Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Odd Thoughts podcast.
Speaker 1: Time Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wis So, Joe, i
Speaker 1: am not in the American Heartland, but I'm certainly closer
Speaker 1: to it than I was last week when I was
Speaker 1: in New York. Yeah. I kind of feel like even
Speaker 1: if you're someone's not technically in the what people think
Speaker 1: of as the heartland, as long as they're not in
Speaker 1: New York City or Abu Dhabi, then you're probably closer
Speaker 1: to it than you normally are. All right, Well, I
Speaker 1: am in Naval Town, Annapolis, Maryland, where the Naval Academy is.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to local radio and getting a good
Speaker 1: feel for some of the local issues. And every time
Speaker 1: I come back here, I always notice a couple of
Speaker 1: new things that kind of catch my attention. So what
Speaker 1: do you learn when you step out of the bubble?
Speaker 1: All right? So, first of all, it has to be
Speaker 1: the polarization of American politics and media. Even the local
Speaker 1: radio stations now seem to be divided between Republican and Democrats.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty amazing to me. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that I always find interesting is I watched the commercials
Speaker 1: on cable news, and there are always new trends that
Speaker 1: you can find from watching the commercials. What do you
Speaker 1: see on the local edge there? All? Right, So there's
Speaker 1: one thing I'm really noticing that I can't remember seeing
Speaker 1: ever before, and that is all these ads for basically
Speaker 1: addiction treatment centers, opioid addiction treatment centers. I've seen some
Speaker 1: ads and I know that also you get there. I
Speaker 1: think there are a lot of ads for drugs that
Speaker 1: treat the side effects either of pain killers of pain
Speaker 1: killer treatment. So it's pretty extraordinary how much this issue
Speaker 1: and this crisis has sort of soaked into the media. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so huge, huge social issue in the United States, and
Speaker 1: such a big social issue that people are starting to
Speaker 1: take it seriously from an economic standpoint for the very
Speaker 1: first time, as you know, right. So, the issue that
Speaker 1: people are talking about is whether or not opioid addiction
Speaker 1: is now so pervasive in American society that it's actually
Speaker 1: having an impact on the workforce and in particular the
Speaker 1: labor participation rate. Right because there has been this so
Speaker 1: called mystery, which is that the economy has rebounded in
Speaker 1: an impressive way. Many indicators are at the highest level,
Speaker 1: well above their old pre crisis highs, but there do
Speaker 1: seem to be pretty large swaths of the population that
Speaker 1: have not returned to the labor market the way economists
Speaker 1: would expect, and more and more people are wondering and
Speaker 1: talking about this possibility. Right that, Uh, the the addiction
Speaker 1: issues that so many people are facing is having a
Speaker 1: real macroeconomic impact. Yeah, that's right, the workers are missing.
Speaker 1: So today, in a podcast that I would describe as
Speaker 1: Notes from the American Heartland, we're going to be talking
Speaker 1: to Jeff Corzenik. He's the chief investment strategist over at
Speaker 1: Fifth Third Private Bank. Fifth Third, of course, is a big,
Speaker 1: big bank for a lot of the heartland American country.
Speaker 1: He's going to be talking to us not just about
Speaker 1: the opioid crisis and its impact on the economy, but
Speaker 1: also how the economy is faring in general in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: So it should be good looking forward to stepping outside
Speaker 1: of our New York Abudabi bubbles and talking about the
Speaker 1: real economy anymore. All right, So let's bring on Jeff. Jeff,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for being here. It's my pleasure. Thank you.
Speaker 1: So you're coming to us from I think he said
Speaker 1: it was Columbus Ohio. Is that right? I am. I'm
Speaker 1: speaking at the Ohio Tax Conference. It doesn't get any
Speaker 1: more Midwest business than that for some of our listeners.
