Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Biden Has Once-in-a-Century Chance to Fix Capitalism: Joe Nocera

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Biden Has Once-in-a-Century Chance to Fix Capitalism: Joe Nocera · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweney. Along
0:04
Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
0:06
Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts,
0:10
Speaker 1: along with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets
0:13
Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts,
0:17
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. In the Business Roundtable, an
0:22
Speaker 1: organization of nearly two hundred CEOs change its core statement
0:26
Speaker 1: on the purpose of a corporation. For two decades, it
0:28
Speaker 1: has said that companies should primarily strive to maximize shareholder returns.
0:34
Speaker 1: Its new statement, however, called on companies to deliver value
0:36
Speaker 1: to all stakeholders beyond shareholders. Our next guest has a
0:42
Speaker 1: fascinating column out on this topic. Joe No Sarah Bloomberg
0:46
Speaker 1: Opinion Commis is out with a fascinating colum that's getting
0:49
Speaker 1: a lot of attention on Wall Street and beyond. Joe
0:52
Speaker 1: talked to us about this concept here of stakeholders above
0:56
Speaker 1: and beyond perhaps just shareholders, and how that whole discussion
0:59
Speaker 1: maybe changing as a result of this pandemic. Wait, it's
1:02
Speaker 1: getting a lot of attention on Wall Street. Yes, sir,
1:07
Speaker 1: nice to know, so, Joe. I mean, it's just it's
1:11
Speaker 1: fascinating here. I mean, you know again we you know,
1:13
Speaker 1: when I went to business school, it was all about
1:15
Speaker 1: maximizing shareholder returns. Maximize. And I was in the room
1:21
Speaker 1: when the phrase was invented. I was in the I
1:25
Speaker 1: was in the Worldife Fast Story in two June, watching
1:28
Speaker 1: Boone Pickens try and take over his first city services,
1:31
Speaker 1: first big takeover play. Yeah, that that was. It's how's
1:35
Speaker 1: what's changing here? If anything? Well, you know what, what
1:39
Speaker 1: you gotta remember, maximizing shareholder value has not always been
1:45
Speaker 1: you know, the synequa non of of of American business.
1:48
Speaker 1: It hasn't been um you know, in in in in
1:52
Speaker 1: the thirties and the forties and the fifties and the sixties. Uh,
1:56
Speaker 1: companies viewed themselves as having a wide range of constituents
2:02
Speaker 1: of whom shareholders were one. I mean, I remember, well
2:06
Speaker 1: I don't really remember, but GE had before Jack weltch Um,
2:11
Speaker 1: Red Red Jones the CEO. You know, he was considered
2:15
Speaker 1: the most important CEO of his time. And in the
2:18
Speaker 1: ten years he had the job, the stock went down nine.
2:22
Speaker 1: It was a different world. So so yeah, maximizing shareholder value.
2:26
Speaker 1: There was no question that more emphasis needed to be
2:29
Speaker 1: put on shareholders, no question at all. And there's no
2:31
Speaker 1: question that companies needed to, you know, get leader and meaner.
2:35
Speaker 1: There was a lot of fact there was a lot
2:37
Speaker 1: of sluggishness, and we were letting um uh arrivals from
2:42
Speaker 1: abroad eat our lunch and autos and other and other areas.
2:45
Speaker 1: But now the pendulum swung too far and it got
2:50
Speaker 1: that gave us Enron, and it gave us drug prices
2:53
Speaker 1: that that that never stopped going up, and it gave
2:56
Speaker 1: us you know, the Bowling seven thirty seven max, which
2:59
Speaker 1: is definitely directly related to wanting to keep the stock
3:03
Speaker 1: stock price high at board and so, and then you
3:07
Speaker 1: have the pandemic where companies really had to step up
3:12
Speaker 1: and think about their employees and think about the country
3:15
Speaker 1: and what they could do for the country. And that
3:17
Speaker 1: and that um sentiment is kind of closer to what
3:22
Speaker 1: happened in the sixties and the fifties than it is
3:25
Speaker 1: to maximizing shareholder value. And the argument that I make
3:28
Speaker 1: in my column is that if you want to get
3:31
Speaker 1: rid of income intequality or reduce it and get back
3:34
Speaker 1: to a country that has good middle class jobs and
3:38
Speaker 1: a sense for people that they can they can do
3:41
Speaker 1: better in life than their parents, or they can do
3:43
Speaker 1: well in life. You know, you just can't focus on shareholders.
