Employment Traits of Gen Z, 'Juicy' Bond Yields, Americans Quit Bowling

Scarlet Fu (0:02)

Bloomberg Audio Studios.

Nikki Waller (0:04)

Podcasts, radio, news.

David Gura (0:07)

Bloomberg Money.

Tom Keene (0:12)

This is the Bloomberg Money podcast. I'm Tom Keene with Scarlet Fu. Join us each week for a smart look at the forces shaping your financial life on personal finance, on retirement, and wealth management. We will explore how people are earning, investing, and building wealth. We are live Fridays at noon Eastern on Bloomberg Television. Subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, and as always on the Bloomberg Terminal and the Bloomberg Business App.

We're still there with us today. David Gerr is with us this morning here for Bloomberg this weekend, and into the political maelstrom that he's in as well. Nikki Waller is here on a wide set of topics, which I think is going to be great. And personal finance is sort of shattered within these markets.

Torsten Slok (1:00)

I mean, sure is.

Nikki Waller (1:01)

Good thing we're all in it for the long term.

Tom Keene (1:03)

Romain Bostic with us with some real expertise. What's different here, folks, is we all follow the blur. Scarlett and I do that. But then Romain's really channeled in, and we're going to talk about his perspective on running shoes.

Scarlet Fu (1:14)

Well, he talks a lot of CEOs, and he's got good insight into how some of these consumer facing companies are managing through this period.

Tom Keene (1:20)

Romain Bostic on a first word basis is with Jalen Brunson about which shoe he's going to wear next year for Ford Gazillion.

Scarlet Fu (1:26)

I call him J.

Tom Keene (1:28)

Let's get this started. David Gura, we're in the election season. You got Raoul Bronstein on here, Bloomberg this weekend. What's your first question, Ron, about the cacophony we're living?

David Gura (1:38)

Why is the president going to Texas and Oklahoma and Alabama? Why is the vice president going to Florida? What does it say about their strategy, Republican strategy going forward? We were promised by the president a few months ago, everything's up for grabs. He's going to crisscross the nation. He is sticking firmly to these red states.

Tom Keene (1:52)

Personal finance of 50 states is flat on their back. I did Duluth, Minnesota today. Forget about that. Why aren't they in Iowa where the affordability issue, Grassley, at what, 90 years old?

David Gura (2:03)

92, I believe. Is apoplectic about this. Yes, in his 90s.

Look, I think in states where now we're seeing races incredibly close, you have candidates who might not feel so easy with the president going there because of what's been happening in the economy more broadly. I was struck by what Tom Tillis of North Carolina, my home state said, he of course retiring from the Senate. This is a time when these lawmakers who are for re-election are focusing on their own states. They don't want to have the burden of the president of these districts.

Tom Keene (2:28)

Is this where he mentions Duke is foreign? No.

Scarlet Fu (2:30)

Yeah, I think it is.

David Gura (2:33)

I will not talk about UNC football on principle on the show.

Scarlet Fu (2:36)

Let's talk about the economy though, because Romain, we got some jobs numbers today. We also got consumer confidence this week that shows people feel really lousy, even though that there is job growth and we had solid PMI numbers which show that the economies are well. It's kind of hard to get a hand on where things are.

Romain Bostic (2:51)

It's hard to get a handle. I think someone said it best to me. They say right now you have a consumer that is behaving a lot better than what he or she actually feels and I guess that's good in the short term but long term. It raises a lot of questions about are we reaching a breaking point? And to your point, David, about the midterm elections, this is something that has come up time and time again on the campaign trail. Doesn't seem like a lot of people in Washington are paying a lot of attention to it, but I can tell you this right now, a lot of the retailers and apparel makers and the companies that are selling goods and services, they are paying attention to it. That's all you hear on the conference calls these days.

Scarlet Fu (3:24)

And Nikki, you see that too with companies like David Buster's and Lucky Strike, they're hitting some serious economic headwinds.

Nikki Waller (3:30)

Yeah, we're seeing real consumer fatigue. And we know when people's finances are stressed, the first thing to go is that they're going to chop out, is that discretionary spending and a fun night out. The other thing that's happening is that places like Lucky Strike and David Buster's aren't cheap anymore. You're looking at a couple hundred bucks for a night out.