Links 4/22/15

Teach Your Fish How To Walk Popular Scientist (RM).

Avian flu crisis grows for poultry producers throughout USA USA Today

Economists have discovered how bad the economy really is WaPo. Labor force participation. NC readers have known for years.

A Veteran of the Financial Crisis Tells China to Be Wary NYT

Investors Just Got a Billion-Dollar Lesson in China’s ‘Mystery Meat’ Bloomberg

Why doesn’t Washington think Warren Buffett’s reinsurance arm is TBTF? Fortune

Grand Central: Mr. Dudley Hedges Himself on 2015 Rate Increase WSJ

How Emerald Knight’s sales pitch duped the Financial Times blog FT Adviser Redd Monitor (RS).

Trader Charged With Manipulation That Contributed to 2010 ‘Flash Crash’ NYT

Regional Banks Sweat Through Low-Rate ‘Torture’ WSJ

Chemical Activity Barometer “Leading Economic Indicator Rises for Fourth Consecutive Month” Calculated Risk

Oil Companies Are Getting a Second Chance in the Bond Market Bloomberg

The bank moved to seize a widow’s home. But it didn’t tell her the loan was insured. Charlotte Observer (Furzy Mouse). Yes, the banksters are still at it.

PhillyDeals: Helping home buyers before they go underwater Inquirer

NYT: Heastie Reaped $200k Profit from Mom’s Embezzlement The Albany Project. $200K? That’s chump change. Anyhow, Heastie’s the new Assembly speaker. I bet Sheldon Silver’s laughing now!

Is Slack Really Worth $2.8 Billion? A Conversation With Stewart Butterfield NYT. Must read, in the context of ISDS “lost profits.”

TPP

Obama, Abe poised to trumpet TPP deal next week, Japan’s ambassador says Japan Times

ISDS: Some battles won, but a long road ahead TTIP 2015

Obama’s Republican Collaborators Patrick Buchanan (BH).

Don’t Just Assume TPP Will Counter China Family Security Matters. Also from the right.

Trade rumble: Democrats stuck between Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama Politico

A lose-lose choice for Hillary Clinton Reuters

The air is dark and asthma is deadly along the Mexico border Reveal. Among other reasons, NAFTA.

How the ‘Desaparecidos’ of Ayotzinapa Have Sparked a US-Mexican Solidarity Movement The Nation

Grexit?

Mythology that blocks progress in Greece Martin Wolf, FT

Greek deal could take weeks: Dijsselbloem The Australian

Gazprom CEO Visits Athens and Guarantees Gas Transit Through Greece Greek Reporter

Why a Greece-Russia gas deal would be more geopolitical than economical Business Insider

Greece’s Tsipras to meet Merkel in Brussels as cash squeeze tightens Reuters. This coming Thursday.

On Greece, Europe Bluffs Itself WSJ

Why the Real Deadline for Greece Is July 20 Bloomberg

Golden Dawn leaders snub court as criminal trial begins Ekathimerini. They fail to show. Trial adjourned.

Black Injustice Tipping Point

Justice Dept. opens Baltimore police probe; 1K protest AP. “Freddie Gray, a black man who suffered a fatal spinal-cord injury under mysterious circumstances after he was handcuffed and put in the back of a police van.”

Memorial tree for Michael Brown cut in half, stone memorial missing KMOV

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

US Congress to vote on ‘cybersecurity’ bills that are basically surveillance bills in disguise Boing Boing

Lawyers’ Group Seeks Overhaul of a Postal Service Surveillance Program NYT. “20 percent of the orders for surveillance under the program, known as mail covers, were improperly approved.”

There are a remarkably small number of people who trust the government WaPo

Syraqistan

Saudis end air campaign in Yemen, seek political solution Reuters

The New Saudi Foreign Policy CFR

What Is The Purpose Of This U.S. Fleet Concentration Next To Iran? Moon of Alabama

How to Avert a Nuclear War NYT

Vietnam asked Philippines to form pact to counter China, Aquino reveals South China Morning Post

Class Warfare

Workers Overwhelmingly Approve General Strike Reykjavik Grapevine

Time is now to fight back Rutland Herald (MR)

Why Did These Oil Workers Die? WSJ

Robert Reich: America’s “flexible” economy is making workers’ lives hell Robert Reich, Salon

Why American Workers Without Much Education Are Being Hammered NYT

How to get into Harvard LRB. The punchline comes at the end.

‘Gods’ edging out robots at Toyota facility Japan Times (MR)

What happens when the Internet of Things becomes artificially intelligent? World Economic Forum Agenda (DL).

Man shoots computer in Colorado Springs alley, gets revenge he wanted – and a citation Colorado Springs Gazette

Clockmaker John Harrison vindicated 250 years after ‘absurd’ claims Guardian

The future of flying FT

The Slow Death of the University Chronicle of Higher Education

The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller Truthout

WSU statistician sues seeking Kansas voting machine paper tapes Wichita Eagle (Furzy Mouse). Important.

Antidote du jour:

kermitfrog

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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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.

53 comments

  1. JTMcPhee

    So s little solitary “trader” in a house in Hounslow is doing the perp walk for a puny $40 million? While the Really Big JobAnd Liquidity Creative Destroyers go non about their business.

    Lesson: if you are a coyote, eagle or lone wolf, don’t you dare try to feed off the sheep and cattle of the Overlords… “When you do it, it’s WRONG. When I do it, it’s DIFFERENT.”

    1. Watt4Bob

      Navinder Singh Sarao’s behavior is simply something the HFT people hadn’t thought of when they programed their systems.
      Sarao should get a medal for exposing the dangerous fragility of their money-for-nothing contraption instead of being blamed for the consequences of their reckless faith in technological slight-of-hand.

      1. different clue

        Perhaps well disguised false-flag monkey wrenchers could do what this Mr. Rao is accused of doing.
        And they could do it to crash and burn stock markets so conclusively as to create the sorts of crises which force issues.

  2. New Deal democrat

    On the WaPo article re: underemployment, here is the metric from the NBER study paper: “Rather, assessments of the employment gap should reflect the incidence of underemployment (that is, people working part time who want a full-time job) and the extent of hidden unemployment (that is, people who are not actively searching but who would rejoin the workforce if the job market were stronger).”

    This is not the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR), but rather our old friends “Part Time for Economic Reasons” (PTER) and “Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now.” (NILFWJN). Each of these is roughly 1.5% higher as a share of the adult population than they were at past times of full employment. Based on past history, to get significant wage growth, we probably need about .75% of that fully employed.

    1. Lambert Strether

      You’re quite right; I wrote in haste and inartfully. I did not write “labor force participation rate” because of under-employment, part-timers, crapfication, etc., all of which could arguably be put under the heading of “participation.” However, I should have written something like “Clue stick: The labor market is all ****ed up; at least if you’re a seller.”

      But, as your comment shows, NC readers know all this already ;-)

    2. Jack

      I love how right at the beginning they say “That isn’t because the unemployment rate is a conspiracy to make things look better than they really are.”, and then go on to explain how, yes, the official number is the result of a conspiracy of careful number choosing.

  3. diptherio

    Re: Economists discover how bad the Economy is

    Economists can estimate how much shadow unemployment is left, but it’s hard to say much more than that—who knows how many discouraged workers will come back?—which is why it makes sense to keep rates at zero until wages are rising.

    What’s the definition of insanity again? Pray, tell, Mr. O’Brien, what is the mechanism, exactly, by which cheap money for capitalists will be converted into higher wages for workers? Seeing as how it hasn’t worked in the last seven years, why do you assume it will work now, or in the future?

    1. whine country

      Your comment got me thinking. I’ve been wearing my copper bracelet for eleven years now and my arthritis keeps getting worse. I’m going to take it off tonight and never put it back on. Maybe eleven years will be enough for the monetarists to get a clue!

  4. frosty zoom

    you know, in our most recent municipal election, voting “machines” were used for the first time.

    do you know what drew outrage from the voters?

    the machines were displaying american flags instead of canadian flags (they were leased from an american company).

    other than that, the sheeps were happy because it’s “faster”.

    help!

    1. diptherio

      Did your machines return victories for American Republicans, too? Wouldn’t be surprised…”Some are calling it strange that George W. Bush managed to win handily in Vancouver…”

    2. JEHR

      Frosty, we too, in New Brunswick used those blasted machines in our last provincial election: the result, lineups waiting for the machines to work; repeated re-insertions of paper when machines did not work; obvious failure of machines. It certainly wasn’t faster. (George, unfortunately, did not get one vote!!)

      1. frosty zoom

        ah, but it certainly makes BREAKNG NEWS faster.

        these local things are test bubbles for future, more grandiose, implementation.

        “just go to your app store and download the ‘wevote 2022’ app and pick your favourite emoji!”

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      I would love to see a chart of human body pollutants in parts per billion, versus, wealth.

      I suspect, if you’re a rich TV show host/hostess, or a billionaire, you’re more likely have fewer pollutants inside. Who knows, some may even be immaculate.

      “I only eat organic.”

      1. frosty zoom

        well, a t.v. host/ess will be exposed to makeup, hairspray, and things like offgassing dry-cleaning.

        a billioniare will be exposed to jet-fuel, offgassing remodeled mansions and pitchfork heavy metals.

        so, maybe the levels are similar but the wealthoids have a higher class of toxins.

        1. Expat

          Your comment reminded me of this story from 2013: “How the chemicals in your blood can betray your wealth.” From the article:
          “Levels of a chemical found in sunscreen, for example, were found to be higher in those with wealthier lifestyles.
          “Mercury and arsenic levels were also higher among richer individuals because they eat more fish and shellfish, where these metals can accumulate.”
          http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/10219251/How-the-chemicals-in-your-blood-can-betray-your-wealth.html

  5. Ruben

    Reading the pieces by Pat Buchanan, familiysecuritymatters, considering the Tea party, and putting this together with anti-EU right-wing movements in Europe, it seems that the developed world needs to go back to the old clear-cut right vs. left political confrontation, because the political center has been thoroughly corrupted by neolibs, financial powers, charlatans and bland careerists. Rightists and leftists of the world unite! After removing the greedy moderates in polar togetherness, the polar fight can be resumed.

  6. andyb

    There may be differences between R and L, Dem or Repub, but the overall policy agendae are virtually the same; the destruction of the middle class to remove the last bulwark of democracy, depopulation and debt enslavement.

  7. timbers

    “Obama, Abe poised to trumpet TPP deal next week, Japan’s ambassador says Japan Times”

    Now my day is ruined. Is this real or just Japanese for no progress?

    1. different clue

      This appears to support my suspicion that Clive was over-optimistic about Abe regime opposition to TPP.
      Actually the Abe regime and the DC FedRegime are desperately co-conspiring to achieve TPP any which way possible. That remains my suspicion.

  8. JTFaraday

    Interesting link from Black Agenda Report today on race as a conceptual category in “working class” formation in early America:

    http://blackagendareport.com/ted-allen-invention-of-the-white-race

    I’m not so sure I agree with them that this was “disastrous” for the white “working class” historically. On the whole, I think they milked it pretty good, and this goes a long way to explain today’s Republican Party, the identity politics that pretends it isn’t.

  9. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    The slow death of university.

    For the ultimate fate facing each of us humans, and other entities and beings, it’s interesting to note how the process will unfold (for a physicist, it’s called path-dependence).

    In this case, one suspects college football and college basketball programs will be the last ones to go, along with well-spoken, appropriately dressed, smart, if not wise, administrators.

    1. grizziz

      Great article. Its always good to be reminded how rent seeking slowly changes our institutions. The author has a number of great phrases, my favorite being, “Educating the young, like protecting them from serial killers, should be regarded as a social responsibility, not as a matter of profit.” (Shout out to whoever is controlling the revenue seeking justice departments in our country.)

  10. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    Robert Reich – America’s ‘flexible’ economy.

    Only if we had ‘flexible’ loot. But this chart has only one slope – positive, and it seems, increasing exponentially. No boom-and-bust cycles for the ones favored by the Omnipotent Father in Washington, for they do ‘His’ work, they worship Him before all other power centers, including themselves, and believe in Him.

    “In Government (capital G), we trust.” – motto of the Budgets Unlimited Inc.

  11. fresno dan

    There are a remarkably small number of people who trust the government WaPo

    “There are also a few intriguing demographic and age differences. Young people (age 18 to 29 for these purposes) are nine points more likely to trust the federal government to do the right thing than those over 65.”

    I used to be far more trusting or believing in government when I was younger. You live, you learn.

    What is disheartening is the partisan belief in government rises when one’s team is in power. In Baltimore now, in a city completely run by democrats for decades, you see where the police sever a man’s spine while he was completely and only in their control. Yet somehow, more than a week later, nobody in the police department can explain it…..
    Its pretty apparent that the police run Baltimore city hall more than city hall runs the police. People of either party should be concerned when a small faction is so immune to any real oversight and control.

    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

      In the Sixties, kids from 18 to 29 were the ones who shouted ‘We don’t trust anyone over 30,’ presumably with many leaders in the government at that time over 30.

      Those crazy kids did not trust an imperial government with its Domino Theory.

      I guess today’s kids are really different this time…”If the commander in chief says we must go to Iraq, or Libya, or Syria, or Ukraine, or Afghanistan, we must.”

      “And when things settle down a bit globally, we can get to single payer health care insurance. We have to trust.”

        1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

          Kids, in the 1960’s, refused to take part in that war, sorry, police action, I think is the correct term, or maybe something else.

          Sure, they were citizens of the country and responsible for voting their leaders.

          If our taxes do pay for drones, maybe we will be like those kids.

          But our taxes don’t pay for them and sure, we are citizens still, but the basis for demanding our tax money not be waste or misused is gone.

  12. frosty zoom

    in regards to the mexican border bad air story, i must say that the aire i inbibe has gotten considerably cleaner thanks to nafta.

    “when tpp goes through, why, you’ll be able to see all the way to kansas city!”

  13. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    American workers without much education are being hammered.

    Yes.

    But, American workers with much education are being hammered too.

    With one exception.

    Americans with psychopathy are not being hammered at all.

    What does all it mean? I don’t know. Perhaps you can tell me.

    Should we hope our children will be more psychopathic?

    EOS.

    1. frosty zoom

      oh, don’t worry they are.

      by combining the epigenetic effects of icky chemicals, inorganic drugs, organic drugs, etc., with more and more psychotic “entertainment” each new layer of humans is just a little more overdriven and contorted.

      shave and a haircut, two bits.

    2. grizziz

      The returns to ‘salesmanship’ are greater than returns to adding ‘labor to material’, so under our current regime the ability to negotiate from absurd premises to hidden self-serving conclusions would preference a child with a psychopathy in order to garner resources. At some limit in a closed system, an abundance of salespersons would put downward pressure on their ability to take resources. This is likely when the folks who make things say, “F–k it, why should I get my hands dirty, I’ll start a Ponzi scheme. I have to make up for lost time.” Salespersons, who should know better since it is their trade, love a good story and figure they’ll get rid of a hot potato before it burns them and they join the Ponzi. Then the hypothecation begins, pledge upon pledge builds until some idiot asks for something tangible to replace the pledge. ‘Heretic!’ is the cry. ‘Eat my pledge, muthafucka,’ is the plaint of the salesperson to the idiot. Shockingly, the idiot retorts, ‘I can’t eat your pledge, it has no calories.’ Suddenly, everyone gets hungry…
      So, yes, in our bizarre world, psychopathy makes sense in some limited fashion. If it is a heritable factor we can only hope that they are so self absorbed as to forget to propagate.

    3. cwaltz

      Heh,
      It would have been interesting to see if those with bachelor’s who saw a supposed 7% increase or those with those with advanced degrees who saw a 13% increase in real earnings actually saw that when you take into consideration the enormous amount of debt they took on to get that increase. It isn’t like the cost of an education hasn’t changed drastically in recent years.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/15/cost-of-college-degree-increase-12-fold-1120-percent-bloomberg_n_1783700.html

      Who fares better the kid who forgoes debt and picks up a minimum wage job or the guy who goes into debt $50,000 and then picks up a job making an extra dollar an hour(which then goes to pay for that $50,000 in debt they accrued?)

    4. Vatch

      I’ve often wondered whether there’s a difference between a psychopath and a sociopath, so I finally looked it up in the arbiter of all things that might or might not be real: Wikipedia.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Sociopathy

      The word element socio has been used in compound words since around 1880.[153][154] The term sociopathy may have been first introduced in 1909 in Germany by biological psychiatrist Karl Birnbaum and in 1930 in the US by educational psychologist George E. Partridge, as an alternative to the concept of psychopathy.[153] It was used to indicate that the defining feature is violation of social norms, or antisocial behavior, and has often also been associated with postulating social as well as biological causation.[155][156][157][158]

      There are various contemporary usages of the term. Robert Hare claimed in a 1999 popular science book that sociopathy and psychopathy are often used interchangeably, but in some cases the term sociopathy is preferred because it is less likely than is psychopathy to be confused with psychosis, whereas in other cases which term is used may “reflect the user’s views on the origins and determinates of the disorder”. Hare contended that the term sociopathy is preferred by those that see the causes as due to social factors and early environment, and the term psychopathy preferred by those who believe that there are psychological, biological, and genetic factors involved in addition to environmental factors.[83] Hare also provides his own definitions: he describes psychopathy as not having a sense of empathy or morality, but sociopathy as only differing in sense of right and wrong from the average person.

  14. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

    How to get into Harvard.

    My challenge to Harvard – if you are really good, take ONLY B and C high school students and turn them into A college graduates.

    “Don’t take the EZ way out. You cheapen yourself…because you can do better than that. Let those second class universities admit those highly, self-motivated kids. They don’t need you.”

        1. sam s smith

          Back in the 30’s Harvard stopped admitting students based on grades/test scores. They now look for well rounded students. I believe there was concern that too many of “not the right type” of students were getting admitted to Harvard.

          1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef

            Then they should look for not well rounded students and take on the job of turning them into well-rounded students.

            It’s hard work. But worthy work. In fact, if the applicants are already well rounded, there is not much work to do, if the emphasis for their next 4 years is not intellect but on compassion and wisdom, unless they mess up and turn them into sociopaths/psychopaths.

            Let the lesser universities have those easy cases, those already well-rounded applicants.

            If a great university doesn’t challenge itself, how can it expect its students to do so?

  15. docg

    “Why the Real Deadline for Greece Is July 20”

    I love it! Another deadline. Seems like all of Europe is conspiring to amuse old docG. Well, thanks folks, you really didn’t have to do it. I have plenty of ways to amuse myself.

    There once was a hedge fund named Europe
    That found a nice Ponzi to stir up.
    They stirred it so well
    That it started to gel
    To a hellish financial syrup.

  16. grizziz

    The returns to ‘salesmanship’ are greater than returns to adding ‘labor to material’, so under our current regime the ability to negotiate from absurd premises to hidden self-serving conclusions would preference a child with a psychopathy in order to garner resources. At some limit in a closed system, an abundance of salespersons would put downward pressure on their ability to take resources. This is likely when the folks who make things say, “F–k it, why should I get my hands dirty, I’ll start a Ponzi scheme. I have to make up for lost time.” Salespersons, who should know better since it is their trade, love a good story and figure they’ll get rid of a hot potato before it burns them and they join the Ponzi. Then the hypothecation begins, pledge upon pledge builds until some idiot asks for something tangible to replace the pledge. ‘Heretic!’ is the cry. ‘Eat my pledge, muthafucka,’ is the plaint of the salesperson to the idiot. Shockingly, the idiot retorts, ‘I can’t eat your pledge, it has no calories.’ Suddenly, everyone gets hungry…
    So, yes, in our bizarre world, psychopathy makes sense in some limited fashion. If it is a heritable factor we can only hope that they are so self absorbed as to forget to propagate.

  17. Roland

    The NYT article on reducing nuclear warfare risks is pretty stupid.

    First of all, the article didn’t say a single word about the most destabilizing development that has taken place in recent years: the USA’s unilateral abrogation of the ABM treaty.

    Second, the article didn’t point out that there are nuclear defense postures that are much more risky than launch-on-warning. One example would be decentralized launch authority. If a nuclear power fears that its nuclear command system is too vulnerable to an enemy first strike, that power could decide to delegate launch authority to lower echelons.

    A second example of something more risky than launch-on-warning would be launch-by-default. In other words, “launch at any time that high command is not telling you not to.” This extreme posture could be resorted to by a nuclear state in imminent fear of an enemy preventive strike. The state would then tell its prospective enemy, “you had better hope that nothing happens to the communications between our high command and our nuclear weapons units!”

  18. Howard Beale IV

    The Feds Say One Schmuck Trading From His Parents’ House Caused a Market Crash. Here’s the Problem. Mother Jones

    Here’s the kicker that the Feds may be all wet here:

    If regulators think that Sarao’s behavior on May 6, 2010, caused the flash crash, and if they think he continued that behavior for much of the subsequent five years, and if that behavior was screamingly obvious, maybe they should have stopped him a little earlier?

    Also, I mean, if his behavior on May 6, 2010, caused the flash crash, and if he continued it for much of the subsequent five years, why didn’t he cause, you know, a dozen flash crashes?

    So I mean…maybe he didn’t cause the flash crash?

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