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US Treasury Says It Was Breached by Chinese-Based Hacker · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
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• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Remember, they notify the Treasury Department notified lawmakers just yesterday
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  Speaker 3: that a China state sponsored actor infiltrated workstations. And what,
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  Speaker 3: as you've been saying, the officials are now calling a
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  Speaker 3: major incident. We're going to bring in Jamie Tarabay, who
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  Speaker 3: covers cybersecurity for Bloomberg. How do you see what happened
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  Speaker 3: to the Treasury Department compared to what we've seen in
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  Speaker 3: other hacks that were facilitated by Chinese actors, state sponsored actors.
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  Speaker 4: It's almost like another day, another hack. Quite frankly, at
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  Speaker 4: this point, we have been dealing with years of whites
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  Speaker 4: read long running hacking campaigns, whether there's a cyber espionage
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  Speaker 4: or prepositioning in the possible events of a conflict with Taiwan.
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  Speaker 4: But we have seen just literally years and years and
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  Speaker 4: years of attempts and intrusions and compromises of American and
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  Speaker 4: international critical infrastructure networks by Chinese state sponsored hacking. So
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  Speaker 4: this is something that has been happening for years, and
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  Speaker 4: the more obvious and the more we talk about these things,
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  Speaker 4: the more the expectation is that we expect minimum cybersecurity
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  Speaker 4: standards from not just the private sector, but from government agencies,
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  Speaker 4: especially one as critical as US Treasury.
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  Speaker 5: What's the expectation as to the defenses of some of
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  Speaker 5: these government agencies. Is the belief that the US government
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  Speaker 5: has decent cybersecurity defenses or not?
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  Speaker 4: You know, that's a really complicate a question because a
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  Speaker 4: lot of the time, a lot of these federal government
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  Speaker 4: agencies depend on contract with third party providers where they
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  Speaker 4: have devices that often they're called end of life, so
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  Speaker 4: they're routers or they're interconnected devices that basically connect networks together,
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  Speaker 4: and they haven't been updated or they are obsolete and
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  Speaker 4: they need to be changed. And because bureaucracy and the
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  Speaker 4: federal government is so large, it's always a challenge, it
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  Speaker 4: always costs money, and it always is a big undertaking.
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  Speaker 4: So we are seeing more and more and more of
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  Speaker 4: these end of life products being compromised. We know more
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  Speaker 4: about the fact that these are entry points in a
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  Speaker 4: lot of different hacking campaigns, So it's really we want
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  Speaker 4: to see more cybersecurity audits. We would love to see
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  Speaker 4: more transparency from federal government agencies about what they're doing
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  Speaker 4: in terms of shoring up their systems, using the party providers,
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  Speaker 4: using incident response, using cybersecurity firms, as well as deploying
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  Speaker 4: agencies like CISA, the FBI, and other agencies that are
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  Speaker 4: concerned with cybersecurity, particularly as we know and has been
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  Speaker 4: said repeatedly by government officials for years now, that there
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  Speaker 4: are Chinese attempts and actions to get into our systems
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  Speaker 4: to basically have access to inspectual property and you know,
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  Speaker 4: as well as intelligence gathering purposes.
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  Speaker 6: By the way, the Chinese embassy in Washington says it
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  Speaker 6: opposes quote smear attacks against China without any factual basis.
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  Speaker 6: They say the US needs to stop using cybersecurity to
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  Speaker 6: smear and slander China and stop spreading all kinds of
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  Speaker 6: disinformation about the so called Chinese hacking threat.
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  Speaker 1: How sure are we about.
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  Speaker 6: This stuff, because I think it's a huge allegation. It
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  Speaker 6: could be construed as an act of war. Frankly, hacking
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  Speaker 6: the Department of Justice, the Department of defense the Treasury.
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  Speaker 6: So is it firmly, you know, evidenced that the Chinese,
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  Speaker 6: that Chinese state hackers are behind this stuff.
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  Speaker 4: I think the phrasing of the letter that Treasury is
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  Speaker 4: sent to Senator job Brown and sim Scott were basically
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  Speaker 4: saying that they had denoted it as a major cyber
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  Speaker 4: security incident, which is what they do when they attribute
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  Speaker 4: it to a state sponsored actor. And the fact that
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  Speaker 4: they said that after the investigations by government agencies, the
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  Speaker 4: attribution is crystal clear makes it extremely definitive. They would
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  Speaker 4: not be putting that in a letter to Congress if
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  Speaker 4: they weren't sure, and it's it would probably it would
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  Speaker 4: meet the hahollmarks and trade craft of previous Chinese hacking attempts.
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  Speaker 4: So there are indicators of compromise. There are tactics and
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  Speaker 4: procedures that these hackers would be using that are about
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  Speaker 4: our identifiable to the people.
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  Speaker 7: Who track them.
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  Speaker 4: And there are also companies like Microsoft that have visibility
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  Speaker 4: over the Internet and watch certain threat actors as they
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  Speaker 4: move across networks, and they're able to recognize their patterns
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  Speaker 4: of behavior as well as the places that they're in gering.
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  Speaker 3: The Treasury Department was notified by on December eighth by
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  Speaker 3: a third party provider. They notified Congress on December thirtieth.
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  Speaker 6: By the way, ironically called beyond Trust.
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  Speaker 1: You can say that act right.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, yes, that is that. There is an irony
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  Speaker 3: to that. But the three week lags is what I
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  Speaker 3: want to ask about here. Why do they wait so
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  Speaker 3: long to notify law makers for such an important government body.
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  Speaker 4: That's a great question, you know, we would love to know,
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  Speaker 4: and right now we're not getting that information from Treasury.
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  Speaker 4: A lot of the times, when particularly this past year,
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  Speaker 4: you would have heard about Salt Typhoon and Vault Typhoon,
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  Speaker 4: which are extensive hacking campaigns, a lot of the communication
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  Speaker 4: companies that have been impacted have not disclosed those hacks
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  Speaker 4: because they've been getting waivers on a national security basis
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  Speaker 4: that they would have agreed on with the intelligence community,
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  Speaker 4: with the government. So if they have not been able
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  Speaker 4: to declare or disclose those hacks, it's for myriad reasons,
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  Speaker 4: including national security, but also they want to be sure
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  Speaker 4: that they know what they have. They also want to
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  Speaker 4: probably be able to say that they have eradicated the problem,
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  Speaker 4: that they've mitigated any kind of compromise and that they're
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  Speaker 4: able to sort of say we found it, we've detected it,
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  Speaker 4: we're dealing with it. It's over.
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  Speaker 6: Jamie, thanks so much for joining us, Jamie Terrabay reporting
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  Speaker 6: on that incident.
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  Speaker 1: And it is the one that we know about. There
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  Speaker 1: are others.
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  Speaker 6: Perhaps that we don't because Beyond Trust said that a
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  Speaker 6: limited number of customers Plural were involved in this hack,
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  Speaker 6: and they also have contracts with the Department of Defense,
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  Speaker 6: with the Department of Justice, with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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  Speaker 1: It could be those.
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  Speaker 6: Other agencies haven't gotten back to us and havn't a
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  Speaker 6: learned in Congress as far as we know that they
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  Speaker 6: were affected as well. And Paul, as you point out,
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  Speaker 6: this really makes you rethink the TikTok issue.
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  Speaker 5: That's kind of the issue I thought about when I
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  Speaker 5: was reading the story today, was this has put the
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  Speaker 5: TikTok issue, which is Supreme Court Presembly will take a
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  Speaker 5: look at soon. Does I put it in a different
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  Speaker 5: light for some people? And I suspect it will because
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  Speaker 5: who's to say, what's China state versus China private.
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  Speaker 1: I don't have a clear understanding of that. And isn't
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  Speaker 1: that the same. I think it is for a lot
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  Speaker 1: of issues.
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  Speaker 3: And yeah, ill thing about this too is the Treasury
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  Speaker 3: Department around that time December eighth, there was a lot
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  Speaker 3: of issue in since then, and there was a lot
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  Speaker 3: of remember wrangling around the debt ceiling and the US
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  Speaker 3: fiscal situation. You know, what kind of interference was there
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  Speaker 3: and can they show that there wasn't a significant enough
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  Speaker 3: interference to markets? Was there any It's hard to understand
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  Speaker 3: really what the ramifications are from the hack itself.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, I think there's still a lot to on
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: pack here.
• 8:02
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• 8:12
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• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Ronica Clark Joints US.
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: She's a director of research and the US economists over
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  Speaker 5: there at that little bank on the quarter called City
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  Speaker 5: Bank Veronica. What's your twenty twenty five message to your
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  Speaker 5: city clients about this US economy?
