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Open thread October 14, 2022

Dan Crawford | October 14, 2022 6:45 am

Open thread, October 11, 2022, Angry Bear, angrybearblog.com.

20 Comments

EMichael says:

October 14, 2022 at 10:35 am

Disappointing to see an ad in here for Judicial Watch.
Arne says:

October 14, 2022 at 11:39 am

Rent is up because there is a shortage of housing. Gas is up (in part) because thee is a shortage of refining capacity. Cars are up because there is a chip shortage.

We solve these problems by reducing demand?

I guess the problem with my engineering solution is that a good shortage is better for profits than actually trying to solve the supply problems.
- run75441 says:
  
  October 14, 2022 at 11:49 am
  
  Arne:
  
  Automotive blew themselves up like they did in 2008 with the chip shortage then. Shortages are profitable and typically there is no cost increase.
- Arne says:
  
  October 14, 2022 at 12:07 pm
  
  If instead of modelling how to cost effectively manufacture the product, I model how to manage the flow of money, I am pretty sure I could create some mechanisms that would improve incentives to put funds where they are needed.
  
  Incentivize new low-income housing by adding surcharges by the square foot and by the bathroom. Put the receipts direct into grants for low income housing. Authorize someone to increase or decrease the surcharges base on the effectiveness of the tax in performing the desired growth of the desired housing mix.
  
  Use the effectiveness of capitalist incentives to find unmet demand, but shift the incentives.
  - Justin Cidertrades says:
    
    October 14, 2022 at 9:09 pm
    
    shift the incentives.
    ”
    ~~Arne~
    
    Believe it!
    
    Taxation disincentives and taxation incentives.
    
    Taxation of standing homes and other real property should disincentivize building larger more expensive homes, but decrease inflation.
    
    Concomitantly, tax relief for home construction and all of its inputs would incentivize construction of smaller homes, more inclusive development by smaller margins but larger volume from developers.
    
    Over the years Walmart and Amazon have proved that you can grow a business faster on low margins that can provide larger volumes that easily overshadow the loss in margins.
    
    If only our legislators were as bright as our entrepreneurs, our capitalists. Legislators are forever advertising socially redeeming values but fail to deliver.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 14, 2022 at 11:55 am

Who is Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s new chancellor of the Exchequer?

NY Times – Oct 14

Jeremy Hunt, who was appointed Britain’s chancellor of the Exchequer on Friday, is a former foreign minister and a pragmatist from the ideological center ground of conservative politics. The selection of a moderate with government experience appeared intended to restore calm to financial markets.

Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain named him to replace Kwasi Kwarteng, whom she had fired the same day, cutting short his tenure after just 38 days on the job and after he had introduced a tax plan that backfired and rattled financial markets.

The dizzying speed of the turnover in a post that is normally associated with measured, and sometimes staid, authority sent a jolt through British politics, sharpening criticism of Ms. Truss from within her own party.

Speaking at a news conference, Ms. Truss called Mr. Hunt “one of the most experienced and widely respected government ministers and parliamentarians — and he shares my convictions and ambitions for our country.”

She said that he would “drive our mission to go for growth, including taking forward the supply-side reforms that our country needs,” and that he would deliver the government’s new fiscal plan at the end of the month.

Mr. Hunt, who studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University and was head boy at one of Britain’s leading private schools, was among the candidates to lead the party in 2019, finishing second to Boris Johnson, who then became prime minister. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 14, 2022 at 12:00 pm
  
  U.K. markets remain troubled despite the finance minister’s ouster.
  
  Lawmakers are already talking about whether to oust Truss.
  
  Skeptics call for re-evaluating entire package of unfunded tax cuts.
  
  British minister vows to increase corporate tax rate
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    October 17, 2022 at 8:15 am
    
    Previously…
    
    Liz Truss plans radical shift in economic policy
    
    Financial Times – Sep 2o
    
    This just in…
    
    New UK Finance Minister Drops Almost All of Tax-Cut Plan
    
    NY Times – Oct 17
    
    Britain’s new chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, said on Monday that he would reverse virtually all the government’s planned tax cuts, sweeping away Prime Minister Liz Truss’s free-market economic plan in a desperate bid to steady the financial markets and stabilize her government.
    
