Links 2/17/2025

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1. Bugs February 17, 2025 at 8:11 am

   Re: the capybara overpopulation in Nordelta, B.A. – a lady in my team at work is Porteña and she told me that the joke there is that the carpinchos will eventually run those nouveaux riches out of the neighborhood, which was apparently built without going through proper environmental approvals and then fenced up to keep the riff-raff out but locking the residents in with the cutest fast reproducing giant rodent in the world :)

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   1. lyman alpha blob February 17, 2025 at 9:23 am

      I hope so! I’m very fond of capybaras and enjoyed today’s antidote as a counterpart to the first link. A few years ago I saw that the Japanese are also very fond of them and they are very popular in Japanese zoos. Seeing the pictures was almost the tipping point to going to visit a relative there. Maybe some day…

      The wetlands that the development took over is rather large, and looks like the type of place that shouldn’t have been developed in the first place. I have to agree with the concluding paragraph –

      “Some environmentalists are calling for no action to be taken against capybaras and, instead, for a law to be passed to protect the wetlands and prevent any construction on them, questioning the environmental sustainability plans that allowed neighborhoods like Nordelta to crop up. Others point out that there are people who want to live in nature, while wanting to get rid of its natural inhabitants, whether they be capybaras in Nordelta or foxes in nearby neighborhoods.”

      Something tells me Mother Nature will eventually prevail here, whether the develop is overrun by randy rodents, or it just sinks into the swamp.

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      1. Bsn February 17, 2025 at 10:50 am

         The capybara reminds me a bit of a nutria – a true scourge down here in Louisiana. Are capybara worth eating? No one wants to eat nutria as they have a rat like inner “skin” that is considered repulsive.

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         1. lyman alpha blob February 17, 2025 at 11:06 am

            When I visited Louisiana years ago and saw a nutria for the first time, my friend told me the alligators eat them like popcorn. Whether that’s true or not, I really don’t know, but I did see some enormous alligators at the Barataria preserve.

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         2. Ignacio February 17, 2025 at 11:31 am

            Yes, capybara’s meat can be eaten. Other related rodents, agouties, are considered delicatessen in some parts of Central America, and endangered for this reason.

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            1. MFB February 19, 2025 at 5:09 am

               Unless I am mistaken, the Catholic Church defined the capybara as a fish so that colonists could eat it on Fridays.

               I remember a Scientific American photograph of a “school” of swimming capybara.

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      2. Waking Up February 17, 2025 at 11:12 am

         The Antidote du Jour reminded me of the movie “Flow” which I highly recommend. One of the best animated films I’ve ever seen.

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      3. Dalepues February 17, 2025 at 1:41 pm

         In the department Nariño, Colombia, the cuy is a popular dish.

         https://www.tiktok.com/@travelercolombia/video/7130064726788197637

         Ipiales is also famous for El Santuario de Las Lajas

         https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santuario_de_Las_Lajas.

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2. The Rev Kev February 17, 2025 at 8:30 am

   “Zelensky’s proposed European army ‘will not happen,’ says Polish foreign minister”

   A lot of this idea of a European Army comes down to what people want it to be. Zelensky wants a European Army that can be formed in the Ukraine to fight the Russians for him. Ursula von der Leyen wants a European Army so that all the money for it can be funneled through Brussels so would be really a slush fund but with soldiers attached. But here I suspect that the Polish foreign minister sees the dangers inherit with a European Army. It could lead to a situation where Polish troops & equipment could be pulled away from the defence of their country’s borders to be sent by people like Ursula to some other country (not necessarily the Ukraine) or perhaps even as far afield as Asia for political reasons leaving Poland uncovered. it could easily happen.

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   1. ilsm February 17, 2025 at 9:31 am

      NATO already has (maybe others) a standing NATO AWACS unit/formation.

      The NATO unit operating E-3 aircraft in a unit structure that is NATO. It has personnel from several nations, with funding from the NATO “budget”. Supply chain exists using national sources including sources within NATO member countries.

      Given ideas flowing around US imagery for future Ukraine the EU may run this.

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   2. NotTimothyGeithner February 17, 2025 at 9:58 am

      The Polish opposition is they see their military as a means of punching above their weight within the EU much like the mayors the Baltic city states play heads of state. The Polish army can prep for parades without fear.

      Then the French proponents are fairly open with their desire to use it to support the French colonial operations.

      Beyond cost saving, there isn’t a credible threat to justify tossing the status quo. The current Euro headaches are self inflicted and distant.

      The EU army is like pan-arab/Africa-isms. It needs to start smaller like the EU. On paper, F35s don’t make sense for the EU. They still bought them. This is where they need to start.

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      1. Aurelien February 17, 2025 at 11:28 am

         The idea of an EU military force has been round forever: its ancestor is arguably the European Defence Community of the early 1950s, but more recently the initiatives that followed the end of the Cold War, around the time of the negotiation of the Maastricht Treaty.

         It’s important to understand that this was in the early 1990s, where the hypothesis of a ground war in Europe was effectively excluded. A major East-West crisis, should it ever happen, would be handled through NATO, but European forces would largely, if not exclusively, be employed out of area in peacekeeping, service assisted or protected evacuations, rescue missions and the like. The wider political purpose was to give Europe a capability for independent action, without having to use the US-owned NATO command chain and resources. There was thus no need for heavy forces or large armies. There were a number of European missions, but most states just weren’t interested, and the British managed successfully to block the idea of a separate European Headquarters for decades. In the end, even when European interests were involved, the majority of states could not be bothered and let their militaries rot. Now the bill is coming due.

         I’ve argued in a recent essay that attempting to rebuild forces for high-intensity ground combat is a waste of time even if it were possible. By contrast, policing of air and maritime borders, tracking Russian ships and submarines etc. will have some political utility in the new post-Ukraine dispensation. Ground forces will remain important as a political demonstration of national sovereignty and territorial defence, but nobody seriously expects a shooting war with Russia, which anyway Europe would lose. But within that, there will be a struggle for power and influence and command positions from having well-equipped and well-trained forces, and that’s what the Poles will be aiming at.

