Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
This is Bloomberg Business Week Inside from the reporters and editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus gloom wal Business finance and tech news. The Bloomberg Business Week Podcast with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck from Bloomberg Radio.
Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Wee Weekend Podcast. So this past week, yes, we got another jobs report and another Fed decision. Bottom line, folks, especially when it comes to the Fed, we are still data dependent and more inflation progress is needed. The Essential Bank did signal that rate hikes are unlikely, dampening a narrative Tim that's creeping into a lot of our conversations as of late.
In the meantime, Amazon and Apple were among the big earnings this week as we continue to make our way through quarterly updates. All important and among our most read stories this week, as are the protest on college campuses around the country involving pro Palestinian protesters.
We had a great voice on the protest from a long time Columbia University professor, none other than Nobel Laureate Joseph Stieglitz. He weighed in on the protests. He also talked about FED policy, the economy, and the Road to Freedom. It's the subject of his new book Love More in a Moment.
Plus and what we are calling Our Deep Think Hour.
David E.
Sanger, the Pulitzer Prize winning White House and National Security correspondent for The New York Times, on his latest book, It's called New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's invasion, and America's struggle to Defend the West.
David E. Sanger and Joseph Stieglitz two authors with some deep thoughts on some of the most pressing issues of our time. We begin with Nobel Laureate Joseph Stieglitz, Professor of Economics over at Columbia University. He was Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Clinton and a former Chief Economist of the World Bank.
He has written many books, authored numerous research papers on many aspects of economics, equality, and more. His latest subject matter covered in a new book entitled The Road to Freedom, Economics and the Good Society. Our conversation done just before the latest FED decision began with the Fed's commitment to that two percent inflation objective.
From the point of view.
Of economics, having two and a half or even three percent inflation is not a big deal. You know, the two percent target was pulled out of thin air. It was not based on economic science. What we want to be sure of is that we don't have runaway inflation. And inflation has clearly been tamed. It's been brought down. It's stable. It electuates from month to month, but it is not a major problem. We should be focusing on other things, continuing economic growth, making sure that all Americans
share in that growth. Those are the kinds of things that we ought to be thinking more about.
So, Professor Stieglitz, should the Fed abandon the two percent inflation goal? Should they have a different inflation goal, a different metric that they should be held accountable to.
Yes, I think they should.
I think they should be talking about keeping within a range to maybe three, three and a half four percent. You know, there's actually some economic science that says, especially in a time of major structural change such as we're going through, having a little higher inflation actually is helpful in reallocating resources in the presence of downward nominal rigidities of wages because What guides the movement of resources from
one place to another is relative wages. And if some wages are sticky downward, you want other wages to go up enough to move labor, and that means you're going to have to have more inflation. So actually a little higher inflation is actually good for the economy.
Do you think the FEDS management of the economy has been a good one in terms of policy?
Quite frankly no, But bluntly, let's go back to when inflation broke out after the pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The question was what was the cause, the primary cause of the inflation.
It was unambiguous.
It was the pandemic and war related interruptions in supply chains and rising prices caused by shortages of oil and food. It was demand shifts. People wanted to live in different places, and that meant housing prices went up where there was a scarcity, but didn't go down as much where there was where people didn't.
Want to live.
In parts of New York, raising interest rates actually impeded the ability of the economy to respond to that kind of structural uh. To that that kind of challenge, we needed to build more houses in the places where there was a scarcity, and having higher interest rates actually works makes it more difficult. They also have a model of economy that's based on competition. That might have been true some time ago, but we have an economy with a
lot of market power at firms are trading off. If they raise their prices, they get more profits today, they lose profits in the future, and in that trade off, when you raise the interest rate, they value those future losses less, and they were induced to raise their prices more.
So margins go up.
And a marked aspect of the inflation that we've just been through is that markets have increased enormously.
Hey, Professor Stieglitz, I just wanted to speaking of the FED, Carol, I know you would all.
When went before. We have a bigger, broader question, and it's certainly been a bigger to jump in on that. Well, what do you think then we should be cutting rates already, that we're behind the curve right now?
Yes, I think the risks are asymmetric.
I think with Europe already slowing down in recession, we don't know where China is going to be going. I think proudents would have us going back to a more normal infrast rate. The higher interest rates are really not going to be taming inflation.
That that model was wrong.
In another way, they dramatically had said that we're going to need five percent of inflation for five percent unemployment for some time in order to get inflation down.
They were absolutely wrong.
We got inflation down where in a period where we kept unemployment relatively low. So they are analysis of the economy was just off. And meanwhile they have put at risk our banking system. We had a problem in Selcom Vallet Bank partly because of the enormous changes in terms structure which their policies led to. And we're facing a debt crisis in the developing countries and emerging markets.
So there's enormous one sided risk. I believe in the policies that they've been pursuing well.
On the FED, Professor Stieglitz, I got to ask you about this Wall Street Journal report that broke last night that said how former Trump administration officials are coming up with plans to take on the independence of the Federal Reserve essentially at one end of the spectrum, even allowing if President Trump gets re elected him to weigh in
on FED policy when it comes to interest rates. Talk a little bit about your reaction to if this were to come to fruition, how important the independence of the FED is and if that would really put at risk the model of the independence of the US financial system.
Well, I think Trump is himself a major argument why you want to have independence.
Of the FED.
You don't want somebody who doesn't understand monetary policy, who would.
Put at risk the long run.
Stability of the economy for the short term electoral advantage of having a hot economy right before an election. That's precisely why there is an argument for independence. So you know, I believe in the accountability of the FED. It is a public institution.
We had.
Previous chairman of the FED. We're very cognizant of that. I remember Paul Voker saying Congress created us and Congress can uncreate us. So there is a kind of accountability that responsible heads of the FED understand. But we certainly don't want Donald Trump to we run monetary policy, all right.
We do want to dig into your book because you've been thinking a lot about the meaning of freedom, and
I think we throw the word abown a lot. I think the folks who created the United States are founding fathers thought about freedom a lot and the difference though between what that really means, and maybe it comes down to, as you think about it, the values that we all have in society tell us about how we need to kind of maybe redefine freedom and what it means in terms of citizens more broadly and generally as well as economically in terms of their success.
Sure, you know, I approached the issue obviously as an economist, and as an economist we think of freedom is free to do what you can do. What are the choices that you can make. Somebody who is at the point of starvation doesn't really have any freedom.
He has to do what.
