welcome to "balance of power," where the world of politics meets the world of business. on brief today, kevin cirilli from the white house on questions from republicans over majority leader mcdonald's approach to impeachment. cash ever mitch mcconnell's approach to impeachment. from israel, the challenge over benjamin netanyahu. and concerns over dollar liquidity as we had to the new year. let's start with kevin at the white house. we have alaska republican senator lisa murkowski saying this about impeachment on a local television station. >> we have to take that step back from being hand and glove with the defense. what leader mcconnell had said. that hasto think further confused the process. david: the media is making a

great deal of this because it is the first republican senator to say i'm not sure mitch mcconnell is handling it right. not that the president should be convicted, but maybe we should not be working quite so closely with the white house. is this significant? kevin: it is. senator murkowski voted against the confirmation of justice kavanaugh. the question is whether senator murkowski can bring on other republicans to try to get on board during the rule package that leader mcconnell has to advance in the senate by a simple majority. rules for the trial. it is not so much whether michalski and others will vote to convict president trump, that is unlikely. it is more about the rules. nancy pelosi has not sent over the articles of impeachment because she wants to have people like mick mulvaney and john bolton testify in the senate, something mitch mcconnell has said is a nonstarter. right now what you are seeing from senator murkowski is in a

centrist state like alaska she is trying to suggest maybe leader mcconnell might have to give something to democrats when they're crafting the rules for that trial. questionich raises the weathersby keep losey strategy may have progress. she has delayed it -- whether speaking -- whether close these strategy -- whether speaker pelosi's strategy may have made progress. she has delayed it. kevin: susan collins voted to confirm justice kavanaugh and that is the barometer in terms of where senators are going to move. murkowski just created a marker of sorts for those republicans give -- might be working to craft some type of rules to say they have worked for a fair trial and then set up a vote to not convict president

trump. david: thank you so much for reporting. from the white house, that is kevin cirilli, our chief washington correspondent. now we go to gwen ackerman from jerusalem where there is a big fight over the leadership of the likud party. is a dramatic fight. it is the first time in 10 years or 20 years that prime minister benjamin netanyahu has had a real rival for his leadership. and it comesc after the prime minister failed to form a coalition government after two elections. we are going into our third in march, and after the attorney general recommended he be indicted on corruption charges. versus aetanyahu former minister and a younger

likud senior member who was mentored by netanyahu in his early days. david: is it likely benjamin netanyahu will use -- will lose leadership course at significant anyone was even able to challenge him for it. will changes are slim he lose the leadership, but it is significant there is a real rival. should the rival make a nice standing, some analysts have said it would signify the beginning of the end of benjamin likud ands rule over his leadership of the country. david: that is gwen ackerman joining us from jerusalem. we will have the vote later on today. we turned to alex harris in new york. one of the stories toward the end of last year was dollar liquidity. what went wrong. what is the fed doing about it? alex: since september they have been doing these operations to inject more liquidity and ensure

the pipes are running smoothly. they have really amped it up. they were planning on injecting half $1 trillion of liquidity at the most. dealers are submitting and taking way less than that. right now we are around $200 billion of liquidity for year end. what that is telling you is there capacity for how much they can take. that is what i think we are starting to see with these operations for the end of the year coming in under subscribed, less than the maximum the fed is offering. david: does that suggest this may be a tempest in a teapot? we have had the rates by command 8 -- -- the rate spike dramatically. now it has calmed down. alex: it depends where it was treading this morning, it is still 200 basis points higher than where the overnight rate is trading on a daily basis. it tells you there are some bouts of volatility because at the end of the day you do not know what people on the street will need until they get in on

december 31. you can plan as much as you want but sometimes there is just a one-off and you say i am not funded, i need to get more. i do not think we will see anything like we saw in september last year when overnight rates went to 7% at the end of the year. this is a volatile market and people need to remember they will be volatile. david: 200 basis points is nothing to sneeze at. let's get a check on markets. bute's not a lot going on, -- abigial: intraday record highs for the s&p and the nasdaq. not a lot happening. volume 50% below normal. lots of traders and investors still out. making it slightly risk on, the fact that you have bond slightly lower. the vix flat. -- manytfolios portfolio managers hoping to lock in the banner year.

