The US Presidency – More Cold Than Old. When to Quit. Gareth Southgate –?Less Ted Lasso, More Dead Loss-o –?Say the Stats. Plus more! #217

Grüezi!?I’m Adrian Monck – welcome!

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1???The Strange Resilience of the US Presidency

It can cope with confusion.

I last saw Joe Biden in person in 2017. He was a capable speaker. Not any more.

The story - says the WSJ – started in October 2021:

“Voters thought the faltering president was too old,” said the newspaper owned by a recently re-married 93-year-old.

The issue was not age but infirmity. And strangely, the presidency manages to exist perfectly adequately with it.

Back in the 1990s, after Ronald Reagan’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, an NYT reporter – and medical doctor – wrote:

Mr Reagan was asked about his forgetfulness in an interview with this reporter when he ran for President in 1980.

That ‘forgetful’ Ronald Reagan won the 1980 presidential election and served two terms.

The United States survived. Mr Biden ails, but his administration abides.

Reagan’s administration was characterised by two strong chiefs of staff – James Baker and Donald Regan. And his wife Nancy and her astrologer.*

US administrations are surprisingly resilient. They rely less on the individual character of whoever sits in the Oval office and more on the talent each political side assembles.

Such is the size and scale of the US administration that Regan, a tough former marine colonel and Merrill Lynch CEO, noted that Reagan’s cabinet and staff appointments were made “after close consultation with his financial and political supporters and friends in California.”

The presidency is tempered by the machinery of politics that blends money wanting favours with people wanting power.

The question until this weekend?

What will you choose to ignore in the service of political advantage? Joe Biden’s frailty or Donald Trump’s character?

Democrats no longer need to make that particular choice.

*The story about Nancy and her astrologer? Told by Alistair Cooke, then 80, who carried on broadcasting weekly until a fortnight or so before his death, aged 95.

??If you wonder how contemporaries saw Reagan, here’s a satire from the 1980s.

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2?? When Is It Time To Quit?

A brief history lesson.

What you do is who you are. And when you stop?

Do you have the resources, the relationships and the resilience to live out your life?

To put it more bluntly, do you have the pension, people and purpose required to stay happy? This – for most of us – is the calculation, but ignore the conventional history of retirement for a moment.

What if you are a very powerful person with agency and a seemingly never-ending ability to avoid confronting your inner demons?

Chances are you will never step down until you’re made to stop?by misfortune or misadventure.

This is the topic for great recent comedy, from Succession to Death of Stalin.

What happens to superannuated sociopaths who give up power and retire?

Shakespeare covered that in King Lear.

??How retirement was invented.

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3?? China’s Consumer Crunch

Why saving won’t save China.

China’s switch to a consumer-driven economy is not going as smoothly as many hoped. A new report makes painful reading:

1. Slowing growth: household consumption is expected to grow only 3-4% annually over the next 5-10 years. This could limit China’s overall GDP growth to around 3%.
2. Social issues: low household incomes; high inequality (top 10% have 69% of total savings); tax system that hurts the poor; weak social safety net forcing high precautionary savings
3. Policy paralysis: fear of welfare making people lazy; local government putting manufacturing over social spending; resistance to big government spending reforms.
4. Debt dilemma: Many families are focused on paying down mortgages rather than spending. Household debt has risen, now at 64% of GDP.
5. Demographic downshift: An aging population was expected to cut savings, but so far, the opposite is happening...

If China’s consumption matched EU or Japan levels, it would add $2.3 trillion in annual spending – like adding another UK to the global economy.

Still, China is a massive economy. It will need new services moving forward. Don’t bet against 1.4 billion people.

??One Chinese executive is predicting big semiconductor growth there.

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4?? What Did The Romans Do For Us?

Economic growth, improved living standards, better tech....

People like Peter Temin have challenged our idea of the Roman economy in recent times. TL;DR it was pretty sophisticated.

Now a groundbreaking study of Roman Britain puts numbers on just how much the ancient economy grew under imperial rule.

The key findings:

1. There was sustained growth: Average growth rates of 0.5% per year from Early to Middle Roman periods, and 0.3% from Middle to Late Roman periods.
2. Big improvements: economic conditions for ordinary people improved by 2.5x between Early and Late Roman periods.
3. What helped? Lower transport costs, improved institutions (e.g. Roman law, standardised coins), and tech advances in agriculture and food preparation.

The Roman economy was more dynamic and prosperous than previously thought. They had:

? Centuries of per capita income growth

? Advances in hydraulics, metallurgy, and agriculture

? Stable governance respecting property rights

? Extensive trade networks and urban development

And – of course – it all went pear-shaped.

??In the interests of balance, not everyone agrees with Temin...

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5?? Gareth Southgate – Less Ted Lasso, More Dead Loss-o

What Stats Say About England Soccer Managers.

England football supporters are used to debating the reasons for their team’s persistent failure to win tournament trophies.

The search for a national scapegoat now has statistical backing, notably to answer the question about recently departed manager Gareth Southgate.

Was he a talented manager who took England further in tournaments than many predecessors? Or was he a bum?

John Burn-Murdoch* has produced a lovely piece of research that tells a simple story.

Southgate’s teams went further in tournaments thanks to lucky draws. But they tanked against top class opposition.

*Occasionally I pat myself on the back, and one of the things I’m proud of is kickstarting the MA programmes at City. John graduated in 2012 and has been churning out top quality data journalism at the FT ever since.

??In case you want to study journalism at postgrad level.

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6???The US is Losing the Information War

Russia is winning.

The disinformation strategy is simple:

Russia’s goal is not to promote a singular narrative. Rather, by consistently weaponising conspiracy theories and “alternative facts,” Russia looks to pollute the information space...

And how is the US set up to counter it?

Emily Harding at the CSIS says poorly:

• “US efforts to defend against disinformation campaigns remain anaemic at best. The Global Engagement Center at the State Department and the Foreign Malign Influence Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence are small and understaffed.
• “The rules about what US government (USG) agencies are and are not allowed to do in the information space are unclear and sometimes contradictory.
• “The USG is largely dependent on industry to keep the bot farms away, and even the USG’s ability to talk to social media companies about these issues was recently the subject of intense legal debate.
• “The sum total of these efforts is that the United States is crawling, and its adversaries just strapped on a jet pack.”

??You’re more likely to believe disinformation shared by someone you barely know...

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7?? “You Think You Just Fell Out Of A Coconut Tree?”

The meme election.

Kamala Harris is “honest, blunt and a little bit volatile.” Let’s see how her candidacy evolves.

Elections are about issues but they are fought in the communication idioms of the electorates they seek to mobilise. This one is no different.

A failed British politician writing the biography of another failed British politician wrote a telling line:

“All political lives ... end in failure, because that is the nature of politics.”

Why was Joe Biden dumped for Harris? Because Democrats thought he couldn’t win. It’s that simple.

??Biden had a problem with young voters. Harris is working to overcome it.

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If you enjoy this newsletter – please recommend it!

Best,

Adrian