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tv   Bloomberg Business Week  Bloomberg  July 15, 2018 4:00pm-5:00pm EDT

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♪ carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. carol: coming up in this week's issue, a question. can the republican party survive a trade war? jason: we also look at the conflicting relationship between vladimir putin and donald trump ahead of the big summit next week. carol: but we begin with our global cover story about tesla. jason: elon musk has made a lot of promises. can he live up to them?
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carol: building a car turning out to be pretty tough. max: tesla quite famously for the last year and a half had been kicking the can down the road on its goals for its model 3, which is the mass-market sedan. jason: $35,000 the average. max: selling price for a car in the u.s. is somewhere around $30,000. $35,000 for the base model. it is the least expensive model tesla has to offer. there is a ton of demand for this thing, and yet tesla has not been able to produce these in the numbers that they wanted. that has led to this weird bifurcation which has happened, in which you have tesla bulls who believe in this company and the electric car aficionados, and you have a lot of people in the auto industry saying this is crazy. they are losing tons of money, there is no hope to get this
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thing out, and everyone was looking at this 5000 car goal, which tesla managed to hit at the end of last month. >> this story really takes us inside what it is like at the company, which to say the least is a unique culture. max: yes. there were four reporters who worked on this story, led by tom randall, who had access to an array of tesla designers. he talked to 20 of the key designers and engineers on the model 3. i think what comes through, and also what came through in the interview with elon musk that is part of this, story is that this is a company that is working incredibly hard to push to this goal. and the goal is to solve global warming, to get gl gas cars off the roa that is something he believes and is willing to sleep at the factory, to not sleep, to have serious emotional damage.
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and he seems to expect that of his workers. and that is something that is a little weird for a company that is worth $50 billion. >> let's go through it. there are employees who talk about timed bathroom breaks, right? max: yeah. and i think to be fair to tesla, we should say that it probably happens at other companies. but there are employees who bloomberg spoke with who talked about timed bathroom breaks, about conditions in the factory that are really intense in terms of fires, even -- gross to bring up -- but raw sewage, and people pushing through all of it in order to hit these goals.
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i think from the point of view of elon musk, he would say this is important, this is what we have to do. on the other hand, you have workers who do not feel that way, who feel this is a pressure cooker. as tesla becomes a real car company, you would expect that they would start to mature. and the big question is the question that probably animates anyone who cares about this company is, can they do that, and how close are they to doing that? jason: and what is it about a car company that is different from other businesses?
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a rocket company, a tunnel digging company. what is it that has been so difficult here? what is it about cars? max: one thing we key in on is rockets can basically be manufactured by hand. there are machines, but this is something where the factory is putting out maybe dozens a year. it is really on fire. where someone like elon musk, who is famously a hands-on manager can literally probably go down the line and make sure things are ok. cars, when you are looking at a big manufacturer, you're talking about one car coming out every minute, and that is what tesla wants to compete with. we are talking about machines that have to last for a decade. they have to withstand incredibly difficult conditions. they are lethal weapons. if you screw up, people die. and they are regulated as lethal weapons. and consumers are demanding in a way i don't think nasa or the federal government is, about quality, about price. carol: it is a big purchase for most americans. max: it is the second biggest purchase people will make after their homes. there are all these things that make this a really difficult dance, and one that tesla is learning, but they are maybe not all the way there yet.
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jason: creative director chris nosenzo joins us to talk about this cover. it pops, a really good one. how did you get there? chris: we were talking about the story, and they were telling us cars were hard for him to make, and there was this irony that his other venture, spacex, has been a good business for him. we took that idea and brought it to the cover. carol: it is so simple, but it does pop up at you. chris: with a cover like this, we refine what the right photo is, what the right language is, and get it to really hit you. jason: you distill it down. you talked about this theory of the "businessweek" cover, that simplicity wins the day. chris: definitely. and we really try to focus on the idea and let that thing bubble up to the purest form of itself. the design comes together to make that happen. jason: next, the connection
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between trump and putin, and what to expect from their upcoming summit. carol: and where the trade war might hurt the most, inside the u.s. jason: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." jason: you can also find us online at businessweek.com. carol: and on our mobile app. we get a preview of the summit between donald trump and vladimir putin. jason: we compare and contrast the two world leaders, arguably the most important world leaders, on style and substance. carol: they agree on some things. jason: marc champion puts forth the idea, are they natural partners? here he is. marc: in one way, it is an unrequited relationship so far. donald trump has had a
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fascination really for vladimir putin for some years. these two men are really partners. that might be the wrong word, but they are partners in that this culture war going on across the developed world, in the u.s., in britain with the populist leaders and various european countries. putin is very much on the side of the populists. he is very popular with the populists and the conservatives. he set up a similar story. there is a sense that he has a lot more in common with putin in the way he sees the world than he might have with angela merkel or the french president emmanuel macron. carol: that is going to scare the other nato members at this point. marc: i think it does because
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they are not quite sure what trump's strategy is, what his vision is. the greatest fear is he simply wants to destroy some of these institutions that have been around for 70 years or more, that he doesn't like the eu, that he doesn't like nato, that he doesn't like the wto. all of these institutions that they have sort of built their economies around and international relations around for decades. and they don't know this. everything his government actually does, his administration does, isn't necessarily in line with what he says and tweets. in the case of nato at this summit, the u.s. is busy drawing up conclusions and things to do, which have very little to do with what trump has been saying. and yet they are concerned because they can sense
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increasingly over the last year, it has become clear to them that he has much more in common in his sort of gut reactions with someone like putin than he has with the more liberal leaders. you saw this in the g7 recently, when he had -- with people like trudeau in canada and angela merkel. jason: what is it about putin that is so fascinating to president trump, in your estimation? marc: before trump became president, putin gave a very important speech. it was a speech that really would be very, very familiar to a lot of the debate that is now going on in europe and the u.s., on the cultural right.
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very similar things are said. on that score, you can say that putin is on a similar line. and there is a more difficult element, where i think you do have to -- it is more of a question of your own analysis of what you see and not really anything that is of the record. but there it is, a view of what strategically these different leaders want to do. jason: in the politics section, the cost of retaliation. we look at how these retaliatory tariffs placed on u.s. exports are affecting farmers and other folks right here at home. carol: you have to remember, we have canada and mexico, the
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european union, and china all fighting back against the trade policies. jason: and ultimately, it is a political story. this will be a huge issue as the midterm elections approach. here is matthew philips. matthew: you can look at july 6 as fort sumter, where the tariffs went down, china retaliated. just the other day, the president retaliated again with $200 billion of tariffs, 10% on $200 billion for the chinese goods. i think it is not crazy to say we are in the very early stages of a trade war. jason: this is a trade war that is not just between the u.s. and china. the president has been in europe this week, both in brussels and the united kingdom. those countries are affected as well, so it is global. but there is a domestic political aspect to this that is very important, and that is what you guys go in to.
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matthew: the thesis of this story and the question josh green wanted to address with this is the u.s. economy will survive this. biggest economy in the world. the hit will, depending on how long this goes on, will be significant, but it is not like it will push us into a recession. the question is, can the gop survive this? given its roots as the party of free trade and also given where these tariffs are going to start to hit hardest and first, in places like the farm belt and the automotive alley and the energy corridor, that is core red state trump country. jason: there was something that really jumped out at me, which was all the way down to the congressional districts level where this is really hitting home, this is trump country that is being directly affected here. matthew: as these tariffs start to course through these local economies, especially in parts of the country where it is a one industry town, it is not going to be trump who has to stand up in september, october, november at these town hall meetings and
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talk to these voters. it is the house candidates, all these down ballot candidates, at a time when their party has put their arms around trump as the party of trump. it makes for some very difficult explaining that some of these candidates and politicians are going to have to do come this fall. carol: i feel these political candidates have had to explain a lot of issues. president trump has come back very strong on immigration, in terms of his tax policy. we know the wealthy are benefiting, corporations are benefiting, but this is different. matthew: this hits workers and industries right in the wallet. say what you want about immigration, it is a broad issue that has been toplined for the past month or so. but trade is different because it hits people in the wallet.
