Pricey Copper, Bummed Consumers and a Bee Mystery Solved

Summary

Everybody's Business – "Pricey Copper, Bummed Consumers and a Bee Mystery Solved"

Podcast: Everybody's Business (Bloomberg & iHeartPodcasts)
Hosts: Max Chafkin, Stacey Vanek Smith
Date: July 10, 2025
Episode Theme:
The episode dives into three major stories shaping business and consumer sentiment: the impact of new sector-specific tariffs on copper, the perplexing malaise among American consumers (the so-called "vibe session"), and a fresh scientific breakthrough in the decades-long mystery of collapsing bee populations. The hosts explore how economic policy shifts affect everyday life, why persistent bad vibes matter even amid strong economic numbers, and what finally may be killing the bees.

---

Key Discussion Points

1. Copper Tariffs: A New Shockwave

Guest: Joe Doe, Bloomberg Economic Statecraft Reporter

• President Trump unexpectedly announced a 50% tariff on copper imports (09:09), sending markets reeling.
• Background: While steel and aluminum were previously targeted, copper became a surprise focus for national security-related sectoral tariffs under Section 232.
• Joe Doe: "The unified answer is, we're not really sure where this is coming from... [Trump] hears things like 'we used to be 80% reliant on our own copper,' and he thinks, 'Why can't we do that again?'" (12:05)
• The U.S. produces about 850,000 metric tons of copper but consumes 1.6 million, so it heavily relies on imports from allies like Chile, Canada, and Mexico.
• The rationale centers on national security: in worst-case scenarios (like war or pandemics), the government wants domestic self-sufficiency.
• On supply chain concerns: "The pandemic was an example where we realized we were way short on protective gear... The President is looking at these [tariffs] through that lens." – Joe Doe (13:49)
• Opening new copper mines is a decades-long process, complicated by environmental and indigenous rights challenges. The Resolution Copper mine in Arizona (inactive since 2008) is finally close to opening but still faces hurdles.
• Tariffs will quickly affect prices for consumer goods (electronics, wiring, cars), but major supply changes could take years: "It takes about 10 to 20 years to get a mine of any type up and running at commercial scale." – Joe Doe (16:03)

2. Tariffs & Everyday Life: Street Sentiment

• Stacey interviews commuters at Grand Central Station about the economy and tariffs. Common themes: anxiety about prices, delayed big purchases, and uncertainty about financial decisions.
  • Commuter: "I'm not buying as much. I'm definitely waiting if I need to make bigger purchases... trying to save more." (03:28)
  • People mention tariffs without prompting - illustrating how this once-forgotten topic is now top-of-mind.
  • Stacey: "Everybody brought up tariffs, which was really interesting... for so long, so many tariffs were basically zero... Now everyone has a thought on it." (04:26-04:52)
• Anxiety is widespread but not paralyzing — Americans are still planning weddings, making purchases, and moving ahead, but with a new layer of caution.

3. The "Vibe Session": Why the Bad Mood?

Guest: Ben Steverman, Bloomberg reporter

• The Consumer Sentiment Index (UMich) is at historic lows, despite "strong" economic data — a paradox since sentiment historically forecasts downturns.
  • Ben: "Consumers are almost 70% of the US economy, so it really matters what they do and how confident they're feeling." (21:49)
  • After serious declines in spring, sentiment remains "really, really bad on a historical basis." (22:21)
  • Historically, dips in this index have preceded recessions even when spending looked fine.
  • However, from 2022-2023, the index "failed" as a predictor: "People were feeling awful when inflation was spiking and the economy kept humming." – Ben Steverman (23:27)
  • Reasons: high inflation, but also rising incomes, low unemployment, "revenge travel," and pandemic aftereffects muddled the expected outcomes.
• History of the Index:
  • Established by George Katona, an émigré psychologist, during WWII (not an economist).
    • In the post-WWII era, economists forecasted a deep depression, but Katona's "vibes" survey suggested optimism — and the depression didn't materialize (25:00).
    • Multiple times in history, as in 1974, bad vibes preceded actual recessions when traditional data lagged.
  • Is this time different? Pandemic "broke our brains," so perhaps Americans' ongoing malaise is more psychological than rational economic threat.
  • Joanne Hsu, UMich Index Director: "It feels like on a daily basis I'm microdosing the zeitgeist of the American consumer... right now people are not feeling great." (27:25)
  • There is broad, bipartisan worry tariffs will spark inflation, which further worsens sentiment (27:17).
  • Joanne Hsu: "What I hope is that people take the American consumer seriously and understand that what we're doing here is backed by decades of science." (27:54)

4. Bee Mystery Solved: Varroa Mites to Blame

• Honeybee colony collapse has worried scientists, farmers, and the public for decades.
• Fresh UK-led research points to parasitic Varroa mites (and the viruses they spread) as the biggest culprit, not pesticides or other causes once suspected.
  • Stacey: "Apparently, if you look at the size of the mite relative to the bees it would be like the size of a dinner plate on a human." (31:02)
  • Mites have evolved pesticide resistance, making them harder to control.
  • The solution to colony collapse now points toward controlling these mites more effectively.
• Max’s anecdote: Max gifted his brother a box of Italian honeybees for the holidays, recounting the excitement (and the peaceful nature of bees): "I gave him a box of bees that came in the mail... There's so many in there." (32:20)
• No clear solution to eradicate mites yet, but identifying the cause is a big scientific step.