block that out. let that in without tipping the ship. about theave to ask santa claus rally. will be more difficult to pull that off this year? abigial: i love the fact that you know with the santa claus rally is, because most people think it is in december. throughs the 26th january 3. abigial: absolutely right. we have a chart today that shows it could be wobbly. the yen appears as though it could have a rally. if we start to have investors going to haven assets, they may pull out of stock. that is the thing to watch. today santa does seem to be visiting. david: will it visit the nasdaq? the nasdaq has been on a tear. nine records. abigial: it is pretty incredible, the nasdaq, chips, investors wanting in on the high-growth docs.

if the debt high-growth stocks -- high-growth stocks. if the santa claus rally does not happen, investors would probably pull money out of those --cks, especially sent especially since valuations are sky high. pretty rich. david: thank you so much, abigail doolittle for that great report. now we turn to mark crumpton who is here with bloomberg first word news. mark: it will soon be harder for california businesses to treat workers as independent contractors. beginning next week, a new law will restrict the use of labor. the legislation is aimed at creating and equities on the growth of the gig economy and improving employment practices. critics worry legislation could use smaller forms that contractors due to budget and staffing restraint. federal regulators unveiled a sweeping proposal that mandates

the tracking of most rounds. the faa says the measure would promote public safety and help prevent terrorism. the rules call for a massive new tracking network that can spot the devices flying anywhere. the united states has dropped payingand on south korea five times more to host its military personnel. the deal comes days before a troop funding bill was set to expire. south korean media reported the u.s. softened its stance after seoul threaten to buy american weapons and offered to step up its presence in the strait of hormuz and help u.s. efforts to protect oil flows in the region. the constitutional court in ban onsays turkey's wikipedia is unlawful. the ruling was reported by state run media. the courts says banning the online encyclopedia constitutes a violation of free speech. inkey first block despite

2017 because are removed to it refused touse remove content that accused the government of cooperating with terrorist organizations. global news 24 hours a day, on air and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i am mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. david? david: coming up, we will be joined by isaac boltansky, compass points director of research to talk about policies headed into the new year. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. we send into the new year with

geopolitical uncertainty lingering. withwith the trade deal china and a pending ratification of the usmca. we welcome isaac boltansky, director of policy research at compass point research and trading. thank you for joining us. a lot of uncertainty. let's start with the big one. impeachment. what extent does the pending impeachment hangover the markets and business? isaac: impeachment bits within a broader narrative. there is going to be high drama inside the beltway but it has very little impact on the markets. let's start with impeachment. there is going to be a lot of political posturing. we still do not go -- we still do not know what the rules will look like. we do not know if there will be testimony in how the white house will formulate its strategy. we know the end game. we know there are not the necessary votes to remove the president from office. we know he will be acquitted at some point after the trial.

i do not think the market will care much about the different permutations that come out of the impeachment, other than how long that back-and-forth could delay the usmca ratification. david: that is what i was going to raise. the length of the process could affect the markets. number one because mitch mcconnell said we will not vote on usmca in the senate, and as an old lawyer, the longer things get dragged out, things can show up you did not expect. isaac: absolutely. let's tackle the first one. usmca will clear the senate. you will hear consternation from the right. they believe the negotiations gave away too much to secure democratic votes in the house. the reality is a good compromise leaves everyone unhappy. that is what we have. it will clear the senate. i cannot tell you when. we havenow for sure is

a markup scheduled for the usmca on the seventh of january. the earliest possible date for that. that will occur. it will clear at some point at the end of january beginning of february and then canada can move. as for the timeline, i think nancy pelosi strategy to extend the negotiating period is bearing out some fruit at this point. we already have some pushback from at least one senator about what the process will look like. who knows what this storyline will be in a week. lisa murkowski said something about that. what about the u.s. china trade deal. they say it will happen in january but we do not have a date, do we? isaac: we do not. we are still waiting. i think the phase one portion is done. we have the detente that will continue through the election. there is going to be a moment where we get a one-off tweet

from the president, perhaps he is attacked from the left during the primaries or the general election about his position on china and he comes out aggressive. the reality is we are in this phase where we will not see progress forward, but thankfully we will not see much of the retaliatory spirals. for right now, it will be a nice picture when they signed the agreement. the market believes that agreement is done and now we have to wait until after the election to figure out what the next phase will be between china and the u.s.. david: we are talking with isaac boltansky. how much uncertainty for markets might there be in the primary season? how much of a swing could there be if you have an elizabeth warren versus a joe biden apparently moving toward the nomination? isaac: we have had two clients to three dozen clients meeting the past two weeks to have -- to figure out the year ahead.

there are a couple of points you want to highlight. the democratic primary has to take some time. we are all going to react as we all do immediately and with force after the first four primary races. those four are only representative of 4% of the pledged delegates. it is super tuesday on march 3 where you have one third of the delegates and then the remainder of those primary races in march that will deliver two thirds of the overall delegates. i am sitting here saying we will not know the day after iowa or the day after new hampshire with the democratic nominee is. i think it will take until the spring. there is still the possibility of a brokered convention at the end. i am telling my folks we should know by the spring who was the front runner, who was the likely democratic nominee. that will be the first moment where we can say there is some certainty in the story. until then, it will be in overhang part of every single investment decision. david: that raises two

questions. how much difference will be there be between the politics of the democratic nominee and donald trump? the second is if a democrat elected president how much leeway what he or she have given the fact that the senate is likely to remain republican? isaac: this reminds me of my quote, you campaign in poetry but you govern in prose. many of the campaign promises you hear from both sides in this election season will not come to pass. odds are the houses going to stay under democratic control and the senate is going to be under republican control. even if i am wrong and the senate slips to democratic control, it is going to be a slim majority. suddenly the most powerful senators will become the centrists red state senators like joe mansion who have already shown a high degree of

reticence to big ideas like medicare for all and killing the filibuster. david: always such a treat to have you with us. that is isaac boltansky, director of policy research at compass point research and trading. one of the key issues on the campaign trail has been a potential wealth tax. it has been prominently touted by elizabeth and bernie sanders. on november 1, i sat down with nancy pelosi and got her thoughts on the central wealth tax. whatever we do about our revenue, about our taxation has to be done in a bipartisan way. we have to have fairness and we have to have enough to run the government. we do not want any more government than we need. candidates are putting forth their ideas on these things. it is up to them to describe why that is a good thing and how that will help grow the economy. i do think i would enlarge the

issue to talk about how do we conduct meeting the needs of the american people in a way that does not increase the deficit, that does increase job creation, growth that creates job creation for good paying jobs. we think growing the infrastructure of america is a path to get that done. i would like it in a green way. there are plenty of areas of common ground for us to do that. what we want to do is increase the paychecks. however it is paid for, that is a negotiation. david: you talk about growth, which is terribly important. if there is more for everyone, everyone will do better. president trump ran on a progrowth policy. he did deliver tax cuts. speaker pelosi: attack scam. 83% of the benefits benefited

the top 1%. david: unemployment is at a 50 year low. if you are a trump voter in one of those key districts in 2016, what in 2020 will cause you to say i will switch to a democratic approach to growth in this country? me say thissi: let about your characterization. , theverage working person stock market, the gdp, that is not resonating with them. they want to know why their wages are stagnating. the unemployment rate is important. what we are talking about is growing the paycheck, reducing the cost of health care, growing the paycheck. our economy will grow better if people have consumer confidence and they spend and they inject demand into the economy which further creates jobs. not about some indicators that may or may not relate.

i say let's take apart what it gdp anden you say the in what respect. i think the president's tax bill had many mistakes benefiting the top 1%. 83% of the benefits to the 1%. it was a scam. now they are saying you have to help us correct all of the mistakes we made. we will try to work together to have technical corrections, seeing what we can get for america's working families. , you should not do a tax bill of that magnitude without being bipartisan. that was part of my interview with nancy pelosi on november 1. coming up, how changing consumer tastes are affecting stocks. ons is "balance of power"

bloomberg television and radio. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. our stock of the allegory is a category called vice. new studies show domestic beer and cigarettes are being left behind in favor of harder alcohol and vaping. that could help shape new national policy. abigail doolittle is here to look at the findings. abigial: this is a classic example of what you can see in a quiet holiday week. we have cowen talking about this. from a fundamental perspective, it is disturbing. studies are showing teenagers vice tendencies are shifting away from domestic beer brands and as budweiser and coor's going more toward international ,rands, significantly mexican plus american craft beers. relative to the winners,

constellation, they have no della, they have corona, and from a vaping standpoint, teenagers moving away from cigarettes and toward vaping. david: as a father of a 17-year-old i'm concerned about the vaping with all of the injuries and deaths. abigial: not only that but they are vaping pot. there is a study that shows high schoolers are vaping pot, relative to eighth-graders. 17% of seniors are vaping pot. that is a trend to think about. david: that is not good news. thanks to abigail doolittle. coming up, iraq in political crisis. the president threatens to resign rather the name and iran backed governor as minister. that is coming up next. this is bloomberg. ♪ what are you doing back there, junior?

