By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
2016
On Warren and Weiss: “[T]he despair among Wall Street’s Democratic elite is growing acute” [Politico]. Interesting, if true.
Hillary camp floats trial balloons for VP: Tim Kaine (D-VA), Michael Bennet (D-CO; Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), HUD’s Julian Castro, Labor’s Tom Perez, California AG Kamala Harris [Talking Points Memo]. Cory Booker? Private equity’s BFF? Please kill me now. To be fair, thing the Hillary campaign has down to a science: Sucking all the oxygen out of the early campaign season.
Former Bill Clinton pollster: Warren closer to Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire than national polls imply, especially with a strong populist message [Wall Street Journal].
Bush the Elder tipped off The Big Dog that Jebbie was going to run, according to [Politico]. Small world…
Bafflegab from Paul, Rubio, Cruz — and these are supposed to be the principled candidates, as opposed to the clown car, or establishment, candidates — on minimum wage repeal, even at Koch Brothers beauty contest [Bloomberg]. And of course, that communist Obama wants a miserably inadequate $10.10. I’ve always wondered why the dime. Why not round up to a whole quarter?
Red meat for the base at the Freedom Summit (love the name) [WaPo]. Best line, Rick Santorum: “We need to be the party of the worker.” Let me know how that works out.
Clown Car
Jindal at prayer rally: “On the last page, our God wins” [Times-Picayune].
Ben Carson’s campaign’s chief executive, Terry Giles, aims to raise $100 million to $150 million for the first four Republican primary states [Wall Street Journal]. Even today, that’s real money.
How does a Republican win the Iowa caucus and then climb off the clown car? Or do they? [WaPo].
Bernie Sanders on deficits [The Hill]. Refreshing:
Sanders, the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, said lawmakers must address deficits in jobs, income equality, infrastructure, trade, retirement security and education in their next budget blueprint. “Investing $1 trillion over five years to modernize our country’s physical infrastructure would create and maintain at least 13 million good-paying jobs that our economy desperately needs,” the report said.
CBO on deficits: To narrow for two more years, increase in 2018 [Wall Street Journal]. So, will the resulting downturn kick in before 2016? And will whoever’s president in 2018 get a nice tailwind?
“Which Republican 2016 hopeful might be most like Reagan?” [CNN]. Depends on the results of the neurological exam, I suppose.
Herd on the Street
Stocks “tumble” at opening on data, earnings, S&P 500 down 32 points, or 1.5% [Wall Street Journal, “U.S. Stocks Tumble After Downbeat Data, Earnings”]. But perhaps storm-related light trading caused undue friskiness. Rule of 48 invoked to smooth trading.
Stocks “slide” with S&P 500 down 28 points, core sovereign bond yields “moving sharply lower amid disappointing company earnings and evidence of slowing US growth [FT, “Weak US earnings knock S&P 500”]. Wait, wasn’t I hearing at Davos that the US had the hot hand?
Stats Watch
Durable goods orders, December 2014: Unexpectedly fall 3.4% on “plunge” by non-defense aircraft [Bloomberg]. “Overall, manufacturing is soft. The outlook is questionable with the recently sharp boost in the value of the dollar.”
Consumer confidence, January 2015: Strongest reading of the recovery. Current conditions up on jobs. Expectations slightly down [Bloomberg]. “16.9 percent see fewer jobs ahead versus 14.7 percent who see more opening up.”
Corruption
Sheldon Silver is so corrupt, he corrupted an entire branch of government! [The Albany Project].
Preet Bharara on Albany’s “three men in a room” culture [New York Times].
“Why three men?” he asked. “Can there be a woman? Do they always have to be white? How small is the room that they can only fit three men? Is it three men in a closet? Are there cigars? Can they have Cuban cigars now? After a while, doesn’t it get a little gamy in that room?”
Zephyr Teachout on corruption [New York Times]. Very good.
“Political Corruption and Capitalism” [Richard D. Wolff, Truthout]. Also very good.
Big Brother Is Watching You Watch
1950s plans for martial law (“Plan C”) [Muckrock]. Sure would have been handy to have had something like that to shut down New York in case of a blizzard. Oh… Wait?
Verizon considering allowing its subscribers to opt out of being tagged with its undeletable customer codes [New York Times]. Just the sort of company we want to put in charge of the Internet.
Cops want Google to disable feature where users can add cops to Waze maps [AP].
“Avoiding Internet Surveillance: The Complete Guide” [MakeUseOf]. Can somebody smarter than I am give this a look-see?
Violence
Why not teach cops “tactical restraint”? [St Louis Today].
“The decline in school violence may have little to do with the presence of officers on campuses” [The Marshall Project].
ObamaCare
Adminstration to overhaul Medicare payment structure with HMOs ACOs [Bloomberg]. From the same team that launched the ObamaCare website!
“[T]he government wants to link payments to how well providers take care of patients” [Businessweek]. For some definition of “well.”
Class Warfare
The most unequal states in America, by Gini co-efficient, with handy map [HuffPo].
News of the Wired
- Deputy head of the Russian Central Bank directorate in the Amur region kills three, shoots self [Business Insider]. Hmm.
- Facebook outage for a whole HOUR and what am I gonna DO??? [Guardian]. Overheard at NSA….
- Download NASA sounds [NASA]. Not just “Houston, we’ve got a problem” but Cassini: Saturn Radio Emissions #1, and so forth.
- Condé Nast to use editorial staff to write advertising copy [Digiday]. Totally same skillset! Well, in fashion, maybe so….
- Worker-owned co-ops and other “alternative business models” gaining ground [Guardian].
- Church of England consecrates first woman bishop [Reuters].
- Chinese officials feast on critically endangered giant salamander and turn violent when journalists photograph the luxury banquet [Agence France Presse].
- “Vietnam: Open Secrets on the Road to Succession” [Center for International and Strategic Studies]. Hmm….
- “Here’s Why I’m Dying To Invest In North Korea” [Business Insider]. Jim Rogers.
- “The Source: Revealed at last — NC’s shadowy left-wing network” [Charlotte Observer]. I can’t even.
- “What Is the Value of History in Policymaking?” [Institute for Government].
- “Ancient underwater forest discovered off Norfolk coast” [BBC]. Doggerland!
- True facts about irony, including the failure of a typographic irony mark [Brain Pickings].
Readers, feel free to contact me with (a) links, and even better (b) sources I should curate regularly, and (c) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi are deemed to be honorary plants! See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. And here’s today’s plant (MM):
Moar orchids, very nice in winter!
If you enjoy Water Cooler, please consider tipping and click the hat. It’s the heating season!
Talk amongst yourselves!
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“Durable goods orders, December 2014: Unexpectedly fall 3.4% on “plunge” by non-defense aircraft”
http://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2014/12/oil-and-helicopters.html
almost thought you were going to explain that, bob…
commerical aircraft orders drive that report; they can be up 140% one month, down 70% the next; hence we had two moves over 10% in headline durable goods this year…
that said, new orders and order backlogs were both down even without aircraft; mostly on lower machinery and capital goods orders…what you’re seeing there is the effect of the pullback in the oil patch; none of the oil companies are ordering any new equipment…that it surprised the experts shows how little they actually pay attention to what’s going on in the economy…
There is bound to be some of that “balanced budget magic” in there too. It’s the Mides Touch only in reverse.
“Condé Nast to use editorial staff to write advertising copy”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance_Publications
Too many names for one group. Newhouse LLC sums it up nicely, and much more accurately.
Their non-profit educational arm, the Newhouse School of public communications at Syracuse University, already changed their name from “journalism” a few years ago. 3 to 1 in favor of PR at graduation.
Re: Editorial writing ads–
Back when I labored in trade mags, we wrote “advertorials” regularly. We never pretended we weren’t whores. So now the legit writers will do it too? Oh, the horror. As the old joke goes, we know what kind of girl you are, we’re just haggling over the price.
In a weird way, it may help for the adverts to be written by real writers. I had as gift subscription to The New Yorker for a while, and I recall that the advertisements were barely literate. They often had terrible photography, offset by some advert-prophetic lines like:
Lincoln TowneCarr. Edgy. Heavy. You.
I kept wondering if the literate ad copywriters may have all migrated to TV, although that seemed not so likely.
No it doesn’t help. You only have to go look at Monocle for example, which does all this. Basically they will create not only display ads but also the written advertorials, for the advertisers. Reads nicely. In fact the entire magazine reads nicely – but then you get the sense that the entire magazine is one big ad – even in the “editorial” they basically are feeding propaganda.
That’s NOT a way forward for journalism – that’s journalists so desperate that they are have become advertising agencies without declaring the truth to the reader.
Check who doesn’t pay tax if you’d like a roster of elites in a state.
In feudal times the aristocracy didn’t pay taxes. Now our ‘corporate citizens’ and the masters of their master/blaster pairing are the ones who go tax free.
Yes. In pre-1789 French, that’s why a lot of the bourgeioisie wanted to become aristocrats, and purchased titles: To avoid taxes.
Tough EU Statement on Russia Didn’t Have Greek Consent, Officials Say
From May 2014, via Ian Bremmer:
Syirza halted the fire-sale privatization of Greece’s key assets today, to the consternation of Germany, and may well pivot toward Russia, which already offered its assistance, as Ian Welsh advocates. Now THAT would be a game-changer sure to set the neocons’ hair on fire.
Investors’ rights complaint to the ICSID in 3… 2… 1…
Four dishes and one soup – that’s too extravagant for breakfast.
Re: Herd on the Street, Stats Watch, etc: This looks like a mighty fine, succinct summary of the last 15 years to me:
http://wallstreetonparade.com/2015/01/evidence-grows-showing-wall-street-as-a-negative-economic-force/
Fifteen or twenty-five years ago, we sacrificed our manufacturing jobs (not very efficient, tsk, tsk) so the whole world could benefit from our financial ingenuity.
Now, they are saying it is negative?
Re: Avoiding Internet Surveillance – The Complete Guide
I haven’t finished reading all of that yet, but it seems like really solid information. Not only are VPNs a tiny bit more secure than browsing, there’s also one (un?)intended benefit: No throttling on your internet connection as seen here: Netflix Slow on Verizon or Comcast?
To that end, I wonder how the R pivot to being “the party of the worker” is going to go.
I didn’t finish reading the article either, yet I found it awful so far. Using both Tor and a VPN is stupid and shows a fundamental misunderstanding on how they work. VPNs are only useful against certain types of tracking. For instance, every web site will still track you whether you use a VPN or not, and other than the geolocation of your IP address and maybe a Verizon tracking supercookie there is nothing protected by VPN alone.
Every website will not check whether or not you are using a VPN. I doubt that this website checks.
And depending on record keeping, it may be not that easy to identify an IP address belonging to a
VPN provider.
Hacker’s comments about “them” tracking you are right on target. If you have enough horsepower, it is simple enough to correlate messages to, say, a VPN with messages from the VPN elsewhere. And the cookies etc. go blithely through all the bounces and twisty-passages. There is some good advice. Some. Using secure links for email, messaging, etc. is a good idea but mostly against the amateur and semi-pro stalkers.
What didn’t jump out at me in the bit that I skimmed was the most obvious point. There are many online businesses whose business is, at root, surveillance. Google, Amazon, and Facebook feature capabilities that represent the outcome of deep and habitual surveillance of your interactions with them, their applications, their hidden capture points (especially advertising), and their allies. Complaining about people stumbling over material on Facebook or Twitter is just inane. The answer is, if you want to be private and on the internet, it is a lot harder than this piece implies. But it can, largely, be done if you dedicate enough care and discipline. The Electronic Freedom Foundation manifesto mentioned in Links is probably a better guide.
I agree with your conclusion.
…until we get the NSA out of domestic surveillance (stop funding them) using the Interwebs will be fraught with grief. They have the “horsepower”, you don’t. When someones sole purpose is to surveil and yours is simple obfuscation, they win in the end. Make digital dragnets illegal, throw folks in jail for it, or re-design the Web completely to render it more secure.
Even the EFF has to be watched very carefully now. Google is their number 1 “donor”.
Solid information? I saw a lot more product placement than anything useful.
The idea that you can simply “buy an app for that” is nuts. Their first idea? Using a VPN, which puts the user directly within the claimed, and so far unchallenged, legal authority of the NSA. But, there’s a handy list of people you can pay to pass all of your information through, and you can trust them….right?
The way most people want to use the internet, for “useful” things, is impossible to do without being watched or surveilled. Listicles and apps don’t solve any of this. They will take $20 a month out of your pocket to make you feel better though…
Doggerland!
We have our own Gatorland off the present Gulf Coast. These trees are really old, say 50,000 years plus.
http://blog.al.com/wire/2013/03/ancient_underwater_forest_off.html
Another version of the story with some more information:
http://www.livescience.com/37977-underwater-cypress-forest-discovered.html
Folks shouldn’t be surprised to find 10,000 year old forests underwater. As the Ice Age ended (18,000 YA) ocean levels began to rise, submerging more than just forests. It is believed that early colonizers crossing Beringia land mass (now Bering Sea) and moving down along the west coast of N, America have had their artifacts submerged by the increasing sea levels (more than 300′). I imagine the same goes for Central, South America, as well as Doggerland.
I see it already- 50,000 year old hardwood floors!
Someone is going to “log” them if they are as well preserved as they claim, and in only 60 feet of water.
There are “logging” outfits that trawl old logging river routes to find submerged, and often very valuable, logs left over from the first clearing of the US.
Wood doesn’t rot underwater, as long as it stays completely submerged. Lots of 1800’s engineering underground relied on this property of wood within high water table areas. Keep it underwater, and it should last forever, or at least 50,000 years.
The local paper last year ran an interview with the people who are investigating this site. One main reason they cited for keeping the location secret was to prevent harvesting of the wood for specialty uses. One mentioned that the wood was perfect for some types of musical instrument construction. Having lived in a house made from cypress wood ‘recovered’ from the Pearl River delta as you described, I can attest to the beautiful quality of these woods. First growth trees have a distinct quality all their own and bring a premium.
Drat. I thought I was going to read about Naked Capitalism’s “shadowy left-wing network”. That could have been an interesting article.
Who are in the “radical liberal left”? Do they have long arguments with themselves about Obama? (One of the best presidents ever? Or the more effective evil‽ I cannot decide!)
“Revealed at last — NC’s shadowy left-wing network” … but that’s not a picture of Yves??? Huh?
Get a clue you guys. It’s like the NY cab drivers who used to talk to me about “Carolina” not realizing there are two of them. I mean they were vaguely aware that there might be two but, you know, why bother.
NC, proud home of Andy Griffith. I live in the other one.
My family is from the East Coast – but for them, “East Coast” refers to the states from Maryland to Massachusetts, and maybe up to Maine.
So where are these two “Carolina’s” that you speak of? Somewhere on the Gulf of Mexico, maybe?
I grew up mainly in Miami, Cuba del Norte. A lot of those East Coast types used to live around here. (Now they’re generally up around Vero Beach and points north.)
Thanks for drawing attention to worker co-ops. Here’s some more good news from Madison, WI:
$5 Million for Co-op Development in Madison
There’s also a lot of talk among tech co-op folks about building some cooperative alternatives to “Sharing Economy” platforms like Uber and AirBnb:
Co-ownership and the Sharing Economy
Things are hoppin’ in co-op land…
I really, really object to the misnomer the “Sharing Economy.” It’s the Renting Economy. Even if the property or item being rented out is owned by a co-operative (which would be fine), the co-op is sharing among its members the ownership of the property, item or service being offered to the public (and presumably the proceeds of the rental). It would still charge members of the public for the use of said stuff. That is NOT sharing.
It’s the “Piecework Economy.”
That’s better.
Totally agree. Hence the scare quotes. However, it’s the terminology that’s being used and it seems to have stuck, so if you want people to know what you’re talking about, you gotta use the lingo…misleading or not.
But I’ve often made the point that if money is being exchanged, it is NOT sharing. Rental economy is way more realistic but it doesn’t sound nearly as hip (and renting has an overtone of poverty about it).
There are terms that bug the he’ll out of me – one being “activist investor”. I’ve also had issues with “sharing economy” and thought it should be the hustling economy or pimping economy if you’re looking at it from Uber’s perspective.
+1000 on activist investor.
“Rental economy is way more realistic but it doesn’t sound nearly as hip (and renting has an overtone of poverty about it).”
I was recently in the company of some very wealthy people who regard Uber as the only way to get around — because yes, it is hip. And also, it is cheap. And no one is as cheap as rich people. They will tell that’s why they’re rich–because they’re so frugal. If you were as careful with your money as they are, you could be just as rich, etc.
But what actually surprised me was that these very affluent folks had–and touted– “Uber accounts” for their children. They regard it as a great convenience. Much easier than having to go pick the kids up themselves. Just have the kids use their I-phones to summon an Uber chauffeur. Apparently it did not occur to these parents that there might be any safety issues with entrusting their children to a completely unregulated and unaccountable service. Because, you know, it’s cool. And SO convenient.
Sometimes I think you have to be poor or middle class to have any common sense whatsoever. The stupidity of these people is just overwhelming. May it sink them before they starve all of the rest of us.
Not sure about the link. This is my hometown and it’s the first I’ve heard of this. $1 million year starting in 2016 subject to council approval. Would be nice if it happened.
It happened, whether you heard about it or not:
I recall earning the $1.90 minimum wage working at McDonald’s in 1974, which depending on which online calculator you use translates into $9.20 – $10.00 in today’s money. So based on AVERAGE cost of living a $10.10 minimum wage looks reasonable.
However, studies show that over that time period the real cost of basics like housing, education, and medical care have skyrocketed, while costs for things like TVs have fallen. So the average cost of living masks important differences in what the minimum wage today will buy compared to back then.
Yep, you’re certainly right. i remember working for minimum wage around that time and you could actually live on it–I rented a small apartment for $75 a month. You lived frugally, but had far more spending money than a McDonalds worker nowadays.
Well do I remember making minimum wage back in ’71 and ’72. After giving some to Mom, (I did live there after all,) I still had what felt like a good bit of brass in pocket. (Actually, I played the market with most of what was left, and came out a winner. Try doing that now.)
Not only is the Minimum Wage a joke, but the fate of the small investors on Wall Street has become a Grand Guignol spectacle.
The continuing crisis of monotheism:
–Jindal at prayer rally: “On the last page, our God wins”–
The problem is that much of the Bible is exactly that. Yahweh smiting the lesser god. The Apocalypse, in which the twelve-headed beast is vanquished. So Jindal is right. It’s eschatology that is a disease in the Western psyche.
The ancient Hebrews weren’t monotheists. They were henotheists who accepted the existence of multiple gods, but who only worshiped one of those gods.
Thou shall have no other gods before me.
‘It’s OK for them to be after me.’ – one interpretation.
‘Don’t bring them over before me.’ – another’
‘They can be before me, but it better not be your doing (Thou shall have no…).’ – another interpretation. That is, you just run along and play in the Garden…the other garden.
All wrong of course, my learned friends told me.
St. Augustine sure did spin a good conquest-from-beneath narrative, didn’t he. Which explains why political Christianity has to pretend to be persecuted in order to have any credibility. The matter-worshippers from the liberal bourgeoisie must know they’ve been reduced to enablers by now.
I think this is rather funny. “Panicked super rich buying boltholes with private airstrips to escape if poor rise up”:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/panicked-super-rich-buying-boltholes-5044084
Mars beckons.
My wife heard about this perhaps 5 years ago when we were living on the North Shore of Long Island renting an old two-family house. She taught high school and wealthy parents talked about this openly (because, like servants, they didn’t actually consider teachers people whom you have to speak discretely in from of). They were all investing in “farms” and “ranches” out in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado. Many people have laughed that the bubbas will eat them alive, but I fear the bubbas are so inured to American ideology that they will in stead prove mighty deferential to these ultra-rich lords and masters (and a force of exceptionally well-armed private security guards won’t hurt, either).
$10.10 is just meaningless ones and zeroes to Obama: garbage in, garbage out. You ask “Why a dime? Why not a duck?” He no give a duck. That’s why a dime.
Make it $17.76 or you’re no patriot, Barry. Go back to Soviet Russia! (Of course I understand it would need to be over $21 to make up for all the erosion that’s happened since the last real Democratic President.)
They probably think it’s catchy. Ten-Ten. I bet some ad agency douchebag got paid $20,000 to come up with that one.
$17.76 is a lot more catchy. PASS IT ON.
Yes, I like it a lot. It sounds much better than $15.00, which is what activists are going for, and which — hold on to your hats here, folks — Obama gutted with $10.10.
This is really apropos of nothing in today’s news (though it does connect with the deficit talk), but a while back someone mentioned a desire for a series of posts debunking common Federal Reserve myths. I want to second that request. Further, MRW a few days ago mentioned that he had acquired gigabytes of information and folders of physical documents from various government agencies in his quest to understand the minute mechanics of our currency and whether MMT’s claims are correct. I would very much like to see some of those. I’m especially interested in information regarding the shredding of money at the Federal Reserve, since I’ve seen quite a bit of back and forth on this issue around the internet, with critics claiming it doesn’t happen and the procedure for it doesn’t appear in any manuals.
For me, the trees are the minute mechanics.
The forest, then, is letting the people have the first, direct and immediate access to new money.
Honestly, ya can’t make this shite up: Pentagon creates essay contest to honor Saudi king: Washington Examiner
Bialystock and Bloom……
LOL! Thanks for the laugh!
Extreme personalized fitness tech goes mainstream:
Workouts get smart, streamlined with tech-personalized routines | Reuters
I sense a large – and at present shockingly underexploited – third-party targeted marketing opportunity here. Imagine you’ve had an especially rough day at your work, to the extent that you even struggled to keep the treadmill attached to your new high-tech standing desk moving sufficiently to power your work computer, monitor and phone. Now you’re at your local hi-tech wired-to-you gym, and struggling even more than usual through a set of crunches. Presto! A high-tech curvy bar lowers down, blocking you from your next crunch, and a built-in LCD screen displays a targeted ad for an electrolytic miracle fitness drink, with several nose-level widgets displaying options including “no thanks,” “tell me more,” and “order me a caseload.” You would continue your interrupted crunch and simply move your head slightly to point your nose at the desired option. For “try before you buy” incentivized marketing there could also be a “try a free sample now!” option, which would release a (disposable) Camelback-pack-style flexible tube you would stick in your mouth to dispense an ounce or so of the stuff. How cool would that be?
Buy the book:
Shady Characters:
So many things shall be revealed! Well worth it!
Just a note on Social Security mortality study I found while searching on the topic of “mortality by income level.”
Shockingly, but not surprisingly, recent decades have shown a growing differential in life expectancy for male adults:
Really?
I wonder what the differential is for men in the 18-30 bracket? Or those without substantial SS earnings history?
In any case, it’s bad, and growing worse. Income disparity.
In related news, white women are dying earlier than their mothers, especially those with high school level education or less.
Job creators, indeed. For the funeral directors.
Yikes!
a few days late, but
and…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2015/jan/23/community-energy-companies-big-six-big-society
Note that in the martial law Plan C the ten “Regional Mobiliztation District” cities (page 24) are all Federal Reserve Districts. Go figure.
Two political rejoinders:
=> Santorum won the Iowa caucuses in 2012… my hunch is that serious candidates will skip Iowa and go to NH where a VOTE takes place
=> Bernie Sanders should not be dismissed as a viable contender… he may be the voice in the wilderness that finally gets heard, heeded, and elected…