Approval Ratings of Leaders
April 17, 2020
YouTube like many things on the internet is a double edged sword. It can be a fantastic way to learn or it can be a way to be mindlessly entertained or to be violently radicalized. We try to make it a tool for learning. This weekend we heavily recommend readers spend some time listening to Ray Dalio explain the following:
- Principles For Success
- How The Economic Machine Works
- What coronavirus means for the global economy (TED)
- Ray Dalio on the Economic Impact of the Coronavirus Crisis (Bloomberg) (certain concepts are repeated in the last two videos but some of these ideas even when repeated are still noteworthy)
- Additional read: Economic Recovery Will Require ‘Lessening Of The Wealth Gap,’ Says Hedge Fund Titan (NPR)
One doesn’t need to watch the videos to absorb-learn the ideas so one can listen as one is going about one’s business at home or while physically distancing. For those who are acquainted with some of his thoughts or have read his previous writings we recommend listening (or watching) at 1.5 to 2x speed. Feel free to listen or watch the videos in any order. But if one has the time, then we think it helps to view it in the order we have listed.
Lastly, no we (absolutely) don’t think Dalio is right about everything nor do we agree with him on everything. But we do like how he: 1) takes a big picture view on the economy and economic cycles; 2) stresses the importance of human creativity, productivity, and education; 3) weighs in on matters by emphasizing the need to learn and read history. After listening or watching these videos we do think you will feel better educated about the economy and where we as humanity stand in relation to larger economic, political, and pandemic-scientific forces.
“Having the basics—a good bed to sleep in, good relationships, good food, and good sex—is most important, and those things don’t get much better when you have a lot of money or much worse when you have less. And the people one meets at the top aren’t necessarily more special than those one meets at the bottom or in between.”
“Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.”
― Ray Dalio
“Having the basics—a good bed to sleep in, good relationships, good food, and good sex—is most important, and those things don’t get much better when you have a lot of money or much worse when you have less. And the people one meets at the top aren’t necessarily more special than those one meets at the bottom or in between.”
“Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.”
― Ray Dalio
Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust, Approval Rating To Approval Rating
Whether one believes the phrase “there are no atheists in foxholes” is a good argument against atheism, or a good argument against foxholes, it is arguably true that there’s nothing like a good crisis to get diverse populations to rally around their leaders. When people are confused and afraid, they tend to trust their governments, because the alternative — to think the authorities are themselves confused and afraid, or worse, incompetent — is simply too much to bear.
Coronavirus has raised popular support for nearly every head of government. However as time passes, and either panic eases or frustration sets in, that likely won’t last. “In a warlike situation, you want to trust who governs you, and that goes for bad leaders and competent ones,” an Italian official said. “But my hunch is that ultimately true colors will show.”
Since the pandemic’s onset French President Emmanuel Macron has seen his highest approval ratings yet. In Britain, where Prime Minister Boris downplayed the crisis, then became seriously ill himself, the government is the most popular in decades. Italy has been devastated, with the world’s second most coronavirus-related deaths, yet Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s approval ratings went from 44 percent to 71 percent.
For many leaders that support boost will undoubtedly fade as criticism mounts and normal politics resume. There will be formal inquiries into the inevitable errors and mistakes. If voters can, they’ll often take revenge against even effective leaders. The uncertainties may be demonstrated best in the US. Despite it being a highly charged election year, President Trump’s approval ratings got only a small bump up, and that didn’t last given widespread ambivalence about how he’s handled the pandemic. Additional read: Hungary’s “coronavirus coup,” explained (Vox)
Image via Getty Images
Covid-1984: Big Brother Gets A Growth Spurt
- An effect of the pandemic that may truly never go away is the global surge in digital surveillance. Governments in at least 25 countries, authoritarian states and democracies, are employing vast programs for mobile data tracking, apps to record personal contact with others, CCTV networks equipped with facial recognition, permission schemes to go outside and drones to enforce social isolation regimes. The enhanced monitoring of billions of people has opened lucrative new markets for companies that extract, sell, and analyze private data.
- With the proliferation of digital surveillance methods, a number of global initiatives have appeared to chart their progress around the globe. “This isn’t just an issue with authoritarian governments. This is happening across the world,” said Samuel Woodhams, a digital rights expert who has compiled an index of new surveillance measures related to the coronavirus outbreak. “A lot of the technologies we’re seeing are alarmingly similar.”
- Ron Deibert is a leading expert on cyber espionage, commercial spyware, internet censorship, and human rights. He says we may be seeing the new normal, and warns: “I think we have to be really vigilant … to make sure there are appropriate safeguards in place because the potential for the abuse of power is pretty extreme … like 9/11 on steroids.” (Guardian)
Additional World News
- How Saudi Arabia’s religious project transformed Indonesia (Guardian)
- In South Korea, Success Fighting The Virus Brings Success At The Ballot Box (NPR)
- ‘There’s No More Water’: Climate Change on a Drying Island (NYT, $)
- U.S. Accuses North Korea of Cyberattacks, a Sign That Deterrence Is Failing (NYT, $)
- The Foreign Correspondents Explaining America to the World (NYT, $)
- Abuse allegations in China spark calls to raise age of consent from 14 (Guardian)
Covid-19
- Bolsonaro fires popular health minister after dispute over coronavirus response (Guardian)
- In Vietnam, There Have Been Fewer Than 300 COVID-19 Cases And No Deaths. Here’s Why (NPR)
- Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega reappears to call coronavirus ‘a sign from God’ (Guardian)
- ‘Race against time’ to prevent famines during coronavirus crisis (Guardian)
- How Thousands in China Gently Mourn a Coronavirus Whistle-Blower (NYT)
- Prominent scientists have bad news for the White House about coronavirus antibody tests (CNN)
- “Everyone Is So Afraid”: COVID-19’s Impact on the American Restaurant Industry (The Ringer)
- Disposable N95 Masks Can Be Decontaminated, Researchers Confirm (NYT)
- Americans face ‘new normal’ of life with face masks (Reuters)
- Asthma Is Absent Among Top Covid-19 Risk Factors, Early Data Shows (NYT)
- A Second Round of Coronavirus Layoffs Has Begun. Few Are Safe. (WSJ, $)
- What the world can learn from Kerala about how to fight covid-19 (Technology Review)
- After Anonymous Tip, 17 Bodies Are Found at Nursing Home Hit by Virus (NYT)
- Why positioning Covid-19 patients on their stomachs can save lives (CNN)
- Coronavirus Class Conflict Is Coming (Atlantic, $)
- Coronavirus: Lions nap on road during South African lockdown (BBC)
When There’s Something Strange, Within Six Feet… Who You Gonna Call?
- Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, has pioneered an ambitious contact-tracing program, investing $44 million to hire workers charged with tracking down people exposed to coronavirus as soon as possible, and warning them. The governor is betting the program will enable the state to identify pockets of infection as they emerge, and prevent infected people from spreading the virus further.
- Contact-tracing has helped Asian countries like South Korea and Singapore contain the spread of the virus. But their systems rely heavily on digital surveillance, using patients’ digital footprints to automatically alert their contacts, an intrusion many Americans wouldn’t accept.
- Massachusetts is building its response around an old-school, labor intensive method: people — 1,000 of them. The state is currently experiencing a surge of cases which is expected to last for the next week. The governor thinks robust contact-tracing, combined with increased testing, would help give people the confidence and comfort they’d need to know where the virus is, once the state begins to consider easing social distancing rules. (NYT)
- ‘The safest place’: how one isolated US town is keeping coronavirus at bay (Guardian)
Additional World News
- Thousands of Michiganders took to the streets to protest the governor’s stay-at-home order (Vox)
- FBI warns companies of employees faking coronavirus test results (CNN)
- Trump wades further into China Covid-19 row as focus turns to easing lockdowns (Guardian)
- Trump and Kushner could reap a pandemic windfall (WaPo, $) & Opinion | George Conway: Trump simply doesn’t understand his job (WaPo, $)
- How Joe Biden won over Bernie Sanders — and the Democratic Party (Vox)
- Navy Not Ruling Out Reinstating USS Roosevelt Skipper Who Complained About Coronavirus (NPR)
- A tale of two factories: Foxconn’s buildings in Wisconsin are still empty, one year later (Verge) & Coronavirus: The untold story of America’s biggest outbreak (BBC)
- Roger Stone Won’t Get New Trial, Judge Rules After Disputes (NPR)
- 10 Years Of Spectacular U.S. Job Growth Nearly Wiped Out In 4 Weeks (NPR)
- How Fox News is playing fast and loose with American lives, illustrated by one Dr. Oz clip (Vox)
Who Needs Friends Or An Office When You Have “Friends” & “The Office”?
- People stuck at home — waiting for when they can resume their lives out in the world and what the future will look like — aren’t just baking and streaming lots of movies. A new Nielson study, conducted with Billboard and MRC Data, concludes that more than half of consumers today are seeking comfort by revisiting favorite old TV shows and listening to music they already know they like.
- Familiar content can evoke more hopeful times. In other words, nostalgia and normalcy feel pretty good right now.
- One woman wrote on social media that listening to music from the 1990s helps her reconnect with her “young and fearless” self. And familiar content that offers relief isn’t limited to just music and TV shows. Another woman said she is rereading the entire Harry Potter series. It’s okay if her attention wanders, she says, because unlike life in the coronavirus era, she knows exactly what’s going to happen in the story — and how it’s going to end. (NPR)
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