Bloomberg Businessweek Weekend: November 14th, 2025

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This is Bloomberg business Week Daily reporting from the magazine that helps global leaders stay ahead with insight on the people, companies, and trends shaping today's complex economy. Plus global business, finance and tech news as it happens. The Bloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast with Carol Masser and Tim Steneveek on Bloomberg Radio.

Hi everyone, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business Week Weekend Podcast. This week, the longest recorded US government shutdown finally came to an end after forty three days that included disrupted flights across the country and delayed food aid for millions. In fact, one in eight Americans congressional Democrats, eight of them in the Senate, crossed the aisle to end the federal shutdown, a move some crid as the Democrats caving to Republicans. We get into that a little later on.

Then, as we await the first drop of US government economic data, is things get back to normal in Washington, DC. What's become normal in the US is a K shaped economy where those at the top are doing well and those at the bottom are not. And for those struggling Americans they are already in recession. That's according to Peter Atwater, who started talking about the k shaped economy five years ago. He's the subject of a Bloomberg Big Take this week.

Also we get reads on the consumer, the business environment, the global economy, trade, and more as we catch up with a few members of the C suite, including the CEO at Magna International.

End Plus, in our second hour, the case against social media and its dangerous algorithms determining which ultra processed foods are actually bad for you spoiler alert, it's most And then Carol SIPs on some wine in the responsible way courtesy of the CEO of Maisson Mirabau very nicely said, by the way, thank you, I won one year of French.

It's actually high school paid off.

Well, thank you, miss Halsey.

So sweet.

All of that to come, we begin with Washington, the nation's capital, and the longest government shut down on record, finally finally coming to an end.

Writing about the actions by some Democrats to give Republicans the votes to bring it all to an end, why the vote was surprising, and why it wasn't for the Democrats is Josh Green Bloomberg BusinessWeek national correspondent. Josh is the author of a couple books, including the New York Times bestseller Devil's Bargain, Steve Bannon, Donald Trump, and The Storming of the Presidency Democrats Josh crossing the aisle to end the shutdown? Was it a quote terrible mistake? A

What's the chatter?

Well, I think the overwhelming sentiment of the Democrat grass roots is anger and confusion that, you know, Democrats who've just come off the sweeping election victory, who polls showed were not being blame for a shutdown that they in fact had caused. Why they would suddenly decide to throw in the towel without really much much warning.

I think is upset an awful lot of.

People, mostly at the grassroots level, but also from a lot of the politicians, especially ones like Gavin Newsom, who maybe have their eye on the White House and are especially attuned to grassroots sentiment. But I think that there's another kind of quieter realist wing of the party that looked in the mirror and said, look, there's really no clear winning exit strategy.

We've got to pull the plug at some time.

So let's do it now before things get really bad for federal workers, before the entire US airline industry grinds to a halt, maybe on Thanksgiving weekend, and just turn around and decided to kind of rip off the band aid. Now that's caused a lot of anger, but it's not necessarily clear that long term that this is going to be.

The wrong move.

What's that like thinking or strategizing about? Like, Okay, what party gets blamed? And you know, I was thinking about this when I was on a TSA line. I mean the government shutdown and got at those screen screens and who do I see Christy Nome, you know, playing over and over on a loop, And I just wonder the general public, like who do they blame? And so was there a feeling that it was the Republican shutdown? Was it both the parties? How was it playing out?

I mean, it's interesting dynamic. Over the last like three or four government shutdowns. What's happened in pretty short order is that services start shutting down, national parks start shutting down, you have a problem with airlines. Everybody says, well, gee, who's to blame. And it's pretty clear whichever party shut down the government gets blamed by the other party because everybody in that party is on the same page, they

You know, Josh, I do wonder, like, did things like, you know, tearing down the ballroom, showing off a new marble bathroom at the White House that the president has, having a great Gatsby party for Halloween exactly. That was really over the top if you saw some of the images. And I don't want to be political, but I do wonder. This is a president who said, like, I am here for you, and I'm going to take actions that are

It definitely was. I think it does two things. I mean, going back to sort of that, you know, how a party deals with a shutdown. If all Republicans had been unified from day one, including President Trump saying, look, the Democrats did this, it's their fault, blame them, I think things would have ended much earlier. But like as we said,

They thought it was hurting their opponents.

I think it was Mike Allen and Axios who wrote a commentary about how it could be a challenge for the Trump administration to present themselves as fighting for the little guy or fighting for the middle class or the working class if they're not focused on the ACA subsidies or on funding SNAP during this time. I wonder if that message will resonate with voters going into the midterms in twenty six.

Yeah.

I think that's a really smart point. I think it might resonate even sooner. I did a Business Week newsletter just kind of my gloss on the shutdown and what was and what it was not accomplished. And I do think that one of the things that Democrats accomplished, even though so many of them are unhappy about the way things ended, They've added real salients to this issue of

Republicans don't want to do that.

They didn't do that, so even though Republicans are Democrats weren't able to win that as a concession to reopen the government. It's been on the front pages of the newspapers, it's been in the news. I think the American public is very aware that these premiums are about to rise, and I think partly because of the spotlight that the

So, you know, Josh, when the Republicans and the Democrats that went over to the other side are basic, you know, broke away and got this Republican promise to vote on extending Obamacare insurance premium credits by mid December. So politically it will happen or could Republicans back out.

I think it's very unlikely to happen. I mean, Republicans have been adamant that they're not going to vote to support these things. So you can have a vote, the vote will lose, and that will probably be the end of it, at least in the short term. If the vote were to win in the Senate, it would go to the House houses controlled by Republicans, and they've said

And there's a record right of people of how they voted.

Absolutely yeah, And ultimately, look, Republicans control Congress, they control the White House.

The buck stops with them.

If there needs to be a solution, they're ultimately going to have to come through and deliver one.

That was Josh Green, Bloomberg BusinessWeek National correspondent.

Now, if the government reopened this past week, all eyes now on the Bureau Labors, Statistics and other statistical agencies and when they will release key economic data. Some information on that tim definely started to come out throughout the past week about you know, when and what we might be getting.

In the absence of that data, we've relied on a lot of private data for reads on the US economy. Meantime, we've also seen earnings and revenue growth for many US companies, wealthy consumer shopping and US consumer sentiment that tumbled to near the lowest on record as the government shut down weigh on the economic outlook and high prices soured views about personal finances.

It's that case shaped economy, right, of some doing well in some not. I mean, just this past week, car Loans have gone from the safest consumer credit products to among the riskies over the last fifteen years as delinquencies rose more than fifty percent fifty percent driven by soaring car prices and rising interest rates. So that is one of the troubling signs Tim, in this economy.

Yeah, it's the K shaped economy that we've been talking about for years. Also talking about it for years. Peter Alwater, president of Financial Insights and Adjunct Lecture of Economics at the College of Willing and Mary, he started talking about the K shaped economy that was during the pandemic.

