the head of the european union says all options are on the table when it comes to vaccine supplies. ursula von der leyen told eu leaders today they should not rule out the potential use of emergency legal powers. speaking to the european commission today, she called the covid-19 pandemic "the crisis of the century." ford has told more than 30,000 workers to come to the office only when they need to, even when the pandemic is over. the u.s. automaker is describing it is a flexible hybrid work model. the offer is for office workers, not those on the assembly line. the united states has added more than a dozen chinese officials to a list of people that banks must avoid, putting global financial institutions on notice that they risk running afoul of american sanctions. while all the officials had already been designated for sanctions by the treasury apartment, today's action means anyone who does business with

them could face greater penalties 21-year-old man is being held in the murders of 8 people at three massage parlors in the atlanta area. at least six of the victims were asian women. violence has sparked questions about curbing discrimination and violence against asians that has escalated during the coronavirus pandemic. global news 24 hours a day, on air and at bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> it is 1:00 p.m. in new york, 6:00 p.m. in berlin, 1:00 a.m. in hong kong. i'm matt miller. welcome to "bloomberg markets." here are the top stories we are following for you from the bloomberg terminal.

less than 60 minutes until the next fomc -- less than 16 minutes until the next fomc decision. treasury yields at pre-pandemic levels. speaking of anxiety, reopening schools. how do educators feel about getting back into the classroom? i will ask the president of the national education association, the largest teachers union in the united states of america. and investing in ireland on st. patrick's day. we ask why countries should be on the emerald isle. we will talk to them and making the sales pitch, my conversation with mark shanahan, the ceo of iga ireland. we will look at what the markets are doing. in terms of the equity indexes, we have seen the major benchmarks swinging back and forth between gains and losses. at least the dow jones industrial average. the s&p has been down for most of the session about half a percent. nasdaq looking at an even bigger drop. this is the nasdaq 100 come down

1.3%, as yields rise. you can see the tent--- 10-year up 166.38, but yields rising across the curve. $64 and $.13 a barrel. today is decision day at the federal reserve. for more on what to expect, let's bring in our chief u.s. economist carl riccadonna from bloomberg economics. i guess the markets are kind of pushing jay powell to say something more than he is just really keep rates low for a long, long time. what do you expect? carl: markets are certainly pushing, matt, but if we keep interest rates in the context of the fact that the pandemic is now winding down in the u.s. as we have success with vaccinations, if we look at

inflation adjusted interest rates, that 10-year yield is hovering very close to zero. this is a back in rates, but not the type of backup that should be cause for concern that could derail the recovery. we are looking for economic growth this year to be fastest since 1983. if we have that sort of performance the economy, then some rising interest rates due to inflation expectations should be occurring. in a nutshell, i think jay powell was say we welcome a modest backup in interest rates. don't wanted to get out of hand. but i don't think they will signal any change in course at today's meeting. matt: if we are getting back to the can of growth we saw in the '80s, already going to get back to the kind of inflation we saw in the '80s as well, carl? carl: well, inflation was pretty

stable throughout the 1980's. it is not at the 2% level that we see at the moment. but the critical takeaway -- in 1983, when paul volcker basically released the shackles from the economy, growth surged to a very fast pace over the next couple of years. we had aggressive tax cuts in defense spending. the economy grew at a very robust above-trend pace can but the rate of inflation did not accelerate meaningfully over that period. that is an important lesson we should keep in mind in the current environment for them yes, stimulus is going to cause some blockages and bottlenecks in the economy that will be reflected in higher prices, but until we see workers' wages and wage pressures accelerate, there is going to be a transitory nature to any flare-up in inflation prices. matt: what you expect to see on the dot plot?

markets are pricing a rate hike now, 75% chance at the end of 2022. what is the fed going to show us? carl: i think we will see a handful of hawkish dots higher, but the consensus at the center of the committee is going to continue to hold on lower, longer rate path. that will be the point of friction for the markets and the fed with all of the news and data points released this afternoon at 2:00 and then throughout the press conference at 2:30. this is a fed that has to go a long way before they will be able to wind down the pace of asset purchases and have to see the economy on track to overshoot 2% for a sustained period to start tapping back the interest-rate throttle, and i suspect it is going to take a long time to get to that point, and so markets may be overestimating the speed or the

timeline to lift the fed, and the dot plot will provide a nudge in the opposite direction. matt: all right, so if jay powell is not going to convince them otherwise, is the market going to keep shorting treasuries? we heard from bill gross yesterday that he's short treasuries even now, and expect the trend to continue, the rising yields trend. carl: there is definitely a significant contingent of market participants who are expecting higher inflation and harbor those concerns, so i think there is a clear trend for that place and the treasury market the treasury market alaska momentum and icy no reason that would not continue as economist mark up there growth projections and the recovery progresses. matt: what do you think the number one question is going to

be for powell? in the q&a session we are going to watch so closely, what do you think reporters are going to want to know? carl: i think there is two key questions. one is, if my expectation is correct and jay powell signals, as he has signaled in recent public comments, that they welcome some backup in interest rates, they see this as no reason to change their modus operandi, providing accommodation to the economy now and eventually moving at a far date into the future, one question would be what type of data would cause you to reassess that trajectory. the second critical question that we need to focus on is he is not going to give specifics of the timeline for tapering or unwinding the balance sheet or even the interest-rate lift off, the sequence is still not well

understood. if we follow the playbook from the last economic cycle, the fed hiked interest rates by about 100 basis points before they started to let the balance sheet actually roll off. the question for jay powell is do you expect to follow a similar strategy this time around with interest-rate hikes coming first and then the balance sheet runoff, or is his assessment that maybe that wasn't an effective strategy last time and they should pursue a different sequencing of combinations of that tightening. matt: all right, carl, thanks very much. carl riccadonna, our chief u.s. economist for bloomberg economics. something that caught my eye today, u.s. automakers in today's session are shrugging off a big red headline that will the cross my terminal today. here you see car sales in the eu, and this most recent reporting on february showed a

drop of 20%. a level we have not seen since 2013. nonetheless, car shares continue to rally, including volkswagen and bmw, because they continue to tell investors, number one, that they have a real plan for electrification, and they are spending big money, tens of billions in volkswagen's case, hundreds of billions of dollars, in order to beat kessler at that game. -- tesla at that game. number two is the drop in car sales wasn't because there was no demand. in fact, there was very strong demand. the problem is there wasn't enough supply, because of the chip shortage in the supply chain, there just are not enough cars onto dealers' lots for buyers to purchase them today and drive them immediately. you have got to put it in order and get in line in order to buy many of the new car models out there, and that could drive some

inflation here as well. coming up, we are going to discuss the safe return to schools with the head of the biggest teachers union in the united states, president becky pringle joining us to talk about whether or not it is safe. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is "bloomberg markets ." i'm matt miller. let's talk a little bit about schools right now. one year into the pandemic, the cdc says it is critical for schools to open safely and as soon as possible and remain open. next week president biden will hold a summit to help them reopen safely.

joining us now for more is national education association president becky pringle. what a hotly debated topic, becky, because so many people have skin in the game here. is it safe for teachers to go back now? becky: hi, matt, it's good to be back with you again. you see this smile on my face? i have to tell you that as a science teacher for over 30 years, all educators across the country are so encouraged by president biden doing a couple of things. first of all, for him to put forward that $2 trillion plant that includes $170 billion for schools to reopen safely, and then for him to say that we need to prioritize educators for vaccination, and it is getting done. he didn't just say it. he actually went about making sure that we are not only upping

production of those vaccines, but also trying to organize and clear up any confusion about where to get vaccines. so many more of our educators have been vaccinated. we did a second survey, matt -- the first time we surveyed our members commit 19% had been vaccinated, and now it is almost up to 70%. it is quite amazing. we are so excited to do what we said we wanted to do from the beginning, which is be in person with our students. matt: yeah, my mom for the first year was terrified to go back, and fortunately they had the technology to allow her to teach from home, or from her office will have no this semester she said she has to get back, she cannot do it online anymore. fortunately the school has also put safety precautions in place. her school was also kind enough to give everybody on staff, teachers and other workers, a raise.

do you think this pandemic has shown us how important the job is and how much more teachers deserve? becky: i do, matt, and i will say that there are school districts that are safe all over the country--states all over the country who not only are thinking about the extra work -- not just teachers, and i'm really glad you said that -- it is our bus drivers, cafeteria workers, librarians, all of the people in our schools that help our students learn. they are talking about that. one of the things we are concerned about, matt, is with all the added stress, our educators are standing with students and delivering meals and hotspots and helping not just students but their families. we are concerned about the impact on the teaching profession in particular. and so we are heartened to hear about other states and districts that are thinking about increasing the pay for

educators. that is absolutely essential as you think about the long-term impact. i am glad to hear that. that is extraordinary and much-needed. matt: it's funny, because here in germany i see the same problem, fewer people want to go into teaching, fewer people want to go into health care because the pay isn't high enough. being bloomberg, of course, we are typically dealing with wall street bankers who want to pay their traders the most so they can get the best traders possible. people come out of college, and a lot of them want to go to wall street. not enough of them want to go into education. why is that so difficult for governments and taxpayers to understand? becky: i think, matt, you are absolutely right. folks for an entire year have gotten an up close and personal view of the life of educators. they have seen what they do, and

this -- matt, you and i both know because your mom is telling you all the time -- this is not new for us. we always have been standing up for our students, we always have been supplying them with things, particularly our most marginalized students. you know that during this pandemic, the light is shining on those communities that are black and brown and indigenous, marginalized communities, and have -- that have always been suffering from the inequities of compounding systems, not just the education system, but health care and all those things. all of that was exacerbated by the pandemic. we know how important it is for educators to step up, but we cannot do it by ourselves. it is not only the pay. that is important, but we also have to be respected. we have to see a demonstration of society that it is our shared responsibility to provide all of our students what they need and

deserve. matt: all right, becky, thanks very much. i hope this message get across, because the job that teachers do is so important to the development of society, and it is so obvious. i think everyone knows it when they sit down and think about it, but people don't want to spend the money to make it the best it can possibly be. becky pringle, great talking to you. national educators -- education association, the biggest teachers union in america, talking to us about the situation now a year into the pandemic. still ahead, from silicon valley to the emerald isle, online payment startup stripe is betting that was a pot of gold to be had in ireland, and doubling down to their commitment on the country. the outlook on st. patrick's day for dublin as a fintech hub. this is bloomberg. ♪

matt: this is "bloomberg markets ." i'm matt miller. let's talk about investing in ireland, since it is st. patrick's day. one company that has done a very good job working out of that country is stripe, the most valuable u.s. startup, valued at $95 billion, doubling down on its commitment to ireland. the online payments company announced it is tripling staff at its head quarters in the country. that is not such welcome news for competing eu fintech hubs. it is an enviable price for the emerald isle. here to talk more about the state of investment in ireland is a man responsible for securing it, mark shanahan, ceo of ida ireland, joining us out of dublin. first, happy st. patrick's day. i'm not sure if it is as important in ireland as it is in america, but growing up in an

irish family it was key. what are you doing to make dublin so attractive to international dismisses from bank--businesses from banks to tech startups? martin: thank you, happy st. patrick's day to you, too. the number one question we are having with investors about ireland is talent, availability of talent. i think it is availability of talent and the ability to attract, develop, and retain talent, which will be what makes countries or companies successful in the future, and ireland obviously has a lot of talent. we have one of the highest participation rates in education and the oecd and we have done a good job of attracting talent here as well. but also we have a very pro enterprise policies here, very competitive, transparent, and consistent taxation regime, and membership in the eu is obviously key. matt: on the one hand, your

membership of the eu is key because of the large market. on the other hand, it gets more difficult when brussels tries to control tax policy in sovereign nations. how do you fight that? martin: i think it is clear at this point that tax policy is a sovereign competency of each eu member state. that is the case within the european union. we support global initiatives around tax avoidance. we believe the oecd is the right space to do that. there has to be a global approach. one country or one bloc going it alone will not yield a result everybody is looking for. we'll have to see what comes out of the oecd. matt: what about the infrastructure in ireland? how key is that and how much do

you invest in the kind of international infrastructure that big banks and big tech hubs want, like international schools? martin: we have invested heavily over many years now. we have a very significant national development plan. the brief history of this is 10 years ago we were heavily impacted by the global financial crisis. we came out of that very strong, and we now have the wherewithal to invest. the pandemic is a setback, but ireland is one of the few economies that posted positive growth last year. we saw foreign direct invest may continue to come into ireland even during that period. the number is at 6%, so we have the wherewithal to do that. we have an ambitious national plan to invest in infrastructure, all types of infrastructure, but physical infrastructure and the education infrastructure. i think the proof is in the pudding. you look at the global ran names in technology that have set up

in ireland, you look at the global brand names in financial services that have set up in ireland, and obviously, the country you mentioned at the outset, at the intersection of both of those sectors. matt: got it. martin, thank very much for joining us. ida ireland ceo mark shanahan talking to us on st. patrick's day. i hope you get down off that roof and into a pub with a cold pint of guinness as soon as possible. coming up, turning work into action. we will speak to sheryl sandberg and maxine williams of facebook on that company's push for diversity and how they plan to fight domestic violence. this is bloomberg. ♪

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>> buchan to bloomberg markets. matt: we are now joined by both our bloomberg and our bnn bloomberg audiences. and they give you your top stories from the bloomberg terminal. he bloomberg equality summit is underway. in just a few moments we will hear from facebook coo sheryl sandberg and maxine williams, facebook's chief diversity and inclusion officer. also we are counting down to the fed. we haven't lost sight of the most important event of the day for markets. you going to speak with julia coronado and the spac boom continues. we will speak to the former head of banking at ubs about the $300 million blank check company silverbox capital, the co-founder joe reece joins us later this hour. amanda? amanda: matt, he might expect to

see equities even quieter than they are headed up at 2:00 p.m. decision. the decision not expected to be super interesting, but a related statement at any commentary jay powell makes in the press conference a well be market-moving. it could be market-moving regardless, because of the way bets are lined up in the market. u.s. 10 year had been even higher, and that is going to have a reaction in stocks. we have some negativity out there. it is fairly broad-based. financials are doing well. techs are weak. we are watching energy as well today. still at a very high level. it is coming off a little bit. that is playing a little bit of a roll here. matt: taking a look at financial conditions, we can see, if you look at the goldman sachs data, big jump in financial

conditions, or a big drop, i should say, down to a level we have not seen in years. this is financial conditions conditioning. according to goldman sachs, it is a level still easy. i'm used to reading the bloomberg financial conditions. you can do that, and if you look at the bloomberg financial conditions screen, you can pick from a number of different countries. we have a slightly different picture. with goldman sachs, it is, low is better as opposed to the bloomberg financial conditions, where the line going higher is better. i would say, you should check out bloomberg instead of using this goldman sachs index. joining us is former fed economist and founder of

macropolicy perspectives, julia coronado. julia, welcome to the program. it is a pleasure to talk to you again. what you want to hear? what do you think the market wants to hear from jay powell today? julia: it depends on who you talk to. first i want to second your endorsement of the bloomberg financial conditions index. i also use it and like it very much. i think what it shows us is that despite the spac rates, financial conditions are supportive of the economy, equities are still close to highs, like the rotation amongst equities. i don't think there is a lot for the fed to worry about. i think what they are going to do today is mary optimism on the outlook with paul -- with qualification. i think the narrative on inflation and the markets has been a little bit heated than the way the fed sees it.

