Personality Research in Mammalian Farm Animals: Concepts, Measures, and Relationship to Welfare Frontiers in Veterinary Science
We’ll All Be Eating Bugs Sooner Than You Think Bloomberg
Could California Flame Out? Wolf Street (EM).
Cities’ Offers for Amazon Base Are Secrets Even to Many City Leaders NYT
The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars Vice (TS). In Massachusetts, the only state with a “right to repair” law (see NC here and here).
The great German sand shortage Handelsblatt
A copper-bottomed sign: why the metal is telling us to panic FT
Ten years after the financial crisis The Economist
Syraqistan
A double-flash from the past and Israel’s nuclear arsenal Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
‘We Need Equality’: Tens of Thousands Attend Druze Rally Against Nation-state Law Haaretz
Saudi Arabia to freeze new trade with Canada, recalls ambassador CBC
Three Reasons Why ‘Fire and Fury’ Won’t Work With Iran Scott Ritter, Truthdig
Brexit
Political bigwigs say Britain is on course to leave the EU without a deal Quartz. Liam Fox, Mark Carney.
The WTO has become dysfunctional Dani Rodrik, FT
Head of German secret service advised far-right Alternative for Germany WSWS. How nice for both of them.
China?
China’s Minsky moment beckons Asia Times
Number of people sleeping in Hong Kong McDonald’s branches skyrockets, as residents battle high rents and substandard housing South China Morning Post
Trump’s Tariffs Push Electronics From China to Southeast Asia Bloomberg
Kashmir’s war gets smaller, dirtier and more intimate Irish Times
A wave of war memorials is coming to D.C. Are we all at peace with that? WaPo
New Cold War
In a change, Trump says meeting’s purpose was Clinton info AP
Trump vs. Mueller: Bill Clinton’s Starr Strategy Meets Twitter Andrew McCarthy, National Review. Before the link above.
* * * The Trump-Putin friendship could be all about oil and China The Conversation
Venezuela’s President Maduro Survives Assassination Attack On Live TV Venezuelanalysis
Trump Transition
3 Takeaways After First Week of Manafort Trial Roll Call
How A Questionable Tech Contract Jeopardized Food Stamps at Farmers’ Markets Talk Poverty
Our appellate courts are too politicized. Here’s one way to fix it. Hal Singer.
The Fog of Immigration Project Syndicate
Democrats in Disarray
The Progressives’ Plan to Win in 2018 The Atlantic. “[P]rogressives offer up Alabama as a test case: In December, Doug Jones became the first Democrat elected to the Senate from the state in 25 years with the help of 96 percent of black voters.”
Democrats’ 2020 presidential fight gets an early dress rehearsal Politico
The Third Way Is a Death Trap Jacobin
Just why is the Obama Center heading to Jackson Park? Crain’s Chicago Business
Health Care
Slow rollout, more fine print with Trump health care options AP
Virgin awarded almost £2bn of NHS contracts in the past five years Guardian. Well, well; see NC here, just two days ago.
Our Famously Free Press
The local-news crisis is destroying what a divided America desperately needs: Common ground Margaret Sullivan, WaPo. Oddly, no mention of private equity.
‘The Onion’ Proudly Stands With The Media As The Enemy Of The People The Onion
Michelle Moravec — The Endless Night of Wikipedia’s Notable Woman Problem b2o
Ankle Monitors Aren’t Humane. They’re Another Kind Of Jail Wired
Class Warfare
Uber drivers strike across Australia this morning Courier Mail
Gig Firms Ask California Dems to Rescue Them From Court Ruling Bloomberg
Atmospheric carbon last year reached levels not seen in 800,000 years Science
To Freeze the Thames New Left Review
Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not “Human Nature” Naomi Klein, The Intercept
Excess Management Is Costing the U.S. $3 Trillion Per Year Harvard Business Review. From 2016, still germane.
Antidote du jour (via):
And also from Richard Smith, an anti-antidote:
We’re going to need a bigger rock!!! At least 60 seals huddled up on there ? #KillerWhales #caithness The pod are still in the area, seen just across the firth at the southern entrance to Scapa Flow today. pic.twitter.com/8pETgwbM2w
— Karen Munro (@kasmunro) August 4, 2018
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
208 comments
Comments are closed.
Thank you, Lambert.
Further to your link about the German internal security service’s links to the AfD, in Blighty the links are, as far as one sees, don’t extend to UKIP etc. (yet), but they are pressed into service for the cause of neo liberals and neo cons.
A couple of weeks ago, Michael Hayden and Sir John Sawers, former UK ambassador to the UN and former head of MI6, were interviewed on Channel 4 News. Trump, Corbyn and Putin were given a good kicking.
Sawers’ predecessor, Sir Richard Dearlove, is a leading light in UK neo con and Brexiteer circles. Dearlove’s son, Mark, chaired the oversight committee for Li(e)bor, but was quietly promoted to head his employer’s Asia Pacific activities when the brown stuff hit the fan. Dearlove junior has never been questioned about Li(e)bor. One wonders why.
Re: “The Rogue Tesla Mechanic Resurrecting Salvaged Cars”. I stumbled across (or was directed across by algorithms) this guy a few weeks ago and basically binge-watched 3-5 of his videos a day. The guy is amazing and entertaining.
“I’m sorry sir, we’re unable to sell you that part. That VIN has been invalidated”
Holy crap, who in their right mind would EVER consider that type of repair and maintenance environment?
The only 4 words any wage slave should ever consider for a transportation appliance: Civic, Corolla, Camry, Accord. Practically any normal repair or maintenance part you would ever need in a quarter million miles of driving available over the counter on demand even on Sundays and installable by any garage.
I suppose one could see licensed car parked on the street and copy the VIN from the little tag visible from the windshield. Strictly for purchasing parts, mind you.
He’s amazing isn’t he!
Cant believe I didn’t realize until that video how horrible the green washing is at Tesla.
I find it repulsive that they act like they’re trying too save Mother Earth yet do not support 3rd parties being able to salvage their wrecked vehicles.
Updating their Carbon Impact link should include that data.
Is #SingleUseCar a thing yet ?
RE: China’s Minsky moment beckons Asia Times
After reading this article i went for this other also in Asia Times: Why China’s 6.7% growth is actually bad news which I found very interesting. The article underscores the failure of Xi Jinping to restructure the economy reducing the dependence on debt fueled investments. It blames specifically the great power and influence of SOEs in the process. All of this means that any adjustment in China WON’T be smooth and Xi is loosing control. When and how are still open questions but the adjustment will be painful.
re: Just why is the Obama Center heading to Jackson Park?
great article! hoping this genuinely revolting bit of manifestly decadent over-reach dies the death it so richly deserves. if you simply must, as the article points out, there’re plenty of other/better locations for this white elephant…
And it’s a “center,” not a “library.” Hidden message eve in the appellation “center?”
Good catch.
Libraries are (currently) still free.
I strongly suspect not all areas of that ‘center’ will be free to access.
“c enter stage ‘right’ …
Jackson Park is a trophy site. Obama is so self-centered that he doesn’t care that it is historic. Its historic nature makes it more desirable to him. It makes manifest his importance. Its inaccessibility to transit also is a plus. The Aspen and Davos set will never have to encounter the riff riff as they arrive in limos for the TED Talks. So much for the community organizer.
And the Pharoah’s free view of Lake and City from atop his pyramid will be fittingly magnificent!
How lovely to entertain emissaries come from afar, after playing golf on what will essentially be his private course (to be designed for him by Tiger, to use whenever he wants it)!
Surely the mugs in Chicago will not begrudge his majesty this small symbol of their eternal thanks.
Meanwhile, O’s boy Rahm — happy to kick in a trifling $175 million which Chicago does not have — is dancing while the Community Leader’s people are shooting up the place faster and faster. Must be clinging to their guns…
>Pharoah
Christ, the design for the ‘Center’ reminds me of the temple complex at Karnak:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/architecture-org/files/pages/obama-foundation-presidential-library-01-2.jpg
https://cdn.britannica.com/700×450/01/178001-004-1CDC6202.jpg
And he’s ‘leasing’ public land for a whole $1. The degree to which Obama just doesn’t care about appearances anymore is staggering.
It makes manifest his importance.
This marks why Obama was destined to be a non-entity in the White House whether he was merely greedy or completely devoted to the men in suits. Even as President of the United States of America, Obama remains reliant on other celebrity statuses to represent himself.
Its the opposite of Augustus’ boast about finding Rome a city of brick and leaving it a city of marble. The monument was the Pax Romana, the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health.
FDR wasn’t a man of action (very much unlike General Washington), but he had his alphabet soup which is his own monument. Any President can succeed if they grasp, they are the President. They make history. They don’t borrow it.
But besides the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health … what have the Romans ever done for us? [/python]
“Brought peace?”
“Oh peace? Shut up!”
How fitting, a 235-foot tall ego monument to the world’s most notorious charlatan on confiscated public property, courtesy of crony Rahm Emanual. He fleeces his marks again. I can so hear that trademark chuckle.
It will be too big to tear down in the future like a statue of Stalin or Sadaam Hussein when the neoliberal world odor Obama championed crashes and burns, so I wonder how it will be repurposed.