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  Speaker 7: Yeah?
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, I liked the previous discussion of the very bifurcated economy.
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  Speaker 8: I think that we're experiencing where we're lower income people
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  Speaker 8: are certainly struggling higher income consumers or maybe what is
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  Speaker 8: supporting you aggregate consumption. But I do think this is
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  Speaker 8: a very precarious economy, and that's I think the message
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  Speaker 8: for twenty.
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  Speaker 7: Twenty five for our of you.
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  Speaker 8: It really does come down, I think, to weakness that
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  Speaker 8: we're seeing in the labor market, and I do worry
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  Speaker 8: that the FED has maybe gotten a bit complacent on
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  Speaker 8: that labor market weakening. And we do think that this
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  Speaker 8: is a FED that's going to be cutting rates a
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  Speaker 8: lot more than market's currently priced in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 6: The FED is going to cut rates more than is
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  Speaker 6: currently priced in twenty twenty five. So you're not worried
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  Speaker 6: about policy driven reinflation next year.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, not particularly.
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  Speaker 8: I think a lot of the fundamental drivers that you know,
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  Speaker 8: we've seen of inflation over the last couple of years
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  Speaker 8: do look a lot better even compared to a year ago.
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  Speaker 8: Even just this morning we got case Shiller home price data.
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  Speaker 8: Home prices are running at a normal, pre pandemic kind
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  Speaker 8: of pace that doesn't seem like a future source of inflation.
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  Speaker 8: And that's really where you would see signs of re
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  Speaker 8: emerging inflation if rates were too low. We do see
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  Speaker 8: the labor market weakening. That means that wage growth has load.
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  Speaker 8: The labor market doesn't seem like a source of inflationary
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  Speaker 8: pressure anymore. I do think there's a lot of ways
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  Speaker 8: that we can see something that looks more like two
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  Speaker 8: percent inflation in twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 3: So one thing I wonder about a lot, too, is
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  Speaker 3: you said that bifurcation in the economy and in your
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  Speaker 3: kind of already hinting at potential further pains ahead. There
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  Speaker 3: was a great point made earlier today by Danielle di
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  Speaker 3: Martino Booth that you might see some of those kind
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  Speaker 3: of middle to upper income consumers also start feeling some pain.
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  Speaker 3: Some of that pain might be seen as early as
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  Speaker 3: the coming days when you look at kind of student
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  Speaker 3: loan repayment rates. For example, housing prices are still high,
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  Speaker 3: cost of rent is still high. I mean, how do
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  Speaker 3: you think about that drift higher in terms of the
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  Speaker 3: pain that consumers will be feeling into twenty twenty five.
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  Speaker 8: Yeah, I do think that's what we've seen, you know,
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  Speaker 8: very gradually happening over the last year or so.
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  Speaker 7: You know, a lot of aggregate.
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  Speaker 8: You know, measures of consumer health really don't look very comforting.
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  Speaker 8: We have the savings rate which is below pre pandemic levels,
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  Speaker 8: and falling consumer delinquencies on credit cards, auto.
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  Speaker 7: Loans, you know, they're above twenty nineteen levels.
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  Speaker 8: Yes, you know, student loans haven't been counted as defaulted yet,
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  Speaker 8: but they will start to be soon.
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  Speaker 7: Those do have to start being repaid.
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  Speaker 8: I do think the fundamental driver of whether people are
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  Speaker 8: going to continue spending is if you have a job
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  Speaker 8: or not. And of course the unemployment rate is still
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  Speaker 8: at a healthy level, but it's been trending higher and
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  Speaker 8: hiring has been very weak. If we do get to
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  Speaker 8: that stage where people are starting to lose their jobs,
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  Speaker 8: that I think really would get people to cut back
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  Speaker 8: on spending.
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  Speaker 1: What do you think drive drives that?
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  Speaker 6: I mean, what pushes companies to I guess if there's
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  Speaker 6: no GDP growth, they're not going to need to keep hiring.
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  Speaker 6: If there is lower revenue for these big corporations, they
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  Speaker 6: won't need more people.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 8: We've had you know, two to three percent GDP growth
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  Speaker 8: for a couple of years, and still the unemployment rate
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  Speaker 8: has risen by almost a percentage point from from the lows.
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  Speaker 8: Hiring is very weak, it's at mid two thousand and
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  Speaker 8: eight kind of rates. So we already see that businesses
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  Speaker 8: are trying to cut labor costs, and I do think
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  Speaker 8: that's a result of maybe trying to offset high borrowing costs.
