Latest / Trend Watch / Episode 40: Trump & Harris Double Down on the Culture Wars | Are We Nearing Peak Human Life Expectancy?

Transcript

Episode 40: Trump & Harris Double Down on the Culture Wars | Are We Nearing Peak Human Life Expectancy? · 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 October 9th, 2024, and this is Trend Watch.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: As usual, I have on my fellow analyst, Christian Ford.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, Christian, how was your week?
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty good, Neil.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I went to the National Archives for the first time and saw all of our founding documents,
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: saw the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's great.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure it was climate controlled.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: And unlike so many people who live in Washington, D.C., you actually go to the local attractions.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: When I lived there,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: most of the people never actually went to the National Art Gallery of the
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Smithsonian or any of those things.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, they're free, and I was not expecting to see.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: They actually have one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kind of a long and rangy document.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the thing about habeas corpus is like only, you know, 209 or something like that on the list.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Other things were about fish wares.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: And as I recall, it's a strange document.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you did see the Declaration of Independence.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, they had that.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: They also have the Bill of Rights.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it all.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's interesting.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: The Declaration of Independence is very faded,
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: but the Constitution,
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: you can still read the words on that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: if you had been to P.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Diddy's party in 2004,
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: his July White Party in Bridgehampton,
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: Long Island,
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: you would have actually seen it there,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: too,
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: because as I...
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: As we all know now,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: now that he's in jail,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: that he actually was able to bring along an original copy to his party,
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: which is kind of,
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: I read that and I thought,
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: what?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it turned out that three armed security guards chaperoned the document throughout the evening.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Well, wow.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Does that mean it's like for hire?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: All I know is I'm glad I wasn't there.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, aren't we all?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we now know what sort of happened at those white parties.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, excellent.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to get to it.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: As always,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: let me remind all of you listeners,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: if you like this podcast,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: share it with friends and family,
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: repost it on social media.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: We will still have occasional episodes free.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: And Christian,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think we should take a moment to tell listeners that this podcast isn't all we do
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: on Substack.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: We also put out written content under the name of Demography Unplugged.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where we break down demographic, economic, and generational trends.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And actually,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think in this episode,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: we'll be covering a few demographic subjects,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: right,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: as we get into it.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we let me let me start off by just telling people what we're going to
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: cover and then you can come back with the markets and we can go to it domestically.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: The 2024 campaign for the presidency appears to be neck and neck with betting odds
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: virtually even and each side doubling down on emotional ads.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're going to talk a little bit about that.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: As Hurricane Milton barrels into Tampa Bay this afternoon,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: the federal response to weather emergencies is itself becoming a hot election issue.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: According to a new CDC report, the U.S.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: obesity rate has stopped rising in 2023 and may have even declined after having
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: risen with hardly any interruptions for the last 40 years.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking about since the early 1980s, right?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So interesting.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then finally,
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: according to a study led by one of America's leading gerontologists,
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: improvements to life expectancy are slowing down around the world,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: suggesting,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: he thinks,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: this is Jay Olshansky,
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: that maximum lifespan may never get much higher than it is today.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: We'll certainly kind of talk through different ways of looking at that conclusion.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Internationally,
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: as Iran waits to see how Israel will retaliate for the October 1st missile attack,
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: the Israeli defense forces ramp up their invasion of southern Lebanon.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Optimism about China's economic stimulus measures may be cooling as investors await
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: the PRC's next big bazooka,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: hopefully a fiscal bazooka.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: 100 days after becoming Britain's new prime minister,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: Keir Starmer is suffering from a steep and early popularity decline,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: according to polls.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And finally,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: by offering the Maldives large financial subsidies,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: India hopes to bring these islands back under its own influence after they
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: threatened to switch their allegiance to China.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this is a follow up from an earlier story we've been covering.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, you can dive into the markets today.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil, the S&P 500 rose 0.71% today and over the last five market days is up 1.44%.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: As for the global Dow, that closed up 0.48%.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But over the last five days is down 0.06%, mostly almost flat.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: As for the VIX, that closed today at 20.87%.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty high from what we have been seeing.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, pretty high.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was a record high today, right?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: For the year?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: For just the S&P.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just trying to think.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: So how often do you have a record high and a VIX of over 20?
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: We could count the days.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, go on.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to end with that the 10-year Treasury was at 4.074%,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: up 29 basis points over the last five days.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we got a hotter economy.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I know the next thing you're going to talk about, it's hotter PMIs.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, just like last week, we talked about hotter NFP numbers, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so we have the September service PMIs.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: We hadn't had that last week.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: S&P came up with a slight rise, came in at 55.7, quite high.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And the ISM showed a large rise from 51.5 in August to 54.9 in September.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's the strongest growth we have seen since February 2023.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I actually don't think we talked about those non-farm payrolls.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Walls last week, Neil, but as you were saying, they hit 254,000.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was way above expectations and the highest reading we have seen in six months.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: I might say,
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: too,
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: that the last three months have seen some of the highest deficit spending numbers.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: We actually are not covering in this episode the new CBO report on the end of this
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: fiscal year,
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: which shows,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I believe,
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: it's an annual net deficit.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: I should just say increase in debt held by the public of something like 6.7% of GDP.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: At the top of the business cycle.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how's that for stimulus?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we could maybe send some of that to China.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we seem to have no problem doing stimulus.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think we have an expertise that they don't.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Namely, going into debt.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I do wonder, actually, a little bit seriously, whether, look, this is an election year, right?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you want the indicators to look good.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You just want to keep aggregate demand at its peak.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can add the hangover after the election, right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So what else?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Anything abroad?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We only have one real reading from abroad.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have Eurozone services again for September.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that fell from 52.9 to 51.4.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And while that still marks growth,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Neil,
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: it's the weakest expansion the Eurozone has seen in seven months.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yes,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: and let me just add to the euro pessimism by noting that the German economy,
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: according to the economics minister,
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: is projected to decline overall in 2024 before the end of the year.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: I do believe they're projecting another bad quarter coming up.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it's interesting, if you look back in Germany today,
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Really,
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: since the fourth quarter of 2022,
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: you see negative,
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: slightly positive,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: negative,
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: slightly positive.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Another big negative, slightly positive, negative.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing about Germany.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: They always manage to avoid a technical recession, right?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you look at the last, what, two and a half years, they've really been in a recession, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, contracting overall GDP continuously.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you sort of wonder, gee, might that explain why Germany's politics are getting a little radical?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: So very much a tale of two continents here, Europe versus America.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, very good.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: What else have we got?
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Anything?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we'll just start with our first story here.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Let's plunge in.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: All right, Neil.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with an election update looking at where we stand in the polls.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then after,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: we'll look at how the candidates are,
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: what issues they're focusing on on their advertisements.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: if you look at the RCP average of betting odds,
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Trump has actually taken the lead by four percentage points.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: But then if you look at the poll average, Harris leads by two.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: You look at the swing states, they're still pretty neck and neck, especially Pennsylvania.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some polls put Trump a little bit ahead.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Others put Harris ahead.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you think it stands?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Are we neck and neck?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think Trump's starting to get that kind of October surge that we've seen in the past?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think, obviously, some of the futures bettors are beginning to see that.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: The RCP average of betting odds is now 53% for Trump, 47% for Harris.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: That is the largest Trump average betting margin since September 9, which is 30 days ago.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that still is, in any reasonable universe, a 50-50 election.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: As I've said before,
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: how many times did you have to flip a coin that was biased 53 to 47 before you knew
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: it was...
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a fair flip.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: You probably have to flip it a couple hundred times at least.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, something like that.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: You get my point.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: But here's what I think the signs are.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you look at all of the
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: averages in the national polls.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Harris is still ahead, but the trend in most of them is slightly narrower for Harris's lead.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: The one that's slightly wider for Harris is the upshot.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: But you look at so many of these others, 538, the Hill, RCP, Cook, Boatheb, race to the White House.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: They all show a somewhat narrower lead for Harris.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's not where she needs to be.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've talked about that before.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Harris needs a
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: a little bit more, right, nationally to win.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: The Quinnipiac poll,
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: which is a highly rated poll,
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: occurring to most people who,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: Nate Silver and all the other people who do this kind of work,
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: it was very interesting.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: It was a poll in three battleground states, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, it showed Harris ahead by three points in Pennsylvania,
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: But Trump ahead in Michigan by three points and ahead in Wisconsin by two points.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: And well, that's kind of interesting.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Haven't seen that really recently in the battleground RCP.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: They do a battleground average.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Pennsylvania is now leading in their average poll by point two percent.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's the first.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: lead that Trump has had in Pennsylvania since August.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Harris is ahead in Wisconsin by 0.5 percentage points,
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: but that's the smallest lead that Harris has had in Wisconsin since late July.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And in Michigan, according to RCP, Trump is ahead by 0.5%.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's the biggest lead since July 25th.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: That was only about three days after Biden quit the race.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: OK, so do you understand kind of where the betters are kind of getting something here?
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I would look at it.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's a momentum game.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's a little bit like when Harris was rising.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone said, well, more of that's going to come.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: So they they bet accordingly.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: But but we're going to see.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Let's get into some more of the actual issues they're talking about because there's
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: been a lot of discussion about the types of ads they're running.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you see both of the candidates are really emphasizing these emotional culture war issues.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Harris has had a lot of ads largely focusing on abortion.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: They feature clips of Trump from early in the year saying that he was the one who
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: ended Roe versus Wade and he was proud to do it.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the other hand, you have Trump focusing on a large number of anti-trans ads.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: He actually has this one that's been playing during Sunday football games that
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: features a 2019 clip of Harris saying she supports gender-affirming surgery for
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: state and federal prisoners.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Neil,
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: what do you make of this play at these emotional culture war issues this close to
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: the end of the election?