Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Best 20171209

Buy, sell, and swap strategy. Check out what is coming down the pipe. What does it mean for two huge passive investment giants to have so much money . They have been gaining more and more market share in the hedge fund industry. Because they are number one in the industry, it is harder for them to find growth. Michael hello and welcome, i am michael mckee. This is bloomberg best. The week began with high hopes for brexit breakthrough, hoping following reports that the u. K. And it you had made some terms on their divorce agreement. The dream was quickly dashed on monday. Mark the expected breakthrough failed to materialize. Apparently delayed over the irish border. The European Commission president john paul juncker broke the news. Mr. Juncker despite our best efforts and significant progress, we and our teams were not able to reach complete agreement today. This lunch started around 1 30 brussels time. About four hours ago. We understood that it one point, theresa may actually broke away call thelunch to leader of the Democratic Union party that props up her government in london. At this point in time, it was mostly the issue of the irish border. That sort of put an end to any possible breakthrough. What happened today is an indication of the political weakness of theresa may. The u. K. Prime minister in the middle of International Negotiation having to break off to call the leader of an obscure Northern Irish party propping up her government, this is where we are. David the tax overhaul last week was all about getting a bill to the senate. This week, it is about reconciling that bill with what the house passed earlier. We are going to conference. There are more bumps along the road. The house and senate have a number of differences between their bills. The senate has an issue they recently found out is in their bill, dealing with the alternative minimum tax for corporations that would basically make moot a number of breaks they wanted to offer to tech firms for intellectual property. So they have to work that out. Everyone seems to be speaking optimistically, but they have a number of challenges they need to confront to make sure the house and senate are on board with the final package. Vonnie the late change to the bill that keeps the 20 amt could be partially responsible for the recent weakness in tech, tip makers coming off their worst week in over two years driven by reallocation potentially. Basically, it was almost classic. You are going to keep the amt and the corporate amt m it is going to hurt the tech sector. It will hurt the utilities. But of course, the beneficiary beneficiarymmate are the essentials. Also, there is intense lobbying at this point to fix this. Many people think that the 20 that stayed in was basically a mistake. Francine theresa may once again facing a revolt from inside her cabinet over brexit negotiations. The uk Prime Minister is said to have been pressured by senior minister Boris Johnson and michael gove to keep aligned with the European Union after breaking away. The e. U. Has given her until the end of the week to present a proposal it finds satisfactory, in what officials described as the deadline of deadlines. We are both concerned that kind the uks Regulatory Regime to close to the e. U. , will tie the uks hands in the longterm when it comes to negotiating new free trade agreements with other countries, such as the United States. At the same time, if she does not get the dup on her side, the Northern Ireland party that is propping up her minority government that could bring down , her entire government. Pres. Trump i have determined that it is time to officially recognize jerusalem as the capital of israel. President trump in this case was facing a deadline, a congressionally mandated deadline to sign a waiver against moving the u. S. Embassy to jerusalem. It is something president s deal with every six months. Trump was clearly frustrated with facing that deadline after promising on the campaign trail to recognize jerusalem as the capital and move the embassy. He decided to take the step to basically unilaterally declare jerusalem to be the capital. He says the state department will start hiring architects and designers and people to begin planning the move. It is hard to know if this is the first step in what the administration has planned as a broader rollout of the mideast peace plan. They say that plan is not ready yet. The primary alone negotiator on the Peace Process has said primary plo negotiator on the Peace Process has said this effectively renders the United States not to be a moderator in the process. We have heard from european allies as well, but this is not something they see as in the interest of peace. The federal government runs out of money tomorrow night. The threat of a Government Shutdown is looming over capitol hill. Can we expect another lastminute deal with democrats . It is not looking likely. Pres. Trump it could happen. The democrats are really looking at something that is very dangerous for our country. The joint resolution has passed. The u. S. Congress