Latest / Trend Watch / Episode 33: Biden's Future & Election Results in the UK, France, and Iran

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Episode 33: Biden's Future & Election Results in the UK, France, and Iran · 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 July 10th, 2024, and this is Trend Watch.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: As per usual, I have on my fellow analyst, Christian Ford.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Christian, how was your week?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was pretty good, Neil.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was up in Maine for the 4th, visiting my family.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, did some water skiing, a little bit of fishing, you know, some just good summer activities.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I like the water skiing.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: What's the horsepower on that boat?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's my parents, and it's relatively new, so...
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm glad it's new, but I'm really ashamed that you...
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't know the horsepower of the boat.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Two skis or one?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Two skis, you know.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: One, I always get worried I'm going to pull a hamstring or something.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, we have that in common.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Two skiers.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: So we're both two skiers.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot to do today, so let's just get right on in with it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: First, with our farewells.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: We have two of them today.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: One, Silent Generation, the other, Boomer.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Let's start with our first.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: This is James Inhofe,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: the stalwart conservative senator from Oklahoma for almost 30 years and a vehement
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: opponent of what he called the global warming hoax.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: He died last week at age 89.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe was born in Des Moines,
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Iowa in 1934 and moved with his parents to Tulsa,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oklahoma during World War II.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: His father owned several insurance companies.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Young Inhofe was an extrovert and track star in high school before finishing
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: college at the University of Tulsa.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Though it turned out he didn't receive his BA degree until 1973.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Many years later, that took a little touching up later when he was getting into political life.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: After getting drafted, he served in the U.S.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Army in 1957-58, as most young men did back then.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: When he got out, his father appointed him as vice president of one of his insurance companies.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: And in 1970, when his father died, he became head of the company.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: So Inhofe set himself up financially by following his dad into his business.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe Sr., it turned out, was also active in local politics as a Democrat.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe Jr.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: followed his father here as well,
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: though in a classic silent to GI generation switch,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: his son wanted to run not as a Democrat,
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: but as a Republican,
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: and that he did.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: In 1966,
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: he won a seat in the Oklahoma State Assembly,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: and in 1968,
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: he stepped up to win a seat in the Oklahoma State Senate.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: After losing races for governor and for Congress,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe served three times as mayor of Tulsa,
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: followed by seven years as a congressman,
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: before finally winning his U.S.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Senate seat in a 1994 special election.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: He was reelected as senator an incredible five times,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: in 1996,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: in 2002,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: in 2008,
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: in 2014,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: and in 2020,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: always with double digit margins over his opponents.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: He became, in fact, the longest serving senator in the history of Oklahoma.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in the process,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: he became practically a permanent fixture in the Senate from early in the era of
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Bill Clinton all the way into the era of Joe Biden.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: That fixture, I can assure you, was resolutely conservative.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe was consistently ranked as the most or nearly the most conservative senator
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: throughout his 29-year tenure.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: He opposed abortion,
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: LGBTQ rights,
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: health care legislation,
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: campaign finance reform,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: and he supported the death penalty,
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: gun rights,
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: counterterrorism powers,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: offshore drilling,
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: and a balanced budget amendment.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: He consistently favored a smaller government,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: and a larger armed forces.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And most notably, Christian, he became the GOP's most outspoken opponent of climate change science.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Back in 2003,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: he delivered a long Senate speech arguing that environmentalists and their liberal
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: allies in Congress are,
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: and I quote here,
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: extremists who simply don't like capitalism,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: free markets,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: and freedom.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: In 2012,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: he even wrote a book called The Greatest Hoax,
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: During the Obama years, he denounced the EPA for unfairly burdening businesses with regulations.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: When the GOP regained control of the Senate in 2015 and Inhofe became chairman of
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: the Environment Committee,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: he called the EPA a Gestapo bureaucracy.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: He also opened investigations.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: He called for cuts in EPA funding.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: When opponents complained that he was getting support from oil and gas firms,
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe replied that they were getting support from the government,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: foundations,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: and alternative energy startups.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, the headline says,
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: In the New York Times obituary on Inhofe reads very simply,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: you can tell what the New York Times impression of Inhofe was.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I quote here, James M. Inhofe, senator who denied climate change, dies at 89.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that's his career summed up right there.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: After Trump was elected,
