♪ carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. we are here at bloomberg headquarters in new york. carol: this week, how things operate at the world's best performing stock market. jason: we're talking about the jamaican stock exchange. also, investing legend jeremy grantham. carol: and this businessman is using his deep pockets to take on climate change.

jason: and we talk about one of the most talked about politicians in america. carol: we are of course talking about new york democratic congresswoman alexandria ocasio-cortez. establishment politicians from both parties are very cautious of her socialist policies. jason: who is also curious, wall street. aoc, what is she all about? carol: especially because she is poised to a house panel overseeing the financial sector. jason: we get more from our economics editor. >> there has been a consensus for low taxes for a while. ever since the reagan revolution in the 1980's brought tax rates way down. and republicans have probably been more aggressive in bringing rates down, but democrats say no, no, we are good with that. so in 2016, hillary clinton did not propose any increase in marginal tax rates. bernie sanders, the flaming leftist from vermont, dared to propose a 52% marginal tax rate, which compares to the mid-30's for where they are now. that was considered like as far

as anyone could possibly conceive of going, even if you are an avowed democratic socialist. then alexandra ocasio-cortez goes on 60 minutes and anderson cooper is asking her about how she will pay for this green new deal. she says that people have to pay their fair share and in the past we had tax rates as high as 60% or 70%. so then the internet lights up with this. people cheering her on, people booing her. but suddenly, these numbers like 70%, which were completely off the table, not even up for discussion by the likes of bernie sanders are suddenly being talked about. not to say that everybody likes the idea, but as i read in the article, the first step was to get it debated. that is what she has done. carol: listen, it has worked well for president trump. he often talks about an issue and gets it out there, and gets

a conversation going. >> right. it is more than a trial balloon. you expected to get shot at, but this could actually get somewhere. there is a phrase you see a lot on the twitterverse of an overton window. and the idea there that goes back to a fairly right-wing guy who coined the expression. it is sort of the window, the range of ideas that are considered acceptable to even be talked about. does not have to be liked, but worth even discussing. and she seems to have pulled to the left the overton window on taxes. and she has gotten the conversation going. a lot of economists who had kind of kept quiet are starting to trundle out research about

numbers in that range. of course, people who i spoke to for the story are like, their hair is on fire, are you crazy? what a terrible idea that would be. but she's shaking them up. carol: from the u.s. cover on the youngest woman ever elected to congress to the world's hottest stock market we go. jason: it is a story on the incredible run of jamaica's stock market. carol: we have a great chart to illustrate that. equities on the jamaican exchange their up almost 300% over the last five years. the black line representing jamaican stock market. for reference, those lines on the bottom, the red one is the s&p 500. not even close. jason: the poor little s&p. look at the jamaican performance, that is unbelievable. carol: right. the s&p, since going to the beginning of january 2014, has only gone about 40%. the jamaican stock market, almost 300%. jason: and that is trading at only three and a half hours a day. carol: unbelievable. and we get more from our editor.

>> i was sitting at my desk trying to think up blog posts for our markets blog, and i was completely out of ideas. i thought, what was the best-performing stock market? i looked it up on the terminal and it was jamaica, i thought that was interesting. i did the search again. i was wondering if it was a flash in the pan, but over the past five years, they have blown everybody away. up about 300%. way more than the next best, way more than the s&p. saying --joking, this was in november, starting to get cold, and i said, "clearly i need to go to jamaica in the winter to investigate this." i was joking with my boss and i tend to repeat my jokes, and by the second or third time, i thought i really should go to jamaica and check this out. so i did, and the more i investigated, the more i realized it is an even bigger story than great stock market

returns. it is the story of an economy that was in deep trouble under a huge pile of debt. they had a banking crisis in the 1990's, then they were hit by the global financial crisis which had a lot of collateral damage on economies. tourism dollars dried-up, the mining industry suffered because of a global slump, and they found themselves with a lot of government debt. it got as high as 145% gdp. their debt pile was 45% bigger than the size of their entire economy. and this is something economists track very closely. greece and italy, their debt to gdp ratios are really what triggered all the concern. jamaica has sort of a national pride of always repaying its debt, so defaulting was not an option. so what they did is they turned to the imf, with which they have had an on-again, off-again, dysfunctional relationship or years, very contentious, and they worked out a unique

experiment where the imf lowered the debt burden significantly, but they did not do a haircut, where you reduce the principal. they basically refinanced, and most of the bondholders were domestic banks. that is the backstory. and the amazing thing is that it is working. the debt to gdp ratio has gone from about 1.45% to about 100. carol: wow, big reduction. >> a huge reduction. the goal is 60% within 4-5 years. and so what that does, the bond market was crowding everything else out. interest payments took up half of the government's revenue. carol: how can you implement or spend on programs that might help the economy? >> exactly, you can't. it is very difficult. and interest rates were superhigh and local jamaicans knew that the government did not

want to default. so investment dollars that sucked into this bond market. so if you tame the bond market, it opens up avenues for the equity markets to prosper. jason: we have heard a lot about the jamaican stock market, but what does it mean for the overall economy? taylor riggs is here. taylor: i can answer that question for you. it is interesting -- with the stock market, only the top three companies were driving that market higher. that might be a reason it is not necessarily translating into as much gdp growth for jamaica as we would like to see. come in to the terminal, of course we have a chart for that. we are a look at the jamaican economy, this is jamaican gdp, general growth year-over-year. in purple, that is exactly what the history has been in the last year, 2017, only growing .6%. in green, white, and red, we

have the highest forecast, the median, and the lowest forecast. the highest forecast can get up to 2.4%. even the lowest forecast to be about 1.7%. that is still the highest going back since 2011. you might see some growth start to pick up here for jamaica. even as we talk global growth as well. carol: and as mike talked about in his story, he talked about foreign investment coming into the country. they are hoping that people start to recognize the stock market, even more will come in and translate to economic growth. jason: it will actually draw more money in that ultimately boosts the economy. thank you so much. carol: later on, we get some investing advice from nba legend shaquille o'neal. jason: and next, billionaire jeremy grantham is famous for being right. carol: and predicting doom. jason: his latest warning, up next. carol: this is bloomberg businessweek. ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. join me and carol every day for bloomberg businessweek on the radio. from 2:00 p.m. until 5:00 p.m. wall street time. also catch up by listening to our podcast on itunes, soundcloud, and bloomberg.com. carol: and you can find us online at businessweek.com and on our mobile app. jason: in the finance section, investing legend jeremy grantham has got a strong track record of predicting bubbles before they pop. carol: right, and that includes the tech crash and the financial crisis. jason: now he is giving a talk titled "the race of our lives." carol: is warning is about the warming of our planet and he has donated $1 billion of his own money to help the world avoid catastrophe. >> he is 80-years-old. he has wound down a lot of his involvement with the firm he founded. he is touring the country, touring the world, really, and

getting this talk called "the race of our lives," and it is about the race between climate change, which is accelerating, and the innovations coming along to solve it. batteries are improving much better than people expected, solar power, wind power. but he is really scaring people -- and he's trying to scare people, scare investors, because he is saying that this thing is going to get really bad really quickly. and a lot of people talk about rising sea levels, but he is really focused on agriculture and population, and really pointing out that if climate change continues the way it is continuing, people are going to starve. there's not going to be enough food and the food system will degrade pretty quickly. carol: but he is not just talking, though, he is putting money behind this. >> is giving away 98% of his net worth, which is $1 billion.

he likes to say that in the investment industry, we are all very overpaid. so he loves to be provocative and say these things. he is giving away almost all his money and he lives a very thrifty lifestyle. he has lived in the same house since the 1970's, and he did buy a tesla model 3, but that is pretty much his only indulgence. jason: the thriftiness, you outline this a little bit, it is extreme, especially for someone who makes this kind of money and works this much. >> yeah, i was talking to some of his colleagues at gmo, and they were like, i remember helping him carry his bags to the tube because he did not want to take a car to the airport. this is a guy running a firm that right now manages $70 billion. carol: there are a lot of wealthy people who put money to causes, but i guess what is kind of interesting about jeremy grantham is that he has made some smart calls in the past. he has seen bubbles in the past, and likens it to the population bubble we are seeing. he says that if you are seeing this on a chart, you would say, ok, this is a hot market. >> i'm going to short humans. that is the scary part of this presentation, he is saying the

next bubble is humans. like the tech bubble, the financial crisis, the japanese bubble which he also spotted. he is making this point that we cannot go on like this. either people will starve or civilization and large parts of the country will collapse. jason: what was his sort of "a-ha" moment? when did that happen? he has accelerated his fervor. >> the 2000 election came along and, for some reason, that really radicalized him. i think he really bought into some of al gore's thinking. he has always been a conventional environmentalist, he and his wife. they traveled deep into borneo when their kids were young and has always had an attachment to preserving beautiful places. but i think at that point, he says that i realized there were these serious issues with

capitalism, that it was not going to be able to grapple with these long-term challenges. we need to have a much more interventionist approach from government on the stuff. and he started to ramp up his giving. carol: when you think about agriculture, right, the earth can ultimately give just so much unless they come up with some system that somehow increases the amount of food production. i mean, we already are still struggling to feed people around the world, to make sure we have enough water. some of that is socioeconomic, but the earth can give so much. >> one of the interesting things he is doing is half of his money, the billion dollars he is planning on giving away, he has it in venture capital and private equity, a lot of startups. and that is unheard of, for somebody to put half of their portfolio in illiquid investments. and a chunk of that is mission

driven, solar power, carpenters. it is also next generation agriculture, so speaking about how will we grow the food in the future when we have lost a lot of topsoil? when a lot of the places where we grow our grains have been degraded by climate change? he is worried about the river deltas in asia, where all the rice is grown. that will get inundated by rising sea levels. so he is thinking about trying to invest in technologies that actually maybe even makes some money off of this. jason: up next, the mounting toll of the u.s. government shutdown. carol: plus, a destitute los angeles mall gets a lifeline from google. jason: there is a tom petty reference in that one. and later, what it is like to golf at one of the world's most coveted clubs. we take you to scottsdale national. carol: get your own personalized club. this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm jason kelly. carol: and i'm carol massar. you can listen to us on the radio on sirius xm and in new york, boston, washington, dc. jason: am 960 in the bay area. london on the dab digital, and on our business app. carol: it has been a record long government shutdown in the united states. jason: and the costs of this political standoff are mounting. carol: we have more on the story and an update. >> these two sides don't feel compelled to negotiate. donald trump feels strongly that the american people agree with him that there should be a border wall constructed, that it should be funded. democrats feel strongly, especially after the midterm elections, that they don't, and they don't feel political pressure to give in to these demands from the president.

and because the two sides are so far apart and disagree even on that basic, fundamental point of who is shouldering the blame or who this is politically advantageous to, there's not a lot of momentum towards getting a solution reached. the other thing we have not seen so far is a catastrophic result of the shutdown. here in washington, we see the sort of day-to-day impact, but there has not been a high-profile incident, a big drop off in the market, something like that that would really kind of shake lawmakers into action. carol: i remember talking to craig gordon as we were leading up to the holidays. we were saying, who is going to care? there weren't a lot of employees around anyway. but the longer it goes on, the more significant impact it has. >> exactly, and we are starting to see the impact on the american people. the trump administration has done a lot they say will sort of blunt that impact. so they said they're going to continue to put out tax refunds. they are going to keep national

parks open. but you are seeing the other side of that. so tsa lines are getting longer, more employees are not getting paid and are calling out sick. national parks are being overrun by garbage and trash, that sort of thing. so i think that even as much the administration is trying to keep this from turning into something that is going to force their hand, the effects are just growing and growing and that growing and growing in magnitude. jason: you have been following this white house since the administration came on board. what does it tell us about the politics inside? what does it tell us about the posture? this is dealmaking with no deal, to some extent. >> it is a reflection of a president and the staff that just does not have a lot of experience making deals in washington. so president trump obviously had no political experience before he decided to run for president. and the top aides left at the white house don't as well. mick mulvaney, the acting chief of staff, is someone who was a

