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Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast. It was the final Federal Reserve meeting of the year. As expected, FED officials cut rates by one quarter of a point. There third consecutive interest rate reduction, and I kind of say the U Essential Bank also again saying that when it comes to the dual mandate, there are risks on both sides, and so it's a challenging environment for the Federal Reserve. The Fed also maintained their outlook for just one in twenty twenty six.
This time, there were three descents from both ends of the policy spectrum, highlighting divisions among policymakers over weakness in the labor market or stubborn inflation. Vetcher Powell also emphasized the committee as in a wait and see mode. He noted that for the third FMC meeting in a row quote, there is no risk free path forward. We're calling it also a challenging situation.
Yeah, we got the message. Jay Powell got it loud and clear. Hey, let's unpack. So for the latest do head over to Bloomberg dot com for the latest on what economists are expecting for twenty twenty six when it comes to monetary policy. As for this hour, we're going to talk about life at the FED after j Powell with Steve Moore, he's a former economic and strategic advisor to President Trump during both of his administrations.
Plus how cutting rates may affect bank lending today and into next year. Also, we talk power with nexst Era and they're push to move into data centers and gas.
I love this. This is one of the big stories, one of the big stories of the year, one of the big stories certainly of this week. All of that to come. We begin with this week's FED decision. President Trump is expected to announce a new Federal Reserve chair early in the new year, although there was some speculation it could come in the next couple of weeks. It's to say, a moving story, moving target. The next Fed chair will take over Jay Powell's term, which ends in May of next year.
So with them mediate thoughts of this week's FED decision and on FED leadership come twenty twenty six, We've got a great roundtable. Steve Moore is with us. He's co founder and chair of the nonprofit Unleashed Prosperity. He's a former economic and senior policy advisor to Donald Trump in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four, and served as Chief Economist and Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Heritage Foundation for twelve years.
Yeah.
He's also written a bunch of books, including Trump Andomics Inside the America First Planned to Revive Our Economy? Also another one, The Trump Economic Miracle, And you might remember back in twenty nineteen, President Trump selected Steve Moore for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, which more ultimately withdrew from. So we have a lot to unpack and talk about. Steve joins US from Beach, Florida. Great to have him here. Also with us is Bloomberg Economics US and Canada economist
Stewart Paul. He's right here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio.
Steve, I want to kick it off with you. Welcome.
Nice to have you here on Bloomberg. Your key takeaways from FED decision.
Well, it was certainly Wall Street was happy with what happened. It was very expected that that Fed did exactly what they announced. Trump, of course wants more rate cuts. You know, Look, inflation has come down, and it's still not where we wanted to be. We wanted to be at the two percent FED target, and so we're running about two point seven two point eight, So there's still work to be done to bring inflation down. Of course, if you bring
inflation down, affordability goes up. But look, this is a booming economy right now. It is so hot. Trump is right about that, and twenty twenty six is going to be a monster year for growth and for incomes and I believe for equities.
If you were on the FOMC and a voting member, how would you have voted? Would you have wanted to see I.
Would have done exactly what they did.
You wouldn't have gone fifty basis points like Stephen Myron.
No, I'm a little bit more of an inflation hawk than Steve and Steven. I know Stephen, he's a smart economist. I lean towards making sure I think the top priority of the FED should be to make sure that we bring that inflation rate down to the target level. We're not there yet, and you know, look at the as a political matter, Trump really needs to continue to bring that inflation rate down because people are still angry about prices.
Mister Moore, is really difficult to square the circle between being an inflation hawk and voting for or advocating for additional rate cuts. When you see somebody like President Trump focusing so much on affordability, but at the same time calling for the FED to cut rates even more, how do you really square the circle? How would you rationalize voting for a cut while also being an inflation hawk.
I believe that Wall Street puts way, way, way too much influence and interest in FED rate cuts. I mean, nobody the short term interest rate has become almost irrelevant. So I really don't believe that it's all that important. Frankly, whether it was a quarter point or fifty percent, you know, fifty points or doing nothing, I don't think that it makes all that much difference. We should have learned the lesson.
By the way, look what excuse mean? What we'd all like to see is for those mortgage rates to come down, in the ten year treasury interest rate to come down. Well, the FED doesn't control that. I know that may surprise people watching this. The Fed has no impact on the
ten year treasury or the thirty year mortgage. And we know that, by the way, And what happened in twenty twenty four when the FED cut the discount rate and what happened to the I mean the FED funds rate, and what happened to the mortgage rate and the tenure treasury went up. So I don't overly obsess about Fed rate cuts. I think we're in a pretty good look. The most important thing is this incredibly healthy economy. We've got hundreds of billions of dollars coming into the US
economy of foreign investment. We've got the highest s and P five hundred, the highest Dow, and the highest NASSE in the history of the country. People are making huge amounts of money, and this is a bet when the markets go up, this is a bet that policy will be well guided and that American companies are going to
make money. So I have a hard time really having many much problem with the direction that we're going in with respect to this economy, and don't forget the starting in January, people will start to see the middle income people will start to feel the impact of those big, beautiful tax cuts that passed in terms of less money deducted from their paychecks and taxes, and the no tax on tips, the no tax on overtime. Those are all positive features that will help middle class Americans.
That's a really interesting point that fiscal policy is going to be especially accommodative in twenty twenty six. And I think that one thing that's interesting is whether we're going to see monetary policy that's equally accommodative or even more so, And that's going to really depends on who we get as theft the next Chairman of the Federal Reserve and
chairman of the FOMC. What do you make of the White House's floating of a trial balloon with Kevin Hassett about three weeks ago and then seeming to reconsider You know, if there's anybody in the world who recognizes how difficult a process it can be to make it through the Senate,
it's you. And so I'm really interested to hear what your thoughts on what your thoughts are about what's going on in the White House and on Capitol Hill in terms of whipping up the votes to support someone perhaps like Hassett or wash.
I like them both. I mean, I think the two Kevins, I've been saying this for two years now that you know, it should be one of those two as the FED chairman. I also like Larry Kudlow, but I don't think Larry probably is in the running things to do it. But he'd be an excellent FED share as well. But look, the two Covens are monetary experts. They're extraordinary economists. I really truly. Either one of them I think would be
fantastic picks. And I think they would also keep their eye on the most important thing that the FED needs to do, which is defend the dollar. Defend the dollar, make sure that it's strong and stable. That's all the FED needs to do. It doesn't have to worry about jobs, it doesn't have to worry about climate change or any of these other things. The most important thing is to keep prices stable and the dollar strong, and I think both would do that.
Steve, you have some great insight into President Trump behind closed doors. You know he did nominate you for a FED governor position. You ultimately backed out of it, But I'm just curious what were your conversations with President Trump or what insight can you give to our audience, an investing audience trying to understand read the tea leaves, because we do have a president that most would agree that he's transactional, and so I think we're trying to understand
that in terms of any appointments. Is that seen as an expectation that you're going to do the President Trump's bidding and listen to him if you are at the FED in terms of what needs to be done in cutting rates, if that's what he wants.
Well, look, my opinion is that it is it is valuable to have an independent FED, but I also believe the net the FED needs to be accountable, and in my opinion, it hasn't been accountable in the last few years. That's why we got, you know, a nine percent inflation under the current Joan Powell and well.
When you say that that nine percent was the result of the pandemic and incredible demand, I mean there were some you know, unexpected events.
That's crazcal policy too.
Fiscal policy, there was a lot of money slashing around when you can see that that nine percent inflation, any president or any fed shair would have had to deal with that.
