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Links 9/6/18

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Sasquatch tracker’s lawsuit tossed by B.C. Supreme Court CBC

Should the Federal Reserve pay more attention to inflation or unemployment? Jared Bernstein, WaPo

Here’s a First Look Inside Facebook’s New Frank Gehry-Designed Office Bloomberg. C. Northcote Parkinson: “During a period of exciting discovery or progress there is not time to plan the perfect headquarters. The time for that comes later, when all the important work has been done.”

Americans are changing their relationship with Facebook Pew Research Center

Bitcoin drops on report Goldman Sachs shelves trading desk plans FT

Crypto World Rocked After Long-Time Advocate Backpedals Bloomberg

Google snubbed a Senate hearing on internet meddling. How big a price will it pay? McClatchy

Google AMP Can Go To Hell Polemic Digital

The future is here today: you can’t play Bach on Youtube because Sony says they own his compositions Boing Boing

Nestle says slavery reporting requirements could cost customers Sidney Morning Herald. Still germane.

Toyota is recalling 1 million hybrids at risk of catching fire CNN

Brexit

Germany and U.K. Drop Key Brexit Ask, Easing Path to Deal Bloomberg

Angela Merkel: I can’t rule out Brexit talks breakdown Politico

Brexit: controlling the debate EU Referendum

Syraqistan

F-35 Maker Lockheed Martin to Open Jerusalem Preschools With Education Ministry’s Backing Haaretz

Afghan Army opens Corruption Center of Excellence Duffel Blog

Why Are People Who Live in Mountainous Regions Almost Impossible to Conquer? The National Interest

North Korea

Kim Open to ‘Stronger’ Denuclearization Steps, South Korea Says Bloomberg

DPRK leader reconfirms commitment to complete denuclearization Xinhua

China?

Alibaba and the Future of Business Harvard Business Review

Tempestuous Seasons LRB. “Xi’s ‘Chinese dream’ is the most spectacular Keynesian promise ever made.”

Hong Kong surpasses New York as home to the world’s biggest population of ultra-rich people South China Morning Post

See Beijing in This Incredibly Detailed, Hand-Drawn Map National Geographic

New Cold War

UK seeks two Russian spies over nerve agent attack Agence France Presse

Space station air leak: someone drilled the hole, say Russians Guardian

Trump Transition

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration [Anonymous,] NYT. Presumably at some point somebody will deploy the same software on this Opinion piece that outed Joe Klein as the anonymous author of Primary Colors (the roman à clef on the Clintons).

‘The sleeper cells have awoken’: Trump and aides shaken by ‘resistance’ op-ed WaPo

This Is a Constitutional Crisis David Frum, The Atlantic

I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the New York Times Opinion Desk Buzzfeed

13 people who might be the author of The New York Times op-ed CNN

‘Anonymous’ NYT byline quite rare, often given for reasons of safety Poynter Institute

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US justice department signals pursuit of tech giants FT

Full Q&A: Assistant Attorney General Makan Delrahim talks antitrust on Recode Decode Recode

The key sticking points to a Nafta deal FT

Democrats in Disarray

Blue Dogs See Single-Digit Majority as Their ‘Sweet Spot’ The Hill

Rahm announcement odds and ends Capitol Fax (JB). Rahm Emanuel is not running for re-election as Mayor of Chicago.

Phil Bredesen Might Win a Deep-Red Senate Seat for Democrats. But He Doesn’t Want to Talk About It. New York Magazine

Bernie Sanders introduces ‘Stop BEZOS Act’ in the Senate WaPo. For more, see NC here.

North Carolina Can Use Gerrymandered Map In November, Court Rules NPR

Class Warfare

The Latest Incarnation of Capitalism Jacobin

How the U.S. economy turned six good jobs into bad ones WaPo

They confessed to minor crimes. Then City Hall billed them $122K in ‘prosecution fees’ Desert Sun. From April, still germane as an example of long-form local reporting.

Why sand scarcity is about more than ‘running out’ of sand The Verge

Why Brazil’s Museum Fire Matters Scientific American

The Servers Are Burning Logic

Antidote du Jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here

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About Lambert Strether

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