---

Notable Quotes & Moments

• Max on Copper Tariffs:
  "He [Trump] just mentioned in an offhanded way, like, by the way, copper tariffs are going to be 50%... and the markets went crazy." (09:13)

• Joe Doe on Why Copper?
  "Having spent months now talking to various players in the market... the unified answer is, we're not really sure. If I could suggest where it might be coming from, I think it goes back to what you just said, which is there is still a small jobs aspect and it's another manufacturing based thing." (12:05)

• Commuter on Economic Worry:
  "I'm definitely waiting if I need to make bigger purchases... just trying to save more." (03:28)

• Ben Steverman on Sentiment Index:
  "In 2022 and 2023, it failed. This as a metric failed. Like the people were feeling awful when inflation was spiking and the economy kept humming." (23:27)

• Joanne Hsu on Her Work:
  "It feels like on a daily basis I'm microdosing the zeitgeist of the American consumer... right now people are not feeling great." (27:25)

• Stacey on Bee Mites:
  "The thing that is killing the bees are mites... the size of a dinner plate on a human." (31:02)

• Listener Feedback Haiku (Max):
  "Wish it was daily, you said, but please consider our mental health." (33:47)

---

Timestamps for Major Segments

• [01:15] – Show kickoff: "It's all about feelings... tariffs, the economy, bees"
• [02:52] – Grand Central Station interviews: real people, real economic anxiety
• [07:48] – Revival of tariffs in the news, segment "Tariffs are back"
• [08:42] – Copper tariffs: Joe Doe segment starts
• [16:12] – Mining obstacles and Resolution Copper mine story
• [19:29] – "Vibe session": The consumer mood mystery, intro to Ben Steverman
• [20:12] – History and importance of the Consumer Sentiment Index
• [26:42] – Interview clips from Joanne Hsu, University of Michigan
• [30:17] – Bees: What’s really killing them? Mites! (underrated story segment)
• [32:20] – Max’s beehive gifting anecdote
• [33:16] – Listener feedback and haiku

---

Tone and Style

The episode is characterized by:

• Conversational, witty banter between Max and Stacey.
• Accessible explanations of economic wonkery (“vibes,” tariffs, supply chains) for a lay audience.
• On-the-ground human touches (literal man-on-the-street interviews, quirky bee anecdotes).
• A blend of deep reporting (Joe Doe, Ben Steverman) and engaging story-telling.

---

In Summary

This episode unpacks how sector-specific tariffs (especially on copper) are already rattling markets and reshaping consumer and business behavior. Despite strong macroeconomic data, public sentiment is deeply anxious, according to historic lows in the Consumer Sentiment Index — and the reasons seem intertwined with inflation, persistent stress, and the long shadow of the pandemic. Finally, the recurring “beepocalypse” story gets some closure with new science confirming that Varroa mites — not mysterious forces — are largely to blame.

Memorable closing: Listener haiku about wanting more episodes… and news that maybe a weekly bee podcast could be next: “Everybody’s Beesness.”

---

For more detail:

• Joe Doe’s tariff coverage and Ben Steverman’s deep dive on the Consumer Sentiment Index are available at Bloomberg.com.
• The episode offers a dynamic, real-world look at how “business” is truly everybody’s business.

Transcript

[A]

These days, AI can help you adopt better time management, but it can't stop colleagues booking meetings during lunch. But how about being able to easily adopt industrial AI to streamline your business? Siemens Xcelerator helps you find the right AI providers and easily understand what they offer so you can use modular solutions to quickly scale up and grow your business. That's AI for real. From the global market leader in industrial AI, Siemens. Learn more on USA.Siemens.com AI your next.

[B]

Product launch is coming fast. Don't let billing slow you down. Legacy systems can't handle usage based billing.

[C]

That means your team is stuck gluing.

[D]

Code together, piecing through spreadsheets and running.

[C]

Ad hoc queries just to figure out what to bill. With Metronome, you can roll out new.

[B]

Pricing in minutes instead of months, whether.

[D]

It'S usage based, seat based, or a hybrid model. Visit metronome.com to see how companies like.

[B]

OpenAI and Anthropic launch billing as fast.

[D]

As they launch products.

[C]

That's metronome.com.

[E]

Bloomberg Audio Studios podcasts Radio.

[D]

News this is everybody's business from Bloomberg Business Week. I'm Max Chaffkin.

