By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Northern Mockingbird, Quitman Farm, Brooks, Georgia, United States.
In Case You Might Miss…
- DOGE.
- Kamala’s future. If any.
- The state of tech: like industrial chemical accident.
- Covid wastewater: Good news.
I think this is helping:
Man warms up bird’s feet to unfreeze! pic.twitter.com/ngz9uposfi
— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) December 16, 2024
Will the other birds reject this bird, since it’s been held by a human?
My email address is down by the plant; please send examples of there (“Helpers” in the subject line). In our increasingly desperate and fragile neoliberal society, everyday normal incidents and stories of “the communism of everyday life” are what I am looking for (and not, say, the Red Cross in Hawaii, or even the UNWRA in Gaza).
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
Trump Transition
“Dr. Oz Exposed for Colossal, Multimillion-Dollar Conflict of Interest” [The New Republic]. “Dr. Mehmet Oz, the daytime television host Donald Trump has picked to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, may have a direct financial stake in three companies that would do business with the agency he intends to run. A review of Oz’s 2022 tax disclosure by Accountable.US revealed that the Trump ally owned up to $26 million stake in Sharecare, a digital health company co-founded by Oz that operates CareLinx, the “exclusive in-home care supplemental benefit program” used by 1.5 million Medicare Advantage enrollees. The company went private in 2024, so it’s unknown whether Oz still owns a stake in the company. Novo Nordisk, which produces Ozempic and Wegovy among other drugs, is also a client of Sharecare. As head of CMS, Oz has considerable impact on the pharmaceutical industry—but with business ties like these, it’s equally likely that these drug companies could have a profound impact on him.” • $26 million? Oz is a patzer. Surely the same logic applies to every single billionaire in Trump’s cabinet? After all, what is an oligarchy but conflict of interest on the grand scale?
“How Fast Can Trump Enact His 2025 Agenda?” [Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine]. “The key to implementing Trump’s legislative agenda will be the budget-reconciliation process that enables Congress to bypass the Senate filibuster and enact a big package of new laws on an up-or-down party-line vote. This is how Trump got his tax cuts in 2017 and how he tried to repeal Obamacare. Items in a budget-reconciliation bill must be focused on fiscal matters, but it’s still a huge asset to a party that controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. It’s beginning to look like Team Trump wants two budget-reconciliation bills, one focused on authorizing the huge buildup in border-security resources necessary for Trump’s mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and another aimed at extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts. There’s increasing talk of a very quick start on the first bill. Since the 119th Congress will be sworn in on January 3, Congress could get moving on a budget resolution setting up this bill even before Trump takes office.” • This post provides a useful timeline for Trump’s first year.
* * * “Bringing Elon to a knife fight” [Jennifer Pahlka, Eating Policy]. “A lot of the government tech community is skipping the hand wringing; they’ve basically just grabbed a bag of popcorn and are watching in real time as Elon and Vivek learn all the things they’ve known, lived, and absolutely hated for their entire time in public service. They don’t see DOGE as their savior, but they are feeling vindicated after years of shouting into the void. I am struck by how different the tone of the DOGE conversation is between political leaders on the left and the people who’ve been fighting in the implementation trenches. One group is terrified they’ll succeed. The other is starting to ask a surprising question (or at least I am): What if even billionaires can’t disrupt the system we have built?” • So far, DOGE is a just a volunteer organization. I could volunteer to reform government too, and even get friends to join the “effort.” So what? But DOGE is a lot like what Hyman Minksy said about money: “Everyone can create money; the problem is to get it accepted.” How does DOGE get “accepted?” How, exactly, is DOGE going to transition from handwaving potential to kinetic force within (or at least affecting government? Nobody seems to ask. Jawboning? Executive orders?
2024 Post Mortem
“Kamala Harris grapples with her future in a wounded Democratic Party” [WaPo]. “In the wake of her own 2024 loss, Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies are grappling with what her political future holds and debating whether the unofficial rule still applies — specifically, whether her first shot at the White House as the Democratic nominee should also be her only one, given the extraordinary circumstances of Harris’s 107-day sprint to Election Day.” And: “Some of her donors and supporters, particularly those in her home state, hope she will run for governor of California in 2026. But in 2015, when she was state attorney general and a rising star deciding on her next move, Harris decided not to seek that job after extensive discussions with advisers. She listed the pros and cons of running for governor versus senator on a legal pad, aides said, concluding that the Senate was a better fit for her interests and her strengths as a former prosecutor. But as soon as she lost to Trump on Nov. 5, some Harris supporters seized on the idea of a gubernatorial run, including wealthy donors eager to see her take a leadership role in such a powerful post. ‘,’ one Harris confidante said.”• Lol. Musical interlude.
–>
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Symbols aren’t tools?
Masks / Respirators are *tools* to drastically reduce the risk of infection from airborne pathogens. Their transformation into political and sociological *symbols* has been a huge hindrance to addressing risk. Demonising *individuals* who do or do not mask just makes this worse.
— Conor Browne (@brownecfm) December 13, 2024
Symbol manipulators surely believe symbols are tools.
| Wastewater | |
| ★This week[1] CDC December 9 | Last week[2] CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants [3] CDC December 7 | Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 7 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★New York[5] New York State, data December 13: | National [6] CDC December 12: |
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| Positivity | |
| National[7] Walgreens December 9: | Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 7: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| Positivity[9] CDC November 25: | Variants[10] CDC November 25: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20: |
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LEGEND
1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.
2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”
NOTES
[1] (CDC) Seeing a little more red, but nothing new major international hubs. Interestingly, Calculated Risk is watching wastewater too.
[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.
[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.
[4] (ED) A little uptick.
[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Leveled out.
[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.
[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.
[8] (Cleveland) Up!
[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.
[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.
[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.
[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States NY Empire State Manufacturing Index” [Trading Economics]. “The NY Empire State Manufacturing Index fell to 0.20 in December 2024 from 31.2 in November which was the highest reading since December 2021, and well below forecasts of 12. The reading showed business activity in the NY state held steady, following a big rise in the previous month.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing’s Year of Crisis Leaves Investors Wary of Beaten-Up Stock” [Bloomberg]. ” What was supposed to be a comeback year for Boeing Co. has turned into its worst stock-market plunge since 2008, and if Wall Street is right, the plane-maker’s shares may have only a modest recovery in store in 2025…. The stock is down 35% this year, placing it among the 20 biggest decliners in the S&P 500 Index. The shares have stabilized over the past month, but investors remain wary. They point to the string of crises in 2024 that shook their confidence in Boeing’s prospects and the risk that it will suffer should trade friction build anew under President-elect Donald Trump. ‘Just staying out of the news would be a win for Boeing at this point,’ said Eric Clark, portfolio manager of the Rational Dynamic Brands Fund.” • And speaking of public relations–
Manufacturing: “Pig Stench Causes KLM Boeing 787-9 To Divert To Bermuda” [Simple Flying]. “KLM Flight 685 was diverted to Bermuda after the smell of a herd of swine from below decks wafted through the cabin…. The crew reported an “obnoxious smell from cargo coming from pigs probably, which may have something to do with the oxygen environment in the cockpit.’…. The diversion was not an emergency. There was no Mayday call, no PAN call, and no emergency services were required. The pigs were unloaded and taken to a “secure location at the island during their impromptu holiday stayover.” • Obviously not Boeing’s fault, but they can’t catch a break, can they?
Manufacturing: “Boeing Delays Mean Trump Won’t Fly on a New Air Force One” [Wall Street Journal]. “President-elect Donald Trump didn’t get to fly on a new Air Force One during his first term. He likely won’t get to fly on a new presidential plane in his second term, either. The long-delayed project has fallen so far behind schedule that Boeing has told the Air Force that it expects to deliver the new jets after Trump leaves the White House, according to people familiar with the matter. That means the airplanes wouldn’t be ready until 2029 or later. Frustrated with the delays, Trump raised the project with Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg when the two men had a phone conversation in November. As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has repeatedly asked advisers about the status of Boeing’s work.Boeing used to be a great American company, he has told aides, according to people briefed on the discussions. What happened to them? Trump has asked.”
The Bezzle: Why don’t we have a Strategic Baseball Card Reserve?
Charles Schwab says Bitcoin could hit $500,000 – $1 million if Trump establishes a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. pic.twitter.com/BLKN2STIqb
— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) December 15, 2024
Can anybody explain to me what is “Strategic” about a “Strategic Bitcorn Reserve,” and why it’s not simply an outright subsidy to these crooks and fraudsters?
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 56 Greed (previous close: 50 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 48 (Neutral). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 16 at 1:19:55 PM ET.
Rapture Index: Closes down one on Plagues. “The lack of activity has downgraded this category” [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 182. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Doesn’t the collapse of Syria bring the Third Temple closer? Do these people know something we don’t?
Gallery
David with the head of Goliath:
Caravaggio pic.twitter.com/vA3No66R05
— Art Gallery (@X_ArtGallery) December 15, 2024
Chairoscuro!
“Never Forgive Them” [Ed Zitron, Where’s Your Ed At?] An impressive rant, worth reading in full. This caught my eye: “I’m not writing this to complain, but because I believe — as I hinted at a few weeks ago — that we are in the midst of the largest-scale ecological disaster of our time, because almost every single interaction with technology, which is required to live in modern society, has become actively adversarial to the user. These issues hit everything we do, all the time, a constant onslaught of interference, and I believe it’s so much bigger than just social media and algorithms — though they’re a big part of it, of course. In plain terms, everybody is being fucked with constantly in tiny little ways by most apps and services, and I believe that billions of people being fucked with at once in all of these ways has profound psychological and social consequences that we’re not meaningfully discussing. The average person’s experience with technology is one so aggressive and violative that I believe it leaves billions of people with a consistent low-grade trauma. We seem, as a society, capable of understanding that social media can hurt us, unsettle us, or make us feel crazed and angry, but I think it’s time to accept that the rest of the tech ecosystem undermines our wellbeing in an equally-insidious way. And most people don’t know it’s happening, because everybody has accepted deeply shitty conditions for the last ten years.” And: “Why wouldn’t people feel insane? Why wouldn’t the internet, where we’re mostly forced to live, drive most people crazy? How are we not discussing the fact that so much of the internet is riddled with poison? How are we not treating the current state of the tech industry like an industrial chemical accident? Is it because there are too many people at fault? Is it because fixing it would require us to truly interrogate the fabric of a capitalist death cult?”• He’s not wrong, is he?
“How Silicon Valley is disrupting democracy” [MIT Technology Review]. “One thing [Rob Lalka’s The Venture Alchemists] is particularly effective at is deflating the myth that these entrepreneurs were somehow gifted seers of (and investors in) a future the rest of us simply couldn’t comprehend or predict. Sure, someone like Thiel made what turned out to be a savvy investment in Facebook early on, but he also made some very costly mistakes with that stake. As Lalka points out, Thiel’s Founders Fund dumped tens of millions of shares shortly after Facebook went public, and Thiel himself went from owning 2.5% of the company in 2012 to 0.000004% less than a decade later (around the same time Facebook hit its trillion-dollar valuation). Throw in his objectively terrible wagers in 2008, 2009, and beyond, when he effectively shorted what turned out to be one of the longest bull markets in world history, and you get the impression he’s less oracle and more ideologue who happened to take some big risks that paid off.” • And that’s before we get to Marc Andreessen.
I am not feeling wired today.
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