It really should be referred to most accurately as the “Mausoleum” both to his sullied anf besmirched reputation, and someday in the not too distant future his hubristic “remains”
And then there are all the people being displaced from what was affordable housing in the area as landlords send out letters announcing rent increases of up to $250 a month. Presumably, if those don’t oust that riff-raff, they’ll go up another bunch in a year as the leases come up for renewal.
“I am Ozymandias, King of Kings
“Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair
“Nothing beside remains…”
Maybe it’ll end up like the Lighthouse of Alexandria (which unlike this ‘Center’, actually served a public purpose), which was toppled by a natural disaster, the spot and some of the materials later being used for a fort (which also served a public purpose).
That would present an interesting sight to see the Pharoah’s statue being torn down! :)
Just an “FYI” for anyone as captivated as I was by today’s antidote du jour, the source tweet misidentifies the photo according to Snopes.com:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/frogsicles/
The actual frog exhibiting this behavior is simply called a “Wood Frog”.
Thank you!
I appreciate you investigating & sharing the results with us.
Well done!
Maduro assassination attempt: Bolton denial of US involvement invites careful parsing, total disbelief based on “history.”
Quoth Bolton, per the linked article, “Without a doubt there wasn’t any participation from the US government in the absolute.” Maybe then in the “relative?” Maybe for some definition of “the US government”? “ I did not have sex with that drone”? See past denials of involvement, e.g., in trying to slip a poison into Castro’s ice cream, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/fidel-castro-ice-cream/561725/, or a drug to cause his beard to fall out in a loaded cigar, the “displacement” of Allende, and so many more “incidents?”
Hey, whatever happened to our Comrade Haygood, who might have something to say about this Venezuela event?
And I have been wondering what ever happened to our dear icon, Kermit the Frog — did Miss Piggy freeze him out in one of her snits?
Haygood was nixed by Yves some days ago.
And not a moment too soon. His broken record takes on MMT and Venezuela won’t be missed.
If the above is true then there must have been a good reason. But some of us have enjoyed JH’s sallies over the years. Real writing talent is a rare thing.
Disagreeing with Haygood was part of my daily routine. I looked forward to it.
Yes, he was a good reminder that we need to keep searching for truth.
Ditto.
i will miss his posts, overall. writing talent and wit, and an original perspective outside of his hobby horse topics.
I didn’t catch whatever it was he was nixed for, but will also miss seeing his posts. Even though I often disagree with him, I think it’s good to have contrary opinions around to keep everyone on their toes.
You can read NFIB press releases.
A little dryer on the wordsmithing but the message is the same.
All of you say this about Haygood, but at the same time he repeatedly broke the rules here. The fact that we has allowed to do this for literally years shows extreme restraint on the part of Yves and Lambert, which I applaud, but it was only a matter of time until their good will wore out with him being unwilling to adhere to site policies.
He expressed a philosophical objection to paying for media or online content on any terms, and shared some tips on how to subvert paywalls, steal material etc.
“Don’t feed the media” is a direct quote from his comment. On a recent Calpers thread.
Yves asked him why he thought authors and editors should work for him for free and said that was tantamount to telling the hosts at NC to go die. She told him he was no longer welcome here.
And, as it turns out, he has never contributed a dime to NC. That really surprised me.
Oh wow, the guy who bitches about big Venezuelan government a few times a week apparently doesn’t like actually paying for ANYTHING. Surprise surprise.
That hardly seems fair in light of this:
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/06/links-6-3-18.html#comment-2977428
The Financial Times, like some paywalled sites, allow for people to access their stories via Google search because it elevates their rankings in Google’s search algos. This is not a circumvention, it is specifically allowed by the FT. The Washington Post also allows for access to a certain # of stories this way. Plenty of other sites don’t allow for that, such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Economist, the Times of London, the Telegraph, etc.
‘Writing talent’ doesn’t mean anything when all you have are a litany of objectively wrong opinions. It’s just finely polished bullshit.
I don’t miss Haygood one bit. I do however miss James Levy, if anyone remembers him. His posts were consistently of actual worth. IIRC he was never banned, instead he left in a huff when the NC commentariat refused to jump on the ‘Trump is a fascist, be afraid’ bandwagon. His parting comment was a hilarious and tonedeaf technocratic screed where he listed off all his credentials and bragged how he never posted under a false name.
You are correct re Levy, and he was a valuable contributor, but some people have loyalty tests and we didn’t pass his.
I did like Haygood’s market tidbits, but he started getting more and more dogged re his hobbyhorses.
Jim tried the impossible, expressed ideas and then acted out just the opposite w/ complete disdain for others. I’ve never witnessed Yves ban anyone without some serious reason, even if it hurts the bottom line.
I concur from the simple point of capitalism and property rights, Jim showed complete disregard for others rights, especially wrt income, and his savings for dismissing others rights to their own labours fruits.
His value is all that matters and everyone else can die.
You are really overstating your case. I don’t think you should attack somebody who is not around to reply.
You would have to go back years Carolinian, viewing conversations Jim and I had, let alone others like down south. I think there was a bit of a theme about it all.
I’ll just repeat what I said and btw I do go back years. Let’s not engage in 5 cent psychoanalysis of commenters who are now absent.
His views on his paper rights wrt 3rd world debt, see Hudson’s post today for more insight.
He could be come a new lord over at ZH, so there is that.
nixed?
’tis a pity, as he was one of the star attractions below the line…
Oh crap what will I do without the 5 horses apocalypse graphic?
In other words if you know the new url where he is posting his 5 horses apocalypse please post.
google search on (horses apocalypse haygood facebook apple microsoft amazon) pulls zilch.
awwww no more cheerleading for the Oligarchs he was so smart to buy when they were just aspiring monopolists?
JH was every baby boomer I’ve ever worked for and most of the ones I’ve known in any capacity. Tears are not welling up, is what I’m saying.
Really? Jim Haygood a baby boomer? What were the tells?
I always thought he was a gen Xer or maybe a highly class-status-lucky millenial based on his libertarianism and especially on his constant “its going bankrupt” tropes against Social Security. His bigotry against Social Security seemed a most un-boomer thing to me.
So . . . what were the tells?
you think rich boomers give a damn about social security?
I never understood the point of giving that thing half a screen’s worth of space in the Water Cooler every flaming day. It just seemed like another bit of low-grade snark fuel for Mr. H.
Of course it does not help Bolton’s denials when it is a Miami-based group that is making public statements on behalf of this group. It is a good thing that those marksmen shot down those drones. There is footage at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFuH9wH4PTY showing one of these drones exploding and you can imagine the effect if they had gone into the crowd and gone off.
Looks like somebody decided to recycle the drone kamikaze program used in Syria against the Russians and you can expect this to be a more common thing. Not really a new idea though. Saw the same featured in an episode of the 1960s TV program ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ using a remote controlled model plane packed with explosives.
It’s scary to look up the publicly available information on the many drone programs the US military is pursuing. Remember that “Slaughterbot” fake CEO announcement video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjEtE3MN1SY You ain’t seen nothing yet — purely autonomous drone bots of all sizes, armed, some even “self-healing,” can’t hardly wait for the ones that are able to replicate themselves (a SciFi nightmare going back generations [of humans]). http://dronecenter.bard.edu/drones-in-the-defense-budget/ for a kind of big picture, but here’s a nice sales piece for one set of tiny drones, supposedly just to “enable real-time decision making in support of the mission.” No comment on what the “mission” in all those “urban settings” is, other than to “find, fix and kill the enemy.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z78mgfKprdg
“Unobtrusive. Pervasive. Lethal. The UAVs of the future will enhance the capabilities of the future warfighter…” to do what, again? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FezQG_hXeJI
thanks for the links, JTMcPhee! Though when the implication of these types of new killing technologies are discussed, I always have the same comment which is… isn’t it pretty darn easy to kill someone -anyone- already? isn’t it the maximum sophistication you’ll need to murder anyone a simple sniper rifle?
Though that comment is of course coming from an ignorant place since I haven’t put more than half a minute’s thinking to the matter, and I perfectly well understand why the simplicity of the affair wouldn’t deter society from coming up with ever more sophisticated ways of going about it.
A .308 sniper rifle, or the coming replacement ( a result of “fierce competition for the contract, see here for secret details, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQ8d4V8iis ), or even a Barrett .50, https://www.military.com/equipment/m107-50-caliber-sniper-rifle-lrsr, that will turn a “HajjiWog” into “pink mist” at half a mile or more, is a piece of Durable Military Equipment that only gets bought once or rarely replaced. Though you do have to credit the “arms industry” for working hard to develop bullets for the sniper rifles that can be guided to the target, http://futuretechreport.com/self-guided-smart-bullets-future-sniper-rifles/, instead of having to rely on the killing talents and breath control and finger squeeze of the big brave kill-from-a-mile-away sniper, and now a computer sighting system, https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/05/15/184223110/new-rifle-on-sale, that makes all the corrections for windage, bullet drop, range, gravitational anomalies and such, and makes it ever easier to just put the crosshairs right on the target human,,, actually, mount it on a little tracked robot chassis, and you don’t even need a human in the loop to pull the trigger! or make the targeting decisions on who to shoot!
Ever seen a Dalek rolling around? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxD-5z_xHBU
There’s darn little ongoing profit potential in these items. On the other hand, single use kamikaze drones produce a Supply Chain a mile long, with takeouts for profit at every twist and turn… Plus, making millions or billions of these things, with ever-improving autonomy and lethality, gets us ever closer to the much improved world that the Terminator series of autonomous assassins will be coming from. Oh, of course, that’s just a movie… Never happen in the real world…
If this becomes a common practice, no one and nothing will be safe. What audacity!
It’s not “if.” It is already happening. The visible stuff is the procurements and deployments of ever more “sophisticated” murderous and miniaturized weapons (growing out of the ‘toy’ fascination with those cute little drones that kiddies get for christmas). Added to the infinite inventiveness of people who just have to see if something can’t be made “smarter” and also kill people, because that’s so much fun…
This is just the beginning– there are great good-paying middle class jobs developing the stuff that will be used to kill so many of us mopes. It’s like so many of the really cool multi-player combat games, which get ever more “sophisticated” too…
BTW, “sophisticated” used to mean “adulterated, corrupted, defiled, polluted, vitiated….”
That does seem to be the Plan, and sooner rather than later… feeling those
side walls of the cattle chute yet? I am.
Interesting. Color me utterly unsurprised by Bolton’s specious “denials.”
I had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life yesterday, but I could swear that some [family blog] from BigSpy, Inc, was rabbiting on NPR yesterday about how it “wasn’t clear” that what happened was a drone attack. The [family blog] liar on NPR said something about a propane gas explosion in a nearby apartment building.
I mean: really?? Like I believe that… NOT.
And so, Chapter 9,534,823 (a) as to why no one should ever listen to ONE word coming out some BigSpy, Inc “spokesperson.”
Someone placed a snarky comment to that effect on one of the TeleSur pieces about it. Somewhat later, I saw a photo of the building I assume was alleged to be the site of the explosion, and none of the debris was extruded. It was clearly an impact site.
One wonders if there will be a similar “propane explosion” in Nicaragua soon.
Given that Carlos Ortega seems to be transforming himself into the “Somoza 2.0” of a new generation, one wonders if he will finally be overthrown in a really huge armed public movement; from which he will flee to Paraguay where he meets up with a “propane explosion”.
Someone might want to invent a shotgun based on few-but-very-heavy balls per shell to have a chance at downing such drones even with only-fair marksmanship. Or perhaps little fleets of counter-drones all controllable by one or a few controllers to fly up and at the attacking drone to destroy it in a swarm attack.
Kermit has been laying very low since his cousin Pepe started to ‘deGreen’ the clan’s reputation. I would trot out some silly meme play like that ‘K’ is ‘hopping mad,’ or somesuch but, ‘K’ is really quite ‘cool’ about it.
“‘The Onion’ Proudly Stands With The Media As The Enemy Of The People”
Ha, the Onion does it again. They write a story that is basically a recap of the truth of the situation and gets away with it by having it appear in their magazine as humour. Well played sirs, well played.
“Excess Management”—
So Graeber’s “bullshit jobs” point catches on with the crowd on the south side of the Charles. Their number is 21+ million useless management jobs.
It’s almost as if the neoliberal economy, touted as ruthlessly efficient, was really just a wasteful, even destructive jobs program for the 10%, offered by the billionaires to maintain that cohort’s loyalty in repressing and exploiting the rest of us.
+1 Henry.
“Capital commands labor; amassed things, that which is dead, are of superior value to labor, to human powers, to which is alive.” Fromm, pg78 The Art of Loving
“What is the outcome? Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow man, and nature.” pg79
It’s almost as if…
Yes, hard to tell the diff.
Now manufacturing what Peter Turchin calls “surplus elites”, one of the necessary preconditions for a revolution!
The article on notable women in Wikipedia does not look convincing.
Duh!
Wouldn’t the same be true for males? They are also likely to be included if they founded an institution or participated in a historically significant event. Also in general, if throughout most of the recorded history women were denied a chance to be leaders and generally impact the society in a major way, it’s quite natural that there are less women who succeeded.
For Wikipedia to provide equal representation of women, it would have to be blind to historical inequality. Moravec’s method of looking for notable women who are missing, and for examining why particular women are or are not present is promising (e.g. she finds that women are often present because of their association with notable men). But without an appropriate comparison or control, many of the results are meaningless. Are notable men missing? Are men also present because of their association with notable women?
I find this kind of sloppy thinking among scholars astounding. It’s highlighted by her claim about race: “Wikipedia’s content is biased not only by gender, but also by race and region . . . A concrete example of this intersectional bias can be seen if the fact that ‘only nine of Haiti’s 37 first ladies have Wikipedia articles, whereas all 45 first ladies of the United States have entries.'”
This reveals nothing about race! You can’t compare a small, desperately poor country with one of the richest, most powerful countries in history, then say that lack of attention paid to the former is due to racism among editors. Why not class prejudice? Racism has certainly contributed to the poverty and marginal status of Haiti in world affairs, but that’s a different issue than bias among editors.
The most interesting claims she cites is from other scholars, but she only provides conclusions, not analysis; with the weaknesses in her own thinking, it’s impossible to take her representation of those claims at face value.
Wikipedia has tremendous problems: cliquishness, ideological conformity, a preference for impenetrable jargon over clear writing. Just the other day I talked to a top scholar whose Wikipedia contribution on the history of his field was removed because… reasons (history? who needs it!). I have little doubt that Wikipedia suffers from racial and gender biases. I would love to see a take-down of its “great man” approach to history. But this isn’t it: if anything, this kind of scholarship makes substantive analysis more difficult.
Quote of the day from M Pettis’ blog:
Does anybody here has a hint on how Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn would protect or help the bargaining power of workers, at the same time pursue full employment, and try not to be gamed by other’s beggar thy neighbour policies?
Herman Daly, in a sidelink from ‘Freeze the Thames’:
“…Ricardo. In his exposition of comparative advantage, he explicitly assumes capital immobility between nations. The whole logic of each nation specializing in its own good, and freely trading with mutual advantage guaranteed, only works if capital and labour do not cross national boundaries. If capital is free to move internationally, then it will follow absolute advantage, going wherever it is cheapest to produce, and selling anywhere else in the world. But if capital can’t cross national boundaries, then it will go to whichever national use is most productive relatively, in comparison with other countries, and then trade that.”
Particularly relevant from recent policy debates:
“I’ve gotten into a lot of trouble with my progressive friends because I don’t believe in open borders.”
newleftreview.org/II/109/herman-daly-benjamin-kunkel-ecologies-of-scale
Steve H.
August 6, 2018 at 9:10 am
https://cis.org/Testimony/Illegal-Immigration-Impact-Wages-and-Employment-Black-Workers
Seldom are any penalties placed on employers who violate the ban against hiring illegal immigrants working even though it has existed since1986. Moreover, because of this self-imposed impotence by the federal government, employers who try to follow the law are penalized because they must compete with employers who violate the law and benefit by paying lower wages and providing cheaper working conditions that are more profitable to these employer but hazardous to the illegal workers. The status quo, therefore, is a perversity of justice. Law breakers are rewarded while law abiders are punished. (A NATION OF LAWS….of course, only the ones that benefit the rich are enforced)
……
What is apparent is that the unemployment rates in the low skilled labor market are the highest in the entire national labor force. This means that the low skilled labor market is in a surplus condition. Willing workers are available at existing wage rates. By definition, therefore, illegal immigrants who are overwhelmingly present in that same labor market sector adversely affect the economic opportunities of legal citizen workers because the illegal workers are preferred workers.
…..
The willingness of policy makers to tolerate the presence of illegal immigrants in the nation’s labor force exposes a seamy side of the nation’s collective consciousness. Illegal immigrants – who themselves are often exploited even though they may not think so —are allowed to cause harm in the form of unemployment and depressed wages to the most vulnerable workers in the American work force.
=================================================
Why can’t these inner city youths show some initiative, take out 100,000$ student loans, and attend Haavard??? To get a good job, get a good education (do I really need to put a /Sarc tag after that)
And of course, a lot of the discussion is with GDP – because talking about stagnant wages and distribution of the GDP and who has gotten it is socialist or something….
Thank you Steve H and Fresno Dan for your contributions the first on free capital movement and the second on migration and labour conditions. I would add that market access, distribution commercialization bottlenecks and monopolies are other factors to be considered.
An example is for instance the organisation of agricultural cooperatives. Those are organized quite differently in, for instance, Spain vs. Netherland. In Spain, agro-coops where designed to protect work positions. In Netherland they were designed to grant the producers market access and this worked much better. In Spain producers are squezzed by distributors while in The Netherlands the producers have the last say on agrucultural prices.
> Why can’t these inner city youths show some initiative . . .
I am reminded of Chicago, and the fact that it was a toolmaking town only a couple of decades ago, with the draw of interesting work for those inclined to detest the office environment. Almost all gone.
Now that it’s seems to be a war zone, the only skilled trades that are advancing are the triage units at hospitals treating gunshot victims.
Globalization is a disaster, no matter where one cares to look.
Chicago also was the candy/chocolate-making capital of the country until the 80’s. Great quality jobs even if you only had a high school diploma.
Now most of that’s gone to the four winds or Mexico. Yes, the Oreo in your kid’s lunch bag came from Mexico (not that there’s anything wrong with that—-except displacing US workers)
When i was growing up the people i hung out with couldnt read.
I use to read the paper and what not to them
That is why if we are going to have free capital movement we have to have open borders. Otherwise it just won’t work as we are learning. Of course, open borders have other issues. Bernie Sanders could have crushed Hillary had he stuck to what he believed as a socialist. His performance in the debates was pandering although I grant the DNC packed the debates with questions he was forced to answer from various migrant groups. In fact, as recently as 2015, Bernie Sanders defended not only border security, but also national sovereignty. Asked about expanded immigration, Sanders flipped the question into a critique of open-borders libertarianism: “That’s a Koch brothers proposal…which says essentially there is no United States.” Had he said that I suspect he would have crushed Hillary. In my view a socialist that believes in open borders is like someone who buys something they don’t need at 10% off on their credit card at 18% interest. If we want free capital movement we could start by opening the borders to Central America and limiting the capital transfers to that area. Of course, it is way too late to propose that. I suspect that the democrats are going to get beaten in 2020 with the abolish ICE mantra.
For free capital and open borders to work, a world government would be required. Even then for such a system to work that world government would have to sustain accurate information flows and disinterested decision making for…the world. Not likely.
And a world currency and a world redistributive tax
That’s like saying if we’re going to have plague, we have to have smallpox, because if we stop smallpox, that’s just what plague wants!
Open Borders is an Evil policy.
Free Capital flows across borders is an Evil policy.
Open Borders to the power of Free Capital Flows is an Evil to the Evilth Power policy.
I don’t have specifics from any side of the pond, but I’d suggest card check, antitrust enforcement, and local content requirements might be some of the tactics employed…not to mention the job guarantee.
Thank you Adam,
I would really much appreciate a discussion on local content requirements. You tipically find IMF economists saying the same…neoliberal bullshit about LCRs all over again.
Anyway I miss a comprehensive political approach in these issues.
Product = Labor + Raw Materials.
Does local content refer to the materials only? In some places, it refers to components, parts or materials. In other places, it additionally refers to workers.
I don’t know if Sanders or Corbyn are even part of the answer. Top-down politics seems more and more like a sucker’s game to me. I suspect the IWW has had it right from the beginning. If the owners of the world are going global, the working stiffs will likely have to follow suit and organize globally for any true change. Then we’d see how “pro freedom” the market faithful are (hint: not very).
OK, but we all dead much before the conditions for global workforce organization are in place. Don’t we?
I guess that rather thatn top-bottom solutions, what we need is a legal framework designed to align worker interests with employer interests.
Worker interests will never align with employer interests unless law is involved, and that law must be absolutely enforced. The “law” against employing illegal immigrants is a glaring case in point, as fresno’s link demonstrates.
From his link:
It is time, therefore, to make our immigration laws credible. The way to do this is to adhere to the findings of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform chaired by the late Barbara Jordan who boldly stated what should be the goal of public policy: “The credibility of immigration policy can be measured by a simple yardstick: people who should get in, do get in; people who should not get in, are kept out; and people who are judged deportable, are required to leave.”
This is, by the way, the gist of Trump’s immigration policy, clumsy though his presentation may be. The vehemence with which the democrats are attacking him for it should tell anyone all they need to know about dem commitment to labor and wages, and unskilled black labor in particular.
Thanks for your link to the Pettis blog on trade, it was excellent, but will take some rereading to absorb.
Katniss Everdeen
August 6, 2018 at 11:14 am
Until Trump, the repubs were all squishy on immigration – Bush, Rubio, and every squillionaire donor was all for maximum utilization of exploitable humans. Its not a coincidence that every squillionaire is for free trade and free immigration
It’s not enough that most politicians are pathological liars, inciting fear and loathing among “bitter” “deplorables” (Obama, Clinton) with contentious issues perennially unsolved by design and by conjuring a revolving roster of enemies for continual slaughter for profit. They also appear to take twisted delight in insulting the intelligence of chump voters on issues like immigration, easily solved by fair trade, ending CIA coups and assassinations, and employer sanctions on illegal hiring. They take us for idiots and blame our ignorant voting on Russia, the new enemy du jour thwarting the neoliberal agenda.
One might well reword that as . . . ” the dem commitment against labor and wages, and unskilled black labor in particular.”
Black Jobs Matter! What would the Credential Class Privilege Democrats do in the face of black and pro-black demonstration of thousands of marchers carrying signs saying
Black Jobs Matter . . . ?
IIRC, the per capita cost savings resulting from the importation of foreign products is surprisingly low. I tried to locate the source for these data but Google has thwarted me. My searches so far have yielded only pro-trade huckstering.
In any event, the U.S. could be pretty much self sufficient. We have the natural and human resources to make pretty much everything our citizens need to maintain a decent standard of living.
I have to admit to taking a certain amount of pleasure in seeing Trump at least appearing to monkey-wrench the global trading system. Alas, being no Wobbly, he will fail to become the neoliberals’ worst nightmare. But in the meantime, I do enjoy their distress.
try Duckduckgo for searching that seems to evade Google crap.
DDG didn’t work for me either. If I were to keep at it, I’d probably find the source. Don’t have the time or energy at the moment. I think it was discussed on one of the NPR programs: Planet Money, This American Life, Freakonomics or some such.
One of the problems is the combination of search terms: trade + per capita + consumer prices + savings, in various combinations both on the browser and at the NPR web site don’t do the trick. I guess the algos find the combo baffling, coughing up irrelevancies or the usual neoliberal claptrap on one or another of the terms in question. Or is it that nobody wants us to know the truth? Hmmm
Not sure about the resources — doesn’t the US have to import certain minerals which are not found in quantity in north America? As far as manufacturing, has the US lost manufacturing skills, along with the thousands of factories?
Several decades of Strict Protectionism might allow us to re-learn these manufacturing skills. Without Strict Protectionism, we have no hope.
And the goal should not be a stale retread of mercantilism. The goal should be a semi-autarkic America which imports AND exports as little as feasibly possible.
>these policies cause the trade balance to go into deficit
Um, we (US) don’t have any of those policies and boy, we have a whopper of a deficit. So what is this guy’s point?
Ok. Boosting min wage makes local goods less competitive and increases the ability of locals to purchase goods, including imports. so deficit rises.
But what about trumps tariffs? Reduced imports, profits from China exporters transferred to us gov, which gov can spend in infra, helping workers… politics may require balance.
Past time for China to boost households, slash soe’s, and get used to balanced trade with us.
Import quotas = less consumption?
Hand Raised…are you talking about the Bernie that lorded over the state with the largest drone contract?
Wars are meant for displacements. How many hot zones exist on this planet today? How many financial wars are implemented everyday?
We’re just getting a small dose of living the outcomes for on going War Economy.
Too bad us mopes who generate the Real Economy and real wealth that creates the “surpluses” that make all this “war, the racket,” possible, have virtually zero voice in the shaping and implementation of policy.
Sort of like this guy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQQ8d4V8iis — “You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart handed you a sword…”
But then we don’t know how to collect and use our filth, or operate as an anarcho-syndicalist state…
A ditty about Little Boy and Fat Man
Two American bombs thought up in the heartland
Little Boy’s gonna be a uranium scar
Fat Man debuts from backseat of Bockscar
Suckin’ on fire-seared cogs that used to be human beings
Fat Man’s sittin on Japan’s lap
He’s got his hands between Nagasaki
Little Man say, hey Fat Man lets run off
Behind Hiroshima and see
Dribble off those babbling brooks
Let me do what I please
And Little Boy say a
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone they wok on
Little Boy sits back reflects his thoughts for a moment
Scratches his head and does his best clean sweep
Well you know Fat Man we oughtta blow up the city
Fat Man says, baby you aint missing no-thing
Little Boy say a
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone
Oh yeah life goes on
Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone
Gonna let it rock
Let it roll
Let the A Bomb come down
And save my soul
Hold on to U 235 as long as you can
Changes comin’ round real soon
Make us half-life women and men
A historical ditty about Little Boy and Fat Man
Two American bombs that went off according to plan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_enU0zkPA4
Nice! Ol’ JC Mellencamp might just about “fallout” if he heard a rendition o’ this.
I especially liked “half-life women and men”.
Keep on rockin’ in the (well, not so terribly) free world…
We all know about the Trinity Test. The one that few are aware of, an many of those are trying to explain away is th Ohrdruf Test. The reason the Americans dropped a uranium bomb on an enemy it without bothering to test it was that someone else already had, in Thuringia. And it’s also telling that they electrocuted to death two lefties for giving “The Bomb” to the Soviets when it was Manfred von Ardennes, who got a Stalin Prize for his efforts.
“Back to the political. Mello went through the list of agencies he believes know that LANL will never succeed in this mission: LANL itself; the National Nuclear Security Administration, the government agency that administers the nation’s nuclear labs; Congress; the Department of Defense; the Albuquerque Journal (it wrote an editorial questioning the mission); the congressional delegation. So why does the latter continue to endlessly lobby for nuclear weapons development at LANL? Follow the money; this is their pork. ”
https://lajicarita.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/pit-production-at-lanl-a-delusion-or-doomsday/
I’ll take Richard Rhodes’ word and knowledge of basic physics over yours on this, thank you very much. The reason the Americans dropped a uranium bomb on an enemy it without bothering to test it was that, unlike the Nagasaki implosion bomb, the crude (and highly wasteful of fissile material) Hiroshima bomb’s explosive machanism was exceedingly simple and well-understood. The implosion bomb, OTOH, relied on a whole lot of intricate modeled-using-crude-computations fluid mechanics, electronics and compressional ‘moving parts’ to work as predicted.
US natural gas supplies broke through to a 15 year low for late July last week:
seasonal natural gas levels lowest in 15 years; US oil output down first time in 24 weeks, biggest drop in horizontal rigs since October
“Could California Flame Out?”
This article is funny when you read it the second time around. I think too that ‘Wolf Street’ might have been having a go at him as well when they quote him as saying that “California and its municipalities need to allow far greater residential density near transportation centers and encourage multi-family housing everywhere in the state.” then goes on to immediately mention that the author wrote a book once called “Making It in Real Estate: Starting Out as a Developer.” Yeah, not exactly unbiased advice.
He extols the virtues of a financial advisory firm with a $100-billion portfolio that took advantage of the different States race to the bottom and abandoned California. No loyalty either to Washington State they are moving to as they also want to use the resources of Oregon across the border for their business. His advice does not seem to make sense either as he wants California to reduce its taxes and eliminate regulations so more people can be crammed into the city centers and have multiple families sharing the same housing, just like in 19th century times. But with a reduced tax base, how would California finance the infrastructure needed to support all these extra people and provide transport and the like? Maybe that is why he wants multi-family housing so that Californians can move out of the cities making room for more tech industry types and the like and just share accommodation elsewhere.
Nobody now in California has ever gone through a earthquake of size, and how many have temblor insurance to cover the 8.88 that’s eventually going to lay waste to a big city?
generally people are in no way prepared to live off the grid for a few hours—let alone days in a major quake.
You can starve for 2 weeks, no prob. Water (and any meds) on the other hand.
Add in the idea that a good many people don’t know their neighbors, so an anonymous anarchy of sorts would more than likely develop, no social cohesion in a face to face way.
Yep, that migth unfortunately be really important in case of a big one.
That depends on what one considers “a earthquake of size”. The folks who watched CandleStick Park sway during the ’89 World Series probably considered it a real earthquake. The ’72 earthquake in LA was big enough to throw me out of bed. (And I was living in Santa Barbara.). If it’s your building that is destroyed, it’s a big earthquake. Like politics all earthquakes are local.
A Richter Scale 8.88 is actually a meaningless number (an immeasurable amount of energy); anything over 8 is beyond experience in California. (The USGS considers anything over 5 to be of consequence. (It is location of epicenter/fault-type that is critical in an earthquake).
That said, the fault running through Berkeley/East Bay could make for real damage and disruption.
I drove by the “Graves of the 1872 Lone Pine Earthquake” historical marker on Hwy 395 yesterday.
It was felt from San Diego to Red Bluff…
That is what i’d consider an ‘earthquake of size’, although it was only a crummy little 7.9 or so.
Or take the wayback machine to 1755 Lisbon, for something more apt to happen on a 8.88.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1872_Lone_Pine_earthquake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1755_Lisbon_earthquake
Even more so is the Puget Sound region, thanks to the Cascadia fault. Coastal WA and OR haven’t experienced anything but the occasional shake for centuries, and we are overdue for a very large one.
Yeah, there was a massive quake in this region back in 900 AD and I mean massive.
https://www.nature.com/news/2002/021028/full/news021021-10.html
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-12-04/news/mn-1441_1_seattle-fault
I had similar thinkings about this article but you express them much better than I could do. I remember that years ago -about 20- when I followed an MBA programme for directives and was shown several old business cases of US companies having to decide where to build their business center or factory (these cases where real and occured in the 70s, 80s, 90s). I remember that the factors to be considered in these instances were all about infrastructure, availability of skilled workforce, median salaries and some specific bussiness requirements but tax codes were not considered. Nothing to do with the example cited in that article, much less the case of Amazon that involves direct political gaming with municipalities. How times have changed.
A nice follow-up on Resilience.org to the Rushkoff’s recounting of his meeting with a small group of private equity types looking for a way to control their thugs when TSHTF:
It’s little wonder that studies show that places with high inequality are unhealthy for both the rich and the rest. The rich worry themselves into all kinds of health problems because of this paranoia that someone will try to take away their wealth and power. Can there be any doubt that an abundance of wealth and power is bad for human beings? How perverted and blinded they are by their position in society, insisting on retaining their monopoly on power yet refusing to use that power for the common good to the point they’re frantic about the collapse their policies will inevitably produce.
Re: Tomdispatch 8/5
“It looks like TomDispatch may have a few less readers from now on. Perhaps it will surprise you, but judging by the mail I get, some members of the U.S. military do read TomDispatch — partially to check out the range of military and ex-military critics of America’s wars that this site publishes. Or rather they did read TomDispatch. No longer, it seems, if their computers are operating via Department of Defense (DoD) networks. The DoD, I’ve heard, has blocked the site. You now get this message, I’m told, when you try to go to it: “You have attempted to access a blocked website. Access to this website has been blocked for operational reasons by the DOD Enterprise-Level Protection System.” Oh, and the category that accounts for it being blocked? “Hate and racism.” Mind you, you can evidently still read both Breitbart and Infowars in a beautifully unblocked state via the same networks…”
The plot thickens as Infowars is under attack from the Elites now too. Something to do with “hate speech.” Facebook is removing some of Alex Jones content for “site policy” reasons. Funny how the First Amendment is the First to go when the Elites begin to experience fear.
See, if you have the stomach to connect to the MSMI (Main Stream Media: Internet) nexus: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/facebook-removes-alex-jones-pages-hate-bullying-125813306–finance.html
Hate speech is the new catchall charge for suppressing ‘non-official’ points of view.
In my wanderings about this fair city I use commercial wifi for web checks and have found sites like Sic Semper Tyrranis (Pat Lang)and NC to be blocked by store wifi web filters. It’s not always the same ones that are blocked as it depends on the store.
So it’s almost as though the scare talk about Russians and social media is a way of getting a foot in the door for domestic web censorship. I’ve never visited Infowars but it can’t be crazier than some of the stuff that gets peddled on Maddow.
Crazy stuff on Maddow? Have I got a mashup for you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0krkHRBaVI
Infowars is definitely crazier than Maddow IMO.
yeah, but would you really be shocked if she started trying to sell us on trump and putin being 6 foot alien lizards in human suits?
And not just ordinary 6-foot alien lizards in human suits … gay homosexual butt-humping queer 6-foot alien lizards in human suits, since that kind of execrable homo-jokery is now officially approved for use by LibDems cracking wise about Trump and Putin. Trump – rhymes with ‘rump’, right? Ha, ha, I just kill myself with laffs sometimes!
Funny how gay bashing is OK now so long as it is used against the ‘right’ people. And spread by the MSM of all people. Was just reading earlier today how Candace Owens and a white conservative guy were attacked by Antifa while dining in a Philadelphia cafe. They had to be protected by cops but when you pulled back a little, you saw a black woman dining with a white guy being attacked by a gang of white people and being protected by black and Hispanic cops. Yeah, not really great optics here.
Alex Jones is crazier than Maddow IMO.
I dunno bout dat. They both are big time “Media Personalities,” and live appropriate lifestyles. Crazy like foxes perhaps?
Not just Alex Jones. Apparently, it’s against Facebook policy for Liberians to feel good: https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Facebook-Blocks-Liberias-Most-Popular-Social-Media-Site-20180804-0005.html
Skynet eats again!
Henry Giroux writes in TruthDig, on August 2:
“The latter is reinforced by a government that believes truth is dangerous and reality begins with a tweet that signals the legitimation of endless lies and forms of power that infantilize and depoliticize, because they leave no room for standards of language capable of holding power accountable. Even worse, Trump’s war on language and truth does more than limit freedom to competing fictions, it also erases the distinction between moral depravity and justice, good and evil. As I have said elsewhere, “Trump’s Ministry of Fake News works incessantly to set limits on what is thinkable, claiming that reason, evidence, consistency, and logic no longer serve the truth, because the latter are crooked ideological devices used by enemies of the state. ‘Thought crimes’ are now labeled as ‘fake news.’ ” ” (My bold.)
H.G.’s critiques/writings about the culture that lead to the current state of affairs are point on.
“also erases the distinction between moral depravity and justice, good and evil…”
And it passes for spirituality for many people. If anything bad happens, it’s what your energy sent out to the “universe.” That kind of tripe can be expected to come out of a culture that also was fed “the invisible hand” of the market hype.
It’s the pathway from liberalism to neoliberalism.
I watched the invisible hand petting Schrödinger’s cat, the other day.
Is that like learning how to think “inside the box?” Skinners daughter tried that, or had it tried out on her, and suffered a horrid fate as a result.
Not a Skinner fan meself, but the young lady in question says it ain’t so.
Perhaps those military service members who had been reading Tomdispatch until this DoD banning could wait until they are on leave and can visit off-base family/friends ( if “on leave” works that way) and take that opportunity to binge-read Tomdispatch at non DoD computers.
From Capitalism, Climate and Human Nature:
Sometimes, we say it’s collective guilt and the banality of evil.
Sometimes, we say our children are innocent, not guilty, to those who declare total war on America and use planes as weapons.
Is it ‘you and me’ here?
Do we see the banality of consumption? “It’s so normal. My friends fly. And I fly…to exotic places for vacation…because I need to recharge, after teaching for a semester.”
Of course her premise is that it was not “you and me” but rather deep statey corporations putting their thumb on the scales.
However in 2018, with California burning and Europe having unprecedented heat, global warming activism seems to be at it’s lowest level in years. People still drive big cars, buy oversized houses, fly everywhere in jets. AGW is now widely accepted and yet business mostly continues as usual. So there seems to be pretty strong evidence that it really is a matter of “you and me.”
Presumably the come back is that governments should have forced frail human nature to deal with this problem by passing laws to drastically reduce carbon use regardless of the consequences. But of course these proposals for carbon pricing etc would then be gamed to put all the burden on the poor while the Gulfstreams of the rich continue to fly, the military which is a major spewer of carbon remains intact, politically favored industries get a pass–all of which is another aspect of “human nature.”
IMO we aren’t going to solve society in time to solve AGW so we’d better find another path.
what other path? if we keep burning fossil fuels at this rate our society is going to change anyway, in ways we won’t be able to control. i also see a lot of people trying to change their lifestyle; few fly everywhere, and most aren’t buying big houses; they can’t afford them. if a “let them eat cake” attitude on the part of the elites is human nature, then reactions against that are also human nature.
Should we go with the way of dealing with the plastic straw when it comes to long-distance vacationing?
Local vacations.
sure, lots of things people can do, and are doing, but as long as the system is set up for fossil fuels, individuals can’t solve the problem with individual choices, because of the context they make those choices in.
yes so they take shorter vacations, no vacations even (afterall we’re living in neoliberal hell so many may not even have vacation time), but then they have to travel for work if they wish to keep their job, ok that’s maybe higher up the career ladder, but for the masses: so they have to commute 100 miles a day sometimes to get A JOB to that pays enough to live off of etc.. It’s the system.
The system.
The financial system.
The technological system.
Etc.
In a socialist system, do people still take vacation in far away places?
And do people still use perfumes under socialism? They are a major source of air pollution.
subsidies to the fossil fuel companies; stopping those, and recognizing the true cost of gas, would do a lot more than atomized (or somewhat organized) individual actions imo.
I think it’s more than that. It’s about how we consume (everything, including riding a boat).
The perfume example is one.
By the way, I read recently that, at any given moment, there are 970,000, or close to a million, people in the air, worldwide.
Not a few go to places where concrete was used to build hotels to house them, along with all you can eat plans.
Running air conditioning or refrigeration on solar power still emits greenhouse gases.
They did in the Soviet Union. That’s what Sochi was for.
So if you burn carbon to get to Sochi, but save carbon otherwise, does it all even out?
That shows banning the plastic straw to be even less useful than outright banning long distance vacationing.
I understand people are doing local vacationing, as people were already eschewing the sipping straw.
this jet travel for pleasure business is mostly a certain class of people, close to the 20% but maybe the 30% really. Annoying in their privilege and cluelessness is that set really. But it’s not everyone, it’s not even most people. Now a lot of people moved away from their hometowns and relatives and so fly for that reason (for the holidays etc.). Even that was sometimes forced by economic circumstances (no jobs in the hometown). I think if that’s not the reason then people should consider staying where they are, pick a place, where one is from is a good start, and be of a place, but if there is simply no work there well …
If they could ban the plastic straw, why dont we ban long distance vacationing as well?
it’s a good idea. That things are so far gone, and the minor step of banning jet travel can’t even be undertaken is absurd. But what about jets for transporting goods, I think many come by ship anyway, but yea jets for transporting goods (other than emergency relief or something maybe) should be banned.
I think we should be more serious and are likely to see more bans, in many areas.
Water is essential and yet, it can be restricted.
Long distance vacations are not essential (sitting quietly in a room can be quite pleasant and relaxing).
I would support banning private jets and limiting everybody to 1 long distance plane vacation per year. If that didn’t do it, then I would consider banning plane vacations totally.
But I will not support banning one plane vacation per year for the subway-in-the-sky set while allowing the Gulfstream Crowd to fly fly fly to their hearts’ delight.
It’s not the poor slobs who vacation once a year or so for two weeks abroad — it’s the people with cross country marriages and six houses in different states who regularly commute in private jets on a weekly or daily basis, I think.
“proposals for carbon pricing etc would then be gamed to put all the burden on the poor” This is just not the case. Virtually all the proposals for carbon taxation, many of them from “conservative” figures (eg. George Schultz), have always included either per capita rebates of the revenue collected or use of it to reduce payroll taxes. Either measure, especially the first, is highly progressive. That ain’t the problem. The problem is the fecklessness and blind cowardice of the entire capitalist establishment faced with the living planet’s survival imperative (obvious for the past thirty years at least) of ending fossil fuel extraction and thereby wiping out the entire capital of Exxon, KSA, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, et. al.
+1000 yea any carbon pricing proposal I’ve seen as well, mostly the best one’s do straight out transfers (rebates) to the poor.
The Hansen Fee-and-Dividend plan was designed to answer exactly that objection. It was also designed to slowly and steadily make the cost of burning fossil carbon so high as to become totally punitive . . . just slowly and steadily enough to permit fossil-free methods to get built and entrenched.
You can participate within activism about climate change etc. but within limits or at a heavy price. Global climate change marches ok. But pipeline protests, illegal, and likely to be slapped with a terrorism charge as well because it is terrorism according to our government (of the kleptocrats). We only need to look at what literally happened in North Dakota. Enough of this “it’s us”, that’s total bullshit. I mean it contains a grain of truth of course, but it contains far greater falsehood than it does truth.
Even saying “it’s capitalism” is too trite, it obfuscates and is bound to be misunderstood. This economic system is deadly, but one in 1000 people will understand the full picture by just saying “capitalism”. It’s capitalism as a means of holding absolute power. It’s capitalism backed up by not only the threat of starvation under capitalism but also by brutal police state measures that is the reality of things. The threat of death, more than greed, does strange things to people. It’s capitalism existing on top of centuries of theft of land from natives, from the commons, etc..
Naomi Klein’s critique of that pathetic NYT essay on climate change links to what scientists have to say about the “perfidy” (treachery, is more accurate) of the ruling class – read this.
Unfortunately, decrying the bad practices of the capitalists is a losers game. And so is the environmentalist’s. Both assume growth: unbridled or sustainable. Neither. We are smashed up against the wall, or through the fan, with only a befuddled expression to show for our “concern.”
“Human Nature” is pure ideology.
Post-growth (or De-Growth, or full-on Luxury Communism!) has no constituency. Maybe if celebrity lefty pundits realized the incoherency of capitalism, not simply its evil intent, we could begin to figure out the next steps.
Actually “human nature” has a science now to back it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology
And yes natural limits to growth will be reached, oil will run out. One social scientists has an explanation for why the planet’s population will top out at 10 billion.
But that will still give catastrophic warming. Even if you assume Klein is right it doesn’t much matter as it’s water under the bridge. Science created this problem and science is probably going to have to solve it–by whatever means.
it already has; get off fossil fuels. solution to getting lung cancer from smoking; stop smoking. if it comes to other means, i don’t think that’s down to the scientists.
More broader, get off the current rate of consumption.
In Cape Town last summer, water usage was severely restricted.
Will we need to restrict beef consumption, for one example, soon?
the interesting thing is it’s not that clear what foods contribute a lot to carbon release. Red meat does, beef, pork etc. That is known. But all animal products? The vegans would say so, but I want this parsed a little more finely as that is not a diet that is every going to gain wide currency. And in trying to find I’ve seen one write up where fresh vegetables can contribute more to carbon than dairy. So much for having to give up cheese. But maybe it depends on where your food is coming from.
Corporate petro-grainfed feedlot beef is carbon emissive. Grass-and-pasture fed beef is claimed to be carbon capturing. If that is true, then the more strictly pasture-and-range fed beef raised, killed and eaten; the more carbon captured and stored into the soil under the pasture and range under the cattle.
Scientists should really get busy proving or disproving these carbon-capture claims for grass-fed beef once and for all.
In BBC’s Blue Planet II, with David Attenborough, there is one esipode where clownfish are shown to chatter about all day long, which is important for their survival (to attract mates, to ward off attacks).
Then, a little boat is shown passing over them, and it severely impacts their ability to do, for example, warning of attackers.
That’s just one boat.
Should we ban cruising or container ships?
We should certainly ban cruising or container ships from passing directly over the coral reefs where the clownfish live.
If we ban Free Trade, that would cause a partial ban on container ships right there.
Human Nature.
!. Human nature encompasses all sorts of behaviors, in all directions, including indulging and restraining.
2. Climate change includes
A. Natural climate change, or natural global warming, in our phase
B. Man-made climate change and Anthropogenic Global Warming
Here, we confront the darker side of Human Nature.
Notice that it is not Rich-Men Made Global Warming, or Elites-Causes Global Warming, but Man-Made Global Warming.
3. How many times does one say, “I am 60% for that, and 40% for the other choice,” because to that person, nothing is black and white? That’s human nature (here, adding to #1, above).
currently, all of the climate change is attributed to humans; it would be cooling slightly otherwise.
that much is black and white.
If it’s all due to humans, then, it’s human nature (the darker side of it, specifically).
Actually, it IS rich-man-made global warming. It was RICH men who destroyed mass transit all over America in the great bonfire of the trains, trolleys and streetcars. It was not POOR men or WORKER men or PROLE men who made that decision and carried it out.
The “netroots” article talks, totally myopically, about the rhetoric of a long series of “likely 2020 presidential contenders.” But it is presently pretty clear that the only two plausible Dem candidates are Sanders and Biden, with Biden a sure loser in most all the primaries. Yet it is also true that all of them (sans young Ocasio-Cortez, for reason of ineligibility) are indeed contenders, and many will indeed announce their candidacy for nomination early next year. But a glance at their “leftist” rhetorical unanimity makes clear that every last one of them really is running, not for the presidential nomination, but for the vice-presidential nomination on the Sanders ticket. They all know that the presidential nomination in 2024, with President Sanders reverting to elder statesman status, would almost surely be decided by the 2020 vice-presidential contest.
Okay, this one is an eyebrow raiser.
A Major Conservative Donor is Meddling in A Democratic Primary In Kansas
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/joe-ricketts-kansas-brent-welder-gop-donor_us_5b6472d2e4b0fd5c73d9113d
This would be KS03, which included Kansas City, KS and Topeka.
The peace starts out very strange, giving you the impression that a conservatively funded group known as “Ending Spending is somehow supporting Brent Welder, but reading on its rather clear they are attack adds going after Welder. “Welder wants to bring Obama-Sanders style of Progressivism to Kansas,” is one quote it offers from an attack add. But if it’s an attack add, its done in a wired way. It may end up helping Welder, rather than hurting him. (Keep in mind I haven’t seen the add, nor could I find it with a search.)
Clearly they fear Welder may beat their boy, Kevin Yoder, and would rather have one of Welders other two primary challengers win. Interesting.
This is ‘Irony’ writ large. Don’t the conservatives remember that the Dems tried something similar in the 2016 campaign? I seem to remember everyone saying the this Trump character didn’t have a chance. That’s presumably why they worked to help him get the Republican nomination. Everyone ‘knew’ that Trump was un-electable. If I was making book on the Kansas race, I’d ask myself which of Welder’s opponents was more appealing to the Kansas ‘Deplorable’ population, and put that person in as a long shot winner.
I have seen more unknown PAC ads for candidates in KS03, KS02, and the gov primary races. Primary elections are tomorrow. These PACs are pouring a lot of money into races of barely known candidates. That suggests to me there’s an effort to divide the votes for Sanders’ style progressives and let the most DCCC favored candidate win on the Dem side; and an effort to divide the votes for the moderate Graves/Kassebaum style candidate to let the most conservative Brownback style favored candidate win on the GOP side; all done with dark money. In decades of watching primary contests, I’ve never seen a state primary contest like this one.
If there’s one thing both parties have learned it’s how to dilute the intraparty anti-estab vote into small enough factions to get the preferred estab candidate over the finish line. So this will be interesting to watch.
The estab would rather lose than let a Party anti-estab candidate win.
I live in KS-03. I think Welder will win. There are 6 candidates in the Dem primary, but I think the vote is so split between moderate Dems that the Welder faction will hold firm. I’d be surprised if anyone gets over 30% of the vote, though. My mailbox is getting deluged with direct mail from this race–most of it for my wife. Not sure how I’m spared although I’m getting pounded with texts from Our Revolution and Welder people. Very odd to get sooo much attention for a Democratic race in KS.
I do think it’s as much a litmus test for the future of the Dems as was AOC’s race in NY.
Don’t watch TV, but the framing of that HuffPo article was very weird. I am meeting more people claiming to be afraid of “Bernie’s” proposals and how he says everything is free. I try to dismantle those claims as best as possible.
I have been invited to give a lecture about Democratic Socialism to my social group. So I am currently studying the issue. Send me the questions and issues you are struggling with, I will look into them.
You can e-mail them if you want: Codename.doug@gmail.com
I live in Alabama. We elected a Democrat to the Senate. It can happen. Doug Jones isn’t to the left of [pick one], but he is firmly pro-choice and this is a difficult state to hold that position.
I’ve beat my head against the cinder blockheads explaining MMT. I’ve had a lot more success channeling Ben Franklin (who was surprisingly MMT-friendly). For example: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1701-1750/benjamin-franklin-a-modest-enquiry-into-the-nature-and-necessity-of-paper-currency.php
Invoking Franklin gets their attention…
-scribble-scribble-scribble- That is me, franticly taking notes. -scribble-scribble-scribble-
Rep. Ron Dellums has died – he seems to have been way ahead of his time:
https://www.truthdig.com/videos/robert-scheer-on-the-legacy-of-ron-dellums-a-true-peoples-warrior-video/
Dellums was a corrupt old man milking the city of Oakland for a decade when he “ran” the city. His “unpaid advisor” wife led him by the nose into as many money-grubbing schemes as a lobbyist.
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Mayor-Dellums-wife-owe-239K-in-back-taxes-3211763.php
About the “double flash” item above, the review of evidence that the Israel ites and their fellow former apart heidists in South Africa conducted an atmospheric nuclear blast in violation of “international law and treaties:” Hey, the existence, if not the particulars, of the Israel ite nuclear arsenal has been one of those open secrets that no on, or hardly anyone, dares to talk about. Amazing, that.
I note particularly that in all the recent discussions of the runup to launching Shock and Aw, Shucks on Iran, with all the attention to the war gamers’ thinking about what weapons and tactics and strategies will be used how, including use of those new “dial-a-blast” adjustable US Imperial warheads, there is NO mention of the Israel ites’ potential use of their something between 200 and 600 warheads. These are attached to cruise and ballistic missiles, including submarine-launched versions in the U-boats that the US so kindly paid Germany to build for “our staunch democracy ally in the Middle East. the weapons include drop bombs and air-launched missiles too. I refer to articles by the Saker, and bernard at Moon of Alabama, and several other places I have been reading at recently to aggravate my diverticulitis and keep myself from peaceful sleep.
I wonder if the Really Wise War Game Planners in the Pentagram have gamed out what happens when those Likuds get their knickers in such a twist thanks to their policies that they just feel compelled to blow it all up, take out the Philistines once and for all. I imagine the war gamers in the Russian military have tried to figure all the possible scenarios out — they seem to be better at the geopolitics and future looking than the dorks in the Pentagram (17 years, 17 commanders, light at the end of the Afghan tunnel, who will remain chairless when the music stops in the Great Game segment over their in Notagainistan?).
What is it so many of us say? “We’ll have to wait and see.” Because there are NO “adults in charge,” folks…
Not sure if it will be connected to Biden, (Oh, gods hear my prayer that this jerk has to eat the lunch he prepared for so many others), but my Yahoo feed has three student loan hell stories on it. Coverage of both how hard it is to pay them off (the debt just doesn’t get reduced) AND how much leeway has been given debt collectors for student debt AND finally a massive debt collector abuse story.
Anecdotally this might mean the story is getting legs in the MSM. Normally I would not expect to see more than one story on any of those subjects in a month. And no, I didn’t click on the links influencing the feed as this is one subject I like to see what shows up without my prompting. I can only hope so as it is long past time.
My sense is nostalgia and Iraq were huge in 2007/2008 in the candidacies of Hillary and Obama. I’ve never been to Iowa with its caucus nature which will make student an issue in many precincts*, but I felt New Hampshire primary voters took their roles pretty seriously (they don’t want to lose the early primary). The issue of student debt won’t be forgotten or ignored. Biden never went anywhere then and was largely Obama’s choice after Bayh and Kaine feelers didn’t produce the excitement he had hoped and with his age wasn’t a contender to succeed Obama. Then of course, a woman made sense in 2016 for a variety of reasons.
Ankle bracelets: My best friend had one. I don’t know what kind of use it was to the ‘just us’ system, but it turned out to be swimmingly useful in finding his body after he killed himself.
One quick call to the fedcoat ‘parole’ officer and the local sheriff had a bead +/- 10 feet to where my buddy had crawled in under the tarp, wrapped it around him to prevent the blood and little bitty pieces of brain and skull, from being a ‘cleanup problem’ for someone else once he pulled the trigger.
So you know, moneys worth and all.
(it being important to note that my friend had no trial yet and even though he was still technically ‘innocent until proven guilty’…the ankle bracelet would seem to indicate otherwise…)
I have noticed a tendency for the latest legislation and regulations to punish people just for being arrested, and not convicted, for something. Especially for being put on some watchlist like the no-fly ones, or gun ownership, and a few others. It is not widespread yet, but to punished someone for merely being arrested, even if the charges are dismissed, is frightening. Some law enforcement office can arrest your for being suspected, or just because he wants to, and boom a criminal record and likely to be put on some watchlist. We are effectively in a police state already.
Yup, having been involved – indirectly – with the system in a couple of cases recently I can start to see with much greater clarity how the process *is* the punishment: Costs – psychological, emotional. Time. Travel. Fees. Limitations. Restrictions. Conditions. More fees. More time.
All of the above and then add the impact to ones family…or job….or lack thereof if the costs/timing impact someone who isn’t independently wealthy. And even if one gets to trial, and wins, the damage has long since been done…and aint noone gonna give any of it back to you.
and somebody is making money off those ankle bracelets, and probably on monitoring them, too.
And then there’s this. Because all government services are more efficiently run by private industry, and look how much money it saves the taxpayer.
This is an example of the fragmenting effects of the “Neo-MSM.” I have absolutely no stories about student debt in my Yahoo “news feed.” (I am a 60s-something white male.)
Reply to Pat just above.
Well considering Google knows my every click despite supposedly erasing cookies, I probably should discount Yahoo being unable to tell my interests if I don’t use their service for it.
OTOH, I’ll still keep my fingers crossed that this debacle is going to pick up traction. Even slowly would be an improvement to ignoring the elephant in the room. Student debt is unsustainable, all of the levers pulled to allow it to never be written off implode and disaster strikes the people running the shows – not the poor victims. Biden will crash and burn without that before the implosion but it is coming. Unfortunately your fragmenting effects will probably mean any chance to avoid that disaster will be avoided so those last few monetary benefits can be scratched out and it will continue until the bankers and finance people start to scream because they are going to land under the collapse.
My other big watch story is the growing collapse of NYC real estate, particularly commercial real estate. Every once in a while something breaks through only to disappear again. I’m pretty damn sure that one is never going to gain any traction until the end. If the timeline of my noticing the unsustainable practices and rot to the last huge real estate/finance crash is any indication we’ve got about a year before the crack in the system becomes the size of a continent and can’t be ignored any longer.
Me? I’m keeping an eye on residential real estate. It’s a habit I picked up during all those years on The Housing Bubble Blog.
My current go-to is Wolf Richter’s Wolf Street blog. Here’s his latest residential real estate post:
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/08/04/housing-bubbles-are-dangerous-thats-why-canada-is-trying-to-tamp-down-on-them-and-the-us/
And here are more, in one easy-to-use category!
https://wolfstreet.com/category/all/housing/
I have never quite understood how only student debt is effectively non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. I know some kind of bribery by the loan companies was involved, but why the hit on students, and not anyone else? And hopefully Joe Biden, D-Loan Sharks has some meaningful chats with his victims in the next life. One can always dream anyways.
When ever there is a bust in California the rents go down to only intolerable, instead of impossible, levels, but all the other economic hits to others makes me feel a little guilty as I write my ginormous rent check.
jesus h. familyblog
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/aug/06/uk-poised-to-ask-russia-to-extradite-salisbury-attack-suspects
oh, after hundreds of hours of painstaking investigative work, just like mueller. these days, all it takes to create facts is an indictment.
Yup. And Russia is going to extradite ’em. Right away.
[ sarcasm off ]
Some sort of exchange program at Check Point Charlie, perhaps.
They give us the guy(s) we want, and we give them their wanted.
I knew that this would be coming up sooner or later so here is why this scenario will never happen-
The Constitution of the Russian Federation
Chapter 2. Rights and Freedoms of Man and Citizen
Article 61
1. A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported from Russia or extradited to another State.
Yeah, so before they extradite someone they will have to change the Russian Constitution first. Doesn’t the Guardian know how to do a Google search anymore to answer such questions? I would gladly send them a link.
Russia should offer to trade them for the fine USian patriots who rigged the 1996 Russian election for dispsomaniacal neoliberal stooge Yeltsin. Or maybe the USians behind the Maidan Spring coup.
RE: Kashmir’s war gets smaller, dirtier and more intimate
Thanks for this. I was fortunate enough to live on Lake Nagin in Shrinigar in the mid-80s. There were already skirmishes happening at the border which represented the very uneasy peace between Kashmir as annexed to India v. it’s neighbor Pakhistan.
Kashmir is a gorgeous, mostly mountainous Himalayan state that also includes the former country of Ladakh in the high Himalayas. I was lucky to live there for almost 6 months one glorious summer. Did a lot of high altitude treks, plus a fascinating trip to Lakdakh, where I attended a very high altitude event with the Dali Lama giving a talk.
Lot of tension between the predominantly Muslim populace v. the predominantly Hindu state/national governing bodies. Most Kashmiri’s felt that they should have been made part of Pakhistan.
I’m sure Team USA has it’s dirty finger prints on various aspects of these ongoing tensions/skirmishes/ battles. The article mentions Israels involvement in selling/providing weapons to the Pakistanis.
I’m no expert on any of it but have long sat on the sidelines feeling helpless, hopeless and very sorry for the local population, who are in the middle of all of this. It was, and still is (I believe), a very poor state with the majority of the populace living a very precarious, hand to mouth existence. Tourism, which could be huge (and has been at times), suffers because people are, rightfully, afraid to visit, never knowing when the next battle will break out and who could get caught in the cross-fire.
Very sad situaiton. The article references someone I met via American friends when I visited there. I met him and his parents and siblings. Very interesting family. Glad to see that my friend is still doing well after all of these years.
Amazing – we don’t even remember anymore:
“Nuclear weapons have been used twice in war, both times by the United States against Japan near the end of World War II. On August 6, 1945, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a uranium gun-type fission bomb nicknamed “Little Boy” over the Japanese city of Hiroshima; three days later, on August 9, the U.S. Army Air Forces detonated a plutonium implosion-type fission bomb nicknamed “Fat Man” over the Japanese city of Nagasaki. These bombings caused injuries that resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 civilians and military personnel.[3] The ethics of these bombings and their role in Japan’s surrender are subjects of debate.”
From Wikipedia
Today is also the 17th anniversary of Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US.
But, as Condi would say, this comment “contains historical information
based on old reporting”.
Re China Minsky Moment
Getting them hooked on all that debt just might be by design.
Economic Hit Men 2.0 and all that now on a bigger scale.
One way to integrate into someone’s World Community.
> Slow rollout, more fine print with Trump health care options…
“President Donald Trump says insurers are “going wild” about his new health care options and “millions and millions” of people will be signing up… …The plans won’t be sold through HealthCare.gov.”
Next step… put the HealthCare.gov server in HRC’s closet… what could go wrong?… /s
“A wave of war memorials is coming to D.C. Are we all at peace with that?”
I think that that Elizabeth Mayer had it right when she questioned how the mall was being turned into a series of war memorials and no longer about a place of national identity. Then again, maybe that is just what some people want. That concept art for WW1 is certainly all gung-ho in nature. I have noticed a similar trend in American documentaries over the years. Some of those suggested memorials are really starting to push it though. A Global War on Terrorism Memorial? Isn’t it customary to wait until a war is over before setting up a memorial? Yeah, I know that it has been nearly twenty years but even the name itself is a false depiction what the true purpose of these military actions has been. When they start erecting memorials for African Americans in the Revolution and Native American I would have to classify this as identity politics at work. These are supposed to be memorials for Americans, not subsections of them. Sure they deserve their own memorials but that Elizabeth Mayer had it right about choosing carefully what can fit on the limited space on the mall.
One of the best memorials is the one for Vietnam and that was because that it was basically pushed through by Vietnam vets themselves in spite of fierce opposition by Ronnie’s henchmen. Maya Lin’s concept was brilliant on several levels for that one. I also saw mention of how a plaque with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s D-Day prayer is being designed for the National World War II Memorial. Maybe a better choice would be Eisenhower’s letter he wrote taking responsibility for D-Day if things had gone wrong (https://www.businessinsider.com.au/d-day-in-case-of-failure-letter-by-general-eisenhower-2012-6?r=US&IR=T) instead as more thought evoking. Maybe what they should do is have a combined military memorial on the Mall. You would have statues of small groups of soldiers from each era so you would have Revolutionary War soldiers, soldiers of the War of 1812, the frontier cavalry, Civil War vets, Spanish-American vets, doughboys of WW1, dogfaces of WW2, grunts of Vietnam, etc. The Three Soldiers Statue (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Soldiers#/media/File:Three_soldiers.jpg) could be a template for this. Of course then you are left with the question of what memorials should be on the mall that are not military by nature and the first thing that comes to mind is Roosevelt’s efforts to put America back to work during the Depression though you could argue that his memorial is all those Civilian Conservation Corps projects still being used today.