Green Room Q&A: Maria Bartiromo on Economic Recovery, Real Estate, Obamagate, and Commutes
Mediaite’s Live from the Green Room newsletter periodically asks media folks to do a Q&A to be featured in our daily blast. The below interview is featured in our Monday, June 22 edition. If you aren’t registered, you can sign up here!
Star of both Fox News and Fox Business Maria Bartiromo has, in the last few years, become an increasingly recognizable face, a persistent presence on not just business topics but on politics. Bartiromo regularly interviews President Donald Trump as well as big players in business finance, from CEOs to gurus, lawmakers and regulators.
GOOD MORNING, thank you for your time!
To begin, I want to note that, even before the current protests, even before the lockdowns, even before the virus, there was so much news, so often and fast, that on any given story on any given day a person with a regular job can be forgiven for not knowing the background. Or for not knowing what to expect.
When you throw cable news, social media, email lists, talk radio, and the water cooler into the mix, that uncertainty can seem not only overwhelming but even frightening. Especially on financial issues, as you know.
Which brings us to our questions…
Mediaite questions are in bold. After each big question and big answer, we have included a tl;dr summary question (in red), which Maria Bartiromo was kind enough to answer in brief (also marked in red) for those who need the short, brass tacks answer.
People *are* scared about the country’s future. Words like recession and depression are floating around. Jobs, tuition, teetering industries… Does the economy make it? Will we get through to next year? Or is it time for the bunker?
Trump senior economic adviser Kevin Hassett had predicted on your show back on May 6th that the economy would shrink by 40%. A month later, June 5th, Stephen Moore was so thrilled with the jobs report he told you he was “doing cartwheels.” What can people expect? Are things getting better or is doom still to come?
The economy is slowly getting better. The losses are narrowing. We will see a sharp contraction in the 2Q- probably 30%. But I am expecting growth in the 3Q, 4Q and throughout 2021. Don’t get me wrong- there will be many companies that do not make it. We have already seen bankruptcies in the retail and restaurant segments. These companies live on cash flow & there is none during a shutdown. But most will recover. It will take time and depending on which industry you are talking about, there will be different impacts. Some industries will see structural change. I’m not sure how quickly people will revert to what they were doing in terms of going in big crowds, travel, so some industries will have to adapt or die. Others have grown even during this and will continue to do so. . .The digital economy will penetrate further. E-commerce, telemedicine, tele-education, cloud computing, food delivery. These industries will get bigger and more penetrated in our lives.
As a sort of addendum to that, is the news different for investors and people of means than for an average working person?
Of course those people with resources to navigate through this will have an easier time The good news is the government has injected unprecedented liquidity. Up to $10-trillion. So I think the government is trying to throw as much liquidity at the situation as they can and you have to hope this works – there will be a price to pay and that is the debt this country faces is actually more than the entire size of the economy – at some point when the interest payments are going up it will become an issue and the markets will see it as an issue. At some point debt does become a problem if there isn’t a plan to get the debt down.
And for those who have been laid off or have no savings, I think the first thing you always have to do is take a look at the expense side of the ledger – what are you spending your money on and look at places where you can pull back. The individual needs to take on the same process as big companies do in looking on cost savings area – so that’s #1 to do a true honest assessment. #2 you have to try to manage your income differently – if you can work from home and gain income from it – look for opportunities – when you get that stimulus check – don’t blow it and try to have it grow – see if you can put it one of your savings buckets or a portion in an investment account – but of course it is going to your bills. And don’t get complacent. If you are seeing opportunities – take them. And if you are lucky enough to have more money – put it away – the savings account or a fund – put it away and don’t touch it.
Things will get better. I do think we are going to have a second half that is certainly much better than the first half. I do think there will be a transition – it won’t be a snapback – this will take time. You will start to see that transition in 3Q and in 2021 will be more significant but it will come but it will take time. Managers are getting used to a temporary new normal and that kind of new behavior will take us a little time to adapt and get used to and as a result of that – the growth will happen in the second end of the year.
I don’t want to paint too rosy of a picture – some businesses will not be able to get out of this – you will see more bankruptcies – these are the types of businesses that live on cash flow and the longer the shutdown the harder it will be to maintain. I do think jobs will be replenished fairly quickly – but 2021 I do think will be a good year for the economy.
tl;dr: Things look bad, will they get better soon? Is the outlook better for big business than small, and what about workaday Joes/Janes?
Yes things will get better. The second half much better than the first. It will take time to recover, although I do think jobs will be replenished fairly quickly. But 2021 I do think will be a good year for the economy.
You have, this year, been right early on a number of stories. I’m thinking in particular of your reporting in March, accurately, that coronavirus cases could reach into the hundreds of thousands here, and at that time it wasn’t a popular view. But it proved correct.
So do you have a prediction about the shift in industries? Travel and hospitality have changed, food and restaurant. So many are unemployed or looking for work. If you were to predict, what is the strong industry or sector that will roar soonest?
Expanding on the above – the digital economy will accelerate faster than people expected. This shutdown will enforce digital even further and it’s likely well do what we are doing now after we get out of this. We will likely see a flight out of dense cities and crowded places. People may move office buildings to the suburbs. Retrofitting will take place in commercial buildings to include touch-less everything. Jobs will be in digital, engineering, healthcare, biotech, delivery, cyber security, among others.
tl;dr: Where are the jobs (and money) headed as industries change?
Like I said above, I believe the jobs will be in digital, engineering, healthcare , biotech, delivery, cyber security, among others.
I want to ask you for one more bit of predictive advice. You reported this month that while home sales are down, real estate could be looking up soon. Is this a good time to refinance your home and maybe try to get a lower rate? Or even take the moment to try to buy?
This is one of the best times to take out a mortgage or refinance. I can’t imagine we will see rates this low again soon. Jay Powell told us this week rates will stay near zero until at least 2022. That tells me he’s expecting a slow slog back. So you have some time. But these rates are incredible to take advantage of if you have the resources to buy now. Prices will likely go up in suburbs and down in cities.
Whether to take it fast or slow depends on your situation and where you want to live. People are trying to avoid big cities and density – so I do think you are going to have a situation that cities will have a bigger strain than the suburbs. I suspect real estate prices will come down in cities and could see a harder budget – so city services will be strained – but I do think you will see cities go through a volatile situation and with strain comes opportunity. Selling your home right now – I think prices have come down quite a bit and there are a lot of people that are expecting prices to come down some more – but the real high end is still moving – so I think it depends on where you are.
tl;dr: Real estate — dive in or take it slow?
It depends, but prices have come down and a lot of people expect them to come down more, and it’s a great time to get a mortgage or refinance.
Being a Fox Business anchor doesn’t mean it’s all about money, markets, and business. You’ve had a lot of political reporting over the years. President Trump likes you, and your interviews with him make news. A few weeks ago, among other topics, the president spoke to you about “Obamagate” and said Democrats are trying to force longer lockdowns because they want the economy to crash to improve their electoral prospects.
There have been major gatherings since then, protests and more. Do you agree with President Trump that there was a political aspect to favoring shutdowns?
[Editor’s Note: These questions and answers are from prior to the rally in Tulsa.]
I do not think this administration will shut down the economy again. It hurt many people and businesses. I think we need to be alert to what happens within the next two weeks. Two weeks is the incubation period so we’ll know what happened with so many people shoulder to shoulder. And let’s be clear here – this is not solely a protest issue – we’ve seen images of people flocking to the beaches not adhering to social distancing protocols. So let’s hope everyone is still taking the safety precautions seriously so that we prevent a second wave.
That said, there’s a national movement going on right now that demands attention. You can’t have a free nation without equality – that’s something I’ve fought for my entire life and it is the right of every American to exercise their voice – whether it be at the ballot or at a protest. What happened in Minneapolis was horrific and the protests, from what I have seen, the majority of the protesters are wearing masks, as you noted. My hope is that their voice is heard and the protective measures we’ve all learned help keep the numbers of new infections going down.
And your questions about “Obamagate” and the November election – My job is to report the facts. I have no dog in this fight other than to seek the truth. One of the stories I broke & reported very early was the “no collusion between President Trump and the Russians” [story]. I said this back in 2018 because of my original reporting on Sunday Morning Futures where Congressmen John Ratcliffe and Devin Nunes joined me frequently & walked me through what was a made up story.
I believe Mediaite trashed me when I first reported this as well. But this I knew very early on because of my constant focus on the origins of the investigation as well as from my own experience. I traveled to Russia for years attending the St. Petersburg Economic Forum when I was at CNBC and was made to bring burner phones back in the 90s and early 2000s because of their spying.
The storyline early on with regards to collusion didn’t add up and for the media not to cover this massive abuse of power from a cabal of individuals from the FBI and the CIA is disgraceful. And where are the protests against the Chinese communist party? While all of those dopes were looking for ghosts colluding with Russia, creating havoc in the country and doing everything they could to take down a duly elected president, they missed the true adversary of the US and allowed China to steal intellectual property, military secrets and jobs. They failed us big time.
Rather than another lengthy question, for our fifth(-ish) and final let’s keep it simple. The work from home revolution: permanent? partially permanent? Or back to the office we go?
We’ll go back at some point. But for the time being, it seems to be working. Our ratings have been soaring, the guests have been amazing. And the commute is pretty darn good.
We thank Maria Bartiromo for taking the time to answer these questions.
Maria Bartiromo joined Fox Business Network (FBN) as Global Markets Editor in January 2014. She is the anchor of Mornings with Maria on FBN (6-9 AM/ET) and anchors Sunday Morning Futures, the most watched Sunday morning program on cable (10 AM/ET) on Fox News Channel (FNC). In April 2017, Bartiromo was also named the new anchor for FBN’s weekly primetime investing program Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street (Fridays at 8 PM/ET). You can follower her on Twitter at @MariaBartiromo
New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!
Comments
↓ Scroll down for comments ↓