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tv   Bloomberg Business Week  Bloomberg  June 4, 2016 7:00am-8:01am EDT

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carol: welcome to bloomberg businessweek. of real-life consequences takata's recall. canada's fire from hell. all of that up ahead on bloomberg businessweek. a lot of people who do not like donald trump have analogized him to fascist of old.
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>> we are saying he is less like than the former prime minister of italy. over the last 10 years, democracy has waned all over the world after it being on the upswing. , freedomok at freedoms is on the downswing as well. more and more, you see leaders described him as having a blow torch manner. rump, coming t to the four. we talk about thailand and leaderswhere you have who have been elected and act like -- thel: it hasn't made situation better, so maybe they
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will try something different. ellen: it feels like it is breaking down, even if you look long-term at the numbers. , long-term do better in democracies than to tell a shery ahn states. in the short term, people are not making that connection. carol: you take a look at a test that could determine a better life for kids in china. have the high test, a more important sat. it determines where you're going to university or college. students in rural areas are not as ready for these tests as urban areas. are talking about equalizing it, making it easier for rural kids to go to
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universities elsewhere. the middle class do not want their chances for their children to be diluted. david: and unbelievable amount of work that goes into prepping for it. one kid is studying more than my child has ever studied in her life. ,he gets up at 6:00, studies she's in class until 11:00 and then she studies another two hours. tuning inchild was now. thed: you look at sears, box retailer who has fallen on tough times. doing much, not talking about selling off its better known brands, like kenmore. this bad --en
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david: glide path. ellen: right. merged with kmart and they have not spent as much on advertising and marketing. it happened at a time when consumers change their habits. they are more interested in going to walmart. which is sad, because sears is the old walmart, amazon of past. ellen: it is where everybody went to the store and looked at the catalog and figured out what they want to buy. carol: the cover story on the takata airbag recall. 60 million cars have been recalled. it rises to 100 million if you look at the whole world. theake you back and look at story about what happened inside the company.
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david: the history of this is long. ellen: it went on for a long time. >> the airbag in the cars is in the steering wheel. have realized, the explosives inside the airbag , overllows it to deploy time, this explosive has problems and can do great overtime. forcefully.eploys the container that has the explosive can stride -- can shrapnel into the car and mostly it has hit drivers in the face and neck and chest. take a step back. propellants have been a tricky thing in coming up with airbags. how did we get to this point? started out with a
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different propellant, which had some problems. they went to another one, which was good, but too expensive. this they came up with third one. it is cheaper and available. ammonium nitrate. it is powerful, almost as powerful as dynamite. carol: you need to have something powerful. it has to be controlled. this explosive is hard to keep stable over time. says it recognizes problems, but it felt it had engineering.ith they solve a problem no other automaker could solve. lots of them considered using ammonium nitrate and decided not to. carol: you talk about the cost of the propellants. what role did finances play in this in looking at the cost
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equation? n: takata denies cost had anything to do with the switch to ammonium nitrate. the chemical they were using before that was limited. enough it in a high quality that takata could use was difficult. ammonium nitrate is widely available. from a supply perspective, that makes sense. so longhy did it take for regulators to take notice or for the company to take it seriously? the first accident was in 2004 in alabama. told honda it was an anomaly, don't worry about it. honda settled the case. know, over time, there were concerns employees
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were raising within takata and takata seemed to ignore them. at the same time, they felt confident engineers had solved the problem and could improve the stability of the chemical. the airbags to great overtime. most of these exploding airbags were made in the early 2000's. in bigger exploding , 2014., 2011, 2012 the recalls expanded every year. to figure out. it is unexpected that the device in your car to save your life also can do this. investigators would come on to accident scenes and they would see metal fragments. one woman, her neck was so
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, police thought she had been stabbed before the accident. it took a long time to figure out. u.s. regulators, talking to takata and other experts, realized the problem is worse in states where there is a lot of heat and humidity. those are the factors that help the grade the chemical quickly. they concentrated the recalls in those states. turn: robert vargas had to the recall into a cover story. found a quote from an engineer who tried to warn the company about what could happen. if we go forward with this, someone will be killed. of wantingfine line to be impactful, but not wanting to be exploitative. we saw images shown in court that were very powerful.
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they did not feel appropriate for a newsstand cover. the general feeling was this quote gives you that appropriate sense of dread without going overboard. david: at the center of the piece is the airbag inflator device. robert: none of us are automotive engineers. how this works and what in the airbag is dangerous. as an inflatable thing that is supposed to save your life. that is why it was interesting to show this device that looks like an exploded bomb. carol: the cover is red. is it because you are trying to indicate blood? robert: that was not our explicit intention. we wanted a color that was very strong. there was a northern -- there
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we another story about gm, did not quite want to repeat that, but we knew the execution needed to be similar. the red felt appropriate and different from what we have done before. david: how an unknown group of actors pulled off the biggest cyber heist of all time. how to throw a $1 million bachelor party. all of that ahead. ♪
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carol: welcome back. david: you can find us on the radio, area them, channel 119. radio, us on sirius
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channel 119. carol: the safety of the global system is in question. >> in february, hackers got into the central bank of bangladesh and got the credentials to access the swiss network. this is the network people in banks in to say credit this account, but money there, take money from there. sages to thes new york fed to send money to to the bank in the philippines. they did not get away with all of it. of the billion dollars, they gathered about 81 million before alarms tripped. it is the biggest cyber heist in banking history. disappeared in cash somewhere.
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it is a dramatic heist. it exposed how there are some problems with what had been considered to be a secure network. >> what is the significance when you look at these scandals. what does that say about who is being targeted? swift is correct when it says its network is secure. it spends money on security, cyber security. swift has 11,000 customers, mostly banks. those banks vary from jpmorgan to very small banks in developing countries who have fewer resources and less money to devote to security. hackers can go to the smaller banks, they have a weaker defenses, they can get in there and order these banks to send money to accounts they control.
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exposed a weak point and what had been considered to be a strong network. carol: you talk about emerging banks and how it poses a huge liability for larger financial and duchenne's. why? >> you break into a small bank and you can only still the money -- you can only steal the money in that bank. with the issue is, in a case with an ecuadorian bank that had about $12 million stolen from it , the ecuadorian bank hasn't filed a lawsuit against wells a lawsuitas filed against wells fargo because they are the correspondent to this ecuadorian bank. is wells fargo
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should have known better. when it got these requests to wire money to this account where no money had ever been wired before, it should have stopped it. therefore, this bank says wells is to blame for it. wells fargo has to defend itself in court against this lawsuit. the problem with that, these banks don't make much money on correspondent banking. if it is going to be more trouble than it is worth, they might cut off these banks and that would slow global trade. it puts sand in the gears of global commerce and global finance. carol: hershey betting on beef jerky. eric then tim and mainstream? ♪
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carol: welcome back. why hershey is targeting the beef jerky market. >> there is this iconic chocolate company that makes their money selling chocolate. big on beefting jerky. they see the data, declining chocolate consumption as people try to avoid sugar. acquired a jerky company that suggestspany wine pairings for their beef jerky. this is an attempt by hershey to sell stuff besides chocolate. david says it sounds like a fad -- david: it sounds like a fad. >> in his low sugar, low carbohydrate, high in protein. it has been reimagined as a
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health food. that marketing is still out there would jerky, but it has been reimagined and hershey is trying to get in on that. carol: how do you change a company who relies on chocolate. the bulk of their revenue comes from chocolate. how do you change it? >> they say snacks can be a $2 billion business. some of it is chocolate reimagined, snack mixes, but the core chocolate business is more than 80% of the revenue for hershey's. that is still their business. , passionate about the conversation, but quick to ournd you that we love
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chocolate business and we are still a chocolate company. they say they can still grow and sell hershey's kisses, things like that. they are not turning away from that, but they think the snack portfolio will feel growth. off jerky is a big part where they think growth will come from. david: how much is this about attracting a new kind of consumer? before,ave beef jerky realize how much i have seen it before. people atint out hershey, our products are in 90% of households. people at whole foods, shopping at whole foods, they are not buying a time of hershey bars -- buying a ton of hershey's bars.
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krave gives them access to this customer. you talk about the mass premium market. they are things that can sell at target and walmart but are a little more expensive. if you look at the chocolate numbers, consumption is flat or down. sales are up a little bit. moremes from people buying stuff. her she is trying to sell more expensive chocolate as well because americans are saying they are not going to eat a hershey bar, but i will allow myself a couple of pieces of dark chocolate. a first-person account of the fire raging and out burger, canada. carol: how miami may not be doing its part to help prevent the spread of the zika virus.
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carol: we are inside the magazine's headquarters. david: still ahead, a grounds eye view of the fires raging and out burger, canada area carol: turning turned bines upside down. all of that is ahead. carol: we're her with alan pollack. pollack. i want to focus on transportation and you talk about gondolaa. s. >> we're talking about companies that did make down villa --
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gongolas for ski regions but the business is not so good and they are trying to sell gondolas traffics that have problems. one place that is being looked at his new york city, which would be a great thing. and basically a there are making are flying toyou the sky you will have a shorter commute. cool citypaz, a shaped like a bowl. downtown you could take these gondolas. they are huge but they work well. carol: they do not carry a lot of people. it is not like having the amount of people you can carry on the subway. ellen: subways carry more people and they are faster but it gives you an alternate route. for some people it makes sense. it depends where you live. and whether you are willing to take a different path that could create problems of it breaks
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down. because one of the issues is when they break down and things do breakdown, they're pretty hard to fix because they are floating in the sky. david: israeli companies have been reacting to push us to boycott them for whatever unfoldment they might have with what is going on in the palestinian conflict. ellen: there are some sovereign wealth funds, pension funds in the u.s. that are withdrawing your money from various israeli companies or israel itself because they do not want to support israel's role -- david: mostly symbolic. truth is the amount of foreign investment in israel is going up. even in the companies being targeted is going up. but overtime, it could have an effect. it could spread. right now they are not feeling it at all. carol: you guys offer, illinois, the state offers a warning for coal and nuclear plants.
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energy companies are going to have to close plants. and basically it is because energy prices have come down. energy has been deregulated. here energytes w prices have come down you can buy energy from other states. which will seell it to you even cheaper. within their states they are charging a lot. and also we have alternative energies like gas, and especially solar which have gotten cheaper over time. but that's made the market very complicated. david: an incredible piece in the feature section about the wildfires raging in all burda. -- in alberta. we know the effect they have had on oil prices. this feature humanizes what happens to folk that have been working in canada. ellen: a remarkable story about
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life. in fort mcmurray and the oille who worked in the industry and what is happened to them and how their lives have changed since the fires began. david: we talked to the reporter who wrote that piece. charles: this fire which is larger than ever now, now some 500,000 square hectares. absolutely massive fire. still out of control. with thousands of firemen, tens of helicopters and water bombers servicing it. it started as a spark. usually fire season really had not started yet. it was first discovered a fire crew on sunday, the evacuation was on tuesday, may 3. on a sunday, a helicopter fire crew spotted smoke and then fire hectares, south
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of the river, which is the river that fort mcmurray the town is based around. and it seemed to that point fairly manageable. they dropped a seal team, repelled in to start working around it and create a fire break. carol: this is an area that is used to fires. charles: the forest, the northern pine forests burned. they are burning constantly. there are fires the size of rhode island burning now. there are 14 fires burning in alberta. you never hear about those because they are not in such close proximity to humans and facilities. and that's created a policy overtime. stepping on those fires as quickly as possible when they do approach a settlement, which creates a forest that is filled with more fuel. and a time bomb when you have a dry, hot season. the season's seemed be getting
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hotter and try. david: you describe towns with a gas station at a fast food restaurant. people.nflux of what has drawn them there, and how has this oil from the sands affected these communities? charles: it is often called a boomtown. in 1951, there were less than 1000 people there. the first oils sands operation north ofhe tar fort mcmurray, they started their first mega scale mines in 1967. these involve ferris wheel sized extractors with bucket teeth. david: everything is big. charles: everything as big as possible because it is not an efficient means of getting oil. it only makes sense when the prices high. that is a lot of work. ater a series of oil crises,
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lot of money. and people that wanted to work hard and make money could. it was a land of opportunity. and that was a bit of a gold rush. and thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people, flooded the town, creating first of all housing, what we called a bubble. it became the most expensive real estate in alberta. carol: each other about trailers going for hundreds of millions of. dollars charles: half $1 million for a trailer, which only makes sense -- there is nowhere else in canada where you can go with a high school education and an andm clock and a work ethic make a couple hundred thousand dollars a year and bank it. and in order to do it, you have to be there. david: in the technology section, how to harness a new energy source. ocean currents. carol: we talked about marine turbines. >> a wind high near.