[F]

And I'm Stacey Vanek Smith. And Max, this week it's all about feelings.

[D]

Yeah, Stacey. Feelings of confusion. Confusion over tariffs, particularly copper tariffs.

[F]

Also feelings about what's really happening in the economy. Also bees.

[D]

Bees.

[F]

Bees. Lot of feelings about bees.

[D]

Stacey, I missed you. We were apart for two weeks. Bradstone Vacation filling in for each of us.

[F]

I know. Thank you to Brad. Big thank you to Brad. And it's good that we're back together this week because this was this big tariff week.

[D]

Yeah. Remember Stacey, we talked all about Liberation Day at the beginning of April.

[F]

A lot.

[D]

We just hit the deadline. This was the day those tariffs were supposed to be finalized. We were gonna finally know what that chart that Donald Trump put up, I remember that very long chart actually does.

[F]

But the can got kicked down the road. Now it's August 1st, so a lot of deals have gotten pushed off until then. Meanwhile, people are feeling kind of worried about the economy. I would say there's just a lot of worry. The vibes and the economy are bad.

[D]

Yeah. I mean, this has been one of these, like recurring themes. I loved hearing you talk about this last week with Alison Schrager. When I was on my vacation, I chose to listen to the podcast.

[F]

I appreciate that.

[D]

Even though I wasn't being paid the vibe session. I think we've got this conversation coming up that's gonna really help explain why when people Talk about the vibe session. Why, like, those vibes actually matter. It's not just feelings. Those feelings translate into. Into real numbers, prices, into all sorts of things that affect our lives.

[F]

Yeah. We've got Ben Sieverman, who did this big, deep dive into the Consumer Sentiment Index. We've got an economist who heads that index, who directs that index. But I also wanted to talk to the people, see how they are feeling about the economy, what they had to say. So I went to Grand Central Station, where a lot of people were waiting for trains, catching trains, and decided to ask them what they thought, how they're feeling about the tariffs and the overall economy. What is your feeling about the economy right now? How do you feel? Bad. Bad? Yeah. Yeah. I'm not buying as much. I'm definitely waiting if I need to make bigger purchases, just, like, taking a bit of more time to think about it if I really need it, and just trying to save more.

[D]

To be honest, I have mixed feelings because on one side, I thought it was kind of like a strategy from Trump for a greater good of the United States, but now I think he's.

[C]

Taking it a bit too far.

[F]

The tariffs and. Yeah, I just think things are about to get more expensive in of big, big purchases for small businesses. I think everything's getting more difficult. I am starting to, like, think about marriage and, like, buying a house and, like, all those things, and it's like I have to think twice, like, oh, can I go shopping today? Even if there's a sale? Can you take out? Can I just take out? Yeah. Or do I need to, like, constantly be thinking about saving and, like, if.

[A]

I can afford that also, I'm so.

[F]

Sorry, our track is announced, but we got. You gotta go get your train. Thank you. Yes. All right. Thank you, guys.

[D]

Wow. A lot of anxiety, but also, you know, got some balance. Planning a wedding. That's exciting.

[F]

I know. I mean, everybody seemed to be kind of living their life. Like, it didn't seem like the worry was crushing now, but it was certainly on everybody's mind. And everybody brought up tariffs, which was really interesting.

[D]

I think it's genuinely amazing how this very niche subject that almost like, nobody cared about. Oh, yeah, a year ago or whatever, is now just everywhere. Everyone has a thought on it, and it's like it's affecting us every single day. It's wild.

[F]

Yeah. Well, I mean, for so long, so many tariffs were basically zero. I mean, we've been kind of in a free trade environment for so long that knowing about tariffs and trade, it was just not a thing. And now everybody at Grand Central Station has feelings about it.

[B]

In business they say you can have better, cheaper or faster, but you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for computing, 70% less for storage and 80% less for networking better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and in higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com strategic that's oracle.com strategic.

[E]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal Open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo, pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[F]

You can get the news whenever you.

[D]

Want it with Bloomberg News Now.

[F]

I'm Amy Morris and I'm Karen Moscow here to tell you about our new On Demand news report delivered right to your podcast Feedback. Bloomberg News now is a short 5 minute audio report on the day's top stories. Episodes are published throughout the day with the latest information and data to keep you informed. Yes, there are other products like this from a variety of news organizations, but they usually rerun their radio newscasts throughout the day. That's not what we do. We create customized episodes that can only be heard on Bloomberg News now. And we don't wait an hour to publish breaking news. When news breaks, we'll have an episode up in your podcast feed within minutes so you're always getting the latest stories and developments. Get the reporting and the context from Bloomberg's 3,000 journalists and analysts. We're all over the world. Listen to the latest from Bloomberg News now on Apple, Spotify or anywhere you listen.

[D]

Stacey Tariffs are back in the news.

