Biden Address Sets 'Appropriate' Tone

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. Well, lot's to talk about. Let's get into it with Dr Joshua Sharfstein. Weistein for public health practice and community engagement that JOHNS. Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He joins us on the phone from Baltimore. The Bloomberg School of Public Health is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP, and Bloomberg Philanthropiest.

Dr Sharfstein, thanks so much for joining us. I want to start right in with the New York City news we heard today from Mayor build a Blasio July first full opening is that a realistic day or is it too too much too soon? Well, it depends what you mean by full opening. Obviously, Um, things are looking better and that means that we can do more more safely. Um. But I'm sure he doesn't mean going all the way

back to twenty nineteen and pretending like the pandemic didn't happen. Um. I think it's going to be important, particularly for people who are not vaccinated, to be careful and to you know, wear masks when they're close to other people. And I think there's still going to be some prudent precautions necessary. What's your guidance to all of us who may have been already vaccinated and so as we go about our world.

I know I still feel comfortable wearing a mask just about everywhere out in public and certainly at our office. What's your guidance to everyone? Well, I think we're starting to see certainly the recommendations for outside change. People who are vaccinating, you can feel pretty comfortable outside unless they're you know, completely crowded together with a lot of people

breathing on them, um, in like a crowd. But um, and then you know, indoors, I think people will start to get more confident, particularly where they know that other people are vaccinated around them. UM. And I think that the real difference will be when the rates of transmission and the cases in the community go way down, because you know, even if your vaccine, you can still get sick. And we've seen cases like that and a very few small number of people, but that you know, it's possible

to get quite sick. So I think that people will you still get if you're vaccinated, well, um, you know, particularly for older adults, um, they can get hospitalized and there have been cases of death. Um. So it's not impossible. It's not like you're you know, superman or superwoman if you get vaccinated that you're completely you know, uh, impervious. But it brings the risk down to very manageable level.

You know. It's similar to other types of infections that can cause of serious illness, and so I think you just have to be be reasonably careful. Um and And I think the most important thing though, is everyone's risk is less when there's less coronavirus being transmitted. So if we all work together keep that number going down, we'll all feel more and more confident. Taking off the mask.

Carol mentioned the surges that we're seeing in some parts of the country right now, Why why is that happening? Why is that still happening at this point? And look, I think we need to ask this in the context of understanding that the United States is in a very good place compared to rest of the world when it comes to administering vaccinations. We keep getting just devastating numbers from other parts of the world, particularly India, which we'll

talk about just a little bit later. But here in the US, you know, we are hundreds of millions of shots have been administered, So why are we still seeing these pockets of infections? But because there's still a lot of people who haven't been vaccinated. I mean that that's a simple answer to that question. Um, you know, the chance of getting sick if your vaccinated is just so much lower. Um, it's you know, I think there was just a study with a prevention which is just you know,

just a tremendous response to the vaccine. But if you look out in some of these days, just like Michigan recently, it's a race between the virus and the vaccine, and the virus is getting you know, a little boost from the variants which are more transmissible and more lethal, and the vaccine is you know, moving ahead, but starting to slow down a little in some places because um, you know, we're the people who are really excited to get vaccinated

are all getting vaccinated, and now it's getting a little bit harder to find and reach people who still need to be vaccinated. So I think if you think about it as a raise between the virus and the vaccine, and the the virus is just getting fast or um, the vaccinations really have to keep up. Well that's what I feel like I still don't quite understand in terms of is it we've got to get to hurt immunity so that the variants can't take us to another wave.

Because I know we talked about the so called Indian variant of the virus. China and Israel have identified cases and that new variant is thought to be fueling India is deadly or new wave of cases that has made it the world's second worst hit country. Um, help me understand kind of the mix between getting the vaccine getting ahead of the variants. And just got about a minute,

then we'll come back and talk some more. Sure, Well, you know India, it's multiple variants, not to the when they're calling the India variants, there are multiple um that are causing the problem and um basically there are not a lot of people vaccinated in India. That's the challenge. The vaccines actually do protect pretty well to the extent they've been tested against variance, they do a pretty good job. So getting vaccinated is the best defense against the variants.

We've got to get to that place though, where people who are hesitant, the ones who weren't the ones waiting in line, the ones who weren't you know, the ones who wanted to like jump in line to actually get vaccinated. There's a lot of people that I know, yeah, go ahead, please, you really have to, you know, listen to people answer their questions and make the vaccines acceptable to them in

places that they're comfortable. And we're seeing you know, you do the first bunch through football stadiums, and then you do a whole other bunch through pharmacies, and then you've really got to go door to door to find people and offer them vaccine. And that's exactly what we're doing here in Baltimore. Actually, the Health Department is developed a

right campaign. Well, let's get right back to it with Dr Josh Josh Sharfstein y Stein for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, joining us on the phone from Baltimore. Dr Sharfstein, before we went to break, you were talking to us about what exactly you were doing in Baltimore and the City of Baltimore was doing in order to get those Americans vaccinated who haven't yet gotten the vaccine. How's it going

and what exactly are you doing. So the Health Department has a pretty comprehensive strategy, and you know, they started with some of the biggervaccine sites which were you know, mobbed initially with people, and then they did a big outreach campaign in coordination with the various hospitals in the city, including Johns Hopkins, and I think they visited almost every major UH senior housing um development in the city and

did vaccine clinics right there. And now they're shifting to even UH the idea of smaller mobile clinics so and pop up clinics. Of course, the pharmacies also have vaccine and they've seen a consistent rides in vaccinations and they've also paired this direct outreach work with a lot of

education on the vaccine, a communications campaign, multiple opportunities. A health commissioner and the mayor have done a great job going around the city answering people's questions and so, you know, I volunteer at the city Health Department's vaccine site and it's just really inspiring to see so many people showing up getting protected, um, doing you know, what they need

to do, and being really really happy about it. So is it a case of people they just access isn't there It's just difficult for them to get the vaccine, And so that by making it easier, people are more than willing to get it versus people who because I know I work with people, I know people who are like, I'm just not comfortable yet taking the vaccine. So what are you finding is kind of the bigger reasons for why people maybe haven't gotten the vaccine yet. So it

really does depend. There are a lot of a lot of different reasons. There are a lot some people were in the wait and see group. You know that they they're like, you know, I don't want to be the first one. Let's see how it goes for the first group. Well, those people can look around and see that you know, their friends and neighbors are actually doing pretty well when

they's not vaccinated. And in fact, I've even seen people who say, you know, I'm here because my daughter got vaccinated and she's doing great, and she really wants me to be vaccinated. And you can tell that it might have been a little bit of hesbancy at one point, but you know the the facts that it's just so much better to be vaccinated. It's hard to deny, and people, I think are coming around, and so we're seeing the

number of wait and see people go down over time. Well, question that Carol and I have have been asking each other for weeks now, if we want to ask you, Dr Sharfstein, is why people have different reactions to the vaccine. For example, I got my second fiser shot on Sunday. I took Monday off just in case I had a bad reaction. For twenty four hours, I felt fine, But from hours thirty six I was lethargic, I was a key, I felt sick, and then it went away like a

light switch at seven pm Monday night. Why does this happen? Like? Why did I feel like that? What's going on in my and why did I when I took it basically by two doses of fiser. I felt pretty okay. I felt a little tired maybe, but no big deal. So UM, I couldn't answer specifically for each of you, but I can say that, you know, our bodies react differently to vaccines, and some people get more of a reaction than others. What's happening is the immuse of some basically getting trained

to recognize a piece of the coronavirus. Of the vaccines don't carry the whole coronavirus, they just carry a piece, but it trains the immune system. When immune system gets trained, you have basically chemicals being released inside your body, not for chemicals that UM do the training and get you know, the cells ready in case the actual coronavirus comes in. They recognize that piece and again and the immune system

kills the virus. And so you're that what you feel is a little bit of the chemicals you know that sometimes cause fever, sometimes cause fatigue. Um, the chemicals that are part of the immune system getting trained to kill the virus, all right, And so we all just feel it kind of differently, right bottom line, we feel it kind of differently. The second job is a little bit, you know, more intense than the first, and people then

bounce right back. And you know, I tell people that it's really if you get it, it's just the feeling of your immune system kicking in, and it's a good you know, it's assignment that commune system is um is doing good job. I think people who don't feel anything though the airman system is working well too. All right,

that's good to know. That helps clarify it. Dr Josh Charstein weistein for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, of course, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio Well. The season finale of The Paycheck podcast is available now on Apples, Spotify,

and Bloomberg dot Com. The episode tackles the issue of closing the racial wealth gap by acknowledging the painful history that first created the gap. Carry Wiggham is a professor at Binghamton University's Institute of Genocide and Mass Atrocity prevention and a contributor to this week's Paycheck podcast. There is still the reality that many white Americans have a difficult time understanding how slavery was directly connected to, for instance,

mass incarceration and police brutality. Today, well, joining me now is Joel Weber, editor at Bloomberg business Week. He joins us on the remote from Brooklyn, and in the Interactive Broker studio here in New York is Jackie Simmons. She's senior executive editor of The America is also the co host of the Paycheck podcast, and she's joining here here from Bloomberg News. I think thank you to both of you for for joining me today, Joel, I want to

start with you, uh eight episodes. This is this season finale, and this is a particularly powerful one because it wrestles with the legacy of a descendant of slave owners. Who is one of our colleagues. Yeah, and that's clear Sabbath, and who wrote a story today that coincides with this um most recent episode of the Paycheck and it is it just immediately grabs you by the caller when she started reading it, because it is a history that a lot of Americans share, where you know, deep in um,

your family's history. There's um something that you you might not be proud of now, but it is the you know, a truth, and it was something that clear set out to wrestle with. I also just thought, you know, Jackie was so siminar in this podcast. I thought it was a really interesting contrast and book end to the very first episode, which which was about Jackie's story. So so, Jackie, we were kind of hoping you could kind of give us an idea about how these bookends came together and

how you all approached um putting together such an amazing podcast. Yeah,

thanks for having me. So I would say that when we started to think about the next season of The Paycheck, you know, the first two seasons were about the gender pay gap, but it was round the time post Floyd's um killing when we started to sort of think, what can we do to really you know, bubble up some of the data, some of the history, some of the facts from the past that takes us to one and sort of capture a little bit of the momentum the

frustration I think that's been building and so kind of ironically, a cousin of mine had been struggling with how to get some money from this land that basically has been in our family for for many generations. And I started researching it. I knew in the back of my mind we had this piece of property in East Texas, but I never really knew what came of it, And so

I started going through records, talking to family members. Um. I made so many calls, I looked through so many you know, sites, and just really talked to officials to really try and piece together the picture of the story and what it really is. It sort of shows how the messiness um of how black families and that time acquired land and then also how over time because of taxes,

sometimes because because of chicanery, we lost that land. And so, as you said, it's a great um clear story is such a wonderful book, and to a story of a black family gaining wealth and losing it, and then her story which is very personal equally personal that sort of tells it from a perspective of a descendant of a slave owner, which is I just think wonderfully kind of

contrast and rich. There was this moment, Jackie that that hit me in in this most recent episode, the finale, when I was listening to it today, and it had to do with just thinking about my own place in this world. And it was it was something that you guys talked about the fact that even people who aren't descendants of slave owners, white people, UM, they might not necessarily think about their connection to slavery because they don't

necessarily have that connection. But at the same time, they are part of a system that has benefited from slavery, even if they've only been in this country for one or two generations. That's correct. And I think that it was a question I asked Claire, and I think I thought her perspective on that was was very powerful because she was basically saying that it's not you don't get a free pass because you can't say that you had

a direct connection to slavery. Is she's basically, you know, being very honest and quite um brave, I think, to come out and really share that story. Um, you can't hide behind you know, something that is structural and systemic in our economy, um and in our social system because you didn't have a direct descendant. So I think you know, everyone's accountable in some way. UM. And I think that the most powerful thing in her story is that you just have to find the truth about it, you have

