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US Banks Accused of Failing the Public

Our CEO and founder Tony Nash is back on the BBC Business Matters for the discussion on US banks and why they are not helping enough during the pandemic, India’s Covid and their vaccine efforts, and Friends the Reunion. 

 

This podcast was published on May 28, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xvqbttq78ml.

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

Big US banks have been criticised for not doing enough to help ordinary people during the pandemic. The bosses of JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs were grilled during an appearance before US lawmakers.

Also in the programme, following the deaths of more than 315,000 people from coronavirus, India could fast track the clearance of some foreign vaccines in a bid to speed up vaccination in the country. The BBC’s Rahul Tandon has an extended report on how the country’s rollout is going so far.

Staying in India – we look at the relationship it has with Twitter. The information technology ministry in India has criticised the social media giant after it expressed concern over the potential threat to freedom of expression in the country.

Plus, as the cast of TV sitcom Friends reunite for a one-off special to look back at the making of the show, we discuss why it remains so popular.

 

Show Notes

 

RT: Then from Houston, Texas, we have the founder of Complete Intelligence, Tony Nash. I’m always very reassured to have Complete Intelligence on the program as a man of limited intelligence. Yes.

Tony, does that mean looking ahead and this is not a reflection on the current CEOs, but banks are going to have very different CEOs because it’s not all about the numbers anymore, is it?

 

TN: Well, I think these are smart CEOs, they can handle handle their own. I don’t necessarily think these guys are not skilled enough to handle these topics. These banks handle these topics every day. I think the range of questioning, to be honest, really shows just a lack of focus. These companies are better served when they focus on an issue and go deep on it.

 

RT: What should they be and focus on? What would you focus on?

 

TN: Whether it’s green loans or whether it’s access to finance are such rich topics that they could have spent the entire hearing on. And I think the hearing was really meant for a lot of one liners so that people could be seen in the media more than really a desire to dig deeply into this. So, for example, the the fees that were levied, the saving rate of Americans right now is 21 percent. Normally that’s five percent or seven percent, something like that, but it’s 21 percent.

 

So Americans generally have money. I’m not saying that it wasn’t the overdraft fees were not unfair in some cases, but it’s not as if that was kind of a massive hot button issue really until today. Americans hate banking fees. I think everyone hates banking fees. But I think it was just kind of an opportunistic thing to talk about.

 

What would have been really interesting to talk about is how those major banks, specifically for things like PPY loans, they did not cater to small businesses, OK, they catered to their largest clients.

 

RT: Interesting points that from Tony. What do you think? Tony. Anyway she’s part of the world that you know very well here entering an emerging market that should he said there with this strong man, but that’s something you’ll have to do if you want to grow your business.

 

TN: I think what Twitter has done with government accounts globally is it’s put a label this is from a government account or this is from a person who works for the government. So in the West and I’m sure in the U.K. and other places, you can see, for example, Chinese government spokespeople put out things that are obviously false that Twitter doesn’t police. They have to apply the rules evenly to everybody. So if they’re going to apply these rules to an Indian government official or an American government official, they have to also apply it to a Chinese government official or a Japanese government official. The problem that Twitter has is it is not treating its users equally around the globe.

 

RT: Twitter having to deal with people from countries. You may not be telling the truth. You mentioned China there. But if an Indian member of the government appears to be not telling the truth and Twitter says so, there’s nothing wrong with that. It has does to stand up on that principle now or does it cave in and say to the Indian government, “OK, we’re going to follow that rule because your market so big?”

 

TN: Well, Twitter is supposed to be a non-partizan platform. And so they are intervening as partizans at times, and that’s just not fair.

 

RT: They shouldn’t say anything. Just let people say what they want?

 

TN: I think they label as a government account. And if it’s seen as government propaganda, then either they let it go or they apply it evenly across all government accounts.

 

RT: Tony, if I can come to you firstly in Houston, in Texas, a personal question, I suppose. I mean, have you been vaccinated? Tell us a bit about the vaccination situation where I would imagine it’s quite good.

 

TN: So Texas has about 40 percent of its population vaccinated, and I think it’s 22 million people. So it’s nothing on the scale. I haven’t been vaccinated. I’ve wanted people who’ve needed it to go first. So I’m happy to wait on that so that older people or people at risk or whatever can go first. But the U.S. generally has about 40 percent of the population vaccinated. So things are pretty well advanced here. I was glad to see the U.S. government start to support India about  a week and a half ago or something two weeks ago? I think it was really, really late. I think they should have supported India much, much earlier.

 

RT: Well, I think it’s very admirable that you’re that you’re that sort of attitude that you’ve taken to vaccination. Tony, if you want to get vaccinated in the U.S., what’s the process that you have to go through? One thing that intrigued me was that in India, a country where many people still struggle when it comes to the Internet, the booking system is only online at this particular point in time and only in English. You obviously have large Hispanic community in Texas. Tell us a little bit about how you book it and sort of language abilities that.

 

TN: It’s online in Texas that I haven’t booked again, because I’ve been waiting for all these other populations to clear, but in Texas it has to be in multiple languages. I mean, we have such large communities here, not just Hispanic communities, but Vietnamese communities and other communities. So it has to be in other languages on the site. A look while we’re talking and if I can find it in time, I’ll let you know.

 

RT: Great. But if you can’t go online because, you know, there are many parts of the world, as you know, my parents struggle to go online. Sometimes they struggle with many things, really. But online is one of them. Can you make a phone call in Texas to get it? Is there another way? Can you just walk into a center?

 

TN: I’m not sure if you can just walk in, but there are multiple ways of contact. I’m on the website now, so there are multiple ways to contact. It’s a very, very simple website and it’s a multi-language website. So, yeah, there are multiple ways to get in touch with them with phone number, toll free telephone numbers, even for hearing impaired telephone numbers. So there’s a lot of ways to contact.

 

RT: Can I just say that was Complete Intelligence there from Tony just getting on the website and doing some live reporting for duty. Certainly did a great job at the Olympic Games are being held in Texas, Tony. And they weren’t vaccines available for the local population. And then you had thousands of people coming in, athletes who would get the vaccination. Do you think that would annoy people?

 

TN: I don’t think it would annoy people, I mean, Texas is open, we have sporting events and concerts and everything that are alive now. So I, I think Texans view is, look, if you want to get the vaccine, that’s totally fine. If you don’t want to get it, that’s totally fine. And so, you know, if a lot of people were coming in with vaccines, I think people would be fine with it. I don’t think they would they would be concerned if they knew that infected people were coming in. But if people were coming in, you know, checked with vaccines or without vaccines, I don’t think anybody would really mind either way.

 

RT: Quickly, do you think it’ll go ahead to.

 

TN: The Olympics, yeah, I hope it does, but I’m not optimistic, I mean, I’m going to say no at this point, but I really wish it would. The world needs something positive to focus on, and an Olympics would be an amazingly positive thing for us to focus on that issue.

 

RT: I think we all need something positive to focus on. Which one of you is the big Friends fan or are you both maybe.

 

SR: I like friends, but not a super fan.

 

RT: Tony.

