Thursday, April 30, 2020
Spreading The Plague To Own The Libs
Donald Trump is president, a plague is spreading across the country, and conservatives are convinced it's some sort of liberal plot.
I think we're about ready for a giant alien squid to show up, or something.
I think we're about ready for a giant alien squid to show up, or something.
Take Your Time
Pelosi says the House is looking at coming back in mid-May. Says the next big bill "will be CARES 2"
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) April 30, 2020
Only 9 weeks after Mitch left town.
All The Time In The World
Time has no meaning anymore, but as of tomorrow it will have been 7 weeks since Mitch McConnell's 3 day weekend.
Oh, Elon
Finally the world sees you as I do.
New York (CNN Business)Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is railing against stay-at-home orders meant to slow the coronavirus pandemic, calling them "fascist" and likening them to "forcibly imprisoning people in their homes" during a Tesla (TSLA) earnings call Wednesday.He's also tweeting out things like HOSPITALS ARE HALF EMPTY which for various reasons (they hopefully are never full, capacity worries have been reduced due to the lockdowns, basically all other nonemergency procedures have been canceled, etc...) is stupid but Elon's gonna Elon.
"I would call it, 'forcibly imprisoning people in their homes' against all their Constitutional rights, in my opinion, and breaking people's freedoms in ways that are horrible and wrong and not why people came to America or built this country," Musk said. "It's an outrage."
"Give people back their goddamn freedom," he added.
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
On The Other Side
I "joke" about economists talking about 'V-shaped recoveries' (we lose 4 million jobs overnight but then we just get them back again in 3 months!) because the experience with the last recession, at least, should show them how absurd that is. There was no "good" reason for the recession to have lasted as long as it did. Imperfect policy response is part of the story - stimulus too small, Obama insisting on people getting foreclosed on - but it isn't the only part of the story. An economy of people living one minor disaster away from ruin is a lot of the story. There is no bouncing back from this quickly, even if "the good guys" were running things, because the good guys wouldn't be doing much better. Best case scenario is that people are going to be strangled by debt forever, on top of people already being strangled by debt forever. There is just something fundamentally wrong with "the economy," and you can't just turn the lights back up.
Derivatives
Doing my best not to obsess about the various virus curves, but I do think that the focus on "new cases," which of course makes sense, is confusing a lot of people. Roughly speaking, the "new case" curve is flat, meaning there's a constant stream of new cases. That's good! No exponential growth! The apocalypse has been arrested!
But it's still a very high number of new cases. The total cases keep going up, daily, by a lot.
Good luck, Texas!
But it's still a very high number of new cases. The total cases keep going up, daily, by a lot.
Good luck, Texas!
Tuesday, April 28, 2020
Empty Shelves
I have no idea how resilient the food supply lines are going to be through all of this, but it is true that people not being able to find meat would make them freak out more than a little bit.
Not justifying Trump going about doing everything the worst way, but ensuring an adequate food supply is not in itself a crazy goal. And again, no of course I'm not justifying what will be "lol go back to work and bring your own PPE and try not to die mmmkay."
Not justifying Trump going about doing everything the worst way, but ensuring an adequate food supply is not in itself a crazy goal. And again, no of course I'm not justifying what will be "lol go back to work and bring your own PPE and try not to die mmmkay."
Protective Gear
Lol.
President Donald Trump plans to order meat-processing plants to remain open, declaring them critical infrastructure as the nation confronts growing disruptions to the food supply from the coronavirus outbreak, a person familiar with the matter said.Gotta keep the cruise ships running and the hambergers flowing.
Trump plans to use the Defense Production Act to order the companies to stay open during the pandemic, and the government will provide additional protective gear for employees as well as guidance, according to the person.
Trump signaled the executive action at the White House on Tuesday, saying he planned to sign an order aimed at Tyson Foods Inc.’s liability, which had become “a road block” for the company. He didn’t elaborate.
We'll Come Back If There's An Emergency
!!! Hoyer says House will NOT come back on Monday, telling reporters he spoke to the House physician: "We made a judgment that we will not come back next week."
— Emily Cochrane (@ESCochrane) April 28, 2020
The Senate is returning, so LOL.
America's Worst Humans
Larry Summers.
Another thing about Summers is he's deliberately slick. If you are sure that "Larry said X" at some point, you are likely right, but you will always find something he wrote where he said "not X" or "maybe not X" or "perhaps we should consider Y" so in his own self-promo writings he's rarely solidly for or against anything (though "protecting billionaires from taxation" is usually pretty strong), at least without providing himself an exit hatch.
Another thing about Summers is he's deliberately slick. If you are sure that "Larry said X" at some point, you are likely right, but you will always find something he wrote where he said "not X" or "maybe not X" or "perhaps we should consider Y" so in his own self-promo writings he's rarely solidly for or against anything (though "protecting billionaires from taxation" is usually pretty strong), at least without providing himself an exit hatch.
Now Watch This Drive
One of the forgotten things about the Bush era was just how dumb and incurious he was. Just how similar he actually was to Trump. They are not the same and I am not claiming that, but making fun of Bush for saying *stupid shit* was a constant, even post-9/11. One of those horrible Slate guys even made "Bushisms" a thing and published a couple of books of them. The thing is much of the parody of Bush was SNL-style parody, making the object lovable character without actually cutting them, but Bush's ridiculous verbal utterances weren't just verbal slips or funny malapropisms. Bush said a lot of dangerously stupid shit! And the subtext of a lot of the campaign 2000 and even after coverage of Bush was along the lines of, does it really matter if our president is dumb as a box of rocks? Our great pundits concluded that, no, it doesn't matter at all! Have a beer with the guy who doesn't drink! Then after 9/11 they focused on building him up as a secret genius. But Bush was dumb as a stump, incurious, and didn't have patience for his presidential daily briefings. Either.
Ah, well, nevertheless.
Very brave of the NYT to ask questions like "Is this man dangerously stupid?" on (checks notes) the 1193rd day of his presidency. https://t.co/3p6DsGGnyu
— Mass for Shut-ins (is a podcast) (@edburmila) April 27, 2020
Ah, well, nevertheless.
(CNN)President Donald Trump received more than a dozen warnings about the coronavirus outbreak in daily briefings in January and February, but continued to downplay the virus' threat and severity, the Washington Post reported Monday.
Citing current and former US officials, the paper reported that the warnings came in the President's Daily Brief, a summary of intelligence reports from the various agencies, which tracked the virus' proliferation, highlighted China's inaccurate characterization of the disease and its death toll and warned of potential widespread ramifications related to the pandemic.
Officials told the Post that the President, who frequently forgoes the briefings and has become impatient with the summaries of the brief he now receives a couple of times per week, did not seem to absorb the warnings. They added that focused efforts tracking the virus were on par with prior instances of monitoring security threats, including active terrorism and international clashes.
Monday, April 27, 2020
Monday Evening
How about a tax advantaged savings plan to allow people to buy investments in securitized "dead peasant" policies?
LOL
New testing blueprint unveiled by WH today says federal government should "act as supplier of last resort" on testing.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 27, 2020
I honestly don't get precisely what the resolution of "being determined to fuck this up as much as possible" and "oh noooes if too many people die maybe Trump won't get re-elected, which is the only reason to care about that particular thing" is.
It's gonna be bad, folks. Mr. Trump, I wish you would take your job seriously! Stop the malarkey!
In a call with governors, Trump suggests some states should reopen schools before the end of the academic year.
President Trump suggested to the nation’s governors on Monday that some should move to reopen their public schools before the end of the academic year, an indication that he is growing impatient with the widespread closures to curb the coronavirus outbreak.
My Big Wet Boy Would Never Abandon Us
I am sorry I misled you. There will be a very important press briefing today, after all. I am sure it will not be filled with rage and racism! Quite likely it will be the day he becomes president.
Oh, Elon
Guess it's the usual suspects for now.
Tesla management has asked dozens of employees to return to work on Wednesday April 29th in order to resume production at the company’s Fremont, California car plant, according to internal correspondence shared with CNBC.
The call for at least some employees to come back to work full shifts occurred even though local health orders require Tesla to adhere to “minimum basic operations” at that plant until end-of-day May 3. Bloomberg previously reported on the internal messages.
Sunday, April 26, 2020
Can't Stop Won't Stop
My President was very upset and whining today, even more than usual.
Probably gonna do an extra racism tomorrow!
Probably gonna do an extra racism tomorrow!
The Hottest Takes
I saw this at the time but think I failed to recognize just how scorching it was. SUPERNOVA!
Forcing the wealthy to spend could boomerang. If the wealth tax had been in place a century ago, we would have had more anti-semitism from Henry Ford and a smaller Ford Foundation today.
— Lawrence H. Summers (@LHSummers) October 26, 2019
What If Obama
Lindsey Graham would throw a hissy fit, conservative media would screech, and The Objective News would make it the top story - even now! - because that's what they do.
Also, should they play this game?
This is actually something that matters, not just the usual fake scandal of the day, though it has the trappings of the kind of fake scandal which would have proven Obama Hates The Troops And America And Wants Us All To Die Probably Because Of Kenyan Anti-Colonial Sentiment. But, again, this actually is a big deal, and not just "Obama did salute badly" or some shit.