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  Speaker 8: You know, rates are still restrictive if people do start
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  Speaker 8: to cut back on spending anymore. You know, if that's
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  Speaker 8: less business revenue, and you've already been looking for every
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  Speaker 8: way to cut labor costs by not hiring or reducing hours,
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  Speaker 8: that might get you to layoffs. We've also seen people
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  Speaker 8: are not quitting as much, probably for worry of finding
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  Speaker 8: a new job. That might mean that lack of voluntary
• 12:10
  Speaker 8: separations might turn into involuntary separations. So there are definitely
• 12:13
  Speaker 8: ways that you can get to that layoff stage.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: Given that back job Ronica, how much do you think
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  Speaker 5: the FED could cut?
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  Speaker 1: How many times in twenty twenty five, we.
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  Speaker 8: Think one hundred and twenty five basis points, so that's
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  Speaker 8: five twenty five basis point cuts. Of course, that's much
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  Speaker 8: more than what the market is pricing right now.
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  Speaker 3: So how much then are you worried about the spillover
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  Speaker 3: effects because we've had investors tell us that, Okay, a
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: lot of the assumptions when it comes to stock market
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: predictions for next year are really predicated on sufficient growth.
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  Speaker 3: But between what you're saying about potential weaknesses and consumers
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: and also what you might expect from the Trump government
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  Speaker 3: in terms of efficiency seeking and bond vigilantes just calming
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  Speaker 3: after the bond market, potentially, if the fiscal situation does
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  Speaker 3: not improve, all of this put together, does it signal
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  Speaker 3: that growth is potentially compromised.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, I think it does.
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  Speaker 8: I mean, we're expecting something like one percent average growth
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  Speaker 8: for next year. I do think you'll fundamentally if we
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  Speaker 8: look back at the last couple of years, you.
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  Speaker 7: Know, I do think rates are restrictive.
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  Speaker 8: We've had such substantial fiscal support post pandemic, and that
• 13:23
  Speaker 8: was the immediate post pandemic, you know, policies, but also
• 13:26
  Speaker 8: in Placial Reduction Act and infrastructure, and that is going
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  Speaker 8: to be fading. You know, in twenty twenty five. We'll
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  Speaker 8: see if we do get further cuts to government spending.
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  Speaker 8: But that fiscal impulse is flat to maybe negative for
• 13:38
  Speaker 8: next year and rates are still restrictive, This could be
• 13:40
  Speaker 8: the time that it finally catches up with us.
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  Speaker 6: Well, if they cut down one hundred and twenty five
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  Speaker 6: basis points, we're at three percent even on the lower bound,
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  Speaker 6: and that should be I would say pretty stimulative. Victoria
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  Speaker 6: or Veronica, Sorry, thanks so much for joining us. Veronica
• 13:55
  Speaker 6: Clark there is the city director of Research and US Economists,
• 13:59
  Speaker 6: talking to us about her expectations for twenty twenty five.
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: Happy New Year to all of you.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence podcast. Catch us live
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• 14:12
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• 14:15
  Speaker 2: you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 14:20
  Speaker 6: I want to turn to the big take story on
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: the Bloomberg terminal this morning. As the US debt we've
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: been talking about balloons in the direction of fifty trillion dollars.
• 14:31
  Speaker 6: Treasury bond dealers are warning of the risk of growing
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: market pressures. Joining us now is Bloomberg's Alex Harris, who
• 14:38
  Speaker 6: has more on this story. And Alex, some of the
• 14:42
  Speaker 6: numbers here were shocking even to me and I cover
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: you know this market every day, But treasury issuances one
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: nat West executive told you has tripled over the past decade. Meanwhile,
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: the balance sheets of these banks aren't catching up. So
• 14:57
  Speaker 6: being a primary dealer an easy these days.
