Methane Hunters Race to Change Course of Global Warming

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg clovel News. Well, let's not get get to Dr Ian Lustbader. He joins us each and every Friday right here on Bloomberg Business Week. He's clinical professor of medicine at n y U Langnes Medical Center, joining us on the phone today. Uh, Dr LUs Better, always

great to be able to check in with you. I want to start by hitting on boosters because this is this is the story of the day when it comes to COVID. Uh are you already starting to plan for your booster shot? You're a doctor at at n y U. You were among the first to be able to get a COVID vaccine. Are you going to get your boosters in? Yes, I'm not in the absolute first group of Happy Priday, by the way, Tim and Carroll's only a lot of

challenges out there at many levels, Delta certainly one of them. Yes, I think healthcare professionals, anyone who got vaccinated eight months ago will be on the list, not first on the list, first on the list now. And we're already writing orders for the booster shots which will begin next week for solid organ transplants. And you know, suppressed patients, uh, people on chemotherapy, etcetera, etcetera. And there are a number of patients who feel that they are you know, compromised HIV

patients or diabetes or patients or the other conditions. We're just gonna have to see who, um, you know, the distribution of that. But September twentieth at least appears to be the next traunch of people who would get vaccinated, assuming all goes smoothly, uh, And those would be people

who are eight months out, like healthcare providers. And there's definitely a lot of trouble, a lot of anxiety with those doctors and colleagues some of whom have gotten breakthrough delta in sections, and and people who are concerned about their immunity that is beginning to drop. No, So Dr LUs bader Um first all, so good to have you

back with us. And in terms of people who are immune compromised, do they have to get a note or something from the doctor in order to get to be at the top of the list, at the front of the line. Here when it comes to a booster, at this point we have to place an order for that booster or so they do. They have to request it and meet certain criteria. At this point, I think by September twentieth that will be you know, again, depending on

how it all goes another trunche of people. Now there are people who do go to pharmacies and and are able to get another booster shot. It's certainly not not protocol uh, and there's probably no real need for that. You know, the immunity doesn't drop off a cliff, it's

just a slow gradual decline. My my analogy is that your your vaccine is like a sponge and delta COVID is like a puddle, and you get splashed with this puddle and the bigger your sponge is, the more likely you're going to be able to sop up all of

that virus. Over time, your sponge shrinks a bit, And what the boosters really do is make the sponge big again, so that when you are exposed to DELTA or COVID so far variants, it absorbs it so your body does not have to fight off as big an infection, so that sponge doesn't just disappear, at least in most patients. So that's the rationale for why a booster is indicated at this time. One thing that I've been struggling with is just thinking about the that we've had here in

the United States getting vaccine. Wary people going to get vaccinated, and even those folks who were hesitant who did get vaccinated, are they going to end up getting a third shot? And to what extent does that change the way that the pandemic is spreading Because we have these metrics right unvaccinated, vaccinated with one shot, vaccinated with two shots, And I wonder how many of those folks who are vaccinated with two shots are actually going to go out and get

that booster shot. If the CDC indeed recommends it, You're you're absolutely right. I think, you know, it's a very dynamic process. I think all we can do is educate people. I think there is still some vaccine fear, although as Delta rampages through unvaccinated people and doctors and hospitals are overwhelmed, and people see that on the news, they begin to realize, say, wait a minute, even though I may be young and healthy, I could get Delta. And they certainly can and probably

will at the rate we're going. Um, So I think, um, we will see more of those eighties people who are eligible getting vaccines. But at the end of the day, UM, you can only protect people who are willing to get protected, and I think for frontline healthcare workers as one example, or you know, compromise people if they're willing to take

a booster. I think that's reasonable to do. We've certainly seen in Israel and other countries that certainly the fiser shot that protection does begin to diminish, and people are hospitalized who are vaccinated, and some people say, well, why should I get a vaccine. You know, if it begins to lose efficacy but it does provide protection, then that does really reduced severe disease, and so help me out some really basic questions. If I got the Fiser vaccine initially,

that's the booster. I have to get same thing for maderna or can you mix and match? So at this point, yes, you're supposed to get the same shot. We don't really have a lot of data and mixing and matching. Certainly with J and J, there's a lot of strong data that taking the MR and a vaccine after that really gives you a boost, and so I think likely any

vaccine would provide a significant boost. But at this point the consensus is to give the same vaccine for the third if you've done the MR nas can I ask you also for those individuals that ultimately get hospitalized UM and aren't vaccinated, are we better in terms of new treatments for dealing with them? What are the treatments that everybody's getting in the hospital unvaccinated but down with COVID. Yeah,

thank you for asking that. I mean, I think we really should have made a better national effort for treatment.

