Democrats veer left, bond yields surge – and the return of the glasshole?
Welcome to our press review of events in the United States. Every Wednesday we look at how the Swiss media have reported and reacted to three major stories in the US – in politics, finance and science.
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Democrats veer left, bond yields surge – and the return of the glasshole?
A political riddle: why did the Republicans spend $5 million (CHF4 million) on adverts supporting a Democrat in a recent primary in Wisconsin? All is revealed in this week’s US briefing.
Help us improve the press review
As a reader of our weekly press review, your feedback is important to us. Please take two minutes to answer a short survey and help us improve our journalism. This survey is anonymous and all data is confidential.
👉 [Take the surveyExternal link]
What’s the best Democrat strategy for defeating the Republicans: lurch to the left or try to hold the centre? Democrat voters have been sending “mixed signals” in recent primaries, according to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ).
“With less than three months to go before the mid-term elections, the Democratic Party’s most left-wing candidates are racking up victories in the primaries,” wrote Swiss public broadcaster RTS on Friday.
“Among the Democrats, there has long been a preference for fielding cautious candidates – those capable of appealing beyond their own camp – rather than candidates who mainly inspire enthusiasm among the party’s base. This approach is now being challenged,” RTS said.
On August 4, Abdul El-Sayed, described by the conservative NZZ as a “Muslim left-wing populist” defeated his centrist rival Haley Stevens in the race for the Democratic Party’s Senate nomination in Michigan. A week later Peggy Flanagan, a left-wing progressive Senate candidate, secured victory in Minnesota. Then on August 18 Angie Nixon, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, unexpectedly won the primary in Florida.
However, the NZZ noted on Saturday that a primary in Wisconsin showed that “overly ‘woke’ candidates don’t go down well with the Democrat voter base”.
On August 11 Francesca Hong, described by the NZZ as a socialist, narrowly lost the Democrat primary for governor to David Crowley, the party establishment’s candidate. Hong had been about 20 points ahead in the polls, but then there was a major mobilisation of moderate Democrat voters who considered Hong too left-wing. “For instance, she had called for the abolition of the American family celebration of Thanksgiving, which she saw as a colonial legacy,” the NZZ reported.
The Zurich newspaper pointed out that organisations linked to the Republican party had spent $5 million (CHF4 million) on campaign advertising in support of Hong – in the hope that she would prove to be a weaker rival against the Republican candidate. “Indeed, the polls suggested that, with Hong as their candidate, the Democrats would have clearly lost the gubernatorial race,” the NZZ said.
The November election will be decisive, political scientist Gary Jacobson told RTS. “If the progressive candidates fail to get elected, or if the Democrats perform worse overall than expected despite the national context being generally favourable to them, this will prove that the left wing’s gamble has backfired, and they will bear the responsibility for it.”
Just like debt, US bond yields continue to rise, reports Le Temps. The Geneva newspaper adds that US debt is still finding buyers, but investors are demanding higher returns.
“The debt market is experiencing one surge after another,” Le Temps wrote on Monday. It noted that on August 13 an auction of $25 billion (CHF20.25 billion) worth of 30-year US Treasury bonds yielded a return of 5.22% – “the highest level seen in a quarter of a century”. At the end of July, a $42 billion ten-year bond issue had reached a yield not seen since 2007.
These rises in yields on long-term bonds come as the US budget deficit stood at $432.3 billion in July, Le Temps wrote. “One has to go back to March 2021, at the height of the Covid pandemic, to find a higher figure,” it said, explaining that, according to the US Treasury, this budget shortfall is attributable to increased spending on the Medicare programme, the reimbursement of customs duties and the burden of interest on the debt.
“The latest US debt issues show that interest in long-term Treasury bonds remains strong. However, investors are demanding higher yields to justify taking on risk,” Le Temps wrote.
“What’s more, while the likelihood of the central bank raising its key interest rates by the end of the year is dwindling, long-term bond yields have remained unchanged. Short-term rates have been falling for several weeks but remain at levels far higher than in 2022.”
Last but not least, Le Temps concluded, is the sheer scale of US debt itself. “This is expected to reach $40 trillion very soon. In addition to the issuance of new bonds, rising interest rates raise the question of refinancing maturing coupons.”
The Geneva newspaper cited John Plassard, head of investments at Geneva-based bank Cité Gestion, who said that in terms of refinancing, “2027 will be a rather colossal year for the United States. We’re talking about around $9 trillion worth of bonds coming to maturity”.
“AI glasses are taking the US by storm,” declared the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) at the weekend, asking why Big Tech is focusing on the face – and why data protection advocates are warning against it.
“There’s a whiff of Black Mirror hanging over Menlo Park, Meta’s headquarters in California,” Le Temps wrote on Tuesday. “In a scenario that the producers of the sci-fi series would certainly approve of, the group led by Mark Zuckerberg is considering equipping its smart glasses with a facial recognition system. This news comes at a time when these devices, even without this feature, are currently facing heavy criticism.”
For Meta, the stakes are high, the Geneva newspaper said. It holds an 84% share of the smart glasses market, and sales continue to rise, helped by falling prices, with the latest models costing less than CHF300 ($370). Google is expected to launch its smart glasses this autumn, and Snap continues to release new models.
Is it inevitable that glasses equipped with facial recognition will be brought to market? “If this becomes common practice in public spaces, I’m not sure it will go down well,” Laetitia Ramelet, project manager at the Foundation for Technology Assessment (TA-SWISS), told Le Temps. “Most of us have no desire to be identified by just anyone on the street. It could be dangerous, if we consider, for example, cases of stalking or surveillance based on our professional, political or private activities.”
But a journalist from the NZZ appears to have been converted. “After just ten minutes, I already don’t want to take the smart glasses off,” she wrote from San Francisco about the Meta Display Glasses. “To take a photo, I simply tap the rim of the glasses briefly; music streams through the arms straight into my ears. They project the route to the nearest café onto my right lens. The arrows show the way: out of the optician’s and then left. Instead of wandering the streets staring at my smartphone, I just have to glance at the corner of my glasses.”
Meta Display Glasses, which cost around $800, are not yet available in Europe for data protection reasons, and reports of facial recognition are adding further fuel to the fire. “Even now, it’s almost impossible for third parties to tell whether Meta’s glasses are recording,” according to the NZZ. “Added to this is the fact that Meta has a dreadful track record when it comes to protecting user data.”
So is it a foregone conclusion that smart glasses will become as ubiquitous as smart phones? Not necessarily. “Silicon Valley has been trying its hand at smart glasses for years, so far to no avail,” the Zurich newspaper wrote. “Google Glass, launched in 2013, became one of the biggest flops in tech history. Not because the product was bad, but because society wasn’t ready for it. The idea of being secretly photographed everywhere caused a huge outcry at the time. Wearers of the glasses were branded ‘Glassholes’.”
It noted that “even experts fear that the ‘Glasshole effect’ could repeat itself: that the smart glasses will once again fail due to privacy concerns and a public backlash”.
The next edition of ‘Swiss views of US news’ will be published on Wednesday, August 26. See you then!
If you have any comments or feedback, email english@swissinfo.ch
More
Subscribe to the newsletter “Swiss views of US news”
Stay informed with our weekly newsletter!
Are you looking for a simple way to stay updated on US-related news from a Swiss perspective?
Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter and receive concise summaries of the most important political, financial, and scientific stories in the United States, as reported by Switzerland’s leading media outlets – delivered straight to your inbox.
👉Sign up by entering your email address in the form below!
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.