April 29 2024
Vibe shift
1 ELECTION 2024 Trump leads Biden by 6 nationally; majority views his Presidency favorably
2 American Dream increasingly out of reach as housing prices escalate
3 Firms managing $1 tillion leave NY, CA
4 US debt out of control
5 Coalition of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Belarus takes shape
Sports
4/29/1954 Comedian Jerry Seinfeld born
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In the run up to the US election, the daily brief will contain one election story per day
1 ELECTION 2024 Trump leads Biden by 6 nationally; majority views his Presidency favorably
Donald Trump continues to hold an advantage over President Joe Biden as the campaign – and the former president’s criminal trial – move forward, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. And in the coming rematch, opinions about the first term of each man vying for a second four years in the White House now appear to work in Trump’s favor, with most Americans saying that, looking back, Trump’s term as president was a success, while a broad majority says Biden’s has so far been a failure. Trump’s support in the poll among registered voters holds steady at 49% in a head-to-head matchup against Biden, the same as in CNN’s last national poll on the race in January, while Biden’s stands at 43%, not significantly different from January’s 45% Looking back, 55% of all Americans now say they see Trump’s presidency as a success, while 44% see it as a failure. In a January 2021 poll taken just before Trump left office and days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, 55% considered his time as president a failure.
2 American Dream increasingly out of reach as housing prices escalate
the American dream today, it is further out of reach than ever. Home-buying affordability fell last year to the lowest level since 1985, according to a National Association of Realtors index. The median household now needs more than 40% of its income to cover payments on a median-priced home, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Hopes that the Fed would cut interest rates helped lower mortgage rates and unlock the housing market for a few months, but stubborn inflation has sent rates back above 7% and home sales sliding. In 2022, when the oldest millennials were about 40 years old, 61% of people ages 35 to 44 owned a home, according to the Fed. In 1989, when the oldest baby boomers were 43 years old, 66% of that age cohort owned a home.
3 Firms managing $1 tillion leave NY, CA
The drip, drip, drip of the finance industry’s exit from New York and California has been measured anecdotally, one at a time, these past few years. Elliott Management decamped to West Palm Beach. AllianceBernstein to Nashville. Charles Schwab moved to suburban Dallas. Now, for the first time, there are hard numbers quantifying the exact scope of the exodus. Both states have in the past three years lost firms that managed close to $1 trillion of assets, Bloomberg News calculated after going through corporate filings from more than 17,000 firms since the end of 2019. The exodus from the Northeast and West Coast has meant the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs, straining city and state finances by sapping tax revenue. Commercial property markets have also lost valuable tenants at the same time they’ve been struggling with the new realities of hybrid work.
4 Weekly reminder that US debt is out of control
A debt drumbeat keeps building. Last week, the IMF warned again about U.S. spending in unusually blunt terms.This week, first-quarter GDP growth of 1.6% fell short of expectations, while inflation again remained elevated. In the FT, Ruchir Sharma notes that, far more than other developed countries, the US has kept stimulating its economy well after the recession of 2020 was over, and warns that some of that fiscal and monetary stimulus is still coursing through the system, keeping growth artificially high and inflating both consumer and asset prices. Greg Ip in the WSJ points out that Washington is pouring hundreds of billions of dollars for veterans’ benefits, infrastructure, student loan forgiveness, semiconductor manufacturing and renewable energy. U.S. deficits have run roughly 2% of GDP higher than the IMF expected back in late 2022 and will be the highest, by far, among major advanced economies for the foreseeable future. Jamie Dimon warned again about a soft landing and the high debt-to-GDP ratio. Investors keep buying gold and Bitcoin. Treasurys are seeing a series of weak auctions.
News Items, Matt Murray
5 Coalition of China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Belarusian bad guys takes shape
Public meetings between officials from Russia, Belarus, the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Iran, and North Korea have surged in recent days, with at least 10 high-level bilateral meetings between April 22 and 26, underscoring the deepening multilateral partnership these states are constructing to confront the West. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu attended the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting of defense ministers in Astana, Kazakhstan on April 26.Shoigu met with PRC Minister of National Defense Dong Jun on the sidelines of the meeting and highlighted the “unprecedented” level of Russo-Sino relations. Shoigu also met with Iranian Defense Minister Mohammed Reza Ashtiani and stated that Russia is prepared to expand Russo-Iranian military and military-technical cooperation.Ashtiani is primarily responsible for managing arms procurement and sales and the Iranian defense industrial base, which makes these meetings particularly noteworthy. Dong and Ashtiani held a bilateral meeting and called for increased Sino-Iranian cooperation, including in the defense and military spheres. Belarusian Defense Minister Lieutenant General Viktor Khrenin also met with Dong and Ashtiani at the SCO meeting on April 26.
Sports
Amazon Prime acquires NBA broadcast rights, per sources, putting pressure on TNT, NBC
4/29/1954 Comedian Jerry Seinfeld born
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