We've been very focused and appropriately so an early diagnosis and vaccination, but the problem is that's not ad and so we are still giving people steroids and blood centers and monoclonal antibodies, which do seem to help, But we really should have made a better effort on anti virals and other medications possible off the shelf, medications that there's some studies on, and really been aggressive in doing those studies so that we can or for treatment to those

ninety million people who are not yet vaccinated and who likely will get delta. Dr los Bader. Earlier this week we spoke to Dr William Haseltine. He's written many books, U started companies UM and he his latest book is called c v PTSD COVID related post traumatic stress Disorder.

And I'm wondering what you're seeing in the medical community right now, what you're seeing among patients who aren't necessarily haven't necessarily gotten COVID or have recovered from COVID, but have some sort of PTSD related to the pandemic that we've been going through since March. Him, You're completely right. I think we are underestimating the troum. The two Americans UM they were anxious and feeling vulnerable about DELTA and COVID,

initially confused about vaccinations, are hesitant. I think what's going on geo politically is I'm seeing patients over the last few days that are very anxious and said about global politics. So I think we're seeing a lot of PTSD coming together, uh and rattling a lot of America, and certainly the doctors who were on the front lines in the i c u S treating patients, watching them die because of poor you know, treatment availability at the time, and now

seeing a surge of more cases. Um, everyone is really traumatized, even our front line, you know, doctors and first responders who you think of as calm no matter what. I think everyone is having a toll taken on them and I think we need to acknowledge that. And uh, you know, people are for guidance and there are some conflicting data and mixed messages which I think stressed people out as well. Yeah, that's all. We definitely see it a lot within our community. Hey, Ian,

thank you so much. Dr Ian LUs Bet, our clinical professor of Medicine at n y U Land going on the phone in New York. Right now, cases are topping two million globally, depths passing four point war million. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, Carol Master, Tim Stanevik in our Interactive Broker Studio. Gotta say when I saw this this morning, I tweeted the story out with the line, now what it is Today's Bloomberg Big Take. It's a most round on the Bloomberg terminal. It is uh in

Bloomberg Business Week. It's about the methane hunters racing to change the course tim of global warming. We'll joining us now is Joel Weber, editor for Bloomberg Business Week. He's on the remote from Massachusetts. Also in the studio with us, Zach Myder, Projects, an investigations reporter for Bloomberg News. Joel frackers in America's largest oil field. They are letting massive

amounts of natural gas spill into the atmosphere. But the methane hunters are finding where that is leaking and helping plug the potent greenhound greenhouse gas. Yeah. So to Carol's point, now what, but there there's a little bit of a hopeful quality to this story, um, which is that you know, methane is terrible stuff, and it is leaking at unfortunate rates, but we now have technology that allows us to actually see where the weeks are and we can actually you know,

handle it, handle it and fix it. And you know, if we have the willpower for this and not so long, we can actually eliminate a lot of this problem. But you know, there's some keywords in there, UM that you know are are going to be sources of tension in the years to come. UM. But all this reporting goes back to Zach and in his interest in and methane. So, so Zach walk us through UM how you how you kind of found out about this area of coverage and

then how you went about telling the story. Yeah. Sure, I mean what was special to me about UM that this question about methane emissions is that it's really one of the UM big opportunities that the world has to make a difference in the pace of climate change quickly, because methane is only in the air for about ten years UM. And so if you were to do something to radically reduce how much we're putting in the air within a generation, you'd actually have a tangible effect on