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  Speaker 9: No, And you know, you look at Citadel in this case,
• 15:04
  Speaker 9: and they had been buying to become a primary dealer
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  Speaker 9: for years and finally in September said, you know what, thanks,
• 15:10
  Speaker 9: but no thanks. This is just a losing proposition. And
• 15:13
  Speaker 9: I think that's how people are feeling about it now
• 15:15
  Speaker 9: and why you're not seeing the primary dealer community even
• 15:19
  Speaker 9: grow to keep up with the amount of supply and
• 15:22
  Speaker 9: the amount of debt that the government is issuing. And
• 15:24
  Speaker 9: that's a problem because you need those primary dealers. You
• 15:27
  Speaker 9: need them to facilitate these you know, in these markets
• 15:31
  Speaker 9: from the auctions to secondary market. And remember their balance
• 15:35
  Speaker 9: sheets for these dealers isn't just treasuries. It's a lot
• 15:37
  Speaker 9: of other things. It's equities, it's mortgage backed securities, it's
• 15:40
  Speaker 9: asset back secures. So you're playing with all these things.
• 15:43
  Speaker 9: And as you can see what happened if you look
• 15:45
  Speaker 9: back to March twenty twenty, I mean, that's a really
• 15:48
  Speaker 9: good example of what happened when the treasury market ceased
• 15:51
  Speaker 9: to function and dealer balance sheets just could not handle
• 15:54
  Speaker 9: what it needed to do across all asset classes, and
• 15:58
  Speaker 9: that's the very thing that it's a regular returns.
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  Speaker 3: Maybe let's take a large step back for a moment here,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: because there are a lot of confusing dynamics that are
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: happening in the treasury market. One is the size of
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: the US DOT load alone. Then there comes the plumbing
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: questions why overnight funding seems to hit pockets of stress
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: every so often, the dealer balance sheets being constrained as
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: they are, as you say, and then hedge funds trading
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: with a lot of leverage in this system. What is
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: actually the problem here and the risk in the way
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: the plumbing is working.
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  Speaker 9: So right now, what's happening and where the primary dealers
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  Speaker 9: are having problems is when you're asked to facilitate and
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  Speaker 9: intermediate in this market, but you don't have the balance
• 16:42
  Speaker 9: sheet to do it. You have to charge higher funding costs.
• 16:46
  Speaker 9: So that means if you are looking to borrow treasuries,
• 16:48
  Speaker 9: say in the rebo market, and you're a hedge fund
• 16:51
  Speaker 9: or an asset manager and you need to borrow to
• 16:53
  Speaker 9: finance securities, you're going to have to pay more. And
• 16:57
  Speaker 9: there might be a point where they are not to
• 17:00
  Speaker 9: pay as much as the dealers are asking them, and
• 17:03
  Speaker 9: so that's when you get backstops and you get you know,
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  Speaker 9: stopping out of positions, and all of that has to
• 17:09
  Speaker 9: make its way back onto the dealer balance sheets, and
• 17:11
  Speaker 9: so that's where they get clogged. And right now there's
• 17:14
  Speaker 9: four hundred billion in aggregate treasuries alone sitting on dealer
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  Speaker 9: balance sheets. And then every time you get a treasury
• 17:22
  Speaker 9: settlement cycle, so the middle of the month and the
• 17:24
  Speaker 9: end of the month, you're getting a backup in repo rates.
• 17:27
  Speaker 9: It's becoming a regular occurrence and we're seeing it quite often.
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  Speaker 7: This year.
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  Speaker 9: July, dealer balance sheets were stuck. End of September was
• 17:36
  Speaker 9: a very volatile quarter end that nobody expected. Your end
• 17:40
  Speaker 9: has thankfully been really today it's very mild. Repo is
• 17:43
  Speaker 9: under control. But it's because the minute the calendar turned
• 17:46
  Speaker 9: to October, everybody said, wait a minute, we have to
• 17:49
  Speaker 9: be better prepared for this. And so you saw repo
• 17:52
  Speaker 9: rates actually back up to five and a half percent
• 17:54
  Speaker 9: in the middle of November because people said, I want
• 17:57
  Speaker 9: to get caught. I got to do this now.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: And so Alex, another question about this too. We're talking
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: about the treasury market here. It's not only the deepest
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: most liquid market in the world, it's one of the largest,
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: and it also underpins the cost of every other type
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: of borrowing. And if you're talking about the need to
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: kind of back up rates as you're talking about in
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: certain parts of the market, At what point does this
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: become a larger issue, even a tax payer issue.
• 18:25
  Speaker 9: Oh, I mean, well, you can see in some in
• 18:27
  Speaker 9: some cases it already is. I mean, you guys were
• 18:29
  Speaker 9: just talking about interest in the cost of interest in
• 18:32
  Speaker 9: the last segment. You know, that's that's what it's going
• 18:35
  Speaker 9: to look like to the taxpayer, is that, you know,
• 18:37
  Speaker 9: the auctions are just going to get more expensive because
• 18:40
  Speaker 9: it's just going to get harder and harder for these
• 18:42
  Speaker 9: dealers to continue taking down this supply. And what's interesting
• 18:46
  Speaker 9: is remember not the dealer balance sheets are not created equals,
• 18:49
  Speaker 9: so you know, dealers have the autonomy to decide where
• 18:52
  Speaker 9: their priorities are. And you know, during the treasury refunding
• 18:56
  Speaker 9: one year, I think it was last May, you know,
• 18:58
  Speaker 9: they were doing something called loose and they were just
• 19:01
  Speaker 9: kind of kicking around ideas and what they could do
• 19:03
  Speaker 9: to help improve treasury market function, and one of the
• 19:06
  Speaker 9: things they proposed is almost doing a table to see
• 19:09
  Speaker 9: who the biggest dealers were in the treasury auctions as
• 19:12
  Speaker 9: a way to sort of light a fire under the
• 19:13
  Speaker 9: rest of the dealer community to say, hey, if you're
• 19:16
  Speaker 9: not doing your part and you're not pulling your weight,
• 19:18
  Speaker 9: you have to because there's just too much supply to
• 19:21
  Speaker 9: leave it to a handful of dealers to be taken down.
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: There's only twenty four of them. We're down from the
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: peak that we saw in terms of the number of
• 19:28
  Speaker 9: dealers that we saw in nineteen eighty eight. So this
• 19:30
  Speaker 9: is so critical that everybody is playing their partner here,
• 19:33
  Speaker 9: and if they're not, there are serious consequences in the
• 19:36
  Speaker 9: terms of costs the economy. It's the taxpayer and to
• 19:39
  Speaker 9: those just trying to finance their transactions in the financial system.
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: Alex it's a great story. I recommend everybody check it out.
• 19:47
  Speaker 6: Treasuries fifty trillion dollar dayl usual test strained dealer pipes
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: and I think that was one of the coolest quotes
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: in the story, Casey Spizzano saying, you're trying to put
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: more treasuries the same pipes, but those pipes aren't getting
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: any bigger.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: It's a it's a pretty great way to paint the picture.
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: Als Harris there with the story on primary dealers, it's
• 20:10
  Speaker 6: our big take.
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: Check it out when Wall Street being a primary dealer
• 20:13
  Speaker 5: was a really good business, the bombable business.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:16
  Speaker 5: I mean when I came on the street in the
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: trading desk, the government bomb desk was the bomb.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: They had so much capital, they could swing it around.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: They dealt with.
• 20:24
  Speaker 6: The They could do a whole show on things that
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: have changed since yes started on Wall Street.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: The City l Securities really wanted to be in it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: They kind of just shelved the plan. That was a
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: huge story.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: This isn't there.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: weekdays at ten am Eastern on Apple, card Playing and
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: broyd Outo with the Bloomberg Business app. Listen on demand
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us live on YouTube.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about the food business here because
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: the restaurant business never easy. Inflation, labor costs and more
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: budget conscious cons are taking a bite out of the
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: industry's profits. Joining us now to talk about how to
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: navigate these challenges and what's ahead for twenty twenty five.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Danny Grant. He's a two Michelin star chef and partner
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: at Maple Hospitality Group, the company behind Maple and Ash restaurants.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: You think about some of the challenges that the industry
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: has faced, Let's start with inflation, because of course, the
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: cost of certain goods coffee, coco have just been skyrocketing eggs.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: How do you get around that at a restaurant.
• 21:31
  Speaker 10: Yeah, well, thank you so much, and happy New year
• 21:33
  Speaker 10: to you guys. Thanks for having me on. You know,
• 21:36
  Speaker 10: twenty twenty four has been an incredible year for us
• 21:39
  Speaker 10: and really had.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: A lot of wins for us and growth and.
• 21:43
  Speaker 10: Being able to navigate through inflation, and just like probably
• 21:46
  Speaker 10: a lot of parts of the country, we're incredibly excited
• 21:49
  Speaker 10: for what's to come in twenty twenty five. We're having
• 21:52
  Speaker 10: the fortunate for a lot of expansion and we're opening
• 21:55
  Speaker 10: new restaurants in Miami and other parts of the country.