 

TN: That was I was in my 20s when friends was out, so it was just kind of on in the background. It was kind of about people around my age. We had Seinfeld, we had Friends. I mean, the 90s was some really great TV. So it was good. It was a good show.

It was of the time Ross had girlfriends of different races. Ross, his ex-wife was in a same sex couple. Now you know all that stuff. So, I mean, I hear that criticism. But I think at some level, you would always do things differently if you could redo them. But at the time, I think they did a lot. You can’t see history through today’s lenses. You really have to look at it at a contemporary through contemporary lens. And at the time, they were doing a lot of.

 

RT: Yes. Thank you very much to both of you. Let us end the program, whether you like it or not, with a theme tune from friends.

 

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Biden administration backs lifting vaccine patent protections

Our CEO Tony Nash recently guested at the BBC Business Matters to share his thoughts on the lifting of the vaccine patent protections to help in manufacturing more vaccines faster. Is that fair specially in this time of need? Also discussed are the special case of Facebook and Twitter’s suspension of Donald Trump’s social media accounts, college football, and the growing industry of recycled furniture.

 

This podcast was published on May 6, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xvq9r0rsxwz.

 

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

The US government has backed a temporary suspension of intellectual property rights for Covid-19 vaccines in a move likely to enrage the pharmaceutical industry, which strongly opposes a so-called waiver. Shares of the major coronavirus vaccine companies were hit by the announcement but is it just an empty gesture? We speak to Jorge Contreras, Chair of the Open Covid Pledge, a group that is lobbying organisations to share their patents and copyrights in relation to vaccine efforts. We also hear from Thomas Cueni, of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations. And there’s no status update for Donald Trump anytime soon; Facebook decides to uphold it’s ban of the former US president. We speak to Issie Lapowsky, Senior Reporter at tech site Protocol. Also in the programme, college sports in the United States are a big business, but the athletes taking part have typically been compensated through scholarships rather than salaries. But could that change? The BBC’s Will Bain reports. Plus, the Swedish furniture retailer Ikea has launched a scheme in the UK to buy unwanted furniture back from its customers, in a bid to save items from going to landfill. Hege Saebjornsen is the company’s sustainability manager for the UK and Ireland explains how it works. And we’re joined throughout the programme by Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Texas and the writer, Rachel Cartland in Hong Kong.

 

Show Notes

 

VS: Tony, do you think, people in Texas will be as upbeat as George, our first speaker?

 

TN: Yeah, absolutely, I think people here are pretty happy about that. A couple of weeks ago, there was an uproar in India over Americans not sharing vaccines with India. Houston has a very large Indian community. And so we were very supportive of everything that could be done to help get vaccine components and vaccine intellectual property to India. So this is a positive development in every way.

 

VS: And so in terms of an anxiety of giving vaccines away before the population is fully inoculated, does that not exist in your experience?

 

TN: I don’t think so. There’s plenty of capacity, at least in Texas, if you want a vaccine today, you can sign up to get it. So it’s not really an issue here. I think India has the manufacturing capacity and the know how to do very good vaccines in India. So once the licensing is clear and the components are there, they can manufacture for India and for many parts of Asia, Middle East and Africa.

 

VS: Tony, what does this actually mean for Donald Trump? He’s not allowed to use social media at the moment.

 

TN: There are other social media channels, but I think it’s bigger than that. I think the real issue here is around what’s called section 230 in the U.S. government, which allows websites to not be considered publishers. And under Section 230, they are supposed to provide unrestricted access to posting content unless it’s a rules based system. This is clearly a personal deal. Whether you like Trump or not, this is this is making special rules for an individual. I think the bigger issue is around whether Facebook and Twitter and the other social platforms are abiding by Section 230 or whether they should be considered publishers. The BBC is a publisher there and certain things that the BBC has to adhere to that Facebook doesn’t. And so if Facebook was a publisher, they would have to adhere to the rules that the BBC abides by. So if they’re going to restrict postings like this, they should be a publisher. Otherwise, they need to have rules that they enforced regardless of the individual, regardless of the political party, regardless of the country someone from. I think they need to be applied consistently.

 

VS: So this idea of this board is a way of sort of perhaps circumventing that.

 

TN: But nobody does. I mean, nobody if you ask anybody in America, nobody actually believes this is an unbiased board. It’s just a fallacy so…

 

VS: Wide ranging from all around the world, different types of backgrounds. So you can kind of argue that they are a mixed background with lots of different worldviews.

 

TN: I run an artificial intelligence company. Nobody in the technology community, hand on heart. I actually believe this is an unbiased view. I’m sorry. It’s just not true. And it’s a big pretend game to act like this is unbiased. I’m not on Trump’s side here necessarily. But if you’re going to make rules personal, that really companies lose credibility as a result of that. And all I’m saying is that Facebook should be considered a publisher and they should abide by the rules that publishers like the BBC abide by.

 

VS: I’m sure it’s not going to last that we’re going to hear from this issue. And for those of us outside the United States, we don’t understand the significance of college football in everyday American life. Tony, you’re in Texas. Can you paint us a picture of that?

 

TN: Yeah, so college football is not professional and it’s kind of professionalizing, but by professional, I mean paid, right. So this California bill starts to professionalize college football. I think part of the problem with that step is that we have students who come out of high school effectively 17 or 18 year olds who have really raw talent. They’re not necessarily trained to play professionally. They typically spend time with high caliber coaches in universities to develop their skills in their craft over three to four years. Many of them go out early to try to go pro, but it’s over three to four years and then they’ll go into the professional leagues and make money.

 

So there is a very large investment that universities are making into those athletes. And what happens at the university level is,  when students come to a university, they do get a scholarship. The athletic dorms are not normal dorms. They are first class dorms. The food they eat is first class food. I’ve been in their cafeterias. It’s amazing. So they are not treated like normal students. So they do get a lot of advantages above a scholarship, but there’s this huge investment in their skill. And so, the other side of this is if students want to get paid when they leave high school, they’re welcome to try to go pro after their senior year in high school when they’re 18 years old.

 

And so if there’s a problem with them getting paid, they’re welcome to to try to join the draft and go through that process. They can do it at any time. They could go pro at 18 years old. I doubt many of them, if any of them, at least in football, would would qualify, would get drafted by a team.

 

VS: As you say and say presumably then, sports is encouraged at quite a young age, given how lucrative it can can be.

 

TN: Sure. And so they can try to do that, LeBron James actually went into the NBA out of high school, he never went to university. So there are kind of phenoms who can do that and, more power to those guys. They’re welcome to do it. But university, so the school where I went, where I did my undergrad is Texas A&M University. It has the largest revenue sports program of any university in the United States, very large. But the facilities that Texas A&M has for their student athletes are amazing. They rival any pro facility. And so what’s happened over probably the past 20 years, I would say, is a dramatic kind of upskilling and a dramatic improvement of not just the facilities, but the coaches.