    Mr. Hunt also announced that the government would end its massive state intervention to cap energy prices next April, replacing it with a still-undefined program that he said would promote energy efficiency, but that could increase uncertainty for households facing rising gas and electricity bills. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 14, 2022 at 12:02 pm
  
  In a stark retreat, Prime Minister Liz Truss of Britain on Friday fired her finance minister and partly reversed a tax plan that had rattled global financial markets, unsettled investors and set off a spiraling crisis that still threatens her political survival.
  
  In a brief news conference from Downing Street, she vowed to raise the country’s corporate tax rate after promising last month not to do so. The increased taxes will help pay for other tax cuts she had initiated and are meant to calm investors, who worried that the cuts were unfunded.
  
  “It is clear that parts of our mini budget went further and faster than markets were expecting,” Ms. Truss said, adding, “We need to act now to reassure the markets.”
  
  Ms. Truss said that corporate taxes would rise by £18 billion, or $20 billion, which would act as a “down payment” and help restore confidence. But she declined to apologize for the turmoil of recent weeks, and insisted that she remained committed to her objective of spurring economic growth.
  
  The reversal of policy on corporate taxes had been widely expected, but Ms. Truss made no mention in her news conference of any further changes — for example, over her plan to reduce the basic income tax rate.
  
  The statement follows three weeks of turbulence after an announcement last month by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Kwasi Kwarteng, that sent the currency plunging and government borrowing costs soaring. Earlier Friday, Ms. Truss fired Mr. Kwarteng. …
Denis Drew says:

October 14, 2022 at 11:58 am

Zolpidem users: a debilitating surprise awaits at 65
. . . . . .

I took Zolpidem (a.k.a., Ambien) for 12 years. Last spring my doctor cut off my prescription without discussion. Around the same time my brother’s doctor cut his prescription from 10mg to 5mg without discussion. At same time a fellow employee of my brother had her prescription cut off – without discussion also, I believe. Same time frame, I was refused a prescription for Zolpidem by an online nurse practitioner.

I cannot imagine a sufferer of, say, migraine headaches being treated in such a neglectful way — in such an unscientific way — to be left without treatment for a seriously debilitating condition (insomnia) without even a sit-down discussion.

What’s apparently scaring the doctors off is stats building up about accidents (at home and on the road) for the elderly – reported memory problems (for the great majority, including me nothing especially severe) and reports of strange behaviors (e.g., sleep driving) on Zolpidem. Doctors seem to jump away from these daunting side effects with an almost Pavlovian response – without ever considering that for insomnia there is no other sleep aid that does not have a half or all day after drug cloud to live with.

I DON’T WANT TO BE PROTECTED FROM FALLS IN THE KITCHEN AT THE EXPENSE OF LIVING MY LIFE IN SOME KIND OF HANGOVER MIASMA. That’s the issue our doctors somehow seem to miss wholeheartedly with UNIQUELY hangover free Zolpidem.

I speculate that is because – what I call the physical doctors; as opposed to the psychiatric practitioners — can’t measure insomnia; can’t weigh it, can’t take its temperature, can’t sew it up, wouldn’t know where to sew it back – insomnia doesn’t really exist for them.

IOW, nobody’s knocking to ask them to open their motivational door – not nobody home; nobody even knocking – on a deep motivational level. So they don’t even get around to the purely scientific level that they are so deeply trained on.

There are 38 million Americans on Zolpidem – 85% of all sleep aid prescriptions. Are we going to take all of them off their most practical (no hanging on-hangover) and effective sleep aid just when they need it most? For my part I am going to seek a prescription from a psychiatrist. I am very optimistic. I think that with a doctor for whom insomnia is a tangible, palpable, corporeal thing – the argument against being consigned to a life in the miasma to protect against falls in the kitchen – or just losing sleep every night — will be very compelling.

Notes: I can cut a 10mg tablet in three parts – and take one whatever time of night I can’t sleep. Only had five hours sleep? Take one piece: 25-45-50: 25 minutes to act-45 minute blank brain (unless I want to think about something)-50 minutes to waking, bright eyed and bushy tailed.

