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<title>26 September, 2023</title>
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<title>Daily-Dose</title><meta content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0" name="viewport"/><link href="styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><link href="../styles/simple.css" rel="stylesheet"/><style>*{overflow-x:hidden;}</style><link href="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.css" rel="stylesheet"/><script src="https://unpkg.com/aos@2.3.1/dist/aos.js"></script></head>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-down" id="daily-dose">Daily-Dose</h1>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" data-aos-anchor-placement="top-bottom" id="contents">Contents</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-vox">From Vox</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</a></li>
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<li><a href="#from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-new-yorker">From New Yorker</h1>
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<ul>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Is Trump Just an Ordinary Republican Now?</strong> - The former President’s rhetoric during his recent trip to Iowa wasn’t any tamer, but he no longer sounds distinct from his G.O.P. rivals. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/is-trump-just-an-ordinary-republican-now">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Astra Taylor’s Age of Insecurity</strong> - The activist and writer sees capitalism as an insecurity-producing machine. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/astra-taylors-age-of-insecurity">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>How Soccer Players Re-Started Spain’s #MeToo Movement</strong> - A journalist describes the history of feminist activism in Spain and why the World Cup controversy marks a new phase. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-soccer-players-restarted-spains-metoo-movement">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The Biden Administration’s Next Big Climate Decision</strong> - The liquefied-natural-gas buildout—and fossil-fuel exports—challenge progress on global warming. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-biden-administrations-next-big-climate-decision">link</a></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Kelly Clarkson on “Chemistry,” Her Divorce Record</strong> - The singer tells the staff writer Hanif Abdurraqib about chronicling the end of a marriage in real time. Plus, the novelist Hernan Diaz, and Robert Samuels on figure skating. - <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/the-new-yorker-radio-hour/kelly-clarkson-on-chemistry-her-divorce-record">link</a></p></li>
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</ul>
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<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-vox">From Vox</h1>
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<li><strong>Two young missionaries made headlines. Two new docs look at why.</strong> -
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<img alt="A young woman stands in the middle of a room, head bowed, arms outstretched." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JSJOqYaGu9xaJmDYvHFwIPcum_s=/243x0:1683x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72689105/saviorcomplex.0.jpg"/>
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Renee Bach in fundraising materials for her NGO, Serving His Children, as seen in the new HBO documentary series <em>Savior Complex.</em> | HBO
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Savior Complex, The Mission, and the culture behind toxic missionary work.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ERrelc">
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We aren’t born knowing who the heroes are. We’re taught to see them, instilled with desires to wear their cape, don their uniform, doff their 10-gallon hat, slip into their well-worn shoes.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="d9OqQa">
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I don’t know who your heroes were, or how that affected your life’s trajectory, but I know for certain that you had your own heroes. I also know that for me and millions of other millennials in American evangelical churches — like Renee Bach and John Chau, the subjects of two new documentaries — those heroes were Christian missionaries: ordinary people who left their homes, ventured overseas, and preached about Jesus. They were adventurers and explorers, descended from people like the Apostle Paul and Francis of Assisi and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone">David Livingstone</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Taylor">Hudson Taylor</a>, all men who journeyed great distances propelled by their belief that God wanted them to do so because there were people who needed to hear that Jesus could save them from their sins. (<em>Evangelical</em> doesn’t mean <em>evangelism</em>, but the two words come from the same Greek root, <em>evangelion</em>, which means gospel, or good news.)
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xPJkrH">
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We read their biographies and heard their stories. People like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Carmichael">Amy Carmichael</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Elliot">Jim Elliot</a> were household names. (In my early teens, I wore a sari to play Carmichael in a church skit.) For kids born in the ’80s and ’90s, the age when colorful mass entertainment became a part of evangelical subculture, movies, comic books, and cartoons illustrated their lives. At youth conferences we were exhorted to be “radical” for Jesus, to pledge our lives to go wherever God sent us, to be ready to sacrifice our lives, figuratively or literally, for the gospel. It was going to be amazing. It was heady fuel for the imagination.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Bg3f02">
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Imagination, as it happens, is where a lot of would-be missionaries find their origin story. The subject of <em>The Mission</em>, John Chau, found his inspiration in figures like Elliot, who died in 1956 alongside several white missionaries when they traveled to evangelize the Huaorani of Ecuador. At 26, Chau followed in Elliot’s footsteps, journeying illegally in 2018 to evangelize the Sentinelese people on a remote island off the Indian coast, then making global headlines when his body was found on the shore.
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</p>
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="A young man of Chinese descent stands on the shore of huge body of water, looking at the camera. He’s wearing a backpack." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vS_g3bxET_JGzXBbUb2GyzRPiG0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24951373/themission.jpg"/> <cite>National Geographic Films</cite>
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John Chau in <em>The Mission.</em>
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gaTSNu">
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<em>The Mission</em> is an exemplary, thoughtful film about Chau, as well as the larger missionary movement, alongside Western tendencies to exoticize and simultaneously denigrate “primitive” people. (National Geographic Documentary Films is a producer on the movie, and it’s to their credit that the film spends a lot of time on the responsibility that <em>National Geographic</em>, specifically, bears in this area.) Empathetic and non-reactionary, the film weaves together perspectives from people highly skeptical of missions and those who are still true believers. “My friend did something stupid and courageous and bold,” says one of Chau’s closest friends near the start of the film. “I wish I was that bold.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="35h12Y">
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<em>The Mission</em> — directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss, whose 2014 <em>The Overnighters</em> was another thoughtful look at a faith community — lets audiences into Chau’s mental framework, as well as those of his critics. They’re grappling with the notion of “foreign missions” — traveling far from home to preach about Jesus. That’s built into the DNA of the modern evangelical movement, which was born in a period that coincided, not entirely accidentally, with the height of European colonialism. But Christianity is an evangelistic <a href="https://www.vox.com/religion">religion</a>, and spreading the “good news” has been a fundamental part of the practice in one way or another since the start.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="O13jkl">
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Yet as with most things in the age of mass media, it’s taken on its own turns of phrase and genre conventions. That’s why it’s hard for me to know how some of the film’s other interviewees sound to people who aren’t conversant in the very particular linguistic turns and codes of contemporary evangelical culture. Does “unreached people group” mean something? What about “the gospel call”? For those familiar with the language, though — and, I have to assume, even those who aren’t — <em>The Mission</em> digs directly into how the missions movement of this era often works: by creating what one pastor calls “fantasies” in the minds of young people, building up a <a href="https://www.vox.com/celebrities">celebrity culture</a> around missionaries, then making an emotional plea to them to join the effort.
