Not joe biden, Elizabeth Warren, or even impeachment, its recession. Carol and 2020 is sure to bring about the great antitrust awakening. The question is not just whether to break up Companies Like facebook, google and amazon but how the laws are enforced. Kailey much more ahead. We begin with joel weber. 2020 start of a new decade, what , are the big things we needed we need to be watching . Recession . You hit a couple. Recession is one thing everyone is really wary of. It has huge implications for the Trump Presidency and the u. S. Economy and the Global Economy as a whole. So our interest to gives a survey of the World Outlook as a whole. 2 growth is what has been a projected for the u. S. But , theres always a chance of it being revised downward. It comes down to the u. S. Consumer is capable of. In many ways, the Global Economy is on the back of the u. S. Consumer. Carol we go from the economy to elections. You guys cover that rightfully so. And the u. S. Is not the only place where there will be no worthy elections. That is an expected story. We can all look at 2020 and say elections, thats going to be a , choppy sea. One of the more interesting places that will take up a lot of bandwidth especially among investors is going to be the antitrust conversation. This will dominate dc in a way that only really harkens back to the 1990s and the last time antitrust dominated news. And we think that this might have a different takeaways that than it did in the 1990s where ultimately nothing significant happened. We think there are more serious things that could happen during an Election Year of course. Kailey that could be a big implication for the markets when it comes to these big tech names. A rude awakening could be coming. We basically tried to take antitrust as a theme and look at it from every possible way you can do so from how elizabeth , warren can break things up to the players you need to know about to actually like going back and looking at case studies of how the laws could be enforced. Carol i have been telling everybody, it is kind of a mustread. If you want to understand the players, issues, and the law. It is all there. The other mustread is 50 companies. We do it every year. We start with 2000 companies that Bloomberg Intelligence evaluates and filters it down the companies they are bearish on, bullish on. We are not making calls, but they are ones we feel will be interesting and everybody should keep in mind. Carol what i love about it, if you go online as well. You can go online and kind of play with the list. The sorting ability is neat. You can find out companies that excel at women or earnings. It is fun. Carol and for a look at the year ahead in politics and trumps scariest component lets , turn to josh green who joins us from our washington bureau. Lets talk about it. What is it that President Trump needs to be worried about when it comes to reelection. Needs to be worried about that the economy by most , forecasts, is trending in the wrong direction. In particular, manufacturing is trending in the wrong direction. It is in a recession. That is key in the group of swing states in the upper midwest that will probably decide the next election. Kailey the demographics, the geographics are all important here. When trump considers that, is it too late for him to change the game . Are we too far gone . Too much damage done . I dont think so, necessarily. I break this into two lanes. When you look at what trump promised coming in, during his first year as president he , promised 5 even 6 growth , across the economy and that is not going to happen. On the other hand, he has had positives. Unemployment is at a 50 year low. The stock market is treading water near alltime highs. And he has managed to keep republican sentiment behind him even as he faces a slowing economy and impeachment. I think the big unknown is what are the effects of the trade war going to be Going Forward . We are seeing them bite into growth and the economy, hurt state economies in states trump needs to win. However, theres still time to strike a modest trade deal with china. If he could do that, it would turn sentiment around. Benefit his reelection choice. Carol what i love is that you break it down into kind of what happened after he came in to the white house and you did see manufacturing jobs coming back. That was a lot of momentum and the tax cuts had an impact. In the last year or so, you have seen that shift. And as you say, in the key states he won, it has gotten tougher in terms of some of the manufacturing jobs. If you go back and look at his term from a macro level, it is really interesting. Trump delivered. He had the stock market up, you had manufacturing jobs growing. As jamie dimon said in trump had 2016, succeeded in unleashing animal spirits partly because of his tax cuts. The problem is that all of that has stalled out in large part due to the trade war that he started. You have animal spirits have gone away, companies are not investing. We are now in a manufacturing recession. That has hurt the economy in states like wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania, where recent polls show all of the top democrats, biden, warren, sanders, beating trump in a headtohead matchup. That is a flashing red warning signal for trump as he looks ahead to the election. But again, there are bright spots. He has still got time to turn the ship around pull another upset. Kailey lets talk about polling and where exactly owners stand what kind of job they think the president has done. Are they still behind him . Do they still approve . Trumps approval has been remarkably consistent. 