Speaker 1: Maybe everyone is familiar with it, but tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about the size and scope of Fifth Third Bank,
Speaker 1: It's geographical footprint and the type of customers, whether on
Speaker 1: the business side or the retail side it typically deals with. Sure,
Speaker 1: happy to um, we're coming up on our hundred and
Speaker 1: sixtieth anniversary. Were found in eighteen fifty eight in Cincinnati. Um.
Speaker 1: If you think of Cincinnati in that time and place,
Speaker 1: it was essentially the gateway to the Western expansion, the
Speaker 1: gateway to the agricultural boom in the United States and industrialization.
Speaker 1: And we're still very much the bankers to the American heartland.
Speaker 1: We have a ten state footprint of retail branches as
Speaker 1: well as other offices that are not retail that extends
Speaker 1: from the northern Midwest that traditional rust belt states down
Speaker 1: through the southeastern Florida. A hundred and forty two billion
Speaker 1: dollar bank. So when people talk about the opioid epidemic,
Speaker 1: they often seem to connect it with the decline of
Speaker 1: the manufacturing industry in some ways or at least they
Speaker 1: say that it's more pervasive in states where that's happened.
Speaker 1: Is that your experience as well? I think that's certainly
Speaker 1: the start of it that we believe eve that there
Speaker 1: are three closely connected social all is long term unemployment,
Speaker 1: the opioid epidemic, and the incarceration recidivism cycle. And the
Speaker 1: starting point is long term unemployment, and I think for
Speaker 1: many years a sense of despair that was prevalent in
Speaker 1: the rest belt. But to be fair, the opioid epidemic
Speaker 1: has spread well beyond there. It's in Massachusetts, it's in
Speaker 1: New Hampshire in a big way, as well as really
Speaker 1: in every in all of the states to some degree
Speaker 1: or another. So obviously people have been talking about this
Speaker 1: for a while from a public health standpoint and a
Speaker 1: sociological standpoint. But you have the perspective of talking to
Speaker 1: businesses all the time and their challenges and hiring and
Speaker 1: things like that. You're at a conference right now in Columbus, Ohio,
Speaker 1: So what are what are people saying about the effect
Speaker 1: that this is having on their ability to hire? A
Speaker 1: long term theme that we've been hearing from business owners
Speaker 1: in the spaces that we focus a lot of our
Speaker 1: banking efforts, that's construction, manufacturing, insportation. For years, business owners
Speaker 1: have been telling us that hiring people who can pass
Speaker 1: a drug test, they're Finding people who can pass a
Speaker 1: drug test has been a challenge. And it was actually
Speaker 1: four or five years ago. I remember the moment to
Speaker 1: breakfast with CEOs in Lexington, Kentucky, where they talked about
Speaker 1: I said, what is it, you know, marijuana? And everyone responded, no,
Speaker 1: it's pills. And that really got us looking. And that
Speaker 1: is continues to be a theme and a theme that
Speaker 1: has intensified as the labor markets have tightened. In these
Speaker 1: industries that need people who can pass a drug test,
Speaker 1: it's become increasingly difficult to find people. And then there's
Speaker 1: also this epidemic of existing employees who are becoming addicted.
Speaker 1: And so we have just a terrible problem. And it's
Speaker 1: an economic problem, not just a social problem. So I
Speaker 1: have a really stupid question, but I've always wondered this,
Speaker 1: If labor market tightness is a problem, if you can't
Speaker 1: find enough good workers because they're all failing their drug tests,
Speaker 1: why not just do away with the drug test. It's
Speaker 1: a workplace safety issue. Speaking to one manufacturer, for instance,
Speaker 1: in Kalamazoo, Michigan told me that he did not drug
Speaker 1: test his employees until existing employees came to him and
Speaker 1: asked him to do it because they felt they had
Speaker 1: a few bad apples who were endangering others. You know,
Speaker 1: if you think about these industries, uh, you want someone
Speaker 1: who is clean and sober operating the crane or the forklift,
Speaker 1: or you know, around electricity or molten metal. You know,
Speaker 1: these are heart land industries and it's a safety issue.
Speaker 1: What about um you know, I know you mentioned another one,
Speaker 1: and that is criminal justice recidivism. Have you seen employers
Speaker 1: relax some of their background checks so drug test aside
Speaker 1: other things that might have previously been a red flag
Speaker 1: in an employment application, such as a conviction for a crime.
Speaker 1: In light of these tight labor markets and a light
Speaker 1: of these sort of general desire to reincorporate people into
Speaker 1: the workforce, is there any flexibility on stuff like that?
Speaker 1: There is increasing flexibility. So the other barriers on the
Speaker 1: drug testing end, by the way, are often insurance requirements
Speaker 1: or federal contracting or sometimes state contracting requirements. There aren't
Speaker 1: the same hurdles for hiring people with a who are
Speaker 1: ex offenders, but there are some hurdles. Nonetheless, often there's
Speaker 1: extra liability. If you hire someone with a criminal background
Speaker 1: and then there's an event at the workplace, you as
Speaker 1: an employer may be more vulnerable. This is state by state.
Speaker 1: States like Ohio have actually gone ahead and alleviated that liability,
Speaker 1: so you have no more liability for someone who is
Speaker 1: an ex offender than for any other employee, which is
Speaker 1: really fair when you think about it. Employers are coming around.
Speaker 1: We do see, at least anecdotally, more and more employers
Speaker 1: willing to consider that. This has been highlighted in the press.
Speaker 1: Our concern at fifth third, having researched this quite a bit,
Speaker 1: is that this is necessary but not sufficient. If you
Speaker 1: look at the truly successful private sector models for employing
Speaker 1: ex offenders, they require you to do a few extra steps,
Speaker 1: not just willing to consider them. You have to uh
Speaker 1: staff your people a little bit differently. Actually, best practices
Speaker 1: are offering an extension of your E a P program
Speaker 1: that allows for some of the very specific social and
Speaker 1: economic needs of this population. If you do that, hiring
Speaker 1: ex offender is a tremendous advantage. You actually have very
Speaker 1: low turnover rates and get a more dedicated employee. But
Speaker 1: the way it's going on now, some of that pickup
Speaker 1: is more haphazard, so we're not sure how sustainable that
Speaker 1: will be. So I'm looking at a chart of the
Speaker 1: labor force participation rate. Joe isn't going to believe me,
Speaker 1: but I am actually looking at it. It was a
Speaker 1: peak of scent in and it's drifted down basically ever
Speaker 1: since then to about six as of mid sort of
Speaker 1: last year. When we look at ex offenders and people
Speaker 1: addicted to painkillers, is there something specific about that problem
Speaker 1: that seems to translate into them just leaving the workforce
Speaker 1: entirely versus just being among the pool of unemployed. So
Speaker 1: we don't know the exact numbers. There's some very good
Speaker 1: work that's been done looking at people who are not
Speaker 1: in the labor force, so who are not job seek
Speaker 1: areas they're completely out of the labor force. And for instance,
Speaker 1: Princeton economist Alan Krueger has done some very good survey
Speaker 1: work and he estimates that among prime age males fifty
Speaker 1: four year olds, you know, these are people who are
Speaker 1: typically close to all in in the labor force. Of
Speaker 1: those who are not in the labor force, over admit
Speaker 1: to taking pain pills, which probably means that a higher
Speaker 1: number of taking pain pills or other forms of opioids
Speaker 1: like heroin and his by his estimate, one point four
Speaker 1: million prime age males are not in the labor force
Speaker 1: because of the opioid epidemic. It's a tremendous number. Then
Speaker 1: there's also the issue of those who might be jobs seeking,
Speaker 1: so who are unemployed but are technically in the workforce,
Speaker 1: and then those I think it's also important to consider
Speaker 1: those who are underemployed, who are not able to get
Speaker 1: a job in say manufacturing, that could offer a good
Speaker 1: paycheck and a career because they can't pass a drug test.
