the
• 27:09
  Speaker 10: active traders are staying very active in this market because
• 27:12
  Speaker 10: there's a lot of moving parts underneath, despite the fact
• 27:14
  Speaker 10: that VIX has been relatively calm. And you have, you know,
• 27:18
  Speaker 10: I think a lot of people figuring out what agentic
• 27:21
  Speaker 10: will mean for them. We still see from our surveys
• 27:23
  Speaker 10: that people want to use agentic for when they need it,
• 27:27
  Speaker 10: but they still care about getting long-term advice when the
• 27:31
  Speaker 10: big decisions matter, and that's not necessarily what they're using,
• 27:33
  Speaker 10: you know, AI for.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Okay, so you saw a lot of people buy the
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: dip this week, which is encouraging for those who are
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: along the market, which is basically everyone at this point.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: There's almost $ 8 trillion available sitting in money market funds,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: I believe the number $ 7. 94 trillion. Does that ever get deployed, Stephanie?
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Or do the account holders consider that money stasher as
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: already put to use? You know, it's kind of on
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: standby mode.
• 27:57
  Speaker 10: I mean, I do think it's different than we've seen
• 27:59
  Speaker 10: over the last couple of decades, simply because cash is
• 28:03
  Speaker 10: an asset class now, and that wasn't the case up
• 28:05
  Speaker 10: until 2021. four or five when 2025, when rates started
• 28:10
  Speaker 10: going up. So I do think it could end up
• 28:13
  Speaker 10: being there for longer than you may have seen in
• 28:14
  Speaker 10: the past. But, you know, savings rates aren't super high,
• 28:19
  Speaker 10: historically speaking, because things are cost more. So I think
• 28:22
  Speaker 10: if you have some cash on the side, it probably
• 28:24
  Speaker 10: allows you to invest. And that's what we've been telling
• 28:27
  Speaker 10: our customer bases that have cash on the side to invest.
• 28:30
  Speaker 5: You are more qualified than anyone I know on the
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: Zeitgeist shift from a major bank over to all that
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: Robinhood stands for.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: The pressure is they all want to get rich fast. Well,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: how do you observe.
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: Within the Robinhood community I got to get rich fast.
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: Like I'm thinking 2029.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Everyone's obsessed with how do.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: You deal with that day to day?
• 28:52
  Speaker 10: I actually don't know if that's the case. I think
• 28:55
  Speaker 10: you may start out wanting to make money quick. But
• 28:59
  Speaker 10: I do think that we've witnessed a kind of. I
• 29:02
  Speaker 10: don't know if it's maturity or if it's just knowledge,
• 29:04
  Speaker 10: but we've seen our customer base kind of shift where
• 29:06
  Speaker 10: they still keep their bucket, but maybe that's where you
• 29:09
  Speaker 10: can hit it big. But they do have long-term assets.
• 29:12
  Speaker 10: We've got 10% of our asset base, like over $ 34
• 29:15
  Speaker 10: billion in retirement accounts that are more long-term oriented. We've
• 29:20
  Speaker 10: got Robin Hood Strategies where we're managing the money for
• 29:22
  Speaker 10: you and that's at two billion. It's been around for
• 29:24
  Speaker 10: a year and a half. So we do actually have
• 29:27
  Speaker 10: like buckets of money that people are kind of investing.
• 29:31
  Speaker 5: I think, Scarlett, the behavioral idea from my grandparents and
• 29:35
  Speaker 5: my parents' depression babies over to this bull market boom
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: and a generation that has never enjoyed down 35%, yet
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: they've had COVID, they've had the great financial crisis.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: The behavior day-to-day is within retirement and wealth management, the
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: behavior's changed radically.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: It has changed a lot. So how do they proceed
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: moving forward? Do they assume the inflation that we see
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: right now is always going to be at this rate
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: and therefore they need to make double digit, see double
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: digit returns to kind of stay afloat? Yeah, I mean,
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 30:05
  Speaker 10: I think like they they are very skeptical of the
• 30:07
  Speaker 10: way things have kind of happened over the last.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: They are aware of the history. And so I do
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: think that they.