Long time five years ago at least, so, Carol, it's been more than five and a half years since I first started writing about the K shaped economy, and I think what's happened is that for those at the top, the financial markets have been extraordinary. Meanwhile, for those at the bottom, things have just continued to deteriorate, and now compounded by the cumulative effect of inflation on particularly food. You've referenced the car Loan delinquencies, and that's another sign.

So are we becoming peter An economy a country where there are a few rich people who are living in a poor country.

I would describe it, yeah, as a handful of folks who feel invulnerable in a mounting sea of despair.

Hasn't it been like that for years?

Though?

What's different about right now? I remember having the same discussion, not with the same data, but in graduate school in a class about how in the developing world you start to see economies such as this, and that was that the professor was arguing where we were headed in the US. It's been like this for quite some time.

The gap has existed, but not to this extreme. And remember, Tim, there used to be a sense that there was a ladder, a way to progress from the bottom up through the middle class and into the upper middle class and then into the truly wealthy. And for those at the bottom, that ladder's gone. There are no more rungs that enable

So when does it show up, Peter, Because those who are at the lower economic rung, if you will, when it comes to the US economy or having troubles and so they're not going to Chipotle or they're not going to Kava and a few other places. But when does this really start to show up in our economy in the financial markets? Just curious.

So in terms of consumer sentiment, it showed up almost immediately after COVID, when those white collar workers were able to pivot to work from home, their confidence was restored. They also got boosts from monetary and fiscal policy. And for those at the bottom, those stimulus chicks really just

Right, The other part I want to get to is ask you about is the upper part of the K when you look at this economy, is it kind of fragile, even perhaps potentially for those who are even wealthier in this economy?

I think so, And I think that what there's been lots of discussion about the circularity within the AI system. I think that circularity exists more broadly between the wealthy AI and you see that in first class travel, you see that in a lot of the luxury experiences. And we used to say that the economy is not the markets, but at the upper end, the markets and the economy are now indistinguishable. And we need to appreciate the fragility

What about this idea of the meritocracy, or the idea that people actually in this day and age have a harder time moving in and out of social strata. The American dream is this idea that anyone can come to the United States and succeed regardless of where they start. You argue that that doesn't exist as much anymore.

Why is that so wealth accumulation happens more slowly? You look at, for example, the fact that it now takes to age forty to be a first time home buyer.

All right, so how do we fix this? Because it does.

Feel like you have three minutes, Peter, fix the pot.

No.

I think that policy makers need to be really attuned to this. I think they shouldn't ignore the message of a affordability that came out of the New York mayoral election. What we're seeing is not a movement to the left as much as a movement down. And I think policy makers really don't appreciate how purple the bottom of our

Do policymakers actually have the tools in a divided country to fix this, I.

Think they do.

I think it requires them to recognize that it is in the best interest of both political parties to address this, because we know that anti establishment candidates become more popular, we know that progressive candidates become more popular, and so it behooves them to pay attention to this and to address it. And to be clear, those at the bottom are not looking for a handout. They're looking for a hand They want to see job training, They want to

Peter, I'm thinking of the big take that you do with Sara Holder that's on the Bloomberg right now, and I guess they were asking. She was asking along with Katerina Sariva, talking about this case shaped economy not just being kind of the same thing as like measuring inequality. And I'm just thinking about a response that you gave and you said, it's not just inequality in terms of

Yeah.

I think those at the top ignore the impatience at the bottom. Time moves very slowly when you lack confidence. And I also think that those at the top are largely blind to the human experience at the bottom, and at the same time, those at the bottom are all too aware of the abundance that exists above them.

Thanks to Peter Atwater, president of Financial Insights and adjunct lecture of Economics at the College of William and Mary.

Coming up, how one auto parts manufacturer is faring under the president tariffs.

The CEO of Magna International is next. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. This is Bloomberg.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily Podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern. Listen on Apple CarPlay and the Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube.

When Magna International reported earnings on Halloween, shares. The autoparts manufacturer rallied as much as seven percent inter day in response to third quarter sales and adjusted EPs beats. Magna management also raised its fiscal year sales forecast thanks to strengthen North America and China. There was a lot going on. Company based in Canada, biggest automotive supplier of North America. Everything from automated driving control modules, powertrains, lighting mirrors, complete

Back with us is Swami Coda Geary, president and CEO of nearly fourteen billion dollar market cap autoparts maker Magna International. The stock up close to eighteen percent so far this year. I want to start with kind of where we left off when we spoke to you back in April. This was just after the president's so called Liberation Day tariffs.

We were pretty.

Shocked about those comments because you said it was big. Is it still that big.

Of an impact? Has it been that big of an impact?

Yes, there has been a lot of dynamic challenges in the industry, as you know, and Benny spoke to me last year. It was fresh, you know at that time. As we sit here and look at it, I think our annualized tariff impact is roughly in the range of two hundred million. But we continue to work with our team, with our customers, with our supply base, and mitigating as much as possible, you know, adhering to the USMCA compliance.

So I will say our BI team reacted to our Bloomberg intelligence team, Swamy reacted and they said they believe that your company's continuous cost cutting and operational excellence could further release margin gains in twenty twenty six. And they talk about in the US major customers are benefiting from a more profitable sales mix, with higher sales and pickups and SUVs offsetting lower EV production, which should enhance Magnus

Yes, they do. There's a lot of hard work and thanks to the team, there's been a lot of traction in our operational activities, including some of the activities that you men mentioned cost restructuring, optimizing our operations. We have really worked through about forty divisions, inter of restructuring, consolidation, bringing things together, and when the mix in the volume becomes stable and it comes through, you see profitability going to the bottom line, and that has been our focus.

But you did talk about demand destruction the short term when we talked with you in April, right after Liberation Day. How has it played out as bad as you expected? And where are we today? Your top customers are who's who of the global auto industry. So where are we today in that demand destruction? Are we done?

I wish I could have that crystal ball, But you know, the way I look at it is we peaked out as our industry in North America about seventeen and a half million units. Interestingly, I was looking at the data go back twenty years. In two thousand and four two thousand and six time frame, North American production volumes were somewhere between fifteen to sixteen. We are still at fifteen to sixteen million units today. I think the volumes held up this year, but I always like to stand back

Your company is based in Ontario. We are curious about the US and Canada trade negotiations or lack thereof. Given the impasse between the US and Canada, how is that affecting your industry and you specifically.

Yeah, As you know, auto industry is very interdependent ecosystem and it's pretty complex in North America, so it has been challenging. But I would like to look at Magna really as a global company. We have tens of thousands of people in Mexico, in Canada and in US, and obviously we are following the footprint of our customers, looking at the economics, looking at transportation, looking at logistics, and that is the competitiveness that ultimately lets you be the

Is it broken the US Canada? I mean it's been so intertwined really, the North American global auto supply chain. But is it, especially the US and Canada, is it changed forever?

Again, I'm not an international trade policy expert speaking from but you have a.

Great advantage and a great window on how it has worked and how it feels today.

It's definitely been strained, right, There's no question about that. But I've lived in this industry for twenty six years, and what we're talking today is going to impact maybe twenty seven or twenty eight. So we're always looking at what we are doing today impacts three or four years down the road. What we are doing today has been planned and decided three or four years ago, So I tend to think a little bit in longer cycles.

You know.

I'm still hopeful that the policy is going to get to a point where it's mutually beneficial to everyone the president.

In the past, the President of the US has talked about his back and forth in his conversations with executives at North American auto companies.

Have you had conversations with the President or his team, We have.

Had obviously a seat at the table in being able to communicate facts that possible impacts, the challenges of the industry and what could benefit I always say we are able to give an opinion one of the opinions. I hope it's a dot on the chart. And definitely we have talked to all three regions right expressing what is the jobs that we have, what is the investments that we have made, and how it could impact r Definitely, that is the conversation that's always ongoing.

Hey, Swammy, one thing we wanted to ask you the EV retrenchment that we continue to talk about here at Bloomberg, how is it affecting your business and the auto industry in general. You've got Fordkinson during killing the F one fifty Lightning, Stilantis killing the ram EV, and GM taking a one point six billion dollar impairment charge on its EV assets. That feels pretty chilling. How is that impacting you guys?

In the past, we've always looked at EV and if you look at some of the comments that we've made, I think we were a little bit conservative. But definitely the North American EV penetration has had an impact on us. We came back and talked about the impact of our revenue going forward in the August I think of twenty twenty four. But the key thing has been how we've been able to pivot. We had our peak capex spend in twenty three twenty two, we got back to the

I know that the decisions you make now are decisions for four years from now. So are you changing product plans to develop more gas powered vehicles or it helps make supplies for more gas powered vehicles?

Yes, Tim, I think we have had a lot of content in obviously the internal combustion engine platforms, right, and as some of these programs are delayed or pushed out, we continue to get leverage on the existing programs and we continue to win. The other thing to note is a lot of our products, almost eighty percent of our product is propulsion agnostic. That means whether a make a mirror or a door, or a structure or a seat, we'll make it for whatever propulsion it is.

Right.

So, as far as we are flexible and continue to do that in our processes, we've been able to take advantage of that of that flexibility and gain market and continue to grow our revenues.

So I want me just thirty seconds here, any signs of a US recession, a global recession. What's the word that you would use to describe the marketplace right now? Just quickly?

Yeah, I think there is signs of stress, I would say, And obviously that puts us all us on a cautionary foot. But like I said, from an auto industry, the inventory seem normal. The average age of the fleet is pretty high, so we are looking for auto demand not to be impacted that much. We've still remained very cautious.

That was Swami Koda Gharri, President and chief executive officer of Magna International.

I really do love talking with him Tim, because we get a great read on the global supply chain. I mean auto If you think about how many different countries have been involved, how many times there you know different parts might be crossing borders. It's really complicated. It involves a lot of pieces, and he really gets into it and understands it.

Yeah.

He also understands that in order to make decisions for the next few years, he has to do them now, So he talks a lot to us about Okay, if this is what we're going to do in twenty thirty, this is the decision we need to make right now. And one area that I think has sold a lot of confusion, not just for automakers but for the parts suppliers is the fate of ebs.

At least here in the AA.

Love that you went there because this you know, five years ago they couldn't make evs fast enough. Fast forward to today, it's like, Okay, well, what does demand look like, what does adoption look like? And how does that reset what these auto companies are doing terms of what they're offering to consumers. And when they're offering it.

But what's interesting is right he is taking the longer term perspective. And if you look outside the United States, I mean China or elsewhere ev you know, people are buying electric vehicles and so I think he's going on the assumption that that's the future. And so love getting his perspective.

I always love getting his perspective. We also love getting the perspective of the CEO of Axon Enterprise. He's going to join us next Yeah.

It's the company best known for tasers. His stock has been on fire over the past decade, but it recently. I got to say the company did catch investors off guard with earnings and another acquisition.

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Earlier this month. Axon Enterprise, it's a company known for making tasers, missed analyst estimates for third quarter profit after it reported higher costs resulting from the implementation of tariffs. Now that sent it shares slumping twenty percent and extended trading despite reporting record revenues. So investors definitely turned sour on that report.

On top of that, Axon agreed to buy emergency tech company Carbine. That's a deal valuing the company at six hundred and twenty five million dollars. Still, it is worth noting that stock got more than thirty three one hundred percent since the end of twenty fifteen. That was when Axon was just seventeen dollars.

Yeah, it's not a seventeen dollars stock anymore. In fact, you know, when you look at it on the Bloomberg this is a stock that now trades at about five hundred and seventy dollars this share. So, as we said, it's been on fire, but investors a little bit of a rethink from more. We caught up with the CEO of Axon, Rick Smith. He is still feeling optimistic.

Yeah, I'd say the business is the strongest it has ever been. You know, it's a public CEO for like twenty four years now, and this is the fifth time we've come in reported the business with really strong operating results and then the stock drops. So I just tell our people don't even look at the stock price like it's going to move around for a bunch of factors. Where we stay focused is building the long term business and every previous time it's recovered and we're going to

So what are you guys seeing that investors and analysts are not seeing because the narrative that you have and your tone doesn't necessarily match the reaction from the street.

Yeah, I mean part of this excuse me was we did have a gap operating loss, a tiny one, but that's largely because we have this very unique stock in center program we call the Exponential Stock Plan, and all of our employees participate. And when the stock does really well and we're hitting our operating targets, stock comp goes up, and so paradoxically, the better the operating business does, the more stock comp goes up. And that was the biggest mover.

I want to come back to that monster for the fourth quarter in terms of bookings. But I want to say that you know, Rick, you get this. You've been a CEO for a long time. When you're kind of price for perfection, you know, investors can be like, well wait a minute, citizens an investor there, Trevor Walsh said the company had little room for error in its report. It made investors' concerns about valuations. Stock trades at three hundred and ninety eight times current earnings or nearly ninety

Well, first, i'd probably get a note from my general counsel telling me not to use words like monster when talking about future performance.

Really, come back, is your phone going off right now next to you?

Yeah?

Yeah, it probably is. But look, the core business is really strong. Gap EPs is a really hard way to value the business. Because I talked about the stronger the operating business, the more gap EPs gets punished with stock competition to expense, so I think something like looking at a multiple of revenue is probably a little more like gonna be a little more instructive. But look, yes, there we are valued as a growing company that's got to

Well, I do want to ask you about those monster bookings for the fourth quarter. But having said that, tell us about you said ten percent of the bookings this year are going to be on AI services. You know how much is still Tasers like, give us an idea of what the business is today and kind of where you guys are positioning it, especially as you take on these acquisitions.

Got it.

