>> coming up on bloomberg best, the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. we speak with the ceos of time warner and united airlines. and banks are fired up for the start of earnings season. well.l street is doing main street is not as strong. >> janet yellen says the fed is ready to change its focus. >> $45 trillion is higher than anyone thinks it should be. >> christine lagarde talks about what keeps her up at night. >> who will be the next french

president? what will be the results of brexit? >> donald trump continues to promise big reforms. but opinions differ on if and when he will pull them off. there has to be something taken away. >> it's all straight ahead on bloomberg best. hello and welcome. im michael mckee. this is bloomberg best, your weekly review of business news and analysis from around the world. with several major banks reporting earnings on thursday, investors were hoping for big financial sector this week. they certainly did not expect the big news that came from barclays on monday. >> barclays says it will issue a

formal written reprimand and a significant cut to the ceo pay. the bank says daily on has apologized to the board in not complying with governance. out andhe tried to find this came to the attention of the board formally this year. be a violation of the rules. tried to find out to the identity and he said today there were repeated attempts to find out the identity. >> staley, who will be reprimanded, has admitted his error. he said he should have complied and handled the matter. he may lose millions of pounds

of his bonus. >> why is he selling the building? thinks he can -- why is he still in the building? >> the board thinks he can survive this. >> the wells fargo account scandal is rearing its head again after a six-month investigation found that wells had annvestigations office scandal. lawyer rejected the "wed's conclusion, saying strongly disagree with the board. >> the board has been looking for six months at what happened. one of their main conclusions ran the the person who community bank. she was a hard person who would really not allow other people into the bank. they had a former ceo who was her boss directly.

he did not really give enough guidance at that time. are the additional consequences? ,> in terms of compensation they clawed back $40 million there. but in terms of firings and things like that, the word from did fire forey people for cause. some were deputies. others worked in the regional bank. >> we want to make sure that we sustain the progress that we and that the appropriate stance of policy now is something closer to what we call policy neutral.

>> we look at the removal of accommodations. those words count? >> they do count when you get into the markets. the fed is still putting stimulation into the economy, just less of it. what we should start to see as time goes on is the effect in the markets of rising interest rates and a little bit less juice for the stock market. we have not seen that yet so far, which is the interesting conundrum here. to takelitics continue center stage today. in moscow.on meeting and continued saber rattling overnight over north korea. for to comelooking out of these meetings? has pretty low expectations for these meetings. they are hoping for russia to say we will think about it with the u.s. russia proposal.

moscow toy want reconsider support of bashar al-assad. level ofre is a low trust between our two countries. >> they are aiming for the result. >> heading into this, there were questions about whether or not the foreman minister and secretary tillerson would be nice, so to speak. they have vowed to work together on terrorism. policy, there was a marked difference, a difference that will no question three shape and mold president trump's time in the white house. trump saying he is unlikely to brand china as currency manipulators. the dollar is strong and it's

partly because of people's confidence in him. mean for thereally president domestically? >> this is actually a very big a very big step for donald trump. he said he would label china a currency manipulator on day one if he were elected president. so, this marks a major reversal from that campaign promise. he also said in this article that a strong dollar is not good, a bad thing. and that is a real move for the u.s. as a whole. for the past several decades, presidents have said a strong dollar is in the u.s. interests. a reversal of that is significant coming from donald trump. david: we have heard from three of the five largest u.s. banks. are there any themes we should take away? >> the wall street site is doing quite well. trading is buoyant. equities trading is doing well.

citigroup had its best quarter for fixed income trading in three years. that is all great. but, the consumer, the main street side is not as strong. the loan growth is not what people would have hoped, given the optimism in the market. a variety of reasons have been given. expenses are not going down sharply. some have risen, like at wells fargo, for example. >> for jpmorgan, capital markets drove the equity trading, better than expected. everything else seemed to align. we saw all of the bank reserve releases this quarter, driven by energy. last year, that was a big headwind for the company. they were being conservative in terms of conserving losses.