to kind of reckon with the truth. You have to understand the past, and you can't hide behind excuses for not sort of being willing to not only know it, but also embrace it before we can find ways to try and fix it. You know, you used a phrase

there that um. I think in a way it sums up everything I've learned about UM through the Paycheck, which which is you know this idea that you know we make excuses and you know so much of where the podcast and the stories that are part of the podcast come from is just sort of a cold a cold a real, honest to god um full assessment of some inconvenient truths, I think. And so Jackie, I'm curious, you know your role in this season, how you think about

it going forward? Like what did what did you learn while you were working on this particular season and how is that going to inform what's yet to come from from the Paycheck? Yeah, I mean I think the thing that stood out there's three things that stood out to me really in a powerful way. I think at this sheer scale of the damage done is almost so hard for people to grasp that it makes it easier to ignore, if that makes sense. So for instance, you know, we

did the math. You know, we calculated the cost of what was the value of a human body in in slave days and that number comes to forty two trillion dollars. And that is when you count for inflation and other things. You know, what was the cost of the damage done when you tear down Blackwall Street? You know, when you lynch, you know, when you murder. I mean, what is the cost of that? I mean Tulsa alone, Black Wallstree in Oklahoma that was two million dollars, so, you know, and

so on and so forth. So I think you know, that was definitely a huge takeaway and sort of overwhelming in and of itself. The second one was really there the unsung heroes, UM that basically have the resilience, um, you know, black and white to keep this narrative going. So people like Kelly House. UM. I actually didn't know much about her before I started doing the research. She was a black woman who was one of the first people to talk about reparations and she was jailed for it. Um.

You know, John Boyd is a Virginia farmer. I think an episode five, who you know testified before Congress about um, you know, how to get subsidies and payments back to black farmers. So you know, there was a number of unsung heroes in this narrative, but there are also a lot of interesting, interesting things happening in one. Well. It is an incredibly powerful series. Jackie, thank you so much for joining us to tell us more about it. I

encourage everybody to check it out. You can listen to the Paycheck podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. Jackie Simmons is Senior executive editor for The America's at Bloomberg News. She's the co host of the Paycheck podcast. Joe Laber, editor at Bloomberg Business Week, on the remote from Brooklyn, Guys, thank you so much. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. My fellow Americas,

trickled down, trickled down economics has never worked. It's time to grow the economy from the bottom in the middle out. That was of course President Biden in his joint session to Congress last night. Joining us now for his thoughts is Chris Leu, former Deputy Secretary of Labor under President Obama. He joins us on the phone from Charlottesville, Virginia. We should note that Chris has just been nominated by President Biden to be the U S Ambassador to the United

Nations for Management and Reform. Chris, thanks so much for joining us. UM, absolutely good to be on. Congratulations on the nomination too. Um. What did you make of the President's joint session? He certainly at the beginning really leaned into what he has accomplished over his first one days, specifically with regard to COVID, but then really spent the next period of time focusing on what he plans to

do and how he plans to do it. Yeah, for him. First, let's just take note of the surroundings and the optics around the speech. And it was certainly one of the quieter States of the Union or joint addresses that we have seen in a long, long time standing. There in not even a half filled room. Um, it was subdued, and I think it was appropriate for the moment, because you know, we've made tremendous gains in terms of COVID and the economy. But um, there's still far too many

people out of work. There's still far too many people getting sick and dying, and so ironically, I think the setting in the tone was appropriate for the moment. And you're right, I mean the speech is really, I think, really two to three different parts. One was talking about COVID, the two d and twenty million vaccines, the hundred and sixty million checks that have gone out the door, but really sort of stressing to people, you know what, the

fight is not over. I mean, we've gotten fifty some percent of the American adults immunized, but we still have a lot of people, far too many people who haven't gotten vaccinated, and that's a problem, and that could be a bump in the road, uh if if we can't get over that. And then obviously the bulk of the speech was focused on um, you know, selling infrastructure and talking about what infrastructure means. And then finally, I think the final pivot was to George Floyd racial justice unity.

