This is Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stanabek. We're here every day bringing you the latest news from the world of business and finance, plus technology, politics, economics, all parnessing the power of Business Week reporters and editors, not to mention our journalists and analyst in more than one twenty countries. You can download Bloomberg Business Week and iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot Com.
You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. So I'm guessing that you don't have to check your calendar on this, because one year today we know the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Tim, We've come a long way. We have come a long way. We've come a long
way when it comes to vaccine. But at the same time, I think if you were to ask any of us one year ago today, if one year later where we are now, five hundred more than five hundred thousand of our fellow Americans would be dead as a result of this pandemic we'd have probably said no way, yeah exactly. Um, and listen, we're still hearing stories about people not taking vaccines, not wanting to, even as we see the availability of
such are increasing. Listen, we had a bunch of our former presidents get together and really kind of collaborative, collaboratively, say let's get the vaccine. Check it out. We've lost enough people and which suffered enough damage in order to get rid of this pandemic. It's important for our fellow
citizens to get vaccinated. I'm getting vaccinated. We college we won't just pandemic to in as soon as possible, so we urge you to get vaccinated and when it's available to you, So roll up your sleeve and do your part. This is our shot. Now it's up to you, all right. Uh. Former presidents and former First ladies. Yeah, that's right. Some familiar voices you've heard. George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, and of course Bill Clinton. One name missing though, yeah fromer.
President Trump exactly did not take part, but we do know he and the former First Lady Um Milania did get the vaccine. They did. They got it in secret though, at the White House before they left all right. So nonetheless, we're hearing a lot of people come out and say, let's get the vaccine. So let's get through, uh kind of where we've come you know, what we've come through over the past year, and where we are Rupoli Lamay. She is Associate Scientists for the Departments of International Health
at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It is supported by Michael R. Bloomberg, founder, Bloomberg LP, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. She's on the phone in Falls Church, Virginia. RUPOLLI, thanks for um letting us kind of put that out because that was kind of a big deal. You know, you are seeing lots of leaders and leadership come out and really encourage Americans to get the vaccine. That's something you've been watching as well. That's right, Thanks so much for
having me. And I think it's really important if people get the vaccine because it is a new product and there tends to be I think maybe people might have more concerns because it is a new vaccine, So it's really important to get folks that people trust out there talking about their experiences and showing people that they're also getting the vaccine, to show that they trust the process
and the product. So the reason I brought up President Trump not taking part in this is because there's new research coming from the Pew Center that says that partisan differences are seen in vaccine and tent Democrats are now twenty seven percentage points more likely than Republicans to say they plan to get or have already received a coronavirus vaccine. I wonder from your perspective if if you think that it's a missopportunity for the former president not to come
out publicly he did at Sea Pack. He said he told everyone at Sea Pack to get a shot, but not to participate in a video like this that and and not be public when he got the vaccine in
secret at the White House back in January. You know, it's a great question, and I think if we track intentions since the beginning of last March, from about a year ago today, we can see that there's always been a bit of a huge change, I would say with regards to the proportion of Democrats that said that they would be willing to get a vaccine and Republicans, And as you just mentioned in the new Pew report, it's actually it's widen compared to what we have seen about
a year ago, and so I think anything we can do to really narrow that gath right is really important. Do I think that having a political leader um that a lot of people such as former President Trump did vote for in and in this last election, come out,
would that make a difference. Yes, I do think it would. Um. I think even if it's not him, I think other Republican leaders if they came out and really talked about the process of getting the vaccine and you know, maybe questions that they may have had that there were then a laid after they talked to a healthcare provider or a vaccine scientist, I think it would go a long way, especially when you look at disparities by state, and you look at sort of political ideology by state, and we're
starting to see some of those differences as well. And listen, we understand, right Repoli like why there might be certain segments of our population, particularly the black community, who said, you know what, I'm not comfortable with this. I get it. Um. Having said that, what are you hearing when it comes to community leaders. We've talked to folks, uh, you know, certainly religious leaders who are trying to reach out to their communities, to to especially a minority communities, to help
