with us is lazard's peter orszag, the former head of lazard north america mergers and acquisitions it's dead out there, peter what does this signal to you >> well, look, what i think we're seeing is there are some big forces sort of underlying tectonic plates that are pushing for more m&a so, energy transition, return to scale from ongoing technological innovation, a revolution in biotech, the decoupling of or partial decoupling of the global economy with china, and the rise of private capital, which has really been a dominant force in the past five or ten years so, you have those kind of drivers, and then on the countervailing forces, financing conditions, antitrust, generalized uncertainty. it's interplay between the underlying tectonic plate forces pushing forward and some of the constraints holding things back. it will to and fro as the positive and negative forces interact with one another. >> on the financing front, which is why a lot of the capital markets activity slowed down so much this year, what are you telling clients? is that going to turn next year? >> there's been a litt