Inequality and the Coronavirus Outbreak

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com. You can also listen to our radio show weekdays at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio. Well, and this is why we've had those conversations, and let's get into it about maybe at some point we're gonna have health facilities, hospitals that are COVID nineteen hospitals or facilities and those that aren't, so that people feel comfortable going in for routine visits and updates. Let's bring in dactor Dr Sandro Galia, Dean

of the Boston University School of Public Health. Book is His book has pained uncomfortable conversations about the public's health, which, as Jason and I talked about earlier, is so timely considering some of the things that are being revealed or once again reminded and revealed, uh in terms of some of the weak points in our society. He's on the phone from Boston. Dr Galia. Nice to have you back with us, um. You know, it's been a few weeks

since we've talked with you. You know, what are your thoughts about where we are, how we're handling it, and what we still need to do, especially for the less fortunate and the more vulnerable populations of our society. Well, first of all, thank you for having me, honest, always a pleasure to be here. I think as the pandemic proceeds, we are seeing more and more how this exposes fractures

in our society. The what the pandemic first started, there were a lot of conversation about how the virus does not discriminated effects everybody. But it didn't take long for us to realize that the virus does discriminate. That yes, we are all at risk of the virus, but ultimately those who are more at risk are those who are marginalized, who are poor, who are people of color, who live alone, who are single parents, and those who die are those

same groups. So what we're seeing is a world where groups that are honorable do not even have protections from something as widespread as a pandemic like this. And you're hearing this from data emerging from cities all over the country and really from all over the world. So I certainly hope that this is a wake up call for us that says, even in the context of a pandemic, we have created conditions where self have and health have not deviate at a time like this. And Dr Galia,

how did we get here? I mean, how did it get this bad? Uh? And and was this something that always existed? It feels like it's been exacerbated in the last you know, call it ten twenty years. Yeah, well, when you look at the data, it has been exacerbated probably in the last thirty to forty years, so about about forty years ago. This is important to to note the American health. American health was among the best of the high income world. Now today we are square squarely

the worst. We have the squarely the worst health of any of our high income country peers. So we have life expectancy shorter. We have hired deaths from infector disease. Hired that's from from a non communicable disease, and we leave about five years of life expectancy on the table compared to other countries. So you know, I would ask you and ask every anybody listening. You know we have chosen, we have chosen to leave five years behind in life expectancy.

And now you may be saying, well, I didn't choose that, but we did. You did, and I did because we have we have voted for policies that allow that to happen. So it's been about the past thirty to four years where our health as a country has been getting progressively worse, and it has brought us to a place where when something like this happens, it reveals this underlying truth. Now, this truth is with us at all times. The virus did not create that. The virus is just exposing it.

And what specifically the policies and and and maybe the ones that could more easily than others be reversed. What what would you point to, Well, I think we we need need to really look at the from top to bottom. Would start with the fact that we have a system which ultimately accumulates resources and rewards those who have resources.

That starts from our taxation policies, all the way to our employment policies, all the way to who gets sickly who doesn't, From the state of our education, from the

state of our housing. If we really wanted to tackle this, we would say, how do we create a world where everybody has access to high quality education to allow us to change people's life trajectories, that everybody has access to stable housing, where we have a fair economy, to such that people who work hard can get jobs that puts them on the right track, and all of that ultimately would add up to creating much better life trajectories for people.

That is so true because if you think about it, if you get a good education, you probably get a good job that also provides you with great benefits or good benefits in terms of healthcare, and us some benefits or some benefits. Right. But but we know what what amazes me and Jason and i um hosted a Qualities on it that we did here at Bloomberg and we were talking about, you know, how this virus is impacting the more vulnerable populations. As you said healthcare, the problems

have been exacerbated. I thought you said forty five to fifty years. It's a long time. Why haven't we been able to figure this out. We have some of the best and brightest minds in this nation, public sector, private sector. We know the problems are there, They've been there for a long time. What's holding us back? Is it private sector? Is it public sector? Where's the problem? Well, it's a terrific question. I would point to all of us. I

think we are holding ourselves back. Frankly because those of us who are in the riches and that means me, that means you have been too self involved. And frankly, the system serves us. Two well, there really is little incentive to push against the system that ultimately serves those who are dominating the cultural business conversation. And and that

is and that is all of us. So we need to say, this is a moment in time which has exposed these underlying inequities, and which shows us that there is a country of health haves which is roughly the riches, and health have not, which is roughly the poorest, and say that is not the kind of country we want to live in now. We do not want to live

in that kind of country because that is wrong. And secondly, because if there is another outbreak like this, it threatens us all so we're beginning to see with this outbreak that if some of us are vulnerable, all of us are vulnerable. And if this is not a wake up call a moment in time, I don't know what is. Yeah, I kind of give up on humanity if it's not. Yeah, well, let's be let's be optimistic. Let's see that we all see this as a turning point that it should be right.

And so Dr Gla, let's let's continue to look through the lens if we can of this this specific outbreak. And I believe we've talked with you about this a little bit before. I mean the numbers in the hospitals then, so the number of admittances, certainly, the number of deaths I means, certainly skew much more toward more vulnerable populations as we are at this critical point. Every point seems

like a critical point these days. But as we're at this point where we think about reopening and the dangers of a second wave, how do we best protect those who are most vulnerable given the system that we have now, Yeah, that's an excellent question. I think the way to address that is by breaking the problem apart into his constituent parts. So number one is who gets the virus. Right, So we are seeing that minorities, people who are marginalized are

more likely to get infected. Now why is that, Well, it's simply a function of the fact that it's harder to physically or socially distance if you have to go to work, if you have to write public transit, if you cannot work from home. All of those are factors that which you in contact with the virus make you more likely to get it. So let's step one. Now, once you have the virus, the people again who are in marginalized groups disadvantage groups, are more likely to die.

That is probably a reflection of the fact of greater underlying health conditions, greater morbidity underlying So when you understand that, then the question becomes how do we deal with those two aspects. Well, I think on the first aspect, we need to make sure as reopening happens, that we have a clear risk stratification that people who are most at

risk are most protected. And what does that mean. Let means saying that if we are doing physical spacing, diffusing physical density, that we particularly respect people who are at higher risk because they have underlying conditions, and that we make sure that we put in place opportunities for people who otherwise would be brought face to face with greater risk of transmission to work from home or not to

be at work and still get paid for it. Now, you know, all of this is hard, but they represent fundamental changes in employment that we should be making anyway, and we should be using this as a moment to hold ourselves up to a mirror and say, how should we be structuring employment so that it's fair, reasonable and sustainable for all of us. When it comes to as you said, you know, we need to think about the stratification risk, the stratification those most at risk. Is this

going to become part of our normal society? I mean no, are we're going to be consistently constantly faced with these types of viruses? Dr Galia. You know, it's it's it's very hard to say, right. These these viruses in some respects are not new. What what has been new about this one is that it has spread quickly and also

that we were aware of it. I mean, when you look back to say, the Hong Kong flu, which was about fifty years ago, it was very similar to this one, and it killed more people than than than COVID is going to kill that was fifty years ago, let alone of course the Great Spanish Flu, which was a hundred

years ago. So it's a question of to some extent there's randomness and there's luck in it as to whether or not there will be another virus, like there's two years from now, five years from our ten years from now. But the fundamental approach we should take is to say, what should we be doing to mitigate it if there is and when there is another virus, And we should

be doing two things right. Number one is we shouldn't being sure that we have public health infrastructure that allows us to rapidly test contact race, screen, treat isolate as

needed to contain the spread. This is number one. Number two is we should be paying attention to these issues we're talking about on this call, which is paying attention to the fact to make sure that we do not have an unhealthy population to begin with, making sure that we do not have a large proportion of people in the population who are essentially sitting ducks or getting really sick when a virus hits and becoming a reservoir of disease for all of us. That's what we should be doing.

Let's continue our conversation now with Dr Sandro Galia. He's the dean at the Boston University School of Public Health, also the author of Pained Uncomfortable Conversations about the Public's Health. And Dr Galia, I have to ask you and Carol and I tease this. Just a minute or so ago, we have heard so much about telemedicine at this point.

I was listening to a story on another radio station this morning talking about a huge increase even with GPS of essentially saying, look, you need to check up, you need this, you need some advice. Let's do a let's do a consultation over a phone and app whatever it is. Is that the new normal? And does it actually work? I guess it's really my basic question. Yeah, it's it's a great question. And there's no reason to believe that that some and that a fair bit of telemedicine will

not work. And medicine has been slow in adopting tele medicine approaches on things that you can imagine would work just fine using telemedicine. Now, there haven't been some systematic assessments of some of these approaches, and we have to be careful that we're not jumping wholesale to things that don't work. But the truth is that, perhaps from a silver lining point of view, an event like this pushes

us to embrace technologies whose time has come. From the point of view, for example, things like tell up psychiatry, tell behavioral health, tell a regular checkups. These things you can imagine how they would work, and they would relieve the pressure of having to have physical contact and relieve

some of the pressures on health systems. You know. The other side of this is that one of the worries at a moment like this is that because the health system is all so consumed with COVID, or at least with worrying about COVID, is that we are not paying attention to other conditions that should be seen by the

health system. So introducing telemedicine, introducing telehealth as a way of making sure that people still get their regular checkups, um, that people are still talking to positions, particularly people are still tending to their mental health. This is a real important opportunity to do that. Yeah, um, and I do think I wonder if this moment is really going to kind of get us over the hump of accepting telemedicine. I just think it's amazing. We're doing conferences on air,

we're doing broadcasts on air, like so much. And yes it's not the same as being in this in a studio or next to your partner or your your teams, but it's amazing how how real it feels and is the next best thing, I think, much better than we all anticipated. And hopefully that can apply to the medical community where I know I work a lot. It's really hard to get to see my doctors and I have to plan. It is much in advance. Hard for you. It's hard for you, and it's hard for me, and

and there have been many structural barriers to that. I think there's a psychological barrier that doctors who are not used to doing using telemedicine, but also for EXAMP, the payment schedules have not allowed it. Like the Center for Medicaid Medicare Services just introduced the whole range of billing codes now that are allowed for tele behavioral health, which before physicians would not would not get paid for the doing tele behavioral health. So I think this moment is catalytic.

It does allow the introduction of these approaches, but you know, Carl think to your point, we should make sure that we recognize that these are never going to be complete substitutes for frescal, for real, for real personal personal interaction.

I mean, their compliments, but they're not substitutes well. And so having said that, you know, when I was thinking about this, when we first started talking, and Jason and I talked so much about wellness and this whole idea of you know, we really need to rethink and I know we're pushing towards at the medical community to be about keeping you well. And I think if you're doing that, going to your doctor staying well, you know, that would be an also important thing to kind of move all

of this forward. It is and and I you know, I like these of the word well. Of course I like it because the title of my previous book was called well and But but the reason I did that is because I do think that ultimately that is the definition of health we should be going for. It is for the complete absence of physical and mental disease, so that people can go on and do and achieve in their life what they want to achieve. Health should ultimately

be a means, not an end. It's a means to people living their full lives and living towards fulfilling their aspirations. So what we really should be doing, to go back to our earlier conversation, is creating the kind of world that generates health. So that's all of us on this call. Everybody listening can then get on with their lives and

live their lives the way they want to. Yeah. Well, uh, definitely words to live by, for sure, and we, I think are all thinking more and more about our wellness, our general health, and hopefully that will be one of the things that is a residual effect and catalytic, as you say, Dr Galia, in terms of moving us forward. All right, Dr Sandro Galia, great to have you back with us. The dean of the Boston University School of Public Health also the author of a new book, Pained

Uncomfortable Conversations about the public's health. I feel like we're having a lot of those, uh these days, maybe not uncomfortable, but certainly thoughtful, and we certainly appreciate its time. It's a very very busy time for anybody in the medical profession. We know that, yeah, totally, and I do. I love these big, broad conversations too, about thinking how can we

do it better? And I think you're hearing a lot more, especially from the private sector, from the medical community, and I really do hope we continue those conversations and not only just talk, but actually make these changes. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week and Carol Masser. You know one interesting thing I was just looking at. We're going to get a lot of tech earnings this week, obviously one

of the biggest tech earnings weeks we've ever had. NASTAC only down about two point six percent for the year. Is that amazing? Incredible? Like, if you think about the swings that we've had, how quickly they've happened, that's just wild. And speaking of a tech world, I learned a new term from the story that we're about to talk about, age that comics and games. Did you know that? You know a C I did not know that before I read this, alright, Well, Joe Weber, Yeah, Joel Weber knew it.

He's the editor of Bloomberg Business Week. He joins us on the phone for Brooklyn and Molly Shots. She is us technology editor for Bloomberg. She edited this story joined joining us on the phone from New York City. It's about a Chinese video site serving teens, but not just a c G as they say, But there's another element to this. Joel tell us about it, Well, a cg um kind of looks like the future to me, and

it's definitely what the kids are into. Uh. And when we found out about this, um Billy Bee is the name of this Chinese site. The thing that really came across wasn't just like the A c G stuff, but it was the sort of the nationalism and maybe some propaganda that came along with it as well. Molly, what

did we discover? Right? We discovered that. So this is the site despite bill be Like you said, it's been around for about ten years and it attracts all the you know, the most popular demograph, the gen D demographic, and they're on they're looking for the latest Japanese manga clips or maybe grund theft Auto and um. Now these days, what we're seeing is that increasingly they're able to get a little bit of um some uh Communist Youth League clips in there as well. So tell us a little

bit about too, how people use it. I mean, this is a pretty active platform, right, so when somebody posts something, I mean, there's a lot of engagement. Right, there's it's a platform UM. Like we said, it started out mostly for a CG and now it's morphed more to be like a YouTube site. They have a broad range of entertainment. It's news, it's entertainment, UM, it's chatting UM. Young people go on there for you know what you would expect. They want to be entertained, they want to maybe find

out about a little bit about what's going on. But for the most part they haven't been on their you know, first school or for necessarily an education or hardcore news. But increasingly that's you know, in a sneaky kind of way, it's it's how it's turning well. And I was gonna say, it's very also political and some of the things that it puts out there on the platform from different UM

groups is pretty provocative, right. They're they're you know that One of the things that they M had on their last year was a series UM depicting the life of German socialist philosopher Karl Marx M. His theories are widely taught in Chinese schools, and so they put this clip

on there. UM. It was a clip produced exclusively for the platform by several state institutions, including the provincial Propaganda Department, and it shows a young Karl Marx dressed up or um and portrayed as a typical Japanese manga style protagonist. So this really it gets you know, kids where they're interested, which is in the manga, and then it's feeding them a little bit of the the theories that they they want to get across, the philosophies and the and the

teachings that they want to get across. Another example, Um, they had UM a show that depicted a little rabbit UM honkering down. It was it was using cartoons and a cute little rabbit to depict you know that political and events of war. So these are some of the kinds of ideas that that they're putting in there in a in an animated way or in a storytelling way,

but that are really sending a message. So Molly, UM. Obviously, of platform like this UM right now during the coronavirus pandemic is sort of UM, you know you've got captive audience to some extent, UM, So what kind of revenue um is this platform uh been seeing? And how is it faring the lake right there? So what they've found is that you know, it's it's good business, it's propaganda.

They recently reported had their UM earnings that they reported, and they reported just a little bit more than two billion one or two two million dollars in revenue for their fourth quarter. That was up seventy from a year earlier. And most of that came from mobile game related sales, so that came first, and then some live streaming and advertising, but most of these you know, you're you're really seeing that the more they engage UM people on the site

that it's it's bringing in the revenue they UM. They had an example two of a of a New Year's Eve UM show that they that they live streamed and that attracted huge audience and huge viewership, I think more than eighty million simultaneous viewers. They had an orchestra playing Harry Potter music, but also a chorus as soldier singing patriotic themes about fighting off Japanese invaders during World War Two.

So the platform that's coming to mind, Molly, when you kind of talk about this a little bit that's just obviously also captain into the ton of the use is TikTok. Right, So how do these how do these two platforms, um, how do they compare from from a from a user's standpoint then, but also be from a modernization standpoint. I think from what I understand, I think TikTok is going to be a little bit more interactive. It's gonna be a you know, I mean, on TikTok, you can go

and you can make your own video. It's really creative. You can do short clips, you can do long clips with yourself or other people. You can use content that's out there, create your own. This site is more, um, it's less. I think what I understand that about creating your own new content that rather than consuming content that

other people can can post up there. So I think that's a little bit more the different this this one they compare to a little bit more like a YouTube style channel um as opposed to a TikTok type channel with that side of propaganda of course, for the healthy side, the health the side of propaganda. No, it's fascinating to think about. I mean, especially because we know that you know,

certain trends start to gain momentum. I mean, TikTok is a great example, you know, gain momentum in China, and then they make their way to the United States and and it uh it all sort of builds from there. And I think about it a time where we really need global cooperation on something like this, just coming off the virus. We're gonna need it economically, and yet I feel like we consistently have these platforms that just create

disconnects and division, and I don't think that's a good thing. Alright. Our thanks to Molly Shuts, us technology editor for Bloomberg News, joining us on the phone from New York City, And of course you'll Webbord, the editor of Bloomberg Business Week, joinings on the phone from Brooklyn. You're listening to Bloomberg

Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. Well, Jason, we know the cover story of Business Weeek magazine last week was all about the reopening of the Chinese city

where the virus started first started Wuhan. Also writing about Wuhan this week on the Bloomberg Bloomberg New Economy editor Old Director Andy Brown, who reminds us that when it comes to understanding the virus, Wuhan was the past, it is also the future, and he joins us on the phone in New Hampshire, by the way, in a conversation. It was picked up by major media outlets around the globe.

Last week in a Bloomberg New Economy series, Andy hosted a conversation virtually with the Chinese ambassador and Australian Prime Minister, so hopefully we can get into that. They talked about U S China decoupling. Andy, great to have you back with us. Um, Wuhan, let's talk about that because we

all are really watching that city very closely. Right. So this is the epicenter or was the original epicenter of the UH you know, COVID nineteen UH epidemic, which turned into an into a pandemic, and the city has has reopened after a fashion and you know it's a right now. Wuhan is a lesson to the world about how you

go about reopening. And you know, there's so many there's this sort of easy feeling in the West, in the United States and Europe that somehow you sort of flip a switch and you go back to life as it was before. And the lesson from Mohan is that, um, that's just a fantasy, it's a dream. Um. You know, life in Mohan is grim it's a it's affects similar

of life. Um. You know, the sacrifices and the costs of reopening that city are very high, and it means accepting, in Mohana's case, a degree of intrusion of the state in the individual life, which is just unthinkable. Um. You know, in in in the United States or other democracies. Um. You know. And it's not just Mohan, it's it's you know, the experience generally in East Asia opening up is similar. So you know how Hong Kong you've got these electronic

monitoring bracelets. Taiwan will monitor your your cell phone if you're in quarantine. South Korea, you know, will publish vast amounts of data about about individuals who are suspected of carrying the virus or who have it, UM, and will publish this nationally um in a way which would be you know, sort of outrageous um to to two countries in the West. I guess you know, our story, it was a very good story out of Wuhan is just sort of a uh, it's a kind of a wake

up call. It's saying, you know, you really need to read think about what you know, what are the consequences and and what sacrifices are you ready to make in order to go back to some version of of of

of normal life. Well, because Eddie, it's such an important distinction too, because I feel like we've gotten our head around as best we can inconvenience, right, you know that like life is going to be different, and maybe we have to wear a mask, or maybe we can't go to certain play says, or maybe it's going to be a while before we get to do certain things. But there is a big difference, a big distinction between inconvenience and as you say, intrusion. You know the world very well.

You just gave some really good examples. What's your sense of how Americans and Europeans will deal with some of these measures that you've described. I don't know. I mean, you know, it's perhaps there is a halfway house. Perhaps there is a sort of a an opening light or a sort of a less intrusive um way of reopening safely. But I guess the you know, the question is that this needs to be um there needs to be a debate.

I mean, people need to decide what they're ready to accept, the restrictions and the intrusions that they're ready to accept and where the where the god rails are, where the red lines are and I'm just not seeing that that debate right, um, you know, but that also the sort of um just the tenor the quality of life that I'm not sure people you know, if you the our

reporting was very vivid out of out of Wuhan. Our reporters went through factories and discovered these sort of silent, sort of dystopian places where workers are not allowed to talk to each other when they're having lunch in case they inadvertently sort of spread the virus, and the elevators are closed and the workers have got a walk upstairs and constant, constant vigilance, sort of hyper awareness of the danger. This sort of you know, it's the specter of disease

that shadows everybody. So you can go to it. You can go to a you know, a Starbucks in in Wuhan, but if you sit there, you're going to be told by security guards, um, you know, keep your distance, and they're going to tell you to readjust your face masks after you've take and a sip of coffee. You and that's after you've you know, everybody in in in China has is color coded, right, I mean, so you've got

to you've got a COVID nineteen state. It is green, it's yellow where it's red, you know, and and and and there's a QR code, there's a bokode as you swipe in, so you know this is having swiped into two stop Bucks, having having revealed your COVID nineteen states, you're still treated, you know, as though you'll you'll sort of in in in some kind of a lock up, you know, Andy, And I think, more more so than

ever before, we need global cooperation. And I do want to touch on your Bloomberg New Economy conversation that you had, I think over the past week, and just you know how that lack of cooperation, global cooperation is going to prevent the world from healing on so many different levels. And I do wonder in a society or in Eastern Asia where you can more easy only forced people to do stuff, versus the United States where everybody is you know, wait, I have my I have you know, rights to do

whatever I want. Whether that holds back the Western economies from coming back from this for sure. So I mean the the the experience, the historical experience, of course, in in disasters is that the United States has has taken the lead in or precisely in order to coordinate this kind of global response, and it signally failed to do so this time. China has sort of this was one

of the conclusions of our panel. China has kind of disqualified itself from from this role with because of the way that it botched the early uh you know, the that was the cover up in Wuhan and so on, and then this attempt to use medical diplomacy as an instrument of propaganda, um, and people don't really trust the numbers coming out of China, so you know, China hasn't come out of this as as a global you know, the conclusion really was that if there is going to

be global cooperation and and it is as you say, utterly and absolutely essential. I mean, people need to get together to figure out therapies and ultimately a vaccine, But if we're going to get that kind of cooperation, it will occur in the absence of leadership from from China and the United States. So, you know, Kevin Rodd the former Australian Prime Minister, has this idea for I think he calls it a a group of seven, a grouping of countries including a number of countries in Europe, but

specifically not including the U S and China. UM you know who who. And he's proposing that these countries form an alternative UM committee to save the world in effect. That is it incredible. And meanwhile, the relations just bilaterally between the U. S and China feel like they continue to to worsen and show no signs of getting any better.

And that seemed to be a conclusion of of your panel to Andy, right, so that there was this sort of hopeful idea that um, somehow or other, you know, in the face of this existential threat, the United States and China might be able to at least temporarily bury their differences and and and you know, work together on a cure, on a vaccine. UM. And that doesn't seem

to have That doesn't seem to have happened. Um. The Chinese ambassador Ski and Kai he said, look, you know, we we have to re examine the whole fundamentals of this relationship. There was a general acceptance around at the

table of our panel that the relationship has now completely collapsed. Um, you know, and it and its bipartisan in the US of course, on the on the Democrat and and and and and the Republican side, with you know, both Trump and seemingly Joe Biden competing with each other now to be to be tough on to like China US. Yeah,

it's amazing, it is. It is pretty incredible. But as you say, there was that ray of hope, and I read something earlier this afternoon that was talking about how, you know, there seemed to be something of a truce between President She and President Trump, and that very quickly broke down at that level, at the at the highest level, but also at the level underneath both of those leaders. Andy Brown, thank you so much. Editorial director Bloomberg New

Economy on the phone from New Hampshire, the Journal. Yeah, but you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, no, honey, please, I'll do the dyvel. I want to drive. Just drive, baby. Good questions trying the drive to the globe. Thanks, we'll try rush down. I just got about eleven minutes left in today's trading session. It is time for the drive to the close. Ron Carson is back with US, co founder CEO of the Wealth advisor Carson Group. Uh. They're based in Omaha, Nebraska, and that's exactly where we find

Ron on this Monday. Ron, good to have you back with us. Um, how are you doing? Tell us a litle bit about life in Omaha right now? Well, Carol's great feedback back with you, and my heart goes out to everybody in New York. I know you guys have been hit especially hard. Um. You know I'm going on. I had two knee surgeries leading into this, so I'm week fourteen working from home. But I would say, um, companies functioning well, and then personally me and my family

are doing doing really well. Well. I guess that was in part well time. I don't know if it knee surgeries ever totally well timed run, but at least it's set you up to be in the right position. What's the general sentiment around you know, sort of folks that you talked to the in Nebraska. I mean, we're always trying to take the temperature, especially given this I keep using this term sort of this checkerboard approach. It feels like that we're going to take state by state in

terms of reopening. What's the what's the sense there among your neighbors? What I like about Omaha? And maybe Nebraska in general, as we're a bunch of rule followers. So you know, for the road cards, Um, everybody's out, you're walking down the sidewalk, they go clear on the other side of the street and uh, it's like it's not fifty feet at six feet um and I you know,

so they're very much observing it the rules. On the flip side financially, though, A bit of concern for me is, you know a major case of fomo everybody's fear of missing out, you know, on this reflation that we've had because you know, people either had cash or raise some cash, you know, during the decline, and I'd say the rule following, but having a lot of time to sit around and go, gosh, I wish I would have put a lot more money in, you know at the quote unquote you know market low

that we've had some as Yeah, I do wonder if we're gonna all look back at this. I mean, Jason and and I have had a lot of conversations. I've had these conversations at home that you know, you knew logically that certain companies were not going to come undone and that things were going to bounce back. It's just a matter of timing, and so for stocks that had run up, you know, just NonStop all of a sudden,

share prices were essentially on sale. They were, and some really good companies and this was This is where I think, you know, for for required to run, we've had passive you know, just buy the market and not have to think about it has been the place to be. Now it's going to be surgical. It's going to be active because if you go back during the financial crisis, some companies became much stronger. Some companies gained considerable market share.

I mean, look at Zoom, look at Amazon, look at these companies that are actually gonna unfortunately you know, uh they benefit from this you know, tragedy hitting our country, but you know it it is the act is that a lot of some of this demand is permanent, but most of the demand is just going to be deferred to a future date and then other companies are going to pick up the business from those companies unfortunately are

going to survive. And so Ron talk to us about oil because you know, that's a story that I feel like again maybe plays a little bit differently depending on where you are in the country, depending on what your businesses and how you rely on it or don't rely on it. You know, we spent so much time I think in the past thinking about it visa v. Gasoline prices, that seems like less of an issue, although obviously demand plays into the equation here. But how do you think

about oil from an investment perspective? Yeah, that's the number one topic right when we had oil especially had you know, the May futures trade negative, which I never fathomed and I've been in this business really forty years, could ever happen? You know. Now everybody's looking around saying this must be the buy of a live time, and I wouldn't be so sure. I mean, we've got true it's you know, it's beneficial to the consumers. We have lower energy prices.

My CIO just told me he was running back from Chicago. Paid a bucket team here in Elmonts about a dollar forty a gallon. That's tremendous stimulus, right, you know, at least we're not spending as much, you know, and and ultimately that should be a tail one for the economy from investors standpoint. You know, you just saw you know, Diamond Offshore file for bankruptcy. There's gonna be a lot of other bankruptcies out there, and this is this is the major question is who can survive and how long

will it be? And this is where you need to be surgical about the companies that you invest in. But I think the June contract um, you know, may trade uh as as down as much as a May contract did, especially if oil falls below ten, they increase the margin calls from I think it was six, he's either six or six fifty or barrel all the way up to ten.

So if we see the contract trade blow thirt and watch out uh and and you've heard about we don't have nearly the demand and so we don't have a lot of places to put this oil, and that's what's

causing the ron. Is it time for all of us to accept that, you know, we went from when it came to the energy market, soil specifically that of course, oil is a great investment play where you know, even though we talk about alternative fuels, it's still such a small percentage um and the world is growing and you're developing economies like China just coming online increasingly, so you know, we've gone from that to oh my god, we have just too much of this stuff, and we've got market imbalances.

You know, you've got demand destruction as well as too much supply. Um, have we come to the end of the oil story? Are we getting closer to it? I think you hit the nail on the head, Carol. I think we're coming closer. I go. There's a university and follow out the called Singularity University, and it's a place where business CEOs around the world can come for a week and learn about you know, what are some of

the trends people aren't talking about. In a year ago, they were talking about the fact that they think there's going to be more than a trillion dollars of carbon unused because of the alternative energy plays that are out there. And I and I, you know, I believe that you know, two things are happening. You know, we've made successfully we're shifting to these alternative energy sources which are falling dramatically.

And the next generation cares about the you know, the the amount of the missions we've put out far more than any other generation we've had, so they're very very conscious willing even to spend a little more. So I think you're you know, the fact that we saw you know oil nearly had a hundred fifty bucks to barrel and then all the way down to a negative number. But I I just don't think it's going to be the play in the future that has been in the past.

And just about twenty seconds here the FED excited worried about j PAL this week, not worried at all. I think the Fed's done a masterful job. In two thousand and eight treasuring of fed um really weren't top of it. They are this time. The only thing we think is they may expanse some of the programs which would be positive for the economy. All right, well, be well, we really appreciate it. Ron Conway out there in Omaha, good to catch up with you. Good luck with those new

knees uh, and stay safe. It sounds like your neighbors are doing a good job with the social distancing. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show every weekday at two pm Eastern only on Bloomberg Radio