Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Best 20240713

Orchestrating that attack against the u. S. Embassy. No end in sight to the dissatisfaction on the streets. Abigail can the u. S. Continue its expansion in 2020 . Experts examine indicators and offer insight. Fundamentals for the economy are good. There is potential slack out there. There are people who could work. Im happy with where policy is at the moment. Abigail it is all straight ahead on bloomberg best. Hello and welcome. Im abigail doolittle. , yours bloomberg best weekly review of the most important Business News, analysis, and interviews from Bloomberg Television around the world. Lets start with a look at the top headlines. The final week of a volatile year for the Global Economy began with encouraging signals of a return to stability in china. Chinas Economic Performance improved in december with early indicators showing production in the worlds secondlargest economy accelerated as domestic demand stabilized and meanwhile, Chinas Central Bank has ordered lenders to adopt this loan pricing regime for all prices next year. What does the scrapping of the old benchmark mean when it comes to Monetary Policy . Over the longer term, it means a more market led interestrate system, which should be more flexible and less of the command economy style we have seen from the pboc in the recent decade. In the shortterm, it might mean a bit of an Interest Rate cut for some borrowers, particularly those with floating rates. That could be a shortterm boost to the economy, as well. Abigail fresh data out of china manufacturing pmi beat, a positive sign as the improvement is crucial to stabilize the economy. The second straight month of expansion, 50. 2, what is your key takeaway . It adds to the theme the economy is bottoming out now so a good read for the new export orders index. Roosevelt 50 for the First Time Since may 2018. Commodities played a factor. There were Higher Oil Prices and steel prices that would have pushed things up overall. So it adds to the idea that sentiment is improving, chinas maintaineduld be until we get to the new Chinese New Year period, and then we will get a handle on how things are traveling into 2020. It has been a year of geopolitical volatility and that is now changing on the final trading day. Turmoil ratcheting up in the middle east, dozens of militiamen and their supporters, storming the u. S. Embassy complex in baghdad today, venting their rage over deadly airstrikes against iranian backed forces. What is the administrations response . Kevin within the last hour, President Trump tweeting out they are blaming iran for orchestrating that attack against the u. S. Embassy in iraq in terms of next steps, the president suggesting additional steps will be taken, whether that is another strike or additional sanctions or a combination of both. It is too soon to tell. We have a date for the signing of the phase one deal. President trump tweeted i will be signing our very large phase one trade deal with china on january 15. The ceremony will take place at the white house. Highlevel representatives of china will be present and at a later date, i will go to beijing where talks will begin on phase two. It is a good day, good start to the new year for china. The signing of the trade deal is a big positive. It has been a big drag on the chinese economy, and this was ping gave hisxi jin annual new years speech, and when she said he believes 2020 will be the year china becomes a moderately prosperous society, and its gdp may reach 100 trillion yuan. I dont have great hopes for the phase two trade deal, but it is nice they are signing phase one. Romaine ending on a somewhat high note. January through today, 29 on the s p 500 and 22 on the Dow Jones Industrial average. Vonnie we added 5. 9 trillion in value to u. S. Stocks, the s p 500 in fact. If i talked to you one year ago after the worse december since the Great Depression and told you all the headlines we would have in 2019, and i said where would you see the market, i dont think many people would say we would be near 30 up and have several new highs. We are closing out not just a good month, great year, and great decade, and i think there is room to run for this. The pboc has slashed the required cash reserve ratios for commercial lenders by 50 basis points, unleashing aliens into the financial system. Does this give us some signals about the outlook for stimulus from the pboc in 2020 . The key here is how they view the macro prudential risks. They are terrified of the next lehman crisis and plainly with the massive credit that has been extended into the chinese economy, it makes sense to worry about that. What we saw last year was initially a belief that the pboc was stimulating and the realization they were just allowing debt to be issued to clean up Balance Sheets. If they really are now confident that they have done enough Balance Sheet repair and they are not running major macro prudential risks, they will stimulate quite a lot because the communist party cannot afford to let growth get below. Get below 6 . Everything is up. Basically, if you own something today, it is probably up. All the safe havens are rallying and a bid to treasuries, stocks are surging, the money piling into safe havens. Some breaking news on iraq. A u. S. Airstrike near the Baghdad Airport kills the top iranian general. The pentagon says the general was planning attacks on u. S. Diplomats. The significant