2:00PM Water Cooler 12/18/2020

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145 comments

1. chris December 18, 2020 at 2:19 pm

   I can speak to the question of why low risk populations are going to be given the vaccine first. My wife and others who are involved in making vaccines have been trying to explain this for months.

   You give the vaccines to the people who are least at risk first so that you accomplish two things: (1) you expand the pool of people who have had it so any issues with the vaccine that occur in healthy people can be examined and you improve your chances of not exposing less healthy people to the same issues, and (2) the more healthy people who have the vaccine the lower the population is that can get and spread whatever you’re vaccinating against which helps to protect those who can’t get the vaccine.

   It’s a system that is intended to build herd immunity while protecting people who may be at risk from undesirable effects from new vaccines while also shielding those who are immunocompromised and can’t get the vaccine. That’s why it’s a big deal if a large part of the healthy population rebels and won’t get the vaccine.
   1. tegnost December 18, 2020 at 3:17 pm

      exactly, why bother with trials, just give it to healthy people and see what happens.If you’re involved in making vaccines then I can see some financial benefit to you, in the short term at least (which of course is the world we consume in) so yeah I can see how you might be concerned that your test subjects may balk.
      1. chris December 18, 2020 at 3:46 pm

         I don’t think you understand. There’s no animus here. You’re basically just expanding the challenge groups from the trials after you’ve confirmed it’s OK to do so. If you want to find some kinda nefarious political manipulation, look at Gilead and their roll out of drugs during this time. Look at Remdesivir.

         Expanding a vaccine to the least risky population first is how things usually work. It’s a good sign that we’re not trying to change that too much even during a time of extraordinary need.
         1. Steve December 18, 2020 at 9:38 pm

            Totally unethical approach, treating the well instead of those at risk. Shame on you.
            1. chris December 18, 2020 at 10:14 pm

               I’m utterly confused by your stance on this. If you treat people with a lot of other problems how do you know if you vaccine works in healthy people or if it just can’t overcome all the problems in someone who’s already sick with other things? You typically don’t plan out trials for things that include dozens of confounding variables at the start. Also, God forbid something does go wrong. Who do you think is better suited to handle that – a younger healthy adult or an older sickly individual?
               1. a different chris December 19, 2020 at 10:28 am

                  Not that it will help, but my son a few years ago would have been categorized (in a vacuum) as almost completely “low risk” (the only category that would take him to risk-bottom would be if he were my daughter instead).

                  But life isn’t a vacuum, he worked at WPIC, aka “Western Psych”.

                  Patients would be dragged in from the street by cops. Said patients would often throw poop at the staff. Spitting on staff was almost de rigueur.

                  Which I would think would put his former co-workers “first in line” and deservedly so.
         2. Phillip Cross December 18, 2020 at 11:44 pm

            “I don’t think you understand.” seems to be a universally valid response to any tegnost post.
   2. JTMcPhee December 18, 2020 at 4:05 pm

      What information do you have that the vaccines in play do anything to “lower the spread” of this disease? Per the comments here at NC and what I have read elsewhere, here is nothing in the scientific record that shows these novel molecules keep even inoculated people from continuing to release active virions into the air and sewage. And as to this herd-immunity thing, it’s hardly clear that inoculating (I won’t say “immunizing, since that does too seem to be proven) jabbing the people least at risk first will do anything in the way of protecting the more vulnerable part of us from the disease? I must be thick, but as things stand, the science on the record, and “policy” as far as I can see, might support the idea that inoculating healthier (read richer, privileged) people first might reduce the number of adverse events from injection of the molecule, giving the healthier a better chance of surviving the adverse event. But “shielding the immune compromised” or people with other health issues? How is that going to work?

      Maybe the mRNA vaccines now approved, under a misapplication of the terms of the EUA provision, and the other ones in the pipeline to approval by a hard-pressed agency demonstrated to have long ago abandoned the precautionary principle, might be a magic bullet to immunity. But as with claims that these will stop the spread of the disease that ignore the lack of proof that they stop transmission by inoculated persons, there is no showing that immunity persists or even that reinfection is mitigated.

      And as noted in the links today, rich people are trying to buy the right to jump the line. One might almost hope that the mRNA “approved” molecules ended up having a whole lot of adverse effects, immediately and down the road, giving the rich and the “preferred” different kind of “preference” and “privilege…”

      Of course it looks like “health care workers” (what about the briefly adored and now ignored “essential workers?”) will be at or near the top of the list, to be the experimental animals in this grand beta trial… So there’s that. I wonder if Gates and Buffett and Zuckerberg and Koch the rest are champing at the bit to get jabbed, or are waiting in their elite spaces to see what happens to the ragged mob.
      1. chris December 18, 2020 at 10:10 pm

         The prevention of spread is a qualified “might” right now. We don’t know for sure if either vaccine currently approved under an EUA will or won’t do it. I am more hopeful for Moderna’s vaccine because they made that with the help from NIH and other vaccine research centers as opposed to Pfizer which made a big deal about going it alone. That’s why Moderna checked the limits on its cold chain storage requirements and stability early on and Pfizer didn’t. Moderna learned about that from their work on zika, ebola, and other projects. So they made a product that could be stored and used by the people who needed to use it as opposed to Pfizer which made a product and didn’t understand the environment it would be used in as well.

         I have been reading the stuff on this site for a long time and I am just as aware as anyone of the many failings of our government and our regulatory agencies. I understand people are skeptical and scared. But I think we’re dealing with 3 unique things here and they’re making everyone even more suspicious than they should be:

         1) the mRNA vaccine. This is not new tech but it’s certainly a new use and it’s never been approved for use in humans before. It’s also a bizarre kind of voodoo to listen to how it works. It targets the proteins on the outside of the virus and not the virus itself??? That’s very different from prior approaches. The idea that you have a vaccine against a virus and there’s no virus of any kind in it is not what most people think of when they think of a vaccine.

         2) the speed at which everything came together. This all happened in the blink of an eye compared to past experiences. From identifying what SARA-COV-2 was to having a vaccine with a 95% efficacy that is shipped and being used in less than a year????? That’s insanely fast. It makes sense to be skeptical. But you should also understand that were where we are now because of tremendous advances in biotechnology that weren’t around 20, 10, or even 5 years ago. It’s hard to be on the edge of such a revolution and no doubt that it’s all wrong. It’s also legitimately scary to think about what happens if it all works as intended.

         3.) Operation Warpspeed. This is a brilliant application of the outsider bringing in a completely different perspective and blowing away norms. Throwing billions and billions of dollars to get a host of vaccines to market so that whatever ones were shown to work would already have supplies to distribute was a stroke of genius. I have no doubt that the only reason we even tried this insane approach is because Trump or whoever he was talking to so that he approved the idea wasn’t some cautious technocrat. This is something that only a real estate developer and a grand com artist would try to do. I can’t see Obama or anyone else like a typical politician coming up with something like we’ll pay for 100 vaccines and be OK with throwing away 90 of them as long we can get one to market really fast. That’s the good news. The bad news is when you do things that fast and you also prance about like a clown causing everyone to think everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie it means no one trusts what you’ve produced. Also, when you prioritize speed, you risk all sorts of other problems. You risk the production team getting Go Fever. But the calculated risk here is it’s better to best this thing faster with an OK tool than beat it perfectly later. That may have been the right approach. I don’t think we’ll know until we’re through this.

         I know I am biased coming from a research background and being married to a biotechnology scientist for many years. But know what I know about these programs and seeing what my wife and her colleagues do, I’m going to put my faith behind the people in the area who are fighting this fight. I think they’ll get the data to show this idea works eventually. If the vaccines really do work by preventing the virus from entering any cells because the vaccine trains our bodies to eliminate the spike protein then it’s not too far fetched to think it prevents spread too. But I admit we don’t know that yet.
         1. skippy December 19, 2020 at 12:45 am

            LMMAO …. reads like the whole Microwave oven debacle by Pfizer … one of YS fave fables of profit driven expectations completely at odds with reality, but full steam ahead anyway ….
            1. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 19, 2020 at 2:25 am

               It doesn’t matter. You go to war with the Pharma you have. I don’t know if the government even has the operational capability to set up a Manhattan Project any more.
         2. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 19, 2020 at 2:24 am

            > I can’t see Obama or anyone else like a typical politician coming up with something like we’ll pay for 100 vaccines and be OK with throwing away 90 of them as long we can get one to market really fast.

            I agree that the parallel architecture of Operation Warp Speed was great. But at the point where the drugs emerged from the pipeline things seem to have turned dicey. First, no public preparation at all (except PMC scolding and shaming plus some celebrities). Second, “first past the post” seems pretty weird. Third, the production of public data and peer reviewed studies also should have been seamless, and as we have seen with NEJM, it wasn’t. It’s like a “last mile” issue, except longer than a mile (the “last mile” being the actual injections).
            1. chris December 19, 2020 at 8:46 am

               Yeah. As has been discussed on this site many times, it ain’t easy to “trust the science” or the scientists. They haven’t covered themselves with glory throughout this process. As biased as I am I think another observation that has been made here is proving true – the US really can’t do big things anymore. We don’t have the operational capacity for it.
   3. albrt December 18, 2020 at 5:51 pm

      I think the confusion comes from the definition of “risk.” People with the fewest health impairments are low risk in one sense, but healthy people can be at high risk because they work in a covid ward, for example.

      There may be medical and epidemiological reasons for giving the vaccine first to people who are low-risk in the sense of being healthy, but I don’t think that applies to healthy people who are at high occupational risk.
   4. HotFlash December 18, 2020 at 7:41 pm

      Chris, let me see if I have this right. If the goal is herd immunity, as opposed to protecting everyone, and given that the vaccine is limited, achievement of herd immunity would be better served if the population most likely to infect others is vaccinated (assuming the durn thing works). Thus, caregivers, who are in daily contact with infected and/or vulnerable people, would be high on the list. The ‘healthy’ population is still more-or-less in circulation in society, therefore much more likely to infect others, so they should get vaccinated. Nursing home residents are not, generally, otherwise in contact with people who may give them the virus, or at least quarantines can be continued for the duration to keep them safe (ideally). If herd immunity is the goal, then that strategy makes sense.
      1. Steve December 18, 2020 at 9:43 pm

         You are full of blue mud. Your comments completely negate the reality of nursing and retirement home settings being intensely infected. Stop posting ignorant positions.
         1. Yves Smith December 19, 2020 at 12:47 am

            Your comment is utterly out of line. One more like this and you will be blacklisted.

            Caregivers at nursing homes are one of the biggest potential vectors of the disease.
            1. Steve December 20, 2020 at 10:29 pm

               I apologize for the post which was out of line.
      2. chris December 18, 2020 at 9:46 pm

         Well, let’s step back a minute and think about the one problem we’ve had throughout this entire period where some rules and laws are relaxed and some aren’t. There have been recent cases with authorized use of vaccines skipped the entire process more or less but those were extreme circumstances, like with Ebola. In a case like that, especially a few years back, your choice was almost certain death or this untested drug. It wasn’t a hard choice. But for vaccines intended for general use by the population youre shooting for a higher target.

         In general, my understanding is that vaccines that have been approved through the FDA, unless otherwise tested or approved, are initially approved for healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 64. Once that general population has been exposed to the vaccine post FDA trials and we haven’t found anything specifically to question its efficacy or its side effects, then we can start using it on groups that are less healthy. And then eventually, you’ve covered the whole population. That’s usually a good idea with drugs that are solicitated by the government because in those cases they usually come with a guarantee that you can’t be sued for problems coming from the drug. The covid drugs that are covered under Operation Warpspeed have this exclusion too.

         But now we’re in this really urgent time and we’re trying to prevent people in critical positions from getting sick so that they stay healthy enough to help those who are sick. So we’re trying to map what’s usually done onto what we need to have right now. For example, the healthy exclusion still applies in my home state of Maryland but they’re reserving the initial available doses for specific groups in 3 phases and then the general population in a 4th phase.

         Now on to what you said. Yes, the goal is to protect nursing home residents but they generally aren’t in the population at large. So the emphasis is going to fall more on the side of those who could come in contact with the elderly. You’ll also recall from the articles posted here as well as IM Doc’s description that the population of people in the test group over 65 wasn’t large. So they may not know enough to fully support rolling it to the elderly, yet. So if you go about this by limiting the population that can come into contact and spread it to the least able to survive the exposure you end up helping more people in the end and giving people time to verify that things work before approving it for using on riskier populations.

         This all comes from listening to my wife and her colleagues as they work on different vaccine programs for the government. its also consisten with the philosophy behind regulations in the CFR for safety and industrial hygiene (which I know more about).
   5. chris December 18, 2020 at 10:38 pm

      Here’s a WHO paper on conducting challenge trials. Those are a step beyond what we’ve done for COVID as far as I know but it has the same logic. You try this out on healthy adults first.
   6. chris December 18, 2020 at 10:43 pm

      Here’s a reference article explaining the different phases of the process for testing and approving vaccines in the US. Again, in the description for phase I, is the same kind of logic I referred to:

      If the vaccine is intended for children, researchers will first test adults, and then gradually step down the age of the test subjects until they reach their target.
   7. chris December 18, 2020 at 10:56 pm

      Here’s an article from CNN about the Moderna trials from last July. They explain that they’re specifically looking for people who will be out in the world and potentially exposed to COVID. It also says they were targeting 40% of their test group to have relevant health problems compared to the general population like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, etc. But that they couldn’t guarantee that would happen. So they likely got 60% or more trial participants who were generally healthy for testing purposes.

      The thinking behind the study design was similar in some respects to a challenge study but because COVID was so prevalent in the US they didn’t need to inject anyone with it like they would have done in a real challenge study.
2. zagonostra December 18, 2020 at 2:26 pm

   >2020 Presidential election meddling

   So a couple of days ago the “Internal” review came out on what happened in the Iowa Caucuses and it garnered a small blip in that day’s news’s headlines. If you go to Google and search it now, it appears way down on the search results. After 4 years of non-stop false allegations on the Russians interfering in the elections we now have proof that the DNC meddled in the 2020 elections. Two election Presidential election cycles where there is evidence of manipulating the all sacred vote, and that’s it for news on this?

   Even Jacobin seems to not really give damn beyond the perfunctory coverage. The state:

   While it may not answer every question, the report certainly offers a plausible account of what happened and why, with the Shadow app predictably playing a leading role.

   So, was incompetence or malice at the root of the Iowa caucuses debacle? Based on the information contained within the audit, the disaster of February 3, 2020 looks like a fairly textbook case of internal Democratic Party morass, with a dollop of garden-variety ineptitude mixed in.

   That’s it, “plausible account” and the conclusion that it was “ineptitude?” Who is Jacobin covering for. I don’t
   buy it. I think malice and fore thought, collusion and lies are the heart of what happened in 2016 and 2020.

   This country has lost all sense of proportionality and sense of outrage at what was perpetrated. You have a political elite that has inserted their candidate under the guise of the “will of the people” and it gets a day or two in the news.

   Man are people ever so jaded with corruption, it’s now become the norm with scant a peep out of those who were robbed. Where are the legions of Bernie Supports? I know, save the indignation, this too shall pass…

   https://jacobinmag.com/2020/12/iowa-caucus-democratic-party-shadow-app
   https://iowademocrats.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2020-11-10-Internal-Review-Report-for-the-Iowa-Democratic-Party-2020-Iowa-Caucuses.pdf
   1. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 18, 2020 at 2:51 pm

      > So a couple of days ago the “Internal” review came out on what happened in the Iowa Caucuses and it garnered a small blip in that day’s news’s headlines.

      NC, Links, 12/13.
      1. zagonostra December 18, 2020 at 3:15 pm

         It looks like there was one NC link/story and not many comments, so I probably missed it. I was also thinking not so much of NC in my jeremiad as the MSM; NC is exceptional and not the norm when it comes to providing useful news.

         I don’t know what I was expecting.
         1. Hepativore December 18, 2020 at 4:03 pm

            The real question is does this have any implications for Nina Turner’s campaign in Ohio? She was on Sanders’ campaign team and Turner has a reputation for being even more outspoken than Sanders did. While Turner is off to a phenomenonal start, does this mean that we can expect the same degree of DNC meddling in senatorial and Congressional elections now that the precedent has been set with Sanders?

            In the eyes of the elite, Turner probably has the Mark of Sanders and I am sure that we can expect the DNC to try and intervene.
            1. Grateful Dude December 19, 2020 at 6:46 pm

               wasn’t the primary against AOC DNC meddling? And prohibiting primaries against Blue Dog type incumbents, and banishing the Progressive Caucus’ consultants from party patronage?

               Nothing new. Not lately anyway.
   2. JTMcPhee December 18, 2020 at 4:14 pm

      Try using DuckDuckGo or something else besides Google for your search engine default. I tossed Google fo DDG years ago. Probably I just don’t know what crapification exists in DDG, given that anything decent involving a lot of people always seems to get crapified, but it works for me at present.
      1. albrt December 18, 2020 at 5:56 pm

         I use DuckDuckGo most of the time because I believe it doesn’t track me (as much). Unfortunately DuckDuckGo does not produce very good results – they are in line with the crappy results Google now produces, mostly aimed at selling you stuff and not useful for research beyond a Wikipedia entry or two.
         1. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 19, 2020 at 2:33 am

            DuckDuckGo uses Bing’s index plus material gathered by its own crawlers. So its index isn’t nearly as good as Google’s. On the other hand, Google’s search results are so crapified its not clear any more what good its massive index is. I constantly have the problem of not being able to find stuff I know I have written. That use case once worked very well, so I didn’t have to use WP’s horrid internal search; now it doesn’t work as well.

            So, Silicon Valley, you crapified search, good job
      2. HotFlash December 18, 2020 at 7:56 pm

         Another non-tracking search engine is https://swisscows.com
   3. Temporarily Sane December 18, 2020 at 5:59 pm

      The DSA and associated media outfits like Jacobin and TYT essentially serve as sheep herders leading left-leaning folk directly into the poison embrace of the Democratic Party.

      Jacobin joining the outrage over Jimmy Dore walking the walk and trying to push “progressives” left is a case in point. I stopped taking Jacobin seriously after their weaselly endorsement of Biden and Ana Kasparian’s fawning interview of Madeline “It’s Worth It” Albright. Would not be surprised at all if they get CIA money.
      1. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 19, 2020 at 2:50 am

         I’m not sure anybody’s coming out of that dust-up looking real good, except possibly Katie Halper. I do think that if AOC confused Dore’s audience with her constituents, she made a mistake. Her responsibility is to the latter, not the former.
3. DJG December 18, 2020 at 2:28 pm

   Norwegian? Is Mayor Pete living at your house now, preparing to ride the triumphal chariot to his new consulting job in the Department of Transportation?

   Or, and is it possible, is the current Plague of Hacks coming from Norway? Have the Hakkers started demanding ransoms paid in lefse?
   1. Mark Gisleson December 18, 2020 at 5:11 pm

      The new Interior Secretary is half Norwegian (like me but her dad was actually from Norway). She also appears to have been a Liz Warren supporter earlier this year, and a Hillary supporter in 2016.

      I’ll be pleasantly surprised if anything good comes out of this appointment. Biden’s folks appear to trust her and that’s not good.
   2. The Rev Kev December 18, 2020 at 6:16 pm

      Norwegian? It could have been worse with your VPN. It could have been set for Swedish and when you tried to reset it, discovered that your software had reached a consensus and it was agreed that you must live in Sweden after all and stopped you changing it.
   3. HotFlash December 18, 2020 at 8:08 pm

      ransoms paid in lefse?

      If only! The note clearly specifies lutefisk.
4. Caleb December 18, 2020 at 2:30 pm

   Liberals stopped discussing ICE the second that Joe Biden won the presidency

   Don’t think we haven’t noticed
   1. NotTimothyGeithner December 18, 2020 at 3:15 pm

      I thought liberals stopped discussing ICE the second they started to share Trump’s crimes from 2014.

      Liberals are still MIA on gun control too. Matt Stoller has called American liberalism (I am adding the modern American qualifier) a lifestyle brand.
      1. polecat December 18, 2020 at 3:41 pm

         AmLib- has a corporate ring to it.

         Something to print on a tote of baggage, right?
         1. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 4:04 pm

            Am-Lib
            I say use it to “brand” a credit card.
            “Get your American Liberal Credit Card and get this bright Red and Blue tote! Let everyone know you’re on the “Right Side of History!”
            * Terms and restrictions apply.
      2. Massinissa December 18, 2020 at 4:25 pm

         I mean, to be fair, the word ‘Liberalism’ in America has a completely different context compared to how its used in Europe. Liberalism in europe is basically what we call Classical Liberalism over here, I.E. in Europe a Liberal is what over here we would call a Libertarian.

         (For that matter, in Europe the word Libertarian refers to a specific type of left wing individualist anarchist. Basically, American ‘Football’ is different from the Football (‘Soccer’) everyone else uses. Sigh… American Exceptionalism apparently applies to vocabulary.)
         1. NotTimothyGeithner December 18, 2020 at 5:15 pm

            Once upon a time “liberals” weren’t godawful in the US and though not perfect weren’t primarily invested in brunch and what their “faves” thought of Hamilton, the play not the man, they barely know who he is.

            Not everyone else uses “football” for soccer. There are several other countries including Japan and South Africa that use soccer. The term “soccer” came from England. I believe Orthodox countries largely use their own word. Free yourself of the tyranny of FIFA!

            As far as the use of “liberal” across continents, I think the US has been a functional political unit long enough to not have to adhere to European eccentricities over words. The French have had five Republics in all this time.
            1. AbateMagicThinking But Not Money December 18, 2020 at 7:53 pm

               Counting Republics:

               As Basil Fawlty famously said: “Don’t mention the War” – but In this context, I won’t mention the Civil War which reverberates down the centuries (what is the name of your local army base?).

               And also in this context I refer to the ever welcome Madison quote near the top – in conjunction with my favourite from Thailand: Same, same, but different.

               Pip-Pip!
5. Duck1 December 18, 2020 at 2:37 pm

   No salami in the sandwich
   Now I see it
6. Milton December 18, 2020 at 2:40 pm

   His clients, who include Ariana Grande and Justin Bieber, pay between $2,000 and $10,000 a year for personalized care.
   Holy crap! So concierge service is less expensive than ACA Bronze options? I think a zero, or two, is missing from those dollar amounts.
   1. You're soaking in it December 18, 2020 at 3:03 pm

      Poverty doesn’t come cheap.
   2. IM Doc December 18, 2020 at 3:20 pm

      No, that is about right.

      That covers only the services of the PCP. It is not lab, x-rays, surgery or anything else.

      Anything else – hospital, rehab center, specialists, ER – is untouched by the concierge service – it is all on the patient.

      It is the most absurd model ever. The specialists HATE it because the PCP concierge docs call them and demand special care because of their own payment model. The PCPs are under extreme demand to produce rapid service. This can be very irritating to the specialists who are not in on the deal.

      The patient is in effect paying the PCP fee to have expedited consults and referral visits. At the expense of everyone else.

      When the PCP converts to this model, their patient cohort goes from 1800 or so down to 300. The other 1500 get sent to the winds and picked up by other PCPs who are already overburdened.

      I have known many colleagues who have regretted changing to this model very quickly. Rich people are often very boring on top of malignant personalities. Your 300 patients have your cell phone – and begin to call and ask if it is OK to put avocados in their soup. Yes – that is a true story.

      It is all so tragic. And all so America.
      1. albrt December 18, 2020 at 6:00 pm

         Thanks for this.

         Maybe I will start a business referring non-malignant personalities to primary care doctors for a concierge-lite practice. But I doubt I could find 300 non-malignant personalities within an hour driving distance.
   3. D. Fuller December 18, 2020 at 3:23 pm

      That’s probably the retainer fee for instant access. After that, care adds additional costs onto the bill, when needed.

      The doctor is a fixer, for the most part. A practicing medical consultant of the PMC. If you have a problem and he can’t do it? He’ll find someone to fix your problem. Usually, a friend. The Mafia works like this.
   4. Nealser December 18, 2020 at 4:06 pm

      I had a decent primary care physician (pcp) for 5 years. He fired me as a patient when he converted his practice to a VIP (sic) concierge service and I declined to pay the extra fees on top of the already high Blue Cross insurance premiums. These programs have greatly reduced the number of pcp available…and I live in a major metropolis
   5. Socal Rhino December 18, 2020 at 4:21 pm

      The charge is in addition to other costs, if it’s like the concierge plan pitched to me. Premise was that a stable stream of additional income allows the physician to maintain a smaller practice profitably. I don’t know if that ever came to fruition; I left that guy over other behaviors that struct me as rampant greed.
   6. Yves Smith December 19, 2020 at 12:49 am

      The concierge service here in Mountain Brook is $3000 a year. And the MDs in that practice appear to like it and be doing well.

      Hate to say it, but it is very attractive here to elderly people. The one here has 75% seniors in its practice. I had a rant in a post about Medicare about how it is close to impossible here, if you are on Medicare, to get a nurse to come out to do a blood draw, since it is not a covered service under Medicare and anyone who takes Medicare won’t take a cash pay for a non-covered service even though that is OK under Medicare. Being able to get a nurse to come to your home when you need one and not have to go through hoops is very valuable.

      The big problem I hear from MDs is the reverse, that anyone in a concierge practice is almost by definition not as good a doctor by virtue of taking themselves out of the flow of the sort of cases they’d see in a more traditional practice. Even if they were when they started, they become stale.
   7. Ohnoyoucantdothat December 20, 2020 at 9:54 am

      Used this guy for my PCR test in September. Only service that promised 24 hour turn around (actually 12 hours). Flew from Albuquerque to LA and stayed near LAX for 2 nights just for him. Costly but got result I needed. “Clinic” was tent in parking lot of closed restaurant. No traditional testing services would give me assurances they could meet timeframe. And no timely test, no entry at Moscow.
7. Dalepues December 18, 2020 at 2:48 pm

   Save $0.00 Each.

   Free Parking. Five dollars.

   True story. Years ago when the Atlanta Braves played baseball at the Fulton County Stadium, there was a large sign on Glenwood Ave (about four blocks from the stadium) that read Free Parking in big bold letters. Below those letters, in the lower left hand corner, in much smaller letters, the sign also read $5.00. From I-20 you could see the Free Parking, but not the $5.00. Cars would exit off the Boulevard ramp and turn onto Glenwood for the free parking lot. A long line always formed. Once the cars got to the lot and could see the complete sign, five dollars and all, they were confused, sometimes a little angry. The conversation with the attendant collecting the five dollars generally went something like this:
   “Five dollars to park, sir”.
   “But the sign says free parking.”
   “The sign says five dollars, too. Five dollars, please.”
   “I don’t get this. The sign says Free Parking.”
   “Sir, do you want to park here or not?”
   “Here, take the damn five dollars. I’m going to report this shit.”
   “Thank you, sir.”
   1. farragut December 18, 2020 at 4:08 pm

      I recall, years ago, my eldest (aged 7 or 8 at the time) came to me with an advert from the local paper about some shiny, bouncy remote-controlled toy he wanted for Christmas. “And, LOOK, Dad–it says buy one get a second one for FREEEE!”
      I quietly pointed to the fine print mentioning the “Pay only shipping/handling” for the second ‘free’ item (which coincidentally was the same cost as the initial item). He puzzled at it for a sec, then let out a big “Ohhhhh, that’s sneaky!”
      I may have shed a tear of pride. My boy.
   2. lyman alpha blob December 18, 2020 at 5:21 pm

      When I went to Fenway Park as a kid, there was a line of sausage vendors outside the park and I paid $2 or $3 for one on my first trip. Going back a few years later, the price had gone up and I was then a smart mouthed teenager too dumb to realize that all the vendors charged the same price. One guy who looked like Mel from the old sitcom Alice but with a thick Boston accent overheard my complaint that I wasn’t paying $4 for a sausage and he looked at me and said “That’s right four dollars, but for you….four dollars”. Every trip I made to Fenway for years after that, I always made sure to find that same guy for my pregame weiner.
      1. MichaelSF December 18, 2020 at 10:28 pm

         You should have bought a sausage in a bun from Cut Me Own Throat Dibbler.

         https://discworld.fandom.com/wiki/Cut-Me-Own-Throat_Dibbler
8. Toshiro_Mifune December 18, 2020 at 2:50 pm

   “Security researcher Vinoth Kumar told Reuters that, last year, he alerted the company that anyone could access SolarWinds’ update server by using the password ‘solarwinds123′”
   So then…. clearly the Russians.
   1. Janie December 18, 2020 at 4:35 pm

      About 1980 we converted from a manual system to a computer. The hardware went in, followed by software cor training, then parallel, then directories were transferred to the live system. We kept the training system for new hires. I hired a bright but inexperienced young man who buddied up with the only other young man in data entry. The days in, the experienced man came to me for help with inexplicable, random problems. Turns out, the regional IT head honcho, who had every function enabled for himself, had kept his same password on the live system that he had used in training. New hire used his breaks to explore, found the password and tried it on the live system. It worked! So, he was messing with his friend. I thought, “Good hire- he’s going places”. And he did.

      Just shows how the head honchos can foul up. For computer folks, I’ll add that he’s the same guy who once removed the physical disk packwithout logically dismounting it, ie writing the constantly changing active current bit map onto the drive. Cost about two days of rekeying. It being a big corp, he was promoted to national hq.
9. IMOR December 18, 2020 at 2:55 pm

   Re: Dronziga/Judge Preska 500 days.
   She”s a senior judge. She”s sitting by assignment. The chief judge of that circuit can reassign the case and give her something else to do, or simply decline to renew her assignment, at any time. And any case turning into a multiyear grudge match is plenty grounds.
10. Robert S. December 18, 2020 at 3:01 pm

    Re: Economics (1)

    Is that what that is? Nudging? I’ve been seeing that and similar strategies in a few places now. In Walmart 4 years ago, on a ceiling fan. Marked, ‘On Sale’, down to $69 from $69.97. I was so incredulous I took a photo and still have it.

    Amazon is lousy with this stuff. When you search for, I don’t know, Dr. Who brand jelly babies, you’ll get that but also completely unrelated products in your search results, like shoe polish and borax. I just chalked it up to stupidity and rotten algos making me annoyed but clearly I’ve been way too naïve and gullible.
    1. Massinissa December 18, 2020 at 7:45 pm

       I mean, when I was in Middle School (Mid 200s?) one of my teachers told a story about when she was in a store and saw the dress that she wanted a month before and saw a ‘SALE’ sign on it. She checked the price and realized they had raised the price, put it on sale, and it was MORE expensive than when she saw the dress previously. This kind of chicanery has probably been around for awhile, but its probably getting progressively more common and normalized now.
       1. Massinissa December 18, 2020 at 9:20 pm

          Mid 2000s. I was not in middle school during the Roman Empire.
          1. RMO December 18, 2020 at 10:50 pm

             There was a customer of the paint business my family used to run who was constantly complaining that we didn’t give him as big a discount as the large chain supplier in the area. No matter how often we would point out that with his 15% discount at our shop he was paying less than he would with his 20% discount with the other guys because we had lower prices to begin with he wouldn’t let it go. He would even complain about it to our delivery drivers when they took him his paint. This guy didn’t buy much and we even considered just dropping him. In the end we altered the invoicing system so that just for his account the retail price was jacked up by about 15% across the board and then changed his discount to 20% He was happy after that, even though he was paying more money than before.
11. Howard Beale IV December 18, 2020 at 3:05 pm

    SFChronicle: Stanford doctors protest vaccine plan, saying front line workers are at the back of the line
    Administrators and doctors who aren’t on-campus getting vaccinated before rank-and-file hospital staff
    1. edmondo December 18, 2020 at 5:58 pm

       Well, at least we know that piggish and entitled behavior is not a side effect of the vaccine. They were pre-existing conditions — PMC much?
    2. The Rev Kev December 18, 2020 at 6:31 pm

       I only got the very tail end of the clip but Pence just got his jab on TV along with Pence’s wife Karen and Surgeon General Jerome Adams. But as Mrs Rev Kev noted, one of those jabs was not like the other. Typically you put the needle in and push the plunger slowly home but with Pence, it was a literal jab, quick push and done. See it on the following film clip-

       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyF9wQCbC0
12. Toshiro_Mifune December 18, 2020 at 3:09 pm

    7 Magic Phrases That Make You Instantly Likable on Video Calls

    One have have discovered is “Pardon my cat”. Cats in backgrounds or foregrounds of video calls instantly derail any meeting for several minutes.
13. IMOR December 18, 2020 at 3:09 pm

    Covid Cali.
    While reading Water Cooler in my parked car (out of house for new owners to take possn), just got an Urgent! Statewide! Alert! on my phone.
    I thought, “Fire?? Major SoCal quake?! Insurrection?”- but I want to pass along the urgent news to our commentariat: Covid19 is spreading rapidly, and all CA counties are under a stay at home order! You’re welcome.
    FFS, so much performative BS. An added burden on all.
    1. Socal Rhino December 18, 2020 at 4:25 pm

       Orange county reported 0 available ICU beds.
       1. IMOR December 20, 2020 at 10:50 am

          Sorry, my point was that they sent an alert about a well in own situation with no new action taken or recc’d. Counties had all already been under the same orders with small diffs among for several days prior to the ALERT! ALERT!
          I need those to be news.
14. ChrisFromGeorgia December 18, 2020 at 3:10 pm

    Does anyone really expect the likes of McConnell and Pelosi, two of the most dishonest and machiavellian schemers and careerist hacks I’ve ever witnessed, to come up with an honest attempt to help folks truly in need?

    So at the 11th hour it looks like it is all falling apart – the lies about an agreement being “imminent,” the blather about staying in DC until they pass something are slowly dawning on us. There is no bill or even a strategy other than lie to the press and kick the can. A CR keeping things afloat until Biden takes over looks more likely.

    They’re the worst of the worst.
    1. D. Fuller December 18, 2020 at 3:30 pm

       The 11th hour scam… the hand wringing, the wails, the pleas and cries. Then either a deal (with all sorts of goodies for their donor constituents, or not). If neither likes it, they play the blame game. If both like it, there are all sorts of goodies for their donor base.

       Nancy said something curious when she “caved” on the amount of aid, dropping from $3.8T to refusing a Republican offer of $1.8T to now, $998 billion – using an already existing CARES Act funds leftover. She said – relating to smaller amounts – that it was different now that Biden was President and that we have a vaccine.

       Used to justify her pursuit of austerity. If Trump would have remained President? She would have continued to grandstand before the cameras. Until it came time to “cave”. While she pointed fingers at Mitch and Mitch pointed fingers at her – all part of the circus.

       Both parties have their respective “base” fooled. Both parties serve their donor factions – with lots of crossover between factions; Goldman Sachs being the most notorious faction to play both sides.
    2. Screwball December 18, 2020 at 4:23 pm

       Twitter is ablaze with people asking and demanding help. It’s sad to see.

       On another note, I have filed income taxes for years via the online route. I collect SS. All received money goes to direct deposit (so they know who I am). I never received the first $1200. The IRS website tells me they don’t know why I didn’t get it. All the help stuff tells me I am eligible but they don’t know where my money is either.

       I’m glad I don’t need it, but I would like to have it, and it would be even better if I could figure out what to do about it. Their help is no help.

       Anyone else run into this?
15. D. Fuller December 18, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    Solarwinds.

    When I download a package for a Linux system, it usually comes with a PGP signature checksum that I can use to authenticate the package as being an original package. Any change introduced, for instance, the replacement of a package by a malicious package. Becomes instantly obvious.

    By distributing the checksum widely, any change of the checksum at the source, can be verified across multiple sites. The questions are: What type of authentication for the file was being used – both on the server- and client-sides? Were redundant checks being used or was any check simply sole-source from a server.

    Authenticating a checksum across multiple sites is not perfect. It can help. Key repositories should be used. Any hacker would have to change all checksum stored on multiple sites to avoid detection of their modified files. Maybe Solarwinds should look into it if they are not using such a system yet.
    1. Krystyn Podgajski December 18, 2020 at 3:30 pm

       Shhhhhhhhhh…. Don’t talk about the security benefits of Linux! I do not want a crowd of people to start suing it and then becoming a bigger target for hackers.
       1. D. Fuller December 18, 2020 at 3:35 pm

          LOL!

          Now if only Linux would accept a limited commercial license that allowed devs to be paid a nominal fee.

          Still waiting for the takeover of the desktop. Oh, wait…. it is too fractured.

          Linux is great for running the Internet, databases, security? As for user features? Hasn’t been there yet for its entire existence. I still enjoy it though. Technically inclined users have no problem. The (l)user masses? It’s too hard for most. And that is the problem that will always sink Linux in Userland.
          1. Krystyn Podgajski December 18, 2020 at 4:11 pm

             I wish they would all just contributed on one distro, like Debian. These people who want cutting edge and all the glitter frustrate me. Debian 10 is so solid and I never have a problem. Using an SSD on a 7 year old Thinkpad I can brig up my browser and a webpage faster that a new Airbook.

             Ubuntu is fine but went full stpid with SNAP packages. But you are right, still too hard for most users and forget about trying to use it to mesh with an Apple phone.

             I disagree about the commercial license and I favor keeping it as anarchistic as possible. It is the only thing that has saved it from complete crapification.
          2. Glen December 18, 2020 at 5:12 pm

             Most of the big time devs work for the companies that use Linux as part of their business like Red Hat, IBM, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, etc. Here’s the big users:

             https://www.linuxfoundation.org/membership/members/

             And yes, Microsoft now contributes kernel code, and Windows 10 can have Linux in it: (Personally, I run Windows and MacOS in VMs in Linux instead of the other way around.)

             WSL 2 Setup and Config | Windows Subsystem for Linux 2
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUW2pIjDpEk

             There are wild rumors that Microsoft may completely dump their kernel and just use Linux under the hood at some point.

             The super devs like kernel maintainers work for the Linux Foundation.

             The distributions do tend to have a core team, and then package maintainers, and these do tend to be mostly volunteers, but there are some distributions that have both non-free and free versions. This is mostly to keep the corporate managers happy with a support phone number to call.

             I’m currently using ArchLinux, a rolling release, and was exchanging emails with the USB subsystem maintainer about problems I was having. He sent a patch for me to try, it worked, and it’s now incorporated into the kernel. I think the first time I worked with a Linux developer was about 1998 or so.

             As to security, Edward Snowden recommended a couple of releases so I think the cat is way out of the bag that it can be a very secure OS. I always got a kick out of this:

             Linus Torvalds – Backdoor In Linux
             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gRsgkdfYJ8
    2. apleb December 20, 2020 at 11:01 am

       The DLL with the malicious code was digitally signed with the proper company signature, just like any linux repository package would. For anyone looking it was an “original” package/DLL.

       Windows DLLs are usually digitally signed. Every one of them.

       The main updateserver of the company was compromised. The buildserver maybe too otherwise hard to sign the resulting binary correctly. There is no way any of the mirrors can do anything if your Linux distro’s main server is broken.
16. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 3:16 pm

    Re. postal police.
    Hmmm….. This could be an offshoot of the Post 9/11 Panic.
    When I worked for the USPS, back before 9/11, the Postal Inspectors were a shadowy menace, hidden in the bushes to catch unscrupulous mail carriers. They also had their own, dedicated and enclosed observation corridors, running up at ceiling height in the larger facilities. They never told anyone when and where they would be spending the day “observing.” On the street, they used plain, unmarked vehicles. Their entire method was secrecy. The observation corridors even had their own outside entrances, well hidden too, that even the Postmaster of the facility did not have the keys to.
    The above system seems to have worked well for decades. Why the Postal Inspectors would have wanted to be obvious in their presence is a mystery. Now, if Postal Police are a separate entity from the Postal Inspectors, things would make more sense. Then the whingeing would be a plain old turf building exercise.
    Things could have changed, but I do not remember ever hearing of a Postal Police back then, or now. Any information from a present day denizen of the USPS would be appreciated.
    1. Carolinian December 18, 2020 at 3:38 pm

       I feel fortunate to have an older house with a mail slot that leads inside the house. Supposedly all new homes–including fancy ones–are required to use cluster boxes or an old fashioned mailbox on the street.
       1. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 4:10 pm

          We live in an inner ring suburb in a not too large city. The entire city uses streetside mailboxes, and has for years I’m told by the old timers. Our house, built in the 1940’s, still has a small mail holder on the wall outside next to the front door.
          Stay safe!
    2. Swamp Yankee December 18, 2020 at 6:11 pm

       There is a Seinfeld episode where, IIRC, Newman, Kramer, and Jerry run afoul of the USPS Inspectors/Police, and (Spoiler alert) Newman is interrogated, Dirty War style, by the Postmaster General, played by a convincing Wilford Brimley. Pre-9/11, too.
    3. fajensen December 19, 2020 at 4:03 am

       Possibly a requirement for having a SWAT team?

       Just About every organisation in the USA has one and the post office wants the same too?
    4. eg December 19, 2020 at 6:46 am

       Do not speak of Trystero.
17. Dr. John Carpenter December 18, 2020 at 3:27 pm

    RE mail theft: I’ve never seen postal police but we could use some in my neighborhood. This morning I discovered Christmas cards in my mailbox that were opened and now addressed to me. Jjudging by the return addresses, and that the stakes weren’t canceled, someone a block away was trying to send them, im assuming. I’m guessing someone else stole them out of their mailbox, opened them and checked for cash and then stuck in my mailbox, for some reason. They even had the cheek to put the flag up, which was why I checked the box in the first place. I guess it’s that time of year.
    1. D. Fuller December 18, 2020 at 3:39 pm

       That’s okay. A “neighbor” from two blocks away delivered our mail one day, last week. All unopened. The substitute mail carrier fell down on the job. Not the first time either. That all started happening in the last few months. Before that, since there are actually two houses with the same number and street address on the same lot – one labeled “back”, the other “front” – occasionally the substitute carrier would mix up the mail. Now? 2 BLOCKS of a mixup.

       My screen is showing my reply to Dr. John Carpenter as not being a reply. This is a 2nd attempt.
    2. NotTimothyGeithner December 18, 2020 at 4:27 pm

       I’ve never seen the postal police. I was aware of them, but I thought they were primarily investigators and dealt with issues that might arise inside shipping areas.

       There was a mail sorting center near my parents with the last pick up at like Friday 630pm which worked out great for the perpetually late, so I always hit that post office. It was a big operation, and I never saw anything that said “Police” besides actual local cops who were “on patrol” in dream land or something. Not that I was there often, but the DMV and so forth were all there.
    3. jhallc December 18, 2020 at 4:33 pm

       The Postal Police is a new one on me. Do they carry firearms? or just letter openers:)
       1. edmondo December 18, 2020 at 6:04 pm

          They stamp out crime.
          1. Geo December 18, 2020 at 6:31 pm

             That made me laugh! (Yes, I’m easily amused). Thanks.
             1. mrsyk December 18, 2020 at 7:31 pm

                @Geo, Remind me of the name of your movie again.
          2. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 6:38 pm

             If we are being franked about it, the Congressional Oversight Committee should hold their sessions in the overhead ‘observation’ corridors of Congress.
          3. Aumua December 18, 2020 at 10:09 pm

             I also LOL’d. Perhaps a little too loud, idk.
             1. wilroncanada December 19, 2020 at 5:20 pm

                Aumua
                It’s OK just cancel that.
    4. Dr. John Carpenter December 18, 2020 at 5:09 pm

       Meant “not” addressed to me. In fact, both cards were supposed to go out of state.
18. Terry Flynn December 18, 2020 at 3:32 pm

    I really don’t get why so many economists are keen to either defend ergodicity or tweak theories to accommodate violations. First, see Ben-Akiva & Lerman book (1985) for more “user friendly” account of why averages of discrete outcomes DO NOT improve the average and can do the reverse – hint, go read what heteroscedasticity on the latent scale does to probit/logit models….. If you think it “just messes with standard errors” you fail stats 101.

    Second, even McFadden in his “Nobel” lecture pretty much acknowledged that the math psych people had the conceptualisation of the statistical error term right by acknowledging them at all – real people aren’t consistent outside highly specific/emotional contexts like abortion rights etc. 40+ years of research since have merely confirmed this.

    These people need to move on. New paradigm please. This is the stated preference equivalent of MMT.
19. Krystyn Podgajski December 18, 2020 at 3:38 pm

    Dear Yves, Lambert, Jerry-Lynn, et all,

    It is frustrating to see so many Twitter links on here and I feel I have been seeing more and more lately. Twitter is pretty much Facebook Lite and while there are some clever bits posted on Twitter, it is so easy for their AI to grab our attention and promote the worst of us. I would rather read a full length article than read the most times useless replies one a twitter comment.

    I have no solutions other than suggesting screen grabs maybe?

    I have Twitter blocked in my hosts file to prevent myself from going down that attention sucking rabbot (not a typo) hole.
    1. Yves Smith December 18, 2020 at 8:27 pm

       I’m sorry but Twitter is not Facebook, not remotely. And you are seriously misinformed as to how it works. Twitter can’t reach through our pages to see what users view it any more than a site whose cross posts we use can see who reads them her. Among other thing, that sort of thing would massively tax Cloudflare and they would block it even if someone were to attempt to develop that capability.
       1. Krystyn Podgajski December 19, 2020 at 6:25 am

          I did not mean to imply that they were like Facebook that I feared them getting my information, more that they are trying to steal my attention.

          Sorry for the misunderstanding.
20. zagonostra December 18, 2020 at 3:50 pm

    >Democratic Leaders Block AOC From Key Committee Spot

    David Doel covers this nicely on TheRationalNational though he fails to link this with withholding Speakership vote for Pelosi until she brings M4A up for a vote.

    But in a surprise, last-second Steering Committee meeting on exclusive committee assignments Thursday, which was scheduled at 10 p.m. the night before, centrist Democrats put on a show of support for Rice and against AOC, in what looks to have been a process-defying attempt to keep AOC out of the seat. Fellow New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries came out in support of Rice, contra Nadler, as did Reps. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), Diana DeGette (D-CO), and Stephanie Murphy (D-FL).

    https://prospect.org/politics/establishment-strikes-back-aoc-versus-centrist-democrats/
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lOpDuEUk4w&ab_channel=TheRationalNational
    1. Geo December 18, 2020 at 6:23 pm

       Thanks for the Doel link! Will check it out.

       This is the real story of power plays within the party that so many seem to ignore. There’s a rightwing takeover of the party happening (not Clinton/Obama-right but ultra-right) and the handful of actual progressives are getting crushed while a portion of the progressive base has turned on them over this M4A symbolic vote thing. We act like they are all powerful and aren’t doing their jobs we elected them to do when in reality it appears they are being stomped on at every turn by the establishment and are barely allowed to exist.

       Already see sparks of outrage over Cory Bush doing an event with Clyburn. We might as well turn on her too even before she’s stepped foot in congress because we can’t allow any of them to, you know, do politics, while in political office. They’re only allowed to throw Molotov cocktails and anything less than that is capitulation. Seriously, many on the left have turned on Bernie, AOC, Omar, and now Bush, all because they haven’t changed a system rigged against them and hostile to the things they want to do.

       I don’t have any answers but I feel like holding their “feet to the fire” isn’t effective when they’re already facing an all out assault by the establishment. Otherwise we’re acting like Donald Rumsfeld when he said “You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.” Again, I don’t have any answers but forcing them into battles they can’t win seems to be counterproductive considering this recent news.
       1. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 6:57 pm

          I was under the impression that the ‘pragmatic’ purpose of the “hold the vote” campaign was to ‘out’ the closet conservatives in the Democrat Party. If so, this move has already done some of that.
          As to the ultras trying a take over of the Democrat party, it is but the logical continuation of the 1990’s DLC/Third Way program, instituted by, you guessed it, Bill Clinton and Company.
          I’ll contend that, as in the 1960’s, when the Civil Rights Movement had the Black Panthers and other radical Black groups as “muscle” “waiting in the wings,” today’s progressives need the credible threat of a revolutionary movement really “burning down the house” to back up their demands.
          I make the above comments in the belief that, at present, the “Obama Night of the Long Lives,” has shown that ‘playing nice’ will get us absolutely nothing substantive from the Powers That Be, (used in an un-ironic sense.) So, before making credible threats, one needs to know whom to threaten. A scattergun approach to “hardball politics” could do more harm than good in that it would alienate otherwise friendly, or at least neutral politicos.
          And by the way, I must salute you for daring to do the hard work of retail politics in your area. It’s not something anyone could just pick up in an afternoon. It takes work, and faith. Take the musings of an old cynic such as myself with a big handful of Pink Himalayan salt. (I find it more than a bit amusing that anyone could consider my ideology, such as it is, as True Left. That said, that fact alone shows just how far Right American politics in general have become.)
          Stay safe and be vigilant!
       2. Aumua December 18, 2020 at 10:49 pm

          Yes, and not to mention the full on assaults from the official and far right, which are ongoing and quite vicious of course. So far I’ve not really been able to put into words exactly what I think is wrong with Jimmy Dore’s approach on the M4A/Pelosi thing. I’m still forming an opinion about it I guess. He’s always been right about a lot of things, but also he’s really risking nothing himself here but demanding that others risk everything. And in some sense he and his little fan club are doing the right’s dirty work for them in smearing the Democratic left-wing, such as it is.
          1. witters December 19, 2020 at 3:16 am

             ‘… he’s really risking nothing himself here but demanding that others risk everything.’

             What is this ‘everything’?
             1. Aumua December 19, 2020 at 4:30 am

                I’ll concede that it’s not everything, but potentially it’s a lot.
                1. witters December 19, 2020 at 7:57 pm

                   OK, so a lot of what?
21. Chauncey Gardiner December 18, 2020 at 4:06 pm

    A hoot on the link to the photo you posted today under “Dept of Feline Felicity” on the passage from this earthly life of “Successful People” vs. “Unsuccessful People” vs. “People who love Cats”. Thanks!
    1. The Rev Kev December 18, 2020 at 6:35 pm

       Yeah, that last image was completely unexpected and worth a good laugh.
22. Chauncey Gardiner December 18, 2020 at 4:09 pm

    Re “WA school district apologizes for excluding Asians as POC”, we will have realized MLK’s dream of a society based on the content of our character when there is no longer a need to publicly address exceptions, inclusion or exclusion of any group from equitable treatment.
    1. JBird4049 December 19, 2020 at 3:39 am

       Funny isn’t? Somehow equality of opportunity and respect for one’s character has been transmogrified equality of outcome based on the color of their skin. Somehow we must be judged by our ancestry rather than by ourselves.

       What would Martin Luther King Jt. and Malcolm X be labeled if they had died today after doing what they had done then today? (I hope somebody understands the previous sentence.) With one dying after starting a fight for the poor and the other for peace? Racist? Terrorists? Communists? Class reductionist?
23. marym December 18, 2020 at 4:11 pm

    SCOTUS 6-3 – not the right time for them to weigh in on whether undocumented immigrants should be counted as persons.

    https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1339950983791714304
    1. NotTimothyGeithner December 18, 2020 at 4:29 pm

       They still haven’t figured out how to draw the lines.
       1. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 7:02 pm

          Considering how reactionary this new SCOTUS line up looks, I would not be a bit surprised to see them resurrect the old three-fifths rule from the constitution.
          Three-fifths rule: https://www.theusconstitution.org/news/understanding-the-three-fifths-compromise/
24. Grant December 18, 2020 at 4:26 pm

    The left better start to really focus on the insights from MMT. I don’t see how the left can seriously take part in the class war on behalf of working people unless the types of stupid arguments Johnson gives are frontally challenged at the root level. If you bring those insights into the discussion, it would be much harder for ghouls like Johnson to make these types of arguments.

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/18/republican-senator-who-voted-trumps-15-trillion-tax-cut-rich-blocks-1200-stimulus
    1. Geo December 18, 2020 at 6:42 pm

       True but easier said then done. There’s so much illiteracy about our economic system by a society that’s been propagandized by confusing myths and fables conceived by Wall Street evangelists it’s hard to explain reality to most.

       Heck, I had to explain to someone (in their 70’s) recently that our currency is not finite and isn’t still backed by gold. Trying to explain MMT to people really freaks them out. “Money isn’t real? It’s all fabricated on faith by the Fed?” Plus, once they grasp MMT they might start to doubt the benevolent omnipotence of the invisible hand of the free market! Can’t allow that, can we? :)

       Plus, the name is a hard sell. “Modern” and “theory” make it sound like a newfangled whim instead of a functional form of economic practice.
       1. AbateMagicThinking But Not Money December 18, 2020 at 9:48 pm

          re: Modern Monetary…

          I bang on that describing the Modern Monetary Method should be promulgated. Method, Method, METHOD!

          But being a pragmatist I realize that such a change is just as likely as all elected politicians being willing and/or able to give a plain-language explanation of the consequences of fiat money.

          Pip-Pip!

          ps F almost looks like a P, so I would go with “Practice” happily.
25. Mikel December 18, 2020 at 4:28 pm

    RE:“The wealthy scramble for COVID-19 vaccines: ‘If I donate $25,000 … would that help me?’” [Los Angeles Times].

    Such things are hardly ever publicized and now they are making it known everywhere? Like clockwork. These claims don’t pass the smell test either.

    (While I’m sure the wealthy DO pay to jump in line for a number of things).
    1. Massinissa December 18, 2020 at 5:02 pm

       I’m not sure I agree. They’re talking about LA in particular, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the rich there are scared shitless and panicking. Though I suppose you could be right, and if anything probably have a better chance of being right than I do. I’m not sure there’s enough evidence to really say at this point, but who knows. I think its times of crisis when things become most obvious about how a society really functions.
       1. Mikel December 18, 2020 at 8:17 pm

          Well, yes, I should also consider these may be people who need to be in the limelight / surrounded by others for their trade.
    2. FluffytheObeseCat December 18, 2020 at 5:08 pm

       I made an unladylike noise when I read the details in this piece. Odds are successful line jumpers pay far more than a meager $25k to access the vaccine ahead of the common folk. And as you say, their machinations are not publicized and won’t be any time soon. If ever.

       The real reason we’re able to read an article on this topic is that it’s safely revealing the pitiful efforts of the not really rich, and not particularly powerful. The LA Times is not uncovering the nefarious ways of the hyper-elite in this piece; it’s artfully sneering at 87%er types who idiotically think they have a shot at something that is far, far beyond their grubby touch.
       1. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 7:05 pm

          Case in point being our political elites. How much of Trump’s treatment was performative and how much plain old self preserving.
       2. Daryl December 18, 2020 at 8:24 pm

          25k? Not even enough to get a park bench named after you, let alone a building or a wing of the hospital. Next…
       3. fajensen December 19, 2020 at 4:16 am

          I always believed that rich people basically allows public healthcare to exist because they want to have the very best doctors and the most advanced treatments for themselves.

          They understand numbers: Without enough people “in the pipeline” there’s not enough statistics to find what the best treatments are and doctors working only on a few rich folks will not be trained to peak performance.

          Thus, these must be dumb money.

          The smart money gives it 6-18 months and then pick what vaccines they want.
26. Swamp Yankee December 18, 2020 at 4:38 pm

    Re: Yglesias, as I said last night or the night before in comments: my theory of the case is that he’s once more trimming his sails to catch the change in prevailing winds. I’ve never met Yglesias, but I feel that I somehow know him because — though he is from wealth and I am a child of working people — we went to the same type of college at the same time, I’ve been reading him since we were both undergrads in the early 2000s, and he is a relatively shallow and pedestrian writer and individual and is relatively easy to explain once you realize that his goal is to be a kind of Millennial David Broder/Thomas Friedman, his finger constantly in the wind.

    Thus his evolution from pro-Iraq War liberal to anti-Iraq War liberal to economics blogger who doesn’t know anything about it to Obama apologist to now, his most recent avatar as the “respectable” wing of the DSA dem-soc left. (A similar dynamic explains the evolution of Oren Cass, whom I did know, well, and who was and is an enemy of mine, from a raging Neocon to a Romneyite policy guy to his new personality as a kind of Christian Democrat for the 21st c. USA).

    Also, FDR may have made an alliance with terrible segregationist Dixiecrats, but his own civil rights record was far from terrible; there’s a reason Black voters — many of them by now in Northern cities due to the Great Migration — begin the process of realigning to the Democratic Party during his Presidency after 70+ years of voting, where and when they could, for the GOP. He orders an end to segregation in war industries after A. Philip Randolph, head of the Pullman Car Porters’ Union (modern equivalent would probably be flight attendants) threatens a March on Washington in 1940 if he does not.

    Eleanor is even better, speaking against lynching and inviting Marian Anderson to sing at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution refused her their venue (Mrs. Roosevelt was a DAR member).

    But again, here is Trust Fund Matty shifting with the winds, hedging his bets — material benefits is a sop to the Sandersite left, while the idea that FDR had a terrible civil rights record and was a racist is an a priori Truth (despite, you know, the facts — incorrigible we historians are!) for the Wokeista liberals. So he’s engaging in his usual balancing act here, is my read.
    1. John Wright December 18, 2020 at 10:21 pm

       But one can wonder if Yglesias will attempt to bury his recent book “One Billion Americans: The Case for Thinking Bigger”?

       With Climate change advancing, a poor job market, and poor medical care for much of the current American population, Yglesias must be a true believer that “labor creates its own demand” and adding even MORE humans will find a solution to climate change.

       The Amazon entry has:

       “What would actually make America great: more people.”

       “If the most challenging crisis in living memory has shown us anything, it’s that America has lost the will and the means to lead. We can’t compete with the huge population clusters of the global marketplace by keeping our population static or letting it diminish, or with our crumbling transit and unaffordable housing. The winner in the future world is going to have more—more ideas, more ambition, more utilization of resources, more people. ”

       “Exactly how many Americans do we need to win? According to Matthew Yglesias, one billion.”

       And somehow that is going to fix bad USA infrastructure and affordable housing?

       Yglesias is at the ready to replace Tom Friedman..
       1. Swamp Yankee December 19, 2020 at 1:14 am

          I forgot about his population 1 billion USA thing — wow. You can tell the guy hasn’t been outside the metro bubble much, or even just _outside_, never mind contemplated the carrying capacity of ecosystems.

          Unbelievable.
27. edmondo December 18, 2020 at 5:02 pm

    Patient readers, sorry to be a bit late. Every so often by VPN causes my browser to believe I’m in Norway,

    Look, I’m not saying that a variety of gremlins are always afoot but lately, the posts get later and later and the excuses are getting more and more ephemeral. Really, Lambert, your rationales for your tardiness are becoming so outlandish that the Trump people are now thinking about putting you on the legal team Lambert “Sidney” Strether has a ring to it, non?

    A word to the wise should be sufficient. I hope you accept this mild criticism with a cheery outlook. If your ways don’t soon mend. You have Jo6pak in your future. And Merry Christmas.
    1. Lambert Strether Post authorDecember 19, 2020 at 2:35 am

       There’s a lot of material to process…
28. Geo December 18, 2020 at 5:49 pm

    The Establishment Strikes Back

    (Excerpt) According to multiple people familiar with the proceedings, Ocasio-Cortez’s recent interview with The Intercept, where she said Speaker Pelosi needed to go, though there was no one to replace her, loomed over the proceedings.

    https://prospect.org/politics/establishment-strikes-back-aoc-versus-centrist-democrats/

    Well, looks like progressives have been totally shelved in favor or rightwing zealots in the party. Funny enough, the person that took AOC’s spot on the committee was against Pelosi in ‘18. But, it’s only bad if Pelosi is attacked from the right. The left isn’t allowed to say anything bad about her.

    Here’s a good tweet thread that summarizes and puts into more context: https://twitter.com/alex_sammon/status/1339964708317589505?s=21
    1. Geo December 18, 2020 at 5:56 pm

       Oops! Just saw this was already posted above. Should have done an updated read of comments before posting. :)
29. The Rev Kev December 18, 2020 at 6:41 pm

    “Never-Trump movement splinters as its villain heads for the exit”

    So all those Republicans fought Trump every step of the way and won! Oh, wait a minute – that mean’s that they lost power and are now back in the wilderness like a bunch of losers. Only one thing to do now. Harass all other Republicans if they supported Trump, even if it costs them losing the mid-terms, losing the Senate and maybe losing the 2024 Presidential election as well. Sounds like a Plan.
    1. ambrit December 18, 2020 at 7:28 pm

       Wait, wait, wait! Do you mean to suggest that the Establishment Republicans are taking lessons from the Democrat Party now?
       Up really is down now!
30. mrsyk December 18, 2020 at 7:31 pm

    @Geo, Remind me of the name of your movie again.
    1. ambrit December 19, 2020 at 1:27 am

       It’s “Blood from Stone.”
       1. mrsyk December 19, 2020 at 4:35 pm

          Thank you!
31. rowlf December 18, 2020 at 8:01 pm

    One of my favorite images of Keith Richards is on a chartered 747 for the band and crew for a mid 1990s tour, Richards gets some flight attendant garb and a beverage cart and is going through the aircraft cabin serving drinks to everyone, grinning ear to ear.
32. Mikel December 18, 2020 at 8:28 pm

    This debate says alot about US foreign policy. Bolton debating Varoufakis? Couldn’t resist.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyXIOBIOTCE

    “At the 2020 Holberg Debate, Amb. John Bolton and Member of the Hellenic Parliament Yanis Varoufakis discussed current threats to regional and global stability. The debate took place on 5 December and was chaired from Bergen, Norway.”

    One spoiler: Bolten throughout tries to make economics and US Foreign Policy seem unrelated (as if any country being invaded or “feared’ doesn’t have some corporations gain in mind).
    Yanis rightly leans into the global financial instability that constantly repeats itself and is worse with the hyper financialization of everything.

    If you have time…….
33. The Rev Kev December 19, 2020 at 12:03 am

    “Why Did Obama Forget Who Brought Him to the Dance?”

    Because that was the plan all along. To prove that he was a ‘team player’ to the Washington establishment, he sold them out as soon as he became President. Remember “Obama Girl”? Yeah, she got dumped for a better gig. When things turned a bit iffy in the 2012 campaign, they went back to those people who they had neglected over the past four years and ask for their support and trying to reconnect to them. By the time the 2016 campaign came rolling around, those people stopped picking up their phones or answering his emails. And in came Trump. So now Barry is trying to buff the turd of his legacy and having Grandpa moments about stuff that he does not want to have people remember.
34. Anonymous December 19, 2020 at 4:22 am

    The LA Times cabin fumes story is huge- probably the biggest coverup of the century. Airline management, Aircraft manufacturers, regulators and even the pilots Union have all played a part in suppressing the ubiquity and severity of the problem. It’s been successfully suppressed for decades. Every single commercial aircraft flying today, (with the exception of the 787) is toxic. Yes every single flight, not just the somewhat rare extreme fume events which make the news. It’s the constant low dose chronic exposure that accumulates as a toxic body load that predisposes air crew to serious injury during the more acute events. The delayed onset of the more severe symptoms (neurological, heart and lung) different responses/symptoms from different individuals and greatly varying individual susceptibility due to genetics have helped the cabin fume denialists and industry hired guns win court battles for years, but the tide may be turning as a JetBlue pilot won a landmark injury case just this year. I don’t know how many more decades the problem will take to get fixed, but one day people will look back on the last 70 years of air travel as an absolutely bizarre form of barbaric mass poisoning. Millions are needlessly poisoned and thousands have their health destroyed because the industry doesn’t want to retool the bleed air environmental architecture of aircraft when solutions exist and are even already in use in aircraft like 787. The toxic organophosphates which are added to jet engine oil become even more toxic when they are pyrolyzed and converted to aerosols and vapors. These same chemicals are used as pesticides and nearly identical to other organophosphates which are used in chemical weapons like Novichok, VX and Sarin. Unbelievable that people are breathing this stuff on airplanes every day with the blessing of regulators.

    The LA Times expose opens with a story about Spirit Airlines flight 708 and only speaks of the First Officer while not mentioning the Captain who lost his mind and died 50 days later. More on that topic and cabin air contamination here if you’re interested:

    https://avherald.com/h?article=4b6eb830
35. Richard H Caldwell December 19, 2020 at 9:59 am

    RE: Yglesias — I’m with you; he’s making sense, and it’s cognitive dissonance for me. Maybe a permanent change? We can only hope.
36. Jack Parsons December 19, 2020 at 5:37 pm

    About Google: ads for search are still their only real cash cow. All other products have failed, as I understand it.

    They are facing pressure on ad income: a) Amazon also charges for vendor ads, and is eating away at Google’s take. Also, Bing search-based ads are making interesting money.
37. drumlin woodchuckles December 19, 2020 at 10:25 pm

    I will offer a couple of words by which we could call these mRNA platforms-against-covid, if we want to.

    Neo-vaccinoids. Or pseudo-vaccinoids. But I like neo-vaccinoids better. Neo because they are new. VaccinOIDS because they are “like” vaccines, but they are not really vacCINES in any true classical sense.

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