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Hi, everyone, Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Our first hour all about China dominating the global financial and geopolitical headlines throughout the week, including with its response to our international cover story. As Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber secured an exclusive interview with Taiwan's vice president and leading presidential candidate in the upcoming elections. We're talking about ly Ching Dung.
It was his first sit down with international media and it focused on his plans for keeping peace with China and Carol, this interview caught Beijing's attention almost as soon as it was published. We actually got word of it just before our broadcast on Tuesday when we read off the statement from China's Taiwan Affairs Office on air.
We did, indeed, China called a complete trouble maker. That's a quote seeking Taiwan independence and that his comments on so called maintaining the peaceful status quo or totally a lie. That statement also said quote such a person will only bring risks of fierce war.
With more on the conversation and on Taiwan, which is one of the most prosperous places in the world, we should note is Joel Weber. Joel, congratulations on this incredible piece. I mean, it wasn't that long ago that you were actually there doing this. Talk to us a little bit about how this came together and take us behind the scenes.
So I've got amazing colleagues, We have amazing colleagues in Taipei, and they kind of had just reached out to tell me more about the overall election, which isn't until January, but in the turbulent Taiwanese politics, you.
Kind of want to get in on this stuff early.
The last time the presidential election happened, it was a pretty big flip actually, so we wanted to kind of establish the presidence for our reporting and our bureau in the region there, and so I said, well, what do we want to talk about, and they said, well, Liai Jung Doa is the front runner and he's the current vice president, and he's really the person that we should talk about, and I often think when there's a really
chaotic or turbulent thing in the world. In this case, I think it's probably the most complicated geopolitical situation that you can imagine, and dropping into it as I did, revealed how complicated it is. It helps to have like a little bit of a rock that you can kind of tell that story through, and that's what we were able to do with Lia and I had a series of exclusive interviews with him. It's all tied to his transit, which gets to a thing that's part of the geopolitical complexity.
That I mentioned.
If you're a Taiwan ees official or elected official, you can't just do a round trip flight from Taiwan to anywhere in the US. You have to transit, which means that you have a stopover, which is effectively an extended layover. So he did that last weekend through New York en route to Paraguay. Paraguay happens to be one of the dwindling number of official sort of diplomatic countries that Taiwan has formal alliances with, the other ones China has strategically
managed to flip in recent years. So Hondura Squadmala. These are countries that were once on Taiwan's side and have flipped to Beijing's corner. So Beijing is in Taiwan. Is really what this story is about. And you know, for a long time that prosperity that you mentioned, that was because there is this really effective triangle where Taiwan would have manufacturing in China export to the US. Everybody prospered for decades. That worked until China started to reassert it.
And that's where we come into this upcoming election because as China's asserted itself, Taiwan, which is a self governing island democratic Beijing, looks at that and says, we're the Republic of China Taiwan, which also did I mention how complicated the geopolitical part of this was.
I can only imagine the conversation that you had with him, how careful you were in terms of how you phrase things, because.
We know, watch the video, you can see me checking my notes.
No, you're but I mean the question of war, the potential if China invades, and that is certainly you know, something that was obviously top of mind here big.
Time, and look like the stakes for this election actually couldn't be higher. I think the global economy is absolutely dependent on Taiwan, and that is large part because of the semiconductor industry. Something like ninety percent of chips come from Taiwan. We learned how important that was during the
pandemic when we had the supply chain carnage. And you know, Taiwan is just instrumental and if you if you don't have those chips, I think we look at living would be living in a version of the world that would be like nineteen eighty seven or something like that, right.
Like total reset.
So Taiwan incredibly important to that.
You're gonna ask me.
Something, No, no, Can we share a little bit of your interview?
Yeah, let's do it. Okay.
We have some of Joel's exclusive interview with Taiwan's vice president and they talk specifically about the importance of support from the West and keeping peace with China. Check it out, everybody.
Jesus also way the ools, we must abide by the truth, which is what I mean by pragmatism. It is that Taiwan is already a sovereign, independent country called the Republic of China. It's not part of the People's Republic of China. The ROC and PRC are not subordinate to one another. It is not necessary to declare independent English shimpud.
What is your roadmap to formal independence.
Anyway? Well, it's it and just where the Taii Shenzwan.
My responsibility is to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait while protecting Taiwan and maintaining democracy, peace and prosperity. So no such framework exists. We must work to maintain the peacefull status quo because Taiwan is already a sovereign country.
China keeps pushing on the status quo, and it keeps pushing. It's fire a missile over Taiwan to cross the median line in the Taiwan Street, and its simulated a naval blockhead.
What is your red line, thai shinzwang? The chinsu jinzung.
Increased tensions impacting the status quo in the Taiwan Strait have not originated from Taiwan. They are due to China's growing assertiveness. China not only seeks to annex Taiwan, it also hopes to change the international rules based order. Under these circumstances, we must be clear Taiwan's security is of
international concern. Peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is aligned with the international interesting because challenges in the Taiwan Strait are a global concern, a global red line will also be Taiwan's red line and my personal red line.
You've said provocative things in the past that will be of interest in Washington. How have you changed is.
I have been part of President Sai's national security team. Together with the US government, we have responsible and clear channels of communication. We are able to share information effectively, understand where the issues are, and cooperate in resolving them. This election is about choosing between two roads. One way is to continue engaging and cooperating closely with the international
community while deepening our democracy. The other choice is to accept the one China principle and stand together with China. I believe the US will continue to support us on the first Pathe means.
How confident are you that the US will have Taiwan's back should the situation with China escort?
I mean, well so, Taiwanda jupong Il.
The US is a close friend of Taiwan. We are partners in a number of areas, from politics, the economy, human rights to our society.
In with Taiwan, the ANJUNGUNTI.
Because Taiwan's security challenges are a global concern. The upkeep of peace and stability in both the Taiwan Straight and the Indo Pacific region fulfills the common interests of the international community. I believe that all democracies in the world, including the US, would be aware of how to respond if such a scenario were to take place.
And that, of course was Taiwan's Vice president Laichingdong, I think was presidential candidate, as we've said, for the upcoming election in Taiwan elections, I should say, of course. Talking in an exclusive interview with the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, Jill Weber.
Jill, one thing that I was struck with struck by in the piece is the changing view Taiwanese people have about themselves, about their own identity in the piece and what they consider themselves. Talk to me a little bit about how that's evolved in recent years.
