Latest / Trend Watch / Episode 27: TikTok & Free Speech, Fight for VP, and a Trump Mistrial?

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Episode 27: TikTok & Free Speech, Fight for VP, and a Trump Mistrial? · Trend Watch

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Ready to take a deeper look at where history, politics, and economics all intersect?
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then you've come to the right place.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Each week,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_01: here's where we pull back the headlines and focus on the big trends,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: the stuff that actually shapes our future.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Through the noise, we focus on the signal.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Neil Howe, and this is TrendWatch.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Today is May 8th, 2024, and this is Trend Watch.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Just to remind you,
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: for all of those who watched the dates,
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Vladimir Putin was sworn in for his fifth six-year term as president yesterday,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: and tomorrow in Russia is Victory Day.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm sure, Christian, you're very attentive to
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: The echo of World War II and history in Russia today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: And as usual, I have on my fellow analyst, Christian.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'd welcome your thoughts on Victory Day and also just to ask you, how was your week?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Neil, I don't have much to say on Victory Day, but...
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can't complain about the week.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: The weather is nice here in D.C.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: All the bars are opening up their rooftops for happy hours, which I can't complain.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I just heard news that D.C.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: has a new offering this summer.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: They have legalized what are being called weed patios.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of this?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: I have not.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to be run by dispensaries, and their waiters will bring you food and joints.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol is not allowed,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: but...
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: if they serve alcohol,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: what are the chances they'll catch you?
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they can't catch carjackers in D.C.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure they're going to go after weed bars serving alcohol.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, I mean, Russia is parading its missiles, and we're lounging out in weed bars, so...
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what kind of split screen that presents.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: But look, it is a beautiful summer, and we're all kind of easing into it.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: As usual, I am going to start with my farewells.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: We have only one today, and this is an unusual one at that.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: His name is Kim Ki-nam, and he was North Korea's director of propaganda.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: who has been called the Joseph Goebbels of North Korea,
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: and who ended up serving three eternal presidents in a row,
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: Kim Il-sung,
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Kim Jong-il,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: and Kim Jong-un.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And he died last week at age 94.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I should add here that Kim has no family connection to the three dictators named
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Kim that he spent a lifetime advising.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: We don't know a lot about his life.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as usual, the hermit kingdom is shrouded in mystery, especially his early life.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: Kim was born in 1929.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: We know that.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: He grew up in Korea in the 1930s and early 40s during Japanese occupation.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have no idea if he did or did not join anti-Japanese resistance forces in his teens.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: He was one of the first students to attend Pyongyang University.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: which was founded just after the war by Kim Il-sung and first became known as Kim Il-sung University.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Everything pretty soon became known as Kim Il-sung, right?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: He was trained by the Soviets in foreign affairs.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: He served as North Korea's ambassador to Beijing in the 1950s.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: And he became deputy director of North Korea's propaganda and agitation department
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: and editor of the country's main newspaper,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: Rodong Sinmun,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: by the mid-1960s.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you have this guy, right?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Children of the crisis,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: both World War II and obviously the Korean War,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: which was certainly a huge conflagration as a young adult.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: And he rose through the ranks and he rose very effectively.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And in this role,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: as head of the country's main newspaper,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: is where Kim engineered the entire world of divine mythology surrounding the North
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: Korean leadership that still lives on to this day.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks to Kim,
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: every North Korean is required to wear label pins bearing the images of Kim Il-sung
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: and Kim Jong-il,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: North Korea's semi-divine dear leaders.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: These leaders were born on Mount Paiktu, the nation's sacred mountain.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Only their photographs were to be published on the first page of the newspaper,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: meaning no photographs of anyone else.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And any defacement of their images, like simply writing over the photos, you know,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're writing notes on a newspaper.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, I wouldn't do that if I were you.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or taking down a poster.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: These were acts that were severely punished.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: All of this melded seamlessly with the North Korean ideology of juche,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: which refers both to the subjectivism and independence of political truth in North Korea.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Subjectivism means...
