3:00PM Water Cooler 6/29/2016

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Zeitgeist Watch

My exhilirated demonic laugh seems to have been followed by a massive DDOS attack. Hopefully all is well, now that we’ve twiddled some knobs on the back-end.

TPP/TTIP/TISA

“[Sherrod] Brown also brushed off the suggestion that Clinton will quietly acquiesce to a vote on the TPP in the lame-duck session after the November election” [Politico]. “‘I cannot imagine such a thing,” Brown told reporters after giving a speech Tuesday at an AFL-CIO conference on trade. ‘She will be speaking against it. I am convinced of that.'” A speech? I want receipts. Clinton had the chance to issue one by having the DNC Platform Committee, which she controls, add a plank opposing TPP. She chose not to.

“TPP and past ‘trade’ deals are incredibly unpopular with working-class voters, and Republicans are preparing a full-scale attack on Clinton’s credibility over the unpopular TPP. They are making the case that Clinton actually supports TPP but is pretending she does not in order to get votes. They say the president’s efforts to pass TPP in the post-election ‘lame duck’ session back up their claims. This pro-TPP vote by Clinton supporters on the platform committee will likely bolster the Republican argument” [Dave Johnson, Campaign for America’s Future]. And the Clinton campaign must know all that. Therefore, they think they can power through.

2016

Policy

“Trump delivered a speech on free trade at AlumiSource, which works with the aluminum and steel industries. The speech took place with backdrop of crushed aluminum cans” [WPXI]. We used to make steel; now we crush cans. Also too human beings.

Here’s the full speech:

Here is the full speech, annotated (PDF) [Donald Trump]. (Oddly, as of this writing, Google picks up the NPR-annotated version, not this one.) This on the ISDS caught my eye:

Not only will the TPP undermine our economy, but it will undermine our independence.

The TPP creates a new international commission that makes decisions the American people can’t veto.

These commissions are great for Hillary Clinton’s Wall Street funders who can spend vast amounts of money to influence the outcomes.

It should be no surprise then that Hillary Clinton, according to Bloomberg, took a “leading part in drafting the Trans-Pacific Partnership”.

She praised or pushed the TPP on 45 separate occasions, and even called it the “gold standard”.

Hillary Clinton was totally for the TPP just a short while ago, but when she saw my stance [braggadocio!], which is totally against, she was shamed into saying she would be against it too – but have no doubt, she will immediately approve it if it is put before her, guaranteed.

She will do this just as she has betrayed American workers for Wall Street throughout her career.

Here’s how it would go: she would make a small token change, declare the pact fixed, and ram it through. That’s why Hillary is now only saying she has problems with the TPP “in its current form,” – ensuring that she can rush to embrace it again at her earliest opportunity.

If the media doesn’t believe me, I have a challenge for you. Ask Hillary Clinton if she is willing to withdraw from the TPP her first day in office and unconditionally rule out its passage in any form.

(The speech is lavishly footnoted, but I omitted the numbers for clarity.)

“Trump gives speech in front of Wall of Garbage. Hilarity ensues” [Daily Kos]. Terrible advance work, I agree. That said, as we see from the post from WPXI, this is not a “sorting facility” for a landfill; it’s an aluminum recycling plant, and those are crushed aluminum cans. What Kos is doing, then, is not merely classifying Trump as “garbage,” but what’s behind him: His supporters. See Nancy Isenberg’s excellent White Trash for how elites have been kicking down by classifying working people, especially the landless, as “waste people” since the 1600s; the Kos headline falls squarely into that tradition.

Here’s the NPR annotated version [NPR]. NPR “fact checks” the speech with annotations, but the above paragraphs are not annotated in any way.

“Hillary Clinton’s Student Loan Debt Forgiveness Plan For Entrepreneurs: 5 Ways It Might Have A Race Problem” [International Business Plan]. The worst Democrat idea yet:

Hillary Clinton’s focus on preferring entrepreneurs for student loan debt forgiveness may help endear the Democratic presidential candidate to the millennial voters she needs. But her plan to single out budding innovators for a break does little to address the needs of many black and Latino college students who are struggling to deal with what has become a crisis of paying off funds borrowed for college education.

Exactly as with health care (“never, ever”), Clinton seeks to destroy education as a public good. Therefore, she seeks, like a Victorian, to sort the worthy debtors, from the unworthy (and to create another complex administrative apparatus filed with credentialed 10%-ers (her base (ka-ching)) to do the sorting for her. Lambert here: Clinton is favoring capital formation (and disfavoring non-entrepreneurial teachers, doctors, artists, and so forth). Which is really doubling down, since we already have an over-production crisis; there’s so much capital sloshing about that we literally don’t know where to invest it; hence, cash hoards at corporations, the bezzle, etc.)

Money

“Secret campaign cash from groups that aren’t supposed to coordinate with candidates has over recent election cycles poured into state and local races where the impact can be much greater than at the federal level, according to the Brennan Center for Justice” [Bloomberg].

Corruption

“A super-PAC backing Hillary Clinton has accepted $200,000 in donations from a company holding multiple contracts with the federal government — despite a ban on such contributions” [The Hill]. Guess who? “According to a review of contributions by The Hill, Boston-based Suffolk Construction made two contributions of $100,000 to Priorities USA, which is backing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.” Priorities USA = David Brock. “The donations from Suffolk highlight how a 70-year-old campaign finance law meant to prevent pay-to-play deals between public officials and companies making money from the government is often ignored by those making the donations and those on the receiving end.”

The Voters

“Movement4Bernie and Socialist Alternative are organizing a series of forums in dozens of cities across the country titled “Beyond Bernie: We Need a Party for the 99%.” These forums will both mobilize for the largest possible protests at the Democratic National Convention and create space for a broad-based debate on the way forward for the political revolution” [Kshama Sawant, Counterpunch]. “My message at the events will be clear: If Bernie refuses to break from the Democratic Party, our movement should back Jill Stein as the strongest left alternative in the presidential election and use 2016 to prepare the ground for building a new movement-based political alternative.” I’m all for realpoliitik by the left, but I couldn’t be more dubious that the Greens have the operational capability to be a credible threat at the national level; they’re a disfunctional non-profit, where “competence goes to die.” (FWIW, my view is that there needs to be an “Overton Prism,” with left, liberal, and conservative sides — the latter two being neoliberal — but that the left side needs both a media and a “think tank” entity, and that both are preconditions for future party success.)

“[I]n no previous election that I know of has age been so determinative of candidate preference. A Wall Street Journal aggregation of exit polls in early June showed Sanders had won 71.6 percent support from voters 29 and younger, while Clinton had won 71.3 percent support from voters 65 and older. The age difference bisects minority communities as well. Why this huge generation gap? The likely answer is that the experience of millennials in the wake of the 2008 crash has been as distinct and defining as that of the young people who went through the Great Depression and thereafter formed the base of the New Deal coalition” [Harold Meyerson, The American Prospect]. Meyerson is saying two things, and in the nicest possible way, as befits a liberal goodthinker: 1) The “Obama Coalition” is a crock (Meyerson doesn’t mention it, by contrast to FDR’s coalition, which he does; 2) The entire Obama administration was a ginormous squandered opportunity.

The Trail

“How Obama will campaign for Clinton” [Politico]. “Concerned that Hillary Clinton is still struggling to generate excitement, President Barack Obama is preparing to campaign for her.. ‘When he speaks about her character and her integrity and her leadership style, I think that will obviously have more authenticity than any other messenger, Plouffe said.” (Plouffe: “Board member, Uber, Rubicon Global and Obama Foundation.”)

“Chairman Paul Manafort has said more hires are imminent and insists that battleground state organization is underway, which could bolster an organization that has been running on fumes and at the whims of the candidate” [Real Clear Politics].

“Past business associates describe him as a micromanager who likes yes men at his side. How long this new Washington brain trust will last in a Trump administration is anybody’s guess” [Jim Ruth, WaPo]. Hmm. “So why then would rational, affluent, informed citizens consider voting for The Donald? Short of not voting at all — still an option some of us are considering — he’s the only one who appears to want to preserve the American way of life as we know it.” That’s just silly. Clinton will do fine for you guys, just fine.

Stats Watch

Personal Income and Outlays, May 2016: “Personal income as well as personal spending slowed in May at the same time that price data remained” [Econoday]. “With income growth stalling, consumers may have tapped into their savings slightly to fund May’s spending as the savings rate edged 1 tenth lower to 5.3 percent for the lowest rate of the year. Details on spending show gains concentrated in nondurable goods where price effects for gasoline and energy are inflating the totals. Spending on durable goods, despite a solid rise in vehicle sales during May, rose a soft 0.3 percent. Service spending was respectable with a 0.4 percent gain.” But: “The headline data this month continues to show consumer expenditure growth. This continues to be postive for 2Q2016 GDP if one considers GDP as a good measure of the economy. The negative of the headlines are that income grew at half the rate of expenditures. One should also note that year-over-year analysis shows both income and expenditures are softening” [Econintersect]. And so: “[T]his report will be seen by the Fed as offering a very encouraging rear-view look on US economic performance, but providing no guidance on what to expect going forward” [TD Securities, Across the Curve].

MBA Mortgage Applications, week of June 24, 2016: “The lowest mortgage rates in three years are not causing much of a stir in purchase applications for home mortgages” [Econoday]. Dog won’t eat the dogfood.

Pending Home Sales Index, May 2016: “Existing home sales have been trending higher but today’s pending home sales index, which tracks contract signings, may be pointing to slowing for the early part of the summer” [Econoday]. “Housing data have been up and down this year but behind the noise have been deceptively solid rates of growth, among the strongest rates of the nation’s slow-growth economy.”

ETFs: “ETF Trading After ‘Brexit’ Surprisingly Quiet” [ETF.com]. Because: “When volatility spikes, people generally trade risk-on or risk-off. ETFs are a fantastic way to do that, so we see big spikes in the value traded in ETFs relative to the rest of the equity market during volatility-spike days.” But: “[R]eading from the last few days’ trading, it’s hard to do much but say, ‘Investors and speculators are thinking the impact of Brexit will be, if not positive, at least predictable.'”

Political Risk: “The demand for safe-haven trades is becoming almost zany. It seems unthinkable that there was nearly $10 trillion in sovereign debt with negative yields just a few weeks ago. Now the tally for negative yields is up to $11.7 trillion” (via Fitch) [247 Wall Street].

Political Risk: “Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is a mixed bag for U.S. companies, according to one of the nation’s leading economic forecasters. The U.S.’ stronger export position in Asia due to the post-Brexit rise in the value of the Japanese yen will be offset by weakness in European exports, as declines in the euro and the British pound make U.S. exports to Europe less competitive, said Dr. Donald Ratajczak, the Regents professor emeritus of economics at Georgia State University” [DC Velocity].

Shipping: “The 4.7% slide in imports at the Port of New York and New Jersey marked the third straight year-over-year drop at the biggest gateway on the Atlantic seaboard and came amid declines at other ports on the coast. Persistently high business inventories and shifting trade patterns that favor West Coast ports are cutting into the region’s shipping trade, WSJ Logistics Report’s Robbie Whelan writes: [Wall Street Journal].

Shipping: “Galen Vick, executive director of the Reverse Logistics Association, a trade group for companies that provide this service, said that IKEA’s recall of 29 million dressers is the largest furniture recall he has ever heard of. He estimated, though, that only about 10% of those products are likely to be returned” [Wall Street Journal, “IKEA to Recall 29 Million Dressers, Chests in U.S.”].

Brexit: “5 Simple Steps To A Brexit-Proof Portfolio” [Forbes].

Brexit: “EU cities should get ready to clear euro in place of London – Hollande” [Reuters].

Brexit: “Economic implications of Brexit” [Ben Bernanke]. “[T]he biggest losers, economically speaking, will be the British themselves. The vote ushers in what will be several years of tremendous uncertainty—about the rules that will govern the U.K.’s trade with its continental neighbors, about the fates of foreign workers in Britain and British workers abroad, and about the country’s political direction, including perhaps where its borders will ultimately lie. Such fundamental uncertainty will depress business formation, capital investment, and hiring; indeed, it had begun to do so even before the vote.” Well, Bernanke has a track record…. And I dunno. The pervasive “Leavers hurt themselves most, such a sadness” trope strikes me as concern trolling; in fact, even if true, the hurt is what makes altruistic punishment of vile and feckless elites altruistic. So, if you believe that altruistic punishment is in play, then Bernanke is denying working class Leavers moral agency — exactly as Obama did with his “bitter”/”cling to” remarks in 2008.

