Dissecting Political Dynamics and Economic Illusions: Iowa Caucus Fallout and Obama's Counsel to Biden

Uncover the undercurrents of political power plays and economic enigmas in our latest episode, where I, Darrell McClain,tackle the aftermath of a stirring Iowa caucus. Discover how Trump's triumph shapes the Republican field, with an unfiltered examination of contenders like Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley. We tear into the odd dissonance between cold economic data and the fiery public sentiment, revisiting a conversation that cuts through the noise of political rhetoric to reveal the core issues swaying voter decisions.

Venture beyond the surface with us as we dissect former President Obama's sage counsel to President Biden's campaign strategy, delving into the high stakes of the upcoming elections.  examining Obama's nuanced understanding of Trump's base, the media landscape, and the internal Democratic tensions laid bare by figures like Representative Elissa Slotkin. This discourse isn't just about the players—it's about the game and the intricate moves that define it.

Join us as we pay homage to the profound influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., not just through his iconic speeches but his relentless pursuit of economic equality and social justice. We'll also navigate the peculiar ways our minds warp economic realities, inspired by insights from UBS Global Wealth Management's Chief Economist, Mr. Donovan. This episode promises not just a political analysis but a journey through the psychological labyrinth of inflation perceptions—a must-listen for those who seek to understand not just the 'what' but the 'why' behind today's pressing issues.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 2:10

Welcome to the Jerome McLean Show. I'm your host, jerome McLean. Today is 1 18 of 2024. You happen to be listening to episode 383 of the Jerome McLean Show. Independent Media. They won't reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so we might as well just reason together.

Speaker 1: 2:34

Now let us get into some of our headlines. A lot has happened since the last time we spoke to you and we're gonna go through some of that as well as something a bit of a thought experiment when it comes to economic indicators and the question that I postulated on episode I wanna say, maybe episode 380, when I talked about analyzing economic growth and the disconnect between how economists measure the economy and how the general public feels about the economy. Let's get into it. So, first things first was the Iowa caucus and the former president Donald Trump won the Iowa caucus, which was on Monday, in the first step toward the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. Now that is keeping him on course for the coronation that has looked likely for months. Trump defeated the Florida governor of Ron DeSantis in 51% to 21% and former US ambassador Nikki Haley, who was in third place, at 19%, followed by then Vive Ramaswamy at 8%. Now, the results of that was no big surprise, as Trump had led in the polls for about 30 points for several months. So more of what happened and the numbers behind it. And here are some of the big takeaways. Number one Trump is the huge favorite that everybody thought, pretty much regardless of the margin, trump was going to begin the primary calendar as the overwhelming favorite. That's a result that suggests he'll be a prohibitive one. The winning margin set a record for the Republican Iowa caucus that didn't include an incumbent, more than doubling Bob Dole's 13 points victory in the year of 1988. It's tipped into play the expectations game to look at who is rising and falling at the moment, as well as how they fared relatively to the polls and their own goals. But there's no getting around the fact that the biggest takeaway now is that voting has begun and that Trump looks every bit of the favorite, just as he has this summer. Now the result is a cumulative effort on a culmination of a year long trend in Republican party back toward Donald Trump, surely after the 2020 election.

Speaker 1: 5:06

Virtually every election poll showed DeSantis leading Trump head to head. Now Monday's results is taking Trump taking a majority of votes in a crowd filled suggest even that highly hypothetical path is more than likely cut off. They also came after Trump that was indicted on 91 criminal counts after he found liable in civil court for sexual abuse and financial fraud. If there was any doubt that Republicans was taken by their man, once it came to the time to actually vote, he went a long way toward erasing it. If you're scoring a really hard for looking for any bad news for Trump, it is nearly half of the voters voted against someone who amounted to an incumbent. Also, interest polls shows that three in 10 voters say he wouldn't be fit to serve as president if he's convicted of crimes, and a Fox News analysis showed that more than six and 10 Haley voters said they wouldn't support Trump in the general election. Those numbers could cost Trump significantly in the general election, if that actually whole. But the party proved that it will rally around Donald Trump and it wouldn't be surprising to see that continue.

Speaker 1: 6:22

Now the takeaway number two Haley didn't get her pre-Nuhamshire bump that everybody thought that she would. The second piece of good news for Trump who was who finished second, and that was DeSantis to beat Haley for the spot, according to the associate press Now, despite late polling that has suggested she might overtake him. It was close, but that would seem to reinforce the fact that Republican voters aren't yet set on a Trump alternative. Haley was surely hoping that beating DeSantis, coming out of Iowa, a state he focused heavily on, would inject some momentum into her effort to beat Trump in New Hampshire primary next week. It's really the only state polling somewhat competitively and one she hopes will recast the race. The results undermine Haley's claim that the beginning that and that she's beginning to be a Trump alternative and a win in New Hampshire would be a huge but probably more difficult now. It's not more likely that she'll have to do it to DeSantis, ticking around and peeling away non-Trump voters in future states, even if she gets a very positive result next week.

Speaker 1: 7:29

So shy of that. We have what we've long thought. We have a competition for the front runner. I also ran the candidate slugging it out for second place, hoping to put themselves in the position in case Trump somehow implodes. Now that dynamic is letting Trump avoid a truly sustained campaign against him in the process. So number three in the key takeaway is a entrance poll finding that, I think, tells the tale, if you're the most important interest poll findings that explain what we have witnessed. So one about two thirds of voters wrongly believe President Biden wasn't legitimately elected in 2022. That's a similar to where the GOP has been a national post. But also consider this Fewer than one in 10 Trump voters said Biden win was legitimate. So that means that Trump's baseless claim has pervaded inside of the party not only, but it defines his most devoted base, a number two his dissent is actually won.

Speaker 1: 8:32

Nearly half of the voters who said abortion was the most important issue to them. That's compared with the 25% for Trump. Now, the man who appointed the justice, who overturned Roe v Wade, trump has criticized the Florida six weeks ban as big to heart. Now, the problem was these voters accounted for just 11% of caucus scores and more than seven in 10 voters emphasize the economy or immigration, and Trump dominated among the people that emphasize the economy and immigration. Next point Hailey dominated among voters who have a say that they have the right temperament was the most important for candidate quality. She also competed with Trump among electability first voters, but these groups combined for only about one fourth of the vote. There were more voters who preferred a candidate who fights for people like me, and Trump took eight out of 10 voters there. So character and pragmatism took a distant back seat and Trump benefited from that. Another point Trump managed to win the college educated voters. Even as he generally says he does better with less formally educated voters, he finished third among college educated voters in 2016 caucus. If he compares that at that and he competes to win those voters in other states, his opponents have basically no shot at beating him in the primaries. So here's the number four takeaway Turnout was down a lot from 2016.

Speaker 1: 10:14

So about 110,000 people votes have been counted, a total that is way down from the 187,000 people who voted in the 2016 caucus. So here's that number again 110,000 people voted this year. 187,000 people voted in the caucus at any change scene, which also featured Trump. Certainly, some will see that as a potential sign of diminished enthusiasm for the GOP side, but caucus nights also had to feature at a very bad temperature sub zero temperatures, the coldest caucus ever and the turnout was just a little shy of 2012 and 2008 numbers. Also, the race didn't look too competitive leading up to the caucus, meaning some voters might have just decided their vote wasn't that important to be going out in that type of weather.

Speaker 1: 11:12

Now in New Hampshire, which looks more competitive and won't feature such conditions, it could be a better gauge. Now one thing we can say is results closely mirrored, late polling suggesting that lower turnout didn't particularly cost any one candidate. And the last takeaway in all of this is where Rameshwamy dropped out of the campaign, and that exit could actually bolster Donald Trump a bit that 8% Rameshwamy had. So the caucus did feature one significant casualty Rameshwamy, whose single digit showing came up well shy of his repeated promise that he had announced shortly after that he was dropping out. And when he dropped out he endorsed Trump. Now that exit could bolster Trump's further, given that Rameshwamy geared his campaign toward Trump supporters, lavishing Trump with praise and lodging a number of conspiracy theories. But Rameshwamy's support both nationally and in New Hampshire was lower than it was in Iowa. So Trump's campaign and in the closing days went hard after Rameshwamy, accusing him of undermining Trump while obsessively praising him. So that is the latest in the partisan politics thing of it all.

Speaker 1: 12:33

There is no real primary on the democratic side. I'm not necessarily a normal for somebody that is a sitting president. We did. The court cases have actually proven that the DNC is a private organization and they have done everything they can to shore up the fact that Biden will not be participating in any primary. Why would he? And their opinion? He is already the sitting president. So even though you have people like out there, who may be nominally be in the libertarian on the left side of the wing, whether it's your Dr Cornel West, your Dr Jill Stein from the Green Party or your Robert Kennedy from more of the libertarian side of the Democratic Party, joe Biden is not necessarily competing with him in the primary. He is going to have a coordination, just like Donald Trump, where the likely is gonna have a coordination.