[F]

Oh my gosh.

[D]

Maybe they never left. In this week, there's been this flurry of activity. Trump has been sending these kind of like weird letters to all the countries.

[F]

It seems like post Liberation Day.

[D]

Yeah, basically like bringing back the Liberation Day tariffs that he took away briefly or that were delayed, except with Brazil, which has a huge tariff, but then also they're not going to go into effect till August. So this whole deadline turns out to have been not so much a deadline.

[F]

Little, like a lot of this could be postponed or is a little bit TBD still.

[D]

Yeah. And we've been talking about this and like, why that kind of uncertainty is bad, why businesses are struggling with it. But I wanted to zoom out on this other tariff thing thing, which are the sector specific tariffs. Do you know what those are?

[F]

That is like tariffs on particular things. Yes. Strategic things like cars and lead and.

[D]

Well, and steel and aluminum and copper, which is where our guest this week comes in. Joe Doe is a economic statecraft reporter here at Bloomberg. Basically the guy at Bloomberg with the coolest title. Hey, Joe.

[F]

And knows about metal a thing or two.

[G]

Yes.

[D]

So, Joe, we wanted to have you in because this week, Trump, during, like a press conference, he just mentioned in an offhanded way, like, by the way, copper tariffs are going to be 50%. Now, today we're doing copper.

[C]

What would that tariff be?

[F]

On the section of, I believe, the.

[D]

Tariff on copper, we're going to make it 50%. 50%. And then the markets went crazy and it has all these impacts that go to the goods we use and prices we pay. And we wanted to talk about all that. Just start, tell us what happened this week with copper.

[G]

I think a few things. First of all, the President of the United States has long telegraphed that he wants to tariff copper, which is a little weird because.

[F]

Yeah. Why?

[G]

Well, he went after steel and aluminum the first time around. That was a big deal in his first term.

[F]

And now it's for union workers and manufacturing jobs and.

[G]

Yes, exactly. Let's bring back the manufacturing base that has left us, even though steel has not. And then copper came up right from the beginning. I think it was just a few days after he was inaugurated. And he said, we're going to do copper tariffs. And we got a nice tip back in March that said the President of the United States was going to announce a copper tariff within weeks, not months. The reason that was a big deal was because most of the market, looking at copper in particular, had expected probably we will get 232 tariffs by December.

[D]

232.

[G]

What does that mean 232, those are the sector specific tariffs.

[D]

So the difference is that there are these, the section 232. There's a clearer legal case for these tariffs. He can just do it.

[F]

Basically, unlike the other two, you have to make a legal case or go through Congress.

[D]

There's a law that says for these, these industries that are strategic, he can just do this. And there is an argument that copper is strategic for sure. Yeah.

[G]

I mean, listen, I was talking to Wilbur Ross, who's the former Commerce Secretary, months ago, right. When the President took office, and I said, well, what do you think he's going to do on trade? And he said, I think he has in his back pocket the Section 232 law and the Section 301 law that he deployed during his first administration. And he will do that again. Trust me, he will do that again because he knows it's being court tested. And they said it's totally legal for him to do this under the guise of national security. Turns out that was right. And so that's where we get to copper. Like you said, I mean, it's in everything. It's ubiquitous.

[D]

Yeah. Go through some of the industries that are using electronics, car batteries, like, what else?

[F]

Yeah. What's copper in all wiring.

[G]

I mean, like, just think about wiring.

[D]

That's a lot of wire.

[F]

There's a lot of wire in the world.

[G]

Like you just, I mean, your, your iPhone, even some of the most advanced technology still has wiring in it. Right. And that, that is all copper. Copper is, it's a perfect metal for conduction of electricity.

[D]

And the reason why we would want to do this, my understanding is we're using like, what, like twice as much copper as we make in this country. So the thought would be to create some sort of more robustness of our supply chain, I assume instead of mining, is it about jobs? Like what, what is the actual rationale here?

[G]

The short answer is, having spent months now talking to various players in the market, in policymaking, trade lawyers, I have constantly asked, where is this coming from? And the unified answer is we're not really sure if I could suggest where it might be coming from. I think it goes back to what you were just saying, which is there is still a small jobs aspect and it's another manufacturing based thing. Right. And we do know that United Steelworkers are the workers working in the proper copper producing plants here in the United States. But like you said, I mean, 850,000 metric tons of copper were produced in the United States last year. According to the United States Geological Survey, we consumed about 1.6 million. And you say, well, where do we get the other. Basically 800,000 and that is Chile, Canada, Mexico. So these are solid gold trading partners of ours.

[D]

Right. They're ally, some of our closest allies. I mean, you know, Trump's threats to Canada to make, I know, a vassal state notwithstanding. So. So yeah, like, why is it bad? Like, why would you care that half of it comes from Mexico and Canada and Chile?

[G]

I think this goes to the classic, like defense. If you're a person working in the Defense Department. Right. You know, this is kind of this idea that you're always thinking about the worst scenario and really the worst case scenario. And I'm not saying it is the right way to look at it, but the worst case scenario is the United States gets into a situation where it has to isolate itself from the rest of the world because of some massive conflict and it has to be self sufficient to produce all the things it needs.

[D]

Or another pandemic. Right. Or another, or some kind of trade disruption wouldn't necessarily have to be a war.

[G]

Right. The pandemic's a great example. And if you talk to people in the Defense Department who have worked on supply chains for a lot of years, they do keep pointing back to, hey, the pandemic was an example where we realized we were way short on protective gear basically, and we needed to scramble for it. But you know, the President, United States is looking at through this lens, not just on copper, but on all these other sectoral tariffs. And I think that's the question among trade lawyers, both ones who support tariffs and ones who are maybe fight against them. They're all kind of unified in saying, like, yeah, some of these things are critical and important, but do we have to do 100%, you know, pedal to the metal here?

[F]

So what is the logic? You put a 50% tariff in place, a huge tariff.

[G]

Yeah.

[F]

Like, I understand why the tariffs on other countries because he likes bilateral agreements and he kind of gets into these deal making stuff. But what is going on? Like, why is he doing this?

[G]

Make America great again. America first. And you bring back manufacturing of anything and everything that is manufacturing base. And copper is one of those things. And as we said, it is a critical industry. And here's another thing. Donald Trump talks to a lot of people. It's kind of one of his strengths. Right. Like he can talk to CEOs, but he can also talk to the steel workers that I've dealt with for the past year and a half. On the Nippon Steel US Steel deal, people have told him, copper, we used to be like 75%, 80% reliant on our own copper production. I think he hears those things and says, well, why can't we go back to that? And it's a fair question. If you are Donald Trump in his worldview saying, I do want to bring everything back to the United States, and here's an example of an industry that was majority produced here in the United States.

[D]

How long would it take to, for people to like, start opening copper mines or whatever? I think what we would expect is in the nearer term, there's going to be some stuff will get more expensive.

[G]

Yeah.

[D]

You know, maybe your pipes get more expensive or whatever, your iPhone could get more expensive or Apple would have to swallow that. How long before that starts to trickle into, like, okay, somebody opens another copper mine.

[G]

It takes about 10 to 20 years to get a mine of any type up and running at commercial scale production.

[F]

I mean, one thing that I did wonder about, I'm from Idaho, where they have a lot of mining and sometimes they'll have mines that close because the price of a commodity falls a lot. This happened with lithium.

[G]

Yeah.

[F]

Or cobalt and things like that.

[G]

Yeah.

[F]

Are there like copper mines that could just open their doors before 20 years?

[G]

We have a mine called Resolution Copper in the middle of Arizona. I went to it two summers ago and went down one mile into the ground to see what was the beginnings of this mine. Now, the problem is that, that the mine sits near a indigenous sacred site. Right. And so it's been a massive kind of battle between indigenous people and the mining company, which is Rio Tinto and then the second largest mining company in the world. It was a big deal under the Biden administration. And now Trump is trying to push it through to make it happen. That mine would be able to produce if it opens. And it still has to go through a little bit of permitting. It just did get over a big Supreme Court hurdle. It looks like it's on its way to actually happening. That mine would produce about a quarter of the demand for annual demand for United States copper.

[D]

So that, that's a big buy itself.

[G]

That's a big mine on its own.

[D]

What does it smell like when you're a mile away?

[G]

So it's really hot down there and it's like a mineral smell. Right. You know, because everything around you is rock. You don't put like these nice walls up around you. You are just, you're in the ground. We walked through a dynamited tunnel and I mean, I've talked to guys who like, have their lives have been underground mines.

[F]

Yeah. They have towns down there kind of, you know, like places to eat and talk to. Yeah.

[D]

Wow.

[G]

Yep, that's right. But that mine, they broke ground basically in 2008 on that mine and we're still waiting for it to get up.

[D]

All right, Joe, we're going to have to have you back on to talk about rare earths and all these other.

[F]

Aspects and the underground copper mine. I want to get.

[D]

Yeah, I want to go underground to the bottom of the mine to see the town that Stacy grew up in.

[F]

Did not grow up underground.

[G]

Thanks, though.

[D]

Thank you for being here.

[F]

I'm actually pale.

[E]

Every business has an ambition. PayPal open is the platform designed to help you grow into yours with business loans so you can expand and access to hundreds of millions of PayPal customers worldwide. And your customers can pay all the ways they want with PayPal, Venmo pay later and all major cards so you can focus on scaling up when it's time to get growing. There's one platform for all business PayPal open grow today at paypalopen.com loans subject to approval in available locations.