         I don’t think anyone expects such costs to be met collectively. European nations already produce the majority of their equipment nationally, and much of that is in the form of international collaborative projects. That’s all quite complicated enough. By way of comparison, NATO has an infrastructure budget of about $5Bn per year, whose management is sufficiently complex and controversial that I’ve heard it said that disobedient civil servants are sent to NATO as a punishment to work on it. <

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3. timbers February 17, 2025 at 8:45 am

   “National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said the US deserves “payback” from Ukraine for its support against the Russian invasion…”

   timbers says Ukraine deserves payback from US for it’s illegal overthrow of the democratically elected Ukraine government in 2014 on friendly terms w/Russia, to install a rabid neo-nicey govt that proceed to do very mean things to its Russian speaking folks, all which was for the purpose of forcing Russia to invade Ukraine in self defense.

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   1. timotheus February 17, 2025 at 8:55 am

      And how much for all the million-plus dead Ukrainians whom Lindsey Graham was so happy to see die to “weaken” Russia? They don’t enter into the $$ calculations?

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      1. timbers February 17, 2025 at 9:07 am

         As long as the “paybacks” (either way) go primarily to the grifters on either side, the history books will record that the good guys won, justice was serviced, and all is right and good!

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   2. Mark Gisleson February 17, 2025 at 9:25 am

      “Payback” sounds a lot like “guardrails” to me: a word being used to frame future discussions. It’s a safe bet Trump’s people are already documenting the money trails between Ukraine, USAID, influential Westerners, etc. There’s no shortage of evidence of major crimes ranging from US-backed state-sponsored terrorism to human trafficking, all of which can be used to shape foreign policy while exposing the Biden family’s grift operation. And if the public tires of the squalor, Trump can “blow up” the Nord Stream story at any time.

      At some point when recent history has been clarified, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump frame Russia’s keeping of the Donbass as “payback.” It’s a handy word.

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      1. Ignacio February 17, 2025 at 11:45 am

         Too handy it is indeed and can be used in many different directions as noted by the comments above. For those of us who have always seen this as a US proxy war against Russia it is difficult to read “payback” as a guardrail. It looks as if Trump’s US is a new entity unrelated with Biden’s US. Was there any payback clause in the “as long as it takes” contract?

         Asking for paybacks sets a bad precedent: with each new US presidency it will be as if entirely a new country without historic background and liabilities is born every 4 years. Trump didn’t forget the previous payments but forgot all about the services provided.

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         1. Chris Cosmos February 17, 2025 at 12:14 pm

            The payback idea may only be a rhetorical or bargaining position. The US, basically, started the war in the first place as noted above.

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   3. Kontrary Kansan February 17, 2025 at 11:40 am

      I wonder if the key to Trump’s proposal for Ukraine’s minerals to fund “repayment” is that the funding that had apparently been the US’s part in Ukraine’s fight with Russia is being declared “debt.” It’s a form of Maifosa loan-sharking that gives the US an abiding claim on Ukraine. Legalities be damned.
      Not only has Russia decimated Ukraine to an extent that the cost of rebuilding is in the trillions (who’ll cover that?), now Trump has put Ukraine in debtors’ prison. How can what’s left of Ukraine exist except as a zombie country? Russia has the good parts. The US holds a mortgage on what’s left. The EU looms as a wake of vultures, devouring what it cannot afford to defend.

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   4. Kouros February 17, 2025 at 10:31 pm

      Didn’t US payed upfront 5 Billions for the coup? Those that cashed the money need to be taken to the cleaners…

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4. Dan S February 17, 2025 at 8:46 am

   Re: Chances of Asteroid Hit Double
   I thought of Verhoeven’s excellent satire, “Starship Troopers”, and how the fascist world government attributed the asteroid hit to the “bugs” to start up a galactic war, despite it being seen that the military’s own incompetence pushed the asteroid towards Earth. Will we do the same in 2032 after we keep priming up the UFO/ET panic? You know, Reagan did say that such a scenario would bring us all together as one world…(see also, the great comic book “Watchmen”)

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   1. griffen February 17, 2025 at 11:16 am

      Also brings to mind a few of those comparable themed movies also from the mid to late 1990’s, whether that is Armageddon or Deep Impact. I recall the former film pretty well overall…hire a team of rugged oil field experts led by Bruce Willis, and let’s go forward on the Rescue Effort to Save All Humanity…

      I would contend the Roland Emmerich film outdid all of those “horror of all global threats from mother nature, clutch those pearls” end time films, in The Day After Tomorrow. Not to get overtly hyperbolic but the reality of super cell and super storm systems does appear quite real, in hindsight, given catastrophic weather outcomes in just the recent past hereabouts in the Southeast and also the LA ( Pacific Palisades ) fires.

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      1. vao February 17, 2025 at 3:32 pm

         Also brings to mind a few of those comparable themed movies also from the mid to late 1990’s, whether that is Armageddon or Deep Impact.

         The scenario of mankind scrambling to destroy an asteroid careening towards our planet was dealt with much earlier. See the film Meteor for instance.

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5. Rui February 17, 2025 at 9:19 am

   Could the folk at Naked Capitalism share insights on the supposed Bank of England default on physic gold? Seems like an interesting story but is it real? Thank you.

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   1. Neutrino February 17, 2025 at 10:03 am

      Recent Michael Hudson article provides much information about gold. Good background as events unfold.

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      1. Rui February 17, 2025 at 6:03 pm

         Thank you, great link.

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      2. Jabura Basadai February 17, 2025 at 9:45 pm

         thank you for that link – so glad comments are back and these type of responses with additional information are shared –

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   2. Richard The Third February 17, 2025 at 3:32 pm

      I used to work in the City of London a few decades ago, and I met a guy in a bar once who told me that a toilet cleaner at the BoE had promised him, hand on heart, that there was none of ‘the shiney stuff’ left there at all. And that was then.

      Some of the above is true.

      (Please don’t ban me)

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      1. Rui February 17, 2025 at 6:02 pm

         Lol thanks

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   3. playon February 17, 2025 at 6:04 pm

      I don’t know if it’s technically a default but there have been tons (literally) of withdrawals recently.