And so last Friday, the day before Mr. Pence was to speak at the Air Force ceremony in Colorado, Mr. Trump, never one to be upstaged, abruptly announced that he would, in fact, be speaking at West Point.With this kind of thing, there are two questions. If the Democrats had a Lindsey Graham throwing a hissy fit for this kind of stuff, would The Objective News follow suit? That is, are the Democrats just bad at playing this particular game or is the game so rigged against them that they shouldn't bother?
That was news to everyone, including officials at West Point, according to three people involved with or briefed on the event. The academy had been looking at the option of a delayed presidential commencement in June, but had yet to complete any plans. With Mr. Trump’s pre-emptive statement, they are now summoning 1,000 cadets scattered across the country to return to campus in New York, the state that is the center of the outbreak.
...
General Williams said in a telephone interview that returning seniors would be tested off-campus for the coronavirus. Those who test negative will then be sent to the school, where they will be monitored for 14 days before graduation. While the campus has enough dormitory rooms for the 1,000 seniors, General Williams said that he was still deciding whether seniors would share bedrooms on their return.
Also, should they play this game?
This is actually something that matters, not just the usual fake scandal of the day, though it has the trappings of the kind of fake scandal which would have proven Obama Hates The Troops And America And Wants Us All To Die Probably Because Of Kenyan Anti-Colonial Sentiment. But, again, this actually is a big deal, and not just "Obama did salute badly" or some shit.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Saturday Evening
My big wet boy will not be talking to me through the teevee box this evening. This is very sad.
Win The Day
Make sure we keep the politics out of politics.
I generally disagree with their favorite strategy of hoping the Republicans set themselves on fire at just the right moment and then tripping over the finish line, but I'll admit that if your only goal is to win elections it does sometimes work. But the habit of running from the most important issues of the day has a nasty pattern of facilitating the deaths of numerous people, or at least not making clear that you were solidly against those deaths when the reckoning arrives. And it isn't clearly an electoral strategy with a very good winning record over the past couple of decades.
People are dying, the country is collapsing (I know I can be gloomy but I am not usually pessimistic like this), and strangely the way to do politics is by doing politics and the people tasked with doing politics are called politicians. Really weird.
All that being said I remain of the mind that the logic of risk aversion—or at least this much risk aversion—is not persuasive. Trump is getting people killed. There are things he’s doing and that he’s done that voters have a right to know about before they go to the polls, even if investigating them might “look political.” (If you think that Democrats aren’t overly driven by a fear of “looking political” here’s Nancy Pelosi telling Chris Hayes that her advisers didn’t want her to say Trump’s failed coronavirus response has killed people because it “looked political.”)
Not looking political (or trying not to look political) might be winning the day in November election polls, but it’s a terrible fit for the moment. This crisis, by its nature, keeps giving rise to new ones. First the country faced the task of containing a virus. Then suddenly we had to keep the economy propped up while the public entered isolation. Then we realized the act of voting in person would create intolerable risks. Then the United States Postal Service was on the brink of failure, and state budgets collapsed. What began as demands that Democrats fight corporate bailouts and help workers quickly grew into demands that they protect the election by including absentee voting requirements as the condition of emergency legislation, and now includes the imperative to rescue the post office and provide direct aid to states so that hundreds of thousands of teachers, cops, and firefighters, don’t lose their jobs and worker pensions don’t get raided. None of this can be done without playing hardball with Republicans, which can’t be done without “looking political”—which may explain why we’ve gotten nowhere, and why you need a crowbar to unclench your jaw.
I generally disagree with their favorite strategy of hoping the Republicans set themselves on fire at just the right moment and then tripping over the finish line, but I'll admit that if your only goal is to win elections it does sometimes work. But the habit of running from the most important issues of the day has a nasty pattern of facilitating the deaths of numerous people, or at least not making clear that you were solidly against those deaths when the reckoning arrives. And it isn't clearly an electoral strategy with a very good winning record over the past couple of decades.
People are dying, the country is collapsing (I know I can be gloomy but I am not usually pessimistic like this), and strangely the way to do politics is by doing politics and the people tasked with doing politics are called politicians. Really weird.
Keep Fucking That Chicken
There is no evidence that sunlight, bleach or any disinfectant can cure coronavirus in the body https://t.co/xEd0nztSIZ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 25, 2020
But maybe with some clinical trials we'll find some!
The thing is, this isn't the Times being OBJECTIVE and refusing to take a stand, this is the Times granting limitless authority to people in power. If I call up the Times and say, "drinking bleach cures the virus," they don't run a piece saying, "some say bleach drinking cures the virus." If enough people call them up and say that, they assign a reporter to cover "the crazy conspiracy on the internet." But if one powerful person joins up, then they have to Take It Seriously.
It is not a way to inform readers. It is a way to privilege power. And power has enough of that without the Times providing an assist.
Friday, April 24, 2020
Im sorry. Im trying to remove it
Garbage paper.
"Implied"
We've deleted an earlier tweet and updated a sentence in our article that implied that only "some experts" view the ingestion of household disinfectants as dangerous. To be clear, there is no debate on the danger.
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 24, 2020
"Implied"
Run Straight Into The Virus
"Opening the economy" while the corpse count steadily increases might force some expendable essential workers back to work by yanking their unemployment insurance, but only a perceived lack of danger is going to bring anything resembling "normal" back and I have no idea why people invested in Trump's victory think "winning the news cycle" can change the fact that 2000 people are dying every day and until that changes...
In this week’s poll, 72% believe moving too quickly to loosen the stay-at-home orders is a greater threat to the country than moving too slowly, and 86% think social distancing and stay-at-home orders are responsible policies. And if restrictions were lifted tomorrow, some 80% say they are unlikely to go out to public places that are likely to draw crowds.
The Paper Of Record
There was once the archetype of the snooty UES intellectual who would only get their daily news from the New York Times, the paper of record. No TV news, certainly no cable news, no tabloids, and there was no internet. All the news that's fit to print, dropped on your doorstep before your morning coffee. That person would have a more warped and distorted view of Trump than anybody else in the country. A perfectly normal person who did things like "read Trump's tweets" or "watch his daily news conference" would sound like an absolutely insane person to this hypothetical New York Times reader. MAGAs are more informed than this person, because they actually watch their leader in action.
Stop giving this fucking money newspaper. It's long loved killing people, but usually mostly foreigners.
Yes I know there are OTHER things in the paper that are good, but all news is subordinate to the political desk these days. I don't know why.
Stop giving this fucking money newspaper. It's long loved killing people, but usually mostly foreigners.
Yes I know there are OTHER things in the paper that are good, but all news is subordinate to the political desk these days. I don't know why.
Some Experts
LOL
Stop giving money to this fucking paper.
At a White House briefing, President Trump theorized — dangerously, in the view of some experts — about the powers of sunlight, ultraviolet light and household disinfectants to kill the coronavirus https://t.co/cm6fyxqQ0O
— The New York Times (@nytimes) April 24, 2020
Stop giving money to this fucking paper.
Thursday, April 23, 2020
Genius
President Trump is asking whether there can be some sort of disinfectant injection, "almost a cleaning," in people's bodies to fight the coronavirus.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) April 23, 2020
"It would be interesting to check that," he said.
He added, "The whole concept of the light. That's pretty powerful."
Can't wait to see how the New York Times writes this one up. "PRESIDENT RECOMMENDS INNOVATIVE NEW TREATMENT."
Never Tweet
Only the finest people.
In a series of tweets on March 12, Caputo responded to a baseless conspiracy theory that the United States brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, China, by tweeting that "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters."
He followed up at another user, "Don't you have a bat to eat?" and tweeted at another user named, "You're very convincing, Wang."
Pretty Pictures
Things aren't good, folks. That's no malarkey!
"I'm not sure it's easy to think about an initial claims number as either good or bad, because we can't yet see whether this is an unusually deep downturn or an unusually rapid one." - Justin Wolfers, Real Live Economist, April 2, 2020.
"drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not," - dril, May 9, 2014.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare, Hamlet.
"I'm not sure it's easy to think about an initial claims number as either good or bad, because we can't yet see whether this is an unusually deep downturn or an unusually rapid one." - Justin Wolfers, Real Live Economist, April 2, 2020.
"drunk driving may kill a lot of people, but it also helps a lot of people get to work on time, so, it;s impossible to say if its bad or not," - dril, May 9, 2014.
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare, Hamlet.
V SHAPED RECOVERY
There are moments when all the excuses Democrats make about being thwarted by Republicans or the One Bad Democrat in the Senate are shown to be bullshit. Even if one believes that are not evil but merely stupid, they have been criminally stupid. They can neither win on enacting policy (the UI expansion, with its flaws, an exception) nor win on making clear just exactly what they, if in charge, would be doing. In the initial moments when the crisis became clear, Pelosi first refused cash payments and then focused on means testing the meager ones that were finally approved and I just can't...
It took 6 years to return to anything close to "normal" from The Great Recession, and that was a simple situation (really, it was, that it was BIG didn't make it complicated) that they (mostly "the good guys") totally fucked up and then patted themselves on the back for a job well done. Tim Geithner, savior of the world!
The Great Recession was pothole and this is the Grand Canyon. Better get used to your trash trucks not coming.
It took 6 years to return to anything close to "normal" from The Great Recession, and that was a simple situation (really, it was, that it was BIG didn't make it complicated) that they (mostly "the good guys") totally fucked up and then patted themselves on the back for a job well done. Tim Geithner, savior of the world!
