Beijing Olympics Open Under Covid Cloud

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Hey, we're watching what's going on with a macron. Cases are spreading in China during the countdown to the Winter Olympics in Beijing, with a leading ski jumper pulling out after she tested positive. Our next guest, by the way, is an Olympian silver medalist winning at the Athens Games for swimming back in two

thousand four ten. We're talking about Tara kirk Cell, Senior Scholar at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Public Health that is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg philanthropist. Are It's great to speak with you again. I'm wondering about the Olympics happening in Beijing versus the Olympics that we saw in Tokyo. And these are both happening in the midst of a pandemic.

Why is it so much more difficult for athletes in Beijing? Yeah, well, thanks for having me on the show. You know, I think that the Tokyo Olympics proof that you can hold of Olympics during a pandemic, But the difficulty level is so much greater this time around for China. First, because we're dealing with the o maicon variant instead of the delta variants. Macon variant is much more transmissible and seems to be able to um effect have more breakthrough cases

for people who are vaccinated. And then the second reason is because China has this zero COVID approach to COVID nineteen, and so the margin for error there just really isn't a marginal for error because they can't let it get out, they can't make any mistakes. So do you think it was smart that they went ahead? With the Games. Yeah, I mean I think that that it's there. They've had some competing priorities, right, they want to be able to hold the games. They put a lot of investment into it.

I think that you know, it can be done. Um. But at the same time, you know, it's very hard for them to do that, um and still push this COVID zero COVID approach. I mean, I think at some point they're going to have to say, um, you know, then what what are we gonna do? How are we going to move away from zero COVID? And I think that um, you know, the games maybe the start of how they're going to think about that. So how should

how should we watch it as as spectators? How should we look at it as spectators and try to understand what these Olympians are going through? I mean the big part of the Olympics, of course, is understanding the athletes, learning about their backstories. The experience that you had at the Olympics in Athenes in two thousand four, that's got to be completely different than what these athletes are doing right now. It doesn't sound that fun to actually be

an Olympian right now. Well, I mean the first thing you that's the most important to continue in their export. And this is still you know, even with sort of the fun drained out of you know, the partying and the you know, gathering, the camaraderie right about meeting so many people rotary, even with that dreamed out, I still do feel like you've trained all your life, or at least for the last four years, to you know, compete on the world stage. And I think that that is

that still remains and that's still valuable UM. And so I think that's why athletes they're still trying to participate UM and still going through all the trouble of these tests and everything that they need to to get to get UM, you know, to Beijing and to compete. I think it's it's still worth it. But you're right, there is something lost here. So how do you feel like

once we get through this? I wonder. I do think this is going to be with us for a long time, at least based on the conversations we have with you and your team at Johns Hopkins and others in the healthcare professions. UM, I don't know. Well, it sounds like we've learned a lot. We're ready for the next one. I don't know. How do you see it? Well, I think when it comes to COVID nineteen, you're right, and it's going to be with us for a long time.

I think that for the most part, people who have been backnated UM have a really good, good protection against severe disease. So I think it's something that won't be sort of this front burner UM, you know, emergency anymore. Will probably see some searches in cases where you have to put a mask back on if the cases got really high, And you might worry about hospitals because you know there's some people who just won't get vaccinated UM or you know who will end up in the hospital.

But I think overall we're just going to be dealing with it. Now. Does that make us ready for the next one? I think that there's a question there because public health has lost a lot of trust. But people have lost a lot of trust in public health, and it's going to be the you know, the work of a generation of public health leaders to try to rebuild that, because I think trust is the most important thing when

it comes to pandemic response. Well, how do they do that in this last this last phase of vaccine rollout for kids under the age of five. How does how does the federal government say that these shots are safe for the youngest? Sure, well, I think that it's proving the data that people can look at it and feels confident in it. But I also think it's not the federal government that should be telling people, you know, like here's what you should do. I think it's really about

helping people have these conversations with people they trust. I mean, you either trust the government or you don't, and we're not going to be able to change that in the next few months. So I think that really it's about you know, JOHNS. Hopkins has um you know, published a new um how to talk to you know, Ambassador Vaccine Ambassador training to how to talk to parents about vaccinating

their kids. Right, these types of conversations that happen, you know, on the sidelines of sports events, on the bleachers of us at a school meet, you know, or you know, amongst other parents, people they trust at church, those types of things. That's where we sort of will make these games. I don't think it's you know, having someone from the CDC coming out saying anything, all right, we gotta run

these conversations. Ter good, Thank you. Tara kirk Sol She's senior scholar at the Center for Health Security JOHNS Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, joining us on the phone from Washington. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, and this is Bloomberg Radio. You're listening to Bomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. I want to get to this week's cover story. Back in June of last year, Hong Kong authority shutting down

