S15 EP163: Hour 2 - Perhaps I’m a Contrarian Indicator

Erick takes apart the Politico story out of the Republican midterm convention in Dallas claiming panic over the Senate map, siding with Chris LaCivita and walking through why a five point Democratic polling bias in September means Republicans in Ohio, Iowa, Michigan, Maine, Alaska, and Texas are actually ahead, not drowning. Then the August consumer price index lands at 3.4 percent, Mark Zandi and Thomas Ryan warn the Federal Reserve may raise rates next week, the 30 year mortgage hits 6.76 percent, and Erick issues a direct challenge to President Trump: take every tariff to zero between now and Election Day and run the experiment.

TOPICS

• The Politico "doom in Dallas" story, Meredith Lee Hill and Aaron Daugherty, and why Erick sides with Chris LaCivita over the anonymous Republican strategists
• The 2020 comparison: Lindsey Graham, Joni Ernst, Roger Marshall, and John Cornyn were all "toss-ups" at this exact point and all won comfortably
• Erick's forecast: the GOP loses the House, loses Georgia and North Carolina, but holds the Senate, with Ken Paxton surviving in Texas and Susan Collins preferable to the unvetted alternative
• August CPI at 3.4 percent, gas up 27.4 percent, airline fares up 23 percent, and the Iran war as the energy shock economists, including Joe Siedel at JP Morgan, blame for it
• The tariff challenge to President Trump, wages running beneath inflation, the 10-year Treasury pushing mortgages to 6.76 percent, and why used car and auto insurance prices are the only things falling
• Caller Alan on broken trust, forty trillion in debt, and a country that has not felt this pulled apart since the Civil War