3:48
Speaker 1: You have to as you know, you have to think
3:50
Speaker 1: of other things, broader things. And I think what we've
3:53
Speaker 1: discovered over this time of this pandemic and even a
3:57
Speaker 1: little earlier, is that a lot of corporate executive have
4:00
Speaker 1: come to understand that and have come to realize that
4:03
Speaker 1: you can't have a narrow slice of the country doing
4:06
Speaker 1: well and everybody else doing poorly. As I recall, this
4:09
Speaker 1: was a theme a Devil as well. It was stakeholders
4:13
Speaker 1: for a cohesive and sustainable world. So it sounds like
4:16
Speaker 1: all of these organizations doubles the Business round Table, they're
4:19
Speaker 1: look like the Supreme Court. They sort of go where
4:21
Speaker 1: the public mood needs them to go at some point. So, Joe,
4:26
Speaker 1: what happens now? How does you know David Solomon and
4:31
Speaker 1: Jamie Diamond and all of these people, you know, make
4:34
Speaker 1: that a reality or will it be up to these
4:36
Speaker 1: new regulators that we're hearing a lot about. Well, I
4:39
Speaker 1: don't really think a lot of companies are going to
4:42
Speaker 1: do this completely on their own without some kind of
4:46
Speaker 1: prompting UM. So, you know, I think it's I think Biden,
4:51
Speaker 1: I think this is something Joe Biden should talk about.
4:54
Speaker 1: But I also think it's something that the administration can
4:58
Speaker 1: take some steps to create an sent ups UM. It
5:01
Speaker 1: can create tax in centers for factories built in the
5:04
Speaker 1: US or percentage of the workforce that stays and that
5:07
Speaker 1: that stays UH in the US. It can use the
5:09
Speaker 1: Defense Production Act to um UH to force a certain
5:15
Speaker 1: amount of manufacturing in the U S a natural security ground.
5:18
Speaker 1: For instance, you know it was in nuts that we
5:21
Speaker 1: had no in masks that except for three M everything
5:24
Speaker 1: else was made in China. UM. So that's another sort
5:27
Speaker 1: of thing you can do. Infrastructure I think could be
5:29
Speaker 1: huge because if they actually had an infrastructure program, they
5:34
Speaker 1: could set a wage for workers that would be very
5:38
Speaker 1: attractive and that companies would have to match if they
5:41
Speaker 1: wanted to keep their employees. UM So, you know. I
5:45
Speaker 1: and by the way, the fifteen dollar minimum wage I
5:47
Speaker 1: think has the potential to be huge if that If
5:50
Speaker 1: that becomes long, Joe and your columny talk talk to
5:53
Speaker 1: us about a company named demo Tech. Is the story there? Oh?
5:58
Speaker 1: So Demotech is a is a families, small family owned
6:01
Speaker 1: company in Miami, and they make surgical supply suitors and
6:05
Speaker 1: things like that. So the pandemic comes along and they
6:08
Speaker 1: realized there's a huge shortage of PPE personal protection equipment,
6:13
Speaker 1: and so they hire a bunch of people, six hundred people,
6:16
Speaker 1: and they invest millions of dollars and they kind of
6:19
Speaker 1: set up a PPE division. Um uh, you know, yeah,
6:24
Speaker 1: they want to make money, but it was a lot
6:25
Speaker 1: of it. The motivation was to help the country because
6:28
Speaker 1: they could see in Miami and Florida and elsewhere, hospitals
6:31
Speaker 1: didn't have the stuff they needed. And um, once to
6:35
Speaker 1: get approval by the FDA, things went really well all
6:38
Speaker 1: summer long. But when I talked to the Demotech executives,
6:42
Speaker 1: they told me that already the buyers were starting many
6:46
Speaker 1: of the buyers were starting to shift their buying back
6:49
Speaker 1: to China. And that's exactly the kind of thinking that
6:53
Speaker 1: is really destructive, you know, because what they're doing is
6:56
Speaker 1: that they're sacrificing the security of having an American made
7:00
Speaker 1: product for the you know, the price, the cheaper price
7:05
Speaker 1: they can get from China. That's exactly what it got
7:08
Speaker 1: us into this problem in the In the first place,
7:10
Speaker 1: and so um the guy from Dynetech basically said, if
7:14
Speaker 1: I don't, if the government doesn't get involved here, I'm
7:17
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to stay in this business because
7:19
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna have any customers left. And I think
7:21
Speaker 1: that's tragic, both in terms of the jobs that they
7:23
Speaker 1: created and also in terms of the national security implications
7:27
Speaker 1: that we have discovered during this pandemic. Who do you
7:30
Speaker 1: see taking a lead on this show? I mean, will
7:32
Speaker 1: the likes of Jeff Bezos do something? I doubt I be,
7:37
Speaker 1: but I think it could well very well be Jamie Diamond. Uh.