of this act. Very significant. This is probably the most tense moment and certainly the biggest escalation in relations since the end of the iraq war in 2011, and it is certain to escalate things in the region. Weve heard from iran saying they will retaliate, there will be revenge. Reverberating across Global Markets and in oil, moves of 4 in wti and brent. There are concerns this will escalate quickly, that iran will find ways to retaliate and weve already seen how oil is being used as a weapon in the region. Traders are fearful those kind of things will start again. Jon markets, reacting swiftly, sending crude higher and stocks lower. Two extremes. More on the one side and on the other side, and effective deterrence going forward. Where do we come down at the moment . The market are coming down more toward effective deterrence. They are seeing this in the context of what has been a series of iranian aggression and they see this as the u. S. Drawing a line, and all that is reinforcing strong conditioning over the last few years, which is to fade the shock. That is why you see muted reaction in markets. We found out from u. S. Officials the pentagon is deploying 3500 more troops to the middle east. Whenever you send the 82nd airborne anywhere, it is a sign the u. S. Is prepared to take additional action if needed. U. S. Officials domestically are bracing themselves for some kind of retaliatory response from iran, whether that is military or Something Like a cyber attack, we dont know yet. Abigail still ahead as we review the week on bloomberg best, conversations with chicago fed president Charles Evans, and cleveland fed president Loretta Mester. Plus, a preview of what 2020 will bring for Central Banks around the world as well as the outlook for emerging markets. , more of the up next, more of the weeks top headlines, the continued recall operation as investors kept an anxious eye on liquidity. We have to keep an eye out because we do not know what is outside the gate. Abigail this is bloomberg. Abigail this is bloomberg best. Im abigail doolittle. Lets continue our tour of this weeks top stories with a twist in the saga of former renault chief executive carlos ghosn. It was the arrest that shocked the financial world. Carlos ghosn was put on trial in japan for alleged financial misconduct and misuse of corporate resources, allegations he denies. And now a new twist. The former head of nissan and renault has fled to lebanon to escape in justice and political persecution. Carlos ghosn has been under house arrest since april. How on earth did he get out of japan under heavy surveillance . It is a mystery, really. Still, his lawyer today said he has his three passports, so perhaps he escaped from japan using a different name, different passport to get to lebanon, but he was under house arrest since april, very strict terms, a camera was trained on his door at home. He was barely allowed to speak to his wife, so there are questions about how japan let him slip through their fingers. It was quite an embarrassment for japan. Hong kongs financial secretary says the economy is set to contract in the Fourth Quarter as the city reels from six months of social unrest. We have seen the government put in place four rounds of stimulus measures since august. Can we expect the government to do more now . In his february budget, he will unveil measures to help businesses revive the economy in hong kong, which has been battered the last six months with the ongoing protests, but there are external factors with the trade war between china and the u. S. Not helping the situation. The gdp numbers for hong kong will come out in february. Hong kong kicks off 2020 with renewed protests and teargas. Running battles on new years day and into the night after thousands of Peaceful Protesters flooded the streets. Give us an update. Pretty much the same situation we have seen the last six months only the date has changed. Now 2020 with no end in sight to the dissatisfaction on the street on the part of the protesters and no change from the government. Not everyone, i must say, are turning to vandalism and violence, but the hardcore did and turned their vengeance on two icons of hong kong. The two hsbc lions are outside the headquarters here at one queens road central. This one, my namesake stephen, and the other. These lions cast in bronze 85 years ago, and they have seen worst, i might say, but they have been painted in red spray paint and black spray paint with chinese graffiti that basically says hsbc has been dyed red by china. There are many people and hong kong that do not support the violence, do not support the vandalism of iconic structures or symbols like this and these but they are frustrated with the inaction from the government. North Korean Leader kim jongun has declared he is no longer bound by his pledge to halt major missile tests and will soon debut a new strategic weapon. President trumps Immediate Reaction was muted, saying he and kim have a good relationship. It doesnt matter what the strategic new weapon is. What is important as of now is kim jongun announced there will be a change in policy. There will be a shift in the sands. In terms of upholding his commitment to not test intercontinental ballistic missiles, to not test nuclear bombs, this is the promise President Trump and kim jongun had made in singapore in 2018 when they first met and the promise that donald trump is pressuring kim to keep as well as other u. S. Officials