2:00PM Water Cooler 10/28/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Fowl Music of the Day

Blue Mountain Vireo, Silver Hill Hole, Portland, Jamaica. “Music from a hen shifting low and largely hidden by way of roadside second progress.”

“Good godwit! Fowl flies 8,425 miles NON-STOP from Alaska to Australia – setting a brand new world report” [Daily Mail]. “A younger hen has develop into a world report holder by flying 8,425 miles continuous from Alaska to Australia in 11 days. The five-month-old bar-tailed godwit left Alaska on October 13 and touched down in Ansons Bay in northeast Tasmania, Australia on October 24. Scientists say the hen, identified merely as 234684, flew a minimal of 8,425 miles (13,560km) in 11 days and one hour with out stopping.It’s one in all many birds that scientists in Alaska had hooked up a 5G satellite tv for pc tag to with a view to observe migration patterns.” • Go go go, 234684!

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to suppose; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“The logic of the insult and the logic of scientific classification signify the 2 excessive poles of what a classification could also be within the social world.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“Scoop: John Kerry getting ready to go away Biden administration” [Axios]. • Ketchup with that nothingburger?

2022

* * *

Extra completely real smiles:

Individuals will roll their eyes at President Biden spending time with TikTok influencers this week. However that is the gag: The eight of them have 67M+ followers. By comparability, about 1.5-2.5M watch Fox, CNN or MSNBC in prime time. Extra from @taylorlorenz.https://t.co/jf9XNcEewP

— Steven Overly (@StevenOverly) October 27, 2022

* * *

PA: “Scorching mic opens window on Senate races” [Jamie Dupress, Regular Order]. “Two days after a considerably tough debate for Lt. Gov. John Fetterman – due to his talking difficulties – Schumer was nonetheless upbeat. ‘It seems like the talk didn’t harm an excessive amount of in Pennsylvania as of at present, in order that’s good.’ Biden crosses his fingers when listening to that.”

PA: “Fetterman debate efficiency has Democrats on edge about Pa. Senate race” [NBC]. “One Democrat who has been in contact with the Fetterman marketing campaign mentioned it erred in not having him do extra occasions and interviews sooner, to raised acclimate voters to the challenges he was dealing with and to make the incremental enhancements in his restoration extra seen in actual time. Fetterman, after spending a lot of the summer season off the marketing campaign path, started ramping up his exercise within the weeks main as much as the talk. ‘Their workforce has been ignoring what have been saying for months: We’ve expressed our issues many, many occasions about being extra clear,’ the supply mentioned, who requested for anonymity to talk candidly in regards to the race. ‘It’s OK to have a medical situation — you simply must be clear about it.’ The alarm can also be acute in Democratic circles past Pennsylvania. ‘It was startling,’ mentioned a senior Senate Democratic aide who has labored on political campaigns. ‘I actually query the judgment that he continued with this race.’ However with partisan management of the 50-50 Senate hanging within the steadiness, Democrats have little selection however to hope that Fetterman’s platform issues extra to voters than his efficiency.” • ”[T]ons of strategists and insiders.” So, OK. I suppose they are often proper a few of the time.

2024

“Biden retains low profile on midterms marketing campaign path as he weighs 2024 run” [Financial Times]. “‘If [the midterms] are as dangerous as some individuals count on, there’s going to be loads of chaos within the social gathering. There are going to be calls for from many various quarters for an entire change within the management — citing the gerontocracy that we at the moment have,’ mentioned Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to Harry Reid, the late Senate majority chief… ‘[Biden] is the president we’ve seen on this nation’s historical past,’ Cindy Axne, the Iowa Democrat in a good contest to maintain her seat within the Home, mentioned at a digital reception with him on Wednesday night.” • Can’t argue with that!

“From Fetterman to Biden” [National Review]. “Fetterman’s situation, and the best way that his marketing campaign and the media guarded towards any severe inquiry into it, could have a run-on impact. The taboo towards believing your personal eyes and ears was shattered final evening. And that taboo was guarding Joe Biden.” • Hmm.

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, plainly individuals are really studying the back-dated publish! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are lots of updates. So I must do this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Social gathering (“the Democrat Social gathering is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated publish, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Social gathering is, actually, a tough drawback. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the best way again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Social gathering is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Social gathering didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Social gathering reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Social gathering (ka-ching, however not fully) these components comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with belongings within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Notice, after all, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is restricted by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

“First on CNN: Assailant tried to tie up Paul Pelosi in dwelling assault, sources say” [CNN]. “The person who assaulted Paul Pelosi, the husband of Home Speaker Nancy Pelosi, tried to tie him up ‘till Nancy received dwelling,’ in response to two sources accustomed to the scenario. When the police arrived, the assailant was saying he was ‘ready for Nancy.’ Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer on the couple’s dwelling in San Francisco by a male assailant early Friday morning, legislation enforcement sources instructed CNN. The assailant who attacked Paul Pelosi was trying to find the speaker of the Home, in response to a supply briefed on the assault. The intruder confronted the speaker’s husband of their San Francisco dwelling shouting, ‘The place is Nancy? The place is Nancy?’ in response to the supply. Pelosi, 82, was hospitalized however is anticipated to make a full restoration, the Democratic speaker’s workplace mentioned in an announcement. The assault despatched shock waves by way of Washington and sparked an outpouring of condolences and condemnation from congressional leaders on each side of the aisle. It comes as fears of political violence directed towards lawmakers stay excessive within the wake of the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol in addition to different high-profile violent incidents which have focused members of Congress in recent times.” • How the hell will we get in? (The protection, naturally, shall be all about emotions, not info…).

“Diplomacy Watch: The West doesn’t know find out how to speak about Ukraine” [Responsible Statecraft]. On the “Progressive” Caucus’s retracted letter debacle: “However hope springs everlasting: The controversy over the letter has managed to open up some, let’s say, spirited dialog about diplomacy, and a few institution figures have been pushed to defend the concept of increasing talks between Washington and Moscow. Even former Obama aide Ben Rhodes, who has beforehand labored intently with a lot of the Biden administration, argued on his podcast that dodging the subject of diplomacy is (politically) harmful for the Democrats. ‘ Rhodes mentioned.” • No query about it.

“What actually occurred with that Ukraine letter? We requested Joe Cirincione to clarify.” [Semafor]. “Horrible workers work + horrible professional recommendation – Member involvement = Debacle. To provide the shortest-lived Congressional letter in historical past, the CPC coverage director labored in June with a number of outdoors teams to put in writing the letter. They had been instructed they might launch it after they received 30 of the 100 CPC members to signal it. They couldn’t hit that quantity till October, after they blindsided the members by releasing it 2 weeks earlier than key elections.”

I wouldn’t have thought Ro Khanna could be the one Democrat left standing — or at the least not groveling — however right here we’re:

.@RoKhanna: This letter is frequent sense. It mentioned that, on the identical time we stand with Ukraine, we have to ensure that we’re lowering the danger for nuclear conflict and interesting in talks with the Russians to ensure the battle doesn’t escalate. https://t.co/9WJ6evFYEy

— Quincy Institute (@QuincyInst) October 25, 2022

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Nevada officers start unprecedented hand rely of ballots” [Associated Press] • ZOMG, “unprecedented!” Aghastitude at hand-counted paper ballots now? I don’t suppose a lot of the Republican “activists” on this. However a system of hand-marked paper ballots, hand-counted in public, is powerful sufficient to withstand any of this nonsense. The identical can’t be mentioned for voting machines.

“Sheriff Discovered Responsible of Violating Detainees’ Rights With Restraint Chairs” [New York Times]. “The jury despatched a observe to Decide Eleanor Ross, saying that one juror had not been following directions and had repeated that he believed “the sheriff and the president are above the legislation and never required to observe the Structure,” the newspaper reported.” • Besides once I click on by way of, I see the anodyne “one juror was failing to observe directions.” Not the identical!

#COVID19

• At the least we all know Biden’s a** is OK. As a result of look what he pulled out of it:

“One Covid Shot As soon as a 12 months” isn’t remotely true; see present CDC vaccination schedules right here.

• Scotty, Gladys, Jacinda: Take a bow!

Can’t have Zero Covid within the 5 Eyes; it simply received’t do. (Notice, once more, in response to Wu, the Chinese language authorities isn’t behaving as if #CovidIsAirborne. The flawed concept of transmission isn’t a recipe for achievement with a Zero Covid coverage (although if that new bubble tea vaccine works out for them, they might pores and skin by).

• Throwing away an considerable proportion of the workforce?

Not that tech is with out issues.

• Wanting into Far UV:

This can be a good thread with loads of element. Concluding:

Placing my issues extra pointedly: If companies could make themselves and their prospects imagine they’ve made Covid go away by screwing in a lightbulb, they’ll (this being the stupidest timeline). And on the expense of genuinely fixing air flow issues, and exhibiting the air flow issues have been solved).

• ”EU regulator recommends including heavy intervals to unwanted side effects of mRNA COVID photographs” [Reuters]. “European Medicines Company (EMA) committee on Friday really useful including heavy menstrual bleeding to the listing of aspect impact of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines made by Moderna, in addition to Pfizer and its associate BioNTech. Experiences of heavy intervals – bleeding characterised by elevated quantity and/or length that interferes with the standard of life – have been noticed throughout medical trials, from circumstances in the actual world and in medical literature, the EMA mentioned…. The regulator has now concluded that there’s at the least a ‘affordable risk’ that heavy menstrual bleeding is causally related to these vaccines.

• Poor infants!

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to neighborhood transmission. (That is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you.)

Lambert right here: I’ve to say, I’m seeing increasingly more yellow and extra blue, which continues to please. However is the pandemic “over”? Nicely….

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s take a look at positivity tracker, October 24:

1.3%. Sooner enhance.

• Can any library-going readers verify?

Wastewater

Wastewater information (CDC), October 23:

October 22:

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant information is. Does no person within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and all people will get the outcomes from them? UPDATE Sure. See NC right here on Pango.

Variant information, nationwide (Walgreens), October 19:

Lambert right here: BQ.1*, out of nowhere. So superior.

Variant information, nationwide (CDC), October 8 (Nowcast off):

Lambert right here: Many of the screenshots of CDC variants operating round crop out whether or not Nowcast (CDC’s mannequin) is on or off; see pink field at prime. The BQ1.* determine of 27% that’s operating round is CDC’s Nowcast projection, three weeks out. (It’s telling that CDC would quite construct a mannequin than fund sooner acquisition of actual information.)

Deaths

Demise price (Our World in Knowledge):

Complete: 1,094,596 – 1,094,163 = 433 (433 * 365 = 158,045, which is at present’s LivingWith™ quantity (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, although they’ll speak themselves into something. If the LivingWith™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could must resolve that is what the powers-that-be contemplate “mission completed” for this specific tranche of dying and illness.

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, each day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, in contrast to all the pieces else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

Client Sentiment: “United States Michigan Client Sentiment” [Trading Economics]. “The College of Michigan shopper sentiment for the US was revised greater to 59.9 in October of 2022 from a preliminary of 59.8. The present situations subindex was revised greater to 65.6 from 65.3 whereas the gauge for expectations was confirmed at 56.2. The median anticipated year-ahead inflation price rose to five.0%, with will increase reported throughout age, revenue, and training. Final month, long term inflation expectations fell beneath the slender 2.9-3.1% vary for the primary time since July 2021, however since then expectations have reverted to 2.9%. Uncertainty over inflation expectations stays elevated, indicating that inflation expectations are more likely to stay unstable within the months forward.” • Uncertainty will not be what Powell needs.

Retail: “Amazon is heading into the vacation season speaking about price cuts quite than gross sales progress. The e-commerce chief is projecting that gross sales within the present quarter could be far beneath expectations… sending a brand new shock wave throughout the retail sector and providing a stark signal of how shifting financial forces are battering corporations that thrived through the pandemic” [Wall Street Journal]. “Amazon’s gross sales final quarter rose 15% from a 12 months earlier, whereas its $2.9 billion web revenue marked its first quarterly revenue this 12 months however a 9% decline from the 12 months earlier than. The corporate additionally jolted observers with its projection for income of $140 billion to $148 billion within the fourth quarter—analysts had anticipated greater than $155 billion. CEO Andy Jassy mentioned Amazon is constructing ‘a stronger price construction for the enterprise shifting ahead.’ That plan consists of cutbacks within the firm’s sprawling logistics community.” • A “stronger price construction” = union busting?

Tech: “Adobe steals your shade” [Cory Doctorow]. “For individuals who work in prepress, a key a part of their Adobe instruments is integration with Pantone. Pantone is a system for specifying color-matching. A Pantone quantity corresponds to a selected tint that’s both made by mixing the 4 customary print colours (cyan, magenta, yellow and black, AKA “CMYK”), or by making use of a “spot” shade. Spot colours are added to print jobs after the traditional CMYK passes – if you need a stripe of metallic gold or a blob of scorching pink, you specify its Pantone quantity and the printer hundreds up a separate ink and runs your media by way of its printer yet another time…. All of that is instantly related as a result of it seems that issues have damaged down between Adobe and Pantone. Slightly than getting Pantone help bundled in along with your Adobe apps, you could now pay $21/month for a Pantone plugin…. Bear in mind, Adobe’s apps have moved to the cloud. Any change that Adobe makes in its central servers ripples out to each Adobe consumer on this planet instantaneously. If Adobe makes a change to its apps that you simply don’t like, you’ll be able to’t simply run an older model…. The subsequent model of Adobe’s apps would require you to pay that $21/month Pantone payment, or any Pantone-defined colours in your pictures will render as black. That’s true whether or not you created the file final week or 20 years in the past. Probably, Adobe will blame Pantone for this, and it’s true that Pantone’s greed is the basis trigger right here. However that is an totally foreseeable results of Adobe’s SaaS technique. If Adobe’s prospects had been all operating their apps regionally, a transfer like this on Pantone’s half would merely trigger each affected buyer to run older variations of Adobe apps. Adobe wouldn’t be capable of promote any upgrades and Pantone wouldn’t get any license charges. However as a result of Adobe is within the cloud, its prospects don’t have that choice.”

Tech: “Excessive-Tech Vehicles Are Killing the Auto Restore Store” [Wired]. “If you wish to perceive the rising complication within the auto restore trade, attempt to get a realignment on a brand new Audi. A automotive wants realignment when it’s drifting to at least one aspect or the steering wheel is vibrating, a process that entails adjusting the suspension, which connects a automotive to its wheels. A decade or so in the past, that took about an hour and a half, auto repairers who spoke to WIRED say. Right this moment, that very same process is normally nearer to a few or 4 hours, and it could possibly take as much as 9. That’s as a result of newer vehicles have superior driver-assistance methods, which might preserve vehicles of their lane, detect blind spots, and keep away from collisions—features that require a automotive to have a agency grasp of the place it’s in house. That requires repairers to calibrate the sensors and cameras in a automotive underpinning these superior methods. Some manufacturers of car can solely be calibrated with specialised and costly instruments. To begin with, the gear wanted to guarantee a automotive’s wheels are in alignment prices within the $70,000 vary, says Lucas Underwood, the president of L&N Efficiency Auto Restore in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. Then you definately’ll want targets, which assist a automotive’s sensors and digicam methods orient themselves. These can range by automaker and price round $30,000 per set. In all, it could possibly price a whole lot of hundreds of {dollars} to accumulate the instruments and make the store changes to restore just some automotive makes. That’s earlier than the price of coaching staff to make use of these instruments, with retailers paying hundreds annually to maintain their workers licensed to repair particular vehicles. Investing for the long run, then, can set store house owners again by thousands and thousands. That funding could be value it for a enterprise that intends to remain open for some time, however many automobile store house owners are nearing retirement. A 2019 trade survey discovered that almost half of auto store proprietors had been 60 or older.”

Tech: “Your subsequent PC must be a desktop – perhaps even this Chinese language mini machine” [The Register]. “The large incursion into the PC market in recent times has been just-good-enough laptops within the type of the Chromebook. Possibly it’s time to consider good-enough desktops too – particularly now that hybrid work is a brand new regular. I’m usually instructed that the 2 or three days every week of make money working from home that’s now permissible for a lot of staff calls for instruments tuned to those new circumstances. It’s vital to make sure individuals are as productive as potential now that the workplace will not be an on a regular basis vacation spot. By tidying up my workspace and liberating my laptop computer for when it’s actually wanted, my mini-desktop is that instrument. And I feel it might be yours, too, if like me you’re fortunate sufficient to have a devoted make money working from home house.” • A PC desktop appears to run round $300, unique of peripherals.

Labor Market: “[T]he introduction of synthetic intelligence and different refined applied sciences is altering the character of the workforce throughout provide chains, from white-collar administration positions to the roles on the warehouse ground. It’s the flip aspect of automation efforts usually undertaken to chop payrolls” [Wall Street Journal]. “Mondelez Chief Provide-Chain Officer Sandra MacQuillan’s new recruits are exhibiting extra curiosity in issues just like the snack-foods provider’s ‘no-touch’ distribution facilities and factories. Corporations say the investments additionally assist open the remaining warehouse jobs to a wider array of staff since robots at some websites now do extra of the heavy lifting.”

Right this moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 61 Greed (earlier shut: 57 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 45 (Impartial). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Oct 27 at 2:06 PM EDT. A swing to greed? Bizarre. Truthfully, if it means Mr. Market thinks there received’t be a nuclear conflict, I’m a contented camper. However nonetheless…

Guide Nook

Epic certainly!

Who is aware of, perhaps anyone within the readership will break the code! (Fascinating that the poster is ready to determine what number of scribes labored on the manuscript. It was fairly a challenge! However to what finish? And what in regards to the alien vegetation?)

The 420

“Blowing smoke? Lawsuit accuses widespread hashish model of overstating THC content material in its joints” [Los Angeles Times]. “‘The declarations of THC content material on [DreamFields Brands Inc. and Med for America Inc.’s] labels … are false,’ the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote within the criticism. ‘Defendants are systematically overstating the THC content material to deceive customers into pondering that the consequences of their prerolls are stronger than they really are.’ The makers of Jeeter merchandise have a ‘monetary incentive’ to misrepresent the THC contents of their marijuana, the lawsuit alleges, as a result of customers are prepared to pay a premium for efficiency: the upper the value, the upper you get, in concept. The swimsuit, filed by Santa Monica-based legislation agency Dovel & Luner on behalf of two California residents who purchased the allegedly mislabeled merchandise, seeks unspecified damages and restitution. Attorneys are additionally in search of class-action standing for the lawsuit.” • Lawsuits from customers who didn’t get loaded sufficient didn’t determine in my image of legalization, although I suppose it ought to have. And THC ranges in fashionable hashish are a lot greater than they had been than I heard they had been in my day it’s arduous to know who individuals would even know the distinction.

Class Warfare

“Younger Silicon Valley staff are in for a impolite awakening as trade giants make main job cuts and ditch formidable initiatives for the primary time of their careers” [Business Insider]. “For years, Large Tech corporations have competed on pay and perks to lure staff in a good labor market. Now, the limitless hiring and allotments for worker journey, free meals, and firm swag are being changed by funds cuts, new efficiency mandates, and even layoffs. It’s a primary for a lot of tech staff, a complete era of whom have identified nothing however continuous progress and a bull market. To those staff, current modifications are ‘straight up heresy,’ as Invoice Gurley, a veteran enterprise capitalist, put it in June. ‘Throughout this rate-induced growth, competitors for workers created a Disney-esque set of experiences/expectations in excessive tech corporations.’ There was one thing of an outcry at Meta, for instance, when the corporate earlier this 12 months determined to restrict the timing without spending a dime meals at places of work and took away the laundry service it supplied to staff. Inside two months, the corporate froze hiring. Now, staff are apprehensive about it reducing headcount by as a lot as 20%, as managers warn staff of impending cuts, Insider reported.”

Information of the Wired

“Extra enjoyable”:

In different phrases, I ought to by no means belief a smile I see in a photograph, ever once more.

Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn the way to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn the way to ship me pictures of vegetation. Greens are superb! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! If you need your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it in the beginning of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From IM:

IM: “Rodney Graham died this previous week. He was a legend within the Vancouver artwork scene, and a real polymath — rock and punk musician, bakery proprietor, multimedia artwork star, genial freak and weirdo who at all times had time for everybody. I used to be lucky to assist take care of him in the middle of his sickness. One among his favourite topics was the the wrong way up tree — initially from the inverted projection of a digicam obscura, later merely photographs hung the wrong way up. I can’t declare to have taken any as attractive as he did, however here’s a Vancouver tree headed the flawed manner, in Rodney’s vogue.”

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