He can to survive, and so expanding the set of choices that individual is available is a way of saying that he has more freedom. And here there are a couple of ideas I put forward in my book. The first is that in our integrated urban twenty per century economy, one person does the expansion of his freedom may lead to less freedom of others. Isaiah Berlin, the great Oxford philosopher, put it this way. He said, freedom for the wolfs
has often meant death for the sheep. And in the context of the US, for instance, freedom to carry an AK forty seven means that people will die, and it means that our school children are not free from fear. They have to learn what to do if a gunman comes into the classroom and teachers have to go to school worried about whether they'll be attacked. Freedom not to wear masks is exposed taking away the freedom of others to live.
So we.
Have to balance these freedoms. There are trade offs. Many cases, those trade offs are easy. Freedom to pollute takes away the freedom to have somebody with asthma to even live, let alone the freedom of all of us to live on our planet. So there, I think we have to constrain the freedom of the polluters and the freedom of exploiters.
So we're talking with Joseph Stiegletz, Nobel Laurate economist, professor of economics at Columbia University, and we're talking about his new book, The Road to Freedom, Economics and the Good Society. All Right, So if we rethink Professor Stieglitz the idea of freedom, so it's maybe more inclusive or it's a broader definition, how do we do that within society? With corporations, the need to be profitable for those we are in earning season. We look at companies and their reports and
that's how we kind of measure them, grade them. What does government need to do? How can we maybe be better if you will for more.
First, let me emphasize that in the world i've just described, there's an important role for regulations. Corporations often don't like that, but we have to remember the purpose of our economy is to improve the lives and livelihoods of our citizens.
It's not the other way around.
That the economy is supposed to serve society, not the other way around.
There's another aspect.
Regulations can actually expand the freedom of.
All of us.
Think about stop likes. If we don't have stop likes, we have gourdlock. None of us has the freedom to move. Stop likes orgs are a little bit of coercion, mean that I have to take turns, but by taking turns, we all have more freedom. And that basic idea extends much more broadly. People don't like to pay taxes. That's
a they often feel kind of coersion. But when those tax revenues are used productively, like they were to invest in the internet and invest in the m R any platform that led to the vaccine against COVID nineteen.
That expands our freedom to do.
And so we have to look at this in I would say in a little bit more holistic way, Well, I.
Want to go to your taxes point, because I'm curious if you could wave a magic wand or implement some sort of tax policy here in the US. What would it be, How could you reinvent it? Would you broad in the tax space, would you lean more on corporate taxes, would you tax wealth more? What, in your opinion, would work?
Well, I begin by.
Analyzing would are some of the key problems on our society faces, And one of them is inequality one of the reasons. And a second problem is the growth of market power, which has been enormous in the last few decades, and those two are obviously linked. When you have more market power, the fruits of that market power go to those at the top. We also have more economists called monopsity power firms have market power over workers and have driven down their wages.
Significantly below a competitive level.
So I want to have more anti trust policy, more competitive labor market policies. But that can take time. Meanwhile, there's a lot of monopoly rents. And so part of what I would begin by doing is increasing corporate colfix taxes, which are not a tax on return to capital, they are tax on this monopoly profits. I'd also like to have environmental taxes firms that are engaged, including the environment,
on to pay for the damage that they're doing. Remarkably, America, those at the top pay a lower percentage of their taxes than those down below. Even some of our richest people have commented that they think they're right more wrong.
Well, can I ask you, like on a day when we're looking at a company and forgive me, I'm just singling out because it popped. Shares of Alphabet are now a two tillion dollar market cap company this week, you know next week. Last week, we've been obsessed with, certainly what we call them mag Dificent seven, the big megacap technic companies. They're very big. Amazon, we talked with an author recently, so entrenched certainly in our world, and you
think about their reach. Are these the companies the individuals, whether it's an Amazon, whether it's a Meta, whether it's an Alphabet that you think you talk about growth of market power isn't too much at this point in your view that something needs to be done to rain them in or do the benefits outweigh the downside here.
Well, they do give benefits, but they have a lot of downsides. They need to be better regulated. Europe has done a better job at regulating them. The digital harms are quite obvious and have been by now well documented. But talking narrowly now about market power, I think we ought to do what we can to limit their market power, but tax the groups of that market power, of the revenues that they get at a much higher rate. You know, if you ask the question, would Jeff Bezos or the founders.
Of Google.
Or Zuperbird stop working if we tax their wealth in a way, say a three percent you know, so, any answer is obviously they would continue to work.
Do you think that they would leave the United States?
Well, we have imposed what we call an exit tax that those with a lot of wealth and don't feel who don't feel loyalty to the United States can leave. We allowed them to leave, but they have to pay a tax that represents attacks on their groups of the wealth that they've accumulated while they've been in the United States. And that that tax is significant and it is a deterrent. Not it may be that we ought to consider raising that tax, but I don't think people like at Zuckerberg
Musk are going to leave the United States. They realize the benefits of American citizenship.
We're speaking right now with Professor Joseph Stieglitz, Nobel Lauriate Economists. He's a professor of economics at Columbia University. He's got a new book out, The Road to Freedom, Economics and the Good Society. Professor, as I mentioned, you are up at Columbia. You've been there for a long time. We've been watching everything that's been happening on the campus there,
as well as campuses including USC, Yale, MIT. The list continues to go on here in the United States, as we've seen pro Palestinian protests and encampments take over some of these campuses. Freedom in the academic context, how are you looking at the pest protests and the context of freedom of speech.
That's a good question.
I mean personal me comment that up where my office is, which is the Manhattanville campus, things are very quiet the Business school at the Business school, but you've been.
On campus a long time. And you've seen different protests over the years, and it seemed to be I was there when there were protests, and it seems like that's what students are should be doing, exploring and pushing back when they don't feel like things are right. But what is the what is it those protests in the context of freedom of speech?
So I agree with you very strongly.
I'm actually happy the students are engaged in the world, you know. That's that's one of the things I try to kept them to be interested in the world, and also to reason about the world, to come to understand it, and to debate how could or should things be changed. So that's a good thing. And in my own life,
protests have played a very important role. Back in nineteen sixty three, I was down there in the march in Washington with Martin Luther King, and you know that speech he gave about I have a dream has been a lifelong inspiration to me. So even civil disobedience in certain circumstances can be an important mechanism for social change. We have a special responsibility, of course, to make sure on our campus that all views get heard, that we can have.
Civil debates and so on. The one hand.