Well listen. I mean, I do think that Trump made a big miss in that he passed a big, massive spending bill right before he left office. So could you make a good point, But it was catastrophic everything that happened under COVID. We made the biggest mistake in the history of the United States and shutting down our economy, shutting down our schools, shutting down our hospital It was outrageous and I think we've hopefully learned that level lesson
that will never never do it again. But you are quite correct that what caused the inflation, and I hope we remember this lesson for many, many decades to come, is that when you massively spend four trillion dollars, guess what you're going to have inflation. And it didn't stimulate the economy. It caused huge, huge reductions and real incomes
for middle class people. It destroyed middle class incomes. They lost massive amounts of money because we very stupidly printed all this money and spent it, dropped it out of helicopters. And that's a policy that's never worked.
Look, I think I think it's an important you bring up a lot of important points about what happened during the pandemic and the causes of inflation. But to Carroll's point, you know, you do have this direct line to the White House and to the President. You advised him back in twenty sixteen, you advised him in twenty twenty four.
How would you characterize relationship with him right now? And to what extent are you and how often are you speaking to him about economic matters that hit the United States.
What I tell him is that I think the tax cuts have been enormously beneficial, and it's not a commen date of fiscal policy on the tax side. What it is. I mean, like one of the most important things we did in the Big Beautiful Bill was we are allowing businesses to, you know, instantly capitalize their expenditures and write them off instantly. And I believe that's one of the reasons we're seeing this capital boom in the United States.
I mean, if you look at the last nine months, capital investment has been really strong as a result of this tax cut. So it wasn't really meant to just pump money. Economy was meant to incentivize through lower tax rates, lower lowering the corporate rate, giving expensing, lowering the individual income tax rate. Those are pro growth, pro supply side policies that actually help bring inflation down. I mean, it's very simple. If the economy produces more, prices go down.
Hey, one of the things I do wanted to go back to this idea of transactional and again I'm going to go back to the insight that you have and having conversations with President Trump before he, you know, made a nomination for you to join the FED and be a governor. Because we've heard Jay, the President come out and say j. Powell has been very bad for our country.
He's terrible.
He's a terrible FED chair. I'd love for him to lower interest rate. I call him too late. I'd love to fire him.
Tell us about.
Would there be pressure by President Trump with who he appoints for the next FED share and would there be an assumption by the person who takes that position to kind of do the President's bidding. Give us some insight if you could.
Well, I'll put it a little differently. It's a good question. First of all, when I was nominated to be on the FED. Trump never really, you know, asked me about well, would you cut rates or would you raise rates or so on. He just he had trusted in me as an economist that I would get it right, so there was no pressure to, you know, sort of do his bidding. Now with respect to Kevin Hassett or Kevin worsh which I think is a good chance it's gonna be one
of those two. What he is doing is picking someone, you say, do his bidding. He's picking someone who agrees with his overall economic philosophy, and that's exactly what a
president should do. I don't think that means undue influence on the independence of the FED, but I think it's basically, you know, presidents deserve the monetary policy they want, frankly, and so you know, I think they will they will do they agree with Trump on monetary policy, and that's one of the reasons one of the two of them will be chosen. But I can't think of two economists I admire more than Kevin Hassett and Kevin Warsh.
It's interesting that you bring up President Trump's economic philosophy because I think that if you were to press him to describe his economic philosophy with regards to monetary policy, he would just say he's a low interest rate guy. So is the expectation going to be from you know, Kevin Hazard or Kevin Warsh that they will just deliver low interest rates.
You know, you make a good point. The one thing that Trump has often said to me is that he likes low interest rates. And and I've always said, well, mister President, low interest rates are good, but we also want to make sure we don't cause inflation. And so that is the kind of dual competing interests here. But I think he gets it that you know what destroys a presidency is inflation for one of whatever. You know, we saw Jimmy Jimmy Carter lose because of inflation. We
saw Jerry Ford lose because of inflation. We saw this. I think the major fat during this last of presidential election was inflation. Americans hate, hate higher prices. It's one of the reasons they're still in a foul mood on the economy. So I believe that Kevin Hassett and Kevin worsh either one of them, will be an inflation hawk, and they will, I predict, we will bring that inflation right down to two percent, But.
One does wonder, since he's not running again, assuming no third term, that maybe he doesn't care if there's inflation. I'm just going to put that out there.
Why don't you want to go somewhere?
I mean, the Republicans certainly care, and affordability is going to be a key message for them in the mid for everybody in the midterm. Hey, we only have thirty seconds left, Steve. I just want to take a sharp turn here because, yeah, because you are an economist and you watch what's happening closely, the US taking a stake in publicly traded companies such as Intel, MP, Materials and others.
I don't like it. Hey, wow, no, no, no, never. You know, I've spent most of my career trying to advertized not nationalized. So it's one of those issues I disagree with the President on. I don't want. I believe in separation of business and state, and the less you know, the government does to you know, to influence business decisions.
I think the better your old school that way.
Yeah, I am.
It's a different it's definitely a different Republican Party, at least from a business perspective. Today.
I think there's a.
Lot of investors out there too who certainly would agree with you. Steve, Thank you so much, Really enjoyed this. Steve Moore, co founder and share of the nonprofit Unleashed Prosperity, and of course, as we said, a former economic and senior advisor to President Trump in both of his terms, and of course are great thanks to our own Bloomberg Economics US and candidate economist Stewart Paul.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.
Let's get more on this week's FED decision and really the macro environment when it comes to consumers and businesses, and also what we're seeing when it comes to bank lending today and maybe an outlook into the new year. One company, one bank paying close attention to this is Ohio based Huntington Bank Shares. The bank has a market cap of nearly twenty seven billion dollars in recently has been expanding with targeted acquisitions. It's had a pretty busy year tim.
With perspective on interest rates, the consumer, and the twenty twenty six financial outlook. We turned to Zach Wasserman. He's chief financial officer of Huntington Bank Shares, and he joined us in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. Zach, great to talk with you again, especially appreciate you coming into the studio. Did the FED get it right?
I think they did.
You know, the analysis they did that showed the labor markets still, of course softening to some degree, but inflation pressures continuing to be present and with a potential for some higher price pressures as we go into the early part of next year. I think they got it right, and I think the outlook for they've said they'll probably one additional cut into twenty twenty six. The market, by the way, is making in two cuts for twenty twenty six.
Somewhere in that range seems very likely and I think helpful for the economy at this point.
All right, Zach, So if you were sitting down with J.
Powell, what would.
You want to ask him right now?
That's a good question. What is he going to do after he leaves his job?
Would you do you think he will leave his job in this ring?
I would think so that's mine, that's myself.
But do you think then also Kevin has it is a given like we're seeing that the President's meeting with Kevin warsh like, so it feels like things are still fluid.
Well, I'm not a party to those discussions.
I have no clue, but I certainly think that you know, as the uh uh, you know, as they as they think about how that how they're going to chart their course on interu straight policy, I think the path that they've chosen at this point appears to be the right one, very data reliant, appears to be you know, we're landing that the economy in a sweet spot.
Okay, so can can Carol? Are you done with FED stuff? Can I talk em here?
Yes?
Okay?
To you haven't been so acquisitive. I mean there's been a lot of M and A in your space. You've been much more aggressive than others in your peer group. Why now, in terms of the aggression aggressive posture.
Well, I wouldn't characterize our posture as aggressive. It's really, you know, for.
Us, expansive, that's for sure.
Well, certainly it's expansive.
It's been it's been a dynamic year for us, but primarily from an organic growth perspective, Huntington has been growing way faster than almost any other bank in the industry at this point from an organic perspective. And so when we think about these partnerships that we've announced, with the pleasure to announce two partnerships this year, it's really all in service of sustainable, long term organic growth.
We want to call them partnerships, not acquisition.
We really do, and that's intentional.
