'Slow Burn' Is on The 100 Best Podcasts of All Time
The original season of Slate's excellent Slow Burn , which began airing in 2017, somehow managed to render oft-retread stories from American history surprising, thanks to an unexpected cast of characters and added context that gets lost in the process of mythologizing. Kicking off with a series about Watergate, Slow Burn closely traced when, exactly, the public was pushed over the edge by Nixon's lies—it was later than you think. The unforgettable first episode of the first season, 'Martha,' tells the horrifying and revealing story of Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon's attorney general, who was kidnapped and locked in a hotel room in an attempt to cover up the Watergate leak. Mitchell is rightfully the center of that narrative, and the podcast continues to find the very real people often forgotten in the sweeping history-book narratives. The second season covered the Clinton Impeachment—the podcast reminds you that the coverage of Monica Lewinsky is even more sexist than you remember. And more recent seasons have traced the road to the Iraq War, the 1992 L.A. Riots, and the Rise of Fox News, all of which offer lessons for our current political moment.
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28 minutes ago
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US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?
BEIJING — China's high dependence on exports will likely be a key focus of a new round of U.S.-China trade talks this coming week in Stockholm, but a trade deal would not necessarily help Beijing to rebalance its economy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he hopes the negotiations can take up this issue, along with China's purchases of oil from Russia and Iran, which undercut American sanctions on those two countries.
32 minutes ago
US-China trade talks: Can China reduce its export dependence?
BEIJING -- China's high dependence on exports will likely be a key focus of a new round of U.S.-China trade talks this coming week in Stockholm, but a trade deal would not necessarily help Beijing to rebalance its economy. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he hopes the negotiations can take up this issue, along with China's purchases of oil from Russia and Iran, which undercut American sanctions on those two countries. Hopes rose for a breakthrough in talks after U.S. President Donald Trump announced deals with Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines this week. The U.S. wants China to do two things: Reduce what both the U.S. and the European Union see as excess production capacity in many industries, including steel and electric vehicles. And secondly, to take steps to increase spending by Chinese consumers so the economy relies more on domestic demand and less on exports. 'We could also discuss the elephant in the room, which is this great rebalancing that the Chinese need to do,' Bessent told financial news network CNBC. He said China's share of global manufacturing exports at nearly 30%, 'can't get any bigger, and it should probably shrink.' The issues are not new, and China has been working to address them for years, more for domestic reasons than to reduce its trade surpluses with the U.S. and other countries. Bessent's predecessor as treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, made industrial policy a focus of a trip to China last year. She blamed government subsidies for flooding the global market with 'artificially cheap Chinese products.' The European Union, whose top leaders met their Chinese counterparts in Beijing on Thursday, has cited subsidies to justify EU tariffs on electric vehicles made in China. In the 1980s, the U.S. pressured Japan to boost consumer spending when American manufacturing was overwhelmed by exports from the likes of Toyota and Sony. Economists have long argued that China likewise needs to transform into a more consumer-driven economy. Consumer spending accounts for less than 40% of China's economy, versus close to 70% in the United States and about 54% in Japan. Chinese leaders have spoken about both factory overcapacity and weak consumer spending as long-term problems and have sought over the past 20 years to find ways to rebalance the economy away from export manufacturing and massive investments in dams, roads, railways and other infrastructure. Fierce price wars have prompted critical reports in official media saying that companies are 'racing to the bottom,' skimping on quality and even safety to reduce costs. With strong government support, they've also expanded overseas, where they can charge higher prices but still undercut local competitors, creating a political backlash. All that competition and price cutting has left China battling deflation, or falling prices. When companies receive less for their products, they tend to invest less. That can lead to job cuts and lower wages, sapping business activity and spending power — contrary to the long-term goal of increasing the share of consumer spending in driving overall growth. To counter that, the government is spending billions on rebates and subsidies for people who trade in their cars or appliances for new ones. But acknowledging a problem and solving it are two different things. Economists say more fundamental changes are needed to boost consumption and rein in overcapacity. Such changes can only come incrementally over time. Private Chinese companies and foreign-invested companies create the most jobs, but they've suffered from swings in policy and pressures from the trade war, especially since the pandemic. Demographic changes are another challenge as China's population shrinks and ages. Many experts advocate expanding China's social safety net, health insurance, pensions and other support systems, so that people would feel freer to spend rather than save for a medical emergency or retirement. Yan Se, an economist at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management, warned at a recent forum that deflation will become a long-term issue if China doesn't step up its welfare benefits. 'Chinese people deserve a better life," he said. One possibility, put forward at the same forum by Liu Qiao, the dean of the business school, would be to change incentives for local government officials, rewarding them for raising consumption or household incomes instead of meeting an economic growth target. He doesn't see that happening nationwide but said it could be tested in a province. 'That would send out a message that China needs a different approach,' he said. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made transforming the country into a technology superpower a top priority. It's a goal that has gained urgency as the U.S. has tightened restrictions on China's access to high-end semiconductors and other advanced knowhow. Output in high-tech manufacturing is growing quickly, adding to potential overcapacity, just as what happened with the government's encouragement of 'green' technologies such as solar panels and wind turbines. Various industries, including EV makers, have pledged to address the issue, but some local governments are striving to keep money-losing enterprises afloat, reluctant to lose tax revenues and jobs, or to fail to meet economic growth targets. Going forward, the government is calling for more coordination of economic development polices in fields such as artificial intelligence so that not every province champions the same industry. But government moves to counter the impact of higher tariffs tend to support sectors already in overcapacity, and the share of consumption in the economy has fallen in recent years.
32 minutes ago
Judge issues temporary injunction against Trump administration cancellation of humanities grants
WASHINGTON -- A district court judge in New York issued a preliminary injunction Friday night stopping the mass cancellation of National Endowment for the Humanities grants to members of the Authors Guild on the grounds that their First Amendment rights were violated. Judge Colleen McMahon of the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York stayed the mass cancellations of grants previously awarded to guild members and ordered that any funds associated with the grants not be reobligated until a trial on the merits of the case is held. In reaching her decision, the judge said the 'defendants terminated the grants based on the recipients' perceived viewpoint, in an effort to drive such views out of the marketplace of ideas. This is most evident by the citation in the Termination Notices to executive orders purporting to combat 'Radical Indoctrination' and 'Radical … DEI Programs,' and to further 'Biological Truth.'' One of the grants was to a professor writing a book on the reemergence of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s and 1980s. On a spreadsheet entitled 'Copy of NEH Active Grants,' the government flagged the work as being connected to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, McMahon wrote. The judge said several other history projects on the spreadsheet were also canceled in part because of their connection to DEI-related subjects. 'Far be it from this Court to deny the right of the Administration to focus NEH priorities on American history and exceptionalism as the year of our semiquincentennial approaches,' McMahon said. 'Such refocusing is ordinarily a matter of agency discretion. But agency discretion does not include discretion to violate the First Amendment. Nor does not give the Government the right to edit history.' McMahon said some of the grantees lost grants simply because they had received them during the Biden administration. The Guild filed a class action lawsuit in May against the NEH and the Department of Government Efficiency for terminating grants that had already been appropriated by Congress. The humanities groups' lawsuit said DOGE brought the core work of the humanities councils 'to a screeching halt' this spring when it terminated its grant program. The lawsuit was among several filed by humanities groups and historical, research and library associations to try to stop funding cuts and the dissolution of federal agencies and organizations. McMahon noted her injunction is narrowly tailored 'to maintain the status quo until we can decide whether Plaintiffs are entitled to ultimate relief. It does nothing more.' The judge denied a temporary injunction request from the American Council of Learned Societies, as well as several of their claims in the lawsuit. Their case included the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association.