Speaker 1: We recently got the U. S Department of Health and
Speaker 1: Human Services updated their numbers. Here's where that government arm
Speaker 1: believes we are. We're at the end of eleven and
Speaker 1: a half million Americans misusing prescription opioids and two point
Speaker 1: one million people who could be defined as actually having
Speaker 1: an opioid use disorder essentially are addicted. So those numbers
Speaker 1: suggest to us that it's not just the people who
Speaker 1: are out of the workforce, it's not just the unemployed.
Speaker 1: It's also a productivity and underemployment problem of those who
Speaker 1: are in the workforce. Jeff, do you see anything on
Speaker 1: the state level or the local level that looks like
Speaker 1: a substantial policy response. So obviously it's gone beyond a
Speaker 1: social crisis, it's also an economic crisis. Almost nobody in
Speaker 1: any aspect of sort of modern life isn't being affected.
Speaker 1: But at the national level, you look around and it's
Speaker 1: hard to see a whole lot of action. But from
Speaker 1: your perspective, do you see any meaningful change? We're starting
Speaker 1: to see some change. It's not necessarily government lead. So
Speaker 1: for instance, you saw CVS limit the size of an
Speaker 1: opioid script that they will fill at a at a
Speaker 1: given point in time. You see places like Michigan are
Speaker 1: talking about I spoke to someone on a Michigan Medical
Speaker 1: Oversight board and they are looking at doctors who over
Speaker 1: prescribe and requiring education or at least talking about doing that.
Speaker 1: So you see a lot of small policies that hopefully
Speaker 1: add up to some impact. Part of the problem here
Speaker 1: is it's more than one problem. So the low hanging
Speaker 1: fruit from a policy perspective, seems to us to be
Speaker 1: preventing over prescribing, and it still goes on. I can't
Speaker 1: tell you, as I speak about this around the country,
Speaker 1: how many times someone comes up to me will tell
Speaker 1: me about their child who had a sports injury, had
Speaker 1: maybe a fracture, required some minor surgery, and was given
Speaker 1: a prescription for sixty oxy content with an automatic refill
Speaker 1: or a hundred pills with a refill. You know, this
Speaker 1: sort of thing shouldn't be going on, but it still is.
Speaker 1: So there are policies, whether it's proactive from a company
Speaker 1: like a CVS or at the state level, there are
Speaker 1: policies that can impact that. The stickier problem is what
Speaker 1: you do with the eleven million plus people who are
Speaker 1: already misusing those About a quarter of opioid addicts started
Speaker 1: with a prescription for themselves, which means that three quarters
Speaker 1: got a prescription from someone else or otherwise are using
Speaker 1: things like fentonel or heroine illicit drugs, So they're out there.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult to kick this habit um. And then
Speaker 1: even if you kick the habit it's often associated with
Speaker 1: If you're an opioid addict, you've probably had some interaction
Speaker 1: with the criminal justice system, probably have difficulty getting back
Speaker 1: into employment, and so if you kick the habit. People
Speaker 1: who run rehab centers and rehab programs all tell me
Speaker 1: that one of the secrets to staying off of this
Speaker 1: addiction is to be actively engaged in a community and
Speaker 1: have a job. And so that's another barrier. So there's
Speaker 1: a whole there's a whole system that has to be
Speaker 1: addressed here. It's sort of a catch twenty two, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Can I just go back to the prescription thing that
Speaker 1: you were saying, because I have a personal anecdote, which
Speaker 1: was two years ago when I was living in New York,
Speaker 1: I sprained my wrist in a very misjudged throw at
Speaker 1: a punching bag at the gym, sprained wrist, go to
Speaker 1: the doctor. He gave me a two week supply of
Speaker 1: percoset or sprained wrist, which I could not I just
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. I've broken my wrists in Europe a
Speaker 1: couple of times and in Asia, and no one had
Speaker 1: ever given me pain killers for that. It was just
Speaker 1: a completely different treatment of pain. So, putting that aside
Speaker 1: for one second silver lining, I guess, if we have
Speaker 1: labor market tightness, and we have this long awaited missing
Speaker 1: wage increase, and we have a declining labor force participation rate.