Brexit: “The fallout of Thursday’s referendum could send Britain into recession, Summers told CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” pegging the chances of that at about 50-50″ [CNBC].

Brexit: “Keeping up confidence is critical. Britain has a large current account deficit — about 7 percent of GDP — and inflows of foreign money are necessary to finance this deficit. London, the world’s leading international financial center (for now, at least), requires foreign investors’ confidence to thrive; liquidity is essential to maintaining this confidence, and any hint that flows might be constrained would create turmoil” [Foreign Policy]. Putting this next to The Bezzle…

The Bezzle: “A lackluster recovery for start-up firms from the Great Recession has put a strain on an already-fragile U.S. economy, threatening the job market and productivity, and contributing to greater income inequality, according to a Senate hearing Wednesday” [MarketWatch]. Couldn’t be there’s no aggregate demand, no no no. And notice how neatly Clinton’s college debt proposal dovetails with what could be an emerging elite consensus.

The Bezzle: “Home sharing site Airbnb is suing San Francisco over a new law requiring that anyone who offers their home through the rental site first register the dwelling with the city” [France24].

The Bezzle: “A legal case against the self-described Frack Master is a sure sign that the so-called bezzle in the shale-oil industry is shrinking” [New York Times]. Nice to see “bezzle” propagate out into the mainstream. I’m guessing it’s a lagging indicator for bezzle size, a leading indicator for elite recognition and reaction.

Honey for the Bears: “Restaurant sales are virtually flat, and they’re expected to remain weak for the rest of the year, according to The NPD Group, an industry research firm” [Business Insider]. ” Weak growth in the restaurant industry is a warning sign for the entire economy, Nomura analyst Mark Kalinowski told Business Insider. People need to eat, and when they pull back on restaurant spending, it’s a clear sign that they aren’t feeling confident about the economy.”

“Financial market infrastructures — industry jargon for key utilities including payment and trade-settlement systems — should make resiliency to hacks central to their design and management, according to the first-ever set of guidelines released by the Bank for International Settlements” [Bloomberg].

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 57, Greed (previous close: 46, Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 57 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jun 29 at 12:04pm. Mr. Market returning to rude health?

Dear Old Blighty

“All talk now of ‘unity’ between these two camps is now a laughable joke. The only “unity” that these right-wing MPs are willing to accept is for Corbyn’s head to be paraded around on a stick” [Defend Democracy]. “The situation is untenable and is now heading for an open split. Whoever the Blairites put forward in a leadership election, it is highly likely they would lose against the combined might of Corbyn’s supporters amongst the membership, trade unions, and wider working class. And what then? On the other hand, if they try to keep Corbyn off the ballot paper, that will most certainly be seen as a provocation that will not be accepted by the grassroots* or the trade unions, who have reaffirmed their backing for the current Labour leader.” Sounds familiar. That said, I think the NC commentariat could use more information from our British readers on two points: (1) Is “the wider working class” really the social base of Corbyn’s support? and (2) are the resigning MPs really all Blairites? The rhetoric of this post is good clean fun, but somehow I think there should be more shades of grey in the picture. The left, generally, has a bad tendency of performative speech: Trying to make things so by saying they are already so. Readers?

Guillotine Watch

DDOSers.

Class Warfare

We have globalized trade and manufacturing, and we have introduced robots and artificial intelligence systems, far faster than we have designed the social safety nets, trade surge protectors and educational advancement options that would allow people [though not, apparently, “us”] caught in this transition to have the time, space and tools to thrive. It’s left a lot of people dizzy and dislocated” [Thomas Freidman, New York Times]. In other words, “we” (elites) sh*t the bed with regard to “people” (voters). That works in a democracy until it doesn’t. Of course, “we” are now going to fix the same problems “we” created, because “we” discovered “people” matter. Or, alternatively, “we” could rig the pesky electoral system even further, so that “we” get the correct results. The choice is “ours”!

“[S]tate governments are partnering with private companies to form a vast poverty industry that turns America’s most vulnerable populations into a source of profit” [Nonprofit Quarterly]. “To shore up its budget, New Jersey is taking federal government assistance away from school children from poor families. The state has hired a private contractor called the Public Consulting Group to access more school-based federal Medicaid funds. This money is intended to help schools serve special education needs more effectively, but New Jersey has diverted over 80 percent of the funds to its general coffers for other uses—effectively taking tens of millions of dollars from school children every year.” So public-private partnerships are money laundering operations for state money?!

“Shifting Incomes for American Jobs” [Flowing Data]. “With some occupations, people make more annual income than others. Obvious. But we typically see figures in terms of means and medians when in reality, the difference between the person who makes the most and the one who makes the least can be significant.” Important! Be sure to look at 1960 vs. 1980.

News of the Wired

“My condolences, you’re now the maintainer of a popular open source project” [runcommand]. Interesting, although the focus is on the maintainer’s emotions, not wider issues.

* * *

Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s yesterday’s plant (Timotheus):

night blooming cereus cactus

Sadly, I don’t have time to upload a new plant for today. Tomorrow will be better!

Readers, if you want to send me some videos of plants in whole systems (bees and blossoms, for example, or running streams) — I can use them to practice with FFmpeg and hopefully post them. Because of download times, they’ll have to be measured in seconds, rather than minutes. Thank you!

Adding, thank you again readers for last week’s rapid and successful Water Cooler Mini-Fundraiser. Checks are arriving in the mail. I’m still writing thank you notes! Yours will arrive!

* * *

Readers, if you enjoyed what you read today, please use the dropdown to choose your contribution, and then click the hat! Your tip will be welcome today, and indeed any day. Water Cooler will not exist without your regular support.

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

228 comments

  1. Vatch

    If you’re getting DDOS attacks, you must be frightening someone. A DDOS is like an ad hominem argument on steroids. When they can’t refute you with facts, logic, or ethics, they pound the table, hurl insults, and unleash the Bots.

    1. rowlf

      NC probably wouldn’t be having these DDOS attacks if we weren’t such big meanies to La Abuela De Muerte. Clinton supporters have feelings too.

    2. Jess

      First they came for FireDogLake.

      Then they came for Naked Capitalism. But this is where we fight them.

      1. flora

        I’m not sure how the DDoS attack was handled technically, but in terms of viewers checking in I think the site being up, then down, then up again was much better than if the site had just gone dark for several hours. It kept me checking back in to see if I could read a post. So even though I often couldn’t connect to NC, I stayed engaged with NC most of the day and could tell there was a DDoS in progress. This one looks like it was a doozy. Kudos to the NC rapid response team.

  2. Anon

    Glad that things are better on the back end. Regarding this election, considering how badly Obama has bungled things, is his campaigning for Hillary really gonna be a boon at this point?

    1. Bev

      No boon for Hillary. Now for the thankful boon, the best news for Bernie fans and Democracy fans:

      Important update:
      via email from http://trustvote.org

      An update on the lawsuit…

      Hello,
      Thanks for the connection. Cliff Arnebeck is still filing the lawsuit, so while the delay is understandably of concern to all of us, do remain hopeful! We will be releasing breaking news including timely evidence from poll analyst, John Rice, who will give millions of people the assurance they need to know that Bernie has, in fact, won the Presidential Primary, at our event (details below), this coming Thursday.

      We would love to meet you, but if you can’t attend in person, please view the live stream at the following web address: http://www.Facebook.com/BERN4Revolution or live.trustvote.tv

      EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT: The 2016 California Primary: A Disturbing Situation
      Come join us at the Corte Madera Best Western: 56 Madera Blvd, Corte Madera, CA 94925 for an update on the condition of the California Primary.

      Event begins at 6:30 pm, Thursday, June 30th with attorneys at law Bill Simpich and Ida Martinac, San Diego election confusion witness, Marie Johnson, poll analyst, John Rice and election integrity activists, Lori Grace and Emily Levy.

      Please check Sunrisecenter.org for a complete description of the event and register on the Sunrise Center site so we can be sure to save you a seat. Please also sign up to our Sunrise Center mailing list so that you can be sure to receive future announcements regarding the issue of election integrity.

      Thank you,
      Lori
      TrustVote.org

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      I think that his supporters and Clinton supporters passionately believe that it is. It’s going to be interesting to see how Obama handles taking responsibility for the last eight years. I wonder when Trump is going to ask him why he didn’t throw any bankers in jail?

    3. pretzelattack

      there’s what i strongly suspect is an execrable article by richard wolffe in the guardian with a title like, “be afraid donald trump the real obama is coming for you”.

  3. diptherio

    Re: Flowing data

    Great! We need more charts like this.

    What caught my eye, apart from the huge jump in inequality from ’60 to ’80, was the fact that the number of finance people making >$200K tripled between 2000 and 2014 and the distribution for the sector as a whole moved up considerably….so that’s the result of two financial crises, huh? No wonder they’re so keen to line up another one.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      What I noticed was that in every field, without exception, people appeared at the high end of the income scale, and there would be very visible gap between them and the next people lower down. That looks like rentiers pulling away, to me, though I’d welcome real analysis, rather than a guess.

  4. Roger Smith

    The Terrible Cost to Democrats and Our Nation of Ignoring Tom Frank’s Warnings [New Economic Perspectives]

    Great Bill Black piece from yesterday. There is a great summary of the Corbyn spectacle unfolding in the UK parliament for readers (like me) who are unfamiliar and are looking for a jump start.

    1. jawbone

      Was it Bill Black or another writer who labeled the Blairites in the Labor Party as “The Red Tories”?

      FInd the wording so delightful. Maybe because it brings to mind The Red Wedding…? Err, just the title, not the actual redness of the Red Wedding.

      1. Roger Smith

        I am not sure. I am not “hip” to the UK political discussion. Trying to understand it more though!

        1. optimader

          http://bigstory.ap.org/article/11be82ebb8fa47da91ad57c8726c1447/ab-fab-patsy-and-edina-talk-brexit\

          LONDON (AP) — Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley will be hoping to lift the spirits of a post-Brexit Britain when they attend the world premiere of “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” Wednesday.

          Saunders insisted that the event will be “more fabulous” now that the decision has been made to leave the European Union.

          “It is going to have to be the most fabulous thing that has happened because everyone is feeling a little bit depressed so we have to pop open the champagne and just keep going,” she said.

          The movie spin-off of the popular TV series sees the reuniting of best friends Patsy and Edina, directed by Mandie Fletcher.

          The fashion-obsessed duo leave London to escape the paparazzi and head to the French Riviera.

          And what would the pair think of the U.K’s decision to exit the EU?

          “They didn’t even know we were in Europe let alone pulling out,” smiles Lumley.

          “They’re still drunk,” adds Saunders.

          “Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie” is released in the UK on July 1.

  5. diptherio

    That flowing data chart is da bomb! More like that, please.

    What stood out to me most, apart from the massive increase in inequality between ’60 and ’80, was the tripling in the number of people making >$200K+ in Finance between 2000 and 2014, as well as the overall increasing of salaries for the sector as a whole. Apparently that’s the result of two financial crises…no wonder they’re so keen to kick off another one…

    1. diptherio

      Sorry for the duplicate…first time I tried posting the site was, apparently, again under DDOS attack. It took awhile to show up when the site came back on-line.

  6. JustAnObserver

    Re DDOS:

    Should add to your (NC’s) ever lengthening list of impressive credentials.

    (For non-Brits this is an IRONY ALERT).

  7. Pelham

    Re the comment on Thomas Friedman’s many “we’s”: There’s solid, irrefutable, empirical evidence to back up your assertion that the elites are calling all the shots. It comes in the form of the vast study by professors Martin Gilens and Benjamin Page (Princeton and Northwestern) that proves the lower 70% of the population by income (and probably the lower 90%) has no representation in government at the federal level.

    So the elites truly, truly are the only “we” that Friedman is referring to — though, of course, unintentionally on his part as he would like to rope in the victims of the crappy global economy to share the guilt.

  8. Clive

    Re: Corbyn, Labour implosion, Labour Socialists in Name Only, the Blair Zombie (I could go on but it’s all too depressing!)

    I’m hoping to go to my local Labour group meeting (am a bit restricted diary-wise, I can only go if it’s on Friday) so I’ll chip in as a Water Cooler comment if I get chance to attend. There’s no substitute for hearing real activists speak their minds as opposed to what Our Famously Free Press are saying they’re saying.

      1. Strategist

        the NC commentariat could use more information from our British readers on two points: (1) Is “the wider working class” really the social base of Corbyn’s support? and (2) are the resigning MPs really all Blairites?

        Answering (2) first. The 172 Labour MPs who voted no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn are from all wings of the parliamentary Labour party (“PLP”) except those in the PLP’s Socialist Campaign group and a handful of London MPs who have overwhelmingly Corbynite constituency parties. So they are not all Blairites, they are also Brownites and God knows what else. But they are to a man & woman an exact fit with the MPs who voted with the Tories to cut disability benefits, the shabby move that ignited the Corbyn revolution a year ago.

        On (1), the social base of Corbyn’s support is IMHO: (a) public sector workers (b) students (c) people from all walks of life who got involved with the Stop The War campaign and (d) young people in the precariat – college degree, in debt, working as a barista trying to get into a profession. The traditional English working class – as well as the Asian-British and Caribbean-British working class – tend* to rate Corbyn poorly, not seeing him as a guy who looks like a winner. However, many do also tend to rate him as honest & decent and do not see an obvious alternative candidate from the PLP who ticks all the boxes.

        But Corbyn still has support from the unions including Len McCluskey’s Unite, which by far the biggest and is still a proper industrial union with members in the private as well as public sector.

        I was in Parliament Square on Monday night with 5-10,000 others trying to save Corbyn’s skin and would make the following observations. For London Labour activists anti-racism is a core value. They are not going to compromise on allowing triangulation around “we want our country back” rhetoric to pacify the Brexiters of the post-industrial ‘rustbelt’ districts. They would rather lose an election than compromise on racism.

        The battle in Labour is over who get the brand. Labour is good for about 200 seats in any circumstances with any leader from Corbyn to a demon child of Blair. To add to that they need to appeal to more aspirational areas outside London, those middle England marginals.

        The rules for the leadership election (if fought under same rules as the last one) will be one vote for each registered local party member, union affiliated member, and £3 registered supporter. There’ll be a big race to sign up £3 supporters, a race that Corbynistas won last time, and can win again, but no guarantees. The electorate for the leadership election will not (I think) be the same one as last year.

        1. Darthbobber

          On 2) I would add: Whether they are Blairites depends on how the term gets used. If its used to mean those tightly identified with Blair’s personal faction in the party, during the later years after the more general “Blairist” realignment had become dominant, then less than half of them are Blairites. But when the term is used (as it often is) to refer to people who confined their politics within the boundaries of the overall Blairite realignment of the labor party, then basically they are uniformly Blairites. Because the remnants of the Brown group, and even most of those identified as the “soft left”, remained entirely within that framework and at best looked for ways to generate a working class appeal within that “end of history” box. (The benefit cut fiasco, in addition to being the bridge too far for a lot of the constituency that had held its nose over many things in the interests of unity, was also an illustration of the dead-end nature of the whole project. As was the absurd monolith of the last campaign. As were the Barbie buses as a “women’s outreach” effort. As was the lack of ANY positive program by any of the candidates not named Jeremy Corbyn in the last leadership election.)

          They are also almost uniformly people who did not want Corbyn in the first place, and differed among each other in level of opposition and amount of time they were willing to allot for a pretence of cooperation.

          I’m beginning to get the feeling that many of them are beginning to feel that even having a formal constituency is a great inconvenience, and would be comfier if they could transform the show into an American-style political party. Though many of them obviously wouldn’t want that annoying American requirement of residence in the district you “represented.”

  9. Jim Haygood

    From our “jumping sharks on a jet ski” department:

    PHOENIX – Amid an ongoing investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of email and hours before the public release of the Benghazi report, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch met privately with former President Bill Clinton.

    The private meeting took place on the west side of Sky Harbor International Airport on board a parked private plane.

    “Our conversation was a great deal about grandchildren, it was primarily social about our travels and he mentioned golf he played in Phoenix,” said Lynch Tuesday afternoon while speaking at the Phoenix Police Department.

    “There was no discussion on any matter pending before the Department or any matter pending with any other body, there was no discussion of Benghazi, no discussion of State Department emails, by way of example I would say it was current news of the day, the Brexit decision and what it would mean.”

    http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/loretta-lynch-bill-clinton-meet-privately-in-phoenix

    No discussion … so why create the appearance of a conflict of interest by meeting with someone whose spouse is under active FBI criminal investigation?

    What kind of example does this set for the police — that it’s okay to socialize with suspects, as long as the conversation is about “grandchildren” and “golf”?

    Have we had enough of the Clintons’ squalid stench yet? Or do we need our faces rubbed into the running sore of their open corruption for a while longer?

    This bent country is making Nigeria look like Scandinavia when it comes to clean government.

    1. Vatch

      Maybe they’ll release a transcript of their meeting. That’s what Hillary did for her Wall Street speeches. Oh, wait a minute, . . .

    2. optimader

      No discussion … so why create the appearance of a conflict of interest by meeting with someone whose spouse is under active FBI criminal investigation?

      Well it doesn’t count ’cause it is Hillary Clinton’s husband and the AG! Why are you haters so unfair to Hillary?

    3. sd

      Sort of like Cheney duck hunting with Scalia just before a case involving Cheney came up before the Supreme Court. Just a little friendly banter.

    4. allan

      Fortunately, federal prosecutors and FBI agents have been carefully trained to ignore the actions and utterances of their superiors. I mean, this is just like when Eric Holder met with Thomas Drake’s wife, and nevertheless he was indicted. Oh, wait …

    5. Christopher Fay

      If it’s Loretta Lynch doing her job and ex-prezzie Clinton sitting in two parked jets on the runway, how much did that cost us with all the socialized security we provide them?

          1. Rageon

            Ahhhhh! Just had the creepiest vision ever… Bill on the Lolita Express wearing a halloween costume mask of himself to hide his identity while violating his victims…It cannot be unseen. Very Eyes Wide Shut, but worse. What does it mean to hide yourself using a simulacrum of your face as a mask? Aiee.!!! The horror! Analysts please unpack.

  10. Scott

    For people outside of Boston, Suffolk Construction is the largest construction company in the city and has been known for its very close ties to the later mayor, Tom Menino, whose son had a do-nothing job there. During Menino’s terms, it did very well in terms of both government and private construction projects. Also, its CEO, John Fish, led the effort to get the Olympics in Boston.

    The entire The Hill article was problematic, it doesn’t dig to the level that it needs to, leaving out many important details. For example, Gulf Power isn’t merely a Florida utility, it’s part of the Southern Company, which is one of the nation’s largest utilities in is in the midst of two projects Vogtle Nuclear Plant and the Kempler carbon-capture coal plant, which are both colossally overbudget, yet paid for by the rate payers.

    1. Christopher Fay

      Fish, head of Suffolk construction, also chairman of the Fed Reserve Bank of Boston, chairman of the board of a health insurance related non profit, and first non alumnus head of some board of Boston College, BC specializes in home schooling the Tammany Hall wing of the Massachusetts democrats.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        Wow. That story gave off a foul odor as it was, but now…

        I wonder if there would be any angle to work with his position as Fed Chair. Of course, there could hardly be a genuine conflict of interest when all involved are so well interntioned, but perhaps there’s some purely technical breach…

  11. Alex morfesis

    Ikea not really much of a recall…read the fine print…have two of them…you get a fifty dollar “coupon” towards your next purchase(if I am reading the fine print correctly), if you bring it in, or they come get it, or they send you another goofy anchor which wont really hold anything…yes I can get 50 bux, which is no more than “half” of what was paid…but then you will need something to put your clothes in…maybe, sorta, kinda ?…they will make money on this recall, and avoid liabilities…if they really wanted to fix the problem, they could create a thick cradle on the base to deal with the over engineered particle board “too thin” frame…an anchor with a screw less than 1 inch long, to be screwed into the average garbage drywall in america, or too thick to be usefull for anchoring plaster…hardly a fix…

    It’s a fun, little, inexpensive clothes holder but has held up much longer than expected…and yes, one needs to keep heavier items on the lower shelves and lighter items up top…and yes, I was one of those pesky kids that wanted to see what was way up there on top of the dresser and nearly tipped over a much more solid, real wood dresser, way back when…so parents, watch your kids…nearly tipped that monster over twice…tee hee hee…

    oh well…

    1. Christopher Fay

      I bought a similar unit at Target for my college directed son. Yes, the rectangular footprint of that particle board chest of drawers much too small sitting on fluffy shag carpeting. The 3/4 screw used to anchor it to the wall was less than reassuring.

      Now I got how the disasters happened. Kid climbs the bureau, thing falls forward onto the kid. I was just picturing todlers crawling on the floor in front.

  12. Oregoncharles

    ” I couldn’t be more dubious that the Greens have the operational capability to be a credible threat at the national level;”

    Speaking as an insider, I have three distinct responses to that, only partly self-contradictory:

    1) I worry about that a lot. I don’t think we’re ready for this year, but fate happens on its own schedule.

    2) OTOH, there is nothing wrong with the Green Party that a few million people and dollars couldn’t fix – in a hurry. Even more to the point, Jill Stein’s campaign has been amazing (speaking from deep familiarity with Green dysfunction). In 2012 she qualified for 85% of ballots nationwide; this year they’re going for 100%, and have a real shot at making it. They just won a lawsuit for ballot access in Georgia; there are 3 more that will require that, including my original home state of Indiana. Those lawsuits are in progress – partly because she qualified, again, for Federal matching funds.

    3) I understand your experience in Maine (all too well, and Oregon is one of the better-organized states); state parties vary tremendously. But I have a couple of technical questions:
    Do the Greens have ballot access in Maine? If so, they’re doing what they have to do. The minimum, yes, but the fundamental requirement.
    And: Maine is voting on Ranked Choice/ Instant Runoff Voting. That is a long-time Green Party cause; who made it happen in Maine? (I’m hoping you can find some reporting on that campaign, Lambert. It gives Maine national importance.)

    4), an afterthought: this is not a normal election year. “Things fall apart, the center cannot hold…”

    I realize I’m skirting “pom-pom waving” here; aside from the confession of existential doubts, I think I’ve kept it factual.

    1. Archie

      Good info Charles, thanks. I’ve given a couple of donations to Kshama Sawant because I sense a tenacity in her that I have not seen in many, many years (decades in fact). Bernie came up from seeming obscurity and accomplished a great deal in the rigged Dem primary. Any Bernie supporter would certainly accept all of the policies espoused by Jill Stein. Hell, they would be ecstatic I think. If Jill Stein can somehow poll high enough to get into the fall debates, it would put a spanner in the establishment works. I would be happy to see no candidate get to 270 electorals and push the election to the House. The fuse would thus be lit on the entire fucking decrepit system.

      1. Waldenpond

        I’ve read how people have been trained/educated by their work in the Sanders campaign. It just needs somewhere to go. A push was to get Sanders the congress he needed and it morphed to brandnewcongress which ignores the presidential race.

        If these newly trained/educated individuals aren’t burned out, the greens would see some new blood.

        I agree we need left media, but it’s possible tyt would have a Johnson/Stein debate.

        1. Oregoncharles

          That “new blood” is indeed turning up, slowly so far, but the tide has started to flow.

    2. Arizona Slim

      Quoting Lambert: I’m all for realpoliitik by the left, but I couldn’t be more dubious that the Greens have the operational capability to be a credible threat at the national level; they’re a disfunctional non-profit, where “competence goes to die.”

      I have seen that incompetence right here in Tucson.

      Recent case in point: Guy was circulating a petition to get on the local ballot. He was on a street with a lot of pedestrian traffic in certain places. But he was not in one of those places. Matter of fact, when I came upon him, it seemed like he was hiding in the shrubbery!

      He has been in Tucson for a long time, and I think he knew as well as anyone else that he was in the wrong spot. And all he needed to do was go two blocks south. That was all!

      Next day, there was a post on his Facebook page: He’d come within five signatures of getting on the ballot.

      1. tgs

        I couldn’t be more dubious that the Greens have the operational capability to be a credible threat at the national level

        Of course they are not going to be a credible threat at the national level. Hardly the point. We have to start developing a party that unapologetically represents the views of many Americans. What is important is to begin to resist the duopoly, and we can only begin that struggle if we opt out and vote for a candidate who we actually agree with.

        Was it Eugene Debs who said, ‘I would rather vote for what I want and lose than vote for what I don’t want and win’?

        That’s my thinking this time around. I was, like a lot of people, conned by Obama back in 2008. In 2012, I sat out. Not this time – Jill Stein is an excellent candidate with an excellent platform.

        If some people choose to vote for Trump, I understand. Hillary, unlike Obama in 2008, is not an unknown. She is the worst possible candidate in the current (or any situation).

    3. wbgonne

      I think Sawant is correct. I don’t see a better alternative than the Greens. Their platform is legitimately progressive, whatever their organizational problems. Plus, I don’t think it is too easy to even survive as a genuinely progressive party in neoliberal America so I give them credit for that. And I like Jill Stein a lot. If she can get into the debates she may do very well. It was Sanders’ message that resonated far more than Bernie himself. Sanders espoused mildly-leftist economic populism, which the American people have clamoring for since Bush. Stein and the Greens hold those same positions and might do well if there is an opening. In any event, in the absence of a viable alternative, this seems the clear choice to me.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        As we see, the Green Party, like the Clinton campaign, is a giant sucking pit of need. Unlike the Clinton campaign, the Greens don’t know how to win, and never having had to, don’t care about it. Can’t you see that an organizational collapse will discredit the platform?!

        Hence stories like the one my friend told me about canvassing with a Green, where the Green didn’t want to collect people’s names. Hard to build a campaign database that way (though that attitude works for direct action, which is fine).

        1. Michael

          I love the Greens. They give the folks who don’t play well with others somewhere to go so the grownups can either stay out of electoral politics or work on changing the Dems (both valid).

        2. wbgonne

          As we see, the Green Party, like the Clinton campaign, is a giant sucking pit of need. Unlike the Clinton campaign, the Greens don’t know how to win, and never having had to, don’t care about it. Can’t you see that an organizational collapse will discredit the platform?!

          Things change and they are changing in dramatic ways right now. The Greens might change, too. But maybe they won’t, and if you offered a better alternative, I would definitely listen. But you haven’t. And, no, I am not the least bit afraid that “an organizational collapse will discredit the platform.” The progressive platform presently has no national organization at all other than the Greens, so it may as well not exist — which is precisely what the duoploy wants — if it can’t find an organizational vehicle to drive it. In the near term, better to try to make the Greens work, rather than bashing them as hopeless. If the Greens fail, then we try something else next time, which is what Sawant recommends. Handwringing isn’t an effective strategy.

  13. James Levy

    I’m trying to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, but I don’t understand how any of his policy proposals cohere into a viable program. He has stated that he wants to:

    –dump TPP (excellent!)
    –renegotiate NAFTA to somehow screw over the Mexicans and Canadians (“much much better deal”) and get them to go along with that
    –maintain our huge defense forces
    –balance the budget
    –destroy ISIS
    –build the wall with Mexico
    –round up and deport 11 million people
    –cut taxes
    –create millions of high paying jobs
    –retire the national debt

    The pieces are each reiterated emphatically but they don’t seem to work together even if you agree with most of them. Trump at his best highlights a few of these items at a time, ignoring for the moment his other ideas and proposals. But he doesn’t repudiate the parts that don’t work together. He just saves them for another speech.

    I know what kind of crap I’m getting if Clinton wins. But when I look at Trump’s proposals I can’t tell which parts are baloney, which he will have to push through to have any street cred with his followers, which he will have to support because he needs the Congressional Republicans on side if he’s going to do anything (and it is impossible to imagine that he’ll be able to tolerate the kind of stonewalling and do-nothingness of the Obama years) and what are the out-and-out lies he’s telling to make a splash and collect disparate votes.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      When combined with ‘a country can’t go bankrupt borrowing in its own currency,’ they ( balancing the budget and retiring the national debt) don’t quite work together.

      I think he’s the only candidate to publicly say that.

      1. Peter Pan

        The only thing to look forward to from President Trump is when he yells “You’re fired!” to some foreign leader. He may also back that up by saying, “I’m going to regime change your ass!” At least it will be good for a laugh, sort of like the last two years of memory loss during President Reagan’s term.

        1. F900fixr

          Trump’s speeches remind me of Bluto in “Animal House”.

          “Over!……Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor??”

          “Germans?”

          “Forget it……..he’s rollin’…….”

      2. James Levy

        Yes, and he was correct when he said it, but then he turned around and went off on “Obama and his massive debt, all he’s leaving behind is a giant pile of debt”, which again is an indication of how disjointed his message (and I fear his thinking) is.

        Every time I try to ignore the nasty things he’s said about women, the taunting of the Mexican journalist, the mocking of the handicapped guy, and get to the policies, I find myself again lost in a funhouse of “is he being serious or is he just doing a celebrity roast schtick at all our expense?”.

    2. Hana M

      One item missing from your list is defense spending, James. Trump’s indicated that he wants smarter spending. He’s also been consistent about US allies carrying more of the cost burden for fixed defense (e.g. in Europe, South Korea and Japan). Avoiding interventions and endless adventures in the Middle East have been themes for him even before he started running and long predate his ISIS statement–I’m inclined to believe this. He’s made some interesting comments about just stepping back in Syria and Iraq and letting the remaining powers sort it out–he doesn’t quite put it that way so I’m paraphrasing (interpreting) as one must with Le Donald.

      1. Christopher Fay

        The less we spend trying to defeat ISIS and our entire M E patriotic spending campaigns, the faster ISIS’ funding dries up and it blows away. We have seen that with Russia’s effective bombing of ISIS oil smuggling pipeline to Turkey and Israel.

    3. sd

      If Bernie is not on the ballot in November, in my mind, this election is boiling down to which choice will cause the least harm.

      1. Clinton – is continually reinventing herself (and that’s not a compliment)
      2. Trump – bullshit artist
      3. 3rd party
      4. No vote

      Clinton’s admiration for Nuland just scares the pants off of me
      Trump has yet to clearly identify who might end up in his cabinet – which will be the tell
      3 and 4 both risk passively endorsing and voting for whoever is leading in the polls.

      1. 3.14e-9

        Speaking of Nuland, surely somewhere in all the Brexit coverage someone has pointed out that British voters weren’t the first to say “F— the EU.”

      2. different clue

        There is a fifth choice for those who wish to take it. Write Sanders in as a Democrat.

        1. readerOfTeaLeaves

          + 1

          And don’t blame me if Trump pulls of an upset; if the DNC had not manipulated results for Hillary, then we’d have a nominee who would win. Instead, what we have is a nail-biter, which the press will love and the rest of us will mostly tune out.

      3. Mark S.

        I’d love to vote for Jill Stein, but this little voice in my head keeps saying, “Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Court…”

        1. tegnost

          that is very strange, why do you think it happens? Maybe you think she’d make a good supreme?

        2. AnEducatedFool

          Jesus, if the Dems have an effing backbone they can block a Supreme Court nominee that is socially regressive. Trump and Clinton nominations will agree on economic policy.

          If Trump wins he will not win with a majority of votes. Neither candidate will get over 50% unless there is some major electoral fraud. Therefore neither candidate will have a mandate. Senate Democrats can filibuster or shut down the government to prevent Trump from nominating a regressive justice.

    4. hunkerdown

      He doesn’t seem to intend to be a policy President. He’s more of a defenestrating President, and that’s what suits the national mood and the popular health at the moment. Unfortunately, I doubt I’ll ever hear him promise to put the entire International Relations community to the wall, or declare the Ivies rackets.

    5. paulmeli

      Merely trying to ‘retire’ the National Debt ™ would crash the World economy to depths never seen before in history.

      To succeed he would have to eliminate the entire World’s net savings in dollars. I think before that happened we might see ‘change we can believe in’.

      “Reality is something that, once you stop believing in it, still happens” – Phillip K. Dick

        1. paulmeli

          Abe who? Abe Lincoln or Japan’s leader?

          If you mean Abe Lincoln he didn’t retire the debt he printed Greenbacks, which is still debt technically, as all money is debt by definition, interest or not.

          It isn’t the debt that kills…it’s trying to pay it back. Paying back government debt is suicide as it is double whammy removing both spending and net savings from the system.

          Andrew Jackson retired the National Debt at a time when government spending didn’t account for 50% of the economy.

          Even so a brutal depression quickly followed.

          1. Oregoncharles

            Wait a minute. something here I don’t understand.
            First: currency is “debt” you don’t pay interest on.

            More important: if Uncle Sam “prints” greenbacks and pays off the debt, buys back the bonds, isn’t that a huge infusion of money into the economy – hence a huge stimulus? Granted, the interest income is lost, so the stimulus is one-time – but huge. Might want to stretch it out.

            Isn’t selling bonds a way to take money OUT of the economy, like taxes?

            What is it I don’t get?

            1. Yves Smith

              QE was not a stimulus because it was an asset swap. The Fed bought bonds. Investors got cash. But those investors still wanted to be invested, so they bought other financial instruments.

              When the government deficit spends, that is a stimulus, whether it finances it by selling bonds or “printing”.

            2. paulmeli

              If Uncle Sam were to convert bonds back into dollars there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth from bondholders who would suddenly have to put their massive stash of savings at risk.

            3. paulmeli

              “First: currency is “debt” you don’t pay interest on.”

              Think debits and credits. A debit is a withdrawal, a liability, a debt. A debit is a liability due at t=0 (now) instead of some time in the future.

              When the government creates a dollar it is ‘debiting’ it’s unlimited account of dollars.

              On the other side of that transaction we (the non-governmnet0 get the asset or deposit in our account.

    6. Oregoncharles

      Did someone say he’s coherent or consistent? If so, I didn’t hear it.

      But he’s doing astonishing well. Apparently a lot of people don’t care.

      Someone said he’s “a giant upraised middle finger to the establishment.” In a very different way, so was Bernie. Trump has gone far on that basis, and may not need more.

      1. Yves Smith

        His last speech was extremely good and the prepared of the version had extensive footnotes, including citations of legal authority and precedents for actions Trump poposed to take.

  14. Oregoncharles

    “The only “unity” that these right-wing MPs are willing to accept is for Corbyn’s head to be paraded around on a stick”

    But Corbyn is still supported by the membership: 57%. So there’s a drastic disjunct between the MPs and the membership of the party (and the voters?) First, this means Corbyn would do well to call a new leadership election.

    Second, and more important: how the hell are MP candidates chosen? And when? They should pay a huge electoral price for this, as in mass primary challenges. Can someone in Britain explain how this works?

    1. James Levy

      Candidates are recruited by the parties. There are no primaries, and they are not free agents as they are in the United States–their campaign financing is completely through the parties. Also, there is no obligation for an MP to live in the district that they represent, and many do not. It is an entirely different system than here, designed to create workable majorities that are disciplined and can govern.

    2. Strategist

      how the hell are MP candidates chosen? And when? Can someone in Britain explain how this works?

      Prospective parliamentary candidates in the Labour & Tory parties are chosen by the paid up members of the constituency party at selection meetings/hustings from a shortlist of candidates that is cleared by the central party. The electorate might be no more than a few hundred people. Sitting MPs who want to run again are almost always re-nominated by their local party. There may be some process of triggering a contest but it is a rare. “Mandatory reselection”, where all MPs have to go through a selection meeting process as one of a shortlist is not currently the practice – although the SNP have it and the Labour Left have traditionally sought it.

      In a couple of places primaries with a wider electorate have been tried – notably in Totnes, Devon where the Conservative party ended up with a candidate (Sarah Wollaston) who was not from the usual suspects, and won big. But I guess local parties like to keep their power to choose the candidate.

      1. Carolinian

        So what about “re-selection” talked about by Ian Welsh in the article I linked below? If the MPs refuse to support the leader selected by a majority of the party’s members are they subject to being “kicked out thru re-selection” and will they then have to run as members of a different, perhaps new, party? Presumably he means the central party will no longer offer the dissident members’ names as part of that short list.

        1. Strategist

          Hi Carolinian, I have read Ian Welsh’s blogpost and I think he is referring to a notional future situation where the Corbynistas retain control of the party apparatus, and win a vote at the party conference to change the rule book and introduce mandatory reselection of sitting MPs before the next general election. The Corbynistas had been holding back on such a move as an olive branch to the PLP, but it is war now and so it seems obvious that they will now bring this in. Indeed, Len McCluskey (general secretary of the union Unite, and hence the largest single funder of the party) had an article in the Guardian saying precisely this:

          Unite has hitherto opposed any plans to change the party rules governing mandatory re-selection of Labour MPs. That, too, we have looked on as a divisive distraction. But those MPs who have missed no opportunity to tweet and brief against the party’s elected leader over the last 10 months will find that their disloyalty finds no favour with party members and will make this an increasingly difficult line to hold.

  15. Lee

    “The entire Obama administration was a ginormous squandered opportunity.”

    Between the crash and Obama et al being elected, I was so excited and hopeful even in the face of some of my own losses. Now, being asked to vote for more of same just adds insult to injury. I am of the generation that typically favors Clinton and I have done relatively well in life given where I come from. Problem is, I haven’t forgotten where I came from.

    1. B1whois

      I couldn’t agree with you more Lee. My feelings are the same as yours, as well as my stats, with the exception that I’m doing well because both of my parents died right before the Great Recession. I took the money and bought houses with cash, having foreclosed the first house I ever bought a year before. That is to say I just barely managed to have what I have today.
      I distinctly remember the fear I felt inheriting that money in 2010. The responsibility of trying to not lose that tiny nest egg, that my parents had 1) spent their entire lives accumulating, and/or 2) died in an accident with the right kind ofinsurance, to the tender mercies of the vampire squid.
      I still feel the same fear today, in fact that’s part of the reason I’m immigrating to Uruguay. But I am not clear how much that will protect my assets! My biggest asset is my retirement benefits for the State of California, followed by property in Sacramento, where my brain screams sell! everytime I read this stats section of the water cooler.
      But Uruguay will help preserve my mental health (the main reason I’m leaving the US) as my general feeling right now is that the United States is full of two kinds of people, predators and prey! Admittedly a dark sentiment, I guess that’s what I do instead of laughing like a mad woman, yep I leave! #USexit.
      Boy, I sure have been getting chatty lately, I guess that’s the effects of 5 months as a Stranger in a Strange Land.

      1. Lee

        If it weren’t for familial connections I’d sell my house in the sf bay area and move to Gardiner, MT; I’m a fan of Yellowstone and its critters. My home price has in the past few years vacillated between under water to astronomical. It is crazy making. Uruguay is an intriguing idea. Hope all goes well.

      2. Joerenter

        I have been thinking a lot of Uruguay myself. No nest egg, but willing to cast my fate to the wind. I think that dying in another country is somewhat novel. Good luck. See you in Montevideo.

  16. Peter Pan

    This money (school-based federal Medicaid funds) is intended to help schools serve special education needs more effectively, but New Jersey has diverted over 80 percent of the funds to its general coffers for other uses—effectively taking tens of millions of dollars from school children every year.” So public-private partnerships are money laundering operations for state money?!

    I dunno, it seems to me to be racketeering with a money laundering angle. In my mind it also qualifies as child abuse.

    Why do states get to interfere with or steal from federal government assistance programs? Seriously, WTF?

    1. crittermom

      I agree, Peter Pan. That article infuriated me.
      I hope it ends the political careers of all those involved. Shame on them!

      Since $hillary loves to talk about how she got free lunches for school children, wouldn’t it be nice if someone clued her in to the ‘good PR’ it would be to take up that cause for those kids in NJ, shaming those involved?

      I still wouldn’t vote for her, but at least it’s a way she could be used to do some good.
      It would be nice to see some good come out of so much evilness.

  17. Benedict@Large

    They must think we are stupid. Clinton was for TPP (as SoS, it’s architect), and then against it (because she was so moved by Sanders. Now, HER people on the platform committee, whom SHE CONTROLS, have gone against her to support TPP in the platform. Not just a couple of them, but enough to force it on the platform.

    And we’re supposed to believe this puke that she’s against it? They must think we are stupid.

      1. different clue

        “We”? Mr. HAL? Are you including you in that “we”? Are you including the writers and readers at NaCap in that “we”?

        1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

          I meant the collective “we” that falls for the same ruses by the elite, year in and year out. Charlie Brown, always hoping for once Lucy will not pull the football away at the last minute, he has an innate belief in the overriding eventual goodness of his fellow man. Silly boy.

    1. grayslady

      Add to that campaigning with Obama. Obama has pushed harder than anyone for the TPP. Obama wouldn’t be supporting Hillary if he didn’t think she was going to support his new Trade Grand Bargain. The tells are everywhere, and I expect the propaganda media to pick up on it in due time.

      1. Pepe Aguglia

        Did you catch Obama shamelessly pimpin’ the TPP in his slow jam on the Fallon show a couple of weeks ago? The sordid spectacle literally turned my stomach.

    2. reslez

      Sanders campaign email this afternoon says that if the anti-TPP amendment fails in the DNC Platform Committee he’s “going to take the fight to the floor of the Democratic Party convention in Philadelphia next month”.

      Bring on the circus, I say.

      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

        Maybe Trump is right – she will say one thing and do another.

        You put anti-TPP amendments on the platform, that will help appease some voters and maybe put Clinton in the White House, only to see her weasel her way out of it.

        Or maybe she will honor those anti-TPP amendments.

        For the record, I am of the ‘what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger’ school of worriers.

  18. jgordon

    OK, I’m going to vent. This is a true story.

    I came home today from work and I found my brother laid out on my couch. He has a huge road rash over half his face, a broken arm, a broken leg, and and a huge chunk of skin missing out of his right leg. So I said, “dude, what happened to you?”

    He said, “I was riding your bike and some idiot pulled out of their drive way, sped through a stop sign and ran me over. I went under the car. By the way, your bike is totaled.”

    So I said, “GD F*ing automobiles. I KNEW they should have been banned. Well at least you lived.”

    The thing is that I currently live in a gentrified, artsy hipster community in a nice part of town. I’m virtually certain that all of my neighbors are die-hard liberal Democrats who are virulently against the personal ownership of firearms (oddly enough, there has never been a shooting as far as I know in this neighborhood however). These are people who paint hipster psychedelic murals about equality and social justice on all the walls in the district.

    On the plus side it looks like my brother might be permanently disabled now, as he is already trying to figure out with lawyers and their doctor exactly how bad his new disabilities are. I told him that he should retire to China after he starts getting his disability checks; that way he won’t have to pay back his student loans either.

    Sometimes life is so ironic. I wish now even more than ever that there was something we could do about the terrible scourge of automobiles. I wish someone would join me in calling for their removal. By the way, this really happened. I just sat down to type this out after talking to my brother.

    1. James Levy

      I’m sorry about your brother.

      Problem with your analogy is that all cars have to be registered, we have strict age limits on when you can drive one, you have to pass a test to drive one, and you have to have insurance to own one.

      And cars are not explicitly designed to kill people as their primary function.

      Of course, that doesn’t stop some people from using their cars with a depraved indifference for other people’s safety. Those people should be punished to the full extent of the law, and pay compensation when they hurt others.

      1. jgordon

        Err wait a minute. Think about that for a minute. Cars are indeed strictly regulated and have stringent licensing requirements.Unlike guns. And yet cars still manage to kill and maim more people than guns. You realize that in essence you are making the case that cars should be banned before guns? I’ll tell you what. I really, really hate cars but I have nothing in particular against guns–since to my way of thinking they are a far lesser threat. However if you/we all do manage to get a serious and legitimate campaign against cars going, I will admit that you all do in fact have in fact have intellectual integrity, and I will help you out in your anti-gun crusade (though I still think it’s a rather strange and irrational thing to be spending time on, considering all the other far more serious threats to safety we have going on out there).

        1. Yves Smith

          Specious.

          Cars are used every day by virtually everyone in the US. Many people spend well over a day in a car.

          Guns are made for the express purpose of killing things. Every other advanced economy has gun controls, mainly vastly more strict than ours are. And people are better off for that. Go look at all the social welfare indicators.

          1. Ralph Reed (@RalphWalterReed)

            I’m firmly on jgordon’s side on the terrible consequences of automobiles.
            I’m new here, don’t mean to be disrespectful, and am happy to have discovered this site, but don’t really find your use of the word “specious” to be great form, unless you’re assuming this post is a fictitious waving of a bloody shirt. Nor do I think your last paragraph’s emotionalism is anything but absurdly simplistic.

            1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

              What about motorcycles?

              Is it because a motorcycle has 2 wheels and a car 4?

              If motorcycles are to be banned, what about bicycles?

              In that case, it would be, I imagine, about speed. And if it’s about speed, would a factory-installed speed limit on all motorcycles be a solution?

            2. Archie

              spe·cious
              ˈspēSHəs
              adjective
              superficially plausible, but actually wrong.
              “a specious argument”

              Seems an appropriate use to me. You and jgordon make 2 that oppose automobiles more than guns. But hey, you both are entitled to your opinions even though your arguments are simplistically absurd and specious.

              1. jrs

                Oh it’s not necessarily wrong to oppose them more than guns. The problem is ignoring that people need cars to survive a lot more than they usually need guns (except those who eat what they hunt and thus are using guns to obtain their subsistence – ok fair enough).

              2. cwaltz

                I’m not convinced that if you consider climate change that guns are more of a threat to humanity than cars are particularly if the argument is that everybody is using cars everyday and polluting the planet as a result.

                You can add me to jgordon and Mylessthan in the if we’re going to oppose things because they are threats than we ought to be evenhanded camp.

                (and I say that as someone who thinks guns should be treated as the weapons they are and that people that leave them lying around for small children to find should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.)

            3. Alex morfesis

              Guns do not save lives…charles Bronson myth…no need for them, no use for them…if you live in fear of being directly attacked and killed, get a german flare gun…legal and at close range, will handle any unwanted guests, human or animal (for those who live in rural america)

              Death by automobile is because we give away drivers licenses in america…in greece, once you get past a certain age, you are not allowed to drive…

              in most western countries, injuries and death from automobiles, by every measure, is 50% lower…it is not the cars…it is the lack of proper training…have got some herniated discs to prove it…
              One accident, the person went across three lanes of rush hour traffic into a mobile home park notorious for extracurricular resale of prescription candy and slammed brakes in far right lane where I was…had never really had an accident as have always left an opening when I drive just for idiots like this…but his cutting across other two lanes caused panic and collapsing corridors and windows of escape…

              Cars are dangerously driven, but are not by intent designed to kill or destroy…

              Guns have only one purpose by design, and they end up being instruments of violence that hurt those who the gun owner knows a hundred times more often than it saves a life…

              simple reason that a gun is useless against a “criminal”…

              vast majority of people who commit crimes, do it for an overwhelming drug habit…meaning street crimes…they are not “there” to be worried about your silly little hand gun, and may be so amped up, they may not notice the blood flowing from the whole you make with that gun, even if you are the one in five who can actually aim, fire and hit a target moving at you…

        2. Ralph Reed

          I’m firmly on jgordon’s side on the terrible consequences of automobiles.
          I’m new here, don’t mean to be disrespectful, and am happy to have discovered this site, but don’t really find your use of the word “specious” to be great form, unless you’re assuming this post is a fictitious waving of a bloody shirt. Nor do I think your last paragraph’s emotionalism is anything but absurdly simplistic.

    2. Ralph Reed (@RalphWalterReed)

      I am in full agreement with you on automobiles as a moral abomination. I stopped driving in 1996 for ethical reasons and have walked thousands of dangerous road miles as an escape, a schtick, and an avocation.

      Arguments of intent and utility can’t dilute cars’ grotesqueries of externalities, both material and ideological. The fact that the German and Chinese governments, relatively rational in many aspects of waste management and agricultural production, whole-heartedly embraced the automobilization of the world over the last twenty years, indicates to me a neo-Malthusian dystopian fix is in.

      Thanks for sharing your tragedy.

    3. Bob

      I’m truly sorry to hear about your brother’s injuries. In my younger days I used to bike a lot; at one time I wanted to live my life without a car. In 1973 I bicycled across the US, from Seattle, around the Olympic Mountains, down the coastal highway, then across the US. I bicycled through Yellowstone Nat’l. Park; narrow winding roads full of tourists driving motor homes nearly as large as moving vans. I soon learned to survive by forcing myself to believe that I was invisible to all drivers. I never assumed they saw me or that they would give me the space I needed.

      Glad you have a lawyer; that should help get reimbursed for medical costs, losses due to lost wages and pain and suffering.

      I ended up going to medical school and have spent nearly 20 years working in emergency medicine. Altho you are clearly upset and your brother is in a lot of pain, most of this will pass in a few weeks or months. Most fractures heal in 6 weeks. The facial abrasions may scar if they are deep or if there is “tattooing”. Plastic repair later can help if it’s significant. The leg may need skin grafting. Keep all of your medical receipts; your lawyer will need them. Hopefully your brother will not be permanently disabled but that depends upon what his occupation is. He will need a period of recuperation for at least few weeks.

      I will be thinking of you and your brother, hoping for a speedy and total recovery.

    4. cwaltz

      I don’t drive at all and definitely can agree that automobiles pose a hazard to those of us who choose to walk(not all of the region has sidewalks either.) I’ve almost gotten hit more than once thanks to stupid drivers who want to turn on red and don’t think they should have to wait on pedestrians.

      *shakes head*

      Hope your brother recovers quickly.

    5. I Have Strange Dreams

      Glad to hear that there has never been a shooting in your neighborhood because the residents are too smart to keep guns around. It sounds like where I live; gun crime is virtually unheard of because guns are tightly regulated. We also have no speed limits on our autobahns, which are also very safe. Guess what? Requiring people to prove competence to handle a dangerous weapon or vehicle makes life a lot safer. But rules are for fools, eh?

    6. low integer

      I’m sorry to hear about your brother and wish him the best with his recovery. Those close to you seem to have extraordinarily bad luck with automobiles; I note that you recently mentioned you had lost numerous family and friends in accidents involving cars. As such it is no wonder you see cars as having some kind of equivalence to guns, however I agree with others that it is a false equivalency. I am not particularly fond of cars either btw.

  19. Jim Haygood

    So Forbes has stooped to clickbait headlines about “Brexit proof” portfolios. Sad.

    There is no such thing as a “Brexit proof” portfolio, other than T-bills. They will earn you 0.26% a year, with no dips. That’s a minus 0.75% real return, after adjusting for inflation.

    In the real world, where you pays yer money and you takes your chances, the Craazyman Fund took its lumps along with the 50/50 SPX/AGG mix. But it’s still ahead, as it has been every day since inception on March 2nd.

    The score is Craazyman Fund +6.23% vs SPY/AGG benchmark, +3.28%. Within the fund’s three components, junk bonds gained 7.35%; emerging market stocks rose 7.75%, and the gold bullion ETF tacked on 6.10%.

      1. Jim Haygood

        Nobody can claim it’s “illiquid.” :-)

        “Honey … I drank the portfolio.”

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Jim, how much is your load and 12B-1 charge for Craazyman Fund?

      Any min. holding period?

      1. Jim Haygood

        The benchmark is 50% bonds (AGG) and 50% SPY (stocks).

        Craazyman Fund is 50% junk bonds (SPHIX). The other 50% is divided between emerging market stocks (EEM) — 30%, and gold (IAU) — 20%.

    2. Isolato

      My fear is the newly reported 11+ trillion in sovereign debt at negative yields. Just as no tree grows to the sky, interest rates must, at some point, reverse direction. Then what? The market value of the debt declines, its value as collateral (and EVERYTHING is collateral now) is impaired setting off a series of claims against exotic derivatives whose notional value far exceeds the wealth of this planet and…lights out. Sovereign debt is the new sub-prime mortgage.

      1. Jim Haygood

        We saw that movie in the 1950s and 1960s, which started out with long Treasuries at a low 2.25% yield. During 1952-1981, as rates soared, 10-year Treasuries delivered a pitiful compounded return of just under 3 percent annually … while inflation was 4.3%. Bondholders were slowly roasted alive.

        At least for the 1951-1968 portion, stocks were picking up the load from bonds, in an historic bull market.

        But today it’s 1951 in the bond market and 1968 in the stock market. Oops. Bonds are going to need a little sidecar of commodities to keep from getting killed again. My commodity model just flipped positive. 80% bonds + 20% total return (unleveraged) commodities works pretty well in historical testing, while keeping volatility low.

        1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

          I don’t think governments have yet internalized the benefits of negative interest rates: they’re a stealth tax they can charge with no pesky debates or Congresscritters in the way. You give them 100, two years later they give you back 98.
          Once they all figure this out it will be a race to the bottom, or should I say below the bottom. Physical bills in a vault will be the high-yielding asset on a real basis.

          1. Isolato

            Well,

            They have already taken out the zero lower bound, the Twilight Zone is aptly cited, and it has not yet provoked the rush to cash though the precious metals have certainly caught a bid this year. And asset prices already suffer from “too much capital” as Lambert said. Was Brexit a Smoot Hawley moment? Of course it could just be a symptom of my advancing age that I see Apocalypse in every burning bush.

  20. Emma

    Let’s inspire young people with student loans to become entrepreneurs with business loans………. Wow! Whatever next will Hillton Freedmarketman come up with?! And we wonder why apes aren’t evolving into humans today……You know, maybe we should all get Mao-Armani comforters like Killary instead. That way we can skirt the Flinton SlapDAESH do-whatever-is-required stuff too. Constantly approaching the world like a hardware problem is playing lollipop with a loaded 65. If Killary Flinton supported strong and progressive women instead like Zephyr Teachout and Donna Edwards, who do what real Democrats are supposed to do ie. support the social and economic equality and welfare of Americans, Killary Flinton wouldn’t be so full of misshits like this latest blackbelt certified thank-a-bank wank. And we wouldn’t have a morally-handicapped Democratic Platform Committee who reject $15 minimum wage, cola, medicare for all, environmental protection etc. etc. Maybe one day, the Flinton cast might read……and something like the following article just for starters, which talks about Americans ‘starting’ one-man self-employed businesses with zero payroll out of desperation: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/10/think-were-the-most-entrepreneurial-country-in-the-world-not-so-fast/263102/
    Then the Flinton cast might eventually get the tide right and grow mini green globes in their minds. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about playing catchup with every neoliberal brainwave of sharks that suck and don’t bite.

      1. Optimader

        Btw…briefly sinking into the mudpit of HRCs
        Style snd Panache m, maybe some women can help me out here.
        Why is it that A Merkrl can look like the workeeek version of the frau that spends her werkend drinking beir and eating sausage at the caravan park on the Rhine, whereas HRC totally creeps me out??

    1. B1whois

      I just spent 5 minutes googling “lolipop game”. Why? I love it when somebody hete references something I don’t know and then I go to learn something useful, but?????

    1. Waldenpond

      And wasn’t it Eagle who was noting recently that Corbin was out fighting hard for remain but the media refused to cover it?

  21. Romancing the Loan

    Hillary’s student loan deferment scheme is so tone-deaf it comes off as a deliberate insult. The only people able to take advantage of such a scheme don’t need to, although I’m sure it’ll be a nice savings for the very few upper middle class twits who fall right on that line between “still need to borrow for school” and “can fake running an unprofitable business for a few years to cover for a period of unemployment on resume.”

    I’m becoming more and more suspicious of polls showing her ahead. I wonder if they’re only polling “likely voters” from 2012 or 2008.

    1. Jim Haygood

      Kerry contributors. (Had to google who were the D nominees in 2004 … seriously couldn’t remember this forgettable pair.)

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      > can fake running an unprofitable business for a few years

      That will never happen. The program will a ton of MBAs to vet the applicants. So it’s really a jobs program too!

      In fact, there should be a whole new agency. Liz Warren could head it.

  22. clarky90

    Dmitry Orlov has endosed Donald Trump

    http://cluborlov.blogspot.co.nz/2016/06/firing-elites_28.html#more

    “And so they (The elites) need to be fired. If this is to be done by voting (as opposed to, say, from a cannon) then the object of voting is to elect somebody who is, first and foremost, capable of firing these elites. The British seem to have done this; now it is the Americans’ turn. A somewhat thoughtful question that is sometimes asked (after people are done making spurious claims that Donald Trump is insane, a misogynist, a racist, a fascist, a bad businessman, generally not very nice or whatever else) is whether he is qualified to govern. To my mind, this question reduces to a much simpler question: Is he qualified to fire people? And the answer is, Yes, he most certainly is qualified to fire people. In fact “You’re fired!” is one of his trademark utterances. In fact, he just recently fired his very own campaign manager. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, heads up the entire cohort of people that need to be fired. And that is why I think there is a good chance that the “little people” will finally rise up and vote for somebody who will do just that.”

    1. Roger Smith

      ++ This is a great, simple breakdown.

      People aren’t able to choose a positive solution that will yield results so it comes down to who will toss crap around and get rid of at least some of the clowns? Answer: well, we know Hillary won’t. Like Brexit, two lame choices, but that is where we are now. The good choices are gone and when you have Same v. Different, well we know that same isn’t working.

    2. craazyman

      It’s too bad Sanders seems so against Trump. it should be a Sanders/Trump ticket, if you ask me. And I will admit nobody will ask me. not that I expect them too, by the way. I wouldn’t ask them, so I don’t expect them to ask me. Serious.

      it’s too bad they can’t team up and kick some ass. They could!

      it should be easy. Why can’t they just debate each other and still work together?

      isn’t that the way Life is supposed to be. A matter of reconnaissance and adjustment? A matter of dialectical propagation? A matter of separation and fusion? of thesis and synthesis?

      of course! it’s too bad these dudes are so dead set in their ruts. They shoud forget who they are and then wake up with amnesia and think “Ok, who am I and who do I want to be?” They ‘d be surprised.

      Everyone would be. it’s weird how that is, isn’t it? Why is it like that? That’s a deep thought.

      1. Carolinian

        Trump would probably go for it (with him on top of course). He may have trouble finding any other VP.

        Don’t think Bernie would be game.

        1. John k

          Evidence?
          He seems pretty malleable… And hard to see somebody that understands gov can’t go broke is a neoliberals.
          Plus he’s talking pretty progressive lately.

          1. aab

            I’m not sure Trump is neoliberal. I also think it’s absurd to call him progressive. He’s to Clinton’s left. That doesn’t actually make him left. He’s not advocating breaking up the banks, bringing back robust anti-trust prosecution or anything like that, is he? He’s talking about tariffs, trade protection, less stupid warfare with our clients paying their fair share of the costs, and not actually cutting Social Security. That’s it, right? So MUCH better than Clinton, but would anyone really call that progressive?

            And for that, our glorious overlords are so furious they are moving heaven and earth to put an unfit criminal in office instead, regardless of their nominal party.

  23. marym

    …she would make a small token change, declare the pact fixed, and ram it through. That’s why Hillary is now only saying she has problems with the TPP “in its current form,” – ensuring that she can rush to embrace it again at her earliest opportunity.

    The “current form” of the TPP can’t be changed. That was the purpose of “fast track.” an up-or-down vote, no amendments. If it were un-fast tracked by Congress and changed it would have to go back to all the other signatories for approval. Trump may or may not know this but Clinton surely must.

    1. hunkerdown

      Like the First Amendment, fast track restricts Congress only. The Executive Branch and its corporate partners can write side agreements or adjust proximate circumstances all day long — Malaysia’s de jure progress against human trafficking comes to mind as an example. The multilateral committee established by the agreement can also change the agreement all day long, extra-parliamentarily. Bourgeoisie are predisposed to performative speech gone psychotic — shirking the moral onus by saying they’ll “fix it later” is to have done so, by their lights.

      Legislatures don’t make decisions anymore. They just follow instructions made outside the chamber.

    2. Christopher Fay

      I wonder if marym knows this. Any fix needed to push it over the completion line will be used for TPP. Massive unpopularity, no benefits to Americans, and still the TPP keeps marching to acceptance by our national democrat leaders.

      1. marym

        I expect it to pass as is in the lame duck session, that there will be non-legislative ways to make it worse, and that if Clinton or any other politician feels any pressure to pretend to make it better, it would be in the form of some legislation or executive order for something ultimately meaningless like an additional job training/relocation assistance scam. Clinton should be asked to identify what she claims not to like and what form her changes would take, given the restrictions on changing the “current form,” and Trump should be pointing out those restrictions. Just another instance of her fakery.

        1. aab

          Clinton should be asked to identify what she claims not to like and what form her changes would take

          Ah, but that would require her facing actual journalists. She makes sure never to do so.

          A while back one of the dweeby little boys at the Times, Nate Cohn, puked up some rancid bile purporting to prove the primary wasn’t stolen, and actual did “lol” in a tweet about it — as if all the evidence that contradicts this and all the voters who feel angry and betrayed are HI-larious. His twitter feed is part of his professional communication. He’s laughing at serious accusations in face of millions of people. Even he was right and they were wrong, I don’t get how that could possibly be accepted from a reporter for the New York Times — if the New York Times were still a serious newspaper.

          Am I overreacting here?

  24. Carolinian

    Here’s what Ian Welsh has to say about the Labour Coup.

    –Corbyn has the support of the membership. Even most who don’t support him are unlikely to leave the party if he wins this confrontation.
    –If Corbyn wins, Britons will have a choice between an actual socialist party and a neoliberal party.
    –I suspect that “actual socialists” will do as well or better at the polls than “Tory light”.

    It is possible that the rebel MPs, once kicked out thru re-selection will form a rump party and that would be a problem, but the next election is will be so non-standard, and likely wild, that I doubt they will make the key difference.

    In any case, if you’re a left-winger, a chance to elect a left-wing party instead of choosing between two neo-liberal parties is too important to pass up. In a first past the post system people eventually lose patience with the lead party and elect the second party, it’s just that simple.

    http://www.ianwelsh.net/neither-corbyn-nor-labour-need-the-rebel-mps/

    M of A adds more

    http://www.moonofalabama.org/2016/06/one-reason-for-brexit-labour-wannabe-elite-disdains-their-party-members-.html

    And Pam Martens says a call for restoration of Glass Steagall has been added to the Dem platform.

    http://wallstreetonparade.com/2016/06/as-big-banks-hemorrhage-capital-glass-steagall-is-quietly-added-to-democratic-platform/

    1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

      We have “Tory-lite” all over the world, Dems in the US, Socialists in France, Labor in Australia. Enough to make you puke.

      1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL

        Bernie is excoriated for military policies Eisenhower would support, tax policies Reagan would support, and social policies Nixon would support. The people have not moved this far right, the parties have.

    2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Restoring Glass-Steagall.

      The pessimist asks: Are things so bad that they have no choice but to put it on the platform? And will it matter, if we have already past the event horizon?

      I think my problem is I need to strengthen my faith in Hillary.

      1. JustAnObserver

        Perhaps some of those New Age amulety things Clive was talking about yesterday (*) in one of his comments would help boost your – deplorably – feeble faith.

        (*) The ones that got him banned by his family from a certain part of Brighton.

  25. sd

    The aluminum wall behind Trump.

    Am I the only one who thought that was kind of cool? Comments….

    My first thought was wow – he’s not afraid of garbage. My second thought – with the bx cable behind him, he just sent a message to every scrapping former construction worker out there that yes, Trump knows exactly what you do to pay your bills.

    Quite brilliant actually.

    1. Take the Fork

      I’m not sure I’d go so far as brilliant…

      The thing that came to my mind was – real.

      It looks real. He sounds real. Even though you know he’s a salesman, you know he’s a *real* salesman. It works on an unconscious level.

      Speaking of which: ever notice how little time Their Media actually permit us to hear Hillary’s voice?

      Trump speaks, and his statement will be edited in such a way as to prevent it in the worst possible light. With Clinton, the trick is to show video of her speaking while a far more attractive woman with a far more pleasant tone explains what the candidate is saying in a voice-over – as if hers is the voice all the males are going to be hearing for the next four years…

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      To my eyes, it didn’t read well as a visual. Shiny chunks of random stuff. One of those ideas that may have looked good in real life, with its three dimensions, and then didn’t look good when flattened into two, as an image. Great idea, poor execution.

      > the bx cable behind him

      OK, I’ll bite. What’s a bx cable and why is it important?

  26. Romancing the Loan

    The site still appears a little wonky, fyi – I see recent comments posted here on the right hand side of the main page that don’t show up on the actual post.

  27. john k

    bernie is/was the perfect progressive. Right on all the issues, been saying the same thing for half a century or more so unlike big O dependable. And a gentleman, too, wants to stick to the issues and not the scandals.

    But the high road won’t win when MSM is unanimously opposed, won’t cover you at all, then after you win some states alternatively dismisses and attacks. To succeed against determined street fighters that will lie, cheat and steal to win, you must be a tougher street fighter, willing to say anything, particularly nasty things that happen to be true. Liar, liar, pantsuit on fire! She’s lying about TPP! SHes lying about her emails! She even lied about coming under fire in Bosnia! just a partial list, folks.

    To win over reps he had to be a bigger racist. To win the general he just has to show the electorate the real Clinton, over and over for the next four months, and avoid racism (that battle is over… sacking the old manager indicates he realizes this.)

    And one more thing… he has flushed the neo-cons out of the rep party, they’re flying over to support Hillary, which is more evidence for him that she is the real neo-lib//neo con. We need to break up both parties into their smaller 1/3 neo-lib bits and larger lower 2/3 bits, this won’t happen if Hillary wins. But if trump wins the progressives have a chance to take over the party in 2020.

  28. JTMcPhee

    Pick on the “left” for employing “performative speech?” I guess I don’t understand the parameters of the category then. WMDs in Iraq? Newt’s famous memo on language? Reagan morning in America? Endless examples. Is Clinton on the “left” now, speaking of saying the thing which is not so (I recall that in one anthropology study, it was reported that some “backward tribe” had no word for “lying” and had to invent that circumlocution to facilitate communication with the colonial advance parties)? Meaningless to observe that “everybody does it,” of course.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      Please read the definition more carefully. None of your examples jibe with it.

      On “the left,” I wrote in haste (owing to the DDOS). I’m basically thinking of the dominant style of discourse at Kos, and so I should have said “liberals.” My bad.

  29. Escher

    This much is clear: Sanders supporters and Clinton supporters do not belong in the same party.

    1. cm

      The reader-promoted comments in Bernie’s most recent column in the NY Times were quite toxic – loathing Sanders for hurting Hillary’s chances. A complete reversal of about six months ago.

      1. katiebird

        I think it is bizarre that so many people think it’s our responsibility to elect candidates. If Hillary was running an inspiring campaign, Bernie would have been gone 6 months ago!

        …. Ha! Maybe not, I don’t know how she could undo her acts as secretary of state.

        Still, not at all Bernie’s fault.

        1. Lambert Strether Post author

          It’s extremely odd. There’s another strain that blames voters for staying home in, say, 2010.

          I would have thought it’s basic, blocking and tackling stuff, for a party to get its voters to the polls and vote for its candidate — say, with good policy.

          Apparently not! Stupid voters!

      2. Lambert Strether Post author

        1) Did the NYT commments seem organic?

        2) I think the answer to “Hurting Hillary’s chances” is along the lines of “Thank you for admitting we have the power to destroy your candidate. Now be reasonable and meet our demands.”

        There is also: “If you didn’t think your candidate could win, it was irresponsible of you to run her.”

        1. aab

          I’m really curious to see how many softies this guilt trip will work on. Some, I’m sure. Enough to beat Trump without Republican governors helping her with the touch screens? I continue to believe that is unlikely.

          And I have a hard time imagining Republican governors helping Hillary Clinton steal a general election when the tantalizing prospect of crushing and humiliating her AND holding all the reins of government is truly before them. (And yes, I do not enjoy the prospect of the Republicans holding all three branches, either. I will be hoping for a pincher effect from the Freedom Caucus on one side, and the elected Dems that, with the Clintons crushed, will feel greater pressure to perform the role of Democrat.)

          Of course, I wouldn’t have imagined the Attorney General of the United States meeting with the disbarred husband of someone under FBI investigation in private plane until I opened my computer the morning. So who knows?

  30. openvista

    In case anyone is unaware, Paul Manafort has quite a history with election fixing. According to Bob Fitrakis, an election fraud expert, Manafort was in the Ukraine helping rig the election for Viktor Yanukovych which led to the Orange Revolution. That, apparently, was a practice round for his assistance later in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election in Ohio around which there are many questions and unresolved issues (to say the least).

    Given that the Justice Dept. is still controlled by a Democrat, I’m thinking this could get interesting. But maybe Manafort’s figured out another “solution”? He’s got all kinds of ties to the deep state. Given how often the intelligence agencies do this in other countries, it’s all but guaranteed they do it here especially since our elections are unobservable. Yes, according to the Carter Center they don’t meet “basic, minimum standards” for monitoring. A recent Harvard report ranked the country dead last out of 37 democracies for fair elections.

    Sources available upon request. I don’t include them because they put the comment in moderation.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      Please add sources in response to this comment.

      NOTE There are a lot of reasons for Skynet to moderate comments. URLs sometimes go through, sometimes do not. Considering the welfare of the comments section as a whole, it is better to add links and have a little patience, rather than make assertions that cannot easily be checked, even if that leads to immediate gratification.

  31. openvista

    In case anyone is unaware, Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, has quite a history with election fixing. According to Bob Fitrakis, an election fraud expert, Manafort was in the Ukraine helping rig the election for Viktor Yanukovych which led to the Orange Revolution (source). That, apparently, was a practice round for his assistance later in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election in Ohio around which there are many questions and unresolved issues (to say the least).

    Given that the Justice Dept. is still controlled by a Democrat, I’m thinking this could get interesting. But maybe Manafort’s figured out another “solution”? He’s got all kinds of ties to the deep state. Given how often the intelligence agencies do this in other countries, it’s all but guaranteed they do it here especially since our elections are unobservable. Yes, according to the Carter Center they don’t meet “basic, minimum standards” for monitoring. A recent Harvard study ranked the country dead last out of 37 democracies for fair elections.

    Here’s the video of Fitrakis and others talking about the 2004 election (warning: it’s loooong).

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      And now you see what happens. The moderated comment was approved, and now there are two versions, one with links, one without.

      And the cream of the jest is that you have now trained Skynet to think you are a spammer, because submitting the same comment with small changes to get them past the filters is just what spammers do. And we don’t have any control over Skynet’s training. Probably one time won’t flip Skynet, but don’t keep doing it.

  32. openvista

    Just had a comment get eaten. Let’s try this with no links this time.

    In case anyone is unaware, Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, has quite a history with election fixing. According to Bob Fitrakis, an election fraud expert, Manafort was in the Ukraine helping rig the election for Viktor Yanukovych which led to the Orange Revolution. That, apparently, was a practice round for his assistance later in the 2004 U.S. Presidential election in Ohio around which there are many questions and unresolved issues (to say the least).

    Manafort’s got all kinds of ties to the deep state. Given how often the intelligence agencies do this in other countries, what are the odds they don’t do it here especially since our elections are unobservable. That’s right, according to the Carter Center they don’t meet “basic, minimum standards” for monitoring. A recent Harvard report ranked the country dead last out of 37 democracies for fair elections. The exit polling companies have stopped releasing the raw exit poll data so the American public is completely in the dark about Presidential elections. Nice, eh?

    Sources available upon request.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Is that more an offensive or defensive move, after what Sanders experienced the last few months?

      The timing suggests the latter.

      “To stop hacking, you have to hire hackers.”

      1. openvista

        Yes, that’s entirely possible, MLTPB. Shows how cunning Trump is and that, unlike Bernie, he understands his adversary and is willing to fight fire with fire. Until we get elections conducted with hand-marked paper ballots, counted in public and independently observed, this is the best we can hope for — factions of shadow agencies pitted against one another.

        If you remove the fraud, Bernie won the pledged delegates. This isn’t based on a wild guess or wishful thinking. It’s based on a careful analysis of the exit polls which were captured before they were adjusted. That’s apart from the suppressed vote which would have likely given him a landslide victory.

        Bernie has been informed as to what happened. Privately, he doesn’t dispute the information. Yet, he persists in this fantasy that he can reform a party that either participated in or, at a minimum, did nothing to prevent organized crime thus making a mockery of the election. I realize that if he cries foul he may forfeit any momentum he’s created. But there’s quite a bit of daylight between public accusations and working with criminals.

        Say whatever you want about him, but there’s no way Trump ever lets someone punk him and his voters like that and still play along. What happened to Trump was child’s play compared to what they pulled on Bernie.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      And here’s a third one. Well played. Now readers have three threads to keep track of the same thing. And you, having trained Skynet to believe you are a spammer, are likely to complain that your comments don’t appear…. Life’s little ironies.

      The site policies, which you have either forgotten or not read, are quite clear:

      Spam

      Naked Capitalism comments are filtered for spam using Akismet. We have no control over Akismet, and sometimes it acts like Skynet.

      Akismet operates algorithmically. If you act like a spammer, Akismet will classify you as a spammer and throw and keep throwing your comments into the spam bucket, which is so overwhelmingly full of genuine spam that we won’t have time to fish them out.

      Therefore, don’t train Akismet to think you are a spammer! Don’t post duplicate (or very similar) comments, because that’s what spammers do. And don’t post with more than three links.

    3. openvista

      The video link I made earlier is wrong. Here’s the correct one.

      Bob Fitrakis mentions Paul Manafort and his connection to 2004 UKR and U.S. elections here (sorry I don’t have the time index and it’s a long, meandering presentation).

  33. Alex morfesis

    Impeachment 2019…$hillary and el donaldo are no choice at all (would rather write in putin) so instead of waiting for 2020, maybe the key is to make sure some acceptable person is the vp for both parties and we actually vote for the vp and then work our tails off to have countercoup 2018 and then use the new and improved super majority to impeach drumpf or $hillary roadman klingon…

    yes sounds insane, but this first full moon for summer solstice since 1948 $eem$ to be affecting carbon based life forms in a transcendental manner…real rational roots and all…

    more than happy to hear alternatives

    the only important thing for either of the two clowns & the misadventures we $hall experience, will be who will be the Secretary of war/defense, since technically the Secretary must approve the use of nuclear weapons, if my memory has not failed me…(nca/siop)…

    and as long as the vp does not pull in 8 votes in a section 4 coup, we should be fine…don’t need any of that Labor party UK coup nonsense sliding into our mess…

  34. allan

    Chris Christie used a personal email account for official business during Bridgegate:

    Bridgegate Hidden Evidence: Christie’s Texts, Cell Phone…And Now, Personal Emails [WNYC]

    This is what is missing from the federal investigation into Bridgegate:

    The cell phone in Gov. Chris Christie’s pocket during the 2013 George Washington lane closures.

    Text messages the governor sent and received during the ensuing legislative investigation.

    And now, according to new court filings, a personal email account he used as the scandal enveloped his administration.

    None of this evidence was provided to federal criminal investigators probing the Bridgegate scandal, according to court documents.

    Christie’s own taxpayer-funded attorneys from the Gibson Dunn law firm, which has so far billed more than $10 million to the state, were in charge of responding to federal and legislative subpoenas seeking such emails. The lawyers simply ignored this account, even though Christie regularly used personal email accounts, including the one shared with his wife, for government business, sources say. He even used this account to email journalists concerning state business.

    But as a former US Attorney, what are the chances that Christie will be held accountable?
    As a white-shoe law firm, what are the chances that Gibson Dunn will be held accountable?

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      Did he use public, official time for personal business?

      Do workers use company hours for internet surfing?

    2. Jim Haywood

      Christie had better meet with Loretta Lynch pronto, and work out an understanding.

      She’s open for business.

      1. perpetualWAR

        Does Christie have grandchildren? Cuz he certainly can’t swing a club with that tummy in the way.

    3. Escher

      I have a very strong suspicion that the reason more knives haven’t come out for Hillary over the emails is that everyone does it, from the President on down to your local dogcatcher.

      1. different clue

        Everyone sets up their own private server to run secret and top secret material through after stripping it out of its secured channels and settings? Really? Dog catchers do that? Drain commissioners do that?

        The long knives are kept rigidly sheathed for Hillary because she is the Obama 2.0 candidate. She will be worth trillions of dollars to the Overclass if she becomes President. The Overclass doesn’t want to let anyone threaten their upcoming profit opportunity.

    1. openvista

      That’s just south of 81% reporting.

      Guess what, everyone? There’s over 1 million ballots missing! No, not uncounted or unprocessed… MISSING. That’s 12% of the vote that just vanished and no one knows what happened to it. Source.

      1. aab

        I am not clicking on that link because I am still grieving over what happened in my state. I did not realize Padilla would be able to flip more than 15% of the vote. I thought the maximum, with all the Vote By Mail ballots, would be 10-12%, so Bernie would still win, after all the suppression, the AP call, etc. Nowhere near what he clearly really had, but still, a win.

        But all the VBMs go through the scanner, apparently. So do all the early ballots. And the scanners are computerized. So…

        I know. I am a silly baby. A grey-haired silly baby. But I really didn’t think they would or could do so much, and have no one in the well-paid sector of the media be willing to say ANYTHING. Not one single person, out of all those Harvard, and Brown and Stanford and whatever grads, has a shred of honor.

  35. Jay M

    Think Trump ridiculing Warren isn’t very classy–is she among his worst fears as an opponent, or cheap shot territory (from his campaign point of view). Hard not to see that an all female ticket might be powerful in a democratic election.

    1. Carolinian

      Well he is the short fingered vulgarian. What’s Warren’s excuse for taking the ridicule road? Are you saying that being a man he should be more gentlemanly?

      Personally I think the insults are childish but Scott Adams says it’s all part of a master plan.

    2. Lambert Strether Post author

      I’m amazed that the Democrats have managed to turn Warren into a hyperpartisan low-road attack dog. I’m even more amazed that Warren allowed it to be degraded* in that way, because she’s destroying her brand. Her thirst for power must be far greater than we ever imagined.

      On an all-female ticket, I’d like to see polling.

      NOTE * If you take the low road, you’re automatically disposable; the candidate, who is not, takes the high road. Think Spiro Agnew, in Nixon’s day.

      1. aab

        I don’t believe the all female ticket would do anything. I don’t believe it will happen, but even if it did, I don’t see it prying away any more weak-willed Sanders voters than the rest of the social shaming and 24/7 propaganda. Likewise the upper income Republican women she lusts for. If anything, I would assume two women on the ticket might be one woman too many for Republican ladies. After all, if they were that girl power-y, they’d be Clintonian Democrats already.

  36. Christopher Fay

    Good pickings for Bill Clinton, “all female ticket might be …. in a democrat election.”

  37. DSP

    This is a highly unreliable comment because I was stuffing around at the time and not taking to much notice.But.
    During your first DDOS attack when I couldn’t get NC I went to Internet Archive just to get some historical articles to read and seemingly got up-to-date NC.Lucky? Don’t know but it may be worth a try next time.

  38. Jim Haygood

    Yet another federal judge orders a dirt dump on the CCC (Clinton Cesspool of Corruption):

    A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the State Department to produce the e-mail records of Hillary Clinton’s scheduler during her tenure as secretary of state.

    Citizens United is slated to receive all e-mails sent to and from Lona Valmoro, Clinton’s State Department scheduler, in the two-week periods before each of 14 international trips Clinton took during her four years in office.

    Citizens United hopes to confirm suspicions that Clinton maintained an off-the-books schedule, meeting with Clinton Foundation donors on the taxpayer’s dime. Judge Rosemary Collyer [is] the federal judge presiding over a public records case brought by Citizens United.

    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437312/hillary-clinton-emails-secret-meetings-clinton-foundation-donors

    Of course Hillary was conducting secret meetings, the same way she was keeping an off-the-books email server. Grifting is her lifelong occupation — what else would she be doing?

    What’s going to be fascinating about this dirt dump is that it may prove that Hillary directly stole from the government by funding her global grifting expeditions at taxpayer expense.

    Even more explosive would be connecting the dots to who bribed her in those secret meetings, and for how much (bearing in mind that the Clinton Foundation is a professionally-structured money laundering operation, with a Canadian cutout to ensure opacity).

    How many civil suits prying loose damning evidence does it take, until the FBI’s slow-walk criminal investigation finally is forced to take action?

    No wonder “Bill” needed to plead with Loretta Lynch yesterday. The heat is on.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      Gotta admit I don’t think much of Citizens United, Bossie, or the NR, but this passage is interesting:

      As part of a joint filing with the State Department on Monday, Citizens United presented the judge with several pieces of evidence suggesting Valmoro deliberately struck from the official schedule a December 6, 2012, dinner in Dublin, Ireland, with several Clinton Foundation and Clinton campaign donors, organized by Teneo co-founder Declan Kelly. Though Valmoro was made aware of the Dublin meeting through an earlier e-mail chain, neither Clinton’s archived daily calendar nor her detailed official schedule make any note of it

      Of course, if they were bloggers, instead of glossy magazine types, they would have provided links to the filing…

  39. DSP

    I’m not from around here,different hemisphere in fact but polls are largely done by people with a land line.
    Which means old,at home with the time and interest to complete a survey.
    So ,young people with mobiles(cell phones) aren’t canvassed.

    1. cripes

      DSP:
      If they’re competent, they do.
      I’ve worked for research companies that make plenty of cell phone interviews.
      The completion rate is significantly lower than landline, busy millennials, car drivers and all, but it can be done.

  40. ProNewerDeal

    Lambert, can you define “the bezzle”? Is it a scam, or a parasite-type / rentier business like US health insurance or financial speculation that charges money for no or actual anti-productive/destructive effects on the society?

  41. DSP

    The above was a reply to carolinian at 6-35 but it seems that I can’t do replies at the moment,my previous one on DDOS has disappeared.
    To the DDOS discussion started by Vatch at 3-12,re the first DDOS attack I added an unreliable comment.I couldn’t get on NC so went to Internet Archive to get my daily dose even if it was old and I appeared to get onto that days site,fully functioning.
    I wasn’t paying attention so I can’t say if that was exactly what happened but it seemed to.
    Might be worth a try next time

  42. cripes

    Alex Morphesis:
    “vast majority of people who commit crimes, do it for an overwhelming drug habit…meaning street crimes…they are not “there” to be worried about your silly little hand gun, and may be so amped up, they may not notice the blood flowing from the whole you make with that gun”

    I’ll assume you meant to say “hole”

    Wow. Way to recycle the ‘drug crazed darkie” imagery of Haarry Anslinger’s 1930’s Drug War propaganda. It is, not coincidentally, the favorite defense of po-lice when they pump 30 bullets into a “suspect” that they hadda do it! because drug-induced delirium. A faux-medical diagnosis that is not a diagnosis recognized by any medical authority. Except coroners resting comfortably in the back pockets of Lawr Enforcement.

    Since you can not provide any reliable data, beyond rare anecdotal face-eating zombies, to support this assertion, we must conclude you are channeling drug war propaganda.
    I’ll be charitable here and assume you have little direct experience with drug users.

  43. ProNewerDeal

    I noticed that difference in EU nations on personal “net” median wage income between the rich nations like UK & the poorer ones like Bulgaria were ~5X. IIRC this is similar to the ~5X difference between US & Mexico.

    In contrast, the per capita income (similar yet not exact same & personal net median wage income) between US states is ~1.9 (CT $39.4K v MS $21.0K). If you include DC ($45.9) & PR ($11.2K), this ratio is ~4.1. However, the 3.5M PR population is too small relative to the 50 states, whereas presumably the Bulgaria/Poland type lower personal income nations are sizeable portion of the EU population.

    Is there another nation or EU-like nation-union that has such a huge personal income multiple between its regions? Perhaps the (few?) BA+ degreed professionals in the Bulgarias that are not already Type 1 Overqualified Underemployed, can get a raise by voluntarily & willingly becoming Type 1 Overqualified Underemployed in the UK/Swedens?

    My guesstimate is that this seems to be a unsustainable “status quo” attribute in the EU. Seconldy, another unsustainable attribute is how the Germanys are intra-EU net exporters for a decade+, & the Greeces are intra-EU net-importers, whilst the Greeces must also maintain a government balanced budget.

    If these 2 conditions are indeed unsustainable, I would guess that is inevitable that other nations will withdraw from the EU in the coming years.

    Am I missing something here?

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