Ohio Looks for Answers, Workers Call for Benefits

Published Mar 10, 2023, 4:39 PM

Who owns train cars? Not who you think, according to Bloomberg Opinion's Brooke Sutherland. She joins to explain. Editor Sarah Green Carmichael also joins to talk about giving workers benefits, as opposed to raises. And Opinion columnist Alexis Leondis talks about the mortgage lender lie, while Lara Williams discusses ocean health.

Welcome to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. This week we look at the latest step in the climate change battle, protecting the ocean. It's absorbs about ninety percent of the heat chopped by greenhouse stresses so far and also absorbed about thirty percent of the CO two that we've emitted. So without the ocean, we'd be in a much stickier situation. We'll be talking with Bloomberg's Lara Williams. Bloomberg's Alexis Leandis joins us with the latest on the housing market. She says mortgage lenders are selling homebuyers a lie. And what will it take to attract and keep more workers. Bloomberg's Sarah Green Carmichael says, maybe don't worry about raises but benefits. We're really seeing employees resisting those calls to be back in the office four or five days a week. I think some of that pressure from companies is really misguided. You know, this is not the time to be climbing back a benefit that not only costs you nothing but actually helps employees be more productive. Let's get started. We begin with the rail road system in the US, which has had a rough couple of months after several Norfolk Southern derailments, one of them carrying toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio, and the death of a train conductor this past week when a dump truck and a train collided at a railroad crossing in Cleveland, Ohio. And well, now we're learning more about safety measures that Norfolk Southern says it'll put in place while the National Transportation Safety Board continues its investigations. Democratic Senator Shared Brown of Ohio says the railroad is simply cutting too many corners. They've laid off a third of their workforce, they've compromised on safety, They don't the workers don't have enough time to do the thorough inspections they should do. But there's another part of this story too. The railroad itself usually doesn't own those rail cars. Those are often private owners, like shippers. So does that make a difference when it comes to maintenance and safety on the rails? Bloomberg Opinion columnist Brook Sutherland joins us Now, Brook, thank you for being here, Thanks so much for having me. Okay, So, the railroads don't own those rail cars. So if there is a problem with one of the rail cars, and maybe it starts a chain reaction like a derailment. Is the private owner responsible? Is that a complicated question to ask who takes care of that? It's definitely a complicated question, a lot more complicated than I think I even appreciated when I started looking at this. So the railroads do own some cars, and there's also an entity that's called TTX, which is jointly owned by all of the by a number of the major North American railroads and pools car asses between them. But the railroads and TTX typically own you know, box cars or container cars. They do not own hopper cars, which is in the case of this derailment that we saw, the one that had the overheated bearing or tank cars which carry chemicals which you know, in the case of the derailment, spilled or had to be released in a controlled way. So typically those are owned by private party, and that can be mean a number of different things. That can be the shipping company or the shipper you know that's transporting its goods down the railroad. It can be a railroad leasing company, or it can be a private investor like a bank or you know, even a hedge fund. And those owners are typically responsible for the maintenance of the car. They're responsible for keeping the car in good condition. Um. The railroad, however, has responsibility for, you know, overseeing kind of the overall train, and it does certain inspections when those cars come onto its line to make sure, you know, at least as far as it can be determined at that point in time, that those cars are in good shape. So there's a lot of varying responsibilities here, um, And all of this likely has to be sorted out in a legal way down the line, and I expect that it will be. But there's maarious responsibilities here that makes sense, and it also makes maybe explains why this seems so hard, because if you have multiple owners of multiple cars that are all on one train, I'm wondering, does that mean then you find different people performing different inspections at different times. Is there any consistency there? Sure? So, I mean there are regulations around, you know, keeping the cars themselves in good shape. And like I mentioned, the railroads are obligated to do an inspection of the train cars when they do come onto their line. Now, the railroads, they're somewhat limited in what they can inspect here. It's mostly what they can determine visually or from simple checks. So something like bearing, which in the case of the derailment, like we said, is what overheated and has been