This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week.
And we may not have an overall recession, we're having a rolling recession. To kind of roll looks pretty strongly is when it comes to jobs.
The financial stories that shape our world.
Three major regional bank failures send shockwaves through the banking system. We're all trying to figure out what to make of generative AI.
Through the eyes of the most influential voices.
Welcome down, Doctor Paul Krugman, Ryan moynihan, AM Bank of America, Zebro Lair of the Paulson Institute, well then Hubbard of the Columbia Business School.
Bloomberg Wall Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio.
The chair goes to the hill, voters go to the polls, and the jobs market, well, it just keeps on going. This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston. This make Larry Kulp of GE joins the newly minted CEO of spinoff Vernova, Scott Strazek, to take us through the last steps in the restructure of an iconic company.
Given that the capital markets clearly liked the businesses but didn't like them together, it was actually an easy decision.
Sustainability really is at the heart of everything we're doing.
Ill as Sally Crotcheck on the massive wealth trans to women, we're about to see.
Women are going to inherit tens of trillions of dollars over the next couple of decades.
And Economist editor Zanni Minton Bedos on a US China economic competition that goes to the heart of two very different systems.
I think it's only a slight exaggeration to say that China has sort of become uninvestable for outsiders in many sectors.
But we begin with the number one issue that's been on the mind of Global Wall Street since inflation numbers first shot up back in twenty twenty, something our special contributor Larry Summers warned us about at the time.
I think there's a real possibility that within the year we're going to be dealing with the most serious incipient inflation problem that we have faced in the last forty years.
Throughout the three year battle of them, and there's been a question whether it could be tamed without higher unemployment.
I've said that I'd be surprised if we get to the two percent inflation target without an unemployment rate that approaches or exceeds six percent.
But on Friday this week we got the latest jobs numbers, and unemployment stayed under four percent, even as inflation continues to moderate, something that's led Larry to reassess the possibility of a so called soft landing, one where inflation comes back in line without a lot of people losing their jobs.
Things did come back in a way that was more favorable than standard models would have expected, though I'm much less prepared to declare that it's all over.
And we are joined once again by our very special contributor here on Wall Street Week. He is Larry Summers of Harvard Luri, thanks so much for being with us. On Friday, we got the jobs numbers out. They were a little lower than some people expect that and particularly when you look at the revisions from last month. What did you make of these jobs numbers?
I don't think they changed anybody's picture very fundamentally of the economy. We've got a strong economy. Inflation has come down, inflation is not yet at the FEDS two percent target, but job growth, even on a slower basis, remains considerably more rapid than underlying population growth. So we've got a relatively strong economy.
Well, and that raises the question what does that mean for monetary policy. I mean, one question we ask sometimes if people at the FED is why are we talking about rate cuts right now when economy seems to be doing so well and weathering this five and a half percent rate.
There's something very fundamental that has happened that I'm not sure that the FED has fully realized. I think the neral interest straight is way above the two and a half percent that the FED likes to talk about. I think, given the experience of the last several years, that the market perceives normal inflation as probably being somewhat above two percent,
at least on a CPI basis. And I think that huge deficits more spending to come, substantial investments in renewables, substantial investments in resilience, substantial capital costs of various kinds associated with artificial intelligence and aging population meaning more dissavers less capital flow coming from abroad. I think all of that means a much higher neutral real interest rate. So I think when the FED compares five percent with the two and a half percent neutral rate, it sees and
people say that monetary policy is substantially restrictive. That's wrong. The neutral rate is much higher than that, and so monetary policy is much less restrictive than is generally supposed. And the clear evidence of that is that we have this supposedly really restrictive monetary policy and still have a quite robust economy. So I think the FED needs to be very careful in its judgments about what would be anypocl shift from the regime we've had for the last
several years to a regime of easing monetary policy. They've moved substantially since December. Market used to be expecting six cuts in twenty twenty four. Now the market's expecting three cuts, and the Fed's carried that off skillfully. There hasn't been much disruption or dislocation as that change has taken place, But I think that's going to be there with us
for the next while. And my own guests is probably that there's a little more adjustment to come and the FED may end up not deciding to cut quite as much as markets are now expecting. But I do think we need to get ourselves to an idea that neutral rates are closer to having a four handle than they are to having a two handle.
We had Torsten Slock of Apollo this week come out and say he doesn't think they're gonna be any cuts this year for some of the reasons you suggest. I'm not asking you to commit on what will happen, but does that seem plausible to you?
Yeah. I think I said on the show maybe a month ago, that several weeks ago, that there was a fifteen percent chance that we wouldn't have cuts this year. I think, if anything, that fifteen percent may have drifted slightly upwards, and markets are kind of consistent with that if you look at options markets. So I think the base or presumptive case is probably that the next move is going to be down. But I think it'd be a real mistake for people to regard that as any kind of certainty.
Okay, Larry, thank you so very much for being back with us. That's Larry Summers, our very special contributor here on Wall Street Week. China has been holding its fourteenth National People's Congress this week. Of slower growth than in the recent past, it has set it's GDP growth target at five percent for this year, but has yet to give us much information about how it's going to achieve that goal. To help us understand where China may be heading.
Welcome back now, Zanny Minton Bedos. She's the editor of The Economist. Sandy, great to have you back on walls.
Reree really great to be here.
So you have actually a piece right now and the Economist about China. What do you make of what's going on economically right now in China? What do we know?
Well, right now, the Chinese economy is really not in very good shape. We know that it's in the middle of a very big property bust. Growth has been slowing, it's slipped into deflation. There's a tremendous loss of confidence investment, Foreign investment has collapsed, domestic confidence has collapsed. It feels
pretty bad. And so there were a lot of signals, a lot of questions with this week coming of, you know, would there be some sign that there'd be a big stimulus from the government to try and kind of get the economy going again. And as you said, what we got was an ambitious growth target five percent, which is
the same that they had last year. But last year, remember China was coming out of its really strict pandemic lockdown, and there was an expectation that the economy would rebound as controls were lifted, it didn't actually rebound that much
this year. No one's quite sure how they're going to get to five percent, particularly because there was not much detail of any sort about a big stimulus package, in fact the opposite, And so increasingly I think there's a lot of worry about the depth of the problem that the Chinese economy is in.
Is this, you know, is this a kind of.
Japan style multi year, perhaps multi decade malaise. Is it something they can fix in the short term. No one really knows. And compound that with the fact that Jijingping has you know, amassed ever more power around himself. One of the really striking things about this week's gathering and this is this gets into kind of crimininology of what's going on in China. But the premiere, who traditionally gives a press conference at the end of this meeting, this
time that's not going to happen. No one apparently can speak, you know, other than you know, the word of using Ping, and the the working report of what was what's coming for the Chinese economy has more and more references to Jijinping, So he's asserting a lot of control. There are ambitious targets, not clear how to get there, and this is an environment where the economy is really very weak and consumer confidence is very very low. So it's pretty bad.
Actually, no news characters has had this year, but I think they also indicate they're not going to have one until further notice.
Yeah, I mean they're not.
And you know, kind of what do you make of that? Because one of the interesting things in China, and I'm not a China expert, although I have a fantastic China team, but I go there pretty regularly. I'm going there again next month. All through the years that I've been going there, it has been true that the kind of technocratic competence
of Chinese economic policymakers has been really exemplary. And if you think back, you think back to the Great Financial Crisis, when China did a really big stimulus, they were technocratically really clear about what they needed to do to keep their economy going, to keep it strong, and there were
those years of tremendous growth. Growth obviously has now slowed, but there was still a view that kind of technically they knew what to do to achieve the growth targets because in the end, the kind of legitimacy of this regime has always hinged on the fact that it has provided for material prosperity. And you know, the social contract, if you will, had always been you put up with an authoritarian government, you put up with all of those strictures.
But you have China is being made great again, and China, Chinese prosperity is rising. That's really shifted. I mean, and you see it, for example, with the high levels of unemployment amongst young people. You sense a sense of disillusionment. People young Chinese now know that they are not going to see the remarkable increase in living standards that their parents saw, so there's a sense of loss of confidence.
At the same time, there's this very clear clampdown from using Ping not only a massing power around himself, but really shifting the focus towards national security, towards a you know, a great Chinese state in conflict with or at least confrontation with the United States. That's what he's focused on. He is not I don't think he's not really interested in economics. He's very statist, he doesn't believe in stimulus.
He's got a very kind of you might even say, I mean economically illiterate view of what the economy needs. But he's not focused on that. And so the question is, is all of these ingredients together, how does China actually get out of its malaise?
Zenny is such a treat having on Wall Street Week. Thank you that as any mitten Bellows of the economists coming up. There is a massive transfer of wealth on the horizon, and it's not just to the next generation. We talk with Sally Kratchek of Eloves about the rising role of women investors. This is Wall Street Week on Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio.
This is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston. Global. Wall Street is on the cusp of a major transfer in wealth, as aging men who amassed capital pass from the scene most oftens. This is described as a generational issue, but Elvius has released a new study showing that there will also be a gender component to it, as great wealth is put in the hands of women around the world. We talked to the founder and CEO of l of Us, Sally Krotchik, about what they.
Found the baby boomers have built and on his historically unprecedented amount of wealth. Baby boomers are hitting eighty this year, and as they begin to pass away, that money gets passed down. And you talk to most people and you say who's the money going to? And they say the millennials. The bottom line is is going to women because it goes to the widows first, average age of widowhood by the way, late fifties, goes to the women first and
then goes on to the kids. And so the Great Wealth Transfer is about to do something that Leanan did not, which is get to women. The majority of wealth in this country. Women are going to inherit tens of trillions of dollars over the next couple of decades.
Well that's a big shift, potentially a big shift. Yeah, But what do you think of the consequences of that? I mean, how are women different from men when they invest?
Well, so let's back up, because it does tend to change everything. One of the big findings you and were talking about earlier is we tend to think women don't invest as much as men do. It's because they don't have the money confidence that men do. What this survey has shown is it's not they don't have the confidence so they don't have the money. It's they don't have the money, so they don't have the confidence. You put that money in the hands of women, their confidence sorees.
It goes from something like forty five percent of women are confident around money to eighty one percent after they get an inheritance or a wealth transfer, become more confident than men. The other thing that changes marriages. Marriages something like double the amount of women who get in inheritance get a wealth transfer, you know, say that they could leave relationships that they don't want to be in, which
is really significant. You see it for young millennial and Gen Z women who three times the number of them say they'll leave a relationship as those who don't get an inheritance.
So as we look around the industry today, I mean it's certain my experience looking at it, we don't have many women in the senior most leadership roles in sort of global Wall Street correct. And maybe it's gotten better, but I'm not sure how much better it's gotten. What's causing that?
Do you think, yeah, it's gotten better, It hasn't gotten better enough. When you consider that women are fifty one percent of the population. You know, it's inertia. You know, an object in motion stays in motion, and object at rest stays at rest. But it's truly important, and it's truly important beyond the g I wish there were a handful of women who get to senior roles and do
well good. Yes, that matters. What really matters is the financial services is, of course the lifeblood of our economy, and the research shows you the diversity is a driver of superior performance. The homogeneity conversely means take you trust each other too much, you take on more risk thinking subprime crisis here right when you don't have that diversity thought perspective background. So we should all care about diversity in financial services because it is again the life blood
of the economy. And we should also care because of if we are a woman, we want to be reflected. If we're fathers and we have daughters, we want them to be reflected. And the industry needs to do and will do with more diversity, a better job for women again, who are coming into a ton of money with a great wealth transfer.
In your experience, do you think that the leadership of the large financial institutions, and by that I mean the CEO, the c suite and the board understand what you just said, because over the last few months we've seen why dof you senior women leave their roles. Now maybe we just noticed it more, but it feels like there are a lot of senior women moving on. Yeah.
