Carol plus, a defiant Boris Johnson dragged back to parliament to explain why he broke the law. We take a look at what a hard brexit might look like. President trumps political future among the topics front at center at bloombergs forum in new york. When you added together, i think what it leads to is not a recession, but a slow down growth globally, which is what we are experiencing. Carol more on that ahead. First up, here is editor joel weber on this weeks cover story. Code. Lds in the age of this is one of the hallmarks of businessweek, these strategy stories that we sometimes do. It is a look at how mcdonalds has been thriving for the past five years or so. Share price keeps going up under the ceo. In the past six months, he has really doubled down on tech. Carol that is something that i did not realize. He has made a bunch of acquisitions in ai, Voice Recognition technologies. Earlier this month was his latest. What we are seeing is mcdonalds transitioning from being a Fast Food Company to looking more and more like a tech company. There are cameras at drivethrough that can scan your license plate and maybe even remember what you ordered last time, or understand your voice and help translate that to the kitchen. We are seeing a real effort to streamline how mcdonalds can use technology. There is always resistance to that. Carol expensive to do this, right . The franchisees have been pushing back. Carol what i love about these stories is you get some inside details. They take us to the old headquarters. It was kind of drab, kind of boring. That is in part to try and retain and enlist technology. My favorite part is how the company transitioned to be able to do delivery. Its like, lets do this right now. Carol we can see the ceo doing this. Another great read. This is a company, maybe we take it for granted that it has been around for a long time, but it is a huge company. Massively global. They feed on any given day 1 of the worlds population. Mcdonalds actually has a new secret sauce and thats big data. Carol another great cover story. Thank you so much, joel weber, editor of the magazine. Democrats launch a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump his conversation with the ukrainian president to investigate democratic frontrunner joe biden. What a week in terms of news out of washington. A lot of press conferences. We have got hearings, a release of the transcript of that phone call. Where are we in terms of this process . Well, this has been really amazing. If the Mueller Report was just a very slow moving drip of information, this has been a deluge. Very fast. There is the progress from hearing about this scandal to seeing the transcript of the phone conversation with the ukrainian president , to reading the whistleblower complaint cannot literally be measured in hours compared to how long it took to find out some of the information from the previous investigation. Carol right, the rapidity of all of this coming out blew all of us away. What is at stake for the democrats . What is at stake for the president . I talked to some people involved in the impeachment of nixon and clinton. They both said, you know, at the end of the day, you have to put the politics aside. If the majority of the house believes that the president has committed an impeachable offense, then they have to do it. I think a big factor is that a lot of the more vulnerable House Democrats finally came forward and said, we think this is over the line. Especially those who had a background in National Security and intelligence. Carol what are we hearing from the white house at this point about it . I think the press conference on wednesday of this past week, Big Press Conference with the u. N. General assembly. President trump has been in town a lot. We all observed a much more subdued President Trump. His speech to the United Nations was the text of his speech to the United Nations was very militant, but the delivery was very subdued. I think you are seeing some of the same tactics he has used to push back against the previous scandal, basically arguing that he did nothing wrong, that anyone would do what he did. What we saw was a little bit faster cooperation once the impeachment word was raised with handing over the primary documents, i think the white house had been stalling while in congress for a long time on even sort of routine information that past president s would have given. Once the impeachment word was dropped, they quickly cooperated. Carol thank you so much. Appreciate your insight. Coming up, what a no deal brexit might look like, plus Business Leaders weighing in on navigating global instability at bloombergs Global Business forum. This is Bloomberg Businessweek. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am carol massar. Join us for Bloomberg Businessweek everyday on the radio. You can always catch up on our daily show by listening to our podcast. You can also find us online at businessweek. Com and on our mobile app. This week, Boris Johnson cut his visit to the United States short, returning home to Face Parliament and the never ending brexit story. Here is what a hard brexit might look like. He tries to set out what that first 24 hours might look like if it is the case we end up in a no deal brexit. This is what Boris Johnson is promising to do if he cannot get the deal with brussels. He says that u. K. Will leave the eu on october 31. What would happen next . We have followed various individuals who would find themselves in fairly dramatic situations if it were to be the case that there was a no deal brexit. For example, we follow a lorry driver making a Time Critical delivery. We follow a farmer on the irish border who has to cope with that change in ireland. We follow a musician on tour in europe, so all these individuals who could face meaningful and significant disruption if a no deal brexit were to occur. Carol lets talk about the ports in particular because thats really questionable. How do they operate the port of dover . We are talking about the channel crossing. 