Oh Snap!

Nancy Pelosi just just told Donald Trump that he can't get his State of the Union Address while the government is shut down, claiming that the government shutdown raises significant security concerns:

As a federal shutdown lumbered through its fourth week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday sent a letter to President Trump urging him to postpone his Jan. 29 State of the Union address because of shutdown-related security reasons. Perhaps Trump could deliver his speech in writing that day, Pelosi suggested.

The letter was immediately described as a “power move” against Trump and as Pelosi “playing hardball” by threatening to deprive the president of both a stage and an audience. Meanwhile, the GOP decried it as “unprecedented” partisanship, with some (including Trump’s eldest son) accusing Pelosi of attempted censorship.

In retaliation, Trump canceled a trip by Pelosi and other members of Congress to visit troops overseas.

Nancy Pelosi has clearly one, because Trump just made himself look like a complete pissant:

The fight over the weeks-long government shutdown hit a bizarre new low as President Trump on Thursday canceled a planned trip to Afghanistan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a day after she angered Republicans by suggesting the president delay his State of the Union Address.

Hours before Pelosi and top Democrats were set to depart for a visit to military leaders in Brussels and to troops in Afghanistan, Trump released a letter canceling what he termed a “public relations event.”

“I also feel that, during this period, it would be better if you were in Washington negotiating with me and joining the Strong Border Security movement to end the Shutdown,” he wrote. “We will reschedule this seven-day excursion when the Shutdown is over.”

I am amused.

Not at all Surprised

It turns out that the Orwellian-named Center for American Progress is in the pockets of the United Arab Emerates, and have gone hammer an tong after employees who are concerned about this:

The Center for American Progress fired two staffers suspected of being involved in leaking an email exchange that staffers thought reflected improper influence by the United Arab Emirates within the think tank, according to three sources with knowledge of the shake-up. Both staffers were investigated for leaking the contents of an internal email exchange to The Intercept, but neither of the former employees was The Intercept’s source.

………

A CAP spokesperson acknowledged two employees were fired as a result of the leak investigation, but said that the leak was not the reason they were fired: “We are not going to discuss internal personnel matters, but no one was fired at CAP for leaking or whistleblowing.” Internally, however, multiple members of CAP leadership have used the leak as the leading rationale for the firings in multiple settings, sources said. Gude did not return requests for comment.

At issue was an internal debate over how to frame CAP’s response to the murder of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered by Saudi Arabian officials inside the nation’s consulate in Istanbul on October 2.

The initial draft of the CAP’s statement condemned the killing and Saudi Arabia’s role in it, calling for specific consequences. Brian Katulis, a Gulf expert at CAP, objected to the specific consequences proposed in an email exchange with other national security staffers, according to sources who described the contents of the thread to The Intercept. At an impasse, the specifics were dropped, replaced merely with a call to “take additional steps to reassess” the U.S.-Saudi relationship, and the statement was released to the public on October 12.

I'm not surprised.

It's a vipers nest of Clintonite grifters like Neera Tanden, Tom Daschle, John Podesta, and Larry Summers, so it's no surprise that they are bought and paid for by the Saudi's Persian Gulf war criminal (Yemen) buddies.

Making Boris F%$#ing Johnson look like Ernst F%$#ing Blofeld:

I am referring, of course, to Theresa May, who didn't just lose her Brexit vote, but did so by a margin greater than any in modern history, and it's the first defeat of a treaty in Parliament since 1864.

Jeremy Corbyn is calling for a vote of confidence, as should be expected by the opposition in any Parliamentary Democracy:

British lawmakers defeated Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit divorce deal by a crushing margin on Tuesday, triggering political chaos that could lead to a disorderly exit from the EU or even to a reversal of the 2016 decision to leave.

After parliament voted 432-202 against her deal, the worst defeat in modern British history, opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn promptly called a vote of no confidence in May’s government, to be held at 1900 GMT on Wednesday.

With the clock ticking down to March 29, the date set in law for Brexit, the United Kingdom is now ensnared in the deepest political crisis in half a century as it grapples with how, or even whether, to exit the European project that it joined in 1973.

………

More than 100 of May’s own Conservative lawmakers - both Brexit backers and supporters of EU membership - joined forces to vote down the deal. In doing so, they smashed the previous record defeat for a government, a 166-vote margin, set in 1924.

The humiliating loss, the first British parliamentary defeat of a treaty since 1864, appeared to catastrophically undermine May’s two-year strategy of forging an amicable divorce with close ties to the EU after the March 29 exit.

This is a complete clusterF%$#.

The only bright side for May is that she has left such a dogs breakfast of Brexit that none of the Tories want her job:

If there was any consolation for May, it was that her internal adversaries appeared set to fight off the attempt to topple her.

Seriously, she is making the Trump administration look like bloody geniuses.

Did Nazi That Coming

There is no such thing as too racist for the GOP.

On the other hand, there is such a thing as too STUPIDLY racist for the GOP, and Iowa Representative Steve King has crossed that bridge:

House GOP leaders moved Monday to remove Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) from all of his committee assignments following a firestorm over remarks considered racist.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters after a meeting of the Republican Steering Committee that King would not receive any committee assignments for the new Congress.

King faced bipartisan criticism after telling The New York Times in an interview published last week, "White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”

King had been a member of the House Judiciary, Agriculture and Small Business committees. He had also served as chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice in the last Congress, and could have stood to serve as its ranking member under the Democratic majority.

………

"We will not be seating Steve King on any committees in the 116th Congress," McCarthy told reporters.

This is the first time that a Representative hasn't had any committee assignments since Jim Traficant was expelled from the house in 2001 and 2002, and before that, it was more than 100 years.

The only question remaining is whether he will resign.

They are Not Shareholders, They are Unindicted Co-Conspirators

It looks like PG&E is planning to declare bankruptcy.

Many people are concerned about the fate of the shareholders, but they, or their fund managers/hedge funds, knew that PG&E had a cavalier attitude toward safety and infrastructure, ans so those investors deserve to lose their investments:

Utilities have long been considered ultrasafe bets. But PG&E Corp.’s
announcement Monday that it will file for bankruptcy is teaching investors that isn’t always true.

