Checks and Balance: Broad stripes, bright stars
Checks and Balance from The Economist
The Economist
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2022
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Less than a fifth of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the country. Poverty rates are rising and life expectancy is falling. A majority think the economy is getting worse and that the world sees America unfavourably. But amid the bleak metrics, there have been some bright spots this year: employment remains strong, support for Ukraine has been a notable foreign-policy success and the midterm results laid the groundwork for a stronger democracy. What in America is working? And will those things continue into next year?
The American Enterprise Institute’s Kori Schake explains why the Ukraine policy has gone so well. Political scientist Lee Drutman looks beyond the doom and gloom of the two-party system. And The Economist’s Simon Rabinovitch assesses the implications of a strong jobs market. John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon, who round off the year with a festive quiz.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The new rival got a dismal reception in New York. |
| 0:05.8 | One local warned of a great commercial depression, another an alarming crisis. |
| 0:11.6 | The third appeared of unprecedented stagnation. |
| 0:16.0 | Martin Chuzzlewitt was concerned, but he didn't have been. |
| 0:20.4 | America, his omniscient narrator warned, always is depressed and always is stagnated and |
| 0:26.9 | always is at an alarming crisis and never was otherwise. |
| 0:32.1 | Chuzz Dickens, writing in 1843, was confident that the Americans' fears about their country |
| 0:37.8 | were overblown, but that they wouldn't go away either. |
| 0:42.4 | History has proved him correct, and the United States has faced bouts of collective anxiety |
| 0:47.2 | ever since. |
| 0:48.2 | Now, less than a fifth of Americans say they're satisfied with the way things are going |
| 0:52.2 | in the country, one of the lowest levels ever recorded. |
| 0:56.4 | But more than four fifths are satisfied with the way things are going in their personal |
| 1:01.1 | lives. |
| 1:02.9 | Because amid the negativity, there are plenty of reasons for optimism. |
| 1:08.8 | I'm John Prado and this is Chex and Balance from the Economist. |
| 1:17.1 | Each week we take one big theme, shaping American politics and explore it in depth. |
| 1:27.4 | Today, what's going right in America? |
| 1:40.4 | Poverty rates are rising and life expectancy is falling. |
| 1:44.9 | The majority of Americans think that the economy is getting worse and that the world has |
| 1:48.5 | a poor opinion of their country. |
| 1:51.0 | Despite those bleak metrics, there have been some bright spots this year. |
... |
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