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Open thread Sept. 10, 2021

Dan Crawford | September 10, 2021 9:00 am

Comments (24) | Digg Facebook Twitter |
24 Comments
  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    September 10, 2021 at 9:48 am

    Warning of Income Gap, Xi Tells China’s Tycoons to Share Wealth

    As the country’s leader prepares for a likely third term, he is promising “common prosperity” to lift farmers and working families into the middle class. 

    … Xi Jinping has put China’s tycoons on notice that it is time for them to share more wealth with the rest of the country.

    Mr. Xi says the Communist Party will pursue “common prosperity,” pressing businesses and entrepreneurs to help narrow the stubborn wealth gap that could hold back the country’s rise and erode public confidence in the leadership. Supporters say China’s next phase of growth demands the shift.

    “A powerful China should also be a fair and just China,” Yao Yang, a professor of economics at Peking University who endorses the shift in priorities, said by email. “China is one of the worst countries in terms of redistribution, despite being a socialist country. Public spending is overly concentrated in cities, elite schools and so on.” 

    Officials are pledging to make schooling, housing and health care less costly and more evenly available outside big cities, and to lift incomes for workers, helping more people secure a place in the middle class. The “common prosperity” campaign has converged with a crackdown on the country’s tech giants to curb their dominance. …

  • Fred C. Dobbs says:
    September 10, 2021 at 9:55 am

    El Salvador Adopts Bitcoin as Currency

    MEXICO CITY — El Salvador on Tuesday became the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, allowing the cryptocurrency to be used in any transaction, from buying a cup of coffee to paying taxes.

    The bold move, largely celebrated by the international bitcoin community, has found a more skeptical reception at home and in the traditional financial world, amid concerns that it could bring instability and unnecessary risk to the Central American country’s fragile economy.

    President Nayib Bukele, a tech-savvy millennial, has promoted the digital currency’s adoption, pitching it as a way of bringing more Salvadorans, about 70 percent of whom don’t have bank accounts, into the formal economy. Using the cryptocurrency would make it faster and cheaper to get remittances from abroad, he argues, and could free the indebted nation from the hold of the traditional global financial system.

    Making Bitcoin legal tender — alongside the dollar, which the country has relied on since 2001 — is also part of Mr. Bukele’s charm offensive toward crypto entrepreneurs, who often seem like his primary audience.

  • EMichael says:
    September 10, 2021 at 10:28 am

     

    We need to reach out to these people. Choice is between prozac or a baseball bat. But whatever you do, don’t call them stupid or deplorables.

    ” Gov. Doug Ducey responded to the new rule Thursday, promising to fight Biden’s “dictatorial approach” to governing.

    “Joe Biden has failed us on COVID. He ran for office on a promise to ‘shut down the virus.’ He has failed on this, much as he has failed on the border crisis and in Afghanistan. So now, President Biden’s plan is to shut down freedom,” Ducey said in a statement. “These mandates are outrageous. They will never stand up in court. We must and will push back.”

    https://www.newsbreak.com/n…

    ” The delta variant of COVID-19 is straining health systems across Arizona, but health officials said Wednesday there’s a way to help: Get vaccinated. Officials at one major Phoenix hospital said nearly all their COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated, and an ASU expert expressed fears that a deadlier variant is yet to come.

    At Valleywise Health, Maricopa County’s health care system, the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients has jumped to nearly 97%, said Dr. Michael White, the chief clinical officer. Two weeks ago, that rate was 93%, according to AZ Family. “

    https://prescottenews.com/i…

    • Fred C. Dobbs says:
      September 10, 2021 at 11:53 am

      New US vaccine requirements draw praise, skepticism and outrage

      President Biden’s new vaccine requirements, announced Thursday, drew praise from doctors eager to slow the spread of the coronavirus, caution from experts who felt it may be “too little, too late” and condemnation from members of the G.O.P. who called the move “unconstitutional.”

      Mr. Biden took his most expansive actions yet to control the coronavirus pandemic by mandating shots for 100 million Americans, including some private sector employees, health care workers, federal contractors and the vast majority of federal workers. …

      Republican officials were quick to express opposition. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota promised legal action against the “unconstitutional rule.”

      Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas called the actions an “assault on private businesses” in a statement on Twitter. He said he issued an executive order protecting Texans’ right to choose whether or not they would be vaccinated. “Texas is already working to halt this power grab,” he wrote.

      Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona wrote on Twitter: “The Biden-Harris administration is hammering down on private businesses and individual freedoms in an unprecedented and dangerous way.” He questioned how many workers will be displaced, businesses fined, and children kept out of the classroom because of the mandates, and he vowed to push back.

      But the president made it clear on Thursday that he would do what he could to “require more Americans to be vaccinated to combat those blocking public health,” a reference to Republican governors who have banned attempts to mandate masks or require vaccines.

      “If those governors won’t help us beat the pandemic,” he said, “I will use my power as president to get them out of the way.”

      • Fred C. Dobbs says:
        September 11, 2021 at 9:09 am

        If the right-wing GOP were to be told that they

        could NOT be vaccinated, they would immediately

        spot the Dem plot to eliminate them and insist on

        immediate vaccination forthwith. Sounds like a strategy.

  • Denis Drew says:
    September 10, 2021 at 11:59 am

    Why do anti-vaxxers or vaccine shy have so little (to no!) fear of every other brand of medicine or horse pee — before or after infection?  Only vaccine scares them, nothing else!

    Maybe someone could point this out to them — offer a little helpful insight.

    Suppose the vaccine came in a pill.
    https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-covid-vaccine-in-pill-form-to-start-clinical-trial-in-tel-aviv/

    With the needle or inhaler we have the free floating, unknown components to conjure up irrational fears.  With a pill no such active palette would present itself for our fertile imaginations to play with.

  • Eric377 says:
    September 11, 2021 at 1:31 pm

    I know several people resistant to the vaccine. 

    Two major themes come through in the people I know well, but I can’t say these are important or unimportant components to the phenomenon throughout the country. 

    – First, there is wide apprehension concerning the mRNA vaccines (and little discussion of the J&J).  This is not “microchip” sort of stuff, but more of “why should I use these with essentially no experience on long term health implications”, particularly when many have either already had COVID and recovered or know people who recovered fully without hospitalization (or even much care at all….just waited and it ended quickly). 

    – (Second?) Moving on to boosters so soon I think hardens this resistance, since “they do not even work that well and we will have to take much higher doses”.  These people are why I have in the past suggested promoting J&J much more aggressively. 

    A second group (that do overlap for sure) simply is less afraid of death in this world than others.  Many have a belief system that tells them that death in this world is inevitable (I agree, by the way), but that gross interference with the divinely constructed human body will impact the quality of their afterlife. 

    Again, the gross interference with the body sure sounds like the mRNA vaccines when you talk with them.  No idea if this is 4% of the unvaccinated or 34%, but in my estimation there probably is a market for J&J simply as the non-mRNA alternative, provided we accept that the mRNA has some serious product acceptance issues and the timeframe for action is too short to really overcome them. 

    I can imagine that Pfizer and Moderna would not be very happy campers, but should that matter?

    • run75441 says:
      September 11, 2021 at 3:35 pm

      Now this is readable and someone can deconstruct what you are saying.

      • EMichael says:
        September 12, 2021 at 7:53 am

        Not worth the effort.

        • Eric377 says:
          September 12, 2021 at 10:40 am

          Well I got 3 mRNA hesitant to take the J&J since July 4.  How did you do?

          • EMichael says:
            September 12, 2021 at 11:22 am

            I do not know any mRNA resistant people. Wouldn’t have them near me.

      • Eric377 says:
        September 12, 2021 at 9:10 am

        Nope you missed it.  My point was for the first group the booster announcement hardens their resistance.  The second group are ones that think the mRNA vaccines interfere with their divinely created human form.

        • run75441 says:
          September 12, 2021 at 9:23 am

          One should not have to rewrite your composition to gain an understanding of what you wrote. Instead of throwing a mass of words against a wall hoping it may be understood, why not take some time and construct your response like I did for you.

