Trump's UN Speech, Boris Johnson, & Climate Change

give his prepared remarks to the United Nations. UM to get the latest on kind of some feedback on kind of what we heard from President Trump's comments, we welcome Silia moson u S, Treasury reporter for Bloomberg News, joins us on the phone from Washington, d C. Selia, thanks so much for joining us. What were your initial thoughts of President Trump's speech before the United Nations. Well, he talked a lot about giving a anti globalist message there.

I mean, that's what we heard. We talked. We heard about America's unrivaled military might. We heard him talk about not accepting a bad deal with China, that globalism has caused past leaders to ignore their national interests, and that every country has a right to defend their borders and that anyone who reaches the US will be turned away. So it was a little bit of a divisive message to a group of leaders who are trying to work multilaterally.

I think that it would be important to talk about the delivery a little bit, because you're saying that there was a divisive message needed to talk about abortion, and he talked about a lot of things. Um, But I'm just wondering what you thought about his delivery. I mean, look, it went on for longer than it was supposed to as a lot of u N speeches do. Um. It

was a little bit stilted. He was reading from a teleprompter, and the beginning it was very spirited, talking about China and talking about you know, sort of globalism and what it's done. But it did sort of towards the end, Um, whether he got tired. You know, this is not his uh where he naturally tends to um, you know, really

grab people's attention, and these prepared teleprompter speeches. He's a little bit more passionate when he's speaking off the cuff and slea just also, he kind of spent a fair amount of time on our run kind of making maintaining a very strong postures relates to US Iranian relations. It was a strong posture, but the threat of war was absent from his remarks. He said he wants peace. He does not want war with anybody. So to me, it did signal that the door to peace is still open.

He said, the fresh sanctions will not be easy unless they change behavior. Rather than saying, you know, we're gonna um, you know, lead more into this. Salahmos and thank you so much for being with us. Slams is Bloomberg News US Treasury reporter joining us from Washington, d C. On the phone following the U N addressed, it is a climate week. We've seen the protests in New York City and world wide cities as people ramp up the pressure to fight some of the effects of some of the

changes that we've been observing. Here in the studio is Joey berg Sti, his chief executive officer of Seventh Generation, normally headquartered in Burlington, Vermont, but here with us in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studios in part for these climate talks that have been going on. So can you give us a sense of what you've been doing this week? Yeah, sure. Uh well, first of all, thanks for having me on.

We kicked off Climate Week probably about a month ago when we decided that we really needed to help lift up the voices that are are all around the need to take urgent and immediate action UM, and decided that we would not only close down our offices for the climate strike that was on last Friday, the Global Climate Strike, and participate in that, but actually donate a whole week of our national television advertising time to three FT org so that they could really amplify the voices of the

youth movement, which is absolutely unbelievable the amount of momentum they've been able to create around that. So we want to amplify the voice around the need to change UM. I spent the day yesterday uh at with the U N Global Compact. We were honored along with eighty six other companies that have so far taken a or made a real commitment to take the actions needed to address the need to limit climate change to one point five percent by and we were so proud to be part

of that group. UM. But even more importantly, I was so impressed with the fact that these companies together represent two point three trillion dollars worth of sales. So this is not a group of small companies that are raising

their voices like you might expect. There's a real tipping point, and we really want to to continue to help and see this movement tip and become real and see the same consensus amongst business and amongst policy leaders that we're seeing in the world amongst climate scientists for the need to to to really address climate change. So it's seventh generation. Just give us a sense of kind of the products

you have and kind of how consumers actually interact with them. Sure, so we make a whole range of eco friendly home and personal care products. I always say that we do much more than just make these products. We're really trying to change the way the business is done. So as a Proud B corporation, we're committed to the triple bottom

line of people, planets and profits UM. And we take our our philosophy that inspired our name from the great law of the Iroquois that in our every deliberation we must take into account the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations UM into the way that we create our products. And so we create products that are made from plant based ingredients, and not patrolling based ingredients. We ensure that all of our packaging is recite cool,

not just recyclable, but actually made from recycled content. UM. So we think really deeply about every single thing that we make. And you know, this company was founded over thirty years ago around these principles and have been proudly trying to address the needs of the world we find ourselves in today. UM. And so everything we designed is really designed thinking about the world that's around us and how we can lower the our impact on the world around us. And have you seen sales increase at a

rapid pace? Yeah, the business is doing incredibly well, so the market's responding. We've been growing really well. We're UM in the midst right now of a global expansion, which is incredibly exciting. Have you seen a lot of competitors try to come in with a similar message that could potentially be both a threat to your brand, but I'll be it perhaps encouraging on the other side of things. Yeah,

