COVID-19 and Protecting Vulnerable Populations

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, old Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. Let's get into some analysis of what we heard, Carol, because we've got the team assembled. They've been waiting patiently, uh to walk us through this. It was an interesting hearing and listen. These are the

guys who are on the front lines. Paula Manucha, Well, I feel like over the last sixteen weeks fifteen sixteen weeks, these are the two individuals that have really been at the forefront when it comes to programs to take care of businesses large and small, all as well as individuals in the US economy. So let's get into it. Joining us right now is, of course, our Michael McKey, Bloomberg News International Economics and Policy correspondent Mike McKee joining us

from our studios in New York. Also Jeffrey Cleveland, chief economist at Payton and Regal. He's on the phone from Los Angeles, and Mike, let me start with you. Anything that really jumps out. I know we've been hearing, certainly from J. Powell a lot over the last few weeks, but anything in particular that stood out for you. Nothing, a lot of market moving. I was a little surprised that there wasn't more criticism of some of the mistakes

that were made during the funding of various programs. UH. The Government Accountability Office last week with rather scathing report about that. If anything, it might have been the idea um the J. Powell suggested they might be willing to lower the threshold for main street loans. There doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in that at the moment, he said. Three D banks have signed up, but they're not getting a lot of company interested in that. And there was some concern that it was going to be

a little too late. Also, Steve Manuchan said that they were willing to consider some sort of program for commercial mortgage back to securities. Uh so if if they do those two things that expands the lending programs, maybe they get more money out Pole of course declining to get involved in saying what kind of stimulus they should do, but both men making the case they probably do need to do more stimulus. So Jeffrey Cleveland, come on in here,

chief economists for Pitton and Regal out in Los Angeles. Uh, what does the Fed and what does the Treasury need to be doing at this moment, especially as listen you are at unfortunately what many are considering the new epicenter of this in in Los Angeles, with this outbreak or this surge or resurgence, depending on your perspective, that we're hearing what needs to be done from a fiscal and

monetary perspective. Yeah, Jason, I thought the best exchange was between David Scott Georgia and uh the Secretary Treasury in the in the FED chair, And you know, he really highlighted something that clients are asking me, you know every day, are you know what's been done? Is it helping main Street or is it helping Wall Street? And I think

Powell answered that very well. He said, what they're doing will help the main street, it will help the economy by keeping the markets open, you know, by keeping access to capital available, by keeping financial conditions easy. That should help main Street help the economy as as things reopen. So I thought that that was a good exchange, but I think it highlights the problem that most people have

right now. We have twenty five million unemployed, yet we're recording the best quarter for the stock market since and so you know, meeting that is difficult. I think you know, if you've watched that whole hearing, you it's the infrastructure, right, how do you get capital to where it is needed most in a timely fashion? There there is no see way to do that, as the Treasury Secretary said, they're using the banking system. So the main street lending facility

is uh, you know, the obvious candidate. But it's taken a while to get that ramped up. And as of the FENS balance as of Wednesday, there was about thirty seven billion there, so not a huge uptake. So that's that's a difficult process. But keeping financial conditions easy, is a short answer to your question. Yeah, and they certainly have been doing a great job at that. Mike McKie,

it's an interesting week. It's a holiday week, but there's a job you know, there's tons of economic news culminating in that Thursday jobs report, and of course we'll get fed minutes tomorrow. So I don't know what, if anything, is really of utmost importance in your in your view, you know, it would have probably been the job's report, because we had a good jobs report last month and then everybody got excited that maybe we were getting uh

to the rebound a little bit quicker. And j Pal said today he thought we had gotten to the rebound a little bit quicker than they had anticipated. But now with this all these emerging hotspots, you've gotta wonder, as governors moved to shut various industries down, they're not doing a wholesale shutdown, but as bars close again, Um, you wonder all the people who are on the June pay rolls report, which we get on Thursday, how many of

them will be on the July payrolls report. So this is just gonna move everybody's interest forward a month to see and because this has come back so strong in different places. It kind of makes all the data seem outdated. At this point, everything we're gonna get this week isn't really going to tell us necessarily where we are because most of it's old, and it doesn't really tell us where we're going because we don't know how long it's

gonna last. And so, Jeffrey Cleveland, what is the one either data point that we'll get this week or looking ahead that you're most interested in seeing and analyzing. We've been highlighting continuing claims out on Thursday. You're being being the thing to watch every week. It's more timely than the Job's reports. I hate to dismiss the Job's report. It's always been my favorite economic data player. I feel bad doing that, but yeah, the continuing claims date I

think is key. UM hit more in a real time since. But you know there's great uncertainty. I think you know there's been some good work here. It's not just the shutdowns that are being put in place. You mentioned Los Angeles. Uh, we're being told we can't go to the beach on the fourth of July. But it's really the fear of the virus that did the economic damage there's a good working paper out today from from University of Chicago highlighting this.

You had a big drop off in consumer activity, but only about seven percent of that has accounted for by the quote unquote legal restrictions. Most of it is just people staying home because they're afraid. So the question is, as we see the virus count take up yesterday, l A County recorded the highest daily increase so far. You know, does that cause people to shut down again and then do we have a second round of economic effects. It's a really good question. Yeah, I agree with you, Michael McKee.

Just to wrap up, so what is it? Is it a V shape? Is it a U shape? Is it an upside down Nike swush? Have we decided what the recovery looks like? We haven't really decided. Um. The working assumption to most people was a sort of a square root sign where are you you? You had a quick V and then just a flat But now we don't know. We could be heading into a W situation. I think the takeaway from today is the same as it's always been.

The viruses in charge. Yeah, well, stay tuned to everyone and we'll figure out what that symbol will ultimately be right when it comes to this recovery. Yeah, and who knows. It feels like we have a different answer every day. That's the world we're living in, all right, gentlemen, Thank you so much. Jeffrey Cleveland, chief economists for Payton and Regal, joining us on the phone from Los Angeles. And are in Michael McKee, international economics and policy correspondent for Bloomberg.

There in our Bloomberg Interactor Brooker Studio. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Hard pivot here, no segway here from Capitol Hill. Uh, to the heist issue, which is one of our favorite things every year. We're gonna be talking about it over the next couple of days. But we have to diget into a story that did phenomenally well on the Bloomberg yesterday. Claire Saidith wrote it. She is a writer for Bloomberg

Business Week. Of course, durants on the phone from Brooklyn. The case of the empty Frames remains art world's biggest mystery. If that doesn't draw you in, I don't know what does, Claire. It's so phenomenal. Tell us what's going on this is the hest of all heyst in some ways, Yeah, it is. And it's also so it's um it's thirty years old. In St. Patrick's day, Um, two men dressed up as Boston police officers and stole um what has been estimated to be about half a billion dollars in artwork, and

it has never been solved. So it's the largest art y. Also makes it the most famous art hysmin history. It's been the subject of books and podcasts. Um, there's this whole Simpsons episode, or Mr Burne goes to prison because it turns out he stole the painting. It's it's same us. And I don't want to say that I know the answer to it, because what makes it so famous is

the fact that it's never been solved. And there's this whole cottage industry of FBI agents and private detectives and armchair sluice who have been trying and failing so far to come up with um an answer. And it's funny because they all have wildly different theories and they all disagree with each other. I mean, it's really it just reads you know, as you said, you know, we often, Jason, I talked about Claire. You know, things that could be

adapted as a series. I mean it just so reads like a George Clooney movie or something, right, yeah, exactly, and each episode would be one of the different theories I guess you could do. Um. Yeah, it's UM, it's interesting. You know. The FBI, it technically has been working on this for a really long time, and they've had different agents in charge at different points in the three decades. For a while they thought it was in France, there was the sting in Miami. Um really early on they

went to Japan that turned out to definitely not be true. UM. And now their current theory is that, um, they think the paintings were stolen by some sort of um cabal of in Boston's organized crime and UM, they've tracked it up to a certain point in the early two thousand's and then they sort of just UM, I don't know what happened after that. What was the security? I mean, this is an army museum, right there was there Well, I will say this is while it had an extensive

art collection, it's it's a small museum. It's private. Um. And in the nineties UM, and also the case in many museums, especially back then they didn't really have a lot of security, so they had motion detectors and they had a few security cameras, but not in the galleries. And actually the overnight shift, um, which is this happened at night. There are two guys in their mid twenties

who had no real security training whatsoever. Um. One of them was a music school student and he liked to play his trombone at night, and the other one, UM played in a rock band. And in other interviews he had said he, you know, sometimes may not have come to work totally sober, just because you know, he's working the night shift at a small museum, so why not. Um, But that didn't work out so well for them that

one night. Yeah. Well, I love all the twists and turns, and you know, as you read through the story, you've got all these sort of theories popping up, and you know, you have it's like, oh, it took place on St. Patrick's Day and what does that mean? And then a couple of the robbers refer to each other as mate, so they're clearly not American. I mean, all these different things in Whitey Bulger, of course, the famous criminal makes it came out. I mean it's really it's religious. It's

really just it's so good. Alright, alright, Clara saida thank you so much. Congrats on the story, one of the most read. It is a feature story in the Heist issue, an annual uh sort of romp that This is weeked. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Just bring up just being on some of the things that are going on, you know,

looking at the most read stories. Anthony Fauci at the top of the leaderboard here in terms of what he is saying, around as many as a hundred thousand new cases per day, if there's no change in terms of how we as people and governments and and everyone else are fighting the virus right on a day when global deaths succeed five hundred thousand in cases top ten millions, so crucial as we know to containing our slowing the

spread of the virus. Jason, it's it's about protecting the most vulnerable, which we no means of course, our older population. So let's get into it because we know our next guest has some thoughts on it. Dr Near Barzilai. He is the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He's also director of the Paul left Glen Center for the Biology of Human Aging Research and of the National Institutes of Health Centers

of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging. So when it comes to aging, this is the guy who's joining us on the phone in Westchester, New York. Dr bars Ali, are nice to have you here on Bloomberg Radio. Um talk to us about the importance of understanding the most vulnerable populations, including those who are elderly, in terms of really getting a handle on this virus. Alright, so not nice being with you. And I want to start with a misconception, and that is that there's nothing you can

do about aging. I think we're confusing by the fact that we all end up dying. But that's not the same as we cannot do anything about aging. In fact, aging has the biology. You know, you can see, you can see who's old and who's young. But the more important thing is this biology can be targeted. And we and when I'm saying we, gero science is gero science is kind of a and you the study of all these new but we've made huge progress. We went to from hope to promise, and we know that aging can

be targeted by different ways. And I think the COVID nineteen just underline how vulnerable are the elderly, but also maybe gave hope that we can actually intervene and defend the elderly host And so what have we learned, Dr

Barzilai about you know what we can do? You know, taking into account everything that you just said when it comes to COVID nineteen, how should we be thinking, especially about, as Carol said, this more vulnerable population and given given a lot of scary things that that we're seeing out there, So you know, I would I would mention as briefly as I can two things that are interaction with with

the environment. That is exercise and nutrition. Right, those are things that we know that is going to affect agent. It's kind of tough, but it's not really tough for people who haven't walked before to start walking, or two people to exercise regularly in the and do it safely. With the nutrition. I have a specific suggestion that will affect more people than many other diets that I can tell you, and this is to start doing intermittent fasting,

which really means just keepping breakfast. We call it sixteen eight. You could do fifty nine if you want, but you know, sixteen eight is if you finish dinner at eight, don't eat anything until twelve the next day. That's sixteen hours and you can do it because even if you're hungry, there's only two hours to go and then you can whatever you want. And with this diet you lose weight also, but more important, this is something that upregulate your defense.

That's important for aging. Can I ask you, but Dr Barsla, I want to ask you something. A lot of elderly folks have something like diabetes where they have to be very careful about, you know, when they eat and how they eat in terms of maintaining their levels. So how does someone like that, we're losing weight can improve their health, but yet they're stuck on something like that. Yeah, well,

I'm actually a diabetology so and and and so. Look, one of the things that we want people to do is lose weight are diabetics, and unfortunately only three percent of them will do this. Okay, So the advice and the method is good when it comes to treatment, you know, and I don't want to spend too much time of it, but it's very adjustable. You know, if you're an insulin and you're fasting, then the instutin you should get with the meals and not with the fath basically, so there's

a way to do it. But I'm not talking about diabetic people now. I'm just talking about if you're you know, if you if you're now want to avoid COVID, exercise and nutrition or weight loss or or maybe intermittent fasting is the way that you can. It does few things. It increased your immunity, it decreased your inflammation, and it's increased the ability of your body to sustain a very severe disease. Okay, so those all are are good advice if you can do it. But I really wanted to

talk about other things. You know, for us, aging has eight hallmarks that we agree upon, and the hallmarks are really knobs that we can target with drugs that could have a major effect on aging. And I want to take talk about one of those drugs because this drug is readily, readily available and very cheap. Unfortunately, you have to tell us about it in thirty seconds because we're going to write at a time. Dr Barsla I said,

just okay. It's it's called mitforming. It's a drug that's given to diabetic patients and from studies with COVID nineteen, we know that people on mitforming have four times less mortality and their hospitalized less. So what I'm saying, there are other options where we have to defend the host

besides fighting the virus. Al Right, well we will, uh come Yeah, You'll have to come back and spend more time with this because I feel like you are working in a number of areas that are certainly very interesting to us, in very critical to everything that's going on in the world. Dr near bars Lai is the founder of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College Medicine, among many other things. Uh glad to have him with us. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol

Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio Now. In this week's edition of Business Week Small Business Survival Guide, we continue to look at how small businesses are reopening in a week, where as Jason I just talked about some states you know, are being very cautious or rolling back plans. Joining us once again, as Bloomberg News editor Dimitri Cassa Needy. She's on the phone in New York City joining us. Also is Abigail Shape and she's owner of Abigail Rose

and Lily Too. It's a woman and children's clothing store that's located in Piermont, New York. She joins us on the phone from Piermont. Nice to have you both with with us, dimitra Um. We want to get into abigail story. But you guys continue to take a look at what's going on in small businesses. What's the overlying trend here? Do you feel like they're finding it easier or is it continuing to be pretty difficult. I think I would

say I think there are still challenges. It's not you know, it's not something where there was a solution um away forward and you can just stick with that and not have to adjust. I think it's a constant. My sense from many business owners, not just Abigail who will be

talking to in a minute, is that there's a constant reassessment. Um, we're not seeing you know the problems that are happening in some other states right now, and yet that does you know, it would be smart for everybody to kind of look at those things pay attention to them, give them pause and think about what the plans are going to be. If at any given moment you again have to reassess and move in another direction because of how things are going. And so Abigail, help us understand what

it does look like from your perspective. And I have to say, I'm sort of virtually waving to you. I'm just across the just across the Mario Cuomo Memorial Bridge otherwise known as the Tapancy Bridge formally and Sleepy Hollow. So what are you think over there in Pyrmont. Um. Well, we are seeing that people I think as people are not going on vacation, maybe as much not traveling. So people from the Chi state area are coming to Piermont

a lot um on the weekends or as a day visitor. UM. But a lot of the stores and UM ourselves included, are taking it slow to reopen. Um. We are at a village with a lot of restaurants, a lot of really great restaurants, and the restaurants are open with outdoor seating. UM. But UM, so that that's keeping our town really active and people are coming to visit for that. UM. But yeah, we have a few stores in town that haven't opened at all, and we are kind of in an in

between phase ourselves. How hard has it been, Abigail, Well, UM, we're really lucky. We've been UM the store with my mom's she started it's named for me and my sister, UM and she started at night, and UM it's been in Piermont this whole time. UM. We've been through some major disasters like Hurricane Sandy and other disasters that hit Piermont really hard. UM this is obviously a worldwide UH disaster. But UM, our loyal clientele has really stuck with us

and they've been UH. We've we shifted everything online and UM and took herbside and originally in March we were doing sort of local delivery and that was keeping us UM, keeping us afloat, and people were super supportive, and our loyal clientele, I think, really wanted to support businesses that were important to them. So UM, we're really extremely lucky for that. UM. But it has been definitely challenging. There's so much pivoting that is taking place all the time,

like reassessing what's important to us. We're also UM sheltering and us sort of pollowed with our parents who are in their seventies, and my sister and I both have four year old daughters, so we've got little ones and older people to think about. UM, So we don't feel comfortable just letting the world in our door. UM when as the meat who was saying, there's you know, the

virus is still kind of on the loose. Yeah. I mean that's such an interesting point too, because you know, you have to think about yourselves and and your employees as well, because you know everybody is you know, either going home to or you know, even with social distancing and all that, you know, interacting with people who who could be vulnerable. And I would imagine that that weighs

heavily on you. It definitely does. And UM, even though so in the Lower Hudson Valley region we're in now, I'm going to be confused by which phase we're in. I guess we're in the phase where we can be really fully open with a lot of restrictions on how many people can come in. UM, but we are UM, we're taking and we're having We're trying to keep one customer and at a time where if two customers come in, then one of us leaves spaces physically very small, and

there's not, um, a lot of ventilation. We just have a door. We don't have me you know, we have the shop windows, but no like airfow windows, and it just doesn't feel like the kind of space that you want. Yeah, I mean for social distancing. Yeah, it's tricky. Um. Demitro just got about thirty seconds left here. I mean, as you guys continue to cover this, Um, what are you

looking to do? Well? I mean, I think we're looking at more stories of just how people are approaching this because, as we've heard with other interviews, no guidance really right. Nobody gives you a roadmap to reopening, and everybody is different. Um, And I think it's interesting and helpful and useful to hear about the ways that stores are making these decisions. You'll read more about Abigail and Lily's decisions about their story later in the week when we do a fuller story.

But we're looking to track that and just see how it's going and to stand on top of it over the long run, Um, when bigger decisions are going to be confronted that might be much more fundamentally challenging decisions about the longevity of the business, you know, because I do think now this reality is setting up on us that it's going to be very hard to make our way through this to a point where we're really back and living the way we were living four months ago,

five months ago. Yeah for sure. Yeah, all right, Well, thank you both so much. To meet your Cassanin's editor for Bloomberg joining us on the phone. And Abigail Chapin it is time for the drive too close, one of our favorites, friend of the show. I know, I love when she comes and hangs out with us in the studio, but we are in a distant world right now, but happy to have with us. Hillary Kramer, President ce IO at A and G Capital. Hillary, how the heck are you?

I am doing very very well. Thank you, Jason good. So what's the what's your world like at this moment in terms of you know, just like talking to clients looking at the market like it's obviously an upside down, topsy turvy world. But you know, you've seen crises, you've seen cycles generally, what do you make of this one? The market has hoped for tomorrow and until something breaks it. So there's a break in it. The market is going

to keep. It'll just keep going higher, and investors are still being forced to go into the stock market, and the Federal Reserve is making it phenomenally easy. You know, it's easy money, easy money. And uh, I was just looking a triple B bond. Okay, basically do almost junk is two point seven percent? Well, people are willing to buy it because the ten years giving them point six percent. So corporations are able to, you know, continue to issue

the debt out there and it keeps getting bought. But in terms of Jason your specific question, because I know what has to do with you know, where are we finding what niche are we finding opportunities? We're finding plenty of opportunities, especially in these small caps like we just, um, we just put a buy on Sally. Sally Beauty as h small cap did two dollars and twenty six cents US years dollars this year, and it's it's a great

undervalued company. But everybody thinks that COVID nineteen is going to hit it a lot worse. The other one that I believe I have spoken about before is valvolen v z Z. Yeah, Valvoine nine dollars stop. There's two point three four percent of diving in yield. We love it. We think you could go to twenty four to twenty five. I mean it's right now nineteen and a half dollars, so it's it's not like some double out there. But I'll take two point three percent. And people aren't buying