since we're obviously lost, i'm rescheduling my xfinity customer service appointment. ah, relax. i got this. which gps are you using anyway? a little something called instinct. been using it for years. yeah, that's what i'm afraid of. he knows exactly where we're going. my whole body is a compass. oh boy...

the my account app makes today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. not my thing. david: from new york, this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. i'm david westin. first word news, we go to mark crumpton. mark: u.s. military officials

are developing information warfare tactics to combat potential interference from russia during the 2020 elections. the washington post reports plans good target senior leadership and russian elites, including president vladimir putin. the intelligence community last month issued a classified update, warning that russia will try to meddle in next year's vote. japan's national broadcaster today mistakenly issued an alert , saying north korea has launched a missile. nhk retracted it in error a few minutes later. it is at least the second time in as many years that nhk has issued a false alert on north korea. inimilar incident took place january 2018. israel's governing likud party is holding primaries today, the internalr serious challenge to prime minister benjamin netanyahu. if gideon saar wins, he would

become the candidate for prime minister in the march election. netanyahu remains popular despite his recent corruption indictments, and is expected to defeat saar. meantime, weekly demonstrations along the gaza strip will be scaled down to getting in march. the organizers of gaza's so-called great margin of return made that ruling today. it could be a sign that hamas rulers are looking to ease tensions with israel. global news 24 hours a day, on-air, and on quicktake by bloomberg, powered by more than 2700 journalists and analysts in over 120 countries. i'm mark crumpton. this is bloomberg. david: iraq is in political crisis here in less than one month after its prime minister resigned, its president is offering to step down as well, objecting to the naming of a possible pro-iranian politician

as its next prime minister. joining us now is doug ollivant from new america. he comes to us from washington. bring us up to speed on what is going on in the streets of iraq. a transition that some of us may not have been paying attention to. doug: this is a really interesting story. these protests started last october, this has been going on for almost three months. it started when the iraqi government fired a very popular general who was one of the leaders in the anti-isis fight inside iraq. his firing inspired a small demonstration. that was put down very hard by the iraqi government. live rounds, teargas canisters, and killed several demonstrators. that sparked this youth movement. young iraqis flocked to the streets and now you have had essentially three months of

solid protests. the themes are anticorruption, accountability, and anti-foreign influence, by which they mostly mean the iranians, not americans. david: it appears to be generational because after the fall of saddam hussein, there was a general assumption that iran was increasing its influence. the majority of iraqis are shia, not sunni, so is this really a threat to them? doug: they are protesting this outsized influence of iran inside the iraqi state. what is interesting about these demonstrations, americans and other westerners have been the at iraq through and at no-sectarian lens. ethno-sectarian lens.

this demonstration is internal to the sunni majority. it is a very different kind of demonstration. it reminds me of the demonstrations in the 1960's -- not that i remember them -- in france, america, the youth almost protesting their parents. the other dimension to this, the protesters are largely year the people that thought against isis or brothers, cousins, sisters, and it's become a social revolution. there are women out as an active part of the protest, very prominent in this in a society that has not been very gender integrated. not always has played by the rules, it is fair to say, in intervening in the area and other places.

is iran taking any action to counter this revolution? doug: most outside observers credit the violent crackdown. continued.e has last i checked, the death count is approaching 500 officially and probably higher than that. there are 500 dead, mostly young shia arabs as a result of this. iran is taking most of the blame for it. as the iranians are blamed for the response, they are becoming even less popular, and the response seems to be backfiring against them. but don't count them out, iran has a lot of influence in the region. the move by the president to offer to resign and say i am not going to back this candidate that has strong iranian ties, shows there isthe move by the po resistance to thed

iranian influence inside iraq. he is a man that we know well, lived in washington in the 1990's before the saddam hussein regime fell. he is a known figure, considered relatively pro-american. david: resistance to the iranian to what extent is therea socioeconomic aspect to this? in other places, particularly in the middle east, we see young males with no employment, resources, and tend to be more activist. is there an element of lack of jobs, lack of the future? doug: absolutely. there were some precursor demonstrations done recently by college graduate and graduate students who couldn't find any employment. the fundamental problem with the stateeconomy is it is directed, almost no private sector. the only way to have a job is to get a government job. the government has no more money and cannot offer more jobs to these youth.

only a private sector can create enough jobs to employ a rapidly growing population. primarily middle-class, college-educated, but then came the lower classes, saying i don't have any jobs either. it is not just the college graduates suffering. may wonder legitimately why a country producing almost 500,000 barrels of oil a day cannot develop an economy to employ its own people. david: going back to the corruption of a little bit, talking about possible intervention with iran. what about the u.s., are we better perceived not as getting involved? doug: at first, the u.s. response was too muted. weoctober, we generally said

support the protesters, what they are asking for, more accountability, fair elections, we support an economy that works , and certainly the anticorruption file. i think we have done about right. the danger is, of course, if the united states gets too far forward, this becomes an american sponsored protest and regenerate all kinds of conspiracy. . so there is a possibility for the blowback of american influence. i think they have played this pretty well. quietly supporting without getting too far over the skis. david: is there an argument that president trump and his administration is actually accomplishing good by pulling back from the region? there was a lot of criticism in syria, but in this case, might a president be right in saying that we are better pulling back and letting them take care of their problems? doug: that is a really complex

question. we would have to look case-by-case, specific sector by sector. but there is something to be said for letting them to take care of it themselves. it was lawrence of arabia who said it is better that the arabs do it than the british or the americans perfectly. there is a lot of wisdom in that. david: a great to have you here with us, and doug ollivant, joining us today from washington. coming up, when a bomb went off at the 1996 atlanta olympics, richard jewell quickly went from hero to suspect. kent alexander was a prosecutor at the center of the investigation, and he is telling the story in his new book of what went wrong. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪ levision and radio. ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. i'm david westin. the bombing at the 1996 atlanta olympics left two people dead and more than 100 injured. now hollywood legend clint eastwood is looking at the other lines that were changed, particularly the man who found himself at the center of the media firestorm, first as an unlikely euro and then suspect, richard jewell. alexander, who served as a u.s. attorney in the investigations. he is the co-author of the new .ook thank you for joining us for today's conversation in chief. you are at the center of it, a prosecutor at the time. when did you first hear about richard jewell? kent: the day after the bombing.

it was early on a saturday. sunday, his name circulated. that was the first time that i heard he had been a suspect. i met him the morning of the bombing. it was early on a saturday. door, he was standing there with fbi, atf, secret service agents. i shook his hand and said congratulations. i don'tor those remember, it was a dramatic story at the time. this was the individual who first spotted the backpack under a bench and called authorities. they were not sure there was a problem, so he was the whistleblower. kent: he was the hero. 50found his military pack, thousand people in ai went to td there was a huge bomb in it. he called authorities to get people out of the way. he was heralded as the hero for a couple of days. david: what turned him from a few of to a suspect? formere had worked as a

deputy sheriff, campus cop in georgia, lost both jobs. said,dy had called and i'm not saying he did it, but you may want to look at it. because he had some literature about how to build a bomb. kent: he did. he did just like to learn about law enforcement. he had asked somebody if the tower would stand a blast when the park was built, which was kind of. he just liked everything law enforcement. what really turned it was the profile out of virginia which was not so much a generic it was, this looks like the guy. david: did the profilers know about richard jewell when they wrote it? it was eerily similar to him. kent: they did. he had appeared twice on cnn,

had been interviewed couple of times. they also knew that in 1984, an lapd officer found a device in a bus, but it turns out the officer planted it to be a hero. they started thinking, this could be history repeating itself. david: in terms of the law enforcement investigation, was this a case of confirmation bias? kent: ultimately, it became that. trying tot was protect the people in atlanta for the games, find a bomber. as the report came out from the profile, some of the evidence matched, then confirmation bias did start. david: we are talking with kent alexander, author of "the suspect." cannotread the book, you blame law enforcement quite so much as the media for running with it, although they got leaks. kent: there is plenty of blame to go around.

aere is no reason to leak name when a suspect has not been charged. we had no idea after five years looking into this, but we now know who it is. david: what was the motive? kent: he has passed away, so i just don't know. it was not something endorsed by supervisors at the bureau. when they found out, when we heard this was leaked, it was horrible. as far as the media, his name ended up on the front page. he was the primary suspect. the question in my mind remains, should his name have been put out there? that really has an effect. the worst part was this confirmation bias, this echo chamber that is formed. richard jewell called a village rambo, likened by one scholar to wayne williams. lots of blame to go around. david: in journalism, if you do

it right, sometimes you do, sometimes you don't, is to find arguments on the other side and at least present them to the reader, television audience, so they can judge themselves. was that done here? kent: it was at first. things were looked at a lens of how can we show this guy is guilty? what happened with the major investigation with the fbi, you get hundreds of interviews. as more and more came in, what ended up happening, the stack of it look likemade he did not do it far outweighed the ones that looked like he did. david: you wrote a letter. what caused you to write that?it was an unusual letter. often you don't often hear an attorney writing a letter saying i don't think you are responsible. this guy is a legitimate hero.

richard jewell really was a hero, saved a lot of lives. richard jewell really was a hero, saved a lot of lives. he had gone through 88 days through what he and his family called pure hell. and it was. it is so unusual for someone to go from hero to international villain that way. it was an unusual case that called for an unusual letter. it said you are not a target of the investigation, we hope you cooperate with us. that was touted as a clearance letter in the media. david: did he get his life together afterwards? kent: he did. in the book, we write a lot about some unexpected twists and turns. he had a pretty good life, but you don't ever get over something like this. the story is his life. the reporter who broke the , -- at thefbi agent end, they leave the reader to believe that richard jewell was vindicated even though he died

early. i think he had a good life by the end, he just died way too early. david: were people in the media made to do penance? kent: they did. a great team, and they went after the media. nbc paid a great price, new york post, local radio stations, cnn. the only media entity that just litigated to the end was the atlanta journal-constitution, which started in all. it's they reported accurately that he was a suspect, they won. david: now, perhaps the most important question, what does it feel like to have clint eastwood take your book and make it into a movie? kent: just awesome. it started in vanity fair, and then they picked up a book. we pledge ourselves anymore,

we are going to bruise. david: it is out in theaters. kent: it is a great movie. david: [laughter] that is kent alexander, author of "the suspect." ball and turns over a new batch of messages to the faa. it may put the company into a deeper hole over the developments of the 737 max. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪ ♪

david: this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. i'm david westin. after bowling's ceo stepped down earlier this week, we now learn there is a second group of documents the company failed to turn over to authorities, that one congressional staffer calls disturbing. joining us now is brendan case. thank you so much for joining us. what do we know, if anything, about the second edge of documents? one congressional staffer calls disturbing. joining us now is brendan case. brendan: we know a

congressional aide has called them disturbing. we also know a previous batch of messages in october had a big negative impact on boeing's stock price. what we don't know is the actual contents of this latest touch of messages. we are all trying to learn more. important make an point, this is not the first time this happened. in october, a batch came out. was not very happy when they had the ceo to testify. what is going on at boeing, that they didn't have the idea to turn over these was not very han documents? brendan: we don't know the thought process that led them to disclose these latest messages now, why they didn't disclose them earlier, and why they have gone ahead and handed them over to the government now. that is just another question that is swirling around this whole situation. talk about the former muilenburg, who left

just before christmas. there are reports that under his leadership, they were taking a hard line with muilenburg, who t just before christmas. the faa, almost pressuring them into approving things. maybe that is changing now. is that accurate? brendan: it is certainly the case, in november, boeing said it would restart deliveries of year,x by the end of the even if the plane was not poised to resume commercial service right away. that appears not to have been a helpful comment from the faa's perspective. we also know from boeing's own statement this week, they see the relationship with their chief regulator as very year, even if troubled and in need of a significant reset. david: that is what i was going to ask. regulators in general don't love it when the people they are regulating seem not to be playing straight with them. what is the relationship right now between boeing and the faa? brendan: based on the statement monday, it is fair to say it is

a troubled, possibly fractured relationship. resetting that will be job one for david calhoun when he takes over next month. toalso has an uphill battle regain public trust in boeing. be first step will probably to restore some of that confidence with the faa. david: why did the board picked mr. calhoun? he was already on the board. brendan: he has been for about a decade, took over as chairman in october. he is not an outsider, very much response,ith crisis which many people outside the company have seen as falling short. , the board decided they needed somebody who was already familiar with the big issues, a person who has been through a number of corporate turnaround who has somend

existing relationships and ties within the aerospace business. david: does he have operations experience? aircrafthe led ge's engine operation, but that was about 15 years ago. operationalhis experience as well as engineering expertise, not necessarily his strong point. david: thank you for joining us, brendan case. coming up, balance of power continues on bloomberg radio. more on boeing. we will speak with a private pilot and author on the disappearance of malaysia 370. this is "balance of power" on bloomberg television and radio. ♪

alix: top 2020 trade. the top performers in 2019, will they be able to get the number year?ot next new shipping rules take effect next year in january, is the role prepared? we speak to jeremy baines about how using biofuels for planes will be the next big growth driver. ♪ i'm alix steel. welcome to bloomberg "commodities edge." 30 minutes focused on the companies, the physical assets, and the trading behind the hottest commodities with the smartest voices in the business. first, we kick it off with spot on, our take on the big story.