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Links 7/7/2022

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SAFARI USERS: It has come to our attention that some Safari users are having trouble with the Links page: It will not scroll, or react to clicks. We think it’s a rogue Tweet, so turn off JavaScript. (MacOS: Preferences -> Security -> uncheck Enable JavaScript. iOS: Settings -> Safari -> Advanced -> Javascript -> disable (slide button so it’s not green). When I do that, Links behaved as expected. It also helps to clear your browser cache. Opera (a Chrome clone), Firefox, and Brave work as normal. –lambert

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Lambert and I, and many readers, agree that Ukraine has prompted the worst informational environment ever. We hope readers will collaborate in mitigating the fog of war — both real fog and stage fog — in comments. None of us need more cheerleading and link-free repetition of memes; there are platforms for that. Low-value, link-free pom pom-wavers will be summarily whacked.

And for those who are new here, this is not a mere polite request. We have written site Policies and those who comment have accepted those terms. To prevent having to resort to the nuclear option of shutting comments down entirely until more sanity prevails, as we did during the 2015 Greek bailout negotiations and shortly after the 2020 election, we are going to be ruthless about moderating and blacklisting offenders.

–Yves

P.S. Also, before further stressing our already stressed moderators, read our site policies:

Please do not write us to ask why a comment has not appeared. We do not have the bandwidth to investigate and reply. Using the comments section to complain about moderation decisions/tripwires earns that commenter troll points. Please don’t do it. Those comments will also be removed if we encounter them.

* * *

Physicists see electron whirlpools for the first time MIT News. Here they are:

How Antarctic Krill Coordinate the Biggest Swarms in the World Scientific American

Data Doesn’t Support US Recession (video) Barry Ritholtz, The Big Picture. About that tight labor market:

We’re Not Already In a Recession Real Clear Markets

The Worst 6 Months Ever For Financial Markets A Weath of Common Sense

Copper Crash Deepens as Recession Fears Loom Over Metals Trading Bloomberg

Climate

The Infamous 1972 Report That Warned of Civilization’s Collapse (interview) Wired. “Politically, at the level of corporations, at the official level, things are going pretty much in the wrong direction. Culturally, below the line, my bet is that a lot of things are happening in the good direction. The human revolution is already happening—it’s just that we don’t see it.” “Infamous” is really the wrong word. How about “prescient”?

Failure of US climate leadership compounds fears for COP27 summit FT

‘In the mouth of dragons’: Melting glaciers threaten Pakistan’s north Agence France Presse

‘Huge’ unexpected ozone hole discovered over tropics Independent

#COVID19

COVID-19 deaths tied to US life expectancy drop Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy. Everything’s going according to plan.

COVID’s Omicron waves saw lower-income Ontarians die at higher rates, analysis shows Toronto Star

* * *

Did COVID vaccine mandates work? What the data say Nature

The Vaccine-Hesitant Moment NEJM

The mysterious vanishing of MIS-C The Munro Report. Good news!

* * *

Holidaymakers warned of rising coronavirus cases at European destinations Guardian (Re Silc). It’s highly unfortunate that international air travel is one ginormous superspreading event, but here we are.

New covid-19 Omicron sub-variant BA.2.75 detected in countries like India: WHO The Tribune. The Covid train always leaves on time, and there’s always another train coming.

Monkeypox

NYC Monkeypox Cases Double in a Week, More Vaccines Days Away NBC

Labcorp to Offer Monkeypox Testing as Part of US Diagnosis Effort Bloomberg

China?

Shanghai chases karaoke COVID cluster as China looks to curb outbreaks Reuters

How China’s ‘Big Shot’ tycoon broke the nickel market and survived a US$1 billion loss South China Morning Post

China Police Database Was Left Open Online for Over a Year, Enabling Leak WSJ

Taiwan and the Making of an “Asian” NATO Black Agenda Report

Syraqistan

Parsi: New Iran sanctions may spell death of the JCPOA Responsible Statecraft

UK/EU

Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister as government crumbles FT. Larry the Cat has views:

Johnson, His Fall London Review of Books

Divided French parliament gives new PM tough time during first address EuroNews

New Not-So-Cold War

How to Equip Ukraine to Break the Black Sea Blockade Foreign Policy. From the Hudson Institute.

Russia attends G20 meeting set to be dominated by Ukraine conflict Reuters

Russia prepares to mobilise economy for longer war in Ukraine FT

Biden Administration

Democrats Schumer and Manchin strike deal to cut drug costs for seniors ABC News. Allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices.

We Want to Rebuild U.S. Relations With China WSJ

Has Biden’s Top Diplomat in Mexico Gone Too Far, Officials Ask? NYT

Abortion

The Republican Moms Apologizing to Their Liberal Kids Slate

The Supremes

The Dark Truth Behind the SCOTUS Ruling Puck. “The conservative justices angling to overturn Roe are also the embodiment of a ruthless fifty-year political campaign.” Something the Democrat Party can’t even conceive of, let alone execute.

Reining In the Fourth Branch of Government RealClearPolitics

Republicans May Have Set Themselves Up for a Showdown With the Supreme Court Noah Millman, NYT

History, the Supreme Court, and Dobbs v. Jackson: Joint Statement from the AHA and the OAH (July 2022) American Historical Association

Police State Watch

Far more could have been done to save Uvalde massacre victims, a new report says NPR

The Bezzle

‘God, Hwang and Archegos’: Insider Details of Collapsed Firm Revealed in Lawsuit Bloomberg. Family office shenanigans.

Shortages

Trade restrictions are inflaming the worst food crisis in a decade World Bank Blogs

A Global Famine Is Still an Avoidable Disaster Leonid Bershidsky, Bloomberg

US to diversify infant formula industry to avoid shortages AP

Class Warfare

Shareholder Power and the Decline of Labor NBER. From the Abstract: “Consistent with theory of the firm based on conflicts of interests between shareholders and stakeholders, we find that establishments of firms that experience an increase in ownership by larger and more concentrated institutional shareholders have lower employment and wages.”

How Foreign Private Equity Hooked New England’s Fishing Industry ProPublica

The Shrinking of the Middle-Class Neighborhood NYT

The Happiness Data That Wrecks a Freudian Theory WSJ

These Photographs Capture the Indescribable Glory of Trains Smithsonian

Walking Venice Craig Mod

Antidote du jour (via):

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.

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213 comments

  1. Antifa

    A World Without Rain

    (melody borrowed from “A Horse With No Name” by America)

    I was sitting up late in the kitchen
    When the world went blinding white
    It slowly faded to a purplish haze
    I saw a fireball out in the night
    Then the walls disappeared with a giant’s roar
    With everything blasting to black
    It was oven hot as I hit the ground
    And I knew we’d been attacked

    There isn’t any weather in a world without rain
    Just the endless falling ash
    The planet’s on fire all the people are dead
    I can’t see the sun from the smoke overhead

    There’s nothing here but greasy dark snow after World War Three
    What a wondrous world it was it will die with me

    I dig through the rubble to find food in cans
    Talking just to hear someone
    I wish I’d been a poet painting pictures with words
    Of our lives beneath a brilliant sun
    But words can’t show that the plants don’t grow
    Or my horror at what we’ve done

    You see there isn’t any weather in a world without rain
    Just the endless falling ash
    The planet’s on fire all the people are dead
    I can’t see the sun from the smoke overhead

    There’s nothing here but greasy dark snow after World War Three
    What a wondrous world it was it will die with me

    Scratching at my skin where it’s peeling again
    It looks like a steak for the grill
    I miss the birds and the green of trees
    And the color in a daffodil
    I haven’t seen a cockroach like they said there would be
    Just the creature in the mirror
    I put up with fools, warmongering ghouls
    It’s my own fault I am here

    You see there there isn’t any weather in a world without rain
    Just the endless falling ash
    The planet’s on fire all the people are dead
    I can’t see the sun from the smoke overhead

    There’s nothing here but greasy dark snow after World War Three
    What a wondrous world it was it will die with me

    There’s nothing here but greasy dark snow after World War Three
    What a wondrous world it was it will die with me

    There’s nothing here but greasy dark snow after World War Three
    What a wondrous world it was it will die with me

    There’s nothing here but greasy dark snow after World War Three
    What a wondrous world it was it will die with me

      1. Lexx

        Naturally, most listeners assume Bunnell was trippin’ balls when he wrote that song, but he tells a different story… allegedly. I was raised in the PNB and have no problem imagining a kid from a rainy country finding the desert a nice change of scene… otherworldly. It still fascinates me how much life there is in ‘the wasteland’. Probably even on the road between Havre and Medicine Hat, but darn if I could find it.

        https://www.songfacts.com/facts/america/a-horse-with-no-name

    2. ohrightineedaname

      I know it’s not Christmas time yet but this reminded me of Art Elliot’s Post-Apocalyptic Christmas – check it out on youtube.

      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > Art Elliot’s Post-Apocalyptic Christmas

        Here it is:

        Since Elliot includes a reference to Elvis’s more cheerful “Blue Christmas,” here it is as a palate cleanser:

    3. Mildred Montana

      “A Horse With No Name”:

      Although I like the song a lot (and America as well), I always chuckle when I hear that lyric “The heat was hot…”.

      Huh? I know heat is usually hot. Couldn’t the songwriters have taken a bit of time, reworked the song, and come up with something better?

      1. pjay

        I still clearly remember the assessment of a close high school friend who had pretty advanced musical taste and knowledge for his age: “America: nice music, totally vacuous lyrics.”

