Despite all of the global economic concerns, the low jobs report, COVID labor shortages, major supply chain problems, low inventories of many goods, major concerns about inflation, debt ceiling problems, uncertainty about infrastructure & spending trillions in social programs & climate change; the one entity seemingly not worried is the Dow at near 35,000 & up over 500 yesterday (10/14/21).
Dems Messaging Is Sooooo Bad! only 43 percent of voters want them to regain control of Congress, per Quinnipiac, with 46% favoring the GOP taking at least one branch. Yet, polls find “huge support” for parts of the Reconciliation bill.https://newrepublic.com/article/163969/democratic-reconciliation-bill-popular
or maybe it has something to do with the contempt they feel coming from the Left?
or, possibly, the Right (quite dishonestly) propaganda touches something real in human nature beyond “more money” which seems to be all the Left has to sell…but for some mysterious reason…never delivers on.
just to try to avoid gross misunderstanding I am generally in favor of what the Left says it wants to do, but I suspect there is a form of stupidity that is not measured by IQ. That said, it seems that “Democrats” in public at least do not suffer from this as much as their “base” does. and, continuing my futile effort to avoid being misunderstood, I am generally in favor of what I think are the basic goals of that base, but they seem to be remarkably stupid how they go about reaching it: “first, alienate the “low IQ” working class, second, scare the hell out of the rich and powerful by “demanding” confiscation of wealth” where simple anti predatory policies and demonstrably “good for everyone” social insurance would work better and have at least a chance of becoming law.
or maybe it has something to do with the cintempt they feel coming from the Left. Or the fact that the Right propaganda (dishonestly) touches on something in human nature that “uneducated” people feel is more important than “more money.”?
or that the Left never delivers on what they promise.
All happy economies are alike; each unhappy economy is unhappy in its own way.
In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, the economy’s problems were all about inadequate demand. The housing boom had gone bust; consumers weren’t spending enough to fill the gap; the Obama stimulus, designed to boost demand, was too small and short-lived.
In 2021, by contrast, many of our problems seem to be about inadequate supply. Goods can’t reach consumers because ports are clogged; a shortage of semiconductor chips has crimped auto production; many employers report that they’re having a hard time finding workers.
Much of this is probably transitory, although supply-chain disruptions will clearly last for a while. But something more fundamental and lasting may be happening in the labor market. Long-suffering American workers, who have been underpaid and overworked for years, may have hit their breaking point.
About those supply-chain issues: It’s important to realize that more goods are reaching Americans than ever before. The problem is that despite increased deliveries, the system isn’t managing to keep up with extraordinary demand.
Earlier in the pandemic, people compensated for the loss of many services by buying stuff instead. People who couldn’t eat out remodeled their kitchens. People who couldn’t go to gyms bought home exercise equipment.
The result was an astonishing surge in purchases of everything from household appliances to consumer electronics. Early this year real spending on durable goods was more than 30 percent above prepandemic levels, and it’s still very high.
But things will improve. As Covid-19 subsides and life gradually returns to normal, consumers will buy more services and less stuff, reducing the pressure on ports, trucking and railroads.
The labor situation, by contrast, looks like a genuine reduction in supply. Total employment is still five million below its prepandemic peak. Employment in the leisure and hospitality sector is still down more than 9 percent. Yet everything we see suggests a very tight labor market.
On one side, workers are quitting their jobs at unprecedented rates, a sign that they’re confident about finding new jobs. On the other side, employers aren’t just whining about labor shortages, they’re trying to attract workers with pay increases. Over the past six months wages of leisure and hospitality workers have risen at an annual rate of 18 percent, and they are now well above their prepandemic trend. …
… why are we experiencing what many are calling the Great Resignation, with so many workers either quitting or demanding higher pay and better working conditions to stay? Until recently conservatives blamed expanded jobless benefits, claiming that these benefits were reducing the incentive to accept jobs. But states that canceled those benefits early saw no increase in employment compared with those that didn’t, and the nationwide end of enhanced benefits last month doesn’t seem to have made much difference to the job situation. …
What seems to be happening instead is that the pandemic led many U.S. workers to rethink their lives and ask whether it was worth staying in the lousy jobs too many of them had.