• 30:13
  Speaker 10: Want to not necessarily have to work a corporate job
• 30:16
  Speaker 10: for the rest of their lives. I do think that
• 30:18
  Speaker 10: we do know people who have learned how to invest,
• 30:21
  Speaker 10: and that is they're one of a couple, and that's
• 30:24
  Speaker 10: what they do. They invest long-term for their family, and
• 30:27
  Speaker 10: maybe someone else in the family Right.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: Does work a regular job.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: Are Nikki Walters with us early in the show talking
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: about this portfolio concentration, which I would suggest there's a
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: lot of research on is almost normal within the boom
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: and bust cycles of capitalism. Are you worried that there
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: is too much of a concentration?
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: Within accounts?
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Not necessarily maybe in accounts.
• 30:49
  Speaker 10: I mean, when you look at our Robinhood Investor Index,
• 30:51
  Speaker 10: we're actually, a lot of the names haven't changed so much.
• 30:54
  Speaker 10: It's a lot of the Mag7 and some of the
• 30:56
  Speaker 10: smaller position sizes change a little bit more. But I
• 31:00
  Speaker 10: think broadly, the market-wise, I am still worried about the
• 31:03
  Speaker 10: concentration and actually the uptake of margin across the market
• 31:07
  Speaker 10: that has mostly been invested in the AI trade that
• 31:10
  Speaker 10: probably still has a little bit of unwinding to do.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Have you ever bought a meme stock?
• 31:17
  Speaker 10: I mean, yes, because, you know, sometimes a mean stock
• 31:20
  Speaker 10: is real. You can call it a meme. But what
• 31:22
  Speaker 10: does that mean? It just means that there's investor enthusiasm
• 31:25
  Speaker 10: behind it. And it doesn't mean that the company itself
• 31:27
  Speaker 10: is a bad investment.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: She finessed that beautifully. That was compliance approved.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: I'm sure it was. Have people started to take a
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: bigger interest in treasuries given where yields are?
• 31:37
  Speaker 10: They do on the, and just not so much in
• 31:39
  Speaker 10: long-term treasuries. I know that that has been a thing that,
• 31:42
  Speaker 10: you know, and sure, if you bought at 525 and
• 31:44
  Speaker 10: maybe you sell today, you've made a profit.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: More in the short-term space.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have, we offer. Yeah, exactly.
• 31:54
  Speaker 10: We have a decent APY for our sweep program and that,
• 31:57
  Speaker 10: you know, we've seen a lot of people using that,
• 31:59
  Speaker 10: which is equated to, you know, Fed funds rates.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: I think we're getting a picture of what's happening here.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: It's just fascinating. I am numb.
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: I mean, that silence, that's the Bloomberg money silence you
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: just heard. And that silence is, it's Friday, and my
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: brain is fried.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: From the sequence of events of the week. It's just
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: been absolutely nuts.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: I know. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us today.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Stephanie Guild is CIO of Robinhood. Bloomberg Money is your
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: new destination for our personal finance. This is a cross-platform
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: effort that extends beyond your television screen. Check out our
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: new digital hub at Bloomberg.com slash money. And Tom, this week,
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: there's a story on how the annual cost of a U.S.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: family's employer-provided health care plan has reached an average $ 28, 303
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: this year. I looked up three years in a row, roughly,
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: Eight percent, eight percent, eight percent.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I think that's like a 25 percent.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely versus previous years. And the numbers bear that out.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg's U.S. health deputy team leader, John Tazi, joins us
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: now with more. So this is U.S. employers making employees
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: contribute more to their health insurance through higher premiums and
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: higher deductibles as well.
• 33:09
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, this is a trend we've seen going
• 33:11
  Speaker 11: on for a long time. The latest numbers out from
• 33:14
  Speaker 11: KFF this week say the cost of a family premium
• 33:17
  Speaker 11: tops $ 28, 000 a year.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: What's interesting, too, is the share of that.
• 33:23
  Speaker 11: So that's split between what the employer contributes and what
• 33:25
  Speaker 11: the workers contribute.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: But the share of workers.
• 33:28
  Speaker 11: Contribution is going up even faster than the employers. I
• 33:31
  Speaker 11: think that was about 9 percent this year.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Which is easily double the rate of inflation. And small
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: businesses are doing this more than some of the big employers.
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: And most of this country is made up of small businesses.
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 33:44
  Speaker 11: I mean, small employers always have a little bit kind
• 33:48
  Speaker 11: of harder time providing health care for their workers. They
• 33:51
  Speaker 11: don't have the scale and buying leverage and sophistication that
• 33:56
  Speaker 11: a big company does.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: So it's always affordability.
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: John, I remember the day Marlboro Cigarettes raised the price
• 34:02
  Speaker 5: seven cents or whatever, and they reached a tip point
• 34:05
  Speaker 5: where America said no. Are we anywhere near from 16,000
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: and Uwe Reinhart in Princeton years ago, out to, you know,
• 34:12
  Speaker 5: from your Columbia, the great work at Columbia University and others,
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: are we anywhere near like if we top 30,000 where
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: America says enough and there's literally a revolt?
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know.
• 34:23
  Speaker 11: I mean, I think when you look at this, this
• 34:24
  Speaker 11: is sort of the employer space where, you know, 160
• 34:28
  Speaker 11: odd million Americans get their coverage from employers.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: It's part of their compensation.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 34:34
  Speaker 11: So, you know, relatively tight job market. You know, this
• 34:38
  Speaker 11: is how this is part of how companies are paying
• 34:41
  Speaker 11: their workers. What it means is that there's less less
• 34:43
  Speaker 11: cash in people's paychecks because more and more of that
• 34:46
  Speaker 11: money is going to the health benefit.
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: And a lot of employers are also opting not to
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: even participate in a group health insurance plan. They're just
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: giving money over to the employee and say, manage it yourself.
• 34:55
  Speaker 5: And I think it was last week, Tom Purcelli at
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: Wells Fargo saying the benefit wages mix is in real
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: time changing. John, I look at this and I go
• 35:04
  Speaker 5: back to what I hear from people, which is fury
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: over higher deductibles.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Where are we?
• 35:10
  Speaker 5: If it's $ 28, 000, what's the average deductible that people will see?
• 35:14
  Speaker 11: Yeah, so the average deductible right now for a family
• 35:17
  Speaker 11: plan is around $ 4, 000.
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: Cash?
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. After tax?
• 35:22
  Speaker 11: Yeah, I mean, that's what you would be paying out
• 35:25
  Speaker 11: before your health plan starts kind of picking up the
• 35:27
  Speaker 11: tab for the care. that you need. Now, some things
• 35:30
  Speaker 11: are covered before the deductible, right? Preventive care should be covered.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: But it is a lot of money.
• 35:35
  Speaker 11: And when you think about low-income households, you think about
• 35:37
  Speaker 11: households that don't have a lot of savings.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: That is a big.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Like, Scarlett, my math in my head is six grand pre-tax. Yeah, easily.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: This is like we've hit a tip point.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: We've been heading towards this point for a while now. Well,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: in any case, this is something that we'll continue monitoring.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: And I know your team is on top of all that. John,
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: thank you so much. John Tozzi, Bloomberg's U.S. Health Deputy
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Team Leader.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Books.
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: We had some interesting book discussions. We planned out weeks
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: ahead of books here. And Scar got this going with
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: your book. And it's one of my favorite people. He
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: was my book of the year years ago. This is Galloway, right?
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Scott Galloway, the famed NYU Stern School of Business professor,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: he's now in the UK, but he's talking about young men.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: And this book notes on being a man. It's part memoir,
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: part compilation of his weekly newsletter where he shares practical lessons.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: It's almost like a self-improvement thing. They're all aimed at
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: addressing the loneliness epidemic plaguing young men. That makes them
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: vulnerable to online subcultures, isolation. And of course, this is
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: relevant right now as we head towards the midterms because
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: young men have kind of checked out. They were such
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: a big role, such a big player, such a big
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: influence in the 2024 election. But this time around, they
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: feel like there have been a lot of unfulfilled promises
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: and they've taken the black pill and dropped out of
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: the political system.
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: We had that story earlier this week on this black pill.
• 36:55
  Speaker 5: But what's great about the arc of this is you
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: can look at it seven different ways. I make, you know, six, seven...
