economists have been arguing the point about pollution for a very long time what i kind of brought to the table was this whole issue about also the financial sector which is you know is that actually creating value how would we kind of make that valuation given that actually how we measure value is simply through price it is for the really big as a feminist to go in as divorce is good as well yeah why not exactly but you know this is the big revolution and in the history we cannot make thought is that the logic used to be from value to price nowadays we have a theory of price which then determines what we value so take teachers what's really interesting with public school teachers public schools the teachers that work inside them because the service gets provided for free to citizens we don't actually include the value of a well structured you know education system all we include are the the costs so the salaries of the teachers go into g.d.p. not the value of the product that they're producing if you divide it by the demand side as you can cut in different ways but on the demand side

economists are looking for something closer to 170,000.n a whole, it shows the labor market is looking good. the one area -- there's a couple areas of concern, one of them being that the wage growth has slowed down. going into this report, we saw 3.2%.hing weaker -- w the overall sentiment seems to be it is still above 3%, still in that range we see when the economy gets hot, still around the level we were at in the last economic boom cycle. it still means it's putting money into consumer's pockets. i would be interested to hear from people calling and if they are seeing that money and have that experience. maybe someone calling and can explain what happened in february. we could see a dip in retail sales as well in december. host: what are the hottest sectors in the economy from this jobs report? what are the particular areas of concern? guest: we saw gains and a lot of sectors. in health care, professional technical services, computer jobs did really well. food services are doing ok. some of the areas of concern, retail, construction and

year after the crisis said that goldman sachs workers were the most productive in the world we as economists use to really debate and contest that word there's different theories of value and actually first we debated value and then that turned into a theory of price today we have basically an approach to the economy which is all about prices supply and demand curves that determines price and that determines what we value so the logic actually got reverse think of it value chains shareholder value shared value and goldman sachs calling goldman sachs workers the most valuable but what does that actually mean and so when we don't actually have a way to distinguish value creation from value extraction it becomes much easier just to throw the word around in fact the reason i wrote the book believe it or not is that in the two thousand and fifteen election when the labor party lost the analysis by labor members themselves by leaders in the labor party the next day was we lost because we didn't embrace the wealth creators the value creators and by that they meant business and i thought to myself h

could be a glimmer of hope coming from asia which keeps outpacing the west we speak to the chief economist of the asian development bank. also coming up dima opens a new factory in moscow the comic is hoping to profit from of rapidly growing russian markets. welcome to do that the business i want to get jones in berlin good to have you with us the chinese delegation is making its way to washington for more talks aimed at resolving the country's longstanding trade dispute it is the mind's time of the two sides meeting to ion out their differences u.s. treasury secretary stephen menuhin described the last set as constructive prompting hopes that a resolution could be close but at a republican fundraising event last night u.s. president to donald trump continued to talk tough. john chronic trading abuses and theft of intellectual properties and so many other things that they've done tours i don't know how you people allowed this to happen for so many years you've been here longer than me but they really have they've taken advantage of our country. and you know what i respect them for i say it

before that in fact the way we would talk about finance was also in terms of rent so the classical economist talked about in terms of unearned income it literally just moving stuff around which of course isn't true of all the finance but anyway there is this kind of skepticism of what is finance actually doing and so in the one nine hundred seventy s. which is when the deregulation and some other changes the size of the financial sector started to become larger what you had was that the people who were doing the systems of the national accounts s.n.a. inside the united nations started to say i got this thing that's growing larger and larger in the economy isn't even being accounted for so instead of pausing and saying oh dear why is that what is this thing this blog actually doing they just came up with a justification for including it so investment banking was included under the term risk taking that it was a service for risk taking remember that when you include things into the national accounts you have to kind of say what it is doing so in the u.s. as national income and product accounti

our podcast in this week is with an economist and author. has something of a risky title, "what happens when an economist walks into a brothel?" >> i always had the idea that this was an unexplored area of economics. you would not think so, but i felt like it applied to all areas of economics, not just financial markets. i was floating with this idea and it was businessweek who called me and said we want to do a column to exploit different ways to export risk in unconventional places. finances the study of risk, and that is what got me to the idea. jason: this is a few years in the making. how long does it take to assess risk through this lens? >> assessing the risk of writing a book? jason: [laughter] yeah. >> terrible, it has to truly be a creative endeavor. that was 2014 and it was me starting to think about how risk could be reported, rather than just be in a financial model. models always have this rough idea that financial models are just little parables, told with. it was businessweek when i started exploring if i can take that same p