is set to pass a bill to avoid the shutdown for now, providing funding for the government just through december 22. It takes us to three days before christmas. Not much of a victory, is it . It is in the one sense that they were able to come together and agree to get this done rather than push into the brink of friday night or through the shutdown. But it does defer a lot of big decisions, things there are some disagreements. Primarily, the caps on defensive programs,nd domestic some legislation that would stabilize the obamacare markets which is tied into the tax vote as well they have a lot of work , to do over the next two weeks. Even then, they will be deferring it until january. They will come back and try to hash out a fiscal plan for the entire government for the rest of the year. E. U. Haveain and the broken the deadlock over brexit. New this morning the two parties , have reached an agreement on three sticking points citizens rights, ireland, and the divorce settlement payments. Talks can now continue to trade. I believe we have now made the breakthrough we need. Millions of jobs depend upon the future trading relationship we will determine and i am optimistic about the discussion ahead. Now, the really hard work starts, in terms of the trade negotiations and for mrs. May at home. The union is still flexing its muscle, letting it do for now. They are saying it still needs to be ratified by the u. K. Parliament and it may be more problems to come when they really get into the details. Because we still do not know what the solution for ireland is. Whenever that is proposed, we have no idea when that might be, the dup may still cause trouble. Jonathan a stronger than forecast jobs report. The economy adding 228,000. The Unemployment Rate Holding Steady at 4. 1 , on almost 17 point year low. Average Hourly Earnings came in a bit lower than forecast. This is a solid report. The top line number was spot on. Wages are little week, but 2. 5 is edging up. At least it is moving in the right direction. Jonathan you have said before that if this administration drove those payrolls gains. Is it improving and the way people want it to . We do. We accept that. That is why we need tax reform. We been saying this consistently. We need tax reform. We need to allow workers in this country to keep more of what they earn. But more importantly, we need to be able to drive more wages to our hardworking citizens of this country, and we firmly believe that tax reform will drive wage growth. Michael still ahead as we review the week on bloomberg best, Bitcoin Futures start trading on sunday. The ceo sets the scene for the launch. Plus, interviews with jack bogle and ken mullis. Conversations from the ubs global media conference. Bloomberg kicks off a special series on the future of investing. Up next, more of the weeks top business stories. Short seller carson block made headlines when he revealed his latest target here in this studio. We believe this company is rotten to the core. This is bloomberg. Michael this is bloomberg best. I am michael mckee. Let us continue our global tour of the top business stories with a momentous merger that brings together a drugstore chain and a Health Insurer. Drugstore giant cvs will acquire Health Insurer aetna for 67. 5 billion. That will potentially transform the Health Care Industry in the United States. It is going to be really interesting because it condenses a huge part of the supply chain existing between, you know, patients on one end and their money on the other. What we will have here is an insurer combined with a drug benefits manager combined with a Retail Pharmacy that also runs a lot of clinics and other stores. You are really taking a lot of pieces that exist and almost essentially middlemen in the Health Care Supply chain and combining them into one big piece. It will resemble Something Like United Health care than the separate pieces did. Vonnie the richmond fed naming Thomas Barkin as its new president. Jeffrey locher forced to quit. Michael he will walk in the door and become a voting member. The richmond fed rotates to the voting cycle in he will start on january, january 1. We do not really have a good feel for his Monetary Policy views. We know a lot about his background. He got a degree in economics from harvard, then went to Harvard Business school and harvard law. He has worked at mckenzie most of his career. He did some time at first boston. He was the chief Financial Officer at a white desk for a while for a while at mckenzie. He is now chief risk officer out of the atlanta office. In the past, he has donated to democrats, so perhaps you should read something into that. We do not know exactly where he will come from. The richmond fed has a tradition of being a very hawkish Federal Reserve bank, so if the board of directors was looking for someone like that we may expect that for mr. Barkin. Vonnie Robert Muellers investigation has expanded and is now reaching Deutsche Bank. Mueller issuing a subpoena to the bank weeks ago, the mandate documents of President Trump his President Trump and his family. Mueller and his team are investigating