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</p>
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The actual work of missionaries, an issue that can deserve careful critique of its own, isn’t the focus of <em>The Mission</em>, though of course it comes up. Instead, the documentary deals with the <em>culture</em> that’s sprung up around promoting missionary work. Ways of talking and thinking about “unreached people” that dehumanizes and suggests they’re somehow not “modern,” the way we are. An encouragement of “idealism masquerading as God’s calling,” as one of Chau’s former pastors calls it in the film. There’s a wide range of views about missionary work, as wide a range as the types of work people engage in and the good and harm it can promote. What <em>The Mission </em>is wise to recognize is that even proponents need to reckon with the way missions work has been spoken about and promoted to young people in recent decades.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CfIXE0">
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This issue runs directly parallel to the cottage industry that sprung up around creating “martyrs” from several students murdered at Columbine in 1999, a market that <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/4/20/15369442/columbine-anniversary-cassie-bernall-rachel-scott-martyrdom">expanded to books, movies, songs, and conferences</a>. On the surface, these were all aimed at creating a “radical” faith — there’s that word again — in young evangelical millennials, who’d be willing to stand up and declare their faith even when faced with opposition. Yet the method created a martyrdom fantasy in teens virtually indistinguishable from the feeling that propelled Chau to go against the wishes of the people he was so certain he was supposed to visit, love, and evangelize. (The Sentinelese are isolated by choice; as one person in the film puts it, “Outsiders coming there with friendship in their hearts can do a lot of harm.”)
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="qwY893">
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Most importantly, <em>The Mission</em> spotlights how stories, told with breathless admiration, create expectations in youthful, idealistic Christians who long to serve others so that they, too, will be the center of a heroic story. That same idea is at the center of <em>Savior Complex</em>, a three-episode <a href="https://www.vox.com/hbo">HBO</a> documentary series about Renee Bach, the Virginian who moved to Jinja, Uganda (a center of NGO work) when barely out of her teens. She launched a malnutrition rehabilitation center called Serving His Children that took in children discharged from the local hospital who needed treatment before returning home. In 2019, <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/08/09/749005287/american-with-no-medical-training-ran-center-for-malnourished-ugandan-kids-105-d">she came under fire</a> for running the clinic without medical training (or, it turns out, being registered with the government as a medical NGO at all). She’s since returned to Virginia, and she and her mother — who was among the small leadership staff in her organization — are among the main subjects of the documentary.
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<figure class="e-image">
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<img alt="A young white woman is surrounded by several Ugandan mothers and their children. She wears a stethoscope." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ITdjHYqp8RWBPqu-XrNgLE0xJeg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24951376/saviorcomplex2.jpg"/> <cite>HBO</cite>
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<figcaption>
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Renee Bach working with malnourished children and their families in Uganda, as seen in <em>Savior Complex.</em>
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</figcaption>
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</figure>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="KqhovA">
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<em>Savior Complex</em> is a tad clunkier in its storytelling than <em>The Mission</em>, though the reasons for one of its more unwieldy elements — the inclusion of an advocacy group called No White Saviors, which poured enormous energy into calling out Bach on social media platforms — becomes vitally clear by the end of the series.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tPTLNC">
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Yet it’s a perfect companion piece, particularly for the incisive diagnosis raised by former Serving His Children volunteer Jackie Kramlich, a young nurse who moved to Jinja with her husband and became frustrated with what she saw as Bach’s inability to take criticism or suggestions, even from people more educated than herself. “I think Renee got into a fantasy that she was ordained and special and set apart,” Kramlich says. Her husband Chris agrees, saying he believes that “Renee felt like if she took advice from other people it would lessen her value to the story of being someone that God worked through to heal these children.”
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="YctNfB">
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“Lessen her value to the story” — that’s where it clicked for me. An element of solipsism exists in all of us, even those who want to spend their lives serving others. We all want to believe we’re in the right, that we’re doing the enlightened thing. What the Kramlichs saw in Bach’s unwillingness to take medical advice, however, was the belief that she was the heroine of this story — that she was appointed by God, in the way God appointed others in the past, to save these children, and that she thus innately had the skill to do so. “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called,” as the popular saying (and the first episode’s title) goes.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="8PDD7A">
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It’s an impulse that does, in fact, run counter to both Christian teaching (in which Jesus is always supposed to be the hero) and to being a good person. As my thesis director put it to me in grad school, when you tell your own story, you should be the protagonist, but probably not the hero.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ixwmg5">
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That is not the way a lot of missionary storytelling works — nor the way that “white savior” stories, or “magical teacher” stories, or any other story that fires up youthful idealism, often work. <em>Savior Complex</em> even gently suggests that the kind of crusading the No White Saviors group and others like it engaged in falls into the same pattern: the idea that passion and drive and righteousness are enough to make change that matters.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4XKKSX">
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The fact of the matter, as any long-time advocate will tell you, is that activism, service, and saving the world is hard, painful, frustrating, and often very boring work. It is not glamorous; it does not feel heroic; it is often ignored entirely. People like to give money to celebrities and people with good stories. They want to be those people. Especially when they’re young and full of possibility.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="W1R4xx">
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In this way, <em>The Mission</em> and <em>Savior Complex</em> contain a lesson for everyone, whether they find missions work reprehensible, admirable, or something in between. Heroes that we’ve heard of are just people with well-told stories on well-prepared platforms. The real heroic work happens in the shadows and the dirt. And very, very few of us are ready to take that on.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="2AOL2j">
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Savior Complex <em>premieres on HBO on September 26 at 9 pm ET and begins streaming on Max. </em>The Mission <em>opens in theaters on October 13.</em>
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</p></li>
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<li><strong>Naomi Klein on her doppelganger (and yours)</strong> -
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<img alt="A woman with a crystal ball in her hand showing a reflection of a river and blue sky." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/3oJSKWuLIhAmLWtcTLljdsUhohM=/0x0:479x359/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72689028/gettyimages_1147506986_170667a.0.jpg"/>
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Getty Images
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Are we living through a uniquely brain-breaking era? Ask someone who went deep into the “mirror world.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uiFBfC">
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One of the things I try to do on my podcast <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> is sort through all the political and cultural confusion in our society.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ln7UUb">
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To say that our world is becoming deranged by our technologies and media ecosystem might be a little much, but I do think that we’ve scrambled our relationships to ourselves and each other in profound and puzzling ways.