 

And so there are coaches who go from college level to pro and back because the skills that they impart on the students are are amazing. So, the path to getting paid for your sport is one that is always there. They can always go pro straight out of high school. LeBron James did it, other athletes to it. But it’s a very, very, extremely rare process, I think, paying student athletes. Part of the reason I like college football, I prefer college football to pro because you root for a team in college football, you don’t root for an individual in pro football, really. It’s rooting for individuals. And it’s not really a team sport as much as it is at the college level. So I think a lot would change. I really do think a lot would change.

 

VS: When we heard that about Rachel’s lockdown project. Lack of. And are you cycling anything?

 

TN: Always, you know, so we just moved back to the U.S. about three years ago, so we’re not recycling much, but when we lived in Asia, we would regularly recycle as my kids grew up, as we worked through furniture, we would regularly, regularly recycle in Singapore.

 

There’s a guy named the current goony man in every neighborhood who would come and take your recycled materials. And so we would work with with him and he would donate it or something like that. So, you know, every community has its own way of dealing with these things.

 

VS: Do you sell on furniture that you don’t know because of these websites these days? You can do that well now.

 

TN: We do that as well. And it’s pretty common. I mean, there are loads of websites where we can do that. So it’s pretty common. We don’t really throw away much big stuff there. We had my son, my son’s bunk bed here. We just sold it on one of those sites about six months ago. So, yes, it’s very common.

 

VS: Costly to these sites around. Don’t say I wonder if if a company or a retailer decides that they’re going to buy back things. They’ve actually got quite a bit of competition, haven’t they?

 

TN: Yeah, I mean, I think they’ve probably done that calculation, it’s a pretty crowded market, so, you know, people will dispose of it in a pretty economic way and make money where they can. So I don’t know that everything will be coming back to them.

 

That’s probably just a small, small fraction that will actually.

 

VS: Thank you very much, Rachel and Tony, for joining me today.

 

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IMF: Rich world recovering faster than expected

This podcast from BBC Business Matters discussed how rich countries are recovering faster than expected — and is it for real based on data? How about the world’s billionaires suggesting Americans to pay more taxes, is it fair? Also discussed are the NFTs or non-fungible tokens — do they have values or are these just a fad? Lastly, how the workplace changed since the 1980s in terms of safety and gender equality?

 

This podcast was published on April 7, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172xvq88yhlfkj.

 

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

The IMF says that the rich world is recovering faster than expected from the downturn resulting from the pandemic. But what about the developing world? Jubilee USA campaigns for debt relief for developing countries – we speak to its executive director, Eric Le Compte.

 

And in a world struggling to pull itself out of a pandemic, lockdowns and recession, why are there quite so many billionaires? We hear from Kerry Dolan, Assistant Managing Editor of Wealth at Forbes about their latest rich list.

 

Credit Suisse replaced two key executives and cut bonuses amid the fallout from two major business relationships; Peter Hody from Finnews.com in Zurich analyses what went wrong. And we’re joined throughout the programme by Mehmal Sarfraz, journalist and co-founder The Current in Lahore, Pakistan; we’re also joined by Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Houston Texas.

 

 

Show Notes

 

JR: OK, well, let’s get the picture from the economy, which is going to swell, it would seem, according to the IMF, over the next year or so Tony. How are things in Texas?

 

TN: You know what’s interesting about the about Pakistan to kind of follow on what I said? What I find interesting about these numbers is you really have to average out  2019, 2020 and 2021 to really see how a country is doing. And so if you average out Pakistan for 19, 20, 21, there’s a 1% average growth rate that’s better than almost every other OECD country. The only country in Europe that actually shows growth over that period is the Netherlands. Germany, France, U.K., Italy and so on, they’re all negative average for the last three years. So for the U.S., it’s just over 1% average for the last three or so. So this may look like stellar growth, but it’s not because it’s using what’s called a base effect, meaning the U.S. economy is estimated to decline 3.5% in 2020. So a 5.1% growth rate on top of a 3.4% decline really is not stellar. So we’re struggling to get back to 2019 levels. And the message I would take away from here is countries are struggling to get back to 2019. Much of Europe will not be back at 2019 levels by the end of 2021.

 

JR: Tony, is Credit Suisse a typical bank, do you think, or a typical bank in the circumstances?

 

TN: I think they’re in a typical bank that got caught doing things that banks do pretty regularly. We have to be aware that these banks have risk management teams who look at the investments and evaluate how much of their capital is at risk when they make investments. I don’t doubt that banks make very risky risk management decisions on a regular basis. Credit Suisse. This problem is they didn’t get out in time. There were other banks that had built capital who got out earlier. So they made similar bets, but they got out of the trade earlier than Credit Suisse did.

 

JR: Do you think even Mr. Bezos thinking perhaps he should be doing a bit more taxes at a bit of a relief to us?

 

TN: Well, it’s it’s interesting. Nothing is stopping billionaires from paying more money to the Internal Revenue Service in the U.S. So if they want to pay more money, if companies want to pay more money, they’re welcome at any time to pay more money. So if Bezos personally or through Amazon wants to pay more money to the U.S. Treasury, they’re welcome to do that. There’s nothing in law that stopping them from contributing more to the U.S. Treasury.

 

JR: So I suppose in many ways this story is a kind of a sort of reflection of our earlier story, which is really about sort of rich rich countries and poor countries and how they’re coming out of this pandemic and the problems of inequality and whether it causes resentment, which we talked about in that report. Do you see resentment over this, do you think, in the United States?

 

TN: Well, I do. Warren Buffett has said the same. Americans should pay more tax. Your average middle class or higher American who here, a billionaire, say that people should be paying more tax, people get really resentful about it because, again, everyone knows that if someone wants to pay more tax, they can just write the check or send the wire and do more. So I think it is the the resentment is growing. The gains in equity markets are strange. They’re at strange highs. Central banks are enabling that. And the people who gain disproportionately from that are the ultra wealthy, not just the wealthy, but the ultra wealthy.

 

JR: Tony, when I listen to that report, I kept on thinking of tulips for some reason or another, and I kept thinking of bubbles. Do you feel the same way or are you convinced?

 

TN: It really depends on what you want to do with it. So if you actually own that image and you can license it and make money off of that image, then fine. That’s really interesting. Or if you want to own that image for the inherent value of that of owning that image like, let’s say a digital Mona Lisa, that’s fine. But I’m not sure that the kind of demand for that is there, meaning my kids of 19 year old twins, they’ll go out and copy images or whatever and throw them into presentations. I’ll do the same. Actually, I don’t know that there is an appreciation of the value of a digital image. And this is really the problem, right? When you have physical artwork, there is limited supply. When you have a digital image that can just be copied and pasted and then you have infinite number of those images. It’s difficult because there’s never a tangible, supply constrained number of those images, if that makes sense. So I I’m like you when I hear it. I think this doesn’t really make sense unless you’re using it to license. Let’s say there’s a logo for a company like Amazon and somebody owns that intangible property. How much is that logo image worth that?

 

JR: OK, so it’s actually quite close to a currency really isn’t it, or it’s close to an intangible thing like sort of a money, a unit of money, a unit of cash.