-- reserving for losses. we are seeing some of that being released. gallup has improved. -- the outlook has improved. michael: still ahead as we review the week on "bloomberg best," christine lagarde assesses the big risks to the world economy in 2017 and stephen schwarzman explains why the devil is in the details for donald trump's tax plan. plus, an investor sees growth opportunities in china. more of the week's top business headlines -- a viral video sets off a social media explosion in the united airlines fallout. >> economics may be that they are willing to raise the price, willing to pay passengers to get off the airplane. mike: this is bloomberg. ?

mike: this is "bloomberg best," i am michael mckee. let's continue our global tour of the top business news, including a story involving a commodity giant facing a challenge from an activist shareholder. >> bhp targeted for an overhaul. called the world's biggest mining company to unify corp. -- to unify its corporate structure, spin off its assets and improve capital returns. >> there are three things the hedge fund is calling on bhp to carry out. one of them is a demerger of the u.s. a nonconventional oil cash on shore and conventional oil assets. a demerger of the u.s. on shore and conventional oil assets. those are worth about $22 billion. he wants to see those bundled into a single entity on the new york stock exchange. they're looking for php to simplify their quite complex structure.

bhp, essentially two companies, one in london and one in melbourne. to trade as a single entity. that has all manner of legal complications. it also brings up quite a number of complexities in the issuing of dividends. the third thing and would not be a surprise for improved returns to shareholders. >> bhp says it is not worth the cost and rejected the suggestion of an overhaul to their business. what does it mean about shareholder activism in the mining industry? what does it tell us about where we are in the cycle? >> i think it tells us that management of these companies need to be aware of the internet muted outlook that investors -- environment where community forward is aing muted outlook. investors will be looking at these hard, finding pockets of value they think management should be addressing more closely. this is a perfect example of that. >> keeping u.s. manufacturing jobs onshore has been a priority of the trump administration. earlier this year, toyota pledged it would keep $10 million in the u.s.

the president went out of his way to say this is a great investment that reflects real confidence in the economy. how long has this been in the planning stages? is this something that's happened since the election? >> the program for toyota is not new, it is an opportunity to start introducing it here in north america. there are only a couple other manufacturing platforms right best plants -- plants and vehicles that are on this new platform right now. we are honored to be the first one in america to get the program. but we have been working on this camry for over three years. it is not just brand-new and picked up most recently. >> today, at&t made a deal with a health care provider, and in talks with the drug provider

alcorn. whoever heard of straight path? it is just a spectrum buy. >> i think they have nine employees. they are not the biggest company in the world. this is all about 5g. at&t is trying to get ahead of where the internet is going. -- networks are going. it's also about the internet of things. sometime down the road, you can use your phone and start your car before you get to it so it is warm. in general, at&t has been very acquisitive. they bought directv and time warner. they have done these $2 billion $1 billion- deals throughout the years. >> china's tech conglomerate forced to drop its $2 billion acquisition. just the latest setback to the global expansion plans. it is facing some huge challenges there. i'm talking about the u.s., naturally. part of that is the sales picture looking distinctly murky. >> absolutely, it is a pretty grim picture for the ford echo in the u.s. the chinese conglomerate does

everything from smartphones to video streaming to electric cars. they set themselves a target of $100 million in u.s. dollars in revenue by the end of 2016. the got $15 million. as a result, they are cutting jobs by about a third. they are pulling the plug on this deal. they have tried to buy vizio for $2 billion. it was part of their attempt to grow the brand and get a foothold on the american market. in terms of brand recognition it is pretty weak. it really speaks to the cash crunch problems. those were articulated by the billionaire founder last year in a letter to his employees. it seems the situation is getting worse for u.s. business. >> billionaire patrick drahi altice is hoping to exploit stock market gains to create currency for further expansion.

why now, and what can they do with this money? >> altice is a cable company in the u.s. formed through the acquisitions of two smaller cable companies. with this ipo, they can raise money for other deals in the cable space. i do not think many people are thinking they would stop at acquiring cablevision suddenly. one company they have expressed interest in is a cable company called cox communications. cox has repeatedly said it was not for sale. but, that would be one of the last big targets for alstice. >> united airlines, off by 3% as a video of united airlines personnel dragging a passenger off an overbooked plane went viral. walk me through the real issue for united, besides pr. >> all the u.s. full-service

airlines are looking for ways to make their operations more efficient. filling the airplane more makes them more efficient. i think we are probably getting close to the maximum overbooking and what we call load factors, the amount of people on the airplane. we are getting to the maximum that they can put into an airplane. that is the challenge. >> if they are hitting against their max load factor, what is does that mean for their bottom line? >> it means we will not get a benefit from selling the load factor even higher. if they oversell their airplanes to the degree that they are right now, the economics may have to be to raise the price they are willing to pay passengers to get off the airplane so they can get priority passengers on. >> we can see it is a man of asian descent. what is the ramification in

terms of passengers in asia? >> there is a blowback here. >> there is a very potential blowback here. if the chinese population feels united was discriminating somehow against this passenger because of his race, that can be a severe problem. united has the most nonstop flights to china from the u.s. among the u.s. carriers. >> they are said to be in talks to combine train operations. according to people familiar with the matter. what is the logic? what is the industrial logic? does this combination makes sense? >> it absolutely makes sense. it is a capital-intensive industry. it requires stock from producers. joining forces makes sense. we see a clear pattern over the last couple of years. two years ago, china was the largest producer of its stock. we saw hitachi snapped up an italian peer.

