Why Economists are Calling for $1T More in Stimulus

Week on iTunes, SoundCloud, bl Bloomberg dot com. You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio every weekday, or watch us on YouTube by searching Bloomberg Global News. Well, we're really excited to reconnect with our next guests. We last saw him, I believe, Carol on campuses, totally on campus earlier this year. Earlier this year. Uh, Joel, help us out. When did we see you? Was last fall? Wasn't it this past fall?

That's right, all right, Dr. The voice you're hearing is Dr Joel bloom, president of the New Jersey Institudent Technology n J. I t we know it, as he joins us on the phone from Newark, and that is where we last saw him last fall. So Dr Blum, first of all, how are you, How are things for you, for your family, for your team. We're all well. I thank you for the question. The team is doing well.

We're following all the prescriptions that we can get with regard to the c d C, the state of New Jersey, etcetera. The campus is open, we are coming to campus. We're up to about of the staff now, which is based on the guidance of our governor and the various stages of faces that have been set up. So thank you. We're doing well. I hope you are all doing well. We are all things considered concepts of time and had made very clearly at the top of the show. Yeah,

exactly exactly. So tell us about what you're working on, because I mean you are you are known you personally, and I believe the school, it's fair to say, is known for as the kids would say, your collapse, your collaborations with local government, and specifically you're working on some medical works and mobile medical work importantly, uh, to fight COVID nineteen and and to sort of help out with the healthcare infrastructure or lack thereof. Tell us about them. Well,

you're absolutely right. So what we saw in this UH COVID nineteen is a lack of facilities, a lack of critical infrastructure. So we are working in a free way partnership with a group called the Tuckman Foundation, University Hospital in Newark and n g I T. So we've put medical practitioners together with engineers and we've taken one of

those cargo containers. We've re refashioned them. We've both of them together, if you will, and those become for healthcare units, a testing room, a beds, and two of the units UH. And we built a prototype, put it on the campus of University Hospital in New York and actually ran some testing that we did for COVID nineteen. We obviously can do reception, UM, we can take record history. So now

we've created very mobile ease on mobile containers. You've seen them stacked up their railways and that at airport's very flexible, very mobile, whether it's COVID nineteen or a natural disaster. We saw what happened to Puerto Rico and the long time and coming back. These you can put them freighters, you can put them on trains, you can even put them on aeroplanes and move them around the world. So we built a prototype the three way partnership of the Foundation in the hospital and n g I T built

and made up rational prototype this past week. That is so cool. So tell me, um, Dr Bloom you know, so are they going to be put into use? Um, you did the prototype. I'm just curious about what kind of response you're hearing. What are the thoughts about applications and what's the demand? Maybe get them up and running. Um. So we put it all out there on the web. Great, you know, the great Worldwide Web. We've had I don't know so many able to five thousand views a good

Senator Senadate Booker, Corey Booker king view them. Um, we are interested. We'll soon hopefully be talking with SEMA. UM, we'll be talking with ni H about the application, and we're talking to hospitals, health care units, health care of systems about how you would deploy them. We certainly uh, and we know about how we're going to produce them. We've already got one factory quewed up. We can produce

about a hundred, about two D beds a week. So now that we've prototyped them, we found them to work their air conditioned, unlike tents who saw tents go upright and then during this crisis during the pandemic, well, tents are very hard to heat, they're very hard to chill, and they're very hard to keep dry. These are h v A C with the state of the art filters. Um they can be negative pressurized. Uh, they don't leak, they can be warm, they can be chilled, and they

can be sanitized easily. Um uh so uh, there is the replacement to these emergency tents, the applications. They can be abed for treating people. They can be diagnostic facilities, they can be registration facilities, they can be testing facilities. Again, very flexible, plug and play is how these units designed. Talk to us about getting students back to campus in a meaningful way this fall. You are right there in the middle of new work, so you have both the

benefit and the drawback of a big urban campus. How's it gonna work? So the benefit is we're right in the middle of two hospitals. One I've already talked about University hospital are the ones St. Michael's. They help us with all of the testing, all of the contact tracing. So we have agreements. We're also working with the County of Essex to test everyone before they come back to campus.