If I drive without taking the drug (after five hours sleep) I can feel less concentration and patience. No such lack of clarity if I take the drug as little as two hours earlier. If I were making druggie “mistakes” I would intellectually know it.

Note: My time-fitting (4 hours sleep to go) nights, OTC substitute — Diphenhydramine: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/288546#Taking-anticholinergics-for-more-than-3-years-linked-to-higher-dementia-risk

I also wake up from Diphenhydramine feeling like I’ve been hit by a truck. Great.
- rjs says:
  
  October 15, 2022 at 3:02 am
  
  see if you can get a script for Lunesta, Denis….i’ve used it for years without side effects…
Jim Hannan says:

October 14, 2022 at 6:34 pm

A month out from the midterms, my best guess is that the Senate may remain 50/50. Possible D pickup in PA with Fetterman, possible R pickup in NV with Laxalt.

If so, two more years of co presidents Manchin and Sinema.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 15, 2022 at 12:19 am

Trump Delivers 14-Page Response to Jan. 6 Committee

Bloomberg – Oct 14

The House Committee investigating the 2021 insurrection wants Donald Trump to testify, but he’s so far not saying whether he’ll comply.

Trump issued a response Friday to the committee voting on Thursday to demand documents and testimony from the former president about his role in the Jan. 6 attack on the US Capitol, but he didn’t address the subpoena and instead repeated debunked claims of election fraud. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 15, 2022 at 7:41 am
  
  (This is from an ‘on-request’ newsletter from the Boston Globe to subscribers.)
  
  … Trump (also mis-) quoted from a Time magazine piece about the 2020 election. He ends his excerpt with these dramatic sentences:
  
  Trump was right. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes …
  
  What he conveniently left out was the entire rest of the article, which explored a joint effort by business, labor, activists, and CEOs, from the Chamber of Commerce to the AFL-CIO, to protect the integrity of the election from him! As the article says (boldface is mine):
  
  Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain – inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests – in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.
  
  The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election – an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote, but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted. For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined President.
  
  Funny how he didn’t include the article’s central tenet. Oh, well. Nobody ever accused him of reading.
  
  Here’s the entire letter, including the fanciful appendix.
  
  By the way, even though he didn’t mention the subpoena, Trump is doing what he always does: Saying he would love to meet with the committee (his tough guy act). Next week, he’ll lament that his lawyers won’t let him. …
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    October 15, 2022 at 8:14 am
    
    The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election
    
    Time – February 4, 2021
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    October 15, 2022 at 11:30 am
    
    The ‘entire letter’ link in the Globe is to the Bloomberg piece.
    
    Trump Delivers 14-Page Response to Jan. 6 Committee
Fred C. Dobbs says:

October 16, 2022 at 12:26 pm

Democrats Spent $2 Trillion to Save the Economy.

NY Times – Oct 16

They Don’t Want to Talk About It.

Polls show voters liked direct payments from President Biden’s 2021 economic rescue bill. But they have become fodder for Republican inflation attacks. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  October 16, 2022 at 12:31 pm
  
  … the rescue plan has become fodder for Republicans to attack Democrats over rapidly rising prices, accusing them of overstimulating the economy with too much cash.
  
  The economic aid, which was intended to help keep families afloat amid the pandemic, included two centerpiece components for households: the direct checks of up to $1,400 for lower- to middle-class individuals and an expanded child tax credit, worth up to $300 per child per month. It was initially seen as Mr. Biden’s signature economic policy achievement, in part because the tax credit dramatically reduced child poverty last year. Polls suggested Americans knew they had received money and why — giving Democrats hope they would be rewarded politically. …
  
  Economists generally agree that the stimulus spending contributed to accelerating inflation, though they disagree on how much. Biden administration officials and Democratic candidates reject that characterization. When pressed, they defend their emergency spending, saying it has put the United States on stronger footing than other wealthy nations at a time of rapid global inflation. …
  
  Democrats have tried to deflect blame, portraying inflation as the product of global forces like crimped supply chains while touting their efforts to lower the cost of electricity and prescription drugs. They have aired nearly $50 million of their own ads mentioning inflation, often pinning it on corporate profit gouging. …
rjs says:

October 18, 2022 at 6:09 pm

since Europe doesn’t want to import Russian gas over a few hundred miles of pipeline, it’s now being liquefied, sent by tanker to China, who then turns around and sells it to Europe…much more expensive, + massive greenhouse gas emissions on every step of the journey…

China Halts Resales Of Russian LNG To European Buyers

A month and a half ago, we made a startling discovery: China was aggressively reselling LNG imports from Russia, the country’s fourth-largest supplier of LNG so far in 2022 having surpassed both Indonesia and the US, to Europe and thanks to the continent’s unprecedented desperation for gas, it was charging pretty much whatever markup it wanted.