the pace of global warming. Something like a third of the warming we anticipate over the next couple of decades could actually be eliminated just by dealing with the methane problem. Well, so we always talking about carbon emission, so give me some context, um, Zach, in terms of methane, how much are we putting out there? Because as you say, ten years, that to me, I can get my head around that and maybe how we could get ahead of it. Give

me some perspective that how much we're putting out right now? Sure, So carbon is the biggest cause of human cause global warming. Um, it's the biggest chunk. But methane is the second biggest chunk, and it's responsible for maybe a quarter of what's happened so far. But so it's really significant. And um, it comes from a lot of things. It's it's not like carbon comes from burning stuff, which we mostly do on

purpose because it's useful to generate power or whatever. A lot of methane is like just kind of a byproduct. Cows burp it out, it comes from landfills. There's all these ways that it gets in the atmosphere. And one of the biggest is oil and gas. We've talked about with food waste, that all of the food waste and garbage dumps of that creating methane. So, Zach, what what is the economic cost not just not for the climate change, but the economic incentive for companies to take control of this.

You have companies like VP actually blogging about this, that's right. So that's another exciting opportunity about methane is that um in the oil and gas industry, the methane comes from natural gas that just spills into their most either accidentally or on purpose, and so that's a product that the companies go otherwise sell. So in many cases, if they plug certain leaks, they could actually get a positive return

because they could sell more gas. And so there's a lot of opportunity there for relatively low cost or even profitable changes to to plug the leaks. So, Zach tell us about some of the characters that you you discovered, methane hunters. Yeah, the methane hunters, because that that's where it gets colorful. Yes, So I wrote around for a few days, uh, in in West Texas with Sharon Wilson, who's who's a true daughter of Texas and uh, you know,

she's got this hundred thousand dollar camera. She she works for environmental activist nonprofit and she kind of drives around looking for you know, looking for oil wells that are that are spilling this stuff into the atmosphere, taking pictures and and and Uh. She's she's really funny, you know. She she loves to collect stories about her hostile encounters with oil field workers, who she always refers to as

Jethrow um and um and uh. And then we also spent some time with the folks at Environmental Defense Fund, who are kind of doing something similar to what she's doing, but they have a much more kind of cooperative view of the of the industry. They're trying to sort of find facts that are useful to help the oil companies actually clean up their messes. I'm wondering about about Zach, where the government comes into this and like what rules and regulations are adhered to or not adhere to. What

is the regulatory environment around this. Yeah, it sounds to me like if there were stuff spilling out into the environment, like don't do that. Well, yeah, but there's basically not really any relevant regulation. Um. It's kind of a new thing just in the past ten years that people really focused on this issue. Methane isn't poisonous, it's not gonna, you know, kill your dog, and so you know, it

wasn't It's kind of like carbon. It's not something that we historically thought of as a pollutant until recently, and so all that we're seeing here, all the efforts that we're seeing in the Permian are almost all uh, they're private people like E. D F Mon doing the monitoring and their companies voluntarily trying to clean stuff up. But there it really isn't being totally driven by a government crackdown. So um. There's an accompanying quick take video that's also um,

pretty mesmerizing stuff to watch. And one of the things that stuff stuck out to me and that Zack was just how much um uh communities that have fracking um happening are affected by by methane keeping anything. And there's this amazing shot of um, how flammable uh even even water can be from from the sink. Um. So so just talk to us about the collateral damage that a lot of people end up facing with with methane links. So, you know, methane is natural gas. Well essentially it's the

main component of natural gas. So you know, whenever we're talking about methane emissions from the oil and gas industry, it's you know, it's a flammable feel, you know, um and uh. But the I think what's kind of pernicious about methane, especially in the Permian basin, which is where we were. It's it's this incredible source of just a

giant amount of methane. Is there really aren't a lot of people living there, you know, um, just numbers wise, a lot of these these events where something spewing into the air happens miles and miles and miles away from any humans, and so number one, it's not easy to even for the companies who own these assets to even know what's going on. Yeah, that's a good point. Listen, there's so much in this story. Um, I put it

out on Twitter. I'll put it out again, or go to Bloomberg dot com business Week dot com to check it out. Such Minor, thank you so much. Good to have you in studio, Projects and Investigations reporter here at Bloomberg News and our thanks to Joe Weber, editor of Bloomberg Business Week. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to the Friday edgis in Bloomberg Business Week.