10,000 trucks go through the fairies every day at these ports carrying almost 1 6 of all trade and goods to the european union. This is huge. Exactly. It is probably the most important crunch point for britain when it comes to trade and it is the area where the government is keen to make sure there is not disruption. There is a certain limitation on what the British Government can do to keep that traffic flowing. The british cant control what the french will do. What will the french officials customs do when the trucks start coming over in a no deal brexit scenario. The fear is that the french government will be quite strict in its application of the rules and that will mean trucks end up being pulled over if they dont have the right documentation. They will need new documentation in a no deal brexit scenario because the u. K. Will no longer be in the eu. Thats the worry and whether disruption could occur. Carol lets talk about that farmer on the irish border. He could be in violation, not in violation, in violation, explain that. The irish border is not a straight line. It is a squiggle. You have individuals with farmland on both sides. It may end up crossing the irish border on several occasions. If he has a sheep in Northern Ireland and wants to move them 100 yards down the road to another field, it would have to cross into the republic of ireland. In a no deal brexit, that would be illegal. That would be smuggling. He would have to go through a customs checkpoint to declare these animals because the rules say if you are moving livestock into the eu from a noneu country, you must have it checked. It is a question on whether the government would actually enforce those checkpoints. Carol lets go to our bigger, broader take away here. It sounds like initially it is not a doomsday scenario. Dont necessarily expect significant, visible disruption on the first day of a no deal brexit. I think many of the impacts that have been talked about could occur. If they do occur, they would happen in the days and weeks after. That is mainly because if there is disruption at the ports and trucks get held up and so on, it would be at least two, three days, a week before the rest of the supply chain feels that affect. If companies have stockpiled goods, they can run those stockpiles down. After that, it would start to go from paying if that disruption continued. Carol President Trump using a speech at the United Nations this week to reiterate complaints about chinas trade practices. President trump as i have made very clear, i will not accept a bad deal for the american people. Carol the expanding global trade war is already hitting close to home. Lets bring in our reporter who follows trade and globalization for us at bloomberg. Great to have you here. Your story this week in the magazine, i feel like we need to get ready for maybe trade war number three. It is expanding in terms of concerns about trade with europe. Absolutely. We are getting ready for the next round that will start to unfurl in the coming days as the Trump Administration starts to rollout new tariffs on the eu. Those are the result in the first wave that we are going to see in a longrunning battle between airbus and boeing. We are expecting the wto to authorize the u. S. To levy Something Like 8 billion in tariffs on the eu. That is going to hit the eu hard, but it is also going to blow back in the u. S. Some states like alabama have pretty close ties with not only the eu and european businesses the eu and european businesses more broadly, but airbus pretty directly. Carol it is a big deal and certainly you talk about the state of alabama. The biggest one is from the eu, correct . Absolutely. They are the biggest investor in a number of states, including alabama. Down in mobile, there is an airbus plant where they assemble planes and they will start assembling a220 planes. There is a big mercedes plant in tuscaloosa. They turn out a lot of those new Mercedes Suvs you see on the street. A lot of those suvs get exported from mobile im sorry, from alabama to places like china. Carol convening heads of state and government and hundreds of ceos in new york. We spoke with anand mahindra, chairman of mahindra group, and brian moynihan, ceo of bank of america, on the u. S. China trade war. What you have seen over the last 2. 5 years is the u. S. And warning them as a leader of the developed world. On the chinese side, they are trying to figure out how far and how fast they want to get someplace. You know, the two countries got quite close in may, at which point the chinese just withdrew. They had agreed to a variety of things, we thought, then they look at the hole, and they said, my goodness, lets not do this. This is starting again. Meanwhile, what has happened in these 2. 5 years is that the two countries have started, as a result of false starts and a variety of other tactical stuff, are starting to decouple, which is very dangerous. I do wonder, i think increasingly we are expecting this world where it is china and its allies and the United States and its allies. You are at a very interesting place between china and the United States. How do you see it . As a situation of enormous opportunity. Carol wait, you mean the spat you do . Absolutely. I am just being truthful here. For a long time, it was not kosher for anyone in american policy positions to admit that there was a kind of conflict with china and that india in fact could be one of the players in this game as a buffer against china. That was just a nono. No one would admit that. I think now it is in the open and President Trump has made it more in the open. Going to houston made it very clear what kind of alliance he had. I think there is nothing but opportunity for india. We have to play our cards right and see that we are viewed now as a very appropriate ally for the u. S. As a buffer, both in defense terms, frankly. If you look at the number of defense exercises between the u. S. And india, they are proliferating dramatically. We never used to buy, we used to buy from the russians. This is a democratic country, a country that values i. P. R. A country that values growth. I think india has nothing but a unique opportunity right now. We just have to play those cards right and i think it will be a winwin for the u. S. And india. I actually agree. Having been with a bunch of ceos, prime ministers this morning, all of them talking about their business expanding in india. I think some of the bureaucracy and things that were difficult to operate have been dealt with. They can be approved and Everybody Knows it. I think the broader context here is global trade. If you go back and say the chinau. S. Situation will take longer, the question is, what can we resolve in the interim . Im not sure what happens given the politics and situation this week, the usmca, and things like that, which are critical to get done. As much as india is a beneficiary, mexico and canada is a beneficiary. The weight scale in mexico is actually lower than parts of china. They could use the jobs. There is already integrated manufacturing supply chains. Canada is a different situation. I think to keep the u. S. Moving forward, there are three or four things to knock out. Everybody hopes for chinau. S. , but there are a couple of things to knock out first, and one of them is the usmca. I dont know if they can politically push it through, even though both sides seem to want to. Carol you can hear more of that conversation on this weeks extra podcast. Up next, softbank has a problem, wework. Plus, lovin it, meaning i. T. Mcdonalds in the days of code. Carol welcome back to Bloomberg Businessweek. I am carol massar. You can also listen to us on the radio, sirius xm china 119 and in new york, am 960 in the bay area, in london on dab digital and on the Bloomberg Business app. Weworks plan to go public hit a fall. The ceo has stepped down under pressure from his board. This Weeks Technology section looks at one of weworks biggest investors. We are talking about softbank. We have seen the reduced evaluation of wework. Will softbanks founder have to reduce his valuation and bite down this investment . Thats right. We are hitting the end of the quarter, the end of september. Throughout recent months, banks have taken down their estimates of what wework was worth. Softbank got in at 47 billion valuation. Now, looks like it could be worth 15 billion or less. How does softbank handle that . Thats the big question. Carol you pointed out, or the story points out that he is very quick to write up a valuation. Will he be as quick to write it down . There is a lot of leeway in how they account for things. He could argue that wework is just as successful as it has always been. Just because investors on wall street are debating the value ahead of an i. P. O. , they are still bringing in the same amount of revenue as when we got in. If you want to think about, do people have faith in softbank . Carol i think thats the big issue. You think about softbanks vision fund, a credible amount of money investing in technology. Uber was one of their main investments. That valuation has gone down. Same thing with wework. You do wonder what fate future investors will have if you are not rethinking the valuation. Consider that these Big Investments have been driving the vision fund, they have been driving softbanks profits. It is not the oldschool telecommunication businesses. There is a lot riding on his big bets. Carol he does not have to write it down, right . Technically, he does not have to. Thats right. His tone around wework has changed in the last few weeks. Softbank was one of the key reasons weworks ceo stepped down. They were pushing for him to step down. Carol i have to wonder, we have talked so much about the vision fund and the influence it is having on the Investment Community because they can make such Big Investments. Typically in an investment fund, some investments will pay off, some will not. We are really looking at it very different. Thats right. The other thing that has come out is masayoshi sons leeway for founders to behave in a certain way. He is starting to send out this message that you going to have to be profitable sooner if you want my money. Carol i feel like this week there is a lot of news going on in general, but i feel like everything surrounding wework, we have really started to rethink i. P. O. s and start up companies and how we look at them and really accountability. Rebecca, thank you so much. Also front and center this week, climate change, as heads of state gathered in new york along with some of the worlds top Corporate Leaders at a United Nations climate summit. This weeks business section looks at how companies are addressing their travel policies due to something called flying shame. It is a real thing. Here is this weeks business week explainer. 90 minutes from stockholm to berlin by plane. When a swedish startup celebrated them going public, they banned virtually all employee air travel within europe and discourage longer distance flights. The goal is to become carbon neutral. This week, they have a name for it. It means flying shame and they are not alone. Companies and nongovernmental associations across europe are taking a hard look at their travel policies. Travel fell 2 in july. Swedens airport operator says domestic flights have carried 9 fewer passengers this year than last. There is not Much Airlines can do to push ba