tea party member of congress before he came to the white house, was a part of what he called the shutdown caucus when he was in congress. he does not have a great history of being able to work across the aisle, neither do senior aides like stephen miller, who before he came to the white house was a top aide of jeff sessions and best known for scuttling immigration deals on capitol hill. so it looks more and more like what you will need to get out of this is a broad, overall deal on something that would give democrats a little bit so that president trump can get what he wants. he is not equipped and does not have people nearby who would pave the way for such a deal. and i think that is another reason we are not seeing a lot of movement so far on the shutdown. jason: in the finance section, the iconic los angeles mall, the westside pavilion, was once featured in a tom petty video, "free fallin," and in movies like "clueless." carol: taking you back to your

teenage years. the mall has faded, unfortunately, and now is just a handful of shops. jason: it is about to get a massive makeover and one new tenant, google. carol: let's get more from reporter lily katz. >> i will take you back to 1989. the year the song "free fallin" came out by tom petty and he sewn to the music video for that song at a mall in los angeles called the westside pavilion. it was an iconic mall from the 1980's, and it was a popular place to hang out. teens were hanging out there on weekends. fast forward to today, the rise of online shopping, amazon, there is competition from malls nearby. so the owners of this mall had to figure out, what do we do with this place? the mall started to fade. it has around 20 tenants now, down from over 100 at its peak. they said, what are we going to do here. what they ended up doing was found a new tenant to lease almost the entire space. carol: and it is a great tenant, we are talking about google.

how the heck does that happen? how does google say, one of the big tech companies, redefining how we work. they say, oh yeah, let's just get office space in a mall. >> it had a lot to do with the location. this would not happen just anywhere. it is l.a., a dense population. this mall is near public transit and near freeways and happens to be near a lot of tech talent. there is also a high demand for space and not enough inventory for offices. so it just sort of fell together and made sense. some might say these mall owners got lucky. jason: right, but they have been, to your point, really rethinking how they use the space. a lot of it is going towards more experiential type concepts, as it were. >> yeah, and mall redevelopment is not really anything new. malls all over the country have been repurposing the space of struggling malls and adding movie theaters, doctors offices,

and fancy restaurants because people want experiences. just shopping for clothing is not really enough to bring people to a mall anymore. carol: you want a place to hang. >> exactly. but what is unique about the situation is you have one tenant, and not just any, google, renting out almost the entire space. and that is not something we have really seen much of in the past. jason: you have to think that as google goes, there goes a lot of the tech world, and maybe even the corporate world. everybody talks about all of the perks that google employees get, so you do wonder how they will build this out. >> we have heard there might be a google cafeteria. what is special about this mall is it has big, open floors and an atrium. so there's a lot of natural light going in. this is one reason it makes sense for a big tech company like google. tech companies like that sort of

design. carol: and you assume that a lot of people watch what google is doing. having said that, one big transition or transformation of a mall does not necessarily make a trend, but we are seeing that elsewhere, right? in a smaller degree? >> on a smaller scale, for sure. the people who i spoke to said that this might be an anomaly, a one-off situation where you are having almost the entire mall redeveloped for a big tech company like google. we will have to see. it could happen again in the future. there is one example in dearborn, michigan, where ford has rented out what used to be a lord and taylor space. but again, it is not the entire mall. only time will tell if this happens again. carol: coming up next, espn's ex-president tries to beat his former employer at its own game. jason: plus, another player --

shaquille o'neal and his start up investing strategy. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ i am a family man.

i am a techie dad. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome.

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek," i'm jason kelly. carol: i'm carol massar. still ahead in this week's issue, the davos rivalry between the united states and china. jason: the six politicians who could chart britain's brexit future. carol: and in the features section, the former espn president is plotting his comeback. jason: he has a new startup that aims to be the netflix for sports.

