2:00PM Water Cooler 7/10/2022 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Affected person readers, ProtonMail broke down at a crucial level in my course of. Extra quickly! –lambert

Chook Tune of the Day

Rock Wren (Northern), Oaxaca, Mexico. Final week I acquired sidetracked into the Wren-Babblers. Here’s a Wren correct.

Politics

Lambert right here: One reader advised altering these quotes; I don’t suppose it’s a nasty thought, however I want to consider it. I don’t wish to be too doomy — we aren’t in need of stock in that division — however I don’t wish to go all chipped and Pollyanna-esque, both.

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

“They’d discovered nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

“When the going will get bizarre, the bizarre flip professional.” –Hunter Thompson

Capitol Seizure

“Understanding How The January 6 Riot Unfolded” [The Onion]. • Useful map.

2022

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Democrats en Déshabillé

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Get together (“the Democrat Get together 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 “reside” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It seems that defining the Democrat Get together is, in reality, a tough drawback. I do suppose the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

The Democrat Get together is the political expression of the category energy of PMC, their base (lucidly defined by Thomas Frank in Pay attention, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Get together didn’t exist, the PMC must invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” after all.) Second, all of the working elements of the Get together reinforce one another. Go away apart characterizing the relationships between components of the Get together (ka-ching, however not solely) 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 group.

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

* * *

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome”:

New Yorker, NYRB & many magazines have been affected by “Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome”

“The shortcoming on the a part of the liberal institution to simply accept, clarify or reply to social change ” –
–@BungaCast on #NOBS https://t.co/wGgbz3iKG8 pic.twitter.com/fAFGhhB6rG

— Albert Pinto (@70sBachchan) July 26, 2021

NOBS as much as 11?

#COVID19

“Whose breath are you respiration?” [RNZ]. A must-read. Testing the CO2 on a bus experience: “Though excessive ranges of carbon dioxide may be harmful, there was one thing I used to be extra nervous about. CO2 ranges can be utilized as an indicator of the chance of catching Covid-19; we breathe in air and launch CO2 after we exhale. Covid-19 is unfold through aerosol particles breathed, coughed or sneezed out by contaminated individuals. These can drift a number of metres and linger within the air for hours. The upper the CO2 readings, the extra virus particles are probably within the air…. . I texted a good friend: ‘OMG, the readings are so excessive I could as effectively let the opposite passengers lick my face!’… ‘You’ll be able to consider it as spit particles, tiny spit particles are what you’re inhaling,’ says College of Auckland aerosol chemist Dr Joel Rindelaub. ‘It’s breath backwash that will get individuals contaminated.’ He doesn’t endorse passenger face-licking, however when CO2 contained in the bus is 5737ppm he jokes, ‘it most likely wouldn’t even damage, proper?’ The extent of CO2 open air is about 420ppm. Rindelaub says a great indoor studying can be something under 800ppm. That is additionally the extent advised by the USA Facilities for Illness Management for indoor areas as a benchmark for good air flow. When readings get above 1000ppm there may very well be a excessive threat of Covid-19 transmission if somebody within the house is contaminated. ‘For those who’re above 2000, then that’s an enormous purple flag.’” • Now that’s a private threat evaluation. I actually suppose that if CO2 measurement have been happening on a mass foundation, we may get some leverage over airborne ailments like Covid. Maybe we may kind a political occasion: The Air Breathers’ Get together. As a result of as this text makes vividly clear, respiration is a social relation.

• A evaluation of the Aranet4:

Containing this good suggestion:

OTOH, since China has not already achieved this, maybe it isn’t really easy.