We're anticipating going from what the Governor's named Stage to to Stage three, which means up to of our students and our faculty and staff. So we're gonna do converge learning. Um, we had a lot of practice. We've been doing converged learning, which is while the class is going on on campus, we can tele caster that you can go on the web and participate at home. We've been doing that literally since so when we had to come back following Springs

break this past much of our courses went online. So the fall we're going to do about half online and about a half in person. As a polytechnic university, we are very lab intense, and again you can do simulations to some labs, but for many labs you cannot do it. And this is part of the curriculum that very often leads to licensure or certificates for students. So um, that's the plan going forward. We're hoping to move New Jersey is hoping to move from Stage to the Stage three.

You've probably been aware our numbers have been down. We're still one of the few green states in the United States UM which regard to the spread of the virus. So we're anticipating residential students, We're anticipating in class, in person students, and we expect to do a signific amount of online We will follow all of the everyone will get two masks that have been branded with NJA logos. Onto will do remote the temperature sensing around the campus

and kiosks UM and again we are equipped. We'll be doing some UM waste water testing in our residential halls. And you know, students work in classes and in groups and in pods, and we'll be doing some pool testing there. So we're trying everything we can to escape our community as safe as is possible. So, Joel, I have to ask you, because you know, and just got about a

minute or so left. I we we're watching, you know, other UM colleges, universities kind of figure their way back and they really are having to figure out hybrid learning. All of a sudden, you guys have been doing it, as you said, converge learning. Since do you feel like we will in the future see a lot more of what you guys have been doing for the past few years because of what happened of the virus. Does the academic academia world, academic world change or change longer term? Yes,

it does. It's it's going to change because again people realize the power of having online learning. Again, not to every course, not to every discipline, but it is very powerful and it is rather effective. Again, not every discipline, not every course. So yes, I think it's been changed for ever. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we've learned a lot from you over the years about you know, how you guys are looking around the corner when it comes to education.

So we really appreciate you spending some time with us, both on some of the novel things you're doing when it comes to partnerships and testing and trade racing, but also getting students back to campus. We know it is top of mind for us and for so many of our listeners out there. So Dr Joel bloom Our, thanks to you, President New Jersey Institute of Technology. Join us on the phone from Newark, New Jersey. You are listening to Bloomberg business Week. Jason Kelly and Carol Master here

with you. So let's talk a little bit about a story that I feel like Business Week has done such a great job of capturing Carol, which is this disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. But it's more complicated than just the typical like what do investors know that you know, regular old folks don't know. Uh, and they're continuing to dig into it with a plum as they do as we do. Joel Weber is the editor of Bloomberg business Week. He joins us along with Mike Reagan.

He wrote the story. He is, of course, the senior editor for Bloomberg Markets. The story investors Can't Stop Dancing to the Bull Markets tune. Joelt this up for us, So I think, um, I mean, Jason said, like we've one of the themes I think of the pandemic that we've noticed is just this utter disconnect between the sort of the real economy and the stock market. And uh, you know we've hit that note in the cover. Um, there's ways that we've hit it with even just the

recent earnings of Wall Street. But you know, this this story that Mike did, I thought, really, you know, one reason that it really jumped out to me where the valuations um. And you know, as as Mike says, like very close to the top of the story, the mas deck, which obviously just it was that record has uh you know, it's the index is valuation thirty four times earnings at the highest it thin for fifteen years. When you see stuff like that, it just really jumps. It's so, Mike,

what what what's behind all this? What was the point that you were able to kind of dig into in the story? Well, you know, uh so what's interesting is to me is, Okay, you have this Wall Street investor class who was trained to look at the fundamentals. You look at the potetrol for earnings, you look at it potential for economic growth, all these things, and you know, you really have this sort of rigid, sort of mathematical

approach to how you invest. But sometimes none of that matters, right, It's just the market gets in this mode, um you know, whether whether you call it animal instincts or whatever, it is where um, you know, it just starts ignoring all of the problems, all the uncertainty. And one of the bigg issues right now is that if you're trying to price the stock market based on what you expect the earnings to be going forward, well it's it's almost impossible.