them step up. What are you seeing Are we making any progress along those lines? I think it's a great question, and it's a lot of work that I have been focusing on with colleagues that we have been going to African American churches and talking to congregation members and really you know, trying to be there as resource persons so that when people do have questions about the vaccines, were
able to answer those. I have to give a huge sort of hats off, I would say to religious leaders, especially within the African American community, that I think are
really going above and beyond. They want to make sure that their members have the right information that they need to make an informed decision, and a lot of them have reached out to I know, not only myself, but other colleagues that have worked in vaccine science and have been asking individuals to come and sort of sit in on these listening sessions so that individuals that have been studying the vaccine science are there for them to ask questions. And so I think we are starting to see some
of that progress. However, I think to your earlier I think there is going to be there's as you know, medical trauma, historic medical trauma because of experimentation, and so I think that, you know, it's gonna be hard to eradicate it overall. But I think we're we're doing better with regards to disparities. The problem is still going to be access, which tends to be more of the issue. Not necessarily intention but access to the vaccine. This is
also becoming a problem. Well, it's interesting because I was going to ask you, Okay, so tell me about what are the questions people are asking. But if it's increasingly maybe not that people and certainly within minority communities are hesitant, but it's just about having the access and what are
we making Are we making any progress in that? Because it does feel like Tim and I talked about this, It feels like in our spheres that we are seeing either family members or people we now that are increasingly being able to get access to the vaccine, which it didn't feel that way maybe a month ago, six weeks ago. Absolutely, I think States are doing an amazing job of ramping up. We now have a third vaccine product, which will also help.
I think these a lot of the issues that we were having with supply the problem that we are seeing is that the outreef is not necessary really matching the segment of the population. And what I mean by that is when you're asking individuals to essentially pre register for their priority group online and you, as you can imagine, you have huge segments of the population that is just not comfortable registering online. And that's really where there is
a mismatch. And we've talked to several states about this, is that how do we make sure that we recruit and we really communicate our outreach in a way that is accessible for the segments that are eligible. And I think states are still sort of catching up to that, if you will, We're not quite there yet. That's huge. I never even thought about that, right because you have to put in a ton of information online and if you listen, a lot of people may not be comfortable
with that. Not only if you're not comfortable, but if you don't have regular access to the internet, if if you're not somebody who accesses the Internet through a PC or maybe your smartphone is the primary way you're doing that, and it's not necessarily a mobile friendly site. So so, so what does that look like, RIPOLLI? Does it? Does it look like it looks like door to door with with the census. I mean, is is that what we
are going to have to do? Yeah, No, it's a great question, and I think there's a number of different ways that we can go about doing this. So earlier on in the pandemic, we were working with the City of Baltimore to let people know, for example, if they needed to get tested, right, because this was sort of an issue kind of earlier on about a year ago.
And one thing that I thought was really interesting and innovative was they put in that the city put in leafless in water bell, right, so you have your water bell, and then in that there's a leaselet of information that there was a call in number that you could call in different ways in which you can get really assistance
if you needed help getting testing. I think doing something similar like that, because the one thing that we have learned, especially going to these different congregations that tend to be filled with individuals that are fifty five and older, by the way they do say things like well, I don't know how to get online or how would I look for an appointment at CBS dot com, And so part of that is understanding like can we help with peer navigators,
which has really been happening in a number of different countries with regards to any sort of a treatment option. Is that something we could do? But I think there is still a long way to go. Unluckily, I mean a lot of individuals that are older can at least have access to individuals that do feel comfortable getting online. What do you just do it? Like, why don't we just do like after a hurricane or you know, something really terrible where there's the Red Cross comes in, there's
big tents for feeding, people were handing out water. It's done overnight. It's just line up and get it done. Yep. It's a great idea, and they're starting to do that in some states, like for example, I know Hawaii was sort of first to this because they started sort of math maxination sites if you will, that do not require appointments.