“BA.5, Chapter 2” [Eric Topol, Ground Truth]. A should learn: “That will get me to the lede within the Washington Publish’s BA.5 report immediately: “‘America has determined the pandemic is over. The coronavirus has different concepts.’ … There’s clearly extra room for the virus to evolve, get more healthy, acquire benefits as an immune escape artist and extra effectively infect cells. But we’re watching its accelerated evolution akin to the conduct of a Components One race automotive lapping across the observe with people within the stands. At finest, there won’t be a BA-5 particular booster till November or December and that represents , understanding full effectively that BA.5 won’t be the dominant circulating virus in 5 to six months. We have to get forward of the virus, cease performing as bystanders with ‘hope and prayers’ that it’s going to not worsen than what we’re coping with now. No, BA.5 has taught us as soon as once more, the virus doesn’t simply get milder and fade away. Whereas the virus revs up its mutations below choice stress, we’ve satirically change into immutable, extra proof against taking an aggressive stance with second-generation and nasal vaccines which can be clearly in our attain.” • “America” may effectively have “determined” in another way if elites hadn’t selected a Vax-only stance (plus therapy) after which run an enormous propadanda marketing campaign in favor of culling the herd, and denigrating non-pharmaceutical interventions at each flip. Maybe when the elites found they have been all infecting one another at their superspreading occasions they determined to alter course. A bit late. Ah effectively, nonetheless.

• It’s simple arithmetic:

In the meantime, if they’ll handle to withstand our thirst to contaminate them, China can have a labor pressure — certainly, a whole inhabitants — more healthy, and extra mentally agile, than our personal. One thing to ponder, natsec goons.

• However not easy sufficient:

• Ah, reminiscences:

That is the South China Morning Publish story that tipped me off to aerosol transmissionl, however was subsequently disappeared.

For those who missed it, right here’s a put up on my queasiness with CDC numbers, particularly case rely, which I (nonetheless) think about most vital, regardless of what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “group ranges” suppose. However these are the numbers we’ve.

• ”COVID Information Tracker” [CDC]. “Starting July 4, 2022, COVID Information Tracker will discontinue each day knowledge refreshes 7 days per week, and can as an alternative refresh knowledge Monday by means of Friday.” • Psychos. Sure, I solely work Monday by means of Friday, however I’m not the world’s premier public well being company, both. To be truthful, why on earth would anyone need present knowledge when planning their weekend journey?

Case Rely

Case rely for the USA:

Slight rise. There was a bizarre, plateau-like “fiddling and diddling” stage earlier than the Omicron explosion, too. This conjuncture feels the identical. Below the hood the BA.4/BA.5 are making up a better and better proportion of circumstances. Do not forget that circumstances are undercounted, one supply saying by an element of six, Gottlieb considering we solely decide up one in seven or eight.) Therefore, I take the case rely and multiply it by six to approximate the true degree of circumstances, and draw the DNC-blue “Biden Line” at that time. The earlier rely was ~102,300. At present, it’s ~107,200, and 107,200 * 6 = a Biden line at 643,200 per day. That’s relatively a variety of circumstances per day, when you consider it. A minimum of we’ve affirmation that the extraordinary mass of case anecdotes had a foundation in actuality. (Keep in mind these knowledge factors are weekly averages, so each day fluctuations are smoothed out.) The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, because it compares present ranges to previous crises.

Regional case rely for 4 weeks:

The South:

Florida and Texas are simply trolling us. What’s with this buying and selling leads, factor?

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s check positivity tracker:

7.1%. Hoo boy. Appears to be like like lots of people got here again from the Fourth of July barbecue hacking and wheezing. The Covid prepare all the time leaves on time! (I additionally marvel if there’s a Keynesian Magnificence Contest impact, right here; that’s, if individuals encounter a sympotomatic particular person, whether or not of their social circle or in regular exercise, they’re extra more likely to get a check, as a result of they imagine (appropriately) that it’s extra probably they are going to be contaminated. What we’re seeing right here is the steepest and largest acceleration of positivity on Walgreen’s chart.

