2:00PM Water Cooler 12/30/2022 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Hen Music of the Day

Painted Bunting, Wichita Mountains, Comanche, Oklahoma, United States. “Songs from a male perched prominently on a tall oak.”

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Readers, since these are the waning hours of Saturnalia, I’m going to be very lazy, and never do a full Water Cooler. Particularly, I’m going to go away out a lot of the Covid materials — all of the “good” information is but to come back after vacation journey finishes, and in any case I can’t actually add to the message “Keep secure on the market!” — and every little thing else might be sketchy.

I’m certain could have extra posting quickly on the previous yr, and the yr that’s to come back, however you continue to may care to touch upon 2022, and 2023. For instance:

of all of the arduous classes i realized this yr, maybe the largest heartbreak was that authorized prescription weed simply is not excellent!

— elizabeth catte (@elizabethcatte) December 30, 2022

Readers? What about you? Classes realized?

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Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the best of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“Right here’s meals for thought, had Ahab time to assume; however Ahab by no means thinks; he solely feels, feels, feels” –Herman Melville, Moby Dick

“So most of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in actual fact a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

“Sam Bankman-Fried had 4 White Home conferences THIS YEAR: Bombshell report reveals disgraced crypto mogul met with prime Biden aides as just lately as September” [Daily Mail]. “The Democratic donor, 30, awaiting trial for what prosecutors say is without doubt one of the largest monetary frauds in U.S. historical past held talks with senior White Home advisor Steve Ricchetti on September 8, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. He has had no less than two different conferences with Ricchetti on April 22 and Could 12 and one other with prime aide Bruce Reed. Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabriel additionally participated in a gathering on his personal on Could 13. The most recent report is additional proof of the deep ties Bankman-Fried had with Washington earlier than he was charged with swindling traders out of no less than $1.8 billion. The White Home has refused to say whether or not Biden will give again a few of the $5.2 million in donations from the fallen FTX founder gave to his marketing campaign and related teams in 2020.” • Oh.

“White Home antitrust adviser Tim Wu set to depart” [Politico]. “Wu was the architect of President Joe Biden’s 2021 government order on competitors coverage that directed companies throughout the federal authorities to spice up competitors all through the economic system…. ‘We had the uncommon alternative on this Administration to attempt to steer the enormous battleship of antitrust coverage in a brand new path,’ Wu mentioned in an announcement offered by the White Home. ‘We received extra accomplished over the past two years than I’d have ever imagined, and it has been the chance of a lifetime to work on that venture with a very gifted group of colleagues within the White Home and the federal companies.’” • I hope this isn’t a foul signal. Commentary:

Our assertion on key antitrust skilled Tim Wu leaving the White Home. https://t.co/JnfQbIgock

— Matt Stoller (@matthewstoller) December 30, 2022

2024

“Trump’s tax returns launched after lengthy battle with Congress” [Associated Press]. “The paperwork embrace particular person returns from Trump and his spouse, Melania, together with Trump’s enterprise entities. They present how Trump used the tax code to decrease his tax obligations and so they reveal particulars about international accounts and the efficiency of a few of his highest-profile enterprise ventures.” • Completely not a nothingburger!

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, plainly persons are truly studying the back-dated put up! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are lots of updates. So I must try this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Celebration (“the Democrat Celebration is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated put up, to which I’ll periodically add materials, summarizing the addition right here in a “stay” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Celebration is, in actual fact, a tough drawback. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Celebration is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Hear, Liberal!). It follows that the Democrat Celebration is as “unreformable” because the PMC is unreformable; if the Democrat Celebration didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. If the Democrat Celebration fails to manipulate, that’s as a result of the PMC lacks the potential to manipulate. (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” in fact.) Second, all of the working elements of the Celebration reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Celebration (ka-ching, however not totally) these components comprise a community — a Flex Internet? An iron octagon? — of funders, distributors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with property within the press and the intelligence neighborhood.

Notice, in fact, that the category energy of the PMC each expresses and is proscribed by different lessons; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial mannequin’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to thoughts. Suck up, kick down.

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Realignment and Legitimacy

“Notice From San Francisco” [Matt Taibbi, TK News]. “In the mean time, all we are able to do is present a couple of items of what we expect may be a bigger story. I imagine the broader image will finally describe an organization that was straight or not directly blamed for permitting Donald Trump to get elected, and whose subjugation and takeover by a livid mixture of politicians, enforcement officers, and media then grew to become a precedence as quickly as Trump took workplace.” • What a nothingburger!!

#COVID19

“Covid Yr Three (Unlocked)” (podcast) [Death Panel (enoughisenough)]. “On the sociological manufacturing of the top of the pandemic.” “We have a look again on the yr’s occasions and the foremost social and political developments that labored to normalize covid in 2022.” • This can be a nice podcast. This episode begins with a sonic montage of assorted luminaries, together with Walensky. I’m wondering if Walensky’s voice feels like Marcie Frost’s? It ought to.

Notice from the grounded:

pic.twitter.com/1kx9iYq3KD

— 𝕭𝖊𝖆𝖘𝖙 𝖔𝖋 𝕭𝖎𝖗𝖉𝖎𝖓’ (@GREGNEISE) December 28, 2022

After all, if “Covid is airborne” had been showing on each chyron in America for 2 years, that Southwest passenger most likely would have spelled “airborne” proper.

So long as it’s “gentle” Russian Roulette:

Russian roulette is secure for most individuals.

— Dr. Anastasia Maria Loupis (@DrLoupis) December 29, 2022

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Chicago PMI” [TradingEconomics]. “The Chicago PMI in america elevated to 44.9 factors in December of 2022 recovering barely from a 30-month low of 37.20 factors hit in November and in comparison with market forecasts of 40. The studying pointed to a fourth consecutive month of contraction in enterprise exercise within the Chicago area.”

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Provide Chain: “From the docks of Southern California and Europe to the parcel hubs within the Midwest and the shop cabinets in New York, indicators are rising that the worldwide supply-chain disaster is over” [Wall Street Journal]. “The Covid-19 pandemic that spawned product shortages, transport bottlenecks and hovering transport prices is probably not gone, however… items are shifting around the globe once more, reaching firms and shoppers. Regardless of widespread authorities and trade makes an attempt to unwind the bottlenecks, the actual break could have come within the demand slowdown that has eased the strain on strained operations.”

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Right this moment’s Concern & Greed Index: 36 Concern (earlier shut: 35 Concern) [CNN]. One week in the past: 38 (Concern). (0 is Excessive Concern; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Dec 30 at 1:06 PM EST.

Guillotine Watch

“How Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and world’s 500 richest billionaires misplaced $1.9 trillion in 2022” [Bloomberg]. • Completely happy new yr! And lots of extra prefer it!

Class Warfare

“Socialist candidate Will Lehman exposes large voter suppression within the UAW elections” [WSWS]. “A million out of 1.1 million eligible members didn’t vote within the election as a result of the UAW management intentionally stored them at nighttime. This isn’t a matter of opinion however of provable reality. Lehman’s protest describes, for instance, how the UAW nationwide “Member Information” internet web page, which is integrated into many native union web pages, made no reference to the election by any means between July 29 and November 29. Whereas it maintained a conspiracy of silence across the union’s inner elections, the paperwork devoted huge assets to campaigning for the Democratic Celebration within the nationwide midterm elections. In these elections, which happened at the exact same time because the union election, the paperwork utilized superior strategies, organized public occasions, and bombarded union members with promoting in an effort to extend turnout by reminding employees of voting deadlines. There is no such thing as a harmless clarification for this distinction.”

Helpful supply:

I have not talked about this recently, however I preserve a listing of open entry on-line collections of radical, left-wing and labour historic paperwork. Over 350 collections from around the globe are at present listed. And at all times searching for extra!https://t.co/6Y5g1aLQTK

— Evan Smith (@evansmithhist) December 28, 2022

Information of the Wired

“How did the Babylonians know √2 as much as six digits?” [The Palindrome]. “This clay pill from 1800-1600 BC exhibits that historic Babylonians had been capable of approximate the sq. root of two with 99.9999% precision. How did they do it?” • For math experts!

Completely happy New Yr!

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Contact info for vegetation: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a examine in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photographs of vegetation. Greens are positive! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary vegetation! In order for you your deal with to seem as a credit score, please place it firstly of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From Tom:

Tom writes: “On our stroll with the canine as we speak at Middlesex Fells Reservation in Massachusetts we discovered this one tree that, remarkably, sill has leaves on it. It’s late December and after the heavy wind and rain final week so it’s fairly a shock to seek out any leaves on timber. So this actually stood out and seemed ghostly. No matter commenter can inform me about it will be welcome.”

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