there is a clear rationale for combining those players. >> toshiba shares are slumping in tokyo after it warned it may not survive the enormous losses at its westinghouse nuclear unit. the stock down 2.7%. the warning came when it relayed that's reported -- when it reported delayed earnings reports. how good or bad is this? >> it is a very unusual step for a company to take in japan. like any other place. they have been trying to close the books on the december quarter. we are quite a few months past that. they miss to deadlines. this was their third deadline for filing financial results. they said they could not get auditors to sign off on financial statement so they did it themselves. they made the disclosure and did cite the risks. this is a big deal, stemming from the billions of dollars in losses at their westinghouse

nuclear business in the u.s. >> tesco shares lower today, after the uk's biggest supermarket vowed to keep prices low. ratcheting up the pressure on an industry beset by shrinking profitability. adjusted operating profit rose. there are plans to pursue -- resume dividend payments in 2018 fiscal year. >> we are confident that we are on track for the 2.5% to 4% operating margin we highlighted in november as our ambition. ?

mike: welcome back to "bloomberg best," i am michael mckee. international monetary fund will hold its annual spring meetings next week in washington, d.c. this week, francine lacqua sat down in brussels with imf managing director christine lagarde to get her thoughts on the state of the global economy. francine: what is the one thing we should worry about more? are protectionist measures as bad as we thought a couple months ago? christine: protectionism clearly is a threat. if it was to be realized, would really be a break on growth, a break on productivity, a break on investment. we are seeing both innovation and trade are conducive to productivity. productivity is the agent for growth. and better allocation of resources. as part of the risk of that we see, clearly, protectionism is one.

the political uncertainties we see around the world, particularly in the european region, is high on our agenda. and the potential for capital flows moving from emerging-market economies to advanced economies as a result of the reinforcement of the dollar and the rise of interest rates is the third one. those are three risks that apply to a situation which is quite positive at the moment. francine: do you believe the trump administration could be less protectionist than we feared in the beginning of january? christine: as always, i do not think any economy would actually prescribe limited growth, limited productivity, limited investment, limited innovation. so, if policymakers, including the u.s. policymakers, one want better growth, more investment, more innovation and

productivity, trade is part of the solution. then, you go into the question of what kind of trade. is it trade with restriction? trade with a distorted measures? i hope everyone would agree we do not want distortion, we do not want restrictions. we want trade that is open, fair, and inclusive, to facilitate opportunity. francine: do you worry about french politics or the greek bailout? christine: i worry about the outcome of any election these days. what the economies do not like and what investors do not like is uncertainty. the track record in the last few months has been the realization of unpredictable results. that leads to a period of uncertainty now.

everybody wonders, who will be the next french president? what about the next politician in germany? what will happen to the terms and editions of brexit, vis-a-vis the rest of the european union? the sooner those results are known, the better people can actually plan their lives and investments and location of businesses and so on and so forth. mike: francine also asked the e.u. economics commissioner about his plan b if brexit negotiations fall apart. you will hear his answer later in the program. up next on "bloomberg best," an exclusive conversation about the challenge of cutting down the fed's considerable balance sheet. plus, businesses chomping at the bit for donald trump to deliver a tax reform plan. stephen schwarzman says, take a deep breath. >> it is very complicated. if the numbers were easy, someone would have printed it.

mike: this is bloomberg. ? so you're having a party?

how nice. i'll be right there. and the butchery begins. what am i gonna wear? this party is super fancy. let's go. i'm ready. are you my uber? [ horn honks ] hold on. don't wait for watchathon week to return. [ doorbell rings ] who's that?

show me netflix. sign up for netflix on x1 today and keep watching all year long. mike: this is "bloomberg best i i am michael mckee. janet yellen said the federal reserve should adopt a more neutral policy chance and i'll dial back its stimulus efforts. also on the fed's to do list, trimming its $4.5 billion balance sheet. in an exclusive interview, they jim bullard discussed the need to bring that figure down. >> first of all, $4.5 trillion is higher than anyone thinks it should be, that is number one. number two, if you want to create policy space for the future and at least have the option of doing quantitative easing in the future, you should start getting the balance sheet down to a reasonable size today.

