Post-Vaccine World Will Embrace Globalization: Joel Hyatt

and on Bloomberg dot com. As well. As we get more and more positive vaccine news, I think that allows people to think a little bit more about what the world is going to look like on the other side of this, and we take a look, we think about the economic environment, what will the economic environment look like on the other side and for the years to come.

To answer some of those questions, we welcome Joel Hyatt h He is true trust the emeritus at the Brookings Institution and co founder, chairman and CEO of Globality UH based in San Francisco. Joel, thanks so much for joining us here. You know, I get as we think about getting to the point of vaccines, it gives people a little bit more confidence to look to the other side of this pandemic. One of the issues is with you know,

also with a new administration. Stion is this going to be a global economy, like we're thinking about it before the pandemic, maybe before the Trump administration, where globalism was kind of the accepted way for economic growth. Do you still see globalism as a driving force in the global economy? Yes,

I do absolutely. I recognize. Of course, the COVID nineteen interrupted global trade and foreign investment, and indeed, in the few years leading up to the global pandemic there was an overall reduction in global trade, principally that was manufactured goods, because the global trade of services continued to increase. But absolutely the pandemic interrupted it in the same way that events like wars or financial crisises can interrupt a global trade.

And you know, there have been predictions that globalization is dying and at least slowing rapidly. I actually think those predictions are just completely off base. In fact, look look at the pandemic itself for a clear demonstration that both the challenges and the opportunities facing the world are all

global um. It is just thrilling to see how the benefits of globalization were brought to bear on on on bringing vaccines to the to the resolution of this pandemic, you know, to to Turkish immigrants from that living in Germany produced a vaccine that's now being shot in the arms of Americans and people all over the world. And the global supply chain of global logistics, I mean, everything that it took to solve for this pandemic and record time,

all of that was facilitated by globalization. And yes, I think we will see post pandemic renewed growth in globalization. I think that it will be dramatically led by services as opposed to U products. Um, we've had marketplaces for products for quite some time. I mean, think what Amazon and an Ali Baba have been able to do bringing technology and scale to the delivery of goods to people

again all over the planet, truly global. We haven't seen that in services, but I think that's what we're going to see is the growth of marketplace as a company light like Globality, that that has built an AI powered platform that enables companies to buy and sell services from any location on the globe, and and and and builds an ecosystem that makes doing that transparent and fair and opened up all suppliers based on the merits of performance

and quality and price. And these are big, big developments that I think are on the near horizon. I think we're going to see a lot more global integration. And you're right, Paul, to suggest that the change in administration is a factor in that. There's there's no question that is also the case. Let's just for contexts mention that Globality is an AI powered program and it, as you said, calls the sourcing process and apparently from months to hours

in some cases delivers savings. And you've raised about a hundred seventy two million dollars, most recently a hundred million from the soft Bank Vision Fund back in January. So perhaps Joel, you could tell us how it's been so difficult in some areas to source things that we need. So, for example, yes, the vaccine process has been phenomenal, and if we continue to get a distributed the way the beginning of the distribution has happened, then we are laughing.

But for things like ppe, and then for you know, regular everyday consumer goods like toilet paper and computer parts and so on, it hasn't been so easy. Well, look that that's true. There were disruptions in the supply chain for for typical products like that, driven in part of course, as you know by the fears and anxieties in the early stages of the pandemic and hoarding and all of those. Well, you can't actually buy a PC with a good graphics card at the moment. It's very, very difficulty of to

wait a month. Why is that? Well, that's again, uh, my expertise is in services, not in not in manufactured goods, So I'm not the best to explain that. But I think that the solutions to the problems you're raising are actually in more globalization and not less And I think that that's where the solutions will come in, making in making boundaries less and less important, in consumers and businesses ability to source the goods and the services that they

that they in fact need, and so and so. I really, to the extent that you're addressing supply chain problems, countries aren't are best able to solve those problems on their own. I mean, you know, people I think have lost sight of the rewards and the problems resulting from globalization and over a billion So Joel, talk to us about globalization of services then, which is what you say you're expert at.