are towards north korea. In terms of talks that show that kim is no longer going to be committed to the promises he made to trump. Euro areas manufacturing downturn deepened in december despite renewed monetary stimulus and easing of trade tensions. Euro area factory gauge came in below 50 for the 11th consecutive month. Not much happy news in europe and particularly germany. The pmi numbers in the eurozone were not great. Germany was the worst affected, but italy and the netherlands has the biggest slump in Manufacturing Activities in six and a half years. Orders were down, job losses or job losses are the steepest since 2013, the tail end of the last recession in the eurozone. There is a caveat to these. A survey was concluded just after the middle of the month and it may not have captured all the better news coming out on the u. S. China trade war. Similar issue in the u. K. Were he had the worst manufacturing slide in seven years. That did take into account the days after the u. K. Election, which Boris Johnson won with the majority, giving him the chance to move brexit forward. Some of the uncertainty lifted, but there are concerns over what happens next in u. K. German chancellor Angela Merkel issued a warning on Climate Change in her new years address. She said she will do everything in her power to make sure germany makes a meaningful address to Climate Change. Weve seen the rise of her image as the climate chancellor as she put the threat of Climate Change to the center of her news. She said the warming of our planet is real and it is alarming and she pledged to germany she will do every thing in her power to make sure germany makes a contribution to tackling Climate Change. Austrias new government plans to push the boundaries of conventional Economic Energy and tax policies in its bid to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions. There pledge includes a range of measures to put the alpine nation on a path to become climate neutral by 2040. The rise of the greens in political power has been one of the dominant trends we have seen in europe over the last couple of years. Weve seen them support ursula von der leyen, so it is a trend we are seeing. There is dichotomy with the Green Movement on the one side and the populists on the other. It is a conflict that will play out. The Federal Reserve, wrapping up its repo operations for the year. So far, we are not seeing any Interest Rate spikes or any concerns for investors immediately. We had our third repo operation, fourth, in fact. Does that mean all is well and clear in the treasury market . I feel like the town crier, 10 00 a. M. And all is well, but we dont know what is outside the gates. Yes, we have had two repo operations and one underway on the end both under subscribed. 15day, people only wanted 15 repos for 15 day and the overnight repo operation, they took 30 billion out of 125 offered. It looks like they see enough liquidity for the time being and if you look at what is happening in the overnight repo rate, nothing, but it does not mean we are all clear yet so we will have to wait and see until we probably get into next monday before we know the issue is over. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Mitch Mcconnell are in a standoff over President Trumps impeachment trial. Meantime, trumps personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani is willing to testify at the impeachment trial, and nancy pelosi hasnt even deliver the articles of impeachment to the senate. We were supposed to be further along than this by now. There are a few procedural steps before they can send the impeachment articles over. They have to name the impeachment managers and will pass a resolution in the house officializing all of that. We didnt expect them to do that until they got back from their break tuesday, january 2. January 7. It will be interesting to see if it is a strategic moment. It is hard to see what pelosis end goal is, if she ends up delaying that process further, but for now, it seems there is a lot of uncertainty surrounding what her plan is, when she plans to move ahead on this, and what, if anything, she can demand of the senate. Abigail you are watching bloomberg best. Im abigail doolittle. This week saw the calendar flip from 2019 to 2020 and analysts told us how they see the most important issues facing the Global Economy in the year ahead. Lets start with the outlook for emerging markets. Emerging markets are about to embark on another year of Wealth Creation after adding 14 trillion to investor portfolios in the past decade. Developing nation assets will outperform developed peers with asia having the best products prospects, this is according to a Bloomberg Survey of 57 Global Investors and traders on their outlook for next year. The outlook, even though we have had a fairly bumpy ride through 2019, is looking rather more optimistic. Certainly it has been a strong end to the year for emerging markets. The risks out there are dominated by the trade talks backdrop and i think the way the u. S. Election will impinge on that particular dynamic will be significant and we have the political protests in some parts of the emergingmarket world, most notably latin america and hong kong to see how that plays out and if it continues to cause investor worries, but largely net the overall picture into 2020 is one of optimism. Central banks are facing a moment of calm and Bloomberg Economics doesnt see the next downturn coming in 2020, with little room for maneuver, Bloomberg Economics expects cuts in emerging markets and a heavier reliance on fiscal policy. What were the dominant narratives for Central Banks in 2019 and are we going to see the same story in 2020 . Really in 2019, Central Banks had to cope with weakening economies that were the result of the trade war between china and the u. S. , and they had to ease Monetary Policy to combat that. The fed cut three times, the ecb relaunched asset purchases, but looking ahead to 2020, we look for the Worlds Largest Central Banks the fed and the ecb, to be on hold and to not announce any additional stimulus. Part of that is because as the u. S. Turns toward its election in november, in all likelihood, the trade tensions with china will be dialed down a bit. We wont see the kind of increased tensions the way we did last year that were so harmful to the economy. Even though the expectation is that the fed will keep rates steady next year, the incoming voting members could influence policy in 2020. Loretta mester, patrick parker, and neil kashkari. What do these four people bring to the table. Neel kashkari is the dove, and he has been out there clearly saying Monetary Policy needs to be easier, slower and so on, in order to keep the economy growing. Hes not worried about inflation. Hes worried about growth. There is still slack in the labor market and employment can go lower. That will be a strong message. On the other hand, there is a dove going off the fomc and that is jim bullard of st. Louis. Robert kaplan is fairly neutral, Loretta Mester from cleveland are on the more hawkish side. Abigail coming up on bloomberg best, policy insight from two top fed officials, the chicago fed president Charles Evans and 2020 fomc voter Loretta Mester. Plus, bank of america Ceo Brian Moynihan shares exclusive perspective on the u. S. Economys not so secret weapon. Can consumers keep spending growth humming along or is the engine starting to sputter . There is difficulty about spinning on things versus experiences. Abigail this is bloomberg. Abigail welcome back to bloomberg best. I am abigail doolittle. We spent time during the first week of 2020 looking at trends that will matter to investors in the year ahead. Bloombergs recently david westin sat down for an exclusive conversation with bank of america Ceo Brian Moynihan. They discussed the Global Economy going into the new year and whether Consumer Spending can continue to resist headwinds and drive growth. Brian we feel very good about the consumer in the u. S. Thats two thirds of the u. S. Economy and is as big as chinas economy. Those are big anchors. In europe, consumers are spending also. You put that together and that is a big part of the World Economy moving forward. David you have a Vantage Point into the u. S. Conservative that few have. When you look below the top line numbers of the consumer, do you see any over performance and underperformance geographically or socioeconomically . Is it distributed evenly . Brian you are seeing wages growing, especially in the Median Income area and lower growing faster now and if that is good because if you go back to what the fed was trying to do, they were trying to make sure the tight labor market translates to Income Growth and that has been consistent from chair yellen to chair powell and you are seeing that happen now at an accelerated rate. That is a good thing because that means there is more money, more people and more people are spending it. That is a good thing. That insight we see and you are seeing that translate into broadbased spending. There is a little bit of difficulty about spending on things versus spending on experiences. Going out to do stuff, going out to dinner, and you are seeing them both remain strong, with additional emphasis on experiences and electronics and things that are not necessarily a car or things people can consume. David from what you see at bank of america, can we keep this going with respect to the consumer . Typically, economists say you either have to have more people working or higher productivity. We are not getting a lot more people working in the population size. Productivity growth is not as robust as it has been. Brian you are in a nice equilibrium were job growth is enough to more than absorb the population growth, which brings people into the labor market and you are seeing the Participation Rate and underemployment rate keep coming down. Those are all good things and if you hear the experts talk about it, there is still potential slack out there. There are a lot of people who could work that we are pulling back in. The question is, you will run out of those people at some point and the Unemployment Rate, maybe going further south with underemployment rate coming down also. You will start to run out of people and that is the question about immigration, getting a bipartisan structural thing that feeds immigration, issue into a population growth and Economic Growth issue and away from the other types of things it gets tied up on. Abigail at the last fomc meeting of 2019, Jerome Powell declared the Federal Reserve doesnt expect to make any rate moves in 2020, but Central Bank Officials will be watching the economy closely, ready to react to changes and conditions. Bloombergs Michael Mckee spoke with a pair a regional fed president s this week at the American Economic Association Annual meeting in san diego. We have had a long expansion, but i think the labor market, the Unemployment Rate going to 3. 