So it's what I expected, even if the optics theatrics of it were different from previous joint addresses. Well, I do you have a question for you on optics, because there's this photo that that's absolutely making the rounds when it happened. An image from last night continue to make the rounds on social media today, and it's that one of the president fist bumping Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

A Republican of course. Uh, but to me, Liz Cheney is is is the old school Republican Party, the establishment Republican Party, and in fact, to the extent that even members of her own party, who someone characterizes more extreme, have been trying to push for her ouster from committees and trying to campaign against her already. What did you make of that moment? Is that is that there is that Senator Biden reaching across the aisle. Well, I do

think it's Senator Biden. I think I think, um, the President wants to work with anybody, and he is remarkably generous in his views of uh, the opposing party, who who he does in view as the enemy. He feels as people who UM are are patriotic Americans who simply disagree on issues. But he's going to try to find that common agreement. So I was struck by that moment as well. I would also caution about reading too much into this. Uh, you know, I staff President Obama for

different states of the Union. He walks down that aisle, and even in a packed a normal room, when it's packed, they're Democrats and Republicans on both sides, and it's just a matter of courtesy, frankly to shake the hand of or fist bump the hand of the commander in chief. And I think that's what you know, Liz Cheney, who whose own father had been vice president, I think understood this is you know, in moments like this, this transcends

partisan politics. And if fist bump is certainly one thing, but getting congressional Republicans on board with plans that number in the trillions of dollars is completely different. As Bloomberg Business Week has written about, now comes the hard part, right when it comes to to Biden's plans and what he wants to do, especially before the mid terms. How does Biden sell this to Republicans. I think it's clear

that he's selling it to the American people. And indeed, the you know, public opinion polling indicates that that parts of these plans are are very popular with Democrats and Republicans als. But typically when it comes to infrastructure, but getting Republicans on board to spend this amount of money is going to be a tough, tough, tough slog. How does he do it? Yeah, and not only not only to get behind it, but how to pay for it as well. But I think that point that you made

is correct. If you look at the polling on infrastructure, it pulls incredibly well, especially when you tell people you're going to pay for it by raising corporate taxes in much the same way that the economic relief package from last month pulled very well. And so I think the White House is going to make best efforts to find bipartisan agreement and Congress, but they know full well that if they can't do that, the American people are behind them.

But getting to, you know, the the guts of this, there is a bucket of things that fall into what we would call traditional infrastructure where there is bipartisan agreement, and that at this point it's really a strategic decision about whether you pull those parts out, pass them on a bipartisan basis, and then do the or once through

the budget reconciliation process. I do think it is the preference of the White House and the President to try to do the whole thing at one time, and it's one of the reasons why you heard him talking last night about what infrastructure means. It's not just roads and bridges, it's broadband, it's the electric grid that we saw fail in Texas, it's safe drinking water, and then broadly, it's you know, this concept of human infrastructure. UM, that that

we need to be mindful about as well. The challenge I see, Chris is is that it's hard for I think a lot of people to envision what this looks like years down the line. And that's been really tough for politicians who have had trouble getting things done in the long term. Um, how does Biden help make that vision for Americans and for Republicans as well. We have about thirty seconds left with you now, but I know you're going to join us again on the other side

of the break. It is fundamentally this concept to build back better, the idea that we can't just go back to the economy me before the pandemic. We really need to deal with some of these structural inequities that we've had, both in terms of what it means for everyday Americans, but frankly, the under investments in things like Rhodes bridges, technology, Uh, and we need to do that to be more competitive. Well, let's get right back to Chris Leu, former Deputy Secretary

of Labor under President Obama. He joins us on the phone from Charlottesville, Virginia, and Chris has just been nominated by President Biden to be the U S Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform. Chris, UM, I want to get back to last night and specifically tying it together with what we heard from FED Chair Jerome

