The Stephanomics Global Preview for 2021

even brighter. We really do have a lot of firepower gathered on this zoom call today here in London, Bloomberg TVs pre eminent interviewer and correspondent at large, Francine Lacroix. We also have Business Week's senior economic correspondent and columnist Peter Ky, sitting in New York and dining in from Washington, tom Orlick, well known to this podcast as Bloomberg's chief economist. Finally,

we have Sharon Chen. She's now in London, having just joined Bloomberg Green, but until recently she was sitting in the hot seat in China as Bloomberg's Beijing bureau chief. Welcome to everyone, and thank you so much. For being here, And I've already said we spent most of talking about something that was barely on anyone's radar at the end of the coronavirus. This is about looking ahead, not looking back. But very briefly, I wanted to start by asking each

of you what the most memorable moment of was. I guess in a year that professional and personal got far too close together at times, it's hard to tell the difference, but I was I guess I'm talking professionally here, Peter Coy your most memorable moment, Well, Stephanie, you already said that the coronavirus was the shark that took us all

by surprise. But my my biggest shark really was what came after that, which was in the United States when mask wearing, which scientists and doctors agree can help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, became a political statement, and not wearing a mask became a political statement where people who sided with Donald Trump felt that wearing a mask would somehow a slap in the President's face, and this had incalculable consequences for the health of the American people

as well as the health of the US economy. So many lives could have been saved, and so many dollars of GDP could have been saved if only people had socially distanced and worn masks religiously, I should say. On on the positive, I think probably my surprise was just how quickly governments stepped in with fiscal support for economies, at least around the industrial countries, and the extent to which it did cushion the blow for so many households.

We had a much smaller for hit on incomes by and large, with some important exceptions, than the hit the straightforward hit to the economy. So I guess that's the slightly more positive side of the government response, which we did actually see in the U S too, So that's a glass half fall. Sharon said, the credit virus was the obvious, It was made a lot of twenty memorable. But what was the most distinctive moment for you? Yeah, I mean for me, the moment that really stands out

was the day they locked down Wuhan. I mean it was just incredible, like we had never experienced anything like that. We couldn't really understand what was happening, that they would just lockdown an entire city of millions of people, and then they they extended that to the whole of Hubei, which was more than fifty million people, and it was just so difficult to comprehend what was happening. And that was the moment it really hit home that you know, this was serious and it was going to be the

major news story UM for the entire year. But other than that, I mean, I think the most surprising thing that happened was just recently in September, China coming out and saying that, you know, they want to achieve net zero carbon emissions by six it's the world's biggest carbon emitter.

And leading up to President Jijumping's announcement at the u N you know, we had been getting a lot of signals that China was prioritizing economic growth over its climate commitments UM and since then we've seen UM eight out of the ten major economies, biggest economies in the world say they want to go to net zero as well. You're right, that was a big, a big positive shot

we had in in in the autumn. Francine Loquax, I think the you know it surprised me is actually after ups and downs, is the fact that we believe Europe is now forced for good. You know, if you think back to late there was really possible political populism in Europe, and if you take it to the which is really hard hit by the COVID, you know, crisis, and you know, you could also say really botch the pandemic response. It now has more destined coronavirus of coronavirus in the UK.

It just feels a lot closer to Europe. But then it did a your go back in twenty nineteen. I don't know if you remember, but you know we had then Mr Selvini saying that he felt closer to Moscow than Brussels. And the majority of Italians now believe that Europe will saved them because of the funds from the recovery fund. Of course they still have to allocate the

money and to see whether it uses them wisely. But overall, it was this European union unity in the face of Brexit, in the face of COVID that I think I'll remember for and despite these ups and downs, it showed that actually Europe really does come together usually in times of crisis. Just recently I had a headline jump out of me a column by Ferdinando Giuliano and of Bloomberg that Italians are starting to like the Germans UM, and that's probably not also not a headline we would have expected to

see twelve months ago. Tom Wallick, so I wanted to pick up on Peter's pessimism. UM, the failure of mask wearing in the United States was really striking. I think the failure of global coordination around the response to the coronavirus crisis was also really striking. If there was ever a moment for the global community to come together around a medical response and an economic response, surely this was it, UM,

and that coordination has just really been notable by its absence. UM. Indeed, if we think about the world's most important relationship, the relationship between China and the United States, actually, over the course of the COVID crisis, it's got markedly worse. One thing that stuck out to me there was a moment over the summer where there was a coordinated series of

speeches by senior US officials. We had Pompeo, the Secretary of State, um Bar, the Attorney General, O'Brien, the National Security Advisor, all coming out and in a coordinated way taking a really aggressive swing at China and framing the U S. China relations and ship not just as a relationship of economic competition, but almost as a kind of an existential struggle between democracy and a single party state,

between capitalism and a state dominated economy. Um And. I find that really striking because until now, UM, those two things have been kind of compartmentalized. Right. There's been a view that even though there are some very important differences between the US and the West and the and China in terms of how society is organized, we can still cooperate in terms of trade. Perhaps we can cooperate on things like climate change. Um. And over the course of

the COVID year that seemed to change. And I think it's going to be really interesting to see with the Biden administration coming in how they manage tensions across that broader range of subjects. Sharon turn you you mentioned that the lockdown and Whan. I remember we've spoken to a couple of times when you were engaging this year, once when you had just returned from Wuhan and you were going through quarantine having started at the center of this pandemic.

We look at China now, the rest of the world looks at it and sees it coming out of this pandemic apparently almost unscathed. It's the only large economy that will grow this year, and the government, if anything, seems strengthened. When you were in China, is that what it felt like on the inside too, or has the system perhaps been shaken in ways that we can't see. Yeah, I

mean I think that's generally right. When I left in October, I mean, everything was back to normal, like hot pot restaurants will packed, people eating, you know, sharing communal food, travel, domestic travel was back in full swing. You know, it really felt like life had returned to normal. And it was even more stark when I landed in London and it was like going back in time to the worst

of the pandemic in China. So I think in that sense, you know, the economy really had has kind of gotten back to where it was just in the day to day kind of experience. And also, I think you're right that the way the government handled the pandemic and then how other governments outside China handled the pandemic really validated the Chinese model for a lot of people inside China. But I think that there are a lot of things

below the surface that have shaken the system. You know, just like in every other country, the pandemic exacerbated in equality. Millions of microworkers lost their jobs, those in the service sector were hit extremely badly. I mean, that's the main problem the government faces now is supporting those groups of people,

and in China that's on a massive scale. Um And we also see how it's become more internationally isolated because of the fallout from the pandemic, and all of that is also going to affect the economy and people who are dependent on exports and outside markets. Tom We've we've got a lot of China expertise on this program. Rightly, so because you lived many years in Beijing. Two looking ahead, do you think one is the year when China could solidate the games it's made in the last twelve months

from handling the virus so effectively. So so, China is the only big economy which is going to grow this year. We think they'll expand around two percent. Next year, we think they'll grow around eight percent. So it's a kind of it's an irony of the COVID crisis that a problem which started in China in Wuhan as as Sharon mentions is actually going to end with China closing the gap in terms of g d P, in terms of

economic capacity with the United States. I was actually just reading a big book about Putin and Putin's rule in Russia, and one of the points the author makes was that Putin was emboldened by the what he saw is the failure of the United States in response to Hurricane Katrie and how they didn't get ahead of that problem, and that this really shook Putin's view of America. He thought, God goodness, these guys, they're not any better than we

are dealing with problems. And so maybe I can play a bit of a bigger role on the global stage. And I wonder if we're going to see some of that following the COVID crisis as well. China is going to come out of this economically stronger, but they're also going to come out of it emboldened with a sort of stronger belief in the relative strength of their own model. And how do you think China is viewing the Biden administration? I mean, is this is it? Is it the end

of trade wars? I don't think so. Um, if we go back to two thousand and one. That moment when China joined the World Trade Organization. Part of the reason why there was scope for kind of win win cooperation. We give you a little bit, you give us a little bit, and everyone's better off is big because China was just so far behind in terms of the size

of its economy and the capacity of its economy. And what we've seen in the last twenty years is that, partly as a result of that w t O entry, China has just accelerated up the global GDP rankings and they're now you know, the US can feel their sort of hot breath on their back. The kind of the competition is real, it's visceral, and we've seen US public opinion and global public opinion move very decisively against China.

And I think what that means is that the room for maneuver for the Biden administration as they think about ways to reset the relationship with China is just pretty limited. Piece of coal. It's it's terrifying how long you've been reporting on the global economy in the U s. Economy for Business Week, more than thirty years. But if you think of all the administrations you've seen come and go

looking at who's been announced for the Biden cabinet. Another key positions we know he's inherited and incredibly difficult terrain. How do you think the incoming president elect Biden is hoping to spend his first hundred days and what do

you think could upset those plans? Of course, the tradition of the first one hundred days is that at a time when a new administration wants to hit the ground running notch some early winds, establish its ability to get things done, impressed people, and then maybe build on that. And that's exactly what Biden has in mind. So he's gonna first tackle the course the pandemic job number one. He wants to encourage people to wear masks for the first one days. He wants to have one hundred million

vaccines distributed in the first one hundred days. He wants to rejoin the World Health Organization, which he can do unilaterally. Beyond that, he's looking to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which again he can do without anybody's permission. Re send some of the rules blocking traveler immigration from Muslim majority nations, again something within his power. Deal with some of the asylum rules on the Mexican border. Uh. These are all things that he can and will do early on and

maybe establish a new tone for the administration. Other things are going to be much harder for him to do. For example, we're barely struggling now to accomplish a new coronavirus relief program. It's unlikely that a new Congress is going to want to immediately give him another one. And then we get into some of the real, uh, difficult issues, like well, he wants to raise taxes on the rich, he wants to raise the corporate income tax, he wants

a gigantic green investment program two trillion dollars. So he's got his work cut out for him. So when we think about foreign policy, you know, we've tended to say it's a return to normalcy when it comes to the US and the rest of the world. And Tony Lincoln, the incoming Secretary of State, is very well known to people and the rest of the world. But what surprises do you think the rest of the world should look

out for. I mean, is this really going to be back to the Obama Clinton type foreign policy or something different. I think some of the personnel does go back to Clinton in Obama, but the world has changed, and the biggest changes the U S relationship with China, which other people here on this call no more than I do. But what I can say is that anybody who thinks that relations with China going to clear right up now that there's a new president are in for a big disappointment.

I mean, Tony Blincoln, the Secretary of State, Jake Sullivan as National Security Advisor, have been fairly hawkish on China, for up on the South China Sea, freedom of navigation operations, of anything, the US will be prosecuting more of those human rights as another example where Trump has pretty much given the Chinese a pass on human rights, and yet the US will under Blincoln, Sullivan and Biden of course, will be pushing on Hong Kong as well as the

weakers in Western China. I think that there's there's going to be a lot of stress in that relationship. We spend a lot of time on China. We should, we should get back to Europe. With Francine Loquix. Overall, you spend a big chunk of most of your days talking to senior business leaders and policymakers. What do you think that the European elite if we can say that is focused on For one, I mean there's a lot of obviously a lot of countries that are still in renewed lockdown.

Do you think they are managing to lift their eyes up from that or they just too caught up with the COVID crisis still well stuff, And I feel like they try and look up, and then every time they try and look up, there's either you know, another lockdown or some kind of stuff and start scenario. So they're

very focused on the recovery. There are probably two main risks to Europe, you know, and to the outlaw forced there's this path in the second wave of the pandemic unclear to be honest for me where it goes, because if you look at the effect of the rollout of the vaccine, you know, I wouldn't underestimate the challenges of delivering this to large waves of the population. And I also would point to the fact that we still don't

know whether you can still pass it on. Even if you get the vaccine on, then the recovery fund, I think there's a real questions amongst newsmakers and chief executive about where the money goes. So we have big words, big ideas in Europe, the Deal and climate change. Marcal also lately calling for this health union. But actually leaders know that they need to be more aggressive in cutting

greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade. That's sure been stamped, but for chief executives, they want to know where where are these projects, where the money goes, and so what they're worried about is that you have project but actually the money gets squandered like it has in the past. So I think the next six months is really make or break. And the other thing very quickly solvency. And Mario Druggi was talking about that is that if if you know government programs run out one who do you

say for companies? And are you saving the wrong companies that actually shouldn't be saved because of this huge transformation of the economy. Well, and something that Mario Drugging when he was ahead of the European Central Bank you ushould talk about a lot was needing to have fiscal support

along with the monetary fiscal action. We did, as you said at the start, we did see that this year maybe with this Biggieu Recovery fund, we start to see deeper collaboration risk sharing on the fiscal front among European economies. What's going to determine whether that really happens over the next year or so, that whether that grows or whether it ends up being just a one off. So I think the first six months of the Europe would probably

be a reckoning for Europe. A lot will the and on how economy is fare next year, whether the solvency crisis takes hold and then gives way to populous leaders in Europe. If you look at the political dimension in Europe, it should never be underestimated, especially when you're talking about Europe, you know, coming more together. It's unclear where we land post pandemic, so we have to really, you know, think

