♪ >> coming up on "bloomberg best," the stories that shaped the week in business around the world. the u.s. and china call a trade truce, but it is not as simple as that sounds. >> there is something of a disconnect. >> what are the exact items? no details yet. >> a lot of volatility and angst in washington dc reverberating in the markets. >> more battling over brexit. opec and its allies gather for a critical meeting. >> 1.2 million barrels per day is the number. >> some of that is fairly insignificant for us. >> investigators debate over the yield curve. >> we are very ahead of what we

are calling for in the session. >> a fed exclusive. the vice chair speaks his mind on policy. >> central banks need to be just as worried about keeping on target as opposed to -- as much as going on target. >> relations between the united states and china have affected all emerging markets. >> it is a new type of war, the hybrid war. abigail: the world mourns the loss of former u.s. president george h.w. bush. >> he believed in civility with everyone. he worked across the aisle to get things done. abigail: it is all straight ahead on "bloomberg best." hello and welcome. i'm abigail doolittle. this is "bloomberg best," your weekly review of the most

important business news, analysis, and inte let's start with a day by day look at the top headlines. the week began on a note of optimism for investors amid reports from the g20 summit that the world's two largest economies had called a truce in their trade war. >> the u.s. and china have agreed to put their trade war on hold, at least into the new year. >> presidents trump and xi reaching a truce after a highly anticipated dinner on the sidelines of the g20 summit. what led us to this agreement? >> neither president trump nor president xi has said since that agreement or that truce was struck on saturday night what motivated them to come to a deal or a would be deal, but we should assume that both delegations and both countries recognize now that an escalated trade war is good for no one.

it is hard to see it as anything but a victory for the u.s. and certainly a concession by the chinese. the american delegation pushed all of the other g20 leaders to back off on issues like energy security, multilateralism, the mention of protectionism was taken out of the communique. there were a number of areas, the wto, recognition in the communique that the wto needed reform, these are all major issues for the trump administration, and in many ways you could say that they won on them all. >> crude oil has jumped the most since june. saudi arabia and russia extended practice to manage the market. canada's largest producing province has ordered unprecedented output curves. this comes as qatar says it will leave opec next month. there is russia and saudi sticking to the deal, then there is canada. >> the politics are a lot more interesting than the oil side of it.

qatar within the realm of oil is not enormously important. 610,000 barrels per day. it is one of the smallest members. it is already producing maximum capacity. it is really important to say that they are out of the cartel right now. >> the news got the market on the hop. >> it is more than 300,000 barrels per day, which is more than some of the smallest opec members produced in their entirety. it is likely that because they are using emergency powers to do this that they will have to follow through. all of a sudden, that is quite a lot of oil not in the north american market. >> a section of the u.s. treasury yield curve has inverted for the first time in more than a decade. the spread between three-year and five-year yields turned negative for the first time in -- since 2007. 2-5 year has followed suit.

it could be the first time that the market sees the end of the fed's tightening cycle approaching. >> we normally see the 2-10 curves invert about 18 months before recession. the 3-5 inversion has been even before that. i think we are very ahead of the point where we are coming to a recession. equity markets can continue running after that type of inversion. >> markets rallied yesterday on news of an apparent cease-fire on trade between the united states and china, but then pulled back as it seems the two sides might have different views about what exactly was agreed upon. what is the deal? >> i think there is something of a disconnect. china's spin machine is not quite what we have seen from the u.s. side. china made a move on ip protection. we know it essential to the u.s.-china trade war. the u.s. accused the chinese companies of stealing intellectual property. china is targeting those companies with 38 different

punishments who are found guilty of stealing ip. they will lock them from the bond market and order forms. it is not a game changer in the trade war, it is a micro measure that we have had while we wait for some more formal wording when president xi gets back to beijing. >> there you have the closing bell, the end of a very long trading day if you are long on non-us equities. the dow losing more than 800 points at one point. we are not closing at our lowest. we are about the puking of the market. is there an agreed-upon definition? >> very technical term. [laughter] i'm not aware of one, but it is one that you know it when you see it. it is so ugly. you certainly see it today. >> there is nothing new in terms of the news we got today. steady drip drip, you get a relatively hawkish williams. some unfavorable brexit headlines. push below the 200 day moving average. then all heck breaks loose and we flow to the downside on pretty high volumes.

i think that theory works fairly well. >> china's minister of commerce says it will push forward with trade negotiations over the next 90 days after what it calls a very successful meeting with president trump, but investors are skeptical about the prospects of a meaningful breakthrough. not surprising that investors are little bit skeptical. they say that they will implement specific items agreed upon at the meeting, but really they don't outline what they were. >> that is exactly it, that is the key question. what are these items? there are lines dropped from the ministry of commerce in the last few minutes in beijing painting a pretty optimistic picture of what happened during those talks and saying they're going to implement some of these items asap, but as you rightly pointed to, what are these exact items? we don't have any details yet. two key areas we are looking for. auto tariffs. trump saying china would move those. we want to get confirmation if

indeed that is the case. the other is the agricultural products, particularly given that trump tweeted that china would be immediately ubying -- immediately buying significant amounts of u.s. agriculture. looking to the chinese side to confirm or deny that. still more details needed, but we have had the first comments out of china's ministry of commerce in relation to the g20 meeting. >> president george herbert walker bush, 41st president of the united states, was laid to rest. >> this is being described as a funeral service that has all of the staples of classic george h.w. bush. former president bush becoming only the 12th president to lay in state at the u.s. capitol. >> does it say anything about our times to you that so many people on different sides of the political aisle are remembering him so fondly this week? >> it does. listen, he believed in civility

with everyone, he worked across the aisle to get things done. he was always focused on getting things done. what is right for the country. if it was going to hurt him politically, so be it. some things he did did hurt him politically, but he was always trying to do what was right. >> huawei's cfo has been arrested in canada over potential violations of sanctions on iran. the move appears to heighten tensions between washington and beijing days after a trade truce was agreed. this feels like a very big deal. what do we know so far? >> this is a huge deal. i want to point out that she is not just the cfo of hauwei, she is also the vice chairwoman, she has been at the company more than 20 years. she is also the daughter of the founder. she is royalty. she is very important in china's corporate scene and politically connected, being at the top of such a large company. the u.s. is alleging that

huawei, similar to the allegations against zte, sold equipment to iran, busting sanctions against iran that the u.s. has had in place for a while, basically accusing huawei of being sanction-busters. she being a key executive as part of that process. >> reports from japan say the government plans to ban the use of equipment from chinese telco companies huawei and cte following the arrest of huawei cfo meng wanzhou in canada. the white house says the trump administration knew about the arrest before trade talks with china, but that the president was not aware of her detention. how significant is it that the president did not know? >> if he knew and went ahead with the trade talks, that would have been significant. what is really significant now is what this means, what this arrest means, how it complicates this relationship, and there is concern that china could retaliate, not only in terms of

further trade repercussions, but also other repercussions. >> after nearly two days of talks in vienna, we have a deal and a larger one than expected in terms of the cut delivered. opec has agreed with its allies to cut production by 1.2 million barrels per day. a deal effectively done by saudi and the russians. we will go through the mechanics of how it happened and the reaction to it amongst some of the other delegates. >> it came down to saudi, russia, and iran. 1.2 million barrels per day is the number. the market took that as a welcome surprise. everyone was talking about 1,000,000 barrels per day. opec will shoulder the brunt of this. they could not act without rush -- without russia on board. politically, iran was the winner. able to go back to tehran saying they are exempt from the cuts. >> who contributes all of that or some of that is fairly

significant for us. saudi arabia will contribute more, there is a bit of flexibility. >> jobs day in america, payrolls coming in below forecast. wage gains missing estimates. highlights. >> you know the number, 155,000 jobs, weaker than expected. you will need about 110,000 to absorb new entrants to the labor force. with average annual earnings of 3.1%, the fed is on track for december. what happens next year? the fed may want to take a pause. >> today's jobs report suggests a solid u.s. economy, somewhat softer than expected but a 3.1% wage growth, 120,000 job creation over a three-month average, that is a pretty good report. it means the fed will hike in december, but i agree with mike, the fed is going to reconsider next year and it may well move down to where the market is. >> what i'm looking at, i think

they are signaling that maybe they will do something later this month may be, but that will be all for quite some time and i would just add to that that my boss, president trump, that is very much in line with his thinking. the fed is independent and he has never crashed that wall, but he has been suggesting for a while that the fed should not be too tight. it looks like the fed is on its own making its own decisions based on their data read, it looks like they're coming to the same conclusion. abigail: still ahead as we review the week on "bloomberg best," an exclusive interview with the fed's richard clarida. and paul krugman shares views on the path of monetary policy. >> i would be pausing. >> plus, confusion in the auto industry over what president trump may plan to do with tariffs. up next, more of the week's top business headlines. protesters in yellow vests force

french officials to waive the white flag on gas taxes. >> the initial interviews with members of the yellow vests said that they were not impressed. abigail: this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ abigail: this is "bloomberg best." i am abigail doolittle. let's continue our global tour of the week's top business stories. in europe, where political and economic volatility was the dominant theme of the week. >> prime minister theresa may versus parliament in a battle that will determine how brexit turns out. the weakness of her position was highlighted by losing three

votes in the house of commons over her agreement with the european union. parliament has to decide on a plan b if it rejects may's plan. if you are an international investor, you are trying to figure out if it makes a vote less likely. >> it is all very confusing. what we saw yesterday was parliament asserting itself into this process far more firmly and really just showing up mrs. may has a minority government. she was not able to win any of these three votes that came through yesterday. that does not bode well for obviously the big vote, which is still on track to happen next tuesday night. the other thing to note that happened yesterday which was perhaps more significant, the european top court gave an opinion that actually britain is allowed unilaterally to stop the article 6 and that is a bit of a game changer. it means parliament could potentially instruct the government to cancel article 50.

that gives them time for another vote for another election. >> the yellow vest protests have continued to rock france this weekend. saturday you saw protests in paris and around the country and they resulted in over 100 injured and more than 400 arrests. president macron is refusing to back down from his plans to raise the gasoline tax. does the government know which way to take this in order to diffuse the situation? >> it really doesn't. it does not know exactly what they could do to diffuse the situation. the demands of expanded way -- the demands have expanded way beyond the original protests about higher gasoline taxes. it is now just a general protest against the high cost of living. one thing they could probably do is delay or postpone a tax increase on gasoline and diesel that is due to take effect in january. two problems with that, it is very much part of president macron's tax policy and

ecological projects, and he is not the type to back down. >> emmanuel macron's government is backing off its plan to hike gasoline and diesel taxes. the prime minister announced in a televised address that the government will suspend the plan hikes for six months and will start a three-month debate on how to fight climate change. will this stop the protests? >> i don't think so. the initial interviews with members of the yellow vests said that they were not impressed. and also this movement is much more about just a few points on taxes, it is a general unhappiness on so many issues, many of which emmanuel macron cannot do much about. the might be some moderates who are satisfied and won't protest anymore but for the bulk of the movement, i see it continuing. >> the euro area showing no signs of a meaningful economic rebound with italy on the verge

of recession after the populist government fought with the european commissioner for spending plans. two things stood out to me over the data released. one with the situation with the italian numbers, but also the poor situation with the german numbers. italian numbers are bad because the manufacturing. is the situation in italy similar to the one in germany? can we draw a line between these poor numbers and the fight that has been picked between rome and brussels? >> i think we can draw a line between the two. the italians have their own problems. let's remember that when things go bad in germany, that also has a big effect on italy. that is what people are worrying about. is the slowdown meddling in germany, but also other parts of the euro area, and the italians are worried the whole thing could have a bad impact on them. >> in germany, angela merkel exit from her party leadership is currently underway.