The the partnerships we've created with Veritechs Bank and then Cadence Bank, UH really are in fact bringing these organizations together, making one plus one equals three and for us will be a powerhouse in Texas, will be present in a lot of terrific markets across the South, and and really together we're going to be a much stronger organization. So they really are partners and ultimately all in service of long term sustainable organic growth.
So you know, I've got family in South Carolina. They've noticed some economic softness, and certainly the very Techs deal was about North Carolina and South Carolina. They've seen softness in real estate which had been on fire. I'm just curious your expansion plans there, your organic growth that you want to do there. I think you guys were looking to open more than fifty branches in those states, So is that impacting any of the growth? Are you on target for them?
We're on target for that.
In fact, next year we expect to open one branch every two weeks in the Carolina. So we've got some products for your family, and we'd love to take you on this customer. But we're really excited about that, and in fact, the market reception we've had so far has been tremendous.
We've opened a.
Several new branch locations just in the last few months, and each of them have beat their full year first year deposit plan before they've even opened, to give you a sense, because the market reception has been so strong.
So with the look, I know, you know, I can ask the question. But in terms of what you have planned any more acquisitions? You know, look, how are you thinking about it?
But the way we're thinking about it is if something comes up.
Here hes you just said, they expect more, they expect more acquisitions to happen.
Do you know.
I think the industry has been consolidating for twenty years. It will continue to consolidate for us. If something comes up that's that's a creative to organic growth, that's a great fit for us, will consider it. But otherwise it's all about organic growth for us.
Geographically, what's an area of the country that's of interest to you where you don't have a presence.
We love the markets that we're in right now, our markets. We're going to be twenty one states covering more than fifty percent of the population of the country, and in markets collectively that are growing thirty percent faster.
Than the national A lot of states you're not in.
True, you know, I think our view is we're not trying to be a national bank.
We're trying to you're not trying to be a national.
Stake Explicitly, we want to be deeply present in the states that we're in.
So would that mean that if there were more expansion, it would be within the states that you're already in, so you can become bigger in those place is rather than expanding the geographic foot printed places or something fit.
I think that that's the right characterization.
Okay, yes, but I think again that's not our Our objective is not m and a per se.
Our objective is organic growth.
The Goldman Financials Conference and I think that's part of also why the KBW Bank Index really rallied in a big way, our performance about two and a half percent higher. They many said, and you guys presented there too, that they're seeing a stable consumer despite worries of an economic slow down. What are you guys seeing?
We're seeing the same. I think we just were up on stage this morning ourselves. That's the consumer stable, Consumer pipelines continue to be strong. From a lending perspective on both consumer and commercial profitability is very strong. Credit is very stable. It really looks like a solid economy from
our perspective. If all you did was read our internal reports, it would belie what you're hearing in terms of the headlines, which is very encouraging as we go into the end of this year into next year.
Why do you think you're seeing that distinction, like you're seeing something The anecdotes and indeed some data are showing softness in places. Why are you seeing strengths?
Well, Look, I think in total, you're seeing consumer spending continues to grow. Corporations I think are more confident today than they would have been at the middle of this year when there was more uncertainties in the environment. We've had a tax bill pass, we've had more teriffs, certainty come into the environment. The government is now functioning again. I think as companies are looking forward into twenty six, they're seeing this is another year of growth.
The Fed just came out today saying that.
The outlook for economic growth next year was more than two percent GDP, and so that looks like an environment where we should continue to be investing, continue to be expanding, continue to be expanding. In from a commercial and consumer perspective, there is of course a bit of a so called K shaped shaped economy happening, and I think certain segments of the consumer environment have faced pressures, particularly from inflation
and higher interest rates. Our bank does not have much exposure to that, and I think in many cases the net of growth is continued to be.
Who is your typical consumer?
You know, from us, we're focused on the mass affluent consumer base, and.
That's more specifically target we do, okay, sorry forgive me go ahead.
We target the mass affluent, and we've got a very strong base of consumers that are that are.
In that segment.
And then of course we also one of the large and largest small business banks and commercial banks in the country as well.
What does mass affluent mean in your markets?
You know, typically we're looking at customers who have a net worth of or income of more than a hundred thousand dollars, net worths that are that are high. And of course we we bank everyone, and we really our tagline is welcome to all, and we mean that. But for the most part, our business is concentrated in that mass affluent segment.
From it, so loan origination activity, tell us about what you're kind of seeing since do you last reported?
Yeah?
In fact, we just this morning showed a quarter to date loan growth of two point eight billion dollars sequentially from last quarter. Yeah, we're growing at about eight to nine percent year on year right now, Uh, and actually exceeding our own forecast that we set just a month ago.
In the brad press efforts today, I've found what jap Powis said about AI really fascinating. This idea of productivity, and it's going to get me to ask every single person I talked to about how not just how they're using AI, but like productivity increases at your bank, Like what are you seeing? How are they using it?
We're doing a lot in AI actually increasing it sure is. I mean to give you a sense. Last year, in the fourth quarter, we had two GENAI projects going through our risk evaluation and implementation. Today we have thirty. There's about a dozen per month that are coming into the pipeline.
Software engineering is being made much more more productive. We're seeing all manner of internal process improvement and now customer facing applications as well, things that make the loan approval process seamless and more effective, more personalized service.
Is that going to increase earnings for you?
Look, I think it will certainly create capacity for us to then invest more. You know, our modus operandi is to harvest and try to drive efficiencies in the baseline costs can deploy those expenses into investments.
A few years ago, I used to actually drive up to make a deposit. I used to talk to a teller. I mean I was a kid at the time, you know, and had my little book. But having said that, I don't talk to a teller for the most part anymore. So will AI in your estimation? We are talking to CEOs. Our team, our tech team just did a big AI report and they're talking to executives across industries. Everybody seems
to be in an AI, but in terms of VET JR. J. Powell saying AI hasn't really impacted the labor market yet, will it does?
It has to?
Right?
Look, I think in the end AI will touch almost every element of human life and commercial activity and ultimately will supplant many of the more rote processes.
That we use people to do. But it'll mean people could do other things. This will be a change in the in.
The labor force in terms of what people are are doing, and there's things that people can uniquely do. Make judgments, be creative, interact with other people, lead organizations. I think, you know what's incumbent upon all employees And I think about this myself, is you know where can I shift my activities to where I uniquely add value?
People matter?
You matter?
Ah, thank you, Thank you, Jan you matter.
Zach Wasserman, thank you so much.
With you.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven.
Thirty So next with us, we want to get into what we have been talking about a lot this year, Matt, and that is the AI and data center build at It is really one of the biggest stories of really this year, but also I feel like the last few years question remains of where all the power needed for them will come from and who will pay for it? And on that we had next Era Energy. It's a clean energy company focuses on wind, solar, and battery storage energy.
They announced plans to expand into net gas natural gas, including a power plant deal with Exceon and Google, and plans to buy the gas retailer Symmetry Energy Solutions. The company also anounce a deal with Meta to supply it with both clean energy and evaluate a new gas fired power plant out in the Midwest. And then don't forget back. In October, the company also made some headlines with plans to revive a nuclear power plant for Google's data centers.
This has been an all in theme if you will, this year, So let's get into it with two of our team members Bloomberg News energy reporters Will Wait and Josh Saul, both here in studio. So, guys, I mean deals being made. We know that there's a lot going on, Josh, let me start with you in terms of significant changes. Is a lot of this just talk or we're starting to see action in terms of changes to the grid adding capacity?
What are we seeing?
Thanks, First, I'd say next Era not just a clean energy company. It's a huge utility. And then they have a big development arm that historically has done a massive amount of clean energy. It's changing is that they're going that development arm is going more and more into developing gas and then also turning on turning back on a nuclear power plant in order to power these data centers.