Academic freedom is really important, and I really took offense to Speaker Johnson coming up to our campus and calling for the resignation of our president. I hadn't seen anything like that, maybe since the HUAC hearings the House on American Activities Committee back with McCarthy in the fifties. I mean, that kind of direct interference in academia is just unheard of.
And we know some of the Republicans have been trying to undermine universities because universities teach children how to our young our youngsters, our young men and women how to think, and a lot of people don't like that idea that they should be thinking for themselves. But at the same time, we have to create on campus a community where all voices are heard, and I think we're actually working very
much towards that. There were only a few people raising problems, and I think having outside educators like the speaker is not helpful.
We're going to leave it on that note. We always appreciate hearing you talk about hearing from voices. We always appreciate hearing from you. Professor Stieglitz, Thank you so much. Nobel Loride Economist, Columbia professor Joseph Stieglitz here in New York City. Check out his book his latest book, The Road to Freedom, Economics and the Good Society. Really appreciate us spending some time with you.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Easter Listen on Apple Cardplay and then brought auto with a Bloomberg Business app or watch us Live on YouTube.
L After the Cold War ended, there emerged a theory that Western liberal democracy had triumphed over fascism and communism. The theory was perhaps most notably put forth by the political scientist Francis Fukiyama, who argued that we'd reach quote the end of history, peace among nuclear superpowers. The Nazis were gone, the Berlyn Wall had fallen. It turns out things didn't exactly go the way that the West thought they would. The world didn't embrace the Western a form
of liberal democracy. Russia invaded Georgia and Crimea, and then Ukraine, where it's in its thirty year of fighting. China over that time has risen to become the second largest economy in the world with its own global ambitions In other words, there are other countries that want to be superpowers.
David E.
Sanger is the Politzer Prize winning White House and National Security correspondent for the New York Times. He wrote the best seller The Perfect Weapon. His new book out earlier this month. It's called New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's invasion, and America struggled to defend the West. David joins us from Washington, DC. David, congratulations on the book.
How are you?
Thank you? Thanks very much. It was an exciting and many it was fun exercise to go write this.
Well, you write in the book that the revival of the superpower conflict took Washington by surprise. When was Washington's surprise by this?
At what moment? When?
And why why were we so caught off guard?
Well, we were caught off guard for a couple of reasons. The first is that we had worked from that assumption that you described, that the end of history had come here. And while Fukiyama famously wrote it, he wasn't the only one to subscribe to it. Most of Washington subscribed to some version of that theory. The second reason is that
we lived in a world of self delusion. We spent twenty years focusing on terrorism as if terrorism was the central challenge to the United States rather than the major nuclear armed and rising technological powers around US. Thirdly, we took way too long in doing the pivot to the
Asia Pacific area. We talked about it for years and years, we still haven't fully sort of focused the US on that, And it really was not until the past few year years, twenty years, more than twenty years after nine to eleven, that we sort of woke up to the fact that the central challenge for US over the next few decades will be not only Russia and China and the world that they are building around them, but the interaction between Russia and China, which was exactly what Nixon and Kissinger
were trying to interrupt when they recognized China in the early seventies.
What were some of the warning signs that the optimism was misplaced that you kind of came across in your research, you know, speaking to five different presidential administrations and different geopolitical experts.
Well, Emily, it's a really interesting question because this was a bipartisan error. R I mean, this is not a Democrat or Republican thing. Was Bill Clinton who went to Beijing University and declared the Internet will set you free and undercut the Communist Party of China, when in fact it became part of the system of exquisite control that
the Communist Party put together. It was George W. Bush who floated down the Never River with putin one of their two dozen meetings in where they were talking about Russia joining the European Union and maybe one day in the future, who knows, might even become a member of NATO, the alliance that was created to contain the old Soviet Union. So this was not Democrats or Republicans. But among the delusions was that national interests, territorial interests, interests in authoritarian
control would not come ahead of their economic interests. We assumed that China was so invested in the United States and vice versa, that confrontation between the two countries could never happen, and that in Russia's case, that they so valued the oil and gas revenue that came from those pipeline in New Europe that they would never threaten the
possibility that those could get cut off. And in fact, the Europeans never really gave them any reason to think it would be cut off until after the full invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty two.
David, I want to start with an anecdote that you include in your book about a President Biden visit to New York City just a couple of years ago, back in I believe it was October of twenty twenty two, where he made some comments at a fundraiser that I think struck a lot of people as pretty shocking. Explain what happened.
So this was October twenty two, as you said, and the President for the past few days had been getting a string of some of the most alarming intelligence reports you can get as president in the United States. They indicated the intercepts of Russian commanders in Ukraine at a moment when the Russians were doing very poorly in Ukraine, indicated that they could be preparing to use tactical nuclear
weapons against Ukrainian military sites. If they had gone ahead, it would have been the first use of nuclear weapons in Anchor since the bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, the second of two American bombs in nineteen forty five. And so the President's got this fundraiser, it's being held out of all things at the house of James Murdoch. It's the one of the few Democrats in the Murdoch family.
Big fundraiser, So there are all these you know, East Siders who were walking around with their wine and looking at the art exhibits and getting ready to tell their friends.
They had cocktails with the president. And Biden comes in and he says, we face the greatest nuclear possibility of nuclear use since the Cuban Missile crisis, which had been sixty years before that very week, and he went on to describe the possible ability that they are dealing with a leader in Vladimir Putin who might make use of a nuclear weapon because of the great nuclear paradox of the worst the Russians did to hire the chance that they would reach for their arsenal, and that began a
remarkable period of time in which the US scrambled to get China and India among others, to tell the Russians there is no space here for the use of nuclear weapons. Put In back down. But something has really changed in this war, and that is, for the first time in post Cold War history, or really since the end of World War Two, we have the possibility that nuclear armed states are going to threaten to use nuclear weapons against non nuclear armed states, and that changes the world.
So your book is titled New Cold Wars, and I noticed that now it looks like the New Cold Wars. It's Russia and China and then the U, whereas in the prior Cold War it was basically one country versus another. Can you talk about the dynamics of almost the US being I don't want to say outnumbered, but it's clearly not just one country versus another country. This new clus That's.
