Latest / Trumponomics / How the Trade War Is Reshaping Supply Chains From Los Angeles to Vietnam
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Stephanomics, the podcast that brings the
- 0:07Speaker 1: global economy to you this week with a Southeast Asian
- 0:16Speaker 1: feel because I'm spending a few days in Singapore. We've
- 0:19Speaker 1: been talking a lot recently about the global slowdown and
- 0:22Speaker 1: where it might lead. It's worth remembering that we also
- 0:25Speaker 1: saw trade and global manufacturing take a step downwards back
- 0:30Speaker 1: in and that didn't cause a global recession. In fact,
- 0:34Speaker 1: we look back on it now more as a pause
- 0:37Speaker 1: for breath in a long global recovery. But back then
- 0:41Speaker 1: China in effect came to the rescue with a massive
- 0:44Speaker 1: dose of stimulus for its economy. One of the things
- 0:47Speaker 1: that makes people uneasy about this latest slowdown is that
- 0:50Speaker 1: the Chinese authorities look much less likely to rescue the
- 0:54Speaker 1: global economy today. They're just too worried about where excessive
- 0:58Speaker 1: stimulus might lead. That's forcing some difficult conversations for policymakers
- 1:03Speaker 1: in countries such as Australia who have benefited so much
- 1:06Speaker 1: from China's economic momentum in the past. We'll hear more
- 1:09Speaker 1: about that from our Asia Managing editor Malcolm Scott in
- 1:12Speaker 1: a few minutes. But of course, the other reason this
- 1:15Speaker 1: time feels different is that the source of the trouble
- 1:18Speaker 1: is the US administration and its assault on global trade.
- 1:22Speaker 1: Bloomberg's Asia Economy correspondent Michelle jam Risco is going to
- 1:26Speaker 1: talk to me about Southeast Asia's response to Donald Trump's
- 1:29Speaker 1: trade wars in a little bit, But first, our Real
- 1:32Speaker 1: Economy editor Sarah McGregor, who's based in Los Angeles, has
- 1:36Speaker 1: been catching up with an old school friend of hers
- 1:39Speaker 1: who wanted to set up a new business there and
- 1:41Speaker 1: found herself right in the front lines. What were the
- 1:57Speaker 1: first days of starting your business? Line the funny throughout
- 2:00Speaker 1: my kitchen table. I'm not gonna lie. It wasn't glamorous
- 2:03Speaker 1: at all. I think like it was exciting for me
- 2:05Speaker 1: and scary. It took a huge leap of faith for
- 2:11Speaker 1: Darava Echio to leave her day job and start a
- 2:14Speaker 1: beauty company in Los Angeles five years ago. Dara knew
- 2:18Speaker 1: she had the qualities to be a successful entrepreneur. Like
- 2:21Speaker 1: industry expertise, she also has a tireless work ethic that
- 2:26Speaker 1: was instilled by her parents, who fled the Southeast Asian
- 2:28Speaker 1: nation of Laos with nothing when she was an infant
- 2:31Speaker 1: and worked their way into the middle class. Best of all,
- 2:35Speaker 1: Dara had a great idea to create a cosmetics branding
- 2:39Speaker 1: company she called Venom. In doing that, she chose a
- 2:43Speaker 1: growing industry that can often weather the ups and downs
- 2:46Speaker 1: of even the toughest economic times. Research has noted the
- 2:50Speaker 1: lipstick effect, which shows makeup and lingerie stores thrive in
- 2:54Speaker 1: tougher economic times as consumers treat themselves to lower cost luxuries.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Fast forward to today, and she's moved her operations from
- 3:04Speaker 1: her kitchen table to an office in West l A.
- 3:07Speaker 1: Dara has six employees and contracts to develop and manufacture
- 3:11Speaker 1: customize beauty products in the millions of dollars. My mom
- 3:15Speaker 1: and my father being like really hard working, I guess
- 3:18Speaker 1: like taught us those values and we would see them
- 3:21Speaker 1: working like really late hours and just seeing them like
- 3:23Speaker 1: really grind for us, you know. So I feel like
- 3:25Speaker 1: my work ethic today comes from having them as role models.
- 3:29Speaker 1: Nothing was hard given to us, so we would have
- 3:30Speaker 1: to really like learn it ourselves. But last year, Dara's
- 3:34Speaker 1: dreams collided with the Trump Administration's trade war with China.
- 3:38Speaker 1: She was drawn into a conflict. She wanted nothing to
- 3:41Speaker 1: do with President Donald Trump's tariffs on Chinese goods hit
- 3:45Speaker 1: all sorts of items, including lipstick and I make up.
- 3:50Speaker 1: Almost overnight, Dara realized the harsh reality that her very
- 3:54Speaker 1: own supply chains in China were in the firing line. Yeah,
- 3:56Speaker 1: it was weird because I didn't I actually didn't think
- 3:58Speaker 1: about it, and I was like, Oh, it's gonna be fine.
- 4:00Speaker 1: We already have paid our you know, our people, and
- 4:03Speaker 1: it's good. We already have these purchase orders in place.
- 4:05Speaker 1: But what I didn't realize how bad it was was
- 4:07Speaker 1: going from zero to zero to ten. Because when we
- 4:11Speaker 1: do our deals with our clients, we have probably put
- 4:14Speaker 1: everything on paper and done the planning and or deals
- 4:17Speaker 1: about eight months prior, so that fixed costs that we
- 4:20Speaker 1: agreed to with our client has been that all on
- 4:23Speaker 1: one cost. So if we get charged something eight months
- 4:27Speaker 1: down the role that we didn't predict to fix into
- 4:29Speaker 1: our costs, then who pays for that? American consumers may
- 4:34Speaker 1: hear more about whether prices will be rising for familiar
- 4:37Speaker 1: China made goods like iPhones, Craton barrel furniture, or Adidas sneakers,
- 4:42Speaker 1: but the tariffs have been particularly painful for small businesses,
- 4:46Speaker 1: which are a powerful engine of the U S economy.
- 4:49Speaker 1: Accounting for about fort of GDP and employing almost half
- 4:53Speaker 1: of American workers. According to JP Morgan, they play a
- 4:58Speaker 1: key role in global commerce, producing about a third of
- 5:01Speaker 1: all exports that leave America's shores worth nearly half a
- 5:05Speaker 1: trillion dollars a year. Robert Heiblum, a business owner and
- 5:10Speaker 1: chair of the Small Business Council of the Consumer Technology Association,
- 5:14Speaker 1: explains why smaller businesses can be more vulnerable to the
- 5:17Speaker 1: trade wark followed than large ones. The problem is limited
- 5:23Speaker 1: castital cash, and this takes cash. Secondarily, it's they don't
- 5:30Speaker 1: have diverse businesses. They're not multinational. They cannot or set
- 5:34Speaker 1: their business losses here with business games elsewhere. Third is
- 5:40Speaker 1: most small companies don't have tremendous pricing power, and so
- 5:44Speaker 1: they're subject to the market, and that's very limiting, particularly
- 5:49Speaker 1: when when tariffs are twenty five or too much to absorb,
- 5:54Speaker 1: yet some of their big competitors will. As a matter
- 5:58Speaker 1: of course, Trump campaigned on a message of resurrecting the
- 6:02Speaker 1: by gone glory days of manufacturing and bringing back jobs.
- 6:07Speaker 1: He was essentially selling the American dream, But for business
- 6:11Speaker 1: people like Dara, the tariff war he started is making
- 6:15Speaker 1: it much harder to get ahead even with hard work
- 6:17Speaker 1: and grit. The uncertainty and dragon business has made that
- 6:21Speaker 1: dream a little further out of reach for the small
- 6:38Speaker 1: businesses in terms of the questions that they have is
- 6:41Speaker 1: how can we plan, how can we realistically plan for
- 6:46Speaker 1: inventories or our plan for the movement of our goods
- 6:50Speaker 1: that we need if there's this threat of global tariff.
- 6:54Speaker 1: Maria Selina's is president of the Los Angeles Area Chamber
- 6:58Speaker 1: of Commerce. She says her region has really been hit
- 7:02Speaker 1: hard by the tariffs since it has one of America's
- 7:04Speaker 1: largest concentrations of smaller businesses. Our advice to them is
- 7:10Speaker 1: to be as planful as possible. Is very difficult to
- 7:15Speaker 1: manage a business when there's uncertainty, and especially in international markets,
- 7:20Speaker 1: it's important for them to make sure they understand all
- 7:23Speaker 1: the different levers that are at their fingertips in order
- 7:27Speaker 1: to react to conditions like tariffs. But those those are
- 7:32Speaker 1: all really challenging conversations for small businesses to have because
- 7:37Speaker 1: they really do not have the flexibility that larger organizations
- 7:43Speaker 1: have in being able to make a movement in in
- 7:48Speaker 1: how their products flow. Over the years, Dara has visited
- 7:54Speaker 1: China many times and She plans to go again in December,
- 7:57Speaker 1: one conversation at a time. She's built a person o
- 8:00Speaker 1: rapport with factory owners and managers. She's developed a small
- 8:03Speaker 1: network of factories she can call on to deliver her
- 8:06Speaker 1: orders at high quality and in a reliable way. She's
- 8:10Speaker 1: found that factories in China operate at such a low cost,
- 8:13Speaker 1: with a quick turnaround, and have a personal touch that
- 8:16Speaker 1: she just hasn't found in the United States. Some bigger
- 8:20Speaker 1: companies are able to relocate their supply chains to Vietnam
- 8:23Speaker 1: and other cheaper nations, but for Dara, doing that would
- 8:27Speaker 1: mark a big setback in her efforts. Over the past
- 8:30Speaker 1: few years. We spend years and years betting our factories,
- 8:34Speaker 1: the investment, the money that it takes to like test
- 8:37Speaker 1: and work and make sure that because we spent a
- 8:39Speaker 1: lot of time like even like helping raise their quality
- 8:42Speaker 1: standard and create these like specifications for inspection and like
- 8:46Speaker 1: because we have a certain quality of bar that we're
- 8:48Speaker 1: known for. It so years and years and even like Matt,
- 8:52Speaker 1: you know, like just the time it takes to get
- 8:54Speaker 1: our factories to that point in training. But we'd have
- 8:56Speaker 1: to start from scratch, and God knows, like it might
- 8:58Speaker 1: take like another two years to get this new Vietnamese
- 9:01Speaker 1: which is fine. You know, if this is going to continue,
- 9:03Speaker 1: then maybe we would make the plan to do that.
- 9:04Speaker 1: But is it better to invest in that or to
- 9:08Speaker 1: just like reinvest in what we're already doing and then
- 9:10Speaker 1: just take the head and just like wait it up.
- 9:14Speaker 1: Dar is just one example of many businesses across America
- 9:17Speaker 1: who are suffering the impact of the trade war. It's
- 9:20Speaker 1: slowing down their investments and hiring decisions and disrupting their
- 9:23Speaker 1: supply chains. Add it all up and it can be
- 9:27Speaker 1: a matter of life or death for some small businesses.
- 9:30Speaker 1: It is frustrating because I feel like when there was
- 9:33Speaker 1: material increases and stuff, we might cover it, you know,
- 9:36Speaker 1: because it's just a small thing because we don't try
- 9:39Speaker 1: to nickel a dime everything. But when it comes to
- 9:42Speaker 1: a huge loss like that, like in the Purien a
- 9:45Speaker 1: tax on your commercial goods, that is it's pretty big
- 9:52Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah McGregor. So that's how the
- 10:00Speaker 1: trade wars feel for a small business sitting in California.
- 10:04Speaker 1: But I wanted to take advantage of being here in
- 10:06Speaker 1: Singapore to get the other side of the story. You
- 10:09Speaker 1: know here in Southeast Asia, these economies famously have used
- 10:13Speaker 1: exporting to the rest of the world as their ticket
- 10:16Speaker 1: to national prosperity, and Bloomberg's Asia Economy correspondent Michelle jem
- 10:21Speaker 1: Riscoe spends her days here in Singapore and around the
- 10:24Speaker 1: region analyzing every twist and turn in that story. Michelle,
- 10:29Speaker 1: you were you were listening to that? I mean, does
- 10:31Speaker 1: does any of her experience bear similarity to what companies
- 10:35Speaker 1: are experiencing here? Well, it certainly does in the sense
- 10:38Speaker 1: that Dara's story is the struggle to adapt to the
- 10:41Speaker 1: US tariffs and in any way possible, But the conversation
- 10:44Speaker 1: is a little bit different in Southeast Asia. I mean,
- 10:46Speaker 1: I think of basically three other avenues that they're they're
- 10:49Speaker 1: dealing with three other challenges. One is how to compete
- 10:52Speaker 1: for the attention of those companies that are actually reworking
- 10:55Speaker 1: their supply chains out of China and to get that
- 10:57Speaker 1: extra business. Conversely, the I can could be how to
- 11:00Speaker 1: manage expectations and overflows of orders, you know, when that
- 11:04Speaker 1: comes all of a sudden these companies rework those supply chains.
- 11:07Speaker 1: And the third is that they sort of political one
- 11:10Speaker 1: they don't want to be seen these businesses as taking asides,
- 11:13Speaker 1: whether it be the US of China or not favoring either.
- 11:17Speaker 1: So there are a few different quirks to the story
- 11:20Speaker 1: here in the region. Yeah, and I think it's interesting
- 11:22Speaker 1: that that actually rushing to take advantage of the trade
- 11:25Speaker 1: wars rather than rather than to dodge them, even with
- 11:28Speaker 1: some of the politic politics that comes with that. Now,
- 11:31Speaker 1: some people listening might remember that you brought us a
- 11:33Speaker 1: great story from the factory flaws of Vietnam when Vietnam
- 11:38Speaker 1: was considered to be a great winner from the US
- 11:41Speaker 1: China trade war, and then we had to follow up
- 11:44Speaker 1: a few months later, which showed us that there's an
- 11:45Speaker 1: alternative risk that you can be too successful taking advantage
- 11:49Speaker 1: of trade wars. And then the spotlight moves to you
- 11:52Speaker 1: remind us what's happened to Vietnam? Right, Well, it is
- 11:54Speaker 1: a complicated story, even if you just look at this year.
- 11:57Speaker 1: I mean, of course, we we have been tracing the
- 11:59Speaker 1: successes is of the both the furniture maker that you
- 12:02Speaker 1: mentioned as well as countless others that are seeing renewed
- 12:05Speaker 1: interest in Vietnam, and sometimes the interest is outrunning the reality. Um,
- 12:09Speaker 1: so you know there are two kind of cautionary tales
- 12:12Speaker 1: that we've been also tracing for Vietnam's case this year,
- 12:14Speaker 1: and one is, you know what you mentioned, uh, not
- 12:17Speaker 1: not trying to boast too much of one's success, is uh,
- 12:21Speaker 1: you know, for fear that a tweet could turn it around,
- 12:23Speaker 1: or or other tools by the US. We've seen, of course,
- 12:26Speaker 1: the currency manipulation report by the U. S. Treasury taking
- 12:29Speaker 1: away of duty free preferences that they just did with Thailand,
- 12:33Speaker 1: or you know, even extra tariffs. And in the case
- 12:36Speaker 1: of Vietnam, this this happened as well, that tariffs were
- 12:39Speaker 1: applied as sort of a penalty for transhipment issues that
- 12:43Speaker 1: the US felt that too many of the steel products
- 12:45Speaker 1: were we're actually originating in other countries, and Vietnam wasn't
- 12:49Speaker 1: doing enough to uh kind of stop that sort of
- 12:52Speaker 1: end running of the tariffs that had been imposed. So
- 12:54Speaker 1: you know, there's there's all sorts of penalties that they
- 12:56Speaker 1: can they could face. And then the other of course
- 12:59Speaker 1: being you know, they they're they're constantly fearing that they're
- 13:02Speaker 1: just not catching up enough in terms of development and
- 13:06Speaker 1: advancing their infrastructure enough to handle the inflows. So that's
- 13:10Speaker 1: certainly an issue with Vietnam, where they're looking at much
- 13:13Speaker 1: needed infrastructure investment that's just not moving fast enough, and
- 13:16Speaker 1: the views of many regulations are are still tight around
- 13:19Speaker 1: and around some things is if you talk to businesses,
- 13:22Speaker 1: they're looking for faster training of employees, UM, you know,
- 13:25Speaker 1: better labor regulations, easier ways to buy land and property UM,
- 13:29Speaker 1: and really just the basics of road and rail to
- 13:32Speaker 1: kind of get things around the country and move products around.
- 13:35Speaker 1: So a lot of adjustments need to be made, and
- 13:37Speaker 1: I think sometimes they're just not moving fast enough. I
- 13:40Speaker 1: guess the other thing, which certainly I hear a lot
- 13:42Speaker 1: talking to officials and business people in Europe, but we
- 13:46Speaker 1: also had this morning talking to officials and others in Singapore,
- 13:50Speaker 1: is this perception that UM globalization is now going to
- 13:55Speaker 1: be sort of torn in half, that there's going to
- 13:56Speaker 1: be a US side and a China side UH, and
- 14:00Speaker 1: disputes around companies like Huawei are going to force people
- 14:03Speaker 1: to take sides. Am I going to go the kind
- 14:05Speaker 1: of Huawei Chinese oriented technologies even if that means I
- 14:11Speaker 1: might get cut out of deals in the US, or
- 14:13Speaker 1: do I have to pick the US? You know, in
- 14:15Speaker 1: Europe in general, when you raise that to European businesses.
- 14:18Speaker 1: They tend to think that Europe will will if it
- 14:22Speaker 1: has to, would end up siding with the US. Obviously,
- 14:25Speaker 1: it's it's not so much of a question here because
- 14:28Speaker 1: people are so caught up with the China's economy and
- 14:32Speaker 1: trade with China. But the companies that you talk to,
- 14:35Speaker 1: how are they approaching that question if there really is
- 14:37Speaker 1: going to be a point where you have to take
- 14:39Speaker 1: sides in this global economy? Yeah, well, some you know,
- 14:42Speaker 1: they want to hedge their bets. They want to kind
- 14:44Speaker 1: of put investments everywhere and make sure that they're not
- 14:47Speaker 1: upsetting either side. Um and you know, they in a
- 14:50Speaker 1: way they've kind of had to act like governments. They've
- 14:52Speaker 1: had to, you know, think, how do I both lobby
- 14:55Speaker 1: from my perspective on how I don't think the tariffs
- 14:58Speaker 1: might be helping or you know, it's it's getting harder
- 15:00Speaker 1: to adapt or I need this or that to set
- 15:03Speaker 1: up in a new country. But at the same time,
- 15:04Speaker 1: I don't want to push too hard in the sense
- 15:06Speaker 1: of you know, upsetting either side, and and and as
- 15:09Speaker 1: you say, picking sides, um and certainly we see that
- 15:12Speaker 1: playing out in things like five G and Company. Based debates,
- 15:16Speaker 1: So it's it's gotten really sticky on that front. And
- 15:19Speaker 1: when you talk about the U. S and China, particularly
- 15:21Speaker 1: in this region, it's a very sensitive conversation. For a
- 15:24Speaker 1: long time, China has been the top trading partner of
- 15:27Speaker 1: most of the top economies in Southeast Asia, but at
- 15:31Speaker 1: the same time, a lot of them have very strong security,
- 15:33Speaker 1: investment and strategic ties to the US. So it's it's
- 15:36Speaker 1: not an easy decision, and one that you'll hear Singapore
- 15:39Speaker 1: policymakers especially constantly harp that they don't want to ever
- 15:43Speaker 1: see the day where they have to pick a side.
- 15:45Speaker 1: Many people think that is where we're heading, because this
- 15:47Speaker 1: doesn't seem to be something that's got This change in
- 15:50Speaker 1: the U. S. China relationship doesn't seem to be something
- 15:52Speaker 1: that was going to change even if we get a
- 15:54Speaker 1: change of administration in twenty We've talked about before. People
- 15:59Speaker 1: in Congress, and certainly many of the Democratic presidential candidates
- 16:03Speaker 1: are just as suspicious about China and have some of
- 16:08Speaker 1: the same approach that we've seen from President Trump. So
- 16:11Speaker 1: for a country like Singapore that's always been a gateway
- 16:14Speaker 1: between West and East, gosh, that's a the risk is
- 16:17Speaker 1: that they will feel really torn torn in half in
- 16:20Speaker 1: terms of their economic model. Michelle, thanks very much for
- 16:24Speaker 1: chatting to me and being here in Singapore. Thanks for Finally,
- 16:35Speaker 1: I wanted to chat briefly with our managing editor for
- 16:39Speaker 1: Economics in all of Asia, Malcolm Scott, because his team
- 16:42Speaker 1: had produced an interesting story this week about three central
- 16:46Speaker 1: banks in the region who you'd have to say had
- 16:48Speaker 1: a good global financial crisis ten years ago, but are
- 16:52Speaker 1: looking a bit more vulnerable to another downturn now. It's
- 16:56Speaker 1: South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Malcolm Fak thanks for
- 17:00Speaker 1: doing this down the line from Sydney. Remind us how
- 17:05Speaker 1: those three countries managed to avoid doing anything that dramatic
- 17:09Speaker 1: with their monetary policy last time around in the global
- 17:12Speaker 1: financial crisis. Well, to start with, they had much higher
- 17:15Speaker 1: cash rates than they do now, much higher benchmark interest rates,
- 17:19Speaker 1: so they did cut aggressively. They also had aggressive fiscal
- 17:22Speaker 1: responses when demand fell off a cliff h during the
- 17:26Speaker 1: financial crisis, but they had a lot of policy room
- 17:29Speaker 1: to work with and they used it very efficiently. In
- 17:32Speaker 1: Australia's case, there was even checks posted out to most
- 17:35Speaker 1: citizens to to go and spend in the stores and
- 17:38Speaker 1: that meant all three, uh, you know, avoided the worst
- 17:43Speaker 1: of the global financial crisis. And then their links to
- 17:46Speaker 1: China helped. In New Zealand's case, it was dairy white
- 17:50Speaker 1: gold they called it at the time. In Australia it
- 17:52Speaker 1: was mining investment. That massive stimulus we saw in China
- 17:56Speaker 1: really helped rev up Australia's economy as well. And in
- 17:59Speaker 1: Korea's case, the tech cycle really didn't suffer so much
- 18:04Speaker 1: and they saw a big V shaped recovery into that
- 18:09Speaker 1: really moded them out of the hard times. Now we're
- 18:13Speaker 1: in a very different situation. Yes, And I was, I mean,
- 18:16Speaker 1: it's interesting, I said at the start of the program
- 18:18Speaker 1: that we had had, you know, in the previous slowdowns,
- 18:21Speaker 1: even in the in this current recovery, and for example,
- 18:25Speaker 1: you know, the big thing that came to rescue the
- 18:26Speaker 1: global economy was China. China stimulus. Um, you don't we
- 18:30Speaker 1: don't have that anymore, which is important for all of
- 18:33Speaker 1: the world, but it's particularly important for this region. So
- 18:36Speaker 1: your piece this week, or the piece from your team,
- 18:38Speaker 1: said that those three economies were now just one shock
- 18:41Speaker 1: away from using quantitative ease NG doing the bond purchases
- 18:45Speaker 1: in order to boost the money supply that we saw
- 18:48Speaker 1: in so many other countries during the global financial crisis.
- 18:51Speaker 1: Is that something people are talking about there. It's something
- 18:54Speaker 1: that a lot of people are talking about because all
- 18:56Speaker 1: of the central bank governors have started to mention it
- 18:59Speaker 1: from the three economies now, they've done it reluctantly so far,
- 19:03Speaker 1: and each one of them have said, hey, we may
- 19:05Speaker 1: have to start looking at this, but we don't anticipate
- 19:07Speaker 1: will have to use it. That's been pretty much the
- 19:10Speaker 1: consistent message. But just the very fact that they've acknowledged
- 19:14Speaker 1: that they're running out of room in conventional space and
- 19:17Speaker 1: have acknowledged that they're starting to look at policy options
- 19:20Speaker 1: in the unconventional space has really got economists, you know,
- 19:25Speaker 1: running their game plays, running the scenario analysis, looking at
- 19:28Speaker 1: what sort of quee, what sort of unorthodox policies each
- 19:32Speaker 1: of the banks might take should they continue to need
- 19:36Speaker 1: to stimulate their economies, And do you think I mean,
- 19:39Speaker 1: this has been a region that has in the past,
- 19:42Speaker 1: certainly Australia and New Zealand led the way and some
- 19:45Speaker 1: of the innovations we've seen in central banking, making them
- 19:48Speaker 1: central banks independent, having inflation targets. You know, both of
- 19:52Speaker 1: those things were first tried or fully developed in Australia
- 19:56Speaker 1: and New Zealand. Do you think they they might be
- 19:59Speaker 1: looking for ways to innovate with quanstant dive easing as well,
- 20:03Speaker 1: you know, given that a lot of people in in
- 20:05Speaker 1: Europe and America are actually questioning whether quantitative easing is
- 20:08Speaker 1: really that effective, whether they innovate stefinitely, or whether they
- 20:13Speaker 1: have just had the benefit of being able to see
- 20:15Speaker 1: what has worked and what hasn't in the major economies
- 20:19Speaker 1: and therefore contailor a package with the benefit of that
- 20:22Speaker 1: decade of watching and observing, you know. The rb A
- 20:26Speaker 1: governor in Australia, Philip Lowers, has said that from his
- 20:30Speaker 1: viewing around you know, the other other examples of unorthodox policies,
- 20:34Speaker 1: from what he sees, it's a package of measures, no
- 20:37Speaker 1: one particular unconventional option that works best. It's it's how
- 20:41Speaker 1: you formulate the package. You know. In other cases we're
- 20:44Speaker 1: talking about some real reluctance to go towards a negative rate.
- 20:49Speaker 1: Perhaps asset purchases are going to be maybe favored, but
- 20:53Speaker 1: then there's other question marks about well bond yields are
- 20:55Speaker 1: already so low. You know what can what can asset
- 20:59Speaker 1: purchases really? Do you know what real significance in an
- 21:03Speaker 1: era where there's that reluctance to invest in the business community,
- 21:06Speaker 1: does it really matter? So, you know, innovations, Whether there's
- 21:11Speaker 1: going to be some new policy, I'm not so sure.
- 21:14Speaker 1: I think it'll be the packaging and the experience of
- 21:17Speaker 1: the last ten years that will help them as they
- 21:20Speaker 1: formulate these goals. Should they need to adopt them, well
- 21:23Speaker 1: it might help them. I guess the rest of us
- 21:25Speaker 1: can feel a bit sad that they're not going to
- 21:27Speaker 1: get more bright ideas coming out of Australasia for for
- 21:32Speaker 1: responding to this this downturn. These are the countries, in
- 21:36Speaker 1: the case of Australia that managed to avoid recession altogether.
- 21:39Speaker 1: If they're running out of good, good options, then that
- 21:41Speaker 1: seems like bad news for the rest of us. But
- 21:43Speaker 1: we shall see. Um, Malcolm Scott, thank you very much,
- 21:47Speaker 1: Thanks Stephanie, thanks for listening to Stephanomics. We'll be back
- 21:58Speaker 1: next week with more on the ground insights into the
- 22:01Speaker 1: global economy. I think I'll be back in London then.
- 22:04Speaker 1: In the meantime you can find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, website, app,
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- 22:15Speaker 1: and analysis during the week from Bloomberg Economics, follow at
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- 22:21Speaker 1: at my Stephanomics. The story in this episode was written
- 22:24Speaker 1: and reported by Sarah McGregor. It was produced by Magnus
- 22:28Speaker 1: Hendrickson and edited by Scott Lamman, who is also the
- 22:31Speaker 1: executive producer of Stephanomics. Special thanks this week to Michelle
- 22:35Speaker 1: jam Risco, Malcolm Scott, Richard Lewis, and Kevin Tan Francesco
- 22:40Speaker 1: Levy is the head of Bloomberg Podcast