Latest / Trend Watch / Episode 25: Trump on Trial, Johnson Pushes Aid, and Iran Strikes Israel

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Episode 25: Trump on Trial, Johnson Pushes Aid, and Iran Strikes Israel · 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 April 17th, 2024, and this is Trend Watch.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: As usual, I have on my fellow analyst, Christian Ford.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Christian, how was your week?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: My week's been pretty good, Neil.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've just been getting ready for a trip I'm taking tomorrow out to Vegas,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: trying to prepare myself for Sin City.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, just make sure you come back with your tooth.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think don't encounter Mike Tyson there.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: You're getting out of town a lot, Christian.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm beginning to envy you, you know.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: But you plan to have fun out there.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I hope so.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I like to travel, Neil, but it does get a little tiring after a while.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: The world weariness of a millennial.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: We will we'll we'll just dive right in here.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: As usual, we have our our farewells.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: And we have two of them today.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: One silent generation, the other boomer.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: I will start with Robert McNeil, the Canadian-American journalist.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: who redefined TV news by founding the award-winning PBS NewsHour in 1975,
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: then called the Robert McNeil Report,
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: and then anchored the show for 20 years.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's dead at age 93.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Robert McNeil,
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: everyone called him Robin,
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: was born in Montreal in 1931,
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: the son of a well-connected Canadian family.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: his father served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II and later joined
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: the Mounted Police.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: After graduating college in 1955, McNeil went to London.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: and that we wanted to be an actor or novelist,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: he saw that the only quick way he could make a career out of words was by being a journalist,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: first for ITV,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: then Reuters,
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: and then for NBC News in Washington and New York City.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's when he came to America.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: And while working for NBC,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: he had a unique experience during his coverage of JFK's trip to Dallas.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: In 1963, as a 32-year-old reporter, the assassination of JFK unfolded directly in front of him.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And when he headed toward the nearest building, and he wanted to file a story, right?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: So he headed to the nearest building and saw a young man leaving the Texas school book depository.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: He asked the man where the nearest telephone was.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in those days, you had to phone in your story, right?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, God.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: Only later did he realize that was Lee Harvey Oswald.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a good story, you know, for a betting journalism career.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: McNeil's reputation rose.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the late 60s, he covered American and European politics for the BBC.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: In the early 70s, he hosted the U.S.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: discussion show Washington Week in Review, which I still think is on, right?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Still running for PBS.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: where he rose to fame for his coverage of the Watergate hearings, and often alongside Jim Lehrer.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: In 1975,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: he and Lehrer together created the PBS Daily Evening News show,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: the McNeil,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: it was first called the Robert McNeil Report,
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: and soon renamed the McNeil-Lehrer Report,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: the name it had for years and years,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: and eventually expanded to a one-hour format in 1983.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: After McNeil retired from his daily appearances in 1995,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Jim Lehrer anchored the show solo until 2011,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: after which it became known as the PBS NewsHour,
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: anchored in more recent years by Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill and many others since.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: the McNeil-Lehrer report transformed journalism and along the way won every
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: journalism award imaginable.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: Before it came along,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: the GI generation,
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: no-nonsense baritone anchors like Walter Cronkite and Eric Seberide and Daniel
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: Shore defined radio and TV news shows as news delivered as a series of bullet points,
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: terse,
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: authoritative,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: objective,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: all delivered in simple sentences,
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: usually followed by Walter Cronkite's,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: and that's the way it is,
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: But after the 60s and Watergate had washed over America,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: the emerging silent generation wanted something different for high-end audiences.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Something more educated, complex, discursive, open-ended, even with a bit of wry humor.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was a show in which experts were invited on who could disagree with each other.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: And yet also, and this came before the opinionated...