the roughly 300 million owed to the bank. Why has Deutsche Bank not handed over the documents . Michael what they have said what they have said in the past the democrats in congress , have been pushing for them to release those documents for a while. Deutsche bank has always said we cannot. It is a confidential client relationship. We cannot just release these documents. We need a formal request from congress or, now, a subpoena. Now they have it. Someone in the bank previously told me they would release the documents, if only to get out of the headlines and get this off of their chest. It is probably something of a relief. Rio tinto has named Simon Thompson as its chairman after shareholders were said to reject an earlier candidate. Who is Simon Thompson . What is he bring . He is an experienced money executive. He has a lot of banking experience, so he has worked at Companies Including newmont, anglo american. He is 58 and a senior director at rio tinto where he is the chair of the renumeration committee. And essentially, he has an annuity ticket. Betty attempts to forge trade talks between china and canada fell apart in beijing with sticking points on both sides. Prime minister Justin Trudeau indicated that while his preference for socalled progressive tax, the two sides would only enter formal talks if they are confident of deal could a deal could be reached. Are those the real reasons why these talks are not working . I think we should clarify that exploratory talks between canada and china on a free trade deal continue to go on. There was definitely an optics problem today. It appears the canadians and chinese had their wires crossed before Prime Minister trudeaus plane ever landed in beijing. The chinese abruptly canceled a joint News Conference that had been planned for Justin Trudeau and premier li. You had them giving separate statements, not taking questions. There was a bit of space lost on both sides. Do you have a new short position . It is in what stock . It is an osi systems, which most People Better know as the maker of rapid scan. The airport scanners and scanning equipment. Erik what is the issue with this company . This company is rotten to the core. Erik not mincing words. we actually have always have what we think is smoking gun proof that when this company got a key turnkey contract a few years ago in albania toward 150 million or 200 million top line they paid a bribe or kickback of , almost half of that concession. So to me, that is damning evidence. Then we also look at really the Major Contract these guys have is a turnkey contract in mexico that is up for renewal next year, possibly the early part of the year. The pricing on that appears to be egregious. We estimate that one contract in mexico is worth about 55 of the ebitda off for the last fiscal year. If you own the stock, you are basically owning it for the one contract in mexico that is up for renewal and should be looked at carefully. Vonnie we reached out to osi. a spokesman declined comment. David warren buffett. Every year at his annual meeting, someone stands up and says what is your Succession Plan . He says we know it, you do not, and we will come up with it when we need to. We think maybe we have some hint of who it might be. Who is it . We believe it is greg able. Greg has been running brookshire hathaway, one of buffetts biggest businesses. Some other people that were on the list we think have sort of moved off in terms of what buffett is looking for. David more says great things about greg gable every time. What about ig james . Agit james . He and Charlie Munger have praised and as well as gregory gable. Buffett says he wants a successor to stay in the ceo role for at least a decade, so one of the key factors there is age. Deal newsthe big basically, the battle of foxs assets is heating up days after it was reported that the murdochs would defer to disney. Who is driving it on the fox side and what will happen with leadership at disney if the deal closes . I would have to believe it is rupert who is driving it on the fox side. The question is, does bob iger stay . Does james take over . We do not know. We just recently heard bob saying he is leaving in june of 2018. He has not said anything since. I would imagine that if they are going to win these assets, he may stay on for another year just to make sure the integration is ok. This is his legacy. He has to be pretty careful. He wants this to work. General electric will cut nearly one out of five positions at its power units, resulting in 12,000 job losses, or 18 of ge powers workforce lost. The unit needs to become leaner as customers turn away from fossil fuelbased energy sources. Theyre cutting losses. The job losses that were announced this morning, those were part of a plan they announced to cut 1 billion in ge power next year. They are in the process of cutting 3. 5 billion in structural costs across the company. Theres definitely a lot of action being taken. Vonnie how long will investors give flannery . I do not think anybody knows for sure. He will need to show some results soon. Banks have emerged relatively unscathed from the final batch of post crisis capital rules with few lenders meeting to raise new funds. The committee on banking supervision broke a deadlock on curves on how banks estimate the risks of mortgages and other assets. 10 years in the making, is this it . What do we see here . What is the end product . Ok, well, yes, there is a very small chance this could go and fall apart. What could not fall apart in the world today . We are basically there. It is a deal which the europeans are not happy with. The americans are not happy with either. Maybe it is a good deal. A good compromise is one that no one likes. Michael welcome back to bloomberg best. I am michael mckee. Bitcoin topped the 15,000 mark in trading this week. The cryptocurrency will enter a new phase in its development. At 6 00 p. M. New york time, Global Markets will start trading Bitcoin Futures. That is a whole week of exclusivity before its rival cme gets in the game. Way ahead of the nasdaqs plan to offer Bitcoin Futures next year. Scarlet fu and julia chatterley spoke with chairman and ceo ed tilly about the upcoming launch. We know what it takes to bring new contract in the market to the marketplace. It is a slow build. We start the futures here. Open interest builds over time. We have reliable settlements. We have oversight from the cftc and our own regulatory department. That builds over time. That is when i think the institutions will make more moves into bitcoin. But it is going to take some time. You started working at cboe in 1987 as a floor clerk. Youve seen it introduce lots of products over the past 30 years. The size ofcontrast the potential market in Bitcoin Futures with other products you have seen in the past. Theyre very small. Especially compared to the markets we have built in the past. To your point, cboe has a history of new tools to manage risk to the marketplace. Vix is the best example. Lost in the coverage last week, we set a daily fix options record. 3. 1 million contracts in a low volatility environment, that is remarkable. But the coverage in the industry was bitcoin moved 500 or 400. One so this is we are pretty realistic on our expectations, but to your point, this is relatively small. Relatively new. Really, what they are looking for is a movement in the s p 500. The Global Benchmark is the measure by vix. The word i would use is washes nest. Cautiousness. Is there an advantage even if it is being the first to set up this exchange . It was not a race to the marketplace to be ahead of our competitors. Rather, we started about six months ago. From all of the accounts that we followed, our competitor came after us a little late in the game. This is just the normal course. Both of us, incredible, deep conversation with the regulator at the cftc. Both a collaborative effort to get the cftc comfortable with us being able to move forward and launch futures. Im happy to be launching sunday. Our crosstown competitors a little bit after that. This was an effort for both of us working with the cftc to get comfortable. Michael still plenty left on this edition of bloomberg best. Editors take a look at the futures of investing, and up next, more compelling conversations including ken mullis. On the margin, there is probably 10 or 15 of m a that has been held off due to uncertainty. That is a lot of activity. Michael this is bloomberg. Is this a phone . Or a little internet machine . [ phone rings ] it makes you wonder. Shouldnt we get our phones and internet from the same company . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. Choose by the gig or unlimited. And ask how to get a 200 prepaid card when you buy any new samsung device with Xfinity Mobile. A new kind of network designed to save you money. Click, call or visit today. We have a strong economy, and all Member States of the eurozone are growing at 1. 5 for the first time in many, many years. We have a balanced budget overall. The positives included. We have the ability to make the area grow a little bit faster, and for a longer. Period of time. Michael that was mario santino, who this week was chosen to have the socalled euro group. Media executives gathered from around the world for the communications conference. Will he several of the is industrys biggest names, in starting with stephen lacey, a starting with stephen lacey, you this Company Recently agreed and this Company Recently agreed to purchase time incorporated. You are there is a number of a amazing opportunities as a result of this combination. First of all, the ability to serve over 200 Million Consumers each and every month. But ive been emphasizing today way that, aside from a very strong legacy, we will reach 170 and million unique visitors in the Digital Business and have a written over 700 million of revenue. That is the hidden gem in this transaction that we are excited about. You have spent time getting into the portfolio of time. What do you think you are going to keep . In what do you think you may look to sell . Stephen when we get the opportunity after regulatory approval, we are going to do a detailed review of the assets in the portfolio. The assets that come from the time