Jobs Disaster, BBQ Prices Skyrocket

Happy July 3rd, day before America Day, July 4th. We all just got back from the 250 fair here to give you a weekend Friday show. Ryan, you were actually at the fair, right? I did. I went by. They would not let me bring in a backpack or my bike. And I was meeting someone who had another backpack there. So I went in very briefly, just left the backpack there. They're like, yeah, that's fine. I'm like, really? I can just leave? You can leave it there, but you can't bring it in. That seems counterintuitive. The funny thing is, is that there were many, many, many fewer people inside the fair than outside of it. So it's like, who are you protecting? There's nobody in here. You couldn't do a mass shooting. There isn't a mass in there. You can commit a crime, but there's no mass shooting going on in there. They just didn't want you to spark up, you know? Yeah, I guess so. They must protect the reflecting pool at all costs. There was a band on the stage and two people sitting in chairs watching them. Oh my God. Plus it's like a million degrees outside. That doesn't help the situation. Yes. And that's all comical. But yesterday there was this footage of a massive piece of equipment falling on the stage right behind the dancers, which is the kind of thing that kills people when you use kind of non-union labor that isn't following the rules of putting a stage together. Like that stuff really matters. Like a 200-pound piece of equipment falling on you. Yeah, right here from that distance. Oh my God. That will kill several people. And at a normal event, that thing would stop and be shut down until they figured out why that happened. They just kept dancing. Look at that. Look how many people that would kill. That is terrifying. Keep dancing. Wow. Incredible. Well, you know, there's a lot of festivities in the air. But like these performers, we also must keep dancing. We've got a big show. To be clear though, Griffin, we don't know, like the reflecting pool, that a lib didn't cut that part of the stage off. There was a gash. A strong gash. The vandals were everywhere. Did you guys see the lady who was like, it was too hot. I started seeing stars, but I managed to find the baptism tent and take a dip in the pool and remind myself. Came out reborn. So people are having extraordinary experiences at this fair. We'll leave it at that. Julian is going for drop set again later today. We'll have his package, I'm sure, at some point next week. Poor Julian. He needs hazard pay. It's too friggin' hot out there. He tried this to himself. This is not on us. Okay. All right. Well, Julian, avoid any head injuries if you can. But yes, it is 4th of July. We're going to be looking at some job numbers, some barbecue prices for anyone who is grilling this weekend. We're going to be looking a little bit into how one Zoran Mamdani is becoming the Democratic Party power broker, giving advice or potentially therapy to a slate of 2028 hopefuls. We have Alex Karp crashing out on live television. Ryan is going to take a look at an interesting tip line hack story that's been occurring at The Intercept. And then, Ryan, don't we have a journalist coming on the show? Well, we have the publisher of Dropside News, which runs basically the business side and operations. She was basically kicked off the Committee to Protect Journalists board. That was one of my cats just falling off the desk. Non-union cat labor. Keep dancing, Ryan. Keep dancing. Yes, exactly. No, I think we need to stop down and make sure that no cat is injured again in the filming of this production. So the CPJ, there was an effort inside CPJ to redefine who is a journalist in order to try to get down the number of journalists that Israel has killed amid its genocide. That was actually beaten back. Nika was part of that. She's no longer on the board, I would say, as a result of that. So she can talk to us about the fight that went on inside the Committee to Protect Journalists, which will continue to go on even though this round has been won. Gotcha. And then, Crystal, we're going to cap it all off with a candidate interview. One, Will Lawrence. What's his deal? He's making waves in his congressional campaign with an anti-data center ad. So, of course, that caught our attention. So we're going to speak with him about that and his race in general as, you know, the left continues to notch a lot of extraordinary victories on that front. I just want to mention, you know, when Election Day ended this week in Colorado, it looked like Julie Gonzalez had been beaten fairly, you know, handily by John Hickenlooper, the incumbent senator there. Although even, you know, the margin that it was looking like it was going to be was pretty impressive given how much she was outspent, how little national attention went to her race. Now that the votes have almost all come in, she was only lost to him by a handful of points, like six points at this point. So I think for the left, you know, it was a real missed opportunity to take out one of the worst Democratic senators. And it just shows how powerful the change movement is within the Democratic Party. She didn't get all the big endorsements, didn't get as much national attention as Millat did, for example, and still, still almost pulled off this massive upset. Yeah, absolutely. So we've got all of that and more, but let's focus on the most important thing first today, which is, of course, the grill. Crystal, what is going on here with our barbecue prices? Well, I don't think Americans need me to tell you that the costs are going up. We have some numbers we can show you, though. Officially, the barbecue index here from The Economist, you can see the way that all of these prices have continued to climb year over year. Looks like ground beef and for some reason Coca-Cola, which you guys should be skipping that entirely anyway, but whatever. Those costs continue to climb. You can see steak there. That is only going to get worse with this whole screwworm situation unfolding in Texas. Actually, I just talked to David Griscom for Crystal Kyle and Friends yesterday about Texas. And he was emphasizing what a big deal that is in terms of Texas politics, that there could be beef shortages even in that state, which is, of course, famous for beef and barbecue. So in any case, people feeling the pinch as they head into this holiday weekend. And, you know, unlike with COVID, which was this thing beyond the, you know, that was we can't say that global governments had nothing to do with it. But this is a pandemic that, you