Latest / Trend Watch / Episode 35: Childless Cat Ladies, Term Limits, and Israeli Airstrikes

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Episode 35: Childless Cat Ladies, Term Limits, and Israeli Airstrikes · 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 31st, 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: Christian, as always, how was your week?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: My week's been good, Neil.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've been enjoying watching the Olympics.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I like watching those extreme sports you don't usually get to watch, though.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: the surfing and skateboarding.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: Any particularly new sport that's just been introduced?
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the street-style skateboarding, I do like to watch that one.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's only been here for two Olympics,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: but there's some usually pretty giant falls and it can be quite dramatic.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, so this is a little bit like a stock car racing.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're waiting for the accidents.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I understand.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate that.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as usual, let's start with our farewells.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And today, we really only have one worthy of note.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And many of our older listeners will recognize this one.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: That is William Calley Jr.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: William Calley Jr.,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: the second lieutenant who ordered his platoon to kill all the inhabitants of the
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: village of My Lai in Vietnam.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: He died last week at age 80.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: Calley was born in 1943, making him a very first cohort boomer in Miami, Florida.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: His father was a U.S.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Navy veteran.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: After high school,
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: he enrolled in a local junior college,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: but dropped out after failing most of his classes.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: He later worked at various odd jobs.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: He was a bellhop, a dishwasher, a salesman, a train lineman, before enrolling in the U.S.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Army in 1966.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not long after basic training, he applied for OCS, Officer Training School.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: and was admitted, surprisingly enough, I might add.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: After 26 weeks of training at Fort Benning,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: he became a newly minted second lieutenant and was sent to Hawaii.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: And from there, he was deployed in Vietnam in December 1967.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, that would have been just about a month and a half before the Tet Offensive.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Only about three months later,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: this 24-year-old second lieutenant led his platoon into the coastal village of My
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Lai and soon began ordering his men to rape,
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: mutilate and ultimately kill everyone in the village.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: What followed has been called the largest massacre of civilians by U.S.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: forces in the 20th century.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: later claimed there were 347 victims.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: The Vietnamese in a memorial they eventually set up in the village claim 504 victims.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: For nearly a year and a half, the U.S.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: Army covered up the incident.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, that included all kinds of officers, including many who later became famous.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: But soldiers riding home soon stirred up interest in the massacre, and the U.S.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Army brought murder charges against Cali,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: under a court-martial that began in November 1969.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: The media quickly pounced on the story.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly enough, the court-martial was actually begun in secret.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't want anyone to know,
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: but the media picked it up,
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: and after Cowley was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1971,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: The response of the American public further divided a country that was already
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: growing tired and angry about the war.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Large shares of Americans were outraged by the verdict and either felt that Cali
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: wasn't guilty or was being scapegoated by higher up officers.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: And many governors protested,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: including Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter,
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: who called it a blow to American morale.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: It was a strange period.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of disaffection by that time and a lot of animus against the military,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: as many people coming back from Vietnam soon learned.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: There was no thank you for your service back then, Christian.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very different era.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but what was interesting about that period actually was how many people actually defended Galley.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: and said, you know, the whole problem of America, we weren't tough enough in Vietnam.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: we never bombed the dikes of Hai Phong Harbor and,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: down all the list of the things we never did.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as it turned out, Cali never served that sentence.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: After several appeals,
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: overturns and reversals,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: his life term was eventually whittled down to a bit more than three years of house
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: arrest and barracks confinement,
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: which ended in 1974.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: He later married, had a son, was divorced, and then worked for his father-in-law.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Kali never admitted his guilt.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: But in 2009,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_01: at age 66,
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: he gave a speech in a public forum,
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was a Rotary Club or something like that,
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: in which he said,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: there is not a day that goes by that I do not feel remorse for what happened that
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: day in My Lai.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I feel remorse for the Vietnamese who were killed,
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: for their families,
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: for the American soldiers involved and their families.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I am very sorry.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: William Calley, who may have felt remorse at last, dead at age 80.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: O'Neill, you were in Vietnam visiting, right, by the end of the war, around that time?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I was a journalist.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: I was there a bit later.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was there at a very strange time when there were no more Americans left,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: except odd groups like myself.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: We were part of a group of four ranged all around Vietnam back in late 1973, actually.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: And we went everywhere.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: It was very interesting.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell you,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: having sort of looked carefully at Vietnam and having been there and interviewed a
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: lot of people,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: my thoughts about Cali...