Powell yesterday. If there's really one thing that ties those the words that we heard from both of them together, it's jobs and getting those jobs back for those more than eight million Americans who are still on the sidelines. That's the metric that the President is using in the recovery and the metric that the FED is using in the recovery. How does the US get there? Well, it's it's not going to be easy, and I think it's

right to set some contexts. We last month created nine d and sixteen thousands, or recovered or you know, not necessarily created, right, Well, and I think that's an important distinction. We've recovered nine hundred and sixteen thousand jobs. Um, And but we're still eight point four million short of where

we were before the pandemic. And it's important to understand that during this period of time, over the past year, a lot of the longer term trends that we have seen, whether it is globalization, whether it is automation, whether it's the rise of the gig economy, a lot of these things have accelerated along the way. And so we can't and again just we can't go back just to the economy of the pre pandemic, because that's already left too many people behind. So we need to understand that we

need to both create the jobs. And it's we started talking about before the break. Roads and bridges are the easiest things to do, and this is something that's not just good for workers and manufacturers, but frankly we need it. I mean, you drive around this country and as you said, you see it. You walk into an airport, you ride on amtrack, and you see the state of what we have in this country. So those are great paying jobs that actually can make us competitive and health the economy run.

But there's a lot more that needs to be done in terms of training workers for the jobs of the century. And this is the work that I did at the Department of Labor and getting them as skills they need. And that's part of why in the American Families Plan that the President talked about yesterday, you know, he adds on two years of universal pre K and then he adds on free community colleges because he understands that in this economy, simply having a high school education isn't going

to be enough to train you for those jobs. Um, so it's training people. Then it's actually figuring out how do we bring these jobs back to the United States and how do we come up with new industries, which is why there's so much investment in R and D in the Infrastructure Plan. How do you think the jobs market changes, or at least jobs change on the other side of this pandemic there, there's certainly a tale of

two different types of companies, two different economies. The K shape recovery, right, we talked about it all the time. Company like Amazon reporting earnings after the bell today, added hundreds of a hundred thousand workers in the last year. It's it's it's massive. At the same time, you have many mom and pop shops around the United States that have been struggling to get by or restaurants that have closed.

So so what does the other side of this look like. Yeah, it's one of the unfortunate aspects of the pandemic is that while so many brick and mortar retail shops were closed during the lockdown, UM cities and states allowed you know, Target, Walmart and other big box retailers to stay open. And that's just continue to heighten this competitive advantage that they have.

Recognize also that at a company like Amazon, while they have created a lot of those jobs, a lot of the more seasonal jobs, and frankly, a lot of the people that are out there, um delivering packages to your

door are our independent contractors who aren't getting benefits. And so there are jobs being created, but a lot of these jobs aren't providing a stable level of wages or benefits that allow people, um really to live you know, um middle class lives and so and then obviously the pandemic is as I said, it's accelerated a lot of

these issues. You know, increasingly, now you walk into a fast food restaurant, whether it's to cut costs or whether it was to prevent infections, they're now moving to you know, you order on a smartphone or you or you ordered on on a screen and you don't talk to somebody. Um, that's a job that's now disappeared as well. And so um yeah, no, I mean the structural changes that we've seen for decades really have accelerated over the last year. Well,

something kind of strange is happening right now. There's a story in this week's edition of Bloomberg Business Week that talks about Uber and Lyft and ride hailing services and the way that customers are coming back faster than drivers want to come back. And as a result, you've bur in lift are are paying larger sums to drivers to entice them to get back on the roads and start

driving again. At the same time, John Taffer from Bar Rescue, the Show by Rescue I joined us on Quick Take earlier today and joined Carol earlier this week on on this program on Bloomberg Radio and talked about how he's having trouble getting employees and and his his His argument is that unemployment insurance, which doesn't expire until later this year, is keeping people on the sidelines. What do you make

of what's going on? Yeah, look, I I personally think this argument about unemployment insurance de turring work is probably overdone because what we do know is that there are far too many states in the country where it's increasingly difficult. It's always been difficult to apply for unemployment insurance. Even if you get something, it's it's certainly not enough. Even with the enhanced fatal benefits, it's not enough to work.

