34 Comments
19 hrs ago·edited 19 hrs ago

Conservatives have no issue with Obama lecturing Black folks; that's what they wanted him to do all day every day while president. They just wanted him to do so regarding a matter they believe they would benefit from politically. Pretending as though there's NOT a pronounced misogynistic streak to be found among a subset of Black American men, who love referencing "b******" and "h****" in their favorite rap lyrics as we're often reminded, would be funny if it weren't so hypocritically sad, and that's only for starters.

Expand full comment

Glad to see in the comments many felt the same as I about Floyd! I think Glenn and his wife still want the dinner party invites !

Expand full comment

Interesting interview - I live in this country and never heard that the filmmakers claims were nonsense as the interviewer claims ! The medical examiner never said that - another hack reporter !

Expand full comment

'The Radical Individualist' stipulates the true facts regarding the Derek Chauvin prosecution for the murder of George Lloyd. There was no murder and besides Floyd no criminality. Glenn is far too intelligent to be easily bamboozled. He is highly educated and knows that if a court refuses 'CERTIORARI' it means they "REFUSE TO HEAR THE EVIDENCE". In other words NO precedent can be set. DJT's allegations of a 2020 STEAL was NEVER tested in court. I have urged Glenn to reject African mentality and be a black American. The revelations in Glenn's book expose the irresponsibility of the African mentality. Visit Africa and it will be confirmed. Glenn is far too smart to be coy in hishonesty. His remarks on 'shithole' Haiti are tragtically true. Black African leaders sold many millions of blacks into slavery. That is the African mentality.

Expand full comment

What, pray tell, is the "African mentality"? Sounds to me like you're essentializing humans according to their perceived "race."

Expand full comment

KB0679, visit and stay in central Africa, any of the countries will do, and critically assess the experience. You will then know what the 'African mentality' means. They can be the most humerous, ostensibly kind, sports loving and musically gifted. They also have a propensity to be irresponible and savage. For hundreds of years, countless millions of black men in central Africa, were captured by BLACK leaders and sold into slavery. Arab Zanzibar was the capital of the slave trade. The 'African mentality' is the legacy of cruelty of black against blacks. Connect the dots, critically assess the facts. You will see typical tribal cruelty, irresponsibility and instant gratification. I quote you "essentializing humans according to their perceived "race". I'm talking about hundreds of years of brutal Arab slavery out of Zanzibar. The US slavery was at the end and probably the start of the end of slavery per se. I argue that it would be wise for the moniker 'African' to be dropped from African-American. Make no error the vast majority of black Americans are decent kind Americans and that is how it should be.

Expand full comment

In my view from my wounded city of Minneapolis Coleman Hughes nailed it. We are still suffering profoundly from the damage done by left politicians and media when they refused to honor innocent until proven guilty and pressured the medical examiner to alter his stance. Read hughes in the free press.

Expand full comment
Nov 4·edited Nov 4

During the 2016 presidential campaign Trump said to Black America, "What the hell do you have to lose?" while asking for their votes:

https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/19/politics/donald-trump-african-american-voters/index.html

That rubbed a lot of black people the wrong way at the end of Obama's presidency ("How dare he minimize Obama's accomplishments!") and only added to the outrage they harbored from Trump's birther hoax. Black antipathy towards Trump is still strong, especially for a lot of black women and older, college-educated blacks.

The Talented Tenth and the black folks with three names have done well for themselves. They were glad to see Trump lose in 2020 and are reasonably content with how things have gone under Biden-Harris. A large number of often unseen black folks, however, are faring poorly. Their lives are a constant struggle. Here are a few stats that illustrate the point:

Median black household income in Atlanta is $28,105. Those who grow up poor in Atlanta have a 4% chance of escaping poverty in their lifetimes. These stats come from the Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative (just rebranded as Kindred Futures) and were reported last month by Atlanta's NBC affiliate:

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/special-reports/11alive-exclusives/poverty-in-atlanta-4-chance-of-escaping-it/85-26dd7cd4-27a6-4b3c-baed-cdbc75ca6e09

Suffice it to say that it's tough for a family to make a go of it in Atlanta on $28,105 per year. These folks want change, not more of the same.

Similar situations exist in other big cities. Median black household income in St. Louis is $28,000 according to the city's Equity Indicators web site:

https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/departments/mayor/initiatives/resilience/equity/

Explore the site and you'll find lots of depressing statistics (e.g., 26% of black adults live in poverty, 32% of black residents live in Census tracts with poverty rates above 40%, 31% of black renters spend more than 50% of their incomes on rent, the most common reason for a black woman in St.; Louis to go to a hospital is for treatment of injuries from assaults, etc.)

Chicago is another place where lots of black residents are barely getting by. Median black household wealth in Chicago is zero dollars (not a typo, $0) according to an analysis that was released in June:

https://colorofwealth.org/chicago/

In other words, half of black families in Chicago are broke. Median black household income is $36,500 (See Table 4 of the report). That's not much money to live on in Chicago, so it's not surprising that 21% of Chicago's black families live in public housing and 33% receive rent subsidies (See Table 8).

Against this backdrop, a significant number of black voters may sit out this election or vote for Trump. Who can blame them? The afterglow of the Obama presidency has faded and they literally have nothing to lose.

Obama is 63 years old, wealthy, and graying. His days as a Chicago community organizer are long gone. He doesn't spend much time in low-income communities like Altgeld Gardens anymore. Obama doesn't know how low income black folks live or the daily challenges they face. His suggestion that black men aren't enthusiastic about Harris because of sexism reflects that disconnect. Somebody should send him a link to this ad from the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Alliance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxeIqTbQRnk

Expand full comment

Conservatives should tell them that expectations of racial equity are foolhardy and unjustified.

Expand full comment

What are the advantages of voting for Trump?

Expand full comment

What are the advantages of voting for the status quo? The answer to this question and yours depends upon your situation. The 25% increase in food prices between 2019 and 2023 is a killer if your family is in the lowest income quintile and you spend a third of your income on food. Here are USDA links if you want to do a deep dive:

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58350

https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/gallery/chart-detail/?chartId=58372

Food costs aren't the only thing to consider when selecting a candidate, but they're at the top of the list, along with the costs of other essentials such as housing and energy, if you're a family of modest means. What's important to voters depends upon their situations and their values. Some people prioritize the economy. Some prioritize health care. Some prioritize reproductive rights. Some prioritize social issues. Some prioritize border security. Some prioritize education. Some prioritize foreign affairs. Etc.

Both candidates have weaknesses when it comes to the issues that matter to voters. It's a choose your poison election.

Expand full comment

It seems as though you reserve criticism for the Democrats. What benefits did Blacks gain under Republicans?

It seems that the overwhelming majority of Black voters will cast votes for Democrats. I fall in the category that sees more economic benefit from Democrats. Didn’t Black unemployment fall under Obama and Biden?

Edit to add:

In Trump I see a man talking about tariffs as if they do not impact consumers. I see a man who only has a “concept” of a health care plan. I see Harris supported by Nobel Prize winning economists, Bill Gates, Jamie Diamond, etc.

Expand full comment
18 hrs ago·edited 18 hrs ago

I'm a political independent. That allows me to call "balls and strikes" as honestly as I can.

The Trump economy was decent for black people. The black poverty rate and the black unemployment rate hit all time lows on his watch. Median black household incomes, adjusted for inflation, rose more quickly under Trump than Obama. The median was $44,730 in 2009 (Obama's first year in office) and $49,170 in 2016 (Obama's last year in office). That's decent progress over eight years, but the median was $53,840 in 2020 (Trump's last year), which is comparable progress in half the time. Most of that progress took place by 2019, when the median was $53,710.

The Trump economy was especially good for low income families. The percentage of black households earning less than $15,000 per year fell from 16.6% in 2016 to 14.9% in 2020. The numbers were even better in 2019 (14.2%). That compares to more modest progress during Obama's two terms, with the numbers being 16.7% in 2009 and 16.6% in 2016.

To be fair, the employment, poverty, and income numbers improved further under Biden, but that progress was accomplished using large pandemic relief packages that created high inflation, something that hit low income people especially hard.

The inflation spike that took place on Biden's watch was an unforced error. Economists like Larry Summers and Jason Furman of Harvard (Both are Team Obama alumns) warned Team Biden beforehand that the relief packages they passed were too large and would create inflation. To be fair, the war in Ukraine made things worse.

Add it all up and it's not obvious that Obama's economy or Biden's economy were better for black people than Trump's. You'll reach a similar conclusion if you look at the numbers for all Americans.

Expand full comment

Has the United States economy improved better than other industrialized nations?

My understanding is that inflation was a global problem and is decreasing in the United States

Again, I appreciate the time you take for these conversations.

I’m a Democrat who saw Trump imitate a sex act with a microphone.

Expand full comment

It's important to periodically "pressure test" your assumptions about things. Your questions prompt me to rethink my positions, so I usually enjoy our exchanges.

My understanding is that most world leaders and central bankers now acknowledge that they overshot the mark in their responses to the pandemic. Part of the problem is that most of these folks don't spend much time in the "real world" and therefore underestimated the impacts of pandemic related supply chain problems. They provided too much fiscal stimulus at a time when their economies couldn't absorb it without inflation. Artificially low interest rates and the war in Ukraine made things worse.

Not many policy makers will say this out loud, but my sense is that Democrats thought the stimulus packages that were put in place during the Great Recession were too modest and that's why the economic recovery took longer than they expected. There's some merit to this argument. Larry Summers was one of the chief architects of those relief packages. This probably gave Team Biden the false confidence that doing more than Summers suggested was smart.

Inflation, which measures the rate at which prices are rising, is now running below 3% on an annualized basis. The rate of increase is down, but prices have not fallen. That's why a lot of people are still struggling to make ends meet.

Politico Magazine ran a piece back in February that took stock of the economy and said it was what liberals had long wanted, but not necessarily what voters wanted:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/16/democrats-economy-inflation-column-00141816

That argument is playing out at the polls.

Trump's a showman with a knack for drawing attention to himself, sometimes in bizarre ways. I take everything he does with a grain of salt.

Expand full comment

FYI: The German version at Zeit Magazin is paywalled: 1,000 Euro to continue reading after the first few lines.

Expand full comment

I ran into this, too. Glenn, is there any way you can get Die Zeit to make just this article available to people who link through your email or Substack post? Though my take on the paywall is that it's possible to test out a subscription for a month at only 1 euro, so maybe that's the way to go.

Expand full comment

Interesting interview.

But let’s get something straight about Geroge Floyd. He wasn’t murdered. The original coroner’s report found nothing concerning the knee on the neck. But the knee on the neck made a great photo op for anti cop bigots, so they played it for all it was worth. The entire case was built around that knee, never mind that it had nothing to do with Floyd’s death from a serious self-inflicted overdose.

Glenn had the courage to link The Fall of Minneapolis on his podcast. It is far closer to the truth than any of the crap the MSM ginned up.

https://www.thefallofminneapolis.com/

Billions of dollars of damage was done in the subsequent riots, which Nancy Pelosi and others called ‘mostly peaceful protests’. By my best count, 25 people were murdered. Innocent people were yanked out of cars and beaten. Mom and Pop stores were destroyed. Electronics and clothing stores were looted in the name of ‘social justice’.

Pelosi is a big fan of mob rule. As long as it’s HER mob.

Expand full comment

Coleman Hughes has not backed down on this matter. Sadly, Glenn has.

Coleman also has a more truthful position on Gaza. I live in hope that Glenn will come around. But knowing he worries about his obit. in the NYT explains a few things.

Expand full comment

What about the right of a physician to sell his services at a market rate, and not at a discounted Obamacare rate? And if they decide not to, who is left, but a doctor who is willing to sell at a discounted rate. A problem, no?

Expand full comment

The last line alone is worth the read:

"Worried that my reputation would never recover and that the first line of my obituary in the New York Times would read: 'Glenn Loury, well-known black economist and Trump supporter.'”

OMG. LOL. Glenn continues to delight and amaze!

"Healthcare as a right"? Really? I'd love to hear why? What is your theory of human rights (I'm on "negative rights" side of things)

Expand full comment

Is abortion healthcare? Is euthanasia?

Expand full comment

Good interview. I especially like your clarification vis-a-vis Tanahesi Coates. I noticed you mentioned that healthcare is a right. Bit surprised by that. As an economist, do you believe that there is justification for a single-payer health system? How do you feel about our health system in the United States today?

Expand full comment

I worked for the World Bank for 20+ years. Haiti is a s***hole. Why even politicize that? Fact.

Expand full comment

And before Israel made the desert bloom, British mandate Palestine was an undeveloped (crappy) piece of land. A Jewish Canadian politician got into all kinds of trouble for making that observation.

Truth matters

Expand full comment

I don't consider carrying out an ethic cleansing for seventy five years and then carrying out a genocide an honorable way of developing land. Not worth the shopping malls.

Expand full comment

The only genocide in history where the population has ballooned. Nice trick, UNRWA!

Expand full comment

That’s idiotic. The genocide I am referring to didn’t begin until October 8th of last year when politicians began a systematic starvation and wanton bombing campaign of the Gazan population while making genocidal biblical references and equating all of Gazans with the Hamas soldiers who attacked on Oct 7th. And the population has not “ballooned” since then. Furthermore, genocides have actually occurred in history where the population changes were similar to what is happening now in Gaza; the Darfur genocide, for example.

The Darfur genocide appears parallel in number of deaths as well. The U.S. government and international bodies recognized the Darfur genocide. Genocides don’t have to wipe out an entire population. And genocides aren’t just about death, it is also about suffering.

The nazi genocides took years before there were more deaths than what has already occurred in Gaza. Had the Nazi genocides been stopped early, would they not have been genocides in your mind ? Are you going to wait until millions of people have died before you declare whats happening a genocide? Thats not how to stop genocides. But this isn’t a genocide you want to stop is it? I’m going to wager you think that Israel has had the right to do what it has done?

Don’t pretend you know anything about the history of genocides.

Expand full comment
Nov 4·edited Nov 4

Personally I don't find that sort of argument to be very persuasive. I've heard Douglas Murray make this same argument before. For instance, the famines caused by the Great Leap Forward in China led to perhaps as many as 30-45 million excess deaths from 1958 to 1962. However, the overall population actually declined only very slightly over that same time period. One source I read suggested that the overall population of China declined from around 647 million to 643 million over those 4 years. Israel aside, there's nothing logically incoherent about the notion of genocide or mass deaths occurring concurrently with population growth among a group of people.

Expand full comment

What created Haiti’s original debt?

Expand full comment

If it had been Japan or Romania or some place like that we wouldn't be having this discussion because there wouldn't be the uproar. We only have the Uproar because it's a black country.

Expand full comment

No it's because it was a former slave colony that was politically isolated by american slavers like Thomas Jefferson after a successful revolt.

Expand full comment