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This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. I'm Jonathan Ferrow, along with Lisa Bromwitz and Amrie Hordern. Join us each day for insight from the best in markets, economics, and geopolitics from our global headquarters in New York City. We are live on Bloomberg Television weekday mornings from six to nine am Eastern. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business app.
That core PCEE figure which came in banging line zero point two percent increase following a zero point three percent the prior month, it was revised downward for the prior month zero point two percent personal income and personal spending.
That's where it gets pretty interesting to me, the idea that you get to get an upside surprise on both particularly personal spending zero point six percent increase versus a zero point five percent increase and real personal spending increasing zero point four percent versus a zero point two percent expected, and it was actually revised upward in the prior reading as well.
I am Marie.
It seems like, people keep spending and that has been the engine that keeps on giving to the American economy.
People keep spending. Jobless claims yesterday very strong number, and now when it comes to PC bang in line. So what is there actually look at the data like this,
what is there actually to worry about? When I do see spending though increasing, I do wonder how many people are like members of my family who went out concerned about the tariffs and are continued to spend now, and they are concerned about the holidays coming up, and they don't want the prices to go up, so they're willing to go out and spend a ton.
Now, I guess it remains to be seen.
Yeah, that's one reason why people are listening to earnings. Former Saint Louis FED President Jim Bullard joins US now and I am so excited to speak with you, Jim, because right now I'm looking at all of this data that suggests a really strong US market, a really strong US economy, people continuing to be able to spend, and their incomes rising.
What about this picture.
Makes you think that the FED needs to be cutting rates more aggressively.
Yeah, thanks for having me. So these numbers look to me like they're consistent with what markets were expecting. I think markets have a reacceleration hypothesis and I'm sympathetic with that. So I do think the economy will be in pretty good shape for the rest of this year and into twenty twenty six as some of the new administration policies
come online. On the inflation side, there was no surprise here, so that seems to be very consistent with the committee's story that they'll be able to look through inflation and then expect it to.
Fall in twenty twenty six.
So I think this leaves everything on track to have further rate cuts during the next two meetings of the f HOMC.
Just put this new perspective, this is what the market was expecting, and so there is this rally across the board as people say, Okay, the Fed can keep cutting even though you are seeing the strength and potentially reacceleration Jim, as you are putting yet year over year core PCE, that key metric that the FED looks at, is it two point nine percent.
It's not climbing, it.
Might even be going down to two point eight percent, but it's still almost a full percentage point above two percent, Is there a feeling that it just isn't really important to get it down to two percent that quickly, and so you can look through that.
No, they do want to get it down to two percent over the next two years. So you want to ask them todian to two percent, I would say, not go very quickly to two percent or go under an overshoot. So I think you know, usually the way this is thought about is that you want to gradually bring it down. I think the community's on track to do that, and so that part looks looks pretty good.
So the committee almost looking through inflation.
Have they been given the green light by the FED chair to look through if there's going to be any hot print prints upcoming when it comes to inflation.
Yeah, I do think that the chair at Jackson Hall very much signed on to the idea that any inflationary effects coming through the tariff channel would be smaller than previously anticipated and they're coming later than previously anticipated. And
so because of that is basically a look through. So even though you say, like President Barkin said, well it's not getting any better for those that thought there was an important teariff component to inflation, that part should go away since that's a one time effect, and so that's giving the committee confidence that they can go ahead and
get closer to neutral. They'll still have a you know, still be a restricted policy, still putting downward pressure on inflation, but not as intensely is what they're doing right now.
Well, when it comes to inflation, we heard from Governor Myron almost insinuate.
Not right now, but maybe in the future.
The FED should actually have more of a range in terms of their target. Can you see the FED moving towards that, maybe targeting two to three percent instead of just two percent across the board?
Yes, a classic issue in inflation targeting. The US has come down on the side of just having a target. It's simpler communication. It doesn't leave ambiguity around having a range. One of the problems for countries that have had ranges is that the top of the range then becomes okay as opposed to the midpoint of the range. So it can be interpreted as slippage in your commitment to keep inflation low and stable, and households do not like the inflation.
So I think it's incumbent on the fetter reserve to make sure inflation stays low and stable.
Jim, I'm trying to get a sense of how a data dependent FED deals with the potential of not getting data next week. We're supposed to get the non farm payrolls report on Friday, October third, Ostensibly that could be after the government shutdown, where we do not get that data. Print how problematic would that be for the feeder reserve?