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: different ways here. To me, so much of it is
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: the digital culture, which we use differently than they use.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Well, they grew up in it, a lot of the
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: young people. If you're in your early 20s, right, all
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: you know about is the internet from day one. You know,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: we're still old school about the way we do things.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: My old school is I actually read the book cover
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: to cover. I haven't talked much about it yet, but
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: this is my book. And instead of being on boys,
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: it's wonderfully on a magical girl of 1790. Gina Smiley
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: wrote this up, The Invisible Hand of Maria Edgeworth. And
• 37:32
  Speaker 5: it's shocking the way Gina takes you back to 1780, 1790, England, Ireland,
• 37:39
  Speaker 5: and the loneliness of women and daughters. And I'll be honest,
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: with all I've read, I've never felt the loneliness that
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: daughters felt then.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And as you know, within the literature today, we're still
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: talking about it.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, different world back then, but some themes do persist
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: and carry over across time.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: To me, this is a huge deal with the kids.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: And hopefully one day Gina Smilak can talk to us
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: a little bit more about that. We're looking forward to it.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm talking to her people. I mean, she's in Brussels,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and she's hard to get.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Gina Smilak, by the way, a friend of Bloomberg. She
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: was a reporter here for many years.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: French. She was my intern years ago, you know, I mean.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Now she's your mentor.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Gina, the book is selling. When's the movie?
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: Gina, you got to come on now after seeing this.
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: All right. For the latest reviews and recommendations from Bloomberg,
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: be sure to subscribe to the On Books newsletter. You
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: can check it out there on Bloomberg.com as well. Coming up,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: the first foldable iPhone is out now. The most expensive
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: iPhone ever that didn't really stop anyone from lining up
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: to get it. That feels very, you.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Know, 2015. John Tosi, are you going to buy the Duo?
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Come on.
• 38:46
  Speaker 11: My iPhone is from the year 2020. There you go.
• 38:50
  Speaker 11: So I'm probably not.
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: It still works. The technology of Bloomberg. That's impressive.
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: This is Bloomberg Money.
• 38:58
  Speaker 5: You're listening to Bloomberg Money. Stay with us with more
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: to come after this.
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: Bloomberg Money.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Money. Personal finance, retirement, wealth management.
• 39:13
  Speaker 5: What it means is, well, it means you spend all
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: your money on an iPhone.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I do the monthly plan.
• 39:17
  Speaker 5: I've got the new jewel here. I went out, I
• 39:20
  Speaker 5: really like the chips. Like this has the new whiz-banging chip.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: How fast is it?
• 39:25
  Speaker 5: It's wicked fast and the battery's great and I like it.
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: And the monthly plan is not too painful so you
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: did the lease yeah i do the lease thing oh
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: interesting that was how many stop stop the show because
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: mateo i know doesn't how many phones are you paying
• 39:39
  Speaker 5: for right now uh four five five i'm at five Okay,
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: we got a top tick six.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: It's nuts. Why are we paying for our children's iPhones?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Oh, we'll be paying for those forever, Tom.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: There's got to be an age cutoff. I'm paying for
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: my mom's. There's no age cutoff.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: Okay, why don't you bring in our esteemed guest here
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: who wasn't lined up at Apple over.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: In Fifth Avenue.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: Lisa Mateo, co-host of Bloomberg this weekend. I know you're
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: all about the Apple duo right now. They went on
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: sale overnight in Asia. And there were lines. Lines overnight,
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: even here in New York City.
• 40:12
  Speaker 12: If you're driving by at 5 a.m., the line was
• 40:15
  Speaker 12: down the block.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: It went forever and ever.
• 40:17
  Speaker 12: People who lined up, they're excited about it, even though
• 40:19
  Speaker 12: it's expensive, right? Between $ 2, 000 and like $ 3, 000, the top grand.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: Wait, up to $ 3, 000.
• 40:24
  Speaker 12: About $ 3, 100 for that top, top of the line, you know,
• 40:26
  Speaker 12: if you want all the speed and all the things.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: That's what you're going to pay. Tom's fancy chips.
• 40:29
  Speaker 12: Tom's fancy chips, exactly, to make the battery last a
• 40:32
  Speaker 12: little bit longer.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: But people want it.
