Pop the Champagne Corks. 2020 Is Finally Ending.

a call here. I'm gonna say that people are going to drink a little bit more champagne than they typically do. What do you think that they typically do in quarantine or just general? And I think just I think this is gonna be a big here for champagne. As we get the New Year's Eve, let's talk champagne. There's nobody better to do that with than champagne. There you go. Blaine Ashley, founder New York Champagne Week and the Fizz Is female platform and website, joining us on the phone

from New York. Blaine, thanks so much for joining us. I'm looking at a beautiful bottle of champagne right here. My question is what is champagne? Are people drinking more champagne and a pandemic and a quarantine then typically, well, first off, thank you both for having me. I really appreciate it. And yes, the answer is yes, people are drinking a lot more champagne, are actually spending more money on wine in general. UM sales have been a thirty

percent for champagne since June. Since mid June, so usually most of the revenue for the champagne industry comes in October, November, December. We call it O n D. But we've been doing those numbers of our sales come from that time frame. We've been doing those numbers since June. Okay, Virtual tastings, yeah, a real thing. I mean do people actually do that

and feel satisfied with that? Um it is such a real thing because as you know, as I'm the founder of New York Champagne Week, which has been the live event for the last seven years, we transitioned the web

this year. In one week, we did ten events. We shift the Champagne experiences to thirty nine states, and we had over two people per just tickets across the country to attend events like the Fried Chicken and Champagne Bash, which we did with Marcus Danielson of of the Red Rooster in your backyard LISTA and Harlem, I know where I live, my God, and then we we also we paired him up with a Champagne brand. Owner is also based on Harlem Rito Jam for walk Hard All Champagne.

I have actually done forty three virtual peastings since May through December. And that's why I love half bottles because they're keeping the waist line and check pennies in my pocket, all of that jobs, and they're they're much healthier for you all around. Right, So that's why I'm loving half bottles of Champagne. Which that business is way up, like so Blaine, So people are drinking more. We've heard that from different parts of the spirits industry. Are you finding

new champagne drinkers? Are you attracting new people to champagne? I think so. I think that people are really looking for those little affordable luxuries in life, and so through a lot of the events and the tastings we're doing, we're trying to make it very approachable. Like right now, I have my bottle of Charles hid stuck open with some popcorn. And the newest craze with caviare is instead of it's ditching the balinis but putting it on a

potato chip. So it's kind of like all about like the approachable um and the diversity that champagne has to offer a diversification. But also champagne is the most food friendly wine out there. It really pairs from everything really that you can find. And then also um, champagne is lower than lower and alcohol. Uh, so it generally falls in the twelve percent category, whereas a standard still line will be around fourteen. I gotta say, I'm not sure

that you want to reduce alcohol. Actually I shouldn't have a joke about that, but I'm wondering going full were this concept of virtual paired with actual how do you see this evolving in a world that isn't necessarily beset with the pandemic woes? Right, So, after Champagne Week, and this is something I never saw coming as a total small business in One Woman's show, I started having financial firms and banks, um uh companies reach out to me to do virtual tastings for their clients. So I actually

there's a few Champagne and caveat experiences with Google. I've done some um from age and fays, so like cheese and champagne tastings for banks like JP Morgan. Um. I never saw that coming. I actually booked that. We booked about ten events between December eight and eighteen. Um uh four people that are are switching up there. You know, they can't do traditional client entertaining, so they're looking to

do this instead. Another great uh way that we're getting these virtual tastings out there and giving back to the food and bridge industry, which is obviously hurting majorly right now, is doing a lot of chefs collaborations. A lot of these chefs are offering items on sites like gold Belly, which can ship to fifty states, and they're offering their like signature dish and delivering people's doorstep the day before so they can prepare it at home and have these

great experiences. Blaine, what are some of the champagne's that you like right now that you're really suggesting people that they take some time in experiment with, right so I selected some today to chat about. Um. We have the Charles types like Group Reserve that is a great champagne to start off your festivities for the holidays with, like

cheese and charcooterie boards something like that. Um. It is a blend of the three traditional grapes and champagne so Pino noir, Chardonnay, pinomnier, and it's eleven grams of dosage, which is the sugar. And that's another great thing about champagne. It actually has a lower sugar content that people realize. Most groups Champagne's fall between six and twelve grams per leader. Um. So that is an excellent um talking point about champagne,