Complicated question, But you know, Taiwan actually views itself as the Republic of China Taiwan, and that is rooted in the history of Taiwan, which basically was this military standoff and the Taiwanese left mainland China and basically have never been under Beijing's authority. Right, So the longer that this has gone on, the more that the Taiwanese identify as Wines and less as Chinese. And that's sort of reflected in some of the point that you're referring to.
Business Wek editor Jill Weber on his exclusive with Taiwan's sitting VP and top presidential candidate La Chinda. It's our international cover story this week. That full interview. Check it out available online at Bloomberg dot com and of course always on the Bloomberg terminal. Joel by the way back with us next hour coming up.
As time Wan thinks about its relationship with Beijing, the rest of the world is taking stock of China's role in the global economy.
We probably will see China grew at an even slower pace, and if, of course, at risks and crises continue to take plays, we may be looking at a China that grows at one percent.
The managing director at China beige Book International breaks down the ominous data. Next, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, this is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
So another twenty four hours, another batch of Chinese headlines. As you just heard in our chat, it's just simply the continued weakness and inability of China to kick up their once very reliable growth machine. The worries continuing tim on news that one of China's biggest shadow bank skip payments on several investment products, sparking rare protests in Beijing as a fallout from a deepening property slump spreads to the financial sector, and this has been the worry. Is
this potentially China's great financial crisis? Not saying it is, We're just questioning.
That's a question We're going to continue to ask. The liquidity challenges we are seeing in China underscore how troubles in the property sector and China's weakening economy and now spreading deeper into the financial industry. Many trust products are backed by real estate projects run by troubled developers such as China Evergrand Group and.
Then tim We learned Thursday that Evergrand followed for Chapter fifteen bankruptcy protection in New York, that move shielding it from creditors in the United States while it works on a restructuring deal elsewhere, And that followed the earlier news in the week of China's Central Bank having interest rates by the most in three years in a bid to revive growth. A lot going on so with us to discuss China's fundamental economic backdrop is Shazad Kazi, Managing director
at China beij Book International. They were founded back in twenty ten to help institutional investors in corporate CEOs navigate China's notoriously black box economy. China beij Book has developed its own private in country data collection network to track the Chinese marketplace, gathering real time economic data from thousands of firms across all of China's region sectors and thirty
four discrete industries. We spoke with Shazad on Wednesday and asked for his response to President Joe Biden's recent remarks in which he referred to China's economy as quote a ticking time bomb.
I don't fully agree with the president's statement. All those sorts. The President has it more right than many China watchers who do this for a living. What's going on in China is that you've got a structural slowdown in place. So Chinese economy is well past the years where it used to grow in the double digits, for sure, but even something like six percent seven percent growth is now
you know, behind us. The growth that we're looking at into the future for China is probably something between three to five percent in the in the next four or five years, and beyond that we probably will see China grow at an even slower pace. And of course risks and crises continue to take place. We may be looking at a China that grows at one percent, perhaps some years doesn't grow at.
Is this just a factor of a maturing economy or is the concern that the reopening was a disaster and that there are structural issues there.
Yeah, there are a couple of things going on. The first one is that the old Chinese growth model, which everybody I think has been trained on, which is that you ramp up credit, you ramp up investment, and you juice that to get a high level of growth, that has really run out of road. Even if today Chinese policy makers were to continue doing big stimulus and big fiscal spending, they wouldn't be able to get those growth rates again anyway. So there's that structural component of it
inevitable slow down. And that said that's taking place. However, there has been a very important change that I think has gone largely underappreciated still by markets. That's the Chinese policy makers, I think President Shee on down have decided that, look, we don't want that old growth model. We want something that's much more sustainable and much more healthy. And that
means that we need to de risk the system. We need to really work on de leveraging, we need to deflay the property bubble, and we need to transition the economy towards a consumer driven economy rather than just this big industrial behemit that China is. How to ever get there is a separate question.
Well, I was just going to say, you know that, are they right to pursue that to have something more sustainable? Although one percent growth longer term to me sounds like a bit of a bummer for it for one of the world's largest economies.
Yeah, I think there's you know. The smart thing to do, of course, was to start working on this economic transition, probably even sooner than they did. It just happens to be that they started really working on it with the COVID crisis ongoing as it is, And so you're getting this bit of a double ammy right now, right with a cyclical downturn, COVID induced pressures, and of course the structural flow down all happening more or less at the
same time. The fact is, the world would be much better off with the Chinese economy that was importing more than it does and exporting less than it does. And you know that would have farm You know, that would be far more beneficial for countries around the world. They should absolutely be working on it. I'm just not sure they put in all the right policy policies in place even right now though, to be able to successfully accomplish that.
Why would the world be Why would the overall world be better off with the Chinese economy that was importing more rather than exporting.
Well of the world's biggest markets by population size alone, it's, you know, the thing that companies have been waiting on for decades, not to be able to sell more and more into China. But the problem, by the way, is that they just don't have the income levels rising there.
The private sector is not at a place where it can absorb a lot of the young graduates and create high paying jobs, and so that transition is going to take a long time, beginning with support to the private sector, which is just not coming.
Hey, Shasatt, I wanted to ask about politics and what you're hearing on the ground about the way that people view the Chinese Communist Party and how economic issues economic challenges could lead to a challenge of their power.
Yeah. I tend to be very very bearish on the idea that the ongoing economic crisis and really is a multi crisis at this point, is going to threaten the long term control of either you know, President She or the Communist Party. I think there's been a lot of work done to consolidate power. There is nowhere nobody within the party today even who could challenge President She, let alone outside of the party, which is a very small probability event. I don't foresee the current economic challenges of
China stay thing as threatening the party's control. It may sour people on the party. I think China, you know, maybe may see more, you know, unrest, may see more protests building up, but I just don't think we're in a place where the party uses its controller it's even remotely front.
So soada, I have to go back to where you said the world would be better off of the Chinese economy that imports more. You know, increasingly, though it does feel like President she He is all about cultivating, developing
the domestic economy. I understand the import of that. How does though, I mean, companies have been clamoring for thirty forty decades to get into China and tap that domestic market, and it increasingly looks like anybody who's not a Chinese based company will not benefit much unless you're Elon Musk potentially, So I'm trying to understand how the world ultimately benefits at present, GE's goal is to produce domestically and then sell to its domestic you know, to sell to its people,
especially if it feel like the tensions that continue increasingly cut China off from the world.
You're certainly right about the fact that both of the American companies of Western corporations that have made long term China that actually has eventually, especially in the automotive industry, even I mean, you know, in Elon's facing a lot of problems with having to do pristcepts and so forth. Yes, they absolutely ultimately will lose market share to their domestic rivals with the states back. I think there are sectors where that is more true, and then there are public
sectors where that is less true. I don't see today the goal of the Communist Party to be this completely self serving type of entity where they produce and sell to themselves and they have no foreigner liance whatsoever. Done
That's not the model that we're looking at. So I think as China were to become, if China were to actually become a more prosperous country, bring down inequality levels, become a higher income country, they would be importing the kinds of services and not just actual goods, but you know other services that are the developed world today does if you look at the luxuries market, you could potentially
see that getting bigger. Obviously, we know that there are all sorts of reliance and even basic things like foodstuffs that China remains very much dependent on. So I think it's not even just China importing, but what is China importing. It's not just commodities and oil and iron ore, but other iron of all these.
Things, Shazad got to be really fast. Fifteen twenty seconds. What would make you get really nervous at maybe China's having its own great financial crisis? Be very quick.
If a range of these major developers are allowed to fail and fail completely, I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think we get a Leman moment or a great facial crisis in China. It's not a commercial sector. The stable step in to provide support, even if it's import So great to.
Check in with you.
Shazad Kazi, Managing director at China beise Book International, joining us on zoom Thank you so much.
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China's top leaders pledge this week to expand semester consumption. Support the private sector, support that you want. There's a lot going on. Bottom line, it is all about attempts to boost confidence in the Chinese economy as market sinc and concerns grow over the property market, continued concerns really and potential financial fallout as a result, and then growth
just continuing to disappoint in the Chinese economy. As we continue our discussions on the many challenges facing the People's Republic, we bring in a familiar voice to help us understand how things have gone so far away.
We've got back with us Dexter Roberts. He's Director of China Affairs at the Mansfield Center at the University of Montana. He's also an award winning journalist former Bloomberg a BusinessWeek China Bureau chief. His book The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, The Worker, the Factory, and the Future of the World, was chosen as one of the Economists Best Book of the Year for twenty twenty. Very pleased to have him
back with us, joining us from Missoula, Montana. Well, you know, whenever we got you back, we know that it's because there's something big going on in China, and this has been happening for a while, and if we wanted you to get back with us for a while. We spent some time with Shazadkazi earlier from China Baige book, give us, you know the thirty thousand foot view here, somebody who spent so much time in China. What your impression now
is a former insider now an outsider. What you're seeing happen and what you're hearing from your sources on the ground.
Yeah, well, I think what China's really dealing with with all this bad economic news we're hearing is trying to work out some serious structural challenges. So this is not cyclical, by the way, means that the latest surprise rate cut on Tuesday, I'm not confident is going to help much. So China's in the midst of this is from the ten thousand feet up, It's in the midst of this transition from its previous investment and debt driven economic model to one they hope would be much more driven by
household consumption, and they are really struggling with that. Confidence amongst counsels and amongst companies is a huge challenge. Still today it actually mirrors.
Very much so what Shazad said to us, this whole idea, the world would be so much better with the Chinese economy that imports more and that you have this domestic economy that is spending a domestic home front, if you will, that is spending more on stuff kind of maybe more to some of the developed world. So tif many of us are outsiders, haven't spent the time in China like you have.
We see these.
Headline it feels like a lot. It feels like, you know, we're hearing about the potential for Chinese contagion. How do you think we should be smart in terms of reading these headlines?
Well, I think one thing we have to keep in mind is that as long as the leadership in Beijing, and I'm thinking particularly the very top leaders in chi Jinping continue to have this focus on politicizing the economy and basically masterminding from above how they want things to change, and that includes the latest and the latest news about more instructions to investment bankers, economists and company officials to make sure they don't say negative things about the economy.
But then obviously this extends much further into the economy. As long as they keep doing that, I think these changes we see, you know, on a weekly, monthly basis, are not going to make a lot of difference. And by the way, that politicization of the economy has huge repercussions within China as well. We see it with this, We've hit with wealthy people voting with their feed if you will, and trying to move broad including moving their capital abroad.
But does it actually move the needle when it comes to the power that the Chinese Communist Party has, Shazad said, no, it doesn't.
Well, I think that's the issue. The Communist Party is more powerful than it has been in literally decades. I was there for almost twenty five years, and I never saw anything like this, even as the Communist Party did interfere in the economy. But they're really they've moved it, moved it to a whole new level of medaling, if you will, in the economy. And I think that's a reality we're going to be dealing with for quite a while as long as we have Shi Jumping continued to be in charge here.
A company that is constantly meddled in to me, maybe has limits ultimately, especially if you're trying to attract investors or outside investors. Maybe China doesn't need outside investors, I mean, will it ultimately, I mean, does it need to be kind of part of the open world capitalistic society or can it just do it on its own?
I think that it cannot do it on its own, and unfortunately, the top leadership seems to think that they can. They talk a lot about self reliance and thinking that they can go it alone, but they really can't. I mean, we've seen this with the Biden administration's policies and restrictions on the advanced semiconductor industry. These really really hurt China. China needs the world, needs the technology, needs the investment technology in particular to keep moving up the value chain
and technology and particularly things like advanced semiconductors. And so I don't think they can go a go it alone at this point at all.
Hey, So when you know, Tim and I talked earlier because this story kind of struck me, and we know it's been coming because it's not new. But the Apple supplier Fox Con beginning iPhone and fifteen products in India really ramping up efforts. We see stuff like that. Is that exactly what China wants because they want to be on a higher plane in terms of technology. They don't want to be just manufacturing everything. So is that okay?
Or is that something that's going to be problematic for China short term, longer term, I don't know.
I think that China is very aware of the value of having global supply chains run through China, and as companies like Apple turn to other places like India and move more production there is that is a concern of Beijing. So they you know that the very low end things, they already left your textiles and your toys, and China was very happy to see that go as it moved
to Southeast Asia a decade ago. But if you look at big companies like Apple, and I think that at that point China's thinking this is very important to us. They also happen to be, of course, huge employers. Fox Con is the biggest private employer in China.
Interesting to see the iPhone fifteen news and I mean, look, and we know that that fox Con has been building handsets and products in India for a few years now, but to see him take a flagship product like this, the iPhone fifteen, and start production on that in India is certainly a really big deal tiff. Okay, so let's talk about contagion here. To what extent should the world be concerned that stresses on the Chinese economy are going to spill out across its borders.
I think we, unfortunately do need to be very worried China. You know, for the first time in well other than one month at the beginning of the pandemic, it was the first time since a global financial crisis back in two thousand and nine, we see deflation both in consumer prices and factory gate prices last month, and China, I think is that you know, China has is is going
to export deflation to the world. We had Janet Yellen say recently that the Chinese economy was a quote risk factor for the US economy the fifth corporate profits around the world.
So you're writing a front page story today on China. What's the headline?
The headline is surprise Rake doesn't convince global market China downward spiral continues.
Nicely said, Wow, okay, great.
I've experienced as a journalist, an award.
Winning one at that, Tiff, thank you so much, Always appreciated. Dexter Roberts Tiff Roberts, director of China Fairs at the Mansfield Center at the University of Montana. As we said, award winning journalist, former Bloomberg Business Week, China be You Our Chief. His book out in twenty twenty, The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, The Worker, the Factory, in the Future of the World.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Up next, we look at how US economic sanctions are weighing on one of its chief rival's most important tech companies, even as both confront a common threat.
The challenge of trying to not be distracted from the mission of cybersecurity, progress, assurance the geopolitics by the pressure there needs to be these kinds of strong standards in independent testing for anybody, because the band guys can hack into everyone. So we cannot put our guard down by thinking, well,
we've blocked companies from this country. That's not going to make a safer and so we have to make sure that we reduce the risk on a continuous basis, hopefully on a global basis with our colleagues around the world.
Huawei USA's chief security officer Andy Perdy on where the world's two superpowers can meet in the middle that conversation on the other side, This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern listen on Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app and the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Earlier this month, Wilwei Technology is reported a third straight quarter of sales growth after new businesses such as cloud services and a resurgent smartphone unit helped mitigate the fallout from US sanctions, and.
As the company tries to revive its high end device business, it's also being forced to navigate an increasingly fractised US China relationship. For more on how the company is handling these ongoing tensions, we turn to Huawei USA's Chief security officer, Andy Purdy, who is also once a White House staffer in a US Department of Homeland Security official.
Well, I think the way I would like to see an approach to these issues globally is to try to consider what's in the best interests in the United States, and a number of these issues, such as what kinds of products can be sold to what companies, can be fairly complex because there can be a risk that one can cut off your nose despite your face and really
can threaten American jobs. So we've been interested in talking to the US government for some years, but right now it's really a global situation and we have colleagues around the world. I've spoken to several in Europe that the challenge of trying to not be distracted from the mission of cybersecurity progress assurance by the geopolop by the pressure there needs to be these kinds of strong standards in independent testing for anybody, because the bad guys can hack
into everyone. So we cannot put our guard down by thinking, well, we've blocked companies from this country. That's not going to make a safer and so we have to make sure that we reduce the risk on a continuous basis, hopefully on a global basis with our colleagues around the world.
It's a US about business for you guys, right, because it hurts business to have these sanctions by the US.
Yeah, we had about a thirty billion dollars hit in our revenue a couple of years ago when they blocked the five G chips from being allowed to be sold from American companies to Huawei. So our consumer devices took basically a permanent hit, and so we have regrouped. We've raised our research and development up to twenty five percent of our close revenues, and so we're investing in digital transformation the intelligent world five G and AI, not generative AI,
chat gipt, but AI for business for industry. We believe that going forward, ninety percent of all ALI will be industrial and some agriculture, and only two percent will be consumers. So we're working with partners around the world to help bring about digital transformation of industry and industry sectors with partners, and AI is a big part of it.
Do you just move on?
I mean, you guys already have right in terms of the restrictions because of those US sanctions, whether it's you making your own design tools for processor chips, I mean, you just have to kind of move on because you don't know whether or not things are going to get warmer and fuzzier between the US and China.
That's right.
We're not going to look back. We're not going to particularly complain about it either. And the excitement of working with our partners and customers around the world. There's a whole lot of places in the world that want to do business with us, a whole lot of places in
the world. They're going to benefit. And our partners know that we don't make money unless they make money, So bringing these new technologies in smart mining and ports and healthcare, in transportation, smart cities, and frankly, green energy, reducing the carbon footprint using technology not just limiting access to fossil fuels, but technology that can help reduce the carbon footprint and create greater capacity for green energy, both in creation, in transmission,
and storage. So yeah, we're not looking back, we're looking forward and it's an exciting future.
Andy, you're in DC and I can imagine the conversations that you're having with either regulators or lawmakers. How would you describe the environment between US and China Right now?
We're just a small player in a large world, and we're a privately owned company. We can't affect those issues. We are just going to move forward doing what we're doing, working with our customers in about one hundred and seventy countries and helping them meet the requirements of government in their various parts of the world. Of course, at the global level, we hope we can find common ground and help reduce the toxic political environment somewhat.
That was Hiawa USA Chief Security Officer Andy Perty. To hear our full conversation with Andy head on over to our podcast feed that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Coming up in our next hour, our domestic cover story details a cryptocurrency scam for the ages.
Plus our undercover reporting expert Guru. There's a lot of names we like to call him anyway, he takes us inside one of the world's most exclusive travel hotspots and reveals the secrets of the Mediterranean version of Pleasure Island. This is Bloomberg Business Week.
I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stanaveex. Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up.
Right now. You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Easter on.
Bloomberg Radio, the Bloomberg Business App, and YouTube.
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In our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, we are jeweling down on tech use both for good and for bad, as well as travel, including what our intrepid reporter Brandon Presser learned working as a night life fixer in Abisa or Abitha. What do you say?
I say Abisa Abisa because I'm you know, not cool y. I did live in Spain for a semestery, but still, you know, I don't want to butcher it.
We're going to take you there. It's a great story, you know, things like helicopters to and from and hangover cures with ivy injections and making sure there is lots and lots and lots of champ champagne.
That champagne're talking about.
Brandon takes us there because he that was his job undercover.
Plus, with summer starting to slip away, we're going to get some tips on booking your next trip and when might be the best time to secure the lowest possible airfares.
Sign me up first up this hour. This week's Domestic cover story excerpted from an upcoming book from Bloomberg News investigative reporter Zeke Fox. It's due out in September. It's a must read for anyone interested in the global knock on effects of what turned out to be a multi trillion dollar financial delusion.
And sadly, the monetary fallout is only part of the story Zeke uncovers in his book It's called Number Up. Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall. We get a sneak peek from the author himself as well as the editor of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Joel Weber.
This is an amazing excerpt. I'm so excited for Zeke in this book, Number Go Up. You can pre order your copy right now on Amazon dot com. Right Zeke, And uh, this is a little sneak peak of where some of the book goes. And we're just so tickled to have it as an excerpt in this current issue and as our cover story. And you know, we're talking about Zeke here, and you know, it all begins with this text that he got from a person named, quote unquote Vicky.
Who is Vicky?
And what text did you get?
Zeke?
Yeah, so Vicky gave me it, sent me a text out of nowhere saying like, Hi, David, how's it going or something like that, And like, I'm not David, obviously, so I've been getting a lot of these. I'm been kind of curious about that. So I decided to me.
Yeah, Tim says he gets like Carol, get them. Yeah, I ignored delete reporter spam if you can, right, but you you wrote back, Yeah, And the.
First part of this like it's probably about what you would assume. Where Vicky she tries to make friends with me. She's flirting a little bit, She's sending me suggestive pictures, and she's like a beautiful, heavily airshed young woman who claims to be in New York like me, but does not want to meet up, and none of her pictures actually look like she's in New York. And I'm waiting for her to try to scam me because I wanted
to know how it works. And it takes like days before she's very patient before her true mission comes out, and she starts telling me about how good she is at bitcoin trading. And then finally, after like a lot of trying, she's like, okay, I'll let you in on it. Download this app and send me some of this cryptocurrency called tetor.
What I love about it though, is how how slow she is. It's like, I mean, and this comes through in the excerpt, is like you're like encouraging her along to like, come on, get to the point where you're trying to scam me.
I even I had to tell her that, like I really wanted a tesla, like I need to make money, like she just she was really wanted to make sure I was hooked before she went for the scam.
So I sent her.
Tether is like a it's a stable coin. It always costs a dollar because it's supposedly backed by real dollars in the bank. And you can go on any of your normal crypto apps like coinbase or crypto dot com or whatever, you can buy tether and then you send them to VICKI at her supposedly like magic cooin trading app, and so all that involves is getting Vicky said. Vicky
gave me her address. I mean, she walked me through it very carefully, and I sent her one hundred tethers from like a normal trading app to her special app where I was going to make this like big score. But as soon as I sent it, she started telling me like I need to send more, at which point I felt like it had gone far enough. I told her I was a reporter, and she disappeared. But the part where the story gets really dark and really weird is when I tried to figure out who is on
the other end of these messages. Like, who could Vicky B.
I want to slow you down before I let you go there, Uh the great revel Yeah, which, that's it, right, you know part of what the book is so much bigger than just this. Right, keep in mind this is an excerpt, and Zike, I do want to just like back up for a second and talk about how you ended up having this book at all.
Well, I was I was hoping that I was hoping that you would because good this really started. This started, like you know, it's almost two years ago, maybe even a little more than two years ago. Joel came by my desk and I had not been reporting on crypto at all. I tend to write about like weird stuff going on on Wall Street, but I sort of resisted crypto as a topic. Like most of you listening to this you probably feel like I'm never going to get it and like the constant like boosterism is kind of
a turn off. But Joel said, hey, what do you know about stable coins like tether? And I thought, huh, I mean, maybe like this wants I mean, if Joel wants the story, it might be kind of fun to look into it. But I'm sure that neither of us had any idea where looking into Tether was was going to take us.
Now, certainly not me. And we've had you know, great reporting from Zeke on Tether and more of Crypto along the way, because the Tether part is ultimately this other side of your story about you know, quote unquote Vicky takes you and I will say, this is where it gets dark. We've been kind of laughing. Ha ha ha, it gets dark really quickly here, Zeke. And why don't you take us to this human rights catastrophe that you discovered? Yeah, on the other side of the world.
The truth, as I learned through activists and reporters on the ground in Southeast Asia, is that the people who send these text messages are themselves often victims of human trafficking. And there's whole office buildings of people who've been learned to say, like Cambodia is a popular spot for this, and they've been lured there with the promise of a good job. Once they arrive, they're trapped and they're forced to scam people under with the threat of beatings or
torture or even worse. And it sounds like some sort of like QAnon conspiracy thing, but like it's real These messages are often coming from people who are suffering like horrible abuses and can't leave unless they pay essentially like a large ransom to the gangsters that run these scam compounds.
Can you Zeke talk about who you met in Ho Chiman City and how he was able to escape from this one of these sort of prison like structures.
Over a video chat with the translator. I started interviewing people who had escaped from these compounds. One of them, his name is Twee. He's twenty nine years old. The first time we speak on Zoom's it's like a rainy night in Ho Chi Minh City. He's walking down the street smoking a cigarette. I can see that he's missing quite a few teeth, and he tells me that these were he lost them in like a horrible beating by
his captors, and it was truly a desperate situation. He'd been tricked into, tricked into going to Cambodia, and he was only able to escape by stealing a guard's phone then hiding it in his rectum, which was a trick that he'd learned in prison. Then and like he's telling me this stuff and it's it's pretty hard to believe.
He told me that he was able to take the phone apart with no tools, and then since he didn't have a charger, he hot wired the battery to a fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling of the room where he's being held. So he had been a great source of information about these schemes and about these scam compounds and Cambodia. But I wasn't quite sure about this part of the story. So I went to Hochi Mi in
the city. I met him. With him, I told him like tweet like, I'm so sorry for what's happened to you. I hate to say this though, but like, is that even really possible to charge an iPhone like that and with no hesitation? Well, he said, uh yeah, he said, I'll show you right now, went to the store, bought like a old iPhone for about fifty bucks, and with no hesitation, he took it apart, took apart a lamp an led light bulb in my room hotel room, wired it to the battery and God should turn on.
So it was so you can do that.
Incredibly impressed.
We have about a minute left here, Zeke, and there's we know so much more in your book but this particular excerpt, I mean, how does it make you think kind of about you know, this the crypto world where we are a lot of questions out there.
To me, this is like the one I looked all over the world from like El Salvador, Philippines, Bahamas, everywhere I went. Crypto was not really living up to the hype here. Sadly, it was extremely useful for these scammers, and to me it explained it could. These types of illicit uses could explain a big part of Crypto's continued popularity in the face of like so many reasons to avoid it.
Now our thanks to Bloomberg News investigative reporter Zeke Fox and Bloomberg business Week editor Joe Weber. Zeke's new book Number Go Up, Inside Crypto's wild Rise and Staggering Fall, is due for release in September.
You're listening to Bloomberg business Week. Coming up, we've spotlight an organization that's bringing opportunity and education to young women and underrepresented groups in the field of computer science, the.
Team from Code with Class on its mission to inspire a love for technology in young people. That's next.
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Get this get a number free, mister, stand of it. Okay, less than twenty percent of undergraduate computer science degrees go to women, less than twenty percent, and that data is coming from the National Science Foundation, So that means four out of every five degrees, four out of every five in an industry already dominated by men. Have you seen the barbiemovie Anybody go to Men? And our next guests trying to change it and get more young women and individuals into coding.
Yeah, very pleased to have with us this afternoon. Oz Emiokparia, the CEO of Code with CLASSI. Also with us is kwk's content and community coordinator, Alexis Williams. KWK is a nonprofit organization. It receives funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies, the philanthropic arm of Bloomberg LP. It is the parent company of Bloomberg Radio. Oz I want to start with you just talk to us a little about this organization because it's doing some really important work.
Yeah. So COVID CLASSI started in twenty fifteen and is the brainchild of our founder, Carly Klass. So for those who are familiar, Carli Class is an incredible entrepreneur, supermodel, philanthropist, and she started this organization back in twenty fifteen based on her own personal experience learning how to code and noticing when she lifted her head up from the keyboard
that there weren't other women in the room. And so she used her platform, as she has done many a time, to reach out to her audience and say who else would want to have this co V experience? And she was overwhelmed by the response from her audience. Twenty one scholarship positions and she had thousands of people interested, and that was the germ for Code with Closi back in twenty fifteen.
And so here we are eight years later.
And we now have over ten thousand young people in our alumni community. And this summer we are about to wrap up our biggest summer ever, sixty two camps, almost five thousand scholarships awarded, and we're kind of on a role I want to bring Alexi cinemament.
But tell us about those alumni eight years that's a big chunk of individuals and time invested. What are they doing now? What are you hearing about that alumni base.
Yeah, so our oldest cohort of alumni who went through our summer programming started in twenty sixteen, and so those folks are now twenty twenty five years old. So they are graduating from university, they're getting their first jobs all the way through the cohort that we have this summer, who are some of our youngest scholars the summer thirteen and so when they complete this program, they will join
our global community. And so they're doing a range of things from you know, giving ted talks like Alexis has done, or winning science challenges. We had a winner of the Apple Swift Student Challenge. So they're really just sort of incredibly applying their skills and continuing to sort of pursue their passion in tech.
Alexis, come on in on the work that you guys are doing and just kind of building out this community and what you are seeing.
Yeah, I just think one of the most amazing things about Code with CLASSI is so many people are interested in engineering in general, but I feel like it sounds something so you know, difficult and challenging. But the work that Code with Classi does is really demystifying that idea of what is an engineer, What does it mean to make an app? What does it mean to make a website?
So it's really amazing to offer this opportunity to a bunch of young people to have that demystified, to make their first apps, to make their first websites, because I think that's like one of the first steps into showing people who have been pushed to the margins like engineering, that it's not only possible, but there are a group of people out there that are more than willing and able to support them. And that's why the work that Code with Colossi does.
Is we talk so much about inclusivity, and when you said push to the margins, tell us about some of the individuals, like who is actually participating in the program? Because I agree with you, I hear more and more when we talk about diversity, it's about inclusion, feeling like you're belonging in that if you know, you might be curious, but you're just like I don't belong Yeah.
So Code with Colossi opens its doors to young women, gender expansive youth and trans kids, and really it's one of the first places where I talk to scholars all the time, they're like, this is the first place I've
felt welcome and accepted. And that is honestly more important than being able to learn how to code, like having it be a space having code with CLASSI be a space where this is one of the first times people are walking into a room and feel like they're being received with open arms is so important.
We talk about tim and I have so many different co about diversity inclusion. We do it with women in venture capital and lack of funding and so on and so forth. But you know, there needs to be these important, big steps that are game changing, life changing, that really make a difference.
And I think it's what's interesting is I think there's diversity on a lot of dimensions. About half of our scholars qualify for free and reduced lunch, so we have socioeconomic diversity. We also have folks that come in actually knowing how to code. So to Alexis's point, what they are coming for is not just the rigor of the
skill building, but also the inclusion and acceptance. And so we're finding this really interesting mix of people that you wouldn't necessarily find out in the world naturally gravitating into these same spaces. Again, eighty percent of our scholars are people of color, so you know, not only gender and diversity, socioeconomic, skill level, political spectrum. We are sort of a space that welcomes all in terms of trying to crack open the door to a community.
I want to talk to you, Ozie about the way that your own experience at some the biggest company, some of the biggest tech companies in the world, kind of shaped the kind of leader you are today.
Did you always feel like you belonged?
Well, that's what I'm wondering. I mean, you were at Google for years, you were at EBA for years, you were in the not for profit space at the John Zuckerberg Initiative before this, talk to me a little bit about I don't know your experience and what you want to bring to the table, like carolss did you did you always feel accepted?
Well?
I think that's I think that's why I was so drawn to the COVID classy opportunity. So I joined COVID COLOSSI back in March. So I'm coming up on six months and so I have lived experience as a black woman in tech and often the only one in many of these rooms, and I think, you know, I definitely
did not always feel accepted. I think there was a tipping point in my career where you feel like you have built your craft and understand your skills well enough to sort of feel comfortable in rooms, but you definitely build to that. It's not something that you sort of
walk in the door having or knowing. But I think what that experience taught me is that we not only have to focus on upskilling the individual and providing incredible programs like we do at COVID Classy, but we also have to think about what are the systems that prevent people from being successful. So I would claim that I'm quite credentialed right Stanford undergrad master's degree.
Like so all the credential underachiever.
But still found challenges. So it's not about the individual talent.
There are also hurdles that are systemic, and so really thinking about that holistically is what we are going to do in the next eight years of Code with Colossi's path is to say we're doing an incredible job of sparking the interest of a new generation, but what are we doing with companies like Bloomberg and others to really think about the systems on the other side, what are the practices around hiring and retention and promotion that are really going to create opportunities for people.
Well, and you know we've often talked about this with just women. I'm just going to be very basic in terms of you know, women come in men at a college, they start at the same level, and then as they start to go up the last it gets very very different. So where's the support network for that? Alexis come on back and it's a two week summer camp. I want to see if I've got the numbers right. Sixty two camps, forty in person in twenty cities, twenty two virtual. It's
like massive thirteen to eighteen year olds. So what do they do in those two weeks?
So basically we have four different curriculums where a scholars are learning the basics two different curriculums like mobile applications, Web development, AIML, data science, and it's a short two week period, so they're learning really basics and getting to build off of that basics that they learn in the first week with a final project in the second week.