For America is a rich country that treats many of its workers remarkably badly. Wages are often low; adjusted for inflation, the typical male worker earned virtually no more in 2019 than his counterpart did 40 years earlier. Hours are long: America is a “no-vacation nation,” offering far less time off than other advanced countries. Work is also unstable, with many low-wage workers — and nonwhite workers in particular — subject to unpredictable fluctuations in working hours that can wreak havoc on family life.
And it’s not just employers who treat workers harshly. A significant number of Americans seem to have contempt for the people who provide them with services. According to one recent survey, 62 percent of restaurant workers say they’ve received abusive treatment from customers.
Given these realities, it’s not surprising that many workers are either quitting or reluctant to return to their old jobs. The harder question is, why now? Many Americans hated their jobs two years ago, but they didn’t act on those feelings as much as they are now. What changed?
Well, it’s only speculation, but it seems quite possible that the pandemic, by upending many Americans’ lives, also caused some of them to reconsider their life choices. Not everyone can afford to quit a hated job, but a significant number of workers seem ready to accept the risk of trying something different — retiring earlier despite the monetary cost, looking for a less unpleasant job in a different industry, and so on.
And while this new choosiness by workers who feel empowered is making consumers’ and business owners’ lives more difficult, let’s be clear: Overall, it’s a good thing. American workers are insisting on a better deal, and it’s in the nation’s interest that they get it.
We knew it was coming back in July, and of course did nothing to plan for it. Josh Linville of StoneX analytics shows how badly the commodities are getting beaten up.
– 12 months ago it cost 55 bushels of corn for 1 ton of #urea. Same ton today, 135 bushels. – #UAN – 30 bushels a year ago vs 97 today – #DAP – 90 bushels a year ago vs 130 today – #potash – 50 bushels a year ago vs 130 today
Deere UAW goes on strike. Company is expected to post around a $5.8 billion dollar profit and the workers want wage increases. If the strike continues for a considerable amount of time, one source said they lay foundations for combines in November, meaning no new combine production or sales for 2022, if true.
You added more while I was editing this. Looks good though. Be careful about how many times you hit “return” or you will get too much space between paragraphs, etc.
I should stop using mobile and get back to the laptop ball and chain. I’ll try and put a rundown together when we have bid weeks like this. Thanks for cleaning up.
… across America, … rents shoot higher after a brief pandemic slump, burdening households and fueling overall inflation. That is bad news for the Federal Reserve, because it could make today’s uncomfortably rapid price gains last longer. It’s also problematic for the White House because it hits households right in their pocketbooks, diminishing well-being and fueling unhappiness among voters.
The jump in rents stemmed from a frenzy in the market for owned homes. People tried to buy as the pandemic took hold in the United States, often searching for extra space, but found that houses were in short supply after years of under-building following the housing crisis. That dearth of properties has been exacerbated by work stoppages, supply shortages and labor constraints during the coronavirus era, all of which have kept developers from ramping up production to meet demand. …
check that, it looks like cases are still falling ~1% ex US and Canada…they’re rising ex-North America….
among those leading the increase, new cases are up 14% in the UK, up 13% in Russia, up 34% in the Ukraine, up 14% in Romania, up 79% in Georgia, and up 56% in the Netherlands…
Scientists are anxiously tracking a descendant of the Delta coronavirus, which is responsible for a growing proportion of Covid-19 cases in the UK, and could be more infectious than the original Delta variant, they say.
This AY.4.2 subvariant has only recently been recognised by virologists who follow the genetic evolution of Delta but it already accounts for almost 10 per cent of UK cases. Its prevalence is increasing rapidly, though not as fast as the original Delta variant when it reached Britain from India early this year.
If the preliminary evidence is confirmed, AY.4.2 may be the most infectious coronavirus strain since the pandemic started, said Balloux. “But we have to be careful at this stage,” he added. “Britain is the only country in which it has taken off in this way and I still would not rule out its growth being a chance demographic event.”
AY.4.2 “is likely to be elevated to the rank of ‘Variant under Investigation’,” Balloux said, at which point the World Health Organization would assign it a Greek letter under its naming system.
Some commentators in the US linked the emergence of AY.4.2 with the very high levels of Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths in the UK — far above those recorded elsewhere in western Europe.
The UK on Monday announced a daily total of 49,156 people testing positive for Covid, the largest number since July. The average over the past seven days was 16 per cent higher than the previous week.
