Is a crime. Jason all of that and more. But first, our top story, natos 70th turned out to be less of a Birthday Party and more of the thanksgiving dinner for a big, dysfunctional family. Carol thats right. Not all of them got along. A few snide remarks. In the end, everyone seemed to accept they were stuck with each other. Thats according to mark champion, who covered it. Lets talk about nato and what a week it was. Mark it was. I mean, the buildup was pretty extraordinary. This was supposed to be a celebration. It wasnt a full summit. They do that every two to three years. This one they felt they had to do because it was the 70th. They kept it really short because they specifically didnt want to create a big target for unscripted problems with president trump, which theyve had before. So, and then all of a sudden, in the weeks before, you had the french president macron coming out and talking about whether he wasnt so sure the rest of nato allies would go to the defense of turkey under the article five defense clause, which is at the core of nato. It caused a huge blow up. And then of course you had turkey itself, which had begun a military operation in syria against the will of allies. People were apprehensive going in about this thing could just blow up. Instead of being a celebration, a demonstration of the union of the unity of this aliance, it would be the opposite this alliance, it would be the opposite. Jason it ended up more awkward and uncomfortable more than anything. You had hot mic issues, extended press conferences, the president once again, as he seems to like, at the center of it. Mark absolutely. And really, the key question going in, and what everyone was wondering to themselves when he landed, what was he going to do . He had a binary choice. He could either decide, i will throw in with macron hes raising a lot of questions about nato. Im raising questions about nato, not just on spending, but various times the president called nato obsolete. And, you know, he could have done that. He chose instead to present himself as a savior of nato, and its protector. And its an unlikely role, given all thats gone before. But the bottom line there was that hes had some success in getting the other nato allies to spend more on defense. Hes been banging on that particular drum for the three years hes been in office. And defense spending has increased sharply among the allies. It actually began before he came into office, but hes happy to take the credit. The other leaders are happy to give it to him. Carol theres been a fair amount of conversation that all the members have to contribute their fair share. I want to ask you about boris johnson. He was at the summit. He was a subject of the magazine, more specifically his character and temperament. His anger, who knew . Tell us about how that might impact his campaign and possibly his election. Mark yeah, so this has been a really extraoridnary campaign. Theyre very short in the u. K. One has to remember that. Theyre basically, long, a month to six weeks. Theyre extremely short, really packed in, all the debates. It happened very fast. We are towards the last week. This particular campaign is extraordinary, we have both parties making big plays in terms of changes of public spending and fiscal policy and all these sort of things. In the end, it really comes down to trust in the two main candidates. One of them is boris johnson. And hes always had a big issue with trust. And the anger is a piece of that. And we have this article in this issue of businessweek, which really runs through very carefully remind you of the times when he has flown off the handle. And people already dont trust him because he has a record. He was fired for not telling the truth while a cabinet minister. He was fired as a journalist for not telling the truth. Theres already a trust issue for him. He has a colorful personal life, which has raised trust questions. If you add on top of that the possibility of a blowup because he doesnt keep his temper, which has happened before, then that is one of the things people running his campaign are very concerned about. They kept the campaign on a very tight leash and him on a very tight leash and kept his exposure quite limited. Jason were going to leave it there. Thank you for joining us from london, a busy time between hosting nato and this big election. For more on this magazine, here he is, joel weber. Its the most wonderful time of the year. Joel this is our favorite issue of the year. We look for things that are measurable. Because this is bloomberg. Carol all industries. Joel we try to look across everything and thats what makes this special. You can have a list of people that are expected names. Warren buffett could be there every year. But were looking for measurable contributions in 2019. We go back to january through now and find who really sparkled. Jason even a chicken sandwich. Joel it broke the internet, the popeyes chicken sandwich. People got stabbed over it. Really, it speaks to the ability for brands. A chicken sandwich of all things can really break the internet. Carol we reach out around the bloomberg organization. Is there a name that surprised you . Joel this is a team sport. We pull from bureaus around the world. We look for leaders and Business People and ceos. One of my favorite ones was the black hole, if you forget all the things that happened, this is a huge deal, the team that discovered a black hole. That was one of my favorite ones because its a photo of nothingness. And it marked an incredible scientific achievement. Jason 2019 feels like a black hole kind of year in many ways. Joel weber, thank you so much. Carol a pushback. Jason soros, yes, that soros, george soros, gets a little conservative. Carol they are indeed. This is bloomberg. Carol welcome back. Im carol massar. Jason im jason kelly. Join us for bloomberg on the radio, catch up on every daily show through our podcast. You can get it on apple podcast, soundcloud, or bloomberg. Com. Carol you can find us online. Who wins when Companies Buy their own shares . It is a good question. One argument is the companies that come out on top. Jason our economics editor is here with his story and this weeks businessweek explainer. Last year, s p 500 companies bought back 806 billion with of shares, 55 more than the year before. This year, they are on track for 740 billion, the secondmost ever. One commissioner had his staff study 385 recent buybacks. They found shares rose 2. 