Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend-November 14, 2020

it's be patient with that in mind. Coming up this hour, We've really need seen anything like this, and in terms of the economic and financial impact. Jeff Lucy O Robin Hayes on figuring out how to fly passengers safely. I caught up with him from the nine eleven Memorial and Museum Summit on security. Plus the president of the Philadelphia Fed, Pat Harker, on the election, the economy and creating resilient workers. We begin, though, with the cover story of this week's magazine.

It's about building a better future and what's needed. Simply put, we need global cooperation and that's what the Bloomberg New Economy Forum will tackle It kicks off Monday, virtually four days of global programming with a blockbuster agenda and a line above leaders talking about everything from the coronavirus to climate change and the biggest challenges humanity faces. For more, we checked in with Business Week Economics editor Christina Lindblad

and Bloomberg business Week editor Jill Weber. Christina was the architect of this little package of stories and and she did a great job, and that was one of the reasons that um I wanted to have her on the show today. And obviously we talked about zel yesterday, which is um I thought just a phenomenally interesting one in regards to Venezuela and sort of how people they are making use of it to do something that you know, the company, you know, Zell, never intended to have happened.

Um And that's just sort of an example. I think of the approach that Christina used throughout the issue is sort of like, how do we tap into some of these biggest challenges that that we face, that humanity faces, And obviously that kind of starts with the pandemic since that is the you know, one of the stories of the year. For sure. Um Christina can be that and kind of lay out what you learned about this story by Jason Galen and long haulers. Yeah, thanks Carol for

having me on. I've been interested in the long haulers for a while because I think we were also focused for every day still on infection rates and hospitalizations and and and that, but also to understand that there are people who some of them have symptoms that are so bad that they're almost disabled, they cannot go back to work, and it's been several months, and that the scientific and health community can't answer the questions that they have about

whether they're ultimately going to be done with this, you know, how long are they going to have these symptoms? Well, and it's interesting Christina, considering um, you know, I think there's sometimes some populations being kind of cavalier about COVID nineteen and you have to remember that, you know, some people get it, they don't have a lot of um, you know, leftover effects, if you will, and then other people get it and it stays with them, as you

just said, for a really long time. It's just a reminder that this virus impacts us all in very different ways. That's right. Actually, one of the things that we found is that sometimes people who had no symptoms, are very light symptoms actually had the biggest problems with you know, the sort of long term viral um hangover you would say M and you know the other hangover that UM.

We're all going to kind of be faced with. Here is the economic implications of this because COVID can have multi oregan impacts and implications, and we're also starting to see that there will be an impact in terms of disability. What does that mean for all of us? Christina, Well, that's I think we talked to several researchers who are trying to answer just that question and something they're starting to grapple with. I mean, have been comparisons to polio

for instance, to try to have long range estimate. So what would it be like if there had been no vaccines that you know, they came in at the right time. And I think that's going to be important here. Obviously the vaccine, you know, not to have more infected population, but we still will have to answer the questions of how we help people who UM have damaged their organs, their hearts UM and sometimes need UM not just pulmonary rehabilitation,

but they're also having people describe brain fogs. M So, Christine, I want to talk to about Tom or like a Bloomberg economic story which sort of talks about how they've done They crunched a bunch of numbers to try and figure out sort of what the path of global economies is going to look like over the next couple of years and decades, and they go so far as to say, right about five we're going to see a shift in terms of UM, a free market economy being overtaken by

by state driven ones. UM. Can you talk about where else he goes in that story and what it means for for us. Can I just say to this is a must read, like everybody has to read this to kind of understand I think where our world is going. Christina, Yeah, I think he did a good job of laying out where where we're going to be at mid century and to put numbers to something that we've been tracking for a while, which is the sort of some people said the Asian century. You know, like that this the century

belongs to Asia and so overall emerging markets. UM at the start of the century, where about of GDP, but you know through by twenty fifty there will be more than half almost six, and China will be by far, you know, the biggest um, the biggest part of that.

And we have this great graphic that sort of shows the reordering of the top ten economies, you know, and basically China bumps the US off the number one slot, India bumps Japan at a number three slot, and you know, and you see sort of the kind of youthful developing markets, you know, moving up and the sort of aging economies moving down. That was Business Week Economics editor Christina Lynn

Blad and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joel Webber. Check out the full cover story and several stories are all related to the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. It is in this week's issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine that is online, on newsstands and of course always on the Bloomberg Coming up, no doubt, thinking about many of these global issues facing our time is the CEO of Jet Blue, Robin Hayes. You talked with me about the airline industries woes and

a safely way back. That's next on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. We'll bring you some of the highlights from our daily radio broadcast and podcast, and then included drawing out a panel I did at this week's third annual nine eleven Memorial and Museum Summit on Security. Now, that event brings together many of the world's leading voices on security matters from across the public and private sectors.

It's all about figuring out ways to make our companies, cities, and nations safer. Now that's something top of mind for Robin Hayes. He's the CEO of J Blue Airways who is constantly thinking about how to keep passengers and his crew members safe. And I just want to shout out

everyone on the front lines of this pandemic. You know. Uh, we talk a lot about the medical workers who have just done a phenomenal job, but airline employees, t s, a customs Board of Protection, and all law enforcement officers have been at the forefront of this. So just a huge shout out to all of them. We couldn't have done this without their tremendous support. Um, you know, um for those of us who in the industry, at nine eleven,

it really was one of those defining moments. And you think that when you've got that behind you in your career, it's unlikely you're going to see anything like that ever game or at least you hope you do. And of course that's not true. I mean, as hard as nine eleven was on the industry, um it really we've seen with this pandemic something that has a far bigger impact. And you know, with nine eleven, as awful as it was, there was a sense of Okay, we now, you know,

the worst has passed us. We need to put sort of protect the aviation system to make sure those threats don't come back. But I think with the pandemic, we're here, what's seven months on, We're entering into another way things could get worse, and so I think just the amount of uncertainty that's been created over a longer period of time.