Scott Gottlieb, former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner, tweeted on Sunday: “We need urgent research to figure out if this ‘delta plus’ is more transmissible, has partial immune evasion.”
UK experts said research was already under way. Barrett added: “While it [AY.4.2] may make things more difficult, it doesn’t by itself explain the recent high UK caseload.”
AY.4.2 is one of 45 sub-lineages descending from Delta that have been recorded around the world. It carries two characteristic mutations in the spike protein with which the virus infects human cells, called Y145H and A222V.
The West Virginia Democrat told the White House he is firmly against a clean electricity program that is the muscle behind the president’s plan to battle climate change.
The most powerful part of President Biden’s climate agenda — a program to rapidly replace the nation’s coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy — will likely be dropped from the massive budget bill pending in Congress, according to Congressional staffers and lobbyists familiar with the matter.
Senator Joe Manchin III, the Democrat from coal-rich West Virginia whose vote is crucial to the passage of the bill, has told the White House that he strongly opposes the clean electricity program, according to three of those people. As a result, White House staffers are now rewriting the legislation without that climate provision, and are trying to cobble together a mix of other policies that could also cut emissions.
… The $150 billion clean electricity program was the muscle behind Mr. Biden’s ambitious climate agenda. It would reward utilities that switched from burning fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, and penalize those that do not.
Experts have said that the policy would dramatically reduce the greenhouse gases that are heating the planet over the next decade and that it would be the strongest climate change policy ever enacted by the United States. …
Mr. Manchin, who has personal financial ties to the coal industry, had initially intended to write the details of the program as the chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Mr. Manchin was considering a clean electricity program that would reward utilities for switching from coal to natural gas, which is less polluting but still emits carbon dioxide and can leak methane, another greenhouse gas. Mr. Manchin’s home state, West Virginia, is one of the nation’s top producers of coal and gas.
But in recent days, Mr. Manchin indicated to the administration that he was now completely opposed to a clean electricity program, people familiar with the discussions said. …
Coal is an abundant natural resource that can be used as a source of energy, as a chemical source from which numerous synthetic compounds (e.g., dyes, oils, waxes, pharmaceuticals, and pesticides) can be derived, and in the production of coke for metallurgical processes. Coal is a major source of energy in the production of electrical power using steam generation. In addition, gasification and liquefaction of coal produce gaseous and liquid fuels that can be easily transported (e.g., by pipeline) and conveniently stored in tanks. …
(Someone has to convince Joe Manchin that, going forward, coal resources should be preserved for chemical purposes and not burned up for energy. Good luck with that.)
The G.O.P.’s ambitions of ending unified Democratic control in Washington in 2022 are colliding with a considerable force that has the ability to sway tens of millions of votes: former President Donald J. Trump’s increasingly vocal demands that members of his party remain in a permanent state of obedience, endorsing his false claims of a stolen election or risking his wrath.
In a series of public appearances and statements over the last week, Mr. Trump has signaled not only that he plans to work against Republicans he deems disloyal, but also that his meritless claims that widespread voter fraud cost him the White House in 2020 will be his litmus test, going so far as to threaten that his voters will sit out future elections.
“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Mr. Trump said in a statement last week, “Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24. It’s the single most important thing for Republicans to do.” …
Democrats are debating whether doing nothing will cost more than doing something to deal with climate change, education, child care, prescription drugs and more.
WASHINGTON — As lawmakers debate how much to spend on President Biden’s sprawling domestic agenda, they are really arguing about a seemingly simple issue: affordability.
Can a country already running huge deficits afford the scope of spending that the president envisions? Or, conversely, can it afford to wait to address large social, environmental and economic problems that will accrue costs for years to come?
It is a stealth battle over the fiscal future at a time when few lawmakers in either party have prioritized addressing debt and deficits. Each side believes its approach would put the nation’s finances on a more sustainable path by generating the strongest, most durable economic growth possible.