I believe they have walked in at stadium and this was several months ago, right, So they were sort of ahead of it in that way because they understood they were like, well, people aren't going to get online, right, this isn't a way that we're going to be able to get people to get an appointment, and so I think it's more states are able to do that, and you know, move towards that model, then I think we'll be able to more quickly and rapidly, I think ramp
up how many people are actually getting a shot in the arm. Well, it's interesting because we are seeing still increased demand, you know, more demand than supply in many places right now. Yesterday we learned that the state of Alaska is reducing the age to anyone who works in the state or lives in the state over the age of sixteen will soon be able to get the vaccine. At the same time, Governor Ronda Santas that Florida said the vaccine could be open to all adults in April.
Are these the right moves right now when we do still have demand exceeding supply and among certain demographics and age groups. Yeah, I don't think they're mutually exclusive, right. I think the goal here is to make sure that we're allowing access to populations as quickly as possible, so that we can get a proportion of the population vaccinated
as do it as possible. But I think that can go hand to hand with still continuing to do outrage where we are seeing disparities right, So whether that be you know, a pop up sort of vaccination clinic where they set it up in the neighborhood, they allow people to come in, they allow people to get vaccinated without
you know, having pre registration, etcetera. Um, but I think it's it's something that you could do simultaneously, side by side, and I think that's the only way we're really going to be able to reach people that really need to get the vaccine, that are more at higher risk of exposure. All right, So probably the question that Tim and I love to ask people, it's okay, here we are a year in. UM, I don't know, it's the timeline do you think for this year where we start to feel
quote unquote normal. It's so funny. We were just looking at models this morning. Um, you know, with our Infectious Disease Dynamic, this is modeling unit. And one of the and one of the questions that I had, of course
is you know what are we looking at? And I think if we can continue, if folks can continue to do the non pharmaceutical interventions, and what I mean by that is social distancing still you know how wearing a face mask for the most part, still meeting outside I think if we can stay at the levels that we have been engaging in those types of activities, we should start to see a pretty The summer is starting to look actually really quite nice with regards to how supply
is changing with Johnson and Johnson coming in UM and we'rek helping with that product development processes. I think you all know. I think the key here is going to be we then see things like what happens in Texas where all of a sudden they're repealing a mask mandate. And our concern there, as you can imagine, is that are we at the right threshold of a population with regards to a population acquiring immunity to be able to go there yet? And that's the concern is that are
we going to have setbacks because of that? Right? So it's not going to be ques. So I think that's going to be the key here. As as governors decide to reopen states, are they doing it safely? Are they early? Really that's going to impact how we're gonna look. Going to need that state to state passport, we can just see it a pandemic passport. Poli uh LeMay, thank you so much, really appreciated Associate scientist over at Johns Hopkins
the Bloomberg School of Public Health. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovich from Bloomberg Radio. You know, Carol, you and I have been talking a lot about it being a year since the World Health Organization called this a pandemic. Let's think about what has happened during that year. Twenty nine million infected here in the United States, five d and twenty nine thousand dead, and about ten million who are unemployed.
That's big destroy, big disruption if you think about it, big, big disruption. I mean, it's it's absolutely shocking when when we really think about those numbers. Emma Court is somebody who has been thinking a lot about those numbers. She's a healthcare reporter at Bloomberg News and Us on the phone right now from New York City. Emma, your your latest future feature follows ten Americans over the last year. It's a diverse group. It includes a comedian like Mike
big Leia. It includes a psychiatrist, it includes a physician, It includes a business leader, a funeral home director. How their lives have changed over the last year. What is a common thread that runs through their stories. Yeah, and thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. I think we're all trying to find ways to process what's happened over the last year and understand these tremorous changes that have occurred in our lives and in the
world at large. I think this is the common thread between a lot of these stories, and I think many of us probably recognize us in our own lives as these sort of themes of loss and grief and trauma and sorrow, but also you know, change and adjustments and coping and so um. You know, we spoke with, you know, a funeral director in California, for instance, who you know, just a couple of months ago, lost not just her father with whom you know, she and her mom and
her son lived, but also two uncles. And she's also grappling with a new reality at work where funeral homes, you know, I think, especially in California, have been just absolutely overwhelmed and have had to start waiting list for for people coming in and even turn some families away, and um, that's just been, as you can imagine, incredibly difficult.
