Say his name, and others’: American protests spread globally

Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a.

Very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half the price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price.

So that means a half day.

Yeah. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.

Of $45 for three month plan equivalent.

To $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network busy. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com hi, this is Christy from Back to the Bar. You've probably heard about GLP1 weight loss medications and the side effects that can come with jumping in too fast. That's why I love Noom. Makes getting started easy. Their microdose GLP1 program begins with a smaller dose and gradually scales up based on how your body reacts. The Noom GLP1 microdose program starts at $99 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP1 journey today at noom.com that's n o m dot com Noom micro changes big results. Average weight loss eight pounds in first month. Meds and personalization based on clinical need and not available to all individuals. Medications are not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy or quality. Pricing based on first month only.

Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Joe. I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. It's no surprise that lockdowns have led to deep recessions and vast unemployment. What is surprising is the gender divide within those numbers. Unlike most downturns, the current crisis has put a disproportionate number of women out of work. And a new video game called Command and Conquer just came out. Well, it's not new. It's a reissue of a 24 year old classic. The industry is tapping into, a trick well known to Hollywood and record companies. Sometimes it's smart just to polish up old stock. But first. In America. The most sustained protests since the 1960s have continued in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer yesterday. In response, the city's council pledged to dismantle its police department.

Our commitment is to end our city's.

Toxic relationship with the Minneapolis Police Department, to end policing as we know it, and to recreate systems of public safety.

That actually keep us safe.

But the anger extends beyond Minnesota, beyond even America.

The whole world is watching.

Yesterday, in Bristol protesters toured a statue of Edward Colston, a 17th century slave trader. In Brussels, it was a statue of King Leopold ii, who colonized what became the Democratic Republic of Congo. Protesters clambered on top, shouting murderer. And waving the Congolese flag. From Sydney to Berlin to Paris, people around the world have turned out to protest against not only an American tragedy, but but also issues of racism in their own countries. The uproar has created difficulty for America's allies and opportunity for rivals such as Russia and China.

Protests will vary from place to place, I think, but by and large, they've been peaceful, multiracial and young.

Simon Long is the Economist's deputy digital editor.

I attended one in Parliament Square in London on Saturday. It was very crowded. People chanted George Floyd's name.

George Floyd.

George Floyd.

George Floyd.

They chanted. Black lives matter.

Black lives matter. Black lives matter.

Every now and then, people would drop to one knee in imitation of their fellow protesters in the United States and raise one clenched fist aloft in the air. Tip was a powerful statement of solidarity with the protesters in America, but also being directed very much at injustices at home.

And what are the protesters calling for?

They're calling for an end to racism. Put most broadly, in many countries, there have been similar problems to the US in what is perceived as the unfairness of the way the judicial system operates against minorities, particularly black people. That's been the case in France. Here in Britain, for example, where people remembered Mark Duggan, a young man who was shot in 2011, an event that sparked serious rioting back then in France by the death of Adama Traore, a young black man again killed four years ago by the police. So a lot of the very similar issues there, but also more local ones coming up. In Australia, the issue has been taken up by Aboriginal protesters. Their aborigines also are more at risk of dying in police custody. Some 400 have died in police custody over the past 30 years. Palestinians, of course, have seen in the treatment of African Americans a parallel with the way they are treated in Israel.

And how have the governments of these countries, where all of these protests are happening, responded to them?

Well, in America's friends and allies, to a large extent, with silence. There was an excruciating clip, widely shared, of Justin Trudeau, Canada's prime minister, being asked how he assessed President Trump's handling of the events in the US and he was utterly quiet, completely silent, for over 20 seconds before talking about how horrified the world has been to see what's going on there. As for America's, international rivals and critics, however, they've seized on this as a moment, well, to gloat, really, and to point to American hypocrisy. We've seen the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Iran, even North Korea point to the events as evidence of ingrained American racism, of American hypocrisy, and to deflect criticism of their own shortcomings and their own repressive actions. And of course, perhaps the strongest of these types of reactions has come from China.

How do you mean? What's China said?

Well, you have to remember this came at a particularly awkward time in Sino American relations. America had just lambasted China for threatening to impose a new security law on Hong Kong. It had also marked the anniversary of the June 4 killings in 1989 in Beijing, the Tiananmen massacre, by inviting veterans of the late 80s Chinese democracy movement to the State Department, where Mike Pompeo had greeted them. So it was a moment for China to gloat that implicitly, never explicitly said this, that if you looked at the two countries now and asked which of the two was more likely to have tanks on the streets to put down protesters, and you'd have to say it was America rather than China. And so more generally, it could point to the double standards that it saw in America, standing up for the rights of protesters on the streets of Hong Kong, for example, and condemning the way they've been handled with tear gas and rubber bullets and using exactly the same tactics against protesters on its own streets.

And how do you think all of this looks through the lens of history in terms of America's protests spreading so widely? Has this happened at this scale before?

Well, a parallel in a lot of people's minds at the moment, isn't it, is with 1968. And at that time, of course, America was riven by mass protests following the assassination of Martin Luther King. And because of the Vietnam War. And anti Vietnam War protests also spread across the world. And there have been other times when the world has been riven by mass protests. What's unusual about what has happened in the past two weeks since the death of George Floyd is how many countries have been sparked by one event to take to the streets with very similar themes of protest and how widely they have spread, how fast?

And do you think the net effect is a negative one on America's global standing, or is this really sort of purely about the local injustices and racism as it finds itself everywhere?

I think it's undoubtedly been a bad time for America's image. The video of George Floyd's death has been seen around the world and has horrified people, and that is part of the motivation behind so many of them getting on the streets. On the other hand, if you wanted evidence of persistent American soft power, there are a few stronger examples than the way events in America have sparked a worldwide movement. And that movement is directed, of course, not just at America, and in many cases not even at America. It's directed at local governments, local authorities, local injustices in many countries.

And to your mind, is it going to be a catalyst for real change in any and all of these places?

I think that in many countries this has become an issue which, along with climate change and perhaps with MeToo issues, has become a crusade for a younger generation. It has become top of their agenda. And that is going to mean that governments are going to have to respond to it in some ways, and that the failure so far to do so will only provoke more protests. And that as lockdowns ease over the world, we're going to see perhaps another long, hot summer like in 1968 of street protests, not just in America, but in many, many other countries.

Simon, thanks very much for your time.

Thank you very much for having me, Jason.

This week, our sister podcast Checks and Balance examines the politics of police versus protest and who it will favour in 2020. Harvard historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad says the demographics of the protests makes that a difficult prediction.

We really don't have a precedent for not only the scale of white participation but also the diversity of whites who are actively engaged in quote unquote, peaceful protest activities.

Listen to Checks and Balance wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, this is Christy from Back to the Bar. You've probably heard about GLP1 weight loss medications and the side effects that can come with jumping in too fast. That's why I love Noom. Makes getting started easy. Their microdose GLP1 program begins with a smaller dose and gradually scales up based on how your body reacts. The Noom GLP1 microdose program starts at $99 and is delivered to your door in seven days. Start your microdose GLP1 journey today at Noom.com that's N-O-O-M.com Noom micro changes big results. Average weight loss 8 pounds in first month meds and personalization based on clinical need and not available to all individuals. Medications are not reviewed by FDA for safety, efficacy or quality pricing based on first month only.

The pandemic has led to global job losses as entire industries shut down or adapted to A socially distanced world. On Friday, America's Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the unemployment rate had fallen last month from nearly 15% to 13.3, but that nearly 21 million employees were still out of work. Economists are now combing through those data and gathering their own to figure out what all this means for an eventual recovery.

So we've in total now surveyed about 28,000 workers.

Abby Adams Prasl is a professor at the University of Oxford. Since March she's been surveying workers in Britain, America and Germany about their employment situations.

Women have been more likely to lose their job, or actually even if they haven't lost their job, they've been more likely to have been furloughed than men.

