Recent Items

2:00PM Water Cooler Christmas Eve 2024

Posted on by

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Merry Christmas, readers! –lambert P.S. I will take Christmas Day off, and return the following day, in full form or not, depending. P.P.S Stay safe out there!

* * *

Bird Song of the Day

Stone Partridge, Shai Hills Resource Reserve, Greater Accra, Ghana. “Maybe more, close beside road in grass and scrob. Saw the one calling.” Although no pear tree is present, this is nevertheless a partridge. (Ideally, I would have presented a mockingbird imitating a partridge, but that was beyond my poor powers of search.)

* * *

And singing of another sort:

Still brings tears to my eyes, far as I am from it. Strong stuff.

* * *

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

TH writes: “I’m afraid I do not know what tree/bush these leaves belong to. I was at the “Huntington Central Park” in Huntington Beach, Ca. (not to be confused with the Huntington Library and Gardens in Los Angeles) and loved how the sun was spotlighting their vibrant color.” Red and green for the season.

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. Material here is Lambert’s, and does not express the views of the Naked Capitalism site. If you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

This entry was posted in Water Cooler on by .

About Lambert Strether

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

Subscribe to Post Comments
19 comments

  1. Wukchumni

    Twas the day before Christmas in the Water Cooler
    I expected to read about this or that newly deposed ruler
    Stone Partridge was observed in Ghana with care
    In hopes instead of a Mockingbird imitating one there
    Cambridge carols were sung amid stained glass
    Another year over, well within our grasp

    Ho Ho Ho from Tiny Town

    Reply ↓
  5. Henry Moon Pie

    “Still brings tears to my eyes, far as I am from it. Strong stuff.”

    Me too, Lambert, me too. Even though I’m no longer a Christian, I’ve always been a sucker for a good procession whether as a member of the congregation or as a participant. This one builds beautifully from the a capella solo to the appearance of that mighty organ as the Church Militant enters behind the cross under the watchful eye of the Church Triumphant.

    Being an outsider has not changed my view that much of Christianity has given up liturgy and High Church worship for an approach that combines Nashville with Dr. Phil out of the same mental laziness and emotional immaturity that mark our approach to the Earth.

    Call me an elitist, but this procession carries with it a mystery of unity and a call to humility in the face of the “creation” that the typical “church growth” service cannot. Even if the musical performance approaches perfection, there are discordant notes in this message to be sure, but it does call us to something higher than the high season of consumerism.

    Reply ↓
  7. Skip Intro

    Textbook enshittification at Spotify:

    https://harpers.org/archive/2025/01/the-ghosts-in-the-machine-liz-pelly-spotify-musicians/

    In reality, Spotify was subject to the outsized influence of the major-label oligopoly of Sony, Universal, and Warner, which together owned a 17 percent stake in the company when it launched. The companies, which controlled roughly 70 percent of the market for recorded music, held considerable negotiating power from the start. For these major labels, the rise of Spotify would soon pay off. By the mid-2010s, streaming had cemented itself as the most important source of revenue for the majors, which were raking in cash from Spotify’s millions of paying subscribers after more than a decade of declining revenue. But while Ek’s company was paying labels and publishers a lot of money—some 70 percent of its revenue—it had yet to turn a profit itself, something shareholders would soon demand.

    In a Slack channel dedicated to discussing the ethics of streaming, Spotify’s own employees debated the fairness of the PFC program. “I wonder how much these plays ‘steal’ from actual ’normal’ artists,” one employee asked. And yet as far as the public was concerned, the company had gone to great lengths to keep the initiative under wraps. Perhaps Spotify understood the stakes—that when it removed real classical, jazz, and ambient artists from popular playlists and replaced them with low-budget stock muzak, it was steamrolling real music cultures, actual traditions within which artists were trying to make a living. Or perhaps the company was aware that this project to cheapen music contradicted so many of the ideals upon which its brand had been built. Spotify had long marketed itself as the ultimate platform for discovery—and who was going to get excited about “discovering” a bunch of stock music? Artists had been sold the idea that streaming was the ultimate meritocracy—that the best would rise to the top because users voted by listening. But the PFC program undermined all this. PFC was not the only way in which Spotify deliberately and covertly manipulated programming to favor content that improved its margins, but it was the most immediately galling. Nor was the problem simply a matter of “authenticity” in music. It was a matter of survival for actual artists, of musicians having the ability to earn a living on one of the largest platforms for music. PFC was irrefutable proof that Spotify rigged its system against musicians who knew their worth.

    Reply ↓
    1. ChrisRUEcon

      Thanks for sharing! And compliments of the season!

      Spotify feels like a giant money laundering scheme … LOL

      All this money … from millions of subscribers … to music labels … to the ever present “shareholder value”, of which the labels are a part.

      The answer is that musicians, not tech platforms or even labels, need to own the pipeline … soup to nuts. Until that happens, they’re at the mercy of people like Elk, who can become billionaires by architecting a dishonest platform that is barely profitable as a financial entity, and which doesn’t support the aspirations of working musicians.

      Reply ↓
      1. Lambert Strether Post author

        > The answer is that musicians, not tech platforms or even labels, need to own the pipeline … soup to nuts.

        Yes. worker control of the means of production is the way forward….

        Reply ↓
        1. Bsn

          Being a musician I know this to be true. There is no employment for musicians outside of touring and selling T-shirts or other schlock. One can “keep it local” by playing weddings, barmitzva’s, quinceanera, etc. but nothing via streaming – especially composition.
          “First they came for the musicians,
          then the authors,
          then the secretaries,
          then the doctors,
          then the actors,
          You get the idea………….

          Reply ↓
      2. fjallstrom

        Spotify was no accident, if was given its position to re-establish the labels control.

        In the late 00s, there was no lack of music online. Mp3s were available through numerous sites, must ignoring copyright law. Some like Allofmp3 followed copyright law but used currency and wage arbitrage to keep prices low. The labels were fast loosing control and musicians started experimenting with direct relations with fans over internet, including what later became known as Patron models.

        In Sweden, the traditional way of shutting down pirate sites backfired when the US government told the Swedish government to close down The Pirate Bay. Demonstrations in support of The Pirate Bay led by the newly founded Pirate Party made piracy a political issue. Further pressure risked a Pirate Party in parliament, which the US ambassador explained in a cable back to Washington. (Thanks Manning and thanks Wikileaks for showing how the sausage is made!)

        Enter, from Sweden, Spotify with a technical solution to keep the labels in charge. All they needed was the labels full backing so they could compete by having everything in one place, and millions upon millions so they could run a loss until they had positioned themselves in control. They got it, and here we are.

        Reply ↓
        1. ChrisRUEcon

          Thanks for this comment! Happy Boxing Day!

          > All they needed was the labels full backing so they could compete by having everything in one place, and millions upon millions so they could run a loss until they had positioned themselves in control.

          Yep. Spotify was/became “the chosen one”. It’s amazing how they are also a big part of the zeitgeist now – everyone talking about their “Spotify Wrapped” lists (for better or worse) now. Labels will sign/distribute the big guns, who will make them bank via streams – Taylor, Drake et al. Spotify will cannibalize everything else with Ghost Music. So any traditional Indie artist either has to sign/distribute via one of the big three (Universal, Sony, Warner) or work the local and adjacent circuits to make a living.

          Where are the rebel forces here?! :) Vinyl’s resurgence along with that of its cousin, “Cassettes”, was supposed to reconstitute some kind of bubbling underground. I think one thing not mentioned as much is how the low wage gig economy traps consumers in the access versus ownership model. People use Spotify because they don’t buy music any more. Most can only afford access to it. It’s also odd how the analytics part of the industry almost doesn’t seem to care about actual sales any more. Nielsen SoundScan became Luminate, and when you visit their website, the emphasis is on streaming (via YouTube). This doesn’t sit well with many people (myself included), because streams can be manipulated.

          Reply ↓
    2. playon

      I was just having a conversation about this with another musician friend. In Spotify-land all the bucks go to the huge acts, while the smaller people get screwed from the pathetic royalty rates. The blame should be shared with the performing rights orgs like ASCAP and BMI for “negotiating” such low royalties for artists & songwriters.

      Reply ↓
  9. AG

    One of those well-meaning pieces that offer little expertise and limited understanding:
    (and for that they needed not one but two authors?! That´s really embarrassing)

    “Mark Rutte’s March to War”
    By Ewald Engelen / Marianne Thieme

    In his maiden speech as NATO secretary-general, Mark Rutte ominously warned that peacetime is over as he delivered a cocktail of half-truths to demand ever-increased military spending.

    https://jacobin.com/2024/12/mark-rutte-nato-secretary-speech

    It offers ridiculous links like this one:
    https://www.cfr.org/timeline/us-russia-nuclear-arms-control

    Quotes Sarotte on “Not One Inch” (another urban legend of fake scrutiny where it could have mattered as a new important attempt of research and failed.)

    But at least it has this quote by Rutte which could be used against him if taken out of the intended context:

    “Strikingly, the speech he gave in Brussels was the exact opposite: it sketched a dramatic geopolitical vision of the future where the united democracies will fiercely reject any attack on their way of life. “We can do this. We have done it before. We can do it again,” the final sentences of the speech read.”

    Latter I for one would (ab)use as a reference on colonialism. Because the truth is of course an economic one. And I assume with this interpretation I concur with the authors.

    Reply ↓
  10. Ignacio

    A couple of days ago i went to a gospel concert in a public cultural centre near home. From the first gospel carol i realised that everything was “designed” (thought, composed, performed) to be emotional. No matter if you are a believer or not.

    Reply ↓
    1. AG

      When I once met Hugo-Chavez-man Heinz Dieterich he put it in similar words. Since he is not religious he too looked at the service (black Chicago community I believe) as an outsider but very impressed. We spoke about the power and means of popular movements and resistance.

      Reply ↓

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *