This is exchanges of Goldman Sachs where we discussed developments currently shaping markets, industries, and the global economy.

I'm Jake Stewart, global head of corporate communications here at the firm.

Today is the day before the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden,

and we're going to be talking about the policy outlook

under a Biden administration with Democrats controlling both the House and the Senate, albeit by very narrow

margins. And to discuss that and more we're joined by Alec Phillips, chief political economist for

Goldman Sachs research. Alec welcome back to the program. Thanks. Before we dive

into the policy outlook, talk a little bit about the sentiment in Washington

where you are right now as we record this on January 19th, the day before the inauguration.

Well, I mean I think the first thing obviously is that people are still in a state of shock or disbelief over what happened a couple of weeks ago

and the dust is still obviously settling on that.

There are a lot of questions about, you know, how the impeachment trial in the Senate will kind of interact with everything

else that's going on.

But putting that aside, I think there's a lot of anticipation about the incoming administration and what that means for mainly for policy but I think also just thinking about the last few days just also in terms of just how things are going to look over the next four years.

I mean if you look at, you know, what we saw last week from President-elect Biden in the rollout

of the COVID relief package, it was amazing to see, you know, how normal it was,

in the sense that we had a press preview several hours

before the speech, a detailed, I think 15-page fact sheet that went out, embargoed,

then articles all hit like a couple of hours before the speech,

previewing it, that he gave the speech then you had

follow-ups from members of Congress you had another announcement the next day

it was all kind of planned so you know it is a reminder of how things used to work and even I mean maybe even the

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