know, was out of the hands in a lot of ways of the Trump and then the Biden administration. Unlike the Ukraine war, which, again, we can say the U.S. had a hand in creating the conditions. But ultimately, it's this external factor, Russia invading Ukraine, that leads to the increase in inflation or contributes to it at least. This is entirely due to the policy of Donald Trump between the tariffs and now, of course, most critically from the war in Iran. I guess the other factor I would add to that is because of the climate crisis, there have been tremendous drought conditions as well that have devastated farmers' crops. And so you're about to have like the lowest wheat yield in decades because of those climate conditions and the rising price of fertilizer contributing to that as well. So all of this has meant increasing pain for American consumers and really for the globe. And in poor countries, it isn't the difference between, you know, affording a stake for your Fourth of July barbecue or not. It can literally be the difference between life and death. And we have had an escalating hunger crisis around the world that appears to be only set to get worse, especially with climate conditions set to be really difficult this year with the La Nina cycle, too. I just wanted to put up on the screen here wage growth versus the inflation rate because that's another part of this as well. So if we're looking at what was the 12 percent year over year barbecue inflation index. But right now, as of May, at least, wage growth is being outpaced by the inflation rate. So that's another aspect of this. We were talking, Crystal, yesterday about how I think the Trump corruption stories are going to hit much harder politically. And maybe you all can let us know. I'm sure you'll shoot us in the comments, shoot us your thoughts in the comments, because I bet that'll be a topic of conversation at some barbecues where you have people feeling like the prices are going up, wages aren't keeping up with that. And on top of it, you see news about the president of the United States just breaking in 1.4 billion dollars in the first 18 months of his presidency in crypto schemes. So when the wages aren't keeping up, that's different than Trump 1.0. So a little political problem, obviously, as well. Yeah. Let's put Griffin the jobs numbers of the jobs report came out yesterday. Normally comes out Friday. I presume it came out yesterday because today is technically a federal holiday. That's my guess. Anyway, not a good jobs report. Only 57000 jobs added. One hundred fifteen thousand were expected. This is data pulled from Heather Long, who's an economics reporter for The Washington Post, who does good work there. You can see the chart here, which shows the way that job growth has really fallen off so that we've had in recent months since Trump has been inaugurated, we've had a mix of actually job losses and very modest increases. The unemployment rate still stays low, 4.2 percent. But she points out this is mainly due to a big decline in the labor force. You had a large number of people, hundreds of thousands of people who said, you know what? I'm just not going to even look for a job anymore. I'm just out. I'm out. I'm out of the business of looking for jobs. She says the job market is stable. That's good for the Fed. But it's still tough to get a job outside of health care or professional services. Hospitality shed about sixty one thousand jobs. Inflation is wiping out wage gains, as Emily was just putting out. Bottom line, the June jobs report is great for the Fed. Disappointing for the rest of America. And Griffin, put the next one up on the screen because there are a few dynamics here that are important. First of all, we've talked before about the fact that, you know, the Trump administration, they really ran this very we're going to look out for the men coded campaign. Not even coded. Very overt. Right. It was very muchismo. We're going to bring back the tough, the factory jobs, the manly man jobs. What has happened, again, directly as the result of his policy and of the rolling back of some of the some of the policies of Biden administration is actually you've had a decline in manufacturing sector. And the jobs that are growing right now are the ones that women traditionally have been more represented in. So things, for example, like health care, social services. At the same time, this data shows you that, you know, the last couple of years for working moms in particular has been difficult because of the return to office mandates and also because of the skyrocketing cost of child care. So you've got that hit being taken as well. And you can see that in the chart here. So in any case, those are some of the underlying dynamics. And one more thing I'll mention before Ryan gets you in here to react to some of this is that you also had a downward revision of the last two months as well. So the last jobs report, if memory serves, looked pretty solid. Well, now they've come in and said, well, actually, now that we've got the full data in, we've got to knock off tens of thousands of jobs off at that number. Month before, they also revised downward. So a pretty dim picture here in terms of the job market. And so therefore, there's actually fewer people. And so the way that you're looking at this is not completely accurate. A couple of responses to that. One would be what Emily put up earlier, which is that wages are growing slower than inflation. So if it was truly the case that a reduction in the supply of workers was driving up wages, people would be making more earning power. Instead, their earning power is going way down. And yeah, to Crystal's point, manufacturing and construction are either flat or down depending on how you do the counting, but certainly not up or seeing any kind of renaissance. This is a major COVID crash. And then this is the Biden administration where, you know, it didn't get built back to better than it was in, let's say, 1970, but it was building back better than what it was. Interesting. But, Emily, I've been told from the White House Twitter accounts that we are, you know, we are trad-cath now. We like that women are leaving the workforce and working at home. So this is a resounding success, right? Hey, if you liked that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people. And if you'd like to get the full show ad-free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up at BreakingPoints.com. That's right. Get the full show. Help support the future of independent media at BreakingPoints.com.