5 , more people coming into the labor force in the face of declining labor force Participation Rate trends due to demographics, that has been a good thing and it is a good signal for the future with more people who previously didnt have a strong attachment to the labor force are getting jobs, able to move to other jobs, and structurally, that helps. I think the fundamentals for the economy are good. It has been a long recovery. It has come from a low point after the great financial crisis and the great recession, so it has been a good run and i am looking forward to continued growth. Michael after 11 years of expansion, everyone is looking under rocks further reason it will end. What do you worry about . Charles what do i worry about . There are always risks. International events or something that concerns you. Inflation has been very low. I think at this point in the cycle, we really have to get inflation up to 2 and above 2 somewhat. We have set for quite a long time that our objective is to present. . 2 it is symmetric so we should be above 2 for some time. In that environment, there is no reason to be concerned about low Unemployment Rates. The strong labor market is an attribute. We just need to keep focus on getting inflation up. I think the current setting of Monetary Policy is accommodative and supportive of all of this, and it has a bit of Risk Management positioning in there so if we face a few more obstacles over the next six months or a year, policy is accommodative and we are wellpositioned to respond as necessary. We have basically a 2 economy and unemployment is at a 50 year low. Does that signal we have had a long expansion or is there some additional strength that is coming into the economy and keeping it going . It is great that we have such strong labor markets. That is a plus for a lot of people in this country that we have the strength in the labor market and wages are going up. 2 is my estimate of what trend growth is. It is made up of Labor Force Growth and also productivity growth, and in the economy at the moment, the 2 economy is about trend. We are a little above that now and will probably have 2 growth, my forecast for this year is about 2 growth. I think it is great we can have an economy with 3. 5 unemployment and inflation that is well contained. We dont have an inflation problem in terms of inflation being too high. In fact, inflation has been running under our 2 goal. Those fundamentals suggest that the economy is healthy. I do think we are going to have to see how the economy plays out. I think Monetary Policy is accommodative and that is helping the economy sustain that expansion and we will have to see where it goes this year. Michael you were one of the people most worried about inflation breaking out because unemployment was falling. As we go into this year and everybody is trying to assess who is voting on the fed, would it be unfair to call you a hot hawk anymore . Have you changed your view of inflation anymore . Loretta i never thought of myself as a hawk. I try to balance risk on the horizon. When you see unemployment getting to levels like that and you have Interest Rates as low as they are, by i was balancing the risk. I have lowered where i think the natural rate of unemployment or steady state unemployment is over time because i think we have learned. Similarly, i have lowered my underlying equilibrium Interest Rate over time. As you play out this year, i am pretty happy with where policy is at the moment and we will have to wait and see. Abigail you are watching bloomberg best. Im abigail doolittle. Lets resume our roundup of the weeks top stories in business, finance, and politics. Monday was milestone for tesla and bloomberg captured the companys breakthrough moment as it happens. Happened. We are tracking live pictures at the tesla shanghai giga factory where they have started delivering their china built cars. We have been waiting for this for months. They are producing the first 15 out of the Assembly Line and giving them to their own employees, not yet selling them to customers outside their own employees. You can see on stage, elon musk, very excited. This is teslas first overseas manufacturing plant. It is in the worlds biggest car market, the worlds leading electric vehicle market. This factory is a way to get a head start on those european brands that dont assemble them locally and by producing them locally, tesla model threes are exempt from a 10 purchase tax and are eligible for a government subsidy. If you look at the headwinds, chinas slowing and sales of evs have been slowing for four months or so and it is not yet producing these model threes from all locally sourced suppliers, which means they are still importing goods and assembling there. That means teslas supply chain is not fully proofed against the trade war, the source of the ambition to put a plant in china to proof the supply chain. There is work to do to get all the components from china, which means he is able to cut costs, potentially reduce the Purchase Price further. Huawei says it will overhaul its executive ranks next year as Revenue Growth slows on the impact of u. S. Sanctions. Chinas Biggest Technology company missed its internal targets, reporting an overall 18 rise in sales this year. 18 growth in revenue doesnt sound so bad when you have the Worlds Largest economy coming at you. How do they manage this . I think it is a combination of