reason you should be drinking it. And then moving on, um, we have billa carsmon blanc to blanc now Blanc to blanc is a d percent chardoni and Chardonnay is great with fish. So I would pair that with a feast of seven fishes Christmas Eve dinner and down maybe also if you want to up the antie again, we love caviar and champagne. That's the great pairing. And then you have the su boi. I believe Paul correct and that is excellent with your classic Christmas dinner traditional holiday foods

like you know, turkey, uh, mushrooms, stuffing. I love duck, so I love it with duck. And then I believe that Lisa has the Laurent Perier kube rouse and we love to pair rose with dessert around here, so um, that's that's a great pairing with apple pie, of pecan pie, any sort of like fruit tart. Also, if you're not into like sweets, I'm kind of a more of a cheese person, so you could do creamy cheeses, citrusly jams and figs um something like that would be perfect with

that rose. And it's also it's stunning bottle, right, it's beautiful. I've actually tasting another one that you sent over currently, so that that's what I believe. Are you having the Child's type or the lacara velve I'm doing yes, so the lacr vel cub Minia and that's what I set off the top um. That has been my good I had too much of it. No, that has been my

go to zoom line of this season. And because the brand owner lives in New York and it's been really great for collaboration Steak, She's able to kind of hop onto a lot of these events. So everything we're offering on our website right now for virtual any time booking, we do with Rita, the owner of Laka of All, because she's there and who better to speak to her Champagne for these zoom experiences than than the founder herself. And what's great as Rita used to own a iconic

restaurant in Midtown called La Carvell. It closed in two thousand and three, but it was like Kennedy's hot Spot or the Stewart, like tons of glow, Julia Child, tons of g Literatti went there and she is like best friends to every single chef in New York. We have access to the chefs because of the founder of Lacarravel, Rita Jamai Champagne Blaine, you made my Thursday afternoon absolutely fantastic. You made it a little bit harry for Paul, who's

a little concerned. I haven't drug that much. I just opened at the beginning of the segment. Champagne Blaine, thank you so much. That was fantastic and I look forward to a very, very fun evening. Champagne Blaine. Ashley, founder of the New York Champagne Week and the phizz is female platform website, joining us on the phone. Uh, it is nice way to end the week. I've got to say, Paul, absolutely and the bottles are beautiful, and you know I'm not a huge champagne person. I know a lot of

folks are, but get started. I get started. Champagne Blane definitely got me fired up to open this bottle probably this evening, Yeah, opened up a bottle anything radio. What a year we're all looking forward exactly. Just unbelievable, and you know, it's amazing how these financial markets have reacted. We think, Lisa, back to uh, the depths in that march in April and just the panic in the marketplace.

But then the Federal Reserve comes to the rescue, fiscal stimulus comes to the rescue, and we have this major turnaround in the markets. Now Here, we are a couple of days left in the year. The question is what do we do next year? Alan Zafyn founding partner and co CEO of I e Q Capital, based in Foster City and Los Angeles, California. He joins us now, Alan, thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate it.

On Christmas Eve, again, what a year. I'd love to get your thoughts one, how are you positioning your portfolio? Lisa and Paul happy, alidays, Thank goodness, We're going to get through this year. Absolutely, there's still a couple of days left, though, let's not take sick. Carry on all right. Uh, here's the longest short of it. If you talk to almost any analysts, they'll tell you we're going to go up in the U S stock market next year. And the reason is you're going to see US economic growth

the fastest it's been since the mid eighties. And that's because when you pump literally nearly fifty worth of g d P in the form of monetary and fiscal stimulus, which is what we have done this year, you're setting yourself for a boom on the back end of that. So again, with all due respect to the horrific, horrific elements of oalth crises and literally social and economic crisis, and we clearly have problems with inequality as it relates to the stock market. The money has got to go somewhere.

And when cash is giving you nothing, and when bonds give you so little, risk appetites perk up. And with that massive amount of money, equities move higher and other risk assets moved higher. All things equal, there's plenty of risks and bumps, but the base cases we keep grinding higher, largely because the money has got to go somewhere. That's your story for two. So another way of putting this perhaps is that in two it will sort of be like what we saw in the second half of two.