Speaker 1: 13:39

And what is troubling in this somewhat that the Both for the president, sitting president and the former president to to to walk through these primary processes without having to engage a debate with their political opponents. It is a something troubling and in a country where we Regularly invade other people for not having a semblance of democracy, I want us to somewhat question the fact that both of the front runners are, at this point, refusing to debate any primary challengers. I don't think that's something we would like to. I don't think it's a precedent we would like to set. So and that's just how I feel about that specific situation, you can't say you are a Republic, you know, etc. If you refuse to even engage in a conversation with other people who are running for the seat. But it seems like that, for all intent purposes, that's what the Republican Party is going to allow and that is what the Democratic Party is going to allow.

Speaker 1: 15:40

It looks like we're gonna have a repeat of the 2022 election. It's gonna be Our y'all. I'm sorry. The 2020 election is gonna be Donald Trump versus Joe Biden again, and both of them being wildly untested as far as the debates will go until they see each other and we kind of saw how wow their debates were to rambling older males, and that's probably what we're gonna be Unlucky to have to see again. But we will deal with that Bridge when the car rolls to it.

Speaker 1: 16:21

Has anybody ever told you you were over Opinionated? How about this one? You can talk about everything you'd like, but don't talk about religion, don't talk about faith, don't talk about Politics. My name is Jerome McClain, host of the raw McClain show, and I want to introduce you to a show called Over-opinionated with my friend from southwest Virginia, josh Scott. Josh has always been told he has been Over-opinionated. He always tried to hold back these opinions, but he tried to back them up when he had to say something with facts and logic. Since he's grown up in many ways, he had to change a lot of his views and his opinions, as a lot of people should. He's not a millionaire from Fox News or CNN, he's just a work, hardworking, blue collar type of guy. Give Josh Scott a shot and over-opinionated with Josh Scott. You can find him on patreoncom slash over-opinionated at 6, 7, 9. You can also check him out on twitter at nrv, underscore guy 79, over-opinionated with Josh Scott. Where he is, this soft-spoken Guy telling you the truth?

Speaker 2: 17:44

The former president shared his thoughts about the reelection campaign during a private lunch with biden at the white house. Former president barack obama has raised questions about the structure of president biden's reelection campaign, discussing the matter directly with biden and telling the president's aides and allies. The campaign needs to be empowered to make decisions Without clearing them with the white house. According to three people familiar with the conversations, obama grew animated in discussing the 2024 election and former president donald trump's potential return to power. One of the people said, and has suggested to biden's advisors, that the campaign needs more top-level decision makers at its headquarters in wilmington delau or it must empower the people already in place. Obama has not recommended specific individuals, but he has mentioned david plough, who managed obama's 2008 race, as the type of senior strategist needed at the biden campaign. Obama's conversation with biden on the subject took place during a private lunch at the white house in recent months. One of the people said a meeting that has not been previously reported. Biden, who has long used obama as a sounding board, invited his former boss to lunch and the two discussed a range of topics, including the 2024 election. During the lunch, obama noted the success of his reelection campaign structure in 2012, when some of his top presidential aides, including david axelrod and jim mesina, left the white house to take charge of the reelection operation in chicago. That is a sharp contrast from biden's approach of leaving his closest aides at the white house, even though they are involved in all the key decisions made by the campaign. Obama also recommended that biden seek counsel from obama's own former campaign aides, which biden officials say they have done. The people said obama has been even more explicit with people close to biden, suggesting the campaign needs to move aggressively as trump appears poised to quickly wrap up the republican nomination. His concerns about the campaign structure were not tied to a specific moment, but rather his belief that campaigns need to be agile in competitive races, the people said. Speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential conversations, spokespeople for obama and the white house declined to comment.

Speaker 2: 20:16

Obama has long harbored worries about trump's political strength, telling biden during a different private lunch last summer that trump is a more formidable candidate than many democrats realize. He cited trump's intensely loyal following, a trump friendly conservative media ecosystem and a polarized country as advantages for the former president in 2024. Obama, who commands enormous loyalty and star power in the democratic party, is not alone in worrying about biden's weak poll numbers and his unorthodox, bifurcated campaign structure. Julie chavez rodriguez, biden's campaign manager, is based at the campaign headquarters in biden's hometown of wilmington, while the president's top political advisors anita dunne, jeno malley, dillon mike donilon and steve rickety Work more than 100 miles away at the white house. That means any important move by the campaign is run by the white house first, prompting concern among some democrats as they head into a turbulent contest that is likely to require immediate responses to fast moving developments. Axelrod said friday he could not speak to obama's discussions with biden, but that each president approaches his reelection differently and biden's campaign structure may yet evolve. Jim and I started building the structure in chicago in the spring of 11. President biden has chosen to keep many of his key political advisors in the white house Axelrod wrote in a text message, but by necessity I would expect several of them will move fairly soon to the campaign itself. But some democrats running on the ticket with biden are worried. Representative elissa slotkin, democrat michigan, who is running for her state's open senate seat, has expressed concern to allies that she may not be able to win if biden is at the top of the ticket. According to people familiar with the conversations. A spokesman for slotkins campaign said she looks forward to running with president biden.