I mean, there are numbers out there, there are, but so many companies have withdrawn their guidance that it is. It's kind of anyone's guests from an index level, from sort of the macro aggregate level level, what the earnings pictures is going to look like in the next year. Um. So you know, if you go back to the textbooks, you're sort of investing one on one that should cause an uncertainty, that would cause a risk aversion in the market.

But we're really seeing the opposite. And see what's fascinating is you hear investors. We had Scott Minord of uh Guggenheim Investments quoted in the story from a recent Bloomberg TV interview, and he says, look to me, it looks like a bubble. Now that that sounds scary, but many investors who've lived through bubbles, you know, you don't want to get out on the ground floor of a bubble.

You want to be there for the whole thing. So it's this sort of awkward, precarious situation where you're you're willing to write it higher even though you don't know when it's talking in Mike, I feel like we have the ultimate insurance policy to prop up the stock market, and we've essentially gone from the Greenspan put to the

bernandcy put to the Powell put. I mean, the FED has shown time and time again that when we get into any kind of crisis, financial or otherwise, and this was initially not a financial crisis, it was a health crisis, the FED will be there to make sure that the financial markets operate in a liquid and smooth ways. I mean, talk about the ultimate insurance policy. Yeah, I mean, and that's absolutely part of the bullish case. Uh. For why people are willing to sort of ignore the fundamentals for

now is that, UM. I think the speed with which the Federal Reserve reacted U you know, during the financial crisis, he was kind of you know, you'd get hit by these nasty headlines about damage being done to the assets of banks day after day, and it took a while through the policy to catch up with that. Um. You know, remember the troubled Asset Relief for program, that part program that failed in Congress on its first vote back during the financial crisis, this kind of the fet both the

FETE and the Congress reacted very strongly and very swiftly. UM. And that's obviously the you know, the main reason to stay bullish throughout this, but I would say, you know, when you know, doesn't justify getting sort of unhinged completely from the fundamentals. UM is what I start to wonder, and you wonder how long that can possibly last? You know, markets tend to mean revert back to something that sort of makes sense fundamentally. So I think most people think

that process will happen. It's just timing it is next to impossible. UM. Likedly. Another element that UM has just been such a phenomenon of the sort of the basketble months has been the day trading set. And You've got some interesting numbers here that I've really stuck out that you know, up to you uncertain days can be gage traders. Uh, that's almost twice as much as even just a decade ago. Um. How much are institutional investors actually like getting from day

traders and all of this? Yeah? Well there, Yeah, there's certainly this push among you know, the hedge hedge fund class and sort of the sophisticated investor class to try to wrap their heads around what these this new horde

of day traders are doing. You know, the Robin Hood app, the Robin tracker that you have that tracks let's be bought on, sold on on Robin Hood UH is very popular among the Klands now, mainly because that's kind of a window you get into the retail trader that you don't necessarily get from some of the other UH discount brokerages out there. But I do think also Joel, you know, this reduction complete elimination of brokerage fees that we saw UH you know in the past year is is another

huge elemen of it. You know, if there's no friction now, if you want to gabble in stocks, you're not paying nine dollars a trade or fifteen dollars a trader or whatever you know historically used to pay. Now you can you know, you can buy a stock for free. Um, I mean, you know the obvious complich that is you can also sell it for free. So I I do think there is a risk of a of a sudden

sentiment shift among that retail crowd. But you're right the volume wise, the fact that retail traders, according to Citadel UH can make up a quarter of the volume on the stock market on that any day. I mean, that's that's rivaling the hedge fund sponson and the amnium chasers of the world. So it's a force to be reckoned with that. I think paulow Walter, he's trying to wrap their head around what's to do with this information coming

from the new horts of retail traders. Yeah, and the last question for you briefly, Mike, is is that a lasting phenomenon in your estimation? Mean, no one really knows, but obviously part of that has been driven by people are at home. Uh, maybe they've got a little bit of extra money if if they're lucky. How does this change as we find the next normal here? Right? And you often see it compared to sort of an entertaining product.

