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tv   Bloomberg Business Week  Bloomberg  March 23, 2019 3:00am-4:00am EDT

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♪ carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm carol massar. jason: and i'm jason kelly. we're here at bloomberg headquarters in new york. carol: this issue is focused on equality, and how inequality damages the economy and businesses. jason: weighing the cost against -- carol: and how dell chemical became an oasis of equality. jason: what if instead of taking the sat, you got to play video
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games? carol: it sounds like fun. a startup named imbellus aims to level the playing field when it comes to college admissions. jason: joel weber joins us now. i love this cover, and we love the ceo. joel: this is really timely. in the wake of the college admissions scandal, this is a story we had brewing for a while. instead of talking about the scandal, let's talk about how we can fix things going forward. rebecca kantar has this big idea that can totally reframe how education works in schools. carol: she is brilliant, first of all, and we are lucky enough to have her in the extended podcast this week. she really wants to figure out how to measure how people think, how students think. joel: it is bigger than video games. the problem when you think about the admissions scandal, what it comes back to is the sat or the act. that is the northstar. when you program schools around that, you end up with standardized testing that goes all the way down through middle
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schools and elementary schools. she said, what if we read thought what -- we re thought what the northstar was? and how do we talk to kids in a language they might understand better? video games. carol: she is really trying to change the system. we spoke with the founder of imbellus, rebecca kantar. rebecca: we don't have a now.ocracy right we think we have a meritocracy because all of our kids work hard in our schools and often times the kids at the top 30 colleges are high achievers. but i will give you an example of two things we can do to make the system more meritocratic. one would be to have all the standards for college and mission be based on a relative growth metric, meaning if the floor started lower, your expectations of what you should be like in a 12 grade are also lower. if you started 20 squares ahead, the bar for what you have to do to get into college is that much higher. that makes people squirmy and all angles, because shouldn't all kids have the same hopes and
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dreams and potential? they should, but our system is not delivering that. thinking about a relative metric, and some college admissions officers are looking at your zip code, your race, and your gender and making a decision about how impressive what you overcame is. jason: that is a lot of art, not science. rebecca: exactly. the second thing we could do if we wanted to make this more fair is really think about what we are measuring. it is interesting because the sats started as an i q test, invented by the same people who started the military test in the 20th century. it migrated over the last century along with the act toward testing student achievement. standardized aptitude test went to the student achievement test. what that means is more money, more preparation, generally means better scores. that is not just in your last mile of test prep. were you born into a good school
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district or did you go to a private school? you are paying for that compounding advantage your entire childhood. if we wanted to try to undo some of the inequality that is systemic and the system, you could look at having more diverse school district, zoning that does not cut across one affluent area, but is all encompassing. you can look at testing schools that could be -- skills that could be picked up in a number of settings. to be at a job, maybe during the summer, something kids practice in different environments than they are tested in, and still their progress shows up. building that kind of test is what we have chosen to tackle. american needs to decide if this is a powerful enough. unfortunately, it makes it a zero-sum game. there is a limited number of spots. it is uncomfortable to think, especially as someone who is progressive and enjoyed my upbringing and was so fortunate to go to a place like harvard and apply to these other schools, you have to think about
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maybe i was not the most deserving person to go. for a parent who has worked really hard to get their kid to that point, that is a hard thought. i think whether or not we are at an inflection point depends on how honest our country wants to be. jason: are you seeing any elements of people changing their minds at all? rebecca: it is a really apt question. first and foremost, there are some -- there is some inertia in the system that is reasonable. you don't want just anybody to come in and wipe out tests that have been validated and relied upon for decades as a fair assessment of merit. it does not mean everyone agrees, but that is certainly how they have been used. if we seeo enter this, new -- enter this new testing arena, we want to see the bar to be high. technology can help solve it. inexcusableit is
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that it is not being attempted by the major testing companies, whether it is removing proctors or authenticating that you are indeed who you are. part of the problem is these tests are largely paper-based. even if they are not, they are making it onto an ipad where multiple-choice questions are digitally loaded. how hard is it for two kids to team up? kids are smart. state-of-the-art technology to think about how to the the system fair is first challenge the big testing companies will need to take on and that we have chosen to take on. carol: tell us what inroads you are making. this argument resonates when they hear the approach of re-linked education to employers. there is an interesting bloomberg poll that shows 40% of
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students are at yale are prepared for work when they leave the system, and 40% of employers feel the students are prepared for work. interestingly, 72% of college providers feel their students are prepared. there is a little a synchronicity in terms of where perceptions are in the value of an education and employment experience. it is not unreasonable, because there probably are some colleges that really prepare kids for work and life, and there are others that really don't. what has to happen now and what we are seeing positive perception around his employers have to take the lead on saying, here are the skills that are becoming more important in an age where human intelligence is involving higher order thinking skills and machine intelligence is doing the lower ones. we have to see collaborative problem-solving, people who can imagine and create, people who can synthesize quickly with new information, with data, that can build a cogent argument. there is some of that in standardized testing, but it is a myopic view.
