This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Welcome to the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Over the next couple of hours, we're gonna bring you news of the week, insights from the magazine and more. And Jason, it was week working from home, although I did go to the office for the first time this week since March.
So our world is slowly reopening with starts and stops, as we know, especially if you look at our schools and colleges and universities. We're going to talk about that. A lot of backtracking, as you know. But you also are back from vacation. You got on a plane. I got on a plane and came right back into quarantine. So a couple of steps forwards and a few steps back. Uh. Yeah, it's sort of an amazing world that we're living in
right now. You can move around to a point, and we talked about all of that with so many of our guests across the show this week. What we've seen is the confluence of two pandemics. More House College President David Thomas, he talked to us about the dual crises facing this kind tree and why his school is going all online for the fall, plus how Carnival is navigating the financial waves caused by the pandemic. We begin with
this week's issue, a double issue, the vaccine issue. Bloomberg News Markets and E t F reporter Claire Balantine and the editor of the magazine, Joel Webber, joined us to talk about Wall Street's view on what a vaccine could do to markets. Joe kicks it off. We put all of our muscle on into this vaccine issue double issue, and one of the things that you know is just uniquely Bloomberg I think, is is you know, bringing it
back to the markets. And one of the questions that we sort of put to the equities team was sort of like, okay, well, if there is a vaccine at some point, um, what does that mean? What what what will that do for for markets? Would there be a bump or would that bump be short lived or or would there be no bump um? And that was sort
of where we left it. It was just an open ended invite to the equities team, and Claire kind of picked that that up and and Claire like you came up with a couple of scenarios that UM, that people thought could be likely. What what were they? The first is sort of a new taper tantrum UM, with the idea that the stead which has really stepped in and helped UM stabilized markets, begins to slowly kind of draw back.
That really worries people. And we see sort of the new taper tantrum UM, which would obviously be be very negative. UM could see stocks and bonds falling. UM. That's sort of you know, uh maybe worst case, what else could happen?
So Claire, just let me interrupt if I can't remind us what a taper tantrum really is, because we've seen this before, and just remind us what that looks like to to an everyday investor, and not to be confused a temper tantrum that helped you with with some of our bosses or spouses or whatever, my two year old or you're a two year old. Well yeah, they have they have some similarities, true, some some fear um. You know,
because the set has really supportive markets. You know what happens when they take away that helping hand, and a lot of it isn't driven by what has actually happened. It's more just the fear of that. UM. So in that case, could see stocks and bonds falling in tandem a possibility, you know, not definitely, not inevitable or anything like that. So what I think and I love number two, UM, because I feel like, if anything, the fet isn't going to rush away anytime soon. But talk to us a
little bit about the second scenario here. Yeah, so we sort of um that came up with the phrase to call this the supercharge status quo. So this means that you know, a vaccine is successfully introduced, the markets very happy about that, and you know, market goes up um, and people are saying that that you know, could happen for obvious reasons, but also because the FED isn't gonna
necessarily step away from these huge stimulus efforts right away. UM. A lot of it is because like what we saw with the Taper tan turn back in teen, it's very hard to undo this quantine of easing. So in that case, the market goes up. Also, everything just gets more expensive. And so behind door number three is what lea. Well, this is the idea that some of these value stocks that have really been beaten down in this UM post COVID world means that maybe those can start to do well.
So some of those areas that have really UM been hurt hard, like the airlines, UM cyclicals, small caps, those could start to outperform UM. And that would be the case of a broad named market. You know, we've seen the tech stocks do well, but with a vaccine, that could be the gateway to many other sectors also doing well.
And I gotta say, can I just you know, Jill, like you look at something like UM United is down this year, you know, when things start to get better, you know, these are the kinds of name times that ultimately will take off. I mean that in in theory, right in theory. The airline the airline industry is obviously one that I think a lot of people UM have
focused on. And you know, I think Claire has written about the E T F jets, which has become this really interesting one of and it's just like basically a record, uh set a record for inflows because so many people were like trying to call the bottom. And then you know, even now though we you know, we still don't have a recovery, that is meaningful for that industry. So but you know, value, Claire, is something that gets kicked around a lot, is something that like, it's just this revival
is always just around the corner. What why would have vaccine in particular help value stocks? Yeah, so value stocks, we're talking about shares that are sort of trading at low prices. Were their assets UM and so a lot of the UM has really been hurt by the fact that, you know, we've all been locked down and so you know, we can't go out to shopping malls and restaurants things
like that. So some of these UM areas, with a vaccine, people might be able to to get out more to give small businesses UM their money, and that could help get things more back to a more normal economy. And that was Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber joined with Claire Ballentine, author of what I thought was one of the most important stories this week, because it starts to answer the question, Carol, what is this next normal look like when it comes to the markets? Gotta say, getting
back to normal? That would certainly be nice. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, Jason, we head to your home state. That's right back to the A T. L We're going to hear from Morehouse College President David Thomas, why his school, world renowned, is going all online this fault, and what it's like to be in Atlanta right now facing these many crises. He has been ahead of the academic pack. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week
with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Welcome back to Bloomberg Business Week. This week, we're focusing a lot Carol on what it's like to get back to business and most notably back to school right and simply put Jason, it's not easy. One incredibly thoughtful voice on this is Morehouse College President David Thomas. We caught up with him in our own Bloomberg News higher education finance reporter Janet Lauren. Janet began by giving us the big picture.
A lot of schools have sent kids home because of higher test rates of coronavirus. We saw on earlier this week, the University of North Carolina said students should go home because a lot of kids were testing positive. Notre Dame had eighties students test positive in one day, and they decided to pause in person activity for two weeks and see what happens in Michigan State said that they would they would not be having on campus program. Right, Yeah,
that's our back draw. Let's bring in David Thomas. He's President Morehouse College. He joins us on the phone from Atlanta on this Wednesday long. Of course, as you just heard with Jenna Lauren, our higher education finance reporter, President Thomas, so nice to have you here with us. You know, there's a lot on the plate of our countries, colleges and universities, the virus, reopening, virtual learning, the cost of education, inequalities.
What's top of mind for you right now? Well, top of top of minds for me is one making sure that the quality of what we offer online this semester far exceeds what we were able to do last semester, and that we're also able to create community in this virtual environment, because that's one of the things that draw
students to more House College. UM, and so we've fired all of our faculty who are going to teach UH this semester to be certified in online education because one of the things we learned is that there's a difference between online education and remote instruction. Remote instruction is where you essentially do what you do in an in person classroom, you just being taked or delivering it on Zoom or some other video platform, whereas online education there's actually a
pedagogy to it that makes it much more dynamics. So we've invested in that. And the other thing that you know keeps me awake at night is you know whether or not we'll be able to bring our students back for the spring semester given what we're seeing happen with the virus, in particular in the state of Georgia, where
our positivity rates testing rates are in double digits right now. Well, you made the decision quite early on among colleges that you could not do in person because there was too much risk for everybody, not only the students but also the other people working on campus. Now other schools are seeing their decisions may not have been such a great idea to invite students onto campus, and they're having to pivot at a very late date when kids are already there.
Can you talk about what went into your decision? Yeah, it was it was very um, very straightforward. We very early on decided that the number one priority for us would be keeping our students and our staff and faculty say from a health and wellness perspective, and then our second priority was ensuring the quality of what we could
provide educationally. And the last, the third priority was what what's going to be the financial impact, because we have to stay viable financially, and being clear about that made it pretty straightforward for us to move through our decision tree and to wind up being among the first schools to say that we would be fully remote, especially in the context of Georgia, where we also faced a very confusing political environment where literally at one point we had
the governor suing the mayor over whether mass could be mandated in the city of Atlanta because the governor was not going to allow that to happen in the state of Georgia, and we were going to mandate MASK on our campus. And it's hard to enforce a rule, you know, when students might raise the question, well, that's that's not legal in the state. If the mayor can do it,
how can the college do it? So so that just at us on a decision tree, and when we saw the rate of positive tests going up, that led us to reverse our earlier decision, which was that we would be in a low density hybrid format um and uh, but it was, you know, in many ways, it was pretty straightforward because we just got very clear about, you know,
what our priorities were in our principles. You may also know that we were the first school, first scholarship granting school to cancel fall h football in the country, and we did that almost three months ago. Uh, and we're using the same set of principles. What we've seen is the confluence of two pandemics. The first is the COVID pandemic and the second is the pandemic of institutionalized racism
in our institutions and organizations. And you know, if we look at COVID, it's revealed just stark inequities in health outcomes along lines of race. And then if we look at the pandemic of institutionalized racism, what it brings our attention to is the fact that there are still policies and practices that give license to the conscious and unconscious
biases that devalue black, black lives and brown lives. That's more House College President David Thomas, along with Bloomberg News Higher Ed Finance reporter Janet Lauren, those biases and institutionalized racism that President Thomas talked about are really, Jason, the root of our problems and what struck us as how, He's said that well known leaders are now talking about it openly and that gives him some hope for some changes. And check out that entire conversation on our podcast feed.
Coming up, How do you think about making sure that you're developing a resilient supply chain across a lot of different areas. We're going to hear from the President and CEO Blue Apron, Linda Kaslowski. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. So, Jason, food has been a theme, you know that we returned to a lot in our show, including this week big changes as a result of the virus.
We're all cooking and eating at home more than ever before. No one knows that more than Blue Apron President and CEO Linda Kozlowski, who has learned to adapt her business and as a leader as things have evolved. You know, obviously, when when COVID first hit, it was uncertain, you know, when things were going to change, how things were going to change, how people's behavior and reactions would adjust as
as things move forward. And what we are seeing is we are seeing continued demand for the products UM as as people sort of grapple with the new reality and think about how much time they want to spend at home versus how much time they want to you know, want to be out even as things open again. UM. There's a lot of new information out in the in the world about about continuing to be cautious and continuing to UM to sort of stay inside when possible, and
and how to safely have contacts with other people. But we are seeing sort of the manifestation of the trend that we talked about in early May, which is the fact that people are telling us that no matter what happens, UM, they are starting to plan on cooking at home more. UM. This is a habit that they've really started to form.
UM Again, internal and external researches all pointing pointing to the same thing that no matter what happens, as things start to ease up and restaurants open, what have you, that people have gotten what more confident in the kitchen and they plan on continuing to cook at home and they want interesting solutions to help them think about how to make that time more connected to family and less focused on preparation and planning. So we're continuing to see
that trend. I do wonder landed too. You know, when you think about scenario planning, right, you think about those things that you know out of the box that could happen in the pandemic is certainly one of those things. But I do think as you look down the road, I think you know, when normal returns, you know, what are you doing though, and are you thinking about, you know, managing and an inevitable fall off in your business? Do you anticipate that? Well, I think that's a little bit
of what UM, what I was referring to earlier. UM, you know, there's always going to be ebbs and flows as people have different needs. But what we're planning for is staying on the thing strategy we wrong before. So before we actually got into the pandemic, we had a growth strategy that was obviously not based on a pandemic. It was based on product improvements, marketing improvements, and audience expansions, and we already thought that come together into one UM.
And now we're continuing to see that those products improvements, which we are continuing to do as we sort of ease out of the pandemic. Um are engaging people and and keeping them involved with the product. So it's there will always be ebbs and flows to the business. And again there's seasonality trends um when we return to whatever
that new normal is. But we're more focused on the longer term growth potential of some of the product improvements that we're putting in around variety, flexibility, healthier options, and continuing to drive new ways to create that variety in our business, while also managing the complexity and being able to expand our operations without having to put significant capital at that operations given we already have so much ability
to do that now. We we made a lot of investments early on that are now paying off in in automation and the and the ability to um to scale with labor essentially. So Linda talk to us about sort the supply chain and the logistics side of this, were there are things that you had to sort of resolve along the way. I mean, you've got folks obviously working physically, but you've got other folks working remotely. You're dealing with different suppliers. Talk to us about that process of maybe
solving some of those issues. Yes, so I think the the initial thing that we did was very similar to what a lot of people did, which is, how do you think about making sure that you're developing a resilient supply chain across across a lot of different areas at the same time. Simplicity is key when faced with UM
rapidly changing environments. So early on we did make some modifications to our menu to to simplify and streamline some of the recipe availability, to make it faster and easier to pack and to manage logistics than Over time, we reintroduced that complexity back in and then it can again continued to evolve the products itself with new product offerings UM as we were able to manage some of those ebbs and flows and continue you to bring labor into
the facility. So UM a lot of people had to streamline their their menus and and look at ways to to to avoid some complexity early on, and we're really happy that we're able to start bringing that complexity back in. We're already back up the full service on our our family menu and UM and very close to full variety on our two person menu, and so we're going to continue to do that along with introducing the new products
and variety that we have into play. On the supply chain side, that's some a scenario where we've had an advantage for quite some time because we've worked so closely with the producers and because UM we have really really high quality standards for our ingredients. UM, we've always had
really great relationships with our suppliers. We can considit move very quickly depending on supply, and we also have the ability to substitute and swap out if there's ever a challenge UM because of the nature of how our recipes are built, and so we're able to really flex that supply chain to make sure that we don't have to sacrifice any quality during this time where we continue need to ramp volume. And that's Blue Apron President and CEO
Linda Kozlowski back with us. One of the things we're learning, Carol, we're gonna be acting differently going forward, and we're gonna be eating and cooking more at home, no doubt about that. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up. No one wants thousands of people. Carnival Corporation CEO and president Arnold Donald on how Carnival is getting back to the high seas. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol
Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, Carol, while I was on vacation, I was not notably on a cruise, but you got to look at the future of that business. Wow. Yeah, exactly. An exclusive interview we caught up with Carnival Corporations Arnold Donald. We know the cruise industry is one of the hardest hit because of the virus, so many issues at play. They're losing money, they're raising billions more, they're selling off ships.
Bottom line though, it's all about getting passengers back to see First of all, you know, our primary responsibilities and therefore our top priority is always compliance, environmental protection and the health, safety and well being of our guests, of the people in the places we go, and of course our Carnival family, our shipboard and short side personnel. So you know, the interests of public health is always in
the forefront for us. And how do we get people back on ships when there's some social gathering and society has developed the compensating measures that is comfortable with that we have effectively mitigated the spread of COVID nineteen, and then we'll be able to cruise again. And there are a lot of people, as you know, Caro, who are
ready to cruise right now. And in fact, we're looking at starting up in Europe where the spread has been mitigated substantially, in places like Germany and Italy, and we're looking at starting up in September there and a few um cruise lines have but there's a lot of pin up demand, you know, for travel in general, and especially for cruise. Well, and when I wonder, Arnold, though, can you kind of drill down a little bit what are some of the specific protocols that you might put in
place to get ships safely back at sea. I've been reading, you know, about different folks and what they might be considering different cruise lines. They're talking about no buffets, constant um temperature checks, constant testing, maybe no excursions. What specific protocols will you be putting in place? Well, again, as you well know, we we have a lot of measures in place already on cruise that often short side destinations don't already have or didn't have prior to COVID nineteen.
We do medical screens. We were already doing temperature checks in many cases. UM, we had hand sanitizers throughout the ship and signs all over about washing your hands because we've had to deal with viruses and the over seven ports and destinations we go to annually for many years now. Of course, CORVID nineteen is especially unique because the whole world is shut down, and because of that, there's still
a lot of learning around COVID nineteen. As you know from all the scientists, they're still a line around epidemiology, they're lying around testing, their a line around the role of testing. The one thing everybody right now is aligned on, though, is that you know, good personal care in terms of wearing a mask, washing your hands, um, using hand sanitizers, you know, physical distancing at appropriate times, but wearing a
mask is a great way to mitigate the spread. So for the time being, any cruises that will happen will certainly incorporate some physical distancing and you know, wearing masks. And of course what we already had was the the hand sanitizers, excetera. Beyond that, UM, there's a plethora of possibilities, but it depends on the destination, depends on the level of community spreading that destination, etcetera. So there could be various testing protocols. I mean, that's the possibility for the US.
It's premature. You know, we're not ready to sail here yet. Obviously the community spread is still pretty vibrant here in the US, and when we're out of position to sail here, and we're walking cautiously in the other places too, because our primary interests is to stand with everyone else in mitigating the spread of COVID nineteen. But I did read your your Coster Cruise is safety protocols and you talked about three tests for crew members before boarding. UM. You
also talked about, of course social distancing, new filters. UM Entertainment will have more shows on during the day so that they're smaller groups. And then also no self service restaurants, so no buffets, which for many of you go on a cruise, they're pretty used to it. So there are some changes coming. Oh yeah, absolutely for the ones that are going to sail now, we have to be ready.
Just like hotels today, any hotel that's open the day has to deal with the current situation and the limited knowledge thereas And so for Costa we are deploying a number of testing protocols. Obviously for our crew, we have not only testing, but quarantine, etcetera. Because it's really important for us to have the clue crew UM, you know, safe from the beginning and then to keep them safe. And obviously UM once we get guests on board, will have protocols on board for them. I do wonder how
you do it safely. I mean, Arnold, you know this industry better than everyone, uh and better than most in terms of lay personnel. But I wonder how you do it safely because there have been some smaller cruise operations that have come out of Europe, come out of Alaska, Tahiti, UM, and I believe there are less at least ten crew members aboard UM your Aida cruise ships out of Germany that contacted the virus ahead of you getting ready to kind of get back to the seas UM. That was
in August. So I just wonder how do you do this safely when even when some small cruise operations are starting to go back out on the water and still having problems with the virus and people are contacting the virus. Carol think this two stage. Just one is you want to reduce the risk of having UM the COVID nineteen come on board from shore. So that's the first thing.
So you test UM, and you monitor, and you quarantine in the case of the crew, So the ones you mentioned on Aida, you know, those crew members were tested before they left their home country, and then they were tested again once they arrived in Germany and we got
some positives. They were then retested again and a couple of in several of those cases the individuals got a double negative test after that, which meant they had a false positive, and then the others were obviously isolated in quarantine, and so the risk of them spreading it on board with zero, because we wouldn't have them sail. Okay. Now, once you're at that level, the next question is what else are you're doing to mitigate spread? And that's why
all the other practices on board. Any event you do get someone on board who has COVID nineteen, if it's in society, UM, if it's out there in general, chances are you eventually will have someone on board the ship that will have it. And so the trick then, of course, is to make certain that you are able to quickly identify that you can isolate the person and that during the time they were exposed there was plenty of mitigation of risk protocols in place, so the probability of spread
has been greatly reduced. And that's where you know, wearing masks, physical distancing, washing your hands, um using a hand, sandit, sizis that are all come into play. They do also wonder know what are your plans for passengers and crew members who do get sick in the future. You know, you know the horror stories of ships that were you know,
basically lost at sea they couldn't find a homeport. You I know and your team have spent you know, a long time repatriating you know, your crew members back home. So what do you do? Will there be a way to airlift passengers off ships? What will you do? You're absolutely right, you know, we had to repay trade over eighty thousand crew members and it took us quite a while with boorders closed and airlines shut down, et cetera. So it took us several months to effectively do that,
but we were eventually able to do it. In regards to now, you know, that was before now there's enough understanding we would not go to a destination where we did not have a plan already any event that there was COVID on board. We're not going to tie up thousands of people off of one positive COVID case or a couple of positive COVID cases. You know, we would have the protocols in place to ensure one that the individual is taken care of whoever has it, that we
can get them the care they need, um. And then number two that everyone else uh is an effected. You know, we would have some form of contact tracing on boards so we know who we're the most exposed people. But
we have to have those protocols for each destination. We go to seven hundred ports and destinations around the world, so they're all not going to have the exact same protocols and and but we will not go to a place where we haven't established exactly any event there is a COVID case, exactly what's going to happen, all right, But you're not worried about as we know, this virus you know, spread so so quickly, um that you could go out to see and end up with a handful
of passengers or a lot more passengers, hundreds of passengers and be kind of stuck at sea again. I mean, I'm just curious in that game, we won't we won't sail on this situation where we could be stuck at sea. I think again, there's a lot more knowledge now than when that was happening. Number one, you know, we will have some capability of testing on board. When that happened before, we didn't. We Well, there's a lot of understanding now
about how to mitigate spread. Back then, nobody was talking about, you know, why you were cruising. You know, potentially wearing masks are physical distancing that that kind of thing. And similarly, we have to look at the incidents of spreading a community. You know, we're not going to probably sell out of a community where the incidents are spread is very high because you're almost certainly they're gonna have it, have it on board. We have a great UM group of advisors
UM scientific advisors. A number of them participated in a summit on COVID that we held with the World Travel and Tourism Council. Wasn't about travel, it wasn't about cruise, it was about the science of COVID and UM a number of our advisors participated in that um that that we we produced and and my co hosted with Gloria Gavira from w TCC, and so we're using their advice. And of course every destination is studying this, every port,
every city, every nation and is always be in compliance. UH. And so we'll all have a protocol in place because no one wants you know, thousands of people you know stuck s C. Nobody wants, no doubt about that. I mean, what are you hearing, Arnold right now from the CDC about what they want to see specifically from Carnival before heading out at sea again. Well, CDC is concentrating initially on what we call the pause. You know a number
of US volunteer to stop sailing and so on. Then the CDC issued on no sale orders and so they've concentrated on the ships because even though we're in a pause, we still have twelve thousand crew required to minimally man our ships. The ships are still out there to still operating,
and so the CDC focus on that initially. UH. And now they've started beginning to ask for public input and UH to be submitted in terms of consideration for crews going forward, But there have been no specific direction given on what's expected, what we're gonna do is again use our expert advisory group to inform us to use the experiences around the world that we have and others have, and we'll put together, you know, the appropriate protocol at the time we think that it makes sense to begin
to consider cruising again. That's Carnival Corporation Presidency Arnold Donald. Check out that full conversation. It is Jason our extra podcast this week. It is indeed great conversation that wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Masser. Plenty coming up in our next hour, including the interview with the man who is called every presidential election outcome correctly in the past four decades. Is my
favorite conversation of the week, I have to confess. Plus another great conversation, Mind Buddy founder executive chairman Rick Stollmeyer. He talked to us about the importance of wellness and fitness during the pandemic. Fast moving business, no doubt about that. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Carol Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. Plenty ahead for you in this hour
of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. Don't worry about the ads, the speeches, the debates, the tricks of the campaign. Keep your eye on the big picture. American University professor of history Alan Lickman. He is really really good at predicting presidential elections. You're gonna be talking about this one for sure. Plus Mind Body founder and executive chairman Rick Stollmeyer. He's writing a book about how to start a fitness company. He should know. He started when
in his garage. We're going to kick off this hour, though, Jason with a very thoughtful conversation with Yates enterprise founder and trauma surgeon Dr William Yates. He took his experiences in the operating room created a company to help solve some of our current problems like gun safety and the virus. We caught up with him in Chicago and began with asking how his city is doing. To go outside, it looks like a ghost town. The schools are paralyzed. They
don't know what to do. The people that constitute Wins are afraid, they're anxious, they're unsure about the future. When I'm out all the time, people say, Doc, what's gonna happen? What are we gonna do? Not to mention it's an economic catastrophe here. The Tribute just wrote an article four thousand small businesses have gone out of business, and they expect a lot more to go out of business even
with all that stimulus check money. And of course one of the good things I see this come out the digital dependence is like increase which has made you know, remote work better, telemedicine and e commerce is kind of flourishing. But other than that, it's pretty much bad news. I would say, well, and you know, it's interesting that you bring that up up. I do wonder, Dr Yates. You know, unfortunately, times of stress and disconnect often lead to better ways
of doing things. And I do wonder as you look at this world, and I don't want to see anybody lose their business. I don't want to see anybody be out of work. Um, but I do wonder do we get to a better side, whether it's you know how you run business in businesses, how you do things you know more online, more digitally, you know how education is run. Do we get to a better side of medical you know,
we see a lot more telemedicine happening. Do we get to a better side in your view, because I feel like you understand kind of the old ways of doing something and then also embracing technology right well, I mean in every catastrophe, something good comes out of it. And I say, what I see good coming out of this right now is that everybody has to be aware of, say of the business supply chain, that we can't be
dependent on other countries to feed us. That we have to become autonomous and we're that's very clear without explaining why. And the other thing is the digital platform has shown us how sophisticated it can be and how good it is. Say it like for education, I was thinking that, you know, some of the best teachers in the world can now reach some of the worst schools in the world with the digital platform, so that can be expanded. That's something
good has come out. And I think the other thing that we should concentrate on there should be more information sharing between countries globally, because if that had happened in the beginning, I don't think, you know, we'd be in this situation. So that's what I think the best things that have come out of this and other than we all have to be united, which has not happened in the United States. Is so fragmented. These people do this,
these do that. That's why the numbers keep increasing. Well and dr yates what one area of fragmentation for sure is something you alluded to, which is the world of education, and Caroline, I talked about it all the time from a personal perspective, both at school aged kids. Um, you know, we're seeing these headlines from University of North Carolina, We're seeing it from you know, all sorts of places across
the country. New York City sort of going its own way versus Los Angeles and San Francisco and Washington, d C. And other places. I read a great New York article today about love at school down in my hometown of Atlanta. How should we be thinking about schools? This is something you've done some specific work. You've got equipment installed in schools doing thermal temperature checks. But how should we be thinking about education? I think there's a way to actually
go back to school and go back safely. College is another aspect of this, because you have a school basically with an assisted living facility. So that's something altogether different. But I think schools can open safely if you do a couple of things. Are actually four things. Protect the students and everyone knows what that means, wearing a mask, standing six ft apart um, sanitizing, and then you need to screen for potential patients or kids or anyone that
has the virus. And the way that you do that is questionnaires seem to be good, and also with objective data of fever because anybody who's infected, the number one sign is usually going to be a fever. Now that won't catch the asymptomatic people, but still we know that people who are symptomatic will have a fever. The third thing I think is just broad testing, baseline testing. Everybody has to be tested and has to be tested often to know if they've contracted the virus. And fourth is
basically tracking. When you see clusters, you have to track, isolate, quarantine, whatever you need to do. And in the school system specifically, we've also developed kind of pod units where the students can be separated by best basically a plastic partition. And it's no way if you do these things. If everybody does it, the teachers, administrators and the students you will not get coronavirus. So I gotta say it was fascinating
reading about your background. Tell me how you came to be a trauma surgeon to or tell our audience, since I've already read a little bit about it, tell our audience about how you went from being a trauma surgeon to creating this company, and why you decided to focus on, you know, these various devices, whether it's metal detectors or whether it's you know, being able to take temperatures. Tell
us a bit about that progress. Well. As a trauma surgeon, I just became irritated with hearing over and over again about mass school shootings and violence and all the pain that it causes on the back end and the front end. So I always felt that a simple solution was being missed, such as metal detectors just being deployed in schools, open areas, municipalities and the like. So what I did was I started a company partnered with the manufacturer, started distributing metal
detectors X ray equipment to different schools. Anybody that would listen to me about the effectiveness of this equipment, and that's the enterprise founder Dr William Yates and entrepreneur, a trauma surgeon, and really someone who's trying to make the world a better place. Carol, Yeah, taking his firsthand experience and fixing some of today's vexing problems. You're listening to
Bloomberg Business Week. Up next, The Keys to the White House from the history professor who has correctly called the last four years of presidential elections. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well, Carol, so much going on this week, but politics front and center because we're seventy plus days away from a big election. And Jason, safe to say, one of our more entertaining interviews this week it was
with Alan Lickman. He's distinguished professor of history at American University. He has a predictive model for figuring out US presidential winners and you know what, everybody, it consistently works. The fundamental insight behind the Keys model is that elections are essentially votes up or down on the strength and performance of the party holding the White House. That's what the thirteen Keys gauge. So forget the polls, forget the pundit to get who's up and down on a daily basis.
Don't worry about the ads, the speeches, the debates, the tricks of the campaign. Keep your eye on the big picture. And that's what the Keys looked at, the big picture of incumbent strength and for formers things like a midterm election results, third parties, long and short term economy, scandal, social undress, policy change, foreign policy successes and faigures. And the way it works, it's six or more of the keys. Any six or more, it's nonlinear go against the party
holding the White House. They are predicted losers, fewer than six, they are predicted winners. All right, So take us back to before we get to this current election that we're experiencing, take us back briefly to what was it that ultimately tipped it to Canada. Trump. Yeah, that was probably the most difficult and closest call I've ever made in my Washington Post interview or I predicted Trump's when I said,
the Keys very very narrowly point to Trump. And you know, uh, I hate to say it, but Bernie Sanders one of the Keys, and this was exactly a six key elections. So if any he had not turned Clinton would have one, and one of the keys that turned was the internal nomination contest for the party holding the lighthouse by so strongly contesting Hillary Clinton. Uh. Bernie Sanders turned to kay, I'm not blaming him. He as a right to do that.
But that was a very close call. Another very close call was the third parties, which we know were quite strong in two thousand and sixteen. Gary Johnson went over
in some of the polls. So those were two of the late breaking keys that were incredibly close that turned the tide against the Democrats, along with other keys such as the lack of a big foreign policy achievement, not following up the Affordable Care Act with Republicans in control of Congress with another big policy change, losing uh the mid term election. Very very tight and tough call. This is what's the call away, But go ahead now, please
go ahead. Right here on my wall, I have this note written on a copy of the Washington Post ride predicted Trump swin that says professor, congrats, good call, and big sharpie letters signed Donald J. Trump. So they followed, they follow this. It's so cool though, these thirteen keys, and you've mentioned something. You've mentioned them strong long term economy, strong short term economy, you know, a third party scandal, um for military success, no, social unrest, um, charismatic incumbent,
un charismatic challenger. I mean, these are the things that you're looking at. It's not just about the economy stupid as so many have said. No, that's a huge mistake that a lot of analysts have made. If you were just looking at the economy, Hillary Clinton should have won going away. The economy was quite strong in two thousand and sixteen. Voters are not that never mind. That's the two things that make the keys different is one, I don't look at any of the conventional campaigning, pole driven
punditry models. And two they're not fixated on the economy like most econometric and political science models. All right, so let's talk about this election. Uh if we can. Um, as you go through the keys, how close is it and what are the things you're most focused on? As you say, it's nonlinear, but they really As you were going through all those keys, I'm going check check, check, check check. Talk Yeah exactly, So talk to us about what this looks like. Yeah, so I'll break it up.
The end of two thousand nineteen, Trump was only down four keys. You have two key cushion uh demandate key. Obviously they had lost in the mid term elections. Scandal key. You know, the only h only the third president in the history impeached by the full House. Not to mention other issues, the lack of a big foreign policy success
any where in the world. Am I most controversial on the fact that he was not one of those once in a generation truly inspirational candidates with groat appeal like Reagan in the nineteen eighties who brought in all those raigan Democrats. Trump's strong approval rating is only between twenty five and six and more. Don't like him and don't think he's on it, but he was only down four.
Then we get hit with the pandemic and the crist for social and racial justice and what Trump acknowledge My prediction he didn't understand the system, which is remember it's governing, not campaigning that counts. And instead of substantively dealing with these problems, he reverted to his two thousand and sixteen playbook and thought he can talk his way out of him. It didn't work. It cost him three more keys. The short term economy key, which is defined by an election
year recession, which we have the long term economy. He because we had such a negative growth that brought this average well down and the social unrescued because of what's raging across the land. Never in the history of the United States has the party holding the White House experienced such a dramatic reversal of fortune. In a matter of three months, Trump goes from four keys down to seven keys down, one more than is needed to predict that
he is going to lose in November. You have been spot on for forty years, but you've also back tested it for a hundred twenty years of US presidential history. I mean, you checked it out and it has really panned out. But I've got to ask you, and I know other people have have um kind of pushed you on this. You did call al Gore in two thousand. Yes, yes, yes, Look, I'll make two comments on that one. You want to say I'm right out of eight of nine, that's fine.
I like how you think, Uh, what was the right call? In two thousand, I correctly called al Gore to win the popular vote. He didn't win the electoral college because he lost by five or and thirty seven votes in Florida when the Streme Court stopped the recount. That was a stolen election. Al Gore should have won Florida going away. And I proved this in my two thousand and one report to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, when I showed that there was this huge disproportion of discarded
votes between African Americans and Lights. And then if you correctly assess the intention of voters about that suppression, al Gore would have won going away. That's American University Professor of History Alan Lickman, voter suppression something that is he noted, we are concerned about again along with foreign meddling. Jason, when it comes to this November's outcome. Absolutely love that conversation.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, we head to Miami check in with the seat of the related group. He's been watching real estate for four decades. There's a lot come yeah, and some interesting new trends. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly from Bloomberg Radio. Well real estate, Carol, we know it is a fascinating area, very important where you live
and how you live. One guy who knows a ton about that related group CEO or hey, perez right, They've got a portfolio of more than forty billion in real estate holdings, largely a Jason in South Florida. And before getting into property trends and the real estate market, we did ask him about the virus in his home state and home city. Yes, you know, we have not reacted well in Miami to the virus. It's been a bit
of an epicenter of new cases. UM. We've you know, opened up and then had to close back up the you know, the interior restaurants, interior of restaurants. UM. And uh, it's been not an easy ride here. UM. Unfortunately, we UM, we're not so good here at following instructions. A very surprised that I still go out for a walk and uh, almost half the people are not wearing masks and in the streets. So UM, we need to do a much
better job at at following directions and and and keeping safe. UM. Other than that, you know, Miami has been helped in a way by the movement of people from the northeast, UM, towards Miami. We we had been seeing that um previously previously to the pandemic UM due to the high taxes in in places like New York. I think this has accelerated. You know, our single family luxury home has been doing
extremely well. UM A lot of buyers looking to move UM, carl Icon and other Wall Street people have uh made the announcement that they're moving permanently down to Miami from New York and other areas. So in in in that respect, I think we are the beneficiaries. You know, the open air, the sea, the ocean. I just came from from a house that we have an aspen and aspen is even that on steroids. Everybody wants to now own a house in places that they see as being less congested, less
prone to um catching the buyrus. Yeah, it is pretty amazing. So when you think about you know, you're in the entire portfolio and also things that are in development and under construction, wor Hey, how has that part of it gone in terms of your ability to sort of keep going with your business? Well, we we've been. It's been a radical change. You know. We we had to be very rapidly throughout how do we work efficient and first from home and then how do we make our office
safe for employees to return and and work there. You know, we we we reacted very rapidly to that. UM. You know, zoom has become you know, the new trend. We communicate every day. UM. We've set up UM what what's op system and a text system so all the key executives and and their groups are constantly in communication. So our technology has improved tremendously UM because of the virus. I think, uh, this is something that we're going to see into the future.
You know, we we have become much better, much more efficient at working from home, at communicating without being face to face. But it's been a real change in the way UM we we communicate, we talk to people, we execut you orders. UM. Fortunately for us, we are in the multi family business, which is probably the sector that has been least affected UM by the virus. Retail as you know, and hotels UM, convention places, restaurants UM have all been affected to a much greater extent than we have.
Our collections UM have in these months been all over which is UM you know above the national lapp UM. So you know, we have been relatively lucky as a company in that we've adapted rapidly. We dropped a lot of the urban jobs, all the retail jobs. We moved suburb to suburban locations UM rapidly in our development and I think for the next at least year, that is going to be the preferred UM housing type. You know, people are afraid of being in close environment UM. So
I think we can see it. Are high rises have taken a much greater hit than our suburban products UM and and and it's been a shift, you know. And we are used to, you know, Florida. I always think of Florida as a roller coaster, so we're used to up and down and up and down and moving very rapidly to adapt the change. That's the related group CEO Jorge Perez and Jason as we just heard from him, it's all about the pivot related group to that very
quickly moving from urban to suburban projects during the pandemic. Yeah, the city's the burbs where people are going to live. It's one of the big questions we keep asking. You're listening to Bloomberg Business this week, One thing we know people are working out. We discussed the importance of wellness amid the new world order. Our conversation with mind Body founder Rick Stallmeyer it is so important. This is Bloomberg Vases Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly
from Bloomberg Radio. As we wrap up this week, Jason, we know one of the things we've talked about all lots until we've all been working from home so much is about staying mentally and physically fit. Absolutely no better person to talk about that than the founder and executive chairman of Mind Body. They are the guts of the entire fitness business. Talking about Rick Stallmeyer. Check it out. What we're seeing right now is they supply constrained market.
People want their fitness classes, they want their wellness services and experiences more than ever. And you know, one of the well I guess one of the unintended consequences of this mishmash of state and regional reactions or responses to COVID is that what we've seen around the country, as you know, some states never really closed down completely. Other states reopened very quickly. Um, we all know those stories. You know, you're in the Tristate area, which has been
probably the model of how how discipline the approach has been. Um, what we've seen in every one of those cases when the businesses are open or when they reopen, Uh, they get flooded with consumer interest because people's wellness has been severely impacted by this pandemic. Yeah, I do think it's interesting. So you talk about people flooding back, and I do think about what about new folks who may be thought, Okay,
it's not that important. I've got work to do or I've got you know, X to do, And now they're saying, wait a minute, this has got to be fitness. Wellness have to be a part of my regular living. Well, that's right. I mean we all know, of course, you know, the pre existing conditions around obesity, hypertension, heart disease, cardiovascual disease, type two diabetes. Those things, of course have been shown to be major risk factors for COVID. And I think
people a lot of people have gotten that memo. I mean people that I talked to, people that I see at the same time being restricted to our homes for such an extended period of time. You know, for many people that they put on weight, for many people their
their their fitness has struggled. Um. And then lastly, you know, wellness isn't just physical, is it right, It's also emotional wealthy, it's a sense of social connection, it's community, and I think we're all suffering in this country, in fact in most of the world, from the impact of having all of that so severely disrupted. And it's why we remain very bullish about the industry we serve for the long term. But of course this is a really challenging time on
both the consumer side and the business owners. What we have we have been doing what we can to advocate UM, both in UH in Washington as well as at the state capitals. I planned personal to do a lot more of that, you know, as you alluded to at the beginning here. UM, I've just transitioned from being CEO, I mean, a role that I've had for twenty years, handled the baton to Josh McCarter. He's our new CEO, and Senel Roger Say, who was our CTO, has been elevated to
president and CTO. I mean, this is a dream team. These guys in the executive team around them by far the strongest we've ever had. So I can feel very confident in and the company's continue growth and innovation. And what I want to spend more of my time doing is that outwardly facing role. Um, these these businesses are almost all small business owners, even if you owned an
Orange their Fitness or an S forty five franchise. For example, the classic FRANCHISEZ is a typically like two spouses who invested in this business and are running at hands on every day. And of course so many these businesses are just independent Mama Papa shops, and no one has been advocating on their behalf, even looking at how the states generally have have issued edicts around whether they could open
and close as sort of a broad brush. You know, no gyms can open, so it doesn't matter if it's a eighty thou square foot health club with hundreds of people streaming through the door, or small little yoga pilates or a group exercise studio, and it maybe in normal times might have had twenty people in class and now with social distancing, they have maybe eight people. I mean, these it's not high risk. They we have seen firsthand.
