2:00PM Water Cooler 1/31/2023 | bare capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Affected person readers, I’m a quick man with an in-tray, however not quick sufficient. I really want to clear my backlog, and so I’ll have extra shortly. Please return. –lambert UPDATE All accomplished!

Chicken Tune of the Day

Masked Finch (Masked), Muirhead bushland, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia. “Smooth, muted contact calls of small occasion feeding on the bottom.”

Politics

“However what’s authorities itself, however the biggest 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 lots of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in reality a rational administration of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

Biden Administration

What does this even imply?

My phrase as a Biden: I’ve by no means been extra optimistic about America’s future than I’m at this time.

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 29, 2023

Go away apart that Joe Biden owes me 600 bucks. What sense does it make to swear an oath that you just really feel one thing? One for the philosophers!

“White Home blasts McCarthy for feedback on strengthening Social Safety, Medicare” [The Hill]. “McCarthy mentioned in an interview on CBS’s ‘Face the Nation’ earlier Sunday that he needs to take cuts to Medicare and Social Safety off the desk in talks with Democrats over the debt ceiling, although Republicans do need commitments on spending cuts usually. As a substitute, McCarthy mentioned Republicans had been dedicated to strengthening the applications. The strengthening of entitlement applications specified by the Republicans’ ‘Dedication to America’ is imprecise. One of many legislative suggestions made within the plan is that Congress should ‘should be ready to make reforms to increase the solvency of the entitlement applications.’ The White Home rebuked the Speaker’s declare, saying on Sunday that Republicans have needed to chop earned advantages for years.” • Dudes, come on. Obama needed a Grand Cut price. Unsurprisingly, no good religion on both aspect right here. Even so, the framing of the headline reveals the Republicans are getting some a little bit traction.

“Biden, McCarthy to debate debt restrict in talks on Wednesday” [Associated Press]. “Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy mentioned Sunday he’s wanting ahead to discussing with President Joe Biden a ‘affordable and accountable method that we are able to raise the debt ceiling’ when the 2 meet Wednesday for his or her first sit-down on the White Home since McCarthy was elected to the submit. McCarthy, R-Calif., mentioned he needs to deal with spending cuts together with elevating the debt restrict, although the White Home has dominated out linking these two points collectively as the federal government tries to keep away from a doubtlessly devastating monetary default. The speaker pledged that cuts to Social Safety and Medicare can be off the desk. ‘I do know the president mentioned he didn’t need to have any dialogue (on cuts), however I feel it’s essential that our complete authorities is designed to seek out compromise,’ McCarthy informed CBS’ ‘Face the Nation.’ ‘I need to sit down collectively, work out an settlement that we are able to transfer ahead to place us on a path to steadiness — and on the identical time not put any of our debt in jeopardy on the identical time.’ Requested whether or not he would make a assure, McCarthy mentioned, ‘There won’t be a default,’ although he recommended that declaration trusted the willingness of Biden and Democrats to barter.” • Unsure what the Freedom Caucus will consider this….

2024

“Hunter Biden transformed Delaware home with categorized paperwork into house workplace” [New York Post]. “Hunter Biden apparently turned his father’s Wilmington, Del. mansion right into a high-powered and probably compromised house workplace, wheeling and coping with among the identical nations whose names have turned up in categorized paperwork not too long ago found on the house, in keeping with consultants and leaked cellphone texts. Hunter Biden listed the idyllic Wilmington house as his handle following his 2017 divorce from ex-wife Kathleen Buhle — even claiming he owned the three-bed, four-and-a-half-bath lakefront property on a July 2018 background test type as a part of a rental utility. The house can be listed as his billing handle for a private bank card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019. At least 12 categorized paperwork — some relationship again to President Biden’s profession within the Senate — had been discovered on its premises in current weeks. A number of the categorized materials discovered on the house, in addition to the roughly 10 gadgets of categorized pages discovered on the Penn Biden Heart, associated to nations Hunter Biden had intensive enterprise entanglements in — akin to Ukraine.” • Oh, Hunter, you loveable scamp!

“Entrance web page of WaPo bashing VP Harris. Sen. Warren, et tu? Sufficient already” [Daily Kos]. Sorry. I needed to. “However this [WaPo] article full of quotes from ‘nameless Democrats’ simply infuriates me. I’m so pissed off in any respect the subtly-implied racism and sexism (a few of it isn’t delicate in any respect) I may spit nails…” • Little question. 2024 can be nice!