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: boomer culture warriors and shock jocks,
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: where the conversation was always genteel and where everyone respected everyone
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: else's opinion.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: You could say that McNeil did for political news what Louis Rukeyser,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: who was born just two years after,
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: just after McNeil,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: did for financial news.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: That was Washington Week in Review.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: This is all before your time, Matt.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: But these were very cultivated, decorous shows and where everyone was very polite with each other.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there was always a slight bit of slight bit of humor in the show.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: I recall in my youth being endlessly entertained and educated by the McNeil-Alaire News Hour.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: And when I look back, I see what was really best in the silent generation's contribution to news.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Journalists who were knowledgeable enough to know that the world's problems were
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: exceedingly complex and difficult,
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: but also had enough faith in our institutions never to lose confidence that our
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: country would prevail.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: As McNeil grew older,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: he realized that his generation's good government approach to public affairs often
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: was derided as naive and credulous and idiotic by younger boomers.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And upon retiring,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: he said this,
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Every journalist in this country has a stake in the democratic system working,
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: and I think institutions of democracy are worth taking seriously today.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a very old-fashioned,
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: corny view,
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: but Jim and I both feel that that strongly,
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: which is one of the reasons our show is the way it is.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: My readers will know that I often characterize the silent as belonging to the
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: artist generational archetype.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: McNeill filled this bill as well.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: He loved the beat culture of the late 1950s,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: and for most of his life,
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: he was a frustrated fiction writer until finally in his retirement,
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: he managed to write several novels.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: He was also a longtime board member of the McDowell Colony,
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: or just McDowell,
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: a group of artists,
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: well,
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: a sort of artist residency program and commune in Peterborough,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: New Hampshire.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there you have it, Robin McNeill, dead at age 93.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: We will go down one generation now to boomers, to OJ Simpson.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yes,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: the famous all-star USC and NFL running back who was later tried for murder in a
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: spectacle that riveted America in 1994.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: He passed away last week at age 76.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: OJ was an early boomer.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: He was born in 1947 and raised by his mom after divorcing his dad in San Francisco's low-income projects.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like many African Americans of his generation,
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: his parents had migrated to California during World War II from the South.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: O.J.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: 's maternal parents were from Louisiana.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: His aunt gave him the name Orenthal for Orenthal James Simpson.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So he was always called OJ, and he didn't actually know his name until he was in third grade.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there you have it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: As a teen,
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: he joined street gangs,
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: had several encounters with the courts,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: but he straightened out after entering high school and discovering his incredible
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: talents in track and field and football.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: He entered City College in San Francisco in 1965,
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: and after gaining public attention for what he could do as running back,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: transferred to USC in 1966.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it was there at USC where he became a running legend,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: winning national rushing titles in both years,
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: coming close to breaking several track records in the sprint.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: In 1968,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: he won the Heisman,
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: and I personally recall watching his performance at the end of that year in USC's
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: Rose Bowl.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was against Ohio State, which usually was the team that the West Coast teams always played.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: After graduating as a top-ranked NFL recruit, OJ was, of course, drafted by the NFL's worst team, right?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Which always happens, which at that time was the Buffalo Bills.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where he pretty much languished for the next 10 years of his life,
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: playing very well,
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: but for a team that never was going to go anywhere.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: Reminds me a little bit of Barry Sanders playing for Detroit Lions in the 90s.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Meanwhile, however, O.J.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: was beginning to make a career for himself in acting,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: starting with various third or fourth lead roles,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: working himself up to bigger roles.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: He was starred in Roots, Towering Inferno, Capricorn One.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Have you seen any of those movies, Christian?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I have actually seen Capricorn One.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to say, Neil, I don't think I can give it that good of a review.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely not.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: That will definitely not an Academy Award winner there.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: He also starred in those ubiquitous Hertz rental car commercials with everyone
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: around him saying,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: go,
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: OJ,
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: go.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And after retiring, he became an NFL commentator on Monday Night Football.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: He was considered a great on-air attraction.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: He was good looking.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: amiable, charismatic.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Then,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: came the night in 1994 when OJ's ex-wife,
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Nicole Brown Simpson,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: was found brutally murdered along with her friend Ron Goldman.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: The circumstantial evidence seemed to lead overwhelmingly to OJ as the perpetrator of
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: along with his famous attempt to flee the scene in a white Bronco,
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: which was watched by tens of millions of Americans looking through the camera.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it was, you know, the cameras in a police helicopter.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: The trial turned out to be a celebrity circus for anyone who remembers those moments.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone who was kind of sentient in 1994.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest media event of the year,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: if not the entire 1990s,
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Simpson was defended by a dream team of attorneys who all enjoyed the celebrity of
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: the trial,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: This is Johnny Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, Alan Dershowitz.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Kardashian.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that Kardashian, the father of Kim Kardashian.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: There he was in the courtroom, right?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: All there, right?