      “The wait to withdraw bullion stored in the Bank’s vaults has risen from a few days to several weeks as traders rush to take advantage of differences in price.

      Traders are also nervous that the US president will impose new tariffs on bullion as part of his trade war.”

      https://news.sky.com/story/the-bank-of-england-gold-rush-thats-pushing-up-the-price-13308406

      https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/bank-of-england-gold-deposit-jpmorgan-hsbc-donald-trump-tariff-europe-125021700262_1.html

      https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-england-suffers-exodus-gold-060200514.html

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      1. Rui February 18, 2025 at 4:49 am

         Thank you, I appreciate the links!

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   4. Raymond Carter February 17, 2025 at 9:02 pm

      Yes, it’s real. At a minimum it’s fair to say that counterparty risk has returned with a vengeance to the London gold market. As a result London gold and silver prices now trade at a substantial discount to New York COMEX prices.

      (You’ll notice that the MSM, and pretty much everybody for that matter, describe the situation as New York trading at a premium to London due to tariffs. No, it’s not New York trading at a premium but London trading at a discount due to counterparty risk.)

      The best gold analyst by far is this gentleman: https://www.thegoldobserver.com/p/why-gold-will-continue-to-shine-in

      I think he’s also active on X.

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      1. Rui February 18, 2025 at 4:54 am

         Thank you. Interesting that if I understood correctly – not a certainty – Michael Hudson seems to think that in the long run investments in gold will not be such a good idea. But the whole issue is quite complicated for me, without economic or financial background. And it is certainly good to read discordant opinions.

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6. Anon Fed February 17, 2025 at 9:23 am

   The BIM article on federal workers incorrectly refers to what’s happening as a RIF. RIFs are an organized process that takes into account seniority, performance ratings, and veteran status. The process typically takes months as agencies determine which needs are most important and shift employees expected to stay around. Those who are let go receive a severance and often months notice in advance. There was a federal wide RIF under the Clinton administration where 300,000 employees were let go in an organized purposeful way to maintain government functions. (RIF explained in depth: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/workforce-restructuring/reductions-in-force/ )

   What’s happening instead is DOGE is taking advantage of employees who are probationary status because those employees have less worker protection. This includes long term Feds with 25+ years of experience (many of them managers) who happened to have timed their promotion to a new position badly. It also includes very technical positions which tend to have longer probationary periods up to 3 years. This scattershot approach is devastating to agencies. An additional benefit to DOGE is they get away without paying severances that would normally be required during normal office restructuring or downsizing

   A little more probationary background: probationary employees are able to be fired for cause during their 1-3 year probation period. (Non-probationary employees can also be fired for cause, but they have more protections to appeal the matter.) Probationary individuals can only be terminated for poor performance or issues found during their background check. However, because they have little grounds to appeal DOGE is terminating them regardless. In some cases DOGE sends out the same blanket “you are being terminated for performance” email to thousands of employees in an agency, but in others they arent even going through that pretense. Employees arent giving a reason at all or they are giving an entirely different reason such as “office restructuring” which is not an allowable reason for terminating probationary employees. In nearly all cases the immediate supervisor (and often 2 or 3 supervisor lines up) aren’t even aware an employee is being terminated until the termination email is sent out. While probationary employees have limited rights – this is so blatant a violation of stated reason and process there are numerous class action lawsuits being filed which will be interesting to see how they play out

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   1. t February 17, 2025 at 10:45 am

      Thanks, AnonFed. In my view, this is also a case of cruelty being the point and a big show for the fans. The cost of these employees is minimal, certain agencies are losing people even when much of the funding is user fees, and of course the flow of money to oil and gas and Elon is still gushing.

      How the lawsuits play out will be interesting indeed.

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   2. lyman alpha blob February 17, 2025 at 11:13 am

      I’m not familiar with the government workforce, but am I correct in assuming that many or most of these employees being targeted are union members?

      You would think the Democrats might highlight this aspect a little more. But there’s no election for well over a year so maybe it’s not yet time for them to start pretending to care about labor issues again. There’s fundraising to do and vacations to take!

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      1. scott s. February 17, 2025 at 12:53 pm

         In my (DoD) experience the main union involvement was in the public shipyards. However, you need to be careful as the fed workforce is “right to work” and a union may “represent” x number of workers, but the actual number of dues-paying members is much less.

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      2. Anon Fed February 17, 2025 at 1:30 pm

         There’s not really any data to suggest one way or the other. That said a very large percent (90?.. though I’m sure it differs by agency) Are represented by a union anyway so it’s largely a moot point I think

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      3. Anon Fed February 17, 2025 at 1:34 pm

         Perhaps worth adding, as Scott mentioned, even though they are represented by a union, many aren’t actually dues paying members. But there’s really no way for the administration to know who is dues paying and who isn’t. (unless they get financial data from banks/credit card companies.. but that seems like a leap at this point)

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   3. Bill B February 17, 2025 at 11:28 am

      Thanks for that. I believe that mass firings of federal workers may be an indirect way of impoundment (which is illegal under current law). Ditto for having to fire 4 people before one can be hired.

      “Massive reductions in staffing. The Administration has ordered agencies to initiate massive reductions in force. Such massive reductions in staffing are likely to leave large amounts of appropriated funds unspent while failing to fully implement agencies’ statutory missions. As such, they will be impoundments in violation of the Impoundment Control Act.[42]” https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-budget/many-trump-administration-personnel-actions-are-unlawful

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   4. Glen February 17, 2025 at 4:03 pm

      I went thru the Clinton era RIF, it was quite the process. The OPM came in and ran it on the naval base I was stationed at. It has it good points, and bad points, but it was certain that the naval base would continue to function and perform it’s required duties.

      Most people may not realize that the Civil Service has a veteran’s preference:

      Veterans’ Preference https://www.opm.gov/fedshirevets/current-veteran-employees/veterans-preference/

      It’s been a part of civil service since at least the Spanish American War. When a RIF is performed, the OPM will make two lists – those with veteran’s preference, and those without. Everybody on the second list will be gone before that first list is touched. The naval base was mostly blue collar jobs with many Vietnam era vets, and after working with them for a while, I came to think that the veteran’s preference was a very good thing. America owes these people.