“Kamala Harris anonymously hit by Democrats questioning her ‘fundamental political expertise’” [FOX]. Learn the article should you can’t get previous WaPo’s paywall. It concludes: “A report from Politico on Jan. 17 recommended that Harris’ workforce believes, “After spending a lot of her time in workplace managing dangerous headlines, employees turnover and protracted questions on her portfolio and place in Biden world, the vice chairman is in a better place.” • Oh. Perhaps Obama put out the phrase? It’s laborious for me to consider Harris has Obama’s backing, however… This video. Wowsers:

• Eye contact:

I ran for president to construct an financial system for middle-class households. And a giant a part of that’s working to carry down on a regular basis prices – from drugs to gasoline. pic.twitter.com/KnMe3uvBhb

— President Biden (@POTUS) January 29, 2023

The inheritor obvious, “wanting up” to Biden?

* * *

“Donald Trump kicks off his 2024 White Home bid – and says he’s ‘extra dedicated than ever’” [Sky News]. “Former US president Donald Trump has kicked off his 2024 White Home bid with stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina, whereas brushing apart criticism that his marketing campaign was off to a gradual begin. Talking to occasion leaders on the New Hampshire Republicans’ annual assembly in Salem, the previous president insisted he was motivated to win as he launched into his third White Home bid which he introduced in November. ‘We’re beginning proper right here as a candidate for president,’ he introduced. ‘I’m extra offended now, and I’m extra dedicated now, than I ever was.’ In distinction to the raucous rallies in entrance of hundreds of devotees that Mr Trump usually holds, Saturday’s occasions had been notably muted. In Columbia, South Carolina, Mr Trump spoke to about 200 folks within the state’s capitol constructing, with Governor Henry McMaster and Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina flanking him.” • As I preserve saying, Trump is neither silly nor insane. if that is how he’s doing it, there’s a motive.

“Trump says he would resolve Ukraine warfare in 24 hours if he had been president” [MSN]. • That bastid retains asking for my vote. Any person ought to cease him.

Republican Funhouse

“Newsday ballot: 78% of third District residents say George Santos ought to resign” [Newsday]. “By a 6-1 ratio, voters in Rep. George Santos’ congressional district need him to resign since his lies about his schooling, household historical past and work profile have been revealed, in keeping with a brand new Newsday/Siena Faculty ballot. By a virtually 5-1 ratio, constituents say the Republican congressman can’t be an efficient consultant. Two of each three individuals who voted for him say they wouldn’t have in the event that they knew then what they know now. Additional, in a district the place distinguished Republicans get good rankings and distinguished Democrats don’t, an astounding 83% of his constituents view Santos unfavorably in contrast with 7% favorably.” • If it comes from the District, versus the frothing and stamping of Democrat operatives, effective.

“George Santos Recuses Himself from Committee Assignments” [National Assignments]. “Consultant George Santos (R., N.Y.) informed the GOP convention on Tuesday that he’ll step down from his committee assignments after he was caught mendacity about his resume and background….. Santos, who was given seats on the Science, Area and Expertise Committee and the Home Small Enterprise Committee, has repeatedly rebuffed calls to resign from Congress altogether.”

Democrats en Déshabillé

Affected person readers, evidently individuals are really studying the back-dated submit! However I’ve not up to date it, and there are various updates. So I should try this. –lambert

I’ve moved my standing remarks on the Democrat Occasion (“the Democrat Occasion is a rotting corpse that may’t bury itself”) to a separate, back-dated post, 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 Occasion is, in reality, a tough downside. I do assume the paragraph that follows is on level all the way in which again to 2016, if not earlier than:

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

Notice, 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.

* * *

I’ve been considering loads about this passage from Kim Stanley Robinson’s New York, 2140. Charlotte, one of many protagonists, has simply been requested to run for Congress:

“No method!” Charlotte mentioned, shocked. “What concerning the mayor’s candidate?”

[The Democrat] Occasion was a hierarchy; you began on the backside and moved up one step at a time—faculty board, metropolis council, state meeting—after which should you had demonstrated lockstep workforce loyalty, the powers on the prime would provide the occasion endorsement and its help, and also you had been good to go. Had been that method for hundreds of years. Outsiders did pop as much as categorical numerous dissatisfactions, and sometimes a few of them even overthrew the order of issues and acquired elected, however then they had been ostracized by the occasion and will get nothing accomplished. They only wasted their time and no matter little cash might be dredged as much as help such quixotic tilts.

Some would possibly say “gerontacracy,” however that follows from the hierarchy; it takes time to climb the greasy pole. KSR’s image strikes me was broadly correct (sadly). Puzzle items that match proper in: How Hakeem Jeffries turned Speaker roughly by acclamation Pelosi retired; whether or not Obama’s was the hand that held the dagger on the Biden paperwork flap (sure); how The Squad went so rotten so quick (now, no moralizing!); and naturally the destiny of the Sanders insurgency, which disappeared like a spring snow, together with the Sanders many people thought we knew. For instance:

Bernie Sanders’ prime overseas coverage man, everybody pic.twitter.com/8IRqrWanXC

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 30, 2023

Duss’s household — and I do know it will shock you — is Ukrainian. Identical to Nuland, Blinken, and soon-to-be NATO General Secretary Freeland!

KSR wrote New York, 2140, i.e., the 12 months the PMC, defeated by Trump, got here to class consciousness and declared a state of exception for each precept of governance and private morality they could colorably have been mentioned to have beforehand possessed. So I feel his mannequin, basically a mannequin of seniority solely, would possibly have to be adjusted. Like epiphytes or hanging vines across the deeply rooted tree of electeds we’ve got Flexian spooks (CIA Democrats), occasional wealthy marks (that crypto efficient altruism dude who misplaced so badly), occasional straws to lose to the Republican however herald huge quantities of out-of-state cash from gullible “In This Home” varieties (Amy McGrath; Stacey Abrams). After which we’ve got the wealthy soil of the organs of state safety, from which the tree grows: Spooks, the press, NGOs. Notice additionally, from this vignette, that the one factor a political occasion does — one thing that no different establishment in the USA does, together with the State — is management the poll line. That’s a monopoly. Perhaps we must always get Stoller to take it away from them…

Oh, a membership card! Do I get a secret decoder ring, too?

If any readers can discover it inside themselves to amass one in all these playing cards, may you please mail me? (Tackle under above the plant). I’d be extraordinarily to know what the phrases and circumstances are — or if certainly there are any. Presumably, the Democrat legal professionals vetted this marketing campaign and are good sufficient to pre-empt any lawsuits — say, for any providers “the membership” did not ship to paid members — however you by no means know! I notice it’s possible you’ll get, effectively, extra mail should you try this, however that is likely to be an fascinating object of research as effectively. Oh, and this advert was clearly produced by a special store than the cray cray advert I ran yesterday. So we’re taking a look at some orchestration, right here.

Our Famously Free Press

Twitter preparing for Trump’s return?

This model of “context” appears higher than what Twitter did, pre-Elon. Now, if solely Twitter would get cheeky and label The New York Instances and WaPo “state media”!

RussiaGate

“The press versus the president, half one” [Jeff Gerth, Columbia Journalism Review] (and two, three, and four). This is a vital three half sequence (half two in Hyperlinks at this time)]. To be truthful, Jeff Gerth has a checkered profession, particularly should you’re a Clintonite. However, it seems to be to me like this a critical reporting effort (not like, say, one in all Woodward’s books, the place Woodward will get folks in his Rolodex to bloviate). Many sources refused to reply detailed lists of questions Gerth despatched them, which I take to be an excellent signal. I’m working my method via the entire vile mishegoss. Right here’s one gem from Half 4: “The Democrat-controlled Congress, nonetheless, thought it’d be capable to decide up these disparate items and style an impeachment case. They determined to push a reluctant Mueller to return testify himself, hoping he would possibly assist make their case. Mueller appeared in late July earlier than the Home Judiciary Committee. Schmidt was contemporaneously posting evaluation on the Instances web site about Mueller’s testimony. At simply previous eight within the morning, he signed in: ‘Can’t wait to listen to Mueller speak about Quantity II on obstruction.’ As Mueller started answering questions, Schmidt famous how he stored asking for them to be repeated. Then a couple of hours later, he posted this: ‘the Democrats say it was certainly obstruction and Mueller declines to again them up.’ Mueller’s ‘halting’ testimony, as famous by the Instances and plenty of different retailers, was doubtless the ultimate chapter in his prolonged public life. Woodward informed me the Mueller report was a ‘fizzle’ however reporters had been ‘by no means going to declare it’s going to finish up dry.’ The next morning, lower than eighteen hours after Mueller left the congressional listening to, a extra assured Trump had his telephone name with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky during which he requested him for assist in digging up grime on Joe and Hunter Biden. What Trump thought was a ‘good’ telephone chat turned out to be the impeachment car Democrats so desperately needed after Mueller’s far-from-perfect efficiency. A brand new media frenzy was about to start.” • Attaboy, Volodymyr!

Realignment and Legitimacy

“No person Is aware of This However” [Eschaton]. “One advantage of Trump (straining, right here) was that he made me notice simply how many individuals – together with a considerable variety of our elite commentators – are similar to Trump. Positive Trump has no filter, simply pure nonstop ID screaming it out all day daily, however that others have a barely higher filter doesn’t make them basically totally different. Lack of ability to simply accept fault or criticsm, perception that each thought is a profound one by no means earlier than imagined by anybody else, elementary incapacity to empathize with any particular person or scenario exterior their small expertise (which they consider to be expansive), the unwavering embrace of sure class and achivement markers (a few of Trump’s are sillier – wow Golden Globes Winner of 1983 – however not basically totally different), and so forth. Folks must be speaking about this increasingly more!!!” • I feel Atrios is true on the cash, right here. No marvel they hate him a lot! He’s similar to them!

Reversion to the civilizational imply?

Wars and plagues, the one two issues that actually change politics. Every little thing else is theatre, workforce sports activities. The twentieth century started with a world warfare, triggering a world pandemic. The mid-century interval was dominated by a second international warfare. /2

— Henry Madison 🦠x0 (@RageSheen) January 30, 2023

And:

Wars and plagues, the one two issues that actually change politics. Every little thing else is theatre, workforce sports activities. The twentieth century started with a world warfare, triggering a world pandemic. The mid-century interval was dominated by a second international warfare. /2

— Henry Madison 🦠x0 (@RageSheen) January 30, 2023

I hate this. I hate the very considered this. OTOH, the notion of “the general public” did paper over some contradictions that we now see are all too actual (similar to, on the NGO stage, “group” does). So, alternative? Anyhow, the entire thread is value a cautious learn.

#COVID19

Lambert right here: I’m however a humble tapewatcher, however not like Eric Topol, I’m not calling a surge, as a result of the final peak was Biden’s Omicron debacle, and after an Everest like that, what’s left? Topol’s view is the institution view: Hospital-centric. Mine is infection-centric. I don’t see the common acceleration or doubling in circumstances that I’d count on to see based mostly on previous surges.

I’m calling a “One thing Terrible.” It’s gonna be dangerous, in some new method, and we don’t understand how, but (however see right here for immune system dysregulation, which is wanting fairly terrible).

Lambert right here: Appears like “leveling off to a excessive plateau” throughout the board. Keep protected on the market!

• I hate tales like this and I preserve studying them:

• I really like these metaphors, and so they could persuade, however they’re all about options, not bugs:

Sure, that is precisely what it’s like. It’s as if our coverage — and maybe this is our coverage — is to have a excessive plateau of vehicle deaths and accidents for the forseeable future, as a result of that was essentially the most worthwhile course for individuals who gather income.

• “Cortical Gray matter quantity depletion hyperlinks to neurological sequelae in submit COVID-19 “lengthy haulers”” [BMC Neurology]. “It is a retrospective single heart research which analyzed 24 consecutive COVID-19 contaminated sufferers with long run neurologic signs. Every affected person underwent Mind MRI with 3D VBM at median time of 85 days following laboratory affirmation. All sufferers had comparatively gentle respiratory signs not requiring oxygen supplementation, hospitalization, or assisted air flow. 3D VBM was obtained for complete mind and forebrain parenchyma, cortical gray matter (CGM), hippocampus, and thalamus. The outcomes exhibit a statistically important depletion of CGM quantity in 24 COVID-19 contaminated sufferers. Lowered CGM quantity doubtless influences their long run neurological sequelae and will impair submit COVID-19 affected person’s high quality of life and productiveness.”

• “Two-Years Observe-Up of Signs and Return to Work in Advanced Submit-COVID-19 Sufferers” [Journal of Clinical Medicine]. n = 45. From the Summary: “Self-reported signs, emotions of enchancment and talent to return to work allowed us to find out the efficacy of the therapeutic technique proposed. Outcomes: Not like what was anticipated, many post-COVID-19 sufferers instantly contacted the coordination workforce and had important pre-existing comorbidities. Regardless of train, respiratory, olfactory rehabilitations, cognition/speech remedy and/or psychological help, the extra frequent self-reported signs (fatigue, neurocognitive problems, muscle tissue and joint ache) didn’t resolve. Nonetheless, dyspnea, nervousness and chest ache had been considerably lowered. Lastly, 2/3 of the sufferers felt a point of enchancment and returned to work both partially or absolutely, however 1/3 remained complaining of signs and out of labor as late as 22 months after COVID prevalence.” Mike the Mad Biologist comments: “It’s not good. Once more, you aren’t the weirdo should you’re attempting to keep away from (re)-infection).”

• “The important thing to reinvigorating an infection management? Getting again to fundamentals, says Mount Sinai’s Dr. Aaron Glatt” [Becker’s Hospital Review]. Each time I’ve encountered (hegemonic) an infection management/infectious illness folks on Covid, they’ve been preventing masking — in hospitals!! — and airborne transmission tooth and nail. (Sadly, IC/ID has quite a lot of clout; see CDC’s ridiculous and lethal blather recommending handwashing to forestall Covid — in 2023!! — of their newest steerage.) So possibly the important thing to “reinvigoration” can be a vigorous purge of all the reactionary mossbacks at the top of the field? (I don’t want to over-generalize, and maybe I conflate IC/ID, so these expert within the artwork could want to right me. However!)

Case Knowledge

BioBot wastewater data from January 30:

For now, I’m going to make use of this nationwide wastewater knowledge as one of the best proxy for case knowledge (ignoring the medical case knowledge portion of this chart, which for my part “goes dangerous” after March 2022, for causes as but unexplained). At the very least we are able to spot traits, and evaluate present ranges to equal previous ranges.

• “It’s been three years because the first Covid-19 case in the USA. What have we discovered and what extra do we have to perceive?” [CNN]. “It’s been three years because the first Covid-19 case was identified in the USA, on January 20, 2020. Within the time since, almost 1.1 million Individuals have died from the coronavirus; the US has reported 102 million Covid circumstances, greater than some other nation, in keeping with Johns Hopkins College. Each figures, many well being officers consider, are prone to have been undercounted.” • What have we discovered? Classic clip aside, we’ve discovered that we are able to slaughter one million US residents with out inflicting a riot, or, certainly, civil unrest of any type. That’s an necessary lesson!

Transmission

Right here is CDC’s interactive map by county set to group transmission (the “purple map,” which is the map CDC wants only hospitals to look at, not you.) The map is claimed to replace Monday-Friday by 8 pm:

The earlier map:

NOTE: I shall most actually not be utilizing the CDC’s new “Community Level” metric. As a result of CDC has mixed a number one indicator (circumstances) with a lagging one (hospitalization) their new metric is a poor warning signal of a surge, and a poor technique to assess private danger. As well as, Covid is a illness you don’t need to get. Even in case you are not hospitalized, you possibly can endure from Lengthy Covid, vascular points, and neurological points. That the “inexperienced map” (which Topol calls a “capitulation” and a “deception”) remains to be up and being taken severely verges on the legal.

Positivity

From the Walgreen’s test positivity tracker, printed January 31:

-0.0.%. Fee of lower slows to nothing.

Wastewater

Wastewater knowledge (CDC), January 26:

What the [family blog] is the [family blogging] use of a nationwide wastewater map the place almost all the gathering websites are [family blogging] greyed out?

January 24:

NOT UPDATED And MWRA knowledge, January 26:

Appears to me like New England’s regional surge is winding down. No bump from the scholars returning. Readers?

Variants

Lambert right here: It’s past irritating how gradual the variant knowledge is. 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? [grinds teeth, bangs head on desk]. UPDATE Sure. See NC here on Pango. Each Friday, a stately, tutorial tempo completely incompatible with defending your self in opposition to a variant exhibiting doubling habits.

NOT UPDATED Variant knowledge, nationwide (Walgreens), January 16:

Lambert right here: XBB overtakes BQ, however CH is arising on the surface. That’s a little bit unsettling, as a result of a Tweet in Links, January 11 from GM drew consideration to it (“shows such a excessive relative development benefit”) and in Water Cooler, January 18, from Nature: “CH.1.1 and CA.3.1 variants had been extremely immune to each monovalent and bivalent mRNA vaccinations.” Now right here is CH.1.1 within the Walgreens variant knowledge. Let’s see what CDC does with it tomorrow, if something. The Covid variant prepare all the time leaves on time, and there’s all the time one other prepare coming!

Lambert right here: Wierdly, the display shot about has been changed at this time by knowledge from “10/7/2022.” (It’s clearly not present knowledge; BQ.1* and XBB don’t dominate.

NOT UPDATED Variant knowledge, nationwide (CDC), January 7 (Weighted Estimates Solely*):

BQ.1* takes first place. XBB arising quick. (For BQ.1/XBB and vaccine escape, see here.) CH.* now seems, per week after Walgreens. Right here is Area 2, the Northeast:

CH.1* seems, however barely under the nationwide common. XBB completely dominates, making clear that Area 2 (New England) varies drastically from the nationwide common. Wouldn’t or not it’s fascinating if we ended up with totally different variants dominating totally different elements of the nation.

NOTE * CDC used to have a “Nowcast Off” radio button, which I used due to my dangerous expertise with CDC fashions like Nowcast. CDC explains (I feel) the change within the following be aware:

Weighted estimates (supplied for all weeks besides the latest three weeks) are variant proportions which are based mostly on empirical (noticed) genomic sequencing knowledge. These estimates usually are not accessible for the latest weeks due to the time it takes to generate the unweighted knowledge, together with pattern assortment, specimen remedy, transport, evaluation, and add into public databases.

Sublineages with weighted estimates lower than 1% of all circulating variants are mixed with their guardian lineage. When the weighted estimate of a sublineage crosses the 1% threshold and has substitutions within the spike protein that might have an effect on vaccine efficacy, transmission, or severity, it could be separated from its guardian lineage and displayed by itself within the variant proportions knowledge.

Nowcast estimates (supplied for the latest three weeks when the “Nowcast on” choice is chosen under) are model-based projections of variant proportions for the latest weeks to allow well timed public well being motion. CDC makes use of the Nowcast to forecast variant proportions earlier than the weighted estimates can be found for a given week.

Somebody who can interpret The Nice Runes can have a look at this; however I don’t have time at this time.

As a test, since New York is a BQ.1* hotbed, New York hospitalization, up to date January 31:

Not as excessive as Biden’s ginormous jouissance, however nonetheless excessive.

Hospitalization knowledge for Queens, up to date January 27:

Deaths

Dying charge (Our World in Data):

Total: 1,132,719 – 1,132,256 = 463 (463 * 365 = 168,995 deaths per 12 months, at this time’s YouGenicist™ quantity for “dwelling with” Covid (fairly a bit greater than the minimizers would love, although they’ll discuss themselves into something. If the YouGenicist™ metric retains chugging alongside like this, I could need to resolve that is what the powers-that-be take into account “mission achieved” for this explicit tranche of demise and illness).

It’s good that for deaths I’ve a easy, day by day chart that simply retains chugging alongside, not like all the pieces else CDC and the White Home are screwing up or letting go darkish, good job. (Although CDC could also be jiggering the numbers quickly. Decrease, naturally.)

• Covid is just not the flu:

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “United States Chicago PMI” [Trading Economics]. “The Chicago PMI in the USA fell again to 44.3 factors in January of 2023 from 44.9 in December and in comparison with market forecasts of 45. The studying pointed to a fifth consecutive month of contraction in enterprise exercise within the Chicago area.”

The Bezzle: “FTX founder Bankman-Fried objects to tighter bail, says prosecutors ‘sandbagged’ him” [Reuters]. • Any person name a wh-a-a-a-mbulance!

Tech: “Historic crash for reminiscence chips threatens to wipe out earnings” [Straits Times]. “The reminiscence chip sector, well-known for its boom-and-bust cycles, had modified its methods. A mix of extra disciplined administration and new markets for its merchandise – together with 5G expertise and cloud providers – would make sure that corporations delivered extra predictable earnings. But, lower than a 12 months after reminiscence corporations made such pronouncements, the US$160 billion (S$210 billion) trade is struggling one in all its worst routs ever. There’s a glut of the chips sitting in warehouses, prospects are slicing orders and product costs have plunged. The unprecedented disaster isn’t just wiping out money at trade leaders SK Hynix and Micron Expertise, but additionally destabilising their suppliers, denting Asian economies that depend on expertise exports and forcing the few remaining reminiscence gamers to type alliances and even take into account mergers. It has been a swift descent from the trade’s pandemic gross sales surge, which was fuelled by customers outfitting house places of work and snapping up computer systems, tablets and smartphones.”

Right this moment’s Worry & Greed Index: 70 Greed (earlier shut: 66 Greed) [CNN]. One week in the past: 60 (Greed). (0 is Excessive Worry; 100 is Excessive Greed). Final up to date Jan 31 at 1:05 PM EST.

Zeitgeist Watch

So so not jackpot-ready:

One other AI use case:

Healthcare

• “Well being executives are sufferers, too: What 11 leaders skilled [Becker’s Hospital Review]. • Fascinating however, as we are saying on social media, the context: These are the identical people who find themselves attempting to screw their employees and their sufferers out of each final nickel to allow them to give themselves bonuses.

Groves of Academe

• “Tadarrius Bean, former Memphis police officer concerned in Tyre Nichols killing, was president of scandal-scarred fraternity” [New York Post]. “One of many 5 former Memphis cops charged with homicide within the lethal beating of Tyre Nichols was the president of a fraternity with a number of current scandals at its chapters. Tadarrius Bean, 24, was the president of the Omega Psi Phi’s Eta Zeta chapter on the College of Mississippi, in keeping with his LinkedIn web page. The fraternity was based in 1911 at Howard College in Washington, D.C., a traditionally black faculty. It claims to be ‘on the entrance line, leveraging its energy, affect and greater than 100 years of dedication to the uplift of our folks and our communities,’ in keeping with Omega’s web site. However the fraternity and its members nonetheless have been concerned in a number of troubling incidents lately. In 2019, Omega’s chapter at Outdated Dominion College in Norfolk, Va., was suspended over a slew of disturbing incidents involving pledges, or folks seeking to be part of the group, together with at the very least one hospitalization, The Virginian-Pilot reported. Potential newcomers had been crushed, and a few had been pressured to chug sizzling sauce or pour it down their pants to simulate a sexually transmitted illness. In 2018, a 45-year-old man seeking to be part of an Omega Psi Phi chapter in Brooklyn had his buttocks and testicles paddled between 150 to 200 instances as a part of a twisted ‘welcoming ritual,’ leading to two of the fraternity’s members being charged with assault and hazing.” • Equal alternative….

Class Warfare

United Electrical, Radio & Machine Staff of America:

Not huge, but by no means negligible.

“The Washington Submit Editorial Board Desires to Sicken Its Readers” [Mike the Mad Biologist]. “[J]ust to sum up: the Washington Post editorial board wants federal workers to return to the office full time* to generate tax income. What’s outstanding is that there isn’t any point out of COVID, or specifically lengthy COVID (months lengthy, probably everlasting, incapacity); the phrase COVID is discovered as soon as within the editorial, and solely in reference to the pandemic, not as a well being downside. That doesn’t shock me, because the Washington Submit, together with different main media retailers, merely haven’t pressed both the Biden administration or public well being officers concerning the probability that vaccinated and boosted folks will contract lengthy COVID (for any new readers, I’ve been warning about long COVID for over two-and-a-half years; this isn’t some ‘new excuse’)…. et the Washington Submit editorial board appears oblivious to this. If you add in that the majority federal staff (who work at desks) work in frequent open areas to avoid wasting the federal authorities cash–they don’t have personal places of work they’ll retreat to–that is placing federal employees in danger. Staff don’t have any management over the air flow in lots of the downtown buildings–and plenty of of these buildings aren’t new, so the air flow isn’t good both. And, after all, as a lot as folks need to, we must always not forgot the immunocompromised–and employees with households with immuncompromised folks–both. They too are federal employees, and shouldn’t be put in danger….. If the Washington Submit spent as a lot time (or any time) asking the Biden administration and public well being officers concerning the probability of lengthy COVID, particularly in those that ‘did what they’re imagined to do’ (get vaccinated) as they did name for return to full-time on the workplace, we’d have far fewer sick (and useless) folks. As a substitute, the ghouls on the Washington Submit are asking federal employees to danger their well being to extend tax revenues, which reveals a vile disregard for the well being of their readers.” • The coverage is mass an infection with out mitigation, so that you’ve acquired to present WaPo props for its dedication to the bit.

“Blackstone steps up tenant evictions in US with eye on boosting returns” [Financial Times]. “Blackstone has filed eviction lawsuits in opposition to a whole lot of tenants throughout the US because it winds down one of many actual property trade’s most beneficiant pandemic-era forbearance programmes, in a transfer that executives say will enhance monetary returns on the firm’s redemption-hit actual property fund. Courtroom data from Georgia and Florida present that corporations owned by Blackstone have commenced authorized proceedings in opposition to dozens of tenants each month since August, launching extra circumstances in a typical week than the whole for the primary seven months of 2022. On the identical time, consultants working for Blackstone have been calling native politicians in California to warn of a possible uptick in evictions in areas of the state which have important numbers of delinquencies, mentioned folks aware of the conversations. The outreach from Blackstone factors to the fragile job confronting the personal fairness group, one of many greatest landlords within the US, because it seeks to maximise returns whereas working below way more public scrutiny than native property homeowners in what has traditionally been a fragmented market. Blackstone bought billions of dollars worth of residence buildings, suburban homes and different residential property through the pandemic.” I’d have thought they purchased these property after the Nice Monetary Crash. Oops. Extra: “A lot of these acquisitions had been made by Breit, a $69bn fund geared toward rich particular person traders that final month imposed limits on withdrawals to curb a rush of traders attempting to tug their cash out.” • In order that was the set off. BWA-HA-HA-HA!

“The true value of shadow work” [Financial Times]. “One of many nice financial mysteries of the second is why employee productiveness, notably within the US, is falling… Whereas there are actually massive long-term elements at play right here, such because the failure of schooling to maintain up with expertise (which in flip reduces productiveness) I feel there are different, under-explored points. These embrace the rise of shadow work. Shadow work is a time period that was coined by the Austrian thinker and social critic Ivan Illich in 1981. For him, it included all of the unpaid work accomplished in economies, akin to mothering and housekeeping. However extra not too long ago, the time period has expanded to incorporate the work that corporations have been in a position to flip over to their very own prospects, through expertise. This consists of all the pieces from banking to journey bookings, ordering meals in eating places to bagging groceries, to not point out downloading and navigating the apps we have to pay parking tickets or observe our youngsters’s faculty assignments and even troubleshoot our personal tech issues. Whereas neither [Harvard magazine editor Craig Lambert] nor teams just like the IMF Statistical Company have estimate of the whole quantity of additional work represented by such duties, it’s clearly substantial, and rising, explicit should you take into account analysis displaying {that a} quarter of all jobs within the US can be severely disrupted by automation by 2030 (certainly most jobs will expertise some stage of disruption). ‘I’m simply amazed how we’ve been suckered into spending our personal time straightening out issues that different folks used to do for us,’ says Lambert.” • It is a good rationalization of crapification because the time period has been used right here at NC (and never the identical as Doctorow’s enshittification, a parallel phenomenon).

“Swimming in money, Chevron plans a $75 billion slap within the face to drivers” [CNN]. “Whereas many blue-chip corporations reported decrease income final 12 months, Massive Oil was having a second. Crude costs surged, thanks partly to excessive demand and lowered provide. All of that helped make Chevron the top-performing Dow inventory of final 12 months, with shares surging greater than 50%. To be clear: It’s not that Chevron, or any of its friends, did something particular to earn their windfall income final 12 months. There was no massive innovation or breakthrough — they simply acquired wealthy off the value of oil taking pictures up. Chevron, which is anticipated to report Friday that income for 2022 doubled to greater than $37 billion, is actually balking at calls from the White Home and a few members of Congress to funnel its additional money into extra drilling capability to assist cut back costs for inflation-weary prospects. As a substitute, Chevron is shopping for $75 billion value of its personal shares, and jacking up its quarterly shareholder dividend. Chevron’s buyback bundle is so massive, in keeping with Bloomberg, that it may fund greater than 4 years of drilling and different initiatives.” • After all, extra drilling isn’t an unalloyed good… However, they simply… grabbed the cash. For themselves. As a result of they may.

Information of the Wired

“This Stunning Hack Will Hold Mice Away For Good” [Family Handyman]. “Mice might be simply averted round your family by merely including the scent of peppermint in corners the place they congregate. Sure, that’s proper, peppermint…. Peppermint clearly has a powerful scent, one which mice dislike. In line with Victor Pest, peppermint incorporates very potent menthol compounds that irritate their nasal cavities. A whiff of peppermint actually does preserve them away. So do these greatest mouse repellents, by the way in which…. Now, you should utilize two methods to include the scent of peppermint into your property. The primary is rising peppermint crops and leaving them round the home. The scent deters them from coming into or roaming round within the first place. …. For those who don’t fancy a house stuffed with peppermint crops, then you definitely would possibly desire utilizing peppermint oil as an alternative. Spray the important oil in several areas of your property that mice can entry. For those who’re attempting to catch the mice, strategically spray the peppermint oil in locations that don’t have a mousetrap. In principle, this could make them wherever you might have positioned it.” • Information you should utilize! Now do rats. Or deer!

Contact info for crops: Readers, be at liberty to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) learn how to ship me a test in case you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to learn how to ship me photos of crops. Greens are effective! Fungi and coral are deemed to be honorary crops! If you would like 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 through the use of your initials. See the earlier Water Cooler (with plant) here. From WB:

WB writes: “Frosty Minnesota this week.”

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not lined by the annual NC fundraiser. So should you see a hyperlink you particularly like, or an merchandise you wouldn’t see anyplace else, please don’t hesitate to specific your appreciation in tangible type. Keep in mind, a tip jar is for tipping! Common constructive suggestions each makes me really feel good and lets me know I’m heading in the right direction with protection. After I get no donations for 5 or ten days I get frightened. Extra tangibly, a relentless trickle of donations helps me with bills, and I think about that trickle when setting fundraising objectives: