Preparing for the Next Pandemic

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. A few headlines we just want to mention, uh in terms of COVID number of recorded COVID nineteen fatalities surpassing five million. As the world continue to roll out the biggest vaccination program in history, some seven billion shots have been administered across the globe and effort that has really helped to slow the pace

of deaths. And here in the US we're set to surpass a new milestone in vaccination efforts. Today of adults will have received at least one dose of the vaccine. So that's some good news. Yeah, that that feels like

a pretty significant number. We saw Maderna, though under a lot of rusher, down almost close to seven percent at it's lows here after the Covin nineteen shot, though failed to win US regulatory authorization for teenagers, the US FDA saying it needs more time to consider the biotech company shots in this age group, as the agency moles the risk of a rare heart inflammation. All right, let's get to it. A go to voice for us on the

pandemic over the past eighteen nineteen months and counting. Dr Sandra Galia, he's doing a professor at Boston University School of Public Health. He's got a new book at the Contagion Next Time, because folks, there's gonna be a next time. He joins us again on the phone from Boston. The book is called The Contagion Next Time. The other stuff I just added in Dr Galia. Great to have you here with Tim and myself. How are you? Um? Well, thank your girl, Thank you and you and Tim for

having me on again. Well, it's good to have you here. You always help make sense of the deluge of headlines that come out when it comes to the pandemic and the vaccine um. In terms of kids getting the vaccine, are you hopeful? Does it feel like we're moving forward, that that's going to be a significant accomplishment maybe the next few months. Yeah, I am hopeful. I think it's

a step in the right direction. And as we've discussed before, and as we know, kids have been at low risk of getting COVID and low risk of being sick from COVID. Having said that, they represent a group that potentially could have a symptomatic COVID and pass it on to others. So having kids vaccinated first of all protect tickets themselves, of course, but I think also reduces the number of people in the population who are susceptible to COVID and

reducing transmission fundamentally. Where we want to get to right now when you were mentioning in the intro but of adults having at least one shot, is having few and fewer and fewer people who are susceptible to the virus so that the virus stops transmitting. Given that we've seen hesitancy among US adults for many months about getting a vaccine, do you think that parents will be hesitant to give this vaccine to kids if, like you said, kids have

shown that they are not as affected by COVID. Well, I suppose there are two ways of looking at that. I think undoubtedly we're going to see some hesitancy, but we also are much more are accustomed to having kids be vaccinated. Obviously, there are many mandatory pediatric vaccines that kids have to show proof of before going to school, so I'm hoping that that will offset some of the incitancy.

I'm worried that the vaccine for kids comes at a time when we've been talking seemingly endlessly about vaccine hesitancy, which undoubted little color some of the reaction to vaccinating kids. But I think all parents and parents listening need to know that the FDA takes safety enormously, sues for the first thing they look at, and these vaccines are safe and effective for kids. Hey, Dr Gilia, what about when

it comes to mixing and matching? And people who listen regularly know that this is a conversation, Caroline, I have had a lot both on air and constantly. We're still trying to make sense of it. Vaccines. What do we need to know about potentially getting a moderna booster and you know, vice versa. Yeah, the data are not not as sharp as one would like them to be. But more or less, we know that mixing and matching is

actually fine. There's some question as to what are not actually Mixing and magic might be better than getting the same kind of vaccine, but I'm not entirely sure that that's that's certainly right, I got modern at the first time, and I got a booster of mittern as well. Um. But I think fundamentally what matters is anybody who's all rule for a booster should get a booster. And it doesn't really matter which one of these vaccines one gets.

We we've actually been quite lucky, as we've discussed previously on your show, that these vaccines are actually excellent. They really are highly applicationous vaccines with excellent safety profiles, and that that's actually a remarkable achievement, right, It certainly has. It does feel like it's helped us in our fight against this pandemic um, because we need to be ready for the next time. And you write about this the contagion next time, I mean it's going to happen. Correct.

