Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / Markets, Healthcare, And Politics Ahead Of Jobs Day
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Markets Podcast. I'm Paul Sweeney, alongside
- 0:04Speaker 1: my co host Matt Miller. Every business day, we bring
- 0:06Speaker 1: you interviews from CEOs, market pros, and Bloomberg experts, along
- 0:11Speaker 1: with essential market moving news. Find the Bloomberg Markets Podcast
- 0:15Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts, and
- 0:18Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. All right, let's bring
- 0:22Speaker 1: in Pete Earl, economists and research fellow for the American
- 0:25Speaker 1: Institute for Economic Research. Pete, there's lots of data we
- 0:27Speaker 1: had today. Let's start with the FED yesterday afternoon. What
- 0:31Speaker 1: did you take away from FED chair pal's comments? Good morning,
- 0:37Speaker 1: and thanks for having me leave to be back. So
- 0:40Speaker 1: so right now, I think what we're seeing is that
- 0:44Speaker 1: and I mean I had to dragon a little bit
- 0:46Speaker 1: of history here. You know, the FED was formed to
- 0:48Speaker 1: prevent bank runs and bank fancial panics, and then eventually
- 0:51Speaker 1: employment was added as uh maintainment, maintaining stable printers in power.
- 0:56Speaker 1: And now they're being called upon to uh look at
- 1:00Speaker 1: climate change and inequality. All that's sort of thing. And
- 1:04Speaker 1: so I think the FED is actually a tremendous inflicit
- 1:07Speaker 1: political pressure and it's becoming explicit because I was looking
- 1:11Speaker 1: at the end of the term possibly I think in
- 1:13Speaker 1: February two. So while I'm not suggesting that he and
- 1:17Speaker 1: the other governors of the FEN aren't concerned about our
- 1:19Speaker 1: watching the employment, I do think that the new policy
- 1:22Speaker 1: framework is partially driven by scrutiny from the handle a
- 1:26Speaker 1: handful of individuals in Congress. So that's what I took
- 1:29Speaker 1: away was his comments are not saying whereby he said,
- 1:31Speaker 1: you know, I'm not going to raise rates until you know,
- 1:35Speaker 1: we we we gain more round in terms of employment. Um,
- 1:39Speaker 1: I do think he means, but I also think that
- 1:41Speaker 1: some of ms received today might might may force his hands.
- 1:44Speaker 1: I do think that may happen regardless of what's happening
- 1:46Speaker 1: politically in terms of his tenure. I mean, I just
- 1:50Speaker 1: can't understand how much further you go in terms of employment.
- 1:54Speaker 1: If deer workers are offered plus a ten percent raise
- 1:58Speaker 1: plus five plus five and they say that's not good enough. Yeah,
- 2:03Speaker 1: you know, I mean, I mean it seems like what
- 2:05Speaker 1: we're seeing is, uh, it's pretty intuitive, but I mean
- 2:08Speaker 1: it looks like when you offer people more money and
- 2:11Speaker 1: bet are more suchable work terms, they come back to work.
- 2:13Speaker 1: I don't think that's surprises anyone, um. But what I
- 2:16Speaker 1: think we're seeing, and especially I was stopped to be
- 2:19Speaker 1: honest today by unit labor cost rising and non plot
- 2:24Speaker 1: productivity for the five percent that's the biggest drop in
- 2:27Speaker 1: in almost forty two years. And what it suggests to
- 2:31Speaker 1: me is that we may be seeing the beginnings of
- 2:33Speaker 1: a classic wage price fival, which that would be very
- 2:36Speaker 1: intimidating and any kind of worried something to happen, because
- 2:39Speaker 1: when it happened in England in the seventies, it led
- 2:41Speaker 1: to all sorts of problems. So where do you think, Pete,
- 2:45Speaker 1: Those I don't know how many of them, four or
- 2:48Speaker 1: five million workers, they're just not there like they were
- 2:51Speaker 1: pre pandemic? Are they Some people are suggesting to me
- 2:54Speaker 1: they retired to structural change. Maybe yeah, where did they go? Pete?
