More Than Just Data: Agreement is Rare, It's TS's World, and Sometimes the Data Could Not Be More Clear.
There are lots of adjectives you can use to describe the state of US politics these days, but boring is probably not one of them. For the first time in history, the House of Representatives voted to vacate the Speaker’s Chair and now a new Speaker of the House needs to be chosen before any other votes can move forward. Good thing we don’t have a shutdown looming in the not too distant future (yikes). Many other western countries have a parliamentary system and coalitions will oftentimes dissolve prematurely, but we are certainly in uncharted territory for our two party system. The challenge is that our two parties are each a coalition party in and of themselves but without the real ability to leave or dissolve.
How this likely would have played out elsewhere is that we would hold an election in the next couple months where the voters get to have their say on what the government should look like, now that the current coalition does not have the ability to work together.
When our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, the decision was made to move away from the parliamentary system and form a Republic; however, this decision was made during a time where partisanship was not the defining motivator for the vast majority of citizens. The prevailing wisdom seemed to be that what was in the best interests of the country would prevail. This wisdom was very much questioned in the mid 1800’s and it took a war and more than 600,000 deaths to keep the country intact. While the threat of a second civil war is not exactly front of mind, we seem to be at another breaking point.
In the short term the question is: who is going to be the next Speaker? The longer term question is: can the current system of government coexist with the realities of today’s hyper-partisanship?
Theoretically, this should not be the hardest hill to climb. There are three groups that have to agree to the budget and other legislation. One of the three is controlled by Republicans, two by Democrats. The only way this gets solved is by compromise. No one is going to get everything they want, but there has to be agreement on the goal of keeping the government open, functioning, and moving forward. If that agreement can’t be made, this is going to end badly.
Lots of nights when there isn’t a specific plan for dinner there is disagreement on what to have in my house. One kid might want pizza, the other feels fajitas is the right call. It is unlikely that they will agree on what to have, but they will absolutely agree that dinner needs to happen for everyone involved. If someone doesn’t want to eat, then that person will be removed from the conversation very quickly. In a parliamentary system, there is the ability to send someone to bed without dinner. It can also happen in our current system, but someone needs to be prepared to send that unwilling participant up to their room, even if dinner will be a little less enjoyable for everyone else involved.
As always, here are some of the data that caught our attention this week.
?????? 1 )?? 56%
There is not much a majority of Americans agree on (see above), but whether Netflix is an innovative company is one of them. Last year, a plurality of Americans felt that the company was innovative (47%), but a year later this now stands at 56%. The overall number is impressive as is, but arguably most impressive is the fact that this view increased among almost every demographic group. Given these numbers it is not surprising that a quarter of Americans feel that Netflix will continue to dominate the streaming market for the foreseeable future. This was down by one point since last year, but given the views of the company overall, this seems more to do with the ability of others to catch up than a feeling that Netflix is somehow slipping.
???? 2) TS=10x
领英推荐
If you had any question of who or what is the most powerful economic force these days, might I recommend you take a look at the effect Taylor Swift is having on multiple fronts. Her tour is projected to generate $5B in consumer spending. For those who decided not to mortgage their house to go see a show, her movie is opening up on October 13th and is expected to take in over $100M at the box office in the opening weekend. The demand for ticket sales is estimated to be 10 times higher than any other event film shown (according to Cinemark Theaters).
If you haven’t heard, Swift may or may not be dating Travis Kelce, who plays for the Kansas City Chiefs. Last Sunday night's matchup between the Chiefs and New York Jets (which Swift attended) drew 27 million viewers — making it the most-watched Sunday TV show since the last Super Bowl, according to NBC Sports.
According to NBC, viewership among teen girls spiked 53% from the season-to-date average of the first three weeks of Sunday Night Football. The audience among women ages 18-24 was up 24%, while viewership for women over the age of 35 increased 34%. Also, Kelce’s jersey sales increased 400%.
? 3)? $1.2million
Yesterday was Latina Equal Pay Day, which brings attention to the incredible pay gap that currently exists between Latina workers and their non-Latina counterparts. What was shocking to me was the lack of effect education has on these numbers. For example, a Latina with no high school diploma makes an average of $30,400 a year. Her white male counterpart makes $49,000 a year, (61 cents on the dollar). For those with a high school diploma the numbers are $35,100 vs $52,300 (67 cents on the dollar). For college educated Latinas and white males the average salaries are $55,000 and $93,900 respectively (59 cents on the dollar). Those with masters degrees are earning 66 cents on the dollar. The lowest discrepancy is among those with PhDs where Latinas make 91 cents on the dollar.
Overall, this all works out to Latinas making $1.2million less over the course of their careers.
We hope you enjoyed this week’s edition and, as always, we look forward to your thoughts and hearing what stories caught your eye this week.
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