July 8 2024
Global elections; more Biden bad news; US economic malaise; jobs report; CA electricity; shipping containers
Global elections
1 ELECTION 2024 Senior Dem lawmakers say its time for Biden to quit
2 OPNION Economic malaise underlies American drug epidemic
3 US economic data show cooling labor market
4 California's overnight power demand exposes battery limitations, increases gas reliance
5 Container shipping rates surge on Red Sea crisis
7/8/1879 The first ship to use electric lights departs from San Francisco, California
see ad astra on x @greg_loving
Global elections
France
France faced a hung parliament and deep political uncertainty after the three main political groups of the left, center and right emerged from snap legislative elections on Sunday with large shares of the vote but nothing approaching an absolute majority. The preliminary results upended widespread predictions of a clear victory for the National Rally, Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigrant party that dominated the first round of voting a week ago. Instead, the left-wing New Popular Front won 178 seats. The centrist coalition of President Emmanuel Macron, who cast the country into turmoil a month ago by calling the election, was in second place with 150 seats. Trailing it was the National Rally and its allies, which took 142 seats.
Iran
In an election upset in Iran, the reformist candidate who advocated moderate policies at home and improved relations with the West won the presidential runoff against a hard-line rival, according to results released by the interior ministry on Saturday.
Article Source: NYT
1 ELECTION 2024 Senior Dem lawmakers say its time for Biden to quit
President Biden’s base of support among key Democrats on Capitol Hill began to crumble on Sunday as a half-dozen top members of the House privately told colleagues he should withdraw from the presidential race amid growing concerns about his age and ability to win re-election. During a virtual private meeting, the House Democrats — all senior members of powerful committees — discussed how to use their collective influence to convince Mr. Biden he had little chance of defeating former President Donald J. Trump, according to five people familiar with the confidential discussion, including three who were present, all of whom insisted on anonymity to discuss it. The consensus during the session, which was convened by Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, was that a change at the top of the ticket was needed to preserve the party’s chances of holding the White House and prevailing in the fight for control of Congress, the people said.
Article Source: NYT
2 OPNION Economic malaise underlies American drug epidemic
In 2023, the United States saw 81,000 deaths from opioid overdose. Other forms of drug overdose are climbing faster: Fatal cocaine overdoses rose sixfold in the past decade, to 30,000. Psychostimulant deaths rose 10-fold, to 36,000. All told, the rate of drug overdose deaths in the United States is now similar to the average death rate from alcohol use disorders in Russia during the decade after the Soviet Union’s collapse.
Opioid deaths are more than a terrible tragedy. They are also a telltale sign of national decay and desperation. Wages for the typical worker have stagnated for decades, and research I conducted at American Compass, the think tank where I work, has found that the typical worker no longer earns enough to provide middle-class security for a family. We also found that only around one in five young Americans makes the transition smoothly from high school to college to career, and for young men the figure is lower still. The anti-poverty scholar Scott Winship has shown that for men ages 25 to 29, inflation-adjusted median earnings and compensation were lower in 2020 than they were 50 years earlier. The years leading up to Mr. Trump’s election coincided with the first time on record that Americans ages 18 to 34 were more likely to be living at home with their parents than independently with a significant other. Measured in flat-screen televisions owned, health-care treatments received and calories consumed, Americans have been on an upward trajectory. But while popular media often translates the American dream as being better off than your parents in materialistic terms, polling conducted by American Compass in partnership with YouGov indicates that Americans between 18 and 50 were more than twice as likely to say “earning enough to support a family” is what’s most important. Related, our polling has found that the vast majority of American parents consider “being able to support your family on one parent’s income” to be an important or essential marker of middle-class life. For all the talk of “upward mobility,” more than 90 percent of Americans chose “financial stability” as more important in a 2014 Pew survey. Note the contrast with the small cohort of upper-class Americans with college degrees and the highest incomes, who see the American dream more in terms of going as far as their talents and hard work take them than as either supporting a family or even getting married and raising children. They prefer having both parents work full-time and using paid child care full-time, and regard the chance for their children to pursue postsecondary education that would offer “the best possible career options but was far from home” as more desirable than one that would offer “good career options close to home.” All other groups said they preferred the latter. The same pattern repeats itself on issue after issue. While policy initiatives so often seek to maximize efficiency and growth, move people to opportunity and redistribute from the economy’s winners to the losers, the typical American has an attachment to place, a focus on family, a commitment to making things, and would accept economic trade-offs in pursuit of those priorities.
Oren Cass
Ed note: worth reading in full
Article Source: NYT
3 US economic data show cooling labor market
The US labour market showed signs of cooling, with the unemployment rate rising in June and the pace of jobs growth in recent months shown to have been lower than previously reported. The economy added 206,000 jobs last month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Friday. That exceeded the 190,000 roles economists polled by Reuters had forecast, but revisions to April and May data meant employment during those two months was 111,000 lower than initially reported. Friday’s non-farm payrolls report also showed that the US unemployment rate increased to 4.1 per cent from 4 per cent, its highest level since November 2021. Economists had expected no change.
Article Source: FT
4 California's overnight power demand exposes battery limitations, increases natural gas reliance
On Sunday, June 30, 2024, California's power generation relied heavily on renewables and natural gas, with renewables peaking around midday. However, during the overnight hours, battery storage proved insufficient to meet the energy demand, necessitating a greater reliance on natural gas to maintain grid stability.
Article Source: Daily Energy Report, Ad Astra
5 Container shipping rates surge on Red Sea crisis
Volatile weather is a peril of the high seas. Volatile markets are similarly treacherous for the container-ship industry, which carries 80% of the volume of internationally traded goods. A global pandemic, which kept people at home with little else to do but buy, buy, buy, sent container rates sky-high. In 2022 shipping lines’ return on capital exceeded 40%; the biggest earned profits that were three times the total for the previous two decades combined. Rates and returns tumbled as demand waned and shipping companies started to receive the new vessels ordered during the boom. Then attacks by Houthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea all but closed the Suez Canal. The disruption has sent rates back to records surpassed only during the pandemic. How long will the good times last this time?
Article Source: Economist
7/8/1879 The first ship to use electric lights departs from San Francisco, California
Sources
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/world/europe/france-election-results-left-surges.html?unlocked_article_code=1.5U0.S62p.0f-ihex-SIRW&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/05/world/middleeast/iran-election-reformist-wins.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/us/politics/biden-democrats-congress-murphy.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/06/opinion/populism-power-elites-politics.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
4. https://on.ft.com/3RV5xJ6
5. Newsletter
6. https://www.economist.com/business/2024/06/27/boom-times-are-back-for-container-shipping
Thanks for reading!