I do think the first aspect of this is to ensure that we get COVID under control and basically provide that level of insurance to workers so that they feel confident they can go to whatever work and not know they're going to be sick. So that's I think, um number one. But I do think broadly, um, we are starting to again to see this mismatch of people having jobs, uh needing to fill jobs and having people able to get those jobs. Chris Leu, thank you so much for

joining us. It is always great to have you on the show. That's Chris Leu, former Deputy Secretary of Labor under President Obama, joining us on the phone from Charlottesville. Tim Stanevik Carol Masser live from the Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studios on Bloomberg Radio. This is Bloomberg. I'm roam a journal now, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no no, no, honey, please, I'll do the riding, revel. Let me. I want to dry, Just drive, baby questions trying, this is the drive to

the Globe community. Thanks, we'll try us on bloom Bird Radio. All right, just about ten minutes left, ten and a half minutes left to today's trade. You're just saying that because you and i've been running since you since I don't know what time. I know me from about five thirty this morning, but you much earlier, same time. All right, let's find out what Brad McMillan what time his day started, his chief investment officer and managing principle at Commonwealth Financial Network.

They've got roughly two hundred thirty two point five billion dollars in assets under management. Brad back with us and on the phone from Waltham, Massachusetts. Brad, it is good to have you're here with us. How early did your day start? I usually get up about five thirty, the same as you guys. Maybe maybe it's a financial thing. Yeah, maybe it's a fin right. Just heard somewhere the early bird catches the worm. I've heard that. So I'm still trying to find the worm. Early bird is a little

tired today. Um So, Brad McMillan. The markets all over the place, you know, lots of earnings this week, we had the FED meeting. What's what's kind of driving your thinking and your team's thinking right now when it comes to investing big picture, everything is awesome and really office. So I don't say that with any real joy here, Carol. You know, when you look at what's going on, the economy is doing very well and looking to accelerate. We're

getting to normal. The FED is very explicitly saying we're we're all in. We're gonna keep pushing behind this. And companies keep making more money than anybody would ever have thought. So there's not a lot to get upset about. And I think markets are just reflecting that, unless, of course, you make under fifteen an hour. I'm just going to put that out there, Brett fair point. And from a

market point of view, everything's great. If you're one of the many people still out of work, especially in the lower income tranches, it's a totally different stories. That's That's exactly what I was gonna say. If there's one takeaway yesterday from the themes that tie together the President's address last night and FED Chair Powell's comments yesterday midday. It's really those eight point four million unemployed Americans who are

still out as a result of the pandemic. So, so help us make sense of of what we're seeing from these companies and their outlooks. Well at the same time, hearing from companies like Lift and Uber that it's tough to get drivers to actually come back onto the roads as quickly as customers want to. Well, I think you have to remember two things. First of all, the pandemic is not over yet, and a lot of the jobs that are still out there going begging our jobs that

involve dealing with the public. So I think there's still a very real reluctance on a lot of workers part to put themselves in that situation if they don't have to, and because of the federal stimulus programs, they don't have to yet. So two things are going to happen. First of all, the stimulus programs are going to start to expire, and second of all, the viral situation is going to continue to get better. So I think you're going to see that it out over time. People are going to

move back to work in a very natural way. But we're not there yet. So how are you playing the market Because there's certainly some spaces, including some of these big tech names. It's a little heady, and I am curious when you look to commit new cash, where do you want to go? I mean, everybody kind of is like value value value. It keeps coming back and then the growth just kind of overtakes it. Where would you be committing new money. I don't think it's about value

versus growth. Um. I think one of the big things that's hit growth is rates. We're going to go up and then well maybe not, so you know, that's what's playing out. But it's about what companies are a physician to do relatively better, you know. And I think if you look at the housing industry, that's just going from strength to strength and that's not going away anytime soon, given the demographic push behind it and the supply and

demand situation. You look at financials, for example, they're going to continue to do much better as the economy reopens. So there's nothing to do with growth in value. It's what companies can actually start to outperform. I'm wondering when when it comes to housing, because that was another thing that the fedchhair was asked about yesterday. What ends up happening to the housing market because prices can't just keep

going up. And look, I'm speaking from the experience of people who live in the Northeast and New England and Tri state area in California. Uh, it's somewhat of a different story around the country, but at the same time, it is a really hot market right now. Well, when you look at there's the big story in housing is We've talked about mortgage rates. Everybody knows that, but take

a look at the demand side. You have the largest generation in history, the millennials, and they're just getting to the point where they got to go buy a house. You know, not only do they want to because of the pandemic, but they're hitting forty they're hurting their peak earning and spending years. They get kids now they need to go buy a house. And we've been under investing in housing for decade now. Ever since the bust. Yeah,

I find it. I find it interesting that it was for such a long time, coming off of the housing crisis. Bread that we were talking about over supply, right and they were private equity companies that you know moved into it, Blackstone among others, you know, where it became a really smart investment. And then all of a sudden, we just

don't have enough housing. And it's safe to say homebuilders, you know, a little gun shy, and I think the whole housing market right that they're not going to build until they make sure that the demand sticks around it's consistent. That's exactly right, Carol. And it's not just the housing industry,

it's the supply chain. When you look at lumber prices, you know, why is that there's still a lot of trees out there, well, a lot of sawmills, A lot of lumber companies backed off because they weren't seeing the demand there and that's why we had the lumber prices spiking. You know, I was driving around up in New England, Maine, a lot of lumber you know, companies and mills and

the life. It is beautiful. But they were quiet, like and I know this weekend and stuff, but I didn't feel like if they were looking to meet incredible demand, right, they might have kicked and extra shifts of the weekend. And I did see that. Look the story when I went to college years decades ago at this point, I went to college in Maine and the story was those mills no longer even operated, which is interestingly do you wonder where it goes? Yeah? All right, So where do

we go from here? Brad? How do you see it? Do? Is the rest of the year kind of baked in a little bit or safe to say? We know the Fed kind of has our back here. They're going to be patient, They're gonna let inflation run hot hot, and so for folks seeking yield, you know we're going to see more risk being taken on or I don't know, how do you see? You said everything is awesome at

the beginning, and that's right. I mean what's interesting to me is when you look at the market and the run up we've had, people were saying, wow, this is crazy, but it's not if you go when you look at it on a forward price earnings basis, you know, based when earnings estimates go up, so is the price, and it stated about twenty two times, so as we can see earnings earnings expectations continue to grow, I still think there's still some more upside there, and potentially more than

people think. So what is what is the specific opportunity, especially when we are at a point where companies are we're at the tail end of earning season or we're getting to the tail end of earning season. This is the busiest week for um UM. What are you hearing as the takeaways, Brad from from what we've heard from executives, because we're still not getting a ton when it comes to company outlook. I mean, look what happened with with with Tesla for example. I think what's going on here

is it's the dog that's not barking. I mean, I agree with you. Invest executives are still cautious. They don't want to go out there. But I'm hearing a lot less of the negative. You know, the world is coming to an end. They're not ready to be positive yet. There's still too cautious for that. They're still gunshy, but they're no longer making sure that they're pointing out everything that can go wrong. It's not a change in tone, but it's the start of a change in tone. The

start of a change in tone. When is that that? We only have about thirty seconds left. But what are you watching for data points to see when that tone shifts? I think it shifts in the next quarter too, because right now companies are running out of reasons to be unhappy. Yeah, and I think it'll be interesting too in the comparisons aren't so easy and whether or not then you know, investors maybe look at some of the names a little bit differently, and I guess we'll just have to wait

and see on that. Brad McMillan, thank you so much. Everything is awesome when you join US chief Investment Officer truly at Commonwealth Financial Network on the phone from Waltham, Massachusetts, roughly two two and a half billion in UH assets under management, and you know, interesting to hear what he had to say. I mean a daylight today where I feel like direction is all over the place, and yet you know we're we're near our highs when it comes to the SMP and now with just what a few

minutes to go, we are instilled. Seems like investors shrugging off the GDP data and economic data that we got earlier today really just want to see earnings. 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, h