What a week it's been. It has been a lot going on on certainly the geopolitical front with Afghanistan. A lot going on in the markets, and we are continuing to watch China. As we've been talking about. Another day, another step in taming big tech overnight, China passing legislation setting out tougher rules for how companies handle user data. It's a move pushing forward its campaign to really her

big text influence. Dexter Tip Roberts is a voice we've talked to in the past when it comes to what's going on in China. He's Mansfield Fellow at the University of Montana, author former Bloomberg Business Week China Bureau chief. His book The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, The Work of the Factory in the Future of the World. We've talked to him about that. He joins us once again on the phone from Montana. Hey, Tiff, so good to have you here again on Bloomberg Radio China. Help us make

sense of the big picture here. Okay, well, Carol, it's great to be back again. Um. So, I think what we're seeing is obviously real efforts to reign in a chech sector that has been relatively unregulated. So we're seeing the efforts, as you mentioned to put new controls on the use of data. Uh, there's anti monopoly efforts that are happening as well. We see a tremendous amount of power in a few corporate hands in China when you look at the tech. But beyond that, there's a real

ideological element to what's happening. And as we've seen now um with a with the speech that the party secretary Jen Thing made just a few days ago, a lot of it is tied up as well in trying to deal with growing wealth, inequality, and almost this perception at the top that uh having too much wealth is unseemly in some way. What is the endgame for Jing Ping? What is he and what does he want the Chinese

Communist Party to accomplish? Here? Well, I think it's a tremendously ambitious plan to really create a new I would call it a new economic model what I've been calling politics and command economy in a nod back in the mal days who came up with politics in command, they really UH envision an economy which is much more government directed and supported, one in which the private sector is

far more answerable to the state. And Uh, yes, the goes about trying to make money and earn profits and satisfy shareholders like in the rest of the world, but also very importantly has a key role to play in the society, including by the way, supporting the Chinese Communist Party. How do they do that, Tiff? I mean, how do they a private sector far more answerable to the state. Got that, it's clear, But how do you do that and then keep investors interested and comfortable about investing in

China entities? Chinese entities, We've seen Chinese A d R s pull back in a big way. Here in the United States, we see Hong Kong in a bear market. How do you how do you do both of those and do them well? Well? I think the the easy answer is, uh, there is no answer. We I mean, it's entirely possible that they can't pull this off. I believe um as you say, there's huge concern already in

the markets about what they're doing. We've seen a whole series of founders of these tech companies resign in the last few months. We've seen obviously the markets inside China

as well take a serious battering. Uh So the big question is, yeah, how do you how do you continue to how do you continue to push that much more ideological control over the the economy, and at the same time still have investors who want to put money in, and at the same time have innovative entrepreneurial companies that that feel confident, you know, we're working on trying to

grow their companies. Does it seem like the Chinese Communist Party actually cares whether or not Chinese A d R s do well in the stock market or Chinese companies are valued highly by shareholders. Well, it does matter, because they continue to see the importance of the private sector. And and of course the big technology companies are a big part of that in supporting the economy. They are the biggest job creators and employers already, um they should be,

and they have been the biggest source of innovation. So Beijing really does still want to They don't want to. They don't want to spook global capital, they don't want to spook their own entrepreneurs too much. But at the same time, as I said, they have this very you know, seemingly contradictory plan to try to make them far more answerable to the state. So I think they do care, but it's not it's not going to be easy. Tiff So, as we mentioned Bloomberg Business Week, China be your chief.

