The economy grew at 1.6% in the first quarter of 2024, which was less than economists had projected and carries a mixed bag of information. For those of you who wade through my interview with Tad DeLay, we actually talk about the fallacy of judging human flourishing by metrics such as GDP. But it’s the tool we have at our disposal so it is what it is. My guess is that this is going to be a very strange year. My fear is that the metrics that are most meaningful to the election outcome are indeed trending in the wrong direction as we have been warning about.
Right now, oil and gas prices are uncomfortably high. Crude would need to recede by $20/b or so by the end of summer in order to have an impact at the pumps by election time. The inflation data (see Chart of the Week) is also bad news for the Biden Administration on two fronts. The first is that core products (excluding fuel and food) remain stubbornly high and have in fact increased year-over-year. At the moment most Americans are looking for some relief, everything keeps getting more and more expensive. The double edged sword to this figure, of course, is how the Federal Reserve will interpret inflation in the upcoming sessions. If they decide to hold steady on interest rates rather than the steady decreases they previously signaled, then voter sentiment currently will likely stay the same or worse come November.
In case this doesn’t frustrate you already, here’s how a UBS analyst is interpreting the moment according to the Times:
“Spending has been driven particularly by wealthier consumers, whose low debt and fixed-rate mortgages have insulated them from the effects of higher interest rates, and who have benefited from a stock market that was until recently setting records. ‘Higher income households feel very flush,’ said Brian Rose, senior economist at UBS. ‘They’ve seen such a huge run-up in the value of their house and the value of their portfolios that they feel like they can keep spending.’”
And a prediction (or two):
There are a number of polls that suggest Biden is beginning to trend upward as Trump looks increasingly ridiculous on trial in New York. Any negativity on the Republican side of the spectrum will disappear should he prevail or simply avoid jail time. Personally I think he’ll beat it all. Across the board. And the election tampering charge will be punted until it’s too late. Therefore, it’s head-to-head Biden v. Trump again—unfettered by legal shenanigans—and the outcome will be decided by the strength of the third party candidates, the state of inflation, interest and gas prices and who is still alive.
As for our spoiler candidate RFK Jr., the little piece I did on him last week brought out the bots and supporters in droves. That was fun. I’ve continued down the Kennedy rabbit hole and am increasingly convinced of two things: 1) he’ll get ballot access across the board, and 2), he will have the best independent showing since Ross Perot, and perhaps even higher. I would not be surprised if he broke the 20% threshold in absolute numbers even if he fails to receive a single electoral vote.
Other things I’m obsessing over…
This dweeb is probably going to be the next Canadian PM. At some point. Get to know him.
Fucker Carlson is struggling to find success outside of Fox so he’s taken to saying Obama is gay and that he doesn’t believe in evolution. And I’m here for his fall. All of it. Every step of the way.
I would like to thank TikTok and the PRC for introducing my youngest to Jeff Buckley. Miss that voice. What would have been? This is still my favorite JB song.
“The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.4 percent in March, as it did in each of the 2 preceding months. Indexes which increased in March include shelter, motor vehicle insurance, medical care, apparel, and personal care. The indexes for used cars and trucks, recreation, and new vehicles were among those that decreased over the month.”
This is an example of what we’ve spoken about in previous episodes. Conglomerates are still just “taking price,” which is to say companies are jacking up prices because they can.
Headlines
Precious Minerals: The Next Stolen Frontier
In our interview with Tad DeLay we talk a lot about the hard science behind climate change and how best to transition to a green energy and transportation infrastructure. There’s yet another wrinkle we didn’t touch on. Even in the best of cases, the path forward once again cuts directly through indigenous territories and places millions at risk of losing their rights, their land and their health along the way.
From the article:
“More than half of the world’s minerals that could serve as alternative energy sources and help countries stop burning fossil fuels — known as transition minerals — are located on or near lands and territories managed by Indigenous peoples, according to a 2023 study in Nature Sustainability. These include lithium, cobalt, nickel, uranium, and many other critical minerals that would require extractive mining with myriad environmental impacts.”