The Great Recession was pothole and this is the Grand Canyon. Better get used to your trash trucks not coming.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
4.4 million lucky duckies.
Let's again debate the income eligibility for the one time $1200 checks.
Let's again debate the income eligibility for the one time $1200 checks.
Heads Trump Wins, Tails You Lose
As good as Trump is at this game, you'd think he could have kept his casinos afloat.
"That governor, a Democrat, really screwed up."
President Donald Trump said Wednesday he "strongly disagrees" with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp's decision to allow businesses like barbershops and nail salons to reopen, a day after he praised him during the White House briefing.[3 weeks later]
"I told the governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, that I disagree strongly with his decision to open certain facilities," Trump said at his daily coronavirus briefing Wednesday. "But at the same time, he must do what he thinks is right. I want him to do what he thinks is right. But I disagree with him on what he's doing."
"That governor, a Democrat, really screwed up."
Wednesday, April 22, 2020
Nothing's Funny
I know it isn't, really, but this experience has led to so many people showing without a doubt how evil/stupid (both!) they are. Laughing at them is only good for my personal therapy, but I suppose that's something.
At least a few people now know that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are pretty much the same person. Decent chance the magical mystery cure went, at least indirectly, from Musk to Trump.
Maybe worth considering chloroquine for C19 https://t.co/LEYob7Jofr
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 16, 2020
At least a few people now know that Elon Musk and Donald Trump are pretty much the same person. Decent chance the magical mystery cure went, at least indirectly, from Musk to Trump.
But Mah Au Pair
Just amazing.
Brian Kilmeade on the temporary immigration ban: "You mentioned yesterday the au pair, Ainsley, for middle class families, they're going to be allowed to come because they allow people like you to be able to work ... he's showing he's not tone deaf" pic.twitter.com/hbzClSpIBL
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 22, 2020
We'll Find Out
LOL
Speaker 17: (47:33)Translation: if everything goes to hell in Georgia, I never knew this man, a Democrat I think, who did the opposite of what I told him.
And Mr. President, what do you say to the concerns like Georgia is opening up barber shops and bowling alleys and the like, and you saw Lindsey Graham is saying he’s concerned that Georgia may be going too far too fast and it could affect people in South Carolina. Obviously people travel back and forth between states. How do you protect the people of South Carolina for example, from a potentially bad decision by a governor in Georgia?
Donald Trump: (47:57)
So he’s a very capable man. He knows what he’s doing. He’s done a very good job as Governor, Georgia, and by the way, and South Carolina, Governor McMaster also. So you have two very capable people we’re going to find out. And in fact I’m scheduled to speak to the Governor of Georgia in a little while, but we’ll find out.
Gerontocracy
I don't know (lol I do) why Shalala was chosen for the oversight panel.
But not a good start really.
While her name is familiar, it's important to remember that Shalala is a part of this Congress's freshman class, and not someone pulling rank because of seniority.
But not a good start really.
Shalala spokesperson Carlos Condarco told me that “the Congresswoman has filed all the necessary disclosures required under the STOCK Act,” and that the House Ethics Committee could direct me to proof of the disclosures. But the Ethics Committee doesn’t handle STOCK Act disclosures and PTRs; that’s the domain of the House Clerk.Narrator: the Congresswoman has not filed all the necessary disclosures.
So Donna Shalala's office, after insisting to me yesterday that she definitely, totally disclosed all stock sales she made in 2019, admitted to her hometown paper that she, well, didn't. https://t.co/Q8MEXoE1J6
— David Dayen (@ddayen) April 22, 2020
While her name is familiar, it's important to remember that Shalala is a part of this Congress's freshman class, and not someone pulling rank because of seniority.
Excess Deaths
Whatever Trump's "NUMBERS" are, the actual number of people killed by this virus is going to much larger (even without any deliberate attempt to undercount them), and we won't have a reasonable generally agreed on estimate of that for awhile. Probably double (I just made that up, but...).
Tuesday, April 21, 2020
I Didn't Do It
Even the sucking up to Trump is gross, but I sort of get that. What stunned me about Trump's miracle drug is that there seemed to be people - I don't mean rando Fox viewers, I mean people of power and authority - who believed that Our Big Wet Boy had some serious knowledge about some magical cure.
What Are They Hoping For
I honestly don't know what the "OPEN THE ECONONY!!!!!" folks are hoping for. Best case scenario (fantasy level best case), the virus stops being contagious tomorrow, and new cases fade. People are still broke and scared. You can't just turn this thing back on, and you certainly can't if you've wiped out all the small businesses.
Fundraiser Day 5!
Gonna take all this money and go to quarantine exile on Blogger Island!
Thanks so much!
Thanks so much!
Killing People Because President Deals Has A Hunch And A Dream
And we'll all just move on because LOL nothing matters.
A malaria drug widely touted by President Donald Trump for treating the new coronavirus showed no benefit in a large analysis of its use in U.S. veterans hospitals. There were more deaths among those given hydroxychloroquine versus standard care, researchers reported.Good thing Pelosi's House is hard at work.
The nationwide study was not a rigorous experiment. But with 368 patients, it’s the largest look so far of hydroxychloroquine with or without the antibiotic azithromycin for COVID-19, which has killed more than 171,000 people as of Tuesday.
But My Cheap Labor
Really just the worst people.
Ainsley Earhardt is concerned about Trump's temporary immigration ban because her au pair is an immigrant: "Many families rely on child care from other countries ... hopefully the president will roll out a plan and we'll all be informed" pic.twitter.com/7OkUrBfdKX
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) April 21, 2020
Just For One Day
If Trump and Republicans could just pretend to not be dicks for about 2 months they'd win everything in November (they still could!).
The "compassionate conservatism" stuff was mostly bullshit, though even George Bush passed a big Medicare expansion, if not exactly one liberals would have preferred. Granny Starver Paul Ryan (with an assist from Ezra) could pretend to give a shit every now and then.
The "compassionate conservatism" stuff was mostly bullshit, though even George Bush passed a big Medicare expansion, if not exactly one liberals would have preferred. Granny Starver Paul Ryan (with an assist from Ezra) could pretend to give a shit every now and then.
Monday, April 20, 2020
Gyms
All I can do is laugh.
#BREAKING: Georgia @GovKemp announces that the following businesses can reopen this Friday...
— Niles Edward Francis (@NilesGApol) April 20, 2020
Gyms
Fitness centers
Bowling Alleys
Body Arch Studios
Barber shops
Cosmetologists
Hair designers
Nail salons
Massage therapists
Take Him Seriously Then Pretend It Didn't Happen
I seem to remember some big news that President Deals was going to make OIL PRICES GO UP UP UP (a weird thing to promise, but ok) and it got much media coverage and then oil futures are now negative and haha we know he's full of shit so we'll just pretend that didn't happen and move on to the next bullshit thing he promises.
Oh and people are dying and he's been lying a lot about that but lol apparently, actually, NOTHING FUCKING MATTERS.
Oh and people are dying and he's been lying a lot about that but lol apparently, actually, NOTHING FUCKING MATTERS.
Fundraising Day 4!!!
Because this pandemic just won't be the same without my gloomy posts.
(joke I'm not threatening to go away)
Thanks to all!
(joke I'm not threatening to go away)
Thanks to all!
Did You Hear Donald Trump Was Bad?
I don't think "The American People" are all aware of Trump's most nefarious shenanigans, and depending on how they get their news (if you were a snooty liberal who only read the New York Times about politics you'd be clueless) they don't even necessarily know the full horror of his daily clown show, but it isn't as if he's a big mystery. "Get a load of this guy!" isn't going to push the needle. People got a load of him.
And the Celestial Hall Monitors aren't going to do it either. People regularly complain that the press should emphasize something they aren't, such as TRUMP STEALING MEDICAL SUPPPLIES. And they're right. The press is fully capable of choosing to give flood the zone coverage even if a political actor isn't pushing them to do it. But there's a reason Lindsey Graham does a daily hissy fit, and why any time anything happens Republicans screech. They make sure the press talks about what they want to talk about that day.
I don't know why Joe Biden wants to center the discussion in China. Every DC Brain (morning Joseph) went swoony swoony over that racist ad. But racism aside, I mean, oh wow, China's government is corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent! What must it be like, to have such a government! I'm certainly not going to vote for Xi in November now!
And it isn't just about November. We need a bit more leadership about today. People are, like, dying, and the news isn't going to be much better 2 months from now or 4 months from now, even if precisely why the news is bad will change somewhat.
And the Celestial Hall Monitors aren't going to do it either. People regularly complain that the press should emphasize something they aren't, such as TRUMP STEALING MEDICAL SUPPPLIES. And they're right. The press is fully capable of choosing to give flood the zone coverage even if a political actor isn't pushing them to do it. But there's a reason Lindsey Graham does a daily hissy fit, and why any time anything happens Republicans screech. They make sure the press talks about what they want to talk about that day.
I don't know why Joe Biden wants to center the discussion in China. Every DC Brain (morning Joseph) went swoony swoony over that racist ad. But racism aside, I mean, oh wow, China's government is corrupt, dishonest, and incompetent! What must it be like, to have such a government! I'm certainly not going to vote for Xi in November now!