jason: what if you become an economist in the first place? lot of economists, i grew up with a lot of questions in a community where there was by mobile income distributional -- bimodal income distribution. jason: where was this? >> northeastern connecticut, there is a lot of declining industry but also the university. i was actually the fourth generation to drop their, i was felt really connected to lower income people even though i have professional parents. i could not figure out why this was happening generation after generation. was 15, iven when i just wanted to know more. i knew earlyis why i would go all the way and get a phd because every time i learned an answer i had to question. jason: for our full interview, check out our extra podcast wherever you download podcasts and bloomberg.com. carol: in the business section, how a small family run grocery in rochester, new york has found a cultlike following. never would have heard of them if you live outside the northeast or mid-atlantic. and check this out, we've heard of it, if you are

for more i'm joined by meeting chief economist of baron bag bank he joins us in frankfurt good to have you with us we've just heard in this reports quite a few challenges being mentioned there for the spanish economy what's the biggest one that you think the government has to tackle. well interest me the biggest challenge for the government is to make no nonsense to go from not this rap to the economic upturn which is running fairly nicely spain does face a significant list of long run issues especially in the pendent system but the most important bases for some fixing the pendant system for fixing almost everything is that the economy keeps humming so the first priority should be make no nonsense that is don't spend money you don't have and the second thing should then be. quietly think about penda reform over the long term raising the retirement age especially now of course we've heard this report as well this growth of two and a half percent last year spain is now the single greatest contributor to growth but spain socialist will have to find partners and most likely it's going to b

>> so, the truth is we are a household of three economists. we have a son who also has a ph.d in economics and -- [ applause ] >> he currently lives in london and teaches in england. but we remain very close. and if you were to make the obvious guess you would not be wrong. we talk about economics a lot. we have some other interests and topics of conversation, but it's not unusual -- i think that you would, if you lived in our household, find a diet that's perhaps rich near economics than you might find appetizing. [ laughter ] >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> pleasure. >> thank you so much for joining us and for sharing with us. thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you. thank you so much. thank you. thank you. >> i also want to express my appreciation to president degoia and to the family for this evening. thank you. please join us for refreshments. in foyer. thank you. >>> be with us later today when justice stephen breyer is said to sit down to talk about the supreme court, its inner working in a recent case about trademark law.

jared lions is economist for brexit, and also chief economist, chief economic strategi strategist back studio. >> thanks so much, steve my colleague silvio is live in bukarest no doubt, sylvia, you have also been forcing them to field your questions on brexit as well. >> absolutely. brexit is the main focus for the european union at this stage we just learned that prime minister theresa may has asked for a second extension earlier this morning we heard as well from the european council saying that president donald tusk will suggest a 12-month flexible extension you know very well, willem, in the midst of all of this, the big question is really how the 27 european capitals will react, and earlier this morning i asked the german finance minister olive schultz about how he feels about the ongoing delays to the brexit departure let's listen in. >> i helped that the british parliament will be able to take a decision and that the government and the british parliament will have is something to present to the european union hopefully in the end we will have an agreement because this outcome fo

andrew staples from the economist intelligence unitjoin staples from the economist intelligence unitm the economist intelligence unitjoin me in the studio and explained the reason behind president trump's approach to trade. president trump's thinking on trade was set in the 19805 thinking on trade was set in the 1980s when japan had thinking on trade was set in the 1980s whenjapan had the biggest deficit. at the time the us put a lot of pressure onjapan for volu nta ry lot of pressure onjapan for voluntary exports for example. japan was ina voluntary exports for example. japan was in a difficult position. it was unable to say no at the time. 20—30 yea rs unable to say no at the time. 20—30 years later, how much has the situation changed 7 years later, how much has the situation changed? it will be very difficult negotiation for mr abe. the economy is slowing. it is forecasted to slow this year and next year. we have had some bad news around the elections as well. so it is difficult to see what will be a good outcome forjapan. this is a fight that has gone on for several decades and t