Transmission

NOTE: I shall most actually not be utilizing the CDC’s new “Community Level” metric. Because CDC has combined a leading indicator (cases) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning sign of a surge, and a poor way to assess personal risk. In addition, Covid is a disease you don’t want to get. Even if you are not hospitalized, you can suffer from Long Covid, vascular issues, and neurological issues. For these reasons, case counts — known to be underestimated, due to home test kits — deserve to stand alone as a number to be tracked, no matter how much the political operatives in CDC leadership would like to obfuscate it. That the “green map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) is still up and being taken seriously verges on the criminal. Use the community transmission immediately below.

So, hospital an infection management — a division typically contaminated by droplet goons — ought to make use of group transmission (see under), and never you, when making your private threat evaluation? Actually?

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to group transmission. That is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you. For June 30 – July 6:

Establishment, i.e. it’s a not-over pandemic.

Lambert right here: Because of alert reader CR, who discovered the place CDC had interred the “Group Profile Report.” NOTE: The file title is “Group Profile Report 20220707 (1).pdf.” That’s how a filename appears when it’s uploaded twice, the second time typically by chance, so it does certainly appear like there was a kerfuffle of some sort yesterday after I went to my standard CDC hyperlink and found an abomination. (I’m not taking again “sociopathic, democidal shitheads,” although. An excessive amount of else speaks in its favor.)

NOT UPDATED Fast Riser knowledge, by county (CDC), July 7:

Good job. For the reason that report moved over to healthdata.gov, every part has gone swimmingly. Simply get the effing studies out on time. How arduous is that this?

NOT UPDATED Hospitalization knowledge, by state (CDC), July 7:

Very risky.

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how sluggish the variant knowledge is. I regarded for extra charts: California doesn’t to a BA.4/BA.5 breakdown. New York does however it, too, is on a molasses-like two-week cycle. Does no person within the public well being institution get a promotion for monitoring variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and all people will get the outcomes from them? Extra sources from readers welcome [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk].

NOT UPDATED Variant knowledge, nationwide (Walgreens), June 18:

NOT UPDATED Variant knowledge, nationwide (CDC), June 18:

CDC has restored the button that lets me flip their NowCast button off. Doubling conduct shifting alongside fairly briskly, however I might relatively calculate slash intuit the rise myself, and examine that to Walgreens, than use CDC’s mannequin, which might be damaged anyhow.

• ”New coronavirus mutant raises issues in India and past” [Associated Press]. “Scientists say the variant – referred to as BA.2.75 – could possibly unfold quickly and get round immunity from vaccines and former an infection. It’s unclear whether or not it may trigger extra severe illness than different omicron variants, together with the globally outstanding BA.5. ‘It’s nonetheless actually early on for us to attract too many conclusions,’ mentioned Matthew Binnicker, director of scientific virology on the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. ‘However it does appear like, particularly in India, the charges of transmission are exhibiting sort of that exponential enhance.’ Whether or not it would outcompete BA.5, he mentioned, is but to be decided. Nonetheless, the truth that it has already been detected in lots of elements of the world even with decrease ranges of viral surveillance ‘is an early indication it’s spreading,” mentioned Shishi Luo, head of infectious ailments for Helix, an organization that provides viral sequencing data to the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. The newest mutant has been noticed in a number of distant states in India, and seems to be spreading sooner than different variants there, mentioned Lipi Thukral, a scientist on the Council of Scientific and Industrial Analysis-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology in New Delhi. It’s additionally been detected in about 10 different international locations, together with Australia, Germany, the UK and Canada. Two circumstances have been not too long ago recognized on the West Coast of the U.S., and Helix recognized a 3rd U.S. case final week.” • Good data. So do I’ve Helix in charge for the miserably sluggish variant reporting? Or CDC? Or each?

Wastewater

Wastewater knowledge (CDC), Jun 19, 2022 – Jul 03, 2022:

A lot of orange, some purple. Not good. This chart works a bit like fast riser counties: “This metric exhibits whether or not SARS-CoV-2 ranges at a web site are presently increased or decrease than previous historic ranges on the identical web site. 0% means ranges are the bottom they’ve been on the web site; 100% means ranges are the very best they’ve been on the web site.” So, there’s a bunch of purple dots on the West Coast. That’s 100%, so meaning “ranges are the very best they’ve ever been.” Not damaged down by variant, CDC, good job.

Deaths

Dying fee (Our World in Information):

Complete: 1,045,792 1,044,557. I’ve added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line. It’s good that for deaths I’ve a pleasant, easy, each day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, in contrast to every part else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job.

Stats Watch

There are not any stats of curiosity immediately.

At present’s Worry & Greed Index: 28 Worry (earlier shut: 29 Worry) [CNN]. One week in the past: 24 (Excessive Worry). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jul 11 at 1:32 PM EDT.

Rapture Index: Closes down one on Wild Climate. “The dearth of exercise has downgraded this class” [Rapture Ready]. File Excessive, October 10, 2016: 189. Present: 188. (Do not forget that bringing on the Rapture is good.) I’ve been ready for the Rapture Index to hit the all time excessive once more. Now it has. UPDATE And now it retreats. Actually?!

Poetry Nook

Ezra Pound appears to have gotten one of many insights of MMT proper:

He was nonetheless a fascist, although, regardless of his fantastic ear and modifying abilities.

Zeitgeist Watch

“The Suburban Garden Will By no means Be the Similar” [Bloomberg]. “Owners from Las Vegas to Sydney are swapping actual grass for synthetic turf as local weather change eternally alters what a standard yard appears and smells like…. [Judy] Dunn opted to put in a man-made garden, a alternative being made by increasingly more residents of Southern Nevada—one of many many locations that’s getting drier because the planet warms. For some, it’s the cash-for-grass rebates being provided by native water businesses. For others, it’s the belief that the basic garden is more and more unsustainable in a time of megadrought. After which there are the residents coaxed into the shift by the water notices or fines…. The obvious environmental drawback with synthetic grass is it’s rooted within the greatest local weather nemesis of all: fossil gas. Artificial turf is constructed from a stew of petroleum-based parts, making it almost not possible to recycle. On the finish of a man-made garden’s helpful life, which is about 15 years, it would probably go to a landfill or be incinerated.” • Heaven forfend there must be rebates for xeriscaping! Anyhow, since I’m lengthy silly, and synthetic turf is the stupidest doable resolution for the suburban lawns, I’d go lengthy there, too. Little question Owners Associations are already excited about which shades of inexperienced are acceptable and which aren’t.

Guillotine Watch

“First time on a yacht? Keep away from these 7 novice errors” [CNBC]. “Whereas many of the journey trade struggled to get again on its toes, the yachting trade had a special drawback in the course of the pandemic: serving everybody desirous to constitution a ship…. ‘An enormous proportion of our enterprise is first-time charters,” mentioned [Crom Littlejohn, chief commercial officer of the yacht brokerage company Northrop & Johnson]. ‘They’ve had the ski holidays … they wish to strive one thing completely different.’” That’s good; nouveaux riche from the pandemic. Extra: ‘Onboard Monaco’s de Kern suggested vacationers to greet the crew initially of the journey. ‘Ask for his or her names, shake their fingers and present some respect for the captain on board,’ she mentioned.” • I agree. Treating the servants effectively pays for itself.