How does thus grow in significance? How do I how do I use services from another country if it's not say something like a customer hotline. So so great question, and there's really a couple of aspects of that. First of all, trillions of dollars of services are bought and sold just by businesses every year, and the opportunity to enable a company to identify the best supplier at the right price, to do so quickly, and to be able to source that supplier wherever that service provider happens to

be is a very big deal. And by using artificial intelligence and digital technological solutions, you limited all the frictions. And then, secondly and importantly, you made an interesting point. Look at consumers. They've had, they've had a wonderful consumer experience when they go online to buy and the like. Believe it or not, all those trillions of dollars of purchase of by businesses of services, they're not done through

what I would call the consumerization of the enterprise. The kinds of expectations we consumers have when we go on if they're done through the most archaic, inefficient, ineffective, and expensive processes, and all that's in the process of changing as they go through transformational innovation to again aipower digital solutions. Today, they start with a paper intensive request for proposal process.

It's a hundred pages long. It's it makes it impossible for small companies, diverse companies, foreign companies to compete in the global market for their business because the processes don't work, they're so inefficient. When you use technology to eliminate all that, and you bring the kind of consumerization the enterprise that makes it quick and fun and easy and adds value with intelligence build into the process, you open up global

trade opportunities for everybody. For the buyer you get better services at a lower costs, and for suppliers you get access to buyers all over the world, not just in your neighborhood or even your own country. There is a big deal, all right, Joel, thanks for joining us today,

Joe Hia it's called founder, a chair and CEO of Globality. Well, if we think all the way back to the dark days of March and April in this pandemic, a phrase that entered the lexicon, I believe was bend the curve as we tried to get a handle on the infections in that first wave here and not hearing too much about that these days as the country experiences second or third wave, depending upon where you live. Let's get some

latest on the pandemic. We do that with Dr A. Mesh, Senior scholar and infectious disease physicians of John's Hoppkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. And we should note that the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is supported by Michael Bloomberg, founder Bloomberg LP, Bloomberg Philanthropies and this radio operation. So Dr Dolge talk to me about that bend the curve conversation. We don't seem to be having it, uh this time around, as

cases surge. Why is that? Do you think what we really have is an uncontrolled demic? And I don't think anybody really thinks that we are going to be able to flatten the curve sufficiently before before a vaccine. There are attempts to do so with some of the social distancing restrictions coming back into into place, but we you know, flatting the curve was about preserving hospital capacity, trying to keep cases to a pace that's manageable, and that's clearly

not the case in many parts of the country. And there's so much pandemic fatigue, and and I do think that people are are frustrated because now we are in December and we still can't seem to get this right. We still don't have test trace isolate capacity in any state in this country, and and we've just basically muddled through.

So a lot of it is probably it's just it didn't have to be this way, and it's just the result of kind of inaction and and the wrong actions being taken in a lot of just mismanagement of this pandemic that made flattening the curves something very hard to achieve in this country. Doctor Doldia, what's your estimation now for the amount of deaths that we are going to see in the United States before this is all over. I think we're already crossed three hundred thousand. I think

probably about half a million. I think would probably be somewhere where I would if I were to kind of put it in the ballpark, I think it's going to be. You know, there's still more deaths that are going to occur before this population's vaccinated. That's insane. Half a million, where that's another two hundred thousand from where we are here. Yeah, So Dr Dolga. You know, talk to us about the vaccines that the data I'm gonna say, it's just been

you know, it's really surprisingly positive. I mean, you know, when we first started talking about these vaccines, you know we're being told by experts, you know, fifty six would be a phenomenal number. Let me started seeing numbers and then nineties. Uh, give us a sense of how how this came to be. How did we get such good

vaccines so quickly? It is remarkable and none of us expected these first generation vaccines, especially once like m R and A vaccines where we really haven't seen clinical trial data to be this effective. And I think it really is just a testament to science advancing and the ability to improve vaccine technology. And I think these these vaccines, especially the Maderna and the fiser ones, have basically shattered all expectations and really will be a way to change

the face of this pandemic. And I think it's just a question now of getting this into the arms of Americans, which is going to take some time. But really I think m R and A vaccines should be thought of as as a path breaking way to think about emerging infectious disease emergenous emerging infectious diseases in the future, and that we're that the next pandemic, the next infectious disease emergency is going to be met with an m R and a vaccine pretty quickly and and likely be able

to um to really soften its blow. And I think that's that's a big win for for vaccines when we look at this coronavirus pandemic kind of, you know, at a twenty foot level, Yeah, that's something that we can take away from it, even beyond this particular coronavirus. Dr Adulgia just curious as to what you make of the fact that London says it's seeing a mutation of this virus. All virus is mutate. It's important to remember that that's just what they're going to do, and most mutations don't

really have any consequence. They don't do anything functionally for the virus. And there's no evidence that this mutation that they've noticed in London, like other mutations that they've noticed, have any have any change change anything about the vaccine, change anything about the treatment. And I think it's important to study these these mutations and understand what their implications are. But it's important to remember that, you know, not every

mutation is a scary mutation. Not every mutation is something you know out of a Hollywood movie where the virus acquires a new capability or evades countermeasure. Most most really

end up being nothing that's good. So, doctor, you know rightfully so that the news has been about the vaccines, but also when to get your thoughts on some of the therapeutic treatments that are in the works and maybe some advances that are being made, because again we're having such a high case load and we likely to do so for uh several months at the very least. Where were in terms of actually treating cases when they get

to the hospital. So the work course there is dexi metho zone, which is a cheap steroid that we've been using for lots of different things over the years. And what we found is dex and meto zone when patients need oxygen supplemental oxygen does decrease mortality. So that's become something that we turn to very quickly when we're running we're treating the patient that needs oxygen. We have other drugs like remdesse heere and that sort of has a marginal impact. It might be able to make you get

better a little bit quicker. There are some other immune modulating drugs that are also being studied in combination with with remdesivie that might get you better faster, But really dex and meta zone is the main thing, and I would think that our improvements are are less the factor of drugs but more about our knowledge and our ability to understand this disease, to diagnose it quicker, to put people on the right treatment pathway, to understand how to

use a mechanical ventilator more appropriately and deliver oxygen to these these people, proning them, putting them on their bellies instead of keeping them uh face space up. And then also recognizing, understanding and being able to treat and anticipate complications. That's something that we're much better doing now in December than we were in March. And all of this is really contingent on not having room to take care of

these patients in our hospitals and not being overworked. So that's something that's important to remember that as hospitals get stressed, all of these all of this, all of these games we've made against the virus could could be at risk Dr Adulgas, thank you so much for all of your phenomenal information for us. Always really adore speaking with you.

Get straight from the source, what exactly is the truth and the facts about all of these things that we hear about from time to time, from the vaccines to the various procedures and so on. That is Dr Amish Adulgia, Senior scholar and infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Dave Hunt is the president of Hunt Auctions, as partnered with Christie's to present the Auction

home Plate, a private collection of important baseball memorabilia. It's interesting this year because it's expected to do extraordinarily well. Just this morning, Peter Book far obliquely advisors, was writing about the appetite for memorabilia and how you know prices are really just becoming inflated. Dave Hunt is our guest now, So Dave, thanks for joining us all the way from Philadelphia. First, give us a little idea of the types of things that you have on auction. Yeah, great to be here.

I think this collections really quite unique in that it spans really baseball history all the way from the nineteenth century, almost present. Uh, And there's of course things you'd want to see in an iconic collection like this game used pieces from Babe Ruth, Luke, Garrig, Tai Cobb, Honas Wagner

and and on um. And as we've seen, as you've noted, our market has been steadily growing over the last several decades, but these last two years, uh, and even this year with the pandemic, the pricing and maybe more notably the interest by volume has just increased by many more piples And it's just sort of fascinating to see and and we see a lot of growth in the future as well. So, David,

what's driving that growth? I mean, for the stock market, we could always say, oh, don't fight the FED interest rates are low bidding up stocks. How about on the member bil your market, what what's kind of the drivers of value there generally? Yeah, I think, well we've seen we've done this for thirty years now, and what we've always felt was the potential the scalability of sports just clients that potentially like sports one and have some means

to purchase something related to it too. That's an enormous volume of clientele potentially, and it just continues to increase, and I don't. I think we've really just scratched the surface, especially if you compare these pieces, you know, to other fields, you know, whether it's a piece of artwork or a different collectible in a different field that have had much

more mature market. Ours is really still only thirty or forty years old, which if you think about it by normal standards, is not that not that that that dated.

Uh So, as we see that increase, and especially this year with just everybody looking for nostalgia in their life, looking to figure out something different than this particular year, I think that's part of what's really led to this increase, uh and more of maybe an appreciation of the particular artifacts and how they relate to some of these iconic sports figures. Who are the people with this kind of cash?

We know that for example, last Thursday, when Gretzky Rookie card in perfect condition was auctioned off for one point to nine million dollars. It's a card that's sold for four hundred and sixty five thousand just in August of two thousand sixteen. So that's a triple tripling nearly of its value in just four years. Who can afford to lay down that kind of cash and and hope that you know these cards and these memorabilia appreciate. Yeah, what we've seen is sort of a wide and diverse group

of people purchasing these items. So you've got sort of a core group of seasoned collectors and investors that have been doing us for a number of years. Uh, and they sort of follow it almost blue chips, if you will, in our world, the Babe Ruth games bats or the Gary pieces or what have you. And then you're seeing a lot of new people get into this and are purchasing more modern pieces, such as a card you referenced.

And I think the confluence of all of that, in addition to the fact that these pieces really are truly great investments, not just financially, but they're enjoyable. They're not a piece of paper that's in a lockbox somewhere. There's something you can enjoy, can share, can display in different institutions. Uh. And and that enjoyability factor, if you will, seems to be translating tangibly into pricing as we continue to see

the market increase. Alright, So Dave, I'm gonna call member Burial Sports Member Bilial kind of an alternate asset class, much like we'll see an art or or wine, and you know, some of those markets over the years which are probably much more developed, we've seen a lot of international interests, whether it's Japanese or Middle East or now Chinese. Is a sports memorability of business primarily a domestic US business or do you see interest from abroad? It's a

great question. Yeah, I think that in other fields it's a more in depth interest abroad, but it is definitely developing. In sports, we're noticing that word clientele are purchasing things from from different countries. I mean, we've been a partner with the NFL and NFL Auction for a number of years and for instance, every year we do an event at the Super Bowl, so we will see bits come

in from Australia, from England, from Japan. So that's uh really probably more related to the the uh provance of sports across the world to social media through different platforms. So these exhibition games that the leagues are playing in different countries and that is tailing into the memorabilia market. So you know sort of see these layers come in and adding more depths and and obviously in turn more pricing increases to to our market due to some of

those sorts of reasonings. So if you want to place a bid on a Babe Ruth Boston Red Sox era professional model baseball at second nineteen sixteen to nineteen eighteen, what what are you looking at putting down? And how would you do it? Well, if you go to Christie's dot com slash Baseball, you can see all the items, and even if you're not instrument bidding, we can churched people to see him, because this really is a museum

worthy collection. But a bat like that, which is estimated at a half a million to a million dollars, seems like a lot of money. But I remember when those bats twenty years ago, we're ten and fifteen thousand dollars literally, and we see a lot of increased potential for a piece like that with only two specimens known the date to his rookie seasons with the Red Sox before he obviously continued his career with the ang So there's a number of incredible pieces related to some of the greatest

names in baseball. And there's stuff as well from the ninet three World Series New York Yankees, the ninety four US All Star Tour of Japan. Paul Fields. It's got it. They've got everything there. It's gonna be interesting. Gonna go to that website as soon as we're done here. David Hunt, thank you so much for joining us. David Hunt, President of Hunt Auctions. UH talking about sports memory billion. This is search for global yield people maybe looking at some

of these alternative asset classes like sports memorabilia. Very interesting to see the growth in that business. Let's bring in Miles Wice now a very important conversation. He's our sec reporter and he hasn't looking at Blackstone. A great story on the Bloomberg and here's the beginning. With companies and industries from healthcare to battery storage in its portfolio. Blackstone has a massive buyout unit with a unique view into the economy. Soon it may offer peaks to outsiders willing

to pay Miles. The story is about black Stone potentially selling the data of the companies that it owns. Is it allowed to do this? Um I no currently UM it doesn't have the leeway to do this under its UH the offering documents for its various private equity funds, although it does it can do it for some of the companies that it has relationships with it aren't that aren't owned and by the buyout funds, So it would have to have to put some language in that explicitly

allows them to to sell the data. So miles, who would be the buyers of this data? Seems like it's

really really granular. Who has an appetite for that? Well, the hedge funds have been using this kind of using big data quite a bit to try and get a get an edge and when they're trading or insights into how a particular stock, so they're they're definitely one customer and the other would be just other other companies that are in the the the business sectors that maybe that Blackstones portfolio companies are in, who might might want to use the data just to um, you know, improve their

own operations like sales and marketing or or something along those lines. Then you were EAGLEID and you saw this plan disclosed in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You say it's an exploratory effort, quoting a spokesperson, What does this mean? Does Blackstone anticipate that the sec will will change over its personnel and therefore it might become

possible for Blackstone to actually enact this plan UM. I think when they when they when they say exploratory, I think that means that they're just um, they're just going out into the market and seeing, you know, what sort of UM interest there is in this from from potential customers and what it would take to set it up. They they are they are committed to doing it. They already have a substantial uh data UM data management unit that's that's kind of gathering data from the different companies

and they are allowed to use it internally. So it would just be another step for that the unit they already have in place to go from uh providing it to other Blackstone uh uh entities to selling it um you know, into the outside UM customers. It's amazing, Miles. I've been looking at this information technology business about thirty years, and there was a time companies like done in Bradstreet you couldn't give them away datahead little to no value other than maybe a couple of you know, you know

products you could derive off of it. But now it seems like there's just tremendous value being put on data in the marketplace. Lots of consolidation companies buying other companies to get more scale. Is this Blackstone just saying, hey, this looks like a hot market. We now have a an asset that maybe didn't have much value ten or fifteen years ago, but now does Yeah. I think that, Yeah,

I think I think that's that's true. And there's just so much interest in in just finding something that will give you know, give you a unique insight into you know, into how the markets are going or how different companies are going. And I think it's just a matter of um, things becoming more competitive and and again people trying to find an edge edge and in that competition. Fascinating Miles. You'll have to keep us updated on this. It's something

we should be watching. So what else have you been noticing coming in at the end of the year. Is the end of the year a big push for filings. Well, there's been a lot of mutual funds and such that have been, uh, you know making changes a year end. Uh, either in the some of the personnel that um, you know, changing like portfolio managers are changing the way their funds work. Uh, basically too kind of um you know, kind of kind of adjust to all the changes that have occurred in

and there have been a few changes. Miles Wise, thanks so much for joining us. Miles is the SEC reporter from Bloomberg News, joining us on the phone from Washington, d C. And it's interesting, Vonnie, the value that's being put on, you know, just raw data these days. I guess with computing power, it just makes it so much

more valuable for users in different ways. Right exactly where before you can really do much with it, Now you can just shove it all into a blender or a machine and a little bit out results to you that could be are you useful for yours? And we've seen that, you know, hedge fund managers use you know, kind of this primary data if you will, for years and now maybe some other applications as well. 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