August 20 2024

1 Erie County’s Struggles Represent Plight of Post-Industrial America
2 Five Key Facts About Democrats
3 Election Roundup: Harris Proposes Corporate Tax Hike, Teamsters Union Endorsement Courted by Both Parties
4 Fortune 500 Companies Increasingly View AI as a Risk
5 U.S. Defense Manufacturing Base Hollow, Dependent on China
8/20/1920 Early football leagues consolidate into precursor of the NFL

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1 Erie County’s Struggles Represent Plight of Post-Industrial America

The historic inflation that hit the United States and every other advanced nation over the past three years helps explain voters’ ire. But conditions in Erie — a bellwether county that voted in turn for Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden — show how long-term developments also are to blame. The county has fewer jobs and residents today than it did in 2001. Though the 3.9 percent unemployment rate in June was lower than the national 4.1 percent mark, that’s in part because many people have dropped out of the labor force because of age or disability. The poverty rate is higher than the national average; a larger share of people rely on government assistance, including food stamps; and job opportunities for the young are scarce. Almost 1 in 5 Americans live in a “left behind” county like this one, according to the Economic Innovation Group, a nonpartisan research outfit. These roughly 1,000 U.S. counties grew their population and household income less than half as fast as the nation did between 2000 and 2016. Erie County voted for Ronald Reagan twice but otherwise was a reliable Democratic bastion until 2016, when it switched to Trump. For places like this corner of northwest Pennsylvania, the search for a savior continues. “It seems like right now the whole country is looking for a change they’re not getting,” said Joe Sinnott, a Democrat who served three terms as Erie’s mayor and now heads the county’s economic development efforts. “They’re looking for a stability they don’t have and they’re trying these different ways to get it, to get back to the stability of the Clinton years or maybe even going back to the Reagan years.” That persistent discontent is shaping the presidential contest. By a 2-to-1 margin, voters in a CNBC poll this month trusted Trump rather than Vice President Kamala Harris to deliver prosperity; 78 percent of those surveyed called the economy “fair” or “poor.” Erie’s plight reflects the U.S. economy’s uneven growth in recent decades as technology supplanted manufacturing. Starting in the 1980s, a new economy arose that showered its gains on a handful of coastal “superstar cities,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Roughly 73 percent of jobs created since the financial crisis have been in metro areas with 1 million or more residents, such as San Francisco, Boston and New York, according to Brookings. Like many factory communities, Erie has been battered over the past two decades by a number of shocks: the rise of China as a global manufacturer; job-killing automation; the Great Recession of 2008; and the coronavirus pandemic.

Article Source: WaPo

2 Five Key Facts About Democrats

1. The racial and ethnic composition of Democratic voters has changed a lot in recent decades. More than four-in-ten Democratic voters (44%) are Hispanic, Black, Asian, another race or multiracial. This is roughly double the share in 1996 (23%). By comparison, while Republicans are also more racially and ethnically diverse than in the past, the change among Republicans is less pronounced. About eight-in-ten Republican voters (79%) are non-Hispanic White.
2. The share of Democratic voters with at least a four-year college degree has roughly doubled since the 1990s. The increase in voters with a college degree has been sharper among Democrats than among Republicans. Today, 45% of Democratic voters have at least a bachelor’s degree, up from 22% in 1996. Among Republicans, the change has been more modest: 35% of GOP voters have at least a four-year college degree, compared with 27% in 1996. White Americans without a four-year degree made up a majority of Democratic voters in the 1990s. Today, they account for just 26%.
3. Religiously, nearly half of Democratic voters (46%) identify as something other than Christian. Like the broader U.S. population, registered voters have become less religious and less Christian in recent decades. These changes have been much more evident among Democratic than Republican voters. The share of Democratic voters who are religiously unaffiliated has roughly doubled since 2008, from 18% to 38%. Just a few decades ago, Christians made up an overwhelming majority of Democratic voters. Today, slightly more than half of Democrats (54%) are Christian, while 46% are not.
4. Harris draws more support from Democratic voters – and considerably more strong support – than President Joe Biden did. Nine-in-ten Democratic voters say they would vote for Harris if the election were held today, including 58% who strongly support her. Another 5% of Democratic voters favor independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and 4% favor former Republican President Donald Trump, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. Shortly before he withdrew from the presidential race on July 21, Biden drew support from 79% of Democratic voters. And only about a third of Democratic voters (35%) said they supported him strongly. That is 23 percentage points lower than Harris’ current level of strong support among Democratic voters.
5. Most Democratic voters (66%) say they are “extremely” motivated to vote this fall. This is 10 points higher than the share who said this in early July. Over the same period, there has been a similar increase in the share of Republican voters who say they are extremely motivated to vote, from 59% in July to 68% today.

Article Source: John Ellis, News Items

3 Election Roundup: Harris Proposes Corporate Tax Hike, Teamsters Union Endorsement Courted by Both Parties

Kamala Harris is aiming to increase the US corporate tax rate to 28 per cent if she wins the White House in November, a move designed to raise government revenues from corporate America that is likely to draw criticism from business.

Her tax plan for businesses contrasts sharply with that of her rival for the presidency, Republican candidate Donald Trump, who is proposing slashing the corporate tax rate to 15 per cent. Harris’s plan would make the US’s corporate tax rate higher than the UK’s, at 25 per cent, and one of the highest among advanced economies.

Despite the sharp fall in the headline rate after 2017, corporate tax receipts are higher now than they were at the higher rate, in part because of rising profits.

***

After Kamala Harris launched her campaign for president last month, nearly every major union in the US endorsed her within days — except one of its most powerful and storied labour groups. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters withheld its support as a part of an unprecedented endorsement process that has divided its members and raised Republicans’ hopes of making inroads into a crucial part of the Democrats’ voting bloc.

The union, which has roots in the age of horse-drawn wagons but now represents UPS drivers, railroad workers and nurses, last endorsed a Republican for the presidency in 1988. But the decisive moment for the Teamsters is imminent. It is expected to announce after the Democrats’ convention this week whether it will campaign for Trump or follow the likes of the United Auto Workers in mobilising its members to vote for Harris.

Article Source: FT

4 Fortune 500 Companies Increasingly View AI as a Risk

More than half of the US’s biggest companies see artificial intelligence as a potential risk to their businesses, according to a survey of corporate filings that highlights how the emerging technology could bring about sweeping industrial transformation. Overall, 56 per cent of Fortune 500 companies cited AI as a “risk factor” in their most recent annual reports, according to research by Arize AI, a research platform that tracks public disclosures by large businesses. The figure is a striking jump from just 9 per cent in 2022. By contrast, only 33 companies of the 108 that specifically discussed generative AI — technology capable of creating humanlike text and realistic imagery — saw it as an opportunity. Potential benefits include cost efficiencies, operational benefits and accelerating innovation, these groups said in their annual reports.

Ed note: The position of Ad Astra is that established companies, not AI technology companies, stand to gain the most from employing AI. Firms that have already developed strong AI strategies are likely to succeed. Companies that view AI as a threat or potential hindrance to their business are going to fail. The fears of AI as a science fiction threat are vastly overblown. AI holds tremendous economic potential in the near to medium term.

Article Source: FT

5 U.S. Defense Manufacturing Base Hollow, Dependent on China

Today…U.S. domestic production capacity is a shriveled shadow of its former self. Crucial categories of industry for U.S. national defense are no longer built in any of the 50 states. With. just 25 well-constructed attacks, using any of a variety of means, an adversarial military planner could cripple much of America’s manufacturing apparatus for producing advanced weapons. Under the current U.S. government approach, industry cannot meet production demands to support allies under fire and deter war in the Pacific.

While China cranks out advanced weapons at a prodigious rate, it has also embedded itself in the supply chains for vital components of U.S. military platforms and weapons systems, creating U.S. reliance on the Chinese industrial base. Data from Govini’s Ark.ai, the software system for defense acquisition, shows that between 2005 and 2020, the level of Chinese suppliers in the U.S. supply chains quadrupled. In categories such as electronics, industrial equipment, and transportation, China’s expansion is even more pronounced. Between 2014 and 2022, U.S. dependence on China for electronics increased by 600%. U.S. companies at the bottom of the supply chain pyramid often source these parts from China in open market transactions. As a result, many essential components in sensitive U.S. military systems now come from China. Countless major weapons platforms are vulnerable.

Article Source: govini

8/20/1920 Early football leagues consolidate into precursor of the NFL

Sources

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/08/17/erie-politics-inflation-left-behind/

2. newsletter

3. https://www.ft.com/content/77841ed0-f2d2-4fea-a957-dd0b78a371c1; https://www.ft.com/content/6456f393-cbad-4eb3-ad72-7c4453ae5217

4. https://www.ft.com/content/5ee96d38-f55b-4e8a-b5c1-e58ce3d4111f

5. https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/65e61e6392aba0fa1dba723e/66104c1d4e3ae7809bcd8082_Govini_2024_Numbers-Matter.pdf