[D]

Join Bloomberg in Houston or via livestream on November 4th for the Future Investor Finding the Opportunities. This 2025 event series will examine how companies are investing in their businesses to create efficiencies, innovating their products and services, and improving the customer experience. This series is Presented by Invesco. Q. Q. Q. [e-mail] FutureInvestorHouston that's Bloomberglive.com FutureInvestorHouston so Max.

[F]

Like you said, there's been a lot of talk about the Vibe session since before President Trump. But now to the Vibes in the economy have been pretty off, even though the economic data is really strong.

[D]

Yeah, that's been this big mystery that we have been talking about over and over again. I think we still don't really know the answer that question.

[F]

It's true. And the data keeps coming out and the data keeps looking really strong. And meanwhile, the main measure of of the Vibes, which should be the Consumer Sentiment Index from the University of Michigan. And that keeps coming in at pretty low numbers. It's near record lows right now. And in fact, reporter Ben Steverman did a deep dive into this index to look at what is going on with it right now. Ben, welcome.

[C]

Thank you.

[F]

So let's start out really, really basically what is the consumer sentiment survey?

[C]

So since 1946, the University of Michigan has been polling consumers on how they feel about the economy, about their own personal finances, about unemployment, about business conditions like their feelings. Their feelings, just their feelings. It's become this thing that Wall street watches. It comes out twice a month to figure out where the economy might be headed. The idea is how consumers are feeling today might influence how they behave tomorrow.

[F]

And the survey, I love this survey. The survey essentially kind of breaks down how people are feeling about the moment right now and the future. So it's, you know, the questions are like, do you feel personally better off than you were a year ago? Do you think you'll be off a year from now? What about the economy? Do you think it's better than it was a year ago? Do you think it's going to be better off a year from now? Like, are you planning to make big purchases? Is this a good time to do that? So it's trying to get at a bunch of different things, but it's a little bit squishy, these questions. And, you know, the economy tends to be a very data driven place, very numbers oriented. And you know, we like numbers here at everybody's business. So, Ben, tell us, like, why should we care about feelings?

[C]

It matters because when you look at enough data and you look at how consumers are reacting sort of before recessions appear, often it's showing up in these consumer sentiment surveys that people are feeling bad even before the economy starts to deteriorate. Consumers are almost 70% of the US economy, so it really matters what they do and how confident they're feeling.

[D]

We've talked about this on the show before, how the US Economy in particular is really driven by consumption, particularly consumption of this kind of small, rich group of people. And the argument that's made in Ben's story is that this index, which in the past has served as this early warning system, is way down from last year. It's like it was down like 20% from 2024. Went up a teensy bit last month, but still really low. I mean, I don't know if this is the worst it could possibly be, but it doesn't look great.

[C]

I would say it was the worst it could possibly be this spring. We're scraping along the bottom. And then we kind of came up a little bit. The worst case scenario did not come about, but it's still really, really bad on a historical basis. People seem to be very pessimistic about their own finances right now.

[D]

Stacey, you're always talking about the vibe session, right? And the way you say it is that there's the real economy over here, which is like the unemployment rate. And, like, those numbers have been pretty good.

[F]

Inflation.

[D]

Yeah, yeah. And then there's vibes, which are very bad. And that's been true for a while. Ben's kind of saying there's no such thing as a.

[C]

Like those.

[D]

It's actually one big story.

[F]

Why haven't the bad vibes or feelings turned into bad data? Because, I mean, it seems logical to me that if people feel bad, they might not spend, they might save. And if they don't spend, that means companies are selling less stuff and making less money. So the companies can't expand and they can't hire and they might start contracting and laying people off and that whole thing. But, like, we haven't seen that. So. So do feelings matter less than they did?

[C]

It's sort of the huge question right now. Like, I was just talking about how what an amazing thing this is in predicting the Future, but in 2022 and 2023, it failed. This as a metric failed. Like the people were feeling awful when inflation was spiking and the economy kept humming. Now, a bunch of other recession gauges failed.

[D]

One of COVID or because of the cultural changes or the behavioral changes.

[F]

The stimulus was a big one and.

[C]

Yeah, well, inflation was very high, so people hated the prices being high, but their incomes were also going up and the unemployment rate was low, so they had more money coming into their accounts and they were spending it. And so that was helping. And there was all this revenge travel and.

[D]

Yeah, we were YOLOing. I mean, those are good days, you know, in a way.

[C]

In a way, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[F]

Well, before that happened, before 2022, you mentioned that this had been a really accurate gauge of downturns historically. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, how did that work?

[C]

Yeah. So the founder of the survey is a guy named George Katona, who was Hungarian Jewish, fled the Nazis in 1933. He was actually a psychologist. So he wasn't trained as an economist. Yeah. And so he comes to the US Finds his way to the University of Michigan, gets on the economics faculty he had actually studied back in Germany, attitudes about inflation under the Weimar Republic. So he goes back.

[F]

That was some major inflation.

[D]

Yes.

