Latest / Trumponomics / How Surfers Ride the Wave to the Next Economic Boom
Transcript
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- 0:31Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot com backslash lens. That's incredible. That's the
- 0:47Speaker 1: sound of Sydney's Bondaie Beach on an average weekend. Bronze
- 0:54Speaker 1: surfers men and women of all ages, races creeds, pounding
- 1:00Speaker 1: to the waves or just walking into them, or just sunbathing.
- 1:04Speaker 1: Heir is thick with the scent of coconut oil, hot dogs,
- 1:09Speaker 1: paddle pops and being Why are we visiting one of
- 1:13Speaker 1: Australia's most iconic tourist attractions and one that suffers from
- 1:18Speaker 1: the most mispronunciation. Well, if you listen to Benchmark, you
- 1:22Speaker 1: know it's about economics. A plathora of surfers, turns out
- 1:27Speaker 1: is actually a pretty good leading indicator of economic growth.
- 1:31Speaker 1: Welcome to Benchmark. I'm Daniel Moss, executive editor for Global
- 1:34Speaker 1: Economics in New York. We're joined today by Bloomberg's Mike Heath,
- 1:39Speaker 1: who returned home to Sydney to cover the economy in
- 1:42Speaker 1: two thousand and seven after spending the better part of
- 1:46Speaker 1: a decade in Moscow, of all places. Mike, before we
- 1:50Speaker 1: dive into the economics of surfing, answer me this question,
- 1:55Speaker 1: just how much did you miss Australia and the great
- 1:59Speaker 1: leveler the beach scene? Sure? Dan, I mean it was
- 2:04Speaker 1: initially irrelevant to me because Moscow, you can imagine, was
- 2:07Speaker 1: so exciting and different, and I just jumped into it.
- 2:10Speaker 1: But after five years I had to come back to
- 2:12Speaker 1: Australia as my mom was having an operation, and I
- 2:14Speaker 1: did spend some time at the beach then, and I
- 2:16Speaker 1: think it put out a kernel of a thought in
- 2:20Speaker 1: my mind. And when I returned to Moscow, the thought
- 2:22Speaker 1: of the sand and the sun and the surf it
- 2:24Speaker 1: developed into almost a longing. And then a year after
- 2:27Speaker 1: my daughter was born, I decided that for all the
- 2:29Speaker 1: history and culture, rush it off. But I just couldn't
- 2:32Speaker 1: deny her a childhood in Australia, and exactly do you
- 2:35Speaker 1: say the Australian beach the great leveler and none of
- 2:37Speaker 1: us have ever looked back. So you how old is
- 2:40Speaker 1: she now? And you're taking out a surf lessons every weekend?
- 2:46Speaker 1: I know she's past lessons now. We had a couple
- 2:48Speaker 1: in the Southern Hemisphere summer up in Byron Bay. But
- 2:52Speaker 1: she's a very good gymnast, my daughter, and so she
- 2:54Speaker 1: was standing almost immediately. She's got terrific balance. So now
- 2:58Speaker 1: I'm just trying to teach her to better positioners off
- 3:00Speaker 1: to catch a wave. So she's almost got the cart
- 3:02Speaker 1: before the horse kind of thing. But she goes out
- 3:05Speaker 1: by herself. We go down every weekend and she's this
- 3:07Speaker 1: tiny little speck among big rollers. Two weeks ago she
- 3:10Speaker 1: was caught in a rip and the last guard asked
- 3:12Speaker 1: me if I wanted him to rescue her, and I
- 3:14Speaker 1: held him back and she got out of herself, exhausted
- 3:17Speaker 1: because I really wanted her to learn some respect for
- 3:19Speaker 1: the power of the ocean. So I think, you know,
- 3:21Speaker 1: for a child especially, it's it's something central to you,
- 3:25Speaker 1: to your existence in Australia. So let's get into this
- 3:27Speaker 1: economic study. You know, the Study of Breaks is the
- 3:31Speaker 1: latest piece of research that functions as an unconventional but
- 3:36Speaker 1: surprisingly accurate guide to growth. Others include online advertising, Google
- 3:42Speaker 1: searches and even Aliy Barber sales. And now surfing has arrived.
- 3:48Speaker 1: Well i'll let our our guest in London, Dr Sam
- 3:51Speaker 1: Wills do the details, but just a brief overview of
- 3:53Speaker 1: his research. It's incredibly logical when you think about it.
- 3:57Speaker 1: Surfers are basically the explorers hunting the next grave way
- 4:00Speaker 1: to conquer, and once they find their mecca, their ocean mecca,
- 4:04Speaker 1: there's a pretty good chance that the area is going
- 4:05Speaker 1: to appeal to a lot of other people too, and
- 4:08Speaker 1: so the infrastructure tends to emerge. Byron Bay in Australia,
- 4:12Speaker 1: as Sam mentioned in his research, is a terrific example
- 4:14Speaker 1: of that. Um it's become enormous these days. So Sam,
- 4:19Speaker 1: come on down, Oh guys think so, thanks very much
- 4:22Speaker 1: for having me. Sam. What is your model if you
- 4:26Speaker 1: could explain it, and how did you come by it?
- 4:28Speaker 1: So the idea of that the paper is that we're
- 4:31Speaker 1: interested in trying to figure out whether or not the
- 4:34Speaker 1: natural environment really affects growth. So we know that some
- 4:37Speaker 1: things are important. We know that having a river or
- 4:40Speaker 1: having a port, having a mountain range, all these things
- 4:43Speaker 1: affect the economy, But what about just living in a
- 4:46Speaker 1: nice place. Obviously, this is you know, we think that
- 4:50Speaker 1: it might be important, but it's it's really hard to
- 4:52Speaker 1: get at. And the reason why it's typicult is, first
- 4:55Speaker 1: of all, it's tough to measure how nice a place
- 4:58Speaker 1: is to live. And the second is in is uh,
- 5:01Speaker 1: it's really hard to sort of isolate that niceness rather
- 5:04Speaker 1: than other channels. And so to get this question, a
- 5:10Speaker 1: colleague of mine and I decided to use surf breaks.
- 5:13Speaker 1: The reason for that is that these surf breaks are
- 5:16Speaker 1: basically randomly distributed all over the world, and we can
- 5:20Speaker 1: use that randomness to really isolate the effect of what
- 5:23Speaker 1: a what a good surf break is on the economy.
- 5:26Speaker 1: And so that's what we've done in the study. So
- 5:29Speaker 1: the idea for the study actually came just after I
- 5:31Speaker 1: finished my PhD. I was holed up in a cold,
- 5:35Speaker 1: miserable library and Oxford for for for every a year,
- 5:40Speaker 1: riding up the thesis. And when I finished, I thought
- 5:43Speaker 1: I'd jump on a plane and go somewhere sunny. And
- 5:45Speaker 1: really I was looking for somewhere out of the way
- 5:48Speaker 1: where I could get a good time away and get
- 5:50Speaker 1: a few ways, and I ended up down in Morocco,
- 5:52Speaker 1: a little place called taggers It. But I arrived there
- 5:56Speaker 1: and the place was absolutely overrun. There were surf shops everywhere,
- 6:00Speaker 1: even even the mosque was selling you know, surf wax
- 6:03Speaker 1: and uh you know, old wetsuits and that sort of
- 6:06Speaker 1: thing from from out the front. So it got me thinking,
- 6:10Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's something to this, this surfing story.
- 6:13Speaker 1: And that's when we sort of turn to the data
- 6:15Speaker 1: to see if in fact it holds true around the world.
- 6:19Speaker 1: You've just mentioned Morocco. Now your research also encompasses Indonesia
- 6:23Speaker 1: and South Africa, But these countries aren't going to win
- 6:27Speaker 1: prizes for economic management. How do you reconcile your model
- 6:31Speaker 1: with the decidedly spotty record of these countries. Yeah, that's
- 6:36Speaker 1: exactly right, and we're not we know that. You know,
- 6:38Speaker 1: surf breaks probably is not the veal and end all
- 6:41Speaker 1: for growth. You know, at the end of the day,
- 6:43Speaker 1: evil comes down to institutions, as we know. But within
- 6:48Speaker 1: a country holding everything else equal, places with good surf
- 6:52Speaker 1: breaks will tend to grow faster than places without and
- 6:55Speaker 1: we've tested this in a few ways. One, we just
- 6:57Speaker 1: looked at places with good ways versus places with bad waves,
- 7:02Speaker 1: and we measured how much economic activity there was using satellites. Now,
- 7:07Speaker 1: these satellites measure how much light there is at nighttime,
- 7:09Speaker 1: and it turns out that's quite a good proxy for growth,
- 7:12Speaker 1: and so by doing that, we're able to show that
- 7:14Speaker 1: these places with good ways do tend to grow faster. Um.
- 7:17Speaker 1: Some other fun stuff that we did was looking what
- 7:19Speaker 1: happened during ALMNO years, when when when the waves in
- 7:24Speaker 1: certain parts of the world actually get really good, and
- 7:26Speaker 1: we found that the growth really exploded during those years
- 7:29Speaker 1: in places with good waves. And then another piece of
- 7:33Speaker 1: a fine little experiment we ran was what happens when
- 7:35Speaker 1: a wave is discovered. So back in two thousand and eight,
- 7:40Speaker 1: Surfer magazine ran a competition called the Google Earth Challenge,
- 7:44Speaker 1: and basically the idea was, you know, a bunch of
- 7:46Speaker 1: kids sitting behind their computers tracing through Google Earth trying
- 7:51Speaker 1: to find a wave that had never been served before.
- 7:53Speaker 1: And the winner was this fantastic wave in Namibia off
- 7:57Speaker 1: the coast of the desert. And this way just went
- 8:00Speaker 1: for you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of meters
- 8:04Speaker 1: basically perfection. And so we found that after this wave
- 8:07Speaker 1: was discovered and after the global surfing community got wind
- 8:10Speaker 1: of it, the light around this wave really exploded, which
- 8:13Speaker 1: kind of adds more weight to our our hypothesis. And
- 8:17Speaker 1: the satellites proved that, Yeah, exactly. And what's the name
- 8:22Speaker 1: of this beach in Namibia? So it's a break called
- 8:25Speaker 1: Scales in bayh And yes it's worth a Google because
- 8:30Speaker 1: this thing is just mechanically perfect waves, just breaking one
- 8:33Speaker 1: after another. It's absolutely beautiful for one and a half
- 8:37Speaker 1: kilometers long as well, I think from from memory, Sam, Yeah,
- 8:41Speaker 1: exactly right over you know one and a half kilometers long.
- 8:45Speaker 1: People are sort of when they surf there by all
- 8:48Speaker 1: reports there they're pulling off waves because they get too tired,
- 8:50Speaker 1: which you know, um, Sam, tell us, tell us personally
- 8:58Speaker 1: what you like about surfing and and what it has
- 9:00Speaker 1: to do with the economy, because in the popular mind,
- 9:03Speaker 1: economics is all about charts and statistics and acronyms like GDP. Yeah, well,
- 9:08Speaker 1: I guess you know. Surfing. Surfing is good for this
- 9:11Speaker 1: sort of study because it really holds like a lot
- 9:14Speaker 1: of sway over people's imagination. Uh. You know once once
- 9:18Speaker 1: you started surfing it, he puts you in very close
- 9:21Speaker 1: contact with nature. It's very meditative in a sense, and
- 9:25Speaker 1: it becomes addictive as well. And so for all these reasons,
- 9:28Speaker 1: as we know, surfers are willing to go out of
- 9:31Speaker 1: their way to find find ways. Not only that, obviously
- 9:35Speaker 1: surfing waves are a bit of a limited resource, and
- 9:37Speaker 1: so that that adds to the UM. I guess the
- 9:40Speaker 1: exploration that goes on with surfers trying to find waves.
- 9:45Speaker 1: So that's the sort of thing that we're picking up
- 9:47Speaker 1: in the study UM. Sort of things like you know,
- 9:50Speaker 1: people traveling fire and wide to find new breaks and
- 9:55Speaker 1: then they find them. People willing to sort of settle
- 9:57Speaker 1: down and and you know, work for less money than
- 10:00Speaker 1: make it earn otherwise because they get the benefit of
- 10:03Speaker 1: surfing these great waves. Sam, I understand a sovereign wealth
- 10:07Speaker 1: fund has brought your argument talk to us about that. Yeah,
- 10:12Speaker 1: this is this was remarkable actually so uh most of
- 10:15Speaker 1: my research is actually on sovereign wealth funds and natural resources. Uh.
- 10:20Speaker 1: And I was at a conference on something completely unrelated
- 10:23Speaker 1: to this surfing stuff and found myself having a conversation
- 10:26Speaker 1: with the head of the Moroccan Sovereign Wealth Fund, and
- 10:28Speaker 1: when I mentioned this surfing paper, he just his eyes
- 10:31Speaker 1: lit up immediately because they have just pumped quite a
- 10:34Speaker 1: lot of money into tagger Suit, the very place where
- 10:37Speaker 1: I had the idea for the paper. And the reason,
- 10:40Speaker 1: of course is that, um, you know, for the past
- 10:43Speaker 1: you know, twenty or thirty years, surfers have been rocking
- 10:45Speaker 1: up to this amazing break in Morocco called Anchor Point
- 10:49Speaker 1: to surf it. And you know, over time in a
- 10:53Speaker 1: tourist infrastructure is popped up to to service these surfers,
- 10:57Speaker 1: and now it's it's a bit of a spot on
- 10:59Speaker 1: the on the tourist trail for people who aren't interested
- 11:02Speaker 1: in surfing at all. And so the Morocan Sophomore Fund
- 11:06Speaker 1: has decided to build a big resort, you know, with
- 11:09Speaker 1: conference facilities and and and golf, a golf course and
- 11:12Speaker 1: all this other sort of stuff to make make use
- 11:14Speaker 1: to that which you know, I guess for the purists,
- 11:19Speaker 1: they'd say that it's the place the town is losing
- 11:22Speaker 1: something in the process. So if you worked for a
- 11:25Speaker 1: hedge fund, you've been now on the hunt for the
- 11:26Speaker 1: next tagger Zoot. Tagger Zoot is done. Now you need
- 11:31Speaker 1: to find the next big, big thing, right or the
- 11:34Speaker 1: next new thing. That's the idea. So so this sort
- 11:39Speaker 1: of this turns out traditional model on its head. There. Yeah,
- 11:42Speaker 1: it's not about our agriculture, mechanized farming, industrial revolution, et cetera.
- 11:46Speaker 1: It's just about ways. Yeah, that's what all comes down to.
- 11:53Speaker 1: And let's talk a bit about technology. You mentioned satellites,
- 11:57Speaker 1: but you know, we're becoming increasingly aware of technologies were
- 12:03Speaker 1: all in surfing, like battery powered wetsuits for example. How
- 12:08Speaker 1: transformative is that. It's a good point. So obviously, you know, surfing,
- 12:16Speaker 1: like all industries, is being affected by technological process progress.
- 12:19Speaker 1: Um in, the manufacturer of surfboards is has gone from
- 12:23Speaker 1: a cottage industry where everything was shaped by hand too,
- 12:27Speaker 1: being sort of mass produced from uh, you know, centralized
- 12:30Speaker 1: cad drawings and that sort of thing. So you know,
- 12:33Speaker 1: surfing has certainly been affected by technological progress. On the
- 12:37Speaker 1: topic of battery heated wetsuits, this was actually a technology
- 12:41Speaker 1: that we studied, so we were interested in what happened
- 12:45Speaker 1: when rip Curl released a battery heated wet suit back
- 12:49Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven. And basically this just meant
- 12:52Speaker 1: that surfers could surf in really cold water for longer
- 12:55Speaker 1: and made it much more comfortable. So from our data set,
- 12:59Speaker 1: we looked at all the waves that were above fifty
- 13:01Speaker 1: five degrees latitudes, so these really cold water weaves, and
- 13:04Speaker 1: we found it after the wet suit was inbedded in
- 13:08Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, growth in these cold water places
- 13:11Speaker 1: really really exploded relative to everywhere else. So it's interesting
- 13:15Speaker 1: you see that this little technological innovation has had actually
- 13:18Speaker 1: quite a big impact on the local economies of these places.
- 13:21Speaker 1: What's the coldest place you've served? The coldest place? So
- 13:27Speaker 1: it's actually in Cape Town in December, and I'll tell
- 13:31Speaker 1: you what, The water is pretty cold, pretty cold down there.
- 13:34Speaker 1: That's the middle of summer. It was the middle of summer,
- 13:37Speaker 1: but my word, it was, yeah, it was pretty chilly.
- 13:42Speaker 1: What you were saying about the patterns of the waves
- 13:44Speaker 1: struck me as curious. We've read about hedge fund stars
- 13:50Speaker 1: who have an education in classical music and jazz, I mean,
- 13:55Speaker 1: have studied it formally, and what they say it gives
- 13:58Speaker 1: them is a sense of rhythm and what's the next
- 14:02Speaker 1: key to come next? Is there something like this going
- 14:05Speaker 1: on with the waves. Yeah, I guess there could be
- 14:08Speaker 1: something similar there. You know, as I mentioned, it's a
- 14:11Speaker 1: it's a very meditative sport and I think you know,
- 14:15Speaker 1: in a in a field like academic research, it's always
- 14:19Speaker 1: helpful to have, you know, somewhere you can um, something
- 14:23Speaker 1: you can resort to to clear your head and just
- 14:25Speaker 1: mull over problems and sitting at the back the surf
- 14:28Speaker 1: break is really helpful for that. MS interesting sama was
- 14:33Speaker 1: there was a great program on TV here. You might
- 14:35Speaker 1: have seen it, or you might have been away when
- 14:37Speaker 1: it came out, but it was Tom Carroll in a
- 14:39Speaker 1: big wave surfing made of his basically looking for new
- 14:43Speaker 1: waves around Australia to surf, and they ended up going
- 14:46Speaker 1: out to this place that was on a map, a reef,
- 14:49Speaker 1: I think it was on a map, and it was
- 14:50Speaker 1: four hours by boat. I think it was southwest of Perth.
- 14:55Speaker 1: So they're out there in the middle of the ocean,
- 14:57Speaker 1: just wondering what the heck they're doing and don't know
- 15:00Speaker 1: where they're emergence these these ways which they get on
- 15:03Speaker 1: via boats or whatever. I mean, it seems at some
- 15:05Speaker 1: point every wave will be conquered or is that impossible? Well, no,
- 15:10Speaker 1: you're exactly right, Like, I guess it's just a finite
- 15:13Speaker 1: a number of waves out there. Uh, And so eventually,
- 15:16Speaker 1: you know, especially with countries like Indonesia and Brazil developing,
- 15:21Speaker 1: you know, these are countries with a big population and
- 15:24Speaker 1: a lot of coastline. You think the population of surfers
- 15:27Speaker 1: in the world is really going to explode in the future.
- 15:30Speaker 1: And I guess that's interesting because people are now turning
- 15:34Speaker 1: to two alternatives. So we know that Kelly Slater, there,
- 15:37Speaker 1: um many time world champion of surfing is has brought
- 15:41Speaker 1: out a new inland wavepool which might be a substitute
- 15:44Speaker 1: for you know, the real deal. And also we know
- 15:48Speaker 1: that coastal engineers are working hard on figuring out ways
- 15:51Speaker 1: to to create waves in the ocean where where waves
- 15:55Speaker 1: weren't there before, so you know, creating artificial uh rock
- 16:00Speaker 1: reefs and that sort of thing off off the coast
- 16:02Speaker 1: so that when the swells hit them, they make ways
- 16:05Speaker 1: that a surfable, right, So just sunder my own point though,
- 16:09Speaker 1: but presumably there'd be erosion and stuff, so a break
- 16:12Speaker 1: could disappear or reappear or appear you know, out of
- 16:15Speaker 1: nothing as well. Presumably. Yeah, definitely, Actually we found a
- 16:20Speaker 1: couple of castions of that. So one famous case was
- 16:24Speaker 1: a break in Spain called Wundaka, and this was a
- 16:28Speaker 1: really famous break was on the Surfing World Tour at
- 16:32Speaker 1: a river mouth and at one point they decided to
- 16:37Speaker 1: dredge the river mouth because they thought it would be
- 16:38Speaker 1: good for the local economy, you know, getting more fishing
- 16:41Speaker 1: boats in and out. What actually turned out to have happened,
- 16:45Speaker 1: as we found by by looking at the satellite data,
- 16:48Speaker 1: was economic growth in that little village actually stalled and
- 16:52Speaker 1: fell because they ignored the fact that this this surf
- 16:57Speaker 1: break was bringing huge numbers of tourists to the town
- 16:59Speaker 1: every and so yeah, it just goes to show that,
- 17:03Speaker 1: you know, maybe all these these surfers you know, who
- 17:05Speaker 1: come out to defend their waves when rock walls are
- 17:08Speaker 1: built and ports ports a proposed, they might be onto
- 17:12Speaker 1: something because protecting these waves can actually have a big
- 17:15Speaker 1: impact on people's jobs and their livelihoods. Sam, where did
- 17:19Speaker 1: you grow up in Australia where you're near the beach?
- 17:23Speaker 1: The idea beautiful little part of the world called hawks Nest,
- 17:26Speaker 1: a few hours north of Sydney. So I guess yeah,
- 17:29Speaker 1: I've been mowing on the topic for a while. Now.
- 17:32Speaker 1: Our head of podcasts, Alec McCabe, is through the glass
- 17:36Speaker 1: window here in the studio in New York. He's just
- 17:39Speaker 1: finished reading Barbarian Days. And the most important question is
- 17:46Speaker 1: what is your secret spot? Knowing full well it may
- 17:50Speaker 1: no longer be secret after your answer, Well, I'll tell
- 17:55Speaker 1: you what. The great thing about this this study is
- 17:57Speaker 1: we've got a database about five thousand ways from all
- 18:01Speaker 1: over the world, and we've also got a bit of
- 18:04Speaker 1: an idea about how crowded each of those waves up.
- 18:07Speaker 1: So yeah, sitting in our computer is is some pretty
- 18:10Speaker 1: useful information and in a sense a bit of a
- 18:13Speaker 1: um a checklist for places I'd like to visit in
- 18:15Speaker 1: the future. But I guess it would be cheating if
- 18:17Speaker 1: I gave it away on the radio today. So if
- 18:20Speaker 1: your home is burgled, don't go looking for Alec. Yeah, Sam,
- 18:28Speaker 1: it's been a real treat to have you. Thank you
- 18:30Speaker 1: so much, Thanks very much, so very much for having
- 18:33Speaker 1: you guys. So Dan talking with Sam after that, do
- 18:43Speaker 1: you miss your your old home in Bondai? And where
- 18:45Speaker 1: were you in Bondai? And did you sir? Okay, So
- 18:48Speaker 1: I did not live on the beach. I lived up
- 18:51Speaker 1: closer towards the Bondai Junction train station, but there's no
- 18:57Speaker 1: question it was Bonda I, bond I post code. I
- 19:01Speaker 1: lived there for six months. In prior to that, I
- 19:05Speaker 1: was living in Wallara, which is just you know, a hop,
- 19:08Speaker 1: skip and a jump from there, before moving to quiet,
- 19:13Speaker 1: a lump of Malaysia, and I've ultimately ended up here
- 19:15Speaker 1: in New York. I am still an Australian citizen, though
- 19:19Speaker 1: I am a naturalized American as well. And Mike, just
- 19:23Speaker 1: this conversation, it did make me pine. It made it
- 19:28Speaker 1: does that to you, doesn't it. It really really does.
- 19:30Speaker 1: When I came back to Australia from Russia, I was
- 19:33Speaker 1: determined to make my wife like Australia and I found
- 19:35Speaker 1: this great little flat at the bottom. It is like
- 19:37Speaker 1: a second story on a person's masonette. And it was
- 19:41Speaker 1: just on del View Avenue, which just drops down to Tamarama.
- 19:44Speaker 1: And when my wife got there, she was like, oh
- 19:46Speaker 1: my goodness, it's like living at a resort. Now, Parking
- 19:49Speaker 1: obviously is not like a resort because it's just jam
- 19:51Speaker 1: packed in the eastern subives of Sydney. But what a
- 19:53Speaker 1: little spot for six or six month introduction to Sydney,
- 19:55Speaker 1: what a spot to be. So I did not actually
- 19:59Speaker 1: surf on a board. Um. I grew up in Canberra,
- 20:03Speaker 1: which for listeners unfamiliar with the geography of Australia, it's
- 20:07Speaker 1: about three or four hours inland from the coast, depending
- 20:12Speaker 1: on how you define it. I did body surf at
- 20:16Speaker 1: Bondi when I lived there, and you know, as Peter
- 20:20Speaker 1: Garrett has said, body surfing is one of the great
- 20:23Speaker 1: communal things you can do with nature. It is. It
- 20:26Speaker 1: is indeed, I guess the only thing that you'd say
- 20:29Speaker 1: about surfing is you just go that bit faster, but
- 20:31Speaker 1: it is. I think, I think there is really something
- 20:35Speaker 1: something where you do feel at one with the with
- 20:38Speaker 1: the environment when you are on a on a wave
- 20:40Speaker 1: and when you feel that power and the speed that
- 20:43Speaker 1: sends you on and you get that from body surfing
- 20:44Speaker 1: as well. So it's a terrific, terrific sport recommended to everybody.
- 20:49Speaker 1: My son lived in North Carolina for a couple of
- 20:52Speaker 1: years and if folks are familiar with the shoreline on
- 20:54Speaker 1: the East coast of the United States, there's some pretty
- 20:57Speaker 1: great beaches down there, Writesville Beach being one, and ultimately
- 21:02Speaker 1: he was spending too much time surfing. I had to
- 21:04Speaker 1: do something about it. Mike, you'll have to join this
- 21:08Speaker 1: podcast again. I'd love to. I'd love to. It's been
- 21:11Speaker 1: a real pleasure to be on here. Thank you very
- 21:12Speaker 1: much for having me. Benchmark will be back next week
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- 21:45Speaker 1: Sarah Patterson. The head of Bloomberg Podcast is Alec McCabe.
- 21:50Speaker 1: That's the avid reader I referred to. Thanks for listening,
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