Latest / Trend Watch / Episode 42: Trump Wins

Transcript

Episode 42: Trump Wins · 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 November 6th, 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?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: How was Washington, D.C.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: at a time of, I don't know, at a time of our four-year election?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Washington, Washington, D.C.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: is pretty quiet right now, Neil.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll say over the last few weeks, they have definitely upped the security.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot more fencing put around all the government buildings.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're using bike racks as barriers.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you do just there's been this feeling over the last week or so just kind of.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: tension and anxiety?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: I guess that was based on experience and based on people's fears.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I know I lived in the Washington area for some 30 years.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: The biggest single change I recall over the entire time I lived there was growing
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: partisanship and growing security.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: When I first came in the 1980s,
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the buildings, congressional buildings, White House and so on, had very little security.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: You could walk right up to them.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing like that.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing like that now.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, one big change was before and after 9-11.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I think another change has been in recent years.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's cops everywhere.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you go to any of the Capitol buildings or just walking around.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, bike racks, that's a good idea.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: I knew they would come in handy for something.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So as always,
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: let me remind you,
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: all of you listeners,
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: if you like this podcast,
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: please go ahead and share it with friends and family.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: Repost it on social media.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: From now on, some episodes are free, some are not.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Christian, I think we should take a moment to clarify to listeners that this podcast isn't all we do.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: We also put out written content under the name of Demography Unplugged.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, Neil.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: earlier this week,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: we actually posted one of our By the Numbers where we look at the latest
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: demographic news from around the world because,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: we are a demography outfit here.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this week, we really looked at fertility news coming out.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: we had quarterly data from the U.S.,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: which interestingly showed that black and white TFR has now really converged at 1.54.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: We also looked at how U.K.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: fertility hit a new low.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Australia hit a new low.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Malaysia actually saw a surprising rise last year.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we go into a lot of the drivers behind these trends.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I recommend listeners go and check out our latest piece.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, certainly...
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: The story of demography recently has been a lot of new lows,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: and we are coming out soon with a large global report.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: One thing we do every year where we look at, I don't know, how many slides is that going to have in it?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's going to have, I don't know, close to 100.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Close to 100.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: So that's going to be using all the latest UN data from 2024 data.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get into today's podcast.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: We have a lot to talk about, and this is a very special day, obviously.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: We just had the election.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like we have a presidency, the White House changing parties, a new president.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: We have the Senate control has changed parties, and it looks like it could be the House as well.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a big victory for Donald Trump.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's enough for us, right?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: We want to examine all aspects of this event,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: what it means for domestic policy,
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_01: what it means for the economy,
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: for the budget,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: immigration,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: what it means for foreign policy.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: We can go around the world and
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think that really makes sense to do.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: And also look a little bit at what we found out about the turnout.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: This morning, we had something which went out to everyone at Demography Unplugged.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: We did a show on our first read of the of the election on Wednesday morning,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: but we're going to go into it a little bit more depth,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: hopefully.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of what we're going to do.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's isn't that enough?
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think, Christian?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want me to start with markets, Neil?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you want to get those out of the way.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: And this was really the culminating,
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: the last day was really the culminating 24 hours of the Trump trade,
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: which really started about a month ago.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And man, did we see a lot happen at the last minute.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: The S&P closed up 2.53%.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last five days, it's up 1.98%.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Global Dow was positive but didn't do as well.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: It closed up today 0.72%.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last five days, it's up 0.97%.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: As for the VIX, that came down.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's now at 16.37%.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And as for the 10-year Treasury, that is at 4.44%, up 13.5 basis points over the last five days.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, kind of amazing.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you didn't mention some other particular aspects of the Trump trade, right?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Peso down by nearly 2.5% since yesterday evening.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: The Chinese won down one point three percent.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Bitcoin soaring, obviously, in anticipation of a new administration changing the rules there.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know, dollar rep.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: uh equities up uh the long bond down this is all what we'd expect right uh the only
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: thing that was a little strange is gold down and i realized gold is one of those
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: odd assets it serves many different functions um but but obviously to the extent it
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: serves a as a protection against inflation that kind of goes uh a little bit uh
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: crosswise against uh
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: following 10-year bond prices.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: So what else do we have?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Last week, I think we also had plenty of economic indicators, didn't we?
