Upon arrival in Austin, the capital of the state of Texas, the main arteries between the airport and the city center were paralyzed.
Former President Donald Trump was in town and roads were closed for security reasons.
Trump’s main reason for being in Austin was an interview on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which has 33 million listeners and subscribers.
It is one of the most popular in the United States and features quirky guests, including some with an anti-vaccine agenda. Social media and podcasts will have a huge impact on voters in 2024.
Tense: financial markets are closely monitoring whether Donald Trump will win the US elections next week
Rallies, however, remain an important part of the American political landscape and Trump also took the opportunity to hold a campaign event in Austin, a Democratic enclave, as well as in Houston.
Texas, largely Republican, is not a swing state in the presidential election. Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to win the state, back in 1976.
But it’s impossible to ignore the nation’s fastest-growing city, Austin, and Texas, America’s second-largest economic power after California.
Also critical in Texas is the tight U.S. Senate race, in which Congressman Colin Allred, a former U.S. professional soccer player, is giving incumbent right-wing Sen. Ted Cruz a run for his money.
As a result, Democratic candidate Kamala Harris deemed it important to make a side appearance in Houston with the brilliant pop icon Beyoncé at her side.
Austin is the adopted home of Elon Musk and Tesla, has a huge Google presence, and is the home of Dell. That’s before considering oil and natural gas extraction in Texas’ Permian Basin, home of fracking.
The state is also the surprising leader in onshore wind farms in the United States, generating much of the state’s electricity. Note to Keir Starmer. It is perfectly possible to use carbon-free and fossil fuel-free technologies in the same geography.
Despite the overall good health of the economy, Democrats are failing to capture the imagination of traditional pocketbook issues.
Americans will go to the polls on November 5, less than a week after Labor’s long-awaited first budget, and the financial world is on edge. The United States, unlike most of the rest of the Group of Seven rich economies, is doing well.
The IMF’s latest forecast, released last week, raises U.S. growth this year to 2.8 percent. So much for fears in August that the powerful, technology-driven U.S. economy was headed for recession. Next year’s production is expected to increase by 2.2 percent.
Inflation is falling towards the 2 percent target and the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, cut its key interest rate by half a percentage point to a range of 4.75 percent to 5 percent in September with further cuts in the horizon All of this should come in handy for Vice President Harris as she attempts to succeed Joe Biden in the top job.
Yet despite the overall good health of the economy, Democrats are failing to capture the imagination of traditional pocketbook issues.
Over the weekend, I went to a concert by the bluegrass group Strawberry Flats at a craft cider maker outside of Austin. A newly written song, The Beggars Union, on the subject of inflation, was belted out.
The consumer price index may be falling, but for ordinary people the cost-of-living scars still linger. The song was received with raucous applause and shouts of approval from the audience.
One begins to better understand why Trump’s message of bringing back jobs through the imposition of tariffs and tax cuts has some appeal.
The reality is quite different. Trump’s proposal to impose a 60 percent US tariff on imports from China and a 10 percent US tariff on goods from all other economies would, in effect, be a tax on ordinary Americans that would cause a new round of inflation.
The British think tank NIESR estimates that such a measure could reduce US production by 5% over the next five years.
As for Trump’s tax cut, it would benefit Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos more than workers.
Polls show that the presidential candidates are tied. At the IMF’s annual meeting last week, almost all policymakers, including Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, referenced geopolitics and the Middle East in particular as the biggest threat to stability. global. However, the price of oil remains relatively stable.
The real unspoken fear was a second Trump term, beggar-thy-neighbor trade policies, trade fragmentation, and a soft landing that becomes much more difficult.
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