• 21:58
  Speaker 10: So this is a part of our restaurants that we
• 22:01
  Speaker 10: excel the best at is celebrate celebrating. So it's one
• 22:05
  Speaker 10: of our favorite days of the year to welcome everybody
• 22:07
  Speaker 10: into the restaurants and celebrate. Yeah, and to talk about,
• 22:11
  Speaker 10: you know, how we navigate some of the inflation, it's
• 22:13
  Speaker 10: really you know, we have we take a lot of
• 22:16
  Speaker 10: the hit on us as far as we look at
• 22:19
  Speaker 10: being able to cover costs and you know, whether it's
• 22:22
  Speaker 10: coffee to steaks the King Crab, and we pass some
• 22:25
  Speaker 10: of that onto the customers, but we also look at
• 22:27
  Speaker 10: very creative ways that we're able to mitigate some of
• 22:30
  Speaker 10: those things by different cooking techniques, different style of service.
• 22:36
  Speaker 10: But one thing that we never sacrifice is the quality
• 22:39
  Speaker 10: of the ingredients. So as you know, the restaurant business
• 22:42
  Speaker 10: is an ever changing, difficult operating business, but we kind
• 22:46
  Speaker 10: of relish in those moments and have been seeing a
• 22:48
  Speaker 10: lot of success with it.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: Talk to us about your consumer. Who is your typical
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: consumer your restaurants, What are you targeting?
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Who are you targeting?
• 22:57
  Speaker 10: Yeah, you know, for us, we like to target a
• 23:00
  Speaker 10: broad span of we're in neighborhoods and locations. That is,
• 23:04
  Speaker 10: anything from someone that's looking to come in to have
• 23:06
  Speaker 10: a simple piece of fish and have a beautiful night
• 23:09
  Speaker 10: out to the much more extravagant celebratory moments of they
• 23:13
  Speaker 10: just closed a big deal and we're the most obvious
• 23:16
  Speaker 10: place to go to to to celebrate and to blow
• 23:19
  Speaker 10: off all the that goes into closing a deal. So
• 23:23
  Speaker 10: you know, those are some of our target people. We
• 23:25
  Speaker 10: target foodies. We love people that want to eat and
• 23:29
  Speaker 10: drink like the same way we do, because that makes
• 23:32
  Speaker 10: me happy and makes me kind of makes what we
• 23:34
  Speaker 10: do all worth it.
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: Danny, how have the How has the restaurant staff held
• 23:39
  Speaker 6: up in this post pandemic world? We continue to see
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: inflation a problem for customers, for diners and for owners
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: and operators. But what about you know, servers, bartenders, bus
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: boys have wages kept up with inflation? How is that
• 23:55
  Speaker 6: part of your family doing?
• 23:57
  Speaker 10: Yeah, I think that's a great question and great topic
• 24:00
  Speaker 10: because you know, without our team, we are not a restaurant.
• 24:04
  Speaker 10: We can't open the doors, and that's one of our
• 24:06
  Speaker 10: most important assets of running restaurants. Some of the things
• 24:11
  Speaker 10: that we've done to keep that in place is first
• 24:14
  Speaker 10: of all, being we have very high grossing restaurants. You know,
• 24:18
  Speaker 10: Chicago Maple Nash is one of the top grossing restaurants
• 24:20
  Speaker 10: in the country. That gives us a little bit of
• 24:22
  Speaker 10: extra flexibility to look at ways to be creative and
• 24:26
  Speaker 10: take care of our team, so you know that we're
• 24:30
  Speaker 10: always looking at upping our wages, healthcare and then other
• 24:35
  Speaker 10: things that you know, we have food packages that we
• 24:39
  Speaker 10: bring to our team, We do family meals, we do parties,
• 24:41
  Speaker 10: and you know other things that just really help keep
• 24:45
  Speaker 10: the morale the team and everybody feeling together like the
• 24:48
  Speaker 10: tight knit family that we are.
• 24:50
  Speaker 6: Great to have you on the program, Danny, thanks so
• 24:52
  Speaker 6: much for joining us, and we wish you a happy
• 24:55
  Speaker 6: New Year and a successful new year as well. Danny Grant,
• 24:59
  Speaker 6: there is to Michelin, star chef and a partner in
• 25:02
  Speaker 6: Maple Hospitality Group.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: This is the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast, available on apples, Spotify,
• 25:09
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• 25:12
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• 25:16
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• 25:19
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• 25:22
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