7:41
Speaker 1: He has talked quite a bit about this, and he
7:44
Speaker 1: has um My buddy Andrews. Storkin had a column the
7:48
Speaker 1: other day and The Times and deal Book about um
7:52
Speaker 1: uh a group that he has of stinkers who who
7:57
Speaker 1: helped him, who had put together a memo saying that
7:59
Speaker 1: if we don't solve inequality, you know everything else, um,
8:05
Speaker 1: everything else doesn't matter. This is what has to be done.
8:07
Speaker 1: And Jamie has made some very tough statements about you know,
8:10
Speaker 1: as a company, CEOs have to start doing things that's
8:14
Speaker 1: not necessarily best in their best short term business interests.
8:18
Speaker 1: Even if if they helped the country. Joe, thank you,
8:21
Speaker 1: fabulous column Biden has once an essentially chance to fix
8:24
Speaker 1: capitalism joan Oh Sarah Bloomberg opinion columnist who had alread
8:28
Speaker 1: everybody to have a read of this one. It is
8:32
Speaker 1: NFL Championship playoff weekend. In the first game Tampa Bay
8:35
Speaker 1: Buccaneers against the Green Bay Packers, and in the second
8:38
Speaker 1: game a David versus Goliath. We have the Buffalo Bills
8:42
Speaker 1: against the Kansas City Chiefs. It's getting that game is
8:45
Speaker 1: getting a little bit heated in the grocery aisles. Interesting story.
8:48
Speaker 1: Bert Flickingshare, Managing Director, Strategic Resource Group, joins us here Bert,
8:52
Speaker 1: what's going on in some of these UH supermarket chains
8:56
Speaker 1: in Buffalo and beyond? Uh? Paul Joe, s CEO of
9:00
Speaker 1: legendary four generation Dashes Markets family ninety seven years is
9:06
Speaker 1: reversing the proverbial curse of the cookie number thirty four
9:10
Speaker 1: Cookie Gilchrist and the curse of the fireman number twelve.
9:14
Speaker 1: Darryl la Monica from current Bills quarterbacks same area from
9:19
Speaker 1: Fresno and Gilchrist and Lamonica were key in leading the
9:24
Speaker 1: Bills to their first and only championships and they never
9:27
Speaker 1: got put on the Wall of Fame, and UH wound
9:31
Speaker 1: wound up losing January one, sixty seven and the Kansas
9:34
Speaker 1: City Chiefs for the first time, UH first chance to
9:37
Speaker 1: get into the Super Bowl, and they've been trying to
9:40
Speaker 1: beat Kansas City in a championship game since. And and
9:44
Speaker 1: um so the Dash families taking all the Kansas City
9:47
Speaker 1: Masterpiece barbecue sauce office shelves of all the Dashes stores
9:51
Speaker 1: and replacing it with Guy uses African American locally owned
9:56
Speaker 1: and operated UM Black Family Fuses preservative free, sugar free
10:03
Speaker 1: and gluten free barbecue sauce, which is out selling the
10:06
Speaker 1: Kansas City Masterpiece barbecue sauce. No no, I, I just
10:13
Speaker 1: just just just an old entrepreneur um and uh five
10:18
Speaker 1: generations of coming out of foster farms and orphanages helping
10:23
Speaker 1: us start the food food industry there and enhanced with
10:29
Speaker 1: ten thousand since Red and Red and White, I g
10:33
Speaker 1: A and rex Al drug stores that my ancestors co founded. Well,
10:38
Speaker 1: that is an amazing story. Love to hear all of
10:40
Speaker 1: that sometime, But bart it tells me that that Kansas
10:42
Speaker 1: City Barbecue Hall must have been pretty good in the
10:44
Speaker 1: first place it was ever on those shows, it was
10:48
Speaker 1: good um vanni, but it was Craft combining with Hinz,
10:52
Speaker 1: combining with Buffett and three G and reportedly, uh, the
10:57
Speaker 1: ingredients and the quality wasn't as good as uh what
11:00
Speaker 1: Joe Dash and his team noticed with Ge Hughes. And
11:03
Speaker 1: they always support um um minority and African American and
11:08
Speaker 1: United Nations of entrepreneurs on on the US and Canadian border.
