2:00PM Water Cooler 7/18/2022 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

Patient readers, I had to finish up a post on gig workers, and so this is a short version of Water Cooler. But there’s too much happening for me not to post, so please come back in a couple hours for a more complete version. Meanwhile, talk amongst yourselves! –lambert UPDATE Finished!

Bird Song of the Day

Gray’s Lark, Naukluft Park, Namibia. “Calls before dawn with full moon.” I don’t know what that soft whirring noise is. Courtship display?

Politics

“But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?” –James Madison, Federalist 51

“They had learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.” –Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.” –Hunter Thompson

Capitol Seizure

Hmm:

Look who didn’t testify:

1. Kevin McCarthy = GOP Leader
2. Ginni Thomas = Wife of Clarence Thomas
3. Jim Jordan -GOP #2
4. Bill Barr -Witness only, no public hearings
5. Trump’s kids -Witnesses only, no public hearings
6. Not 1 Republican Senator

Every key Republican protected

— Don Winslow (@donwinslow) July 17, 2022

Biden Administration

“Top Harris aide to leave administration next month” [The Hill]. “Rohini Kosoglu, who serves as domestic policy adviser to the vice president, is set to leave the job in August. Kosoglu was one of the few staffers Harris brought with her from the Senate to her unsuccessful presidential campaign to the office of the vice president. ‘She knew her better than anyone on staff,’ said one source in Harris World…. She told [WaPo] .” • BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA! Kosoglu wants to spend more time with her family because she doesn’t believe Harris will ever be President.

2022

* * *

“The Cavernous Cash Gap in Senate Races” [Too Close to Call]. “[T]he striking element to the second quarter fundraising totals in marquee Senate races is the cavernous gap between Democrats and Republicans, even in second-tier contests like Ohio, where J.D. Vance still has to be slightly favored over Tim Ryan…. And yes, I take seriously the recent history of Democratic contenders — Cal Cunningham, Sara Gideon, Jaime Harrison — who blew the doors off fundraising walls only to wilt at the ballot box….. But put aside the Democratic hauls for a moment. With names like Oz, former N.F.L. star Herschel Walker, best-selling author Vance, Nevada legacy Adam Laxalt, Republicans should be seeing more money dropped into their own campaign kettles. These are not no name contenders. And these aren’t far-flung races in deep red states like Kentucky or South Carolina. They are the entire ballgame of the cycle. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada — these are the states that will likely be decided by tens of thousands of votes. If the GOP doesn’t recapture the Senate in a year they should, it’ll likely because one or more of these candidates fell just short. Money might not have made the difference, but it will surely be cited as evidence of their vanquishment. On the other hand, if these candidates succeed being outspent by tens of millions, they’ll have fortified a new campaign model.”

“Have you considered that the Democrats aren’t actually doomed?” [The Hill]. “[T]here is an emerging counternarrative that isn’t making its way into written and TV commentary and deserves consideration. Plus, who doesn’t like a little game of devil’s advocate?… The generic congressional ballot has been the centerpiece of the ‘Democrats are doomed’ narrative…. [T]here have been 11 independent polls of the generic congressional ballot since Roe v. Wade ended, and the Democrats have led overall. They now hold a 2.2-point advantage in the post-Roe polling world. And if the election were held today, Republicans would gain seven House seats — enough to regain control of the House but far from a red wave…. If the drop in [gas] prices continues, we are on track to be under $4 a gallon by the middle of August… If you look at crucial Senate races in states such as Georgia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, Democratic candidates are outperforming Biden by huge margins…. [Abortion] has jumped to the fourth-most important issue overall in FiveThirtyEight polling, and 19 percent rank it as their leading concern, up from 9 percent in early June…. Biden’s ratings may be terrible, but he still beats Trump in a head-to-head match-up, 44 percent to 41 percent.” • And then, of course, there’s Biden’s handling of Ukraine, not to mention the J6 — ugh, do I have to say that? — Committee.

PA: “Columbia University Medical Center Cuts Ties with Dr. Oz” [WebMD]. “Columbia University Medical Center has cut public ties with Mehmet Oz, MD, the celebrity doctor who goes by “Dr. Oz” and is now a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania… What’s more, the outgoing message on the office voicemail for the phone number in the listing is old. It advertises audience tickets to his former daytime TV show and tells callers about medical services that he stopped providing 4 years ago, the [Daily Beast] reported.” • Lol, classy!

PA: No:

Congrats on your first visit to the city

— Ryan (@ryrob97) July 15, 2022

The comments are withering.

PA: When you’ve gained Dante Atkins:

2/x he has taken one issue–the issue of Mehmet Oz’ residency–and crushed him with it across every possible communications channel. From flyovers to trolling with Snooki, to more traditional communications, he has taken one particular point and hammered it.

— 🕷Dante Atkins🕷 (@DanteAtkins) July 17, 2022

PA: “A Running List of John Fetterman’s Very Best Burns of Dr. Oz” [Jezebel]. • I’m very happy this is how the chattering classes are occupying their minds (and I’m sure they all have very few Pennsylvania voters as readers). But at some point, Fetterman needs to hit the trail. Doesn’t he?

Democrats en Déshabillé

I have moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Party (“the Democrat Party is a rotting corpse that can’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing the addition here in a “live” Water Cooler. (Hopefully, some Bourdieu.) It turns out that defining the Democrat Party is, in fact, a hard problem. I do think the paragraph that follows is on point all the way back to 2016, if not before:

The Democrat Party is the political expression of the class power of PMC, their base (lucidly explained by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!). ; if the Democrat Party did not exist, the PMC would have to invent it. . (“PMC” modulo “class expatriates,” of course.) Second, all the working parts of the Party reinforce each other. Leave aside characterizing the relationships between elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not entirely) those elements comprise a network — a Flex Net? An iron octagon? — of funders, vendors, apparatchiks, electeds, NGOs, and miscellaneous mercenaries, with assets in the press and the intelligence community.

Note, of course, that the class power of the PMC both expresses and is limited by other classes; oligarchs and American gentry (see ‘industrial model’ of Ferguson, Jorgensen, and Jie) and the working class spring to mind. Suck up, kick down.

* * *

“Democrats’ Problems Go Beyond Joe Manchin” [Ross Barkan, The Atlantic]. “[Manchin’s] clout, however, is a greater reminder of Democratic failure. It didn’t have to be this way. The 50-50 Senate could have been a 51-49 Democratic Senate or even 52-48. In the last two election cycles, Democrats lost winnable races with flawed candidates or struggled, in the case of Bill Nelson of Florida, to defend an incumbent in a blue-wave year. Manchin agita is better reserved for the disastrous campaign of Sara Gideon, the Maine Democrat who spent more than $63 million to lose to Susan Collins and still had almost $15 million left in her account after the election. Gideon’s 2020 loss was galling because Joe Biden ran strongly in Maine, beating Trump 53 to 44 percent. Collins, a moderate Republican, was one of the few candidates anywhere to manage an effective ticket-splitting bid, winning over many Biden voters. Gideon’s uninspiring and overtly nationalized campaign was an ill fit for Maine, emblematic of all the ways Democrats in D.C. have failed to connect in rural America. Beyond Maine, Democrats’ missed opportunities in Florida and North Carolina will probably haunt them for years to come. While Florida has become, since 2020, a foreboding state for left-of-center candidates, 2018 was a rare opportunity for Democrats to at least defend their gains. As Republican Ron DeSantis very narrowly defeated Andrew Gillum, Florida senator Bill Nelson fell to Governor Rick Scott, a GOP arch-conservative. Nelson lost by just 10,033 votes, an absurdly close margin…. Unlike Maine, North Carolina was not a Biden state in 2020: Trump won it by just a single percentage point. A strong Democratic contender, however, could have run ahead of the presidential ticket and won a slim victory. Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, accomplished this twice. But the national Democrats’ choice of Cal Cunningham, a moderate former state senator, to take on Republican Thom Tillis would backfire when news of an extramarital affair broke shortly before Election Day. The affair, though, did not doom Tillis alone. The Cunningham campaign was a milquetoast, insipid endeavor, offering little in the way of a compelling policy or vision. Had Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee been more encouraging to a young, energetic state senator named Jeff Jackson, it’s possible Democrats would be holding the seat today. None of this should spare Manchin criticism. Rather, it’s a reminder for activists and ordinary Democratic voters that one senator from West Virginia does not encompass all that is wrong with the party.” • Brutal.

“The Democrats’ Failure Is Complete” [Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine]. “Democrats needed to rise to the challenge of proving they had the capacity to use their limited powers in creative and productive ways. It is almost impossible to imagine now they will be able to say they succeeded.” • To be fair, antitrust. Not a vote-getter, apparently.

The new Black Misleadership Class:

The Black cop is the perfect vehicle.

The all go hat in hand around the country collecting money from oligarchs.

Then they go home and, under the cover of their Blackness, have cops beat the shit out of dissidents so that urban cores are playgrounds for the rich.

— Dr. Thrasher (@thrasherxy) July 16, 2022

More ice cream:

The Pelosi’s have accumulated 20,000 shares of $NVDA worth $8M+

All while a $52B CHIPS act has been stalled in Congress.

Yesterday Pelosi states, “We are determined that we will pass a bill” before congress heads to August recess.$NVDA stock jumps 4% on the news.

— Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker (@PelosiTracker_) July 15, 2022

Ouch:

Hate has no home here. But narcissistic frenzy leading to pseudo-political hysteria does.

— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) July 18, 2022

Realignment and Legitimacy

“Inflation and Political Instability Open Door to Unrest in U.S. and Around World” [Teen Vogue]. “It makes sense that after a surge in popular movements including the George Floyd rebellions, Occupy Wall Street, the Standing Rock protests, and a fight against fascism, we are experiencing a powerful backlash from those trying to cling to power. The hope lies in us. The hope is that we continue to maintain a culture of resistance. And that through direct actions and organizing we continue to develop that resistance to deal with the troubling times that lie before us. If we need encouragement we need only look at what’s happening in other countries around the world.” • Iskra this is not. But also, Tiger Beat this is not!

Sans culottes in DC?

Actively pursuing a state of non-bafflement:

Baffled by liberals who argue

1) Russia’s military is on the verge of catastrophic defeat, and
2) Russia’s military is going to march on all of Europe if we don’t escalate our intervention any further

— Carl Beijer (@CarlBeijer) July 17, 2022

The nice thing about contradictory premises is that you can reach any conclusion you want from them.

#COVID19

• ”Covid Nasal Vaccine’s Phase 3 Trials Completed, Says Bharat Biotech Chief” [NDTV]. “Dr Krishna Ella, Chairman and Managing Director of Bharat Biotech on Saturday said that the clinical phase III trials of the COVID-19 nasal vaccine have been completed and the company will submit its data with Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) next month. In an exclusive interview with ANI, Dr Ella said, ‘We just completed a clinical trial, a data analysis is going on. Next month, we will submit the data to the regulatory agency. If everything is okay, then we will get permission to launch and it will be the world’s first clinically proven nasal COVID-19 vaccine.’” • Well, let’s move this along, please.

• Maskstravaganza: Another natural experiment in schools, this one at scale in Alberta:

New sh*t has come to light:

• Maskstravaganza: Infecting one’s passengers is a novel business strategy, but leave it to the airlines to come up with it:

• Maskstravaganza: More airplane fun:

Ewwwww! (Seriously, though, I’d like to see more and more Aranet4 usage, made highly visible; it’s the sort of thing the Air Breathers Party would recommend, no? Also, as an example of industrial design, the Aranet4 is endearingly clunky; I like the visible circuit board on the front. I think this makes it less threatening, less, if you will, judge-y.)

• More metering fun:

A hopeful sign. Any sightings in the wild from readers?

• The people who keep saying “we have the tools” never center the tools that prevent airborne transmission:

• This sorry state of affairs persists across the board:

Covid is not the only disease where “Vax only” applies:

• Remember when life was going to be simple, and we wouldn’t be seeing gibberish like BA.5 and BA.2.7.5 on our timelines? Well, people are taking matters into their own hands:

(Actually, I don’t mind the gibberish too much; the variant names remind me idol group names like 2NE1 or AKB48 (BNK48 (JKT48 (SNH48))). Or Chanel No. 5, I suppose.

If you missed it, here’s a post on my queasiness with CDC numbers, especially case count, which I (still) consider most important, despite what Walensky’s psychos at CDC who invented “community levels” think. But these are the numbers we have.

Case Count

Case count for the United States:

The train is still rolling. There was a weird, plateau-like “fiddling and diddling” stage before the Omicron explosion, too. This conjuncture feels the same. Under the hood the BA.4/BA.5 are making up a greater and greater proportion of cases. Remember that cases are undercounted, one source saying by a factor of six, Gottlieb thinking we only pick up one in seven or eight.) Hence, I take the case count and multiply it by six to approximate the real level of cases, and draw the DNC-blue “Biden Line” at that point. The previous count was ~125,200. Today, it’s ~135,400 and 135,400 * 6 = a Biden line at 812,400 per day. That’s rather a lot of cases per day, when you think about it. At least we have confirmation that the extraordinary mass of case anecdotes we’ve seen have a basis in reality. (Remember these data points are weekly averages, so daily fluctuations are smoothed out.) The black “Fauci Line” is a counter to triumphalism, since it compares current levels to past crises.

Regional case count for four weeks:

Now the South and West.

The South:

Florida and Texas, now neck and neck.

The West:

Whoa, Gavin!

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s test positivity tracker:

0.4%. Down! (I wonder if there’s a Keynesian Beauty Contest effect, here; that is, if people encounter a sympotomatic person, whether in their social circle or in normal activity, they are more likely to get a test, because they believe, correctly, that it’s more likely they will be infected.) What we are seeing here is the steepest and largest acceleration of positivity on Walgreen’s chart.

Transmission

NOTE: I shall most certainly not be using 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.

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

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

Lambert here: After the move from the CDC to the laughingly named ‘https://healthdata.gov,” this notice appeared: “Effective June 22, 2022, the Community Profile Report will only be updated twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays.” So now the administration has belatedly come to the realization that we’re in a BA.5 surge, and yet essential data for making our personal risk assessment is only available twice a week. What’s the over/under on whether they actually deliver tomorrow?

NOT UPDATED Rapid Riser data, by county (CDC), July 14:

Texas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama, Illinois all worse. California better, oddlly. I don’t like those little pink speckles in New York, because the Northeast has been quiet for some time (note slight rise in case data). What’s that all about

Previous Rapid Riser data:

NOT UPDATED Hospitalization data, by state (CDC), July 14:

Very volatile. Haven’t seen so little green (good) in quite some time.

Variants

Lambert here: It’s beyond frustrating how slow the variant data is. I looked for more charts: California doesn’t to a BA.4/BA.5 breakdown. New York does but it, too, is on a molasses-like two-week cycle. Does nobody in the public health establishment get a promotion for tracking variants? Are there no grants? Is there a single lab that does this work, and everybody gets the results from them? Additional sources from readers welcome [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk].

NOT UPDATED Variant data, national (Walgreens), June 30:

NOT UPDATED Variant data, national (CDC), June 25:

BA.5 moving along nicely.

Wastewater

Wastewater data (CDC), Jun 28, 2022 – Jul 12, 2022:

Lots of orange, more red. Not good. This chart works a bit like rapid riser counties: “This metric shows whether SARS-CoV-2 levels at a site are currently higher or lower than past historical levels at the same site. 0% means levels are the lowest they have been at the site; 100% means levels are the highest they have been at the site.” So, there’s a bunch of red dots on the West Coast. That’s 100%, so that means “levels are the highest they’ve ever been.” Not broken down by variant, CDC, good job.

Lambert here: This page was loading so slowly that I began to wonder if this is how CDC had chosen to sabotage wastewater efforts. However, after some experimentation, I find I must turn off my VPN to get this page to load. Good job, CDC.

Deaths

Death rate (Our World in Data):

Total: 1,048,843 1,048,232. I have added an anti-triumphalist Fauci Line. It’s nice that for deaths I have a nice, simple, daily chart that just keeps chugging along, unlike everything else CDC and the White House are screwing up or letting go dark, good job.

Stats Watch

There are no official statistics of interest today.

Commodities: “‘Dr Copper’ has a worrying message about the energy transition” [Financial Times]. “[Copper] is also nicknamed ‘Dr Copper’. Owing to its widespread use and its sensitivity to business cycles, its price has an uncanny ability to provide early warning of what’s ahead for the economy. The current fall in the price of copper is seen as a portent of slowdown or outright recession. But Dr Copper is now taking on a new role as the critical metal for net zero emissions. This “energy transition demand” adds to the traditional demand for the metal in construction, kitchen appliances, computers and the innards of your mobile phone. Many carmakers are pledging that all their new vehicles will be electric by the 2030s. The Biden administration in the US is targeting emissions-free electric generation by 2035, while the EU’s RePowerEU strategy pledges an accelerated switch to renewable power. The key point is that the technologies central to the energy transition — such as EVs, charging infrastructure, solar photovoltaics, wind turbines and batteries — all require much more copper than their conventional hydrocarbon-based counterparts. For instance, a battery-powered electric car requires at least two and a half times more copper than a conventional car; a medium-sized truck four times as much.”

The Bezzle: “Analysis: Clients of crypto lender Celsius face long wait over fate of their funds” [Reuters]. “Customers of crypto lender Celsius face a long and anxious wait to know how, when and even if they will get their money back after the company filed for bankruptcy, becoming one of the biggest victims of the collapse in crypto markets this year….. While major crypto firms have failed before, most notably the Japanese exchange Mt. Gox in 2014, there is little precedent for the treatment of customers at stricken crypto lenders, the lawyers said. ‘It is, at best, unknown how the bankruptcy code and bankruptcy courts will be treating cryptocurrency companies,’ said James Van Horn, partner at Barnes & Thornburg in Washington… While it is not clear how Celsius will classify its clients, it did warn customers it may treat them as unsecured creditors – and customers are likely to litigate over such a status, said Max Dilendorf, a lawyer in New York specialising in crypto.” • It has gone where the woodbine twineth….

The Bezzle: “Crypto collapse reverberates widely among black American investors” [FInancial Times]. “A quarter of black American investors owned cryptocurrencies at the start of the year, compared with only 15 per cent of white investors, according to a survey by Ariel Investments and Charles Schwab. Black Americans were more than twice as likely to purchase cryptocurrency as their first investment… Black Americans’ higher exposure to cryptocurrencies has left them more vulnerable to the financial downturn, even as their households on average hold less wealth….. The promise of cryptocurrencies as a wealth builder has been supercharged by celebrity endorsements, sponsorships and advertising. Prominent black Americans including the musicians Jay-Z and Snoop Dogg, the boxer Floyd Mayweather, the actor Jamie Foxx and the film-maker Spike Lee have promoted crypto to their communities.”

Tech: “Report: Apple and Jony Ive will no longer work together” [Ars Technica]. “In 2019, Ive departed the company to found an independent design firm, called LoveFrom, and Apple CEO Tim Cook announced his intention to work with Ive “long into the future” in a deal that was worth more than $100 million…. Now, ‘two people with knowledge of their contractual agreement” have told The New York Times that the design firm and Apple will no longer be working together.’” • Good. The new MacBook Pro, which is a solid, not to say chonky machine to which — hallelujah! — the MagSafe connector has returned, shows that Ives’ “thin at all costs” aesthetic was destructive of the hardware requirements that productive professionals have. His departure was, if anything, overdue.

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 28 Fear (previous close: 26 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 27 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Jul 18 at 3:39 PM EDT.

Rapture Index: Closes down one on Oil Supply/Price. “Oil has dropped below $100 per barrel” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 187. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) I’ve been waiting for the Rapture Index to hit the all time high again. Now it has. UPDATE And now it retreats again. Really?!

Gardening

Butterfly counts:

In general, I think we should be counting more natural things (and fewer things in spreadsheets). Butterflies, CO2…

The Conservatory

Reel-to-reel scratching (!):

Zeitgeist Watch

“Three easy ways to find hidden cameras in hotels and rental homes” [CNBC]. “Nearly 60% of Americans said they were worried about hidden cameras in Airbnb homes in 2019. And 11% of vacation home renters said they had discovered a hidden camera during a stay, according to a survey by the real estate investment company IPX1031.” Many helpful hints for spotting the things, including: “Almost all covert cameras are concealed in household devices, such as lights, thermostats, and plugged clock radios, [Kenneth Bombace, CEO of intelligence firm Global Threat Solutions] said…. He said the first thing he does in a bedroom is unplug the clock radios and put them in a drawer.” • Who did this?

Class Warfare

“Boeing ‘disappointed’ union recommending rejection of contract offer” [Reuters]. • That’s a damn shame.

News of the Wired

“CP/M’s open-source status clarified after 21 years’ [The Register]. “CP/M first appeared in 1974, only one year after the first version of UNIX written in C. The difference is that even then, UNIX was rather complex, whereas CP/M is tiny…. Due to its tiny size and extreme simplicity, these days it’s fairly straightforward to hand-build your own Z80 computer from parts – on a breadboard, or from a kit, of which the RC2014 is a popular example. The RC2014 can run several ROMs and OSes, including RomWBW, which allows you to boot a choice of CP/M relatives: CP/M 2.2, ZSDOS 1.1, NZCOM, CP/M 3, and ZPM3, among others.” • Jackpot-ready!

Dad.

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From TH:

TH writes: “Another lovely Roger’s Gardens specimen: A cheery Chinese Lantern (Alkekengi officinarum).”

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