          What appears here is NOT in the manner you wrote it.

  • rjs says:
    September 11, 2021 at 9:54 pm

    this is turning out worse than even i expected…

    Reports of Hurricane Ida oil, chemical spills escalate in Louisiana waters –Less than half the reports have been investigated by the Coast Guard The number of reported oil and chemical spills linked to Hurricane Ida has exploded this week, growing from 350 on Monday to more than 2,000 by Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard. While less than half of the spills reported to the National Response Center have been investigated, the number of incidents eventually confirmed seems likely to top the 540 individual spill reports after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. 

     

    Photos: Some damaged oil and gas structures leak after Hurricane Ida == The number of reported oil and chemical spills linked to Hurricane Ida has exploded this week, growing from 350 on Monday to more than 2,000 by Wednesday, according to the Coast Guard. While less than half of the spills reported to the National Response Center have been investigated, the number of incidents eventually confirmed seems likely to top the 540 individual spill reports after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

    to be fair, though, no one could have expected a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico, right?

  • coberly says:
    September 12, 2021 at 10:40 am

    EMichael

    O.K.  Ducey is stupid, and deplorable.  People who believe him are at least stupid.

    But going around calling “them” stupid or deplorable backfires.  And it doesn’t help.

    But at this point it no longer matters, so if it makes you feel better, have at it.

    I tend to be not very diplomatic myself.

    • EMichael says:
      September 12, 2021 at 11:31 am

      My point is that they can’t be helped. They are stupid deplorables and should be ignored at all times. Their thoughts are worthless. They are worthless.

    • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
      September 12, 2021 at 11:43 am

      Cob,

       

      Despite that “Over this year, our (Angry Bear) readership has grown by >28% as measured by Google Analytics which uses a thirty-day rolling average to reflect solid trends in readership,” then I would imagine that we are still safe to vent here without fear that millions of the teaming masses of reactionaries will be mortified by our existence.

       

      Angry Bear readership up 28%

       

       

  • coberly says:
    September 12, 2021 at 10:54 am

    Erik

    I think your observations are helpful.  for what it’s worth (nothing) I don’t think the “interfering with the divinely constructed human body will affect the quality of your afterlife” is a Christian idea.  Although god knows what people who call themselves christian believe.

    I suspect it is something introduced by political pastors to influence their flock to join the ant-tax party for purposes having nothing to do with the divine. 

    But I wouldn’t argue with them about it.

  • coberly says:
    September 12, 2021 at 10:58 am

    spell check insists that a n t i – v a x   should be spellied ant-tax.  kinda reminds me of  the tax on frog stew i read about in Pogo.

  • coberly says:
    September 12, 2021 at 12:01 pm

    Ron

    I think I covered that eventuality.  Not only are we a still small voice shouting in the wilderness but the horse is out of the barn, so to speak.  It was only EMike I was trying to mortify. Venting, as you say.

    • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
      September 13, 2021 at 8:51 am

      Cob,

      Yep.  Totally so about that horse.  That horse’s hind end was even POTUS last term.  The horse could not be further out of the barn than that.

      • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
        September 13, 2021 at 9:03 am

        Of course what matter stupid deplorables now?  That climate horse has burned down the barn.

         

         
        Grateful Dead – Throwing Stones

  • coberly says:
    September 13, 2021 at 10:34 am

    Ron

    yes. the climate horse.  poor horse.

    i have spent a lot of time around real horses rear ends.  they are things of beauty and infinitely kind if no one has hurt them.  of course, they need the rest of the horse to complete the picture.

    I don’t know where the expression horse’s ass comes from. except that an ass (burro) is animal very full of opinions…and also a lovely creature if you have a sense of humor.

    possibly from people who regard the end product of horse digestion offensive.  as a cleaner of many stalls i can say that even this is not true.  human digestion product is another thing entirely.

    sorry to be so pedantic, but i thought i needed to put in a good word for the horses, who are not to blame.

     

     

     

    • Ron (RC) Weakley (A.K.A., Darryl For A While At EV) says:
      September 14, 2021 at 6:26 am

      Cob,

       

      Understood and agreed.

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