So it's important that they're setting down, yeah, and getting their education, but then they get to actually put it into practice and then at the end of camp show their peers, show their families the great things that they're making.
What's the youngest age that somebody can can join thirteen and.
So what I think is remarkable again you know, diversity and age range. You have thirteen year olds who step up their game to be in the room with eighteen year olds who are also learning these skills, and it's again it's an application not only the hard skills, but some of the what I call twenty first century leadership skills around collaboration and critical thinking and creativity that are
really also applied in that final project as well. So it really is incredible to see thirteen year olds sort of hanging tough there.
Our thanks to Code with class e ceo oc Inmeokaparia and its content community coordinator Alexis Williams.
Still to come on Bloomberg Business Week, there is still time to get some summer travel in and so next half hour we go behind the scenes, have a beta's Ultracompetitive Conciers circuit.
And talk about why airline ticket prices are actually falling well, at least for now. In the US.
This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen.
On Bloomberg dot Com, the iHeartRadio app.
And the Bloomberg Business app, or watch just Low I've on YouTube time.
For Bloomberg pursuits and this week's opener includes another riveting and funny tail of the reporter that goes behind the scenes. We always look forward to what he does. He works at exclusive spas on cruise ships at Disney World, at Lax, New York's Plaza Hotel. He gets the inside scoop and finds out what exactly goes on.
Well.
This time around, Brandon Presser spent a week working as a concierge at a luxury villa booking agency in at Bitha. Do I say that right, Brandon.
In your place?
Okay?
This is where week long rentals can easily reach well over three hundred thousand dollars. Brandon joins us along with Bloomberg News Travels are Nikki Eckstein Nikki. Every time we think Brandon can't pull off another one of these inside jobs, he outdoes himself yet again, this time in the island of Abitha.
I feel the same way. I feel like we've been doing this serious first six or seven years now, and every time that we come up with a new idea is just boggles my mind. The extent to words Brandon commits to these jobs and digs up the craziest stories ever imaginable.
All right, this was definitely a slice of a very different life from mine. So Brandon, come on in. You are actually at an airport as we're talking, because you're constantly traveling in on the road. Tell us about what you did in Abitha.
Well, this one, this one was really interesting because what I like to do is I like to focus on sort of the averages and the extremes, because you know, when you go behind the curtain of hospitality, both of those things are really interesting. But on an island it sort of becomes this pressure cooker. So there was a lot of really interesting social dynamics and status anxiety that was at play as well.
Who are these people who are spending three hundred grand for a week on Abiza?
Come on, Tim, you did that last week, didn't you.
It's because you in your piece. You of like it's it's like a kind of a diverse group of very wealthy people, like executives from Apple have been there. Who who else is there?
I mean it's every celebrity and influential person imaginable. And I think in the way that you think of wearing like an a low hush shirt to Hawaii, everyone dresses in this sort of boho chic. Everyone puts on their cosplaying macro mat and linen and ratan and really gets into the vibe.
I haven't been somewhere at my home that's full of that kind of stuff. All right, Nikki, come on back in here. So, when you knew that this was the assignment for Brandon, what is it that you wanted to know? Tell us about kind of you know, the conversations back and forth here, Well, you know, it's always.
Really funny because people will assume that we just want to kind of dig up the dirt wherever we go, and almost the opposite is true. What we're really looking for is what we call service heroics. Between the two of us, we're really trying to shine a light on how hard the hospitality industry works to make everybody happy, even when what they want is completely ludicrous and would make you just drop your jaw to the floor. Okay, but there are people who that's their job to take it and deliver.
Okay.
Speaking of completely ludicrous, Brandon, I wonder.
Where you're going to go because there's a lot of ludacris here.
I'm going to the nieces. The nieces, who are the nieces and the nephews the nieces.
Well, the origin story is at this wonderful hotel, the Sergio On Hotel, very close to the patcha nightclub. There was a man a few years ago who arrived at the hotel with five beautiful women, and he introduced them to the staff as his nieces, and the moniker stuck. So anytime that there's an individual who comes to the hotel that isn't staying at the hotel, whether it be for thirty minutes or three hours or for the whole night, they are lovingly referred to as nieces or nephews.
You always see that in movies too. Right now, it's like it's my niece. Wait wait, wait what you're eighty and she's twenty. Okay, tell us about also, Brandon, some of the kind of crazy things you did, I know that there was lots of champagne, there was the DJ. Let's go there because the DJ apparently it's not only about David Solomon at Goldman the DJ being god. It's apparently that you went there, Carroll, Well, didn't we all.
Think it of?
Like?
I wonder if like on the side anyway, tell us about the DJs, Brandon, Well.
I think the interesting thing is that, you know, there's all of these complicated personalities all over the island, but the DJ is God. Everyone worships the DJ, and I thought it was really interesting that when I was asking a lot of people through the bookings, you know, what are the biggest requests that the DJ's asked for. It turns out they're all pretty low key. None of them
really drink. They all have kids. They kind of just hang out in their villas with their wives, you know, and then they go on stage at three in the morning and do their thing. But they're actually sort of the least dva e of all the people that I encountered, which I thought was kind of fun.
What about when it comes to what people are eating.
What people are well, it's more white people are drinking.
Yeah, well, Carol already went into I mean, we didn't talk about the bathtub full of champagne, but.
It's lots of bubbly.
One of the most interesting things about being on the island was all the things that were unset and probably the things that I need to leave unseid here.
Okay, fuel, that's our Brandon presser after dark, but we'll get that later.
Yeah, go ahead that we'll get you through the night.
Fuel. That will get you through the night.
Okay, So get it, Nikki.
Come on, and when you read through Brandon's story, I mean, like, what was it that just you were like, oh my god, this is incredible.
Well, I have to tell you, guys, what publishes ultimately in the magazine is what burndon like two thousand words at most and maybe twenty five hundred words. Brandon will file these incredible digests to me that clock in at some like six seven thousand words. What I'm trying to say is that there is so much gold left on the cutting room floor, and I wish that we could go through all of it. But I think my favorite highlights are the bathtub of champagne, a literal bathtub of champagne.
By the way, it starts at four thousand euro. If you're curious, maybe that's something you want to do. And I do love the food stories about people who think they're so fancy partying in Abisa, but really all they want is frozen pizza and like boodles and boodles of McDonald's. I just thought the juxtaposion of these things was absolutely hilarious.
