2:00PM Water Cooler 10/27/2017

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109 comments

1. Pavel October 27, 2017 at 2:15 pm

   Amazing what the world is coming to — or at least the first world. Here in the UK the iPhone X starts at £999 for the measly 64GB model. This is for something which is eminently prone to:

   * Theft
   * Breaking
   * Loss

   I don’t have the UK price at hand but according to MacRumors an iPhone X screen repair will be about $250.

   Imagine people walking around with a thousand pounds of breakable electronics on their person at all times…! (Not to mention paying for the privilege of having their every movement and purchase tracked.)
   1. Arizona Slim October 27, 2017 at 2:30 pm

      First thing I did, after unboxing my low-dollar smartphone, was wrapping it in one of those bulky protective cases. It ain’t pretty, but it keeps my phone intact when I drop it.
   2. Jane October 27, 2017 at 2:39 pm

      I thought the $1319 Cdn price tag for the 64GB model was steep but £999 is $1686 Cdn so definitely pricier in the UK. Got to give it to the industry, historically tech prices drop as the product improves: radios, VCRs, computers, video games, car phones; cell phones are the first hardware tech I can think of whose prices have risen over time rather than fallen.
      1. Massinissa October 27, 2017 at 6:10 pm

         “I thought the $1319 Cdn price tag for the 64GB model was steep but £999 is $1686 Cdn so definitely pricier in the UK.”

         Brexit at work?
   3. JBird October 27, 2017 at 3:02 pm

      I just checked. With everything, it’s $1149 to preorder. I’m a mac devotee, but that’s just bananas.
      1. subgenius October 27, 2017 at 3:38 pm

         I recommend you get over that – they have been going downhill for years

         no more final cut pro
         mac desktop trashcan (appropriate name, although burn barrel would have been more apropos)
         ixnay of the magsafe
         non-upgrade-ability
         etc

         the only plus I can still see is the BSD core to the macOS, but I can see a future where iOS is all…

         If only more software vendors would follow bitwig and make professional products available on linux we could drop the only 2 of the 5 horsemen that are are currently unavoidable.
         1. Jonhoops October 27, 2017 at 5:37 pm

            Sorry but Fcp X kicks the ass of every NLE out there. It isn’t 2011, get over it.
            1. subgenius October 27, 2017 at 7:12 pm

               We tend to use da Vinci, due to the issues with apple’s supposed pro desktops…windows sucks, but the raw beef is much greater (we are mostly into the vfx side)….but each to their own.
         2. TroyMcClure October 27, 2017 at 8:59 pm

            I too dumped the rotten apple when upgrading my composing rig and everyone under 45 is doing the same. The only composers left still tethered to apple are A-listers that don’t even write most of their own stuff these days anyhow. Farm it out to and endless churn of “aspiring” composers who get no writing credits/royalties but one heck of a referral for their next “internship” doing the same for the next X-Men movie.

            But I digress…apple for pro use in audio is a joke as of 2017.
            1. subgenius October 27, 2017 at 10:15 pm

               If you haven’t yet, I would suggest taking a look at the aforementioned bitwig…renegade ableton code crew based in Berlin, available on mac, windows, and linux. A very interesting DAW, should you be in to such things…

               I know many in the composer category you alluded to, too…every other person I know seems to be a musician, covering the entire spectrum of styles and fame.
            2. howseth October 28, 2017 at 12:16 am

               I’m an old guy with withering ears (way over 45) – However, I use Logic Pro X to record – have to say Logic Pro has gotten better – and it’s half the price since my first foray with it in 2007. (I do use 3rd party plugins as well).
               Meanwhile, my 2011 iMac seems to be holding up – after a replacement SSD. I still want to believe in Apple mojo – my cheap android phone – is clunky – the programming is weird to me.
   4. Chris October 27, 2017 at 8:39 pm

      Yes, Pavel, a Hobson’s Choice of Alphabet or Apple knowing your life, probably better than you do
      1. subgenius October 27, 2017 at 8:58 pm

         AOSP & f-droid are your friends….

         But it’s up to you to take the necessary steps

         ps – steganography and obfuscation work…
2. Huey Long October 27, 2017 at 2:21 pm

   RE: BoA Branch Closures

   Can anybody tell me if BoA finances check cashing joints and payday lenders, or if BoA controlled Merrill does any IB work or bond underwriting for payday lenders?

   This could simply be a case of a bank closing money-losing branches, but when it comes to banks these days you really never know.
   1. ArcadiaMommy October 27, 2017 at 4:26 pm

      At a minimum, I would think they get some kind of fee for processing the transfer from the loan sharks’ account to the borrower? So clearly they are fine with the concept. I recall a conversation with an acquaintance whose husband was some sort of lobbyist for Wells Fargo that payday lenders provided liquidity to those who were “underserved” by traditional banking. Barf.
   2. DJG October 27, 2017 at 6:09 pm

      Huey Long: Through a series of mergers as ABN Amro fled the US of A back to the Netherlands, I ended up at Bank of America. I’ve never dealt with such nasty people. So closing down the branches likely has two causes: Their “people skills” and their extremely poor management. I recall them demanding a percentage for counting loose change in the change machine: That kind of helpful attitude will keep the customers rolling in.
      1. Huey Long October 27, 2017 at 6:58 pm

         Through a series of mergers as ABN Amro fled the US of A back to the Netherlands, I ended up at Bank of America.