You know, look, I think everybody believes in the power of you know, having a team that is diverse and can debate. I mean, forget about this blowback on DEI. But if you're in senior leadership, you know sort of understanding that you want these different perspectives. I think it can be hard to overcome corporate culture. What I do think is men do not see the great wealth transfer coming and do not fully understand the difference it's going
to make. And how do I know that? In the l of S survey we ask men, we said, here's this great wealth transfer. Who do you think is going to benefit? Just fourteen percent said women.
Oh, most people said the next generation. Me.
I think it's going to be bed you know, and look at what we saw this summer where women kept the country out of recession, you know, through going to see Barbie, through going to see you know, Taylor Swift and Beyonce and all all of the economic power that generated and you say, look, this is a world this beginning to change.
Just over two years ago now GE announced plans to divide its business into three publicly traded companies focused on healthcare, energy and aviation. GE Healthcare was spun off just over a year ago, and early next month the last piece will fall into place when GE separates in the GE Aerospace and GE Vernova, encompassing its energy business. We sat with the GE CEO who has overseen the restructuring from the start, Larry Kulp, and the man who will be CEO of g Vernova, Scott Straisik.
If you go back five years, we really were, I think, tasked with two simple objectives. One was a significantly leveraging of our balance sheet. Secondly, we needed to execute an operational turnaround across the business, but it was particularly acute in our power segment, particularly the gas power business that Scott ran at the time. So you fast forward, we
reduced our debtload by over one hundred billion dollars. Scott and the team really executed I think a phenomenal turn in gas power and then with the rest of our power segment. And we were sitting there as the pandemic
was beginning to lift. We could see the merger of our aircraft leasing business with one of our key competitors, air Cap, coming to a quick close, and we really had to decide what's the go forward structure for GE, And given we had had so much success with the decentralization, given that the capital markets clearly liked the businesses but didn't like them together, it was actually an easy decision when we took a little over two years ago to say it take us a couple of years to pull
this off, but when the dust settles, GE Healthcare, Chievranova, and GE Aerospace will all be on their own bottoms.
You may have just answered that in your answer, which is why'd you pick Scott not to speak to you? What about your presence Scott? But how'd you pick Scott? Is it because of the role he had turnaround?
Most definitely. I met Scott back August of eighteen. I wasn't even in this chair yet. It was the first GE business that I had visited down in Atlanta, and I came away thinking this is a really strong team, but there's some things that we're doing that probably are working against us. So we began the pivot to focus more on the businesses as opposed to the segment. Scott was running gas Power Services at the time we asked him to step up into a big job to run
all of gas Power. We knew that was job one with respect to the overall operational turnaround at GE, and he and the team I think executed near flawlessly through that, and then he picked up additional responsibility with the rest of the power segment and then in turn the renewables businesses. And at each step of the way, Scott stepped up delivered built teams that did the same. So when it came time to think about the next CEO for this business as a public entity, Scott was an easy choice.
So Scott, and now you've got the big job. What in your experience in GE and specifically in that turnaround, really do you think prepares you for this big new role.
Well, I mean GE has always been a great laboratory to learn and experiment, and we've always had great people.
But I think over the last five to five and a half years, really the lean operating system that we've been implementing and really started with gas right in nineteen where we were on a monthly cadence with Larry and really focusing a team that always had great ambition, but did we really have an ability to focus on the critical few customer KPIs every day while also protecting for the long term breakthroughs and the ability to multitask those
things our teams weren't always great with. And that's really a lot of what we were focused on in nineteen into twenty together is to build that rhythm that we could prioritize what mattered most to get it's a short term right, but not at the expense of also investing for the long term. And that's a lot of what we worked on in gas Power together in nineteen and that was really foundational for gas Power and it's really what we've been extrapolating across the rest of Vernova.
At the center of Vernova's strategy is growing its energy business in the midst of a massive transition to more sustainable energy around the world. It's chief sustainability Officer, Roger Martella, gives us an example how Vernova will set its priorities in building out the electrical grid in a way that is both good business and good for the climate.