Well, I'm terrible in details, but I can tell you the Taser business is. It continues to grow, even though it is a fairly mature business in the US, where the real opportunity is our new Taser ten. For the first time, we have a weapon that some of our customers in Europe were saying is a better weapon for their officers than even a handgun. And if we can prove that out this winter, we'll be testing it above the Arctic Circle and heavy cold conditions with heavy clothing,

Well, let's talk about those other services, because if I go back into your earnings and look at twenty seventeen, connected devices account for close to seventy percent of your total revenue. Software and services was just over thirty percent of revenue. If we fast forward to just in recent years, last year that pretty much flipped, where connected devices was forty percent and software and services is now close to sixty one percent of your business. How big does software and services get?

What's the old goal there?

Well, that's sort of like asking me which of my children is my favorite?

I love them all, but I.

Mean one of those has a higher margin. Right, Oh, yeah, one has a higher margin.

But when you can do hardware and software together, when you can do body cameras, drones in card cameras and the software layer, you can just do so much more magical things for the customer than if you're a pure software play.

Chah.

Investors love the software revenue and margins, and so do we. But the hardware is also growing and really contributing. And it's when you bring it all together that we think the magic happens. And that's our real competitive advantage.

Hey, one of the things I want to ask you about is there's been a bunch of reporting. There's a story about Flock Safety, which is one of your competitors, to be fair, and what's interesting is, I guess you guys are all doing deals with the Amazon ring and this camera, and you know footage is certainly being shared with law enforcement, whether it's ice and others. Again, there's a lot of reporting that's being done about this, and

So that's one reason We're really proud of the approach we take. We have an Equity and Ethics Advisory Council that is comprised of people from communities of concern, particularly black and brown communities. Right if we're really talking about over policing, I think that's the communities of most concerns. All of our approaches, we run through this ethics review upfront with people that are n actually very concerned and skeptical on these issues, and we build safeguards in that

So that's with a lot of local law enforcement agencies. And I'm curious about the conversations that you have at the federal level with the Department of Homeland Security, for example, and the way that their officers do or do not use your products. What are the conversations that you have at the federal level with DHS.

Yeah, we certainly work with the federal agencies as well, and I think where there is some controversy, it's like, look, people have different perspectives in different states and in different cities, and our system is built so they're like, hey, if you are, you know, a city in a very deep progressive you can choose who and how you share your data.

One last question, two acquisitions in as many months, is there more to come?

We're probably going to take a little breather here. We were not expecting when we went into this. We thought we would make one acquisition, but we found that these two were really so complimentary that, you know, sometimes you got to move quickly when opportunity knocks, and so, yeah, this was unexpected, but we're really excited about it.

That was Rick Smith, the founder and CEO of Axon Enterprise.

And that wraps up our first hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week Daily from Bloomberg radio Head. In our next hour, the dangers of social media and the urgent need to protect its youngest users.

It's all in, Can't look away, The Case Against Social Media, a Bloomberg original investigation produced and directed by an Emmy Award winning film duo. Plus many Americans are getting their calories from ultra processed foods. Not just adults, but kids, too. How bad is that? And Ken Rfk Junior do anything about it?

And he gave up a career in a London office, moved his family to France to make rose and do it in a way that is good for the climate Mother Earth. Will be joined by the owner of Maison Mirabau. This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Messer.

And I'm Krim Stanovic.

You are listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube plenty.

Hen in our second hour of the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business this week, including the family who moved from the UK to Provence to live out the dream of owning a vineyard and being in a mission as well to make rose wine but in a very environmentally responsible way. Stephen Kronk. He's the founder and CEO of Maison Marabou. He was back to talk wine, regenerative farming and so much more. And well we may have.

Sampled a little bit, Hey, nothing wrong with that.

Nope, it was Friday, wasn't it.

It was I think it was. It was definitely Friday. Well, okay, so the wine not ultra process, but we also did speak about ultra process foods. This is a danger to our bodies and it's what the majority of Americans eat, yet not all are unhealthy. Gait what Yeah, we're going to explain.

All right, I'm glad we're going to do that. Hey, first up this hour, we do want to highlight a Bloomberg Original investigation that exposes the real world consequences of harmful social media algorithms. It is Can't Look Away the Dangers of Social Media. It is a documentary that follows a team of lawyers taking on the big tech giants, advocating for families whose children have been deeply impacted by

This is all about money.

The purpose of all commercial adventures is to create a demand.

Our children are the casualties we need to take back the power from these companies. They've created a dangerous situation and then manipulated these gives.

They know the levels of addiction, sexual abuse, they know the levels of suicide.

They're not showing our kids what they want to see.

They're showing you what they can't look away from.

And that is the Bloomberg original investigation Can't Look Away, the Case against Social Media, which is now available across Bloomberg platforms. Perry Pelts and Matt O'Neil are the directors and producers of the documentary and they join us here in studio. Welcome, Welcome to both of you. I got to say we've talked to Olivia a lot about her reporting. We know you did as well.

Perry.

Let me start with you, when you guys decided, I don't know, I guess when you first started reading her reporting. What struck you?

What struck us? And first of all, thank you both for having us. We really appreciate it. What struck us is that what's happening is these companies are looking at families, at kids and parents and putting the blame on them. This is actually a public health crisis and there's nothing short of that. And I think that Olivia's reporting really speaks to the fact that this is an algorithm problem. It's not a bad parenting, it's not a bad kids issue.

Yeah.

The big question that I have as as a parent and in a world where we're surrounded by this stuff, Matt, is what is the solution here, because these companies don't necessarily have the incentive to get us to look away.

Well, I think the first part of the solution is exactly what we're doing, which is starting a conversation because a lot of these things. When we started this reporting, we had no idea. I had this vague sense that social media was bad. I'm a parent, I have young boys.

We talk about it so much like we understand the problems of social media.

But what I didn't realize was that social media algorithms were feeding suicidation to children, body dysmorphia to children. That kids are being targeted with the absolute worst things on the internet, and it's relentless unpack that.

What do you mean by.

That, Well, what happens is that these algorithms start off in a way if someone lingers on a sad moment because they broke up with a girlfriend or a boyfriend, the algorithm catches that and it goes into what some people have called a TikTok hole where it continues to feed more and more sad content that goes deeper and deeper. There's a whistleblower in the film that actually explains this in more detail, who used to work at TikTok.

Well, this is what's interesting, Perry, right, it's not just about what you search on, it's basically what you linger on. And the social media companies and you know, we're so careful when we talk about this because it's alleged and alleged, but this is where the whistleblowers come in and provide some insight about what the companies actually knew.

Now, the whistleblowers as well as internal documentation from these companies, what they're prioritizing is having kids stay on these platforms engagement. They're not prioritizing safety. So what happens is they bring in neuroscientists, they bring in behavioral scientists to actually program these algorithms so that kids stay on as long as possible, and thus the title can't look away from their being fed the material that they actually can't look away.

From, because that's good for business. Like I said, the incentives are not aligned with getting kids not to look at this stuff. If you show them what they don't want to see, they're going to do something else. We live in an attention economy. So is there a solution in a world where the incentives don't match from a public health perspective.

The incentives have got to change because we right now, unfortunately have a legal system in section two thirty that protects these companies in a profound way. It treats them as passive pipelines. They are not passive pipelines. Algorithms are company driven.

That essentially says section two thirty is that companies these social media platforms are not responsible for the content that's on their platforms.

That's exactly right. They are treating them like bulletin boards, which is if you go back historically to nineteen ninety six, before social media was even around, and you had these sites that were more bulletin board driven, they would say, it's okay, you can post what you want. The company is not responsible. But that's not what our lawyers would argue, the lawyers that we follow in this film, R what's happening here?

Matt talk to us about the lawyers because they really are. You know, when you go up against big tech, you're talking about high powered, expensive lawyers. This group of lawyers, it's hard not to be impressed by them. And what they ultimately figured out was the argument to do here.

It's an incredible collection of lawyers led by Matt Bergman, also Laura Marquez Garrett, who was that corner office big firm lawyer who left because of what she saw happening with social media and her concern for her own children.

So when we talk about product liability, you know, Perry, I think of things like the tobacco lawsuits, and this is what you can think about, right and I think about so many products that are out there right now that are facing a lot of scrutiny.

Well, let's go back to tobacco. To your point, how about opioids. It is another page out of the same playbook, which is basically to blame in this case the parents and the kids, and to not hold these companies into the companies to say.

They're abusing good products.

That is not what we are at least that's not what the reporting is suggesting. This is very, very different. These are algorithms that need to be changed.

I want to just mention because when you do a documentary and we're at the high level, and as soon as we have headlines, you have to remember that there are people, right and you guys tell these stories. Olivia told these stories. Whether it's Alexander Neville who died because of taking a pill laced with fetnel that he got on snapchat. England Roberts died after she copied a strangulation video she saw on Instagram. It was in her feed.

Matt.

There's a lot of people that were impact and there are thousands of cases.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. And I appreciate what you were doing there because you're saying their names. I'll add Mason Eden to that, a boy who died by suicide after a breakup because he went down one of these TikTok holes where here was being fed content that actually told him to blow his brains out with a shotgun. Actually, these are the shocking sorts of things that many of us adults don't know are happening on social media. And these parents are taking the most incredible

Christ you know what my understanding and you and I we did a panel here and we did a discussion. What does is it TikTok in China dot?

It's a great question because TikTok is owned by ByteDance. The similar app in China has a shut off time at night so that children can't access it. Instead of promoting whatever the kids are lingering on, it actually promotes practicing your musical instrument and doing math problems.

Sets Perry, what do you hope people you know, run with after this film? We've only got about a minute or so, Lef, what do you hope they do they ask either their kids or I don't know.

It's a really important question because we don't want to scare everybody and not give them anything that solutions oriented And when Matt's talking about these families, these families want people to be informed so that they don't have the same thing happen to them. And the answer is talk to your kids, tell them about what's going on, keep social media, phones and apps away from them until at

Perry, one last one for you.

You've got a really interesting background in journalism but also in documentary filmmaking, but also in public health. Your documentaries have included subjects such as the opioid epidemic.

Excessive drinking. Is this as big of an epidelt in your view?

I think this is a cataclysmic epidemic in my opinion, because now these companies are targeting our children and that is different than what was happening in a lot of these other None of them is good, but this one is.

Particularly a public health crisis.

A public health.

Crisis, yeah, question about it.

Laire Ai on top of it, and it's just terrifying.

Thanks to Perry Pelts and Matthew O'Neil, directors and producers of Can't Look Away, The Case against Social Media, the Bloomberg original investigation, it's now available on all Bloomberg platforms.

I have to say, Tim, you know I actually did a panel with Matt O'Neil a couple of weeks ago here at Bloomberg for another we did a viewing of the film, had an audience and then talked with the audience. But you and I have done so many interviews about social media misinformation that's out on the platform. You know, we can go back to elections and political misinformation, but just so much stuff that's out there, and for a lot of people, you know, they see it as a

Yes, section two thirty is what you're referring to. Fry Peltz talks about it a lot, right.

The Communications Act of was it nineteen ninety six, I think? And so what's interesting is that, you know, in an environment where we are inundated by a digital world and people spending a lot of time on social media, when it comes to something like kids, children, teenagers, what can possibly happen as a result of that content, it does open up a big question who is responsible for that?

Well, how would the world be different right now if these platforms were held good question responsible for what was actually on their platforms.

Well, and what they like it too is to tobacco, right, and when tobacco was kind of be marketed to kids and trying, the whole idea is get them hooked early, and the same thing with social media, get them at least allegedly from some of the inside documents I had at companies about this idea of kind of you know, targeting kids because you get a customer when they're young, they kind of tend to stay with you until they're older.

Well, I think what a big takeaway from me from this conversation was misaligned incentives. You know, we report on these companies each and every day and quarterly. We talk about the metrics that investors look closely at, the ones that actually move the company's stock price. Right, it's time spent on the platform, right, It's users on the platform. It's not how little did you get young people to actually use this platform. That's not what investors are judging them on.

Well, and it's exactly so.

They're doing everything they can to get people to spend more time on the platforms.

And what's interesting is what they found is that you know, kids will search for stuff, and what happens is it's not necessarily what you search on that you get targeted for. It's what you linger on, how much time you spend on an individual post, and then the algorithms seem to

The US, the safeguards that are put on by the companies versus in China, and how the Chinese companies or are required or at least what they do when it comes to the content on the platforms. Yeah, that watch. Check out the film exactly.

Check it out. You can find it on Bloomberg platforms. It's definitely a must watch if you have kids. Schools are watching it, they're doing viewing sessions if you will. Anyway, it's really something that is a must viewing, all right, you're listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Coming up from junk on social media to junk on supermarket shelves. Another addiction worth paying attention to ultra processed foods.

People want to avoid them, but experts are struggling to define them. That's next. This is Bloomberg.

This is Theloomberg Business Week Daily Podcast. Listen live each weekday starting at two pm Eastern on Apple car Play and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York station, Just Say Alexa played Bloomberg eleven thirty.

Here's a stat that may shock you. Americans get more than half of their daily calories from ultra processed foods, with salty and sugary items accounting for an even bigger portion of kids plates. This according to a government study that was released back in August. This government study ran from two thousand and one twenty twenty one to twenty twenty three, and it said that about sixty two percent of childhood diets come from highly processed foods think burgers, pastries, snacks,

That's a lot.

Yeah.

The question I have is whether or not Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy can actually make some headway on this. He said that the u US food supplies poisoning children. It's a question that I'll post to. Doctor Juliet Wolfson, Associate Professor in the International Health Department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The research focuses on how ultra process food affects our bodies.

