Brazil's Rainforest Is Approaching a Point of No Return

Bloomberg Business Weekend iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Tim and I have gone through some of the headlines, but we just want to remind you City Group going back to requiring employees, regardless of their vaccination status, to wear masks when they're in the office.

That's according to a person in the CDC we heard for them, Tim advising fully vaccinated and individuals to once again staring wearing masks in public, indoor settings and places where the virus is spreading rapidly. And we've had a ton of companies, particularly the big text based Twitter, Google Lift rolling back bringing workers back to the office. The big question I think that many people are grappling with

is how do they make sense of it? If they were vaccinated in January February, many people were vaccinated in April. Are they going to need a booster with conformation about that too? Fortunately? Dr Amish Adalgo, Senior Scholar, an infectious disease physician at the Center for Health Security at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He joins us now on the phone from Pittsburgh, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder

of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Dr Adalge, I want to start with the news that we got from the CDC earlier this week that I think was confusing to a lot of people. Um, do you think that people who live in what the CDC defines as areas of concern UH, including New York City, including Arkansas, if they

have been vaccinated, should they wear a mask indoors. It's something that I think should be more left to individual discretion for fully vaccinated individuals, because there there may be a risk that people who are fully vaccinated and get a breakthrough, I should may develop enough viral load that they could potentially be contagious, But it's not what's driving the pandemic. It's not what's driving transmission in these hot spots.

So to make a policy in my mind based on something that's by the road admission a very rare occurrence, doesn't necessarily make make sense to me. I think if you're an immunosuppressed person and you've been fully vaccinated and you're in a high risk setting, it may make sense to wear a mask so that you don't get a break through infection. But what we're talking about with break through infections are largely clinically insignificant, meaning no symptoms, mild symptoms.

It's when you walk through a hospital. It's not breakthrough infections that you're seeing in the hospital. It's almost exclusively people who are not vaccinated. So to me, that doesn't really seem congruent, and I think it is confusing, and I think it's going to be something that has basically only a marginal benefit of any uh when implemented. What about so that what's happening in my universe right now is people all my friends have kids who are under

the age of twelve. That's where I am I am in life, And what they're wondering is, Okay, well my kid can't be vaccinated. Can I actually pass a breakthrough infection to my kid? Like? Do I need to start wearing a mask at work because that's a risk I would not. I think that this is a very very low risk. Obviously, if you have a child that has to be your asthma or have had a heart transplant,

for example, you may want to take extra precautions. But in general, this is a very rare occurrence and not something that I think really makes a major impact on

how this pandemic is going to unfold. That that being said, it's also true that just because children are not vaccinated doesn't mean that they're a very heightened risk for severe disease with COVID nineteen, especially as you get to those younger age groups where COVID nineteen is more like other respiratory viruses that they may have that they may face.

So I think that this comes up to kind of parental risk tolerance, and with unvaccinated children that are healthy, I think the risk that they get it from a vaccinated person and have a have a severe outcome it's very very if not completely near zero, doctor Daja, Then do you think the CDC made a mistake in coming out with that mass guidance. I do think they made

a mistake. I think what to make a policy based on a very rare event occurring and at the same time undermined the vaccines in the mind of the vaccine hesitant because now they see nothing changes for them if they get vaccinated. Really, I think it has set this whole thing back because the goal of the vaccines was

never to block every breakthrough infection. The goal of the vaccines was to stop serious disease, hospitalization, and death, and as we all know, it's those are The vaccines are working tremendously when you use that to measure their success, because who's in the hospital unvaccinated people, who are dying unvaccinated people. The vaccines are working extremely well. They are the solution going back to kind of a primitive masking approach when we have a twenty one century solution, the

vaccine really makes no sense to me. And by their own admission, the CDC says this is probably accounting for a very very small part portion of the transmission going on. So what impact do you think that will have if it's only a very small transmission, and especially in those places that are hot spots, those people are not going

