jason: you can find us online at businessweek.com.ol: bloomberg will host the second annual new economy forum in beijing. it was established by michael bloomberg, the founder of bloomberg lp, home to bloomberg businessweek and bloomberg television. jason: to coincide with that, our bloomberg economics team came up with the new economy drivers and disruptors index. it is not your typical list. it takes a look at the new forces that a narrowing the path to development and who may be holding the keys to the 21st century. carol: tom orlik is the ke chief economist who put this together. tom: the way we think about it is something like this. imagine an economy that is doing everything right. their innovative, they have a skilled workforce. they have an efficient government. now imagine that the huge meteor hurtling towards the country at 1000 miles per hour, and when it hits, it will wipe the country off the map. a traditional economic index, a traditional competitiveness index would tell you that country is doing just great. they are goin

and you can find us online at businessweek.com, and through our mobile app.ailey: bloomberg learned this week that a wall street regulator is looking into goldman sachs' credit card practices. that, after a programmer claimed that algorithms discriminated against his wife. jason: the card is the joint venture between apple and goldman. goldman says it is possible for two family members to receive significantly different credit decisions. here is bloomberg finance reporter sridhar natarajan. sridhar: this started with a series of tweets from a tech entrepreneur, david hansson. he applied to the apple card and started complaining that his credit limit was 20 times the size of his wife's credit limit, even though they both share the same finances, have the same spending power, had the same income when apple card was trying to determine the limit. and yet, there was a huge disparity. it immediately gained traction online. to add insult to industry, apple cofounder steve wozniak said, "wait a minute, i have faced the same issue." the regulators are saying, we want

carol: and you can find us online at businessweek.com and on our mobile app.the economic section, a global sigh of relief. i'm just going to say. what a difference three months makes. sentiment has improved and we're also hearing less about the risk of a recession. jason: here's this week's "bloomberg businessweek" explainer. >> on august 14, all the indicators were bad ones. major u.s. stock indexes fell 3%. the bond market was signaling a recession was in the making. and the trade war between the u.s. and china wouldn't go away. hope you didn't panic and sell everything back then because the attitude has gone from doom to boom. american stock indexes are setting records almost daily. sentiment has changed, too. according to a bank of america merril lynch survey in august global fund managers, they overwhelmingly expected slower growth in the coming year. now november most of those surveyed expect stronger growth in the coming year. what's the biggest reason? a change in central bank policy. almost a year ago, the fed was planning on three quarter-point inter

jason: and find us online at businessweek.com.: the supreme court will hold a hearing on a lawsuit against barclays that has drawn the bank to a reckoning. it's a disturbing case with broader implications. jason: it is a terrific and disturbing piece of journalism. here is max abelson on the story. >> it was a long time ago. months had gone by since i was sitting at my terminal and saw a story by a great legal correspondent. she writes in england about the law and wrote a four paragraph story that set a group of said that when they were teenagers and applying for , low level jobs in newcastle, they said that job,ays said you have a but you have to go see a doctor and this doctor. batespeople said that dr. sexually assaulted them and they wanted to hold barclays responsible because they had sent them to him. they appealed and one again. barclays appealed again to the supreme court. this news item said the supreme court is going to be hearing this interesting case. thinked and asked, do you this might make for an interesting story?

jason: and also online at businessweek.com. what is your must-read?, it's josh greene. we talk about his reporting. he really digs into his stories and brings us an individual, in this case, and her work about something we did not know about. this could be crucial for the next round of elections. jason: and as he said, it hits this nexus of political and journalistic. two things that are very interesting for us. carol: absolutely. yours? jason: i love the amtrak story. devin leonard always goes deep. richard anderson, the new ceo, we knew him from the delta days, is a big challenge to an import -- an american institution. carol: it's a good one. jason: more bloomberg television starts right now. ♪ everyone uses their phone differently. that's why xfinity mobile lets you design your own data. you can share 1, 3, or 10 gigs of data between lines, mix in lines of unlimited, and switch it up at any time. all with millions of secure wifi hotspots and the best lte everywhere else. it's a different kind of wireless network, designed to save you money. switch

. -- businessweek.com.you wanted to design a railroad from scratch, you would never come up with amtrak. it has been a money-losers since it began. jason: so many years, so much money lost. now, the ceo is promising changes. here is stefan leonard with his story. >> critics say this is no way to run a railroad. amtrak carried 32 million passengers last year and had an adjusted operating loss of $171 million. the most valuable part of the system are the miles of track. trains on this route shed a profit. posted long haul rules an operating loss that more than offset that. ownproblem is they do not much of the track the use. freight lines do, so passenger trains often have to pull on the sidings to wait. the result is lengthy delays and a 4.5% decline in ridership. the ceo, who used to run delta airlines, has been battling freight railroads in trying to cut costs. anderson wants to break up the routes and attract passengers. rail enthusiasts are out ranged -- outraged. senators worry voters might lose service

jason: you can find us online at businessweek.com and through our mobile app. continue from the year ahead summit in new york this week. what we love about this event is we cover all kinds of industries and topics. that included retail. jason: there are a lot of big questions about retail to say the least. we had a conversation with the ceo of macy's, david simon on the future of their business and whether brick-and-mortar is going to be a thing. >> in the past, we were not a scalable model. there was not the return on investment we needed. million onnding $10 these properties. most of it. now we are spending $3 million on these properties and that's just one of the strategies we have. we are adding backstage and big ticket. those are two businesses doing well in our portfolio. we are adding new brands. that's one element. it is product in its environment. the other part is focusing on the people. what we are doing with management, colleagues, commission rates. then, marketing and special events. a lot of these malls, the opportunity to get the community in and