joe stiglitz, nobel prizize-winning economist is wih us.tay with us. ♪ [music break] amy: soundtrack from "mary poppins." this is democracy now!, i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. taxation andon on economic policy has found a number of large u.s. companies paid nothing in federal taxes, has doubled in recent years. the companies include amazon, netflix, general motors, chevron, delta, honeywell, prudential, halliburton, whirlpool, and goodyear. elizabeth warren recently introduced a proposal called the real corporate profits tax to force companies to pay a 7% tax on all profits over warren $100 million. ououtlined the plalan recently n msnbc. >> it is just t if you have more reported million in after-tax profits, the 100 millioionth and first dollar should be taxed at 7%, and they go straight across the board. thee simplplicity of it is papaf whatat makes it work so well and makes sure no giant corporation in this country gets away with paying zeroo while small companies and families are having to pick up the ticket to run the country. am

economist's team to take the message as dovish.ught my attention, he was asked about -- i know not many people expect this until the second half. was what it would mean for the ecb's guidance. his answer was simply, i don't know. are you concerned that ecb does not have enough of a handle on not only the impact of negative rates but what they're going to do about it? >> i think that was a very deliberate answer. it was interpreted as a shock. tieoesn't want to commit to ring. the easy answer is to say we haven't worked and mission mechanism. -- whether the transmission from the banking system, profitability through to credit lines. the corporate sector, household he wants more data. that by him time. whether the market will be sufficiently patient is a gamble he is taking. i think it was a deliberate act from the president. deliberate. almost sounds like a prime minister and the nikkei from the 1920's. have a look. george had a tendency to create ambiguity. in regards to the irish question, strangely enough. i decided to drop in a

heads for a down turn one of the world's greatest economist money on them as a cautionary accuses the city big multinational tech companies of the rise found strong threatens further sanctions on cuba revolutionary cuban dance in the spirit of fidel and jay is portrayed in a new film about a ballet dancer called us a call stop by bafta win a paul levity an award winning director and i dreamed of a room. and a song of revolution from award winning singer songwriter nasty that's all coming up in today's going underground the first of its bricks it also the u.k. releases g.d.p. estimates in forty eight hours but will politicians in the media be reading the figures upside down is g.d.p. really a measure of the success or failure of a society from a cause or culture has in the usa to corbett in britain the ideas of mach's and socialism originating explosive debate from congress to the house of commons about what is truly valuable when it comes to human happiness joining me now is world renowned economist professor mary on them as a college or university college london and founder of the u.

jay powell himself is not an economist. you mentioned the dallas fed president, not an economist.hey have business training and business backgrounds but not -- not run a payroll. david: very interesting breaking news. still ahead, tesla is in the crosshairs today with the stock down on disappointing news on deliveries and elon musk before a federal judge today on contempt charges. that is coming up today. this is bloomberg. ♪ david: breaking news out of the white house. president trump is speaking on a number of subjects. he said he might impose tariffs on cars from mexico if they do not take care of the border situation. that runs afoul of the usmca he's kind get ratified. at the same time he says of the drug flow does not stop, mexico faces car tariffs. he says mexico was capturing and sending back migrants. he is talking about the china deal and says it would be great for u.s. farmers and has to be great. he has said herman cain be his next selection for the federal reserve board. a lot of headlines from president trump already today. this is before his meeting with the chief c

happy economists we surveyed expect the bank to ease.ur correspondent is outside the boj in tokyo for us. what can we expect? david.n: thank you, thank you, yvonne. i'm standing outside the bank of japan to cover the meeting. meetingsr out of eight , the bank of japan issued a monetary policy report. certainly, this press conference today, is governor kuroda wants to, he can signal anyt might even be in the making at this point. i'm joined by someone who knows all of this so well. kazuo momma is the executive economist at a research institute, formerly the boj assistant governor at the bank of japan for just about 40 years. welcome to the show. kazuo: thank you for having me. kathleen: i want to start on the manufacturing sector. the weakness there. that is what leaps out at people right now. what does it mean for the boj? the weaknesses pushing the economy into a soft patch. actually, if you look at the chinese data and american data, it may be stabilizing. i don't see it shifting into a severe downturn. we are probably better to have t

she is the chief economist at citibank in new york.ob, she wask this the chief economist at the oecd. she started her career at the fed. she taught at brandeis university. we were just talking about the fed minutes. we know they are talking about global uncertainty. right now, one of the biggest ones is brexit. the possibility of a hard brexit. we just heard our reporter talking about this. risk is brexit particularly a hard brexit to the european economy? and to the world? >> we have to keep in mind that the european economy and of the u.k. economy have been tightly related to global value chains and cross-border services and financial services. even though the u.k. seems like it is small, it is a very important partner linked up to europe. a hard brexit would be damaging for all of those relationships. though they are breaking apart over the last two years, businesses have moved some of their activities. a hard brexit would be jarring. it would lead to financial market implications. europe does not need any more shocks right now. pre