The Baupost Group LLC, Viking Global Investors LP and BlueMountain Capital Management LLC were among the hedge funds that snapped up shares of PG&E Corp. during the third quarter of 2018, just before the deadliest wildfire in California history triggered an existential crisis for the state’s largest utility.

That crisis entered a new phase Monday when PG&E said that it intends to seek chapter 11 bankruptcy protection by the end of the month due to more than $30 billion it faces related to its role in sparking deadly California wildfires in 2017 and 2018. That sent its shares down 52%. Shares have now fallen 83% since the fire began on Nov. 8 and bonds are down 25%. The price of PG&E bonds due in 2034 fell about 8% Monday, according to MarketAxess.

You have to understand something here: People were not investing in PG&E IN SPITE OF their horrible safety record, they did so BECAUSE of their horrible safety record.

They looked at fires, and pipeline explosions, and pollution, and thought, "These are people truly committed to extracting the last possible penny out of any situation, no matter who they hurt or kill."

The shareholders should be wiped out.

The bondholders should be wiped out.

The executives should be wiped out, and jailed in a SuperMax as a warning to others.

And then, it's capital should become state owned.

Tweet of the Day

worst
kiddush
ever pic.twitter.com/HJPq2Z6tPw

— black, booked & busy (@mordkhetzvi) January 15, 2019

Some context, if you don't get it, Donald Trump hosted a meet and eat with the NCAA football champions, and served them fast food on a silver service with candles.

How Utterly Appropriate

There is a meme going around the internet, that your rap name is "Lil" plus your allergy.

That would make me, "Lil Eggplant," which in fact should be my rap name.

100 Years Ago Today

The Aftermath


The Headline

I am referring, of course to The Great Boston Molasses Flood:

For bystanders, the first clue something was wrong was a sound different from the usual thrum of the overhead train. The Boston Evening Transcript later described it as “a deep rumble.”

At around 1pm on 15 January 1919, a 50ft-tall steel holding tank on Commercial Street in Boston’s North End ruptured, sending 2.3m gallons of molasses pouring into the neighborhood.

Owned by the United States Industrial Alcohol Company, the molasses had been brought to the city from the Caribbean, then piped from the harbor to the vat through 220ft of heated piping. The tank was built in 1915 to accommodate increased wartime demand. But from its inception, it leaked.

On 13 January, it had been filled almost to capacity. Two days later, parts of the metal tank ripped though trusses of the elevated train track, 20ft below. Horses and people were swept away.

………

A class action lawsuit arose from the flood, Dorr v United States Industrial Alcohol Company, with 119 plaintiffs including families of victims and injured parties. They argued that the tank was too thin and poorly built. The company argued that Italian anarchist groups blew up the tank.

The investigation lasted more than five years, with over a thousand witnesses testifying. In April 1925, a state auditor ruled that company’s negligence led to structural failure of the tank. Victims and their families were granted $628,000 in damages.

The first class action lawsuit against a major corporation, Dorr paved the way for modern regulation.

………

One local, Stephen Puleo, was working on a master’s thesis on Italian immigrants when he began to research the flood. The North End neighborhood was more than 90% Italian back then, a working class area. In 2003 Puleo published a book, Dark Tide: the Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919.

Puleo told the Guardian: “The tank itself didn’t even require a permit to be built. I liked to tell people, the molasses flood did for building construction standards what the Cocoanut Grove fire did for fire standards across the country. You have these two disasters, and long-standing positive ramifications.”

Also the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.

Why we need pesky bureaucrats.

Have a Movie

Peter Capaldi's finest role, and it's not Dr. Who, it's Malcomb Tucker.

Warning, there may be an occasional F-Bomb in the movie In the Loop:

Bird is not the Word

In the world of DMCA take-down notices, the scooter rental service Bird has jumped the shark, issuing a notice to Cory Doctorow for the mere mention of the fact that there are kits that allow people to replace the circuit boards on seized scooters that are resold to the public.

First, this is completely bogus: Swapping the circuit board does not give unlicensed access to Bird's software, it removes it, and second:

You Are Pulling This Crap on Cory Doctorow? Are You F%$#Ing Sh%$ting Me?

This has gotta be the stupidest take-down notice ever:

According to a new letter published Friday by an Electronic Frontier Foundation lawyer, the scooter startup Bird significantly overstepped when it recently demanded that Boing Boing remove a post describing personal "conversion kits" that enable the removal of Bird’s proprietary hardware from a seized scooter.

The fracas began on December 8, 2018, when Cory Doctorow, the longtime Boing Boing writer and famed science fiction author, wrote a post entitled: "$30 plug-and-play kit converts a Bird scooter into a ‘personal scooter.’"

In it, Doctorow described the existence of kits that purport to allow someone to legally purchase an impounded Bird scooter and then alter it for personal use.

Bird did not take kindly to this post. On December 20, the company demanded that Boing Boing remove it. Bird’s lawyer, Linda Kwak, claimed that, simply by writing about the existence of these kits, Boing Boing violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

………

On Friday, EFF lawyer Kit Walsh, who represents Doctorow in this dustup, wrote to Kwak that Doctorow "has no obligation to, and will not, comply with your request to remove this article."

………

It appears that the current exemption to the Section 1201 law that normally prohibits circumvention of digital locks is protected under the section that specifically allows for "Computer programs that are contained in and control the functioning of a lawfully acquired motorized land vehicle… when circumvention is a necessary step to allow the diagnosis, repair, or lawful modification of a vehicle function."

And also, Cory F%$#ing Doctorow?

This man is the EFF's public face on fighting digital rights management, and has arguably been the most prominent opponent of DRM in the computer community world wide, and you serve up this sh%$ sandwich?

What the F%$# is wrong with you?

It's On

The teachers of the Los Angeles Unified School District have gone on strike, meaning that over 30,000 teachers will be on the picket lines, 500,000 students will be out, and 900 schools will be shuttered.

You will see a lot about pay and benefits, but this is really about the leadership of the LAUSD wanting to starve the public schools to feed the charter school industry:

More than 30,000 Los Angeles public-school teachers began the largest school strike in the country on Monday and the first in three decades in the district. Holding plastic-covered signs on rain-drenched picket lines across the city, they demanded higher pay, smaller classes and more support staff in schools.

The strike effectively shut down learning for roughly 500,000 students at 900 schools in the district, the second-largest public school system in the nation. The schools remained open, staffed by substitutes hired by the city, but many parents chose to keep their children at home, either out of support for the strike or because they did not want them inside schools with a skeletal staff.

With negotiations apparently at a standstill, the strike could last days or even weeks.

The decision to walk off the job came after months of negotiations between the teachers’ union, United Teachers Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although educators on all sides agree California should spend more money on education, the union and the district are locked in a bitter feud about how Los Angeles should use the money it already gets.

The above article only mentions charter schools by accident, but when you actually listen to the teachers, it is clears that looting by charter schools, and incessant high stakes testing, are the top of the list of grievances.

Have a Nice Glass of Shut the F%$# Up, Alan

After nearly blowing up the world 10 years ago, Alan Greenspan seems to think that there are still people who give a crap what he thinks:

Raising the marginal tax rate on the richest Americans to 70 percent would put a major dent in the economy, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday.

During an interview with the CBS program "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez proposed that such a levy be imposed to pay for what she calls a "Green New Deal" to slash carbon emissions and ultimately wean the U.S. off its reliance on fossil fuels.

The tax would apply to those earning more than $10 million a year, a group that currently pays the top marginal tax rate of 37 percent.

Without getting into the details, Greenspan said the move would have dire consequences.

………

When it comes to taxes, Greenspan said the measure passed in 2017 "was an excellent tax cut" though Congress failed to come up with a way to pay for it. He noted that the U.S. budget deficit for fiscal 2018 is likely to hit $1 trillion due in large part to entitlement burdens that lawmakers have not addressed.

It appears that Ayn Rand's biggest fan doesn't give a sh%$ about deficits unless there is a possibility that they might help poor people.

This is a man whose take on financial fraud was that the market would take of the problem.

Please, Alan Greenspan, shut the F%$# Up.

Linkage

• Who are you calling chicken? T. rex's closest living relative found on the farm (The Guardian) The chicken. Does this make Tyrannosaurus Rex Kosher?
• Is Sunscreen the New Margarine? | Outside Online (Outside) It turns out that vitamin D supplements are not the panacea that we thought, it may be the sun.
• Anthony Scaramucci Joins Cast of ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ (Rolling Stone) Just f%$#ing kill me.
• Indonesian officials say crashed Lion Air jet's cockpit voice recorder found (Reuters) Hopefully, this will answer a few questions.

Big Brother, Schmig Brother, Facebook Edition:

Rats — Sinking Ship — PG&E

I'm not sure if it's an attempt to get the hell out of dodge, of if they decided that the woman made a good scapegoat, but t PG&E's CEO Geisha Williams has left the building:

Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced the departure of its chief executive Sunday as it remained besieged by a financial crisis related to California’s historic wildfires.

PG&E said the company had initiated a search to replace the top official, Geisha Williams, who had led the utility since 2017. It said John Simon, the company’s general counsel, would serve as interim chief executive during the search.

………

PG&E, the state’s largest investor-owned utility, faces an estimated $30 billion exposure to liability for damages from the 2017 and 2018 wildfires that killed scores in Northern California. The sum would exceed its insurance and assets, raising concern in the state capital about the utility’s future.

The billions in potential costs have prompted a series of downgrades in PG&E’s ratings, including decisions last week by Moody’s Investors Service and S&P Global Ratings to downgrade the utility’s bonds to junk.

………

Fire investigators determined that PG&E’s equipment was responsible for at least 18 of 21 major fires in 2017 as well as fires in 2018. Some of the fires have been attributed to power lines’ coming into contact with trees, which critics have said is a result of the utility’s failure to trim the trees. 

Last time around, with the support of then-governor Jerry Brown, the state legislature bailed them out.

I think that the political climate regarding the much-reviled utility are different now, and the new governor, Gavin Newsom, is far less of a corporate stooge than Jerry Brown is.

On the theory that a crisis is frequently also an opportunity, I would strongly suggest that someone looks a making significant portions of PG&E state owned.

Toyota Brings Back Tail Fins

I have a 2004 Toyota Prius.

It's my midlife crisis car, because I am the dullest motherf%$#er on the planet.

It's not beautiful in the way that a Jaguar E-Type convertable is, but I rather like it's jelly-bean like appearance:



It's appearance is clear and unadorned and functional, which I like.

The new Priuses (Prii?) sport wonderful specifications, particularly the plug-in hybrid Prius Prime, but the styling is not to my taste.

I find it busy and distracting.

I was looking at the back, and I had this weird sense of deja vu, and then it hit me: Toyota has put tail fins on their cars.

Specifically, it's a somewhat less ostentatious version of the tail fins from a 1959 Chevy Belair:



Please tell me that I am not the only one who sees this.

I Don't Get It

Citing numerous law enforcement sources, the New York Times is reporting that the FBI opened an investigation of whether Trump was working for Putin in response to James Comey's firing, which has described as a "blockbuster".

 First, why is no one looking into Trump being mobbed up. He has to be, he's a developer in New York and northern New Jersey. (Also, why did no reporters look into it during the campaign) Second, the report does not mention any specific information.

I am not sure how this is a blockbuster.

Conducting a counterintelligence investigation in such a situation should be standard, just as the obstruction of justice investigation was.

If Trump fired Comey to cover his own ass (probably yes) then there are both criminal and intelligence effects, so an investigation of both would not only not be unusual, it would be almost routine.

Also, given the history of the FBI, it is hardly surprising that there would be leaks regarding such an investigation.

The investigation, in and of itself does not constitute a major story.

In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

………

The F.B.I. conducts two types of inquiries, criminal and counterintelligence investigations. Unlike criminal investigations, which are typically aimed at solving a crime and can result in arrests and convictions, counterintelligence inquiries are generally fact-finding missions to understand what a foreign power is doing and to stop any anti-American activity, like thefts of United States government secrets or covert efforts to influence policy. In most cases, the investigations are carried out quietly, sometimes for years. Often, they result in no arrests.

Tweet of the Day

To quote Alan Moore: “None of you understand. I'm not locked up in here with YOU. You're locked up in here with ME.” 🤣 https://t.co/8TCmKNJlkD

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 11, 2019

It's a reference to Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel Watchmen, and it is amazing that she knows the reference.

I think that I am in love.

Here is the reference:

The Costs of a Military Establishment

Costa Rica abolished its military in 1949.

A major has now shown that this is associated with a 0.8% annual increase in per capita GDP:

This article estimates the causal long-term developmental effects of Costa Rica’s constitutional abolishment of its army in 1949 after the 1948 civil war.

This is done by performing synthetic control estimates and analyzing the political history of Costa Rica in the 1940s and 1950s. We find that upon the abolishment of the army, Costa Rica’s annual average per capita GDP growth increased from 1.42% to 2.28% in the 1950-2010 period relative to a counterfactual Costa Rica that did not abolish its army. This implies that Costa Rica doubled its per capita GDP every 30 years rather than every 49. These estimates are robust to different model specifications and we show that this shock is exclusive to Costa Rica in Latin America. Furthermore, we provide evidence that the positive effects associated with this increase in the per capita GDP growth rates have endured over time; namely because the abolition of the army granted a political and institutional context that allowed the country to devote more resources to public spending, which in turn contributed to its long run development. Our case study findings are evidence that committing to peace and democracy pays off in the long run.

Running the numbers, this means that Costa Rica's per capita GDP is 75% larger than what it would have been with a military.

Obviously a part of this difference is because the resources of Costa Rica have not been diverted from other purposes.

To quote Dwight Eisenhower, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Another reason for this is that the presence of a military in Latin America has led to repeated coups against military governments, and repeated insurgencies as a result, which are likely even more disruptive to the well-being of the nation.  (Google the School of the Americas to better understand how this was largely an artifact of US Policy)

Headline of the Day

A Fake Nude of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Was Debunked By Foot Fetishists
—Motherboard

Not The Onion folks, not The Onion.

Freedom of the Press: 1 — Iowa Farmers: 0

Iowa's "Ag Gag" law was just ruled unconstitutional:

A federal judge has ruled that Iowa's "ag gag" law is unconstitutional, saying the industry-backed statute violates the First Amendment's free-speech protections.

Senior Judge James Gritzner granted summary judgment Wednesday to a group that sued over the law.

"Today's decision is an important victory for free speech in Iowa,” said Rita Bettis Austen, ACLU of Iowa legal director.

………

The ACLU challenged the law, along with Bailing Out Benji, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, the national Animal Legal Defense Fund and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, among others.

………

The 2012 Agricultural Production Facility Fraud law made it a crime for journalists and advocacy groups to go undercover at meatpacking plants, livestock confinements, puppy mills and other ag-related operations to investigate working conditions, animal welfare, food safety and environmental hazards, among other practices.

………

Federal courts have struck down similar laws in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming. Litigation is ongoing in North Carolina.

Corporate interests are to free speech as Ebola is to French Kissing, and politicians are too busy taking campaign donations to give a sh%$ about free speech.

Interesting Data Point

(Click for larger image)



These graphs include banks and S&Ls, not credit unions

There were no bank failures in 2018, which is the first time that this has happened in 12 years, and only the third time that this has happened since the founding of the FDIC:

In 2018, no FDIC insured banks failed. This was down from 8 in 2017. This is only the third time since the FDIC was founded in 1933 that there were no bank failures in a calendar year.

For the life of me, I have no clue as to why credit union failures have outpaced those of commercial banks for the past two years.

Any suggestions as to why this has happened?

At the peak of the crisis bank failures were outpacing credit union failures by about 9 to 1, so this flip is rather perplexing.

What Fresh Hell is This?

In response to repeated news about how they are contemptible liars, Facebook has adopted a new strategy, they are cutting details with phone manufacturers to install their app and make it unremovable:

Sorry #DeleteFacebook, you never stood a chance.

Yesterday Bloomberg reported that the scandal-beset social media behemoth has inked an unknown number of agreements with Android smartphone makers, mobile carriers and OSes around the world to not only pre-load Facebook’s eponymous app on hardware but render the software undeleteable; a permanent feature of your device, whether you like how the company’s app can track your every move and digital action or not.

Bloomberg spoke to a U.S. owner of a Samsung Galaxy S8 who, after reading forum discussions about Samsung devices, found his own pre-loaded Facebook app could not be removed. It could only be “disabled,” with no explanation available to him as to what exactly that meant.

It means that your privacy is toast.

A Facebook spokesperson told Bloomberg that a disabled permanent app doesn’t continue collecting data or sending information back to the company, but declined to specify exactly how many such pre-install deals Facebook has globally.

How many times has Facebook promised this, and has been found to be lying through teeth?

OK, too tough.  You run out of fingers, and toes.

How many times has Facebook promised this, and has been found to be lying through teeth ……… THIS YEAR?

Seriously, I highly recommend rooting your phone.

There is Nothing that Wall Street Cannot Make Worse

Case in point, the housing crisis, where not only did they create the crisis, profit from it, and then get bailed out, but then they used their bailout money to raise rents for the rest of us:

Wall Street firms drove up housing and rent prices while depressing homeownership rates after the financial crisis, according to a new study of economic data.

The analysis from researchers at the Philadelphia Federal Reserve found that after the collapse of the housing market a decade ago, institutional investors such as Blackstone, Cerberus Capital and Golden Tree seized on the opportunity to buy up homes and convert them into rental units.

In all, the researchers found that institutional investors’ purchases of residential properties represented nine percent of the overall housing price increases since the crisis — and 28 percent of the decline in homeownership rates.

We need to stop the looting and start prosecuting.

They Have Learned Nothing, and They Have Forgotten Nothing

It appears that mainstream economists are still refusing to learn the lessons of the Great Depression.

They continue to insist that the solution to any economics problem is to make ordinary people poorer, and their lives more precarious:

A couple of years ago yours truly had a discussion with the chairman of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences (yes, the one that yearly presents the winners of ‘The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel’). What started the discussion was the allegation that the level of employment in the long run is a result of people’s own rational intertemporal choices and that how much people work basically is a question of incentives.

Somehow the argument sounded familiar.

When being awarded the ‘Nobel prize’ in 2011, Thomas Sargent declared that workers ought to be prepared for having low unemployment compensations in order to get the right incentives to search for jobs. The Swedish right-wing finance minister at the time appreciated Sargent’s statement and declared it to be a “healthy warning” for those who wanted to increase compensation levels.

The view is symptomatic. As in the 1930s, more and more right-wing politicians — and economists — now suggest that lowering wages is the right medicine to strengthen the competitiveness of their faltering economies, get the economy going, increase employment and create growth that will get rid of towering debts and create balance in the state budgets.

But, intimating that one could solve economic problems by wage cuts and impairing unemployment compensations, in these dire times, should really be taken more as a sign of how low the confidence in our economic system has sunk. Wage cuts and lower unemployment compensation levels do not save neither competitiveness nor jobs.

………

It’s an atomistic fallacy to think that a policy of general wage cuts would strengthen the economy. On the contrary. The aggregate effects of wage cuts would, as shown by Keynes, be catastrophic . They would start a cumulative spiral of lower prices that would make the real debts of individuals and firms increase since the nominal debts wouldn’t be affected by the general price and wage decrease. In an economy that more and more has come to rest on increased debt and borrowing this would be the entrance-gate to a debt deflation crises with decreasing investments and higher unemployment. In short, it would make depression knock on the door.

They are SO like the Bourbon Kings.

Our Dysfunctional Healthcare System

250 hospitals have have joined a consortium to manufacture their own generic drugs, in order to deal with the price gouging and shortages:

Hospitals have a creative plan to tackle the high price and frequent shortages of generic drugs.

The nonprofit company, dubbed Civica Rx, was first announced in early 2018, and has gained a lot of attention from other hospitals around the US who are interested in being a part of the venture.

On Monday, the organization said that another 12 health systems had joined its ranks, including Illinois and Wisconsin-based Advocate Aurora Health, Michigan's Spectrum Health, and NYU Langone Health. Together, they make add another 250 hospitals to the venture.

They join a slew of hospitals, including Catholic Health Initiatives, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, and Providence St. Joseph Health that serve as governing members. The Department of Veterans Affairs is also consulting with Civica to make sure the agency is getting what it needs for patients. 

……… 

To start, Civica will focus on making 14 drugs that are used in hospitals, typically injectable drugs. Those are expected to come in 2019. The company's priorities include making essential medicines that have been on the FDA drug shortage list, and taking on decades-old drugs that have artificially higher prices because they don't face any competition. 

………

For years, health systems have been on the hook for skyrocketing drug prices for injections or drugs delivered through IV solutions. And as of Thursday, there were 205 drugs currently facing shortages, according to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. Those shortages include everything from bags of saline solution to common antibiotics and a type of epidural used for pregnant women during childbirth.

This is an indication of a profoundly broken system.

Well, This is Reassuring

City leaders in Seattle are visiting New York City to warn them about Amazon, yes, that is the headline:

Two politicians from Amazon.com Inc.’s hometown traveled across the country to New York to deliver a cautionary message about the company’s expansion in the city.

Members of the Seattle City Council, Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda, are urging elected officials in New York to pass legislation now that will address potential housing and transportation issues that will inevitably follow in the wake of Amazon’s decision to build a major new campus in Queens. Both are speaking Monday at an event hosted by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has been backing efforts to organize workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island.

"I hope they can learn from Seattle’s experiences and create a set of new expectations for corporate responsibility that can benefit the working poor who work for Amazon and other people priced out of housing in high cost cities everywhere," Herbold said in an emailed statement ahead of the event.

………

Members of the Seattle City Council, Lisa Herbold and Teresa Mosqueda, are urging elected officials in New York to pass legislation now that will address potential housing and transportation issues that will inevitably follow in the wake of Amazon’s decision to build a major new campus in Queens. Both are speaking Monday at an event hosted by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which has been backing efforts to organize workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island.

"I hope they can learn from Seattle’s experiences and create a set of new expectations for corporate responsibility that can benefit the working poor who work for Amazon and other people priced out of housing in high cost cities everywhere," Herbold said in an emailed statement ahead of the event.

It really remarkable when politicians cross the country to tell people that the largest employer in their city is a contemptible greed head.

Things to Do While Trump is Giving His Speech

If you're looking for anything even remotely worth watching tonight at 9pm EST, I will be folding laundry in my underwear for 8 minutes on Instagram live. https://t.co/GhMowscZMP

— Stormy Daniels (@StormyDaniels) January 8, 2019

Yeah, that sounds a lot more interesting.

You Are Not 23andMe's Customer, You Are Their Product

The online genetic testing service 23andMe is looking to sell your genetic data to big pharma, and you ain't gonna get nothin for it:

Since the launch of its DNA testing service in 2007, genomics giant 23andMe has convinced more than 5 million people to fill a plastic tube with half a teaspoon of saliva. In return for all that spit (and some cash too), customers get insights into their biological inheritance, from the superficial—do you have dry earwax or wet?—to mutations associated with disease. What 23andMe gets is an ever-expanding supply of valuable behavioral, health, and genetic information from the 80 percent of its customers who consent to having their data used for research.

So last week’s announcement that one of the world’s biggest drugmakers, GlaxoSmithKline, is gaining exclusive rights to mine 23andMe’s customer data for drug targets should come as no surprise. (Neither should GSK’s $300 million investment in the company). 23andMe has been sharing insights gleaned from consented customer data with GSK and at least six other pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms for the past three and a half years. And offering access to customer information in the service of science has been 23andMe’s business plan all along, as WIRED noted when it first began covering the company more than a decade ago.

………

“I think we’re just operating now in a much more untrusting environment,” says Megan Allyse, a health policy researcher at the Mayo Clinic who studies emerging genetic technologies. “It’s no longer enough for companies to promise to make people healthy through the power of big data.” Between the fall of blood-testing unicorn Theranos and Facebook’s role in the 2016 election attacks, “I think everything from here on out will be subject to much higher levels of public scrutiny,” Allyse says.

23andMe maintains that transparency is a core tenet of the company. “I think a really important distinction to make is that 23andMe operates under an independent ethical review board that oversees all of our research,” says Emily Drabant Conley, 23andMe’s vice president of business development, who oversaw the announcement of the GSK deal. “The guidelines we follow are essentially the same as what other research institutions follow.” So they should apply to any of the analyses GSK might want to run on 23andMe data, like a PheWAS, which connects constellations of symptoms and conditions across many people with a single genetic mutation they all share.

Yeah, sure.

It's there in a very small print at the end of a long and confusing document.

Here is the money quote:

It’s also worth pointing out that 23andMe can, in theory, unilaterally change those terms and conditions and privacy policies at any time, says Katherine Drabiak, a legal expert in health law and research ethics at the University of South Florida. As a commercial enterprise, it’s not bound by the same obligations as medical professionals. 23andMe doesn’t have to take an oath to act in the interest of consumers or to promote their well being.

They say not to worry, because they will obey the voluntary guidelines of the Future of Privacy Forum, whose supporters include, "AT&T, Comcast, Facebook, Google, Intelius and Microsoft," which is kind of like the, "Knife Safety Forum," founded by noted barber Sweeney Todd.

I will leave you to this: Self-regulation is to regulation as self-importance is to importance.

For Once, I Admin Regret for Missing an Awards Ceremony

Epic!

At the Golden Globes, the first, and generally the most trival, of awards ceremony of the season, Christian Bale thanked Satan for being his inspiration in playing Dick Cheney:

Poor right-wing Twitter snowflakes couldn't handle it when an actor made a joke about...

...Dick Cheney?

Christian Bale won a Golden Globe Sunday for his role playing Dick Cheney in "Vice." Given that Dick Cheney isn't exactly "Mr. Personality," Bale thanked Satan for being an acting inspiration.

………

“I will be cornering the market on charisma-free as$holes,” he said. “What do you think, Mitch McConnell next? That would be good, wouldn’t it?”

It wasn't a comparison between Cheney and Satan, but rather a contrasting. Satan is interesting.

Still, conservatives can't let him go.

I use the right flying monkey crowd's tears to flavor my Slivovitz.

Think of as a vengeful Balkan Margarita.

They Have Made a Desert, and Called it Peace

Latvia is presented as an EU success story.

Despite an economic downturn, they stabilized their finances, and entered the Euro.

What they neglect to mention is that nearly ⅕ of its population has left, and their remittances, largely from the soon to be leaving Britain, are the only thing keeping their economy afloat:

Atis Sjanits has an unusual remit for an ambassador. The Latvian diplomat is not responsible for relations with another nation — but with his own country’s diaspora.

Sjanits’ job is to respond to the exodus triggered by Latvia’s accession to the EU. Since joining the bloc, nearly a fifth of the nation has left to work in more affluent EU nations: The U.K., Ireland, Germany.

In 2000, Latvia’s population stood at 2.38 million. At the start of this year, it was 1.95 million. No other country has had a more precipitous fall in population — 18.2 percent according to U.N. statistics. Only Latvia’s similarly fast-shriveling neighbor, Lithuania, with a 17.5 percent decrease, and Georgia, with a 17.2 percent drop, come close.

Seriously, the fact that Latvia is considered a success by Brussels when it has become unlivable that 18.2% of its population have effectively become refugees positively boggles the mind.

This is a Wicked Bad Day at the Office

Remarkably calm and matter of fact

There, you are, in your office, and suddenly, your canopy blows off, and there you are at 30,000 feet and -40° without pressurization.

This us not how you want your day to end:

The Israel Air Force has grounded its fleet of F-15 fighter jets after an incident last week in which an F-15’s canopy, the transparent enclosure over the cockpit, dislodged while the aircraft was flying at 30,000 feet, requiring the crew to make a harrowing emergency landing.

The Israel Defense Force Spokesperson’s Office said that at that altitude, with temperatures of minus 45 degrees Celsius (-49 degrees Fahrenheit) and strong wings, the crew was in danger. The commander of the air force, Amikam Norkin, has ordered a halt to all training flights with the aircraft pending an investigation.

The army released sound recordings of the incident in which shouting is heard followed by the pilot, who has been identified as Capt. Y, telling the ground: “Coming in for a landing at the nearest base without a canopy. Please confirm.” The plane's navigator, 1st Lt. R., then asked the pilot if he was all right. “Yes, everything is all right,” he replied. The navigator then confirmed that he too was all right. The pilot was asked to slow his speed and then said: “We have no problem getting to base.”

………

The crew underwent a medical exam following the incident and were found to be in good condition.

If that had been me, I would have gone to pieces so fast that there would have been a risk of shrapnel.

Linkage

• The fascinating design history of the periodic table of elements (Quartz) An interesting bit of science history.
• Dear Lobsters: There Is A Better Way (Current Affairs) How to deal with fans of  nutjob Jordan Peterson.
• Towns And Cities Keep Ditching Comcast To Build Their Own Broadband Networks (Techdirt) Comcast sucks, this is arguably the most bipartisan sentiment in the nation.
• The lies Comcast allegedly told customers to hide full cost of service (Ars Technica) And this is why everyone hates Comcast.
• Tim Cook to Investors: People Bought Fewer New iPhones Because They Repaired Their Old Ones (Motherboard) We need right to repair legislation now.
• This Is Everything That Is Wrong With Mainstream Feminism (Caitlin Johnstone) Money quote, "What is wrong with mainstream feminism is exemplified perfectly in a mass media parade celebrating the rise of women to the top of the most depraved industry on earth."
• My White Friend Asked Me on Facebook to Explain White Privilege. I Decided to Be Honest (YES! Magazine) Read what Lori Lakin Hutcherson wants.