• 40:35
  Speaker 12: It's something new you haven't seen, you know, from Apple before.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: So it's a different look.
• 40:39
  Speaker 12: Some people want to buy it, resell it on the
• 40:40
  Speaker 12: market because you can make a lot of money that way, too.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: And then what?
• 40:44
  Speaker 12: The supply was not there.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: That's the problem.
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: And then what?
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: After they resell it, after the supply, where is the due, say,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: June of next year?
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Gosh, that's a good question for all these people who
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: are waiting.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: Do you not buy an iPad if you get the Duo? Like,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: does it take over the iPad?
• 41:01
  Speaker 12: It kind of does in a way. I mean, it's
• 41:03
  Speaker 12: a little bit smaller than the iPad, but they said
• 41:05
  Speaker 12: it's seamless. Like, you can't even tell because that's what
• 41:07
  Speaker 12: they're saying. A lot of the kids, that's what they're
• 41:09
  Speaker 12: watching now.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: They're watching that. Put that, because see, that's like the
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: big non-duo. It's light, but it's big. Like, Mrs. King
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: can't use that. It's too big.
• 41:19
  Speaker 5: And Nicole Nguyen over at the Wall Street Journal says
• 41:21
  Speaker 5: the duo is unusable.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Well, it's wider.
• 41:25
  Speaker 12: Like, you can't fit it in your pocket just right.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: You need another case.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: How do you get the case? Can you get it
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: in your Kelly bag? I mean, the main question is,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: can you get the duo in the girls' little bags?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: You have to be able to.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: But the problem is, can you get one even?
• 41:37
  Speaker 12: Because if you're on the website today and you're trying
• 41:39
  Speaker 12: to order, you won't get it until like January.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: So much for the holidays.
• 41:42
  Speaker 12: Yeah, so there's a limited supply. So yes, it won't
• 41:45
  Speaker 12: be in the Christmas stocking then, I guess. But I
• 41:48
  Speaker 12: know a lot of people are talking about it and
• 41:50
  Speaker 12: they want it.
• 41:51
  Speaker 5: Can we point out that the stock refuses to go down?
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: Well, it's seen as kind of the anti-AI play now, right?
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Because it's not as up to speed on the other guys.
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: Bloomberg Money ProTip, personal finance, retirement wealth management. Go back
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: and look at the Bloomberg News, New York Times, and
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: FT articles in April of the trade upset and tariff.
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: And everybody had decided Tim Cook was a failure. Apple
• 42:15
  Speaker 5: was a failure in China. Apple wasn't going to come
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: out with this toy or that toy or the others.
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: And then look at the stock. And the stock did
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: the exact opposite.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Of all those articles.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: Well, Tim Cook figured it out and he'll continue to
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: kind of lead the way. He's the chief liaison between
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: Apple and the government. He's a policy guy right now.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: How many phones are you paying for?
• 42:37
  Speaker 12: I'm paying for four, but I was wondering about the
• 42:39
  Speaker 12: age cutoff. I've got a 24-year-old. Can he start paying
• 42:41
  Speaker 12: for his phone?
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: No, no, not yet, not yet. Why are we doing this?
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: It is cheaper the family way.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: It forces them to talk to you.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: No, they only talk to me when they want me.
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: They need money.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: When they need money.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: That's true. I know.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: It's like.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: They call and you try to have a long conversation
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: before the inevitable ask comes.
• 43:02
  Speaker 12: Oh, see, can I have some money?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Afterthought. I'd love a duo. Oh, great. That's good to know.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Afterthought is a child, by the way. Lisa McHale, thank
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: you so much. Lisa, of course, you host Bloomberg this weekend,
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: every Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at 7 a.m. Eastern time.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: That does it for Bloomberg Money from Tom and myself.
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: Have a great weekend, everyone.
• 43:22
  Speaker 5: This is the Bloomberg Money Podcast, bringing you a smart
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: look at the forces shaping your financial life. I'm Tom
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: Keen with Scarlet Fu. You can watch the show live
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: on Bloomberg TV every Friday at noon Wall Street time.
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
• 43:41
  Speaker 5: And as always, on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: Business app.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you.