Right, and that's a great question, e Lee. I don't think we're outnumbered because the US has something that Russia and China doesn't, which is a vast network of allies, which is probably our greatest strength and certainly enables US to extend our military, economics, technological reach. But those alliances are not as widespread as American officials would like you
to think. There are probably fifty countries that are in the alliance together to back Ukraine, but that leaves another one hundred and twenty that are either lined up with the Russians or standing on the sideline. Those who say, don't make us choose between these two different groups. The dynamics are completely different. In the Old Cold War, it was largely a military contest against the Soviet Union, and within that largely in nuclear context. In the New Cold Wars,
it's Russia and China to very different powers. China on the rise, Russia struggling and really only has the power of a disruptor. But they have found great utility in coming together and bringing in countries like Iran, which is providing the drones and maybe one day the missiles for Russia's use, North Korea, which has gone from being isolated by all to suddenly being a critical supplier to the
Russians as well. It's a different relationship than in the old Cold War because when the old Soviet Union would go visit mal it was the Soviets on top. Now it's the Chinese on top, and we don't know what that partnership, it's not really a full alliance is going to look like. But it's probably the single most important factor in America in international relations today and certainly in American strategy today, and we need a way to go figure out how to go deal with it, manage it, maybe.
Interrupt David, you spent so many years reporting, not just from Washington, but on the trail, not even on the campaign trail, like on with the presidents, traveling with the presidents all over the world to many of these places that you talk about. We know how the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. How do you think this Cold War ends.
It's a great question. We're so much at the beginning that I don't even think we can think about the middle much plus the end. You know, the old Cold War had a sort of surprising start, the speed with which the Soviet Union turned from an ally of the US and World War two to an adversary just in
a matter of years. And then it had a long middle and it had a surprising to Americans, very satisfying ending with the collapse of our adversary without any direct confrontation obviously Korea, Vietnam and the other proxy wars along the way. Anybody who's looking for a similar pattern in these new Cold Wars is probably going to be disappointed, because for the next few decades this will be the shaping competition for the United States and its allies. Some
points that may be good. I mean, I think it's forced the United States to think about national security differently. We now understand how semiconductors are at the core of American national security. The TikTok debate is about national security right in ways that we did not even a few
years ago. But what worries me is that in this presidential campaign, we are so wrapped up in our internal divisions over so many issues, cultural issues, and so forth, that we aren't even debating what our strategic approach to these adversaries has got to be. And I can't think of a more central issue for the next American president.
David thirty seconds. We only have thirty seconds left. How does it change if it's Biden who wins in November or Trump if he wins in November.
If it's Biden, I think it's going to look a lot like it is if it's Trump. The traditional American allies are going to begin to think about their Plan B, and their Plan B may be defending themselves without the US, and that may mean getting their own weaponry, including nuclear weaponry, because they can no longer rely on the American alliances.
Wow, really gives us something to think about, David. I really appreciate you taking the time and joining us during the book tour. David d Sanger Politzer Prize, winning a White House and National Security correspondent for The New York Times. His new book It's out now, New Cold Wars, China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and america Struggle to Defend the West. David Sanger of The New York Times. You're listening to a Bloomberg Business Week and this is Bloomberg Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting a two pm Eastern on applecar Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business Ad. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just say Alexa, play Bloomberg.
Eleven thirty Plenny Hen in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week, including the Michelin Guide. Yes, of course for fine dining, we know that, but it's also now rating hotels, Yes, hotels, and tim it requires more than a spawn a pool to get those coveted Michelin keys. It takes a certain experience.
I guess you could say that. Plus if that experience includes an oyster safari, yeah, a high speed ferry, maybe watching Romanian Orthodox monks play the Simantran. Then you're in luck. How to make your trip to Europe this summer go further without sacrificing luxury. Courtesy of Bloomberg Pursuits. First up this hour, the new issue of Bloomberg Business Week.
It is out. It's all about technology and how in this historic election year it is clearer than ever that the industry is playing a key role in the geopolitics and policing that shape our world.
One sector that is at the center of so much semiconductors. One chip company with its own set of troubles. Well, it's Intel. It once defined Silicon Valley, and it's spent a decade flailing and it's now overshadowed by Nvidia.
Bloomberg Business Week columnist Max Chafkin and Bloomberg News US semiconductor and networking reporter Ian King right about Intel's taking its future on Ohio. It is the Tech Issues cover story.
Well, well, Max and I were looky enough to actually get to walk up and look at the physical manifestation of this, and it was really a technology sort of fork in the road with a technology called EUV made by a company called a SOML. Key key part of this process of making these semiconductors, and Intel, you know, had a choice whether to adopt this technology with all of the problems that it had at the time and worked them out, or whether to basically put it on
hold and persist with existing technology. And that turned out to be a blind alley technologically. It's opponents, its rivals, TSMC, some songs said no, no, we actually fancy having a go at this. We think we can make it work, and they did, and they took the lead away from Intel.
Which brings us to today, Max and where we are when it comes to not just Intel's problems, but also what the US government is now trying to do in order to well alleviate the situation at least for the United States. Give us an update on where the money's coming from and where it's going right now.
Yeah, so Intel, you know, as of twenty twenty one, has a new CEO, pack Gel Singer, who essentially his pitch it was like, bring back the old Intel people know Intel for you know, manufacturing.
He was there for years. Yeah, exactly.
Sorry, As you mentioned that, this is this is a guy who's been at Intel except for a brief interlude at EMC. He's been at Intel since like nineteen seventy nine he mentored under Andy Grove, the legendary CEO, and it was sort of like get back to manufacturing. This was a defining feature of what made the company successful. Which it's helpful in two ways. One is that you know, in a lot of ways, like chips are a volume business.
If your volume starts to go down because you're manufacturing and so great, that's going to have lots of knock on effects, right. And it's also helpful because of politics, because Gelsinger was reading the political moment in a very savvy way, and you had Joe Biden get elected, you know,
on the with the promise of restoring industrial capacity. You had as Ian said, you know, the lockdowns and the chip shortage sudden realization, and you had you know, China and the fact that TSMC, which is based in Taiwan is you know, is very close geographically to to you know China, to to to mainland China, and the prospect that Beijing could decide to you know, like invade and that would put the chips that that we rely on
at risk. So so you have this kind of swirl of strategic reasons, political reasons and Intel now is betting big. I mean you mentioned Ohio. They're also doing major projects in Arizona and also in Oregon where they both those places they've had, you know, significant operations before, and you're talking about you know, tens of billions of dollars and then the Biden administration coming in with their own money, you know, nineteen point five billion dollars from the Chips
Act on top of some state funds. So it's a lot of money on this thing. We need to say, like, this is risky. There's no guarantee this is going to work. TSMC right now has a pretty substantial lead.
And they're also building plants here in the United States.
Max, Yeah, they're building plants again with support from the Biden administration.
Again, this is a big strategy.