another aspect, all you have to do is to allow the reinvestment policy to end. then you can gradually run off some of the balance sheet size over time. also, if you think it is lumpy, if you look at the pictures of what is maturing when and what month and that kind of thing, it does look kind of lumpy. but, we can manage that and smooth it out in such a way that it declined at a given rate. it is not a matter of doing something that would cause volatility in markets. i think it would be taken in stride by markets. i think we could get to wait a lower number than $4.5 trillion with a reasonable policy. >> what is a reasonable size, what is the number? >> that is a good question. before the crisis, it was about $800 billion, almost all cash, with some reserves.

post-crisis, cash is all the way up at $1.7 trillion now. if you add some reserves to that, maybe a couple hundred billion of reserves, you could get to a balance sheet size of $2 trillion. the point is the $4.5 trillion we have now is way above anything like the $2 trillion range. so, we should allow it to run off so we are making progress toward that eventual goal. the committee has not decided what it wants to do, but even if we ran policy with significant amounts of reserves, we would only need a balance sheet in the $2 trillion range. the point is not to go to $2 trillion immediately. it is just to allow the run off to occur gradually over several years. mike: there was also plenty of conversation about u.s. fiscal plans this week on bloomberg

television. on tuesday, president trump welcomed more than a dozen ceos to the white house for a discussion of economic initiatives and strategies. blackstone group ceo stephen schwarzman leads the president's strategic and policy forum. he leads off our roundup of interviews on politics and policy. >> did you get a general sense of the timetable for tax reform? when will we have a plan coming out of the white house? stephen: i am not sure about that, it is complicated. if the numbers were easy, someone would have printed it and sent it to you. to accomplish something in that area, there has to be something taken away from other people to have the revenue to finance the tax cuts. there are a lot of different ideas, a lot of different people both on capitol hill and the white house. they are all thinking about what the trade-offs are.

i expect a much more deliberate, logical approach, than trying to pass health care in 17 days. that is not going to happen in a tax year, which is good for everyone. i also think there will be a circle back on health care. in other words, the publicity on that three weeks ago is dead and gone. it sort of has difficulty being dead and gone. i think it is worth working on in the house. how long that will take, i do not know. but people are talking and ultimately, they should be able to get something out of the house. whether it goes to the senate, that is your call and everybody else's. david: what about the sequencing ? do you have a sense that they will bring tax reform up? they indicated that was the

sequencing to follow. stephen: it would be better from a scoring perspective if they could do that. i think that is in the land of the unknown. we could plan for that not to happen. if it did, it is a huge bonus and makes life easier for tax reform. david: it sounds like the president is looking at a comprehensive approach. tax reform, not just tax cuts. people say we could get tax cuts faster. i assume you would rather have comprehensive tax reform even if it takes longer. stephen: when you're dealing in months, that is not long. that is only long on television. it is not long in the context of the kind of legislation issues. i think just reducing taxes is -- that is sort of a fallback, as opposed to reform. david: is there any element of

the tax reform package that you think is essential? that if we do not get, it is not worth doing? stephen: i do not look at it that way. one, i am not charge of that world. i do not know that anyone is. we work with what comes out of the system. individuals are somewhat powerless to affect that overall outcome. >> what specifically do you see the administration getting out of congress? >> i specifically see corporate tax rate reductions. that is a key to rest parity in -- economic prosperity in the short run. we have one of the lowest revenues in the oecd. we are of the only country that has a global tax, not a territorial tax. if he can get that rate from 35 to 18 and have 100% expensing of capital purchases, this could be one of the most explosive growth periods in u.s. history. mark: when is it going to

happen? >> if i knew that, i would be very rich. honestly, it is going to happen. i think it is going to happen in this administration. i would expect some of the big tax cuts will not happen until next year or the year after. if you remember with reagan, the really big tax bill was 1986 when we dropped the highest rate from 50% to 28%. we cut the corporate rate from 46% to 34%. that is when we unleashed growth in the economy. it may take time and this with this administration, but i am expecting it sooner than later. >> why should i be patient as an investor and wait for something that will take one or two years? >> because you have no choice, honestly. it will pass for all of us. if you sell off your stocks and

