Speaker 1: Look at that. Yep.
Speaker 2: This is Dead wrap Up twenty twenty five. Welcome to
the Big Podcast. It is New Year's Eve, December thirty first,
twenty twenty five. My name is Tom Sullivan, and so
it's one of those one of those days where the
world pauses and I know, when we get to like
the fourth of July, that's that's a holiday here, but
the world doesn't represent that or stop and celebrate it.
It's a US holiday. But for New Year's it's pretty much.
I know there are different calendar, but everybody has the
Gregorian calendar and that's what we're using to another trip
around the sun. And here we go into a new year.
So we've got a couple of things to go over.
I got some economic stuff because that's kind of I'm
kind of a I'm kind of an economic weenie. I'd
like economic news, business news and all that. But let
me start with since there's going to be a lot
of you watching the dropping of the ball Times Square
yesterday they had the test. It's always interesting to watch
because they do they do a test and they run
the ball up the pole and then they bring it
down and they don't do the all the flashing everything
else but the twenty twenty six sign pops up. So
all that tested fine yesterday, but they've been the work
behind that goofy ball drop in Times Square and the
I don't know how many people will be there. It's
going to be cold. There have been colder New Year's ease.
It's going to be somewhere around thirty degrees. The real
field will be somewhere in the low twenties. And they
are saying there's a decent chance for some light snow
about that time. So the people in Times Square have
they close off Times Square at three o'clock in the afternoon,
and the pens have already been up. They put the
pens up yesterday. So traffic on Broadway, in Seventh Avenue
and all that's all been blocked for over twenty four hours.
So they'll start letting people in at three o'clock and
they better dress warm, and they can't bring in any
handbags or anything like that walk in. I know there's
no restrooms. If you want to use a restroom, you
can leave, but you can't come back.
Speaker 3: So people.
Speaker 2: It's not worth it to me. They wear adult diapers,
I guess, or just get dehydrated. So The guy who
owns the building upon which the ball drop is located
is a guy by the name of Michael Phillips, and
he was on morning television this morning, and I learned
a little bit more about the ball drop and how
long it's been going on.
Speaker 3: Chilly up here, but what a blessing it is to
be up here with you, even though you forgot your shades, all.
Speaker 4: Right, Well, I wanted to make you the star of
the show.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. But the real star of the show, obviously,
is this ball. You were just telling me it's the
ninth iteration of this. We've got a long history here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we've been since nineteen oh seven. This is
the ninth iteration of the ball. This is the largest
with fifty two hundred eighty crystals, and really it's the
only iconic item that helps us ring in the new
year globally with over a billion people watching it.
Speaker 3: I know, it's pretty amazing. I've been here before, I
saw the previous ball, and this one is so much larger.
You were telling me there's a lot of new technology
that just is going to make the show in the
ball really special.
Speaker 4: Yes, this is fully digitally integrated in a way that
none of the others were. It was able to get
as big and have as many crystals because we could
take a full air conditioning system out of the ball
with a new technology that allowed it to run in
a cooler way.
Speaker 3: And it's the whole setup, the building and everything. It's
becoming more of a tourist attraction in a way where
before it wasn't. People are going to be able to
come here year round, is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, This will be the beginning of a vip ball
experience that people can come and visit twelve months of
the year, as well as a full history experience in
twenty two floors of immersive entertainment.
Speaker 3: That's really exciting to me. And when you say the
whole history immersive experience, people obviously this ball is really cool,
but people are going to be able to go see
balls from the past.
Speaker 4: Right, So we'll have four of the balls from one
time scores history on display, as well as a full
walk through of the history of New York and its
contribution to the United States.
Speaker 3: So we've been doing this, this ball dropped for over
one hundred years. You said nineteen oh seven, what was
the reason this all began?
Speaker 4: Well in the city of New York and two in
nineteen oh five outlawed fireworks and Adolf Aux, the owner
of The New York Times, came up with this and
pulled it out of the Granwich Maritime Archives from a
three hundred and fifty year old time navigation instrument from
the British Maritime Fleet.
Speaker 3: That is so cool and obviously we've loved it because
we've been doing it ever since. What are you expecting
for tonight's show.
Speaker 4: Amazing Weather? It's fantastic. We have over a million people
in the square, we have a fantastic entertainment and host,
and I think it'll be well loved.
Speaker 3: Ringing six awesome thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so who knew? I didn't know if they started
nineteen you know seventh. I've been in New York for
nineteen years, and I think this is the third iteration.
They said this is the ninth. I think it's the
third one I've seen. I know this one is new.
It's bigger. I saw it sitting up on top of
one Time Square. It's much bigger, noticeably bigger. But it's
also instead of the triangular crystals, they're like a whole
bunch of little bulbs. All over this thing, so and
I had no idea there was an air conditioning unit
in the middle of.
Speaker 3: The old one.
Speaker 2: But you know, what they're doing there is so so
Times Square. Times Square is just full of tourists, full
of people. But it's a lot of tourists. It's it's
called the Crossroads of the World. I love people love
to come there, and it's if they're coming to New York.
I've never been to New York. You got to go
to Times Square. But what they're going to do is
they're going to turn it into a money raiser. They're
going to obviously have some sort of Times Square New
Year's Eve Ball museum. Did you hear him talk about you?
And you get tickets? So they're going to be selling
tickets and you can go into the building and go
up to the top. And I don't know where they
have the old balls stored, but they're in there somewhere.
So anyway, that's the guy who owns the building, and
he's trying to go chi ching and get some money
by selling tickets. But Sherry White also showed up this
morning on morning television. I didn't know who she was,
and they asked her what was her relationship with the ball,
and she said, I built it. This is the lady
who built the Times Square ball.
Speaker 3: You bought this thing. That is incredible. What a job.
So this is the first year for this particular ball.
What makes it big and special?
Speaker 5: It's a little bit bigger than the prior ones.
Speaker 6: It's got round crystals instead of triangles.
Speaker 3: Giving one up right here.
Speaker 6: Yes, there's two times as many, almost two times as
many as the prior triangles.
Speaker 3: Okay, So why round? Is this just like you were
ready to mix it up? Or what are we doing?
Speaker 6: We were looking for infinite We were looking for circle,
something different than triangles, which we've had for at least
I don't know, fifteen twenty thirty years.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this is the ninth iteration of having a ball,
is what I'm told. What makes this one different as
far as the display is going to be for the
million of people here, but the billion people watching around
the world.
Speaker 6: So this has lighting controls and so it does more things.
The last ball had vintage two thousand and seven LED.
So this is very modern and it's a lot easier
to do patterns and other things with the ball.
Speaker 3: Now, what's it like to build something that. You know
a billion people are about to watch. Are you nervous?
Is it going to go?
Speaker 5: Well? No, it's thrilling, it's going to be.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be amazing. I agree, And as we and
our hit here, can we can we do this together?
Can we pop this? What's your new year's resolution?
Speaker 5: M be happy? Turn sixty?
Speaker 3: Oh that's a good opset. Yeah, that's a good one.
That's a that's a good one. Okay, let's do this.
Speaker 2: Okay. So they go off there trying to pop some
some little device. But I would love to know she's
fifty nine. Obviously, she said she wants to turn sixty
this year. I hope she does. But how I want
she's got to work for like a sign company or something,
because how does that lady get the job of building
the Times Square ball and then changing it? Like I said,
I think that the triangle crystals were obvious in prior years.
When I first moved to New York, there was a different,
different I don't think there were triangles anyway. So a new,
brand new ball tonight. And here's the other thing about it.
They are going to drop the ball at twelve, and
then I think they maybe wait a minute or two,
they're going to raise the ball back up again, and
then they're going to change the lights since they've got
this digital lighting system on the ball, into red, white
and blue, and they're going to drop it again with
all kinds of confetti coming out. They always do confetti.
Confetti is on the streets of Times Square for weeks afterwards.
They try to clean it up, but there's millions of
pieces of confetti. But it's to kick off the two
hundred and fiftieth year of our nation, and they're going
to have the ball drop again on July, the night
of July third, apparently. Well, here's the lady that's in
charge of something called America to fifty and she's been
working on this for many years. Her name is Rosie.
Speaker 3: Dressed in red, white and blue. My face is red
from the wind, and I've got the white and blue
here on my glasses. America two fifty. This is going
to be so exciting, and we're kicking it off tonight
because we get the normal ball drop and then we
get this secondary ball drop. Can you tell me about
that first?
Speaker 7: That's right, So tonight we have the second celebration at
twelve oh four to ring in twenty twenty six, to
celebrate the two and fiftieth anniversary of the signing the
dec Question of Independence.
Speaker 3: And the ball's gonna drop and more confetti's going to drop,
and the party's going to contain.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So at twelve oh four, the ball's gonna come up.