        Of course there is always Muskrat Love…

        1. MaryLand

          I always thought the original was about a heroin trip. “Horse” with no name, letting the horse run free, and all the weird sensory stuff. Not that I would know, just guessing.

      2. jr

        I suspect a statement/lyric like that is relying on the fact that it’s obvious to drive home the point of how extremely hot it was, it’s the word play itself that lends impact to the content. Similarly, something like “hot as fu(k” uses the obscenity to impart meaning to an otherwise meaningless phrase.

    4. MaryLand

      I like the way America sang this, but with these lyrics I hear Neil Young singing it. He could do the lyrics justice.

  2. Colonel Smithers

    Thank you, Lambert.

    Further to Johnson, I thought he may hang on for a party vote of no confidence next week and even then hang on and potentially provoke a constitutional crisis by having HM dismiss him, which has alarmed Buck House. Why? What a way to go out and what a story to tell and sell. Johnson needs the money and has talked about the cost of his brood and how, growing up, the family finances were strained.

    Further to my comments yesterday, it has been brought to my attention that Zahawi owned a textiles firm in the Midlands, Allen, with disgraced novelist Jeffrey Archer. The firm collapsed. There were allegations of forgery and false accounting. Zahawi is as bent as six pound note. Why is he protected? In whose pocket is he? To whom does he owe a favour?

    1. JTMcPhee

      Why, really, does it matter who the PM is? Except to Britons who hold the poopy end of the stick, of course? It’s a rump state in so many ways, and it’s participation in catalyzing the Russian coup de grace to the Western hegemony fantasies cries out for retribution. Sad that millions of Brits will suffer, but then the Brits have rained suffering and despair and instability down on billions over the years. Same fate seems to be in the offing for so many in the Disunited States, for the same reasons.

      “It’s not fair,” bleat the mopes. That’s right, but no remedy. “Please, Messrs Putin and Xi, may I have some more?”

    2. ambrit

      “…disgraced novelist Jeffery Archer.” This just reeks of ‘Drama.’ Is this similar to the way that E. Howard Hunt was a “novelist?” (That one even got a minor plot arc in the American television show, “The X Files.”) I am going to have to look this one up.
      “…a six pound note.” I love it! Over here it’s “a three dollar bill.” I wish I had held onto some, but back in the 1972 election campaign, I got some Dick Nixon three dollar bills. Wonderful psy-ops propaganda pieces. They were well done and looked very professional.
      Shall we be seeing any Boris Johnson Six Pound Notes floating about in England? Have them countersigned by Zelenskyy.
      Be safe.

    3. Alex Morfesis

      Round and round we go…where it stops everybody knows….or to quote the famous marxist-lennonist (John, not groucho)… I’m just sitting here watching the…

  3. Pavel

    As someone who witnessed (and cheered) Maggie’s resignation way back when and a series of useless and corrupt PMs since then — culminating in the most useless and most corrupt Boris Johnson — I now think that Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) should be installed as leader of the UK.

  4. The Rev Kev

    “Boris Johnson to resign as prime minister as UK government crumbles”

    As PK has mentioned elsewhere, Boris wants to be in charge of a caretaker government until October which even the Tories are not insane enough to entertain. One shudders at the thought of all the damage that he would be capable of doing over the next three months and you would suspect that he would do it out of a sense of revenge. And the names of his replacement are pretty horrible too, especially Liz Truss.

    I therefore nominate Larry the Cat as Prime Minister of the UK. He has one job and he does it well. And I have always had a respect for competence – which cannot be said of any candidate likely to replace Boris.

    Just posted this to see that Pavel above had the exact same thought.

      1. NotTimothyGeithner

        Ukraine gave him a reprieve, but Boris used up his frequent flyer miles. Given how Starmer polls against BoJo, a seemingly non-grossly corrupt Tory PM should be able to win big if the hold an election. If a loss to Starmer was baked in, I’m not sure anything would be happening.

      2. Colonel Smithers

        Thank you, Rev.

        It does feel strange that the classicist Johnson died on this hill, and a sordid one at that.

        It seems the 3 Ps did for Johnson, Paterson, Partygate and Pincher, all of whom were known about by the MSM until it became inconvenient and Johnson had to go to protect and save other Tories.

    3. Questa Nota

      Whither Brexit?

      With BoJo now BoGone, what might happen in any recrimination phase?

      1. spud

        under free trade, a loss of sovereignty, try getting rid of a Macron or a Draghi.

        under brexit(sovereignty) you just got rid of a dope out of office rather easy.

      2. PlutoniumKun

        Most of the main contenders to replace him are even harder line on Brexit and the NI protocol. My guess is that any new PM will want to create a Brexit distraction to give Tory hardliners red meat and then call a quick election. After that, its anyones guess.

        1. spud

          if your french, italian, even greek, try getting rid of her under free trade and a loss of soverienty,

          https://www.republicworld.com/world-news/russia-ukraine-crisis/eu-chief-ursula-von-der-leyen-calls-rebuilding-war-ravaged-ukraine-a-generational-task-articleshow.html

          Last Updated: 4th July, 2022 20:22 IST
          EU Chief Ursula Von Der Leyen Calls Rebuilding War-ravaged Ukraine A ‘generational Task’
          EU chief Ursula von der Leyen told the Ukraine Recovery Conference that rebuilding the war-ravaged country would be a “generational task”….

          if your a citizen of the sovereign country the U.K., she is not your leader, and you might not have the Ukraine hanging around your neck economically and politically for the rest of your life.

          you might get another boris, or worse, but its easier to get rid of them when you have sovereignty.

    1. PlutoniumKun

      Nice, the intricate grain of those towns and cities are wonderful, and the Italians are particularly good at inserting modern conveniences without destroying things.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      Incidentally, the writer, Craig Mod does some very interesting writing on walking as a way of really travelling. And I agree with him about trolly cases, I’ve no idea why people favour these over a modern backpack. They are fine on flush airport walkways, but nowhere else. I’m regularly woken by tourists running those over a small stretch of cobblestone outside my apartment.

      1. Questa Nota

        Venice has something for all the senses, often at unexpected or novel times. Mod writes about the luggage, and one morning sound, that clickety-clack of rolling suitcase wheels over cobblestones is supplemented on occasion by the other morning notification about high water. Locals know to reroute around particularly troublesome inundations, and hucksters stake out areas to sell flimsy galoshes or rain boots to the tourists. When the fog rolls in, there is a uniquely Venetian smell seemingly enhanced when noticed under the lonely street lights.
        Don’t forget to go to Cannaregio Sestriere and environs to listen for the voices.

  6. Robin Kash

    Shots at Salazar look like part of a counter-offensive to address AMLO’s having gotten altogether too uppity.
    Calling for a replacement for the US-controlled OAS and boycotting Biden Americas shindig is bad enough. But snatching billions from US corporations by nationalizing things, well, it’s just not done.

    1. tegnost

      Russia, China, and the global south, we’re picking fights all over.
      Could it be that the Usian PTB have decided to crash the entire global economy
      expecting that they can maintain unity and pick up the pieces later?
      They have a track record of this sort of extremely abusive behavior.

    1. rob

      and lets not forget Pelosi is backing an anti-choice democratic congressman from the 28th district in texas, OVER his primary opponent, a progressive who is pro-choice.

      While at the same time, pelosi,et al. are fundraising like crazy to fight for “the right to choose”; or some such nonsense… as it is all a show…

      the democrats letting roe be overturned is a campaign bonanza .

      1. hunkerdown

        I get the feeling at least 3/4 of the money shaken loose by this shock is going to come from the “smart” pockets of the ~half who have aged out of needing the service and are more interested in the enervating socially constitutive effects of exhausting the kids before dinner high kabuki. The other 1/4 are, I hope, saving it for direct action.

    2. NotTimothyGeithner

      Have you considered Mitch McConnell was going to slap him on the back and say Biden is a shrewd negotiator in exchange?

  8. Lex

    FP will publish anyone saying stupid things these days. The piece on the “Russian grain blockade” is stunning. Somehow the Montreux Convention is the least problematic facet of unblocking Odessa in the minds of the authors. I’m beginning to think that rather than propaganda for the public, the foreign policy elite of the US are just that uninformed. But it has no shortage of obviously stupid ideas to try, if only someone had the courage to implement them. So maybe US drones could drop bombs on Russian submarines in the Black Sea … what could possibly go wrong?

    The impotent rage of western leadership is my new drug of choice.

    1. Tor User

      I agree it is a pretty bad article.

      It seems to me that the Russians could easily shoot down any Gray Eagles Ukraine got.

      The one thing that might force the Russians to make a deal to allow Ukrainian shipping would be to send Ukraine a handful of the longer range missiles (ATACMS) for their HIMARS. These missiles would allow Ukraine to hit the Russian Naval base in Sevastopol. This would threaten most of the Russian Black Sea fleet when it needed to come back to base for replenishment. Yes, the Russians have other smaller naval bases but nothing of the size or with the supplies that they have at Sevastopol.

      1. Darthbobber

        Since the Russians already allow the shipping, and it is Ukrainian mines that are the problem, it hardly seems necessary to force a deal for the Russians to allow what they allow. And the problems of starting a tit for tat of strikes with those who have a lot more tat are obvious.

    2. DJG, Reality Czar

      Lex: Yesterday’s Links have an interview with Jacques Baud that explains exactly where the trouble lies.

      To quote:
      TK: However, there is an accusation that Ukraine cannot supply grain because of the Russians. Is that really the case?

      JB: No, it is not true, for two main reasons. The first is that our media, of course, do not report that the Black Sea ports were mined by Ukraine because it feared an attack from the Black Sea. As a result of storms, many of these mines have broken loose and are moving freely. They became a danger to maritime navigation. The Turkish Navy had to defuse several of them that had reached the Bosporus.

      The second reason is that Russia does not block Ukrainian ports. On the contrary, it allows ship convoys to supply Ukrainian ports; it even guarantees maritime corridors whose coordinates are broadcast at regular intervals over international maritime radio frequencies. The problem is that these corridors are not used because of the Ukrainian mines. Incidentally, Davyd Arakhamia has made it clear that Ukraine has no intention of removing its mines from the Black Sea. It has become a bit fashionable to blame Putin for Western decisions that are not thoroughly thought out and not embedded in a coherent strategy.

      In short:
      It looks to me that Foreign Policy article just wants to float the idea of NATO going in and making a mess into a disastrous mess.

      1. jsn

        Shortly after starting my business in 1995 I met Seth Lipsky, Amity Shlaes and Ron Chernow through a client of mine.

        In getting to know them I saw the Heritage Foundation and AEI were granting money to authors like these to produce a counter history in which up was down, black was white and working class freedom was the Road to Serfdom for the class that saw its own freedom being the right to own people without any obligation to house or feed them.

        These people have now over written almost everything to tell their false story to themselves, their kids and anyone engaging with the US educational system. It has become Uroboros, devouring itself.

      2. Lex

        For sure. There’s also not 20M tons of grain stuck in Ukraine. Nor is Russia “stealing” Ukrainian grain since the grain Russia is shipping out comes from parts of Ukraine that aren’t ever going to be part of Ukraine again. I assume that the FP authors know all this, and the article itself is as you describe. Though I’m starting to get worried that the western foreign policy “elite” do actually believe the things they write and say, which would be even more disastrous.

        1. drumlin woodchuckles

          If that grain was taken from the farmers who grew it without payment to those farmers who grew it, then it was/ is stolen from those farmers who grew it. And that would mean that it is stolen. Stolen by Russia.

          So . . . . did Russian forces or personnel take grain from Ukrainian farmers without paying? Or not?

          1. The Rev Kev

            Since the Russians are staying put, they likely paid for it so that farmers will keep on growing it season after season. Meanwhile, I saw a video a few hours ago which purportedly showing a Ukrainian helicopter setting wheat fields in the Kherson region on fire. Since the same was done for wheat fields in Syria, I m going to say that it is probably true. So much for Russia causing food shortages.

          2. Polar Socialist

            Yesterday the DNR officials reported that Russian engineers had so far deactivated 48,694 “explosive devices” left by the Ukrainians in the fields. Which kinda indicates the Russians are there to help, not loot.

            Already over a month ago there were reports of Kherson agricultural products being sold (by the farmers) to Crimea and Rostov Oblast (as they used to do before 2014) for rubles. That and the restoration of the irrigation system destroyed by the nationalist Ukrainians to punish Crimea has made many a farmer in Kherson Oblast rather happy.

            Luhansk and Donetsk are controlled by Luhanskians and Donetskians now, so it would make no sense for the Russians to steal anything from there, since they already are pouring money for reconstruction.

  9. Earl Erland

    A program I rarely watch, MSNBC, Corporate prole Joe and the Brest of the Bez started their program by making fun of BoJo for making fun of Putin on a Horse with Pecs. Two sidekicks were soon on video, helping out with “wit” and making sure Dem voters know that BoJo was useless. Kinda of a GE State Trial?

    1. Earl Erland

      Sloppy Joe @ MNSBC is now interviewing Kissinger, who is giving mad props to dead people. Weblos Troop Leader Sloppy Joe is asking how the Russia debacle is building character.

  10. The Historian

    We are not in a recession? Certainly feels like it where I live! One good thing though – rents are finally dropping – slightly – in my area!

    So maybe Ritholtz and others, instead of insisting on defining the world according to their favorite tired old economic theories, should open their eyes and see what is actually happening – and maybe, even perhaps, develop some new economic theory? I think Covid killed that old saw about recession = high unemployment. As the tweet implies, there are just not as many people in the labor force these days for all those crap jobs.

    https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm

    1. PlutoniumKun

      There was a very large drop in oil and commodity prices this week, which certainly indicates that those markets think we are in for a very significant recession. Having just seen the price of fuel (as a non car owner I’m normally blissfully unaware of this), I have no idea how people can afford to drive without cutting back on lots of other expenditure.

      1. JAC

        Oh we all know that the financial news is saying there is no recession yet so the suckers keep buying while the whales slowly exit the market.

        1. Mikel

          I think cues are also being thrown out to corporations about what words and phrases to use in the big slate of earnings reports about to come out.

      2. Earl Erland

        It’s also happening (rent dropping) in Grand Rapids, MI. Grand Rapids is a City with a Hill, and artificial fill to the east of a shallow river that flooded in Spring and that runs from east of Lansing, MI to Lake Michigan. Downtown GR is a bit of a fill hill upland (Ottawa Avenue) from the now tamed Rapids that used to bring whatever wealth could be cut, canoed, trapped, or enslaved, concealed or floated (by River or other Con). Maybe not so tamed. A Devos hotel built on the River was flooded out to the looney toons of millions of whatever 2013. There used to be a Bronze Plaque on Pearl Street (which was the street where the cop cars got lit during the BLM Protest) that marked the spot of the first White Wedding in Grand Rapids, 1836. Google it. It was there in 2017, the last time I looked Used to be attached to a building that sold McDonald’s. McD was there for a bit, serving the fat white downtowners, and then it was gone. The only MickeyD to ever fail? Interesting is the failure of what now pretends to be a woke city to cancel the Plaque. I mean Plague. The Hot market for rental was Pill Hill. I’m guessing that death and attrition of those professionals who came to work at Pill Hill, those who provided the demand, found out that a Devos/VanAndel Health and Education and Welfare Department was something, if not changed, you’ll tell your grandchildren to avoid, if you are able.

        1. Eclair

          Thank you, Earl, for your poignant portrait of Grand Rapids, another formerly prosperous city. GR’s competitor in the furniture making industry, Jamestown, NY (We’re #2!) is even more of a wasteland. We have a house full of old, locally-made furniture, solid wood, not a particle of plastic, weighs a ton and will last for a few more generations, all culled from the homes of long-dead great aunts, great grand parents,etc. The Swedish immigrants here leveled the Chautauqua County forests during the logging-friendly winter months, then worked in the furniture factories during the warmer weather.

    3. NotTimothyGeithner

      I mean you never know what people did. Some of those rental empires, even the little ones, became huge over night. Millennial wealth and with interest rates nowhere to go but up, I’m sure many of the people who started in the chaos of 2008 are looking to exit. The ones who were small c conservative in their approach and ran their properties efficiently ( so 4 or 5 landlords across the country should be fine), but what happens if the market has friction and they are running towards year 15?

      Even before Covid, our service economy was buyoed by the gig economy. Restarting how things worked never made much sense.

    4. smashsc

      I noted that the sources cited in the article were from April & May. Those reports absolutely don’t indicate what has happened in the last 8 weeks. As Louis has noted above, GDPNow incorporates the “latest” reports & starts to capture the decline

      1. Katniss Everdeen

        Finance types everywhere are obsessed with convincing the country that we are positively not in a “recession.”

        As if it matters what the economic clusterfuck in which the u. s. currently finds itself is called.

        So they do what they always do–when the “data” doesn’t support your contention, use different “data.”

      2. Augustus

        Here in a wealthy part of Georgia, we are seeing the “bottom up” effects. Garages have become not just artist studios, as they once were, but are not apartments for not just one or two, but entire families, with the mow and blow pickup parked in the street, and mamacita’s 1990s pollution spewing Chrysler minivan as well. Rents are absurd as the population sponge swells. “For Lease” is an amazingly widespread franchise.

        Oh, and Fuck Joe Biden and the national hearse he rode in on. This country needs a second political party, or, a guillotine in the town square to handle the heads of the Democrats AND Republicans.

        How our family is protesting: We refuse to spend one discretionary dollar until the political toilet is flushed in D.C.

        1. Oh

          I only spend on bare necessities and put off all other spending. There are still too many greedy people out there. Eff em. The two parties (i.e. one party) have to go.

    5. Mikel

      Then the article under it:
      “The Worst 6 Months Ever For the Stock Market”

      In the past week, I’ve also seen articles that have said there STILL hasn’t been the capitulation that has occurred to reach the bottom. “Not the capitulation that is seen that leads to the bottom or indicates the bottom of a bear market” is the way it’s been put.

      Another thing that makes me raise an eyebrow at the last two days of “what recession? I don’t see no recession” articles:
      A slew of corporate earning reports are about to come out, especially from mid-July to the beginning of Aug.

      Why wouldn’t big proclamations about recessions just wait a few days until those reports come out?

      It really sounds like someone is spreading the word “don’t say the word recession”.

      Which is going to make me wonder if this is a way hints are thrown to all the businesses about to give their earnings reports.

      Right now, there is more shady mess than usual going on with “narrative economics.”

      And another thing that I read: if people stayed away from meme stocks and high hype, but little to no profit stocks and/or they avoided just broad based indexing, among those people are ones that have not had the double digit hits to their portfolios. (Yet)

    6. Will

      On his blog, Ritholtz published on Feb21 a presentation on Long Covid by a guy named David Kotok of Cumberland Advisors. This presentation talks about the likely effects of Long Covid on the US labor market and by extension financial markets.

      https://ritholtz.com/2022/02/kotok-what-long-covid-means-for-financial-markets/

      So, Barry is probably aware that current unemployment numbers should be viewed carefully.