The debate has shaped a discussion among lawmakers about what to prioritize as they scale back Mr. Biden’s initial proposal to dedicate $3.5 trillion over 10 years to programs and tax cuts that would curb greenhouse gas emissions, make child care more affordable, expand access to college and lower prescription drug prices, among other priorities. The smaller bill under discussion could increase the total amount of government spending on all current programs by about 1.5 percent to 2.5 percent over the next decade, depending on its size and components. …
Mr. Biden has proposed fully paying for this with a series of tax increases on businesses and the wealthy — including raising the corporate tax rate, increasing taxes on multinational corporations and cracking down on wealthy people who evade taxes — along with reducing government spending on prescription drugs for older Americans.
As the negotiations continue, Democrats are considering cutting back or jettisoning programs to shave hundreds of billions of dollars off the final price to get it to a number that can pass the House and Senate along party lines. One key part of Mr. Biden’s climate agenda — a program to rapidly replace coal- and gas-fired power plants with wind, solar and nuclear energy — is likely to be dropped from the bill because of objections from a coal-state senator: Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia.
The discussions have focused attention on Washington’s longstanding practice of using budgetary gimmicks to make programs appear to be paid for when they are not, as well as opening a new sort of discussion about what affordable really means.
The debate about what the United States can afford used to be pegged to its growing budget deficits and warnings that the government, which spends much more than it brings in, could saddle future generations with mountains of debt, sluggish economic growth, runaway inflation and enormous tax hikes. But those concerns receded after no such crisis materialized. The country experienced tepid inflation and low borrowing costs for a decade after the 2008 financial crisis, despite increased borrowing for economic stimulus under President Barack Obama and for tax cuts under President Donald J. Trump.
In its place is a new debate, one focused on the long-term costs and benefits of the government’s spending decisions.
Many Democrats fear the United States cannot afford to wait to curb climate change, help more women enter the work force and invest in feeding and educating its most vulnerable children. In their view, failing to invest in those issues means the country risks incurring painful costs that will slow economic growth.
“We can’t afford not to do these kinds of investments,” David Kamin, a deputy director of the White House National Economic Council, said in an interview.
Take climate change: The Democratic think tank Third Way estimates that if Congress passes an aggressive plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, U.S. companies will invest an additional $1.3 trillion in the construction and deployment of low-emission energy like wind and solar power and energy-efficient technologies over the next decade, and $10 trillion by 2050. White House officials say that if the country fails to reduce emissions, the federal government will face mounting costs for relief and other aid to victims of climate-related disasters like wildfires and hurricanes.
“Those are the table stakes for the reconciliation and infrastructure debate,” said Josh Freed, the senior vice president for climate and energy at Third Way. “It’s why we think the cost of inaction, from an economic perspective, is so enormous.”
But to some centrist Democrats, who have expressed deep reservations about spending $2 trillion on a bill to advance Mr. Biden’s plans, “affordable” still means what it did in decades past: not adding to the federal debt. The budget deficit has swelled in recent years, reaching $1 trillion in 2019 from additional spending and tax cuts that did not pay for themselves, before topping $3 trillion last year amid record spending to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Manchin says he fears too much additional spending would feed rising inflation, which could push up borrowing costs and make it harder for the country to manage its budget deficit. He has made clear that he would like the final bill to raise more revenue than it spends in order to reduce future deficits and the threat of a debt crisis. Mr. Biden says his proposals would help fight inflation by reducing the cost of child care, housing, education and more. …
A former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, secretary of state and national security adviser, Mr. Powell died on Monday, his family said.
Colin L. Powell, who in four decades of public life served as the nation’s top soldier, diplomat and national security adviser, and whose speech at the United Nations in 2003 helped pave the way for the United States to go to war in Iraq, died on Monday. He was 84.
He died of complications from Covid-19, his family said in a statement. He was fully vaccinated and was treated at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, his family said.
Mr. Powell was a path breaker serving as the country’s first African American national security adviser, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and secretary of state. …
(Powell came out of retirement in) 2001 as secretary of state to President George W. Bush, whose father Mr. Powell had served as chairman of the Joint Chiefs a decade earlier.
But in the Bush administration, Mr. Powell was the odd man out, fighting internally with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld for the ear of President Bush and foreign policy dominance.
He left at the end of Mr. Bush’s first term under the cloud of an ever-worsening war in Iraq, and growing questions about whether he could have and should have done more to object to it.
If we could unlock the puzzle of Colin Powell, maybe we could understand why America cracked up.