Yeah, so thanks for having me back.

And ultra processed foods are defined by the list of ingredients that are included in them. So these are foods and beverages that are industrial produced using processes that you wouldn't have in a home kitchen, and ingredients that you

And so the most common.

Definition we have is called the NOVA classification system, which actually uses the ingredient list on a product to look for these kinds of ingredients that signal that a food or beverage has been through this industrial processed thing.

So if we turn around, which I think increasingly we have a population that is doing that, and especially I've got a daughter who's twenty two, younger generation looking at stuff. But if there are a ton of ingredients and ingredients you don't understand, should you assume that that's ultra processed.

Yeah, that is what we recommend as the way to know if a food or beverage you're considering purchasing or eating ultra process you flip over that package and if you look at that ingredient list and you see even one, but certainly a bunch of ingredients where you think, I don't know what that is. That's not something I would cook with. I don't even know how to pronounce that. That's a signal that's an ultraprocessed food.

So do we fix it by just infusing everything with protein? And then it's all.

Open, but it's still ultra processed, like like even a.

Protein Are you picking on the pop tart?

Yeah?

Protein packed a cop tart. We talked about this on our editorial call this morning. Sounds great, protein, doctor, I'm gonna let you weigh in.

Yeah, So I mean thinking about what are That's a strategy the food industry uses, maybe to signal that something is healthier for us by you know, saying, oh, this is protein rich or whole grain rich, or this has vitamins or minerals.

Right, But if it still has these other.

Ingredients, it's still an ultraprocessed food. And so you know the addition of you know, other nutrients that we might think are beneficial does not change that food.

Into something that is not an ultra process food. It's still ultra process.

So just really shocking to see sixty two percent of childhood diets come from highly processed foods. That was wild to see. But at the same time, I'm thinking about my own family and how difficult it is to get my kids who are six and two to eat food that we would consider not ultra processed. What is the best way to do that. What are strategies that work for kids? I think a lot of parents struggle with this.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a struggle for all of us, right, you know, it's not just kids, it's adults as well.

You know, it's over half of adult diets.

And I think there's a lot of reasons for that, and it's you know, our taste preferences are shaped very early, and there's a lot of marketing, particularly the children, for these products.

And they're easier to they're easier to grab and go.

There, a lot of them are ready to eat, and you know, they're snacks. They save time, and a lot of them are more affordable too, So that's something to consider. I think it is the more snacks that you can have out that are not processed, that are easy to grab and go that you know, that is one strategy to help kids have more say fresh fruits and vegetables to snack on, or healthy snacks that are made ahead

So it's there.

There are really good and intractable reasons why these foods comprise so much of our diets, and particularly our children's diets.

So you know, what's interesting the stat that Tim mentioned from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention their nutrition survey, when they talked about highly processed food, they said pizza.

So this is not the pizza that you get and I get on Friday nights.

That's what I want to ask you. So, like, I go to a place where I know they are making their homemade crust from special weed.

It's been featured in the New York Times, you.

Know, and it's no, no, no, I hear you have fun but he but I mean it's like, you know, fresh tomatoes, fresh basil. I guess maybe there's obviously some like homemade cheese there, but like what like how do we distinguish really really bad processed food versus stuff that maybe isn't so bad.

Yeah, I think that, you know, that kind of pizza that you're describing, or let's think about bread, even pizza or bread that might make at home, Like you're combining wheat and you know, flour and salt and yeast, and you know, you have your fresh tomato sauce.

That's not an ultraprocessed food.

So that but that is not the majority of the pizza that people are eating.

So when we talk about things like pizza.

It really could be those frozen pizzas that you get in the grocery store, or maybe more mass produced pizzas that are made at scale and therefore have some sorts of preservatives or other kinds of ingredients that you know, change the say, the softness of the dough or something like that.

Those are the ultra process things.

So not all all ultra processed foods, though, are equally concerning. I would say, you know, I mentioned bread, so you know, the bread that we might make by ourselves at home, like if we were some of the people who started making sour oaught bread during COVID, for example, Yeah, that's not ut processed bread you might get at the bakery in your neighborhood that is made by scratch is not

I would say, so just in the last two minutes that we have with you that Health and even Service As Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Junior has vowed to go after these food companies so Americans do eat healthier.

Thus far, how is he doing well?

I mean, I think it's good that he's focusing on this as an issue. I think there are, as I mentioned, you know, there's a lot of reasons why we eat these foods, and one of them, a big one is they're more affordable. They tend to be more affordable than scratch ingredients. They save time, and they're more accessible.

And so.

I think some of the policies of the administration say cutting or even eliminating snap benefits is not helpful for people to be able to avoid ultraprocessed foods. But thinking about labeling or getting ultra processed foods out of schools in a way that also balances with giving schools the resources they need to source and prepare less processed foods would be a step in the right direction.

Why do we just real quickly thirty forty seconds here, why do we have so much ultraprocessed food? Is it about keeping shelf life or like, what is it? Or is it just cheaper mass production food?

I don't know, just quickly, yeah, I mean it's the majority of the foods in our grocery store shelves. Right. They make food large, shelf stable, they're oftentimes more affordable, and they're in high demand because they save people time and they save people.

Mental energy as well.

You know, it's a lot easier to say, have a frozen dinner than it is to make all the components of the frozen dinner yourself. So there's demand for it, and you know, they've really dominated our food supply for decades now, so it will be really difficult to make that switch at a large scale, but it's worth considering how we can do it well.

L's quick question twenty five seconds. Can we eat too much protein?

I think it is possible to eat too much protein, and Americans do eat a lot of protein, so we are not suffering from a shortage of protein in the.

US as a whole our Thanks to doctor Julia Wolfson, Associate Professor in the International Health Department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Her research focuses on how ultra processed foods affect our bodies.

All right, so you have little kids, My daughter's older. I know we were obsessed. I know you are too with organic and yeah.

But I mean I can only do so much. Truly, it's hard. You know, it's really hard for us what what they eat when they're out of the house.

I was just going to say, like when they go elsewhere, right.

Yeah, and you know it's I'll tell you, New York City public schools do not make it easy. Grateful that they offer food at these schools breakfast, lunch, and dinner at this point, which is a little crazy. Yeah, it's not the healthiest stuff though, I know, granted they do have. You know, my kids love apples, and they have like New York apples, which we love, but it's the other stuff.

I remember in high school, like we used to take our own lunches in grade school, and I live close enough in grade school that we could go home for lunch and stuff. But I remember in high school you couldn't. And I remember like you could eat some fruit, or there was this like great cake and we would all like get it. And it's like that was the choice we made. And I'm sure it was.

Ultimately I was gonna say, was it in like a package or was it Actually it.

Wasn't in a package, so maybe they had a bakery that maybe they were making it in their kitchen, but I don't know.

You got to go home for lunch.

In grade school. We lived really close. It was like a little town, and it was.