Speaker 1: Does that mean that eventually wages for people who aren't
Speaker 1: addicted to pain killers or who are eligible for the
Speaker 1: workforce are eventually going to go up. We think so.
Speaker 1: In fact, we think there have been a couple of
Speaker 1: catalysts for wage increases. We've obviously had tight labor market
Speaker 1: and it's been made tighter by all these social ills.
Speaker 1: But the FED likes to talk about inflation expectations being
Speaker 1: well anchored. Anchors are great as long as they're stuck
Speaker 1: in the mud, But the minute you lift them up,
Speaker 1: you're you're at at the whim of prevailing forces. And
Speaker 1: the prevailing forces today are inflationary. But we think a
Speaker 1: couple of shocks to the system are helping to lift
Speaker 1: that anchor. The demand for labor. In the wake of
Speaker 1: the hurricanes that impacted Florida and especially Texas, that's put
Speaker 1: an extra squeeze on the market, and we at least
Speaker 1: anecdotally here of employers paying up. And then now I
Speaker 1: think clearly tax reform is causing wages to move higher.
Speaker 1: We're not done with this. We're expecting a real pickup
Speaker 1: and wage inflation here at fifth third. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: the current state of the economy a little bit more.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of debate and skepticism about the
Speaker 1: sort of pass through from tax reform to labor and
Speaker 1: two wages, And of course the big argument from the
Speaker 1: White House has been that cut taxes for corporations that
Speaker 1: will make them invest more, that will cause wages to rise.
Speaker 1: Skeptics have said this tax reform is largely a tax
Speaker 1: cut for the rich and very little will trickle down. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: we've had a series of very public announcements from companies
Speaker 1: and they say, in the wake of tax reform, we're
Speaker 1: going to be giving a bonus, are going to be
Speaker 1: increasing the minimum wage we pay our employers. But even
Speaker 1: that doesn't really solve the mystery because some will say, a,
Speaker 1: maybe this is publicity and be they're probably gonna have
Speaker 1: to do this anyway because the labor markets tightening. So
Speaker 1: really walk us through the mechanics of what you're seeing
Speaker 1: on the ground, the interplay between the new tax regime
Speaker 1: and how companies are thinking about their wage and investment decisions.
Speaker 1: I certainly understand those who have criticized because if you
Speaker 1: look at the historical data when we've done first of all,
Speaker 1: we've it's been so long since we've done meaningful tax reform.
Speaker 1: But in general, tax cuts have not produced much in
Speaker 1: the way of wage increases. But that's because these kind
Speaker 1: of stimulus bills are typically done when you have a
Speaker 1: lot of slack in the labor market. That is not
Speaker 1: the case here. So we have felt very strongly that
Speaker 1: some of the benefits to corporations from the tax bill
Speaker 1: would be shared with workers. Obviously, some is going to
Speaker 1: go to share buybacks, some may go to dividend increases,
Speaker 1: and some will go to capital investment. So it's really
Speaker 1: a company by company and industry by industry decision. But
Speaker 1: I think because we are doing this at a time
Speaker 1: of tight lay her some it's more likely that a
Speaker 1: greater percentage of that benefit will flow to workers than
Speaker 1: has in the past. It's also the case that a
Speaker 1: greater benefit will flow to investment than might have in
Speaker 1: the past, for two reasons. Number one, you obviously have
Speaker 1: the ability to expense capital investments, so that's that acceleration
Speaker 1: of a depreciation schedule so aggressively is very productive. Number Two,
Speaker 1: capex is how a business responds when you run out
Speaker 1: of labor. If you want to grow your business and
Speaker 1: you can't find employees, you have to make your existing
Speaker 1: employees more productive. The way to do that is through
Speaker 1: capital investment. So one thing that amazes me, again sitting
Speaker 1: outside of the US for the most part, is when
Speaker 1: I look at things like these small business optimism survey
Speaker 1: and it's just been off the charts since Trump was elected.
Speaker 1: What accounts for that optimism? Is it all the tax policies,
Speaker 1: the promised infrastructure spending, or is there just something that
Speaker 1: has changed in the sort of collective American psyche. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a really interesting question, and I think it requires
Speaker 1: one to be in touch with the type of customer
Speaker 1: base we have. We actually were the first private bank
Speaker 1: to increase our equity allocation in the wake of the election.
Speaker 1: It was about a week after the election, and we
Speaker 1: had actually been planning on doing it in the then
Speaker 1: unlikely instance that Trump was elected, because we felt very
Speaker 1: strongly It's not because we liked or disliked the president,
Speaker 1: but we felt very strongly that small business owners, and
Speaker 1: by small I mean the official sort of government definition
Speaker 1: is under a thousand employees, small businesses were going to
Speaker 1: react very positively to the election. I do these CEO
Speaker 1: roundtables in a number of our major cities. I did
Speaker 1: one in March that The New York Times actually sent
Speaker 1: a report or two to sit in and and we
Speaker 1: met with the CEOs of of local companies anywhere, employees
Speaker 1: anywhere from maybe a hundred to five or six hundred,
Speaker 1: so you know, small to mid sized business is mostly
Speaker 1: manufacturing and transportation. The reporter in in his article likened
Speaker 1: the meaning to a group therapy session where even those
Speaker 1: who did clearly had not voted for Trump, felt a
Speaker 1: palpable sense of relief. And the feeling is that if
Speaker 1: you are an employer of a couple hundred people, you
Speaker 1: are in the worst of all worlds. You feel like
Speaker 1: or felt like, you're a target of regulator intrusion and
Speaker 1: excesses without having the the resources to counter those or
Speaker 1: to support all of that. And this is not a
Speaker 1: pro regulation or an anti regulation stance. This is just
Speaker 1: the reality of how businesses react. Large corporations simply have
Speaker 1: a larger infrastructure to deal with that. It tends not
Speaker 1: to distract the CEO to the degree it would have
Speaker 1: amaller business. Um When you look at smaller businesses, typically
Speaker 1: these are family owned businesses often second generation, and so
Speaker 1: business owners take anything that is standing in their way
Speaker 1: or risk to their business. Essentially, they take very personally
Speaker 1: and it's it's almost an emotional decision. So the reason
Speaker 1: we opt their equity allocation was we saw that optimism
Speaker 1: coming and we were looking for that optimism to have
Speaker 1: its traditional relationship to driving capital investment. It usually takes
Speaker 1: six to eight months. This cycle was just like all
Speaker 1: the past cycles, business optimism rows. Sixty eight months later
Speaker 1: you started to see a real pickup in CAPEX and
Speaker 1: the small and medium sized businesses owners that you speak to.
Speaker 1: Are they experiencing on a day to day business fewer
Speaker 1: calls and fewer complaints from regulators? Or is it they
Speaker 1: feel more of a vibe that the administration has their
Speaker 1: backs more from sort of a a tonal thing. I
Speaker 1: guess that might ask. I believe it's more a tonal thing.
Speaker 1: You know, the regulations are still out there, they're still
Speaker 1: being enforced. There's obviously been some lightning up and say
Speaker 1: the energy sector, which is one of the industries we bank,
Speaker 1: But for the most part, it was the tone. So
Speaker 1: out of this meeting and back in Toledo and one
Speaker 1: a consistent theme I've heard in the months since then
Speaker 1: is it's not so much that we have less regulation,
Speaker 1: it's that we know we have an end to the
Speaker 1: the onslaught of new regulation, and that's been very, very meaningful.
