Have a happy Turkey Day! We will be kicking back a bit over the holiday weekend in light of (hopefully) lower news flow.
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
2:00PM Water Cooler 11/26/2024
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics; “Joy” at Bluesky; Trump team drags feet on signing ethics and transparency agreements; “Everyone is taking their skim” (of Democrat campaigns); Boeing 737 DHL plane crashes. In Lithuania. ~
Taxpayers Spend 22% More Per Patient to Support Medicare Advantage – The Private Alternative to Medicare That Promised to Cost Less
How Medicare Advantage, with less coverage than traditional Medicare via gatekeeping and thin networks, is a bad deal for taxpayers too.
Trump’s Inflation-Stoking 25% Mexico and Canada Tariff Scheme
Trump’s latest tariff threat is quickly getting a lot of well-warranted criticism.
Is Trump About to Deal a Mortal Blow to NAFTA 2.0?
The USMCA trade agreement, in its fifth year of existence and up for renegotiation in 2026, is already looking frail.
COP29 Puts World on Course for More Extreme Weather – and More Deaths
COP29 summit proves change won’t come until floods and wildfires are killing tens of thousands in rich Global North cities
CDC’s Conflicted HICPAC Anti-Airborne Goons Grasp “Baggy Blues” with Cold, Dead Hands, Vote to Infect More Patients with Airborne Diseases
HICPAC improves its process a little, but with the same lethal outcome
2:00PM Water Cooler 11/25/2024
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Open Thread ~
Civil Society, Beyond Markets and States: Tracking 100 Years of Economic Research
A substantial shift in the focus of economic research over the last half century has for the most part gone unnamed and unnoticed. This is the turn towards what we call civil society, including firms as organisations, families, neighbourhood communities, NGOs, trade unions, social movements, identity groups, and other face-to-face settings.
Sputnik 2.0? Oreshnik and the Western Military Capabilities Gap
The Oreshnik strike is a vivid demonstration of how the West is seriously lagging Russian military capabilities, and remains in denial.
Data Centers Highlight the Limits of Renewable Energy Scaling
Data centers are an obstacle that torpedoes the whole idea of a transition offensive against hydrocarbons.
The Wars Come Home
Silicon Valley looks to bring tech used in conflicts abroad back to American shores.