they are focused on a labor market that has been hit very hard, they are focused on low inflation trends that are deeply entrenched. they are a lot less worried about this overheating. they are welcoming. the fiscal allows them to heat up the recovery and get to their final destination earlier, yet they don't really see a lot to worry about in inflation backdrop. in any case, it is probably years away. i think we are going to see no rate hikes through 2020 -- 32020 three. and a statement that acknowledges a reduction in risk, but also emphasizes qualification. amanda: one thing that i am hearing we should expect is a change in the outlook almost a given. a change in outlook on growth, and therefore employment, and possibly we know the fed has given themselves.

possibly even an acknowledgment that 2% is sort of in sight. do you think you will get market reaction to any of those changes? julia: i think we will get a market reaction one way or another. it feels like market views are evenly divided as to whether the fed will show left off in 2023. one way or another we are likely to get someone of a market reaction. we expect them to tilt more toward patients. what they are trying to tell us is one reason they are going to be patient is because inflation trends are so low, they want to overshoot 2%, so the fact that we are going to get a really strong gdp number this year, probably next year, does not necessarily mean a lot of inflation.

it will lead up to inflation above 2% by 2023, but they are going to let that run a little bit. after years running below 2%, to have a few years above 2%. i imagine they are anticipating a left somewhere in 2024, after we have had a year or two of inflation running slightly above 2%. i think that is how you square that circle and combine both optimism and a little bit more inflation with qualification. matt: the committee for a responsible federal budget shows the fed has spent seven point $3 trillion for emergency measures. the u.s. government has now spent $6 trillion in the stimulus, or has agreed to spend that much in stimulus, with the most recent plan.

that is, you know, 60%-plus of total gdp extra into the economy in one year. how does that -- how do you avoid causing massive inflation spike, even if they are just in stuff people need? like oil in food, right? it seems like that has to come julia:. let's look at what we are responding to. policy did not just layer this massive amount of money on top of him economy -- of an economy that was functioning well. the economy collapsed because of a pandemic. it cost a lot of people to be sidelined and their incomes to stop on a dime. all of this money was meant to build a bridge through the pandemic to the other side. i don't think president biden's comparison is a bad mom.

we are at war with a global disease. what would gdp have been if the federal government and federal reserve had stood on the sidelines and done nothing? we are seeing unemployment rates at the depression levels. i think what we have seen is, the u.s. has actually, in a messy way, achieved an incredibly effective policy response. not perfect, certainly. we have uncovered lots of things that could be improved in the response over time, but it has been on the generous side. that leaves us to reopen with a lot of momentum. people poised to have money in your bank or in their pocket, ready to spend as we are able to go out and do so. that should help heal the economy, bring back the jobs, and so you can't just look at

that money in the isolation. why did we implement those enormous programs? we were facing an unprecedented shock, and i think we met that challenge reasonably well, actually. if we get a little bit of price pop here and there, i don't think that is sustained inflation. that is the key. amanda: julia, great to have you with us. an important day as we wait for a rather interesting that announcement. julia coronado, founder of macropolicy perspectives. the bloomberg equality summit is underway. pamela hutchinson is in conversation with the chief operating officer and chief diversity officers from facebook. let's have a listen. >> if i could pause for a little bit longer and just about the impacts of the pandemic. have recently celebrated international women's day. we have increasing data to show that women are impacted by the

pandemic both professionally and personally. if we stay with this year's international women's day mantra, what is facebook choosing to challenge both inside and outside of the firm? maxine? sheryl: maxine, please. maxine: cheryl, go ahead. sheryl: go ahead. maxine: international women's day is always a big moment, right? but this moment is part of a movement. we are continuously on course to empowering women, trying to reposition, we level this playing field. this is a good time to come together and look at it and say, what are we doing, have we done enough? for us as a company, it has always been important for us to increase representation of women in tech. over the last seven years we

have moved from 14% to 25% women in technical roles. which is important, because who is building your products? as a technology company it is important for us to have that at home as well, to give people voice, to show that what we are building reflects those we are serving. it is a great moment. we have all of our women come together. we have a day of learning and togetherness. as a means to continuing on this road to progress. sheryl: we started coming together for women's leadership day. oh my god, many years ago. i joined the company there were 558 people at facebook. today we have 550 senior female leaders, which i'm proud of. had to do our international women's day women's leadership conference on zoom.