And it isn't just about November. We need a bit more leadership about today. People are, like, dying, and the news isn't going to be much better 2 months from now or 4 months from now, even if precisely why the news is bad will change somewhat.
There Are Fine People On Both Sides
It is hard not to conclude that the reason the Democrats don't make more of Trump's obvious corruption - the latest being the federal government stealing medical supplies so Trump can give them out to his rich friends so they can make a profit selling the, and only disbursing them generously to states he thinks like him - is that, well, go looking for corruption and you might find a bit too much of it. Simple "stealing the couch quarters" corruption is an easy thing that people understand, much more than complicated tales they prefer to tell. Maybe they aren't personally corrupt, but somebody's failson, or cousin, or a big donor, or that big donor's failson, or...
Everyone just agrees not to look over there, because no one wants to see the monster in the corner.
Everyone just agrees not to look over there, because no one wants to see the monster in the corner.
Big Gets Bigger
Laundering any "small" business help through the banks while not requiring those businesses to be small in any meaningful way ensured all the money would go to bigger companies. You don't need a big conspiracy to explain this, though bugs are often features, as the processing and oversight work for a $1 million "loan" is the same as the processing and oversight for a $10K loan, so the banks are gonna do the former first.
And round 2 will do the same. And none if it matters because every municipality in the country is going to be out of money soon.
And round 2 will do the same. And none if it matters because every municipality in the country is going to be out of money soon.
Sunday, April 19, 2020
I Tweet Myself
For better or worse some dems risked their lives to vote in wisconsin but that is less interesting as an expresion of democracy to your colleagues than some paid psychos trying to kill everyone on behalf of billionaires
— Crewman Number Guy (@Atrios) April 18, 2020
Ignore the typo (you're used to that by now).
It Is Quite Likely That Some Of Our Faves Are Implicated
Ah, well, nevertheless.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi chose her friend, freshman Congresswoman Donna Shalala (D-FL).
This is a stunning selection. Shalala, according to sources, had no interest in the job. She has no expertise in the financial industry or the Fed. The two committees that would prepare you for this position are Financial Services and Oversight (Porter sits on both). Shalala sits on Education and Labor and Rules. She’s on the early childhood education subcommittee, so if that ever comes up in discussing the Fed’s corporate bond or high-yield ETF purchases we’re in good shape.
Yes, Shalala was Health and Human Services Secretary. In her public statement, Pelosi highlights that, saying Shalala will “ensure that this historic coronavirus relief package is being used wisely and efficiently to protect the lives and livelihoods of the American people, and not be exploited by profiteers and price-gougers.”
But the oversight panel has nothing to do with public health or the pandemic. It’s supposed to examine Federal Reserve lending programs and whether they are assisting the public in economic stabilization and job recovery. These are deliberately complex programs that require for oversight someone with a passing familiarity with the financial system and corporate America. The only expertise Shalala has in all that comes from all the stocks she owns.
FUNDRAISER DAY 3
My lobbyists did not get a special funds disbursement for me in the latest bailout bill, despite my long proven record of building planes that cannot fly. Maybe the next one!
First They Came For The Hot Takers
Obviously we play a vital role in a democracy, which cannot survive without our hot takes.
One problem with "journalism" in this country is the people and institutions which do the least of what we think of as "vital journalism" are the most compensated (generally). Even the hot take system rewards people who have basically the same hot take as everybody else. Sure there's a bit of yelling on cable news, but we're all friends in the Green Room. I used to joke "From the [old] New Republic to the Free Republic" with the joke being they aren't very different! But local journalism and investigative journalism (and LOCAL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM) are really the important things that we are increasingly going without. We don't really need a shouty discussion about whether Maggie is being too mean to Trump or vice versa (so sad when Mom and Dad fight). And when I see prominent journalists getting performatively weepy about this stuff, I think about how national outlets regularly rip off local outlets with minimal or no credit. Just re-report the story! NYT SCOOP!!!!
Still this latest series of events (and, again, to some degree it is accelerating the inevitable) is coming for some of the Hot Takers. Clicks don't matter if there are no ads!
(the joke is they came for the hot takers last)
One problem with "journalism" in this country is the people and institutions which do the least of what we think of as "vital journalism" are the most compensated (generally). Even the hot take system rewards people who have basically the same hot take as everybody else. Sure there's a bit of yelling on cable news, but we're all friends in the Green Room. I used to joke "From the [old] New Republic to the Free Republic" with the joke being they aren't very different! But local journalism and investigative journalism (and LOCAL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM) are really the important things that we are increasingly going without. We don't really need a shouty discussion about whether Maggie is being too mean to Trump or vice versa (so sad when Mom and Dad fight). And when I see prominent journalists getting performatively weepy about this stuff, I think about how national outlets regularly rip off local outlets with minimal or no credit. Just re-report the story! NYT SCOOP!!!!
Still this latest series of events (and, again, to some degree it is accelerating the inevitable) is coming for some of the Hot Takers. Clicks don't matter if there are no ads!
(the joke is they came for the hot takers last)
Gotta Get More Racist
There are a tens of thousands, and climbing, ways to criticize Donald Trump over the current situation and MANY others, but, sure, go with, "Trump rolled over for the Chinese." And, yes, that's different than "Trump rolled over for China," which would also be dumb, but not as bad.
And that isn't even the only problem with the ad that all the usual DC brains love.
What are we going to talk about today, Brain? Same thing we talk about every day, Pinky, whatever Trump and Republicans and Conservative Media want us to talk about.
And that isn't even the only problem with the ad that all the usual DC brains love.
Donald Trump left our country unprepared and unprotected for the worst public health and economic crisis in our lifetime — and now we're paying the price. pic.twitter.com/aCxcqQqUqw
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 18, 2020
What are we going to talk about today, Brain? Same thing we talk about every day, Pinky, whatever Trump and Republicans and Conservative Media want us to talk about.
Saturday, April 18, 2020
FUNDRAISER DAY 2
Thanks for so much generosity. It really is the case that the "free good stuff on the internet" era is fading (or even just "free sucky stuff"). It isn't just the decline in advertising, though that's part of it. An underappreciated thing is that "everybody" went to facebook because contempt for online communities led to them being shut down most places, instead of recognizing that the way to deal with racists on your local news sites (for example) is to *get rid of the damn racists* instead of complaining about the losers on the internet (you know, your readers) generally. Cultivating (or at least tolerating!) a community is a big part of what the internet offered, and the general consensus was always "shut down the comments," instead of "hire someone to manage the community." Who do you think your customers are? Who do you think is going to care when you go away?
So many bad decisions killed the good stuff on the internet. I still can't believe that after being conned about 5 previous times by completely bullshit advertising metrics from facebook, so many sites committed suicide by firing all their reporters and hiring one guy with an iphone to make Cool Videos and then wondered why the bazillions facebook promised never materialized. Everybody who had ever seen the internet told them this was stupid, but they did it anyway.
The old internet was pretty good!
So many bad decisions killed the good stuff on the internet. I still can't believe that after being conned about 5 previous times by completely bullshit advertising metrics from facebook, so many sites committed suicide by firing all their reporters and hiring one guy with an iphone to make Cool Videos and then wondered why the bazillions facebook promised never materialized. Everybody who had ever seen the internet told them this was stupid, but they did it anyway.
The old internet was pretty good!
Are They Doing All They Can Do
I get that Trump is president and Mitch McConnell runs the Senate. I get that our existing institutions have largely rotted away and one can't simply rebuild them overnight even if the desire is there. But everything coming out of the Dem leadership side that I am aware of - and I am aware that I am not aware of everything - has been inadequate even to the task of fixing even a "normal" bad recession, which this is not. And there should be awareness that our rotting institutions - such as our UI systems - are already Rube Goldberg machines, and that adding any additional layers of machines on top assures that nothing will work as planned.
Keep it simple stupid is always good advice. It's life or death at the moment.
Keep it simple stupid is always good advice. It's life or death at the moment.
Planet Musk
The obvious thing to do when faced with a potential or actual shortage of necessary lifesaving equipment on short notice (ventilators, masks, gowns, gloves) is to contact the existing manufacturers, the ones who do it regularly and who know how to do it and who likely don't run their factories at capacity constantly, and ask them if they can make more. The supergeniuses in the UK (and, somewhat similarly, the US) spent 5 minutes on google and thought they had some better ideas and basically did everything else. Can we design a new ventilator! Can that Dyson guy make us a ventilator (in the US it was Musk)! What if we use this 60s design I found on the internet? It's easier than just increasing existing production lines!!!
That was March 14 and the genesis of a project designed as a showcase for British innovation and self-reliance, likened to the production of Spitfire fighter aircraft in the second world war.We can't separate the marks from the con men anymore because they're all fucking idiots.
But what emerged was a procurement programme insiders say was plagued by disjointed thinking that sent volunteer, non-specialist manufacturers down the wrong track, designing products clinicians and regulators so far deemed largely unsuitable for treating Covid-19 patients.
...
Work on a specification for manufacturers had started on March 13. An early draft seen by the FT included a link to a YouTube video. It was a tutorial on the Manley Blease “pneumatically-powered” ventilator first designed in 1961 but which, as the narrator concludes, has been “consigned to the history books”.
...
Among the contenders singled out after presentations to the MHRA on March 27 were two consortiums: BlueSky, which partnered the Red Bull and Renault Formula 1 motor racing teams, and OxVent, an Oxford university venture with Smith & Nephew.