Speaker 2: 22:20

Outside of urging structural changes, obama's sense of urgency about the upcoming presidential race has been reflected in his push to raise money for biden's effort. He has helped the biden campaign raise four million dollars in small dollar donations, including 2.6 million dollars through a meet the president's contest, where donors have the chance to meet obama and biden. Biden campaign officials said in a statement this summer. Eric schultz, a senior advisor to obama, said the former president Looks forward to supporting democrats up and down the ballot next fall and no race has bigger stakes than president biden's reelection. We place a huge emphasis on finding creative ways to reach new audiences, especially tools that can be directly tied to voter mobilization or volunteer activations. Schultz said we are deliberate in picking our moments because our objective is to move the needle. On thursday, the biden campaign released a new fundraising video featuring the two leaders. We need your help to ensure Joe's leadership continues to guide us forward", obama says in the video. We know the other side won't rest, so we can't either.

Speaker 2: 23:34

The relationship between Obama and the man who served as his vice president for eight years is a complex one. The two men developed a strong working relationship and their families bonded well, but aides to both men say the bromance depicted in some pop culture accounts was always an exaggeration. These days, biden and Obama check in with each other periodically, and Obama remains close to many of his former staffers who now work in the White House. Some Biden allies who have heard about Obama's musings on their campaign structure are dismissive, still feeling burned by Obama's decision to support Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election instead of Biden. The mention of Pluff in particular irritates some longtime Biden aides, because it was Pluff whom Obama dispatched to warn Biden that he faced long odds if he decided to seek the presidency in 2016. The president was not encouraging. Biden wrote in his memoir Promise Me, dad. The Biden aides note bidingly that Clinton, despite Obama's support, lost to Trump in 2016, a defeat that remains traumatizing for many Democrats. Pluff declined to comment but has told friends he is retired from active campaign work.

Speaker 2: 24:52

But even Biden is frustrated by his public standing frequently complaining about his low poll numbers in private conversations with aides. In one meeting shortly before Thanksgiving, he demanded to know what his team and his campaign staff were doing about it. The low approval ratings have persisted despite a humming economy, as the country added 216,000 jobs in December, just before year's end. Biden's rating tied his record low, with 38% approving his performance and 58% disapproving. According to a Washington Post average of 17 polls in November and December, voters, including a majority of Democrats, say they are particularly concerned about Biden's age and consistently rank it as a bigger problem for the president 81, than for Trump 77.

Speaker 2: 25:44

Democrats are also concerned about Biden losing support among younger voters and communities of color because of his handling of the Israel Gaza war. In December, a New York Times-Siena college poll found that 57% of voters disapproved of his handling of the conflict, while 33% approved Biden's. Aides, however, say that if Trump becomes the Republican nominee, as analysts on both sides expect, a clear majority of voters will find Biden preferable, given Trump's chaotic style and anti-democratic tendencies, and in the Times-Siena poll, while all registered voters supported Trump over Biden, those likely to vote favored Biden. On Friday, biden held his first major official campaign event, traveling to Valley Forge, pennsylvania, to give a speech blasting Trump as a threat to democracy on the eve of the anniversary of the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. Biden launched his reelection campaign in April, but to date his political activity has largely been confined to fundraisers and a few appearances at political rallies hosted by outside groups.

Speaker 1: 26:56

So, let me touch something very small that I'm not going to spend a lot of time on, but it just needs to be addressed. So Monday was the birthday of the late Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He would have been 95 years old. Now, just to put some context to this, my grandfather was right now 87 years old. He passed away two years ago at the age of 85. So, martin Luther King Jr, it was only eight years older than my grandfather eight years and so, with that in context, anytime we have Martin of the King day, I watch in wait, as three things happened.

Speaker 1: 27:56

One, the More conservative people on the side of the owl tried to claim him as one of their own. Three, the left will try to play the game and claim him as one of their own by selectively picking out quotes on both sides. The right may say something like we we Want to remember the Martin of the Kings, truth being said, that we want to be judged by the content of our character, not the color of our skin something like that. And the left would say something like you know, remember Martin the King, a truly black, radical, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, revolutionary Christian internationalist who was deemed the enemy of the state and assassinated for his radical work. You know that type of thing. And they'll say, remember Martin the King said your life Begins the end the day you become silent about the things that matter. Or they'll say, remember dr Martin the King said a riot is the voice of the unheard. You know that type of thinking, that type of thing. And then the evangelicals Will try to be silent on Martin the King. Because if you talk about Martin the King in his work and everything he was doing in the 50s, in the 60s, he died in the late 60s. So you know, people forget that when he was doing most of that work he was in his early 20s. And but anyway, when you, when you, when you get to the, the, the core mission, and why evangelicals do a lot to try to discredit or try to Stay away from Martin the King, is because they don't want you to look at the history of the fact. When Martin the King was doing a lot of the work, people that we would now consider evangelicals, and even some of the fathers of the quote-unquote evangelical movement, were us against. The things and all of the King was trying to do in Martin the King's most intense debates Actually did not come from the state. It came from other Religious leaders. It came from most notably Baptist and southern Baptist, because Matthew Martin the King was the pastor of albany's or Baptist church.

Speaker 1: 30:33

So as I scroll, scroll through Twitter and looked at all the things, I watched people saying, oh, martin the King, and it was the great blah, blah, blah, he would be a conservative today. I was liberal saying what were Martin the King say about the war in Gaza. I watched people in Zionist movement trying to say Martin the King Supported Israel. I've watched people play videos when Martin the King talking about Israel has a right to exist. And then I saw people on the left saying well, remember, martin the King said Israel should give up the land because it's just gonna Exasperate the problem and will further in, raise the Arabs. Every single thing that people wanted to layer under the mantle of Dr Martin the King Jr, they layered under that. And, of course, there were people who pointed out the fact. Yes, you know, martin the King Jr Cheated on his wife and and that came up.

Speaker 1: 31:35

And I was very Interested in the fact that the people who labeled or looked and stared at what we know are the failings of Dr Martin the King, excuse the failings of people like Donald Trump, excuse the failings of people like Ronald Reagan, excuse the failings of people like Bill Clinton, excuse the failings of even people who were found on Jeffrey Epstein's Island and so, but it does. So it was very frustrating, as Somebody who has studied the life and the work Martin the King and I understand in that. In that vein I even spoke to one person I didn't get it limped about it and and they said oh, we think that there was hypocrisy here. And I asked them had Martin the King ever given one message About the doctrine of sanctification? Had he given one message about fidelity or anything like that? Was he given? Had he given one message about you staying loyal to his wife? And then, you know, said he preached a very social gospel. You know that we now be able to come, can be labeled and his goal was to use his morality and religious faith to push the state in a certain direction. And he did. He got, you know, bills passed. You know, in a way, that before Martin the King came, that most people in the civil rights era were lawyers and litigators and they didn't think about the morality of the situation. So it Versus.

Speaker 1: 33:24

I don't want us to do what lazy thinkers do, where they try to hijack a legacy. I want you to go and read Martin the King's work and judge it for yourself. Yeah, martin the King wrote a very famous book, a letter from a Birmingham jail. Go read that and and see if you agree with King and what he said. Go read the pivotal work that I like. Where do we go from here by Dr Martin the King? Where do we go from here? Chaos or community, and deal with that. Don't just take a total person and make their entire legacy in their work. One quote that people purposely take out a context for their agenda. That being said, we would, we want to Honor the life and the legacy of Dr Martin the King Jr For what he accomplished, while not trying to gloss over the failings that he had that many Other human beings have. As the great book says, we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Speaker 3: 34:39

I think the other thing that we must see at this time is that many of the people who supported us in Selma in Birmingham were really outraged about the extremist behavior toward Negroes, but they were not at that moment and they are not now, committed to genuine equality for Negroes.

Speaker 3: 35:03

It's much easier to integrate a lunch counter that it is to guarantee an annual income, for instance, to get rid of poverty for Negroes and all poor people. It's much easier to integrate a bus Than it is to make genuine integration of reality and quality education a reality in our schools. It's much easier to integrate even a public park than it is to get rid of slums. And I think we are in a new era, a new phase of the struggle, where we have moved from a struggle for decency, which characterizes our struggle for 10 or 12 years, to a struggle for genuine equality. And this is where we're getting the resistance, because there was never any intention to go this far. People were reacting to bull corner and To Jim Clark rather than acting in good faith for the realization of genuine equality.

Speaker 1: 35:59

And is it that something that we still fight over today? What is genuine equality? I can, if I can give you access to the table, that's fine, but if I give you access to the table and you have no resources to eat, you're not dining, you're just sitting at the table. And that is, I think, the crux of where we are at this particular moment, when you look at these economic numbers and why everybody is so upset. What I'm gonna get into in the next segment, I think that this was the stuff that Martha King's tried to deal with when he was killed. Remember the Martha King was killed. He was protesting for sanitation workers and their right to have a, a decent wage.

Speaker 5: 36:49

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead, but it really doesn't matter with me now because I've been to the mountaintop. I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longivity has its place, but I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. He's allowed me to go up to the mountain and I've looked over and I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. So I'm happy tonight. I'm not worried about anything, I'm not afraid. In a man, my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

Speaker 1: 38:06

And of course we now know, a few days after giving that speech, that Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. He don't have the biblical context. Martin Luther King was quoting the passage from the Bible where God had taken Moses up and let him see the promised land that would be promised to the children of Israel. And if you are a biblical scholar, you also know that Moses did not get to see the promised land. He died before the people reached the land. Right back with more on the Derail MacLean Show. The Derail MacLean Show has a voicemail call for comments on anything you would like to say on the show. The phone number is 757-310-7303. You can call and leave a voicemail. It will be played on the show, sometimes without comment, sometimes with comment, or you can also text that number if you have anything you'd like to say. Again, that number is 757-310-7303. So go ahead and do that if you want to leave a comment on the show. We did have a comment today and we're going to listen to that and see if we have anything to say right now.

Speaker 4: 39:33

I wanted to give you an update. You know that I'm an advocate for lowering types of fees that companies can charge individuals for a variety of reasons, so this was going to focus on overdraft fees, and overdraft fees could shrink to as low as $3. Based on a proposal that came out of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the current administration. The rule would require financial institutions to offer more disclosure about overdraft fees and potentially limit them to as low as $3. The proposed rule would save bank consumers an estimated $3.5 billion a year, which is an incredible amount of money. So I'm going to keep an eye on this and I see it moving along.

Speaker 4: 40:35

Call back and give an update.

Speaker 1: 40:37

Thanks, so thank you for that. I'm going to make a tad bit of a comment about that. I think that it is something. I don't want to use words like wicked, but I will just say it is extremely frustrating to acknowledge the fact that it is actually very expensive to be poor. It is very expensive to be poor. I actually have had friends who are very rich, very wealthy, and actually talk about how much they actually get for free because they are wealthy, how much people invite them to things all expensive, paid this, etc. And then, on the other end, when you have a, just to wrestle with the notion that a bank regularly punishes its customers for not having money, like you did not have the $45 to cover the transaction, so I'm actually going to punish you by charging you $20 and putting you $20 in negatives. You already didn't have 40 and now you have negative 20. Just the notion that we have somewhat just grown to accept. That is something that I find mind boggling. The punishment for being poor or for being without, for being shut out, sick and shut in, is something that we will have to wrestle with and, like I say, it's nothing new. We've been talking about these questions for decades. Thank you so much for that comment and remember this is why legislation is important.

Speaker 1: 42:32

Democracy is not a spectator sport. It involves your participation. Consumer Protection Bureau the life child of person who used to be a Republican. It used to be a Republican bankruptcy attorney, actually by the name of Elizabeth Warren, who wrote a fantastic book which he was a Republican called the two income trap. That's what I noticed, elizabeth Warren and now is a liberal Democrat and still is a economic populous, you know, and is very focused on the consumer and the Consumer Protection Bureau was her, was her life child and, as far as it concerns now, because Elizabeth is, you know, in her the older years that may be her legacy and this, things like this are important. Things like this are important.

Speaker 1: 43:30

You, you, you don't have the money to pay a bill and you, sometimes a bank honors it and they honor it and give you a fee on top of the honoring and it's like you know, like I said, you already didn't have the money and you get punished for not having money. It's a very perplexing, frustrating and strange phenomenon, but it also, I think, in some ways is set up to remind you that a bank is not your friend. A bank is just not a storage facility that you put your money. A bank is a business and when you have a normal storage facility, you are very aware that you have. You have one because you're paying them monthly and a bank gets paid from several things and one of the things is fees and you had to remember a bank is a business.

Speaker 1: 44:29

Thank you for the call. We did have the pleasure of having a Interview. We've done to and I got a lot more scheduled. I'm gonna start trying to rain them out in the new year that way. I know you guys like to hear me and my voice and the talent that I have. That is alone, you know, all alone from God, as a late rush limbo used to say. But we are going to be having more guests on the show, god's willing. In.

Speaker 1: 44:59

The latest that we did was from a author who has a fascinating book that we did the interview on and I had was blessed to get a copy of the book as well, and it was a very impressed, which is, you know, I wanted to, you know, have him on. So At any rate, it did elicit some feedback, dot, not a negative feedback, but it listed some feedback from one of our Very loyal listeners by the name of Nick, and Nick has to say interesting podcast. Regarding policing, my understanding was he doesn't have an actual police background. We would love if you got some cops on to discuss this issue as well. And honestly, while not a cop, but working as a first responder and working with cops, I think the emphasis on safety and going home is rightly Prioritized, because there's a lot of violence against cops and first responders, violence that most other professions don't expect to encounter, and so that was a very succinct and amazing comment from the listener, nick, and and, of course, just for the recap, that the person was a college professor of sociology who was not a police officer himself but was embedded with some police Departments I think it was three while he was doing his study, and he was able to do something very interesting, which was try to break into the data, and I think this is an ongoing conversation, an ongoing conversation. The book was fascinating 350 pages. I thought it was well written, well reasoned and If you, if you can wrestle with the work when it does come out, the book it was coming out in February and it is called the danger imperative and it's it's you know, just his analysis on some of the way that we do policing.

Speaker 1: 47:06

And If you did not hear that episode, go listen to it. And I also want to thank Nick, who actually reached out to me on the Jerome McClain Instagram page, where I also do take questions, comments and concerns and Will will respond to them. If on the show, of course, I won't tell them what your Instagram name is and all that type of stuff, and but I but thank you so much for listening and thank you so much for the questions and comments. You too can be a part of this thing by Leaving me a message, whether it's a voicemail, or are sending me a message through text message or email, which the email is available on the bus sprouts page and all the other stuff, and I do read those. I do take him to account, I'm, and I do respond. Now I do have a Facebook page as well. It blah, blah, blah.

Speaker 1: 48:05

It is very rare that I'm going to get in a back-and-forth debate with anybody, well, any social platform. I just kind of take the comment as the comment and I let it stand where it stands. The research is there For whatever topic. I leave the analysis in the show notes. I have show transcripts, you, you could see where I'm getting the information. I do a pretty decent job at providing the studies, if there is a study, and so, and me debating you on an issue I think is, for for all intents purposes, somewhat useless, because it is all somewhat based on the perception and the perspective and the skin that you're living in, and I am not in the business, unless I'm getting paid, of convincing anyone of Anything at this at this point in the game. But but but, thank you so much for all my loyal listeners, for all my loyal questioners, for all the people that call in and leave messages, for my loyal patrons, who make this possible. You do, you keep this thing going now.

Speaker 1: 49:14

What I'm gonna get to get into now, to to end this a little bit and it's a, it's a question about the economy and and something that I thought was very interesting that came out of the New York Times, okay, and it was from. It is an opinion, but, but it, but it, but it touched on what I was, I was talking about the other day, and that was the economy, and let's say that we approached this as it comes to a snicker bar. So did you know that over 12 snicker bars are sold every second in the United States. More importantly, did you know that the fact contains insight as to why voters are unhappy with our economy? With clarity and a bit of wit, ubs economist Paul Donovan offers his take on what has been one of elections biggest mysteries. Why are voters so concerned about a problem that, by most measures, doesn't really exist? So in December, consumer prices increased just 3.4 percent over the previous year. In June of 2022, the increase in prices over the previous year was 9.1 percent, yet voters are still declaring Inflation as a major issue.

Speaker 1: 50:32

Now the answer has less to do with economic statistics and more with to do with human nature. As Donovan actually explained in his guest essay in the New York Times, which we're gonna discuss, is that history holds many Examples of the emblematic commodities or cultural memories being reflected in feelings about economic reality, from metallians apparent a sensitivity to shifts in the cost of Expresso to the German weariness of fiscal deficits decades after experiencing hyperflation or fight hyperinflation. The recognition of the power of such sentiments even led President Richard Nixon administration to excess over the price of hamburger meat. As Nixon special counsel Charles Connell described, hamburger meat was the one item that was highly visible and Meaningful to the housewife. Now the ginger stereotyping seems archaic half a century later, but the principle still holds.