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jxXyFA">
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And yet I sometimes wonder if things are really<em> </em>as weird as they seem. Every generation thinks their time is uniquely strange or dysfunctional, so maybe we’re falling into that same trap — or maybe things are actually as strange as they appear.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="CHilyt">
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A new book by the influential writer and activist Naomi Klein is a near-heroic attempt to sort through these sorts of questions. It’s called <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374610326/doppelganger"><em>Doppelganger</em></a> and it’s ostensibly about her struggles to avoid being confused with Naomi Wolf, the former liberal feminist icon turned anti-vax conspiracist.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="uz0pKe">
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But you realize pretty quickly that the book isn’t really about this dynamic. It’s about the distortions and absurdities of life in the digital world and about how all of us, not just public figures, are experiencing our own bewilderment in this environment. It’s a fascinating — and often disorienting — read, so I invited her onto <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-gray-area"><em>The Gray Area</em></a> to talk about her journey and how it helped her make sense of this moment.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TxUiG7">
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Below is an excerpt of our conversation, edited for length and clarity. As always, there’s much more in the full podcast, so listen and follow <em>The Gray Area</em> on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations">Google Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP">Spotify</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations">Stitcher</a>, or wherever you find podcasts. New episodes drop every Monday.
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</div>
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<hr class="p-entry-hr" id="zvgc0E"/>
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<h4 id="OflXU1">
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Sean Illing
|
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</h4>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IP3kF3">
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How do you sum up what this book is about when people ask?
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</p>
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<h4 id="6KUNYQ">
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Naomi Klein
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</h4>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="dwF6KQ">
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I don’t really have a great elevator pitch for it. It’s an attempt to wrap my arms around the wildness of intersecting crises. There was a moment when I decided this isn’t going to be a quirky essay. I was going to write an essay about identity confusion that would revisit some of the themes from my first book, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780312429270/nologo"><em>No Logo</em></a>, which came out before the idea that regular people could be brands was a reality, because it was pre-social media. And so I thought it was going to be maybe a 10,000-word kind of literary essay.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="hPgsif">
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The moment I thought, “No, this is way bigger than that,” was during the pandemic. I moved back to Canada from the US, and I live in a really beautiful remote part of British Columbia. Around September 2021, I was driving through our small sleepy town, and there were hundreds of people protesting outside of the local hospital, and they were holding all kinds of signs about “plandemics” and Nuremberg trials and Fauci. And I can’t stress to you enough that this kind of thing does not happen where I live. This is the largest gathering I had ever seen of a political nature in this part of the world. And it just seemed like, well, if this misinformation and conspiracy culture could have reached here, then this is so much bigger than whatever I’ve been experiencing on an individual level.
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</p>
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<h4 id="1lAKzL">
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Sean Illing
|
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</h4>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="TUOUVZ">
|
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One of the things you end up doing is immersing yourself in what you call the “Mirror World.” You start mainlining <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/7/17/23217452/steve-bannon-january-6-trump-propaganda-election">Steve Bannon’s podcast</a>, where your professional doppelgänger, Naomi Wolf, became a recurring guest, and you really dove into this whole space. Obviously, you weren’t red-pilled, but you clearly learned something about that side.
|
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</p>
|
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<h4 id="Or7kH9">
|
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|
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Naomi Klein
|
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</h4>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AWlXbb">
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Yeah, I was interested in a perception among a lot of people who I knew that this whole world really didn’t exist or didn’t matter, or was unworthy of our attention. And I saw that very clearly with the reaction to my doppelgänger, Naomi Wolf, because she was deplatformed<strong> </strong>on a lot of social media networks, including the one she was most active on, which was <a href="https://www.vox.com/twitter">Twitter</a>.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OQ2GPw">
|
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|
First, she became a kind of running joke on Twitter, and then, eventually, she was deplatformed. She’s back thanks to Musk, but she was kicked off in maybe late spring, early summer of 2021. The reaction on Twitter was a lot of jokes like “Ding dong, the witch is dead” and that sort of thing, as though she didn’t exist anymore. We don’t need to think about her anymore. And because I had already started to pay attention to what she was up to, I was so struck that the opposite was true, that she actually had a much bigger reach — despite the fact that she was no longer visible to liberals and leftists. She was now, as you say, a regular on Steve Bannon’s podcast. At one point, she was on his podcast every single day for two weeks, to give you a sense of the unlikely buddy movie they’re involved in. They published a book together. They put out T-shirts together. I don’t think they’re for sale anymore. But it was really a coming together. And the first time she went on his show, she said, “I used to think you were the devil.” But I learned a lot by listening to Steve Bannon. I got a strong sense of why a figure like her would be so important to him as an electoral and political strategist.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
|||
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|
<h4 id="Z84d0l">
|
|||
|
|
Sean Illing
|
|||
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</h4>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="9HB3c2">
|
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|
Why was she so important?
|
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</p>
|
|||
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<h4 id="r9sVtQ">
|
|||
|
|
Naomi Klein
|
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</h4>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Crzkc1">
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We all know for the MAGA right, women are a problem. Trump did not do as well as he needed to do with white suburban women in 2020, and the Republicans didn’t do well enough in 2022. And I think the reason why Bannon is as attracted to Wolf, as unlikely as that would be since she was a lifelong feminist and a former Democrat, is not just that he’s able to cosplay reaching across the aisle, which he likes to talk about how “We won’t cancel. We’re willing to come together across differences and across divides.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="IzGNjF">
|
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|
I think what she represents to him is a slice of white women voters who had a rough time <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">during Covid</a>, who don’t like being called “Karen,” who didn’t like that the schools were closed for as long as they were closed, who got very worked up about mask policies and vaccines. And he’s now kind of pivoting them very quickly to book banning and transphobia. And so that’s one of the things I learned from listening to him. He’s a good strategist.