I would say gratefully. We're seeing a lot of competition in the markets that we compete in, which is which is really exciting. UM. We were alone for a long time.

More and more brands are coming in. They are more and more the largest players in the markets are introducing more eco friendly versions of the major brands, and for sure, that creates more competition, but it also pushes us to continue to innovate and to identify how can we continue to lead forward and drive our sustainability mission more and more aggressively over time. How tough is it for you guys to get shelf space? UM? Are are the supermarkets

and other retailers. Are they open to your product that they recognize that it's a growth area? Or you, just like everybody else, you've gotta fight to the nail for self space. Like everybody else, we fight, we fight for the space, but we do it through real partnership, and we've built great partnerships with a number of the different retailers around the country UH and really helping them to develop the quote unquote natural business on their store shelves.

They recognize increasing demand and actually, if you look at the categories we compete in, the vast majority of the growth in those categories is coming from brands like seventh Generation. What's the next innovation in UH? In your business? The one I'm the most excited about right now is we we just launched a ultra concentrated laundry detergent UM. We call it the Easy Dose Laundry because it's super convenient.

The same number of doses, sixty six doses, but in a twenty three ounce bottle instead of a big hundred ounce bottle. So it is h lighter, less plastic, f less water, so you're not shipping as much UM as much around the around the continent UM and for consumers that has this automatic dosing future that makes it super easy to do your laundry. Jerry Burstein, thanks so much

for joining us. Jerry Burstein is CEO of Seventh Generation based in Burlington, VERMP, joining us here on our Bloomberg Interact their broker studio talking to us about environmentally safe products and sustainability. Well. In an unprecedented and sweeping rebuke to the Premier at the Supreme Court's eleven judges found that bars Johnson had given Queen Elizabeth the second called

unlawful advice to suspend the legislator. To get the latest on this every evolving story returned to Edward Evans, European calumnist for Bloomberg News. He is in our London studio, So Edward, just give our American audience at least a sense of how important and how unprecedented, Uh, this move is by the Supreme Court of the UK. Well, you have to understand the Supreme Court in the UK is

very different from the Supreme Court in the US. The judges here are far more reluctant to get involved in overtly political questions and have much more limited powers in what they can do. So ready to come out today as they have done and say that Johnson's prorogation of Parliament was illegal and that it cannot stand is truly unprecedented. This is uh, effectively a legal hand grenade thrown very directly at Boris Johnson. And he has come out fighting.

He's vowed to go on and force the UK out of the European Union with or without a deal next month. And there are note and he has resisted calls so far to resign. So the idea of him resigning, the argument that Boris Johnson cannot remain as Prime Minister after this ruling. Can you explain the logic there? But two things.

It is unprecedented for a prime minister's advice to the Queen to be ruled illegal, effectively misleading the monarch in the British system is about as bad as it gets for a prime minister, but more practically, without the right paroe Parliament, he really has no control over the legislature. He doesn't command a majority, he doesn't command control over the parliamentary timetable, and he can't now even stop Parliament from the city. This is a government in office but

not in power. Now that his escape route would normally be to call an election, but since the fixed turn Parliament's Act of eleven, he can't do that without the support of at least two thirds of MPs, and so far they've said no. So Edward, it appears that Boris Janson is going to fly back to London from New York this evening, perhaps cutting his trip a little bit, sure to deal with this issue when he gets to Parliament and tomorrow what happens. Parliament will resume sitting tomorrow morning.

There won't be Prime Minister's question time as there usually is on a Wednesday, but he can expect to face urgent questions for lawmakers from lawmakers now over what he does for over Brexit. You may also see lawmakers trying to put down their own measures to stop a no deal brexit. Now, Boris Johnson has of course got a site problem in that lawmakers have stopped him essentially legally from leaving the European Union on October thirty one without

a deal. If that's the situation, he'll be forced to seek an extension. They're great fear was that by using prorogation Boris Johnson would try and stop them from from from stopping him essentially from lead to in just that leaving without a deal. Now that Parliament is back, you can expect them to take a very close interest in what he's doing and take every legal trick in the book to box him into a corner. Here, what kind of support does Boris Johnson have within his own party?

That's a very good question. And don't forget this is a man who lost twenty one MPs after they voted against him. He does not. He's forty short of odd members short of a majority. This is somebody who is commanding a minority government. That said, what you've seen under Boris Johnson is the Tory Party turn itself essentially into a Brexit party, and with those supporters this appears to

be popular don't forget that. The whole narrative that he's trying to set up is the is the establishment denying you, the people, the democratic choice that you made in the referendum.

So you have this essentially Parliament versus people election. And the point here is that this if you look at where Boris Johnson is in the polls right now, he's ahead, He's you know, corp Ammy Corbyn is trailing him in the Posty's about i think three points below former Labor leader Michael Foote in which was Labor's worst defeat I think in the twentieth century. So that is that is

the political situation for Boris Edward. It's a you know, seems like bars Johnson has lost almost at every single turn here, whether it's ruling from the courts or just rebukes from Parliament, hasn't really had any material wins. Is there a way for him out of this? An election is the way out for him in the longer term. Ultimately, with this, nothing changes until the parliamentary arithmetic changes, because it's Boris Johnson hasn't got control of the situation, but

he knows what he wants. Parliament has got control of the situation. But doesn't know what it wants. It's opposed to leaving without a deal, but beyond that there's no agreement. So to get out of to asstially resolve this situation, Johnson needs to get to an election or he needs to get a deal, a deal agreed with other EU leaders. Now they've got no incentive to give him any kind of concessions given that they can see Parliament is dead

opposed to Britain leaving without a deal. So it's again it all comes down now, I think to an election, extension of the negotiations and then an election, and the pound is up, which just you know shows that where

where we're at this point. Edward Evans, thank you so much for being with us Edward Evans as European columnists and Brexit editor for Bloomberg News, joining us from our London studios, and it really is just you know, the message deepens and again it seems like perhaps the read through in markets is that this could move closer to avoiding a no deal Brexit, because Boris Johnson seemed dead set on that, right. I mean, that's sort of the

I'm still holding out to the second referendum. I'm sticking to my my guns there, but I don't think so you keep you keep doing that mean well. An increasing focus on the part of both regulators as well as investment managers has been a shift from public to private markets, where you have more companies waiting longer or perhaps never going public, and private markets are growing at a much

faster pace. The question being, and this is something SEC chair Jake Clayton has been looking into, how do you open up private markets to mom and pop investors and others who want to get a slice of American dynamism at its ground floor? Joining us now, Kenwian uh ken Win, chief executive officer and co founder of Republic in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studios here, Ken thank you so much for being with us. Can you just give us a sense of how Republic fits into that sort of narrative

A Lisa, thank you for having me. Republic is a full stack investment platform focusing on private booty stage companies that are changing how we live and work in the future. So it used to be uh not lawful for a non millionaire to invest privately. The law changed about three years ago and we based on that changed launch Republic.

So just gives a sense of kind of how your company has evolved, how many people use your platform, like how many investors are coming to saying hey, we're interested in the private market, and and and how do you source your deal flow? And just kind of how it

all plays out there. On the investors side, we've grown to be about three and fifty thousand investors on the platform, and out of about ten thousand applications from company looking to raise, we've vetted and may offer us to about two hundred to launch and so far have successfully raised for about a hundred and forty of them. And they ranged from very early stage companies to women founders building the next drone down to company that have already raised

venture capital but want to engage the consumer. They stakeholders, you know, the next uber and lift. The earliest investors got to be the drivers that supported the company, and currently that's not the case. So I hope that that would change. How do you decide what is likely to be a successful company. We do have deep heritage to

the venture space. We came out of angel Lists, one of the premier private fundraising platform, so we do apply eventual lens looking at domain expertise, looking at whether or not the founding team has the maturity, the awareness around corporate governance and the resilience to build to be able that space to win what they aiming to do, and how related how relatable it is to the mainstream audience.