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the american, the father of american wind. he has built two wind energy companies. and is now trying to look to harness energy from the oceans, currents in the tide. what is interesting about this is you apply a lot of the design that goes into building a wind turbine into a marine turbine. something that fits in the water and spins with the power of the ocean. either through tides coming in or through currents like the gulf stream which flow all year. the power of the water turns the turbines and you can collect the energy and bring it onshore toough wires or use it power data centers. david: what are the hurdles to doing this? what are the challenges of doing this underwater? ellen: the challenges are, i think it is very early. marine energy is the sort of
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thing that was thought about theoretically in the 1970's but never really picked up. wind and solar became some of the big renewable energies of that time period in part because they got lots of funding from the government and they have had time to mature as an industry. i think we need talk to people in renewables, in new types of renewables, they say it takes 15 years to 20 years to really have a new source become mature. most importantly become cost-effective. the most important thing, and jim knows this, it's most important that the energy be cost competitive with other sources. a something costs 15 cents kilowatt hour, you're not going to find people willing to pay for these energy deals. david: up next, the curious case of the california senate primary. republicans want you to vote for democrats. carol: who is leading the fight
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against the zika virus? david: the booming business of globetrotting bash the parties. carol: you something about that about know something that. all of that ahead on bloomberg businessweek. ♪
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carol: welcome back to bloomberg businessweek. david: you can find us on serious -- xirius xm. carol: 99.1 fm in washington and am 960 in the bay area. a dozen republicans are competing in the california primary. up for grabs, a chance to replace retiring barbara boxer. the republicans in california who want you to vote for democrats. josh: republicans look like they are headed for an unprecedented embarrassment that comes with an
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awkward but valuable concession price. this could be the first time we in in many years a ballot california were senate where there are no republicans on the ballot. but that means voters could be could getrs who to decide which democrat makes it into the senate because of the top two primary system where candidates from all parties are on the ballot in the primary season together and the top two make it to the general. it is also because of the poor registration that republicans have in california. the enthusiasm of democratics going -- democrats going to the polls for the presidential race. the democrats signing up to vote against dom trump as well as a vicious cycle for republicans where you have had more difficulty getting competitive candidates, more difficulty getting donors to think of trying to get republicans
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elected statewide. and meanwhile, a field of u.s. senate candidates, three candidates who are splitting what is already a limited share of the electorate planning to vote for republicans. david: if republican strategist can't have a republican, which candidate would they like to see on their? -- on there? tom: they want loretta sanchez congresswoman. rather than kamala harris who is running on her record of taking on banks and her endorsement from elizabeth warren. carol: what is this mean for republicans. they had a tough time in the state of california. what can they do differently? so they are not in this situation again? some conservative strategists have concluded is the thing to do differently is get behind a moderate democrat under this two step top two system because you can advance conservatism by helping
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conservative democrats get in rather than smarter -- mart yring republican candidates. david: the patchwork of local governments trying to stop the spread of the zika virus. carol: and how they can leave some of us vulnerable. allison: it is the start of mosquito season. we sent one of our reporters down to florida to check out what was going on. in knew that these folks miami have dealt with consecutive tropical disease invasions. iny had a dengue outbreak 2014. another disease which was very devastating in tropical countries. this is not totally new for them. but what she found is that some places like lee county which is where fort myers is are ready to go. a have a special tax that pays for helicopters and labs and all kinds of advanced testing and
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spraying mechanisms. then she found places like miami that don't spend very much and are not ready at all. david: the debate rages in congress over what kind of funding the cdc is going to have to fight zika. is this something that is playing out at the local level? theson: puerto rico is leading edge. and they are in the midst of this. you know, the disease has not come to the continental u.s. yet. all of the cases here have been either people coming back from being abroad or people who are people.artners of those there are no vectorborne diseases, which means nobody is getting it through mosquito bites in the u.s. yet. a game see that, that is changer because the mosquito that carries this disease is t-- from person to person and pulls blood and gives it back. that is where you will start to see cases. carol: david mentioned to the
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cdc. president obama has asked for money but a lot of it is for fighting people coming in from other countries, not for local governments? son: a lot of it is for research into vaccines which is important and for assistance to other countries and to puerto rico where the disease is rampant. you are seeing a ton of cases that started last year. there is not that much much money allocated for local fighting because it supposed to be a local job. this is what we see across the country. i used to live in california. you see this with wildfire prevention. some counties are rich or prepared and they will raise special taxes to be ready for whatever comes. and other places are less prepared and they assume that someone will bail them out from washington. and usually they are right. carol: why it took tv executives so long to warm to tim and eric. david: planning the most expensive bachelor party ever.
