A Striking Development.

The dragonfly apocalypse.

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1. The U.S. military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat,” in the judgment of a congressional commission whose new report finds that collaboration between Russia, China, and other autocratic states is increasing the chance of a multi-front conflict—and that the U.S. would have trouble sustaining such a fight. For more than a year, the former lawmakers, military leaders, and policy experts on the Commission on the National Defense Strategy have studied how well the U.S. military is executing the 2022 national defense strategy. The group released their report yesterday and will present its findings to the Senate Armed Services committee today. The group found big gaps between the Defense Department’s ambitions of deterring or prevailing in a major conflict and reality. One of the reasons they came to that conclusion is the current state of the U.S. defense industrial base compared to China’s. (Sources: defenseone.com, rand.org, armed-services.senate.gov)

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2. America’s gross national debt topped $35 trillion for the first time yesterday, a reminder of the nation’s grim fiscal predicament as legislative fights over taxes and spending initiatives loom in Washington. The Treasury Department noted the milestone in its daily report detailing the nation’s balance sheet. The red ink is mounting in the United States more quickly than many economists had predicted as the costs of federal programs enacted in recent years have exceeded initial projections. The leading presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, have said little about the nation’s deficits on the campaign trail, suggesting that the economic problem will only worsen in the coming years. Deep differences between Republicans and Democrats on policy priorities and resistance within both parties to enacting cuts to the biggest drivers of the national debt — Social Security and Medicare — have made it difficult to reduce America’s borrowing. The Congressional Budget Office said last month that the U.S. national debt is poised to top $56 trillion by 2034, as rising spending and interest expenses outpace tax revenue. (Source: nytimes.com)

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3. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index registers -35 in July, stable compared with the past two months and consistent with the longer trend of negative public sentiment about the current and future American economy. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index did show improvement between November and March, gaining 20 points, but since then has slid back to where it was in December 2023. During President Joe Biden’s term, confidence has slumped to as low as -58 in June 2022 amid soaring inflation, the worst reading since the Great Recession in 2008 and early 2009. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index summarizes Americans’ evaluations of current economic conditions (as excellent, good, only fair or poor) and their outlook for the economy (whether they believe it is getting better or worse). (Source: news.gallup.com)

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4. The dream of home ownership feels out of reach for many American families. The vast majority (86%) of current renters in the United States say they would like to buy a home – but can’t afford one, according to a CNN poll conducted by SSRS released Monday. Among those same renters who can’t afford to buy a home right now, 54% think it’s unlikely they’ll ever be able to, the poll found. The findings underscore the damage done by the one-two punch of surging home prices and elevated mortgage rates, creating an affordability crisis. And given that home ownership is the ticket to wealth generation in America, that pessimism exacerbates the risk that the divide between the haves and have-nots will only grow. Younger people especially are having trouble buying a home right now. The CNN poll found that 90% of renters younger than 45 say they’d like to buy but can’t afford it, compared with 79% of those age 45 and above. (Source: cnn.com, italics mine)

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