you are inpatient and take your gains right now, someone else will get the real profits you do not have. >> do you think we could actually get the some kind of comprehensive tax reform this year? >> i think the chances of that are below 50-50. but, they are below 50-50 every year for the past 30 years. it will take a concerted effort by the president to say this is what i want, this is what is good for the american middle class, this is why i came to washington, to improve economic performance. that kind of effort is necessary to get tax reform done. if you don't have that come it simply won't happen. even if you have that, it could be quite difficult. as you point that, just because they are republicans, does not mean they agree on the nature of the reform. we saw that in health care, we will see it in reform. much capital will be spent in the white house to get this

done. >> deregulation is something we hear about from a lot of market leaders and business leaders. particularly in the financial institutions area we hear that they want to cut back on dodd-frank, and they say maybe glass-steagall will come back. you were enforcing these regulations. what do you make of that set of proposals in terms of what they would do for growth in the united states? >> glass-steagall was a 2500 page piece of legislation developed in one year in the midst of a major crisis. excuse me, dodd-frank. it is inconceivable that there shouldn't be changes made to dodd-frank. it is surely much to burden some on a set of community banks and smaller banks. -- too burdensome on a set of community banks and smaller banks. there are other provisions that

are having reverse of facts. -- adverse effects. i am worried about what is happening to liquidity in the bond markets as a consequence of the changes contained therein. hopefully we can go about it in a rational, thoughtful kind of way. it was only a few years before the financial crisis that you had an administration that was doing photo ops, they would take books of regulations, and they would take saws like you use for wood, and all the major officials would be pictured taking saws to the books. that seems to me to be very much the wrong philosophy toward financial regulation. a kind of mindless, deregulate for the sake of deregulate philosophy. in some of the statements i hear from the administration and from some of its supporters, i worry

we might go back to that. that would be a grave mistake. ? >> tesla hit a new milestone

after it surpassed general motors to become america's most valuable auto company. $51 billion in terms of market capitalization. >> this is more of a symbolic moment where tesla crossed the line of being more valuable than gm and ford. but, you really have to look at why. investors seek tesla as a future dominator of electric cars, maybe a leader in electric storage and autonomous vehicles. you have a lot of businesses with potential. that is what everybody is playing for. it is a long-term play. and mike: you are watching "bloomberg best," i am michael mckee.

let's look back at the most compelling conversations with him his news leaders and policymakers. we caught up with the ford ceo in shanghai and talked about the automaker's ambitions in china. >> there are huge, enormous mutual ties between the two him and countries from a trade him and countries from a trade standpoint, and we have to tread carefully on that because the economic relationship is the basis of the overall relationship. i am glad to see both leaders meeting early on. >> the auto area is one area where china could level the playing field in terms of joint ventures or the tariffs. is that something you think is possible now? >> for u.s. businesses, china is a very important market. tangible reforms and openings are needed. the thing there is, how do you

make sure you decrease policy uncertainty, boost business confidence and at the same time, create equal opportunities for each nation? i sit on the manufacturing council and we all share the same objective. we want a very healthy and vibrant u.s. economy. >> what are the opportunities in china in terms of sales and how much will that be reliant on a relaxation? of the rules we see in china. >> if you look at the chinese market, less than 2% of the him market here is pickup trucks. even with that, it is the fourth largest in the world. what we have seen is the government is thinking about potentially changing some of the restrictions, which we think him would grow that customer appeal for pickup trucks. a couple provinces have done that already. the research we have done, the initial orders on our f-150 raptor, is a huge opportunity to grow our business in china. >> how will brexit go?

let's say there is no deal. what industries in europe and what countries will suffer the most because of this? >> frankly, i refuse to speak about no deal. if you start talking about plan b, it means you do not believe in plan a. it is two years from now. i am convinced we can make it. if we negotiate on principles -- what are the principles? it has to be about citizens, the freedom and movement of citizens. there are 4 million people from the e.u., they are working in the u.k. london is among the biggest cities. there is the financial aspect, and discussing the future of our and relationship, which needs to be very close. this must include a trade deal

and other items such as the fight against climate change. i would say it is not that i'm optimistic, i am a volunteer . >> your optimistic. you -- you are optimistic. you believe in plan a. but reassure me there is a plan b if it does not work. >> we would need time to think about it. but here, everyone is energized and mobilized to succeed. it will be difficult at times, obviously. it is a complicated divorce, and we have so many links together and so many interests there. but everybody is mobilized to succeed. we want a clean brexit and a strong relationship with the u.k. >> let's talk about the presidential election in france. you have the far left candidate melenchon catching up with