So what are some of the sectors or types of companies that you've been funding recently When it comes to the crowd mainstream audience investing, I think it's both marketing and fundraising, so naturally it's more appealing to B to C companies that consumer folk is. But we have had success raising over a million dollars for very early stage

bt B companies as well. One concern, I mean, there are a number of concerns, and opening up private markets are certainly the venture capital stage to mom and pop investors. But one is liquidity, the idea that you can invest in something, but you can't take your money out. You gotta wait and pray that your investment is going to pay off. So you know, how do you sort of

address that issue? For sure? The fact that private investing is illiquid and highly risky is something that you've got to make sure that the investing public is aware of. But I view it Slay an asset class, meaning if you're gonna put away some money that you don't need right away but may need it in twenty years or for your children. Private investing maybe a part you should

consider well. But if you're investing, let's say in an equity is basically an equity infusion of these nascent companies, you just have to wonder what's your cash out tie frame? I mean, is it just an I p O or is it just that it gets big enough that you

can how do you how do you monetize? It used to be five to six years that he's unless and into the communities, gets acquired or go I p O. But nowadays you are seeing secondary market being built equity date equities and equitate and Republic itself will have plans for a secondary platform in the future. Is so that people will have, you know, more ways to to get

out to liquidate. Has been a year we've had some very high profile I p o s, a lot of tech I p O s, Uber Lift and some others that haven't done well and kind of surprised the market

with how poorly they've done. And now we're I guess the next in the line is we work and It's been very controversial because in part because of the valuation differentially we've seen between the private market forty seven billion dollars that soft Bank recently funded at and what appears to be the range in the public market of tendive fifteen billion. Is that Does that concern you about maybe the valuations in the private market world are just too

frothy at this moment. In fact, point, I think it highlights the value proposition of people being able to invest earlier. When you allow people to invest a hundred dollars fifty dollars in a company you know, one or two year out since inception, if and when the company succeeds, the potential return can be a hundred acts or in some cases over a thousand acts. They may not and you

may lose everything. But that ability to invest early up until now most people are not even aware of it, And the fact that companies take longer, much longer to go I p O now means that much of the return the wealth the generation the wealth generation potential alreadio occurred during the private stage, meaning that those who invest after a company has gone IPO typically holds the detail end of the bat. So if there is let's say,

taking this sort of out to its logical conclusion. Here, if there is a robust secondary market created for private investments, and you have mom and pop investors that can get in, what's the difference between that private market and a public market.

The difference would be that what we're aiming to do is to bring the private market public so that it resembles more of what the laws and the equosystem intended to be back in the sixties and seventies, back when company went I p O at fifty millions, a hundred millions, Google when I p O at a relatively low price, and then rise in with Amazon. But nowadays the private market is no longer accessible and the public market is also not no longer attractive. So we're aiming to make

the public market or the private market public again. Can when thanks so much for joining us. We really appreciate

this very interesting. Ken Wins, the chief executive officer and co founder of Republic during us here in our Bloomberg Interactive Broker Studio, which you know, again it just kind of brings up an issue which I think which can highlight it a little bit is some of the valuation questions and are now being brought up by some of these higher profile, bigger deals and can mention you know, a lot of these companies are staying private longer. Maybe some of that that upside is being uh is not

available for the public market. But this is so fascinating, right because this has been going on for a long time, and you've seen record amounts of money going into private adventure funds, and you just have to wonder at what point these markets are going to challenge some of the sort of parameters of public markets saying they're not fitting the bill in some way, which is the reason why

everyone's going to these other markets. I mean, there are a lot of really good questions here fasactally a lot of the sec to pay attention to. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you prefer. Paul Sweeney, I'm on Twitter at pt Sweeney. I'm Lisa abram Woids. I'm on Twitter at Lisa A. Bramwod's one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on bloom A Radio. HM