side and meredith. For duplicative audiences, and also look hard at the quantity and the frequency of these activities and then make him activities and then make decisions. We really have not they in fact have announced some divestitures that they will hopefully finish before we close. And then we will look at the portfolio in a very holistic way. The fcc compares to be a years to be loosening the fcc of years to be loosening rules. More m a coming. Are you a buyer in this market . We are absolutely looking to execute our buy, sell, and sought strategy. It is a terrific opportunity is result of the loosening of these regulations for us to take a look at our portfolio of television stations and identify ways we can, you know, stick with peers sit with peers of the table and both walk out of the room with a more profitable operation. It is because of the Technological Innovations that these rules have had to change. You know, it is just some of the rules that were outdated. We did it is a welcome result to loosen those ownership rules for inmarket. We intend to execute as much as we can. To get deeper in the markets where we operate in may be pick up a second station. Maybe a third. It could be more profitable and invest in journalism. That is what scripps has been known for. Over 140 years. Radio is roughly 7 of your business, i believe. At this point, does that stay the same . What you do . Radio is a consolidated marketplace already. We ended up in the Radio Business as a result of a journal transaction where we brought in a bunch more tv stations, and the radio stations came with it. I do not see us going long in the Radio Business in terms of being one of the consolidators, but we like the business for now. Adjacent to radio, you made acquisitions to deals i believe in the podcasting space for expansion . We very bullish about podcasts. What are the economics there . Here in new york i was walking down the street. You cannot walk a block without seeing half of the people wearing earbuds. Theyre all listening to something. It is not always streaming music. We see podcasting is the next important medium of storytelling, news and information. We are seeing legacy companies, even legacy newspaper companies. We are looking to build significant revenue, 600 million, and the world of digital publishers. This is comparable to us. Existing in the Digital World also means existing in the symbiotic way with the googles and facebooks and twitters of the world. How do you balance that . How do you balance the need to drive traffic with, you know, Business Models that are not always usually includes . That are not always mutually inclusive . I think the last point is the most important. That Business Models. They have commercial priorities. We have ours. It has been encouraging that in recent months, weve found it hard to be heard in silicon valley. The political heat, presumably to things that have happened on their platforms and watch. Not intentionally. I think it has been accidental that we are partnered with fake news and god knows what. And people trying to target antisemites. There has been a kind of wakeup moment for the big platforms, and we have seen some real progress. Google has announced a much more favorable treatment of subscription publishers on their search platform with their search algorithm. That is an example of a major platform listening and changing practices. We are conversations where we have not seen that kind of breakthrough with facebook. But, we very much believe that these are partners. They benefit from having high quality content, and being accessed by users. We benefit to a degree at least from the exposure they give us. I certainly go into those conversations wanting a winwin. I hope they understand that what we do, and i do not want to be pompous about this, but it matters to public lives and democracy and america and around the world. At a time when there is so much untrustworthy news and fake news and bad actors at work behind the scenes, you know, trusted news providers need support from the platforms. Much like the shift from old to new Business Models, the switch between passive and active investing is shaking up wall street. Jack bogle joined scarlet fu to discuss how index funds are deepening their involvement with companies they invest in. Jack i believe the index funds have to get there stuff together and be actively participating in Corporate Governance. American vanguard has done exactly that. We released a few weeks ago a 45 or 50 page folder talking about our activism and Corporate Governance, how we voted our shares, the issues we looked at. Weve seen progress from the beginning for the longterm. The reality is, corporations without owners will fail. Somebody has got to be minding the store, because the managers have been taking advantage of the stockholders. We need organized institutional groups to take care of it. You probably remember this. Quite a few years ago, the formation of a longterm federation of investors. They would pool resources and make intelligent votes on options, dividends, mergers, but not the companys business. That is not