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it means that if we the people believe it to be true, then it is true.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's a little, you know, postmodern, a little like Orwell, right?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And independence means that North Korea follows Marxist-Leninism,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: but not in a way that is similar to any other country like the Soviet Union or China,
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: but rather in a special way tailored to the fascist worldview that is appropriate
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: for Koreans alone.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: And along the way,
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Kim developed a very close relationship with Kim Il-sung's son,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Kim Jong-il,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: who took over the dictatorship after his father's death in 1994.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: The son was about 10 years younger, and Kim became his confidant and his drinking buddy.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And more recently,
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: when Kim Jong-il,
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: in his turn,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: died in 2011,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Kim was still around,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: and he became similarly indispensable to the much younger Kim Jong-un.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Kim was 82 when Kim Jong-un assumed the dictatorship at about age 28, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: This was in 2011.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so how did Kim continue to prove his worth?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And this is an interesting story.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: He did so by coming up with the remarkable idea of tailoring the grandson's image
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: around the image of his grandfather.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Kim Jong-un actually looks a bit like Kim Il-sung.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of has that, you know, pudgy, jowly face, you know, that kind of very round face.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: Take a look.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can go on Wikipedia.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: Just take a look at their... They do look remarkably similar.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: And then Kim advised him to wear his clothes and tailor and wear his hair, right?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: His hair and clothes and everything exactly the same way.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Even hold his cigarette the same way.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it worked.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: North Koreans widely revere Kim Jong-un wherever they see him in photos,
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: for example,
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: riding on horseback down from Mount Paektu as a sort of reincarnation of North
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: Korea's founding leader,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: his grandfather.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Now, who the original Kim Il-sung actually was is actually an interesting debate among historians.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: People actually wonder.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: He came in with the Soviets right after the war.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: And people wonder whether the Soviets just picked up some Koreans somewhere and
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: just claimed he was a famous anti-Japanese leader.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's a whole other story.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: This is the image.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what matters, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: And in politics, that's particularly in South Korea.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: You have nothing to compare it to, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Kim,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: therefore,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: thrived deep into his old age as a sort of wise old Merlin whose special powers
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: helped to preserve the regime's authority at home.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: At his funeral, Kim Jong-un showed up personally in formal dress to pay tribute.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this was noted in the official news agency.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what it said,
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: that Kim expressed,
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: quote,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: bitter grief over the loss of a veteran revolutionary who,
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: as a competent official in the party's ideological field,
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: had remained boundlessly loyal.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, I think you get an idea why he stuck around so long.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Boundlessly loyal, right?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a premium on that.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: And indeed, because of his boundless loyalty, Kim was lucky not just to thrive, but to survive at all.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: After all, many close advisors to North Korean leaders met their demise long before reaching old age.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Since so many have been demoted and usually executed for supposed disloyalty.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Some of these were even family members.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it may not have helped Kim, even if he had been related by blood to the royal family.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there you have it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Kim Ki-nam, dead at age 94.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: As always,
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: let me remind you,
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: if you like this podcast,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead and share it with your friends,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: family,
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: repost it on social media.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, only some episodes or some parts of each episode will remain free.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should take a moment,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: clarify to listeners that this podcast isn't all we do on Substack,
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: but we also put out lots of content under the name of Demography Unplugged.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we break down all kinds of stuff,
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: particularly things having to do with demography,
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: surveys,
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: the economy and generational trends.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Neil.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I would just recommend to all of our listeners, check out some of these written pieces.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: We talk on a broad range of things.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: We had a recent piece,
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Neil,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: that our readers really liked,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: looking at public opinion polls on how the public views social media companies and
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: whether they're censoring political discussions.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, yes.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's actually something we're going to get to today, I think.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we're going to get there.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into today's podcast, as usual.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: We have lots to talk about.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: First, we got market news, and then we will be covering stories from around the world.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just a quick list of some of the stories.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: Marjorie Taylor Greene may be backing off from her threat to try to oust Speaker Michael Johnson.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we'll quickly visit this kind of, you know, R-rated or...
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think Stormy Daniels testimony at the Trump hush money trial.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: TikTok has sued the federal government over its enforcement of the new law
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: requiring it to be shut down or sold to America or sold to Americans as a violation
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: of the First Amendment.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that, whether that's going to work as an argument.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: The Biden administration reclassifies marijuana from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 drug.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that explains why it's showing up at all those D.C.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: bars, but this does pave the pathway for federal legislation.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now,
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: internationally,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Volodymyr Zelensky and his top aides were nearly assassinated by a team of insiders
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: led by two Ukrainian colonels who turned out to be double agents of Vladimir Putin.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: This was to be a gift to Putin, by the way, according to overheard tapes.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: This would be a gift to Putin on his victory day.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he didn't get that gift, but I hope I hope he's happy anyway.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Russia announced, by the way, that it will hold drills on tactical nukes.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And we will explain why in just a second.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: Xi Jinping is touring Europe, apparently looking for European leaders who will do a deal with him.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: The in Britain, the Conservative Party.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, talk about a brand in decline there.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: was beaten badly in local British elections,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: losing 470 council seats out of nearly 1,000 and two out of 11 mayoral races.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, we'll talk a few things about Israel.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Israel seizes border crossings from Arafa into Egypt in what may be the beginning
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: of the IDF's final offensive in the Gaza Strip.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: So with that,
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's my buildup for you.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil, let's start with the markets.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: The S&P closed today flat and over the last five market days is up 3.37%.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: As for the global Dow, that closed down today 0.12%.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last five market days is up 2.5%.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: As for the VIX, that closed at 13.01%.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually lower than what we've been seeing over the last week.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And as for the 10-year Treasury, we are at 4.5%.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: That is down 14 basis points over the last five days.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Down a little bit.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: You'd think that given that huge surge in equity prices that VIX would be a little lower.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: But I think it has to be – we have to see this new boom last for a little longer,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: right,
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: before volatility –
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: and all those future options prices start to stabilize.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: What else do you got?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: What about economic indicators?
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, we'll start here in the U.S., Neil.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have the ISM PMIs for April.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing fell from 50.3 to 49.2, so we're now in contraction.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And services also fell from 51.4 to 49.4.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is the first contraction we have seen since December 2022.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: We also got non-farm payrolls, which fell from 315,000 in March to 175,000 in April.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: That was significantly below expectations.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this is a case of be careful what you wish for.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when everything's slowing down, you hope it's just slowing down a little bit.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's that magical soft landing.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to have to see, obviously, to what extent this is going to be reflected in inflation.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that would be good news for the Fed cutting of the Fed funds rate.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also going to have to see what happens in terms of how much the economy is going to slow down.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: Anything abroad that we saw this last week?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I have some data from the EU and from China.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: For EU, we have April PMIs.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing fell from 46.1 to 45.7.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: And services rose from 51.5 to 53.3.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: That is the strongest growth the EU's services PMIs have seen in almost a year.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if we move on to China, we also have April PMIs.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Seixin PMI that largely looks at private companies.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing increased from 51.1 to 51.4.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: That is six straight months of growth.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: And services slightly declined from 52.7 to 52.5.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But that still marks 16 months of growth.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Looking a little better for China.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just one short week, right?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't have too much.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we're going to get to these toward the end of the month and are all about the indicators.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: So what else have we got?
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go with our first story, Neil.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: It seems that Marjorie Taylor Greene is backing away from her call for a vote to oust Speaker Johnson.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: On Monday and Tuesday, Johnson and Greene held private hour-long meetings.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently it came out she has four demands of Johnson.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: No bills are to be brought to the floor without majority support of the party,
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: no more Ukraine aid,
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: defund the special counsel investigation into Trump,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: and avoid a government shutdown before the election by passing a continuing
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: resolution that cuts all spending across the board by 1%.