Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Bill Hwang Was a $20 Billion Whale, Then Lost It All in Two Days

Transcript

Bill Hwang Was a $20 Billion Whale, Then Lost It All in Two Days · Bloomberg Intelligence

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
0:04
Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
0:06
Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
0:11
Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
0:15
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
0:18
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. Well, boy, I'll tell
0:22
Speaker 1: you what has been a fascinating story in Wall Street
0:27
Speaker 1: has been Bill Hwang and Archagos Capital. I mean, it
0:29
Speaker 1: just bursts onto the scenes a week ago, twenty billion
0:32
Speaker 1: dollar fund. Nobody had heard about it until we all
0:35
Speaker 1: heard about it at the same time. And I'll tell
0:37
Speaker 1: you Eric Shatsker and his team at Bloomberg News they
0:40
Speaker 1: were very very early on this story. They were absolutely
0:44
Speaker 1: and they've been on top of it ever since. Eric
0:47
Speaker 1: joins us now with the latest. Eric Schatsker, He's at
0:49
Speaker 1: her large at Bloomberg News. Eric, thanks so much for
0:52
Speaker 1: joining us here. This is just an extraordinary story. The
0:55
Speaker 1: numbers are just amazing. Twenty billion dollars and then gone
0:59
Speaker 1: in two days. What's the latest, Paul? It is absolutely
1:03
Speaker 1: mind boggling. If you think about it. A guy who
1:05
Speaker 1: had been a hedge fund manager, so let's give him
1:08
Speaker 1: some credit. Bill Wong starts a family office in with
1:11
Speaker 1: you know, as we understand, it's something north of two
1:14
Speaker 1: million dollars, so he's already rich. And he builds this
1:18
Speaker 1: family office over time, making bets mostly in tech stocks,
1:21
Speaker 1: Expedia LinkedIn. Some of those are kind of names from
1:25
Speaker 1: the past, because Lincoln was acquired by Microsoft, of course,
1:27
Speaker 1: but he also bet on Google, he bet on Amazon,
1:30
Speaker 1: and over the years he steadily took on more and
1:34
Speaker 1: more and more leverage. And as we all know, having
1:37
Speaker 1: watched and in your case, participated in Wall Street for
1:40
Speaker 1: many years, leverage is a double edged sword. When things
1:43
Speaker 1: are going your way, you can become fabulously successful. And
1:46
Speaker 1: in his case, yes, his fortune actually at one point
1:49
Speaker 1: exceeded thirty billion dollars. But the times things started to
1:54
Speaker 1: go pear shaped. Right week of March twenty two, Viacom
1:57
Speaker 1: trades down, Mare Jean Carl alarm bell start ringing, and
2:01
Speaker 1: Bill Joan goes from twenty to zero effectively overnight. Yeah.
2:05
Speaker 1: The one thing I one thing I don't get is
2:08
Speaker 1: how did he go from so much to so little
2:11
Speaker 1: just trading options? Because he not options these were swap
2:15
Speaker 1: agreem so so so, but he's trading derivatives that um no, no, no, no,
2:22
Speaker 1: he's he's he is entering into swap agreements just so
2:25
Speaker 1: that everybody understands it, because it is complicated derivative stuff.
2:29
Speaker 1: As you say, Mat, he enters into a swab agreement,
2:32
Speaker 1: it gives him exposure to the underlying stock. It's like
2:36
Speaker 1: owning the stock, except that you don't actually have it
2:39
Speaker 1: in your possession. But because you're levered, because the swap
2:41
Speaker 1: agreement allows you to level up five times, you know
2:45
Speaker 1: what happens if you're five times levered, right, stock goes down,
2:49
Speaker 1: your equity is gone. And his portfolio cratered the week
2:53
Speaker 1: of March twenty two. That's how whatever margin he'd posted disappeared,
2:57
Speaker 1: and that's how his equity blue to smithering, so much
3:01
Speaker 1: so that the banks which ended up owning the risk
3:05
Speaker 1: and having to sell it. And we've seen that, Credit Swiss,
3:07
Speaker 1: Golvin Sachs, Morgan Stanley selling shares of viacom g s
3:11
Speaker 1: x i Q, all of his positions. Some of those banks,
3:16
Speaker 1: Credit Swiss among them, ended up taking enormous losses four
3:20
Speaker 1: point seven billion dollars the head of the investment bank
3:22
Speaker 1: is gone, the head of risk is gone, another half
3:24
Speaker 1: half dozen executives gone. It's incredible how much damage one
3:30
Speaker 1: guy running his own family office. Your story paints this
3:35
Speaker 1: incredible dichotomy because on one hand, he's by all accounts,
3:39
Speaker 1: a very nice guy. Um. You know, Julian Robertson loves him. Um,
3:45
Speaker 1: he's religious, he's got a big charity that he cares about.
3:49
Speaker 1: Charity and family are two of his three main things. Right.
3:53
Speaker 1: On the other hand, Um, he had a sixty million
3:58
Speaker 1: dollar settlement for insider trading, his hedge fund pled guilty
4:02
Speaker 1: to wire fraud. Um. And he seems kind of like
4:07
Speaker 1: a traitor sociopath because he says he's not afraid of
4:11
Speaker 1: death or money, which you see how that ends up? Right, Yes,
4:15
Speaker 1: we we have. I would say, without using the words sociopath,
4:19
Speaker 1: that what you've just sketched out is the internal paradox
4:24
Speaker 1: of a Bill Wong. On the one hand, pillar of
4:26
Speaker 1: his church community. This guy helped thirteen hundred North Koreans
4:31
Speaker 1: escape the Hermit Kingdom to freedom. The guy is doing
4:35
Speaker 1: good stuff. And on the other hand, he's got this addiction. Effectively,
4:40
Speaker 1: or what appears to be an addiction to casino like
4:43
Speaker 1: risk taking. He's a gambler. Most of the great gamblers
4:47
Speaker 1: in the world no one to take some chips off
4:49
Speaker 1: the table. This guy never took any chips off the table.
4:52
Speaker 1: The only chips he took off the table he put
4:54
Speaker 1: into his foundation. And thank goodness he did, because it's
4:57
Speaker 1: gone on to do good work and will continue to
4:58
Speaker 1: do good work because, so far as we understand it
5:01
Speaker 1: wasn't exposed in this blow up. So Eric about thirty
5:04
Speaker 1: seconds left. This seems to be I guess the second
5:07
Speaker 1: life for Bill Huang? Is there a third? It's actually
5:10
Speaker 1: the Yeah, we're with the third act. Right, he was
5:13
Speaker 1: tiger than he had, his own hedge fund, had archaeos.
5:15
Speaker 1: Where does he go from here? If risk taking is
5:19
Speaker 1: in his blood and he just like you know, Michael Jordan,
5:22
Speaker 1: can't stop making legats, right, you'll see him back doing something.
5:27
Speaker 1: Is he going to be given the same kind of leverage? No?
5:31
Speaker 1: Almost certainly not right. Uh, there's just too many black
5:34
Speaker 1: marks on his record now for any bank to want
5:36
Speaker 1: to give him. But will he be doing something you
5:40
Speaker 1: know that involves incredible risk taking. You'd have to expect
5:43
Speaker 1: that he would because it's as as we've learned the
5:46
Speaker 1: course of our reporting, it's in his nature. Well, yeah,
5:49
Speaker 1: I mean this is also a thing I was thinking
5:51
Speaker 1: about as I was reading your piece, Eric, Where does
5:54
Speaker 1: he go from here? Because you want to see him
5:55
Speaker 1: come back again. You almost want to see him get
5:57
Speaker 1: back in right. Um, and maybe now that sports betting
6:01
Speaker 1: is becoming more acceptable in the US, he can figure
6:04
Speaker 1: out a way to do that. In any case, Eric
6:06
Speaker 1: Shasker writes the cover story for Bloomberg Business Week. Um,
6:10
Speaker 1: definitely check it out, if not on the newsstands, at
6:12
Speaker 1: least online or on the Bloomberg terminal. You're talking about
6:18
Speaker 1: the initial job claims number, and Um, it's interesting that
6:23
Speaker 1: we've seen these initial job jobs claims numbers still at
6:28
Speaker 1: a very high level. I think, Um, I'm not sure,
6:32
Speaker 1: but I think we still haven't come down under the
6:36
Speaker 1: record high from the Great Financial Crisis. In any week,
6:41
Speaker 1: Let's bring in Lindsay Pieza to talk about this. She's
6:43
Speaker 1: chief economist at Steeple Financial out of Chicago. Lindsay, what's
6:49
Speaker 1: the problem with the labor market and that you know,
6:51
Speaker 1: we add nine sixteen thousand jobs and we have these
6:55
Speaker 1: incredible manufacturing figures I s M is off the charts,
6:59
Speaker 1: p M I is off the charts. Everything looks like
7:01
Speaker 1: it's coming back full force, but we keep getting huge
7:04
Speaker 1: initial jobless claims weeks. Well, I think this recognizes the
7:09
Speaker 1: fact that the recovery is going to be somewhat uneven.
7:12
Speaker 1: It's not going to be this very simple flip the
7:15
Speaker 1: switch scenario everyone goes back to work. It's going to
7:18
Speaker 1: be this back and forth as ebbing and flowing of improvement.
7:22
Speaker 1: And yes, we have seen payrolls jumped, we've also seen
7:26
Speaker 1: jobless claims remain elevated. So again, this really speaks to
7:29
Speaker 1: the notion that it's going to be some time before
7:31
Speaker 1: the US economy recovers to a sustainable upward trajectory. I
7:36
Speaker 1: think also when we see this on evenness in the
7:38
Speaker 1: labor market in it imparts reflects some of the policy
7:42
Speaker 1: measures that we've seen out of Washington. Remember we're still
7:45
Speaker 1: talking about extremely generous unemployment benefits, and some businesses, particularly
7:51
Speaker 1: small businesses in the service sector, have reported that it's
7:54
Speaker 1: uh it's very difficult to reconnect with employees because of
7:58
Speaker 1: these very generous unemployed this benefits. So I think there's
8:01
Speaker 1: a number of moving pieces a number of different variables.
8:04
Speaker 1: But the take home is really it's not going to
8:07
Speaker 1: be as simple as we're vaccinated. Let's reopen the economy
8:11
Speaker 1: back to pre pandemic activity levels. All right, So, lindsay,
8:15
Speaker 1: you know, right now we're taking a look at the
8:18
Speaker 1: President of Biden's latest fiscal stimulus plan at two point
8:22
Speaker 1: to five trillion dollar plan. What do you make of that? Is? That?
8:26
Speaker 1: Is it? Do you think that the focus and the
8:29
Speaker 1: strategies behind it our sound or what would you like
8:33
Speaker 1: to see in fiscal stimulus? Well, at this point, with
8:36
Speaker 1: the economy showing signs of improvement, vast improvement in the
8:41
Speaker 1: labor market, in manufacturing and services and housing, I think
8:46
Speaker 1: we really need to take a pause in terms of
8:49
Speaker 1: any additional fiscal um spending at this point. Remember, the
8:53
Speaker 1: President just passed is near two trillion dollars spending package
8:57
Speaker 1: just a few weeks ago. So the impact of APT
9:00
Speaker 1: has not even filtered through the economy. We're not even
9:03
Speaker 1: seeing that in the data yet. The March non farm
9:05
Speaker 1: payroll report more more likely reflected the December stimulus that
9:10
Speaker 1: we saw under President Trump. Excuse me, So I do
9:14
Speaker 1: think that at this point the government should be taking
9:17
Speaker 1: a breath. They should be looking at thinking maybe more
9:20
Speaker 1: of a longer term reopening plan and perhaps getting a
9:24
Speaker 1: second plan in place should we see a second route
9:26
Speaker 1: pandemic occur in our in our near terms. So I
9:31
Speaker 1: don't think additional spending is the answer at this point.
9:34
Speaker 1: I am very concerned about the debt level. I'm very
9:37
Speaker 1: concerned about inflation longer term, and this this unsatiable appetite
9:42
Speaker 1: for federal spending I think really needs to be nipped
9:44
Speaker 1: in the bud. It's crazy if you're a journalist, though,
9:48
Speaker 1: I mean, what a story to cover? I mean, how
9:51
Speaker 1: many times in history have we spent you know, five
9:54
Speaker 1: trillion extra dollars in a twelve month period, and you
9:58
Speaker 1: know the Fed is stepped up with how much emergency
10:01
Speaker 1: uh you know balance sheets trillions more like like seven
10:08
Speaker 1: trillion more. It's the numbers are mind bottling, As Adam
10:13
Speaker 1: Johnson used to say, But how how does that create inflation? Um?
10:18
Speaker 1: Is it? Does it just create transitory inflation? Or do
10:21
Speaker 1: we get some real inflation from that kind of spending? Well,
10:25
Speaker 1: so when we talk about the transitory concerns of inflation
10:27
Speaker 1: that the FETE has been mentioning, they're not referring to
10:30
Speaker 1: the massive expansion of the money supply per se. What
10:33
Speaker 1: they're referencing is the fact that we do expect prices
10:36
Speaker 1: on an annual basis to take higher because those low
10:39
Speaker 1: loads of twenty twenty are actually falling out of the calculation.
10:43
Speaker 1: So just by the nature of the mathematical equation, we
10:46
Speaker 1: expect that headline index to take higher in the coming
10:49
Speaker 1: month as we move further into the summer. But from
10:53
Speaker 1: their standpoint, they're saying this, this calculation is falling out
10:56
Speaker 1: of reature prices is going to be temporary, and they
10:59
Speaker 1: expected inflation to remain nearer that to FIR set level
11:02
Speaker 1: by the end of one going forward. However, when we
11:06
Speaker 1: talk about this massive expansion of the federal the federal
11:10
Speaker 1: government balance sheet, all of these dollars flooding into the marketplace,
11:14
Speaker 1: chasing after goods, chasing after production, that's where we see
11:18
Speaker 1: that that increase in inflation, and that's where the market
11:22
Speaker 1: is concerned will drive the Fed's hand, or force the
11:25
Speaker 1: Fed's hand to raise race sooner than they're telling us
11:29
Speaker 1: they will. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining us
11:32
Speaker 1: yet again. Lindsay PEGSA, Chief Economists for Stephle joining us
11:36
Speaker 1: on the phone from Chicago, talking to us about fiscal stimulus.
11:41
Speaker 1: Here again, we've haven't really felt the full benefits, arguably
11:45
Speaker 1: of the most recent two trillion dollars, while more is
11:49
Speaker 1: being exactly in Berlin, Germany. I guess not, Matt. You know,
11:56
Speaker 1: we're so fortunate here am Radio to be able to
11:58
Speaker 1: tap into the expertise of leading physicians and scientists from
12:02
Speaker 1: around the world UH during these past fourteen months to
12:05
Speaker 1: really get a sense of and and really learn more
12:08
Speaker 1: about the virus UH therapeutics and now about vaccines. And
12:13
Speaker 1: our next guest certainly is on that list. Dr Stephen Corwin.
12:16
Speaker 1: He's a president and chief executive officer of New York
12:19
Speaker 1: Presbyterian Hospital. He joined us on the phone from New
12:22
Speaker 1: York City. UH. Dr Corwyn, thanks so much for joining
12:25
Speaker 1: us here. I guess where we're at right now is
12:28
Speaker 1: you know people are they absolutely feel like we're just
12:32
Speaker 1: on the precipice of getting to the other side of this.
12:35
Speaker 1: The vaccinations are ramping up, yet we're seeing cases surge
12:39
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the country like Michigan and others.
12:42
Speaker 1: How do you think people should be I guess conducting
12:46
Speaker 1: themselves these days here as we're right on the edge. Well,
12:52
Speaker 1: I think we're at the beginning of the end, but
12:54
Speaker 1: we're not at the end. And for for people who
12:57
Speaker 1: are football fans, you don't want to spike the ball
12:59
Speaker 1: at the five yard line. I think that. I think
13:03
Speaker 1: the reality is we still have to be careful. We
13:06
Speaker 1: still have the variant floating around. We still haven't vaccinated
13:10
Speaker 1: it everybody. We haven't gotten to hurt immunity. So if
13:13
Speaker 1: we can hold on a little bit longer, uh, let's
13:16
Speaker 1: try not to have people at a Texas Rangers game.
13:20
Speaker 1: We'll get there, um, but it's a race between the
13:24
Speaker 1: variants and how much we open versus getting people vaccinated.
13:28
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm really hopeful that by summertime we'll
13:31
Speaker 1: be in in terrific shape. But we've just got to
13:34
Speaker 1: hang in there. And look, I know it's daunting. Kids
13:37
Speaker 1: home from school, people want to get back to the
13:39
Speaker 1: way things were, um, et cetera. But we still have
13:43
Speaker 1: to be cautious. How do you think the vaccine rollout
13:47
Speaker 1: is going. I mean, I know it's going quickly in
13:49
Speaker 1: the US. I think more than sixty five million people
13:54
Speaker 1: have received at least one shot, But is it um.
13:58
Speaker 1: Is it being distributed uh equally across all different classes, races, creeds.
14:06
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say exactly. You get my point, right?
14:08
Speaker 1: Is there? Of course? Of course there are a problem
14:11
Speaker 1: that we've I think there's been a great deal of emphasis.
14:14
Speaker 1: Certainly we've placed a great deal of emphasis on equitability
14:19
Speaker 1: and giving people access to this. I would say two
14:22
Speaker 1: things to preface my following remarks. The first is, I
14:27
Speaker 1: think that the Trump administration got a lot of things
14:30
Speaker 1: wrong with with COVID, but they got the vaccine development
14:35
Speaker 1: program right, and the Biden administration has capitalized on that
14:39
Speaker 1: in terms of getting this rolled out as quickly as possible.
14:43
Speaker 1: And you know, we now have Fiser Maderna and Jay
14:46
Speaker 1: and Ja that were now giving and we have to
14:49
Speaker 1: evaluate Astra Zeneca in light of uh, some concerns about
14:53
Speaker 1: data safety monitoring. That being said, I think that you
14:58
Speaker 1: have to educate everybody to sort overcome vaccine hesitancy and
15:02
Speaker 1: so truly get population hurt immunity. We're gonna have to
15:05
Speaker 1: start vaccinating kids, which is probably not going to really
15:08
Speaker 1: happen until we get into the fall and the winter,
15:12
Speaker 1: meaning children under the age of twelve. So we still
15:15
Speaker 1: have a ways to go in terms of children getting
15:17
Speaker 1: hurt immunity. I think we can get the hurt immunity
15:19
Speaker 1: by in the September time frame for the adult population.
15:23
Speaker 1: And I think we're making a lot of strides on
15:25
Speaker 1: equitability of distribution. Uh. Dr Cormyn. I'd love to get
15:30
Speaker 1: a sense of how the frontline workers at New York
15:35
Speaker 1: Presbyterian are doing. I mean, you know, hospitals across the country,
15:38
Speaker 1: but I really think about New York City a year
15:40
Speaker 1: ago from today and and how incredibly taxed they were.
15:45
Speaker 1: How are the frontline folks doing at New York Presbyterian. Well,
15:49
Speaker 1: you know, look, uh running towards danger on this one, right.
15:55
Speaker 1: I think we have just absolutely terrific people. I think
15:59
Speaker 1: they've done an amazing job, but they're getting tired. Uh
16:02
Speaker 1: and we still have a lot of COVID in the environment.
16:05
Speaker 1: So um, I think that people see that we were
16:08
Speaker 1: turning the corner. But it's been a it's been a
16:12
Speaker 1: tough fifteen months for the country and as certainly a
16:14
Speaker 1: tough fifteen months for the front line workers. But everybody
16:17
Speaker 1: in the country should be proud of the effort that
16:20
Speaker 1: all the front line workers across the country put into
16:23
Speaker 1: this because we wouldn't be where we are as a
16:25
Speaker 1: country without it. And I can't thank every one of
16:28
Speaker 1: our employees enough for everything that they did. And many
16:31
Speaker 1: of them lost family members during the course of this pandemic,
16:34
Speaker 1: and I'm sure you guys know people that were lost.
16:38
Speaker 1: It really has been pretty horrific. But it also I
16:42
Speaker 1: think shines a spotlight on how hard health care professionals work.
16:45
Speaker 1: I mean, just in terms of sheer hours. It's pretty
16:48
Speaker 1: shocking to people from any other industry. Do you think
16:52
Speaker 1: there's some kind of progress that can be made in
16:55
Speaker 1: either paying them better or getting them safer working conditions? Well, look,
17:00
Speaker 1: I think that, uh, we collectively made a mistake as
17:04
Speaker 1: a country in terms of the amount of ppe we
17:06
Speaker 1: had in stock. The supply chain was very fragile. So yeah,
17:12
Speaker 1: we have to really solidify our supply chains, make sure
17:16
Speaker 1: that we have more onture manufacturing, make sure that the
17:19
Speaker 1: supply chains are more robusts so we don't have a
17:22
Speaker 1: repeat of that that was really quite tenuous. As as
17:26
Speaker 1: as you will remember in terms of paying people more. Look,
17:31
Speaker 1: I'm a firm believer, uh that you have to pay
17:34
Speaker 1: people uh for for what they do. The minimum wage
17:38
Speaker 1: that we pay is nineteen dollars an hour. I know
17:40
Speaker 1: people are talking about what should the minimum wage in
17:43
Speaker 1: the country be, but we people deserve to be able
17:46
Speaker 1: to make a fair living, and if they're in healthcare,
17:49
Speaker 1: they should be paid appropriately. In my opinion, Dr Stephen Corowen,
17:53
Speaker 1: thanks so much for your time. Really appreciated, Dr Stephen
17:55
Speaker 1: Corowin the CEO and presidency of New York Presbyteria in
18:00
Speaker 1: which did so much to help a city under siege.
18:04
Speaker 1: Really and I think um, at least in the US
18:09
Speaker 1: or worldwide, everyone's appreciative of healthcare professionals. This is Bloomberg.
18:16
Speaker 1: It is time for Bloomberg Opinion. We're joined today by
18:19
Speaker 1: Jared Dillion. He's a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. He's also
18:22
Speaker 1: editor and publisher of the Daily Dirt Map and investment
18:25
Speaker 1: stratagist at Malden Economics. He's based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
18:30
Speaker 1: Is that with a fascinating column here arguing that quote
18:34
Speaker 1: SPACs aren't the only examples of late capitalism. Needs suggests
18:38
Speaker 1: that excess is throughout the financial system, raised the odds
18:41
Speaker 1: that the next recession could be our last as a
18:44
Speaker 1: free market economy. Jared, thanks so much for joining us here.
18:47
Speaker 1: Tell us about why you think the next recession might
18:50
Speaker 1: be the last one in this economy. You know what's
18:53
Speaker 1: funny because when I started to write this article, I was, um,
18:58
Speaker 1: I have a I have a cat that is overweight,
19:01
Speaker 1: and we were buying her a food puzzle. I don't
19:04
Speaker 1: know if you know what the food puzzle is, but
19:06
Speaker 1: it makes it difficult for a cat to get the food.
19:09
Speaker 1: And you know, I looked this up on Amazon and
19:12
Speaker 1: I ordered it in two seconds and I had it
19:15
Speaker 1: delivered to my house in two days. And it kind
19:18
Speaker 1: of reminded me of two thousand seventeen, when you know,
19:21
Speaker 1: if you're on if you spend any time on Twitter,
19:23
Speaker 1: there was all this discussion on weight capitalism and all
19:26
Speaker 1: this excesses of capitalism, and that got me thinking about
19:30
Speaker 1: SPACs and a lot of the stuff that's going on today.
19:34
Speaker 1: But but but but what so it's going to be
19:38
Speaker 1: the end? I mean, what does that mean if if
19:40
Speaker 1: there's another big recession, we're going to have the state
19:43
Speaker 1: really take over. I think there was I think what's
19:49
Speaker 1: happening is that from a sentiment standpoint, the bull market
19:53
Speaker 1: has gone on for so far, and we're starting to
19:55
Speaker 1: see a lot of excesses of capitalism. Money has gotten easy.
20:00
Speaker 1: And yes, I do think that we'll see more state
20:03
Speaker 1: interference in the economy if we have another downturn. And
20:06
Speaker 1: you know, we're trying very hard to prevent a downturn,
20:10
Speaker 1: but that has taken the position that it's actually trying
20:13
Speaker 1: to prevent recessions. It's a very different feed than what
20:16
Speaker 1: we had twenty years ago. All right, So, Jared, I mean,
20:21
Speaker 1: we we step back here and we take a look
20:23
Speaker 1: at the marketplace and just over the last yeah called
20:26
Speaker 1: six or twelve months, you know, during this pandemic, we've
20:29
Speaker 1: had some of the Reddit trades, the game stops of
20:32
Speaker 1: the world, We've had this explosion in SPACs. I mean,
20:37
Speaker 1: you know, one of the lot of folks are saying, boy,
20:40
Speaker 1: this is a lot of froth in this market. There's
20:42
Speaker 1: a lot of excess in this market. There's a lot
20:44
Speaker 1: of speculation in this market. Do you see that as well? Yeah,
20:48
Speaker 1: I do see that. And you know, the SPACs in particularly.
20:51
Speaker 1: The interesting thing about SPACs is, you know, I actually
20:54
Speaker 1: think SPACs player play an important role. I mean, the
20:57
Speaker 1: I P O process is kind of broken. It's kind
21:00
Speaker 1: of compresome, and there's been some actually really great companies
21:04
Speaker 1: that have gone public as SPACs, but there's also been
21:07
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that is terrible and uh is
21:11
Speaker 1: a joke. So you know this is there's a lot
21:14
Speaker 1: of excesses in this ball market, and if it continues,
21:17
Speaker 1: we're going to get more excesses. So I wonder, though,
21:22
Speaker 1: what um society looks like after the end of free
21:26
Speaker 1: market capitalism. Have you ever seen the movie, the animated
21:29
Speaker 1: film Wally, because I love I love the dystopian future
21:37
Speaker 1: of me getting amazingly fat, sitting in a chair that
21:41
Speaker 1: moves around a cruise ship, just drinking slurpees all day
21:45
Speaker 1: and watching TV. Like, I'm not opposed to that. If
21:47
Speaker 1: the robots take over and we just get paychecks, is
21:50
Speaker 1: that how it's gonna work? Uh? You know what, it's
21:54
Speaker 1: it's actually funny. I mean it's bringing up the uh
21:57
Speaker 1: you know, getting paychecks. Uh here a myrtle b This
22:00
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, changing the subject a little bit.
22:03
Speaker 1: You know, this is a hospitality town. I mean it's
22:05
Speaker 1: a vacation town. So it's it's hotels and restaurants. That's
22:08
Speaker 1: basically what we have here and the Myrtle Beach is
22:11
Speaker 1: in right because they cannot attract any talent to help
22:17
Speaker 1: out at these businesses as housekeepers and as stubbs or
22:21
Speaker 1: as cooks, because we are paying people to stay home,
22:26
Speaker 1: and it's it's you can't get you can't get meals,
22:30
Speaker 1: you can't get dinner reservations, you check into your hotel
22:33
Speaker 1: at midnight. This isn't really extreme situation here on Myrtle Beach.
22:36
Speaker 1: I don't think this the story has really gotten out yet.
22:40
Speaker 1: That is fascinating. I mean, you know, I we we
22:44
Speaker 1: get these jobs claims numbers that we got uh this morning, Jared,
22:48
Speaker 1: and yet I walked down main street of any town
22:51
Speaker 1: in New Jersey and almost every store has a help
22:54
Speaker 1: wanted not rant it it's uh, it's I'm assuming it's
22:57
Speaker 1: a it's a low wage kind of clerk tie type
23:00
Speaker 1: of role, but every business is looking for people. Lindsay
23:03
Speaker 1: just told us Pault. We just interviewed this DEFHIL economist
23:06
Speaker 1: Lindsay Giggs, and she said, well, one of the reasons
23:08
Speaker 1: you get these huge initial jobless claims numbers is that
23:11
Speaker 1: people get paid so much to be jobless. Right now,
23:13
Speaker 1: I don't want to sound like a jerk when I
23:15
Speaker 1: say that, because you know, there are a lot of
23:18
Speaker 1: people that I'm sure would rather have a job than
23:21
Speaker 1: than not, and I mean I mean millions of people.
23:24
Speaker 1: But the point is, um, you know, paychecks that maybe
23:29
Speaker 1: maybe we're maybe we're already getting into that kind of
23:33
Speaker 1: dystopian future. I don't even know if it's dystopian. But um,
23:38
Speaker 1: where do you think this all started? Well, I mean,
23:43
Speaker 1: the one thing that's going on is that this is
23:46
Speaker 1: going to result in inflation. And what's happening is is
23:50
Speaker 1: that private businesses have to bid against the government for workers.
23:54
Speaker 1: So even though we haven't passed a fifteen dollar minimum ways,
23:58
Speaker 1: what we have is could be facto seventeen dollar mimum
24:02
Speaker 1: wage because businesses have to bid against the government for workers.
24:06
Speaker 1: And you know, back when I was on Wall Street
24:08
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty years ago and commodity prices were going up
24:11
Speaker 1: and people were wondering if we would have inflation, and
24:14
Speaker 1: the economists at the time we're saying, you need wage
24:18
Speaker 1: inflation to have inflation, and this is the beginning of
24:21
Speaker 1: wage inflation, you know. And if you go back to
24:23
Speaker 1: the nineties seventies, we had this term called the wage
24:25
Speaker 1: price spiral, where people's wages are going up and they
24:29
Speaker 1: spend more on stuff and you get this inflationary spiral.
24:32
Speaker 1: Like this is how this begins. So Jared, we have
24:37
Speaker 1: more fiscal sinness coming down the pike here. How do
24:39
Speaker 1: you view that? Only a couple of trillion? Though a
24:43
Speaker 1: trillion I view it, I do very negatively. I mean,
24:47
Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff that we're doing on the
24:50
Speaker 1: fiscal side and also on the monetary side, was intended
24:54
Speaker 1: to be an emergency measure. You know, all the SAIDs
24:57
Speaker 1: liquidity programs, the corporate bomb liquity, the programs, municipal bonds,
25:01
Speaker 1: stuff like that that was supposed to happen during the pandemic,
25:04
Speaker 1: and then it was supposed to go away. But it
25:06
Speaker 1: has it gone away. And you know, we've done three
25:10
Speaker 1: studio checks right now, and we can't seem to be
25:13
Speaker 1: able to stop even though you know, the pandemic isn't
25:16
Speaker 1: really over, but it's kind of mostly over. So I
25:20
Speaker 1: think it's time to stop pulling back these emergency measures
25:23
Speaker 1: and let the economy get back to normal. One of
25:27
Speaker 1: the cool things that we have seen, and I don't
25:29
Speaker 1: know if this would be an example of The kind
25:32
Speaker 1: of excess you're talking about is people are now gonna
25:35
Speaker 1: have now been paying like serious amounts of money for newsletters,
25:40
Speaker 1: and you know, this is something that hasn't happened since
25:43
Speaker 1: I think, you know, back in the eighteen hundreds. Um,
25:46
Speaker 1: it's a great way for journalists to make money. And
25:48
Speaker 1: I was just thinking because I've been a long time
25:50
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Daily Dirt napp. You can make a
25:52
Speaker 1: lot of money that way. Um, you know, it's pretty
25:55
Speaker 1: popular and people are starting to pay like, you know,
25:57
Speaker 1: like uh, like five bucks, ten bucks, twenty bucks a
26:01
Speaker 1: month for these newsletters anyway, Jared Dillion, great to get
26:03
Speaker 1: your take. Um, fantastic column. You can check out that
26:06
Speaker 1: piece and all of the opinion pieces by typing O
26:10
Speaker 1: P I N go on your Bloomberg terminal or Bloomberg
26:13
Speaker 1: dot com slash opinion. This is Bloomberg. Thanks for listening
26:19
Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and listen
26:22
Speaker 1: to interviews of Apple podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer.
26:27
Speaker 1: I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter at Matt Miller three.
26:32
Speaker 1: Put on false Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt sweeney.
26:34
Speaker 1: Before the podcast, you can always catch US worldwide at
26:37
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio,