Today’s Water Cooler: Buttigieg, Castro, Sanders, Trump, impeachment, UPS, Amazon, van manufacturing, Australia bush fires, gardening, feral hogs, New Year’s post mortem, job cuts, Harvard grad students union, NY farmers union, Car Talk, visual snowclones
Saturday, February 7, 2026
A Theory or Two of These Grim Times
A theory about why things are a mess.
We Broke Down the Last Decade of Climate Change in 7 Charts
Some key climate change factoids.
AI and the Productivity Paradox
AI has not delivered expected productivity gains. Some thoughts as to why.
FDA Failed to Police Opioids Makers, Thus Fueling Opioids Crisis
Johns Hopkins researchers document failure of FDA opioids regulation; maybe more effective regulation could have averted the opioids crisis.
Wolf Richter: How Ratings Agencies Inflate Credit Ratings to Get Deals & Fees
Haven’t we already seen this movie? Race to the bottom in gaming credit ratings agencies for commercial real estate Collateralized Loan Obligation deals.
Extending Sort of Comments Holiday
We didn’t really have a comments holiday…so we are extending our “reduced comments” compromise to allow Jules Dickson a proper break.
2:00PM Water Cooler 12/31/2019
Today’s Water Cooler: Open thread.
Trump, Granting Lobbyist Demands, Quietly Handed Billions More in Tax Breaks to Huge Corporations: Report
Team Trump keeps soldiering along with its pro-corporate agenda.
Australia Burning; Tourists in New South Wales and Victoria Flee to Beaches
A grim take from smoky Australia.
2:00PM Water Cooler 12/30/2019
Today’s Water Cooler: Open thread.
Nebraska Farmers Lead on Right to Repair
Nebraska farmers are promoting a right to repair for farm equipment; if negotiations for an agreement founder, state legislation is likely.