If you take the proper precautions, the social distancing, the mask wearing, you can go in and have a great experience very safely. And I'm not sure I don't think many people are telling that story to our government leaders who are making new decisions. So, Rick, you and I caught up a little earlier in the pandemic for the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast, and you know, one of the things we're talking about is, and this goes back to where we left off in our conversation, these are
small businesses. Many of these boutique studios, especially mom and pop type shops. Uh, a lot of them are just going to go out of business. I think you would even predicted maybe a quarter of them, uh would just ultimately have to hang it up, pulled up shop. What do you what do you make of that prediction? Now, well, it hasn't happened yet. Um, these businesses have proven far more resilience than we've hope. And of course we've been rooting farm from the very beginning of the of the pandemic.
And you know, immediately when the as the lockdown started in the late March, they started adapting. And of course the most obvious thing was delivering their classes and experiences be a video and so live streaming video and then putting up libraries a video on demand. They started doing that spontaneously, and my body has been innovating rapidly. We now have virtual wellness platform enables them to do that in a way that they can sustainable businesses. And you
and I talked about that, Jason. Now what you see, of course, is a lot more of these activities going on outside UM. And the science indicates it. Being outside is just simply safer than being in a room which we sustulating air. And lastly, of course it's just immaculate cleanliness. A lot more distance between workout station UM and everybody
wearing maths. And you know, we've what we have seen UM, I think is a remarkable adaptation of an industry that being said, you know, this kind of brutal two steps forward, one step back, one step forward, two steps back. Uh. You know at some point you're gonna start taking a pole. Uh. And UM, you know we were rooting for all of
these businesses, UM. But I think we're still are probably going to expect some some notable amounts of business failures in the months ahead, given what it just appears that dependemic and how it's going to develop. And then we're not going to get out of this very challenging situation right for at least a few quarters probably. Yeah. It kind of breaks my heart about those who have as you said to him, it's it's a couple who started
a business and they're just not going to make it through. UM. You talk about live streaming, there's in studio, there's outdoor classes, depending on you know, kind of where you live. You know, Rick, what we love about talking with you is, you know, you guys do have the platform where you you get
inside into so many different businesses. What other data points are you able to kind of see that are revealing about what's going on right now and what might continue for for sometimes kind of stay with us as we all kind of pivot and and kind of embrace some of these change ways of doing things, including working out and staying well well. First of all, we're seeing you know, rising consumer demand for these activities of all types, of
all categories, and of course fitnesses leading part of that. UM, we see high sensitivity in the consumer side. We've been serving you know, millions of consumers on our platform, uh, and we've been serving people in a scientific way, and you know, more than consumers indicate that yes, rigorous santizis santization is important. About three fourths of them say the new layouts are really important and they like what they're seeing.
If you haven't visited one of these studios in a long time or since the pandemic started, I encourage you to go look at him and understand it. UM. We can now leverage tech knowledgy in ways that really just minimize the kind of contact for example, contact with check in and contact with payments. UM. That's extremely important to consumers today and I think that it is going to be challenging for these businesses. But but the ones that do get through this to do that, whether there's are
going to face a really remarkable market. UM. And for some of the most forward leaning businesses, what they're doing is as they see UH. In downtown retail areas, of course, businesses of all types have been failing. That's opening up space and you see the more well capitalized brands swooping in because it was really a shortage of prime retail space that was holding back the industry before COVID hit.
And so I think you're gonna see a real changeover. UM. Lastly, the ability if I'm going to commit to a membership or a prepaid package at this particular studio, well, I want to know that regardless of what happens whatever the state of of social distancing restrictions or lockdowns in my region. So I'm gonna be able to keep engaging. So just being able to have hybrid memberships is very important to people today, and we see that happening already in the
businesses that we're serving. If I can just follow them, I also do wonder by having such a platform as your own, it kind of creates a tracing platform that you know, if a case breaks out at a certain you know, studio or workout or gym in a place that immediately you can say, okay, these were the people that were there, and we can kind of be right on top of it from the get go. We haven't
been asked to the bulge that data. I mean, we treat in a confidentiality both businesses confidential data and consumers confidential data very seriously. So um, it's not something that that that we would just um easily offer up. But if there were some kind of organized process, uh, you know that we could assist, and of course we'd have to get people's permission I think to allow us to
share what you're talking about. That's my Body founder and executive chairman, Rick Stollmeyer, and it was interesting because we do know his platform, right Jason, They have access to a lot of data, and I do wonder you know how people might use that, specially in a COVID nineteen era to make sure that they can open up their businesses, but also keep everybody who goes to gyms and work out facilities make sure we keep them safe. Yeah, certainly
watch this space. It's fast moving and really important, maybe more important than ever as we think about how to stay healthy going into the fall. Well, that's going to wrap up the weekend addition to Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Jason Kelly and I'm Carol Massa. Wrapping up week twenty
two from most of us still working from home. Be sure to check out our daily show Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. That's where all these interviews come from, and check it out. If you miss it, if you're not tuning in live, you can get it all on our podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts. You can also watch us on YouTube.
Just go to YouTube and arch Bloomberg Global News and don't forget check out Bloomberg Business Week magazine, so many stories, including our special double issue. It's called the Vaccine Issue. It's on newsstands now, it's on the Bloomberg terminal, of course, always at Bloomberg dot com. We'll see you right back here next week at the same time. This is Bloomberg