General Powell was the best America had to offer. He was the son of Jamaican immigrants in the South Bronx who became a hero in Vietnam and then the first African American secretary of state. …
Back in 1995, I wrote a column about the needlepoint-pillow rules Powell laid out in his memoir. It is sad to read them now because he broke so many of them when he drove his tank off the cliff known as Iraq. Like Rule No. 7: “You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours.”
Rule No. 1 was: “It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better in the morning.”
But there will be no morning from here to eternity when the decision to invade Iraq will look better.
Powell even failed to follow the Powell doctrine, which shunned attenuated wars in which our national security interests were not at stake. …
Powell should have paid more attention to his Rule No. 8: “Check small things.”
When U.N. officials covered up a tapestry of Picasso’s antiwar masterpiece, “Guernica,” before his speech, Powell should have checked that small thing. The discordance of the secretary of state selling the bombing of Iraq in front of the shrouded image of shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses spoke volumes.
Let me be perfectly blunt with you. Of course we could have a philosophical discussion and you can also kiss my butt philosophically too. We both know neither is going to happen.
“all politics is short term” is not a paraphrase of “all politics is local.” a paraphrase is an attempt to preserve the meaning while changing the words. you have preserved most of the words while changing the meaning to something entirely unrelated. Tip O’Neill was a smart politician and he was saying something smart about politics. You may be saying something about politics but something entirely unrelated to what O’Neill was saying.
It is true that some politicians are only interested in short term advantage. It’s not a completely stupid position. Gaining an advantage today is a pretty good strategy in an unpredictable world. It is, generally, the “strategy” of all living things. But in the case of humans it is a policy, if not a strategy, that is pretty stupid. It may be that gaining an advantage for your party, or your self, gains you the high ground, but at the expense of the long term welfare of all humans, the planet, and yourself as well as your party.
This cost is largely foreseeable. Unfortunately the “politics” of those who largely foresee it have generally been unsuccessful against the politics of those who maneuver (lie, cheat, and steal) to gain the short term advantages that allow them to shape long term results to their future short term advantages that lead us all down the path to hell
And those who disagree with me will say that “no. it is they who have the wisest long term vision, and it is me who is just following the latest feel-good fad.”
It seems to me the Dems can’t prioritize. Women will find better ways to care for their children in the short term. Climate change will reduce or end all options for women and children in the fairly near future.
The spending for the “build back batter” program “needs to be paid for”? Fine. Raise taxes.
Fighting (dishonestly) over “the deficit” is something the R’s know how to do. Screaming about “taxes” is the other thing they know how to do. Pretending to argue with them is something the D’s know how to do. Neither of them has the slightest idea what they are taling about in terms of the actual policies that determine the welfare of actual people…including “the rich.”
Twenty-two years ago this fall, a new book with the provocative title “Dow 36,000” was published to great fanfare — and not a little derision. U.S. stocks had been on fire. The technology and internet boom spurred a wave of day-traders and investment mania that now seems quaint. But at the time, the Dow Jones industrial average index was hovering around 10,000. And even in those heady days, forecasting a near-quadrupling of the index appeared naïve at best and ridiculous at worst.
Today, the Dow is on the verge of reaching that mark, even with recent gyrations triggered by a cocktail of concerns about the Chinese property market, inflation and the U.S. debt ceiling. …
Even so, stocks have seen massive gains relative to wages. What then to make of the growth of the Dow? The more-than-fivefold gains for the tech heavy Nasdaq? Is it a sign of an economic system badly tilted toward the wealthy? Proof that financial markets exist in an alternate universe of capitalism, ever-expanding as the prospects for so many millions continue shrinking? …
Well, someone could tell you the difference between present vallue 36k twenty years ago and present value 36k today. i dont suppose the authors of Dow 36k are breaking out the champagne and getting ticker tape parades down Wall Street.
