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What's Keeping CEOs Up At Night: Conference Board Survey · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney. Along
0:04
Speaker 1: with my co host of Bonnie Quinn. Every business day
0:06
Speaker 1: we bring you interviews from CEO, 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 podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts,
0:17
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com. A very interesting survey out
0:21
Speaker 1: from the Conference Board CEOs worldwide asked about their biggest worries.
0:26
Speaker 1: For one, I'd say it made for some some very
0:29
Speaker 1: nice light reading right before bedtime. Well he had to
0:32
Speaker 1: read us. Adaman Zildroom's Director of Economics and Global Research
0:35
Speaker 1: Chair at the Conference Board, Adoman tell us about the
0:38
Speaker 1: nightmares that we're in this survey. Good morning, thanks for
0:43
Speaker 1: having me on the program. Uh, yes, I'm not sure
0:46
Speaker 1: it's quite you know, nighttime reading, because you know, we
0:49
Speaker 1: were asking about what keeps ceo is up at night. UM.
0:52
Speaker 1: And you know globally, you know what's the top of
0:57
Speaker 1: the list is really the COVID nineteen pandem make and
1:01
Speaker 1: the vaccines availability and distribution. Um. And that's much more
1:07
Speaker 1: important than other business concerns and business challenges. UM. They're
1:12
Speaker 1: also really looking at recession risk among the top three
1:17
Speaker 1: as a worry about the coming year. So that suggests
1:22
Speaker 1: that CEOs don't think that the economy is out of
1:25
Speaker 1: the woods yet. All right, Ottoman, how about the new administration,
1:29
Speaker 1: the Biden administration that obviously manifests the whole change in
1:33
Speaker 1: away A lot of these corporations will be operating over
1:36
Speaker 1: the next four years. How did they frame that out? So? Um,
1:40
Speaker 1: you know, we feel that the survey after the elections
1:44
Speaker 1: in November just to make sure that we could kind
1:47
Speaker 1: of get the policy of what business leaders are thinking
1:50
Speaker 1: about it. Especially in the US, CEOs are worried about
1:56
Speaker 1: the outlook for taxes and regulation uh, and much less
2:00
Speaker 1: about global trade diversions or disruptions, and and also less
2:06
Speaker 1: about geopolitics. UM. So I think they'll be looking at
2:10
Speaker 1: the business environment and how it might be affected by
2:14
Speaker 1: changes in corporate taxes in the outlook for regulations. But
2:18
Speaker 1: I think generally, UM, clarity uh and UH, consistency and
2:24
Speaker 1: more certainty about the environment is going to be welcome.
2:28
Speaker 1: And Adaman, just give us an idea of who these
2:30
Speaker 1: nine CEOs are. Obviously you don't have to mention companies,
2:33
Speaker 1: but are we talking about the the d s and
2:35
Speaker 1: P five hundred. Is there a good selection from across
2:39
Speaker 1: the market cap ranges? Yeah, it is a global survey, uh,
2:44
Speaker 1: and there is a mix of a large cap and
2:48
Speaker 1: uh smaller companies. Uh. There really is kind of a
2:52
Speaker 1: wide range. But you know, a lot of the Fortune
2:57
Speaker 1: five hundred are going to be represented. And just to
3:00
Speaker 1: follow on that, then, you know, did the smaller companies
3:03
Speaker 1: worry about other things than the bigger companies? Would they
3:06
Speaker 1: have been more worried, for example, about demand coming back? Uh?
3:11
Speaker 1: There is a lot of concern about changing consumer behaviors
3:16
Speaker 1: as well as about global demand. Uh consumer demand, UM,
3:21
Speaker 1: especially for China and Japan, which I think are more
3:25
Speaker 1: dependent on global demand. Uh, the recession worries. Uh, We're
3:30
Speaker 1: a higher rank, so I think there is still concern
3:34
Speaker 1: about that. There's uh more UM time will be devoted
3:38
Speaker 1: to understanding how consumer demand and consumer behaviors are going
3:42
Speaker 1: to be changing as a result of what we're going
3:45
Speaker 1: through with the pandemic. So Automan, how about returning to work?
3:49
Speaker 1: That's on the minds I would certainly of employees. How
3:53
Speaker 1: about the what are the the c e O s
3:55
Speaker 1: in the C suite? How do you think about getting
3:57
Speaker 1: people back to work in a post COVID world. Yeah,
4:01
Speaker 1: especially for the US CEO SUH, there is a desire
4:05
Speaker 1: to bring workers back, um, and they really want to
4:09
Speaker 1: get back to business. But I think there is a
4:12
Speaker 1: recognition that it is going to be a different world
4:16
Speaker 1: coming back. UM. When when we ask about, you know,
4:19
Speaker 1: are you going to increase your remote workforce or decrease
4:23
Speaker 1: your remote remote workforce? The responses are really neutral. So
4:27
Speaker 1: there's kind of an equilibrium in uh, the the proportion
4:31
Speaker 1: of the workforce that's working remotely. But there is a
4:35
Speaker 1: desire to get back to work and come back to
4:38
Speaker 1: the office. UM. But it'll be it'll be a different
4:43
Speaker 1: environment because at the same time, they're really thinking about
4:46
Speaker 1: reducing uh the office footprint. Right. So for commercial real estate,
4:51
Speaker 1: I think we'll also see some differences in terms of
4:53
Speaker 1: the size of those offices and maybe the location of
4:56
Speaker 1: those offices. You headlines coming out from air Boss that
5:00
Speaker 1: I think is worth mentioning in this context. Air Boss
5:03
Speaker 1: saying that production rates will remain lower for longer and
5:07
Speaker 1: that commercial aircraft that market will recover by five I
5:14
Speaker 1: mean seriously automatally looking at another three to five years
5:19
Speaker 1: before the commercial aircraft market resumes well, especially since uh,
5:26
Speaker 1: these CEOs are saying that they're looking at reducing business travel.
5:31
Speaker 1: That seems consistent, uh, and recovery would take quite a
5:35
Speaker 1: long time, I think to really come back to the
5:38
Speaker 1: previous levels that we've seen. The general consensus seems to
5:42
Speaker 1: be there will be there, there will be less business travel. Um.
5:46
Speaker 1: And it's hard to see you know how um, you
5:49
Speaker 1: know tourism or personal travel is leisure travel is going
5:54
Speaker 1: to pick up in the near term. Well, you know
5:57
Speaker 1: poll just to point out that the United EEO had
6:00
Speaker 1: just said that the turn point is coming on travel demand. Yeah,
6:03
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I think, as Ottoman says, I can see
6:06
Speaker 1: leisure coming back before business. Um, I don't. As soon
6:10
Speaker 1: as I get my shop the next day, I'm on
6:12
Speaker 1: a plane, I'll tell you that, Automan, Azel Drum, thank
6:14
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us director of Economic Research
6:17
Speaker 1: and Global Research Chair at the conference board giving us
6:20
Speaker 1: the highlights from their survey of global CEOs. And it'll
6:25
Speaker 1: be interesting to see, Vannie, when you get fully evoculated,
6:28
Speaker 1: will you hop on a plane? Well, you know no,
6:31
Speaker 1: because I'll clearly recovering for you, because you'll be on
6:33
Speaker 1: that plane pole. But KLM cutting as many as a
6:36
Speaker 1: thousand jobs just now because the travel recovery there is fading.
6:40
Speaker 1: So exactly, President Joe Widen's first day executive order confirmed
6:46
Speaker 1: what we had been anticipating that TC Energy is Keystone
6:49
Speaker 1: XL pipeline is delayed again and could be scrapped. That
6:53
Speaker 1: might mean wasting an investment of one point four billion
6:56
Speaker 1: dollars on the part of that company. Let's bring in now,
6:59
Speaker 1: Oh are Liam Denning, Energy Mining and Commodities columnist for
7:03
Speaker 1: a Bloomberg opinion, Liam, you know, the corporation obviously might
7:08
Speaker 1: lose a lot of money on this particular anticipated investment.
7:12
Speaker 1: But is it a good thing that the Xcel pipeline
7:14
Speaker 1: doesn't go ahead? Uh? I think the Keysone Xcel pipeline
7:21
Speaker 1: is just one of those things that was conceived in
7:23
Speaker 1: a very different environment. So it was first proposed back
7:28
Speaker 1: in July of two thousand and eight, which you may remember,
7:32
Speaker 1: comincided with the all time high in all prices. You know,
7:36
Speaker 1: back then, we were obsessed with peak oil supply. We
7:41
Speaker 1: were worried that oil was running out, um, and we
7:45
Speaker 1: just live in a very different world now, you know,
7:50
Speaker 1: oil supply is abundant, particularly right now in the context
7:55
Speaker 1: of the COVID pandemic. Um. We we've seen a you know,
8:01
Speaker 1: a huge resurgence in oil production in the US in
8:04
Speaker 1: the intervening thirteen years. Um. And the other thing that's
8:07
Speaker 1: changed is just the the political environment, both around climate
8:12
Speaker 1: policy but also um, you know, in the wake of
8:15
Speaker 1: the financial crisis is too dasignating in the wake of
8:17
Speaker 1: the pandemic, the role of the role of government in
8:21
Speaker 1: kind of setting outcomes. Liam. Just it's been thirteen years.
8:24
Speaker 1: Refresh our memory here. The Keystone XL pipeline, it was
8:29
Speaker 1: taking oil from where to where, So it was an
8:33
Speaker 1: expansion of an existing pipeline network essentially to take oil
8:38
Speaker 1: from Alberta, mainly from the oil sands up there in Canada,
8:44
Speaker 1: down to refineries and export terminals on the Gulf Coast
8:50
Speaker 1: and also into the Midwest. So it was effectively a
8:53
Speaker 1: Canadian oil export project. Yeah. And I mean this isn't
8:58
Speaker 1: the only one called on called at risk, right, there
9:01
Speaker 1: are other pipelines in the sides of the White House,
9:04
Speaker 1: not all of the most recent ones, but some, Yes,
9:08
Speaker 1: there are there are others, certainly, um, in the in
9:12
Speaker 1: the White Houses sites Clearly, Keystone was especially vulnerable because
9:19
Speaker 1: um it needed that permit, because it's a cross border pipeline,
9:24
Speaker 1: and also because of the way it had essentially become
9:29
Speaker 1: something in the prerogative of the president themselves. So um,
9:35
Speaker 1: you know, we saw Obama block it, we saw Trump
9:39
Speaker 1: revive it, and now we've seen Biden block it again,
9:42
Speaker 1: all at the stroke of a pen. So what does
9:46
Speaker 1: this say about President Biden's energy policy? Liam, What do
9:49
Speaker 1: we really know? What is what's the What are the
9:51
Speaker 1: folks in the US energy business? What are they thinking
9:54
Speaker 1: about President biden administration. Well, we already know that Biden
10:02
Speaker 1: has made climate change a central element of his platform.
10:07
Speaker 1: UM in some respects he was. He was sort of
10:09
Speaker 1: pushed towards that during the primaries by the progressive wing
10:13
Speaker 1: of the party. What was interesting for me about what
10:17
Speaker 1: happened with Keystone is that um TC Energy, the company
10:22
Speaker 1: that wanted to build it, had been carefully kind of
10:25
Speaker 1: layering on insurance UM by coming to agreements with unions
10:29
Speaker 1: and with First Nations groups, um IT even it even
10:34
Speaker 1: throughout the possibility of powering the thing with renewable energy.
10:38
Speaker 1: UM Biden kind of swept that aside. You know, you
10:42
Speaker 1: you might have expected him to at least go through
10:45
Speaker 1: the motions of a of a review process or something
10:48
Speaker 1: to justify getting rid of the of the of the pipeline.
10:52
Speaker 1: But he went for it on day one, literally on
10:54
Speaker 1: day one. And what that suggests to me is that
10:58
Speaker 1: his administration will probably are on the side of moving quickly,
11:02
Speaker 1: probably using more executive orders because you know, the Democrats
11:06
Speaker 1: obviously have a very thin majority in Congress um so
11:11
Speaker 1: you know, it would appear to portender an aggressive stance
11:15
Speaker 1: on climate. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean we also, as I say,
11:19
Speaker 1: have other pipelines that are potentially in the sites are
11:23
Speaker 1: the president. What does it mean for oil supply though,
11:26
Speaker 1: because the type of oil that was going to be
11:28
Speaker 1: passed through the pipeline is is different that the Canadian
11:31
Speaker 1: oil is thicker and heavier oil. What would it have
11:33
Speaker 1: been used for. Well, typically those kinds of barrels UM
11:39
Speaker 1: use to supply what are called distillates UM so, so
11:43
Speaker 1: diesel being the most obvious one. You know, the kind
11:46
Speaker 1: of oil we get from uh Texan shale for example,
11:50
Speaker 1: tends to be more geared towards producing gasoline. What's interesting
11:55
Speaker 1: about the cancelation of Keystone Excel at this time is
11:59
Speaker 1: that in effect, it's not really going to matter that
12:02
Speaker 1: much for Canadian supply because of what we've seen with
12:06
Speaker 1: the industry in general having to scale back it's expansion
12:10
Speaker 1: plans because of poor financial performance over the past decade,
12:16
Speaker 1: of the need to conserve cash and pay it out
12:18
Speaker 1: as dividends. Canadian or production growth probably wasn't going to
12:23
Speaker 1: be that much anyway over the next over the medium term,
12:27
Speaker 1: and so in some respects Keysonne Excel at this point
12:31
Speaker 1: just wasn't really a pipeline that was needed. Men, what
12:35
Speaker 1: do we know about the present Biden stands towards um
12:38
Speaker 1: the shale patch in and the and the fracking industry,
12:41
Speaker 1: because that's where you know, there's a substantial number of
12:44
Speaker 1: US jobs. Sure so, um, you know in theory he
12:50
Speaker 1: wants to put severe curbs on on fracking. The key
12:55
Speaker 1: issue probably in the near term is whether there will
12:58
Speaker 1: be some sort of UH ban on new fracking on
13:02
Speaker 1: federal lands. UM. That would be a particular issue for
13:05
Speaker 1: states like New Mexico, which, as you may know, is
13:09
Speaker 1: also where his his nominee for Interior is coming from.
13:14
Speaker 1: So that's going to be an interesting one to watch. Um.
13:17
Speaker 1: Beyond that, you know, one of the things that caught
13:20
Speaker 1: my eye, uh in the executive orders was this move
13:23
Speaker 1: to to reinstate a social cost of greenhouse gases in
13:29
Speaker 1: terms of federal review of projects. And in some ways
13:32
Speaker 1: that is going to be like a carbon tax, but
13:36
Speaker 1: it's kind of a stealth carbon tax um that's introduced
13:40
Speaker 1: when new projects are being considered, and so that could
13:45
Speaker 1: have a big impact on how new projects, Um, you
13:49
Speaker 1: know move from the drawing boarder into actual investment phase. Liam,
13:53
Speaker 1: we're out of time that I do want to just
13:54
Speaker 1: mention it with you. That also, Saudia Rancole is causing
13:58
Speaker 1: some controversy today because according to a a view of
14:00
Speaker 1: public filings by Bloomberg Green, it's been under reporting emissions
14:05
Speaker 1: of course because it wants investors to keep investing, but
14:08
Speaker 1: it's been doing this by quite the large fraction. Yeah,
14:12
Speaker 1: that was a great story by my colleagues. Um. You know,
14:15
Speaker 1: the one point I would just make is that this
14:18
Speaker 1: kind of fits a patter, and we saw it most
14:20
Speaker 1: recently with Excell Mobile, which really had to be kind
14:24
Speaker 1: of pushed into even just disclosing its full carbon emissions footprint.
14:31
Speaker 1: And I think what this speaks to is. Look, the
14:33
Speaker 1: oil industry for decades has been trying to obfuscate this issue,
14:39
Speaker 1: push onto the back burner. And you know we've seen
14:43
Speaker 1: over time the industry has forced to disclose more and
14:46
Speaker 1: and a Ramco's behavior I think just fits with that, right,
14:49
Speaker 1: Liam Denning, thank you so much for joining us. We
14:51
Speaker 1: appreciate your thoughts always on the global energy spaces, energy
14:55
Speaker 1: mining and commodities calmness for Bloomberg Compinion. You can reach
14:57
Speaker 1: and read his work and all the other work for
15:00
Speaker 1: Work Opinion at Bloomberg dot com, Slash Opinion or O
15:03
Speaker 1: P I N go on the terminal. Five market drivers
15:09
Speaker 1: in a Biden Administration. That is the title of a
15:12
Speaker 1: recent calm by Barry rid Hoolts. Barry joins us today.
15:16
Speaker 1: Barry Ridholts, Bloomberg Opinion columnists and host of Masters in
15:19
Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio, also the founder, chairman and chief
15:23
Speaker 1: investment officer of Holt's Wealth Management. Barry the reasons to
15:26
Speaker 1: be bullish on stocks they continue to amount, how are
15:29
Speaker 1: you viewing things in a Biden administration? So it's the
15:34
Speaker 1: battle between bulls and bears. Is really the battle between
15:37
Speaker 1: which matters more expensive stocks or even bigger stimulus, and
15:44
Speaker 1: so far it looks like stimulus is winning. Yeah, but Barry,
15:48
Speaker 1: we keep hearing about the stimulus, but even Nancy Pelosi
15:51
Speaker 1: said today that it won't you know, she put it
15:54
Speaker 1: in positive terms. And so the Democrats would be ready
15:57
Speaker 1: in February, I mean, the worst of Why aren't they
16:01
Speaker 1: ready now? Um, you got me. I. I looks like
16:05
Speaker 1: the new administration hits the ground running yesterday with a
16:08
Speaker 1: lot of their checking off a lot of boxes. They're
16:11
Speaker 1: freezing a lot of things that the predecessors had done,
16:15
Speaker 1: and they're overturning a bunch of the the more egregious
16:18
Speaker 1: um policy issues. I think they need people to wrap
16:22
Speaker 1: their head around a one point nine billion dollar, trillion
16:26
Speaker 1: dollar Cars Act three before they introduce the infrastructure bill.
16:33
Speaker 1: I don't know if people remember, but this week is
16:36
Speaker 1: infrastructure week, as we've heard every year for the past
16:40
Speaker 1: four years. And uh, the Green New Deal is another
16:44
Speaker 1: part of that. And and nobody is really talking about
16:49
Speaker 1: Medicare expansion. Uh, the the you know, new Obamacare expansion.
16:55
Speaker 1: When we added thirty thirty five million people to the
16:59
Speaker 1: roles of in sured, suddenly you had a huge new
17:02
Speaker 1: swath of consumers going out and buying consuming uh, medical
17:09
Speaker 1: services and pharmaceutical services and hospitals. It was a huge,
17:13
Speaker 1: no pun intended shot in the arm for the sector.
17:16
Speaker 1: I don't know what numbers they're talking about. I've I've
17:20
Speaker 1: read twenty to twenty five million additional people added to
17:23
Speaker 1: the to the insured roles. So you take those factors
17:28
Speaker 1: and you add them together, that's somewhere between five and
17:31
Speaker 1: ten trillion dollars over the next ten years. That's a
17:35
Speaker 1: lot of stimulus. So talk to us about stimulus and
17:40
Speaker 1: and how important is that. I mean, there's some that
17:42
Speaker 1: are suggesting, boy, there's already a lot of liquidit in
17:45
Speaker 1: the market. There's a lot of money, maybe even from
17:47
Speaker 1: the most recent nine billion round that hasn't been spent.
17:51
Speaker 1: What do you say to those that say, hey, let's
17:53
Speaker 1: tap the brakes on this a little bit, you know,
17:58
Speaker 1: you have to put it into content next of the
18:02
Speaker 1: what we learned from and there were a lot of
18:05
Speaker 1: good and bad lessons from the entire year, at least
18:08
Speaker 1: speaking economically. The good news is that we passed the
18:13
Speaker 1: two point one trillion dollar First Cares Act and the
18:18
Speaker 1: after tax net cumultive income to us consumers was a
18:23
Speaker 1: trillion dollars. That was about a eight percent bump year
18:28
Speaker 1: over year. That that was huge in the midst of
18:30
Speaker 1: a giant recession. And the way that manifest was not
18:34
Speaker 1: just income but UH savings rates went up, credit card
18:39
Speaker 1: delinquencies fell, and retail sales not only did they recover,
18:43
Speaker 1: they passed the pre pandemic levels. So that's our frame
18:47
Speaker 1: of reference. What we noticed at the end of last
18:52
Speaker 1: year was how that had faded, and so we we
18:58
Speaker 1: extrapolate from that into what this New Cares Act two
19:03
Speaker 1: is going to do, and that assumes that we were
19:07
Speaker 1: kind of partially reopened. What we're what people seem to
19:10
Speaker 1: be forgetting, is we have this massive new surge that
19:14
Speaker 1: has in the virus that has not peaked. We are
19:18
Speaker 1: probably looking at not just a national mask mandate, but
19:22
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of local, state, and maybe even federal
19:26
Speaker 1: lockdowns as this gets worse and worse. I mean, four
19:29
Speaker 1: thousand deaths a day are just it's just unthinkable. And
19:33
Speaker 1: so I think the New Cares Act is going to
19:36
Speaker 1: be part of here's how we're gonna bang this out.
19:39
Speaker 1: We're gonna just shut down for three weeks and here's
19:42
Speaker 1: enough money to carry everybody through, and that's how we'll
19:45
Speaker 1: get on the other side of this, and once that's done,
19:48
Speaker 1: the broader economy can begin to recover, once we're past
19:53
Speaker 1: the pandemic lockdown and we start to see more and
19:55
Speaker 1: more vaccines. I don't know, Barrier, remember Biden saying that
19:59
Speaker 1: he would not, you know, do a whole federal shutdown,
20:02
Speaker 1: and anyway, at this point, you know, on the whole
20:05
Speaker 1: world shutdown, it seems that you know, that's not even
20:09
Speaker 1: fool proof either. But we'll see, maybe maybe there'll be
20:12
Speaker 1: a three week shutdown. Barry, What what would you be
20:15
Speaker 1: looking to buy right now? With markets at these levels
20:17
Speaker 1: and yet still optimism seemingly out there. So you know,
20:22
Speaker 1: it depends on how concerned you are about valuation and
20:26
Speaker 1: how aggressive or conservative you are. If you're aggressive, go
20:30
Speaker 1: buy everything, but most people aren't. Most people are more moderate.
20:34
Speaker 1: And if you're a little concerned that stocks have gotten
20:38
Speaker 1: a little pricy, well, the the obvious rotation is you
20:44
Speaker 1: move some of your capital that's in large cap growth
20:48
Speaker 1: and tech and you buy what's inexpensive. And what we
20:52
Speaker 1: see is inexpensive today is is really stands out like
20:56
Speaker 1: a sore thumb. The small caps have been are much
20:59
Speaker 1: cheaper than the big caps. Value is at historic levels
21:03
Speaker 1: of cheapness next to growth they should be after performing
21:08
Speaker 1: terribly for the past decade. Emerging markets are much cheaper
21:12
Speaker 1: than the US, And if we do get the sort
21:15
Speaker 1: of stimulus that this administration is talking about, we're going
21:19
Speaker 1: to see the deficits go up, We're gonna see inflation
21:22
Speaker 1: peak up, and we're gonna see the yield curve. We've
21:25
Speaker 1: talked about this before. UM. Once the yield curve steepens,
21:29
Speaker 1: that means that the money center banks should do better
21:34
Speaker 1: going forward, as well as anything related to to real estate.
21:38
Speaker 1: So there are a lot of options depending on how
21:42
Speaker 1: conservative you want to be. But selling a little bit
21:46
Speaker 1: of what's done great and buying a little bit of
21:48
Speaker 1: what's done poorly, that's sort of rebalancing tends to work
21:52
Speaker 1: over the long haul. Hey, Barry, twenty seconds, just give
21:55
Speaker 1: us your thoughts on just valuation for the market here.
22:00
Speaker 1: You know the to me, the question is in our
22:02
Speaker 1: stocks pricy because the second half of all bull markets
22:06
Speaker 1: are always pricey. The question is how much of future
22:09
Speaker 1: profit increases is priced into the market already. That's the
22:13
Speaker 1: bottom line, if this room to grow profits, then there's
22:17
Speaker 1: still room for stocks to go higher. I'm not sure
22:20
Speaker 1: if it's fully priced in yet. M hmm. Interesting, very Rittles,
22:24
Speaker 1: thank you very two words or possibly three. Who's your
22:27
Speaker 1: master's in business this weekend? Uh? This weekend is Andrew
22:30
Speaker 1: Beer of Dynamic Beta Investments. They run an ets that
22:35
Speaker 1: three words on replication their their track workord you got
22:38
Speaker 1: it in Thanks Barry Verry Rittle's, founder of Rittle's Wealth Management,
22:42
Speaker 1: also Bloomberg opinion contributor and contributor to our show weekly.
22:50
Speaker 1: So it is the first full day for President Biden
22:52
Speaker 1: in the Oval office, for him in his administration. A
22:55
Speaker 1: busy start to his administration for sure. Let's get the
22:59
Speaker 1: latest from Josh wind Grove, white House correspondent for Bloomberg
23:02
Speaker 1: News Journeys, on the phone from Washington, d C. Josh,
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Speaker 1: I want to start with just the general tone in
23:09
Speaker 1: the White House as it relates to the administration and
23:13
Speaker 1: the press corps. I saw something on my Twitter feed
23:15
Speaker 1: today which was really interesting, kind of comparing the highlights
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Speaker 1: from the first press briefing under President Trump versus the
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Speaker 1: first press briefing under President Biden, and boy, it was
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Speaker 1: the differences were just stark. What's the feeling within the
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Speaker 1: press corps and the White House right now? Well, I mean,
23:34
Speaker 1: so they're returning to daily press briefings or at least
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Speaker 1: weekday press briefings, That of course has not been the
23:39
Speaker 1: case or was not the case for the last two
23:41
Speaker 1: years under the Trump administration. Trump's Press secretary, Kaylee mcinny
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Speaker 1: obviously was pretty gleeful in sparring went the press and
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Speaker 1: you know, trying to rechange, reframe the narrative. She her
23:56
Speaker 1: very first press briefings that she would never lie. Of
23:59
Speaker 1: course she light all the time. But you know, Biden's
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Speaker 1: team has now come in. Jock is saying, look, you know,
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Speaker 1: we're gonna we're committed to sharing information, but you know,
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Speaker 1: well we'll see, we'll see where it though. She uh,
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Speaker 1: she's obviously deeply experienced and this she uh, you know,
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Speaker 1: very smooth in her first appearance. I'm sure, but you know,
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Speaker 1: it's all the job up there is to give the
24:29
Speaker 1: view of the president. She said as much yesterday. So
24:31
Speaker 1: everything's with a grain as salt. Yeah, Josh, it was
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Speaker 1: a very interesting news conference. Give us your thoughts on
24:37
Speaker 1: whether you think there might be some kind of a
24:40
Speaker 1: policy to not mention the predecessor form President Donald Trump.
24:45
Speaker 1: Everything that related to him was either punted to Congress
24:49
Speaker 1: in terms of any impeachment process, or just not really
24:52
Speaker 1: answered at all. For example, the question of the current
24:55
Speaker 1: FBI director Christopher Ay. Yeah, they really do want to
25:00
Speaker 1: try to think, take the temperature down and just saying
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Speaker 1: the word Trump has a habit of not doing that.
25:05
Speaker 1: So I think we'll see them pull back. We've seen
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Speaker 1: this even on the issue of impeachment. Remember, this is
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Speaker 1: a big question. A lot of stuff Trump or excuse me,
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Speaker 1: do you know lots of Biden wants to do, relies
25:15
Speaker 1: on Congress, and Congress in particular. Of course, the Senate
25:18
Speaker 1: is going to be logjam potentially dealing with impeachment. He
25:21
Speaker 1: just this morning they were asked, does Biden think that
25:25
Speaker 1: Trump committed impeachable offenses? They won't even go there. They're like,
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Speaker 1: we're leaving this to the Senate. The Senate can deal
25:30
Speaker 1: with this. So I think they really are trying to,
25:33
Speaker 1: you know, stay away from it, take down the temperature.
25:36
Speaker 1: But we'll see. Biden, of course, yesterday has a big
25:38
Speaker 1: speech appealing to inaugurate, appealing on inauguration to say hey,
25:43
Speaker 1: we need unity, Americans need to come together. There's already
25:46
Speaker 1: those signs that. Of course in Congress it's not going
25:48
Speaker 1: to be all that unified, even on something like the pandemic.
25:52
Speaker 1: So you know, I think Rubber is about to hit
25:54
Speaker 1: road and testing Hiden series that there's some sort of
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Speaker 1: bipartisan Washington idea that he can return to. All right, Josh,
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Speaker 1: give us what do you think the to do list
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Speaker 1: is for President Biden here in these first days? Well there,
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Speaker 1: it sounds like they're going to try to bunch things
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Speaker 1: into certain themes on certain days. Today absolutely is all
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Speaker 1: about the coronavirus. We're gonna have a press briefing at four.
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Speaker 1: Bidens getting his own briefing at to Dr Fauci is
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Speaker 1: going to join the press briefing. Remember him, you know,
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Speaker 1: every day we used to hear from him, like in
26:27
Speaker 1: March and April, but in fact, between April and today
26:31
Speaker 1: only once had Dr Fauci been to the White House podium.
26:34
Speaker 1: Trump did not at least invite him up there for
26:38
Speaker 1: months and months and months. So they we're going to
26:40
Speaker 1: hear it all about all about that. I'm sure we'll
26:43
Speaker 1: have more information on things like immigration, uh maybe climate
26:47
Speaker 1: coming forward in the coming days. But you know, they
26:50
Speaker 1: used to say that they have this sort of multi
26:51
Speaker 1: pronged approach, you know, concurrent crises, climate change, racial and
26:55
Speaker 1: equality of the pandemic economy. Now they're sort of still
26:59
Speaker 1: saying that a bit it but changing their two and
27:00
Speaker 1: they're like, look, this is all about the pandemic. And
27:03
Speaker 1: we reported yesterday that they were they've been growing increasingly alarmed.
27:07
Speaker 1: They think they've been handed you know, shambles of an
27:10
Speaker 1: organization by the Trump administration in terms of the vaccine rollout.
27:14
Speaker 1: The virus is just getting worse. There's a new strain
27:16
Speaker 1: that is particularly alarming. Uh so really alarmed. Bells coming
27:20
Speaker 1: in and now Biden, they think badly that the pandemic
27:22
Speaker 1: will get worse before it gets better, and that we're
27:25
Speaker 1: in for a quote dark winter, Josh. They's executive orders?
27:29
Speaker 1: Are they now policy? I mean, is it enough for
27:33
Speaker 1: the president to say that we're back in the w
27:35
Speaker 1: h O and that we're back in the powers climate
27:37
Speaker 1: a cord or it just does something need to be enforced. No,
27:40
Speaker 1: he has the power to do that. As a bit
27:42
Speaker 1: of a mechanic side of it, you know, Paris, for instance,
27:44
Speaker 1: to take about a month to take effect. Um. But
27:48
Speaker 1: you know, the things that are within his power he
27:51
Speaker 1: can do by executive order flick of a pen, and
27:53
Speaker 1: that's what we're seeing him doing. But a lot of
27:55
Speaker 1: the stuff that he wants to do, namely anything that
27:57
Speaker 1: requires money, he needs Congress for And that's why we're
28:00
Speaker 1: going to see this big push to get the new
28:03
Speaker 1: coronavirus you know bill. And the question is can they
28:06
Speaker 1: do something in a bipartisan way? You know, it looks
28:10
Speaker 1: like there may be already losing appetite to do that.
28:12
Speaker 1: There's two roads in front of Democrats, and they get
28:15
Speaker 1: a bipartisan bill with Republican votes, or you know, can
28:20
Speaker 1: they just ram it through on their own. Uh. They're
28:23
Speaker 1: at least making noises that they would like to do
28:25
Speaker 1: something by partisan But of course the benefit of winning
28:28
Speaker 1: those two Georgia Senate races is that if they have
28:31
Speaker 1: to use a hammer and get things through, they can.
28:33
Speaker 1: So we'll see how that goes. But for now, Biden
28:37
Speaker 1: is trying to do everything he can do unilaterally, but
28:40
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a leeway. I'm sure US presidents would
28:45
Speaker 1: love to have the power that prime ministers of other
28:47
Speaker 1: countries have in terms of UNI A, Josh, thank you
28:51
Speaker 1: so much. Looking forward to more coverage from you from Washington,
28:54
Speaker 1: d C. That's Josh win World or White House Correspondent.
28:58
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Boomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe
29:01
Speaker 1: and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast
29:05
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Speaker 1: Bonnie Quinn, and I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at
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Speaker 1: pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us
29:13
Speaker 1: worldwide at Bloomberg Radio