Surveillance: Return Of Travel With Ryanair CEO

they're thinking about other things through the summer too. Absolutely, everybody's trying to figure out exactly how they're going to get away for some sort of a vacation holiday throughout the summer, John, And it's interesting you listen to what the CDC is saying, and it's a similar thing over here in the UK as well. The scientists incredibly cautious about traveling. Certainly here in the UK, that is the narrative,

but John, investors just don't see it that way. Bring up the chart of Ryanair from the beginning of we're back to the same levels that we came in to at. Basically the stock has completely rebound I did, as you can see during that period. Actually we're up by seven and a half percent, So investors certainly see a reopening.

As you pointed out with Lisa just before the break, a lot of volatility though in the stock over the last few days as we've seen the equivocation from the UK and the case counts climbing within the EU, the health situation getting worse and worse. UM, let's bring in Michael O'Leary, he's the Ryanair CEO to talk about this. Michael, good morning. You were talking about the idea on a call a little earlier on that you're gonna be flying eight of the schedule that you would normally fly kind

of July to September. What's your degree of confidence in that number? Yeah, good morning, Guide my John think there's a reasonably hydree of campers at this point in time that short order flying with significantly recover. I think through the peak summer months of July, August and September. That's drum amount the success of the vaccine program in the UK fifty percent of the UK population that has now been vaccinated by the end of May, that would be

an easy percent. Europe will catch up. I can go over that period of time with think of the UK adult population with actually by the end of May they say seventy by the end of June, and then I think you will see a pretty rapid recovery of short haul holiday travel between the UK and the European Union through the summer. Already, the Portuguese, the Spanish, the Greek and the Cypriot governments have said they're going to welcome

vaccinated UK travelers from the seventeenth of May onwards. So you know, it's still certain, but I think there's a reasonable grounds for optimism that once the school holidays arrived June, July, August, that we will see I think quite significant recovery of shorthold travel within Europe. You won't see longhold recover this summer, but again, a lot of people who would normally have gone long hold for their holidays to the States or to Asia will holiday at home in Europe. But we

think Ryan there will be the beneficiary of that. You sound confidence, you think it's going to happen later on in the year, but but the date keeps getting pushed to the rights and certain the noises out of the UK over the last few days have been less than optimistic. Michael, you said this morning that that you could survive if we don't have a summer season. My question to you

is how. But we're very strong balance sheet. You know, we're sitting on more than three and a half billion of cash At the moment, we have a very small cash outflow. Most of our aircraft are grounded at the moment, most of our plastic cameracrew are on furlough, paced schemes, etcetera. So we can survive. We don't want to survive. We

do want to see people return to travel. And I would put the question back to those UK governments if, as the UK government has you vaccinatedent of the adult population by the end of May, why are you restricting their movement? You know they are there are very little risk.

I mean, the one thing we know from the vaccines, the experience in Israel and in other countries essay, as you begin to vaccinate large proportions of the population, the risk of serious illness, the risk of hospitalizations, and the risk of death fatalities almost collapses, certainly falls to very low levels. Now we're only locking up at the moment not to limit the spread of cod it, but actually to eliminate the risk that COVID cases will overwhelm the

hospital service and health systems which beliminate that risk with vaccinations. Frankly, I think people are going to rebel. They're not good to be willing to be locked up. Those kids are not going to stay home from school. Life will return to normal, and I think COVID will be comm I mean, it will still be with us, but it would be much more. I think similar to the annual flu, the

annual cold. Because of the success and vaccinations. Well, Michael, as you know, they might rebel, but right now it's illegal to go on holiday. So and still that's lifted. We've got a problem. So my question to you would be how hard are you lobbying on a vaccine passport issue and how close our way to a breakthrough? Well, I mean, as you know, Johnason league to drive over the speed limit, but lots of people do it too.

You know, again you're telling me that your summer is reliant upon people rebelling and getting on the plane and breaking the law. No, I mean I was going to move on to say, you know, sure, be long hole travel will be much more restricted, but you have free movement of Pepe within the European Union and in large amation between the UK and Europe as well. Now I think there's finding a time to get to the end

of mayor in the June. You have all of the high risk categories, the elderly, the obese, the infirm have been vaccinated. Eighty percent of the annual population have been vaccinated. The children had a lower rate of catching code, but don't suffer serious illness anyway. What would be the base on with UK governments would be finding people moving around Europe, where by we're intacted to the free movement of people,

so again, be careful. I think short Hauld domestically within the US will be there will be the very few restrictions this summer, and short Hall, I would say within the European unions there would be very few restrictions. Michael, long Hole will continue to be restrictions. Yes, guys, Sorry Michael. You're clearly focused on the summer season, which is going to be the holiday for the kids. But nevertheless, short Hole is driven by younger demographics and they are going

to be the last to get the vaccines. Is that going to be a problem. No, I mean again, a summer holidays tend to be driven by families. You know, it's the school holidays across eurotypically start through June, July August. That's when the schools are off, That's when families are moving. The young people are generally working at that point in time, generally, hopefully in the hospitality of jurism industry. I think that's

what we'll drive the recovery. And then, you know, everybody predicts that Europe will be a washed with drag scenes through May June July, and we're not about sure what the date will actually be. And I do accept that the date has moved backwards, but we still see that

there's sufficient time and sufficient vaccination room left run. You know, we still have April, May and June to go to allow us to recover the holiday season in Europe through July Augus and the general Michael, let's make some producers nervous. We've got forty five seconds left play with me, just for a moment. Chancellor Miracle says she's made a mistake, just backing down from that East of lockdown. Your response to that this morning, I mean, I try not to

respond to the instantaneous comments of politicians. We're planning. We announced new rooms this morning from the UK for the European Peak. We extract to run most of the changes through July over September, where reason to be content with that kind of overlook. Michael, comeback soon, stay close it's always greater catch Larry. Good to see you, sir, Ryan s CEO greased to say we can head down to Washington now to catch up with Congressman Don Buyer, Democrat

from Virginia and chair of the Joint Economic Committee. Congressman, great to catch up with you, sir. I want to stablish as the last twenty four hours of we can, there was supposed to be a hearing just to go through some of the priorities for a bipartisan infrastructure proposal, which Republicans didn't want to take part in. And I want to read a quote from Republican Kevin Brady who

said the following. In our view, today's hearing is nothing more than another partisan exercise so the Democrat House leadership can set up yet another multi trillion dollar, one sided spending bill. Congressman, can you tell us why it's more sincere than that. I was really disappointed in Ranking Member Brady's comments because it didn't seem to have any connection

to reality. We invited all the Democrats and all the Republicans to come tell us what their priorities should be in this next infrastructure bill, and I think Kevin Brady knows that there are many Democrats, including me, that hope that this bill is mostly are largely paid for. So this is you know, this is a once in a generation infrastructure bill that we love to have everybody's input for. By the way, it's gonna affect all those Republican districts

to it early major ways. Let's talk about what's happened previously in the last couple of months. Do you think they have been conditioned by the approach to the one point nine trillion dollar bill where many Republicans found totally frozen out of the process. Yeah, although I kind I don't think they were frozen out of the process. There were extensive markups on this. You know that the most controversial part for them was the four dollars which came

from their president, Donald Trump. And by the way, is affecting all their folks. We have the there's a big piece. They were against the state and local government funding. The best of my knowledge, no Republican governor, Republican or has refused to accept these funds to strengthen their communities. It was again, it was a wildly popular bill, is a

wildly popular bill among all Americans, including Republican Americans. Just not their elected officials in Washington, Congressman, you said that they were presented with a bill that was mostly or largely paid for, But isn't that the issue? The way that it's being paid for through tax hikes on wealthier individuals and on corporations is something that Republicans have said is a no go for them, that they don't want

to do. How are you going to reconcile that issue? Well, yeah, I don't know how we're going to reconcile, and I think we just have to come after with the facts. At least we did a hearing before the pandemic on infrastructure in ways of means, we're virtually every Democrat and Republicans said we need to have a way to pay for this and needs to be sustainable. Well, we know that the gas tax is a is a no starter

for many different reasons. But we also saw yesterday that US corporate affective tax rate last year was seven point eight percent after the j c T A that had the top one percent had their networth increased by four trillion dollars or or just the New York Times editorial on Sunday about how you know personal income is almost all reported in tax but a huge part of business income is not to the tune of six fifty billion dollars or one point six trillion dollars a year I

think was the New York Times number. There's a lot of low hanging for it out there that wouldn't affect the economy. Congressmen, and these are points that are widely accepted among Democrats. However, there are Republicans that come back and they say, look, you're going to prevent a certain amount of dynamism investment in things like infrastructure just by the corporations themselves if they have to pay higher taxes. And we can debate that till the cows come home.

