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Wednesday, May 22, 2024

Expect the most polluted election ever as MSNBC redefines ‘Russia hoax.’

By Holman Jenkins Jr.

When AP reports that “Putin says Russia prefers Biden to Trump, calling the US president more experienced and predictable,” how should we interpret this? Vladimir Putin hopes to help Donald Trump by tainting Joe Biden? Or by reminding Americans of his past meddling, Mr. Putin’s actually helping Mr. Biden?

Or maybe he really just wants to signal to a Russian audience that he’s not depending on Mr. Trump for a Ukraine resolution?

Get ready for the most polluted election in American memory.

Here’s CNN: “US intelligence officials are watching closely to see if the United States’ support for Ukraine will lead the Russian government to take more risks in potentially interfering in the 2024 presidential election. . . . President Joe Biden’s reliable backing of Kyiv—might be an ‘animating event for the Russians,’ the FBI official said at a briefing with reporters.”

That word “reliable” might have them rolling their eyes in Kyiv.

Adds CNN: “Russia could be motivated to more aggressively meddle in the 2024 election than it did in 2020. But US officials have not publicly identified any examples of that happening yet.”

But I just identified one—Mr. Putin declaring for Mr. Biden in the 2024 election. I identified another recently, Russia using its foreign ministry apparatus to circulate accusations that a company Hunter Biden worked for, Burisma, financed terrorism inside Russia.

This latter claim, promoted through diplomatic channels as deliberate, undisguised Russian policy, is the kind of meddling the U.S. press loves to report. It goes unreported, perhaps because it would remind U.S. voters of the Hunter mess, something Biden supporters don’t want the U.S. public reminded of.

Ask yourself: Which has a bigger effect on our politics? A Russian propaganda video among millions of social media videos posted daily? Or the New York Times and MSNBC touting the video to their influential audiences last week as a Kremlin effort to inflame U.S. politics?

In 2017, Obama intelligence leaders testified that Russia deliberately sought to call attention to its meddling.

Last year, led by NYU researchers, yet another study confirmed that Russian propaganda had zero effect on the 2016 election even as exaggerated and disingenuous claims of Kremlin influence had an incalculable effect on our politics.

Certainly Russian trolls can figure out MSNBC’s business model. Out of the whole melange last week, the one element that most bespoke a clear propaganda purpose was Joe Scarborough’s redefinition of “Russia hoax.” Now, on one channel at least, it means falsely denying the existence of Russian propaganda campaigns (which I’ve never heard anyone do) rather than the documented circulation by the media, Democrats and FBI of false evidence against the Trump campaign.

Look, as I’ve said for nearly 20 years, contemplating a nuclear-armed mafia state isn’t pleasant for American policymakers. Every president has attempted Putin outreach, including Messrs. Trump and Biden.

It also wasn’t news that other governments take an interest in our elections, and that they have access to the internet.

But the giant, fibrillating, man-bites-dog change has been the weaponization of Russia relations in our domestic politics, and not to manage our Putin risk or advance U.S. foreign policy.

Imagine 2020 had turned out differently and it was Mr. Trump who revived Nord Stream II, awarded Mr. Putin the plum of a presidential summit, and said a “minor incursion” in Ukraine might go unpunished. It was a Trump administration that predicted a quick Russian victory, urged the Zelensky government to flee and held back weapons.

In 2017, I fretted about the then-new “Russia interference racket,” about how our sickly elites had become “uninhibited in exploiting” a deadly nuclear rival for shallow partisan purposes. (This was before 51 former intelligence officials lied to the American people about the Hunter Biden laptop.)

I’m waiting for the wise person of either party, a role once played by Sam Nunn for the Democrats, to say we have exceeded all restraint in this regard. I’m waiting for the Abe Rosenthal or Ben Bradlee who sees that reporting accurately on such matters isn’t inconsistent with reporting on Mr. Trump’s own recklessness and irresponsibility.

Voters can recognize both that there’s a problem here and Mr. Trump isn’t the solution. But commentators also never cottoned on to the biggest Trump novelty, from day one placing foreign policy at the center of his pitch.

Voters aren’t supposed to care about foreign policy. He invited his deplorables to ask whether it was serving their interests. The savagery and recklessness of the establishment attack on Mr. Trump strikes me as not unconnected to this fact. In Ukraine, I also suspect, they reaped the whirlwind. Now Mr. Trump may be coming back and we would be idiots—true idiots—not to see his political resurrection since Jan. 6 as largely his enemies’ doing.

A psychiatrist will have to explain why his opponents allowed themselves to be caught red-handed fabricating discrediting material about Mr. Trump (e.g., the Steele dossier) when he supplied them so much authentically discrediting material gratis.

In the meantime, it’s heartening that Democrats are again talking about replacing Mr. Biden before Election Day.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-influence-racket-redux-cnn-msnbc-election-2024-7ba831fa

Cracks In The Armour Of The Resilient Consumer

by Robert Burrows via BondVigilantes.com,

Consumption spending accounts for approximately two-thirds of the US economy. It is vital that we understand the dynamics of the consumer because if the consumer falters, so does the US economy, which has far-reaching consequences. The surprising resilience of the US consumer in the face of a pandemic and then rising interest rates has surprised many. This resilience is a function of multiple factors, including a strong labour market, accumulated savings, wage growth, and government support, to name a few. The first and most important factor is the labour market, which has remained robust with low unemployment and steady job creation.

The pandemic brought about a worryingly sharp, yet short, increase in unemployment. With the relatively brief period (didn’t feel like it though) of lockdown and government support, the unemployment rate fell back extremely quickly as pent-up demand was unleashed on the economy. Unemployment now sits at the lows. A tight labour market is often a contributing factor to higher inflation. Interest rates were raised aggressively to combat and stem the recent rapid increase in inflation, for reasons we are all too familiar with. The expectation was that increases in interest rates would have a contractionary impact on corporates as the cost of financing increased. By and large, corporates have managed to term out debt and seemingly will not have to worry about higher rates for some time.

The high-yield market, which we have discussed before (here), has remained incredibly resilient. Despite the rate increases, high yield credit spreads trade at multi-year tights and are only about 100bps higher in absolute yield than before the pandemic. Most companies should be able to absorb 100bps in increased financing costs. As a result, firms have not needed to lay off staff, keeping the unemployment rate low. With a tight labour market, employees have been in a good position to demand pay increases, which has helped to offset the pernicious effects of inflation. However, policymakers need to be careful as increasing wages ultimately leads to ever-higher inflation. Trying to find the balance is critical. The consumer has been in a very similar situation to corporates which have termed out their debt. With the mortgage market being fixed for 30 years, increasing interest rates have little effect on existing homeowners.

The average mortgage rate has barely budged from the lows. Only those who wish to move or get on to the housing ladder for the first time suffer at the hands of a higher mortgage rate. The inability to port one’s mortgage could lead to interesting developments, both good and bad, and will be worth keeping an eye on in the coming months and years.