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you're interested, Cali was a guilty party.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people say higher ranking officers are responsible.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: I don't believe so.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: I looked at the testimony.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: One particular one was Captain Ernest Medina, who was his immediate superior.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: That was obviously the captain, you know.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: uh of the of the company uh no he was not responsible basically medina said to cali
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: go in there and and um you know take care of the uh take care of the enemy uh and i
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: think it was pretty clear i don't know what sort of shorthand they use but i mean
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: cali said that medina said you know kill everyone in the village which almost
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: everyone uh did not believe medina ever said
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And Cali was a congenital liar.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he lied about a lot of things.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: He lied about his grades in school.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: He was sort of a serial liar.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: I just don't believe Cali.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And also the soldiers under Cali were not unthinking automatons.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Many did, even at great risk, object to what Cali was doing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: And some even sheltered villagers in the jungle,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: actually,
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: just told them to get out of the way.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: Kali, most of all, should never have served as an officer.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: He had very low test scores.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: No one understands how he actually made it in.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: He was unfit emotionally.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: I said he was an habitual liar.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: He was not respected by the troops under him, nor the officers over him.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what's worse, this officer, Christian, with no experience, right?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: was thrown into a hot zone immediately after the Tet Offensive on, you know, on January 30th.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So he wanted to avenge platoon deaths, you know, that his unit had suffered.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: He had no experience whatsoever.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't know what to do.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: So he just took it out on a lot of people.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: The larger problem of troop inexperience and poor leadership was, I think, a real issue in Vietnam.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: The average age of troops was just under 23 years old.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the, you know, privates and corporals were, you know, just 20 year olds.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Think about World War Two where there were, you know, 26 was the average age.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And the big difference was in World War Two and many of these other wars that we think about.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: you were in for the duration, right?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: No one was really coming home,
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: except maybe briefly for R&R or if you got injured,
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: but no one was really coming home until you won.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And the North Vietnamese who were being sent south
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: No one expected them back.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were there until Saigon fell.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: They never came back.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: So they were gaining experience.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: troops were there for a one-year tour of duty.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously, in your last few months, you didn't want to get killed, so you took no risks.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the problem was, as soon as you gained experience, you were removed.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you're perpetually dealing with rotating groups of troops who were relatively inexperienced.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the combination of that was always a problem.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Massacres, obviously, are always a part of war.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: And there was one that I actually did a lot of interviewing.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was in the city of Hue, and I knew French, and so I could interview many of the survivors.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Again, this was fresh in the memory of everyone there at that time.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And during the Tet Offensive,
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: when the VC came into Hue,
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: they executed an estimated 6,000 of the leading citizens.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: They, you know, they were bound and tortured.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: They were often buried alive.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: And these leading citizens, Christian, they spoke French and they were Catholic.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the VC deemed them to be, you know, per se enemies, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: Clearly, they were an enemy minority, right?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't one of the Buddhist peasantry, you know what I mean?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: So they were all deemed expendable, and they were all killed.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Needless to say,
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: there has been no monument built to them,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: but that's because the victors always get to write the history,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: right?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: So the Vietnamese regime is never going to build a monument to them.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: But...
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: But it's like the whole thing was kind of tragic.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: maybe the best thing you can say was it kept a certain area of the world occupied for,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: 10 or 15 years.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: But in the long run, it didn't seem to to make a difference.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we got out.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: But this is a painful memory to a lot of us who remember what went on at that time.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the final irony of this,
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_01: which this was something that really interested me being there at that time,
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: because at that time,
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: the two regime was actually trying to get support at that time.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: The VC were practically all gone.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I knew that because I was often ushered on boats and so on,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: with,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: lit up in the evening up and down these dark rivers.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, no one ever, you know, no one ever shot.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: There were there was no danger at that time.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: It was purely a conventional war,
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: partly because the Tet Offensive proved to be such a devastating failure for the North.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Le Duan at the time, Le Duan was the head of the North Vietnamese government at the time.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: We know because we've gone back and looked at all of the records of the North
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: Vietnamese government,
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: they've sort of made it pretty public.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and he thought that Tet Offensive was like the at the time was the worst
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: failure of the entire war for the North,
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: because basically,
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: basically half of the entire Viet Cong had been massacred.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: in this failed offensive, right?