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carol: next, china's most powerful trade weapon is its own consumers, and that could backfire. jason: we look at china's effort to build 150 silicon valleys, part of the war between beijing and content. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: and i'm carol massar. you can listen to us on the radio and on a.m. 1130 in new york, 99.1 fm in washington dc, and a.m. 960 in the bay area. jason: and in london and asia on the bloomberg radio plus app. in the business section this week, collateral damage in the global trade war. carol: we have to think about chinese actions against american
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brands that could hurt the mainland partners. jim: unlike the u.s., where we have a trade war and we say that is bad, in china what they normally do is whip up the public to boycott the products from countries they don't like. in the past, that has been very detrimental to companies that want to do business in china. china is the largest market in the world. you don't want to upset the chinese populace. beijing tends to use that as a negotiating chip. that has happened before with south korea. we use in the story an example of a retailer that has 99 superstores in china. when they got into a territorial dispute with china, the chinese media which is state-controlled
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said it is patriotic not to do business with them. what happens is for the first time in 16 years, they ended up reporting a loss. they also end up having to sell stores in most of china. there is a lasting impact, and people forget that it is a different kind of markets, and people respond very well to the push of the public. jason: for american companies, it is a little more complicated. jim: it is a little more complicated because the american brands currently have either sold out or have joint ventured with chinese companies. when china tries to use that lever that has been successful in the past with japan and korea, what will happen when they do it with the u.s. is they will boomerang back and hit the chinese. mcdonald's is a minority owner in its stores there. instead, a chinese state-controlled company owns mcdonald's. ditto for disney.
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you hear about shanghai disneyland. it is a big place. but that is also owned by a chinese consortium with disney as a small minority partner. carol: that is what china demanded. you want to set up shop in china? ok, but it will be a joint venture. jim: everybody goes in with a partner, and a partner, besides getting rich, the partner is also able to earn your business and maybe take your ip. that is a great way for them to develop, but a lot of the leverage they have gets watered down. if they lean on american brands very hard, they hurt their own state-controlled companies. carol: in the economics section, we focus on a chinese city. jason: it is part of a massive effort by the chinese government, the bunch of high-tech zones they are creating. carol: nanjing is going head-to-head against silicon valley.
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cristina: this is a city that twice in history used to be china's capital, but became a runner-up to places like beijing and shanghai, but has now emerged as a new tech hub. 156 tech dedicated special economic zones in china. jason: an amazing amount of money being poured in by the government. this is not just a private sector effort. nothing really is in china. this is the government getting behind it. the scale is breathtaking. cristina: it is. we pulled the figure on venture capital, which includes government money. in the year to date, we are running at $60 billion into chinese startups. in the u.s., we are at $44 billion. this year, china may overtake the u.s. in the venture capital.
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jason: that would be the first time. cristina: yes. part of that is money being funneled from state governments. but there are subsidies of every kind. in beijing, they are telling investors if you put money into a startup and you lose it, we will make it up. jason: that is a totally different playing field been. cristina: it is not just industrial policy, it is something the world has never seen. carol: it has only been the last couple of decades that china has moved into the technology sector. but today, some of the biggest tech companies are chinese companies. cristina: alibaba is among several of the world's biggest tech companies are chinese. those are publicly listed. and then startups, you have a company like ant financial, which is worth $150 billion. unicorn is not even a name you can use. we should use dragon, right? [laughter] jason: you heard it here first. cristina lindblad, nomenclature.