i’d been seeing ‘Let’s go Brandon!’ posted around the web, with no context and seemingly completely out of place…so i finally decided to google it, figuring i was missing something…
turns out there’s a new rap song by that title…but the phrase originated with NASCAR…
Let’s Go Brandon!’ goes from social media meme to the top of the iTunes charts | Fox News The song was inspired by the “Let’s go Brandon!” trend that has been sweeping the country since NBC sports reporter Kelli Stavast interviewed NASCAR driver Brandon Brown following his victory at Alabama’s Talladega Superspeedway earlier this month. During the interview, the crowd could be heard chanting “F— Joe Biden” in the background, which Stavast seemingly misheard as “Let’s go Brandon!” “Brandon, as you can hear the chants from the crowd, ‘Let’s go, Brandon’ —
i regret my observation about “paraphrase.” it seems the more we talk about it the less we know. no doubt all politics is local in space-time, except when it isn’t. the arguments about climate change vs burdening our children with staggering debt certainly sound like they are about long term if not far away. of course our children might be grateful for the debt if it is what fed them while they were young, or left them with a planet worth living on.
in manchin’s case, the local and short term politics is strictly a matter of cash moving from coal interests to manchins interests, which apparently, because the opposition does not know how to gain a short term advantage, will result in long term and widespread (non local) consequences.
which might be more worth thinking about than the meaning of paraphrase.
I wish you wouldn’t be so perfectly blunt. I have been polite to you. Even friendly. And if you read what I said, you might even notice that I was agreeing with you.
Maybe we are looking at the blogger equivalent of road rage?
Despite all of the global economic concerns, the low jobs report, COVID labor shortages, major supply chain problems, low inventories of many goods, major concerns about inflation, debt ceiling problems, uncertainty about infrastructure & spending trillions in social programs & climate change; the one entity seemingly not worried is the Dow at near 35,000 & up over 500 yesterday (10/14/21).
Dems Messaging Is Sooooo Bad! only 43 percent of voters want them to regain control of Congress, per Quinnipiac, with 46% favoring the GOP taking at least one branch. Yet, polls find “huge support” for parts of the Reconciliation bill.https://newrepublic.com/article/163969/democratic-reconciliation-bill-popular
For over 5 decades now white working class Americans have been voting against their own interests. So why is this surprising?
It has something to do with average IQ being locked at 100.
Dobbs
or maybe it has something to do with the contempt they feel coming from the Left?
or, possibly, the Right (quite dishonestly) propaganda touches something real in human nature beyond “more money” which seems to be all the Left has to sell…but for some mysterious reason…never delivers on.
just to try to avoid gross misunderstanding I am generally in favor of what the Left says it wants to do, but I suspect there is a form of stupidity that is not measured by IQ. That said, it seems that “Democrats” in public at least do not suffer from this as much as their “base” does. and, continuing my futile effort to avoid being misunderstood, I am generally in favor of what I think are the basic goals of that base, but they seem to be remarkably stupid how they go about reaching it: “first, alienate the “low IQ” working class, second, scare the hell out of the rich and powerful by “demanding” confiscation of wealth” where simple anti predatory policies and demonstrably “good for everyone” social insurance would work better and have at least a chance of becoming law.
or maybe it has something to do with the cintempt they feel coming from the Left. Or the fact that the Right propaganda (dishonestly) touches on something in human nature that “uneducated” people feel is more important than “more money.”?
or that the Left never delivers on what they promise.
sorry for the double post. the first failed to appear for awhile so i thought it had been eaten by the computer gods.
The Revolt of the American Worker
NY Times – Paul Krugman – October 14
The Revolt of the American Worker
NY Times – Paul Krugman – October 14
Much like Runs’ rundown of health news from his inbox, in homage, here is this week’s Ag news breakdown:
We start with the Chinese putting a full stop to fertilizer exports to the US. https://www.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2021/09/28/china-halts-phosphate-exports-fertilizer-prices-expected-soar/5907300001/
We knew it was coming back in July, and of course did nothing to plan for it. Josh Linville of StoneX analytics shows how badly the commodities are getting beaten up.
Deere UAW goes on strike. Company is expected to post around a $5.8 billion dollar profit and the workers want wage increases. If the strike continues for a considerable amount of time, one source said they lay foundations for combines in November, meaning no new combine production or sales for 2022, if true.
https://www.agriculture.com/markets/newswire/update-2-deere-workers-go-on-strike-after-uaw-fails-to-reach-deal
Commodities at large are a mess.
https://www.foodbusinessnews.net/articles/7-protein-shortage-pushes-spring-wheat-futures-higher
UK culling thousands of pigs as processor shortages continue.
https://news.sky.com/story/6-000-pigs-culled-and-destroyed-due-to-a-butcher-shortage-says-the-national-pig-association-12433161
Beef market lower, despite high market prices. (Again).
https://caldwelllivestock.com/market-report
https://www.bls.gov/regions/mid-atlantic/data/averageretailfoodandenergyprices_usandmidwest_table.htm
Food prices going higher. Outpacing (transitory) inflation.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/food-prices-rise-outpaced-by-us-inflation-rate
Michael:
You added more while I was editing this. Looks good though. Be careful about how many times you hit “return” or you will get too much space between paragraphs, etc.
