The expiration of futures and options contracts causing an increase in volume, although thus far not an increase in volatility. Financials biggest drag today. The second biggest drag is energy. Exxon mobil today down 1. 5 today down 1. 5 . Following with oil prices as well. Schlumberger, however, some of the oil services companies, we are also seeing declines they are, and this being friday, we have the count. Oil rig we has been seeing it rise, or at least be unchanged, for 12 straight weeks, so this uptick that you see in the past couple of months again, 12 straight weeks of either a zero reading or a build. Finally, gasoline as well bears mentioning. , uphowever, is going higher 2 , and thats after a leak in an alabama pipeline that shut that pipeline. Thats really the main when that brings gasoline from gulf coast refineries to the southern United States, so with that supply constraint, that is what is driving gasoline prices higher. David thank you very much. Mark crumpton has a check of the news at this hour. Mark after years of questioning president obama us citizenship, republican president ial nominee donald trump today reverse course after years of questioning president obamas citizenship. Mr. Trump Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008 started the birther controversy. I finished it. I finished it. You know what i mean. Was born barack obama in the United States, period. Mark the Clinton Campaign rejected mr. Trumps assertion. Mrs. Clinton speaking today to a group of africanamerican women said donald trump should be regarded for originally starting the birther controversy. In other news on this friday, the u. S. House Intelligence Committee says Edward Snowden caused tremendous damage to National Security. A report says the u. S. Government will eventually spend billions to repair the damage he caused in leaking National SecurityAgency Documents about spying operations. Snowden is now a fugitive in russia. A movie sympathetic to him opens tonight. The Associated Press and other organizations are suing the fbi. They want to learn who it paid and how much it spent to hack into a locked iphone as part of the investigation into the San Bernardino shootings. More than 1 3 of saudiled air based on aivilians comprehensive survey published today in the guardian newspaper. The findings contradict claims by the saudi government they are seeking to minimize civilian casualties. News 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600. Ournalists and analysts this is bloomberg. David next week is another longanticipated fomc meeting in washington and this week, a flurry of conjunction on what the fed will do. On Interest Rate hikes seemed to dominate dovish tones. No compelling case of any kind for a rate increase in september. The olympic sport has become will they raise it, will they not raise it . This has been a topic of almost numbing boredom to me. The fed has gotten themselves into a hole of zero Interest Rates and do not know how to get out. What . Ease in three years . I think what they have done is a terrible error by dithering so much over 25 basis points. We have the lowest rates in the United States and around the inld that we have ever had the past thousands of years. I promise you the economy is not the worst it has been in those years. 25 basis points, 50 basis points is going to affect markets, but it will not affect the u. S. Economy. David i want to break a little news here crossing the bloomberg terminal, donald tusk of the eu saying theresa may, Prime Minister of the u. K. , to be article 50 likely triggered in january or february. Back to the fed. We had the cacophony of voices. Help us make sense of them. Not in the september cap. David you are not. I see here 22 chance of a hike. It just inched up slightly after the report this morning. Before the report, it was about 18 . Todays cpi report was positive news. Help alleviate concerns of policymakers that inflation 2 not getting back to their target, but it will not create any risks that inflation will flare up any time soon because it is just not fair. It is a lagging indicator, and growth is not anywhere near the level where it should create any inflation flareups. David cpi energy was pretty flat. It had been a drag. Are we seeing a change on the energy side . It is ok but flat, as you mentioned. The declines in good commodities were upset by a pickup in services commodities. , its ok. It is getting back but will not become a contributor any time soon. David you mentioned this is something fed policymakers will next week. Weigh if we could bring that up and look at the table, give us a sense of the economic setting these policymakers will be sitting at next week. Obviously, they have a dual mandate. They look at the Employment Situation and inflation situation. On the employment front, we are beforemuch where we were december. You can see the table, the payrolls actually slightly better than they were before the december rate hike, but in terms of growth, we are nowhere near where we were at the end of last year. Growth has decelerated, and the indicators the most recent indicators on retail sales and Industrial Production are telling us that the second half of the year rebound will not be as strong as we previously thought. David one last function i want to bring up on the terminal before we go, there has been a lot of of conversation about the effectiveness of this kind of forecasting. There has been a lot of onferent views, not Just Television from these experts but from actual policymakers and bankers as well. What do you make of the dynamic of conversation we have heard . Fed policymakers definitely still think that they will be able to raise rates, so we probably will not see much of a change going forward. 19the way, we are getting this time around, so it will be interesting to see how it evolves going forward, but we will probably see that much change in the years ahead. David great to speak with you. Coming up, a special conversation with the u. S. Secretary of agriculture, tom vilsack. Andill talk megamergers, the state of the farm economy. This is bloomberg. David it is time now for the bloombergs nest flash, a look at some of the biggest business stories in the news. Britain may have to give up membership in the European Union single market. That would mean the loss of the u. K. Banks crucial access to clients on the continent to achieve immigration restrictions that voters have demanded. Instead, treasury staff are drawing up their own blueprint, which they hope will allow Britain FinancialServices Firms similar access to europe. Robert bosch provided software, the Justice Department is asking it automakers in addition to vw used the software to skirt environmental standards. Scotch whiskey has pulled out of ends in the first increase since 2013, driven by demand in asia. The fall of the pound after the increase demand for scotch and even more and that is your business flash update. The takeover of st. Louisbased fire by german german bayer is getting the attention of regulators around the world. The merger caps a way of consolidation across agriculture. Monsanto past ceo month santos ceo monsantos ceo spoke with bloomberg. Grant the combination of the two companies unlocks the potential going forward. I think this is a great deal. David he shares insight on consolidation in the industry. Secretary vilsack is the longestserving cabinet member in the Obama Administration and joins us now. Let me ask you about some of the concerns that have come up as a result of this merger and others, that this space, the seed space, the fertilizer space , is getting too small. Secretary vilsack if you look at what happens when commodities get tight and margins get deuce, used consolidation at the farm and in terms of his mrs. Serving the farm. Underlying this is a series of small Seed Companies providing innovation that farmers are looking for. There are appropriate questions to be asking in connection with any merger this side, but im confident with Seed Technology coming off patent that we will continue to see Smaller Companies that will be successful and push the big guys to provide farmers choice. I think it is appropriate for regulators to ask questions, but at the end of the day, i am more encouraged by what i think will be a spurt of innovation. David how much cause does it give you that a lot of these mergers are taking place with Companies Based overseas . Secretary vilsack thats part of the world we live in and we just got finished having a conversation with several hundred folks about open data, the sharing of information in governments and the private sector and agriculture and nutrition. Thats the world we live in today. There is a sharing of information because we aced a huge challenge, which is to ease an everincreasing population. It will require as much innovation in the next 35 years in agriculture as we have experienced in the past 10,000 years. I think what we are looking for our ways in which we can provide assistance to the government. Open data is one way. David you think of innovation on the tech side. It is often happening with small companies. Bayer was stressing big names could lead to innovation. How will creating a Bigger Company be a more Innovative Company . Secretary vilsack a coven nation their Core Competencies is what they have been talking about. A my lifetime, there has been tremendous amount of innovation and agriculture. That has been a result of technology obviously. The Agriculture Sector has been one of the most innovative sectors of our economy over the course of the last 20, 30 years. David you travel and talked to a lot of farmers. What do they say . Secretary vilsack they are obviously concerned about their bottom line. They want choice. They want competition. They want quality. They want new innovation. They want it for the least amount of money possible, which is certainly understandable, but at the end of the day, what were seeing in america is a diversification of agriculture. We are beginning to see a lot of goller, midsized operators into food systems, and that will create opportunities for Seed Companies and for farms to be more diversified and what they grow. We are dealing with climate change. Some of the challenges that will create. It is important for us to have the best and latest research so toare in a position to adapt a changing climate. David when you talk to younger people getting involved in arming, how concerned are they about the economics right now . We are not at the greatest part of the cycle. Are they worried about making this a living longterm . Secretary vilsack in the shortterm, everyone is always concerned about that. But i think you have to look at fiveyear increments like we do in arm farm bills. Debt to equity ratios are still very strong, almost near record lows. The fact is that farm families and Farm Household income is above the average American Household income, so there is some additional opportunities, i think, and young people are very interested in this space. I think they are cautious. Thats why we are looking or consent two ins to incent small and midsized operators. David when it comes to agriculture being a global world, the u. S. Tendered a complaint against china, how they have incentivized farming. How big a concern is that to you, and how do we navigate competition with china going or were gekko secretary vilsack china is our number one agricultural customer, so we have to respect that, but at the same time, they could be doing a