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: As we all know, too, Christian Simpson was acquitted to quote Johnny Cochran's famous words.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: If the glove don't fit, you must acquit.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: But since most Americans thought he was guilty, Simpson's public reputation was permanently ruined.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: All his media income came to an
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: in Santa Monica unanimously found Simpson guilty of murder against Goldman and
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: battery against Brown,
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: resulting in huge damages,
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: most of which O.J.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: never paid.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Then came the incredible book that O.J.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: wrote with a ghostwriter called If I Did It, Confessions of a Killer.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you remember that book.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's probably my, honestly, my first memories of O.J.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: because I was, I don't know, maybe like 10 or 11 when that came out.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when I probably first heard about the case.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And which was never actually published.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: And clearly no one really wanted to take responsibility for this thing.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And after that came more scandal.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Simpson's 2007 effort to break into a Las Vegas hotel with armed accomplices to steal some memorabilia.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: a crime which landed Simpson in prison on a 33-year sentence with eligibility for parole in nine years.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: Simpson was set free from prison in 2017.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: He was discharged from parole in 2021, less than three years before dying of prostate cancer last week.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Christian, OJ's story is a terrible story, really, of greatness and glamour gone wrong.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: His life's key turning point, his 1994 trial, also looks forward in so many ways to present day America.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, think about polarization, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It turns out during the trial that most whites,
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: especially conservative whites,
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: thought he was guilty,
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: hands down.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Most blacks, when surveyed, thought he was innocent.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: Two Americas, each seeing the case differently, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I really struck people at the time.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: How could you have two different America?
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think we're very used to that today.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: I think it also prefigured today's postmodern idea that attitudes are more important than facts.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Post-factualism, you might say.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Many viewers thought that OJ Simpson shouldn't be on trial, but rather white America should be on trial.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: If Officer Mark Foreman was a racist,
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: then that ought to be the focus of our attention,
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: not as incriminating evidence.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: If O.J.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: 's violence was a sign of his suppressed rage rising to the surface at having to
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: act white in a white society,
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: then that ought to be the focus of our attention.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, today we would be talking about O.J.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: 's lived experience, right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's interesting.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: This is the first trial I can recall where we talked about that, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Perspectivalism, right?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: How does it look from the viewpoint of different parties?
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And finally,
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: and this sort of twist progresses the other way,
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that the OJ trial prefigured our concern today with toxic masculinity
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: and specifically with brutal spousal abuse.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: It surfaced during the trial, Christian, that OJ beat up Nicole regularly while they were married.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: Police were summoned to their house eight times and many more times after they were divorced.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: It also surfaced that even after multiple bruises and contusions,
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_01: Nicole's victimization never triggered any police action.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: In the years following the trial, according to the L.A.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Times,
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: police often have heard husbands telling their spouses,
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to OJ you and getting their wives to think,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: oh,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: my God,
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be the next Nicole.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So here you have yet another lived experience.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: That of Nicole Brown Simpson.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: If Nicole were alive today, perhaps she would be sharing her stories with the Me Too movement.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the story of OJ Simpson.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: A bit like Forrest Gump and so many other boomers, but in his case with a violent twist, O.J.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: stood at the center of the biggest social and cultural changes America has
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: experienced over the post-war era.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Last week, he was dead at age 76.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: As always,
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: let me remind you,
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: if you like this podcast,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead and share it with your friends and family.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Repost it on social media.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, we're going to make only a few episodes free.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Christian,
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should take a moment to clarify to listeners that this podcast isn't all
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: we do on Substack,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: but we also put out a lot of written content under the name Demography Unplugged,
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: where we break down demographic,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: economic,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: and generational trends.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Neil.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just today we actually released a new written piece on different demographic news
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: that has come out in the last week.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some really great stories in there about Japan's population declining quickly.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: We also look at divorces in the U.S.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Are they actually declining?
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's the story behind that?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I really recommend to all of our listeners to go read some of our written work.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, one great story.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was the little factoid, which is pretty easy to deduce when you just did the arithmetic.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: But Japan's population is declining by about 100 people every hour.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting to think about, right?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into today's podcast.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: As always, we have so much to talk about, so little time.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: First, we've got market news.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: Then we'll be covering stories from around the world.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Here are just a few of them coming up.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: Speaker Michael Johnson to vote on aid to Israel and Ukraine, probably this week, it looks like.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Biden plans to issue a bold executive order on immigration.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: We just don't know quite what it is.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: We might talk about Section 212F of the 1952 Immigration and Nationality Act.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: Trump's criminal trial in New York on hush money accounting.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: This is, I guess they're selecting jurors, right?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk a bit about that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: What's the story behind that trial?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: The Supreme Court seems to take a dim view of the obstruction of official
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: proceedings law used to convict many of the January 6th rioters.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: This could have implications for federal prosecutor Jack Smith,
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: his strategy for going after Donald Trump later this year.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to talk a little bit about Biden versus Trump national poll,
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: New York Times,
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Siena College,
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: which was ended on a somewhat better note for Biden,
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: I recall,
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: last week,
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: the Iran missile attack on Israel.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: A new prime minister in Singapore, a new election in South Korea.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I hope we get time to talk a little bit about how many governments in Europe
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: are moving to restrict hormone treatments for adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's a tall order, Christian.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: I hope we get to it all.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: Let's dive right in with the markets.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: The S&P 500 closed down today 0.58%.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last five market days is down 2.68%.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: A little bit different story with the global Dow.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: That closed down today only 0.2%.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last five market days is down 2.77%.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: As for the VIX, that closed at 18.23, which is definitely higher than what we have been seeing.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as for the 10-year Treasury, that is at 4.59%, up 3.5 basis points over the last five days.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: VIX is going up.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_01: The 10-year is going up.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: And most of what's been going up this past week is actually the real interest rate,
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: not the inflation expectations,
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: not the 10-year breakeven.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: But
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually beginning to go up today.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: I did notice the overall yields were actually down slightly today.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: But clearly, the news on inflation is spooking owners of long-term bonds, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's really doing a number on long-term rates.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's obviously in the process pushing up short-term rates today.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: slightly decreasing the yield curve inversion, but mainly it's just pushing that whole curve up.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it's really making equities holders nervous and they're wondering how they
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: should price the returns on these things.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing like higher discount rates to get people to think that maybe the whole
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: market should be priced a little lower.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: So any economic indicators this week?
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, for the U.S., we have preliminary Michigan consumer sentiment for April.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: That actually fell, Neil, from 79.4 to 77.9.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Both current conditions and expectations declined.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: We also had retail sales for March,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: which actually rose 0.7% month over month,
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: which was higher than expectations.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had the New York Empire State Manufacturing Index,
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: which rose from negative 20.9 in March to negative 14.3 in April,
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: although it was a rise that still counts as five consecutive months of contraction.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and probably 20 months out of the last 24 or something like that.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean...
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: And it is one of those puzzles, right?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: All these Fed regional manufacturing indexes have been so negative,
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: even though the S&P and the ISM,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: seem to be more positive now.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll cover that, well, closer to the end of the month.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil, I have just two international for you as well.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Over in China,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: we had Q1 GDP for 2024,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: which grew at 5.3% year over year,
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: which exceeded forecasts and was the steepest yearly expansion we have seen since
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: Q2 2023.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: Then in the Eurozone, we had economic sentiment for April, which rose from 33.5% in March to 43.9%.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that is actually the highest reading we have seen since February 2022.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely expectations are up in Europe.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, as for the China figure, it's all through inflation.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: they just take the nominal GDP and they kind of deflate it just enough to kind of
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: get it close to five.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: call me a cynic but i think that's how they do it all right let's move on to our
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: first story neil speaker johnson has released his plan for the house to vote on
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: military aid the house will vote on four separate bills one for ukraine one for
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: israel and one for taiwan the last last bill is this national security kind of
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: catch-all proposal that includes you know using seized russian assets to pay for
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: the aid making some of the aid into loans and adding new sanctions onto iran