Given how balanced right now?
A lot of people feel the risks are.
Yeah, well, it's disturbing to not get as much data as you can on the state of the economy, and so that would be a concern. But the FED has managed through that in previous episodes around government shutdown, so I think it's manageable. But it's not an ideal situation.
It feels like a really messy moment because not only is there questions about are there questions about the integrity of the data when we get the data, which data to look at what the data is measuring, but they're these sort of sea changes that are overlaid on top of it. Whether it's different areas, different income earners that are earning a lot and able to spend, lower income order workers that are feeling the pinch of inflation and
not seeing the same types of labor gains. I just wonder if the FED should think of a new paradigm, a new benchmark to chores to understand exactly what the optimal employment level is and how they should weigh these two risks.
Yeah, I do think it's a good time to review our models and think about how are we going to do this over the next decade. Could we do better than where we've been. I think we've been more or less preoccupied with the pandemic and the reaction to the aftermath of the pandemic, but that's pretty much behind us now, So now would be a good moment to really do a thorough going review of how the FED operates and
how the models work. I guess one thing I'd like to do is have a what some I'd like to do, what other central bank sometimes do, is have a parallel process where you have a new model getting ready and run that in parallel, and then have a cutover point at some point in the future where you actually switch to the new model. So I think we could do things like that, and that's maybe something to consider at this point.
Governor Lisa Cook is warning her attorneys are warning that the removal of her could cause chaos and disruption in financial markets. What do you think the reaction will be in financial markets if she is removed.
I think that the court will insist that she gets due process for whatever charges have been made against her, so that that would prevent political partisans from just making charges against members of the committee without having to prove those charges and then calling that cause and allowing people to be dismissed from the FMC on that basis. I think that, you know, the people on the Supreme Court will make the justices will probably come down in some way to protect that due process clause.
Stay with us, Malplindex Savana's coming up off to this.
Bloomberg's Michael McKee joins us from Washington with a very special guest.
Mike, I'll throw it to you.
Well, thank you very much joining us this morning. Richmond fed President Tom Barkin here on Bloomberg television and radio worldwide and on radio they can't see it, but on television people can see you have a bit of a bandage on your head. You just had one of those older people's kind of operations.
Yeah, there's no truth that it was what happened in the last meeting.
All right, Speaking of the last meeting, we came out of that believing that, or at least Wall Street, that you're going to cut rates again in October and maybe in December. But since then we've gotten some numbers that show GDP is hotter, inflation is still running hot, and the Javas claims numbers suggest companies aren't laying anybody off. So should we have less confidence in the path going forward?
Well, I don't think you can mark to market the next meeting every week, even though that's what the markets do. I mean, let's see what happens on the employment side. We'll get some important data in a couple of minutes here on the inflation side, and I think we'll get there when we get there.
Well, the majority seem to believe, at least according to what the chairman tells us, that inflation is going to be a one time rise in the price level. And overnight we got a bunch of new tariffs, as you just saw on a lot of different things from the President. How much confidence do you have in any kind of inflation forecast at this point?
Not much. I mean, what I definitely see happening is there are costing increases that suppliers want to pass on, there's no question about that, and tariffs are a big part of it. But you could put health insurance in other other costs in there too, But those costs are going to attempt to get passed on to a consumer who's frankly exhausted of price increases. And so you know, we're seeing a lot of trading down, you know, branded to private label kind of choices, but we're also seeing
people trade off. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if people who are forced to accept certain price increases therefore don't buy something else on the other side, and that's your classic relative price trade off, and that may mean that you won't see as much broad based inflationary impact as you'd see. You know, price increases on particular items we'll see.
And yet you get PCE in an hour and basically you've already calculated the numbers. Inflation's not moving in the right direction. So can you still justify or how long can you justify cutting rates in that environment?
Well, we have inflation moving in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, we also have unemployment moving in the wrong direction. And that was the backdrop of the last meeting, you have to ask yourself, you know, how are the risks still the same as you saw them two three, four months earlier, when you had unemployment in the right direction and inflation in the wrong direction. You know. My overall thesis though, is that while it's not, you know, ticking in the
right place, the downside is relatively limited. I see, the inflation downside is limited by this customer pushback that I just talked about. Also productivity, which I think is we're seeing that at real scale, and so that means there's less pressure to pass costs on. And then on the unemployment side, obviously, labor supply is dropping at the same time as labor demand, and that's keeping the unemployment rate relatively balanced. And that's the combination of immigration and ravocation
of temporary status. Also, you know our generation Mike, which is leaving the workforce. I mean, you're seeing a million three more people over sixty five out of the workforce every year, and so you've got less labor demand, low hiring, low firing environment, but you've also got less labor supply, and that probably means that the unemployment rate increases are going to be relatively limited.
At least you and I are still employed as of today.
We'll see how this interview goes.
You suggested that companies in your district are beginning to feel a little bit better, or at least some of the uncertainty has come off of their planning and their thinking. Are these kind of big new tariffs that we got today just going to change that mind has the idea that ongoing tariffs and ongoing disruption are going to be part of this administration and economy. Is that in their planning.
Well, I've been describing it as a fog that's created uncertainty, and I definitely think in the context of the last couple of months, the fog has started to lift. Businesses don't know exactly what the tariff will be on their sector necessarily, but they kind of have a sense of the range. People aren't really following the news every day, yeah, the same way they were back in April, and a lot of businesses I talk to say, look, I've just got to do something. I've got to take action. I
can't be on the sidelines forever. So I am seeing people more in the game now. If you're in a particular sector where you see a new announcement. Of course, that's going to set you back. And so, you know, what I say about businesses in general is not true of businesses in every sector. And so there's sectors with a lot more clarity and sectors with a lot less clarity. And that's I think, just going to be part of the game here.
This morning, we had an investor on who basically said markets are rising because of the idea that a year from now rates will be substantially lower. Is that the right way to look at it? The wrong way to look at it?
Oh, I wouldn't know how to think about, you know, how markets ought to rise or not rise. I mean, we're very much focused on trying to land the plan here and balancing inflation unemployment. As I said, I think both of them have ticked in the wrong direction. But on the other hand, the downside is limited and we're just going to have to, you know, adjust our stance as we learn more.
Well, where's your dot What are you thinking in terms of the next couple of meetings? And then for twenty twenty.
Six, Well, I really like the DOT process for me because it's a it forces real integration of your thinking in terms of where you think the economy is going where you think policy is going. But I don't have it as a forecast prediction. It's not, you know, something I like to talk about publicly because it adjusts. You know, we do mark that dot to market as things go.
So you know, every meeting for me is one where I want to stop and look at the balance between how we're doing on the inflation side of the unemployment side and make the right decision.
Well, the story around the fad this week has been, shall we say, the debate over where the neutral rate is? Where do you think it is? And how fast would you want to get there?
Well, you know, I've seen a lot of the stuff that's been in the press, and we're studying that, and you know I always try to understand all arguments and figure out how to integrate them into my thinking. I'd point you to the Richmond Fed neutral rate. The lubric mathis model. It takes a lot of signal from what you see in the real economy, and in the real economy over the last couple of years, what you've seen
is interest rate. I mean, interest rates go up in the economy stay relatively healthy, and so that model doesn't take a lot of it doesn't has a relatively high neutral rate because it takes a lot of signal from the current environment. Now, things can change, but that's where the Richmond Fed model is right now, and i'd point you to that. What number do they have where you it moves around based on what's happening in the economy.
Well, that gets the next question is Chairman Powell saying that you really don't want to target the neutral rate because it moves around, also saying that for any voter to really move things around, you have to be incredibly persuasive. Do you find Steven Myron's arguments persuasive?
Well, I'm looking forward to digging into them with my team, and I like every voice in the room and every argument in the room. You know, that's what we do as a discipline, as we sit down and try to take those arguments apart and figure out which parts of them really resonate with the way we think about things and which parts don't. We're looking forward to doing that. Is now on the neutral rate, you know, in general, I just want to agree it's not that useful as
a operational tool. The models out there, even the one that I talked about, have a confidence interval of about two hundred basis points, and so you could say it's three, which is around the SEP media, and you could say it's three and a half or two and a half. But if you add a two hundred basis point range to it, you say, that's not that helpful for making
operational decisions on monetary policy. What is more helpful, and the reason I favor the model we've got in Richmond is how are you seeing the economy react real time to the level of rates you've got in the market. And if you see it weakening, that's a signal that maybe you've got it too high. If you see it relatively strong, that's the signal.