new cars. Okay, so they're not buying new cars. Wait, wait, wait, I have to get in Wait, I don't agree with you. I'm out all the roads, Hillary, and I feel like everyone is out there. I see all these new cars with you know, you can tell they have the license plates, the tempts, the temporary plates, um. And I just feel like a lot of people because maybe they're not going to get on a plane, maybe they're more inclined to get in the car and go for a ride and

they feel safe in their cars. Well they're they're in their cars and they're gonna need uh an oil change, that's for sure, because they're going long distances. They're gonna need new wipers and and that's exactly what Volvoline does. You can do it yourself, or you can go into you know, one of their quick group shops. But in terms of actual cars, look, Mercedes is doing zero percent financing that the car companies are really struggling out there.

Take a look at a range Rover a lot and they're like practically doubled up one on top of the other. Now there could be other cars. I also have a Subaru. Subaru is great, but you know, if I can tell you, Subaru is backed up in the service center. And that's because people, from what I'm seeing, aren't buying new cars now. Every year, you know, we have an average of how many new cars are being bought at twelve million, eighteen million and uh and we have yet to see actually

what happens. But in the next six months to come, I believe we're gonna see a lot to try traveling, you know, that's for sure, Caroline. But at the same time, we're going to see people changing oil themselves, and there's that pent up demand for it because they've been home for three months. So we've been talking a lot about tech, Hillary and tech. Big tech especially has had a nice run.

But I have to think that feels a little bit over bought at this point, knowing you a little bit like that feels like someplace that you might not be going as the things right well, It's actually interesting, Jason, what a great point because with my team we were just talking about Facebook. I said, why is I want everyone to say, why is Facebook not down more? Having lost all of these advertisers. And of course it's what percentage is you know dub soap and what new know

Leaver and what percentage is Verizon? But you know, the markets betting it over the long term, these advertisers are going to come back, you know, they just are. And big Tech the markets ignoring valuation, and you know they really are ignoring them. You know that being said, will be interesting to see if Apple can get up there and hit new highs. Uh. You know it's high with three dollars this year, it's at three six. Let's see what happens with with Apple. That's the one I'm kind

of keeping my eye on. To me, that's just such an important indicator because we really where the consumer is at, because right, I mean, consumers can either keep the one they have or they can buy a new one if they feel like they have money in their pockets, if they feel confident. So that's where the Apple is just

a great proxy for understanding where the market stands. But in terms of tech, look, I'm very excited because ets hit fifty two weeks new high today, eBay hit in fifty two week high Shopify and you know what the best one of all I know you'll love this group Match Drew No. Okay, that's actually come to our attention at recently. It's up fifty seven percent here. It's a hundred and five dollar stock. They have Okay Cupid, they

have lots of swiping that you can do. But the bottom line is, I think people really fundamentally got lonely and realized how important family and relationships are when they were quarantined at home. And uh, I just think Match probably has potential to continue going up from here. Especially people aren't going to be going into bars, you know, so even the people who are, I guess gonna be swiping more than looking for their long term love that we're also on Match, so uh, I would say that's

one to really watch. So Jason Tech, look for those texts, uh that that are very related there. And I'm not going to get into Chewi because now I think Chewy the online well you could do that one for me because I hillary, I love I love dogs. You can do that. You got about twenty seconds. Okay, chew chewy dot COM's d h W. Why everyone else? I started with Chewy ay three dollars, saying by it, by it,

by it, And I think Chewy has upside potential. From here, Amazon would be foolish not to step in and buy Chewy dot Com or maybe even some big retailer. So Chewy is is more popular than ever before. And and Carol, what do you have? You have Afghans? What kind of dogs? I have an Irish terrier Scout? Okay, I guess if you follow um maybe most summer. I don't know if it's going to be the case this summer, but most of August Carol's Twitter feed is just filled with pictures

of Scout on a boat. So family doesn't let me take pictures of them, so I've decided the Scout can't argue. All right, Hillary Kerber, always good to catch up with you, really nice to hear your voice. Be well, look forward to seeing you on the other side of all this.

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