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: From the U.S., we had Q3 GDP, which was up 2.8% quarter over quarter.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's slightly down from the 3% rise we saw in Q2.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: We also had the October non-farm payrolls, which came in at 12,000.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was well below the forecast of 112,000.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the media narrative about that is that this low number was caused by the
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: hurricanes and strikes at Boeing.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: A little hard to say how much of an effect those actually had.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: We also had ISM PMIs for October.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing fell to 46.5.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: That was significantly below the forecast of 47.6.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And as for services, that actually rose to 56.0.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the highest reading we have seen since August 2022.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's red hot.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to see we're going to see later this month what impact that's going
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: to have on on,
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: PC and CPI inflation.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: And particularly in light of the Trump trade, you know, people are obviously anticipating
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of borrowing, a lot of spending and and possibly more inflation.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: We may soon have bets that the Fed will have to start hiking again.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's going to be really interesting.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: And obviously,
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: employment is the weakness of employment is something we've been looking at for a
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: long time,
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: for many months now.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to have to see how much of that was just the hurricane and the Boeing strike, right?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: The Boeing strike is now over.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Is that correct?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I believe so.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we'll have to take a look at that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, employment growth is now very slow.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: However, the labor force participation and the employment rate.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: among working age population is still very high.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it's interesting.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: And certainly on our next indicators,
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: we're kind of going to look at that and find out what could explain all of that at
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: the same time.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Is that sustainable?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is that stable and sustainable?
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: So anything abroad?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: In the Eurozone, Q3 GDP grew by 0.4% quarter over quarter.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Spain had the largest growth at 0.8%.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: France was at 0.4%.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And Germany grew by 0.2%.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: Can I just need to ask, is this quarterly or is this annualized?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: Quarterly.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it's not really comparable to U.S., right?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you know, you just think about, you know, the Lilliputians in Europe.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, their GDP growth may be anemic, but not that bad, right?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So you should multiply by four and a little bit more, right?
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: What I was saying, though, was Germany grew by 0.2%, so it technically avoided a recession, right?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if we move on over to China, we have the NBS PMIs for October.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: Manufacturing rose from 49.8 to 50.1.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's the first month of expansion we have seen since April.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And non-manufacturing slightly rose from 50 to 50.2.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, still not a lot happening there.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it's something we're going to talk about later.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, right now, the...
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: The economy managers in China have a lot to think about,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: right,
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: with the new Trump administration coming in.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So we're going to talk about that in a second.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Anything else?
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think we should just go into the election here, Neil.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we just go into the election?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you said at the top, it looks like we have a Trump Trump victory.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And before we really get into the details, Neil, what is your big picture takeaway of this election?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the big picture takeaway is this is a huge political comeback for Trump.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: on a personal level,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: we've never seen anything quite like it in the history of American politics.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of people gave him up for kind of gone after 2020.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_01: There was a year, year and a half where, you know, he didn't really emerge much in public.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: Everyone thought he was washed up.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: We saw Ron DeSantis, you know, believe he could come in and take Trump's place.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: And not to recap everything we already know about.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: But but that was a time in the wilderness for him.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he really did manage to make a comeback.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: I think what he did was he continued to capitalize on a fundamental reality of America today.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And that is how deeply and how large a share of Americans think their country is in deep trouble today.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: is in need of strong new leadership, even a strong man, you know what I mean?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: And someone to take on problems in a way which may go completely against
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: of the establishment's normal way of doing business doesn't matter whether you call
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: it the deep state or not um and uh you know i i just just to get to actually some
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: of the exit polls on this and then we can come back and look at the results but um
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: Harris was a big favorite among those who think the system needs no changes or just minor improvements.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: Trump was a huge favorite among those who think the system needs major changes or needs to be torn down.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's Trump won because of the large share of Americans who are in the second category.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And here's another one I'll just I'll just throw up here.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: The big Harris had big margins among people who who wanted a leader who cares about
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: people like me and who has good judgment.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: Trump had big margins against people who emphasize the ability to lead and
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: and the ability to bring about needed change.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I think that says it all.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why he was voted in.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: He has always been the creative destruction candidate.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think he did improve how he approached this election.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Even over 2022, he stopped trying to micromanage the Senate candidates, which was disastrous.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: You remember that?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: In 2022, he insisted on these unelectable people.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't do that this time.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that actually had good results for him in the Senate,
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: which I think we're going to talk about in just a second.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: But think about how much he has been what I just mentioned, the creative destruction candidate already.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: All of his foes have been establishment icons.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: You remember it was Clinton and then it was Biden.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And then in his very first primary, it was the Bushes.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: You remember he took on Jeb Bush.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: And recently he took on the Cheneys, father and son.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you get the theme there.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: These are all the guardians of the establishment.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: And you look at his allies and they're...
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of weird types.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Tulsi Gabbard.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Kennedy Jr.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Elon Musk.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Rogan.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: These are kind of, you know, out there.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And America thought that that was okay.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: They could take a chance with that.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: There is kind of an interesting generational spin to that too, which we're going to get to in a second.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way,
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: The French futures trader,
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Freddie 999,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: will haul in a total profit of $48 million as a result of his bets on Polymarket.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: So just so you know, there were those who bet correctly.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I guess they bet on Trump when he was still 50-50,
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: well in advance actually,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: several days before the election day.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's kind of where I am.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and the the the depth and breadth of his victory is is remarkable.