You understand this country so well through its transitions, UM and you know from from having their front seat to it all. I always think about our audience, UM and the investors that are out there. So so what does that mean? How do we need to be thinking about China? Who is a country that does long term plans? So

what is the future China? Yeah? Well, I think first of all, uh, you know you anyone who has him, is that this is a short term effort mainly focused on regulating uh and as all until now, uh you know I not adequately regulated tech sector is in for a reude surprise. This is gonna keep going. Uh. We will continue to see surprises that you know, moves that, at least in our perspective, our anti market and could hurt the Chinese economy. Uh. So I think I think

we can expect this to keep on going. I think for international investors, it's clear that there's certain sectors that UM are probably not going to be as aren't going to do. They shouldn't be focusing our efforts. They're going forward given what the Chinese government has told us. So obviously, private education probably private healthcare, real estate possibly is going

to be ranged in as well. I think instead companies should be looking at those areas that are clearly top priorities for the party in the government, so you know, green energy uh uh and right uh, you know, modernizing agriculture tip, and these various areas that are very important to that. Tiff, really quick twenty seconds. Does this slow the rise of China as we've known it? I really do think that it does slow the rise of China.

They're they're also facing huge demographic headwinds, it's going to get much worse than the coming years, and just cracking down on the private sector at the same time, it's just gonna make things tougher and will slow the economy. Thank you, Thank you. We have been looking forward to getting some time with you, uh and getting you to weigh in on all of this, and hopefully you'll come back real soon. Tiff Roberts Mansfield Fellow at the University

of Montana, former Bloomberg Business Week China Bureau chief. His book The Myth of Chinese Capitalism. Highly recommend that you check it out. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg quick takes. Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. We have been keeping an eye on Tesla. We did see an earlier rally in the shares today and I just want to pull it up because I think they pretty much run out of steam. I think it was only oh, it's back up of that one point one

percent here. Um. This was following the company's AI Day where Elon muskinville a humanoid robot to take over boring work. Yes, folks, it's Elon's world that we're definitely living in. It was it, though, an actual humanoid robot. It wasn't well. Joining us now to give us all the details from AI day and why Tesla is doing this and also what Tesla is thinking about when it comes to chips is Dana Hole, technology reporter for Bloomberg News. She joins us on the

phone from San Francisco. Dan, it's always great to talk with you, especially when we get to talk about Tesla. Let's just lead with with Optimus here, because I think that's what everybody is talking about today. This is a humanoid robot. What does Elon musk say it can do? Even though he didn't show off a real version or even prototype of it right. I mean, to de clear, there was like a human dress a roo. I mean,

it's kind of hilarious robot. Um, you must need some need some points about, you know, the need for universal basic income, the future of labor, how the robot could be trained to do sort of menial, boring tasks. UM. I mean my my thought was like, Okay, he's designing robots so that he can like displace all of his workers at his factor pace. I you know, you know, it wasn't entirely clear how the robots fits into the

company's clean energy mission. But you know, this is clearly a recruiting event, and you know he's trying to make the point that we're not just a car company now, we're also a robotics company. Down I have to say, we're showing the video for our YouTube channel so they can all see it as well. Um, it looks more like he's auditioning for all that jazz or something like. It's just it's bizarre world, is it not. Yeah, And

I think what's sort of sad is that. Um. I mean as a as an event, you know, the event was actually very technical and it really cltured all of these engineers who were on has of Lotto Pilots team talking about what they've learned as they tried to improve their self driving software and the challenges that they faced, and their efforts to kind of design a new ship and a super computer, and how they're training their neural networks and using simulation and have a thousand pots and strong,

you know, dated labeling team, and they really they had all these other people who were not Elon speaking and it was really kind of a cool thing to see, you know, other people on stage talking vary in depth about what they're working on. But then you had this robot come out or this you know, fake probot come out that kind of sole the show. And so now everyone's talking about this you know, robot prototype and not the presentation. And I think he really shot himself on

the foot. I mean, it's just just supposed to be the one more thing thing. It kind of took the thunder out of what they actually talked about during the technical presentation. Well, let's talk about some of that stuff, Danna, because as you and Ludlow right over the course of several presentations, Tesla highlighted the progress that it's making on semiconductors that have been designed in house to power the

brains used for its advanced driver assistance features. You guys write that if Tesla follows through on this and licensing it's tech, it could end up competing with the likes of Nvidia and other suppliers of chips to the auto industry. What's the timeline look like on something like this as auto manufacturers, in addition many other companies struggle to get their hands on chips. Yeah, well, I mean, there wasn't

there wasn't a firm timeline. Um. But but I think it's just part of Testa's overall strategy of bringing everything in house. You know. I think that, you know, instead of relying on suppliers for chips, they're trying to make their own. And they said, you know, and and it's still, you know, far away from actually being in high volume production. It's not clear he's fabricating it. But just the fact that they're even doing it, I think is exciting the people.