- 2:59Speaker 1: I think so? I think what it is that that
- 3:02Speaker 1: is it. A lot of those people have really as
- 3:05Speaker 1: I as I think I mentioned less half song, and
- 3:07Speaker 1: I think there's a huge sociological change happening where people
- 3:10Speaker 1: are really starting to look closely at what they've spent
- 3:13Speaker 1: the last few decades doing. If they didn't like it,
- 3:15Speaker 1: they are actively trying to change their their careers and
- 3:18Speaker 1: and and and I wouldn't be surprised if a lot
- 3:21Speaker 1: of that doesn't involve safe schooling. I don't think a
- 3:23Speaker 1: lot of people right now have. I don't think as
- 3:25Speaker 1: many pops out of the workforce are necessarily going to
- 3:27Speaker 1: community college. We're receiving other forms of training. I think
- 3:31Speaker 1: a lot of them are trying to figure out what
- 3:32Speaker 1: they can do to to to enjoyal lives more and
- 3:35Speaker 1: still make pretty reasonable money. And they retairemplanment agencies and
- 3:40Speaker 1: websites and all that sort of thing dedicates a remote
- 3:42Speaker 1: work now, So uh yeah, I think I think I
- 3:45Speaker 1: think it is a structural change. I don't think it's frictional.
- 3:47Speaker 1: All right, So that's interesting and it um but it
- 3:51Speaker 1: but it but it threatens the idea that inflation is
- 3:56Speaker 1: less transitory. And then we're hearing more and more people
- 3:59Speaker 1: talk about the FED is maybe laying the groundwork for
- 4:02Speaker 1: a price wage spiral. I think everyone agrees we're not
- 4:05Speaker 1: there yet. But um, what can Jerome Powell do, especially
- 4:10Speaker 1: if inflation is um supply constrained. There's that doesn't seem
- 4:15Speaker 1: like monetary policy has much teeth in in any kind
- 4:18Speaker 1: of good way. Right, So we are more vulnerable to
- 4:23Speaker 1: the wage price spiral I was describbling for given the
- 4:27Speaker 1: cons we have a shipping and all that sort of thing.
- 4:29Speaker 1: Those the crisis and shipping and getting step to ports
- 4:32Speaker 1: and uh this infols sort of spontaneously emergent floatstilla. That's
- 4:38Speaker 1: they're they're gathering off of all these ports to try
- 4:40Speaker 1: and get into these ports and then then get to
- 4:42Speaker 1: all their carpons containers off. Um. You know that that
- 4:45Speaker 1: that increases the vulnerability to these these wage increases. But
- 4:49Speaker 1: that's for what power can do. Um, it's gonna be
- 4:53Speaker 1: first he's gonna expending in the table that's the person
- 4:55Speaker 1: because that's still't expensionary monitor policy. At that point, it
- 5:00Speaker 1: becomes a question of whether and how much to rage
- 5:03Speaker 1: rates and that sort of thing. And that's what we're
- 5:05Speaker 1: going to affect, uh, you know, the the the consumer
- 5:08Speaker 1: demand and that sort of thing. It's not gonna of
- 5:10Speaker 1: course affectum shipping on that. So sometimes thinks to go away.
- 5:16Speaker 1: Some of those pressures are not going to receive until
- 5:18Speaker 1: we see uh sometimes at least of what's happening ports. Yeah, alright, Pete, great,
- 5:22Speaker 1: getting a little bit of time with you not enough again,
- 5:25Speaker 1: We're gonna have to rebook you. Pete Earl, their economists
- 5:28Speaker 1: and research fell at the American Institute for Economic Research.