11:12
Speaker 1: So it was giving a great entrepreneur a chance. And
11:16
Speaker 1: as Paul said in the David Goliath Versus Goliath story,
11:19
Speaker 1: Gee Hughes is barbecue sauce uh knocks off and is
11:23
Speaker 1: is out selling the Kansas City Craft barbecue sauce by
11:28
Speaker 1: a factor of a thousand percent. All right, Bert, So again,
11:32
Speaker 1: it's a NFL playoff weekend, typically a big time for
11:37
Speaker 1: bars and restaurants as people watch the games, but of course,
11:40
Speaker 1: across much of the country, Uh, that is not an option.
11:43
Speaker 1: What are we seeing from some of the grocers. Are
11:45
Speaker 1: they seeing their sales of you know, chicken wings and
11:49
Speaker 1: you know, sodas and beer. Are we're seeing that really
11:52
Speaker 1: kick up here because there's nowhere else to go to
11:54
Speaker 1: watch the games? Paul, Yes, record breaking sales on the
11:59
Speaker 1: Bloomberg term an all food retail was down two percent
12:02
Speaker 1: less month. Dashes is up over over and and every
12:07
Speaker 1: week is a record breaking week, bigger than any Thanksgiving
12:11
Speaker 1: week or Christmas Sonica week. Uh they ever had, So
12:14
Speaker 1: like you said, chicken wings, beef on wick, all of
12:19
Speaker 1: what the Catoloni family, Uh, the co founded Dashes calls
12:24
Speaker 1: hometown favorites, and uh it's on the Bloomberg terminal trailing
12:29
Speaker 1: twelve months. Restaurant sales are down, So Dashes is preparing
12:35
Speaker 1: meals and its commissaries and kitchens in the stores and
12:38
Speaker 1: delivering it to seniors or letting people pick up curbside
12:43
Speaker 1: or get chef quality prepared meals from Dashes chefs and
12:48
Speaker 1: Dashes is literally putting Amazon's new Whole Foods prototype store
12:53
Speaker 1: on Niagara falls out of business and going toe to
12:56
Speaker 1: toe with all the big golias from Walmart to Target, UH,
13:00
Speaker 1: to Costco, to b J's to Wegmans to all all
13:03
Speaker 1: the all of which are doing extremely well. We're out
13:07
Speaker 1: of time, but two quick questions, who wins this weekend
13:10
Speaker 1: and who goes bankrupt? More broadly in retail this year
13:13
Speaker 1: and quickly reversed the curse of the cookie and Darryl Lemonica,
13:19
Speaker 1: uh bose went by a point and UH for retailers
13:24
Speaker 1: that go bankrupt still worried about UH Neiman Marcus not
13:28
Speaker 1: doing a boomerang bankruptcy UM and Neeman and Bergdorf boomerang
13:34
Speaker 1: boomerang back into bankruptcy this year. UH food draw drag
13:39
Speaker 1: and off price retail record breaking sales continue for the
13:42
Speaker 1: foreseeable future. Bert fabulous. I love the broad range of
13:48
Speaker 1: things that you can speak of, Paul. Do you agree
13:50
Speaker 1: with his call for the weekend? I hope so. I'd
13:53
Speaker 1: be a nice story to see the Buffalo Bills kind of.
13:56
Speaker 1: I think it's been twenty seven years and they've had
13:58
Speaker 1: a tough go, but they got a great new young quarterback.
14:00
Speaker 1: But two good games this weekend, and the big winners
14:03
Speaker 1: are the TV networks. Yes, record breaking rating exactly for sure. Well,
14:09
Speaker 1: Bert Pleconder, as we don't have to really point out,
14:12
Speaker 1: is a Buffalo soun So thanks for joining us today.