Apple Daily. It was a popular newspaper aligned with the city's democracy movement. It's become clear that China's attack on the publisher was really a template for a broader crackdown when it comes to Hong Kong and democracy in Hong Kong. This story is the cover of the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. It's available on news stands, on the Bloomberg and at Bloomberg dot com Slash business Week. The story written by Ian Marlowe, Asia Government senior reporter

for Bloomberg News. He's with us now on the phone from Canada. Ian. This is congratulations on the cover. By the way, it's just a really really important story and a really important topic. I wanted to start off with with more about what Apple Daily is or was. Yeah, thank you no. Apple Daily was an enormously popular newspaper

in Hong Kong. Just to give you a sent there were roughly three point eight million registered users on the website, which is roughly half the city's population, and just before they were shut down, they had more than more than six hundred thousands paying digital subscribers. So very popular with a huge source of news. But it was also at the heart to some extent of the pro democracy movement

in Hong Kong. It was owned by Jimmy Lai, a very wealthy tycoon in Hong Kong who, unlike the other uh you know, establishment figures in that city, was willing to use his resources, his financial firepower to push back against China, to push back against what they were doing in Hong Kong with regards to pushing the National Security Law through uh you know, jailing all these pro democracy

advocates and those sorts of things. So he was a prime target not just for the local Hong Kong government, for Beijing more broadly, and they had singled him out numerous times. Uh you know, for being a sort of rabble rouser in Hong Kong. And when the government went after his paper, they really went after it. They froze the bank account, they arrested the top staff. There were five hundred police officers sent to raid the headquarters in

Hong Kong. This was unprecedented in a city that is not just the global financial center, but was also a sort of regional base for international media companies, from from Bloomberg to CNN to two others. So it was the shut bound was shocked, but it was also to a large degree template for what Beijing wanted to do with Hong Kong in the future. And since it was shut,

things have only accelerated further. You know, Ian, I think about I worked at the Wall Street Journal on a broadcast called the Wall Street Journal Report, and I mean, Hong Kong was this safe zone, right and you know, um when it came to business markets, uh, you name it, uh, and everybody kind of look to Hong Kong is maybe a sign of what was hopefully to come were broadly in China, and now we're finding out that that's not

the case. By targeting Apple Daily, right, it could have targeted you know, a lot of things initially, but by really going aggressively after Apple Daily, that tells you what, yeah, I mean, it basically tells you that, like in mainland China, there is just zero tolerance for anything that could represent an alternate power center in Hong Kong, and systematically, bit by bit, the government had gone after the opposition politicians in Hong Kong, Tho's democracy advocates who were actually working

within the system. They went after Apple Daily, you know, right off the bat, closed that that was a huge source of opposition support. Then they started going after smaller targets. They started going after charity NGOs, some of the organizations that had promoted some of the peaceful prot has over over the past you know, twenty years um, and that basically, one by one sort of dismantled anything that could represent any threat at all to China getting its way in

Hong Kong. And and Apple Daily was absolutely, without you know, any doubt, it was the biggest one there. And I think that the big thing about Apple Daily, uh closure was you know what happened. Everyone was saying, well, who

Who's next? And I don't think anyone's really even asking that question anymore because everything that's happening people guests from the outset of the National Security Law of being put down in June that basically gone after anything that represents memorials to the tmmms, where anyone that was agitating in a labor union, all those sorts of things by the and now even just this week we saw the University of Hong Kong, which is one of the most prestigious

universities in the city, just had a visa rejected or a researcher who is meant to come into the city just to do uh research on LGBT key rates. And so it's sort of a endless procession here where you know, anything can be considered somewhat uh anti establishment if the authorities really feel like it's it's a threat to them. So um, you know. And the other thing here is that Apple Daily was a business. It was it was owned by a publicly listed company. Jimmy Lai had sententy

one percent of the shares in that company. He was overruled and he was, uh, there's a government order for him not to exercise his voting rights. And then the government throws the accounts without any resource to the courts,

and then company was shut down. So that's something that I think a lot of people in Hong Kong are concerned about because essentially the sky's the limit now in terms of what the government can use this law for, and they're putting it into every piece of legislation they can, from film sent for ship laws to tax guidance or charities. Uh, it's all over the place with language about national security

and acting contrary to the interest of national security. It's all it's all very vague, and I think people just actually now kind of know which way the slide is going here. Well, it's a must read. It's the cover story of Bloomberg Business Week magazine, and we really appreciate catching up with Bloomberg News Asia Government Senior Reporter Ian Marlowe. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. All Right, so,

how's your day going? Uh, not so great if you are Metal platforms also known as Facebook company shares, experience a one day crash that may rank as the worst in stock market history. Ten yea Mark Zuckerberg losing some thirty billion dollars in net worth as well with stock plunge like this, it's like unbelievable. And we've seen a great story on the Bloomberg Naomi Nicks putting it out about Mark Zuckerberg actually talking to his employees. Let's get more.

Bloomberg News Tech team leader Sarafy, she too has an interesting column that's out. She's on the phone from San Francisco. She knows this company so so well. She's the author of No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram. Sarah Fryer, It is great to have you back with us. I remember from reading your book close you know, at this point, close to a couple of years ago, the book about Instagram um No Filter The Inside Story of Instagram, that

Mark Zuckerberg is so paranoid about competition. How do you think he's feeling right now seeing that Facebook user growth has stalled and that TikTok is a real competitor where people are spending, especially young people, a lot of time. I mean, this is this is his deep fear that he's had at the One of the reasons that Facebook has continued to grow for so long is because of

zuckerberg paranoia. The growth team that he has um basically monitoring every possible reason that people could have to leave Facebook and trying to fix that as soon as possible. And one of the reasons for that is is the network effects. The thing that made Facebook so powerful, um the fact that if somebody uses uses one network, um, other people are more likely to use it. It has also a test scating negative effect. If people leave the network,

it's suddenly becomes less valuable for the remaining users. And so Zuckerberg never wanted Facebook to reach the point where it gets into a death spiral, and and this could be that point. So I think it's very concerning to people at meta and UM, I think that's why they're putting all their eggs in the metaverse. Does does the Facebook saw this coming because of what it sees in the internal data and perhaps because of the pivot that it announced a few months ago of going into the metaverse?

You've covered Facebook for years? Is this the most pivotal point that you've seen for the company from a business perspective? I think so, I mean, I think I think Listen, they don't have a lot of options in the past. Maybe they could have acquired a great upstart social network to breathe new life into this into Facebook. You know, they can't make the kind of acquisition right now because

of antitrust pressure. Um. They could you pull some levers to get people to share more, um, but they've already

done that. So I think it's it's really hard for them, especially when you consider that their their ad targeting is going to become less useful and it's gonna be less it's less easy for them to tell advertisers how well their ads performed because of Apple changes to tracking asking users to agree with tracking, and a lot of users are saying no, don't track me, so that those are like, this is a time where you're seeing multiple existential threats

to facebooks business model and their way out of it. Um. They the short term way out is their TikTok copycat product, which is real which you know it could it could work. I mean YouTube Shore because it is also a TikTok product, copycat product that's done pretty well and maybe real good too. I haven't seen a lot there, but it looks to me like a lot of the stuff is reposted from chickof. So there's that, and then there's the betaverse of that.

The latter is something that requires all of us to want it to live and work in a virtual world, which is going to be Yeah, it's kind of a pie in the scared dream. I'm not ready to leave the real world. I'm just gonna put it out there. Hey. Having said that, um, we just we're talking about the markets and we're talking about meta Facebook with our TV colleagues and Romain Bostick bringing up that, you know, maybe it's time that Mark Zuckerberg steps aside running the company.

Maybe there needs to be some new people coming in. We've seen this at a lot of these whether it was Google. I think about when Eric Schmidt came in. You see this sometimes changing where the founder steps away for a moment. Is that something that we need to be thinking about or should be? It depends how bad this gets. We've seen Zuckerberg pull up from a downturn before. Uh. You know, I'm sure some employees are looking at this and thinking it's a great buying opportunity. Um. But but yeah,

it does seem it does seem pretty existential. That said, who else is going to be the one to drive this this um pass into the metaverse. There is so much money invested on three point for more than three billion in operating loss this past quarter, that there's no turning back. They've they've put all the resources into play there and and if he's got the vision like this is he's really the guy that's going to have to pull it through. UM, I would expect. And so that

makes things a little complicated. But money makers are really Facebook and Instagram. Sara, are you sitting down with Mark Zuckerberg right now, You've got about forty seconds left here? What do you ask him? I just want to know if if he really thinks that that they that they can afford to put products like Facebook and Instagram into a sort of maintenance mode, like sort of change the focus of the metaverse. It seems like there's still so

much to fix on those products. UM. And I just wonder if if that's going to hurt them long term, that they're not um focused on solving the problems with their existing networks instead focus on the future future effort. Alright, gonna run. Sarah, Thank you, Thank you, Sarah Fire, Big

Tech team leader, Bloomberg News. Check out her book if you haven't read it already, No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram, Facebook Shares right now, Tim down worst day in the company's history by far, and talk about a haircut on that market cap. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic

on Bloomberg Radio. Alright, just one week from now, Tim and I are going to be out in Sunny l A, just ahead of the Super Bowl and at the Bloomberg Power Players Smit, the gathering of who's who in sports, including NFL team owners, players of all sports, agents, broadcasters and so much more. No doubt we will be talking about the explosive lawsuit filed by former Miami Dolphins head

coach Brian Flora. So let's get some reporting on this and what the owner of the Dolphins is now saying with us right now is Bloomberg News legal reporter Christal Match. She's on the phone from Manhattan, the Manhattan Federal Courthouse. Hey Chris, nice to have you here with Tim and myself. So what is the owner talking about? We're talking about

Stephen Ross. Yeah, So Mr Ross is um you know, the humerently denying the allegations in the lawsuit and most substantially the allegation that he offered Brian Flora's a hundred thousand dollars per game to lose, basically the tank so that the team would have a worse record and have a better shot at one of the top draft picks. UM. He's saying, you know, he never made these Uh. He's welcomed the NFL's investigation. UM, and he's promising to fight

these allegations. In the lawsuit, Florist does allege that his refusal to tank games led to a clash with Stephen Ross, who was mad that the team won five games that season, costing them a chance of the top overall draft pick. I mean, Chris, first of all, these are big allegations. It's interesting. I've seen an interview with Brian Flores on CBS. I mean to come out, you know, when he was potentially up for maybe other jobs at other teams. I mean,

these are big allegations to make. They're huge, and I mean, you know, as he said himself, he's you know, this is a huge professional risk. He doesn't really expect to work in the NFL any more after this. UM. So you know, for whether or not the lawsuit goes anywhere, there's a lot of variables at the class action suit, he has to certify a class in order to perceive that way, they'll be you know, years of arguments, at

least months of arguments, dismissal motions, things like that. But whether or not this goes anywhere, this lawsuit did a huge shot across the ball in the NFL, whether its steeds or not. Um, it's a this is an issue that has been plague in the league for for decades um. And they've been accused of not hiring black coaches. That's the whole reason the Rooney rulers. And that's a big part of his lawsuit, right, correct that that the Rooney rule is the sham that it's really not. It doesn't

do anything because they don't actually hire black coaches. They just interviewed them, he says, he you know, got a sham interview with the Denver Broncos two years ago. Yeah, and Chris as you note that Giants, Dolphins, and Denver Broncos are all co defendants in the lawsuits. So you mentioned, Chris, that's it doesn't matter whether this lawsuit goes anywhere, and it could drag on for years. What could the implications

be for the NFL? Well, certainly, you know, there could be some sort of settlement, you know, where the NFL kind of agrees to make some sort of changes in it's you know, in its functions and the way as the ruling rule or it forces it, you know, try to make some improvements. Um. But that's just assuming there's a settlement and doesn't go to court. I mean, that

could take a long time. We'll see what happens. But the implications for the NFL legally are a lot less probably important than really just you know, in terms of its fan base, its perceptions, um, it's image and two weeks, like you guys said, the Super Bowls coming up. You guys will both be there. It's gonna be a huge topic of conversation. The NFL would prefer that this thick about the Rams, you know, and the I've forgotten the other team, but the Bengals, don't forget. My wife is

going to be very very angry, Chris Will. She should be mad at me. All Cincinnati people should be there. I gotta say. All the playoff games, it's easy to be like, wait, wait, who finally wanted because it was such a toss up in those playoffs. Hey listen, Chris, Chris, just twenty seconds left here. Does he have to get those other members for this to ultimately become that class

action and have some some bite real quickly. He does, but he, you know, his lawyer, Doug wig Door said that he has other people ready to sign or on others who said they have coaches that can kind of similarly, um, you know, prove the same allegations. So there's a good chance he could get of people in here. Whether gonna clap, Yeah, it's gonna be fascinating to watch crystal match. Legal reporter at Bloomberg News on the phone from the Manhattan Federal

Courthouse road. Yeah, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no no, I want to drive. It's a good question. Good drive. This is the Drive to the Clothes on Bluebird Radio. All Right, we've got just about ten minutes left in today's trading session. It's been another wild week. We are at Loews of this session. You just heard that from Charlie Pellett, and of course we've been talking about the tech sell off, largely those disappointing results from

Facebook owner Meta platforms. Also some concerns about persistently high inflation from the ECB that continues to weigh on the market. Let's get some thoughts from Tom Plump, President and chief investment officer at Plump Funds. Tom joins us once again on the phon from Madison, Wisconsin. Tom, we are really pleased to have you on a day like today when you take a look at the way that meta platforms is just reverberating throughout the market, especially the NAZAC one

hundred other social media companies like Snap, Pinterest, Twitter, and more. Um, how do you try to understand what the role of one company can be on all these other companies. Result, it's great to be here even on a day like this, but you know what the market UM, well, we always used to talk about is the second derivative the rate

of growth of the rate of growth. And when you see companies, even great companies like Facebook and PayPal and those companies show a moderation in their growth rate or decline, that's when the stock market starts punish them. And we've seen that on some of the companies, but of course

other ones like UM, Microsofttion show the opposite. So UM, I think right now it's really key to be focusing on those companies that continued to sell acceleration in this market environment and some of them will see you tonight if Amazon, for example, reports UH that the cloud a WS is growing strong enough to continue to show in acceleration, or or if we're going to see some moderation because of the retail issues that we saw in some of these other companies. Hey Tom, we love talking with you.

Your plumb balanced fund in the ninetcent for the past five years based on our data, meaning you be just about all of the other funds in the category, returning on average annually nearly twelve percent. You don't on Facebook, I think I I looked through the holdings and I did not see it. Why Well, we didn't own Facebook because we were thinking that there'd be a significant competition at some point, and and for much of this run,

of course, we missed it. UH. So I can't make a lot of credit for the fact that we missed today because you missed the run up of the previous years. But we have been concerned about the sustainability, the fact that they are in the political uh target of governments, UH, and that there was gonna be a lot of uncertainty

about what their next thing would be. Hey Tom, I want to go to Amazon because they're reporting after the bell today and you did mention them, but they are among the bigger holdings, uh, that you have in plumb Funds, accounting for more than two point seven percent of the holdings, about three point five million dollars worth of shares um. Amazon shares down about a quarter since July eight. What do we need to see from Amazon to to get

back to where it was? Well, Uh, Amazon is you know obviously, when you've been as successful as they have, they have to continually come up with something new. And the you know, the cloud aws. If if they match Microsoft's numbers they're showing you know, thirty five plus growth in that area, that would be something that would be very um, you know, I think very big good news

and continue to say that they're finding the next big thing. Um, it's really a question of how much is going to be on online sales versus you know, the what PayPal and those were saying is that there's a lot more people going into the stores. But I can tell you I think the Amazon is ingrained. It will continue to grow.

It's just the question of the growth rate. Where would you be allocating new money because we have seen when the equity market sells off, Tom we have seen dip buyers and maybe took a while, but they did come back, and we've seen some rallies off of those losses. What would you where would you be buying? Where would you be putting new money to work? Carol? Is a great question because you know opportunities. Don't hume because the market

is hitting new Hyes, they come on. You know the old cliche when they throw the baby out with the bath water. And there's some very good companies that are continued to show some acceleration that we think are good places to invest when this market gives you this opportunity.

One of them, of course, is a master Card, which is our largest holding in the plum plants, where we look at a company that has a forty percent net profit margin, they've got crypto patents, they are recovering business in both business travel and expense, consumer travel, cross border transactions, and addressing the huge business to business market which is maybe five times as large as the consumer to business market.

Right and who recently reported earnings along with Visa, and both of them really some eye popping numbers when it comes to spending on their platforms. Hey, Tom, where else are you guys playing? Cash right now. Well, um, there's a couple of smaller you know, one of the things that happened since the summer is a lot of the small emerging technology companies, especially in that software area, had

been uh, really punished. And one of them is a little company called Latch, which is what we call the type of company that has hardware enabled software. And here we think that they are. They're basically the company that allows access and control over entry into apartment buildings. Uh, they're probably about thirty of the new apartment buildings. Small emerging company, but it's got probably a backlog that's almost

eight times larger than their current sales. And so we're looking for a company again that's accelerating, maybe more than tripling their sales next year and even doubling it the following year. All right, And one other name, we have just about thirty forty seconds left. Oh, we like this company called Olo. And every one of us has been

in that fast foodline. We've talked about this one that you can order ahead and uh, this is a company that's providing the software for a lot of the medium size chains like Denny's and Portillo said and shake check, um making it work so that the labor can be used so much more effectively. Bit beating up. It's down about this year, as we've seen a lot of these

names under pressure. Tom Plumb be well. Good to check in with you, Tom Plum, He's president, chief investment officer over at Plump Funds on the phone from Madison, Wisconsin. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News