2:00PM Water Cooler 10/28/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Patient readers, this Water Cooler is a bit light because I must hustle along and finish a post on election day scheming. Also, since it’s only eight days ’til Election Day, I’m going to focus Water Cooler on Politics, and greatly shorten Covid section; there’s just too much to cover. I’ll return to the usual form on after Election Day (unless “events” absolutely take over). –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Readers liked the nightingales, so I will stick with them awhile before returning to the mimidae.

Common Nightingale. PN Ria Formosa–Lacém, Tavira, Faro, Portugal. This is a duet!

In Case You Might Miss…

1. Robert O. Paxton on Trumpism.
2. Boeing looks to Wall Street for bailout

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

2024

Eight days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

Lambert here: Tiny margins, but all red. If I were running the Kamala campaign, I’d want to see some blue. Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, especially, who will determine the outcome of the election but might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be _{MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!}.

“CBS News Harris-Trump poll has closer look inside gender gap as candidates draw even” [CBS]. “In all, it nets out to even — and to an even-tighter contest. It’s tied across the composite battleground states collectively, and Harris is down to just a +1 in national vote preference. (Harris had once been at +3 in the battlegrounds in September and it narrowed to +1 two weeks ago. Trump has incrementally erased a 4-point national edge Harris had after their debate.)”

“Are Young Men Really Going to Vote for Donald Trump?” [Daniel Cox, The Liberal Patriot]. “But many young men seem somewhat drawn to Trump. Far more than young women, young men appear to enjoy Trump’s schtick and his constant disregard for basic conventions of behavior. In several interviews we’ve done, we have heard many young men describe Trump as entertaining. His crass “locker-room” comments—such as talking about Arnold Palmer’s genitalia or referring to Gov. Tim Walz as “Tampon Tim”—reflect the way lots of young men think and talk. Most young men believe that Trump is not a conventional politician, and many see his willingness to say and do things that upset the political establishment as refreshing. Of course, this doesn’t mean young men endorse Trump’s policies or embrace his worldview, but he does have an advantage over Harris in who is looking out for men…. If Trump falls short, it will likely be due to the fact that young men tend to be less reliable voters, especially those without a college degree. The polls show this. • Handy chart:

So wait. Nobody knows anything?

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Trump (R): I think this sums up the Madison Square Garden Rally, so I don’t need to do anything but knock down a few of the more egregious talking points:

Donald Trump held a rally at Madison Square Garden last night, joined by several high-profile speakers.

Many left media framed it negatively, highlighting “racist” tropes or that in 1939 MSG housed a pro-Nazi rally. Right media described it as “historic” or “packed.”

Recap🧵 pic.twitter.com/3pe9MT587P

— AllSides (@AllSidesNow) October 28, 2024

Trump (R): “DNC projects message tying Trump to Hitler on Madison Square Garden during rally” [CBS]. “The Democratic National Committee is projecting digital messages on Madison Square Garden’s exterior during former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally on Sunday about recent reports that he once praised Adolf Hitler and his generals and that cast him as unhinged…. Sunday marks the first time the DNC is projecting counterprogramming onto a building while Trump will be inside it.” • If Trump were really Hitler, some brownshirts would have found the projector, smashed it, and beaten whoever was running it to a bloody pulp.

Trump (R): On the “racist” joke about Puerto Rican “garbage”:

The media are claiming that a comedian at the Trump rally today made a racist joke about Puerto Ricans. He didn’t. He was poking fun at the island’s infamous trash problem. The media are acting ignorant about it but they have covered it for years —> pic.twitter.com/GvCuiq2jX6

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) October 28, 2024

Maybe having the Don RIckles of identity politics on the stage wasn’t the smartest decision, tactically…

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Trump (R): “Hillary Clinton: “Please, Open Your Eyes,” Trump Is A Fascist And A “Clear And Present Danger” To This Country” [RealClearPolitics]. “It’s people, who have really studied what fascism is and what fascist leadership looks like. People, like Professor Timothy Snyder. People, like former professor Paxton, who just recently came out and said that he had studied fascism during the war, particularly the Nazis, Vichy France, and he had been reluctant to use the term. But he had concluded, as so many people now are, that, sadly, here in America, the term fits.” • And so–

Trump (R) “Is It Fascism? A Leading Historian Changes His Mind” [New York Times]. Readers, I missed this Newsweek article: I apologize. This is a good article; it quotes Richard Evans too. “In a column that appeared online on Jan. 11, 2021, Paxton wrote that the invasion of the Capitol ‘removes my objection to the fascist label.’ Trump’s ‘ to overturn an election crosses a red line,’ he went on. ‘The label now seems not just acceptable but necessary.’… This summer I asked Paxton if, nearly four years later, he stood by his pronouncement. Cautious but forthright, he told me that he doesn’t believe using the word is politically helpful in any way, but he confirmed the diagnosis. ‘It’s bubbling up from below in very worrisome ways, and that’s very much like the original fascisms,’ Paxton said. ‘It’s the real thing. It really is.’” And quoting:

He told me that what he saw on Jan. 6 has continued to affect him; it has been hard “to accept the other side as fellow citizens with legitimate grievances.” That is not to say, he clarified, that there aren’t legitimate grievances to be had, but that the politics of addressing them has changed. He believes that Trumpism has become something that is “not Trump’s doing, in a curious way,” Paxton said. “I mean it is, because of his rallies. But he hasn’t sent organizers out to create these things; they just germinated, as far as I can tell.”

Whatever Trumpism is, it’s coming “from below as a mass phenomenon, and the leaders are running to keep ahead of it,” Paxton said. That was how, he noted, Italian Fascism and Nazism began, when Mussolini and Hitler capitalized on mass discontentment after World War I to gain power. Focusing on leaders, Paxton has long held, is a distraction when trying to understand fascism. “What you ought to be studying is the milieu out of which they grew,” Paxton said.

A serious article about a serious man (Paxton is also a birdwatcher!). Worth reading in full. But I’m Paxton is a lot less willing to push forward the thesis than others. For example:

But for those who use the label to describe Trump, it is useful precisely because it has offered a predictive framework. “It’s kind of a hypothesis,” John Ganz, the author of a new book on the radical right in the 1990s, told me. “What does it tell us about the next steps that Trump may take? I would say that as a theory of Trumpism, it’s one of the better ones.” No one expects Trumpism to look like Nazism, or to follow a specific timeline, but some anticipated that “using street paramilitary forces he might do some kind of extralegal attempt to seize power,” Ganz said. “Well, that’s what he did.”

Wrong. In no way can the January 6 rioters be characterized as “street paramilitary forces” (not even the spook-infested Proud Boys).

Trump (R): “Golfing with Trump. Social capital, decline, inequality, and the rise of populism in the US ” [Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society]. 2021. “We posit an alternative: that . Long-term declines in employment and population—rather than in earnings, salaries, or wages—in places with relatively strong social capital propelled Donald Trump to the presidency and almost secured his re-election. By contrast, low social capital and high interpersonal inequality were not connected to a surge in support for Trump. These results are robust to the introduction of control variables and different inequality measures. The analysis also shows that the discontent at the base of the Trump margin is not just a consequence of the 2008 crisis but had been brewing for a long time. Places in the US that remained cohesive but witnessed an enduring decline are no longer bowling alone, they have golfed with Trump and will, in all likelihood, continue to golf with Trumpism or other forms of populism.” • Now to see if these counties are swing counties…

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NE: “Nebraska is in the national spotlight. An obscure education fight could tilt the election results” [Politico]. “But opinion polls suggest a majority of voters oppose Nebraska’s new state-funded program to subsidize private school tuition for qualifying students. Organizers hope their appeals to public education-supporting voters of all ideological stripes offer a blueprint for overturning similar laws across the country, after several Republican-held states like Florida and Arkansas have approved expansive school choice programs over the last two years. The referendum backers have run a strenuously nonpartisan campaign to rally voucher skeptics in Ogallala, Ord, Omaha and beyond. But some Nebraska Democrats are also hoping that the relatively obscure issue drives voter turnout in the state’s tightly contested 2nd Congressional District and secures its single Electoral College vote for their camp.”

WA: “Burning ballots pulled from inside smoking Vancouver ballot box; hundreds of ballots lost” [KATU]. “Our photographer captured grey smoke steadily billowing out of the Park and Ride ballot box at Fisher’s Landing Transit Center near Southeast 162nd Avenue just after 6 a.m. Multiple police units were in the area, and the ballot box was cordoned off by police tape as it continued to smoke. Around 6:30 a.m., KATU captured footage of first responders releasing a pile of actively burning ballots onto the ground, which continued to smolder and smoke heavily even after the flames were put out. The Clark County elections auditor told us that the last ballot pickup at that location was 8 a.m. Sunday. Hundreds of ballots were inside at the time of the burning, and KATU was told there were maybe only a few that could be saved. Voters who dropped off ballots at that location after 11 a.m. Saturday need to contact the Election Auditor’s Office IMMEDIATELY for a new ballot.” • “Park and Ride” = suburban, so a Democrat area? Readers?

en Déshabillé

“Medicare for All: Requiem for a Dream” [Benjamin Studebaker, Sublation]. Not that I hold a grievance: “Even the members of congress who have been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America and by the Justice Democrats have at points indicated a willingness to use M4A as a device to win Obamacare reforms. Many of these people do not understand the importance of prioritizing M4A. During the 2020 campaign, many of these people claimed they wanted to “push Bernie left.” In practice, this meant forcing Sanders to decenter M4A and to instead center the interests and concerns of establishment non-governmental organizations (NGOs), like the Human Rights Campaign, Black Lives Matter, Planned Parenthood, the NAACP, the National Organization for Women, and the Southern Poverty Law Center. These are the organizations that standardly donate to the Democratic Party establishment. In focusing on the issues these organizations emphasized, the Democrats not only deemphasized healthcare, they also polarized the workers on racial, educational, sexual, and religious lines. The effect of this was to create sharp cultural antagonisms that made it much more difficult to effectively organize for anything. It also diminished the ability of the left to compete electorally in more socially conservative regions of the country. Many of these regions are poorer and badly in need of the benefits of M4A, but the Democratic Party establishment contemptuously casts these Americans into the ‘basket of deplorables.’ These are the people whose votes you must not seek to win, lest you secure the kind of legislative majority that might create an expectation that you follow through on M4A.” • “These people” are the people now yammering about fascism, having done their level best to create the conditions that make fascism possible.

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

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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!

Airborne Transmission: H5N1

“Inactivation of influenza A viruses in the environment and modes of transmission: A critical review” [Journal of Infection] 2008.

Morbidity and Mortality

“Many pandemic deaths attributed to natural causes may have actually been due to Covid, study says” [Independent]. Many deaths that had previously been attributed to natural causes during the first months of the Covid pandemic may actually have been because of the virus. More than one million deaths during the first 30 months of the pandemic were reported from other natural causes, like disease and chronic conditions, according to the National Institute on Aging. Previous studies found that the excess deaths were higher than reported Covid deaths, but most investigated extra deaths from all causes. Now, researchers say the timing of these deaths suggests they could have been unrecognized fatalities or indirectly linked to pandemic-related disruptions in health care and in other fields. A study funded by the institute revealed there were approximately 1.2 million more natural-cause deaths than expected from March 2020 to August 2022 across 3,127 US counties. Of those deaths, nearly 163,000 did not have a Covid notation on their death certificates.”

Stats Watch

Manufacturing: “Boeing Launches 90 Mln Concurrent Public Offerings, $5 Bln Depository Shares” [NASDAQ]. “The Boeing Co. (BA) on Monday announced the launch of concurrent separate underwritten public offerings of 90 million shares, par value $5 per share and $5 billion of depositary shares. Each represents a 1/20th interest in a share of newly issued series A mandatory convertible preferred stock, par value $1 per share of the company. The company intends to use the net proceeds from the offerings for general corporate purposes, which may include, among other things, repayment of debt, additions to working capital, and others. Boeing expects to grant underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 13.500 million shares and $750 million of depositary shares. The preferred stock is expected to have a liquidation preference of $1,000 per share. Unless earlier converted, each preferred share will automatically convert, for settlement on or about October 15, 2027, into a variable number of shares, the company said. Boeing intends to apply to list the depositary shares on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol ‘BA.PRA’” • Seems complicated. Readers?