14:15
Speaker 1: Bert's he is managing director of course, as well as
14:17
Speaker 1: Strategic Resource Group. Don't often get to talk to about sports,
14:22
Speaker 1: but this is a great opportunity. So thanks to Sambling,
14:25
Speaker 1: our producer for setting that one up. Bert is obviously
14:27
Speaker 1: a retail expert and talks to us generally about how
14:30
Speaker 1: retailers are doing. So I guess we'll set our our
14:33
Speaker 1: timers to see what happens this weekend. Once again, existing
14:40
Speaker 1: homeshill surprising to the upside. In December seven point six
14:44
Speaker 1: point seven six million homes were sold. That was more
14:48
Speaker 1: than the six point five six million economists we're looking for,
14:52
Speaker 1: and the previous month was revised upwards as well. Let's
14:55
Speaker 1: bring in Logan Motor Shammy, housing data analysts and columnists
14:58
Speaker 1: for Housing Wire, just to give us a board update
15:01
Speaker 1: on where we are housing wise. Is there continued demand
15:05
Speaker 1: out there Logan for you know, suburban and ex urban housing. Absolutely,
15:11
Speaker 1: you know a lot of these A lot of this
15:13
Speaker 1: hot data that we're seeing in existing home sales is
15:16
Speaker 1: actually just a makeup demand for the lost months that
15:19
Speaker 1: we had during COVID and purchase application data has been
15:22
Speaker 1: positive year over year for about thirty eight weeks right now,
15:26
Speaker 1: So the story is going to continue. It's pretty much,
15:29
Speaker 1: you know, keep it simple. We have the US has
15:31
Speaker 1: the best housing demographics ever. Mortgage rates are at the
15:34
Speaker 1: lowest levels ever, so housing demand will be stable for
15:39
Speaker 1: the only the only issue is how hot can home
15:41
Speaker 1: prices go after you know, having an extremely hot year
15:46
Speaker 1: last year, going into one with lower mortgage rates and
15:50
Speaker 1: the economy coming back, logan talk to us about supply.
15:53
Speaker 1: We we you know, as as you mentioned, the demand
15:55
Speaker 1: dynamics seemed to be in place for the near and
15:59
Speaker 1: intermediate term talk supply of homes, and this is a
16:02
Speaker 1: problem is with months with supply solo all time lows
16:07
Speaker 1: UH as of today, and some of that is just
16:09
Speaker 1: a function of you know, inventory falls toward the end
16:11
Speaker 1: of the year. Unless mortgage rates go up higher, we
16:15
Speaker 1: can be in this very low inventory environment for all
16:19
Speaker 1: of which again the problem is that home prices can deviate,
16:24
Speaker 1: you know, from what normally would have been the occurrence
16:27
Speaker 1: if there is a typical expansion or where I mean,
16:30
Speaker 1: COVID has kept mortgage rates lower than it should be.
16:32
Speaker 1: So if the economy comes back, does hire mortgage rates
16:36
Speaker 1: bring more supply? That's what we want. We we don't
16:40
Speaker 1: want this kind of hot, hot home price growth year
16:42
Speaker 1: after year after year. And you know, I know a
16:46
Speaker 1: lot of people are thinking, well, people are just going
16:48
Speaker 1: to move around work from home, and that will bring
16:50
Speaker 1: more supply. The velocity of inventory only really comes when
16:54
Speaker 1: rates come a little bit higher. You know, typically demand
16:56
Speaker 1: gets better inventory they flat or go lower. So high
17:00
Speaker 1: our mortgage rates right now are the only thing that
17:02
Speaker 1: could help the inventory situation. Well, there's also those nine
17:07
Speaker 1: million unemployed logan, I presume none of these are people
17:09
Speaker 1: buying homes. The majority of the people that were unemployed
17:13
Speaker 1: in this crisis were renters or people that would you know,
17:17
Speaker 1: fall into the renter financial profile. Higher wage income Americans
17:24
Speaker 1: didn't lose his money, uh jobs as that group did,
17:28
Speaker 1: so it didn't impact the housing data as much. We
17:32
Speaker 1: we froze as a country for for about five or
17:35
Speaker 1: six months months. Purchased application data were down big year
17:38
Speaker 1: over year, and then it stopped going down and just
17:41
Speaker 1: ran up. Hired. We've gotta b shape recovery, and then
17:44
Speaker 1: we've been making up. I think that's the big thing
17:47
Speaker 1: that people should realize. This parabolic rise in existing home
17:50
Speaker 1: sales is all makeup demand. It will eventually come back
17:53
Speaker 1: down to a normal trend, and that normal trend should
17:56
Speaker 1: not be looked at in a negative way. We ended
17:59
Speaker 1: the year of five point six four million, so we
18:02
Speaker 1: still have this big deviation from monthly sales to where
18:04
Speaker 1: total sales trends are, so sales will come down slowly
18:08
Speaker 1: and then we'll find a normal train and will take
18:10
Speaker 1: it from there. But again, the lowest mortgage rates ever,
18:13
Speaker 1: the best demographics that are can facilitate unhealthy price growth.
18:17
Speaker 1: We don't want that. We want the economy to recover.
18:19
Speaker 1: We want mortgage rates to go higher. It'll cool the
18:22
Speaker 1: market down, it will bring balance back, because this is
18:24
Speaker 1: about a balanced market right now. Look and talk to
18:27
Speaker 1: us about the mortgage market, the underwriting market, and and
18:31
Speaker 1: kind of are we are the mortgage writers. Are they
18:35
Speaker 1: writing good mortgages? Talk to us about that, because that's
18:37
Speaker 1: where we got into some trouble. Obviously back in the
18:40
Speaker 1: in the financial crisis post we've had the best loan
18:44
Speaker 1: profile ever in US history. Most of these loans are
18:47
Speaker 1: all six slow debt cost loans with rising wages. So
18:52
Speaker 1: this is one of the reasons why the housing market
18:54
Speaker 1: did so well. We didn't have any kind of exotic
18:57
Speaker 1: loan debt structures or anything that would facilitate unnecessary inventory
19:03
Speaker 1: to increase. And part of that also is problematic because
19:07
Speaker 1: you're not going to get um inventory to skyrocket anytime soon.
19:11
Speaker 1: When demand is good. So uh, the the underranting standards
19:16
Speaker 1: are perfect. That's that's one area in the US economy
19:19
Speaker 1: we don't have to worry about. The thing we have
19:21
Speaker 1: to do is always make sure not to ease lending
19:24
Speaker 1: standards to facilitate more home sales at risk co owners.
19:28
Speaker 1: And so far there's nothing out there that would that
19:32
Speaker 1: would require even that discussion. Logan, what happens if we
19:35
Speaker 1: get a major sell off in equity markets? What happens
19:38
Speaker 1: to demand? Then, well, sell off an equity markets means
19:41
Speaker 1: body yields go down, mortgage rates sold. Yeah, but listen,
19:44
Speaker 1: mortgage rates are low. It's not the mortgage that's going
19:46
Speaker 1: to stop people. But what if their wells gets gets uh,
19:50
Speaker 1: you know, torn us under in an equity market sell
19:52
Speaker 1: off equity markets sell off in relationship to home would
19:56
Speaker 1: probably the higher end market. Maybe you don't get that
20:00
Speaker 1: two to three million home buyer, but outside of that
20:03
Speaker 1: not really. It's just we have a lot of young people.
20:06
Speaker 1: Just to give some perspective, ages twenty seven to thirty
20:10
Speaker 1: three is about thirty two and a half million people.
20:13
Speaker 1: People need somewhere to live as long as they're employed.
20:16
Speaker 1: Even if the stock markets you know, we've had corrections
20:21
Speaker 1: all through the longest economic expansion ever. In the last one,
20:24
Speaker 1: home sales just moved along. So a big equity sell off.
20:29
Speaker 1: My impact maybe the higher end markets in New York
20:31
Speaker 1: and California or Miami or Connecticut, but that's not it
20:35
Speaker 1: just doesn't have that kind of velocity if employment levels
20:39
Speaker 1: are high or mortgage interested. It's just certain marketplaces would
20:44
Speaker 1: be impacted. Logan talked to us about the construction of
20:47
Speaker 1: housing for kind of that first time buyer. We've heard
20:50
Speaker 1: in the past that that kind of inventory was just
20:52
Speaker 1: not being created. Well, one thing that's been positive, uh
20:58
Speaker 1: in housing is that after when the when the when
21:01
Speaker 1: the builders and new home sales had had a really
21:03
Speaker 1: big salesmith builders have been building smaller homes. And the
21:07
Speaker 1: question is now is does that continue or is this
21:10
Speaker 1: theme of all people want bigger homes because they want
21:13
Speaker 1: an extra room for their you know, for their for
21:15
Speaker 1: their family members, or for their office. We'll see how
21:18
Speaker 1: that goes. But that has actually been a real good
21:20
Speaker 1: positive for this country that builders started to incorporate smaller
21:24
Speaker 1: homes into the mix, which means they could compete with
21:26
Speaker 1: the existing home sales market, which is much bigger, provides
21:31
Speaker 1: a cheaper home, and has a geographic advantage over the
21:33
Speaker 1: new home sales market. So that trend hopefully continues UH
21:39
Speaker 1: one and many years out because they were just building
21:42
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger homes and then they got the memo
21:45
Speaker 1: after thank you got it, Hey, Logan, thank you so
21:48
Speaker 1: much for joining us. We appreciate it as always Logan
21:51
Speaker 1: multi Shami housing data analysts also columnists for the Housing
21:55
Speaker 1: Wire based in Irvine, California, giving us some more color
21:59
Speaker 1: Vanny on what has been a real bright spot in
22:01
Speaker 1: the US economy, that being housing for sure, and it's
22:04
Speaker 1: definitely helped keep things afloat. You have to wonder about
22:08
Speaker 1: about urban housing, hol does that come back at some
22:11
Speaker 1: point and if so, when, Yeah, exactly right. So there's
22:14
Speaker 1: been that migration out of some some urban centers into
22:18
Speaker 1: the suburbia. It's been an interesting issue to follow this
22:23
Speaker 1: time of the week. To bring in our Laurence So,
22:25
Speaker 1: our social professor of Emergency Medicine at the Johns Hopkins
22:28
Speaker 1: School of Medicine. We should note that the Bloomberg School
22:31
Speaker 1: of Public Health is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder
22:33
Speaker 1: Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Lauren, thanks so much for
22:37
Speaker 1: joining us. We always appreciate talking to you on this
22:39
Speaker 1: weekly segment. I guess what's new here is I guess
22:44
Speaker 1: the re emergence, if you will, of uh Dr Anthony Fauci.