there is a party meeting to determine whether to select another candidate or appoint her chosen successor. >> akk has been elected to be the new leader of the cdu party in germany. >> she said in her acceptance speech just now that she wants to maintain the cdu as a large people's party in the middle, so that has been merkel's strategy, how she has won the last 13 years, keeping the center occupied in germany and then collecting some votes from the left of the cdu that they previously have not gotten. they had lost a lot of votes to the right and the alternative deutscheland is present in every one of the 16 state governments, as well as the national government. this is something that friedrich was hoping to change. now it is up to akk and her team

to try to do that while carrying on angela merkel's policies. ♪

♪ abigail: you are watching "bloomberg best," i'm abigail doolittle. federal reserve chairman jerome powell's testimony before congress was canceled as washington paused to honor the late president george h.w. bush. fed watchers were able to get exclusive insight from vice chair richard clarida who joined tom keene for a conversation on bloomberg surveillance. tom asked how policymakers are factoring trade tensions into their economic projections. tom: if we diminish trade, what is the price? >> in terms of the outlook for

the u.s. economy, trade is an important part. i don't think we are going there. trade is a very important part of the global economy right now. i think the u.s. economy is in good shape and we can talk about risky scenarios, but i think it is very solid. tom: within the trade is the idea of exports and imports of america, how does fed policy link into these debates or do you feel it will be more removed in the future, more sterile to monetary policy? >> i'm not going to get into the politics. i think fed policy is important in terms of making sure u.s. economy achieves maximum employment and stable inflation and that is really a dual mandate given to the fed by congress. we are focusing on what we need to do with our tools to achieve that mandate. tom: chairman powell focused in his speech on financial stability. should that be a mandate of your fed? >> the way that i think about financial stability is obviously

very important, the fed has an important role in supervision and regulation, and also if we achieve price stability and full employment, that will contribute to financial stability. i think that is the appropriate balance. tom: let's move to the current dialogue. on friday, john williams of san francisco and also of the new york fed, with i thought a really sharp speech -- we have some john williams -- the "problem we need to solve these days is the risk of inflation that is persistently too low rather than too high, price level targeting and its various offshoots, such as nominal gdp targeting promises to overshoot the target inflation rate in good times to make up for inflation under-shoot when policy is constrained." do we need a new regime at the fed that looks at the combination of real economic growth and price change? >> tom, i think the fed has a

framework that has been in place since 2012 and i think it is serving the fed well. that said, a lot has changed since 2012. as my colleague and friend john williams emphasized, we are in a world of low equilibrium risk rates. in a future downturn, there is less room for conventional monetary policy. what that means is that central banks need to be just as worried about keeping inflation at target is going above the -- as going above the target. abigail: we've got more discussion of the fed straight ahead from nobel prize-winning economist paul krugman. plus the presidents of argentina and ukraine talk about the very urgent issues facing their countries in a pair of exclusive interviews. and the brexit deal may be facing long odds in parliament for theresa may. up next, the royal bank of scotland ceo explains why he is backing the plan. >> any deal when you have

negotiated hard over a long period of time, you are not going to get everything you want. abigail: this is bloomberg. ♪ ♪ there's no place like home ♪

argh! i'm trying... ♪ yippiekiyay. ♪ mom. ♪

♪ abigail: welcome back to "bloomberg best," i'm abigail doolittle. paul krugman brought economic insight to bloomberg television this week. topics, whether the fed should continue policy of gradual hikes in 2019. pausing until we are clear, inflation numbers above 2% at minimum. i think you percent is too low. argument andhat the fed goes crazy. >> what numbers? >> certainly, -- our estimates

of real neutral rate have been 1.5% points,, since 2% target became orthodoxy. you should raise inflation rate by that amount. >> pce? >> i am a core pce or something like that. it shouldn't matter much. you are overly sensitive to data if it depends. >> do you think the economy is rolling over? yield curve flattening. anding data pretty mediocre u.s. -- in the u.s. how robust is the economy? >> i am not especially good at this. we had the tax cut. tax cut gave fiscal stimulus. no more after this. out ofy the crowding sectors from high interest rates at times.

you would expect the economy to slow. rolling over, i don't see it. abigail: let's turn to global politics. g-7 nationsof g20, issued a statement condemning russia's use of force and ukraine. petro poroshenko spoke exclusively with bloomberg. here is the exclusive conversation with the argentina president macri who has to reassure investors that his reforms can control inflation. we are committed to keep working hard, to resist inflation. we know that affects the poor people first. >> can it be lower than 20% by the end of the year? pres. macri: no. no forecasting. i will not be trapped.

>> let me ask you, you have articulated economic strategy to markets clearly, with the help of the imf. investors aren't buying it. bonds are still trading at yield of more than 10%. why? pres. macri: no. >> i checked. pres. macri: today we improved. long-term bonds, short-term bonds. >> 10 year bonds. pres. macri: let me tell you. i understand what is going on. stateson between united and china. >> you think that is affecting your bond yields? pres. macri: absolutely. affecting all emerging markets. next election is coming. >> yes. the investors i have spoken with tell me they need to know your political strategy. what is it? why? because, if you lose the

election, your economic strategy will die a quick death in 12 months. if the opposition wins, your strategy is not enforced. what is your strategy for winning the election? pres. macri: keep telling the truth. keep working together with my citizens. showing them that this is the only way. g20 helped. for g20 and the bilateral meetings, they all agreed we are doing the right reforms. this is the new type of war. hybrid work. cyberattack,he western democracy, disinformation campaign, this is attack theto

different countries during their elections, the embargo on buying ukrainian goods, stop supplying natural gas in the most important factor, using military force against independent country, including ukraine. >> you mentioned the election. does the fact that ports have opened and the straight has opened partially, mean that you might be able to end martial law earlier? what is the status? definitely,enko ukraine is the object of unprovoked aggression from the russian federation. they are not covering any smokescreen about their presence. , to stop the

occupation of the sea, we have intelligence information shared with western partners, about concentration of russian ground forces alongside the ukrainian-russian border. they increased it three times. citizens,tanks, electronic warfare systems, flights of intelligence planes, and number of artillery. definitelyituation, i introduced martial law, and i think parliament supports my proposal just to make a quicker reaction if vladimir putin makes a decision. at the same time, we do not thet any rights of ukrainian people. write for freedom, democracy --

rights for freedom, democracy. if we postpone the election, there is only one winner. the name is mr. putin. we do not give them this chance. abigail: for one more exclusive interview from this week. withine lacqua sat down ross mcewan in london. he says uncertainty over brexit is doing damage to the british economy, which is why he supports theresa may's deal with the eu. ross: i have been a backer of the deal. i do not see another deal. from a business perspective, we need certainty. with any deal, we negotiate hard over a long time, you are not going to get everything you want. some things you have to give up on to give something else and get something else. investment is not being made. months,the last 6-12

companies are not investing long-term at the moment. that is what is important for the u.k. economy. build certainty. get through. it is in the hands of mp's. there is a deal on the table. take up your minds if you want it or not. >> hard brexit, are they ready for it? ross: i don't think so. conversations we have had with business customers, we are the largest lender in the economy, the bank might be ready but there were many of our customers who are just not ready for hard brexit. they do not understand the ramifications. we have been talking to customers over the last 3-6 months. what are your contingency plans? very few have them. many have thought about it. in the construction industry,

you are importing from europe -- ok, where do i store them? where are the storage areas? if i need three months supply chain extension, where do i store? these are issues that many businesses have looked at. they do not know how to work through. >> recession coming? ross: if we don't get a certain isition, hard brexit, there a chance the economy will go into recession. anyone that says there is europe, remain, this and that, the reality is, uncertainty will push the economy into slower growth then we have had in the last months. ♪

♪ abigail: this is "bloomberg

best," i'm abigail doolittle. let's resume the roundup of the top business stories with more activity around trade. the auto industry found itself at the center of the storm that started with a tweet. >> stocks this morning rising after president trump. "china has agreed to remove tariffs on cars into china on the u.s." the spokesman declined to comment. tariff cut for the rest of the world. do we go to the rest of the world tariff or something else? >> it is confusing at this point. the market is taking a clear takeaway. pullbackeem to be the from using this threat of escalating levies, one escalation after another. a story of one where the top-selling cars built in u.s.

and shipped to china are actually german suvs. tesla is all import brand in china. same for lincoln. gm has local production in china. no immediate effect. perhaps, a signal of this threat of import tariffs on autos being used case-by-case by the trump administration going after what they see as bad actors, like china, eu. >> shares of u.s. automakers higher today after the big three top november sales estimates. trump administration says china would remove tariffs on american-made vehicles. that comment came through twitter. how much of the rise in gm and ford today is due to that tweet? >> most of it is. the shares of both companies were trading in premarket action up before sales numbers were

out. a pop came out as well. the market likes the companies today. one of the things that has held shares down is uncertainty over trade. there might be tariffs coming down. good news for auto stocks, any industrials. that has helped. >> executives of the three german automakers go to the white house today to discuss tariffs. mercedes-benz has the most to lose. they had a constructive meeting. they tried to make the case to the president about the investments companies are willing to make in the u.s. and how that would impact domestic jobs. chattanooga,eing tennessee in particular about opening a plant. on the flipside. they do not want the 25% tariff. they tried to make the case not

just to the president, but other senior economic advisors they met with at the white house. they were not able to get a concrete deal. volatility and angst in washington dc reverberating in markets heading into february next year. qualcomm has ruled out any chance it would return for semiconductors. this after china opened the door after g20 to looking at qualcomm nxp again. why would they not revisit the $44 billion deal? >> this is a case of this ship has sailed. qualcomm has commenced 21 billion buyback program, using cash previously earmarked for the nxp deal. semiconductor analytics have changed. this was two years ago. semiconductor cycle on upswing. now you are not seeing that.

there are concerns of slowing growth across the sector of semiconductor components. to make this big bet now, it does not add up for qualcomm. >> apple trying to boost sales of iphone, offering promotions for the blockbuster. a shift in strategy. apple has never discounted. handsets,ed market, increasingly competitive. apples unit sales have slowed. we think. they stopped reporting unit sales. we are going into the christmas season. they recognize to grow unit sales they may need to be more promotional. it may be a short-term push to drive unit sales into the holidays. the concern from investors clearly will be -- is this promotional pricing going to be something that is long-term for this product? if so, that goes into the pricing story, which had been

bullish for apple investors, even though unit sales are slowing, apple still has pricing power. that may be getting challenged. >> u.k. parliamentary committee published facebook details revealing deals that may have given third-party developers access to personal data. facebook shuted off access to data required by competing apps. they are not selling data. they are leveraging it. >> what is in these internal documents -- it is astounding. they show that facebook a priority access or special treatment to apps that would encourage more time on facebook or spent more money advertising on facebook, but also shut out access gave apps limited

if they would compete with facebook. unusual view into the innerworkings of this company and how they make decisions. >> the federal reserve publishes. the report on economic anecdotes from across the nation. reportseige book, most include moderate growth. what i took away from this report is optimism seems to be waning. >> optimism factor was the key point. driven by three things. tariffs. higher rates. interest market constraints. away, fed hikes are discounted, expecting three from now till the end of next year. that is already priced and. if we get a melting of tensions, actual action and improvement on trade relationship between u.s. and china -- i think we are seeing now -- optimism can

certainly bounce back. -- priced in to the markets. i am not overly concerned. >> filing to go public. the ride-hailing service competing with uber completed documents for the ipo, working with credit suisse and jp morgan. from $18tion ranging billion to $30 billion. the filing is confidential. what do we know? >> very little. companies have been able to do these confidential filings for 1.5 years. sec gets early looks at the numbers. they can go back with feedback. we do not get to see anything and investors don't yet. this tells us thatlyft wants us to know that it has done this. it is almost like firing the start, kicking off the

regulatory process, filing the real numbers, saying it is getting ready to go. announcements.l generalush attorney william barr, and heather now it moving to the united nations -- heather nauert moving to the united nations. >> william barr will replace jeff sessions at the justice department. barr has written favorably, from trump's perspective, on significant issues. he will be tested in the senate. they will demand to know that he will protect robert mueller from any move to remove him. ♪

♪ abigail: this is "bloomberg

best," i'm abigail doolittle. this week, america mourned the passing of one of its leaders. george herbert walker bush was a man whose life reflected and shaped the second half of the 20th century. figures from around the world gathered to celebrate his legacy wednesday. a look at the life of george h w bush. i, george herbert walker bush do solemnly swear. >> that i will faithfully execute the office of the president of the united states. >> that i will faithfully execute the office of the president of the united states. >> he became the 41st president on friday, january 20, 1989. he was born in new england in 1924. his father was a banker and politician. the family lived in connecticut where bush attended private

schools. he did not go to yale right away. he entered the u.s. navy on his 18th party. he flew 58 combat missions in the south pacific, including when his aircraft was hit. with his plane on fire, he dropped his bombs on target and floated for a raft for hours before being rescued. lieutenant bush married barbara pierce. they started a family. he went to yale. he was captain of his fraternity and the baseball team. after graduation, they moved to west texas, where he started his own oil company, moved to houston and began a career in politics. by the mid-1960, he was a congressman, the first republican to represent houston. richard nixon appointed him u.s. ambassador to the united nations. he served as director of the cia, vice president and president.

baker,s friend, james calling it the most successful one term president in history. >> if you look at what happened in the world and the way he managed that, the way he managed the end of the cold war, it ended with a whimper, was really incredible. look at the other things along the way. as anification of germany, member of nato, the coalition he put together to a verse iraq's aggression inchoate. ending the wars in latin america. -- aggression in kuwait. >> is achilles heel, pledging not to raise taxes, he reached across the aisle to reduce the deficit. when the economy turned down, he lost the president to baby boomer and arkansas governor bill clinton in a three-way race

with fellow texan ross perot. >> not easy. you are trying your hardest. a great feeling of letting down a lotta people. a lot of people that worked for me. you have this ghastly feeling you let them down. then you get over it and go on with your life. >> moving on including more time devoted to his family in the service of others. in 2005, he and bill clinton partnered to raise funds for victims of the indian ocean tsunami and haiti. >> we have been given a lot of material things and been very blessed. you look around to others. you must feel a responsibility to others. you must believe in serving others. that is a fundamental tenet of my life. >> his wife of 73 years, barbara bush, died earlier this year. after her funeral, he largely

kept out of the public eye, spending time with friends and family. five children, 14 grandchildren, and even more great grandchildren. when asked about what was to come he said "he was not afraid." >> not a worrying thing. feeling cheated out of something -- i don't know where i would be in life if i was not blessed with kids and grandkids, family. ♪ abigail: you can find much more on the life and legacy of george h w bush at bloomberg.com including analysis of his economic and foreign policy record, including his life of public service, along with all business news and analysis. that is all for "bloomberg best," thanks for watching.

i'm abigail doolittle. this is bloomberg. ♪

♪ carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." >> joining you from bloomberg headquarters in new york. >> we dive into the second annual bloomberg 50, the people driving change this year. jason: plus, the cash trade dragging down general electric.