         I ended up with them when they bought out Fleet, and you’re right; they’re quite the nasty bunch!
         1. Procopius October 29, 2017 at 1:13 am

            I’ve despised them since I was forced to use them in Thailand because they got the contract as the Military Banking Facility when we still had bases here. I changed banks as soon as I got reassigned back to the States, but the bastards bought my bank and immediately screwed up my direct deposit (made a mistake on my social security number) and also imposed a fee on my checking account which had been free for many years.
      2. Big River Bandido October 27, 2017 at 7:36 pm

         I recall them demanding a percentage for counting loose change in the change machine…

         This actually happened at TD Bank (supposedly a more “consumer-friendly bank”); they have recently settled a class action lawsuit in which part of the settlement was a slap on the wrist financial penalty ($2 million), plus discontinuing use of the machines.

         So consumers get twice the benefit: they get nickled and dimed, *and* they lose the convenience of the service.
      3. Lambert Strether Post authorOctober 28, 2017 at 4:17 am

         I think BoA spotted the flaw in the First Citywide Change Bank’s business model…
         1. Vatch October 28, 2017 at 1:30 pm

            “The uploader has not made this video available in your country.”, which in my case, is the USA.
            1. ambrit October 29, 2017 at 12:50 pm

               The same here Vatch. Has Lambert fled back into the arms of his pre-Victorian literary cousins in Canada? (He peered at the screen with a knowing look.)
               I earlier needed help from Messire Eustache de Saint Pierre to get a video of Steve Martin doing “King Tut” from an early SNL. I hope the revised NAFTA doesn’t include American style copyright rules.
   3. lyman alpha blob October 27, 2017 at 6:41 pm

      The tweet does say closed or sold, so not all the branches were completely shut down – they’re just not affiliated with BofA any more.

      I’d be interested to know BofA’s fee structure for ATM withdrawals. My guess is withdrawals from BofA branches are free for BofA account holders but those customers would pay a fee for withdrawals from non-BofA ATMs. So BofA builds up a nationwide customer base and then closes off the means of withdrawing cash easily directly from BofA and kaching!!!
   4. Vatch October 27, 2017 at 10:26 pm

      This web site says that the major banks are intertwined with the payday loan companies, although I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the information:

      http://npa-us.org/research/payday-lending

      5. The major banks funding payday lending include Wells Fargo, Bank of America, US Bank, JP Morgan Bank, and National City (PNC Financial Services Group).

      6. All together, the major banks directly finance the loans and operations of (at minimum) 38% of the entire payday lending industry, based on store locations.

      A document is supposedly at:

      http://npa-us.org/files/Payday_Lender_Financing_Facts_FINAL_4-26-10.pdf

      But when I clicked on it, I got the “Page not found” error message. Somebody is not properly maintaining that web site.
   5. Frogman October 28, 2017 at 9:53 am

      BoA branches are currently open in Port Angeles & Sequim in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula so map isn’t 100% correct.
3. ebr October 27, 2017 at 2:28 pm

   Re: Sex Wearables — throw in high scores, a leaderboard, and micro-transactions & you have yourself a business. (that is /sarcasm fyi. Sadly, also a viable business plan)
   1. PKMKII October 27, 2017 at 2:46 pm

      Have to call them macro-transactions. No one is going to want to associate their genitals with something “micro.”
      1. polecat October 27, 2017 at 3:18 pm

         But whose going to score the Bezos amazons ??
      2. Greg October 27, 2017 at 9:00 pm

         “boners points” will do
      3. Lambert Strether Post authorOctober 28, 2017 at 4:10 am

         > Have to call them macro-transactions

         Very true. “Will that be large, extra-large, or King Size, sir?”
         1. ambrit October 29, 2017 at 12:56 pm

            Hmmm… Several puns involving “going long” or “going short” tumesce in my raddled imagination.
            Too true that choice list. Does anyone see “small” as a portion choice at any fast food place any more? Not to mention ‘cheap.’ I still get the odd look whenever I ‘dine’ at a fast food joint and ask for the child sized offering.
   2. neighbor7 October 27, 2017 at 4:15 pm

      Gary Shteyngart’s novel “Super Sad True Love Story” has already envisioned this world …
   3. uncle tungsten October 28, 2017 at 4:58 am

      It is rumored that the next iWatch will come with a “supersize me” link to the wearable. A small injector will pump just the right amount of aphrodisiac and away you go. The pun was intended.
4. DJG October 27, 2017 at 2:34 pm

   Portside article about NAFTA, unions, and Canadian unions: Here is a paragraph from the underlying article at New York Magazine about the three sponsors:

   On Wednesday, Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and Kirsten Gillibrand announced their agreement — and introduced legislation to ban “right-to-work” laws throughout the United States.

   [NY Mag article is dated 20 Sept 2017]

   The sooner we collectively kill off the feudal idea of “right to work,” the better. Right now, though, we’re only what—sixty, seventy–years too late?
   1. Scott October 27, 2017 at 3:41 pm

      Why didn’t Democrats pass legislation in 2009 to eliminate it?

      It was one of the few policies that I could think of what would actually, you know, help the win elections. But then I realized the the purpose of the DNC isn’t actually to win elections, it’s to raise money from Wall Street, Hollywood and Silcon Valley to pay for consultants.
      1. Huey Long October 27, 2017 at 5:06 pm

         Why didn’t Democrats pass legislation in 2009 to eliminate it?

         Yeah, Captain Hope’N-Change failed to deliver labor any meaningful legislation during his eight years in office.

         Labor was essentially told “We put some friendly faces on the NLRB and in the judiciary. Be thankful, and forget about card check or right to work preemption.”
      2. Sid_finster October 27, 2017 at 7:40 pm

         “…the purpose of the DNC isn’t actually to win elections, it’s to raise money from Wall Street, Hollywood and Silcon Valley to pay for consultants.”

         Money.
   2. Henry Moon Pie October 27, 2017 at 4:25 pm

      Good luck with that. The Rs ads write themselves.

      And it’s a bad look anyway. With the basically insurmountable barriers to organizing under the Wagner Act these days, a focus on making sure the money keeps flowing, much of it ending up in the Ds campaign coffers. How about repealing Taft-Hartley?

      Maybe unions would be better off with less bureaucracy and more member participation. Do it like the Wobs: you come to the meeting, you pay your dues, you voice your opinion and you vote.
      1. Huey Long October 27, 2017 at 5:16 pm

         How about repealing Taft-Hartley?

         Here here!

         Repealing Taft-Hartley would bring back:

         The Closed Shop
         Jurisdictional Strikes
         Secondary Boycotts
         Common Situs Picketing
         A Ban on Right-to-Work
         A Ban on presidential interventions in strikes
         Supervisor’s Unions
         Employer Nuetrality

         Hopefully this happens before I die. I would absolutely love to see the yacht and learjet owning class in tears!
         1. Anon October 27, 2017 at 6:57 pm

            And it would restore the NLRB v. Hearst definition of “employee.”
         2. Henry Moon Pie October 28, 2017 at 9:33 am

            That would actually change the balance of power rather than just trying to preserve the ability of the current DC-focused unions to use their dwindling income to prop up a Democrat Party that has done nothing but betray them.

            Close down the Washington offices of all the unions. If you’re going to draw a salary from a union, you should be out organizing. Lobbying Congress and the White House for anything is useless whether they’re Ds or Rs.
      2. a different chris October 27, 2017 at 6:06 pm

         >The Rs ads write themselves.

         They not only write themselves they’ve already been written and burned into the brain. True or not, there they are. So what are you risking?

         The thing is the D-time is well past the point (no House, no Senate, no Pres, vanishing amount of Govs, vanishing amount of State leges..) where saying “That’s not true!!” can be considered a winning strategy, even if you could show me what you’ve won by saying it.

         How about “hell yeah that’s how we feel, America rocked (when we had strong labor)”. Stand up to the bully for once, again whaddya got to lose now. I often wonder what Steve Gilliard would say at this point, he always made sure that us white people realized that something was better than nothing when you were looking at absolutely nothing at all…. but things have sunk so low would he still feel that what has become nothing more than an orderly, but continuous retreat should be sustained? Or is it time to dig in and really declare full throated opposition?

         (like the rest of your post, just think the time to avoid things is past)
      3. DJG October 27, 2017 at 6:13 pm

         Henry Moon Pie: So? Let’s repeal the Wagner Act and Taft-Hartley. And let’s not pre-defeat ourselves.

         Just as Lambert keeps reminding us, Who would have though five years ago that the momentum is now toward single-payer health insurance even if the current couple of bills don’t pass? For years, John Conyers carried on the fight almost single-handedly. And now we have influential physicians stumping for single-payer.
      4. uncle tungsten October 28, 2017 at 5:29 am

         Looks like Hollywood actors and staff could do with a real union. Now that is a progressive cause they might rally behind. Maybe an actors guild or something that has tenacity, guts and get past the old flogging of the McCarthy days.
5. Wukchumni October 27, 2017 at 2:36 pm

   I guess i’ve seen maybe 10,000 giant sequoia trees in a myriad of groves here on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada.

   They are like an iron fist encased in a velvet glove, and the bark has the feel of hundreds of layers of paper-mâché, and using only your hand pressure, you can push the bark in about an inch.