fillon. melechon, where is he getting the most support from? where is the renaissance coming him and from? >> everywhere. we are doing a happy campaign, that is why it is working. we are far from the pessimistic pictures that some of the candidates are giving. this is a very grassroots movement we are trying to install in france, far away from the traditional political party stuff. >> you talk of melechon not wanting to leave the single him currency or the e.u. straight away, but wanting the e.u. to change. is melechon's ambition to propose that france leave the e.u.? is that his ultimate ambition? >> absolutely not. our ambition is to change europe

for the better, for better cooperation between our people. but also because we all agree, left or right, from different parties, citizens, we all agree on one thing, the current e.u. is not working. basically, what we want is plan a to rebuild a different europe, and plan b if that does not work, we want to new tactics for cooperation to join forces with brussels. >> what is the top issue for melechon? in terms of change. what does he want first and foremost from the eu? >> we want to bring back democratic sovereignty. >> treasuries have rallied. president trump says he likes the fed's low rate policy and would like to redenominate janet does -- it be open to re-nominating -- and would be

open to re-nominating janet yellen as fed chair. it was a spectacular day when it comes to the treasuries market action that we saw. do you expected this story, this trump and china story to continue driving these moves? >> it is the only thing that is. there is no reason why yields in the u.s. or rest of the world are as low as they are. the reflation trade going on well before trump is embedded for at least another year. the geopolitics is the driver right now. every time we get back to that level, it does not hold. that would be the key important level. >> what breaks it out of that range? >> we need to see the employment side of things coming through, really in terms of wages more than anything else, in the u.s.

we have to shift from monetary to fiscal. we need to see demand push and lift inflation and treasuries to get upside. the downside from yields, more military action here in asia will drive people into more and more safe havens over the next few weeks. it seems that is the major script we are looking at the moment. >> what would you touch? french bonds, 10 days away from the first round of the presidential election there? that spread between german and french bonds is pretty wide. >> pretty wide. the things i worry about the french election, there are a lot of undecided voters. every poll, you see le pen, or maybe melechon coming up. the digital outcome you get with these elections, at least you get a second attempt. i will not be chasing french spreads at the moment.

there's enough returns elsewhere that you do not need to get that extra return that france gives you. it has gotten wider, but it is not enough to offset the volatility you will get if you have le pen and melechon go through the first rein. -- first round. that would be a volatile period for france. ? >> check out what we have seen.

orange line, average premiums moving higher. white line, yield counts moving lower. mike: there are about 30,000 functions on the bloomberg and we enjoy showing you are a rich. -- showing you our favorites. maybe they will become your

favorites. this is another you will find useful. it will lead you to our quick takes, where you can get important context into timely topics. here is one from this week. >> europe's common currency, the euro, has been chasing debt for years. now, with the u.k. heading for a european exit, greece in potential crisis, and discontent across the continent, can the experiment survive? voters are fed up with the economic failings of some e.u. countries and the loss of control to brussels. withdrawal from the euro has become a rallying cry for the nationalist movement, including italy's five-star movement and marine le pen's national front in france. meanwhile, the greek tragedy continues. the government is struggling to meet creditors' demands to keep

the bailouts slowing. -- bailout funds flowing. germany's insistence on austerity leaves the lingering sense that greece may have to leave the union sooner or later. and there is the slow recovery from the worst ever recession. unemployment for people under 25 has been stuck above 40% in greece and spain, causing what some call a lost generation of european youth. here's the argument -- the global financial crisis exposed the flaws in the common territory. when it was created by 11 countries in 1999, they agreed to a central bank and set of shared interest rates, but only a limited unified approach to government spending or bank regulations. when banks began to wobble and countries like greece and spain were pushed to the brink, the common currency meant they were tied to the euro, which meant they had little option but to accept massive bailouts from the

euro area. germany, the biggest economy, pays the lions share. since then, euro area leaders say they are strengthening it to make the common currency more resilient. even if greece falls out of the block, the euro will survive. european leaders have shown they will do what it takes to keep the currency going. and then, there is the politics. the euro, unlike other currencies, is a symbol of europe's aspiration to unite in peace and prosperity. but, some business leaders, analysts, and politicians suggest the deficiencies mean the currency's demise is just a matter of time. mike: that was just one of the many quick takes you can find on the bloomberg. you can also find them at bloomberg.com, along with all the business news and analysis 24 hours a day. that is all for "bloomberg best" this week.

thank you for watching. i am michael mckee. this is bloomberg. ?

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