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Links 9/12/2022

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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.

* * *

Stuck in Vermont: Donna Bister Has Been Raising Monarch Butterflies Since 2016 Seven Days (Re Silc).

From a single domestication, donkeys helped build empires around the world Science

San Francisco Braces for Epic Commercial Real Estate Crash The San Francisco Standard

What’s the deal with all those weird wrong-number texts? Read Max

Climate

The 7 climate tipping points that could change the world forever Grist

Poop and pee fueled the huge algae bloom in San Francisco Bay. Fixing the problem could cost $14 billion San Francisco Chronicle. Go long bunker filtration units, I suppose.

Climate change may make pandemics like COVID-19 much more common ABC. All systems “go” for the next tranche of Lebensunwertes Leben, thanks to the Biden Administration’s stellar work in turning the United States into a reservoir of viral infection, literal and metaphorical.

#COVID19

COVID-19: China’s death toll puts US to shame but the western centric media tell a different story Pearls and Irritations

* * *

Effects of Vaccination and Previous Infection on Omicron Infections in Children NEJM. “Both the BNT162b2 [Pfizer] vaccine and previous infection were found to confer considerable immunity against omicron infection and protection against hospitalization and death. The rapid decline in protection against omicron infection that was conferred by vaccination and previous infection provides support for booster vaccination.”

Lots of long COVID treatment leads, but few are proven PNAS. The deck: “Lingering virus particles, microclots, and faulty immune signaling are likely culprits for many long-hauler symptoms. Anticoagulants, immune regulators, and antivirals show early promise.”

* * *

Long COVID outpaces diabetes in 2022 employer health spending Lab Pulse

Data Shows COVID-19 Impact on Funeral Service is Significant (press release) Kates-Boylston Publications. Publisher of a number of trade journals for the funeral industry.

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What to do if a family member tests positive? How to ‘Covid-proof’ your home NBC. Well worth a read, especially the ventilation part. Plenty of anecdotal reports to the effect that these techniques work. I can’t imagine why the Biden Adminisration hasn’t jumped on the bandwagon, here.

China?

China’s Xi Jinping Will Travel to Central Asia, First Overseas Trip Since Pandemic Bloomberg

The Emperor has no clothes: The China workpaper “workaround” gets the WSJ treatment Francine McKenna, The DIg

China’s Surveillance State Will Be the West’s Future, Too Bloomberg

Indonesia’s president Joko Widodo under pressure to import Russian oil FT

India

India’s energy diplomacy blossoms, finally India Punchline

Syraqistan

The Bankruptcy of Biden Middle East Policy Tikkun Olan

Chain of corruption: how the White Helmets compromised OPCW investigations in Syria Aaron Maté, The Gray Zone

UK/EU

Why EU finance ministers face a tough balancing act FT. Because the entire circus is collapsing?

New Not-So-Cold War

Russia Retaliates For Ukrainian Strikes On Russian Controlled Electricity Networks Moon of Alabama

How the Ukraine Offensive Will Shift the Market Narrative Bloomberg

Top Putin Ally Criticises Russia’s Losses In Ukraine; Calls Out Moscow’s ‘mistakes’ Republic World. Chechnya’s Ramzan Kadyrov.

* * *

Our latest interview with Jacques Baud MR Online. We ran this when it first appeared, on 9/3. I am re-upping it, for those who didn’t get to it, because of Baud’s discussion on the pitfalls of maps (or, if you prefer, the relation between a thing and its representation).

* * *

Zelensky to headline US defense industry conference The Hill. A little too on the nose?

Ukraine’s anti-worker law comes into effect Open Democracy

Biden Adminstration

Exclusive: Biden to hit China with broader curbs on U.S. chip and tool exports Reuters

Supply Chain

Handy chart (1):

Handy chart (2):

Queen Elizabeth

It’s wall to wall Queen Queen Queen everywhere! First Dog on the Moon, Guardian. Commentary from the John Heartfield of our day:

What Happens to Prince Andrew Now? The Cut. Maybe he signs a book deal, then goes on Oprah and tells all? While booking his suites on the ground floor of every hotel?

A kindred spirit:

We’re collecting portraits of American Presidents!

9/11

20 Years After 9/11, Surveillance Has Become a Way of Life Wired

9/11 Made It Easier For The Government To Target Black Activists Essence

The tech legacy of 9/11 Protocol

Hillary Clinton says ‘lessons still to be learned’ from 9/11 The Hill. No kidding.

2024

Mar-a-Lago a magnet for spies, officials warn after nuclear file reportedly found Guardian. Sourcing: “former intelligence officials.”

Big Brother Is Watching You Watch

Republican Housewife Insists On Cleaning Baseboards In Case FBI Raids House Tomorrow Babylon Bee

Healthcare

Human genomics vs Clinical genomics Eric Topol, Ground Truths

Our Famously Free Press

The Narrative Is Coming Apart Patrick Lawrence, ScheerPost

“‘The submissive void.'” The Scrum. On propaganda.

Groves of Academe

In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money NYT

Realignment and Legitimacy

So Long to Anthony Fauci, Unlikely Avatar of Polarization Bloomberg

A Note on “Industrial Policy” Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality

Liberalism is resilient Noah Smith, Bloomberg. Weird flex, but OK.

Guillotine Watch

Palm Beach Is Facing a Devastating Private-School Shortage Curbed (Re Silc).

Class Warfare

Unions blast rail move to delay shipments before deadline AP

4,000 Google cafeteria workers quietly unionized during the pandemic WaPo

Amazon workers at fulfillment center in Moreno Valley announce union drive LA Times

A Photographer’s Intimate Look at Burning Man Inside Hook

The Art of Excess and the Excess of Art From the Forests of Arduinna. “What’s needed is not less-wasteful art and ritual, but rather more of it.”

Antidote du jour (via):

Bonus antidote:

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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About Lambert Strether

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

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167 comments

  1. Antifa

    WORKING MAN BLUES
    (melody borrowed from Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran)

    Nobody looks or listens when a working man hollers
    About how little I get when I go to spend my dollars
    There’s too much month left when my paycheck is spent
    And my landord’s next vacation means he’s gotta raise my rent

    All the prices go up, day after day
    Everything goes up but a working man’s pay

    I took out student loans for a useless education
    I’ll never ever pay ’em off, that’s the honest situation
    If I live to retire, it’ll be to the street
    My whole life an expense on somebody’s spreadsheet

    Inflation means I’m paying some banker his dues
    Someone who wouldn’t last a minute if they stood in my shoes

    Each week I work forty hours, then I work another twenty
    I’ve got a couple side hustles, and I’m watchin’ every penny
    My boss says I’m essential, and I get a lot of praise
    But there’s nothing he can do when I ask him for a raise

    Riots and protests and strikes are in the news
    Cuz there’s only so much they can tighten the screws

  2. JohnA

    What happens to Prince Andrew now?

    Apparently, he is to inherit the queen’s pack of corgis. His diary will be made up of long, lonely daily dog walks.

      1. JohnA

        Not sure if it was there, but IIRC, one Paris property the exiled Windsors lived in, was bought by Mohamed al-Fayed, and according to him, his son Dodi and Diana, were allegedly going to live in. And that was where they were being driven to, on that fateful night.

      1. .Tom

        The story is a nice geneticists view of the species history but the headline editor added fashionable politics. Irony is at the end of the article where Greger Larson, the Oxford biologist, is reported as saying

        And, Larson says, “I’m pleased to see the donkey finally getting his day.”

        Misgender much? hahaha /S

    3. Louis Fyne

      Pre-Columbian Mayans didn’t have any pack animals, I believe many sub-Saharan cultures did not as well (tse-tse flies).

      No pack animal = short-end of the stick when your civilization eventually encounters a civilization that does have a pack animal(s)

      1. PlutoniumKun

        So far as I know, Llamas were used as pack animals in pre-Columbian times and I think may still be used for this in high altitudes on occasion.

        By a coincidence, I walked past a field last sunday with llamas and donkeys and ponies sharing the grazing (presumably as pets, the field was attached to a very large and expensive house). The Llamas (or alpacas, I’m not quite sure) looked tough, although it would be hard to be less co-operative than a typical donkey.

        1. Wukchumni

          We were on a backpack to Iva Bell hot springs in the Sierra when we came across an elderly couple with 1 llama that had really interesting panniers on its back, and a tale of woe as well, in that hours earlier their other llama was startled by a bear and took off. The next day we were approaching the hot springs and coming the other way was a couple of backpackers with the other llama they found just wandering around which they were taking back to Red’s Meadow to reunite with its owners, so a happy ending.

          I asked my longtime backpacking partner if he’d ever seen a llama in the backcountry and he just shook his head. I’d never seen one in such a setting either.

        2. jonboinAR

          When I was a kid there was a llama that would run loose in my neighborhood. He was kind of mean. He’d knock you down and then sit on you if you weren’t careful, also hock nasty loogies.

      2. Bugs

        They also did not use metal-making technology. They used obsidian for knives and cotton for armor. A truly ingenious and very different civilization.

      3. Jeotsu

        We’ve had llamas (and now also some gunaco) for 20 years now. They are fun to pack, with their saddles and paniers. Different back physiology means you load them a bit differently than equids.

        A fellow on the South Island uses them for glamping-deer-hunting. With the llamas you can take lots of kit for luxurious camping, and the llamas are quite calm with regards to loud bangs. He’ll lay his 3.03 across the back of one of his llamas for a stable long shot on a stag.

        For deer hunting the llamas have another advantage, they often spot the deer before the hunters do, and they don’t spook the deer. Deer will sometimes even approach to see what this weird creature is.

        I would not feel so confident llama trekking in a place with large carnivores. We only have to worry about idiots and misbehaving dogs.

  4. FreeMarketApologist

    Re the private school double header:
    In Hasidic Enclaves, Failing Private Schools Flush With Public Money

    Palm Beach Is Facing a Devastating Private-School Shortage

    How is it we even permitted private schools to exist and take over the role of the state in educating citizens (or permitting home schooling)? I wouldn’t hold up public schools in either Florida or NY as sterling examples of education and socialization, but it seems as though by abdicating the role of education, states find themselves with far more expensive problems to solve in their populations (quality of health, crime, work force capability, financial mobility).

    Teachers should be some of the best paid and supported state workers, providing 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 10 months a year, of mandatory education to the kids. Plenty of time for a solid grounding in the core curricula, plus the fun extras.

    1. hunkerdown

      I don’t suppose you agree with Peter Turchin’s theory of elite overproduction, then.

      For the middle-class to be a class, the working class needs to be reproduced, and when the working class won’t reproduce itself willingly and stay working-class, it must be reproduced from outside. Financial mobility is a problem for a stable class society. Perhaps that was never really a Western value, just a game the ruling classes decided to set us all to for a while.

      This is the reality of the class society game. Anyone who’s not seeking to flip the table, who is actually earnestly playing this idiotic game of self-entitlement and protecting it, is part of the problem.

      1. JBird4049

        Elite overproduction? It seems that the supposedly overly large class of the well educated is increasingly incompetent and/or less educated.

        Heck, a lot of people who are educated are not allowed to put their knowledge to good use. Public administration? International relations? Agronomy? Manufacturing? Anything in medicine, science or research beyond new ways to screw people? There are a lot of people who either have or will get degrees that would be extremely useful, but MBAs and other useless, but profitable degrees are what is being given. Either that or Idpol’d into garbage like degrees in English.

        Maybe, Peter Turchin’s theory is better stated as the overproduction of those educated in the Elite approved, but useless, knowledge, not in the socially useful knowledge.

        1. Steve H.

          Technically, Turchin refers to employers as elites. He uses a law degree as an example, because it’s ipso facto for the Supreme Court, and a majority in Congress, which are the elite positions within that group. Overproduction means individuals aspirants have much less likelihood of obtaining those elite positions. This can lead to counter-elites being disruptive, e.g. Trump.

          Degree holders are middle classes in Pandit et. al.’s schema. They are answering the class question, Do you make your money from wages or salary? Turchin’s dichotomy is more like my friend Tom Tlusty’s question: do you make your money from labor or investment?

    2. griffen

      The headline for the Palm Beach story should have, or could have gone to rewrite. I am unsure about the actual situation on the ground there amid the richest and the best, but to call it devastating is a bridge too far. I mean come on, devastating homelessness for example is actually a devastating circumstance.

      Pity little John or little Julie, not able to arrange play dates with their proper elite K-5 cohorts. I could barf if I had any breakfast.

    3. jackiebass63

      Making public education private is a major goal of neoliberalism. Both republicans and democrats bought into Neoliberalism so you will see a constant push to privatize public assets.It is a way to transfer public assets to the private sector on the cheap. A form of legalized theft.

      1. The Rev Kev

        It gets really funny when a private school goes bust causing them to close their doors all of a sudden. It is then that all those parents who were pushing private schools at the expense of public schools have that ‘Now what?’ look. If it was up to me, I would put an absolute ban on public money being spent on private schools, even if they are religious. Let them fund themselves.

        1. ambrit

          There has been a longstanding debate here about whether or not using any public money at all to support religious schools qualifies as an “establishment of religion.” The founders of the American Experiment were quite leery of any intermixing of Government and Religion.
          The “Conspiracy Theory” of the American Sharia State does have some support if you include public financial support for private schools.
          I won’t even get into the religious origins of the anti-abortion movement.

          1. hunkerdown

            The Founders gave the states free rein to impose as much theocracy as they liked. Their feelings are, or should be at any rate, irrelevant.

            1. JBird4049

              The Founders gave the states a lot of freedom being as they are still quasi-independent nation- states, but that does not change their general belief in the separation of religion and the state; they did expect that one’s religious beliefs would inform one’s own actions, but not that the state especially at the federal level to dictate or support even indirectly monetarily any form of religious beliefs or actions.

              It can reasonably be argued that giving financial support to a school run by a religious organization is a violation of that belief and the First Amendment, but I have not given it that much thought; I am uneasy with it, but I don’t have enough understanding to say more.

        2. griffen

          Run a search of your chosen browser for Dallas Texas Prime Prep charter schools. What a really bad showing of so-called education under the false pretenses.

        3. Questa Nota

          Homeschooling?
          Nah, interferes with brunch, mani-pedi, Raoul at the Club, my show, those deliveries, and Jazzercise. I’m booked.

          1. ambrit

            Snark alert!
            You fiend! We sacrificed a lot to homeschool our children. To date, none of them has been institutionalized. [So far, so good.]
            Children are a “Sacred Trust” that one cannot shirk. Even though no one told me that it would be a straight up ordeal, I cooperated to the best of my ability in the raising of the mewling, puking mannequins.
            Raising children should be a three year course in High School. I mean, we have the “School Board Sutra” for heaven’s sake. Why not “Care and Feeding of Small Helpless Beings?”
            Still and all, when your educational system becomes a money making enterprise, the “unprofitable” courses are the first to go. So much for the “public” in Public School.

  6. Toshiro_Mifune

    A Photographer’s Intimate Look at Burning Man

    It looks out of time. Like someone had picked it up from `97/`98 and just dropped it in 2022.

      1. Wukchumni

        I’d guestimate the average Burner spends around $2-3k on tix-transportation-transformation, so by definition nobody is sweating the pennies, but I saw very little in the way of plug & play camps where Silicon Valley types just show up and everything is done for them, and a funny thing about Burning Man is that if a homeless person was in attendance (they’re aren’t any, of course) they’d fit in perfect (as long as you’re a WASP like 99.44% of those on the playa) as everybody looks the part.

        This was my 7th burn with a huge hiatus in between, and the big difference really was oh so many foreign accents compared to other times i’ve been. Our camp had a dozen Swedes and one of them, a fellow named Toki, is a legendary rave DJ in Europe, not that i’d have ever known that heretofore.

        It’s more of a anything goes incredibly creative potlatch, and back in the day you’d see every tom, dick & harry police dept in northern Nevada cruising around looking to bust somebody for doing drugs, but it wasn’t like that this time around as all the law enforcement was pretty much from BLM it seemed like, and there was a lot less of them.

        There was only 16 arrests this year, as opposed to 58 the last time it was held in 2019.

        1. Wukchumni

          I think the tech bro thing isn’t all its cracked up to be, not that any of them had identifying labels or badges as far as I could tell. Who knows?

          I always get asked a couple of things about Burning Man by those who’ve never been…

          1.) Is everybody walking/biking around naked? (maybe I saw 100 out of 80,000 people in their birthday suits)

          2.) Is everybody having sex in a ‘why don’t we do it on the playa’ fashion? (perhaps occasionally within the confines of a tent, but not really for the most part. I spied a couple getting it on up in an art installment but that was it)

          1. ambrit

            I suggest next year’s theme to be “End of an Empire: Nero at His Best.”
            I nominate you to be our Petronius Arbiter for next year.
            Wonderhussy can be our ‘Doyenne of Decadence.’
            We all know who will be our ‘Ghost of Claudius.’
            The ‘exclusive’ bumper sticker will say: “An Excess of Ecstasy.”
            Let’s hope no sandworms show up.

  7. Wukchumni

    A Photographer’s Intimate Look at Burning Man Inside Hook
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    She repeatedly calls them sandstorms which would be a disaster with 30-40 mph winds, but thankfully its only alkali dust from the dry lake bed, which is trying enough.

    Burning Man is a 5 mph kind of place and most everybody is on a bicycle, with the only vehicles being art cars and coppers in SUV’s who go just as slow, speed not being all that.

    My buddy and I were out on the playa inbetween the man and the temple when rather all of the sudden a duststorm came over us with visibility down to essentially being able to see your feet and not much else and 5 mph is dangerous as far as colliding with somebody you don’t see until the last moment, so you walk your bike towards where you’re camped in theory, but in practice if you get turned around, you might be heading in the opposite direction as happened to me when we got separated. I eventually made my way back to camp as once you get back to the grid of ‘streets’ even with no visibility you can discern where you are, and what would’ve taken 10 minutes w/o whiteout conditions, took 45 minutes.

    Duststorms are character building in that its shared adversity and you know they’re going to occur but you really have no inkling when.

    The day the man was burned featured a 7 hour long model which fortuitously abated a few hours before it went up in flames under perfect conditions…

    Its a hellova place to wreck a camera as dust gets into every possible nook & cranny…

    Join my friend Wonderhussy for half an hour of commentary.

    #663 Burning Man 2022: Heat, Dust…and Slide Whistles

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq52XdsUml0&t=1s

    1. The Rev Kev

      ‘Its a hellova place to wreck a camera as dust gets into every possible nook & cranny’

      Saw something back in the 90s that might help out here. It was a camera that you could take underwater but instead of the camera being waterproof, the camera was in a sealed plastic bag with the only other opening being the camera lens. So maybe use an actual camera but have it in a plastic bag and use it till the hard-drive is full or the battery dies. Then the whole thing can be opened up once home after washing off any remaining dust first. Might be worth a try.

      1. Basil Pesto

        The plastic bag trick is a good one even with a shopping bag for just ad-hoc light rain protection in a pinch. A number of cameras and/or lenses these days come weather-sealed, which ought to protect against dust as well. Usually comes at a price-premium though, unless it’s a specifically “rugged” type camera where the camera itself is built for robustness more than image quality. I once mistakenly thought one of my cameras was weather-sealed and took it to a dusty (non-desert) music festival, and the dust buggered the autofocus, though thankfully Fuji fixed it gratis.

    2. Michael Fiorillo

      The article speaks of how the photographs “show the appeal” (?/!)of Burning Man, but with all due respect Wukchumi, who are they kidding? Trekking to the middle of nowhere in order to spend a lot of money while surrounded by tech bros and vain members of the Groovoisie, in an alkaline desert basin?

      Thanks, but while I’m happy with all the schadenfreude Burning Man provides to embittered cynics like myself, I’ll pass, and leave it to future anthropologists and historians to marvel and shake their heads over.

      1. hunkerdown

        At historical remove, BM will probably look a lot like the Eleusinian mystery festivals hybridized with a sweat lodge, recuperated by capitalist relations as usual.

      2. Anthony G Stegman

        In my view Burning Man appeals to those with plenty of time and money, and who are on the lookout for something novel with which to idle away their time and money. One could travel around visiting art & wine festivals, but after a while that gets dull. Burning Man promises excitement to all who venture there. The wastefulness of Burning Man is of no consideration at all.

    3. kareninca

      Thank you for that video. I would pay good money to avoid that sort of setting, but it is very interesting to know that it exists and what it is like. I have a friend whose late-40s daughter just dumped her second husband and left her failing business in Maine and went to it.

  8. Screwball

    RE: COVID

    Some of my PMC friends are telling stories about getting COVID. Then they are telling how they just got the latest booster. Isn’t the latest booster the one I heard Dr. Fauci last week say they didn’t have time for tests? Meaning the latest booster has zero data from humans?

      1. RookieEMT

        Despite previous shenanigans by the our loving health authorities, this is difficult to believe. No human testing…

        They wouldn’t be that brazen?

          1. Skip Intro

            It is going into widespread human testing even now as my vax-worshipping PMC colleagues trade tips about where to find it and how to qualify and when they can give it to their kids too. They are jumping in head first. I guess if the results are suboptimal, they will have cheerfully culled themselves with their virtue signals.

        2. Pat

          Considering the crickets about what they have, and haven’t, done in the last three years, why wouldn’t they?

          We can only hope that at some point there will be an uproar, but the breaking point is going to be a surprise even to those of us wondering what’s holding it up.

    2. in_still_water

      Only tested on unvaccinated folks. [per a ‘justthenews’ radio program I heard a couple of weeks ago on Sirius. The interviewee was a Dr. Riesh (sic).]

      2. in_still_water

        Dr. Harvey Risch, Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health
        John Solomon Reports: Dr. Harvey Risch on CDC admitting to failed COVID response: ‘hope is not a public health policy’ on Apple Podcasts
        14:30 – about the new vaccine – btw – he’s not for the vaccine.

      1. Pat

        AND the protections from law suits about adverse effects. IIRC the original Pfizer shot did advance beyond EUA, but all the protections it enjoyed from that were continued.

        1. Arizona Slim

          Yeah, me too, Louis and Pat.

          And, based on all the side effect and vaccine injury horror stories I’ve been hearing, I have decided to remain in the control group.

            1. Arizona Slim

              Thank you, britzklieg. If we ever meet, say, at a Naked Capitalism Meetup, I’ll raise a toast to you.

              BTW, my reading of NC back in 2020 and 2021 helped lead me to the decision I noted above. I owe a huge debt of gratitude this site, and I just sent Yves another donation. I encourage others to do the same, or hit the Tip Jar!

              1. britzklieg

                I’ll look forward to that and we can toast each other all night long… I’ll probably be drinking ginger ale but what the hay. It would be a privilege to meet so many NC’ers in person! My now fixed income situation usually requires me to wait until the new year for a donation but if I survive that long it will be forthcoming.

    4. Louis Fyne

      don’t remember if this was covered here…

      “Women suffering from menstrual disorders after being vaccinated for COVID-19 could be eligible for state medical support.

      According to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA), an expert panel on vaccination compensation decided on Tuesday to include abnormal uterine bleeding on a list of suspected diseases related to the vaccine.

      The decision comes after a panel under the National Academy of Medicine of Korea announced that the risks of polymenorrhea and other forms of abnormal uterine bleeding were statistically higher following a COVID-19 vaccination to a degree that indicated a link.

      Those experiencing such conditions after getting vaccinated will be able to receive up to 50 million won [$50,000] in medical expenses.

      https://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm?Seq_Code=171771
      http://koreabizwire.com/correlation-between-covid-19-vaccination-and-menstruation-disorder-confirmed/226132
      https://www.science.org/content/article/thousands-report-unusual-menstruation-patterns-after-covid-19-vaccination

    5. Mikel

      According to the continuing reports, shots and infection together provide some sort of “immunity” that lasts a few months.
      Basically, the messaging in reports like “Effects of Vaccination and Previous Infection on Omicron Infections in Children” NEJM is that people should run out and get a shot every 4-6 months and run out and get infected…constantly…to the end of time. Then they keep making claims about “immunity.”
      They are insane.

      And it sounds like your PMC friends are caught in that trap.
      This effects of doing this long term (over years) on the body and immune system has yet to be determined.

      1. Yves Smith

        As we’ve pointed out, the European Medical Agency worked out a while back that frequent (more than annual) vaccinations would be necessary to keep immunity up and they made not very coded noises that they weren’t on board. Not stated but I think for largely your reasons, like concern about overtaxing the immune system.

    6. PlutoniumKun

      Just as an aside to this, I registered for a second booster here in Ireland but requested Novovax only. It seems that it is being put into sort of half way house of being recognized in Europe, available only on specific request. I’m waiting for my call back on it.

      2. Yves Smith

        Hope you succeed. It’s authorized here only for the unvaccinated. If anyone in the US manages to get it, let me know. what magic words you said and how it went. I am willing to take Novavax but would like to see a bit more safety data from real world use (Pfizer sure to go after it as they did J&J, so any Novavax issues likely to be publicized).

    7. Anthony G Stegman

      According to some mainstream infectious disease specialists the fact that the Omicron-specific “vaccines” haven’t been tested in humans ought to be of no concern since, apparently, annual flu shots are also not tested on humans. Since the Omicron-specific shots are merely tweaks of prior available shots it was decided that human testing is not necessary.

  9. Stephen

    Our latest interview with Jacques Baud..

    With respect to “operational art” Mark Sleboda via his Telegram channel is stating that the main Ukraine offensive is still expected from Ugledar towards Mariupol. Seen as an explanation for why the Russians did not over commit in the defence of Kharkov but instead have seemingly just sealed off the advance. Retaining troops for defence elsewhere. If so, they have avoided springing a trap that may have been set.

    Time will tell but the German 1918 Spring Offensives may be the analogy needed: was a whole series of attacks over several months with shock troops that gained ground but failed to defeat the Allied armies; albeit also at a cost that Germany could not carry on paying but the Allies could. The Battle of Amiens and the relentless Hundred Days Offensive then ensued until the Armistice.

    1. lambert strether

      The German 1918 Spring Offensives were tactically innovative as well (IIRC, bypassing strong points). If the Kharkov offensive was tactically innovative, I have yet to see that explained.

  10. The Rev Kev

    “Stuck in Vermont: Donna Bister Has Been Raising Monarch Butterflies Since 2016”

    Stuck in Vermont? They serious? I understand that that State got the electricity & phones on a few years ago so it is not the boonies anymore. If there was one place that I would have like to have visited if ever I was in America, it would be Vermont. If you want to know why, just put in the word ‘Vermont’ into a Google Image search.

    2. Carla

      Vermont is gorgeous, particularly in spring, summer and fall. The winters can be brutally cold, although Christmascard-worthy.. Burlington (the city in which Bernie started his political career as mayor) is a gem, a miniature municipality nestled on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain.

      1. Randall Flagg

        But as most old time Vermonters say,” Burlington is such a great place because it’s so close to Vermont”.
        Our 5th season, Mud Season, (nestled between winter and spring), is usually a nightmare though. Spring makes it all worthwhile.

      1. Randall Flagg

        Indeed, fall foliage season is starting to kick off up north by Northern Border region and it’s breathtaking beauty is not to be taken for granted. Worth even just a day trip if you can swing it. The same for foliage season in all States as well.

    5. Bugs

      Vermont is simply awesome, Rev. And a very friendly place. I’d go there often when I lived in the hub of the universe. Once had a psychedelic experience with no drugs needed while walking a trail in the fall leaves. Amazing.

  11. griffen

    Oh, Hillary. There are lessons to be learned. I give speeches about those lessons to Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, you know, and they were valuable speeches. I have other speeches, where I instructed the coal miners to just die or learn to code since we won’t dig coal anymore.

    We have a vocal minority, called $ billionaires that want it mostly for themselves and their existing or future offspring. And they get the laws written to their specification. They also have offshore bunkers with security detail, ready for whenever the fan hits the proverbial stuff.

    1. CanCyn

      Lesson learned indeed! I think a couple of fun projects would be to re-write a couple of classics
      First, A Christmas Carol with HRC as Scrooge. New title: A Deplorable Life. Second, The Prince and The Pauper, with Obama making the switch. New Title: The Homeless Billionaire (dunno if he is actually a billionaire yet but rolls off the tongue better than multi-millionaire)
      Am currently reading Kim Stanley Robinson’s Ministry for the Future (thanks for which is due to all the love it gets herein) and just finished the chapter in which the annual Davos gathering is captured, the attendees held hostage and given a re-education. I am inspired. So many in need of this treatment!

  13. Wukchumni

    The powers that be are offering a $40k reward if you bring in Fat Leonard, and it’s tempting but seeing as he ripped off the USN for $35 million, seems on the light side for prospective bounty hunters.

    Maybe when they up the offer to a more reasonable 10% finders fee, I might have to comb Tijuana-adjacent for clues, but not until then.

  14. flora

    from Greenwald:

    For those following the controversy of CloudFlare, KiwiFarms, and the media’s ongoing exploitation of an obviously unreliable person (to put that gently), this article by Corinna Cohn, a trans woman well-acquainted with KF and those involved, is helpful:

    https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1568253715911524353?cxt=HHwWgoC-6cKcx8MrAAAA

    (You can read the whole thread this twt is part of. Guess NC will have to watch its step now if it’s still using CloudFlare. /oy)

    1. flora

      from the substack article sublink in Greenwalds twt above:

      …There is Clara Sorrenti and friends, online drama personalities who are monetizing attention. There is Taylor Lorenz, Ben Collins, and the other representatives of the mainstream media who have repeatedly signaled the desire to control the dissemination of information online. Finally, there is Cloudflare, a critical provider of internet services. At a high level, this is a spat between an internet gossip group, an irresponsible journalist nursing a grudge, and an internet clown. At the ground level, this is potentially the end of open expression on the internet. If providers of backbone services can be moved away from neutrality once, they will be moved again. This will become a recurring tactic to drive unpopular speech off the internet. …

    2. lyman alpha blob

      Thanks for that flora – I only heard a little about this and had a feeling the reports I’d seen previously were missing some important details.

    3. Yves Smith

      The problem is no one has any money to sue. Taylor Lorenz et al are clearly engaging in tortious interference. And people like that do not hold up well under discovery.

    1. fresno dan

      Wuk
      So, Soupy says he got 80K – I assume he was joking? (how would the IRS determine the amount???) Of course, the same thing is done hundreds of times daily by the …WHOOPS, I think giving the name of this corporation will put me in skynet, so I will just refer to it as the happiest place on earth corporation, but when you do it by animated characters, its somehow exempt from legal oversight…

      1. Pat

        And here I thought you were going to say Joel Osteen.
        The thing with your unnamed corporation is that most of that is plastic or digital and this Uncle Sam probably gets his due.

        It is the envelopes with green paper that is harder to track plus Osteen doesn’t pay taxes.

    2. Henry Moon Pie

      Good analogy Another might be a malevolent Chuck Barris. Cramer could have the Unknown CEO appear occasionally with a bag on his head.

    1. fresno dan

      GramSci
      (from the article) For decades after the Soviet Union entered Berlin and decisively defeated the Third Reich, Soviet leaders worried about the threat of “German revanchism.” Since World War II could be seen as German revenge for being deprived of victory in World War I, couldn’t aggressive German Drang nach Osten be revived, especially if it enjoyed Anglo-American support?
      …
      Gorbachev died at age 91 two weeks ago, on Aug. 30. His dream of Russia and Germany living happily in their “common European home” had soon been fatally undermined by the Clinton administration’s go-ahead to eastward expansion of NATO. These were politicians from the very parties – the SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the Greens – that took the lead in the 1980s peace movement.
      These were politicians from the very parties – the SPD (Social Democratic Party) and the Greens – that took the lead in the 1980s peace movement.
      =====================================
      The longer I live, the more I realize the more things change, the more they stay the same…e.g., Germans and Ukrainians…

      1. The Rev Kev

        This war is not going to end any time soon. Here is a short video clip of John Mearscheimer talking about what is at stake-

        https://twitter.com/ivan_8848/status/1569266010288521216 (2:20 min)

        And I heard today that Angela Merkel was given to understand by Russia that the Ukraine going into NATO was effectively a “declaration of war” as far as they were concerned. And yet she did nothing to stop it and is now gone from the scene before the whole thing blew up. But in a recent speech, she said that ‘it was clear that Putin was moving in the direction of conflict and that he was finished with the Normandy format talks.’ The gall of that woman.

      2. Bugs

        Great analysis. Let’s hope this is not where we’re going. This paragraph struck me:

        Since the start of the Russian operation in Ukraine, German politician Ursula von der Leyen has used her position as head of the EU Commission to impose ever more drastic sanctions on Russia, leading to the threat of a serious European energy crisis this winter. Her hostility to Russia seems boundless. In Kiev last April she called for rapid EU membership for Ukraine, notoriously the most corrupt country in Europe and far from meeting EU standards. She proclaimed that “Russia will descend into economic, financial and technological decay, while Ukraine is marching towards a European future.” For von der Leyen, Ukraine is “fighting our war.” All of this goes far beyond her authority to speak for the EU’s 27 Members, but nobody stops her.

        Italics mine. This is something I have found so shocking. The EU Council of Ministers (i.e. the democratically elected leaders of each member state) should have pulled her away from making these kinds of statements long ago. She’s out on her own like some EU Queen, ruling by a self-invented fiat. It is flabbergasting and she needs to be shut down once and for all.

        1. JTMcPhee

          And just exactly who is going to “shut her down?” She speaks for the interest of the Rulers, the ones who will own everything and still not be happy. She’s just playing out the game they want to eventuate, in whatever that Great Reset I supposed to look like.

        2. Yves Smith

          Yes, I had noticed von der Leyen running the show, when during Brexit, the normal order prevailed: EU Council clearly in charge. I should have said something here (I did privately).

      3. spud

        https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nationalism-is-rising-not_b_10281138

        “Fascism differs from nationalism in two profound ways. First, fascists did not consider self-determination a universal right. Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco, to mention three obvious fascists, only endorsed nationalism for Germany, Italy and Spain. The rights of other nations to a nation-state of their own was, at best, unclear to the fascists.

        In a very real sense, Hitler and Mussolini believed in multinationalism, albeit with other nations submitting to their will. Fascism was an assault on the right of nations to pursue their self-interest, and an elevation of the fascists’ right to pursue it based on an assertion of their nations’ inherent superiority and right to rule.”

        “Arguing that being part of the European Union is not in the British interest, that NATO has outlived its usefulness, that protectionist policies or anti-immigration policies are desirable is not fascist.

        These ideas have no connection to fascism whatsoever. They are far more closely linked to traditional liberal democracy. They represent the reassertion of the foundation of liberal democracy, which is the self-governing nation-state. It is the foundation of the United Nations, whose members are nation-states, and where the right to national self-determination is fundamental.

        Liberal democracy does not dictate whether a nation should be a member in a multinational organization, adopt free trade policies or protectionism, or welcome or exclude immigrants. These are decisions to be made by the people – or more precisely, by the representatives they select. The choices may be wise, unwise or even unjust. However, the power to make these choices rests, in a liberal democracy, in the hands of the citizens. “

    3. Judith

      Johnstone’s analytical skills may come in part from her father, who was one of the authors of the Pentagon Papers.

      Her current article is troubling in its implications:

      When Western leaders speak of “economic war against Russia,” or “ruining Russia” by arming and supporting Ukraine, one wonders whether they are consciously preparing World War III, or trying to provide a new ending to World War II. Or will the two merge?

      As it shapes up, with NATO openly trying to “overextend” and thus defeat Russia with a war of attrition in Ukraine, it is somewhat as if Britain and the United States, some 80 years later, switched sides and joined German-dominated Europe to wage war against Russia, alongside the heirs to Eastern European anticommunism, some of whom were allied to Nazi Germany.

      History may help understand events, but the cult of memory easily becomes the cult of revenge. Revenge is a circle with no end. It uses the past to kill the future. Europe needs clear heads looking to the future, able to understand the present.

  17. RookieEMT

    “Anticoagulants, immune regulators, and antivirals show early promise.”

    Ssooo, when do we get a Nuremberg trial?

    The whole medical establishment foot dragged early treatment and post Covid therapy for over a year now. I have two contacts that now thankfully get vitamin D supplements as recommended by their doctors after covid. My new personal doctor encouraging safe supplements as well.

    Not a peep from the agencies. This is criminal negligence with possible conspiracies.

    I don’t think the US as a nation state has the capacity to send some of these goons to court. A sign of state failure in the making.

    1. JTMcPhee

      I think you are confused about the nature of a “state.” It has never been the case that the US was any kind of nice place with equal justice under law. It was constituted to serve the interests of the ownership class, with rare exceptions of conditional decency enacted to stave off the anger of the mob. Birthed in original sin, inherited from the European forbears, some of whom rule to today. See, e.g., the Bush family tree. Same can be said about any “modern state.”

      We mopes are kept in line with whips of various styles; and the constant whispering of a couple of faint hopes — that one day a lucky some of us will be admitted to the Elect, and that one day some person on a white horse will come along and lead us to True Freedom and Abundance.

  18. fresno dan

    The Narrative Is Coming Apart Patrick Lawrence, ScheerPost
    Golly, do I have this one upside down. I thought the Russian army was proceeding slowly and methodically to keep down casualties—its own and civilian—while grinding down Ukrainian forces to talcum powder. Remember: Ukrainians are fighting for land; the Russians aren’t. Moscow’s objective is to demilitarize Ukraine, as it has often stated, and time is on the Russians’ side. “No hurry,” as President Putin said a few months ago.

    Zelensky, official Washington, and the mainstream media seem determined to carry on in this fashion, facts on the ground notwithstanding. I continue to wonder what the plan is when said facts can no longer be obscured, when cheerleading no longer does it, when it proves no longer enough simply to repeat falsified accounts and judgments as if by dint of repetition they will come true.

    When everything fell to bits in the case of Russiagate, all those unnamed intelligence sources who had plenty to say for years disappeared back into the shadows and the traditional press slithered silently out the side door. As Dean Baquet, the now-retired executive editor at The New York Times, said at the time, We covered that. It’s not a story anymore.
    ================================
    I think getting things continually wrong is a story. Could it be that they were getting it PURPOSEFULLY WRONG??? Some of us have not forgotten WMD. Why are the people who are so assiduously wrong never sanctioned??? There is a post today about the Fog of War, Military and Economic. There used to be a saying, what if they gave a war and nobody came? What if they give an economic bailout, and it doesn’t bail? If there is simply no gas or oil available, all the Euros in the world won’t provide ACTUAL heat or energy. For decades now, all economic problems have been due to financial shenanigans. This will be a problem of actual shortage, not sovlveable by conjuring Euros from the ether.

    1. BeliTsari

      It hardly matters. We’re ALL now sneeringly obsequious to the blob, speciously gullible to “our” party’s intentionally blatant groß Lüge: COVID, WMD, RussiaRussiaCHINA! It simply isn’t OUR problem that we’re well into our 2nd million excess deaths, FAR more now indentured into gig-serfdom, cascading PASC organ damage and exponential debt; as Biden picks wars to save THEIR Fracking Ponzi scheme & throw another midterms? Our betters’ NASDAQ portfolios are recovering, just LIVE with it!

      https://www.donbass-insider.com/2022/09/09/journalists-demand-that-the-mirotvorets-website-be-classified-as-a-terrorist-organisation-and-closed-down/
      https://www.mdpi.com/2673-5601/2/3/33
      https://mobile.twitter.com/amethystarlight/status/1569063501297078276

    2. MRLost

      Don’t forget the torture. They insisted there was no torture. Then they insisted that what was done wasn’t really torture. Then they wrote a report and buried it. Wash, rinse, repeat. Lie then lie about lying then play games with what the meaning of “is” is. Wait a while and everyone will forget.

      1. spud

        bill clinton was the god father of american torturers, thats why bush and cheney go free

        https://listverse.com/2014/02/05/10-reasons-bill-clinton-was-secretly-a-terrible-president/

        “Extraordinary rendition” is when shady government operatives stuff a bag over your head and fly you off to some foreign country where they can legally torture you. It sounds like something Alex Jones might dream up in a paranoid frenzy, but it’s a well-documented phenomenon under both Bush, Jr. and Obama—and Bill Clinton was the guy who started it all.

        Clinton and Gore signed off on the first rendition back in the ’90s, despite being aware that it breached international law. Until recently, rendered people frequently wound up in the prison cells of places like Mubarak’s Egypt or Gaddafi’s Libya, where they were tortured with electric shocks, rape, beatings, and even crucifixion.

        It can sometimes go hideously wrong: In 2003, the CIA snatched a terrorist off the streets and beat, tortured, and sodomized him, only to discover they’d accidentally grabbed the wrong man. The victim just happened to share a name with a wanted criminal. His suffering came care of the Clinton/Gore dream team.

  21. The Rev Kev

    “San Francisco Braces for Epic Commercial Real Estate Crash”

    So reading this article and if I have to right, the San Francisco helped feed the real estate boom so that they could get more property tax revenue for their budget, no matter the consequences. Sounds like what has been happening here in Oz. So maybe it is not really an epic real estate crash but that values are actually beginning to align with what they should be. I mean, when you get a car parking space in that city selling for $90,000, then surely that that is a sign that prices have become dislocated from values-

    https://huntdailynews.in/parking-spots-are-available-for-90000-san-francisco-california/

    1. Louis Fyne

      also add that due to the vagaries of SF zoning laws, high-density and mid-density residential is more expensive/tougher to approve than most of the USA.

      Proverbial putting all the eggs in one basket (commercial real estate)

      1. Anthony G Stegman

        I think you will see some residential real estate in SF also come under pressure. Along Market Street there are numerous new high rise residential buildings with high vacancy rates. San Francisco has been shedding population for the past few years, so it is unclear to me where additional demand for housing is coming from. The homeless will not be invited to live in these high rise apartment buildings. Nor will low to middle income people be invited.

        1. JBird4049

          I think that most of the empty condos are being used either to store wealth or money laundering. And it is interesting that it is easier to get approval for building literal freaking skyscrapers in parts of the city that is mudfill or even in a few spots that are made of sunken ships and burnt piers than on solid rock. In the Bay Area, in the city of San Francisco.

          One could build low rise apartment buildings that have first floor shops anywhere as in the Mission, but where is the grift in that? Even new brownstones or townhouses like near Golden Gate park or the Panhandle might have been more useful, but again the more money spent, the more money can be stolen.

    2. PlutoniumKun

      In all the bad news, we’ve been overlooking the number of property bubbles around the world that seem primed to pop. The South Korean property market is vastly inflated and is in all sorts of trouble (fortunately, the current government will be blamed). Similarly in NZ and probably London too. The Chinese bubble is well into the ‘lets pretend its not in full on collapse’ phase.

        1. Wukchumni

          When the housing bubble (somehow the plowers that be got a domicile up to $400k there) bursts in Fresno, I wonder if it’s antipodes in Réunion suffers along with it?

          1. ambrit

            I looked it up dept.
            Fresno has nine “sister cities.”
            See: http://en.sistercity.info/sister-cities/Fresno%2C%20California.html
            I expect the secondary economic devastation to be extreme in the Second World. (That’s assuming that the International Terranominal Union doesn’t degrade Fresno to Third World Status at their next annual meeting. [Let the sad fate of Pluto be a warning to us all.] Poor Fresno may become literally declasse.)
            As the old saying goes: “When Fresno gets the sniffles, the World shorts raisins.”

            1. Wukchumni

              I’ll admit to being disappointed that Trona wasn’t a sister city to Fresno.

              They really deserve one another…

                1. ambrit

                  Who? Lots of Klan Adjacent burgs in the North American Deep South. (Bakersfield was a town with a legitimate KKK administration at one point in the 1920s.)

    3. Questa Nota

      Drive along your local commercial thoroughfare and note the increase in For Lease signs and vacant storefronts. I’ve noticed an uptick that is reminiscent of a few episodes from recent history, in the 1990s and again after the Crash. Taking that much money out of the local economy doesn’t end well, hollowing-out, multipliers and all.

    4. Tom Stone

      San Francisco Real Estate has been Boom and Bust since before the American Civil War.
      The Commercial market is seriously overbuilt due to macroeconomic factors including tax policies and those commercial building are not easy or cheap to repurpose.
      There are way too many empty high end condo’s as well, a lot of flight capital went into SF Real Estate.
      It will take several years to play out, messily.

  22. Exiled_in_Boston

    ‘ COVID-19: China’s death toll puts US to shame…’
    And
    ‘Under Xi Jinping, business and government are together weaving a web of surveillance that no Chinese citizen can escape.’

    Any connection between the two?

    1. PlutoniumKun

      I don’t believe that either China or the US have used their accumulation of data to much avail in fighting Covid. China is focusing on aggressive area shut downs to keep it under control, although no doubt they do have a lot of data on travel patterns. The fact that people have been able to avoid getting stuck in buildings where there is a positive test by simply running fast when news comes out indicates that they are still old school. Most likely this is a choice as they simply don’t want people to know how much data they have on them (although every Chinese person I know assumes that the government knows pretty much everything it wants via their phone).

      The leaders in using intensive surveillance to track covid were the South Koreans early on in the epidemic. ROK has a very sophisticated and intensive surveillance system where ordinary phone based data and tracking (most Koreans use domestic apps, not google or FB, etc) is overlain with other data bases such as the use of travel cards. This worked very well early on, but I assume it was the very high infectivity of omicron that led them to abandon this approach.

      1. Basil Pesto

        And to the extent that China has a grand surveillance programme, it’s clearly something they’ve been working towards since well before 2020. Many other countries with far less overt state surveillance than China were able to maintain a similar containment/elimination policy without it, until they made the deliberate political decision to abandon that policy in 2021.

    2. bonks

      I build and run a small business based in China. Every year I have to answer to several different ministries to get my visa renewed, and I do not depend on an agent like other expats who let their company hr do it for them, so I am familiar with the processes from the ground up. Every year I have to get paperwork from several bureaus then pass them on to other bureaus. Each ministry or government body simply does not communicate with another. It’d have made my work so much easier if they do link up (like in Singapore, but funny how noone ever calls them ‘authoritarian surveillance state’ these days) but articles like the Bloomberg piece just aren’t reflective of the day to day life of the ordinary Chinese citizens.

      Same goes for health apps. One province’s health app does not link to that of another province. The phone only knows you’ve crossed province because you’ve scanned the local app you arrive in, and someone from the new province has to call you for your travel history if they really want to trace your previous locations pre-arrival – so the data they collect is based on faith in honest reporting on the part of the traveler. I travel often domestically and this is my first hand experience.

      It’s less NSA but more of actual legwork that is labour-intensive if they really want to spy on you.

    3. Berny3

      Why should we believe the numbers coming from the Chinese government? Are we really supposed to believe they’ve only had a little over 5,000 deaths in the last 2-3/4 years?

      1. Basil Pesto

        Yeah it’s clearly an undercount. Going by case numbers, the number of dead is probably in the low-to-mid tens of thousands. Their undercounting is stupidly counterproductive for their policy, because the Chinese public are already ill informed about Covid morbidity risks, and if China makes the IFR look artificially low, their people will wonder “why bother with containment and elimination at all?”

      2. Yves Smith

        Because they haven’t had a big lifespan fall like the US.

        And because the West so hates the China Covid approach (and has enough Westerners in China) that if there were evidence of a big undercount (Basil Pesto’s #s are big in percentage terms but not in absolute terms, and the US and much of the rest of the world seriously undercount too), the press would be all over it.

    4. Anthony G Stegman

      The US and the Five Eyes nations developed expansive surveillance capabilities first to spy on their perceived enemies and competitors. They are far more advanced than China’s capabilities. And now the US and the Five Eyes nations are turning their surveillance apparatus inwards as they realize they may have domestic threats to worry about. The China bashing around surveillance is silly, because the Chinese are late to the game and have lots of catching up to do.

      1. ambrit

        And that’s why they hired Western companies to develop the ‘Great Firewall of China.’
        I went googling about in search of information concerning my memory of reading somewhere about a “Very Big Cyber Corporation of America” being involved in doing the software for the Great Firewall. Curiously enough, this information has ended down the Memory Hole.
        We are ruled by incompetent Harkonnens.

  25. Michael Ismoe

    We’re collecting portraits of American Presidents!

    Would you be kind enough to send me the ones with Franklin and Hamilton on them? I’d hate to have these non-presidents mixing with your presidential portraits.

    1. Lexx

      I also prefer inventors/diplomats/nerds. I recall reading an article that said the $100 had surpassed the $1 in popularity, with the $20 in the third spot. Well, duh. Who doesn’t love a Benjamin?

      Not a fan of “tapping” my plastic though. Too convenient, too fast, too invisible. We’ll all be forced to speed up in a cashless society, whether we want to or not.

        1. Lexx

          Occasionally, me and my husband will find that one of us has been given change in a denomination we don’t much care for, like $2 bills or Fifties. A game begins in sneaking the bill into a wallet compartment of the other and waiting to see how long it takes to be discovered and returned on the sly. The Fifty went back and forth for weeks; it’s still in the wind…. I should go check. I may be holding.

          1. Wukchumni

            I used to supply the movie studios with coins & banknotes for films, more than likely if you saw any movie with old money in the 80’s or 90’s, it came from me. Bugsy, Titanic, etc.

            It worked both ways occasionally, and the prop guy for Beverly Hills Cop 3 asked if I wanted to buy 100x 32 one $ bill sheets, which they’d bought from the government for $40 a piece, and I didn’t really want them and the prop guy told me, just pay face value-which had no downside.

            Eddie Murphy busts a counterfeit ring and said sheets of $’s come out of a printing press in the film.

            I asked how the movie was (it came out a few months later) and he told me it was a complete dog, ha ha.

            1. Carolinian

              Gee what’s Kate Winslet really like? (kidding)

              As you probably know that one was filmed down in Baja California or at least the outdoor set with the famous bow and stern was constructed there. Think I read here at NC that Liz Truss had an ad with her in the bow of a ship a la Winslet.

          2. Anthony G Stegman

            With inflation and all, $50 is the new $20. I keep $50 bills in my wallet these days. $20 gets you a sandwich (no sides) in my neck of the woods.

      2. ambrit

        RE: ” We’ll all be forced to speed up in a cashless society, whether we want to or not.”
        And thus have less time to study what we really want to do with those resources at our disposal. It’s an old salesman’s trick. A distracted ‘mark’ is an easy ‘mark.’

        1. Wukchumni

          I volunteered for the War on Cash and just got through basic training with a drill instructor who bore some resemblance to Jack Webb.

          We did cadence marches last week:

          ‘I don’t know but i’ve been told, folding money never gets old!’

          1. ambrit

            Hmmm…. who wouldn’t like a Jack Webbsite?
            Right away I can think of a problem. Good old “Detective” Jack Webb was famous for saying; “Just the facts ma’am.” Somehow, I don’t see that attitude as meshing well with today’s Internet. Maybe Jacks sideman, Frank, can run said “facts” through officially approved “fact checkers” first.
            Be safe citizen.

  26. semper loquitur

    John McWhorter on IDPol anti-racism as a religion:

    https://youtu.be/fQbSQfiMRrQ

    He refers to Coates, DiAngelo, and Kendi as preachers who demand unquestioning adherence to their dogmatic, unsubstantiated creed. Racism as the original sin whose stain can never be cleansed away, only flagellated. Manichean and unsophisticated notions of race as the lone battlefield upon which society is arrayed. The demand for sinners to publicly denounce their state of eternal impurity with performative admissions of guilt and attacks on the heathens who defy those demands.

    He also makes the point that these people cannot be reasoned with. To engage with their delusions is to dignify those inanities as being somehow valid, even if only to criticize them. It would be like arguing theology with a fundamentalist , where any critiques serve only to affirm the fanatic’s closed loop fever-dreams of the wiles of the Evil One.

    Likewise, there is no valid critique of Woke anti-racism, any resistance is just dismissed as white supremacy. Instead, to my thinking, they must be talked about and around, and a sphere of discourse must be created that is available for the reflective but which doesn’t dignify the ranting of the zealots.

    1. hunkerdown

      There is a valid critique, and it is the materialist critique. By partaking of it, and enforcing it, one dispenses with ethos and pathos, and with them almost every middle-class trope of genteel self-assertion. They become mumbling bots, not unlike those in the Don “The Dragon” Wilson vehicle Cyber Tracker. I have no need to give two familyblogs about their precious moral “purpose” for meting out the food. No negotiations under the lash. Break the (figurative) arm that wields the lash instead, then we’ll think about talking.

  27. antidlc

    (paywall)
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-illnesses-are-keeping-at-least-500-000-workers-out-of-u-s-labor-force-study-says-11662955321
    Covid-19 Illnesses Are Keeping at Least 500,000 Workers Out of U.S. Labor Force, Study Says
    Virus will weigh on workforce if infection rates continue, authors predict

    Illness caused by Covid-19 shrank the U.S. labor force by around 500,000 people, a hit that is likely to continue if the virus continues to sicken workers at current rates, according to a new study released Monday.

    Link to the study:
    https://www.nber.org/papers/w30435
    The Impacts of Covid-19 Illnesses on Workers

    We show that Covid-19 illnesses persistently reduce labor supply. Using an event study, we estimate that workers with week-long Covid-19 work absences are 7 percentage points less likely to be in the labor force one year later compared to otherwise-similar workers who do not miss a week of work for health reasons. Our estimates suggest Covid-19 illnesses have reduced the U.S. labor force by approximately 500,000 people (0.2 percent of adults) and imply an average forgone earnings per Covid-19 absence of at least $9,000, about 90 percent of which reflects lost labor supply beyond the initial absence week.

  28. Wukchumni

    This gives you an idea of the world of hurt farmers in Cali are going through, there’s around 100 almond & walnut trees per acre, and he’s let 170 acres of productive trees die, with another 135 acres to bite the dust later this year. That’s 30,000 trees!

    Daniel Bays farms about 3000 acre near Westly, which is just 100 miles south of Sacramento. He raises a variety of row crops and higher value specialty crops like canning vegetables and fruits, plus walnuts and almonds. With continued record setting heat and drought in California and the lack of water for irrigation he only planted half of the 600 acres he would normally devote to tomato production. He says, “The price is up on tomatoes so it’d be a good crop to grow this year. We just didn’t have the water available for them.”

    Instead he left those acres fallow so they could allocate the scarce amount of irrigation water to higher value fruit and nut trees. However, Bays was forced to take 170 acres of high dollar walnut and almond trees out of production early as well this year.

    Bays says, “With what their production history had been and with what our input costs were gonna be and being short of water we made the decision to pull those orchards out early. And as soon as we finish almond harvest this year we have a 60 acre field and another 75 acre field that will be coming out.”

    https://www.agweb.com/news/crops/crop-production/lingering-california-drought-and-record-heat-forces-tough-decisions

    1. The Rev Kev

      The final stage for those farmers will be to scrape up and sell off all their top soil to other places (or maybe even Saudi Arabia) for cash in hand before they retire to parts unknown. You think that they would care to what happens to that lands afterwards?

  29. Jeremy Grimm

    A link from a few days ago asked the question: “What is to be done about the US death crisis?” [Policy Tensor, via Naked Capitalism 9-9-2022]
    I believe the IRS has an answer. I have a powerful aversion to reading IRS tax instructions and guides and an absolute horror toward reading tax code. With the end of the year not so many months away, I overcame my aversions long enough to attempt calculating how much my minimum IRA withdrawal needed to be to avoid penalties. I was surprised to see that the IRS had already revised their 2018 tables, I believe 2021 is the latest revision, for calculating “life expectancy”. The IRS adjusted the tables to remove roughly 10 years off life expectancy at age 72 — and amounts off other ages as well. That will bump up the amount of minimum withdrawal required. Depending on your situation, it could mean having to file for estimated taxes with the requisite prepayment of the estimated tax. Depending on what state you live in, or lived in in some cases, this IRS move could create ripples in dealing with your state taxes.

  30. ambrit

    Throwing this out there.
    What if the Ukraine Army physically moves into Russian territory?
    I would not put this past the Solons running this exercise on the Western side.

  31. SD

    My cat Tab Hunter does the same thing the cat in the Bonus Antidote does. I used to think of it as over-stimulation, but there’s often no overt stimulus that prompts this behavior with my Tab. My theory: it’s a sua sponte overwhelming feeling of love and trust for their humans. At least that’s what I tell myself.

    1. Paleobotanist

      My cat Diablo does the exact same thing in his bed in the front window. I put it down to his general dorkiness. He is such a dork in general.

    1. ArvidMartensen

      This commentary seems eminently sensible. This war is a slow burning continuation of WWIII imo, and so the fronts so far are Ukraine and Syria. Ukraine is the first European country to be involved, or maybe that was Serbia?
      I understand Chinese history as not being one of conquest across the world. If we had no US, would we have a much more peaceful world? One can only wish.

  34. LarryB

    Your tip jar isn’t working for me, when I hit “donate” it simply says something went wrong and erases the card information that I have entered. I would love to donate, but you have to provide a mechanism that works!

    1. Yves Smith

      I very much appreciate your interest in donating to support the site, and am so sorry you are having trouble.

      However, I hate to say this but you are the only person who has ever reported this problem, which suggests it’s local.

      Could you send a check instead?

      Alternatively, I would try with another browser.

  35. JBird4049

    Climate change may make pandemics like COVID-19 much more common ABC. All systems “go” for the next tranche of Lebensunwertes Leben, thanks to the Biden Administration’s stellar work in turning the United States into a reservoir of viral infection, literal and metaphorical.

    I am waiting for when the concept of life unworthy of life becomes openly accepted dogma; American eugenics does not quite go beyond sterilizations and into programs like Aktion T4. Although California did sterilizations of those considered disabled certainly into the late 60s and probably into the early 70s. As those last were not strictly legal, the records are… limited.

    Much like the later sterilizations done in women’s prisons in California, or in other states, or the ones in ICE’s facilities. (Interestingly, after the 70s, all seem to be of women and not men.) As my parents were strongly pushed into institutionalizing me (and they just as strongly refused, thankfully) I would have likely, although not necessarily, been a victim, which is all kinds of very disturbing.

    If, probably when, the idea of life unworthy of life becomes more mainstream, not that the phrase itself would be used, it would be very, very fun to mention the American history of sterilizations especially as much of it is not hidden, just ignored. Or just where much of the German impetus for eugenics came from (and let’s not ignore the English beginnings and even the French contributions!)

    Before the Second World War, people were just proud of their efforts to sterilize the defectives, the institutionalized including convicts, the poor, and minorities often by surreptitious methods. No need to tell parents of children grabbed off the streets and sent to health clinics after all. The courts including the Supreme Court gave it their approval for the sterilizations, if not the deceptions, as sterilizations were often done quasi-legally. So there is apparently a lot of information out there in dusty archives. Not hidden, but filled away. We are more like the Germans than we would like to admit.

  36. JBird4049

    Guandolo “has begun offering training sessions 4 right-wing citizens on how to take over their towns, arrest their mayors, & destroy the lives of anyone who objects by publicly humiliating them, getting them fired…, & forcing them to move.”

    I guess that they don’t want a civil war or anything like that? And I guess none of the more enthusiastic and often armed people on the other side might not respond likewise? Or that in American history, whoever fires first thinking that the targets would not fire back, are often wrong.

    In seriousness, the civil unrest-gun battles-raids-massacres in various parts of the Union, slowly at first and finally to where it was Bleeding Kansas, burning towns, and guerrilla raids just before Abraham Lincoln’s election might be considered the opening fights of the first? Civil War and not Fort Sumpter’s bombardment. Amazingly, idiots on both sides were convinced that the righteous of their cause and the presumed perfidiousness and cowardice of the other side meant that their side would quickly win. Gee, it only took a million dead out of a population of thirty-one million.

    I think that too many people are suffering from ennui, or dreams of glory, or maybe just foolishness.

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