Like pretty cool that the teachers just like let the kids walk home by themselves.

Yeah, I mean I was literally a couple of minutes away, so I can really cool. I could go home and make dinner, not dinner.

But make Did you make the lunch yourself or was I did?

I made it for myself and my little brother. No, my mom was working.

That's pretty cool, especially when we.

Got a little bit older. Different that was through eighth grade.

Different world, it is, right, Yeah, that's pretty cool.

But high school wasn't like we had it.

That's the opposite.

Were you closer in your high school?

Well, I went to boarding school, so it kind of that was impossible to really relate here.

But was boarding school healthy?

Yeah?

I mean it was real food, which is good. We did have one thing we did have, what well, two things that we had which were crazy. One chocolate milk okay, so that was pretty good. Two milk are used to a frozen yogurt machine.

And do you have a cappuccino maker?

No?

No, no.

So we could just go into the dining halloga whenever we wanted, which was a little nuts. I don't know if they still have that. And one thing you do as as seniors, you were allowed to like be out late. Well, we'd all break into the dining hall and just eat whatever we wanted there late at night. It's kind of it's kind of like, I'm sorry you allowed to do that.

You broke in.

Yeah, a lock on the door.

The locks that were meant to be like those big like things were just like little like I don't know, like U shaped things that they put over, like horseshoe kind of things.

You know, those things you learn on your about your co host. Yep, very very interesting. Hey, we shouldn't point out that as a one little I.

Wasn't a bad kid. Okay, I didn't get sway.

I'm going to bring it back to the news.

It was kind of a bad kick.

We do also want to mention a story that has come out and kind of associated if you want, the Trump administrations deal with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisks to lower the cash price of weight loss drugs is putt pressure on employers and insurance to negotiate better costs. But let's just talk about the GLP ones are no doubt about it. People are eating less. There's kind of this

Also on the GLP once, did you see the news this week, Eli Lilly dropping CVS's drug benefit plan no employers, Okay, this after CVS stopped covering it's blockbuster weight loss drug in favor of Arrival medication from Novo Nordisk. This according to people familiar with the matter, So, oh my god. Eli Lily was like, We're not going to use CVS's drug plan because you guys are not actually covering our product.

Sounds like a negotiating tactic. I mean they're dropping the whole plan, hey' costume right? All right? All right, A lot of stuff this week. Ky still ahead on Bloomberg Business Week, how one family left the London suburbs for a small village in France actually Provence. All for the love of wine.

More on the other side with the owner of Maison Mirabo.

This is going.

You're listening to the Bloomberg Business Weekdaily podcast. Catch us live weekday afternoons from two to five pm Eastern Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app, or watch us live on YouTube. It's the stuff of fantasies.

Carol, We've talked about this.

Yeah, you quit your corporate job in London, you move to the south of France with your three kids, your wife, you make rose.

It sounds magical, it does well.

It wasn't a fantasy for Stephen Kronk, the founder and CEO of Maison Mirabo. He and his wife did exactly that. It was sixteen, sixteen years ago. It was yeah, wow, at the height of the global financial crisis.

Talk about timing.

Steven's with us right now here in the Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio and.

He brought Rose.

First of all, it's been a little while since we last spoke to here, at least two years.

Yes, how's business been since then?

It's well, it's interesting question.

It's been up, and I would say, I mean, I think Province Rose is still the benchmark for rose around the world, so we're very lucky we've got that.

But there's been a lot of headwinds, as I'm srure you're aware.

Yeah it Look, there's the climate change headwind but there's also the changing consumer tastes headwinds, as.

Well as tariffs exactly, which is the thing that is the biggest headwind.

They all combine together, this is the perfect storm.

So there's the health kick, there's the cannabis movement, there's the no and low alcohol movement, there's the zimpic movement because that suppresses people's desire to have a drink. So it's like everything and then you load on top of that the tariffs. It's like, yeah, what has happened?

So what does that mean for you guys? Like how do you pivot? How do you adjust around that?

Well, there's a lot of things we can't change. But what we try and do is is with the tariffs, for example, we've tried to swallow as much as we can. We don't want mirror Bau to be much more expensive in the store, so we've tried to swallow that, which is it's hard, but we're keeping our fingers crossed that maybe this is going to change.

Remind everybody the price range from the United States, so you don't want the price to go up in the US.

So yeah, so we have generally between twenty and thirty dollars, okay, and we want to try and.

Keep below thirty dollars because that's a price point.

So then how does that hit your margins.

Yeah, it's not great, but you.

Know, I'd rather build a brand, and you know, i'd rather people carry on drinking Mirbo, especially. You know, we're coming out of Thanksgiving and Provence Rose is just so good with Turkey, So you know, I'm just trying to hope this goes away and just carry on pushing my wines here.

Yeah.

Well, you know, and I've said I wasn't a big Rose drinker, but I've got to say yours is pretty pretty magical and I've really enjoyed it, and we're going to taste it and know Tim is sniffing it out. You're in the United States, talk to us about the US market specifically.

So I've started farming regeneratively for some of my wines, right, and the regenerative movement seems to be centered many around California. Now, yeah, so, I mean, I'm selling my wines in forty countries, but California is the epicenter of the regenerative movement. The California Department of Food and Agriculture has been the first state to to define the words regenerative agriculture. And meanwhile, we've got you know, the wine resions there, so pazoobils, Nappers,

So what does that mean for one of County.

I know where t is from, but what does that mean that you would you do more here in the United States?

I'm just trying to sell more wine here. And so the retailers say, like air One and Sprouts and Bristol Farms and Hagen's, they're really getting behind the regenerative movement that they're looking to seek out regenerative.

Farmer because there's an awareness of it, right, because they.

Know what it means for farmers, they know what it means for people to.

Not everybody knows what regenerative farming means, and especially how that is applied to farming the grapes that go into wine, that go into rose. So for for people who don't know what it is, explain regenerative farming in the context of viniculture.

So regenerative, as the name suggested, is about regenerating soil, fertility, and regenerating nature in simple terms, So you know, it's the if you think about it, what was organic farming.

Called before the First World War?

Farming?

Right, But then there was a huge amount of pressure here.

Everyone's so worried about industrial farming, so the heavy tillage and in particular heavy use of chemicals.

So there's been a move certainly since the First World War and the Second World War as well.

We've seen a lot of nitrogen being used in farms and a lot of heavy tillage, a lot of chemicals, pesticide and so on, and that's just been killing our soils.

This is a catastrophe.

You know, we were worried about famine at the end of the Second World War, so rightfully we were worried about feeding our population, but we haven't been measuring food in the right value. It's been measured by calories rather than nutrient density.

So I didn't mean to interrupt, but it was just interesting. We just came off a discussion of talking about the cost of meat and just what's going on in that world. But I do think about, like is our soil globally, how tortured is it or how bad is it because of the industrial farming.