But the question really here is is there any wiggle room to negotiate and higher taxes with Republicans or is it going to have to be done without any of their support. Well, I wish there were wiggle room. I think one place Lisa that might be fruitful is looking

at carbon pricing. And now that the American Patroleum Institute, along with Exxon Mobile and others, and the Business round Table and the Use Chamber, we've all said that carbon pricing should be on the table, maybe we can get Republicans to do that and at a minimum pay for you know, the roads and bridges and asphalt and stuff that they really like. In conversement, what do you think the ultimate approach now is then? Do you think it

is a series of smaller bills or still one launch bill? Jonathan? I prefer one large bill, But I'm a I'm agnostic whatever it takes to get the job done. I know drifting around is the idea that you take things you could get Republicans on board with, like highways and roads, bridges, and do that with their votes, and then the other more controversial things. Although why odd band and electrical grid modernization should be controversial? Uh, you may have to do

that through through reconciliation. You are one other bite at the reconciliation apple this year Congress. Before we let you go, I want to ask you about bitcoin. We've got Tesla now accepting bitcoin is a form of payment. What's the regulatory front when it comes to that crypto asset, Lisa, We're about to dive into that deeply. I think there needs to be when you get a completely unregulated currency.

While it's exciting and interesting, um, the possibilities for yeah, everybody from terrorists to to uh international mafia type things using it or people just avoiding taxes on a large scale are very real. So I can't tell you what the regulation is going to be, but it's worth very deep dives this year by congress A. Comressman. If I shout walks, do we create some trouble there in your house? The duck out? He really does want to go outside? You I can tell. Let you go, sir, Congressman. It's

good to see you. Stay close. It's going to catch up. Congressman's on via there, Virginia. Thank you. Let's turn to Mind Mahajan, now the Nsclobe and Investors US investment strategist. She joins, US might a great to catch up. As you've said, we started to see some fatigue in the big winners through the last year, going back to late October as well. I'm trying to understand how you approach your market like this one right now, huge rip since the end of October, you start to see fatigue. How

do you approach what you see on the screen. Yeah. Absolutely, Look, I think it's been a phenomenal market since really last March of UM this year one has really been a story of the reopening trade, that value trade, the rotation into value into the reopening stories, and out of really that growth in some of those large cap COVID winners from last year. Of course, over the last few days you've seen a bit of reversal of that because rates

have started to come down a little. Maybe there's some questions around the reopening, given new of variants, given news of some states seeing rising cases, clearly given what's happening in Europe, so we're starting to see a little bit

of pause around that reopening value cyclical trade. Um what we're thinking about, of course is as we're heading to this summer of really that real unleashing of pent up demand by the consumer and perhaps the real unleashing of the stimulus really flowing through the system, we may see this value cyclical rally have one more leg or maybe

some legs through the summer. But what we're really thinking about then towards the second half of this year are some of the risks on the horizon, and those include one, you know, peak reopening. At some point you're going to get a peak growth rate. Maybe it's two q maybe it's three q UM, but that at that point the second relative starts to to slow again in terms of GDP growth. The second, of course is we do think

that yields have you know, can continue to grind higher. UM. We do think that the two handle on the tenure is feasible this year, and so that will cause some additional volatility and pressure. And then finally and thirdly of course, is a FED who has been quite accommodated thus far. We think that continues for most of this year, but at some point they're going to have to come off

this crisis level accommodation that they've been writing. So this was really rates at the zero bound unlimited queue to some extent to really help at the heart of the pandemic. We're now clearly trying to re emerge from that. So, you know, some things you're thinking about. A lot of the good news, a lot of the reopening story, a lot of this value trade is starting to get priced in UM. So keep in mind, if you haven't yet, you do have an opportunity to to you know, tactically

layer in sencyclicality, but just be mindful. Then as you're heading towards the second half of the here money you've gone through a lot of issues there. Everyone's got their own approach, their own process to work through. A lot of people talk about where we are in the cycle. The early trade is the early cycle playbook still with us? Is that going to last another few months, maybe another quarter or another few quarters? Morgan Stanley think we've already

seen the early cycle move. Do you use the same approach Mona? Do you have that early cycle playbook? And when the cycle do you think were on this market? Yeah? Absolutely, I think we are re emerging from a recessionary environment. And of course this recession is is different from some of the others, which are more you know, rates driven

or more consumer driven. This was a pandemic and a health crisis, but we're clearly re emerging from it, and that that playbook actually came to fruition in a very real way this year. So certainly areas like energy, financials, industrial, specilical stocks, the reopening place, uh, those all took a nice light higher and so a lot of you know, what they call the easy money perhaps has been made.

But that being said, you know, we do think that um the earnings growth environment, there's still upside to some of the numbers that we're seeing at there especially on UM. Some of these sectors like financials, like energy, like industrials, some of the areas that do well as rates continue to grind higher. Of course, financials, especially with a steeper

year field curve. UM. We think areas like industrials may have some legs given the infrastructure package that we think will start to come to the forefront in the weeks ahead. Even areas like clean energy, which has been a real focus of the Biden administration and has now sold off as the NAZAC has sold off. As a lot of the growth stories have sold off, UM could have another lead. We think that's a secular growth theme that that if you haven't yet had explored, which was it's an interesting

one here. So UM certainly we're looking at it more from now, a more active approach, taking a sector you know, by sector positioning approach rather than a broad market approach. And so I think, you know, at this point in the cycle, after we've had this reopening rally, we have to really be more selective going forward. Just to be clear, Mona,

is the reopening rally done. If we reached a plateau and we're just going to fluctuate from here, is that what you're saying, you know, I think that that there is one like higher and you know, if you think about seasonality, sometimes it's sell in May and go away, but generally this year, I think, um, you know, when you look anecdotally, those summer months are really when we're going to see um, that pent up demand on leach. So you know, the consumers will hopefully have the next

round of stimulus checks in their pockets. Uh, the vaccination program here in the US will be more fully rolled out, and so you'll really see them that demand for areas like travel like um, you know, going back indoors, perhaps even two restaurants, going to sporting events. And so I think that when when the economy really is going through that hyper demand phase, we'll see the market actually react to that. But that's when you have to start thinking about, well,

after that, what happens are we at peak reopening? And so I think, you know, you probably have a little bit of steam left in this rally, um, but it's it's probably time to start thinking about being a little bit more neutral or cautious as we had passed the summer months. You used one line in this conversation that always pops out jumps out to me when people say the easy money monitor, and you know I always pick up on it, so forgive me for doing so. Did

it ever feel easy? You know? Ever since March of last year, it's felt a little bit tough, and so I think, you know that the whole dichotomy between Main Street and Wall Street has always been a tough point

to to follow. But I certainly think in this case, the markets have been very forward looking, and perhaps they were really since last year looking towards the second half of one, and so they were very astute in realizing that at some point we will have a program in place that will help us get through the pandemic to reopen fully um And and interestingly, the retail investor last

year played a very large role in that. So you know, the util investor in some way was the winner in really kind of kept you know, kept that optimistic outlook throughout the year, and so they really benefited from that. So, yes, we've had an optimistic reopening trade, you could argue since

perhaps March April of last year. So hopefully, you know, most investors participated in some way, and that the good news was last year, if you had the growth stocks um this year you could actually have some opportunities in the value stocks, and so that's why we think there is still a little bit more catch up and perhaps a little bit more rebound to to go in that sector.

