>> this is bloomberg surveillance with tom keene and paul sweeney. >> what do you say for people scared stiff.

>> we have a business that is scared stiff. >> with leah matteo on markets and michael bar with news. >> they discuss the conflict in gaza. >> the best in economics, finance and international relations. this is bloomberg surveillance on bloomberg radio. tom keene, we will -- we welcome all of you on radio across the station around the world. that morning on bloomberg television. as well. a great lineup. let me get the surveillance list. we will be going through the 8:00 hour. what you will see in january, sweeney on a tantrum. yet i run out of milwaukee and then in the 9:00 hour. we will unveil you forward. thomas -- our most popular guest is a number one in the world on why is a starbucks latte mocha

cappuccino or whatever nine dollars. she is exquisite. she will call the soft commodities and we will call r-star mosys -- in moments. john will be with us and i am looking forward to his bullishness which is like nothing on the street. he get you out to the dow at 15,000. there are like 12 people and wall street. we shut down early, why are we here? paul: we are here every day. but the equities close at 1:00 p.m. and the equity market to :00 p.m. -- 2:00 p.m. tom: 96,000 up to thousand dollars in bitcoin. paul: 107,000 about a week ago. it is a pullback. tom: where was it a year ago? paul: before the election it was like 50 or 60,000. tom: that is all the bitcoin we are doing. futures up 12. let us right to it.

from the studios, the bloomberg business flash. lisa: you kill me. we have futures on this holiday shortened trading day. the nasdaq futures up 80 point -- 85 points. s&p futures up .2% or 12 points. the two year yield at 2.35%. the yield on the 10 year 4.62 percent up three basis points. the bloomberg dollar spot indexes a little changed and the japanese yen 1.25 against the dollar. that -- the pound up .2 percent. shares of honda soared to 12% in asia as its announcement of a $7 billion stock buyback offsetting concerns about the plan to acquire nissan which rose 6%. a u.s. national security panel deadlocked on the sale of u.s. yield to nippon steel leading the final decision to president

joe biden has been opposed to the deal. u.s. steel down about .5%. nippon steel rose. shares of american airlines are on the mend down as much as 4%. they are down nearly 1% and that is after the nationwide round stop was canceled after a technical issue. that is the bloomberg business flash. tom: thank you. without question or equity discussion of the day some would say of 2024, i would imagine ben with hsb sc, him six years ago on this christmas eve saying get on board equities for the future. a great old market call. october of 2022, and now john stole say this saying you have to participate in the market. the message is simple, we remain positive on equity is, the broad rotation has begun, evidence

day-to-day week to week yet on board equities. john xps 7000 and i interpret that to a dow down industrial average of 50,000. what do the bears get wrong? john: thank you for bringing me on the show, merry christmas. the first thing i have to say is the bears got it wrong and that they bought the fed will blow up and push us into a recession with the right height cycle that they started in march but instead they were very sensitive in exercising its dual mandate. the bears bid wrong on the consumer. we always say do not bet against the american consumer. the consumer discretionary is the best s&p 500 index since august 5, which was a summer low.

that was when the market had the pullback of around 8%. tom: on bloomberg television and radio, we have a massive problem, john on a backdrop that looks perfect. let us go on bloomberg television and youtube worldwide, it is a winter wonderland in new york city. the backdrop is not working today is it? paul: who knows where john is. we have had two years of north of 20% returns in the stock market here, what does your gut tell you about 2025? john: you know, what we did when we put in -- we have a 7100 target for 2025, and our gut told us essentially that the fundamentals were the been good and the resilience whether it is

resilience and jobs and things have slowed, but they have resilience and jobs and incorporate earnings based on the s&p 500 in the last two quarters. we have a consumer that remains resilient as well. sometimes it is discount shopping or private able -- label. this is becoming a more astute buyer and they have always been more astute when things slow down. things are going fast in the economy. and then they spend like sailors on a long-term of duty. nm they have a short leave all of a sudden. but the consumer has come through. essentially it is the fed, they have the direction of the consumer wrong, and i think overall the case was that they really thought with the slowing being relatively soft in the economy that things were going to be worse than they are and the earnings have persisted.

paul: using my trusty hp 12c, i see about 18% return from current levels. how much of that is earnings driven versus multiple? john: we think it is a combination of the two. the more significant movement is the earnings. we think that earnings are likely to continue to improve in 2025. the multiple, there are more people buying stocks today than there have been another bold markets with serious concerns and needs. it is not just fear and greed and you have the best five stocks. people are looking in anticipation. younger generations are seeing that social security is not likely to be the resource it was for the great-grandparents or grandparents, and less so for their parents. for the boomers the biggest risk

is the concern that one might live longer than one would like. so you need to invest more in equities and have a better growth trajectory from a historical standpoint. and be able to keep your standard of living in your golden years. tom: talk about the free cash flow and growth of the magnificent seven. the concentration is extraordinary. identify the analysis of the continued free cash flow growth? john: i would defer that to analysts that as a strategist i will make a stab at it. the free tax flow growth is sourced from the fact that business and the consumer have technology deeply embedded in their lifespans and as a result of that we are all on the upgrade cycle. there is a big-name in

smartphones that we all know has the latest version and the one just before it are the only phones that you have with the chip that you need to do ai. that is big staff. it happens with the other companies. it is related to home appliances and factory equipment, robotics. the need to advance the electric grid. both alternative and traditional fuels, aerospace, it goes on and on. this is just one of those period s that looks to us very much like the period where we were not around where we read about it. probably akin to or parallel to after the period where henry ford automated the assembly line and suddenly brought down the price and raise the quality overall and increased production with automation and changed the way that everybody laughed. tom: tim cook is the new henry

ford. we continue with john on bloomberg television and radio worldwide and we welcome all of you into the holiday season. with futures advancing up 13. paul: you mentioned the advents of the assembly line back in the day. is ai the new assembly line technology for the next however many years? tom: what are you talking about? john: it might very well be, or at least it is part and parcel of a suite of things that are ai software and hardware, a variety of things that are now looking to become more reduced rate or efficiency is for both business and the consumer. we also would have to think that when you look at this type of period it is disruptive. essentially what we are looking

for are sharper picks and shovels, virtual picks and shovels to dig through the data that we produce on a regular basis. whether it is health-care or financial professionals or people in the utilities business to produce greater efficiencies and gaining increases in electricity. it is on all 11 sectors. it is not just about the magnificent seven which we believe will share the stage. tom: we do not care about xps 7000 or the dow jones 51,000. david emails and and says "asked john what will be under the tree this year." are you looking at the 10,000 martin d45 or springing for the00045 at 21,000?

john: one it comes to buying more guitars it is not on my list this year. my daughter is going to law school. law school is more important than another guitar. paul: law school or guitar? tom: joe, you are telling me -- john you are telling me that tuition is more in barth -- more important than the marginal guitar? john: i am afraid so. having played guitar for well over five decades, you know, enough is enough. i have what i need. and patty riley on 29th street and 2nd avenue and we draw a big crowd. it sounded just fine to me. tom: thank you so much. without question the equity strategist of the year and he

has optimism forward into the american market. on television and radio, futures have advanced with the vix 19 level yesterday into able market 16.75. i am looking at the 10 year real yields 2.27 percent elevated which is a real point of interest to me. trust company telling us earlier that they are watching that closely. sweeney on the dollar, right on the cusp as they say. 1.0 399. subscribe to bloomberg podcasts and on your commute across the nation. 99.1 fm in washington, d.c.. this is bloomberg surveillance. ♪

>> markets headlines and breaking news 24 hours a day on bloomberg radio, luber television and bloomberg business app. this is a bloomberg business

flash. lisa: futures in the greenness after the news -- the nasdaq lead higher thanks to shares of chipmakers like nvidia and broadcom after president biden announced an investigation into chinese chipmakers. nvidia up .5%. advanced micro devices up 2%. broadcom, 2%. 80 points. futures little changed. s&p futures up 13. the two-year-old at 14.35% in the yield on the 10 year 4.62% adding up three basis points. the dollar spot index is little change. we will start with starbucks, the breeze to strike spreading to 300 cafes according to its workers union. over 5000 workers in cities spanning boston, new york and philadelphia will join the work stoppage today. we go on to amazon.

workers in the north carolina warehouse filed a petition for a union election and the warehouse has 4300 employees. for on-demand news 24 hours a day subscribe to bloomberg news wherever you get your podcasts. that is a bloomberg business flash. tom: i was on linkedin and peotter, one of our great exit -- academics and lse grad in london and holding court out in lazard but doing some great public policy work. highlights robert rubin's essay in "the new york times." i will be linking this on twitter. it has been busy. i blame american airlines. mr. rubin has a huge influence. he is 86 years old and he will forever be incredibly healthy 62 years old. he changed how we speak on global wall street. and the one word i associate

with robert ruben and his management of risk at goldman sachs was likelihood. when you hear fancy people to me in the modern-day talk about likelihood, that comes from robert rubin. he changed how we look at risk on wall street. thank you peter for mentioning that. i will get that out on twitter and linkedin for a holiday and weekend reading as well. on the likelihood of your next cup of sanca, we have her back here amid cocoa up and coffee up. everything else is up. let us start there. is there a correlation. are the agricultural's of cocoa and coffee up for the same reason? >> the same reason but there is something that links them. and that would be climate change. they are all soft commodities

that are traded in -- produced in tropical countries and tropical countries are more vulnerable to climate change than the temperate countries. so yes, we have had excessive drought in brazil which is the biggest producer of coffee. droughts in vietnam and other tropical countries and in cocoa you had the ivory coast which suffered from dry weather and damp weather which causes disease is. it is a combination of the weather but also nuances within the balances. tom: elasticity peter taught me is responsiveness. so if lisa mateo gets an extra caravel venti white mocha at starbucks for nine dollars right now, do we start drinking less coffee? do we start chewing less chocolate? kona: wholesale prices have

fallen and those prices have obviously gone through the roof. it is a question of the roasters and the chocolate producers to pass this on. we have been seeing drip demand passing throughout at the retail level. i believe in 2025 we will see much more pass through. and then you will start feeling the pinch. the average consumer is not hurting them. but as you go into 2025 we do believe that the hikes will lead to some not necessarily destruction but certainly double thinking. do i really need the extra coffee or a of chocolate? tom: she goes to the heart of the maddow. we go to lisa mateo. does a $15 starbucks slow the demand? lisa: it does not because the

daughter just has apple pay so it goes on no matter what. tom: thank you for tim cook. paul: how about the greens and oils. cooling -- corn and meat, and --wheat seeing double digits decline. it is the glco function. how are farmers doing? i see double-digit declines in soft commodities. kona: so, the greens and oilseeds have not had as good a run we basically start to see another supply situation which has led to price collapse. i think the potential tariffs that trump is planning against china and mexico could also impact demand for oilseeds certainly soaring and exports out of the usa to china would be severely impacted. all of this is causing future markets to fall.

and you are right. farmers are suffering. some of the corn farmers i would argue that the cost of production is being approached and that is not great. and as -- and that is reflected by profitability in the u.s. farms for sure. and then the e.u. farmers are burdened with additional legislation and we have so much restriction on what can be applied and that is another level playing field with the cost of production being higher being applied to farming. so farmers are going through a bit of a rough time certainly in the oil commodities for sure. tom: one final question and to great respect what you have done just driving your study of this. for this year i was looking at darjeeling tea and the farmers at the end of the day make barely anything. why do coffee makers in brazil,

the farmers or in vietnam, why are they so impoverished? is there a policy affecting them or is it just the human condition that the farmers of all of this wonderful stuff that we use make next to nothing? kona: i think that case is definitely true for cocoa in the ivory coast and ghana where the farmers who produce it do not get nearly as much as the price we are seeing in the futures market. the middlemen take a lot of that. the whole middle side of it is where a lot of the margins get absorbed and the poor farmer does not. in coffee i would say the brazilian farmers and vietnamese farmers are better capitalized. the prices that they can gain is a lot more transparent and they do seem to be capturing a bit more of the margin compared to the cocoa producers. i think there is room for improvement in the cocoa industry whereas the farmers in

brazil and vietnam i think are of -- they are fairly highly incentivized to produce more. but ivory coast they are not. tom: it seems like we have you on every two weeks and we have to do it again early january. kona on what you care about the cup of coffee that you make and chocolate. i did not know that meal is a thing. paul: down 26%. cocoa is up 176% year to date. and coffee is up 73%. tom: john stoltzfus was just with us with really an exceptional persistence of a bull market. your levels at the close yesterday at 43,000 on the dow. 6000 xp acts and 21,500 nasdaq

100. are we on the four dollar apple watch? greifeld is in charge of that. i do not know what katie says. are we close enough? paul: three point eight $6 trillion market cap. up 32% year to date. tom: we are not talking to dan ives for the rest of the year? he is just done? paul: i feel like that. tom: stay with us on bloomberg television and radio. lisa, michael, paul and myself getting you ready for the holiday opening from new york city. good morning. ♪ demand continues to rise, we're harnessing breakthrough innovations to increase production in the u.s. gulf of mexico. our latest deepwater development, anchor, produces previously inaccessible oil and natural gas,

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>> markets, headlines, breaking news 24 hours per day on bloomberg radio, bloomberg television, the bloomberg business app. this is your bloomberg business flash. lisa: i'm lisa mateo, alongside tom and paul with your opening bell report. how are the markets going to open on this holiday shortened today? this after a rally with some of the largest tech companies in the world giving a nice boost yesterday. shares of chipmakers had a great day, yesterday. we are off and running, let's get right to it. the s&p 500 is up. the dow, little changed, 42,921.

tying the nasdaq, up .2%. the two-year yield, 4.3 5%, little changed in the yield on the 10 year, 4.26 percent up about three basis points. brent crude, $73 per barrel. wti, 73 dollars per barrel. spot gold, $2016 per ounce. the bloomberg dollar spot index is little changed. since we mentioned chipmakers earlier, we will check on nvidia. amd, up. qualcomm, up to .3%. that is your opening bell report. tom: thank you so much, lisa. welcome to all of you worldwide on bloomberg television and bloomberg radio. for those on the east coast, good morning in washington, up through 11.3 in boston. in my right, there are two

trains? paul: there's a train going every hour, at least. tom: so you say. paul: take the next one. tom: it's a winter wonderland. cleared up in new york, it's important to have worse weather in milwaukee. all spring global investments, that's where winter is winter. i want to talk about the future of value investing. i know that all spring is venerable. i think of john kerry pioneer, or i mentioned john templeton earlier with his measurement on the growth fund years ago. what does the future of value investing look like for anime lety as you shift to the etf world? >> it's a great question, tom. thanks for having me on. merry christmas to you and paul. i think i like underdogs. not just the green bay packers.

i also like small-cap and mid-cap. i think that when we look towards the future, that is where i see the most value. certainly those indexes have more financials in them, more, you know, cyclical names. but they also have some very profitable companies that have been kind of ignored by the rest of the market as this area has taken off. tom: i mentioned john kerry. you would have had a value fund with 150, dare i say 200 stocks. are you less diversified now in trying to succeed at value versus owning four growth stocks? ann: i think they are focused on trying to get investors to think more about diversification. we are still really cautious. you don't want to be everywhere in this market, but there are some really high quality

companies out there. you know i have followed small and mid-cap stocks for most of my career. dating me longer than i want right now. but what people often associate small-cap companies with is that they are unprofitable. but there are a lot of small and mid-cap companies that are quite profitable. when you look at the earnings multiples of those companies versus the s&p 500, they are almost at trough levels. it's those types of companies, tom, cash flow positive in many cases. earnings positives. really good management teams operating these companies that cannot get out of their own way. diversification but looking for high quality, still. paul: i knew that you and your teams at all spring did bottoms up research analysis. are there sectors that screen well for you guys in the small to mid-cap world? ann: there definitely are and we

have seen financials starting to outperform. that's one of the areas we were highlighting earlier with rates coming down in other pressures coming off that area, not just the banks but more broadly other financials as well. i would also say health care. this is an area where a lot of the market has been scared away. the tools and diagnostics space in particular is an area that has been underutilized, where you have the earnings expected to really ramp in 25 and 26. when you see the earnings acceleration, it can bring really good returns for shareholders. tom: if we get lucky with nord stream growing private like yesterday, we've got josh franklin in the financial times, pretty much just moments ago, this was rumored and now the report is that a u.s. banking

lobby group has said that they filed a lawsuit against the fed over the central bank's stress testing. of course the quote here from greg barrett, we appreciate the announcement as a first step towards transparency. are we beyond stress tests, ann miletti? i get that jp morgan is wonderful. but come on, if you look at the top 20 banks and what we went through 18 months ago, can we really get beyond stress tests? that's a mouthful. the stress tests of our banking lobby? ann: you know, tom, this is a really interesting article and comment as well. as you know, where have we seen concentration grow? with banks. there may be more risks out there, longer-term, than less. i think that others would point to private credit and private

equity with slack on the other end. those areas also funding merit -- many businesses. i don't know, we will have to see what happens with that lawsuit. paul: a lot of the folks in the new trump administration are expecting m&a to pick up. is that something that you thematically think about for 2025 and beyond? ann: absolutely. we are already starting to see it. the ipo market is showing signs of opening up. m&a is real. as you both know, company balance sheets are strong. there is a lot of cash on the sidelines when it comes to what companies have been holding out waiting to do, waiting to see what the future looks like with a lower regulatory environment. with rates continuing to come down. maybe not as low as people expected. that's a good environment for m&a. it's another reason we like the small-cap in the big cap space.

the names are ripe and valuations are attractive. i think that m&a will heat up and it will be a theme. tom: paul, looking at christmas eve of 2018, that great bull market call at hsbc, i think i said 154%. i can't remember the number, folks, but i got j.p. morgan from the same holiday season six years ago. fortress diamond is up 161%. 17% per year. i thought that banks made nominal gdp. paul: no its great returns with a phenomenal headquarters that i can't wait to see. where's the performance going to come from after two stellar years? i feel like it has to be driven by earnings. sure enough, the earnings growth out there is 12% to 14% and that seems pretty high. is there an earnings risk out

there for you guys? do you agree with that? ann: paul, i agree with you. it seems high. i would have said that coming into this past year. but we didn't see tremendous earnings growth outside of real concentrated numbers of names. this year i think we need to see real earnings growth in order to get the market to accelerate. you know, the market will continue to surprise. i looked at the data going back to 1926, so 99 years. 71 of those years, if we can count this year, which hopefully we can, have produced positive returns. 71 of 96 years. 32 of those years produced returns of over 20%. five years in a row of over 20% earnings, paul, you will remember this. it was the fun times of tmt for most of us. 88, 99, all plus 20%.

you will never know. maybe we can get three this time around. tom: ann miletti, is apple a value stock? ann: value is what you gain, not what you pay, that's how i love to think about it. so i think it depends on what you paid for apple and how much more game we can get. tom: paul, did we mention it this year? i need to get my first chair. 33% this year. i thought they were doing terrible. tim cook, it's terrible. stop the roadshow? remember the developer shows? paul: yeah, they still have them. tom: is this a homerun for dan ives? paul: he's had a lot of home runs. his clothing works for them. but he's a penn state fan. forgive him. there you go. tom: ann miletti on value, let's

continue with a couple of more questions here on television and radio worldwide. going back to value on an international basis, the number one failure has been strong dollar and resilient dollar in international stocks. at some point, it's going to be a moonshot. when is that? ann: you know, tom, if we had to pick a dark horse going into 25 and 26, we would take a shot at having allocation towards emerging markets and it's exactly what you are pointing out. the dollar has been so strong. it has really pushed back emerging markets. you know, on top of other things. i think there is real value to be had. when you look at the em index versus the s&p 500, we are at a 20 year trough. any kind of positive surprise or weakness in the dollar could really cause that area of the market to surge.

tom: ann miletti, merry christmas to you, thank you so much therefrom all spring in milwaukee. we have been doing this and we are committed to doing more of this next year where we will have not one but two guests from one shop or two people that cover the same thing from two different shops. it takes more work than you think, everybody's schedules are so crazy. but boy, start strong in 2025. this is the nathan hager karen moskow is striving and that. bloomberg day, the first of the year. recapitulating 2024. didn't turn out to be 4 trillion? tom: could be. such a move. two of the leading voices on technology in our studio recently, just kind of going through all the big names, the mag seven.

the ai trends. the electric vehicle trends. some of them are big issues driving these markets. tom: you can do this on the bloomberg professional service. the des stream, michael uses it daily. the market cap is 3.8 8 trillion. greifeld says we've got to get to 3.9 trillion and then we are on the 4 trillion watch. paul: boom. on it, on it, on it. it looks good. when you think about apple, it's a combination of new products -- what have they got for you, upgrading now to the iphone 16 pro. i'm a cool kid. i made the upgrade. and then it's about services. all of the services they generate, they make a very good profit. tom: all the stars aligned. for those of you that don't know this, john tucker has the phone that michael douglas used in wall street 30 years ago. money never sleeps.

is tucker not in the last few days because he's trying to get into the apple store? could be he's on fifth avenue? paul: trying to get in for an upgrade. tom: we have a winter wonderland here in new york. this is billionaires row. this is from lizzie schneider schwab and her patio. this is looking across 57th street and central park south -- sorry, that's the time warner center? was eddie goes nuts. is it the deutsche bank center? i don't know, over there. it's great. hope you are having a winter wonderland. good morning. from new york city and bloomberg surveillance. ♪

(♪♪) (♪♪) what took you so long? i'm sorry, there was a long line at the thai place. you get the sauce i like? of course! you're the man! i wish. the future isn't scary. not investing in it is. nasdaq-100 innovators. one etf. before investing, carefully read and consider fund investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and more in prospectus at invesco.com

>> markets, headlines, breaking news 20 four hours per day on bloombergradio.com a bloomberg television, and the bloomberg business app. this is a bloomberg business

flash. lisa: i'm lisa mateo, it's a quiet session ahead of the christmas holiday. bond markets close at 2 p.m. and the nasdaq is up .6%. 118 points. the dow, little changed. the s&p 500 up about 20 one points. the two-year yield, 4.35%. the yield on the 10 year, 4.26%, up about three basis points. currencies, the bloomberg spot dollar index, little changed against the dollar. the euro, little changed against the dollar. the british pound up .2%. a few stocks we want to check in on, u.s. steel is up after u.s. national security deadlocked on that sale, leaving the final decision to president joe biden. nippon steel rose 1%. shares of american airlines are

down 1% right now after flights resumed following a brief grounding from a technical issue that affected all of u.s. routes on christmas eve. speaking of the holidays, are you ready for the horror of christmas day? "knows for two" expected to hit -- break the dracula fox office curse. tom: is the rock in it? michael: he's not. -- lisa: he's not. [laughter] it does come out christmas day. that is you've numbered business flash, paul and tom. tom: thank you so much. always helping out on bloomberg radio and bloomberg television worldwide. someone says tom, what do you want? i've got enough bowties. just subscribe to bloomberg podcasts. that's the best thing you can do. the bowties that just go up up and away? they used to be like -- you know, two martinis.

now it's more. paul: worth the investment, though. tom: we are going to spend some time here on the politics of the moment. doing so with a professor at the yale school of management in his book, picking presidents, alluding to the follow-up, kidding, ingest, picking billionaires. now on musk into 2025. professor, thank you so much for joining. one of your side notes, the tension within the trump administration, elbridge colby and the business types that need to do business in shanghai, musk, the tension is tangible. is that what we need to look forward to, a raging chinese debate at 1600 pennsylvania ave? gautam: it's hard to see how

that won't happen. a big chunk of the trump administration has defined themselves around hostility towards china. hopefully, not armed. some of the major players in the administration, elon musk, are enormously dependent on trade with china. musk once billions in investment going into china in most of his investments seem to come from china. it's hard to see how they will be at loggerheads. paul: how do you think this is going to play out? a lot of folks in washington, d.c. who think about policy matters for the incoming administration, i'm trying to figure out what role elon musk is going to play and for how long. any insight? gautam: so, this is something new in american politics. there's never been a civilian as powerful as elon musk. in american history is hard to find someone, even in light british history, whose comparable. he's not just the wealthiest