She said. It's almost unheard of in that industry. Um, and then you have things like you know, Mike Verbiglia, who you know, initially when the pandemic started, thought you know, he would never try doing stand up comedy remotely, and then, um, you know what he ended up finding. As the pandemic drag done over the summer, he said, you know what, I will, I will try this out, and he found
you know, it's a different experience. He said, it's harder, for sure than the comedy feller, right, but it's something where he can actually see people now in their living rooms, sitting on their couch and you can actually see their faces as opposed to a dark you know club where you can only see kind of the front road because of all the bright lights. So I think, um, you know, we're all changed because of this, and I think our economy has changed, or the way we work and live
has changed. But there are ways that I think we are finding, you know, maybe not a silver lining, but you know, new ways of living a bit all that. I love what my had to say about reading the room. It's a little bit more difficult when you're doing it virtually. It's like really tough, you know, speaking about um reading the room, I look around the rooms here now that I'm back at work, but I think about to my room at home when I was working. There was a
lot of yoga pants. There was a lot of casual where I've worn a lot of jeans back at the office, which I haven't done in years. Um, fashion industry, that's another one. Retail, like, it's just been really an upheaval there as well. And you talk to Valerie steel over at the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, Yeah, we did, and it was funny. She referenced this like quote about how sweatpants basically mean a person who has
given up. Well, I mean, I think a lot of us then have given us over the last year, because that is that is I'm wearing leggings right now, just from the waist down. I would not wear that into the office, but I think, you know, it's interesting she was saying, this was a trend that was in the
works already, right. You think of that sort of stand classico aesthetic, the all birds, so like you know, the hoodies to work, and so this was a trend that was really kind of more accelerated by the pandemic that it didn't just sort of come out of nowhere, and she said, you know, if we go back to the office, even if it's kind of part time, people will be doing more dry cleaning, and you know, maybe they'll be
wearing our suits a couple of days a week. But it seems like it's kind of sure to stay at this point, and we only have ten seconds left. Do we continue to bake? You talk to Karen Kolberg, coach CEO of King Arthur Baking Company. We all know those flower shortages right right, so they, you know, the baking trend is they think it's here to stay. You know, you're hopefully not going to be making sour dough every day the way made you right in the beginning of
a pandemic, but you know, to make salad. Oh God, listen, I was on a hunt for flower many months ago. It was really tough. Um. It's a great right through of just oh so many individuals being impacted, all of us by the pandemic. I really appreciate it, Emma, Thank you so much. Bloomberg News healthcare reporter Emma Court. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes.
Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio Tim, We're living in a world where it feels like just about anybody can get famous on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. It's something we talked to Nick Bilton about just just a few weeks ago, right right, being famous. Yeah, you did that HBO documentary which is really really cool. And listen, as our Bloomberg News technology reporter Sarah Fryer found out, it's a lot easier you can do that, but it's a lot easier to make a living doing it if you are white.
So joining us with more on the stories. Max Chafkin, features editor at Bloomberg business Week. He's with us on the phone in Queen's New York along with Bloomberg Business Week editor Joe Weber on the Access line in Brooklyn. This is a deep die that just once again, Jill, you know, shows us the inequities about you know, doing something in this world, but you're treated differently, pay differently
if you're black or if you're white. That's right, and and just a reminder that this is all part of the equality issue of Bloomberg Business Week, which has been rolling out all week. And you know, we've got to talk about taxes a little bit and then uh, instead of taking money, let's talk about making money. But some people get to make more than others. Um Max. Great to talk with you about this feature that you edited and and tell us. What Sarah found is she dug
into the reporting. You know, the feature is about when what you probably should think of as sort of the new Hollywood. So this is the world of influencers, YouTubers, tick talkers, UM and memurs, uh and and and so on, basically anyone who's kind of making content UM for mobile
phones and and for you know, young people. And you know, obviously, uh, we're living through this moment that you know, starting last summer where um, you know, everyone around the world and especially m or marketers included, UM, basically became much more aware of you know, racial issues, Black Lives Matter movement.