      On the other hand, the presentation also refers to past pandemics causing capital investment in order to overcome labor shortages and thus no lasting inflationary consequences. Which perhaps, in part, explains why Barry has been fairly consistent in his view that the current high inflation is transitory and may have already peaked.

      For instance, earlier this year he was fairly unconcerned about high gas prices because “the solution to high prices is high prices” (or words to that effect). The consequences for his fellow Americans of all this ‘demand destruction’ is something he generally does not discuss.

      1. chuck roast

        I believe that Ritholtz makes a valid argument for transitory inflation. We shall see. In any case I don’t recall him ever musing about the monopoly or cartel pricing power. The general economic disposition of debt deflation rules despite the Herculean efforts of the Plutocrat Boutique Bank. Redistribution is the elephant in room that begins lumbering when the size of the pie diminishes.

  11. Wukchumni

    Goooooooood Moooooooorning Fiatnam!

    The withdrawal had been telegraphed days in advance and all that remained was pompadour & circumstance to deal with as he made good his escape from being hopelessly over his head, but boorish happens.

    Even though nobody really reads anymore, a book deal was signed.

  12. begob

    “SNAKE ISLAND INCIDENT 1 Oz Silver Coin 1 Hrywna Ucraina 2021

    This beautiful 1 Oz Silver coin is dedicated to supporting the nation of Ukraine which is currently struggling for the freedom of its citizens. The coin has a beautiful coloration with a ruthenium plating. The middle finger points to an incoming Iksander-M class missile.”

    €149.96″

    2. ambrit

      I like how the coin is priced at seven times the bullion value. Talk about a modern day Tulip Economy.
      Update: Well, it is already sold out. (Only 250 minted???)
      The price is now Euro 179.95.
      Get in on the ground floor before everything collapses!
      Oh, and that ‘missile’ looks suspiciously like a frigate.

      1. Wukchumni

        I knew the company in LA which had the rights to make any legal tender coin from Liberia as long as they gave them a little of this, and seeing as Liberia used $’s it made for a good selling point when they’d come out with a Princess Di coin a few days after that tunneling accident of hers in Paris with say a face value of $50?

        It was all about beating the other dozen or so countries that allowed private mints in the states to make commemorative coins to mostly be pitched on hard sell tv shows back in the day before the internet.

        I like this set of coins from a fictional country in the 1960’s including one in the denomination of a Full Shaft.

        https://www.coinworld.com/voices/gerald-tebben/proclaim_your_ownna.html

    3. playon

      That coin is hideous. But hey, $180 for $20 worth of silver — such a deal, I’m telling you.

  13. Louis Fyne

    The French government leaks content of Macron-Putin pre-war 20 February call as part of a documentary on Macron. Anyone thinking that Macron is an independent voice of diplomatic reason should think again.

    “….The French president blasted his counterpart over suggestions he should negotiate with pro-Russian separatists, exclaiming at one point: ‘I don’t know where your lawyers learned the law!’….”

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10986959/Extraordinary-argument-Macron-Putin-four-days-war-revealed-Russias-fury.html

    1. The Rev Kev

      Macron should know better. When the original Minsk Agreement was signed back on 2014 – of which France signed – the then-leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) were also signers but it was done in a way so that there was no formal recognition of their status. Pretty soon they will be Russian Districts so perhaps Macron will not have a problem then.

      Going off tangent here. Recently Moscow named the square in front of the US Embassy in Moscow as Donetsk People’s Republic Square and Washington flipped out so on their website gave their address as a latitude & longitude. So now Moscow is set to rename the area outside the UK’s Embassy in Moscow as Luhansk People’s Republic Square. Psych!

      1. Lex

        The UK is refusing to use the new address and the Russian postal system is refusing to deliver mail to the old address, which no longer exists. Meanwhile, Zakharova suggests that Johnson wouldn’t have to resign if he were a woman. Russian government trolling is on point.

      2. Roland

        That sort of childish renaming business is something I find depressing, rather than amusing–unless perhaps to laugh at the human condition.

        Yeah I know, the Western govs are yet more infantile. But so what?

        And all this, over quelques arpents de steppe.

        For God’s sake, I just wish these fools would draw some dotted lines wherever, and leave the war for some later fools to fight.

    2. super extra

      Wasn’t that right before the meeting where Macron hauled ass to Moscow to try to talk directly but then refused to take a covid test from local Russian health authorities before meeting with Putin so he got sat at the clown table that is like 20ft long and then they stood together to talk to the press after and Putin pretty much insulted Macron in a polite and deadpan manner and Macron just stood there and took it?

      Finally starting to appreciate esteemed commenter David’s statement that Macron winning the recent election would be the funniest outcome since he’d have to clean up the mess from French involvement in this escapade!

      ETA: whoops should have finished the link before posting, the clown table is in the DM piece and that meeting was before the fight

  14. Pat

    I am sure that others can find the holes in it, but my version of a constitutional response to Citizens United was not only to deny corporations personhood and yes constitutional rights, but to make it clear that they had responsibilities to their customers, their employees and their communities equal to or greater than their responsibilities to the shareholders. I felt this was necessary to make it clear that profits for shareholders should not justify the theft and grift behind things like stealing pensions and offshoring jobs, planned obsolescence, denying the ability to repair, and ripping communities off for tax breaks without any intention of ever being a stable tax paying resident and employer who remains after the breaks expire, and of course the biggie, destroying the environment of the area with toxic wastes and actions never intending to clean up.

    Over the years, I have watched businesses and so-called businesses that were really financial asset strippers cause economic and physical damage to all of those three entities with little or no consequences except that a small cadre of shareholders, not even all of them, got richer, many times significantly richer. That shouldn’t be the case. Clear exploitation of people shouldn’t be allowed, nay even encouraged as it is today.

    But I know such an amendment will take as radical a change as so many other things I feel we need it is near impossible. Heck not even a pandemic could get us single payer, we were so broken it has taken out trust in the public health system and the not so slow motion destruction of the hospital system instead. I fear what might wrought change now.

    1. GramSci

      A fine idea. My preferred first step is moving the top marginal rate back up to 94%, although this also requires a functioning democracy.

      1. drumlin woodchuckles

        That could be one of the things a New Deal Restoration Party runs to restore as part of restoring the New Deal.

        Or such a party could take the risky gamble involved in holding up the “left end” of the culture war by being the Legal Abortion party as well. Be the Legal Abortion New Deal Party. Force people to decide just how badly they want their New Deal back. Badly enough to accept Legal Abortion along with it?

    2. Calvin

      “MY version of a constitutional response to Citizens United was not only to deny corporations personhood and yes constitutional rights,”

      OR, if they are allegedly “people” charge them the same personal income tax rate that middle class people are charged. Barring that, allow middle class people to use all the corporate tax loopholes, for example, personal ads, makeup, car washes, surgery, all written off as “personhood business expenses.”

  15. Medbh

    Can a person be infected with monkeypox more than once? I’ve tried searching for the information and am not finding a clear answer. I read that people only caught smallpox once, so is it reasonable to assume the same would hold true for monkeypox?

    1. Vandemonian

      Probably not. Smallpox (closely related, with cross-immunity) is ‘one and done’. If you catch smallpox, or get the vaccine, you have lifelong immunity*. I believe the smallpox vaccine is being used against monkeypox, and those vaccinated against smallpox when young (like me, 63 years ago) are considered to be protected from monkeypox. The problem is that smallpox was pretty much eradicated, and childhood vaccination was discontinued.

      * There could be rare cases of infection in people who are vaccinated, but immunocompromised.

        1. Mikel

          I’m wondering if it would make more sense to get the smallpox vaccine rather than monkeypox vaccine.
          With all that is emerging or re-emerging (thinking about a story from a week ago about polio in London’s sewer system), may as well get ahead of the curve on the possibility.

  16. John

    @Colonel Smithers. Johnson’s Chief Enabler in Charge of Lying, Jacob R-M, is conspicuous by his absence. Has there been a recent sighting?

  17. hemeantwell

    The WSJ article on success not leading to happiness and Freud’s mistaken belief that it would is paywalled. If the researchers are actually promoting their findings as a test of Freud, you have to wonder how they got through prelims. Analysts have had ‘those who are wrecked by success’ on their couches pretty much from the get-go.

    1. ambrit

      I question the results of Freud based on the general class of his, and other analysist’s patients. “Proper” psychoanalysts were encouraged from the beginning, by Freud himself no less, to charge high so as to “make the ‘value’ of therapy manifest.” This self selects for wards of the state and the economic upper classes. Thus, my contention, the data used for most analysis of analysis are skewed towards extremes in the population. Simply put: N = $$$(X).
      YMMV

  18. Samuel Conner

    re: that proposed naval expedition to the Black Sea

    Would Ukraine interfere with US minesweepers sent into the Black Sea to clear out the Ukrainian sea mines which are preventing grain exports?

    1. The Rev Kev

      The US Navy has only about a dozen of these minesweepers in service for the whole world. They have been running them down as they were expecting those Littoral Combat Ships to replace them as they came into service. You know, the ones that they are already scrapping.

      1. ambrit

        During WW-2, private yachts were often repurposed as mineaweepers. Smaller, more nimble craft, yet large enough to support the mine sweeping machinery. Let the uber wealthy of America do their bit for the War Effort and donate their spare mega-yachts to become mine sweepers.

        1. begob

          What about setting adrift in the sealanes the confiscated yachts of the oligarchs with their owners on board? Boom! There goes the 177th richest man in the world.

        2. HotFlash

          Don’t know about nowadays, but some friends bought a Cdn WWII minesweeper back in the ’70’s.l It had a wooden hull b/c steel hulls would set off the magnetic sensors then (some?) mines had back then. Are modern minesweepers still wood?

          1. Polar Socialist

            I assume most post-WW2 minesweepers are made of aluminum, which is not magnetic. Steel hulled vessels tend to have “degaussing” cables in them, to “cancel out” the magnetic field of the ship’s hull (or specifically the disturbance it creates in Earths magnetic field).

            1. ambrit

              My paternal grandfather was drafted out of the UK Merchant Marine and served as First Mate on several minesweepers. Dad says he claimed that the first one was definitely wooden hulled. That one was sunk by a U-boat deck gun in the South Atlantic. The crew rowed the Captain’s gig to South America. Repatriated to England, Granddad wasn’t allowed any shore leave and immediately sent to crew another minesweeper doing the Murmansk Run. Granddad was evidently in a convoy that was attacked by the Kreigsmarine. Mom mentions him talking about actually seeing the big gun shells as a dark streak as they swept overhead.
              I have read that modern minesweepers are being built with fibreglass and composite hulls. Either way, the big mass of metal in a ship would be the engines. They would have to be degaussed.

      2. Lex

        Last week I drove past one of the LCV shipyards. Weird that they’re still building ships already destined for scrapping. Must be the efficiencies of the market.

  19. flora

    Boris Johnson is WEF. Macron is WEF. Rutte is WEF. Turns out WEF-ists, the Davos crowd, aren’t very good at governing their countries in the interests of their citizens. In governing for the interests of the globalist neoliberal thought collective, however, they’re running true to form. My 2 cents.

    (An aside: one of WEF’s goals is making sure the US is not a sole superpower by 2030. B. is doing a bang-up job to make that come true. heh.)

    1. CheckyChubber

      Someone in that organization making a prediction of something that is already true, e.g. “US is not a sole superpower by 2030” is in not the same as it being an organizational “goal”. Wouldn’t you say?

        1. CheckyChubber

          Either way, an article containing various predictions about the future on the WEF website, is not the same as a declaration of goals by the WEF.

    2. Jonathan Holland Becnel

      The only exception is Tulsi Gabbard.
      I believe she would stand up for the people!

      FACTS!

      1. Oh

        I like Tulsi. However, however, there seems to be a transformation that takes place once a politician walks into a powerful position. Examples are AOC and the rest of the Squad, Sanders, Warren….

        1. rowlf

          Vladimir Putin in a French magazine interview several years ago claimed that a person with a briefcase would meet with a new US president to explain the realities of the position.

          Probably fake news.

          1. Yves Smith

            He saw how the US treated Yeltsin. Scott Ritter claims that the US worked hard to bribe Medvedvev (remember President when Putin stepped back for Constitutional reasons to be Prime Minister, 2008 to IIRC 2012) to become a second Yeltsin. Medvedev is a hard core Russian nationalist and good personal friend of Putin (remarkably that has held up despite them both being in politics and not seeing eye to eye, Medvedev is way more hawkish than Putin). So that didn’t go anywhere but likely reinforced Putin’s pre-existing views.

      2. ChrisPacific

        She proved by her endorsement of Biden after the Super Tuesday coup that she is not willing to stand up to Obama. (Understandable, since she’s from Hawaii and being against Obama in Hawaii is tantamount politically to being against God in the South, but I still found it disappointing).

        Maybe that would change if she were President, but the situation would never arise. If she ever looked like she might win the primary (as Sanders did) Obama would step in to sort things out, and that would be the end of her run.

      3. drumlin woodchuckles

        If Gabbard and Ventura ran in some states on an independent ticket, that might at least unsettle and break some things.

  20. Solarjay

    The big question is as always compared to what?
    All newer technologies have a subsidized period. Solar panels in the US were heavily subsidized, and the same arguments could be made. Too expensive, won’t pay for itself, it’ll never work etc.

    It’s not where the hydrogen comes from right now, it’s what is the use of it.
    It can be blended into NG pipelines to about 10-20%. Planes I don’t think will ever use hydrogen or batteries because of: energy density, flexible fuel shapes, extreme cold weather use. But we can do green liquid fuels now with what are called E fuels. CO2 and hydrogen with electricity makes a hydrocarbon fuel. It’s been around since WW2. Yes the efficiencies are currently not great, but the point is you can actually make 100% carbon free fuel. This technology also makes gasoline, and diesel. Which Is probably the best direction to go in because there is no way the majority of the world is going electric vehicle, so this is the way.

    To me the main use is for heavy duty vehicles: Mining, long haul trucks, farming equipment, and the list goes on. The energy/weight/storage vs batteries is 50 to 1. And as this website has been very active on the amount of mining to make lithium batteries is substantial!
    It would also make cars smaller and lighter.

    Part of the advantage is charging/filling up speed. Another is storage, it’s easy to fill larger tanks compared to having battery storage to fill batteries which is crazy expensive.
    High speed battery charging is all the rage, but it’s extremely hard on batteries and shortens their life. It’s also really expensive and hard on the grid.
    Hydrogen storage is a more constant charging design.

    I can go on and on. I am in a huge minority about the advantages of hydrogen and yes there are some drawbacks vs batteries. I accept the blue hydrogen as part of the implementation of a hydrogen system. With the conversion to green hydrogen as non carbon energy ( maybe) increases ( and most blue hydrogen does CCS which no one else is doing.
    As long as we are taking the short view, then the future is only batteries because Musk.

      1. Michael McK

        But if you are using excess solar or wind to power water splitting and the production of the Efuel Solarjay speaks of you are not doing much Hydrogen storage or piping.
        Of course having Efuel factories sitting around idle until a windy day is not the sort of thing Capitalists like to fund which is yet another reason most allocation of capital and the creation of credit should be a public good not a privatized profit center.

    2. Oh

      The LHV (Lower Heating Value) is 320 btu/scf vs natural gas which has an LHV of about 1000.
      And if one is hoping to methanate CO2 to make CH4, the amount of energy required is more or less the same as one wil get from from burning the product. Pipe dream.

      1. drumlin woodchuckles

        Well, if we were able to harvest survival-significant amounts of renewable energy in some places and use that energy to methanate CO2 to get CH4, the renewable energy to begin with would be the harvested energy entering our survival-downsized industrial system and moving that stored energy as CH4 to the target for burning it there to get the energy put into it back out of it wouldn’t have to do any more than recover the energy we put into it. IF! we can gather meaningful amounts of renewable energy for electricity to do that methanation to begin with.

  21. Wukchumni

    The Infamous 1972 Report That Warned of Civilization’s Collapse (interview)
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    As food growing areas all over the world are being squeezed by too little or too much water & too much temperature variation, as long as the supermarket shelves in our just in time lives are reasonably full, all is well.

    Mother Nature seems intent on starving us out but even with our backs against the wall, we’re more concerned with what caliber bullet is being loaded into the chambers than the end result.

    1. flora

      Looking back on the ‘infamous’ report I’m reminded of all the good theory and humanitarian intentions of the urban renewal programs of the 1960’s & 70’s, which basically destroyed old neighborhoods and replaced them with high rise apartments, aka ‘the projects.’ Didn’t work out as planned in terms of uplifting human welfare and neighborhood cohesion.*

      Meanwhile on the human resources consumption front: has anyone taken a look at Bezos mansion(s), yacht, private jets, etc. And he’s just one of our illustrious billionaires. Club of Rome can get back to me after they sort out that level of consumption. / ;)

      *
      Chicago’s Urban Renewal Displaced an Astonishing Number of People in the 20th Century

      https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/January-2018/Chicagos-Urban-Renewal-Displaced-An-Astonishing-Number-of-People-in-the-20th-Century/

      1. flora

        see also Jane Jacobs book The Death and Life of Great American Cities.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_and_Life_of_Great_American_Cities

        Interesting that a lot of urban renewal rationalization planning had removing poor people to make room for freeways and more industry as the real force, not human welfare and social society.

        ——-

        Imo, the Club for Growth and their Limits to Growth idea share that similarity with the mid-20th century urban renewalists.

        1. Marva

          Study the history of areas where the oldest housing projects were built.

          The projects were first placed 19402-1950s, by the federal government in areas with strong local parishes, as a means to break their political power.

        2. playon

          In New Orleans they put the interstate freeway right on top of what was once black folks vibrant main street thru the Treme’ neighborhood, Clairborne Ave. Mission accomplished.

          1. johnnyme

            Minneapolis and St. Paul Minnesota did that as well when they razed the Rondo Neighborhood instead of using abandoned rail lines a bit to the north when they built Interstate 94 between the two downtowns.

        3. Asher

          Just a quick correction: It was the Club of Rome, not Growth. The Club for Growth is the antithesis of the Limits to Growth. :-)

      2. Tommy S

        Maybe you all know these books, but just saying, these are must reads: Power Broker (about NYC and Moses), Family Properties by Satter on Chicago, from WW2 to present, and Crabgrass Frontier…the classic history of neighborhood ratings…

      3. drumlin woodchuckles

        A lot of those urban renewal programs were maliciously designed to destroy black neighborhoods and parts of cities on purpose. Right from the start.

    2. flora

      Meanwhile, anybody taken a look at Bezos’s mansion(s), yacht, and private and corporate jets? He’s just one of our illustrious billionaires and mega CEOs. After the Limits to Growth crowd get his consumption style sorted out I might listen to them. The way it’s working now is less for me and my family/friends means more for him and the Davos crowd, imo. / ;)

      1. Wukchumni

        Meanwhile, anybody taken a look at Bezos’s mansion(s), yacht, and private and corporate jets? He’s just one of our illustrious billionaires and mega CEOs.

        I liken the illionaires to giant statuary perched on a hill, ‘Mo-I’

  22. Louis Fyne

    —We’re Not Already In a Recession Real Clear Markets—

    when this article was written the GDPNow Q2 forecast cited = 0.0%, On Jul 1 the forecast fell to -2.1%.

    Severe downturn inbound, barring removing all the RU sanctions today and pausing all these non-thermodynamics based ESG mandates.

    New forecast coming out today.

  23. fresno dan

    https://hotair.com/john-s-2/2022/07/06/new-report-on-uvalde-shooting-highlights-failures-by-police-was-the-classroom-door-even-locked-n481105
    But based on what we know now, it looks as if officers ignored their training *** and never even got very close to an unlocked door because they wanted to avoid getting shot themselves. That’s understandable on a human level but in this instance where children were already shot and dying, it’s not good enough.
    =========================================
    Despite that, the indoctrination about being the most powerful nation militarily, with the best police, by every electronic platform available will continue apace. Indeed, the more wars we lose* and the more evidence accrued that the police don’t confront AR-15 welding perpetrators, the MORE relentless and all pervasive the cop shows on TV about how the police catch every criminal…
    *** train like you fight, and you fight like you train…except the police
    * so 20 years in Afghanistan, and if that ain’t losing, what is? But at least we learned it best not to actually get involved in Ukraine (well, there are those who think losing in Afghanistan shows we would be more successful against a better equipped and more technologically advanced foe…)

    1. Tom Stone

      Do you think more nutjob mass shooters will use AR15’s due to all the publicity?
      If all the “Cool” mass shooters are using AR’s and getting lots of publicity why would you use a Taurus “Millenium”?
      These insane killers do it for the publicity such horrific and dramatic crimes are rewarded with.
      It’s retail Evil,not the wholesale murder of children in Iraq, Yemen and so many other places,the people who commit those and other horrific crimes ( Covid-19 in the US?) are rewarded with Money, Power and Prestige.
      We live in a very sick society and I wonder how much of that comes from tribalism become corporatism, most tribes have called themselves “The” people or taken that attitude less explicitly.
      I have worked for big Corporations have noticed how “Corporate Culture” is implicitly and often explicitly tribal.
      With all that implies in the way of primate behavior.
      These are sick tribes because the tribe comes first and their great spiritual goal is an increase in quarterly profits.
      At any cost to others because they are not members of the tribe.
      So we end up where we are because markets, go die.
      And more people go whacko because of the stress…
      Interesting times.

      1. C.O.

        I found myself asking the same first question as you, Tom… and whether those planning a mass shooting will opt for those weapons on the theory that police are afraid of them.

        As I recall, again and again and again, the best practices for media coverage of mass shooters is to take every effort not to present them in a glorifying manner and especially not to reproduce pictures of them posturing or their manifestos if they have them. So often the best practices are not followed, and that encourages copy cat behaviour in those contemplating such things.

        Nobody seems inclined to make a publicity fuss over the men who are fortunate enough to get mental health intervention before acting on fantasies of mass murder.

    1. Lee

      “So it is our own body doing all the damage?”

      Current Covid treatment protocols call for antivirals during the first week, when the virus is doing its thing. In the second week, when viral activity subsides, antivirals are replaced with drugs such as steroids to dampen a potentially lethal immune response.

      I’ve read (can’t recall the source) that the 1918 flu pandemic was particularly hard on people in the prime of life because of their particularly robust immune response to that virus. In ME/CFS, which presents similarly to long Covid, some researchers believe that the chronic, post-acute sequelae is caused by a continuing over active immune response to a previous viral infection.

      1. britzklieg

        the Spanish Flu was over after 2 years. At 2 1/2 years covid is still going strong and, apparently, getting stronger just now. Why’s that, I wonder?

  25. The Rev Kev

    “Parsi: New Iran sanctions may spell death of the JCPOA”

    This whole saga is just another example of the dysfunctional Biden White House. There is all sorts of problems going on with energy and a deep recession is looming if not already here. Biden could get a cheap win by signing up to the deal and give him a win which is important as how many wins has old Joe racked up lately? So what happens?

    ‘Washington is slapping new sanctions on Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical producers, along with Hong Kong and Emirati companies accused of selling the oil on East Asia markets in violation of existing embargoes.’

    And you just know that even if this deal was signed, that Washington would slap yet new sanctions on the Iranian petroleum industry and try to throttle them.

    1. hunkerdown

      It’s only cheap if you aren’t looking at the systemic consequences of another world-defining “national interest” so casually undersold, right on the heels of losing Roe.

  26. Chas

    Re: New Iran sanctions may spell end of the JCPOA

    These new sanctions against Iran reveal that the USA (1) is not worried about Iran building atomic bombs, and (2) has no fear of Iran’s military might. Iran has shown patience in its refusal to respond to the succession of attacks upon it by the USA and Israel over the last few years, yet even the lowly worm turns when trod upon. At some point it will either have to surrender or fight back. The easiest way for it to fight back would be to blockade the Straits of Hormuz until the USA agrees to end its sanctions. It has the missiles, submarines and mines needed to do the job, but so far hasn’t dared to stand up for its sovereign rights. The time to act is now, while oil prices are high. Such a courageous act by Iran might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and leads to the downfall of the empire.

    1. Darthbobber

      Seems to me that Iran has been pushing back pretty effectively throughout the region.

    2. Tom Stone

      My hope is that the Empire doesn’t turn the World into a radioactive cinder, an outcome that seems more likely than not given the quality of Western leadership.
      The first lemming off the cliff is a leader…

    3. Polar Socialist

      Or Iran can wait (what’s another year after so many decades) for the BRICS membership and free trade with Eurasian Economic Union. It’s quite likely that in the fast emerging multipolar world the western sanctions will become more and more meaningless.

      Now that Russia has turned it’s back to Europe, Iran can offer Russia access to Arabian Sea, East Africa and India.

  27. Noone from Nowheresville

    “The conservative justices angling to overturn Roe are also the embodiment of a ruthless fifty-year political campaign.” Something the Democrat Party can’t even conceive of, let alone execute.

    We have lost a class war. Yes, I’ll agree it was a fifty-year ruthless campaign. But it was a class war. The Democratic Party aka political social club is fully part of the class that won. Why are the general we accepting the framing that the Democrat Party can’t conceive of or execute something that they were part of?

    If only the Czar, the Queen, the pick your leader knew.

    If I were to buy into the hapless Democrat messaging, if we made the Democrats ruthless, what would their version of the court look like to the party faithful as opposed to the across the aisle political social club?

    Environmental laws? Labor laws? Freedom of speech? Are we really sure that the foundation / framework of what the court has built and promotes as a whole (e.g., the difference between the path of climate vs. individual weather events but in the legal world) would be more friendly to the class war losers?

    1. Lexx

      62 degrees? We set our thermostat at 55 at night in the winter and saw it get as low as 64 on one night only; this is Colorado, it gets very cold at night in the winter here. It helps that this house is well-insulated.

      Sixty-two actually sounds quite comfortable for sleeping… unless, of course, you’re not.

      1. hk

        I’d heard that there are regulations on indoor temperatures in Germany. Hopefully, other posters can provide insight on this and, more important, if it is true, whether it’s coming up in politics at all nowadays?

      2. Mildred Montana

        >”Sixty-two actually sounds quite comfortable for sleeping… unless, of course, you’re not.”

        In which case you might get the cold shoulder.

      3. playon

        We keep ours at 56-58 at night in the winter. It’s actually healthier to sleep in a cooler place with plenty of covers vs a room that is too warm.

  29. Lex

    Republican moms apologizing reads like fiction. Quite interesting that Slate decided to publish this quote, “The idea of banning abortion didn’t make sense to his 59-year-old mother. “My mom was like, ‘In the Soviet Union, it was illegal. A lot of people died. It was unsafe,’ ” he recalled.” (from “Yev Pusin” who’s family immigrated from the USSR) Except that the USSR legalized abortion in 1922, outlawed it in 1933 and relegalized it in 1955. I’m not saying it is fiction. Yev Pusin is the director of marketing at backblaze.

    1. super extra

      The way Americans have been intergenerationally indoctrinated to blame Russia/Evil Commies for everything never fails to surprise me. Once a couple years ago after a very nice outdoor bbq my grandfather (upper 80s, still physically there but mentally very forgetful), completely out of nowhere, probably thinking about how nice grilling in summer in the US was, stated how happy he was that we’d “beat Communism”. What? It’s reflexive, like in this documentary of North Korea that I saw a while back, where normal NK families living in apartments would blame “the Americans” for the power going out.

      1. jr

        My maternal grandmother, when she spotted me reading a fantasy or sci-fi book, was fond of screeching “KGB!!” in my face. I think the idea was that the KGB was undermining American youth via degenerate literature. My D&D manuals elicited a similar reaction.

        1. Jonathan Holland Becnel

          Ur grandma’s gonna hate the latest Season of Stranger Things!!!

          Which, BTW, besides the obvious russophobia, is quite good compared to seasons 2 n 3. Season 1 was so freaking good no ones gonna top that!

        2. wilroncanada

          jr
          Little did she know that you were opting for freedom , because it was the FBI and CIA, along with Hollywood, that were undermining American youth via degenerate literature and movies.

    2. t

      Maybe not fiction. Just a redic sample. My Republicans mom, relatives, and various people are thrilled by the exercise of power. A real-we-showed-them attitude. And not a word about Uvalde and Baby Formula shortages are part of Biden’s gas hike, somehow.

    3. NotTimothyGeithner

      The essence of conservatism is rules for thee not for me. The GOP moms are astonished their kids may not be able to flaunt the rules.

      I was poll sitting at a harder to staff polling place for primaries for Team Blue types. The local GOP chairman came around to do morale boosts with his local idiots. Then a younger woman came by us. I offered her the sample Team Blue ballot, but she was conservative. She wanted to confirm with the GOP types if the GOP state senator understood important exceptions to abortions. The GOP chairman and poll sitter both said oh sure he knew. Today, that State Senator wants to make sure doctors who perform abortions are prosecuted. I think all three of those Republicans, ugh, I just realized the GOP chair is in the Virginia House of Delegates, openly agreed the “elect” could get abortions because they are special, just as long as it’s outlawed for the bad people.

      1. LifelongLib

        Hard to tell chicken from egg, but the conservatives I know appear to believe that most people are lazy and immoral and need to be guided through life by the minority of the hardworking and morally upright.

      2. drumlin woodchuckles

        Those GOP moms’s kids must be denied abortions along with all the other kids targeted to be denied abortions. Legal Abortion states must shut, seal, and water-tighten their borders against those GOP moms sending their special precious kids from Illegal Abortion states into Legal Abortion states to get their special ” no rules for me” abortions.

        The Illegal Abortions states must be turned into time-bomb pressure cookers and the heat and pressure must be turned up inside them until they either re-Legalize Abortion within their own states or until they explode from uncontainable pressure.

    4. hk

      Propaganda (that fails) is telling people what the tellers want to be true, not what’s really there. It “works” only as long as the audience is kept isolated from the reality…which defeats the whole point of propaganda (as in face hostile “reality” with actual conviction. “Funny” touch, the bit about the Russians.

  30. Michael Hudson

    Re the Club of Rome’s warnings — in many ways it was an early Davos.
    I worked for two or three years at UNITAR on the club of Rome project headed by Irwin Laszlo. The Italian bankers were all for condemning environmental pollution. But they balked at thinking of debt pollution. After I wrote three reports on North/South foreign debt, the Italian Club of Rome financiers threatened to withdraw all funding they continued to publish my debt analysis.

  31. Appleseed

    re: American Historical Association
    The letter is powerful and pointed, “Historians might note that the court’s majority opinion refers to “history” 67 times, claiming that “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.” Our brief shows plentiful evidence, however, of the long legal tradition, extending from the common law to the mid-1800s (and far longer in some American states, including Mississippi), of tolerating termination of pregnancy before occurrence of “quickening,” the time when a woman first felt fetal movement.”
    So I downloaded the brief and read it. An informative and compelling read, unless, of course, one is a religious ideologue with a lifetime appointment.

  32. The Rev Kev

    “Russia joins G20 meeting overshadowed by Ukraine conflict”

    Some ministers like Germany’s Annalena Baerbock and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken are refusing to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov but Lavrov would call that a win as they would only be wasting his time. And I am sure that Lavrov will be busy setting up all sorts of trade negotiations and trade deals in the background with all those countries. Stuff like energy, food and fertilizers. Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong says that she will try to convince China to ditch Russia which sounds totally legit to me. We’ll see how that works out. Sure, Liz Truss won’t be there but I think that the other G-20 countries will breath a sigh of relief about that one. More so as there will be no more Bojo the Clown in future get togethers.

  33. The Rev Kev

    “‘Huge’ unexpected ozone hole discovered over tropics”

    Seriously? Nobody noticed? Something that would effect the health of the planet? What is the motto of those scientists – ‘Don’t Look Up’? Kudos to Professor Qing-Bin Lu for discovering this but I do blame the scientific establishment for missing such a development and not monitoring such a possible thing happening. More so since a few years ago chlorofluorocarbons were detected coming out of China still.

  34. Mikel

    “NYC Monkeypox Cases Double in a Week, More Vaccines Days Away” NBC

    Considering the previous reports about the huge number of mutations with the monkepox virus, this isn’t surprising.

    BTW: look for articles to start coming out that start saying things like “monkeypox outbreak might spur Fed to cut rates or halt rate increases.” Whether known or not, it will be said.

  35. Mikel

    “The Worst 6 Months Ever For Financial Markets” A Weath of Common Sense

    Then also today:
    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/were-still-seeing-net-buying-after-markets-posted-the-worst-first-half-in-50-years-investors-need-a-strategy-for-the-rest-of-2022-heres-a-3-point-plan-11657200097?mod=home-page
    “We’re still seeing net buying. I will acknowledge it’s not nearly as aggressive,” Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers IBKR, 1.49%, told MarketWatch.

    Hmmmm…..

  36. Wukchumni

    One giant bubble makes your assets larger
    And low interest rates makes your savings small
    And the ones that the Maestro gave us
    Don’t do anything at all
    Go ask Alan
    When the dominoes fall

    And if you go chasing returns
    And you know they’re going to fall
    Tell ’em a put stroking nonagenarian
    Has given you the call
    Call Alan
    When the market goes into a flat-spin stall

    When the men on the Fed board
    Get up in Jackson Hole
    And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
    And your mind is moving low
    Go ask Alan
    I think he’ll know

    When logic and proportion
    Have fallen sloppy dead
    And the White Knight is talking backwardation
    And Dow Jonestown agrees “full speed ahead!”
    Remember what Ayn’s acolyte said:
    “Heed the Fed. Heed the Fed.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4

  37. David

    Divided French parliament gives new PM tough time during first address EuroNews

    What this is about, is a vicious struggle for prominence among the three largest opposition parties in the new National Assembly: Mélenchon’s LFI, Le Pen’s RN, and the Republicans, the traditional party of the Right. Each has between 50-100 seats, and each wants to be the party that the media instinctively turn to for a comment on what the government has said or done. Technically, the RN is the largest bloc, but to the extent that Mélenchon can keep the NUPES electoral alliance more-or-less together, he can claim at least moral dominance. That was looking unlikely anyway, given the massive internal divisions in NUPES, and the announced policy of the government to move forward through ad hoc alliances for specific pieces of legislation, thus making the life of the opposition parties much more difficult.

    French parliamentary sessions can be rowdy, and Borne has no command of the room: she has all the charisma of a paper cup left out in the rain. But most of the shouting and table-thumping was by LFI deputies, and there is an argument that they overdid it, or at least should be careful of doing it again. Interestingly, Le Pen has played the stateswoman, keeping a lowish profile. Her troops are the most likely to be disciplined and united, with fewer factions and internal splits. She has her eye on 2027.

  38. Mikel

    “Did COVID vaccine mandates work? What the data say” Nature

    Basically, the article is about how to get more people to take shots and nothing at all to do with the any thorough examination of the effectiveness of the shots in curbing the ONGOING pandemic.

    1. marku52

      Agreed. “Did the vaccines work” is the far more interesting question. And it’s pretty clear the answer is NO. And the Doshi article is saying maybe more harm than help.

      1. tegnost

        …and they’re recommending them for babies…
        the real tell for me was that pfizer demanded indemnity from risk from countries receiving their product. I’d say that’s a likely cause for not letting other countries bypass the patents. Welcome to risk free crapitalism…
        I had the first 2 modernas and had a not good different reaction in each case, unreasonably high blood pressure after number 1 and pretty sick after the second. Not likely to take any EUA covered anything moving forward at the least, probably no more mrna until significant testing clears it and that is not being done, it’s all CYA everywhere you look.
        My un vaxxed friend is in quarantine now with covid and it sounds bad…she has a pulse oxymeter and the numbers are not great, it’s very concerning.

    2. will rodgers horse

      nor for that matter mention of the cardinal ethical principle of medicine: Autonomy

    1. playon

      That is what usually happens – the offending cop simply moves to another town or city and gets a new gig there, no questions asked.

      1. marym

        In addition to the social media and phone response referenced in the link above, the people of the town also protested at the borough office (Link to article with 2 videos from yesterday’s Water Cooler comments).

        Today the cop withdrew his application. “Officials announced the move Thursday morning on the city’s website.”

        Power to the people.

  40. Roger Blakely

    You know who had (has?) the highest covid rates? Not nurses or other healthcare workers (as one might assume), but *restaurant kitchen staff*.

    Here is my guess. All of the air in the dining room gets pulled into the kitchen on its way up and out the stove vent. Restaurant kitchens have a vent over the stove. The make-up air is coming from the front door of the restaurant. Air enters the front door. It picks up SARS-CoV-2 in the dining area and then passes by the kitchen staff as it goes up and out the vent.

    Living with SARS-CoV-2 means wearing a respirator in all indoor public spaces including apartments and hotels using a common ventilation/air conditioning system.

    1. Lambert Strether Post author

      > All of the air in the dining room gets pulled into the kitchen on its way up and out the stove vent. Restaurant kitchens have a vent over the stove. The make-up air is coming from the front door of the restaurant. Air enters the front door. It picks up SARS-CoV-2 in the dining area and then passes by the kitchen staff as it goes up and out the vent.

      That’s a good guess. Also, a restaurant is a classic 3Cs space: Crowded, Closed, Close Contact (plus a lot of shouting, I would think).