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the challenge is, how often for all of us are we dealing with a static system where everything is written down for us and there are no changing new roles or information? never. you need technology that can ring forward the employer's desires into the education market as a reality and a tried and tested tool as an educational standard. that is what makes our job hard. it is not a quick process to go out and find those definitions of skills that matter. and you have to bring it in. i would say that argument of bringing the employer's into the conversation about how their work is changing, what the future is going to require, and bringing that back, many parents care. carol: what is your goal at imbellus? rebecca: my goal is to set a higher floor for high schools. know that some schools are going to do a crappy job, and it is no fault of theirs. there are systemic problems that make it hard to teach. but perhaps if you relieve that pressure around content, a
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little around teaching so many different modules of ap biology or science curriculum or history curriculum, cannot get rid of it, just reduce a little bit, and focus on a few concepts, maybe some schools choose to bring that to lights with solar powered go kart races solar powered go kart races. whatever the scenario is that is best for those kids, i want a test that we deliver to be generalizeable enough that their progress shows up and we recognize what they have. it does not mean that all get to do well on the sat will do poorly on our test. aremaybe some kids who total diamonds in the rough who are out there slogging through a lot of content does not land for them, maybe there is a way to recognize them of the skills they have going on behind the scenes, whether they got that in a job after school or watching a a.sibling or over summer i hope our tests are able to set a new northstar for the system. carol: for more, check out our
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extra podcast where you download your podcast and at jason: up next, where on the globe you are most likely to be a master of your own fate, and where you are likely to stay poor if you are born that way. carol: where old habits die hard and sometimes don't die at all. we will tell you about the sexual harassing men of the london insurance market. jason: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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♪ in the equality issue, a study on how inequality leads to slower economic growth. jason: the key to solving this may be access to education. check out this chart, because basically it shows very clearly that economic mobility as we describe it, as we like to think about it here in the united states, is not happening so much. there is the u.s. in the middle. you have to go way up to finland, sweden, and canada to
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really see a situation where folks can really rise beyond where their parents were. it all comes back to education. carol: countries where children are less likely to be locked in their parents' educational path are also less likely to be locked into their income levels. we spoke to reporter jeanna smiaklek for more. jeanna: one of the stories that really stuck out to me was about a girl name terry collins. she is in her early 30's. she was in new york city, and she really had this classic aory of growing up in situation that might have been opportunity restricting. thewas born in flatbush in 1990's, so it was not the worst place in the world, but she remembers hearing gunshots and having crime in her neighborhood.and she really wanted to get out of there. her mom was unemployed a lot when she was younger. they lived on their grandmother's pension. her mother encouraged her to make more of herself and move on
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up the income ladder. excelled in school, made a real effort to do that, ended up getting a scholarship and studying in upstate new york. but while she was in college, her mom died and she ended up completely alone. graduated, had a degree in english. it was 2011, the economy was bad, and she had to settle for whatever she could take. familialith out any backing. she found herself working in sales. she did that for nine years, and now she is involved in an i.t. training program. she is learning how to do some basic technology schools and hoping -- skills and hoping to get on the letter that way. but her story speaks to even when you do the right things, even when you are trying really hard, i think if you have a situation behind you where you don't have a lot of the support that people in more affluent and stable households might have, it
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can be hard. carol: you talk about this broader theme going on, that folks, individual students are likely to earn the same income as their parents in places with higher income inequality. that is certainly something we are facing in the united states and elsewhere around the world. they call that the gatsby curve. jeanna: right. alan krueger famously came up with that at the council for economic advisors. i think it is a really interesting point to keep in mind, that we see much greater intergenerational stickiness, this inability to progress where inequality is high. that means this litera -- this lottery of birth is so much more important in these places. if you are born at the bottom of the income ladder, it is relatively much lower, there is also the chance you will likely stick there and not be able to climb up. jason: what do you take away in terms of what needs to happen
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structurally, systemically? jeanna: one of the things i think is really interesting comes out of the international monetary fund. they find that in these places we are talking about with low economic mobility and high economic inequality, you see lower growth. those things paired together to hurt a country's potential. the idea is if you have a lot of kids who might be innately talented but born at the bottom of the income scale and they don't have equal access to opportunity, you might see a real loss of talent. you are not tapping all of your potential einsteins. this plays out down the road, and you see your growth get mired in the mud. carol: also in the equality issue, the old boys. jason: we are talking about the 331-year-old lloyd's of london. it is an exchange for the insurance market. carol: the story made me a little angry, a little exasperated. they still do business the old-fashioned way, face-to-face dealmaking with pen and paper. jason: but our investigation
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uncovered a deep-seated culture of sexual misconduct and an atmosphere of relentless harassment. here is gavin finch. gavin: the last several months, i have spoken to more than 18 women who worked at lloyds and the wider insurance industry, and the picture they paint is in essence hostile to women. persistentface sexual harassment across the whole range, from unwanted comments about appearance or their bodies or even their six toes -- or their sex lives, touching, groping, or serious sexual assault. jason: one of the things the outgoing ceo sought to do was man alcohol, given that they banned drinking on the job, because that was an element that seemed to be contributing to this environment. that did not go over so well. ban on alcohol was
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only for the lloyd's staff. peoplehe majority of are not employed by the corporation. they are employed by big insurance companies who go to do their work. say that ther to majority of the issues that were raised to me by the women i spoke to, the root cause of most of them were alcohol. finance, theer of last corner of the city where you can get away with drinking. it is not just condoned, it is almost expected and encouraged. very sociable market, where people are making deals on the floor of lloyd's and going to pubs and going back into their offices, and may be getting back to the pubs. jason: what does lloyd's plan to
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do, especially because the ceo who had taken the sock as a big cause -- had taken this up as a big cause is gone? gavin: the concern is amongst women who remain in the market that their great champion has left and the diversity and quality -- equality issues she was pushing will fall back down. from the newement it, who said to bloomberg, was very distressing that this kind of behavior was still going on, that lloyd's takes it extremely seriously, and that what he would be talking to the market to ensure these types of behavior are stamped out. jason: is this may be more pursue -- pervasive than people know across the city? how isolated is this? gavin: it seems to be a problem pretty much across the wider city. of course sexism is everywhere,
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but it does seem to be particular here at lloyd's and in the wider london insurance markets. we spoke to a number of women who had international experience, experience working in banking and other professionals. d this is ai particular problem for london and to insurance. jason: up next, a hedge fund billionaire marc lasry says where he sees investing opportunities, thanks to the coming economic slowdown. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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♪ jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." i'm jason kelly. carol: and i'm kelly -- carol massar. you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a.m. 1130 in new york, 106.1 in boston, 99.1 f.m. in washington, d.c.
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jason: a.m. 960 in the bay area, in london on dab digital, and through the bloomberg business app. carol: this week, avenue capital ceo and cofounder marc lasry stopped by the bloomberg business sport summit. jason: i talked about where he may see a silver lining during an economic slowdown. marc: there is a lot of stress in the market. what i mean by that is last year the economy grew by 3%. this year, where is it going to grow? 2%?t t that will be a 30% reduction in growth. you don't have a recession, which everyone is talking about, but we have a slowdown. on the credit side, a slowdown is great. there is a lot of different opportunities that are out there and we can take advantage of today. jason: let's dig down a level deeper. what sectors are you interested in? retail is something people keep
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saying they experience more stress or distress. what do you see there? marc: i think you have opportunities on the retail side. i think you have opportunities definitely on the energy side. you see that continue. and you have a lot of idiosyncratic opportunities, where specific situations that we are able to come in on where we have been able to buy the debt. you have one situation today, i will not mention names, but bonds are due. the unsecured debt is due in 2021, and there is $2 billion market cap. those bonds are trading at $75. i think they will get paid off. you have a lot of that here in the u.s. you have a ton of it in europe. and you have a lot more in asia. for us, still lots of opportunities. jason: you were pretty early on a relative basis to this asset class, and yet it seems like more people coming in are the
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demand for this type of investment from institutional investors enough to absorb all of these new managers? it feels like they are going after this. marc: there are more people doing what we are doing. i think that is fine. i think competition is fine. what it means, if we see things earlier than other people will come in and buy what we have out.t and we can get i like competition. i think we are usually ahead of the curve. the more people there, they usually take us out, and taking much more risk. jason: we talked about politics before. you have always been very interested in that side of the equation as well. of theo into 2020, a lot rhetoric, especially from the democratic side, is talking about a lot more scrutiny from wall street, more questions about income equality and whatnot. how much do you worry about i guess, oncrutiny, your business and broader wall
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street? marc: i think it is fine to have scrutiny. i think at times we get a little bit of a bad rap. but if you look at it, the vast majority of wall street. is -- is doing the right thing. i think you should have the discussions because at the end of the date you want to talk about these things. to be perfectly honest, i don't think it is an issue. carol: taylor riggs is with us taylor riggs is with us. taylor: this is really interesting. let's come to my terminal at gtv . what we have in white are the triple c credits. those are some of the worst rated credits. we have not seen those outperform, which is a move down. that is counter intuitive. typically in and improving economy, you expect to see that white line come across lower. interestingly enough, credit could still perform well in a slowing economy, and it makes
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sense. you could see that white line as long as the economy does ok start to compress and move down, which is good. that means prices are rising, guilds are falling. jason: marc lasry is one of many business titans participating in our march madness bracket for a cause. here is who ee is playing alongside, some of the people he is playing alongside. carol: david einhorn, ken griffin. talk about the money that is being raised. jason: we are going to raise in excess of half $1 million this year, meaning the winner will get their profits directed toward their charity and both get a check for 250 thousand dollars, a lucky charity. i love this contest and i cannot get enough. carol: we will have highlights on throughout the month. be sure to check that out. up next, the company that has become the first large industrial name with an openly gay ceo. jason: and the state where you will find more women at the board table. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: still ahead in this weeks of quality issue, a dating at helping chinese men have kids. jason: and of the real struggles of transgender workers across the country. carol: in california, by the end of this year, all companies will be required to have at least one woman on their board.
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joel weber is with us and you got this great visualization. >> i call this the room for improvement chart. californialicitly at , where the state has recently passed a law. public companies based in -- 2021ia, by 21 21 will have to have a significant amount of women on boards, and right now, there are very few. we try to show you the gap and where you will see displacement start to happen as more companies put women on board. carol: it shows you there is a lot to be done. , and if you want to know more about we did a longer story to accompany the graphic that extrapolates what look like if this went to a bigger national movement how many more seats might become occupied by women, which is a really important topic because when you look at the makeup of boards we male and olderut
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.nd that is a part of the issue leadership, ag of story about dow chemical. maybe not the company you would expect to be on the forefront. >> another one near the news because it dow chemical part ways on april 1. it is an interesting one to look --because it has a casein gay ceo. after tim cook, the most prominent leader of a public company to the gay. and it's not just at the top. michigan is not a place you think of as a bastion for gay rights are equality, and yet the company's culture has really embraced a more forward way forward. carol: it is amazing the problems that they have made,
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and i love the title. >> how dow got woke. [laughter] and i think of this as an important culture story. if we think of all the places where this plays out, culture is sometimes the most difficult to change, so is a case study in how the company has been able to do that. jason: and you assign the story to somebody who knows this company back from his days as a beat reporter covering this little town of midland, michigan. we got more from jeff green. >> the company has a history of hiring women and minorities, because they were a good, herbert dow really did not care what you look like or who you were as long as you can do chemistry, that was his thing. let's do this and not so much care about the other social mores of the day. the foundation of the company was sort of disruptive. of then you have this sort backdrop.
