The period around July 4 is the lowest traffic period on the Internet, and your humble bloggers deserve a bit of a rest!
We’ll be at least on weekend schedule (Links + 2 posts, maybe 3) July 3 through July 5, depending on what the pickings are like. will take the day off on July 4, so no Water Cooler then.
If you are in the Northern Hemisphere, hope you can enjoy some sun, even if it isn’t a holiday week in your country. And our antipodeans are typically living in civilized countries with more vacation than we Americans get, so we hope you’ll bear up with us dialing down a bit.
And for a cheer me up:
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You guys deserve a longer break than that!
I had a chance to watch a teeny bit of the Joe Rogan experience interview with Jordan Peterson.
There is a particularly funny part where he has to do mental gymnastics to attempt to describe the benefits of forced monogamy. I don’t know if Rogan was intending on making him reason in circles, but it is well worth a watch. I’m sure it will be on youtube soon.
It’s funny, his forced monogamy argument could be transposed over hierarchical capitalism as an argument for a strong socialism, and perhaps a maximum wage. I wonder if he will ever come to see that?
Be well NC team – and thanks much for all the excellent posts of late, and all the hard work done to moderate the comments!
The forced redistribution of women doesn’t provide a model for socialism. To argue that would assume women are a commodity.
Ding!
It’s 3am Yves. Thank you for all you do but really, you should be asleep!
Ah, it’s sticky to the point of icky up here, tonight. We’re all up… discovering you cant burn the candle at both ends. https://m.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=19&v=cWzWNw0uZU4#
Enjoy the break, and please have some extra holidays.
Best regards,
Ignacio
I feel a bit sorry for Americans – Here we have 30 days of paid vacation and for most there is no “holiday weeks”, we can book them when it is convenient, there is a right to 4-weeks consecutive vacation during the summer school vacation, it’s not a duty. For my part, with children grown up and all, it means we can avoid the peak-season crowds and the price gouging.
The climate change wolf have now arrived and is sniffing at the door:
We have had almost Zero rainfall and beautiful sunshine days for the entire may-jun period. Which means that the grain harvest will underperform by about 30%. This coming year Sweden will have to import grain and foodstuff. However, the SEK is historically low (9,6 EUR/100 SEK) due to to NIRP, (-0.5% for years), this will immediately go right into the consumer prices and not only on fuel.
I’d suspect that after the election in September*, drastic action will be taken on raising rates. Following that several other measures will be needed to keep Stockholm from crashing hard, ruining the banks. The main problem is that Sweden has been suppressing wages most aggressively for decades, they are about at 1910 levels on the wages/capital income ratio, yet they also have has managed to create the most magnificent property bubble, especially in Stockholm. One will not get an apartment in Stockholm unless one can finance, somehow, 6x – 10x a normal Swedish income!
Since the majority cannot afford higher mortgage rates, disposable income has to increase and they have to tweak the lending rules too, 100 year mortgages has existed in Sweden before.
This will all be interesting to watch.
*)
The “Official Sweden” is terrified because the nationalists and anti-immigrant** “Sverigesdemokraterne”, SD, stands to make serious gains in this election. The result is that some kind of coalition government with SD becomes unavoidable and the “Swedish Brand” basically goes to hell. Any authority doing Anything at all slightly upsetting to anyone will be roundly pasted for ever after over causing “Socialdemokratiet” to lose and become smaller than SD (quite similar to another situation in the US, it simply cannot be “Their Fault”).
So much for central bank independence :)
**) Not misspelled! SD are anti-immigration too!!
It’s great to hear some news from Sweden (even though the news you report, admittedly, is NOT great). But I hope you’ll keep us posted on the goings-on there.
Very interesting that Sweden has had for some time both wage suppression and property bubbles. I wonder if suppressing wages is part of what drives people to bid up property prices, hoping to eventually sell the property and making some money; or fear that the longer they wait to buy the more unaffordable buying becomes. Sounds like the US.
It’s a result of the combination of Austerity, squeeze the peasants, combined with with exceedingly low interest rates.
The low interest rates drives all the money to speculate in real estate.
There has to be a worldwide property crash coming. The whole planet is now overvalued, with too much money in too few hands, driven by an insatiable desire for the rich to become richer, combined with the false promise of the rich “creating jobs” but in reality speculating.
aka: Right Wing “Governance.”
I [still] have a union here in Metro DC and 18 years of seniority. So I accrue five weeks of annual leave annually. The new norm in the US is two weeks of undifferentiated leave. Generous so and sos. You can use it if you get sick. Or if you want a vacation, you can use it for that, too!
Somehow I’ve managed a US job that I mostly enjoy where I get 6 weeks of vacation, plus about 6 to 8 days off for holidays. The trade-off however, is not great pay in an increasingly insanely high-priced town and otherwise fairly weak benefits (but some benefits), occasional second and third jobs as needed, and likely never being able to afford to own a home in the place I have lived since I was a teenager (couldn’t afford the place I grew up before that, either). As my partner is in a just above minimum wage job with no paid vacation, it also makes it challenging to share our days off, let alone extended periods of free time with one another. Ah, America. :/
Happy Independence Day to Yves, Lambert & the rest of the crew along with all readers & commentators in the US of A. Have a great break. And never forget what it took to make that Declaration of Independence a living document-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeqtkPR9l_0
To Yves, Lambert, Jerri-Lynn and all of Team Naked Cap –
please enjoy your break!
recharge recreate enjoy
this loyal reader appreciates you and this wonderful forum you have
created
NC team, I hope all enjoy your well earned break and a mojito or 3!
Thanks Yves and team for all that you do. Please take time to relax and recharge.
Wonderful antidote du jour!
If you didn’t take breaks and turn off comments from time to time, I could never catch up! Thanks for your outstanding work, and especially the moderation.
Yes, the NC commentariat is the best commentariat, but only because you make it so.
Even though it’s not officially fundraising season, I am sending you both checks.
It’s my July 4th nod to independence–journalistic independence!
Aside from the fact that Trump’s family were immigrants, the fellow who wrote “God Bless America” was a refugee into the US:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/arts/music/irving-berlin-god-bless-america.html
Best wishes to all for Independence Day. The Bill of Rights is the great inheritance of those of us in the U S of A–maybe even the best part of the Constitution, along with the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments (and in spite of the amendments about drinking wine and whiskey, but that’s what happens when you let the Methodists near the ale).
And, curiously, the Bill of Rights doesn’t mention capitalism or either the Rs or the Ds. And Madison, who shepherded it through, didn’t care much for chaplains, either. Things we can live without?
Looking forward to seeing Yves Smith in all her glory here in Chicago on Friday.
Enjoy your break. Here’s hoping we don’t get sudden crisis on one of your beats that makes you feel obliged to return! (And even if we do, I for one am still happy to wait a few days).
Have a great rest. Looking forward to next week.