By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Trade
“The EU decided on Monday to extend economic sanctions against Russia until mid-2017. The move sets up a potential break in policy between Brussels and U.S., where the incoming Trump administration could quickly decide to unwind its own Russian sanctions imposed after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula” [Politico].
Politics
Electoral College
“More Electors Tried To Defect From Hillary Clinton Than Donald Trump” [NPR]. Wowsers. So much for thoe Hamilton Electors clowns, eh? The Clintonites threaten a soft coup, with Civil War in one possible future, and then can’t even hold their own electors! And what I want to know is whether Michael Moore will pay the legal expenses of the faithless electors who didn’t vote for Clinton….
Yglesias disgraces himself:
As Federalist 37 argues, once you’ve already lost the election you may as well vote for someone with a funny/memorable name.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) December 19, 2016
The “funny name” belongs to “Faith Spotted Eagle,” who is, among other things, a #NoDAPL activist.
Policy
“Trump versus Clinton on Infrastructure” (PDF) [Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro]. “With the decline of manufacturing in our country, infrastructure projects are one of the few high paying jobs that could employ the less well educated segment of our population” (via Capital and Main).
2016 Post Mortem
“The worst candidate of 2016” [Chris Cilizza, WaPo]. “As a consultant put it to me a long time ago: If the dog doesn’t like the dog food, it doesn’t matter how good the marketing campaign for it is.” Ha. “She lost because she was overly cautious. Because she was slow to adjust to a changed race — in the primary and the general election. Because she never really connected with voters. Because she offered no positive message that resonated with those voters. Because she never grasped the import to her candidacy of the email story. Because she simply wasn’t a good candidate.”
“Just one-third of Americans say they believe Russia influenced the 2016 presidential election, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll” [Politico].. Good proxy for the size of Clinton’s base. Not enough.
” 56 Interesting Facts About the 2016 Election” [Cook Political Report]. Many interesting true facts, including these:
1. Effectively 77,759 votes in three states (WI/PA/MI) determined the Presidency: Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump won by:
- 22,748 votes in WI, 0.7 of a point (3rd party candidates received: 188,330)
- 44,307 votes in PA, 0.7 of a point, (3rd party candidates received: 218,228)
- 10,704 votes in MI, 0.2 of a point (3rd party candidates received: 250,902 votes)
2. Just three counties – Macomb County, MI; York County, PA and Waukesha County, WI – elected Donald Trump. If those three counties had cast zero votes, Trump would have lost all three states and the election. By the same logic, just three counties re-elected President Obama in 2012: Miami-Dade County, FL; Cuyahoga County, OH and Philadelphia, PA.
3. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carried the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes, and 2.1 percentage points. But while she narrowly improved on President Obama’s margin in non-swing states (4.1% vs. 4.0%), she vastly underperformed in the 13 swing states that actually mattered: Obama’s 3.6-percent margin in those states morphed into a 1.8-percent Trump lead. …
5. Trump won the White House by winning 76 percent of counties with a Cracker Barrel Old Country Store and 22 percent of counties with a Whole Foods Market. This 54-percent gap is the widest ever recorded. When Bill Clinton was elected in 1992, it was 19 percent; when George W. Bush was elected in 2000, it was 31 percent; and when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, it was 43 percent.
Paul Krugman loses his shit:
So it's official, and it's vile: the loser of the popular vote installed by Russian intervention, a rogue FBI, and epic media malfunction.
— Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) December 20, 2016
Let me express my response to American’s Favorite Professor in tabular form:
Table 1: Krugman Blame Cannon Target Acquisition
Things the Clinton Campaign Wanted to Control, But Could Not Things the Clinton Campaign Could Have Controlled, But Did Not Things the Clinton Campaign Wanted to Control, and Did Arguendo, the actions of another sovereign power Nobody forced Clinton to privatize her email server Clinton got to pick her opponent (the “Pied Piper” Podesta email) The FBI (though Bill did his best on the tarmac with Lynch) Nobody forced Clinton to make 70 campaign stops in the last 10 weeks, when Trump made 107 Clinton raised a billion dollars The Fourth Estate (though the Podesta emails show HillaryLand doing its best) Nobody forced Clinton not to visit Wisconsin Nobody forced Clinton to use Ada, campaign software that misallocated her resources Nobody forced Clinton to fly home every night Nobody forced Clinton to cast voters as “irredeemables”/”deplorables” Nobody forced Clinton to spend the month of August doing fundraisers, instead of on the trail Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list. But you’ll notice that Krugman fires the blame cannons exclusively at items in the first column: at forces the Clinton campaign could not control — Russia, the FBI, and the press — and moreover, at least in a liberal democracy, should not be able to control, and ignores all the forces that Clinton campaign could have controlled, but did not, as well as the enormous advantages Clinton had: Her choice of opponent, and ginormous sums of money (which, alas, they set on fire and threw into the air, which really ought to make it harder for them work their grift at anything other than, say, the Gingrich, deluded squillionaire acting alone-level). I’m so old that I remember when bloggers like Krugman called themselves members of “the reality-based community.” Sad.
“Voters Really Did Switch To Trump At The Last Minute” [Nate Silver, FiveThirtyEight]. This is a panel study, so there may be something to it
Realignment and Legitimacy
“The upcoming Senate class is unusually unbalanced. Only eight Republican Senate seats are up for election in 2018, compared to 25 Democratic seats (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats). Ten of those Democratic seats are in states carried by Donald Trump” [Stuart Rothenberg, WaPo].
” A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds 54 percent of adults saying that they are either uncertain (25 percent) or pessimistic and worried (29 percent) about how Trump will perform during his presidency, compared with 45 percent with either an optimistic and confident view (22 percent) or a satisfied and hopeful view (23 percent). That’s a significantly worse outlook than Americans expressed after the elections of both Barack Obama and George W. Bush” [NBC].
Stats Watch
There are no official statistical releases today (at least ones that I track. Readers?)
Chemical Activitity Barometer: “[CAB] ended the year on a strong note, posting a monthly gain of 0.3 percent and a year-over-year gain of 4.4 percent, a significant improvement over the first half of the year” [Calculated Risk]. “This appears to be a leading indicator for industrial production.”
Employment Situation: “According to Yellen, job market is at its strongest in close to a decade. Job creation is continuing at a steady pace, the lay-offs rate is low and job openings have are up over the past couple of years, which is another sign of a healthy job market. The Fed Chair also stated there are indications that wage growth is picking up and weekly earnings for younger workers have made strong gains over the last couple of years” [Economic Calendar].
Employment Situation: “Happy Holidays, You’re Fired: List of Companies Laying People Off” [247 Wall Street]. Boeing, GM, Caterpillar, Xerox, LImited Stores.
Employment Situation: “Manufacturing output is nearing prerecession levels. But about 1.5 million factory jobs—about 20% of positions lost during the downturn—haven’t returned. Manufacturers employed 12.3 million people in November, down from 13.7 million in December 2007, when the recession officially began” [Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Factories Are Working Again; Factory Workers, Not So Much”]. “‘We have two economies, and the other won’t ignite no matter how much gasoline you throw on it,’ said Pippa Malmgren, founder of H Robotics, a robotics development company, and a member of Indiana University’s Manufacturing Initiative.”
Rail: “Except for grain, waste and nonferrous scrap, and the ubiquitous “all other freight” category — code for empty rail cars moving to storage — all freight-rail segments are down this year” [Progressive Railroading]. “So, as we move into 2017: Are there any positives that the rail equipment industry can look for? While the answer to this question is mixed, the positives may outweigh the negatives. From a macro-freight standpoint, North American carloads next year are projected to increase 2.5 percent over 2016’s total, with all six major fleets participating in the increases.”
Shipping: “New orders for heavy-duty trucks, minus cancellations, rose in November, marking the first year-over-year monthly gain in 22 months” [DC Velocity]. “Net orders for heavy-duty trucks are one of the metrics used to gauge freight demand, as fleets generally will not make commitments to expensive equipment unless their order books indicate that demand will support the investment.”
Shipping: “Simply put shipping, or that part that is in the public eye, continues to decline as revenues fail to cover costs while the ships age and decline in value” [Splash 247]. “The shipping industry has raised substantial funds through the public stock markets, supported by an equally huge amount of debt from careless banks and export credit agencies in the major shipbuilding nations of Korea and China. These funds were chasing the illusion that ship values would quickly rise, enabling the ships to be sold for a profit. The reality is that shipping is a service industry whose assets physically depreciate over a relatively short time and only earn money when they carry cargoes.” Well worth a read.
Shipping: “Shipping’s kingpins hedge their bets” [Lloyd’s List]. “For the first time in decades, growth in world trade is falling below global economic growth. Economic prospects in key emerging markets remain uncertain and it is not obvious where a powerful new engine of growth is to be found. Protectionism and isolationist sentiments are eroding the very basis for global collaboration on which our industry relies.”
Globalization: “At the N.Y. Fed: Capital Flows, Policy Dilemmas, and the Future of Global Financial Integration” [Liberty Street]. “While global growth has slowed since the financial crisis, trade growth has contracted even more. Although international financial flows formerly tracked the pattern of global trade flows closely, financial markets across the globe have become even more highly integrated in recent decades and the forms of integration are always evolving. These linkages raise many important questions about the structure and performance of the international monetary system, the options available to policymakers in both advanced economies and emerging markets for stabilization, and the broader spillover effects of policies and shocks as domestically focused policies influence foreign outcomes.”
Globalization: “Mapping the Flow of International Trade” (animated map) [Metrocosm].
The Bezzle: “The billionaire’s money stopped showing up. Senior executives resigned left and right. Suppliers said they weren’t getting paid. You have no idea what a mess things are behind the scenes at the mysterious car startup Faraday Future” [Jalopnik]. “Faraday Future does not have an operating factory at the moment. With missing key suppliers and no factory, what does it have?”
The Bezzle: “Uber admits to self-driving car ‘problem’ in bike lanes as safety concerns mount” [Guardian]. Hoo boy. You don’t want to mess with the bicyclists…
The Bezzle: “Uber’s Loss Exceeds $800 Million in Third Quarter on $1.7 Billion in Net Revenue” [Bloomberg]. Hubert’s call looking pretty good…
The Bezzle: “Here’s Where the Self-Driving Car Stands Right Now” [Bloomberg]. The real story here is the very last paragraph (italics in the original): “(Updates to add information about technological challenges.).” Translation: The original piece was fluff, an embarassing public relations exercise.
The Bezzle: “But does the mainstream media ever check on whether the ‘experts’ got anything right? Let’s compare the ‘experts’ (conventional PhD economists) diagnoses and fixes with the results of their policies” [Of Two Minds].
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 79 Extreme Greed (previous close: 82, Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 8 (Extreme Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 20 at 11:40am. Still slowly deflating….
Our Famously Free Press
“The shift to more hard-news coverage, alongside an increase in content output, has paid off. Between April 2015 and this past November, traffic to Teen Vogue jumped from 2.5 million monthly unique visitors to 9.4 million, according to the magazine” [The Fashion Law]. “Teen Vogue could well exceed November’s surging web audience in December after an opinion piece, “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America,” generated more than a million unique visitors and the attention of publications worldwide. It’s the site’s best-performing piece of all time, unseating ‘How to Apply Glitter Nail Polish the Right Way.'”
Indeed:
What a mobile website is -supposed- to do pic.twitter.com/XKSzJnjCU5
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) December 17, 2016
Gaia
“Obama set to permanently block huge swathes of Arctic waters from drilling leases” [Splash 247]. “The sources say that the president will use a provision in a 1953 law, the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which empowers the president to occasionally withdraw certain unleased areas from being disposed… If the move does go ahead it is expected to be accompanied by similar action from Canada.”
Black Injustice Tipping Point
“Schuette: Four more officials charged in Flint water crisis” [Detroit Free Press].
Class Warfare
“Software Is Politics” [Fast Company (DK)]. “In the second decade of the 21st century, digital services—code and design—are changing how power is distributed…. So, if politics is about this distribution of power in society, software is now politics. The decisions of designers and developers are a political force of their own. And we are asking users to trust us with more data, to allow code to make more decisions for them all the time.”
