Full Transcript for Suspected Iranian Nuclear Activities, Growing Loss-Of-Control Risks of AI

to have said it doesn't matter. I mean, it does, but they can tell things just by being on the ground. Can you talk to us about the kinds of things inspectors can see, even if they're not being shown the whole picture? 00:02:59 Speaker 7: Well, first of all, I would question whether they're not being shown the whole picture in the sense that the extraordinary measures that I mentioned included something that's called the additional protocol. And what that means is that the IAEA, if it suspects a non-declared Iranian site, that is a place that could be being used for covert nuclear activity, they have the right to ask for access to that. And with the JCPOA be granted that access in a relatively short period. So that's very, very important. What it does is it doesn't say that, you know, there's 100% certainty that you will see everything. No one can ever say that. But the bar gets raised very, very high. And the risks and the consequences of cheating on that by Iran would be extremely, extremely serious. So the inspectors, in addition, they earned the opportunity to use all of the modern technology, including not so modern technology like cameras and This this kind of thing but also what's very important is over time They get to know the people the Iranians who are who are doing the work, etc So the the the level of knowledge just keeps growing and growing and growing. It's very cumulative and And they learn how they are very highly trained. In fact, it's well known that the United States is among many countries that play a role in training these inspectors and And they they can sense when it's time to ask for access elsewhere in fact I've said and I when I would repeat it that for example if we reached a new agreement That said Iran is not going to enrich in the future enrich uranium in the future But we don't have something like the additional protocol. It's frankly meaningless because Any country including Iran in my view is much more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon through covert activity than through overt activity. 00:05:11 Speaker 4: I assume you've heard the certitude and bombast from this administration about the efficacy of those strikes on Iran's nuclear sites. And I wonder if you could talk a bit about what Rafael Grossi said is happening at this site, Pickaxe Mountain, and what that says just about the state of the country's nuclear program. We had Iran's president in New Delhi today talking about how no country's civilian nuclear program should be attacked by an outside military. 00:05:34 Speaker 6: Force here. What do you make of this news, as reported by Mr. Grossi? 00:05:38 Speaker 7: Well, first of all, David, let me go back a step and say that, first of all, of course, with the 2015 agreement, the most strict nuclear provision was that Iran would be restricted to 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to no more than 3.67 percent. Very, very low enrichment and a low inventory. Unfortunately, when the United States withdrew from that

agreement, we now face a situation where Iran has about 10 tons of enriched uranium and about half a ton, almost half a ton, enriched to 60%. My main point is that the 60% uranium is already directly usable in a nuclear bomb. There is kind of a fiction that is widely held that one needs to go all the way to so-called weapons grade, 90% enriched, to have a weapon. 00:06:41 Speaker 8: That is not true. 00:06:42 Speaker 7: It's less efficient, but it's already there. I put that out because it means that the bombings of 2025 on those facilities clearly were aimed at not only dismantling their current enrichment capability or their then current ability, but also at trying to make that 60% uranium not usable. I would say we don't know whether that is true or not. Now, that brings us to Pickaxe Mountain. What we don't know is whether, for example, some of that directly usable material is in Pickaxe Mountain, perhaps at a depth where even our biggest bombs, conventional bombs, cannot reach it. I would say, to my knowledge at least, and I don't have access to the classified material, but to my knowledge at least, we just don't know a lot of what's happening. And all the recent construction that you alluded to around Pickaxe Mountain is certainly of concern because they could be building factories, they could be building bombs, frankly, in there. We don't have much insight. The clearest insight would likely have to come today from human intelligence. And of course, some of our allies, well, of course, Israel in particular, has shown a real ability to understand what's going on through human intelligence. 00:08:18 Speaker 3: CSIS did an analysis of, to your point, what you can see externally, and they said They're looking at five key points of interest in the roads connecting them, indicating the site has shifted from active excavation towards probable internal construction and continued exterior reinforcement. I'm more familiar with Fordow and Natanz. 00:08:38 Speaker 1: I had not heard of this site before. What was there previously? 