22:48
Speaker 1: What does that mean to the folks do you think
22:49
Speaker 1: in the healthcare industry? I think it's it starts a
22:56
Speaker 1: sort of with the breath of relief and a reminder
22:59
Speaker 1: that we're going to I get back to the hard
23:00
Speaker 1: work of using um and creating science to really come
23:05
Speaker 1: combat this pandemic. It's a place that we sort of
23:08
Speaker 1: in the responses, haven't felt comfortable in for a long time.
23:12
Speaker 1: And I think I can speak for many, if not all,
23:15
Speaker 1: my colleagues to say that it was really great to
23:18
Speaker 1: see him sort of not mince words, to get up
23:20
Speaker 1: there and say that they're that you know, he he
23:24
Speaker 1: is excited to be able to say that if he
23:26
Speaker 1: doesn't know something, he doesn't know something, and UM that
23:28
Speaker 1: there's going to be a change in how we approached
23:30
Speaker 1: science with this new administration. Yeah, absolutely, not mincing his words.
23:36
Speaker 1: I want to point of a story that has just emerged,
23:38
Speaker 1: and it's about Wall Street leaders Lauren making the case
23:43
Speaker 1: to allow them be part of the vaccine distribution, particularly
23:46
Speaker 1: in New York City, but also maybe beyond New York City.
23:50
Speaker 1: It definitely New York State Goldman J. If you Morgan
23:53
Speaker 1: KK or among firms on the call with the state
23:56
Speaker 1: asking if they can, if they can provide distribution and logistics.
24:01
Speaker 1: Is this wise? I mean, it's obviously on these companies
24:04
Speaker 1: interests to try to do this, But I mean, is
24:07
Speaker 1: it the best way to go? Or is it is
24:09
Speaker 1: it maybe getting into some dangerous territory. I think one
24:14
Speaker 1: of the things that we have to do is be
24:15
Speaker 1: careful that we don't UM, you know, throw too many
24:19
Speaker 1: different types of options into how we do vaccine rollout. UM.
24:23
Speaker 1: We have clear and UM official recommendations from a C
24:27
Speaker 1: I P on who should get vaccine when and UM
24:30
Speaker 1: what the priority groups are. I think UM the Administration
24:34
Speaker 1: does see a plan forward to accelerate vaccine distribution and
24:38
Speaker 1: UM that includes both UM upticks in in manufacturing and
24:43
Speaker 1: infrastructure and things like that, but also in public messaging
24:46
Speaker 1: around vaccine. And so I think the logistics and the
24:51
Speaker 1: sort of UH quality improvement side would be really valuable.
24:56
Speaker 1: But I also think that UM we have to be
24:58
Speaker 1: careful that we don't just continue really change the plan
25:01
Speaker 1: right as new plans are getting started and starting to streamline,
25:04
Speaker 1: because there's gonna always be that team when a new
25:07
Speaker 1: plan isn't implemented, of the learning curve and getting it
25:10
Speaker 1: in place and getting the infrastructure around it. Um. But
25:14
Speaker 1: we can't switch the plan every time. We don't see
25:17
Speaker 1: that immediate upticking speed. So we we really have to
25:21
Speaker 1: give the new strategy the opportunity to play out and
25:24
Speaker 1: and get vaccine into the arms of the people. Lauren rightfully,
25:29
Speaker 1: So the vaccines or it seemed to be front and
25:31
Speaker 1: center on peoples in people's minds. Talk to us though
25:34
Speaker 1: about therapeutics treating people that are in hospital with the virus.
