MidDays with Gerard Gibert 2026-09-14

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Get ready to go beyond the headlines and join a meaningful conversation with people from around the state. You're listening to MidDays with Gerard Gibert here on SuperTalk Mississippi.

Gerard Gibert (1:01)

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to MidDays. SuperTalk Mississippi, I'm your host, Gerard Gibert, along with Rhino in the Element Wealth Studio, guiding you through the middle of your day with facts, fodder, and fine music. Morning there, Rhino.

Mike Chaney (1:17)

Howdy, howdy.

Gerard Gibert (1:18)

Well, we kick off a brand new week. We've got Insurance Commissioner Mike Cheney also serves as the State Fire Marshal. We'll be joining MidDays at 10.35 today. Other than that, it's supposed to be hot again today.

It's like permanently hot. It feels like just a little peak of fall. Maybe one day. Usually, we get something.

Rhino (1:46)

Yeah, I don't want to jinx it, because the last time I started talking about a week full of highs in the 80s, it wound up being completely fake and delayed by a few weeks. But looking at the extended, extended forecast, starting this weekend, we should start seeing the temps tick down at least a notch or two.

Gerard Gibert (2:06)

Okay. I'm looking forward to that, for sure. The president, a lot to talk about here today, folks. It's another situation where we got only two hours to get to it. We're going to do our best. So Trump, our president, Donald Trump, he was over at the Irish Open, the golf tournament, and believe that was played at a course that the president owns, if I'm not mistaken.

And he announced while he was there to the Irish folks attending the tournament that he would end the tariffs on Irish whiskey.

And the golf fans broke out into a USA chant, because the price of whiskey, the tariffs on whiskey, that means importing Irish whiskey into this country. American importers, of course, bear those costs. He ended those. It's like he planned it, right on to announce it while he was at the Irish Open. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said that I am not aware that there's majority support for this, but he's talking about the Republic of Ireland, which gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1922, while Northern Ireland established in 1921, has remained part of the UK. So he's looking for a unified country, and they're thinking about a referendum to unify Ireland and Northern Ireland into one nation. He didn't say what kind of support. That was just during a conversation the Irish Prime Minister had with our president while he was over in Ireland.

The number of unmarried men is surging in this country. Men ages 20 to 39, just looking at the chart here, going back to 2000, it's about half and half in that age range, about half. 20 million to be specific were unmarried, while 18.1 million married. Today, fast forward, so 20 million unmarried, today it's 30 million, 18.1 million married in 2000, today it's 15.4. So again, the delta between married and unmarried, about 2 million in 2000, and today it's 15 million. There are double the number of married folks among the unmarried males, I should say, folks, males, specifically we're talking about. So 30 million unmarried, 15 million married, twice as many unmarried than married, whereas in 2000, it was about 10%, roughly.

So 110% versus 100 there. So they also say unhappiness is rising among unmarried men. Well, maybe they ought to get married, if they think that would be the solution.

Rhino (5:58)

That would just be more misery.

Gerard Gibert (6:01)

23% of unmarried men say they're unhappy, whereas only 7% today of married men say they're unhappy. In 1980, pardon me, 1980, I got married in 81, so I was just on the cusp of becoming a spouse. 16% of unmarried men in 1980 were unhappy. 8% of married men. So it's gone from 16 to 23 among the unmarried who were unhappy, and 8 to 7 among the married who were happy. That's really pretty level among the married. 8%, 7%. Over 40 years. But the unmarried men who were unhappy, that's ticked up 7% quite a bit. I think the bigger concern is we're running out of people. Elon Musk has warned that, yeah, that's a huge threat to global society, is that our birth rates are down in this country. The birth rate is about 1.6. It needs to be 2.1 just to replace the number of people who live in this country. In 2030, demographers estimate that there will be more people dying than being born in this country.