Although when you look at you know, the size that the binding White House is given more money to Intel than than than any of these other companies, and what Intel is trying to do here is very ambitious. You know, this Ohio site is enormous. I mean, you know, you're I went there at the end of last year, and you know, it looks like a kind of like a muddy field.
Doesn't look like all that much.
But it's basically goes on as far as I can see, and already you've got you know, fourteen hundred people working there, construction workers. I mean, there's a lot of action there. If it were built out, I mean, this would be like a hundred billion dollar site. It would be, as Gelsinger likes to, you know, brag, it would be one of the or would be the biggest chip factory in the world.
All right, so ian so right now, a massive muddy field, but it's not going to be that way. There's a lot of money going into it. It takes a couple of years to get this up and running. So I wonder first of all, the time that it's going to take for Intel to get this done and ultimately, you know, what guarantee does it have that this is the right bet, that this is the right strategy. Where will the marketplace essentially be maybe in a few years.
Yeah, I mean if I if I knew that, I'd be in a different position.
But fair with us, Yeah, tell me the questions, right.
Yeah, Now, that's that is absolutely the tension that exists right now. Just because he's building these plants doesn't mean the orders will come, right that's very important. Intel on its own, Intel at its current level is building way
more capacity than it needs. The bet, and it's very clearly a bet, as Max pointed to, is we're going to build all these plants, and then we're going to persuade these companies that hated us, that will suffer at the consequences of our strength for years, to give us orders and we're going to build their chips as well, because that's the way we're going to play this. That's
the way the world is going. This outsourcing model is only going to get stronger, and the only way we're going to win in this is to be part of it. So far, they don't have any customers. The only customer is themselves, and that's not enough to basically fill all of these plants are going to get built.
That's thing that that is the challenge.
I mean the assets that they have, and one of them is this you know, this machine that that that Ian mentioned, which Gelsinger managed to negotiate early access to.
So so we actually.
Saw when we were in Oregon one of two of these machines that exist in the world. The other one, you know, is at the ASML you know, headquarters so it's really the only one that was fully assembled. They have early access to that. Maybe they'll that'll allow them to help jump ahead. The other thing that's probably more important, because you know, all the other companies are also going to get this awesome looking.
Machine, uh, is political.
They they have an advantage in that they are kind of an American national champion. And we've even seeing the Biden administration talk that way, talk about the fact that like we as a country need to support this because if Intel were to fail or to get broken up or to exit you know, leading edge manufacturing as AMD, you know, their main competitor did, that would be a problem for the US. So so there is the prospect of further political support.
For their security concerns like this plays into big time.
Exactly national security.
And you know, Gina Raymondo, the Commerce Secretary, you know, just some weeks ago, sort of floated this possibility of a second Ships Act, right like kind of now, who knows if there's the political will for that, but it does seem like Intel has a disadvantage that some.
Of these other companies don't.
And and though it remains to be seen whether they can capitalize on it.
Talk about what you saw Ian at d one X, the company's research and development fab just outside of Portland, and describe the scene for us.
The one in D one X, to be honest with you, is a bit like Times Square. There are way too many people there because there's a lot of work going on and a lot of experimentation, a lot of research and design. If you go to a typical production fab, there's nobody there, and there's nobody there for a reason
because everything's running smoothly and everything's done by robots. If you see two or three people in a production line, that's about how it should be, so you know they there's just it's very difficult to convey to people what is going on in all of these machines, because it's all going on in these machines, and that's a good sign.
If there are people there, it's a bad sign. So you think of an auto factory and robots and things like that, there's no comparison in the level of complexity of manufacturing that is going on in these chip plants, and the numbers alone reflect that. Nineteen and a half billion sounds like a huge amount of our taxpayers money going towards one company, but compared to the amount of CAPEX that they have to deploy in a year, it really isn't very much at all.
You know.
And when you go into these places, I mean, just the procedure of getting in is complicated and creates a sense that, you know, you're entering the holy of holies.
You're doing something like you're not scrubbing in for surgery. It's even cleaner there.
It's much cleaner than surgery. And you know, you have to put on special gloves and then a gortech suit and a hood and a mask and then and then gloves over your gloves.
And you know, it's.
Funny because you're going through this entire process because the air in this clean room is called room the main factory floor has to be you know, way a thousand times cleaner than a hospital operating room.
But that air doesn't.
Actually touch the chips, like I mean, even there, you're a long way because the chips are protected inside of an even cleaner environment, inside of these robotic things. And and like even to see the features that are being cut on these chips, you know, you obviously can't see them with a naked eye. They they're even on the newer chips. They're they're not even the features don't even refract lights, so it doesn't you wouldn't see any evidence
of them. You'd have to use basically an electron microscope. So again, like Ian saying, it's just a level of manufacturing complexity that is extremely sophisticated and novel. You know, Gelsinger said, you know, each wafer, the chips come from these big silicon discs that are called wafers. Each wafer is an experiment, and you do really get that sense.
You know, all of these companies are making these extremely high stakes bets every couple of years, and if it goes wrong, as Ian mentioned, you know, then you can turn this you know, great American industrial into something that is really gasping just in a few years.
This line, I love the epscene, cost complexity and time involved in this microscopic ballet makes sense only if you can do it at high volume, which means having tens of thousands of wafers in production at any given time. I mean, it's a big bet Ian, big bet by Intel. If this doesn't work, then what for Intel?
I mean the economics are brutal, as we were just indicating, and we saw very recently, Intel has put the numbers out there for its manufacturing operations. It's been brave and said, look, this is where we are, this is how much better we need to get the difference between making money and losing billions of dollars is very, very small, and it's
all about yield. It's how many of these tiny things can you make and how many per production run can you get out of this amount set fixed amount of money that you're getting in there, The yield everything, it's just so difficult. And if at the end of it you're not first to market, your second or third to market, you're late something like that. Maybe these things that can sell for tens of thousands of dollars each, suddenly you're
selling them for less than a cost to make. So it really it's hard to convey just how quickly this industry can change and how brutal it is.
Our thanks to Bloomberg Business Week columnist Max Chafkin and Bloomberg News US semiconductor and networking reporter Ian King, check out the new issue of Bloomberg business Week All about Technology, includes stories about crypto being hot again, GM kicking Apple out of its cars in the the uaw taking notes on a Swedish testlass strike. Those stories of the new issue now on newsstands, online, and on the Bloomberg terminal.
You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week still ahead. Also in the new issue, summer travel, including Europe on a Budget.