[C]

Yeah, those were some bad vibes. But what ends up happening is that he starts this survey and everyone's like, that's ridiculous. Why are you doing that? Like that. That's not going to tell us anything. All the sort of mainstream orthodox economists are saying, like, what people spend is based on what they earn, don't you know. And he launches this survey. All the economists are saying we're going to have this giant post war depression because of demobilization and things in the US in the US war. Spending winding down after the war. And he's showing consumers are upbeat, they're coming back from the war, they want to spend money. And there wasn't that depression. So that's sort of the first early win. But then it kept happening again and again. Like I went through the archives of Business Week and I found a 1974 story where they were having a conversation a little like the one we're having here. In the story with all these corporate economists saying these consumer gauges are broken, they're not telling us anything. People keep buying TVs, they keep buying cars, even though the sentiment readings are low. Well, lo and behold, a year later, I find another clip. We just entered into the worst recession of the post war period and that was what was happening.

[F]

The vibes called it.

[C]

Yeah, the vibes called it. And so this has happened since several times. If you look at the data up until recently and then who knows, we might be in some kind of uncharted territory. There might be something else going on now.

[D]

So as part of your deep dive into consumer sentiment, you spoke to the person in charge of gathering all the data. Her name's Joanne Hsu and you wrote about her being really worried in spite of all the other solid economic data that, that we've been talking about on the show. Stacey and I called her up yesterday to ask her about that and here is what she said.

[A]

What we've seen since the beginning of the year is a broad based decline in consumer sentiment and expectations. We're seeing a tremendous amount of worry about the potential impact of trade policy. People continue to be really focused on inflation. And because they're so focused on inflation, tariffs is the one thing that worries them the most. Where there's this broad agreement everywhere that it's going to increase inflation and possibly lead to a deterioration of business conditions. I mean that's across the board, across political party, across the income distribution and the age distribution. It's loud and clear.

[D]

And that made us wonder how it feels just to be sitting with all this information about how Americans are feeling right now.

[A]

It feels like on a daily basis I'm microdosing the zeitgeist of the American consumer. And so right now people are not feeling great. When I look at these open ended comments and people are freely telling us about how worried they are about tariff Policy. I find it to be my personal responsibility to make sure that message gets out there and for policymakers and decision makers at companies to understand what the American consumer is going through.

[D]

Does it make you mad if they don't pay attention?

[A]

What I hope is that people take the American consumer seriously and understand that what we are doing here is backed by decades of science. And we're not just going around, you know, asking people random questions, like, man on the street type thing. You know, we're. We're doing something which is. Which is fine, but not necessarily for.

[D]

Scientific, is what you're saying. Ben, you spent about a month looking into what the survey can tell us about the economy. What is your takeaway? What do you think about this survey?

[C]

I think it's a really fascinating tool. I think there's one other dimension to this that I think about is just how much did the pandemic just kind of break our brains, for lack of a better term? Like, how much are we just, like, feeling lousy because we're feeling lousy and that we can't get out of our funk for some reason? And is that somehow coloring things?

[D]

I'm glad you said the thing about the pandemic, because it really was a terrible. I said I was joking when I said those were good days. It was a terrible time. And I think every time we talk about how consumers feel or how they're behaving, and anytime you're looking at trends over the last five years, like, you have to ask yourself, like, did the pandemic do this to us? And it's still. Or maybe still doing this to us.

[F]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, but even if. If it is like, the aftershocks of the pandemic, and it is. Maybe we're reacting to stuff that's not immediately now, like, that still could affect how we behave in the world and spend in the world and make financial decisions in the world.

[C]

Totally. Yeah. It's sort of a weird situation where if recession is really what we're worried about here, I mean, we might just have a slowdown, and that would be bad enough. But if we. You go back, the last, like, sort of normal recession we had was maybe like, 24 years ago or something like that.

[F]

That was back when we knew how to do recessions.

[D]

Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Like financial crisis, maybe that counts. But Covid was, like, kind of weird. Like, that doesn't really count, right?

[F]

Yeah, that was like, Like.

[C]

But just this used to be normal. The economy would go up, and then we go into recession for a while, and Then we come back out again.

[D]

And we haven't had that in a.

[C]

While, and we'll see.

[D]

Ben Steverman is a reporter for Bloomberg. You can find his story on the consumer sentiment survey at Bloomberg.com, in Business Week in print, or we'll put a link to it in the show Notes. Stacey, you've got an underrated story for us this week.

[F]

I think I do have an underrated story. So bees. You know, bees have been in the news for honeybees now. Honeybees have been in the news for years now because they've been sort of dying off in great numbers, and there's been a lot of worry about that. People don't know what's going on.

[D]

Where.

[F]

What's happening. The bees.

[D]

Colony collapse. Right.

[F]

Colony collapse. And there's been a lot of theories. Is it pesticides? Is it, you know, a virus? Like what. What's killing.