So it's what we saw was really investors looking at that change and saying we're not sure that that change is happening fast enough and strong enough for what we expected.
So but they are like a best in class developer of especially renewable energy right as well. Hence next Era can they become a best in class gas developer.
The investors we talk to think that they can. But similar to what we've seen with some of the independent power producers, there's just a really big hunger among investors to see these deals coming faster and faster, and investors want more details. They're fine to see a big new announcement saying that we plan to do things with Google, but they want to see signed contracts for deals with price points and timelines. And when we don't see the those kind of details, we see big share drops.
Well that's it, you know, we'll come on in on here because I think you know, some of what we were hearing. I was hearing for a while too, was that when it comes to companies, especially kind of the MAGSV and the big hyperscalars, they were signing up or announcing deals with a lot of different utility companies, but because.
They wanted to make sure wherever they got.
Their power, they got power, and that maybe not all of that would be carried out.
In other words, they wouldn't get power from all of them.
Yeah, we've seen just deal after deal after deal, all these tech companies. They need as much electricity as they can get it, and they need it, They need it yesterday. They can't bring it on fast enough. And we've seen a lot of people talking about building power plants, but we really need to see these plants actually getting built and getting connected to the grid and sending real electricity.
Why aren't they getting built? Is it because they're expensive.
There's regulatory issues, there's where you build them, issues like what is it?
There's a lot of regulatory issues. They it used to be expensive, but tech companies have so much money to throw at the problem that I wouldn't say that's top of the list nowadays. But there's definitely connection problems. We need to build the wiring to deliver the power. There's just so much stuff that has to happen, you know that.
I can't remember who wrote it, but a couple of years ago there was an insane Business Week story about how difficult it was to put up lines right from power developers to the end customer and it took, you know, years and years of trying to get through this regulation. Is there any sign that this administration is going to be getting rid of that regulations as it has, you know, wanted to do.
I've written stories like that.
There's a power line that was going through Colorado that had been planned for seventeen years to get the you know, to wind energy from Wyoming to you know, all the people in southern California was where that line was supposed to go, and it just kept getting hung up on different things. The Trump administration has made announcements and has executive orders about clearing out red tape and making all
of this happen faster. But the actual, the actual grease, the actual what's needed to speed that up, I think takes even kind of deeper work in these regulatory agencies on It remains to be seen whether any of that, any of that bluster, actually ends up.
To you big executive orders just canceling state regulations on this and taking over with federal control.
Well that's the difference, right, because the states have some say.
In all of this.
They do, and the executive orders can't just wipe out existing laws. As much as Trump thinks sometimes he has that power, he doesn't have all the power he thinks he has.
So all of.
These things that the President has said, we're going to do this, it really bumps up against the realities of the regulatory process.
It does seem like this administration is against certain forms of power generation wind for example. It's no secret that Donald Trump hates wind power. He cares a lot about birds, and he's worried about them.
He's taken huge steps to make it much harder to develop wind power and solar power, and he really would love to see more gas and anything to do with fossil fuels. But it's it's a short sighted policy. We really do need everything, and you know, solar is the fastest thing we can build, but gas is pretty close to it, and that's probably what we're going to see a lot of real soon.
But if we're going to build fifteen giga lots of power new power production in the next what seven years, don't we need to use every possible source.
We definitely, we definitely do.
But what we saw I was looking I was pouring through the Next Era release today and you see their renewable plans kind of going up through twenty thirty, but then there's the phase out, you know, the Trump phase out of clean energy tax credits, and then they sort of plateau.
Well, the other thing is nuclear, and we've talked a lot about nuclear like this is not. Everybody's talking about it like it's going to just happen tomorrow, and it's that's not the case.
This is years in the making.
Still, the line I've been used about nuclear for the past few months is that there's a lot happening in nuclear and there's nothing happening in a nuclear So lots of people are talking about it. There's smart people trying to do smart things. It just moves slower than anything else we write about.
So a nuclear I guess, must be almost as beloved as coal and natural gas by this administration. Is what we're seeing with next era is that kind of an admission that the clean energy, you know, renewable economics without these tax credits just don't really work out next year.
It makes the point a lot that the clean energy is the fastest way to hook up new data centers.
But I think they also see that with kind of that, with the headwind of the Trump tax credits going away, they need to in order to get the kind of earnings growth that investors expect, they have to expand beyond clean energy and do a lot more gas, which they've already done with their regular related utility, but they need to do with their unregulated development arm and they need to get this data center game really dialed down.
But we've talked, right, guys.
I mean, when it comes to wind solar, like these alternative energy, they financially make sense for a lot of businesses much more than they did initially. Right, They make sense in terms of the investment the Coster.
Are you Wind and solar are the cheapest forms of new power to build, Yeah, have been for a while.
So why aren't we doing also?
I mean, try getting a turbine right now. I mean it's not glass turbine, no wind propeller, right isn't the waiting list years.
It's the gas turbines that we're seeing the biggest waitlist for these days, and especially because the hostility of the Trump administration for the wind farms, I haven't heard as many complaints.
So you can get the wind turbines, you can get the windmills.
You can't get the turbine for your backyard, Okay, but it's hard to connect.
There's still a years long wait to connect new power to the grid.
Yeah, you run into the same sort of permitting and roadblocks that you do kind of with anything.
Well, is the.
Grid ready for all of this extra energy? I mean, Josh, I mean that's the other thing that we've talked about, I feel like for years.
So that get says another thing that my team has been talking about the most recently, which is affordability. Just two steps to get there. Upgrading the grid in order to add all these new data centers and Also, all this new clean energy just takes a lot of upgrades, a lot of a lot of making the grid stronger, better, faster, more transmission lines running around to connect in both data centers and also to connect in new new new forms of power, whether it's a gas plan or solar. All
those upgrades cost a lot of money. Those costs are spread out pretty broadly among all customers, so we're seeing big rate increases, both big bill increases UH for customers. And people are angry. People are really mad. And we saw that in elections in Virginia and New Jersey, yes, and we expect to see it in the mid terms next year.
It's so funny.
I was just with a bunch of family down like in South Carolina, and that's what we talked about power prices and how they are incented to do things like you know, air conditioning, do it, I guess at night or something and so and then turn it off like when they get up, so that the house stays cool, but they're not taxing the grid when everybody else is.
Some of that's good, some efficiency is good, but the level of anger and people talking about it the way they've historically talked about gas gasoline prices or more recently eggs and groceries. The fact that that's now slashing over onto utilities is a rough thing for these companies to deal with.
Is it just likely to get worse?
Well, because it's just the demand is increasingly there.
Yeah, we definitely think power prices are going to continue to go up. We'll hear a lot more about it next year during the elections. And don't forget about the cost to upgrade the grid to protect it from climate change issues, wildfires and hurricanes. That's another cost that's going to everyone is going to have to bear.
One way an analysts put it to me is power bills are going up across the country different different reasons and different places. Might be going up in California because of wildfire resilience, might be going up in Baltimore because of the proximity to Data Center Alley, But power bills are going up almost entirely across the country.
Can I just ask on on nuclear will because this is your bag, right, I get that there won't be too many new projects coming online anytime soon. Right, you were down at the opening of a new nuclear plant in Georgia.
That was last year.
I know but okay, I remember you talking about it.
But what about recommission deal, what about decommissioned plants being brought back online, like three Mile, like Palisades, Like, how many of those are we going to see that will increase the nuclear power capacity.
There is, it's a short list, and almost everyone on the list is it's happening now, like the next era one. That's the jang Armyl plants in Iowa. We heard about that just a little while ago. There are three Mile Islands coming on in twenty twenty seven. Palisades is coming on January February, and after that. There's just not that any that are good candidates. So we're going to hear more about the ones. I think people are exploring them.
There's the VC Summer plant in the Carolinas, So people are looking at doing that for everyone that they possibly can make an economic case for doing it.
COO.
I mean some of the old ones, they cut them up and took them away. I went and toward one a few years ago in Vermont, a Vermont Yankee plant, and that plant was decommissioned when power prices were low. We were when we were long power, and I went up there and by the time I went up there, and I think twenty twenty three, we were starting to
see some of the increase in power demand. And while I was there, I was a little like, you got sure you want to cut this up, but I mean the process that started it was decommissioned.
They cut the thing apart.
It was all taken on special trains to Texas where it's buried very deep in the Texas dirt. Because that's what you do with radioactive material, can't.
Texas, I mean, you got to do something with this stuff.
Can't fire that one back up?
Hey, guys, thank you so much. Really enjoy this. I'm really smart. Joshaw Saul, energy reporter at Bloomberg News. Here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. Will Wait, also energy reporter at Bloomberg News.
Also right here in studio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube play head on our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including the CEO of Compass Pathways, back with us.
That's the company behind treating depression and PTSD using silocybin. We'll get an update on their route to FDA approval.
Plus tips on organizing a loved one's of state and the perfect time piece gift. Yes, we're talking about watches for all types of people in your life. Price tag included courtesy of our watch guru, Chris Rouser.
Had lots of gift ideas off of that one. Hey, first of this hour, It's called the Solar Sunbather.
It has three wheels.
It looks like it belongs in outer space. It could possibly though, hit the roads in twenty twenty six.
No, it's not a SpaceX tricycle. We're talking about the futuristic looking solar powered vehicles behind Aptera Motors. This is a California based solar mobility company. It was formed back in twenty nineteen. It's in a testing phase to release its cars on the roads and select states next year. For more on the company's plans, Carol and our car lover and very serious driver too.
Yes he is.
Matt Miller caught up with the co CEO of Aptera, Chris Anthony.
Hey, Chris, good to have you here with Matt and myself. I know he's going to take over in one minute because he's our car guy or one of our car guys. But tell us a little bit about where the company is. You're in your what sixth year, tell us about where the car is, where you're going, you're on the road, you're testing, tell us a little bit about it.
Yeah, Terara's currently in final validation and we're looking to press into full production in twenty twenty six, and it's just exciting to see the vehicle come together and see solar mobility finally on the road.
You know, clearly the current zeitgeist is not what you would consider pro solar car. The administration seems not to be the biggest fan of alternative energy or renewable energy. On the other hand, they've given you a ton of what I must believe are very incentivizing tax rules in the current one big beautiful bill, especially if you're going to manufacture in this country, which you are right, Yeah.
We're manufacturing in Carlsbad, California. But you know, there is a global supply chain for vehicles like this, and we hope that you know, there's enough investment in the US to bring more and more of that supply chain. You know, over in time, what are.
The critical pieces that you need, Like what do you need to import and pay tariffs on and what can you get from this country in order to build your car?
You know, initially we partnered with LG. Kim in a company called CTNS in Korea to make our battery packs. But we're bringing cell manufacture over to Tennessee and bringing the equipment over to manufacture our battery packs here in Carlsbag, California. So that's been assisted by California Energy Commission grant and we hope to have all that production here in the US, hopefully by the end of twenty twenty six, maybe twenty twenty seven.
What's the most difficult aspect of what you're doing and trying to create a market essentially for it and then ramp up, Like what is the trickiest part right here?
Yeah, you know, most companies start with a minimum viable product and transportation. You know, it's kind of about the styling of the vehicle and how many cupholders it has, how many passengers. That's not really where we started. We started with how do we make the most efficient transportation possible? And then it became this solar powered masterpiece that we have now. But we really didn't know what kind of
market there was. We weren't able to study the market for something that didn't exist, so we kind of had to just build what we wanted to bring to the world and then hope that people really liked it. And luckily, within the first couple weeks of announcing it, we had
over four thousand orders. Now we have almost fifty thousand orders for the app Tarra, and you know, we think people are really excited about transportation built for efficiency's sake, and something that can be solar powered, something that you never have to worry about putting gas in at, something you never have to worry about plugging it in.
Do you have to worry about range?
The standard version of the app Terra gets four hundred miles of range, plus it gets the solar charging that it gets every day just by leaving it out in the sun. But we do offer larger range models of our app Teara up to one thousand miles.
Of range, so that's easily enough for my daily commute. The car looks really, I mean, it looks cool, looks weird, looks different, it's a three wheeler. I guess that would be so that you can classify it as a motorcycle. Correct me if I'm wrong. And you've got these outboard fenders on the front, two wheels and then one wheel in the back.
Tell us about the design.
Yeah.
You know what most people don't realize is that sixty to seventy percent of your fuel that highway speeds just goes to pushing air out of the way if you're in a typical suv or sedan. So we started, you know, with aerodynamics when it comes to making transportation more efficient. That's why it looks more like a fish than a box. And with something that looks so unique, you also want
to eliminate any weight you can. So it's very light weight, and that made it three wheels, so there's less rolling resistance, less weight, and that three wheels has some unique advantages, and that we're classified as the motorcycle. But because it's three wheels, you don't have to have a motorcycle's license. Because you have something over your head, you don't have to wear a helmet. And in California, evs are no
longer allowed. Brought us admission to the HOV Lane the High Occupy Vehicle lane, so will be the only EV that's able to drive in the HOV lane without it your restrictions.
So that's interesting that you can get You can sort of weave through different regulations with a three wheeled vehicle, and that's why you've seen some of the coolest experimental vehicles, from the Morgan three wheeler.
To this app Tara car.
It's got us room for two people inside, right, as well as I guess luggage or a pet or whatever you want to bring along. What's it like when you're driving around? I mean, everybody must be rubbernecking.
How come you haven't driven one yet?
Yeah?
How come I haven't driven one yet?
Chris, Well, we need to get you in one soon, Matt. It's a pleasure to drive. It's super super quiet. It's kind of eerily quiet because a lot of the noise you hear in a typical suv or sedan is win noise buffeting off the vehicle at higher speeds, But because the Aptera cuts through the wind so nicely, you don't really get a lot of that. So it's very different
kind of driving experience. It's quick, it's a zero to sixty and five seconds top speed one hundred miles an hour, and you know, it's definitely something that gets attention if you are an introvert to maybe this is not the vehicle for you initially because any Starbucks that you pull up to you're gonna bring a crowd.
But you can take it off the beaten path, right. I mean, I'm sure I've seen the website because I recall pictures of maybe the Aptara on a beach or in the woods. It comes with or you can buy I guess camping gear or a kit that goes along with it so that you can get out there. And plus the fact that it's a solar charging you can charge with the sun up to forty miles a day, right, means that you can really take it off the grid.
It's a little deceptive on the storage. There's actually thirty five cubic feet of storage.
In the back.
If you put the front seat forward and the passenger side, you have seven feet of space from the tail to the tips. You can put surfboards back there, mountain bikes, you can actually leave the hatch up, and there's a camping kit where there's a tent that goes over the back of the vehicle so you can camp to people comfortably.
But most importantly, it's very cool to think that you can drive two hundred miles to your favorite camping spot, you can camp for a week, and you can come back with more energy in your app tear than you left with.
Unless it rains or no.
It does get less solar production, you know, if it's super cloudy or if it rains. You know, if it's cloudy, you can count on maybe half of the energy production. You know, if it's a white out snow, obviously you're not going to.
Get much solar.
But it's really a whole new vehicle category, a vehicle that creates its own fuel. There's never been anything like it where you purchased the vehicle and you're also purchasing a lifetime's worth of fuel with it.
Yeah. Hey, we're talking with Chris Anthony, Co, chief executive officer of Aptera Motors, joining us from Carlsbad, California. You know, I mentioned that the company began in twenty sixteen, but it's really like an iteration of a company that goes back a while. I think going back to actually two thousand and six, it was a company. I think it liquidated, it came back as a second company, and now it's
the third company. Or anything like if someone you know, googles, it might be like, God, this feels a little uncomfortable. Anything that connects you to kind of the history of this company from day one.
Yeah, you know.
I met Steve Fambreau in two thousand and five. He had a vision for how to make vehicles more efficient. It was a bit perplexed that there are some vehicles on the road that you would think should be efficient. You know, things that look aerodynamic. You know a VW bug. Why doesn't that get more than fifty miles per gallon? It really all comes down to the aerodynamic losses, the weight losses. So how would you make the most efficient
vehicle possible? And that's what Steve and I set out to bring advanced engineering too, is if you really tackle the problem from a first engineering principles perspective, and what do you end up with? You end up with a vehicle looks more like a fish. It's about two thousand pounds, it has three wheels, and it has an electric power train. That's the most efficient way to get energy to the wheels.
You know, by happenstance. We created something that it's some three hundred and fifty miles per gallon equivalent, and when you do that, you can put a relatively small solar package on top but get really useful range. We get about forty miles a day of free power just from leaving the app tear out in the sun. So if you're like the average American and you only drive thirty miles a day, forty miles a day of solar charging
is great. You just never have to plug the vehicle in, You just leave it outside and takes care of all your average driving needs.
So, Chris, is this something that you really see for local driving? I'm curious if it taps out at sixty five miles an hour or is it?
Does it?
How fast can it go and can it be on highways or what's your vmax?
Dude?
Thank you?
Yeah, you're.
The suspension handling characteristics are great. You know, it's a very spirited drive zero to sixty and five seconds, but you're actually faster, you know, at the upper ends of the speed. You know, thirty to sixty you know is faster, and a top speed of one hundred miles an hour. So definitely driving it on the highway. It's made to be a southern California vehicle. You know, lots of sun out here. It's made to be more than, you know, just a commuter vehicle. You can you know, take it
and you know, do the family shopping. You can you pick up the kids from the school. You can do a lot with this vehicle. In terms of usability.
I also see that it can fit individuals of up to six foot eight, which is important for.
Me because you're six want I'm six four, but I want six.
I need leg room, right, I don't.
I get claustrophobic and normal cars and planes, so I need my space. And by the way, as you're to sixteen five seconds, when I was in college, that was what a nine to eleven was doing. So that's respectable, really respectable. I mean there's still a lot of cars that can't do that. Of course, you got the instant torquere getting up to one hundred miles an hour. I rarely exceed that speed when I'm driving to and from work.
I try to come close when there's nobody around. How many orders have you got for this?
I mean, how many people do you think you're going to sell this car to when it goes into final production.
Justus twenty seconds.
Yeah, we've got almost fifty thousand orders, but we hope to deliver up to a million Appteara in the next ten years. It took Tesla thirteen years to deliver their million vehicles. We hope to do it in ten.
Well, I can't wait for Matt to try it out and report back, and then you can come back on with us. Chris Chris Anthony, co CEO of Epterra Mortars joining us.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Well, remember when we couldn't stop talking about psychedelics and their potential use for treating a range of related mental and physical health conditions. Well this was during and just after the pandemic. But then in twenty twenty two we saw prices collapse. Money was pulling out investors off, and trial results weren't what they needed to be Well, it's now having a resurgence.
Just this year, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior said he could envision approval for psychedelic drugs as treatment for depression and trauma if clinical studies have been conducted. Plus Bloomberg Intelligence analysis estimates that the market could grow to seven billion dollars in sales by twenty thirty two. Analysts say that market potential quote is clear, but companies could still run into issues with regulators and in scaling up.
Yeah, still not a straight path forward. Hey back with an update though, on his company's path two FDA approval for some of the psychedelic treatments we put up with Kabir Noth. He's chief executive officer of the small cap five hundred and fifteen million dollar market cap company Compass Pathways. Kaber joined us alongside Alexis Christopherus, who was filling in for Tip.
So we're excited about the fact that we're now in a position to potentially accelerate getting this medicine to patients who so urgently needed. Let me remind that there are three million patients living with persistent depression in the US. Fewer than five percent of them today are treated with a medicine that was actually specifically studied for or is approved for treatment resistant depression. And this is depression that is chronic, it's refactory. Often people are unable to work.
It has dramatic direct healthcare costs in terms of costs of emergency room admissions in psychiatric care, but it also has real social costs for these people. So what's changed is we've had a really excellent conversation with the FDA about their desire to see subject to us to continuing to produce really strong results in terms of efficacy and safety.
Their desire to see this moved more quickly. We've completed the enrollment in our second final stage study, which we did ahead of expectations, which is really down.
To the great Phase three.
This is a Phase three. This is the second of our final stage studies. We've completed the enrollment of that. We expect to have the the primary data from that in first quarter of next year. That will give us the second of our final stage studies. And with that we are actually excited to be able to submit that to the agency and look to an accelerated approval.
Wow, that sounds like a really big move.
I'm curious just remind us and we were talking with our healthcare team, how you guys designed the trials or research program to avoid some of the pitfalls that we've seen with I think about the ecstasy and the mm MDMA drug application that was for PTSD. How did you guys avoid some of those pitfalls.
So first we had the opportunity to learn from some of the lessons. We've been in an excellent dialogue with the FDA now for some six or seven years since we first started this time, since this process, Yeah, as we know drug developing new medicines takes a long time on a lot of commitment. Yeah, we've done this in a very robust and rigorous way. We are collecting full
side effect data. We're collecting all the issues, not just your potential side effects such as headache and fatigue, which are transient, but also things like king and so on, to make sure that there is really no abuse potential for this, and we've been collecting that right from this.
Is there any abusive potential for this?
There is no history in psilocybin of people actually seeking it out or of any abuse potential with psilocybin, which is an important point.
I'm putting my investor hat on for a moment, and I need to ask you about intellectual property and how you handle something like that, because psychedelic compounds don't sort of fit comfortably into that compound if you will, because a lot of them are natural, they can't really be patented if you will. So how do you deal with that? And to what extent is your medicine? You know, hold patents or have intellectual property.
So our medicine comp. Three sixty is a fully synthetic formulation of psilocybin. Okay, we have polyfomorph patents that address that, and therefore we have robust protection till twenty thirty eight, with the potential for extension around that because again we went for a fully synthetic modern medicine.
Have you talked to direct with the Health and Human sec Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy.
We are focused on an excellent relationship with the psychiatry division of the FDA. Okay, we've been working with the same folks for seven years.
We have certainly made some commentary around this that has given you hopes and expectations that this would move along more rapidly.
We're happy that there are senior figures in the administration who believe like us in the potential for psychedelic therapy. But we're really focused on delivering the right efficacy and safety through our studies and working directly with the division that's going to approve US.
SO Trial three third phase next year. Early next year, give us an idea of a timeline. I mean, when might we see something like this come to market.
We will get the primary data, as I said, in first quarter of next year. We will need to submit some more data later in the year, but we are looking forward to being in a position to complete a submission to the FDA in the latter part of next year, and then we'll work with them as expeditionally as possible on a potential regulatory approval.
SO twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven, Like, what's I know, this stuff all takes long, and I know we constantly am asking you, but I think because it's been so much out there for a while, a decade and then some right, I think we're all trying to do, certainly for an investing audience, understand when this actually hits the market.