News of the Wired
“In another sign that the company has prioritized the iPhone, Apple re-organized its software engineering department so there’s no longer a dedicated Mac operating system team. There is now just one team, and most of the engineers are iOS first, giving the people working on the iPhone and iPad more power” [Bloomberg]. Every time an iOS engineer touches OS X, the UI/UX becomes more crapified and less productive. They don’t seem to understand that the use cases for phones, tablets, and laptops/desktops are different.
“Apple’s Tim Cook assures employees that it is committed to the Mac and that ‘great desktops’ are coming” [TechCrunch]. Good to know. Will there be dongles?
” The short life and cult appeal of Peach ” [Daily Dot]. Social media as provincial backwater….
“A statistical analysis of the art on convicts’ bodies” [The Economist]. “Tattoos are unreasonably effective predictors of recidivism: we find that of the inmates who have been re-incarcerated, 75% percent had tattoos. Just 30% of the former convicts who have managed to stay out of prison were noted as having tattoos. ”
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 today’s plant (RH):
RH writes: “A pond deep in the woods of Vinalhaven, ME.” From his own correspondent: “FYI, Otter Pond has just frozen over. Looks like we’re going to have a real winter.”
Readers, I’ve gotten many more plant images, but I can always use more; having enough Plantidotes is a great destresser. Plants with snow are fine!
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Really good article from Counterpunch:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/20/it-wasnt-the-russians-hillary-lost-because-she-blew-off-sanders-and-his-voters/
The Russians, assuming they hacked at all which evidence has been shaky, didn’t have nearly as much impact as Clinton’s (and her base) decision to alienate the Sanders vote.
There seems to be this sort of blind ignorance that race and gender must dictate over class and economic interests. I have become convinced that it is an attempt to hide the true nature of the Democrats and their allegiance to Wall Street. The Republicans do it too, only with fundamentalist Christianity as the weapon of mass distraction.
A lot of Sanders voters likely stayed home and if they did vote, it was holding their nose. Worse for Clinton, some undoubtedly defected over because the issues were free trade, war (which Trump seems to want to avoid conflict with Russia), and Wall Street. Trump was literally a dice roll. Clinton was a 100% certainty of betrayal. Guess what people would choose?
If the Democrats want to win, they need to serve the people and not the donor class. The problem is that most politicians are too intellectually dishonest to admit the truth. They are careerists that sell out their nation and their people for their personal gain.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that the only way forward is going to have to be an abandonment of the Democratic Party by progressives and its replacement by a genuine progressive socialist party that is clearly of and for working people, and for those who cannot find work in this increasingly dystopic America.”
#Concur
Well, we’ll see. That’s what’s being fought out now; if the left can’t pry any part of the party machinery from the cold dead hands of the Clintonites (and there have been some Our Revolution victories that suggest that’s possible), then indeed they’ll have to look elsewhere. Given the GP debacle this election, I doubt the GP is that place. Maybe the DSA. At some point, it becomes a “power lying in the street” thing, since I don’t think there’s any possible way Trump can deliver on the expectations that working class voters have for him.
Incidentally, it occurs to be that Sanders backing (the imperfect) Ellison for DNC is one way to make life difficult for Saban — and the fewer squillionaire donors the Dems have, the better. So the Ellison move might be savvier than I first thought.
Anyone notice how Sanders $27 donor model, an amazing success, is being totally airbrushed from all dicussion?
Dmitry Orlov’s response is the best I’ve seen so far…
http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/12/brain-parasite-gonna-eatcha.html#more
The link doesn’t work for me.
correct link: http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/12/brain-parasite-gonna-eatcha.html
Thank you!
Apropos of nothing, Orlov’s article ‘The Power of “Nyet”‘ is one of the funniest things I’ve read this year. cluborlov.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-power-of-nyet.html
For some reason, the mental image of Putin and/or Lavrov sending Kerry into hysterics by continually saying “Nyet” to all of his presumptuous demands tickled my funny bone.
I was onboard until the comments at the end re: Soros funding Trump protests after the election.
No evidence at all. It’s the sort of thing he would do, but that’s no proof that he’s doing it.
Has BigSpook, Inc, actually released clear proof of Putin or “the Russians” hacking the DNC and Podesta’s emails? If so, please enlighten me.
I’m pretty sick and tired of being told by various propaganda outlets that I “have to believe” that BigSpook, Inc. has the goods on Putin. I don’t deny that Putin could’ve been behind it, but I want proof. I’m not seeing it. Saddens me that so-called “leftists” – who should know better – are all “in” for the CIA and extolling their allegedly numerous “vitues” and how the CIA only has the best interests of this country at heart. Bwa ha ha ha ha… pull the other one.
The worthless gormless stupid idiotic nonsensical bought-off sold-out “Democratic” party really should get it’s sh*t together, but excuse me while I don’t hold my breath. I’ve never seen such a bunch of sore losers, and that’s including the whining tantrum-throwing @sshole Tea Baggers in the summer of 2009 shrieking at Town Halls. This kind of Loserdumb is so pathetic.
Clintonistas really need to look in the mirror to see who’s at fault. The pushed and manipulated the NOT Inevitable One (because it was her turn) during the Primary. It almost didn’t take the emails to see the dirty tricks being played. Then having “won” (eg, manipulated) the Primary, does Clinton extend the Olive Branch to Sanders voters? Nay verily, not only Clinton but so-called “lefty” blogs all lined up to diss and bitch at what they dismissively called “BernieBros” and made fun of everyone who voted for Sanders. As my old dad used to say: That’s a Hell of a way to run a rail road … or POTUS campaign. Yeah, great, just spit in the faces of your potential voters.
Clinton was more enamoured of courting the vote of wealthy REPUBLICANS than she was of courting votes from the disgusting loathsome awful lowly despicable Democratic voter proles. And guess what? They’re not THAT stupid! They witnessed her endless $1000+ plate “fund raisers” larded with rich pop, actor, sports stars, and they figured: who wants to vote for her??
Many D voters stayed home (or only voted down ballot), and some significant minority of potential D voters rolled the dice and took a chance on Trump. At least Trump came out and talked to them at his rallies. I don’t like the outcome, but I can understand why this happened.
As long as the Clintons and the pathetic excuse called the “Democratic Party” refuses to countenance what REALLY happened and WHY, they are doomed to be the miserable worthless failures that they are. But I’m sure many of them – led by the likes of Chuck Schumer (D – Israel/Wall ST), and Nancy Pelosi (D – I only love the wealthy in SF/ Wall ST) – will say: What? Me Worry?? Because they are handsomely rewarded for their patheticness by their wealthy Oligarch Overlords.
The peasants, as far as the D Party is concerned, can pound sand.
Ptoui!
In the end it comes down to a number. What percentage of the Democratic Party, as currently constituted, consist of die hard Clintonite “irredeemables” ? 20%, 50%, or even 100%! IMHO if its 50%+ – which it probably is – then any notion of a Sanders-like class-based hostile takeover is doomed to failure. Worse the attempt to do such a takeover would so drain the energies of those trying it they’d have none left for actually campaigning … let alone any sort of 50 state strategy.
It’s probably over, the attempt to drag Ms. Annointed One over the finish line has killed it. No need for any fire.
Pollster.com trendlines during the primary did suggest that Clinton had a firm base of support around 50% of democratic voters. Bernie rose mostly by consolidating the non-Clinton vote. But given how Clinton was hyped from the start as our likely next president, many of the 50% might have been people believing they needed to stick with the (apparently) winning horse. There was the “first female president” element adding to this as well.
In light of the DNC actively campaigning against Sanders with such as Mandy Grunwald’s “socialist” talking point (may she starve in a cardboard box) and the “He can’t Get to Yes without the GOP”, the “winning horse” was an illusion as much as anything. (Not that any election precinct, let alone government, ever paid out a bet for picking the winner on a ballot.)
50% seems a little too neat. Given the media’s uncritical acceptance of DNC “hype” as “real news”, given the customary erasure of non-Establishment options, and given the ability to cook polls to-order, the number is suspect.
I doubt it can be neatly broken down by percentage. There will obviously be a division between paid operatives/representatives and ordinary supporters – many of the former depend on patronage so either have to be shifted out or ‘made a better offer’. But I suspect there is a huge floating group of Democrats who lean one way or another, but are ‘Clinton’ supporters mainly because of their high profile and history and the perception that they are (were) the leaders and winners.
Most ordinary people don’t have time or energy to get involved in factional arguments and disputes. They will go with the majority unless there is something really objectionable to them about that majority (just look at how Reps are lining up behind Trump).
To me, as an outsider, the most important thing the left/Sanders wing can do is to seize enough internal power to be a viable alternative to the mainstream Dems. By shifting the Overton Window to the left, then actual policies become clarified. It is then that you will really find out what the overall support base want. It will be up to the left to make the arguments as strongly and clearly as they can.
Again, this is what’s being fought out right now, in many states and localities. It might take a year to see any results. So far, there hasn’t been any open factional split in the Dem Party. But Trump might well precipitate one, and the establishment Dems will be yammering about unity for some new shit sandwich — remember the House sit-ins for using the no-fly list, which is a bad list, in gun legislation?
There seems to be a view that there’s going to be some space that’s not corrupt, that’s not contested, if only we could find it and start clean. I don’t think there is any such space.
Adding, I don’t think 50% is the way to look at it; averages conceal. I think the place to look is party establishments, state by state. And within each establishment there will be splits. IMNSHO, this is what Our Revolution ought to be doing…
Will need to watch both Our Revolution and DSA membership/donations starting Jan. 20th because that’s when reality will smack progressives and Dems right in the face.
There was a good brief “Trump will be our 45th president so you need realize that” article that nicely took down the Stein/Green recount and Hamilton Elector baloney – of course I can’t find it – but them’s the facts.
As a good Berniecrat I went to the inaugural (sorry!) local Brand New Congress meeting after the Democratic convention. Promising but we are a Deep Red state and really, Our Revolution seems to offer more room at the table for non-Democratic Party members as well as we aging Boomers and trade unionists. Need to throw the widest possible net to counter Boss Trump and his pack of hyenas… who will no doubt motivate many otherwise unpolitical folks to get off the couch or fence and do the work.
Thanks for the report.
I don’t buy the “Deep Red State” stuff. For one thing, some of the toughest people come from there. For another, Dean did get that right: 50 states!!!!
“Deep Red” in that there will be no Nebraska Democrats holding any state or federal office come January, and no particular indication of that changing any time soon. Sen. Nelson retiring in 2013 was the last though considered by many to be a classic DINO.
Eked out a few more state senate seats in our official non-partisan Unicameral, but the citizens of Nebraska restored the death penalty 60/40 along with electing a classic Tea Party Trumper to our 2nd Congressional District – a career Air Force type and retired general named Bacon no less! Still, lots of Bernie supporters in both parties here so 2017 will be nothing if not interesting…
Well one question asked is what motive the CIA (and now the FBI too I guess) would have to fake all these Russian hacking allegations if there was nothing to them? Is the motive there? Not so sure. The motive is there in many CIA crimes …
See I don’t think it can be known for sure if any of the hacking allegations are true at this point, so questions of is there any motive become relevant.
Ok. But what proof is there? There must have been something that was a tip off of some sort. Why aren’t we told about that? My understanding – could be wrong – is that Congress (or some committee) asked for proof of some sort, and that request was denied.
Why? And why can’t anyone know what this proof is? That’s what bugs me. Why should we accept what the CIA (or whomever) says without some sort of fuller information on what led them to this conclusion?
One can ask: why would the CIA do this without having some idea that it happened? Really? The CIA does a lot of stuff for a myriad of reasons. They overthrew Salvadore Allende because he was nationalizing Chile’s extraction industries (and other companies), and US companies didn’t like it. So Allende (and many Chilean citizens) were killed.
Why would the CIA say this? Geez, I don’t know… maybe to point the bone at Russia and give Putin a hard time. Seems to me that’s what Clinton wanted to do all along.
Just saying…
They serve the President, a Clintonite Democrat. And it’s entirely possible the CIA is dominated by Democrats, as the FBI appears to be dominated by Republicans.
And Trump has threatened to break some rice bowls.
Exactly.
That various intelligence agencies been partisan-ized is an elite factional split I never imagined. Real Godzilla vs. Mothra territory.
Actually no. Its pointless to ponder the possible motives of serial liars who have more secrets than morals. Its too easy to get lost in a mirror maze of guessing and paranoia while the truth stays intentionally hidden. Instead I suggest a complete dismissal of their accusations till some proof is shown.
I have no idea how anyone is taking seriously the people who lied about Iraq and gave weapons to Al-Qaeda in Syria.
Didn’t dem socialists (I don’t think it was DSA) just come out in support of Ellison after his declaration of fealty to the money class via Bittel in FL?
I agree there will have to be an advancement of worker ownership of the means of production and more public services but the current socialist groups getting attention don’t go much beyond supporting unions which is nothing but support of the current private property/private ownership of the means of production. If only the workers had more negotiating power… the corporation would still file for bankruptcy and eliminate the retirement fund.
Do you have a link for that bit about Ellison?
There are socialist and progressive factions in those unions which could prove less corporate (e.g. CTU teachers strike, CWA Verizon strike…) Hoffa almost lost the Teamsters to a progressive faction, see below. I think unions have the same issue as the Dems: the centrists need to be pushed out from inside. DSA and others are trying to hold “troublemaker schools” where factions can get stronger and make trouble. Not easy but a solid strategy.
http://labornotes.org/2016/12/election-squeaker-teamsters-united-nearly-topples-hoffa
The endorsement was the first hit from “dsa ellison” on DuckDuckGo. Google apparently prefers not to speak of the matter in the first 20 links or so, though a few DSA affiliates’ Facebook pages link to the endorsement.
“serve the people and not the donor class.”
Never Gonna Happen !!
I know this is going to seem awfully cliche’ … but in the venerable words of a certain Dr. … bearing the last name of McCoy : “They’re dead, Jim !”
Haha. Funny you say that. Star Trek caught my eye on Netflix the other day. Thought I’d check out the very first episode just for fun. I’m currently on the 5th or 6th episode and will probably continue over upcoming snowy winter days and nights.
Star Trek (the original series) is especially fun and thought provoking right now. Chekov’s Russian pride but camaraderie with his fellow Earthlings is a reminder that once upon a time peaceful co-existence was considered a good thing. The Prime Directive of non-interference with alien cultures should be adopted as a US foreign policy code. There is a deep sense that we often wrongly fear what we do not understand and that understanding The Other is extraordinarily difficult (one of my favorite episodes is The Devil in the Dark). The pride in what used to be naively called ‘American values’ (“We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal….”) is worn so openly that it would make any member of our globalist elite cringe. Great stuff. Happy viewing, Linda!
That’s why Sanders $27 model was so subversive, so subversive that nobody talks about it.
Because the donors were the people!
A friend of mine (Vietnam vet) in PA sends this “Meanwhile, I did what I could to prevent the election of Trump, even going so far as voting for Clinton on November 8th—the most distasteful thing I’ve ever had to do since I stopped killing people, and I am not speaking metaphorically—”
Luckily I’ve never been in a position to have to kill anyone. However, I confess that I voted for Clinton, and it was truly an awful awful disgusting position to be in. Ugh. What a hideous election.
To be fair, a single vote by a voter who is holding his nose counts the same as a single vote by an enthusiastic voter.
Clinton electoral logic 101
But if you didn’t vote, that’s the same as voting for Trump. And if you voted for Jill Stine, that was also a vote for Trump. No wonder he won. With so many ways to vote for Trump, how could he lose.
Well, if more people had voted for Sanders in the Democratic primary, Trump almost certainly would’ve lost the general election.
There was no way for Sanders to win in the primary. The system was rigged from start to finish. Thanks to the Rushans (hic), we know they tweeked the primary calinder to place the sothern states (those most llikly to vote for Clintion), the Sothern “Fire Wall” to give HRC an early lead. The DNC had their own voter suppresion at work to keep likly Sanders voters away from the polls. Then their were the Super Deligates in C’s back pocket. On top of that you had the constant drum-beat of Clintion’s ievitability vs Sanders un-electability.
I think that if the vote had been run more fairly, Sanders would have crushed it. But it was never in the cards.
I know the DNC establishment cheated against Sanders — in addition to Wikileaks, there’s evidence in New York, Illinois, Arizona, and elsewhere. Yet he came very close, despite all that was arrayed against him. I really believe that if more people paid attention to politics, and had actually voted in the primaries, he might have won.
How do we convince more people to pay a little attention to politics instead of sports and the Kardashians? I’m not asking people to give up sports and the Kardashians — I just want them to pay a little attention to what the oligarchs are doing.
Ben Franklin warned us that we have a republic “if we can keep it”. Well, most people don’t seem to have much interest in keeping it.
It’s going to be a very good thing that Sanders spread his (socialist) policy ideas as widely as he did in the primaries. Sets a baseline against which Trump cannot possibly deliver.
How do you get more people to “pay attention”? Offer genuine evidence based in the unfolding of current events that “paying attention” can actually make a difference.
Those who elected Trump were “paying attention” . . . one way or another . . . and have made some history. And if the Trump election can be interpreted to have swung on some few thousand votes in Michigan, then I can claim to have had a hand in making some history by having voted for Trump in Michigan. And if we are all alive in four years with no nuclear exchange with Russia, no new Trade Treason Agreements, and no Cannibal Liver-Eating Jihadis left alive in Syria, then onlookers will see a difference having been made.
And people who did not “pay attention” heretofore might say to themselves ” oh wow . . . if I had only “payed attention” and voted for Sanders in the primary, we might could have beaten the defeatable Clinton with Sanders instead of with Trump.”
I do predict that one way or another, President Trump will get rising numbers of people to “pay attention”.
Do you think that the millions of people who voted for Clinton in the primaries were paying attention to the reality about their candidate? They actually thought that she cared about improving the lives of middle and lower income people.
Now we will have Trump for President:
Scott Pruitt, enthusiastic advocate for pollution, will run the EPA.
Ryan Zinke, servant of the fossil fuel industry, will run the Interior Department.
Tom Price, as anti-woman as a Wahhabi jihadist, will be in charge of Health and Human Services.
Betsy DeVos, enemy of public schools, will be the Education Secretary.
Goldman Sachs alums will be running finance, although that’s no different from what would happen under Clinton.
Great stories from 2016 that will be told many times (by those who wish to tell) over in future years.
1. Hillary was robbed, but she fought to the end, even trying to swing some electors
2. Sanders could have won, who also fought to the end, working on super-delegates (who are not elected, unlike electors).
Then stories become legends and myths.
Some stories are true, some false.
Some 60% true, some 30% false, etc.
The other 10% are fantastic
T. Lawrence Shannon: The Fantastic Level and the Realistic Level are the two levels upon which we live.
~Night of the Iguana 1964
This qoute recirculates in my conciousness.
..So much good material, i’ll just put this her for you Beef:
http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0058404/quotes
T. Lawrence Shannon: Miss Fellowes is a highly moral person. If she ever recognized the truth about herself it would destroy her.
T. Lawrence Shannon: Nothing could be worse for a girl in your unstable condition, to be mixed up with a man in, in my unstable condition because two people in unstable conditons are like two countries facing each other in unstable conditons. The, eh, destructive potential, eh, could blow the whole world to bits!
Maxine Faulk: What’s this mess supposed to be?
Chang: Soup.
Maxine Faulk: Well, it’s burnt!
Maxine Faulk: [walks over to Chang, who is smoking marijuana] Chang… I’ve warned you before.
Maxine Faulk: I don’t allow this stuff on the premises, even if you’re on vacation.
Maxine Faulk: You remember the time you got it in the enchiladas?
~53 years ago.. still pithy
With the machine-rigging against both of them I doubt it would have mattered if more turned out. The cumulative vote share curves against them would simply have been steeper.
Not. I am fed up with the Dem’s good cop b.s. I was never going to vote Clinton, though would have gone for Sanders. I voted for Stein (never going to vote Trump). So only other option here in VA was leave president blank.
only if you have a bad cold that day etc. you get to the polls if you want to vote for someone and not so much so if you would just be holding your (runny) nose. Down ticket of course is also a reason to go to the polls.
This Sanders supporter voted Trump. The overplayed glee in using the “nasty woman” meme was just too much. It’s a shallow reason to vote for someone, but . . . eh. see Altandmain. My State went for HRC so it was a protest vote but I feel very pleased that we, at least for a bit, avoided war.
Hoo boy. You don’t want to mess with the bicyclists…
I can imagine an engineer over at Waymo attempting to abduct a Uber automated car and taking out a San Francisco cyclist in a false flag event, ‘cuz “that’s what my bosses would have wanted.”
About those automated cars, who will be liable when they hit the bicyclist? When New Mexico made automobile liability insurance mandatory, car owners were required to buy a liability insurance policy on each car they registered, not just one policy on the driver’s risk. Can inanimate objects be held liable? Can software writers be held liable?
pissed-off cyclists …
they’re the land version of surf nazis !!
If one were to be injured, or worse, killed by an self-driven vehicle … then one could expect all kinds of ‘monkey-wrenching going on !
My understanding is that the Uber cars are “assisted” driving, not self-drive, only slightly more advanced than the Tesla auto-pilot. This fits in with Uber’s model, they probably intend to use “off-shore” labour to pilot the cars. Lambert gave a write up of the DOT / SAE classifications for the levels of automation that will be incorporated, and Uber’s expectations are far lower than Google/WayMo.
As a certain vulture of TV and Press put it, “I intend to be the 2nd user of new technology” (for putting labour out to pasture). Let someone else beat themselves to death on making it work, then either pay a license or worm around the holes in the patents.
I should add it’s probably still a bezzle, as Yves articles have shown. Primary function is to make a noise, just as Uber’s probably got a warehouse in India full of consoles and locals playing a video game to show the VC.
Hubert’s.
Sorry, Hubert Horan (part 1 to 5 and Izabella Kaminska posts on NC about the Bezzle that is Uber.
Hubert’s starting here
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-one-understanding-ubers-bleak-operating-economics.html
and ending here
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/can-uber-ever-deliver-part-five-addressing-reader-comments-and-questions.html
Kaminska: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/uber-gig-economy-the-brutality-of-the-system-is-being-lost-on-those-who-actually-use-these-apps.html
I should add this is one way around the work visa issue, and what make’s Apple, MS, and Google;s empires really run at huge profits off-shore beyond the tax office. These opperations make invoicing their profits off-shore easy-peasy
Grizziz: See it first on Dilbert? Adams will probably get to it soon enough.
You sure don’t want to mess with the bicyclists. I have a heavy U-lock that could make a real mess when it hits a car window.
Then again, drivers have a heavy car which can make a real mess when it hits a bicyclist. I have always viewed myself as a tiny Jurassic-era ratlike mammal-thing among the Golden Age Dinosaurs when I bike on the roads. No challenging the drivers for me.
Yeah, particulary in places like China, where it’s cheaper to kill you than to be on the foot for your medical bills. Sometimes I think the USA is pretty much the same, ala that fellow who killed everyone in his truck drunk driving, and then got the Judge to give him an easy out because his family being too wealthy messed him up.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2015/09/why_drivers_in_china_intentionally_kill_the_pedestrians_they_hit_china_s.html
In Florida one would only have to say one felt one’s life at risk to get a get out of jail free card.
And what are the crushing regulations with which Uber so righteously refuses to comply?
“…paying a $150 fee and filling out a four-page application.
“Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, Google, Ford and 16 other companies have complied with a 2012 California law – supported by tech companies – by applying for and receiving Department of Motor Vehicles permits to test roughly 130 self-driving cars on California roads.
“By law, each vehicle must have a driver at the wheel in case the sensors fail and the car requires a human’s touch. Companies also must attest that drivers have clean driving records, and that the cars have proper insurance, hardly onerous requirements.”
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorials/article122057364.html#storylink=hpdigest
Uber is losing a boatload of money. That $150 fee and car insurance costs might break them.
Uber was operating under any publicity is good publicity, and also playing up to the Republican’s by giving them more talking points about how “regulations” are screwing growth.
Hoo boy. You don’t want to mess with the bicyclists…
right, because those CRAZAY bicyclists don’t want you f@$kwits at the helms of your two ton, polluting death machines to fucking KILL us while you’re texting or changing the music on your personal device. (pretty hard to understand, those crazy bicyclists, amirite?)
Yes, what I said. Your point?
well played, well played
Paul Krugman loses his shit:
No, he’s smearing it an the wall and rolling in it..
If you take him in the vein of The Onion parody, he is unintentionally funny
I say yank out his illogic circuits … and throw him in the Refuse Heap of History …
I thought Olberman was equally funny…that is once I realized that he would not suffer an on-air heart attack or other equally dangerous seizure.
Regarding Krugman losing his shit, he completely out did himself in his most recent column by claiming Trump actually solicited Putin’s help. No one, not even David Brock has jumped this far over the shark before this. Up to now, the claims of even the most partisan of the Hilleryites have been limited to Trump benefiting from Putin’s actions, but now Krugman apparently believes (with absolutely zero additional evidence) that it was Trump who initiated whatever it is that was supposed to have happened, and that it was only Putin helping Trump out at Trump’s own request.
Why is the New York Times even tolerating this madman anymore? Krugman is literally delirious, and completely out of touch with anything even close to resembling the real world.
Why is the New York Times even tolerating this madman anymore?
Krugman = The NYT= The Krell
The ID consuming the Host.
“The Krell” ….. Ha ha ! …. A most apt term, optimander …
Maybe we should all start referring to the ‘Real’ Fake News orgs., and the pundant class, in the main, as ‘Krell’ …
seems as good as any collective moniker, no?
kinda rolls off the tongue …. “Krrrelll”
From the WikiPedia entry:
Yes, that’s basically it.
I’ve just used the simpler phrase MSM fake news, myself. NPR fake news. Fake NPR news, etc.
“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” the Republican nominee said at a news conference in Florida. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”
That was from a speech July 27 and referred, whether seriously or jokingly (as Trump later claimed), to the emails deleted from Clinton’s server. The DNC leak had already occurred, as had the phishing of Podesta’s email, which may or may not have been the source of the Podesta leak. Neither of those sets of emails were from Clinton’s server.
He was being deliberately provocative–neither serious nor joking. He was hitting one of his favorite targets, the press, and goading them to react. He does this all the time–pressing emotional buttons to distract or test or simply to take an opponent down a notch. We’ve all got to get used to/understand his style and or we will spend the next four years tilting at windmills. From the July 27 press conference C-Span clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kxG8uJUsWU
That’s a really good point. He’s very good at getting people to get outraged about some not-shiny shiny object (a stinky object?) while he does the real damage. Going to be lots of wasted energy, I’m thinking.
Trump is the best troll in the world, bar none.
And the beauty part is that the emails, all of them, were legit. Nobody has shown they are fake.
So we have a political class that is so corrupt, and a press so complicit, that revealing the truth causes the entire system to melt down in a chaos of finger-pointing and pearlclutching. What does that say? Whoever did the leak, whether a DNC whistleblower or a teenager in a New Jersey basement or Boris Badenov, I think the voters owe them, big time. Can’t have a democracy if you don’t have an informed populace.
While we are on the subject of the opinions of not-really-Nobel Nobel prize winners, Stiglitz is lamenting that the excellent current course of the American economy is going to get derailed by Trump, possibly.
http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/no-glad-tidings-for-america-1.1949232
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-lead-testing/
Lead! It’s a problem. A big problem. Much respect to Reuters for doing research on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGHPflqC9hU – Good segment from TYT on this story.
If Dems had their heads on straight (I know, I know)…they’d be ALL over this yelling at local officials to FIX THOSE PIPES and tabling legislation to throw like $50bn at giving everyone new water system, cleaning up pollution and throwing subsidies for those who remodel their house to remove old lead paint.
If you want to contrast where the Dems are, with where average people are, nothing shows the divide like listening to them yelling about ‘fake news’ and “reds under the bed” and letting small kids get poisoned all across the country, even in their precious swing states.
Also, if Trump wants to turn those districts republican red for LIFE, he’ll go into those districts and fix the problem, or at least been seen faking it (to build on Lambert’s idea from a few months back).
The GOP is already tossing out coins to the peasants, and if they do it often enough, we’ll have them permanently. Granted, this needs to get through the Senate, but unless there’s something really toxic in it what Dem would dare oppose it?
Per Michigan Radio:
Krugman firing the blame cannons exclusively at forces the Clinton campaign could not control is to emphasize the narrative
* that the Clintons ran a perfect campaign otherwise
* that the Clintons cannot fail – any failures are due to the failures or betrayals of others
* that Clintonism/neoliberalism is the only true, consensus choice
As the Wizard said, “Do not look behind that curtain!”
Apparently “The Russian’s hacked my phone!” excuse has made it’s way into use by Boston defense lawyers.
http://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/Aaron-Hernandez-Back-in-Court-in-2012-Double-Murder-407569285.html
I’m just amazed at the legs this whole “Putin Did It” has.
i wonder if that would fly with a red light camera ticket.
Inquiring self-driving cars want to know!
Since the election, I have been stunned by the relentless propaganda from our media and political establishment about Russian hacking and about the war in Syria. I haven’t seen anything like it in decades, if ever.
Perhaps it just seems that way since there are many more outlets to discern the truth available to ordinary citizens than in the past.
Is it worse, or are we just paying better attention?
Once you see that “our kind of people” (college educated, upper-middle-class, liberal, blah blah) are consumers of crude propaganda designed to justify or cover up imperial crime of the highest order, you can’t “unsee” it.
Once you figure out that consumption of such dreck is in fact the hallmark of your kind, that such verities and intelligences in which you once took pride of ownership is in fact trash – and laughable, tawdry trash at that – then the veil is torn, never to be repaired.
I remember being shocked at the liberal metooism – among rank and file, mind you, not just the elite – that made “our kind” cheerleaders for Clinton’s/Albright’s war against Serbia. From there on out, I was mostly ruined, with a bit of resuscitation when I got a hopium injection in 2008, which quickly and permanently wore off.
Numerous downtown business had a power outage today, so of course we concluded “The Russians did it!”
The Russians hacked my homework.
Is there a clear dividing line between the hysteria of a faction and a full-fledged moral panic?
I guess we’re going to find out…
Maybe kids who didn’t do their homework can start saying: The Russians hacked my homework.
As someone who used to finance the trucking industry, I question this observation. Fleet operators (of which there are fewer ever since Carter deregulated the industry) need to turn over their rolling stock every seven years. By then, the combination of lost depreciation and increased maintenance expenses begins to affect the financials. It is also possible that manufacturers are offering deals to keep the lines running during a slow period or that publicly held freight companies believe long-term rates are going to rise (the larger companies were moving away from banks and towards private placements beginning back in the 1980s).
Awesome. Thanks so much.
Sadly, prioritizing iOS development over OS X has led to crapification of iOS as well.
Being an Android guy, I wouldn’t know, but can you please elaborate on what is happening to iOS?
I’m thinking these days that we need a completely open source operating system (probably a Linux version) that is not beholden to any company and uses mostly open source software (kind of like on Linux).
I believe it revolves around giving the GUI a layout / functionality that only makes sense on small screens / touchscreens, like Windows 8 tried. Not sure why prioritizing X crapifies X though, would expect it to crapify Y. But maybe this just shows I didn’t take Ec 202?
The main problem with iOS stems from too many developers working on the platform, which means some need to justify their continued employment which leads to multiple changes in iOS in places where it wasn’t needed. For example; the Music app used to be just fine. It has gone through so many iterations and changes it has started to become of dubious usefulness as controls/layout etc keep changing. Repeat this for other apps, like adding unwanted “signature mode” to the messenger app meaning I can’t text with the phone in landscape mode and you get the idea.
Where both Mac and iOS were previously very focused they no longer are.
Reminds me of Windows downward spiral. Complexity increases over time even when the functionality required by an application remains unchanged.
Exercise writer Dan John has a phrase for when people want to switch a program that is working: “Things are going so well, help me screw it up!”
Yeah that makes some sense.
Linux has that kind of issue on the desktop, although you can choose your distro and desktop environment so it’s kind of reduced. But Apple doesn’t give you even that so it seem worse.
That’s part of the problem, but Lambert’s point stands. Every new iteration of osx is more ios like, more utility is hidden or completely removed if you don’t know how to use terminal commands. I pay a premium for mac laptops because the fit and finish is so nice, and everything just works better than even the best windows laptops. But the os is getting worse and worse from a utility standpoint.
One of the things FOSS does poorly is user experience, and for many of the same reasons as Toshiro cited re Apple: confusing innovation, or, in the Free Desktop Foundation’s case, a more perfect OS X clone, with productivity.
The story of systemd eating userspace is instructive as to how FOSS gets co-opted and driven by companies with labor to spare for an endeavor. Watch out for skilled people who otherwise know what they’re talking about, using specious reasoning and emotional investment to rationalize a dangerous or ineffective feature…
There was some talk about the ubiquitous web tracking/monitoring/ad serving players a couple of days ago.
Just came across this…an ad-blocker with added powers…
https://adnauseam.io
AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on the ad networks databases. As the data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user profiling, targeting and surveillance becomes futile.
This may sound like a bizarre question, but what has happened to Paul Krugman in the past 2 years?
He seems to have undergone an Establishment shill brain transplant. Before, at least he was openly criticizing Obama for the small stimulus.
Need you ask?
Read the Club Orlov article referenced above.
After preaching for decades to the NYT readership that stupid men that make stuff are, stupid, Krugman’s IMF missive Lambert linked to yesterday reveals himself to be a hoax economist.
. . . Chinese exports really have displaced millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs . . .
He led-off the election campaign with a twofer back-to-back on his blog about how Canadian single-payer health care was killing people.
I imagine in the big picture, if you’ve been an influential economist, you’ve been a full professor, you’ve won a Nobel, you’ve been taken on at a major institute, what to do next? Poor guy. No cabinet post for you.
Poor guy. No cabinet post for you.
Whether it’s cabinet posts or other recognition and elevation I do think this is what is causing a lot of the big lashing out. Many people are feeling personally ripped off from what was due to them. It’s generating hate for the voters and Russians who stole their new, wondrous life from them (not to mention made them look like fools).
Even in terms of his supposed core competence, he’s lost it – he bangs on all the time about the IS/LM curve, but seems not even to really understand how limited that model is for the real world.
https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2016/12/20/the-non-existence-of-paul-krugmans-keyneshicks-macroeconomic-theory/
I get the impression that he’s the classic example of a really driven person who’s achieved his life goals (nobel prize/NY column) and doesn’t have a clue what else to do. It doesn’t help that his economics work was driven not by a need for truth, but for acceptance by the ‘right’ people.
But he knows that if you ignore “hard scientists who think they are smarter than economists” then civilisation can be saved. The answer is twice as many ships travelling at half the speed…
http://www.postcarbon.org/paul-krugman-and-the-limits-of-hubris/
“Witters”.
Sorry.
(Though here is one case – miss typping your name* – where being constantly in moderation doesn’t seem to help.)
Being a Canadian, that’s crazy.
We have our problems, but universal healthcare, if anything needs to be expanded into universal dental care.
I don’t get it, isn’t it true chinese exports have displaced millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs?
As Krugman states to the IMF:
“Chinese exports really have displaced millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs; imports from developing economies are an important reason, although not the only reason, for stagnating or declining wages for less-educated workers.”
I think the point is, Krugman would not likely say that in a NYT column but, talking to the IMF he takes on a different identity and is less of a “Neo-Liberal” shill.
That is it, exactly jhallc.
We learned that Bill Clinton and the economists sitting on their throne at the policy table right beside him guided the policy that deliberately sacrificed the jobs of stupid men that make stuff to the Chinese and for decades these economic assclowns have been telling everyone that it’s the fault of the idiots that work with their hands and brain, those low and no skill workers, because they are not smart enough to compete.
It’s grand scale economic malpractice, but Krugman would prefer to spin his head around like a Chucky doll than admit any of this to his constantly lied to NYT readership. When it comes to his recent IMF article he freely admits to the insiders that US manufacturing workers were harmed, and I want to drive this point home, constantly calls those workers low skilled, and inferring it’s their own fault.
. . . imports from developing economies are an important reason, although not the only reason, for stagnating or declining wages for less-educated workers. . .
It was a deliberate policy of Bill Clinton’s administration to feed manufacturing workers into the globalization facemill, and Krugman links to another IMF article where this is written:
. . .the recent economic growth of China and India. India’s per capita real GDP grew from $553 in 1991 (in 2010 dollars) to $1,806 in 2015 while China’s rose spectacularly, from $783 in 1991 to $6,416 in 2015.
When it comes to making stuff, that’s the competition. But those Chinese are not the ones buying up multi million dollar real estate in Vancouver, Toronto, Seattle and elsewhere with loot. That’s done by the Chinese Criminal Party members that colluded with big business elite to steal the earnings of the Chinese peasants while simultaneously destroying manufacturing workers and their families lives for profit here.
Now that the backlash of these policy decisions have manifested themselves in a Trump presidency, Krugman is clueless about the path that got us here.
Hillary Clinton and not staying ovenight. As someone mentioned a while back in the comments, flying back to NYC almost every evening is distinctly odd. The commenter speculated that it points to some serious illness that requires a certain drug regimen. (Coumadin?)
Or is Marie Antoinette (sorry, Marie, ma reine) all over again? Only that little boulangerie in Chappaqua makes the proper croissant?
It isn’t as if Hillary Clinton would have starved to death doing a campaign swing around Lake Michigan. She could have rented a train. So what if she would have had to subsist for one night on a perch dinner with tartar sauce and maple-nut fudge from Mackinac Island?
For someone who wanted a robust, muscular, tubular foreign policy, does Hillary Clinton think that generals return home for dinner every night? I suspect that she does, and that she doesn’t understanding the underlying meaning of the word “campaign.” (A night in the countryside with fudge.)
It may seem like a minor issue, but for want of a nail.
Additionally, she just thought she had the election in the bag, and didn’t need to work harder for it. Schmoozing with the billionaires at various fundraisers in CA must have been much more fun. With the money donors’ expectations that she would be prez, I’m sure she enjoyed their flattery and attention.
Some pundit (how is that for a source?) mentioned, that the Clinton campaign thought Trump was campaigning in Michigan to throw them off, make them campaign there and spend funds unnecessarily.
It doesn’t say much for her concerns about climate change either that she flew every day in a private jet home.
Although I seem to remember reading that Trump likewise also liked to sleep in his own (no doubt gold leaf covered) bed in Trump Tower every night? I wonder if he told his pilot to go faster so he could say his private plane was better than Hilary’s.
no kidding. And I’m not even one of those who is hard on climate activists for flying, if they think their activism is likely to have an impact and that traveling might help in their activism.
But this is pure vanity and selfishness (for both of them but noone expects any different from Trump – I mean in your face waste and extravagance is his entire persona.).
Well, that’s the problem then. Hillary couldn’t get the train to stop at Mackinac, so she just wasn’t going.
I read somewhere that Trump flew home to NYC a lot, too.
107 vs. 70 campaign stops is quite a difference….
I remember very first Clinton campaign trip — the van to Iowa where she stopped at Chipotle. This is complete speculation, but I think the campaign was testing the possibility of a small venues barnstorming strategy like they used in the latter half of the 2008 primaries (after the caucus debacle). That takes physical stamina, however. Clinton flew home, never attempted anything similar. So….
Matthew Inman’s Tweet on web design is brilliant. He hits on one of my pet peeves. My other peeve is typographic design on the web, especially the trend towards low-contrast fonts.
https://backchannel.com/how-the-web-became-unreadable-a781ddc711b6#.7jxty2m1i
i see that in books nowdays, too. drives me crazy.
Wired Magazine, print edition, used to be the worst! In addition to low contrast, the font size was teeny-tiny. Haven’t seen it in a long while so don’t know how it is now.
Once they had a note from the Editors on the Letters page, saying roughly “Yes, we know you don’t like the typeface and colors. So, please don’t bother writing about it anymore.”
But, they didn’t make any changes. It was “yes, we know – too bad!”
This is nothing new for the hipsters who think that “design” trumps “usability” (readibility in this case). Back in the day, I looked at the first issue of Wired magazine and has the same WTF reaction to very low contrast typography compounded by tiny font sizes. And my eyes were not suffering from presbyopia then. If you look at their back issues, you will see immediately what I mean, although they have gotten marginally better over the years. Their “creatives” must have moved on to the web or more likely poisoned whole generations of Michelangelo wanabes whose’s wonderful creations are crappy at doing their primary job but look oooh so pretty. And all this time I just want to look at the content.
Hi Linda, the page just refreshed and I saw your comment. I remember their snotty attitude also.
Agreed, Carycat. This is endemic. I used to love Goodreads.com but they got bought out by…wait for it…Amazon and have never been the same since. They fell for this whole crapification by design thing and ruined a great reading social media experience to (in theory) drive clicks and sales.
Alex Himmelfarb, onetime Clerk of the Privy Council in Canada had a blog about issues of governance. Very nice guy, very good insights about government, but totally illegible. Last I looked, it seems to be an archive site, as though he’s retired from blogging, unless he’s found even more low-key website staff to keep him from being read.
Look on the bright (uhg) side … those fonts may blend too well .. to the point where the public just throws up their hands in frustration … and gives up on App, Goog, twit …etc. , because it’s just not worth ruining one’s vision for the sake of some crappified web site …
edit: this was in response to Hana M above ..
Thanks, polecat. That’s exactly what happened to me and Goodreads. But it was even worse because the algorithms (Ah yes, those Weapons of Math Destruction!) have made it nearly impossible for Goodreads friends to keep in touch with each other. I had/have? a wonderful, thoughtful group of friends on GR and we are rapidly losing each other thanks to computers and management gone mad.
In the past 2-3 years or so, I have been led to disable CSS on an increasing number of WWW sites so as to make them legible.
This takes care of low contrast fonts, useless headers and footers that eat away space and perturb scrolling, and errors in viewports and scaling. The result has a 1996 touch to it (black text on white background, all links in blue).
Spent all day looking for WordPress themes and I agree. I’m not happy with what I see generally, and I noticed the text contrast thing too. Web is in a bad place right now.
Nobody forced Clinton to make 70 campaign stops in the last 10 weeks, when Trump made 107.
Nobody forced Clinton to fly home every night.
Nobody forced Clinton to spend the month of August doing fundraisers, instead of on the trail.
I wonder if Clinton’s bizarre travel schedule during the tail end of the campaign had something to do with her failing health?
I’ve heard she insisted on sleeping in her 24 carat gold and ivory coffin every night, which, for obvious reasons, she could not take with her while campaigning. It was a gift from the Saudis btw.
integer, I noticed a remark of yours that seemed to suggest that your comments were vanishing. So I went looking and found this one – I have no idea why it disappeared in the first place, but let me know if it happens again.
[…] I might as well say “Hi Yves, I hope you are well and the lawsuit against WaPo is not causing you too much stress.”
Imo the site is suffering from your absence, though I do understand why the need to forcefully slap WaPo down is your highest priority at the moment. Don’t forget to sleep once in a while.
Oops, the above comment wasn’t meant to be a reply to Stormcrow. Not having much luck lately hahaha.
“Drug firms poured 780M painkillers into WV amid rise of overdoses”
http://www.wvgazettemail.com/news-health/20161217/drug-firms-poured-780m-painkillers-into-wv-amid-rise-of-overdoses
So basically big pharma is killing Americans, and making a killing doing it. (h/t Charlie Pierce)
This is worse than the 60’s! (I was working in the crises drug intervention field while in grad school) At that time our biggest problem was with barbiturates on the street. (Quaaludes being the easiest to get) Drug manufacturers were then producing 4 times the number of barbiturates as being prescribed in the US.
The manufacturer’s defense was that they were selling the excess supply to legal pharmacias over the border in Mexico and it was not the drug manufacturers fault that the drugs were finding their way back onto the streets of America.
The Pharma sector really needs to be nationalized. I mean *really* needs to be nationalized. The problems in the current system are inherent and structural in the form of baked in perverse incentives that no attempts at regulation can ever hope to cope with. I’d let private pharmaceutical companies bid on contracts to produce medicines, but all pharma IP should by law belong to the public. Developing medicines for profit should net you prison time.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++1
Kurt, so many +es. That is the only net-healthy plan right there.
Prison time, hmm. I’d imagine simple inaction would be cheaper. If anyone they know could, pending the same sort of cleanliness inspections as any other food packing industry, build a plant and run the same Twade-Sekrit reactions right across the street, with the full blessing of the state, it becomes rather harder to find help on the open market and harder still to keep them onside once they learn some things.
The only question left would be what the credentialled professional classes have left to offer us in exchange for what they once expected us to call food.
+1
Australia’s nationalized pharma scheme works pretty well.
The 44,307 vote difference (Trump to Clinton) in PA excerpted above from the Cook Political Report caught my eye, because as some of you may recall, some of the numbers came up in a discussion here the other day.
I had a 68,000 vote difference in PA which I got from Politico’s elections results page.
Checking on this discrepancy, I found that The NYT has the 44,000 number, and so does the PA .gov elections page. The Cook Report is correct.
I believe Politico’s numbers were correct at one time, but obviously, they have not kept up with updates. I’m pretty sure the PA recount request was denied so I don’t know where a change this great came from.
Mentioning it in case others are still reviewing numbers. Best to stick with NYT over Politico. I used to check The Guardian, but their results page doesn’t fully load for me. I went with Politico on election night because it was nicest to my browser.
Interestingly, the statewide democratic candidates in PA other than HRC and HRC clone McGinty all won their races. The Attorney General candidate won by a bit more than 150,000, and the auditor general and treasurer candidates by 250,000+ and 300,000+.
And I have little doubt that Sestak could also have outperformed Clinton and won the Senate seat, had not Clinton, Obama, the remnants of the Rendell organization and the DSCC not all thrown the nomination to revolving-door bureaucrat/consultant McGinty in a continuation of their vendetta against Sestak for not lying town for Arlen Specter back in 2010.
> their vendetta against Sestak for not lying down for Arlen Specter back in 2010
Un-PC joke to follow:
Democrat Alzheimers: They forget everything but the grudges. Of course, I’m not immune; I came up as a Democrat…
Michigan, which was really irrelevant , keeps getting mentioned as one of 3 states for Trump that decided the election. I am a Michigan resident and stayed up to watch the results. All networks had called for Trump and Clinton had conceded the election before Michigan was called and its electoral votes were put in Trump’s column.So, no, the results in Michigan were perhaps illustrative , but they did not decide the election along with the other swing states mentioned. It is not disputed that, had Michigan’s electoral votes had gone to Clinton, Trump would still have won. To say that Michigan was one of 3 states that decided the election has about the same likelihood of being true as to say that Russian state actors distributed “hacked” emails to Wikileaks AND that those emails were read by voters AND their minds were thereby changed to vote for Trump where before the release they were voting for Clinton or undecided. It is irritating that this trope keeps getting repeated. And don’t say “yeah but it’s three states. You can pick another state that Obama won in 2012 that Hillary lost, one that was called for Trump before the concession. Even if Michigan’s votes never got decided Trump had acquired the necessary 270 before Michigan was called.
I pick . . . Iowa. It was Iowa’s flipping that made Wisconsin and Pennsylvania put Trump over the top. And it’s Rust Belt too, if not quite Great Lakes.
Wait a minute, did I leave out Ohio? Oh well, who cares. My dad’s favorite Manhattan lawyer story: he said he’d just come from a board meeting in Iowa, and the lawyer replied, “Oh yes, Iowa . . . we call it Ohio.”
The Michigan story was cited here a few days ago in a (Politico?) article about how poorly the Clinton campaign was run. Yves or Lambert used the term “political malpractice” to describe the stupidity of the Clinton campaign in Michigan, but there’s no reason to believe it was limited to that state. Indeed, the stupid was replicated nationwide.
The point is independent of the number of electoral votes that Michigan has. The point is that a Democrat who loses Michigan — Michigan, for Chrissakes — has already lost a lot of other states needed to get to 270. Clinton lost not only Michigan, but 3 other states that are must-wins for a Democrat: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa. The last Democrat to lose those 4 states? Walter Mondale. Even the worthless campaigns of Michael Dukakis and John Kerry won those states. And the result in Minnesota was shockingly close; I can’t tell you from memory who the last Democrat was to lose in MN, but it was a *long* time ago. No Democrat can win a presidential election with that kind of campaign. The fact that she did so poorly across all those states pretty much tells the story of the election. The Democrat lost after alienating the bedrock, backbone of the Party. Just like George McGovern.
Good riddance, I say.
“The Democrat lost after alienating the bedrock, backbone of the Party. Just like George McGovern.”
Wasn’t McGovern the reason behind seting up the “Super Delegates” in the DNC primary so they wouldn’t select an unelectable candidate ever again? How’d that work out this time?
the south starting to desert the democrats didn’t help at all–part of that mcgovern loss really was down to racism.
no it was to assure a liberal never won again, and it seems to have worked.
Um, no. All we’ve gotten have been liberals. Of the neo flavor, it is true, but judgmentalism and arrogance are still part of the essence of the system, and, contrary to liberal dogma, being right more than 50% of the time does not make the insufferable sufferable.
And don’t forget, Hillary thought she was going to win Michigan in the primary, only to lose to Bernie. For her to then just assume she would win Michigan AGAIN is borderline insanity.
> the stupid was replicated nationwide
Yes, it was. Ada, their campaign software, was hosed (a story that had disappeared off the radar. I’ve always wondered who hooked the Clinton campaign up with the Ada developer ***cough*** Eric Schmidt ***cough***).
Oh, man, Yglesias. I thought the big selling point of the Dems was that they were the not-racist party?
i think it was mainly the not-trump party after the primaries were over.
Plenue, take one step meta. The selling point is that the selling point is that they are the not-racist party. Long ago the Democratic (sic) Party used to court their voters with whiskey and fried chicken. Today the currency, as appropriate for the aspirational and materially sufficient, is the conceit of holiness.
Krugman: the guy who thinks white people living in trailer parks are responsible for the poor economic prospects of black people and that the 0.1% have nothing to do with it….
Apparently, when bankers*** give you the misnamed “Nobel” prize in economics, it signifies that you are incapable of understanding that people living in trailers do not control even their own lives, never the less anybody else’s…..
***But, technically, there is no Nobel Prize in economics.2 Instead, there is the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in 1969 and is named not after a person, but after the central bank of Sweden — the Sveriges Riksbank — which funds it. The Nobel Foundation doesn’t pay out the award or choose the winner (though the winner is chosen in accordance with the same principles used by the Nobel Foundation), but it does list the prize on its website along with the Nobels, tracks winners the same as Nobel laureates, and even promotes the prize alongside its own. Members of the Nobel family have spoken out against the award.
+ Interesting background, thanks!
Sweden …. one of the perveyors of the ‘WAR on CASH”
‘but, but we gives out NOBLES !!!’ …while ALSO accepting ‘questionable’ refugees who trash their host ..
Idiots !
Sen. Peters’ seat on Armed Services could be good for Michigan bases
Hack senator complicit in mass Yemeni murder (http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=114&session=2&vote=00145)… General Dynamics was one of his top 10 contributors in his recent campaign. If I wanted to track any special contracts they might receive, is there a way to do this or is that all behind closed doors stuff?
Also, would there be a what to look up any existing contracts General Dynamics might have?
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-elections/harvard-professors-us-president-barack-obama-grave-concern-donald-trump-mental-stability-a7482586.html
(Credentialed) Citizens Express Concern:
Tweedledum:
Trump should have to provide a note from a psychiatrist.
“I have never evaluated a more well adjusted, perfect individual ever in my career as a psychiatrist. He is amazing and wonderful. It is an honor to have tested him and to have had many meaningful conversations with him. He is brilliant and normal beyond my ability to measure.”
Sincerely,
The Dr.
He could use the same upstate New York Doctor that evaluated Hillary Clinton’s health prior to her campaign! He is a truly world class note writer, if not particularly well known in his field(s) of expertise.
Just ask any of the Clintons.
Clinton’s doctor is a woman.
Both Clintons? With Bill, that might be described as a “hands on” profession. With Bill, also, I’m surprised that the “Energizer Bunny” isn’t written off his tax bill as “Physical Therapy.” (I’m stumped to think up what could be called “Mental Therapy” for either of the older Clintons.)
Do we know who Trumps doctor is, and how long the two have been associated with each other?
Finally, do I see an affinity between this latest gambit in the Trump delegitimization campaign and the film “The Presidents Analyst?”
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_President%27s_Analyst
So much of what was smeared as ‘Conspiracy Theory Theatre’ back then has turned out to be true or near to it.
As Lambert likes to say; “When you’ve lost reality….”
Perhaps those deplorables who voted for him should be checked by those experts as well…free of charge, because not too many can afford that mental health care.
I’d go for the dental work, personally, before moving up Maslow’s hierarchy toward self-actualization…
Re the transformation of the Democratic Party (a genius member of the NC commentariat said that in Washington, an organization is often characterized as the opposite of its name- thus really the Anti-Democratic Party)
I grew up in the coal fields of Kentucky, West Virginia and Southern Ohio. My parents worked for the United Coal Workers. Then, in my mind, the Democratic Party was epitomized by “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” (about the Dust Bowl).
Now I see a party that is enamored with the Communist Chinese and deeply threatened by Putin’s Russia. They are antagonistic to working people and in the back pockets of TPTB. They have roamed the World, leaving chaos, instability, hunger and death everywhere they turn their attention. None of this makes sense to me. Me trying to make some sense.
Lenin died in 1924 and Joseph Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR. Stalin called for “Socialism in one country (the USSR).”
In opposition to Stalin, Trotsky called for a continuing permanent world revolution that would inevitably result in the dismantling of the Soviet state.
In 1928, Trotsky was exiled from the USSR. His followers were purged, exiled, murdered or imprisoned.
Being the principal organizer of a Worldwide Revolution, Trotsky had amassed followers all over the World.
“Entryism” or “the French Turn”
Entryism is a political strategy in which an organisation or state encourages its members or supporters to join another, usually larger organisation in an attempt to expand influence and expand their ideas and program.
Trotsky, June 1934
“It is necessary to take a decisive step, to bring ourselves closer to a group of workers that is evolving toward revolutionary ideas, to become its catalyst, thereby increasing our opportunities. Without renouncing any of our positions and without dissolving ourselves, it is necessary to carry the fight into the very midst of a group that is in the process of evolving. We have outlined our special difficulties and weaknesses above, but we must not underestimate the value of our propagandist nuclei and their abilities. It is enough to put them in the right place in order to transform their slow advances in to decisive leaps forward.
Where? Access to the Communist Party is cut off to us because of its internal regime. And a capitulation is totally out of the question.
There remains the SFIO. (The French Section of the Workers’ International). lt’s internal situation permits the possibility of our entering it under our own banner. The environment suits the aims we have set for ourselves. What is necessary now is to act in such a manner that our declaration will not in any way strengthen the leading bourgeois wing, but rather will support the progressive proletarian wing; that its text and its distribution will allow us to hold our heads high in case of acceptance as well as in case of dilatory maneuvers or rejection. There is no question of dissolving ourselves. We enter as the Bolshevik-Leninist faction, our organizational ties remain the same, our press continues to exist just as do Bataille Socialiste and others.
There are two things necessary for the success of this step, that can, within a short period of time, completely transform the whole political constellation in the labor movement: organizational cohesion (through the steadfastness of each member) and promptness of implementation. To drag out such decisions means to lose the opportune moment for their implementation, that is to put ourselves at a disadvantage.
Further on we shall examine some suggestions concerning the
means of implementation. The organization must take an inventory of its forces and understand that in the present situation the means of increasing them ten-fold lie not in sticking to routine, but in making a courageous effort to win to revolutionary ideas the thousands of workers whom the degeneration of the Comintern prevented from taking the path of Bolshevism.”
https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/leon-trotskii-collected-writings-1934-1935.pdf
I am wondering/speculating. Has the Democratic Party been methodically taken over by Trotkyites? It explains the vicious attack of Bernie Sanders, its dismantling of boarders and its commitment to world-wide chaos (the Middle East).
Correction, the United Mine Workers of America
clarky90: In a way you might be right. The real entryists are the neocon war-is-what-we-want nutjobs and IIRC many of them were active in the fringe Trostkyite groupuscules of the 1960s/1970s and honed their tactics then. (TFHT) (*) No coincidence that as they made their sorry way ever rightwards they brought these tactics along.
(*) TFHT: Tin Foil Hat Time.
The commitment to worldwide coverage is tied to the Idea of One.
One God, and no other allowed.
One theory – no others before IT (IT covers all).
One is connected to Zero through Infinity, like this:
1/0 = ∞
Thus, with One, through its divine infinity nature, you also get zero-fault, or, infallibility.
And that explains the yearning for the perfect Savior, or the perfect solution. Merely good is not enough, if not the enemy.
The desire for worldwide implement of one’s idea is not new, but has been around for thousands of years. Moreover, Trotsky lives not only in one political party, but in many places in our society.
To go one step up, what you are discussing is universalism (Trotsky) versus particularism (Stalin).
These characteristic can be applied in many areas; for example religion
Judaism is particularist (chosen people) but with a theoretically universalist god who got hijacked by the Christians who made him universalist in practice as well. Islam is obviously also universalist.
Monotheism affirms a single unique God, which implies a humanity unified not just biologically but also at the spiritual level. To say there is only one god is to say humans form but one family and that any form of otherness is false. The One excludes the Other, who threatens the One’s excursiveness. Through much of Western history, the One has been the directing principle and it is the source of intolerance, exclusion, and inquisitions and is used to justify all attempts to annihilate the Other.
Clearly Globalization is universalist in its attempt to wipe out any distinctions (Others) in the world. Nationalism with its goal of maintaining the differences between nations is particularst and has much more in common with polytheism.
Politically, the great news from 2016 is that both the Democrats and Republicans developed insurgent particularist wings to oppose both party’s universalist establishment wings. While Trump’s particularism is obvious; Bernie Sanders’ social democracy springs from the Swedish “folkhemmet” concept which sees the people of one nation as a family. This idea is universalist at the national level but particularist at the international level and so Sanders rejects Open Borders and so-called Free Trade.
The problem is that at this stage both Trump and Sanders are one-offs and both need to start constructing a particularist base within their respective parties that can permanently challenge their universalist establishments into the future.
> They don’t seem to understand that the use cases for phones, tablets, and laptops/desktops are different.
It’s designing for the lowest common denominator. It’s like having to design websites for IE6 all over again. I’ve switched to using a lot of command line software, because once the learning curve is past it’s a lot faster and more convenient than using web applications.
No. It’s designing for the highest number of clicks and potential sales/marketing metrics.
The WebStorm integrated development environment by JetBrains apparently switched to a size smaller type in the latest major redesign.
This is how Silicon Valley innovates their ageism.
Wow. Just got through reading the effect of student debt on the elderly…
It was on Huffpo and they actually (gasp) called this a result of the ususal bipartisan
f – – – over to be expected from DC. This one goes back to the scumbag pairing of Newt and Bill back in the nineties that allowed SS (which is not a wage) to be garnished.
Now I know that these retirees already suffered wage garnishments if they never paid back the loans. So anyone that gave a rat’s could easily argue it is a double dip.
And the gov’t “profits.”
This also is another winner the Democrats (the alleged party of concern about people ..
I hate them SO MUCH) that they have NEVER run on.
I guess it would have meant revealing how vile the Clinton administration was for working people.
Live by the Clintons, Die by the Clintons.
Die Democratic Party…DIE!!!!!!!!
And I just bought my first ever Macbook Pro this summer. Ugh. At least it will last for at least 5 years. I can’t imagine going back to Linux after though, ugh. How unfortunate.
I hope yours lasts that long. My Air seems a bit more fragile.
For all the downward slide, which is real, the UI/UX on the Mac is head and shoulders above anything available on Linux (readers, please prove me wrong, since I’d love to buy a $500 Chinese Air clone and slam linux on it).
For somebody who spends hours a day at the keyboard all the little efficiencies add up in time and less bodily stress on the hands and arms.
I can’t say I do more than dabble, but could you point me to a useful summary of what it is about the mac UI/UX that makes you strongly prefer it (I do not, and have never owned, a mac), and what sorts of inefficiencies you are worried about?
Consistency across applications, due to the Human Interface Guidelines enforced by Apple so many years ago (and gradually being crapified by iOS engineers).
Adding… Most Apple applications are horrid. The Apple Store and iTunes are especially egregious. Incomprehensible modal interactions, and a useless search function.
Lambert, I feel the same about the Mac UI/UX, and this sentiment appears to be common around HN as well. We have nowhere to go.
I regularly use OS X (err, macOS…), Linux (both desktop and server environments), and Windows, so I feel qualified to compare them all. OS X is the only one with a *single* coherent UI framework and interface guidelines, which is probably its single largest advantage. This is why, subjectively, native Mac software tends to be higher quality than equivalent software on other platforms — consistency.
There are also other “little things” that count. For example, OS X has had competent HiDPI support for years (due to the rMBP). I think Windows 10 has now gotten that to an acceptable level, although I’ll admit to only having tested this part briefly and in a VM on my rMBP. Newer Ubuntu releases support it somewhat, but some third-party apps are inconsistent.
Linux’s problem on the desktop is too much choice with no truly dominant option. You’re writing a GUI app. Do you target Ubuntu’s interface norms, Elementary’s HIGs, GNOME or KDE norms, or what? Do you use Qt, GTK+, or something else? No matter what you choose, you aren’t going to make everyone happy. I suppose one could compare this to democracy vs. a dictatorship — clear efficiency gains from the dictatorship, *if* the dictator is good (as Apple was).
I suffer a moderate form of a disorder, SomebodyIsWrongOnTheInternetSoIFeelCompelledToComment disorder
I saw this excerpt from a HillaryB0t blogger: “Just a heads up to those people who voted against Hillary because it was just so damned exciting: all three branches of the federal government are controlled by Republicans now. Anything that happens from this point forward is their fault.”
—
I couldn’t resist I replied: “Just a heads up to those people who voted against Sanders because it was just so damned exciting to vote for HCinton, even though Sanders (beating Trump in the polls by 10%+) was a much better general election candidate than 2nd-highest-disapproval-numbers-since-1980 HClinton (beating Trump in polls by 2%, the margin of error). You, along with the HillaryB0t Media (NYT, WaPo, CNN, msDNC, HuffPo, etc) ignored the HClinton/DNC election rigging that was as blatant as Bush43’s 2000 gen election rigging. Three branches of the federal government are controlled by Republicans now. Anything that happens from this point forward is their fault, the HillaryB0ts.”
I added another comment “The HIllaryB0t voter community has an interesting decision to make.
Will the HillaryB0ts join with social democratic, Newer Deal, Sanders voters in 2020 to select a social democratic candidate like Elizabeth Warren, Tulsi Gabbard, or Nina Turner?
Or will the HIllaryB0ts back the next Reagan Jr center-right DLC Clinton/0bama-esque neoliberal candidate, like Kristen Gillenbrand, Cory Booker, Julian Castro, or Tim Kaine?
In other words, are HillaryB0ts primarily ID politics driven, & want a White woman or at least nonWhite woman President, regardless of policy? Or are HillaryB0ts primarily policy-driven, & prefer a center-right neoliberal President, regardless of demographics.
In case it is the former, & that a woman Newer Dealer runs in 2020, to unify the core social democrats (Sanders 2016 voters) with the IdPol voters (HClinton 2016 voters).”
Warren isn’t actually a social democrat. She just wants markets to play by a single set of rules. And she’s still a Zion hawk.
Luxury-brand colleges are not for creating social democrats.
Exactly. Warren’s solution for the foreclosure crisis was more transparent mortgage forms. No notion whatever of accounting control fraud.
social democrats are useless anyway, once a few econ classes “teach” them that “debts must be paid” (etc.), while going to uni in the first place gives them the idea that they’re more “deserving”. Socialism/anarchism is where it’s at, not the crypto-Randian bullshit that is petit-bourgeois meritocracy.
“Just a heads up to those people who voted against Sanders because it was just so damned exciting to vote for HCinton, even though Sanders (beating Trump in the polls by 10%+) was a much better general election ….”
I kinda think that’s why so many of them have taken to ranting in a nearly unhinged manner. They worked hard to make sure Sanders didn’t get the nomination even though he polled better against Trump. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.
They presume to punish us because Sanders didn’t represent Them, the self-anointed “above” left and right, therefore was like unto running a horse for President. They seem to have this representation thing backwards and they presume to lecture us for calling them on it. The effrontery!
From the table of contents of Deirdre McCloskey’s The Treasured Bourgeoisie:
They are far too convinced of their own intrinsic righteousness (which is a little like being right, except it doesn’t matter whether you actually are or not). Even from this glimpse of proverbial ankle, They appear sheerly terrified over who manages the Discourse, referees it, and sets its boundaries. With good reason. Those four chapters, if applied carefully, would appear to reveal a vulnerability against which They can’t reliably defend. Anyone who knows where a full text pdf might be found would be highly appreciated to spread the love.
Incitatus would’ve won.
Paul Krugman loses his shit: Thanks for posting that “Twitter” stuff that passes for dialogue these days. Reaffirms my decision to never, ever use “social media.” Wowsers. Folks really ought to begin to talk to one another face to face, huh? It’s pretty weird, what folks say when they’re online. I’ve made it a rule to never say anything in print that I would not be comfortable saying in person. And, yes, Lambert, Paul Krugman has definitely lost his shit. He should probably go out and try to find it. He really, really needs it back. Remember “The Unraveling?” Where art thou, Paul?
Paul and others seem to be having a collective temper tantrum. I’m embarrassed for him and them.
He’s eating too many canapés at too many cocktail parties in penthouses dotted along Central Park West. Maybe living in New Jersey kept him somewhat tethered to reality.
HClinton blog before Dec 19 “EC voters in Trump-won states should do the PATRIOTIC action & select the superior candidate HClinton”
HClinton on Dec20 “The 5 BernieBro EC voters in HClinton-won states STOLE the vote that HClinton deserved & voted for Bernie, Colin Powell, or some Native American woman. If Keith Ellison doesn’t condemn this, we must reject Ellison as a candidate for DNC chair!”.
Logic, consistency, hypocrisy. Concepts that are completely foreign to (at least this group of) HClinton cultist voters.
I’ve been following Krugman’s reactions. The tweet linked above and the hideous “useful idiots” piece being the prime examples. The logic involved is pretty twisted and, if taken seriously, says more than he wants about what he thinks the role of the press is or should be.
For starters, he’s apparently found a marketplace in which people CANNOT be relied upon to meet their needs by shopping and using their best judgement. And that would be the Millsian marketplace of ideas, which apparently needs to be tightly controlled.
He also continues the idiotic pose I’ve seen from a few others, which is to take an obvious, WWE style joke “Russians, if you’re listening…” and affect to take that as a serious solicitation of assistance.
More importantly, he seems to believe that, this not being a “normal” election and all, the appropriate role of the “free” press was to effectively function as an auxilliary of the Clinton campaign. If otherwise newsworthy info might have come from an officially “evil” source, and might benefit Mrs. Clinton’s opponents, it should have been voluntarily suppressed or at the very least heavily deemphasized.
In the “useful idiots” piece, he takes a tack I’ve seen others take. First, the DNC and Podesta leaks don’t show anything except that “Democrats are people, too”. As if these people were a random sample of Democrats, and as if they didn’t also show that a good chunk of THESE Democrats were a certain kind of less than admirable people.
But apparently, while real smart guys and gals like Krugman and his dining companions know this, other people can’t be relied on to see it the same way. Because they’re not smart like that, I guess. And therefore, the info should have been voluntarily suppressed in spite of the fact that anybody could see it wasn’t damaging.
He takes a very different view of this than his employers at the Times, who think it was fine to run the material and who are clear they would have done so even if they were sure it DID come from Putin.
The short of it is that Krugman’s half a step from not believing in “Freedom of the Press” at all if it fails to produce the desired result.
And he manages to ignore the fact that for every mention of the DNC leaks or Queenie’s emails there were half-a-dozen anti-Trump (and earlier, anti-Sanders) pieces shrieking above the fold on a daily basis. When the media are in the tank for your candidate to the extent they obviously were, it takes gonads of solid brass to argue that THE problem is that they didn’t go far enough in that direction.
On the electoral college, I just discount him altogether. The only people I give any credibility to on that are the ones who had something to say about that institution before the day the SS Clinton hit the iceberg. But to say it was never a big concern of his in the past would be an understatement.
A contrast in UN ambassadorial styles…. 23:28 Syria 43:00 USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD-qJTaG2qg
And it appears they’ve found some foreign agents in E Aleppo.
I have no idea what Samantha is spouting on about since I couldn’t finish listening. Suffice to say the only time she was ever right was her first characterization of HRC.
NC In Summary:
Clintons = Bad
Krugman = Bad
ACA = Bad
Uber & AirBnB = Really Bad
Russians didn’t hack us.
I really like Yves’ views on finance and am still hoping for something on the Platinum Partners fraud. I also hope she defeats the Washington Post and that juvenile site that defamed this place quickly… so that we get more um, naked capitalism.
I’m not sure I follow. Are you saying that you see what is talked about on NC as a bunch of “negative” / contrary “opinions”, and that you’d prefer everyone shut up and start writing about some boring $1B PM hedgie fraud case?
Or, more to the point, how Uber’s $60 billion valuation is a steaming load of crap.
Hi Fobbe,
I’m just wanting to see fresh content and less echo chamber.
For example, I don’t see Krugman as the court jester he’s portrayed to be around here. I’m not holding him up as a saint either. I’m far more concerned about Republicans.
I think the Clintons really did get their just desserts this election cycle. And yet, we got leaked info this time through. Has this always been going on in every election? Did the Clintons not start the fire?
I don’t like the ACA because it’s doesn’t have single payer. I also think Uber and AirBnB are indeed bad and that’s the kind of content I love from this site.
I’m completely unsure whether the Russians hacked us at all. I find it fascinating that the consensus here is indisputably that they didn’t.
I like this blog being better than other blogs… and where it’s okay to disagree.
(This is “LA Mike”. People keep assuming it isn’t my name for some reason so I’m going with a fake one so that I can be considered real. It’s ironic, but I guess there have been fake Mikes here.)
No point worrying about repubs, they — the party/pols — are where they are because of the state of public debate, which is as anemic as it is because of where the “liberals” are. To change the former, the narrative needs to change, and that means changing the liberals, what with their being so eminently reasonable and data-driven and all that jazz. So pushing on pompous twits who are seen as ‘objective’ but who are really orthodoxy enforcers (Krug, DeLong for a 2nd-tier one who’s mostly become irrelevant, Reich) serves a purpose. Because they shouldn’t have the sway that they do.
As for Russians, aside from whether they hacked “us” (seriously, the dnc/dccc is “us”?), the point is a. it’s hypocritical, and b., it’s irrelevant, and c., even if they did, that doesn’t guarantee they were the ones who leaked it to WL, considering how utterly inept the security was. My cat could’ve done it.
Secondly, the info that came out influenced the election (if it did) because of what it said, not because of who said it. Worry about that.
Third, there is the fact that the msm/dems are using this as an excuse to censor news depending on whether liberals appreciate what it says.
All of that is much more important than whether the Russians (also) hacked those servers.
Anyway, I have no idea how this relates to “echo chambers”. Any two people who agree with oneanother who talk about that might be said to be echoing oneanother. Please be concrete about why “echoing” bothers you.
“Mike.” Hmm.