to wear masks. They're not going to get vaccinated. And I think this is just going to further entrench their vaccine hesitancy and confuse everybody else in the rest of the country trying to understand if it applies to them or not. Although we've done some analysis here at Bloomberg and Drew Armstrong has done some reporting that in those hot spots where people have been slow to get the vaccine, that those numbers are going up. Uh, maybe as a

result of this heightened awareness. Is there something to be said by saying, Okay, we're going back to masks. Things are getting a little bit tricky again, that that might get more people who were hesitant to get the vaccine to get it. Now there has been some uptick in vaccination rates in some of those hot spot areas, but that occurred before this CDC guidance. And remember we've never said that unvaccinated people should be going around inspecting people

without masks. What particularly is I have a problem. It's with the CDC guidance. Who the guidance for vaccinated people wondering whether that's the right message to be sending and whether the data actually justifies this type of a of a reaction based on the fact that it's not likely that it is clearly not what's driving driving the pandemic. We are in a pandemic, as the CDC director said, of the unvaccinated, that's where our focus really should be

trying to get vaccine uptake up. But I think now if you tell somebody that lives in Missouri, if you get fully vaccinated, you still have to wear a mask, they may not get vaccinated. Remember that we saw a big uptick when the CDC changed their guidance, and if you're fully vaccinated, you don't have to wear a map.

So I think that's a lot more problematic. You want to get right back to dr amish adalgia infectious disease physician and senior scholar John's Hopkins Center for Health Security Charlie of course uh, mentioning UH and playing a little bit of a sound from another interview from one of his colleagues. Um, Dr do what I want to ask you is if we didn't have the CDC come out and say you've got to start wearing masks, and we just kind of kept reopening the economy. Those of us

who got vaccines going about our business. Could we do that and what would be the trajectory of maybe what the world might look like, especially since we are seeing rising cases and rising hospitalizations in some US hotspots, Like, how would it play out? I guess I'm trying to understand it exactly the same because it's not vaccinated people that are driving hospitalizations. It's not vaccinated people that are

driving cases. It's the unvaccinated. So the CDC guidance was for vaccinated people to wear masks and high risk in high risk situations, but they're not the ones driving it.

So no, I don't think that the CDC guidance is going to change the trajectory one way or the other because it's not vaccinated people that are causing hospitalizations, as we've said multiple times almost universally, it's the unvaccinated that are in hospital So no, I don't think this is going to make a major a major dent in what's going on here. What will make a dent is the unvaccinated changing their behavior by either starting to wear masks

or getting themselves vaccinated, which is the ultimate solution. But if we just kept going, we can manage servicing those that are unvaccinated who come down with COVID. I think the fear is, you know what I'm asking. The fear is we go back to where we were a year ago, and it sounds like we wouldn't do that, or maybe

in certain spots of the country. I don't think COVID nineteen is a systemic risk of the United States anymore because enough high risk people have been vaccinated in many parts of the country and most parts of the country, so you'll see cases decouple from hospitalizations. There are some places like Springfield, Missouri, like Arkansas, like Louisiana where that's not the case, so that becomes a regional issue. But again, it's not the vaccinated people that are causing that problem.

It's the unvaccinated people that are spreading it amongst themselves and whatever contribution. If there is one of vaccinated people, it is a miniscule proportion of what's going on here. So restricting what vaccinated people can do on behalf of the unvaccinated isn't fair. I don't think it's scientific, because if you're fully vaccinated, COVID nineteen is no longer a threat to you. You will not get serious disease, hospitalization, or death in the period end. The vaccines are are

doing their job. It's the fact that not enough people have taken taken the vaccine that's causing the problem. And these breakthrough infections, which were expected, are mostly clinically insignificant, have very very mild symptoms, and are not even a problem for the people who get those breakthrough infections, And the issue has to be focusing on the unvaccinated people in those hotspots that don't want to be vaccinated, They don't want to wear masks, and that's where our problem is.