I mean, the industry is still down on where it was pre pandemic, and after nine eleven we'd already sort of recovered by a significant degree six or seven months later, at least in terms of volumes of people find I mean, Robin, is it's safe to say that we are looking when it comes to the airline industry, when it comes to security security, this is kind of the biggest moment, the biggest test once again since nine eleven though oh yeah, actually,

I mean I think in since you know, commercial aviation first started, we've never seen anything we really need seen anything like this. And in terms of the economic and financial impact UM and the only UM, the only moderating impact is the only moderating fact of this time was the industry was in much better shape coming into this than it was back pre nine eleven. I want to get a little bit of a gut check because I feel like every day on Bloomberg we certainly are talking

about the airline industry. Um. You know the amount of money that's been lost, the jobs have been lost, I mean your industry, as you first hand. No, UM, it's just been so so tough. I do wonder how do you juggle how do you think about because you have to think about security for passengers, security for your crew members, safety for all of them. You're juggling a lot. It's also about survival and keeping this industry going, one that

is so important to our economy. On the other side, yeah, you know, when we when this UM first happened, we remember in Jeff, you know, calling everyone in and saying Okay, what are we going to do here? Number one priority is to ensure the safety and security about customers and

crew members, which is our word for employees now. You know, as Peter knows, historically, when you've talked about that, you've talked about making sure airplanes are safe, that well maintained, and that we prevent uh threats to security or threats to the safety of flight getting near the airplane. That's the whole system is built around that. US has done as job, better job than anyone else in the world in in putting that safety and security infrastructure in place,

but suddenly we had an invisible enemy. We didn't know where it was. We didn't even know what we were looking at. So one, safety and security about people and customers and recognizing that um uh, you know, sometimes the ability to do that lags the information we've got like everyone else. You know, we had a big discussion about PPE. We remember it was piety was the health care system to begin with, you know what, the benefits of masks

and face coverings wasn't fully understood. So we have people in Jet Blue saying, you know, why can't we issue face coverings. Well, first of all, that wasn't the official advice, and secondly you couldn't get them back then. The second part was financial security and making sure we did what we could do to protect our airline and make sure that we could weather this pandemic. You know, Robert, what are your expectations for recovery? What kind of visibility do

you have? You said, I think earlier that you know, we still have a ways to go. What's your visibility on this? Yeah, So we just uh, you know, quarter three we were burning just over six millions dollars of cash a day. Um, you know, for que quarter four, we think that's going to be slightly better, between between four to six million dollars a day. You know, that's sounds significantly from the second quarter, but of course it's

not sustainable over the long term. And as we think about one one of the things that I think the airline industry believes is that leisure travel and domestic travel will cover more quickly than international travel or business travel.

So focused on making sure that we have positioned well for that, we've announced over sixty new routes of Jet Blue during this pandemic, focusing on those sort of leisure markets and where we think people who want to fly in the short term, and I think about what are the necessary systems right after nine eleven. You know, now we've gotten used to taking off our shoes or putting liquids and containers, like it's just become the normal way

of traveling. Robin, what do you see as some of the necessary systems that are going to be put in place and probably with us from now on because we could get another health pandemical crisis. I mean, I think there are some things that will change for for for good. And I think awareness of public health, a sort of pressure to make sure that if you're not feeling well for whatever reason, that you don't fly airlines making it easier for people to change tickets so that they're not

forced to fly when they're sick. And I remember the old days. I was going through some stuff the other day and I found the old vaccination certificates when I had as a child, because certain countries, you know, you have to show you had had a yellow fever vaccination and such like. And I think going forward, you know,

I see a world. I think it will start with COVID, but I think we will create the infrastructure that we can use it for other pandemics using some of these tools and technologies where you know whether you have been vaccinated, whether you've had a recent test. These will be some of the requirements to fly to at least onto some countries, if not, if not more globally. I mean, I actually think in the way these international markets start opening up

because everyone's focused on the vaccine. But the vaccine is only going to be part of this. You know, only certain proportion of people will take a vaccine. It's only partly affective. We can't rely on it, and so we're gonna have to have other ways of giving people comfort that they can fly on. An airplane goes away, they're

going to go and they're gonna remain completely safe. That's Jeff Lucy Robin Hayes with an important reminder that it will be several measures that will need to bring passengers back to planes. By the way, that conversation happened before the promising vaccine news this week, which we know got many excited, but like Robin, reminded us that there are still several steps and months before we see a world

vaccinated against the coronavirus. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week coming up some optimism with the reports of the vaccine efficacy from the Seiser Vaccine. Dr William Moss of the International Vaccine Access Center at Johns Hopkins on the race for a vaccine, that race picking up speed this week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. COVID nineteen cases reached a record in the US. We were also watching Europe's hotspots as well.

This week, a lot of virus headlines. And then Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease official, said COVID won't be a pandemic for a lot longer because of rapid progress in vaccine development. A lot going on and in the thick of it. Dr William Moss, Executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. That school, of course, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Well.

Dr Moss joined us on what's been a big week in the race for a vaccine. We are seeing record numbers of cases in the United States. We're seeing high numbers of deaths hospitals that are really being stretched to the limits, and that that pattern is going to continue for the next couple of months as we head into winter, more more people being indoors, more people interact indoors into

the holiday season. But as you said there, we also have some optimism with the reports of the vaccine efficacy from the fist or vaccine being much higher than people look spected, recognizing that we only know about this through a press release presumably from a review of the data by an independent day if they monitoring board. But well, we still do not know right as as these headlines come out from a Fiser, we're anticipating some news from

Maderna as well. That's promising. We don't know what how long protection lasts. We don't know exactly what these vaccine ultimately will do, right, That's right, There are still a number of outstanding questions. Then I have a confidence will be able to answer these questions. But what we know now is that in this late stage of these phase three clinical trials, with the results from the FISER vaccine demonstrating showing you know, high protection of people who got

the vaccine were protected compared to the placebo group. Um, but as you said, there's still a number of outstanding questions. For example, we don't know what the vaccine efficacy is in older adults or people with underlying medical conditions that place them at higher risk for severe disease of COVID nineteen. That will come out of the trial results, but we don't know that now. We don't know how long this

protection is gonna last. We hope it's gonna last year, years or more, um, But we just don't know, and that's going to take further follow of these participants in the trials Until we really know how long the protection lasts. We also won't know whether they're long term side effects. Um. Again, we need the longer follow up, We need the full trial data to be able to see that. But right now, what we'll be able to say is, in the short

term this these vaccines look protective, vaccines look safe. At least that's what I'm hoping for. Well, yes, fingers crossed, right, Dr Molsa, what happens next? Um? You know, I do feel like you're all learning about I've said it before, how the sausage is made in terms of vaccine development, right, we're all talking about it so much and I know that there's some nervousness about the rapidity of the process,

but we are learning about how it all happens. So what's kind of next here, Whether it's the Fiser vaccine, whether it's Maderna's vaccine. What are you anticipating how things play out over the next few weeks, a few months. Yes, and you're exactly right. I don't think there's ever been such public scrutiny of the vaccine development and evaluation products.

What we anticipate happening next is that a company such as Fiser Maderna will need to put admit an application to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use authorization so that these vaccines could be made available to high risk individuals as early as possible. What the Food and Drug Administration has put forth as guidelines is that the trials need to wait until at least half of the

participants have had two months of follow up uh. Fiser anticipates that that's going to happen later this month or fourth week of November, and then they will be able to submit their application for an emergency use authorization to the f d A. The the all the trial data will then be reviewed by an independent body. Hopefully data will be made public. Hopefully this whole process will be transparent.

We need that for the public's trust. UM and they would anticipate shortly after the application and this review process that there would be, assuming the safety and efficacy data hold up UM, that will have an emergency use authorization. Fiser says that they'll have forty fifty million doses ready to go UM by the end of this year. That's been one of the things that's allowed this process to be accelerated, that the manufacturing has has gone on with

the studies. You know, there would have not be any any kind of changes to the vaccine that was used during the trials they but they have scaled up that manufacturing. That's Dr William Moss, executive director of the International Vaccine Access Center at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP. You're listening to

Bloomberg Business Week. Getting on the other side of COVID may create an opportunity for us to give American workers a leg up. More on that from the President of the Philadelphia FED. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Gerrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. This week, in a Bloomberg Live event focusing on strengthening economic resiliency and the American worker, I talked with the President of the

Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Pat Harker Well. He and his team have been focusing on the importance of an equitable workforce recovery. It's something that can help get at the inequities in our current workforce. It's also sometimes just a matter of first looking at what workers really need. Workers want to a feel like they're valued and that

they're rewarded for their work. And people who haven't made it yet, right, people who want to get into the middle class, uh, they they need a ladder up, They need to run up on the ladder. They feel frustrated. And that's not just in the urban centers. That's true across the country. I think about my district in rural Pennsylvania,

they feel the same way. So I think that's the work we're trying to do with the Philly FED is to figure out how to accelerate that process to bring more people into the middle class and we're gonna break it all down. What do you think about that in terms of a new administration, in terms of leadership, and in terms of really the meaningful policy discussions that we need to be having when it comes to workers. Because it's amazing, and you and I talked about this a

couple of weeks ago, in terms of forgotten workers. It's not just thing. It's been around for years exactly. And I think, first, I'm looking forward to having policy discussions, right, deep policy discussions, having a debate. This is the nature of our democracy, having that debate, and I think this

is worthy of a serious debate. I think this is one of the most critical problems we have because if we don't solve this problem, then people lose hope, right and when they lose hope, lots of bad things happen, whether to their health or to the communities. So we've got to focus on this right now. So I also want to ask you one other macro, what is the economic backdrop that we're going to be dealing with as workers. One of the things I know we have a lot

of conversations in our newsroom is workers are worried. They're either worried about keeping their job or they don't have a job. What's the what's the economic backdrop we're gonna be dealing with for the next six or twelve months, So start out quickly. Before the pandemic hit us, we had a strong economy. Wasn't perfect, it wasn't perfect for everyone, but it was strong. This pandemic has shown us a

lot of problems that we have. Underlying problems we've had in our society, whether they're racial injustice and inequity, or just the fragility of somebody and their family in terms of their well being, that has now been exacerbated. Plus it's accelerated trends we already saw with respect to automation and other trends that we saw. So this pandemic, I think we're not just going to snap right back to the previous economy, and I think that's unrealistic. There are people, though,

that need to be retrained. This is accelerated, for example, trends and retail. Right we've seen that. I don't think retail is going to come back in the same way. So we're going to have to figure out how to retrain that workforce and not just to get a different job at the same pay, but ideal I had a better job with higher skills. How worried are you about the US labor force when you think about it overall?

Because you know what's interesting. I feel like if you go back to when the major auto companies right all over Detroit, I mean, you know, working in Afford plant or GM plant, that was a great middle class job, you supported your family. Well, those have been gone for a long time, and I feel like now we're gonna we're gonna see another cycle of that hit the American worker. But it's up to us. I really believe. I'm an optimist. I'm an engineer by training. I'm an optimist. We can

solve this problem. This is not some problem that can't be solved. If we put our minds to it and collectively put our minds for government, business, nonprofits, we can move this. And this is the work we're doing at the Philly FED that we can talk about. So let's talk about creating economic resiliency when it comes to American workers.

You guys have a program. It's called the Economic Growth and Mobility Project UM And as you said, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, you reminded me the poorest large city in the United States. So you guys have really been looking at your back yard in terms of what again has been a systemic problem. Tell us about this program and what you're doing. So it starts from decades of work we've done and a conference, a major conference we do every other year called Reinventing

Our Communities, which I really like. This conference and brings together policymakers, academics, philanthropies, business leaders to mix it up to figure out how to come up with practical solutions to solve the problems we face. We then doubled down on that when we put together our Economic Growth and Mobility Project or what we call e g MP. E g MP has three legs to this school, uh, how

to create a more resilient economy. One is creating good jobs we call opportunity occupations, jobs that pay above media wages, the middle class, jobs where you don't necessarily need a four year college degree, right, pathways to success that don't necessarily require a college degree. Second, innovation in skills training. And then third is I broadly actorize it as infrastructure, housing, transportation,

broadband access. You can put health care access in that if you can't get to a job or the job can't get to you. You don't have a job. So you have to solve all three of these things together systemically to make a real difference. That's the work we're doing right now. Well, that's what you know, even just that whole idea of infrastructure. You gave us an example when you and I talked to getting ready for this, this conversation about you know, there were jobs, but people

just couldn't physically get to them. Yeah. So the e g m P program has research on these three stools, and then we have what we call research and action labs, and these are deep dives into a community on a problem in that community. But we think it's a problem more broadly. Uh, people are suffering this all across the country. So the first one we took on was Northeast p A, Northeast pay A, the Scranton, wilks Bara Hazelton area. There were jobs out on the highways. There are logistics jobs,

truck repair, our jobs, etcetera. And by the way, these jobs can be good jobs like truck repair, diesel mechanics can make upwards of six figures in these jobs. But the people low income people living and say the city of Scranton didn't have cars to get to those jobs, particularly second and third shift. So we organized a conference. We brought some national experts in, and then we helped organize a group with the local university at the heart

of this to help solve that problem. They now have something called Neiper Moves Northeast PA Moves, and they're solving this problem. They're figuring out how to do. Is what I like about this story is Geisinger, the main health care system up there. They were all in on this. I mean, they were very supportive, but then they realized,

you know, it's not just about jobs. If somebody misses a doctor's appointment, it costs US seventy dollars when they added up the cost, and then they figured out it's worth it to us to help that person get to that doctor appointment. So they created a system where they help people get on transit to get there, and if there's a last mile or miles that need to be closed, they close it with an uber or van. That kind of creative thinking is what we need to spread across

the country. It sounds like to that public private partnership. This is an important part of all of this. Is that fair yes, absolutely, absolutely. And the second one we're doing with respect to our action lab is around workforce development. A major tech company in Philadelphia partnering with the government Job Training Board to create a customized program to train

workers that they need. And what's different about this, and we think this is the first of its kind in the US, is that firm is then reimbursing the government entity for every successful higher success being being successful in the job for several months. That's never really happened before. Here's a true public private partnership where it's not just in words, it's in the action and putting money on

the table to help accelerate this process. How did COVID impact all of this, because I think about pre COVID, you know, we were looking at a really strong labor force. We didn't have enough workers out there. So how has COVID exacerbated this situation? What kind of setback um has

been given to American workers as a result of it? So, as I said earlier, this pandemic that we're this tragic pandemic we're living through, has accelerated trends we already saw in training, right, so automation being one of those, and we know those jobs are being automated are often jobs held by low income people, by women, and by underrepresentative minorities. Are research that documents that, and there's others who have

documented that as well. So that's just made the situation worse for people who are fragile, I mean, their situation economically is very fragile. And so here is where we really need to focus on retraining those people into different jobs as quickly as we can, and there are jobs for them. I mean. One of the studies that we did, which I'm really excited about, our economists and the economists

at Cleveland FED looked at the following situation. They said, take a low skilled job that may be going away because of automation or because of the pandemics, they travel and tourism or hospitality. Map that skill set that they have, like a sales skill set they can sell to a higher paying job, and what's the skill set that you

need the training that you need to do that. They looked at thirty three metro areas across the US and roughly half the jobs they could match from one skill set to a higher skill set with an average increase in salary. Annual salary of fifteen thousand dollars increase in salary. So this is real. That's the opportunity if we just work together to make this halt and what we need

to stop. And in the UH skill workforce training business, there's a phrase that people use called the train and pray model, and the tree King pray model is basically, we're gonna we think this is the skill set the market needs. We're going to train them and then we're gonna pray that they get a job. That we need to break the back up train and pray model. Well, this is a year that has reminded us big time that we cannot afford to do that on so many levels.

That's some advice from the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Pat Harker. That wraps up the first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser. Coming up tech entrepreneur Jim McKelvey, co founder of Square and founder of Invisibly on getting election polling right. Also the Academy Award winning filmmaker. He's covered Enron, COVID and now Crazy Not Insane Minds. We check in with Alex Gibney. That's coming up on Bloomberg

business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Garrel Masser from Bloomberg Radio high Carol Masser. Coming up in this second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week. We've got highlights from our daily radio show, including stories in the magazine and some of our favorite interviews, including Square co founder Jim McKelvey on creating new election polling technology that well actually gets it right. Go figure.

Plus Verizon Business CEO Tammy Irwin on keeping tabs when it comes to COVID burnout among her ranks. And Oscar Award winning documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney on his latest HBO project, Crazy Not Insane. First up, all week long, the Bloomberg Terminal filled with stories about a Biden administration, the team, and the policies in keeping with that. A story in the magazine from Bloomberg Business Week Economics editor Peter Coy about Biden nomics and how that would be a return

to normalcy. Here's more from Peter. Bloomberg Business Week editor Jill Weber. One of the scenarios that we had to uh kind of planned for last week was you know, eventually and ended up coming on Saturday. You know, what, what what does this country look like under President elect Biden? And more specifically, what does it mean for business and the economy and and for that? You know, Peter Um you know, definitely raised his hand and said I think I know, uh, And we said, oh, please tell us.

So So, Peter, what's your what's your thesis for what biden Omics means for America? Well, it comes out of what we know about Joe Biden, his long history in Congress and Senate, and his personality, Uh, and the circumstances the country is in right now. So you you strapy from all those things and you come up with a fairly centrist person in a country that is divided. Um, he did win, but uh, there are a lot of people,

the Republicans that are likely to control the Senate. There's a lot of people out there who voted for him, who mainly were voting A ends Trump and more for personality reasons than policy reasons. So he doesn't have like a strong mandate A and let me do it Biden's way number one and number two, Um, number two is that even if he did want to advance a strong Democratic platform. Mitch McConnell is very likely to retain the

position of cinema jury leader. Won't let him the same way he blocked Obama's agenda when Biden was a VP. So I gotta say, Peter, love your story. As always, we always learned so much. But I do wonder so as you point out, you know, divided Congress and a Republican Senate with the Democrat in the White House, could be good for the markets and corporate profits, right, but what does it mean for the economy and economic policies. Yeah, Well, let's first start out with why the stock market seem

to like it. Um. You might have thought that because the chi the chan of a strong stimulus faded a little bit, because the Republican Senate might have given a big if Trump had gotten reelected, might have voted for a big package just to bolster their man. Less likely to do so if it's a Biden white House. Uh. Similarly, there would have been a big package if Democrats had taken the Senate and Biden at once, and with divided government you get probably less stimulus. That's a short term thing,

but it could be that what was happening. The financial markets were looking ahead to the prospect of smaller tax increase than they would have had if the Democrats had taken the Senate, which seemed like a real possibility for a while there. Peter, can we also talk about taxes? What what what do we expect from Biden on that front? Well, well, we can say what he said he wants to do, which is insulate people earning less than four hundred thousand

dollars a year from any tax increase. Uh and raised the corporate income tax rate, which was cut under the Trump tax cut from thirty five. The right was on the world's highest. Well, there's a lot of loopholes in it that made it effectively lower in there, but still that headline rate was quite high at twenty one. It's it's right in the ballpark, maybe on the low side

among the other rich industrialized nations. Biden's talking about putting back up at twenty eight um, so splitting the difference between the old one and the new one. It's also talking, by the way, for people in the New York metro area who are listening to this program, lifting the cap on the salt on deductions to make it that would be a break for people. Can I just say having um embarrassed, but filing on extension, just getting it done.

It'll be interesting to see if we have some changes and from one of those Blue states where we were impacted certainly when it came to some of those local taxes. You know what's interesting is did you say Trump did get a lot of things done, even if you didn't agree with how he did it. So what do we need to think about in terms of those things that he did get done well? Um, one of the things he did was he got um tougher on China and

the obsolutely a lot of tariffs. And there are a lot of Democrats who think it was time to get tough on China's the thoughts the Obama administration, which Biden worked for, of course did not do enough, but they don't necessarily agree with the way Trump went about it. Um. What what Trump did was trying to basically go it Alan.

So he didn't just take on China. He sort of took on the world, and that alienated a lot of allies, the Japanese, the Europeans who could have been on America's side presenting a united front against China and So one of the things Biden is almost certain to do is to uh, you know, bolster America's role in the World Trade Organization and uh see about entering multilateral trade deals.

He's not likely to roll back the tariffs on China um that Trump put on anytime soon, because he would want to see you know, you want to get something for any anything you give back. And China is not likely to budget a lot either, So don't it. Don't expect the temperature to cool a whole lot between the US and China under a Biden administration, let alone the issue that the Democrats will push a lot harder on

the human rights angle. Well, as we know Democrats and Republicans pushing this week on so many different things as we look to the next era when it comes to Washington politics and a new administration. Again. That was Bloomberg Business Week Economics editor Peter Coy and Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber. Check more in the magazine for stories from Peter. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up, Square co founder Jim McKelvey on technology that may fix

what ails our election polling. This is Bob, This is Bloomberg Business Week with Pierrol Masser from Bloomberg Radio. We're bringing you some of our favorite interviews and highlights from this week on Bloomberg Business Week Radio, and this week we welcome back Jim McKelvey. He's co founder of Square. He's still on the board there. He's also author of the Innovation Stack, Building an Unbeatable business, one crazy idea at a time. He's also founder and chairman of the St.

Louis based Invisibly is, an independent data center company. Jim was also Deputy chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He's a pretty busy guy. But what we really wanted to drill down on is his company, Invisibly and its accuracy on polling this election season. Check it out when Visibly is a company that's mission is to get people more control of their online data. And in the process of building that, we built this little tool that did surveys.

We didn't think much of it, but some Republican strategists got ahold of it about six months ago and they did a little test and discovered that the tool was shockingly accurate. So from a little two thousand dollar tests, the Republicans ended up spending well over a million dollars doing polls with this technology. And as you as you mentioned, I'm on the federal Reserve. I am politically neutral, so

my job is to see both sides well informed. And I did my best to reach out and share this news with both sides, and amazingly, the Democrats didn't listen. They didn't pay any attention at all. And I have several stories of this, but I mean the fact is that we've been able to call the election too within um a quarter point. And if you compare the data that for instance five thirty eight, which is sort of an aggregation of the best polls did, they were off

by almost three points. So it's nine times more accurate and frankly, way less expensive. And I just couldn't believe people weren't listening to us. Well, so how come, I mean, listen, you guys are all in on on data because you knew Ohio was going to be close. I mean, it's really pretty pretty wild Arizona could be or would be a swing. So what was it about? And I know you can't give away all your secrets, but what was it about the data collection, the types of data, or

the algorithms. What was it, generally speaking, that you think made it a better predictor? I think the best way to describe it is, it's like manners um. For instance, if somebody asks you a question and they're rude, you don't answer it. If somebody ask you the exact same question and they're polite and respectful, you might give them an answer. And I mean, I mean, manners is one of these subtle things. I got two kids at home time obsessed with teach you good manners. And it's it's

a hard thing. You can't just describe it in two seconds of a sound bite. But the fact is, it's who you ask, it's the way you ask, it's the question you ask, and it's when you ask. And all of these things, if they're handled correctly, can get you a very honest, accurate answer. So did you in terms of doing this and developing this, Jim, you know, look at past polls and kind of how they did it

to figure out maybe what was a better way? No, and and and funny enough, this is sort of what I talked about in the innovation stack of my book, And that is a lot of times when you stumble on something new because you didn't copy what everybody else was doing, and we were not intending to be a polling company like this is not visibly it's not our job on this thing. That was shockingly accurate, and so, uh, we went with it, but it was it was an

accidental discovery, you know, sort of like a lot of stuff. Well, it's interesting that you say this too though. Um. One of our colleagues, David Weston, had caught up with Frank Lance, who's well known for his polling, but he said, we need to figure out a different way and that you know, whether it was folks supported Donald Trump maybe didn't want to talk to certain polls because they didn't like the media outlet or didn't like the approach exactly. That what

you're talking about, and that definitely skews the numbers. Absolutely, There are a bunch of things that skew the numbers. It's when you ask, it's the way you ask, it's the question we ask. It's whether or not people feel safe and um, well, you put somebody in a stressful situation or you feel like they're being judged, they're not going to tell you the truth. Yeah, it's pretty fascinating. Well so then so what do you think about that in terms of applications going forward? You, as you said,

kind of an accidental business. You didn't plan this is this, you know, you anticipate kind of pushing this out as a business even more, Well, I just think it's good for the world, Like I think, if not just politics, I think knowing the subtleties of how your message is being received by people is super important. And we just proved it big time by you know, this is an election,

we get got to call our shots. So we made our predictions, posted them up, everyone can see them, and sure enough they were within a quarter point, you know. So so I I think the application here is anyone that has to communicate can now judge the effectiveness of that communication in almost real time. How does the world look to you, jam right now? What kind of visibility do you have? Um? When we try to think about the virus, the economy, kind of the election, there's just

so many big things going on right now. Well, I'm happy the election is over. Um, and uh, you know, as as somebody who's you know, sort of looked through the virus, both as a small business person, as somebody who's you know, funding vaccine research. And watching the data at the FED. Um, I have to say this, you know, it's it's actually fairly hopeful. We had a solid economy before the pandemic. And this is the first time we've ever taken a robust economy and voluntarily shut it down

for health reasons. So that's never been done before in history. And what I'm literally looking at the data that I'm going to present to the the Federal Reserved in about ten minutes, and UM, we've you know, do the data here in St. Louis, and it's not terrible like it's it's it's obviously very very bad for certain people, but the economy does seem to be, you know, bouncing back,

So that's that's a good thing. Um. You know. The other thing not to be too you know, sort of upbeat about this is that, you know, times of crises are really good at accelerating trends that are going to come anyway. So if we would all be doing zoom meetings five years from now, now, we're all doing zoom meetings today. So it's a great time for UM innovation and companies who are building the future really have a

pronounced advantage during times of crises. It can be uncomfortable then as we go it right, that dislocation, as we go through, it's always uncomfortable. But but see that's the thing. Doing something new was always uncomfortable. But if you're doing something new, one of the hardest things. And I guess we just talked about that with our you know, polling technology, Like we just this great new polling technology and and I couldn't get anybody to listen to us. Okay, I

totally failed. And I you know, I've been at this for a while, and I know a bunch of important people, and I couldn't do it. And that's the thing. If you build something new, one of the most frustrating things is the world we ignore it. And if things are going well and um, right now, if you have a new invention, you have the chance of getting people to notice it far better than they would under normal circumstances. Because when when things are normal, you do what you

did yesterday. You don't look for new stuff. You don't change. When when the world is imploding and you're living at home and your kids are driving it crazy because you're homeschooling, like that's the time you actually look out and said, hey, is there any other options. So, if you're in the business of innovation, which is always messy, it's a good thing to be in somewhat of a crisis well MESSI that we certainly are, and we've heard that a lot too from global leaders that in times of crisis it

often sparks innovation. Good to hear from. Jim McKelvey, co founder of Square, author of The Innovation Stack, Building an Unbeatable Business, one crazy idea at a time check out his book. Is also founder and chairman of Invisibly Here. That full conversation at Bloomberg dot Com coming up Verizon Businesses CEO Tammy Irwin, unemployee burnout and leadership during unprecedented times.

That's next on Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. Our final half hour, we're gonna talk about mental well being. Although let me put this out there, we've got two very different sides of that. First up at a Bloomberg Live breakaway town hall and as part of an ongoing leadership series in the era of remote work, this time with a specific focus on burnout and employee mental health.

I checked in with Verizon Business Executive Vice president and CEO Tammy Irwin, who, because she has workers and customers around the globe, has been dealing with the virus since January. I began with how the ongoing pandemic is increasingly taking its toll on workers at many companies. Here's what she had to say, because I think about where we are,

almost a year into this crisis. What started as a I think a physical health crisis, I think is increasingly becoming a mental health crisis for all of us as we think about kind of the duration of the COVID crisis and the uncertainty of how long it continues for um. I think about when it first started, in the first half of the year. I think we all thought, if

we just get to summer, it will be over. And then I think we thought we can get through summer and we can get to school, the school, your kids to go back to school. And now we're like, WHOA, what when does it end? And we've had to really focus our efforts on how do we create a sense of hope, how do we acknowledge the anxiety and stress that people are feeling, and then how do we try to build an environment that allows our employees to do

what they do so well, which is great resiliency. And i'd be clear on what success looks like so that they can lean in and feel confident that what they're doing is making a difference in defining the purpose of what they do every day. So, Terry, how do you do that? Okay? So mental wellness? I know when you and I talked last week, we live in a society as evolved as we are that it's still uncomfortable for a lot of people to say. It's easy for me to say I've got to go to the doctor. I've

got something physically wrong. But when there's something in my head that's not quite right, it's hard for us to admit. As a society, how do you do especially when we can't even face to face. We've got to do it virtually. So how do you keep tabs on your teams that some of the individuals who maybe having a tough time? Yeah, listen, I think it takes a series of things to really open up that dialogue and conversation. You're right, it's not

a conversation. We want to have an open We tend to whisper like, oh, I think somebody is having a hard time. I think historically that's how we've dealt with it. And I think that what we're seeing is that we really have to put mental illness, stress, anxiety, suicide, addiction, all of those things into the middle of the table

and realize that they impact and affect everybody. And the way that we collectively show up on behalf of how we lift each other up and acknowledge and recognize the stress, care for it, help people get the resources that they need to be successful has been really important. We've actually in our series of communication that we call up to Speed, which is how we communicate broadly to our employees around the world, and we open end up quite frankly to

anyone who wants to participate. But we've done a lot of highlighting of some of the challenges around mental health, around suicide, around domestic violence, around child abuse, around addiction, to really say, these are real and they're happening in increasing odds because of what we've all been through in the last year, and here are the resources that are available to you and to your family into the community

in which we live. And I think that's so important that we put a spotlight on it and make it okay to talk about so you know too though, Like I work for a great company too, and there's tons of resources, And there's one thing about knowing that there's an array of resources is another thing of making sure people kind of reach out and and tap into it.

So I'm curious whether it's through your line managers, how are you making where somebody says you seem like you're having a tough time, I want you to, you know, kind of either push them and help them in terms of finding what they need. How do you make sure basically that people who are having a tough time like up into the array of resources that you guys are offering up. Yeah, I think that's a very fair question of how do you really make sure it's doing And

I don't know. I don't know that you always know that it's happening, But I can tell you that some of the framework that we've created has said, we've done a quarterly pulse service, so we've asked our employees directly, how are you feeling, what more do you need from us as an employer to really deal with the crisis that you're in. We've asked managers to then go through that feedback and work an action plan with their team

more broadly and with people individually. We've also used our performance management cycler Quarterly Cyclic Performance Manage to really touch in with employees and say, how are you feeling about your work environment? Thank you for inviting us into your home to work over the last six months, because that's really what employees have done. We've found ways to celebrate the kids, the cats, and the dogs that are in the background of the zoom calls that we're all in.

We've tried to ask parents to take some time to help ed ucate their kids when they get up and get started in the morning. Uh. And so we've really worked to try to create that one to one relationship, the team relationship, and then a broader framework of the tools that are available. You only know that if you asked the question, and we've created a dialogue of uncomfortable conversations for the purpose of getting comfortable that our employees

have what they need to really feel successful. That's Tammy Irwin, executive vice president and CEO Verizon Business Group at a Bloomberg lie Breakaway town hall this week. It's all about leadership and safe to say, it's been a year of all of us needing to get comfortable about having uncomfortable conversations about really important issues. Whether you're a leader or whether you're an employee, we've all got to start talking

about it straight ahead. On Bloomberg Business Week, we're going to stay with mental health, but truly transparent here, it's a different perspective. Academy Award winning director Alex Gibney on his new HBO documentary Crazy Not Insane. This is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Mazer from Bloomberg Radio. So let's wrap up this week. As we know, we are living in a world where we are talking a

lot more about our physical and mental well being. With that in mind, a new HBO documentary looks at the minds of a specific group that exists in our population and basically asks what makes killers kill? Yeah, I bet I got your attention on that one, all right. Oscar winning filmmaker Alex Gibney joined us on that. He's founder of Jigsaw Pictures. He's the filmmaker behind I Bet You Know These Films and Ron the Smartest Guys in the Room.

He's also done documentaries on Wiki Leaks and Elliott Spitzer. His new documentary is called Crazy Not Insane. We're gonna talk about that, but first up, I had to check in with him about how his world has been under COVID.

We found ways of editing remotely, and we even pioneered, I mean, you know, myself and two colleagues just finished the film about the you know, federal response to COVID totally under control, and we pioneered a new kind of camera called the COVID cam, which enabled people to actually get a camera on their doorstep and we can remotely monitor it via the via the web, and no human beings contact with each other. Yeah, that's pretty wild. Is that? That's not out yet? Is it? It is? It came up,

It came up. It was on Hulu. Um, it still is on Hulu. Came up, but it it came out just before the election round October fifteam. All right, Sorry, I've been a little distracted because I go on my apologies, So tell me about your documentary, Crazy Not Insane. To be fair, I've seen a trailer, so, um, I've seen a little clip it of it, a clip of it. You know, you follow the work of a notable psychiatrist who has assisted a number of high profile killers like

Ted Bundy, Mark David Chapman. Tell us a little bit about her and how you came to kind of do this documentary. Her name is Dorothy Ought now Lewis, and I came to her as part of research for a scripted project I'm doing with Lord dern Uh and Laura came to me with a notion of wanting to do something about psychiatrists whose job it is to examine UH inmates on death row and determine whether they are sane enough to be executed um and which is kind of

a crazy idea in and of itself. And so in doing research for that, I I was looking for prototypes for this character and found of Dorothy. And Dorothy had

written a book about her experiences. But um she was a psychiatrist who, after studying juveniles for many, many years, stumbled into the world of testifying on behalf of usually defense attorneys, either in trials or for death penalty appeals and UH and pioneering a new kind of research into the minds of killers UH and trying to determine how and why, well not so much, how more why they kill UM and and so it became a kind of fascinating tour through um through Dorothy's work, who was a

kind of detective of the mind. I mean, I don't want to give it all the way because I want people to go watch it. But I mean, what was she like? I mean, this is this is kind of interesting. I mean the subject matter is just fascinating, but I'm curious what she was like and and um in terms of the process of her going about this, I mean, this is pretty gruesome stuff. It is grewesome stuff. And and when you meet her, I mean, Dorothy is a sort of a bubbly lady. She's now over eighty, but

she's still full of energy and vitality. As a sort of mischievous glint in her eye. Was that there's a line of a novel who was born with a gift for laughter in a sense that the world was mad. That's Dorothy Lewis. And uh and and so she has fun. She has these hairless cats. But she is at her desk, which is a table in her living room. She's surrounded by an ocean of papers. Um, and she's just a you know, one of the most curious people I've ever met.

But she's curious in this peculiar area of trying to understand human violence, and that led her certainly down some very dark paths and indeed led her into some chambers with people like Ted Bundy, Um, you know alone, um, serial killers between her and the door, with only her

persuasive powers as a psychiatrist to protect her, right. You know, I do wonder, Alex, and I want to go back to you mentioned your documentary on COVID Totally under Control, and I was just talking with Um, one of our news anchors do Prisoner, and you know, we're talking about it's kind of staggering in the face of all the evidence, of scientific medical evidence that's out there about the virus.

You know, I'm curious, in doing this documentary why you think that people are half in such a hard time believing in the virus and even leading up to the election, and even after Donald Trump had the virus, he had a lot of supporters still and thinking he was doing a good job at it. Well, there are two separate things.

I mean, one is he was he was trying very hard to convince his followers and you'd almost have to call him followers that the virus wasn't really that real or that dangerous, even though we now know he knew it was UM. But the doing a good job, that's the part I have a harder time understanding. If anybody watches totally under control, you will see forensically exactly how bad a job he did. You couldn't between him and Jared Kushner. You couldn't imagine anybody doing the worst job

if they had actually tried UM. So that's just a matter of competence, I mean utterly incompetent. And as a result, you know, too, what are we at? What are in thirty five thousand dead now? Um and count We compare? We compare the United States with South Korea, which discovered their first COVID positive patient on the same day January. But Southria very quickly to contain the virus, never had to shut down its economy. And it's a it's a country of fifty one million people. To date, less than

five people have died. So you know, you can it can be done. You just have to be disciplined about it. You have to have a government that believes in science. You have to have a government that believes in taking steps to protect its people and to engage all its citizens. Uh in trying to fight the virus instead of trying to fight each other. You know, Alex One thing I do wonder and I mentioned kind of coming in. You know, your latest documentary crazy not insane, and you're taking a

look at serial killers. But you've done you know, documentaries on and Ron, You've done them on Wiki leaks, You've done them on the history of the rock group the Eagles. Uh, You've done them on a lot of different subjects. How do you decide what to work on? Is it just something you come across? Is it kind of random, like when Laura Dern, who we've talked to on our air two and you know, fascinating of these conversations, and you

can go a lot of different places. Is it just you kind of run into something accidentally, or I don't know what's your approach. It's all as difference all the time. I mean, what do they say, luck is where opportunity means a prepared mind. So sometimes I just get lucky, um, but sometimes I go seeking something UM. In this case, you know, I wasn't intending necessarily to make a documentary, but I just became so interested in Dr Lewis and also Dr also Dorothy's she had these videotapes of her

examinations of a number of serial killers. Uh, and those were pretty compelling, particularly because a number of them have um dissociative identity disorder what we used to call multiple personality disorder, and you can see people switch from personalities personality in the middle of the examination. So that was pretty interesting stuff. And and and so I realized, well,

that's that could be a film there. And usually I have a number of films on the boil at any particular time, and we'll advance them a little bit to see if there's more to be done, and and if it seems like there is, then we'll push forward. I would imagine in a lot of these documentaries, like there are so many rabbit holes, Like this happens to me all the time. Somebody says something and all of a sudden, I'm going down a rabbit hole and I'm lost for

a long time. But I would just think even coming across those films, right and watching her do your examinations, you could just kind of probably watch them for hours to some extent, because it's kind of fascinating and just you know, kind of understanding how she works and how she's trying to understand this you know, group of people and what the commonalities are well, right, And what she ultimately ends up understanding is that a deep dive into

serial killers or even just plain old murderers as she calls them, you know, actually takes us to a kind of a universal place, and that is childhood. Because you know, basically her unified field theory is you'll get an incredibly violent person if you have a mixture of frontal lobe damage.

That is to say, she would say, cutting the reins on the horse, so you know, not so much um, you know, whole on the limbic system to keep uh, keep relentless urges from from acting on and then usually some kind of terrible physical or sexual abuse as a chot um and which which often is what leads to these multiple personalities. And if you have a combination of those two things, you usually get where you don't always get. But if you look at a murderer, you will almost

always find a combination of those two things. Not everybody who has that combination ends up as a murderers. Flipping it around, right, right, it's not necessarily check the boxes, and it's you know, the causality or you're gonna lead to that. Hey, one thing before we go. Um, we are often fascinated here at Bloomberg or just about kind of the financial aspect of making films. And I know we've talked with a lot of minorities that's sometimes hard

to get money. And I do wonder is it still hard for you or because you have one awards, you're noted, you're known. Um, you know, you've done projects that people know of. You've got to proven track record, you know. So when it comes to funding and support, is it easily there or does it take work? It always takes work. I mean it's easier um and and and if you have a reputational body work, it's easier. But I can tell you like five projects I've had turned down this year.

So it always takes hard work. That never stops. Yeah, we hear that a lot from those in the documentary and filmmaking industry. Always a lot of hard work to find the funding for your next project. That's Oscar waiting filmmaker Alex Gibney his documentary Crazy Not Insane, debuting this Wednesday, November eight HBO and check out that full conversation on our podcast feed that wraps up the weekend edition of

Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol Masser. Be sure to tune in daily to Bloomberg Business Week Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. You can also hear more of our Bloomberg Business Week conversations. Download them at Bloomberg dot com, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also check us out on YouTube. Just search Bloomberg Global News and

catch up Bloomberg Business Week Extra podcast. The challenge is caused by COVID and the hopes under a new administration for the solar energy We talked about that with Abigail ross Hopper, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association. Bloomberg Business Week is available on newsstands, now online, and of course, on the Bloomberg Terminal. Have a safe weekend, everybody, This is Bloomberg