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Open thread Nov. 22, 2022

Dan Crawford | November 22, 2022 7:32 am

“Open thread Nov. 18, 2022,” Angry Bear, angry bear blog.

22 Comments

Denis Drew says:

November 22, 2022 at 1:14 pm

Bring back Obama/Trump voters — with regularly scheduled cert/recert/decert elections

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/23/upshot/how-the-obama-coalition-crumbled-leaving-an-opening-for-trump.html (I haven’t read this in a long time.)
But pinning Mrs. Clinton’s loss on low black turnout would probably be a mistake. Mr. Obama would have easily won both his elections with this level of black turnout and support. (He would have won Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin each time even if Detroit, Cleveland and Milwaukee had been severed from their states and cast adrift into the Great Lakes.)

To my middle-everything brain, the white, blue collar voted for Obama was because they expected he would do something for them — something that would solve most of their problems — they didn’t know exactly what they wanted him to do — NOBODY IN THIS COUNTRY SEEMS TO CATCH ON THAT IT’S ALL ABOUT 50+% UNION DENSITY. He didn’t, so they ran off to follow any entertaining crap that came long — especially entertaining.

A few years ago I read SEIU’s Andrew Strom’s essay on On Labor. To me, mandating union cert-recert-decert elections at every private workplace seemed like the so-obvious magic bullet for everything — and nothing could be easier to sell. Back then I would spam journalists at every major paper in America with the idea — 5000 at a time. Today, I limit messages to any name related to labor that passes before me (like you :-]).

No takers. ?????

I would love to take a poll of Walmart workers or just about any category of worker — I think most of them (let’s say an overwhelming majority) would kill for mandatory elections. Any Democratic politician should want to kill for an issue like that. What is wrong?

https://onlabor.org/why-not-hold-union-representation-elections-on-a-regular-schedule/
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 22, 2022 at 3:39 pm

(Expect an appeal to the Intergalactic Court of Extremely High Justice,)

Supreme Court Permits House Democrats to Obtain Trump’s Tax Returns

NY Times – just in

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for a House committee to receive former President Donald J. Trump’s tax returns, refusing his request to block their release in the waning weeks of Democratic control of the chamber.

The court’s order, which was unsigned and did not note any dissents, is the most recent instance in which it has sided against Mr. Trump, who appointed three justices to the bench. The decision means that the Treasury Department is likely to soon turn over Mr. Trump’s financial documents to the House, which has been seeking them since 2019.

Mr. Trump’s legal team had urged the justices to extend a lower court’s stay as it pursued an appeal before the Supreme Court, saying the House’s request raised issues that were too important to let the Treasury Department turn over his files before they were resolved.

But Douglas N. Letter, the chief lawyer for the House, urged the Supreme Court not to intervene, pointing to a new Congress in January. Any further delay “would leave the committee and Congress as a whole little or no time to complete their legislative work,” he wrote in a brief earlier this month.

In a terse order, the Supreme Court said it was denying Mr. Trump’s application for a stay. It did not include any legal reasoning for the decision. …
- Jackd says:
  
  November 22, 2022 at 6:06 pm
  
  The Federalist Society doesn’t care about Trump now that he’s appointed their people and is out of power.
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  November 23, 2022 at 11:27 am
  
  Obviously, by the time the tax documents arrive the congressional committee will be under GOP control. They will put those long-sought documents in a very safe place, certainly, and throw away the key.
  - Jackd says:
    
    November 23, 2022 at 6:40 pm
    
    Apparently the committee has them and is not releasing them to the public. . .. yet.
rjs says:

November 22, 2022 at 6:42 pm

i have been hoping that they don’t damage this plant:
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant rocked by ‘powerful explosions,’ UN nuclear agency says —

it was hard enough to remember how to spell and pronounce Chernobyl and Fukushima without having to learn how to say and spell Zaporizhzhia…
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 22, 2022 at 10:50 pm

A new coronavirus variant has taken over, sparking concerns of a winter surge – The Boston Globe

A new subvariant has taken over as the predominant version of coronavirus circulating in Massachusetts, causing experts to worry about a potential rise of infections this winter, especially as people gather indoors for the holidays. But for most people who have been fully vaccinated, they say, it will likely pose more of a nuisance than serious health threat.

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard projected last Thursday that the virus, an offshoot of the Omicron family dubbed BQ.1.1, accounted for 39 percent of COVID-19 cases in the state. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Friday that the variant and its predecessor, BQ.1, constituted nearly half of cases nationwide.

The spread of BQ.1.1 is of concern because multiple small studies published earlier this month suggest the variant is among the best yet at evading antibody immunity, the body’s first line of defense against infections. Even people who recently received new bivalent booster shots from Pfizer or Moderna — which were updated to match the formerly dominant BA.5 variant — have alarmingly low antibodies to protect against the new virus.

“We could see a lot of COVID in the winter,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. But he notes that people who got the new boosters had more antibodies to BQ.1.1 than those who only received the original boosters. “So it’s better than nothing.” …

(But wait…)

Officials See a Reduced Covid Threat This Winter

NY Times – just in

Federal health officials expressed optimism on Tuesday that the nation was better prepared to weather a surge of Covid-19 infections this winter compared with a year earlier, and they renewed their pleas for Americans to get an updated booster shot ahead of the holidays.

While the trajectory of the virus remains uncertain, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser, said the administration was hopeful that the combination of infections and vaccinations had created “enough community protection that we’re not going to see a repeat of what we saw last year at this time” when a brand-new variant, Omicron, emerged seemingly out of the blue.

As families gather for Thanksgiving, the coronavirus appears to be less of a threat to most Americans than it was a year ago, when Omicron began spreading infection at an alarming rate …
rjs says:

November 23, 2022 at 6:54 pm

someone is hitting residential areas of Kiev again…

Apartment block in Kiev hit by US-made AIM-120C for NASMAS air defense systems

The missile that hit an apartment block in Kiev today was a US-made AIM-120C launched from one of the newly arrived NASMAS air defense systems, donated to Ukraine in the last months. Local people shared on social media photos of the wreckage of the missile. Even though Ukraine blamed Russia for the strike, it turns out the missile was not Russian but American and was fired by Ukrainian troops.

Wreckage of the missile, photo: Telegram

The fragment shown in the photo has the word LIFT as the American AIM-120C. This is an anti-aircraft missile for the NASAMS systems which were recently donated to Ukraine. By analyzing the photos which Ukrainian citizens published themselves the missile which hit their residential building can be easily identified as American.

AIM-120C, source: Telegram

Raytheon Technologies announced last month that it had delivered the first two of the NASAMS air defense systems promised to Ukraine by the US government. The NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System) primarily uses the AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM).

The missile is also used by fighter jets in air-to-air applications. Procured to 40 countries, the AMRAAM missile has been integrated onto the F-15A/B/C/D/E Eagle/Strike Eagle, F-16 Fighting Falcon, F/A-18 Super Hornet, F-22 Raptor, Eurofighter Typhoon, JAS-39 Gripen, Tornado and Harrier. The newest version of AIM is operational on all F-35 Joint Strike Fighter variants. It is the only radar-guided, air-to-air missile cleared for be deployed on the F-35.

(photos with article)
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 24, 2022 at 8:58 am

Fed Officials Discussed Slowing Interest Rate Increases ‘Soon’

NY Times – Nov 23

The central bankers discussed the need to slow rate increases soon at their last meeting, while signaling that they are likely to raise borrowing costs higher.

Federal Reserve officials agreed at their November meeting that it would soon be appropriate to slow interest rate increases, minutes from the gathering showed, as they shifted their emphasis toward how high interest rates will eventually rise.

Central bankers lifted interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point for a fourth straight time at their Nov. 1-2 meeting, bringing the federal funds rate to nearly 4 percent. Rates were set just above zero as recently as March.

The Fed has been carrying out the most aggressive campaign to restrain the economy in decades as it tries to wrestle the fastest inflation since the 1980s back under control. By making it more expensive to borrow money, the Fed’s rate moves can cool demand across the economy, allowing supply to come back into balance and price increases to moderate.

But officials are debating just how much additional action is needed to ensure that inflation comes to heel. They want to make certain that they do enough: Failing to curb inflation quickly could make it a more permanent feature of the American economy, which would make it even more difficult to stamp out later on. But policymakers want to avoid doing more than is necessary to restrain price increases, because doing so could cost jobs and dent wages, leaving people worse off economically.

