Sunday, September 14, 2025

2:00PM Water Cooler 6/23/2020

COVID-19 in swing states, testing, Houston in trouble ~ Biden veep stakes: Karen Bass? ~ Biden’s hawkishness ~ Sanders agonidpol ~ DNC wants more money from Sanders ~ Trump in Tulsa ~ Michigan dead heat ~ Neera Tanden ~ Housing, manufacturing ~ Savings ~ Fireworks companies ~ College football ~ Wokeness ~ Zinn, Chomsky on Tolkien

The Hidden Deaths Of The COVID Pandemic

Why the Covid-19 death toll is higher than you might think.

Links 6/23/2020

Can the Aspen Institute’s Elite Economists Beat the Coronavirus Depression?

A careful look at a new set of rescue schemes devised by some Serious Economists. Honestly, even Larry Summers could do better than this.

Board Member Margaret Brown Sues CalPERS, Board President Over Gang-Style Retaliation for Efforts to Oppose Its Incompetence

Board member Margaret Brown has finally had it with CalPERS’ dirty tricks.

Who Benefits From New Technologies?

Do the benefits of new technologies accrue primarily to inventors, early investors, and highly skilled users, or to society more widely?

Dogpiling Taibbi and the Dearth of the Free Press

A cri de couer on sorting the news

2:00PM Water Cooler 6/22/2020

~ Today’s Water Cooler ~

The Economy Isn’t About Money. It’s About Putting Food on the Table

Our Enlightenment predecessors recognized not one but five economies – and the pandemic has reinvigorated our taste for them.

Links 6/22/2020

Grim Prospects for New York City as Few Office Workers Return Post Lockdown; How Hard Will Other US Cities Be Hit?

An update on getting back to normal (not) in New York City.

Who Pays for Stranded Assets? Taxpayers Are Footing The Bill For 100-Year Old Oil Wells

Why shuttering oil wells is a physical, economic, and political mess.

Grenfell Tower Fire: Third-Year Anniversary (Non-)Progress Report

Some progress on Grenfell Tower: Remediating apartment blocks, ongoing inquiries, regulatory proposals. But not nearly enough. And then there’s the potential IT boondoggle. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy…

Links 6/21/2020

We Caught Bacteria from the Most Pristine Air on Earth to Help Solve a Climate Modeling Mystery

Due to how remote the Southern Ocean is, there have been very few actual studies of the clouds there.