a job. Scarlet there is a panic in the space. What do you say they should do . You advised them to do nothing but stand still. What is that mean . What does that mean . Do they collect their fees and hope for an exit strategy . Jack active managers are in a tough business. Dont forget what is happened to the indexing business. It began as a passive investing by passive investors. Now, we have passive investors passive investing for active investors, and better etfs and trading vehicles and speculative vehicles. Many of them. Probably most of them. So we have a different kind of stock m werea people cannot suppress the urge to gamble. That is her performance very badly. They have turned up away from individual stocks. That hurts their performance very badly. Taxes and driven dealmaking for years. What does this tax bill have on it . The interesting part of m a is that so much of it is strategic. Positioning your company to be a winner in an economy that is changing so rapidly that i do not believe people have held off on 90 of the m a. Because the opportunity to position yourself correctly is beyond taxes. Is it talking about technology . Every industry is a technology industry. I do not actually believe to in technology segregating into its own world. If you show up at every banker is a tech banker. Every company is a tech company. Not every banker is yet a tech banker. The main issues at the board and ceo level revolves around digital data, and becoming more making sure they are in the right position as Technology Comes in. That goes for big issues everywhere. So look, i think most people are more interested in positioning yourself to win and not being left behind. But look, on the margin there are probably 10 to 15 of m as held off by uncertainty around tax. That is a lot of activity. What role is antitrust going to play in m a . There have been rulings that are hard to understand. I wouldve thought this would be a very prom a administration. Were early at it. Are you surprised by the position this administration has taken on at t and time warner . I have to be careful because we are involved in that. But yes, it is hard to understand. If there was a rationale and reasoning you could see behind it, it would be helpful. But actually, it does not coincide with any precedent. And so, it does not make sense and leaves me with a very it is difficult to get a vision from it. Michael you are watching bloomberg best. I am michael mckee. We are exploring the future of investing. One of the trends that are shaping what are people around the world put their money, and how the assets are managed going forward. Reporters and editors shared their analyses on bloomberg television. Blackrock and vanguard. The numbers one and two Money Managers on the planet. Theyre on their way to doubling assets. Blackrock currently worth around 6 trillion. Vanguard, 4. 2 trillion. They could double that to more than 20 trillion by the year 2023. It is huge. Good question. We are looking at two key areas. The first is market efficiency. What does it mean for two Huge Investment giants to have so much money . Does it change the way price discovery happens in the market. The second matter is Corporate Governance. What does that mean for Corporate Governance . Blackrock and vanguard have pushed their fees particularly low. Why would you choose a fund that is more expensive if you can get one for three or five basis points . Add to that the fact they are such large Asset Managers with so many platforms. You can buy them online or through the warehouse or through advisers. How far behind are they . Who is number three . They are around i think 3 trillion at the moment. There still fairly slow. Ai will creep into every part of investing in the longterm. From big players to smaller players, give us an idea of how much money is invested with ai strategies. It is very hard number to forecast or tell because there are only a few dedicated ai firms. Most of them do not report anywhere. Firms will use ai as a technique to generate signals. What we know is that quant has been getting more over investment communities. Therefore, their total estimate is around 1. 5 trillion. How about returns . Are they performing . They have performed better than hedge funds based on very limited data that we have, which is based on 13 funds. They are outperforming hedge funds. They will outperform this year, and in the past as well. They are still struggling to outperform, for example, the s p 500. They are suffering the same problems that nominal Hedge Fund Industries suffer. For years, the big money on wall street threw its money around these proposals. Talk to us about how this is faring, because it feels like this discussion has been had over and over. Are we getting anywhere . The momentum is picking up in terms of traction for diversity proposals that shareholders have. One of the reasons why is the big weight on wall street. The passive investor. Etf investors. These people were passive investors for a long time. They owned shares of Different Companies across the u. S. Because they were part of the index, a benchmark. We are not like