18 thoughts on “Weekend Open Thread”

1. Jobs report: Here's why you're not earning more despite record low unemployment

   Sibile Marcellus

   https://finance.yahoo.com/news/jobs-report-whats-holding-back-wage-growth-despite-record-low-unemployment-203521585.html

   This.

   Ever since way back.
   Kings and queens. Merchant class. Ag. Taxes, tribute. Banking. Fractional reserve banking. Tax payer protected (nearly* risk free) FRB.

   *your taxpayers could be overrun by another country and everything starts over. Or the leadership goes full on Mobutu.

   But ever since Adam Smith and Tom Jefferson rewrote the model, we have hoped and dreamed. We tell ourselves and our kids – always the kids- work hard and save and be good and pay taxes and don't question the rich and  über rich much and you can get the ring. You too can acheive wealth and security

   But the deck is stacked and the house only loses if the lenders of the owner aren't leg breakers and can be fended off in bk.

   Bring back the draft.
   Make taxes wayy more regressive. … wait, progressive. If we do something like Warren's wealth tax, we are going to need a way to either capture the value as it moves out or a way to prevent the quitters from coming back after they left.
    

   The Biden campaign is damaged. Sanders had a heart attack. Warren, Harris Yang and the professor and Mary Ann.
   And just because it's October, (12 months early or 11 years after) this:

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZVh_u5RyiU&t=623s

    

    

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   1. I need those 18 minutes back MADCO.  Where do I send the bill? 

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      1. I could only take about 10

         But still, I don't feel entitled enough to ask for them back.
         Maybe cause I live in a blue metroplex- if I lived in red farm country where everything is subsidized and I would be overrrepresented and I'd be just too plain spoken to ever say a "g."

          

         I heard she and the Quayles are in AZ planning the comeback of all comebacks.
          

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         1. Word in the coffee shop this morning is there is a “15% top-off” (I have no effing clue what that means. I think it’s *rumpSpeak for ‘more hostage payments) coming our way just in time for Halloween.  I’m sure some of my fellow patriots will be topped off again around the anniversary of the birth of our Savior. Cuz Prosperity Jesus. And stuff. 

            Lets just call today even?

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            1. I suspect the 15% top-off is referring to this:

               DES MOINES, IOWA » The Trump administration announced Friday it plans to implement new rules that will increase demand for ethanol, reversing a decline caused by exemptions given to oil refineries.

               The proposal follows months of complaints by Midwest farmers, politicians and the ethanol industry that the federal government’s granting of waivers to refiners had violated federal law and forced some ethanol plants to close.

               Forty percent of U.S. corn is used to produce ethanol, so declining demand for the fuel additive can depress prices for the grain. The issue carries political weight because the ethanol industry is concentrated in Iowa, Nebraska and other Midwest states, where farmers have been among President Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters.

               Although the proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture wouldn’t address the current loss of ethanol demand, it would ensure that beginning in 2020 the government would comply with a 15 billion-gallon standard already required under federal law and meet benchmarks for soybean-based biofuels. The EPA also said it would remove barriers to the sale of E15, a higher blend of ethanol that because of Trump’s support now can be sold year-round.

               Although in economics class, I'm pretty sure they said that you can't force an "increase demand", rather, you increase supply and meet whatever demand there is.

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               1. I found it.  It's related to federally-subsidized crop insurance products, upping the payment amounts under a revenue plan.

                  It's amazing what an election year cycle will do to biofuel politics.  To quote Grandpa Chuck recently, "I'm getting tired of having to fight for things already mandated under the law!!"

                  So *rump took it away, gave it back, and now he wants a medal?

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                  1. The really sick part is that there are many among the deplorables who WILL applaud him for this accomplishment.

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            2. ok

               of course.

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         2. PS: the jobs report is as flaccid as a GOP homophobe getting a lap dance at the Diamond Cabaret. 

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            1. I thought hemp fixed that.

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               1. Hemp can do a lot of things, but curing' homophobia or getting one to realign political affiliations aint' on the list  

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                  1. mycelium?

                      

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                     1. Definitely 

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2. It’s another great day for the criminally insane cabal Ttump Misadministration, a twofer actually; stiffing, yet again, both poor folks and food producers . . .

   Trump Administration Unveils More Cuts to Food Stamp Program

   https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/us/politics/trump-food-stamp-cuts.html 

   But the latest move is the third time the Trump administration has moved to cut food stamps. In December, the Agriculture Department said it sought to place more stringent work requirements on the program. In July, the administration proposed a rule that would strip more than three million people of their benefits. The public comment periods for both those proposals have ended, and final rules are expected soon.

   Maybe if those farmers and poor kids had listened better and gotten on board with manufacturing some dirt on Biden?? Oh well, . . . 
   . . . Let them [not] eat!

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3. Vaccinations, people . . .

   Australia Just Had a Bad Flu Season. That May Be a Warning for the U.S.

   https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/health/flu-australia-america.html 

   Australia had an unusually early and fairly severe flu season this year. Since that may foretell a serious outbreak on its way in the United States, public health experts now are urging Americans to get their flu shots as soon as possible.

   “It’s too early to tell for sure, because sometimes Australia is predictive and sometimes it’s not,” said Dr. Daniel B. Jernigan, director of the influenza division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But the best move is to get the vaccine right now.”

   The number of cases of flu in this country is still quite low, according to the weekly C.D.C. FluView released Friday. But as the weather cools, it is expected to ramp up.

   In 2017, Australia suffered its worst outbreak in the 20 years since modern surveillance techniques were adopted. The 2017-2018 flu season in the United States, which followed six months later as winter came to the Northern Hemisphere, was one of the worst in modern American memory, with an estimated 79,000 dead.

   . . . they’re not just for kids anymore!

    

   (PS to Lori Saine and Vicki Marble:  Just kidding; you two don’t need any steenkin’ vaccinations . . .)

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   1. Things people have said to me to justify not getting the flu vaccine:
      – I got the vaccine once, and my sister got sick. Never again.
      – Every time I got the vaccine, I got sick.
      – Never got one, never will.
      – It's a scam to make more money off me.
      – Before there was a flu vaccine everything was ok, so why do we need it now?
      – I have never been killed by the flu, and neither has anyone I know.
      – I don't believe in viruses. People get sick because they deserve it.

      I will get no satisfaction when a virulent flu virus kills 50 million people again.

       

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4. Really good article – Three Big Things

   Two points I disagree a little:

   First on income inequality. I think that’s a cycle. It always has a lot of impact, but it swings back and forth, over ~40 year periods.

   The other is I think there’s an even bigger aftershock in WWII that is barely mentioned. We had the civil rights struggle become a lot more successful from WWII. But similar to that, there was nationalism awakened across the world. Pretty much every country controlled by Europe gained independence because of WWII. An Asian country kicking the British & Dutch out of Southeast Asia gave every country the example that they could do the same.

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5. Some fun reading over a cup of coffee this morning:

   The Nickelback joke Trump doesn’t get

   Nickelback didn’t exactly become famous for being famous. It became famous for being famous despite being horrible. That makes Trump the Nickelback president. He was elevated to the top of society despite being utterly deplorable, and also because he was utterly deplorable.

   But there’s more to it. The initial transformation of Nickelback from anodyne top-40ers to detested webwide phenom actually spawned an intelligent critique and is an excellent example of what Dale Beran, author of “It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office,” argues that memes are all about. Disenchanted netizens spent their time dumpster-diving for societal detritus and mushing it back together to mock the world that created it, or at least to underscore its meaninglessness.

   Trump, however, wasn’t sharing Nickelback because he’s a nihilist, or because he’s addicted to irony, or because he gets it at all. He was sharing Nickelback because he doesn’t get it.

    

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