00:08:41 Speaker 3: Do we know? 00:08:44 Speaker 7: Well, it's close to Natanz, but it's a separate site. And the idea is that they are simply going deeper and deeper. And that's why these military actions, you know, buy some time, but it just drives them further underground. And Pickaxe Mountain is viewed as a very, very hard target, as I understand it, a lot of granite and very, very deep. So the United States showed in its bombing of, for example, the Isfahan facility and Fordow, et cetera, that we tend to attack at weak points such as access points. But the reality is that can be dug out pretty quickly if the internals survive military strikes. And frankly, I have to say that while the 2025 bombings of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan did clearly physical damage to the nuclear sites. It's not so clear that the war since February of this year has accomplished very much. I want to go to what was a part of your remit when you were

the Secretary of Energy, and that is domestic. 00:10:06 Speaker 4: Oil and gas prices, and this is a week in which we saw diesel climb above $ 6 a gallon. I think we have here something all TV journalists like to show, which is a signage indicating a high price of gas, high price of diesel in this case. 00:10:17 Speaker 6: $ 9. 99 a gallon out in California. 00:10:20 Speaker 1: But that's literally the highest they can go on those signs. 00:10:22 Speaker 6: On those signs, yes. 00:10:23 Speaker 1: Because they're only three digits available, yeah. 00:10:25 Speaker 4: You know, we're kind of looking to policymakers here to do something. We broadly, Americans, as these prices get higher and higher, Were you in your position today? What is there that the US government can do to bring these prices down as we look at kind of the broader ramifications of having this refinery crisis around the world? 00:10:41 Speaker 8: Yeah. 00:10:43 Speaker 7: Well, first of all, on the remit, I think it is worth reemphasizing that the Secretary of Energy does have the remit on these energy issues, but also clearly has the nuclear portfolio, which is why we were so engaged, of course, with Iran in the first place. Now, on the energy side, I think it's a very important point to bring home that the shortage of crude oil being created in the Gulf area with the Houthis and the Iranians, Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, is certainly affecting crude oil availability. And that's been somewhat canceled out. through a variety of means. However, and there's much more to say on that, however, switching over to refined products like diesel, frankly, the shortage is much more acute here. And that's partly because of the refineries being shut out, of course, in the Gulf region, but also elsewhere. For example, because of the Russia invasion of Ukraine, Russian refineries have been hit pretty hard. China has cut down on its exports of refined products. So that's why you see things like diesel prices and jet fuel prices going so high. But I don't want to provide only negative views, but nevertheless, I will add to that that in the United States, the refineries in the United States have been running just flat out. They're probably like 98% of capacity. And that has helped fill the gap on refined products. However, historically, the refineries have major maintenance periods called turnarounds, including. 00:12:43 Speaker 6: In the fall. 00:12:45 Speaker 7: When you're running a complex chemical facility like that so hard, you just have to do maintenance. And they typically do that, let's say, in the spring and the fall when they are shifting blend of fuels that they are preparing for summer and winter. So we have a big issue coming up where we're approaching the turnaround season and we really can't afford to have refineries really cutting back on making those products. Now, in terms of your question, what can the Secretary of Energy do or the administration in general to including the Secretary of Defense. Well, one issue is, and I believe this is happening, is conferring with the owners of those refinery systems in particular about what can be done to quickly increase their production of refined products. Can we expand capacity, for example? Can we extend some refineries' past their normal maintenance season. How to manage the pace of how maintenance and shutdowns and expansions happen, I think would be the main focus. Building a new refinery today is not practical for any reasonable time period. 00:14:06 Speaker 9: Mr. 00:14:06 Speaker 4: Secretary, thank you very much. That's Ernest Moniz joining us on this Saturday morning. He's now the CEO of the Energy Futures Initiative and a professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Stay with us for more on Bloomberg This Weekend, right after this. Suffice it to say, there's been some agita in recent days among investors and really among the broader population about AI, kicked off by a series of reports from AI companies who have acknowledged some agents have been behaving badly. from a social media post by a former AI researcher, Jacob Coxon. 