WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Friday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.
- Wait, this just in. The Brexit talks have fallen apart. You don’t look surprised. Or even interested. Someday a headline will flash. Brexit Talks Fall Together. Time is running out, after all. The deadline is Dec. 31, which suggests there are about 27 more opportunities to run the headline, Brexit Talks Fall Apart.
- Enough of those strange politicians of one of the British Isles and their former friends, the Europeans.. Time to concentrate on the home front where politics are almost a science, and efficiency and optimum outcomes are taken for granted. Which brings us to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After weeks and weeks of daily telephone calls with Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin during which she insisted on a big pandemic relief package and he also refused to move, was that all a waste? “It was not a mistake,” she told reporters during the day. “it was a decision that has taken us to a place where we can do the right thing without other, shall we say, considerations in the legislation that we don’t want,” she continued, adding that “I’m very proud of where we are. … My (committee) chairs have worked very hard on all of this.” Translation: We’re starting over with only a few days left in the midst of a legislative logjam. Somehow we have to cobble something together while trying to prevent a government shutdown Dec. 11. One more thing, we have to pass the National Defense Authorization Act to keep the Pentagon running and then have to pass it again, overriding a veto. Why a veto? Let’s stick to the subject, pandemic relief. Thursday night’s “Status Check” dwelt on the Problem Solvers Caucus and how a small band of House Republicans and Democrats get along with each other and try to get something done. Not a fantasy. They really exist. But does their $908 billion compromise pandemic relief proposal have a chance? In this Congress? In 2020? It’s tough because first you have to patiently explain what “compromise” means and then deal with all the blank stares.
- President-Elect Joe Biden gave a speech. “Early today the November jobs report was released. it was grim. but it doesn’t need to stay that way.” The point of the speech was to encourage Pelosi and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell to, that word again, compromise on pandemic relief. The jobs report challenged the idea of the V-shaped recovery and even the K-shaped recovery and possibly the L-shaped recovery and despite the incorrigibly optimistic view of Larry Kudlow on CNBC, it was a harbinger, as Biden said, of grim times ahead. If the worst health crisis in a lifetime or two wasn’t enough, the economy most people are familiar with, the economy of paychecks and mortgage payments and grocery bills, is starting a long glide path toward stasis. That’s a word with two meanings. One is “inactivity” and the other, ominously, is “civil strife.” How could Republicans not compromise when, Biden pointed out, unemployment benefits and an eviction moratorium are coming to an end for millions of people in little more than three weeks? How could Democrats not provide a good example and lead the way?
- So where is the United States of America on this final month of a tumultuous and pretty dismal year? There are vaccines on the way. Biden said so far he’s not seen a plan to get the vaccine into people, particularly the people who need it the most, the people of color for whom the coronavirus is three times as deadly as it is for everyone else. Except nursing home residents. They are just 1% of the population. They are 40% of the fatalities. A slowing economy, a population skeptical of vaccines. A lot of people intent on never wearing a mask. Curfews, the return of business lockdowns. Republicans hoping to thwart your every move while raising campaign funds by calling you a crazy radical Socialist, or controlled by Socialists. It’s a great job, which is why President Trump wants to hold on to it.
- Trump will be visiting rural Georgia Saturday night, hoping for those MAGA rally vibes. Georgia Republicans have their fingers crossed. As does McConnell. Georgia Republicans, please vote in those runoffs Jan. 5. Please. Georgia Democrats meanwhile are rubbing their eyes, saying this must be a trap, pretending to jeopardize turnout by blasting the Republican governor, the Republican voting officials, the voting methodology. Way to go, President Trump.
- Upcoming economic statistics include the inflation measures, the CPI on Thursday and the PPI’s business inflation report on Friday. They’re covered in the data preview elsewhere on this macenews.com site. All the data points are on the included calendar. Do rising interest rates correlate with rising inflation? Some think so. And the Treasury 10-year seems to be reaching for a 1.0% yield. In the most unread report in Washington, the week’s annual report of the Financial Stability Oversight Council, among the vulnerabilities listed is a rise in rates. A lot of things happen when rates go up, much of it not good. No worries, though, The week’s Beige Book survey of economic activity the Federal Reserve will review as it decides whether to extend maturities of its asset buys at the mid-month policy meeting contained enough reasons to keep interest rates very low for years to come. In fact, despite those vaccines, it appears a lot of what made 2020 so miserably memorable will be around for a long time.
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Contact this reporter: denny@macenews.com.
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