A Reminder That the PRC Is Also Run by Pieces of Shit
The lauded International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) got its hands on a trove of leaked documents that catalog the abuse of Uyghurs and other ethnic minority groups in China.
From the article:
“A growing body of evidence documents the campaign of mass detention and forced assimilation in Xinjiang, begun under President Xi Jingping and his subordinates in 2017. The Chinese government has called the camps ‘vocational skills education and training centers,’ but the Xinjiang Police Files and previous exposés by journalists, researchers and activists point to another conclusion. They reinforce allegations that the camps are part of a nationwide policy to promote conformity to Communist Party doctrine and majority Han cultural norms and crack down on expressions of cultural, political and religious diversity.”
Nothing wrong with a little good news now and then. Summer Lee crushed her primary opponent and is set up for victory in November as even AIPAC appears to have given up on unseating the popular progressive. Ryan Grim breaks down how Lee was able to build a coalition from socialists to establishment democrats vehemently opposed to her vocal support of Palestinian rights.
From the article:
“As a member of Congress, she helped bring back more than $1.2 billion in spending to benefit her district in her first term. Those investments helped her earn local establishment support, as those figures need a good relationship with their member of Congress if it looks like she’ll be there for a while. Lee had the backing of Democrats up and down the ladder: Both sitting Democratic senators from Pennsylvania endorsed her, including John Fetterman, the most vocal supporter of Israel’s assault on Gaza in the Senate, with whom she has had an icy relationship with over the years. Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a tight ally of AIPAC, also endorsed her. So too did local unions.”
On this week’s Phone a Friend, I spoke with Tad DeLay, the author of the newly released book Future of Denial: The Ideologies of Climate Change. Tad Delay is a philosopher, religion scholar and interdisciplinary critical theorist. His books include Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want?, The Cynic and the Fool, and God is Unconscious. He is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy in Baltimore. I positively devoured this book and am anxious to dig into his previous titles as well. There are so many intersections that speak to the work that we do on UNFTR that I know it will resonate with you. Philosophy. Theology. Science. And even the dismal science. Future of Denial takes a multidisciplinary approach woven together with factual anecdotes and projections of science fiction. It is at once deeply intellectual and approachable; a delicate feat. Marx and Engels in dialogue with Freud and Greta Thunberg concluding with the words of Rosa Luxemburg… obviously I was in pure heaven digesting this work.
Here’s a snippet from the pod:
DeLay: “The wild thing here is that some of the most basic concepts that were experimented with—[by] Eunice Foote and John Tyndall—were already understood slightly before the American Civil War. So it is quite a bit older than just the 70s… Eunice Foote was an amateur scientist. She was an original signatory of the Seneca Falls Declaration, calling for women's suffrage. This is how old this is.”
“This week on Lever Time, David Sirota and Senior Podcast Producer Arjun Singh explore how an ideological movement driven by business interests suppressed antitrust enforcement in the United States for almost half a century, and allowed Jeff Bezos to build his unprecedented empire.”
“What if our understanding of capitalism and climate is back to front? What if the problem is not that transitioning to renewables is too expensive, but that saving the planet is not sufficiently profitable?
This is Brett Christophers’ claim. The global economy is moving too slowly toward sustainability because the return on green investment is too low.”
“You need never bother to mention to people that you are from New York. The fact that you thought that Pennsylvania goes on forever just serves to solidify the notion the rest of us have about you, that the myopia that doesn't allow you to see past Philadelphia is a persistent condition.”
The former union organizer proved everyone wrong with his unlikely victory against the vaunted Chicago political machine. Can Johnson recreate that magic as mayor?
“Emerge is fundamentally changing the face of politics in this country by breaking down barriers, opening doors, and creating pathways for Democratic women to get involved in politics. We are the nation’s premier organization that recruits and trains Democratic women to run for office. We are the only political organization that focuses on effective state and national programming that gives women the tools they need to run and win, as well as building an inclusive sisterhood of alums and a network of alumnae, staff, boards, and volunteers who are on-the-ground 365 days a year to support women through their candidacies at every level and once they are elected.”