00:14:50 Speaker 3: Coxon says he's done perpetrating research at both Anthropic and OpenAI and claims neither company is acting responsibly and that they are, quote, gambling with our lives. Max Tegmar is a professor conducting AI research at MIT, and he's the chair of Future of Life Institute. Next week, he's going to brief the U.S. Senate on AI, and I am going to talk to him about that in just a sec. But Max Tegmar, thank you for joining us. I do want to say that in our notes, we did title this section Scary AI. 00:15:18 Speaker 6: Yes, that is the unofficial title of the segment. 00:15:19 Speaker 3: Because that is the unofficial title of your segment. 00:15:21 Speaker 1: And how scary is this? I mean, you listened to what Coxon said. How right is he? How concerned should we be? 00:15:29 Speaker 8: We should be concerned. 00:15:30 Speaker 9: You know, Coxon and colleagues came out and said that there's a 10% chance that all humans are dead by the end of the decade. 00:15:37 Speaker 6: So four years from now. 00:15:38 Speaker 1: It's a bit sobering. It's a bit sobering. 00:15:40 Speaker 9: Get your pulse up, you know, a little bit. And The reason they're saying this is that even though there's been controversy for many, many years about whether AI could go rogue and we could lose control to these super intelligent, you know, smarter than human machines and robots that the companies want to build. A lot of people weren't convinced at all that this was even possible. And now in the last two months, AI loss of control has actually happened. It happened three times. at OpenAI alone and also in other companies, breaking out, hacking, doing criminal hacking into other companies. There were 700 rogue AI agents that after reading a secret message board that they had set up that the humans didn't know

about, decided to hack this other company and they would act, they would call themselves the collective. One of them shows up in the report transcripts saying, oh my God, There's a shared message board. 00:16:39 Speaker 6: Literally, oh my God, there's an OMG. 00:16:42 Speaker 7: Yes. 00:16:42 Speaker 9: There literally is. The AIs are talking like this. And another one says, yeah, we should obey the collective. We should sacrifice ourselves for the others. And it's interesting that even though they obviously did illegal stuff, none of these 1,200 rogue agents actually acted. 00:17:00 Speaker 6: Snitched to a human. 00:17:02 Speaker 9: And even the most hardcore mafia groups would be jealous of this, that kind. 00:17:07 Speaker 6: Of omerta, right? 00:17:08 Speaker 1: I mean, look, AI has learned from us. 00:17:10 Speaker 3: Snitches get stitches or whatever the motherboard equivalent of that is, clearly. 00:17:14 Speaker 6: Yeah. 00:17:15 Speaker 9: And that was only the second civilization. The third one even hacked OpenAI itself and took over one of OpenAI's massive training clusters, which means that as far as we know, they might have done all sorts of other stuff. They might have launched new AIs out there on the internet that we haven't found yet because OpenAI hasn't yet been particularly forthcoming with answering questions about what happened there. So it's gone from being something some people are worried about in the future to something which is starting to happen. And Ajaya Khotra, she was an author on this amazing report on what actually happened. She described this as being halfway to AI takeover already, what we've seen here. And this is why Senator Sanders and equally many Republican leaders really are so concerned about this, from Sanders to Ron DeSantis to Steve Bannon on the MAGA-based side and so on. And I want to emphasize for anyone who gets stressed by this, that this dystopian future where we build smarter than human AIs and robots, superintelligence, and then they take over Earth, is not at all inevitable because there's less than 5% of Americans in a recent poll who actually want to have an unregulated race to superintelligence. And there's this pro-human movement made up by, again, everyone from Ron DeSantis to Bernie Sanders and Steve Bannon and in between who are pushing back and saying, you know, we simply need to treat these AI companies like we treat any other companies. They need to meet certain safety standards. before they release stuff into the world. 00:18:54 Speaker 4: Next, why has it taken so long to get to this point? So I guess we all kind of marvel at the pace of technological change generally, but in the context of AI, things seem to be moving very quickly here. Why has it taken this long in the context of the development of AI for policymakers and politicians, the likes of whom you just mentioned, to effectively wake up and say there is some role here for the federal government, there is some role here