And you know, and I mean, again, everything the Testa does, you know, Musk always kind of sets out aggressive timelines and it takes a while for them to actually come to fruition. But you know, I think they were just trying to give a flavor to people that like, listen, we're really we're trying to bring all this hardware in house and do it on our own. Danna, how do you you know this company so well? You know Elon must so well, and you've seen the promises, the things

that don't happen or the timeline that changes. Then ultimately am you know this is a car company that everybody else in the industry has been looking at, uh and upping their game as a result. How do you kind of strategize or think about the news and that AI event yesterday into terms of what it will ultimately really

mean for tests the longer term. I mean, I think that you know, Testless mission is to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy, and they have clearly done that on the car side, because they are very well known for making electric cars. They pushed everyone else to the auto

industry to make electric cars. But now they've kind of got mission creep where you know, they've got these energy products that they don't talk about that much, including the solar roof and of the megapac and auto build Auto bit or um. You know, the company's corporate website now features the big batteries for utilities. But then lastly they're like, oh,

and we're also a robotics company. So I just feel like you want us trying to capture the best of the brightest talents, and he's like an octopus who has the tentacles and many many things. I think the question is can they keep can they keep working on these additional projects while executing on the main projects they have.

They have a lot going on right now with these additional factories and Austin and Berlin and these products like the cyber truck and the Suni truck that have not come out yet, and so you know, is showing the world that you also have a robotic unit. I mean that's cool, but like, what does that mean for the cars? I mean I didn't I felt like what was missing

with some time with all together. I guess he did say that when needs you point out in the story that uses the eight cameras that are used in the full self driving to conduct itself right, just in the last ten seconds we have right, Yes, there there is a bigger vision there. I just don't know if it was super articulating. Right, totally makes sense. Danna Hoole technology reporter for Bloomberg News joining us on the phone from San Francisco. You can follow her on Twitter at Dana

Hole as well. Yeah but you let me drive? No no, no home an please, I'll drivel. I want to drive, drive baby question. This is the drive to the globe. Thanks well, dry us Dawn on Bloomberg Radio. It's definitely a wacky Friday. And tim months it wasn't. I didn't even know what month it is, you know, like counting on fingers where it's August twenty, we are counting. Who

needs a calculator? We're counting on fake fingers. Um, if I count on my fingers, I would have to count higher in terms of those major market averages, we're Doug, just talk about it. We are tim near our best levels of the session. We certainly are. Let's get right to the drive to the clothes with probably Ram portfolio manager at American Century Investments. It has two forty billion dollars in assets under management. Probably, it's great to have you back on the show. How are you doing well?

Thanks for having me help us make sense of the week. That was because if we take a look at where we are today, even though and we just heard from Doug. The do, the SMP, and the NASTAC are all in the green and NASTAC you've been hired to the tune at one point two percent. If we looked at the last five days, we're in the red. The dolls down more than one percent, the SMP, fivn or down more than half a percentage point. How would you characterize the

volatility that we saw? You know, um, and I'm going to point to the University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment. Now that was a tough number. It was down thirteen and a half percent month on month and actually looked the same as April twenty, when we were right in the thick of COVID and before anybody had been vaccinated. And I'd like to borrow something the chief economist of the New Michigan Survey had to say, which is he

called it a mix of reason and emotion. Reason because yes, the data variant has been a concern and what should have been a robust reopening has slowed down some on the margin, and so we're seeing some of that in the numbers. And then of course on the supply side, we have the chip shortages, labor shortages, we can talk about all those and then the emotion aspect of it. People were exuberant about being able to get out and do their things, get back into offices, and that balloon

has been popped a little bit. So I would call this week, you know, similar to what Richard Curtain called it, which is a mix of reason and emotion. You know, people see the numbers. It's obviously not peak COVID, but you know, there are some concerns on the edge to feel like probably there is Main Street and then there's Wall Street. Because here we are at our hears of the session and it feels like we are shrugging off

so much. Once again we have said, man, I wish I had a buck for every time we said dip fires today and yesterday. So how do you rash realies that gap between what some people are feeling on on Wall Street versus what some are feeling on Main Street. Um, you know, I mean I would like to go back to kind of the reason with its emotional discussion here as well. Right, So if you you know, step back,