Amazing remix of the AOC dance:

I took that video of AOC dancing and turned it into an ad for Medicare For All with a catchy theme song. pic.twitter.com/PLO1WkgEID

— Jonathan Mann (@songadaymann) January 3, 2019

Ah, My Alma Mater………

At UMass, a college student put a "F%$# Nazis" sign in her dorm window.

She was told to take down the sign, because, "It wasn't inclusive."

I can understand objecting to the word, "F%$#," but the whole inclusion thing is a sign of deep and pervasive moral bankruptcy:

Parsons, a junior at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, told BuzzFeed News on Sunday that she decided to put up the sign after a swastika was drawn over a "Happy Hanukkah" sign on a resident assistant's door the first week of December.

"I thought maybe if I hang the sign up, maybe the person who drew the swastika will see it and see someone condemning their actions, even if the administration doesn’t do it," she said.

The university's highly promoted initiative on campus is called "Hate Has No Home at UMass" aimed at rejecting "all forms of bigotry and hatred." As part of its initiative, the university has documented 19 hate crime incidents on campus since September.

Parsons said she didn't expect the university to take any issue with the sign.

But a week after posting the sign in her dorm window, she received an email from a resident director asking her to remove the sign over "issues of inclusion."

"While Residence Education cannot force you or your roommate to take the sign down, I am asking that you or your roommate take the sign down so that all students can be a part of an inclusive residential experience, as well as having a respectful environment to be a part of here on our campus," Eddie Papazoni, a resident director at UMass Amherst, told Parsons in the email obtained by BuzzFeed News.

Jeebus.   In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon."

A Consequence of Our Consumer Debt Society

It turns out that one of the more common features of mass shootings in the United States is the use of credit cards to finance these acts:

The New York Times reviewed hundreds of documents including police reports, bank records and investigator notes from a decade of mass shootings. Many of the killers built their stockpiles of high-powered weapons with the convenience of credit. No one was watching.

Two days before Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he went on Google and typed “Credit card unusual spending.”

Mr. Mateen had opened six new credit card accounts — including a Mastercard, an American Express card and three Visa cards — over the previous eight months. Twelve days before the shooting, he began a $26,532 buying spree: a Sig Sauer MCX .223-caliber rifle, a Glock 17 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, several large magazines, thousands of rounds of ammunition and a $7,500 ring for his wife that he bought on a jewelry store card. His average spending before that, on his only card, was $1,500 a month.

His web browsing history chronicled his anxiety: “Credit card reports all three bureaus,” “FBI,” and “Why banks stop your purchases.”

He needn’t have worried. None of the banks, credit-card network operators or payment processors alerted law enforcement officials about the purchases he thought were so suspicious.

Mass shootings routinely set off a national debate on guns, usually focused on regulating firearms and on troubled youths. Little attention is paid to the financial industry that has become an instrumental, if unwitting, enabler of carnage.

I am not sure that there is a way to use this information without further prying into the personal lives of everyone, but this is yet another data point about how the culture of guns in the United States is fundamentally broken.

Look Out Below

Two of the most overheated real estate markets in the world are Manhattan, and Australia, and both of them appear to be trending downward, which looks an awful lot like 2007:

The median price of a Manhattan apartment has fallen below $1m for the first time in three years, according to a survey of sales in the final months of 2018, as real estate agents struggle to shift a glut of luxury properties and potential buyers worry about the outlook for the US economy.

The median price paid for co-operatives and condominiums in the prime borough of New York City — some of the most expensive properties in the US — fell 5.8 per cent to $999,000 according to research by Miller Samuel, a real estate appraiser, and Douglas Elliman, a real estate broker.

And from the land down under:

In its latest report on Australia, the OECD focuses to a disturbing extend on housing, household debt, what the current housing downturn might do to the otherwise healthy economy, and what the risks are that this housing downturn will lead to a financial crisis for the big four Australian banks, an eventuality that it says “authorities” should make “contingency plans” for.

The big four banks are huge in relation to the Australian stock market and the overall economy: Their combined market capitalization, at A$341 billion, even after today’s sell-off following the OECD report – accounts for 26% of Australia’s total stock market capitalization.

………

But then there’s the housing bubble, household debt, and the banks that have funded this bubble and that households owe this debt to.

The charts below are from the report. The first chart compares inflation-adjusted house prices of the two most magnificent housing bubbles, Australia (red) and Canada (green), Spain (ESP), and the US. The index measures changes in price levels, adjusted for inflation. Clearly, Australia and Canada are in a world of their own, but Spain, whose bubble collapsed disastrously and led to numerous bank resolutions and bailouts, got close:

It took more than 40 years for us to forget the lessons of the Great Depression.

This time around, the lessons were ignored from day 1, or more accurately from January 20, 2009 on, and it looks like we are going to head down the same road all over again.

I Remember the Cicadas

Well, there is now an explanation of the "sonic attacks" against the US embassy in Havana.

It turns out that it was crickets looking for love in all the wrong places:

In November 2016, American diplomats in Cuba complained of persistent, high-pitched sounds followed by a range of symptoms, including headaches, nausea and hearing loss.

Exams of nearly two dozen of them eventually revealed signs of concussions or other brain injuries, and speculation about the cause turned to weapons that blast sound or microwaves. Amid an international uproar, a recording of the sinister droning was widely circulated in the news media.

On Friday, two scientists presented evidence that those sounds were not so mysterious after all. They were made by crickets, the researchers concluded.

That’s not to say that the diplomats weren’t attacked, the scientists added — only that the recording is not of a sonic weapon, as had been suggested.

………

Experts on cricket songs said the analysis was well done. “It all seems to make sense,” said Gerald Pollack of McGill University, who studies acoustic communication among insects. “It's a pretty well supported hypothesis.”

When the American diplomats first complained of the strange noises in Cuba, they dismissed the possibility that insects were responsible. But short-tailed crickets are exceptional: They have long been known to make a tremendous racket.

I remember Brood X when it roused from its subterranean slumber in 2004, and it was deafening.

When You Start to Believe Your Own Bullsh%$

Rich people seem to think that simply because they have lots of money, they are knowledgeable about things completely out of their purview.

Case in point, Bill Gates, who appears to believe that he is an expert on nuclear power and global warming, so he is wringing his hands over the lack of new nuclear nuclear power plants in the US:

Bill Gates is urging the United States to invest in nuclear power research.

In his annual year-in-review Gates Notes blog post, Gates noted that, despite the consequences of climate change that people face around the globe, “global emissions of greenhouse gases went up in 2018.”

Because burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas) releases carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere, Gates wrote that we need breakthroughs in clean energy in order to curb the rise of global temperatures. Generating energy from sunlight and wind does not emit CO2; the same goes for nuclear energy.

“The world needs to be working on lots of solutions to stop climate change,” Gates wrote. “Advanced nuclear is one, and I hope to persuade US leaders to get into the game.”

First, the construction time for a nuclear power plant is on the order of a decade.

Second, one of the largest contributors to anthropogenic climate change is cement, and nuclear power uses a very large amount of that.

Third, the total life cycle costs, which are a good measure of total emissions are off the f%$#ing charts, so while fission emits no carbon, construction, enrichment, transportation of fuel, and disposal of waste, are major emitters.

So the savings are illusory, the costs are unsustainable, and the time frame is too long.

This is Geology 101

One of the oft ignored facts about the fracking explosion in the United States is drop off rates.

The production of any oil well will drop off over time, with conventional oil wells declining between 5 and 10% a year, and fracked wells declining between 25% and 50% a year.

What this means is that the production numbers that have driven the financing of fracked oil and gas wells have been based on imaginary numbers, much like the numbers that came from assessors at the height of the housing bubble a decade ago.

I don't know who is going to end up losing, but, once again, Wall Street has managed to generate its profits and leave someone else holding the bag:

Thousands of shale wells drilled in the last five years are pumping less oil and gas than their owners forecast to investors, raising questions about the strength and profitability of the fracking boom that turned the U.S. into an oil superpower.

The Wall Street Journal compared the well-productivity estimates that top shale-oil companies gave investors to projections from third parties about how much oil and gas the wells are now on track to pump over their lives, based on public data of how they have performed to date.

Two-thirds of projections made by the fracking companies between 2014 and 2017 in America’s four hottest drilling regions appear to have been overly optimistic, according to the analysis of some 16,000 wells operated by 29 of the biggest producers in oil basins in Texas and North Dakota.

Collectively, the companies that made projections are on track to pump nearly 10% less oil and gas than they forecast for those areas, according to the analysis of data from Rystad Energy AS, an energy consulting firm. That is the equivalent of almost one billion barrels of oil and gas over 30 years, worth more than $30 billion at current prices. Some companies are off track by more than 50% in certain regions.

The shale boom has lifted U.S. output to an all-time high of 11.5 million barrels a day, shaking up the geopolitical balance by putting U.S. production on par with Saudi Arabia and Russia. The Journal’s findings suggest current production levels may be hard to sustain without greater spending because operators will have to drill more wells to meet growth targets. Yet shale drillers, most of whom have yet to consistently make money, are under pressure to cut spending in the face of a 40% crude-oil price decline since October.

………

Schlumberger Ltd. , the oil-field-services giant, reported in a research paper that secondary shale wells completed near older, initial wells in West Texas have been as much as 30% less productive than the initial ones. The problem threatens to upend growth projections for America’s hottest oil field, the company said in October.

Seriously, is there anything left in America that is not basically a fraudulent pump and dump scheme?

Tweet of the Day

Rep. Liz Cheney, daughter of Dick Cheney, yesterday attacked "the fraud of socialism." Really? I wasn't aware that it was "socialism" that lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and got us into a horrific war that we should never have started.

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) January 4, 2019

Needs to be said.

It's Better Having Someone outside the Tent Pissing in Then Having Them inside the Tent Pissing In

Case in point, the new St. Louis County prosecutor who has fired some long time staff.

When you look at who Wesley Bell is replacing, Bob McCulloch, who literally authorized the introduction of false evidence to ensure that former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for murdering Michael Brown, it is clear that a wholesale change in the prosecutor's office was essential:

St. Louis County's new prosecuting attorney is shaking up his staff and instituting new policies just two days into the job, his spokeswoman confirmed Wednesday, and a veteran assistant prosecutor who presented evidence to the grand jury after the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson is reportedly among those let go.

Former Ferguson Councilman Wesley Bell defeated 28-year incumbent Bob McCulloch in the August Democratic primary and ran unopposed in November. He was sworn in Tuesday, becoming the first-ever African-American to hold the office.

He wasted no time implementing some of his reformist agenda. Bell's office said Wednesday that they will no longer prosecute marijuana possession cases, among other changes.

……….

Bell's election victory was seen by many as a referendum on McCulloch's handling of the investigation of Darren Wilson, the white Ferguson officer who killed Brown, a black and unarmed 18-year-old, after they got into a scuffle on Aug. 9, 2014, setting off months of sometimes-violent protests.

………

Assistant prosecutor Kathi Alizadeh was largely responsible for presenting evidence to the grand jury. Critics accused prosecutors of swaying the jurors' decision. Ferguson erupted in renewed protests once the decision was announced.

So she was the one who allowed perjured evidence to be presented to the grand jury.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Alizadeh was among those fired on Wednesday after 30 years working in the office, and that two other veteran prosecutors were suspended pending termination hearings. Alizadeh said Bell gave her a two-page letter describing grounds for termination, but she declined to elaborate. She does not have listed phone numbers.

Good.

These people are enthusiastic supporters of racist and corrupt law enforcement, and they have no place in the DA's office.

I hope that some people file complaints with the state bar as well.