carol: we talked to a reporter about his story. >> he left espn about a year ago, a little more than a year ago, and came back six months later at a startup called dazn. and they are -- the simplest way to put it is the netflix for sports. they have live events, they operate in five markets right now, and charge you a monthly fee. their goal is to i think supplant espn and any other competitor in the world of global sports broadcasting. carol: that's not easy to do. when i think about the big sports franchises, those deals cost a lot of money, get locked up for years at a time. how does he break into them? if anybody was going to be able to do it, i think it would be him, because he understands about making these deals. he did it with espn. >> dazn started without him while he was at espn. they are backed by len blavatnik, who has about $20 billion in fortune. and so that's why they could

maybe do it. those rights are really expensive. and now, kind of a stroke of luck for them to pick up skipper, because that was right when they were trying to crack the u.s. market. started in germany, japan, canada. he was available because of his exit at espn, and he knows this market as well as anybody. however, that does not solve the problem they are facing right now in the u.s. that there is really nothing available for a while. nba, mlb, nfl, all that stuff you have to wait at least three or four years. so they decided to come in with combat sports, boxing, and they made some really big deals in that area, but that is not where they want to end up. they want to be a clearinghouse for everything a sports fan can want, as much as they can get their hands on. jason: talk to us, because you have covered this so extensively. how are people consuming sports? it has been seen as kind of the last frontier of live programming. we are all sort of now trained, our kids certainly are trained, to be on-demand viewers.

they want to watch something, they go get it. they are not going to wait around until something starts, except for sports. it is one of the only things that's really left as appointment television. so what's the angle here? >> it depends i think partly on the market and the sport. and that is the thing you have to think about this company, they are trying to be global. we are putting together the chart of everything they own, and some of it you never heard of, some of it you already know. the math is what do people like where, and how much do we have to pay for that? it is really simple in the end. it is, what do we have to pay for rights? there are costs to do with the tech and marketing, but really it is what do we do with the rights? can we get enough people to pay us to make up for that? in the u.s., certainly the broadcast model is still really entrenched with the nfl, which is the most valuable. but you are already seeing with a lot of other sports, the way people consume it, moving to streaming platforms, whether those are run by the leagues, out of market league pass for the nba, or even espn trying to do streaming products for more of its niche sports.

they launched this espn plus. so everybody thinks this is where it is going. i think the nfl will be the last to make the move, but even they started offering nfl thursday night simulcast on amazon, so they are testing the waters. jason: carol, also in the magazine this week, it is a story we just can't ignore in the politics section. all about brexit. carol: indeed, and we talked about it a lot this week here at bloomberg. the magazine taking a look at the six politicians who could chart the course for the u.k. after theresa may's failed brexit deal. and this is what is interesting. these are names you are not necessarily going to know. we all know about theresa may and jeremy corbyn on the other side, but there a lot of -- but there are a lot of very influential people both from the labour party and conservative party that will have very important roles in determining what the next step will be. jason: people like yvette cooper from the labour party. of course everybody knows jeremy corbyn, and there has in this -- there has been this back-and-forth between corbyn and may. i have to say, watching this story this week, it has gone late, late, late into the night. u.k. time, we have been on the air waiting for surprise appearances from theresa may.

and the path is really uncertain. and meanwhile, the eu is sitting back and saying, bring it on. carol: exactly. so the question is, do we get a new referendum at this point? do we have a hard brexit? we have this end of march deadline. i think even people are starting to have this conversation -- does this get pushed out? do we kick the can down the road? which is unbelievable. jason: one of the most fascinating things to me is that the markets have been very sanguine about this over the past week. you see little spikes in the pound here and there, but the european markets have been up, the u.s. markets certainly have been up. and when you think about the backdrop of brexit and the backdrop of the government shutdown, you sort of wonder what is the market thinking? carol: exactly. so check out these six people in the magazine, because you will learn a lot about all the different behind-the-scenes arguments going on. coming up next, how countries and companies are choosing sides between the u.s. and china as trade tensions persist.

jason: plus, how globalization is surviving and thriving despite the trump administration's assault. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am jason kelly. carol: and i am carol masser. join us for "bloomberg businessweek" every day on the radio from 2:00 to 5:00 p.m. wall street time. you can also catch up on our daily show. check out our podcast on itunes, soundcloud, and bloomberg.com. jason: also find us online at businessweek.com and the mobile app. we are everywhere. carol: yes, we are. in the solution section this week, it's really looking at geopolitical relationships around the world. first up, we look at the rivalry

between washington and beijing as the world economic forum kicks off in davos, switzerland, this week. jason: economics editor peter coy came back. he talked to us about how the u.s. and china are pulling multinational companies and countries in different directions. >> back to the 1970's, there was a guy who wanted to have a european management forum, and then it just grew into this world economic forum that brings ceos, heads of state, but also, interestingly enough, like artists, scientists. it is a real glitterati. they go to congress sessions, and they go to the ski slopes, and they go to fancy restaurants. it's mostly a talk fest, but they also try to use it to make the world a better place. they do have ambitions of bringing together, you know, civic society and government and business. jason: and as with everything, it has a little bit of a different flavor during the trump administration, and during a time where the global order,

shall we say, is maybe under question. and as carol alluded to, relationships among superpowers, but also relationships among just regular powers. >> i am focusing on the conflict between china and the u.s., which has become the defining struggle of the 21st century. this is not going away and davos can't escape, as you said, the shadow of that. so two years ago, president xi of china showed up, and trump had just taken office, and he presented himself as a savior of globalization. jason: xi did. >> president xi. he said, you know, trying to retreat from free trade is like finding yourself locked into a dark room. trump came back -- never mentioning trump, by the way. trump came back the next year and he was the headliner, and he said -- you may remember this

line -- america first does not mean america alone. you have these guys like heavyweight boxers trading blows. 2019 comes, we were thinking trump would be back again, but he's not, probably because of the border wall dispute. so the highest-ranking official on the chinese side will be the vice president, who is very influential. we expect more blows to be traded, but sort of again, in a veiled manner. what is happening -- the big picture is this is just one arena of many in which china and the u.s. are contending for world leadership. carol: also in the solution section this week, donald trump has been refashioning u.s. trade policy since he took office. jason: in other words, taking a wrecking ball to trade deals that have long kept the world together. carol: indeed. while other countries are doubling down on global partnerships.

jason: the u.s. now needs to play catch-up. here is reporter shaun donovan. >> i had a chat with a guy called kevin kester, who runs something called the bear valley ranch in central california. his family has been out there on that land since 1867. he is a fifth-generation rancher. he also happens to be the head -- they have kind of a rotating volunteer presidency -- for the national cattlemen's beef federation. that is the big industry group for america's cowboys in the beef industry. and he is looking out at the world today. and there is a bit of anxiety creeping in. that is partly because of the trade deals that donald trump has pulled the u.s. out of, the transpacific partnership being a big one. and he is watching that go ahead without the u.s., and that has a very real consequence for him and his members. the u.s.'s most lucrative export market for beef is japan right now. it is a $5 trillion economy.

the u.s. sends about $2 billion of beef a year there. but there's competitors. australia, another country that is a member of the tpp still, is full of beef ranchers and cattle producers who are eager to export to japan. and they are about to get a big tariff advantage that in the long run could squeeze the u.s. out of that market. so that's another way of thinking about what is going on in the world. carol: the point is -- and you make it so well in the story -- is that as the trump team and president trump specifically pushes back on globalization, while the rest of the world is moving on, and they are working on agreements and those trade flows start, they will get embedded kind of in the local trade system. >> we often talk nowadays about the trade wars and the china tariffs, and so on. but there is another kind of piece that american businesses are worrying about, and that is kind of losing the access that you have to overseas markets.

we have seen that through the soybean farmers and the way they have been squeezed out of china in recent months. some of that is coming back. there is this big question about long-term deterioration of kind of market share. and that is what the beef folks are worried about when it comes to the tpp. this is going to happen slowly. there is some things that kind of insulate them from it for now. there is a drought in australia that has hit the cattle herd. it is going to take them a couple years to build that back up. but at some point very soon, american beef could face a 50% tariff going into japan. australian beef is going to go to a 27.5% tariff. and over the next 15 years, that is going to steadily go down. so the u.s. and donald trump needs to fix that. and if you are a cattle rancher, he needs to negotiate his own trade deal with japan to replace the tpp to kind of play catch-up

on globalization. jason: up next, early in the program we heard from jeremy grantham. he is spending $1 billion to save the planet, but maybe all we need to do is throw a party. expert saying that human beings have to learn how to hang out together once again. carol: it's so simple. plus, what it's like to golf at one of the best clubs in the -- one of the most expensive clubs in the world. jason: and investing advice from none other than shaquille o'neal. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪

♪ carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. you can also listen us to the -- you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, in new york, boston, washington, d.c. carol: in london on dab digital

and of course on the bloomberg business app. so what is fun about bloomberg is you never know who might stop by. lucky for us, just recently shaquille o'neal visiting our bloomberg businessweek radio studios. jason: it was something to behold. a lot of people gathered around. very electric moment. and we talked about a lot of things, but he told us how he has built a very successful investment portfolio. shaq: i heard the great jeff bezos say that if you're going to invest, you should invest in things that are going to change people's lives. and it made a lot of sense, and he said this a long time ago. i'm always in silicon valley meeting people, always at ces, which is happening right now in las vegas. just like to get information by hearing people that are smarter than me talk. so he said invest in things that are going to help people out. i admit when i first came in, i wanted to get rich quick and do a lot of get rich quick schemes. you see these things? we are going to sell them, boom, boom, boom. 10 times your money.

give me $1 million and we will get you $10 million. it never worked. i failed on all of those investments. my first good luck investment was a guy who was talking about google. i was sitting at a hotel and a guy was like, hey, i am creating this thing called google, a search engine, information everywhere, and i was like, you know what? that is going to help people's lives. carol: that was pre-ipo. jason: do you play the stock market at all? are you mostly getting in on sort of venture capital, angel investment type perspective? shaq: i do a little bit of both, but i am very, very conservative. because i was raised up on fear tactics, so what if, what if, what if? so i try not to do it -- my thing when i was coming up was annuities. i need the same type of income when i stop playing so i don't go crazy. so that was the big thing that i did. and i'm with all the great companies. i own a lot of great companies. and every time i get a friend of the family's advice, we got this new company coming up, we should do this, and i have been lucky.

i don't want to sit here and sound like i'm an expert, but my technique of doing things is most of the time, i am a winner. jason: in the pursuits section, another 1980's reference -- not a weekend at bernie's, a weekend at bob's. carol: and by bob, we mean bob parsons, the founder of go daddy. jason: he has built one of the most expensive and exclusive golf clubs in the world. carol: our pursuits deputy editor told us what life is like at scottsdale national. >> bob parsons, founder of go daddy, billionaire worth about $2 billion right now. in 2013, he bought a golf course in arizona called scottsdale national. and he spent the last few years renovating it. three courses, 700 acres. by the time it is finished this year, he will have spent $300 million on it. and in 2015, he started a golf equipment company called pxg. parsons extreme golf. and he is starting to use his

golf course as a way to bring in people. carol: the reporter who had to do this story, right at this assignment went there. >> right. tough job. what he is doing now, for $17,500, you can spend a three day weekend at this course. you can't actually stay on the course. those villas that he is renovating are for the 139 members. but there is a four seasons nearby. jason: you have to slum it at the four seasons, make your way to the course. >> but these clubs -- he poached a couple of staffers from golf equipment companies. like, i just want you to make the best golf clubs money can buy. just the drivers themselves are about $850. he released -- carol: these are the most expensive clubs in the world, right? >> depends on how you define it. jason: they are certainly well above average. multiples above what most people would pay. >> four or five times mass-market brands. he has just released his second generation in january, of drivers.

they are a little bit cheaper, $575 for one driver. but he went -- john paul went and tested out these drivers. and it's just crazy. bob actually described it as insane. but it is a place where you get fitted. there is an on-site guy who will test and all of your shots are measured on track man devices. they went through a couple of iterations of golf clubs. and he got extra distance on his swing. carol: so it made a little bit of a difference? >> made a little bit of a difference, but i don't know if it is that arizona air. [laughter] jason: and they do wrap all of this, the club and the experience of getting fitted, in is pretty amazing experience. you are staying nearby in the four seasons, but even when you are on the course, the level of service is what you would expect at some of the best resorts in the world. >> absolutely. he has a funny story where he was chipping at one of the par 3