preparation, it is also people overestimated initially the impact the white house blacklisting would have on huawei. The company had been stockpiling inventory, and developing local alternatives to American Technology since its counterpart zte came under the same sanctions a year prior. Also, a lot of u. S. Businesses with Global Operations managed to keep supplying huawei, enabling it to keep churning out its products because of the 25 rule, which allowed them to go ahead with these sanctions. Goldman sachs is making a push to provide banking for middlemarket companies and bringing talent from rivals to do so, hiring more than a dozen managing directors from competitors in last few months. Every bank pouches from other banks. Oaches from other banks. Is there a reason goldman is doing this right now and so focused on this area . There are some other firms that have focused on the middlemarket for some time. Jpmorgan has a large regional banking operation and a big commercial bank. Wells fargo has focused on this a long time. Goldman is switching from places you wouldnt think of goldman to poach from, lincoln international, places the focus on the middle market, but goldman is hoping to find bankers where the Smaller Companies already know these executives. They are already comfortable with them and that is similar to what they do with the big firms. Grab is teaming up to apply for a full Digital Banking license, jumping aboard a singapore Government Initiative to attract tech firms into its financial sector. What do these to bring to the table for each other . Grab it is the majority leader of this, 40 and what singtel brings is the business track record. One of the things singapore in singaporean regulators will be focusing on harshly is the ability to sustain a profitable business going forward. Singtel brings that to the table as well as the capital requirements. In grabs case, it has this massive user base it built up through car hailing, and also a complementary suite of online financial services, most notably grab pay, its mobile wallet. Chinas legislator approved easing rules and stiffening penalties for violations in a way to get Chinese Companies to list more at home than in the u. S. Why is this security block so important . Walk us through the revisions. This is fundamental. I have been to plenty of forums and meetings where regulators are saying we want to raise the cost of violations in the capital markets. In terms of the big changes, the big one is formalizing the registrationbased ipos, which are already happening on shanghais stock market and we know it will be extended in shenzhen. Perhaps one day, it could be on the main board. We dont have a timeline for this. This is about formalizing the fact that you no longer need the csrc to act as a gatekeeper to approve the listings going on and emphasizing information disclosure, which is giving more power to the investors. Bloomberg news has learned j. P. Morgan chase is seeking 100 ownership of its futures joint ventures in china. That would make it the First Global Bank to take advantage of the opening of the nations futures market, where transactions topped 30 trillion last year. How is the opening expected to unfold in 2020 . It has been a stepbystep affair, but come january 1, foreign Insurance Firms will be able to set up units for license Life Insurance and on the first day of the new year, overseas firms will be able to increase their presence in chinas futures market. On that front, we are already seeing some action with jpmorgan today saying they are said to seek 100 ownership of their futures joint venture in china, going from 49 stake at the moment. In april, overseas companies will be able to apply for licenses to start whollyowned mutual Funds Management firms. China has temporarily blocked planned listings between shanghai and londons stock exchanges. What market implications might a listing have a for investors. We will leave the details of the politics aside for the moment, what are the implications for the way stocks are traded . Not much, because there has only been one company that china has allowed to sell global shares. There really still hasnt been much in the way of any movement on this trading connection between london and china, despite these years of efforts to get this thing going. In contrast, we have had 3 billion to 4 billion a day of trading that occurs across border between hong kong and the Chinese Market through their stock connect. It didnt seem to be something that would approach that level and has never been much interest from u. K. Companies to participate in this. The Market Impact of this, for now, is really not going to be much. Are we looking for a good return on your investment over the last decade . If you put your money into the s p 500, it tripled. Not bad. Some of the bestperforming stocks are up 3000 . Those gains pale in comparison to bitcoin. The largest digital token posted gains of 9,000,000 since july 2010. Walk us through this decade of bitcoin, from anonymity to all anybody can talk about two or three years ago. It has been a volatile decade. If we go all the way back to 2008 when it was created, basically out of nothing, it took a long time for it to start catching on and in 2017 was when we saw across the saw it 1000 threshold for the first time. At the end of that year, it was above 14,000. Fast forward a year from 2017 to the end of 2018, it was down back to the 3000 level so it has been incredibly