Adding… You seem to think that the Democrat Party isn’t a beat (and possibly that there’s no coupling between political risk and financial risk; they call it “political economy” for a reason, eh?)
Both assumptions seem questionable to me. In fact, my view is that the ongoing struggle for control of the Democrat Party is the biggest story going; I only wish I could cover it in more detail. So, “Clintons = bad.” Really? What a fair-minded summary!
Fortunately, nobody’s forcing you to read this material, so there’s really no reason to complain about it. And it’s a big Internet; you can always seek out a more congenial venue; Kos, Facebook, Reddit.
(Written by the commenter formerly known as “LA Mike”. I’m really tired of educated people pretending my name isn’t what it is. I guess “LA” isn’t a unique enough indicator, but it is what it is. Fake name means real, real name means fake.)
Hi Lambert,
I see a lot of intelligence at this site and it’s a real positive. I also like true, open discussion, provided that there aren’t any forum spies just regurgitating talking points. Dissent should be a positive so long as it’s thoughtful. I applaud you guys for moderating out fake, juvenile dissent.
Wanting people to be at their best has no relation to “no one’s forcing you to read”. There are memes that have taken over and if anyone shows dissent, they’re attacked en masse. And please don’t patronize when it comes to erudition (ie Facebook).
I’m no fan of the Democrats. I also plan on reading one of Thomas Frank’s books in the near future per Yves’ suggestion. (I have “Flash Boys” and “Hero With A Thousand Faces” currently ahead of it.) But I also see this Democrat-bashing from the left as being highly reminiscent of the 80’s. And I disagree strongly about “control of the Democrat Party is the biggest story going.” I believe Trump’s rise to power and his cabinet appointments are of far greater consequence. We disagree and it’s okay.
In most countries, there’s the battle between progress and vested interests. Most of the time, vested interests win. Believe it or not, I’m less interested in the Democrats per se than who will be the voice of progress. Bernie got crushed by the Democrats and I didn’t like this exercise of power any more than you did. But again, who will stand for progress and be strong, like Huey Long? We both know it won’t be the Democrats because they’re owned by Wall St. And of course there are ties between the economy and politics. Perhaps you see the “struggle for control” as being akin to “who will be Huey Long?” In my view, the next Democrat leader won’t be of great consequence. He/She will be owned by Wall St.
If you wish to take my feedback, (and that of “SurvivalMode”), and pretend it means you’re smarter than me and mock me by saying I can just head to Facebook, that’s your choice. But I’d like to see NC be more than an echo chamber for the themes I laid out above. It’s only recently that I’ve ever seen it. I’m thinking it might be due to the fact that this site got attacked. And again, I hope NC wins that legal battle quickly and decisively. Being wrongly accused is awful under any circumstance, whether from a parent, a police force, or especially, from the media at large.
You wrote:
You really think that’s an intellectually honest summary? Keep digging, buster.
Sorry, but he’s right and you are quite wrong. It IS an echo chamber here.
evidence? for instance, examples of the consensus being that “russia indisputably did not “hack us”? or is asking for evidence evidence of an echo chamber?
It appears you don’t read the site with any care. If you bothered looking at our daily Trump Transition section, it has been very long by virtue of being chock full of links to stories on 1. What a horrorshow Trump billionaire nominees are; 2. How his tax policies are a giveaway to the rich; 3. How his infrastructure program is a give away; 4. How he intends to gut various agencies, starting with the EPA and SEC…etc.
The commentors apparently don’t feel the need to discuss that because the MSM is all over those stories.
In other words, you’ve got a bias, apparently that you want a more Dem-friendly point of view, and your reading of this site is colored by your bias.
See also
– FBI acted entirely appropriately and had no effect on election
– HRC called the working class (and not racists, homophobes, islamaphobes) deplorable
Given NC’s relentless framing of 2016 Election as “Clinton Camp as losers,” I wonder where it puts itself (if at all) on the win/lose continuum. i.e. As a gay man, I know I lost on 11/8. Does NC, think it
a) Won, because the big bad HRC and other corporate whoring D’s lost?
b) Won, because Trump blowing up the place will speed up an economic revolution
c) Won for some other reason
d) Is immune to winning/losing in this situation; acting only as dispassionate observer
Well said, anti-social socialist.
(Formerly known as “LA Mike”)
Oh, a sock puppet. How splendid.
Sad.
I guess I can’t offer constructive criticism, wanting to help the site be all it can be… without being ridiculed with name calling. I’m neither “sock puppet” nor “buster”.
I also can’t compliment a fellow commenter on what I think is an articulate, insightful comment.
Why can there be no disagreement?
You call your original comment constructive criticism? Keep digging. Buster.
As for the “you can’t,” formulation, who said you couldn’t?
Sock puppeting is against our written site Policies.
And you did sock puppet per your own admission.
Assignments are also against our written site Policies.
There are plenty of Dem party line sites. I suggest you frequent one that is more in synch with your views.
Gee, I dunno. What do you think?
Was asking seriously and w/o negative attitude intended…but if you really want me to guess, I’d say, given links and editorializing of them here for past year or so, I’d go with a) and b) only.
[Also responding to your 3:19 comment below:]
“Was asking seriously and w/o negative attitude intended…”
You speak of “relentless framing” and “the big bad HRC” – there is certainly some sort of attitude here.
Your serious question presents some issues that can perhaps be clarified through an analogy.
Imagine that we are in 2002, and a left-leaning blog (“ZZ”) spends a lot of time worrying about the consequences of 9/11 in terms of civil liberties issues, the Afghanistan war, and a possible upcoming war on Iraq. Suppose someone were to leave the following comment:
* * * * * * *
Patriotism not a thing at ZZ. Here, it’s called jingoism and considered shameless pandering for R party to court uneducated voters.
I have not seen any evidence of ZZ regretting the lives lost on September 11, just handwringing and second-guessing of the nation attacked. Given ZZ’s relentless framing of the atrocity in terms of US imperialism, I wonder where it puts itself on the win/lose continuum. I.e., as an American, I know I lost on 9/11. Does ZZ think it
(a) Won, because Amerika and its Republican overlords were shown to have feet of clay?
(b) Won, because terrorist attacks are a form of blowback and shine a spotlight on US imperialism and human rights abuses?
(c) Won, for some other reason?
(d) Is immune to winning/losing in this situation; acting only as a dispassionate observer.
I very much appreciate this response and its stressing the importance of point of view. Mistake in my original post was to not include an option for 3) Other (general), which would have provided opportunity for an “essay” answer i.e. free form
Have been honestly trying to wrap my head around NC’s point of view, not so much before the election, but after, in what appears to me and others who have commented, lenient approach to Trump, comparatively to Clinton.
Is Clinton still the emergency here?
It is silly to say that anyone here is treating Clinton after November 8 as an “emergency.”
Perhaps you meant instead to ask why there “appears” to be a “lenient approach to Trump, comparatively to the Democratic Party power structure”?
Continuing within the same scenario as before, as preparations for the Iraq war unfold, ZZ blog is generally critical of the Bush administration; compared to the mainstream news media, it spends much less time talking about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the 1988 chemical weapons attack on the Kurds at Halabja. Suppose someone were to leave the following comment:
* * * * * * *
Have been honestly trying to wrap my head around ZZ’s point of view, not so much in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 but now. I am puzzled, along with others who have commented here, by what appears to be a lenient approach to Saddam Hussein, comparatively to Bush.
Is Bush still the emergency here?
“As a gay man, I know I lost on 11/8.” – So you should be mad that
1) the Dems were so arrogant about winning that they may have put your civil rights at risk.
2) the Dems worked with the media to get a ‘pied piper’ candidate who may put your civil rights at risk.
3) many elements in the Republican Party want to take away your civil rights.
NC has demonstrably been upset about items 1) and 2). I’m sure they are unhappy about 3), but it’s outside the normal topics of discussion of the blog.
I have seen ZERO commenters at NC have ever described what happened on 11/8 as a “win”. Many, however, are looking to make the best of a bad situation where there was no ‘winning’ possible.
“Civil Rights” not a thing at NC. Here, its called “Identity Politics” and considered shameless pandering for D party to court minority voters.
I have not seen any evidence of NC regretting Trump’s win, only schadenfreude and finger-pointing at Clinton’s loss.
1. You can’t meaningfully “regret” things you didn’t do or cause, unless you want to be passive-aggressive.
2. I’m hoping you haven’t yet gotten ’round to reading Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Saying that the Democratic party does meaningful civil rights is pretty blinkered, to say the least. Never even mind economic justice, if you’ll forgive me for pointing out the obvious, what with your being a “socialist” and all that.
You didn’t look very hard. And no, I’m not doing your work for you.
The Platinum Partners fraud is inconsequential. Ponzis like that are one-offs with no systemic or political consequences.
The onus is on you to demonstrate where we are wrong. Whinging about where our analysis leads says you have pre-existing beliefs and don’t like that we are willing to shoot at MSM icons. You need to read another site. We do reality here. Disney and Daily Kos are over there.
I am new to commenting on this blog but have been a regular reader for some time.
Re: the Russian “hacks”, I am surprised to find no mention here of Craig Murray’s several statements that the source for wikileaks was NOT a hack at all, it was a LEAK. So here is what Murray has said, + questions and answers.
I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not
Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are
different things.
As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two.
And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice
of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation
and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.
The continued ability of the mainstream media to claim the leaks lost
Clinton the election because of “Russia”, while still never
acknowledging the truths the leaks reveal, is Kafkaesque.
Now both Julian Assange and I have stated definitively the leak does not
come from Russia. Do we credibly have access? Yes, very obviously.
Very, very few people can be said to definitely have access to the
source of the leak. The people saying it is not Russia
are those who do have access. After access, you consider truthfulness.
Do Julian Assange and I have a reputation for truthfulness? Well in 10
years not one of the tens of thousands of documents WikiLeaks has
released has had its authenticity
successfully challenged. As for me, I have a reputation for
inconvenient truth telling.
The Keystone Cops portrayal of one of the world’s most clinically
efficient intelligence services is of a piece with the anti-Russian
racism which has permeated the Democratic Party rhetoric for quite some
time. Frankly nobody in what is vaguely their right mind would believe
this narrative.
Pretty well all of us get phishing emails pretty routinely. Last year my
bank phoned me up to check if I was really trying to buy a car with my
credit card in St Petersburg. I don’t know what the DNC paid
“Crowdstrike” for their narrative but they got a very poor return for
their effort indeed. That the New York Times promotes it as any kind of
evidence is a truly damning indictment of the mainstream media.
Yes – I did not tell the Mail I was the guy who carried the emails
back though. I think they were already with WikiLeaks before I went to
Washington. Interestingly I also did not say it was an intermediary – I
said I did not know if I knew the person’s real
identity or they were operating under an alias, or if they were
themselves the principal.
This is fascinating stuff. But confusing. The Daily Mail reports:
“A Wikileaks envoy today claims he personally received Clinton
campaign emails in Washington D.C. after they were leaked by ‘disgusted’
whisteblowers – and not hacked by Russia.
Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close
associate of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, told Dailymail.com that
he flew to Washington, D.C. for a clandestine hand-off with one of the
email sources in September.”
Whereas, you say:
“I did not tell the Mail I was the guy who carried the emails back
though. I think they were already with WikiLeaks before I went to
Washington.”
Does this mean that you did not “personally received Clinton campaign
emails in Washington D.C.”, or simply that whatever you received was
already in the hands of Wikileaks?
If you did not receive Clinton campaign emails in Washington D.C.,
are you able to state the reason for the meeting in Washington, D.C., in
what the Daily Mail describes as a wooded are near American University
for the purpose of “a clandestine hand-off”?
Or if you did receive Clinton campaign emails during the meeting
described by the Daily Mail, even though these emails were already in
the hands of Wikileaks, can you reveal what purpose was served by this
meeting?
Reply ↓
craig Post author
December 15, 2016 at 01:24
I didn’t receive the emails full stop. The purpose of the meeting was
mundane. Its only interest is that as a result I can tell you it wasn’t
the Russians.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk…
There was some discussion of this in Water Cooler comments a few days ago.
We’ve put links to his story and to other stories that reported on it for days. Honestly, if anything we overdid it.