25:40
Speaker 1: Where are we now? How are we How is it
25:43
Speaker 1: different from saying, you know, almost a year ago, um,
25:46
Speaker 1: I think this is the place that we sounds like
25:51
Speaker 1: we might have lost Lauren. If she's there, she can
25:54
Speaker 1: absolutely chime in again. But a very interesting conversation there.
25:59
Speaker 1: Poll just as we see that Italy's numbers have begun
26:02
Speaker 1: to drop after five weeks of gains and the R
26:04
Speaker 1: right is below one again, so that is a little
26:06
Speaker 1: bit of a good sign at least four some countries. Yeah, absolutely,
26:09
Speaker 1: And I think you know, I was, I was asking
26:12
Speaker 1: Lauren sour about the therapeutics that you know, presumably they've
26:14
Speaker 1: made some enhancements there and maybe that will factor through
26:18
Speaker 1: in uh in some of the statistics as we see
26:21
Speaker 1: going forward here. So UM, but I think we have
26:24
Speaker 1: Lauren back. So Lauren, I was asking about therapeutics kind
26:26
Speaker 1: of where we now versus when we started this. Yeah. Absolutely,
26:30
Speaker 1: I mean I think this is a place where we
26:32
Speaker 1: would have liked to see UM improvements a little further along, UM,
26:36
Speaker 1: some more options and our toolkit so to speak. UM,
26:41
Speaker 1: the you know, rem deservere. Some of the steroid options
26:44
Speaker 1: that we have are are promising, and I do think
26:47
Speaker 1: our standard of care has improved significantly in the ability
26:50
Speaker 1: to effectively care for to manage these types of patients.
26:53
Speaker 1: I think one thing we would like to see, UM
26:56
Speaker 1: is some more work in the repurpose drug space and
26:59
Speaker 1: that that your full randomized control trial design. We learned
27:02
Speaker 1: a lot from some of the trials coming out of
27:04
Speaker 1: the UK, but we would like to see those drugs
27:07
Speaker 1: implemented into a true placebo controlled our CT so we
27:11
Speaker 1: can better understand them. I think this is a space
27:13
Speaker 1: for continue. We're going to continue to do a lot
27:15
Speaker 1: of work, but it is going to be UM. It's
27:19
Speaker 1: going to be a long haul. I mean, we important
27:23
Speaker 1: for the study design. We still have a lot of
27:25
Speaker 1: COVID patients. But I think the hope is that as
27:26
Speaker 1: the patients decline UM with the vaccine, that will have
27:30
Speaker 1: fewer patients enrolling in studies, which UM is great for
27:34
Speaker 1: the patient population, but not so great for the study
27:36
Speaker 1: design of these therapeutics. So it's going to be a drag. Briefly, Lauren,
27:40
Speaker 1: the Biden administration came in instead of going to be
27:43
Speaker 1: a priority, and you know that it was going to
27:45
Speaker 1: overhauld the way vaccine distribution so one had been being done.
27:51
Speaker 1: Are there countries that are doing it better? Though? Can
27:53
Speaker 1: you point to examples? And I think there are countries
27:57
Speaker 1: that are doing a really good job here. I think
27:59
Speaker 1: Israel is an example that's been held up a lot
28:02
Speaker 1: UM as really being successful in this space. I think
28:06
Speaker 1: one of the challenges in the US is that we
28:08
Speaker 1: don't have a nationalized health system, which some of the
28:10
Speaker 1: other countries that have been able to do this better.
28:13
Speaker 1: UM really can leverage, right because they have one electronic
28:16
Speaker 1: health record, they have a system that can move patients
28:19
Speaker 1: more um efficiently, and then they can leverage things like
28:22
Speaker 1: UM their military or their versions of national national guards
28:26
Speaker 1: to to really broadly have a systematic approach that that
28:30
Speaker 1: affects the entire health system. Lauren, thank you so much,
28:33
Speaker 1: as always, Lauren Sour of Johns Hopkins, thanks for listening
28:38
Speaker 1: to Boomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen to
28:42
Speaker 1: interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever a podcast platform you prefer.
28:46
Speaker 1: I'm Bonnie Quinn. I'm on Twitter any Quinn. Paul Sweeney,
28:49
Speaker 1: I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you
28:52
Speaker 1: can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio