By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Patient readers, more on the day’s fireworks shortly. The New Year starts with a bang! –lambert
Bird Song of the Day
In honor of the New Year, I’m going to shift mimidae from Mockingbirds to Thrashers.
Brown Thrasher,Libertytown; Audrey Carroll Wildlife Sanctuary, Frederick, Maryland, United States. “Brown thrashers have been back in this area only 4-6 days.”
In Case You Might Miss…
- Mangione judge, defense fund.
- WSWS on managing disease through allowing infection.
- Populism and the Wizard of Oz.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Islamic State-inspired driver expressed desire to kill before deadly New Orleans rampage, Biden says” [Associated Press]. “The FBI identified the driver as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, a U.S. citizen from Texas, and said it was working to determine any potential associations with terrorist organizations…. “We do not believe that Jabbar was solely responsible,” FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Alethea Duncan said at a news conference. Investigators found multiple improvised explosives, including two pipe bombs that were concealed within coolers and wired for remote detonation, according to a Louisiana State Police intelligence bulletin obtained by The Associated Press.”
“Julian Assange and Wikileaks New Cables Bombshell: ISIS Created By CIA” [Yahoo News]. • From 2016, still germane. I grant you can’t tell the players without a scorecard, but sheesh.
* * * “Fireworks, gas tanks and camping fuel used in Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside Las Vegas Trump Hotel” [CNN]. “Authorities believe fireworks, gas tanks and camping fuel were connected to a detonation system controlled by the driver in the Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside a Trump Hotel in Las Vegas Wednesday morning, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation. The FBI is working to determine whether the incident was a terrorist act, Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge for the FBI’s Las Vegas office, said Wednesday. The agency believes it was an isolated incident and there is no further danger to the public, Schwartz noted. There is one person dead inside the Cybertruck, where the body remains as authorities continue their investigation… ” • “The body” (allegedly) being Matthew Livelsberger.
“Matthew Livelsberger Comparison With Luigi Mangione Takes Off Online” [Newsweek]. “A social media video posted online by the creator Nimay Ndolo comparing the Cybertruck explosion suspect with the alleged UnitedHealthcare shooter Luigi Mangione has gone viral. She then says: ‘America spent all last month developing class consciousness. They also spent last month developing an assassin kink.’ ‘So this Vegas pyromaniac better have a fat a*** and a thick manifesto because oh my God.'” • Well, that’s helpful.
* * * Big if true (1):
BREAKING: Cybertruck which exploded at Trump Hotel in Las Vegas and truck used in New Orleans attack were both rented through carsharing app Turo – AP
— BNO News (@BNONews) January 1, 2025
Big if true (2):
Has anyone noticed that the CEO of Turo, the car renting app responsible for the two vehicles involved in terror actions yesterday, is Andre Haddad who is an Arab from Lebanon originally. Note, the NOLA attack has ISIS connection and Vegas attack is obvious suicide bombing.
— William Barrell (@bomber6b) January 2, 2025
Big if true (3):
Surrounded by the billionaire class is Haddad, from Lebanon, tapped along his whole special life. Tesla's and Turo go hand in hand. Haddad and Elon go way back. So many connections here, it's getting ridiculous. pic.twitter.com/0hGYU8BlP4
— Wyatt Washburn (@WyattWashburn2) January 2, 2025
I can’t find the tweet, but the idea was that back in the day, our false flags used to be really slick. Now they’re clumsy and stupid. Was it so wrong that the very first thought that popped into my mind was “Reichstag fire”?
* * * There is a cui bono buried in this statement:
🚨 BREAKING: Donald Trump releases new statement pic.twitter.com/r7rpOV9FrB
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) January 2, 2025
Cui bono being the statement one should always ask, even if the answer is not always clear.
Realignment and Legitimacy
The Chronicle]. “U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker, who is presiding over Mangione’s federal pretrial hearings, graduated cum laude from Duke with a Bachelor of Arts in history in 1989. As the pretrial judge, she oversees preliminary hearings regarding the use of evidence but is not expected to preside over Mangione’s trial…. Parker was elected a fellow of The College of Labor and Employment Lawyers and named on the Best Lawyers in America list for seven consecutive years. She has also served as chair of the Disability Law Committee for the New York City Bar and received numerous awards for pro bono work and charitable service. sIn 2016, Parker was appointed to her current role as federal magistrate judge for the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. Parker’s husband, Bret Parker, served as vice president and assistant general counsel of Wyeth Pharmaceuticals from 2004 until 2009. When Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer, a multinational pharmaceutical company, he retained a transitional role at the company until 2010, according to a LinkedIn page under his name.”
“Defense fund established by supporters of suspected CEO killer Luigi Mangione tops $200K” [ABC]. “Several online defense funds have been created for Mangione by anonymous people, including one on the crowdfunding website GiveSendGo that as of Tuesday morning had raised over $200,000. The GiveSendGo defense fund for the 26-year-old Mangione was established by an anonymous group calling itself “The December 4th Legal Committee,” apparently in reference to the day Mangione allegedly ambushed and gunned down Thompson in Midtown Manhattan as the executive walked to his company’s shareholders conference at the New York Hilton hotel.”
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Elite Maleficence
“Five years of the COVID-19 pandemic: An interview with Dr. Arijit Chakravarty” [WSWS]. Every word a gem. Here’s how it starts out: “Fast-forward to today, and COVID-19 is both ubiquitous in our day-to-day conversations and still very prevalent as a respiratory pathogen in the global community. Close to 30 million people have died due to the pandemic, over 410 million people are now living with Long COVID globally, and one can assume that the majority of the world’s population has been infected with COVID on average at least three times. Are there any initial reflections you would like to share on the five-year anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic? Arijit Chakravarty (AC): Yes. This is what failure looks like. We are looking at it. No one ever said when the concept of public health emerged in the 19th century, ‘We really need an organization that is committed to serving as the doula for every newly emergent pathogen that pops out of the wild.’ The idea that emergent pathogens need to be shepherded into endemicity, this has never been in any public health mission statement.” And again: “[W]e are managing disease through allowing infections, which had never been done before.” • (Bidens’s policy of “mass infection without mitigration,” as I repeated often.) This is a must-read, and kudos to WSWS. Nevertheless, I have not seen an account based on political economy for how and why public health adopted the policies it did, and I do try to keep track. That seems to me to be a very big issue in the game. That issue is also what the word “failure” erases. Why isn’t “everything’s going according to plan” an option, analytically?
Lambert here: A little more orange and red around Ohio; no rise at JFK, EWR, ORD, LAX.
| Wastewater | |
| This week[1] CDC December 16 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC December 21 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 21 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| New York[5] New York State, data December 27: | National [6] CDC December 26: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens December 23: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 14: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC December 9: | Variants[10] CDC December 9 |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slow and small but steady increase.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “Initial jobless claims in the US slumped by 9,000 from the previous week to 211,000 in the last week of 2024, contrasting sharply with the expected increase to 222,000, to mark the lowest amount of initial claims in eight months.”
Manufacturing: “Jet crash disaster in South Korea marks another setback for Boeing” [Associated Press]. “Alan Price, a former chief pilot at Delta Air Lines who is now a consultant, said it would be inappropriate to link the incident Sunday to two fatal crashes involving Boeing’s troubled 737 Max jetliner in 2018 and 2019. In January this year, a door plug blew off a 737 Max while it was in flight, raising more questions about the plane. The Boeing 737-800 that crash-landed in Korea, Price noted, is a very proven airplane. ‘It’s different from the Max …It’s a very safe airplane.'” And the Max isn’t. What horrible messaging.
Manufacturing: “Boeing’s terrible year is ending with the worst aviation tragedy of 2024” [CNN]. Every setback an excuse for a roundup like this one. Nevertheless: “The Jeju Air plane’s landing gear appeared not to be extended as it attempted to land. There had been reports of a bird strike causing the plane’s pilots to issue a distress call as it upon approached the airport in Muan, South Korea…. A 15-year-old plane, like the one that crashed Sunday, is unlikely to have problems caused by a design flaw or production problems attributed to Boeing. But it is too soon to say why the Jeju Air plane’s landing gear was not extended.” •
Manufacturing: “Boeing on track to be 2024’s biggest loser in Dow Jones Index” [Reuters]. “U.S. planemaker Boeing, opens new tab is on track to be the biggest loser of 2024 in the Dow Jones Index, tumbling 32% as it bounced from one crisis to another.” • Well, I suppose bouncing is better than crashing….
Manufacturing: “Intel’s Grim Lesson for Boeing: Sometimes Mr. Fix-It Is Too Late” [Wall Street Journal]. “Since the 2000s, both [Boeing and Intel] became too narrowly focused on present profitability, despite operating in sectors in which big spending is essential to maintain a competitive edge decades down the line. Dividend payouts and share repurchases jumped and company cultures moved away from technical talent to rewarding managers based on financial metrics instead. Investors eventually saw the folly of this approach.” Yes, after planes crashed into the ground. More: “His true test will come in a few years, when a replacement for the 737 MAX starts being developed. Almost two decades will have elapsed since the first flight of Boeing’s last clean-sheet model, the 787. Without a bold, expensive attempt to push aircraft manufacturing forward, however, the risk will be larger than ever that airlines could shop at Airbus for their next-generation jets. Yet, with much of Boeing’s old engineering talent now gone and investors hungry to recoup some of their losses, the temptation to play it safe will be strong.” • I haven’t seen a firm statement from anybody (e.g. Leeham, last I checked). Of course, Boeing can stay it the repair business for a long time; see the B-52. And maybe less air travel is good for the planet, unless your policy goal is depopulation through the spread of airborne pandemics, of course.
Manufacturing: “China steps up drive to break Boeing and Airbus grip on plane market” [Financial Times]. “China is stepping up its push to break the grip of Boeing and Airbus on the aircraft market, as the state-run maker of the country’s first homegrown passenger jet seeks certifications for it to fly beyond the country’s shores. Comac’s heavily subsidised C919, which made its maiden commercial flight in 2023, is already flown on domestic routes by China’s three big state-owned carriers: Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines. From this month, China Eastern will fly the C919 between Hong Kong and Shanghai, its first regular commercial route outside China’s mainland.” And: “Richard Aboulafia, managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory, said building ‘elaborate product support facilities in export markets is very hard and expensive work, and a necessary precondition for competing with Airbus and Boeing.’ While several carriers in Asia have expressed interest in the C919, some executives say privately that they remain hesitant. ‘Maintenance support is the main issue,’ said a person close to Indonesia’s TransNusa, which has already received three of Comac’s smaller ARJ21 aircraft and is considering flying the C919.” • Can’t they outsource it? Maybe Comac could built a plant in Renton, hire all those fired Boeing workers.
Manufacturing: “China’s Export Crackdown Hits Boeing, Lockheed Martin And More” [Benzinga]. “China also added 10 companies to its Unreliable Entity List for participating in arms sales to Taiwan. Those companies are prohibited from doing any business in China and their executives may not enter or live in the country. Lockheed Martin Corp., Boeing Co., General Dynamics Corp. and RTX Corp. are among the companies affected. Andrew Gilholm, a China expert at the consulting firm Control Risks, told the New York Times that China has taken similar actions on these companies before. ‘Most of this is probably at the symbolic level because so many of these entities were already subject to sanctions,’ Gilholm said.” The move is seen as retaliation to recent U.S. measures including the Biden administration’s restrictions on exports of advanced memory chips and chipmaking machinery to 140 Chinese companies and the addition of Chinese firms to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List.”
Tech: “Meta’s Big Bet on Bots Why AI friends are coming to Facebook and Instagram” [New York Magazine]. “The idea of introducing AI characters into Meta’s platforms is in some ways distinct and new — we’re talking about not just automating content curation and promotion here but, in some cases, actual creation — but can also be understood as a way to rebrand an effective but alienating overhaul that’s been a decade in the making. With many AI products — from ChatGPT to a customer-support bot — the performance of personhood, which is a bit of a misleading magic trick even when done carefully, is at least as important as raw capabilities. Meta can claim it’s building technology to create social-media agents that can exist on its platforms “in the same way that accounts do,” and maybe it’ll turn out to be right. But Meta’s AI characters are also a way to slap a more friendly, humanlike face on a long, bloodless campaign of social automation.” • A platform of all bots chittering to themselves…. Every tech bros wet dream, no? Goes with my theory that there will be a quiet return to the blogosphere; there really is something to be said for online spaces were something like authenticity is actually possible. Of course, this latest idea from The Zuckerberg™ could also go belly up. Remember the metaverse, with the avatars that — highly symbolically! — had literally nothing below the waist.”
Tech: Make up your mind:
AP stands for Associated Propaganda pic.twitter.com/kh8rTuwlPK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 2, 2025
“Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 26 Fear (previous close: 27 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 33 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jan 2 at 1:24:36 PM ET.
Book Nook
“A Very Private Life – Nikolai Tolstoy Remembers Patrick O’Brian We look back at the life of the ‘greatest historical novelist of all time'” [Unseen Histories]. This is very long, probably best for O’Brian stans (of which I am one). “What would a working day be like for Patrick? Was he a morning person? Was he very rigid in his time-keeping? NIKOLAI TOLSTOY: Yes, rigid. He would go straight down after breakfast. In Collioure, he had a strange, tiny place which was much, much smaller than this. It was like a cave. They had a vineyard going down and sloping quite steeply from the house. They had a terrace or balcony and under it, there was a gap and that’s where Patrick did his writing like The Naval Chronicle and things like that. He didn’t have many books around him.” • Ah, workflow. And that’s the ticket: A cave.
Gallery
Snow scene:
White Frost, 1875 #artbots #monet pic.twitter.com/3Jh7TCCAGl
— Claude Monet (@artistmonet) January 2, 2025
“Populism and the World of Oz” [National Museum of American History]. “On her journey to visit the Wizard, Dorothy meets the scarecrow and the tin woodman. According to Littlefield, the scarecrow, displaying ‘a terrible sense of inferiority and self doubt,’ represents the American farmer (who made up the bulk of the Populist Party). Littlefield cites an 1896 article which accuses Kansas farmers of ‘ignorance, irrationality and general muddle-headedness.’ By extension, the tin woodman represents the hoped-for other faction in the People’s Party—the factory worker. Dehumanized, the simple laborer has been turned into a machine.” The article concludes: “Remembering the days of low-skilled but highly paid factory work, many disenfranchised Americans struggle and look for someone to blame in a world that has changed and left them significantly out of the picture.” • From 2016, still germane.
I am not feeling wired today.
Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From DG:
DG writes: “From my recovery workshop to yours.” This is such a lovely photo I’m going to declare it an honorary plant, because of all the wood.
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:
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The brown thrasher may be my favorite bird. Common enough to be more than a memory, but cropping up unexpectedly in the underbrush.
Rather like Lambert … ?
It’s also the state bird of Georgia.
I love watching these thrashers at a few trailheads here in AZ (Picketpost, etc). They have big personalities and can be quite entertaining. Thanks Lambert.
They are fun to watch as they scratch and walk like little chickens.
Re Oz–some of us here who, in the past, bought into the theory that the book is a sly take off on late 19th c America got blasted. Time for a Baum seance to get this cleared up.
And last night I caught Joker Folie a Deux which involves a murder trial of the lead and a mob of Gothamites outside the courthouse cheering him on.
Hollywood high concept into NYC live on CNN? It’s going to be an interesting year.
Taking the sting out of the Joker character. That was my first, sleep-eyed impression. Don’t know if I’ll give it another view.
Well they have to keep thinking up new ways to wring movies out of this comic book universe that they own. On the plus side Ben Affleck isn’t in it.
The night previous I watched Alien Romulus which I thought was pretty good. Producer Ridley Scott–in his late 80s and still working away–is a class act. I’m looking forward to the Scott directed Gladiator 2.
Gladiator II fucking ruled even it did get a little overly chaotic at the end switching villains.
Alien Romulus I thought a worthy addition and Fede Alvarez the director did the remake of the Evil Dead which I liked.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch JOkER 2 as I’ve heard the whole point was to neuter the class message of the first one.
*spoiler below. Be warned*
Plus they apparently rape him with a broom 🧹 at the end.
AND HES BOT EVEN THE REAL JOKER!
Bullshit Todd Phillips and his stupid inverted script!
I’ll concur on the new entry for the Alien film franchise. It gets to be tricky on updated plots and devising an even more evil than before Weyland corporation. I also think it was a better entry in adhering to the initial films, and heaven help us but I just did not think Ridley Scott was doing much good just based on the Covenant film.
I could add more…being a devoted nerd of the film series. There is a TV series slated this year as well.
re: Monet
I love Monet’s paintings. They always communicate the weather as well as the time-of-the-year’s light in a way like no other painter, imo.
>I love Monet’s paintings. I do too, Flora. It’s so interesting to me that he painted this landscape using basically three colors — blue, yellow and black (so it appears on my screen) — oh, there’s a touch of orange, too, and a flash of green. It’s a beautiful study and has a soft presence — quite a contrast to the precise appearance of the artistic woodworking photo.
Michael Hudson and Nima on Dialogue Works, utube, ~54+ minutes.
Michael Hudson: Cracks in the Empire: Is the American Superpower Fading?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiyHf4r4374
Transcript here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZBWqA6sBVyIsq928xERZQSZjXT0FWzk2vWHE5uMp_4E/edit
. . . ” Nevertheless, I have not seen an account based on political economy for how and why public health adopted the policies it did, and I do try to keep track. That seems to me to be a very big issue in the game. That issue is also what the word “failure” erases. Why isn’t “everything’s going according to plan” an option, analytically? ” . . .
Exactly correct. It is certainly ” an option analytically” to those of us ( and maybe other like-minded people out there) who read this blog. I suspect it is not “an option analytically” to Dr. Chakravarty because he believes religiously and with his whole heart in the basic decency of the modern civilization he is a part of and he believes religiously and with his whole heart in the basic decency of those leaders and rulers who give the Armies of Public Health their marching orders. He is one of those people who ” just can’t believe” that the Ruling Elites are actually the kind of people who gleefully paperclipped and ratlined nazis whenever they could, and that they plan to kill 8 billion people over the next 100 years. And if you point out to him who they are and what they are doing, he WON’T believe it and will dismiss you as a raving conspiranoid.
But we here know in our minds and are coming to accept in our hearts that the Armies of Public Health are in fact led by new generals and political commissars whose secret Prime Directive Agenda is to midwife the successful birth of new pandemics, and their successful transition into chronic mega-death endemicity. The next disease they are hoping to give birth to and to guide into pandemic endemicity is the emerging and evolving ManBirdCow Flu. Deliberately and on purpose.
In the West and the US we have been living in the economic world of ever increasing, ever strengthening neoliberalism — destroyer of productive enterprises and valuable public programs in the name of greater short term private profits, imo.
Was this a failure in neoliberal terms? I don’t think so, not in neoliberal private-profits-over-all terms.
From Oxfam, 2022:
Ten richest men double their fortunes in pandemic while incomes of 99 percent of humanity fall
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/ten-richest-men-double-their-fortunes-pandemic-while-incomes-99-percent-humanity
Many economists and writers have called this the greatest upward transfer of wealth ever, even greater than the GFC bank and Wall St. bailouts upward transfer of wealth. Does the neoliberal philosophy stop when it comes to public health, where private profits might have to take a backseat to the country’s citizen’s health and economic well being? It doesn’t look like it. / my 2 cents
My apologies to NC regulars because I’ve said the following on this site several times before. I worked in public health in the early 2000s. The last article I wrote about public health was 10 years ago and my argument was, using the pathetic public health response to the 2008 fiscal/economic crash as my example, was that public health is loyal to the 1%. By this I mean that when serious challenges emerge members of organizations have three choices: Exit, Voice, or Loyalty. When Covid hit many did exit public health; and a few raised their voices. The vast majority, and the only institutional response, was to act as loyal supporters of the dominant political economy, the interests of the 1%. I know this is true just as I don’t have an answer for it. The same template can be applied to mainstream media’s “coverage” of the Gaza genocide.
Re: Meta’s Big Bet on Bots Why AI friends are coming to Facebook and Instagram
Are these bots “Your Plastic Pal Who’s Fun to Be With?” Who knew Meta was the precursor to the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation?
At this point Marvin the Paranoid Android would be an improvement over something like Microsoft Copilot.
And what will happen if your new f(r)iend should inadvertently insult you or you, it?? Will you be able to cancel it/him/her?? Or will it stalk you??
What’s funny to me is that
Facebookhas long been filling its platform with ‘bots’ as a way of pumping up user numbers for ad sales. Are they now coming out of the closet? I guess if the bots become agents like personal shoppers, advertising to them will make sense. Why wait?No mention of Spike Jonze’s film Her (2013), which is where Meta is evidently now heading.
Perhaps some of the senior tech bros at Meta know all about this and see their millions of lonely, atomized customers as a cash cow? Hook them up with AI “friends” and then yank the chain. Or perhaps shades of Tame Impala, “New Person, Same Old Mistakes”, e.g.: I know that you think it’s fake / maybe fake’s what I like.
Adding… this is where it’s going, check out these videos created with Google Veo 2:
https://www.threads.net/@abdulrahimroni/post/DEIqAaas-35
Are influencer videos henceforth D.O.A.? Maybe not a bad thing, though living in a P. K. Dick-esque universe of fakes and simulations will bring forth a new kind of dystopia.
About Oz – In an 1890 editorial for the South Dakota newspaper he owned, L. Frank Baum wrote:
Straw man. His mother-in-law helped him gentle his approach after he wrote those.
Look up the Dakota Wars, concluded around the same time as the US Civil War.
Like many americans of his time, he had the good sense to be born before the mid-20th century. Only israeli’s and elected american officials speak those thoughts aloud now without fear of criticism.
Sigh.
I will miss my daily dose of Lambertian wisdom: “And maybe less air travel is good for the planet, unless your policy goal is depopulation through the spread of airborne pandemics, of course.”
Sorry to say I didn’t follow Corrente blog closely, reading it only when linked to by others. But I tripped over NC almost immediately and it was the aggregation that kept me coming back. Well, that and the pithy remarks.
Lambert has created an invaluable narrative through his invaluable journalism, and I hope that Yves can keep the Narrative going.
I would actually encourage Lambert to stay and keep preaching the good news to the Working Class of the World because I for one am listening and trying to enact real life shit!
You’re fucking doing an incredible job, NC. Don’t fucking quit now!!!!
Left & Right Unite!
NeoPopulism FTW!
While your appreciation of Lambert’s substantial contributions is gratifying, working class rights include retirement. Lambert is already over normal retirement age and has other interests he has been neglecting. You don’t seem to recognize that your request is anti-labor.
Ah, but Lambert’s contributions to the Working Class Narrative are not properly a job so much as a calling.
Contrariwise, I do recognize his right to finally work full time on getting his passion project, “Jane Austen, the Musical,” placed before the public. If “Hamilton” deserved the tender ministrations of a modern day Lerner and Loewe, at the least “Jane Austen” deserves the attentions of the New and Improved Brecht. I for one would thrill to hear the dulcet tones of Madama Swift extolling the glories of a New Age Public Privateer, “The Pirate Jamie Song.”
Not blogging is easy. Not sharing links is hard.
I wish Lambert the best and am trying hard not to think about how old you are dear host : )
And reducing the population with Boeing’s planes crashing…
I have the answer for bird flu in cows: Suggest to Big Milk that they can annihilate the remaining small produces and further consolidate by adopting stringent biosecurity measures. Doubtless they’ll ask how soon they can begin.
That could put Big Milk into conflict with those parts of the establishment which want to midwife the current flu into fullblown success as an endemizable pandemic killing millions of people.
I suspect that in a battle of the Interest Groups, that Big Jackpot is stronger than Big Milk, and has secret agents and friends in high places that Big Milk could never even imagine.
re: RU sanctions – how “cool” is that
Robin Brooks:
“There needs to be a ban on any academic papers that interpret Russia’s resilient GDP as a sign that sanctions don’t work. Russia’s resilience is a symptom of Western indecision on sanctions. If the West had gotten its act together, Russia would be imploding right now…”
May be I invite him to do shopping in a German supermarket on an average budget. Lets see how well he does… who the fuck is collapsing here, you idiot. Oh and with that lets burn the UN-Charta and the US-Constitution.
If the results are not want you wanted to happen, then ban & hide any paper pointing out those inconvenient facts. Spoken like a true economist. More from Robin Brooks-
‘Robin Brooks
@robin_j_brooks
When someone tells you that sanctions can’t and won’t work, that’s basically pro-Russian propaganda. Are we seriously to believe that nothing can be done to stop the shameful flood of transshipments to Russia via Central Asia? Come on. This is just about a lack of political will.’
https://x.com/robin_j_brooks/status/1835300128539771186
Sigh, didn’t know this person existed until recently and I was doing very well that way. May be I just wipe him off my memory. That method would certainly be welcome by him.
“Just make it away.” “The headache?” “No, those Ruskies” “Oh, use a Xanax, Robin.” “Really? That works?” “It works every time after I saw you.”
Should we perhaps take R. Brooks at his word and look, dispassionately and impartially, at the actual effects/results of ‘sanctions’ on both the sanctioned and the sanctioning? I guess not. That would undoubtedly be Russian/Iranian propaganda. I must be a double plus un-good person, for sure.
” CEO of Truro is Andre Haddad who is an Arab from Lebanon” . . . may indeed be big if true, but then again it may not be big even though true.
Why would I say that? Because if he is from Lebanon, then ” an Arab” may not be the whole story. With a first name like “Andre”, I will assume he is a Lebanese Christian-in-general and may even be a Maronite specifically. If that turns out to be true, then all it means is that he is just another diaspora Lebanese businessman and he had no idea that Truro would lend itself so wonderfully to supplying one-time-use vehicles for criminal purposes. He may just have thought that he would disrupt the Rental Car Industry the way Uber has disrupted the Taxicab Industry.
Now, if various agitators want to make it “Big” because Mr. Haddad is “Arab from Lebanon”, then his being a Maronite Christian , if such he is, won’t stop them or even slow them down.
A lot of Christian Lebanese don’t consider themselves Arabs. N N Taleb, for example, insistently calls himself a Phoenician (although, otoh, many other Christian Lebanese insistently identify as Arabs, so…)
But if he was Christian Lebanese who did identify as Arab, would this be big? It would be a long journey for someone to travel from Lebanese Christian Arab businessman to deliberately knowing renter of cars to terrorist suicide bombers.
I will continue to reserve judgement.
Ft. Bragg connections – that’s what caught my eye. The history.
Then being told about suicide bomber that shot themselves first.
It’s like it’s known people won’t believe what’s being said and no one cares as long as nobody knows what’s going on.
BS to keep the war chaos going.
Lambert, a mimidae that you should feature is the first cousin to Mockingbirds and Thrashers – and is known as the “Gray Catbird”. Where I grew up these birds were present in the yard and surrounding forest from April to August every year. At least one of their calls, the most common, is very distinctive, and I can attest that just like Mockingbirds they are very capable of doing their call all night long especially in the late Spring/Early Summer. One listen and you will know the call forever and it is no mystery how they got their name. Unfortunately, my family tells me that none have been seen or heard for a decade in the area of my childhood where they were once profoundly abundant.
Many apologies if you have already featured this handsome bird.
Good idea!
They also have a nice long mimidiform song of their very own.
Catbirds are tuneful, modest, sociable birds, to know them is to love them. I have been seeing a few of them in NYC, lately, which I hope is an auspicious sign.
I am sad about Lambert’s departure. I have often wondered how Yves and Lambert produce such a reliably excellent site, day after day, and with plants! Almost too good to be true. The work that goes into it must be phenomenal. I wish him all the best in his new endeavors and hope we will still hear from him from time to time.
Catbirds are plentiful in my part of upper Manhattan.
Carvana: A Father-Son Accounting Grift For The Ages
I thought people knew it was a fraud, but the stock has been ripping. This was interesting, too, since as I recall Ally is just rebranded GMAC, of GM fame.
I guess they never learn:
Although to be fair, I have no doubt the Ally execs have gotten very rich(er) from this. So, working as intended.
On the broader market:
House Speaker Drama update:
Victoria Spartz (R) now says she’ll make up her mind on how to vote tomorrow.
https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5064180-spartz-key-speaker-holdout-says-she-will-decide-tomorrow-on-johnson/
Cynical take: making up her mind last minute maximizes her leverage. By the time the vote counting starts, she’ll have a monument named after her.
Why is Trump supporting this Johnson clown? Surely, he could merit an honorable mention for the Duran’s Clown World awards.
Double cynical take: Trump knows that Johnson will be a loyal stooge he can control.
Prediction: Victoria Spartz is a different kind of cat, and she can’t be bought. Mikey goes down tomorrow.
Donald throws a connecting rod and we end up with a caretaker Speaker to get past the electoral college vote counting.
Never forget that the Speaker of the House of Representatives does not have to be a Member of the Legislature. We could yet see an Oligarch as Speaker of the House.
See: https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/2090/what-are-the-legal-requirements-to-be-speaker-of-the-us-house-of-representatives
It could even be Musk. Speaker of the House Elon Musk.
Isn’t the Speaker of the House third in line to the Presidency?
Boy, that would be a big demotion for Musk even assuming they would let him be President.
Do you think Elon even knows how much he’s being played by Trump?
Those in the line of succession after the VP have to be eligible to be president under the Constitution (as do VP candidates) and also unlike the VP they would become acting president.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Presidential_Succession_Act_1947
Good point and good reminder. There are dangers in being semi-satirical. Thankfully, Musk cannot be made Speaker of the House for just that reason.
It looks to me like Trump is being instructed by Musk on what to support. It doesn’t look to me like Musk is being played by Trump in any way. Am I wrong here?
That’s an idea whose time may have come. However, therein lies the rub …
The House Speaker’s main job now is to protect the interests of Merck, Pfizer, Microsoft, Google, Palantir, and all the other mega-corps.
A single oligarch (i.e. Musk) will only care about their own interests … SpaceX, X, the Boring Co. They’ll say to Hell with the rest of them.
An oligarch might be an improvement over the current status quo.
Oh . . . I think an oligarch would show class solidarity with all the other oligarchs, and make sure the government serves them all well.
Working link for Duke Chronicle article about Mangione’s judge with a not so subtle conflict of interest. They have no shame.
> Was it so wrong that the very first thought that popped into my mind was “Reichstag fire”?
If it is, you have company being wrong.
National Emergency Declaration coming late January?
I’d bet the first group they crack down on will be pro-Palestinians.
Man in exploded Cybertruck was elite soldier and shot himself before blast BBC. Oh,
I forgot to say I added orts and scraps, but I did.
Starting to notice a disturbing pattern, here.
I hate to quote Breitbart, but:
So, kinda like the Air America of rental car companies?
Lol, Everything’s bitcoin now.
Digital ID and greater surveillance incoming?
Another ‘terrorism’ story that appeared today:
FBI says it thwarted apparent plot against AIPAC (The Hill)
He was intercepted in a ride-share vehicle carrying the guns on Dec. 25, the first night of Hanukkah.
FBI Asks X Users To Please Stop Solving Crimes Before They Do
The Babylon Bee:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a formal statement, the FBI has called on Internet sleuths, particularly X users, to please stop solving crimes before they have a chance to do so.
The statement comes just hours after X users discovered all suspects and motives related to the recent terror attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas.
More like Con Air.
I can’t find it now, but I saw quotes on X from the Tesla body’s family to the effect of “he was highly skilled and experienced. he could have easily rigged an explosive and be half a mile away. It makes no sense that he’d be this crude.”
Of course he could just be an accelerationist? A directed accelerationist?
Beyond the epic photo, what purpose does this serve?
—
Double super-secret false flagging . . . . to get the American public to demand or at least support an Argentine Dirty War ” till we know what the hell is going on”.
Active duty special ops with five tours.
Holly cr@p!
That’s a lot of tours, too many. The DoD never did this to soldiers in WW2 because they knew people just cannot take it. Reminds me of my nephew, he did two tours and just never really came home. His VA docs said he had the worst PTSD they had ever seen.
Pro-Palestinians is so restrictive a category. Why not a simple “Enemies of the State?”
On Five years of the COVID-19 pandemic: An interview with Dr. Arijit Chakravarty
Chakravarty is top-notch on Twitter, lots of interesting, deeply researched threads.
That said, I’m not sure more frequent vaccination with modified RNA stuff is a viable approach, simply because we don’t know if dosing people this frequently with this stuff is a great idea. I’d love to be proven wrong, and even if it is totally okay, you aren’t going to easily convince people to take more of these modified RNA shots, when there is so little trust in them in some quarters of the country as it is.
Granted, that’s a public health trust issue.
But there could be a biological issue here, too, and one we ought to be studying.
Good, though:
I’d certainly go farther, universal paid sick leave, a required negative test to return to work, real travel quarantines, blah blah all the things that will never happen, that a functional society, not one run by capitalist pigs, might implement.
I like anyone that channels me.
Oh well, Happy New Year in the stupidest timeline!
I have a word for it, Profit.
In Lambert’s phrase “Because Markets, Go Die”.
Covid and its consequences are reducing the population to sustainable levels ( It will take a couple of decades) while making the rich much richer.
What’s not to like?
“A Very Private Life – Nikolai Tolstoy Remembers Patrick O’Brian We look back at the life of the ‘greatest historical novelist of all time’ ”
Which reminds me that in my stack of books to read is O’Brian’s “Master and Commander” as that is the first of his Jack Aubrey series of which there are 21 in total. Should be a good book.
Be prepared to find that the film was different from the books in one major way. The opponent that the Royal Navy contends with there in the Pacific was originally written as an American warship, the USS Norfolk, not a Frenchman.
I’ll miss Water Cooler! Thanks for all the Mockingbirds!
I’m shocked, shocked that there is a minor Ukrainian link with the Trump Hotel bomber-
‘Bo
@dittletv
Everyone take a close look at the Ukraine shirt Matthew Livelsberger is wearing in this picture.
And now, new photo surfaces from LinkedIn that he inquired about “a job” in Ukraine as well.
Does this have anything to do with the Las Vegas attack?’
https://x.com/dittletv/status/1874720329274478855
My real agenda when introducing the Lebanese angle was to go another degree of separation out and encounter Mossad. I failed, but it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
>>>Why isn’t “everything’s going according to plan” an option, analytically?
While I think that our Beloved Elites are truly evil scum, I also think that attributing deliberate malice to what is often just extremely shortsighted stupidity and arrogance is an issue. Infectious diseases do what they do without regard to the machinations of our Betters who somehow believe that
the world universeour very existence bends itself to their Will. Gods on Earth.Restated, these disasters happen as they always do and instead of dealing with them, they use the least amount of money, time, and other resources especially if they can make a profit to make it appear to go away. They also can’t be bothered to actually ask real experts because they are smarter than everyone else including the experts. They are obviously geniuses who don’t need anyone else’s help. That it will cost them (and everyone else) more in the long term doesn’t occur to them. Because credentials.
Their studied refusal to take serious containment steps against this new flu appears to me to be a hopeful bet that it will become a megadeath pandemic on its own if they can just buy it enough time. It reminds me of Gebreyesus’s studied refusal to declare covid a “pandemic” until he felt sure it had become one.
I don’t have the patience or time right now to find a relevant blogpost from Rigorous Intuition 2.0, about how this much incompetence, of the very same pattern, over and over and over again; becomes a threadbare excuse for something else.
” Incompetence is the best all-around cover a saboteur ever had.”
I mostly ascribe it to a casual disinterest, given that the elite are primarily interested in self gratification.
> I also think that attributing deliberate malice to what is often just extremely shortsighted stupidity and arrogance is an issue
I think we assume, perhaps from Marxist-inflected eschatology, that “class consciousness” is smarter than individual consciousness. I think it’s stupider. Hence, for the 1%, “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy,” as you urge. If you accept my claim that the PMC attained class consciousness after the mortal insult of 2016, you can see this, too; thry achieved class consciousness and promptly lost their minds. (Their class position, too, if they go on as they are.)
Net Neutrality Rules Struck Down by Appeals Court
Fun
Re it’s getting crazy out there–this incident today apparently making some national news.
https://www.wspa.com/news/local-news/traffic-alert-all-lanes-closed-on-interstate-85-in-greenville-co/
I know the intersection well since I drive through it once a month. After four hours of this very major interstate (even more major after I-40 closing) being closed it’s over. Apparen;ty it was only because a stopped trucker said he had a bomb.
I wonder if the Trucker was joking, and the officer went full crazy mode!
Insane in the membrane…. insane in the brain, so goes a highly popular song from the Cypress Hill band back in the early 90s. That is indeed some craziness for I 85 traffic…
Rhetorically speaking to one example but if a teen allegedly calls in a threat to a rando high school and everyone evacuates that school , then it is only logical to fully redirect all lanes of traffic
Off topic, but thought I would share: I had seen a lot of good writers, which NC also occasionally links to, on Brave New Europe and dared to post a comment.
Since I used my web.de address, I was summarily informed that my comment would not be posted since BNE boycotts Germans. Never mind that I am neither German nor do I live there – still I get censored.