Carol and look at the numbers. There's been so much stimulus in the system in the last year and a half that GDP is back to pre COVID levels, even though that's variable, right, different parts of the economy look a little bit different. But then we've done that with five point seven million lesser jobs. Now for the people that are that had to step away from the job market, that's a negative. But then somehow, you know, we've increased productivity.

Maybe we just work better from home. Who even knows. But what has happened is, you know, the economy is back at the levels of pre COVID and it continues to march wrongly, especially because of the productivity gains we're seeing with the digital transformation and everybody has embraced it, and that's probably what you're seeing. The two sides of the coin, if you will, Well, one thing, I just say that to me like it's blowing my mind. Right, we are back to pre COURVID GDP levels with five

point seven million fewer workers. So it makes me wonder our company is reassessing do we really need these workers? Well, that is a concern. What here's the thing, right, So if you assume a growing economy, then we are going to need people. Now. The other side is productivity means doing more with less, and that's less resources, including people, but a growing economy will absorb workers, and we are

seeing that this is variable. If you are a tech worker, they just cannot find enough experts and AI your machine learning. But then there are other parts of the economy, especially lower weight jobs, that are struggle thing. And then the other thing, Carol, that you know, you and I can appreciate is uh, school openings are variable. Right, it's go back to school, But then what happens is once they get there, if there is one COVID patient in the school,

then the school shuts down. And that has become a problem, especially for women getting back in the workforce, and a lot of them have just sat out. You know, it's a labor participation problem more than because there are plenty of jobs people companies are looking for people. It's just you know, some people cannot get into some reason, and some people are just not today not qualified. They probably want to go from macro to micro and get some of the stocks that you're keeping a close eye on,

and why you are bullish on those. Let's start with Square, the company just weeks ago announcing that it would acquire After Pay for thirty three billion dollars. Why Square, well in the square has been one of those stocks that has two distinct ecosystems and they just have a product design ethos that somehow elevates products into not just network effects, you know, which we've come to expect in tech, but

almost vitality. And why after pay they pay thirty three billion dollars for this Australia based business, more global now by now pay later, which is you know, pay back

in four installments of six installments for installments. And here's the attraction, right, there are two distinct ecosystems, very successful, each on their own right, the seller and the cash app ecosystem, and this gives them a way to bridge the two um and the way and why why after pay and after pay you know, just we're serves the younger demographic pointed out that the average age is thirty three. It's mostly feebale. And then they are also a marketing

lead mechanism. So one of the stats that I saw that blew my mind away is that you when someone comes into the after pay app, the seller can expect eight times lead conversion um, you know, compared to a Google Search lead. And then there's no credit risk to the seller and then they get a list in lift in average value. So and then the consumers like it too because it's an app that opens up new merchants

to them. So it's completely complimentary as well. You know, get squared to go more international, more quickly, and more importantly, bring the two ecosystems together. And with companies you know that have a data d n A, that's just huge because they see every transaction and you know, there are so many other products that they can sell into. This just got about twenty seconds here. You also like Nike, well known brand, it's a eighteen percent so far this year.

Just quickly, what's your thesis here, Nike? You know, just a very misunderstood digital transformation play. And they picked up what's called a triple double in seventeen and it sounds like an NBA game. So if they sit two types innovation,

two times to speed, two times direct to consumer. So this is basically an app play of company that has gone from selling through department stores to selling direct to their consumer and then having it so well done that most of the they've really cut out the middlemanute percent of I mean a tot of their business. So that's the story there, and that's whys of feeling well two

names that are certainly familiar to our audience. Great to break it down with you and also talk some of the macro macro outlook here Proba rom She's portfolio manager of American Century Investments and her fund, the Century American Century Focused Dynamic Growth Fund, is up just about in the past past one year, and it is consistently beat most of its peers in the past five years. 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 search Bloomberg Global News