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Links 11/19/2024

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A 35,000-Year-Old Saber-Toothed Cub Was Unearthed in Siberia—and It Still Had Its Whiskers and Claws Smithsonian (Paul R)

How dogs were implicated during the Salem witch trials Religion News (Robin K)

Scientists discover unusual new bacteria in deep-sea coral Washington Post (Robin K)

Nearly 80 Million Americans Expected to Travel over Thanksgiving AAA (Kevin W)

The Painted Protest: How politics destroyed contemporary art Harpers. Anthony L: “Just for the first line: ‘My mother lost both of her legs on the way to the Barbican Art Gallery.'”

#COVID-19

Climate/Environment

Denmark to convert 15% of farmland to forest to cut fertiliser use Channel News Asia (Carla R)

Sad reason world’s second-largest city has shut all schools 9News (Kevin W)

Snow hits London as Arctic chill grips Britain: Temperatures drop to -11.2C as sleet blankets the capital and snow hits the Midlands with trains axed, schools closed and cars stuck Daily Mail

Chronicles of Collapse Los Angeles Review of Books. Anthony L hoists:

This is the contradiction at the heart of Amrith’s book. He writes a brilliant global history, one of the very best I have read in many years. He truly synthesizes large fields of research into a compelling narrative that places a great conundrum at the heart of modern human history—how the use of fossil fuels has opened up unprecedented levels of human freedom that threaten the very heart of that project in the near future. But, having diagnosed the problem and explained it in language any reasonably educated reader can easily understand, Amrith almost completely drops the ball on thinking through a concrete path toward solutions, which is what readers most desperately need.

China?

EU to demand technology transfers from Chinese companies Financial Times

President Xi: population decline could benefit China’s future development Pekinology

China’s lonely-heart crisis fuels a growing ‘companionship economy’ South China Morning Post

Japan

Japan mulls tougher sanctions on Russia, North Korea News Az

Xi and Ishiba meet amid tensions as China urges Japan to ‘properly handle’ history Independent. Ouch.

European Disunion

Schwachkopf eugyppius (Micael T)

Baerbock threatens China with consequences Tagesschau via machine translation (guurst). How has the EU managed to find so many aggressively stupid women to put in positions of authority?

How German Imperialism Rebranded Itself as Feminist Jacobin (Stephen S)

German manufacturers warn of the sector’s ‘formidable crash’ BBC

Pacifism” and the Greed of Swedish Capital: Riga Unsuccessfully Attempts to Force Stockholm Shareholder to Work for Latvian Militarism International Affairs (Micael T)

Undersea cable between Germany and Finland severed BBC (Kevin W)

Old Blighty

Minister says food shortage plan in place as farmers threaten strike action over tax Independent. The tax is a disastrously foolish inheritance tax we included in Links and elicited a detailed takedown by Revenant earlier this month.

Israel v. The Resistance

Israel, Hezbollah trade fire as UN slams worsening conditions in Gaza Aljazeera

Nearly 100 food aid trucks violently looted in Gaza, UN agencies say Reuters

Hezbollah says it hit military targets in Tel Aviv with swarm of combat drones Anadolu Agency

How Yemen is redefining regional power The Cradle

Jewish organisations around the world condemn German parliamentary resolution on anti-Semitism DiEM25 (Robin K)

New Not-So-Cold War

US decision on long-range missiles will spark immediate response, Russian lawmakers say Guardian

Why Putin won’t go nuclear following ATACMS decision Ian Proud (Ignacio)

Putin approves Russia’s revised nuclear doctrine TASS (guurst). This was in the works but the timing of the approval turns out to have been useful.

G7 confirms pledge to impose severe costs on Russia for Ukraine war Reuters. And I want a pony.

Russian Military Traps Ukrainian Forces in Kursk Cauldron, Over 80 Enemy Fighters Killed Sputnik (Robin K)

Nobody wants to hear this: Ukraine’s Battle Fatigue London Review of Books (Anthony L)

Nordic neighbours release new advice on surviving war BBC

TO BEAT THE DEVIL: IN HONOR OF KRIS KRISTOFFERSON Hal Freeman (Anthony L). I feel sad for Hal Freeman. He gives the impression of having a strong moral core, of being deeply upset by widespread propaganda and demonizing of various Others, wanting to do something about that. I wish he could get to the point of being satisfied with putting out the best information he can and not caring so much about persuading people. Sometime not being part of the problem is the best you can do. And having the nerve to put a stake in the ground is reaching more people than he realizes.

Imperial Collapse Watch

A Republic to Keep, an Empire to Lose Philip Pilkington

Nationwide IV Fluid Shortage Could Change How Hospitals Manage Patient Hydration KFF Health News

Trump 2.0

What happened to America First? Trump’s cabinet picks seem more neocon than isolationist Thomas Fazi, Unherd

The Foreign Policy Cabinet of the Supposedly ‘Anti-War’ President-Elect Begins to Take Shape Issue Chronicle. Kevin W: “Interesting visual chart at top of article.”

Musk, top Trump adviser clash over Cabinet picks Axios

Trump shock waves ripple through fragmented G20 Politico

The unconventional economic theory behind Trump’s sweeping tariff plans Washington Post (Robin K)

DOGE Will Wind Up Costing the Government More Money Ian Welsh (Micael T)

The 9 GOP senators who could derail Trump’s Cabinet picks The Hill

2024 Aftermath

On the Democratic Party’s Cult of Powerlessness Matt Stoller. Important.

Pennsylvania’s Top Court Tells Counties to Stop Defying Its Ballot Order New York Times (Kevin W)

Mace introduces bill to bar trans women from Capitol restrooms The Hill

Our No Longer Free Press

‘Morning Joe’ Bends Knee to ‘Fascist’ Trump Ken Klipperstein

AI

Letting chatbots run robots ends as badly as you’d expect The Register (Kevin W)

AI Copyright Claimed My Last Video YouTube. BC

I saw this conflict coming.

Of all the choices, I think having the AI software developers owning copyright for all AI generated content would create a untenable situation where AI companies, like OoenAI, would end up claiming ownership of content and innovations well beyond art and creative writing. It would extend into medicine, science, and all manner of software enabled industry. Beyond the financial claims, copyright ownership would grant enormous power to enforce cease and desist orders to shut down competition (commercial or political).

Caveat Emptor

Four Passengers Die in Burning Tesla After Electronic Doors Seemingly Won’t Open Futurism. Paul R: “Yikes. There’s a manual door release inside but it’s apparently confusing to use. Nightmare fuel.”

Tesla (TSLA) stock up on report Trump wants to ease self-driving rules CNBC. Paul R: “I heard Trump was going to send killer robots after us, but I didn’t think they meant THIS.”

Class Warfare

Weddings have long been expensive. Now, guests are paying, too CNN (Kevin W)

Who uses libraries? Even in the stacks, there’s a political divide Washington Post (Robin K)

NYC supers say new trash rules are ruining their lives Gothamist

Antidote du jour (via):

And a bonus (guurst). Please turn your sound on:

A second bonus (Chuck L):

And a third (Chuck L):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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234 comments

    1. The Rev Kev

      To modify a quote from Joe Biden to describe this legislation-

      ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for Zionism or not, then you ain’t Jewish’.

    2. AG

      Thanks but that won´t change our dire state with ending free speech re: Israel. The entire production of academic and artistic content attempting criticism of Israel is crippled. Be it about what Israel did, what it is doing, and what it might be doing in the future.

      And who knows what other restrictions are in the pipeline depending on the deterioration of the socio-economic fabric. I fear this is only the beginning.

      Imagine even a benign documentary as “No Other Land” is being boycotted by some cinemas – in the current situation! And that was made for over 5 years.

      Content on Russia has already been made impossible unless it proves loyalty to Russophobic narratives.
      But yeah, we are fucking biiig democracy.

      1. Kouros

        There is the hope that the expected decision of ICJ, declaring Israel a genocidal state and placing legal constraints on countries will open a nice avenue of attack. Canadian gov was just sued for abating war crimes in Gaza… With an ICJ stamp, this will become very easy to do… All hope is not lost.

    1. albrt

      As is often the case, Welsh has some really good points. Starting with the fact that contractors usually cost more than employees doing the same job over the long term.

      Look for connections between DOGE and a wave of “uber for government functions” disruptor firms.

      1. scott s.

        I think anyone who has been in gov’t management for any time quickly realizes that “head count” (or FTEs) is a political question that has nothing to do with what actually goes on in the organization. In my day we had Gore’s “re-inventing government”. Same thing moving the boxes around on the org charts. The big idea was 15-to-1 supervisory ratio. So we turned a bunch of GS-13s into non-supervisory positions. Meanwhile the remaining supervisors spend more time doing time cards and the like than providing value-added services (these were all engineers with the positions coded as “general supervisory engineer 0801”)

  3. The Rev Kev

    “Four Passengers Die in Burning Tesla After Electronic Doors Seemingly Won’t Open”

    ‘A fifth rider, an unidentified woman in her twenties, narrowly survived the crash after a bystander smashed open a window, allowing her to escape the burning vehicle.’

    So what about those Tesla trucks with their bulletproof glass windows? If a cop was there, he still couldn’t shoot the windows out. I ain’t going in one of them until they come equipped with a James Bond-style Aston Martin ejector seat-

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8zxRjOuak

    Better than frying alive.

    1. griffen

      Cynical view, but a short selling investment firm must think possibly, that their Christmas stockings won’t feature coal next month. What a tragic, horrid headline for a leading edge EV manufacturer. Does a functional engineer work there who just might have some ideas for preserving the car owner(s) health or crafting better outcomes in such a dire scenario…

      And I’m curious what is included in the fine print of the manuals. Ala,scene from the Dallas Buyer’s Club to paraphrase …” it’s your body and health, now it’s your medicine, you can’t be suing us…”. \sarc

      1. juno mas

        The Tesla Y was rated as the most likely vehicle for passengers to die in. This death by fire is actually a regular event.

    2. Terry Flynn

      Whilst I’ve tried to avoid YT “blob-initiated” posts, one struck my eye. Musk doesn’t want Tesla to fail. Yet Trump seems wedded to policies that are anti-Tesla – “drill baby drill”.

      What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

      Pass the popcorn.

      1. i just don't like the gravy

        All Musk has to do is kneecap the domestic EV competition and prevent Chinese EV imports. Tesla doesn’t actually have to produce good cars at all.

        1. Emma

          Not just Chinese EVs. The European auto manufacturers are all working closely with Chinese partners on their EVs. So Trump slapping a tariff on European imports will benefit the sale of his deadly cars and ugly trucks.

          Whether Americans can afford to buy any new car after paying 100 percent more for all their clothes, electronics, etc., is another matter.

        2. Afro

          Tesla does need to produce good cars. Even if we ignore China consumers still have other options, from Toyota to Ford.

          Those bills to ban the internal combustion engine by 2035 are almost certainly going to be amended by 2035.

        3. Es s Ce Tera

          “Tesla doesn’t actually have to produce good cars at all.”

          I think the problem with that statement is Tesla’s are, in fact, good cars. A lot of drivers will attest to it, we can’t just ignore them or pretend they don’t exist.

          2. Emma

            Only because they haven’t driven a premium Chinese EV. Tesla has been plagued by quality control issues from the very start. They’re stale and feature poor compared to what’s coming out of Chinese EV makers these days.

      2. Old Sarum

        (After passing the popcorn): That reminds me; keeping my private jet secure between jaunts has become a real nightmare and I don’t venture beyond the first floor when I’m on the ground! Paranoia rules!

        Pip-pip!

      2. XXYY

        I believe there’s a federal law in the US that cars must incorporate a manual trunk release (glow in the dark!) so that people stuck in the trunk can get out. People riding in the passenger compartment are evidently less concerning.

        So I think the secret is to find a way to drive your Tesla while riding in the trunk…

    4. Captain Obvious

      In order to prevent frying alive, all future models will come with in-built cyanide capsules.

    5. Mikel

      This weekend I had a AAA serviceman entertain me with tales of rescuing EV owners. Weird shit like a Tesla not operating at all in an underground parking lot. The driver couldn’t even get the car to unlock. When it was towed out – finally after getting the right sized tow with the right equipment – the car came to life.

      But as for the gory firetraps, I also think of the disaster waiting to happen in that underground loop for cars that Musk was behind. And his EV bus design had me wondering about getting trapped. Looked like a moving coffin.Something like that needs obvious manual exits.

      1. The Rev Kev

        ‘Weird shit like a Tesla not operating at all in an underground parking lot.’

        Hey, does Teslas sometimes need internet connectivity to work then?

    6. playon

      A friend mine in Minnesota told me that five people died in a Tesla fire recently, not too far from their house.

      1. MFB

        Tell the truth, I’ve always been scared of power-operated windows. This year the only available cheap car was a Renault with power-operated windows. I need to get myself a coal-hammer.

  4. Steve H.

    On the latest Radio Hour, Ralph welcomes author, statistician, and professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) to discuss the wars in Gaza and Lebanon and give us his take on the election results.

  5. Terry Flynn

    15cm of snow lying heavy on the ground here in pretty much exact middle of England. We’ve had snow in November before but not like this in my 50ish years on this planet. Going from practically summer to this overnight (the high pressure anticyclone has moved) is catching a lot of people’s attention.

    Meanwhile YT is suggesting more and more vids about breakdown of the AMOC. One expert had 75% of the commenters saying things to the effect of “My mind is made up and it is because the shelf behind him is jam packed full of high quality hard liquor”.

    The “cold blob” east of Greenland cannot be ignored. Suddenly that silly movie seems merely “a bit exagerrated” rather than “downright stupid”.

    2. Revenant

      Balmy Devon here. Blue skies, heavy rain showers, mild as ever. Gulfstream operating fine.

      The farming tax climate is still adverse though and I have a rant to share about the IHT changes, Starmer’s disingenuousness and, because he and other figure keeps repeating his example but cannot stick to the very narrow script that makes it truth-adjacent, increasing mendacity.

      Also, irony / diary planning of the week, my spouse is attending a long scheduled government dinner at the House of Lords for farming bigwigs. The demo has seemingly been scheduled subsequently because an army and a farming protest marches on its stomach. :-)

      1. skippy

        Starmer’s classic ideological PR/marketing quip, dripping in ego, about – paraphrasing here: “bringing in a new youthful and innovative age cohort bringing U.K. AG into the Future[tm]” via the the Inheritance Tax gave me flash backs.

        I don’t know how many times since the 80s in Corp I have heard similar phraseology, which when decoded just means … bringing in uninformed, no life experience, malleable, ***Individuals*** with no group political dynamic, just so Corp can indoctrinate the lot in their preferred policy/agenda.

        Can’t wait till new year when last Daughter returns from SE1, other returned 2 months ago … phew …

    3. steppenwolf fetchit

      This makes me think that this winter should be a Super Polar Vortex outburst winter here in North America.
      ( I wish they would call it ” herniated polar vortex” instead of “polar vortex”),

  6. Mikerw0

    I have been in the anti monopoly, anti neoliberal economic camp for decades. As such, I have been an avid reader of Stoller. I think what he writes and his analysis is important. This is quite a good piece.

    As we have throughout history, we have entered a transitionary period. The neoliberal consensus is collapsing across the world. Look at the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and yes even Japan. What we don’t know is what new consensus will emerge. Either way, if we allow the current monopoly system to continue, and think of them as powerful governments without control over them (if X or Meta or Amazon want to ban you, or a business, or a political view they are free to do so. Incredible power in the hands of a few.) What I fear is the damage Trump will due to the more marginal members of our society (gays, women, disabled, etc.) in fostering the emergence of a new consensus and how he and our current oligarchs will reshape things. We just don’t know.

    1. Aurelien

      Stoller covers a lot of ground in his excellent piece. I think there are a couple of points worth dwelling on.

      One is the backwash of sixties radicalism. The traditional Left saw no contradiction between their internationalist, socialist ideals and their desire that their country should flourish: see the great reforming governments after WW2 for example. But increasingly what was the Left has been taken over by people who have only contempt for their country and all its works, and who wish, quite logically, not to improve it but to see it perish. It’s not a problem confined to the US either. In France, where even the Communist Party used to be fiercely nationalist, “leftist” politicians now compete to present their country as an inner suburb of hell, deserving destruction because of its colonial heritage etc. etc. This is why they say nothing about unemployment, poverty, inflation, education, or any other concern of the mass of the people, and indeed why they treat their fellow-nationals with such contempt.

      Which leads to Stoller’s second point, about helplessness. In the absence of any positive feeling for your country as a whole, all you can do is to try to secure the biggest slice of the remaining pie for your identity group. You do that by appearing helpless, because if you are helpless, then other people have an obligation to help you. So now we have a generation that has climbed and backstabbed its way to power by seeming helpless and demanding things from others, and now it’s in power, guess what, it’s helpless.

      1. Camelotkidd

        The Stoller article goes well with the Pilkington one, where he discusses the political warfare meant for the periphery that returned to sender
        “The paranoia that has taken hold in America is not a phenomenon that arose from the intellectual class any more than the rise of Donald Trump is associated with this class. It is a phenomenon that comes mostly from the grassroots and signifies, as many have now admitted, that the country is no longer capable of providing a good life for many of its citizens. Looked at in this way, we see a far more interesting picture emerge: the rampant paranoia that is consuming the American body politic is the result, both in terms of where the frustrations come from and in terms of the responses generated by the state, of a late-stage empire in a state of extreme and accelerating decay.”

        1. Ignacio

          I found it surprising in Stoller’s piece that he identifies a book from J.K. Galbraith in 1967 The New Industrial State as the root of neoliberalism and the powerlessness.

          1. Ignacio

            Hopefully, we are getting closer to the point in which neoliberalism is so rotten that a single kick on the door will suffice, as per the same JK Galbraith.

            1. skippy

              Cough …

              “Although modern neoliberalism was born at the “Colloque Walter Lippmann” in 1938, it only came into its own with the founding of the Mont Pèlerin Society, a partisan “thought collective,” in Vevey, Switzerland, in 1947. Its original membership was made up of transnational economists and intellectuals, including Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Karl Popper, Michael Polanyi, and Luigi Einaudi. From this small beginning, their ideas spread throughout the world, fostering, among other things, the political platforms of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and the Washington Consensus.

              The Road from Mont Pèlerin presents the key debates and conflicts that occurred among neoliberal scholars and their political and corporate allies regarding trade unions, development economics, antitrust policies, and the influence of philanthropy. The book captures the depth and complexity of the neoliberal “thought collective” while examining the numerous ways that neoliberal discourse has come to shape the global economy.”

              https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-road-from-mont-p-lerin/philip-mirowski/dieter-plehwe/9780674088344

              Its all a bit like how the Cold War [post revolutions in Russia/China] and nascent fear Capital had that the ***Natural Order*** would be ended by the mob. Capital then hired[tm] a bunch of self help bookshelf – thought leaders – that could write [concoct] Truth via deductive rationalizations. All spoon fed to each new generation via social networks and institutions.

              So yeah … don’t see or agree with Stoller’s timeline with the advent of neoliberalism or worse whitewashing its history’s roots.

              1. flora

                Thanks, Skip. A sort of ‘unified field theory’ for a particular flavor of capitalism. / ;) “There is no alternative”, (pace, Margaret Thatcher), except of course their are many styles of capitalism and alternatives to this particular neoliberal style flavor. See New Deal USA capitalism. / my 2 cents, cheers.

          2. CA

            “I found it surprising in Stoller’s piece that he identifies a book from J.K. Galbraith in 1967 ‘The New Industrial State’ as the root of neoliberalism and powerlessness.”

            Forgive me, but I happen to know the work of Galbraith and this identification by Matt Stoller is ridiculous, completely distorting what Galbraith was explaining and critically writing about. Galbraith was criticizing raw capitalism from a New Deal perspective at precisely the time that Milton Friedman was dismissing a New Deal perspective in favor of rapacious capitalism:

            https://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/13/archives/a-friedman-doctrine-the-social-responsibility-of-business-is-to.html

            September 13, 1970

            The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits
            By Milton Friedman – New York Times

            1. MFB

              Yes, but Galbraith’s The New Industrial State is rather weird. The notion of the “technostructure”, of experts running the economy for their own benefit much like Djilas’ New Class, might have seemed like an accurate description of the US and Soviet economies at the time, but it’s always struck me as extremely superficial and something which was almost immediately falsified by events. Also, I wonder whether Galbraith’s almost sympathetic representation of this concept didn’t hark back to the New Deal itself, when Galbraith was an expert controlling all prices in the US during World War II.

              Of course, that suggests that Stoller ought to characterize the New Deal as neoliberal.

      2. Mikel

        It’s not only the alleged “left” in the USA that thinks they’ve watched enough post-apocalyptic shows and can be among the survivors of a zombie takeover.

    2. Glen

      I agree with you, but I think Stoller lets the leadership of the Democratic party off way too easy. All those people got rich, very rich. That’s just greed.

      1. tegnost

        My thoughts as well…it didn’t just “happen” I remember a thing from the’80’s re hippies being “your stuff is our stuff, and my stuff is my stuff…” kind of the same as our current sharing economy (uber et al.)…they’ve been selling off the commons for a tidy fee, your welcome…oh wait that would mean someone said thank you, which they didn’t.

      2. lyman alpha blob

        Stoller is being deliberately obtuse if you ask me. The Democrat party are certainly not powerless. They will do anything for the donor class, the small group they really answer to. They marshaled all the power of the party elites to kneecap the interloper Bernie Sanders. Twice.

        Stoller is no dummy, but he does have some misplaced loyalty to the Democrat party and makes excuses for their failures all the time. Like many liberals, he does not want to admit what should be abundantly clear by now – the Democrat party, and I mean the party, not the rank and file voters, turned Republican quite some time ago. How many times does Obama need to publicly praise Reagan before this sinks in?!!?

        1. Jason Boxman

          Yep. That was my response as well.

          There’s certainly no helplessness when they knifed Sanders, twice. Or when every cycle they fight to keep Left parties off the ballot anywhere it might make a difference. And that’s the “Democratic” party, an enemy of actual democracy.

          The Democrat Party is what it does, and one role is of a rearguard action against the left, a role it perfectly executes. Meanwhile, on issues Democrats claim to care about, there’s always a football to take away at the last minute, with a rotation cast of villains. Did Jayapal really fall for two-tracking Biden’s supposed agenda in 2021, or was she merely fulfilling her role as sheep dog?

          1. TimH

            It’s not literal helplessness, just the pitch to the $50 donors that they will try to this, that, and the other… and nearly succeeded except for blah, but We Will Win next time. It’s the ‘victim’ pitch, and appeals to those who naturally root for the tired but doughty underdog in 1930’s schoolboy adventure story tradition.

        2. SD

          I posted a similar comment below before I read yours. I agree. I subscribe to Stoller’s Substack and also Briahna Joy Gray’s Patreon. You might be interested in her latest show with Michael Eric Dyson. She offers a much more compelling and holistic analysis than Stoller to this obvious problem!

        3. SocalJimObjects

          Pelosi’s prowess in the stock market suggests anything but helplessness. These people are corrupt, full stop. The Roosevelt days and the New Deal were nothing but an aberration in America’s history, because most of the time, it’s moneyed interests that run the country.

          1. The Rev Kev

            Hillary Clinton’s prowess with the stock market was also renowned. She made a bundle and it was almost like she was being fed the info about which stocks to back to cash in.

            1. flora

              Cattle futures. / heh

              an aside: people seem upset that Oprah or famous music star would demand payments for appearing at a KH thing, or that other stars would demand payments for appearing at Dem things. Why are people upset? It seems to me that the modern Dem party is entirely financially transactional. “It’s the economy, stupid.” – James Carville, if I remember correctly. Whose economy exactly? The party pols economy or the voters economies? / ;)

            2. Pat

              Clinton has always been obvious about the corruption. One of my favorites was talking about their being broke when they left the White House due to legal fees but having a couple of million just a few years later, as exPresident and Senator. Funny how lucrative questionable foundations, libraries and speaking engagements can be for some with really so little action or things of interest to say.

      3. earthling

        Yes. It’s as if all political commentators go through some special training camp, so they can write long involved analyses of how parties and ‘leaders’ have gone astray, without using the words “they are bought off and incredibly corrupt and do what their owners tell them to.”

        1. Glen

          Yes, if you apply Ocams Razor to this, the Dem leadership starts bleeding like rich greedy pigs, and that’s just being mean to pigs

          But they have run their empire and country into the ground in record time, so rich greedy stupid pigs is more accurate.

  7. MaureenO

    COVID is really spreading up here in Boston and it caught my husband and I off guard. We mask but my husband often cannot at his job all of the time. It looks like he is past the hump (headache, aches, fatigue, loss of smell/taste and diarrhea). What I cannot understand is how I am not sick! I have not been sick with COVID since 2022. I only had the first two vaccines as well. I decideMarureenOd it was too late because my husband had symptoms so I decided to just love him with care until I could not. But five days into this I still have no symptoms.

    Is there any body else here who seems naturally resilient to COVID? Or does anyone know why I might be?

    Also, my husband reads your website every morning and told me to post this here! Hi honey! :)

    1. Yves Smith Post author

      Wishing your husband a continued recovery. From GM via e-mail:

      No, noboby has any solid idea why some people are completely spared.

      Although she has likely been infected anyway, possibly multiple times, but just completely asymptomatic.

      There have been many such cases — COVID enters a family, kills some people, sickens severely others, and yet others are perfectly asymptomatic. And not always the ones you expect, i.e. elderly, statistically extremely vulnerable people, can be the ones fully asymptomatic too.

      These days exposure histories are so complex and varied that one can always waive it away with that explanation. But it happened a lot in 2020 too.

      The handwavy explanation is difference in overall inflammation status inside the body and things of that nature. With some evidence to back it up, but don’t expect reliable answers.

      1. Joe Renter

        I have a had the luck of being in very close quarters with those infected (twice) and not infected. That I am grateful for. It’s a roll of the dice moving forward, as I am not counting on the lucky streak for the future. May all those reading this stay healthy. Impermanence being a reality, none the less.

      2. MaureenO

        Thank you and tell GM(?) I said thank you! His symptoms are what he recollects from the past flu, and he is much better today so we are not worried, just curious.

        I am wondering if I am spreading it though? I have tested all this time and I am still negative with the BinaxNow tests. Even when I did get COVID in 2020 I was not very sick at all, but took a test out of curiosity and it was positive in 2020. I think people like me need to be studied to find out why so maybe we can help everyone!

        I have a feeling it is something in the family because my whole mothers side is the same way, we barely get the flu as well. My husband told me to read this but it was over my head, except for them talking about it maybe being a family thing.

        https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/06/425696/gene-mutation-may-explain-why-some-dont-get-sick-covid-19

        “The mutation – HLA-B*15:01 – is quite common, carried by about 10% of the study’s population. It doesn’t prevent the virus from infecting cells but, rather, prevents people from developing any symptoms. That includes a runny nose or even a barely noticeable sore throat.”

        Anyway, thanks and will let you know if I ever get sick!

        1. nyleta

          I am homozygous for the H63 D gene mutation, a not too uncommon thing . there was a study cited here a while ago about how we have quicker to launch immune systems. This didn’t help me much in March 2020 in my first infection before vaccines which took me 3 months to recover from. I have had it twice since and my trained immune system shrugs it off pretty well now since being vaccinated. Of course there are other things that people with my mutation are more vulnerable to,no free lunches from Mother Nature.

        2. kareninca

          In your first post you wrote: ” I have not been sick with COVID since 2022.”

          In this post you wrote: ” Even when I did get COVID in 2020 I was not very sick at all . . .”

          Did you have it in 2020 or in 2022? Or both? I am confused.

          The key thing is whether you ended up with any long term effects (new high blood pressure, neuropathy, dizziness, cognitive, stuff, autoimmune problems, cancer) from an asymptomatic case. That is the scary thing about covid. The acute phase doesn’t matter much for a lot of people, but they can still have terrible long term effects, even if they had no acute phase symptoms at all. Fingers crossed that we all avoid those.

  8. The Rev Kev

    “Trump shock waves ripple through fragmented G20”

    Of course old Joe still wanted to make this G20 meeting all about the Ukraine saying-

    ‘The United States strongly supports Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Everyone around this table, in my view, should as well. And, by the way, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine led to the highest-record food crisis in all of history.’

    The guys at The Duran joke that whenever Neocons have their plans blow up in their faces, that the first thing that they do is double down. That is why I laughed aloud when Keir Starmer said at the G20 that ‘ “we need to double down” on support for Ukraine’ and ‘pledged that Ukraine was “top” of his agenda at this week’s G20 summit of world leaders and told reporters that “there’s got to be full support as long as it takes”.’

    https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/joe-biden-keir-starmer-ukraine-olaf-scholz-g20-b2648631.html

    I’m sure that most non-western G20 members are heartily sick of being lectured about the Ukraine by now.

    1. MFB

      Cyril Ramaphosa, my least favourite South African politician, nevertheless is starting to sound like Fidel Castro as he takes the helm of the G20. I notice he didn’t get a mention in the article.

  9. Carla

    Re: China’s lonely-heart crisis fuels a growing ‘companionship economy’ — The photograph belies the text of the item, which says young Chinese go online offering to pay someone to “talk” to them. Clearly, these young ‘uns could turn to each other and converse if they wished to. They are offering to pay someone not physically present to chat online with them. Ask anyone regularly around American teens; they also often prefer online “conversation” to interacting with those in their physical presence.

    1. AG

      …doesn´t Japan have companies offering customers a service where actors are being paid for acting as fake friend in real life for some private purpose like ceremonies, parties, business meetings…

      p.s. “Chinese go online offering to pay someone to “talk” to them” – reminds me of Spike Jonze´s Sci-Fi movie “Her” (2013)

      1. Terry Flynn

        Rich Chinese whose sister can’t get an Australian visa just offer a load of cash to a gay male who has Australian citizenship in order to marry and get in.

        Allegedly.

        1. The Rev Kev

          I met an Aussie guy in Europe back in the early 80s that was marrying a Polish girl to get her out from behind the old iron curtain for cash as well. That was back during the First Cold War of course.

          1. AG

            That has bit of “Birthday Girl” (2001) vibe to it – the Polish girl is from RU played by Nicole Kidman, the Aussie guy is an Englishman, Ben Chpalin.
            Being Russian and all that – of course – the truth is much darker and more twisted. Since Russian doll has bad bad Russian crooked boy-friend (Vincent Cassel) and is in fact a fraud.
            Positive upside of that being 2001 – the couple ends up going to Moscow as happy-ending.

          2. BlueMoose

            I met a Polish woman in Canada in 1995. After 10 years of living in the US, we moved to Poland. Best decision of my life.

        2. AG

          sounds like a nice idea for a “GREEN CARD” (1990) remake, with the necessary anti-Chinese twist to make the cut (of course ex-Chinese market)

          1. mary jensen

            I’ve always wanted to live in Andie MacDowell’s “Green Card” NYC apartment with that garden…it’s worth ‘marrying’ Gérard Depardieu for that splendid greenhouse.

      2. Acacia

        This type of service in Japan is the subject of Iwai Shunji’s excellent film A Bride for Rip Van Winkle.

      3. Mikel

        This also may not be due to any total lack of any kind of companionship.
        Some may want a person that looks and/or behaves a certain way to make themselves fit into some type socially constructed ideal.

    2. hk

      I’ve heard that there is much interest for an AI that fills that market. The guy also told me that, in a twist on the Turing Test, people seem to prefer talking to an AI, as long as it operates competently enough, to an actual human–at least some of the time.

    3. lyman alpha blob

      Very true. I’ve see many groups of young people gathered together looking at their phones and not talking at all to each other. Or when they do talk, it’s about what one of them just saw on the phone. My own child seems to me to have a difficult time holding an actual conversation, especially with people not in her peer group. Very worrisome. Seems that many people very much would choose to live in the Matrix rather than reality.

      1. TimH

        There was a British tradition (upper middle class?) of no talking at breakfast… you read your post (not mail, old chap), and read the paper.

    4. NYMutza

      In China fake boyfriends are a thing. Some young women, under pressure from their parents to find a man and marry, rent a man who pretends to be the boyfriend at family gatherings. There are young men who rent themselves out for such purposes. Necessity is the mother of invention!

      1. fringe element

        This happens in Turkish television dramas too. Young woman gets some guy to pose as a suitor to ward off marriage-obsessed parents. In a charming twist, one series even started with a family pretending to marry off the daughter just to scare her into getting a job.

        Sometimes these shows make me grateful to be American, which is funny in a rueful way because watching American television never makes me feel like that anymore.

  10. Trees&Trunks

    Denmark, farmlands and forests. How about crop rotation as an alternative to reduce fertiliser usage?
    These WEF evils are really trying their hardest to create food shortage and starvation.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Working link for that ” Denmark to convert 15% of farmland to forest to cut fertiliser use” article at-

      https://www.channelnewsasia.com/sustainability/denmark-convert-15-farmland-forest-cut-fertiliser-use-4754451

      Crop rotation sounds like an excellent idea – as well as getting away from industrialize farming. But those trees that they want to plant. Will they only be just one single type making mono forests? Will they be of a type that down the track can be harvested for profit? Any consideration of mixing different types of trees to make real forests that birds and animals can make their homes in and make it an actual ecosystem?

      2. Polar Socialist

        Not just crop rotation, but even letting some trees and undergrowth to reclaim fields once in a decade and do some animal husbandry there. Chicken, pig and cow shit would be a natural way to renew the soil and the growing roots would unpack the compressed ground.

        1. juno mas

          Plant roots don’t necessarily ‘unpack’ compressed soils. Gophers, however, would be helpful and add to the ecosystem.

  11. none

    What happened to America First? Trump’s cabinet picks seem more neocon than isolationist Thomas Fazi, Unherd

    I have been wondering whether the GOP warmonger establishment (it has one just like the dems do) has spent the past 4 years bending Trump’s ear / twisting his arm, to make it so he’s one of them now.

  12. DJG, Reality Czar

    Yesterday, I commented on a kind of (negative) beauty, Hillary Clinton wandering the woods, snarfing down fly agaric (Amanita muscaria).

    Today, by chance, I found this concert of about a year ago. Positive beauty. So I’ll thread-jack.

    Superb work by Laurie Anderson, in honor of Cavafis:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rI15W-BBhrw&list=WL&index=1

    Poem (1):
    Konstantinos Cavafis
    Waiting for the Barbarians

    https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/the-canon/waiting-for-the-barbarians

    In italiano (the Italian translations may be better than those into English):

    http://www.sagarana.net/rivista/numero18/poesia4.html

    Poem (2): wonderfully beautiful (+ it has become part of my ethos):
    Ithaka

    https://www.onassis.org/initiatives/cavafy-archive/the-canon/ithaka

    In italiano:

    https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ithaki-itaca.html#songtranslation

  13. Es s Ce Tera

    re: On the Democratic Party’s Cult of Powerlessness Matt Stoller.

    “So if this attitude has been systemic, where did it come from?”

    Traffic lights, traffic signs, roads, road construction, infrastructure, road congestion, police, parking lots, the media, insurance companies, corporatism, all sorts of unfair Kafkaesque state and federal laws, every rules-based aspect of society conditions to submit, be helpless, “stop resisting” and obey authority. Rule followers are the subs and rule breakers become the doms. And rapists, creating a rape culture. Trump and Netanyahu are the Tel Aviv Maccabi hooligans, Israel openly singing rape songs, songs about killing children, and meanwhile the subs (and Harris is a law and order sub) worry about staying in their lane, waiting for the light to turn green, obeying that stop sign, else they’ll get a ticket and a criminal record, become a filthydirty deplorable. The more they bring law and order, the more they condition themselves to helpless submission to hooligans in “authority”. That’s where I think it comes from. There comes a time to beccome a deplorable, when it becomes necessary to break a few rules. If Trump touches abortion it might flip that switch. You’d think genocide would have flipped that switch but no, I guess anti-Arab bigotry prevails.

    1. hk

      I had a somewhat different reaction from what others seem to have vis-a-vis the Stoller piece.

      During World War 2, British Field Marshal Bill Slim opposed creating special forces with the following rationale (I paraphrase): “if you create a Corps of Tree Climbers, then nobody who’s not wearing the special green hat of the Tree Climbers will feel that they can climb trees.”

      I wonder if this sense of helplessness is the product of the cult of the expert. If you create a cult of experts who supposedly know all the right answers and you face a crisis where either there are no experts or the experts clearly don’t know what they are doing either, you are liable to just sit on hands and tell yourself ”
      “Well, we are not experts. What can we do?” It does also help create a very convenient environment (analogous to the Prester John problem I brought up some time ago, perhaps)–well, we got problems, but someone else will solve them and save our bacon. The funny thing, of course, is that this is distinctly a new and un-American development: in the original “Poseidon Adventure,” a bunch of trapped passengers repeat the mantra “the captain will come and save us,” when Gene Hackman character tells them “we have to get out by ourselves and soon because everything is going to fall apart.” (then the predictable happens.) Now, I’m not too crazy about that film (or the ideas that it peddles) because it’s too blatant allegory to the American brand of Protestantism (with geneous helping of Ben Franklin’s “God helps those who help themselves” bit.) But there is something to this: experts don’t always know what they do and, sometimes, you gotta climb trees green hat or otherwise.

        1. The Rev Kev

          I remember that incident well. It was a Greek crew and they up and abandoned the ship and left the passengers behind which could have led to a massive catastrophic loss of life. It was the ship’s entertainers that saved those people. My uncle was on a liner – the MS Mikhail Lermontov – that went down off New Zealand and it was a Russian crew aboard. Only one person died and that was a Russian engineer. The fault was a wonky New Zealand pilot-

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Mikhail_Lermontov

    2. Felix

      what Es s Ce Tera wrote.

      BAR’s Margaret Kimberley had an excellent article on Harris’ loss, introduced by a collection of shockingly hateful Democrat tweets blaming Black/Brown/Palestinians for it and expressing their contempt for us. Personally I voted for Stein but yes, got my wish that Harris not win. Genocide too big to forgive and yes, those tweets underscore both parties being the enemy.
      regarding Khan, she is a treasure. had Harris won she’d do whatever she was told regarding the FTC Chair, all you have to do is see how she handled Steve Mnuchin as AG.

      1. neutrino23

        I never understood why people charged Biden/Harris with genocide. Congress supplied the funds. Netenyahu pulled the trigger. If they want to stop Israeli aggression go to Speaker Johnson and force him to cut the funding for Israel.

        It’s like when protesters shut down a bridge or freeway. Why inconvenience people who have no power? Go to DC and go after the Speaker of the House.

        I guess it is more satisfying to throw a wrench in the gears than to do something useful. Trump will green light the eradication of the Palestinians. Huckabee has said there is no such thing as Palestine. Jared is already planning beach front hotels there.

        1. Dr. John Carpenter

          People charge them with genocide because they’re complicit in genocide! Congress wouldn’t be providing funds if Biden/Harris didn’t keep promising them. Netenyahu couldn’t have pulled the trigger if Biden/Harris hadn’t handed him the gun. The I project is a bipartisan effort and Biden/Harris have been on board every step of the way. You think Trump is going to have some magic power Biden/Harris don’t have? Get real!

        2. Felix

          You could at least pretend to care, Neutrino. Pushing Johnson to stop the funding would be like blocking a freeway. Obviously you still buy in to the DNC. You need to take the blinders off.
          props to Dr. John Carpenter for the truth.

        3. marku52

          Because Biden is already breaking the law to provide the weapons. All he has to do is stop breaking the law. No legislation necessary.

        4. Pat

          And you act as if the House is autonomous in deciding where funding goes. That takes legislation, and bills and a President’s signature. And right now most of the time no one is bothering with that.
          I blame almost all of the DC crowd, but Biden actually holds the trump card, so to speak. There are several laws that essentially make all funding and arming of Israel’s current actions to be illegal. Between the DOJ and Treasury, all funding and arms shipments would be stopped, if the laws were enforced.

          Just as he, if he were the big man he tries to portray himself as, could have directed his UN ambassador not to veto or vote against any action condemning and/or sanctioning Israel. He also could have stated until Congress gave him a veto proof bill, all previously promised funding for the UN’s humanitarian aid groups would continue.

          NOPE. He is not just backdoor supporting this genocide, he is doing it right in the open by continuing the funding and arming of the country doing it.

        5. Emma

          Seriously? Not enforcing laws. Obvious lying to provide cover for Israeli war crimes. Vetoes at the UN. Appointing Israeli agents such as Hockstein into key negotiation positions.

          There are laws on the books that prevent the US from supplying munitions to countries commiting war crimes and blocking US humanitarian aid. The Biden administration deliberates lied and failed to enforce laws on the books to enable the Israeli genocide. They all deserve to hang for it.

    3. Jeremy Grimm

      I thought this missive from Matt Stoller projected a strange interpretation of the workings of u.s. government. I believe neither the Democratic Party nor its representatives nor the Republican Party nor its representatives feel powerless to act as I think Stoller was suggesting. I believe the Uni-Party is confident in its power and demonstrates both its power and will to satisfy the desires of the u.s. Elites. Want another war? more money for ‘defense’, a tax break, more cuts to the safety net, … or desire a merger to consolidate? The Uni-Party is the can-do Party. The powerlessness Stoller portrays only seems to manifest when needs and desires particular to the Populace are considered.

      I believe Stoller’s notion that the Populace views Trump as a “can-do” guy in contrast with the Uni-Party “no-can-do” stance greatly mischaracterizes the nature of Trump’s appeal. I believe Trump is the ‘bull-in-the-china-shop’ guy elected because a fair portion of the Populace is angry and blindly pissed-off at the direction the u.s. is headed in, and they want to see a little china [not China] smashed. Kamala was a smiley, happy-face of empty or no-change policy in contrast to the angry, crazy, all-over-the-map, know-nothing thrashings of the Trump demagoguery. What a choice. A Democratic Party of helplessness, powerless to act. I just do not buy that interpretation of events. A Democratic Party of helplessness, powerless to act contrary to the interests of the u.s. Elites — that I can believe — and I believe the same about the Republican party regardless of the hot winds blowing from Trump.

      [“And rapists, creating a rape culture.” … Where did that come from?]

      1. MFB

        Learned helplessness is a very helpful thing to learn. You can get so much not done that you never wanted to happen.

        And then you can blame the orange monster on the horizon when everything goes wrong.

  14. JohnA

    Re Old Blighty and
    “Minister says food shortage plan in place as farmers threaten strike action over tax Independent. The tax is a disastrously foolish inheritance tax we included in Links and elicited a detailed takedown by Revenant earlier this month.”

    I am neither an accountant, an economist, or a farmer, and have no dog in this fight. However, you have on occasion linked to a British accountant and tax specialist, Richard Murphy and his funding the future website. There, he has posted several pieces arguing that the proposed inheritance tax is actually good for farmers and the loudmouth bullying petrolhead leader of the farmers revolt in the media, Jeremy Clarkson, has admitted in print, he bought his farm as a tax avoidance scheme. In effect, the rich are buying up farmland for financial engineering motives to the detriment of farming in Britain. E.g.
    https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/11/19/farmers-need-to-stop-talking-nonsense/

    https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/11/19/why-inheritance-tax-charges-are-really-good-for-real-farmers-but-not-for-financial-whizz-kids/

    As mentioned, I have neither the expertise, nor the background, nor the motivation, to argue either way, but I do think it is worth getting the other side of the argument, rather than rushing to label it ‘a disastrously foolish inheritance tax’.

    1. Revenant

      No the tax is not good for farmers or farming. Richard Murphy can be a real fathead sometimes, as can Will Hutton who wrote a similarly delusional article saying that farmers are hoarding land and it will be good for new entrants that they are forced to sell some! But any farmer having to sell his family’s land will want the highest possible price. And the bidders on this land will not be greenhorn tenant farmers but the large investment funds that have been set up to exploit the financialisation of environmental subsidies for greening / re-wilding and can afford to outbid anybody actually planning to farm….

      Farming in the UK generates between 0.5-2.5% yield on capital when the value of farmland is included. Farmland prices in the UK are super high to US eyes: £7,000 per acre for Grade 3 rough pasture and £14,000 per acre for Grade 1 arable land. So a family farm of 300 acres of rough pasture is £2.1m and that is before you add up the value of the farmhouse, farm buildings, farm machinery, herd etc. So a £3m farm will generate £15k-£75k profit, depending on what it is farming (dairy highest, then arable, then livestock). There is no way a family farming business, with an average profit of £45,300, can afford a tax bill of say £270k, because even with ten years to pay and 8% government interest, this will consume £48.6k per annum!

      1. oliverks

        According to the uk website

        This is on top of all the other spousal exemptions and nil-rate bands that people can access for inheritance tax too. This means that two people with farmland, depending on their circumstances, can pass on up to £3 million without paying any inheritance tax.

        That would seem to imply your £3M farm is exempt.

    2. Revenant

      I just wrote to the BBC to complain about their BBC Verify analysis of Starmer’s claims regarding IHT so I thought I may as well post my rant it here too.

      Dear Sirs,

      Your analysis (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8rlk0d2vk2oof) the claim of c. 500 farms per year affected by the changes is inaccurate. In fact, it is rubbish and you clearly did not take advice from anybody who understands inheritance tax or look carefully at what HMRC and HMT are telling you.

      You claim that “There were a total of 462 inherited farms valued above £1m in 2021-22, according to HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC)” and link to this table in support:
      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-reforms/summary-of-reforms-to-agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief#statistical-annex-distribution-of-claims-at-death-for-agricultural-property-relief-and-business-property-relief-in-2021-to-2022

      But this table does not say what you interpret it to say. The table lists the number of estates that were inherited upon a death and which claimed agricultural property relief. That is not the same thing as the number of farms affected by the changes at all!

      1) The Treasury and Starmer are comparing apples with oranges
      – IHT is not chargeable on bequests to spouses and thus no transfer on death of a family farm that passed between spouses would have claimed APR and so would not have appeared in this table historically.
      – the proposed capped APR-BPR allowance will not itself be transferrable on death if unused, in whole or in part. Under the proposals, a married farmer should therefore leave £1.5m of farm value to a direct descendant (attracting APR-BPR of £1m plus the nil rate and residential nil rate band allowances) and the rest to his spouse. Keir Starmer’s disingenuous claim that a couple can leave £3m depends precisely on this tax strategy. There is no longer such a thing as “a couple” in UK tax law: under independent taxation of married women, they are two separate individuals. In order to leave £3m of farm value between their separate estates, they will have to arrange their affairs so that the first to die leaves £1.5m to direct descendants and the survivor leaves £1.5m to direct descendants.
      – there will therefore be at least double the number of farms claiming APR in future than have claimed it historically, because of this two-step approach to inheritance, if the figure that Starmer is promoting is verified on the same basis as the £3m IHT-free transfer that he is also promoting.

      2) Moreover, the table only deals with estates transferred on death.
      – Currently transfers between the living (inter vivos) are chargeable to IHT but are potentially exempt if the donor survives seven years. No inter vivos transfer would have claimed APR historically because of the exemption, except if the potentially exempt transfer (PET) failed and APR had to be claimed to relieve it. HMRC provides no data on how many PET’s had to claim APR.
      – Similarly, gifts into trust by living settlors attract an immediate IHT charge but these are relieved by APR/BPR. Again, the table data do not speak to these claims of APR because they concern only estates transferred on death.

      3) Farms as a business are also covered by business property relief and these are not in the table at all!
      – APR and BPR are not identical: APR covers only the agricutural value of land but covers let land as well as actively farmed land. BPR covers the value of the farm as a business including the value of the land in the business. So APR will cover the agricultural value of a farm let to tenants but not the amenity / planning gain value of farmland beside a city. Whereas BPR would cover this amenity or development value but not the value of land let to a tenant farmer.
      – Many active farming businesses will have been transferred under BPR because it is a more generous relief, covering the value of the farm machinery and diversification enterprises which are not covered by APR.
      – The table provides no data about how many farming business claimed BPR!
      – The aggregate cap of £1m to APR and BPR will clearly catch many farms that were previously transferred under BPR.
      – In particular, it will catch precisely those farming businesses which have significant mixed agricultural and non-agricultural trades because they have followed the government’s advice of the past forty years and diversified to increase their farming income and reduce dependence on subsidies.

      4) Starmer’s example of a £3m transfer being unaffected is highly artificial. It assumes that a farming couple rearrange their affairs to hold equal interests in the farm and then leave them to direct descendants and bypass the survivor.
      – The example fails if the couple wishes to leave an interest to siblings or cousins (inc. nephews and neices) because the residential nil rate band is not available.
      – The example also fails for widows and widowers because, although they have inherited the nil rate and residential nil rate bands, (i) they cannot inherit the £1m APR-BPR relief from the first to die and (ii) the residential nil rate band is withdrawn at the rate of £1 for every £2 of estate value in excess of £2m. So a widow leaving a £3m farm to a child is entitled to only £1m of APR-BPR and £650k of nil rate band: the residential nil rate band is fully withdrawn for an estate in excess of £2.7m.
      – A widow(er) with a £3m estate left to direct descendants must therefore pay IHT on £1.35m of value, which is an IHT charge of £270k. With ten years to pay at 8% interest per annum, this would require a farm profit of £48.6k per annum, i.e. more than the average farm profit of £45,300 that you cited! This is clearly not affordable.

      5) The impact of the change is highly discriminatory.
      – Farmers who are currently widows or widowers will not be able to leave a £3m farm to their children, simplu for having been bereaved too early!
      – Moreover, farming couples will need to arrange their affairs so that £1.5m of farm assets bypass the survivor and go straight to children, in order to maximise the relief, but this is going to discriminate against women because they are usually the survivors in farm marriages. There has been no analysis by the Treasury or HMRC of the gender and age-related impact of this policy but it is clearly going to result in a disproportionate number of farming widows who have been deprived of farm assets and thus income in their widowhood in order to preserve the farm.

    3. Yves Smith Post author

      Richard Murphy has no idea of the structure of the British farming industry. Most farms are small. The threshold for the tax is too low and will force nearly all small farms to be sold upon death of the owners and prevent them from being passed on to heirs who would like to farm them. That will ALSO lead to consolidation into mega farms, as in more income inequality.

      Honestly, Murphy should be embarrassed.

      1. Revenant

        Yes, off-shore investors (there is no inheritance tax payable by an off-shore corporate owner because there is no chargeable event of a death…) and ecofinance welfare queens are rubbing their hands over the flood of distressed sales they can profit from.

        Labour’s policy is so incoherent. If they were serious about stamping out IHT avoidance:
        – why are they telling the farmers that they can just resructure their affairs to avoid the new tax? :-)
        – How is that approach fair on the residue of farmers in situations where they cannot drop their assets into trust before the deadline or have never married and want to leave it to a niece have no marital or parental allowances to shelter the value?
        – why is there no mention of the fact that the great aristocratic estates all fled the UK during the era of progressive Estate Duty, which was chargd at up to 80 % of the estate value but which did not cover any assets settled into trust in the deceased’s liftime!? They dropped their assets into Guernsey and Jersey trusts, where they remain, untaxed. Vast holdings of UK agricultural land will never be charged to inheritance tax.

        And so, in order to tax nouveau riche James Dyson (who is unlikely to be caught because he owns his UK farmland through intermediary corporate off-shore vehicles which are not subject to IHT – full disclosure, he went to school with my half-brother and was captain to his goalie in the field hockey team, but I have never met him!), they propose to crush the family farming butterfly on the wheel of IHT, when they could instead have introduced a land value tax that captured all UK rentier wealth as a proportion of its value and brought off-shore structures back into charge by taxing the land not the transferor and at a rate that was not punitive to agricultural land holdings.

        Inco-bloody-herent. Or rather, just licking the balls of their Finanzkapital capital donors on order.

  15. NotTimothyGeithner

    Re: the 3x bonus anecdote

    When I was a similar age, the neighbors’ giant horse did the same thing just for me. He came over quickly to my dad, but he knew dad would have a treat.

    1. Ignacio

      I went once with my daughter to bring some bread to horses that weren’t enclosed when she was about 10 yo in a field in Navarre. There was a group of about 20 horses and they were about 500m away from us. When they detected us and the bread they all came galloping to us. Jesus! We threw the bread and run in terror for our lives (hahahaha!). Even knowing they were interested only in the bread it felt like running before the train.

  16. mrsyk

    Thanks for the Hal Freeman essay. The last line (from Kristofferson’s To Beat the Devil), “‘Cause I don’t believe that no one wants to know”. I’m thinking some iteration of this flows the vein of those who prowl this place.
    Kris Kristofferson is one of my all time heroes. His passing this year hit hard, another voice gone leaving a marker of time past.
    I recommend his fifth album Spooky Lady’s Sideshow.

    1. Joe Renter

      Kris was a pretty amazing person. I suggest to readers to look him up in wiki. I really enjoy the story of him landing a helicopter on Johnny Cash’s property to hand off a song he wrote (Sunday morning coming down). He choose a path and blazed through out his life.

    1. The Rev Kev

      Yeah, here is a link to that breaking news-

      https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-20/russia-says-ukraine-fired-us-made-missiles-at-military-facility/104621878

      The real story though is that the US has just attacked Russia with ATACMS. The only Ukrainian involvement was probably the Ukrainian driver who was called inside the van to press the firing button. This will not end well. Let’s see what Trump will say about this attack. If he goes along with old Joe’s attack, then Joe has got Trump boxed into supporting his Ukrainian policies some 60 days before Trump is even sworn in.

      1. Polar Socialist

        According to the Russian MoD the strike happened 3:25 in the morning, Moscow time. And in the Bryansk region, not defending the Ukrainians in the Kursk region.

        5 of the 6 missiles were shot down, the last one was only damaged and caused a fire on a “technical area”. No damages or casualties recorded.

        1. Ignacio

          This is exactly the source we have to pay attention to. The moment they report significant damage you can expect proportional reaction when they decide it convenient.

        2. Skip Intro

          Russia could respond by cutting some communications cables in the Baltic, but that would be very difficult right now, given the beginning of NATO exercises off Finland. If any cables were cut with NATO patrolling in the area…

          This Just In… Communications cables off Finland cut…

          1. MFB

            Americans firing missiles into Russia. What in the world could possibly go amiss with that? Isn’t it what has always happened? What’s on the other channel? Anyway, well informed sources say that it’s nothing to worry about. Those asiatic Russians would never dare to do anything and they have no weaponry anyway. And if they think otherwise we’ll send in the USS Zumwalt.

      2. Roquentin

        You know, I’ve been pretty down in the dumps about the election and having to suffer through four more years of Trump, but this brought back all the contempt I have for the Biden administration. It serves as a good reminder that both major party options on the table this election were trash. I have to admit I’m surprised the Biden admin would go so far to sabotage any attempt at negotiating an end to the Ukraine war, let alone risk WWIII in the process, but that’s exactly what happened.

        The only question that matters at this point is: does Putin take the bait? It’s anyone’s guess, honestly, I certainly don’t know.

        1. ChrisFromGA

          I would worry about those bases in E. Syria. They’re sitting ducks for hypersonics – stationary targets. It could even be attributed to Iran.

          1. no one

            Those bases are sitting ducks for cheap drones ordered over the Internet with some strap-on explosives.

        3. Schopsi

          He definitely should and needs to “take the bait” and at the very least eliminate the government in in Kiev right now.

          By this time it almost certainly doing nothing would be the most dangerous possible decision of them all.

          And if he does not, someone else in Moscow needs to take the decision out of his hands.

          1. Polar Socialist

            Considering that Putin’s spokesman only yesterday reiterated that US missiles hitting Russia “proper” would make US a participant in the conflict, it’s really hard to back down from that

            The scuttlebutt seems to be that Russia warned Ukraine trough Saudi-Arabia and Turkey that any missile strike on Russia means Russia will take out the whole Ukrainian grid. The problem here being that it assumes Zelensky cares.

            Several Russian commentators and many people on social media are demanding Russia to flatten the Verkhovna Rada and Presidential Palace in Kiev.

            1. Schopsi

              Zelensky doesn’t care and of course the Westf doesn’t either.

              Nobody cares half as much about what happens to some poor ukrainian shlubs as Putin does and apparently he projects that on his opponent.

              I guess it is really true that the Russians’ biggest weakness is their softheartedness.

              You can’t fight people making the Devil look like a boyscout that way, your just can’t.

              Turning the Rada and Z’s palace into big, smoking holes in the ground is EXACTLY what the should do.

              Two months from now the Banderites and Neocons will be so encouraged and flush with their success that that will no longer be enough, now it would be.

              And what would they wait for?

              Trump rescinding the order,l despite talking big how it didn#t make a difference who was president in Washington?

              Well, Trump’s a bully who respects strength and decisiveness.

              Even if right now he is genuine about wanting to undo it (which is debateable anyway, Brian Berletic and Caitlin Johnstone might easily be right that he and Team Biden are fully on the same page with the rest nothing but theater), how much of the respect the Don might have right now will be left after weeks and weeks of Russia taking it on the chin despite all the hot air and with the neocons crowing about that fact triumphantly 24/7?

      3. NYMutza

        I will guess that Russia will do next to nothing regarding ATACMS strikes. They most certainly won’t strike any targets inside NATO areas, nor will they attempt decapitation strikes on the Ukraine leadership. At most they will send a few more missiles towards some Ukrainian infrastructure. In order to save face, Russia will also claim minimal damage from the ATACMS strikes.

        1. johnnyme

          Pure sci-fi speculation here, but the thought occurred to me that a very interesting response would be for them to de-orbit the spy satellites used in the war by sending up small satellites designed to attach to their targets and carrying enough fuel to alter their orbits causing them to re-enter the atmosphere. No fuss, no muss — no explosions in space, no Kessler Syndrome, and from my limited understanding, does not appear to violate the Outer Space Treaty.

        2. bertl

          NATO is now at war with Russia by calculation, presumably to embarrass President-elect Trump and, possibly, trap him into a pointless war which they hope will damage President Trump’s ability to improve relations with Russia and it’s allies in the SCO, plus the various member and non-member countries of BRICS. Russia will “save face”, whatever that means in the context of a war illegal declared by a US President and/or members of his Administration without Congressional approval, by executing actions which have long been planned for, and they will cause great pain to Ukraine and, I suspect one or two or more NATO bases for starters.

          I’m no lawyer so the question I find most interesting because of the lack of Congressional approval, is not whether Biden and/or members of his Administration might be impeached, which some have suggested, but rather what criminal offenses might they have committed by effecting this action against Russia which can be expeditiously dealt with by the Trump Administration, and whether the prosecutors would insist that they remain on remand whilst awaiting trial, thereby assisting Biden the chance to share the glory of dying in prison for acting on his convictions like the Irish hero Bobby Sands, and the notorious pimp and pervert, Jeffrey Epstein?

          As a participant in the discussions/conspiracy leading to this war crime, will the Trump Administration also seek to extradite Sir Keir Starmer and, for want of anything for him to do which requires a modicum of intelligence, will the US demand the extradition of the moronic David Lammy to keep Starmer company? There is also the question of those high officials in NATO who have assisting in facilitating the US’s criminal act of war.

    2. Jester

      This all WWIII teasing and tiptoeing is getting really tiring. I wish someone would just launch the nukes and get it over with.

      1. Enter Laughing

        If anyone is left to ask “How did WW III start?”, the answer would be: “Two ways. Gradually and then all at once.”

      2. Bugs

        No, I don’t think you want that. The living would envy the dead, to paraphrase Kruschkov.

        Let’s hope cooler heads prevail. This is looking like the Blob won’t settle with a sulk but wants to go out looking like they’re fighting. Soros Junior was cheering this on yesterday so I think we know where “authority” for the attack came from.

      3. midtownwageslave

        No thanks. I think these recent events adds to the ever growing pile of evidence that the U$A is an open air prison with unelected sociopaths running the show.

    4. Katniss Everdeen

      As Walter Kirn opined on America This Week yesterday, it should maximally anger every american that an outgoing “administration,” whose party just lost an election, should be allowed to start WW3 in direct contravention of what the population just overwhelmingly voted for.

      Particularly when the “president” who is greenlighting this course has been judged incompetent to even stand trial and provide evidence in his own defense.

      Kirn lamented the plight of those who will die in ukraine due solely to american political pique and democrat tantrum-throwing.

      What a pathetic country the u.s. has become.

      1. Darthbobber

        I see no indication that the population voted “overwhelmingly” for anything, given that Trump sits at almost exactly 50% in the popular vote

        And the general incoherence of his proposals, basically “I’ll cause peace” without any hint of HOW, once again leaves him as a mirror in which people see what they want to. Pretty much anything he might decide to do regarding Ukraine will be consistent in some way with some statements he’s made

        1. MFB

          I don’t recall either candidate running on a ticket of “Elect me and I’ll have Washington vapourised within a month”, but perhaps I slept through that campaign rally.

      2. NYMutza

        It is important to be reminded of something very, very important as Vladimir Putin has pointed out:

        In the United States someone gets elected president. Some of these elected presidents have ideas. But then men wearing dark suits with red and blue ties carrying briefcases arrive at the White House. The president’s ideas are then put aside.

        We have all seen how foreign policy changes very little regardless of who occupies the Oval Office. This is because the really important decisions aren’t made there. When it comes to domestic policy the same applies. During the Global Financial Crisis Obama was never going to nationalize the banks and prosecute the bankers. He would not be allowed to do so. So the banks were bailed out and the bankers kept their jobs and their bonuses and their mansions. That millions of people lost their homes in foreclosure was collateral damage due to austerity – Congress won’t spend money on the “little people”.

        We shall see that Trump’s policies will differ little from Biden and little from Obama. The trajectory the nation’s been on for the past 30 years will continue largely unchanged (unless, through major miscalculations, nuclear war breaks out which is certainly possible).

    5. ilsm

      Maybe a US navy supply ship will back onto a reef somewhere……

      Sustain rudder damage and need dry dock.

  18. Emma

    That wedding guest article feels so surreal in 2024. Have these first world problem noticers missed the record levels of homelessness and childhood poverty in this country?

    1. NotTimothyGeithner

      Two things:

      -the prospect of going viral; those deranged gender reveal things. Who gives an eff?

      -as weddings have become simpler or done away with on one end, the social pressures of what a wedding should be have declined. It’s just a playground for the rich because there is no social stigma of what constitutes taste.

      Yes, using that Saul of Tarsus line while having a childish debacle is always amusing.

      The best wedding advice is to dispense with the wedding and pay down the mortgage.

      1. Vandemonian

        “The best wedding advice is to dispense with the wedding and pay down the mortgage.”

        I couldn’t agree with you more, NotTimothy.

        In our case, it was a registry office in our lunch hours with two of her work colleagues as witnesses. Celebratory meal at a pub for the four of us, then back to work.

        Didn’t bother getting engaged either.

        Seemed to work alright. It was fifty years ago next month, and we’re still an item.

    2. Neutrino

      The bride sends out those invites with the handy Go Fund Me link for that dream honeymoon.
      Some guests, unused to the modern way of life, send back regrets with GFY.

      1. Emma

        It’s a little tacky but a lot more practical than getting a toaster or a fine China setting that gets used twice a year. I’ve seen people ask for contributions to honeymoons, down payments, and home repair funds. It actually makes a lot of sense for the young people whose parents insists on paying for a traditional wedding to at least try to obtain funds for more practical matters.

        1. NYMutza

          I find it interesting that complete strangers will donate money to help fund someone’s extravagant wedding. Very strange.

    3. midtownwageslave

      To your point, American exceptionalism is setting new records:

      https://advocatesforchildren.org/policy-resource/student-homelessness-data-2024/

      Student Homelessness in New York City, 2023–24

      More than 146,000 New York City students—about one in every eight children enrolled in the public schools—experienced homelessness during the 2023–24 school year, the ninth consecutive year in which more than 100,000 students were identified as homeless.

    4. hk

      It is, incidentally, traditional in some cultures (eg Korean) for guests to bring an envelope of cash as contribution to offset wedding/funeral costs in lieu of non-cash gifts. I thought it is actually not such a bad custom, fwiw.

  20. The Rev Kev

    “Baerbock threatens China with consequences”

    ‘How has the EU managed to find so many aggressively stupid women to put in positions of authority?’

    Simple. Smart, independent-minded women are shunted aside and are not allowed anywhere near the gears of power as they may be unwilling to go along with ‘the consensus.” It takes a certain level of blockheadedness for someone to threaten China and think that it will be consequence free. But it seems that Baerbock is up to the challenge.

    1. Michaelmas

      Smart, independent-minded women are shunted aside and are not allowed anywhere near the gears of power .

      Smart, independent anybody. Late-stage neoliberal politics everywhere admits only depraved plodders. cf Liz Truss, Starmer, and Lammy.

      Anybody who’s read Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time will recall the character Widmerpool there. The politicians are all Widmerpools now.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Widmerpool

    2. vao

      And you only have to deal or bear with Ursula and Annalena. There are enough such harpies at every level of the political hierarchy in Germany — Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann being perhaps the best known of them (inside Germany, that is).

      1. bertl

        The Germans seem to have a fascination for losing wars with Russia and with sponsoring genocide whenever and wherever possible. It continually amazes me that, as the years pass, my father’s predictions turn out to be spot on. Leopards do not change their spots, panthers always stay black, and German politicians are psychos who can never be trusted, as demonstrated by that nice Mr Hitler and his friendship circle.

        1. Polar Socialist

          Before Bismarck forced German princedoms together, Germans were generally considered to be a nation of poets and philosophers. Speaking of which, one could say that what we’re witnessing is still for a big part about “The West” trying to deal with Germany and Russia emerging as great powers.

          Been going on for 150 years now.

  21. petal

    Re Dogs in Witchcraft article: My paternal ancestor (and his brother) was the first one to accuse Susannah Martin of witchcraft. Her husband then sued for slander. Quite the back and forth went on between Mr. Martin and the two brothers. That was in 1669. It pretty much tainted her from then on, and when the big goings-on got riled up years later, she was easy pickings, sadly. There is a fair bit out there if you want to read about her. Can’t imagine living there during that time period. It was very different than New Netherlands, though New Netherlands and later after it became New York, did have a handful of trials. Interesting to read about.
    Recently found out a friend I clean headstones with is a descendent of Mrs. Martin. Very sad about the animals that got caught up in all of the disputes. It makes it all that much worse.

    1. gk

      Was there a similar tradition in Germany? That would explain Mephistopheles’ first appearance in Faust as a poodle.

      1. Mirjonray

        The Dogs in Witchcraft article talked a bit about devilish black dogs. For some reason black poodles have always adored me, which will probably make me marked for life.

  22. John Anthony La Pietra

    I think there’s a less-than sign missing from the start of the Ken Klippe*N*stein (no R, please) link.

  23. Santo de la Sera

    @ “Weddings have long been expensive. Now, guests are paying, too CNN”

    Fortunately, my future wife and I agreed that the word “lavish” was a euphemism for “tacky” (link to influencer wedding referenced in the CNN article where they charged $333. Warning: your eyes will burn)

    We made our respective families the focus of our wedding, and got married in a somewhat run-down church that is on the National Register of Historical Places. Our only regrets were when we gave in to the industry standards of tackiness, like getting a stretch limo (driver took future wife to the wrong church and insisted that she was delusional when she tried telling him she didn’t recognize the building, and didn’t know anyone there, and I’m sure there’s a sitcom script in this somewhere…).

    1. Neutrino

      The Neutrino rule-of-thumb is that more expensive weddings, especially for those without the silver spoons, correspond to greater likelihood of divorce. Compound that with any bridezilla or mother-of-the-bride or heavy-handed maid of honor activities. Score some points for advertisers, social media and the usual suspects.

      Grooms sit back according to tradition, try to stay sober and attempt to show up on time. Just don’t get an STD at that bachelor party. Score more points adding irresponsibility to the list.

      Maybe a simple wedding reflective of the honor and beauty of the occasion would suffice.

      1. mrsyk

        I like the rule-of-thumb, money tends to ruin stuff. Our simple outdoor wedding, of which we have no regrets, was having our sixty odd guests stand in a circle where my wife and I introduced each person with a story and a reason. Her dad oversaw the vows and pronounced us no longer living in sin. We spent our money on food, wine, port-a-potties, and a week long farmhouse rental. The flowers were wild and the band was a bunch of friends. Yeah, we’re still happily together.

      2. PeterfromGeorgia

        In a past life in college I worked as a photographer’s assistant – schlepping gear and setting up and taking down lights and corralling models/participants – and did a LOT of weddings. In 2000 the boss man and I were flown to Miami in December for a wedding that had a full 16 piece orchestra playing the background music and had rented a Spanish monastery in Fort Lauderdale for the weekend (so no one else could use it). Hell, the wedding planner had two assistants and a couple of “fetchers.” It was new money marrying old money and no expense was spared. Absolutely stunning in every sense. Whatever “high end” wedding I’ve seen since has paled in comparison and, at best, comes across as the TEMU version of wealth.

        But the best I ever attended – paid or by custom and invite – involved a HS couple (literally 19 and 18) that held the wedding, outdoors in early June, in a near by city park on a Saturday afternoon. They just commandeered a hill, brought out chairs in the shade from a car for the elderly, and the had the bride walk down the “aisle” to the traditional song played on a classical guitar by a friend. Afterwards, the wedding party, about 100 folks, marched back to the bride’s family home (a 1 mile or so walk). Her family (1st & 2nd gen Mexican) had strung Xmas lights and candles all over the backyard and her women folk had spent two days cooking a feast. Folks ate and chatted until, at 10 or so, a Mariachi band showed up (after their gig at a restaurant) and played until 1 when a noise complaint shut it down. Folks danced all over the backyard, laughed, and regularly toasted and cheered the couple with beer, wine, and weird to me (at the time) drinks like mezcal.

        I’ve been to dozens of weddings – including my own – since that time, and NOTHING has compared to the taste, community, and love we experienced at that teenage wedding more than 30 years ago.

    2. Emma

      Congratulations to you and your sensible wife! Tacky is right! I follow some event florists for eye candy and I’ve noticed this trend towards really over the top wedding arrangements that look unbalanced and frankly visually unappealing. Even the ones that are beautifully balanced have dozens of components and lots of muted colors that makes the whole arrangement like muddy and overbusy. Gigantic twin spiked arrangements where you don’t know where to rest your eyes. Give me a basic white rose and greenery tight ball bouquet sometime! It’s wild that some folks are likely prioritizing the Instagram friendly event set pieces over letting guests bring a plus one to dance with.

      When I got married many moons ago, we got around the family logistics problem by eloping and then later hosting two celebrations in different locations to minimize guest travel. No dress code, no gifts, and the restaurants we picked were far better than normal wedding fare.

    3. playon

      As a musician I have played a lot of weddings. When you can tell that the families of the bride & groom don’t know each other (or don’t like each other) you know it’s not gonna be a good time.

      My wife and I got married in a courtroom (the second time for both of us) with just my brother and his wife as witnesses, then threw a not-fancy party later, which was a lot of fun.

  24. The Rev Kev

    ‘Zlatti71
    @Zlatti_71
    🇵🇱 Poland has established 20 military bases near the Belarusian border over the past five years. Take a look at how this appears on the maps.
    Yesterday, a new U.S. missile defense base was opened in Poland to supposedly “contain Russia’s military potential.”
    Now, there are a total of 39 NATO and Polish army bases in Poland, 23 of which are located near the borders of Russia and Belarus.’

    All that means is that the Russians can pull back military gear from their own border and use long range missiles to attack all those bases as they have been conveniently located within easy range. And that new new U.S. missile defense base? The US has been putting this together for many years and when the Russians objected because they could be loaded with nukes, were assured that it was only there to intercept Iranian missiles.

      1. DZhMM

        Good thing the decision-makers in the USA never do stupid or evil things that are bad for Europe, then.

  25. mzza

    “If an artwork’s affective power derives from the artist’s biography rather than the work, then self-expression is redundant,” is one of the best-articulated versions of this question I’ve read — and best articulations of my too-frequent experience dutifully walking to an artwork’s wall-text to have my expected experience explained — so thank you for sharing.

    As a working-class painter graduating art-school in the late-80s, protest art was indeed everywhere, as were the responses against it. Also, the responsibility of artists to a, or their, community was also hotly debated. The Culture Wars were raging, Globalization was ascendant (as accidentally detailed in the author’s international art-travel journeys), and as described, some artists embraced an urgency to fight, well, the end of everything.

    What isn’t mentioned in the article is how during he Reagan-era onward, the backlash to the 80s/90s Culture Wars resulted in a shift around how artists are funded — and in the US there was already notoriously little post-WPA funding compared to Western peer-countries.

    Rather than allow $$$ to go to individual artists, Fed / State / and local arts funding gets distributed through the then-growing network of nonprofits who increasingly control how that money is distributed and to whom.

    It’s been my experience that this distribution of funds by committees (independent organizations and institutions alike), has fed the homogenization of cultural output even while celebrating diversity, often well-meaning. This is true not only in visual art, but across music, dance, film, and literature.

    When the pitch becomes more important than the product, artists trying to survive financially and become known, generate product ideas that will get funded, then execute those projects. Many of these projects take the form theme-park art installations / experiences where it’s more important to be able to say one attended said event, than have any kind of personal aesthetic experience.

    It’s an anemia-inducing addendum to this Harpers article.

    1. Bugs

      Right on.

      I’d so much rather look at paintings, photographs, and sculptures than stand in line to put on cotton booties to go into another “infinity room” or the like.

      And the damn explanatory notes on the walls are so tiring. How about just title, name of artist, media, date and place of creation? I can buy the catalogue if I want editorializing.

      I gave up an art career because I couldn’t deal with the gallery people. I like other artists and art professors for the most part. Now at least you can cheaply put up a site and show and sell stuff there.

    3. lyman alpha blob

      Thank you – the quote you highlighted struck me as well. Great art is supposed to speak to everybody, and in different ways. If a gallery feels the need for an explanation along side the work, I’d say they’re doing it wrong.

      One of the best viewing experiences of my life was getting to see El Greco’s Laocoon in person. But I was a bit disappointed by the description at the museum talking about the enigmatic figures on the right, which even the blurb in this link repeats. El Greco’s career was spent painting Xtian religious figures for wealthy patrons, but Laocoon was an exception. To me, this was El Greco’s subtle middle finger to all those Xtian paintings, and those enigmatic figures are gods checking their manicures while tragedy unfolds below, indicating that the deities really don’t care about the lives of humans and we’re on our own. I have my own biases, and that may not be what El Greco intended, but I’m sticking with my interpretation!

      While reading the article and its discussion of one artistic trend vs. another, artist and Renaissance man Terry Allen’s song A Truckload of Art came to mind. It recounts the destruction that occurred when one art school thought that it had a lesson to teach another, but saw their efforts come to naught. A bit of the lyrics –

      “Yes… a Truckload of Art
      Is burning near the highway
      And it’s a tough job for the highway patrol
      Ahhh they’ll soon see the smoke
      An come runnin to poke
      Then dig a deep ditch
      And throw the arts in a hole

      Yeah a Truckload of Art
      Is burning near the highway
      And it’s raging far-out of control
      And what the critics have cheered
      Is now shattered and queered
      And their noble reviews
      Have been stewed on the road”

    4. wol

      Thank you. I’m in.

      Art for art’s sake (to me, the opportunity to experience an aesthetic gut-punch) is regarded around here as a white male aberration. For a small museum group show I instinctively knew I was expected to come up with a virtue-signaling justification for my work for the woke Director, so I made something up. Art has been secondary to the wall text for some time. Viewers relying on the description think they ‘get it.’

  26. The Rev Kev

    “Nordic neighbours release new advice on surviving war”

    Seems like the Nordic governments will keep their people jittery and on edge about the Russian bear invading them. And in that way, their peoples will agree with whatever the government proposes for their “safety.” And a lot of MIC will make bank out of it of course and a lot of politicians will find nice presents in their Christmas stockings.

    1. Polar Socialist

      In this case Nordic may not be the correct term, since the Finnish guide has 17 different crisis situations, one of which is “military conflict” and doesn’t mention Russia at all.

      Both the Finnish prime minister or minister of defense refused to state anything about the recent undersea cable outages, except that it will be investigated and these things happen. Last week or so the president of Finland mentioned that it’s good Finland joined NATO in 2023 (he really has a hard-on for NATO), since it wouldn’t be possible anymore due to the war weariness.

    2. Zephyrum

      Warmongers are first of all Fearmongers. The prerequisite to war is hate, which can be manufactured directly from ignorance and fear. After that it is only necessary to denounce the pacifists as unpatriotic tools of the enemy, and war, er, profit is certain.

  28. curlydan

    L MA’s Covid tweet is a bit aged…like 4 months old. Currently, Covid infections in the U.S. are waay down although that could start to change as the great Thanksgiving migration kicks into high gear next week. Here’s a current update…

    https://twitter.com/JPWeiland/status/1857551356262826450

    On the alcohol side effects, I largely stopped drinking alcohol after my first bout of Covid. I went from 4-5 drinks per week to about 1-2 per month. My body just “told me” to stop.

    1. NYMutza

      What I have found after contracting Covid in May 2022 was my desire for alcohol greatly diminished. I had no issues when drinking wine, beer, or scotch but I simply had little desire to do so.

    2. playon

      Same for me – I can barely drink now, but it’s probably for the best. A very small glass of wine now and then. Weed however is not a problem.

  29. Carolinian

    re who goes to libraries–I don’t believe the word “computer” is anywhere in the article even though it is so very relevant to current and future use. After the recent weather event you couldn’t find a parking space at my library due to all the users seeking wifi. A few years back there was heavy “door traffic” of patrons using the sit down wired up computers although not so much now.

    In fact attendance in general is now not so much other than in the mornings when cabin fever moms bring their young kids for story time. Even the books have gone ebook and most of the paper versions on the new book shelf can be checked out online.

    And finally there’s yours truly who once went to our downtown library almost every day and now somewhat less. The hard corps library lovers–mostly older people–are dwindling. Our much appreciated “cultural commons” likely will survive, but it will be much less about books.

    1. hk

      Alastair Crooke brought that point up a couple of werks ago on a Napolitano podcast. I’ll confess that the first thing I wondered was which “faction” he is aligned with. “Boulos,” Arabic for Paul, is a very Christian name and Lebanese Christian factions, in particular, have conflicted and complicated history vis a vis both Israel and Hizb’ullah (per Aurelien’s recent observations.)
      …

  31. Balan Aroxdale

    How German Imperialism Rebranded Itself as Feminist Jacobin (Stephen S)

    I would classify the politics of the likes of Lunz as “Performative Liberalism”. Old school war-mongering with some plastic kitch veener about saving the planet or human rights, to be left rot at the first opportunity to drop a bomb on civilians.

  32. Neutrino

    Mourning Joe to Mar-a-Lago.
    Acting out that Groucho Marx scenario.

    Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.

    Ratings bump or dead cat bounce through curiosity about what they’ll say next? Then maybe someone at CNN?

    1. griffen

      Saw a bit of coverage last evening, admittedly Gutfeld on Fox is living high on the supply of vibes after the election results. My guess at the inside discussion at MSNBC corporate..here are your options for a much different show, Joe, otherwise there is the door if it’s not agreeable. “Btw Joe, I’ve read this podcaster trend is really picking up steam!”

      Mika and Joe, oh so principled! \sarc

    2. Glen

      Joking or not, Groucho has principles. Joe has, like all modern politicians, a price, and a impeccable sense for how his price market is trending, and how much he can get for his services if he kisses the current butt of great power.

      Just one more politician that inherited an empire and ran it into the dirt.

  33. Jason Boxman

    For what it’s worth, the PMC methodology for determining actual case counts is questionable. It would be nice if there was a way to do this, but there just is not. There’s no reliable way to calibrate wastewater numbers to human cases, and this could vary between variants, for example, and we simply wouldn’t know. There’s no testing anymore.

    The proxy charts Lambert has in WC seem like a better approach, and encapsulates the uncertainty.

  34. TomW

    “His voice is a bit frail now, but the mind, even at age 94, is as sharp as ever. So when I reached George Kennan by phone to get his reaction to the Senate’s ratification of NATO expansion it was no surprise to find that the man who was the architect of America’s successful containment of the Soviet Union and one of the great American statesmen of the 20th century was ready with an answer. ”I think it is the beginning of a new cold war,” said Mr. Kennan from his Princeton home. ”I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their graves. We have signed up to protect a whole series of countries, even though we have neither the resources nor the intention to do so in any serious way. [NATO expansion] was simply a light-hearted action by a Senate that has no real interest in foreign affairs.”

    Regarding the 20 bases in Poland. This “accomplishment is like the dog chasing the car. A multi-decade Neo con project that has eliminated almost all buffer space between Europe and Russia. Who exactly is supposed to feel safer with this project? We could spend zillions fully militarizing this now enormously lengthy border…after we failed to simply declare victory after containing them 30 years ago.

    Naturally, we have neither the money nor the interest in doing anything that would make a difference. We just had the most important election in our lifetime which was in part about the most important geopolitical issue since Munich…Ukraines right to be turned down for NATO membership. The preservation of other nation’s sovereign rights being foundational to the United States.

    The US has a recent history of occasionally moving on from “the most important thing ever” to the next “most important thing ever”, sometimes almost instantly. The US. military wants a few trillion to bulk up to contain China, so there is that.

  35. Mikel

    https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/ukraine-russia-war-11-19-24/index.html/
    “Ukraine hit a Russian weapons arsenal with US-provided missiles that it used to strike across the border for the first time, according to two US officials.

    CNN reported over the weekend that President Joe Biden recently authorized Ukraine to use powerful long-range American ATACMS missile systems to strike inside Russia. The attack shows that Kyiv has wasted little time in making use of its newly granted powers….”

    That clarifies that the systems and military personnel to operate the systems were in place long before the announcement was officially made.

    1. hk

      The more accurate description is that US army attacked Russia while in “Ukrainian colors.” Per Ritter and others, launching ATACMs requires access to top secret US ISR that would never be allowed into the hands of even allies, so the actual attack was carried out by Americans. This means that this is a war crime twice over: 1) attacking without a formal declaration of war, or, at least, without any declaration of a state of armed conflict, while in a supposed state of peace–the Day that will LIve in Infamy, anyone? Well, we have hit the Pearl Harbor moment and we are the ones who climbed the Mount Niitaka. 2) This was done in perfidy (actual technical term, I believe), while pretending to be be armed forces of another country. Even in the days of privateering, attacking another country’s ships under a false flag was considered an extremely serious violation of conventions.

      If Trump is serious, when he takes office, he should ship out Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, Burns, and Austin, among others, to stand trial for war crimes and issue arrest warrants for Stamer and Macron.

      1. scott s.

        Not sure about your Ritter reference, but I don’t see much on the mission planning process for ATACMS. It doesn’t seem like HIMARS or MLRS batteries have an organic mission planning capability for ATACMS; that seems to be the responsibility of a targeting staff (typically at Corps echelon or higher) and that is where the ISR component, of whatever security level is involved, would come into play. This is just from some web surfing.

        1. Glen

          Yes, we all know it was the Ukrainian spy satellites that provided the targeting information and the almost real time view to assess the damage.

      2. NYMutza

        Please!!! The United States has never paid any attention to legalities when it comes to defending and expanding the empire (and placating wealthy Zionists). Bringing this up is a waste of time. Every US president going back to George Washington has committed war crimes. It is an integral part of the POTUS job description. None have been prosecuted. The US can commit as many atrocities as it desires because the rest of the world lacks the courage to stop it from doing so.

        1. hk

          Sure, and Tojo was not executed after a war crimes tribunal. In order for our current (lame duck) regime to be given such an escape, we’ll have to both survive and win, that is, there is still a US and we’d have conquered Russia. That won’t happen. No, I don’t expect Russia to win either. But without a price being paid for the war crimes (including an acknowledgement thereof), I don’t think we’ll be able to put the humpty dumpty together, but condemned to hover over hellfire with a fraying rope holding us up.

    3. ilsm

      ATACMS, and the rest of the long range precisions have used US support from the start,

      Now that support aims at Russia.

      1. jo pac

        Yes, I pick the beans and then chop the plant, then spread that out in the garden when had one.

        I make a red sauce then boil a whole chicken. Then debone chicken add to sauce, then hours later add the beans. Simmer for about 3 hours and serve

  39. Jason Boxman

    Lol

    The World Is Watching the U.S. Deal With Bird Flu, and It’s Scary

    Times even.

    It’s gonna be epic. Only a matter of time. There’s no relevant protection for workers. Always a risk of adaptation and then human to human sustained transmission. Then we’re off to the races.

    A serious response would test and kill infected animals. Test and quarantine all workers. Jail non compliance. Mandate PPE from now on. Perhaps even end dairy entirely. Maybe we’re past the point of dairy being safe to factory farm.

    Instead a regional health system will collapse and we’ll know it’s begun. Not before.

    2. thousand points of green

      So when you say ” end dairy entirely”, are you referring to the big-scale CAFO milk mines? Or to every artisanal dairy and 1-2 cow hobby farmer as well? ( Your next sentence says that ” Maybe we’re past the point of dairy being safe to factory farm.” and I hope that means you are referring to CAFO milk-mines specifically.)

  40. XXYY

    How has the EU managed to find so many aggressively stupid women to put in positions of authority?

    I think about this a lot. One of the premises of the feminist period, I think, has been the idea that putting women into positions of power will just automatically make things better. I came of age in this period and I think I sort of unconsciously absorbed it as a truth as well. In fact, women seem to be no better than men and perhaps worse in these positions.

    It’s important to remember that there is a strong filtering mechanism that powerful people are subjected to. Only those with the right qualities and characteristics are able to pass through the filters, so we tend to get a strange subset of humanity running things. Perhaps these filters have an especially bad effect on women who are seeking positions of power, or perhaps women think they need to act in a certain “manly” way (never back down or apologize, group loyalty above all, better to sound smart than to be smart, etc.) in order to get through the filters which they haven’t quite figured out so far.

    Maybe they will figure it out sometime soon.

    1. MFB

      We had the same problem in South Africa with believing that black people would make better leaders because they had suffered and would therefore understand the suffering of others. Unfortunately a lot of those put in power had never suffered, and those who had suffered were purely resolute to never suffer again and saw serving the interests of rich people as the royal road to that end.

  41. djrichard

    > The unconventional economic theory behind Trump’s sweeping tariff plans Washington Post (Robin K)

    But an alternative view … holds that industrial policies that generate trade surpluses in countries like China are the root cause of U.S. deficits … China subsidize production of many items far beyond their domestic needs while discouraging consumers from spending more of their income rather than saving it

    This has nothing to do with industrial polilcies per se. It has to do with currency policies: an excess demand for the dollar compared to the yuan. How are Chinese consumers going to compete against that to buy US goods?

    This was easiser to see when their central bank (the PBoC) was manipulating their currency. The PBoC would print yuan to buy dollars to match dollar-denominated transactions by exporters. And then used the dollars to buy assets in the US, thereby pegging the yuan to the dollar. The PBoC weaned itself out of that game and the slack got picked up by the private sector. Chinese banks, SOEs, etc use their yuan hoards to buy dollars and then use those dollars to buy dollar-denominated assets. My guess is these are entities that can afford to take the risk if the US dollar becomes a lot cheaper due to balanced trade. It would be no different than an asset seizure by the US (e.g. in the case of US sactions on China like the US has done with Russia) and the Chinese have declared that they’re willing to accept that risk – that they have no option but to continue business as usual.

    Discouraging inflows of foreign capital would hurt the value of U.S. stocks and raise the cost of borrowed money for home buyers and the federal government, potentially plunging the economy into recession.

    Reduced FDI/more balanced trade would result in more balanced trade between US domestic businesses and US domestic labor. Like it used to be before globalization became a thing. All things being equal, more profits would go to labor due to more demand for labor. This may result in spiraling inflation like the 1970s, but the answer to that is to cool the economy, e.g. through increased taxes and to not allow interest on private debt to be deducted.

    Lastly the Fed Gov doesn’t sweat the cost of borrowed money. When the Fed Gov rolls its debt over it rolls the cost of borrowed money into the roll over – the buyers that swap their currency hoards so they can hoard treasuries instead are happy to see their treasury hoards increase this way.

  42. XXYY

    Why Putin won’t go nuclear following ATACMS decision (Ian Proud)

    This dude seems to base all his arguments on the idea that Biden’s ATACMS decision is intended to improve Ukraine’s negotiating position “next year” with Russia. Indeed, the idea that the Russians are anxious to have negotiations to end the war is a widespread talking point in the western media.

    I can’t see any reason why the Russians would have the slightest interest in negotiations, especially with the United States or its puppets and especially on the terms that have been discussed up to now. The United States has turned out to be a completely untrustworthy negotiating partner over the last several decades, especially in agreements that have to do with Russia or the Middle East. This is not lost on Russia which calls the US “non-agreement capable.” Also, Russia is completely and utterly winning this war and will see no value in giving Ukraine time or conditions to rebuild its army for a future attack. They have made their goals for the war extremely clear and so far they seem to be making good progress. No reason to quit now.

    It will be interesting and amusing to see this reality gradually sink in among the chattering classes next year when they attempt to get negotiations started.

  43. SD

    Stoller’s piece is thought-provoking. I’m going to run it by my father, the retired professor of American History, for a read on his potted history of the mid-20th century and the political turn he describes taking place in the 1960s.

    Aside from that, he elides a great deal about the Democratic Party. It is in fact–and believes itself to be–immensely powerful with an extreme bias toward action when it comes to serving the interests of the corporations and oligarchs that control it. The viciousness with which the Democratic Party marginalized Sanders in 2016 and 2020 and vilified Stein while running a lavishly funded scorched-earth lawfare campaign in state courts to keep the Green Party off as many ballots as possible, for instance, is missing from his analysis.

    I dont doubt Stoller’s anecdotal evidence. The structural critique that people like Briahna Joy Gray offer of the Democratric Party–with a clear-eyed assessment of how money and political power work within it–is more complete.

  44. zach

    Artists were researchers who were never expected to come to any conclusions. They had the freedom of absolute purposelessness.

    Yeah! Yeah! What he said!

    Oh but then he follows up with “…there was a sense that the art world had grown frivolous and decadent.”

    Well like… yeah wud’y’expect? Not so great a leap, one to the next, specially when there’s money aslosh. Irrational purposeless research is totally great, it’s a big part of what I do in my daily practice, but not exactly deserving of funding and that’s reflected in my price. These are my own personal ethics and not intended to be prescriptive, your results may vary, please consult a physician, or maybe a financial planner, before any lifestyle changes.

    I get the sense Mr. Kissick is on the management (critic/curator) rather than labor (artist/… CREATORlolz) end of the spectrum. What greater decadence, than to sit around and say “boring!contrived!derivative!” and demand to be moved again in that special artsy way?

    Then to nod to artists and works that have moved him in that special artsy way, and ask for “mm, yes, more of this” – I apologize if I’m dense for asking, but wouldn’t more of “this” rather cheapen the experience, and tend to lead back to that place of “boring!contrived!derivative!”…? Perhaps, perhaps not, I can see both sides, but I would say more-ness is often the opposite of good-ness.

    In fairness to old Dean-o, I pretty much agree with his point of view, although it doesn’t stop me thinking that the summary of his not-brief article would read something like this

    whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

    but maybe I missed something.

    Get out there and get your hands dirty. Make meaning out of the mundane. Don’t fault a guy, or girl, or transgender indigenous poc, for trying to squeeze a buck or sense of self-worth out of the current currentness. If he’s published in Harper’s, and attending Biennale’s far-flung, I suspect his money-sponge is well sotted and self-worth unassailably intact. If I may, on behalf of mediocrities everywhere, apologize in the extreme for bothering Himself to attend.

    Sorry about your mom’s legs Dean, I hope she’s doing ok.

  45. The Rev Kev

    “EU to demand technology transfers from Chinese companies”

    Now there’s irony for you. It was not many years ago that the EU and the US were blasting China for demanding technology transfers when building in China. The implication is of course that Chinese technology is superior to western technology in some fields. Question is of course will the Chinese relent considering the fact that the EU seems determined to go into a trade war with China.

    1. MFB

      Coming soon: Council of Europe stands outside Chinese embassy holding begging bowl and sign saying “Military-industrial complex and two needless wars to feed”

  46. ChrisPacific

    ‘Ukraine’s Battle Fatigue’ is very good and well worth reading.

    I had to push to get her to voice an opinion on making concessions to Russia to end the war; like so many Ukrainians, she resisted the fact that in her country at least an individual vote is a means of making a collective decision and is a collective responsibility. What if you were faced with a choice of two candidates, I said, one who was ready to make concessions to Russia to end the war, and one who insisted Ukraine fight to the end? ‘Not fight to the end,’ she said. ‘Because that would be for ever.’

    Lots of variations on this. There seems a general realization that the war cannot be won, only lost more slowly, and they want it over – even if that means accepting a lot of things that would have been unthinkable beforehand.

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