March Jobs Report Preview, Biden’s Infrastructure Plan

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 Opening Day, major League Baseball being rolled back, uh certainly here in New York with the mats because of COVID nineteen protocols. New York Cities Health Commissioner a warning residents to take precautions during the Eastern passover holidays as the city's COVID nineteen cases remained

stubbornly high and more contagious variants or past them. And then we talked about Fiser and Biontechs COVID nineteen vaccine remaining more than effective after six months, according to some data from a final stage trial released Uh. Today, We've got a perfect voice to talk about it. Dr Amish Adalga. He is an infectious disease physician Senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, of course, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, Founder,

Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Dr Dolga on the phone from Pittsburgh. Dr Dalging, Nice to have you here with Tim and myself. So much to talk about, but let's start with Fiser and finding that six months out it still seems to be working and keeping individuals safe. When it comes to COVID nineteen, this feels pretty big. Yeah,

I think it is. It's good news, and I think it's something that we all expected to see because most vaccines do have durability that last, you know, a year, or even more than a year if you think about some some vaccines, like our Tetanish vaccines. It's just that when you're doing all of this in the midst of a pandemic, you're you don't have time to do the natural history studies ahead of time to know when immunity may wayne, when you might need a booster. So what's

going on now? Or these natural history studies, and I suspect that nine months, will will hear that it works well at nine months, and we'll hear that it works well at twelve months. Uh, And I think that's that's to be expected, and it makes it a lot. It gives people a lot more certainty, especially as guidance starts to change for what vaccinatee of people can do. So Dr R dodges that changed the way you're thinking about a potential booster, that people who get this vaccine might

need a booster at some point in the future. Yes, I think it's too early to say when we might need a booster. And remember we have different boosters for different vaccines. So a technic shot you get your booster every ten years, and there are other vaccines where you might get a booster in a shorter period of time. So, for example, you get one dose of the Beasels monshrou Bella vaccine around twelve or fifteen months, and you get another one around five years of age and then you're done.

So it's it's different, and it's really based on doing those studies, watching antibodies, watching t cells, looking to see do people get reinfected, and then you make a decision on when a booster might be needed, but I think we're likely not going to need a booster for at least a year, and probably more than that. There's a separate issue about variant updating the vaccine, which is a different issue that sometimes gets conflated with the whole booster issue.

But I think it's too early to say. Hopefully it won't be something that's an annual thing. Maybe it's biennial, maybe every three years, every two years. We'll see. Well, the Fiser bound tech vaccine is one of two m R and A vaccines that has emergency use authorization here in the United States. The other one comes from MODERNA. It does feel like we're getting more data from Fiser at this point. Are you seeing Maderna data out there or should we think about this being a similar result

that we'd see from MODERNA. I mean, can we think that way? I do think you can largely extrapolate what's happening with the Fiser vaccine to the Maderna vaccine because they are very similar to their identical technologies, was very similar ingredients, So most things are going to apply to both of them. But obviously we want to see the modernity data as well, because these are two separate products and there will be two separate recommendations that that could

could result if there are any discrepancies. But I don't expect to have any kind of surprises with the MODERNA data after we've seen the fiser TAVA or DAJA. You know, for someone like me who watches FINA to markets and economic cycles and have for many years, you know there's are there are ups and downs, and there are cycles that are shorter longer. When you look at the virus and COVID nineteen cycle, where do you think we are?

I think we're in an interesting situation. So we're basically in a in a race between vaccines and this virus, and we've done a very good job at getting vaccine into high risk individuals, nursing home residents, high risk community dwelling people, and that's sort of change the way we

have to think about this virus. That we still have a large proportion of the population it's not vaccinated, but we have removed the ability of the virus to really compromise hospitals because of the way we rolled out our vaccines. So if you're vaccinated now, you're unlikely to be hospitalized, and we gave the vaccine to those people who were

most likely to be hospitalized. So what I see as a decoupling of cases from hospital hospital capacity concerns, and I think that's going to take some time to get getting used to. And I think people see these cases surging and they expect to see us get back in the same same predicament we were in in the winter, but that's not going to happen because of where the

vaccine went, and that's that's where we are now. The goal is really just to get more vaccine into those lower priority groups so that we see some decrease in spread. But we're not going to get to COVID zero. We're going to kind of get to some some spot where where this is not a public health emergency anymore, where

it's a much more manageable respiratory disease. And I don't know where that spot is, but when hospitals are not in crisis, I for one don't have the same worry as as I would looking at this number of cases. It just got like thirty thirty seconds here and then we're gonna take a break and come back and talk some more. So we're never going to get to COVID zero. No, it's very difficult to eradicate the disease. There's only ever been one disease that eradicated from the planet, smallpox in

COVID nineteen or starrs. COVIE two is an efficiently spreading respiratory virus with an unknown animal host that's already spread into other animals like minx and cats. It's justn't something that goes away. It's going to become an endemic respiratory virus, one that we deal with every year, but one that never has the ability to threaten us the way it

can now because of the vaccine dr Adulga. We were talking and we'll be talking later to our colleague Sarah Fryer, who, along with our other colleagues Sarah Copitt, has a new Business Week story all about anti vaxtors and how Facebook is really allowing that information to flourish on the platform. There's this fascinating quote in here from Karen Cornblue, director of the think tank at the German Marshall Fund of

the United States Digital Innovation and Democracy Initiative. She says, quote, the folks who are supporting the science have to get better at telling the story, and that's in response to the way that the scientists have been responding to anti vaxers and the misinformation out there. What's the best way for doctors to actually get the message out about the

safety around this vaccine. I think it's to really talk to each person, at each patient that's in front of you, and see exactly what their safety concerns are, and then provide them with that data. I think one of the one of the benefits of our all of Operation Warp Speed and all these vaccine trials is that we have so much data available so you can basically address any person's safety concerns. All of this data is freely available, and there are a lot of resources for doctors to

be able to talk to their patients. But I also think, you know, even when you're talking to the public, when you're in the press, it's really important just to stress that when you look at the safety data, it's really remarkable how safe this is. And it's not just the clinical trials, it's what's going on in the real world with the hundreds of millions of doses that have been distributed around the world in the basic absence of any

major safety signal. That that that's concerning, and I think that's that's all you can do is really be as proactive about this and try and address concerns as best as you can and not be in a reactionary stance where you're waiting for the anti vaccine movement to come up with the latest conspiracy theory and then you're stuck rebutting it. I think if we present a positive case for this vaccine, you know that the data is the

best is the best salesperson for it. But having you know, medical people in my family, like every once in a while we're having conversation and they get into medical speak and it's like, I'm sorry, I'm not stupid, but I don't understand what you're saying. And I think the messaging can sometimes be on a on a different plane that

doesn't reach people. So like, you've got this incredible audience right now, and I know you often do on Bloomberg and on Quick Take, like what's what's the thing that you think you can say about the vaccines that are out there to kind of give confidence to people who maybe are holding off on getting the vaccine because they're scared. What I would say is that I've been taking care of COVID nineteen patients since the beginning of this pandemic, and I can see the benefit of this vaccine with

my eyes. When I walked through the hospital. I worked at the hospital on Monday and Tuesday. I could walk around and I could see that it was a whole different place than than it was just back in December when we were in on data with COVID nineteen. And what changed. The cases are still high. It's actually the fact that our vulnerable populations got vaccinated and that vaccine has removed the ability of the virus to cause severe

disease and death. I can also say that I have not seen any person present to the hospital with any kind of side effect or concerned that put them, that that landed them in the hospital from the vaccine. I've poured over the data I've I've had to answer so many questions about so many different side effects that people may or may not have had, or anecdotes, and and nothing has really panned out. And I think it's it's

extraordinary how safe these vaccines are. And I think that even though we don't have long term data, even though we don't have long term data, Yes, even though we don't have long term data. I think it's important to remember that any time of vaccine has approved, we still continue to study the vaccine. After approval. They do what are called phase four post marketing studies. They're still doing no studies for things like the HPV vaccine guard it self.

That's very normal and and the thing is we're in the middle of a pandemic where over five thousand people died. I don't think that there was any option of waiting six years down the road to say, let's have six years of safety data before we release this vaccine. But then there would be people said, well, we need seven year safety data. We need eight Your safety data agreed. I'm just playing Devil's Advocate. Already already got I've already

gotten one, and I'm waiting. I'm glad they waiting for that second one, and I'm set to get it this weekend. So I'm pretty excited about it. Dr Adulge, we do still see despite everything that you're saying, despite what the scientists and doctors are saying, we do still see hesitancy

among some Americans. You mentioned her immunity and that we need to get to hurt immunity what happens though, if we don't get to hurt immunity through the vaccine, well, I think if we don't get to hurt immunity through the vaccine, you will still have a higher level of cases than anybody wants, probably in the tens of thousands range for some time until the population reaches herd immunity

with a combination of the vaccine and natural immunity. To me, herd immunity is an important milestone, but I've always been very focused on hospital capacity, like I said before, So if we can get our vulnerbal populations all vaccinated and this isn't something lands people in the hospital or kills them, it becomes much more manageful even if we don't hit her immunity through the vaccine, especially if that if the people that are vaccine hesitant are not the highest christ individuals.

I worry about that the vaccine hesitancy kind of clustering in a group of people that that might be at high risk for hospitalization. But I do think that the more vaccine we get into people, the more people that are accepting of this vaccine, the faster track we we are on to ending the pandemic and making COVID nineteen something that is more like respiratory viruses that we deal with year in and year out. So it's going to be a major challenge when we've become less supply constraint

and more demand constrained. One well, so smart and so spot on in terms of the conversations I know I'm having out in public and certainly around the newsroom and elsewhere. Dr Amish Adaga, thank you so much. Infectious Disease Physicians, Senior Scholar at John's Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg LP and Bloomberg Philanthropy. Is great conversation.

This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. So makes you wonder, Tim, if anything is changing when it comes to social media. This next story kind of plays into that. It's about how Facebook is letting anti vax ER's scare women from COVID shots. It's real, and I gotta say I know

this firsthand based on the conversations I've been having. There's a lot of women, especially those who maybe haven't had children or are waiting to have their kids, and they're worried about getting vaccines. Look, this is something that's new to everybody right now. The science is playing out in real time as we talk about all the time. Joel Webber is editor at Bloomberg Business Week, joining us on

the remote from Brooklyn on the access line. Sarah Fryer is technology reporter at Bloomberg News and she's the author of No Filter, The Inside Story of Instagram. Joining us now on the phone from San Francisco. U, Joel, this is a very concerning piece from Sarah Fryar and and and Sarah copit because Facebook, it seems, would have the power to stop the spread of this type of misinformation and the indeed change the way that they're thinking about it,

but it's still flourishing on the platform. Well, and it it just speaks to a kind of the bigger Facebook story that UM, Sarah has has been all over for for years now about just misinformation on the platform and the you know, the main metric of success for Facebook is engagement and UM, even when things are outright lies, UM, if people engage with them, it tends to be something that that Facebook uh struggles to figure out how to police and moderate and you know, they they've kind of

said one thing and have necessarily not always done that in this particular instance. And I do think it's a really fascinating sort of case study because here we are, in the middle of the pandemic. People are getting shots and or considering getting vaccinated in a rapid clip now, and yet we've actually seen and what what serves reporting shows is that women on social media and particularly on Facebook have and basically targeted by anti vaxers as and

that has become really a devastating um um impact. So so Sarah talked to us a little bit more about what you found and why it's so troubling. Well, this anti vax movement has been brewing for for years for other kinds of vaccines um and with the pandemic, it's different because the first people eligible for these COVID shops

are adults. So the normal rhetoric that they target young mothers with telling their telling them not to get their kids vascinated, they are targeting that same group but saying that of the vaccine is going to cause fertility issues. You don't know what the adverse site effects are going to be and it's simply not true. The problem is on Facebook, and we've talked about this over and over on this show as well. This stuff that spreads is

that which sparks emotion, It's that which causes surprise. I is in commentary. And although Facebook has done all these things, like you know, banning the worst offenders and trying to put up good vaccine information, they're up against their own systems, their own their own design that rewards that kind of behavior on their apps and on Instagram. It's it's very

pervasive too. And I would even say a little bit worth. Um. The lead character of our stories, as woman Police Williams, who was always a little skeptical, became more skeptical, i should say, of the medical establishment after going through camps between it and when she joined Instagram, she got really into alternative health and natural wellness and through that went down the rabbit hole into learning this false information about how vaccines could cause adverse side effects. Um that simply

wasn't based in reality. And on Instagram you have the effects of the people that are are saying that are famal teneously trying to sell alternatives supplement plans workouts, whatever they can do as an alternative to what the government is is selling UM via vaccine. So I really think

that it's it's not a reliable source of good health information. Sarah, I'm glad you brought that up because that's something I wanted to talk more about, and that was one of my takeaways that there is actually this like anti vax or industrial complex out there that stands to financially benefit from from people uh not believing the science, right. I think that that again, it's it's preying on the fear.

And on Instagram, people have built their profiles, influencers who are in wellness have built their profiles around giving you this idyllic path for your life, saying you know, if you just do my Juce cleanse or do my workouts, like trust me, I know what do and you can look like me and you can have a life like me.

And those personal stories again, just like on Facebook and Facebook groups, personal stories resonate people trust people who who are intimate and emotional and and letting them into their lives and will buy things from those people, whether it's UM buy into the antexots they're spreading or UM by what they're selling in terms of wellness, retreats and supplements.

So I think that that it's important for people to understand that as we shift from this discussion about vaccine supply, like you know, who's eligible, when is it going to be distributed to us, a discussion about vaccines demand. Um, once more people have access to the shot, this is going to be a huge factor. So Sarah like, who's the fault? I mean, I feel like Facebook, you know, we learned a lot leading up to the November election about misinformation on the platform. So do you fall Facebook

for not policing it more? Or do people fall uh Facebook now you know, for policing it not more? Or what about the science community and medical community for coming out with smarter messaging? Well, the medical community, it's it's difficult because inherently doctors are not going to tell you

things and absolutes. There's there's a lot of nuance there, there's a lot of technical background that needs to be to be told in on Facebook all they have done a lot to try to improve their reaction to the problems, but they haven't done anything to solve They're solving the symptom and not the disease um. The symptoms being the

information that spreads the people that have gotten saneus. The worst is the worst, Um, the disease being just the very structure of the app, how it actually works, Um, the way things are personalized. The woman I was speaking of earlier UM said, you know the great thing about Instagram is once you find some people who are you know, in the world she wants to sell her essential oil to Instagram just serves up more people like those people.

It's all about the personalization. It's all about bringing people deeper into the communities that they want to interact with online because, like Joel said, it's all about engagement and that is the fundamental problem. I love that aspect of it, where you got into groups and the meaningful conversations and how that just provided so much more momentum um to these conversations inaccurate ones and others. Uh Sarah. It's a great read. It is so full of information, smart information

and understanding how this all works. So I highly recommend that everybody check it out. It's going to be featured, by the way, in the upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business Week magazine. You can read it now though on the Bloomberg Terminal and also at Bloomberg dot Com, Slash business Week. Sarah Fryer, thank you, Thank you, Technology report at Bloomberg News, author of No Filter, the inside story of Instagram. Great weekend reading. I'm just going to point that out with us.

From San Francisco. Joel Weber, editor a Bloomberg Business Week. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol and Bloomberg Quick Takes. Tim Stinovy from Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. It is Thursday. It is the monthly jobs report. Eve and back with us as an insider and informed, an insightful voice when it comes to all things Washington and politics and policy. Chris lou is back with us. He's former Deputy Secretary of Labor under

the Obama administration, worked up on Capitol Hill. He's actually worked in each of the three branches of the U. S. Government. He was also executive director of Barack Obama's two thousand eight transition team, member of President Biden's transition team, and he is senior Fellow at the University of Virginia Miller Center. He joins us on the phone in Charlottesville, Virginia, Chris, so nice to have you here. How are you? I'm a great boy that we have to shortenight. I was

gonna say, sorry, we've run out of time. You have to stop being, you know, doing all these notable things. Um, let's talk jobs. How do you see it right now in terms of we knew the pandemic shut us down, we lost all these jobs were coming back, but we're a long way from being there. We are a long way. You know. The consensus estimate for tomorrow is around six hundred to seven hundred thousand compared to last month, which was three hundred and seventy nine thousand, and I think

that's about right. I think when you look at the pace of vaccinations as well as reopenings around the country, people are starting to travel more, go out to restaurants. I think things are picking up. But it's important to understand what a big hole we are in. Let's let's say we get you know, six hundred thousand jobs created. Uh, we'd still be down about nine million from where we were before the pandemic, and that's still far worse than we ever were at the height of the Great Recession.