The other way, Logan went to Richmond to announce her idea of changing the operational rate for the FED. What do you think of that?
Well, I appreciate Laurie making the trip. We had a balance sheet conference yesterday that was very well attended and I thought lots of thoughtful papers, including hers, and I thought she made an extremely articulate, well reasoned argument, and I'm looking forward to digging into it further.
You anticipate the FED making a change, Oh, I don't know. The Supreme Court if it allows the president to fire Lisa Cook. What does that mean for the FED?
Well, the judicial processes and political processes will operate, however they operate. What I do every day is show up and try to argue for the best monetary policy we can and make the case, as you said, in a persuasive way to my colleagues. And that's what I'm going to continue to do.
Well, let's leave it with this. What is the best monetary policy right now? Continued rate cuts or do you not know?
At this point? I think you have to be very adaptive to what's playing out here. The world I've described as one where the labor market isning. It's a low hiring environment, but the labor supply is also short, and you have to be very attentive to that balance because it could get out of balance right similar on the inflation side, you do have these cost pressures and four and a half years of inflation over target. On the other hand, you're not seeing that show up and spikes
and inflation in the real time numbers. We are seeing what seems to be a productivity boom, and so I think you have to be very attentive to how little we know about how each of our mandate variables is going to play out, and so, you know, I feel like very adaptive is the way to think about it, as opposed and that's part of why I'm not being prescriptive into well, it's this many cuts over this period of time, because I think we're going to see and learn a lot as we go here.
Stay with us mult Bloomberg Savannon's coming up off to this.
Let's turn batchday's core PCE results.
We did see that inline reading of zero point two percent, as expected. Ryan Wang of HSBC joins us. Now, Ryan, thank you so much for being here. It's great to have you on a Friday. What was your takeaway from the data, Yeah, thanks so much.
For having me.
Well, the data was pretty close to expectations. I do think still it's important that the year on year rate of core inflation is getting ever so closer to that three percent level. It actually doesn't matter what measure of inflation you look at, headline CPI, core CPI, either of the PC measures, they're all running close to three percent. That's not as high as it was a couple of years ago, but it's still, of course significantly higher than the FEDS two percent target.
So we being gas lit when people say it's just going to keep its downward trajectory.
Is this the real reality that we're at a three.
Percent inflation level and that's probably where it's going to continue, even as we talk about some sort of asymptotic progression to two percent over the next hundred years.
Yeah, well, you know, I mean that's a very good point.
And actually our own projections do have us staying closer to three percent than getting down to two percent even in the next twelve eighteen months.
I think that's very much the case. We've heard clearly from.
FED chair Drone pal that okay, you can call tariffs a one time effect, but that's a one time effect that can last several quarters, well into next year, maybe even beyond, as the full effect of those tariffs comes through, and you know, at that point we have to say, well, what is that going to do to inflation expectations along the way.
So is the FED basically just accepted three percent inflation without coming out and saying that's our new target.
To Lisa's point, well, they move the goalpost on us.
I think this is why you see the divide on the Fed, because clearly inflation is running slower than it was a few years ago, yet it never reached that two percent level. So you're never going to hear any of the FED policy makers say that, Okay, you know, they just reaffirmed the two percent target.
They're not going to say that three percent is acceptable.
But simply put, I do think it's more likely that we'll be closer to that higher number through the end of next year.
What do you make of the tariff impact right now?
And I say this on the heels of last night, still trying to digest exactly what is going to be tariff in terms of kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, furniture, upholstery, furniture, all these new sectoral tariffs of Trump administration announced.
Yeah, well we're entering Act two of tariffs, right. I mean, all the focus up into this point has mostly been on these reciprocal tariffs, but those have had significant, significant sectoral exemptions, and now those exemptions are being filled in as we get these proposed tariffs on these products.
So that's just.
Another reason why, you know, the full story of the effect on consumer prices has yet to be felt. And yeah, we're going to be watching really in the rest of the year. It's going to be those sectoral tariffs that I think take most of the air plug.
Just to wrap up a week where we've gotten a lot of commentary, a lot of bullishness on the economy, on the idea of a FED that was going to be cutting rates even into strength. I'm struck by Wiscott KROHNERD of Citygroup had to say when he was talking
about how it feels like they're two different markets. It feels like they're those that are touched by AI and the investment cycle that we've seen, and it feels like there's everything else which hasn't necessarily been as leverage to the gains that we've seen in markets, to the gains that we've seen from AI and the other types of rising tides.
And I just wonder how when you.
Look at this aggregate data, you can parse that out and understand why some people might be feeling really rotten about the pace of inflation and the state of the labor market while other people feel pretty good and are flying around the world.
Yeah, well, you know, I would say the macroeconomic data do actually bear out some of this characterization that you just said, because really since the start of this year economic growth we just got new GDP numbers will probably be below two percent when this year is done, but
we won't necessarily be below one percent. So despite all the focus on the weaker employment growth numbers that we've seen come through in recent months, actually the expenditure data, the GDP data, the output data have held up reasonably well, and I think that speaks to this split where, of course those that are seeing that hiring activity is slower, those trying to get a job are really being impacted by that softer job market prices aren't any lower regardless
of how you're faring in the labor market, right, So again that speaks of that inflation. But at the same time, company sales haven't necessarily weakened in the way that most pessimistic views would have thought.
A few months ago.
Stay with us more Blindberg. Savannah's coming up after.
This a really important conversation. Let's get right to it. Bloomberg News editor in chief John Mickelthwaite is standing by with a very special guest.
John, I'll send it to you.
Lisa, Thank you very much. We have Kiriako Smith's attackers. Prime Minister of Greece here with us, we jumped straight in a lot of movement on Ukraine this week. You've had Trump saying stuff about it. You have various NATO allies getting crossed about the fighter jets in curtaining into their territory and warning Russia about it. You even had Germany coming forward and saying, let's use the one hundred
and forty billion dollar billion euro frozen assets to help Ukraine. Now, you have always been a kind of champion of this idea of having a common European fund for defense, and you've always had pushback from the Germans on that. Do you think now it stands the chance of going through?
Well, thanks for having me, John. I've been advocating for quite some time about the need to create some joint European borrowing facility to cover what I consider the quintessential European public good, which is common European defense, and I do sense that there is much more moventum now marks
my colleagues. Some of the countries that were inherently against the idea of additional further joint borrowing have changed their mind, and I'm pretty sure that Germany will eventually also agree to this necessity, and we need to make sure that this facility finances projects of common interest. And I would put missile defense, drone defense right up there in terms of our collective European priorities. So I would expect some
movement soon. We have two European councils and hopefully we can make progress towards that direction.
Just looking at the economy at the moment, the Greek economy has been doing very well. Is no doubt you will tell me. But in twenty twenty four you forecast a deficit and then you ended up with a surplus. And this year you're again forecasting a deficit. But it's quite close to the end of the year. I wondered if now you're close enough to say this year you end up with a surplus again.
For the more we've been having, we've been producing significant primary surpluses, and I think it's quite possible that we may have a real surplus again this year. This is a foundation of our economic policy. We've suffered a lot from not being fiscally disciplined. This is not going to happen again. But I think the big success of our policy is to ensure that the economy is growing at the same time that to create jobs. We've created five
hundred thousand jobs since I became Prime Minister. And the real goal is to ensure that this collective wealth is spread equally. So my focus now is to use whatever physical space I can create through growth and tackling tax evasion to cut taxes for the middle class. It's important for me that this discussion is not just limited to the economists saying good things about the economy. I want the average Greek to really feel a tangible benefit from
this growth story. And starting January first, when these tax cuts will kick in, they will see a real increase in their paychecks. And this is very, very important to me.
It just come back to the average Greek in a second. You just mentioned fiscal discipline. I mean you look at the core of Europe. I sat down with Primisus Sanchez of Spain the other day as well. Something dramatic has changed. You know, Greece, Spain, You're the country is growing really fast. In the middle You've got countries in much greater trouble. You look at France, You're growing cut me now over two percent. They're struggling to get to half a percent
of growth that death is ballooning. We now in a situation where you would worry about financial contagion from France.
This seemed inconceivable a few years ago. What I can tell you is that eventually no one can beat the markets. We know this very well, and I do think that at some point governments have to take difficult decision to put our fiscal house in order. We've done that. Once you do it, then you can enter into this virtures cycle where you can actually grow the economy, you can
cut taxes, you can support income through targeted measures. We're there, but we also went through very very difficult periods and very painful reforms. So I do hope that the political situation in France somehow as stabilizes. It is important that the core of Europe, you know, France, Germany, that these economies are doing well. Look at I mean, we will receive thirty six million tourists this Yere our tourism industry
is booming. But the far core markets don't do well, we will also at some point indirectly be affected.
