The opioid epidemic. The Justice Department announced the settlement today. Purdue has proposed a separate 10 billion settlement to resolve state and local claims. Onbal news, 24 hours a day, air and on bloomberg quicktake, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. I am Mark Crumpton, this is bloomberg. Vonnie welcome to bloomberg markets. Exclusive interview with former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, his thoughts on the state of the was economy and the stimulus logjam. Markets are now lower and bouncing around on speculation whether lawmakers will finalize a stimulus deal. After thea announces bell today, all but guarantee to report a fifth consecutive profit. Markets,heck of the the major indices are down at this point, about a quarter of a percentage point of peace and they had been higher earlier. The dollar index is partially to blame at 92. 5 so lots of weakness for the dollar index partially thanks to sterling. Brexit trade talks are on again and that is a new deadline of midnovember being set by Boris Johnson and europe that has sterling higher than the u. S. Dollar. A quick look at some of the twitter is having a better day, it looks like it might be shielded liability wise and it has the stock up. Law that istract based on earnings last night. Lets send it over to david wilson with the former Federal Reserve chairman. David on behalf of our Bloomberg Radio and Television Audience worldwide, we welcome Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve. Thank you for being with us. Lets talk about the economy and not a day goes by as far as talking about covid19. President trump said it was a great economy before covid19. I wonder if hes right. Where their underlying issues in the economy before covid19 that may last well after its gone . If hes right, he will be right for the first time in a long while. What are the underlying issues that you are watching in the economy that you are concerned about that go beyond covid19 and shutdowns . Lets talk in terms of the fact that the virus is creating a major element of uncertainty. Deal with forecasting it which is very precarious. All we can forecast is that ultimately, it will disappear. It has over the generations and i say generations. Problem one way or another in a virus has confronted us periodically and there and they are always a little bit different. Behind that is a more willmental issue which is take hold and that is the aging of the population. Some numbers around that if you can. What is that telling you, the aging of the population . I have a whole series of data. Fact that the population is aging is very obvious from all available both from the United States and the rest of the world. It has a fantastically important impact on economic behavior. Thateason essentially is when the population is aging, something fundamental happens and the major issue is that people start to retire. Until theyt retire basically can no longer function. Peopleback historically, worked until until they died. Issuesue of pensions, the of various different Social Security benefits didnt exist in those days. Is therere finding now has been a significant with the, specifically Social Security benefits. That in turn is creating a major decline or slowing in the rate of growth in gross domestic savings. David explain how that works. Vending more money on old people doesnt sound people. If they spend money, it helps the economy but where does the money come from . Issue ofically the when we are dealing with gross estic savings which is a which is what is fundamentally coming out of the private sector, we are finding what the data show is that when you get very significant increase in social benefits, they crowd out thecurrent demand current supply of gross domestic savings. If you curtail gross domestic curtail you will also gross domestic investment which growthkey to economic because, fundamentally, it all the Economic Activity in the capital goods markets. I am very much concerned about. His i dont know how we will get out of it quickly. David when we talk about Capital Investment, we normally think about product pivot he about productivity. Is it flattening out because of the phenomenon you describe . Very much so. If you look at the data, you productivitythat slows down dramatically. , ictually have a chart here dont know if you want to show it or not but it is a pattern of product pivot growth which is going up and then flattening out. The basic reasons for flattening out is that we are getting a significant increase in entitlements crowding out gross domestic savings which is the savings,ross business business investment, i should say. Thats where Economic Growth is coming from. That is at about 1 per year and that is down very significantly from earlier periods. Its beginning to show up in ways that suggest the usermediate period ahead of will be slow, Economic Growth. I dont think we are falling back into the types of problems we have had over the past year. Little about how the issue of the virus will work its way out. We have a lot of plans but the average age of the population we know to a high degree of accuracy and we know the implications of it. It is creating a significant increase in Social Security benefits which in turn are driving Capital Investment down. David so we are crowding out savings and is not getting invested in capital facilities and its reducing productivity but is it because we are not saving enough . One of my colleagues talked earlier this week with janet yellen about the question and she thinks there is too much savings. Listen to what she had to say monday. Worldare faced with a characterized by secular stagnation. There is too much savings on the Global Economy especially among developed countries and weak investment demand. Its been pushing down real rates of interest. Its surprising Monetary Policy of the ability it has to address economic weakness. David do you disagree with her . Do you think there is too much or too little savings . Its a different way of looking at it. She and i have worked together for years. I knowher quite well and how she thinks. Itetter way of looking at from an analytical point of view is that the savings that are is a stableerally until we begandp to get an increase in retirements. People were retiring and going on Social Security and the Social Security intern crowding out existing levels of capital what manyich is people talk in terms of i think the data is clear on this issue. Back onto cut entitlements. We have too much. We have to increase the rate of retirement which is a key element in Social Security benefits. That is almost politically impossible. Of thet that it is one major problems i have. I were to say what we were to do was essentially raise the age limit for when people could retire, as we used to over the generations when it began to rise. I know the chances politically of that happening are zero or less. But they will change because they will have to change. David as i recall, its not that easy to do. Itseasy to say but difficult to increase the retirement age. There you have it, that his former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan giving his views about what needs to be done to the u. S. Economy over the longer term. He thinks we need to save more, invest more so we can get productivity back up. Thank you very much on behalf of Bloomberg Radio and Television Audiences worldwide, Alan Greenspan, former chair of the Federal Reserve. David westin, thank you for that. Brazil volunteer in the astrazeneca volunteer trial has died. It is the one volunteer in in the astrazeneca trial has died. We will see exactly what it was that contribute it to the death and whether it was as a result of the treatment. Meantime, House Speaker nancy pelosi sounding and optimistic tone about stimulus talks, saying she is pretty happy about the state of the negotiations and said i think we have a prospect for an agreement. We are joined by Laura Davidson. The question is not whether they can get there, its a question of whether nancy pelosi wants to get there and Mitch Mcconnell wants her to get there. House andth the white House Democrats projecting a lot of optimism today. We have had a lot of optimism in the weeks leading up to this and there has not yet been a deal. Even if Steve Mnuchin and mark meadows, the white house chief of staff, can cut a deal with nancy pelosi, that need to pass through the senate. Assuming all democrats can vote for, they still need 13 republicans to agree. That what Steven Mnuchin and nancy pelosi are talking about is more money than Senate Republican say they want to spend on a stimulus bill. They are talking about levels around 500 billion. On the other of the building, they are talking close to 200 trillion so they are still pharaoh far apart. We are closer and closer to an election and the logistics of getting a bill passed through both changes are up in the air right now. How does the math work out . It seems like Mitch Mcconnell will go ahead with a skinnier package, 500 million, even though it seems to be a waste of time but at least it would be symbolic to those republicans that do not want an increase to the deficit. They will go ahead and vote on that but there is no chance that makes it through on the house side. The negotiations continue but this is a messaging game. Both sides are thinking about the politics of this somehow this is viewed in swing districts and swing states as well as the Economic Impact of that. There is a lot of skepticism growing that if they cannot get a deal by election day that anything will happen in the lameduck. There is a lot of uncertainty especially if trump were to lose or if there would be movement during the lameduck. There is impetus to get it done now and what doesnt happen, he looks more likely january or february before a deal could get cut which would have a great impact on the unemployed, rental assistance, there are many different groups struggling out there right now. Vonnie what will be the are stillince people suffering from the pandemic . Doesnt matter what the outcome of the election is, there is no money coming in to peoples pockets . It depends how the balance of power shifts going into the next election. If democrats weep, there is incentive for them to pass a bill that has all of the democratic priorities in an. If the control of washington is still split, that would indicate there could be more movement but it depends house our people feel after the election despite whats going on in the rest of the country. Vonnie we have to leave it there but thank you. Still ahead, demand for abbott labs covid19 test surging around the world as the pandemic rages on. We will bring you the latest. This is bloomberg. Vonnie this is bloomberg markets. Time for our stock of the hour. Estimates,ring past it soared back its old high in todays trading. 30 in is up more than todays session, it blew it out of the water when it comes to thirdquarter results, revenue was up 52 in the quarter, near 680 million and analysts only expecting 559 million so we big beat. You can thank better transfer Digital Advertising for that and the company says of the trend continues, revenue could grow another 50 year on year in the fourth quarter. There was also the Snapchat User base which was 249 million in the third quarter, about 4. 5 million above analyst expectations. The sell side is happy and several shops of raise their price targets. Investors will try will struggle to find any negative in the report. Social Media Companies broadly are successful showing that the snap performance shows the rise in the pandemic are growing and people are using social media more to communicate. So facebook and twitter are getting a big boost off of the snap results and twitter is the best performer in the s p 500. Other stocks like pinterest and yelp are getting a lift as well. Social Media Companies are doing well but streaming not so much. Netflix results after the bell yesterday showed its breakneck speed of growth at the start of the pandemic is starting to fade and only added 2. 2 million users which is more than one million users short of what analysts were expecting so we are seeing things are slowing down. In social media, things look hot at least for today. Vonnie thank you for the stock of the hour. Shares of abbott labs are down despite strong earnings and we are getting news that a volunteer in the astrazeneca drug trial in brazil has died. That latter part according to reuters. Lets take a look at where we cortez. Th michelle troubling news that the volunteer has died, do we know anything more about whether this is directly related to the vaccine or it could have been an unfortunate coincidence . We dont know yet whether the volunteer actually died as a result of getting the vaccine. We are thinking it does not look like that is the case and the Clinical Trial has resumed in many countries across europe and the u. S. In the u. S. , we are still on hold with that particular trial. That is a much more significant event than just a complication which can happen anyway. People in Clinical Trials are entirely healthy and they are getting a vaccine in order to ward off some kind of harm in the future. Its very bad news any time see that. Vonnie Many Companies are trying to figure out vaccines and therapeutics. Expectedngs are to be and it only becomes a problem if the whole trial is stopped for some reason . When it comes to vaccines and therapeutics in general, there you might get a soreness at an injection site or a headache if you are taking a new medicine or a rash. That is generally accepted him and happens all the time. There is also the issue of the Clinical Trial development process. Usually, there are some hiccups and sometimes products get tossed out. We are working on a brandnew vaccine for a new condition or maybe they work in a cancer drug but they are generally not new. The process we are seeing with most of the coronavirus products have been brandnew. Its not unexpected so its that combination of when they see something that looks like it is really problematic which we are now seeing with a couple of these products. We will need every single one of these trials that we can get. Vonnie we are into Earnings Seasons for these companys working on vaccines. Up the they holding profitable part of their business . In many cases, pharmaceutical are alreadyctors prescribing medicine, theyre working on quote on Clinical Trials and we have seen these can be shipped to people at their homes. For many drug companies, they are doing ok. The trial process has slowed them down little bit but the benefit of coronavirus is in the testing companies. We have Abbott Laboratories reporting today. They have sold 100 million coronavirus tests. These did not exist a year ago. They didnt exist nine months ago. ,o have 100 million tests almost 1 billion in sales for a product category that didnt exist a few months ago is astonishing. Itn you look at the winners, is the folks coming out with these tests. Vonnie michelle, thank you for that stuff always great reporting. A brazil volunteer in brazil at the Astrazeneca Covid trial has died. Draw too many conclusions from that. We will have the latest on the stimulus with a chief u. S. Economist and if we take a look at where we stand, the markets are unchanged on the s p and the nasdaq and down slightly on the dow, down 41 points and treasuries have and moving around. The 10 year yield is just below 80 basis points. This is bloomberg. So youre a small business, or a big one. You were thriving, but then. Oh. Ah. Okay. Plan, pivot. How do you bounce back . You dont, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. Powered by the largest gig Speed Network in america. But is it secure . Sure its secure. And even if the power goes down, your connection doesnt. So how do i do this . You dont do this. We do this, together. Bounce forward, with comcast business. Mark this is bloombergs first word news. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy abruptly stepped off the stage of a public event today moments after he learned somebody he was in contact with over the weekend tested positive for covid19. The governors of the last time he took a test was on monday and that he tested negative. Its unclear how long he intends to quarantine or if other members of his staff are also exposed to the same person on saturday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is having an optimistic tone about stimulus talks. She says she is pretty happy about the state of the negotiations and she says i think we have a prospect for an agreement. The white house once a deal on a Coronavirus Relief package in the next 48 hours. Malan