So we're in a really big hole. And we're kind of slowly crawling back out. Obviously, the economic relief package, the one point nine trilling is important, Infrastructure is important. But we're not out of the woods yet. I mean we we could now are starting to see COVID cases rise back up in the Northeast and Midwest, UM, some states, I would argue our opening too fast, and so it's kind of a race against time right now. Can we

get out of the woods, Chris without another recovery package? Well, look, it sort of depends on what you think get out

of the woods means. I mean, you know, what UM President Biden has talked about is building back better, which is the goal is not just to get back to where we were in February, but to really try to address some of the broader economic inequalities, not only just at the individual level, but obviously the continued under investment in infrastructure over the years, and that's across all administrations. So you know, look, I think we can get employment

back to where it was eventually. But I do think the lesson we learned from the Great Recession is that unless we go big, the recovery takes much longer. People will suffer far longer, and I think that's the underlying theory about why the President and Democrats in Congress feel like infrastructure needs to happen. That's a great point, Like, listen, this is not the same crisis as the financial crisis, right, Chris. But we did commit a lot of money right after

the financial crisis to bring things back. But if but we let's not forget how kind of low and slow it was going, uh, in terms of that recovery. Here we are, and we have an opportunity to kind of really make a difference for the current economy, but even more importantly for the longer term growth of the US economy exactly. And you know, I I think about the Recovery Act that was passed in two thousand nine when I worked for President Obama. That seemed really big at

the time. And now you consider that just over the past year plus, we've done about five to six trillion of economic relief up just to get us out of COVID, and then potentially now another two trillion in this first round of infrastructure. So we're not looking at, you know, eight nine times bigger than where we went were in

two thousand nine. And I think history has taught us that If we really want to get the economy up back up and running, but more importantly, create jobs, bring manufacturing back, and stay competitive with China, we need to do a lot more. And that's why there's so much

in this infrastructure package and so many things. Frankly that again, if we could divorce politics from this, and that's obviously impossible to do, you'd find a lot of bipartisan support for not just roads and bridges, but broadband and school construction. These are things that people have been talking about in Washington for years. We can't divorce politics from this, though, and and that's that's the issue, right, Everything is political.

Given that the Biden administration wasn't able to get a single Republican vote for the one point nine trillion dollar relief package, how does the administration push through a two point to five billion trillion dollar infrastructure plan. I think they're going to first see if they can find some

support in some common ground. And the White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, did a talk today where you know, he didn't immediately say we're going to go down and do the budget reconciliation route, which takes votes, but he's going to try that. They're going to try to find bipartisan sport and that maybe not in Washington, but they're going to try at least make the case to the American people the way they did with the Economic Relief package. Why this is so important. It's one of the reasons

why that bill pulls so well. But I think ultimately, if you were a betting person, you'd say it's unlikely Republicans would support this in light of the tax increases that are going to be part of this, which means you're going to have to go back and do that budget reconciliation process. Again, Chris just got about a minute and then we'll take a break and come back some more.

But I do wonder how do you, from your experience of working in in in the Obama administration but also in Congress, like, how do you how does public sentiment play into this? I mean, I think you know, Americans get it when they get or whatever it isn't back in their pocket, right. Do they kind of relate with a big infrastructure spending bill that might give them better internet or cleaner water? Do we relate well? Do we

think about that when we go to the polls? And again, just got about fifty seconds here, and it's hard because the evidence will show that it didn't translate to political sport in two thousand and ten. I think what will be important is how tangible some of these things are. People really do see the road, roads and bridges improved, really do see investments that affect their life immediately versus

much much further down the road. The tough part is that stuff doesn't happen immediately though these are infrastructure projects we're talking about. No, but right right, Chris, it's a while, yeah, And I'm not sure, like if we say we're going to modernize our electrical grid, anybody can never notice that until we have a situation like Texas exactly. Hey, Chris, something I wanted to ask you, and I feel like

this plays into President Biden's Infrastructure's plan and spending. Uh, is that when you look at a nation like China, and of course very different from the United States, certainly in terms of its run, but it is planning for the future and making some big investments. And we had a really smart story in the Bloomberg yesterday that talked about how China's COVID rebound edging it closer to overtaking

the US economy. I mean, they are doing spending today that will give it economic momentum in the future when you look at US versus China. What do we as Americans need to think about when it comes to whether or not we are first or second um the global economic scale. Well, that's that's a big question about what I say that this Infrastructure Bill try to get at

some of this. Now there's obviously not one answer, but you know, a big investment into UH school construction and broadband and job training in shorts that we have the

workforce that we need for the twenty one century. You know, there's about a quarter trillion dollars in this bill that goes for R and D, including the beefing up our federal labs and the research facilities at universities so that we can start innovating again and building the kinds of products that should be UH that we've done, you know, for all of the twenty century. And then the roads and bridges really is a kind of a critical part.