pointed to by the NTSB as a potential trigger for this derailment. That's in a metal box essentially, So the only way to really inspect it is to take the wheel set apart. Now you're not going to do that every time you want to run a train. So there is a system here, there is regulations, but you know, like we said, there's a number of different parties that have their hands on these rail cars. And that's not just the owner and one railroad. Also, by the way cars the way our network works in North America, cars will be transferred between the major North American railroads and also what we call short haul lines. Oh so if you have a train, say going through Ohio, and it's on the Norfolk Southern rail line at one point, it might be on a whole different rail line on another time, it's not consistently with that same rail line. Correct. The railroads don't have networks that traverse the entire United States. So if the shipment starts on the West Coast, for example, it might touch multiple different railroads before it makes its way to Ohio. Oh so, no, this is tremendously complex. It is, yes, And I mean I think we've seen this time and time again in the industrial sector, especially over the last couple of years, the supply chains and manufacturing have been in such a national spotlight. Is that these systems are not necessarily as simple as you might think, or as what we have grown used to, you know, in the world where we can track our FedEx and ups deliveries on our phone, or we can see with software, you know, so much more than we could even a few years ago. And I think it comes as a surprise to some people just how complicated these more industrial parts of the economy are. And it's not just railroads. We learned this as well from the ports, with all of the challenges that they had in navigating you know, the huge sturge of shifts that came in during that peak demand for physical good during the pandemic. I'm going to throw you a bit of a curveball here. In the case of the train derailment in East Palestine, there were toxic chemicals spilled, and Norfolk Southern came forward and said they've pledged to do whatever it takes to make things right. But as you said earlier, and as they've said, the Hopper rail car is where the problem began, and that doesn't belong to them. So does something like that tie our hands, tie Norfolk Southern's hands, or does it give them a reason to wash their hands of responsibility. I don't think that Norfolk Southern can wash the hands of responsibility here. I think you know, they've pledged to do whatever it takes to clean up the community, and I think they should. And I think this is a moment for not just nor Folks ou then, but all of the railroads to reevaluate safety and look at what happened here and say, Okay, what can we do better? Are there redesdencies that we can build into our system that might prevent something like this from happening again? Are there other regulations that have been proposed that maybe we thought didn't make sense, but this accident should force us to reevaluate. I think those conversations need to be happening. But I do think that those conversations should include the broader railroad industry, and that must also mean you know that rail car owners are involved, the shippers themselves, the leasing companies, and also regulators, and I think there should really be a collaborative conversation that brings in all parties here. I think, you know, the people in Ohio want answers, and that needs to include a discussion of who owned that railcar, how it was inspected, how it was maintained, and what went wrong with that bearing. I want to look ahead and figure out what may happen from here. I'm thinking regulations, other railroads watching this and how it plays out and following suit. What do you see coming out of this? I think that you know, there's been a lot of discussions about the hot bearing detectors. These are temperature sensors that are along the rail tracks in Norfolk. Southern has already said they're planning to enhance their work of these detectors. They're going they're already you know, roughly about every thirteen point nine miles, I believe the railroad said, but they're going to you know, take a closer look at any times where there might be longer gaps and make sure that they have proper density of those detectors. There's also new technology out there, whether that might be acoustic detectors, which can perhaps take up situations where the bearing is at risk of overheating before it actually does. There's also you know, new next generation technology that can scan a broader cross section of the wheel set. There's a lot of things that could be done potentially that might make this network of detectors slightly more robust. I should point out also that this is not something that is currently regulated. Railroads install these detectors voluntarily, and they have discretion over how they deploy them. So perhaps this is something that needs to be crystallized at the government level, and I think that's where you know, a lot of the discussion is and at this moment, and that probably seems like the most likely at this point. I know that there's been a number of different proposals that have put forward, and as far as anything else, it's somewhat difficult to handicap at this point. But you know, certainly it seems like the rail industry is going to stay in the spotlight and needs to have some serious conversations about safety. So beyond regulations and those conversations, new techn anologies to help people stay safe. Yes, absolutely, I mean, I think, you know, having covered the manufacturing industry, closely. There's a lot of technology being deployed there that could have a placed on the rails in terms of predictive maintenance, using industrial software and censors to draw data out of the equipment itself and make better decisions using that information, and in terms of how to run that equipment most efficiently and most safely. All right, thank you Brooke for taking the time with us. We appreciate it. Thank you so much. Bloomberg Opinion columnist Brooks Sutherland covers deals and industrial companies and writes the Industrial Strength newsletter here at Bloomberg. Coming up, we're going to take a look at what it takes to attract and retain workers. Bloomberg's Sarah Green Carmichael will join us. Just ahead. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. You're listening to Bloomberg Opinion. I'm Amy Morris. And despite fears of a slowdown, the labor market is still pretty tight. Most companies aren't laying people off. They're more concerned about retaining the workers they have. Some employers might not want to grant pay increases in an uncertain economy, but there's another way. We turned out. A Bloomberg Opinion editor Sarah Green Carmichael, and she joins us. Now it seems like an obvious solution if you can't give your workers raises, provide benefits. But does that work? It does? I think in terms of enhancing employee loyalty, there's some good evidence that benefits can do that, especially if they're well designed. So I'm specifically thinking about things three things. One is a benefit that's pretty rare or unusual. One is a benefit that has a real bang for the buck, offers real financial value to people. And then finally, you know, a benefit that actually has a meaningful impact on people's lives. If we think about something that's sort of the opposite of those I might pick like dental insurance or a sort of general employee wellness kind of benefit. Typically those sorts of benefits, they don't offer a lot of money, they're pretty common, and you're not even ever going to hear someone say like, well, you know, I really wanted to quit, but then I thought about my dental engas got dental. But yeah, But if you're thinking about something like maybe a sabbatical, well, now we're in a whole new ball game. Okay, So do you find that there are businesses that perhaps can't afford to give raises, but can somehow find a way to give these benefits, Like, is there some sort of cost effectiveness there? Yeah. So one of the things that's interesting about benefits is that they aren't in the US anyway. They are taxed differently than raises, for one thing, so there's some tax advantages. They are also typically cheaper to provide than across the board raise, especially at a time of such high inflation. So if you think about something like an on site childcare that's very rare benefit. It would be expensive to set that up potentially, but still cheaper than giving raises to a bunch of people. And you know, it might not only benefit employees who would use it, but also people who are younger, maybe thinking about having kids. It might convince them to stay with the firm for longer. So there's definitely economies of scale and offering a good benefit. Is it something that they can afford in other ways? Though, I'm just looking for more advantages for the business owner in providing these worker benefits. What are they finding for them? Yeah, of course. So one example comes from Google. You now many years ago they've now expanded their parental leaf policy. For example, twice and two thousand and seven they increased it from twelve weeks to eighteen weeks, and then just last year they bumped it up from eighteen weeks to twenty four weeks. And the reason that they are doing this is not just because it helps them attract talent and not just because it helps them sort of seem like a cool employer to work for. They have found that when they increased that benefit, they've reduced the rate at which women who've had children quit their jobs. So when they bumped it up from twelve weeks to eighteen weeks in two thousand and seven, they have the rate at which new moms were quitting. So that really matters because no matter what the labor market is like, it is always expensive to replace workers who leave. It takes time, it's disruptive, it costs real money. Sometimes you end up having to pay more to hire someone new from outside the organization. So retention is really important not only to continuity of the business, not only to productivity, but also to the bottom line. I'm going to throw you a bit of a curveball, but I trust that you can handle it. I'm not worried. You mentioned the data and keeping track of what it is that the employees want or what it seems to get them more quote embedded as you as you put it is that key to this for companies that you can throw all the benefits you want at your employee workforce, but you need to keep track of what works and what doesn't. You need to keep track of not just the cost effectiveness of it, but the personnel part of it too totally. And this is one of the reasons I think that you're seeing companies cut back on things like free food if free food costs real money and it's not something it's like something that's sort of nice to have, but it's not again, it's not keeping people from walking out the door. So I think companies are very smart. Companies anyway are very sensitive to like what's really keeping people here? What are people really evaluating. I think companies should always be evaluating their benefits to see what people are using. If you're, you know, commuter benefit, if no one is using that benefit, maybe don't keep offering it. Or if no one's using it, probably doesn't hurt you to keep offering it because you're not spending any money on it. That's true. I do think it makes sense to constantly be looking at and reevaluating the benefits you're offering and see what works. So let's talk about some of those employee perks that we saw during COVID that maybe are being brought back and brought back, as in clawed back, as in removed from the offerings that would be You mentioned the free food, the free lunch, subsidized parking, flexible work hours seems to be something that has a little more stickiness to it. No exactly. I think it's important to me to think about these in sort of two different categories, right. I think it's very easy for companies to put the case to their employees that something like subsidized parking is really a pandemic era benefit. It is something that helps you maybe avoid germs on the subway, and it is a way to get you into the office at a scary time where they recognize that you might really not want to come in for health reasons. It is much easier to take something like that away than it is to take away flexibility. Flexibility costs nothing for companies to offer. It is something that is highly prized by employees because when we're talking about flexibility, What we're really talking about is autonomy. Are you an adult? Can you decide how to do your job? Can you have control over when and where you work? That's something that is like a price beyond measure to an employee, And that's why I think we're really seeing employees resisting those calls to be back in the office four or five days, and why I think some of that pressure from companies is really misguided. You know, this is not the time to be clawing back a benefit then not only cost you nothing, but actually helps employees be more productive. When you say that it provides worker autonomy to have those flexible work hours, I want to go back to something we used to hear in the nineties all the time, the work life balance. Right, it means something, especially whether there's a pandemic or not, especially if you're a parent with young kids, especially if you are an adult who is taking care of an aging parent. To have that flexibility would not only give you more loyalty to your manager, but also would give you more opportunities to get more work done. But maybe when other people aren't in the office, that sort of thing. Yeah, exactly, you know, I think commuting is a huge times huck, and what we saw during a pandemic was yes, you laugh because yes, you know it's true. Oh yeah, what we saw during the pandemic was really that people recouped that commute time and they did use it. In some cases, they use some of it for their own wellness, but they use a lot of it and maybe even most of it for their jobs, and that's how they get more done. So I think it's something where I'm a manager in a company and if there's something I can give people that cost me nothing and that helps them do their jobs better and actually get even more done, that's something I'd like to keep giving them. Where do you see things going from here? Do you see more benefits being offered? Do you see more flexibility being offered? What are you going to be watching for in this workspace? I know you don't have a crystal ball, but where do you see the trends? A couple of trends. I'm seeing our greater flexibility around who counts as a loved one. So under old sort of caregiving policies, it had to be a child or a parent or a spouse who is sick for you to take some form of caregiving leave. But I'm now seeing more companies saying, you know what your loved one is, whoever you say it is, and if they need, you know, time for you to take care of them, you can have that paid caregiving leave. So that's one thing I'm seeing. Other stuff I'm really interested in is this sort of trend to sabbaticals. I'd love to have more data on that. The data we have so far as pretty thin, but I'd love to know if more companies are actually offering them. And then experiments like four day workweeks. There have been some fascinating experiments in Europe with the four day workweek. One manager in Iceland said it's like a gift from the heaven. I would love to see more data on that, and maybe some