You're famously polite man, and I know that Sheldenfreuder is not a Greek word, it's a German one. But there must be some element in Greece of looking at these people who nearly push Greece out and thinking, well things have changed.
Well, things have changed. But at the end of the day, this is not about you know, pointing fingers or about saying that you were wrong and we were right. It's about ensuring that Europe collectively grows. I'm disappointed by the fact that when I look at the drug report, we have not made significant progress, and I think it's time that you know, you know, in Europe, we were usually were two hats at the Council. We were our European
hat and we were our national hat. And it seems to me that for some countries the European hats seems to be shrinking. So we have to look at the big picture. Some of the decisions that we need to take require more funding, it's pretty clear, and we need to put our European interest, not necessarily ahead of our national interest, but to realize that some difficult decisions need to be taken at the European level.
One of the areas where Europe has been pretty useless at doing these things is banking, the Banking Union and things like that. At least unique Credit has built up a stake in Alpha Bank, which you were famously much more relaxed about than the Germans were they when they built up one in Commets Bank. Would you be prepared if they were to take over Alpha Bank? Would you be relaxed about that?
If? If we really mean what we say about creating scale in banking Union, we should be open to these types of transactions. I see value when an important foreign bank wants to acquire a stake in a Greek bank. It means they believe in the potential of the Greek economy, and it means that you know the bank could possibly do better. I'm pushing my banks to extend more credit to mortgages, to small medium sized enterprises. The stronger their balance sheet is, the more likely it is that they
will do so. Yes, in principle, we are in favor of these transactions, and I'm happy that Uncredit has decided to look at one of our Greek banks and take a significant stake.
Isn't that But as you said earlier, that's the kind of problem with Europe at the moment. Most people are taking these decisions on suppose purely nationalist or that kind of level. You look around Europe at the moment, the ability to create common things like a banking union. That's the real problem at the moment. And do you think that is something coming from Brussels or from the national capital.
I think most of the important if you want to understand what's happening in Brussels, look at the national capitals. I think the Council has become more complicated in terms of taking decisions. But on the other hand, you know, in the past we took a moment of decision when we had to address COVID is Ukraine, a geopolitical COVID moment. I would argue to a certain extent, yes, and I remember the COVID fund negotiations. There are a lot of countries,
including Germany, they said no until they said yes. So when it comes to defense, which as I said, is the ultimate public good, I do expect that we will be able to take important decisions to target specific European projects, which will then again require European collaboration.
You talked a bit earlier about the average Greek I was looking at the numbers. Greek GDP has come soaring back, but it's still roughly the same level in nominal terms. As it was before the crisis, a bit lower in real terms? Is that still do you think Greece has now been through that phase and it's now the terms of looking forward to different form of Greece.
We have clearly turned the page. But as I said, if we want to converge with Europe, we need to grow faster than Europe. We've been doing this, but this growth needs to be qualitatively different. We needs to focus on investment, on innovation, on experts, on creating really valuable jobs. And my main goal is to ensure that wages wages increase, that we have wage convergence with Europe, and that we support disposable income at a time when all europe and
economies are faced with the cost of living crisis. I mean, and the only way to address this is to ensure that we support disposable income. But we have to do it in a fiscally sustainable way. That's what we have done so far. We will continue doing it. I do expect that next year we will again perform very well. So I tell my fellow Greek citizens that I think the best days are ahead of us and that this is a policy that will deliver long term benefits to them.
You have elections coming up in twenty twenty seven. The polls at the moment, so you might have to go into coalition with people you've won two terms. I think you'd be the first person to get a third term if you did. Would you be prepared to go into coalition?
Well, elections are eighteen months ahead. Eighteen months out, we are way ahead in the polls. Our goal is to win an absolute majority. We've done it twice. There were people doubting that we would succeed before the previous elections. I think that if we deliver on our commitments, and if the economy continues growing, if we work hard to improve the National health service, these are the priorities I set out in twenty twenty three. We have a reasonable
chance to win an absolute majority. But if the quick people decide otherwise, it's eventually we have to respect the decision.
This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast, bringing you the best in markets, economics, an gio politics. You can watch the show live on Bloomberg TV weekday mornings from six am to nine am Eastern. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or anywhere else you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business out