- 5:31Speaker 1: This is bloomberg when you think about workers that have
- 5:39Speaker 1: really been disrupted by this pandemic. Boy, you can't. You
- 5:42Speaker 1: have to start with the healthcare workers. We had so
- 5:44Speaker 1: many images early in the pandemic here in New York
- 5:46Speaker 1: and there's just healthcare workers completely worn down given the
- 5:49Speaker 1: hours and the pressures they were under. Hopefully things are
- 5:52Speaker 1: getting better. We had jobless numbers today, they came in
- 5:55Speaker 1: better and expected. Let's see how that kind of translates
- 5:57Speaker 1: into that healthcare space. Janet Elkins, President and chief executive
- 6:01Speaker 1: officers of Icon Medical Network, joins us on the phone
- 6:04Speaker 1: from the Big D Dallas, Texas. Jan I thanks so
- 6:06Speaker 1: much for taking the time. I'd love to just start
- 6:09Speaker 1: kind of stepping back and looking at the health care sector.
- 6:12Speaker 1: I think about, boy, all those brave healthcare workers throughout
- 6:16Speaker 1: this pandemic who have put themselves on the line to
- 6:18Speaker 1: keep us safe and to treat us during this pandemic.
- 6:21Speaker 1: Give us a sense of how they're doing today. Well,
- 6:25Speaker 1: first of all, thanks for having me on and it's
- 6:28Speaker 1: still really difficult for them. Um. You know, if you
- 6:31Speaker 1: look at overall in the healthcare center, I mean, the
- 6:35Speaker 1: healthcare quits are up three from two nineteen, so it's substantial.
- 6:42Speaker 1: A lot of them are still very burnt out. And
- 6:44Speaker 1: we're concerned about what this means down the road in
- 6:48Speaker 1: terms of just not having enough, particularly obviously nurses and physicians. Yeah,
- 6:55Speaker 1: I that is terrible concern. And I have always thought,
- 7:00Speaker 1: especially nurses deserved to me a lot more nurses. Just
- 7:03Speaker 1: kind of anecdote with a couple of young women who
- 7:05Speaker 1: have just graduated nursing school and they're going in and
- 7:08Speaker 1: they're going in with great enthusiasm, and God bless him,
- 7:10Speaker 1: but you know, I'm just worried are there enough of them? Well?
- 7:14Speaker 1: And not only that, um I and Janet, tell me
- 7:17Speaker 1: what you think about this. I just did a story
- 7:19Speaker 1: on meat packers and how difficult it is to hire
- 7:22Speaker 1: people for that industry because the environment is, um you know,
- 7:26Speaker 1: it's a really hard work environment. But nurses, not only
- 7:30Speaker 1: are they underpaid. I think everyone who's spent time in
- 7:32Speaker 1: a hospital can agree they have an incredibly difficult work environment.
- 7:38Speaker 1: They really do. And you know, it's interesting. I'll tell
- 7:41Speaker 1: you a story about one nurse is an example of
- 7:43Speaker 1: what hospitals need to do going forward past the pandemic
- 7:47Speaker 1: to be able to attract and retain their nurses. I
- 7:50Speaker 1: know of just one example of someone who was working
- 7:53Speaker 1: full time for a hospital, wanted to go back and
- 7:55Speaker 1: get for graduate degree, wanted to continue to work full time,
- 7:58Speaker 1: but asked, could you just schedue only three days in
- 8:00Speaker 1: a row to make it eat you with my classes?
- 8:03Speaker 1: They wouldn't do it. So what did she do? She quit?
- 8:05Speaker 1: She went back to the sam hospital as a per
- 8:08Speaker 1: diem nurse, made more in two days, and she didn't free.
- 8:12Speaker 1: That kind of thing just can't exist anymore within the
- 8:15Speaker 1: generation that we're talking to, you know, Jennet, we're seeing
- 8:19Speaker 1: across many many industries. It appears, at least at this
- 8:22Speaker 1: point that flexible working schedules are the new reality of
- 8:27Speaker 1: the five days in the office for most is not
- 8:30Speaker 1: gonna be the norm. Talk to us about that that
- 8:33Speaker 1: the healthcare space, how are they going to be harder?
- 8:35Speaker 1: In healthcare? Got to be harder because you want as
- 8:38Speaker 1: a as a patient, at least you want to see
- 8:40Speaker 1: your same nurse every day. But it's exactly I would think. So,
- 8:44Speaker 1: you know, Jennet, what's the healthcare in dustry doing to
- 8:46Speaker 1: deal with the new work environment. Did they just simply
- 8:49Speaker 1: raise wages. I think that's the only part of it.
- 8:52Speaker 1: I think you can only pay people so much. I
- 8:55Speaker 1: think it's also again, just more flexibility of schedules. Mean, yes,
- 8:58Speaker 1: you're right for a bedside nurse, you really have to
- 9:01Speaker 1: be at the hospital. But I think that they would
- 9:03Speaker 1: be more flexible with the schedules probably, I mean, I'm
- 9:06Speaker 1: in the temporary staffing space, but be more sensitive to that.
- 9:11Speaker 1: We see it with our physicians as well. They are
- 9:13Speaker 1: quitting in record numbers from hospitals and other health care
- 9:17Speaker 1: facilities as well. They just the younger generation doesn't want
- 9:21Speaker 1: that kind of lifestyle anymore. It's making it there. And
- 9:23Speaker 1: by the way, you're not just seeing it there. We're
- 9:26Speaker 1: seeing in the dental profession as well. Gone in the
- 9:28Speaker 1: days of somebody opening up their own clinic and they
- 9:32Speaker 1: do it until they retire. They're going to those big
- 9:35Speaker 1: d s O s. Because they want the flexibility of
- 9:38Speaker 1: the lifestyle. You know what I wonder as we I'm
- 9:40Speaker 1: looking around at different communities and schools and I noticed
- 9:43Speaker 1: one of the benefits of a higher income community is
- 9:49Speaker 1: that teachers want to live and work there, and the opposite,
- 9:51Speaker 1: of course, is true oftentimes of a lower income community.
- 9:55Speaker 1: Do you see the same Do you face the same
- 9:57Speaker 1: problems when you're looking to staff places that aren't you know, Austin,
- 10:01Speaker 1: Texas or San Diego, California. Oh, I mean, world is
- 10:07Speaker 1: always going to be more difficult and more difficult now
- 10:10Speaker 1: than ever because when you look at the trends of
- 10:12Speaker 1: vaccination and the trends of infection, it's going to be
- 10:16Speaker 1: higher in the rural areas often to begin with. So
- 10:19Speaker 1: you layer that on top of the fact that it's
- 10:21Speaker 1: just not considered as desirable location. All right, Janet, really
- 10:25Speaker 1: fascinating stuff, and it's always great to get some insight
- 10:28Speaker 1: from you. I think we we all learn a little
- 10:31Speaker 1: bit when you come on Janet Elkin, President, chief executive
- 10:33Speaker 1: officer of Icon Medical Network talking to us out of
- 10:37Speaker 1: the lone Stars d D. You know, it is a
- 10:44Speaker 1: good time to be an m and a banker. Record
- 10:48Speaker 1: year deals glory. It doesn't matter. You don't even have
- 10:50Speaker 1: to get on a plane really to get these deals done.
- 10:52Speaker 1: You're kind of doing a via zoom. So it sound bitter, Yeah,
- 10:56Speaker 1: it is. I used to love kind of racing around
- 10:58Speaker 1: doing deals. But anyway, new world here. But the m
- 11:00Speaker 1: n A fees are still coming in. Let's get a
- 11:03Speaker 1: handle on what's kind of driving it this year and
- 11:05Speaker 1: kind of what the outlook is. We can do that
- 11:07Speaker 1: with Tom Bowen. He's the CEO and president of the
- 11:09Speaker 1: Association for Corporate Growth. So Tom, thanks so much for
- 11:12Speaker 1: joining us here. It seems like a perfect storm kind
- 11:14Speaker 1: of brewed here. We've got, you know, super low interest rates,
- 11:17Speaker 1: we've got high stock prices, we've got a recovering global economy.
- 11:21Speaker 1: Pretty good time. If I want to do a deal,
- 11:23Speaker 1: now's a good time. Give us to your thoughts about
- 11:25Speaker 1: today's mn A market. Yeah, good morning, and thanks for
- 11:29Speaker 1: having me. There's actually, in addition to those, there's there's
- 11:32Speaker 1: kind of four key drivers were seeing. Number one is
- 11:36Speaker 1: these expected uh tax changes, changes to the tax code,
- 11:40Speaker 1: capital gains, uh, you know, other types of things carried
- 11:43Speaker 1: interest that that folks are afraid of. Maybe that's a
- 11:46Speaker 1: little bit less important right now with the shakiness of
- 11:48Speaker 1: the deal for the Biden administration, but still driving people
- 11:51Speaker 1: to want to get done deals before the end of
- 11:54Speaker 1: the end of the year. Um, we've got this whole
- 11:57Speaker 1: entire idea of the ease trillion dollar whilet they have
- 12:02Speaker 1: a ton of money sitting on the side, a lot
- 12:04Speaker 1: of dry power drive dry powder. UM, so we know
- 12:07Speaker 1: that there's a huge amount of money out there waiting
- 12:09Speaker 1: to be deployed. There's also this focus on really taking
- 12:13Speaker 1: this whole uh platform focused business model and putting that
- 12:18Speaker 1: into place. We're seeing that in medical UH field, We're
- 12:21Speaker 1: seeing that in veterinary. We're seeing it more and more
- 12:23Speaker 1: like franchise franchise type models. It's happening over and over.
- 12:27Speaker 1: Expand on that a little bit time. What do you
- 12:29Speaker 1: mean by platform focused business model? Yeah, so you know,
- 12:33Speaker 1: for traditionally, if you look at your veterinary business or
- 12:36Speaker 1: a veterinary practice, it was a single one mont of
- 12:39Speaker 1: pop or maybe they've owned to practices. Now there's this
- 12:43Speaker 1: focus on really taking those and bringing them to multiples
- 12:46Speaker 1: of a hundred practices and spreading the costs of development,
- 12:50Speaker 1: marketing and UM systems all across. Pe has done an
- 12:54Speaker 1: amazing job of that really overall, and they've really started
- 12:57Speaker 1: to deploy that to areas where we haven't seen that before.
- 13:00Speaker 1: Certainly in the medical field. Uh, and now it's happening
- 13:04Speaker 1: more and more in just about every other area. They
- 13:06Speaker 1: do a really good job, all right. So that that
- 13:09Speaker 1: was three. What's the fourth? Yeah, the last one is,
- 13:13Speaker 1: you know, people post pandemic fatigue. Uh, family and owned
- 13:17Speaker 1: businesses are getting tired. They're looking for an exit there.
- 13:20Speaker 1: They don't want to keep up the fight, and PE
- 13:22Speaker 1: has the money and the inclination to come in uh
- 13:25Speaker 1: and sign the check. So one of the things I'm
- 13:28Speaker 1: concerned about his former bankers evaluation. That was kind of
- 13:31Speaker 1: as a young banker, that was my job to run
- 13:33Speaker 1: all the models um in terms of valuation, that this
- 13:36Speaker 1: kind of cash flow the comps um. Is there a
- 13:40Speaker 1: risk here, particularly with all that private equity money on
- 13:42Speaker 1: the sidelines, the buyers are overpaying here, there is a risk.
- 13:48Speaker 1: I think it's dependent upon which sector. I mean, we're
- 13:52Speaker 1: looking at for a veterinary. Using that veterinary example, we're
- 13:55Speaker 1: looking at twelve to fourteen times ebada. In many cases,
- 13:59Speaker 1: is that the stay annable. I don't think so. I
- 14:01Speaker 1: guess it depends on how much they can how much
- 14:03Speaker 1: of the cost they can keep pressing out on the
- 14:06Speaker 1: on the expense side to really make it worthwhile. I
- 14:09Speaker 1: think that my prediction is, or what we're seeing in
- 14:12Speaker 1: our data so far, is that at the end of
- 14:14Speaker 1: this year, we're gonna start to see prices come down
- 14:16Speaker 1: significantly for some of these deals because some of these pressures,
- 14:19Speaker 1: these four pressures we're seeing, will start to alleviate, particularly
- 14:22Speaker 1: on the tax the tax increase side. Alright, So what
- 14:27Speaker 1: about UM next year when we when we see those
- 14:30Speaker 1: things alleviate a little bit and UM deals slow down?
- 14:36Speaker 1: I just how is that going to work out for
- 14:38Speaker 1: the industry. I think the biggest pressure that the industry
- 14:44Speaker 1: is going to see this next year is all around inflation, uh,
- 14:47Speaker 1: and what inflation does the deal flow overall, and how
- 14:50Speaker 1: they're able to capitalize either on it or um UM
- 14:54Speaker 1: you know, have it slow down some of the growth.
- 14:56Speaker 1: So I think there's a there are a couple of
- 14:58Speaker 1: forces that we're seeing that it be incredibly UM difficult.
- 15:03Speaker 1: I think that's number one right now overall, and then
- 15:06Speaker 1: obviously the labor shortage UM that could go either way.
- 15:09Speaker 1: But again I think it's very very sector specific. So
- 15:14Speaker 1: what are the sectors that you think next year we
- 15:15Speaker 1: should pay attention to? I will say it until I'm blue.
- 15:21Speaker 1: In the based medical medical medical, it continues to grow,
- 15:25Speaker 1: It continues to grow, It continues the prices continue to increase. Uh,
- 15:29Speaker 1: there seems to be nothing stopping it. We're getting older,
- 15:31Speaker 1: the population is aging, and it is is absolutely one
- 15:35Speaker 1: of those UM sectors that do incredibly well being put
- 15:39Speaker 1: on a platform type of approach and squeezing out a
- 15:42Speaker 1: lot of the duplicate costs. It's amazing. How you know,
- 15:45Speaker 1: when when you talk to tech people, they want to
- 15:48Speaker 1: focus on medical. When you talk to real estate commercial,
- 15:50Speaker 1: real estate people, they want to focus on medical. When
- 15:53Speaker 1: we talk to an M and A guy, Uh, you
- 15:55Speaker 1: want to focus on medical because you're getting you're you're
- 15:57Speaker 1: getting old, Matt, So we need i you know tomorrow,
- 16:01Speaker 1: I'm turning forty eight tomorrow. No way, Yeah, all right,
- 16:04Speaker 1: all right, Tom, thanks so much for joining us, Tom Bone.
- 16:07Speaker 1: They're talking to us about what's going on in the
- 16:10Speaker 1: M and A world, and really interesting to get his
- 16:13Speaker 1: floor drivers of what we should be watching right now. Alright,
- 16:21Speaker 1: we got Joe Matthew Washing, correspond and host of Bloomberg
- 16:24Speaker 1: Sound on which you can hear weekdays at five km
- 16:26Speaker 1: Wall Street Time. Joe let's start with the elections. Should
- 16:29Speaker 1: the Democrats I'm not say panicking, but should they take
- 16:33Speaker 1: a really long, hard look at themselves in the mirror here?
- 16:37Speaker 1: Well they are okay, We're about to hear from Speaker
- 16:41Speaker 1: Nancy Pelosi, who seems motivated by the results on election night.
- 16:46Speaker 1: And you know, even though it was a win or
- 16:48Speaker 1: a called win at least for Phil Murphy and New Jersey,
- 16:52Speaker 1: the trend is clear this was a much better experience
- 16:55Speaker 1: for Republicans than any want to imagine, and a lot
- 16:57Speaker 1: more painful for Democrats. And so now there's a turn
- 17:01Speaker 1: to the moderates on on Capitol Hill, and it looks
- 17:04Speaker 1: like we're gonna get some voting here. The Rules Committee
- 17:06Speaker 1: in the House was at it until after midnight last
- 17:08Speaker 1: night as they try to prepare for votes who could
- 17:10Speaker 1: be tonight. We're we're hearing from the leadership here. There
- 17:15Speaker 1: was a caucus meeting earlier. Nancy Pelosi says they want
- 17:17Speaker 1: to vote on this reconciliation bill as soon as tonight. Now,
- 17:21Speaker 1: of course, if that's the case, um, it's gonna be
- 17:24Speaker 1: interesting to see what makes it into the bill, because
- 17:26Speaker 1: they're still talking about adding more stuff back in like
- 17:28Speaker 1: paid leave and and prescription drug pricing and so forth.
- 17:33Speaker 1: But here's the thing, guys. They know what's gonna go
- 17:35Speaker 1: to the Senate's gonna come back in a different form.
- 17:38Speaker 1: So Nancy Pelosi can even stack this thing up if
- 17:40Speaker 1: she wants to, it's gonna come back from the Senate
- 17:42Speaker 1: much skinnier fashion, at which point they may have no
- 17:46Speaker 1: choice but to just to prove it in the form
- 17:47Speaker 1: that it's in at that point, so there might be
- 17:49Speaker 1: light at the end of this tunnel. What was really
- 17:52Speaker 1: the problem? I mean, um, President Biden yesterday made a
- 17:56Speaker 1: couple of what I thought were slightly conflicting statements, because
- 18:00Speaker 1: first he said, this isn't anything to do with my
- 18:03Speaker 1: legislation or my agenda, you know, but if they passed this,
- 18:07Speaker 1: what if they passed it wouldnt have made a difference.
- 18:09Speaker 1: And then later he said, this clearly shows that they
- 18:12Speaker 1: want the American people want to see us get to work.
- 18:14Speaker 1: We're fine, But what what was it? Was it Afghanistan
- 18:17Speaker 1: or people unhappy about that? Is it taxes? Are people
- 18:20Speaker 1: afraid that they're gonna have to start paying a lot more?
- 18:23Speaker 1: Getting closer, I think that yes, look to talk about inflation,
- 18:26Speaker 1: to talk about tax and spend is starting to just
- 18:29Speaker 1: wear people down. And there is a conventional wisdom in
- 18:32Speaker 1: the Democratic Party that if they had passed the Biden agenda,
- 18:35Speaker 1: by God, this would have turned out differently. I'm not
- 18:37Speaker 1: sure that that's true. I have a hard time connecting
- 18:39Speaker 1: a lot of the dots here. People don't vote on
- 18:42Speaker 1: the Biden agenda when they're picking their next governor necessarily,
- 18:45Speaker 1: or or their next you know, local lawmaker. I I
- 18:48Speaker 1: spoke with Morgan Griffith last night, a Republican from southwestern Virginia.
- 18:52Speaker 1: This is all the way down the reddest of red
- 18:55Speaker 1: in Virginia, and he said, you know, not only would
- 18:59Speaker 1: that have not helped Terry mccaulliff win the governor, he
- 19:02Speaker 1: said that Terry would have lost by five more points
- 19:05Speaker 1: if they had passed the Biden agenda because people would
- 19:08Speaker 1: have been totally turned off by this multi trillion dollars
- 19:11Speaker 1: spending package. And I have to admit, in a state
- 19:13Speaker 1: like Virginia, with the discourse that we saw on the
- 19:15Speaker 1: campaign trail, I think he might have been closer to
- 19:17Speaker 1: the truth. It's it's not the I can't imagine, it's
- 19:21Speaker 1: the spending that bothers people. It's the taxing that bothers people.
- 19:26Speaker 1: You got, yeah, right, listen, and when you tell people
- 19:28Speaker 1: doesn't cost anything, maybe that bothers people. I do think
- 19:31Speaker 1: there's something to the aura of Look, Democrats aren't getting
- 19:35Speaker 1: anything done. What's going on. There's nothing to show for
- 19:37Speaker 1: months and months and months of talking debate that that
- 19:39Speaker 1: could be a problem. But whether they were weighing in
- 19:42Speaker 1: on a specific bill that hasn't even been written yet,
- 19:44Speaker 1: that's a It's a little bit difficult to make those
- 19:47Speaker 1: connections here, Glenn. Youcan, though, did a good job talking
- 19:50Speaker 1: about prices, what you're paying at the grocery store, which
- 19:53Speaker 1: you're paying for gas. Those are the things that really
- 19:56Speaker 1: that really impact people. And then you say, oh, another
- 19:58Speaker 1: trillion dollars. My god, they've lost their minds in Washington.
- 20:01Speaker 1: And then you start connecting the dots a little bit
- 20:03Speaker 1: more that Yeah, Joe, you know, I I for better
- 20:04Speaker 1: or worse. I live in the great state of New Jersey,
- 20:06Speaker 1: and I can tell you here in this here in
- 20:08Speaker 1: New Jersey, there was almost no discussion amongst people that
- 20:12Speaker 1: I talked to when we're talking about the race, about
- 20:15Speaker 1: the bills. It was just, you know, it's just you know,
- 20:19Speaker 1: it's kind of the left versus the right, whether it's
- 20:21Speaker 1: Trump on the right or not. But it's that divide
- 20:24Speaker 1: is so there and so pronounced. There had to be.
- 20:28Speaker 1: But there's swing voters though, who said, you know what,
- 20:30Speaker 1: I've had enough of Trump. It's to some people maybe
- 20:33Speaker 1: he was embarrassing or he went too far, he was offensive.
- 20:37Speaker 1: But those people also, uh, they didn't necessarily want the
- 20:41Speaker 1: progressive um wing of the party to take over, and
- 20:45Speaker 1: they may feel that way. For example, Trump got got
- 20:50Speaker 1: rid of the salt deduction almost as a punishment right
- 20:53Speaker 1: to New Jersey and New York voters. And you would
- 20:56Speaker 1: have thought, all right, now, Trump's gone give us our
- 20:58Speaker 1: salt deduction back. But you've got Bernie Sanders and AOC
- 21:01Speaker 1: apparently running this issue. So what's what's the Democratic the
- 21:05Speaker 1: d n C. What are they thinking about? You think,
- 21:08Speaker 1: oh boy, I think that they're sticking with this this
- 21:11Speaker 1: so called conventional wisdom. Uh, the old c W would
- 21:15Speaker 1: they say, just pass something, show that it did something,
- 21:18Speaker 1: get get the get this thing done, get roads and bridges.
- 21:22Speaker 1: I mean, my god, we talked about reconciliation all day.
- 21:24Speaker 1: That infrastructure build that passed the set it months ago,
- 21:27Speaker 1: still has not passed the House. And uh, that actually
- 21:30Speaker 1: could go along. That's slightly different matter. That could go
- 21:33Speaker 1: a long way because you start seeing people, Oh they're
- 21:35Speaker 1: they're they're they're getting jobs. They're picking up shovels. They
- 21:37Speaker 1: fix that bridge of my town. That's actually stuff you
- 21:39Speaker 1: can get your hands around. And I think that the
- 21:42Speaker 1: d n C sees that as something important here. Uh,
- 21:45Speaker 1: if you talk to the r n C, however, and
- 21:47Speaker 1: you talk to the you know, the the guys on
- 21:49Speaker 1: Capitol Hill about that, Kevin McCarthy will tell you he
- 21:51Speaker 1: can turn sixty three seats this year based on what
- 21:53Speaker 1: happened the other night. Wow, Joe, thanks so much for
- 21:56Speaker 1: joining us. Always great to get your perspective. Joe Matthew
- 22:00Speaker 1: there with as Paul says, his finger on the pulse,
- 22:02Speaker 1: So what's going on in d C. And you can
- 22:03Speaker 1: get more from him if you listen to Bloomberg Radio
- 22:06Speaker 1: at five pm. Joe Matthew, the host of sound On,
- 22:11Speaker 1: thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can
- 22:14Speaker 1: subscribe and listen to interviews with Apple Podcasts or whatever
- 22:18Speaker 1: podcast platform you prefer. I'm Matt Miller. I'm on Twitter
- 22:22Speaker 1: at Matt Miller three put on false Sweeney. I'm on
- 22:26Speaker 1: Twitter at pt Sweeney before the podcast. You can always
- 22:29Speaker 1: catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio