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China Retaliation On Tariffs Could Punish Supply Chains · Bloomberg Intelligence

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg p m L Podcast. I'm pim Fox.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Along with my co host Lisa Abramowitz. Each day we
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: bring you the most important, noteworthy, and useful interviews for
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: you and your money, whether you're at the grocery store
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: or the trading floor. Find the Bloomberg p m L
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot Com. Earlier today,
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: President Donald Trump said tariffs have put the United States
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: in a very strong bargaining position, with billions of dollars
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: and jobs flowing into our country, and yet cost increases
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: have thus far been almost unnoticeable. If countries will not
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: make fair deals with US, they will be tariff That's
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  Speaker 1: according to President Donald Trump's tweet earlier today. Here to
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  Speaker 1: help us understand this issue is Brad Setser. He is
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  Speaker 1: the Senior Fellow for International Economics the Council of Foreign Relations,
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  Speaker 1: and he joins us now, Brad, do tariffs put the
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  Speaker 1: United States in a stronger bargaining position. Let's say visavi
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: the Chinese, so they present China. They present China with
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  Speaker 1: a choice. China will, if it wants to avoid Trump's concessions,
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  Speaker 1: have to make some concessions of its own. I think
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  Speaker 1: the difficulty is that it is from the Chinese point
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  Speaker 1: of view, and I think from the point of view
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  Speaker 1: of most outside observers a little unclear precisely what Trump
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  Speaker 1: wants from China. So in that sense, uh, the US
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  Speaker 1: bargaining position is weakened by the lack of clarity about
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  Speaker 1: US negotiating goals. Right your expertise laws in balance of payments,
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  Speaker 1: and right now I'm struck by the fact that markets
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  Speaker 1: are really not responding to these potential additional two hundillion
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  Speaker 1: dollars of tariffs. What would the practical effect of them be.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they would be a significant friction to about
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  Speaker 1: half of US trade with China, so total, you know,
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  Speaker 1: looking back last year, total US mports from China were
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  Speaker 1: about we've put tariffs on fifty billion already. You add
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: two billion to that, and you've careft about half of
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: trade with China. The tariff level though that has been
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  Speaker 1: floated on the two is and it's hard to get
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  Speaker 1: a major shock out of a ten taraff on two billion.
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  Speaker 1: You just work through the math. If everybody pays it,
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  Speaker 1: it's about a twenty billion dollar tax that goes to
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  Speaker 1: the U. S. Treasury presumably paid for by some combination
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of US consumers and US businesses. Uh. And that's just
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  Speaker 1: not on a scale large enough to generate major macroeconomic shocks.
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  Speaker 1: There certainly will be some sectoral complications, and I suspect
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  Speaker 1: that there may be more pain associated with the coming
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  Speaker 1: Chinese retaliation. Brad. If let's say that Chinese negotiators were
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: to call Brad Setzer and ask him, what do you
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: really believe the administration wants from these trade talks? How
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  Speaker 1: would you respond? I would say that there are there
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: seemed to be at least three schools of camp within
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  Speaker 1: the Trump administration. I think there's a camp within the
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Trump administration that believes the tariffs are preferable to almost
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: any plausible deal. They want to put a tariff on
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  Speaker 1: trade with China to encourage US firms to to relocate
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  Speaker 1: their supply chains, reorganize their supply chains, and become less
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: dependent on China. So the goal, in some sense is
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  Speaker 1: less to change Chinese behavior and more to convince US
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  Speaker 1: firms to restructure their supply chains and at least move
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  Speaker 1: them out of China, if not move them to the US.
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  Speaker 1: I think there's a second school of thought within the
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  Speaker 1: administration that wants to see substantive changes to the policies
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  Speaker 1: known as China China's industrial policy, it's tech transfer policies,
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  Speaker 1: the set of techniques that China is using to build
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  Speaker 1: out advanced manufacturing industries like aircraft, like semiconductors, like high
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  Speaker 1: end medical equipment, And they want meaningful changes there, although
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  Speaker 1: they haven't articulated precisely what kind of changes would be enough.
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  Speaker 1: And then I think there's a third camp that just
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  Speaker 1: wants a deal, that doesn't want h tariffs and is
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  Speaker 1: looking to in some sense come up within an optical victory. Yeah, Brad,
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  Speaker 1: you said that probably the bigger impact on businesses will
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  Speaker 1: come from China's potential retaliatory moves. What would those be, Well,
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  Speaker 1: China's threaten China's already put white substantial tariffs on US
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  Speaker 1: slating exports UH in response to the to the first round,
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  Speaker 1: to the fifty billion in tariffs, China has threatened sixty
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  Speaker 1: billion and additional tariffs if the US goes ahead with
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  Speaker 1: the UH. The sixty billion presumably would be at a
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  Speaker 1: slight you know, at the ten percent rate, that was
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  Speaker 1: probably not prohibitive. And I would guess my sense at
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  Speaker 1: least is that China's best targets were included in the
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  Speaker 1: fifty billion initial list. But nonetheless there's going to be
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  Speaker 1: a likely tariffs on most inputs that the usls to China,
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  Speaker 1: and that at the margin, if possible, creates an intentive
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  Speaker 1: to substitute away from US make goods. Brad Setzer, thank
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  Speaker 1: you so much for being with us. Really a pleasure
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: having you as always. Broad Setser is the Steven A.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Tannenbaum Senior Fellow for International Economics of the Council of
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  Speaker 1: Foreign Relations. He also is the former Deputy Assistant Secretary
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  Speaker 1: for International Economic Analysis in the U. S. Treasury Department
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  Speaker 1: from two thousand and eleven to two thousand and fifteen.
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  Speaker 1: How do you put together a market outlook that takes
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  Speaker 1: into into consequence the efforts of trade negotiators, the change
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: in interest rates, and also changes in the valuation of
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: different equity sectors. Well, one thing you do is you
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: turn to Denise Chisholm, the sector strategy just in portfolio
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: manager for for Fidelity Investments based in Boston, but joins
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  Speaker 1: us here in our eleven trio studios. Den He's thanks
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  Speaker 1: for coming in. Much appreciated. Now, Um I was thinking
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: about your approach and I thought, wow, okay, So here's
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: like a checklist. You take a variety of different measures
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and you put them all together to try to get
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: some kind of holistic vision of the market, and then
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: from that you extract what you believe to be tradeable ideas.
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  Speaker 1: And if you could just explain some of the things
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  Speaker 1: that go into your thinking, yeah, I think to boil
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  Speaker 1: it down, I do historical probability analysis on data, right,
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  Speaker 1: so constantly asking the question, hey, whatever theory you have,
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  Speaker 1: whatever thesis you have, is that really true historically? And
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: if you ask that enough times and you do the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: work enough times, that can actually inform your investment opinion
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  Speaker 1: only you overall market and then on individual equity sectors.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So let's get down to what's going on today.
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  Speaker 1: We see a little bit of softness light of the
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  Speaker 1: headline saying that President Trump is set to impose tem
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  Speaker 1: percent tariffs and two billion dollars additional goods from China.
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  Speaker 1: The markets aren't down nearly as much as I would expect,
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  Speaker 1: given the fact that that seems like a lot. It's
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: take again, like using historical data to inform a view
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  Speaker 1: rather than just giving you my opinion, this is fascinating.
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  Speaker 1: So if you plot world trade and nominal dollars and
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: you look at it on a year in your basis,
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  Speaker 1: we have that data going back to publicly available data,
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  Speaker 1: and you said, I have perfect foresight and I know
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: that it's going to contract, which is a bottom quartile event.
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  Speaker 1: You would be shocked to see that if I quartile
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  Speaker 1: that out, that's actually the highest probability of an advancing
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  Speaker 1: equity market with the highest average returns. So that to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: me means one of two things. One is that the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: equity market actually discounts this in advance, or two that
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: the backdrop is actually more important and can overwhelm the
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  Speaker 1: individual univariate variable of global trade, which I think we
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: have both situations going on currently. When you said backdrop,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: what do you mean by that? That backdrop, now that's
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: a great question. By backdrop, I mean the corporate profit recovery.
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  Speaker 1: So I think we are in year two of what
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  Speaker 1: could be a four to six year long durable profit
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  Speaker 1: recovery because we had a contraction on a global earning
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  Speaker 1: basis in and you're seeing now estimates do something that
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  Speaker 1: they rarely do historically, which usually as you start the year,
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: they start out very optimistic and then over the course
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: of the year they come down. You're seeing something that
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  Speaker 1: you're seeing them do a hook up, right, So that
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: tells you two things. One is that analysts are underestimating
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  Speaker 1: the durability this recovery and underestimating earnings. And to it
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  Speaker 1: means the valuation levels that we're seeing all those forward
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  Speaker 1: numbers are actually more solidified, meaning that now at sixteen
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  Speaker 1: times next year's earnings were at bottom quartile valuation levels.
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  Speaker 1: Since when you look at historical data, how much do
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  Speaker 1: you factor in other countries and what's going on with
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  Speaker 1: um other than just the United States? Because there's been
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  Speaker 1: this existential question hanging over the markets, how much longer
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  Speaker 1: can the US diverge from the rest of the world.
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  Speaker 1: It seems to be in a worse position. No, I
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  Speaker 1: think that that's definitely true. So I do look on
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  Speaker 1: a global basis, right, So I look at Europe, I
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: look at Japan, and I look at emerging markets and
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  Speaker 1: what you see historically and again it can always be
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: that this time is different. But what you see historically
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  Speaker 1: is that the US being strong drags other countries and
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  Speaker 1: regions up, meaning it lowers the probability of a crisis
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  Speaker 1: that comes back to the U S stock market. So
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  Speaker 1: you can actually see this divergence on a relative basis
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  Speaker 1: for quite some time. Speak a little bit more if
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  Speaker 1: you can about corporate profits. So if you look at
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  Speaker 1: that recession that we saw in two thousand sixteen, right,
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  Speaker 1: what I think fascinates me is that most people think, oh,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that big of a deal. It was just
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: really energy and materials. And then actually when you look
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: at the data, that wasn't the case. At the then
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  Speaker 1: ten gigs sectors that we saw at the time, you
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  Speaker 1: had a median stock earning this contraction in seven out
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  Speaker 1: of those ten sectors. So it was very diffuse, and
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  Speaker 1: actually on a diffusion basis, it was as much of
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  Speaker 1: a contraction as we saw in the recession of So
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: if you just step back and say, forget the corporate
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: tax reform that we put in place, let's just look
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  Speaker 1: at what an average corporate profit recovery looks like. You
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: actually see that it lasts four years. Now, the range
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: is pretty wide. It goes between two and six. But
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: then of the forty five variables I looked at, and
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it's not all the variables in the world, but it's
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: the forty five one. It doesn't correlate to the FED
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: raising interest rates. It actually correlates to the starting point
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: in bank credit, and that's delinquencies a percentaive overall loans
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: bad bad assets as a percentage of assets. However you'd
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: like to to quantify it just thirty seconds. I'm curious
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  Speaker 1: from your perspective, do you think that the tax reform
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  Speaker 1: brought forward profits and that they're likely to dwindle out
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  Speaker 1: and that this could be a different period of time
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: than the past because of that. So again, there's not
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  Speaker 1: much data on this. We have six instances in history, right,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: but what you see is exactly history saying confirming what
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  Speaker 1: we have seen, which is corporate profits turned the year
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  Speaker 1: before corporate tax reform hits because of that investor optimism
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: or I should say that CEO optimism, and it becomes sticky. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So in history you don't historically see the dwindling, it
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: actually sticks really really interesting. Thank you so much for
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: being with us, Thanks for having me. Denise Chisholm. She
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: is a sector at strategist at Fidelity. Taking a look
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: at those historical data points and putting them all together
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: saying that perhaps analysts are underestimating just how strong it's
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: recovery will be and how long it will last. Him
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: really interesting. Yes, that's a bulk case for stocks. Yeah,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: despite the calls for a recession from a number of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: different firms, I want to turn our focus to self
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: driving cars. A lot of people thought that this would
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: be the future of driving and the car sharing economy.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: But there's a major problem. They can't handle rain or
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: sleet or snow. Joining us now, Kyle Stock, Senior correspondent
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: for Bloomberg News. I thought your story was fascinating, Kyle,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining us. So, just how
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: enable unable are these cars able to handle weather? Yeah,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's tricky. They're making very slow progress on this front. Um,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: there's other things that people thought were going to be
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: major stumbling blocks, like epics or other human drivers or algorithms. Um,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: those are all approving a little bit more easy to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: deal with. So, Kyle, let's get this straight. When the
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: weather is perfect and there's no traffic, driverless automobiles might
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: actually work just fine. But at those moments when it's cloudy, rain,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: any snowy, or there's a lot of traffic or a
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: lot of congestion, that's when there might be trouble exactly.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's a reason why they're testing all these
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: things in Phoenix for the most Partum, it's pretty sunny
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: most of the time. Oh my goodness. I mean, honestly,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: on one hand, it's sort of shocking that this is
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: such a big obstacle at a time when so many
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: people are considering in a very serious way a mass
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: adoption of self driving vehicles and a lot of money
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: being thrown at this topic. Absolutely, I want to talk
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: about where the opportunities are given that this problem is
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: definitely being worked on by a lot of startups with
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of sensor companies that are looking for ways
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: to address it. Can you can you talk to that please? Yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I mean there's there's definitely a hardware play and a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: software play, so you know, the engineers are tuning the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: software to sort of help help the sensors make better
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: sense of the world when there's rain or fog or snow. Um.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: But then they're also you know, building these these sensors.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: Way Moo, the leading self driving company, is build its
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: own sensors. So they say they're iterating every time they
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: make a new version of the product. And one of
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the companies I talked to is out of m i
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: T called Waves Sense, and they have an entirely new approach.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: They're doing a ground penetrating radar literally looking under the road, um,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to keep the car on track so they don't need
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: to worry about whatever is happening on top of the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: road in terms of weather. Kyle disabused me of my
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: idea here, But I don't think the issue has to
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: do with driverless automobiles. It has to do with traffic.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: If you're if they if you're able to drive in
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: traffic free conditions, driving is kind of fun, isn't it.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: It sure is? Yeah, And well, the other interesting thing
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: is I think we're almost holding sort of these robot
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: vehicles to a higher standard. We expect them to be
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: better than human drivers. And there's a lot of weather
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: when I'm not comfortable driving. I won't speak for you, Pim,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: but um, we want them to get us there, and
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: you know, yeah, right, And the idea is, you know,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: when it's inclement weather, slow down. Well, hold on a second,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I take a step back here, because your story said
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: that even a dusting of snow would be a problem,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: and anything more than that, So I think that that
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: would be just fine for you, Pim, to go out
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: driving in a little bit more than a dusting of snow.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: But I do want to talk about the incredible investment,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: as Pim mentioned earlier that a lot of major car
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: companies are making in autonomous vehicles. If you have such
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: fundamental problems as this at a time when people do
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: hold robots at a higher standard, does it suggest that
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: perhaps our hopes are a little bit further along than
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the actuality when it comes to these cars. Yeah, I
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: think that's fair to say. But it's just the opportunity
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: to market is so huge. Um, you know the ride
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: they're talking about a seven trillion dollar rideshare business that. Um,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: you know, these company Ace and the the investors behind
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: them are dreaming big. So even if they're just even
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: if they can operate only in a perfect sunny day,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: it still makes sense to really be be charging for this.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: If you're a company like Ford or Uber or Weymo. Um, Kyle,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I would just say all people who have been stuck
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: in one of those automated people movers at an airport,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: please raise your hand at one point or other, listening
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: to the to the music play over and over again. Yeah,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: this is is Do you feel that there's gonna be
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a shakeout from this? I mean, you can use a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: lot of the technology in cars that are driven by
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: human beings, of course, whether that's blind spot warning or
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, breaking technology, which is all great, But I mean,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: do you think that people are going to sort of,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: as Leasa said, kind of pair back a little of
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: this science fiction. I think the timeline will be adjusted. Um.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: I think rather than a shakeout, though, what you're going
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to see this is not something we've talked about a lot,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: is a rollout based on geography. So the irony here
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: is that some of the tech centers of the world,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: San Francisco and Seattle specifically, might be the last places
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: to get self driving vehicles. You're going to see them
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: in the Sunbelt, You're gonna see him in Florida. Um.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: One of the analysts I spoke with said, basically, when
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: they these cars do show up in a place like Boston,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: they'll be bespoke versions, so they'll have twice as many sensors,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: will be totally over over engineered just to deal with
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: the heavy weather in a way that they won't be um,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: you know in uh in Georgia. Right, all right, well,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: we gotta leave it there, but thanks very much. Kyle Stock,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: our senior correspondent for Bloomberg News, talking about self driving
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: automobiles and whether they can really handle the rain, the
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: sleet or the snow. Will find out. Oil prices have
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: been rather stable considering the backdrop of hurricanes and typhoons
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and other situations, but perhaps some traitors are not taking
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: into account. November four, that is an important date when
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: sanctions will go into effect on Iran. Here to talk
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: about that, Dr Ellen at Wald, president of Transversal Consulting
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: and a non residency your fellow at the Atlantic Council's
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Global Energy Center, as well as Toby Harshaw, editor at
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Bloomberg Opinion. Uh. Dr Wald, let's start with you. Why
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: is November four such an important date? November four is
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: d date at which these sanctions are going to go
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: into effect, and now that it's the middle of September,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: we are really looking to see how the dominoes are
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: going to fall when it comes to the sanctions. Which
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: countries are actually going to stop importing Iranian oil and
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: which countries are planning to continue and right now it
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: looks like China, India, and Turkey are still importing lots
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: of Iranian oil. But also surprisingly we now have data
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that shows that Italy and Spain and possibly even Greece
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: are still importing oil from Iran even though it's now
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the middle of September. Toby Harshaw, I want you to
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: come in on this topic of Iran, but ed in
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: what's going on with their economy. About six of the
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: Iranian economy is centrally planned. It's basically dominated by the
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: oil and gas industry. Yeah, and it's dominated by UH
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: UH the Iranian Guards, which are supposedly a military force,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: but they become the most dominant force in the economy. UM.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: There's no overestimating the effect that oil has on their economy.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: The question is with their exports, how much of that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: money they can bring back UH. Last time, with the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: sanctions UH, the money was held in escrow by countries
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: like India and China, and Iran could only use the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: money to to buy products in those countries and have
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: them sent back. And they were actually buying products in
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: China that they didn't even really need. So as Allen
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: will tell us that's one of the big questions about
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: how these sanctions are reinstated this time around. So Ellen
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: just to talk a little bit about plugging the holes
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: and sort of creating a more airtight system of sanctions.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering if the US administration can do that successfully,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: what would the effect be on the oil market, on
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: the price of crude in a way that perhaps people
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: aren't factoring in right now. Well, if the US can
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: really enforce these sanctions to the maximum to plug these holes.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: There have been holes in terms of Iran's exporting of
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: content thates, which is a very light type of crude
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: oil that some people see as or or classify as
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: crude oil and other people don't technically classify it as
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: crude oil. But if they can ug all of these holes,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: if they can really get the Iranian exports down, I
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: would say, buy one point five million barrels wave they
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: can eliminate that from the market, then we could really
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: be in for some serious tightening in the oil market,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: mostly because at the same time we're also seeing continued
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: drops from Venezuela. US production isn't increasing at quite the
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: rate that we thought it was going to be and
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: so the question is really can Russia and Saudi Arabia,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: the two countries that have the most spare capacity, can
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: they really increase to combat these drops. And then the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: other question is if they can, will they And that's
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: all going to come down to that December three Opeque meeting.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So in other words, if they don't, that means the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: price of crude could rise substantially. It could rise substantially,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: But there's there's also the speculation effect. So even if
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: we we do have enough crude oil to go around,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: there's always this effect of people thinking that we don't
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: necessarily have an enough and that can push the prices up.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: There's also the matter of the right type of crude oil.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Do we have enough heavy crude coming in? That's really
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: kind of a hot commodity now because there's so much
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: there's kind of an overflow of light crude coming out
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: from the US and and from from fracking, So we
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: need to have the right type of crude. So crude
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: quality matters, as people like to say, But there's also
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the issue of um demand and what one of the
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: interesting things on the horizon is that OPEC has recently
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: revised its demand figures, So they think that demand is
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: actually going to um to be less than they thought
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: in en and that could actually kind of arrest some
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: of the higher crew prices. Toby, maybe just to add
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: your thoughts about what's happening to the Iranian economy as
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a result of these UH sanctions and additional sanctions, I
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: just want to note it's about eight two million people,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: that's the population of Iran and unemployment. If you look
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: at unemployment levels, maybe fifteen to twenty nine, about a
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: quarter of the potential workforce is out of work. Yeah,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: and it always depends who's who's compiling those statistics. Uh.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: If anything, that's probably higher. The inflation statistic put out
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: by the Iranian government is an absolute joke. Um, it's
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: vastly higher than whatever they're going to say. So the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: combination of high inflation, high unemployment, and now additional sanctions,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: will it have the intended effect on the Iranian government? UM?
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I don't see it as having much of an effect
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: at all. Um. I don't think they have much choice
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: except to, uh, you know, to bear it, to buckle up,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and and it's going to happen. Um. The it's a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: political gamble on the part of the government. Um, people
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: are unhappy about it, but then um, they can always
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: use further hardship as another reason that America is still
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: the great Satan um and and you know, appeal to
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: patriotism and things like that, Toby. Are there enough people
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: in the administration with knowledge of the Iran situation who
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: could bridge some of these loopholes and sort of plug
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: them up and make it more tight. Yeah. Absolutely. This
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: is professional staff for the most part that deals with it.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: It's the Treasury Department that's in charge. There's a lot
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: of Treasury lifers, um, long term employees, were very very
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: very savvy about this, you know, And this is one
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of those instances in which you know, to my mind anyway,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: the Trump administration is is pretty set on doing the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: right thing, ellen Wald. Are there any examples that you
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: can point to that show us that sanctions actually achieve
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: their goal? Well, that's that's the big question here. And
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: you know, some people will You can always find people
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: who will argue that they do, and you can also
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: find people who will argue that they won't. And many
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: people say that the sanctions did achieve their goal when
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: they led to the negotiations for the initial j c
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: p O. I at thing though with regard to the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Iranian economy, and that's the the Iranian economy was not
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: doing well even before these sanctions were instituted. They've they've
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: really kind of shot themselves in the foot in a
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: sense in Iran um politically and economically, particularly with respect
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: to the oil industry, because they have very very deep
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: and institutionalized um distrust of foreign oil companies that could
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: have come in and really helped get their oil industry going. Yes,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: there was a lot of fear on the part of
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: foreign oil companies, but there were some who were really
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: were willing to come into tal was one, but the
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: Iranian UH kind of ideology makes it very very difficult
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: for that to happen. So they were going down a
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: bad path even before these sanctions. I want to thank
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: you both very much for joining us. Dr Ellen Walled
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: is the president of Transversal Consulting, a nonresident Senior Fellow
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: at the Atlantic Council's Global Energy Center, and our thanks
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: also to Toby hart Shaw, editor for Bloomberg Opinion. Thanks
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Abramowits one before the podcast. You can always catch us
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: worldwide on Bloomberg Radio