All right, So what I want to know too, Brandon, is like, yeah, there's tons of people, two million vacationers that arrive on the island right each summer. A lot of people summer, A lot of them are regulars. Regulars. Is there like something you do that's like you're just like totally like, I got this, I know how this works. And then you can tell the people who just don't have a clue.
Yeah, you know, I was asking a lot of insiders on the island, people who live there, are spent majority of the year there, how do you tell the difference between the dress up and the real deal locals? And a new friend that I made on the island, he told me that the bigger that theer the brat. This is something that got rough on the cutting room floor, but I just thought it'd be really fun to include right now. And essentially the more you dress up, the more of a faker you are.
Oh so dressed down, like if you're like full of like labels and brands, like people are like, yeah, you're not the real thing?
Is that fair?
Ye?
Like he invited a crypto guru over to his villa to have dinner and he showed up with a hat so large it looked like a flying saucer.
Maybe that's just how they do things in crypto land, Brandon, What about you know, showing up to a party and trying to get in if you don't actually have an RSVP.
Well, so at the big clubs, you know, it's really just a swipe of a credit card. I mean you're looking at clubs out of a capacity of five, six, seven thousand people. But then there's all these different ways to get in. There's you know, if you're working on a BIS that you can actually get a worker's permanent it's basically a free pass to get in into of the clubs when you're off duty. And then you have
these guest lists, and then there's the industry lists. So there's really all of these permutations for access, all right.
Nikki We're saving the last question for you to get ask Brendan because you know this story inside and out. What do you want to ask him? As we get ready to wrap up?
Oh God, why do I want to ask Brandon? Would you go back to Abisa ever again? In your whole entire life?
No, I don't think so.
I think that I had such a special and uniquely weird experience that I kind of want to live in that fantasy forever. And I think we need to do one of these amikonos next year.
Oh, NIC's a good idea, and we'll carry your luggage. Hey, I do have actually one tiny, little last question. If you did go back to Abitha and you went to the concierge service, what would you ask them? Because you know that they will do just about anything.
For the ultimate in Abusa Ax, you want a lounger edge, Gen Dahal, And so that would be the first thing that I would do, and just spend the day drinking a bloody marry edge and doll and watching all the other people experience their payings of status anxiety.
What's John Dahal Just quickly.
Very very cool beach club, the It's spot of the summer and not in.
A big hat, right, because a big hat is a really big brad. We love, we Love, we Love. Another gem from the mind an undercover mastery of Bloomberg contributor Brandon Presser. Check out his latest work. It's the opener of this week's pursued section of Bloomberg Business Week. Find it online on newsstands on the terminal. Great artwork as well to accompany this piece, as always are thanks to Brandon, and of course Bloomberg News Travels are editor Nikki x Teime.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, we got more on travel, not necessarily so pricing when we talked three hundred thousand dollars a week. Villa stays in Atbiza, but you know, more travel. Nonetheless, Tim, it's Abitha, Abitha, I'm sorry, all right.
We're just trying to get an airfare that won't break the bank. Something much more down to earth. That story is coming up next. This is Bloomberg.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from three to six Eastern Listen on.
Bloomberg dot com, the iHeartRadio app, and the Bloomberg Business app or watch US Live on YouTube.
The latest USCPI print showed that inflation was held down in part last month by declining airfare prices. So yay, we can finally finally afford airline tickets which have shut up on all of the travel demand, especially for overseas travel.
Well to talk travel trends, airline ticket prices, and more, we welcome back to the program. Haley Berg, lead economist at the travel app Hopper.
When we look at the domestic market, a lot of what we're seeing this year is being driven by increased capacity from airlines. We typically see a pretty tight relationship between fares and how many seats are available to book. Right now, we're above twenty nineteen levels. There are more seats available to book on detic airlines now than there
were at this time in twenty nineteen. That, combined with better jet fuel prices down significantly from last year, still a ways to go compared to twenty n eighteen, and demanded opening up to international destinations, all has combined and
has really added to a seasonal effect. Typically fares drop at this time of the year, but that's being compounded by this increase in supply shift in demand and some relief fun costs, and that's how we end up with prices about ten percent lower than last year and versus twenty nineteen.
So did the international tickets are they just like totally exempt from this? We're saying because since demand is so high, International is continuing to be expensive.
International remains extremely expensive on long haul routes. Think fares to Asia well over fourteen hundred dollars up almost sixty percent economy. That would be an average what we call a good deal price, so at economy based economy ticket pretty much anything excluding first or business.
Okay, all right, so Asian? What about Europe? Specifically?
Europe was very expensive this summer, peaks over fourteen hundred dollars a ticket, But we have seen significant improvement in the last couple of weeks. Some of that is seasonal, some of that is supply. Airlines have gotten back to about ninety seven percent of twenty nineteen capacity, so we have seen demand shift back international. If it feels like everyone you know is in Italy, it's because they probably are.
Feel like the third person, like the third person to say that to me, everybody's going. But if you open up Instagram apparently where's the place to go? Sicily? Is it like the because of the white Lotus.
We are definitely seeing some what we call set jetting, so Palermo and Tara Mina in Sicily are very popular. But then some of the usual suspects we see, the Amalfi Coast rome and Milan like Como very popular at this time of year.
So what happens? Does it stay this way or then once we start to get closer to holidays it starts we start to see an uptick on the domestic front.
We have a couple more weeks of these low fares. We're expecting them to bottom out this month, and then they'll start rising in late September early October when travelers are starting to plan those trips for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and we'll see them rise back to reach about pre pandemic levels. In December, we'll pretty much match where we were in twenty nineteen and twenty twenty two in December about too eighty a ticket if you're booking something.
At the end of the year.
Okay, so when should we be booking for holidays?
Not yet?
It's too Really, I think it's true, really getting everyone is feeling trigger happy. But the sweet spot for booking your trips home for the holidays is actually from about September fourteenth to October fourteenth, So that four week window at the end of September and early October, fares for trips home for the holidays they start incredibly high in the summer. You'd be paying about twenty percent more than previous years if you booked right now. But if you wait,
they're going to come down during that sweet spot. That's really when you want to book.
That was Hailey Berg, lead economist at the travel app Hopper.
That wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
Be sure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday starting at three pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio and on Sirius XM channel one nineteen.
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Find our Bloomberg BusinessWeek Podcast at Bloomberg dot com, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. The latest edition of the magazine is available on newsstands now, at Bloomberg dot com and always on the Bloomberg Terminal. I'm Tim Stinebeck and I'm Carol Masser. Have a good and safe weekend, everybody.
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