2:00PM Water Cooler 2/14/2018

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145 comments

1. Sid Finster February 14, 2018 at 2:10 pm

   DHS has debunked the “Russians hacked 21 state elections” myth.

   https://www.thenation.com/article/more-media-malpractice-in-russiagate/
   1. Kokuanani February 14, 2018 at 4:22 pm

      Can someone please tell me exactly what this Russian hacking consists of? All I’ve been able to find is references to “millions of tweets” or entries on Facebook. Are the Dems, Repubs or whoever assuming that the American public [the 50% that vote] are so susceptible to this background yammering that it influences their voting? Are there any claims of hacking actual voting machines, or paying off those election officials who fail to provide enough machines in heavily Dem precincts [the Repubs already do that], or purging voter rolls [again, the Repubs do this].

      I can’t figure out specifically what all the screaming and hand-waving is about. Is “meddling” the new “weapons of mass destruction” — a phrase that scares everyone even though they don’t know what it’s referring to?
      1. Jean February 14, 2018 at 5:34 pm

         Paper ballots prevent Russian hacking, so why aren’t politicians demanding them?

         Does buying ad space on social media platforms:

         A. Create a healthy new economy and contribute to GDP?

         B. Allow the Rosskies to take over our democratic institutions?
         1. The Rev Kev February 14, 2018 at 9:07 pm

            Paper ballots prevent Russian hacking, so why aren’t politicians demanding them?

            Because that would stop your political parties from hacking them. Way back in Florida in 2000 (going by memory here) something like 20,000 votes disappeared from the Democrat electoral count and then just as quick reappeared as on either the Republican rolls or Republican-friendly rolls. That was only the first time I heard about such stuff going on.
            Some of the things that go on with computer voting in the US is so blatant that it would make the old Soviet Politburo blush. And yet the Republicans use it and the Democrats are happy to encourage it. Just Google diebold voting and read what comes back.
            1. Adam Eran February 15, 2018 at 3:43 pm

               Read Means of Ascent by Robert Cato. It is the story of how LBJ defeated the most popular politician in Texas (Coke Stephenson) with the aid of helicopters and money…and lots of election fraud.

               Stephenson was Texas’ version of Abe Lincoln. He would literally win logging contests (still dressed in his campaign clothes).

               I doubt he would have authored civil right legislation, or fought the Vietnamese, so…a mixed bag.
      2. Grizziz February 14, 2018 at 6:38 pm

         Marcy Wheeler follows this very carefully if you have time to read her blog, emptywheel. The mainstream press is profiting over the fearmongering and is remiss in not making clear statements about the actual danger involved when foreign governments are only seeking public information and not seeking to harm,

         the press should be far more cautious reporting on various degrees of hacking, as most people don’t understand the difference between a scan, a compromise, and damage from such compromise.

         https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/02/12/media-criticism-the-press-needs-to-get-far-more-rigorous-about-reporting-on-cybersecurity/
         1. Carolinian February 14, 2018 at 7:48 pm

            A column that should have been written oh, say, a year ago. The bogosity of “Russia gate” has been obvious from the beginning.
            1. RWood February 14, 2018 at 8:35 pm

               2016
               “I have to admit my definition of what the Russians did is, unfortunately, honorable state espionage,” Hayden, now a principal at the Chertoff Group, told an Oct. 18 audience at The Heritage Foundation. “A foreign intelligence service getting the internal emails of a major political party in a major foreign adversary? Game on. I would not want to be in an American court of law and be forced to deny that I never did anything like that as director of the NSA.”

               https://gcn.com/articles/2016/10/18/hayden-russia-email-apple.aspx
               1. WobblyTelomeres February 14, 2018 at 9:40 pm

                  forced to deny that I never

                  A bit twisty for me.
                  1. RWood February 14, 2018 at 11:03 pm

                     Help?
                     Twistin the night awayyy..
                  2. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 4:20 am

                     And note the additional weasel wording:

                     “forced to deny that I never did [1]anything like that [2]as director of the NSA”

                     Truly, Hayden is a master…
         2. Procopius February 15, 2018 at 10:16 am

            Minor quibble: I don’t follow her regularly, so maybe she’s changed her position, but about six months ago I was disappointed when she wrote that she believed the Russians had hacked the DNC computer, even though she did not have smoking gun level proof. At least she was honest and said she did not have proof, unlike Digby and Charlie Pierce who have broken my heart by jumping on the Russia Hacking bandwagon, claiming it’s obvious.
            1. Swamp Yankee February 15, 2018 at 4:18 pm

               Yes, Digby and Pierce have both been major disappointments over the last two years. Juan Cole has also gotten pretty bad, to the point where what he once dismissed as absurd (Russians hacked the election) he now, without noting the change of line, treats as a given, despite the lack of evidence.

               I think a lot of it has to do with class and age and MSNBC. Seriously. I know Cole, and while he has a great sense for the Middle East and translating it for Western audiences, as an Army kid who grew up largely overseas, I can attest that he has very little real sense or feeling for the U.S. outside of college-wealth bubbles like Ann Arbor, and really gets on pretty thin ice when he strays from his area of expertise.

               I abandoned Pierce and Digby far earlier, though, Spring of 2016 when both proved they were for Markts Uber Alles when it really came down to it.

               All are affluent people over 50 years old who have forgotten, if they ever knew, what not having lots of disposable income is like. My sense is that they also are of the demographic cohort who frequently have MSNBC (or possibly, CNN) on in the background (or foreground).

               A damn shame, as I once admired all of them.

               Does Gaius Publius still publish at Digby’s blog? My sense is his intellectual honesty and independence of mind would no longer be welcome there; would be pleased to hear if that’s wrong.
      3. Ook February 14, 2018 at 6:57 pm

         So we have Nuland gleefully declaring that they spent five billion to subvert Ukraine, and the CIA goes so far as to color-code their public sponsorship of coup d’etats, but Americans act like offended virgins when it comes to the idea (unsubstantiated as it is) that some foreigner might flash out an opinion on Twitter. What a small, frightened people you’ve become.
      4. Skip Intro February 15, 2018 at 5:38 am

         What you, and many others, are missing is the stunning effectiveness of the Soviet Russian threat. With a handful of innocuous looking tweets and a fraction of a percent of the Clinton gang’s budget, Evil Supergenius Vladimir Putin personally changed the winner of the US presidential election from the Most Qualified* Candidate in the History of the Universe, to an addled clown appointed as a sham candidate by the same gang. Imagine, if you dare, what would happen if they really wanted to do damage, instead of just punking would-be figureheads and their owners.

         *it is rare that a candidate is a war criminal before they are elected President.
      5. Procopius February 15, 2018 at 10:12 am

         No, there is absolutely no evidence that a single vote was changed either by persuasion or by hacking a voting machine. The whole thing is a myth, started by the five highly paid consultants who own the Democratic Party to divert attention from their responsibility for losing the 2016 election and has grown enormously as a signal of tribal membership of anti-Trumpists. Many anti-Trumpists have enormous contempt for ordinary Americans, and they have created a caricature of Trump’s “base” voters that is far removed from reality. This provides an opportunity for some real leftists to win office by pretending to be Democrats while the DNC/DCCC/DSCC are diverted from spending their resources electing Republicans and Blue Dogs (and fighting to prevent Leftists from winning).
2. dan February 14, 2018 at 2:21 pm

   I am somewhat uncomfortable with the whole student debt forgiveness. Many rational people
   looked at college education in their younger years and balked at the prospect of going into debt
   vs the benefits of higher education. As well, the student loan system itself was a big factor in
   raising costs across the board. It is a slippery slope to bring up funds used for non-education
   purposes (or above and beyond what expenditures would have occurred had funds been
   more limited and focused), but not hard to become uncomfortable with that as well.

   So it is not those diligently paying their bills that might a bit ‘screwed’ – and fight to deserve a
   refund, but those who lost opportunities.
   1. John k February 14, 2018 at 2:41 pm

      Nobody promised life would be fair.
      The question is, should we do now what is in our best interest?
      1. rd February 14, 2018 at 4:14 pm

         I think that is the purpose of bankruptcy: you try something, somebody funds you, it doesn’t work out, you go through an unpleasant process, and you come out the other side able to move forward.

         If a bankruptcy court judge believes you have the wherewithal to pay some or all of the debt, then a payment plan is set up. If not, you go into credit purgatory for a while and rebuild your life instead of having a perpetual financial guillotine over your head.

         Why should Donald Trump be able to have his companies declare bankruptcy numerous times while somebody who tried something at age 20 gets their Social Security garnished at age 65 because it didn’t work out?

         So you just make student loans dischargeable through bankruptcy like every other debt. Federally-guaranteed ones can have a high priority for repayment compared to things like credit cards, but they would still be dischargeable as the need arises.
         1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef February 14, 2018 at 4:26 pm

            That’s another good suggestion, though free money (from the government) for all will put more money into the economy…assuming we don’t have an inflation problem.
            1. JTMcPhee February 14, 2018 at 4:55 pm

               The kleptocrats, I would bet, would quickly figure out scams to Hoover up all that free money… I’d vote for the forgive-us-our-debts approach, in the words of that Presbyterian prayer I personally have spoken going on half a million times now. As long as the forgiveness is absolute, and not subject to the scam that a discharge in bankruptcy leaves open — where the debt calln be “revived” by the discharged person who gets talked, by a guilt-tripping creditor’s minion into agreeing to pay, anything, after the discharge. http://stephenmgoldbergpc.com/rebuilding-credit-an-old-scam-resurfaces/

               Many humans are rotten creatures.
               1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef February 14, 2018 at 6:29 pm

                  The kleptocrats are always there.

                  And most people have some free money, anywhere from a few bucks to a few hundred dollars and more. That (being scammed) will always be a concern.
            2. rd February 14, 2018 at 5:48 pm

               College and university isn’t free in most other countries, but it is lower cost. For example, all Canadian colleges and universities cost about the same as American state schools. So the best universities are selective on which students they accept but they don’t cost much more. There are usually subsidies involved to keep the tuition low but they aren’t free. Scholarships and financial need is available but not usually a major decision criteria.

               This is similar to Canadian healthcare, where it is assumed that it should be universally acceptable with controlled costs. As a result, there is not massive financial anguish in Canada due to either healthcare or student debt.
               1. Andrew Watts February 14, 2018 at 7:06 pm

                  The US spends about $90 billion dollars a year to make college “affordable”. If that money went towards tuition costs and wasn’t used to expand administrative bloat we’d be in a similar condition as Canada. It’s unfortunate and a lot more expensive for our education / health care sector that the US is still enthralled with the spirit of capitalism manifested by our classical liberals and Calvinist forefathers.

                  The country fared better when this theological ideology was replaced by the Social Gospel. I doubt that some kind of theological underpinning will ever be eradicated from American society. The US is still the country where an entire continent exported it’s religious fanatics.
         2. Bridget February 14, 2018 at 10:11 pm

            “I think that is the purpose of bankruptcy: you try something, somebody funds you, it doesn’t work out, you go through an unpleasant process, and you come out the other side able to move forward.”

            You are correct, that is the purpose of bankruptcy. The catch being the “somebody funds you” part. Nobody is going to lend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in unsecured debt to an unemployed teenager or twenty something without some assurances of repayment.
            1. Bridget February 14, 2018 at 10:22 pm

               Let me add…one of the few issues on which I agree with progressives is that we are failing our young people in the financing of higher education. I came of age in an era when I and my cohorts could pay for college with a little help from our parents, summer jobs, and part time jobs during school. Professors back then spent a lot more hours teaching, there were no fancy rec centers, and far fewer administrators (directors of diversity and safe spaces,I’m looking at you!)

               It is entirely possible to deliver a great education at a reasonable price. I happen to believe that the money loaned to unsophisticated 18 year olds and their families has largely fueled the outrageous cost of higher education today. I don’t think that the solution is more of the same.
               1. FluffytheObeseCat February 15, 2018 at 5:31 am

                  Reviving discharge in bankruptcy is not “more of the same”. Bankruptcy is the most widely accepted, effective way to curb loose, careless lending practices. The practice of dumping tens of thousands of dollars into the hands of DeVry and Phoenix “University” students will end when the lenders have skin in the game again, and not before. They are the knowledgeable experts who will react swiftly and prudently to a change in lending ground rules.
                  1. Bridget February 15, 2018 at 1:05 pm

                     We are in agreement, then. Restoration of discharge in bankruptcy will dry up student loans.
            2. a different chris February 15, 2018 at 10:38 am

               >without some assurances of repayment.

               No: Lenders have, since the Sphinx was fresh-cut stone I suspect, traded off between “assurances of repayment” and usurious interest rates. What do you think 6+ percent on a co-signed, non-dischargable loans for an indestructible good vs, say, 2.8% for a rapidly depreciating asset like a pick-me-up truck is except usury? (and the co-signer is the same on both loans, I can tell you personally.)
         3. Procopius February 15, 2018 at 10:23 am

            I think that is the purpose of bankruptcy:

            You haven’t been paying attention. Lovable Uncle Joe Biden was almost single-handedly responsible for inclusion in the “Bankruptcy Reform Act of 2005” of a provision that student debt is not only not dischargable in bankruptcy, but they can pursue you and garnishee your Social Security Pension up to 25% until it’s paid off. I think they can also garnishee your Disability Pension, but am not certain. He also made it much harder to discharge credit card debt, on the grounds that people would get this easy credit and then just declare bankruptcy to avoid paying it back. Never mind that such behavior had never been seen before. This is why I’ll vote for a Republican before I’d vote for him.
      2. MyLessThanPrimeBeef February 14, 2018 at 4:22 pm

         I think Romancing the Loan’s comment below is to everyone’s best interest, as it benefits everyone, and instead of further division, can unite us.
      3. Lost in OR February 14, 2018 at 4:37 pm

         Would it be fair to award every citizen an equal stipend? Those who wisely invested in their future through debt can pay down that debt. Those citizens who wisely chose not to use debt can use the stipend to improve their lives as they so choose.

         The favoritism and inequity of gov’t policy is a divisive issue. Listen up Liberal, favoring the cultural elite will only buy yourself more of the Donald. Many citizens used and abused in the Great Recession would put said stipend to very good use. We might even help revive the economy. Which, l believe, is what this discussion is about.
         1. jsn February 14, 2018 at 6:01 pm

            ++
         2. kevin February 15, 2018 at 8:11 am

            This sounds all well and good, but we can’t afford to give every one hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you stipulate equal subsidies for all you are committing many young children, teens, and 20 somethings with medical issues to death.

            Education isn’t quite the same. If you are only making your “equal stipend” argument for that industry I’d suggest you say so. I do think UBI is a good idea, not sure it would be enough to cover education though
            1. a different chris February 15, 2018 at 10:43 am

               Even (especially) if you don’t believe in MMT, Jeff Bezos is “worth” over 100 billion dollars. We, well he and his cohorts, can afford it.

               It’s a question of how* we spend this money. That is all. The morality people want to apply to spreading it around is hilarious, when you look at those paragons of probity Trump/Bezos/Gates et. al.

               *if you haven’t figured it out, MMT or confiscating it from Bezos is not saying we don’t need to clean up our college system. Or our highway builder mess. Or… etc. It just means the limits are not money per se.
      4. dan February 14, 2018 at 6:27 pm

         OK. Life isn’t fair. But if the objective is to benefit the economy for all – why
         not something else, such as a real infrastructure plan, instead of student debt
         forgiveness?
         1. Kurt Sperry February 14, 2018 at 6:56 pm

            Why not both? There was 20+ Trillion with a “T” spent off the books by the DoD in the period from 1998-2015.

            If you say there isn’t enough to pay for both, it just means you haven’t been paying attention. MMT isn’t some nutty theory, it’s the working basis of US defense spending.
            1. RWood February 14, 2018 at 8:10 pm

               ++++1*10
      5. The Rev Kev February 14, 2018 at 6:52 pm

         Instead of thinking in terms of student debt, think of education in the same terms as research – a long-term investment in the country. If your country does not have a highly educated work force, you will be always competing against countries that do value education with one arm tied behind your back. Countries like Russia and China for example. If you want a bit of proof of that statement, consider the fact of the increasing rate of patents lodged by China and the decreasing rate by the US.
         The money that you invest in education is paid back in the higher tax bases that these former students will have as well as the money that they will generate using their education over their lifetime. If you try to cram the idea of education into the straight-jacket of the market, you will be always be chasing the financial income for the next quarter’s bottom line. An uneducated workforce will also impose burdens on your country by having to be helped financially in hard times like the present.
         Remember too that a majority of these student debts is not actually for education but has gone to pay an increasingly large managerial infrastructure in the colleges and the pay of those presidents running colleges has increased out all proportion. Education is now a Wall Street industry. This no longer resembles things like the post-WW2 GI education bill. Getting a workforce that is properly educated I consider to be a core function of any state and is definitely in a nation’s best interests.
      6. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 4:29 am

         > Nobody promised life would be fair.

         Fortunately, being fair (or being seen as being fair) is often in our best interest. This is certainly true for advocates of highly controversial proposals in a deeply conflicted political environment. (People have different notions of “fairness,” of course…)
   2. Romancing The Loan February 14, 2018 at 3:56 pm

      I’d feel the same way, having chosen to attend less-prestigious schools on scholarship rather than take out loans to tread the red carpet. We have many examples, from NAFTA to SNAP, of why responding with a flippant “nobody promised life would be fair” to those sorts of inequities is insufficient and prone to backfire.

      I do like the proposal made in earlier threads, of a national debt relief program where everyone would be given one-time payments that must be used to pay down any existing debt before being used for any other purpose.
      1. Rojo February 14, 2018 at 5:46 pm

         Everyone 18 and over gets $5000 deposited in an IRA that can be used to A) Pay down student loans, B) Pay for the school of your choice or C)let ride until age 59 (just like IRA’s currently).

         Kids starting out get some free college.

         Mid-lifers get out from under their debt more quickly

         Oldster’s nest-eggs get a nice little boost.
         1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 4:32 am

            > $5000 deposited in an IRA that can be used to A) Pay down student loans

            You’ve got the decimal point in the wrong place
      2. False Solace February 14, 2018 at 6:55 pm

         Oh my God. We have a huge problem in this country, right here, right now, with young people unable to start their lives and others deterred from going to college at all, yet a bunch of selfish whiners are going to complain that they personally may not benefit financially from fixing the problem.

         Give me a break. This is why we can’t have nice things.

         Rest assured, you will personally experience a much improved economy that’s more fair to everyone. Isn’t that enough? Maybe it helps to consider the kids you may someday have who will navigate the system?
         1. Kurt Sperry February 14, 2018 at 6:57 pm

            +1000
         2. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 4:43 am

            > that they personally may not benefit financially from fixing the problem

            That’s really not it. “They” are pointing out that they made sacrifices to play by the rules and yet don’t get the benefit the rulebreakers got; it’s as if a sort of inverted means test were applied to those eligible for relieft.

            To me, this is another example of why programs that convey universal concrete material benefits are superior, both ethically and politically, to those with eligibility determination. Especially when, as here, the eligibility determination is not paying your debts, which is a deeply charged issue. “Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” is not universally practiced, even by today’s Christians…
      3. Tom_Doak February 14, 2018 at 9:06 pm

         How does it help to make a national debt relief program where most of the proceeds get Hoovered up by the big banks and Sallie Mae? Didn’t we already bail them out??
      4. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 4:36 am

         > a national debt relief program where everyone would be given one-time payments that must be used to pay down any existing debt before being used for any other purpose.

         I keep thinking in terms of a “system reset.” When your system is crashing all the time and behaving in a flaky matter it’s time to press the reset button (which is what the Jubilee would do).

         In our case, pushing the reset button would mean undoing — one hopes — forty years of neoliberalism, returning us to the mid-70s (right before real wages flattened). Then, with the benefit of experience, we could uninstall all the buggy software, and the malware, that caused the crashes, start clean, and move in a better direction with the benefit of experience. (Not saying the mid-70s were perfect, by any means, but as a baseline I’d prefer them to the present day.)

         Anyhow, the “reset” metaphor might prove helpful, though in general I deprecate the comparison between computer systems and natural or human systems, because the computer systems are simpler.
      5. a different chris February 15, 2018 at 10:53 am

         >having chosen to attend less-prestigious schools on scholarship

         I’m sure your parents were proud.

         When I was in the CMU lab I met a guy bouncing lasers off of, well everything I think, for his doctorate. At some point in one of our conversations he started laughing and said – “you know, I couldn’t get into Pitt as an undergrad, let alone CMU.” Now this was decades ago when Pitt sucked. He was your usual young male and f(amily blog)ed around a little more than most. He wound up getting into Pitt-Johnstown by the skin of his teeth.

         I suspect his parents weren’t, at the close of high school, very proud of him. There was certainly no school so “low-prestige” that it would give him a scholarship.
   3. taunger February 14, 2018 at 4:33 pm

      I think it was actually a brief period of time when the rational choice was not going to school because of debt. Costs have been rising consistently, but I remember talking to alums from my law school when I was a student in 2010. Grads in 1996 could still earn their way through school with summer jobs (good paying, legal internship jobs, but still …). By the time I applied in 2008, I knew that income based repayment would stymie the worst, and if I could get public service forgiveness, I would pay less than sticker price.

      So really, the bad times probably started around 2000 and ended in 2008. Otherwise, I would say the rational choice would almost always be some sort of higher education.

      Not that anyone is rational, which is a silly argument to begin with, and there is no reason persons should toil under debt to no social benefit.

      If we want to talk rationality, how about putting student debt back into the bankruptcy process and making lenders do their due dillegence? Maybe forgiveness and that together? With free public school available as an option? Now I think we are starting to get rational
      1. False Solace February 14, 2018 at 7:01 pm

         We’re already in a situation where the US Federal Government, an entity that can never go bankrupt except voluntarily, guarantees the vast majority of student loans. How much due diligence need lenders perform? It’s just a big profit trough for yet another industry. I see in Trump’s budget he canceled a bunch of loan forgiveness programs and dialed up enforcement. Now that’s winning. /s
   4. Tom Stone February 14, 2018 at 7:16 pm

      Dan, decades ago I made a living collecting student loan debt.
      I believe it should be outright forgiven.
      Here are a few reasons…
      Student loan schools, back in the day the two worst were a beauty college ( out of $2MM placed over 5 years $1,800 was collected, by me).
      We found them, they didn’t have a pot to piss in.
      Schools like universal beauty academy, that “University” the ExPOTUS shilled for, ITT technical institute…
      All hopeful people, who got screwed.
      That’s a good third of Student Loan debt.
      For the rest, we live in a consumer society, if you strangle your achievers with enough debt that they become wage slaves…not good.
      Having those monthly payments spent on goods and services also sounds nice.
      And of course there are people who took advantage, there are always some in any game.
      1. a different chris February 15, 2018 at 10:58 am

         >And of course there are people who took advantage, there are always some in any game.

         That’s the difference between cap-C Conservatives and other people… and in America, I suspect we are 75% cap-C Conservatives, no matter how we vote. They focus obsessively on the 1 out of 100 that scams the system, and the 99 that needed it just don’t register.
3. Jim Haygood February 14, 2018 at 2:39 pm

   New York Fed’s Underlying Inflation gauge (which uniquely includes some financial market prices in addition to the usual goods ‘n services, thus picking up asset inflation) ticked up to three percent even.

   https://www.newyorkfed.org/research/policy/underlying-inflation-gauge

   Not coincidentally, there’s trouble in DXY — the dollar index has fallen back to a feeble 89.12 today. Equally uncoincidentally, the old yellow dog has risen from its customary pallet in the shade to charge across the yard like its tail was on fire:

   http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=iau&insttype=&freq=1&show=&time=8

   Gold is the mirror of the dollah.
4. Steve from CT February 14, 2018 at 2:47 pm

   Obama surrounded by drones. How appropriate as a representation of his administration. Love it.
   1. David Carl Grimes February 14, 2018 at 3:12 pm

      I would like another portrait of Obama surrounded by dollars. That too would be appropriate.
      1. Massinissa February 14, 2018 at 4:23 pm

         Why not both?
   2. sbrown February 14, 2018 at 3:13 pm

      I think Obama should not only be surrounded by drones, but blood and dead humans should be included as well. That would really bring the point home of what he has has done.
      1. nowhere February 14, 2018 at 5:53 pm

         Why is there such focus on Obama? Trump has been President for over a year now. He has continued, if not escalated (by many reports), the frequency of both drone strikes and civilian deaths.

         Yes, Obama was Droner In Chief, the current occupant of this title is just as morally reprehensible. Why not focus on what can be changed now, rather than fixating on what happened years ago?
         1. tooearly February 14, 2018 at 7:01 pm

            Because ” those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it”?
         2. Kurt Sperry February 14, 2018 at 7:09 pm

            Because as long as the Democrats embrace endless, counter-productive war, there is no hope for a sane and humane foreign policy. When there are two war parties in a two-party system, democracy is broken. And defeating Trump is essentially pointless until the Democrats first offer an actual alternative. Obama’s record of a cynical neocon policy, combined with the still ongoing, head-in-the sand hagiography of his term in office is proof that nothing has been learned top party level. Trump isn’t the problem; he’s a symptom of it, and the problem is bipartisan.
         3. EricT February 14, 2018 at 7:32 pm

            Don’t forget GWB. Most of the crap we deal with now, started with him.
            1. Sid_finster February 14, 2018 at 8:55 pm

               Bush gifted us two wars. Obama upped the ante to seven, although mostly on a smaller scale.
         4. HopeLB February 14, 2018 at 8:36 pm

            By failing to enact any change from the previous administration, sweeping Bush and Co’s illegal surveillance/wars under the rug (Moving Forward (away from Hope and Change)) , even going so far as to make legal what was previously not, Obama set in place the scaffolding upon which Trump and the Republicans could climb to greater heights of neoconism/neoliberalism/militarization/privatization/Banksterism. Had we had eight years of change, Trump not only would have lost, but if somehow he had won, would have much less structural apparatus to work with and the mindsets/philosophy that fuels them.
         5. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 4:46 am

            > Why is there such focus on Obama? Trump has been President for over a year now. He has continued, if not escalated (by many reports), the frequency of both drone strikes and civilian deaths.

            Because the Democrat Party needs to get over Obama if it is to serve its (putative) base, i.e., move beyond the professional class dominance described so well by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!
            1. Barbara Kurth February 15, 2018 at 10:33 am

               What does “not tan” mean?
               1. blennylips February 15, 2018 at 2:49 pm

                  100 years of Nixon: Tan, rested and ready
   3. Quentin February 14, 2018 at 3:16 pm

      Yes, drones instead of ‘green shoots’.
   4. Annotherone February 14, 2018 at 4:10 pm

      Good on whoever created this – this one is the stone cold truth! Flowers? Shakespeare: “For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds; Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.” (Sonnet 94 )
      1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef February 14, 2018 at 4:31 pm

         Nice Shakespearean quote.

         Pretty things smelingl far worse past expiration dates…perhaps poetic justice.

         But what deeds did they commit that should sour them so? Being adored by many humans? That they did not do on their own, though.
         1. Annotherone February 14, 2018 at 4:51 pm

            I expected more of him – naive, I guess. On inauguration day 2009 I could never have imagined him embracing the use of drones so easily. That was where the festering began, for me.
            (First reply disappeared)
            1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 5:24 am

               After Obama-the-Constitutional-Lawyer flip-flopped on FISA reform and voted to give retroactive immunity to the telcos for Bush’s program of warrantless surveillance in July 2008 , after promising to filibuster it in January 2008, I knew what I was dealing with. Too bad.
   5. perpetualWAR February 14, 2018 at 5:49 pm

      How about foreclosed homes? I think he’s the foreclosure king, so make him wear it.
5. djrichard February 14, 2018 at 3:23 pm

   “But I didn’t know how to get other people to recognize the validity of my identity.”

   I understand there’s a market for identity. You just have to figure out where your identity has value. It helps if you can help them connect the dots on how your identity will help them increase revenue or decrease cost.
   1. djrichard February 14, 2018 at 4:49 pm

      OK, I have to admit my knee-jerk reaction wasn’t fair to the article. In general I’m against the idea of finding validation of identity through other people. But when reading the article, it’s clear her identity came about in “coming out”. So full props to her.

      It’s also clear that she got to experience the lows of the marketplace and is now getting to experience the highs of the marketplace. But more than that, she does seem to have found a way to be at grace with the world. Good luck to her.
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 5:19 am

         I’m glad Preston is running for office and kudos to her.

         My concern is more with Teen Vogue than Preston.

         First, there’s no mention whatever of Preston’s platform. (I mean, we got over the notion that there’s a direct line between ascriptive identity and political views with Obama, right?) Second, Teen Vogue quotes Preston:

         I didn’t know how to get other people to recognize the validity of my identity.

         and combines that with the headline:

         I Went From Experiencing Homelessness to Running for Office

         I end up with the idea, which I don’t much like, that one should run for office to affirm one’s identity (which seems hardly as democratic a view as the view that one should run for office to serve one’s constituents, for example).
         1. djrichard February 15, 2018 at 11:35 am

            Yea, I figured that was what was going through your head too. Leave it to editors to get the editor’s message across more so than the message that the person being interviewed wants to communicate.

            And admittedly, by running for government, it suggests that she wants to make it so nobody else has to go through what she did. Which is admirable. But it would also mean that anybody who is transgressive in the way she was would no longer need to “come out”. Which means that their identity no longer comes from themselves; rather their identity would be validated by an institution; they get to join the club with the rest of us who-would-be-irredeemable-but-for-the-grace-of-institutional-authority. Yay! Right?

            That said, it’s also a different kind of redemption compared to how we redeem ourselves in the labor marketplace. In the labor marketplace, we redeem ourselves by increasing revenues or lowering cost. So maybe being redeemed by government institution at least provides some relief compared trying to do the same in the labor marketplace? Or maybe, and this is where I’m treading into crazy territory, maybe we don’t even try to redeem ourselves in the labor marketplace. But if we give up on that, maybe we should be giving up on redemption by institutional authority as well. Have to give this more thought.
            1. JTFaraday February 16, 2018 at 6:50 am

               No, if you have “an identity” that is that stigmatized/ discriminated against by society, you need to be sufficiently accepted by society BEFORE you can redeem yourself in the marketplace, just as everyone else is obligated to do. It’s a double burden.

               This is not a difficult concept. Some on the so-called “left” seem to want to make it “difficult,” and I say over and over again, this is not the right thing to do, ethically or strategically. Nor does it make sense intellectually. I can’t twist my brain into knots for you.

               If we want to relieve ourselves of the necessity of redeeming ourselves through obligatory labor, that’s a different argument. Honestly, if it’s necessary to labor there’s only so much difference between doing it in a so-called “market” and doing it in some other structure of authority.

               We can get into those questions, but those questions don’t alter the question of people who are stigmatized and excluded and/or abused by society and its structures of authority.

               And if “the left” is pissed that capitalism is absorbing these people and using them to make itself look good and it’s working for them, then we see this “left’s” mistake.
6. shinola February 14, 2018 at 3:29 pm

   The Adolph Reed article “Black Politics after 2016” is very good (although rather long & dense). If you have some time, it’s definitely worth a read. One of the (many) nuggets in the article:

   “The contention that working-class disaffection from Clintonite neoliberalism most of all expresses backlash against blacks and others is an argument, as Clinton’s snide dismissal of Sanders indicates, that economic inequality is not a central concern for blacks, women, immigrants, LGBT or transgender people. A year into the Trump presidency and unimpeded Republican control of Congress and of most state governments has confirmed what many on the left have known all along, that the right’s agenda is an all-out attack on working people, no matter what their racial and gender classifications and identities or sexual orientations.”
   1. Jim Haygood February 14, 2018 at 3:59 pm

      ‘A year into the Trump presidency and unimpeded Republican control of Congress and of most state governments has confirmed … that the right’s agenda is an all-out attack on working people.’

      Nothing scourges working folks like rising inflation. Trifecta partisan control of the presidency and Congress is a recipe for untrammeled fiscal stimulus and inflation. ‘Guns and butter’ was a disaster under Lyndon Johnson with across-the-board D party rule, and is shaping up much the same under R party misrule.

      We fiscal curmudgeons yearn for a Democratic majority in the House come November — not because of any affinity for the D party platform, but rather because partisan gridlock tends to restrain grand new government gestures.

      Thirteen shambolic months of R party flakery have burnt down our childrens’ future with the certainty of $30 trillion in federal debt by the end of an eight-year Trump regime. Hear me roar …
      1. giantsquid February 14, 2018 at 5:08 pm

         During the ‘guns & butter’ years of Kennedy and Johnson, the cumulative US debt increased by 21% (about 6.8% during Kennedy’s shortened term and 10.6% during Johnson’s five plus years). During Reagan’s reign of guns & tax cuts, the debt increased by 187%, and that during a time of divided government. The debt was also up during the Obama years by over 95%. So I’m not sure divided government is a cure all for what ails us. In fact, the US debt decreased during each of the 10 years preceding the Great Depression. In any case, the ‘guns’ spending is likely to continue, divided government or no, and another tax giveaway is already baked into the pie.
      2. Synoia February 14, 2018 at 5:48 pm

         that the right’s agenda is an all-out attack on working people

         Nonsense. The D’s just do it differently.
      3. John k February 15, 2018 at 12:12 am

         Inflation comes from shortages, including engineers during 60’s moonshot and Vietnam. Those were fading when oil began the 4x jump in the 70’s.
         Inflation not a problem when gov prints to employ an army of unemployed, as we have now.
      4. Jonhoops February 15, 2018 at 6:33 pm

         Jim Haygood, you’ve got that backwards. Inflation is of little concern to the working man if his wages rise at the same pace as the cost of goods.

         Inflation is a big concern for the rentier classes and bankers who see the value of their investments and loan portfolios being whittled away.

         This why the Fed (tool of the bankers) is always concerned about fighting inflation even when in the middle of a deflationary financial crisis.
7. sleepy February 14, 2018 at 3:30 pm

   Sadly, another school shooting.

   https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-presence-at-marjory-stoneman-douglas-high-in-florida-live-updates/
   1. Arizona Slim February 14, 2018 at 3:46 pm

      Cue up the thoughts and prayers rhetoric in 3-2-1 …
   2. rd February 14, 2018 at 4:08 pm

      This is why the police need tanks…to assault our schools to take out the shooters holed up in them.

      I seem to think there is something wrong with that picture, but am struggling to figure out what it is……it is becoming normal for schools to become re-enactments of the shootout at the OK Corral. every day seems to be High Noon.
      1. Arizona Slim February 14, 2018 at 4:28 pm

         I am glad that my mom retired from teaching before school shootings became so widespread.
      2. RWood February 14, 2018 at 8:46 pm

         Normal weapons defending against/ for insurgents are sufficient.
         1. RWood February 14, 2018 at 11:16 pm

            And the world — even in the bastion of truth and democracy — tightens its grip on whatever optimism of existing may rise in effervescent youth.

            https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/life-for-teenagers-today/
      3. fajensen February 15, 2018 at 3:19 am

         I seem to think there is something wrong with that picture, but am struggling to figure out what it is

         It’s the “Only In America” aspect of tragedy – School shootings simply doesn’t happen anywhere else at this rate, not even in those crazy places like, for example, Venezuela, Paraguay and Iraq. The police don’t need tanks, APCs and a 24/7 SWAT team in any po-dunk town anywhere else BUT in America.

         The subversive question becomes: “Why Only In America!?”

         Something in the water, perhaps? American Culture? A straight-up, obvious to everyone, ranting nutter can get guns and/or become a trusted advisor to several presidents? In the latter case, crazy seems to be a qualification.
   3. Christopher February 15, 2018 at 2:55 am

      As someone in Australia looking at all the deaths from guns, I see all the people come out ‘what a tragedy’ etc.

      Nothing changes, so expect more of it. I’ve stopped trying to influence the debate. If enough of you say enough, things might move forward, but that doesn’t happen, people just go out and buy guns. That’ll fix it
8. JTMcPhee February 14, 2018 at 3:48 pm

   Brazilian drug dealer protects market base by vaccinating mopes to keep them alive to continue buying.

   Too bad the Elite Capitalists don’t see the wisdom in this model.

   (I’m sure the young man had a more charitable notion in mind, though. Altruism take many forms indeed.)
   1. ambrit February 14, 2018 at 4:59 pm

      This is what happens when the central government puts the interests of the wealthy of their nation ahead of the general good. It’s not just a Brazllian thing. It happens in many places with weak central authorities. It can, and probably will happen here.
      1. JTMcPhee February 14, 2018 at 7:59 pm

         It does, and did. Al Capone and New York mobsters were public benefactors in their way and to their tribe. Kiss the Godfather’s Ring, and all that.
9. rd February 14, 2018 at 3:57 pm

   Re: Alaska Permanent Fund

   Norway’s Oil fund is up to about 300% of GDP. It is possible that is one reason why people are immigrating to the US from sh****le countries instead of Norway. However, Norway does have a problem with the fund in that it is not being run like Calpers. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-12-04/how-not-to-run-a-sovereign-wealth-fund
10. Jim Haygood February 14, 2018 at 4:09 pm

    Juggernaut Amazon set a fresh record closing high of 1451.05, besting its Jan 31st high water mark by 16 ticks.

    Everybody back in the pool …
    1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef February 14, 2018 at 4:41 pm

       When Amazon announces its expansion to Mars, the value of the company will go to the Moon.

       But I think if the expansion is to the Moon, the value will go to Mars. This latter is probably more valuable…Mars is higher, or further away.
    2. Kevin February 14, 2018 at 4:42 pm

       Love the title of this counterpunch article:

       Jeff Bezo’s Quest to Find America’s Dumbest Mayor
       1. MyLessThanPrimeBeef February 14, 2018 at 5:10 pm

          There is no joy for taxpayers in other cities to see a corporation take advantage of a not-so-smart mayor.

          The way it is now is a feature, though it doesn’t have to be that the weakest link is immediately a victim.
       2. Jim Haygood February 14, 2018 at 5:14 pm

          Dean Bonkers should know better than to type “baited breath.” And his description of Toronto as a “non-American city” will rankle some residents of Canada and Mexico who rightly view themselves as fellow denizens of the North American continent.

          But Dean’s quite right that the edifice complex ultimately will take down both Amazon and its municipal victim, just as the completion of Apple’s egregious silver spaceship marked its transition to a deadly dull market performer.

          To paraphrase Martin Amis, who claims that British tennis ace Tim Henman is “the first human being called Tim to achieve anything at all”:

          “Consider the essential unlikelihood of Tim Sawyer, Uncle Tim’s Cabin, Tim Brown’s School Days or Tim Cook’s blowout quarter.”
          1. cnchal February 14, 2018 at 9:34 pm

             . . . And his description of Toronto as a “non-American city”

             Toronto is relatively clean and safe. That’s as non-American as you can get.
             1. WobblyTelomeres February 14, 2018 at 9:56 pm

                Yeah, yeah, yeah. Explain Rob Ford.
                1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 5:28 am

                   Volatility voters.
11. David February 14, 2018 at 4:20 pm

    Zuma has now resigned as South African President, as predicted earlier today.
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43066443
    This is only the beginning though: he’ll be lucky to stay out of jail.
    1. Synoia February 14, 2018 at 5:44 pm

       He’s no where close to unique.

       The ones in the “developed world” have better lawyers.
12. Carolinian February 14, 2018 at 4:26 pm

    More on the VIX fix from Pam Martens

    http://wallstreetonparade.com/2018/02/volatility-has-wall-street-found-one-more-index-it-can-rig/

    And somewhat interesting–Putin may be threatened in upcoming election, not by some CIA stooge but by a communist/nativist who is polling well. Seems there’s a populist backlash against oligarchy in Russia as well.

    http://www.unz.com/ishamir/a-russian-trump/
    1. John k February 15, 2018 at 12:54 am

       I wouldn’t sell him life insurance.
    2. integer February 15, 2018 at 4:08 am

       Those online poll numbers seem highly unlikely to be representative of the Russian population as a whole. As Putin is almost certain to remain in power, many groups that don’t have Russia’s best interests at heart will already be looking at ways in which they can cast aspersions on the integrity of the upcoming Russian elections. One fairly obvious tactic is to use gamed online polls as “evidence” that the election results do not represent the will of the people and are therefore illegitimate. FWIW Israel Shamir, the author of that article, has displayed what I would describe as a remarkable level of ignorance regarding the level of political influence AIPAC has on US senators, especially given the websites his work appears at, and that Israel (the nation) is a favorite topic of his. For this reason I remain fairly skeptical of his writing.
       1. Yves Smith February 15, 2018 at 7:23 am

          Online polls are worthless. You have no idea if the sample is even remotely representative.
       2. Carolinian February 15, 2018 at 10:58 am

          In the article he doesn’t endorse the online polls. He’s saying support for this challenger is a big unknown.
13. Paul Cardan February 14, 2018 at 4:27 pm

    The Lazzarato interview is interesting. Thanks. I think he’s right that “workers have not yet created forms of struggle and resistance specifically aimed at the issue of indebtedness” (1044). I find myself wondering what Greeks are supposed to do. Forms of resistance that make sense as a worker might not make much sense as a citizen of an insolvent politically organized community.

    But, speaking of things that make sense (or don’t), what does this mean?

    According to [Nietzsche], the establishment of the creditor–debtor relation necessitates specifically adequate forms of subject and subjectivity. Since debt as such constitutes a promise – a promise of future reimbursement – it thus necessarily requires the construction of a subject able to promise . . . As the creditor–debtor relationship rests on a promise of future reimbursement, Nietzsche suggests that debt faces temporal indeterminacy and unpredictability. In his view, the construction of the subject and of memory becomes a way to anticipate and even to hinder subjectivity, hence this idea of a requirement for ‘the debtor to stand as self-guarantor’ (1042)

    Debt is tied to promising. One way to promise is to say “I promise,” and someone who does this meaningfully is able to explain how the phrase is used (perhaps by example), distinguish proper from improper uses, and justify or criticize examples of it’s use. They should also understand that in saying those words they’ve opened themselves up to a distinct kind of criticism (having to do with what’s promised), and this implies the ability to distinguish keeping from breaking, as well as the ability to distinguish proper from improper excuses. People are trained up so as to be able to do these things. True enough, if we humans weren’t the “products” of natural history that we are, we couldn’t be trained in just these ways and there’d be no promising. True enough, if none of us could remember more than whatever transpired in the previous thirty seconds, promising would be pointless. Is this what Lazzarato means when he says that the creditor-debtor relation necessitates adequate forms of the subject? If so, that’s trivial. Or is he making some other, really exciting claim? Does he mean that human beings have been made to be trainable and made to remember in order to facilitate the creditor-debtor relationship? If so, that’s a meaningful claim, and plainly false.
    1. Synoia February 14, 2018 at 5:41 pm

       1. Debtors need a movement, and organization.
       2. Debtors need solidarity, Enforced solidarity, because step 4 will be brutal, and there will be deaths.
       3. They make demands
       4. They have a payment strike.
       5. They form crowds to protect their own from evictions and collections.
       6. They will be called criminals.
       6. Then the police attack. The response must be passive.

       It’s just like union organizing.

       Ghandi was correct.
       1. Darthbobber February 14, 2018 at 5:53 pm

          Presumably we nominate the United States government to lead this strike, as the largest debtor? Or it’s current president, the self-described “King of debt”?
    2. Darthbobber February 14, 2018 at 5:49 pm

       The article is a fairly good example of dressing commonplaces up in opaque jargon and selling their implications as more than they could be.

       Of course, ANY obligations that persist over time involve an element of indeterminacy. How could they not? Marriages. Building a factory in a place optimized for how things are now. Making a thing today you hope to sell tomorrow.

       As Marx (and others) mentioned long ago, this would create no issues if the world were created anew every day.

       Dragging Nietzsche into it by way of Deleuze adds nothing to our understanding of any of this.
       1. cat's paw February 15, 2018 at 12:58 am

          Yeah, it does. TBF, I only skimmed the interview, but what N brings to the discussion is deep, nigh metaphysical, psychological insight into the historico-development of debt, indebtedness, shame, guilt, and bad conscience as actually existing effects of socio-political forces.

          Marx wouldn’t have recognized a real psychological insight if it sashayed up and slapped him in the face. Marx gives you the “outside” of the process. Nietzsche gives you the “inside.”
       2. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 5:27 am

          I think the idea of a debtor-creditor subjectivity (inter-subjectivity?) is good and not in Marx.
          1. cat's paw February 15, 2018 at 1:49 pm

             Yes, for example, this is precisely what Foucault found in Nietzsche after having been a more or less doctrinaire French communist in the 50’s.

             “Genealogy of Morals” uncovers the processes whereby simple, even superficial, political and economic relationships, arrangements, designations, ranks, and types acquire “meaning,” become metaphysical and True– and it does it from the inside in a phenomenological and psychological way. It shows how political and “temporal” power becomes spiritual and “eternal” power.

             The unpayable debt of the sinner, the dark and constant suspicion that haunts him, makes him weak and subject, coloring everything he is and does…. is structurally equivalent to the debt of a poor single mother with payday loans she can’t repay– or the debt that the Troika insists Greece must restructure its internal socio-political arrangements for.
    3. VietnamVet February 14, 2018 at 7:56 pm

       The fundamental problem from 2008 that hasn’t been solved is the bad debt that can’t be paid off; including student loans which keeps growing, passing $1.2 trillion dollars. This has been papered over with the Fed’s virtual money that the banker oligarchs horde. But, the ledgers fester. The Trump Administration is quite clear. Cut off money going to low-lifes. In other words, as a former Casino owner might say, milk the suckers dry. The problem is in a morbid consumer economy; money, bets and derivatives are also worthless. The only churn is from war and looting. Ultimately, self-destructive. The safe way to infuse more cash into the real economy is a debt jubilee. If not, in the atomic age, wiping out the Empire and its debt, like in the past, risks taking the earth along with it.
    4. JTFaraday February 16, 2018 at 7:58 am

       “Does he mean that human beings have been made to be trainable and made to remember in order to facilitate the creditor-debtor relationship? If so, that’s a meaningful claim, and plainly false.”

       Parents and other adults engage in creditor-debtor relationships with small children all the time, and this is very much both the substance or definition of “socialization” and the purpose of socialization and the means by which socialization happens. Before you can teach the child his ABCs you have to teach the child that he is obligated to pay attention. Disguising this as “play” doesn’t really alter it.
14. ambrit February 14, 2018 at 5:12 pm

    As someone who has availed himself of Home Depots hiring process, well, I’m here to tell you that it is an exercise in worker suppression, to be charitable. Basically, one applies for a position online. The first problem is that you are not applying to work at Home Depot. No. You must apply for an individual job. So, multiple applications have to be offered. Second, and most pernicious is that you get a boilerplate acknowledgement e-mail. “Thank you for applying!” Then the ‘Great Silence.’ Never does the applicant get the courtesy of a reply to the effect that; “Sorry! We’re not hiring. Try later.” Just silence. If any process is designed to discourage people, this one is.
    Not to pick on Home Depot. They are bog standard in the ways they handle prospective employees. I’ve seen the same methodology used at other establishments. This rot extends even down to smaller retail establishments, such as a Mom and Pop bicycle store I inquired at. “Fill out an application, and if anything comes up, we’ll call you.”
    “Don’t call us, we’ll call you.”
    Welcome to Hard Times.
    Walk around any depressed or even semi-depressed neighbourhood in America. Dress a bit like the locals, (ie. don’t stand out.) Listen. Just listen. If some of the major parties stalwarts would do this, go incognito into their districts, they would learn what fear is.
    1. Carolinian February 14, 2018 at 5:34 pm

       Perhaps Home Depot management–once headed by uber rightwinger Bernard Marcus–just aren’t people persons. A friend sent me the Ken Loach movie I, Daniel Blake which suggests dismissive attitudes toward the unemployed also are common in the UK.
    2. Summer February 14, 2018 at 9:42 pm

       Not unique to retail. That’s the defacto online HR process. Any gaps in the work history? Algorithm throws it out. You don’t get the curtesy of a chance to explain.
       Age is the other big auto expel. That comes from the year you graduated high school or college.
       Then it’s the search for keywords im the resume that match the job description and requirements.
       People need someone on the inside or connections to the inside to get past the algorithm.
       1. ambrit February 15, 2018 at 3:17 am

          Ah! So, this system is an inducement to lie. How neo-liberal! A truly fiendishly clever way to winnow the applicant pool down to ‘ultra ruthless’ employees. The kind that won’t balk at lying to and cheating customers.
          Maybe I should reapply with an “enhanced” resume. Say, I never took any time off to work on our house, and I graduated high school in 2004. There, that should be the ticket!
          1. Anonylisa February 20, 2018 at 1:10 pm

             I read about one way to beat the algorithms is to hide information in a font in the header by changing the font color to white. you can put all kinds of keywords and great things in there. also, for gaps in employment, you can fill in the time with something and then make it into tiny white text.

             There are whole tutorials online about how to do this.
15. Synoia February 14, 2018 at 5:36 pm

    UPDATE “Dems: Bill Clinton too toxic to campaign in midterms” [Politico]. “Clinton’s likely absence on the stump this year comes amid major demand for high-profile surrogates this year — from Obama, who’s expected make select appearances, to Joe Biden and the full crop of 2020 prospects, who are likely to be all over the place in the thick of election season. Even Hillary Clinton will do some targeted campaigning.”

    F.. me, said Bill when told of this news.
    No thanks replied the intern.

    Obama, who’s expected make select appearances..
    Yes, at high roller’s functions!

    Joe Biden and the full crop of 2020 prospects.
    Including Bernie?
    And maybe some D’s not in their dotage? or have the squillionaires sucked all the young blood out of the system?

    Even Hillary Clinton will do some targeted campaigning.
    $he certainly will. I’m po$itive $he will pa$$ mo$t of the money to the DNC.

    No mention of a platform. Quelle Surprise.

    Disclaimer: I’m feeling a bit acid today.
16. Dita February 14, 2018 at 5:47 pm

    As a civilian who has trouble wrapping my mind around MMT I found these helpful

    http://theweek.com/articles/754919/market-debt-weirder-than-think

    http://theweek.com/articles/682083/biggest-myth-about-government

    And thank you for linking to the great Adolph Reed!
17. Kim Kaufman February 14, 2018 at 6:07 pm

    “Dems flip seat in Florida state special election” [MSN].

    Good as far as it goes. Was it another corporate Dem or a more progressive candidate?
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 5:28 am

       Gee, they never do say, do they?
18. Milton February 14, 2018 at 6:23 pm

    A Russian “troll tweet” is literally one in a million (200000 ÷ 200000000000). Yep, we’re being inundated with red propaganda.
19. Jeremy Grimm February 14, 2018 at 6:32 pm

    RustBeltRebel
    Reading this sequence of tweets I wondered whether the food programs do anything about providing herbs and spices. I’m reasonably certain they don’t.

    I also believe what we eat depends on what we are accustomed to eat.

    I was extremely fortunate to grow up with a grandpa who farmed 2 1/2 acres of Southern California land, with excellent soil, ample fertilizer, and pipe irrigation — growing avocadoes and widely varied fruit and nut trees. He also planted a 1/4+ acre garden. I had a mom who compelled me to eat and ‘LIKE’ whatever she plopped on my plate and a grandma powerfully touched by the privations of the Great Depression [she cleared out the last little bit of egg with her finger and used every tiny bit of food that was still good — all the little stuff off chicken carcasses and the ‘rest’ of spoiled fruit (which I tasted and often found to be the best parts to my surprise) the good parts of spoiled cheese and bread]. And to top things off my dad,in particular, had a taste for herbs and spices and used them amply in the dinners he cooked. Both my parents took us to foreign restaurants to try different cuisines and later replicated them as well as they could at home.

    I doubt many of our poor shared my advantages growing up. Given the ways things have gone, is it any wonder that someone on SNAP might prefer sweet drinks, processed food, and non “healthy” foods? Ignoring the time some “healthy” meals take to prepare and the little time the poor are left for such luxuries — who can cast the first stone to condemn them for their eating habits? Add to that the lack of concern or remedy for the taste of the “healthy” foods they can prepare and I cannot in good conscience fault the eating habits of the poor or the merely middle-class who all too closely follow the poor in poor eating habits — and obesity.

    As for food deserts and fresh foods — I live in an area with farms all around. In my state 5 contiguous acres and sufficient profit results in taxes assessed at the “productivity value” of the land — “Gross sales of products from the land must average at least $1,000 per year for the first 5 acres”. Instead of a variety of farms and farm products I’m surrounded by farms that grow field corn and soy beans [industrial farming using farm equipment and little labor], farmed by share-croppers and land-use lessors edged or centered by McMansions where the land owners live, hoping to see a further profits in the future on their land holdings while paying far less state taxes than nearby “middle-class” homeowners — unable to afford the extra acreage which might lower their taxes — pay. Is it any wonder that many of the local farmer’s markets end up trucking in their produce from the outside into an area idea for garden farms and ‘truck’ farms?

    All told — we are a very very poor country. And the ongoing efforts collapsing the tiny safety net — broad mesh sieve — holey net for few and fewer — makes us an extremely poor country.

    So, what of herbs and spices with more ample and varied foods for our poor? Is there any food preparation training on offer along with food kits including spices and suggested recipes? I have the unhappy impression that food it handed out with any regard for how it might be used to make DECENT meals for those of humankind regardless of their financial situation.
    1. RWood February 14, 2018 at 8:59 pm

       Not entirely poor, though, thank you for your offering.
    2. Ed Miller February 14, 2018 at 9:10 pm

       I see Twinkies (or similar) in every food box. “Let them eat cake” seems to good for the plebs on SNAP. /sarc

       How this doesn’t improve the market for diabetes medicines and treatments I can’t imagine. The problem I see in this world is where to hide from finance weasels. Ugh!
20. lupemax February 14, 2018 at 6:33 pm

    Re “Kirsten Gillibrand Pledges To Stop Accepting Donations From Corporate PACs”

    The devil is, of course, always in the details.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZgMzvi_va8&feature=youtu.be
21. Summer February 14, 2018 at 6:35 pm

    http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2018/02/13/pittsburgh-judge-landlords-no-evictions/?__twitter_impression=true/

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/14/california-housing-crisis-laws-homelessness/
    ‘Declaration of war’: liberals divided as California mulls housing push

    Tick Tock. Maybe another reason the Dems are focusing on suburbs because of the impending dispersal of urban base? They have no intention of turning the tide.

    yes, they could lose the cities too…
22. Jim Haygood February 14, 2018 at 7:00 pm

    Snowpack is way below normal in the entire Colorado River basin, except for an area in west central Wyoming at the northern end of the Colorado’s watershed. Map:

    https://www.wcc.nrcs.usda.gov/ftpref/data/water/wcs/gis/maps/west_swepctnormal_update.pdf

    Some snow has fallen in Flagstaff (elev 7,000 ft) this week, but it won’t be enough to bring a 16% of normal snowpack up to snuff. Normally snow-capped Humphreys Peak (elev 12,633 ft) has been bare all winter.
    1. RWood February 14, 2018 at 9:05 pm

       So Albuquerque is raising hands to rain
23. edmondo February 14, 2018 at 7:17 pm

    Austin Frerick @AustinFrerick

    Pharma’s greed has no limits. I’m running to put limits on them.

    I know Austin Frerick won’t win the nomination for his Congressional seat (Our Revolution has endorsed a Bernie delegate not Frerick.)

    But is there any way I can convince him to relocate to my area instead? it would be sooooo encouraging to actually vote for someone for a change instead of choosing between Republican and Republican-lite.
24. Tom Stone February 14, 2018 at 7:25 pm

    I went to today’s Broker’s meeting in Sebastopol where a local loan broker named George Elliot spoke about the CFPB’s recent decisions and direction.
    “It’s a green light for fraud , I’m getting daily calls and emails soliciting No-Doc Arms with 20% down.
    We’ve been down this road, let’s not go down it again!”
    That’s the gist of what he said, and he’s right.
    “Perfect for Flippers!”
    “No one has ever gone broke…”
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorFebruary 15, 2018 at 5:30 am

       [pounds forehead on desk].

       IBGYBG….
25. Patrick Donnelly February 14, 2018 at 9:14 pm

    Sadly, an apparently genuine shooting at a HS in Florida.

    Excluding a child is not a solution in a country that loves massacres and needs news to crowd out the continuing theft from the middle classes.

    When disturbed children are noticed, then there must be intervention?
26. The Rev Kev February 14, 2018 at 10:09 pm

    Re the Blue Apron style food box.This is so bad on so many levels that I won’t go into it here. What I would like to mention is something different to do with boxes and it is this.
    For about 80 years the Finnish government has been giving new mothers (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22751415) boxes containing a starter kit of clothes, sheets and toys and the box itself becomes a handy bed. Whole generations of Finns have slept in these boxes as babies giving Finland the world’s lowest infant mortality rates. For those interested, here is their website-
    https://www.finnishbabybox.com/us/en

    Now THAT is how you help people using boxes.
27. allan February 14, 2018 at 10:21 pm

    Report on Monday: 20-30 White House staffers awaiting security clearances.

    Report on Wednesday: More than 130 White House staffers awaiting security clearances:

    
    Scores of top White House officials lack permanent security clearances [NBC]

    More than 130 political appointees working in the Executive Office of the President did not have permanent security clearances as of November 2017, including the president’s daughter, son-in-law and his top legal counsel, according to internal White House documents obtained by NBC News.

    Of those appointees working with interim clearances, 47 of them are in positions that report directly to President Donald Trump. About a quarter of all political appointees in the executive office are working with some form of interim security clearance. … It is unclear whether some employees have had their clearance levels changed since mid-November. …

    Of course, it’s possible that 100 clearances have come through since November.
    It’s also possible that $200 billion of infrastructure spending will be PPP’d into $1.5 trillion.
28. Procopius February 15, 2018 at 7:11 am

    I don’t quite understand why Trump is supposed to designate one agency to be “in charge” of the effort to defend against Russian “interference.” Each one of those guys have their own specific duty, and if they can’t do their job until the President* tells them to then they need to find a different line of work. Most of them have nothing to do with it anyway. Certainly the CIA DOES NOT have any business meddling in any activity in the United States. The Patriot Act may have weakened the prohibition, but they are not supposed to conduct ANY operation in the the U.S. Basically the FBI and NSA should cooperate and intervene if foreign operatives (like employees of AIPAC) commit crimes. The speech of foreigners who happen to be present in the U.S. is supposed to be as protected by the First Amendment as that of citizens. OK, OK, I know it’s just tribal signalling and I don’t want to be a member of that tribe.
29. Procopius February 15, 2018 at 8:43 am

    And yet, the current rhetoric around work requirements for Medicaid, and “welfare reform” in general, seems designed to ramp up stigma and discourage people from seeking help.

    Well, duh.

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