Nothing really matters except for the money keeps keeps flowing, so you might as well buy stocks. Is that the same thing here with luck? Yes? With let me give you a little bit of nuance. So please give an example. I don't know if you know this, but Brexit finally passed. I heard about that. Nobody can't the markets that move right? How many years have we obsessed about that darn thing? Uh? Frankly, it's a modest positive. It's not a not actually that

big of a deal, but it's a modest positive. But you know, one thing that is um a good and about is if the economy really improves and broadens out, you will finally see this rotation to a degree anyway where you start to see the smaller companies perform as well as the larger stocks, and you start to see the value industries do as well as the technology and growth related related stock. And so it may actually be

a year where it's a little deceptive. And what I mean by that is our indexes in the US are now dominated by technology companies. It's possible we'll see a year where the average stock is doing better than that index. The index being market cap weighted, so the big technology

companies comprise a big part of that index. It could be oddly enough, a year the index doesn't go up too much in actually a bunch of individual stocks do modestly better because as the economy picks up, businesses that are a lower quality and need economic growth, they're gonna get a little bit of a pickup next year. So industrial stocks, financial stocks, selective consumer oriented stocks might actually do a little better than the apples and facebooks and

Microsoft's of the world. Um, that's sort of the other element of two thousand twenty one is maybe we'll get a broadening of market stock market recovery and that will kind of help everybody a little bit. Do you embrace that rotation trade there? Allan It's it's certainly been successful here, you know, over the last several months, I guess a lot of folks are just saying, how much legs does that cyclical trade, that rotation trade have in How do you think about that? Coming from a guy right here

in Silicon Valley, I'm gonna be a heretic. I can tell you I think there's an element of truth, So I embrace it, but only, but you know, only to a modest degree. It's like, you know, bulls and bear make goals, and bears make money and pigs don't. Um, I think you're crazy to just think I'm going to rotate entirely out of the large cap tech names and go into small caps, low value companies. That's not the trade.

You still want to be in strong balance sheet businesses that generate consistent growth, and so you can find again financials, industrials, consumer staples that meet that description without being a technology company. And I still think you've got to be balanced, um between putting all your eggs and ones ask. But it's just a reckless strategy, and it also drives a lot of transactional activity and taxes. So you know, just be prudent about it, don't You know. You don't have to

find the next test one, just keep balanced. But yeah, I do embrace the fact the economy is going to strengthen, and I do think the market will broaden out the participation, and I think it will end up being a good year, not not an amazing year, but a good year, and the risks um include the outcome of the Georgia election and that the market doesn't want to see corporate tax

rates higher. So if it's both seats on January fifth go to a Democrat, it's possible the market won't react well because there will be a perception corporate tax rates might ultimately hike as a result, we certainly need to see the distribution of the vaccines working. And then, lastly, ironically, even though you want great economic growth, you don't want the economic growth to be so strong as to create

an inflation scare. So if you see interest rates spiking spiking up towards two percent on an tender treasure bond too quickly, we'll get some hiccup in the stock market, because this market is built on low interest rates supporting the current higher than average valuation. Once rates get high enough, it gets to the point where they compete with taking stocks. But I don't think we're going to be in a protracted inflationary environment for at least another couple of years,

for all sorts of reasons, including our aging population. Older individuals tend to spend less, and we still have some elements of benefit of technology and product the UH preventing inflation from coming to play. So that's two thousand twenty one. It's a good environment, not a great environment for stocks and a broadening economic outlook. We're speaking with Alan Zaffron, founding partner and co CEO of I e Q Capital.

You said a lot there. Let's unpack one aspect. We're talking about the Georgia elections and how a democratic outcome. If the Democrats ended up taking leadership in the Senate, that could be a negative for the market because of a higher regulation and taxes. This actually is a bit contrarian because some people think it's a positive for the market due to more fiscal support. Can you sort of

talk about the balance between those two risk factors. Yeah, absolutely so, UM various amost the Communists have projected that if corporate tax rates, as stated initially by the Biden platform in the campaign, and of course it could all change. Um, if those corporate tax rates arose from it would reduce the earnings per share of the SMP five by anywhere from nine to fifteen percent. So in a vacuum that all we're going to do is raise corporate tax rates.