Other projects included a collaboration between Dyson and Cambridge-based medical technology consultancy TTP. It faced a setback after being told that more sophisticated devices were needed rather than the initially requested mobile field ventilators, according to a person aware of the matter.
Because Journalists Forever Pretend Not To Understand
If a hundred yahoos show up at a state capitol with big guns, and those yahoos are black, the way they are treated by the media and by the cops, and then how the media treats the way they are treated by the cops, is very different.
It's one of those "everyone knows it and everyone involved pretends not to notice" things.
It's one of those "everyone knows it and everyone involved pretends not to notice" things.
Friday, April 17, 2020
Death Cult
NEW: Trump campaign tells @ABC News they're still planning rallies this year with POTUS amid pandemic
— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) April 17, 2020
Experts warn it should wait until “later part of 2021”
Aides have discussed holding rallies in states that are deemed low risk w @KFaulders @benychttps://t.co/gLAO2xsNAd
I suspect it won't happen, but...
It's So Easy
Trump's brain mush is a convoluted mess. I mean, let's be honest, Andrew Cuomo fucked up initially and now "everyone" loves him because he stopped fucking up and took the problem seriously and went on teevee and projected that he took the problem seriously. If that mushmaze of blame deflection functioned just a bit better then Trump could have done the same. Oh boy, people, we have a problem! The biggest! We're going to fix it! Make some phone calls to some semi competent people, have them do stuff semi-competently and then take credit for it. 70% approval rating because Democrats are suckers for a guy pretending to take charge. At any moment he still could have blamed everybody else. He is Trump! But, you know, not bet the farm (we are the farm) on a "miracle drug" that causes heart attacks and not much else. Just do some competent stuff.
Better Not Turn Over Those Rocks
The unwillingness of the Dems to go after obvious and easy to understand Trump corruption does not suggest anything good. Some of our (or their) faves might be implicated!
Everything Breaks
I have little doubt that most of the people who rule us (the good guys and the bad guys) think we're just gonna turn it back on in a few weeks and go back to "normal" or close enough. I suspect they are very very very very wrong about this. I hope I am wrong! I'm pretty sure they're not worried *enough* that they might be wrong.
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
Our big wet boy is having a normal one, tweeting that the magaheads should liberate various states.
And There Goes The Internet
DILLER, on @CNBC: "At Expedia, we spend $5 billion in advertising every year. We won't spend ONE billion this year. .. You just writ that across everything, there you are."$EXPE
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) April 16, 2020
To a great degree this is just "accelerating a trend" as they say, but the ad-supported internet is gonna be mostly dead. A lot of reasons for that but the simplest story is that google and facebook and amazon ate it all, and is true enough. Amazon's slashing their affiliate commissions (which were actually generous for a long time), facebook has never "shared" revenue except for with big media sites they kept conning (remember the pivot to video! heckuva job, website CEOs), and google is less and less focused on their "run ads on other sites" model daily.
I postponed my SPRING FUNDRAISING FUNSTRAVAGANZA last month for the obvious reasons, but life goes on. Been shifting away from ad revenue to reader revenue steadily for years and there isn't going to be much of the former anymore. So if this is fun for you and keeps you entertained consider giving me some of your NPR or cocktail or fancy night out money or whatever. Mostly this is fun, but occasionally we save the world just a little bit. Big donations, small donations, recurring donations, it's all good. The dream of everyone who has ever had a site is always "if everyone who reads regularly just pays a little bit..." which remains true. Your charity budget and "gotta keep yourself alive" budget should go to those things, but that movie theater ticket money isn't getting spent at the moment.
And happy blogiversary to us all, and to all a happy blogiversary!
18 effing years.
Strong And Weak
Guys, I don't think this is really the issue now but you do you do...
These issue are always:
But Dems are desperate to prove they are The Real Tough Guys which they usually do by appointing GOP Daddies to all the Tough Guy positions. I know this makes no sense, but...
...and what pareene said:
What they're saying: The DNC's War Room writes in the memo that it's an understatement to call Trump weak on China and that he "rolled over in a way that has been catastrophic for our country" and "put himself and his political fortunes first."A sensible rethink of everything China that has been largely a bipartisan thing for 2 decades is in order, but arguing about who has the biggest balls on the issue is not really the right thing at the moment. Also Trump is killing people and stealing all the money so, "Nuh-huh Biden is way tougher on the chi-coms than Trump!!!!" is...not the way to go.
These issue are always:
But Dems are desperate to prove they are The Real Tough Guys which they usually do by appointing GOP Daddies to all the Tough Guy positions. I know this makes no sense, but...
...and what pareene said:
Hits the rare Democratic Messaging Trifecta of being narratively incoherent, irrelevant to normal people's lives, and reinforcing of the dominant themes of the opponent's campaign https://t.co/KCblfERUxK
— 'Weird Alex' Pareene (@pareene) April 17, 2020
Thursday, April 16, 2020
Dday Gets Results
Much better than this sucky blog.
USAA, the large bank that primarily serves veterans and military members, has changed its policy and will no longer be using emergency CARES Act payments to offset existing debts from individuals. The bank will return all money confiscated from customers under the old policy, including Carrie, the woman whose family lost $3,400 to USAA when their CARES Act payment was placed into an account they thought was closed.
Got To Get On With The Show
Repeating myself, but "opening up the economy" is just about how many lower income workers "we" kill in part because our Galtian Overlords are too stupid to know that they aren't immune, that eventually you run out of men you can send over the top, and that you can't do much to "open the economy back up" when a significant portion of people are still going to stay the hell home.
For She's Lived It Ten Times Or More
My problems are tiny at the moment relative to what a lot of people are experiencing, but we are all dealing with a new normal that is not as pleasant as the old normal. It is not the best moment!
Robot Chicken Frightener
I think about this bit from Tom Friedman a lot.
More generally, know-nothings for years embraced and marketed what we used to call "the Washington consensus" and now we call "neoliberal bullshit," mostly because all the cool (rich, powerful) kids did. They mostly didn't know or care what the actual policies were or what the consequences would be. The Economist said it was a good idea, must be true!
The good news is that we're probably past the era when anyone says, "wow, did you see that Tom Friedman column? he made some good points!" Well, not necessarily. Probably Andrea Mitchell still thinks that. Maybe even Morning Joseph.
Contemplating the mafia of the mediocre who have ruled our discourse for so long. Really Trump is them, except he doesn't know which salad fork to use and he doesn't understand that when you want to put much of the population into the wood chipper, you don't actually say you want to put much of the population into the wood chipper. Just babble some neoliberal gibberish.
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, interviewed on Tim Russert’s CNBC show (7/22/06), mentioned that he had been asked if there was any free trade agreement he would oppose. “I said, ‘No, absolutely not,’” Friedman related. “I said, ‘You know what, sir? I wrote a column supporting the CAFTA, the Caribbean Free Trade initiative. I didn’t even know what was in it. I just knew two words: free trade.” Friedman wasn’t kidding—as David Sirota pointed out (Huffington Post, 7/25/06), he wasn’t even aware that the “CA” in CAFTA stands for “Central American,” not “Caribbean.” Russert, for his part, didn’t even pose a follow-up question in response to a major media figure’s admission that he uses his influential position to promote policies that he doesn’t bother to actually learn anything about.You could extend that to anything. Tom Friedman knows nothing about nothing anymore, if he ever did. Probably in 2006 he actually felt the need, occasionally, to have a researcher dish up something useful, and now he just spits out whatever random words dance across his brain mush. Not many people know this, but Tom Friedman and Donald Trump are pretty similar!
More generally, know-nothings for years embraced and marketed what we used to call "the Washington consensus" and now we call "neoliberal bullshit," mostly because all the cool (rich, powerful) kids did. They mostly didn't know or care what the actual policies were or what the consequences would be. The Economist said it was a good idea, must be true!
The good news is that we're probably past the era when anyone says, "wow, did you see that Tom Friedman column? he made some good points!" Well, not necessarily. Probably Andrea Mitchell still thinks that. Maybe even Morning Joseph.
Contemplating the mafia of the mediocre who have ruled our discourse for so long. Really Trump is them, except he doesn't know which salad fork to use and he doesn't understand that when you want to put much of the population into the wood chipper, you don't actually say you want to put much of the population into the wood chipper. Just babble some neoliberal gibberish.
Thursday Is New Jobless Day
5.2 million new lucky duckies.
Sounds like a lot. Gotta get some tax advantaged savings plans for these people, quick.
Sounds like a lot. Gotta get some tax advantaged savings plans for these people, quick.
And Scene
The way things are looking right now, the world will soon be flooded with excess ventilators. Even NY is giving them away!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 16, 2020
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
I'm Not A Public Health Expert, But I Play One On The Internet
Not really. I try not to. But I think some things are rather obvious, such as that as long as there is no vaccine and people keep dying, "open the economy" means send more low income workers back to work. Send anyone who doesn't have much choice in the matter back to work. FOR THE ECONOMY.
Even The Big Wet Boy Admits It's Real, Sort Of, Maybe, Sometimes
Really not sure who the virus truthers are trying to impress.