40 to 43 approval, 52 to 56 disapproval, that has been true throughout everything. Through the Mueller Investigation and now the impeachment drama. He has managed to keep most importantly, he has managed to keep Republican Voters pretty much behind him. He has got a solid 90 approval rating. As of now his voters are not abandoning him. As we saw in 2016, the Electoral College favors a republican candidate like trump. There are areas he has to worry. He has lost enormous amounts of support from noncollege white women which were instrumental in 2016. He is driving away voters in the suburbs who i think will be really important in but he has 2020, brought new people into the political process. His campaign believes they can excite voters who do not usually vote, like trump, like that he fights like what he stands for. , it will be a test of whether he can turn out enough Republican Voters to overcome what is undoubtedly a blue wave of democrats. Carol your story, a reminder with everything that is going on globally and in the u. S. , we have seen this in past elections, it is truly ultimately about the economy and how everybody feels. It really is. If you look at the three president s in the 20th century who lost reelection races, all of them were running in a recession. It cost them the election. Trump is not there yet, but all forecasts show things trending in a bad direction. Carol josh green, thank you. Carol appreciate checking in with you. Josh green, thank you. More on that coming up. Also, the stock market has a lot riding on the elections. Kailey but there is the one thing that could stand in the way of a u. S. Recession, your shopping habits. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Kailey welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am kailey leinz. Carol i am carol massar. Join us every day on the radio starting at 2 00 p. M. Wall street time. You can also catch up on our daily show by listening to our podcast on apple podcast, soundcloud and of course bloomberg. Com. Kailey you can also find us online and on our mobile app. Carol back to the year ahead issue. For better or worse markets have become entwined with american politics ever since the 2016 residential campaign. Kailey that shows no signs of changing in 2020. Here is senior markets editor michael graham. It is an awkward position investors and analysts have been thrust into. Now they sort of have to have a sideline as a political scientist and gauge where the politics market or the politics world are headed. It is turning into a market of its own almost. There are these prediction sites where you can track where the betting community believes the horse race lies in politics. Carol tell us about one strategist you visited. You start off your story with that. I think it tells its funny, a woman at rbc wrote in a note how she looks at these political polling charts almost like stock charts right now. She is looking at Elizabeth Warren as like a momentum stock. She is really rising in the polls. She said she would advise shorting joe biden. My comrade from the university of delaware unfortunately. But just because he is waning in the polls. What is fascinating is that so much is at stake with politics right now. Obviously, when President Trump was elected, politics ruled everything in Global Markets ever since. But now some of these Democratic Candidates have platforms that threaten to upend a lot of the Main Industries in the u. S. Carol lets talk about medicare for all. That will have implications. Absolutely. Thats why Elizabeth Warrens ascent in the polls has people scrambling to decipher what it could mean as her plans are all over the place. So broad reaching that you have the kind of figure out her , what will they be and what will she be able to accomplish. A lot depends on what congress looks like. But a hypothetical Elizabeth Warren presidency has wall street scrambling to figure out all of the ripple effects. Obviously as you said medicare , for all would have major implications for the healthcare sector. She also wants to raise the minimum wage which would pressure margins but also provide a lot more spending in the economy. There would be winners and losers. Carol i think it used to be it was we thought that if there was a democrat, it was not good for business. If there was a republican, it was. Markets would play off of that. But in recent years, we have not seen that. Democrat versus republican, is it all good or there are so many different variables and scenarios. Is it a democrat with a full Democratic Senate and house behind them or mixed . There are so many different scenarios. I dont put a lot of faith in any of them because every situation is so unique and the candidates and the economic environments going into the elections are unique. We have gotten into uncharted territory with President Trump doing stuff that no president has done before, aggressively hitting china with tariffs, threatening them elsewhere. He broke what i think would be the paradigm of the past. You have to just play cards on the table now. Carol one big factor standing between the u. S. And a downturn is Consumer Spending. It makes almost 70 of the economy, higher than almost any other country. Kailey it is true. While shoppers have been crucial for u. S. Economic growth, that is particularly the case now as we look ahead to next year. Here is matt townsend. The u. S. Economy has always relied on Consumer Spending as a big chunk of the economy. One interesting stat is 70 of the u. S. Economy is spending and in china it is 40 . Now the u. S. Economy is relying on consumers even more so, the things like manufacturing are in contraction right now, cutting jobs with less output. U. S. Consumer, that is what is propping up the economy. Kailey is the consumer feeling good still to this point . They are, and thats one of the counterintuitive aspects of the story. Broadly, economists at big banks like goldman sachs, they dont see recession coming next year. The few bears on the case that sort of see one coming, they are basically pointing to consumers being hurt by job losses and slowing on spending. But broadly speaking, economists do not see a recession coming because the u. S. Consumer is so strong. Carol you go through a lot of Economic Data points. Consumers are optimistic, right . Yeah, Consumer Confidence is the highest levels in a decade since before the recession. Carol its remarkable considering how long the expansion has gone on. Longest on record, hit that over the summer and yet they are still optimistic. Still optimistic the data is , showing more wage gains coming. If you look at a stat on job openings, its over 7 million jobs open right now. That means theres a big demand for labor all across the economy. People are able to negotiate raises or leave for better jobs. Or they get raises. That is raising wages, lifting up the economic fortunes of america. And you know as long as thats , happening, its hard to see where this is going to change. Carol how do you get recession if you have got that going on . Exactly. Some of the cracks in the armor, so to speak, housing. Housing prices are going up, them going up has been a boon to Consumer Spending because people are spending more on homes, many furniture, contractors, and that is slowing down. Home prices are decelerating. Carol is it because of a lack of demand, not lack of supply . Depends on the market. Some market like new york, for , example, the concern is too much supply is driving down. Kailey and you have more and more people renting rather than buying. Exactly. Things Like Health Care costs. If those keep going up. If there is some sort of repeal of obamacare and people have to pay more out of pocket. Think about the people on obamacare, those are the people low income, middle income that , could stretch their wallets. And the job growth. Job growth while still positive, has slowed down. If you are a bear on the u. S. Consumer, you see that continue to slow down. The trade war uncertainty about , the economy freezes hiring and job growth slowing and slowing. That could create a cycle of people worried about the economy and maybe cutting back on investment spending. Kailey coming up can the 737 , max 8 regain altitude . Carol it is a good question. And what happens when the plane is cleared to return to the sky . Kailey this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am carol massar. Kailey i am kailey leinz. You can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a. M. 1130 in new york, 106. 1 in boston, 99. 1 f. M. In washington, d. C. Carol a. M. 960 in the bay area, also over in london on dab digital and of course on the Bloomberg Business app. Kailey boeing reported earnings in the company says it is confident the 737 max 8 will be cleared to fly this year. Carol while thats good news for carriers, the question remains if travelers will be nervous about flying in this plane involved in fatal crashes. Here is justin in dallas on what is to come. It was grounded for most of the year following two fatal accidents that killed 346 people. Are saying noines regulator is letting it in their airspace. It has been a tough year for boeing in terms of the max. Kailey it is not just the fact they need to get planes back in the air. It is that they need to get travelers willing to go back, right . Right. The Airline Customers really need to face up to how much isa public fear and concern there about this airplane. The old saying is that the safest airplane is the one with the most attention, but a lot of the public does not Pay Attention to what they are flying. But in this case, they might. There is good evidence people will be asking and will be cognizant of what they are flying and want to know if it is a max. If it is not a max, they will not care. They do want to know if it will be that aircraft and if it is, what do airlines have to do to get those people comfortable . Carol lets talk about what the airlines are doing. They are going to lay it out. If you make a reservation, they are going to let you know if you are flying one of these. Yeah. The three u. S. Airlines that have it, southwest, american, and united, all say that they are going to be very transparent in this process and want everybody to know up front when you are a buying ticket. The idea is practical because they dont want people getting on the plane and then having a sort of a freak out incident on the aircraft with the crew, social media, etc. It makes a lot more sense to separate those folks early as possible even if that is at the airport at check in. They are going to let you book without a fee or penalty to go on another aircraft if you are not comfortable flying on the max. We dont know how long that will last. They have been hesitant to disclose how long that policy will last. But for several months, it will be the case where you are allowed to rebook. Kailey how much of a burden to do the airlines have to bear in restoring confidence or is that mostly boeings prerogative . It is definitely a shared responsibility. I think what happens is once the government say, in the u. S. And europe and china this airplane , can fly, the airlines are eager to get back into service for financial reasons. Then it becomes the Airline Issue because they are dealing with their own customers and their own customers fears and concerns, and questions. Boeing will be involved in doing what airlines ask them to do but , at that point, it becomes an airlinecentered issue. That is probably where we will see the most outreach. Carol from the global skies to the supply chain. Kailey here is austin carr about what chipmakers tell us about the undoing of the great semiconductor supply chain. The crazy thing about the Semi Conductor and chip market is you dont realize how embedded in the market is every single device we use, whether it is windows pcs are all the teeny parts that control memory and processing speed. They al