|
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</p>
|
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<h4 id="IabCQe">
|
|||
|
|
Sean Illing
|
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</h4>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Fdc4fw">
|
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|
This reminds me of something pretty important you say in the book, which is that the conspiracy theorists may get the facts wrong, but they often get the <em>feelings</em> right. People feel that they have less and less control over our lives. They feel like important truths are being hidden from them. They feel disconnected and they feel a sense of belonging that comes with getting wrapped up in some of these online worlds. And all of this gets supercharged under the hysteria of the pandemic.
|
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|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Kqmrc2">
|
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|
Anyone trying to make sense of our ideologically scrambled landscape, especially this drift of so many people to what we think of as the right or the far right, has to recognize that people like Bannon are very good at sensing these grievances and fears and then offering people a counterfeit vision of emancipation.
|
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</p>
|
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<h4 id="uApNV0">
|
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|
|
Naomi Klein
|
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|
|
</h4>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fnzmPr">
|
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|
|
I think that’s exactly right. And then we dig ourselves in deeper when an issue gets co-opted, warped, and twisted in that world, which I call the “Mirror World.” Then the response among liberals and leftists is to mock. The more conspiratorial they are, the more credulous we become. All kinds of issues become untouchable. So if they’re mad about school closures, then we don’t see a single issue to talk about when it comes to school closures. Or if they’re talking about the lab leak theory, well, then that’s crazy-person talk and we won’t even mention it. So when they get the feelings, and then there’s a counter-reaction, whatever they’re tapping into becomes kind of unsayable, it’s an absolute gift to the Bannons of the world.
|
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|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="UnaeZE">
|
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|
|
So I’ll give you an example involving Naomi Wolf [“Other Naomi”] that really turned the light on for me. The issue that was her right-wing star turn where she was suddenly invited on <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/25/23697600/tucker-carlson-tonight-fox-news-dominion-lawsuit">Tucker Carlson</a> regularly and other Fox shows and where Steve Bannon discovered her as a voice was when she started talking about how vaccine verification apps were actually surveillance tools that were going to bring Chinese Communist Party social credit systems to the West. At one point, I think she said, “They can cancel your life if you don’t … if they find out something wrong about you beyond just not getting vaccinated.” Basically, she was saying they’re going to extend it from vaccination to absolutely everything like they do in <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a>. And if you don’t toe the line, then your kids won’t be able to get into the schools. They’ll be able to eavesdrop on your conversations in restaurants. They’ll know everybody who you’ve met with.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="pRBaCz">
|
|||
|
|
And the response on liberal Twitter to all of this overblown rhetoric about what vaccine verification apps could do when it came to surveillance was this pithy little joke, which was, “Wait till they hear about cell phones!” And I remember the first time I saw that, and I thought it was funny. I probably retweeted it. And then I thought, “What am I doing? Am I saying that the joke is these people think a vaccine verification app is tracking them everywhere they go and is able to somehow eavesdrop on them?” We smart liberals know your cell phone can do that, and we think it’s funny, right. But it’s not actually funny. A lot of people are really concerned about it, and they should be.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="OpLUkv">
|
|||
|
|
So what you see is that when an issue gets trivialized or abandoned in mainstream circles or even in left circles, then it’s ripe for the picking for somebody like Bannon to twist it. And so I think the way to respond to that is not to say, “Wait till they hear about cell phones.” The response is, “What are we actually going to do about this? And, in fact, didn’t we think that the Biden administration was going to do more to protect our data and our privacy online?” There are ways that we can offer substantive responses to the feelings that they’re getting right.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="qEGcHv">
|
|||
|
|
Sean Illing
|
|||
|
|
</h4>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="u60Uor">
|
|||
|
|
I don’t know if “paradox” is the right word exactly, but there’s definitely a related trade-off you explore in the book. As more and more of our lives shift into the virtual world, we have more freedom to assert our identities, to experiment with identities, but we also become unmoored from the real world and, at the same time, kind of remade in the image of our digital tools and the twisted culture they create. And it seems like these things you’ve always written about — the phoniness of branding, the hyper-individualism of late capitalist culture — it all gets amplified by modern tech.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h4 id="rxsUY4">
|
|||
|
|
Naomi Klein
|
|||
|
|
</h4>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6BP2qf">
|
|||
|
|
I think the confusion around identity is a lot easier when we are not actually interacting with each other. We’re interacting with tiny little thumbnail avatars of one another, which are eminently more confusable with tiny little thumbnail-sized avatars of somebody else. And I’m not immune to it. There are people who I can’t keep straight on my Twitter feed. I don’t think our brains are wired to sort this many faces that we’re exposed to in a day. But I also think that [in] the combination of the unidimensionality of the technology and the fact that we are marketing ourselves, we are thing-ifying ourselves, that what it means to create the “brand” version of you is to create a thin version of you, a commodity version of you. I think this is part of why these are often such cruel spaces.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tT7LTJ">
|
|||
|
|
We are all familiar with the analysis around how the algorithms encourage a certain kind of angry, indignant behavior. And all of that’s true, but I think missing from that analysis is the fact that it isn’t only that the algorithms reward rage and shaming, it’s also that it’s easier to treat people as a thing, as an object, if they’re performing themselves as an object. You would believe that there’s no human there and that they can just live through whatever pile-on the crowd has decided is the outrage of the day.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="gKtFTA">
|
|||
|
|
I thought a lot about this because I do think that the doppelgänger at the center of the book, Naomi Wolf, is somebody who has experienced one of those internet-shaming moments. She’s actually experienced a lot of them. She’s really been a punching bag over the years. And I’m not saying she hasn’t made huge errors. She has. But there’s this famous moment where a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/24/books/naomi-wolf-outrages.html">major error in a book of hers was revealed live</a> on the BBC. And look, we should hold each other accountable. We should take facts seriously. We should fact-check each other. There’s nothing wrong with that part of what happened. I think, in many ways, it’s right that there was a process of having somebody or an interviewer who did enough research to find this error. But what happened afterwards was just one of those really ugly internet moments where it became a sport to make fun of her as if she was not a human being at all. And I think that’s related to what you’re talking about, about this unmooring.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="xCeuna">
|
|||
|
|
<em>To hear the rest of the conversation, </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/naomi-klein-on-her-doppelganger-and-yours/id1081584611?i=1000629050269"><em>click here</em></a><em>, and be sure to follow </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/thegrayarea">The Gray Area</a><em> on </em><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611"><em>Apple Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://podcasts.google.com/search/vox%20conversations"><em>Google Podcasts</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6NOJ6IkTb2GWMj1RpmtnxP"><em>Spotify</em></a><em>, </em><a href="https://www.stitcher.com/show/vox-conversations"><em>Stitcher</em></a><em>, or wherever you listen to podcasts.</em>
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><strong>Will the economy finally un-weird itself?</strong> -
|
|||
|
|
<figure>
|
|||
|
|
<img alt="A man walking on a white line that zig-zags up and down over a green background." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/s-ywVVXM-nTary1CkCHHoULV8fg=/119x0:2004x1414/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72687315/GettyImages_1253985588.0.jpg"/>
|
|||
|
|
<figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
What to worry about if you’re in the mood to worry about the economy. | Klaus Vedfelt via Getty Images
|
|||
|
|
</figcaption>
|
|||
|
|
</figure>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
|||
|
|
The economy’s “hold your breath moment,” explained
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="cAMLQt">
|
|||
|
|
Let’s get this out of the way: the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy">economy</a> is not in bad shape at the moment.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="tmUzfA">
|
|||
|
|
The red hot labor market is cooling off a little, but it remains resilient. It’s the type of thing you’d want to see if the “<a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23614066/inflation-soft-landing-economy-recession">soft landing</a>” scenario we’re aiming for, where the economy slows down without going into negative territory, is going to happen. Inflation has moderated. Consumers <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-20/bofa-cfo-says-recession-hard-to-see-as-consumers-keep-spending?sref=qYiz2hd0">are still hanging in there</a>. The country’s GDP growth for the third quarter <a href="https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/feature/2023/09/19-gdpnow#:~:text=On%20September%2019%2C%20the%20GDPNow,from%20September%2014%20after%20rounding.">is expected</a> to come in <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2023/aug/lower-inflation-gdp-growth-positive-signs-us-economy">quite strong</a>. It actually needs to slow a little bit <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/yellen-says-us-growth-needs-slow-line-with-potential-due-full-employment-2023-09-19/">if inflation is going to come down more</a>. Objectively, you can’t look around and declare, “Yes, we are in the midst of a broad-based recession.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bEw1Ri">
|
|||
|
|
Still, after the last few years, being nervous is well within many Americans’ rights. <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/23770003/economy-job-market-rich-poor-middle-class-stocks">Plenty of people</a> have been <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/6/8/23158436/economy-inflation-recession-odds-stock-market">nervous about the economy</a> for what feels like forever, to the point that it might just be time to accept that at least some level of economic anxiety is a permanent state of being. It’s understandable. The possibility of a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23810454/us-economy-2023-inflation-unemployment-recession-soft-landing">recession</a> is scary, <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23717600/high-inflation-cpi-climate-change-population-aging">inflation</a> is a real bummer, and the thing most people do to exist in the economy — work — is not always super fun. For millions of low-income Americans, economic precarity feels like a fact of life.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
|||
|
|
<div id="pu6Dmw">
|
|||
|
|
<div>
|
|||
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|
|
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|
|
</div>
|
|||
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|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="x7bder">
|
|||
|
|
There are potential headwinds ahead, as there always are — that’s sort of the name of the game. And there are indicators pointing in negative directions, too. A lot of the excess savings people built up in the pandemic <a href="https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2023/may/rise-and-fall-of-pandemic-excess-savings/">have dissipated</a>, and the programs the government put in place to shore up people’s finances and the economy have by and large dried up. The Federal Reserve has been raising interest rates for well over a year in an attempt to slow the economy down and combat inflation, and it’s not clear whether the full effects of that have been felt. (Remember the whole <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23634433/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-silvergate-first-republic-fdic">Silicon Valley Bank collapse</a> from the spring? That was in part the result of Fed rate hikes.)
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="wUcZzm">
|
|||
|
|
“It’s a hold-your-breath moment, because you’re just waiting,” said <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/claudiasahm/">Claudia Sahm</a>, the founder of Sahm Consulting and a former economist at the Federal Reserve. “That’s always the case, but now I think it’s even more reinforced. We’ve been in uncharted territory since 2020, and now it’s seeing if we can get out of it. You can make the case in every direction.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="H1bajj">
|
|||
|
|
On the economy, the vibes and realities <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2022/6/8/23158436/economy-inflation-recession-odds-stock-market">don’t always match</a> — there’s often a negative bias here, too. People’s individual circumstances vary as well. If you’re a striking auto worker, if your <a href="https://www.vox.com/student-loan-debt">student loan</a> payments are about to come back, or if you got swept up in some of the tech layoffs earlier this year, you’re of course going to be extra worried right now.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="aj5ycz">
|
|||
|
|
<q>“We’ve been in uncharted territory since 2020”</q>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="jOmN2N">
|
|||
|
|
At the macro level, really, things do seem pretty solid. But there are some potential uncertainties to keep in mind.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="MxAoXy">
|
|||
|
|
Strikes, student debt, and the shutdown are an economic “triple threat,” in the bad way
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="HMEBbZ">
|
|||
|
|
In the short term, there are multiple factors that, while small on their own, could add up to a significant drag on the economy when combined. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/9/15/23875044/uaw-strike-news-contract-demands-wentzville-toledo-wayne">United Auto Workers strikes</a>, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/even-better/23755273/prepare-return-student-loan-payments-servicer-budget">pending resumption of student debt payments</a>, and the <a href="https://www.vox.com/politics/2023/9/11/23868182/government-shutdown-republicans-house-freedom-caucus">risk of a government shutdown</a> represent a “triple threat on the economy” at the moment, Greg Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon, told me in a recent interview. “It’s the combination of the headwinds that can hurt you more than any single isolated incident.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="VtcsF7">
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The UAW strikes cost the economy $1.6 billion in their first week, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/uaw-strike-set-hit-deep-into-industrys-supply-base-2023-09-22/">according to an estimate</a> by Michigan consulting firm Anderson Economic Group, with the impact largely being felt in the places where the <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions">union</a>’s strikes are taking place. The longer the strikes go on — and the more the UAW escalates to have more workers walk off the job — the worse the scenario will get. Initially, the UAW struck at just three plants in three states, now it’s escalated to 38 plants across 20 states. That’s expanded its geographic reach as well as its disruption.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="Ufk0mD">
|
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|
It’s a similar situation with a potential government shutdown, which could be just days away if <a href="https://www.vox.com/congress">Congress</a> doesn’t strike a deal by midnight on September 30. Some of the economic activity lost during shutdowns will be recovered — government workers who have to forgo their paychecks during that time eventually do get paid. Still, there is damage: the 2018-2019 shutdown, which lasted 34 days, led to <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/what-happens-if-the-government-shuts-down-in-2023/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20economic%20impact%20of%20a%20shutdown">$3 billion</a> in permanent lost economic growth, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="bMWve9">
|
|||
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|
Regardless, a shutdown isn’t an awesome sign for the state of anything. “The government shutdown is about politics and dysfunction,” Sahm said. “It can’t be good for the economy.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="AREXRV">
|
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|
|
Student loan repayments, put on pause during the pandemic, are set to become due again in October — for real this time. Analysts at Goldman Sachs <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/business/economy/restart-student-loan-payments.html#:~:text=Goldman%20Sachs%20analysts%20expect%20renewed,to%201.4%20percent%2C%20they%20estimate.">estimate</a> that will cost American households some $70 billion each year. That is likely to hit consumer spending somewhat — borrowers will be sending $200 or $300 to the government each month instead of injecting it into the economy. It’s not going to do the economy in.
|
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|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nLofFL">
|
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|
“Sure, it’s going to have an effect, but I think the magnitudes are not big enough to drive us into a recession unless we’re already on the verge of a recession,” said <a href="https://www.chicagobooth.edu/faculty/directory/y/constantine-yannelis">Constantine Yannelis</a>, an associate professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. The White House <a href="https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/loans/student-loans/the-student-loan-on-ramp-should-you-delay-payments-for-a-year">has laid out an “on-ramp” for student loan repayments</a> to get people back to paying over time that may also soften the economic blow.
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="mmWR6I">
|
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|
There are other short-term negative factors in play as well. Oil prices have risen and, in turn, so has the cost of gas. Mortgage rates <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/2023/8/18/23837416/mortgage-rates-surge-housing-market-supply-soft-landing">are spiking</a>. Most, if not all, pandemic relief programs have sunsetted, including <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/3/4/23625015/snap-poverty-covid-benefits">food stamps</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2023/2/13/23582863/medicaid-health-insurance-covid-19-coverage-florida-texas">Medicaid</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22638555/unemployment-extension-benefits-biden">unemployment insurance</a>. Congress <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/4/18/23026908/child-tax-credit-joe-manchin-policy-feedback-partisan">allowed</a> the expanded child tax credit to expire as well.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="escAeC">
|
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“The pandemic relief programs clearly had effects on demand, clearly had effects on improving balance sheets and debt,” Sahm said. “It’s not hard to think about which direction [the end of the programs] goes.”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lnjgOi">
|
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|
Child poverty <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/21/23882353/child-poverty-expanded-child-tax-credit-census-welfare-inflation-economy-data">spiked in 2022</a> after supplemental programs were ended. <a href="https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2023/almost-38-million-people-have-lost-their-medicaid-coverage-end-covid-19-public-health">Millions</a> of people have lost Medicaid.
|
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</p>
|
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<h3 id="rqXaRa">
|
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|
|
The labor market is still good! But it’s slowing down, and the Fed’s still doing its thing.
|
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</h3>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="4AgUYl">
|
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|
|
If everything we were talking about up to this point was sort of small-scale, short-term risk, this is the part where we get to the medium stuff. Keeping with the spirit of the rule of threes, let’s put it into three categories that are top of mind: <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs">jobs</a>, inflation, and the Fed.
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="85YE2b">
|
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The overarching headline about the US labor market during the pandemic recovery has been that it’s astonishingly resilient. Many workers were able to get hired, to trade out of bad jobs for better ones, and to join the labor force. Inflation did outpace wage growth for a while, but <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/pay-raises-are-finally-beating-inflation-after-two-years-of-falling-behind-3e89bc2d">that’s no longer the case</a>, and those at the bottom end of the income spectrum in particular <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/swa-wages-2022/">have really been able to make important gains</a>. In recent months, things have started to moderate. People are quitting their jobs at more normal rates, and job openings have fallen. Job gains have slowed as well. As of the August jobs report, the US was adding an <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/01/economy/jobs-report-august-final/index.html">average of 150,000 jobs</a> per month over the past three months. By comparison, at the start of the year, <a href="https://www.hiringlab.org/2023/04/07/march-2023-jobs-report/#:~:text=But%20average%20payroll%20gains%20of,employment%2Dto%2Dpopulation%20ratios.">the figure was more than double that</a>.
|
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</p>
|
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<div class="c-float-right">
|
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<aside id="R5qiRp">
|
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|
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<q>“The very pillar that is reason for optimism is becoming less solid as we move through the year”</q>
|
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</aside>
|
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</div>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="7kkIya">
|
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|
This is all headed in the direction of “normal” territory. The question is whether normal sticks. The downward trend could continue into negative territory, meaning the labor market adds fewer and fewer jobs until we eventually see job losses. “What stops that deceleration?” Sahm said.