And the CEO of the Amicelin guide on expanding into hotels and what it takes to be an inspector on restaurants a hint, you get to eat out a lot. It's a tough job.
To get perfect for you.
You know, I know I would totally do that.
It eats a lot everybody. If you don't known, you imagine that job. That would be an amazing job.
This is Bloomberg Business Week.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm. Easter Listen on Apple car Play and then Bright Auto with a Bloomberg Business act or watch us live on YouTube.
You might remember our recent weekend show and podcasts. We talked about some big news, but I loved it.
I'm not talking to you, okay.
Michelin is capitalizing on its renown as an arbiter of fine dining through its annual Star awards for restaurants, remember those max out at three stars. What they're doing is they're making further inroads into the hospitality sector, so Carol. To that end, the Michelin Guide this month awarded its first honors for hotels, giving just twenty four establishments in France the highest three keys rating. So instead of thinking about stars for restaurants, think keys for hotels.
Makes sense.
These keys are coming to the US.
We've got a great guest with us. Grendel polinek is the CEO of the Michelin Guide. He joins us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker studio. First of all, is it Michelin or Michelin? How are you supposed to say it?
In France, we say Micheline.
Michel Okay, sold this, Carol, it's just so funny, like when you talking about the newsroom. First of all, welcome, so nice to have you here with us. You know, it's interesting to see how you guys have done. It's not a pivot because you're still doing restaurants. But talk to us about what you're thinking was of expanding into the hospitality further into the hospitality industry.
Member for sure, and what people know of obviously of the famous Michelin styles highlighting the best restaurants in the world, as well as famously unanimous inspectors. But what people don't know is that Michin has been rating restaurants for the beginning of the last century. Because first it was both an hotel and restaurant guide and we are really back int three with recommended selection and recommendation of the best
hotel in the world. Two weeks ago we revealed the first distinctions with the hotel keys in France because it's obviously the first destination in the world.
All we talked about for our weekend broadcast. Yeah, as courtesy of our Pursuits team who covered it. It was great.
Yeah, and yesterday, because the US is the main tourism market as a destination, but also because American people are traveling the world, we decided to disclose the first keys for the US. So one hundred and twenty four properties have been awarded with one, two or three keys, and eleven with at a three key level.
Okay, take a step back and just you know, the history of the Michelin Guide has been one of there's this like lore when you talk about the history of it. And the idea that the whole motivation for creating this guide was to get people to travel to restaurants more so they could sell Michelin could sell more tires.
And absolutely and today the Mission God is still part of the cork Michelin and the original idea was just to lead people to travel more to help the motto is fine their way and to find the best places to stay and to eat.
Is that philosophy is still say?
I think the philosophy is still the same, and also the value because what is called for the Mission God is independence. We have a team of professional inspectors so working full time for Micheland it's great and selecting restaurants and hotel paying their bill in full to make sure that we share the most trustworthy, reliable and up to date information to the food isign travelers.
So you can get a job.
Just go into restaurants and hotels sign me yeah to report on this.
Yeah, we have actually some new Desert Kid creator goes to restaurants. Having said that, do you feel like it's almost a sweet spot in terms of what's going on in hospitality because it does feel like what people might cut back. It just feels like everybody is out there traveling, and especially Americans, but in general.
Yes, and definitely we feel that there is a need because there is basically too much information today in the travel industry, so people need an advice to make up their choice. And the Mitchin is really a selection so to ease your life and also to be an antidote to boring travel, because we are recommending places that have truly that are truly authentic, you know, that have a superman done, so that they have something as specific to offer to ensure a memorable experience.
And talking about first of all, how somebody becomes an inspector in terms of really for the restaurants, it's rigorous. Talk to us about that.
Well, let's say last year I received more than eight thousand applications to be an inspected. People don't realize that it's a full time job, so that we only recruit people that have a formal training in the industry hospitality or reference back off house, front of house. Then there have been working in a resturance or in an hotel, and then we have a training process about two three years
with more senior inspectors on the field. And as an inspectors you have to eat out lunch and dinner about three hundred times a year.
Me.
I know, look it think it sounds great, but it's a lot, it's a lot of.
Fool and you're not around in the evenings.
Yeah, it's a lot, of course, But what is important is they have to remain anonymous also just to ensure they have a regular customer experience, because we work for the customers, so they pay the bill in full as well.
Eight thousand applications for how many spots?
So today we recommend worldwide sixteen thousand refurans, six thousand hotels. But there are also a lot of rations and hotels to visit without retaining them as part of all selection. So there is plenty of restaurants and hotels to visit. But I won't share the number of inspectors working for measurs.
Okay, well, how many they are called inspectors.
I want to get an idea undercover of the rate of acceptance. So if you have eight thousand applicants, like, are they.
Only like getting it hard?
Only very few?
And are we talking like a dozen? I'm not.
What I can tell you because today we are covering the world. We have Russian selection in more than fifty different countries that we have the more than twenty different
nationality of inspectors men and women. And what is important also is to be able to have a proper understanding of all the hospitality and food culture of the world, because, for example, inspectors bathed in the US, they also contribute to the selection in France, in Europe or in Asia as well as we have europe and or Japanese inspector coming to the US to contribute to the selection.
You definitely obviously have standards. I get it, and you're being very you know, you're very secretive because you want to make sure that what is reported is just very true and accurate. And I'm curious. Then, as a result, is there a cap on the number of guides of places you would put out because you are expanding a lot, so do you to make sure that you are getting it right? Is there a cap?
No, We are very consistent with the approach as well as the value, So we have a no quota approach, so we recognize the quality where it is and whatever the style of the cooking, whatever the style of the place. So it's really the depending on what the destination has to offer and what can be sayd is you know, the culian every scene of the world as well as the hospitality offer is really booming in terms of quality and diversity.
Is there any chance that expanding can dilute the brand? Are you concerned about that?
I would on the contrary, because one of the strengths of the Mission Guide is first that it is the reference for the local people and got Japanese people will consider the Mission Guide that's the ultimate reference for Japanese food. The French as the ultimate reference for French food, whether
creative or traditional. So we are the local reference, and that's the reason why the international travelers trust Mission Guide because they will have access thanks to the recommendation of the Mission Guide to an authentic local experience.
Like I think people would be surprised that you guys are in Colorado, right, you launched it last year.
We launch it last year, last year. Okay, so today yes, we are covering we say, only seven men destinations in the US with all ration selection. But definitely the plan is to cover the US as a whole and to be able beyond the US to recognize all the culinary culture and the hospitality culture of the world.
So even if it's a place like Colorado where there's only maybe a handful of places that actually got to start from you guys. That's that's okay, that's that's valuable to you.
Yeah.
But the point is, you know, more than ever there are great places to recognize everywhere.
Yeah.
So, because we don't come provide on the value of the ratings and we need the resources to make it. We are expanding gradually, fast, but gradually. And the plan remains the same. It's in the years to come to be able to cover the US as a whole, to make sure that we left no stone on turn so on that.
How do you choose the cities that you're expanding to and when do you expand to them? And talk about detailed deals that you guys have with local tourism agencies now.
But first of all, it's always the mission decision first based on the culinary potential, okay, and so we will in all priority. Of course, we take into account also whether it's the tourism hot spots, yeah as well, and what's the value of the mission guide Because I think your question is related to the to the business model is let's say, or qualify audience. Okay, So discerning foodies
and travelers. And basically for the for the guide, we have the revenues from rations booking okay, from hotl and bookings okay of course, and we have also partnerships with you know, brands fashion, food and beverage that are willing to.
Be exposed towards agencies.
And tourism agencies or governments that are willing to leverage on the Mission Guard as a platform to promote their destinations.
But you're not going to do it if you don't like the place.
Obviously, you know, we have a lot of the men to expand today. We have to manage expectations because inspectors are scarce resources. We need to hire them, we need to train them, so we expand only when there is a very mature culinary potential.
Is the Micheline Guide profitable on its own?
On its own, it's really sustainable. But I won't be able to share the detail of the results because it's Michelin as a group, don't share the details of the different business line results.
I want to know what an inspector makes.
It doesn't an inspector. You know what an inspector doesn't make?
Food for themselves as an inspector.
Doing every meal.
It's a really hot restaurant.
Is that's a good point? You know, today sometimes it's quite a challenge to get access to some of the retaurants that are almost of a good so there are nobody and yeah, they have to to blend in the crowd. So we do not have VIP treatments, so we have to queue. We have to make sure that we are pushing the doors. But we also have to change the phone numbers and the credit CUD numbers to make sure that we remain unanimous.
How many times does an inspector have to eat at a restaurant to make a determination.
So one of the golden rules is that the same inspectors is never going back twice to the same reference and stay another inspector or several inspectors. We come again and again, but then it's up to them to decide how many times they have to come back. You know, it's depending on the cons instancy of the food offer. And it's the same for the hotel. You know, we come as often as necessary, but it's truly a human approach. It's not an algorithm. It's about leaving the experience yourself.
How many stars do you think he's going to give us after this?
I'm a little afraid, but I know of you give us. How many stories would you give us?
At least three?
Full the smile. This has been so cool and so interesting. Promise you'll come back as you guys continue to expand the brand.
And yeah, next time in disguise though mess.
Lovely.
Thank you so much. Grendel. Paulinecki is the CEO at The Michelin Guide, joining us here in our studio. I'm going to go travel makes.
Me want to go on vacation, makes you money, need some good food and restaurants.
I'm hungry. We're always hungry. All right, this is Bloomberg Radio.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Week Podcast. Listen live each weekdays starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and Androyd Auto with the Bloomberg Business And you can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Hey Alexa, play Bloomberg eleven thirty.
Ignore the algorithm, forget what your friends told you, block out the in law's advice. Instead, prioritize the only preferences that really matter yours, and if that includes a vacation in Europe for less. Yeah, even better.
Well, it's time for Bloomberg Pursuits. It's the Summer Travel Guide. We're joined by Bloomberg Pursuits travel editor Nikki ck Stein and the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, Chris Rouser. The entire section of this edition, by the way, devoted to Europe, with a little bit of Tots sprinkled in there as well. Chris Rauser, I want to start with you and just give us an overview of in the Pursuit section of how you think about the summer travel section.
We always try to find a theme or something that ties to what's going on in the world, and in this case, this isn't just focused on Europe. It's Europe for less and this is a this is a big summer for Europe. The Paris Olympics are happening, and we've done a lot of stories that we've talked to you about about how hotel prices are now like on the regular over a thousand dollars a night right for less is relative, well that's true for less, well for less
than a thousand dollars. Of that context is everything, and so we Nikki had the idea to just like, look at all these less crowded, less expensive, less known corners of Europe, and it can't. She came up with so many really wonderful places to go.
Well, can I say the first paragraph that I read into you about ignored the algorithm forget what your friends, that's your words, your thinking. I have to say, reading your story, I just kind of want to do exactly what you did, So tell us about your journey.
So the irony of exactly what you just said is that what we did was a pretty spontaneous trip, and it's very hard to recommend recreating a trip that was so beautiful because it was so spontaneous. But that said, my husband and I got a couple of days of childcare courtesy the in laws who came to take care of our two kids, and we had no clue what
to do with ourselves. We didn't want to spend a thousand dollars, and I we did want to go somewhere that required jet lag because my son can't handle that, and we ended up finding this gem of a destination called Summerset in the British countryside, where a hotel had been on my radar called the newt that I had desperately wanted to stay at, and it's a huge kind of farm estate with a beautiful and Wardian mansion at the center of it, and we said.
Let's go there.
I want to underscore two things about this, So this story about Summerset is the opener of the section. And this didn't start as a thing that Nicki and I planned for her to cover. This was just a vacation that she went on with her husband. And it's very Actually, we don't do things that way normally because actually, if you're doing if you're covering an area for a story, you have to plan out where you're going to go, you have to see the new, what's new. It's kind
of not always fun. So it's very rare that we transfer like a personal vacation into like a story. But this was so fun and so great and also so unplanned, which is the other very unusual thing for Nicki as the travels are at Bloomberg, who plans things metigulously to a tea and she just in this case, just let friends recommend places to go, let the staff at the new recommend places to go, and it just became this really wonderful road trip.
It was liberating, and it was affordable. Guys, Like, one of the places that we stayed at was less than two hundred dollars a night.
I'm just putting that out there.
Even the new a place you've wanted to go to for years, is relatively affordable, even though it's like a you call it a top fifty hotel in the world right now.
So you know the World's fifty Best Restaurants list, Yeah, that also started applying to hotels.
Last year.
The same organization started ranking hotels the same way that they rank restaurants, and the new appeared on the first edition of the World's Fifty Best Hotels list. The rates typically started around six hundred and fifty dollars a night. Obviously that shifts a little bit depending on the season, but when we were there, that was what the prices
started at. And when you compare this to kind of like a baseline price in Europe right now for a fancy hotel being a thousand dollars a night, Honestly, it might sound ludicrous to some people, but that's a great deal. I mean, this little town of Batcom that we went to is literally a chart, a pub and some houses there's a dairy and that's it. I mean, the dairy is actually in the next town over, Let's be clear
about that. It was the smallest place I think I've ever gone to a hotel to stay in, and yet it was such a special experience because the entire town seemed to pour in with their wellies and their dogs for Sunday supper, and like there was something so convivial and participatory about that. It's hard to quite capture.
Summerset is not exactly like when you scroll through Instagram and you see where all your friends are going. No, where they're going? Why Somerset? What's it known for? How did you end up there?
So obviously I knew that the new was there, and so that kind of started the idea. But I asked around because I had the same impression. I was like, is this really where I want to go? And so I asked a friend who who lives in London and spends a lot of time in the surrounding areas. I said, do I want to go to Summerset or should I maybe just go to the Cotswolds, which is the more common destination outside of London. It's more of the posh country side escape.
And so she said to me, she said, the Cotswolts are so over.
The Cotsolts have been overrun with all of these Londoners in range Rovers, Somerset.
Is so much better. Oh my god, that told me. Is reading through it was just magical and it was just like I felt like I was on the journey with you. So I love that you guys kind of just did it that It wasn't necessarily the plan and it was just fun to go. And like I said, I just kind of want to do everything. We have a few more minutes and maybe go through some of
the rest of the section. You do, guys, go into some really top European spots right now, European hot spots, and a way to kind of do it maybe a little less expensively, and.
Then little remember, yeah, everything's relative.
I'm always like, we go, Chris, we do. We don't usually do this, but we we go through a bunch of hot spots like the French Riviera in Portugal on the bally Eric Islands, and we tell you, Okay, if you want to go on a more expensive version of this trip, here's where you should stay amazing hotels, or if you want to splurge. You know, here are some
other places you should stay. So like in the French Riviera, there's, for you know, three hundred and eighty dollars a night you could stay at the might say this wrong, Chateau de Thiol, seventeenth century seaside resort. Or you can spend fifteen hundred dollars nights at a rev Santropez. And so we just go through a bunch of places and provide really interesting examples of place.
When to go to the Louton hotel ifordible? I know, that's a affordable one three hundred and fifty dollars a night.
By the way, the idea for this conceit was that you could also mix and match these places so they compliment one another, which.
Is kind of what I felt like you did a little bit on your journey, right, Yeah, I love that high low.
Yeah.
Exactly where do you want to go?
I want to go to Cold Hawaii. Can you imagine? No, cold Hawaii?
Like somebody said, you got to go to cold Hawaii. Okay, what's cold Hawaii?
Guys?
Cold Hawaii is the coast of Denmark in the Jutland, which is literally the big part of mainland Denmark that jumps out into the water, and it is a great region for surfing, which is why people call it cold Hawaii. It's a great region for surfing and it's colder, and we you know, it has grown. Tourism has grown there
a ton, because this is something we've covered before. People are moving into looking at the Scandinavian countries in the summer because it gets quite hot in the Mediterranean, and suddenly this kind of off off the radar place that mostly surfers and maybe like hippies and artists know about. And now tourism less you grew more than one hundred percent because other people are figuring it out.
It's amazing, right, And a big part of it is that you don't need a wet suit to swim in the water anymore.
Sure, better better for us, for.
Better for worse global warming.
Right, we heard last summer about fires in Greece, crazy like one hundred degree plus days every day throughout Italy, throughout you know, all of these more common destinations. So actually this sounds kind of great.
I think we need to talk a little bit too, because I know I think it teased it earlier in our broadcast about the Belgian city and its open air museum where Eiche tell us.
Yeah, I bet you've never thought about going to Leish. I have, Okay, my name is Carol, and I've never thought that.
Neither had I.
But our writer Paul Tellis ended up there kind of by accident. His daughter had a ballet audition there and that's how he first ended up there, totally by chance. And what he discovered was that the city is covered in these enormous murals and street art installations by very, very prominent artists, and the concentration of these works in such a small town makes it feel truly like a free,
open air museum. And he has found himself going back because he's so intrigued by it, and it has it has become his obsession, and now it's kind of mine.
Too, Okay, speaking of obsessions Romania, this is really interesting because I think a few months ago you were in here, maybe both of you were, he.
We were talking about exactly.
It was one of our places to go in twenty twenty four.
And you're kind of following up on that with this idea of a Romanian holiday.
Yes, we like to dive into the places that we recommend at the beginning of the year later in the year to tell you exactly how to do it. And this has I think been on both me and Nicky's like personal lists for a while because we were very interested in it, so we had Lily Are, the Bloomberg travel writer write all about it.
So this kind of started a few years ago. If I'm being totally honest, I met this woman, Ra Lucas Biek at a travel conference and she owns a company called Beyond Dracula, and her whole personal mission has been to convince people that there's more to Romania than the mythology that surrounds Count Dracula and his so called bram Castle, which people in Romania will tell you he had nothing to do with. Of course, he's a fictional character.
But you what, no, just kidding, but it is a cool castle.
The tour of the castle has become really cheesy and very touristy. It's like the only tourist trip in the entire country, so we tell you to go see it from the outside and have a picnic on the grounds rather than commit to the entire tour. What people might not realize is that Transylvania is a broad countryside region with lots of beautiful architecture, colorful towns. King Charles has
a house there. He is vacationed there for years. He sources the honey for Buckingham Palace from beehives in the tiny town of Siki Sora, which when you see pictures of this town you will want to.
Go there too. That's the one in the magazine, right, it is. It's like a story book. Yes, totally, totally. We have to mention to twenty seconds of toads because it's part of the section.
Quickly, So, okay, this section wasn't all about my life and my travels, but my straw tote bag did break on my spring back trip, and I did carry my five year old daughter's state backpack all around a five star resort.
So this was funny enough.
We had the story conceived before all of this happened, but it gave it really new urgency. And here's a beautiful roundup of great tope bags that are new for the summer. And you've, I mean, honestly, you've got to get one of these because you got the MZ Wallace one.
I did.
I love that brand. I know, I was just in the store this is.
And I guarantee that the strap won't break on it the way that my other one did.
You guys a gem so much stuff. I want to do it all. Thank you so much.
That's Bloomberg Pursuits Travel editor Nikki Eckstein and the editor of Bloomberg Pursuits, Chris Rowser.
This is the Bloomberg Business Week podcast of a Little Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you hit your podcast. 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 journalone