   My favorites are the trees you can sleep in, as almost every tree of age has fire scars from conflagrations of the past, and on some the fire went into the heart of the tree and burned upwards 20-30 feet before burning itself out. I’ve slept in about a dozen trees.

   This one is called the Room Tree, and it sleeps 4 people:

   http://www.hikingwalking.com/files/US/CA/giant_forest/med_ca_P1300801.jpg

   When a giant sequoia dies, they typically just fall over, and often break into 2 or 3 sections on the ground, and when glimpsing them from the vantage point like this link, it has the look of a multi stage rocket that fell off the gantry, with the roots resembling flames, somewhat.

   This tree will take about 2,000 to 3,000 years to decompose into the ground, as they are just as long lived as they are long dead.

   https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/7d/5f/41/fallen-trees-roots-exposed.jpg
   1. Zzzz Andrew October 27, 2017 at 4:18 pm

      Katherine Dunn, of _Geek Love_ fame, wrote a fantastic little piece for Outside magazine called “Spend the Night in a Tree,” eminently (like everything she wrote) worth the read:

      https://www.outsideonline.com/1846541/list
6. John k October 27, 2017 at 2:37 pm

   Mj the new gay marriage…
   Fine. But isn’t it time Medicare for all should be the new gay marriage?
   Challenging the senior CA right wing senator on that issue is an excellent step.
   Granted, she provided the vote that stopped a balanced budget amendment, and further granted that, at the time, made me furious… in my defense, I was an idiot back then.
   1. ArcadiaMommy October 27, 2017 at 4:55 pm

      Oh I think it is! So many people are now 1099 workers or have to start their own businesses because of weak hiring and poor compensation that they are becoming clued in to the horrendous costs and brutality of the “individual” marketplace. When I tell people that my boys and I use Indian Health Services and describe how it is reasonable to use they are amazed. While it is not fancy (no valet parking, no Starbucks, dodgy neighborhood) it has worked for us the last couple of years. Now we are lucky to be very healthy and our visits tend to be for kiddie accidents (bike crashes, stitches, bad colds, etc.). I don’t have any experience with a chronic illness or severe injury within the IHS system. But we just could not afford $1600 / month with a $13K deductible when we had a reasonable alternative. MJ (in my experience) is so widely accepted at this point, also largely because of the distrust that more and more people have with respect to current health care standards in this country.
7. L October 27, 2017 at 2:37 pm

   Regarding this piece: “Politics is not all that complicated. It is a game of incentives. And, right now there is no incentive for Republicans to split from the President” [Amy Walter, Cook Political Report].

   I have to say thank you for putting me on to her writing. To my mind though the most important point in the piece is this one:

   Here’s why this matters: Angry people vote. Complacent people sometimes vote and sometimes don’t. And dispirited or disillusioned people stay home.

   That is the basics of all victories. If the DNC cared about winning as opposed to fundraising they would take that to heart. But signing up voters it seems,is just not what they *do* only slinging tote bags.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorOctober 28, 2017 at 4:23 am

      Cook Political Report is small-c conservative, almost stolid, in its views; they’re like old-fashioned horse race reporters. But I like that because I can discount it properly; I don’t have to factor in which factions they’re part of and umpty-million talking points (“Why are they saying this now?” is driven at CPR by the election cycle, and — within reason, here — not by who’s zooming who how in the political class…
8. allan October 27, 2017 at 2:48 pm

   GDP 36,000

   President Donald Trump’s top economist is doubling down on claims that corporate tax cuts would spark economic growth and boost incomes.

   Kevin Hassett is chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Hassett says the plan to slash the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 20 percent could increase the size of the U.S. economy by $700 billion to $1.2 trillion over a decade. …

   Actually, it doesn’t matter what fantasies Hassett spins.
   They have the votes, and their donors won’t take no for an answer.
   1. Kokuanani October 27, 2017 at 4:22 pm

      The repulsive Ed Gillespie is the Republican candidate for governor in VA. [Election is in about 10 days.] His non-stop tv ads include one in which he claims he’ll lower taxes and that this will create “57,000 new jobs in VA.”

      We need to kill this whole “tax cuts —> jobs” myth with fire.
      1. flora October 27, 2017 at 7:12 pm

         Been there, done that.

         Income tax rates go down on the upper incomes and businesses in a big way. State income taxes go down on the middle and working classes in a small way.
         Sales tax, local property taxes, county user fees/assessments go up for everyone including the poor, to cover the ensuing state budget shortfall.
         The upper 20% income/large businesses spend less a percentage of their income on purchases /fees and property taxes than the bottom 80%. Top 20% see net decrease in combines state/local tax/fees as a percentage of income. Bottom 80% see a net increase in combines local/state taxes/fees as a percentage of income.
         That still isn’t enough to fill the budget hole, so state services and state funding to k-12 education gets cut.
         Talk about a bait and switch.
         What a deal.
         1. flora October 27, 2017 at 7:32 pm

            adding: the increased sales tax/user fees/ property taxes won’t be enough to fill the budget hole. That’s when the real fun starts. Then the no-tax-ever crowd will start talking about selling off the public state properties to fill the budget hole created by tax cuts. Sell off state-own govt buildings and rent them back (from their crony friends). Sell off water treatment plants, or turnpikes, or state govt -owned medical facilities, or prisons.
            The “cut taxes and riches will follow” pitch is a con. The ultimate end seems to be privatizing as much state property as possible. That will cost 80-90% of the state’s taxpayers far more over the long run than the current state income tax structure.
            There’s a sucker born every minute. There were plenty of suckers in my state, until they saw how they were getting fleeced and finally wised up. Education is expensive.
9. diptherio October 27, 2017 at 3:01 pm

   The net neutrality meme that “was a joke three years ago” is actually something I saw (or something very similar) in the early 2000s while I was working at a student-run non-profit. And it wasn’t a joke, then. It was a warning about what the telecoms had planned for the internet, then still in its relatively early years. So no surprise that it’s being implemented in Portugal…let’s hope everyone else sees that and says “no thank you.”
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorOctober 28, 2017 at 4:25 am

      I would swear I wrote a post with a different graphic that had the same idea, pre-2008. But I couldn’t find it. The idea was that corporations would turn the Internet into cable. Which they seem to be doing.
10. diptherio October 27, 2017 at 3:02 pm

    A company added the word “Blockchain” to its name and its shares surged 394%

    …because efficient markets.
    1. Watt4Bob October 27, 2017 at 3:14 pm

       Also;

       ‘Wisdom’ of crowds.
    2. skippy October 27, 2017 at 4:05 pm

       Seriously…. so much now days makes the divergence of wages to productivity pale in comparison… when prices and value have zero correlation…

       Disheveled…. Can you even call a Scotts box on Bernays bathtub acid a – market – …
       1. ambrit October 29, 2017 at 1:06 pm

          Good heavens mate. Is a “Scotts box” what I think it is? It just might be both the oldest ‘profession’ and the oldest crime in history.
    3. lyman alpha blob October 27, 2017 at 7:33 pm

       There was a magazine/website about 20 years ago called Individual Investor (II) that was more skeptical than most about the .com boom. I may be misremembering the details somewhat, but they thought the stratospheric rise of any stock with a .com affixed to the company name was a bit ludicrous and decided to have a little fun with it. There was some website selling Harley trinkets and other biking paraphernalia called biker.com (ticker: BIKR) and after the website touted it as the next big thing it went from penny stock status to ~$10 a share pretty much overnight before falling almost as quickly, likely because the website described in detail exactly how they were trying to make a worthless company become valuable based on nothing but hype.

       We never seem to learn.
11. Kokuanani October 27, 2017 at 3:05 pm

    Wow, the Walther article from The Week [“Fear and Loathing on Hillary Clinton’s Grievance Tour”] is terrific!!! Thanks for linking.

    Now if only I had some non-brainwashed friends I could send it to.
    1. Quentin October 27, 2017 at 3:20 pm

       Hillary has achieved Mother Goddess status simply by achieving nothing—except tons of cash. The devotees of a cult are by definition deaf, blind and dumb. The deity encourages their fervour daily by bestowing glamor and celebrity on their dull, everyday lives.
    2. flora October 27, 2017 at 3:39 pm

       You could send them this youtoob video if they want to know what happened to voter enthusiasm for team Dem this year. (long but worth watching.)
       https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=33&v=V8ERFwZoPXE
    3. Arizona Slim October 27, 2017 at 3:43 pm

       I especially enjoyed the conversation between the Ann Arbor mother and her 9-year-old daughter.

       Mom: Wasn’t that great?

       Daughter: It was boring.

       And here I thought I was the only one who thought Hillary was a boring speaker.
       1. ambrit October 29, 2017 at 1:07 pm

          “The Empress has no clothes!”
12. Wukchumni October 27, 2017 at 3:13 pm

    “But what she thinks really sealed her fate with undecided voters was a conspiracy theory surrounding child molestation and human sacrifice and the Illuminati at Comet Ping Pong, a pizza parlor in Washington, D.C. Call me crazy, but I think that anyone willing to believe on the basis of a Reddit thread that one of your chief pleasures in life is sitting down with your friends to eat yeasted flatbread made from the corpses of kidnapped rape victims in the basement of a D.C. restaurant has probably already made up his mind about you one way or the other.”
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    It feels weird having both a President and an also ran, that are even more hideous than you had imagined…

    Any word on the toppings?

    For Hillary, sour grapes would be perfect~
    1. polecat October 27, 2017 at 8:30 pm

       “sour grapes”

       ‘ old musty dregs’ works for me …
    2. uncle tungsten October 28, 2017 at 5:39 am

       For $hillary there can be only one topping: the Robespierre
13. allan October 27, 2017 at 3:14 pm

    Modern academia in two snapshots:

    Professor quits over denied Dakota Access pipeline seminars [AP]

    A University of North Dakota journalism professor said Thursday he’s quitting because the school would not let him conduct seminars on the Dakota Access oil pipeline protest.

    Mark Trahant said he was put in charge of a journalism lecture series and proposed two pipeline protest topics that were rejected. Last year he wanted to hear from reporters who covered the protests, and this year he suggested talking about how the protest played out on social media.

    Trahant didn’t say specifically who turned down his requests, other than to say “it went up to both the provost’s and president’s office.” He said he was “disappointed and disgusted” because he doesn’t believe the Grand Forks college is an institutional leader in the state. …

    Trahant, 60, is in his third year as endowed professor of journalism at the school. He is the former editor of the editorial page for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He also worked at The Seattle Times, Arizona Republic, The Salt Lake Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Navajo Times, Navajo Nation Today and the Sho-Ban News. …

    vs.
    
    US Treasury Cites Koch-Funded Research In Critique Of Consumer Protections [IBT]

    In a rare instance of one federal agency publicly attacking another, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued an 18-page report Monday excoriating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed arbitration rule, which would prevent financial institutions from preventing class action lawsuits from customers via consumer contracts. In doing so, the department cited a paper co-authored by a George Mason University law professor who works for several campus centers heavily funded by the billionaire industrialist, free-market evangelist and far-right political donor Charles Koch. …

    Not only has Zywicki benefited from the Kochs’ academic funding and supported their agenda, he’s gone to bat for them directly in the public sphere, defending the Kochs and their donations for outlets including National Review. In one piece, Zywicki admits, “I’m involved in all sorts of way [sic] with the Koch Foundation and many organizations that it supports. I count as friends many people at the Koch Foundation and even some at Koch Industries.”…
14. Stephanie October 27, 2017 at 3:15 pm

    On the class warfare front: This is a great (and by “great” I mean depressing) thread on the topic of whether it is okay to admit to one’s boss that you’re working for the money rather than from passion:

    http://www.askamanager.org/2017/10/is-it-okay-to-be-honest-about-just-being-in-it-for-the-money.html#comments
    1. Bill October 27, 2017 at 3:38 pm

       this is funny, because in my memory, it was dodgy to say you loved your job, or they’d try to pay you as little as possible…
       1. ABasLesAristocrates October 27, 2017 at 6:59 pm

          Must have been from a time when they didn’t pay everyone as little as possible. My employer is very clear: you will love your job (or at least make a convincing show of it) or you will be eliminated.
          1. Lambert Strether Post authorOctober 28, 2017 at 4:28 am

             “Joanna, we need to talk about your flare.”
15. Summer October 27, 2017 at 3:18 pm

    The Bezzle: “Uber believes it has SEC nod for earnings approach that mirrors business model” [Francine McKenna, MarketWatch]. “The ride-hailing service contends its customers are the drivers — not the passengers — and it merely facilitates their trips. Securing the SEC’s blessing of this view of its business model would allow the company to report financial results without disclosing how much money drivers are taking home.”

    Somebody, anybody help me understand how that MarketWatch and the SEC could not throw in a question about Uber’s driverless car programs and how that would affect what it considers their customer base.
    What company has plans to eliminate their alleged customer base?
    And it’s not so hard to create a platform to facilitate trips, the real work of Uber is going to be eliminating competition and paying off the officials to help them do it.
    1. artiste-de-decrottage October 27, 2017 at 6:02 pm

       Excellent point! We are totally sold out by the business press and the regulator.

       Also I think one of the key VC investors in Uber had mentioned as much somewhere about the point being building monopolies, not technology – sans the “paying off officials” part of course.
16. Bill October 27, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    We’re all in this together confessions good for the soul?
    https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kqady/we-made-peoples-disgusting-struggle-meals-beautiful

    this stuff looks more elaborate than the student-era stuff we used to scrounge. I think ours was healthier somehow too
17. Louis Fyne October 27, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    for any cheesy 1970’s sci fi fans. the concept underlying the hyperloop has been around for a long time.

    one of the first on-screen appearances was in Gene Roddenberry’s post-apocalyptic, 1974 film “Planet Earth” and 1973’s “Genesis II”

    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=1974+planet+earth
    1. subgenius October 27, 2017 at 3:46 pm

       Perfect for our bond villain Lone Skum, I would say – he seems to have first appeared in 1961 under the pseudonym Ernst Stavros Blofeld..
    2. polecat October 27, 2017 at 8:42 pm

       Maybe as a boy, Elon was into double-naval gazing … ‘;]
18. Wukchumni October 27, 2017 at 3:34 pm

    The Bezzle: “Shadow Banking Gets Bad Rap, So Treasury Wants to Erase the Term” [Bloomberg]. “‘The word ‘shadow’ could be interpreted as implying insufficient regulatory oversight, or disclosure.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    I heard if Wall*Street sees it’s shadow, there’ll be 6 more months of winner.
19. Katy October 27, 2017 at 3:50 pm

    “Booker’s bill is considerably more aggressive than even Bernie Sanders’ bill from 2015, which would have merely allowed states to legalize marijuana”

    Holy cow. Cory Booker: “In it to Win It 2020”

    #NeverCory
    1. Henry Moon Pie October 27, 2017 at 5:00 pm

       What matters to me is home grow, and removing THC from Schedule I won’t guarantee that. Chances are the feds will end up licensing growers, and if it’s limited to Big Pharma, things will go from bad to worse.

       The beauty of cannabis is that we can grow it ourselves and know how it was grown. Want to trade that in for some pill from J&J? No thanks.

       I’d wonder about Corey’s ties to PHARMA and whether this is their initial move to take over the market before it’s too late.
       1. Summer October 27, 2017 at 6:32 pm

          You’ll know Big Pharma’s influence has arrived when we start seeing what has never been seen before: Cannibus use leading to death.
       2. Katy October 27, 2017 at 6:45 pm

          I’d wonder about Corey’s ties to PHARMA and whether this is their initial move to take over the market before it’s too late.

          Yikes! That thought hadn’t occurred to me. Of course Booker would be the one to let Big Pharma loose with medical marijuana. Then you can patent it, regulate it through the FDA, and prevent competition.

          That thought is infuriating.
    2. Big River Bandido October 27, 2017 at 8:03 pm

       I see this much more cynically than a lot of my fellow NC readers. Booker can confidently present a bill that’s “considerably more aggressive than even Bernie Sanders’ bill from 2015”, knowing full well that he’ll be able to burnish his progressive cred with a bill that will never pass. He can please progressives who are satisfied with empty symbolism, and appeal to his corporate masters who insist on real substance — all at the same time.

       And he’ll never really be tested on the issue.
       1. WobblyTelomeres October 27, 2017 at 8:11 pm

          I agree 100%.
20. Wukchumni October 27, 2017 at 4:11 pm

    “Sleep in glass pods suspended 1,200 feet up the side of a mountain in Peru’s Sacred Valley” [CNBC].
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Those are more like comfortable and stable ‘portaledges’ that big wall climbers use, to bivy overnight on vertical walls.

    I like sleeping in a hammock but my rear echelon is only about a foot above the ground, no biggie.

    I ran into a couple of fellows putting up a new climbing route on Angel Wings-the biggest vertical wall south of Yosemite, in Sequoia NP.

    A visual:

    https://i.pinimg.com/originals/dd/7b/9b/dd7b9bdfcbc54c1607d685748fa65ef6.jpg

    You have to walk 15 miles just to get to the approach, and the climbers I talked to had to do it twice on account of how much gear they had, so they’d walked 45 miles before they had moved an inch vertically up the wall. It took them 8 days to get to the top and they slept in a portaledge every night. It took longer than they thought it would and they ran out of food except for garlic powder, which they told me they ate dry, yikes!

    That’s dedication combined with desperation.
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef October 27, 2017 at 6:28 pm

       I think we can safely assume robots won’t be replacing those human climbers any time soon.
       1. polecat October 27, 2017 at 8:40 pm

          Why would they want to engage in such an illogical endeavor ??
21. el_tel October 27, 2017 at 4:15 pm

    not from a link today (sorry – but has been recently) but as events are moving quickly I just wondered if I was the only one who wonders if EU politics might be about to be upended somewhat courtesy of Spain – particularly if the nationally imposed catalonian election doesn’t go the national government’s way….? We live in interesting times.
    1. ABasLesAristocrates October 27, 2017 at 7:22 pm

       Link from today: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/10/catalonia-independence-171027145635868.html

       Either the Spanish government is determined to turn this into a civil war, or they think they can crush the Catalan people so completely that they’ll never attempt self-determination again. Either way, civil war is what they’re likely to get. Even the Catalan people who started out anti-independence are on the bandwagon now. Nothing like an oppressive colonial power to get everybody on the same side.
22. dcblogger October 27, 2017 at 4:24 pm

    If Northam wins it will be a case of reverse coat tails
    http://bluevirginia.us/2017/10/will-house-candidates-outpoll-northam-in-their-districts
23. Allegorio October 27, 2017 at 4:50 pm

    “Fear and loathing on Hillary Clinton’s grievance tour”

    Hillary Clinton was absolutely right that there is a vast right wing conspiracy and she is its most prominent promoter

    $700/night, who in their right mind would pay that much to see a war criminal, Wall Street Trolls, AIPAC? It’s like a side show tour featuring Adolph Hitler unbowed.
    1. kiers October 29, 2017 at 9:31 pm

       politrix…..they write the script, we applaud! no choice.
24. Ptolemy Philopater October 27, 2017 at 4:57 pm

    “Kevin de León’s opening salvo in the U.S. Senate race against Sen. Dianne Feinstein takes on one of the main …”

    Senator Feinstein on Medicare for all. “Those campaign contributions have got to come from somewhere!”
25. Summer October 27, 2017 at 6:04 pm

    “I think I’m gonna change my name to Lambert Blockchain…”

    Lambert Blockchain, Inc…then your personhood will be totally covered.
26. Summer October 27, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    “Why Don’t We Build Amazon a Goddamn Stargate While We’re at It” [Riverfront Times].