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cristina: the government is backing these companies, giving other investors in china and the world -- they are almost too big to fail at this point. carol: this is such a reminder that they are done being the manufacturing center of the world. cristina: they want to be done. carol: they want to move beyond manufacturing, so they are pumping the money into artificial intelligence, semi conductors. they want to be leading not just domestically, but globally in these interest rates. cristina: electric cars, a lot of ai is part of the effort. a lot of people say with the scale of these investments involved, it is inevitable that they will incubate some world-class players. the problem is there is one big downside, we have seen this movie before in steel and solar, in which china drove prices down for everybody in the industry to the point where several chinese companies were on the verge of bankruptcy and had to be consolidated. they are dangerous for sure. carol: to illustrate the
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momentum of chinese companies, let's bring in taylor riggs to take us inside the bloomberg terminal. taylor: it is a story behind the numbers. come into my terminal here. we are looking at america's tech comeback. we are doing that by normalizing it back five years. in white, i have the chinese technology etf's. that tracks the chinese stocks. in blue, this tracks the american big tech companies. you can see in white, chinese stocks were outperforming a little bit. then they underperformed and since the election of donald trump, technology stocks in china have outperformed again. there were some concerns about
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the trade rules and if they are blocking investments between chinese and american companies what that would mean. interestingly enough, since this trade war started to break out, american companies in blue have started to outperform. there is not a lot of supply from the american companies, yet there is demand from china. china needs these chips that the american companies make. that makes investors still bullish on technology companies. carol: a reminder about the importance of chinese companies and their overall market. jason: next, rio tinto offers a glimpse into the unique risk and rewards of doing business in china. carol: plus, move over quinoa. peru has a new superfood to share. jason: this is "bloomberg businessweek."
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jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: still ahead -- jason: we go to saudi arabia. carol: but we start with a feature on rio tinto. jason: an amazing story here. the mining giant, several executives jailed by the chinese government. carol: it gets into the complicated relationship of a foreign company operating in china. jason: and a $1 billion hack at the center of it all. carol: we have more from kit
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chellel. kit: rio tinto is one of the world's largest mining companies, and its biggest customer is china. we are talking about vast quantities of raw material, hundreds of millions of tons of iron ore being shipped up from australia to china. these deals back in 2008, 2009 were billions of dollars. the stakes were very high for both sides. tensions began to rise, and rio tinto found itself in serious trouble in china. carol: as you say in the story, relationships were good, then all of a sudden it wasn't good. what happened? kit: there were several pressure points, but the main pressure point was by a historical quirk. rio tinto was selling iron ore to china at an annual benchmark price. the price has stayed the same for a year.
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but during that time, it was a booming time for the chinese steel industry. the actual market price rose steadily and dramatically throughout the period. rio tinto was selling large quantities of iron ore below-market prices. it was helping the chinese industry make a profit. when rio tinto wanted to move away from that system, people in the chinese steel industry realized that would cost them a lot of money. carol: a big element of your story is when things started to go wrong, it involved spying by chinese authorities. kit: in about 2008, rio tinto became concerned that it had been hacked. it was concerned and went to mi5. the company was told that yes indeed, communications were not secure, and one of the countries that was accessing emails, confidential documents, and phone calls was china. and the story tries to follow what the impact of that breach was on the company.
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jason: one of the things you point out in the story, and as i read it i thought any executive who is doing anything complicated in china and elsewhere, cybersecurity really comes to the fore in a big way. because not only was rio tinto told that the chinese were looking into their communications in all methods, or just about every method, it felt like there were friendly countries that were monitoring them as well. that i would think would send the chill up the spine of any ceo trying to understand how to do business around the world right now. kit: i think the first thing to say about that is the reason the other states could see what was coming out of rio tinto was because of the chinese breach. other states were monitoring what these chinese bankers were doing, and they could see the
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flow of information coming out. i did not see any -- they could just see what was happening. you are right. these days, it is understood there is such a thing as military state hackers. it is understood your email might be under threat. back in 2009, it was a different time. this issue was not widely understood and not taken as seriously as it would be now. carol: we hear from the editor in chief joel weber. so much this week talks about china and trade. joel: if you could take the biggest themes of the year and pack it into one issue, i think we have done it this week. trade war. it has been rhetoric, now it is reality. we try to go to the front lines of the trade war in china and the u.s. to do the reporting and show what the data looks like, places that will fuel that the most. jason: at that level, it is already happening now, and it will really amp up. as the midterms get closer, this is a political story.