And I think that's how we're gonna progress for some time in this two track pandemic, where the Northeast, for example, has COVID managed more like a normal respiratory infection, and other parts of the country where it's still a disruptive effect until more people get vaccinated or the delta variant burns itself out by VAT by infecting enough of the population.

Not a good situation. Yeah, we only have a minute left, and I know that a lot of people listening right now are thinking about kids, because the people under twelve in this country are the ones who are not vaccinated yet. What one listener writing and now asking about the real risk of mortality and morbidity within within kids. What do we know about the latest data. What do we know

about the numbers? Well, children represent a very very small proportion of the morbidity and mortality in terms of hospitalizations and death. Yes, there have been kids hospitalized and kids have died, but it's as a as a percentage basis, it's very very small. And when you get to that younger age group, especially less than twelve, it's comparable, if not less than what we see with influenza what we

see with RSV. So I think that's something that's important to know is that for younger children that are healthy, that don't have asthma, don't have heart disease or heart transplants or whatever it might be, this is on par with other respiratory viruses that we deal with year in and year out. So that gives gives you some cushion there. It's very different in younger children versus versus older people. That's where we've seen the morbidity immortality. Children tend to

be spared from the severe effects. Thank you so much. Gets back in session exactly. Dr Amish Adalga, infectious disease physician and senior scholar at JOHNS Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Of course, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, Founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropy. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Okay,

this may rightfully freak you out. It's about the last days of the rainforce. Yes, that rainforce so crucial to the global environment, species, all of our living beings. It's a story in the magazine. It's about how the Brazilian Amazon is approaching the point of no return and the government there. Tim fanning the flames. Joel Weber's editor for Bloomberg Business Week. He's with us in the Bloomberg Interactive

Broker Studio. Jessica Bryce is senior editor for Latin America News at Bloomberg News, and she joins us on the phone from South Pallo, Brazil. Joel, we were talking about this during the break. I read the story this morning. It is something that actually put me in a pretty sour and foul mood because it is incredibly depressing the Amazon rainforest. It's one of the globe's greatest natural resources. In the past forty years, we've lost an area as

big as California to deforestation. Yeah, this is a gut wrenching story. And I can't I kind of can't think of something that has bigger global implications than UM losing UH the Amazon. And what Jessica's UH story shows is that it's actually it's really nuanced. UM. And I think that is one thing if you spend some time with the story, UM, reading it or or listening to it if you prefer, you will come away with some of

that nuance. And what he ends up doing is walking us through some of the characters, UM that are on the ground there and and she'll tell us the story started as a as a data project and then became probably one of the most compelling stories UM I've ever

published as the editor of Business Week. UM. And you know the thing that I think, UM it shows more than anything, is that there is a official land grab policy that has happening in Brazil, and it's allowing the rainforest to basically get turned into grassland that can be UM um where cattle can be raised, which is about the worst one eight that we can do for the planet, as you can imagine. So Jessica, walk us through UM where you started this project and what you learned along

the way. Hi, thanks for having me on this show. Um. Yeah, I started the project really looking at the data behind DeForest station, trying to figure out, you know, we've been struggling with this issue for decades now, and why is it still something that we're we're seeing? Why is why is it not something that the world is able to to stop? Why is the Brazil government not stopping it? Um? So I started looking at the data of who's actually doing it, and it took me in in place into

directions that I had never really expected. I mean, it's it is such a nuanced story. It is such a complicated story. And what it comes down to is, you know, the folks on the ground, Uh, for decades, they've been told that deforestation is a good thing, that they need to deforce the land, and in fact, in some cases, um, they were you know, handed plots and if they didn't deforce the land, they risk losing those plots. And so that culture has really stuck in the Amazon and the

folks there now, which a lot of them are incredibly poor. Um. The governments keeps that policy alive because it helps pump this land, this cleared land, into industrial farming operations that feed the world. I mean, this is such a big part of it, right, supporting the people who live in a country and area, right. And so there's as you just explained that on one hand, but at the same time we're talking about the existence of the global population

and protecting the rainforest. It's a policy that's not just from President Boson Narrow. It's been around for a while. It has been a while around for a while. UM. During the dictatorship of the really prioritized giving it to big landowners, big industry. Um. And then so you have this population of people who have been working the lands for for generations and they and so when the democracy came about, uh, the government decided to give them small

plots of land. So that was in the constitution. What we saw is that two governments prior to Bosonato, they moved the needle for they said, okay, so will amnesty more recent deforestation, will amnesty bigger deforestation. Now, what the government wants to do is sort of take that too, like, uh, just a very scary uh, a very scary next step and say, Okay, we're going to start amnestying more recent deforestation as recently as two thousand and twelve. Boconnado did

wanted amnesty as recently as two thousand eighteen. Um, but we're not even gonna check it. We're gonna do it all by satellite UM and so it really opens the door to almost sixteen million hectares of of of new Amazon land that could be UM amnestyed. Basically, this is

stolen public land that could be amnestying. Can you make the connection for people who live thousands of miles away from the Amazon about just why it is so important not just for Brazil but for our own health, because that was one of the most striking parts of the story for me. Right, So, we're reaching a point where the Amazon, which has always been considered sort of the

lungs of the world, it's turning into savannah. It's that it's at risk of turning into savannah, and instead of of cleaning the earth air, it's actually accelerating climate change and in some cases where the burns are the worst, it's actually pumping more carbon dioxide into the air than it can absorb. Um. Now, if it turns into savannah, what happens. We lose ten thousand species are at risk.

But also the Amazon helps regulate the entire the weather patterns here in the in in South America, and South America produces a lot of food for the world. UM. So you there's there's a combination of factors that are really sort of scary. Not only does it you know, contribute to climate change, it you know, contributes to more pollution in the air, but it also changes our weather, our weather patterns in in in a region that makes a lot of food for the world. And so it

is quite shocking what what we're looking at. So let's talk about what happens when um uh the rainforest comes down. Um. Basically we have it's a story about poor people who are moving into the jungle and claiming land, and then that land ends up becoming homes and villages over time, and then they inherit that that land, and the government basically um you know, has that amnesty program that allows them to stay there and those those those those homes

become permanent um places uh. And and really the whole thing is about allowing them to raise cattle, right, Jessica, because that's the thing that allows them to eventually flip it and sell and have have a business. What what what are the economics of all that end up looking like? And just just have about forty seconds left here, Okay, Yeah, So it used to be driven by a lot by poor folks, by by poor you know, individual farmers going

into the Amazon and staking a claim. But what we've seen recently in the invasions is that they're very sophisticated. And we go into the story about this. You know, we did visit in a camp and it's sprouted up in five months. It's how you know, there's houses, there's a school, there's internet, there's running water, and so the poor farmers alone can't uh explain the sheer scale of

the deforestation that we're seeing. There's money, someone is financing some of this um and so so I think that's really the kind of the next step in the next investigation that we need to do is like who who's actually behind a lot of this DeFore station. There's so much in this story. Highly recommend you read all of it or listen to the story. Jessico, Bryce thank you so much. Senior editor for Latin American News at Bloomberg,

Jill Webber, thank you as well. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovik on Bloomberg Radio. All right, you are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Among our most read stories on the Bloomberg Today about Nicolas my saying it correctly? Yeah, well, it depends like I've heard some people say Tesla differently. All right, Nikolas founder and former chairman charged with misleading

investors stock dropping on the news today. Let's get into it with someone who has been covering this company for US. Bloomberg News reporter Ed Ludlow. He is in our San Francisco bureau um Ed, great to have you here. So you know this story really really well. Tell us about the latest. Yeah. So, Trevor Milton has been charged by New York prosecutors for essentially lying, making misstatements, false statements to investors about niko as technology and the progress that

the company made. Remember, this is a company that was founded with the ambition to make fuel cell powered semi trucks and battery electric semi trucks and along the way all kinds of kind of weird, quirky stuff like the Badger pick up which was scrapped eventually, sports vehicles, a network of hydrogen fueling stations. Um. And it's not a

huge surprise. We knew that this investigation by both the DJ and the SEC was ongoing, and indeed, the company's own internal invest investigation through an outside law firm found you know, similar results that he had made misstatements. But but it is, you know, a substantive step forward forward what's been a roller coaster story and wondering what happens to the company. I mean, shares down more than ten

percent right now. These shares were trading at nearly eighty dollars a little over a year ago on June nine. It has come fall. It has fallen far and fallen relatively quickly. Where does the company go for here? The thing is that the company has been separate from Trevor Milton for some time. You know, he resigned as executive

chairman in September of last year. You know, the company released a statement pointing out that this investigation or these charges are against Trevor Milton, They're not against Nicola Court. You know, this is a completely separate Nicolas said that they cooperated with the investigation throughout its entire duration, and to be fair, you know, Nicola really refocused after Milton left.

They kind of restructured. They had new executives put in place on the management team under the leadership of CEO Mark Russell. They scrapped those kind of extra projects that were underway, including the Badger pickup and those sports vehicles. They narrowed their focus and they are now building slowly towards what they originally set out to do, which is to build battery electric semis and fuel cell powered semis. So, okay, step back. My understanding in the legal documents were some

reference to some stuff that you did. Is that act that's correct? Tell us what that was. Not to make you start of the story, but I think this is all, you know, important, especially in this environment we live where everything is fair game. It points out that this has not been a short story. It's been a story that's

unfolded over a matter of months and years. So we reported in June two thousand and twenty that in Nicolas kind of coming out moment in two thousand and sixteen, December two thousand and sixteen, Trevor Milton was on stage with a truck right behind him over his shoulder. It was called the Nikola One. It was the first kind of big, splashy public presentation of Nicola's efforts to that point.

It was supposed to be a fuel cell powered truck and it was presented to people in the room that included investors, interested parties, state officials, and we reported that according to sources, the truck just didn't work. It didn't have any of the parts actually physically in it that would have made it capable of being operable, but it never operated anyway. They've never managed to get it to work.

But here's the thing. Trevor literally stood on stage and said that it did work, that it was fully functioning. He even joked that they had to chain it down to stop people in the audience driving off with it.

But it never worked. And that was something that at the time that we published the story in June June, Trevor Milton and Nicola pushed back in a very big way against but was later you know, said to be true by the company's own investigation, and now by this sec Um and New York Southern District investigation as well.

So what could he face? And you have a new story out on the Bloomberg right now that that talks about what he can do between now and his trials out on one million dollars in bail that's secured by two properties that he owns in Utah. He's also promised to limit his travel to specific areas and not to contact investors other than the ones he has personal relationships with. You right, Yeah, he faces both criminal and security civil chart is right. You know, this is very serious. He

has pleaded not guilty. Um, you know, the idea that he's pleaded not guilty is not a huge surprise. It's fair to say based on his prior comments, his actions, his behaviors, the way that he talked about the company during his tenure. He has to remain in Utah. He is limited in his travel. He is not allowed to communicate with investors, for example, under the terms of his bail. In your that reference to the story you just made, he does own a thirty six million dollar ranch in Utah.

In fact, I actually spoke to the broker who sold him that ranch. He reckons it's now worth about fifty million US dollars. You know. It's right there near Salt Lake City in the mountains, a beautiful stream running by it. It has tennis courts. Uh lucky for him. But the reality is these things are slow moving and he is going to have to, under the terms of his bail, stay in Utah and just wait for the trial to come. What about the company? What's the future do we even

know yet as to mention? Way down from the highs that we've seen in the past for this company. What is the future? Is there a future? Your credit where credit is due. Nicola has established notable partnerships in Europe with the Vecho, which is one of the leading heavy truck companies in the world. My sources are telling me that they are making progress in Old Germany. They have a joint venture with a ve Echo to make battery electric semi trucks. I'm hearing that the development of that

is going well. The factory that they're trying to build is on target. Remember, those targets have moved several times since Trevor Milton left the company, but they are now in line with their new targets. Here in the United States, they're building a factory from scratch in Coolidge, Arizona. That is on track. They're building prototypes of real fuel cell trucks. They have a partnership on the technology side with Bosh,

So there lots of layers of credibility. But what you see across Wall Street is that they want to see something of substance that this company can eventually moved towards generating revenue. I feel like another chapter, but ain't over yet, Ed, I feel the same way. I just you know Bloomberg any f our colleagues. They see a lot of potential for hydrogen of your self powered trucks. The thing is the company is still very much in get its act

together mode. All right, good stuff, as always, Ed Ludlow part of the work that was involved in some of this complaint to Ed Lulow, West Coast correspondent, Bloomberg News from our nine sixties studio in San Francisco Road Journal. Now, but you let me drive? No, no, no no, no, please, I'll do the road reveal. Excuse me, I don't want to drive. Just drive. Good question, trying this drive to

the globe mull Us Bloomberg Radio. Yeah, I just got about ten and a half minutes left in today's trading session Friday's Eve, that is Thursday, July twenty nine, Carol master to instead of taking our interactive broker's studio, let's do the drive to the close with Larry Pitkowski. He's managing partner and portfolio manager a good Haven Capital Management based in Milburgh, New Jersey, on the phone on this

Thursday and Larry, I'm looking at the equity trade. Uh, we're off our best levels of the session, definitely off our lows, but a little bit of a rally on a day when there was disappointing economic news. What is important to you when you look at how the markets are trading, the financial markets. Uh, you know, Carol, we at good Haven are really not focused on trying to

make day to day predictions about the markets. Were really focused on looking for a handful of things that we think, we understand that we can buy it at active prices and be right about the businesses. Uh. Don't expect wonderful economic things to happen. Expect whatever you see is kind of what you get, and that is how we approach

the world. So day to day, you know, it's harder to find bargains today markets are at elevated levels but I have a very complex and sophisticated approach to try and address that, which is get up earlier and go to bed later, and keep looking and if I don't find anything to do, we don't do anything. Marianna Huffington might have something to say, because that's going to mess

up your sleep patterns. I'm just gonna say, I wonder though, I mean, the little bits of news that we do get each and every day, whether it has to do with the economy or economic data or just the spread of the delta variant, that that has to at some point add up to perhaps the way that uh, you change you're thinking about some certain strategy. So so give us an example of like the holistic picture of what this is all adding up to right now. So and

where you see the opportunities. Well, let me let me step step back for a moment. And I think it's a really good question. You know. Uh, I was very happy to come back on the show because the last time I was here, which was early one. Since then, we've completed at the Good Even Fund our best six month performance period since we started up, almost bt S and P by basis points or so. And in the spring of when there was panic and shutdown and whatnot.

Without being epidemiologists or macro people, we did put a lot of cash to work because we felt that looking beyond the near term, there were bargains and we were investing with the margin of safety and that has served us well. From where we sit today, there are obviously elevated levels. It's very upsetting to see the delta varian in cases spiking. There's human things to worry about, but we are very comfortable with the portfolio we have put together.

We think we have upside and a margin of safety, and all we can do is try and take it company by company. And you know, also the level of stimulus in the system uh and zero interest rates. These are unusual conditions and I think about it a lot, but it's hard to exactly put into practice how to address that. So we'll just try and be stock pickers and risk managers. And we want to talk about some

of your stock picks that you like. But is there, just generally speaking, a lot of opportunity when you've got energy as a group as a whole up more than thirty percent real estates of percent, financials up almost twenty five percent, Communication services pick your major industry group. There are eleven in the S and P five they're all up. Consumer staples is among the worst performers, up only six percent.