person in the world in the single most important media figure, he's also america's single most irreplaceable defense contractor, right? you could swap out boeing for lockheed martin, but you couldn't swap out spacex for anyone. that level of stature is astonishing and hard for any -- he would be a major player in any government. but at the same time, he has shown a sort of willingness to conduct his own foreign policy. he use to speak with vladimir putin on a regular basis and then turns around and tweets out stuff that looks a lot like russian propaganda. he has an enormous financial interest in china. perhaps larger than any other person in the united states. so, at the same time if you are marco rubio, what have you been talking about for 10 years? needing to prepare against china . i will note that right now in the conflict over the government

shutdown, the most interesting thing that happened was the initial bill was killed because of elon musk. the bill that finally passed did not address any of his concerns with the original bill. if anything, it was worse by his standards, the ways he was measuring it. but the big change was it stripped out the claws that prevented america for making significant investments in china. that was gone. somehow the bill passed the second time. suggesting that maybe he got exactly what he wanted. paul: so, what are some of the takeaways from that funding bill that we saw a few weeks ago? seems like maybe congress in the senate tried to assert their independence of their branch of government. does that suggest how maybe these first 100 days will go for the trump administration? paul: it doesn't i think it suggests that senators and congressmen are realizing no matter how much musk might be

admired for his business success, he wasn't much he -- he wasn't selected to run the country and even hard-core trump supporters are looking at his role in going -- we didn't vote for this guy, so it's not clear what's going on here. american politics look more like court politics right now than traditional politics. i keep drawing on stuff from the roman empire in the byzantine empire, it's about clashes of personalities. the person that springs to mind for me for elon musk is krassus, the most powerful of all the romans, a crucial year in the transition oe sort of --d other people, he played an enormous rolb scenes, incredibly powerful, until he decided he wanted to rule directly himself. even though he had back room

maneuvering skills, other incredible skills, that wasn't his skill set and ended up very different for him. tom: professor, you get this in history. march 2, 1861, lincoln and his first inauguration. i'm sure they had a whole frenzy about the pecking order of who would sit where and all of that. where should elon musk sit at the second inauguration of donald trump? tom: -- gautam: i mean, judging by his level of influence, he should be right on stage. tom: pulling the bible? [laughter] gautam: with his hand right on his shoulder. tom: seriously, is he on stage? president biden? is he halfway back to the lincoln memorial? which is it? gautam: i would never underestimate his savvy.

he spent $250 million to make himself the second most powerful person in the united states. if i were giving him advice, i would tell him that he should be so far away, cameras can't find him. that was us -- that the smart play for him is to be as low as possible in the trump people should think the same thing. the trump, musk like trump likes to be the main character and it's hard for me to imagine him yielding the focus to that extent. tom: professor, thank you so much. you've been a huge advantage to us this year. "picking presidents," that's the book. it's really quite something as well. we wander forward here on bloomberg television and radio into the holiday season. i have never seen this season, paul sweeney, with less consent -- less discussion about what consumers are doing, what do the shops look like, what does

walmart look like? i have heard less talked about that this year than in ages. ages. paul: what we have seen from the consumer, pretty solid results so far. seen some pretty decent same-store sales coming into this holiday season. low single-digit growth may be in that holiday spending. it's not bad. the employment numbers are solid. tom: i got an email from brammo. ask lisa if she can borrow a bottle of the kirkland eggnog lacour. -- liquor. lisa: we do the other one, to quito -- coquito. the spanish version, eggnog, we make it from scratch. paul: of course. tom: have a wonderful holiday season on bloomberg television

and bloomberg radio. weti is "bloomberg surveillance." ♪ to increase production in the u.s. gulf of mexico. our latest deepwater development, anchor, produces previously inaccessible oil and natural gas, allowing us to deliver the energy we all need today so everyone can follow their own road. that's energy in progress.

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