Rules Are Made To Be Exploited By People Who Have People To Do That
For a variety of reasons - including but not limited to the fact that My President is corrupt as fuck a genius businessman - even the tiniest hurdles placed in front of "normal people" getting any sort of crisis money, especially when that money is a laughably small $1200, were going to reduce the help that provision would provide. It was absurd that our great Democratic leaders spent 5 minutes worrying about the shape of the trapezoid, but they did. Anything short of "aim the money bazooka at everybody" was going to ensure that the money bazooka was going to be targeted even more at rich people than was inevitably going to be the case anyway.
Democrats are not powerless. Supergenius superlegislator extraordinaire YASS KWEEN can do no wrong Nancy Pelosi runs the House of Representatives. And boy did they fuck this one up. And they are dumb and will continue to be dumb and while I don't think yelling at them on the internet is likely to help it's more likely to help than making jokes about my sweet big wet boy Donald Drumpf.
Democrats are not powerless. Supergenius superlegislator extraordinaire YASS KWEEN can do no wrong Nancy Pelosi runs the House of Representatives. And boy did they fuck this one up. And they are dumb and will continue to be dumb and while I don't think yelling at them on the internet is likely to help it's more likely to help than making jokes about my sweet big wet boy Donald Drumpf.
Florida Man
"People have been starved for content ... we're watching, like, reruns from the early 2000s," Gov. Ron DeSantis says of his bizarre decision to classify live pro wrestling shows as an "essential service" during a deadly pandemic pic.twitter.com/rWeCOJKkh2
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 14, 2020
Tuesday, April 14, 2020
Now I Know This Is A Simulated Reality Made Just For Me
Some sort of inception limbo shit.
New Jersey is opening a virus testing site at the enormous & empty American Dream mega-mall that never opened its stores.
— Kim Bhasin (@KimBhasin) April 14, 2020
It was supposed to unveil hundreds of shops and a water park back in March, but those plans were pushed back. Now it'll be used for something very different.
Oh, Elon
I made a bet with some random twitter person (loser gives to a food bank) about Elon never delivering. We settled on Elon actually producing (not merely buying) a single solitary working ventilator and delivering it to a medical facility in 3 weeks. Offered to double it for another 3 weeks. I would have given him 6 months on the initial bet but he was quite optimistic, as Elon fans tend to be.
It seemed like miraculous news at a moment when the state was desperately searching for ventilators to help save critical coronavirus patients. But was it true?BPAP machines might have some use but there isn't actually a shortage of them (go order yourself one if you wish!). Nothing miraculous about a rich guy bulk buying some machines that aren't even hard to find. ELON MUSK, ENGINEERING SUPERGENIUS, is not a real thing, and politicians really should stop falling for his bullshit.
Newsom’s office now says Musk was supposed to deliver the ventilators directly to hospitals. So far, however, the governor’s office says no California hospital has received them.
It’s also not clear whether Musk actually has any ventilators to give. A report by the Financial Times’ Alphaville column revealed that Musk had purchased Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure (BPAP) machines, which he then plastered with Tesla stickers and shipped to New York.
LOL
Perils of unanimous votes.
This week, the $1,200 CARES Act payments Congress approved in response to the coronavirus crisis will begin to appear in Americans’ bank accounts. The funds will be wired to eligible recipients who previously authorized the IRS to post their refunds (or Social Security payments) through direct deposit. This will speed relief far more quickly than having the IRS mail a check, which could take up to five months.
But the money may not make it into the hands of those who need it to pay bills, buy food, or just survive amid mass unemployment and widespread suffering. Individuals might first have to fend off their own bank, which has just been given the power to seize the $1,200 payment and use it to pay off outstanding debt.
Congress did not exempt CARES Act payments from private debt collection, and the Treasury Department has been reluctant to exempt them through its rulemaking authority. This means that individuals could see their payments transferred from their hands into the hands of their creditors, potentially leaving them with nothing.
The Truth Is, They Aren't Very Bright
I get people sucking up to Trump, but I really don't get that someone thinks, "wow, I bet Trump and his idiot failsoninlaw have some good medical advice to give."
But the governor continued to resist. Instead, she used a media briefing Monday to announce trials of a drug that President Trump has repeatedly touted as a potential breakthrough in the fight against the coronavirus, despite a lack of scientific evidence.Some people are just wired for hierarchy, I guess. They're rich and powerful so they must be supergeniuses and I must obey them.
“It’s an exciting day,” she boasted, repeatedly citing her conversations with presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Referees, I Would Like To Appeal That Ruling
Every day Trump does his show. Every day people complain that the networks are just broadcasting his bullshit live even though it's killing people. Some journalists pretend that every time the president wishes it's the law that they broadcast him (this is not a rule and it certainly was not a rule when Barry Obummer was president), and some journalists understand that this is bad. But, whatever. I agree they shouldn't be broadcasting him but it isn't as if doing so is indefensible. And, frankly, I'd prefer people actually watch the shitshow than have the New York Times explain to them what happened, because that coverage is always much much worse (really, just go read the latest).
But the opposition party needs to oppose. You can't expect the neutral moderators, especially given our dumb conventions of journalism, to do the work for you. Maybe I've missed Dems trying to get on teeve, or Biden trying to do a regular response, or whatever, and being shut out, but if they aren't willing to step up, Wolf Blitzer ain't gonna do it for them.
But the opposition party needs to oppose. You can't expect the neutral moderators, especially given our dumb conventions of journalism, to do the work for you. Maybe I've missed Dems trying to get on teeve, or Biden trying to do a regular response, or whatever, and being shut out, but if they aren't willing to step up, Wolf Blitzer ain't gonna do it for them.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Everything Is Fine
barring a what now https://t.co/uZ61Qr0aAR
— Brooke Jarvis (@brookejarvis) April 13, 2020
GONNA OPEN BIG! THE BIGGEST EVER!
My Big Wet President who never really "closed" anything is now claiming that he has the POWER to open everything, so suck on that governors.
Even if we imagine that he starts demanding governments rescind mandatory closure orders, and that they obey, what do they - my big wet president, all the assholes who support this idea - think people are going to do? Sure some more businesses will open and sure some more people will be forced to go back to work or be officially fired, or whatever, but there is no magic "go back to normal" order. Sensible people who can are going to stay home as much as possible, as they are now.
Even if we imagine that he starts demanding governments rescind mandatory closure orders, and that they obey, what do they - my big wet president, all the assholes who support this idea - think people are going to do? Sure some more businesses will open and sure some more people will be forced to go back to work or be officially fired, or whatever, but there is no magic "go back to normal" order. Sensible people who can are going to stay home as much as possible, as they are now.
Mafia of the Medicore
I keep coming back to this point because after 20 years of watching our supergenius elites largely being dumb (I am dumb, too, that is fine, but I do not run the country or write for the New York Times), it occurs to me that this is bad. A completely made up set of numbers is that 20% of students who attend a school near Boston are pretty damn smart, 20% are Jared Kushner, and 60% are mostly fairly typical children of privilege who managed to do reasonably well on a test they took when they were about 16. With lots of help from parents and college counselors and essay writing coaches to tart up their dossiers, and with a little luck (and often a little 'help' like being legacies), they managed to get the golden ticket to Harvard. Aside from this final lottery win they are otherwise identical to that same set of students you can find at 40 other colleges and universities. There's nothing magic about the education you receive at Harvard. More than that, it is almost certainly inferior to the education that a determined student can get numerous other places.
I just point and laugh these days because the people who rule us are stupid, and I don't just mean the Trump inner circle. I am stupid, also, too, as I said, but I don't run the damn country or think I should.
I just point and laugh these days because the people who rule us are stupid, and I don't just mean the Trump inner circle. I am stupid, also, too, as I said, but I don't run the damn country or think I should.
Vacation's All I Ever Wanted
I don't have cable news running in the background all the time like I used to (mental health requirement), but the opposition party appears to be... not very present?
I know picking on Democrats annoys some people but, you know, they're the people "we" put in power to use power and, well...
I know picking on Democrats annoys some people but, you know, they're the people "we" put in power to use power and, well...
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Freed Boris
UK PM made it out of the hospital.
In the black comedy version of this dumb novel, he died.
In the redemption story version, after being confronted by the 3 Ghosts of Corona, he becomes a better and more caring man, suddenly aware of his great responsibility for the lives of millions.
In reality, probably... nothing much changes. Man gets sick, man gets better.
In the black comedy version of this dumb novel, he died.
In the redemption story version, after being confronted by the 3 Ghosts of Corona, he becomes a better and more caring man, suddenly aware of his great responsibility for the lives of millions.
In reality, probably... nothing much changes. Man gets sick, man gets better.
You Have To Admit They Have A Point
The Frost quote is that liberals are too broadminded to take their own side in an argument, but this is a silly conceit that lets too many of them off the hook by camoflauging their actual beliefs in a kind of high minded charitable intellectualism. There were 2 years when Obama had a supermajority that Democrats are unlikely to repeat. 2 years is perhaps not enough time in our system to pass my set of fantasy legislation, but it is certainly enough time to slip a bunch of little things into budget bills like, say, removing the requirement that the post office prefund its retirement for 75 years.
Everyone's gonna claim to love the post office now, but destroying it wasn't just a conservative thing!
There's a legal term related to consumer product use, particularly cars, called "predictable abuse." If you make something that people are inevitably going to use in an unsafe fashion by virtue of its design, it doesn't matter what your instructions say. It's on you. "Don't throw a lawn dart straight up in the air." Sure.
The same is true with a lot of policy.