courses and he stopped to talk to one of his fellow golfers. he turned around behind him and all the balls were stacked in a neat little pyramid. never saw who did it. jason: there are literally people who come out from the brush to rake -- >> hiding behind the cactuses to rake -- jason: the sand trap after you hit it out of the bunker. amazing. >> there is only 90 rounds a week played at this course. pebble beach gets 1000 rounds a week. carol: what does it cost if you are one of the lucky few who get to be an actual member, get invited to be a member of the club? i mean, it is expensive. >> it is a $300,000 membership fee and the annual dues are $60,000. carol: also in pursuits this week, the lead story. it is a little bit different. it's a story that takes a look at why some sociologists are urging more people to host parties. jason: it is all in the name of combating the decline of face-to-face interaction. we spend so much time heads in phones. carol: we got to hear from reporter ben steverman on this. >> i notice in my own life that it is harder to get people

together, have face-to-face conversations where people are not pulling their phone out every few minutes and distracted. i also love a party, and i love a great party that is well-done and meeting new people and just seeing people you have not seen in a while and building that community around you. so i started looking around at who are the people working on this, and there have been a couple of great books written about it. governments are starting to worry about this. the u.k. prime minister, theresa may, who is pretty busy these days, like, she appointed a minister for loneliness last year. to study the issue. carol: isn't that wild? >> i think something about the 2016 election, both here and in britain, pointed out that we are getting very polarized, and there are places where community is breaking down. the institutions that used to connect people, the libraries, union halls, elks lodges, a lot of those institutions have been crumbling over the last generation, and what are we

going to build to replace them? carol: that's so true. i think my parents' generation, and a certain ethnic background, they had social groups, social organizations where they got together and did different types of things during the day or at night, and it was a big part of their community. and all the way as they got older and had families, that is how they stayed connected. >> it's almost like there's this idea of community that we have forgotten about. there is your family, and obviously that's very important. and then there is your workplace, and a lot of people are obsessed with their jobs. but there has to be something else that is sort of where you go for juicy gossip, and vice -- gossip, advice, intelligence, and ideas on new jobs. carol: we are social creatures. jason: so how are people solving this? >> what is interesting is a lot of businesses have gotten involved. apple is redesigning a lot of their stores to be town centers. they want people to linger.

wework is designing spaces that are supposed to be more community-based. carol: talk about rockefeller center. i thought that was fascinating. >> really interesting. this inspired the owner of rockefeller center. they have about 18,000 employees. there are a lot of small companies, five people working in an office. their tenants would love to be able to compete with the googles and facebooks in providing a lot of amenities. they built this clubhouse on the 33rd floor of one of the buildings of rockefeller center. it's not supposed to look like a typical work lounge. it has got like soft lighting and soft music and they choose the right scents and greenery. it is supposed to be just a place to hang out. carol: and foosball? >> people do yoga, they have book clubs, a photography group. i was surprised by that, but i guess the views from rockefeller center are beautiful. they are trying to get people from different employers to just connect. a place to meet people, a place

just to chill out before you go home. carol: "bloomberg businessweek" is available on newsstands now. jason: also on businessweek.com and our mobile app. what is your must read this week? carol: i loved our story about john skipper and what he is up to. this is a guy who helped build espn into what it is today, and now he's kind of having a second or third chapter, you might say. or third chapter, you might say. it's a company called dazn, and it's all about streaming sports. i feel like a lot of folks are looking at this area. jason: it's a story that tells you a lot about the man, a lot about the mission, and a lot about what may happen in media going forward. carol: your must-read? jason: you know, jamaica. in part, because i spent a lot of time in the newsroom. and everybody has had that moment with their editor where they say, you know what? i think i need to go to jamaica. rarely do they yes. they said yes to mike. carol: he said it enough times, go and do this story. it's a fun read and really fascinating story. you can find more stories on businessweek.com. check it out over the weekend. jason: and check out our daily "businessweek" podcast available

on itunes, soundcloud, and at bloomberg.com. carol: more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪

♪ haslinda: hello. i'm haslinda amin in singapore. in a country known as the detroit of the east, auto parts are big business, and there is none bigger than thai summit group, a billion-dollar company with plants not just in thailand, but the u.s., china, japan, india, and indonesia. for almost two decades, thanathorn juangroongruangkit has been driving growth and global ambitions. thanathorn juangroongruangkit is today's high flyer.