and we were actually so big we did not have a place in all of northern california that we could do our north america women's leadership day this year. you were going to have to travel out of town. coming together on zoom and enabling us to do it was really important. my foundation also partnered with international women's day to talk about fighting bias, which is one of those challenges that we have. we have a program called 50 ways to fight bias. it is at leanin.org. this thing about the bias women face in the workforce is, people of color think sometimes it is out there and it is known, but a lot of times people don't even realize it. they do not even realize. maxine has been a huge voice of helping people see the small

stuff and picks up they are missing. i think what we need to do is acknowledge we all face bias. and come together to really try to fix it. >> and we commit bias, right? we are all active contributing as well. we need to work on ourselves to recognize the bias we are perpetuating and counteract it. pamela: just touching a little bit longer on this notion of bias and the impacts of bias. last year was a year of reckoning. vis-a-vis social justice. people took to the streets, they took the social media, galvanizing support. at the same time, of course, saw a rise in racism and bigotry. so in -- previously we ask our audience the question, and our audience are very keen to understand what role social

media has to tackle bigotry and what facebook is doing to utilize its resources to help shape a narrative of diversity, inclusion, and equity in society? sheryl: we could speak for hours about this. pamela: me too. >> we are this tool that people use to express themselves. you are bringing together all of the people, and in the course of that you are going to get the good and bad. it is our responsibility to highlight the good and reduce the bad as much as possible. sheryl, i don't know if you want to share these stats. sheryl: i want to be really clear on this. we stand against hate. sometimes people believe we want hate on our platform. that is absurd. users don't want to see it,

advertisers don't want to be near it, it is not good for our business. it goes against our values, our principles, everything we want to do. finding and taking it down on a service of our size is the challenge. even defining it can be very tricky. we have worked for a long time with civil rights leaders. we did a very large audit for many years where we got their feedback and we continued that dialogue. he just hired our first vp of civil rights. we are very excited to have him. he is working with maxine. hate speech on facebook is 0.07% of speech. it is far lower than most people think. that is still too much. any amount is too much. our goal is to find it and take it down. it is something we have been working about. we released how much of different kinds of bad speech we find on facebook.

how much terrorism, nudity, hate, and we release those numbers and we say what percentage we find ourselves versus what percentage needs to be reported to us. it is better if we find ourselves. if our systems are finding it, fewer people are likely to have seen it. we started releasing these numbers years ago of what we were able to take down we found 24% of it ourselves. that is not great. that means 76% of it was up there for someone to report. today we are at 97%. we are finding 97% of it. that is because we have invested aliens of dollars, tens of thousands of people. i want to be clear. 3% on facebook is still much too much. our goal is to find it and drive those numbers down. and make sure that we are not having hate at all. pamela: thank you. good to hear. let's pivot for a moment --

matt: that was sheryl sandberg and maxine williams of facebook with pamela hutchinson at the bloomberg quality summit. facebook pointing out that sheryl sandberg pointing out that facebook is against hate. they don't want you to fight on their platform and be divided and partisan. and also, apparently against nudity. you can get coverage of that on bloomberg.com, bloomberg television, on bloomberg radio, as well as bloombergquint take. definitely an important summit. as we await the fed decision, we will discuss this year's spac boom. it eclipses fundraising in a single quarter. this is bloomberg. ♪

amanda: this is bloomberg markets. i'm amanda lange with matt miller. there is a lot to talk about. the speculative parts of this market as low rates continue to drive capital flows. one place we are increasingly hearing this conversation is around the spacs. we have with us joe reece, and ed hammond read great to have both of you here. joe, i do want to start with you. you know an awful lot of -- a lot about this space. do you feel there is some justification. that there might be some red flags being raised here? joe: thanks for having me. always good to be on tv with you folks. there has been a large amount of capital remediated to spac's. as of last night there were about 518 spac's with about one billion -- 1.6 -- $1.6 billion

in capital, excuse me. there is always room for access in the market. any time things get frothy, bad deals are going to get done. i think it is a good product for investors. they get an opportunity to see what they are investing in. when you think about how much in capital -- how much capital is in spacs, versus equity funds that have $3 trillion in capital, i don't think -- i'm not concerned about overcrowding. ed: joe, ed hammond here in new york. i'm interested in reputation. you have a long-standing reputation on wall street. a lot of the people going into spac's expect impresarios. are you concerned there is a risk he quickly caught on the wrong side of a moment seen as being a bit of a comp? joe: that is a great question.

one of the things we decided to do in the silverbox -- this is our second spac. we have capital committed to do five total under the silverbox banner. we do think that three folks in a pickup truck are going to fail. you need to run a company when you have a spac. you need to source deals, do m&a, take companies public, and support them in the aftermarket. that is hard to do when you have an impresario. that is why we built an entity to do a series of specs. -- spacs. matt: i think there is a difference between people doing solid spacs and people that aren't. it is going to be quickly sorted. our bloomberg reporter wrote about the downfall of spacs today. there is some who have done

acquisitions and are running the company for the shareholders the way it is supposed to be. be the reputational risk want be a problem with that can the next year or so. but in the meantime, if spacs do poorly on the whole, isn't it difficult to launch one after the other? don't investors just group all of the spacs together in one drawer and shut it? joe: i think some investors well, but you've also got an acceptance that this is a change or evolution in equity capital markets that is good for investors. markets are always volatile. that is what makes a market. i think what will happen is, you will start to see a knowing of -- a winnowing of investors who actually want to be a constructive deal participant. are there some bad deals? absolutely. but there are good deals. i look at draftkings, i look at us. you will see a bifurcation on

deals, as well as investors. i'm not happy when i see a bad deal get done, but quite frankly it is good for people like silverbox, like us, because we have a platform that is built to buy and hold and build and grow. we are not interested in quick flips. we view this as an asset class. he was saying he believes this is a potential distant mediator of a lot of businesses. we agree. if done properly, this is a great way to take companies that are ready to be public to the public markets. that is a key differentiator. ed: just on lowe's companies. there is a lot of private equity. a lot of the spacs aiming around the same size. how difficult is it defined a target and get that target to agree to a deal with you guys in this market? joe: last year there were what,

14-not private equity transactions? right now are about 3600 companies. that is about half of what we had in the mid to late i do think there is competition. however, i think the management teams on the sponsor side, other that is private equity or a spac platform, i think better teams who have credibility and know-how to take companies public and support them in the aftermarket, they will continue to find good deals, and good deals will continue to find them. i'm not going to say we would not do a spac-off, because that is not realistic. when i think about how we source our potential transactions, i am confident we will find good proprietary deal flow. matt: joe, i want to point out, there was a paper, laura from

exeter back in 2016, she said spac would be a poor man's private equity. it is an easier way for someone who does not have a million dollars to invest get involved. i want to go to something else, though. you are from ohio, you are a gonzaga man, and i know you are participating in a bracket challenge. would you pick to win the whole tournament? joe: if i did that, everyone else would run with me. i can't answer that. that is proprietary knowledge. [laughter] matt: ra, well, i will point out to bloomberg clients, you can check out brkt-go. joe reece, silverbox capital co-founder and bloomberg's ed hammond, thank you, as well as amanda lange. ♪

>> this is "the fed decides." i'm caroline hyde.

we are awaiting the federal reserve's rate decision. 1.9 trillion dollars in the stimulus injected into the economy. over 100 million covid vaccines injected into arms. all eyes on a rate hike acceptation. the dot plot will give us hints of inflation. i alongside tom keene, scarlet fu. michael, the decision? michael: we do have a slight change in dot plot and the economic outlook from reserve officials. the fed has moved to raise its 2021 growth forecast to 6.5%. it is significantly higher than it was a last time the fed did this. back in december. unemployment rate falls to 4.5%. that was 5% in december. pce inflation up from 1.8 percent