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not mine. all of that ahead on bloomberg businessweek. ♪
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carol: in the features section, a profile of tim and eric. david: their show on the cartoon network kicks off their fourth season. can these comics go mainstream? >> they had this kind of weird comedy show that was late at night on adult swim, which is what cartoon network turns into at night.t h the smoky -- carol: the after dark cartoon network. >> the show called also show -- awesome show, which was demented and loud. 50 episodes after
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decided to make a group that edited and wrote and designed this weird, eccentric, wonderful show, or very upsetting and the serving show. they turned the group that made it into a team and a company. david: two words. >> that would be able to produce show for outsiders. david: you talk about eccentric. it has a particular aesthetic. describe the shows. carol: can you call it an aesthetic? eccentric asi was a human being but i feel better after watching tim and eric. it definitely has the uniform visual aesthetic. it's birgright and the editing s jumpy. they looks like it was made on equipment that is falling apart. maybe the adults have left the station. the cameras are falling apart. the tape looks like it is disintegrating.
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although i have to say they are beginning to move away from that. something like tim and eric's bedtime stories. reporter, what is interesting is that they are starting to make some shows that are kind of remarkable. for example, comedy central, ifc, these are sort of the big networks that they are making tv for. carol: i think what is fascinating is you talk about the seismic shift in how television is made that maybe go back a decade. this might not have been so easily done. you've got everybody making content and it's being diced in many different ways. >> 30 years ago these guys would be in a basement in rural pennsylvania making where it shows for 36 people. now it is not as if they are 6 millionows for 3 people. but there is something about the way tv is made and disseminating
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is perfect. analked to matt salmon, executive producer of "the simpson's" carol: you still watch it. >> i still wathch it with my brother -- there was no one better positioned than tim and eric, because what they do, they are not going to make the next "friends." they make work that has vision and voice and it really speaks to certain groups. nick summer was saying what used to be called a cult hit 15 years ago is called a hit now. the golden ticket in 2016 is to find an audience and be -- have those people adore you. david: sticking with the bro theme. a piece on the growing business of bachelor parties. brett: what we're seeing now is that the bachelor party is extended to a three-day affair. you are going to have to fly
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somewhere and maybe you'll even have to fly to kiev, one of the hot spots. carol: this sounds expensive. quote people dipping into their savings account to go to these parties. the average price just for lodging and airfare is $850. and there is that awkward thing where you do not want to say no, because you risk hard feelings. carol: and you do not want to miss out. that party could be fun. david: the reasons for this are demographic? bret: mostly. you have got a lot of millennials getting married. and they tend to move away from college, from home after college, which means they have got friends all over the country. david: in kiev, yuri. bret: you cannot say, meet me for a drink at our local bar. you wind up flying somewhere and you try to meet in the middle.
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or sometimes he now you try to meet in prague. veguas is still the biggest destination for guys. and nashville for women. carol: i really enjoyed the story on alberta. they told a personal story and you get an idea of the oil sands industry, how important it has been, and the fires and the impact it has. so huge, you get the idea of the size. it reminds you they are still having an impact. how about you? david: i liked the story about hershey branching into beef turkey. jerkey carol: do you eat beef jer ky? david: the are billions of dollars that hershey thinks this is going to be worth. carol: i thought the bachelor party was going to be your favorite story. david: my bachelor party so small and compared to what these cost, what six figures? thank you for watching.
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we will be back next week. ♪
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coming up on "bloomberg best", the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. from draghi's latest declaration to opec's long-awaited meted to flash crashes in china. we will revisit all. >> got swore in. >> being in and saying he supports management does not mean he is going to want -- anna: have we got data for you? so many economic indicators out this week. >> the ecb decided his stimulus is starting to work. >> household are spending at a decent clip.

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