Below is our world-renowned Demographer Neil Howe's latest weekly podcast. Neil discusses newsworthy market events that will prove the most timely, topical and consequential in the week ahead.

He talks through the news looming largest on his radar screen to keep your investing laser focused and confident. This free webcast compliments his in-depth research product Demography Unplugged.

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NEW PODCAST: The Biden Economy, the Weimar Republic, and Conte's Close Call (1/20) - demoimage

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In this latest issue of my weekly podcast, we discuss the future of the economy.  I predict we will see three distinct phases. In the next few weeks, the economy will continue to decelerate, with accompanying market turbulence, to the mobility drop associated with Covid-19. But going forward over the next several months into the summer, both will go strongly positive, buoyed by the vaccine and Biden stimulus. In 2H, however, look for outlook to darken just when the party is rockin'--due to rising inflation expectations, Covid-19's adaptive mutations, and a new form of political "resistance."

25,000 National Guard troops patrol DC. Capitol Hill hasn't seen this many armed soldiers since 1865. Reflecting on the storming of the Capitol, I draw parallels between the present-day and Hitler's failed "beer hall putsch" in 1923.  

Will Biden scrap Trump's executive order? Last year, Trump signed an executive order that US stock exchanges must delist companies working with the Chinese military. Biden has yet to comment on the issue. But with his priorities focused on C19 and growing bipartisan support for being tough on China, he will likely let it stand for the time being.

Italian PM Giuseppe Conte survives a confidence vote. In Italy, former PM Matteo Renzi removed his party from the ruling coalition. This sparked an immediate confidence vote in parliament. PM Giuseppe Conte easily received a majority of votes in the lower chamber. The Senate was a different situation. He narrowly received the most votes but did not secure a majority. Why is the Conte regime still hanging on? Probably because the deputies want to avoid a legislated one-third downsizing of their number due to go into effect as soon as there is another government. Conte will hobble on, greatly weakened.

In 2020, the share of eligible Americans who actually voted was 66.7%. This was higher than in any year since 1900. This follows the off-year election of 2018, in which the share was the highest in 104 years.

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ABOUT NEIL HOWE

Neil Howe is a renowned authority on generations and social change in America. An acclaimed bestselling author and speaker, he is the nation's leading thinker on today's generations—who they are, what motivates them, and how they will shape America's future.

A historian, economist, and demographer, Howe is also a recognized authority on global aging, long-term fiscal policy, and migration. He is a senior associate to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., where he helps direct the CSIS Global Aging Initiative.

Howe has written over a dozen books on generations, demographic change, and fiscal policy, many of them with William Strauss. Howe and Strauss' first book, Generations is a history of America told as a sequence of generational biographies. Vice President Al Gore called it "the most stimulating book on American history that I have ever read" and sent a copy to every member of Congress. Newt Gingrich called it "an intellectual tour de force." Of their book, The Fourth Turning, The Boston Globe wrote, "If Howe and Strauss are right, they will take their place among the great American prophets."

Howe and Strauss originally coined the term "Millennial Generation" in 1991, and wrote the pioneering book on this generation, Millennials Rising. His work has been featured frequently in the media, including USA Today, CNN, the New York Times, and CBS' 60 Minutes.

Previously, with Peter G. Peterson, Howe co-authored On Borrowed Time, a pioneering call for budgetary reform and The Graying of the Great Powers with Richard Jackson.

Howe received his B.A. at U.C. Berkeley and later earned graduate degrees in economics and history from Yale University.