You know, you can do this up front . . .
I should stop using mobile and get back to the laptop ball and chain. I’ll try and put a rundown together when we have bid weeks like this. Thanks for cleaning up.
in case you all ain’t been paying attention, global Covid cases are rising again, if we pull out the decreases in the US and Canada from the totals…
seems the latest surge is again centered in Europe, with the UK’s new cases approaching 4K per million population…
check that, it looks like cases are still falling ~1% ex US and Canada…they’re rising ex-North America….
among those leading the increase, new cases are up 14% in the UK, up 13% in Russia, up 34% in the Ukraine, up 14% in Romania, up 79% in Georgia, and up 56% in the Netherlands…
some news on that UK Covid surge:
New Delta descendant may be more infectious than its ancestor | Financial Times
Scientists are anxiously tracking a descendant of the Delta coronavirus, which is responsible for a growing proportion of Covid-19 cases in the UK, and could be more infectious than the original Delta variant, they say.
This AY.4.2 subvariant has only recently been recognised by virologists who follow the genetic evolution of Delta but it already accounts for almost 10 per cent of UK cases. Its prevalence is increasing rapidly, though not as fast as the original Delta variant when it reached Britain from India early this year.
If the preliminary evidence is confirmed, AY.4.2 may be the most infectious coronavirus strain since the pandemic started, said Balloux. “But we have to be careful at this stage,” he added. “Britain is the only country in which it has taken off in this way and I still would not rule out its growth being a chance demographic event.”
AY.4.2 “is likely to be elevated to the rank of ‘Variant under Investigation’,” Balloux said, at which point the World Health Organization would assign it a Greek letter under its naming system.
Some commentators in the US linked the emergence of AY.4.2 with the very high levels of Covid cases, hospitalisations and deaths in the UK — far above those recorded elsewhere in western Europe.
The UK on Monday announced a daily total of 49,156 people testing positive for Covid, the largest number since July. The average over the past seven days was 16 per cent higher than the previous week.
Scott Gottlieb, former US Food and Drug Administration commissioner, tweeted on Sunday: “We need urgent research to figure out if this ‘delta plus’ is more transmissible, has partial immune evasion.”
UK experts said research was already under way. Barrett added: “While it [AY.4.2] may make things more difficult, it doesn’t by itself explain the recent high UK caseload.”
AY.4.2 is one of 45 sub-lineages descending from Delta that have been recorded around the world. It carries two characteristic mutations in the spike protein with which the virus infects human cells, called Y145H and A222V.
Key to Biden’s Climate Agenda Likely to Be Cut Because of Manchin Opposition
So, the world dies because of one corrupt man.
This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. (TS Eliot)
Britannica:
(Someone has to convince Joe Manchin that, going forward, coal resources should be preserved for chemical purposes and not burned up for energy. Good luck with that.)
Paraphrasing Tip O’Neill (‘All politics is local.’)
All politics is short term.
In other words, ‘Make hay while the sun shines.’
If you can dig money out of the ground (coal, oil, whatever),
do so forthwith. Consequences down-stream be damned.
I not so fondly recall a youthful visit to
the headwaters of the Hudson River in
NY’s Adirondack mts, the ‘high-peaks’ area,
which were in the process of being totally
devastated by acid-rain from coal-burning
powerplants in the US midwest, back in the 70’s.
We will never, ever learn not to do this, until it’s too late.
Biden’s Plans Raise Questions About What US Can Afford Not to Do
Pretty soon, the only options will be
A) The Trillion Dollar Coin
B) Americathon
Colin Powell Dies at 84
The sad truth about Colin Powell is that he often did not speak truth to power.
Colin Powell and ‘Guernica’
NY Times – Maureen Dowd – October 23
He covered up for the My Lai massacre. That is all I am going to say.
run
we could have a nice philosophical discussion about what is worse”
“covering up” that which has happened and is beyond repair.
or that which is about to happen and could still be prevented.
or, one cold say, lying to help make it happen.
i know what i would say.