We know we're going to deploy the technology and run businesses to develop technology to electrify the grid. But from a sustainability perspective, we want to do more than just put capacity on the grid. We want to focus on where are we putting that capacity. How are we helping countries that are struggling to provide affordable, reliable, sustainable electricity.
Can we double click on those countries and make sure we're not just going where the phone's ringing, but how can we affirm that we reach out to places in the world to enhance sustainability When it comes to electrification.
Sustainability really is at the heart of everything we're doing, and for us, we define sustainability as the complement it both together keeping the lights on while decreasing the carbon intensity the install base every day. And it'd be wonderful if we could wave a magic wand and have no carbon, but the reality is that's not the world we live in. So how do we sustainably electrify the world while making it cleaner every day?
They really go together, and to do that it really.
Does require a complement of technologies, and that's where Vernova is somewhat unique because we've got the power generation technologies with things like gas, nuclear, wind, but we also play across the grid at both moving electrons orchestrating the grid, and the system's becoming more complicated, and our ability to serve our customers with all of those solutions gives us a unique vantage point.
So Larry, as somebody who's about to turn over the keys, if I can put that way to power assess their opportunities going forward, I mean, what are the really growth opportunities for Vernova?
Well, I think you just hit on it, David in the question and Scott talking about all the different dimensions of the energy transition. We have excellent exposure, leadership positions really and almost all the ones that matter. So I don't really worry about the top line environment in this business, and that we couldn't have said that four or five years ago, but the world over, I think we really are set in that regard, so we need to make sure we execute.
How does wind fit into what you're doing, because that's been more of a struggle not just for GE but for others as well as opposed to gas power. How do you see wind playing out?
You bet? It has been an industry wide challenge.
But if you take a step back and think about the world today gets about seven percent of its power from electricity from wind most projections believed by twenty forty that needs to be closer to twenty five percent.
So wind matters.
But the reality is is we need to industrialize at scale the wind products to a.
Level that it can actually reach those levels.
And that's really what we're focused on right now is building workhorse products that we can do at scale.
We're seeing real progress with that.
We've turned our on shore wind business back to profitability the second half of last year, with momentum to follow. We're working on doing much of the same with our offshore wind business.
Today, coming up more with Larry Culp and Scott Strasik as we focus on ge Aerospace and the common DNA of the two companies. That's next on Wall Street Week on Bloomberg.
This is Bloomberg Wall Street Week with David Weston from Bloomberg Radio.
This is Wall Street Week. I'm David Weston. We continue the conversation with Larry Culp and Scott Strasik, taking up Larry's role as CEO of ge Aerospace and the Common hair it will continue to share with Jie Vernova after the spinoff.
We have a tremendous visibility both with respect to our service business, which represents about seventy percent of our revenue, simply because the airlines are back well above twenty nineteen activity levels and they need us to support the engines that propel all of that traffic. And at the same time they're looking to expand and modernize their fleets, both in single aisle and wide body configurations. So in order for a new plane today, a new engine probably isn't
fulfilled until twenty thirty. So we have tremendous demand potential both in services and in new units.
We need to make sure.
We're delivering and delivering profitably over the next several years.
I'm not sure how many people understand. I'm not sure I understood. And the extent of your defense contracting, I mean a substantial portion, not a majority, but a substantial portion is defense. How does that figure a new future plan?
Well, our defense business we talked about that this week with we're going to call that segment Defense and Propulsion Technologies. That's a nine billion dollar business primarily in defense, large position here in the US, particularly with rotorcraft, I think helicopters, the apaches and the Blackhawks in addition to combat fighter aircraft, and as those assets are being used with more frequency,
we contribute to the readiness of those assets. And in turn, as our war fighters need more capability, be it in a rotocraft or at a combat jet, that's where the next generation of gerospace technology has a role to play.
As we look around the world right now, one of the things we hear repeatedly is that geopolitical risk has gone up substantially. We've got a ground war in Europe, We've got conflict in the Middle East, we've got issues with the South Side at sea. We're not sure what's going they're on as you look out, Does that suggest to you that there's going to be a continuing rising tide on your defense contractor.