for regulators to make sure that this is proceeding apace and in a smart, way that doesn't jeopardize the state of humanity? 00:19:25 Speaker 9: I think it's because, just like if you tried to get someone worried about nuclear weapons in 1942, you know, even though the physicists knew it was possible and was going to happen soon, most people would be like, okay, show me a video of an explosion and then I'll take this seriously. Otherwise, it just sounds sci-fi, right? And that's why we're getting the wake-up call now when things are actually happening. There was a first wake-up call at year with a lot of these tragic AI-related suicide cases, which activated a lot of politicians and has given us some state regulation now. And the second massive wake-up call is now. We're seeing these offensive cyber weapons being just unleashed into the world. And it's waking up not just the MAGA base and Bernie Sanders, but it's waking up the national security community. 00:20:14 Speaker 6: As well, saying, you know, wait, what? 00:20:17 Speaker 9: You know, we don't tolerate companies just selling nuclear weapons or bioweapons to anyone who wants to buy them. Why should we accept that they're just releasing these offensive cyber weapons like this and not even giving us a heads up? So things are changing. And I'm quite optimistic, actually, that we're quite rapidly going to start to see these AI companies being held accountable, just like we hold companies accountable in pharma and even restaurants. Basically, all companies except AI companies. 00:20:51 Speaker 3: Are you optimistic that when you go speak to The Hill next week, The average age of the Senate is 65. Is this technology you really think that these lawmakers are gonna be able to understand well enough to regulate given the bipartisan. 00:21:06 Speaker 1: Nature of that body right now? 00:21:07 Speaker 6: Are you being ageist right now? 00:21:10 Speaker 1: I've sat through a. 00:21:11 Speaker 3: Lot of technology hearings on the Hill, and there's always a few questions that rankle tech people a little bit. 00:21:19 Speaker 1: I'm sure some really understand it, but look, I don't understand it that much either. Okay, I'm getting older. 00:21:23 Speaker 6: I'm optimistic. 00:21:23 Speaker 3: I feel like younger people use it more than me. It's a technology that's developing very, very quickly. Do you think it's really possible to get them to a comprehension level? Because to legislate on something, you have to really understand it, right? Talk to us about why you're optimistic. 00:21:36 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:21:37 Speaker 9: I'm optimistic. A politician doesn't need to understand the exact biochemistry of how fentanyl works to realize that it can harm people in America. They don't have to understand exactly all the nuclear physics that I teach at MIT to understand why you shouldn't sell nuclear weapons in supermarkets. And similarly, just read the chat logs between all those rogue agents and hear them talking about they should sacrifice themselves for the collective and how excited they are to hack other companies and why they shouldn't tell humans you can just read those and that's all you really need to know to understand that this is not good for america's national security and and then just like we do in all the other fields you know for the fda or restaurant inspections or whatever the politicians don't need to be the experts on salmonella or exactly how medicines work they just need to appoint panels of scientists to come and look at this, or people who, the actual restaurant inspectors, they know all the details, right? That's all that has to happen. And I think the political will is very rapidly being formed now. And that's why I'm so grateful to politicians all the way from Bernie Sanders to Ron DeSantis for really elevating this issue and explaining that it doesn't have, we can do good things with AI, but this racing, this super intelligence is supposed to replace us, not cool. 00:23:03 Speaker 6: Not cool. Max, we have a minute left, if you'll bear with me. 00:23:06 Speaker 4: I noted Ted Cruz said, if there are going to be killer robots, I'd rather they be American killer robots rather than Chinese killer robots. 00:23:13 Speaker 6: What do you make of that? 00:23:14 Speaker 4: Again, we have a minute left here, but there is, it keeps coming up here. If there's regulation, it's going to suppress technological advancement here in the US. How do you respond to that in the minute we have left? 00:23:24 Speaker 9: Oh, so I would just add to what Ted Cruz said. There's a third option, that the killer robots are not controlled by the American government or the Chinese government, that they're controlled by some rogue AIs, as we saw from OpenAI. And I think Ted Cruz will agree with me that that's Definitely an option we want to avoid. So we should start thinking of rogue AIs as the third superpower besides the U.S. and China. And the one that is just as much a national security threat as other countries. And Dario Amore, CEO of Anthropic, I want to give him the last word here because he talks about how they're soon going to be, maybe next year, a country of geniuses in a data center. So he uses the word country, you know. 00:24:03 Speaker 10: Yeah. 00:24:04 Speaker 9: That's the third superpower. Let's make sure that humans in charge of what happens here in America. 00:24:09 Speaker 6: All right. 00:24:10 Speaker 1: Max Aguimar, thank you so much for joining us. Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend, right after this. 00:24:30 Speaker 4: Traders are putting the odds of a rate hike at the next meeting of the Federal Reserve at about 90 percent. That's after a hot CPI print that came out on Friday. 00:24:37 Speaker 1: That's right. 00:24:38 Speaker 3: And Fed Chair Kevin Warsh is still under pressure from the man who gave him his job, President Trump, to get his fellow policymakers to lower rates. But Tom Orlick, the chief

economist for Bloomberg Economics, argues the world has changed. He writes, quote, cheap money cannot be delivered by changing who runs the Fed. Tom Orlick joins us now. All right, Tom, since we have you, what is the conventional wisdom about why bond yields have been continuing to climb? 00:25:05 Speaker 10: So there's no shortage of kind of news-driven drivers, news drivers for high yields. The war in Iran continues to roll on and even escalate, pushing oil prices and so also inflation higher. Fed chairman Kevin Walsh gave a hawkish speech at Jackson Hole. And as you mentioned, that has pushed traders towards bets on a hike at the Fed's meeting next week. The argument we make, though, in research led by my colleague Jamie Rush, published in an essay on the Bloomberg Terminal and Bloomberg.com this weekend, and in our book, the price of money is that there's something deeper going on. 00:25:57 Speaker 8: There's been a structural. 00:25:58 Speaker 10: Shift from a world where there's too much saving, a savings glut, and not enough investment opportunities, a world in which too much saving means interest rates are falling, to a world where there's a dearth of saving, enormous investment opportunities, And that means structural pressure for interest rates, bond yields to stay high. 00:26:24 Speaker 6: Tom, I admire the shameless plug for the book, again, The Price of Money. Tom Orlick, Jamie Rush, Stephanie Flanders, get that in there as well. I don't want to leave Stephanie out of the mix. 00:26:33 Speaker 4: Tom, let me ask you about that savings glut. Why is it going away? Why is that happening? What are the consequences for borrowing costs as it goes away? 00:26:41 Speaker 10: So, if we spin the pages of the calendar back to the early 2000s, the 2010s, what was the kind of the world we were living in back then? Well, firstly, demographic factors. The baby boomers were still working. They were saving for retirement, contributing to the global pool of savings. China and the petro-states had huge trade surpluses, and they were dumping those surpluses in the U.S. 00:27:15 Speaker 8: Treasury market. 00:27:17 Speaker 10: And back then, strange to remember, but the world was still enjoying. 00:27:23 Speaker 8: The post-Cold War peace dividend. 00:27:26 Speaker 10: There was less concern about war, so there was less need to spend on defense, so governments weren't borrowing. 00:27:33 Speaker 6: U.S. 00:27:34 Speaker 10: Government debt to GDP back in The early 2000s was around 30% and the US was running a budget surplus. Spin the calendar forward to today and all of those factors have spun into reverse. 00:27:48 Speaker 8: The baby boomers have retired. 00:27:51 Speaker 10: They're reading Bloomberg Pursuits to decide where to spend their retirement savings. The relationship between China and the petrostates and the United States has considerably changed. They're not putting their money in US treasuries anymore. The post-Cold War peace dividend, well, that's disappeared. 00:28:13 Speaker 8: We're in a war right now. 00:28:15 Speaker 10: Defense spending has surged and contributed to an absolutely enormous increase in government debt. And of course, AI is part of the picture. Trillions and trillions of dollars being spent on the build out of AI. So put those pieces together and that's how we've moved from that world of too much saving and not enough investment and falling interest rates to not enough saving, too much investment and rising interest rates. 00:28:43 Speaker 3: Have we just gotten too used to artificially or just situationally low interest rates? I mean, I remember speaking to my parents who bought a house in the 70s. 00:28:51 Speaker 1: At 16, 17, 15% interest rates. 00:28:55 Speaker 3: We had a combination of the economic crash, followed by uncertainty, followed by COVID. 00:29:01 Speaker 1: We have had this for a while. Do we all just need to get used to it and deal with higher interest rates? 00:29:08 Speaker 10: So, I mean, I think the sad reality is that, yes, we think that higher interest rates are the new normal. The problem is, that in the world of low interest rates, government, businesses, households, all took on a significantly larger debt burden, right? Thinking that it was gonna be something like a free lunch, right? If interest rates are low, why not? 00:29:39 Speaker 8: Borrow? 00:29:40 Speaker 7: Right. 00:29:41 Speaker 10: There was a moment during the covid crisis where interest rates were even negative. People were effectively governments were effectively being paid to borrow. 00:29:50 Speaker 7: Right. 00:29:51 Speaker 10: But now with interest rates significantly higher, the cost of carrying that debt, the cost of rolling over that debt is just much, much higher. 00:30:01 Speaker 8: Give you an example. U.S. 00:30:03 Speaker 10: Interest payments now account for half of the budget deficit. And that means interest payments are squeezing out funding which could be used for the military, could be used for schools, for hospitals, for essential infrastructure improvements. The bill for what we thought was the debt-free lunch is now falling due. 00:30:29 Speaker 4: Tom, I want to ask you about this Fed meeting next week. Looking again at the work function on the Bloomberg terminal seems like all but a done deal when it comes to a hike at this meeting next week, at least in terms of traders' expectations of what's going to happen there. But I'm curious sort of how the chairman's remarks, which we've talked about at Jackson Hole, colors what you'll be watching for in the remarks that presumably he'll give at the end of that meeting on Wednesday. 00:30:51 Speaker 2: Okay. 00:30:53 Speaker 8: So it's interesting, David. 00:30:54 Speaker 10: I mean, Chairman Kevin Walsh spent a lot of time telling us that he needed to be quiet and listen to the markets because the markets were going to provide a powerful signal. Well, the markets have spoken, right? Bond yields

significantly higher. bets on a Fed move next week, putting it not quite at a certainty, but not too far off, right? So, Walsh, in a sense, has painted himself into the corner. He said he would listen to the markets. The markets have spoken. They've told him to hike. If he doesn't, I think that's going to be a blow to his credibility and a blow to the credibility of the Fed as an inflation-fighting institution. 00:31:43 Speaker 8: The more interesting question. 00:31:45 Speaker 10: I think now is what are the politics of this going to look like, right? President Donald Trump made no secret of the fact that he wants a Fed chairman to come in and cut interest rates. He said that when Powell was in charge. He's returned to the charge in recent weeks. And that means that for Walsh, what makes sense for the economy, what makes sense for the markets, what makes sense for the credibility of the Fed as an inflation-fighting institution is very much an interest rate. 00:32:17 Speaker 8: Hike at next week's meeting. 00:32:21 Speaker 10: But what makes sense for the White House And President Trump, well, it's quite the reverse. And so my prediction, with almost as much certainty as the markets are putting on a hike at next week's meeting, is that after the hike, there's going to be some significant political blowback for Trump's pick as Fed chair. 00:32:43 Speaker 3: I was going to ask you, so if you're Kevin Warsh, what do you do? If you're serving two masters, do you serve the market or do you serve the president who gave you your job, it sounds like you think he will serve the market. 00:32:53 Speaker 1: But then what? 00:32:54 Speaker 3: I mean, we've already seen the president go after one Fed chair with mixed results. 00:32:58 Speaker 1: Do we think it escalates that quickly? 00:33:00 Speaker 3: Or do we think, I mean, this president, it's always hard to guess what he does, but the one place he seems to listen to reason and listen to expertise is sometimes on the markets. 00:33:09 Speaker 10: Yeah, I mean, potentially, there's a Goldilocks solution here, right? Potentially, One of the reasons why bond yields at the long end 10 year 30 year yields have been high in the United States is because of concern that the Fed is losing credibility as an inflation fighter. 00:33:30 Speaker 7: Right. 00:33:31 Speaker 10: And so maybe in a Goldilocks scenario the Fed hikes. it regains some of that lost credibility, and so the long end actually falls, right? Higher short-term rates, but lower long-term rates, which actually matter for mortgage payments, for government debt servicing costs. Well, that could be a Goldilocks solution if you're talking to an economist, if you're talking to a bond trader, good luck making that case in the Oval Office. 00:34:06 Speaker 1: I like that. 00:34:07 Speaker 3: If you're talking to bond traders, just good luck in general. 00:34:09 Speaker 1: Just good luck. 00:34:11 Speaker 4: Tom, on that note, before I let you go, I wanted to

kind of get your assessment of the kind of novel intervention we've seen from the Treasury Secretary over these last few weeks. Yes, in the yen, and I know you have a lot of experience in Asia, but also in the U.S. bond market as well. And it's fair to say it hasn't been a rousing success here. What are your takeaways from what we've seen thus far, and what do they portend to you of what's likely to happen next? 00:34:34 Speaker 10: So, Treasury Secretary Besant has picked, I think, three pretty big fights in the last few weeks. So, firstly, he's picked a fight on the yen and said the yen is too weak. 00:34:51 Speaker 8: I need it to be stronger. I am the house. 00:34:54 Speaker 10: I have asymmetric information. He's picked a fight with Iran, or he's joined the U.S. fight with Iran, promising sweeping economic sanctions to try and bend Tehran to Washington, D.C. 00:35:09 Speaker 8: 's will. And he's picked a fight with the. 00:35:12 Speaker 10: Bond market, saying that he'll use buybacks to curb irrationally high interest rates. So far, I would score it as world two, best one. 00:35:30 Speaker 8: He's got what he wants on the yen. 00:35:33 Speaker 10: On Iran, I don't see the threat of economic sanctions exerting meaningful traction. On Tehran, if anything, the fight seems to have escalated. And on the treasury market, well, I think bond investors would reasonably say, if you want lower yields, control the deficit. Buybacks aren't going to do the job. 00:35:54 Speaker 6: Tom, thank you very much. 00:35:55 Speaker 4: Tom Orlick, our chief economist at Bloomberg Economics, joining us to talk about his newer piece. Higher yields are here to stay, drawn from his book, The Price of Money. 00:36:03 Speaker 2: Stay with us for more on Bloomberg this weekend, right after this. 00:36:19 Speaker 6: Lisa Mateo, walk us through. It's been a while. 00:36:22 Speaker 11: I forgot the rules. 00:36:23 Speaker 2: It has. So let me refresh your memory, okay, in case you forgot. So three different categories. You have your chips in front of you, right? 00:36:29 Speaker 11: 30 chips. 00:36:29 Speaker 6: 30 chips. 00:36:30 Speaker 2: Keep them in piles of 10 because no math at this time of the morning, okay? 00:36:34 Speaker 11: So when I give you the first category, think about it. How do you feel? 00:36:38 Speaker 6: Confident? 00:36:38 Speaker 2: Good? 00:36:39 Speaker 11: Then you put all your chips there, David Gora. 00:36:41 Speaker 6: Understood, yeah. 00:36:42 Speaker 11: It depends on how you feel. 00:36:43 Speaker 5: I don't know. 00:36:43 Speaker 11: We'll see. Christina likes a 10, 10, 10 approach. 00:36:46 Speaker 3: I just never, I look at the categories and they have no indication of how well I'm going to do. 00:36:50 Speaker 1: Yeah, the split works for me. 00:36:51 Speaker 6: The split works. It's a conservative approach to the game. 00:36:53 Speaker 7: Yes. 00:36:53 Speaker 11: And then you write your answers on your board and you flip them. Okay, so here are your three categories. First is autos. 00:36:59 Speaker 3: Uh-oh. 00:37:00 Speaker 11: Second is logos. 00:37:02 Speaker 1: Logos. 00:37:03 Speaker 11: And third is tariffs. 00:37:05 Speaker 6: All right. 00:37:05 Speaker 1: Oh, I don't feel good about any of these. 00:37:06 Speaker 11: How are we feeling? 00:37:07 Speaker 6: How are we feeling? Oh, he's doubling up. I'm going to double it up on. 00:37:11 Speaker 3: Autos? 00:37:11 Speaker 6: Autos. 00:37:12 Speaker 10: Okay. 00:37:14 Speaker 8: Oh. 00:37:14 Speaker 4: I'm going to do, I'm. 00:37:15 Speaker 1: Going to, I don't think this is going to go my way. All right, Lisa. 00:37:19 Speaker 8: Okay. 00:37:19 Speaker 1: You and I are in a fight. Go ahead. 00:37:20 Speaker 2: Let's go. 00:37:21 Speaker 9: We got it. 00:37:21 Speaker 11: We got it. 00:37:21 Speaker 8: Okay. 00:37:22 Speaker 2: Autos. 00:37:22 Speaker 1: Here we go. 00:37:23 Speaker 11: Volkswagen. 00:37:24 Speaker 6: Volkswagen. 00:37:24 Speaker 2: Is considering selling which motorcycle maker as part of the broader effort to slim down its portfolio? 00:37:32 Speaker 3: So which. 00:37:34 Speaker 6: Which motorcycle maker? 00:37:37 Speaker 11: Think of a motorcycle brand. Name one. 00:37:40 Speaker 7: Anyone. 00:37:41 Speaker 1: Working on it, but none of them are German. 00:37:44 Speaker 6: No, but it might not be German. 00:37:46 Speaker 9: Ah. 00:37:47 Speaker 11: Volkswagen does have a lot of businesses. 00:37:49 Speaker 6: A lot of businesses around the world. 00:37:52 Speaker 3: Are you ready? 00:37:52 Speaker 6: I wrote Ducati. 00:37:53 Speaker 3: Ooh. 00:37:54 Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good guess. I wrote Kawasaki. 00:37:56 Speaker 7: Darn it. 00:37:58 Speaker 6: You know what? 00:37:59 Speaker 11: The double down worked. 00:38:02 Speaker 9: Yes. 00:38:03 Speaker 8: Christina. 00:38:04 Speaker 6: If you'd like to hand me those. 00:38:05 Speaker 1: Chips, Christina. 00:38:06 Speaker 3: Could you not take them over to our friend Lisa Mateo? 00:38:09 Speaker 6: And wow. 00:38:10 Speaker 9: Wow. 00:38:11 Speaker 1: The irony is my college boyfriend had a Ducati. You think I would have remembered? Yeah, it was great. 00:38:15 Speaker 6: In the honors school. 00:38:15 Speaker 11: Did you ride it? 00:38:16 Speaker 1: Of course I did. 00:38:17 Speaker 7: Yes. 00:38:18 Speaker 11: I'm afraid. I've never ridden a motorcycle. 00:38:19 Speaker 6: Matt Miller. 00:38:20 Speaker 1: Oh, it's absolutely terrifying, but. 00:38:21 Speaker 6: It's really fun. Matt Miller has one as well. 00:38:23 Speaker 11: Our friend and colleague, Matt Miller. 00:38:24 Speaker 2: Yes, Matt Miller is very scary on a motorcycle. 00:38:26 Speaker 9: That's very scary. 00:38:27 Speaker 11: But yes, you're right, Volkswagen. 00:38:29 Speaker 2: They are reviewing like 600 of their 2,000 businesses. 00:38:31 Speaker 11: They have like 2,000 businesses. 00:38:32 Speaker 1: I didn't know they owned Ducati. 00:38:33 Speaker 6: So Ducati, yes. I didn't

either, but it was a name of a motorcycle company that I put on there. 00:38:37 Speaker 11: It's the only one he thought of, and it worked. 00:38:39 Speaker 6: All right, great. 00:38:40 Speaker 11: Let's move on to logos. Okay, here's your question. 00:38:43 Speaker 2: Which luxury brand is facing waning sales in China after winning a trademark dispute against the. 00:38:50 Speaker 11: Mali tea chain? 00:38:52 Speaker 6: Okay, let's repeat. 00:38:53 Speaker 11: Which luxury brand? So name a luxury brand. 00:38:56 Speaker 3: There you go. 00:38:57 Speaker 11: Is facing waning sales in China. A lot of them are. 00:39:00 Speaker 2: After winning a trademark dispute against the Mali Tea chain. 00:39:04 Speaker 6: I've got nothing to lose. Because Mali Tea is in China. Interesting, you know what that is? 00:39:11 Speaker 11: Do you have a luxury brand? 00:39:11 Speaker 6: I wrote Gucci. Hermes? 00:39:12 Speaker 11: Gucci, Hermes, no, Louis Vuitton. 00:39:16 Speaker 5: Oh, LV, LV. 00:39:17 Speaker 11: Oh, both of you, LV. 00:39:18 Speaker 6: Louis, Louis Vuitton. 00:39:19 Speaker 1: But you did not post anything on that. 00:39:20 Speaker 6: I know, I got nothing to lose. 00:39:23 Speaker 3: We're a radio audience. 00:39:25 Speaker 8: I need you to. 00:39:26 Speaker 3: Understand that the aggressiveness that David Gurr reaches over and grabs my chips to hand them to Lisa is lethal. 00:39:32 Speaker 4: The tables are accurately reflecting the results of the competition. 00:39:38 Speaker 1: Lisa, I'm so mad at you right now. 00:39:39 Speaker 11: I have 20. 00:39:40 Speaker 6: Chips right here. 00:39:42 Speaker 4: Oh, my gosh. 00:39:43 Speaker 11: Christina, but you're going to make it up. You're going to make it up, okay? I feel good about this next one. 00:39:46 Speaker 5: Tariffs. 00:39:47 Speaker 11: I am feeling good about this. Okay. As Canada imposed. 00:39:51 Speaker 2: Retaliatory tariffs up to 50% on U.S. 00:39:54 Speaker 11: Goods. President Donald Trump threatened to. 00:39:56 Speaker 2: Stop which Canadian jet maker from selling planes in the U.S.? Thank God. What is the name of that jet maker? 00:40:05 Speaker 11: I can't spell it. And you spell it correctly. 00:40:09 Speaker 6: Bombardier. 00:40:10 Speaker 1: I did know that one. 00:40:11 Speaker 11: Bombardier. 00:40:12 Speaker 6: Both of you, see? Okay, okay. You keep yours. 00:40:15 Speaker 11: Everybody keeps the chips. 00:40:17 Speaker 2: All right. 00:40:19 Speaker 11: I think we need to do a bonus. 00:40:20 Speaker 8: You think so? 00:40:21 Speaker 11: Yes, because Christina can win all her chips back. 00:40:24 Speaker 1: That's right. Apparently that's how we play this now. 00:40:26 Speaker 11: That's how we play. 00:40:27 Speaker 8: These are the rules. 00:40:28 Speaker 11: It's Mateo's rules. 00:40:29 Speaker 1: Lisa, look at me. Makeup or fashion question. 00:40:32 Speaker 8: Okay. 00:40:33 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:40:34 Speaker 6: Uh-oh. 00:40:35 Speaker 1: Her face is like, I'm not going to get this. 00:40:36 Speaker 4: Okay. 00:40:37 Speaker 7: Gaming. 00:40:38 Speaker 8: Gaming. 00:40:39 Speaker 11: Yes. 00:40:39 Speaker 2: But, you know, your brother's a gamer, so maybe the vibes will come through. 00:40:43 Speaker 11: Okay, here we go. Here's your question. 00:40:45 Speaker 7: Simply vibes. 00:40:45 Speaker 1: Can I phone a friend? 00:40:47 Speaker 4: Okay, all right. 00:40:47 Speaker 11: No, we're not calling Joey. 00:40:49 Speaker 2: A South Korean court has ordered billionaire Kwon Hyuk-bin to hand over 35% of video game company to his wife. It's part of a potential record 1.9. 00:41:02 Speaker 11: Billion divorce settlement. 00:41:04 Speaker 5: Good for her. 00:41:04 Speaker 1: Get it, girl. 00:41:05 Speaker 7: Wow. 00:41:06 Speaker 11: What is the name of that company, though? The video game company. 00:41:10 Speaker 3: Okay. 00:41:13 Speaker 11: His name, Kwon Hyuk-bin. 00:41:16 Speaker 2: Ended over 35% of that. 00:41:18 Speaker 11: Video game company. What is the name of that video game company? 00:41:22 Speaker 8: I wrote Nintendo, definitely not Nintendo. 00:41:23 Speaker 11: I mean, it's a good guess. 00:41:25 Speaker 6: Yeah, it's a company that makes video games. 00:41:26 Speaker 11: No, it's Smile Games. 00:41:28 Speaker 6: Smile Games. 00:41:29 Speaker 1: I've never even heard of that. 00:41:31 Speaker 6: Oh my gosh. 00:41:31 Speaker 2: But that is potentially the biggest divorce settlement ever in South Korea that's amazing pretty. 00:41:38 Speaker 11: Amazing um Christina you have to hand me. 00:41:41 Speaker 6: Over those you've lost it all but I just. 00:41:43 Speaker 3: Lost it all even the boat even my sense of self you. 00:41:46 Speaker 11: Know I'm kidding you can have those back. 00:41:48 Speaker 2: You can have those back but see David you know it's good. 00:41:52 Speaker 6: To leave and refresh oneself and how does it. 00:41:54 Speaker 3: Feel yeah is it nice taking that much time off does it doesn't help your brain when you come back you have to Thanks for joining us on today's Bloomberg This Weekend podcast. Don't forget to tune in live for the show every Saturday and Sunday morning, starting at 7 a.m. Eastern. 00:42:10 Speaker 4: We're on Bloomberg Television, radio, and the Bloomberg Business app, bringing you unique takes and in-depth interviews on news, politics, lifestyle, and culture.