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Michelle Obama spotlights reproductive rights and women’s role in America

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This is the introduction to Checks and Balance, a weekly, subscriber-only newsletter bringing exclusive insight from our correspondents in America.

James Bennet, our Lexington columnist, considers Michelle Obama’s contributions to the last few days of the Democratic campaign

As you might expect, I’ve listened to many campaign speeches this year. To me, the most interesting of the lot was the one Michelle Obama delivered on Saturday in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where she introduced Kamala Harris before about 5,000 people packed into a small arena. Besides her speech at the Democratic convention, it was her only appearance on the campaign trail. She made the case against Donald Trump with glacial contempt. But the heart of the speech was an account of the importance of reproductive rights that framed the matter in terms of women’s health more broadly and even of their place in the family and the nation’s politics.

Mrs Obama said that, rather than learning to talk about their reproductive health, women and girls had been “taught instead to feel shame and to hide how our bodies work”. As the crowd fell silent, rapt, she went on, in concrete and even graphic terms I’ve never heard a politician use, to speak first about the experience of girls in puberty. And then “at the other end of the reproductive timeline”, she continued, “too many women my age have no idea what’s going on with our bodies as we battle through menopause and debilitating hot flashes and depression.” Would you have expected that to be an applause line? The crowd went wild, cheering and clapping: I suspect this is what people must mean when they talk about “feeling seen”.

Mrs Obama may have been relating to the other women in the room, and those who might watch a video later, but she was also trying to reach men. “See, fellows,” she went on, “most of us women, we suck up our pain and we deal with it alone.” Mr Trump has been holding himself out on the campaign trail as the protector of women, “whether the women like it or not”, as he put it in Wisconsin on Thursday. Mrs Obama was urging women to protect themselves, but also calling on men to stick up for them, in their own interest, too. She conjured an image of “your wife shivering and bleeding on the operating room table” after a botched delivery and warned, “You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something.”

The contrast could not have been more stark with Mr Trump’s event at Madison Square Garden the following evening. Like all his events it had a masculine vibe, in part because most of the many speakers were men; in part because one of those men was a professional wrestler, another runs an ultimate fighting league and a third was Elon Musk; and in part because the humour was directed at people who would find it funny to hear Ms Harris’s aides called “pimp handlers”. There were plenty of women in the audience who were laughing, too.

Pollsters may once again have underestimated Mr Trump’s support, and he may have this election in the bag. On the other hand, this is the first campaign he has run since the Supreme Court struck down Roe v Wade, as he wanted it to, and no one can be certain how motivating that issue will prove. Regardless of who wins, the political movement to restore reproductive rights, as I mention in Lexington this week, is changing the country and its politics in profound ways, and I think the combination with Ms Harris’s candidacy probably marks a permanent shift in expectations about women’s rightful roles in public life. Mr Trump has made so much that was once abnormal in politics seem normal. In this, more hopeful way, Ms Harris has, too.

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Why the president must not be lexicographer-in-chief

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Who decides what legal terms mean? If it is Donald Trump, God help America

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Economics

Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

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Inflation rate slipped to 2.1% in April, lower than expected, Fed’s preferred gauge shows

Inflation barely budged in April as tariffs President Donald Trump implemented in the early part of the month had yet to show up in consumer prices, the Commerce Department reported Friday.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, the Federal Reserve’s key inflation measure, increased just 0.1% for the month, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.1%. The monthly reading was in line with the Dow Jones consensus forecast while the annual level was 0.1 percentage point lower.

Excluding food and energy, the core reading that tends to get even greater focus from Fed policymakers showed readings of 0.1% and 2.5%, against respective estimates of 0.1% and 2.6%.

Consumer spending, though, slowed sharply for the month, posting just a 0.2% increase, in line with the consensus but slower than the 0.7% rate in March. A more cautious consumer mood also was reflected in the personal savings rate, which jumped to 4.9%, up from 0.6 percentage point in March to the highest level in nearly a year.

Personal income surged 0.8%, a slight increase from the prior month but well ahead of the forecast for 0.3%.

Markets showed little reaction to the news, with stock futures continuing to point lower and Treasury yields mixed.

People shop at a grocery store in Brooklyn on May 13, 2025 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Trump has been pushing the Fed to lower its key interest rate as inflation has continued to gravitate back to the central bank’s 2% target. However, policymakers have been hesitant to move as they await the longer-term impacts of the president’s trade policy.

On Thursday, Trump and Fed Chair Jerome Powell held their first face-to-face meeting since the president started his second term. However, a Fed statement indicated the future path of monetary policy was not discussed and stressed that decisions would be made free of political considerations.

Trump slapped across-the-board 10% duties on all U.S. imports, part of an effort to even out a trading landscape in which the U.S. ran a record $140.5 billion deficit in March. In addition to the general tariffs, Trump launched selective reciprocal tariffs much higher than the 10% general charge.

Since then, though, Trump has backed off the more severe tariffs in favor of a 90-day negotiating period with the affected countries. Earlier this week, an international court struck down the tariffs, saying Trump exceeded his authority and didn’t prove that national security was threatened by the trade issues.

Then in the latest installment of the drama, an appeals court allowed a White House effort for a temporary stay of the order from the U.S. Court of International Trade.

Economists worry that tariffs could spark another round of inflation, though the historical record shows that their impact is often minimal.

At their policy meeting earlier this month, Fed officials also expressed worry about potential tariff inflation, particularly at a time when concerns are rising about the labor market. Higher prices and slower economic growth can yield stagflation, a phenomenon the U.S. hasn’t seen since the early 1980s.

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German inflation May 2025

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19 May 2025, Berlin: Apricots are sold at a greengrocer for 7.98 euros per kilogram. Grapes and papaya are also on offer.

Photo by Jens Kalaene/picture alliance via Getty Images

Germany’s annual inflation hit 2.1% in May approaching the European Central Bank’s 2% target but coming in slightly hotter than analyst estimates, preliminary data from statistics office Destatis showed Friday.

The print compares with a 2.2% reading in April and with a Reuters projection of 2%.

The print is harmonized across the euro zone for comparability.

So-called core inflation, which strips out more volatile food and energy prices, dipped slightly from April’s 2.8% to 2.9% in May. The closely watched services print meanwhile eased sharply, coming in at 3.4% compared to 3.9% in the previous month.

Energy prices fell markedly for the second month in a row, tumbling by 4.6% in May.

Germany’s consumer price index has been closing in on the European Central Bank’s 2% target over recent months, in a positive signal amid ongoing uncertainty about the economic outlook for Europe’s largest economy.

Domestic and global issues have mired expectations for Germany’s financial future.

One the one hand, U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs could damage economic growth, given Germany’s status as an export-reliant country, though the potential impact of such duties on inflation remains unclear. But frequent policy shifts and developments have been muddying the picture.

On the other hand, Germany’s newly minted government is starting to get to work and has made the economy a top priority. Questions linger about when and to what extent the new Berlin administration’s policy plans might be realized.

The ECB is set to make its next interest rate decision on June 5, with traders last pricing in an over 96% chance of a quarter point interest rate reduction, according to LSEG data. Back in April, the central bank had cut its deposit facility rate by 25 basis points to 2.25%.

This is a breaking news story, please check back for updates.

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