5 more than the days after buyback than otherwise expected. They also found twice as many had executive selling in the eight days after buyback announcement as they do on an ordinary day. The value of those executive sales is more than five times higher. When a company buys back shares, it signals confidence in the future, when executives sell shares. It seems like a legal version of illegal pump and dump stock manipulation. The sec wants the agency to rewrite the rules. He wants to bar insider sales after buyback is announced. An sec chairman has not agreed. Although he says hes happy to continue the conversation. Carol lets get more on rewriting the rules. Jason you heard from him and here he is again, peter coy. Peter it focuses on other things which is gotten other things, which is what executives do. Robert jackson is one of the commissioners of the sec, not the chairman. He has commissioned his own staff to look into this. What he found is stocks tend to go back as an expression of confidence by management in the future of a company. No wonder the start goes up a bit. But, what do executives do . They are more likely to sell their shares in the immediate aftermath of this buyback announcement, taking advantage of that pop in the start. In the stock. If youre a cynic, you would say this is a legal version of an illegal pump and dump stock many manipulation. Carol right, so this is insiders taking advantage. Theres been Research Showing the insiders are selling right after the announcement of a buyback. Peter theres always a steady griddle dribble. They are cashing in on stock options. There is a fivefold increase on the dollar value of stock sales right after a buyback announcement versus before. The number of executives doing so is also up. Jason what does jackson want to do about this . Peter you can think of a wide solution. He has a narrow, tailored solution, which seems unobjectable. Bar insiders from selling in the immediate aftermath of a buyback. As he says, who thinks its a good idea for executives to be doing this right after buybacks announced . Who benefits except for those people . Jason there are already restrictions on when insiders can buy and sell shares. Peter yeah, so this would be a new thing they would not be allowed to do. Carol how likely is this change to be implemented . Peter what hes betting on is articles like this one will start to generate some interest in this in the general public. So far, the chairman of the sec, jay clayton, has not gone along with this. He was asked about it last year and kind of demurred. Still willing to talk about this, i dont want to have a big roundtable about it, but hes susceptible to political pressures like anybody else. If the pressure mounts, the world could change. Jason lets talk about a story thats one of my favorites. Its one of finances most legendary names, george soros. Theres a new era for his money. Carol thats so true. Its a different fund, in part because it has to be. Thats made his job especially tough. Shes of the legendary shop. Jason cathy burton covered him for years. She wrote the book. Top managers, including mr. Soros. Here she is with her story. They struggled mightily with performance the past three years since don started. Jason remind us who she is, where she came from. She came from ubs. She ran the hedge fund business, as well as the equity business and other businesses at the Asset Management part of ubs. And she was chosen to run this new sort of management, managing money for the foundation, not for george and his family. Carol take a step back because i feel like there was a long period where george soros could only do really smart things. If you could work there, it was a really cool thing. Remind us of his past. Sure. So, as you said, it used to be the major best performing hedge fund in the world and george sat on top of it. They made tons of money. And then in 2017, he transferred most of his wealth to his foundation. That meant the foundation was no longer managing money for george, whipping it around. They had to be much more conservative because they didnt want to lose money, they just had to ensure they could find other projects every year. Jason that such a key point because if you go back to the culture and ethos of the original soros, it was big, big bets, i mean huge bets that paid off unbelievably. But swinging for the fences and a lot of ways, right . Kathy absolutely. They made so many bets. The biggest one was george betting against the pound. They made 1 billion and they bet 10 billion. 10 billion on that bet. And they wanted to bet 15 billion. They just couldnt get it done. Carol alright, so thats where george soros is. We have seen the hedge funds shut down or folks take the money to have family offices. The world has changed dramatically. Kathy its harder to make money. Its been in the office for many years now. Now it has to be more conservative. Jason coming up, a different kind of housing crisis that goes to one of the most important issues of our time. Is homelessness background . Carol plus, the cost of education. When one state experience with a Free Tuition Program. Another big problem of our time. Jason this is Bloomberg Businessweek. Jason welcome back. Im jason kelly. Carol and im carol massar. You can also listen to us on the radio. Jason 960 in the bay area, and london on dab digital and through the Bloomberg Business app. We turn now to a different kind of housing crisis. Carol the u. S. Supreme court made review a lawsuit that changes how cities treat the homeless. One city is unfortunately home to many