lot more and we could be telling more if they had not been subsidizing the commodities as much as they had we could selling more. They were going to be allowed a certain to minimus level a level. De minimus we filed 20 of these cases. Or two them have an against china. Several of them have been in the agricultural space. Against them have been china. It is a signal that we are going to focus on enforcement and make sure these trade agreements are lived up to. This is a reassuring step we have taken for american agriculture. David exports are way up. If you listen to the rhetoric on the campaign trail, half of it is kind of inward looking, talking about trade in a way we have been for the last 4, 8 years. How difficult or concerning is that to you and could it be for your successor . Secretary vilsack to the extent we think we can only do business with ourselves and still prosper, that is a missed taken view, i think. N the Transpacific Partnership the market, so it is something deeply concerning to the president , deeply concerning to anybody who understands the world in which we live. Trade agreements need to be fair and need to be enforced and i think we are reflecting that, but at the same time, we have to be open to the rest of the world because 95 of the World Consumers live outside the u. S. And emerging middle class is in asia offer a tremendous opportunity emerging middle class is emerging middle classes in asia. David when you go to iowa and talk to farmers, and they wonder who to vote for because of issues like trade, what do you tell them . Secretary vilsack i have to be careful about answering a political question in what is primarily an official capacity. I think president obama has the right approach. He understands americas place in the world and understand the necessity from a National Security perspective. We do not necessarily want to see the asian market to china. We do not want asia to set the rules of the road. The Transpacific Partnership and things like and allow the united and toto have a voice lead, which is what the world expects us to do. Hopefully, Congress Gives it a chance. They have a decision to make. We will see what happens after that. David thank you very much. U. S. Secretary of agriculture tom vilsack joining us in new york. More coming up. This is bloomberg. Week bloomberg is this bloombergs nestweek businessweek is out with a special election addition. We wanted to go back and explain what is making this election so unusual some would say even weird and how we got here. We took it from that perspective. David we hear the stroke that , thisare two americas binary system. You take that apart and show that there are many more. We started with two and ended up with 242. Our goal was to show how we got here by looking at how interests compete and overlap, so we look at all kinds of people all over the country. David you are always so effectively using data and visuals. There i say this issue took that to a new level dare i say this issue took that to a new level. Ellen we did turn to the data. We started with census data but moved on from there. We divided people into groups and matched those groups because many people are many different kinds of things. Throughout the issue, we are doing statistical breakdowns, looking at Additional Data to show what people care about and why. David the writer of the opening and Closing Remarks of the issue is a bright eyed optimist saying the device may not be as deep the divides may not be as deep as we think and there are ways to bridge them going forward. Ellen peter is our resident optimist. He is our economic columnist, so i pose the question where is the hope . He basically said that what americans have in common is a desire to create an america that can go forward and allow them to prosper. Go,d quickly, before we what are some of the issues you explore . Childcare, you do well, but these are some of the issues the candidates do not talk about every day. Spreads ofid two people connected by their needs in childcare. You have people whose children are being taken care of by caregivers, and it shows the complexity of an issue that has come up in this campaign. David thank you very much. The election issue is on newsstands and you can hear more every saturday and sunday on bloomberg television. This is bloomberg. From bloomberg World Headquarters in new york, this is bloomberg markets. Lets take a look at some of the days biggest movers. Sugar surging to a fouryear. Igh bad weather in brazil being blamed for that. The midwest of the u. S. Is forecast to into rage rise spell after getting soaked with rain thet few weeks midwest of the u. S. Is forecast. O enter a dry spell crude oil tumbling again today and having its worst week since early august. Rices down 1. 9 taking a deeper look at oil, the chart to my right shows opecs surge in output and the subsequent fall in prices. Check the headlines and the bloomberg first word news at this hour. Mark president obama is ramping up his campaign to persuade congress to pass his struggling trade deal with asia. President obama after a lot of negotiations, weve got what is the most progressive, effective trade deal that we have ever seen. Byk the pact is opposed both president ial candidates and many rankandfile lawmakers from each party. Congressional leaders say it is unlikely to get a vote this year. And this disclaimer mike bloomberg, founder and majority owner of bloomberg lp, the parent of bloomberg television, has publicly stated his support for the Transpacific Partnership. A rash of hacking attacks has u. S. Officials concerned. Nine states have asked federal authorities to look for vulnerabilities in voting systems tied to the internet. Saidity Company Symantec its workers were easily abl