Speaker 7: You are going to see the biggest confetti drop ever,
tons of confetti, red, white, and blue, as we prepare
for another ball drop on July third, to ring in
July fourth here in Times Square again.
Speaker 3: So that's so cool, and it's hard for me to imagine.
So there's gonna be a million people out here today,
and do you think July fourth, we're gonna have another
million people and we're gonna drop another ball?
Speaker 5: Clearly, clearly.
Speaker 7: Look, it's a million people here in New York, member,
billions of people watching all over the world.
Speaker 5: This is a global platform.
Speaker 7: What better way to celebrate this than the iconic global countdown?
Speaker 3: Okay, So what else does America to fifty have in
store for us in the year ahead?
Speaker 7: Oh, my goodness, so many things. So tonight, look, tonight
is the moment to start the movement. We have America
gives It's launching at twelve oh one. This is a
national service initiative where we are making twenty twenty six
the largest year of volunteer hours ever recorded in our
country's history.
Speaker 3: And maybe in the world. So is America going to
go out and volunteer more in the next year than
any country has ever done in the history of the world.
Speaker 5: Well, we hope that is the case.
Speaker 7: And again, it starts now, and we hope this movement
continues long after twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: There's so many different events going on. See Shining Say
you told me you're going to be in Pasadena for
the Indiana Who's your Alabama game tomorrow? This is going
to be This is a year long thing that we're
talking about.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, and look, with a moment like this and the
movement like this, we hope it's going to be long
after twenty twenty six.
Speaker 5: Again, it's a global platform.
Speaker 7: You see the World Cup coming here obviously in the
US and North America, and then we have the Olympics
in twenty eight. So to have this continue long after
twenty twenty six, that's what the movement is all about.
Speaker 5: And it starts tonight, and it starts tonight.
Speaker 3: I'm super excited about tonight I think the secondary ball
drop is going to be something really special. And it's
hard for me to really imagine this Fourth of July
ball drop, but I think that's going to be great
as well. When you look at the next year, what
are your resolutions? What are you looking for?
Speaker 7: Oh my goodness, well, I've been on this commission now
for eight years. I would say I want as many
Americans as possible to feel like this is the land
of opportunity all over again.
Speaker 3: Amen to that. Amen to that. I told you she
was going to jack you guys up. I'm feeling excited
about the United States of America. We've got a lot
to be grateful for. So thank you for talking to me.
I'll go back to y'all. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: She's been on the commission for eight years, and that's
how much planning is going in. This is going to
be huge this year, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary.
There's going to be all kinds of wonderful celebrations of
our nation's birth all throughout the year, and especially of
course when we get down to the fourth of July.
But I man, that takes a lot of people and
a lot of money and a lot of planning. I
don't know what else they have up their sleep, So
don't be I'm shut A lot of people are going
to be confused. They're going to be cheering that the
ball dropped, and then all of a sudden it's going
to go back up again and change colors and then
start kicking out all kinds of confetti. But you know
what it's all about, So don't turn the TV off
at twelve oh one, wait until twelve oh two.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: As far as Times Square and security, Jessica Tish, who's
the commission NYPD Commissioner, she came out with the usual
about security.
Speaker 8: There are no known, specific, credible threats to the New
Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. As always, the men
and women at the NYPD will be out there keeping
everyone safe. The public should expect to see thousands of
NYPD officers deployed throughout Times Square and the surrounding area.
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently something like three thousand uniform police in Times Square.
But one of the things that everybody knows is that
when you see a police officer in Times Square, there's
at least one other one to one match on undercover officers.
There's tons of undercover police in Times Square, but they're
also going to be doing something with the undercover guys.
This time.
Speaker 8: We will have mobile screening teams walking around the pens
and if we see anything that looks suspicious, we will
have teams in place to do appropriate screening.
Speaker 2: Appropriate screening. I wonder what that's going to be about.
Speaker 5: The Times Square New Year's Eve celebration.
Speaker 8: Is bigger than last year's and our You're going to
see more officers in two main places. First is at
the access points to the event on six and eighth Avenue,
so we can expedite entry or exit. Second is we
are going to be doing secondary screening this year of
people inside pens. If we see anything that looks suspicious,
we will have teams in place to do appropriate screening.
Speaker 5: That's a new addition this year as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she went on about the dogs and the snipers
and the helicopters in the boat patrols and it's quite
a deal. But they know probably better than anybody how
to do crowd control. NYPD is absolutely fantastic. Darren Porcher
is a recently retired lieutenant from the NYPD.
Speaker 9: One thing this happened is in many years I've actually
sat on this committee as it relates to the planning
for New Year's Eve, the Times Square celebration, there's a
lot that goes into this. On January first is when
the planning starts for twenty twenty seven, so there's a
year long process that.
Speaker 3: Goes into that.
Speaker 9: But the teachable moments from what happened in Australia on
Bondi Beach would be extracted in terms of how we
can create a more robust component of security to ensure
the fortification of the individuals of the revelers a sound.
We have over a million people that are in this
small congested area, so the NYPD has to have a
tight but focused securecurity mechanism. It's an arduous task, but
the NYPED is fit for the challenges.
Speaker 3: We've been doing this for years on end.
Speaker 9: Those people that't those pedestrian pens, they can't go to
the bathroom.
Speaker 3: Once you get in, you're locked in.
Speaker 9: If you got to go to the bathroom, you can
leave and you can't come back in. But what's interesting
about this year's dynamic of security is there are two factions.
You have the traditional magnetometers, people that are being screened
when they come into the pedestrian pens. However, we also
have an added edition, which would be officers not just
in uniform, but in plain clothes as well, that are
conducting security assessments inside internally within that crowd to ensure
that things run safe.
Speaker 2: Well, that's up, so that really do a good job.
But you know, one smart bad guy can make a
lot of damage. But we'll hope and pray that everything
goes wonderful. Everybody has a wonderful time. Sure an end
of the new year tonight, you want to talk about
the economy, Oh you do? Oh good, because that's got
I mean, economists are usually pretty boring, but I kind
of cut the comments of a number of economists down
to kind of give you a feel about what they're
thinking about the economy heading into twenty twenty six. And
what I got out of all of their comments was
everybody is going AI is just on first base. We're
just getting started. But it made a lot of headway
in twenty twenty five and stand by for even more.
The problem with AI for a lot of economists they
try and plug it in to some sort of economic model,
and it can't be because we don't know enough about it.
And how it's going to be used. But we'll start
off with the John Rider Jonathan Rder. I've known John longtime.
He's a PhD in economics, and this is his view
on heading out of twenty five and into twenty six.
Speaker 10: Only have to look at the price of gold, which
is up two thirds from when the Fed started to
cutting interest rates in September of twenty twenty four, and
to my mind, restrictive monety policy would not be accompanied.
We could be looking at six percent nominal GDP growth.
The question is how does that split between real growth
and inflation. And I'm hopeful that productivity growth will be
sufficiently strong that we're going to see three percent real growth,
but a company and that also three percent inflation, because
then will have completed six years without inflation, being close
to the FEDS two percent inflation targets.
Speaker 2: So his point is interesting because he says we're going
to have three percent inflation, which we do have three
percent inflation right now, and essentially he's saying that's going
to continue. The key for making people happy if you're
a politician, is that their wages and income go up
faster than inflation. So if you are going to have
a pay raise of five percent and inflation goes up
three percent, You're you're ahead of the ballgame. And on
top of that, he says the gross domestic product, the
broadest measure of the economy, that that will grow. He's
estimating around three percent and that's a good, healthy pace.
Alan Blinder probably one of the most the influential economist.
He's a professor of economics over at Princeton, and this
is his view of what's going to happen.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think it's very early to game out.
I think the likelihood is that we're going to have
some modest further cutting, but that likelihood is enshrouded in
fog now where it's just coming out of the data
fog that the government shutdown put us in. As you noted, Deal,
I'm sure a lot of the numbers that just came
out recently, for example, on the CPI, had much more
than the usual amount of guesswork in them, and we
all took notice when Chairman Powell suggested that the job's
numbers would be revised down very significantly. So this we're
still coming through a data fog. We should be mostly
out of it by the next FED meeting, and I
think it'll be an easier decision. I think it depends,
of course, what the new data show.
Speaker 2: So he's worried about the fact that the data is
foggy and fuzzy and hard to predict with what they
have so far. But what about the Federal Reserve Board,
and with the new chairman coming in sometime next year.
Speaker 1: I think the so to speak, the earlier the announcement,
they're worse because as soon as you announce the new
FED chair the FED is now a hydra headed monster
with two heads. And depending on how the new designated
had behaves himself. They've all been hymns that have been
mentioned seriously that could reach havoc in terms of what
the markets believe the FED is going to do. Powell
is still chairman. There's no indication he's going to resign early.