We are preparing to be ready for a commercial launch from the end of twenty twenty six.
Ah, you said it, well, thank you.
What is something like this? What is something like this cost?
That's the question.
So it's premature to discuss the pricing for this in the moment. First, we actually still need to see some of the longer term results from our studies. In particular, we need to see over the course of the first six months, what the potential for a second dose is and really therefore how many potential sessions that a patient may need to have in a given year.
That's a great question because you're talking sessions. So this is not a drug that someone would continue to take or a lifelong sort of drug, if you will.
Absolutely, and it's a really important point there. What we have shown in our studies so far is that a single session can produce a dramatic response that lasts for six weeks. Today, either it's a daily oral or there is a product esketomy which you will need to take maybe thirty to fifty times a year. What we are showing is truly transformative. Therefore for these patients with this infrequent session.
So we're talking with Kabir or notth He's chief executive officer of Compass Pathways ticker is CMPs. He's here in our Bloomberg studio, Bloomberg headquarters, Kair. One of the things I think about then, is if all goes as you anticipate, and you've talked about the market for like who this is for specifically, then do you move on to other uses and other treatments, whether it's PTSD, whether it's drug addiction, Like, I'm just curious how far you can go with this.
Yes, thank you, Carol, And we are designing have in fact already designed and finalized the design of a study in PTSD. PTSD affects thirteen million people in America, and while there's this view that it's prevalent among veterans and so on, it absolutely is that's actually only around fifteen percent of that.
Population, only fifteen percent fifteen.
Percent, actually sixty percent of people suffering with PTSD are women, and so this is a very large population. The only two drugs medicines approved for PTSD were approved in the last century, so this is something new, something different, and so we are very excited about that we have designed a study and that we will be kicking that off next year.
I want to go back to the question of price. So what about insurance and how does that play a part in all of this?
From the get go, Compass were set up in order to ensure broad and equitable access for patients, and that means the ability to work with insurers, both commercial and government. With the data, we've already shown, as I say, a single administration producing statistic significant result reductions in depressive symptoms after six weeks, we've already started to demonstrate the value that this.
Can bring to the healthcare system.
Patients living with persistent depression frequently end up in the emergency room. They sometimes have in patient's psychiatric care. There are direct costs to healthcare systems, and we have already started to demonstrate the value.
You know, and forgive us Kamiir.
We do keep going back to I know you can't talk about price or your guys are figuring that out. But we kicked off saying, according to our Bloomberg intelligence team that this market psychedelic drug development could go to seven billion dollars in sales by twenty thirty two. How much of that do you think is or how much of that market size do you think you could get?
And I'm just trying to I'm curious.
So we have the potential to be ahead of other companies in this market by two to three years, and we're excited about the opportunity to treat lots of patients. So for us, this is about the ability to make inroads into those three million patients that need a new
treatment option. The only medicine that's actually approved and is being really promoted for this population today is treating maybe seventy to one hundred thousand patients, so that population of three million, So what we're excited about is the ability to bring this new medicine to those patients.
Is it a billion dollar DOUG drug? Would you anticipate We.
Would hope that if we can successfully treating.
A large number of.
Patients, especially if you get and you expand out, do you go for other uses?
Yeah? Do you go alone?
That's our intention.
We've always said clearly that we believe that we can do this on our own in the US market, and that's our intention.
All right, What about side effects? I mean, folks are listening to this, A lot of folks are hoping that this is all going to work and come to market sooner rather than later. What are some of the side effects though.
So on the day of dosing, there's some headache, some nausea, and that passes by the second day at most, because this is a day in a treatment center. We have a fully independent group of scientists and clinicians that reviews all our safety data on a regular basis. They have access to data from all arms of our studies and they have seen no unexpected or concerning side effects.
That have caused them to alter the course.
Of the study in any way.
And just remind everybody, and we just got about forty seconds co here. Right when it is given to a patient, there are folks around to really watch the process, make sure things go.
You're not taking this into the bathroom by yourself.
This is very much delivered in a safe environment, in a medical environment, with somebody in the room who is medically trained, who's there just to assure patient safety and comfort.
Do you see the finish line.
I absolutely do. And we're excited about that potential.
I just think how long we've been reporting on it and talking about it. It's really fun to kind of be on this journey.
I'm just with you.
I'm just wondering quickly regulatory hurdles in twenty twenty six. Do you think that it is going to be a more friendly regulatory environment with the Chiatry division.
We have an excellent relationship and that's been consistent of a six seven years, and we expected that to come.
Yeah, it sounds like you've been talking to them for a long long time. Kabir, Thank you, Nice to have you in studio. Kabir not his chief executive officer of Compass Pathways joining us right here.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Applecarplay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Over the next couple of decades, an estimated ninety trillion dollars in assets will be passed down from the Silent generation and Baby Boomers to their Gen X and millennial airs. But this so called great wealth transfer has a confounding corollary. Our parents haven't just been accumulating money, They've also been accumulating stuff, so much stuff, so writes Bloomberg Pursuits Editor at Large Chris Rouser.
With us on tips on what to keep, sell and donate, and just the concept in general, the history of it, why as Americans and when we started collecting so much stuff? Is Chris Rouser. Chris's story is The Pursuit's cover story of the December issue of BusinessWeek magazine. It's available now online, on the terminal and on newsstands. I kind of want to start with PEZ dispensers, because that's how you start
the piece. But this was a great piece, Chris. It's not just for people who have elderly people in their lives with a lot of stuff. It's also if you have a lot of stuff in your life, you can take a lot away because there's a lot tied up in physical things, memories, just feelings holding on to things, history, fear. Yeah, it's really complicated.
It's very complicated. So starting with Pez, which is a great.
Which is a great place to start.
Nick Malice is a comedy writer in la who I encountered while reporting for this story, and his had these two great, big lofts and soho in New York. Sounds very glam but they were filled with stuff and it was a range of stuff that was like a little junkie, Like she would pick up shelves from the street and bring him into her apartment and then fill them with stuff. But a lot of that stuff was really good, Like she was an avid collector. She had like partied with
Andy Warhol. She had some really good pop art. And Nick had to go through these two apartments that were jammed to the ceilings, and it took him years, and he found, throughout all of his exploration and dealing with it, ten thousand pez dispensers. Oh my god, you think that, like your parents have a lot of stuff. His mom had a ton of stuff, and it was very difficult
to deal with. As I said, it took years, but throughout the process and he found that it actually brought him closer to her, going through all of her stuff and taking the time and learning about what she cared about and all the cool stuff that she left to him as his inheritance. So I went into this story thinking, all right, well, this is a problem that like we're all annoyed about, like both our parents' generations, my generationserations below.
But also there's like there can be some upsides and there can be some beauty to it. So let's go in with a positive attitude.
Well, I love what he said that in going through it.
I'm sure he was incredibly overwhelmed at the beginning, right, but then understanding like as he went through them, like he got a better feeling about his mom, yeah, and who she was.
And the key thing that Nick did, which everyone should consider doing, is he got help. He got his friends to come in and help. He paid people to come in and sort the best dispensers. He got someone from Antique's road show to look at that really good stuff. There's different tiers of help. But you can get an
organizer to come in and do everything. You can get a junk company to come and get rid of everything, or you can go through stuff if you really want to and sort of set it up into different categories like valuable, not valuable, whatever.
But a key thing is is help.
I have to say, like both my parents have passed away, and I remember my mom was quite the collector. And it was Humbles, it was Gompere, it was Deal, it was a lot of stuff. Humbless are classic, and I just remember going through stuff and there was a point where we got so tired of going through stuff, like we were just putting stuff out on the curb, and in the process we threw out a clock that was actually pretty valuable, but we just were just so overwhelmed.
So how do we kind of go, like, talk to us a little bit about the experts that are out there that help us with this process to figure out what's valuable, what do you keep, what do you pass on, what do you throw out?
Yes, so there is a whole cottage industry that's set up to deal with exactly with this. Some people call it generational decluttering, which is not only when people are passing stuff down to the next generation, but maybe they're just downsizing because they retired, they don't need so much space, and they don't know what to do. So you can get an organizer who will really help you go through everything. They'll give you organizational tools, which we all need. They'll
help you digitize photos. They have all these tools that like you don't even think about that will shrink the stuff that's in your house and they'll get this stuff out of your house. And these are people who are practiced at it. They're emotionally sensitive. I talked to some really cool people who have are really thoughtful, and it's hard to get stuff out of the house. You know people, you know, our parents, their parents were depression era, so
they wanted to hold on to stuff. They want to hold onto paper records.
Going to dacist because I think I think about, like why the heck do I I've actually talked about this with my therapists, like why do I have to hold on to so much stuff? Yeah, like even after my parents are passed, like it's like these aren't them anymore, but it's like silly things like even seeing their handwriting, Like why, But what is it about that we got to this point.
It's a lot of things. So, like I said, our parents grew up with depressionary.
Our parents.
If you're like an aging millennial gen X, you grew up in a house where like people saved stuff against maybe future emergencies, like maybe your parents had nine flashlights in a drawer because like, you never know when you're gonna need it. Anyone younger than us, younger than thirty five, grew up with Amazon, so they are you know, and they grew up with the Internet, so they are everything
is immediately available. Things are not as high quality as they were, like products, home products, especially as they used to be or as beautiful from like the early twentieth century, so they don't have that association of this is nice, we should keep it, whereas our parents and even us, like, it's hard for me to get rid of books.
I feel like books should have a future.
Yeah, have you seen my desk.
I can't get rid of books.
Oh, I've changed my thoughts completely on books.
I know you have.
You got to get rid of books. Everything's on my kindle. It just we live in New York City. There's not enough room for books. Do it all on your kindle and be done with it. Yeah, I mean I know it closed too.
Can I just say though I thought it was interesting. I just was say, like the china collection and then the china cupboards. I remember my grandmother like a massive and then my mom had them, and it's like I have little ones. But it's it's like getting away from that that that you had these things then you displayed them.
Yes, and that is that's a thing. When the middle class in America was born, and like starting in the mid nineteenth century, that when we started having factories and middle managers and all these people going in through the beginning of the twentieth century, That's when Tiffany started making silver. That's when people could afford it was either before that
it was either like extremely rich people or working class. Right, and then there were oh, mass produced things could be actually beautiful and we could own a lot of them, and we should display them to show like where we have reached as a family. And then that created this like snowball of like we should show our China, we should have fine silver that we don't use, that goss us where we are today.
I love the dive into the industrial revolution in this piece and really what brought the American middle class on our obsession or fascination with stuff. What I also love about the piece, Chris, is it required some self reflection from you and also some anecdotes from you about this happening while you were essentially thinking about this piece. Talk to us about your dad's gun collection.
So my dad's gun collection was the reason why I thought of this piece. Actually, my dad has something like seventy guns he'd been collecting since he was a kid. So some of them are historical, some of them had a lot of emotional resonance, and he has a room in his house that we call the Second Amendment rooms full of guns, and my brother and I live in the city, in New York City, we don't want a lot of guns around.
Well guns are not there as certain guns. It's very hard to legally have a gun in New York City.
Yeah, and also a lot of them are hunting rifles and I don't hunt a lot. So my dad decided, he was like, you know what, I don't. I'm mostly just cleaning these, like I don't really use a lot of them that much, and it's time for me to get rid of them so my kids don't have.
To deal with it.
So he I was so proud of him. He photographed all of them. He made like a PDF. He put out an RFP to dealers to be like, who will give us me the best offer on this? All throughout New England. He lives in Maine, and then a guy at the Kittery Trading Post in southern Maine was like, this is my offer, and my dad said, that's great, And he asked my brother and my step siblings which guns we wanted, and then he just sold all the rest of them the guy at the Kittery Trading Post
and I was like, this is amazing. I love this and so I told my mom and she was like, wow, that's awesome. What about all the wooden mallards.
What's the market collected? Yeah, my dad, what's the market? What's the market for wooden mouth?
So there is a.
Market for wooden mallards, and there are markets for all these things. You think no one wants to silver, and you think no one wants china, and that's like in brown furniture, and that's sort of true. But like the elite stuff, the best stuff, actually there is still a market for it. So like you can, you can go through and find the people that want the wooden mallards. And I thought, okay, this is something I gotta do a story.
Oh my god, I just I love it.
I love it.
I think it resonates for so many of us.
Well, I'm just going to say, if you go through stuff, you might be able to pass it off as get gifts this holiday season.
Yeah, or or if not.
Actually, in our family we've sometimes done that, like passed down.
Does anyone in your family have a watch collection.
I have a little bit of a watch clo.
Oh okay, well that's a perfect segue, So.
Tell us about you actually give us a gift guide for every specific person in your life when it comes.
To watching, which is a great way to organize it because it's not like, Okay, these are the best watches for under three hundred dollars, These are the best watches for under a thousand, These are the best watches that are one hundred thousand dollars. This is the best watch for this person in your life. I love that.
Yeah, thanks, Yeah, you know, normally I do the price point gift GUIDs. This year, I was like, I'm going to actually go through specific situations that people have already come to me to ask for a gift or for a watch for themselves. My nephew recently asked he wants like a steel watch to take on job interviews because he's going to graduate college. So I recommended a Tiso, which is a very reasonably priced brand, really good Swiss watches.
A lot of people ask me, they're like, I'm buying my first serious watch, and I send them to a multi brand store where they can look at a lot of different watches. They always come back either with a Rolex or an IWC, so I recommend some IWC's. One of my friends has got a new finance job, and.
He love this one.
Everyone in my office wears a different watch every day, of course, and I was like, I want to work in that office, So.
Do you not have a watch to where every day different?
That's what I'm saying.
I'm thinking you you're on it. The nonprofit lawyer, can I just say for a nonprofit lawyer? I was curious about, like what you were going to come up with.
I was not expecting still a lawyer, still a lawyer. True, this, it's funny. We actually went through and Felix on my team asked chat GBT for the same recommendations, and chat GPT came up. I think it must have scraped the story because although we don't let people scrape our stuff, but because it came up with a lot of the same recommendations. And for the non profit lawyer one, it came up with the exact same brand, no most class shoota,
which is very it's like pretty obscure. I was like, CHATCHBT, you've been listening, but this is my friend is an immigration lawyer in Chicago, an incredible, incredible person, and he was like, I want to grown up watch to like celebrate my milestones and my marriage but I can't be like a crazy rich person watch.
And so I love this watch. Yeah, I love it, really beautiful. But for all you guys out there, if you're looking to get something for the woman who wants an understated.
Classic Cardia, that tank wise, it's always the tank.
It's always the tank.
All right?
Do we have to go?
We have to go, Chris Rouser, never enough time. Thank you so much. Happy holidays, So glad we could do that.
Listen, how did you describe the Cardia tank?
Oh?
I said, If you're buying a woman an expensive watch and you're not considering a Cardia, you're a lunatic.
There we go. Amen, Amen, Chris Rouser, Bloomberg Pursuits Editor at Large.
And that wraps up our weekend edition, a Bloomberg Business freek from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Tim Steinbeck and I'm Carol Masser. Have a good and safe weekend. Maybe clean out some stuff, just recommending.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week Daily podcast, available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern on Bloomberg dot Com. The iHeartRadio app tune In, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg terminal