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joel: that is why we did the politics lede about this. what are the repercussions for the gop that will directly affect trump's base? that is why it is so critical to take a close look at that. as we approach midterms, it will be part of the story. carol: we had news about elon musk planning to open a huge facility in china. joel: if you could take the theme of the year, i think the other most important business story of the year is elon musk and the model 3. everyone knows that elon musk is an entrepreneur. this is an incredible story. he met his match in the making of the midsize sedan. jason: this is a guy who was able to successfully launch multiple times into space, and yet what is really tripping him up is making a car. joel: a car, and it all boils down to this. it is a do or die moment to make this car.
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he hit the numbers. now he has many thousands more to make, potentially in china, at a time when tesla's burning through cash. on the horizon, we have a bunch of new entrants into the market that will be coming out with electric cars. that wouldn't really be happening without elon musk. carol: up next, from arkansas to manhattan. how bank of the ozarks became one of america's top construction lenders. jason: and investors eye a supersized $2 trillion value of the proposed offering of saudi aramco. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. you can find us online at businessweek.com. jason: in the features section, we find a bank that not many people have heard of, bank of the ozarks. carol: it is headquartered in little rock, arkansas. jason: it is getting a lot of attention from its competitors here on wall street. here is peter robison. peter: george gleason is one of the kinds of people who make new yorkers look like slackers. he is one of the more hard-working people i have ever met. he talks a lot about working 80 hours a week. he mentioned that he did not wake up at dawn to write his bank's earnings report, he woke up at midnight while he was on the road. he has found his identity in making his bank grow and making it grow efficiently. he can name eight marks off the
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top of his head, and he gives the scorecard in his pocket of where the bank ranks among the largest banks. according to him, it ranks at the top. jason: he has either been able to out hustle all of those rival bankers, or he has done a lot of deals that they would not and probably should not do. tell us about how and why he has grown as fast as he has? joel: the bank started in 2003, and it established in dallas. it continued to grow. it weathered downturns and managed the downturns well. there were a couple periods where other banks stepped away. other banks had made bad loans, and did not have the capacity. the second period was in 2016, when other banks had received a warning from banking regulators telling them that there were some risks bubbling up in commercial real estate, and that the regulators would be watching the situation. gleason jumped in at that point and decided it was time to take the market share. at that point, they developed some relationships with some of
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the bigger developers around the country. time will tell whether that decision was a good one or whether there were risks the bank did not recognize. carol: tell us about where he is today. the largest lender in the united states, construction of residential and commercial real estate. this is amazing. this is not a household name. this is not something we talk about on a daily basis at bloomberg, but this guy has become a giant. joel: it is amazing. it is the kind of thing you would not expect. who is the largest lender to construction, which we have all seen around the country, these gentrifying neighborhoods around
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the country. and the largest construction lender is a relatively small bank in arkansas called bank of the ozarks. jason: what is the secret sauce here? he defends pretty vigorously his underwriting and the way they go about their diligence around projects. what do they do? peter: the bank really manages the risk at all phases of the project. they talk about how they have more asset managers, more servicers looking at the loans. they are looking at construction reports, they are looking at the sales, and warning the developers about potential problems with the construction. but the reason that some next stay away from this area is there is the risk that the project doesn't sell, that there
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is a downturn on the market. and by the time the development opens, there are not the sales to support the project. jason: i have to say, even reading this story and hearing about these big towers in miami and new york city and other places, you do sort of have this natural reaction back to the financial crisis, when a lot of investors and developers lost their proverbial shirts here. he doesn't seem as worried. peter: gleason's argument is that banks get into trouble when they follow headlines, and that he trusts in his own underwriting. and his own underwriting is
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based on looking at population growth, job growth, household foundation, down to the neighborhood in different cities. his argument is, over time, his approach will be proven right, and people who worry about a bubble are looking in the rearview mirror. carol: in the finance section, saudi aramco's $2 trillion zombie offering. jason: this is a massive deal that may not happen at this point. 10% of the world's oil and pays for the saudi state. carol: so many questions, and will it ever go public? jason: here is more from will kennedy. will: it was a moment when saudi arabia was reforming. saudi aramco, as we know, is the crown jewel of saudi arabia. they produce 10% of the world's oil and underpins the fiscal standing. that meant a big payday for wall street. it was seen as one of the biggest deals for a generation. two years later, it appears to have gone into the sand a little bit. it was meant to happen this year. they already delayed it to 2019. the oil minister said it is nice if it happens in 2019, but the timing will not go to the saudi
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state. people we spoke to who were close to the process, some people are starting to question if it will happen at all. carol: i read this story and i am thinking, so saudi aramco and zombie ipo. we were thinking, maybe it might happen next year or later, or not at all? will: that's right. a couple of things have probably changed. the timetables they laid down was always ambitious, but the biggest problem perhaps is valuation. when he announced the idea of floating saudi aramco, they put up a $2 trillion valuation on the company. there were no trillion dollar companies in the world yet. there was always a big ambition. and while no one disagrees that saudi aramco is an exceptional company with extraordinary politics and turnover, most
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people who crunched the numbers available based on oil prices and how much oil saudi arabia produces come to a valuation between $1 trillion and $1.5 billion. the government has been unwilling to compromise on the valuation. that is why it is heading for the long haul. jason: what is the connection between aramco, the decisions, and oil prices? how do those play with each other? will: this is another interesting aspect of the story. we have seen a real shift in saudi policy here, which is fascinating, and told us where the ipo is. in the first quarter of the
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year, saudi officials seemed very happy. oil prices kept rising, rallying. global stockpiles were drained and oil prices were rallying nicely. we are happy to see prices rise and happy to see the market get tighter. and then donald trump intervened, and he started tweeting as he does, and used his twitter account to say, no. we cannot have higher oil prices. it is putting too much strain on the american consumer. he has always had a very anti-opec attitude even before he entered politics. opec cannot let prices rise too high, we need to see more production. saudi arabia has a very close political relationship with trump. what we have seen is a very quick change in a saudi oil policy, which has kept a lid on prices to some extent. there is also another reason why investors will see risk in the ipo. aramco, who is setting its business goals? are they set by the board of saudi aramco to the benefit of all shareholders?
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or are they set by the saudi state with the saudi state's agenda in mind? and i think those issues were very clearly highlighted by donald trump's intervention. jason: next, the ceo leveling the playing field between credit unions and big banks. carol: and peru has a new superfood. jason: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." jason: you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a.m. 1130 in new york, and a.m. 960 in the bay area. carol: and in london and in asia on the bloomberg radio plus. jason: this week's game changer is cathie mahos. what i found so interesting
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about this is it is combining technology and community. credit unions and big banks, there is a gap, and she is trying to fill it. carol: she used to work for michael bloomberg when he was mayor of new york city. cathie: they are organized as financial cooperatives, so the idea behind a credit union is that everybody who deposits there is a member, a shareholder, and an owner of the institution. when you think about what we do, which is taking this fabulous structure and putting it at the disposal of low income communities, it creates not only the ability to deliver high-quality products and services, it is empowering the entire community. overtime, i think the mainstream credit union movement has evolved a bit to look more like the traditional banking sector.
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but organizations like ours are dedicated to taking that structure of the credit union and bringing it back to low income communities. jason: talk more about the melding or blending of the big banks, which play an important role, but sometimes people are intimidated. how do you take the best of that element, technology, etc., and scale and scope, and implement it on a community level? cathie: we work with a lot of big banks. we have a lot of investors that are big banks that will give us large deposits or large investments, and we redeploy that in our member institutions around the country so they can do more lending. we fit into that credit gap, that small dollar loan credit gap. our competitors are payday lenders, creditors, high cost financial service providers. what we are all about is trying to take this model of a financial institution, a
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self-sustaining financial institution, and make it available to those of modest needs. carol: that is where we wanted to go, because i feel credit unions have been around for a long time. but in the story this week, you talk about processing software. cathie: technology provides us the opportunity to leapfrog over some of the traditional obstacles to scale. for credit unions, the challenge to growth has always been how do you build enough of a base of members and of assets to be able to really scale your service delivery? with the advent of financial technology and fintech, we can do a lot more remotely. people are moving to mobile labs, mobile banking, accessing loans online. we are taking this technology, and how can we use it to leapfrog?
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carol: you see that happening in emerging markets. they skip the financial world and go to their mobile phone. that is part of their identity, and how they hack into the financial world. cathie: the fintech revolution globally has for the first time opened the door to financial inclusion and financial access for millions of people. we have not seen that happen as much here with fintech. what we are trying to do as a nonprofit is take the power and the tool and bring it to financial inclusion. carol: this week, we talk about the latest superfood from peru, lucula. jason: we have all the super foods at the local markets. this is not one i heard of. kate: the new superfood, which is lucuma. it is the kind of thing where you feel like you have heard of so many before. this is a new one, and it is surprising.
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it looks like an avocado and a mango hooked up somehow. it is orange, it is the shape of an avocado, but it has the texture of a squash, a flavor that is caramel-y and maple-y. it is so good for you. peru has a propensity for delivering super foods to the world. it is a combination of the andes mountains and the amazon. a lot of crazy things grow there, and lucuma is the newest thing. carol: does it taste good? kate: i would not advocate tasting it plain. it is hard to taste it raw if you are not in peru. it spoils almost as soon as it comes off of the lucuma tree. doesn't that sound cute? jason: it sounds like a dr. seuss book. how do you get your hands on
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this superfood? kate: you can get it at walmart or find it -- some whole foods have it. but usually it is powdered. i have it at my local health food store, so i am sure everybody can find it. but it is really easy to use. you throw it into a smoothie, and you are seeing it in a lot of juice places as a booster. it is also a popular ice cream flavor, especially in california. jason: what does it do for you? carol: it is like a multivitamin. kate: it is like high-end zinc and potassium. it is good for fertility. it is called the gold of the incas. it has a long history in peru. carol: how come we are only now hearing about it? kate: that is a good question, and people in peru are thinking it is time to get the word out.
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they have all these fantastic fresh fruit stands and juice places, so they use it a lot. carol: "bloomberg businessweek" is available on news stands now. i love talking to cristina lindblad about china. it reminds us of the amount of money and time and effort the chinese government is putting into developing its technology field. specifically, silicon valley, which has about 156 cities and are creating many silicon valleys. jason: that was just one of the stories that really hit the nexus between china and the trade war. i loved saudi aramco. everyone i talk to on wall street has been salivating over it for two years. not just the bankers, but the equity guys looking at that coming out. carol: now we are talking about it being maybe a zombie ipo. jason: more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪ emily: i'm emily chang, and
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this is the "best of bloomberg technology." where we bring you all of the top interviews in tech. coming up, beijing has called president trump's decision to slap tariffs "totally unacceptable," but stopped short of spelling out what they will do in return. we discussed the tech fallout in the ongoing trade standoff. plus, a downbeat debut.

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