2:00PM Water Cooler 12/30/2016

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105 comments

1. Altandmain December 30, 2016 at 2:03 pm

   At this point, I’m thinking that there isn’t going to be any serious change until the top 10%ers begin to feel the pain from the 1%.

   So far, the 90 – 99% percentile may not be gaining as much as the top 1% or for that matter, the top 0.1%, but they are still doing a lot better than the rest of society, and at the expense of the rest of society.

   A very big problem is that they have a lot of clout … and it’s not being used for the benefit of the rest of society, but often at its expense.

   This is going to get a lot worse I think in the near future for the rest of us less well off people.
   1. PQS December 30, 2016 at 3:29 pm

      I think one of the yuuuge problems is that the 99% haven’t the slightest idea how RICH the RICH really are. They really think it’s a guy who owns a successful business pulling down six figures or something. They can’t even fathom literally pallets of money that people like the Kochs have to just burn. Hedge Fund types that make a Billion dollars a year and pay 16% taxes on? Pfft. People don’t get this. (They dont’ hear about it, either, except from Bernie….)

      Which is why every single time I’m in casual conversation about ridiculous excess, I always, always say “Well, that sounds like an argument for higher taxes on the rich.”
      1. Vatch December 30, 2016 at 3:40 pm

         You are correct, it is a huge problem. Many people really don’t understand just how wealthy the top 0.01%ers are. It was briefly discussed a couple of days ago in these comments:

         http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/a-tale-of-two-retirements-the-great-divide-between-ceos-and-everyone-else.html#comment-2734915

         Does anyone have any suggestions on how we can spread the word about just how excessively rich the richest people really are? The information is out there, but few have any awareness of it.
         1. Isolato December 30, 2016 at 4:25 pm

            Well,

            I sometimes put it this way…I am lucky enough (thanks great grandparents!) to be..oh, in the top 2 or 3 % depending on how you count, but the difference between me and sleeping in a dumpster is a couple of million dollars. The difference between me and Bill Gates is 50 billion.

            And no matter how loud I shouted nobody ever seemed to hear how much the Bush Tax Cuts had tilted the table in my direction. But I went from being self-employed and paying nearly 50% of my income in taxes to retiring on investment income and paying about 10%.

            I think people just say in their heads “I wish that was me”. Not “We should change that”.
         2. Leigh December 30, 2016 at 4:28 pm

            Something like this…
         3. Leigh December 30, 2016 at 4:31 pm
            1. Vatch December 30, 2016 at 5:22 pm

               You need to enter some text after the link, and before you click on the /link button. In other words, here I entered “https://s29.postimg.org/lvdd5eyl3/811b6ebe9b4a7f44c74a0d88e75b3c92.jpg” twice.

               https://s29.postimg.org/lvdd5eyl3/811b6ebe9b4a7f44c74a0d88e75b3c92.jpg

               Looks good; thanks.
         4. PQS December 30, 2016 at 5:38 pm

            Graphics and video.
            After the last election, I’m convinced it need to be very simply stated in 30 seconds or less.

            I’ve seen great graphics showing how much money a million dollars is and a billion, compared to an average sized human, but I’m no genius at linking things here…

            Maybe Lambert/Yves could start a thread topic of great graphics on this stuff!
            1. Ed S. December 30, 2016 at 5:49 pm

               Here’s one way to think about it:

               Lamborghini Aventador – MSRP about $400,000

               Would take an average working stiff about 8 years 3 months of GROSS income to purchase
               Would take a $1 Billion / yr Hedgie about 48 minutes of gross income to purchase.
            2. cnchal December 30, 2016 at 10:49 pm

               I like using Nimitz class aircraft carriers to get a bearing on big numbers. They were $4.6 billion each, and were Bill Gates money pile used he could buy nearly twice as many than were built. His net worth is zeroing in on a tenth of a trillion dollars, and if he finds an eleven bagger on the stawk market could be the worlds first trillionaire. Goes for the Kochs and Captain Greed too.

               With a trillion dollars, one could buy 217 Nimitz units, and the average family would have to work for 80,702 years to pay for one, not counting ongoing living expenses.

               Lord Blackfart of Goldman Sachs fame, being just a mere billionaire could only buy the propellers and keel section of a Nimitz unit, which means he is barely able to float his boat.
         5. PQS December 30, 2016 at 5:39 pm

            Graphics and video.
            After the last election, I’m convinced it need to be very simply stated in 30 seconds or less.

            I’ve seen great depictions of how much money a million dollars is and a billion, compared to an average sized human, but I’m no genius at linking things here…

            Maybe Lambert/Yves could start a thread topic of great graphics on this stuff for sharing!
         6. PQS December 30, 2016 at 5:44 pm

            Graphics and video.
            After the last election, I’m convinced it need to be very simply stated in 30 seconds or less.

            Maybe Lambert/Yves could start a thread topic of great graphics on this stuff for sharing!
         7. different clue December 30, 2016 at 6:14 pm

            Maybe we need specific language for this problem. Including specific WORDS for the levels of problem-people who make up this problem. Ferdinand Lundberg tried making a start with his book title The Rich and the Super Rich.

            Perhaps we could think of the barely rich, the merely rich, the very rich and the supremely rich. Or the OPOOP ( One Percent Of One Percent), the OPOOPOOP ( One Percent Of One Percent Of One Percent), the OPOOPOOPOOP (One Percent Of . . . you get the point), etc.
            This would indicate the rising wealth levels with rising slivers of the Very Uppest Class.

            And again . . . what if people were to begin thinking in the most poetic way about the 3 level divide . . . the Top 1%, the Next 9%, and the Lower 90%?
            1. Medbh December 31, 2016 at 5:22 pm

               The language needs to have a more direct negative connotation. In many people’s minds super rich is synonymous with super successful. The 1% are hoarders, power hungry, and spiritually stunted. It’s something to be ashamed of, not admired. And they’re not the “top 1%” either, that just reinforces the ideology that they’re the best or most successful. They’re not special: they’re greedy and sick.
      2. EoinW December 30, 2016 at 5:09 pm

         I may not be the right person to comment on this subject. I just went to the store for a pair of winter boots and seeing nothing under $100 has caused an existential trauma. Obviously I’ve got no clue people pay these prices.

         Yet being in the Information Age, I find it hard to believe the majority of people aren’t aware of how rich the 1% are. Ask yourself this: even if they were aware, what would they do about it? Maybe vote Trump? I don’t see them taking to the streets and taking on the security state.

         I’m not even sure my personal quarrel should be with the rich. There are plenty of average people paying over $100 for boots – and pricing a more practical person out of the market.

         When it comes to the 1%, my beef is how many innocent people they murder with their Regime Change wars. Yet so long as it isn’t nuclear war with Russia, such wars do not pose an immediate threat on my living standard. However, the 99% spending irresponsibly does have an impact on me.
         1. Vatch December 30, 2016 at 5:45 pm

            Boots are supposed to last for many years, like a car or a furnace. We’ve had constant inflation for decades, and that, unfortunately, affects prices. However, if you’re looking for rubber galoshes that you put on over your regular shoes, you ought to be able to find plenty for less than $100. There ought to be some selling for less than $50.
            1. rjs December 30, 2016 at 8:32 pm

               i still try to keep my clothing purchases under $10 per item…it’s that vow of poverty thing, ya know…
         2. PQS December 30, 2016 at 5:55 pm

            My beef with the 1% is that they don’t pay their fair share and use their money to punish and oppress the rest of us, every day, all day. (Apart from buying off our electeds. Trump was totally right about that, and not much else.) Then they have the gall to act like they deserve this and so do we.

            Walmart telling their employees how to get on housing and SNAP benefits is a classic example. Not only is it immoral, it has literally ruined our society in a thousand different ways for this one family to act like this and get away with it. Stop Using My Taxes to Pay Your People!!

            I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

            Excessive consumption doesn’t bug me nearly as much as this sort of thing.
         3. different clue December 30, 2016 at 6:18 pm

            Unfortunately, it IS the 1% who decided to crapify the quality of boots and other things so that a $100 pair of boots doesn’t last 20-30 years like it used to. So the Upper Class decision to give the 99% ONly irresponsibly made things to buy is responsible for the 99% having only irresponsible things to buy, and hence buying irresponsible things irresponsibly.

            There are still exceptions, and shame on the “next 9%” for buying irresponsibly if they still have a responsible choice.
         4. cnchal December 30, 2016 at 11:01 pm

            Pretty big markup on Chinese sweat shop labor, eh?
         5. Oregoncharles December 31, 2016 at 12:35 am

            Thrift stores.
            Estate sales are fun,but a crap shoot.
            And you get to feel virtuous about “reusing.”
         6. zapster December 31, 2016 at 10:50 am

            Well, the thing is, if you double your prices, you can get away with selling half as many. As the number of people that can afford to purchase them shrinks, they really have to raise their prices in order to sell any at all. And the ones that have the money have so much money that higher prices are a plus anyway. “Status”, doncha know.
         7. HopeLB December 31, 2016 at 11:26 am

            I have a nearly brand new pair of size 6 Sorels, waterproof rubber bottoms, suede uppers with fur on the top. My daughter only wore them a few times. They are yours if you want them.
      3. remmer December 30, 2016 at 5:56 pm

         A survey done in 2005 showed how little people know about how rich the rich are.

         http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1745691610393524

         Respondents were asked to estimate the U.S. distribution of wealth by income quintiles and to give what they thought the ideal distribution should be. The average estimate was that the top 20% owned just under 60% of the wealth, and that they should ideally own only about a third. At the time of the study the top 20% actually owned 84% of the wealth.
      4. dbk December 31, 2016 at 4:50 am

         From someone or other, I picked up the term “out of sight” (maybe Paul Fussell’s book “Class”) to refer to the .01%. I still use it, because it’s still the case that 90% of the U.S. public can’t even imagine the lives of billionaires and multi-billionaires – they live apart from us, their children do not mingle with ours, their vacation spots are no-access, their jets are private… we literally never see them, or how they live, unless we belong to the classes which serve them.

         I read this linked piece yesterday – the classes of gifts (an all-sapphire watch [1.3 million], a floor of the Woolworth Building [26.4 million], a rose gold jet, a hotel of one’s own, etc.) are so out-of-sight that I almost took it for a parody. It kind of makes you feel ill.

         https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-16/what-to-get-a-billionaire-for-christmas
   2. Waldenpond December 30, 2016 at 4:17 pm

      I think it’s more the top 20%. There is the 1% and their closest allies the 10% but then there is another striving 10% that wants to break in. I just hope the protests focus on the 1% and stop targeting other victims. I get it, there is anger towards each other for not acting in solidarity, but the focus needs to stay on the perpetrators of the exploitative acts.
      1. Vatch December 30, 2016 at 5:31 pm

         I think people should concentrate on the richest 0.01%, or maybe the richest 0.1%. People in the top 1% are more likely to vote for oligarch friendly politicians, but most of them have little power. They aren’t the ones who have three or four homes, a yacht, multi-carat diamonds, and a platoon of lawyers, accountants, and lobbyists at their beck and call. As you say, we need to focus on the perpetrators, not on their underlings.
      2. hunkerdown December 30, 2016 at 6:17 pm

         And the ninth decile that wants to break in isn’t themselves committing any number of audacious acts on their own volition (see Neera Tanden’s “Resistance”)? No, they need to be held to account for every work they have committed against us. A much more illiberal (and therefore peace-compatible) ethic is that “following orders” doesn’t mean you get to hurt people without getting hurt back.
   3. Cocomaan December 30, 2016 at 4:34 pm

      Aka the petite and the haute bourgeoisie, if you’re a political economist of the old school.

      I think you’re right about the top ten percent. I’m in the top twenty, but it doesn’t feel that way.
   4. John Wright December 31, 2016 at 8:37 am

      I archived an old David Brooks column from Jan 12, 2003, that is titled “The Triumph of Hope over Self-Interest”

      In it he mentions: “The most telling polling result from the 2000 election was from a Time magazine survey that asked people if they are in the top 1 percent of earners. Nineteen percent of Americans say they are in the richest 1 percent and a further 20 percent expect to be someday. So right away you have 39 percent of Americans who thought that when Mr. Gore savaged a plan that favored the top 1 percent, he was taking a direct shot at them.”

      Now this optimistic view should have taken a lot of hits over the last 16 years, but I suspect there are still a lot of Americans who expect to be rich, at least someday.

      It is indirectly encouraging, to me, that the political class is attempting to tout the Russian threat as it may be some evidence that the Bos-Wash corridor is perceiving a loss of control of the population and so needs to amp up the “evil Ruskies” threat.

      I was also encouraged to see the humbled NYTimes sub-leasing 8 floors of its NYC building after they threw everything on getting HRC elected.

      But it is difficult to see Trump as offering great hope.

      He might be shamed into doing something, while Obama and Clinton seem immune from pressure except from the elite.
2. Vatch December 30, 2016 at 2:30 pm

   “As Groundwater Dwindles, a Global Food Shock Looms” [National Geographic].

   So naturally, people continue having on average more than two children per couple, because Alfred E. Neuman’s philosophy of “What, me worry?” reigns supreme.
   1. ambrit December 31, 2016 at 7:54 am

      Mao had that figured out, but, silly liberty loving westerners that we are, we deplore his methods as “dictatorial, police state, commie pinko, intrusional, only benefits the elites, etc. etc.” Take out the “commie pinko” bits and we have a description of present day America, eh? As with everything else around here, no one is planning for the long term. Luckily, Gaia has her own ways of redressing the balance; plagues, famines, droughts, and other natural disasters. (Remember the Toba eruption of 74,000 B.C.?)
      See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory
      “Oh, the places you’ll see go, and the deaths you’ll see!” (Neo-liberal .01%er child’s story book title.)
      1. Vatch December 31, 2016 at 3:25 pm

         Remember the Toba eruption of 74,000 B.C.?

         Of course I remember it! We called that The Big One. The eruption of the Phlegraean Fields 39,000 years ago was wimpy by comparison. Ah, the good ol’ days!
3. kj1313 December 30, 2016 at 2:37 pm

   Reading the reactions to the Ellison Vox article on twitter, Matt Yglesias and Joan Walsh are pretty much saying let Ellison become the DNC chair. Perhaps there is an inkling of understanding that the future for the Dems is Bernie/FDR policies.
   1. Waldenpond December 30, 2016 at 4:25 pm

      Have a look at Ellison’s funding. Where it comes from and what he churns in relation to his R competitor.

      It looks like Ellison is a neocon on foreign policy with his war support and Syria no-fly zone (don’t forget his approved of what happened in Libya) and a neolib (neoliberalism is financialization) as demonstrated by his funding. His campaigns are serving as pass through for a lot of money.

      https://twitter.com/rabbeni_kim/status/797668348049915904
      1. Code Name D December 30, 2016 at 5:05 pm

         I agree. Ellison is a bandaid for a bleeding wound. For all the talk of his “progressive credentials”, much of it coming from the Mighty Progressive Sage Bernie Sanders, I am not seeing Ellson giving any voice at all to the challenges the party faces – let alone the corruption that has infected the party to the core. I am seen votes for Prom Queen given more gravity.
         1. Waldenpond December 30, 2016 at 5:18 pm

            I can’t find one D that isn’t financially corrupt. When I look at who the top 5 funders of any D is, I cringe. I keep seeing people cheering the imminent death of the olds (nice generational warfare the Ds keep going) yet the younger generation Ds seem even worse than the older.
4. tgs December 30, 2016 at 2:46 pm

   I view Obama’s moves as half-hearted

   So do a lot of Democrats. Donna Brazille and others are arguing that Obama has not hit back hard enough – a young African-American woman, a Democrat whose name I didn’t catch, on Fox last night, beside herself with rage, argued that we have to hurt Putin personally!

   Incredible.
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 30, 2016 at 2:52 pm

      Joy Reid?
      1. tgs December 30, 2016 at 3:47 pm

         No, it wasn’t her. I have scoured the FN website and cannot find a clip. However, this one from ‘Democratic Strategist’, Julie Roginsky, also on Fox, has the same message:

         [Roginsky] added that the “common denominator” since the Bush administration is Putin, whom she called “an authoritarian despot who longs for the days of the Soviet Union’s greatness.”

         Roginsky explained that Putin will always seek to use the West as a “foil” in order to distract Russians from his own failing economic policies.

         The Fox News contributor called on Congress to go after Putin, his inner circle and the “oligarchs who prop him up” by imposing tough financial sanctions.

         “I don’t even call them sanctions. I don’t know what this is. I call it a disgraceful and weak move by the Obama administration. … I am disgusted with how weak it is,” she said.

         Those who would like to actually hear all that can do so here.
      2. tgs December 30, 2016 at 4:06 pm

         No, it wasn’t her. I have scoured the FN website and cannot find the video clip. However, Democratic Strategist, Julie Roginsky, also on Fox, is carrying the same message: Disgusted How Weak the Sanctions Are:

         [Roginsky] added that the “common denominator” since the Bush administration is Putin, whom she called “an authoritarian despot who longs for the days of the Soviet Union’s greatness.”

         Roginsky explained that Putin will always seek to use the West as a “foil” in order to distract Russians from his own failing economic policies.

         The Fox News contributor called on Congress to go after Putin, his inner circle and the “oligarchs who prop him up” by imposing tough financial sanctions.

         “I don’t even call them sanctions. I don’t know what this is. I call it a disgraceful and weak move by the Obama administration. … I am disgusted with how weak it is,” she said.

         These people are really something.
         1. Bullwinkle December 30, 2016 at 4:18 pm

            Yes, they are really something. Scary really. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such sore losers.
         2. fresno dan December 30, 2016 at 5:15 pm

            tgs
            December 30, 2016 at 4:06 pm

            The schizophrenia on FOX with regard to standing behind Trump and not being reflexively anti Russian, versus FOX’s/repub knee jerk anti Russian ideology is really something to behold.
            Will there be a real schism in FOX /right that really splits the repubs into “globalists” and “isolationists”?
            I think it is just to early to tell if Trump has true principles and will endure pain to defend detente with Russia. The MIC are adamant that Russian HAS to be an enemy.
            1. shinola December 30, 2016 at 6:19 pm

               Thanks for the tip fd,

               I rarely watch FOX nooze but this situation could be amusing…
            2. JohnnyGL December 30, 2016 at 11:09 pm

               I started watching a little bit of FOX during the height of election season and it was bizarre for me. I recall my early years of adulthood watching them cheerlead for GW Bush’s wars and constant scare-mongering about terrorism. There’s still plenty of the latter, but they figured out that they were going to have to make themselves comfortable with Trump, even if they’d done all they could to sink him.

               When it was down to the general election, they were vaguely pro-Trump, but not slavishly so and it was interesting to see the commentators providing better quality stuff than the other networks that were constantly worked up, on message with non-stop visceral Trump-hate.

               I haven’t watched much, but they seem to be more or less okay with detente with Russia, and skeptical of the lack of evidence released so far. They’re really enjoying the Dem meltdown. And why shouldn’t they, I suppose?
               1. EoinW December 31, 2016 at 8:22 am

                  I know the feeling. I avoided FOX for the same reason for years. Yet since the election I’m more likely to have FOX as my default news station. Which doesn’t mean I actually watch it, however I’m not going even close to CNN or CBC. My sense is we might get more objective reporting from FOX, whereas CNN is so anti-Trump it can’t be objective and CBC is even more condescending.

                  Election night I thought CNN did the best job. Get them to just do reporting and not pontificate and there’s still a bit of journalism left in them. CBC on election night might as well have been Clinton Campaign HQ. But after 11pm it was wonderful to flip to CBC and see them in panic then mourning. It’d be nice to think the one good thing to come out of it all was the CBC unmasked for the fake news network it actually is. However I don’t have a high enough opinion of Canadians to think they even care.
                  1. barefoot charley December 31, 2016 at 12:35 pm

                     I was pleasantly surprised by Fox on election night. They saw what Trump was achieving literally hours before CNN or the networks had said more than “Whaa?” They delivered actual largely intelligent newscasting, while CNN dropped to its knees ransacking Wisconsin for more Hillary voters–“Big democratic precincts in Milwaukee still to come in–strangely low turnout so far . . .”–as Fox started to marvel at the historic upset in the making. An added plus, I was less surprised by my enraged and delusional fellow Democrats next morning. Official thinking had dumbthunk them.
         3. tgs December 30, 2016 at 5:48 pm

            Sorry for the double post. When I submitted the first time, I got a ‘timeout’ error. So, I tried again, and the same error occurred. Surprised to see that both appeared.
            1. PQS December 30, 2016 at 9:31 pm

               I got the same thing above! I’m really not trying to repeat myself or hog the thread.
         4. Brad December 30, 2016 at 8:36 pm

            Roginsky doesn’t seem to grasp that politically motivated expropriation of the assets of capitalist oligarchs with major world presence would set a “bad” (i.e. good) precedent. That’s why it won’t happen.
   2. flora December 30, 2016 at 4:53 pm

      Oh goody. Brazille and others want a new Gulf of Tonkin resolution? Because that one worked out well. /s
   3. LT December 30, 2016 at 11:39 pm

      Wow. I can’t bring myself to do a full sitting with cable news pundits. Lost that ability around 2009/2010. I admire your patience.

      But the beef with Putin does have a tinge if the personal. Look at the faces of Putin and Obama in photos together. It’s personal on top of everything else.
      1. different clue December 31, 2016 at 12:49 am

         I suspect its personal for Obama at the bottom of everything else. And Putin looks upset at having to deal with a pathotoxic psychomaniac narcissist.
5. shinola December 30, 2016 at 2:54 pm

   From the Politico article on The Death of Clintonism:

   (Hillary Clinton) “… accepted what was arguably the most liberal Democratic Party platform in history…”

   WTF??? I guess if you insert a qualifier like “arguably” you can ignore facts and say just about anything you want (such as: George W Bush was “arguably” the greatest president in American History).
   1. shinola December 30, 2016 at 3:35 pm

      Celeb. chef/”privileged eastern liberal” actually gets it (and states it rather succinctly)

      https://www.yahoo.com/news/anthony-bourdain-slams-privileged-liberals-for-utter-contempt-of-working-class-151215285.html

      And he does not put “white” in front of working class
   2. Foppe December 30, 2016 at 3:39 pm

      What, you old enough to remember FDR or something?
      1. Daryl December 30, 2016 at 8:34 pm

         Great Society?

         Heck, Richard Nixon’s healthcare proposal was 100x as sensible as whatever Hillary wanted to do.
6. dcrane December 30, 2016 at 2:54 pm

   Re the “end” of the Clinton project:

   I’m not so sure yet that Hillary won’t be coming back for another try. She’ll be “only” 73 in 2020 (compare to Sanders, Reagan). She so badly wanted to be president. Her loss to the misogynistic likes of Trump will be especially difficult to swallow. The Vox and Politico articles might suggest a “hive mind” that won’t take the Clintons back again, but her supporters are pushing a narrative that the election was unfairly stolen from her by the FBI and Russia. And there was a lot of money behind her that must be hurting really bad right now. I’d be relieved to hear why I’m way off base and we’ll have a new Democratic Party candidate in 2020.
   1. nippersdad December 30, 2016 at 4:16 pm

      This may make you feel better: http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/hillary-clinton-campaign-donors-post-mortem-232715

      “I’m not putting another f**cking dime in until someone explains what just happened.” Classic. She is going to have to explain how and where the last billion got burned before they are going to pony up another one. OPM just got a little more expensive, and I doubt that her sense of entitlement can afford the interest rates she will be charged.
      1. Fastball December 30, 2016 at 8:25 pm

         What went wrong? They went wrong. They turned the party into a clueless organ of arrogance and privilege. The Democrats have no base and while a billionaire can pump millions into a campaign, they only have one vote in the end.
         1. hunkerdown December 30, 2016 at 9:56 pm

            They don’t need a base when they have Beliebers. They don’t need a bench when they ARE a PR firm. They don’t need a clue when they entitle themselves to occupy a permanent role in the reality show some people call Democracy.

            They’re manspreading and violating the left’s space, and they’re 110% okay with that.
         2. Code Name D December 31, 2016 at 2:58 am

            This is not a bug, but a feature. The Democratic Party is in the business of influence pedaling. You give the dems money, they get you your tax cuts, mining leases, pollution wavers, whatever you want. But to have influence to sell, you must first win elections. It wasn’t just Clinton that was defeated here, they lost influence across the board.

            There is a fundamental contradiction at work here. To give your donors what they want, you have to ram it up the ass of the base. Push it up the ass to hard, and they stop voting for you. So there is a balance to how much you can promise to your downers and giving your base something to support.

            But Clinton never respected such boundary and treated the base like a play thing, confident they would vote for her no matter what and no matter how severe the beatings became. As a result, she made a lot of promises to donors she no longer has the ability to keep.

            Right now, they are scrambling to show that they still have influence to sell. And part of this is keeping the band together. This means keeping solid control over the memories in Congress (which they have already secured) as well as the DNC chair (which remains to be seen.)

            But they have got to have taken a major hit. The result will be a dramatic reduction in donations made to the Clinton Foundation. More than likely they will be selling future access, built on the assumption that the Democrats will sweep back into power with the next mid-terms.

            But there is also a kind of hibernation mode. Being voted out of office means becoming a lobbyist now and is just another part of the influence pedaling game.
      2. different clue December 31, 2016 at 12:56 am

         The only way I can think of to decontaminate the DemParty is for would-be decontaminators to vote against every Dparty officeseeker who can be shown to have accepted any money from any of the usual suspect big donors. The big donors won’t lose their ownership of the Dparty until every tool and fool they have had been broken and deleted. That means voting against any Dparty wannabe at any level who accepts funding outside of a Bernie-type small donations pathway.
   2. footnote4 December 30, 2016 at 5:34 pm

      But what about this from the NY Post Juiciest Psychic Predictions for 2017??

      Hillary does not fade from public life. (And, advocating change, wears a skirt?)
   3. JTMcPhee December 31, 2016 at 8:20 am

      Re “the Clantom Project,” what a nice neutral name for it: My guess is that not even the eventual (barring “tech” innovations) deaths of both Bill and Hillary will end what they were the visible operators of…
7. Vatch December 30, 2016 at 3:29 pm

   “Trump’s Extreme Oligarchy” [Simon Johnson, Project Syndicate]. “US President-elect Donald Trump is filling his cabinet with rich people. According to the latest count, his nominees include five billionaires and six multimillionaires.

   I agree about the “extreme oligarchy” classification, but along with Wilbur Ross and Betsy DeVos, who are the other three billionaires? Todd Ricketts, nominee for Deputy Commerce Secretary, doesn’t count, because he’s just a member of a family with about a billion in assets. His person net worth is less than a billion. Steven Mnuchin, perhaps? Rex Tillerson is rich, but he “only” has about a quarter of a billion dollars.

   (Sorry if this is a duplicate. My browser lost its connection when I first tried to post this.)
   1. Phil December 31, 2016 at 8:49 am

      “This is what is known as oligarchy: direct control of the state by people with substantial private economic power.”

      While “government by the rich” is commonly understood now as the definition of oligarchy, oligarchy taken in context of the entire Politics is nuanced. It is government by the few, usually the wealthy, who act for their own benefit, not that of the commonwealth, and often call themselves “aristocrats.” Their qualifications could be wealth; but they could also be birth, or even just momentary political supremacy (such as the 30 Tyrants installed by Sparta). The one thing that cannot characterize an oligarch is “virtue.” Trump’s cabinet may in fact be a cabinet of truly virtuous men and women, by American standards; who among us can say for sure? I do think Bernie was one of the very very few men of Aristotelian virtue that I have ever seen on the public stage; and they do not seem very much like Bernie.

      Whether the US has an oligarchy or not, is not the question. It’s the form the oligarchy takes that is at issue. The oligarchy that we narrowly escaped is the one of “government by a few (not especially wealthy) officials for their own benefit, rather than by the law.” That is the kind of oligarchy the Clinton gang would have perpetuated.

      Trump is possibly erecting an oligarchy of wealth; but it might also turn out to be an “aristocracy,” if the few are virtuous and govern for the public good. I guess it could happen, though I am not holding my breath.
      1. Vatch December 31, 2016 at 3:33 pm

         I do think Bernie was one of the very very few men of Aristotelian virtue that I have ever seen on the public stage; and they do not seem very much like Bernie.

         No kidding. Let’s see, Zinke stole from the Navy, Pruitt doesn’t care whether our air and water are poisoned or not, DeVos wants to deny a proper education to children who attend public schools, Price thinks women should be kept in their place, Mnuchin stole from thousands of homeowners. There’s not a whole lot of virtue there.

         You wrote a good comment, although I’m still hoping that someone will identify the names of the 5 billionaires in Trump’s proposed cabinet.
      2. hunkerdown December 31, 2016 at 7:12 pm

         I’m curious how many more times we will insist on elevating others over us against our individual and collective interests and forcing whole societies to play BDSM games in order to eat before we give up on liberalism entirely.
         1. Vatch December 31, 2016 at 8:10 pm

            Oh, so Trump and his cabinet nominees are liberals? Interesting.
8. dcblogger December 30, 2016 at 3:47 pm

   in addition to everything else, the hysteria over Russia is drowning out the effort to protect Social Security and Medicare. #FeatureNotaBug
   1. JerseyJeffersonian December 30, 2016 at 5:03 pm

      Well, you know the old trick; when The Deplorables have blood in their eye about their condition under the operational dispensation, it’s time for a war. This distracts The Deplorables through the vicarious thrill of the Oligarch-Approved Two-Minute Hate (thereby diverting their loathing and animus from its proper target, the assholes who really and truly have the power and the reckless disregard for the citizens’ well-being that are pissing in their pockets every damn day, and looking to line their pockets still more by privatizing SS & Medicare…), and may pump up the economy enough that things get – temporarily, and debateably – better for The Deplorables.

      In this instance, although Hellery and her Brain(Damaged) Think Tank of NeoCons actually want a shooting war, in the judgment (sic) of TPTB, a Cold War Redux may serve much the same function through sustaining a mostly frictionless grift operating to their benefit without the potential downside of Hellery’s panted-after real, shooting war.

      TPTB still operate under the old construct of the Reagan years of outspending their weaker rival (We will bury you!), and getting them to give up. But Volodya and his people have seen that trick before, and instead of US-favored kayfabe in defense spending (think Littoral Combat vessels, or F-35s), they have been very focused on viable, and conflict-winning weapon systems, not to mention not playing PC games with their armed forces. So they are a very serious adversary if it came to blows. You know, by the proverbial “unforseen accident”. Fortunately, Volodya, being a chess player, will not be easily drawn by a bunch of truculent, drunken cowboys into precipitate actions. Delay, get those S-500s in place, generate facts on the ground in Syria to head off the creation of Jihadistan to threaten Central Asia & their southern flank, tend to the diversification of the Russian economy, watch Western Europe (and Turkey) commit suicide (thus impressing the hell out of Eastern Europe and West Central Asia with their respective displays of probity). Consolidate.
9. BobW December 30, 2016 at 4:02 pm

   I think I know what happened! The Clinton campaign didn’t know about the Electoral College until the very last week before the election. This would explain everything – the advertising distribution, speaking locations, everything.
   1. Pat December 30, 2016 at 8:28 pm

      I’m still holding to my theory that Mook and Podesta were Russian moles.

      Although the incompetence of the Clinton campaign does fit with Hillary Rodham Clinton’s entire professional history. Her resume sounds good until you look at the work product for each bullet point. First major nominee for President, largest campaign chest of any presidential candidate, endorsements from every major newspaper and magazine, and the most hated presidential candidate ever for an opponent. What could go wrong?!?! No one here needs me to list the ways her campaign was incompetent and ill thought out. Was it Clinton’s usual incompetence OR Russian sabotage (where btw Clinton would still be incompetent because she hired them and didn’t get her campaign was out of touch.) Everyone has to decide for themselves.
      1. Marco December 31, 2016 at 4:54 am

         I was rightly chided and ridiculed here a few days ago for also suggesting something similar. It’s probably safer to accept the “death-by-a-thousand-cuts” of incompetence argument. There were so many ways HRC failed that trying to find some over-arching mono-causal explanation is pointless.
      2. Phil December 31, 2016 at 8:55 am

         Pat, you are so right. Few people have ever failed upward so hard for so long. She leaves in her wake a shambles in every single position.

         I don’t know exactly why, but I suspect it is that any good people who know her soon come to hate her, and eventually the personal animus overcomes their beneficent motivations. That leaves the nasty brutish and short crowd to fight it out, and you get something like the health care debacle. Or the MENA situation. Or basically, anything she has ever touched.
10. XFR December 30, 2016 at 4:07 pm

    It’s disgraceful that the U.S. isn’t doing more to pick a fight with another nuclear power, on the basis of a claim that is based purely on an irrational gut feeling that anything bad that happens to Clinton must be the fault of the Russians, that the government itself admits is not supported by any substantial evidence, and which every single one of the people who are actually in a position to know the truth of flat-out state is false?

    This actually makes the Iraq WMD scaremongering look sane by comparison.

    It looks like they’re doubling down after the EC fiasco. Either they mount a putsch against Trump on the 6th, or they end up as the laughingstocks of American history.

    This would really be a good time for the leakers to come forward, if they’re still alive.
    1. SeppTheBauer December 30, 2016 at 5:59 pm

       A million plus dead people and 6 trillion bucks was WMD scaremongering?
11. DJG December 30, 2016 at 4:16 pm

    Pete Buttigieg, political operator since he got out of Harvard and his Rhodes Scholarship year, former consultant to the Cohen Group, two-term mayor of South Bend? (See his Wikipedia entry for the glorious résumé–he’s the Democrats’ answer to Tom Cotton when it comes to résumé building and strategic use of military service.)

    And he’s recommended by former restaurant reviewer and pseudo-Italian-expert Frank Bruni? And do I see anything about his policies? Does he have policies?

    But he would also be the first Maltese-American president.

    I realize that the first gay president will not be Lady Bunny, but Buttigieg sounds like he’s just today’s flavor of Cory Booker. At least we know where Keith Ellison stands on some big issues. Buttigieg can wait.
    1. Isolato December 30, 2016 at 6:33 pm

       Whenever I see “Rhodes Scholar” the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Rhodes, one of the most horrific monsters of colonialism, set up the Rhodes Scholar program to co-opt rising leaders, to “convert” them to the wisdom of the English-German (yes) order of things. He was explicit. Rhodes Scholars, though plenty smart, are picked more for their evident future in the hierarchy.
       1. Annotherone December 30, 2016 at 7:53 pm

          Kris Kristofferson slipped through their net then! :)
          1. Tvc15 December 30, 2016 at 9:33 pm

             And I’ll take Kris over Bubba every time.
       2. NotTonyAbbott December 31, 2016 at 2:29 am

          Rhodes Scholars, though plenty smart, are picked more for their evident future in the hierarchy.

          Tony Abbott is a Rhodes Scholar.
12. Brave New World December 30, 2016 at 5:07 pm

    just have to share this news the link is in spanish about the results of the 10 years of war on drugs in mexico:
    1) the number of cartels….drum roll…. doubled from 4 to 8
    2) some 85 gangs appeared that were related in one way or another to the cartels
    3) 186,534 people assassinated and 28,947 persons disappeared

    does look awfully lot like the great humanitarian interventions by cia in the middle-east where the number of terrorist groups have… drum roll… grown since the iraq war.

    http://jornada.unam.mx/2016/12/30/politica/009n1pol?partner=rss

    Happy New Year to all you warriors out there. You are doing a great job!
13. footnote4 December 30, 2016 at 5:17 pm

    ‘It’s a FALLACY’ John McAfee shuts down ‘manipulative’ FBI claims of Russian hacking

    This is what the FBI and other agencies want us to believe so that they can manipulate our opinions, but I can promise you – if it looks like the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians.
    1. Arizona Slim December 30, 2016 at 5:59 pm

       The IT community is coming to the same conclusion. Citing my source:

       https://www.wordfence.com/blog/2016/12/russia-malware-ip-hack/
       1. footnote4 December 31, 2016 at 3:18 am

          Nice exposition with many screenshots – thanks for the link
14. Paid Minion December 30, 2016 at 5:34 pm

    The Trump Supporters/Fox News watchers around here are dancing in the streets, because the Great Satan Obama is on his way out. And a guy who (supposedly) is 100% Tea-Party approved is on his way in, to “run government like a business”

    LOL. Yeah, we’ll see how much they like “running government like a business” a couple of years from now. About as much as the locals around here like Sam Brownback, is my estimation.

    I’ve come to the conclusion that a significant percentage of the population doesn’t mind being under an oppressive dictator, as long as someone else is the subject of the oppression.

    And even if Trump screws them, they would rather suffer, than admit they were wrong.
    1. OpenThePodBayDoorsHAL December 31, 2016 at 2:31 am

       Easy does it dude, just because people didn’t want a serial perjurer, war- mad minion of Goldman, Monsanto and the Saudis does not mean there is any street dancing around here. But if you were “for” Obama you were “for” a free pass for Wall St crime, greatly expanded global pre-crime drone murder, health reform designed to make insurance billionaires richer, and yet more wage-destroying “trade” deals. We don’t have to be “for” the orange man to be against all of that complete and utter crap.
       1. sd December 31, 2016 at 7:12 am

          You forgot the unconstitutional indefinite detention…
    2. aab December 31, 2016 at 3:00 am

       What’s the point of this straw man slur? I know I’ve seen your handle here before. I’m pretty sure you predate me as a commenter. Why bother to type all this factually accurate nonsense?

       There are maybe a half a dozen regular commenters here who could be classified as “Trump supporters”. That’s GENEROUS — I can only think of one. There are a very small handful of leftists who comment here who stated that they voted for Trump. That’s not being a Trump supporter/Fox News watcher. I argued strongly from a left wing position that Trump was the lesser evil in Trump v. Clinton, and I stand by my position. But I was never a Trump supporter, and in fact, I voted for Bernie (legally) in the general election — in California, so don’t get your panties in a bunch. I also don’t watch Fox. I don’t even watch Democracy Now at this point — too compromised.

       Barely 50% of the population voted in the general election. There were two authoritarians on the menu, so I guess you could argue that anyone who voted for either major party candidate doesn’t mind being under an oppressive dictator (reminder that it is CLINTON who had committed crimes against the state, represented dynastic control and undermined the democratic process in the primary). But that seems like a pretty weak sauce argument. Are you arguing that the only people in America who object to be ruled by a dictator are Stein, Johnson and other third party voters and those who stayed home?

       And the cognitive dissonance problem is not limited to Trump voters. Look at all the people who voted for Obama and are still begging him to reveal his progressive heart that they know is hidden somewhere in a box, or the ones still tweeting about Hillary being a feminist hero when she’s hiding out at an upscale resort rather than oppose Trump. The underlying psychology that leads marks to resisting acknowledging they’ve been conned has no ideological component at all, AFAIK.

       So: why did you type this nonsense? Do you feel better now? Wouldn’t it be even more enjoyable to type at a site where lots of similarly dishonest or deluded people comment, so they can high five you? Daily Kos, Balloon Juice and Lawyers Guns & Money are all available.

       Try Talking Points Memo. I suspect Josh Marshall would be deeply grateful to anyone commenting over there tonight about politics instead of lipstick lesbian porn.
       1. aab December 31, 2016 at 3:02 am

          Drat. There was a posting glitch, so I couldn’t edit.

          Make that “factually INACCURATE nonsense.”

          If there are more typos, they will just have to live in infamy.
          1. ambrit December 31, 2016 at 8:29 am

             “…lipstick lesbian porn.” Hold on a minute while I pick myself up off of the floor. Now there are makeup designated subcategories of porn? What about vegan, lipstick eschewing, healthy living lesbians? We have some of those around here, living on a horse farm. They are nice as can be. Even the ‘redneck cowboys’ get along with the girls. To us out here in Flyover Country, “Lipstick Porn” is dressing up Lolitas and being very bad people. (We don’t take the corruption of children lightly. I knew a Pentacostal minister who was caught disporting himself with a sixteen year old female parishoner and paid the price. Then there was the Middle School principal who was caught with a thirteen year old ‘girl’ and “disappeared.” No one could ever get a straight answer out of the school board about that case.
15. Bugs Bunny December 30, 2016 at 6:20 pm

    I’m willing to go with the scribbly gum moth tracks versus a basket of dividend paying equities on the NYSE over next year. All in for the win.
16. heresy101 December 30, 2016 at 7:30 pm

    A little year end humor:

    Obama explained:
    https://cdn5.img.sputniknews.com/images/104913/66/1049136656.png

    Yves and Lambert’s fellow Russian stooge Alex Jones caught working with the Russians:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKDt1sS47aU&feature=youtu.be

    Wonder how much programming the Russians had to use on NC?
17. Altandmain December 30, 2016 at 7:54 pm

    Well, the chickens come home to roost.

    From Ars Techinca:
    White House fails to make case that Russian hackers tampered with election
    http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/12/did-russia-tamper-with-the-2016-election-bitter-debate-likely-to-rage-on/

    I think that everyone here knew that the Democrats just wanted to try to use this to deflect responsibility. After 2003 and the made up Iraqi Nuclear Weapons, no wonder nobody trusts the intelligence agencies.

    The Democrats just invited comparison to the GOP and their decision to go to war (although they must share some of the blame there, 40% of the House Democrats and 60% of Senate Democrats voted yes IIRC on the decision to go to war in Iraq).

    They just wanted to deflect responsibility for the fact that Clinton lost to Trump. Clinton is deeply disliked, distrusted, had scandal after scandal, and was corrupt. Despite this, she looked at Trump with contempt. It was humiliating for the Democrats and they wanted to use this as a distraction.

    When push comes to shove, it comes down to this. The Democrats didn’t serve the people but the donors. People knew, saw, and enough decided Clinton was unworthy in the key states as to cost her the presidency.
    1. cwaltz December 31, 2016 at 12:44 am

       Some of you seem to think intelligence is one sided. It rarely is. You often have conflicting information that people up higher are left to resolve. Even back before decisions were being made their were doubts about the intelligence thus the “varying reliability.”

       https://www.rt.com/usa/242421-cia-report-iraq-revealed/

       Part of the problem is we always seem to align ourselves with people who are suspect for example in the case of Iraq, Chalabi who seemed to have a lot of influence in the Iraq exile community.

       https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/may/29/iraq.usa1

       It also doesn’t help that we muted the influence of places like Germany and it’s intelligence officials who also warned us that some of the main sources for our intelligence was not reliable.

       http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-na-curveball20nov20-story.html

       Anyway people would be better off if they didn’t see things in terms of black and white when it comes to complex processes. It’s better to recognize that data can and is often manipulated by people who often have an agenda.
       1. hunkerdown December 31, 2016 at 3:05 am

          It seems more robust and more humane to reduce the complexity than increase it. Complexity is not a legitimate public interest, nor is the existence of a ruling class.

          The point is, the CIA fails to serve the public interest, only the national one, and therefore has no right to exist in an honest society. Maybe the USA isn’t that.
          1. cwaltz December 31, 2016 at 5:49 am

             I tend to believe complexity is reality. In an ideal world things would be transparent and people would engage honestly all the time. However, this isn’t an ideal world. Intelligence gathering is important in order to make good decisions.

             I do realize though that the CIA has done some questionable things(most often at the request of our government officials) and that as a result I can completely understand why some would call for it being disbanded.

             I just disagree about throwing out the baby with the bath water and wish that instead of disbanding it could be reformed to work efficiently.
             1. ambrit December 31, 2016 at 8:33 am

                The problem with reforming the “intelligence” community is that it usually ends up being a change of leadership in a systemically corrupt organization. Break it all up and eliminate the duplications of effort.
             2. John Wright December 31, 2016 at 9:26 am

                How many long standing governmental organizations ever reform from within?

                In the 1970’s there was a somewhat reform minded CIA director, William Colby.

                One can how the body politic responded to Colby’s CIA reform activity by installing two “safe” national security functionaries, G.H.W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld as suggested by Henry Kissinger..

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

                “Colby also focused on internal reforms within the CIA and the intelligence community. He attempted to modernize what he believed to be some out-of-date structures and practices by disbanding the Board of National Estimates and replacing it with the National Intelligence Council. In a speech from 1973 addressed to NSA employees he emphasised the role of free speech in USA and moral role of CIA as defender, not preventer of civil rights. He also mentioned a number of reforms intended to limit excessive classification of governmental information.”

                “President Ford, advised by Henry Kissinger and others concerned by Colby’s controversial openness to Congress and distance from the White House, replaced Colby late in 1975 with George H.W. Bush during the so-called Halloween Massacre in which Secretary of Defense Schlesinger was also replaced (by Donald Rumsfeld).”

                I’d argue that the actions of the CIA are known to foreign citizens and governments, while American citizens are purposely kept unaware (we’re simply making the world “safe for democracy” per Wilson, 1917).

                If the American people knew what was done by the CIA overseas, ostensibly for our public benefit, there might be less willingness to spend vast public sums when blowback (Chalmers Johnson’s term) occurs.
          2. Kevin Hall December 31, 2016 at 8:59 am

             You know hunkerdown, you write a lot of things that I agree with. That’s a shame, because I refuse to stand beside you and support you on any of it based on your personal attacks on me in the past.

             Does it matter? Not a bit, but I just wanted you to know.
       2. Kukulkan December 31, 2016 at 6:22 am

          It isn’t about the complexities of intelligence gathering.

          If the CIA had made a legitimate mistake in concluding that Iraq was full of WMDs in mobile labratories being driven around in the north of the country, which could be launched on 45 minutes notice and were capable of reaching the east coast of the US, that might just be an error attributable to the difficulties of the job. However, if that were the case, one would expect the agency to conduct a full review and inquiry once it turned out the conclusions were spectacularly wrong, to determine how and why they had gotten it so very, very wrong. From such an inquiry, one would expect a series of recommendations on what changes needed to be made to agency procedures to avoid such disastrous errors in the future.

          I don’t recall any such inquiry or recommendations. I certainly don’t recall anything about any changes to how the agency operates designed to avoid such errors in the future.

          This means that either:
          a) the CIA is still using the same flawed and dysfunctional procedures, so there’s no reason to think that their current work product is any more likely to be accurate;
          or
          b) the problem wasn’t with the CIA’s procedures, the problem was that the CIA supported the claims of Iraq’s WMD because their political masters asked them to, without any concern as to whether such claims were true, meaning their current work product is also likely produced to meet the demands of their political masters, with equal disregard for truth.

          Either way, there is no strong reason to believe anything they say.

          You can call this black-and-white-thinking if you want. I call it learning from experience. Fool me once and all that.
18. different clue December 31, 2016 at 12:49 am

    testing
19. Kukulkan December 31, 2016 at 5:12 am

    And Buttigieg, who is gay, has gained attention this year after being the subject of a profile in a New York Times with the title “The First Gay President?”

    Hey. It’s not like James Buchanan has a lot else to distinguish him. Let’s not take this from him.

    How about “First Openly Gay President”?

Comments are closed.