We started seeing you know, all of these kind of Instagram takeovers, you know, you know, being pushed by you know, both baseboth activists, but also lots and lots of big companies. And what Sara found out is, you know, often the people are actually making this content are being paid less, so so they're they're making content that is in some ways you know whatever narrowing. Uh, you know, narrowing a cultural gap, but there's there's still a pay gap, so
you know, when it comes to social media. And this is something that Sarah addresses in her piece. One of the promises all the way back to when the Internet was really founded, right, it would democratize things. It was a meritocracy. People would be treated equally these social platforms. It's not a meritocracy, is it, Max, Yeah, totally. And and that's one of the one of the really interesting
things in this story. Sarah has some reporting from uh former Facebook employee who was working on the rollout of one of these new you know, social media features for Facebook, and he, you know, encouraged his bosses to try to sign up some black and Hispanic influencers on the platform because they are some of the biggest, you know users of Instagram, some of the um, you know, some of the most popular people on the site, and and so it made a lot of sense, um, even from a
business perspective. And as this person, as a source described, you know, he was basically shot down, um because Facebook said, well, look, we don't have relationships with these people. We don't have relationships with with with non white influencers, which is you know, on one hand, that's kind of an explanation, but it's also of course an indictment because you know, that's that's a huge oversight, especially for a company that is supposed
to be focused on data. So so and and with the piece argues, um, you know, really persuasively is you know in the old days, you know of the entertainment industry where we're really used to hearing about you know, basically white male studio executives, um, you know hiring uh sort of you know, propagating their own biases, and we see the same kind of thing happening with social media companies where you have a lot of basically white executives, um,
white marketers and of course you know who are they gonna hire. They're gonna hire people like them. Hey, Max, so how much money are we are? Were you talking about here? In general? Like, how how big of a of an industry of influencers influencers become and what's the pay dis variety actually look like for for them? Yeah? So the the biggest uh, you know, the biggest social media influencers, um, you know, are are pulling in millions of dollars a year, you know, as much as a
hundred thousand dollars of post um. This kind of like middle of the road influencers are making anywhere from you know, a few hundred bucks to several thousand dollars to say, make a TikTok video for a brand. UM. The lead example of this story, you had kind of an up and coming influencer UM who Sidney McCrae, who who created as dance uh for a record label. UH, was paid to do it, and then she saw a white influencer come in later and was paid by an affiliate of
that label. Basically you know, probably something like ten times more and that you know, that white influencer had a lot more followers UM uh. So so you know, you could argue there should be some difference, but there is something a little bit staggering about somebody who who creates UM creates this art and and then it's you know, performed by a white person for a much much larger figure. Well.
The other thing, you know, and we talked about this a lot when it comes to women, When you know, when it comes to minority is just in the business workplace of having kind of mentors and people and the infrastructure in place to bring along often, you know, people like yourselves. There is UM sur Wrights in her story Max about the Crib, which is a group of well known influencers minorities for banding together to kind of learn
from one another. Yeah, this, this editing a story caused me to have to get up to date on the hype houses. If Andrew Yang is elected mayor, I think UM the the so that the deal is basically these are are sort of collectives of influencers. Brands will UM you know sometimes sponsor the entire house and like these you know, it's like a group of attractive young people.
They produced content mentioning the brand and UM and Sarah spoke with a new one which is UM you know, focused on you know, black influencers called the Curb around the Corners. He said, And what's interesting is you know that this this group UM, they signed up a big corporate sponsor, a T and T UM. It's just launching now.
I mean you know that this this is something that's that that's happening at the moment um and and they're really excited about it because from the point of the view of the influencers, like it allows them to kind of compare notes on say, because that's that's one of the big issues here. We have um people, these these these kind of up and coming stars. It's just like in Hollywood, right, no one knows exactly what what theyre work. Yeah, and that creates opportunity to be taken advantage of. Yeah,
and they're right exactly. Um. Good stuff. There's so much detail in this story. Max, Thank you so much, and thanks to Joe Weber as well. That story by Sarah Fryer. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. So another far most read stories on the Bloomberg was also highlighted in Bloomberg's Five Things to Start Your Day newsletter that was
this morning. It's the subject of a Bloomberg podcast. We're talking about an ancestral search done by our own Bloomberg News Senior executive editor of The America's Jacqueline Simmons. What she found out during this process. Uh, it's I've listened to some of the podcast. It's really riveting. Jackie joins us on the phone in New York City. Jackie is so good to have you here with Tim and myself so tell us about what you initially set out to do and kind of why you did it and where
it led you. Sure, um, thanks for having me. So this really was born out of the conversation I had with my co host Rebecca Greenfield about how to approach the next even you know, just a short reminder, the first two were about the gender pay gap, and at the time we're having discussiom, you know, there was George Floyd, UM, and we also saw coming out of the pandemic a lot of economic data, whether it was unemployment figures or small businesses closing, and you know, you could see how
the disparity skew to certain demographics, and especially the black demographic. And so the thinking behind the series is really a chance to query that gap. UM. Knowing that um, you know, there were protests in the streets after George Floyd's killing, and knowing that this desparit widening on the back of this major global pandemic. And so that's basically kind of what got us thinking about the story, and that got me thinking about my story and how does my family
narrative fit into that. Well. I don't want to give too much away in a podcast, but what can you tell us about what you found about your own family without without giving too much away. It's sure, I mean in a nutshell, Um, really it's a cantle worms. Um, I thinking about you know, their families. History is going to find you know that can but in this case, uh, you know, tracing your roots back to slavery. Um in this country is no these small task. Um. There are
no clear ledgers. Uh, there's no clear record keeping. Synceus records go back only so far. Um, and a lot of people who really do know the history. You know, have you know Sally passed away or forgotten or moved on. I did manage to piece enough of the tail together to understand what we lost, um, you know after coming into land in East Texas. However, so you know, cantle worms, but pretty interesting, you know when you tilt back the
layers to find out what we came and then subsequently lost. Well, and you go back to your great great aunt and uncle. What's interesting too and liked tim. Uh. You know, we don't want to give away too much because you really you guys, over the season of the podcast, UM kind of work it through, but it gets to that bigger story and something we've been talking about here on Bloomberg Business Week all week about um blacks and wealth and
wealth creation and how you get it. And I think the disparities between blacks and whites you really dig into that. I mean, wealth happens over generations, and whites have had an opportunity to do that. Blacks have not, at least not as much. Yeah, so I would say, um, you know, systemic racism is all about structures in our society, in
our economy, our communities that are uneven. And you know, when I think about the land, narrative of our family in Texas fits with that because it tells the broader narrative of how you passed on law. You know, just keeping in mind that a lot of the wells in this country comes from property. I think it's importing for
senta ince fact. And so when there's disparities and one's ability to access loans, um, disparity in the way you actually bob proper and neighborhoods been desirable or less desirable, or when you're in a tax code that is put you out a disadvantage. All that taken together, you know, makes it systemic. And so you know, our land is part of that narrative pulled from you know, a different optic. I wonder about these trends shifting. I wonder about, Look, this is a story that has played out in your
family over generations. How does this get fixed within our lifetimes? How do we fix these systemic issues? It's it's a question that we've been grappling with, well, you know, in this current issue of Bloomer Business Week, of course, but this year, for in last year talking about it a lot, and I would lay on it wise and have been fixed already. M hmm. Yeah. So I mean that's the kind of you know, a thousand dollar question. Um, it
doesn't happen overnight. I think, you know, awareness is a first step, and I think that what we saw in twenty after May um was just you know, kind of woke up a lot of people. Um, however you saw whatever is your point of view is, it's sort of the awareness was kind of put front and center about the disparity issue in this country and quite honestly the disparity issue around the globe. So how does it get six? I think you're gonna have to have a lot of
painful conversations. I think you're gonna have to have legislation. I think it's going to have to have take that conversation and awareness to planning level UM with real specifics UM. And you know, the banks are going to have to you know, change the way that they operate to some degree and sort of in terms of inclusivity, in terms of you know, the issue that we've had with redlining, um, you know everything right to the tax code um. Right.
It's a real structural, you know, deeply embedded situation that's going to take I'm not sure we're gonna stick in our lifetime, I'm afraid, which is incredibly discouraging. Listen, this is something we've talked about a lot. It's in the Equality issue too of a Business Week magazine about the tax code, uh and the racism and biasedness that we're seeing in it. More on Jackie's story in the Paycheck Podcast,
a Bloomberg News series. It examines the intersection of money in inequality with Jackie and Rebecca Greenfield, head of Diversity coverage at Bloomberg News. Find it at Bloomberg dot com or wherever you download your podcast. I was listening, had to stop just before the show. But it is fascinating and interesting and engaging a road a journal. Yeah, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no, no no, all right, please, I'll do the road. I want to drive. Just thank
the questions, drying job. This is the drive to the globe. Thanks well us, Dawn on Bloomberg Radio. Right, just about eleven minutes left in today's trading session. Great to have back with us. Randy Watt's chief investment strategis at O'Neil Global Advisors, with us once again on the phone in Miami. Randy, Nice to have you back with us. I feel like there has been a lot going on in the financial markets, and I think everybody is trying to figure out are
we going to see more of a pullback? Is tech overdone? Is there more fluff to come out? Or is it just taking a little bit of the excess out and we're gonna move back to the upside. How do you see it, especially on a day where we see the SMP at another record Well, first of all, thanks for having me back, and everybody's safe and well in New York. Yeah, thanks you too. I think, um, I think a couple of things. I don't. I'm not sure the volatility in the short run is done with I know, the market's
very very strong today. It would not surprise me to see a little bit more of volatility, a little bit more of a pullback here. But I do think over the rest of the year we are going to move higher. And the key driver on that is really the stimulus bill. If you look at the amount of money we've put towards this crisis, and you compare it to the Great the Great Recession, the Great Financial crisis, it's about double. It's been about two point eight trillion back in that
two thousand and eight two thou to ten period. With with the new law that Biden just signed today, you know, that's up to five point eight trillion, and that money is going to help stimulate the economy. And I think inevitably some of that money is going to find its way into financial assets. So I think the direction of stocks over the rest of the year is actually up. So you don't think that that's already priced in right now. It was widely expected that that that this bill would
pass without publican support, and indeed it did. I think it's one thing to be expected, but I think it's another thing when the money actually starts to flow into the system, and I just think it's such a big number that it can't be ignored. Now, I do worry about the effect it's going to have an inflation and on the bond market longer term, but in this kind of short to intermediate term, I think that money is going to work its way through the system and that's
going to drive stocks higher. Where does that money flow specifically, Well, it's gonna It's gonna flow in a lot of places. One of the things is that this bill fortunately really helps the bottom third of the country, and I think, as you know, economically, those people tend to be to be spenders more than than savers. So that money is going to get spent and it's going to drive up the demand for goods and services. That's going to help
boost the economy. It's also probably, unfortunately, going to help boost prices a little bit, right, But don't you see that, you know, potentially randy that increase in prices. Maybe it's just a temporary thing, just some of the disconnect between supply chains, reopening, people getting back to working, kind of everything ramping up to meet that increased demand, especially as
the economy gets back on track. Absolutely, I think the direction I think there's been a you know, a quote a regime change in bond yields, and I think the path on bonn yield is higher also, and I think that is going to suppress the multiple on the market. So really gains in the market have to be driven by earnings. That being said, I think one is going to be a very good year for corporate profits and
corporate earnings. Right now, earnings estimates are looking for about a increase for the SMP to about about one seventy two between the market right now is training about twenty three times. That's an that's awfully fast earnings growth. And I think stock I think I don't think that's all priced in yet. I think stocks are going to react
to that positively. Hey, one thing I want to ask you because Dave Wilson, our stocks editor, just at a chart, an interesting chart of the day, and it looks specifically on how short positions are way down. And Tim and I were talking. You know, shorting the market is a part of the market, just like going along. And you're someone who have managed long only in long short hedge funds, I mean, do you see kind of the game stop effect? And maybe people a little bit nervous to take on
their short positions. Is that going to be problematic for the financial markets and trading? I think it's I think it's scary to step in front of all this money that's coming out from the government. Right the Fed remains loose. If you look at real rates right now, they're basically negative. The Fed continues it's bond buying program, and you have one point nine trillion coming out from the federal government. So I don't think you want to be a hero and step in front of that that that fire hose.
But eventually that is gonna wind itself down, and when it does, I think there'll be much better opportunities to short the market. The market is going to have a big move here, driven by liquidity. I do worry about what the other side of that liquidity looks like. So you did say that the the markets will be higher by the end of the year, but it's not going to be a straight line up there. There could be some sort of pullback, some sort of correction. What does
that look like? How big? I think that's I think that's driven by a couple of things. I think it's driven by increasing yields and pressure on valuations, and you know, a typical move in the market, though you just had one on NAS deck, is there usually is volatility peak to trough in a given year. Now you just had about an eleven pullback on NAVS deck. You haven't had that same level pullback on the S and P. A little more volatility as rates move up would not surprise me.
But I think at the end of the day, a stronger economy and stronger earnings are going to overcome that for for for this year, for this year. So I gotta ask you about bitcoin. I know you recently wrote a column, uh, and I'm just curious I think about you know, if you look at bitcoin, I'm just looking at It's already up almost this year. It's on a tear. How do we need to be smart about it as investors? How do you see it? I think what's funny about bitcoin is it was really designed to kind of go
around the existing financial system. But now the existing financial system is actually co opted in, right. So Bank of New York is going to start offering digital currency services for custody. People like MasterCard and PayPal and Square are incorporated incorporating it into their payment networks. So Wall Street is kind of voted, and they voted that that bitcoin is is here to stay and going to be the
cryptocurrency of choice. I do think people like it right now because they see it as a store of value. There's a finite amount of bitcoin that's ever going to be created. Why now there's about eighteen point six million created right now, The finite amount is going to be about twenty one million. And I think people are nervous about as we talked about earlier, because of liquidity and all this money that's being being put out by the government.
People are looking for stores of value, and I think people are are using bitcoin as a store of value kind of like they did it with gold in the past. It's not a great transaction mechanism because it's actually pretty slow, So I'm not sure if it's going to become like the free day thing you used to buy your groceries, et cetera. But I think there is value in its scarcity, and I think it's your to stay that value. Though. Do you think it stays that store of value? Just
got about twenty seconds. Do is it stay up near these levels or do you think it's actually headed a lot higher because of that? You know, we're not going to just see an endless amount of it just quickly. I think over the next several years, it's definitely gonna move higher. I think it's up eleven times in the last twelve months, so it would not be surprised me to see a substantial pullback. But where do I think it is three years from now? I think it's higher
than fift it's a right now. Okay, that's fair. Hey, Randy, be well, Um, thank you and stay safe. Randy Watt's chief investment Strategies at O'Neil Global Advisors with US from Miami. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Business Week. Download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube. Sar to Bloomberg Global News.