      I have not heard if the DOGE firings are honoring the veteran’s preference. I suspect these are not since these seem to be targeting people in probationary status. If anybody can confirm either way, it would be good to know.

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      1. Anon Fed February 17, 2025 at 9:28 pm

         The subreddit r/Fednews has many vets and disabled vets who were probationary saying they were terminated

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         1. Glen February 18, 2025 at 1:18 am

            Vets and disabled vets? That’s just wrong.

            Thanks.

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   5. Rui February 18, 2025 at 5:04 am

      The closest thing I can remember in Portugal was when in 2011 the Government and Troika started cutting investments, jobs, everything they could. The result was a deep recession and a wave of emigration to France, UK, Luxembourg. The number of USA citizens moving to Portugal keeps climbing, for example. Can we call them refugees with money? Anyway, what I meant to say is, won’t consumer confidence drop and a recession happen over in the USA? Or is that schock the objective?

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7. The Rev Kev February 17, 2025 at 9:24 am

   “Ukraine not invited to US-Russia peace talks, source tells BBC”

   Zelensky was not invited for the same reason that the Europeans weren’t. They would only come up with Zelensky’s 10-point peace plan to spike the negotiations to keep the war going. Come to think of it, when the west had that peace summit in Switzerland, Russia wasn’t invited either so turnaround is fair play – I guess. Both France and UK should be familiar with the mechanics of how it works here. Back in 1938 the Third Reich wanted Czechoslovakia which was the only democracy in that part of Europe and the only country in eastern Europe that actually made their own weapons as they had the most modern, developed, and industrialized economy there.

   But what happened was that France and the UK were negotiating directly with the mustache man about the fate of that country. And the Czech President? He was left sitting outside cooling his heals waiting to learn the fate of his country. The UK and France agreed to hand over the Sudetenland to the Nazis which meant soon the entire country – including its industrial and farming capacity. They then went outside and told the Czech President their agreement. Soon, Poland and Hungary were also clipping bits of that country along with the Nazis. So if France and the UK are feeling left out and sidelined, they should brush up on their own histories.

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   1. Socal Rhino February 17, 2025 at 11:42 am

      I agree with a point made by Alastair Crooke on Judge Nap’s show this morning: US/RF discussions will not be about Ukraine per se but about the larger picture of relations between the great powers. Ukraine (or Europe) don’t have a role in that discussion.

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   2. FredW February 17, 2025 at 7:43 pm

      My simplistic point of view. As far as I know, no European “leaders”, with the exceptions of the leaders in Hungary and Serbia, have been willing to meet with Putin or any other Russians in any meaningful way on the subject of Ukraine. Furthermore, they have regularly highly criticized and tried to sanction anyone who disagrees with them on the point.

      Why, then, do they have any right, or, in fact, would they have any interest, in attending a meeting between Russia and the US?

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      1. Acacia February 17, 2025 at 9:10 pm

         Macron met with Putin in 02/2022, just a few weeks before the SMO, though the news was mostly about him refusing a PCR test on admission to the Kremlin in fear that the eebil Rooskis would steal his DNA, whilst the subject of Ukraine was downlist.

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   3. hk February 18, 2025 at 12:59 am

      A sort of counterpoint to this that has often been raised by Aurelien and PK is that small powers often try to manipulate relations among great powers to their advantage, only to wreck global peace. Czechs in 1930s were not (that) manipulative, but Ukraine, as well as France, Britain, and Germany, not to mention Poland (today as well as in 1812 and 1939) and the Balts have been. Someone (was it Larry Johnson or Matt Taibbi?) described the situation as a penniless loser strutting around bragging and threatening neighbors counting on a rich uncle’s money. If they can’t put up, they don’t deserve a seat at the table.

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8. ciroc February 17, 2025 at 9:54 am

   >Ceasefire With Palestine Holds, China Creates Big Problem for US Defense Industry

   Washington is so stupid that it may conclude that it must invade China now to obtain natural resources for a future war with China.

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9. t February 17, 2025 at 10:05 am

   “It’s right the Home Secretary is getting a grip so that more money can be directed towards the Government’s plan for more police and secure borders.”

   The British DOGE story saves the best for last. Of course there are no concerns about waste or fraud. Looting and redirecting spending, as usual.

   And the usual comments about being long overdue and the need for “audits.” The one difference is that – according to the story – funding under something like 5M did not require review.

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10. The Rev Kev February 17, 2025 at 10:05 am

    ‘It’s projected to take the City of Boston 20 years to build a single train station.
    So here’s a thread on how long it took to build other things.
    It took six years to build the Transcontinental Railroad from Omaha to Sacramento, including hundreds of stations along the way.’

    For those who cannot see the thread of completed projects, use this link-

    https://xcancel.com/cremieuxrecueil/status/1891211323465240981

    Maybe they can take a leaf out of the Transcontinental Railroad project and have two corporations building that station from opposite ends of it, working towards each other to reach the middle. First corporation to compete their half on budget and up to standard gets a huge completion bonus.

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    1. LY February 17, 2025 at 1:57 pm

       Construction of the station alone isn’t 20 years. It’s the redevelopment of a former freight rail train yard, with a new neighborhood and realignment of the Massachusetts Turnpike. The plan includes construction of a temporary station, with the final station scheduled to start construction in 2040 (according to a reply on the Twitter thread).

       Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Station_(MBTA)

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    2. Felix February 17, 2025 at 2:41 pm

       for comparison here is some Wikipedia info on the projected BART extension into Silicon Valley. Planning for seven stations began in 1981 (possibly before) with a projected completion date in 2036. link is to PDF but one can scroll up for more concise info.
       worth noting is BART ridership is approximately 40% of pre-Covid use.

       https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension#:~:text=At%20one%20point%2C%20political%20and,2029%20or%202030%20time%20frame%E2%80%A6

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       1. Michaelmas February 17, 2025 at 4:54 pm

          Last times I rode BART to SFO and back in 2019, it was where some of the SF homeless went to sleep, some of them occasionally rousing themselves or being roused into a substance-addled or schizophrenic rage.

          Not, I hasten to say, but that there but for the grace of God would go I, which is why I got out of the country.

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11. t February 17, 2025 at 10:18 am

    The first to pieces about the Beavises of DOGE, especially the NEBRASKA’s own on one of the guys help make the point about the personalities we’re dealing with.

    As I think readers here know, any time Musk speaks publicly about anything – robotics, programming, AI, math – people who actually work in those fields are gobsmacked that he doesn’t get called out for his ignorance. So this poor kid comes in through the very veey right pipeline, properly groomed for hating in the name of making things better, but some part of him must have seen enough to know his emperor has no clothes.

    Feel bad for some of them. Wonder if they’ll ever have clarity. (More concerned about their effect on the rest of us while considering there personal toll. They weren’t all born monsters.)

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    1. ciroc February 17, 2025 at 9:02 pm

       Elon Musk is the guru of Muskism. Like a typical cult, he exhausts smart but naive geeks with long hours of work to make them less judgmental and more dependent on him. He is a genius at brainwashing, not business.

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12. Ignacio February 17, 2025 at 10:21 am

    Cremieux: It’s projected to take the City of Boston 20 years to build a single train station.

    I miss there and in Only in Boston tweet context. Why will it take for so long? Legal issues, land usage issues, problems with the neighborhood, environmental issues? etc. Anything we do these days turns out to be overly complex and the context today is very different to the one existing at the times when those other examples given by Cremieux were built. It is indeed striking to note how difficult is today to build new infrastructure and part of it might be because there is already a lot of infrastructure (electric, communications, water supplies and drainages…) there that has to be re-directed, re-built etc. A rail station requires much more space around than the mere station building and if this wasn’t planned in advance long ago problems can pile up easily.

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    1. Adrian February 17, 2025 at 10:53 am

       Alon Levy at Pedestrian Observations has a huge trove of examples and analysis of why the US fails at building transportation infrastructure, for example, https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/10/20/why-texas-high-speed-rail-is-stuck/. The issues you note are real but they are also ones faced by all other advanced economies when building public transport. Those problems are handled in those countries with much less money and time (like orders of magnitude cheaper).

       The US has a pernicious combination of bad project management, refusal to learn from other countries, an accretion of bad planning and construction decisions that affect current and new project, and in my personal opinion, the use of infrastructure spending for rental seeking to an almost grotesque degree compared to Switzerland or Japan, etc.

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       1. Ignacio February 17, 2025 at 11:09 am

          Thank you Adrian. According to your link some of the most important problems, at least in the Texas HS Rail, are political and ideological. Public transport is not kosher in Texas so it seems.

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          1. PlutoniumKun February 17, 2025 at 1:42 pm

             Adrians link is excellent, that blog is a great source of information.

             A key problem IMO with how infrastructure is carried out in the US (and most other neoliberal infested economies) is that the extensive use of design consultants actually creates an incentive not to build. When consultants are paid for reports, or designs, they don’t make money if the line is built – on the contrary, they have the potential for more profits if a redesign or yet another ‘study’ is required. This isn’t just a public vs private sector thing – its a trap many organisations fall into when they start relying on outside consultants.

             Designing contracts which incentivise the delivery of a final product is surprisingly hard to do in infrastructure. Full design and build contracts usually don’t work very well in politicised and highly regulated contexts (the inevitable design changes are usually a potential goldmine for contractors).

             Spain (along with France) are actually really good at this by international standards – the Madrid metro is a much quoted (in the industry) model of how to do infrastructure quickly and at a reasonable price. France, China, and Japan have succeed in this largely by empowering a very centralized engineering focused agency to just get things done. Mind you, all three countries have a reputation for not being particularly patient about local objections.

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             1. hk February 18, 2025 at 1:13 am

                That works hand in hand with the regulatory/interest group politics in US. So many studies and hearings and other procedures are required so that many different interst groups have chance to butt in, so to speak, and exert influence or, more often, just hold up the process. It’s not just to make profit via obstruction (although that is often a factor indirectly).

                I do wonder if this is, at least in part, lack of social trust at work–the suspicion that you’d be hoodwinked by others involved in a project is both widespread and often justified (fits with neoliberalism and the decline of Weberian bureaucracy in both public and private sectors.)

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                1. PlutoniumKun February 18, 2025 at 6:22 am

                   Yup, its a complex question. There is certainly a sort of hand in hand relationship between regulators and some consultants. In an early work life when I was in waste/minerals consultancy I recall my boss calmly explaining to an executive of a very large operator who was complaining about ‘the government and their stupid laws’ that it was the very complexity of the regulations which had ensured his employer had grown so large over the past few decades at the expense of literally thousands of smaller operators driven out of the industry by the regulatory cost of setting up new quarries/waste facilities.

                   We often forget that the conflict between communities and infrastructure is nothing new. In the 18th century the architects and engineers of Dublin’s new port facilities had to walk around armed because of hostility from people connected to the older docks. Protests with landowners and local communities hand in hand were a regular feature of 19th Century railways in Europe. Years back I read a history of one of the earliest railways in the West Midland which had been delayed through local residents protesting at the noise and dust, and I found it striking at how similar the reasons for objections were to modern objectors. On that subject I was a regular attender at public hearings in the UK in the 1990’s at road schemes – these hearings often went on for months, but oddly enough, only one out of literally hundreds ended up in a road being refused permission (and that was a very minor local by-pass). It was all for show.

                   In Asia of course the authorities tend to be more ruthless – at least with anyone who isn’t a landowner. Post war movies in Japan frequently have scenes – presumably put in at government instruction – that explicitly instruct the audience that anyone who opposes ‘progress’ is holding up the country. Occasionally they are quite jarringly added in to the final scene of some nostalgia piece, as in ‘this is all very lovely, but if Japan is to advance its gotta be covered with concrete’. Most Japanese I’ve talked to just shrug their shoulders when I ask if they feel they they can stop or influence developments in their neighbourhoods.

                   Another bugbear of mine – and I think this is a big issue in the US, but increasingly in other parts of the world – is what seems to be an inevitable mission creep by courts. What starts out as a right to appeal to the courts if a regulatory body makes an error in law becomes the courts themselves deciding that they should be able to determine what gets built. So what starts out as a regulatory/engineering/environmental matter becomes one in which the lawyers get the final say. This is even creeping into Korea if ‘Extraordinary Attorney Woo’ is an accurate reflection of Korean law.

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                   1. hk February 18, 2025 at 3:37 pm

                      One of my old profs supervised PhD dissertation by a grad student (now, a famous econ historian in his own right) on exactly this: the obstructionism of infrastructure projects taking advantage of feudal laws, customs, and such in pre-Revolutionary France, and how the Revolution and the streamlining of goverment that came with it (and a lot of ruthlessness, too, no doubt, with the very real threat of people losing heads) swept a lot of it away and made canal building (and later, railroad building) on extensive scale far more feasible. Incidentally, Mark Twain in one of his travelogues (Innocents Abroad, I think, touches on this–how Napoleon III ruthlessly brought “progress” to his country, as well (not sure how factually accurate this is, but French domestic politics is during the Second Empire is not something I know much about…)

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                2. PlutoniumKun February 18, 2025 at 7:34 am

                   Just as one add on to this – Adrians link reminded me of this really good mini-essay in the Pedestrian Observations blog (with some internal links that are also very good).

                   Its a very good overall explainer I think of why the US is generally so bad at railways. I should add that nobody in this is perfect, every country is to some extent an island when it comes to this sort of topic, no country has gotten it entirely right, its all a matter of degree.

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       2. vao February 17, 2025 at 11:26 am

          Those problems are handled in those countries with much less money and time (like orders of magnitude cheaper).

          Well, as a counter-example, project “Stuttgart 21” (Germany) to transform the existing railway station has actually stumbled into massive cost overruns and extensive delays. The ambitious project required a long preliminary phase of negotiation and planning. Work started in 2010 and the new station was to be inaugurated in 2019 for a cost of €4.1B. It is now hoped that it will be completed in 2026 for €11B or €12B.

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          1. gk February 17, 2025 at 1:52 pm

             “Those countries” does not include Germany, which has become a joke for their inability to build large projects (Stuttgart 21, Elbphilharmonie, BER etc.) on time or on budget.

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          2. Michaelmas February 17, 2025 at 2:34 pm

             Vao: Work (in Stuttgart) started in 2010 and the new station was to be inaugurated in 2019 … It is now hoped that it will be completed in 2026 for €11B or €12B.

             My frequent trips circa 2016-2020 through Frankfurt Airport were enough to make me suspect that something had gone wrong in Germany.

             On the other hand, I moved to London, UK, from the SF Bay Area, USA, in 2022, where in 2019 they’d opened a whole new trans-London Tube line they’d began building in 2009, for a final cost of £18.9 billion (which is $23.86 billion or €22.76 billion EUR).

             The Elizabeth line connects 41 stations across Greater London, Heathrow, and nearby towns, with 10 being total new-builds, and the rest requiring all new tunnels, platforms, lines, and etc.

             It all works. As does the rest of the London Metro public transport, underground, aboveground rail, buses (including a fleet of electric doubledeckers, many built by BYD in China) So, yes …

             Adrian: …all other advanced economies when building public transport … handled (it) with much less money and time (like orders of magnitude cheaper).

             Granted, much of the rest of the UK outside London may exist in a genteel Third World state. Still, you can’t have everything….

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    2. lyman alpha blob February 17, 2025 at 11:28 am

       Building around or over existing infrastructure is certainly part of the problem, and Boston is particularly difficult since the city was not built on a grid, with some streets following old cow paths. That being said, Boston also has a history of mismanaged transportation projects with huge cost overruns that took significantly longer than initially planned. There are lots of beaks that need wetting.

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       1. scott s. February 17, 2025 at 1:02 pm

          Fortunately here in Honolulu we were able to hire Dan Grabauskas away from MBTA to build our rail system and successfully turned a $5 billion project into a $10 billion one (with reduced scope).

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          1. chuck roast February 17, 2025 at 1:45 pm

             I was involved in the planning of this project. It was the opinion of a number of my colleagues that while the project cost was too much it was the O&M costs that would eventually fry you. It was my opinion that you were all going to hell anyway for demolishing the Aku Bono Lounge.

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    3. playon February 17, 2025 at 6:12 pm

       This is an interesting contrast to China. For example when the city of Beijing decides to take action on urban renewal, the bulldozers show up the next day.

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13. Zagonostra February 17, 2025 at 10:34 am

    >This Robot Dog Is Making Its Off-Broadway Theater Debut CNET

    I can’t wait until RoboDogs are controlled/automated using AI with various ancillary appendages.

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    1. wendigo February 17, 2025 at 2:50 pm

       We had a colloquial term involving a dog referring to not doing anything useful at work.

       Does that mean that AI will be doing the same thing with RoboDogs once they take over?

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    2. Kouros February 17, 2025 at 10:40 pm

       There is a much earlier debut of a robot dog in the movie Young Ones from 11 years ago: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2693664/

       Black Mirror also has an episode with robot dogs.

       And talking about movies, that Japanese Island that was the source of coal during war as well the source of griveous abuse of Koreans, has an excellent S Korean movie: The Battleship Island – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5969696/

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14. Zagonostra February 17, 2025 at 10:47 am

    @cremieuxrecueil

    It’s projected to take the City of Boston 20 years to build a single train station.

    I would be content at this point if they just added some Amtrak routes and kept the trains & stations clean. I can only imagine what riding on a high speed rail would feel like and what it would be like to live in a small town and catch the rail to a close large city for the day, shop, go out to eat, and return in the evening.

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    1. matt February 17, 2025 at 1:19 pm

       What they really need is east/west rail connection. Connecting Boston to Springfield would be really good for me personally, and it would also connect Boston to the vermont-connecticut corridor that runs through springfield.

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    2. gk February 17, 2025 at 1:54 pm

       You can do that in Switzerland which has very little high-speed rail. What you need are reliable trains that run late in the evening.

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15. IM Doc February 17, 2025 at 10:53 am

    Re: “Venting at Democrats and Fearing Trump” Article in the NY TIMES – and then the tweet.

    My wife and I actually attended one of these “DNC reconciliation” meetings about a week ago. We are certainly not megadonors – our ability to attend is a perk of being where we are – and I certainly cannot vouch for what is happening around the country – but I can tell you what happened in the meeting we attended and I would say in our part of the world, the NY Times article is seriously downplaying what actually happened.

    Again, wife and I are Dems. Basically, we had discussed our attendance at this meeting beforehand. It was closure as in we really are done and just feel obligated to let them know why.

    What was immediately noticeable the instant you entered the room was just how many people were already not there – as in they and their donor money have already moved on. We have a large preponderance of tech people here – and I have been privately telling Yves and Lambert that these people were moving big to Trump all of last year. To their credit, this site, unlike the mainstream media, did highlight this issue multiple times in the campaign. To someone on the ground, this was very noticeable. To those reading our media, it was a conspiracy theory.

    Those who still attended were presented with DNC members – and did they ever let them have it. It was just the most amazing political display I have ever seen. The issues centered on 1) the primary process, or lack thereof, the thumb on the scales approach and not listening to the electorate, 2) the Biden dementia fiasco 3) how was Kamala ascended 4) the wasting of millions of donor money on Oprah, 8 million for a 30 second sound bite from Beyonce, millions for Megan Thee Stallion burlesque shows, etc 5) the execrable handling of RFK – and how Kamala’s handling of him enraged all kinds of loyal Dems 6) the seeming support of Dems in radically unAmerican struggle sessions – especially around things like anti-racism and 7) the ceding to the GOP of simple things like defining women, etc.

    It was loud and rambunctious and ugly at times. It was also absolutely fascinating. And I will never forget it.

    It is clear the DNC did not pay a bit of attention to the issues brought up. Listening to the events of the weekend, I can see that the Dems and their media surrogates are preparing to cede the First Amendment and the Freedom of Speech to the GOP. It is fascinating to watch the purposeful suicide of one of our parties – I never dreamed I would see this in my life. The leaders have absolutely no will to listen to their voters nor the donors’ issues brought up in that meeting.

    It is like we are witnessing a “war of the elites”. And after that meeting, it is clear that just minimal parts of the story are being told to average Americans.

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    1. Lee February 17, 2025 at 2:15 pm

       If I may suggest a modification: “It is like we are witnessing a ‘war of the elites.'”

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       1. MicaT February 17, 2025 at 4:36 pm

          Thanks IMDoc.
          It’s a truly sad state of affairs on the dem side. They truly don’t have a clue as to why they lost or what to do.

          I just watched John Stewart take a part Jen psaki and I couldn’t bear to watch his interview with hakim Jeffries after reading the reviews.
          Both are just more indications of what I think you’ve talked about and saw.

          It’s easy to look up on YouTube or podcast of your choice.

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    2. JBird4049 February 17, 2025 at 11:17 pm

       >>>The leaders have absolutely no will to listen to their voters nor the donors’ issues brought up in that meeting.

       The collapse of the American Whigs was caused by its leadership refusal to make any stand on slavery, for or against, which made the membership leave and start their own parties, of which the Republican Party was the success. The new Republican Party had essentially the same agenda as the Whigs except for being explicitly anti slavery.

       I think that the current Democratic Party is far more dysfunctional than the old Whigs, but like the Whigs, who refused to take the risks needed to have a debate over slavery and come to a party-wide consensus, the Democratic leadership refusal to do anything except messaging is going to kill the party as the members leave. Playing it safe is not always safe.

       I still wonder if the security state will allow a successful reformation of the Democratic Party as happened with the Whigs and Democrats. President Trump might succeed in weakening or destroying some or all of the agencies, but whatever survives will be hostile to reform of any kind. The modern Democratic Party is more of a Judas goat, an institution designed to block and kill reform movements of any kind, while also allowing a massive number of sinecures for the Good People of the Meritocracy. The various three letter agencies all lean towards the Democrats although it is not exclusively so, and a reborn liberal and even left leaning party would be a threat to their rice bowls and to their paymasters in the oligarchy.

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16. ciroc February 17, 2025 at 1:06 pm

    >JD Vance’s speech: change of paradigm or new hegemonic phase?

    Of course, J.D. Vance came all the way to Munich to tell the EU not what true democracy is, but how to behave under the new king.

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17. scott s. February 17, 2025 at 1:10 pm

    “Japan’s Abandoned Island of Hashima Goes from Shuttered Mine to Tourist Hot Spot”

    Article makes it sound pretty good. A Korean movie I’ve seen (군함도) – The Battleship Island, has a somewhat different take.

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    1. Kouros February 17, 2025 at 10:41 pm

       There are so many open wounds left there btw Koreans and Japanese, mostly inflicted by Japanese…

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       1. hk February 18, 2025 at 2:19 am

          There is something that always makes me uncomfortable about the way history is spun in modern Korea. While Koreans were second class citizens in Japan who were indeed subject to oppression, they were citizens nonetheless and enjoyed certain rights, including, in many cases, the right to join the ranks of oppressors over the people who had even less rights. Even on forced labor sites in Japan (less so in occupied territories where the rule of law applied less–that was true even if you were Japanese civilians wh odidn’t have connections, incidentally), Koreans were relatively privileged lot: real horrors befell those who didn’t have any rights, like laborers brought from China or Southeast Asia, or Allied POWs. The complexity of the historical relationship between Koreans and Japanese is often too casually swept aside.

          I was reminded of this some time in 1990s, when a Mongolian foreign minister or ambassador or someone started an address to a Korean audience with something about “long and historic friendship between Koreans and Mongols.” I can tell you that that’s not exactly how Koreans remember it–the very events that the Mongolian diplomat was talking about. Yet, it is also true that, after making peace with the Mongols, Korea became a rather privileged subject of the Mongols, as the Korean royal family became kin to the House of Genghis Khan itself. (There is a bit of odd analogue to the Japanese rule, in fact–of course, during the Japnese rule, the Korean royal family sort of became kin to the Japanese imperial family, too.) Koreans make these out as something forced on the Koreans en toto, but, at least with regards to the Mongols, historical records show that it was the Koreans themselves that suggested it first and having the crown prince become the son-in-law to Kublai Khan was not exactly a “punishment” or “degradation,” (unless you thought Mongols of any standing were beneath you, which would be terrible racism of first order–many Koreans have been guilty of this.) There were issues with having so many foreign officials that came with the Mongolian princess(es) lord over the locals–but the marriage also enabled the Korean king and his ministers to lord over Monoglian officials (of sufficiently low rank–but the king, as a Mongolian prince, first by marraige, then by blood, could lord over pretty much Mongol who were not kinsmen of Genghis Khan themselves in this period.) the way a mere subject would not have And the Mongol and Central Asian courtiers who accompanied the Mongolian princesses to Korea (this went on for generations) eventually became loyal servants to the Korean kings and assimiliated into Korean society (they are progenitors to several dozen Korean clans.) So wasn’t this “friendship,” even if quite uneven?

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          1. PlutoniumKun February 18, 2025 at 5:50 am

             Thanks for that background – the colonised/coloniser relationship always looks more complicated the deeper you look at it. I think the fact that many Koreans could ‘pass’ as Japanese made the relationship quite ambiguous in some respects. Plus the fact that many Koreans genuinely like and admire many aspects of Japanese culture while being highly resentful of the history and current Japanese government attitudes – I’m often really surprised at just how inept the Japanese government can be when it comes to dealing with ROK – they really have a hard time dealing with Seouls success over the past few decades.

             I don’t know how history is taught in Korea (although its notable how ruthless the Koreans have been in eliminating all physical evidence of Japans occupation), but I’ve met Japanese people who are entirely baffled by the resentment they occasionally encounter on visiting Korea.

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             1. hk February 18, 2025 at 4:04 pm

                The Japanese themselves didn’t exactly help things by being so schizophrenic–they kept switching back and forth between actively suppressing Korean culture and such and wanting to encourage it and coopting it in their favor. So many Korean cultural and social figures would go from being imprisoned for seditious activities to being honored by the colonial authorities a few years later–for doing exactly what they were doing before, but with encouragment of the Japanese authorities themselves. Still, in 1990s, having a lot of these come out into the open publicly (even though people always knew this! None of these was actually suppressed–you just had read the actual biographies carefully.) was a big scandal–many people who were honored for “resisting” the Japanese rule, via their contribution to Korean culture and education, were suddenly condemned as dirty collaborators and such.

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18. Tom Stone February 17, 2025 at 1:51 pm

    I’m off to the first Anti Musk protest rally of the year in Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square.
    If I have a chance to talk to a Journalist I plan to point out that the disruption caused by the Dogebags benefits one Country in particular, China.
    I will also bring up the fact that Elon Musk’s fortune largely depends on the goodwill of the Chinese Government.
    Cui Bono?

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    1. CA February 17, 2025 at 2:20 pm

       “Elon Musk’s fortune largely depends on the goodwill of the Chinese Government…”

       Tesla’s are made in Germany and the United States, as well as in China. Many vehicle brands are made in China, which is after all the largest vehicle market.

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19. CA February 17, 2025 at 2:11 pm

    “Are China’s AI advancements a double-edged sword hanging over already dire job prospects?”

    https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-21/China-adds-12-56m-new-urban-jobs-in-2024-employment-situation-stable-1AliVfzzA88/p.html

    January 21, 2025

    China adds 12.56 million new urban jobs in 2024, employment situation stable

    China created 12.56 million new urban jobs in 2024, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security said on Tuesday.

    In 2024, China’s surveyed urban unemployment rate stood at 5.1 percent, 0.1 percentage points lower than the previous year, according to the ministry.

    “The employment situation remained generally stable,” said Lu Aihong, spokesperson for the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, at a press conference.

    By the end of 2024, over 33.05 million people who had been lifted from poverty were employed, Lu said…

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20. Bill B February 17, 2025 at 2:27 pm

    Stephanie Kelton’s article was spot-on. On a related topic, maybe it’s obvious, but the “it’s taxpayers’ money being wasted” narrative turbocharges DOGE, and increases the outrage. I’m against waste, fraud, and abuse as much as anyone. But of course calling it taxpayers’ money is incorrect. I see it over and over again. Here’s an interesting example: https://x.com/walterkirn/status/1890569302291472835

    “One comic book on gender and climate change required 6 months of work by 65 fast-food workers.” That makes the expenditure not just outrageous because he personally disagrees with it, but my god, it’s coming out of the pockets of low-paid service workers! I interpret that as meaning that the taxes paid by those workers is being used for such expenditures. That’s what passes for populism I guess. On the other hand, maybe he’s just saying the comic book was too expensive, but I don’t think so.

    No mention of how little Elon is paying in taxes, of course, even though that’s not relevant either in this context. If I’m misunderstanding what Kirn is saying, let me know.

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    1. Raymond Carter February 17, 2025 at 9:35 pm

       For a different perspective and some detailed facts feel free to take a look at this analysis: http://danielamerman.com/va/ccc/AB1DebtWatch0225.html

       The interest on the debt is paid with more borrowed funds. The debt is compounding.

       In the 12 months ending January 2025, the US borrowed $1.2 trillion to pay interest on its debt. This amount increases at a compounding rate every month regardless of what happens with government spending and the primary deficit.

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       1. eg February 17, 2025 at 10:25 pm

          Ask yourself this question: who is on the other side of those ledger entries (the “compounding debt” is compounding somebody’s wealth), and why are we insisting upon further enriching them?

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21. Tom Stone February 17, 2025 at 3:13 pm

    I was right in describing it as an anti Musk Rally, at least half the signs referred to Elon Musk.
    I stayed as long as my pain level allowed and estimate the crowd at @1,000 and growing when I left.
    No Police or News agency presence, fewer than a dozen “Pink Pussy” caps, the most common flags were from DSA (3) and USA (4), one UKR flag and one Palestinian flag.
    Age was mostly 40 plus, with about 1/3 younger.
    Other than signs referring to Musk the most common were “Stop the Coup” and “This is President’s Day, not King’s Day” with a smattering of others.
    There was an inadequate sound system, I have no idea who the speakers were or what they said, however the mood of the crowd was calm but serious.
    It’s going to be an interesting year…

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