about that and not be too optimistic. Will probably have an adjustment, We may have some unwinding of some of the policies. But if you're you're optimist and you look at the past and actually Europe does not really have any undoing progress on the integration front apart from Brexit, so you could be optimistic that you know, they're not going to undo what they've done so far. Tom if we step back from this and think about where the where the world has headed economically in one I know

that your team has been pulling together. It's it's forecasts. Briefly tell us what you're expecting, and I guess also highlight what you think could go go right or wrong. We're expecting growth for the global economy around five percent next year, so pretty impressive rebound. It's not quite a v UM, but it's substantial. It's a substantial portion of the upswing of the v Within that, of course, drilling into the country detail, people talk about comorbidity is making

the COVID virus more serious for individuals. There are also some co morbidity ease that make the economic impact more serious for different countries. UM Peter sort of already suggested it. But there's the trust deficit in the United States, which stymied the public health response and is going to deepen the crisis and slow the recovery. UM In the UK

Brexit now approaching its end game. That combination of the Brexit hit and the virus hit is going to be a problem for the United Kingdom, and then in countries like Italy with very high debt levels. Again some additional burdens which are going to mean the recovery from the COVID hit is lower than it otherwise would be. But I wonder whether will be surprised by the speed of

the bounce back. In many economies, there is such a maybe I'm just speaking personally, but this is such a great desire to go back to normal and maybe even double up on holidays and other things that one has not been able to do. Um. There is a view that says that that kind of bounce back could produce inflation. What do you think? So, we see wide output gaps

as far as the I can see. And when you've got a wide output gap, you've got resources which are not being used, You've got people who wants lots of spare capacity and um, and so you don't have inflation. UM. So inflation is not in our view, It's not in our two view, but that doesn't mean it isn't a risk. We've got some powerful forces at work. We've got deglobalization, which means that those cheap Chinese or Vietnamese imports which have been dragging on prices and denting workers capacity to

negotiate for more money in the West. Um, that sort of drag on inflation is going to be reduced. UM. We've got more progressive politicians running for office and being elected to office, potentially with policies like pushing up the minimum wage, and perhaps, as you suggest, Stephanie, the economy could just come roaring back more quickly than anyone imagines. Um, So inflation is not in our forecast for two as

a substantial risk, Um, we might be wrong. If it does come back, that's going to put central banks in a very very difficult position there in this extraordinary spot where they're essentially printing money to finance fiscal stimulus, and they can do that because inflation is entirely subdued. As soon as inflation starts to come back, they're going to be in a very difficult position trying to balance and find an impossible balance between their inflation fighting mandate and

their financial stability mandate. Well, Francine, I can exclusively revealed that the head of the European Central Bank has a serious soft spot for you. When Christine Legarde was head of the IMF, still I was I saw her for something else and I mentioned I was going to Bloomberg, and she pulled. She sort of paused with this this sort of look in her eye of joy, saying ah, we're Francine loquise um. So you there's probably around the globe before I think the best part of you know,

like two decades. It's definitely definitely gets a certain look in her eyes when she thinks of you. But it also results thankfully for Bloomberg and lots of great interviews, and you had several with her this year. She's got a big review of monetary policy coming, which got delayed from it's going to be in the summer of twenty one.

We did have in the autumn of the Federal Reserves review of monetary policy, which did make a difference, did say that policy was going to be different over the next few years in an effort to get inflation higher. Do you think the European Central banks new framework could make that kind of difference. I think I think it could actually, And we've heard that from her, although it's too seems to say, and we've heard it also from

Ali Rend. I love what Ali Ren said. He gave a speech I think two or three weeks ago which was very simple and powerful. He said why is the strategy review so important? And he basically answered it by saying, well, the simple answer is changed, especially the change in the operating environment of monetary policy, and we sometimes forget when we do this day and day out thinking about inflation, how the world has changed right in the current environment

of low rates, negative demand sharks. The problem is, you know, it could be but it could be quite rare that it's too high inflation. It's at least more remote, and so the problem is low inflation that's more relevant. And so how do you ensure that inflation expectations will not forever stay anchored at you know, too lower level. So if you ask it through that prism, which is quite quite simple but powerful, you can see something change at

the ECB next year. We should say, those are the America listening who don't necessarily know who Ali Went is. He's the governor of the Bank of Finland but was also a senior official European Commission for a while. And we journalss like him because he gives very engaging interviews and a great football player, and he's of course he's a great football paper where why wouldn't you be, um, Sharon Chen, you your new job is working with this

new group Green and new publication within Bloomberg. How do you think all the talk that we've had about climate change and people some now really truly realizing the seriousness of this challenge. How do you think that will play out in one Yeah, I mean this year really, you know, we have seen a lot of global momentum um to where it's setting net zero targets and carbon neutrality goals. But like you say, I mean it's very hard to tell because these are such long term targets, these kind

of lofty ambitions. The UN just held the Climate Ambition Summit last weekend and the idea was that everyone had to come and make new pledgures, and it was really quite disappointing and kind of underscored. How you know, these big, ambitious, nine sounding targets need to be backed up by a shorter term, actionable goals. Um. But you know, I think the entire global economy is shifting, is going through this

energy transition. And if you look at China for example, I mean it's not just seeking to be net zero for purely altruistic reasons. I mean it knows that if it can dominate these new renewable energy industries, that will really put the economy ahead of others. And I think um other leaders also see that, and I think we will continue moving in that direction. The big question is

whether we can do it fast enough. We're already at one point to degree celsius warming from pre industrial levels, and the Paris Agreement the ideal would be to keep it to one point five um, you know, and we're just not really untracted to that right now. We've all obviously been on a very steep learning curve when it comes to pandemics and coronavirus is this year. I suspect we're going to be now on a very steep learning curve when it comes to green technologies and the challenges

of moving to net zero. Now that you're sitting in green what what are we going to be talking about in a year or two is time? But we've never heard of today. Are there any left field technologies out there that you think are actually going to end up being a big part of the conversation? Yeah, I mean, I think hydrogen is the mean next thing that and related to hydrogen ammonia which can be used to store and transport the hydrogen. But I mean it's not a

new technology. It's been around for a very long time. But it seems, you know, a lot of major economies are going to rely a lot on it to meet the unnet zero targets. And we have air Bus trying to develop the first hydrogen plane UM, which could really be a game changer in terms of removing those emissions, which are probably going to be one of the hardest

to remove as long as people keep traveling. But you know, turning the hydrogen will require reinventing a lot of industries, the airline industry, shipping UM over the way a lot of economies function now. But I think that that would be a major focus. How Peter, you started by talking about how you were surprised that wearing a mask became a partisan issue. UM in the US. Actually, the environment was not so partisan five or ten years ago. Now it does seem to be deeply divided along party lines.

Do you think that the new president can do anything to change that or just have all the wildfire's done something to change that? First of all, I really agree with you that environment was not always such a partisan issue. Teddy Roosevelt, who started the National Parks was a Republican. Dwight Eisenhower. UM. Richard Nixon actually started the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.

So there's a long tradition of the green in the Republican Party, but under Trump in particular, that's faded away. Trump portrayed as a contest of environment versus labor. So now Biden is trying to turn that around by saying we can do both. In fact, he says, when he thinks about the green and climate change, he thinks about creating jobs. Now that's a challenge too, because it's not

always as simple as he might say. Um, there are people who would argue economists that trying to hit two birds with one stone, that is, create jobs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions could end up, you know, missing both birds. Uh. You know that you want to focus on pick one gold and choose the target that choose the tool that is best suited to that target. Uh. And he has splits already within his coalition. For example, Biden is not

opposed to all hydraulic fracturing fracking. He's also not opposed to all coal mining, and many, of course the environmentalists and his UH coalition are. And I just don't know if the American public are ready for a strong, meaningful attack on climate change. The Washington Post Kaiser Family Foundation did a survey last year they found. Yeah, sure, three quarters of Americans considered climate change a crisis, but fewer

than half. We're willing to pay a two dollar monthly tax on their electricity bills in the name of climate progress, and only a third we're in favor of raising the federal gasolene tax by ten cents a goalon. These are fairly minor measures in the context of global greenhouse gas emissions, and yet Biden has a big job ahead of him trying to pull the American public along to think about it that way. Okay, we've talked too long about too many things. I did start with some of the things

that had caught us by surprise this year. Um, what do you think would be what do you think would be the wild cards or the potential big surprises for one? Tom Mullock. So, as you say, Stephanie, we were caught by surprise by the Hollywood movie scenario of a tiny virus laying the world economy waste. Um. So I've done some extensive research on the outlook for one, based on disaster movies from the late nineties, nineties and early two thousands.