more US companies experimenting with that as well. All right, we're going to watch for it with you. Thank you, Sarah so much for taking the time. Thank you for having me, Bloomberg Opinion Editor Sarah Greencar Michael, don't forget. We're available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. Stay with us. Coming up, we'll look at mortgages and the housing market. Bloomberg's Alexis Leondis warns that homebuyers are buying into a lie. This is Bloomberg opinion. This is Bloomberg opinion. I'm Amy Morris. Realtors and mortgage lenders are giving worried home buyers some advice as mortgage rates approach the two decade high of seven percent reached in November. Marry the house, date the rate, But that could be bad advice. Many new homeowners are finding themselves in a longer term relationship with today's rate than they expected. Vice President Kamala Harris has said that owning a home is really part of the American dream. A home represents financial security, the opportunity to build wealth and equity. We know that when we increase home ownership, it strengthens communities and it strengthens our economy. Vice President Kamala Harris on how homeownership can help the entire community. So what our home buyers facing? Joining us now with some insight, Bloomberg Opinion columnist Alexis leand us. Okay, so let's look at a little history. For the past ten years, rates were much lower. This rate hike is a relative satively new phenomenon. So psychologically, do you feel like that leads people to believe that maybe rates are likely to drop just any day now. Yes, I think because you know, even if we can look at the headlines and read the paper and see on Bloomberg and Scene BC, you know that rates are higher than they've been. I think for most adults and people who have been buying homes for the last ten or fifteen years, they've been accustomed to rates that have averaged less than four percent. And obviously we saw a very fast uptick in rates last year when the FED started hiking, and again we've seen rates start to increase this year, creep back up, and they're approaching that two decade hive seven percent that they reached in November. But the point of my column is to point out for those who think that they can just refinance because rates are in fact just going to drop back down to where they had been, they really need to think again and to maybe get comfortable with this idea of higher for longer, for years refinancing would give lenders more business and and the consumer more savings. What is it going to take to get back to that, right? Well, a lot of people you know, think like, oh, if I'm just going to cut my rate by half a percentage point, you know, that's going to save me monthly. And that may be true if you even do get that a half percentage point decrease, But ultimately you really have to think about the entire kind of life of the loan, like how long are you going to stay in the house for it. You have to think about things like refinancing costs. It's expensive to refinance. You know, there's an appraisal fee there, the origination cost, there are lots of things that are packed into that. It varies by lender, of course, but it can be anywhere from two percent to six percent of the loan amount. So again, to think that a refinance is going to be a slam dunk and we'll save you money, you know, may not necessarily be true moving forward. You know, that's something that you mentioned in your column on the Bloomberg terminal that really grabbed my attention as a homeowner, because sometimes when you refinance, you actually wind up paying more because that mortgage clock restarts right, it starts again, and you may think, well, hey, I'm saving a hundred or two hundred dollars on my monthly payment. But because you're starting again, and most people like if you end up doing a thirty year loan once again, you're starting over, so over the life of that loan, if you calculate all the interest you're paying, you may end up actually not coming out ahead. And a lot of this, again has to do with how long you're staying in the house for. If you plan to move soon, you may not care because you're just going to sell and pay off your mortgage and move somewhere else. But you also, if you are going to move soon, you don't want to move too soon because you want to make sure that you're staying in the house for long enough to recoup what you've paid to refinance in the first place. Now, let's talk about some other X factors, not just rates, but you mentioned in your column refinancing calculations are also more complex. Then realtors and lenders will admit, what do you mean, sure? So, I think a lot of times again, people just focus on the rate. Okay, if they think like I, you know, I just got a rate of six and a half percent, Well, once rates come down to six percent or even five and a half, you know that's a half a percentage point less on a monthly basis, I'm going to be saving, so it makes sense. But again, as I mentioned before, you really have to think about the refinancing costs. You know, the average refight can be five thousand dollars at least, so that's a lot of money, and you really then want to bake that into