Manufacturing: “Boeing describes the strike as an existential threat in stock prospectus” [Quartz]. “In Boeing’s form 424B5, the category of Securities and Exchange Commission filings under which a prospectus falls, the planemaker tees up its fiercest headache under a section headlined ‘Risks Related to Our Business and Operations.’ ‘Some of our and our suppliers’ workforces are represented by labor unions,” the company says. “Work stoppages by our employees are currently adversely affecting our business, financial condition, results of operations and/or cash flows. Future work stoppages by our or our suppliers’ employees could also adversely impact our business.’ … Unsaid in all that is that the contract voted down by IAM members last week was the third offer Boeing has put forward. The IAM is seeking a 40% wage increase and the restoration of their pension. Boeing’s first offer, the rejection of which kicked off the strike, was for a 25% wage increase. The second offer, deemed Boeing’s “best and final,” was for a 30% increase. That was also rejected. Then Boeing abandoned talks. Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su came to town and managed to pull another offer out of Boeing, this one for a 35% increase and a pension sweetener for the IAM members who still have one. That was also rejected. The IAM told its members Sunday that ‘Your Union has been in communication with the U.S. Department of Labor in an effort to spearhead getting back to the table.’ Though the latest contract vote was more in Boeing’s favor than previous tallies, the union said last week that an internal survey shows that members are still not impressed with what they’re hearing for the company’s negotiators. ‘While we can’t share the survey results publicly, which would give the company an unfair advantage, please know that wages and retirement security remain top priorities,’ it said.” • Worth reading in full for the tranlations from corporatese.

Manufacturing: “Boeing Sells Shares To Raise Capital Buying Time To Wait Out Strike” [Simple Flying]. “Boeing’s SEC filings about the two concurrent public offerings purposefully left out the amount of proceeds that it expected to earn from the sale.” And: “Kelly Ortberg, the president and chief executive officer (CEO) of Boeing, stated in his opening remarks before the company’s Q3 earnings call that one of the big rocks to stabilize was its balance sheet to best support retaining its investment-grade rating. ‘We have a plan, and we’re executing that plan. And I’m confident that we have a good path forward to manage the realities of our business and retain our investment grade rating.’” • The plan, apparently, is to bust the union, with Wall Street helping, as is its little way. Indeed–

Manufacturing: “Boeing’s Shareholders Are Complicit in Its Mess” [Bloomberg]. “There are many reasons Boeing Co. has fallen into such disrepair that it needs to sell shares for a potential $19 billion cash injection, and just as many lessons to draw. But one factor arguably underpins them all, and shareholders should be taking a long look in the mirror… [F]nancial engineering took center stage. Boeing engaged in a rolling share buyback program that ended up distributing around $40 billion to investors. Between 2013 and 2018, the company would go from having net cash of $6 billion to $5 billion of net debt. It had no financial cushion to deal with the operational and financial aftermath of the Max crisis, which worsened when a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines plane during a flight in January.”

Manufacturing: “At the heart of the Boeing strike, an emotional fight over a lost pension plan” [NPR]. • So, to NPR, a decent wage when you work, and not dying in a ditch when you can’t, is “emotional.” Oh-k-a-a-a-y

Manufacturing: “Boeing Is Selling a Boatload of Stock. It Won’t Matter Until It Ships More Planes” [Barron’s]. “The deal will reduce Boeing’s debt-less-cash to roughly $27 billion. That is less than three times Wall Street’s expected 2026 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda. It’s a reasonable level for an industrial company…. That 2026 estimate, however, is based on shipping about 700 planes. Boeing production hasn’t approached that level since 2018 when it shipped 806. At the start of the year, Wall Street expected Boeing to deliver about 700 planes in 2024. That estimate is down to about 375 jets.”

Manufacturing: “Starliner Complications: Boeing Considers Selling Its Space Division” [Simply Flying]. “Boeing is weighing up its position in the space industry as the company faces problems on multiple fronts. Boeing’s Starliner program suffered a major blow this year after the vehicle experienced thruster control problems and helium leaks on its first crewed flight to the International Space Station (ISS) – while the spacecraft eventually made it back to Earth (without its crew), the debacle raised major questions about Boeing’s position in the space industry.” Ortberg: “We do have to get into a position where we’ve got a portfolio much more balanced with less risky programs and more profitable programs, and we’re going to be working that. But I don’t think a wholesale walkaway is in the cards.”

Tech: “The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry” [Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic]. “Under DMCA 1201, giving someone a tool to “bypass an access control for a copyrighted work” is a felony punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500k fine – for a first offense. This law can refer to access controls for traditional copyrighted works, like movies. Under DMCA 1201, if you help someone with photosensitive epilepsy add a plug-in to the Netflix player in their browser that blocks strobing pictures that can trigger seizures, you’re a felon… But software is a copyrighted work, and everything from printer cartridges to car-engine parts have software in them. If the manufacturer puts an “access control” on that software, they can send their customers (and competitors) to prison for passing around tools to help them fix their cars or use third-party ink…. As you might expect, this is quite a tempting proposition for any manufacturer hoping to enshittify their products, because they know you can’t legally disenshittify them. These access controls have metastasized into every kind of device imaginable…. This is all relevant this month because the US Copyright Office just released the latest batch of 1201 exemptions, and among them is the right to circumvent access controls “allowing for repair of retail-level food preparation equipment”: While this covers all kinds of food prep gear, the exemption request – filed by Public Knowledge and Ifixit – was inspired by the bizarre war over the tragically fragile McFlurry machine. These machines – which extrude soft-serve frozen desserts – are notoriously failure-prone, with 5-16% of them broken at any given time. Taylor, the giant kitchen tech company that makes the machines, charges franchisees a fortune to repair them, producing a steady stream of profits for the company.” • I believe Trump said — on Rogan? — that he would make McDonald’s ice cream machines work again. Could this possibly have been rattling around in his brain?

Tech: “The couple who took on Google and cost the tech giant £2bn” [BBC]. “It was June 2006 and the couple’s trailblazing price comparison website Foundem – one they had sacrificed well-paid jobs for and built from scratch – had just gone fully live. They didn’t know it at the time but that day, and those that followed, would mark the beginning of the end for their company. Foundem had been hit by a Google search penalty, prompted by one of the search engine’s automatic spam filters. It pushed the website way down the lists of search results for relevant queries like ‘price comparison’ and ‘comparison shopping’. It meant the couple’s website, which charged a fee when customers clicked on their product listings through to other websites, struggled to make any money. ‘We were monitoring our pages and how they were ranking, and then we saw them all plummet almost immediately,’ says Adam. While the launch day for Foundem didn’t go to plan, it would lead to the start of something else – a 15-year legal battle that culminated in a then record €2.4bn (£2bn) fine for Google, which was deemed to have abused its market dominance. Google spent seven years fighting that verdict, issued in June 2017, but in September this year Europe’s top court – the European Court of Justice – rejected its appeals.”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 62 Greed (previous close: 63 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 74 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 25 at 1:00:32 PM ET.

Rapture Index: Closes unchanged [Rapture Ready]. Record High, October 10, 2016: 189. Current: 181. (Remember that bringing on the Rapture is good.) • Hard to believe the Rapture Index is going down. Do these people know something we don’t?

Zeitgeist Watch

News of the Wired

“No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air” [Scientific American]. 2020. • Bumblebees… but airplanes? The deck: “Do recent explanations solve the mysteries of aerodynamic lift?” I don’t know whether Betteridge’s Law applies to decks or not. I’m guessing yes.

“Choose our own systems of weights and measures”:

And as for the stars (can all this possibly be true? I apologize for the length, but this is the nerdiest thread I have seen in some time, so…):

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

PR writes: “Attaching a Joshua Tree at dawn in our neighborhood, in Tucson.”

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