Class Warfare

“Even at $25 an Hour, Key Tampon Manufacturing facility Can’t Preserve Sufficient Employees” [Bloomberg]. That’s a rattling disgrace. But when they’ll’t fill slots at $25 an hour in Maine, yikes. “What’s taking place at P&G’s tampon plant is emblematic of the broader squeeze felt by employers throughout the nation, from eating places to grease drillers. With almost two open jobs per each unemployed employee, the elevated competitors has pushed up wages and added to inflation pressures, prompting Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to not too long ago dub the labor market ‘unsustainably sizzling.’ Labor pressure participation might by no means totally bounce again to its pre-pandemic power, one thing that might make filling positions an ongoing problem within the years forward.” • I’m undecided we’ve a idea of labor pressure participation fee (which was sluggish to get better throughout Obama’s years-long “restoration” too). Opiods (an issue Maine has?) Lengthy Covid? Working situations within the plant (closed, crowded, shut contact)? All people discovered to code? All people’s gone on OnlyFans? All people left the state for the brilliant lights of Beantown? I don’t have an terrible lot of sympathy for the Fed’s open lust to beat down employee bargaining energy, however I might additionally wish to know what’s taking place.

It may very well be worse:

Hmm. A proxy for silly cash?

Information of the Wired

“The Preposterous Logistics of the Loot Practice Battle (Sport of Thrones, S7E4)” [A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry]. From 2019, nonetheless germane: “Jaime is shifting this meals in wagons, which is totally essentially the most environment friendly floor transportation choice he has. Let’s assume every wagon holds round 1,400lbs of meals, pulled by two horses. We may make this extra environment friendly with completely different draft animals and larger wagons, however I’m attempting to maintain these figures pretty easy; furthermore if we have been doing that, we shouldn’t be assuming (as we’re) that the meals is all good, neat transportable and high-density grain, and we’d have to speak about loss and spoilage – let’s simply say that our pretty easy set of assumptions right here favors Jaime (as a result of they do). So Jaime wants to maneuver 9,400 tons of meals in two-horse, 1,400lbs wagons. Let’s begin performing some math. Assuming 1,400lbs per wagon, meaning we want 13,500 wagons, with 13,500 wagon drivers and 27,000 horses. That’s…a variety of wagons. Now the roads we see Jaime shifting down are limiting him to a single-file line of march along with his wagons. How a lot house does that take up? Properly, a wagon of this dimension is often round 10 toes lengthy, plus perhaps one other 8 toes for the horse, and we must always assume whereas shifting a couple of toes of clearance earlier than the following wagon, so let’s say 25ft of road-space per wagon – word that we’ve not but added the military to the highway. That is simply the wagons stuffed with only one month’s meals for King’s Touchdown. Now, Jaime’s wagons transfer single-file (partially due to the unhealthy roads), however let’s make issues even simpler on him, and double them up, so we match two wagons in every 25ft house, that means the wagon prepare – once more, no military but – covers 168,750ft or 31 miles.” • I like this very a lot as a result of it’s much like the type of evaluation that Andrei Martyanov does; he reminds us that there’s a scientific, or not less than an engineering, side to warfare. We’re coping with materiality, with issues that may be counted, measured, timed.

Many, many questions, with solutions:

Generational evaluation among the many dinosaurs:

As reader know, I strongly deprecate treating (fuzzy-bounded, advertising and marketing pushed) generations as entities with political company. (The place is the Boomer foyer on Okay Avenue? Does it actually make sense to throw a stooped-over, white-haired Walmart greeter into the identical bucket as Warren Buffet? And so forth.) That mentioned, there are experiences that individuals of 1 age cohort (we’ll name it) have, that others don’t. For instance, an old-codger like me can not think about going to a college with steel detectors on the door, or energetic shooter drills. (Little question, if I went to Phillips-Exeter, I nonetheless wouldn’t.) Equally, I can’t think about my (male) gradeschool classmates being drugged for hyperactivity. And on and on and. Equally, I used to be capable of enter after which exit the world of manufacturing unit work; I don’t suppose issues are so versatile immediately. I used to be additionally capable of enter a posh technical area just by studying it. Readers?

Contact data for crops: Readers, be happy to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a verify if you’re allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photographs of crops. Greens are high-quality! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! In order for you your deal with to look as a credit score, please place it initially of your mail in parentheses: (thus). In any other case, I’ll anonymize by utilizing your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) right here. From RH:

RH writes: “Skunk cabbages.”

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