your overall calculation and be thinking about how long you're going to be staying in the house for and will it justify the amount that you're saving month to month. Okay, let's let's find a little happy here. Are lenders willing to work with you? I mean, should people be working with them to figure out those refinancing costs? Are are they able to work with borrowers? Do they have any wiggle rim right, No, that's a great question. I would point out there was a Freddie mac study not too long ago shown that lenders not just when it comes to refinancing, but overall. Freddie is seeing the biggest disparity among mortgage lenders when it comes to rates that you know, it really pay. It always pays to shop around, but it especially pays to shop around right now as rates are creeping up and up and up. That depending on perhaps if you have a pre existing relationship with the bank, if you have a sizeable amount of money in an account, you know, these are things that could help you and make a lender more willing to work with you on the refinancing front. Specifically, we have seen a handful of online lenders and smaller credit unions that are offering to pay for some or all refinancing costs if rates drop within a specified period of time. But you might not want to bank on that because who knows again where rates are headed, and there's so many factors having to do with inflation and recession and geopolitical risk that because of those things, you don't want to rush to refinance. Assume that this lender is going to recoup those fees or compensate you for those fees, and then we don't see that drop within that specified period of time. Do you find there's a difference between a first time home buyer versus somebody who has a home to sell. Yeah, that's such a great question. Definitely, because a first time HomeBuyer they have to come up with that down payment. Someone who's sold is someone who's already a homeowner is lucky enough probably to be sitting on home equity and as a result, they've seen, you know, the run up in home prices, so they're going to have this additional cushion. But you raise a great point that the other thing people have to be really careful about what this assumption about refinancing is if you refinance, you have to have Typically lenders require twenty percent equity in your home. If you're a first time HomeBuyer and you're making a smaller down payment of say, you know, seven percent, ten percent, much less than twenty percent. And we've seen home prices that increase, decelerate, slow down, and in some markets even decrease. You shouldn't be banking on getting to that equity within a year or so if that was you know, your ultimate goal or refi, because you might not be hitting that twenty percent equity in your home. I see. So let me ask a bit of a different question, not just about home buyers, but home builders. Is it a whole different ball game if you're talking about you own a lot but you want to build on that lot. Is that a whole completely different class. Yeah, I think it's a totally different class. The thoughts about refinancing are obviously different. Even I had written a piece recently about mortgage locks in this idea that you shouldn't rush to or pay extra to be locking in a mortgage rate for longer. But that advice kind of changes. If you are doing like you're buying a foreclosed home or it's a new lot in construction, and you're anticipating things to take longer, then maybe you do want to go aheadlock in that rate because it's going to be a different kind of time horizon than if you're just buying, you know, a pre existing home. And it's so hard to wrap your head around the idea that, oh, my goodness, rates aren't going down anytime soon. People of a certain age are not used to that concept. I know, it's really foreign. And then for others who you know, are older and we're around or buying homes in the eighties, for them, it's like, yes, seventeen percent mortgage rates, that's the norm. So it really depends what your frame of references. And you know, when you first started becoming a homeowner, you know that can help with your perspective for sure. Okay, so what's the guidance, what do we do? Do we do a fifteen year mortgage a thirty year fixed What should people be watching for in their mortgage rates? Sure? I mean it really depends on what you're looking for and obviously what your monthly flow and you know what kind of a forward payment wise, if you're going to REFI, a fifteen year mortgage isn't a bad idea if you feel like you have the cash flow to handle a bigger mortgage monthly payment. But ultimately then you will be paying less in interest because obviously you have a shorter loan, but you will have a big uptick in what you're paying month to month. So really, again depends on what your cash flow is and your outlook. But yeah, if you do REFI certainly considering a fifteen year mortgage. If you can handle that payment, is well worth it. Alexis, what are you going to be watching for in the next few weeks. I think we should really be watching to see, you know, what's going to happen with rates. As you mentioned before, I think to expect that rates are going to come down, I just think that that seems to be unrealistic at this point in time. I think we're going to see mortgage rates heading at least where they are or edging higher and higher. So that's why you just really shouldn't be banking on a quick REFI to get to that lower rate that we had seen for so many years after the Great Recession. It's so interesting that during the pandemic everybody wanted to add onto their homes and finance their homes and do some reconstruction on their homes, and all of those prices are just going up so much higher now. Yeah, to do anything to your home, it just feels like it's so much more expensive, whether you want to buy, you want to renovate, you want to borrow against it, whatever it is, it's just become a more costly thing for families all across the country. Okay, well, just hang in there. Thank you so much, Alexis, Thank you for having me. Alexis Leandis is a Bloomberg opinion columnist. She covers personal finance for Bloomberg. Now, if you want to know more about the health of the earth, just turn your attention to the ocean. Laura Williams is a Bloomberg opinion columnist covering climate change, and she joins us, Now, let's set the stage in your column on the Bloomberg terminal. You talk about how billions of people depend on the ocean for food and economic security. Just get into that just a little bit so people understand just the incredible impact that you've been able to witness working on this research. Yeah. Sure, So an estimated three billion people rely on the ocean directly, so that should be you know, their main source of protein or as a source of income from fishing. But in many ways, like everybody on the planet Earth relies on the ocean because the currents help control our weather. The Gulf Stream, which is you know, helped along by the ocean. It's like paused by the ocean that stops Europe from freezing over. So the ocean is really important for everyone. So your column makes the argument that the ocean not only really important for climate but has helped mitigate climate change. It walk me through that. Yeah, So the ocean is actually the world's largest carbon sink. So it's absorbs about ninety percent of the heat trapped by greenhouse stasses so far and also absorbed about thirty percent of the CO two that we've emitted through fossil fuels. So without the ocean and healthy ocean eco systems, we'd be in a much stickier situation in return in response to the climate crisis. So how is the ocean then suffering from our actions and what we do on a day to day basis sure? So, I mean humankind, We've been polluting our oceans with everybody's aware of the plastic problem. We've oil and sewage ends up in the ocean as well. We've also be in harvesting fish stots to depletion, destroying marine habitats with troll nets and deep sea mining. We've got loads of shipping vessels going across the ocean and that causes a lot of vibration which interferes with marine mammals and sometimes like stripes, turtles and whales and all those sorts of creatures. And we can really see the impact of that and the statistic so ten percent of marine species are at risk of extinction and a third of fish stocks are over fished, and that means reattaching them faster than they're able to replenish themselves. And as the water absorbs CO two and heat, obviously it's getting hotter. There are now heat waves in the ocean, which is kind of crazy to think about. And it's also becoming more acidic and that reachs havoc on animals that like, you know, coral and shellfish. Now there are moves to help protect the ocean, and you itemize these in your column on the Bloomberg terminal. What will this do? Tell me about those moves? Yeah, So recently the UN finally agreed on the text of what's being called the High Seas Treaty, and this will enable, once it's been enacted, nations to set up protected areas in international waters. And so international waters are you know, anywhere that's not in the national jurisdiction. And it covers you know, two thirds of the ocean and ninety five percent of the Earth's habitable environment by volume, So it's massive, and it previously had no protections. Okay, so then what are you watching for? What comes next? What can we expect or can we So this bill is in the process of being translated into the six official UN languages. Then it will need to be signed and ratified, and once it's being leadally adopted by sixty UN nations, it will go into force and then the real work will ben because it doesn't automatically put any areas under protection that are already some proposals for areas. But we'll then have to see sort of the taste being made for certain areas being set up for protection. And then also I will be interested in watching how strong the levels of protection are, because that's something that hasn't yet been decided. Bloomberg's Lara Williams, thank you for your time, Thank you, and that does it for this week's Bloomberg Opinion. We are produced by Eric Mallow. Don't forget We're available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. Stay with us. Today's top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now

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