Utilities are up about six percent, but everything else is some very strong double digit, you know, twenty thirty percent gains. Are there lots of opportunities. There is a lot of the opt mis um of what we are seeing in one even throughout the end of the year, already priced in for a lot of names. I would say two things.

First of all, for certain industries, earnings are also up dramatically, Okay, clearly so, And I think that's something to really take into again, including you know, alphabets are you know is a top three holding for us. I mean, earnings have been up dramatically. We have plenty of other holdings, including Lenore and the real estate business. Earnings are up dramatically. So in many cases, not all multiples for a lot of our holdings are not actually up that dramatically despite

attractive stock end business performance. But you're asking a very good question, which is where what is the market ignoring

where their pockets of opportunity. And for instance, we've added recently to our holding in p G and E which is the northern California based utility, which is under new management, which has been under a lot of pressure to be under a lot of pressure, and there's something we should canize, you know, the wildfires Historically in a Karn Dixie wildfire, there are people whose lives have been affected, and there's brave workers from cal uh Fire who are working on

this and first responders. But new management. They are led by Patty Poppy who had a great track record at the MS Energy, Adam Wright who had had a great record at Mid American owned by Berkshire good CFO, and Chris Foster Joe four Line who came from PSC and G in Jersey. You have some new management and I think if you listen to what Patty is saying and articulating, they've come out of bankruptcy, they have a plan, they

have a plan to address safety. You have a stock price that's trading you know, at a level way below on a multiple basis. It's peers and they've got hard work in front of them. But I think they're addressing it. So Alphabet P. G Enny, give us another company you're optimistic about. Well, I tell you we in late January early February, Rory, we made all of our purchases and

a new holding then for us, which was Facebook. I've written over the last couple of letters here at what I call good Haven two point oh about how this whole distinction between valuing growth is a little bit messed up. Okay, there is nothing inconsistent in value investing about owning good quality, growing companies. You just don't want to pay dramatically high multiple for them. In late February, In late January, early February, Facebook got down to, you know, to sixty a share

or so. As there was fear about what was going to happen with the new Apple operating system. There was this rotation out of growing companies as interest rates went up a little bit. And we looked at that and said, well, we think we're paying you know, maybe seventeen times earnings are so ex cash for what we think is still going to be an attractively growing business run by very talented management team. And that was a recent purchase that is so far, you know, worked out well and I

think has a long runway to go. Taylor a pit tasky. I want to ask you, are you at all concerned about the economy, US economy, global economy shutting down again because the delta variant, And are you at all making any adjustments to investments because of that? You know, Carol,

I'm concerned about about everything. But I'm always reminded of somebody who very smart, who one said to me, Look, if you ask most people their macroeconomic view about the future, you're learn a lot about the person, but not a lot about the future. It's hard to translate certain of these concerns about you know, what do you do if you think you're going to own something for many years?

Having said that, Uh, my expectation, if I were forced to have one would be that, you know, we would not go into a you know, kind of a complete shutdown. But anything is possible. And I think we are managing money without financial you know, not on margin, without financial leverage, because strange things can happen, as we saw sadly in the spring of and we want to be able to try and take advantage of it for us and our

fellow shareholders. We only have about twenty seconds left. Um, are you worried about some sort of pull back in the near future, Larry, pullback would actually be good. Yeah, how big of a pullback. I mean, I don't. I don't know, and I don't know anybody who can predict such things. But if you are at point, If you are, I don't, I mean, I'd love to meet somebody, but a whole lot easier than maybe you would employ that

really hard. If I mean so, I'm not. I'm not opposed to not working so hard if I thought I could yield the right result. But pullback should not be for the long term investor. If not, it's not leverage. You should You should look forward to some occasional pullbacks. However, you're going to find attractive things to buy. Got it, Hey, good stuff. Larry Pitkowsky over good Haven Capital Management, joining us.

Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube. Sar to Bloomberg Globally was