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2:00PM Water Cooler 10/2/2024

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By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Return to the mimidae!


Blue Mockingbird, Yecora, Km 262, Sonora, Mexico.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Vance-Walz debate.
  2. Boeing and Longshoremen strikes.
  3. Effects of Helene on North Carolina election.

* * *

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

* * *

Trump Assassination Attempts (Plural)

2024

Less than forty days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

This week’s crop of flag-of-convenience Democrat celebrities and generals didn’t turn the tide either. Despite the micturition and lamentation (very much including my own) about the Trump campaign dogging it when the election is theirs to win (see Gallup, “2024 Election Environment Favorable to GOP” on the issues) do note the steady deterioration in Kamala’s position in the (aggregated) top battlegrounds. (Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to a subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars especially might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!.

“Swing State Polling Finds Deadlocked Presidential Contest, ‘Blue Wall’ Senate Races Tighten” [Cook Political Report]. • Handy chart:

“Democrats’ Unquestioning Support of Israeli War Crimes Puts 2024 at Increasing Risk” [Common Dreams]. “Since we first began polling Arab Americans 30 years ago, the community has consistently favored the Democratic Party, with the margin of that support holding steady at nearly two to one for the past decade and a half. The Biden administration’s handling of the crisis in Gaza, however, has eroded that support resulting in Arab Americans now evenly divided between the two parties—38.5% for each. Equally revealing is the fact that by a slight margin (46% to 44%) voters in the community say they would prefer to see Republicans controlling the next Congress. Arab American voter turnout has consistently been in the 80% range. But this year only 63% of the community say they are enthusiastic about voting in November, likely impacting voter turnout in November…. More ominous for Harris is that when only considering likely voters, Trump leads 46% to 42%… All of the third-party candidates combined receive just 12% of the Arab American vote. Instead, it’s Trump who is the beneficiary of the community’s anger and, I might add, even despair over the Biden administration’s failure in addressing the crisis in Gaza.” • But Harris is ahead in Michigan, so….

* * *

Vance-Walz debate:

“Read the full VP debate transcript from the Walz-Vance showdown” [CBS]. • Here it is, for those who want to check “Did he really say that?!”

“Vice presidential debate fact check: What Tim Walz, JD Vance got right (and wrong)” [USA Today]. • Pretty good, like an old-school blogger would do it (and not in the moment, like the moderators were doing). More:

Here are a bunch of reactions to particular debate moments, most of which the NC commenters called out in real time, and discussed, last night. In no particular order:

“‘Damning non-answer’: Vance refuses to acknowledge Trump lost the 2020 election” [NBC]. • Power move by Walz; “damning non-answer” sounds like high school debate, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. (This is The One Question That Mattered in the VP Debate and The only moment from the VP debate that mattered.) Maybe, unless you have this continued claim by Trump filed away under “Stuff Your Crazy Uncle Talks About.” I need to understand Republican plans for ballot counting and elector selection in 2024 much better, however.

“Vance: Kamala’s “Industrial-Scale” Censorship Is The Bigger Threat To Democracy” [RealClearPolitics]. “I am really proud, especially given that I was raised by two lifelong blue-collar Democrats, to have the endorsement of Bobby Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, lifelong leaders in the Democratic coalition. They don’t agree with me and Donald Trump on every issue. We don’t have to agree. We are united behind a basic American First Amendment principle, which allows us to debate our differences fairly, argue about them, and persuade our fellow Americans. Harris is engaged in censorship on an industrial scale. She has done it over a number of issues. That’s a bigger threat to democracy than what Donald Trump said when he said protesters should peacefully protest on January 6.” • Don’t tell me Vance didn’t prepare (though his preparation may have been honing his talking points at a million high school auditoriumns and small-town TV interviews). I think Vance hit it out of the park on this one.

“‘I’m a Knucklehead’: Walz Gives Disastrous Answer When Questioned on Inaccurate Claims at Debate” [Mediaite]. • I dunno; I thought “knucklehead” had a sort of sweet naivete about it. More problematic: Walz filibustered his first answer (“I was born in the middle class,” or whatever) and then owned up (“misspoke“) only when the moderator followed through (good job, moderator).

“Weird No More: Tim Walz, J.D. Vance Humanize One Another” [Guardian]. • But one reason Walz is on the ticket is that he tagged Republicans with the moniker “wierd,” which went viral. That particular kind of joyful warrior-ing was one of his strengths. So why did Kamala’s staff not have him playing to that strength? Because they would have gotten a nasty phone call from Liz Cheney? Commentary:

Especially since Walz originated the framing, which the base enthusiastically took up! More commentary:

More:

As readers know, I was quite taken with Walz’s first video (at the State Fair with his daughter). That spoke to me of media competence.

And more:

Finally, from the other side of the aisle, a mirror image:

And the polls:

“Dead even: POLITICO snap poll shows stark division on debate” [Politico]. • Handy chart:

O.G. Luntz:

* * *

“JD Vance’s eyeliner steals spotlight in VP debate as fans say it’s putting Tim Walz off” [Express]. “Viewers are convinced JD Vance has ‘doubled down‘ on his choice to wear eyeliner during his vice presidential debate with Tim Walz. The Republican candidate’s appearance seemed to distract many viewers from his policies just 10 minutes into the CBS event.” • What?

The menswear dude doesn’t mention eyeliner:

But the menswear dude should stay in his lane:

Quote: “The tie says ‘I’m here to have fun.'” That Vance was having fun was one of the striking things about his performance; a good debate is fun. So Vance’s choice of tie was successful communication.

No eyeliner here:

Russian orthodox communicant heard from….

* * *

Trump (R): On abortion, in ALL CAPS:

Trump (R): Seeing this meme here and there:

* * *

NC: “Voters Affected by Helene” [North Carolina State Board of Elections (SlayTheSmaugs)]. “Total registered voters (25 disaster counties [i.e. WNC]): 1,275,054. Republican Party: 480,097; Democratic Party: 292,836.” • And the Democrats will be concentrated disprotionately in Asheville, which, all other things being equal, will recover first. See NC on Helene in NC here.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Who Are the ‘Undecided’?” [Rick Perlstein, The American Prospect]. The deck: “It may not be about issues, but whether voters surrender to Trump’s invitation to return to the womb.” Has whoever wrote this deck lost their mind? Could we at least try to moderate the psychologizing slightly? More: “If the authoritarians in control of the Republican Party achieve enough power, they will start methodically knocking off liberal institutions, including politically independent journalism.” • Politically independent journalism sounds like something the Censorship Industrial Complex should be doing something about. If it’s not, is such journalism all that independent?

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

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Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

* * *

Maskstravaganza

“Louisville mayor says city will bring back mask ban after recent shooting” [The Center Square]. “Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told reporters the city will begin to re-enforce a more than 40-year-old ordinance that bans the wearing of masks in public places. The move, which Greenberg revealed during his weekly press briefing, comes just days after a shooting that took place outside a high school football game. The alleged perpetrators were wearing surgical masks in the incident Sunday evening that injured two teenagers, one critically, at Pleasure Ridge Park High School in the southwestern part of the city. Greenberg said the decision to bring back enforcing the ban passed in 1983 happened after he spoke with Louisville Metro Police Department Chief Paul Humphrey regarding steps the city could take while it continues to seek additional help from Frankfort and Washington regarding gun violence. The mask ban had been suspended after the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Mask ban debated in St Louis:

* * *

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Lambert here: At last, the wastewater data looks improved. Apparenltly, we dodged a “Back to School” bullet, at least at the national level. The wastewater drop is reinforced by the positivity numbers as well.

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC September 23 Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC September 28 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC September 21

Hospitalization
★ New York[5] New York State, data October 1:

National [6] CDC September 7:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens September 30: ★ Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic September 26:

Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC September 9: Variants[10] CDC September 9:

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC September 21: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC September 21:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Much less intense!

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XEC has entered the chat.

[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Definitely down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC).

[7] (Walgreens) Big drop continues!

[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Up, though lagged.

[10] (Travelers: Variants).

[11] Deaths low, positivity down.

[12] Deaths low, ED down.

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States ADP Employment Change” [Trading Economics]. “Private businesses in the US added 143K workers to their payrolls in September 2024, the most in three months, following an upwardly revised 103K in August and well above forecasts of 120K. Job creation showed a widespread rebound after a five-month slowdown, with manufacturing adding jobs for the first time since April.”

Retail: “United States Total Vehicle Sales” [Trading Economics]. “Total Vehicle Sales in the United States increased to 15.80 Million in September from 15.10 Million in August of 2024.”

* * *

Supply Chain: “Dockworkers may have the negotiating advantage in their strike against US ports” [Associated Press]. “The 45,000 dockworkers who went on strike Tuesday for the first time in decades at 36 U.S. ports from Maine to Texas may wield the upper hand in their standoff with port operators over wages and the use of automation… Organized labor enjoys rising public support and has had a string of recent victories in other industries, in addition to the backing of the pro-union administration of President Joe Biden. The dockworkers’ negotiating stand is likely further strengthened by the nation’s supply chain of goods being under pressure in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which has coincided with the peak shipping season for holiday goods. The union is also pointing to shipping companies’ record profits, which have come in part because of shortages resulting from the pandemic, and to a more generous contract that West Coast dockworkers achieved last year. The longshoremen’s workloads also have increased, and the effects of inflation have eroded their pay in recent years. In addition, commerce into and out of the United States has been growing, playing to the union’s advantage. Further enhancing its leverage is a still-tight job market, with workers in some industries demanding, and in some cases receiving, a larger share of companies’ outsize profits.” • Handy chart:

Supply Chain: “US port workers union backed by White House in strike” [Reuters]. “On Tuesday, President Joe Biden’s administration put pressure on U.S. port employers to raise their offer to secure a deal with dockworkers. Administration officials led by Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su have been urging both sides to return to the bargaining table.

Economists have said the strike will not initially raise consumer prices as companies accelerated shipments in recent months for key goods. However, a prolonged stoppage will eventually filter through, with food prices likely to react first, according to Morgan Stanley economists…. Morgan Stanley economists said in a late Tuesday note that the strike could hit growth and raise inflation “but only if it is long-lasting,” noting that the implication for transport should be limited unless the strike lingers. The strike, the ILA’s first major stoppage since 1977, affects 36 ports – including New York, Baltimore and Houston – that handle a range of containerized goods ranging from bananas to clothing to cars. The walkout could cost the American economy roughly $5 billion a day, JP Morgan analysts estimate.” • Administration statement:

Supply Chain: “At issue in the longshoremen’s strike: How much automation is appropriate at ports?” [MarketWatch]. “Dockworkers want language in their next contract that protects them from the robots and software and now AI that threaten to do a lot of their jobs, from moving and stacking containers to checking in the trucks that take those containers away…. ome ports on the Eastern Seaboard are what’s known in the shipping industry as semi-automated. ‘That means that a longshore worker will still move the container from the ship to the backland, the storage area,’ explained Geraldine Knatz, the former director of the Port of Los Angeles. ‘This is one sector where we are woefully inefficient, we’ve resisted essentially as many efforts at automation as possible in comparison to our peers in China or in Europe,’ said Jason Miller, a supply chain professor at Michigan State. Miller says the U.S. consumer bears the cost of that inefficiency in the form of higher import prices. Port operators have typically tried to reassure longshoremen that they can be reassigned to a different role once the robots arrive, says Jim Kruse at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.”

“Dockworkers strike could compound supply-chain problems for Boeing and Airbus” [Business Insider]. “Ports on the East and Gulf Coasts have been shut down as 45,000 workers represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike Tuesday…. Boeing also has a plant in Charleston, South Carolina for the 787 Dreamliner. Most parts are sent by air, but some arrive by sea, aerospace outlet Leeham News reported…. If dockworkers remain on strike for some time, Airbus could also face disruption as it has a plant in Mobile, Alabama. The factory is the final assembly line for some North American customers’ A319, A320, A321, and A220 jets.”

Manufacturing: “33,000 Boeing workers lose health care coverage” [Freight Waves]. “Boeing has cut health care coverage for 33,000 of its workers and their families as machinists union strikes continue to halt production in the Pacific Northwest…. ‘Boeing executives cannot make up their minds,’ said IAM International President Brian Bryant in the release. ‘One day they say they want to win back the trust of their workforce. The next moment, on the heels of many recent missteps by their labor relations team, Boeing executives are now tripping over dollars to get pennies by cutting a benefit that is essential to the lives of children and families, but is nothing compared to the cost of the larger problems Boeing executives have created for their workforce and for the company itself over the last ten years. Their missteps are costing not just the workers but our nation.'”

Manufacturing: “Boeing 737 deliveries ‘held steady’ in September despite strike concerns – BofA” [Investing]. “Boeing’s (NYSE:BA) deliveries of its 737 jets “held firm” in September thanks in part to measures taken by the aerospace giant to offset the impact of an ongoing strike by workers in the US Pacific Northwest, according to analysts at Bank of America. Boeing delivered around 28 of the planes during the month, down slightly from 32 units in August, the BofA analysts said, citing data from aviation analytics group Cirlum. Calling the total ‘solid,’ the analysts noted that 70% of the monthly deliveries were carried out prior to the onset of the work stoppage. Third-quarter deliveries also remained ‘strong,’ with approximately 92 of Boeing’s popular 737s delivered during the period, up from 70 in the second and third quarters, the data showed. However, when compared to the corresponding timeframes in 2023 and 2022, 737 deliveries are down 20% and 17%, respectively, the BofA analysts said. They flagged that the company’s delivery performance going forward ‘will largely depend’ on the duration of the strike, which is now in its third week.” • Indeed!

Tech: “Bots, so many Bots” [WakaTime]. “ProductHunt has over 1 million user signups. More than 60% of those are bots…. Is launching on ProductHunt worth it? Even though most comments and upvotes are bots, there’s probably still some real humans using ProductHunt… maybe. If you pay the bots and get featured in the newsletter, my guess is more real humans will see your product…. Overall, in my opinion it’s still worth launching on ProductHunt however I wouldn’t spend more than a few minutes preparing the launch and definitely don’t waste time replying to comments.”

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 68 Greed (previous close: 75 Extreme Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 66 (Hreed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 1 at 1:46:30 PM ET.

“We Don’t Deserve Dogs”

I would hate for this feel-good story to be false:

Have any readers had similar experiences?

Gallery

The framing and cropping reminds me of the way Manet’s race track paintings:

Photographic avant la lettre, in 1819.

Does anyone know if Monet really got the train schedules changed so he would have better light?

Healthcare

“Epic Systems, a lethal health record monopolist” [Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic]. Note “#thanks-obama” in the URL. “Epic Systems makes the dominant electronic health record (EHR) system in America; if you’re a doctor, chances are you are required to use it, and for every hour a doctor spends with a patient, they have to spend two hours doing clinically useless bureaucratic data-entry on an Epic EHR. How could a product so manifestly unfit for purpose be the absolute market leader? Simple: as Robert Kuttner describes in an excellent feature in The American Prospect, Epic may be a clinical disaster, but it’s a profit-generating miracle: At the core of Epic’s value proposition is ‘upcoding,’ a form of billing fraud that is beloved of hospital administrators, including the ‘nonprofit’ hospitals that generate vast fortunes that are somehow not characterized as profits.” • On upcoding, see NC in March and April 2017.

Book Nook

“The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books” [The Atlantic]. “Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books. This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover. ‘My jaw dropped,’ Dames told me. The anecdote helped explain the change he was seeing in his students: It’s not that they don’t want to do the reading. It’s that they don’t know how. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.” • Can readers confirm this isn’t just The Atlantic fomenting a moral panic?

“Math from Three to Seven, by Alexander Zvonkin” [Mr. and Mrs. Psmith’s Bookshelf]. “Today, those same Russians are all over Wall Street and Silicon Valley and Ivy League math departments, still overrepresented in technical fields. What explains it? Are Russians just naturally better at math and physics?…. in the interviews I’ve read with Soviet mathematicians and scientists, the things that comes up over and over again are “mathematical circles,” a practice that originated in the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire and then spread far and wide through the Soviet Union. A mathematical circle is an informal group of teenagers and adults who really enjoy math and want to spend a lot of time thinking and talking about it. They’re a little bit like sports teams, in that they develop their own high-intensity internal culture and camaraderie, and often have a “coach” who is especially talented or famous. But they’re also very unlike sports teams, because they don’t compete with each other or play in leagues or anything like that, and usually any given circle will contain members of widely varying skill levels. Maybe a better analogy is a neighborhood musical ensemble that gets together and jams on a regular basis, but for math. The most important thing to understand about mathematical circles is that the math they jam on is completely unlike the math you study in school, and also completely unlike the “competition” math that bright kids in the United States sometimes do. The bread and butter of the mathematical circle is solving problems together, as a team. There is no time here for exercises; you can do that lame stuff at school. Sometimes the coach picks a problem for you, something just beyond your ability, just the thing you need to hone your edge. But sometimes the whole circle works together on a problem that nobody has the answer to and that challenges the very best members. These problems are the most important, because with them you see great minds, men older and more talented than you, stretched to the breaking point and occasionally beaten.” • Sounds like D&D!

Zeitgeist Watch

Indeed:

News of the Wired

I am not feeling wired today.

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:

TH writes: “When I entered “meaning of a white rose” in the Chrome search engine, and got a blog ( https://www.snapblooms.com/blog/white-rose-meaning/ ) one of the entries was:

The color white in roses signifies innocence, humility, and fresh starts, making them a fitting choice to promote peace in political affairs. The white rose significance in such situations is powerful and universal.

Hmmm. Those aren’t words I expect to find side by side these days — Peace in politics? Oxymoron? One can always hope. 😊”

* * *

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About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered. To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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33 comments

  1. Mo

    Regarding Russian math circles, I used to make a similar point when my son was playing high school basketball. Practice was several hours a day, including early mornings Saturdays. Summer and spring leagues in addition to regular season. This just at the local high school, not an elite private school or club team.

    Yet if your child was good in math, there was no one to encourage them to do more math, let alone dozens of extra hours every week, year round. Just the opposite, in fact. Teachers didn’t like having to deal with accelerated math students.

    Where are the priorities?

    Reply ↓
  3. IM Doc

    With regard to the EPIC systems article above…………….

    And in an even more sinister twist……

    I have heard this same story from colleagues in every time zone so I am pretty sure this is coming for me as well.

    Much ballyhoed by our Star Trek tech loving betters in medicine the past 6-12 months – has been the introduction of AI into the patient visit. “We are doing this for the wellness and mental health of our doctors” they proclaimed at the beginnning.

    How it works – you bring an iPhone or other such device into the room with your patient – it is recording every word you say. The theory being that you as the doc are far less likely to be messing with a computer and actually paying attention to the patient ( that is literally how they are selling this monstrous intrusion to the patients!) – and then the iPhone sends off your patient visit to AI cloud-fairy land- and 20 minutes or so later appearing on your patient chart is a complete AI generated note of that visit. So, they told us, you will have far more time with each patient. And you will not have to be spending 30 minutes on each of your patient notes all evening. You can actually spend time with your kids, etc.

    Caring nothing about actual physician mental wellness and family time and so efficient was the system apparently, that the MBAs in the C suites of these “non profit” orgs have decided it is no longer good enough to see 20 people a day – this system allows you to see 28 a day. And all that extra time it saves ( on charging patients insurers ) well we will just roll that in – and you are going to be charging a lot more every day because you are now seeing 28. It is like upcoding on steroids. We are increasing our billing per physician per day by 33% – Praise be to Jesus and the Borg.

    Never mind the obvious ethical issues – like do patients really want to have their private physician meetings recorded? Do people realize that not only are we doing notes and patient data in the cloud for anyone at Amazon Web Service to look at – NOW – the entire recorded visit is being dutifully uploaded to AWS hundreds of thousands of times a day.

    And just this week – I have learned from the same Star Trek techie overlords – that EPIC will soon have AI that will be doing ALL of the communication between patient and physician – the AI will be answering questions that come in on the phone etc – why there will be no need of staff – the AI will listen to all the recorded voice mails – and “just take care of it”. How convenient…..

    I understand from multiple sources – that many private physician offices in big cities are rapidly going back to paper – and advertising this. They cannot stir the patient inflow with a stick.

    This is really getting bad. I have been screaming about this for years – and now I just do not care. It is what it is. The corruption is so horrific that everyone feels powerless.

    I am trying to prepare myself for the appropriate response when all of this wave hits my shore.

    Reply ↓
    1. steppenwolf fetchit

      If a patient demands zero presence of any such recording device, is the doctor required or even permitted to honor that patient demand?

      Reply ↓
    2. Stephanie

      How does this not violate HIPAA?

      My employer just issued an update to company policy that we are never to use AI tools on any company-issued equipment for fear of violating HIPAA, and we just produce physical objects. How do health-care providers get away with it?

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      1. IM Doc

        I am certain they have it all legally taken care of.

        Probably a sentence or two added to the dozens of pages of TOS signed on every visit. That is usually a wastebasket of all kinds of permissions for things like this, and billing, etc.

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  4. Carolinian

    Re North Carolina and voting.

    https://grist.org/extreme-weather/hurricane-helene-north-carolina-voting-elections-absentee-ballots/

    And in discussing Asheville versus the region bear in mind that those figures likely mean the city of Asheville versus greater Asheville just as the city of Atlanta is just a fraction of the population of greater Atlanta. For the region a few of the smaller towns are strung out along I-40 to the east and therefore as accessible as Asheville itself.

    Locally I went back to the library this morning where people are sitting–a few on the floor–with laptops and phones plugged into the ac outlets. My brother, who still lacks power the next town over, keeps hearing big Chinook helicopters passing over headed for NC.

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  5. Matthew G. Saroff

    One of the companies listed as having been effected by the dock strike tweet is, “Home DepoRt.”
    LOL

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  6. antidlc

    Drove by Costco right about opening time. Parking lot was absolutely packed. I wondered why it was so crowded.

    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2024/10/02/port-strike-raising-fear-of-toilet-paper-shortages-and-panic-buying/75481257007/

    Pictures on social media and TikTok videos are surfacing of long lines of customers at stores with carts full of grocery items, bottled water, toilet paper and bare shelves as shortages are already being reported.

    Videos posted online claim that toilet paper is sold out at Costco stores from Arizona and Colorado to New Jersey, with one worker saying their stock was cleared one hour after opening, according to news source.

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  7. Bazarov

    I have significant experience teaching reading and writing to college students. I can tell you with total confidence that, yes, students are not being prepared to read at an intellectually appropriate level.

    This applies not merely to endurance–say, finding it difficult to read a book in a reasonable amount of time–but also and especially to comprehension. I could assign a ten-to-twenty page essay that advances a fairly nuanced argument written in prose that a person with a high school education, traditionally understood, should be able to read.

    However, the majority of my students, especially at the beginning of the semester, would have difficulty making heads or tails of such an essay, as evinced by their first writing assignment: to produce a summary of what they’ve read. That assignment was almost always a disaster, resulting in majority C-s to Fs.

    Students have the usual problems of not really understanding how to read carefully and just being out of practice. My best students were almost always women, many of whom still read books in their free time, believe it or not. Some of my male students confessed to having never read a book–as in: a book for adults–in their life!

    While such problems are important to remedy, as my teaching career progressed, I started to notice a different and less-often-appreciated problem arise: students are self-obsessed. What they expect from a reading is this thing called “relatability,” that the essay reflect their own beliefs and desires. They sit down to read an essay and immediately begin the process of distorting it into their own reflection. These students, primed by neoliberalism and algorithmic silos, treat these writings as a kind of mirrior-of-pleasing-reflection.

    So, for instance, a student might distort an essay’s nuanced argument into something simplistic, uninteresting, black-and-white that they could flatter themselves by agreeing with or, more commonly, flatter themselves by dismissing (thus demonstrating their intellectual superiority).

    One of my first lessons following the summary disaster (after which even the most stubborn students suddenly become open to instruction!) emphasizes that the essay is not a mirror, that their position as reader is to understand the author’s words as they are, separate from themselves. They must develop the capability to see things *in themselves,* not as they want them to be, or else they will remain intellectually weak and immature. One must climb the mountain to reach its height; the mountain will not shrink down to you.

    The good news: it turns out that students love to be told the truth about the quality of their reading and writing and eagerly accept instruction. I’ve had many come to me to say that they’ve known their whole lives that their writing was bullshit but that teachers gave them As long as it looked like grammatical English. Imagine how demoralizing years of such “education” must be!

    Once offered instruction with more integrity and honesty, students rapidly improve. In fact, some transform completely. One student emailed me years later to tell me about his voracious reading habit, that after finishing my class he purchased his first book ever, a biography. Since then he’d been challenging himself by climbing higher and higher intellectual “mountains,” strengthening mentally and spiritually in the process.

    Education, properly delivered, can rectify in a short time years of neglect and stagnation brought on by America’s high schools (I count among these fancy private schools, which sent to my classroom expert bull-shitters who were, in their own ways, just as intellectually bereft as their peers from under-funded public facilities).

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  8. aj

    RE: reading books

    Part of me wants to say, “How can you not know how to read a book?” Literally, you just sit down and start reading, then keep reading until you are done. However, reading for fun and reading for school are two totally different things. It really seems to come down to lack of time management skills. I could see a college freshman already faced with multiple hours of homework a day being overwhelmed by being told they will be required to add additional hours reading several books. I’ve had professors who pride themselves on how many hours of homework they give. You get 5 professors a semester saying they are going to give you a couple of hours of homework a day and now you have 10 hours a homework every day on top of going to class and probably a job.

    The average adult reading rate is 238 words per minute. So reading Faranheit 451 (46,000 words) should take 3-4 hours, Moby Dick would take closer to 15 hours, War and Peace would take 41 hours.

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    1. Michael Fiorillo

      The Gates Foundation’s Common Core Standards, rolled out in 2010 and forced upon school districts, emphasized “close reading” (Ha!) of excerpts, and de-emphasized reading entire stories/articles (let alone novels).

      I had already noticed a marked decline in students reading stamina before then, but corporate ed reform institutionalized it.

      Reply ↓
      1. aj

        Thanks Michael. I was unaware of that. To play devil’s advocate a bit, I can understand the motivation. In terms of practicality, it is more useful to fully understand smaller texts than to fully digest a large volume. Most people just need to read and understand an email or a 10-page technical document. Being able to read all of Crime and Punishment and explore it’s themes doesn’t have much day-to-day value for most people.

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    2. steppenwolf fetchit

      Those children who were immunized against reading in school by the application of Look-say, context-guessing, or other anti-phonetic/ anti-phonics methods of literacy-prevention grew up to hate books and reading . . . . exactly as trained.

      So of course they don’t want to read a book. They were carefully conditioned to regard “reading a book” as a futile feast of pain. And they were carefully prevented from learning how to read.

      They are victims of the Education-Industrial Complex’s war on literacy..

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    3. Mikel

      The article itself is more nuanced than the headline/title. They do know how technically and the issue is due to other disconnects.
      Attention span and there will ultimately be even more comprehension issues.

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  10. Lefty Godot

    Maybe just tangentially related to Russian math circles, but when I look at the names of top chess players competing in US chess tournaments, those names show a remarkable ethnic concentration in Chinese, Slavic, Middle Eastern, Indian, Korean, Japanese, and Latin American. Which is not representative of those ethnicities among the American population, although it matches to a great extent the international master level chess competition. One of our top American players, Fabiano Caruana, is a dual citizen of Italy and the US, but otherwise there is not a lot of representation for ethnicities from western and northern Europe. What the significance of this is I am not sure, but it seems to mirror the decline in interest in other intellectually difficult areas of non-work activity among the traditional ethnic groups in America.

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  11. Safety First

    Re: Math from Three to Seven, by Alexander Zvonkin

    Oh ye gods. Swallowing down lots of profanity.

    1. “Mathematical circles”. Circles! UGH! The correct translation is “clubs”, as in “math clubs”. Yes, the literal word-for-word translation is “little circle” (“kruzhok”), or a diminutive form of the word “circle” (“krug”). But no competent translator would ever use the word-for-word term in this piece or context, unless they were indulging in some bit of good old-fashioned orientalism.

    2. I don’t know who these scientists or mathematicians are that the author talked to. But “that’s not what happened”.

    In the Soviet educational system, there was a deliberate effort to implement a lot of after-school activities, mostly free of charge. Some of it was simply giving the kids something to do, and perhaps teaching them a hobby. For example, things like wood etching and macrame. But within this context, there were also a number of clubs designed to select out and develop talented individuals in specific areas, mathematics among them, with the ultimate goal to transfer these individuals to specialized schools, or prep them for examinations into specialized universities. Or military academies, by the way, though you weren’t at all locked into a specific “track” – I personally knew an individual who went to a specialized naval school as a kid, and then ended up becoming a thoroughly civilian Chemistry professor.

    Now, specifically for math clubs, this is where I clash with the author. Because he makes it sound like a bunch of hippies sitting around talking random math problems instead of (or perhaps alongside with) smoking bongs. I exaggerate only slightly. In reality, the clubs, being state-run institutions, had to conform to state priorities – of identifying, fostering, selecting out, prepping. As such, there was a metric megaton of “olympiads” at all levels, from local to national, that “math clubs”, “physics clubs”, “chemistry clubs” and other suchlike were expected to participate in. [Not so much macrame clubs, however.] So already the statement “they’re also very unlike sports teams” is rendered nonsensical, because to a significant degree they WERE sports teams, or, rather, math teams. As well, if you went to a math club, and showed you were good at it, the instructor was expected to nudge you towards either applying to a specialized math school – if one were available, which was not true of every town, of course – or to one of the high-level universities in Moscow or Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). “Was expected” is doing a lot of work here – it’s not as if a Party official was expecting regular progress reports or anything. But that was just the sort of thing that was supposed to happen, I mean, what else is the instructor for.

    Yes, I am sure that SOME clubs, somewhere, were run more like informal D&D groupings. Especially if you selectively interview advanced mathematicians, who wouldn’t necessarily be in a run-of-the-mill club to begin with. But that wasn’t the overall, the average mindset. If you took lessons in a music school, past a certain level you were expected to start prepping for the conservatory; if you joined a swim club, past a certain level you were expected to start competing and train more like an athlete; if you joined a math club, and you weren’t participating in local and regional olympiads, then what, precisely, were you doing there? In retrospect, the entire atmosphere was incredibly competitive by “Western” standards, maybe more akin to Chinese or Japanese education systems, though I have no expert knowledge of those. Except for macrame clubs, of course, you just did those for fun.

    3. The tactical does not equal the strategic. In other words, if a country says, we want to produce a high number of competent mathematicians, physicists, whatever, the means it chooses to accomplish this is a tactical question. Yes, math clubs helped, but so did math schools, math universities, and even the basic math curriculum. Regular run-of-the-mill Soviet schools did the same geometry in the fourth grade that NYS schools do, or at least used to do, in the ninth grade (MQ3-4 Regents exam, as I recall). Systems of linear equations were taught in the first half of fifth grade, vs. eighth grade here. That’s a hell of a difference in prepping an entire generation of math-literate individuals, even without clubs or whatnot.

    My point, is that the reason the US got flooded with competent Russian-speaking mathematicians in the 90s and the 00s is that the Soviet Union forcefully and forcibly developed a very large cohort of math-proficient individuals in the 70s and 80s (and then it went away, and all these people had to earn a living somehow). It was a consequence of strategy, and yet here we are spending the time talking about a supposed magic bullet tactic.

    Incidentally, since all this stuff – math clubs, math schools, school curriculum, etc. – took a huge hit in the 90s and the 00s, Russian press today is filled to the brim with “where are we going to get mathematicians of the future” type articles, ranging from doom-and-gloom to Putin-will-fix-it in tone, but nevertheless. Which is to say, since the government’s priorities are changing again from living off resource extraction rents to actually developing a homegrown science and technology sector, now they are once again looking for appropriate tactics…except that the Soviet club system would be difficult to work in today, as it would compete with all the private for-profit afterschool clubs, for one. So we’ll see how they choose to massage the problem.

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  12. ChrisRUEcon

    #TimWalz

    The social media reactions bear out good reasoning. Dems got caught flatfooted in the nether region between “they’re weird” and “when they go low”.

    #MassiveOof on the Big Serge tweet in particular. I think that image is what many of us on the live thread last night were alluding to in the comments. Whether it was adrenaline, over-preparedness or under-preparedness, Walz often had that look on his face, and that was weird to behold.

    Did not have Vance playing the “weird” #UnoReverse card on my VP Debate bingo sheet …

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  13. MicaT

    Solar: the vast majority of solar companies in SE Asia are Chinese subsidiaries because the US put such draconian tariffs on mainland China solar panels and components.

    Are they Chinese? Technically not I suppose. Did much of if not all the parts come from China, possibly/probably.
    So are they Chinese or not? Not sure?

    Many of the current new US solar production is of foreign made parts assembled here. It’s still usually called manufacturing but more accurately it’s just assembly. And again many/most are owned by foreign companies.

    And many of the new solar tariffs by Biden/Harris are on those same SE Asia companies.

    It just makes solar panels in the US the most expensive in the world.

    Here is a great article on the world of Chinese solar and why the IS market died.

    https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-opinion-how-us-lost-solar-power-race-to-china/

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    1. CA

      https://x.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1840951125861933240

      Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand

      That’s actually a fascinating story by @davidfickling in Bloomberg, perhaps even the authoritative story on “how the US lost the solar power race to China”.

      The numbers are absolutely crazy: just looking at polysilicon production, the U.S. went from having a comfortable 43% market share in 2008 to China’s 6%, down to a negligible 0.9% market share today to China’s 95.4%. In just 15 years, they’ve completely lost the market, and China captured virtually all of it.

      It’s extremely consequential because in the world today, solar alone accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions
       
      ( https://iea.org/energy-system/renewables/solar-pv ).

      The common narrative is that China’s newfound dominance would be all about subsidies and “unfair trade practices.” But as the story makes clear, that’s just “a comforting myth”: China’s dominance “hasn’t been driven by state-owned manufacturers, subsidized loans to factories, tariffs on imported modules or theft of foreign technological expertise. Instead, it’s come from private businesses convinced of a bright future, investing aggressively and luring global talent to a booming industry — exactly the entrepreneurial mix that made the US an industrial powerhouse.”

      More than anything, China’s dominance comes from two things: scale and policy certainty. And, as the article makes clear, the U.S’s destruction of its own industry mostly comes from one thing: bad policy, and in particular an immensely destructive trade war they initiated against China on solar in 2011.

      As the story details, scale matters enormously in the solar industry because margins are ridiculously tiny. And when margins are tiny, the only way you can drive prices down is with scale.

      And the scale some of China’s companies have achieved is absolutely staggering. For instance Tongwei, one of the leading companies, has a production capacity of 480,000 tons this year which “is enough to generate sufficient solar electricity to power Mexico for a year — or Indonesia, or the UK and Ireland put together.”

      Policy certainty is essentially the Chinese government’s steadfast commitment to its green transition, which ensured steady demand for solar products: “[China] didn’t provide any direct support for manufacturers but ensured a level of demand from utilities that allowed solar factories to grow beyond their troubled infancy to their current profitable status.”

      By contrast, the U.S. got the exact contrary of policy certainty and completely shot itself in the foot with an ill-thought solar trade war with China. In 2011, they imposed duties on China-made panels ranging as high as 250% as an initiative to destroy China’s nascent solar industry. This was extraordinarily stupid because “the US in 2011 was making more money selling polysilicon and solar machinery to China than it was spending buying completed panels”, which made them particularly exposed to retaliation. And that’s exactly what happened: China announced an investigation into whether the US was dumping polysilicon into the mainland market, which scared away a lot of Chinese buyers who “canceled purchases en masse” and started buying domestically, even though Chinese companies were more expensive at the time. Fast forward to a couple of years later and the US industry was essentially destroyed.

      Anyhow, give the article a read, it’s a great story with a lot of lessons for today as so many similar mistakes are currently being made, for instance in semiconductors.

      https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYxdiKragAAdNmB?format=jpg&name=small

      11:05 PM · Sep 30, 2024

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  14. Bsn

    Thanks Lambert! One comment regarding students reading: ….. Middle and high schools have stopped asking them to.” • Can readers confirm this isn’t just The Atlantic fomenting a moral panic?
    The answer is, no they can’t read nor are taught very well in school. I taught for 20+ years in both high and middle school. Most classes on literacy (they change the names/titles of classes every 6 – 8 years Language Arts, Social Studies, etc.) work on “reflections” as opposed to debating a position or offering up a synopsis. Sad but true. This is why so many Americans can’t “read between the lines” and are dupes to propaganda.

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    1. IM Doc

      I am now confronted at times with students from our most elite university medical schools who struggle to read a single research article.

      I often hand out review articles or chapters from Harrison’s Internal Medicine regarding topics that patients present with that day. It is then understood that they will be summarizing the review for the group the next AM. It is very apparent – again in elite students – that reading comprehension is no longer an important skill in college or medical school. Not sure exactly what they are doing – but that is not a priority.

      However, if you give them a one paragraph summary from Up-To-Date – often so pared down as to be meaningless – they are all over it.

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      1. flora

        Thank you, IM Doc. Methinks the emphasis on getting the right answer on grade school/high school tests, lest teachers and schools lose funding, (aka no child left behind), is having a terrible knock-on effect. Teach to the test has had a destructive effect on wider, more critical thinking in students, / My 2 cents.

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  15. Mikel

    Everyday, I read the these ideas and plans for the future from the establishment and various technocrats and know that they aren’t about supporting billions upon billions of people.

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  16. Screwball

    RE: Reading.

    I’ve been teaching a college STEM class (CAD) for 6 years. 6 for a college, and 3 in a vocational school setting which I have now refused to do anymore.

    I can say this with confidence; the ability of students have diminished steadily in those years. I would never consider asking them to read a book. I don’t think they ever would. It’s hard enough to get them to read a 4 or 5 page handout. If you think their reading skills are bad – math says hold my beer. I am shocked at how bad they struggle with simple math and geometry (like knowing the difference between a diameter and radius).

    But they sure are good with their phones. Shocking I know, but this is what I see. I’m done after this year. I can no longer teach students who have no business being in this class (no prerequisite required).

    IMNSHO, our educational system is as bad or worse than our medical industry, or customer service industry, or our government. With the latter probably having helped create this mess by making us teach to a test.

    Caveat; I’m an old curmudgeon about this stuff, so maybe I’m being too harsh.

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  17. gk

    Whatever the framing of the Goya reminds you of is due to whoever posted it. The real painting looks like this.

    There’s a story that when Miro visited the Prado for the last time, he only wanted to see only 2 paintings, The Dog and Los Meninas.

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  18. Elijah SR

    RE: The declining quality of student… I dropped out of college six years ago, I’m sure things have changed, but my experience was worse than that. I didn’t go to Yale so it’s not an “elite” crowd, but I went to a private college that had some kind of standing.

    We were required to read complete books in high school, but nothing longer than a standard novel, and we never tackled anything particularly dense.

    By the time I got to college, the majority of students weren’t just unable to commit to reading entire books, they were unable to complete long excerpts or articles required for class. Those students claimed that the workload was too much and that they couldn’t manage the reading. We’re talking maybe a chapter of a book over two or three days. Under admin pressure to curb retention problems, the college diluted the curriculum. The school graduated students who never had to write more than a 15 page paper.

    My partner works for a private university and she reports the same thing. Students “can’t” do the work. Worse, at her faculty orientation, admin informed them that, this year, they admitted as many student as they could and had dropped their academic performance requirements. They already had students who couldn’t keep up with a basic workload, but now they’re suckering kids who aren’t prepared for college into paying a semester or two before they flame out. They’re also cutting down on student requirements, so maybe they’ll be able to hack it. She’s been sitting in on a language class and she noticed that students refuse to sit near the front of the room and do not participate in class.

    I know a few teachers/professors who have quit the profession and have cited quality of student as being a contributing factor. One of the math guys works for an insurance company now.

    I was thinking about this with the article about Gen Z turnover and while I’m glad to hear they’re not sitting down and taking it from management, I saw the same attitude towards work already in full gear in school. It was like they thought the professors were managers and they had to organize against them for giving them an assignment.

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  20. CA

    Manufacturing productivity has actually ceased to increase and has rather been slowly decreasing since 2011 or over the last 12 and a half years. This is unprecedented, since manufacturing productivity before 2011 increased at a yearly rate over 2 percent:

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=m2mB

    January 30, 2018

    Manufacturing Productivity, * 1988-2024

    * Output per hour of all persons

    (Indexed to 1988)

    https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=Of7F

    January 30, 2018

    Manufacturing Productivity, * 2000-2024

    * Output per hour of all persons

    (Indexed to 2000)

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  21. Lena

    Re: Vance’s fuchsia tie

    Fuchsia is a color that makes intense blue eyes with black eyelashes really ‘pop’. It was an unconventional choice but one that worked for Vance. It also might have been chosen to appeal to women. Several friends told me that Vance looked very attractive during last night’s debate and they aren’t pro-Trump women. More like independent voters.

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