So the team is going to be modeling the macro impact of freak weather events causing a second ice age, a huge meteor heading towards Earth, and potentially a giant lizard heading from Japan towards the US coast. We're going to try and put a GDP number on each of those. Don't forget shar Tonado. That's not that's not calculable. I'm afraid, Peter um so UM. But more seriously, I mean, and

this I think is actually more central scenario than a risk. UM. I just worry that the Biden administration is going to underwhelm. If we look at the composition of the Biden administration, UM, it's a lot of people who have a lot of experience from time in the Obama administration. UM. But perhaps because of that experience, more of a kind of tendency to look for the center, to look for a place

of kind of moderation and compromise. UM. So my concern, for one, and looking further forwards, is that the Biden administration underwhelms and by doing so kind of inadvertently confirms the big argument in which the Trump administration and other sort of populists around the world have been making, which is that government doesn't work. In government console the big problems, piece of coy. You know, you asked for a wild card.

So this is not necessarily a mainstream prediction. But going back to what Tom and Bloomberg Economics is saying, we're not expecting outbreak of inflation in the US, but let's just say there is. Let's say there's a few months where the CPI year of a year does go above two. Now that's actually what's supposed to happen. The Fed wants that to happen on paper anyway. They said that they need to make up for periods of undershooting on the

target by overshooting for some period of time. But my prediction, or I should say my wild card, is if that happens, there's going to be an outbreak of cold sweat and the foreheads of the members of the Federal Open Market Committee people are going to panic that inflation is getting out of control, and despite their best of intentions, despite all their promises about it letting inflation go of two above two, they're gonna start throttling back on monetary stimulus

and trying to make sure that the inflation doesn't get out of control again. Francie loquix, your wild card. I'm so happy I don't have Tom's job and actually forecasting what will happen in I would probably just look at the markets, because the markets are on a terror for the moment, and something could happen. You can have a bubble bursting. And then this morning I was actually reading a note in Standard Chargers looking at the potential market

surprises for now. They say that they're unlikely, but potential surprises. And I think they had like five, maybe eight. But they had Democrats winning control of the Senate. They had a US China dictance driving Juan rally to six verses of dollar. They had oil crashing at twenty dollars comparel, which I thought was quite interesting because of opaque rupture. And then they also had Biden resigning in favor of

Vice President Kamala Harrick. That's great. So we've got we've got about four or five things to worry about for the price of one from you. That's that's typically efficient. You see on the brooding television, you just pack so much into into thirty seconds. You can't stick with just one. Um sarentur um. I think the biggest wild card for

me is what happens with the US China. I mean you know, I think for the Chinese government, the one outside of having a Biden administration is that it's back to kind of more predictable politics, you know, more predictable counterpart or or um, yeah, sparring partner because things which

just so erratic under Trump. But you know the downside of that for them is that obviously, you know, a Biden administration can be along most strategic um and also con strengthened alliances with other Western countries and find ways to you know, inflict pain. And you know, the biggest wild card, of course, is that something actually happens military early, either in the South China See or with Taiwan, which will likely be I think the place where things could

escalate um the most. And you know, I think before this year I also thought it was a very remote possibility. But we've seen that a lot of things can escalate very quickly, and I seem to remember thinking about the first China SEE at this time a year ago. One of these years, it's surely going to produce something frightening. I'm thrilled at fact that we've not talked about Brexit in all this time, so I guess I'd have to also throw in a wild card for the end of

the United Kingdom. I think that the politics of of Brexit as this now plays out, after whatever arrangement we get with Europe or non arrangement, I think that the debate could shift remarkably quickly to Scotland's desire to leave, and potentially even Northern Ireland leaving the United Kingdom as well. Maybe something we'll be talking about in a year's time. Thank you so much to all of you. This has been wonderful, Just a treat to have all of you together.

Regardless of whether we turn out to be right, no one remember, they will only remember the great conversation. Francine Lui, Peter Coy, Sharon Chen and Tom Orlick. Thank you very much. Thank you. That was the year ahead with Stephanomics. We'll be back with more very soon. In the meantime, remember you can always find us on the Bloomberg Terminal, website,

app or wherever you get your podcast. This episode was produced as usual by Magnus Hendrickson, with special thanks to all of our expert correspondence and to the executive producer of Stephanomics, Lucy Meekin the head of Bloomberg podcast is Francesca Levy Happy new three,