    If a hyperloop is so integral to business success, that they don’t have one in Missouri shows what they think of all the other businesses there that helped to make the state before Amazon.
27. ABasLesAristocrates October 27, 2017 at 6:17 pm

    Is it really a good idea to create a prison planet dystopia at the same time you’re pursuing immortality? Is the world – or even Silicon Valley – so full of people who want to drink Soylent, “Like and share if you agree”, and have their Fitbits evaluate their sexual prowess for eternity?

    I’ve never been so glad to be poor as I am when I think about the longevity/immortality I won’t be able to afford.
28. Summer October 27, 2017 at 6:21 pm

    Concentration: “Why Don’t We Build Amazon a Goddamn Stargate While We’re at It” [Riverfront Times].

    I had to come back to this because it’s like shooting fish in a barrell.

    “The tube would use magnets, somehow, to blast passengers at top speed from one side of the state to the other in about 30 minutes time. ”

    You know, that urgent meeting about the meeting…
    But I’d like to see it in use as people in Missouri try to outrun some tornadoes. Actually, that would be a good selling point (if they thought things that helped average citizens were good selling points).
    1. uncle tungsten October 28, 2017 at 5:53 am

       Diapergate might be a better name as the deceleration from that speed to arrive calmly at the terminus might just clear the bowels en route.
29. Altandmain October 27, 2017 at 7:07 pm

    One reason why you might not want to buy the iPhone:

    https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/258018-apples-iphone-x-repair-fee-is-over-half-the-cost-of-the-phone

    It’s very pricey to repair. The ugly side of planned obsolescence…
30. dcblogger October 27, 2017 at 7:35 pm

    What’s the goal here? One aim, of course, is to drive Trump out of office – not by opposing him from the left, however, but from the right on the basis of anti-Russian xenophobia. But another is what might be described as an exercise in induced mass conformity.
    https://consortiumnews.com/2017/10/25/nyts-assault-of-press-freedom/
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorOctober 28, 2017 at 4:43 am

       The conclusion:

       If, thanks to Russia-gate, the Times succeeds in scaring Americans into believing that the country is being hit with an epidemic of “fake news” even though no one knows what the term even means; if it can persuade readers that news is “disinformation” simply because it comes from a Russian outlet; if it can convince them that “Kremlin-aligned agents secretly built fake Facebook groups to foment political division” even though “Kremlin-aligned” can mean just about anything under the sun – if it can do all those things, then it can persuade them to turn their critical faculties off and believe whatever the U.S. intelligence agencies (and The New York Times) tell them to believe.

       The integration of the corporate media and the so-called “intelligence community” will thus be complete. Instead of information, the result will be a steady stream of CIA propaganda aimed at dulling critical faculties and preparing the public for one imperial misadventure after another

       One or two iteractions of the scandal back, I remember much pearl-clutching about Russkis “creating division” through Black Lives Matter. I think this tweet properly skewers that talking point:

       I didn't even know I was black until Russia told me

       — Ghoulish Gambino (@PrettyBadLefty) October 22, 2017

       I mean, come on.
       1. knowbuddhau October 28, 2017 at 2:04 pm

          “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.” Voltaire

          “Eureka!” War-mongering propagandists, on reading Voltaire /s
       2. kiers October 29, 2017 at 9:35 pm

          What “fake news” really means: home-shore censorship.

          they don’t wanna fix the MONEY divide, they wanna exacerbate it; when people grumble online too readily on “hot button” flash points (because society has been divided), simply call out “Russia”…or “Fake News” and censor. Rinse. Repeat. Pass more tax cuts.
31. Daryl October 27, 2017 at 8:10 pm

    > “Hipcamp, The Airbnb Of Camping, Is Changing Flyover Country Into A Big Welcome Mat”

    There are actually already some campsites on AirBNB. Had a good chuckle looking at one with absolutely no amenities about 10 minutes away from a national forest with free dispersed camping.
32. hman October 28, 2017 at 9:32 am

    BOA closes branches.. What a joke..
    The whole place should have been shut down and several layers of top management should be in jail..
    Branches close on Fri. and open under new name and management on Mon..
    1. ambrit October 29, 2017 at 1:29 pm

       Do like a local did here in H’burg. Transform a closed bank branch building into a dentists’ office, or a Peoples’ Clinic, or a homeless shelter…

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