But maybe not any more.

According to Bloomberg, Chinese state-owned energy giants have been recently told by authorities to stop reselling liquefied natural gas cargoes (certainly those from Russia) to gas-starved Europe, in what could be a blow to the European hopes of continuous high inflows of LNG as the winter approaches.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country’s top planning body, told the country’s state-held LNG importers including Sinopec, PetroChina, and CNOOC, that they should stop reselling LNG cargoes and keep them to ensure Chinese gas supply this winter, Oilprice reported citing Bloomberg sources.

In recent months, as we reported first in August, Chinese LNG importers have been selling their excess inventories to Europe and reaping substantial profits from the sales because of lackluster demand in China. Chinese domestic demand has been squashed by rolling waves of city-wide Covid lockdowns and a slowdown in economic growth.

As a result, Chinese sales of LNG have been a relief to the European market so far this year. But as China now moves to cater to its own energy security this winter, Europe’s precarious LNG supply – much of which was a function of continued Chinese reselling of embargoed Russian gas – could dwindle just ahead of the winter heating season.
- rjs says:
  
  October 18, 2022 at 6:12 pm
  
  just as bad, New England utilities are importing liquifed natural gas from Qatar because they aren’t allowed to import it from Russia anymore…
  
  Extreme Cold May Trigger Power Blackouts Across New England – Last month we informed readers, “New England’s Power Crisis Set To Return.” Fast forward to today, as US Northeast temperatures steadily decline as heating demand increases, New England power producers warn grid strains are inevitable as natural gas supplies tighten.
  
  New England consists of six states in the US Northeast, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The region faces a power crisis every winter because its power grid relies on NatGas and lacks pipeline infrastructure for domestic flows. Over the years, NatGas pipeline infrastructure has been delayed, blocked, or abandoned, which means the region’s power-grid operators have to compete in international markets for supplies.
  
  WSJ reported that power-grid operator, ISO New England Inc., warned a colder-than-normal winter “could strain the reliability of the grid and potentially result in the need for rolling blackouts to keep electricity supply and demand in balance.”
  
  ISO New England’s top executives said if power producers have to increase NatGas deliveries due to severe weather drawing down supplies, it would indicate they would be paying international spot-market purchases.
  
  “The most challenging aspect of this winter is what’s happening around the world and the extreme volatility in the markets,” said Vamsi Chadalavada, the grid operator’s chief operating officer. “If you are in the commercial sector, at what point do you buy fuel?”
  
  One major problem is that power producers have limited NatGas storage facilities and lack pipeline capacity reserved mainly by utilities serving homes and businesses. Power producers procure a portion of supplies with fixed-price agreements and mostly rely on spot markets.
  
  “Anybody who is depending on the spot market for their natural-gas supply is probably going to have a pretty significant sticker shock,” said Tanya Bodell, a partner at consulting firm StoneTurn who advises energy companies in New England.
  
  We pointed out last year, “New England Is An Energy Crisis Waiting To Happen,” and the worsening supply woes in Europe and the world means NatGas spot markets will be elevated through the cold season.
  
  New England had the bright idea to decommission coal, oil, and nuclear generators, leaving the grid exposed to NatGas. New England ISO figures show about 5,200 megawatts of that capacity have retired in the last decade.
  
  The region’s power mix changes have left it increasingly reliant on international NatGas spot markets. State governors have asked US Energy Secretary Jennifer Graholm to waive the Jones Act and allow foreign-owned tankers to ship LNG from the US Gulf region.
  
  All of this has led to New England residents facing some of the highest electricity bills in years.