On the surface, that might suggest that sectors in which women are prevalent have been hit harder. But there's more to it than that.

What we find is that even if you control for occupation, for industry and for the type of work arrangements that men and women do, we still find that women have been 15% more likely to lose their job. Which we just. I just think it's huge.

This isn't what normally happens when economic activity dries up.

Recessions tend to be so called man sessions, particularly 2007, 2009.

Sascha Nauta is the Economist's public policy editor.

Men lose more jobs than women on the whole because they are overrepresented in sectors like manufacturing and construction that tend to get really hard hit. In fact, a really interesting study estimates that that three quarters of all the fluctuations in jobs between 1989 and 2014 were due to men losing and gaining their jobs. So they're in much more so called cyclical industries. Women on the other hand, are represented in sectors that are much less volatile. So for example the public sector and more broadly services. And on top of that, in normal recessions there is such a thing called spousal insurance, which is actually where wives tend to jump in when husbands lose jobs. So they'll either jump into the labor market or they'll increase their hours. And none of that is happening right now because this is a very different situation.

In what way? Why is it different this time?

Well, most immediately. So going back to the first job losses and the first furloughings that we saw, those were all in face to face sectors for very understandable reasons. Right. If you think about the first things to close, they were things like hairdressers, restaurants, the travel industry, all places where women make up the majority of jobs. Women run businesses again tend to be more in sectors like Health, fashion, retail, all things that are very hard to do from home. Whereas, for example, male business owners, particularly small business owners, are overrepresented in things like IT or finance, things that are actually quite easy to still do from your basement under today's circumstances.

And I guess weighing on all of this is the childcare burden that comes with all of this working from home and these furloughs.

Absolutely. So what we've been talking about so far, job losses, disproportionately hits lower educated women. The childcare thing is something that hits all women and parents, but particularly higher educated women, because they are more likely to be able to continue to do their job from home. And that's where childcare comes in. Right. British households with kids under 12 are doing an extra 40 hours of childcare and schooling a week. That's basically the equivalent of a full time job. And mothers on average are doing two thirds of that. Dads are definitely doing more than they were doing before. But even dads who are furloughed are still doing no more childcare than mums who are in paid work.

So women's actual full time jobs have become impossible.

So the question here is, what will the cost of that be to their careers down the line for higher educated women still working from home, but working reduced hours or having to multitask a lot, which is what's coming out of a lot of the data. Women are spending awful lot of time. This is not going to come as a surprise to anyone working behind their laptop whilst also doing homeschooling whilst also minding toddlers. Working mothers are 50% more likely to be disturbed whilst they're working from home than fathers. And this pattern continues even when the mother is the higher earner. And we know that those kind of disruptions are incredibly costly in terms of productivity, what that will do to their pay and prospects down the line. And some of the dental wage experts who I spoke to are very worried that we're going to start seeing the damage of that in two, three years time in, you know, women's chances of promotion, pay rises.

So do we have any hints now as to how those changes will play out?

So academia offers a glimpse of the productivity losses to women. And you're already seeing a notable drop in female submissions to certain journals, whereas some academic journals are reporting a rise in men's submissions. And that can have very serious implications for careers down the line. I mean, in academia, you know, publications are basically currency. They buy you tenure, pay, promotions, et cetera. And that does give a hint to what might lie down the line for other women who might not have lost their jobs right now, but are not able to work at full speed and full productivity. There are always silver linings and I think this one's no exception. So where a lot of people before this will have thought they couldn't do their jobs from home. And in fact, we know that in America, until recently, 8 in 10 employers said that, you know, their work couldn't possibly be done from home. That is now very obviously changing. Like, you know, the concept has been proven and many of the investments have been made to enable people to work from home. And I think that could have great effects down the line, particularly for women. We know that women, you know, tend to pick their jobs careers, particularly when they become mothers around their children. And if they are able to do more jobs from home without it hurting their career, then that can only be a good thing.

Sasha, thanks very much for your time.

Thanks, Jason.

For a lot more analysis like this, subscribe to the Economist. To check out the best introductory offer wherever you are around the world, just go to economist.com intelligenceoffer It's 1946. Albert Einstein has traveled back in time to assassinate a young Adolf Hitler. Hitler. Hitler is out of the way, but chaos ensues. Without the threat of Nazi Germany, an emboldened Joseph Stalin invades China and Europe and wreaks havoc on the free world. No, this didn't happen. It's the opening to the landmark 1996 Real Time Strategy Video Game Command and Red Alert.

The Command and Conquer games were known for popularizing a genre of video games that's fallen a bit from favor these days called Real Time Strategy.

Tim Cross is the Economist's technology editor.

And they're also remembered for their over the top, campy video sequences. I'm escaping to the one place that.

Hasn'T been corrupted by capitalism.

Space fans can rejoice because they now have a new chance to replay the original games in a revamped version called Command and Conquer Remaster, which has just come out and it's the latest example of a growing trend for remastering and revivifying old video games.

Well, why is that trend coming about?

It's quite similar to what you see in other branches of the entertainment industry. Right. So in music, there's endless remasters and anniversary editions of famous albums. You know, I don't know how many different versions of the Beatles albums are out there now, but it must be dozens. And in the film industry, studios are very happy to sell their super Fans, directors, cuts and rejigged versions of films and new scenes put in and old scenes taken out and so on. It's a similar idea. It's just maybe taking the games industry a little bit longer to get around to doing it. But it's a big deal because gaming is a big industry now in revenue terms, you know, much bigger than music and depending on how you count it, possibly even bigger than the film industry.

And so it's exactly the same reasons then for games as it is for films and music, just making the most of existing content.

I think it's partly that it partly appeals to nostalgia as well. So video games now are a middle aged business and they've got lots of middle aged fans who might have fond memories of playing these games back in the 1980s or 1990s. If you can give them a quick sort of spruce up to make them look a little bit better and resell them to people, then there's good evidence that there's quite a bit of nostalgia money out there.

But is nostalgia money more than the money from splashy new releases?

If you look at video games, the state of the art has advanced, you know, very, very quickly and that means the budgets have ballooned. So if you're making a really sort of of glitzy AAA game, as they call it, sometimes the budgets for those can be more than $100 million. That tends to give rise to the same sort of dynamics that you see in Hollywood, right, where if you're throwing these huge amounts of money at a new product, you really can't afford for it to fail. So the result is people get quite risk averse. And I think the same holds true in video gaming. If a game sold well once, 20 years ago, then with a bit of a lick of paint there's a good chance it'll sell again nowadays.

And that's generally how it goes, just a lick of paint.

So it varies from game to game, but a lot of the time, yeah, the interference is sort of minimal. I mean, if you take the new Command and Conquer game, the main thing that they've done is go back and prettify the graphics. Sometimes you can go a bit further. So there's a game called Final Fantasy 7 Remake and that's a reimagining of a 1997 Japanese role playing game. And they've gone a lot more all in on that. It's basically the same story, but they've changed a lot of the mechanics of the way the game works. They've redone the graphics, they've redone the sound. So that's a sort of halfway house between just a sort of quick and dirty re release and a full on new game.

And where do the fans sit on that question? How much do they want a Faithful Recreation? And how much do they want something that just sort of hints at the thing they've got all that nostalgia for?

This is the trick, isn't it? It's judging exactly what the fans want. Because, you know, nostalgia can make for some pretty exacting critics. You can get it wrong. There was a game called Warcraft 3 Reforged, and the fans weren't very happy with that, partly because there was a consensus that they'd released it before it was really ready, but also because they fiddled around with the gameplay. They even took some features out that were present in the 2002 original. It's like any media if you look at the Star wars films, some people will like George Lucas, endless remastered director's cuts versions, and some people would think he should just leave well alone and stop interfering with perfection.

Tim, thank you very much for your time.

Thanks, Jason.

That's all for this episode of the Intelligence. If you like us, give us a rating on Apple Podcasts and see you back here tomorrow.