That would be a chacrou. He's still chairman until May.
And we should have one chairman at a time, just
as we have one president at a time.
Speaker 2: So Alan Blinder used to be the vice chairman of
the Federal Reserve and has been for a long time.
Like I said, one of the most influential economists teaches
at Princeton in economics. But what about the change, because
the last time the Fed met there was the vision.
Usually everybody's on the same page, but there were some
that wanted to leave interest rates alone, some wanted to
raise interest rates, some wanted to lower interest rates. The
lowering interest rates won, but it was a close call.
So what does he think about the new FED chairman
that's going to be involved, along with maybe some changes
in the members, and ten they get along.
Speaker 1: I has expected. I'm worried. I don't know. You're right.
I mean, there is a proper way to behave that
it's not that hard for the new chairman designate to
figure out what the proper way to behave. But I'm
looking at the history of Trump appointments all over the
place and it doesn't give me a great confidence. Rightly.
Speaker 2: So, twenty twenty five is the third year of double
digit gains on Wall Street overall, and we got the
twenty five numbers cent. They might be off by a
fraction of a percent because the market's not closed yet today.
But the Dow for the year up thirteen percent, the
standard of poorest five hundred up seventeen percent, the Nasdaq
up twenty one percent. If you're a gold investor, Gold
up sixty seven percent in twenty twenty five, and the
only the major item I saw that had a minusund
in front of it was Bitcoin down five percent for
the year. So some of the top stocks Western Digital, Micron, Seagate.
So Wall Street had another good year, third in a row,
and they're still predicting that twenty twenty six will be
another good year. But at some point you get a cycle,
and at some point after wins, you get pullbacks. But
everybody seems to be all positive. And one of the
reasons they're positive is because of a Wall Street's a
funny place. I mean, the New York stocktors Change is
a funny place, and they've got traditions. It's changed a
lot over the years. A lot of the computers have
replaced the people there. If you go into the New
York stocktor Change, what you see with the cameras is
what There are still some traders there at various posts,
but there's other areas of the New York Stocker Change
that if you get to go in there, it's covered
in tarp. There's no lights on, so that it's a
fraction of the size it used to be. But one
of the traditions that they have is they sing a
goofy song, something about Nella Nelly and the Sunshine, and
everybody on the floor gathers around. They stop what they're doing,
trading literally stops on the New York Stock Well. I
guess the computers are still going. But Bob Pisani, who
has just retired this year from CNBC, he's been there
for a long time and he led the group today
on their traditional end of the year singing now and
need to warn you, brace yourself. They may be good
at Wall Street, but they're not good singers.
Speaker 11: Through up years and down years, it's been a staple,
the singing of the nineteen oh five song wait Till
the Sunshines on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
It became a prominent tradition during the Depression because of
the song's message of hope and happiness during what we're
really troubled times. Bob Besani's on the floor with the
traders for this year's rendition.
Speaker 5: Bob, it's all yours, contessa.
Speaker 12: You know, this tradition goes back literally to the eighteen sixties.
The singing of Christmas carols and sentimental ballads on the
floor of the New York Stock Exchange. For decades, our
Cashion led the annual singing of.
Speaker 5: That particular carol that you mentioned.
Speaker 13: Unfortunately are passed away last year, but the tradition lives
on here with the annual rendition of Wait Till the
Sun shines Nelly is Peter Cash and yeah.
Speaker 3: One true trade, Wait.
Speaker 14: Sunshine, Valley fell Vale, Oh Love Way Well, Walter Sweeting,
howt to way the sunshine?
Speaker 3: That well?
Speaker 2: I mean no, they can't sing. I don't know. It's
like he said, it goes back to the eighteen hundreds,
so wait for the sunshine Nelly Wow. Well, Contesser Burger
introduced him and said it went back to nineteen oh five,
and he said it goes back to eighteen sixty. So
there's nobody around to tell us which one is the truth.
Wall Street today, maybe he did not like that singing
because the market was down, But then in the latter
part of the session today it really dropped off. It
might have been right after the singing, the dow down
three hundred and three to close at forty eight thousand
and sixty three, the SMP down fifty, the Nazdack down
one hundred seventy seven. The price of gold also down
sixty four dollars to four thousand and three twenty two,
and oil was down fifty cents, down to fifty seven
dollars and some change.
Speaker 3: So that's it for today.
Speaker 2: That's it for the year. Thank you for coming by.
We wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.