This may have been a first for many of us in terms of a generation of understanding what a pandemic is like, but there will be more. There will be And we've had many closenesses. I mean, stars one which was about ten years ago, was was an extraordinarily close miss, and that that was a virus which was perhaps less transmissible but potentially more lethal then Source copey Do, which is the virus behind the COVID nineteen. So the odds are it will happen, and it's not a matter of if,

but a matter of when. So it seems to me like now is the time for us to start thinking about what do we need to do to mitigate the next pandemic? What do we need to do well in the same breath as I mentioned and that vaccines have been excellent, They've been efficacious and safe, and I think we definitely need to do work on making sure we have rapid availability of vaccines and detection of pathogens and all that. I argue in the book that that's not enough.

And the reason I argued that is because the consequences of COVID were fundamentally social consequences, economic consequences that reflect things that we were doing poorly before COVID hit, and I argue that we should tend to those things just to give one concrete example, we as a country are live sicker, shorter lives than do all other high income countries, meaning we have higher prevalence of things like diabetes, hyppertension, and those are actually the conditions that made us vulnerable

to COVID, because COVID has a higher severity among people with underlying conditions, and that those are the people have been a greater risk of dying. So we should be looking at what is it that causes those diseases? Why are we at higher prevalence than other high income countries and dealing with them now, not when we have another pandemic? Dr Galia, are you optimistic here? Help help? As Carol mentioned, you don't seem to have woken up on the wrong

side of the bed. I'm just being cynical today, but I just bring it out there. I just don't see I I don't see I don't see evidence yet of a shift in American public health following this pandemic. I am going to be optimistic because I prefer alternative Okay. I actually think that that it is a good time to have hope, that that we are paying attention to issues that we should have been paying attention to years and decades ago. Now will we or will we not? Well?

I think it behooves us to have the conversations that pushes us forward. Colleague recently said we are at the moment of a renaissance of these ideas, and I actually think that captures it beautifully. I think we are at the moment where we are realizing that unless we tend to some fundamentals in our world, the next pandemic will hit and we'll hit us just as hard, it's not harder.

So the moment is now. If we don't tender these things now, I'm not sure when we will, And frankly, if another pandemic, kids will be sitting ducks and will deserve the consequences that come with it. So let's talk about health care, something you know so well, and you guys there at Boston University, you know you are are educating the next generation who will be figuring out wellness

health medical policies for years to come. How do we change the system that is so entrenched on dealing with you when you're sick versus really thinking about keeping you well. I think you're captured it well. Fundamentally, we want to orient our system to reward providers to keep people well rather than to treat people when they're sick. Now, there are many different ways of doing that, and we can get into the mittigridy of health policy, but I think

there are efforts moving in that regard. I had the privilege of conversation with the administrator of CMS Decenter for Medicaid and Medicare Services a few weeks ago, and I think she's committed to this idea to innovating programs in in that direction. And you are seeing it in a big health system. So organizations like Kaiser, for example, that are launching programs to incentivize their doctors to keep people healthy. None of us really like going to the doctor, right.

We actually want to be as healthy for as long as possible. But we have been going through a system where my incentive, which is just to stay healthy, is not the same as my doctors incentive, which is to have me sick so I can go see him as much as I can so that he can build and and that needs to change, and that needs to change so that we together see that our shared value is

staying healthy and living healthy, long lives. You really said that, now, Like that's interesting, right, I mean you actually went there that I mean, for give me. But the medical community benefits when we're sick, it does well. I mean, I don't think this tradition give you no I know, but people don't at least say it. And if if you talk to people within the medical community, doctors don't say right. Doctors don't say I'm a doctor and I'm saying it.

And I think that is a misalignment. And you know, I think doctors go into medical school to do the right thing. Doctors in the medical school to keep people healthy. But then of course we stream people through the ways in which we incentivize them and pay them. And then doctors are rational actors and they operate with in the system. So it requires system change. It requires us to accept

that collectively we want to stay healthy. That means we want our healthcare system to keep us healthy, and we want to invest in parks and clean air and drinkable water and safe food, all of which also keep us healthy. So if there's one lever you could pull that would make a big significant change in making sure that we're all focused on keeping people well. And just got about

forty seconds, what would that lever? What would be the lever you would, Paul, I think as at one lever, I would actually make sure that everybody in understand the next presidential debate, the presidential candidates are are grilled with questions about what are you going to do to keep people healthy? Not just to make them better when they're sick, because I think then we'll see true investment at federal, state, local levels in the structures that make us healthy. Yeah. Yeah,

it's tough. And you know what's hard though, too is for politicians. What matters for voters is how much money do I have? What am I taking home? Do I have a job, do I feel confident? What's the economy and the economic outlook? How much money each month is going to healthcare? Too? Um, Really thoughtful stuff. Dr Sandra Galia, thank you so much. Dean Boston University, School of Public Health on the phone from Boston. Check out his new book.

It is called The Contagion. Next time, this is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Well, eighteen billion dollars in emergency loans to eight seven countries to get through the pandemic. Got one and eighteen billions? Did I did I leave off a number? Oh? I must have ye, hundred and eighteen billions. Lot, it's a lot. And over understanding This

is the crux of this story. Over understanding or accounting of where much of it went en eighteen That's kind of what this story is about. I don't know where it went. How much are we talking about? All right, let's get to it. Jonius right now is the reporter who wrote at Bloomberg News, senior investigations writer Sheridan Process. She joins us on the phone in Washington, d c Um Sharon, tell us about this story. What's going on? Alright,

good afternoons. Yeah, it's it's fascinating. You know, this is public money, a hundred and eighteen billion dollars that the I M MAP said, Look, we're going to rush this out and try to help countries UH with the COVID pandemic, and we will get the money out in a hurry. But as the funds managing director said Christaline to George Eva, she said, do whatever it takes to fight the pandemic,

but make sure you keep the receipts. And the reason is because some of those countries have been required to audit how they spent that money afterwards, and now it's about eighteen months later, we're trying to figure out where it all went. Who is requiring them to audit? Be I Mass as a condition of dispersing more loans to some of these countries, has said, look, we'll give you more money if you can come up with an audit of how you spent that last COVID money that we

gave you. And so it's quite interesting to see the countries that have been required to do these audits. In fact, only forty countries, less than half out of the seven that received the loans in the first place, have been required to come up with an account of how they spent that money. Well, and what's interesting is that you know, um,

here we go. And it's just another reminder that during the pandemic listen, everybody was racing to understand what was going on, trying to figure out how to fix the situation. I mean, I was spending like a hundred dollars on ten and nine masks at the time, so I wasn't saving receipts. I mean, Joel, this is where we were blueboard business. We get our Joe Webber joining our conversation. I mean we were frantically trying to do things. Governments

were throwing money at things. I mean, there's going to be screw ups totally. But we're so far past that point where now we get to look back and second guess everything and try and find bids of dollars that walked out the door. So so she how far along into the audit process are all the countries that receives some of those some of this money. Well, very interestingly, we know that some of the countries have done the audits that were required. For example, Nigeria was the biggest

recipient of this money. They got three point for a billion dollars. They have done an audited apparently, but we don't have public access to it, so we don't know how much of their money got misspendam disappropriated. But what we do know is that in countries like Cameroon and Malawi and even Congo to DRC, we are starting to see the results of those audits being published and they're showing that hundreds of millions of dollars at least so

far has been misappropriated. Um Now, Transparency International has been trying to track this and figure out where this money went. And it's quite interesting that when you ask the I m F the about it, what they like to say is, well, we disburse the money and it went to those countries, and those countries they spent their money then on COVID relief, so you can't really trace it back to us and say it was ours at that point. So there's a little bit of a transparency issue in terms of who

is going to be accountable for this well. As Tim said to me during the break before you started problems in the Congo, yeah, I mean shocking well, and it's led, as you write share, it's led to former health minister being arrested in August, though he has publicly denied the allegation. Hey, Sherry, I'm wondering if there are any examples, any reporting of countries where the debits equal to credits, where things do add up. You know, we're not even getting that level

of this disclosure at this point. Um. There are certainly some countries that, especially in Latin Herricket, that have put in place, uh, these kind of websites where you supposedly are able to go on and see the contracts that were awarded and who got them. Um. This was also in some cases required by the NMF, and the im not says, well, if you include that universe of countries, then we actually do have quite a lot of accountability

out there. But the question of whether and when these audits of the misspending are ever going to be released is a good one. But you know that's said. I mean, the i m F had a very difficult dilemma at the time. I mean, this is one of the most difficult things that UM, that a relief effort can can ask is do you push the money out quickly, UM and try to just hope and make sure it gets to some of the right places, or do you take longer time to put state guards in place and then

in that event you also cause lives j loss. You know, I think the speed at which money was deployed I kind of joked earlier, but I mean I think it was imperative considering the circumstances. But there are also has been, you know, some precedent for this and that eventually would ask for receipts. Isn't that right, Jerry? This is the first time really that we are starting to actually see, um this this level of accountability you know, the IMF only released in t to put into place, uh, increased

safeguards for corrupt anti corruption measures. And so this is actually the first kind of global crisis in which we do have at least some attempts to try to figure out where that money has gone. And we're in general we've gotten better at tracking down um missing money for this. And you spoke with people at Transparency International, what what kind of perspective did they offer on on being able

to monitor this much money? You go, I'm missing? So what groups like Transparency International and also Human Rights Watch has been looking at this too. What they'd like to see is actually just a lot more accountability and transparency on the on the part of these governments in terms of their spending, what sorts of contracts and uh kind of you know, just the receipts and everything that that

the IMF had asked for to be available online. And the idea is that when you do that, then you have civil society in each of these countries to be able to follow up. You have media pressure, you have you know, various forces to be able to say, hey, look this money was misspent. That money, you know, looks like it went to the right place and that actually acts as as a as a checks and balances on

the whole system. Well, the whole point is, you know, and you hope for some change because ultimately we may joke about it and not surprised to see maybe you know, in some of these parts of the world developing in particular where there's you know, it's business as usual in terms of misallocation of funds or more severe. But people

are impacted as a result, right for sure. I mean what what Transparency International says is, you know, look, whenever, whenever you have this misallocation of money, it's it's not just about money, It's about lives, right, It's about less money for ventilators, less money for mobile hospitals and ppe and you know, it really comes down to people who just aren't getting the relief at the very bottom of

the food same. So what will change going forward if more money uh leaves the m f H to to you know, countries and need are there any safeguards that have been in place put in place now that weren't there a year ago? But the must says that they are as as a condition of some of the future loans that they're giving out their demanding more accountability, more transparency.

Of course, a lot of these countries, as we know, I mean they you know, even at the best of times, they really sort of lacked safeguards and they're spending uh you know, sometimes can't always be traced quite so easily. It doesn't mean there's necessarily, you know, embeddlement of people rushing off money in his bank account. Sure do we

gotta run, but it's uh definitely start. We should check out at Bloomberg dot com dot com shod in Process senior investigations report at Bloomberg News and our thanks to Joel Webber, editor a Business Week. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. You are listening to Bloomberg Business Week Carol Master along with Tim Stanovic and in Focus this

week Top twenty six meeting in Glasgow, Scotland. Top of mine for everyone there whether rivalry between the world's two biggest polluters who churn out, cough up you can pick your description some global admissions they are the big polluters? Will they both be agents of change? Our roadblocks in the process and he wrote about it in the Saturday column. Andy Brown is editorial director at Bloomberg New Economy. He

joins us on the phone from New York City. So, Andy, the rivalry between the US and China doesn't It's not just when it comes to technology, it's not just when it comes to physical might. It also comes to the green ambitions. So who is going to win here are

the incentives aligned? Well? The question, the question, I think is whether these two trees they're going to race each other to the top or to the bottom on climate Um, it's pretty obvious that we're not going to get decarbonization in the time frame that we needed and at scale which we needed without real collaboration, deep collaboration between the US and China. Um. They are, as you just noted, the world's two largest polluters account of all polluted pollute,

all emissions, China is by far the biggest China. China is has more emissions than all developing countries combined. These emissions are bigger than the next four countries combined, that's the United States, in Japan and Russia and so But also they have, you know, some of the best world's

best technologies at both ai superpowers. They have the biggest pools of research scientists, um, you know, and and it's hard to imagine that technologies that we need coming on stream at scale without the two of them working to go and not just on the technologies themselves, but on the regulations, on the standards, on the trading systems that

will be required. You know, it's like a bad family spat Andy, I think about this in that will they decide to kind of bridge their differences and understand that for the greater good of humanity? Really, when we're talking about climate change, will these two nations put aside their differences and do the right thing? Is their political will

geopolitical will? Is there? You know, a social consciousness of the two to really set it straight, especially when you've got the United States has flip flopped Trump versus maybe where we are today and prior to President Trump. And then you've also got China who is all in on coal still, but they're also very aggressive when it comes to green It's a great question. So we've we've got two examples of what happens when the U. S. And China decide to collaborate and what happens when they don't.