Why don't we privatize the post office!
[post office privatized, not so bad maybe]
[conservatives come to power, destroy post office after trying to sabotage it for decades]
I didn't mean like that! ah, well, nevertheless.
Everyone's gonna claim to love the post office now, but destroying it wasn't just a conservative thing!
There's a legal term related to consumer product use, particularly cars, called "predictable abuse." If you make something that people are inevitably going to use in an unsafe fashion by virtue of its design, it doesn't matter what your instructions say. It's on you. "Don't throw a lawn dart straight up in the air." Sure.
The same is true with a lot of policy.
Why don't we privatize the post office!
[post office privatized, not so bad maybe]
[conservatives come to power, destroy post office after trying to sabotage it for decades]
I didn't mean like that! ah, well, nevertheless.
Monkeysphere
I really don't understand what the "MUST OPEN UP THE ECONOMY SO WE PRODUCE MORE WIDGETS" people want or think they want? The only possible explanation is they truly believe both that mass death by people Not Them is perfectly acceptable as a moral outcome and that Thanos disappearing a couple million people wouldn't have any especially large effect on their beloved stonks. I mean, eventually you do run out of replacement workers to keep the big machine going? Also nobody is buying the damn widgets anymore.
Then there are the MAGAheads who were missing their two for one happy hour deals at Chili's, or whatever. I don't understand. 2% chance of killing yourself or your loved ones with each visit! Gotta have some reheated frozen food and a Coors Light. This is America!
I know, they don't have any loved ones.
Then there are the MAGAheads who were missing their two for one happy hour deals at Chili's, or whatever. I don't understand. 2% chance of killing yourself or your loved ones with each visit! Gotta have some reheated frozen food and a Coors Light. This is America!
I know, they don't have any loved ones.
Saturday, April 11, 2020
Saturday Evening
Critics contend that Trump's response to the pandemic has been less than perfect. Others disagree.
Days Go By
I am a smart economist and I think that we can go from 4% unemployment to 30% unemployment to 4% unemployment in less than a year. Just turning it off and then on again! This is how things work. I have tenure.
As Long As Other People Die
I really did think the virus breaching the NoVa virus shield (NoVa being a metaphor, of course) would instill more of a sense of "what the hell are we doing with our lives" with some of the lesser lights of "journalism." A dumb saying people were fond of post-9/11 was "the constitution isn't a suicide pact" so, eh, hurr durr, just gotta torture some folks! It was dumb for what it was used to justify, not because the sentiment was entirely wrong. You'd think "THE PSYCHOTIC NORMS OF THE NEW YORK TIMES POLITICAL DESK SHOULD NOT BE PRESERVED AT ALL COSTS" would apply now but I guess no one loves them and they are stupid.
...(edited a bit, never blog on the phone)
Love the human interest angle of this Times hed. Hope the guy gets through this OK! pic.twitter.com/WqzBTIF7iW
— Chase Madar (@ChaseMadar) April 11, 2020
...(edited a bit, never blog on the phone)
Friday, April 10, 2020
Here's An Idea
Let's take a not quite sufficient plan, make it worse, and then make it worse again to make Susan Collins happy.
Everything's Alright
Close your eyes and relax.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro publicly said Americans had "nothing to worry about" while he privately warned the White House that the coronavirus pandemic could cost trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of American lives.My real concern is that at some future date, when restaurants are open, some people might see Mr. Navarro in one of them and be a bit mean to him. That would be uncivil.
Time Keeps On Ticking
4 weeks since Mitch took his 3 day weekend, but can't fault him too much, as the entire Congress disappeared soon after.
To tell a very simple story, in the financial crisis a bunch of money went poof, largely in the banking system, when the housing bubble popped. They fixed that by just replacing all the money the banks lost. That was the easiest thing in the world to do, bailing out rich people, and it's what they all pat themselves on the back for doing. "Rich people lost all the money and we gave it all back to them. Genius! I deserve some kind of award."
The second part was the extreme drop in wealth for normal people due to the collapsing housing bubble and the cascading recession effects subsequently. The stimulus bill didn't do nothing about that, but it didn't do nearly enough, and combined with the deliberate plan not to help people who couldn't pay their mortgages, but to simply extend their agony, ensured an extended recession. That was the slightly harder bit, and they did a horrible job, somewhat deliberately. You can argue that Benevolent Dictator Obama would have done a somewhat better job if he had been unconstrained by any other considerations, but he would not have done a much better job. They had a big slush fund to help people that they didn't even spend!
But now we don't have an "oops the banks lost all the money" crisis. We have a "the country is shut down for 3 months crisis." And while we will never let rich people lose their money, it doesn't even really solve any part of the problem right now. Sure maybe keeping the financial system alive is necessary, if by design, but it's like spending all the money keeping the transhipment center open, and its owners rich, as the trucks stop showing up entirely.
To tell a very simple story, in the financial crisis a bunch of money went poof, largely in the banking system, when the housing bubble popped. They fixed that by just replacing all the money the banks lost. That was the easiest thing in the world to do, bailing out rich people, and it's what they all pat themselves on the back for doing. "Rich people lost all the money and we gave it all back to them. Genius! I deserve some kind of award."
The second part was the extreme drop in wealth for normal people due to the collapsing housing bubble and the cascading recession effects subsequently. The stimulus bill didn't do nothing about that, but it didn't do nearly enough, and combined with the deliberate plan not to help people who couldn't pay their mortgages, but to simply extend their agony, ensured an extended recession. That was the slightly harder bit, and they did a horrible job, somewhat deliberately. You can argue that Benevolent Dictator Obama would have done a somewhat better job if he had been unconstrained by any other considerations, but he would not have done a much better job. They had a big slush fund to help people that they didn't even spend!
But now we don't have an "oops the banks lost all the money" crisis. We have a "the country is shut down for 3 months crisis." And while we will never let rich people lose their money, it doesn't even really solve any part of the problem right now. Sure maybe keeping the financial system alive is necessary, if by design, but it's like spending all the money keeping the transhipment center open, and its owners rich, as the trucks stop showing up entirely.
Morning Thread
Hope everyone is remembering to order from Amazon using the Eschaton link on the left. A straight up donation might be a good idea as well. Whatever would we do while being in lockdown if not for Atrios providing us with a forum for news and discussion.
Thursday, April 09, 2020
Everybody's Hurting
Near the top of the list are artists of all persuasions.
Here's a group that was new to me, probably to you all as well.
Emma's Revolution
via Power Pop.
Here's a group that was new to me, probably to you all as well.
Emma's Revolution
via Power Pop.
The New Normal
Panic gets replaced by normality very quickly. A lot of "we'll just turn the machines back on soon and everything will go back to normal."
The numbers aren't precisely comparable, but there have been 16 million new jobless claims in the past 3 weeks and the total net job losses during The Great Recession were... 8.7 million. If we're gonna just take a little break and then go back to our old lives, how come it took 6 years to get back to the beginning during the Great Recession? It is true that, contrary to the myths made by the people who did it, the policy response was sadistic and disastrous. Solving the Great Recession should have been easy (if not painless), but some people needed to suffer for the sins of bankers, and so they did. It was actually an easy problem and they failed spectacularly.
This is a hard problem. A much harder problem. And I do not think the people currently in charge are likely to be either smarter or more well-intentioned.
A few weeks away from blaming unemployment on the unemployed. It'll start on Fox and in the WSJ but spread everywhere.
There were 6.6M new UI claims, bringing the 3 week total to around 17M.
— Arindrajit Dube (@arindube) April 9, 2020
These are staggering numbers.
But for many of these workers, jobs are on a pause, not destroyed. And we are providing recipients with much more generous UI benefits during this pause, which is good.
The numbers aren't precisely comparable, but there have been 16 million new jobless claims in the past 3 weeks and the total net job losses during The Great Recession were... 8.7 million. If we're gonna just take a little break and then go back to our old lives, how come it took 6 years to get back to the beginning during the Great Recession? It is true that, contrary to the myths made by the people who did it, the policy response was sadistic and disastrous. Solving the Great Recession should have been easy (if not painless), but some people needed to suffer for the sins of bankers, and so they did. It was actually an easy problem and they failed spectacularly.
This is a hard problem. A much harder problem. And I do not think the people currently in charge are likely to be either smarter or more well-intentioned.
A few weeks away from blaming unemployment on the unemployed. It'll start on Fox and in the WSJ but spread everywhere.
Not Just That
Right now the money cannon is firing into a clogged leaky pipe, with the leaks falling into the pockets of banks and the rest of it just not getting anywhere fast enough. There is no way to do a completely equitable drop money onto the system, but the more complicated it is the less equitable and less effective any of it is.
I don't know if my specific cunning plans are the best ones. Simpler. Faster. More. You can claw it back later if you want.
I don't know if my specific cunning plans are the best ones. Simpler. Faster. More. You can claw it back later if you want.
Everything Goes
I admit I can be a bit of a doom and gloomer, but I am much more of a long term Panglossian than Cassandra, generally. I had minor hopes that the paycheck protection plan for businesses and the unemployment insurance expansion might improve things a bit, but the former is anecdotally a disaster because, like everything else, it's a Rube Goldberg machine that relies on THE PRIIIVUUUHT SEECTUUUR, and the latter is not going to be enough for various reasons, including a general UI apparatus which exists in varying degree to prevent people from collecting.
People can't spend money on things even if they want to, many people can't afford to just pay the basic bills, some portion of everyone losing their jobs are losing their health insurance (and many of the rest didn't have it), state and local governments are gonna have to shut down basic services soon.
Huzzah.
Just take the last 6 months of tax withholding from IRS data. All of it. And refund it into accounts.
People can't spend money on things even if they want to, many people can't afford to just pay the basic bills, some portion of everyone losing their jobs are losing their health insurance (and many of the rest didn't have it), state and local governments are gonna have to shut down basic services soon.
Huzzah.
Just take the last 6 months of tax withholding from IRS data. All of it. And refund it into accounts.
Wednesday, April 08, 2020
New York Exceptionalism
This is dumb for a lot of reasons, but the extreme provincialism of lifelong New Yorkers (#notalllifelongnewyorkers) is always stunning. We're NUMBER ONE!!! FOAM FINGER FUCK YEAH!!!!
For many days after the first positive test, as the coronavirus silently spread throughout the New York region, Mr. Cuomo, Mr. de Blasio and their top aides projected an unswerving confidence that the outbreak would be readily contained."France doesn't even have a machine that goes ping," he added.
There would be cases, they repeatedly said, but New York’s hospitals were some of the best in the world. Plans were in place. Responses had been rehearsed during “tabletop” exercises. After all, the city had been here before — Ebola, Zika, the H1N1 virus, even Sept. 11.
“Excuse our arrogance as New Yorkers — I speak for the mayor also on this one — we think we have the best health care system on the planet right here in New York,” Mr. Cuomo said on March 2. “So, when you’re saying, what happened in other countries versus what happened here, we don’t even think it’s going to be as bad as it was in other countries.”
Rent Strike
When people don't pay their rent, it's a sign of a deeply immoral character. When giant companies don't, it's just business.
A billion dollars worth of avocado toasts.
Staples recently informed landlords that it will not pay April rents for its U.S. stores, even though the locations remain open, Axios has learned.
Why it matters: Commercial landlords are stuck in a tightening vise, forgiving or deferring payments from shuttered tenants while still needing to meet their own mortgage obligations.
Staples, whose private equity owner Sycamore Partners took out a $1 billion dividend last year, is only making a bad situation worse.
A billion dollars worth of avocado toasts.
The Art Of The Deals
I suppose there's an element of politics which is, if not quite corrupt, corruption-adjacent. Most of us get that literally asking for money to, say, hand out a Senate seat, is corrupt. But of course there are a lot of "deals" way short of that which are just politics. I'll support your whatever if you support mine. I'll endorse you if you agree to back this. I'll vote for your stupid bill if you put my person on the oversight committee. I'll donate $18 million to your political party if you agree to (??). You have my support for your city council run if you take care of my little zoning problem. OK that last one sounds dirtier, and it probably is, but I do think local politicians manage to get themselves in trouble in part because the "deals" are smaller and narrower and it's a bit easier to see how they're just bribery (also the FBI loves to bust "urban politicians" which is an issue even if they deserve it).
But my point is not to argue about which of these things is corrupt, illegal, or just politics. My point is that most politicians spend their careers living in this world of "compromise" where those compromises are always just a little bit dirty, at minimum. Only certain types of people can handle that. Only certain kinds of people like that.
But my point is not to argue about which of these things is corrupt, illegal, or just politics. My point is that most politicians spend their careers living in this world of "compromise" where those compromises are always just a little bit dirty, at minimum. Only certain types of people can handle that. Only certain kinds of people like that.
Public Space
The focus on individual behavior serves to obscure the culpability of the powerful, both governments that make and communicate and enforce policies and the business owners whose poor (zero) workplace safety considerations continue to provide much more fuel for the spread of the virus than any mildly overcrowded park. People always respond with some version of b-b-b-ut people should behave responsibly. And, well, yes they should, but there hasn't exactly been clear and consistent communications about what that means and most people are not Very Online and plugged into the latest twitter decrees or 11:30PM press release.
Unless lockdown is such that people are really locked down, if people are "allowed" to go outside for reasons, including a bit of sanity, police should rarely be spending any of their time policing any but the most extreme (A big party!) behavior violations. If cops have time to harass individuals, they have the time to figure out policies that make sense from a collective experience. Iif parks are too crowded, you can meter entrance, you can set up one way paths, you can close the basketball court but keep the rest open, etc. You know, you can do what supermarkets have figured out.
Powerful people want to blame the public for their own flaws. Blaming people for being victims of an epidemic is not unfamiliar.
Unless lockdown is such that people are really locked down, if people are "allowed" to go outside for reasons, including a bit of sanity, police should rarely be spending any of their time policing any but the most extreme (A big party!) behavior violations. If cops have time to harass individuals, they have the time to figure out policies that make sense from a collective experience. Iif parks are too crowded, you can meter entrance, you can set up one way paths, you can close the basketball court but keep the rest open, etc. You know, you can do what supermarkets have figured out.
Powerful people want to blame the public for their own flaws. Blaming people for being victims of an epidemic is not unfamiliar.
The policing of individuals has also been intensely worrying. A Sky News camera crew followed Brighton and Hove police as they admonished members of the public for various perceived flouting of the rules. Most worrying was their aggressive treatment of an older man, sat alone on a bench, far from anyone. A policewoman was filmed marching up and demanding that he keep moving. He was in pain, he explained, as he had sciatica and was resting in the middle of a walk. The police officer dismissed this: the public must be moving at all times, a detail that is not explicitly present in any of the guidelines issued by the government or public health bodies. It’s worrying: if the police are becoming draconian in their interpretation of the rules and attacking anyone sitting outside alone, they’ll very quickly make life miserable for people with disabilities or those recovering from injuries, as well as pregnant women and older members of the public.
Much of the backlash amongst the public comes from people who’ve been merrily tweeting about their own gardens, wilfully ignoring the fact not everyone has outdoor space, and that we’re all desperate for fresh air. Worse still is the trend of going to a park, and then filming or photographing members of the public, denouncing them for being outside in the ‘correct’ way. It assumes that people who are sat down or playing sports are not from the same household, or worse, that they shouldn’t be sat down at all.
Tuesday, April 07, 2020
Oh Kimbal
What a family!
At Next Door, the community-oriented, “sustainable” restaurant chain owned by billionaire Kimbal Musk, workers were told they were part of a family.
Not a family as wealthy as Musk’s ― the self-proclaimed philanthropist and restaurateur, known for his signature cowboy hat, is the younger brother of multibillionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk. But workers at Next Door did have something called the Family Fund. A pool of money they contributed to out of their paychecks, the fund was supposed to be there for them in times of crisis.
Then a crisis hit. And the Family Fund wasn’t there for them at all.
Happy Hour
Almost time for the Dong Show. Pick your drinking word carefully. That liver has to last you a lifetime.
Christ, What An Asshole
Byebye.
Washington (CNN)Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has submitted his resignation a day after a leaked audio showed him calling the ousted commander of the USS Theodore Roosevelt "stupid" in an address to the ship's crew, according to a US official and a former senior military official.
Biden Time
There are many problems with our system, but one problem is almost all of Congress is up for a vote every 2 years and the incentives for incumbent lawmakers, most of whom are in safe seats, are to just hope the next election solves the current problems. And the president every 4, of course.
Probably makes sense for them, if not us, much of the time, but there's some stuff going on right now...
Probably makes sense for them, if not us, much of the time, but there's some stuff going on right now...
First They Came For Rich Elite Journalists
Have just watched Trump’s treatment of a fine reporter, Jon Karl. Trump is plumbing new depths of incivility, rudeness, absolutely intolerable behavior. When will Republicans have the courage to ask: “Have you no decency, sir?” https://t.co/Nd7bbrRpiE
— Nicholas Burns (@RNicholasBurns) April 7, 2020
Oh shut the fuck up. Jon Karl is rich and powerful and Trump being rude to him is not "plumbing new depths." I mean, Trump's been a lot ruder to other less powerful and usually women and minority journalists all along, but even they are generally not the most sympathetic victims of My President's "gauche" behavior. Especially at this precise moment in time, I think one can see some other problems more pressing than "oh no Trump was mean to Jon Karl." Journalists of his stature have ways to "fight back" - both individually and collectively - but lol they don't actually care.
Not Sure If Flailing Incompetence Is Better Than Competent Evil
I guess we've learned it depends on the situation. In the UK, the Tories are constantly lying about the condition of Boris Johnson, but they're so unorganized that their basic "tell" when they lie is saying "I don't know."
...since I wrote this they are now definitively saying he doesn't have pneumonia, but...
Do you know whether their diagnosis at the moment is that he does have pneumonia?Anyway, you don't need to be in a hospital to get oxygen. An ICU isn't magic box. It has a few more machines that go ping, and some easily accessible emergency equipment, most notably a ventilator. They're claiming he didn't get any oxygen until yesterday (sure, francis), and is in the ICU but not on a ventilator (certainly possibly true!), and they don't know if he has pneumonia (certainly false that they don't know!).
I’m not aware of that. If there’s any change in his condition, Number 10, will ensure that the country is updated. The decisions that are being made by the medical team, are decisions which require medical expertise, so it’s important that people like me don’t second guess them, but instead support them in the work that they do.
...since I wrote this they are now definitively saying he doesn't have pneumonia, but...