I could argue that if the multiple stay the same, I could argue that the market is going to take a nine to hit. You could also give me the argument that a democratic administration, all things equal, might be slightly more regulatory on technology companies which comprise part of the index, which could even worsen stock market reactions as well.

On the other hand, there is absolutely belief that such an administration will imediately increase infrastructure spending, that which has desperately needed in other forms of fiscal spending, which will clearly amplifies consumer spending in US directed corporate spending. And again now talking about analysts uh an economists of ranges arguing that that could actually increase uh earnings pretty sure on a magnitude of anywhere from seven to twelve percent.

So I would argue it's a modest negative. Ultimately, I think it's got more headline risk than ultimate economic impact, and it shifts where the winners and losers are. It actually amplifies what we just talked about in a broadening economy, all things equal, those perspective target technology companies which historically have not paid high taxes. It's going to force them pay higher taxes, and they might be under greater regulation.

The businesses that benefit from greater infrastructure spending tend to be more cursory, basic industry economically sensitive companies. So it's another argument towards the rotation. I'd argue you would get ahead if both seats go to Democrats in Georgia. I think you'll get a knee jerked reaction down. You know, pick your number, will take a week or two, maybe the market goes down. Kick a number five to ten percent. I think that's a knee jerk reaction, and it's the

proverbial buying opportunity. In the long run, companies will do just find profits will be made, and those that are fortunate enough to have savings in an IRA or you know, in their own personal accounts, I think they will benefit by own stocks. So you get a need jerk reaction down. It's not a permanent erosion of someone's well. Alan, you

mentioned that you're in Silicon Valley. One of the stories in twenty twenty, maybe starting in nineteen, was the increased regulatory oversight from US US officials, not just European officials, but UH regulators Congress. What's the feeling in the valley right now about kind of the regulatory environment as it relates to tech, it's historically been a very light touch. Are they concerned it's gonna get a little heavier, Yes, But I would tell you everyone around here is always paranoid,

and so that doesn't change anything. You always hope for the best and planned for the worst. Another story we're not covering much today is take a look at Ali Baba stock Alibaba stock, and it's down from its peak. Why because the Chinese regulators have said, we don't like Ali Baba's anti um you know, it's it's monopolistic policies

and we're going to go after them. And that's exactly with these large cap, largest tech companies fear by the way, lots of the small entrepreneurs, smaller companies of entrepreneurs around here, they love that because they want to be able to have a more competitive or fair marketplace. So there's two

sides of that coin. There's absolutely concerned that there will be greater elements of regulation, but usually the bark is worse than the bike, so there's a belief that the regulation probably won't get to the point that it's demonstrably punitive to the business. Business models, again, modestly negative impacts and probably the headlines will actually be worse than the actual damage to the business model in the long run.

It's gonna be hard for you to convince me that companies like Amazon and Microsoft and Google are going to lose permanent competitive advantages given their scale and first mover advantage and their respective businesses they've entered into before we let go, Allen, what are you doing for the new year? In the holidays, I'm going to be doing from reading

a few books I think big essentialism. I'm going to take a few walks in the Redwoods and clear my mind and hope and pray for a much better two thousand twenty one for everyone at every socio economic level. This has been a really tough year, so I had a lot of gratitude and I'm counting my blessings. That's what I'm doing. A wonderful message, Thank you, Alan Saffron. I'm doing probably about half of that, maybe a quarter,

maybe an eighth. Definitely less ambitious, that's for sure. No reading, Definitely not a walk in the redwoods, trying to wrangle kids. Alan's after in Central Park. That's that's that's sure. Sure. Yeah, I'll check out the mud from the snow and the rain. Alan Zaffred, founding partner and co chief executive officer at I e Q Capital, talking about the Redwoods and some lofty goals and really really wonderful market calls. Thank you

for everything, Allen. I will say in all seriousness, Paul, it actually has been beautiful because after it snowed, it was great. It was going sledding, it was going out and enjoying the city. And now we're facing down with a very wet Christmas Eve, and yes, it's gonna be windy, so it's gonna be tough out there for Santa and the sled but hopefully he'll be okay. Yeah, I know that you're worried about him. He'll make it through. I promise.

This is Bloomberg Markets with Lisa Rama, Weds and Paul's Wheeney on Bloomberg Radio, twelve minutes left before the end of the shortened trading day. Here ahead of Christmas, we're thinking about all of the things to come that would be nice and bubbly, just like the champagne that we were just talking about and now drinking. Joining us now to discuss the outlook for perhaps an area that needs to see brighter days if you look in some of the bigger cities, but certainly is seeing brighter days if

you look at the likes of Florida. Is Bonnie Stone Sellers and Jeff Highland, co founders of Forbes Global Properties, taking a look at the Luxury Outlook, I just to give you a sense of what Forbes Global Properties is. It's a luxury portal membership only for elite real estate firms showing high end residences across the world. So, Bonnie, you could just start by giving us a sense of what you do and how much interest you have seen

at a time of such bifurcated fortunes. It's it's an incredibly interesting time to be launching a consumer marketplace and an elite brokerage network. Was clearly the year of the home, and although there are a few cities that didn't do as well in the luxury real estate world, nearly every place around the world in luxury was reflective of people wanting bigger homes, people wanting second homes, people wanting vacation homes, and accordingly, home sale prices doubled in the past home

sales doubled in the past year. But we see as being even better for the luxury housing market. There's so much pent up demand and foreign buyers will then be going back after the vaccine into lots of markets. And we also see, um, what a great time for a digital platform. If if nothing else, Uh, the COVID gear has taught us that everyone buys things online, looks at things online, and um, doesn't matter what the price of the home is, it'll start with digital. So we're pretty

upbeat about the luxury market and our platform. Hey, Jeff, give us a sense of kind of the geographic strengths and weaknesses. It's just you know, around the world wherever you're seeing kind of the real demand. Because here in New York City it seems like everybody's leaving for Florida. What can you tell us, Well, you know that's a momentary thing. We all hope everyone comes back to New York.

But then you look at everything's like the Hampton's and Florida maybe for taxes, Austin again, for taxes Southern California. It's it's a boom time again. Uh. And I hate to say that COVID had something to do with it, but I had a client whose house we ever sale or nine digits who who was asked the question do you know it caused the Roaring twenties? And he said, no, I don't, And the person answered him it was the

Spanish flu. He said, what do you mean? He said, well, all that pent up demand from two years and deaths and no one doing anything just got everybody out. They wanted the party, they wanted to spend money, they wanted to play. So he said, he feels the same thing is going to happen in four and uh, we could have a whole another boom time. Uh. And unfortunately, the way that we're going with um you know, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Uh, it is

affecting the high end of the market. And what bye not created here with Forbs Global Properties is a luxury portal. It's basically going to be the zello of high net worth individuals. And we'll be able to attract as we've already had. We're like twelve days out now since we launched our website, UH, to really attract and direct the high net worth individual to the site, and then we'll have them contact directly with our individual agents on the portal.

And we're just terribly excited about it the Roaring twenties. I gotta say, Paul, this is what you buy into, right, you think it's going to be the Roaring twenties? Do and Uh, I absolutely do. I think it's the similarities are pretty telling. So body, I mean, one of the things driving real estate in general and certainly the high end are just these record low interest rates here. What are your buyers of luxury properties? How sensitive are they

to interest rates? Yeah? I don't think that UM buyers of high end properties are particularly sensitive to interest rates. Of course, low interest money is available and that helps on any purchase, but the luxury market is also in an old cash market, and it's more or less a global phenomena. Having said that, I think that the the UH real estate markets overall will definitely benefit from the

low interest rates. There's a question, Jeff, going back to what you were talking about the Roaring twenties I find really compelling, which is I think about the Great Gatsby and the Hampton's and the scene there. Is that what we're going to do a repeat of or is it going to take place in Austin, in Florida? Is it going to take place in new places? Because of tax reasons because of other reasons. Well, you know the whole thing about East Dag it was one big mansion on

the north shore. What we're talking about now are people with multiple homes around the world. And almost every home that we sell in Beverly Hills it's fifty million dollars in up. It's not the primary residence. It could be the fourth, the fifth, the sixth home. So it's such such it's so well spread out. And one of the things that attracted Body and me to create forms global properties is that we now have people from all over the world. We're already in seventy markets, and they come

from everywhere. There were waves when maybe you had a certain group who would let's say, uh, Middle Easterners would come to the United States, or then you had had Venezuelan's going to Florida, etcetera, etcetera. We've had that whole cycle. So now it's a little of everything coming from everywhere, and it no longer has a distinction of well, this is the year of the Chinese uh getting their money

out of China. It's it's it's coming from everywhere, and I think we'll see throughout the United States people from every portion UH going. Whether it's for business, or it's for pleasure, or it's even tax avoidance, but we're going to see a boom in the high end luxury market continue. I jump in. Our portal is not just for ultra

high net worth individual it's a consumer marketplace. Forbes is UH an incredibly well respected business brand with a hundred years history and a hundred forty million unique visitors every month who you know will be chaperone to our website, and you know there will be lots of people. All of your audience comes from many industries. They all have one thing in common, and that's that they all have homes.

So we think there's a very broad spectrum of of of consumers who would love to come to our marketplace and see the homes. Hey, Bonnie and Jeff, thank you so much. We really appreciate a Bonnie Stone Sellers and Jeff Highland, co founders of Forbes Global Properties, joining us

talks about the luxury market here. It's like everything else in this pandemic has taken a pause, but there's certainly a bullish call out there for UH luxury properties going forward least, and I think UH, you know, there's will be interesting to see how New York fares, for example. Yeah, well it's not as desolate as you might think, Paul, I will tell you that good. It's good to hear. I'm you know, I missed coming in and look forward

to doing it very soon. And uh so, Lisa, have a great couple of days weekends, Christmas and we get into the new year. We'll have more for you on

a Bloomberg radio coming up. Here's a question heading into year end of whether this deal that was passed with bipartisan support by by Congress to give nillion dollars to help support and plug the gap in people's finances as a result of the pandemic of where there was President Trump will now veto it and what the implications are joining us now Jeanne's you know, Bloomberg opinion contributor and professor at political of political science at i own a College.

G what's the thinking that President Trump has in videoing this bill, vidoing the defense bill like he did last night? What's he going for? You know it? Really? I mean, it's been a whild cool days in Washington, and I think you know the answer is, we don't quite know. We know that he has expressed reservations about the stimulus package. We know he's a reservations obviously that led to a vito of the Defense bill. UM. There's a lot of speculation as to what his motives are UM and I

would not question those. But what we do know is that we have a Congress that could a federal government that could shut down. UM. We have a Congress with a bill that hasn't quite reached the president's desk yet, but he could either sign that or veto it, or do nothing. And if he either vetos that or does nothing, it really not only puts Congress UM in a strange position, but it puts the American public in a strange position,

as we will have UM. Ten days before a pocket Vito would go through, which would be in the Congress' session would end, a new Congress would come in, and this entire bill would be blown up, so we wouldn't get the COVID relief that people are seeking. So it's a really sort of tumultuous point that we're at at this point, and we really don't know where he's going to go. He's now down in Florida and we don't

know again whether he'll veto sign or simply do nothing. So, Genie, what's striking or there's many things that are striking about the less several days as it relates to the stimulus discussions, but the lack of coordination or even communication, it seems between the White House and the Republicans in Congress. What do you make of that? Yeah, I think that's the strangest part of this. I think for so many Republicans who said they not only had the cooperation, they had

the administration in there as part of the negotiations. Seed Minuchin, who Mitch McConnell and others praised on the Senate floor for getting this bill done. You had poor David Purdue, who is facing a runoff in January fifth in Georgia, saying tweeting out that they had done the work that was needed for Georgians and he was going home to fight for his elections. All of them assuming and thinking

they had the support of the White House. And then at the eleventh hour, the President came in with this video and you know, just back to what Lisa was asking, you know, because some of the speculation is the President is frustrated because Mitch McConnell, Johnson and other leaders in the Senate have said, is Enohings enough about fighting for this election to be overturned? And it's his frustration that they no longer want to fight the electoral college that

led him to this path to blow that up. And that's purely speculation, but at your point, he certainly put his own Republican Party in a very difficult position, as they were led to believe he was supportive, and then at the end hour he has come in with this massive that his criticism what is this do for the Georgia election? Makes it very difficult for Republicans. I mean, if anything, this is a gift to Democrats who, as we've seen Nancy Pelosi tweeting, great, you know we're going

to move forward. We can try to get the two thousand dollars you want. It puts you know, the Lessler and Perdue who are in these runoffs in Georgian a very strange position. Remember, one of the reasons Mitch McConnell pushed Republican to make this deal in in the end was because of Georgia, saying we can't keep the Senate if we don't have a deal that these senators can bring home to their constituents. They thought they had that and now that's been blown up. It really were in

sort of unturned territory. Are Republicans really gonna come out now and support Leffler and Purdue given that they may not get the release they were seeking. On top of which, they have a president who has gone back and forth on whether they can even trust the electoral system in which they're supposed to be voting. So it really puts

Republicans in a very difficult position for this runoff. And of course, if they lose both of these seats, then Mitch McConnell is no longer going to be a majority leader and they will lose Washington because they will lose the Senate. What are the polls saying about Georgia right now?

And can we believe those polls? Yeah, we've seen. One of the fascinating um sort of undertold stories about this race is that many of the public posters have pulled out of Georgia after the general election, in part because they were criticized for polling in a way that didn't turn out the way the results did. In part because of the timing, and a lot of posters don't want to pull over the holidays, So we have very limited polling coming out of Georgia, and the polling we have

shows it is too tight to call. Most of these polls that I've seen that are again the public polls are within the margin of error, meaning this thing could go either way. And I know people hate to hear this, but this really is a case of turnout and Democrats seemed had be turning out people in record numbers, but Republicans usually have an advantage historically and runoff in a state like Georgia. So again, this thing could go either way.

A lot of investment managers have been watching the Georgia race and actually saying it could be a game changer for them because if Democrats do take the majority in Senate, we could see a bigger fiscal support package or fiscal stimulus, even actual true stimulus that we could call it that. Do you think that people are a little ahead of themselves and that given the moderate tilt of a lot of the Democo hats that have gotten in, Yeah, I do think. I think it's the right way to be

thinking about it. But I do think they're a little bit ahead of themselves. As you mentioned, not only the moderate tilt of the Democrats who have gotten in, but also the fact that the House, the new Congress, will be more Republican than it was or is now, and also the fact that even if Democrats take the Senate, it is by the narrowest of margins. So I think any idea that we are going to see if we had a Democratic Senate, that we would see a massive

stimulus package, I think is not going to happen. And if you look back at the two two thousand and nine what Barack Obama faced, he faced something very similar. He was never able to get the deal that most economists said he should because he couldn't get the moderate Democrats and enough of the Republicans go along with him. And this is going to be even a narrower Senate.

So I think the idea of a massive bill is something that we won't see, but I do think it's the right way to be thinking about it within the margins. If Democrats take the Senate, they obviously do have the

upper hand on these things. The other prospect is this for Joe Biden, is that he isn't going to be even more pressured by the liberal the liver more and it's going to be hard given the numbers are so slim, So there's also the flip side of it, if you will, for Joe Biden, if they take the sentence, Genie twenty seconds. I'd love to get your thoughts on just the of

all the pardons we're seeing from President Trump. Yeah, not surprising, but I think really devastating to the part in um, the parted power that the president has, and I think the black Water ones, the ones that have to do with what happened in the Rock, particularly devastating for the U S Military and US justice overseas. Genie, thank you so much for joining us. As always, we appreciate your perspective.

Gene Xano, political contributor to Bloomberg News. She's also a professor of political science at i own, a college based in New Rochelle, New York. Just getting us her thoughts here on the stimulus. Seems to be bogged down a little bit here obviously the last days, and it really is a time crunch, a cliff, if you will. Hopefully progress can be made over the next several days. Thanks for listening to Bloomberg Markets podcast. You can subscribe and

listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts. Or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm Bonnie Quinn, I'm on Twitter at bonnie Quinn. And I'm Paul Sweeney. I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. Before the podcast, you can always catch us worldwide at Bloomberg Radio