If we want to start to manufacture more things in the United States, we have to be able to transport that stuff efficiently around the country. And so there's not just one thing. It's a multiple things, and I think that's what this bill tries to do, as well as importantly making those investments into clean energy like solar and wind, which are areas that we are really in direct competition

with China right now. Chris, the fact sheet from the White House that came out yesterday about the American Jobs Plan, it mentions China five times. Is this the right way to position it to try to get some bipartisan support for the plan? Positioning China as as as one of the reasons as to why Republicans should sign on along with Democrats exactly. And I do think that is oddly one of the areas of true bipartisanship is trying to kind of bass China, go head to head with China,

however you want to characterize it. So I think that's obviously very deliberate. On the other hand, as we talked about in the previous segment, the fact that a lot of these investments will be paid for by rolling back the Trump tax cuts, I think will be so problematic for Republicans that even if there's a lot of things in here that would help make us more competitive, it won't overcome There are other objections, so is there a better way to position paying for this, because it's it's

anathema to two Republicans raising raising corporate taxes. This is the problem. I mean, you know, it became things cost money, Thanks Cast exactly, things cost money. And this this became the running joke over the previous four years when we would have infrastructure every six months or so. And when it came down to it, the concept of infrastructure was good, but if you really you wanted to go big on the kinds of investments you need, you've got to come up with a way to pay for it. You know.

I was struck by that annual survey that comes out every year about the it's I think it's the the the Association of Civil Engineers that evaluates our physical infrastructure. And this year, I believe we got to C minus, which I think was an improvement from where it had been, which is deep plus. For years and years and years and so there's been a constant under investment in democratic and Republican administrations, and inevitably the reason is is because

nobody wants to pay for it. And I would argue, and I think most economists would tell you that we either pay for this on the front end, or we're going to pay for this on the back end in terms of UM, a workforce that's not well trained, roads and bridges that can't transport goods, less innovation in our country. Hey, we've just got about a minute or so UM left here, Chris.

One thing that we wanted to ask you. UM. It just feels like the last year we have just seen segments of our population to get it, whether it's Black Americans and most recently we're seeing Asian Americans targeted. And I'm just curious what your thoughts are. Are you nervous as you move around society because of what we've seen as of late, the hate crimes that we're seeing against

Asians in this country. It's incredibly troubling, and it's consistent with the rather grim history of Asians in America, where we have been treated as outsiders, people with dual loyalties, people who can't be trusted, really going all the way back to Chinese railroad workers in Japanese, American and tournament. Obviously, the political rhetoric around COVID over the past year has

really exacerbated the problem. And frankly, the issue that we just mentioned China is going to continue to weigh on this. I would like to think that we can have a reason discussion about how the United States should be more competitive against China and actually confront them on intellectual property and their military aggression without the flip side of it being more attacks ostracism of Chinese Americans and more broadly Asian Americans. But unfortunately, the history in our country is that,

you know, when that has not been the case. Yeah, history often trips us up on this in an unfair way, in in a wrong way. Chris, Thank you though, for weighing in on that and so much more. Chris lou uh Senior Fellow, University of Virginia, Miller Center, former Deputy Secretary of Labor under President Obama, joining us once again from Charlottesville, Virginia. Christy Safe brom the Journal. Yeah but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no, no, who's

going home? Honey? Please, I'll do the right revels. I want to drive all just drive, baby, the questions trying. This is the drive to the Globe Commune. Thanks, we'll drive us to Dawn Boomberg Radio. All right, just got about ten minutes a little bit under, just about ten minutes left in today's trading session, getting ready to wrap up the holiday shortened equity I should say shortened equity trading on this holiday week. Let's get to John train Or.

He's back with us, chief investment officer at People's United Advisors nine billion in assets under management, on the phone in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This on a day where we saw the S and P five breaking above four thousand, uh and we're really seeing the bullmarket barrel on. John, good to have you here. Four thousand. It's just a level, but it's just a reminder that stacks continue to move higher. Thank you for having me back. And you're correct, I mean,

you know, hitting that number. You know the numbers are you know, these psychological barriers, but it just shows you, you know, the confidence that investors are gaining in the market, in the economy and in the recovery. And you know, it's great to say, it's great to see and there's a lot of momentum behind that, behind that, that that that psychology, that confidence. Well, the confidence is there and that the reopening is happening, but how much higher can

it go this year? Well, you know, one of the things that we're talking with clients about is you know, it's great to see the average is moving, but what we really want to see is a broadening of the market. You know, and you know, you know last year was really you know, if you didn't own the big five tech stocks, you didn't participate. Well, we think this year is going to be the story of the other four. So you could do well this year and you not see the averages go through the roof, but you could

do well if you do. You know, you have that broadening of the market, a broadening of the portfolio. Listen, it's an economic recovery. I mean, whether we you know, right, this is what we're getting ready for, provided we don't see another you know, significant COVID outbreak that leads to a shutting down of the US economy. But I mean, I feel like John, everything is pointing to a very very strong second half. Having said that, how much of

it do you think is already factored into the overall trade? Well, you're you hit the nail on the head. I do think a good amount of it is factored in. But you know, just think about you know, the recovery that we still need to see on Main Street. I mean, you know, the restaurants one of the things we'll be watching for the unemployment number tomorrow is how many people get rehired in the hospitality and leisure area. You know, those are the waiters and waitresses. So there's a lot

of recovery that still needs to take place. And consumers, you know, they need to get out, they need to get outside. They once they get get on you know, get back to main street. I think you'll see that flow into the market. So we still think we're going to see these these averages move higher. Hey, John, where where does the economic stimulus package? And I'm not talking about the one point nine trillion dollar when I'm talking about two point two five trillion dollar infrastructure plan that

was announced yesterday. Where does that fit into this this picture. You know, we've taken a look at a couple of economic estimates and and again this is this is infrastructure spending. So this is spending that's going to be you know, for years to come. I mean, you know, the planning of rebuilding bridges and and all that infrastructure needs to

be done. One of the things that that has has encouraged us about the infrastructure plan is that we were concerned that we would have this spurt with the one point nine trillion of spurting growth this year and then slow down pretty dramatically in the out years. The infrastructure package. It's not causing us to change our forecast for this year, but we're raising our two thousand, twenty three four numbers because of that package. So it's it's increasing our confidence

in the out years. So what the risks here? What's the thing that we're not you know, beyond the arcticos or our k goos however you say it blow up which didn't really impact the overall trade, but as a reminder that things can happen, um, you know without our our you know, without us you know those black swans, they do happen, even little black swans, that's right. And

it's it's really the leverage in the system. You know, when you when you've got free money for as long as we've had it, and that's basically what we've had from the Fed for quite a while now. You know, mistakes are made when you're when you're hurdle rate is zero. Everything looks good, So I wouldn't be surprised if we see, if we don't see some more of the heavy, heavily

levered investors. The hedge funds primarily have problems going forward because there are a lot of leverage bets out there and I don't think we've seen the end of that. Um So the leverage in the system is is a is a concern, but you know that the bigger issue, um we and we haven't seen it. Investors in the bond market are basically still saying the Fed is going to do a good job and keep keep inflation under control.

That to us, that's the big question. Mark Joe wis and though I don't have the note in front of me, but puts out a note every morning, but kind of the five things you need to know every morning. And one of the things he had a guest on recently that when you look at the activity, and forgive me, I'm not probably not going to do the best summary, but it's basically this whole idea that you know, back in January, things everything was falling apart. We were looking

at rising virus cases, looking at another wave. We didn't have all the economic recovery packages in place, and it felt like everything was coming undone. And then here we get, you know, trillions back into the economy and we're now talking about crazy growth numbers for the second half, and the bond market is just reflecting that. And did it pretty quickly? Is that something you think about and just got about thirty seconds, actually about twenty seconds. No, No,

And what we're looking at. Yes, we've seen introt frates go up, but we haven't really seen, you know, the real rate go through the roof. And we believe the bond market, even though rates are moving up, the bond market is still saying the Fed is in control and the good job. Hey, John, have a good weekend. Thanks for stopping by, John Train, our chief investment officer, People's United Advisors on the phone and Bridgeport, Connecticut. Thanks for

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