Speaker 1: So business owners feel that they can play offense again
Speaker 1: and not just a constant defense and again not defending
Speaker 1: their view, but their view is meaningful. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I think we forget those of us
Speaker 1: who are involved in the public markets. Large corporations are
Speaker 1: what we tend to talk about all day, but job
Speaker 1: creation in the United States is usually done by small
Speaker 1: private companies. Jeff, from your advantage point both at Fifth Third,
Speaker 1: which obviously has a lot of links to smaller medium
Speaker 1: sized businesses, but also as chief investment strategist, what do
Speaker 1: you think about the current state of public markets then?
Speaker 1: Do you think a lot of that optimism has been
Speaker 1: priced in at this point or is there more to
Speaker 1: go now? We do think a fair amount as being
Speaker 1: priced in right now. We are slightly overweight equity. We
Speaker 1: actually cut back towards the end of last year from
Speaker 1: in the magnitude of our overweight. We're still shy of bonds,
Speaker 1: but we've just spread our risk oriented assets beyond traditional equities,
Speaker 1: and two things like our real asset class, which is
Speaker 1: reats and infrastructure and MLPs, and even for the first
Speaker 1: time since two thousand twelve, we even have a little
Speaker 1: golden portfolios. We also have upted our weights to alternatives
Speaker 1: all these things that we still categorize as risk assets.
Speaker 1: But we think the best of the run in the
Speaker 1: public markets it's not over, but the best of it
Speaker 1: is probably behind us. All right, Jeff, that was great.
Speaker 1: Jeff Corzenic, chief investment strategist at Fifth Third Private Bank,
Speaker 1: that was great to have you. Really enjoyed talking to
Speaker 1: you in great perspective. Thanks Jeff, Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: a pleasure to be here. So, Joe, I think Postcards
Speaker 1: from the American Heartline was probably an apt summary of
Speaker 1: that episode. Yeah, I thought that was a really useful
Speaker 1: discussion because you and I we spend so much time
Speaker 1: a in our respective bubbles, but beyond that sort of
Speaker 1: looking at markets in the economy from a very high
Speaker 1: level perspective and so hearing about these microth things like
Speaker 1: about how say, small business owners think about the regulatory
Speaker 1: environment and how that then feeds through two jobs and
Speaker 1: other stuff like that it's just like a good reminder
Speaker 1: that there are actual people who have to make these
Speaker 1: decisions and it's not not everything is just a function
Speaker 1: of sort of supplied demand, interest rate stuff like that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: ultimately the macro is all about the micro, I guess.
Speaker 1: I also love that Jeff is a chief investment strategist
Speaker 1: but also has all these insights to actual on the
Speaker 1: ground decisions that are being made. He's like the perfect
Speaker 1: guy to talk about this. Before we go, I just
Speaker 1: want to give a plug for two things. We are
Speaker 1: at sort of the early stages of studying what the
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic actually means for the economy, but Jeff mentioned it.
Speaker 1: Alan Krueger of Princeton has done some amazing work on this.
Speaker 1: His Brookings paper Where Have All the Workers Gone? Is
Speaker 1: well worth a read. And there's one other one I
Speaker 1: found called Prescription Opioids and Labor Market Pains, and they
Speaker 1: actually look at county by county prescription levels and try
Speaker 1: to draw connection with the labor market, so that one's
Speaker 1: really interesting as well. Great, we'll have to check both
Speaker 1: those out. And I agree like this this. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't seem like the labor force particisipatient mystery and
Speaker 1: I'm making air quotes in the student because I hate
Speaker 1: using that word mystery. But it's you know, it's totally
Speaker 1: been solved. But it does seem like, especially in the
Speaker 1: last year, sort of more awareness of this sort of
Speaker 1: this crisis being a macroeconomic factor. All Right, So this
Speaker 1: has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway,
Speaker 1: and I'm Joe wisn't Thal. You can follow me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at the Stalwart, and you should follow our producer
Speaker 1: to for Foreheads on Twitter at fore Heast, as well
Speaker 1: as the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesco Levy at Francesca Today.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.