kelly: economists have had a hard time forecasting recessions.ason: and japan schools the world on how it a wealthy nation can maintain its superpower status. kelly: and the greatest delivery empire on earth. about ae are talking chinese company that has made it cheaper to order in them to go out and has reshaped life in china cities. kelly: we talked to our editor about the story. first 40-year-old founder started trying to build social , you know, china for friend star, a facebook like. something that looked an awful lot like twitter. after blowing through the early stakes for friends and family and that suffering crackdowns from the government, decided to try and do something a little less controversial. he spent heavily thanks to early --estment by alibaba alibaba's jack ma to take the lead in what was known for some time as the 100 groupon war. he starts his company, get the investment from jack ma, and that he starts putting up some of his businesses or where he wants to do business in sections -- extensions. the customer money, next and al

greene, managing director/chief economist, manulife asset management.do you think about the earnings season, especially in the u.s.? 41, we know analysts have been revising their forecasts down significantly. we think that makes sense. there are factors that suggest a squeeze. globalization are eating into margins across the board. in the u.s., earnings have -- have by capitulation been driven by capitulation. i think that is unreasonable. i do not think that will happen. there is a question if markets realize that, or if data gets that are. that could hurt earnings later this year and could push into negative in some cases. we will come back to that story in a moment. it is worth mentioning the reason glencore is trading has found some corrupt practices. getting into specific stocks, it tells us about the biggest -- the bigger picture. 3m kind of a bellwether, the disappointment in the numbers and the way the market reacted to that, does this tell us anything bigger? megan: it could be worrisome. i thought 3m was one of the more interesting earnings, t

but economists are all over the map. michael: the dispersion goes from a 1% forecast to a 2.9% forecast. carol: what does that tell us? michael: one of the things that happens was gdp as we don't know all of the numbers when they put the first report together. they don't have the inventory final numbers, and trade numbers are still coming in, especially with the government shutdown. so the economists have to guess at it. it has been a real wild card because with the trade wars, so much inventory has been moved back and forth. we saw consumers drop off at the end of last year into january. so where does that number come out? what do we see in terms of trade? it is very hard to tell. carol: we are watching u.s. earnings, gdp, and also watching european banks. deutsche bank cut its outlook for full your revenue after suffering its ninth straight quarter of contraction. we got the collapse of the merger talks with commerzbank. royal bankhing for of scotland this morning. i feel like they are in a separate category from the u

european economist at bank of america merrill lynch.ad to the shores of lake como where it is shaping up to be a beautiful day. annual finance workshop. joining us, francine lacqua. who better to lead our coverage from this glamorous event? what is in store? rancine: a lot about finances and the global economy. it is really quite difficult when you look at some of the kerryes italy is facing yesterday, we had the amazing scoop saved when you look at growth, it was going to be a 0.1% instead of the 1% predicted. what does that mean for the budget? we discuss that with two former prime minister's and we talked to economists. we figure out what negative yields mean for european banks. we tried to figure out f intech and what they could do with a merge and how unicredit could come in. we talk about recession risks. it is almost like being on "surveillance," but with this beautiful view. much more from italy throughout the day. this is bloomberg. so with xfinity mobile i can customize each line for each family member? yup. and since it comes

jason: and an economist asks gamblers and surfers how they manage risk.: and on the cover, the legend of gold. jason: an incredible story about how some dominican families, thousands of people are searching for ancestral riches that may not actually exist. our editor is back with us, i was blown away. how did it come about? >> many months ago, they came to us and said i think there is this amazing story about this long-lost gold and this family looking for it. they think it is in a european vault of a bank. we said that is really interesting, one of you go see what you can find. the story is the culmination of that. carol: it is unbelievable, and it goes on for a while. >> it is the longest story we have published on my watch. it's a breath taking story. you'll probably get to watch some day as a netflix movie, it is that good. >> they have been working on this. >> it is like chapter after chapter. what it is really about is the lawyer who has put himself in the middle between the family who thinks there is gold and the banks who say we don't know what yo

jason: why did you become an economist? of economists i grew up with a lot of questions. --rew up in a community people were upper middle class or poor. i never understood why. jason: where was this? allison: northeastern connecticut has a declining industry. differences -- i was a fourth generation to grow up there so i felt connected. i have professional parents. i cannot figure out why this was happening generation after generation. when i started studying economics and started getting answers. when i was 15, i wanted to know more. there was never enough. that is why i knew early i would get a phd because every time i learned an answer i have a new question. jason: for our full interview, check out our bluebird businessweek extra podcast. get that wherever you download podcast. carol: how a small family run grocery chain is -- found a cultlike following. jason: chances are you have never heard of wakeman's -- wegman's if you live outside the northeast. if you are not outside this geographic concentration, maybe you have

so economists like data, and you will not find a lot of data in the book. there is a huge change and that's what it's about. and they talk about the economy of it but you don't see much data. the other thing that is missing, is a problem that i think that a lot of american historians have, they just look at the united states. so i think is the international dimension of changes and baking and you will not learn a lot about that in his book. so those are the two things i wanted to talk about the time available to me. here is some data, the number of banks in total assets of banks in the united states from roughly a hundred years ago, 2019 now, the peak number of banks was in 1921, i studied 200 years of american banking history and from three banks in 1790, both of which been created in the previous decade, one in new york and one in boston called the massachusetts plan, and one in philadelphia called the bank of north america, there were three in 1790. and by 1921, we had in this country, 30000 plus banks. it must've been like a starbucks, today you are not

paul donovan, chief economist, sees a smaller rebound.he problem is there are not enough workers to higher. nonfarm payroll growth. and there's just over four hours left to input your forecast at with go. .- whis go they have estimates ranging from 70 economists. matt? matt: i'd say that's one of my top 10 favorite functions on the bloomberg, wesco. -- whis go. it enables clients to compete against each other. the march jobs report comes as president trump is said to nominate a political allies to the federal reserve board. herman cain is a former kansas city fed director and a pizza company ceo, who you may remember from his presidential run in 2012. he also advocated a return to the gold standard at one point. jpmorgan ceo jamie dimon says he's not the right fit for a central banker. jamie: they don't seem like the right people to put on the fed. i do think a couple is very bright, and i think the fed people -- i don't agree with everything -- but i think they are great people trying to do the right stuff. i don't think they would be pu

i'm an economist at the cato institute. back in 2014 the post tweeted inequality is the root of social evil. former president barack obama has described inequality as the defining challenge of our time. bernie sanders today says u.s. levels of inequality showed that the system is rigged to benefit the billionaire class. these are just a case that things said about economic inequality. one of two assumptions logically underpins these views. either that the current distributive income or wealth is unjust, or that that current description brings consequences in the future. this idea more inequality is that unless inequality good underpins much public debate. it's become the moral foundation for call of more government discretion of income and wealth, and high taxes on the rich in particular. but a given distribution doesn't -- know is a pre-determined solely by government. it reflects millions of interactions, trade decisions, inheritances and policies which are undertaken every single day. a statistic of income or wiltshire a

jason: forecasting recessions is the favorite parlor game of economists.orite, taylor riggs, is here with her own look on forecasting. taylor: is a difficult job, and if you come over here, i made a pie chart. we haven't done one of these in a while. the key number is that of the 194 countries that sovereign recessions, only 108 were not predicted in the imf world economic outlook. that is a really big number. people are saying that economists, unlike portfolio managers, don't have the money where their mouth is, so it is easier to go along with groupthink and there is not a lot of backlash if you get it wrong. carol: up next, japan's economy found a way to age gracefully. jason: and a renaissance of cultures out of japan's former capital of kyoto. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: i am carol massar. 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 podcast. find it on itunes and of course, bloomber

what these economists did in 1976 was looked at the way u.s. corporations were run and said, they are not getting the best return on investment. in fact, their corporate leaders are kind of lazy, and they are not doing the best for their stockholders. what we need is stockholders to be able to get more. we need corporate leaders to respond more to stockholders. that is what started to happen. one of the first executives who got this message, and who fully believed it entirely was a man who came to the leadership of general electric corporation in 1941. his name was jack welsh. he gave a speech in 1981 at the pierre hotel in new york after becoming ge's ceo. he called it growing fast in a slow growth economy. what he said is, "there are things we can do to get those bigger returns." one of the things that he focused on in ge was downsizing. taking the company's payroll and shedding as much of it as he could. the more he shed, the more prices rose. ge cut its payroll from 411,000 down to under 300,000 in just five years under welsh. the revenues