 

TN: Well, there’s a difference between money and an asset, right. If you hold let’s say gold, gold is really an asset. You don’t go down to your corner shop and spend gold. In the crypto world, these things aren’t really currencies because you can’t really spend them freely. Of course, you can always barter gold for something. You can always barter a crypto asset for something, but it’s not readily accepted in many, many places. So these things are really assets that you hold onto and wait for a buyer who appreciates the asset more than you to buy it.

 

You’re not going out and buying your groceries or a new car or anything with that asset. You can’t do that with this artwork. You can’t spend it. So it’s questionable. I’m not saying it’s nothing, but it’s questionable. It’s not really the market fit. I don’t really understand it. Maybe this is genius, but it just doesn’t seem like it right now.

 

JR: Tony, thanks very much indeed. I still keep on thinking of tulips anyway. Tony, I was just going to ask you whether you had a lot of similar experience, but experience of unpleasantness, London.

 

TN: Sure. Absolutely. In my 20s, I was with a retailer in their headquarters and and then again later in my career. You know, this is it’s not anything that is rare. I don’t think. Well, maybe it is more rare now, but it’s terrible for everyone involved.

 

JR: And it doesn’t seem to go away even in the virtual world. That’s where we got time for on business matters. Thank you very much indeed for listening. And thank you, Tony. Thank you so much for being my guest on Business Matters. Goodbye.

 

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WHO says there’s no link between the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and blood clots

Tony Nash joins Rahul Tandon at the BBC Business Matters podcast and they discussed worries about the Covid vaccine AstraZeneca in Texas. Also discussed during the show are prevalence of electric cars in the street of America — is it now a more common scenario? And with Volkswagen and other car manufacturers jumping on the electric car making, what will be Tesla’s future now? Lastly, Oscars this year and next.

 

This podcast was published on March 16, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x1999n85jh0

 

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

The WHO’s conclusion came after several European countries have suspended the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, including France and Germany. But as the numbers of Covid-19 cases rise in Europe, what will this mean for the vaccine rollout? We speak to epidemiologist Dr Maria Sundaram.

 

Volkswagen has announced plans to increase its car battery production and charging network across Europe, the US and China. Nikki Gordon-Bloomfield is a tech journalist who specialises in electric vehicles, and was watching VW’s announcement.

 

Also in the programme, with obesity believed to be a major factor in which countries have the worst Covid-19 death rates, the BBC’s Manuela Saragosa reports on whether it could mark a moment of reckoning for food and beverage businesses, in terms of making their products more healthy.

 

Plus, the shortlist for this year’s Oscars has been released. KJ Matthews is an entertainment reporter in Los Angeles, and tells us what this year’s selection says about the impact of the pandemic on filmmaking, and progress made towards diversity in the industry.

 

Rahul Tandon is joined throughout the programme by Karen Lema, Reuters bureau chief for the Philippines – who’s in Manila, and Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Houston, Texas.

 

 

Show Notes

 

RT: Tony, when you when you hear that from Karen, the U.S. is moving on with great speed when it comes to vaccination. Incredible numbers there. Are you seeing that in Texas as well, or is there a bit of vaccine hesitancy in Texas?

 

TN: I think there’s there’s a bit of both. So we in Texas, we’ve given about eight point three million doses of the vaccine. We have something like three million people who have been fully vaccinated. People are prioritized if they want to get vaccinated. Vaccines are available. We’ve had about almost 10 million doses shipped to Texas. People who want it are signing up and getting it.

 

RT: When you look at what’s happening in Europe at the moment, AstraZeneca is vaccine hasn’t been cleared yet in the U.S., even though I think you have 100 million doses that you’ve bought, what do you make of them? What do you think Americans make of what’s happening with AstraZeneca in this part of the world?

 

TN: I think most people honestly look at the Covid vaccine and believe it’s kind of all the same thing. And but I also think that communications around what it actually does could have been clear and could have been better. And also the fact that this is such an early vaccine, I’m not sure that the risks have been highlighted.  The person you interviewed talked about the risk communications. I’m not sure that was really done very well. I think it’s been positioned as only the benefits. But it’s really hard knowing that it’s such a young drug. And so I don’t blame the people who are worried about it because these are really innovative drugs. That’s great. It’s amazing, but they’re pretty untested. And so it makes sense that people are worried.

 

RT: Tony, you’re in Texas, a part of the world that, of course, we associate with oil very much the emergence of the electric car. It’s something that we’re going to see a lot more of on the road. Does that cause concern in Texas?

 

TN: No, Tesla just moved a big facility here. So Tesla now has its largest facility in Austin, Texas. So we have oil and gas firms and electric car firms here. So like it or not, Texas is the future.

 

RT: You always like to tell us that here on on Business Matters, but some of the things that Volkswagen is talking about are going to be a challenge to Tesla because they do have huge pockets which could see them challenge Tesla as the leader in this particular facility.

 

TN: Tesla had a head start among the big guys, but the big guys have distribution networks, they have maintenance networks, they have a lot of things that Tesla doesn’t really have. I think that as you have the Volkswagen’s, the Toyotas and other guys really come in a big, big way, along with these national charging networks and and other stations, I think we’ll start to see a lot of competition with Tesla. Not that I’m rooting for this, but it’s possible that Tesla is brought down to earth in terms of expectations. So it’s seen as a normal, as other car companies become electric car companies.

 

RT: Can I come back to you quickly here, because we’ve talked to you about it. How many you had that cold snap in Texas recently, heavily covid, where there was a lot of homes that were allowed without electricity for a long period of time. I was just reading an article which said that electric cars could have helped in that situation because people could have used some of the battery power. Do you think that is something that people will look at in the future?

 

TN: It’s an electric car. It’s just a big battery with four wheels and a couple of computers. So, you could have pulled your car into your home and potentially used that as a generator as needed. In fact, some people use old Tesla batteries as backup power for their homes, though, use solar panels, power up their Tesla battery and use it to power their homes. So they could have been helpful. But whether it’s an electric car or just a backup battery or a generator, it would all kind of achieve the same thing.

 

RT: And just paint a picture for us when you’re out there on the open roads. What do you see around you at the moment? Is it a lot of four by fours? Are we seeing more electric cars?

 

TN: Well, we’re definitely seeing more electric cars. I wouldn’t say they’re uncommon at all. They are more in affluent areas and you’re still seeing a lot of trucks and that sort of thing. So it’s a mixed. But, yes, electric cars are becoming a larger portion of the overall mix.

 

RT: And, Tony, if I can come to you here first, the U.S., one of the countries that’s really suffering from obesity levels at over 40 percent of the population at the moment post the pandemic, even during the pandemic. Are we seeing a much bigger debate about obesity taking place?

 

TN: I don’t really see people here talking about it. I think you’ll be shunned if you bring up obesity as a potential causal or coincidental factor. So I’m glad that the discussion is happening in Europe and I think it’s a healthy one to have.

 

RT: Do you see I mean, one does want to stereotype, but when you think of Texas, you probably don’t think the most healthy food. Is that a fair comment?

 

TN: I’ll be careful here. You could say that we’ve got all kinds of food here. People were farmers, right. And they burned a lot of calories during the day. So they ate hardier food. And, yeah, the traditional southern food is pretty rich.

 

RT: Yeah. I must say, listening to that report, I now come to regret the two pieces of cheesecake I had prior to the program. I am probably in the overweight. What about things like sugar taxes? Because this obesity is having a huge impact on health care health systems, isn’t it, on health care services as well? Would sugar tax work? What can we do to persuade people to try and eat more healthily?

 

TN: It is. But I think it would be a punitive tax disproportionately affecting people who can’t afford to eat healthier food. I think it’s really problematic whether people either can’t afford to eat better food or choose not to. And so I think things like a sugar tax, people need to eat what they want to eat. They suffer the consequences. And that sounds maybe dismissive. But I think, people need to take care of their own bodies and they need to choose what they eat.

 

RT: But sometimes we have to step in. I mean, in the same ways as government stepped in with smoking, if obesity is going to have a huge impact on people’s health, a huge impact on our health care services.

 

TN: But part of the reason people stop smoking is because insurance rates, health insurance rates went up dramatically if you’re a smoker. So if you’re obese, if your health insurance goes up dramatically, then that would be a huge disincentive to be obese. There are taxes on cigarettes. So kind of tobacco consumption plays both sides of that coin.

 

RT: K.J. Matthews is looking forward to this year’s Oscars. I’ve seen the trial of the Chicago some very good. I don’t see many of the others on that list to have you, Tony.

 

TN: No, I haven’t I don’t know how I missed them all, but I missed a lot of them.

 

RT: Never mind. We’ll make sure that, you know, before your next appearance and you can review them for the fact that we’re seeing a more diverse list of nominations there, Tony. That just reflects the changing nature of the industry, doesn’t it, that we see a lot more black as we see a lot more women directing films, and that’s a good thing?

 

TN: My youngest son is ethnically Indian and he’s also an actor. And so when I see stuff like this, I think of him and I think, great, he’s got a shot at awards and roles just like anyone else.

 

RT: Do you worry that when he entered the profession that he wouldn’t get so many roles?

 

TN: And I always find that. So yeah.

 

RT: But because of his background, because of that side of his background, did you worry more?

 

TN: Well, yeah, absolutely. So even right now, he’s in a play and he was cast in a role that wouldn’t necessarily have an Indian in that role. And he was so good they cast him, which warms my heart. So, I expect him to be as good or better than anybody. I don’t care what color they are. And if he’s not as good or better than them, then he shouldn’t get the role. It’s just it’s a tough business, right?

 

RT: I was saying this is clearly a chip off the old block. If he’s quite good at that. I think every part of the world loves movies, then they very quickly turn into and on good for the streaming services this year because of the pandemic. Do you think we could see the studios hitting back next year when when we have the Oscars, if things do get better?

 

TN: They could. It really all depends on how things go and how cinemas and all this works, but yeah, I can see him heading back. Absolutely.

 

RT: Well, let’s see what happens with the Oscars next year. Let’s see who wins this year at the Oscars.

Categories
Podcasts

Microsoft Executive Backs Australian Government In Tech War

Tech war in Australia, Trump’s impeachment hearing, companies moving to cheaper areas, volatility in the market, and online dating — these are some of the topics in the recent guesting of Tony Nash at BBC’s Business Matters. From Texas, he joins Rahul Tandon in UK and Michelle Jamrisko in Singapore.

 

What will happen to Australian businesses if Google left? Will Biden be involved in China deals? How will Trump’s impeachment hearings will bring about? How will this move to rural places evolve overtime, for example Californian companies moving to Texas? How will the stocks market play out with too much volatility with increasing number of retail investors? And will online scrabble be the new way of dating?

 

This podcast was published on February 12, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x197h9pkh53

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

The President of Microsoft, Brad Smith, says Australia’s proposals that tech giants pay for news appearing on their services, strengthen democracy by supporting a free press. We hear more from Rebecca Klar, a tech journalist from The Hill. As the second cricket test match in this series between India and England starts this weekend, the BBC’s Rahul Tandon reports that more Indian players are now coming from smaller towns than bigger cities, and how that reflects a broader economic change taking place in the country. It’s an interesting time for dating services with the pandemic throwing the world of romance into disarray; our reporter Deborah Weitzmann has been to meet some people looking for love in the time of Covid. And we’re joined throughout the programme by Michelle Jamrisko, Blomberg’s senior Asia economy reporter who is based in Singapore and economist, Tony Nash from Complete Intelligence; he’s based in Houston.

 

 

Show Notes

 

RT: Will there be some sort of compromise? Because Australia, and many of the businesses in Australia, particularly small and medium sized ones, would struggle if Google suddenly left?

 

TN: They would. How much of a compromise there would be? I’m not sure, and I think about like GDP in Europe, that wasn’t a real huge compromise. We start to see these nation states starting to act like nation states again. We’ve seen India push back on Twitter over the past. Right? And we’re starting to see countries push back on tech giants because they’re sovereign nations.

 

RT: What will we see countries getting together in a unified way to push back on the tech giants because there are two very powerful sides there?

 

TN: I hope they do, because they rule their own countries. And it’s up to a company to learn how to operate within a geography rather than the other way around.

 

RT: Do you think President Biden will want to get involved in this particular issue?

 

TN: I don’t think so. It’s interesting when you look at, like China has their way with tech companies all day long. They cultivate their own giants and they do whatever they want with Western companies. I don’t really think Biden will get involved or want to get involved, to be honest. I think it has a lot to do with whoever is closer to the campaign and whoever is closest to the Oval Office. But I think he would want to stay out of it.

 

RT: Do you think minds will be changed amongst those Republicans, 17 of them are going to have to vote to impeach President Trump? That looks unlikely, doesn’t it?

 

TN: Well, like Joe Biden, I really don’t know of anybody who’s watched it.

 

RT: I read something that said this had more viewers than the first impeachment trial. But from what you’re saying, it’s not exactly something that’s bringing in the ratings figures.

 

TN: I’m a political nerd. I talk to people all the time. I honestly don’t know of anybody who’s watching it. So what you say is possible, but it’s just not what I see. Do I think they change minds? Look, Trump is out of office like somebody pining over like losing a football game or something. This guy is out of office. They need to just let him go. That’s the way most of the people who I speak to feel. Every politician is competitive. Every politician uses rhetoric to win. And what Trump said was no different from what many, many Republicans and Democrats have said over the last four, eight, 12, 16 years. So I think this is just a clown show and it’s not going to result in anything.

 

RT: Michelle raised an interesting question, that is this about preventing what happened, making sure it doesn’t happen again or is a little bit about this preventing from Donald Trump running again?

 

TN: It’s more the latter than the former. If we look at the Supreme Court justice discussions over the last two years, especially during the cabinet hearings, there were protests in government buildings in the capital all over the place, people being violent.

 

RT: But this was different and they’re very different.

 

TN: But I don’t understand how it was different because though this was different because there was so much ruckus made about it and people wanted to make an issue of it. But if you look at the protests and the violence around the Kavanaugh hearings and you set them side by side with what happened on January 6th, there is very, very little difference aside from the Capitol Police letting people into the Capitol building, which they did.

 

And it’s on footage. People also let protesters into various government buildings during the Capitol hearings. So, again, this is completely about Donald Trump. Democrats are obsessed with Donald Trump and they just need to let it go. The guy’s not even in office anymore, so they just need to let it go.

 

RT: It’s not going to be let go for a while. And it’s going to be a conversation that we will be continuing here on business matters over the next few days as that impeachment trial continues. And Tony, China says to the U.S. confrontation will be disastrous. President Biden says he will work with China when it benefits the American people and he will have to work with China on some issues when he particularly his ideas on climate change.

 

TN: We will live in an integrated world. I actually think Xi Jinping would talk a a tougher game on climate change than Biden would. He certainly has at the World Economic Forum for several years. The question is what they actually do about it.

 

I actually worked for the Chinese government for a couple of years and the Central Economic Planning Agency. So I understand in a very detailed matter how the Chinese government actually works. And this discussion is just preliminary. It doesn’t mean anything. OK, we’ll know in six or nine or 18 months what the real policies are.

 

My concerns are with, we really have to look at the people on the National Security Council in the US and their relationships with China.How many paid speeches have they had in China that those are the biggest issues that we need to look at with regard to China policy today from the U.S. perspective.

 

RT: That trend in India where we’re seeing the growth of what’s called Taiwan tier two, often, these much smaller towns. Is that something that you’re seeing in Texas at all or is it still very much focused around Houston, Dallas, Austin, economic growth?

 

TN: First on India. The tier two and three cities is something I would forecast when I was with The Economist back in those days. We did work on this 10, 15 years ago. And it’s amazing to see it happen. You go outside of cities like Chandigarh and you see what used to be fields. That is all some suburban cities. It’s really incredible to see that is in Texas.

 

What we’ve seen since COVID is more people are moving to semi-rural areas or buying bigger plots of land further out. And it’s some people from Texas, but it’s a lot of people from outside of Texas. Some of us, including myself, get a little bit defensive about Texas, if you can imagine.

 

RT: One interesting thing I think that we are seeing as well is maybe COVID will accelerate this. But this was always going to happen, that we will see businesses moving to cheaper areas. We see that in the States, don’t we? With some movement from California towards Texas?

 

TN: Yes, but you also see this in places like I was hearing about a technology company that in Taiwan, so the companies are based in Taipei, for example, and the workers wanted to move outside of the city since they couldn’t come into town, into the office. So they moved to small towns around Taiwan where their family was. The company actually indexed their pay based upon the cost of living to those country towns. Right. So and I think what you’ll start seeing as you see the diffusion of employment, companies will start looking at their costs and say, “look, these people aren’t paying for an apartment in Manhattan, they’re living in Iowa.” So we need to really understand where people are living. That company in Taiwan was using mobile phone records to understand where those individuals were so they can index their pay. I think you’ll see more and more of that. It’s not that people won’t be able to live. It’s just that they won’t make the salary from Manhattan while living in, say, rural Texas.

 

RT: I think we’re seeing that in many parts of the world with that sort of story you described. The taking place in and companies looking at and what’s happening with employees if they move to what you could describe as cheaper areas.

 

We had Carrie Lee here, there being a little bit cautious about what’s happening with many of these companies are going public. There is a lot of cash around from stimulus in the U.S. Interest rates are very low. Do you see this continuing?

 

TN: We’re very late in the investment cycle and we’ve moved from a company being valued on its earnings or future potential to a speculator’s market. And a lot of what we’re seeing in markets today are stocks that pop for one day by 50 percent and then they lose that 50 percent the next day. We just saw that with a big pot stock, a big marijuana stock over the past 24 hours here in the U.S. And people are trying to to squeeze out as much gain as they can in markets. So this this market is very long in the tooth. I just don’t see this lasting much longer because we are in such a speculative market right now.

 

RT: Do you not think that when stimulus begins to to slow down in many parts of the world, some of that frothiness in the markets may disappear?

 

TN: There’s a concept of stock, meaning how much money is in the market. And then there’s a concept of flow, meaning how much money is moving into the market. And because a lot of the investment climate right now is focused on flow. So how much money is coming in stimulus? How much money is coming in support from other mechanisms? Not necessarily a reallocation of the money that’s already in the market.

 

One of the big triggers potentially could be a possible disappointment with the the package coming out of the U.S. Congress. If it’s not what people have been promised, then there’s a possibility that those marginal investors who’ve been pumping stocks up by 50 percent per day could be squeezed out of the market. And then we see that flow start or grind to a trickle. And then the action really slows down and then we start to see a correction. No one wants to call a top. I don’t necessarily think this is it. I have no idea. But it is that stock and flow discussion that really worries me.

 

RT: The thought of dating is always absolutely petrified me. I was always happy my mom would have arranged my marriage and to Indian way somehow there were not many takers. Unfortunately, if you had to go back in the dating scene, would playing Scrabble online be your idea of romance?

 

TN: No. No, not at all, sorry, it just doesn’t cut it.

 

RT: No?

 

TN: We would find way. Look, I have two 19 year old kids. They get out, they’ve been social. Their friends are dating. I know it’s impacted some parts of the world in a very difficult way, but it hasn’t necessarily impacted my kids and their friends. I certainly wouldn’t settle for online scrabble. Who is the researcher at the university in London who snuck out for a hookup? I think we would sneak out outside a curfew to get things done if needed.

 

RT: OK. All right. Thank you, Tony. We’re getting a very different image of you now. Tony, stop sneaking out, please. No breaking curfew for you. That’s it for business matters.

Categories
Podcasts

Joe Biden’s economic plans

 

Tony Nash joins Rahul Tandon at the BBC Business Matters podcast and they discussed Joe Biden’s economic plans like the $15 minimum wage and stimulus packages. They also discussed the Covid vaccine supply chain and why some countries are getting them last. Also, what’s the future of Netflix, and lastly, what is Trump’s legacy?

 

This podcast was published on January 20, 2021 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x196dhr17jd

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

US president-elect Biden sets covid-19 stimulus package as early priority for presidency. As Janet Yellan begins her confirmation hearing as treasury secretary we look ahead at the incoming administration’s economic plans – and we look back at President Donald Trumps four years in office, as he prepares to move out of the White House. Also in the programme amid concerns that people living in poorer countries may have to wait months or years to access a coronavirus vaccine, we find out more from Mesfin Teklu Tessema, head of the health unit at the International Rescue Committee. Plus, Netflix reveal blockbuster results; is it one firm that’s been able to capitalise from the pandemic?

 

 

Show Notes

 

 

RT: We heard from Joe Biden there before using the word “healing.” Is that going to be what he has to do to heal American society because it’s so divided at the moment?

 

TN: That’s required. Healing takes place on both sides. A lot of the talk on the Democrat side has been about Republicans retreating rather than Democrats calming down the venom they’ve had toward Trump over the last four years. Healing requires Democrats to dial down their attacks on Republicans as much as Republicans accommodating the new administration. It really is, something that I hope the new administration can tell their own party to to stop the vicious attacks come to you.

 

RT: Big problems need big solutions. Have you been impressed by what you’ve heard from the Biden administration and Janet Yellen so far?

 

TN: Really, all I’m hearing is that they’re going to throw money at the problem, which is fine. It’s been months. Americans needed more money from D.C. since July. But I’m not seeing much more sophisticated solution than throwing money at the problem. It’s a start. But I don’t know that we necessarily have a direction.

 

RT: What sort of what sort of policies would you like to see being put into place by to help?

 

TN: Policies like this 15 dollar minimum wage, if you’re in New York or San Francisco, great. That’s fantastic. Those are expensive cities. But if you’re in Texas where I live, it doesn’t make sense. It’s great that people get a $15 minimum wage, but we just don’t have the cost of living that New York or San Francisco have. Those types of ideas are fine, but we need more detail around indexing that cost of living or indexing that minimum wage by cost of living.

 

This is why things like minimum wage has typically been left up to the states. The federal minimum wage is incredibly low because those decisions are usually left out to the states. I feel like we have a lot of promises for more money. And again, that’s great. Americans need that really bad.

 

I run a small company. The PPP has been long overdue. The House of Representatives held that up for six months. We need it and we’re just finishing our application today. But it’s not enough and it’s not in time.

 

My biggest worry is corruption. Will that money end up in the hands of people who don’t really need it? Will they end up in the hands of politically well-connected organizations or individuals? We saw that last time around with the PPP.

 

RT: But there are things that can be put in place to stop that. And there is no doubt that many Americans would need that money. That money needs to be spent on infrastructure.

 

This is a huge problem, isn’t it? We heard from Fatima in that piece there talking about how a health worker in South Africa may well be inoculated after a healthy person in Germany. That cannot be right. Why have we not been able to put an effective system in place here?

 

TN: There are two issues here. The first that I find incredibly frustrating is these firms have received huge subsidies to develop these vaccines. They’re effectively already paid for billions of dollars. For these companies getting non-profit prices for this, it’s just unconscionable and it’s just unbelievable.

 

The other issue, though, is a positive issue. The supply chains are in place and there are abilities for companies to get vaccines, not just to South Africa. Some of the innovations that have happened around vaccine supply chains over the past few years have allowed people to monitor the temperature and the quality of those vaccines through the vaccine supply chain. There’s a company here in my town called Blue Maestro that actually has chipsets that flow with those vaccines themselves so that the people who are getting them don’t have to worry.

 

RT: Those changes are important, Tony, but still, people would be listening to this and thinking, why will some countries not get it till 2022 or is that just the nature of the world we live in?

 

TN: I can’t believe it’s the nature of the world we live in. It’s the nature of financing the scale of the build out to the vaccine. But again, these vaccine makers have already received billions of dollars, largely from Western countries, mostly from OECD countries, which is on some level one and the same. But Japan, Singapore, other places have given huge amounts of money. China have given huge amounts of money to vaccine makers. The money is there. The vaccines are paid for. So there should be more allocation to these countries. That’s without a doubt.

 

RT: Traditional TV for my kids, streaming is actually traditional TV. Do you have Netflix? What are you watching? Are you still watching?

 

TN: I do. My kids watch it a lot more than I do. What she said about the sports content on Netflix is a real issue for them. Hulu and Amazon have much better offerings there. Netflix is in a weird position where they don’t necessarily have the appeal that a Disney plus has, which has had stellar growth. But they don’t have things like live sports that some of the other guys do.

 

83% of their subscriber growth came from outside of the U.S. So it tells me that their market in the U.S. only has so much room to grow. There is a global opportunity, and that’s great. But until they can adjust their offerings to include some more compelling content, both for young and for people in their prime who want to watch sports, I think their opportunity is limited in the U.S.

 

RT: One thing that President Trump said when he was coming into power was he was going to shake up the existing political system. He suddenly done that, hasn’t he?

 

TN: He has and some of the things that sound obvious, like he’s the first president since the 1970s who has not started a new war, that’s a big deal. It really is a blow to the military industrial complex. And Americans appreciate that. Not starting new wars is a huge benefit for the world, but it’s also a huge benefit for Americans who send their kids overseas to fight these things.

 

RT: When people like you, economists look back at Donald Trump’s legacy, what’s it going to be in a few years time?

 

TN: He certainly didn’t fit in in D.C. He was somebody who really fit in more outside of D.C. and that’s what he promised. He brought back more hostages from overseas than any other U.S. president. And so those are the kind of things that really hit the heartland and really hit normal, average American citizens outside of the big major cities of New York and L.A. and D.C. and so on and so forth.

 

RT: Has he fundamentally changed American society?

 

TN: What Trump has done is forced people to show their true colors. It’s brought out the worst in people and it’s also brought out the best in people. What’s highlighted in media is often the worst part, but there have been a lot of very positive things that have happened in the U.S. over the last four years.

 

Breaking from the status quo and the bureaucracy in Washington and in government doesn’t really like that very much. But I think it’s been very positive. There are 74 million people in the U.S., more than half the voting population that actually appreciate Trump. So what the U.S. is fed and what international news media feed people about Trump being an idiot, being a buffoon and all this other stuff, half of the U.S. voting population doesn’t believe that.

Categories
Podcasts

BBC Business Matters: Purdue Pharma pleads guilty to criminal charges for opioid sales

Tony Nash joins Rahul Tandon at the BBC for Business Matters podcast where they discussed the opioid sales and crisis in the United States as the maker of OxyContin painkiller, Purdue Pharma, agreed on a plea bargain and an $8 billion settlement. They also discussed Tesla’s rise in the market, the different protests in the world like in Hong Kong, Thailand, and the US, social gatherings in the COVID era with hockey, football, the Indian festival called Durga Puja, and dogs VS cats.

 

This podcast was published on October 22, 2020 and the original source can be found at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w172x18zvp5cvgn

 

BBC Business Matters Description:

 

The maker of OxyContin painkillers has reached an $8.3bn settlement and agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges to resolve a probe of its role in fuelling America’s opioid crisis. Purdue Pharma will admit to enabling the supply of drugs “without legitimate medical purpose”. The deal with US Department of Justice resolves some of the most serious claims against the firm. But it still faces thousands of cases brought by states and families. We hear from Pete Jackson, who got involved in advocacy after losing his daughter in 2006. He thinks that only jail time for those responsible can bring any sense of justice to bereaved families.

 

Also in the programme, Kolkata in India is celebrating the Hindu festival of Durga Puja. Millions of people normally go to temporary temples or pandals that are set up as the city shuts down for four days, and it’s an important part of the city’s economy. But as the BBC’s Rahul Tandon reports, it’s now at the centre of a court battle over striking a balance between saving the economy and saving lives.

 

Plus – we discuss Tesla’s tremendous results as well as football finance. Premier League football club Manchester United registered a $30m loss in the pandemic. Kieran Maguire wrote The Price of Football and is a lecturer in sports finance at Liverpool University, and tells us what’s behind the loss. Meanwhile, there is talk of Manchester United being one of the clubs in a proposed new European Super League. Tom Greatrex of the English Football Supporters Association is a member of the FA Council, which oversees the game in England, and gives us his reaction to the idea.

 

With guests Jodi Schneider in Hong Kong and Tony Nash in Houston

 

Show Notes

 

RT: Tony, this is an important settlement, isn’t it? Because the scale of the opioid crisis in the United States is huge.

 

TN: Yeah, it’s terrible because Purdue was pushing doctors to prescribe this medicine to people knowing that it was addictive. So there is culpability through the company and into the shareholders. They need to do what’s called piercing the corporate veil. They need to go to the investors behind it, which is the Sackler family. And they are culpable because, as your guest said, they were pulling the strings. So there has to be accountability. Otherwise, why have a legal system? Why have any consumer protections?

 

RT: You say that the fact that they are culpable, obviously, they would deny that. But as we heard from the father there who lost his daughter, he wants to see further justice. Do you think that’s going to happen? And if that is the timing of this settlement significant coming before the elections? Because we know President Trump had said that he wanted to deal with the opioid crisis. Are you surprised that when this judgment has been now reached, this settlement has been reached?

 

TN: I really don’t know. It may be meaningful. I really haven’t thought about that. But you’re right. President Trump really has focused on the opioid epidemic and partly because a lot of his voters are people who’ve been affected by it. For them to see some sort of accountability is critically important. But do I think there will be? I think almost everybody is skeptical that there will actually be accountability for anybody who’s a billionaire. Like nobody who’s a billionaire pays for anything. So in America, it doesn’t happen. So until the Sangar family is bankrupt, I don’t think most Americans will be happy.

 

RT: Do you think the opioid crisis has been overshadowed, obviously, this year because of the coronavirus that to some extent people have forgotten about it?

 

TN: It hasn’t necessarily played high within media, but I think those families who are affected, they’re affected by it every day of the week. So I don’t think on a personal level it’s disappeared. But certainly in terms of kind of column space and air time, it’s disappeared.

 

RT: As Jodi said, it’s not just Hong Kong. It’s not just Thailand. We’ve seen these huge protests in the US. Black Lives Matter protests taking place there as well. Some thought the year of the protests was over. Clearly not.

 

TN: Thailand is a different case because this is a continuation of probably 20 years of protests in Thailand, going back to Thaksin, coming to power. And when you think about Thailand presently, General Pride has been in power for years. He wasn’t elected. He was installed by the monarchy and by the military to rule over Thailand. So you have a Thai population that’s become accustomed to democracy, who is outspoken enough to say we actually want democracy back. And it’s different. Hong Kong is similar, but it hasn’t quite gone as far as Thailand. The CCP hasn’t necessarily installed generals overseeing Hong Kong yet, but Thais want their democracy back.

 

RT: Elon Musk is somebody of really out of the news. But it is one of the business stories of this year that the rise and rise of Tesla.

 

TN: Tesla now trades at about 1,100 times earnings, which is incredible. Maybe a 30 times earnings, but not one thousand one at a time. What’s really interesting to note is Tesla’s chief accounting officer just filed an insider sales record to sell thousands of shares. I think it’s 50 some thousand shares. It’s interesting that their chief accounting officer is actually selling. It’s a sign that the price is very high. It’s great that they’re reporting earnings. That really hasn’t been enough time to look at their books to understand what’s been done. But I’m glad Tesla is making money. It’s just hard for them to do it in a consistent way.

 

RT: Tony, I think you are you’re a fan of the Navratri festival, are you not?

 

TN: Absolutely, yes. We celebrate every year, and I’m not Hindu, but my youngest son is Indian. And so we always try to make a point of the cultural festivals and we just love it. It’s fantastic.

 

RT: Social gatherings have become part of the presidential election campaign, haven’t they? We’re seeing two very contrasting strategies here from Donald Trump, who has larger gatherings, and Joe Biden who doesn’t.

 

TN: It’s interesting to see the turnout, it’s interesting to see the response and I think in most places, getting crowds together is really important with elections. In the US, elections have become somewhat sanitary. We saw this really start with Obama and we saw it accelerate with Trump, where people get together in big crowds in a way that they haven’t for quite some time. So it’s become important to the US election cycle.

 

RT: As we come out of the pandemic, many things are going to change. We’re probably going to do a lot more online shopping than go to shops. Is that something that we’re going to see with sports? It’s something that clubs are going to get going to have to get used to, which is maybe less fans in the stadium. And it is going to become more of a televised experience, even if that’s difficult for some of the smaller clubs.

 

TN: I’m not an ice hockey fan, so I don’t know what Manchester United is so tired.

 

RT: They’re a football club. But I’m glad that you confirmed what I’ve always thought that they played.

 

TN: I’m an American football fan, college football fan, very avid. I’ve been to the stadium to see college football games. And and it’s great. I think to take measures, you wash your hands and nobody got sick and nobody died. It was great. As people socialize, this can happen. And if people need to increase the state attendance at stadiums from 25 percent and then ramp it up, that’s fine.But we’ve got to re-socialize. We have to redo this stuff. And I’ve done it. I’m going to do it again in a couple of weeks. There is such a thing as normal and we can get back there.

 

RT: Dogs and cats, huh?

 

TN: Dogs, definitely dogs. I actually got a new dog just before Covid hit. He’s a beautiful pound puppy and his name is Buddy. It was the perfect timing. I understand all these people getting dogs during Covid and other pets, although not cats, but definitely dogs during Covid. And it‘s just a great companion to be around.

 

RT: Has that helped you during this period a lot?

 

TN: I lived in Singapore for 15 years and we got a dog there that was a smaller dog back here. Our new dog is bigger and he makes me walk him twice a day. So it’s good. I haven’t been able to lounge around from sunrise to sunset. And he’s very needy, which is necessary. I’ve got three kids and they’re needy, but the dog is needy in a different way. So I’m more determined and more selfish about behavior, actually. So it’s been really good to have him because he doesn’t stop.

Categories
Podcasts

French Presidential Election

Francois Fillon, the candidate of the center-right in the upcoming French presidential election, faces calls to quit after prosecutors widen their investigation into allegations of fraud against the candidate and his wife. We hear from Pierre Briancon from Politico Europe.

 

A clean air scheme which preventing people from using their cars in Mexico City has had no effect on air pollution, according to a recent study. We speak to its author, Dr Lucas Davis of the University of California, Berkeley.

 

Should non-profit organisations like churches be allowed to back political parties or candidates? In America, ever since the Johnson Amendment in 1954, they have been banned from doing so. Now Donald Trump says he wants to change that. Julie Zauzmar, who covers religion for the Washington Post, explains why.

 

And after a week in which President Trump has had some “tough” phone calls with other world leaders, we ask whether getting angry in negotiations ever works. We hear from Henry Evans, co-author of Step Up, Lead in Six Moments that Matter, who also runs the business consultancy Dynamic Results.

 

We’re joined throughout the programme by Tony Nash, chief economist at Complete Intelligence in Singapore, and Diane Brady, a business columnist and author in New York.

 

Listen this story about the French presidential eleciton in BBC World Business Matters