You know, there's hey there's no on TV, you can you can't go to the movies, you can't go to this, and can't bet on sports and yeah yeah, so um, we'll have to see. I mean, if interesting to see if that sort of I does with the return of sports and the return of sort of life as it was, you know, getting back to normal live events, live concerts

and that sort of thing. I don't I can't imagine it's all just people trading for entertainment, but I think it is certainly, you know, people find a lot of time on their hands with not much to the life. I could certainly feeding it alright, Mike Reagan always a treat to catch up with. You are thanks to him. Check out his story in the upcoming issue A Business Week Our Thinks as well to Joel Webber, editor of the magazine. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser

and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All right, time to the little Business Week Economics. We are so psyched. I think that's the technical term to have back with this tots to its Christopher Condon, Chris Condon, Federal Reserve and US Economy reporter. Fun fact, you know that Chris Condon and I were colleagues on the US investing team at Bloomberg News. Oh my god, that must have been wild. It was wild. He's a man of many tales. I love his journalism. This story is Chris con the stories,

the stories. He's joining us on the phone from Virginia. He's on the FED beat now, which is arguably one of the most important, not the most important, uh these days. So Chris tell us what's going on when we think about stimulus, what it's going to be, when it's going to be. This is the debate in Washington right now. It is. It's a very important debate. Jason. This is UH really I think a momentous piece of legislation that's

desperately needed. It's timing could not be better if they wrap it up UM in the next couple of weeks. You know that the UH, much of the stimulus that came from the Cares Act is winding down, specifically the supplemental aid to people on unemployment benefits UM. A lot of economists feel that that if that just disappears, it's going to create a huge strain in our economy by just eliminating a lot of demand, so that it will

hurt households, it will hurt businesses UM. And in so far, it looks like they are making progress towards some kind of package that would include both direct payments to households, the size of which we don't really know yet UM and some extension of the supplemental unemployment benefits those so those are really two very important things. Well, but the size is really also quite important, and we're yet to hear overall numbers. That's right, because we got three trillion

in terms of a relief package. Chris back in March. Right, we got a lot of aid. The package they're talking about now is a trillion and I do wonder tell us the size of this package what it will mean for the economic recovery on the other side of the virus. Right. Well, the big thing is that so much income has been lost, Carol Um. We still have The numbers are difficult to tease out, but there's an estimated twenty five million people

still receiving unemployment benefits. That's a massive amount of lost income that is up to this point largely being replaced by government assistance. Some of that replacement has got to continue. Without that, consumer spending will drop a end drastically, which then feeds on and we begin to worry about what Glenn Hubbard say from Harvard caused the demand doom loop um Less spending which means more companies layoff people, which means more lost income. That's less spending, and so on

and so on. The vicious cycle that we must absolutely avoid. Uh. And some of these things will go a long way towards that. Another item that I kept coming up when I spoke to economists was aide to h state and local and so far we're not really seeing we're we're

not sure whether that will emerge in this package. Ben Bernankee most recently pointed out that after the last recession, that was one of the real big headwinds that that slowed down the recovery, the fact that federal government did not really come through in helping state and local governments, so they laid off a lot of people. That was a big drag on demand. And and the same will

happen and the much worse fashion this time. Um. The layoffs from state local governments are already something about twice as much as happened back after the so called Great Recession. UM. So let's talk a little bit about states in and municipal aid there, because it feels like, I wonder from your perspective, is this a philosophical or is it a political debate around that sort of aid or is it both?

It is really both, UM. I think one of the important things that is, and this is a reasonable thing to raise for Republicans that what you don't want to be doing is helping state and local governments cover up holes that were pre existing. Want to help them for holes that were created in their budget by the pandemic that they had no control over. But you don't want

to be bailing them out. According to the conservative economic philosophy, you don't want to be adding this moral hazard of bailing them out for having run their budgets irresponsibly, say in years previous UM. And so that's a legitimate concern, um. But to be too careful about that, I think would leave a lot of UM municipalities and states just running

into the ditch. The budget short hauls are shortfalls are really massive, and in the in the vast majority of that is legitimately caused by the drop in revenue associated with the shutdowns caused by the coronavirus. I mean, it's amazing to think about me. We were talking earlier in the show, Chris, but even you look at something like the New York City subway, you know, which is so intrinsic to the way that the economy runs and relies on revenue and and and obviously employs a lot of

people Like it's it's so complicated, Carol. Yeah, yet taking in too much dough these days. No, nothing. I was just talking to somebody too about um kind of utilities and just you know, the money that goes into port authority that is then you know, put back into mass transportation. I mean, it's just everything has shut down. Chris. I do wonder though, the size of this next relief program. Can it be the difference between a US recession turning

into a depression or great recession? I mean, is that what we're talking about? And just got about here all of those Really if if um, if this entirely breaks down and because of some just you know, inability to find a compromise on the components or size of this prevents something which is unlikely I think, But if that happens, then the results could be rather catastrophic. Um, And that gets into that the idea, like I said, Hubbard talks about the demand doom. A compromise though that gets at

least over the trillion dollar bar. Most economists feel that would be meaningful. Many of them say more is better, but they also can see that you don't have to get up into Nancy Pelosi's three point five trillier. Jason Furman, former chief economists at the White House for Barack Obama, said two trillion would be absolutely, very very helpful for this economy. So there is room for a compromise. That is very mean, right, right, well, we will track your

work closely, as we always do. Chris's story about this it's gonna be featuring in the upcoming issue of Bloomberg Business Week. Check it out now on the Bloomberg or at Bloomberg dot com. Chris Condon, Fed Reserve and US Economy reporter for Bloomberg Joinius on the phone for Virginia. I love that guy. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week

with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. So in this week's edition of Bloomberg Business Week Small Business Survival Guide, we continue to look at how small businesses are doing joining us right now. One of our favorite people, no doubt about it, is Kate Creators. She's food editor at Bloomberg Pursuit. She's on the phone in New York City, and she's brought along a friend, Christino Tosi. She founder at Milk Bar and creator of the Virtual Bake Club,

which I would like to be a part of. And forgive me, Christina, Did I say your name incorrectly? No, you said it's just right. It's on your feet, all right, love it, love it, and you too, You too, are on the phone in New York City. Um, okay, just que us up here. I mean, we've been talking to you so much about small business, the restaurant space in particular. Um, how are they finding how's everybody finding the way back? And and and just give us a little bit of

background here. Um. Well, I have to say intrepid restaurateurs and business owners are I mean, I think they're doing things by any means necessary now. And we reported last week on how a lot of them we're dealing with this crazy weather, not just intense rainstorms but also intense heat. Um. And then there are people like Christina Cosey. So all my favorite people are on the phone right now on

this call. Kristina Tosey, who started Milk Bar. I hope everybody has had like a compost cookie and a birthday cake truffle in their life. Those are the brainchild of Christina, and she started milk Far what like a dozen years ago. Christina is that right, eleven and counting elevenon counting, And then in the midst of the pandemic, she was, um, she woke up and she was like I want to be out there, Like I want to figure out how

to be out there for my people. Because her fans are really intrepid, and so she started this virtual bay Club on Instagram live and every day for a hundred days, see like peat up the ingredients that people would needs the day before on Instagram and then started the bay Club and it gets her videos get like eighty thousand views.

It's monumental, alright. So Christina tell us about this, like what was the inspiration and and also walk us through how it works, because it's a very deliberate process where you give people the ingredients so that they can be ready for the next day. Right, Yeah, that's right. So I I was not not too similar to how everyone was feeling, you know, at the beginning of COVID nineteen hitting the US, you know, faced with with with so much uncertainty and in all of the different corners of life.

And I was sort of raised that when sort of like uncertainty and tragedy and scarcity hits, you figure out how to get into the world and be a part of something bigger than yourself. And my biggest issue with done with that you're not allowed to leave your house, right And I just had a moment where I said, I've got I've got to do something and I've got to do something with um my effort and my energy. And I just went to the place that where I feel the most myself, where I have realized the most

impacting people's lives, and that's the kitchen. And I just went online one day um and said, hey, I am like I'm I'm feeling useless. I'm feeling like I missed it togetherness, and I just think I'm gonna start a bait club, like, is anyone else interested in joining? And it's still what time works. And I just got the most recent resounding response, right like, no real intention, no real plan. I didn't think about one of my posting it is that or the other. I just threw it

out there into the world and it's stuck. And so every day I was very deliberate about every uh, every day prior to bait club. So sometime in the evening, I just post the ingredients that you need for the next day, and it's usually, you know, the most basic ingredients flour, sugar, butter, salt, what have you. And then if there are some sort of like substitutions, there's usually

a star ingredient. Maybe it's press soels, maybe it's oaths, maybe it's whatever you have the snacky lyne in your cupboard. And I'm intentional. I don't even tell by club what we're making until we're about five minutes in, until we've washed our hands with warm, soapy water and felt out happy Birthday, unapologetically thin whoever's birthday it is. I play a playlist, and it's not until your oven is preheated and you pulled out your ingredients that I even tell

you what we're making. Because I think we're all looking for a little moment of surprise and wonder, a moment that we can't talk ourselves into our out of, where we just have to show up as we are. And it is ready for an adventure. And it is brilliant. It is brilliant. I'm going down a rabbit hole right now as I look at it. Um, I know, but it's so like, it's so clever, this whole idea of kind of putting out the agreements but leaving some mystery right about kind of what we're gonna do. What has

surprised you, Christina about this whole process? I think the way that it has stuck in people's lives, the intention which which people show up at two pm there. I think in a in a culture that is probably consumed with control all the things that we have control of. We have been challenged these past months with our awareness of the lack of control that we actually have over anything.

I mean, we have responsibility for our own actions, but in the in the larger shapes and space of it, and that people are still looking for these joyful moments. They're looking for a moment of lightness and brightness. They're looking not for perfection in the kitchen, but for something that makes them feel accomplished and that gives them a reason to connect with someone else, to share their baked goods,

to do good with what they're doing. Even to be honest, it's amazing to me that people will show up not knowing what they're making, and I will singlehandedly like trick them into learning how to make bagels. You know what I do? Like how deeep that you would say, like I gotta go to culinary cool. I'm not ashamed I can't do it right. Like those sorts of things are pretty powerful for these It sounds like we all need to get in the kitchen together kick creater with a

good bottle. Now we know, like we're bleeding audience at two pm because they're all going to bake with Christina Tozi. All right, great to catch up with you. Christina Tozi, founder of Milk Park, creator of the Virtual Bay Club. Check it out on Instagram Live. Our thanks to to our fave kat k k Crater, food editor for Bloomberg Pursuits both on the phone from New York City. When life hands you lemons, Carol make Lemon bars Man, totally Lemon bars Well done, Jason Kelly Score Road mac a

journal Now, but you let me drive? Oh no, no, no no no, who's going to drive home? Honey? Please, I'll do the riding ravel ext me. I want to drive, just drive, baby, the questions trying. This is the drive to the Globe community. Thanks. We'll drying us down on Bloomberg Radio. Yes, indeed, every one time for the Drive to the Clothes. On this Tuesday, Bob Dollars with us, chief equity strategist senior portfolio manager at New Vine Asset Management.

He's joining us on the phone from Princeton, New Jersey. Bob, delighted um to have you here with us on this Tuesday. I hope you're doing well, doing great, good afternoon. Well, I'm looking at some of the research that you shared with us, and you have some views about kind of what the second half looks like. What the visibility do you feel like you do truly have about the second half? Especially here we are just kind of embarking on second

quarter earnings, certainly less than usual. We are in unprecedented circumstances, and uh, it's always a guess what the next six months are going to look like, but these are extra guesses because of all the uncertainties I'm talking about the election, coronavirus, second wave possibilities, the fact that the market has done so well and valuation levels are not particularly cheap, while at the same time we have that sea of liquidity from the FIT. So there are lots of variables driving

this market. And Bob, you know you said it right, We've got less less than usual in part because a lot of CEO s are kind of taking an opportunity to tell us less. In many cases now it's fair to say that they don't know maybe what their business is going to be for all the reasons that you just identified. But do we need to should we be hearing more from them in terms of their plans when it comes to spending and expectations, I think more than

we did after the first quarter. Remember the first quarter releases came out in late April early May, and that was just early into the COVID situation. So if they raise their hand and say, yeah, we really just don't know where our business is going, we understood that. You know, it's now three months later and they ought to have a little better field. You know, I give them a pass sort of like I did up front. It's more unknowable than usual, but maybe you can give me some trends.

You know, was was June better than May? Was May better than April? Kind of what? What What? What's the world looking like? You know, I have to say I was delighted when I knew you were going to be on Vince and Norella, who watches the markets, We've been talking about, you know, some of your outlooks um and you know, what I think is interesting is you're someone who's seen

so many different market cycles. And I'm not trying to date you or anything like that, but I just think, you know, you bring a certain level of expertise to this. How do you kind of look at this market cycle? Is there something in history that we can even compare it with. Unfortunately not where we just we've just had the sharpest and shortest recession in uh certainly modern times, if not US history. Give me the parallel, there isn't one.

This is an exogenous shock, this coronavirus that we're dealing with, and we don't know what the uh flare ups are going to look like. We don't know is there going to be a second wave. Then you put all the politics with it. Take it, for example, school reopenings, that's as much politically as it is economic as it is about health. And so the uncertainties are are high, and they're just unprecedented. These are unusual times. So, Bob, you and exactly where I wanted to go next, which is

our inability. And I think it's it's right that we are unable to really sort of break all these things out. They're all interrelated in many ways, and it feels like politics has creeped into places that it candidly historically has not gone. And it's a presidential election year. Tell us how you're looking at the presidential election, because it's getting

closer and closer. We're almost to August, we're almost to that point where we're gonna have the conventions, whatever those are gonna look like, and things are really going to be set for that last run to the election. How do you see investors looking at this choice at this point? So for starters, we do these ten predictions that year. I've been doing it for thirty years. Never have I come out with a second set. Because a coronavirus in April,

we came out with the second set. I bring that up because our election forecast changed Donald Trump on January one, and our view was pretty much a shoe in for re election. Because presidents that run for a second term where there is no recession have always, no exceptions, have always been re elected. Presidents that face a recession and run for another term are almost always defeated. So the calculus changes. I think the market um usually pays attention

to the election kind of post the conventions. Perhaps it started already, but post the conventions, and if the money polls and the opinion polls are right, the odds of a Democratic sweep have moved up a bunch, and a Democratic suite probably means higher taxes for corporations and wealthy and individuals and high income earners, and it probably means some reregulation. And I think that set of comments I just made generally not favorable for the capital market. So

there's a lurking negative out there in my view. What about the Cold War between the US and China? Could that potentially improve with a Biden White House? Well, that's very interesting. It is possible that a Biden administration would be less strict about dealing with China around trade issues and the like. And so you have to make an assessment. Is the market going to focus on the short term quote positive that comes from that potential change versus the

long term? Oh my goodness, who's going to ever deal with China and their quotes stealing our technology, etcetera, etcetera. Um so short term it could be a bit of a lift, I would agree. Just got about a minute left here, Bob, So what do you do? What's your advice to investors as we look at this second half in terms of where to allocate assets? Yeah? I start by this is so so trite, but so true. You've got to know what are you investing for, what's your

time arising, what's your risk tolerance? Tolerance? Focus on that and all this market noises all around that if you have money, as a lot of people do, sitting on the sidelines earmark for the stock market, perhaps because you never put it in or you took it out on the decline. Dollar cost average. No one can pick tops and bottoms, so this is a great environment for dollar

cost average. And put a little in every month for the next you pick the number of months, six months, twelve months, uh, and and invest their big companies that have good free cash flow characteristics, that can service their debt, that can expand their business, that can do business in the new world in which we live. Great stuff. Thank you so much, Bob, really appreciate your insight, and you know, fascinating Jason. I think about what you did with um

Bloomberg invest right. Uh. Were you guys the culture rhead, same idea, the reboot, And that's exactly what Bob just did. This whole idea that this was not a year that anybody could have called. And you've got to rethink your assumption. So I'm great to catch up with Bob doll Over at New Vine Asset Management. He's the chief equity strategist.

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