[powell, if he was here, could argue that My Lai was an “accident,” one that was necessary to cover up to protect an otherwise good cause.
But it was not a good cause, as became apparent.
Nor was it an accident…there were thousands of “my lais,” many from 50,000 ft.
coberly:
Let me be perfectly blunt with you. Of course we could have a philosophical discussion and you can also kiss my butt philosophically too. We both know neither is going to happen.
Dobbs
“all politics is short term” is not a paraphrase of “all politics is local.” a paraphrase is an attempt to preserve the meaning while changing the words. you have preserved most of the words while changing the meaning to something entirely unrelated. Tip O’Neill was a smart politician and he was saying something smart about politics. You may be saying something about politics but something entirely unrelated to what O’Neill was saying.
It is true that some politicians are only interested in short term advantage. It’s not a completely stupid position. Gaining an advantage today is a pretty good strategy in an unpredictable world. It is, generally, the “strategy” of all living things. But in the case of humans it is a policy, if not a strategy, that is pretty stupid. It may be that gaining an advantage for your party, or your self, gains you the high ground, but at the expense of the long term welfare of all humans, the planet, and yourself as well as your party.
This cost is largely foreseeable. Unfortunately the “politics” of those who largely foresee it have generally been unsuccessful against the politics of those who maneuver (lie, cheat, and steal) to gain the short term advantages that allow them to shape long term results to their future short term advantages that lead us all down the path to hell
And those who disagree with me will say that “no. it is they who have the wisest long term vision, and it is me who is just following the latest feel-good fad.”
Oooo. My bad!
I used ‘local’ in the sense it is used in physics,
which is ‘nearby, in space-time’.
Tip O’Neill would have understood.
It seems to me the Dems can’t prioritize. Women will find better ways to care for their children in the short term. Climate change will reduce or end all options for women and children in the fairly near future.
The spending for the “build back batter” program “needs to be paid for”? Fine. Raise taxes.
Fighting (dishonestly) over “the deficit” is something the R’s know how to do. Screaming about “taxes” is the other thing they know how to do. Pretending to argue with them is something the D’s know how to do. Neither of them has the slightest idea what they are taling about in terms of the actual policies that determine the welfare of actual people…including “the rich.”
Go figure. (The Dow is presently a bit below 36k.)
Just How High Could the Dow Go?
Well, someone could tell you the difference between present vallue 36k twenty years ago and present value 36k today. i dont suppose the authors of Dow 36k are breaking out the champagne and getting ticker tape parades down Wall Street.
or maybe they are.
Tip O’Neill did not use “local” in the sense “it is used in physics.”
I guess “all physics is local.” except for gravity, and light from Alpha Centauri, though Einstein might have expressed doubt about that.
Hmmm
The man who helped cover up My Lai, Vietnam dies. General Colin Powell due to complications from Covid.
Behind Colin Powell’s Legend, by Robert Parry & Norman Solomon
http://www.consortiumnews.com, December 2000
This information is slowly disappearing from the internet as if it is being cleansed from it and U.S. History.
i’d been seeing ‘Let’s go Brandon!’ posted around the web, with no context and seemingly completely out of place…so i finally decided to google it, figuring i was missing something…
turns out there’s a new rap song by that title…but the phrase originated with NASCAR…
so now you all know the inside joke there too…
dobbs
i regret my observation about “paraphrase.” it seems the more we talk about it the less we know. no doubt all politics is local in space-time, except when it isn’t. the arguments about climate change vs burdening our children with staggering debt certainly sound like they are about long term if not far away. of course our children might be grateful for the debt if it is what fed them while they were young, or left them with a planet worth living on.
in manchin’s case, the local and short term politics is strictly a matter of cash moving from coal interests to manchins interests, which apparently, because the opposition does not know how to gain a short term advantage, will result in long term and widespread (non local) consequences.
which might be more worth thinking about than the meaning of paraphrase.
Run
I wish you wouldn’t be so perfectly blunt. I have been polite to you. Even friendly. And if you read what I said, you might even notice that I was agreeing with you.
Maybe we are looking at the blogger equivalent of road rage?