If you think about a lot of these value names like financials, energy industrials, they are still slightly up to March of last year, and so they have some catch up to do to the NAZAC, which is up from its February highs. So UM interesting markets still one where you know, again you know, just be selective, be active, but you still have some opportunities to go. It's never

easy catch up, you know, it's never exactly. Aliance Global Investors US investment strategist, let's bring in Toasten Slock, Apollo Global Management chief economist, Torsten. You've seen your old colleagues, your old peers put out their forecast for growth for

GDP for one six handles, seven handles, big numbers. Can we just start with the deceleration you anticipate from twenty one to twenty two and beyond absolutely, John that I think that the number we just got is a very important data point because it does to us that it is premature to talk about overheating. We have seen, of

course the reopening trade do will. But as j Pal has said yesterday and he's probably sure you're also going to say today, is that we are still almost tenderent jobs behind creatives that we were in total employment in February of two thousands winning. So the bottom line is that we will have a very strong growth numbers over the next few quarters as the reopening begins to play out, as the fiscal stimulus supports, and also both households and corporates have a lot of cash on the energies that

they're going to spend. So these three tail winds will give quite a boost to GDP growth. But the key word here, as you're saying, Jonathan, is the deceleration and growth is important. Naming for marketing becomes critical to figure out the timing and when is the peak and growth, and we will begin to see the numbers begin to slow down. We often speak as growth and inflation sort of in tandem, and yet there are distinct aspects of

this economy. Could we see a situation where we have very robust growth and inflation that still remains within the range that the FED is expecting, which is pretty low. Absolutely. I mean there's a number of one all factors, including base effects, commodity prices. You also have some health pricing issues that go into inflation and all those things. It really is correct what the Pole is saying. It is

all temporary. And for the FT to think about inflation, they always keep on emphasizing it has to be persistent. It has to really be a situation where the whole economy is boiling over where the overheating really is very significant everywhere, and we're just nowhere near that point. At this stage, it is clear that we will have strong growth, So okay, we can start talking about that, but why don't we create the tabulart jobs first that we have

behind red Tip Toper of two thousand twenty. Then we can have a discussion about persistent inflation problems. And that's definitely not this year towards. And there are a lot of strong man arguments being made against the nineteen seventies type of inflation and how we're not going to see that. That seems likely that we're not going to go back

to that kind of rapid inflation nary environment. However, there is this idea that not only have we printed all this money that's about to be unleashed into the economy when people can go out and spend more aggressively. But there are also are these supply chain kinks. We have people companies bringing supply chains back home. These are all frictions as China gets less of a dominant place in the global important export field, these are all frictions that

could add to inflation. How do you account for that? That's absolutely correct. But if you think about transportation costs, even if you think about commodity prices more generally, how big a share is that of total costs for companies? I mean, as a starting point, about two thirds of

cost for companies is labor. So that's the first a discussion about if you really want an overheating economy, you really need to see much more awkward pressure on wages, and that you will not have that in a situation where the labor market still is again about tenderland jobs behind. Now you could say that if you look at the n f I B, there are some signs that the small businesses are saying that the biggest problem out is that they can't find the right workers. They can't find

the right quality of labor. So there could be some pieces of evidence that maybe in some corners of the

labor market you could have some weight to pressure. But very broadly, speaking to your question, Leaser, it is true that, yes, there are some problems in the supply chain, and there's certainly some issues that could live things in, particularly because of commodity prizes, But the biggest scheme of things you think about the total cost base for corporate America, it is still the case that commodity prizes and supply chain issues are still a relatively modest amount of problems are

compared to at least some of the other things that we need to see to have a nowhere here. So Toasting, let's talk about labor. If this was two thousand and nine and we were talking about ten million jobs short, we have a problem, and we did have a problem, and it took a long long time to recover from that.

But this is not two thousand and nine. This is one and companies of shot because of policy by decision, governments are telling them they've got to stay shut in certain parts of the world, particularly at Sound of America at the moment in Europe. So but that in mind, Toasting, I just how relevant that ten million number is it's certainly relevant if you are one of them. It's a struggle, and we've talked about the pain in this labor market

right now. But where the optimistic tone and the hope comes from is that as soon as you take these restrictions off, a lot of that's gonna come back and come back quickly. So when we wake up in a summer toss and I want to understand from your perspective exactly where we are in this cycle, because it's not going to be the same as what we saw coming out of OH nine. You're right, I mean, in some sense say that the energy is that we turn off the lights, and the question is can the lights just

to be turned on now? Can we just restart their simply lines can get the smoke out of the chimneys of the factories that have been on hold while we have been in the pandemic. The issue here is, if you think about this in practical terms, you need to get airline capacity back to where it was before. You need to get people to stay at hotels, used to get people who go to restaurants. You need to get people to go to sporting events, concerts, or their face