volatile. Extreme weather in the coming days is expected to intensify australias wildfires. The death toll is rising and the military has been scrambling to help thousands who have been cut off along the coast of New South Wales. We know that it is so bad that the sky has turned blood red. There have been terrible scenes this week in the south coast of New South Wales and across the border in victoria. Terrifying bushfire swept through the region on new years eve, and also into new years day, leaving seven people dead in New South Wales this weekend and week and one person dead in victoria. The sky was turned pitch black as the day progressed, it turned blood red. Embers rained down on people, ash rained down on people sheltering on beaches. It really has been quite dramatic. Looking ahead to 2020, the dot plot. Everyone else, is for keeping Interest Rates where they are and it starts to blow up after that. 2021, a wide dispersion and 2022 but this year, not a lot of disagreement over the course of Interest Rates. Abigail there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg and we always enjoy showing you our favorites on Bloomberg Television. Maybe they will become your favorites. Here is another function you will find useful. Our quick takes, where you can get important content and fast insight into timely topics. Here is a quick take from this week. Chances are, you are not a vegan, but you may have had an almond latte this week or at least tofu in your rom and at some point. Ramen at some point. Even though some few identified as fully vegan, vegan products are filling up and flying off in supermarket shelves. That is because more of us are substituting meat and Dairy Products with plantbased items. I told my friends that i am going to become vegan and live a plantbased diet. Ive been vegan my whole life. I am vegan. Is it a fad like so many other food trends, or is it the start of something much bigger . This is your bloomberg quick take on the vegan economy. The Vegan Society was founded in 1944 in a bid to discuss nondairy lifestyles. They say youve got to eat vegetables. Too much meat is bad. It began in remained a very Small Community for decades, but the animal alternative industry is expected to grow to 140 billion in the next decade. There is something out there for anyone who wants to replace any amount of animal product in their diet, from cheese or yogurt replacements to bloody veggie burgers, but since only 6 of americans describe themselves as vegan, growth is coming from outside the community. Our meat heavy diet doesnt just harm animals, it is killing our planet, too. Livestock farming produces about 14. 5 of the planets Greenhouse Gas emissions. House are the main offender. Rearing and feeding farm animals leads to deforestation, which reduces our ability to absorb co2 in the atmosphere. Research from Oxford University points to the vegan diet as the single biggest way to reduce your impact on earth. Concern for the planet is one motivation, but over half of u. S. Adults who eat plantbased protein said the main reason was taste, beating concerns over diet, animal protections, the environment, and health. Vegan products are no longer the weird dusty packet hidden in the back of the health food shop. They are being delivered to the mainstream by huge brands like mcdonalds and burger king. There is even vegan beer, because as it turns out, brewers use fish guts for filtration. The obsession with oat milk has lead to shortages in the u. S. , causing hysteria across the country. Well, mainly brooklyn. Investors are now getting in on the action. Shares of beyond meat surged 600 in the three months after its ipo. Another plantbased burger maker, impossible foods, raised 300 million in the same month, so what can hold this burgeoning vegan economy back . Nutritionists are questioning some of the Health Credentials of these processed meat alternatives. Burger kings vegan burger, the impossible whopper includes a whopping 35 grams of fat and 1080 milligrams of sodium. Thats almost half of your recommended daily allowance of sodium. Others warn genetically engineered ingredients need more research to determine their safety. Despite concerns, there are bullish signs. Traditional meat and Dairy Companies like tyson and dean foods have invested in plantbased products, with suppose it benefits to our health, moving to a vegan diet could produce savings of up to a trillion dollars a year on health care and lost working days. Like it or not, humans are going to have to shift their diets to help stem the tide of Climate Change. With our planets population growing, the vegan economy will have to win over even more of us if it is to have a substantial impact. Abigail that was just one of the many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg. You can also find them at bloomberg. Com along with all the latest Business News and analysis 24 hours a day. That will be all for bloomberg best this week. Thanks for watching. Im abigail doolittle. This is bloomberg. [chanting] stephen beijing calls this hong kongs worst crisis in the more than two decades since the 1997 handover. Hong kongs protesters have repeatedly used dangerous tools to attack police. These actions constitute seriously violent crimes, and are starting to show signs of terrorism. Stephen the protesters would probably agree the city is in crisis, but for very different reasons. Sending ships or using emergency ordinance is not the way out