Speaker 1: 51:34

There have been many arguments made about the forces that are dominating this election and, as Donovan knows, perhaps some of the most important ones are, but would be, those influence in the decisions that you Happen to be making at the grocery store. So let's get into the opinion piece that I thought was good from the writer, mr Donovan, who is the chief Economist at UBS global wealth management. So, and he goes on to say in the New York Times, the United States has just experienced One of the biggest collapses in consumer inflation in modern history. In June of 2022, consumer price has had risen 9.1 percent over the previous year. By December 2023, the rate increases had slowed to 3.4. And yet, in a survey after survey, voters still declare Inflation to be at or near the top of their list of concerns. Why aren't voters Recognizing the decline in the inflation rate? Because voters are humans and humans don't think about inflation Rationally. They to understand why.

Speaker 1: 52:47

Let's look at a snicker bar. More than 12 snicker bars are sold every second in the United States. That's made snicker bars a very important part of consumer purchases, and so the price of a snicker bar should be included in the inflated Calculation. Yes, snicker bars do not consume a big portion of most families annual budget. At least I usually don't. Most of us will spend far more on our budget on something like a television. With $1,500 the consumer could buy a high in 55 inch television. Are Are almost four snicker bars a day for a year. Because items in the consumer price basket are weighted roughly by how much money consumers spend on an item in a year, television prices are more important the snicker bars in the calculation when it comes to inflation. However, we probably buy snicker bars much more frequently, perhaps even daily. So we're much more likely to remember the price of snicker bars and forget the price of the television we bought last year. Consumers tend to think about only the prices of the high frequency purchases found for the family and Fuel for the SUV.

Speaker 1: 53:55

The different inflation rates for frequent and infrequent purchases is a big part of why consumers mistakenly believe inflation is higher. Then it actually is. The prices of more expensive goods like furniture and consumer Electronics are actually falling and have been falling for over a year. One of the post pandemic surge in demands for electronics, furniture and similar items faded, manufacturers were unable actually to maintain higher prices, playing the reported inflation numbers lower. Unfortunately For the Biden administration, however, food prices are still rising, a fact that the evident and the every supermarket when you go to check out. So less than a tenth of an average household budget is spent on the supermarket, but the prices pay there dominate the inflation perspective of the consumer. The result is that the consumers perceive inflation is higher Then it actually is. This is not an uniquely American phenomenon. For example, in 2002, the Italian consumers were convinced inflation was running at 18 percent year of a year, when the reality was inflation was actually at 2%. Further investigation revealed that increase in the price of a cup of espresso drove much of that erroneous impression. The fact that we are all biased towards remembering the price of the things about more frequently is then compounded by the other phenomenon Humans are genetically pre-programmed to emphasize bad news over good news when they make decisions.

Speaker 1: 55:40

Aversions to loss is a primitive survival mechanism. We run away from a tiger faster than we run toward food. In an inflation sense, this means that people are inclined to place more emphasis on price increases, which represents a loss of spending power, than they are to focus on price declines In the extreme situations. This emphasizes canned span generation, for instance. Germans have a horror of rising prices today because the losses generated by hyperinflation in the 1920s and 1940s have become part of the society's collective memory. That have produced a strong popular support for a central bank of independence and are reluctant to run large fiscal defences.

Speaker 1: 56:30

In addition, big price increases are embedded in the memories of consumers even if the item is relatively an important part of their budget. A chocolate bar that moves up 20% in price from $1 is still only $1.20, but it will provoke a sense of outrage, even though their total spending on chocolate is hopefully fairly limited. Now consumers also frequently focus on price levels, and slowing rate of inflation does not mean prices are back to where they were. They simply mean prices are rising at a slower pace than before. Consumers have experienced a long period of low inflation and where prices were static and want to get back to the price level they remember. The last time consumer prices of inflation was above 4% for more than a few months was the very start of the 1990s. If something costs $1 for a decade, consumers actually resent the fact that the same product is $1.20 today, but the price of that product is no longer rising. Mentally, consumers feel that the product ought to cost $1 and they are nostalgic for that old price. So I find this to be very true. The article is not that much longer, but because I do believe in journalism, I want you to go and look at the New York Times and read the rest of the article for yourself, as the term became famous in the pandemic. I will still do your own research, but I will say that I find this very true.

Speaker 1: 58:12

I am 38 years old now and I remember when I started driving a car. I remember it so intimately because it was my first real sense of independence. You know what I remember about that car? More than about the freedom that it brought me the low price of gas. I remember gas being $1.10 a gallon. I remember being able to put $10 in a car and it actually meant something significant, and I think a lot of people, if that is the example that I can remember. I think, when it comes to taking care of a family, there are prices that are close to people, just like gas, and I think that this goes to wars explaining Even though the economy may be pointing to indicators that economists say is it a good place? Why the general public thinks something very different. Thank you so much for tuning into the show and we'll see you on the next episode.