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And from that time on,
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: uh,
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: the two regime actually got a lot of,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: boosted morale and made a lot of headway in the years after that.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: But at that time, Americans were convinced this was a mistake and began pulling out.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, a lot of, uh, a lot of poor decisions, um, and a lot of, uh,
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: directions or changes in directions that no one appreciated at the time.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway,
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: as always,
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: let me remind you,
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: if you like this podcast,
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead and share it with your friends,
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: family,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: repost it on social media.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, only some episodes will remain free.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think, Christian, you determine that.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not even sure I do.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: or I even know.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: But we should take a moment to clarify to listeners that this podcast isn't all we do on Substack.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: We also put out a lot of written content under the name of Demography Unplugged.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's where we break down demographic, economic, and generational trends.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Neil.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I always say to our listeners to check out some of our written work.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: We've had some interesting pieces lately on public opinions on just how pessimistic
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Americans are on democracy,
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: how down on institutions they are.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, trying to look at it from somewhat fourth turning lens.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd recommend our listeners to go and read some of those pieces.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I agree.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: We have had some good ones there lately.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into today's podcast.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: As always, there's plenty to do.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: We got market news, as usual.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be covering stories from around the world.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Domestic stories this week.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Recent polls showed that the 2024 presidential race between Trump and Harris could be very close.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Biden has unveiled a new proposal to reform the Supreme Court,
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: which Republicans immediately denounced as unconstitutional court packing.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: And he also unveiled a new constitutional amendment that would strip presidents of criminal immunity.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And finally, J.D.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: Vance,
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: Trump's new vice presidential candidate,
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: finds himself in hot water after videos surfaced of him calling Kamala Harris and
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: other top Democrats childless cot ladies.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, we have a touch of demography about it.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get into that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Israel yesterday conducted airstrikes that killed a top leader of Hezbollah in
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Beirut and the top Hamas negotiator in Tehran.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Strikes that may be pushing the Mideast closer to another war.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: The civil war in Mali took a strange and deadly turn when the Russian Wagner Group,
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: working for the Mali government,
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: was ambushed by insurgents helped by Ukraine.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro claims victory over Mario Machado in a national
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: election that the rest of the world widely deems rigged.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And finally,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh continues to crack down on protests with roughly,
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know,
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: somewhere in the range of 20,000 now charged with crimes.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, it's up to you, markets, and let's get into it.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Today, the S&P 500 closed up 1.58%, and over the last five days is up 1.75%.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Global Dow, similar story, closed up today 1.18%, and over the last five days is up 1.47%.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: The VIX closed today at 16.36%.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's slightly below what we've been seeing for the last week.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And as for the 10-year treasury, that is at 4.035%.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Over the last five days, that's down 25.8 basis points.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, everyone's smelling that Fed rate cut, the bond market, and the gold market.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think gold was up, too.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what you'd expect.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: Should we go into indicators?
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: I only have two here for the U.S.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We had the Conference Board Consumer Confidence for July, which rose from 97.8 to 100.3.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: That was slightly above expectations.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: We also got Q2 GDP at an annualized rate, which rose 2.8 percent quarter over quarter.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: OK, not a lot.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: We have coming up in just a couple of days, I think, the Labor Department, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: The employment report.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, we will be paying a lot of attention to that.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_01: And we will do our all about the indicators later this month.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that will be an important component of that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something I look forward to.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: If we go to the Eurozone, Neil, we have Q2 GDP, which rose 0.3% quarter over quarter.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: This reading was slightly above expectations of 0.2%.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: If we look at specific countries,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Germany was negative 0.1%,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Spain positive 0.8%,
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: France positive 0.3%,
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: and Italy positive 0.2%.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: Then if we go over to China, we do have NBS PMIs for July.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing slightly declined from 49.5 to 49.4.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is the third month of contractions.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then we have non-manufacturing, which stayed steady at 50.2.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: That marks 19 months of expansion.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but just barely spent 50.2.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: China's not right.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, China just not getting its engine started.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I have a question for you about Germany.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: What was their last quarter?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Are they back formally in recession again?
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: Where are we on Germany?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have to relook at that, but I actually think it was positive that they had come back out.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: OK, I would have to confirm that, though.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe we should just take the average of the last five quarters and say it's below zero.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, great.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get right into it.