the olden times when you could pick apple or ibm and pressure the company by saying i will drop your stock out of my mutual if you do not add women to the board. The passive investors that is been trickier. They have sat on the sidelines a little bit trying to figure out how the activists while being passive investors. We are seeing more momentum from the big three youre actually in some cases voting with shareholder proposals and in more and more companies to say hey, if you have an allmale board, think about adding women and minorities. Theyre in some ways having success with turning the companies around. Goldman sachs, blackrock and blackstone are cornerstones of the industry. What about the future . How will these Companies Confront the age of technology and Retail Investment . The three are certainly the top of their industry. Whether goldman is the preeminent investment bank, some people may disagree with maybe the folks who cross the street at Morgan Stanley for example. Blackstone, the best private equity shop, or blackrock. We needed to pick three. These are the three we picked. The challenges they all have are challenges of success. Theyve risen to the top. Thats why were writing about them in the first place. But because they are number one it is harder for them to find growth. They have to look elsewhere. Goldman has been the top ranked m a advisor for over a decade. Blackrock has this huge etf business that they have. Blackstone had hundreds of billions of dollars in money from institutions that they are put to work. But at some point, you run out of green field in those industries. What we are seeing is that they are starting to move into each others industries. Goldman has an Asset Management arm that there had for quite a while, but they are putting some investment into it and trying to build up. Theyve started an etf business that is challenging some of blackrocks products. And then blackstone and blackrock have similar moves. So it is interesting. Over the next decade we will see more of that. And the question of course becomes, how does that change the landscape . Check out my new favorite you function. You know it by now. Tells you everything you need to know about the rising today. I just want to bring up a function that we use. This is fslo, 24 hours, all asset classes. You get a look at how the money is flowing. There are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg. We enjoy showing you our favorites on bloomberg television. Maybe they will become yours. Heres another one you will find useful. Quic go. Heres a quick take from this week. Catalonia ramped up its struggle for independence. Violence broke out in october after the block of an illegal referendum vote calling for an dependence. Independence. Catalonia wouldve had an economy the size of finland. The standout triggered a political crisis. Heres the situation. On october 1, 2017, catalans voted. The vote was not recognized by spain. They feel their independent identity has been marginalized by madrid for centuries. The Spanish Government tried to suspend the vote by sending troops to the region. Violence corrupted violence erupted. Turnout for the vote was less than 50 . But 90 of the people who did vote backed a breakaway. A few weeks after the vote catalonias lawmakers declared , independence from spain. The spanish Prime Minister was having none of it, and fired the entire catalan government. He called for local elections. Here is the argument. Catalonia has been bickering with madrid since the 1700s. The breakaway in the 1930s lasted only a day because spanish forces bombed the government regional offices. In catalonia was given more 2006, power then and a new law, the parts of them were struck down in 2010. Many catalans were asking yet again if they would be better off apart. Theres a problem. The countrys 1978 constitution does not allow any region to vote on independence. Either all of spain votes or no one does. What is unclear is what would happen ecomonically if catalonia said adieu to the rest of spain. Most catalan banks have moved their headquarters out of the region. The catalan city of barcelonas famous Football Team could be kicked out if it breaks away. Michael that was just one he of the many quick takes you could find on the bloomberg. You could also find them on bloomberg. Com. Along with all the latest business news, 24 hours a day. That is all for bloomberg best this week. Thank you for watching. I am michael mckee. This is bloomberg. Retail. Under pressure like never before. And its connected technology thats moving companies forward fast. Ecommerce. Real time inventory. Virtual changing rooms. Thats why retailers rely on comcast business to deliver consistent Network Speed across multiple locations. Every corporate office, warehouse and store near or far covered. Leaving every competitor, threat and challenge outmaneuvered. Comcast business outmaneuver. Welcome to bloomberg businessweek. Why traders are starting to worry about bitcoin. Also, fake news. And a casting call why the philippines became a target for fake news. We are here with megan murphy. The lead in the fina