|
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|
</p>
|
|||
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lcSMzy">
|
|||
|
|
“We’re seeing an ongoing slowdown in the labor market,” Daco said. “The very pillar that is reason for optimism is becoming less solid as we move through the year.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="5s8G7A">
|
|||
|
|
It’s also worth noting that a normal jobs market doesn’t mean an optimal one. The Black unemployment rate has typically remained much higher than the white unemployment rate, though this recent tight labor market has led to historically low unemployment rates for Black workers. If anything, the past few years have shown that we don’t have a great sense of just how good the labor market can get.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="0Z6eLq">
|
|||
|
|
Inflation increasing again is another concern. It’s moving in the right direction generally, but the ride is likely to be bumpy. While the hope for the labor market is that it stays close to where it is, the hope for inflation, which is in the 3-4 percent range annually, continues to come down, heading more toward that <a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/economy_14400.htm">2 percent rate the Fed aims for</a> in the long term. What’s more, some of the factors that could contribute to increasing inflation — trade disruptions, rising oil prices — are very much out of the Fed’s hands.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="JdneUy">
|
|||
|
|
“We’re seeing a lot of political instability in <a href="https://www.vox.com/china">China</a> at the moment and an increasing decoupling between China and the US, and more generally, we’ve entered, since the pandemic, a new era of trade protectionism,” Yannelis said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="yxqUqx">
|
|||
|
|
“While the Fed will say they care about all inflation, they can do nothing about [oil and gas price] inflation,” Sahm said. “That’s global demand, that’s global politics.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="ynDTM4">
|
|||
|
|
Speaking of the Fed, that’s where another wild card comes in — or, at least, wild-ish. In September, it <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/business/fed-meeting-september-final/index.html">left interest rates unchanged</a> in a sign that it’s relatively optimistic about where the economy is headed. It’s expected to raise interest rates once more this year and has also indicated it will keep rates higher for longer in 2024. It’s a sign the Fed seems to believe the economy can withstand higher rates for longer. That means borrowing costs will likely stay high, something many consumers, businesses, and investors may not love. Still, the economy is unpredictable, and economic forecasts are just that — forecasts.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="J3XwY5">
|
|||
|
|
It’s still not clear if we’ve seen the full fallout of the actions the Fed’s already taken. “I’m still in the camp that we haven’t seen the effect of all the Fed’s interest rates, and frankly, I’m most concerned with the risks in the financial sector,” Sahm said, pointing to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/money/2023/3/14/23640065/silicon-valley-bank-collapse-fdic-interest-rates-federal-reserve">role higher interest rates played in Silicon Valley Bank’s implosion</a>. That being said, the Fed hiking interest rates so much thus far could have pushed the country into a recession, and it didn’t. “With a recession, typically there’s been a shock. The Fed rapidly raising interest rates by over 5 percentage points, that could have been a shock, but it’s not like we rolled right into a recession,” she said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="w5v5wM">
|
|||
|
|
Qian Wang, an economist at Vanguard Group, said she sees a potential problem where the Fed gets stuck between a rock and a hard place as different parts of the economy move in different directions. “I think the biggest risk is that the Fed may get into a dilemma and inflation may pick up actually again and economic growth may weaken and slow down, so that literally makes a soft landing impossible,” she said.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="MSZjlt">
|
|||
|
|
To be sure, there are all sorts of scenarios that could play out. Yannelis pointed to “tail-risk nightmare scenarios” in the long term (or, really, whenever) that could obviously do big damage to the economy — artificial intelligence getting out of control, a disastrous <a href="https://www.vox.com/2024-elections">2024 election</a> where people en masse refuse to accept the results, large-scale confrontation between global powers, like <a href="https://www.vox.com/russia">Russia</a> and NATO. It’s important to point out here that these are really unlikely scenarios. Also, if there is a global nuclear war, it’s not really going to matter what mortgage rate your local bank is offering.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<h3 id="L1koQA">
|
|||
|
|
Maybe it’s just time to embrace economic anxiety acceptance
|
|||
|
|
</h3>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="lNUm5M">
|
|||
|
|
Now that I’ve spent a lot of this story bumming you out a little, I want to emphasize here that there really are plenty of reasons for optimism about the economy — on jobs, consumer spending, and growth. The <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/23810454/us-economy-2023-inflation-unemployment-recession-soft-landing">soft landing</a> scenario seems very much possible, though most economists and policymakers aren’t rushing to call this a definitive win.
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="6HyerN">
|
|||
|
|
“We do feel that a soft landing is not impossible, of course, but we don’t think that’s our baseline scenario,” Wang said, noting Vanguard’s base case is a recession within the next 18 months. “The market sentiment is getting too high.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<div class="c-float-right">
|
|||
|
|
<aside id="HHARsI">
|
|||
|
|
<q>“We have not soft landed, we are still in the landing process”</q>
|
|||
|
|
</aside>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="nrEAZj">
|
|||
|
|
“Objectively, the economy’s feeling pretty good, but it’s vulnerable, because it’s still dealing with high interest rates. And you throw in these headwinds, and I don’t think we’re home free yet,” said <a href="https://www.moodysanalytics.com/about-us/subject-matter-experts/mark-zandi">Mark Zandi</a>, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. “You can’t declare mission accomplished yet. We have not soft landed, we are still in the landing process.”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom" id="fQGoTH">
|
|||
|
|
The US economy <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/08/24/recession-indicator-us-economy-downturn">has been claimed to be near a recession for months and months now</a>, and one <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/with-gallic-shrug-fed-bids-adieu-recession-that-wasnt-2023-08-16/">doesn’t appear to have happened yet</a>. There will very likely be a downturn again at some moment, because recessions, historically, have been a fact of economic life. It’s fair to say that right now, the economy looks quite strong and resilient, and there are also risks. Whether those risks will add up to something impactful isn’t something anyone can definitively declare.
|
|||
|
|
</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-sports">From The Hindu: Sports</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Multicrown, Kings Walk, Dancing Queen, Gutsy, Seattle Blue, The Awakening and Slainte excel</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>2023 ODI World Cup venues: Arun Jaitley Stadium — capacity, pitch info and areas that need attention</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Time And Tide and Kanya Rashi catch the eye</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Vivaldo, All Attractive and Pink Jasmine shine</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Steve Smith’s form not a concern but Australia must adapt well, feels Mitchell Starc</strong> - Usually a prolific scorer against India, Smith has scores of 0 and 41 in the first two ODIs on batting-friendly tracks, having flopped earlier in the Test series in February-March when he could only manage 145 runs across four Tests</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-the-hindu-national-news">From The Hindu: National News</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>China refuses to further expand cooperation with Pak in energy, water, climate under CPEC</strong> - Pakistan also gave up its opposition to setting up a new imported coal-fired power plant in Gwadar and agreed to a number of Chinese demands to address Beijing’s concerns</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Here are the big stories from Karnataka today</strong> - Welcome to the Karnataka Today newsletter, your guide from The Hindu on the major news stories to follow today. Curated by Nalme Nachiyar.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A.P. govt. forms steering committee to frame guidelines for IB syllabus in State-run schools</strong> - The SSC and Intermediate Boards will be transformed and made equivalent with the International Baccalaureate Board, in a move that is aimed at reforming the education sector in the State</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Madras High Court calls for DVAC inquiry report into 2018 complaint over irregularities in T.N. Secretariat construction</strong> - Justices D. Krishnakumar and P.B. Balaji ask Advocate General R. Shunmugasundaram to submit the inquiry report in a sealed cover on October 3</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Sugarcane farmers stage sit-in protest in Thanjavur</strong> -</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-bbc-europe">From BBC: Europe</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Nagorno-Karabakh: Fuel depot blast kills 20 as refugee count rises</strong> - Officials say 290 people have been taken to hospital with dozens in a critical condition.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ukraine: The soldiers who can’t leave the front line until the war is over</strong> - For Ukrainian troops, life on the front line is far from easy, as the BBC’s Mark Urban witnessed up close.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Five alleged Russian spies appear in London court</strong> - The Bulgarian nationals were charged after a counter-espionage investigation uncovered an alleged spy ring.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>River Danube: Ukrainian captain jailed after fatal river tour boat crash</strong> - Twenty-five South Korean tourists died after a boat sank during a rainstorm on the River Danube.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Chess grandmaster Hans Niemann denies using vibrating sex toy to cheat</strong> - Hans Niemann was accused of cheating after he beat Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen last September.</p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-ars-technica">From Ars Technica</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Space Force chief says commercial satellites may need defending</strong> - “It would stand to reason that same philosophy would extend into space.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1971008">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Jeff Bezos finally got rid of Bob Smith at Blue Origin</strong> - “I am confident that Blue Origin’s greatest achievements are still ahead of us.” - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970954">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Ford pauses work on $3.5 billion battery factory in Michigan</strong> - The site was going to make lithium iron phosphate cells for electric vehicles. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970975">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>SEC obtains Wall Street firms’ private chats in probe of WhatsApp, Signal use</strong> - Execs’ “messages discussing business have been handed to the SEC,” report says. - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970944">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>The first foldable PC era is unfolding</strong> - LG’s 17-inch foldable OLED arrives October 4 for 4.99 million won (~$3,726). - <a href="https://arstechnica.com/?p=1970796">link</a></p></li>
|
|||
|
|
</ul>
|
|||
|
|
<h1 data-aos="fade-right" id="from-jokes-subreddit">From Jokes Subreddit</h1>
|
|||
|
|
<ul>
|
|||
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>A dad told his 15 year old son that he would buy him a car…</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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…in 6 months on his 16th birthday if he (the son) got a job, made all “A’s” in school, started going to church every week and cut his hair. The son agreed to do all four things.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Six months go by and the dad told his son, “Son, you got a job, you are going to church every Sunday and are making all “A’s” in school. But you also agreed to cut your hair, which you have not done. So I’m sorry, but I will not buy you a car.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The son said, “Dad, like you said, I’ve been going to church every week and I’ve been looking at all the pictures of Jesus and HE had long hair, so why can’t I?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The dad replied, “He did have long hair and he also walked everywhere!”
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Indotex"> /u/Indotex </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16saks6/a_dad_told_his_15_year_old_son_that_he_would_buy/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16saks6/a_dad_told_his_15_year_old_son_that_he_would_buy/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>One night….</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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One night a little girl walks in on her parents having sex.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The mother is going up and down on the father and when she sees her daughter looking at them she immediately stops.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“What are you doing, Mommy?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The mother too embarassed to tell her little girl about sex so she makes up an answer.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Well, sweetie, sometimes daddy’s tummy gets too big so I have to jump up and down on it to flatten it out.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The little girl replies, “Well, mommy you really shouldn’t bother with that.”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The mother has a confused look on her face, “Why do you say that sweetheart?”
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The little girl replies, “Because mommy, everytime you leave in the morning, the lady next door comes over and blows it back up.”
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/MercyReign"> /u/MercyReign </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8tjh/one_night/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8tjh/one_night/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>I asked the gym trainer which machine to use to get the most beautiful women</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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He said the ATM outside
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</p>
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</div>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/SecurityNo1814"> /u/SecurityNo1814 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16scneq/i_asked_the_gym_trainer_which_machine_to_use_to/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16scneq/i_asked_the_gym_trainer_which_machine_to_use_to/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>What weighs more, a gallon of water, or a gallon of butane?</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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A gallon of water. Butane is a lighter fluid.
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</p>
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</div>
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<!-- SC_ON -->
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/_-Logic-"> /u/_-Logic- </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8bz0/what_weighs_more_a_gallon_of_water_or_a_gallon_of/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16s8bz0/what_weighs_more_a_gallon_of_water_or_a_gallon_of/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
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<li><p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"><strong>Two Brothers Move to the City</strong> - <!-- SC_OFF --></p>
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<div class="md">
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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There were two brothers who lived in the country.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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One day they decided they wanted to move to the big city and get jobs there. When they got there they went to the employment office to ask for jobs.
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The first brother went in for an interview and less than 10 minutes later he comes out of the office jumping for joy yelling “hoo wee! I got a job!”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The second brother was so happy and excited for what he would get.
|
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</p>
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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He enters the office and the interviewer asks him what his skills are.
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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“Well” he says, “I can cut and split wood like crazy”
|
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|
</p>
|
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|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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The interviewer looks at him and says “Hmm, well it’s going to be hard to find a job in this city with those skills. Everything in the city is steel and concrete, we don’t have much use for a wood cutter”
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
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Disheartened, the second brother says “but my brother was just in here and he got a job”
|
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|
|
</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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|
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The interviewer says, “yes but he says he can pilot, and that’s a valuable skill”
|
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</p>
|
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<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom">
|
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The brother sits up in his chair and says, “that may be so, but he can’t pile’it ’till I cut it”
|
|||
|
|
</p>
|
|||
|
|
</div>
|
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<!-- SC_ON -->
|
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|
|
<p data-aos="fade-left" data-aos-anchor-placement="bottom-bottom"> submitted by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Canadiannoob25"> /u/Canadiannoob25 </a> <br/> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16rt70v/two_brothers_move_to_the_city/">[link]</a></span> <span><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/Jokes/comments/16rt70v/two_brothers_move_to_the_city/">[comments]</a></span></p></li>
|
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</ul>
|
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