And the first was in two thousand and fifteen UM, and it was really deaf us diplomacy that got China on board UM disagreement to limit temperature increases to one point five degrees centigrade above UM pre industrial levels and well below two degrees. Without China UM, that agreement would not have occurred. That was that was a real triumph of American diplomacy UM. In two thousand and nine, which was the previous United Nations meeting um UH, this meeting

ended in complete disarray UM. China was the spoiler, and things got so bad that at one point China's chief Climate negotiated you don't want ends up raising his voice literally yelling President then President Obama UM for having a temerity to walk into a room where Chinese Premier Wa Jaba was having meetings where they believe that the Indians and the South Africans UM so and unfortunately the atmosphere is surrounding the Glasgow Scotland talks UM much care simply

is much more similar to Copenhagen UH than to Paris.

In fact, relations between these two countries have not been as bad UM since they were restored, All since they've stablished diplomatic relations UM you know, and and the the Americans are saying to the Chinese, listen, we've got lots of problems on the military, on the security, on trade, investment in song, but let's carve out this area um of climate change where we can collaborate for the good of humanity and the Chinese a basis saying, you know,

no way, you don't get to play with us. We don't you know, we're not gonna play play play ball with you on climate and and and and and be at loggerheads on everything else. Andy, what would constructive competition look like? Though, because you do raise in your column some important points about what China is doing right now in terms of production of solar panels and and actually

use of electric vehicles. Yeah. Well, I mean if you if you take some of the most promising technologies um around for instance, you know, green hydrogen or carbon capture and storage. A lot of these technologies of Bill Gates was pointing out in an opened in the Financial Times, like it was yesterday. They've been invented and now they required. What's required is that is to model them, um and then roll them out at scale. Um. Well, you know, China is the place where you can actually do this. Um,

you know, it has the world's biggest market. One in three solar panels and wind turbines are deployed in China. Half of all the evs in the world in China. Um you know. But but doing that is going to require the US and China collaborating around the technology. And if you think about the electric car, what is it, Well, you know you've got a lithium ion battery and guess what China has of the global output of lithium iron batteries.

It also requires technology hardware, and guess what you know pretty much every advanced semiconductor in the world is built with US technology. Now, if if, if, if, automats automakers can't be sure that they can integrate these US and Chinese technologies in a single vehicle, it's going to seriously impede the rapid development of CONTE one example of what needs to happen very very quickly for the world to avoid the worst. Never more have we needed collaboration between

the U S and China. Andy, Thank you so much. Andy Brown, editorial director at Bloomberg New Economy. Check out his column. You can sign up for the New Economy daily newsletter at Bloomberg dot com slash New hyphen Economy. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stenovic on Bloomberg Radio. So something we all seem not to be able to get enough of. It's also something we'll be talking about this week him

at the upcoming Bloomberg Life Financial Innovations Conference. It's about crypto Wall Street amassing a crypto army and paying up for recruits. Banks and financial firms added one thousand crypto rose crypto roles since two thousand eighteen, and they're getting some pay bumps. Yeah, it's one of the most read stories on the Bloomberg today. So let's get to it

with Bloomberg News Finance and Investing reporter Eleanor's song. She's in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker's studio here in New York City. So Eleanor, what's going on here? So we're seeing banks really ramping up their pay and and crypto hires in the past three and five years. And another set of LinkedIn data shows that the number of annual new hires has more than tripled since sounds like a lot, yes, yes for sure, and um these positions can include researchers, traders,

risk analysts, as well as engineers and colders. And we're saying that a pay bunk pay pumps. So there are um offering a premium for a mid level trader or banker role compartable over a comfortable position at the same institution. And then yes for for roles that like head of crypto teams, research team, trading teams, they could get the

number of premium as highlights. Wow, what's so interesting about this is it's all happening when there's this sort of bifurcation happening between big banks and startups that are well, are they fintech companies? Are they banks? What do you regulates think? It's kind of unclear, Yeah, exactly. And these startups are actually competing with banks in hiring cryptal talent. I talked to so many people moving from banks to the crypto native space, and they are all saying that

they are hiring extensively from the traditional finance market. So this is so fascinating because we were talking before we got going that for how long the traditional financial firms, big banks, Wall Street firms for years go back, certainly five, seven, ten years ago. We're saying this crypto thing, I don't know so much about it. Um, what what do they say when you reach out to them? Are they willing to talk freely or tell us how you're figuring out

what's going on? It's interesting. They definitely need a little convincing and some just straight up don't really want to talk about it. Um, but they are all saying that, okay, maybe we we need to. We are showing interest while keeping in mind that there's regulation and there's definitely risks and caution that we need to have. So so yeah,

banks are still quite reserved about it. But um, they can't really, um be hesitant anymore because clients are looking to to invest in crypto and asking and they can't risk their clients going to the competitors. Well, and that's the key part here is the clients. And it's something that I'm reminded about when I think about which Jamie Diamond of JP Morgan Chase has said repeatedly about his thoughts on crypto, and it's something that you refer to

in the piece. You say, remind us that he called it worthless in October after deeming it a fraud back in, So is what's happening at JP Morgan and the other banks. They're saying, wait a second, even though we might not think it's something that personally we want to invest in and we want to be a part of our clients want it, so we need to have a presence there

right Yeah, exactly. And we're seeing from from the LinkedIn data um that JP Morgan is actually among the top banks that have hired cryptal talents, and right now on the linkeding job posting site, they also have a lot of postings for cryptal talents. But you guys call the firms or when you call them in the reporting and you say JP Morgan or City Group of Morgan's day and they tell us what you're doing. Are they freely telling you what they're doing. No, they're pretty quiet about it.

It is fascinating because you do wonder I think, you know, I think about the summit that we're getting ready to do, Tim.

I mean, everybody within the established financial world are trying to I'm going to talk to the H and R Block CEO, you know there in terms of tax filings for individuals, for small businesses, everybody's keeping an eye on what's happening in the crypto space, and you can definitely see that at this point, Eleanor, I mean, everybody's kind of going after I guess what you could say is

a smaller pool of individuals right now exactly. Um. Actually, I have sources telling me that banks right now are looking specifically for people who left banks in eighteen and joined the crypto equal system, and they're trying to attract them back because those people who have an understanding of

systematic trading in crypto. Okay, So I pose a question to you that Carol posted me that I couldn't answer just a few minutes ago, and it's about the connection and the parallels between the dot com boom in the

late nineties early two thousands and the underlying technology. How would you answer the question of what your sources are saying is the technology that's here to stay if some of these cryptos do end up going to zero, Well, they are saying, honestly, my sources don't see the bear market coming anytime soon, and they are calling this crypto as the early days of capital markets two point oh um.

And they're um in comparing their crypto startups to like early days of Facebook, Apple, and saying that over time, Wall streets ability to offer competitive compensation will diminish because these firms, these cryptal startups, are able to offer ownership stakes, digital tokens, and later on probably really high salaries. It's hard not to feel that something's going to change, but it's just not quite sure how it all takes out. Um, but we know how it's taken out when it comes

to if you've worked in the crypto industry. While Street apparently wants you, that's Eleanor's song. She's finance an investing reporter Bloomberg News. Yeah, I bet you let me drive. Oh no, no, no, no, this is not a home a right, please, I want to drive the question drive. This is the drive to the globe down on Bloomberg Radio. All right, just about tim nts left in today's trading session.

So let's get to it. Let's drive to the clothes with Hank Smith back with us, head of investment strategy over at however, Trust once again on the phone from Bradner Pennsylvania. So Hank, good to have you here. Feels like we've gotten through a lot over the last month in terms of earnings. We're seeing out performance once again when it comes to earnings beats and we're seeing the markets up a lot as a result. We're up six percent gain in the benchmark since the earning season began,

best performance of our comparable period in seven years. Just I fight in your view and will it continue? Yeah, good afternoon, Kyle. Great to be with you. Yes, it is justified. Far cry from where we were in early September when the markets were concerned about third quarter earnings based on the slowdown economic slowdown and concerned about the

debt ceiling and Washington d C uncertainty. And of course Corporate America has come through beautifully in the third quarter with of those companies reporting beating on the bottom line and beating on the top line. And so I think what I think, Actually, Tim's going to correct you because I think it's what is to be specific according to data from research you read our mind, Hank, I appreciate

the detail. Sorry, continue, go ahead, you know, I think I think what is proven to be is this continues to be a buy on the dips market, as has been all year and in fact since the start of the new bull market March two thousand and twenty as well. Despite the rise in yields. With a tenure treasury at one point five seven, it is still not competition for the stock market. So we're still in a tina environment. There is no alternative, and when you come right down

to buying the tina, they all apply. If you're in the doors, then we know we're I don't know we're moving on. No, Hank, when does the party and no, when does the music stop? Well, let's just frame it this way. The tail winds continue to be stronger than the headwinds, and when that changes, I think we're we're

going to have a correction. The tail winds very simply incredible monetary stimulus, incredible fiscal stimulus, incredible corporate earnings, and a consumer that is in excellent shape and is willing to spend. We still haven't really seen all the the unleashing of pent up demand, because that delta variant did pour some cold water over what was really an extraordinary unleashing of pent up demand. The headwinds simply remains number one covid um. If covid re emerges, uh, we're going

to slow down Washington d C uncertainty. We still have a debt ceiling to pass and We still don't know what the reconciliation bill is going to be um of the final version of it, but we do know that the taxes aren't going to be nearly as ownerous as as what was feared two quarters ago. China slowing growth is a issue as well, and of course inflation, and that the debate that we've had now for the past several quarters. Is this transitory inflation or is this persistent

insidious inflation? So if you're a betting man and you've got to make investment calls for clients, would you do so? What would you say? Can we Is it too early to say here's what we think holds for everyone? It's funny I was at an event and someone said to me, because they know what I do, and like so many things, is gonna happen with interest rights? What do you think? And I said, even if they go up a little bit, there's still low by a historical measure, And so I

don't think the Fed's going to do anything drastic. But you're you're the guy who's got really got to, you know, make decisions for you know, millions of dollars of investment money. So what's your bed? Carol? You're you made a good point there. The FED, whatever it's gonna do, is going to be wealth telegraphed, and it's going to be gradual.

And I mentioned unleashing of pent up demand. We still believe there's plenty of that to go, and we think that is going to drive the economy uh through two thousand twenty two incliporate earnings are going to remain robust in that in that environment. So the Delva variant just throw a temper very wet rag over over this unleashing of pent up demand. It will it will resume. And but the worry is if we do get let's say,

if anything, the Delta variant. It was troublesome, but we managed our way through it right for the most part. There's certainly a hotspots, and I would never say that we've gotten through completely. But if we get something that isn't so easily manageable, or the current vaccine doesn't isn't able to deal with it, that's going to be a problem potentially. But look, COVID reared its ugly head last

winter and we got through that as as well. So I'm very optimistic that politicians are not going to repeat the same mistakes they did early in two thousand and twenty when they locked down the economy that I think one of the lessons is that was not the right approach, just choking off the economy entirely. So uh, maybe that's misplaced optimism with regards to politicians making the right decision, but I think I think in this case they they will. Um,

so we're rather optimistic. Yes, they're gonna be bumps in the road. The SMP has not had a correction since the start of this UH bull market over a year and a half ago. That's highly unusual. Then azdec did a year ago back in September October, but the SMP

is not an investors should uh always expect corrections. But we believe that's going to be a buying event as opposed to something that morphs into a bear market, which we think is very unlikely because the risk of a recession occurring over the next twelve eighteen months is very very well. So where we started buying the dip and Tina,

al right, it comes back to that exactly. Hey, just in the last thirty seconds that we have with you hand changing on farm payrolls, we're getting that data on Frida A four and fifty thousand is what Bloomberg economists are expecting, or surveyed by Bloomberg, I should say, Um, how could things go haywire? Well, well, certainly the last month's report was way way off the mark. And and here's the unknown here. Uh, look, we do have a

labor disruptions, uh for for sure. And how much of it is uh people taking earlier retirement that will not come back into the workforce, and that is something that's very very hard to quantify. I think once we get through the fears of of the pandemic, that we have schools and daycare fully reopened, uh and and some of the government policies kind of step away and the private sector takes over, you know, I think the labor markets

are gonna recover even uh very very well. Thanks smith Over, however, Trust, thank you so much for your thoughts. Appreciate it. 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 p m. Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube. Search to Bloomberg Global News