We believe so, David.
Now, obviously there's a little bit of political dysfunction relative to the budget currently in Washington, but what we shared with investors was very much that same geopolitical backdrop. Unfortunately that may not get better before it gets more tense.
And again, both here in the US and around the world, our business supports the warfighter both in both configurations, and we know that there are advanced technologies that governments want to deploy or be ready to deploy over time, and that's where we're investing from an R and D perspective.
So I think a lot of people would hear that and say, well, that's really good news for the shareholders. At the same time and also indicates you don't see a lot of great investment opportunities out there for that capitol, because if you did, you'd keep the capital invested.
Well, I think that we have reserved the right to explore those inorganic opportunities. But in many respects David, the best investment that we can make is in ge aero space and that's what you see with that capital allocation framework.
What about your capital allocation? What are you looking at, s Gun.
A lot of organic growth opportunities.
Again, when we think about the grid and the substantial modernization needed of grid, we're going to invest substantially in capacity additions to do that. There is still new technology that needs to be advanced and things like direct air capture, things like small modular reactors in the grid.
Software that's critical to the future.
You cannot talk about the future of the aviation business without talking about the future of aviation itself, and ge Aerospace VP of Engineering Muhammad Ali has some bold thoughts about what that future may hold.
Our purpose statement is we invent the future flight, lift people up and bring them home safely, And we believe it starts with bringing people home safely, and that earns us the right to lift people up, which in turn
earns us the right to invent the future flight. I think Rice has this beautiful open fan technology which attracts all the attention see a lot of the questions, but bide behind that hyper electric capable, state of the art high pressure temperature capability HGH, pressure serbon capability that we are designing using state of the art supercomputing. We are also at significant advances in materials that we are putting in there, and sustainable aviation fuel capable from day one.
This is a business that has really been built developing generational improvements in sustainability in jet engines over time, but we often not referred to it as sustainability. We've really referred to it as efficiency. But every time a next generation aircraft comes forward, it's really the result of a next generation engine technology coming to market.
The same question you when it comes to power technological development what are you looking at? What is out on the horizon for GE, for Nova, There's.
A lot of exciting things. Direct air capture, how do we manage carbon. We've got a prototype right now that's pulling carbon.
Out of the air as we speak.
Small modular reactor three hundred mego op blocks of power that will commission this decade that we think can transform the nuclear industry. Robotics and inspection technology with our wind business that ensures that every blade that leaves our factory has been fully inspected to get quality right the first time.
Grid software, our grid OS grid Orchestration system as we say it, to really help our customers deal with the complexities and the grid today as more folks put solar panels on their homes and charge evs at night, and there's more bidirectional flows of electricity, all opportunities, so a long list.
Even as aerospace and energy separated GE there is a deeply shared DNA going all the way back to Thomas Edison shared DNA. None of the sister companies wants to give up.
We absolutely have shared heritage, and actually that shared heritage goes all the way back to Thomas Edison who founded General ECNC company and that shared heritage. There is a statement that's written at the entrance to many our facilities, including our aerospace research facility, that says that quote from Thomas Edison that said, I find what the world needs
and I go about inventing it. And that's exactly what we would be doing in g Aerospace, and I am confident that that's what the GeV Vernova teve is going to be doing as well.
One thing I'd say about working at giev Ornova you come to work every day and you feel like you're in awe of history. We have eighty thousand employees with these incredibly diverse backgrounds, all around the world, doing so many different things. This is the one thing we have in common. We're motivated by this purpose, this purpose built company of electrification and decarbonization. So that's what inspires us every day.
When I reflect on the last five and a half years, it really has been about the team. David Scott talked about what we take forward. We take a lot of technology forward, but this is an immensely talented, resilient, ambitious team.
That I couldn't be more proud of.
Go back to twenty eighteen, there were a lot of people who wanted to give up on our company.
We didn't, and there were a.
Lot of folks that came into our boardroom and into the management ranks who understood just how good these businesses can be, how strong this team is day in day out. We just needed a little bit of time to work through some of those issues. Scott and I know our companies go back to Edison. A lot of us over time have studied the GE management playbook. Scott grew up in that environment. I grew up looking in from the outside. So we're proud of that history and everything that so
many people have contributed to our company over time. We're the stewards of the business at this point in time, and even though we go forward as three, we'll share that brand, we'll share that DNA, and I'm sure Edison and everybody else looking down will be proud of what they see the three businesses on an independent basis going forward.
Many thanks to Larry Kulp of GE Aerospace and Scott Strasik of GeV Vernova. According to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul, which may well be true when it comes to our soul, but life proves that we can be too early or too late for the health
of our economy, our businesses, or our politics. I learned this the hard way back in two thousand when I was running ABC News and we joined the other networks in calling the election way too early, which earned all of US news presidents a day of hearings before a Congressional committee to explain ourselves and what we were going
to do to make sure it never happened again. We learned just about a year ago now that the FED was far too late in pursuing the questions its examiners had raised about Silicon Valley Bank, resulting in the bank's failure and the need for the FDIC to step in.
The FED had plenty of authority to prevent Silicon Valley Bank.
It looks to me like the regulator do the problem, but nobody dropped the hammer. Just About everyone agrees that it's still too early to judge just how big an effect the generative AI will have on business, jobs, and the economy, despite some early indications that it could be huge.
I can think of almost no area of human activity, almost no area of economic endeavor that is not going to be profoundly affected by these technologies.
And one thing we already know is that in Nvidia did not move too early and getting a big jump on the market.
So it's in Vidia, but it's not just in Nvidia per se, because what in Vidio represents is the next growth leg of corporate America, of productivity and of earnings for the fastest growing companies in America.
When it comes to politics, President Biden says his economic policies have arrived just on time to create jobs and to spur growth.
The share of working age Americans in the workforce is as high as has been in thirty years. Remember they used to say, bid spend all this money to keep people from working. People are off the sidelines.
But there are others who contend that Bidenomics may be both too early and too late. Too early in fiscal stimulus triggering the inflation that has a lot of voters upset.
Voters are going to be voting on the passion of what's happening on main street. And if you look at what those interest rates are for a small business get alone, at twelve percent, nothing's happening, So that's not going to change that drastically between now and November, and they feel.
It, but perhaps too late for voters to see the real effects in their lives of the long term investments in infrastructure and clean energy and new chip manufacturing.
President Biden today thirty eight percent of Americans say he should be re elected. We looked at his three year average, his approval on the three averages thirty nine point eight. He's behind every single president except Jimmy Carter at this point in their presidencies.
And maybe that's the hardest part of this too early, too late business. At the time, it's just about impossible to know whether we're moving too quickly or too slowly. Just as pro golfer Adrian Morank last Sunday, he was playing in an lv golf tournament in Jetta. When he lined up for his second shot on the final hole, he had a lot on the line. He was vying for fifth place, which would have earned him seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars in prize money, so it's understandable
that he didn't want to rush it. He stood over that shot for more than two minutes and was assessed a penalty stroke, making his birdy into a par and losing him two hundred and forty thousand dollars. A pretty example of where being too late does more than just affect the health of the epicurean soul. Right now, we're seeing an agonizing choice between being too early and too late, with a lot more at stake than two hundred and forty thousand dollars. As the Federal Reserve tries to decide
on rate cuts. Pretty much everyone agrees that the Fed was too slow on the way up, which results than that unpleasant inflation that we're fighting. I am confident that they understand the problem correctly.
Now.
The wishful thinking is all gone. Now the question is how to avoid being neither too early nor too late in coming back down.
I do think we were a little slow to adjust rates when inflation was getting strength. But at this point we have policy in a good place. We can adjust the policy rate down if the economy calls for it.
That does it. For this episode of Wall Street Week, I'm David Weston. This is Bloomberg. See you next week.