… Raising rates more gradually — but to a higher ultimate level — will allow them to show they are committed to fighting inflation while giving themselves more time to observe how their moves so far are working.

“There was wide agreement that heightened uncertainty regarding the outlooks for both inflation and real activity underscored the importance of taking into account the cumulative tightening of monetary policy, the lags with which monetary policy affected economic activity and inflation, and economic and financial developments,” the minutes showed.

The minutes did not make it clear when exactly the central bank will slow its rate increases, but investors anticipate that it could step down to a half-point move next month. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  November 24, 2022 at 9:01 am
  
  minutes from the gathering showed…
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 24, 2022 at 11:23 am

In September, a US-Made Missile Went Astray in Ukraine, Injuring Civilians

NY Times – Nov 24

An American-made missile fired by Ukrainian forces wounded three civilians in eastern Ukraine in September, according to residents and debris recovered from the scene, marking a rare instance where U.S.-supplied weapons were linked to civilian casualties in the nine-month-old conflict.

The strike — from an AGM-88B High Speed Anti-Radiation Missile, which is fired from a fighter jet against ground targets like radar and air-defense systems — happened on Sept. 26 around 6 p.m. in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, residents said. The industrial city in Ukraine’s Donbas region has been the site of constant missile and artillery attacks since Russia invaded in February. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 24, 2022 at 11:38 am

two NASAMS launchers delivered to Kyiv fire common air-to-air missiles used by its allies.

NY Times – Nov 8

(On Nov 7, Ukraine) received its first shipment of an advanced weapon whose design helps solve (a) supply problem.

The weapon is an air defense system known as the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System, or NASAMS, that is jointly produced by the United States and Norway. It includes a radar, sensors, launchers that can be loaded with six missiles each and a mobile command center where soldiers can monitor airborne threats. Every component can be towed or placed on the back of a truck and moved quickly. …

The launcher is capable of firing four different American-made missiles … including the heat-seeking AIM-9X Sidewinder and the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile, which has a radar that can home in on airborne threats about 30 miles away. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  November 24, 2022 at 11:52 am
  
  Millions remain without power in Ukraine …
  
  NY Times – just in
  
  … Since Oct. 10, Russia has fired around 600 missiles at power plants, hydroelectric facilities, water pumping stations and treatment facilities, high-voltage cables around nuclear power stations and critical substations that bring power to tens of millions of homes and businesses, according to Ukrainian officials.
  
  The campaign is taking a mounting toll. The strikes on Wednesday put all of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants offline for the first time, depriving the country of one of its most vital sources of energy.
  
  “We expect that nuclear plants will start working by the evening, so the deficit will decrease,” Mr. Galushchenko said.
  
  Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, the top commander of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said Ukrainian air defenses shot down 51 of the 67 Russian cruise missiles fired on Wednesday and five of 10 drones. …
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    November 25, 2022 at 4:25 pm
    
    As seen on the web…
    
    Ukraine said the three nuclear power plants located in territory it controls are online again after a massive bombardment of missile attacks from Russia on Wednesday targeting Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 25, 2022 at 7:53 am

This Holiday Season, the Poor Buckle Under Inflation as the Rich Spend

NY Times – Nov 25

November has been busier than expected at the Langham Hotel in Boston as luxury travelers book rooms in plush suites and hold meetings in gilded conference rooms. The $135-per-adult Thanksgiving brunch at its in-house restaurant sold out weeks ago.

Across town, in Dorchester, demand has been booming for a different kind of food service. Catholic Charities is seeing so many families at its free pantry that Beth Chambers, vice president of basic needs at Catholic Charities Boston, has had to close early some days and tell patrons to come back first thing in the morning. On the frigid Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, patrons waiting for free turkeys began to line the street at 4:30 a.m. — more than four hours before the pantry opened.

The contrast illustrates a divide that is rippling through America’s topsy-turvy economy nearly three years into the pandemic. Many well-off consumers are still flush with savings and faring well financially, bolstering luxury brands and keeping some high-end retailers and travel companies optimistic about the holiday season. At the same time, America’s poor are running low on cash buffers, struggling to keep up with rising prices and facing climbing borrowing costs if they use credit cards or loans to make ends meet.

The situation underlines a grim reality of the pandemic era. The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to make borrowing more expensive and temper demand, hoping to cool the economy and bring the fastest inflation in decades back under control. Central bankers are trying to manage that without a recession that leaves families out of work. But the adjustment period is already a painful one for many Americans — evidence that even if the central bank can pull off a so-called “soft landing,” it won’t feel benign to everyone. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 26, 2022 at 1:46 pm

At Protests, Guns Are Doing the Talking

NY Times – Nov 26

Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s.

This month, armed protesters appeared outside an elections center in Phoenix, hurling baseless accusations that the election for governor had been stolen from the Republican, Kari Lake. In October, Proud Boys with guns joined a rally in Nashville where conservative lawmakers spoke against transgender medical treatments for minors.

In June, armed demonstrations around the United States amounted to nearly one a day. A group led by a former Republican state legislator protested a gay pride event in a public park in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Men with guns interrupted a Juneteenth festival in Franklin, Tenn., handing out fliers claiming that white people were being replaced. Among the others were rallies in support of gun rights in Delaware and abortion rights in Georgia.

Whether at the local library, in a park or on Main Street, most of these incidents happen where Republicans have fought to expand the ability to bear arms in public, a movement bolstered by a recent Supreme Court ruling on the right to carry firearms outside the home. The loosening of limits has occurred as violent political rhetoric rises and the police in some places fear bloodshed among an armed populace on a hair trigger. …

Armed Americans, often pushing a right-wing agenda, are increasingly using open-carry laws to intimidate opponents and shut down debate.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 26, 2022 at 1:50 pm

At Protests, Guns Are Doing the Talking

NY Times – Nov 26

Across the country, openly carrying a gun in public is no longer

just an exercise in self-defense — increasingly it is a soapbox for

elevating one’s voice and, just as often, quieting someone else’s. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  November 27, 2022 at 6:38 am
  
  Ironic, no, that the Right to Bear Arms is interfering with the Right to Free Speech?
  
  Maybe the SCOTUS will get around to correcting this one day.
  
  Unless this was the way the Framers intended it to be.
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 27, 2022 at 8:13 am

House Republicans don’t really have a plan to lower inflation, but economists say that could be a good thing

Boston Globe – Nov 26 – not a free link

Inflation was a pivotal issue in the midterm elections, with voter anger about the rising cost of living helping Republicans win a narrow House majority. But that doesn’t mean they have a plan to rein in sky-high prices next year.

And economists say that’s actually a good thing.

House Republicans campaigned on an economic platform of lowering inflation by curbing wasteful government spending, increasing energy production, unsnarling the supply chain, and boosting jobs and wages “through pro-growth tax and deregulatory policies.”

But those are all longer-term initiatives. They don’t really have a short-term plan, and even if they did, they’re unlikely to get any significant legislation through the Democratic-controlled Senate and past President Biden’s veto pen. …

… it’s the Republicans who made reducing inflation the centerpiece of their midterm campaign, and in the short term, they might have a greater chance of making the economy worse instead of better.

The only political leverage for House Republicans comes on must-pass bills to fund the government and raise the national debt limit for borrowing money to help pay for federal spending. Stalemates on that legislation could trigger a government shutdown or default on federal debt that would roil financial markets and damage an economy that already is expected to be teetering on the edge of recession next year. …
- Fred C. Dobbs says:
  
  November 27, 2022 at 8:14 am
  
  But if those impasses can be avoided, the broader stalemate caused by divided government in Washington should help the inflation fight, economists said. It would keep politicians out of the battle, leaving the task to Federal Reserve officials who have the best tool — interest rate hikes — to bring down prices in the short term.
  
  “I think realistically there’s going to be very little that the next Congress can do on the inflation front, or the administration,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative-leaning American Action Forum think tank and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. “They would all be well-advised not to make it worse … and don’t try to fix it because they really don’t have the tools for doing that.”
  
  Inflation has shown signs that it has peaked after the annual consumer price index hit a four-decade high of 9 percent in June. The figure dropped to 7.8 percent in October after months of Fed officials aggressively raising a key interest rate that affects consumer and business borrowing costs in hopes of reducing the demand that has helped drive up prices.
  
  But there have been previous false dawns on inflation since prices started their rapid climb last year, following increased spending from federal COVID rescue money, pandemic supply chain problems, and sharply higher energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war has sent inflation skyrocketing in much of the world.
  
  In the United States, annual inflation remains well above the Fed’s goal of 2 percent. Americans got a fresh taste of the problem this past week as the American Farm Bureau Federation estimated the cost of Thanksgiving dinner was 20 percent higher compared to last year. …
  - Fred C. Dobbs says:
    
    November 27, 2022 at 8:16 am
    
    Republicans have blamed high prices on Democrats, branding the problem “Bidenflation” and making it a centerpiece of their midterm campaigns. National exit polls in House races found inflation was the top concern of voters, narrowly beating out abortion. Of the 31 percent of voters who said inflation was the most important issue in their decision, 71 percent cast their ballots for Republicans.
    
    But Democrats have argued Republicans don’t have any real plan to reduce inflation and are poised to make it worse.
    
    Biden and Democratic congressional candidates blamed the Ukraine war for much of the problem this year and pointed to their efforts to reduce prices by trying to fix supply chain bottlenecks and lowering costs for Americans on expenses like prescription drugs and health care in the Inflation Reduction Act signed into law last summer.
    
    That bill’s name, rebranded after the collapse of Biden’s much more ambitious Build Back Better legislation, demonstrated the importance of inflation in the midterms even as it oversold the potential impact. Economists predicted the law would have little immediate effect on inflation and make only a marginal difference longer term.
    
    Biden acknowledged in a news conference after the midterms that despite the Democrats’ efforts to reduce inflation, “it’s hard for folks to see … that progress in their everyday lives.”
    
    He promised to work with congressional Republicans next year on “good ideas,” but said he’d oppose any attempts to roll back parts of the Inflation Reduction Act or enact new tax cuts for wealthy Americans and large corporations.
    
    “I want to be very clear: I’m not going to support any Republican proposal that’s going to make inflation worse,” he said.
    
    Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren believes that her fellow Democrats were able to avoid the large midterm losses that are usually sustained by the president’s party in his first midterms because they took steps to confront inflation and “delivered for working people.” She said that Republicans are more interested in causing “economic chaos” for their own political purposes than tackling inflation to help ease the burden on average Americans.
    
    “When Democrats are in charge, Republicans will try to impose economic pain on families so they can blame us and seize power for themselves,” Warren said in a speech this month at a progressive economic conference.
    
    As an example, she cited the Republican showdown over raising the debt limit in 2011 after the party had won control of the House during then-President Barack Obama’s first midterm election. The delay in raising the limit, which Republicans had used for leverage to force spending cuts, led Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the US government’s credit rating for the first time ever. Major stock indexes tumbled and the lower credit rating meant $1.3 billion in additional federal borrowing costs that year alone. …
Fred C. Dobbs says:

November 27, 2022 at 8:19 am

Some House Republicans are talking about leveraging the debt limit again to force spending cuts and other economic measures. Failure to raise the limit would mean the federal government would be unable to pay some of its debt and could push the US economy into a deep recession, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, an economics research and consulting firm.

“Breaching the debt limit or even kind of flirting with breaching the debt limit, that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,” he said. “This is just going to result in chaos in the financial system.”

And he argued that the Republican focus on reducing government spending to lower inflation would not be effective because inflation is being driven now by the disruptions of the Ukraine war and continued problems from the pandemic.

“The root cause of this inflation is not fiscal policy, it’s not government spending,” Zandi said. “It goes right back to those two massive shocks that affected the economy.”

Bob Schwartz, senior economist at Oxford Economics, a global forecasting and analysis firm, said inflation probably would be high right now because of the Ukraine war, regardless of earlier Washington COVID spending. Still, he said the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan enacted in March 2021 helped fuel inflation in the United States.

Getting inflation under control now without causing a recession is not easy. But he said a Republican House majority probably will block any large new spending initiatives and that would help as Fed rate hikes slowly push inflation down to between 4 percent and 4.5 percent by the end of next year.

“At the very least, it probably short circuits any ambition tax and spending plans that Biden and the Democrats might have,” Schwartz said of Republicans winning the House majority and sharing power in Washington. “On the margins, gridlock is always better for inflation.”