paul bloxham, hsbc economist. in charge of global commodities there. great to have you with us. what are you seeing in terms of what others in the market are not in county fact it's not starting to price in rate cuts and you're saying we could see a rake height, albeit in a little bit of time. paul: we are much more focused what's happening in the labor market than anything else. we think the labor market has positive momentum and we're seeing that today in the statement from the r.b.a. as well. i think the r.b.a.'s view is the labor market is giving them a clearer rate on the economy. it is at an eight-year low. job vacancies are at a record high. we have indicators telling us the labor market will continue to remain quite strong over the next few months and then into the second half of this year we're expecting a combination of factors to support australia's growth. firstly, we're expecting the budget, which comes out tonight to deliver some fiscal stimulus. tax cuts and some spending which we think will support local growth. secondly, we have the vi

cut its global growth forecast for this year from three point five to three point three percent economists at the i.m.f. and mainly wide about the u.s. economy because of trade tensions also though with a growth outlook for the eurozone. and there's africa the world bank says growth is sluggish despite so much investment in the continent. the world bank says the economy in sub-saharan africa has grown only two point three percent in twenty eighteen that's down from two point five percent the year before we can make growth remains below population growth for the fourth consecutive year but a rebound is expected long term trends for the three largest subsaharan economies are upwards growth in nigeria is projected to rise from one point nine percent to twenty thousand to two point four percent in two thousand and twenty one south africa is forecast to recover from zero point eight percent to one point eight percent in two thousand and twenty one and i'm gola is expected to come out of recession to see growth approaching three percent smaller countries are expected to see even stronger growth

joined by the chief economist of the world trade organization robert kaufman a scope on thanks for joining us on the w. business what is actually worse brags that all the trade spat between china and the u.s. at the moment. well there both bad but i would have to say that the global nature of the global impact of u.s. china and u.s. actions on other countries is probably going to have a much bigger impact than brics although brics it will have a very concentrated impact on the u.k. and the e.u. so you know it's. six one half dozen of the other probably a little bit worse on the global side us china in concrete times what are your findings what can we expect. well our findings are by the way generally our concern is slowing economic growth because that drives a lot of trade growth particularly investment but these trade measures that countries are taking with against one another us china for example well the uncertainty around the brics a deal also weigh on trade growth and that can affect quite a bit the bilateral relationships between countries we see a lot of trade diversion potentially

i've come to ghana's capital our crowd to meet economist and labor expert. we stop by to morrow market out to says the prices are set here on a daily basis. that someone is someone in the market who is fixing the prize in the morning. was the sellers tell me that they need a fair price it's the dry season now so tomatoes are brought down from ghana's far north. they can't compete with inexpensive tomato paste that's imported from europe and china. you can find it on sale just about everywhere. fresh local tomatoes are left to rot. it's hot and humid right now so those tomato should be processed quickly but that's not an option. to subtly here john. how about the arm or what you. because they can get them from our competition is good guy but there's no message could be said that his. choice must apply to bring your from your old lies that are metal from italy is over yourself advised by do it down commission of applause that's it for too long in manufacturing in china is a little better. this a lot of their self-interest is i think of the everything that has.

today coming in a bit better than exticted, pro economists to upgrade a still weak outlook for growth in the first quarter. and we now have our first look at expectations for theecond quarter. the cmbc rapid update for the ra first quartering at 1.5% gdp growth, down from the fourth quarter, but up 0.2 from prior forecasts. the second quarter looks althy, up. we got there the hard way. februah retail sales were muc lower than expectations, down 0.2% while economists were looking for up 2%. but january revised up sharply to 0.7%. the two sort ofce c each other out but on balance left economists thinking the consumer would do better than originally pected. meanwhile, a key manufacturing index, supply and management for march coming in better than expected at a healthy e 55.3, whending topped ant estimates by a long way with a 1% gain. coming?down, is it it's here, but it's not looking as weak right now as first feared. i'm steve liesman. >> a new report says auto sales in the first quarter t hir slowest phase in more than four years. this was released one day before automakers report se

the respondents include fund mrgds, economists, and strategists.t's criticism of the fed along with his no, ma'minat of moore and cain are reducing the central bank's independence. still, 65% say the president's comments will have little effect on monetary policy, but that's down from 83% in november. 22% say his comments will make rate hikes less likely up from 14% last time. while most respondents think the president should not be commenting on monetary policy, the percentage is declining from 83% who thought it was inappropriate back in july to 61% now. steve liesman, cnbc business news >>> well, one of our top sports stories today revolves around a sport very close to my heart as a bostonian, baseball. the trump administration is rolling back a landmark deal allowing cuban baseball players to play on major league baseball teams. the original agreement allowed cuban players to sign with u.s. teams without needing to defect. it was enforced in the wake of warming relations between the two countries, which began during the obama administration. >>

economist yes says the populist donald trump is playing to the existential fears of these workers . there's one reason why donald trump became president. he won states that had been hit hard by globalization in the midwest plus pennsylvania and ohio. these states traditionally vote democrat but he managed to carry them by attacking globalization and china and his campaign speeches without the states that have lost out because of globalization it's impossible to understand donald trump success. for. president trump is clearly abandon the principles of free trade in favor of tariffs and trade wars but free trade has never really been free. for. everyone is talking about free trade right now. but free trade does not exist. to compete with each other. well trade may not be fair but now more than ever one rule seems to govern survival of the fittest for example in africa where the u.s. and china are expanding their trade presence. both countries see excellent opportunities in the west african country of ghana or the gold coast as it was once known. this part of the continent is rich in n

a combination of bter trade and retail sales data has wall street economists marking up their forecast the just-completed first quarterar shy. they're seeing a 2.4%, a long way from the modest 1% forecast in early march and of course, it's not the 3% growths of last ar and it is above what most economists consider to be trend growth. the current quarter is forecast to come in right around the same place, but we don't have the data yet and some remain cautious. >> retail sales i only about 20%, 25% of total consumption and there's a y big piece know a lot about and the momentum looks good for a q2ompared to q1 and consumer spending and perhaps larger inventory drawdown and imports c tur out to be stronger. >> retail sales are up 1.3% among economists and grocery stores and clothing sales. and it wasn't the only upbeat report. jobless claims fel 192,000 and the lowest level since 1969 when there were a lot fewer workers in the american economy. the fed, unlikely to hike rates because of the newfound economic strength and those who were sure the fed would cut rates are disappointe an econ

tell me, are economists always right? [laughter] mr. mcgovern: i mean, you should try being a member of congress. we're always right, right? seriously, though, let's look at studies. even looking at dr. blahous' tudy from the conservative merkatus center. it seems like the studies suggest that medicare for all could cost a little more or a little less than we're currently paying now, right? getting that right? dr. blahous: i think that's fair. mr. mcgovern: ok. so worst-case scenario, we could spend about what we are spending now nationally on health care and guarantee that another 29 million people get health care coverage. we could end crushing costs for everyone, and we could include new services for seniors and the disabled. that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. so i mean, when we have all these, you know, warnings about the high cost, we're spending an awful lot on health care right now. and we're not getting the services and the effectiveness that we're all demanding. so i just want to put that out there because i think -- i

it's a clear indication the german economy is slowing down and leading economists have now more than how their forecast for next year from one point nine percent to zero point eight in schism in general german manufacturing capacity is well utilized so if we speak of cooling it means they call me has cooled and it's not freezing yet. the country's business leaders are sounding increasingly concerned. is good so if you own. there's so many uncertainties like brags that the trade conflicts that there's a major economic slowdown but they call me is still growing and german companies can surely expect a bit of a tell wind at home that will allow them to continue to be competitive globally. and as you heard by the machine going. for german companies are behind over fair the hope is that we get something of tell when from the global markets even though headwinds are gaining momentum. and that's it for me and the business as a team here in berlin for more business memes of lots of stories check out the w. dot com slash business here's a pickle a global lot of spiceworks. luck . what secrets

bounced nearly for aoc, alexandria ocasio-cortez you're wrong in how to fix income and equality, economists are saying that too we'll show you why as aoc is locked in twitter battles over constitutional settled 70 years ago with republicans so when will the licensed democrat social it'ses really sit down with serious policies to fix the problems facing americans? healthcare reform, infrastructure and the crisis at the border we'll talk about all of that tonight. this as democrats think they have the bullet proof roadmap to win in 2020 you won't believe what it is. we're trying to overturn the constitution, and we'll ask if trump can get his own parties to step up and get his back on the border and on healthcare reform. also to joe biden, critics are saying democrats are shooting themselves in the foot by