      I’ve had a lot of great foodie experiences in restaurants over the years, and really been educated in my tastes, but the restaurant trade is a sorry business to be in during a pandemic. I think the loss to conviviality without restaurants — or turning dining into ghost kitchens + delivery, as those creeps in Silicon Valley would like to do — would be great, but the whole industry and the experience needs to be rethought.

  42. Mikel

    RE: Johnson’s resignation

    The USA has gone too long without another Nixon (in reference to his resignation). The shenanigans that have gone on in the Executive branch since dwarf a botched “burglary” (of eyebrow-raising ineptness) of some papers of little interest to the the broader population during some common political catfighting.

    1. drumlin woodchuckles

      James McCord was “allegedly former” CIA at the time of the Watergate Burglars discovery. I have long wondered whether the “ineptness” was engineered to get the burglars discovered on purpose, in hopes of lighting a fuse which would eventually get back to Nixon, for whatever reason the CIA might have for wanting to do that.

  43. marym

    Villain rotation status update:

    Dianne Feinstein supports abortion rights — but still won’t say if she’d end the filibuster to make them law
    https://twitter.com/joegarofoli/status/1544844323669172224

    Feinstein isn’t the only Senator in the mix here. Our team is reaching out to other possible hold outs today including Sens. Casey of Pennsylvania and King of Maine. But so far Feinstein is the only Senator so reflexively unwilling to say where she stands on this issue.
    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dianne-full-on-team-cagey

  44. Jason Boxman

    On The Shrinking of the Middle-Class Neighborhood.

    I stayed in East Nashville for a week back in 2016. Clearly already gentrifying at that time, with housing in the areas a short walk to downtown already half a million. Nice area. Quite a few condo “communities” going up along the road into Nashville. I spoke to someone that worked in the area only years earlier, and she could hear gunfire from her office. It seemed safe when I was there.

    The best part about East Nashville is that they’d banned chains. There weren’t any chain restaurants except those grandfathered in. The Five Points area is great, although it was hit by the 2020 tornado. I wonder if it got rebuilt? I miss Five Points pizza.

    The further away you drove from downtown, the more it looked like the middle class area discussed in the article.

  45. Scylla

    I posted on this in water cooler last night. The cop that killed Tamir Rice is gone. The town residents ran him off and the borough council caved. Glad to see him go. Tioga is a tiny rural town in PA about a half hour south of Corning, NY. Hope he does not manage to sneak in somewhere else. It absolutely makes my skin crawl that after being run out of city after city, town after town, that this guy STILL seeks to be a cop, and that people are still willing to hire him. Unbelievable. I also thought it was interesting to see BLM signs out here in the lily-white sticks-quite encouraging. 20 years ago I was involved in efforts to run the leader of the Aryan Nation out of the neighboring county- so I’m glad people are still paying attention.


    Loehmann withdraws application for Tioga PA police officer

      1. JBird4049

        Anyone who says that they will never risk lose their integrity probably has already lost. It’s like saying that they are a saint.

  47. digi_owl

    That shareholder piece reminded me of Adam Curtis’ Mayfair Set.

    Most of it concerns itself with a small group of corporate raiders that all frequented the Mayfair club in London, there are also some wider observations surrounding the post-ww2 boom and bust of the UK economy (including an observation that right before stagflation set in, UK liberalized the market for consumer credit).

    And towards the end he talks about how the raiders that had moved to USA gets sidelined by the large pension funds etc, because said funds had learned their techniques and thus didn’t need the raiders as front men.

    And speaking of Curtis, i find his older stuff more interesting than his more recent works. In part because he had to make his point fit in 30 minute episodes fit for broadcast, and in part because he keeps spending far too much time these days rethreading the arguments he already made in those old series.

    1. digi_owl

      For now.

      Norway maintained a no bases policy all through the cold war, but has in recent years been walking it back in practice if not officially.

      As i write this, there is maybe 700 US Marines on Norwegian soil. The justification is that the individual marines are switched at intervals, rather than permanently stationed. but that still means there will be a constant presence.

      1. The Rev Kev

        That is how it started for us in Oz. Rotating troops. But now we have them permanently stationed here and we are being turned in an anti-China base. And I am seeing the same for Norway. Before long you will have a NATO Scandinavian Command made up of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland with the Baltic becoming a NATO lake.

        1. Lambert Strether Post author

          > Before long you will have a NATO Scandinavian Command made up of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland with the Baltic becoming a NATO lake.

          Well, heck, you can’t fight a two front war if you don’t have two fronts.

          (I’m picturing the Navy loading up the Baltic with big ships and boats, and then needing to send them to the Pacific, where we repeat the episode of the Czar’s Second Pacific Squadron, with similar results.)

        2. RobertC

          TRK — your lips to his ear Norwegian air chief wants ‘Nordic Air Operations Center’ if Sweden, Finland join NATO “I think [a Nordic air operations center] would be a benefit for us, and it can be a benefit for NATO,” said Maj. Gen. Rolf Folland, chief of the Royal Norwegian Air Force.

          While Follard didn’t go into details on how a Nordic air operations center would fit into NATO’s existing command and control structure, NATO’s Headquarters Allied Air Command at Ramstein already oversees a number of subordinate units elsewhere in Europe. That list currently includes the two Combined Air Operations Centres at Uedem, Germany and Torrejón, Spain, as well as the Deployable Air Command and Control Centre at Poggio Renatico, Italy.

          After those Nordic countries discover how their F-35 lifecycle costs disrupted their defense budgets, they won’t be so eager to pay out-of-pocket for this AOC.

  49. juliania

    Thanks for the fluid electron whirlpools piece, Lambert! Remembering back to my wave/particle discussions in college lab days — that’s something! Lovely illustration also.

    It somehow fit with the krill swim patterns piece. I lived for a while in the southern regions of New Zealand. Krill would periodically pile up in our harbour there, fortunately not too close to the house.

  50. Asher Miller

    I found it slightly ironic that the Wired article on the 50th anniversary of the Limits to Growth was put under the header of “Climate,” considering that climate was actually not part of the model (though a broader category of Pollution was). Why does that matter? Because the standard run modeled collapse even without climate breakdown.

    1. Yakbutter

      Yes, and the fit with the model is worrying, but the article also notes bottom-up mitigating forces and their potential importance. As the article notes, certain pockets of more environmentally-friendly lifestyles have taken hold, and people are experimenting on a small scale with various solutions. If we’re lucky, maybe some of these pockets will grow in become more widespread. Sometimes top-down solutions follow on the heels of bottom-up efforts.

  51. LawnDart

    On 6/23 the caseworker that I was in contact with at the Adult and Disabled Resource Center(ADRC) put in a referral to Adult Protective Services (APS) based upon information that I had provided regarding my father and step-mother. On 6/24 APS closed the case. Today my step-mother died of what I would call “Malign Neglect.”

    NO CONDOLENCES, please. She was old, she died quickly and at home– what better can one ask?

    But this was the second referral to APS with no action taken… …yeah, we voted for this. Motherf…

    I’m pissed, but writing about it now will get me banned from this site. And they weren’t the poors… …this govt, our govt, sucks.

      1. LawnDart

        I was 2/3rds of the way up there when I got the call, another 2-hours riding to go. She had dementia, was somewhat lucid only for minutes of the day (if that), was hardly eating, kept tearing-out her ostomy, and was being cared for by my father who had a quadruple-bypass a few years ago, can hardly walk, and is autistic (Aspy)– it was a freakin clown-show– he can hardly care for himself let alone provide the 24/7 care his wife needed: numerous ER visits and 911 calls since the holidays– “no problem here.” And it was his doctors who first contacted Protective Services too– you’d think they’d listen to medical professionals when the docs are saying “there’s a problem here.”

        You see, the Boomers are getting older and needing the help that’s needed in old age, social services haven’t been funded to meet the growing demand (old problem but getting much more and quickly worse). I’ve been commuting across three states since November to adult-sit, clean, and working with an adult resource center to try to get services in place– when watching her, you couldn’t get anything else done, not wth constant calls for help and attention-seeking behavior as she was both delusional and manic, sundowning 24/7.

        When the covid-induced dementias really hit the general population, it will not be pretty. Many more people will suddenly find that there is no help available to them, and that they are on their own. I think few here really grasp what that means.

  52. will rodgers horse

    NEJM on vaccine hesitancy. Not one word about criminality of the chief proponents

  53. JBird4049

    >>>Something the Democrat Party can’t even conceive of, let alone execute.

    I think Democratic Party did something like it with the Clintons’ and their DLC ( Democratic Leadership Council) started in 1985 and which the now fatality corrupted party continues to do; they used thirty-six years of backstabbing, betrayal, bribery, and lies to isolate, remove, and even destroy the various groups of the New Deal alliance and anyone either willing to remain faithful or even incorruptible. Almost four decades of planning, organizing, doing, and succeeding. It does explain why they hate old school Liberals and actual Leftists.

    The conservatives (actually the leadership of some of the churches) sold their collective soul for political power in an alliance with the Republican Party using abortion as a glue and energizer. Part of the process was ejecting the old school Conservatives, much like the elimination of the old school liberals from the Democrats. It is one of the reasons for the magazine The American Conservative Now that they got what they ostensibly wanted let’s see what they will do with it.

    Both parties are very alike in their pathologies with the same cause of the lust of power, prestige, and wealth. The reason for why the Democratic Party/neoliberals have not been apparently focused for as long is because the Republicans started their efforts at overthrowing the government and society first with the Democrats respond later and with better camouflage.

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