homeless, seattle. It started a decade ago in boise, idaho. Six Homeless People brought a case against the city, basically saying that the local ban on camping in Public Places is unconstitutional. It represented cruel and unusual punishment because basically there was no place for them to go. There werent enough spaces for them in shelters and effectively, they were being penalized for being homeless, which is something you cant do under the law. Carol this is wild. I think it could change dramatically, based on your reporting, because it gets to the idea that housing is a basic right. Noah yeah, thats a larger question that looms. The legal issue is much narrower. Just to complete the story, the boise won at the District Court level, but then it was appealed to the ninth circuit, which covers a giant swath of the u. S. West from alaska to arizona. The Appellate Court found in the favor of the homeless folks. So, as a result, you have a ruling out there right now that says that these sorts of bans on Public Camping are unconstitutional. And its a big deal because its a ruling that goes beyond boise now. Its something that matters to cities like los angeles and seattle. And its created a lot of discussion in cities throughout the west about how they can tackle this giant problem of homelessness. Jason in your story, noah, you do talk about some of what cities have done to try and combat this, especially at a time where if you talk to people in los angeles, san francisco, seattle, they talk about this massive rise in homelessness, which obviously has something to do, large part to do with the affordability of housing. What have we seen those individual cities do to combat this so far . Noah well, what youve seen broadly is an uptick in laws that criminalize camping or sleeping in public. The ninth Circuit Decision really calls some of those into question. Its made a lot of cities back away from those bans. The question longterm, the bigger question that looms, is how are you going to solve homelessness . A lot of people in the west and across the country recognize its a problem, but theres a robust and active debate on what you do about it. On the one side, the folks who are arguing on behalf of the homeless folks from boise, they say that criminalizing people for sleeping on the streets when they have no alternative is counterproductive. Carol from the high cost of housing to getting an education. Jason a story explores one states free college program. Is it a model for the nation . Tennessee were the first state to implement a statewide Free Tuition Program for every High School Graduating senior. And they could go to Community College or Technical College completely free. That started in 2014. It started as an economic program. The idea was, tennessee took a look around its workforce and realized, with an increasingly skilled economy and advancing economy, there werent going to have enough skilled workers. As a result, they came up with tennessee promise, and a complement program for adults, cotenancy we connect, that works to get tennesseans a secondary education. So whether thats a technical certificate or Community College degree or whatever it may be. And the results have been promising. You see College Going rates increase, enrollment in Community Colleges increase, Graduation Rates improve. But at the same time, the dropoutroving, still could use a little bit of improvement. Its almost 50 of students are dropping out after three years using the program. So, the idea is that you look at these dropout rates and tuition is not a factor, but the other cost of college, the Financial Aid program doesnt address, like transportation or housing or the cost of books are really weighing on these low income students. Jason what has been learned in tennessee that can and cannot be applicable to other states . So for tennessee, it has its own program, the first to offer to all students that were graduating from high school. But other states have their own version of programs. Some have residency requirements. New york requires you to live in the state after you receive the aid. Other states offer it for four year education while others offer it for two. I think the lesson i heard from experts in this area is that a onesizefitsall approach is really challenging, especially with higher education, where each state is different and each state has come up with their own program to serve them. So, looking at it from a onesizefitsall approach is really challenging. But that is different from having a federal framework and giving states more wiggle room to decide whats best for themselves. Carol coming up, the bloomberg 50. These are the people who shaped 2019 in unexpected ways. Jason weve got a chat with one of the names from the list, ceo joey levin. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Beyond the routine checkups. Beyond the notsoroutine cases. Comcast business is helping doctors provide care in whole new ways. All working with a new generation of technologies powered by our gigspeed network. Because beyond technology. There is human ingenuity. Every day, comcast business is helping businesses go beyond the expected. To do the extraordinary. Take your business beyond. Jason welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. Im jason kelly. Carol im carol massar. Still ahead, Growth Opportunity for a greener smartphone. Jason is it time for coco chanel to get into watches . I dont know. Carol weve got to talk about that the merck 50. Jason who has the most subscribed Youtube Channel . Whos the biggest dealmaker . I just have fast did popeyes run out of the Fried Chicken sandwich . Bloomberg editors from around the world answer those questions and many more for the third annual list. Carol we cover a lot. It is a look at the finance, politics, and science and technology, whose 2019 complements merit recognition. To get on the list its not a , Lifetime Achievement award. This many people i want to put on this list, but they dont have data or a metric to sort of proove why we should