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe's brand of conservatism mostly suited the new White House just fine,
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: especially Inhofe's stand against climate change science.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Trump, who had also called climate change a hoax, basically followed Inhofe's agenda by pulling the U.S.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: out of the Paris Climate Change Accord and by persuading Trump to appoint Scott Pruitt,
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: a former Oklahoma aide to Inhofe as head of the EPA.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: Pruitt that Ali could to dismantle EPA enforcement.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: In 2018,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: after Senator John McCain died,
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee passed Inhofe.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And here,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe's traditional Republican support of peace through strength did sometimes run
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: counter to Trump's denunciation of
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: forever wars.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like many other Republicans, he disagreed with Trump's decision to withdraw U.S.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: forces from Syria and to abandon Afghanistan.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: When Inhofe was reelected in 2020,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: he announced he would retire at the end of that term in 2027,
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: but he retired early in 2023,
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: which led to a special election in Oklahoma to replace Inhofe,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: in which,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: no surprise,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oklahoma voters chose a 46-year-old Trump loyalist by the name of Mark Wayne Mullen.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Inhofe's staffer said that the senator retired early due to a mild case of COVID,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: which turned into a vicious case of a long COVID.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: This made it impossible for him to stay in office, and it may have led to his stroke last week.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Here's an interesting fact about Inhofe, Christian.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: He was an avid aviation enthusiast and a licensed pilot who used to campaign across
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Oklahoma flying his own private plane.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: He claimed more than 11,000 hours of flying time and had to emergency land his plane many times.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: usually during storms.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: one of his sons,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Perry Inhofe,
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: died in a plane crash soon after learning how to fly,
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: just like his dad.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, Jim Inhofe, gone at age 89.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: So let's move on to a boomer,
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Richard Friedman,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: known to fans as Kinky Friedman,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: the self-proclaimed Jewish cowboy whose wacky and darkly humorous country western
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: songs enlivened that crazy decade we call the 1970s.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: He died last week at age 79.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: Friedman was born in 1944 in Chicago to Jewish immigrant parents who moved to the
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: Texas Hill Country outside Austin.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh,
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: when he was a small child,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: his father taught at UT Austin and the two parents together ran a summer ranch,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: a summer ranch camp for kids.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up at the camp, young Friedman acquired two passions, chess playing and music.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: since chess had no future,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: he decided in high school,
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: and then as a student at UT Austin himself,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: that he would make something of himself in music.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: And as a performer,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: he soon decided he would stand out by celebrating his own paradoxical identity as a
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: country western Jew.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was the bastard child of twin cultures,
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: and they seemed to have a lot in common,
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: cowboys and Jews,
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Friedman told journalists many years later.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: They both wear their hats indoors.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think you need a bout of boom after that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, come on.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's got great lines.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: He got the name Kinky from his tightly curled hair.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: After graduating college in 1966, he spent two years in Borneo at the Peace Corps.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like so many earnest college grads back then, he then returned to Texas to start his musical career.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Friedman's music was two-sided.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: On the one hand,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: he was a great country-western singer with a deep baritone voice and serious guitar licks,
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: along with a thick mustache,
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: a cowboy hat,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: a Honduran cigar.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: And on the other, his performances and lyrics often veered into the body irreverent and hilarious.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: His first really successful band, Kinky Friedman and the Texas Jew Boys,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: kicked off in 1973,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: and he was soon in demand through the 1970s as the opening act for megastars like
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: He performed on Saturday Night and the Grand Old Opry.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: He cut two popular albums,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: and he became celebrated,
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: or notorious,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: take your pick,
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: for song lyrics that lampooned,
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: parodied,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: and just put a dark twist on pretty much anything.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: for your benefit,
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: for then the benefit of all you millennials out there,
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: let me quote some lyrics from a few of Kinky's songs.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: This is from his song, They Ain't Making Jews Like Jesus Anymore.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: So you want to know, I know you want to know a stanza, so I'm going to sing it to you.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, they ain't making Jews like Jesus anymore.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: They ain't making carpenters who know what nails are for.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the whole damn place was singing as I strolled right out the door.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Lord, they ain't making Jews like Jesus anymore.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So there you go.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: Kinky followed up that song with another called Ride Him,
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Jew Boy,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: which,
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: beneath the absurd storyline,
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: is actually a hunting parable about the Holocaust.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: He had many twists and turns.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: Or how about this song?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually a send-up of the song by Merle Haggard called Proud to Be an Ogie from Muskogee.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: Every boomer knows that song.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: But Kinky called his song Asshole from El Paso.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: So here's a simple stanza.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: We don't live in communes or have orgies.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't say orgies.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: He said orgies.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: We don't live in communes or have orgies.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: We don't mess with commies, queers, or Jews.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't tie and macrame our nose hairs just like the hippies out in San Francisco do.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or here's a song, Christian, you'll like.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is 1973,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: which called down on Kinky the wrath of the National Organization of Women and
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: earned him their male chauvinist pig award for that year.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: The song was called Get Your Biscuits in the Oven and Your Buns in the Bed.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And here's how it starts.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: You uppity women, I don't understand why you've got to go and try to act like a man.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: But before you make your weekly visit to the shrink,
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: you'd better occupy the kitchen and liberate the sink.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine how that got him in trouble.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: In the 1980s,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Friedman quit big time performing and retired to his ranch,
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: in part because like so many music stars,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: particularly in his era,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: he succumbed to all the partying and drugs.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: There is a fine line between fiction and nonfiction,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: he later wrote,
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: and I believe Jimmy Buffett and I snorted it in 1976.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I need a, you know, bada boom at the end of that.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: He began writing novels,
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: most of which had titles as zany as his songs like Greenwich Killing Time or how
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: about this,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: The Love Song of J.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Edgar Hoover.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: In 2004, he announced that he would run for governor of Texas against Rick Perry.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: Standing in front of the Alamo,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: he suggested a few campaign slogans,
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: including my governor is a Jewish cowboy.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: And how hard can it be?
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Question mark.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: After Willie Nelson and other stars threw their support behind him,
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Friedman expressed concern,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: saying,
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: We've reached the point where Texans are taking this a lot more seriously than I am.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: In his later years, Friedman continued to perform for small audiences in clubs and coffeehouses.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: He made friends easily and was always invited on to radio shows and podcasts,
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: especially to banter with shock jocks like Don Imus and Howard Stern.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: He also backed plenty of big-hearted causes.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Friedman and his sister continued to run their parents' summer camp,
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: which they offered free of charge to children of parents killed while serving in
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: the U.S.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: military.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: He also founded a ranch for rescue animals.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe one big key to Friedman's appeal was never taking himself too seriously.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: With a name like Kinky, he once said, you should be famous or else it's a social embarrassment.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Kinky Friedman, a boomer who in his youth...
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: was not afraid to rattle the china shop, gone at age 79.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: He reminds me a little bit of Randy Newman, who was born almost in the same year.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: I believe Randy Newman was born in 1943, Kinky in 1944.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: As always,
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: let me remind you,
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: if you like this podcast,
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead and share it with your friends and family and repost it on social media.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, only some episodes will remain free.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should take a moment to clarify the listeners that this podcast isn't
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: all we do on Substack,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: but we also put out lots of written content under the name of Demography Unplugged.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we break down,
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: everything that matters to demography,
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: the economy,
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: generational trends.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Neil.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I always take this time to tell our listeners to check out some of our written work.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we often look at opinion polls of Americans.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: And last week we did an interesting piece on how U.S.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: patriotism is down near record lows.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you know, no wonder.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, look around.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: People aren't terribly thrilled.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter which side you're on politically with where the country is headed.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that's something we talk about as well.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into today's podcast.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot to talk about, Christian.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: We always do.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to give us market news first,
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: but let me just summarize a little bit where we're going to go.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Domestically, we've got the big story.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: No surprise here.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: The Democratic Party remains in turmoil following new polls showing a growing lead
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: for Trump and in the aftermath of Biden's poor debate performance on June 27th.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: We also have the Supreme Court coming out with a lot of rulings, right?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: This is the time of year.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: The Supreme Court has ruled that U.S.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: presidents have partial immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: committed during their tenure.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And another big one,
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: the Supreme Court has also overruled the doctrine of Chevron deference,
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: which previously gave executive agencies wide latitude to interpret the will of Congress.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: Moving abroad, lots of stuff was going on.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: In last week's general election in the UK,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: the Labour Party emerged victorious after delivering to the Conservatives the worst
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: defeat they have ever suffered,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: at least in seats lost in their 190-year history.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then moving right along,
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: we have the second round of France's general election,
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: where the coalition of left-wing parties called the New Popular Front surprised
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: everyone by coming in first,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: followed closely by Macron's Ensemble,
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: and finally by Le Pen's National Rally.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: In the EU Parliament,
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: the right-wing ID coalition has dissolved and a new and larger Patriots for Europe
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: coalition has emerged and now making this right-wing group the third largest group
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: in the EU Parliament.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure he'll talk about that.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And finally,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: in Iran,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: the so-called reformist candidate Massoud Pesachian won the national election
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: called to replace President Ibrahim Raisi,
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: who died recently in a helicopter crash.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe we actually covered Raisi's life two or three episodes ago.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, Christian, you can dive into finances and everything else.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, today the S&P closed up 1.02% and over the last five market days is up 1.75%.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Global Dow not looking as good, but still positive.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: That closed today up 0.64% and over the last five market days is up 0.73%.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: As for the VIX, that closed today at 12.87.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's been around that range for the last week or so.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as for the 10-year Treasury, that is at 4.285%, down 7.9 basis points over the last five days.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, look, you're probably going to talk a little bit about indicators.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure the PMIs are coming in,
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: which I think explains what,
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: at least for the moment,
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: is giving the markets a rally.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Looks like the economy is slowing down a bit.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: And as you know,
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: the short-term impact of that is always positive for the markets because it's going
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: to tell the Fed to start cutting,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil, let's move on to indicators for the U.S.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We have June non-farm payrolls, which came in at 206,000.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: That was slightly below May's reading, but above expectations.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: The unemployment rate, that slightly increased to 4.1%.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we do have these final PMIs for June.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I will say,
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: Neil,
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: what's interesting is you're seeing this divergence between the S&P and the ISM readings.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the S&P PMIs for June, those all rose.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing rose from 51.3 to 51.6.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: And services rose from 54.8 to 55.3.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we have a different story with the ISM PMIs.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing slightly fell from 48.7 to 48.6.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then services, Neil, this was the big news.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It fell from 53.8 to 48.8.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's a large that's a massive decline.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it is.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we have the the tale of two PMIs.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe the services PMI, the ISM, it's been below 50 on two out of the last three months.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, it's very different with the S&P Global.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way,
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: on the employment indicators,
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: and we're going to talk about that later in the month when we do our,
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: we're going to go back to our All About the Indicators,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: but we have the tale of two different employment indicators,
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_01: The CES Establishment Survey,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: still looking strong,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: and the CPS Household Survey,
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_01: continuing to look anemic.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: And in fact, year over year, the CPS employment count
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: is about down to zero.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's like 0.12% year over year.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: We've never seen anything like that, except right before a recession.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And you did mention the growing unemployment rate.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Two of the big short-term measures we use, looking at sort of, you know,
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: uh recession probabilities is year-over-year unemployment uh that is down uh up uh
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: across our threshold and the um the psalm rule this is uh dubbed by claudia psalm
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: uh and i think we've talked about it right a few few months ago she was crowing and
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: saying uh you know there's no reason to worry about the psalm rule
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she was just quoted a few days ago saying, you know, we really this might be dangerous, right?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because here's some rule.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can see basically it's the most recent unemployment minus the lowest
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: unemployment rate,
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: recorded over the past year is climbing right up also to that recession warning threshold.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: So things are looking more interesting right on the on the employment front.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And the whole question is, yeah, things are slowing down.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: as always,
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: you don't want the you don't want the bad news to be really bad news and you don't
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: want to slow down too much.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure Chairman Powell's thinking about that a lot this week.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe he's also addressing Congress this week, too, isn't he?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll stay tuned to that message as well.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Anything internationally?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have some final PMIs.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: We have some from the Eurozone, Neil.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Services fell 53.2 to 52.8, but still positive.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: But manufacturing, that fell from 47.3 to 45.8.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's quite negative.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: Also, if we go over to China, we have the NBS June PMIs.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: These are mostly looking at large state-owned companies.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing stayed steady at 49.5.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: That marks four months of contraction.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: And non-manufacturing fell from 51.1 to 50.5.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so just slight expansion there going.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Very good.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let's plunge into it.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: I know we have a lot to talk about on the domestic front, so you better get started.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil, let's start with an update on the poll numbers for the 2024 election.