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people start to come into the company who had previously been in the closet coming into the company out and nobody cares. going back 20 years. ,e talked to some people who when they friend the force employee resource group that they met at some of his house in 2000. should go to, we the company and ask them for same-sex benefits, because that was just starting. seemed like a good thing to do, they had this meeting, they were not sure what would happen, they got together and form this group is now called glad -- glaad. they went to the company and said we should have same-sex or domestic partner benefits and we willany said ok, look at it, and then they just said ok. jason: tell us about the process. came out slightly before tim cook, there was just much less publicity. he basically knew he was gay in college, he said, but he stayed in the closet through most of
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his dow career. he did not rush right out. in 2008, he started to tell people closest to him. was promoted and rose in the company, he decided he needed to broaden this. 2014, he realizes at this point, it is probably sending the wrong message to other that this high-level executive people probably have a good idea is gay, is not openly gay. so i'm coming out day in 2014, he goes on and employ webcasts in an auditorium and comes out. since i've been with the company for 30 years, with my partner for 20 years, and it is time for the two to be part of my work identity. this is when this all comes together, but keep in mind, he is not ceo at this time, he is to jobs below -- two jobs below. you could infer that some companies, that's where he ends his career. and that is not happens. carol: what is interesting is
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that he says there is more to be done at the company, but he talks about adding and inclusion goal to top executives of bonus structures. their bonus is contingent, to some extent, on making sure there is diversity and inclusion in whatever territory they oversee. >> is part of the conversation now, not necessarily exactly this percentage, it is an evolving conversation. didn't, but they also had cut right before he took the job, hired their first inclusion and diversity executive so they have a focus on making this a broader mandate across the company. there is some work to do, only -- 27% ofwith an and , minorities a 20%, and as you go up, those numbers go down. jason: we have heard about how the company has changed, we also have to member it is still the
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same massive important company. taylor riggs, help us understand what is going on. >> it is massive and it is about to change. ranked it byone is the percent of revenue contribution to the total company. is 20%mple, dow dupont of revenue from packaging, always down to 5% of revenue from electronics. we have seen is that every major segment is contributing to growth, year over growing anywhere from 6-20% of sales. with a big company, sometimes it is good if you can get size and scope, otherwise, it might help them target their individual niche is. -- niche. carol: we are seeing this a lot around corporate america. taylor, thank you so much. up next, states looking to break up big tech. proposedus, the
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megadeal that exposes a grim outlook for europe's banks. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek." ♪
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jason: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." carol: join us for bloomberg businessweek everyday on the radio from two-5 p.m. wall street time. jason: welcome backeven also chy show. find us online at and our mobile app. in the technology section, an effort by attorney general's to break apart the tech companies. carol: we talk about the fight brewing in california and washington. >> there are a number of attorney general who think there is a problem with tech companies being too big, too much market power, too much control over consumer data. what my colleague and i wanted to do was to check in, because
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there has not been much talk about what the attorneys general are doing in september, when a group of them met with jeff sessions who was then attorney general at the justice department. sessions had called within because he was concerned that the platforms were suppressing conservative views, but a number of these attorney general's steer the conversation, we were told, towards market dominance and privacy issues. a group ofo heard those states have since taken a further step and are investigating a possible antitrust action against google, in particular. jason: we do seem to be at this moment over the last 18 months or so were we are doing a broad overview or revision of our own view as a society of what role these companies are holding. what happened? >> i think the 2016 election happened and that starkly made people realize the dark side of
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technology, just in terms of it having the capability to affect people's perception of reality. it also broke across partisan lines, you have conservatives who are concerned about the suppression of free speech and you have people on the other side who are concerned about the market dominance and privacy issues. story, tedted in the cruz sent a tweet and set this the first time i've ever retweeted elizabeth warren and .e agrees with her on antitrust carol: this is not the first time people have railed against big technology. i think about all of the states that went against microsoft in the. late 1990's. is is akin to that or something different? >> there is a real precedent for this. bute was an antitrust case -- brought by 20 states that led to the rise in google, but
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before that case, microsoft had a freer hand to bundle its own search engine with its operating system. although that case not resulted microsoft being broken up, he did force the company to change its page here. a lot of people are pointing out the similars today, scrutiny against google can have similar effects and allow new competitors to emerge. section, the finance european banks have yet to recover from the financial crisis. jason: and a proposed merger between deutsche bank and commerzbank could be the start of a long and painful process. >> you have two large institutions there, deutsche bank being europe's biggest investment bank, that have basically been in a painful , not being able to tackle a long-term decline in revenue and profitability. ,ver the last six months or so
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there has been increasing speculation this would happen. notwithstanding the fact there are a lot of observers that went to the fact -- point to the fact that putting these institutions together will not help them tackle the individual and combined weaknesses, namely going to remain. is significantly inefficient, and the two combined institutions would still be extremely exposed to the interest rate cycle, which in europe, is a negative territory. but also, to a german commercial banking industry that is extremely competitive. was one thing after another that is pushing back against european financial. he talked about low rates and rising costs at the banks, there's competition from fit tech. brexit is having an impact, and
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bigger and more broadly is this failure to create a banking union, right? that really hasn't happened, it is so fragmented. >> you have bigger institutions in germany that only control a fraction of the market. estimates point at deutsche bank and commerzbank together having potentially is a 10 or 15% market share. that leaves them behind the hundreds of savings and corporate lenders they compete with. these companies don't actually need to make as much profit as privately owned institutions. so the combination of these institutions would do very little to change that. that, as you say, as part of the remnants of the banking union which hasn't really happened. you still have distinct markets and distinct local regulators that still have a say in how
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these institutions are run and how the market can compete. jason: what happens from here? >> i don't think there is a sense here that there will be a massive appetite to expand in europe, given the structural inefficiencies that remain. and this unfinished project, which is bank unions. you can within the 19 countries that share the currency don't have a single deposit insurance guarantee scheme, for example. it means countries do not trust each other fully and still require banks to have funds locally in the event something happens. that gives you a sense of how fragmented it is. jason: earlier this week, in berlin, angela merkel spoke with the john micklethwait about the potential merger. >> absolutely a decision of private business, with all of the challenges, opportunities, and risks and only the
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stakeholders themselves can evaluate that. we have sometimes the government invest in their is not foreign, but i'm waiting for the stakeholders to give their final say. carol: check out more of german chancellor angela merkel's exclusive conversation, just go to up next, the fight for transgender employee rights and the decision facing the u.s. supreme court. jason: plus, the dating at helping gay couples have children. carol: this is "bloomberg businessweek."
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carol: welcome back to "bloomberg businessweek." jason: you can also listen to us on the radio on sirius xm channel 119, and on a.m. 1130 in new york, 106.1 in boston, 99.1 f.m. in washington, d.c.
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carol: a.m. 960 in the bay area, in london on dab digital, and of course, through the bloomberg business app. jason: in the equality issue, widespread discrimination facing transgender people in the work voice -- workplace. carol: and the decision in the supreme court. >> amy stevens is nearly 60. for most of her life, she was known to coworkers, including her boss at the funeral home that fired her, as mail -- male. she made a decision with help from her wife, from her therapist, after decades of wrestling with this, to come out woman.ans1 -- a trans she came to the realization, and a few years later, something she was not able to keep to herself at work anymore. that she was not able to just
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wait to go to the bathroom when she knew nobody else was there and continue to wear male clothing and be treated as though she were male. she came out to her boss through a letter that she wrote, she enclosed her therapists is this card if you wanted to get perspective from the therapist, she offered to answer any questions. a couple weeks later, she was fired. and now, her case could end up redefining how the federal laws -- laws is interpreted across the country, about whether or not it is legal to fire someone because they are trends -- t rans. jason: tell us about amy's decision to launch what has become a series of legal actions. as you say, this has gone up and up and up. to, she made ae conscious decision pretty quickly after her dismissal that she was going to fight it. >> she says it is about
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everybody in the human race being treated equally and fairly. she made a phone call the same day she was terminated to the aclu. she was meeting with them by monday. her case lost at the district court level, but then she won at the appeals court level. now, the question is will that precedent setting appeals ruling in her favorite stay in place or will it be taken up and potentially overturned by the u.s. supreme court. while there is concern amongst lgbtq advocates that with the current makeup of the supreme tort, her case could be used eliminate transgender protections in circuits where they do exist. amy stevens says she has no regrets that she would do it again, because it was the right thing to do. carol: you talk about the unemployment rate according to one survey amongst the
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transgender population. already higher than most. the survey was 15% at a time when the unemployment rate was much, much lower. people and advocates say discrimination is pervasive. the attorney for the michigan aclu's lgbt project who has been working with amy told me that when he started the job more than a decade ago, mostly they got calls from gay and lesbian workers. many people may not have thought there was a chance of winning on behalf of a transgender employee. he says that now, most of the calls that they get are from tr ans people. carol: also, this chinese gay dating app is evolving from helping to people meet to help them find surrogates in the united dates -- states. jason: beijing is not known for supporting the lgbtq community,
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but the service may help china with its demographic problem. about a yearf mine ago said you have got to write about this company. health, and public she said they just do all of this work with the government. anti-hiv stuff, and they are also doing this new program they help gay guys go overseas and have babies by circuit in the u.s. -- surrogate in the u.s.. it turns out, it starts with the founder of the company himself, who goes by the name geng le. he started this app for damon about but it is kind of a community -- for gay men. but it is kind of a community, not just about dating. in china, outside of the big cities it is still not totally cool to be out and proud. made a app has really
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big difference for communities outside of the city. he said that after 35, he just got baby fever, just really wanted to have a baby. so he did some research and found out that it was illegal in china and in thailand, which have been popular. carol: surrogacy. >> surrogacy! surrogacy is illegal. data, it ising a hard to do anything as a single parent. so he decided to go to california and have a baby i surrogate -- by surrogate. back, he brought the baby home and thought i would start this as a business, an offshoot of my dating at -- app blued. carol: was his son a chinese citizen or american citizen? i'm curious about those dynamics and how the government sees this. >> to your first question, the
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babies are born in the u.s. and automatically have u.s. ship -- citizenship. ,hen they go back to china there is a very arcane system that continues to be sort of problematic for even regular chinese people without surrogate 80's babies -- surrogate babies. you have a resident certificate and you have to get it from your parents some town which is often not where they live. there is no clear, laid out route for a parent of a baby born by surrogate. sometimes, you can, they will work out, but in fact, for a lot of these gay men, it is an advantage to have a u.s. passport. worriedecause they're about putting them into this chinese system that will be biased against them for not being part of a normal family. even the ceo and other men i saying long-term
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that they will move abroad with their child and set them to an international school anyway. just to be in an environment that fits the better. carol: "bloomberg businessweek." is available on newsstands now. jason: and online. what is your must-read? the story about london, who knew how egregious and difficult it was for a woman to work in the u.k. insurance industry. it is such a well toned and well-written story. sounds like the me too generation and movement has yet to catch up there. jason: is hard to read at times, but really worth the time. , rebecca walked into our studio and we really did not want to let her go. she is so dynamic, we spent a lot of time with her and i really would recommend our extended podcast, because she really goes into the whole theory and how this is a long game. she is 27 years old, she will be added for quite some time. carol: and you can find more stories on
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jason: and check out our daily podcast, available in itunes, soundcloud, and carol: more bloomberg television starts now. ♪ you.
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bloomberg: technology." the ride hailer gears up for what could be the biggest public listing this year. we discussed the prospect with some early investors. state officials are in the early stages of a probe into google focused on antitrust and privacy in


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