to face consumer services industries. It's a little bit difficult to just see that as we're just turning off and turning on the switch here again and say well, now everyone just go out and do these things. I still think it will take some time before those things get back to the levels where we were in February of two thousands twenty. But you're right, the upside risk could being that employment comes back fast. But still ten million is a pretty pretty big number when you think about

where we are today. So I think Jay Powell and the message will get from him again today Je Paul will say and continue to emphasize, yes, yes, it's true that there are some very significant TiAl wins here. But then why do we wait a little bit longer before we take the champagne bottle out and celebrate and say that now we have declared victory over I maybe it is going to take quite some time still before we

get to the point of full employment. Or Jane Jillen said yesterday, we'll probably have to get least into next year before we get back to full employment in the economy. Again, this phrase tost and let's just finish on this phrase full employment. We hear it so much from economists, from you, from others too. I talk about it as well. I just don't know what it means anymore, torst them. What does it mean for you? What are you looking for? What's the data point that says, sure, we're that we've

made it? Yes, so that's right. So that's why I'm watching the dots in the dot from the FAT podcast that it be the summer if you can projections is quite important, at least as a guide post for saying, hey, maybe we had difficulties in markets quantifying this, but at least what is the FATS saying is the unemployer rate that we need to get down to, And they're saying that they we need to get down to an employre rate more close to around fall if we get a

fall handle, and then we may begin to see more upper pressure on wages and therefore, in their view, also more upper pressure on inflation. And given where we are now with an employing rate today of more than six, we still have quite a ways to go. But you're right, Jonathan, it could also be that some parts of the label market could be a bit stronger. But it is critical this question of how far we are away from full employment.

But it's pretty clear that and this is again what Yellen was saying yesterday, then we're probably not going to get to full employment in two thousand twenty one. They toast and gonna catch out, Gonna see you. Important conversation, No doubt, we'll have another one very soon, Toasting Slot Apollo Global Management, Chief Economists A teen museums successful because I was a kid three afternoons at a five after school.

If I wasn't doing something else, I was in a museum looking at things, and I love museums, and I wanted to make it a greatly greater and greater. That was Leonard A. Lauder. He is est A Lauder Chairman emeritus as well as the former chief executive officer and also the son of a number of the two people who founded this company, David Rubinstein Uh. He interviewed him on a Peer to Peer Conversations that set to air

in the upcoming days. David Rubinstein joining us now the host of Peer to Peer Conversations as well as uh the founder of Carlisle Group joining us here, David Fantastic Rags to Riches Story, one of the most storied makeup companies in the United states Esta Lauder. What was the biggest standout message from this interview. Well, the company started very modestly. We now know it as a spectacular company. And Leonard Louder often has said, well, you join your

mother's big company, Esta Lauder. But actually when he joined it was at eight hundred thousand of revenue, so it was a modest company, and he really helped build it. He made his mother into the face of the company. She wasn't the business person per se. That was Leonard and he really did an incredible job of building into

one of the most successful companies in the country. I when you talk about the modest inception of this company to where it is now, you asked him about a modern entrepreneur trying to get into the game in the same kind of way and launching a brand. What was his insight and how things have changed now versus then. It's more competition harder in those days. Uh, it was

easier to kind of sneak up on competition. But he had a big competitor named Charles Revson who built Revlon and Revlon was the eight hundred pound gerrilla then and Revlon once tried to buy Esta Lauder for a million dollars um and his mother ultimately decided not to do it. Had they done so, we wouldn't have heard of est Lauder probably, But it shows you can overcome gigantic UH competitors if you're really persistent and really smart and and

Leonard was. Leonard really was the genius behind this branding of a company, and the business of the company's mother was a terrific symbol though, of a company. I feel like we can't talk to corporate leaders right now without talking about the pandemic and how it's affected their business and the way they operate in offices and beyond. How has the idea that people are working from home and aren't socializing as much affected the landscape for a makeup company.

That has to do with perception. I mean, has it been enhanced through the ideas of Instagram or has it been taken away from just because people are not going

out and being with their friends as much. Well, I think people are putting makeup on when I go do their zoom calls and other things, so I don't think it's adversely affected UH the industry completely, but but surely when people are not doing as much socializing as before, It's probably not as as favorable, but I do think the company has incredible brand and it now has something

like twenty eight different brands. It just Estate Lauder is the main brand, the name of the company, but they have bought many other brands over the years and built some like Finigue, for example. So since you yourself are co chair and co founder of Carlisle Group, I do want to ask you about the pandemic and how it's

affected some of the morale. We've heard from city groups Jane Fraser about how they plan to boost morale for companies that have Zoom, for individuals that have Zoom burnout, and we are from another group of Wall Street firms that they're they're come there there. Their employees are struggling at home after working with kids, after having a very little break between home and work. What's your response to that and how much have you observed this zoom fatigue

among your employees. I think zoom fatigue is everywhere. It's been over a year now and I've been living essentially in this house for about a year, house that I've lived in for thirty some years, but I hadn't really spent much time and it compared to the last year. But I do think that ultimately the businesses that are right of distuildings will go back. I doubt though, that people will go back and work five days a week,

you know, ten hours a day in their office. I think people will increasingly want to spend some time working remotely, and I think that's not a bad idea. Like I do believe that people would like to get back to work when they believe it's safe and they have to make certain that there's not going to be any chance of catching a virus. But I think it's going to

take another six before that happens. Have you observed, though, that that productivity is starting to decrease around the edges among employees who are struggling with this work home balance that has gotten up ended by the pandemic. Well, in the private equity world, it's hard to say that because of the private equity world has adopted to zoom quite well, and we've been doing deals, raising money and exiting deals at a quite good pace, so I can't say that

productivity has gone down. I do think everybody would like to get back to is what has used to be considered normal. But I do think that normal in the future will consider it will be considered to have have some work unremotely. I don't think people will travel as much as they used to. Um I used to fly halfway around the world for an hour meeting, and I don't think that people like me will do that again.

That's actually been a debate that we've been harping on this morning, the idea of business travel returning and how much. And my colleague John Farrow made a really good point that if if I can bring you a bottle of wine and see you face to face, I'm more likely to win the deal versus not. So business travel will return.

Where will it return and where won't it return? From your perspective in your world, David, I think travel that is global, where you have to travel halfway around the world for a meeting, that will be slow to come back. But if it's going from Washington, New York, or New York to Boston or Philadelphia, New York, that's relatively easier to do. So I think shorter distances will probably still see a lot of meetings, But if you have to travel an enormous long time to get somewhere, that will

be harder to get done. I do think that will be some of that, for sure, some businesses require you to do that, but I do think it will come back more slowly than than we would like. Just going forward right now at the theme of the morning has been peak optimism, peak reopening, and we have felt that a lot of the forward action of the earnings that we are going to see has already been priced into

the markets. From your vantage point, as far as deals getting done, do you see things starting to slow as people believe that the window is kind of up for sort of peak perfection in markets as the economy now has to catch up. Well. Predicting what's going to happen in the market's always a dangerous kind of uh undertaking. But I do think that as long as interest rates stay low, I do think that you'll see a fair amount of deal is getting done. And I don't think

I've see a real slowdown. I do think that the spack market probably has slowed down a little bit of late. I mean, it has been very robust. It couldn't keep going on at that pace forever, and I do think some spack prices have come down, But generally, I think SPACs are probably here to stay for a while. At

least at some level. I do think that the financing markets are still relatively robust and and I don't think a slowdown is imminent, in large part because the one nine trillion dollar stimules Phil is going to keep the economy in reasonable shape for a while. David Rubinstein, thank you so much for being with us, and the interview

is phenomenal. I recommend that everybody watch it. That was David Rubinstein, coach, hair and co founder of the Carlisle Group, as well as the host of peer to peer conversations. This is the Bloomberg Surveillance Podcast. Thanks for listening. Join us live weekdays from seven to ten am Eastern on Bloomberg Radio and on Bloomberg Television each day from six to nine am for insight from the best in economics, finance, investment,

and international relations. And subscribe to the Surveillance podcast on Apple, podcast, SoundCloud, Bloomberg dot com, and of course on the terminal. I'm Tom Keene and this is Bloomberg