A lot of it, most of it, I would say, is on life support. It's really it's catastroph So when I was gonna say, when I drive up from NA to Pazzoobils, which is one of the most regeneritive regions.

In wine up the I five and you see.

Thousands of acres of fruit trees and nut trees that are on life support. It's like the moon's surface, and so it's kept they're kept live by these extern inputs and what you end up with a product, but they're not very tasty and they're not very nutritionally dense. So we need to actually start restoring soil health globally, and regenerative is a way of doing that.

So you can do that in terms of all that soil. How long does it take the process of getting it back, It.

Can happen quite quickly, and that's one reason why we so I run a nonprofit as well called the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation. So viticulture is agriculture for vines, and we're

You said, you've driven up California on the five, but if you go a little west, you could drive up on Highway one or the one oh one and then go on San Marcos pass through Los of Libos where there is a lot of agriculture and a lot of vineyards as well. Is the movement expanding throughout the state of California and beyond the state of California.

Yeah.

Absolutely, And that's the point of my nonprofit is to really encourage farmers, give them the reasons to do it. Everything around region, as far as we're concerned, is using science.

So you know, if we can.

Rebuild soils and rebuild the soil organic matter, rebuild soil carbon, they end up with much better tasting wines. But also you see nature coming back. My mother Nature owes us no favors, but she'll come back. But you've got to create that right environment. Getting wean yourself off the synthetics and get yourself back.

Into natural you know, it's kind of I always think about Stephen what happened during the pandemic, and the sky's got bluer, and the animals came out and quickly, and it's just a reminder when we see the impact of climate change and it feels so devastating, it feels like there's no way back. I always go back to the pandemic and how the world seemed so much better, so we can do better. How expensive is it to do regenerative farming and the ROI on something like that, the return on investment.

Well, we're working a little bit with UC Davis and we're working with other growers to see the data points coming out of it, because basically we think, and certainly evidence to my farm is once you've made that transition, your input costs drop, so you're not buying as many external inputs, fewer tractor passes. You're letting nature kind of get everything back into balance. So we think actually costs will be more or less the same as they are with regular farming.

All right, So we're talking with Stephen Kronk. He's founder and chief executive officer of Maison Mirabow. He's here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio. So that leads us to your product. There's three bottles that I'm looking at in front of me, and there's one that we know we've opened up up. Tell me what we're going to sample here?

So this is one day by mirror both. This is new. This is why I'm here. This is this the bottles Miraboa.

So we're the.

First certified regenerative organic winery in France soon and I.

Are competing for the bottles.

Well, this is no, no, no, So one day, one day by Mirabeau. We call it one day because one day all vineyards will be found like this.

Oh I love that.

And it's the first regenerative certified wine to come out of France, to come out of Provence, and it's something that we're really really proud of because rather like our state wine, which is also the first certified regenda organic wine, this is this is, this is us certifying our growers. So we have to make this work at scale. You know, you can't just have little niche boutique wineries enjoying the benefits of.

Regent and it can be done at scale.

It can be done at scale, and migrowers in Provence are just absolutely crazy about getting involved, you know, because organic is I would say flat growth, but you know a lot of basic organic isn't also for soil, you know, so so we have to use common Why is that?

So that makes me nervous because I think there's an assumption.

Well, so organic is the best kind of farming you can you can do when you're doing it properly, when you're doing it regeneratively, so regendat ive organic is the gold standard. Okay, But if you are a lot of a lot of organic farms, certainly in the wine world, can still be monocultures.

So you don't want any weeds in the vineyard.

You wanted to look immaculate, so if the weeds come in, then you know, plow them away. Yeah, but actually that's wrong. You know, you need to let nature into the vineyard. You can't have these these monocultures.

It's funny.

I was with somebody the other day and they were saying, yeah, my husband's a real germophobe, and it's sanitizing his hands and everything is just so so I.

Do I know this one?

I said, Okay, tell me how often does he get sick? And she said all the time, you know, And we need to we need to rough rummage around of the dirt. We need we need to have those bugs, and we need to be healthy and build out resilience. And that's what regenerative does you know monoculture is the same thing as sanitizing a farm.

Well, I will say with kids, they say, like introduce pets and dogs. It's a good thing for them to be around germs and stuff. So Stephen, cheers, thanks for having me in.

Carol's drinking the wine as we speak.

That's what it's for.

The rose.

That's nice. So this is the one day.

This is one day.

Yeah, and rose, I mean it varies, right like it varies.

But the good thing about Provence roses it's always dry. So because you can get some roses that are quite high and residual sugar and you can that's not very food friendly and yeah, very healthy, but Provence roses always always being dry.

So I always associate rose with warm weather in the summer. But you argue that it's the perfect thing to drink at Thanksgiving dinner, right, Why is that?

Because it's just such a food versatile wine.

It's great.

It's got a little bit.

Of a city that cuts through the sort of the sweet flavors of the cranberry sauce or but it cuts through the gravy. It's just a refreshing mouthfeel once you've had a great, big, you know.

Fork of potato or something that's Stephen Kronk, the owner of me Son Mirabeau.

I have to say, this is the second time that we've talked with Steven, and we're hoping actually to get his wife back soon because they have a book out too about their experience and it's all about food and recipes and cooking. I mean, Provence is a very very special place. But it's interesting what he's trying to do

But yeah, pre the Great Wars, pre the Great.

Wars, but like the what we do now in terms of industrial farming and chemicals, it's a whole different ballgame.

But it's such a big story because you know, post World War Two, as Stephen explained to us, there was such a demand for feeding a growing number of people here in the US and around the world. You also had industrialization, so you had fewer people actually living on farms farming for themselves and farming for a great number of people, so you had to figure out how to

I mean, took a Chipotle's history way back when when the original founder was there, Steve El's, but like that was kind of their mission of trying to do regenerative farming farming responsibly. The other thing I would say, Tim that's always crazy is when you and I do any kind of food story and we talk about how difficult it is to kind of move beyond industrial farming. How much food is wasted and ultimately thrown out at the

I don't know, We're a little guilty of it at times. I know you end up finding something in the back of the fridge. It's like a little shriveled up and you're like, I can't eat this.

Now, smaller fridge, smaller. You know, refrigerators are smaller. I have heard now over in Europe and stuff like they shop every day. I listen. I had two refrigerators and a freezer growing up.

Yeah, but there were how many of you nine?

I know, but still it was a lot of space. I'm just saying, no judge, all.

Right, how'd we get there from wine?

I don't know the wine was good. I'm going to just put that out there. Full disclosure. Hey, that wraps up the weekend edition of Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. Thank you so much for joining us.

We shure to tune into Bloomberg Business Week daily Monday through Friday, starting at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg TV, Bloomberg Radio, and on Sirius XM Channel one twenty one. Also listen to us on Apple car Play and Android Auto Free in the Apple App Store or on Google Play.

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I'm Tim Stenebeck and I'm Carol Masser. Have a good and safe weekend everyone.

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