[D]

Well, yeah, and this is a huge deal because bees are important for agriculture, and if you don't have enough bees, you can't grow stuff. It's. It's a real problem.

[F]

It's true. But apparently a group of scientists thinks that they have actually answered this question.

[D]

What is it?

[F]

The thing that is killing the bees are mites.

[D]

What? Mites?

[F]

It's these mites.

[D]

Little others, even smaller bugs.

[F]

Yeah, it's a bee virus spread by these parasitic mites. And the way that the article in the Guardian described this, which I love, is apparently, if you look at, like, the. The size of the mites relative to the bees would be like the size of a dinner plate on a human.

[D]

Hmm. Okay. So pretty big relative to the bee.

[F]

Big mites. But these mites have apparently evolved so that they no longer are killed by the pesticides that they used to have to kill the mites.

[D]

So, wait, what are we going to do about this? I think you said you solved this problem.

[F]

I never said I solved this problem. Oh, we just know we just solved the mystery.

[D]

Oh. But I thought we were gonna figure out how to stop the bees from dying off.

[F]

You want us to save the bees, like, at the end of the show right now?

[D]

I thought that's where this was going.

[F]

Well, now I feel bad, even though I was very excited to discover.

[C]

You know what?

[D]

It's cool that there's a scientific breakthrough, and I guess the first step to figuring out how to stop the bees from getting attacked by the mites is knowing that the mites are there. I don't know if you know this.

[F]

The varroa mite.

[D]

I am Something of a bee expert. I don't know what a beekeeper.

[F]

How are you a bee expert?

[D]

Well, I recently.

[F]

Do you have bees?

[D]

No, but I did recently purchase.

[F]

You just like them.

[D]

I recently purchased a case of bees of Italian honeybees and gave it to my brother.

[F]

You gifted bees for the holidays? You told him that the bees were coming?

[D]

I gave him a beehive.

[F]

He didn't accidentally open a box of bees.

[D]

I gave him a beehive or a box of bees that came in the mail. It was awesome. Like, shout out to the postal service. I cannot believe they were delivered. It was a little box, like a shoebox size, with, like, thousands of little bee arms sticking out and, like, wiggling their little of the box. Yeah, it was. There's so many in there. And I hired a beekeeper. Beekeeper Pete. Beekeeper Betsy came over, helped us get set up. It was so awesome. I'm like, totally bee pill. Like, I want my own beehive now as well. They are so cool.

[F]

Bees are very cool.

[D]

Nobody got stung. It was awesome.

[F]

No, bees are very peaceful in general. It's the wasps you've got to watch out for.

[D]

Yeah. Stacey, I have something for us before we leave.

[F]

Oh, yeah? What?

[D]

A haiku.

[F]

You have a haiku? I'm really a fan of the haiku segment.

[D]

All right, so we gotta say thank you to Brooke London. Brooke London wrote a very nice review. Five star, Stacey.

[F]

Oh, thanks, Brooke, though.

[D]

Brooke, he or she has a suggestion. I wish this podcast was daily or at least three times a week. News moves so quickly. Weekly just isn't enough. And first of all, appreciate that you were able to give us some constructive feedback. Little bit of a compliment sandwich there.

[F]

Yeah, absolutely.

[D]

We're gonna take the note and I have a response.

[F]

Okay. Okay, I'm prepared.

[D]

Wish it was daily, you said, but please consider our mental health.

[F]

That's good.

[D]

Two times a week, Brooke. What about that? How about that? Seems like a fair compromise. Maybe we'll talk about it.

[F]

I was just thinking everybody's beesness would be a great spinoff.

[D]

You're so right. Just this week in bees.

[F]

This week in bees. It feels like you're already, like, halfway there.

[D]

I gotta get my hive, though, Beekeeper Pete, for that to happen. And beekeeper Betsy. Yes, they're great. Thank you both Pete and Betsy. If you're listening, this show is produced by Stacy Wong. Magnus Henriksen is our supervising producer, Amy Keen our editor, and Brendan Francis Newnham is our executive producer. We get engineering support from Blake Maples, Dave Purcell. Fact checks. Sage Bauman heads Bloomberg Podcast and big thank you to Jeff Muskus and Julia Rubin. If you have a minute rate and review this show, it means a lot.

[F]

To us and you could get your very own Max Javkin Haiku or maybe Stacey Vanek Smith.

[D]

I might flake out another week and if you have a story that should be our business, email [e-mail] we will read them. They mean a lot to us. That's Everybody with an sloomberg.net thank you for listening and we will see you next week.

[E]

On September 25, Bloomberg Green returns to New York to bring together leaders from business, finance and government during Climate Week. NYU Join us for a half day of timely insights and high impact networking backed by Bloomberg's global journalism and data expertise. Together we'll explore strategies for future proofing business and communities from the planet's most pressing climate challenges. Supporting sponsor Susano. Learn [e-mail] greenny.